So, that was a thing
I go downstairs. "Police," announce the two guys outside our building front door.
WTF? I can't think of any reason actual police should be demanding admittance to our Park Slope apartment.
(Yes, we moved since the last time I posted to Making Light, back in a long-ago geological era.)
I was suddenly very conscious of having said critical things about the NYPD on Twitter this very day.
Indeed, it tells you everything you need to know about the utter lack of democracy and freedom in 2018 America is that this is the first thing I thought. Americans used to mock the petty indignities of the Brezhnevite USSR. Now we accept them as normal.
"Do you have a warrant?" I asked. "We don't need a warrant," they answered.
"WE DON'T NEED A WARRANT" DING DING DING DING DING DING DING
Needless to say, we didn't let them in.
Also needless to say, TNH phoned 911, and some perfectly nice actually-obviously-NYPD people came by and spoke with her. We didn't let them into the building, either, but they didn't make an issue of it.
As of 9PM tonight, we appear to be OK. But holy crap, that was a thing. If we didn't know all of you? If we didn't have the social capital we have?
There are people serving decades-long sentences -- there are people on death row -- because they didn't have the friends and connections we do.