The Distant Humming

It's 5:14 in the morning and my phone is ringing. At first I thought it was my alarm waking me up to go lottery for seats at Allen Field House (I'll explain that process in a later blog). I answered. It was my friend who lives upstairs. Half awake, I couldn't really understand her and all I could make out was "...we're wigging out....can you come up?" I made sure she was in her room and stumbled out of bed, up the stairs, and into her room. "Frances, is that you?" I responded and opened the sliding door to the bedroom. She and her two roommates were wide awake. One was sitting up and staring at the window- I would have been scared if I was actually awake. "What's wrong?" I asked. "We thought someone was in the room, either that or the window is making noise." It was most definitely the window. The three of them were absolutely terrified that someone was lurking on the other side of the sliding door and instead of opening it, they were absolutely frozen in fear. I ended up talking to them for 45 minutes until they had truly calmed down. It wasn't until after I woke up the next morning that I realized how truly ridiculous the whole event was. First off, with how many people live in this house, someone is always awake. If someone was in their room, it would probably have been a girl borrowing something. Secondly, why would someone wait to open the sliding door? Thirdly and finally, why would you call your smallest friend to protect you??? I know I am kind of crabby before I've had some cereal and coffee, but really?

It reminded me of the absolutely insane night I had in France when we were living in dorms with other Americans. The weekend before we left I was spending the night in my friend's room. We ate at a French Tex-Mex restaurant (we were curious) and I had some tuna salad that was NOT sitting well so I was already having problems sleeping. Then at 2:30 a.m. a very loud argument woke the both of us up. "Give me my #@$#@$ keys!! Come on Lauren give me my keys!!" "No Lindsey! They're mine!" After 15 minutes I went out into the hallway and asked them to quite down. Lindsey was the only one in the hall and responded with a blank stare. I went back inside and heard her stomp away. About 20 minutes later, it happened again. Lindsey left (I only know their names because they were yelling so loudly). She came back again up the stairs. This time crying saying how stupid the whole thing was. Lauren didn't let her in. Twenty minutes later I woke up to what I could only assume was a brick being thrown against the wall next to us. (We figured out the next morning it was Lindsey kicking the elevator.) This went on until we had to wake up at 6:15 to catch a train! Stupid Americans!!

The moral: There is no reason to wake me up no matter what country I am living in.