More adventures.
So, the other day Lance tells me his kid, Patrick, had to go to the hospital because he'd been sick and was starting to act really strangely. We're talking excorcist strange. Last night he finds out that they want Patrick to stay for five to seven days. Last night was Lance's wife's turn to stay at the hospital, which left Lance and his nine year old at home alone and feeling mopey.
Because Lance is a great guy, and I really like his kids, jyuu_chan and I headed over to visit for a while and keep them company. This was about 11:30 PM. Lance and I played with their hedgehog, Opus, and Jyuu kept Nate occupied playing Super SmashBrothers Melee.
When Opus finaly started pooping on things, we tucked him back into his cage, had eggrolls and corndogs and listened to some Highly Offensive music (woohoo!). After that we all got utterly owned by Nate at MarioParty. At this point it was about 1:30, time to go home.
This is when the evening gets rather interesting. and therefore, I was inclined to believe she had her keys. Come to find out, she did not have keys at all, and I hadn't taken mine because I thought she had her's. I normaly bring mine. The one time I decide not to, we're stuck standing outside!
We actually managed to get into the building fairly quickly, but getting into the apartment was another story entirely. Bev, who basically acts like the assistant building manager is incredibly difficult to wake up, Tom, the actual building manager is sort of a jerk if you call him any time he isn't already at the building, and no one else in the apartment complex was answering their doors.
Now, we did try to wake Bev. We tried very hard in fact. She told me where she keeps her extra keys in the event we ever needed to care for her animals over night, or needed anything while she was away, etc. However, when she's actually in her apartment sleeping, she uses the chain. Makes sense of course, but it makes things difficult. We got her door opened as far as the chain and tried to call out to her, but she still didn't hear us. Unlike the rest of our apartments, she actually has a wall and a door that seperate her room from the living area. Not only does she have a door, but she leaves a fan running to drown out the outside noise of 45th. . . . . We couldn't even wake her dogs up.
After much calling of her name, banging on her door, ringing the bell and banging on her windows from the fire escape and trying to no avail to unhook the chain lock from the outisde, I headed back to our apartment and stared at the door. I remembered an episode of Dragnet from about a zillion years ago which demonstrated how a thief could break into someone's house using a credit card, and I tried this method. The doorjam was too thick, sadly (actually, it's probably a good thing, or anybody could just slide right into our apartment), and I was stuck outside still.
Finaly, Zanne resolved to call Tom. Our neighbor Vanessa was still awake, and she offered us Tom's number, coffee, Tea, pad thai and any other number of snacks. We declined all but coffee and tea, then sat around chatting with her, still reluctant to call Tom. After just a few moments we told her about our attempts on Bev's apartment, and how we were ultimately thwarted by her chain-lock. Vanessa immediately had the idea to try using a wire coathanger.
Seeing as I'd had this idea as well, she and I rushed back upstairs to try unhooking the chain again. About 60 seconds later I was rushing down again because Jyuu had Bev's keys in her pocket. Keys in hand, It was back up again. We tried repeatedly, but the wire coat hanger just wasn't working. Finaly, Vanessa realized we could (censored to protect our thieving secrets), and we were inside.
While Vanessa worked on putting everything back in order, I went to Bev's bedroom door and knocked. After some very loud, repetitive knocking, Bev finaly called out "Just a minute~!" and came to her bedroom door as if nothing were up. When she saw me standing in her living room in the dark (yeah, we didn't think to turn on the light, because we're really bright...) she didn't seem nearly as concerned as I thought she should be, but she did seem very confused and sleepy.
After some discussion about getting her locks changed so they aren't so easily broken into, she helped me retrieve our apartment key. "I hope you didn't call Tom. If you did, I hope you didn't leave a message. If you didn't, that's great, I'll just tell him I don't know who could have been bothering him. Gosh, he gets so pissed off if anyone calls him." She was very good natured about it, and mostly sleepy. I told her to go back to sleep, and thank you. She returned, "I never really woke up." We laughed, and off I went to tell the good news.
We spent a short time longer in Vanessa's apartment, thanking her and drinking her coffee over discussion about pets and bugs and the apartment building, then finaly stalked into our own apartment to crash at about 4:30 AM.
All in all, a rather exciting evening. I sort of wonder if Bev even remembers it. I certainly won't be leaving my keys at home any time soon.
Because Lance is a great guy, and I really like his kids, jyuu_chan and I headed over to visit for a while and keep them company. This was about 11:30 PM. Lance and I played with their hedgehog, Opus, and Jyuu kept Nate occupied playing Super SmashBrothers Melee.
When Opus finaly started pooping on things, we tucked him back into his cage, had eggrolls and corndogs and listened to some Highly Offensive music (woohoo!). After that we all got utterly owned by Nate at MarioParty. At this point it was about 1:30, time to go home.
This is when the evening gets rather interesting. and therefore, I was inclined to believe she had her keys. Come to find out, she did not have keys at all, and I hadn't taken mine because I thought she had her's. I normaly bring mine. The one time I decide not to, we're stuck standing outside!
We actually managed to get into the building fairly quickly, but getting into the apartment was another story entirely. Bev, who basically acts like the assistant building manager is incredibly difficult to wake up, Tom, the actual building manager is sort of a jerk if you call him any time he isn't already at the building, and no one else in the apartment complex was answering their doors.
Now, we did try to wake Bev. We tried very hard in fact. She told me where she keeps her extra keys in the event we ever needed to care for her animals over night, or needed anything while she was away, etc. However, when she's actually in her apartment sleeping, she uses the chain. Makes sense of course, but it makes things difficult. We got her door opened as far as the chain and tried to call out to her, but she still didn't hear us. Unlike the rest of our apartments, she actually has a wall and a door that seperate her room from the living area. Not only does she have a door, but she leaves a fan running to drown out the outside noise of 45th. . . . . We couldn't even wake her dogs up.
After much calling of her name, banging on her door, ringing the bell and banging on her windows from the fire escape and trying to no avail to unhook the chain lock from the outisde, I headed back to our apartment and stared at the door. I remembered an episode of Dragnet from about a zillion years ago which demonstrated how a thief could break into someone's house using a credit card, and I tried this method. The doorjam was too thick, sadly (actually, it's probably a good thing, or anybody could just slide right into our apartment), and I was stuck outside still.
Finaly, Zanne resolved to call Tom. Our neighbor Vanessa was still awake, and she offered us Tom's number, coffee, Tea, pad thai and any other number of snacks. We declined all but coffee and tea, then sat around chatting with her, still reluctant to call Tom. After just a few moments we told her about our attempts on Bev's apartment, and how we were ultimately thwarted by her chain-lock. Vanessa immediately had the idea to try using a wire coathanger.
Seeing as I'd had this idea as well, she and I rushed back upstairs to try unhooking the chain again. About 60 seconds later I was rushing down again because Jyuu had Bev's keys in her pocket. Keys in hand, It was back up again. We tried repeatedly, but the wire coat hanger just wasn't working. Finaly, Vanessa realized we could (censored to protect our thieving secrets), and we were inside.
While Vanessa worked on putting everything back in order, I went to Bev's bedroom door and knocked. After some very loud, repetitive knocking, Bev finaly called out "Just a minute~!" and came to her bedroom door as if nothing were up. When she saw me standing in her living room in the dark (yeah, we didn't think to turn on the light, because we're really bright...) she didn't seem nearly as concerned as I thought she should be, but she did seem very confused and sleepy.
After some discussion about getting her locks changed so they aren't so easily broken into, she helped me retrieve our apartment key. "I hope you didn't call Tom. If you did, I hope you didn't leave a message. If you didn't, that's great, I'll just tell him I don't know who could have been bothering him. Gosh, he gets so pissed off if anyone calls him." She was very good natured about it, and mostly sleepy. I told her to go back to sleep, and thank you. She returned, "I never really woke up." We laughed, and off I went to tell the good news.
We spent a short time longer in Vanessa's apartment, thanking her and drinking her coffee over discussion about pets and bugs and the apartment building, then finaly stalked into our own apartment to crash at about 4:30 AM.
All in all, a rather exciting evening. I sort of wonder if Bev even remembers it. I certainly won't be leaving my keys at home any time soon.