The apartment I live in is not large but is quite long. We have the living room with windows overlooking the main street we live on and all connected together by a long hallway is a bedroom, a washroom, another bedroom and finally a large kitchen overlooking the alley way going to a parking lot for the grocery store on the corner. Our building is only 3 storeys high, we are on the second level with a duplicate apartment above and a section of a hardware store below. To the right of us is the main part of the hardware store and nothing built on it, just a gravel filled rooftop, therefore giving us plenty of natural light with the high windows we have in both bedrooms, washroom and kitchen.
These high windows just happen to be at the same level of that rooftop though and that’s where our Pink Mickey Mouse Pyjama Story begins…
4 years ago, on November 9th, a few years before DR moved in with us, I was home on that Tuesday evening watching TV in the living room by myself, my roommate at the time was in his bedroom sleeping. It was approximately 10:30 PM. The living room is the only room that doesn’t have window access to that rooftop, so if I’m there and all the other lights in the apartment are off, it looks very empty for someone looking from the outside. I’m watching Pirates Of The Caribbean with the volume fairly high but everyonce in awhile during quiet parts of the movie, I can hear some clinking… I stop the movie to listen some more, nothing.. I go on with Johnny Depp. A little bit more clinking, this time I stop and go in the hallway to see if my roommate is maybe up and about… nothing… I go back to the movie and less than 3 minutes later, I definitely hear glass breaking. I stop the movie once again, walk down the hall to my bedroom, turn on the light and BAM!… I am staring a another man, halfway inside my bedroom through the broken window, he’s as startled as I am…. I scream out my roommate’s name and then tell him to call the police as there is someone breaking into the apartment, the robber slides back out the window and starts to run for the metal staircase that lead to the rooftop, I run to the kitchen and open the door leading to that same staircase, he stops and turns around to try his luck at the other one further away that leads to the garbage enclosure for the hardware store. I come back in, orders the roommate to call the police right away, and look for some shoes so I can start running after the guy… I can’t find anything… fuck it, the phentex mom-knitted slippers I have on will have to do. I re-open the door just in time to see him jump in the enclosure full of discarded cardboard boxes, I fly down the stairs. There he is climbing out of the fenced in area, military type jacket on, a backpack on his back, long wavy hair. He jumps back on the ground from the chain-link fence he was in and takes off down the dark alleyway. I run after him. We get to the street, he bolts off further into the next dark alleyway…
At this time, I wasn’t sure if he was alone, didn’t know if some friends were waiting for him further on, I didn’t know if I should carry on some more. The laundromat on the corner is closed and empty, I can’t ask anyone for help… oh wait, I see a car coming my way and with the headlights, I realize at the same time that I’m wearing this:
Not your Superhero type costume to be running after robbers…
So I look back in his direction, scream at him that the police is on their way and they will find him regardless of where he’s hiding. He realizes that I’m not running anymore and from the other side of the street, in just enough light for me to still see him, he turns around and gives me the finger.
It’s cold, my feet are wet, I’m wearing pink pyjamas in the middle of the street… hum… I better get back in. At this time, my roommate is just getting off the phone with the police, they will be here shortly…
First thing first, put on jeans and then call DR… who had to come over and spend the night with me in my cold bedroom with a broken window and a plastic bag taped to it to stop the draft…
The police officers were great, they took my statement, they took lots of pictures as I walked them through the events, showed them where he jumped off the stairs, where he ran too, showed them the “shoes” I was wearing being the main reason I didn’t pursue him… I never mentioned the pink jammies though.
We never heard back from them regarding the incident… and luckily for us, it has been the only one to date. I will admit that we sleep very lightly and always seem to be very aware of noises coming from the rooftop… although, we never heard ENF6 when he came this week to draw a nice big moustache on the news guy’s face they are advertising this week on the big billboard they have installed over the hardware store.
