I admit, in the past I have been accused of hyperbole, and rightly so. I assure you, however, that everything you are about to read is fact. The names have not been changed because there’s nobody innocent to protect.
Shortly before Jen came home from work Monday night, I remember hearing a car alarm go off. It was one of those alarms that cycles through the different sounds, you know…
wooohooo wooohooo wooohooo wooohooo
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooppppp -Woooooooooooooooooooooooooppppp
Heeeeeehaaaaaaaaa-heeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaa-heeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaa
Ehhhh- ehhhh- ehhhh- ehhhh- ehhhh- ehhhh- ehhhh
and then it repeats, usually pausing for a few minutes before starting the cycle again. As with most car alarms, I didn’t really give it much thought. I had the TV on and it was only a minor distraction during commercials when I had the sound down. When Jen came home, she mentioned hearing the alarm, which I thought was odd since it had been a good half hour since I first remember hearing it. Usually those things time out after awhile, or the owner gets a clue and fweeps the remote to turn it off. When I told her the alarm had been going off for awhile, Jen suggested we should call the police, but I still didn’t think too much of it.
In the tragedy of my Texas life story, going to bed seems to be my fatal flaw. As I lay there mentally preparing myself for the possibility of another early morning wakeup call, the car alarm became more apparent. Jen suggested again that we should call the police. It was now approaching 12:30 and the alarm had been going intermittently for about an hour. In the great state of Caleefoooooooooornia, any noise like that lasting more than thirty minutes is considered a disturbance of the peace, and law enforcement is empowered to act at their discretion, which can include towing. When I realized I was mentally timing the duration of the alarm and the break between cycles, I made the call.
I called the dispatcher and made the complaint. I figured it wouldn’t be a high priority call, so I went back to bed, 5AM comes early. Jen was all wound up. She perched herself on a chair by the window and waited like a kid peering through a toy store window for the cavalry to arrive. After a few minutes she grew impatient and decided to make a second call, after all, she reasoned, two complaints should escalate the call. Eventually she got tired of waiting and went to bed as well, but it turns out neither one of us was really sleeping.
I faded in and out of consciousness for a few hours. When I wasn’t catching a few minutes of sleep, I was listening to the alarm. During the two minutes when the alarm shut off, I was poised in bed, waiting for the smoke detectors to go off. At some point, it was probably around two or three, I remember getting up to go to the bathroom and still consciously hearing the alarm and wondering how it was possible that
a) it was still going off and
b) no one else had done anything about it.
It didn’t surprise me that the police had never come by, but it did disappoint me. The car wasn’t even parked directly in front of our apartment, our windows were closed and the air conditioner was on, and it still was keeping us awake. I tried to go back to bed but it really was pointless, and by the time I realized I wasn’t getting any sleep, it was too late.
About 4:30 I was in one of my brief sleep cycles when I remember hearing Jen on the phone again. The dispatcher was trying to explain to her that there was nothing they could do, this was “not a disturbance”. With the edgy annoyance of insomnia in her voice, Jen told her firmly “it’s been going off since 11 O’clock, how can that not be a disturbance?”
The dispatcher was not sympathetic to the cause, but promised to send an officer. With Jen upset, my own nerves frayed, and the history of the smoke alarm debacle, I was quickly approaching my limit. Insomnia is extremely effective at removing tolerance and replacing it with belligerence. And of course you all know from my last correspondence, I was already angry.
It wasn’t too much longer before I heard a low rumble that sounded like it might be a car. The alarm was not going off. I immediately jumped out of bed and stormed to the window in time to see a police car passing our building and turning the corner. I snapped.
I grabbed the phone in a fit of rage and hit redial. A dispatcher answered. To my best recollection, the conversation went like this:
Sean: Hi, I’m calling from the apartment complex where the car alarm has been going off ALL night.
San Antonio Police Department: OK sir, what is the address?
(As if she didn’t know about this situation? How could she not know? I played it cool.)
S: 9931 Hyatt Resort Drive—you have an officer here RIGHT NOW, he just drove right by the car.
SAPD: Is the alarm going off right now?
S: No.
SAPD: The officer is not going to just wait around. What do you want us to do?
(I lost my cool.)
S: I bet if I go down there and start yelling for six hours you’d do something about it.
SAPD: (beginning to get a little bit of attitude) Would you like to speak to police?
(Utterly flabbergasted, I am for a moment at a deliberate loss for words. I really had nothing more to say other than to tell her the alarm was going off again, which I knew would happen if I kept her on the phone long enough. It worked.)
S: (furious and now literally shouting at her) It’s going off now, let me open my goddamn window—can you hear THAT!???
SAPD: No sir, I can’t. Would you like to speak to an officer?
S: YES.
SAPD: What’s your name?
S: Sean Genovese
SAPD: What apartment?
S: 1534
SAPD: (after a few moments of silence and typing) OK.
S: So he’s going to come here?
SAPD: Yes
S: Thank you. (click)
I grabbed my slippers and damn near jumped down the stairs in my T-shirt and “sleeping shorts”, scraping the back of my heel on the way down (I’ll sue Allied for it later). Jen was not far behind me, I think she was hoping for a fight. I walked over to where the offending vehicle was parked and began pacing back and forth behind it, again wondering how I’m the only one who seemed to be bothered by this situation. Finally, about ten minutes later, the officer returned. I stormed toward the patrol car, my phone in one hand and a clenched fist in the other.