In the small town I called home for so many years of my life (and still harbour great affection for) eccentrics were the norm, not the exception. Everyone has something about them that, in this fine city, would cause people to cross the street to avoid contact (or, at the very least, wish that they had). People wore cowboy hats in church, or kept Christmas lights on their house until August, or got drunk and shot the neighbour's Christmas lights off their house with a rifle, or got drunk got naked put a paper bag on their head and tormented their ex-girlfriend.
I am especially fond of that last one: got drunk got naked put a paper bag on their head and tormented their ex-girlfriend. I mean, where else can something like that happen and have it seem more hilarious than frightening?
A jilted ex-lover, drunk and missing his former squeeze, one night decided that the best way to recapture that "lovin' feeling" was to pay her a visit 'in cognito'. Lacking any real skill for disguise, and being more drunk than clever, the fellow reasoned that the materials at hand were enough to satisfy his need.
The materials happened to include all of one item: a single brown paper bag, slightly used.
Hoping, in his drunken haze, that just seeing him again might feed a flickering flame back to a fiery passion he put his best attribute forward and left the house without his pants.
Or shirt.
Or socks. . .actually, he may have had socks on--the paper didn't say.
Arriving at his ex's house he crept about in the bushes, bag on head, hoping against all hope that he might escape discovery and catch a glimpse of her, oh--I don't know, climbing out of the shower NAKED. Washing the dishes NAKED. Maybe running the vacuum over the mud room rug NAKED. Sighing deeply the whole while, wishing that some sweaty middle-aged man with 18 fingers of rye down might come and exorcise the boredom of her world with his member.
There are no accounts of how long it took her to notice the man wearing the bag mask and stomping about her geraniums with his dingly-do swinging about between his legs like some half-dead monkey clinging to a tree in a hurricane, but my guess is "not long".
Which was surprising, considering that he had taken great pains at discretion.
Ideally, when he saw her picking up the phone, it was to call him, and he wouldn't be home; that would cause desire in her, perhaps even a bit of jealously--"Out having fun with another woman!"--and just when her evening couldn't get any worse, Ding Dong! and there he'd be!
So when the police arrived, he pretended that he was just out for some fresh air.
And when the police asked him why he had no clothing on, and was wearing a paper bag where most men in town wear John Deere hats, he plead ignorance. The paper didn't say if he attempted to affect the "Who. . .wha. . .where am I? What's happening?" but if he's anything like me in a pinch, then the paper would have been wasting ink--the weather column doesn't print that the sky will be blue when you wake up tomorrow, with a 30% chance of rain; you already know.
"Yes, officer? Can I help you?"
That would have been a smooth line, too.
The paper also neglected to note whether he was photographed by police with or without clothing, and bag on or bag off. It would have been interesting collecting his personal belongs before admitting him to the holding cell: "One brown bag w/ eye holes". I'd love to find that outside my house one morning.
Thinking about the story now, it reminds me of that joke about 'sealing the deal' on a date with someone who was so ugly that they needed to wear a bag on their head to make love. He was, according to witnesses, a double bagger.
No comments:
Post a Comment