kind of like three little birds upon my doorstep, but worse

as I came out of the shower this morning, I was greeted with the lovely sound of male voices on my balcony and shadowy figures visible through my mostly-drawn mini-blinds. I was immediately all "WTF?! CALL 911!" and then realized "wait. I knew this was coming. they are painting the side of our apt building and they had papered up all my windows in preparation." even though I knew the painting was happening soon, it would still have been nice to receive some warning that people were going to be all up on my balcony. I've got BAGGAGE when it comes to this sort of thing, people. this means: story time!

today's story: The Time(s) When Mandy and Jen Had A Peeping Tom

this is a double-whammy. one night as I was driving home from work, I got a call from my roommate-at-the-time, the lovely Mandy Corrie (M: do you still read this blog? if so, hi! I'm so excited for the new HP book and plan on calling you as soon as I finish it so that we can trade theories! snape = GOOD OR EVIL? we will now know!). it had been a late night for me and she had already gone to bed, and she was calling to let me know that I shouldn't be alarmed to come home to police officers in our apt. umm, wtf? turns out she had seen a shadowy figure outside her window (that was the first and last time I live in a ground-floor apt) and called 911. they didn't catch him, but we were both thoroughly freaked. there were bars on our windows, so he couldn't necessarily have climbed in... but the idea that someone is watching you while you sleep is still a freaky idea.

time #2: this time we were both home and in our respective rooms, reading in bed. all of a sudden my phone beeped -- I had a text message. it was from Mandy in the next room, and all it said was "he's at my window again. call 911, then meet me in the living room." I dialed 911, asked them in a whisper to send someone out as soon as possible, and stealthily crept into the (dark) living room. Mandy (who had sneakily rolled out of her bed and army-crawled into the living room so he couldn't see her moving -- this is why she is now a special agent for the state dept) met me there and we hid on the living room floor, wondering when the police were going to get there.

when they eventually arrived, they went around back and found his footprints in the snow -- he had been standing so close to Mandy's window that had it been open, she could have reached out and touched him. he had obviously escaped by then and despite their efforts to find someone, it was a lost cause. we told a few of our neighbors about it and they told us that things like this had happened before (note that we lived in a pretty nice part of DC) and that peeping toms would figure out which apts had women and then just hang out, waiting for a glimpse (?).

... which was basically a huge tangent to tell you why I was (understandably?) freaked out to be greeted post-shower with the image/sound of men on my balcony (even though they were being paid to be there). it's a better wake-up call than the smell of coffee, I'll tell you that much.