ADVENTURES IN INVIOLABILITY JUST GOT REAL

Serves me right, I suppose.  No sooner do I write about diplomatic residential adventures does something hit home -- literally.

Last Tuesday, close to 11 o'clock at night, I'm at home ironing shirts while watching TV and drinking cider (as you do), when there's a loud series of knocks on our door.  I scramble to turn everything off and get to door lest the noise wake up the LLDD-baby and have hell to pay.

From outside I hear a couple of muffled voices.

"We're from the EMS...(muffle muffle)...here to pick up...(muffle muffle)...(gives a Anglo-sounding name, let's say 'Mark Madsen')...at this address"

"You've got the wrong place", I reply from behind the closed locked door.  "There's no one here by that name"

"(muffle muffle)...called and have to pick up Mark Madsen...(muffle muffle)"

"And I'm telling you you got it wrong, no one in this house ordered a taxi", I say thinking one of my neighbours is named Mark Madsen and is now wondering where the hell's the taxi he ordered.

"And I'm telling you, mate" barks the outside voice, no longer muffled "we're not a taxi, we're from the courts!  Now open the door please, we wan't to talk to you!"

Whoa.  Time for me to play the D-card.

"I'm a Diplomat and this is a registered diplomatic residence" I say with sudden-onset British accent. "I can talk to you but I can't let you in."

Just the briefest of pauses, then "So there's no Mark Madsen here?"

"No!" I say with the slightest of piyoks.  "I've been living here for five years!" 

I hear some more muffled talking, silence, then footsteps walking away, then the distinct sound of our gate closing. The men had left unseen, without me stepping within a foot of our peephole, let alone coming close to ever opening the door.

    The Purge 2 had just premiered in London that week, you see

I quickly google "EMS" on my phone while getting back to ironing and cider (as you do) and find three possibilities: Express Mail Service, the European Meteorological Society, or Electronic Monitoring System. So unless the FedEx guy or the cute Euronews weather girl are suddenly into late-night housecalls, I'm guessing the men at my door were looking to cuff and tag a bail-jumper named Mark Madsen, and they thought he was staying in my house!

Despite it being close to midnight, I text my landlord and tell him what happened on the chance Mark Madsen is a former tenant of the property and maybe left a forwarding address where he could be found (as bail jumpers do).  "Never heard of him" my landlord texts right back.  "It's a good thing you didn't open the door!"

      well, like I said...

The following evening, I'm watering the plants out on our driveway, and I hear the distinct sound of our gate opening.  I see two burly-ish men in matching blue overalls walk up to our doorstep.   It's slightly earlier than the night before and there's still some summer daylight left and people out on the street, so I decide to stand my ground (the LLDD-Hyphen-L had also latched the door behind me, so I really didn't have a choice). They introduce themselves once more as from EMS - the Electronic Monitoring System (dammit, so much for the cute weather girl).  They confirm that they are looking for an accused named Mark Madsen to tag him, and their records show that he lives precisely at my current address.  

"But like I told you before, there's no Mark Madsen here!"

The men say they believe me, but that they're just doing their job. And their job requires them to visit a suspected address three times in search of an accused, and if they still don't find him after that third try, it will be the police that will come calling.

"So we'll be coming again tomorrow night" said one of the men. "And if we still don't find him here, the police will come and they can forcibly enter the premises if necessary."

Whoa, whoa, WHOA.   Time for me to drop the D-Bomb.

"I'm calling the DPG"    

I like to think I called up a control centre that was set up like something straight out of "24", because I can now hastily and anti-climactically wrap this whole story up by saying my one call to DPG got everything...sorted.  The confusion as to addresses was cleared up, the EMS men did not return a third night, and I even got an apologetic phone call from the local police assuring me that they would not be entering my house any time soon.

So Viva la Vienna Convention! Viva el DPG!

 Word