Turtle Man...

Have you ever met a crazy person??? No, not like a PMSing chick kinda crazy. I'm talkin like real crazy; like crazy crazy! I have! Last night! On my property! Ok let me esplain...

So like a month ago, the dumb dog started barking at like 1AM and I heard the gate at my driveway open and a car drive in and stop. So I got up and looked out my window and saw a guy going over to the gate to close it behind himself. Fishy right??? So I passed the time until I fell asleep again being irritated and plotting the downfall of the other people with whom I have to share my property.

The next morning around 10AM the guy left, and I called my Grandpa (who is my landlord) and told him how irked I was at the other tenants on the property who don't actaully live here. I said I thought they need to have hours when they shouldn't be allowed to come down here cause they wake me up and have little respect for us. I told him that there is no reason on earth for any of them to be here at 1AM. That got his attention and he said he wished I had called him and told him about it. I was like "Well, I'm not really accustomed to calling people at 1AM but if that's what you want..."

A couple nights later he came at midnight, so I called Grandad. He went out to the guy and talked to him and felt bad for him and decided he could stay. I didn't like it and told him so but he was trying to be kind and help the poor guy out. He told me he was odd but seemed harmless enough but if anything happened to let him know or call the cops if needed. Once again, he left the next morning at around 10. The same pattern continued since then. He would come quietly in the late evening and always close the gate behind himself and leave the next mid-morning. I didn't like it but there was nothing I could do but say I was uncomfortable and dream of the day we finally met face to face and hope that afterwards I could have a reason to make him go and stay away.

Tonight I got my wish! Yay!-ish... Today I had a nice girls day with my good friend Ciera. We ate sushi and watched the Princess and the Frog. After the movie we chatted and then she left. Or she tried to anyways... She called me from my driveway saying there was a guy asking for us to unlock the gate (there's a shiny new deadbolt on it as of two days ago) and demanding to be let in. I went out and he tried to give me the impression that he just needed to pick up some stuff and he was gonna leave. I let him know that I knew what he was doing here and that I wasn't thrilled with the situation. After the truth was out he kinda lost some steam but restarted his story.

Then he let me know he was crazier than his first impression made him seem. Turns out crazy people can pass as normal for a few minutes at a time. He began to tell me that he was a good christian man and that he didn't have a home and was going through "trials and tribulations" and that once he sold his [nasty crappy red] cadillac that the Lord would provide him with an RV and he would have a home. He started making Ciera nervous so she came over and asked for his name. His response: "My name is, uh, ........................Chris, some people call me Hovah [yeah, like Jehovah? Riiiiight!] or Turtle Man." Turtle Man? Wha? This is when we realized he was maybe not all there.

I'm thinking "whatever, I need to get out of this situation" and opened the gate and told him he could go get his stuff and reiterated that I preferred him to sleep elsewhere. He got defensive at this point as if I had told him flat out to get lost and the "conversation" escalated as he continued to tell us how he was a good Christian and that everyone was against him except for the angels and God and that someday he would be blessed for being so faithful. He said "The words of Jesus roll through me and out of my mouth." At this point, I'm a little more than freaked and I figure I have more than enough grounds to get Grandad to make him leave. So I told him "Go get your crap," and took Ciera back inside and called Grandad.

Grandad called the tenants on the property that had initially told him he could stay here and they came to talk to him and to try to get him to leave. Wanna hear the irony??? Turtle Man called the cops on all of us! That was just the proof to add to the pile of crazy I had just gotten. He's trespassing on our property and called the cops because we were "harassing" him!

When I saw the flashing lights out my kitchen window, my first thought was that there had been some kind of violence and someone got hurt and I was like "Oh, crap!" But once me and Ciera got outside it was difficult to refrain from the giggles. It was almost too obvious to the police who was the crazy and who belonged here. We told our side of the story and got the rest of the blanks for us filled. One of the cops walked up to us laughing really hard and told us the guy had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume in his car and asked if we had ever seen him wearing it.  I guess that's how he got the name "Turtle Man".

All in all, it was a really fantastic day for me. I got new shoes (post on those lovelies coming soon), sushi  and a fun movie with Ciera, and the bum off my property! I'm pretty happy, and feeling safer than I have in a month!