Being rudely awakened.

Note the time stamp.

I was pretty sound asleep, when suddenly there was a BANG BANG. It woke me up - it seemed close - and I listened. "Thunder?" I wondered even though no rain was forecast. I tried to go back to sleep. More banging.

Holy cow. Is someone trying to break in? It's pounding at my side door, the one off my laundry room, the one NO ONE who knows me ever uses. I got up and put on all the lights, thinking "If it's some idiot kid trying to break in, maybe knowing that someone is awake and aware will scare them off"

Nope.

Then I thought: could some largish animal have picked a fight with my door? I know there are both raccoons and opossums in the neighborhood.

Nope - I heard a human voice.

Oh, s***.

I called the police non-emergency number - after all, whoever it was wasn't in my house YET, I reasoned, and I know 911 gets awfully unhappy for non-emergencies, and what if it's just some drunken idiot who thinks this is his girlfriend's house but he's on the wrong block?

The woman - the phone rang like four times and I was on the point of hanging up and calling 911 - said "Oh yes. There's a large bald white man in a white shirt who is bleeding and is looking for assistance."

In my still-kind-of-sleepy-state, I thought, "Wait, they do not seriously expect me to let him in my house"

He was still pounding and I whispered into the phone, "Oh God, is someone going to do something?"

She said, wearily, "We're aware of it and are on the way to try and find him."

I reiterated my address, said he was on the North side of the house, and said I'd put on my porch light to help the police locate him.

But yeah. It's quieted down - it's about 10 minutes or so after I called - but I don't know what to do. Are the cops going to want to speak to me? Can I go back to bed (as if I could sleep NOW)

This is my first experience with this sort of thing: normally the neighborhood is very quiet and I wonder who the "large bald white man" was and exactly why he wound up bleeding. I'm hoping whatever incident led to it was in another part of town and this isn't going to become a common thing here.

Oh crud. I also left my garage door mostly up because it's broken (the door guy is supposed to come out this afternoon). I hope if there was any "disturbance" around back that way my car is OK. I also wonder if they're going to want the SOCO guys to have access to my side yard, if in fact a crime was committed. (I can only think of one instance of why a guy might be bleeding that WOULD NOT be a crime).

I still faintly hear things so I don't know if the cops are working with him....maybe I peek out to see if I can see an ambulance...

ETA: about 20 minutes since I first heard the banging. All is quiet and I cannot see any police cars or ambulances so either they found the guy and got him "assistance" or else he wandered off elsewhere.

(this sounds rather selfish/FWP-y but ugh, I hope that side porch isn't covered in blood. Human blood can carry a lot of bad stuff)

I decided to set my alarm back to 6 (so I don't get up to work out) because I think trying to catch a bit more sleep is probably preferable to getting in an early-morning workout but I don't know if I'll be able to relax again. And now I have a bit of a headache.

Also ETA: I just realized my side porch was a weird choice. It's obviously little-used (there are leaves piled up on it) and it's behind the fence (which I don't keep locked, though maybe that changes now....) I wonder if he was some kind of low-level criminal trying to avoid the police - I know if *I* were injured the first thing I would try to do would be to get out somewhere visible and maybe flag down a car and ask them to call an ambulance for me.

Perhaps it will be on the local news. If it's something big, or some kind of "weird crime" and they want to talk to me on camera, I think I'll refuse. I might give a statement but I don't want my face on the tv over this.

***

Edited to add, mid-morning:

* I did manage to grab a couple more hours of sleep but I spent a long time beforehand lying in bed repeating over and over again in my mind, "You're safe, you're fine, that was a rare thing, it's not going to happen again."

* I still have kind of a headache this morning. Plan now is, as soon as my lab students complete their assessment test I am just going straight home and slacking for the rest of the day/evening. (I hope I'm not getting sick: I have hives badly, and I felt cold last night.)

* My department's secretary, who has a son who is a county deputy, is going to ask him to see if he can find out any information.. Mostly I want to know if the guy was actually picked up by the cops. My guess right now is, since he was pounding on random doors - and not front doors - is that he didn't want authorities to find him. Am not sure what a homeowner could do, but my mind goes to bad places about what might happen if a homeowner had let him in.

* I did not look at the porch; it was still dark when I headed over here and I didn't want to blunder around there in the dark. I do know the screen door on that door is hanging (stuck, and I hope not broken) open, so I'll have to attend to that. I hope there's not blood around though I think the dispatcher did say "bleeding profusely"

* I went out to my garage this morning with my cell phone on and in my hand; normally I carry it in my purse and turned off. I had visions of the person who attacked the guy approaching me to want to find out where he was.

* Nothing on the news, but there was a car-burglary ring busted and a bad car accident in the area so I guess the thing that happened to me wasn't important enough. That's why I'm hoping the secretary's son has something to pass on to me.

* I feel a little shaky and fragile today, probably from having had my sleep interrupted. I feel better now than I did earlier but I still don't feel GREAT. I might take a hot bath this evening before bed.