No kidding…that story’s going to be the high point of what looks to be a long and ugly day. Wonderfully told!
Please get that book published or I’ll just have to start sending you money directly.
What she said.
C’mon, Sampiro, give! What’s the progress on Casseroles for the Dead?
I second this…er, third this I guess, stupid page refresh. I’ve paid for stories I haven’t liked half as much as your stuff. You truly have a gift for story telling. Sad to say I’m looking forward to your next story, I know you’ll have to endure some torment for it, but hey man, think of the teeming millions looking forward to your writings.
MT
Thank you, Sampiro, for making my morning. I work in retail in a downtown area and we deal with our own batch of crazies, but none quite as colorful as your Garth-clone. I never hesitate to call the police to wander over and protect us. Well, okay, three of the cops are really, really hot, but I never call without a reason, I swear…
He took it. Out.
I don’t think your a freak magnet. I think that unlike most other people, you pay attention. To quote the Master, “there is much weirdness among us, kids.”
I kinda wish you had nicked his aorta, though…
Sir! You paint with too broad a brush! Clearly, this Garth Evangelist Guy comes from the Weogufka area of Coosa County. The decent folk of Ray Community would have no patience with such a critter, and would have stripped him of his “22” tags long before now.
Thanks for being you, Sampiro.
Sampiro, You rock. Even if you didn’t manage to spin that knife into the Garthara Prophet’s neck before he could use that derringer.
You left me wondering what the harlot spotter in a hat would have done if you had pulled out the digital camera and taken a picture of him, raving in full dudgeon. 
Yes, Sampiro, you rock, and we roll in your wake.
Sampiro, I want you to know that I have sprained a couple ribs and made everyone in my section of the office realize that for sure I am batshit nuts laughing at your story. You should collect these tales into a book. I for one would buy it.
And you’ve made my day.
I don’t think YOU’RE a freak magnet. But apparently I’m a punctuation moron.
I like how the staff all just talked about what he was doing, but never did anything. As if the Manager has some kind of magical power that all of them lack.
This is where I lost it.
And this is where I lost it again.
Much more reasonable that Vincent Gallo’s going rate.
Yeah, I don’t get this* where people think they don’t have the authority to call the cops. My last apartment was in a seniors condo complex, 65% of them timid old ladies. Very security conscious, Neighbourhood Watch bulletins posted in elevators, etc.
One night some guy buzzed a TOL and started babbling in some furrin language. Maybe he buzzed the wrong suite, maybe he’s trying to con his way in to do some stealing. Instead of calling the cops** to report a possible burglary attempt, or even a hearty ‘fucko off!’ to buzzer man, she instead calls everyone in the building individually to warn them not to let scary man in!!!
“Did you call the police to report this, Mrs. TOL?” I asked her when she called me.No, quoth she. Why ever not, ma’am? Her answer? “Bbbbut-I’m not on the strata counsel!”
I called the cops, reported a possible prowler, and they later had a chat with her about not needing a note from the strata prez to drop a dime on burglars.
*unless the mgmt at this place would mightily smite a clerk for bringing the police in for some reason-looks bad, ‘bad customer service’ towards God’s Weirdest Deputy, etc.
**per NW bulletins in the lift, the cops would like people to do this. Small town, no murders to investigate but lots of B & E’s.
Brilliant story, Sampiro, looks like the local looney-bin lost one of their nuts, great performance “under fire” as it were
the only suggestion I’d make is to change your EDC knife to THIS, the Spyderco Endura 4 Wave, that little “hook” at the top of the blade faces the back seam of your pocket when the knife is closed and clipped to your pocket, and when you withdraw the knife, it snags on the edge of the pocket and pulls the blade open, it’s an even faster opening than an Assisted Opener (withdraw knife, make sure it’s oriented correctly, and deploy the blade), you literally have the knife emerge from your pocket open and locked already (the Fully Serrated model would have more intimidation factor, BTW)
(plus, the Wave can be used as a beer bottle opener if you are so inclined…)
of course, if you really wanted to scare Garth, you could always carry THIS, the Spyderco Civilian…
Ray Community, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time… those nouveau “ooh, we’re a 10 minute drive to the Taco Bell!” poseurs.
Boring aside about rural central Alabama placenames of no interest to anybody not interested in rural central Alabama placenames: The names of the places in Coosa/Elmore/Tallapoosa counties are fascinating, if only to me. That whole area was called “The Hornet’s Nest” by the English and Scots in the 18th century because it was so thickly populated with Creek Indians and it’s amazing how little evidence there is they were ever there save for place names, and those nobody seems to have much interest in. Example: I grew up at the other end of the county (our farm was technically in both counties but we only paid to Elmore due to some agreement) and for miles in any direction you’d find Weogufka, Weoka, Weokahatchee, Weogowee, Weokimmee, Weochanna, etc., and so I when I was little I used to ask “What does WEO mean?” and never found out. Weirdest part- people who’d lived in these places for 80 years not only didn’t know but didn’t care and seem never to have thought about it.
Some of the placenames are right out of Tolkien in their etymology. Chaney Creek, for example, used to be Channahatchee, an Indian word meaning, roughly, blackbird creek, then became Channahatchee Creek, which when somebody found out was redundant (hatchi= creek in the Muscogee language) it became Channa Creek which was mispronounced into Chaney Creek and I’ve known people who swear to be from the Chaney family it was named for. There’s also Holman’s Bend which was originally Holy Man’s Bend which was what it was called in the Creek language (whatever means Holy Man, which I have recorded somewhere but have forgotten) and was so called because of a prayer of death administered for the Creek people there after Horseshoe Bend. Then there’s the town of Eclectic which was actually called Electricity when founded (before that it was Cotton’s Store, before which it was an Indian village called Weo-something) and named for the new technology that was being produced nearby in Tallapoosa at the dams. It was shortened on maps to Electric, and colloqially pronounced “Elecktic”, and then my great-grandfather motioned it be called Eclectic because it was closer to what people were saying and it was the name of his favorite course in medical school [plus he advertised as an “eclectic medical specialist”, meaning he treated both illness and injury and in both people and animals).
And that’s the story of how the ocelot got his gall bladder… next week chirren, the story of Ol’ Cap’n Catfish and the Statuatory Rape Charges…"
It’s not that you attract the interesting crazies, Sampiro, it’s that you get the best supporting characters. I almost lost it on this one.
Damn it Sampiro, no one tells 'em like you. If you don’t run into any crazies this week, you could always tell us another Mustang and Mee Maw story…
Please?
A friend of mine calls those “lesbian toothpicks”. And she’s lesbian.