Sound the Alarm

Today has been an interesting day rather pleasant, annoying, and unsettling all at once. It was a shopping and prep day at work for me, so it was a day I had really been looking forward to. I would be out most of the day, each lunch with my colleagues, and then I would print a bunch of templates from AutoCAD to make the scenery construction (which starts tomorrow) run smoothly.

The shopping part of the day was great! I went to Lowe’s and Hobby Lobby with a co-worker. We’ll call her Cynthia. Cynthia is incredibly funny and has the world’s most adorable baby. (I’m serious. I’ve seen tons of babies – some cute – some grotesque – some miniature Winston Churchills; Cynthia’s baby, however, is too cute for words.) Her baby stayed behind with Lisa (another co-worker), however, because the shop van lacks a sufficient number of seats, and strapping a small child to the roof rack is – if not illegal – certainly ill-advised.

Once back, I began working on prep for tomorrow – and tried to get some things printed. I was having one helluva time due to technical difficulties. I e-mailed the files to myself, and headed upstairs to the design lab to print everything. When I got there, however, the plotter (read gigantic printer for those of you non-designers) had photo paper on the spool and I needed regular drafting vellum. I found the vellum, but I didn’t know how to change the paper. As it turns out, no one in the building knew how to change the paper either, so I asked for the manual. That’s when I learned that the IT department felt that we didn’t need the manual, so they never gave us one.

Anyway, after searching the HP website, I found the manual, and printed one off for the department. This bothers me, because while I understand the great convenience of having these manuals on-line, why should I go through the difficulty of looking up the manual on-line when there could be a printed copy next to the machine? Really IT? We should have the manual. You can waste your time looking it up on-line because you are never around to have to use the fricking thing. Nothing is more irritating than having to drop what you are doing and Google something that should be at your fingertips.

Soon I was downloading my file, but when I went to open it, the computer wouldn’t recognize the file format. As it turns out, you can’t just access AutoCAD on those computers. AutoCAD hasn’t always been Mac friendly, and the department doesn’t have the latest version, so it becomes a little more difficult. Not as difficult per se as sacrificing a goat under a full-moon while doing the hokey-pokey blindfolded, but difficult enough. Apparently you have to restart the computer while holding the option key. This brings up the option to convert to Windows. You have to run Windows and then you are able to access AutoCAD. The program exists on the computer, but only in a mirror universe. The two universes can’t speak to each other, and while they occupy the same space, are completely unaware of the other’s existence. It’s a little like Charlie Sheen and reality.

This is when things really got interesting… After finally getting AutoCAD up, my file downloaded, and the plotter ready to go, I began to adjust the file for printing. I was 85% done when Cynthia came upstairs to let me know she and Lisa were leaving early, and she didn’t want to lock my stuff up in the costume shop. I was very grateful that she had remembered my laptop was there, so I thanked her and bounded down stairs to pack up my things.

While putting away my laptop, I received a phone call, and this is how it went:

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this…” the caller mispronounces my name.

“Yes, this is…” I correct her.

“Hi, this is…” she introduces herself as being from ADT. “Your alarm is currently going off, is everything okay?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’m at work.”

“Well, your Zone 9 – that’s your front door – is going off. Is there anyone at the residence that would be coming home at this time?”

“No, it’s just me and my parrot, and I doubt he went out for a stroll.”

“Well, would you like me to notify the police?”

“Yes.” What did she expect me to say? No, I just pay you guys to not notify the cops in case someone attempts a robbery.

We wrap up our conversation. She told me the police would be there shortly, and asked me to meet them at my apartment. I told her I’d be there quickly.

I ran into a huge traffic jam while rushing home. All I could think of was Joey. If the alarm was still going off – Heaven forbid – he was going to be practically deaf by the time I got there, and scared out of his mind. (That alarm is loud.) If it wasn’t going off, he would still be scared… or, he could have been stolen. If someone stole my feathered baby, I don’t know what I’d do. I know there are sick bastards in the world, but stealing someone’s pet – a member of their family – would be overly cruel. Steal my possessions, I will eventually forgive you; steal my Joey, and there aren’t words.

As I was pulling into my parking lot, I received a phone call from the police. They verified my address, and I instantly understood when they asked “what city do you live in?” that they had driven to the same address in Bessemer and not in Birmingham. I would be waiting on the police.
When I finally got inside, nothing was missing; my front door, however, was unlocked, and Joey was very upset. He was cowering in the corner of his cage. Someone had come in the apartment. Seeing as how nothing was disturbed, I called my apartment management to see if they had been in the apartment.

“Hello this is,” she identified the apartment complex and herself.

“Hi this is,” I gave her my name, address, and phase number; she pulled up my file. “Did someone come in my apartment today? My alarm went off and the police are on their way.”

“Did you have any outstanding maintenance orders?”

“Only the ones that have continuously been ignored.”

“What are those sir? Is it the dishwasher?”

“No. It’s NOT the dishwasher. I’m still missing that kitchen drawer I first reported in July, and my towel bar is still coming out of the wall in my bathroom. I first reported that two months ago.” This irritated me, I’m calling to see if I was almost robbed, and she wanted to talk about prior maintenance requests. Maintenance requests that have been continously ignored at that.

But NOTHING could have prepared me for what she said next:

“Well, we have no way of knowing if maintenance was in your apartment today. I mean, someone could have been there, to fix one of those problems. It’s possible that someone here set off the alarm, but I don’t know. Would you like me to call them?”

“Yes.” What the F*CK?!?!?! What is this: “we have no way of knowing” bullshit!?! How can you not know what your maintenance people are doing? Someone potentially tried to break into my apartment today, and I’m trying to figure out if it was my stupid apartment maintenance people, and the fricking office can’t tell me if maintenance came into my unit. This is beyond idiocy.

A policeman arrived and talked with me. He stayed on the stoop; he never came in; he never inspected the door. I told him I had been at work, and that I had phoned the apartment people and they didn’t know if anyone from their office had been in my unit or not. He took my information from my driver’s license, and went back to his car. The whole scene took less than 5 minutes. I called my mom and we both got concerned that he hadn’t fully listened to me, and had just kind of shrugged off the situation. I noticed that he was still outside in his car, so I hung up with my mom, and went back out to talk with him. He started to drive away, but I flagged him back down.

“Is there anything else I need to do?”

“No sir,” he replied as he handed me a copy of the report he was apparently going to mail to me.

“I just don’t know what happened,” I replied as I noticed the report read: False Alarm Report.

“It’s okay,” he said. “This isn’t going to affect you or anything. If you notice anything missing, give us a call.”

“Okay,” I replied and thanked him as he drove away.

I’m not sure what I expected him to do, but I thought maybe he’d bring a sense of peace or something to the situation. I was calm, but I really verbal reassurance. He’s a police officer after all. I mean, the police are supposed to protect the public. It seemed he could have done more, or at least acted like he gave a damn.

Then I went back inside. If the police weren’t going to be a comfort, this situation called for Rocky Road. I needed chocolate and I needed it in ice cream form. Unfortunately, there were only two bites left in my pint container…

So here I am, typing this post, without enough ice cream to calm my nerves. Someone I don’t know was in my apartment today, and I’m the only one who seems to care. Thanks Apartment Management, thanks ADT, thanks Police. Let’s hope no one else sounds the alarm – at least not until I get some more Rocky Road.