So here's what happened...
Matt and I had both had busy and exhausting weeks, so we decided to change up our regularly scheduled Friday Date Night and have a date night in. I guess I really didn't realize how tired we were until Matt fell asleep at 7:30 while we were watching a movie. After I finished watching the movie, I got ready for bed around 9:00, very much looking forward to a good night's sleep. But that isn't exactly what happened.
At approximately 3:00am I was awakened by the sound of footsteps in my apartment. You can only imagine how terrifying it must be to wake to hear footsteps INSIDE your apartment when both you and your husband are in the bed. I listened for a few minutes (seconds) and punched Matt in the arm and whispered for him to listen. He clearly heard the footsteps, too, because his body tensed up next to me. At this moment, we were both pretty sure some scary man was going to come back to our bedroom and shoot us in the head. That didn't happen, but we still felt the presence of a person in our apartment.
Before I continue with the story I should give you an idea of how our apartment is laid out. It is a typical New Orleans shotgun, which means that you enter into the living room and all other rooms are setup so that you could walk a straight line (or shoot a shotgun) from the front to the back of the apartment. So, in our place. The front room is the living room, followed by the kitchen/dining area, then our bedroom and bathroom in the very back. It is also important to note that our front door is the only door we have. Now on with my terrifying tale...
So, it's 3:00am, we're awake and sure that some creepy character is in our home. What did we do? Well, Matt leapt across the bed to close the bedroom door (because that is very likely to stop a murderous intruder). Then, we went on a search for a weapon. I'm not a big gun person, so we don't own one, and all we came up with was a shovel from our back closet. Not the greatest option, but it was our only tool.
At this point, we continued to hear noises, and though we realized by now it was probably not a person, a recent news story about coyotes in New Orleans had me pretty convinced that we had a wild animal in our house. I was too scared to let Matt go through the two front rooms of the house with only a shovel to fight a ravaging coyote, and I definitely wasn't going to go, so we decided to escape the house...through the bathroom window. So we climbed out and creeped around the side, through the underbrush, past our grill and bicycles. It seemed odd that the front door was still locked when we approached the front of the house. I wasn't sure how a wild coyote could have gotten in, but I knew he was in there alright. So, we got Matt's hide-a-key and sat in his car. For an hour. I am not making this up.
We were trying to figure out what to do. Should we call the 2nd District Police Station (and what would we tell them)? Should we call our friend and neighbor Mary and crash at her place until daylight? Should we call our friend Jeremy to come and fight this beast with Matt? I was pretty disappointed that we couldn't call the Ghostbusters. I'm sure they would have known what to do.
At one point Matt even went back to the side of the house and peered into the window. He came back and reported that it was definitely not a burglar because both of our laptops were still out. Moreover, it didn't feel like anything else had been moved. Our kitchen chairs were in the same position as they were at bedtime, and our garbage can hadn't been turned over. Still, I wasn't willing to go back in, or to let Matt go in alone, because if there was something there, he wouldn't have a clear and easy exit.
Finally, about 4:30, feeling braver, I relented and agreed that we could reenter our house. We had to climb back through the bathroom window because all of our keys were in the living room by the front door. So, we crept back along the side of our house and climbed back through the window. I was still pretty much terrified, but Matt I think had caught on and insisted that he at least open the door and leap for the kitchen light. I agreed, reluctantly.
So, bravely, Matt opened the bedroom door (shovel in hand) and jumped into the kitchen. He flipped on the light switch and we saw it.....
NOTHING. We saw nothing. Want to know why? Because there was nothing there! No burglar. No coyote. Nothing. I was relieved, obviously, and in shock. I knew I heard something - someone - walking on my wood floors. What could it have been? Maybe we had rodents in our walls...but this sounded much heavier than a rat or even a raccoon.
As I said, it was 4:30 and we were again exhausted. Matt went back to sleep pretty quickly, but it took a while for my heart to stop pounding enough for me to fall asleep. When sleep finally did come, it didn't seem to last long enough. I got up early and went to meet some friends. While I was gone, Matt called me. He had solved the mystery!!
Y'all will never believe what the terrifying sound was. A person. Walking on wood floors. Next door. Our landlord, who was out of town last weekend, had a houseguest who we didn't know about and the second bedroom in that apartment is right above our bedroom. I wasn't completely crazy, you see. I did hear something. It just wasn't what I thought it was.
Moral(s) of the story:
1. Don't believe everything you hear. Sometimes your mind can play tricks on you. Especially at 3:00 in the morning when you've had a long week and are exhausted.
2. Don't take yourself too seriously. It's been fun to share this story with friends and family this week (and now with the world wide web) and share a laugh at my own expense. I forget to do that too often.
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