Additional Pieces to That Puzzle That Looks Like a Balding Homeless Schizophrenic Man (You Probably Bought it At the Mall)

Let’s deconstruct this whole crazy guy in the store thing, “Rashomon”-style. First off, I did alert Jordan to the crazy guy yesterday afternoon when I visited him after returning from the woodsy state of Vermont. I noticed this fellow who was balding, egg shaped, and oddly enough, screaming and pointing at nothing in particular.

This episode reminded me of when I was on my dinner break a few weeks ago, and of all the empty seats in Duchess, I had to pick the one right next to a crazy guy who was talking to himself, except this guy was smaller, more wiry and had crazy-man hair (not unlike mine). The only thing separating this man, who chose to repeat things like “the fucking bastards,” over and over again, was a thin metal “cage” that is used decoratively to class up Duchess. I felt bad for moving because I knew that he’d know that I was doing it because he was muttering to himself, so I stayed where I was, trying to read and eat and ignore the strange, meaningless cursing going on directly to my left.

So anyway, back to today…

I was feeling a little ill this morning, because of, um, digestive unpleasantness, and was late to work. Shortly before leaving my house I signed online to check my email, look at how my stocks are doing, and seeing what the weather looked like for the day. Or, if you want the truth, I was looking up movie news and checking out porn. Anyway, Jordan signs on and starts telling me that the crazy guy from yesterday is now in the store, and that he is scared, nervous, and a little turned on. Shortly, our online conversation looked like this:

BIGDONG69 [Jordan]: AHHHHHHH!!!!
HOTFUCK666 [Drew]: AHHHHHHHH!!!!
BIG DONG69 [Jordan]: AHHHHHHH!!!!
HOTFUCK666 [Drew]: AHHHHHHH!!!!

I raced down to the video store and saw this man, in roughly the location of “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie,” talking to himself. In some sort of weird kick of active authoritativeness, I wanted to go ask him if he needed anything. Then I thought that he could have any number of things on his person, beneath his wavy trench coat, including but not limited to: a large hunting knife or a live wolverine. I joined Jordan behind the counter at a sociological experiment distance, not really noticing anything until he walked by the counter, said something about Vietnam and walked out of our lives, possibly forever.

It should be noted that the first thing Jordan said to me when I walked in the video store was not “hide,” “duck,” or “be careful,” but rather: “Dude, check out the blog - I just wrote about him.” Consider it done.

Drew.