The story I am about to tell you is 100% factual. It is not based on true events. It is not exaggerated. It is not a joke. The names have been changed to protect the innocent (and not so innocent) ….
Sunday evening I got into bed at an early hour excited to enjoy some Netflix and drift off into slumber. I did those things until suddenly at 12:30am I was startled awake by a man’s voice yelling, “POLICE! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!” (Yes, they do in fact say that). My initial thought was that I was having a dream where someone yells and I wake up thinking for sure that really happened (I am prone to having these sorts of dreams). I heard them yell again and then noticed a flashlight shining under my door. At that point I realized this was real life and not a dream. I climbed out of bed, heart racing a million miles a minute. I was completely bewildered and terrified beyond words. I slowly opened the door so as to not get shot and raised my hands in the air as I walked out of my room. Sure enough, there were two officers in my hall way and countless more running throughout the house on a full-on raid. One had a gun pointed at me screaming, “HANDS UP! HANDS UP! GET OUT HERE!” I replied with my hands in the air, “I live here. What is going on?”.
Of course they refused to actually tell me anything. Instead they just yelled at me to come out and direct me into the kitchen. The whole time I was stumbling around, asking what was happening, and going in the wrong directions because so many police officers were yelling different things at me. One would tell me to go get shoes while the other would yell at me to not go back to my room. Basically, it was a cluster-eff of 6 police officers raiding my house, yelling at me, and all of this happening with no explanation. Once they got into the kitchen they asked who was home with me. I told him I didn’t know, you know, because I had been asleep for the last two hours. Apparently he didn’t like that answer because more yelling happened; I told him when I went to bed roommate A was there with a friend. They made me point to where her room was and then proceeded to raid her room and make her and her friend come into the kitchen with me. The three of us stood there totally freaked out and totally unclear as to why we were being rudely pulled out of bed with yelling and guns. Finally one officer decided to stop treating us like criminals and told us there had been a report of an intruder in our home. Neither of us had any idea what they are talking about. I asked if it could have been a bad address, suggesting that perhaps it was a neighboring house who gave the wrong address and was actually being robbed at the moment. They didn’t like my helpful suggestion at all and finally told us that one of our roommates had come home to an unlocked door (not really that strange for our house), saw the lights were off (because we were all asleep) and noticed a truck in front of the house (J’s friend). She got freaked out and left. Finally roommate C arrived and admitted she called the police. Apparently when roommate B left scared she called roommate C to see if she knew what was going on. Roommate C, who was around the corner at a friend’s house, called 911 and said there was an intruder before she came home to find all of our cars in the driveway. Oops! False alarm! Maybe a little overreaction there?
Arguments ensued as to why C didn’t come check before she called the cops and why B thought that those pretty normal things were so scary since clearly A and I were home at the time. The police officers left, but not before stating, “It sounds like you guys have some roommate issues you need to work out so we’ll let you take care of that”. Yeah, not embarrassing at all to have 6 police officers raid your house in the middle of the night and then write it all off as roommate drama.
Basically I didn’t sleep that night. Turns out you don’t get woken up by a yelling police officer with a gun and just drift right back to sleep. Even though nothing actually happened I am still fairly certain I am experiencing some PTSD. Last night when I was in bed I got really freaked out over every little noise. Luckily, I thought to check the driveway before calling the cops and all the noises were just my roommates coming home. Phew! What a close call!
So there you have it, my awesome Sunday night/Monday morning. It was really the perfect way to end my weekend/start my week. I hope you all enjoyed my tale of non-existent intruders, police raids, pajamas and guns. I know I sure didn’t!
