I don’t like confrontation of any kind. I kinda just like hangin’, ya know?
OK. A little back story.
Last fall I did some work for this old woman. Let’s call her WOW (as in, wacked-out-woman). Among other things I replaced the locksets on a couple of her doors. While I worked she told me how hard her life was, how frightened she was, and how she felt that her granddaughter’s husband had broken into her house.
She seemed like a pitiable little thing, kinda like a little field mouse caught in the headlights. Seemingly a little shocked by what life was tossing at her.
I felt bad for her.
But as I worked on her house over the course of the next several days I started to realize she was maybe not so innocent or sorry seeming. She was coldly calculating and ya know, like maybe a WOW?
Fast forward a couple a months and she’s calling me wanting me to send her something in writing detailing the damage done to her front door (um, none?) by her granddaughter’s husband whom she’s had arrested for felony property destruction with intent.
Oh fuck. Like I need this.
So I e-mail the scary little WOW a short declarative stating what I’d seen and done and figured that’d be the end of it, right?
Not a chance, not so fast Mister.
Fast forward a couple a more months and on Monday I get home and have a subpoena rubber banded to my door requesting my attendance in court.
Hoo boy.
So I go to court. And the mousey WOW thanks me like I have choice and tells me what she and her lawyer want me to say. I nod and don’t listen. There ain’t no way I’m lyin’ for anybody.
Well maybe for Miss Carol or Cutter or Tug. But that’s it.
And we go into court-a weirdly surreal place I’ve never been to-and go through the whole swearing in, questioning, witness-calling experience.
In the end the rodent WOW had no evidence other than a smoldering hatred for her granddaughter’s husband. The case was dismissed and I felt kinda glad for the guy.
I don’t know. nor will I ever, the whole story, but I was amazed and sickened by that woman’s driving vindictiveness and vile hatred. It opened a door into the human spirit I hope to never see again.
WOW.
oceandoggy.com 