At about 5:30 this morning, I was awoken to insistent pounding on my front door. This is not the first time one of my neighbors have knocked at unusual hours; typically it is followed by one of them directing me to where they think they last saw my lost cat, Bunny out in the parking lot. When I asked who it was, there was no answer. I’m not tall enough to see out the peek hole, so I braced myself behind the door and opened it a crack.

Bracing myself probably saved my ass.

There was a shirtless, shoe-less Hispanic teen male covered in sweat (this is Phoenix, so that doesn't mean much--the cops who showed up later were, too) who immediately tried to force the door open. The shoving match was brief, thankfully, with me winning and locking the door. He screamed obscenities at me to open up because he had a broken foot. I told him I was calling the police.

I figured if he had a broken foot, the police could take care of that.

If he was was up to no good, the police could take care of that, too.

I got on to dispatch, gave them my name and address and apt. number, my phone number and immediately described the situation. Then it was waiting for the cops. It was a pretty long minute filled with banging on the door and intermittent shouting.

I jinxed the situation by whispering to dispatch I hoped he didn’t come around the side because the porch doors are glass.

He climbed the wall to my apartment, threw a stone from the rock bed through the glass porch doors and came in, screaming and cursing at me. This was when dispatch told me the police were there. I informed her that the police were not there. The confrontation in my bedroom was short, due to the fact that a) my bathroom light was on, but my bedroom was not, so he went there first and banged the door open and shut a few times, then when he did get in my room, after several demands of “Why you in my house, Bitch?” the kid realized I was on the phone and yes, the police were coming. He turned, ran out the front door (coherent enough to unlock it).

He made a right out my door, the only way you can run given there is a fence between my walkway and the rock bed to the left. He veered right at the end of the building. Comically, the cop came around the left side of the building with the fence blocking his way. He was every stereotype of a cop: white male with black, close-cropped hair, fit, and a mustache.

He took one look at the fence, ran straight on and vaulted it like a goddamn pro.

I knew I had the right cop for this job.

I shouted that the kid ran to the right and the cop followed. However, he never gained sight of the kid and lost him right quick.

Within minutes, and I mean only one or two, there were about seven cops knocking on doors and canvasing. I had the joy of answering a lot of questions, got to see the cops try and take fingerprints (the kid had left a dirty handprint on my bedroom doorjamb) but it wasn’t a good surface for it, so. Yeah. The forensics dude was cool. One of the officers said someone they question in the area said there had been a kid matching my description sleeping outside in the parking lot.

I phoned maintenance and they would come out later and board up my glass door. In the meantime, the officer asked if I had anyone I could call to come over until maintenance got there. I phone Kali, twice, given she lives closest. No dice. Called Katie. She hung up on me before I got a word in. Texted everyone I know who generally lives close by. Tina texted me not to text her because she gets charged for texts.

Fantastic.

Shortly, Kali texted that she was coming over and I was all THANK GALLIFREY SOMEONE GIVES A SHIT.   

We waited while my place got boarded up, chatted about the convention, consoled my freaked out cats, and once the hole was secured, I vacuumed and that was when we discovered one of my baby cacti was squashed. It appeared like it’d collapsed—was probably already dead—but it was pancaked. I couldn’t tell if it was missing any spines, really, but that’s hard to tell on baby cacti. I called the officer and let him know that the kid might—I wasn’t sure, but MIGHT—have stepped on my cactus. Given that he was barefoot, he might have some cactus spines stuck in there. Officer Ralph was all, “So if I find and pale Hispanic shirtless, shoeless male with an approx age of 14-15 with tiny cactus spines in his foot, I’ll have my perp” and I was all, “Yup”.

Then I got apology phone calls and texts from people I’d contacted earlier (Katie had thought it was her alarm going off and Tina hadn’t read the text).

Kali and I went out for bagels (we have the same favorite bagel place). We went shopping for Ten’s shirt for her cosplay, which I found (go me!) and when had no luck with shoes, I drove her out to the Goodwill where I’d found my Eleven’s boots and we struck gold. I got drinking glasses. We then went to Bookman’s where I picked up children’s books for Camden’s B-day. Next, AutoZone where I bought 2 cans of mace—one for my keychain, one for my bedside.

As we drove back home, Officer Ralph called me back and asked if I could do a line up tomorrow, which I’ve agreed to. When we pulled up, there was an empty cop car outside my place. It was around where the kid might have lost the cop on foot by running into one of the apartments nearby.

So, yeah. I’m reasonably certain whoever the little Cretan was who did this lives in the building across the way (or they think they found the kid who did this in the building across the way). In any event, I’m going to spend my not-so-enjoyable afternoon sifting through apartment listings. This is complicated by a) the weekend b) holiday weekend and c) I have work tomorrow (one day sick is almost too much) which means relocating isn’t going to be fun and/or easy and/or quick. The timing couldn’t be worse with Comic-Con coming up in 11 days (sigh). But I’ve come to the realization that I’ll need to move.

Anywho. Off to go canvas listings and get something to eat before I starve.