Wake up call

Today I had a wake up call. Not just your daily ‘it’s time to go to work’ one. This time it was one of those hotel wake you up calls that make you jump out of your bed and get your heart pounding so hard, you think you might be having a heart-attack (ok, so it’s not THAT bad, but seriously, aren’t those just darn annoying?) Today, I had my “Miss Salgueiro, this is your wake up-knock on the door-it’s time for your reality check call of the year.

So, here’s what happened. I was sitting on my comfy chair watching TV when someone knocked at my door so hard I literally jumped out of the chair. I asked who it was and nobody answered. Who ever it was knocked again way harder, so hard that I though he/she was going to knock it down. I kept asking who it was and still no answer. And then my heart starts pounding so hard I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. And then a third knock comes along and I started screaming I’d call 911 if he/she didn’t tell me who it was… and STILL no answer.

In 5 split seconds I grabbed my cell phone, scrambled through my head for names of who I could call and bang… ‘wake up call’… I didn’t know/have who to call. It’s not an emergency, I thought, so I couldn’t call 911. My one friend who I knew would stop doing whatever she was doing and come running is out of town, so I couldn’t call her. My roommate had left 20 minutes earlier and I thought he might think I was stupid. I ended up calling my friend’s roommate, since they live 5 minutes away, and got no answered. I did end up finding someone to call, although I still thought he would think I was stupid, but he answered and he was willing to drive 30 minutes to get here.

In between those 5 split seconds and the 30 minutes that would take for my rescuer to arrive, the police knocked on my door (hint: I did call my roommate and he had called the police). I busted into tears as I was telling my story about the 3 knocks on the door, how nobody would answer and how frustrating all this was for me since I could not have been able to see who could it have been since I am too short to actually be able to look through the “peep-hole”.

And here’s where the stupid part ACTUALLY comes in. It wasn’t that I had jumped out off my chair by a frantic knock on the door, it wasn’t that I grabbed air freshener to spray the knocker’s eyes in case he made his way into my apartment, it wasn’t that I cried more than when I saw the end of Armageddon (yeah, the movie) an hour earlier, nor the fact that I had not felt so alone since I had moved to 'the states' and stepped out of my comfort zone, one year and a half ago.

Nop, it was when the policeman asked me if the UPS guy had stopped by earlier. Yup, THIS is right exactly were I started feeling way stupid. I turn around and find this UPS package slit sticked to the door. In less than 3 split seconds I put all the pieces together. To help you out in case you haven’t yet, the UPS guy had been the knocker who 25-30 minutes earlier had scared the hell out of me!!!

So there you go…3 knocks on the door, 5 split seconds of rambling in my head for a rescuer and 1 reality check and I’m back on my feet again in 30 minutes. The fact is that, no matter how strong and independent one might be, there will come times when we'll need of others. Period. I just hope that if you are ever in the same situation, you’ll have someone on speed dial and be safe and sound in 1 split second. I also hope that second time around, so would I.