Crazy People, part 2

There is a picture of me to the right in which I am looking incredulous. Or maybe just plain crazy. But I really do not have the challenges that one couple I know has.

I will call them Bill and Angela because that is not their real names, and if they ever read this I do not want a law suit.

Well, I went to see Bill. He is a feisty little fellow only slightly thicker than a broom stick. He seems to be always in perpetual peripatetic mode. I mean the guy can't even stand still. He is always vibrating and jumping all around. And he is always complaining about something. If it isn't taxes, it is the police. And if it isn't the police, it is about the people around him, and how utterly unfair life is, and how he always gets the small end of the stick, the raw deal, life is never fair, blah blah blah.

He came home and his wife Angela had been there and gone. She had moved a few things around in his trailer, and of course this really set Bill off. He just came unglued. He started heaving the offending items that were on "his table, his chair, his counter" out the door into the middle of the lawn. Books, a back pack, a bottle of bleach, all sorts of things.

Just about the time he finished, up walks Angela. I don't know where she had gone, and I guess it really did not matter. But she was extremely angry to see her things being cast out into the yard. And she and Jim started having words about it.

"Why are you throwing my things out."
"Well you left them on MY table."
"It is my table too."
"No... I paid for this trailer (I may have not mentioned, but they live in a tiny trailer) with MY money, so it is MY trailer."

I left them screaming at each other out in the yard with Angela trying to rescue her backpack because "it is full of stolen things I have to return to campus security." Enough said.

Two hours later, my friend John and I came back to see if Angela and Bill had killed each other. No... but things were rapidly getting worse.

Angela decided that if Bill was going to throw her things out in the yard, maybe she should show Bill what it felt like. So... she tossed out some of his things into the yard. The stereo was scattered in broken pieces all over the lawn. Bill had just bought it a couple of days before. John and I could not help it -- we started laughing. Bill was NOT AMUSED. Not in the least.

"I suppose you and your wife NEVER had an argument."

"No, you don't understand. Ha HA ha The reason I am laughing," replied John doubling up with paroxysms of laughter, "is that you remind me ha ha ha of exactly what me and my wife ha ha ha used to do."

Finally after several minutes John could control his laughter for just a moment. "Hey, what are you going to do with your NEW stereo system?"

"It is trashed, I am going to junk it."

"Do you mind if I have it?"

"Oh yeah, you can have it. Sure."

So laughing as we went, we gathered up all the scattered bits and pieces. We even found the speakers broken up and in the trash can already.

I asked Angela if she had enjoyed throwing out Bill's things into the yard.

"YES!! I did!" she replied very emphatically. And by the way her eyes gleamed when she said it, I think she really did enjoy it.

John took the pieces home, and bungee corded and taped things up. He fitted all the little internal cable fittings back together. And believe it or not, it sort of worked. Well, He had to realign the head on the cd player, but the changer actually worked and everything. All the screw holes were broken, but it is amazing what shipping tape (and I mean a LOT of shipping tape) and bungee cords can do. So for 4 hours of hard work, John had a free stereo system. It definitely did not look very good. But he could load up to five cd's at once. Of course the sound quality wasn't quite the same, so he stuffed some material into one of the holes on each speaker boxes to "equalize the bass" and muffle the rattling. And then, believe it or not, it sounded mighty good.

Of course Bill wanted his stereo back, but John wasn't going to have any of that. "You told me I could have it, and now I have invested hours and hours of hard and challenging work into realigning the head, and basically rebuilding the entire system from tiny little pieces. No way are you going to have it back. Besides if I gave it back, Angela would just throw it out into the yard again."

It is still sitting in John's computer room blasting out love ballads and country and western music. And it it mostly clear wrapping tape and bungee cords now.

Occasionally John will go past Bill's house to see if there are any other salvageable things out on the lawn. Who knows, he might just get lucky again.

People really are crazy. Don't be one of them.

David A. Youngs