did i do the right thing?

thursday i put up a roommate ad. i can't believe i did it, but it makes sense: i have more space than i need, and less money than i need. i really treasure my privacy, but is it worth an extra $400 a month? maybe. maybe if the real estate biz was making more money. maybe if i didn't need to come up with tuition in less than a month. maybe if the car i bought and drove maybe 4 times did not crap out on me and need at least $300 in repairs. maybe if i was having all sorts of loud sex that i didn't want to disturb a theoretical roommate with. but alas... and then, last night i got all creeped out and thought, hm, maybe having a warm bodied someone else around would be a good idea... 1 AM, on the balcony working on the list, i hear a strange noise that sounds like someone pulling duct tape off of a roll. a few minutes before, i'd heard footsteps on the sidewalk which seemed to fade in but not back out, but didn't think much of it... but why would someone be using duct tape in my hallway? got up, looked in the hallway window, didn't see anything. thought maybe, someone was taping a note to someone's door, and the only tape they had was gigantic? but given the angle of the noise, and the lack of anyone in my sight line from the balcony, it would have to be MY door, and i was obviously home, visible from the street. hmmm. so i went inside to look out the peephole in the front door, which made some noise, given the squeaky balcony door. and there was a man standing a few steps down from the landing. frozen. having heard me come in. at this point i realize he's probably not supposed to be there, so i get quiet, hold still, watching. he stands frozen for 30 seconds or so, then starts tiptoe-ing backward down the stairs. once i lose him in my limited scope, i go back outside, lean over the balcony railing, so as to see him emerge. he does so quietly, holding the door so it doesn't slam the way i wish my neighbors would, and looks directly up at me. i stand my ground, still unsure of what's up-- 6 new neighbors moved in while i was away, and i've only met one of them, so really, who knows? then he asks me if it's midnight yet. at this point, had my brain not been nearly frozen by 12 straight hours of staring at real estate listings, i might've thought back to the last time a stranger asked me the time just before midnight, but... all i thought was, hmmmm. after i saw him turn the corner at the end of the block, i went out into the hallway and found the source of the noise. earlier, a friend had brought me some new chairs, and i noticed a package sitting on the 2nd floor landing for the guy who lives upstairs from me. the mailman is smart enough not to leave packages in the foyer, visible from the street... this guy had opened the package, hence the noise, presumably to see if anything valuable was inside that he could steal. (all i saw left was a cup holder of some sort, though who knows what he might've put in his pocket.) okay, so technically we have a felony here, right? so i should call the cops. but the first thing that occured to me was to write a note to the guy upstairs, letting him know why his mail was opened. then i remembered seeing that another neighbor had left her rent check downstairs for the mailman to pick up, rather than walking it to the post box at the corner, and i thought, i should let her know not to do that anymore. as i was working on my second draft of this 3 sentence note (haha, don't you wish i'd be so specific here!!?!), i saw the guy walk by again, across the street. and THEN i finally thought, OH. i should really call the cops. what if he's waiting for the bars to close so he can rob someone? i went for the phone, and thought: wait. what the hell are the cops going to do at this point? round up every 30-or-maybe-40-ish black guy wearing a white t-shirt in my neighborhood? for one thing, they have better things to do. (like hang out in the 7-11 parking lot laughing at the drunks leaving the bars... but that's another story...). for another, i don't want to encourage that sort of round-up. i hate that all the bars in my neighborhood look like white frat parties, and i know way too many people who've been arrested because they looked like some vague description of someone who might've done something wrong. so i didn't call them. i decided that if i saw him walk by again, i would. but he didn't. so i suppose if he mugged someone (or worse) later that night, i'm partly responsible. i finished my work around 3:30 am, all the while looking for him every few minutes, and went to bed. but i couldn't get to sleep. i finally wondered: what the FUCK was he doing on the landing? what were the odds of there being a package for him to open sitting there? what was his original plan, before he came across the package? did he see me out there with my $1700 laptop and think, i wonder if that girl forgot to lock her door, or, i wonder if she has a shitty lock on it that i could kick open? (the answer to that is a bit frightening, and i can assure you i'll be getting a new one SOON.) every weekend night since the new neighbors moved in, the kids downstairs have had people over, loudly, after the bars close, usually til 3 or 4, but last night it was dead silent. and obviously no one was home upstairs, or else their mail wouldn't still be on the landing. and i knew the girl across the hall wasn't home, because i'd talked to her earlier and knew her plans. so i laid awake til the sun was halfway up and i finally calmed my mind down and was too exhausted to worry anymore. before i left for work today, i hid my laptop in my closet. (it's not the first time i've done such a thing-- whenever i go out of town and don't take it, i stash it out of sight, just to be safe, because in many ways, it's the most valuable thing i own...) i didn't talk to anyone at work about this tonight (except a brief mention to the gal who drove me home, because when we pulled up, it looked at first as if the light i'd left on was out), but later i talked to P. in the past, when i've called him scared about some thing or other-- including the time i was nearly mowed down by a drunk driver, who totalled about a dozen cars right in front of me, after which i was shaking so badly i wouldn't have been able to call him if he hadn't been on speed dial-- he has always blown me off, acted like i was paranoid or a scaredy-cat girl, yet he was surprised, in this case, that i hadn't called the cops. am i crazy here? should i have called them? postscript: not five minutes after i posted this, i stood up to get a fresh drink, and i heard a car pull up out front. curious, i went to the balcony, where i saw a white car idling, and a black guy, maybe 30's-ish, get out and walk toward the building. aha!, i thought. and then: huh? what's that aha exactly? that really was one of my new neighbors, and he happens to be a mail-thief? no, silly: this is my newspaper carrier. and that's probably the guy who would've ended up getting arrested if i'd called the cops last night. and yeah, there's the scant possibility that my newspaper carrier is my mail-thief, and that he only has one outfit. but somehow i feel better. maybe it's the beer. and, hey: kroger's running the same lame sale as last week? bollocks!