Thursday, January 12, 2012

Creatures on Crestmont

Adventures in Oddity!


    Our first segment in adventures in oddity will begin with the stories involved in the first house my family moved into after we moved from West Virginia to Pennsylvania. This house was a small, slightly in need of love ranch, nowhere near worth the money we paid for it. But I guess moving from small town West Virginia to slightly larger small town Pennsylvania causes the price of living to rise... slightly... actually, a lot.
    At this point in my life, I was about three years old and my sister Henrietta five. After living in the house for a few months, we began to hear strange noises coming from the roof at night. Thump, thump, THUMP. After this, we began to find Mountain Dew cans perched on our front windows. My parents began to become worried. Our little Shitzu Chaddie, though feisty and to be honest, mean, could not protect our home from the strange stalker galavanting on our property. Ready to call the police, my parents stayed up one night to find out who this creeping creature was. After the usual nightly thumping began, my parents went to see what was happening. Lo and behold, it was our neighbor from down the street. He was in his forties, living with his parents due to his mental disabilities. Nonetheless, traipsing around our yard was NOT an ideal situation for this man to be in, and thus my parents continually spoke to his parents and eventually, his excursions became one of the causes for us moving out.
   After moving into our house on Crestmont Drive, we met a "sweet" old woman, Mrs. Z, down the street. Turns out, she was the grandmother of a kid in my kindergarten class. My mother thought she was a normal old woman.... until she drove around the neighborhood with her undergarments hanging out the car window, drying in the breeze. She also hung little plastic jack-o-lanterns from her front tree all year round. Quirky, yes, but we did live in Pennsylvania, so these were not completely STRANGE occurrences. Then, we had a yard sale, one of my family's favorite summer events. Mrs. Z showed up, and then promptly picked up dishes and clothes, and then walked away. My mother, in all her glory, tracked the woman down and forced her to pay for the items she thought she should just have. Okay, so she is too cheap to buy a dryer and she steals stuff from the neighborhood yard sales. Okay, strange, but we can put up with it. Later on that day, Mrs. Z came back to the sale and gave me a baby doll.... body. She didn't want the body, but did want the head, so she thought I could enjoy the body.... okay.... Now five years old, I knew this lady was, to put it bluntly, a whackjob. She then promptly returned and traded the head for the body as she changed her mind on which part she wanted. Then, while walking the dog, my mother walked past Mrs. Z's house and noticed all of the lawn chairs lined on her porch. Curious, my all too nice mother asked her if she was expecting company. She replied, "They're for when the mothership comes. I need to be hospitable to my children. After all, as I am the reincarnation of Jesus, they will come and take me to my heavenly home". After this incident, my parents thought this neighborhood was probably NOT the best one to raise children in.
   While living in this house, we also had to fix the septic tank (before this area got sewage). Every day the workers left our house, an animal fell down into the hole and died. Obviously the hole became a sort of animal burial ground, and thus, parting with our sad little house was easier. Actually, it was a JOY to leave. That house was the only house my mother did not weep over leaving (she being the woman who cries during the holiday commercial where Paul or whatever his name is comes home from school/West Africa?)

What crazy people have you met in your life?
   

1 comment:

  1. Very good memory little one. Yes, we did have to get away from Creeper Peeper!

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