When open is too open

Open is good, eh? Not necessarily. Let me give you an example.

A few days ago my wife woke up in the middle of the night. It was 2 am and she thought she heard something from the street. I couldn't care less and just wanted to sleep. I thought that maybe our neighbor had just came back from a night shift, or maybe some teenagers are having their Ford Sierra rally going on to impress girls (remember when you were 18?). It wouldn’t be the first time this happens.

But my wife insists that there is something strange going on. She says she hears just one voice – a man talking. Not shouting, not laughing, not yelling – just talking. You better go can check this out she says to me. So I get up.

Our bedrooms are upstairs. So I go downstairs and .... hear somebody talking loud and clear. Somebody is talking inside our house 2am in the morning! And all our phones are downstairs!

I go down the stairs and see a big guy sitting on our floor. A total stranger. He’s talking to himself saying ooh, ohh shit, ohh, I don’t feel that good, …ooh. I approach the guy and I ask him what an earth are you doing here? He doesn’t seem to recognize me. I can see he is drunk as a skunk. He’s reasonably clean, proper clothes and so forth but you can tell he drinks a lot. A lot.

I put my hand on his shoulder and keep on talking. Slowly he notices me and understands he’s not where he is supposed to be. He apologizes and says that he shouldn’t be here. Then he ask where is here?. When I explain he says ooh, I should be in the other end of the town; totally somewhere else. I say we better get you outta here and he agrees.

He keeps on apologizing. He notices my kids clothes on the floor (yeah, my kids leave them on the floor) and says he has 4 kids. I really do not want to talk about my kids with a drunken giant inside of our house, I’m thinking. Then he notices our kid’s pet and says that's a nice fellow you got there – is that a bunny?. I stay calm and say yes. I do not want to irritate this guy twice of my size. I’m a smooth talker now.

I asked him if there is anything I could do for him. He keeps on apologizing and asks if I can get a taxi for him. Sure can. The taxi arrives in 5 minutes. I help this guy to stand up and put on his shoes and jacket. Then I walk him to the taxi. He apologizes once more. I say not a big deal – take care of yourself! And he’s gone.

My kids never woke up and my wife didn’t freak out. I found the situation mostly odd and amusing. So it doesn’t feel like somebody intruded our privacy or wanted any harm for us. The situation was not threatening at all. It is only afterwards I started to think about how lucky we were. Suppose this guy had been on drugs or something.

I have this bad habit to leave doors open. I better start locking them up. For nights at least. Open is not always good.





P.S. My kids do not read my blog. Please do not tell them this story. They might start to worry for no reason!