Wednesday 27 August 2014

A couple of interesting characters



While sitting at the local coffee shop this morning I was reminded of a couple of the local 'interesting characters' aka Mental Health Patients. I thought it might make a humorous read so here you go:

MHP#1
One day after dropping Amanda at work I was headed for the coffee shop. While heading down the driveway from her work to the main road there was a guy walking right in middle of the small lane. He obviously had not heard my car come up behind him, so instead of beeping him I thought I’d be patient and wait for him to finish walking down. At some point he suddenly noticed me (a respectable distance) behind him, he jumped and ran to the edge of the lane. I waved and smiled at him as I passed him. As I turned onto the main road he yelled something and waved at me. I slowed as I thought he might have something important to say. This was a mistake! Turns out he was just looking for a lift into town. I was put on the spot so I said yes...

We introduced each other but I found it very hard to understand him. He asked me about why we were here and wanted to guess where we were from. After wrongly guessing numerous American states I told him he was guessing the wrong country entirely, after a few more wildly inaccurate guesses (he wouldn’t let me to tell him the answer) I started giving him some hints like Southern Hemisphere, Starts with the letter ‘A’ (he then immediately guessed a country not starting with ‘A’). After he guessed a few more American states I decided to tell him it was Australia. I’m not sure he’d ever heard of it as he still seemed convinced it should have been an American state. I tried to tell him where it was and mention Kangaroos and Koalas but this made him more confused. I changed the topic. 

He told me he worked for the local office supply store and was headed back to the office in town after a meeting at the hospital. I thought this was a little odd seeing he was bumming a lift off me, he wasn’t well dressed and he smelled a little. He went onto babble some shit I couldn’t understand and we had a fairly uncomfortable ride as we couldn’t converse particularly well. As we neared his workplace I had to slow the car down to allow someone to finish crossing the road (away from a zebra crossing). MHP#1 flips out at this and leans way across me to scream out my window at them. He yells some crap about how they shouldn’t be jay walking and how it was a crime in Palau. I don’t think the jay walker would have heard his rant but I sure did. After shrugging him off so I could hold the steering wheel without him leaning on me we finally neared his workplace moments later. I gladly let him out and continued on to the coffee shop. 

Wouldn’t you know it, not more than half an hour later I caught him (beer in hand) jay walking twice across the main road causing all sorts of traffic issues. 

Since this incident I’ve seen him a pile of times jay walking and wandering around town with a beer and smoke in hand. Obviously it’s been a while since he worked at the office supply store if he ever did at all.

MHP#2
There is this older guy maybe about 60 years old, tall-ish, thin who has clearly had a hard life. Often he is wandering around town, walking right on the edge of the road. This in itself is rather unremarkable but what what makes this guy unique are the massive karate kicks he'll attempt to pull off, these are completely random and without any warning. And I'm talking massive somewhat uncoordinated spin-o-rama heel kicks! 

I don’t think he’s necessarily aiming at cars but in his (probably) inebriated state and his preference for standing right on the edge of the road it becomes a rather significant issue for passing cars. Especially when he starts to lose his balance and almost falls into traffic after an attempted kick. 

At one point I hadn’t seen him for some time, I wondered if he had either successfully landed a kick or if he unsuccessfully kept his post-kick balance. But I’m glad to say he’s ok and back to his karate kicking best (with vengeance!)