2004-07-26 - 9:13 p.m.

I Cower At Door Knocks

I'm freaking out here!

Somebody just surprised me by buzzing my apartment way past my bedtime while BusyBee is out. It was a girl and she said (on the answering machine): "Hey Rufus, It's Lauren. Are you there? Heh heh. Okay, bye."

This is what is freaking me out: I don't know a girl named Lauren. Well, I did ten years ago, but I barely knew her at all. Certainly not to the show up unannounced stage.

And she called up three more times!

See, if this was somebody I actually knew, they would know that I was asleep and that I never take visitors without advance warning. So it was either a deceptive stranger or somebody showing up from deep in my past. Both are scary thoughts.

As I am writing this I hear noises in the hallway, and check them out. I now have a steak knife beside me. I have adrenalin going and heart pumping. Why is this mysterious female voice freaking me out so much?

It's not like I'm Barton from Ray Bradbury's "Night Call Collect" and I am receiving phone calls from myself on Mars.

Who the hell was that?

I can't sleep now.

9:56pm - Okay, I'm still alive and BusyBee is home, so I can go to sleep without worrying that I will be murdered or something. She listened to the message too, and it wasn't anybody she knows. Very strange, but she hasn't been back.

Yet.

3:48 am - Still alive. Half expecting to find weird messages scrawled on my scooter. Off to work.