Weird Guys: "Wheel me Back in!"

 Continuing my series on my experiences with one or more weird guys, I invite others to share their "weird guy" stories as well.

My beat-up Volkswagen needed some repairs to its upholstery, and this was in the eighties when you didn't Google "auto upholstery" shops. You looked in the Yellow Pages and then went to check out likely addresses. 

I was checking out an address in Wilmington, that community that's centered around the Port of Los Angeles, and the address I found turned out to not be an auto upholstery shop, just an auto parts store. They were probably just listed in the phone book because they sold sheepskin seat covers, or something like that, but I thought I'd stop in anyway. One of the clerks might be able to suggest a good auto upholstery shop nearby, or something.

I parked on the street right outside the store's door and went in. There appeared to be only one employee, a woman at the cash register, and she had a line of two or three customers. Near the check-out counter was one other person, a skinny pale-faced pale-haired young man in a wheelchair, and he spoke using of those tracheostomy valves inplanted in his throat.

He looked at me and demanded, "Why are you here?"

I explained I was here to see about getting my car's upholstery repaired.

"Show me your car!" he demanded.

"I need somebody who can give me an estimate for repairing my car's upholstery, do you know somebody who can?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, show me your car!"

I figured, no harm in being courteous to him, after all, he might be the check-out woman's son or something. I said, "Fine, I'll show you my car, it's just outside the door."

I held the shop door open and he wheeled out onto the sidewalk. I pointed to my battered Volkswagen and the torn upholstery. "See?" I explained, "That's the upholstery I want repaired."

His immediate response, "Wheel me back in!" 

Not only nothing about the car he was so hot to see, but not even, "Could you please hold the door so I can get back in the shop?" Not even a "please." Kings commanding their servants have more courtesy than he was showing me.

I knew I was wasting my time. I smiled sweetly as I got my keys from my purse and started to get in my car, at the same time saying, politely, "You got yourself out here. You can get yourself back in." 

I got in and started the motor, looked in the rearview mirror. He was struggling in his chair and glaring at me, as if utterly furious, as if he wanted to get out of that chair and pound me into the ground. I drove away.

I encountered a similar type in 2017, not in a wheelchair, but who apparently just thought women were put on this earth for him to make any demand of, anywhere, anytime. I was on a road trip in New Mexico and pulled over to read a roadside historical marker. At least there were other people around, it wasn't like it was a deserted stretch of highway.

I was minding my own business, reading the marker, when a voice demanded, "Gimme your camera! Lemme take your picture!"

I didn't even have my camera on me--it wasn't like it was in plain view, so even his assumption that I had a camera to give was weird.

Not, "Excuse me, Miss, but would you like me to take your picture?"

I looked at the guy and gave a blistering, "No, thank you!"

"But you look so cute," the guy whined, like that was an excuse.

I didn't finish reading the historical marker. I went straight to my car and got the You-know-where out of there. I checked my rear-view mirror a few times to make sure I wasn't being followed. That's the scariest on-the-road encounter I've ever had.

  

Weird Guys: The Landlord and the Wine

When I got a job working for the federal government near the Los Angeles Airport, I found a little two-room apartment in the neighborhood called Westchester to the north of the airport. I made the mistake of thinking I should get on friendly terms with my landlord, get to know him better. After all, I was a new girl in a big strange city, and I thought he'd be the most likely person to build trust with.

I wondered about his family. Did he have a wife and kids? If I asked about them, wouldn't he likely regale me with boasting about his beautiful wife and wonderful kid(s), maybe show off some pictures? Of course maybe he'd say, "Well, I'm happily divorced" or "I'm an old bachelor" or whatever? Maybe he'd get the wrong idea, me asking if he had a wife, some young single woman asking about his wife, but likely nothing that couldn't be laughed off, right?

So when I passed him on the walkway, I said, "You know, I'm new here, and I'd like to get to know you and my neighbors better, so I'm wondering if you're married."

His answer, "My wife died last week."

Who was I to think maybe that wasn't the truth? "I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do? Maybe, dinner?" Honestly, I only made the offer out of courtesy, nothing else. 

His immediate answer, "What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!" He sounded a little too excited for someone whose "wife died last week."

"That's all right. I don't drink wine."

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"Nothing about what time, or where, or anything.

"No, really," as I thought fast, as I couldn't risk offending my landlord, "Maybe just some spaghetti, tomorrow, at 6?"

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"

"No, really, you don't have to bring anything. Just come over for spaghetti tomorrow at 6."

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"

I began to understand the only way I was going to get out of this was to name a wine. The only one I could think of that went with spaghetti, or that went with--anything--was Blue Nun.

Then I went and called my mother to see if she'd be so kind as to come over and chaperone. She made flakey excuses to decline.

So the guy showed up at my door the next night with a bottle of Blue Nun big enough for an entire wedding party. I asked him why he bought such a large bottle. He made some flakey excuse about that was the only size bottle available.

I told him he'd have to leave right after dinner because I had to go see my mother about something. I know, I know, what a miserable excuse, but it was honestly the only one I could think of.

I was careful to remain distant from the guy, to keep the conversation formal, to put his plate of spaghetti at one end of the table and mine at the other. I drank as little wine as possible, I may have even served myself a Coke, and got him out of there as soon as I could get away with. This was my landlord, after all. I couldn't risk offending him, but I wasn't about to give him any more ideas than he apparently already had.

When he left, I said he was forgetting his bottle of Blue Nun. He said I could keep it. I went out and drove around for a while so I'd look like I really had left to go see my mother.

I'm sure the guy didn't even have a wife, not one that had just died last week, anyway. Either she didn't exist or she was conveniently somewhere else, in another city or even another country. What kind of a guy uses a fake dead wife to try and force wine on someone who owes him rent every month? 

Weird Guys: Stalked by an Anonymous Chain Letter

 After I posted my unpublished essay about not bailing a guy out, I started thinking about other strange happenings in my life that had to do with one or more weird guys. One of the weirdest may be the anonymous chain letter that dogged me for years and I never fully understood why. I never obtained any "smoking gun" evidence tying it to a particular person, but circumstantial evidence makes me 99.99% certain it was a particular guy.

I wasn't a person who regularly got cards or letters from friends in high school. I didn't give my address out to anybody. I didn't have much contact even with those of my classmates that lived in the same neighborhood as me, the ones who would obviously know where I lived.

One day I got a letter, stuffed into a small envelope of the size that's roughly six-and-one-half inches by three-and-three-quarter inches, the size that's often used for mailing checks. No return address, and a Santa Ana postmark that didn't mean much, just that it was postmarked in Santa Ana, not necessarily that the sender lived in Santa Ana.

Inside was a poor-quality photocopied chain letter, poorly composed, poorly typed, incorrectly laid out, no signature block, unsigned. It's not like I memorized the thing, but the gist of it was: this chain letter was blessed by the holy somebody-or-other, in the Phillipines, I think it was, and it had been around the world some number of times, and a person who didn't break the chain won a million-dollar lottery and a person who broke the chain got stung by a scorpion and died.

So I guess it was telling me to do what the holy whatever blessed, or get stung by a scorpion and die. That's nice. Looking back, I think of it the same way I think of that magazine article in the 1980's that warned college-educated unmarried women that they were more likely to be killed by a terrorist. So all you nice intelligent girls better not go to college and you'd better get married, because you don't want to get killed by some terrorist, do you?

I threw the letter and envelope away, but my mother saw and insisted I show it to her. She read it and proclaimed, "That's a joke!" Whatever that meant. Then she mercilessly pestered me, giving me the third degree, about how I must know who sent it and who did I give my address to?

No, really, Mother, I don't know and I didn't give my address to anybody. Maybe somebody got my address from school records or the phone book or something. She finally accepted reality. She acted like getting such a letter was proof her daughter was popular, instead of the weird-stalker stunt that it was.

I thought that was the end but--anonymous letters exactly like the first one, in envelopes exactly like the first one, kept showing up. Sometimes years would go by and then one would show up again, sometimes two or more arrived fairly close together.

Eleven or twelve years after the first letter showed up, I moved out of the family home. Some time at my new residence had passed, when, to my horror, a letter identical to all the rest showed up at my new address. I could only think of two people who may have known where I lived back in high school and who also had my new address. Both were talented young men from my drama class, who I'd kept up with because I wanted to keep up with what they might be doing in music and theater. I didn't think either one of them was the type to send a letter like that, but the circumstantial evidence made them persons of interest.

I figured there would be no use to ask either guy outright if he sent the letters. Someone who sends letters anonymously for years isn't going to admit it.

So I guessed it was the guy I'd had the most contact with. I decided to play his game. I put the letter in the same size of small envelope, put no return address on it, and mailed it to him. I figured when he received the letter, he'd keep the chain going and send another letter to me. I'd just sit back and wait for the chain to come my way again.

After two or three weeks, no letter had shown up. So I called him. Without admitting I sent such a letter, I questioned him closely enough that I was satisfied he honestly didn't know anything about it.

That left the other guy. I hadn't actually spoken to him in perhaps ten years. Very occasionally I would try and phone him, get his mother, she'd take a message, and he'd never return the call. The last time I called, though, I'd told his mother what my new address was. Circumstantial evidence said he couldn't be bothered to return my phone calls, or drop me an actual note, but he could be bothered to mail me bizarre anonymous chain letters, like some creepy stalker, for years upon years. 

I hoped I'd never receive another such letter but I did. Previously I'd always assumed why bother complaining to the post office, it's an anonymous letter, what good is that going to do. This time, I took the letter and its envelope over to my local post office and told the postmaster I wanted to report an anonymous chain letter. Without a word he took the letter and went back into his office.

I don't know if that complaint made the difference, but I never received another such letter. I was free at last.

Links to "Life After Mother" in Senior Reporter, March 2025-August 2025

 Below please find links and PDF downloads of my monthly "Life After Mother" column, examining estate and probate issues from personal experience, featured in Senior Reporter, for the six months from March 2025 to August 2025.

March 2025:  "Costly Continuing Care Concerns" (p. 38), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/mar-2025-vol-51-no-3/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-bshields-mar-2025.pdf

April 2025:  "It's "Just" Dementia" (p. 30-38), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/apr-2025-vol-51-no-4/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-asandler-apr-2025.pdf

May 2025:  "Spring Cleaning" (p. 30), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/may-2025-vol-51-no-5/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-ldern-may-2025.pdf

June 2025:  "Get Familiar With Online Resources" (p. 30-38), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/jun-2025-vol-51-no-6/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-hwinkler-jun-2025.pdf

July 2025:  "It's Going to be a Rich Cat" (p. 32-38), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/jul-2025-vol-51-no-7/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-jmargulies-jul-2025.pdf

August 2025:  "Go to the Gym with your Girlfriends" (p. 32-37), https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/aug-2025-vol-51-no-8/

PDF download:  https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-rstewart-aug-2025.pdf

I Didn't Bail Him Out

I wrote this submission for the column "LA Affairs" in the Los Angeles Times. It never ran, so I'm running it here. I may post more stories about weird guys in subsequent posts.

I DIDN'T BAIL HIM OUT

“He has a heart condition and we can’t keep him here,” explained the police officer who called me, to ask if I’d bail a certain prisoner out. I had cut off contact with the locked-up guy for longer than I cared to think about. I’d been assuming he was gone for good, at long last, for the last time. I’d broken up with him for the absolute last time perhaps a year or more earlier, but now the police were requesting that I bail the guy out.

Because he had a heart condition, I was told, that I knew nothing about—and the police didn’t have "the equipment to keep him" in the San Pedro facility.

If the guy himself had called to ask, I would have flatly told him, “No,” perhaps sprinkled with some choice words about where he could go and what he could do.

I’d bailed the guy out a couple of years earlier and told him, that was the one and only and last chance he would ever get. I wasn’t spending my hard-earned salary to get his lazy you-know-what out of jail ever again.

Except I couldn’t very well just tell the police that. I had to be courteous to the police, at least. Even though, knowing the guy the way I did, I suspected the mysterious “heart condition” may have conveniently developed just at the very moment when he wanted to get out of the slammer. 

Because I lived in Anaheim at the time, getting to the police station in San Pedro involved literally driving into the next county, in an unreliable old beat-up car, into a scruffy industrial area I didn’t know anything about. This was long before GPS so I had to read a street map, follow scribbled directions, and find my way down an unfamiliar freeway and through the dreary streets to the police station that's near the Port of Los Angeles.

Once I got to the police station, I was told the bail was $500, cash only. My checking account had about $1000 in it—of my money, earned and saved from my employment, and once I paid that bail, I could kiss that $500 good-bye, all for a guy that couldn’t be bothered to get a job and couldn’t even be bothered to stay out of jail.

Those were the days when you could write a check at a local grocery, provided you had a check-cashing card issued by the grocery. I drove around more unfamiliar streets and asked directions until I  found a grocery I had a check-cashing card for. The grocery had a limit of $300 for cashing a check. I needed $500 in cash.

I drove around some more and found a branch of my bank but the bank was closed. The ATM had a limit of $300. To get $500, I'd have to get $300 one way and the remaining $200 another way. Two places, two checks, my money, for a guy I had given up caring about anything that happened to him a long time ago.

I didn’t get the $500 and instead went back to the police station. I don’t remember what I first said to the desk sergeant when I returned, but he somehow appeared to mistake me for someone who was desperate for the welfare of a dear loved one. (As in, “Honey, are you alright?”) Actually the only reason I was going through all this was to be nice to the police, not the guy.

The desk sergeant picked up the desk phone and, in a sympathetic tone of voice, said, “Here, you want to talk to him?”

I picked up the receiver. (This was in the 1980’s, kids, when phones had those receivers you see in old movies and TV shows.) The guy I once did love, fat lot of good that did, on the other end, started in with the same pack of lies I’d heard before and I hadn’t believed the first time. I told him he was the only person who could solve his own problems, nobody else was going to do it for him. I'd told him that before, and a lot of good that did.

He demanded, “Are you going to bail me out?” He said it like a master demanding obedience from a servant.

I couldn’t say he was treating me like an object, because an object, at least, implies some degree of independent existence. I was a mere convenience whose existence began and ended with my usefulness to him. To him, my reason for existing was to be his “Get Out of Jail Free” card, free for him, anyway.

“That’s all you care about, isn’t it?” I asked, returning his demanding coldness with my own.

“Yeah,” he was forced to admit.

I remember I hung up the phone and started to walk out. I remember the desk sergeant protesting, “But we don’t have the equipment to take care of him.”

I turned, smiled, shrugged, and politely answered, “I don’t have the equipment to take care of him either.” Then I added, with as much politeness as I could, “So take him someplace you’ve got the equipment to take care of him, then.”

As I walked out the door I heard the desk sergeant saying something about a prisoner transfer. That was all they had to do. They didn’t have to involve me in any of it.

That was the last I heard from or about the guy. He’d come into my life when I wanted a man who stayed and that was all. Along came a guy whose one lonely virtue was, he stayed. My mother had an expression about such men, “a bad penny that keeps turning up.” Another comparison I’ve heard, is to a bad cold that won’t go away. He was my lesson in, some people, even some you love, you just have to walk away.

Occasionally I Google the guy’s name, not out of any desire or nostalgia, simply to see if the Internet contains any evidence that he ever existed. It doesn’t. Whatever happened to him is beyond the reach of even the Internet, and I’m at peace with that.