Face in the window

So, last night had some interesting results.

After dinner at the ok Japanese restaurant with not so fresh sashimi, Michelle came over to my place. We basically talked and she helped me list down my books for sale online. Being us, we managed to drag the entire process into the wee hours of the morning and 2am saw us on the computer still, listing down the last book for sale.

That’s when it happened.

We were listing things at the table next to my pseudo-window made of glass bricks. It doesn’t open and one can’t see through it very clearly due to the uneven planes of the glass, but if you were to shove one’s face real close to the window, you’d probably be able to see something relatively well enough. Well, someone did shove his face into my window.

I was standing behind Michelle as she listed down the last book and saw movement from the corner of my eye. When I looked out the pseudo-window, it took me a while to process the fact that there’s a flesh-coloured object moving about outside. That is, until a man’s face decided to press up against the lowermost right hand corner glass brick and made eye contact with me. My reaction?

I screamed.

I screamed, jumped back, grabbed Michelle accidentally and she screamed. We both screamed, ran out of the room and basically went into fight or flight mode. The best thing is, Michelle didn’t even know what we were screaming about. Rest assured when I told her, she went into the same ‘Oh my god!’ recitation as me.

Surprisingly, the upstairs housemates didn’t come running down but the two visitors of the lady I share the bottom level with came out of the room. Unfortunately, they only speak Chinese. I tried telling them about the man but they seemed intent on finding a rat of some sort at first. It took some gesturing and panicking to get the idea of some fellow outside being the cause of the screaming through to them but by the time they went out to check there wasn’t anyone there anymore.

I readied a mettle kettle and golf club as weapons by my bed and Michelle and I went back to listing the book. That is until we heard scraping from outside the door. Then we started getting freaked out again.

Thank god it turned out to be Boo. That furry menace. Both of use nearly had heart palpitations.

Halfway through the screaming fit, I remembered in the back of my mind my mother telling me about her youngest sister’s stay in the US in a similar room as mine. Ground floor, garage room. And apparently someone broke in once and scared the bejeezus out of her. She also happens to suffer from Paranoid Schizophrenia now. Great lot of comfort that is to me. She didn’t seem all that keen on me staying in my current room when she first told me that.

All that taken into consideration, I’m not sure whether to tell my mother about the incident or to categorise it as something that she will never know of. Ever.



Coming back from work today, I took a detour around the side of the house and went to inspect the area where my window of sorts is located. I finally figured out why the guy had to press his face into the lowest right corner brick to peer in. There are shrubbery lining the outside wall and the only opening for anyone to peer through close enough is that one corner. He probably leaned over the shrubs and shoved his face into that one spot.

The question still remains though on what the heck he was doing peering into someone else’s room at 2am in the morning. Gods, my knees couldn’t stop shaking last night. If he ever comes back I’m bludgeoning the little bugger with the kettle.

Unlike Michelle who decided to arm herself with my olive green, SFSU mug.




Okay, so brief update on this little incident. turns out the rents upstairs did hear the screaming but didn't come downstairs. It was 2am in the morning and they probably figured it was just a couple of teenage girls gone whacko. But Frank did take the matter seriously and said that if anything like it ever happened again, I'm to wake him up and he's calling the cops.

Another thing he told me: when he got up at 5am toget ready for work, he saw cop cars going up and down our street with cops bearing flashlights looking into houses for something or someone. Coincidence? Probably not. I guess it's a damn good thing I decided to scream the hell out of myself last night.