The Crawl Space

I moved a lot while I was at BYU. Like, every semester or so. And I had crazy experiences almost everywhere I went. One of the places I lived was the top floor of a 3 story building, 5 apartments wide and 3 apartments tall. I lived in the middle apartment. One day my neighbor Alexia came and knocked on our door (she lived 2 apartments down, on the end). "I locked myself out of my apartment," she said. "Can I just hang out in your apartment for the next 6 or so hours until my roommate gets home?"

We let her come in, but my roommate had a better idea. "The crawl space!" she said cryptically. As we both looked at her in confusion, she explained that she had seen a maintenance guy go up into the attic to fix the heating or something. "There's a crawl space up there...I think it goes all the way across the complex!" That creeped me out more than a little, since the entrance to said crawl space just happened to be in my bedroom. Now I would have to be even more vigilant about checking for intruders when I came home at night. Good thing our neighbors were trustworthy!

I am always game for an adventure, so naturally I volunteered to go. Alexia and I donned sweatshirts and tennis shoes and put socks on our hands so we wouldn't touch the nasty itch-inducing insulation and tied bandannas over our mouths so we wouldn't have to breathe the nasty dust-filled air. Clearly concerned about our health and safety, we then balanced a chair on top of my nightstand and hoisted ourselves up into the crawl space.

Words can't describe the feelings of mystery and intrigue as we almost melted in the 100+ degree attic crawl space wearing sweatshirts and holding flashlights with our socked hands, trying not to breathe in the stale air too deeply. I basically felt like James Bond or Indiana Jones with socks on my hands. I led the way, crawling from one beam to the next, with Alexia following closely behind and Stephanie staying in our apartment in case something went wrong. A few minutes later I came to Alexia's apartment. I double and then triple checked to make sure we were at the right apartment and then knocked on the ceiling to warn Alexia's roommate in case she had returned home early (because how creepy would it be if your neighbors suddenly broke into your room through the ceiling while you were sitting there?!) and then broke through. We dropped through the hole--success--and then ran back to my apartment to report on our success, making sure to leave the door unlocked this time.

The best part of this whole adventure (besides the fact that we did it again a couple of weeks later when Alexia locked herself out of her apartment again)? My roommate, Stephanie, is a writer...and she put the story in to one of her books, Prank Wars! So basically I'm famous now.