A Rude Awakening

Last night Amy and I stayed up later than usual watching movies (Amy) and enjoying our new entry into the broadband world (me). About 12:30 we found the bed to lie in and began to drift off to sleep.

Just after 1 am, the doorbell rang in three quick bursts. I had not quite fallen asleep and readily realized what the noise was, but had no intentions of doing anything about it. It was as if my barely conscience brain couldn’t process any possible reason for someone to ring my doorbell at that hour and decided it was best to pretend nothing had happened.

Amy rolled over and I knew what was coming. She was going to tell me someone rang the doorbell. While I was trying to decide what I would tell her I would do about it (nothing) she did indeed tell me that the doorbell had rang. I sighed knowing full well I would now have to get up and investigate.

As I got up, the doorbell rang again, followed by a loud pounding on the door.

I got out of bed, pulled on some clothes and walked to the door. Running through my head were possible reasons why the bell had rung. With the exception of Amy’s folks, nobody knows where we live, and her folks certainly wouldn’t be here ringing the bell. It could be the neighbors, but it was a little late to be ringing to borrow some sugar, and any emergency would better be remedied by a call to 911 than by a ring to our door.

I began to expect some shady character at the door giving me some quick sob story so that I would open the door allowing said shady character to stick a gun in my face and rob me. I had no intentions of opening that door.

I looked through the peephole and found nobody standing outside. My first reaction was to check the locks and make sure they were secure.

UNLOCKED

Both bloody locks were open! How did we forget to lock the front door on this night of all nights? As silently as I could (for this robber-killer could be standing just to the side waiting to bop me on the head) I locked the door and began imagining this goon to have already slipped inside. Could he be right behind me in the closet? No, I didn’t hear the door open after the ringing of the bells.

I checked the back door to ensure it was locked. It was. Then I began to hear sounds outside the apartment. I peaked out the window and saw a couple of people standing around. I overheard a woman saying that she was trying to rouse everybody out of bed.

I threw on shoes and yelled to Amy to come out. This time a lady was standing in her pajamas on the front walkway. She said to me that there was a fire in the woods behind the complex and that it had caught one of the buildings porch on fire.

The fire trucks had arrived, and everyone was out in the parking lot trying to decide what to do. I decided I wanted a better view and walked through the apartment to the back porch.

FIRE

One of the porches to the apartment building next to us was ablaze. Holy Crap! That’s right next door! I yelled at Amy to come watch and like a typical male, grabbed my camera.

The firemen seemed to be standing around looking at the fire without actually doing anything to put it out. Eventually someone came with a hose and they killed the blaze. Since the porch is nothing but wood planks they spent the next half hour with a chainsaw cutting it to bits and then hosing down the smoldering lumber.

It was a rough nights rest after being awakened by a near disaster so close to home.