Felonies of unsettling nature

Turns out that someone with too much free time and a few screws loose has been trying real hard to make us feel unwelcome. The first time it was a banana pressed on the floor in our doorway... we thought it was just an accident. The second time around, a few weeks later, we found a pair of long johns hanging from our doorknob; I took them and threw them outside but two days later someone rang the bell (there are bells only on the front door, the doors inside have knockers) and the long johns were back. I put them in our trash bin and, though I was upset, I chose to ignore the business.

Wrong choice. A few days later I came back home at noon to find lettuce leaves scattered on the doorway. From the distance I thought someone might have dropped their newspaper, but that wasn't the case. They were lettuce leaves, and only on our doorway. That's when I contacted Scott, the building manager, and told him about the whole thing. He assured me that the caretaker would relieve us from the veggie arrangement gracing our doorway, and urged me to call 911 and file a report.

It seemed a bit of an overreaction, so I didn't call.

Scott hung a notice on the front door offering a reward to anyone giving information and a big fine to the culprit, and that seemed to be deterrent enough.

But when a few days later, I found a pepperoni pizza literally smeared on the carpet, again in front of our door, I thought that made it. I called Scott again, who came in diligently and inquired about any suspects I may have.

Now, I've never scratched anyone's car in the parking lot, or stole any piece of clothing from the laundry room or orchestrated mayhem or offense of any sort, so I was really clueless. What kind of enemies have I made, and why? But as this veiled threats business was escalating, I thought it was time I called 911.

So I did. If things had been a bit wacky, my conversation with the forces of order was downright surreal.

- Good morning, 911, I'm xxx, what can I do for you?
- Good morning, I want to file a report on debris on my doorway.
- Excuse me, ma'am, is this an emergency? Is property or life in imminent danger?
- No sir, I want to file a report on the fact that someone has been leaving trash on my doorway, likely as a threat but no, this is not an emergency and there is no imminent danger.
- All right, please call 311, your city council.
- Thank you, I will. Have a nice day.
-You too, goodbye.

- Good morning, 311, my name is yyy, how can I help you?
- Good morning, I want to file a report on debris on my doorway.
- Can you explain me a little more?
- (brief summary of events, including that it was Scott's idea to call)
- You can't report that. I'm sorry, we don't have pepperoni pizza as a criminal report.
- I could guess as much. I'm sure this is a threat though. I feel threatened!
- Ma'am, stay calm. Pizza is harmless. Tell the caretaker to clean it and be mindful of any suspecting attitudes.
- Oookeeeey, thank you anyway.

And well, that's it so far. I agree there wasn't any need to dial 911, but I'm not that sure about pepperoni pizza not being a crime. Because I've felt Pepperoni Jack or Red Baron (3 for 5 bucks) are criminal, but only after you ate them.

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Just in case you're curious, there's a Spanish version of this post here: http://fefoyjulia.blogspot.com/2009/05/felonias-de-naturaleza-inquietante.html

Cross my mind

Cross my mind, I love that expression! It makes me think of highways coming in and out my head.
Charlotte (Winona Ryder), The last word, 2008.

Welcome to crossings of my mind, my blog in English. Here you'll find some ramblings, some rants and some anecdotes but mostly, English versions of my posts in Fefo y Julia and other blogs I've written in the past but don't exist anymore.

I don't promise to be always truthful or always fictional, to restrain myself to only frivolities or heavyweight subjects, to be punctual as death or reliable as a weather vine, but I promise to try my best to always give you some food for thought, or at least, put a smile on that beautiful face of yours.

Enjoy.