Today I woke up to an unexpected surprise. Promptly after showering and brushing my teeth I set into my morning routine that always begins with opening the curtains in our living room. As I made my approach through the semi-darkness I was startled to find a man, a stranger, sleeping on my couch. Now, last night a few of us went out for coctails at a local watering hole and my roommate returned approximately an hour before me and politely left the door unlocked to ease my drunken entering. Little did we realize that she also eased someone else's.
After the initial lurch of my heart into my throat "reasonable Danielle" started to work her magic. "Surely," I thought as I gave the guy a good look up and down, "Roomie must have had a friend stop by and she forgot to tell me he was craashing here....Or, perhaps he's her brother....do they look related? No, damn." The guy amazingly did not look that out of place. He looked like a regular college student, not a bum off the street. He had removed his shoes, helped himself to a bottle of water from my fridge and was curled up like a baby on my couch with a blanket and pillow. Now, ironically, my roommate had just the Monday before complained how she was unable to sleep in and so I wasn't about to wake her now, besides, she would wake on her own in about half an hour. So for the next 30 minutes I continued w/ my morning routine as usual including showering, dressing, and beginning to dry my hair, but the entire time I just had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that something wasn't right. I actually sat on my floor facing the door while drying my hair so that he wouldn't walk up behind me. I continued to reason with myself that everything was okay, and that perhaps he had dropped in unexpectedly, etc. Afterall, the door had been locked when I came home (he had locked it behind himself).
Finally, after about 40 minutes my roomie awoke and I asked her about her brother or friend....she had no idea what I was talking about so I put it bluntly, "you know there's a man sleeping on our couch, right?" ("please say yes, please say yes") Roomie: "NO! Are you serious?" -Shit. I could have died. After several unsuccessful attempts to locate a few of our guy friends to come over and take care of the "problem" my roomie decided to tell the man to leave herself. I was scared as hell but she calmly woke him up, informed him we did not know him, and politely asked him to leave. The man was surprisingly cordial though obviously hung over and said he had meant to crash at his friends house. In fact, he even looked around and asked if this was it -it wasn't. Then the man left. The moral of the story is trust your instinct...and....if there is a stranger sleeping on your couch don't be afraid to awaken your roommate to ask him who he is! Afterall, this is not the Danielle Hotel and strangers do not stay free on Wednesdays!
