Sometimes people ask what you do for entertainment in such a small town? Is there a night life? Of course there is! Just take what we did this last Saturday as an example.
Sometime around 3:55 in the morning Blaire woke up and yelled until she was transported into bed with us. Luke was back asleep, and I would have also been sleeping except Blaire was scratching me and sort of hurumphing around and doing other shenanigans. She sleeps in our room with us right now due to a space restriction, and she has learned well that we are only a hop, skip,and a fuss away. Anyway, I was in that middle ground of disturbed sleep when I suddenly grabbed Luke’s arm and said, “That was our doorbell! Someone is touching the doorbell!” My instant concern was that one of the bigger children had actually let themselves out and was ringing the doorbell to come in. Luke hopped out of bed and ran to the door, and I ran to count kids. They were all there, all snoring, except Blaire, who seemed endlessly pleased that we got up with her after all.
So my husband went to the side door in the laundry room and looked out the window at an angle to see who was ringing the bell. From where he stood, he could only see skin and polka dot boxers. Who would be at our door in their boxers, in the snow, at 4:00 in the morning? What level of an emergency is this?
He opened the door and found himself face to face with a young athletic man standing on our porch with no shirt, polka dot boxers, and his jeans around his ankles. This young man was not clear as to what he was doing there, but he was certain that he should come in. I couldn’t hear what the boxers were saying from my post in the hall, but I could hear my husband. One scivvy-clad man to another, they were really talking it out. The conversation went something like this, “Dude, you are not coming in. What do you need? No. This is not your house. You may not come in.” Then Luke shut the door and locked it. He then called the police to tell them that there was a confused man outside. For something like seven minutes, our doorknob continued to twaddle and the doorbell went constantly. Ding dong, ding dong, ding don,g ding dong. The signs were beginning to tell us that this young man had been drinking a little further away from his normal stomping grounds and felt that he would just crash with us for the rest of the night.
Luke told him through the door that the cops were coming, and the man let out a very plaintive and confused “Whhhhyyyyy??” He kept working manfully away on the doorbell for a few more minutes, then seemed to notice that something was not right. We heard a sort of startled noise indicative of a drunk man having an epiphany, and he was off like lightning. Or he would have been if his pants were not around his ankles. Tripping on his jeans, he fell down the three stairs to our side door, and thence took off into the night.
Shortly after his escape the policeman arrived at the front door, and we took him to the scene. Opening the side door we found on our porch a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt. They looked exactly like they would next to a bed when someone steps out of their clothes and into their bed. Only in this case, he stepped out of his clothes and into the life of a drunk fugitive. The policemen checked his wallet which had conveniently been left for us, and noted that he was a local college athlete, which explained the speedy, albeit inebriated, disappearance. So the police looked around for him a bit and called us to say that they found him something like a mile away (like I said, athletic) having forged his way through a creek. In Moscow there is never a reason to go through a creek unless you are trying to lose the bloodhounds. Even less of a reason in 30 degree weather when you are wearing your scivvies and have left your driver’s license behind. The police took him off to the hospital where they said he was beginning to grow more sober and more emotional all at once.
They wanted to know if we were going to press charges. We weren’t. Hopefully a mild hypothermia and weird experience will scare him a bit, and as for us, we haven’t laughed that hard in a good long while!
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HAH! You guys always have the best stories. How do you do it??
Did I ever tell you about the time I found a hung-over man sleeping in the basement at 2nd street? Not as funny as this story, but still makes me keep my doors locked.
Wow, that gave me quiet a good laugh this Monday morning! Thanks for sharing.
Girl, you sure know how to relay a story! Hilarious. I could picture the whole thing, plain as day.
Thanks for a good laugh on this grey Monday morning! Wouldn’t it be great if you had photographic evidence? Just think of all the possibilities! 🙂
Well, I came hoping for an update, but I got something much better. Many thanks. There will be an extra skip in my step today.
Hilarious. And I think Luke can pat himself on the back for possibly having saved this kid’s life. His stupidity could have gotten him shot or frozen to death before the police found him!
What a great story! Thank you so much for sharing. That definitely put a smile on my face!
Aw yeah, that is all I needed to get the blood flowing to my head. I have been cloudy in the head all morning from my own sleep deprived, baby ruled night. I am going to laugh to myself like a crazy person all day, every time polka dot man pops in my head today. Thanks for that. Laugh on!!
Mardi Gras weekend in Moscow! Always entertaining. Sort of.
When I was really young, we lived on A Street in a rental that was for sale when a drunk wandered by in the early A.M. and hurled our For Sale sign right through the large front window. Glass and excitement all over the living room!
Maybe it’s just my adult perspective, but it does feel like things have gotten a little more…festive in this town over the years. I’m living in the same house I grew up in, but the worst disturbance I can remember from my childhood in this neighborood was the time a moose was wandering freely through our streets at the same time that I had an early morning paper route to navigate on foot.
Fast-forward 20-odd years, and we’ve seen some disturbances of a different sort. Just this past summer here’s what we enjoyed: Our garbage can mysteriously disappeared one night. Our van (as well as a couple of other nearby vehicles, a stop sign, and the fence adjoining our yard) was tagged with bright yellow spray paint. A stolen mountain bike was left straddling the chicken wire fence in our back garden. And, according to police reports, several small electronics went missing from parked cars along our street.
No drive-by shootings or late-night, polka-dot-clad visitors, but sheesh! In a matter of a few weeks, that was more petty crime than I can remember from all my childhood years in this house combined.
Laissez les bons temps rouler!
*bon* temps. 🙂
Ahhh…thank you for bringing back some of the lesser fond memories of Moscow. I do remember Mardis Gras weekend, unfortunately. I guess I still live in a college town, but it’s just too pagan to even know what Mardis Gras is.
OK, so that’s the city into which my son will be moving this summer? Well, I guess it’ll be fun. 😉
bahahahaha. now THAT’S entertainment.
Hysterical!!! You are a great storyteller!
Our favorite night scene thus far was waking up at 4 in the morning to find one of our neighbor’s frequent parties was involving someone standing in our combined driveway and swinging something with a rope that was on fire. Assuming alcohol was heavily involved, we did watch for a little while. They were far enough away from us and our car that we went to bed after a while. (We had small people keeping us sleep deprived.)
Ironically, we also awoke in the night a few months later to the police pounding on the door to tell us the same neighbor’s house was on fire and did we know if they were home? They were gone on a trip, though, so presumably it wasn’t their fault.
Hilarious! Yes people, you should lock your doors at night in Moscow… 😉
We had the exact same experience when we lived in town. Poor guy was convinced we should let him in and it took the awesome Moscow PD to convince him otherwise. Oh the tired drunkards!
This is hilarious! I’m glad the kids slept through it. I think if you don’t press charges you should be allowed to keep the clothes. Make a scarecrow (scaredrunk?) out of them.
It did just occur to me to wonder whether when he got home he was sent to bed with a dose of chamomile tea while his sisters had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.
Megan: Best literary allusion ever!
Nice to see we’re not the only ones enjoying the Moscow night life! Around Christmas we had a young drunk let himself in through our back door, just after we returned from a late dinner and hadn’t buttoned up the place yet. Mark made him leave, and with a nice compliment for our Christmas tree and a final expletive in salutation, he was off to look for food and comfort elsewhere. At least our drunk was classy – wearing a button-down (if mud-caked) dress shirt!
The funny part is we decided to use the deadbolt for once, and found ourselves locked out of the house the next morning!
This seriously made my day. I read it once this afternoon, and again just now before bed. I absolutely love the way you word things – what a crazy, hilarious situation. 🙂
I was thinking about this as I was drifting off to sleep last night, wondering if I did in fact lock the front door when I turned out that last light. It occurred to me that in Idaho, where the 2nd amendment is sacred, locking the door really tends to protect the intruder (especially an incapacitated fellow) even more than the inhabitants.
Not too bright, that one.
That is hilarious!!
Wa ha ha! I love Moscow. I wonder if this is the same guy who came by our old place last year. We woke up to the sounds of someone hurling himself bodily at our padlocked door, and my husband Kent shot out of bed, yanked the apartment door open, grappled with the (surprisingly determined, and thoroughly inebriated) intruder for a few minutes, then finally flung him down the outside steps. Follows, an almost verbatim copy of your husband’s conversation…
Drunk guy (piteously): “Why are you doing this to me?” Kent: “Because you’re drunk and you’re trying to break into my house.”
DG: “Wait, wait, what’s your name?”
K: “Get out.”
DG: “Is there anybody with you?”
*Kent grabs a hefty stick. Drunk guy hightails it*