When the U.S. Secret Service busts your neighbor...

When the U.S. Secret Service busts your neighbor in the middle of the night, you don't get much sleep. I learned that the hard way today.

This morning I desperately tried to sleep through a hangover after getting home really late from the Joan Jett show at the 9:30 Club here in D.C. We cooked dinner after the show, and we got to bed around 2 a.m. or later. It would have been ideal had I not woken up until eight. Then I wouldn't have to suffer through my post-beer/concert spinning.

At 4:45 a.m. a shriek and some yelling startled us awake. We immediately worried that it was our next-door neighbor and her boyfriend fighting, even though we haven't known them to fight.

I got up and listened at the front door. I heard at least five sets of footsteps run in the opposite direction of the noise, and someone commented quietly, "He shrieked like a girl." From what I heard, I immediately imagined teenagers or twenty-somethings pulling some sort of prank in the hallway. Then I thought that maybe there was danger down the hall, and people were running away... and that we might be in danger, too.

There was the occasional slight jangle of metal in the hallway, but otherwise, no more loud noises. We were totally puzzled. MFM opened the front door, barely peeked out, and saw two police officers right in front of our door. One officer told her, "Go back inside," and she pulled her head back in.

A couple minutes seemed to go by, and then, "POLICE!!!! SEARCH WARRANT!!!! POLICE!!!! SEARCH WARRANT!!!!" startled us half to death. It sounded like the agents were pounding on several doors at once (most units in our building have two doors.)

"POLICE!!! SEARCH WARRANT!!!!! POLICE!!! SEARCH WARRANT!!!!!! POLICE!!! SEARCH WARRANT!!!!!" It continued on.

"Oh, damn!" we looked at each other. Police officers were everywhere out there--we could hear lots of movement. I suggested that now was the time to get away from the front door. We got back in bed and were unable to go back to sleep. We didn't hear any violence, just occasional loud voices and doors closing. The police did not have to beat down a door.

I lay there for hours, my head spinning, and wondered which one of our neighbors was a suspected drug dealer or terrorist or whatever. When MFM left for work, she saw that the police were stationed outside of the apartment of the "creepy guy" from our hall. I never got a good vibe from the guy. He was short, unattractive, and mean-looking. He always had expensive clothes on... well, except when he did his laundry. Then he walked up and down the halls in his boxers like he owned the place. I saw him pushing business cards under doors one day, and the title read, "Mortgage Advisor" or something like that. I'm not even sure if it was his card.

When I left for work around 8:45, I rode the elevator with five officers, who I saw were actually from the U.S. Secret Service. They brought out bins of documents and white trash bags of other stuff from my neighbor's place. There was a Secret Service crime scene S.U.V. parked out front.

What a night. I'm actually relieved that it was a Secret Service bust and not a Montgomery County or D.E.A. bust. I wish I had known it was the Secret Service earlier--I might've gotten a little sleep.