» Hitchhiking and fare dodging

Picked up a hitchhiker and almost became a queer basher.
Years ago I had time to kill and was driving around when I saw someone on the corner hitchhiking. I made a quick decision that since he was dressed in a white sport jacket he was civilized and wouldn't kill me. I have no idea how that thought process worked. So I picked him up.

He was a young guy from the American south and very drunk. He said he was gay, I said I wasn't. He said he sometimes dates for money. I then realized he might have been working, not hitchhiking. I asked if he wanted to go back to that corner, he thought I was saying I didn't want to give a gay guy a ride, it was awkward but we carried on with the ride.

He kept trying to tell me his grandmother's recipe for lasagna but never did finish it, he kept going off on tangents about things like keeping the milk cold in a creek because they had no refrigeration when he was a kid. Periodically he'd tell me I was nice and kind, would lean and put his head on my shoulder and pat me on the leg. I found it endearing and decided that as long as he kept his hand on the outside of the leg I'd be ok with it.

Eventually we got near where he said he was going. He said to drop him off in an empty, wooded area and he'd walk the rest of the way to sober up. I did so and drove away thinking how amusing life is. I still had time to kill, so decided to stop for donuts. I reached for my wallet. Gone. Frantically felt everywhere, no wallet. I kept hearing my father's voice in my head saying "never pick up hitchhikers." It was so obvious now, he'd been blocking my view with his head on my shoulder and patting my leg so I wouldn't feel the wallet go. He had me drop him off in the middle of nowhere so I'd never find him again.

It had only been a few minutes, so I debated doubling back and beating him up to get my wallet back. I decided that he'd have taken off immediately, that would be pointless.

Next I made up a story. I didn't think it would sound right to say that a gay hooker had pickpocketed me after I picked him up on a random corner. So I invented a story where I had gotten donuts, read the paper, put the paper on the tray, threw out my garbage and didn't realize that the wallet was in there. I drove home to use my alibi immediately. I went to the phone to tell my side of the story to friends. The wallet was next to the phone.

If I'd followed the impulse to hunt him down and throttle him, he'd have chalked the experience up to yet another psychopathic queer basher.
(Wed 27th Aug 2014, 17:38, More)

» Unexpected Nudity

The Empress
Driving to work one morning I passed a small shop. Two police cars were there and the cops had handcuffed a very tall black woman with a noble bearing and detatched demeanor. She looked to me like an African queen (not the movie boat.) I sat in traffic wondering what she might have done to deserve arrest. She appeared too regal to be a mere pilferer. It was only after about half a minute of staring that it finally dawned on me that she was stark nekkid. The Empress had no clothes. Still, she conducted herself with such dignity that it was ignoble and churlish of the police to take notice.
(Fri 29th May 2009, 22:51, More)

» Call Centres

Latest call- Records Department
Not a great story, but it just happened so...
We got a call from a woman in the Records Department asking for our printer make and model number. We have no Records Department, it was obviously a scam to find out what printer supplies to send us, pretending we'd ordered them. So I took the call and said we'd been waiting a week for the Records Department to get us our TSP report forms, that we needed the forms immediately, and that we'd better have them by the end of the day. She hung up on me.
The caller was just doing her job, but since her job is to defraud I don't mind that she considers me an ass.
(Fri 4th Sep 2009, 22:36, More)

» Fancy Dress Failures Pt 2

Death costume at inappropriate moment
The best costume I ever made was a death costume with a long black robe hanging from a pvc frame, a big scary skull type head high up, my head poking out of the robe looking like death was carrying my severed head. Very effective. I was having fun at a party, most kids were avoiding me in fear. Then word came that one of their cousins, on the way to the party, was shot. That awkward moment where you realize you are jokingly dressed as death while an invited guest might be dying on the streets a few blocks away isn't the best feeling.

The guy was shot in the hand, it turns out, and was ok. I finally could stop worrying about how to slink away while I was an 8 foot tall embodiment of doom.
(Fri 1st Nov 2013, 16:25, More)

» The Apocalypse

LA riots
I was at work when the Los Angeles riots started. With a good view over the city, we watched as fire after fire rose up. We were transfixed by the TV news coverage and the approaching smoke. Eventually it crossed my mind that I should make the drive across town to my safe seaside community. The odds of getting more work done that day were slim and it didn't make any sense to watch the fires spread fully across my escape route.
I got near to home and got bogged down in traffic. Despite all previous evidence to the contrary, I decided I was resourceful. I turned off the main route and took the sides streets. Only when I was fully in the Oakwood section of Venice did I remember that, at the time, the highest murder rate in the city was among the gangs in the Oakwood section of Venice. I had turned into a labyrinth of narrow streets as a voluntary sacrifice to the Minotaur of racial/class hatred. Somehow I scrambled out of there. Not heroically, the riots never did spread there as far as I recall.
As I drove the short highway to my area, I saw long lines of highway patrol cars on each side, waiting to block trouble. I was incensed that they weren't off stopping the violence but were, instead, safeguarding one well to do area that had no signs of violence. Despite my political ire, I was grinning broadly in relief that the social injustice was guarding my back.
I realized I had no food and it might be days before things were back in order, so I went to the store. It was closed, the only thing open was a pizza place. Three hours after ordering, I got my emergency supply pizza and waited the civil unrest out in comfort.
All of this made me realize that when the real apocalypse comes, I'm mercifully and deservedly going to be one of the first to die.
(Tue 19th Jun 2012, 19:12, More)