Last night at 11:15 the buzzer to my apartment rang. That meant someone at the street level was wanting something. I could hear commotion, and so listened more intently to see if it might be a neighbor who forgot their outer door key. Living in a small apartment building, all of us are known to one another with varying degrees of friendship, but there is a camaraderie of helpfulness. They were insistent voices but none that I recognized. I ignored the buzzing. The buzzing stopped and then started again. I went to the intercom and asked who it was. “We’ve rented apartment number 2 and our door key doesn’t work and” -a bossy male voice in the background said- It’s cold out here, let us in!” None of this made sense to me, because apartment number 2 has a friend living it in full time. To reply on the intercom one has to switch from the talk button to the listen button and back to the talk button. It took a bit of switching for a coherent story to emerge. The ‘voices’ had rented apartment number 2 for a week, had been having trouble with outer door key, and they would show me the papers if I would let them in, now! I pressed the buzzer, put on a robe and went to the top of the stairs. The young woman, smelling dizzingly of alcohol showed me the rental papers for apartment number 2. Apparently, my friend, who left a few days ago to return to her family, in another state, decided to rent her apartment via an agency for temporary visitors to the City. I have known this as possible, I had never seen it in action. Her one bedroom apartment is lovely, well-furnished and full, as is any limited space apartment. I wondered how it would be to have complete strangers, not someone you know in the slightest, and in this instance, someone from another land, being in your space. Drunk. Of course she thought, this will go smoothly, there is an agency, they are responsible, no one will be the wiser or bothered… and yet..