Since I’ve been off my night shift I haven’t slept properly due to my body thinking I’m a retard for constantly changing time slots regarding my sleeping hours.

This morning I was awoken at 4AM, after going to bed at 1, by a loud thump.

In my mind, I immediately thought of the windows facing the Bosphorus and imagined a crook creeping into my living room.

We’ve been robbed twice and the first time, they put me and my dog to sleep while there were six other people in the house, all sleeping. It was creepy but I was never very scared by it all.

Yesterday night though, my blood froze as I threw myself out of bed, breathing silently trying to listen for any footsteps and watching out for flashlights.

Ever since the first break in, my sister and I always sleep with our doors locked. Which was convenient since I hid behind my door, ear pressed against it, trying to figure out what my next move would be. I think I stayed in that position for at least 20 minutes. I was so tired and sleepy that I went back to bed, which is when I realized that I had to A B S O L U T E L Y use the little girls room. It was either that or drop dead then and there. I think it was the stress of thinking there was someone in the house.

I looked around for the pepper spray that my paranoid sister keeps in her room (which is where I was sleeping last night, don’t ask) and couldn’t find it. I then remembered that it had stayed in my room which is where she stayed when she was over two weeks ago (yet again, don’t ask) alongside the metal bar that she keeps next to her while sleeping. (seriously, you don’t want to know why)

So I was in a room which had no anti thief apparatus and I was so stressed that I missed my night shifts at work. Yes, that bad. I looked around and thought of grabbing a chair and throwing it at the imaginary thief’s head but that seemed too complicated since the only chair in the room was an old Ottoman.

I ended up grabbing hair spray (thank you Tigi) and proceed to unlock the door of the room, armed with the most angry look on my face so that if ever there was someone in my house, they’d be instantly scared into oblivion by my bulldog like attitude. I ended up in an empty hallway. I braved my way, room by room through every corner of the flat and there was no one. The windows were securely shut like I had left them before going to bed and I felt like a dope. Which is where my sister comes in, I’d like to blame her for this current state of mind.

Someone broke into the house last April as you might’ve read in one of my articles on Metblogs and even though her door was locked (she was yet again sleeping in my room) he had entered through the very very small balcony on her room and tried to break into mine by terrorizing her, sticking his face onto the iced window of my door and attempting to force the knob while she was on the phone to me crying for me to help her, which I did, I called the caretaker which lives on the bottom floor and he rushed upstairs, called the cops and started banging on our front door. The thug ran away. Did I mention we live on the fourth floor? I think he must’ve been drunk.

Ever since that day my sister freaks out when she has to stay in Istanbul alone, which was the case when I was working nights a couple of weeks ago. At each prank call or weird noise at home she’d call and say she was scared. She kept giving theories of how the thieves could enter the house which obviously worked my already overworked imagination. Morality of this story is that, even though the crime rate in Istanbul is extremely high, there was no thug in my house last night so I lost one hour of sleep for nothing. When you only sleep 5 hours per night, every minute counts.