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On being a magnet for the strange

Category: Farm Doings | Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2015 4:55 pm

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My husband swears that if there is a weird, strange person within five miles, he/she will find me. Over the years, his statement has proven true.
We had been married a short time, and were sitting in our living room watching an old Sherlock Holmes movie at about midnight. There was a knock on our door and a neighbor was standing on our front porch, holding a six-foot long 2x4. Since he wasn't in the construction trades, we figured something was up.
He asked if we had seen a German Shepherd go by. We replied very few dogs trotted through our living room at 11:45 p.m. so no, we hadn't seen the dog. It seems this neighbor constantly left his garbage can out, and the dog constantly knocked it over. The 2x4 was to whack the dog if he encountered it. We didn't mention any dog worth its salt would go right past that six foot stick and get the neighbor by the nether regions.
The neighbor also had a rather large bandage on his forehead, and since I have no sense at all, I asked him what happened. It seems he shut the car door on his head. I left it at that.
When we moved to Texas, I stepped up my game. Here in Texas we don't keep our strange folk at home, we let them wander about to entertain the populace.
Our vegetable garden faced the Methodist Church parking lot. One evening a gentleman came to the back door and asked if he could plug in an emergency light so he could fix a van that was used for a charity's clothing distribution. We said sure, and showed him where an outside plug-in was located. We chatted, and found out that his name was "Lucky". A misnomer if there ever was one! First, he had only one arm, having lost an arm in a farming accident. Then he said that he couldn't drive his car because the driver's side door was missing. He went to the library to fill out forms for unemployment benefits and parked on the street. When he opened his car door to get out, another car whizzed by and ripped off the driver side door. Since he had no transportation, he couldn't get to the charity that let him drive the van. The charity had him on a waiting list for food and shelter, however.
Then there was the older lady who lived on the street in back of us. She came over one day to ask if we had seen her garbage can. (Remember the German Shepherd incident - deja vu!) No, we hadn't seen any garbage cans going by. Well, it was missing. Later that day she drove by, dragging the garbage can underneath her truck. It seems she had backed over the can which got stuck in the undercarriage, and she was trying to figure out where that strange truck noise was coming from!
Since we moved to the farm we've met a better class of strange people. There was the guy that wanted my husband to 1)trap bees that were in a camper (with flat tires and that obviously hadn't been used in years; 2) provide the hive, frames, and other equipment that bees need; and 3) give him the honey when we got it extracted and bottled. He was slightly offended that we weren't enthused about his plan.
We also have a neighbor who recently got a smart phone, and is convinced it has gotten into his head somehow. We tried to explain "cookies" that trace your preferences and recently visited sites, but he wanted to take it back to the store because it knew too much about him. I felt sorry for the smart phone.
And then there was the absolute stranger we had never laid eyes on before that pulled into our driveway and laid on the horn. We went out and she said she wanted to fish our pond and we should open the gate for her. Needless to say, she fished somewhere else.
I go into town once a week, and my husband worries I'll find yet another stranger that is strange. I cope well - over the years I've learned to smile, nod, and edge away (unless they are really strange, in which case I stash the story away for later use!).


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