I just moved back to my old neighborhood in July. I am renting a townhome for the time being. There are six units in my building and we all have our own garages that open to the alley. When I go running, I go in and out through the garage so I don’t have to bring keys. I just use the keypad.
This past weekend, I went for a run. Fine, it was more of a jog than a run. Geez, okay, it was something between a brisk walk and a slow motion awkward canter. I don’t like to run. Unless it’s my mouth. I can’t canter my mouth. If there were a canter club, I’d totally join it. It might be called Polo but I don’t own any colorful shirts with alligators on them. Although I like the idea of whacking balls (easy Beavis) with a mallet. I think that is called croquet. But croquet isn’t a very good workout and that, my friend, is why I’m not in a running club – because running isn’t cantering and playing croquet won’t help my efforts to be in good shape.
Anyway, I did my 5K route and arrived back home at the alley to my garage. My garage door is in the middle of the bunch. I walked up to it and immediately saw that my keypad had been ripped off the wall. All that was left was some blue tape. Why in the world would someone rip off my garage door keypad? I didn’t have a key or phone and I began thinking about how’d I get in my house.
My unit is on the second floor and there are balconies on the front and back. I knew if I could climb up to the balcony I could bust through a screen since I leave my windows open in the front. Or the back has a sliding door and that would be easier to get in if I left it open, which I couldn’t remember.
I looked to the neighbor’s unit to see about a way to climb up the building using their patio chairs and holy shit, all their stuff was gone!! Their patio had been cleaned out!! I was still flabbergasted as to how all this could happen in a half hour and then wondered if someone broke in my house. I don’t lock the door within the garage that leads inside my love shack. Should I call the cops? But I didn’t have a phone. And I don’t even know my neighbors.
Screw it, I’ll bust out my Spiderman moves to scale the building and then karate chop any bad guys in the neck if they are in the midst of stealing my grill. I stepped back to the other side of the alley to size up the building and look for my path up. Something didn’t seem right, besides my ripped off keypad and the naked patio next door.
I looked to my left down the alley. To the next block. And saw my building. And my alley. One block away to the west. I was in the wrong alley at the wrong garage door next to the wrong neighbor’s patio.
I am losing my mind. Thank goodness I didn’t break in, right?
The happened to me with my in laws house. I was banging and banging and almost bust down the door... Who knows they could have been dead in there, or so I hoped (just kidding). Yeah, turns out I was in the wrong cul de sac. Whoops.
ReplyDeleteI was totally prepared for you to commit a B&E.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap. I tried to steal someone else's car once. That'll teach them to park next to mine!!
ReplyDeleteOMG! That is funny. I made that mistake with a car once and was cursing 'cause my key wouldn't unlock the door.
ReplyDeleteI always suspected that running was bad for the brain. And yes, it's a good thing that you stood back for a better look.
ReplyDeleteIndeed a poltergeist neighbourhood!
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ReplyDeleteOh Eva, talking about cars...
ReplyDeleteA friend once lodged a police report because her car was gone when going home from work. But she found it the next day - ON A DIFFERENT CARPARK LEVEL! LOL.
[Oh the things we women do to ourselves...]
Sheesh. And you mocked the girl who latched her bike to the short sign.
ReplyDeletePaybacks are a bee-atch, huh? ;)
This happened to me with a guy once. I tried to force myself on him, but it was the wrong guy, and he didn't like it too much.
ReplyDeleteI was about five and I was trying to put my hand in this guy's hand, who was wearing the exact same one of a kind sweater my dad was wearing, carrying a kid on his shoulders, just like my dad was. Then he turned his face to me, and I might have screamed.
Freaking twilight zone.
The awkward canter confused your sense of direction. I really wished you'd scaled the balcony. I was totally ready for it.
ReplyDeleteI yelled at someones kid in a pool once. 8 year old blonde girls all look the same when they are swimming or spitting water in someones face.
ReplyDeleteword verify- fistied *snicker*
Hahaha that is awesome! I totally had a similar experience a few weeks ago when I went running. I parked my car up a street that had a "Los Feliz Estates" sign/wall on its corner. So when I looped back and hit the corner that had that wall, I ran up the street - and my car was gone! I didn't have a phone and quickly decided I would have to walk 2 miles to my only friend in Hollywood's house. Then I realized I might just be on the wrong block...which I was...there are two "Los Feliz Estates" signs...
ReplyDeleteLesson: always check to make sure you're in the right place before scaling your condo wall or running to a friend's house.
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky. Little boxes on the hillside, and they all look all the same...
ReplyDeleteAwesome story. Wish I could say I'd never been in a similar squeeze.
@daddyincharge: A whole cul de sac of confusion sounds even more clueless than me! Good work!
ReplyDelete@mandy: You seem awfully familiar with the lingo.
@amelia: Yeah, that seems like a common one. I remember a funny TV commercial of someone about to throw a cinder block or rock through a car window to get in before the real owner showed up.
@eva: You don't curse!
@blissed: I don't need more excuses to not run - stop it!
@nadia: I bet the police have lots of stories like that. Too funny.
@dawn: I may be clueless, but i'm not stooopid.
@steph: Ha, that was my kind of story you told there in your comment with the misdirect and all. Way overdue on a catch-up. I'll write you this weekend.
@summer: You say that like you live there and you had a frying pan ready for me.
@momo: Meanwhile your daughters were playing with the chainsaw in the garage while you were sunbathing and yelling at other kids.
@mel: Lesson well learned. Funny! Glad you figured it out before you took the two mile detour.
@hunnerwolf: If we had hillsides perhaps there would be more character in the hood.
that's a great story and the comments were just as entertaining. i'd call you all goofballs but that'll mean i am next! and you'd likely go off on a balls tangent anyway.
ReplyDeleteThat is fucking awesome! I am so glad I am not the only one who may need Aricept!
ReplyDeleteGlad your house wasn't touched!
You'll get the hang of it, Newbie!
Wow, that WAS awkward, but it could have been so much more so.
ReplyDeletehahahaaa !!!
ReplyDeleteat least you tried to run.
Kudos.
xoxo
HAHAHAHAHAHA
ReplyDeleteMy cousin flew down to Anaheim with his wife and kids to stay with relatives there and go to Disneyland. The Anaheim relative lent them their car to go to Disneyland, which they did.
ReplyDeleteWhen it was time to leave they realized they didn't remember what their relative's car looked like... no clue. They went back into the park and stayed long past the fireworks display figuring there would be a lot less cars in the parking lot the later they left.
The strategy worked, with significantly fewer cars remaining in the Disneyland parking lot to select from, they ultimately deduced which one was the one they had arrived in.
It's wrong that I laughed, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI read a Japanese horror story once about a man who went "home" only to discover halfway through dinner that it was not his apartment, not his child, not his wife, and that no one noticed...
Pearl
Wow! THAT would have really been akward! lol
ReplyDeleteI can understand if you were drunk or something but running? Maybe you can blame a 'runners high'. Yeah, yeah, that's it!
I used to drive a very crappy and generic Datsun 120Y. It was white. One day I parked it outside Uni. I came back to it about 2 hours later, opened it with my key and sat down. Something wasn't quite kosher.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed awfully... tidy. "That's weird - someone cleaned my car" I mused aloud, slightly insanely. Then I looked into the rearview mirror and noticed my car. Two cars back.
I quietly got out, locked the door and backed away as if nothing had happened.
Fuck Datsun and their generic keys. That's all I can say.
I was reading this and thinking, "What if he's at the wrong one?" I was relieved that you thought the same thing before climbing up. Do you remember Kylie, the blogger who tried to get into the wrong apartment and then passed out on the balcony, only to be awakened by the cops? Yeah, they didn't understand at all.
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