Which is also known as the “time we got ordered out of our apartment at gunpoint by the police at 2:00 in the morning” incident! True story dat!
My brother, myself, our cousin, and her daughter (who I refer to as my niece because I looove her so!) were sharing a third floor apartment. My niece was four years old at the time, so of course she loved to jump around and I was constantly reminding her not to run so we wouldn't bother the people below us. I can't tell you how many times I would hear running through the living room, and I would open my bedroom door to remind my little sweetie of the no jumping or running rules.
So imagine my reaction one late night (or early morning – whatev's) when I hear running go straight through the living room from the sliding door/balcony towards the front door! I was sitting on the side of my bed with my laptop and I could literally feel the floor shaking underneath my feet with each pounding step. With an “oh no she di'int just do that at 1:30 in the morning she better not be anywhere near that balcony she knows the rules about windows and doors around here what is she doing up anyway” look on my face, I got up ready for a more stern reminder of the rules (Meli never yells yo, she sweetly but firmly reminds :D).
Swinging my door open, my sweetie is nowhere to be found, but I look up straight into the shocked face of my cousin who had been sitting at the kitchen counter painting (she is quite the artiste!). Turning to the left, I see my brother poking his head into the living room from his bedroom door with an equally shocked look on his face. Our first question of course was “Where's Trae?”
My cousin is standing now, clutching her paint brush, and by this I mean she's holding her paintbrush like a stabby weapon. Her eyes are still wide and she manages to squeak, quite literally, “She's asleep! She's in bed! Did you HEAR THAT!?! Something just RAN BY ME! The floor shook so hard my CHAIR STARTED SHAKING!”
Now my eyes and my brother's eyes went all round and saucer like too! Still looking around for little sweetie, because she CAN in fact be quite sneaky....we each confirmed what we heard and felt. My brother said he was sitting in bed with his laptop and the floor shook so bad his whole bed moved. We were like, there HAS to be an explanation. We jumped up and down. Floor didn't shake. Made my cousin run through the living room. Floor didn't shake. Made my cousin run on the walkway outside the front door. Floor didn't shake.
So, being mature adults, we all reach the most rational conclusion we could think of. We have a ghost! It's now my brother decides to tell us about an incident that happened while he was visiting his friend in Arizona. He had just come back from his trip not much before, so he was still rattled by what had happened. I don't remember the whole of the story but his friend is Native American and they were staying in a secluded house on the reservation. A secluded house of the no electricity no running water variety. He said they were sitting in the living room talking, just hanging out when he started hearing weird music. Faintly at first but it started getting louder and louder. Finally he asks his friend if he heard it too and he said that he did, and began closing all the curtains. He told my brother to stay quiet until it passed. I'm not sure why, but part of the belief behind this is you just don't want to get “It's” attention. So they sat quietly as the music got louder and louder and then fainter until it disappeared. They talked more about it and he explained the story to my brother, who explained it to me but I forget what it was. At this point we reach another understanding... "This thing followed you home!!! It's here now!!!” We're very rational thinkers you see-not much gets by us!
So my brother pop's up, “I have sage! My friend gave me sage! We'll smudge the apartment!”
So he runs down to his car where he had left it and came back up and rolled it into a stick. Think mega blunt held together with string instead of rolling papers! So, he lights the sage stick and starts walking around the apartment. I'll spare you the room by room details, but just know that me and my cousin were not to be left behind by ourselves in the kitchen. My cousin and I were pretty much wrapped in each others arms as we clutched the back of my brothers shirt and shuffled along behind him so close you couldn't have squeezed a quarter between us! Poor guy was quite literally dragging us around behind him! Haha! Slowly but surely our apartment fills with the aroma of sweet Mary Jane (it was SAGE! I swear!). This probably took all of ten minutes.
So my brother drags us back to the kitchen and he's putting out the smudge stick and we are talking about what had just happened. I start walking towards my bathroom when this loud POUNDING came from the front door! I stopped and looked back at my brother and cousin-they are looking at the door like “WTF?” Mind you it's a little before 2 a.m. We just stand there a few moments and it happens again...BAM BAM BAM BAM! It totally wasn't a 'cop knock', it sounded creepy and slow, so my brother walks to the door and looks through the peep whole. He turns to us and he tells us “There's no one there.” BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!! Now my brother is still standing by the door and he looks out the peep hole again. He turns around and again says, “Dude, there is NO ONE there.”
By this time my cousin is in tears because I think we all reached the same conclusion at the same time....we banished this ghost from our apartment, AND. IT. WANTS. BACK. IN! We start turning off lights and we come back into the living room and again...BAM BAM BAM BAM!!! My brother looks out the peep hole, but this time he unlocks the door and as he starts to open it he says “Its the cops!” (They had been knocking and retreating, the only place for them to go was around the railing where they couldn't be seen. My brother was finally able to see a badge flash on its way back around.)
So he opens the door and they've got guns and flashlights on us telling us to put our hands up and grabbing my brother and shoving him to the walk way and handcuffing him! My jaw dropped! We had our hands up and we crowded onto the walkway outside. My cousin and I are freaking out, and they're asking if we have weapons and if we have a child in the apartment. We explain that my niece is asleep in her room and my cousin starts flipping out-and they have to promise they are not there to take her. No kidding, there were like six or seven cops surrounding us. So after telling them there were no weapons and about my niece, three of them go in to search the apartment. During these few minutes, I remember looking over at my brother-who is still on his knees and handcuffed-meeting his eyes and raising an eyebrow, and we both pretty much smirked at each other. If I wasn't so freaked out I probably would have busted out laughing.
Who knows what the next question is..go on..what is it? One officer comes out and asks me, “Ma'am. Why does your apartment smell so heavily of marijuana?”
Literally in unison all three of us answered, “It's just SAGE!!!”
My brother added, “It's on the counter, you can go see for yourself.” You can imagine the suspicious look on his face as he went back in. They didn't find the weed they really wanted to find, because there wasn't any, so they let me and my cousin back into the apartment. They took a little longer to let my brother out of the handcuffs, but just as I was about to freak that they weren't going to return my brother to me, they let him go.
One of the cops finally says, “Well, let me tell you why we're here. Someone called and said there was a man holding a child in the window at gunpoint, and there was a woman screaming."
Our jaws dropped for like the 9409475th time that night. What?!?! We ask if they are sure they have the right apartment, and the cop responds that (somehow-sounds shady to me...)dispatch still have the person who called on the phone. And yes, this is the right apartment. And to top it off, they (the police) had been watching our apartment for a bit before they climbed up and knocked on the door. Which also sounds strange as it had only been about 25 minutes since we had heard the strange noises in the first place.
During this time the other cops are still writing down information and asking what we had been doing that night-and the purpose for what they called "The Sage." You could literally see the quotations around the word as they said it..lol. So my brother explains about sage and how it is used to cleanse homes and left it at that.
The rest of the conversation goes like this:
Cousin: ".....because we have a ghost! We were hearing noises......" starts running in place to demonstrate. "...and the floor was shaking...."(I swear she was not high..lol, she was just scared-it was just sage I promise! haha)
Me: "um..*coughs and gets squinty eyed*...yea, we were hearing noises......?"
Cop 1: "That's what happens when you smoke marijuana......"
The three of us in unison: "It's just SAGE!!!"
Cop 1: "So basically you were all up here telling stories and just scaring the shit out of each other...."
Me: "Well.....yes.....something like that *eyes cast downward* ...there were noises..."
Cop 2 (next to me): *snicker snicker giggle giggle*
Cop 1 (looking at each of us one at a time with a questioning look): Are you all three related?
Me: "Yes, and that should explain everything."
Cop 2 (still standing next to me): *giggle giggle snicker snicker*
He shook his head and looked like he wanted to laugh and like he couldn't believe what complete and utter morons we were. So he gave us his card, we got back our id's, and he told us if we had questions to call or we could get a copy of the report if we needed/wanted to. After they left we shut and locked the door and just stood there looking at each other. What the heck was THAT about??
It was so weird. It was so confusing because this all just didn't sound right. Our apartment was on the third floor, surrounded by trees! There was no way to see into the apartment unless you were doing it deliberately-and then, you could only see our living room ceiling and bedroom ceilings. I know this because the next day we went walking around to check this, and there is no way to just happen to look over and see into the apartment. Mine was the only window without a tree, but it overlooked the street and my curtains were closed anyway. AND they must have gotten there just after my brother went and got the sage. Which ALSO means, someone must have called about the time we heard that crazy running and felt the floor shake!
The kicker? Since it was past midnight it was technically my brother's birthday. My cousin had left him some silly notes in front of his door to wake up to. The first said something like "Happy Birthday, [insert random birthday jabber here]" the second one had a random silly picture, and the third said in big bold letters....."And guess what! I HAVEN'T SMOKED WEED IN FOUR MONTHS!"
To top it all off you walk into my brothers room and see this poster mocking you:
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| Sage indeed man! Sage indeed! |
It's just insane how it all happened. To be sitting in our beds (and kitchen) and hearing a weird noise and then being told there were screams coming from our apartment and child being held at gunpoint! Like, what does one have to do with the other?? I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is a completely true story! Haha!! I still can't figure it out! It was such a strange night! We didn't know what worried us the most-the possibility of a ghost or that someone was watching our apartment! lol We "debunked" our ghost, telling ourselves it was kids that lived downstairs, but it still doesn't explain why our floors shook so hard. So who knows? Little sweetie slept through the whole thing thank goodness!
Here's some info on smudging...which is so funny. We did it wrong anyway! Haha! You are supposed to open a door or window so the "negative energy" can leave easily. If there was such a thing in the apartment, all we did was piss it off and keep it trapped in there with us! Smart of us quick thinkers! Very smart! lol
Picture from: www.graphichunt.com
