Our Run In With the Law

Now that Mandy and I have successfully made the transition from Capital Hill to Fremont (more on that later) I wanted to share a funny story that happened to us during our last week living there. For those of you that didn't know, for the past six years Mandy has been the sexton at the Leffler House which is on the campus of Saint Marks Cathedral. When we got married two years ago I joined her in the duties. Sexton is a pretty cool sounding title but when it all comes down to it we were glorified janitors (or for the more PC title, custodial engineers). Some of our nightly duties included cleaning the house, taking out the garbage/recycle, sanitising, vacuuming, locking up, etc. In addition to this we also had to be there every night as a security percussion. It sounds like a lot of work, and it often was, but the pros definitely outweighed the cons. Possibly the biggest plus of being the sextons is that we were blessed with free rent for the entire time! We lived in the attic of the house which was pretty cramped but oddly cozy. No matter how you look at it, we had a good deal. There were some nights that this blessing felt like a curse. You know how some days you only want to get home from a long day of work/school and just relax, or go to sleep at a reasonable time? Well it is on those nights when it is really annoying to have to wait until 11:00 PM and go down stairs and clean up after others. With this job there are no nights off, not even if you are sick or have to go out of town, somehow the house needs to be cleaned. I will be the first to admit that some nights it was not bad at all, but other nights the cleaning could take up to two hours!

Well it was during one of "those" nights when my most exciting cleaning experience happened. It was one of out last days at the house. Mandy and I were upstairs in our apartment, she was boxing up some things in preparation for the move and I was working on one of my final papers for school. It was hot in our place so we had the swamp cooler on. Our swamp cooler is very old and very loud, so loud that even in a studio apartment we cannot hear each others voices over it. There was a dinner group downstairs that was not scheduled to leave until 10:00 PM. It was about 10:15 PM and I looked out the window and noticed that most of their cars were still in the parking lot. I figured that they were taking their time leaving so I went back to working on my paper. At about 10:45 PM I decided to head downstairs and get a head start on the cleaning (assuming everyone had left). It should be mentioned that when I go downstairs to clean I am not expecting to see anyone, therefor I am not dressed up. On this particular night I was especially dressed down. To paint you a verbal picture I was in some basketball shorts and a ratty old t-shirt, my hair was all messed up and kind of greasy looking from wearing a hat all day, I hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and I had on black church socks and flip flops (yes, socks AND flip flops). I went into the boardroom on the second level to take out the trash, I turn on the light and suddenly I hear a loud shout "SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT, COME OUT!" I was pretty confused so I walked to the stairway with my hands in the air and an empty trash bag in my hand. As I rounded the corner I was "greeted" by five police officers coming straight after me up the stairs. They surrounded me and led me down to the main floor and started questioning me. I was so caught off guard that I started stammering which did not help my case. The first thing they asked was "What are you doing here?" I was so confused but I answered honestly, I told them that I lived there. They scoffed and said "No one lives here", I replied, "Yes, I live in the attic." You should have seen their faces, I can only imagine what I looked like to them. I truly did look like I lived in an attic somewhere, a modern day Quasimodo. They continued to question me thoroughly, getting any information that they could from me. But here comes the best part, while we were talking to me me we heard another noise upstairs and I thought to myself "Shoot, Mandy is going to be coming down any minute." Sure enough here comes down the promenade my bride in her overstuffed, powder blue bath robe, tube socks and giant bright purple slippers. She was shocked to see me surrounded by police officers but she was mortified to have them see her in her unflattering nighttime regalia. We truly were quite the pair. We were able to convince the officers that we really did live there and were employees of the church. They informed us that someone leaving the dinner group heard noises upstairs and reported a burglary.When the cops first arrived they came and searched the house knocking on all doors but because our swamp cooler was on we did not hear them. The cops found no one on their initial search but continued to hear noises. They decided to stake out the house and wait for something to happen, and that was when I turned on the lights in the boardroom to take out the trash. We got everything squared away with the police, Mandy and I had a good laugh, and we have yet one more good story to add to the memories of living in Leffler House.