Surprise visitors

Here is yet another story I was reminded of when I went to visit my old college friends last month as mentioned in my post Too much to write. This story is a another one about one of my best friends, Jim. I told a story about him before in two parts, Unintentional practical joke - part 1 and Unintentional practical joke - part 2, because the story happened in two parts - separated by about a year. This story happened in two parts, too, but it wasn't nearly as intricate and didn't happen over the course of a year. So, I'll just tell this one in one post.

My friend Jim was very busy and  a little absent minded. He would sometimes lose his phone bill and his phone would be shut off. This didn't happen often but it happened two times that I remember. As I mentioned in the previous story about him, we were living near each other for about three years after graduating. He lived in a high rise apartment in Washington DC and I lived in a suburban apartment in Northern Virginia. As luck would have it, our good friends Nick and Andrea stopped in to see us. This was very unusual because Andrea was still finishing up her last year of college and Nick was serving in the Army in Germany. But Nick was home on leave so they decided to surprise us. Well, they were able to call me and we decided to surprise Jim in Washington. We couldn't call him ahead so we just showed up at his apartment building. There was always someone at the front desk and they sometimes wouldn't let you just go up to see someone. They liked to announce you or let you call before going up. We decided to not let Jim know that both Nick and Andrea were there. So, I called him (apparently the phones worked as an intercom even if he hadn't paid his phone bill) and told him that Andrea had made a surprise visit and we'd like to come up. He was a little upset because his room was a mess and if we'd wait a little while, he'd clean up a bit. We gave him time and then went up. Andrea and I made sure he was in another room and brought in Nick and hid him under the messy covers of the bed. When Jim went to straighten them up, Nick jumped out at him and we all had a good laugh at Jim's surprised look. I remember us having a great time that week-end. Then they had to leave and we went back to our regular schedule.

Weeks later, Jim told me a funny story that was funnier because of our surprise visit. He said he was sleeping soundly when he got a call from the front desk in the middle of the night. The desk clerk said that there were visitors on their way up to his room. If we hadn't done the same thing to him weeks before, he would have thought nothing of it and assumed it was just a mistake. But because we'd surprised him once, he figured we were doing it again but at a worse time. So, he rushed around the apartment getting it straightened up. He cleaned what he could and made himself as presentable as he could so early in the morning. He was surprised it took so long for the visitors to arrive but was grateful for the time. He finally decided he'd done enough and sat down to wait. And wait. And wait. After a while, he knew something was wrong. When he called down to the desk to see what was going on, they knew nothing about it. Either they'd changed shifts or had called the wrong room and didn't want to admit it or - it had all been a dream. But if it was a dream, he must have dreamt the phone call and then woke up. But he said it seemed so real, he didn't think it was a dream. It was just one of those mysteries in life. But he'd never forget the foolish feeling he had of being all dressed and ready in the wee hours of the morning. He went to bed early that night.