InterPunct
Thread
I was renting an apartment with a guy I'll call Fat Pete. On this particular weeknight night I was upstairs in my bedroom with the door shut and about to fall asleep, but I kept hearing rustling in the kitchen downstairs. Drawers and cabinet doors seemed to be obsessively opening and closing. This went on for about 10 minutes and I was beginning to get frustrated because I was trying to get to sleep and I figured Fat Pete was on another drinking binge and now looking for food, or cooking. I didn't want to go downstairs and confront him because he was a big fat jerk and I all I wanted to do was get to sleep. A drawer would open, I could hear the knives and forks jostled about, then the drawer would shut. Same thing with the cabinet doors, open-shut-open-shut. When you live in a place for a while you get to know sounds pretty well and I was certain this is what was happening. Just about the time I decided I couldn't take it any more I began to get out of bed but heard him shout to his girlfriend (who was staying with him that night,) "They're here!" and he bounded out of his room and down the stairs.
He had called the police because he and his girlfriend heard the noises too. They had peeked out their door, saw my door was shut and the lights downstairs were off and decided it must be an intruder.
He grabbed his keys, ran to the door and unlocked it. Two cops burst in and fanned through our small apartment. There was one back door (bolted shut with a key, as was the front door) and no signs on forced entry. In fact, being a drafty apartment I had temporarily sealed all the windows for the winter with a kind of shrink-wrap plastic film that is made taught and transparent when you hit it with a warm hair dryer; there was no way someone could have gotten in those windows without leaving obvious evidence.
The police searched the place and found no one. There was no possible way anyone could have gotten in or out with the key-bolted doors and sealed windows. The police found no evidence of entry, either. I heard the noises independently of him and his girlfriend. So what the hell was it?