So there is this middle-aged man in our complex who is afflicted with an (unfortunately) obvious case of OCD.
And not OCD like, “I wash my hands ten times a day, teehee.”
This guy will set his car alarm all the way to his apartment, often coming back out and setting it five or six more times. When he leaves the house, he usually pulls out of his spot (DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF OUR PLACE) and then pulls over, puts his hazzards on and goes to check his front door. Then he’ll drive out the gate, make an immediate u-turn and be back inside checking the door again. Siggy’s constant question is, “Why he do dat?”
Truth is he FASCINATES me. If I could ask him 47 million questions, I would. But I can’t, really.
There was a guy in Chicago that I called Yelly Guy (because I’m a genius with descriptive names…). We lived above the Dominos pizza on a massively busy intersection and this guy would shop at the Jewel across the street several times a week. The first time I heard him I had the windows open, but in later years I discovered that I could hear him in the middle of rush hour traffic with the windows shut and barred.
I was schilling out on the sofa when suddenly…
I was like, What the?” I ran to look and there he was. Yelly Guy. Groceries in his hands, a pipe clenched firmly in his mouth.
Tourettes.
I bet that yell rattled his teeth. Broke my heart. Any time I heard him yelling I went to look and watch. I always wished I could meet him and ask him all about himself. Until one day….
He was walking down the sidewalk and two college girls had just passed him when out of nowhere….
Those two girls screamed the kind of screams that I’m SURE included pants-wetting.
I mean, you hear that kind of noise on a city street right behind you and suddenly you’re weeping for all the missed opportunities in your life and begging for a painless, non-humiliating death.
But Yelly Guy was an Angry Yelly Guy. He totally ripped into them.
After that my sense of self-preservation voted against engaging Yelly Guy in a conversation (although even the violent cursing could have been part of the disease….).
I’ve worked with some fairly interesting people over the years as well. One of the most fascinating was Cowboy. And yes, that was his name and no I have not changed it.
I was a BBQ-slinging, cocktail waitress for a few years in a blues joint. Cowboy was a cook and the MOST HELPFUL bus-person I have ever had the pleaseure to know.
He also had the style down.
He never once in all his time there deviated from that outfit.
The kitchen closed at midnight, but he would stay afterwards and bus the tables while we ran around enabling the drunkards. Cowboy liked to move fast. And when he did, his life-time supply of keys would rattle like nobody’s business.
In fact, as the night wore on he’d get more wound up and he’d litterally RUN through the restaurant with a tub full of cups and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. All the frat-daddys would laugh at him (on lame Frat-daddy music night). I wanted to punch them in their hairless necks.
But I learned early on that it was best for a 21-year-old woman not to ask too many personal questions of an older…. quirky man. I just had to wonder……..
Later on I worked for a man named Kenneth (name changed to protect… whoever). He was funny and creative and hardworking. I helped him open his flower shop.
A few months later, another man, also named Kenneth, opened a store RIGHT NEXT DOOR.
They were like the angel/demon shoulder-sitters of the gay world. Such a bizarre coincidence…
The Dark Kenneth HATED me! HATED AND LOATHED! And of course I didn’t know this because I’d never met him. I would see him walking jauntily by the window on occassion. But then a shop owner told me that he was saying all this nasty stuff about me and I was like, “What the??”
I don’t do drama, so I really didn’t care what this guy had to say because HE WORE CAT-EYE CONTACT LENSES.
One evening, the block was having a sidewalk sale/party and I was working for a friend in a clothing boutique. Suddenly, Dark Kenneth comes marching in there, drunk as a skunk, and starts wailing an apology.
Now THAT was interesting. But then he ran out sobbing before I had a chance to ask him what his mother was like……
In art news, I just finished a very manly painting.
A tad different than my usual fare.
It was for my brother-in-law for his birthday (speaking of interesting people). I’m allowed to talk about him now that I know he reads this.
Many many years ago he was all….
And BOOM! It happened. He married a great girl, got hired on in a church and man they pumped out some babies!
5!!!
5 babies in 7 years! And she can still wear a bikini!!!
15 years later, he suddenly decided that he was tired of being out of shape and sedentary and so he started eating right and working out and now all of a sudden he’s become really great at boxing.
And so he goes around the neighborhood trying to pick fights with the neighbors but they all decline. You’d think people would be lining up to punch a pastor. But no. They’re just scared.
I’m also working on this painting. Its huge.
Not done with it yet. I’ll show you when I am, intertesting people.
I know you’re out there…..
PS- Spell check is no longer working on my blog and so we’ll all have to take what we can get in the “accuracy” department. ”Accuracey”?…..
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