Confirmed: The Downstairs Neighbor Has A Face

There has been some discussion regarding our Downstairs Neighbor. He's rather mysterious in that he's barely ever there, he often gets delinquent rent notices stuck to his door (I know this because I read them), has a very dirty balcony, and we've never actually seen him.

Until tonight.

We thought he was back because we'd suddenly been smelling this obnoxious, faint cigarette smoke coming up through our kitchen vents.

"Seems like Downstairs Neighbor might be around," Joey commented.

I concurred. We're not sure he smokes, but we know our other neighbors and they don't smoke, so if we smell it we always blame it on Downstairs Neighbor.

But back to the previous discussions regarding Downstairs Neighbor's face.

We've lived here for six months. (Yes, six months!) All we were able to ascertain about Downstairs Neighbor was that he has never fully shut the blinds in his bedroom (a table is leaned up against the window covering the portion that's not covered by blinds; he probably has no clue they're not all the way down) and he might have a cat.

I once saw him carrying what appeared to be a cat kennel as he walked away from his apartment. It was then that I first began to question his sanity.

Since the sighting with the cat, we have only seen the back of his head one other time leading us to wonder if he actually has a face.

Joey and I were headed out to buy milk tonight (yes, we forgot it when we went grocery shopping) and as we were walking to the car a youngish sort of man wearing a baseball cap, green t-shirt and geeky/trendy Coke-bottle style glasses was walking towards us. Oh, he was also carrying a Pepsi and a Mountain Dew. (They were 20 ounces and no, I'm not nosy...)

I instantly (and, regrettably, not so subtly) began smacking Joey's arm and hissing at him. "That's him! I bet that's him!"

He sort of shoved his elbow into me to indicate for me to Be Quiet.

We rounded the corner, but not before I had slowed down and looked back to make sure this guy really was Downstairs Neighbor.

"That was him!" I exulted. "I saw him!"

"Yeah," said Joey, "I couldn't understand what you were saying."

"That's OK." I said, hoping that if Joey hadn't understood me then neither had Downstairs Neighbor.

So, regardless of all former doubts and concerns about Downstairs Neighbor, we have confirmed that he exists and he actually has a face.

Whew.

"That's him! I bet that's him!"