The Hole

Something about going out of town sort of gets me in a panic; specifically, the last five minutes before we leave the apartment.  This is when my inner control freak likes to come out and do a little tap routine.  "KICK, ball change, shuff-le STEP!"  (She wears a red leotard.  It's all very frightening.)

As a rule, I tend to lean towards the morbid.  As in, God forbid something terrible should happen to us while we're away, when there are empty wine bottles under the sink and dirty underwear strewn on the bathroom floor!  Leaving town suddenly makes me crave a neat, orderly apartment.  One that doesn't have dishes in the sink, or sour milk in the fridge, or Tampax applicators hanging out in the trash can.  It just doesn't look nice.  That sort of thing.

We went out of town this past weekend, and tonight Hubby and I returned to our rental, sweet rental to find something very peculiar.  (Cue creepy theme music.)

When I came into the living room my husband was standing in front of our bookshelf looking puzzled.  "What's the matter?"  Why was he making that face?

There was a hole drilled into the ledge of our bookshelf, and sawdust sprinkled on each of the three shelves below. 

Oh.  Christ.

 

 

My imagination went into heart thumping overdrive.  Someone had been inside our apartment, with...power tools?  What kind of a sick f**k would do such a thing?  Hubby wondered if the maintenance people had come in to do some work, but why on earth would they have drilled a hole in our furniture?

My hypothesis was naturally more sinister.  It had to be those new neighbors, the ones who were hanging out and smoking beneath our window the other night.  It was sweltering that evening and the smoke was wafting directly into our apartment, and it stunk.  In a particularly passive aggressive turn, I'd yelled out, "Oh that smells SOOOO GOOD!"  Granted, they were a bit confused; but they'd heard me.  Could it be they entered into our apartment and drilled a tiny hole into our bookshelf as retribution for my nasty outburst?

Or could it be dogface and her two portly friends, the perpetual stoopers?  Dare they apply drills to innocent pieces of cheap furniture?  I was beginning to get a belly ache. 

The question remained, how would anyone have gotten in in the first place?  Nothing had been touched, everything was exactly as we'd left it.  It was a baffling mystery.  A woodworking conundrum. 

After serious reflection, Hubby produced two separate theories.  One, perhaps the furniture manufacturer had pre-drilled a hole that was then covered up by the shoddily painted veneer, which popped out due to the extreme heat and humidity.  Come to think of it, he did sort of remember a blemish on the wood that had always sort of bothered him.  Theory number two was maybe some sort of bug had eaten its way through the wood.

OR, I was thinking, a madman with a penchant for carpentry entered our apartment whilst we were out of town and drilled a perfect hole into our Target bookshelf to teach us a lesson.  That would show us.

I called my sister, who called her husband, a police officer, to relay the bizarre details: "Sissy just came home and found a hole drilled into her bookshelf." 

Now, my brother-in-law already thinks I'm a little crazy, but he was kind when I explained to him what we'd found.  He didn't think we should worry too much, although he agreed it was strange.

Hubby checked the closets and under the bed to put my mind at ease.  As he was peering into the hall closet, some twisted part of me braced myself for the nutcase who would surely come running out of our bedroom in full clown face, wearing a tool belt, a drill bit perched between his red clown lips.  He never did emerge.

Honestly, none of the windows or locks had been tampered with, so it just must have been one of those freak occurrences.  All the same, it was creepy.  Me no likey!

Comments

[Lori]

OB- we have these bees here in DTown recently called wood boring bees... they do exactly what your pictures show. Of course, here they are outside burrowing into our deck, but maybe one flew to Boston and right into your apartment!

[the odd broad]

It's funny you mention that, because the other night Hubby accidentally left the screen open to our kitchen window and I was wondering if a bug (or something worse) may have wandered in. Maybe it was one of those bees! Anything is better than thinking someone wacko came in with a drill, though. LOL! I didn't really sleep well last night...I'm still as big a scardy cat as I was when I was little! :)

[Weinerdog]

Winky?

[the odd broad]

That's exactly what I was thinking, at first. For a few minutes we didn't even say anything, we just stood there in silence, like what?! Winky?! I thought I was going to crap myself!

[Amy]

There are a lot of beetles that like to drill holes in wood. Part of the termite family. I even read a story about someone who purchased a piece of furniture and the beetle was actually living in the wood and dug itself out...made a similar type of hole. I've been researching, if you couldn't tell. :)

[the odd broad]

Thanks for the research, Winky! How disgusting is that, though? I was peering into the hole last night, looking for some sort of bug or bee. Eck. Hope your vacay is going well!

[Weinerdog]

It was Nicodeamus.

[the odd broad]

Oh shit. You are probably right. He's pissed that I wrote a post on him last week! LOL!

[Sissy]

Lester isn't there, right?

[the odd broad]

No way jose. Mommy hid him.