August 27, 2003

Real Life Adventure

Today was a very bizarre day. I woke up this morning with another sinus headache. I slept in kind of late to make up for getting home so late after waiting almost all night for that jury to finally come to a verdict. After I finally decided to go to the office, I passed my secretary's house as usual, because it is actually on my route to work. This is a small town and she lives between here and my office which is about, oh, what?, like walking six blocks from here. I stopped to check on why she had not come in, and she said something about her mother and her chemo treatments. I had actually stopped by her house after court last night just to check up on what had happened at the office the last couple of days, and we had discussed her maybe taking the afternoon off to accompany her mother. It was not yet 11:00 am. She tells me there are some important messages waiting for me, so I leave, not really happy that she had not stayed until lunch like we discussed. I understand her needing time off, and I feel I am quite generous, but this has been a really slow month. The pay that she has received this month is just a tad more than I have made. I am not all that eager to pay someone who does not work, but I like her, she does work hard, she is young, needs the job, etc. I just was not smiling when I left.

I get to the office and am trying to get my internet to connect so that I can download all those damn emails that collected over the last couple of days. I am responding to some young lady asking me some nutritional advice on this Expert thingy I am on with About.com. I actually only identified myself as an expert as to identification of symptoms of anorexia, being as my wife was anorexic and died because she was anorexic, I believe I have some insight into the symptoms of anorexia. Anyway, so in walks my secretary.

She is not happy. It is not the office situation so much, as it is that some neighbors of hers had told her thay had overheard someone in one of the local businesses telling people that she and her husband were selling drugs out of their house. The rumor is that you stop in front of their house and honk three times and one of them comes out and gives you the drugs.

I accompanied her to this business and allowed her to try to get to the bottom of it. The person said someone had told her, and that she had not said anything. She is going to call this supposed person and have them come there. However, three young men later came in and were talking with her while we were there, who looked back in our direction several times. This infuriated my secretary who jumped on the lady about it. She asked her if she had called the people, and the lady said he had, but that they refused to come in. About this time another lady came in, and the first lady said this is the person that lives in the blue house. This was all getting a bit too much for me, as I knew both of these women, and had actually considered them to be close acquaintenances. I got a bit vocal and said something about there was not truth to these rumors and the bullshit needed to stop.

One of the young men, a rather sizeable fellow comes to where we are and says something about me having said the word "bullshit" and gets very aggressive. He got right in my face, in a threatening manner [funny how he laso used the word "fuck" to me in his show of machismo] and I told him to go ahead and swing. He backed up, ranted for a bit longer. I just ignored him.

So, we leave there and go to the local Sheriff's Department where she and I and the Sheriff discuss the rumor and, at my suggestion, she invites the Sheriff to bring a drug dog over to her house. He says if she gives her consent, he will definitely do a search for drugs in her house. This is to put all the rumors at rest. I have been in her house several times, and I also know her landlord, who makes regular visits to her house, and I am sure there is no drug dealing going on there. These kids barely have a pot to piss in and have, as of today, a five month old daughter.

We go back by her house and just let her husband know that the Sheriif might be coming by sometime in the next couple of days. As we pulled up in front of her house, the neighbor across the street comes out. I did not know he was the person living there, but I also know him, as he is the ex-husband of the woman who had arrived after us at the business establishment. He is also the former boyfriend of one of my former secretaries. He just wants to explain that he had gotten the call, and that he had never said anything about the drugs. It seems that the woman and his ex-wife had been visiting at his house one day. His ex-wife and he actually have a strange relationship and she does spend a considerable amount of time with him. He has a girlfriend, however, and I am not all that sure how that all plays together. It turns out that the young man was his son, and he said he was probably just being protective over his former step-mother. My secretary goes over to his house to discuss something, so I am sitting in the car waiting for her to come back out.

Up pulls the damn kid who had threatened me. Now he decides to sit on the curb right across the street and stare at me. I am sitting there for well over 30 minutes. He just sits there and stares. It was hot as hell outside and this ignorant putz sits there and stares like he is scaring me or something. It was so bizarre.

I later find out he is fresh out of the Marines, and his dad thinks he is still full of aggression from his time in the Corps. This punk has done pissed me off. I am contemplating provoking him into taking a punch at me so I can get him locked up for some serious time. I have a plan.

The very next time I see him, I am going to approach him very apologetically, advise him that I am a veteran who had received an Honorable Discharge, and that I could understand how someone like him must feel to have been booted out of the Marines because opened his mouth and blurted out his admission in violation of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell rule. If that doesn't provoke him to take a swing, he is even dumber than he looks.

Posted by Tiger at August 27, 2003 08:21 PM
Comments

That'll do it--I just hope it doesn't get you a broken jaw for your efforts in teaching him manners...

Posted by: Susie at August 27, 2003 09:15 PM

Kee-rist...what a waste of a day. Send me an email with some business names so I can stay the eff out of them.

Posted by: Scott Chaffin at August 27, 2003 10:57 PM