Funny Story from the point of Kiki...

A loud thud reaches our ears. Then another. And another. At first, we ignore it, but then we pick up a garbage can and whatever other “weapons” we can find. I carry a heavy trash can. Mimi grabs a butcher knife from the kitchen. Then, together, we check both doors and glance out the sliding window to the balcony. So far, so good. No one is there trying to break into her apartment. So we bring our weapons back to her room and pick up the game controllers again. Soon, the sound starts again. We check the windows. Glancing out the open window in her parents’ bedroom, we see a man with a mysterious plastic bag sitting next to him and a crow bar in his hands. All the grates along the back entryway to the apartments were open! Our immediate thought was a break-in, as these grates lead to the basements which had been ransacked before. I questioned Mimi if she knew of any repairs going on, but after racking her brains she got nada. So she grabbed her digital camera and started recording him. Sliding his crowbar under an un-opened grate directly across from Mimi’s apartment, the man looked ever so criminal as he glanced surreptitiously around him. Whispering between ourselves, Mimi noted that the grates had keys to open them, so a repair-man was out of the question. While I held her camera for her she phoned her parents, who were out shopping. Murmuring to me that her dad was on the way, we leaned back away from the window as the man looked all around him yet again. We decided, if the situation turned critical, we would go out there to confront him ourselves! Now, we noted that the man, and a number of other repairmen-looking people milling around were Mexican (no offense, anyone!). As Mimi left the room to check one thing, I saw an old gray-haired man walk by, and then tried to explain him to Mimi. We were beginning to doubt more and more that this was a real break-in, but our hearts still fluttered in fear. Soon we saw Mimi’s dad approaching and we ran back to the safety of her bedroom. When he came in, it turned out that they were repairmen after all! So Mimi decided to delete the video (unfortunately), and then we laughed. It was funny, and the next time we met we talked about what we would have done had this been a real robbery. A little adventure….