Ever Felt Like You Were Being Watched?

The above photo shows you what I see when I look out my living room window.  We live across from a seniors complex and I’ve posted a few times about how I feel a bit like we live in a goldfish bowl.  When you are sitting on my sofa, this is what you see…

Ok, without the window cleaning brush, I mean.  The buildings are quite a lot closer than they look in the first photo, so it’s pretty easy to look into each other’s windows, and that has always bugged me.

It has never bugged me more, however, than it did this morning.  By bugged I mean freaked me the hell out causing me to scream for Xander to come to the living room right away!

I may have over reacted, I don’t know, but here’s what went down.

It was 7am and it was still pitch black outside.  I was sitting on the sofa clipping the cat’s nails, when I had a weird feeling.  I looked out the window to the building across from us, which was mostly dark, with the exception of 2-3 windows that were lit up.   I glanced across the building and then like in a cartoon my view bounced back to one of the windows. There was someone standing there, just a silhouette in the window of a lit room.

Was he… waving?  No, he can’t be, he must be just wiping some condensation from the window or something.

Why does he keep wiping that same spot?

I think he is waving, is he waving to me??  No, it can’t be.

I whisper yelled to Xander in the Lego Lair, like a loud hiss “XANDER I THINK ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE ACROSS FROM US IS WATCHING ME!”

I’m not sure what I was expecting, it was only 7am but I expected something a little more than “That’s nice Honey”.

I continued to go about my business, stopping Spencer from clawing me to shreds while I clipped his nails, all the while rolling my eyes painfully upward to be able to see the dude in the window at the same time.  I was watching him, but I didn’t want him to know that I was watching him watching me!

The pattern continued, waving his hand in front of the window and then… why does he keep putting his hands up to his face like that?  What is he doing? Oh there, he’s waving again, hands back up in front of his face.  Waving.  Hands up to eyes… HANDS UP TO EYES… OMG HANDS UP TO FRIGGIN EYES!!!

“XANDER XANDER OMGGETINHERE THIS DUDE HAS BINOCULARS!!!!!! OMG HE’S WATCHING ME WHAT A FREAK GET IN HERE YOU GOTTA COME QUICK!!!”

***  silence ****

“HELLO?!!!! YOU GOTTA COME NOW RIGHT NOW COME LOOK THERE HE GOES AGAIN OMG HE IS WAVING! HE’S LOOKING THROUGH THE BINOCULARS AGAIN. HE IS WATCHING ME XANDERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

Meanwhile, I’d totally lost my cool and forget to pretend I wasn’t watching him watching me. I was full on running back and forth to the window, waving my arms and turning to hissscream to my husband.   Now that I look back on it, the guy was probably so glad that he got his binoculars out on this morning in particular because I was giving him an Emmy winning performance.

I went and turned off the light, HA! I’ll show him!, I thought.  I grabbed my point and shoot camera and tried to zoom in as best I could.  I’m so incredibly clever and sneaky, I’m going to catch him in the act!  As I pressed the shutter halfway down and saw the little red light reflecting on the window, I knew what was coming.  I only knew a split second before it happened, which was the longest split second of my life because I couldn’t stop it.

**************** FLASH ****************  DAMMIT!

I had forgotten to turn the flash off before trying to take the photo.   SHIT SHIT!!  Oh no now he’s really on to me!  Drat!

He was waving, oh god… oh no there he goes with the binoculars again!

I quickly turned off the flash, whipped the P&S up in front of me and hoped for the best.

So creepy, so creeeepy!  After getting this photo I scurried back to my chair (which is out of view from the window) and uploaded the photo and share my story.  SO CREEPY!  Don’t you think that’s creepy?!

I mean yeah we all have moments where we walk by houses and will peep in the window if the curtains are open.  We don’t STOP and cup our hands to the window and watch what’s going on inside.  We don’t bring a lawn chair down the street and sit on the sidewalk with a box of popcorn and watch our neighbours play Scrabble.

Why does this person think it’s ok to look in our windows with binoculars?  Ok, it’s possible that he wasn’t watching me, maybe he was looking somewhere else but I could FEEL it, I know he was!  Nobody in any of the flats around me in the building are ever up at this hour and you can just tell when someone is watching you, ya know?  *Shudder*

I may never open my curtains again.  Ever.