Our encounter with the authorities, and hers

Around about 2 AM, someone rang up the apartment over the intercom. They said it was the police, and asked me to buzz them up. I told them I couldn't (that function is disabled in the building, presumably for security reasons), and would come down to let them in instead.

Kate and I wondered what it might be about. We'd had a bunch of people over for dinner and a viewing of Shaolin Vs. Wu Tang (given to me by Dave as a late present for my birthday, because Kate had to go and mention that I had such a thing). It might have been a little noisy, but everyone had left at around midnight, and we'd pretty much stopped making any noise at all by 1. So we were somewhat confused.

So I went down to let them in, and it turned out it didn't have anything to do with us. The cops had been called by someone else on a noise complaint having to do with some other apartment. When the guy who called them told them he couldn't buzz them up, I guess they assumed that that was just a problem with the buzzer for that particular apartment, and called on us thinking that our buzzer might be working.

Luckily my sleeping pattern is what it is, and so this little task was a minimal inconvenience. Still, there are things that I'd rather have done with my time than walking up to four large police officers to ask what they wanted with me. (Yep, that's four police officers on a noise complaint. In addition to the Chicago police, the university employs its own police force with overlapping jurisdiction, making the police presence in this neighbourhood fairly significant.)

Speaking of stressful birthday-related encounters with armed authorities, about an hour after mine, I read about Riverbend's.

Suddenly, two of them were in the living room. We were all sitting on the sofa, near my aunt. My cousin B. was by then awake, eyes wide with fear. They were holding large lights or ‘torches’ and one of them pointed a Klashnikov at us. “Is there anyone here but you and them?” One of them barked at my aunt. “No- it’s only us and my husband outside with you- you can check the house.” T.’s hands went up to block the glaring light of the torch and one of the men yelled at her to put her hands down, they fell limply in her lap. I squinted in the strong light and as my sight adjusted, I noticed they were wearing masks, only their eyes and mouths showing.

OK, so our experiences aren't quite comparable.