Am I Dreaming?

Prior to moving to California, the only involvement that I had ever had with police officers, was when they would write me a ticket for a traffic infraction. Which has happened quite a few times. One of the things that public housing in California has offered me recently, is a more intimate relationship with the Dublin Police Department.

As mentioned before, Aaron and I go to work very early in the morning. We are at the warehouse most days between 4:15 & 4:45am. In order to accomplish this each morning, it requires for us to go to bed each night by around 8:00pm and get a good nights rest. Most of the time, this is pretty easy, but when you are living in a public facility, you never know what's going to happen.

Knock-Knock-Knock. Pound-Pound-Pound. 'I need you to open the door!'

This is what I woke up to while deep into my REM cycle at midnight. No, the knocking wasn't on our door; it was on one of the other doors down the hall. I stayed lying in bed while the incessant knocking, pounding, and yelling continued for about fifteen more minutes. At this point I'm thinking that a volleyball dad is trying to get the girls on the team to open the door, so that he can get them to go to bed. Always the optimistic. Twenty minutes into the knocking, pounding, and yelling, I decide that something needs to be said to this man, because I am exhausted and have to get up for work in three hours. As I got out of bed, Aaron said, 'Don't yell at them.' I assured him that I was just going to ask them to quite down, because we had to work in a couple of hours. We were clearly both delirious, because 1. I would never do this if fully coherent, because I am not a confrontational person by nature, and 2. Aaron did not stop me from opening the door. I opened the door, blinded by the lights in the hallway, squinting, I looked to my right. No one was in sight. As I looked to my left, a Dublin Police Officer was approaching me. Definitely not a volleyball dad. Speechless, I'm sure my face said it all. I thought about closing the door and heading back to bed, but my delirium kicked back in. I thought, heck I already opened the door, I might as well speak my peace. So my brief monologue began voice cracking and groggy, as I was at the brink of going completely nutty.

'I'm really sorry, but I have to go to work in a couple of hours. Are you guys going to be done soon?'

He assured me that he had contacted the hotel manager, who was currently locating the room key and that they would be done soon. There was no way we could fall back asleep now. After laying in bed for an hour, listening to the officers finally get into the room and search all the cabinets and drawers, our hotel neighbor was sitting in the back of the Dublin Police squad car after they found some ounces of a controlled substance in his red, 1995 Camaro.

All I thought after that was two things. 1. Why didn't they come during the daytime, I wasn't in immediate danger and needed all the good REM cycle sleep I could get. And 2. This would never happen to me in Washington.