Two years ago my husband and I flew to L.A. for a weekend getaway. We stayed at a boutique hotel off of Sunset. It’s more of a hipster type place, not normally somewhere I’d stay but it was nice, clean and had a good vibe.
We met up with our friends who live in L.A, and went out for dinner and drinks. It was a late night and we came back to the hotel. I was exhausted and jet lagged. It was 1:30 am or something like that. My husband is a very deep sleeper. I’m an extremely light sleeper, except when I’ve had a bunch of drinks, which I had definitely consumed that night. So it was lights out for both of us very quickly.
Around 3 am (I only know the time after everything has happened) I wake up suddenly and open my eyes. There’s a light on in our room. The room had been totally dark when we went to bed. The light came from the doorway, which illuminated the silhouette of A MAN standing at the foot of the bed. Just standing there staring. For a moment I am speechless, confused and also slightly intoxicated. I haven’t yet moved. My reaction is delayed and then the stark fear and reality kick in, I gasp and say, ‘What the fuck?!’ The man was wearing a red plaid shirt and had dark hair and a beard. I couldn’t make out his features as my eyes were adjusting to waking up and the lighting that illuminated him, shadowed half of his face. The man says, “I need to speak with Drake.” I know this may sound somewhat comical, but I assure you at the time it was fucking terrifying. I scream, “GET THE FUCK OUT!” which jolts my husband awake, who immediately sits up and sees man at the foot of our bed. My husband is 6’5, which may not be evident given half his body is underneath the bedding, but either way, the man responds, “Sorry wrong room!” and bolts out, slamming the door behind him.
My husband jumps up and runs for the door but I stop him from going outside into the hallway. Who knows if the man is waiting there, trying to lure him out, or whether there are other men out there ready to pounce? I keep looking through the peephole but don’t see anything.
At this point, we are both shocked and in disbelief and probably still drunk. We call down to the front desk. No one answers. We call repeatedly and still, no one answers. We contemplate what to do, and around 20 minutes later, we decide to get dressed and go down to the front desk. There is an employee at the front desk and there’s also a bar in the lobby. My husband walks around to see if he can spot the guy who was in our room and as he’s searching, I go up and start telling the guy behind the front desk what happened. But as I begin the story, I burst into tears. I realize how shaken up I am. The employee gets the manager and he asks me what time the man came in the room, etc. But I don’t know how long he was standing there until I woke up and saw him. I think he must’ve been there a long time for me to just...wake up. My husband comes back empty handed.
We go back up to the room. The next day, the manager calls and says there wasn’t anything on the security cameras. I didn’t believe him. He offers us one free night at the hotel as compensation, even though he claims he didn’t see anything. We take the free night because what else is there to do. We just want to go about the rest of our mini vacation. Why was this man in our room? How did he have a working key card? But the thought I have the most trouble with...what would’ve happened if I hadn’t woken up?
Our door was locked, but clearly someone had a duplicate key card. Here’s what I’ve learned...if you don’t already, always put the dead lock on your hotel room door. It’s something we never thought to do and now I always check it. Twice.
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