So yesterday I was at the end of a series of very long long long days-- a weekend eaten up with a conference, many tasks uncompleted, total clusterfucks with grading for a couple of classes, and 16 points of minor drama. I end my afternoon class quite a bit early because I’m just exhausted and can’t lecture any further. I weave my way home on my bike and park it outside the building. I need a pint and a burger.
I get into my building and jump in the elevator with a couple from, I think, Spain, judging by the language and accent of their conversation. I hit the 4th floor button, they hit the third floor. We share a little joke. We get to the third floor and the door opens. I let them exit the elevator first since I’m in the back. I walk down the hall and around the corner and approach my front door-- I have my keys out but I assume capyboy is home. I hope he did laundry. I need clean undies and slacks. Someone is cooking something odd smelling on our wing of the floor-- that sort of chinese food that whitey doesn’t tend to eat-- real chinese food. As I reach the door I realize this rank smelling chinese-fish dinner smell is coming from my apartment. This is a little odd-- he doesn’t even like fish. Maybe it’s next door, actually.
The door’s unlocked-- he is home. I open the door and as I walk in I look over into the kitchen right next to the door, at the counter that faces the entrance, above the dishwasher . . . one of the coffee cups is covered all over the rim with flour or something. What on earth is he doing? Is he deep frying something breaded? What is he cooking? Wait. . . this is a cup I don’t recognize. This is a thin, tall green coffee mug. I don’t know this cup. He’s bought a new mug while he was in Washington State over the weekend? Wait, the OTHER cup there is new, too. Christ, we don’t need any new cups. We already have enough crap in this apartment. Ugh, his mother probably sent them to him. She’s always doing this. She’s sent something to even out the strange duckie sculpture we sent her last weekend for her birthday, sigh.
I start to take off my coat and walk into the parlor. . . wait. . . the couch has moved. He moved the couch? Wait. . . that’s not our couch. Wait, ALL the furniture is fucked up! Um. . this isn’t our apartment . . .Whoops. Oh. . .[looks at doorplate while I’m still in the doorway]. . . 322. Not 422. Crap.
Again.
I also did this in my apartment building in Belgium. I must have done this with every dorm room or apartment I’ve ever lived in. Please tell me I’m not the only one.
You realize, of course, that it’s completely unfair of you to tell that story without telling us if any of the poor occupants in the apartment noticed you.
As to your original question, no, I’ve never done that going home. But I did once attend a party where I imbibed more than I thought I ought to, and I decided to take a walk around the block to clear my head. When I opened the gate and proceeded to pull, unsuccessfully, on a locked screen door, the occupants inside the house I had arrived at seemed about as startled as I was. I had missed the original party house by two doors. :smack:
I’ve never done that. Although I only once lived in an apartment building, and then I was on the second floor and usually took the stairs.
I do often enough get off of elevators on the wrong floor, but that’s just me.
I did something like this when I was in grad school. I lived on floor five, but would occasionally get off on floor four by mistake. Everybody there locked their doors, however, so I would just stand there wondering why my key didn’t work until I realized that I was on the wrong floor.
I did this once at my dorm after a night of drinking. Our dorm was set up with 3 wings arranged like the spokes of a wheel. I lived on 9, and I was partying with some friends who lived on 6 and in the same wing as me. When it was time for me to go to my room, I would’ve sworn in court that I walked up 3 flights of stairs. I would’ve sworn that the plate on the door said “918.” My key didn’t work. I went to the nearest stairwell, because the floor numbers were painted there in big block letters. Once again, I would’ve sworn that the number was a 9. To prove my case, I decided to walk up a flight of stairs and see what that number said.
It was 7.
I was pretty drunk.
The closest I’ve come was trying to put my key into someone else’s car door lock.
I’ve had this happen to me several times. Many times at hotel rooms, I’ve been woken by someone pounding on the door. Of course, with the new “no number on the key” hotel keys, I guess this could happen.
A friend of mine I lost touch with was on probation for doing this. I dimly remember the details; he was drunk, mixed up which building, scared the hell out of a lady and was arrested for breaking and entering. (Or unlawful entry or whatever the charge it was.)
I came out of the Post Office, my hands full of mail, and staggered to the door of my blue Jeep Liberty. I could free a finger, so I wedged it under the handle. Tug. Nothing. Crap. I had apparently locked the door before going in, though that was unusual for me. I tended to leave it unlocked there because I was so often burdened on the way out. I pile the mail on the hood and dig around for my keys. I hit the unlock button. Nothing. I hit it again. Nothing. Is the battery dead? I hit it again. Nothing. I hate my life. I hate my car. I hate the unlock button. The mail is sliding from the hood. I put my hand on it to keep it in place and happen to look over the hood at the car next to mine. It’s a blue Jeep Liberty. With my hand still on the mail, I push the unlock button. The lights on the next Liberty over flash. I duck my head, grab my mail, and scramble for my car, hoping like hell no one was watching me try to break into one car while another sat there with its headlights flashing.
I was on the other side of that one time, js. I was sitting in my car, waiting for my passenger, when a strange guy jumped in the passenger seat and started talking to me. He looked over, did a bee-yoo-tiful double take, apologized profusely with a red face and jumped out again, while I was laughing my bum off.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually gone into the wrong house. I believe I may have started up the walk of the wrong one once or twice.
Haven’t done this in my own building, but I once had to apologize for disturbing two of my mother’s neighbors after having a brain fart about her apartment number and knocking on the wrong door not once but twice. I’d visited her several times, so it wasn’t like I didn’t know where to go; I just spaced out.
I’ve done that. Except in my case, it was one of those rare occasions when the locks matched up. I actually unlocked the car and sat down inside…and started wondering why I suddenly had a big girly looking thingy hanging from my rear-view mirror…doh…
Other than that, I’ve done the apartment thing exactly twice in my life. The first time, the door was actually unlocked and I wandered in for a few seconds before I realized my mistake.
Oh god. I’ve done one worse that I just remembered.
Shopping with my husband. He wanders off. I’m looking at something. I see something neat. I go over to him, stick my hand through his arm and start yammering about something… to a man I don’t know.
He wasn’t even wearing the same color shirt or anything.
At the U. of Evansville, I had the room across from the stairwell, so climbers would look at my door to see what floor it was. One day, I carefully repainted the room number from 221 to 2221. This was a three-story dorm.
When I came back from my year abroad, I had to live with my mom for a couple of months before school started. While I was away, she had moved into one of those condominium complexes, where there’s only four different house designs and they are all painted the exact same color and every yard looks the same.
One night shortly after I’d arrived, I went out drinking with some friends and got a ride home. I told my friend where to stop and got out. He drove away. I drunkenly made my way to the front door. Put my key in the lock. The key was kind of sticking. The door opened though, so I closed it behind me, sit on the steps to take off my shoes, and make my way quietly to my bedroom.
I walk into my bedroom. There’s something…not right. Where did that alarm clock come from? In fact, where did that table come from? Why did I close the blinds? In a Hitchcock-like absolutely adrenaline-pumping moment of realization, I realized that there was someone sleeping in the bed two feet away from me and that I was in the wrong fucking house!!! I ran out of the house as fast as I could - only to get halfway down the driveway and realize I had forgotten my shoes. I had to quietly sneak back in, fetch my shoes, and wander down the road until I found the right house. I’ve always wondered if anyone in that house saw or heard me.
I’ve been the stranger .
I made a lunch date with my then-wife and she agreed to pick me up on a very busy corner in downtown Richmond.
I’m waiting there when a silver Acura pulls up right in front of me. So as not to hold up traffic, I rush around the car, open the door, and slide into the passenger seat.
I don’t know if my double-take was bee-yoo-tiful, but my face sure was red. She (the driver) wasn’t so much laughing her ass off as she was ready to jump out of the car.
I was browsing at a bookstore with my husband, studying the titles in the science fiction. The hubby walked up beside me, so, still intent on the book, I took a step closer and . . .
and . . .
. . . patted him on the ass. :o
The poor guy (not actually my husband, obviously, jumped about a foot in the air. I mumbled an incoherent apology, found my actual husband, and told him urgently that I was really really hungry and we should be heading for the restaurant, and high-tailed it out of there.
When I was about 14, my family was staying in a large hotel. We all went down to the pool, swam for a bit, then came back up to the room. My little brother, 10, slipped away from us to sneak back to the pool. He took about $30 with him (I don’t know why).
After he was done swimming he came back up to our room and knocked on the door to be let in. When we didn’t answer, he slipped the money under the door, found a hotel employee, and was returned to us. No, we don’t know whose door he slipped the money under. We never got it back, either.
Okay, I think you’re the winner so far, Podkayne. And I’m sure your double take was bee-yoo-tiful, plnnr. 
I’ve done the wrong car thing, too. My ex-husband would pick me up from work, and had a certain spot where he would park. Get out of work, see the car there, and walk over and climb in. Take one look at the highly-surprised looking driver and spring back out of the car, nearly wetting myself from laughter.
It was the same exact car as ours, parked in my husband’s usual “spot” so at least I have that as a defense. Meanwhile, my husband is parked about a row over, wondering why I’m climbing into some strange man’s car.