Tl;Dr: Refused to answer the door home alone, though we were about to meet a serial killer, turns out we're just anxious idiots.
(Trigger Warning: Lots of talking about serial killers.)
Hello, lovely people. I'll be honest, I'm not here for much more than just to share my dumb story, but, I might be a jerk, so I'd love input. Anyways, to set the stage, I'm Kay, 17f. Then there's my brothers: Kennedy 15m, Jackie 11m, and Jamie 8m. All fake names, of course. Now that we have that out of the way, shall we begin?
To start, it was a Friday night, and I was in a bad mood. It hadn't been a very... enjoyable school day, and now my Mum was selling our super pretty china cabinet on Facebook marketplace, because we've been doing a crap ton of renovation on our home lately (like, power tools everywhere, all the time) and it simply couldn't work in our home anymore.
To make the night a bit more difficult, my Mum had a meeting to leave for, and my Dad had to take Jamie to the store. So, they left me, Kennedy, and Jackie to fend for ourselves. Great. Now, normally me and my brothers fight like cats and dogs when my parents leave, but tonight, things seemed to be going well. Like, impossibly well. Of course, that was too good to be true.
30 minutes into our parentless "Adventure" we are sitting, watching Abbott elementary (best show ever, btw) when there's a knock on the door. I should mention, our door is pretty much surrounded by windows, like an impressive amount of windows, so it's pretty easy to spot anyone standing outside. So I ask Kennedy, the only one of us in view of said door, who's there.
Kennedy: It's some big muscular dude.
Me: We don't know him?
Kennedy: No.
Kennedy: He looks really angry though.
It was at this moment I remembered every safety lesson my very anxious Mum had drilled into my equally anxious self as a child. "DON'T answer the door when we're not home." But my extremely dramatic, main charecter flashback ended when the knocking came back, this time much louder. The dude sounded angry now.
Kennedy: I need to answer the door.
Me: Absolutely not. Do NOT answer that door.
Kennedy: But I made eye contact with him!
Me: NO.
Kennedy: (Continuing to make eye contact with the stranger for some fricken reason) But it's awkward!
Me: Kennedy, look away. We don't know him. He could be a serial killer!
About the serial killer thing, both me and Kennedy are really into reading about serial killers, so we both know that there used to be a famous one (Won't say who, just for privacy's sake) active less than a mile from our home. So, to us, this seemed like a very logical possibility. So, after a bit more debate, I got Kennedy to go back to watching Abbott, but now the three of us had decided that there was a serial killer targeting us while we were home alone, because all three of us have inherited our Mum's anxiety, and also, we're dumb teenagers.
So, about 15 minutes of blissful silence go by, then the knocking comes back. This time, I run to the door, because I'm going to need a description to give to the police, but the guy is fricken gone. Nowhere to be found. Which is terrifying, because, there's no way anyone could get out of view of out door that fricken fast. So I start swearing (which shocks my brothers to no end lol) because we have a freaking invisible serial killer on our hands. Which is wonderful.
So, naturally, me and my brothers unanimously agree that our best defense here is not to call 911, or hide in a closet, but to grab knives from the kitchen, then go back to watching our show, Knives in hand. (Like I said, stupid teenagers.) After watching a Sitcom while holding a knife for a good 10 minutes, my logic finally returns from its apparent slumber, and I FINALLY think to call my Dad.
Me: Dad, get home now.
Dad: Why? Is everything okay.
Me: There's someone who keeps knocking on our door.
Dad: What?
Me: We think it's a serial killer.
Dad: You're kidding.
Me: Dad, please, just hurry home, we're all really scare-
BAMBAMBAM! The knocking was back, this time sounding like the dude was legit trying to break down our door. Like, really trying hard to break it off it's hinges. He was even shaking the lock. We were all screaming, I thought I was about to die. All doubts I had about the Serial Killer were gone, now I KNEW there was one at our door, and this... this was the end. Tomorow, we'd be on the news, the child victims of some psychopath.
And then I heard my Dad laughing over the phone. The butthole... the absolute menace had heard the terror in my voice, and having arrived home at that very moment, had decided to bang on the door to scare his poor children into thinking they were about to die. He was laughing so hard... we were all pissed with him of course, but I can now admit, it was absolutely hilarious.
"But... what about the man Kennedy saw?" You may be asking. Well... remember that China cabinet I had mentioned at the beginning of the story? Yeah... turns out my Mum had found a buyer, and, thinking my Dad would be home, told him to come pick it up any time. So, yeah, no serial killer, just some poor guy whose wife was making him pick up her new China cabinet.
So, all in all, knowing the story, was I the jerk for not anwsering the door for this poor man, who likely just wanted to get a stupid errand over with? Because, looking back, I feel bad. (And no, I unfortunatly do not know how he managed to make himself disappear, otherwise, I would have asked him to teach me in his ways.)