Lioness Blackfire
08-05-2008, 04:56 AM
Some of the stuff in the "Ten Years Ago Today..." thread got me to thinking on this again, as it's something that's been bothering me for the past few days.
So, I live in one of those neighborhoods where everybody (and I mean everybody) yells and screams about everything. The slightest little thing will set them off, and sometimes it's for absolutely no reason at all. (Like when the neighbor kids used to hold screaming contests. That scared the bujeezus out of me the first time it happened!) Our yard (4 1/2 acres) is the largest on the street, as it used to be a small farm. There is a large, steep slope down leading to more flat land out in back, and the whole property is enclosed by chest-high fencing and trees. Running up against the back of our property is large, wild park.
So last week my friends and I went down the back hill and pseudo-camped for three and a half days. On the last day, one of my friends (I'll call her "K") brought up the complaint that she usually has when she's here - that she's worried about the screaming neighbors. Now, when she brought this up, I was surprised, because I'm a mite deaf and hadn't heard any shouting over the some seven trillion tree frogs, cicadas, crickets, and birds that were within hearing distance of our camp.
I tried to reassure K, as I usually do, that the neighbors around here scream and yell all the time. But this time (unlike previous times) she persisted, saying that the night before she heard someone screaming "let me out", and that just then she had heard someone (the same voice?) screaming "help me".
At that point, we paused in speaking and I strained to listen, and thought I might have heard over the extraneous noise, faintly, something like "ehhhh eeeee". I shrugged and told her then that it could very well just be the normal stuff, but that if she wanted to call the police, she was more than welcome to. She did not, and neither did anyone else in our group.
I have not, in the days hence, heard any suspicious screaming. That is to say, none that I could not decipher the words from. On the other hand, the windows in my bedroom face the opposite direction than the source of the sound.
I've been beating myself up a little over this, honestly, because I've gotten to wondering - should I have called the police? I couldn't tell what I was hearing, but I trust K implicitly, and if she said she was hearing "let me out" and "help me", I believe her. But if she thought it was really serious, why didn't she call the police herself? She's the one with good hearing, after all. On the other hand, it wouldn't be the first time that someone around here yelled distressing things for no apparent reason. (We used to look into these things, back when we first moved here.)
:( I'm so torn. I don't know if it's even worth calling the police, three days after the fact, knowing my neighborhood, and not even having heard it clearly myself. What do you guys think?
So, I live in one of those neighborhoods where everybody (and I mean everybody) yells and screams about everything. The slightest little thing will set them off, and sometimes it's for absolutely no reason at all. (Like when the neighbor kids used to hold screaming contests. That scared the bujeezus out of me the first time it happened!) Our yard (4 1/2 acres) is the largest on the street, as it used to be a small farm. There is a large, steep slope down leading to more flat land out in back, and the whole property is enclosed by chest-high fencing and trees. Running up against the back of our property is large, wild park.
So last week my friends and I went down the back hill and pseudo-camped for three and a half days. On the last day, one of my friends (I'll call her "K") brought up the complaint that she usually has when she's here - that she's worried about the screaming neighbors. Now, when she brought this up, I was surprised, because I'm a mite deaf and hadn't heard any shouting over the some seven trillion tree frogs, cicadas, crickets, and birds that were within hearing distance of our camp.
I tried to reassure K, as I usually do, that the neighbors around here scream and yell all the time. But this time (unlike previous times) she persisted, saying that the night before she heard someone screaming "let me out", and that just then she had heard someone (the same voice?) screaming "help me".
At that point, we paused in speaking and I strained to listen, and thought I might have heard over the extraneous noise, faintly, something like "ehhhh eeeee". I shrugged and told her then that it could very well just be the normal stuff, but that if she wanted to call the police, she was more than welcome to. She did not, and neither did anyone else in our group.
I have not, in the days hence, heard any suspicious screaming. That is to say, none that I could not decipher the words from. On the other hand, the windows in my bedroom face the opposite direction than the source of the sound.
I've been beating myself up a little over this, honestly, because I've gotten to wondering - should I have called the police? I couldn't tell what I was hearing, but I trust K implicitly, and if she said she was hearing "let me out" and "help me", I believe her. But if she thought it was really serious, why didn't she call the police herself? She's the one with good hearing, after all. On the other hand, it wouldn't be the first time that someone around here yelled distressing things for no apparent reason. (We used to look into these things, back when we first moved here.)
:( I'm so torn. I don't know if it's even worth calling the police, three days after the fact, knowing my neighborhood, and not even having heard it clearly myself. What do you guys think?