Ding Dong.

My doorbell is one of those strange ones which need batteries and plays horrible songs like the Happy Birthday tune when pressed. I sometimes wonder why one can't just install a door bell that goes Ding Dong! Oh well. Anyway. I have not bothered to change the batteries of my doorbell since I moved in ten months ago, because no one ever visits me without having called prior to the visit... hence the doorbell is, to me, a rather useless function.

Last night - or this morning, however you like to phrase the term - the doorbell freaked me out. Seriously. Freaked me out.

The first time I heard the whiny, out of tune melody was around two in the morning. 2am. I was sitting in the living room watching tennis. Serena vs Venus at Dubai. I thought, at first, it was downstairs or upstairs or a neighbour's or something. But I turned the volume down because I thought, maybe, just maybe, it was someone coming to complain my TV was too loud.

I completely ignored it otherwise, and after a while I headed back into my study to continue with the long and tedious translation that I am working on.

Fast forward two hours and I've said goodbye to my beloved Ting Ting and I am about to shower and sleep. I walk to the bathroom which is right next to the front door, my flip-flops flapping against the ground. And the doorbell rings again. Whiny and out of tune. And I am surprised. In a scary sort of way.

I walk away from the bathroom to my living room and sit on the couch. The bell goes on and on and on. Like someone is pressing it continuously. One song does not finish and the next one begins. Like when someone presses it continuously. By now I am completely and utterly freaked out. I pick up my phone to call Ting Ting - my only real option seeing as it is 4am in Hong Kong - when I remember I am completely and utterly broke so I head back into the study to get back onto the computer to talk to her.

She's not online.

The bad thing is, being in my study, I can't actually hear the doorbell. So I don't know if it's stopped.

I see J online, but I'm pretty sure he's just left his computer on and gone to bed... which yes, I find is the case. His girlfriend comes on to tell me he's asleep and while I'm trying to convey my horror at the situation, she is really just a little too sleepy to deal with me. So she tells me to put my iPod on and you know, forget about everything else. Good idea.

And then Ting Ting comes back on (thank God) and we chat. And then I go shower. Because it's just really ridiculous hahahaha. Whoever is outside my door isn't going to break in. Although I was paranoid that I hadn't locked the front gate properly and really my front door could so easily be kicked in. But yeah.

I shower. Then I sleep. After I've turned all the lights off, and I'm on my bed trying to sleep, the doorbell rings again!!!!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!!! By now it's like 5 something almost 6.

By the grace of God - or really because I was just knackered - I pass out with my bedroom light still on. And today, the doorbell has not rung once. I've also checked my front gate to make sure it's properly locked. I feel like climbing up to the doorbell thingy and trying to completely disable it but then I'm such a klutz when it comes to these things that really I can't be bothered.

I'm still in shock over the events of last night. There's a part of me that wonders whether it was the ho ying cute girl. There's a part of me that wonders whether it was a friend of the former flatmate's, cos he did bring quite a few people up here. I'm still wondering why whoever it was that rang the doorbell didn't pound on the gate or call me. Re the calling part, that's why perhaps it was one of the former flatmate's friends because they wouldn't necessarily have my number.

Having said all of that, I also wonder whether it was just friendly lizards playing outside on the wall and running over the doorbell causing it to ring in my house. Or perhaps my doorbell has just gone completely defunct and is ringing by itself. Maybe. Perhaps. I don't know.

I do know that last night, I really wished the former flatmate was here. Really. He would have totally dealt with it. Even if he hadn't opened the door, he would have disabled the bell. For sure. Heh. Aie... Haha. I'm such a wuss.

God bless wusses.