I am far from what would be considered an average, normal neighbor, come to think of it I don’t think there really are any average, normal neighbors. I may think someone is a nutjob based solely on the fact that he decorates his yard with old beer cans, while he would think I was a nutjob because I don’t. It is all very subjective…Usually.
I always thought that the woman who lived a couple of houses down from me while I was growing up was weird, just because she was a bit of a recluse and had roughly 14 million cats. As the years have passed I realize that that is just standard old lady behavior, perhaps a bit eccentric but completely normal when put on the giant pie chart of old ladies. There was another guy a block or so over from us (I think I wrote about this previously but I couldn’t find a reference to it, probably because I don’t know his name and spoke about it pretty vaguely) that threw all of his spare change into the drain gutter in front of his house. There were some neighbors that I literally never saw; I would see the cars leave the garage in the morning and arrive home at night but never once caught a glimpse of them. It seems weird neighbors are everywhere, probably even right next door to you.
The guy that I met yesterday might not take the cake as the weirdest neighbor ever, but I bet he got some door prizes. Hell, I am sure he would have won it all for best costume, the dude you feel most uneasy around, and the guy that gets the most flimsy excuses for why people have to leave when he enters a room. He seemed pretty harmless physically, but he gave off an aura that your mind interpreted as, “Body! Body! We must exit this space immediately! Let us leave now and never speak of this man again!”
The person in question is not my neighbor, quite thankfully. He will, however, be the neighbor of whoever buys the house that I have been working on in the next town over. The Real Estate company would do themselves a favor to do a Simpsons and just pay the guy to not come outside when there is a perspective buyer there. He is that weird. At least I think he is, but it is all about perspective, right? I am probably just as weird to him. Though I am not sure if his mind can process the word weird, or any other word that has more than one vowel, for that matter.
I have been doing work on this house for some time and had never actually seen the guy until yesterday. I was going to the house to do a bit of touch-up painting and to connect the plumbing lines that the contractor had neglected to do. The guy that was installing the tile and carpet was working on it though so I was not able to do any of the tasks I needed to (you can’t walk on the tile for at least 24 hours after it is installed, also he had removed the vanities and toilets from the bathrooms and they were the ones that I needed to finish). I spoke with Mr. Flooring Guy only long enough to find out when I could come back to finish off my tasks, which would have been today for the flooring being done, but the vanities and toilets won’t be back in until tomorrow. I was certainly done for that day. I made my way to the car.
Have you ever had one of those WTF moments? I don’t mean that in the sense that you text message WTF to someone when they give you a weird response, I am talking about a full on “what the fuck” moment. You see something that is so unbelievable that all you can think or say is “what the fuck?” That happened to me midway between the house and the car, in a big way.
I have been thinking about this all day and I still can’t figure out which way to go with it. The weird neighbor was the one that gave me a genuine “What the Fuck?” moment, but it was his attire that brought that about. The whole outfit was the reason for it, but there were three key pieces of it that had me holding back my laughter as I spoke with him, and backing away slowly. He had crossed the line between eccentric and insane, done a couple of laps around the slackers, then lapped the crazy people a couple of times before he dressed himself, by appearance at least.
Though I saw him top to bottom, I am going to describe him bottom to top. His feet were donning some fashionable, blue thongs flip-flops (the wife has told me that I can no longer call the footwear a thong because of possible misconception). Scroll up a bit (oh how I wish I hadn’t) and you will see military camouflage, unfortunately it is on a pair of shorts that look like ’70s era basketball shorts (if I would have looked hard enough I would likely have seen ass cheeks). He was wearing a very sensible long-sleeved sweater, well, it would have been sensible if it didn’t have a Raiders logo on it. That is pretty weird, eh? That was the normal part of his attire though, it only gets worse.
Much like the Gaydar kicks in when I see someone gay (three or more facial piercings and pants that have a zipper on the back will send that thing into the red zone), this guy set off my whackodar. My best guess is that he was voted most likely to bury bodies in the basement when he was in high school, and he probably followed through on that.
I am far from what would be considered an average, normal neighbor, come to think of it I don’t think there really are any average, normal neighbors. I may think someone is a nutjob based solely on the fact that he decorates his yard with old beer cans, while he would think I was a nutjob because I don’t. It is all very subjective…Usually.
I always thought that the woman who lived a couple of houses down from me while I was growing up was weird, just because she was a bit of a recluse and had roughly 14 million cats. As the years have passed I realize that that is just standard old lady behavior, perhaps a bit eccentric but completely normal when put on the giant pie chart of old ladies. There was another guy a block or so over from us (I think I wrote about this previously but I couldn’t find a reference to it, probably because I don’t know his name and spoke about it pretty vaguely) that threw all of his spare change into the drain gutter in front of his house. There were some neighbors that I literally never saw; I would see the cars leave the garage in the morning and arrive home at night but never once caught a glimpse of them. It seems weird neighbors are everywhere, probably even right next door to you.
The guy that I met yesterday might not take the cake as the weirdest neighbor ever, but I bet he got some door prizes. Hell, I am sure he would have won it all for best costume, the dude you feel most uneasy around, and the guy that gets the most flimsy excuses for why people have to leave when he enters a room. He seemed pretty harmless physically, but he gave off an aura that your mind interpreted as, “Body! Body! We must exit this space immediately! Let us leave now and never speak of this man again!”
The person in question is not my neighbor, quite thankfully. He will, however, be the neighbor of whoever buys the house that I have been working on in the next town over. The Real Estate company would do themselves a favor to do a Simpsons and just pay the guy to not come outside when there is a perspective buyer there. He is that weird. At least I think he is, but it is all about perspective, right? I am probably just as weird to him. Though I am not sure if his mind can process the word weird, or any other word that has more than one vowel, for that matter.
I have been doing work on this house for some time and had never actually seen the guy until yesterday. I was going to the house to do a bit of touch-up painting and to connect the plumbing lines that the contractor had neglected to do. The guy that was installing the tile and carpet was working on it though so I was not able to do any of the tasks I needed to (you can’t walk on the tile for at least 24 hours after it is installed, also he had removed the vanities and toilets from the bathrooms and they were the ones that I needed to finish). I spoke with Mr. Flooring Guy only long enough to find out when I could come back to finish off my tasks, which would have been today for the flooring being done, but the vanities and toilets won’t be back in until tomorrow. I was certainly done for that day. I made my way to the car.
Have you ever had one of those WTF moments? I don’t mean that in the sense that you text message WTF to someone when they give you a weird response, I am talking about a full on “what the fuck” moment. You see something that is so unbelievable that all you can think or say is “what the fuck?” That happened to me midway between the house and the car, in a big way.
I have been thinking about this all day and I still can’t figure out which way to go with it. The weird neighbor was the one that gave me a genuine “What the Fuck?” moment, but it was his attire that brought that about. The whole outfit was the reason for it, but there were three key pieces of it that had me holding back my laughter as I spoke with him, and backing away slowly. He had crossed the line between eccentric and insane, done a couple of laps around the slackers, then lapped the crazy people a couple of times before he dressed himself, by appearance at least.
Though I saw him top to bottom, I am going to describe him bottom to top. His feet were donning some fashionable, blue thongs flip-flops (the wife has told me that I can no longer call the footwear a thong because of possible misconception). Scroll up a bit (oh how I wish I hadn’t) and you will see military camouflage, unfortunately it is on a pair of shorts that look like ’70s era basketball shorts (if I would have looked hard enough I would likely have seen ass cheeks). He was wearing a very sensible long-sleeved sweater, well, it would have been sensible if it didn’t have a Raiders logo on it. That is pretty weird, eh? That was the normal part of his attire though, it only gets worse.
Much like the Gaydar kicks in when I see someone gay (three or more facial piercings and pants that have a zipper on the back will send that thing into the red zone), this guy set off my whackodar. My best guess is that he was voted most likely to bury bodies in the basement when he was in high school, and he probably followed through on that.
So, he was wearing the blue thongs flip-flops, camouflaged short-shorts, a Raiders sweatshirt, and a British Pith Helmet. He was also wearing a gun belt, which had an indeterminate pistol in it. I have never had rules about it previously, but I invented one yesterday: Always run away from the man in flip-flops, camouflaged short-shorts, a Raiders sweatshirt, a British Pith Helmet, and an unidentified gun. That is a good rule. Keep it in mind.
Thank the random fluctuations of time and space that he is not my neighbor. That guy was just creepy.