Welcome to Atlanta

My first week in Atlanta was slightly stressful. I waged war with a furniture store, trying to liberate my coffee table, but they kept dropping it in the warehouse, and not telling me until I’d driven 25 miles in rush hour to the store. It snowed on Wednesday, and it never snows in Atlanta, and I hate snow, so that was sort of off-putting. Then, on Friday morning, a governmental agency knocked on my door at 6 a.m. For the purposes of this blog entry, I’m going to call them the Department of Momemand Mecurity.

So, there I am, sweetly sleeping, when there’s this very authoritative knock on my door. It’s 6 a.m. on the button. It’s pitch black dark. It was the kind of knock that I didn’t think I could ignore, so I crawl out of bed and ask who’s there.

“Department of Momemand Mecurity,” a voice yells at me. “Police! Open up and let us in!”

I look out my peephole, and see 5 guys wearing black sweatshirts that say “Police” on them in yellow letters. My first thought is that you can probably get a sweatshirt like that at Spencer Gifts, and these people are here to rape and kill me.

“Why?”

“Department of Momemand Mecurity, we need to get in there and search for Person X. We need to speak with him.”

“That person isn’t here,” I say.

“Well, open up, we need to search the apartment and talk to him. We’re the police, let us in.”

“Are you going to every apartment?” I asked, thinking that if they were going door-to-door, I’d watch how my neighbor across the way handled this.

“No, ma’am, this is his last known address, and we need to come in and search. Just this apartment.”

“He’s not in here,” I said.

“Well, let us in, and we’ll see about that.”

“Do you have a badge?” I asked. He showed me his badge. “What about all your buddies?” I asked. They showed me their badges, but something that bothered me was that instead of shining their flashlights directly on their badges, they kind of shone them all around the badges. “Now, let us in,” the guy said for the millionth time. “We’re the police, now let us in. There’s five of us. It’s no big deal.”

Well, five strangers were actually kind of a really big deal to me, and I asked him, that if he was really the police, would he tell someone to open the door to five strangers at 6 a.m. It just seemed like a headline in the making. He didn’t really answer me, again repeating his chorus that he was the police and I had to let him in.

“I don’t know who you’re searching for. I just moved here on Friday and I live alone,” I said, at this point pretty close to tears.

Now, I will say that when I mentioned I moved there on Friday, I think they knew that they were sunk. But they asked me to let them in so we could talk about it. And I just kept saying no.

Finally, one of the guys whispered, “tell her just to open her door with the chain if it will make her feel better, and we can talk like that.” Well, one, you can shoot me just as easily through a crack in the door as you can through an open door, so that wasn’t really the most appealing option. Two, I don’t have a chain, and I told them so.

“Look ma’am,” the guy said. “We’re going to wake up the neighbors if we keep yelling through the door like this. Just let us in so we can talk about it.”

Well, tough shit on that one, buddy. I really kind of hope you do wake up the neighbors so I can get a little help on this one.

Then they started asking if I had gotten any mail for Person X, and when I thought about it, I had. And I told them so, and they said, “well, please let us in so we can talk about it, because we’re the police, we’re from the Department of Momemand Mecurity, and we’re sick of yelling through the door.”

Then one guy FINALLY had the bright idea that we talk by phone, and I really had no problem giving then my cell phone number because by this point, they already knew that I lived alone, and they had my address, and frankly the door wasn’t seeming too strong by that point. We talked by phone, and they just confirmed that I moved there on Friday, and that I had gotten that one piece of mail for Person X, and then they finally, finally left. The whole thing probably took 15-20 minutes, and I would say that I’d be hard pressed to find a time when I had felt more scared in my entire life.

Once they left, I felt fine. I thought the whole thing was over, and that it probably legitimately was the Department of Momemand Mecurity, and that I’d never hear from them again. As I’ve told the story to people, though, I have gotten a little freaked out about it. Because:

1 - What if they weren’t the Department of Momemand Mecurity? What if they were thugs who are going to come back? (The counter argument for this is that if they’d wanted to get in, they could have)
2 - If they are the Department of Momemand Mecurity, what’s their deal? Why were they so mean and not understanding of my concern for personal mecurity? Are they going to come back with a warrant?
3 - If they are the Department of Momemand Mecurity, I am in such trouble when I try to fly or file taxes or whatever. You know I gotta be on all sorts of watch lists as someone who is uncooperative.
4 - Who in hell was living in my apartment before me, and who else might be looking for them?
5 – I’m out of town currently. When I get back, am I going to find my door knocked down and my new couch slashed and the coffee table that I had to work so hard to get broken? I really don’t think I can handle driving to that furniture store again.

Well, that’s my story. If this blog entry ever disappears, it will be because you-know-who found it, and hopefully I will not have any sad news to report about the state of my apartment when I return to Atlanta tomorrow. Think good thoughts for me.