That time I scared the neighbors #Memoir #Nonfiction #CreativeNonficion #ThisIsMyLife

After taking a wonderful summer writing course last year, I decided to write my memoirs. I choose an awesome notebook (always the starting point for a new writing project for me). I took some notes. I came up with an awesome title! I even made some tabs in the notebook and…. That’s about as far as I got. At this rate, my nonexistent great-great-grandchildren will end up writing my memoirs.

And then I had an idea. (Don’t be scared, it happens more often.) I thought Why don’t I use my blog to get started? Awesome! So, from now on, I’m going to write a little tidbit from my memoirs on my blog each Friday. Do not expect these tidbits to be in any sort of order. I’ll just be writing my memoirs willy-nilly as I go.

I just received an email from a podcast I follow talking about cops and where they live. This reminded me of a story, which happened when I was stationed at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

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My boyfriend (now husband of more years than I like to think about) and I were living on the second floor of an apartment complex in the small town of Occoquan. Our downstairs neighbor was a little old lady with whom we had no problems. Well, except for when I ran on my treadmill. Apparently, my footfalls made it sound like the world was collapsing. Our neighbor was sweet when she complained. (I’m sure I would not have been nearly as calm as her.) We arranged a schedule for when it was okay for me to use the treadmill and voilà – problem solved.

Our upstairs neighbors, on the other hand, were a completely different story. They were loud and obnoxious. They were always having parties, and they never invited me! We started getting suspicious  they were up to no good. Whenever we went up to complain about the noise, you could hear dozens of feet scurrying around after the door bell rang. Add to that the people coming and going at all hours and it equals suspicious.

I’m one of those people who tend to let things go and let things go until – BAM! – I explode. Between the obnoxious upstairs neighbors and my unpredictable temper, things were bound to come to a head.

My position while stationed at Fort Belvoir was military police investigator (MPI). MPI are the low level detectives on an Army base. We investigated crimes like theft, spousal abuse, and child abuse. As an MPI, I was on call one weekend a month. One Saturday, I was called out to go in because someone had found a child in the barracks. Let me repeat that: A child was abandoned in the barracks. It was a long (and frankly, emotional) shift trying to find the child’s parents. When we made no headway on who this child could possibly be (these were the pre-9/11 days when bases weren’t as locked down as they are now), we had to accept defeat and call in child services to find a place for this child to sleep.

You can imagine I wasn’t in the best of moods when I rolled home at 3 a.m. to find my parking spot was taken and the upstairs neighbors were having a party. Before this, I’d always asked my boyfriend to go yell at the neighbors. But I was done. D-O-N-E. Done. I stomped upstairs and banged on the door. Not a little bang either. Oh no, I kept banging on that fricking door until someone opened.

After a few minutes, the door finally opened and the neighbor peeked out. He took one look at me, straightened up, and declared, “We’ll keep it down, ma’am.”

Huh? Why the sudden acquiescence? And what’s with this ma’am business? I looked down at myself and realized that in my haste to come home and then rush upstairs, I still had my badge hanging around my neck. Damn. I should have thought of using that badge earlier. (Just kidding. I would never – in all seriousness – have misused my authority on purpose.)

The next week the neighbors moved out. Problem solved.