Strangers in the Night

I swear to you what you are about to read is the absolute realism.

One summer when we still lived in Little Town, USA, my cousin Tiffiany came to stay with us for about a week. She was closer to my older sister's age, but all of us including my brothers and I hung out and played together. She and my sister would play with Barbies a lot of the time and when all five of us would get together we'd watch movies, play cards or checkers or something like that. I can even remember us playing with jax. (Save all your comments/jokes).

We so enjoyed being around each other that we even all slept together. No, silly, not in the same bed. We'd be hard pressed to fit five people in one bed comfortably. Instead we would make a pallet on the floor with blankets and sheets and all fall asleep watching t.v. late into the night. The pallet would go in the den. The den opened to the other bedrooms and the dining room and kitchen area. The front door was in the den, but we mainly used the side door in the kitchen. At some point, presumably, my mom or him* would get up and turn the television off. I can't remember seeing them do that, but when we'd awake the next morning, it would always be off. You can imagine the five of us up talking, laughing, joking and watching t.v. I'm sure my mom or him* just waited until they heard the murmuring die down and then just came and shut the t.v. off.

This particular night we actually weren't really asleep. None of us were talking, but none of us were yet asleep. We saw two small figures--almost elf-like walk behind us from down the hallway, lift the covers off our feet, pause for a moment (that seemed like an eternity to us because we were frozen in fear), release the covers and then walk out the kitchen door. Before you think I was imagining things, let me hasten to say this event definitely took place. If I was imagining things, then so was my cousin and three siblings. Each of us can attest to what we saw. When we told mom and him* they were dismissive. That experience prepared me for the decision that was rendered in the Rodney King trial. It doesn't matter how many witnesses there are or if there is undeniable proof, sometimes the evidence will still be dismissed.

I know about the power of suggestion. It would be different if I claimed to have seen something and no one else was awake and then they attested to seeing it as well, after I had placed the thought in their heads. After hearing it constantly, they might subconsciously wish that they had the same experience so as to belong and then feel strongly that they had participated in the same sequence of events.

That moment after the creatures exited the door, there was an eerie silence for a little while and then one of us broke the silence with a question like, "Did ya'll see that." Almost in concert each of us indicated that we in fact saw the small creatures. What was so unreal is that if we were imagining things, I don't think we would have felt the sensation of the covers being lifted and the cold air that seeped under the covers as a result of them having been lifted clean off our feet.

Here are my questions to you. Do you have a weird experience with the unexplained? Do you have another explanation for what my cousin, siblings and I will swear to in court under penalty of perjury to have witnessed?

I mentioned before that I have a mild case of e.s.p. I'm only half serious but I definitely have deja vu experiences frequently and have dreamed things that took place subsequent to the dream.

Yes You Did

How come when you call back numbers on your cell phone that you don't recognize sometimes the person on the other end swears that no one called? How in the world do you suppose I got this number on my cell phone if no one called? Somebody DID call. Even if it wasn't you, it was somebody. Today I called someone back and he told me that he hadn't made any calls in the last few hours and so it couldn't have been anyone. He asked me if I knew "Maya". I didn't know a Maya. My assumption is that Maya had his phone. He still didn't think anyone had called. What are the chances that I just randomly dialed some numbers just to mess with you about having called me? I'd rather people just say they don't know who called.

So That Makes Sense To You?

Picture it. Sicily 1924. Oh wait, I'm getting my story confused with the way the grandma used to tell stories on the Golden Girls. Don't hate on the Golden Girls. That show was so damned funny. Actually, it was eighth grade year and we were getting ready to go on our class trip to Washington, D.C. I remember the trip cost $319 per person and of course you had to bring some spending money. We were gonna be in the city for five days four nights. The plan was to do all the touristy stuff the city had to offer.

I don't remember a whole lot of details about the trip. I do know that we had a helluva good time. We had coach transportation so the ride was comfortable. We watched movies, told jokes and reminisced about days gone by. Good times were had by all.

Anyway I had my lil $200 spending money. I decided that I was going to eat very cheaply all week and spend my money on me some name brand clothes. Growing up in my house at the time there were four children and two adults. My parents really, honestly couldn't afford to have four children. I'll never forget one day when we were in the car him* asked me if we (my siblings and I) wanted a little sister. I have two brothers and a sister so there were three boys and one girl. I was quick with my absolutely not reply. I told him* that he couldn't afford the children he already had. How was he gonna pay for another one? Although I was telling nothing but the sho nuff truth, this of course caused a small argument. Stop being so grown, blah blah blah. Disrespectful blah blah blah. I was thinking to myself, why ask a question if you don't want the answer? Even now when my friends and associates probe me for information I'll first ask them if they really want my opinion or if they want me to say what I perceive that they want to hear.

I almost forgot the point of that whole side story. The point is my peeps didn't really have it like that to be popping out any more babies. Plus, what's the guarantee that the next child would be a female. So far 3/4 kids have been male. Nikes and any other things with a recognizable label were not always things that we had the luxury of having. When we did get something we'd have to take excellent care of it because who knew when the next time was that you'd be able to have something else.

Like I said I ate cheap that week. There were even a couple meals built into the price of the trip so we weren't responsible for every single meal anyway. Everyone else was ordering some costly stuff for each meal but I fell back, because I knew I wanted to get myself a Tommy Hilfiger outfit. When it came time for the mall trip on the itinerary I did just that. I was so proud of my conquest. I couldn't wait to show my mom what I had purchased since they valued sacrifice. It seemed like that word was a constant theme in our house.

When I got back and showed her my outfit him* was present as well because it went down in their bedroom. Him* asked me how much I had spent. I don't remember the exact amount but it was somewhere around $130. Him*'s eyes got huge. He was like why would you be so selfish and spend $130 on one outfit. What about your brothers and sister? You could have stretched (another common word heard resonating in our house) that and got something for everybody. I was thinking to myself and I didn't say it that I thought the spending money was my spending money. I didn't realize that I was expected to shop for the neighborhood while I was away. If I had understood that I would have, but of course I would have needed more money because prior to leaving I had already decided what I was spending my money on. I rarely got to get name brand stuff so when I saw the chance to get me something I was definitely going to take advantage of it. Cancel those plans.

Him* decided that the following day, a Saturday, we would drive to the nearest Macy's and take back my purchase to get a refund. Then we'd drive back to Savannah and go to KidsWear and get outfits for me and my three brothers. I had a learner's permit so I did the driving. Mind you the nearest Macy's was 2.5 hours away. Back then gas was nowhere near what it is today, but I still didn't see how driving 2.5 hours to take back a $100 outfit was all that cost effective, not to mention the intangible cost of my time. That's about 7 hours of my life that I can't get back. Of course the stuff at KidsWear wasn't a recognizable name brand, but it was clean and I didn't look homeless. I think each of use got two outfits on that money.

When I told my best friend she laughed like no tomorrow. It became a running joke. "Shut up before I tell [him*] to take you to KidsWear." Even to this day we'll mention this incident in casual conversation from time to time and trip.

'ruth'

Okay so this is really random and doesn't relate to anything, but it popped in my head as I was having a conversation with myself about someone else. Yeah, I talk to myself, but it's like thinking out loud. Nothing crazy about it. I've come across many people in my day who I would characterize as ruthless individuals. Let's deconstruct this word morphologically. Think back to middle school. The suffix -less means without. So the word ruthless means without ruth. Now what he heck does ruth mean? Have a great day.

Why Am I Blue?

This just in: Don's post on Sunday was heads above the rest. Nothing but the truth! If you haven't read it, get over there and check it out. Now we continue with our regularly scheduled post.
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I'm just a country boy from the south who's him* is a preacher. We went to church on Sunday, Bible Study on Wednesday, service twice on Sundays for special programs, Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, Choir Rehearsal on Tuesdays, Easter practice--suffice it to say church was a big thing growing up. When I was younger I didn't really like going. Somewhere around age 14 or 15 I started liking to go to church. Even now I enjoy going. It's because I was able to develop a personal relationship with Him. It's really not so much about religion; it's more about having a relationship. Don't think that you have to do all that form and fashion stuff that people do at church under the pretense of being religious. If you have a relationship with Him, it'll show in your daily life. (If I'm preaching you can stand up and say Amen.) Have you ever encountered someone and you just felt like there was something different about them? Some sort of presence or an air about them that is hard to describe, but is very much so tangible. They had that it. Even if you can't describe or articulate what 'it' is, you know it's definitely something different. I submit to you that those are the people who truly are trying to walk the walk. Turn with me, to Proverbs the fifth chapter---just playing.

Anyway, church was a big deal. How do you find out more stuff that you can add to your church? You to go the church conference/convention in another state where a bunch of other church people get together and teach each other new buzz words and practices that are popular in their neck of the woods. It's like if no one in your church was speaking in tounges, if you go to the church conference and find out that that's what everybody else is doing, then when you come back to your home church you start doing it first and everyone thinks you've gotten closer to God and then they try to do it to because you're not gonna be closer to God than they are. Church people are like that. I've been around it all my life.

So this particular year we went to a church conference in Delaware. My parents already knew the pastor who was over the conference. I don't remember how they met, but they were already well acquainted. The conference might have lasted three days but we just stayed the rest of the time until Sunday where our church from home came to Delaware to have a joint service with the church in Delaware. Our church provided the music for that particular service.

The pastor and his wife were very hospitable. They introduced us to some of the members in the church who also entertained us during the week that we were there. My siblings and I ended up almost everyday hanging with this one family. Let's call them the Mitchells. The mom was so sweet and thoughtful. You should see her praise. She'd stand on her high heels and go from side to side like she's two stepping and make circular motions in the air with both her hands palms facing inward toward each other. The dad was a humble man, very mild mannered. He would shout like he was doing the funky chicken. There were two daughters in the family. One about 23 and one about 16. I'm around age 16 at the time. So yeah I wanted to get at the 16 year old. Let's call her Jennifer. (That was actually her real name). In order to get a girl to notice you on the 'church circuit' you have to act like you're really into church. Each night after the conference there is a evening service that starts around 6 or 7. What we (the guys) would do is find a girl who you like. When they call for the altar prayer, we'd go down front and get special prayer. That would encourage the girls to come down front and stand with you for moral support. If you got a girl to come down and stand with you, then she was yours. Other tactics included crying during the service. That whole "I'm sensitive" thing worked oh so well on those fast ass wholesome church girls. You only needed to shed a tear though if you were in her direct line of sight. If you couldn't be sure that she could see you, there's no point in crying.

So anyway, the Mitchells would come and get us during the week and we'd go to the beach or out to eat or to their home. One particular afternoon we went to one of the Mitchell's friends house. We were left alone and the adults went to town to shop or something. So at the house was me, my two brothers, and Jennifer. The adults trusted us to just play video games and hang out and whatnot. Where was Beyonce then? *singing* You must not know 'bout me..*end singing* When they left I was like, yes!! Let's paint a picture. I'm 16. She's 16. We're home with no adults. And you want us to just play video games? Uh...okay. If that helps you sleep at night. If all we ended up doing was playing video games, it wouldn't be for lack of trying to engage in other, more gratifying activities.

At first we were all downstairs because that's where the video game setup was. My brothers were 14 at the time and were heavily into video games. I still played but that was not what I had planned to use that time for. I started my plan. I asked Jennifer to show me the rest of the house--mainly the upstairs. She agreed. So we looked in the people's bedroom and at the other rooms upstairs. We went into one of the bedrooms to just chill. I asked her what she wanted to do. She's like I don't know. I'm thinking to myself, well I have an idea. Before I jumped into anything I was trying to figure out how much she had done at this point in her life. So I asked some probing questions. Basically I determined that she was a virgin and was scared to take the leap. I didn't even press that issue. I decided that I should just seek some oral pleasure.

I asked her to do it. She acted like I asked her to slap her mom. She started on this tirade about how she thinks that's nasty and blah blah blah. I was blowed, but more than that I couldn't think straight or clearly because a good bit of the blood that oxygenates my brain had rushed elsewhere. I was hornier than a mug! It was so bad it was about to start hurting. I needed to skeet bad as hell. At this point I'm thinking to myself why the hell would you follow me upstairs if you gonna be acting crazy? This ain't Flip That House. I don't give phuck about what the house looks like. I'm getting desparate at this point. I'm still trying to convince her. I'm bargaining for smaller increments of time like saying just for a few minutes and stuff like that. Still a no go. I needed to be touched so badly that I made a last ditch offer for her to just let me put it on her neck. I don't know where that came from but I just needed to touch something. I was so brick and horny I might've skeeted on her neck as soon as it made contact. She wasn't feeling that either. Needless to say I was deeply disturbed. Good thing we didn't really jump off into anything because it wasn't long after that the adults returned. They questioned us as to why we were upstairs and not downstairs with the boys. We gave some flimsy answer and all was forgiven.

On the ride back home (Ms. Mitchell was driving me and my brothers back to our hotel. About a 40 minute ride) Jennifer asked me if I was mad at her. My reply was simply, "Don't talk to me." I mean, how you gonna play with a sixteen year old boy's horniness like that?

In case you read this, Jennifer, you owe me. You got off the hook that time. Maybe that's why some people end up (finish my thought).

Oh yeah, the thing yesterday, I cussed (cursed) somebody out at work. I have absolutely never cursed someone out. I always say stuff like, "I ought to curse him/her out", but i'm never really serious. First time for everything.

Forgive Me

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I always mention it in causal conversation. I've threatened to do it before, but I was never serious. Today I actually went there. I can't believe I did it. She shouldn't have pushed my buttons. That's still no excuse. Maybe I'll apologize tomorrow. Maybe not. She kinda deserved it, but that still does not justify my behavior. I usually don't let things bother me, but she caught me at the wrong time. I guess it was just a matter of time before it happened. Words have power. Having romanticized it in the past, I gave life to that deplorable wont. On some level I'm ashamed. Though I carry myself with piety, my behavior today was sanctimonious. Inexcusable. Inexplicable. So out of character. It was like an out-of-body experience. Maybe the next time she'll keep her dang mouth shut, so that it won't happen again. Actually, no, that's the wrong way to look at it. I'm the only person who can control my behavior. It's really not her fault. I did it because I wanted to. The dragon within was incensed and awakened and spewed a venom so potent that she left like a wounded lamb. She almost had to be carried out. It was her brazeness that made it so harsh. I wonder what my supervisor is going to say.

Real post coming tomorrow I think.

Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters!

Remember the friend, and I use the term loosely, who I wrote about who tells these ridiculous lies? No? Okay, maybe not if you're new, but that just means it's time for you to do your homework. Dig in the archives. I was reading some stuff from last year (and I realized I missed my blogiversary) and I had my own self laughing. Some of the stuff made me mellow, but it allowed me to see where I was and where I am now.

Let's call this friend Angel. She went to Minnesota to stay with her boyfriend's family. To me that's pretty serious stuff. You're going 1000+ miles away from home to live with your significant other's folks for about two months in their house. Well while they were there she'd call me from time to time just to let me know how things were going and whatnot. Most of the time I'd ig her calls because if I'm not in the mood to hear a bunch of stuff that I don't find credible or relevant I just won't take your call. Sometimes if I know you're gonna tell me a bunch of lies and I'm not in the mood to hear a bunch of lying, that might get your call ignored as well. Hear me clearly. I like to be entertained, so many times I'll take the call just so I can see how many lies she's going to tell this time or see if I can get her to change/modify/enhance a story that she's already told me before. I know she's a chronic liar, but every now and then just to be JayBee I'll call her on a lie and watch her squirm and try to back peddle and use a conjuncting lie (just made that up) to try to make all the divergent stories converge.

At some point over the course of these two months or so she called me and told me her boyfriend, hereinafter Wayne, was being controlling and mean to her. She claimed he didn't want her going out during the day by herself. Mind you he had to work during the day along with his parents so basically that left her home alone with nothing to do. I guess she could watch t.v. and vacuum but how much of that can one person do before they are bored out of their mind? This went on for a while and on one of the calls she told me she went out during the day without his knowledge and he found out. Well that caused an argument that turned physical. Because of her noncompliance with his directive he told her from now on she'd stay in the basement while they were away at work. The basement locked at the top of the stairs so basically she was a prisoner in their home.

After the lockup she'd call me whispering telling me what was going on. Sometimes she'd abruptly hang up the phone and call back in a few minutes and say things like she thought she heard someone coming. I left this out. Somewhere in all this mess he told her she wasn't to talk on the phone while she was alone either so that's why she was whispering.

Here's what's wrong with the whole my-boyfriend-abused-me-and-locks-me-in-the-basement story. First of all, if someone has become physical with you and you choose to stay, there ain't no need of telling anyone about it. The persons with whom you share your story are going to look at you like you're crazy especially if that someone is me. I know the damaging affects of abuse. I can in nowise condone you staying in that situation waiting on it to happen again. I am a 99.8275% firm believer in the if it happened once it'll happen again thing. Maybe 0.1725% of the time there might be an exception.

There has already been a word coined in the English language that labels the concept of someone holding you somewhere against your will. It's called kidnapping. If you expect me to believe your story, keeping in mind that your credibility with me is zero, why the phuck are you calling me? I'm hundreds of miles away. Call the freaking police. They are the ones who are trained to deal with situations like this. Not me. I'm just a school teacher.

If Wayne has you locked up, why the hell did he just not take the phone out the basement? In that way he could ensure that you had no contact with the outside world. Unless he thought you were scared to death of him, why be so brazen as to risk you calling the police or your family or JayBee who could give a phuck less (if you've never heard that expression, it's worse than not giving a [whole] phuck; it's less than a phuck)?

Unless his parents are from Venus, I don't think they would condone their son locking you in a basement for nine hours a day. When he let you out of the dungeon, I'm thinking dinner time, you never once said anything to his peeps about what Wayne was doing to you everyday?

Of course not, Angel, because it was all a lie. And just like the other gross lie, (if you didn't click the link read the other story) it made absolutely no sense. There were too many holes and unanswered questions. It's actually kinda insulting when someone tells you a lie and hasn't taken the time to think through all the questions they might be asked so as to develop plausible answers. It's like oh, so you think I'm as stupid as you, huh? Surely you don't believe down in your tortured soul that I believe this crap. Let's say it was true and I'm totally off on thinking you're being untruthful. You should have called Ghostbusters. They're real too.