Jun 1, 2010

 

The place is Hooterville, the time is later afternoon, a kindly old hardware man goes about his business unaware that he is about to enter, The Twilight Zone.

A woman comes into the hareware store to buy a light bulb for her frig.  A simple purchase that happens several time each day.  While the kindly old hardware man is reaching for the correct bulb, her cellphone rings.

 Well, not rings, but a musical, la, la, la.  La, la...it is vaguely familiar, something from the past.  It could be the late, great Karen Carpenter? We can't be sure.

The woman answers the call, "Hi, honey."

Silence in the store, the other party is talking.

"You might notice that your brother isn't home."

Other party is talking again.

"No, worse than that, he's in jail."

Other party talks while the woman listens.

"I guess that outstanding warrant came back to bite him in the butt.  The Dog Patch (a town near Hooterville) cops got him this morning at Dunkin Donuts.  He went to get something for breakfast and a cop recognized him."

This conversation goes on for a good ten minutes.  The hardware man just stands there mesmerized, unable to move on because of a strange force of this woman's voice.  He knows he shouldn't be listening, but he is powerless to stop, frozen in place.

When she finally hangs up, the hardware man is made to listen to the unabridged version of the troubles caused by the woman's two miscreant young adults (ages 20 and 23).  The twenty-three-year-old has a kid and the whole bunch live with Mom and Dad.

The son is in lockup for either failing to appear on a bunch of traffic issues or because he destroyed his last apartment in retaliation for his landlord demanding that he pay rent.  One or the other.

The daughter, the person on the other end of the phone call,  previously spent some time in lockup over a pesky drug rap.  Now she and her child are living with Mom and Dad, while she gets back on the straight and narrow.

These are a strange race of beings, almost identical to real human beings except for one thing. Their creator left out the TMI filter and they roam the Earth, spilling their guts to any who crosses their path.

So, if you are out at night, alone and in the dark, and you hear someone say, "God almighty, my butt itches like a sumofabitch", run my friend, run far away.  It's them.





Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

9 comments:

Steve Reed said...

I'm always amazed by the things people will discuss in public. I guess it's the whole anonymity-of-crowds phenomenon. And maybe it's bizarrely therapeutic for them??

Kurt said...

I did a cartoon about that.

Megan said...

You would not believe what I hear on the train sometimes.

The Bug said...

Oh so funny! I love people like this - how else can you realize how actually wonderful your own life is?

Barbara said...

Even if it's TMI, it makes me feel really good about my kids. At least they've never been arrested.

Barbara said...

P.S. This woman is probably one of those people who fear being outed on the Internet (even though she's willing to broadcast her family history in Ace Hardware). Little does she know she just was. :)

Wanderer said...

An awful lot of these people are self medicating for serious problems that a doctor should be prescribing for! We have a few bi-polar people in our family who are off doing their own thing rather than seeking the proper help -- Yesterday I saw two public melt downs--one was a businessman screaming into his cell phone, really screaming--

Reya Mellicker said...

Whoa. That IS scary. Perfect video accompaniment, btw.

Bella Rum said...

...and you know she thinks this is perfectly normal. they always do.