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!)
