I was a little bit late getting to bed a couple nights ago. It was around 2am. I laid down, wrapped a scarf around my eyes, and then turned on my audiobook to relax before going to sleep. Clancy was out in the living room, planning to come to bed soon.
Before long, I heard some burping and hiccuping. I wondered what was up with Clancy. Before long, I heard Clancy’s voice. I thought that maybe the hospital had called and she was on the phone. It was when I heard a man’s voice that my attention was grabbed. Clancy doesn’t watch television. I doubted she was on speakerphone. What was going on?
So, I walked out to the main room and there was a man in our living room, talking to Clancy. He looked around college age. He seemed to be saying that we were in his house. He wasn’t angry or irate. He was drunk, and confused. It was apparent that he had entered our house by mistake. Clancy was talking to him patiently, explaining that he was, in fact, in the wrong house. It was only a few minutes later – albeit a couple of long minutes – before he conceded that he was probably in error. “Maybe I should go out and try to find my house.” We were supportive of the conclusion that he had reached. He left.
He then started walking to the back, where I’d later found out that he had come from. We have two entrances to the house. The front door, and through the garage in back. The garage is as loud as all get-out. And the bedroom I was in was right next to it. I couldn’t believe that he had opened the door without my hearing it. Clancy should have been able to hear it from the front.
We have been thinking about it ever since, and we simply cannot figure out how when he entered the house. We had the sinking suspicion that he had actually been there for a while. We’re not sure how long. I think shorter, he thinks longer. We think he may have been in the recliner in the guest room.
We really don’t know. What we do know is that he ate my wife’s leftover tacos from the fridge. Which means that he was in the living room at some point. Since I had gotten the tacos at 8:30, it means that somehow he entered the kitchen, went to the fridge, and got some tacos while Clancy was on the sofa. Without her noticing.
We cannot figure out how what apparently happened actually happened. He was evidently too drunk to realize he was in the wrong house, but sober enough to go undetected throughout the house. To stealthily enter through the garage, get food from the fridge, and so on.
Maybe we’re both a whole lot more sleep deprived than we think.
That is so freaking creepy. And now I won’t be able to sleep tonight until I check the house thoroughly.
Do you think he may have been homeless?
No, I’m pretty sure he was a drunk college student. Not a whole lot of homeless people choose to live in Arapaho.
That is scary. A stranger in the house is one of the things that generally freaks me out. Kudos to you and Clancy (especially Clancy!) for keeping your cool and not letting an unfortunate but likely mistaken situation become dire.
Is it possible you left your garage door open? I have often found that I have done so unwittingly. That might explain missing that.
I also think we have a tendency to zone in or zone out depending on what we are most interesting in doing at that moment. If I get an irrational fear that someone is in the house, suddenly I am tuned in to every sound in the house. If I am lost in thought, someone can walk into the room I’m in and sit down next to me without me even noticing.
Glad that everyone seems to have emerged unscathed from the incident.
I’ve tried to fit my key in another car in a parking lot before, but I’ve never went into the wrong house.
I think.
Holy crap. I would have freaked right the fish out. Has RDJ relapsed?
I had some drunken friends in college attempt (unsuccessfully) to get into the wrong apartment, in a apt. complex of similar-looking doors I can sort of understand this. But this sounds far weirder.
It’s totally weird. I understand that he was intoxicated, but I would think it might have occurred to him that that wasn’t his refrigerator, where did these tacos come from, why is there a baby in this house, chick in the living room, something! Which is why I went for possibly homeless, but then why would he be saying that Will and Clancy were in his house… It’s very strange. I wonder if he has a mental illness.
People have been known to stupider things while drunk or high.
Dude, if I’m drunk and find tacos in the fridge, I’m not thinking, “I don’t remember buying or making these…”
I’m thinking, “Holy shit! TACOS!!!”
“I don’t remember buying or making these . . . but I am drunk, so what the fish do I know?”
Ah yes, the Legend of the Taco Fairy…
“My roommate must have made these. Hey, not bad. I hope he’s not mad I finished them. No, it’s fine, he moved out six months ago.”
you don’t lock your doors?
Congratulations to you and Clancy for keeping your cool and dealing with the situation appropriately.
I’ve read a lot of stories about drunk people wandering into a house that was not their own but I never quite believed it to be true.
Maybe next time he’ll get drunk and come over and mow the grass.
I’m glad you are not quick to use a gun. A slightly different twist to this and you would being feted by some as a hero who proudly defended his helpless family from the invading barbarian hordes.
A friend of mine rather famously disappeared from a party one evening to show up the following morning on the sidewalk.
Turns out, he’d passed out in the back room, woke up (blacked out), climbed out the window, hopped the fence (leaving his shirt hanging on the fence, on the other side where it wasn’t visible from the house), ripped the screen off of a neighbor’s window, climbed in that window, crawled through the kitchen, and passed out on the couch.
The following day he woke up, thought that he was in the right house (apparently before he’d passed out everyone had talked about relocating to someone else’s place and he thought they’d carted him there asleep and they were all out getting breakfast or something), made himself a bowl of cereal, played a couple of bars on the piano, and then noticed that his brother’s car was parked on the street, so he went outside to see what was going on.
Nobody knows if the neighbors weren’t home, or if they managed to get up and leave the house in the morning without noticing the passed-out guy on their couch, which was possible given the layout of the place.
A partial explanation for why you may not have heard anything is that when you live with another adult, your brain unconsciously discards a whole lot of noises. Even something loud like a garage door opening might not really register as something you should pay attention to if your spouse opens the door from time to time.
Imagine if any time you heard a sound you stopped whatever you were doing to make sure it was the person you expected. You couldn’t do anything else.
Yep, gotta ask whether or not you locked your doors.
We had a garage once. We had a bolt lock on the door to the garage, and it was a steel door too, to prevent someone from entering via that route. It was the most concealed entrance to the house.
You’re fortunate the kid didn’t get upset that you were in his house and become aggressive.
It would never occur to me to sleep behind an unlocked door.
Honestly, I’ve never really locked my doors when I’ve been at home. In one of my apartments in Colosse, I didn’t even lock it when I was away.