City Livin'

So this morning I had a classic city livin' experience, though it was, thankfully for me at least, an experience by (very near) proxy. As I finished getting ready for work this morning I heard someone knocking on the door upstairs. I live in the basement apartment of a single family house and the front door of the main house is above my bedroom, so I could hear the knocking, followed by insistent knocking, followed by a man's voice saying, "Anybody home?" I sort of ignored it and went about my business until I heard footsteps coming down the cellar stairs followed by more knocking. Hmmm, sounds like maybe someone is knocking on my kitchen door, which leads to the main house's cellar. I got up and started walking towards the kitchen, thinking maybe it was a meter reader or something (my landlady's cleaning lady followed me frantically down the path to my apartment door the other day explaining that she'd had to let a meter reader into my apartment through the kitchen door. I think she was concerned I'd call the cops on her or something, though I probably wouldn't have even noticed), heard someone struggling with the cart (one of those bag lady type carts for grocery shopping, which I hang on the door knob), followed by a booming male voice yelling, "Police!"

Uhhhhhh......

I respond, "What?" He yells again, "Police!" I make it into the kitchen, where I find an uniformed officer leaning into my apartment through the kitchen door. He starts to say why he's there. I notice my landlady behind him waving. He turns and looks at her and then says, "Well, I'll let you explain it." And then he headed upstairs, leaving my landlady to explain that someone had broken into the main house, scrambling through a window whose screen he'd removed, located right above my living room. He's (or she'd) stolen my landlady's purse and some cash from a drawer. I guess we're all lucky that that was it (though obviously, my landlady is in the unlucky position of having been robbed)... but it kind of creeps me out to think that some random person was wandering around the rooms above my head, an unlocked (and unlockable) door away from my apartment, where I was snoozing, rock-like, from complete exhaustion (and I fear an oncoming cold).

Now my apartment is kind of burgler boobytrapped, at least aurally-- anyone trying to scramble in any of the little windows would knock potted plants all over the place; the one window that isn't a little window is behind the headboard of my bed, so, you know, if they came in that way they'd wake me up; the struggle with the shopping cart makes the kitchen entry rather loud, and I have a string of bells that someone gave me ages ago to ward off evil spirits (and perhaps thieves) hanging on my front doorknob. So chances are that I'd wake up if anyone tried to come into my apartment... but I understand that this is usually the *worst* case scenario, since finding you awake and aware of their presence sometimes prompts an intruder to (ahem) silence you.

Crikey. What's weird is that I spent years living in bad neighborhoods in Brooklyn and more than a year in Phnom Penh where everyone I knew (except me) was robbed at some point, and now that I'm living in the nicest neighborhood of my adult life there are people prowling around upstairs. And apparently I've been cutting through a park each evening that is *the* hotspot for nighttime muggings-- particularly of women walking through there alone-- for months. I can't decide if I'm getting old and paranoid, or if I just spent years being young and not paranoid enough....