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serendipitous reflections

Friday, August 04, 2006

My name is Dean and I am a stalker

Yes, I guess it's true. I'm a stalker and I scare children. Let me explain...

Tuesday after work, we had a few errands to run. I was desperately overdue for a haircut (see picture of me with Kelly below) so I went to get my hair cut and dropped Jeni at Target to wander around and shop. After my haircut, I joined Jeni at Target, did a little shopping and got hungry. Well Tish and Susan (from work) were meeting some friends at Wild Wing Cafe near Target and had invited us to join them. We called and they placed our order so it would be ready about when we get there. We arrive to a bit of a party ... about 20 people dining together, beers, shots, good times. Jeni and I enjoyed some sweet tea, recognizing that someone has to get people home.

At the end of the night Jeni drives Tish's car with Tish and Susan, dropping Susan off first, then meeting me at Tish's to leave her car so we can head home. Since it didn't really make much sense for me to follow them and zig zag around I went straight to Tish's. Now, Tish has a one-car driveway and is on a busy street, so when I pull in, I pull off to the side and into the yard a bit (no biggie ... everyone does that). It's late and I know that we'll get delayed if I go in, so I just wait in the car knowing that Jeni and Tish can't be that far behind. I see one of Tish's boys peek through the blinds as I turn my lights off, but they never came out so I figure they're watching TV or wasting time and brainpower on My Space. So I pull out my Palm Pilot and start playing hearts.

Time passes. And more time. It seems like about 10 or 15 minutes has passed. My game ends and I'm about to start another one when there's a knock on the passenger window. I roll the window down and some man says, "Can I help you?"

I look and Edwin, Tish's 13-year-old son, is standing beside this guy. I say, "I'm waiting for Tish," and look at Edwin and say, "Edwin! You know what kind of car I drive."

He responds with, "Yeah, my Mom said it was you, but I wasn't sure." Then he walks around and checks the hood ornament on my car like maybe I'm not really in a Volkswagon.

Here's what happened ... the boys got freaked out when I pulled in since sometimes people (rough people) stop at the wrong house late at night waiting to pick someone up. Without their mom home, they decided to check with a neighbor. But with me parked in the front, they decided to hop their eight-foot fence, run through the neighbor's back yard, hop another fence, to the other neighbor's and knock on her back door. This, of course, freaks her out because it's 10:30 at night. So she calls her boyfriend who lives in the next neighborhood who promptly comes over. In the meantime, they call their mother who says, "Jeni's driving me home. That's Dean." But they still let the boyfriend come and confront me. I did thank the boyfriend for helping the boys out.

Ironically, as Jeni and I left the neighborhood, a police car came tearing down the street with his lights on and I asked Jeni, "Think they're coming for me?"

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