Saturday, January 21, 2006

Hey La, Hey La, the Convict's Back

Once upon time, Our Idiosyncratic Heroine was enjoying a quiet evening at home, vacuuming, watching bad Canadian television and earnestly ignoring a pile of dirty dishes. There was a knock at the door.

It was the Downstairs Neighbor. "Could she please borrow the cordless phone connected to my land line to call her cell phone? She can't find it anywhere." But of course!

Long story short, the phone was with her husband. Her husband was in jail. Her car was impounded because her husband got arrested "during a routine traffic stop" with some friends who had warrants out for their arrest. He got arrested "because he was with them."

Riiiiight. Oh, and the drugs the police found in the glove compartment. Don't forget about those! (This was two weeks after his "friend" stole the nice 12-year-old's bike out of our common storage area and sold it for drug money.)

Is this any of Our Idiosyncratic Heroine's business? No, it most certainly is not. You know what makes it her business? The fact that the Downstairs Neighbor's Druggie Husband called MY, I mean, Our Idiosyncratic Heroine's, home phone number FIFTY-SEVEN times in the next three weeks. From prison. He saw the number on his wife's cell phone's caller ID from when she was using my land line's cordless phone to call her own cell phone, which she thought was at the bottom of the diaper bag, between the cushions, or her toddler hid it somewhere.

Anyway, he's out of prison apparently! I passed him on the stairs this morning as I was was bringing Bella in from her walk. He was holding his toddler, and there was his dutiful wife, following him out the door. I guess the part where he had her named as a co-defendent in a larceny case (dude, I sound nosy, but someone from the county courthouse taped their indictment notice to our common entrance door) is just water under the bridge. Woo-ee.

He was all, "How have you been? I'm Prince Charmy-Schmarmy!"
And I was all, "Okay." in a very curt voice. What was I supposed to say? "I'm super! My index finger is still sore from the number of times I repeatedly entered the 'block all calls from this prisoner' code, but thanks for asking!"

It makes me miss Denise, the previous tenant. I used to take care of Pumpkin, her belligerent orange cat with a squashed face and six toes on each paw. He was a little deranged, but we enjoyed playing the Bottle Cap Game when Denise went on vacation. Then again, Denise had an extensive collection of Barbies that she kept lit 24 HOURS A DAY in elaborate glass display cases, and she referred to the cat as "the man of the house." She smoked and sounded like Fran Drescher and GOD, I WISH she would move back in. At least she never called me from prison FIFTY-SEVEN TIMES.

5 comments:

Alissa said...

I'm surprised your landlord didn't kick them out after the theft-for-drug-money incident....

Anonymous said...

Oh my good lord. I actually have a psycho-neighbor story from a few years ago, and now I'm thinking I should turn it into a blog entry because it would take way too long to tell it here. The only advice I can give you is keep your valuables locked up. And consider changing your phone number. Yeesh.

Anonymous said...

hysterical. why does this sh*t happen to you? :)

Anonymous said...

Mothers typically worry. As YOUR mother, now I'm REALLY worried! On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1=no worries, and 10=a breakdown, how worried should I be that Convict Man is back? Love, Mom

Unknown said...

Oh goodness. Someone apparently gave out our number recently as their own...and this someone apparently owes a lot of creditors a lot of money. We get calls at all hours of the day and night, but I think 57 times must be some kind of record.
Be safe with the convict back downstairs, please.