Methadventures

A sordid confession blog.

I was young(er) and still feeling bulletproof.

Having just borrowed a house from the bank for a thirty year loan I was feeling like a responsible adultish sort of person.

Until I met the neighbor.

His name was Steve.

He had graduated from painting houses to dealing in a much more lucrative market.

The manufacture and sale of Meth.

He also taught Steve-kun-do.

The first time we met he told me how Bruce Lee himself peed himself in fear when faced with the mighty steve in battle mode.

Chuck Norris? Not a challenge for the Steve.

He had really bad skin.

I learned later that when you cook chemicals without the proper protective gear you can get residue buildup in your pores. It creates a sort of "plastic pimple" on exposed skin.

Nasty.

I like to keep to myself, let others leave me alone and I leave them alone.

Sort of.

It was the traffic that did me in.

A constant 24-7 flow of cars, foot traffic, vagrants and bicyclists would come to his kitchen window and trade grubby money for little plastic packets.

And the noise. Loud music, Loud cars, Mowing his lawn at 2am. Always the noise.

So I phoned the gendarmes.

This is when we discovered the boundary dispute. 

We lived exactly on the border between M-city and S-city.

Neither of them wanted to come out, so they sent H-county cars.

Who didn't want to deal with it.

So they left.

And the traffic continued. Day and night. 

So I asked him to stop.

Very nicely.

I even politely kicked on the front door, rather than knocking on the kitchen window.

I may have kicked a little harder then I meant to.

He called the cops on me.

Who showed up and informed me, whilst the traffic never abated, that since there was no "proof" of my erstwhile neighbor dealing drugs that there was nothing they could do.

Oh, and if you bother the Steve again, you get a ticket.

So I pondered.

Shoot him? Torch his house?Accidentally run over him? Squish him?

options and options.

I was at a loss.

So I called about the noise. Every night.

He started getting tickets. Warnings. He would cast me dark looks.

I am afraid I was not subtle.

Standing in front of steves house with a cell phone at 1am calling the cops.

He received a FINAL warning.

It only took a month.

Jail for noise violation if he had one more call.

So he got quiet.

Really quiet.

Damn it all.

The problem was beginning to look insurmountable.

It was solved, miraculously, by the sweet Dutch lady down the road.

She called Protective Services.

Apparently, the Steve had a six year old child in the house.

So, they came, they saw, they took the kid. The policia took the Steve and I figured all was well.

Nope.

The Steve had a Lawyer.

A really good one.

He was out and cooking again in less than 24 hours.

But he got smarter.

He moved into his garage/karate studio in the back yard.

He rented the house to these nice young men.

College age.

Quiet. Polite. Respectful.

Best neighbors we ever had.

The traffic continued to some extent, but since it was going into the backyard and off the street.

Well, live and let live.

Until 3am one morning when the SWAT team raided the house, shot one of the nice young men and let the dog use the other one as a chew toy.

They were cooking for steve.

He escaped. In the confusion and amidst the growling and screaming the steve got away.

At 4am I was out talking to the coppers.

What could I do?

Could I get steve evicted?

Well.

In a word. No.

He owned the house.

They really didn't have much on him.

And he had a really good Lawyer.

So.

The next day, under the cover of a bright noon day sun.

I took his electric meter. I turned off the water and the gas and put padlocks on them.

I took a hammer drill and three inch screws and fastened every single door, window and opening shut.

Then I stripped all the screws.

That night steve tried to break into his own house.

I let him play for about an hour. Banging and Cursing and generally making a lot of noise.

Until he had a fine froth of rage going.

Then I called the cops.

Who arrived just in time to see steve, in a meth induced frenzy of stupidity, trying to beat his own front door in with a decorative rock.

he was making a lot of noise.

They say confession is good for the soul.

I say, only after the statue of limitations is up.

Don't mess with us

evil-doers beware

I am a PIRATE!

I really am.
I can prove it.
I have pictures and everything.

Its goes like this.
My parents own a pontoon boat, and really, for being nothing more than a floating floor it is a lot of fun.
we would go up and tow it to one of the lakes, float around a bit, splash, fish and get sunburned.
Fun time for all.
It was a floating floor with a motor.
The motor was sporadic.
My family believes in the buddy system.
If something is broke, or someone is hurt you call around to all your buddies to seek advice.
Invariably someone knows someone or your buddy goes green when he sees that your thumb is actually split in half and you get to get something fixed, or go to the ER.
I absolutely despise the buddy system.
Hate it.
Nothing ever gets fixed right when its a buddy doing the fixing, and a buddy of a buddy? Even worse. They always cut corners.
And waiting 6 hours with a split in half thumb to go to the ER, sucks.
So the tooners motor was a bit sporadic, sometimes it works, sometimes it dont.
This is how I became a Pirate, so I cant really complain.
It makes a fun story.
As a side note, its an odd thing how the things that make me the maddest are what make others laugh the hardest? Its a flaw in me.
anyways.
The wife and I had it down to a science, the unloading of the boat. I would back it in, she would hop in the tooner, I would chuck in the kids and the victuals and then push off the boat, jump into the truck and park the truck and the trailer.
Wife would motor around to the dock and I would step on and off we would go.
Smooooooth.
Putting the tooner away after a bright day was the reverse, motor to the dock, Tom (thats me) steps off and runs to get truck and trailer while wife motors around to pull the boat in as I back the trailer into the water.
Smoooth.
Today we had the nephews with us, good toe heads both of them. spent the whole day out getting sunburned, swearing (just me) at the lack of fish and splashing around.
It was a fantastic day.
A day of good memories.

But, storm clouds gathered and it was time to go.
So we started the routine.
Motor to dock, Tom jumps off, runs to get the truck and waits in line with all the other uber efficient types waiting to get their boats out of the rapidly roughening lake.
Problem.
I get the trailer in the water and, no tooner. No wife and kids, no nephews.
So I looked, and looked, and grabbed the binoculars from some lame fat dude and looked.
And found them.
Drifting.
Halfway across the damn lake.
No other boats around.
So.
(this is my favorite part)
I Parked the truck and the trailer and went running down to the dock, I ran to the end of the dock just as a young kid in a brand new boat was stepping on to the dock to tie his boat off.
I grabbed the rope, pushed the kid back on to the boat and hopped on after him.
"Hi, You arrrrgh going to take me out to that boat (point at the tooner) and tow it in for me."
I said this with my biggest most friendly smile
the kid and his five kid passengers sort of froze.
the kid I had gently led back on to the boat said "a a a a a are you stealing our boat?"
he stuttered, poor kid.
I said
"Oh HELL NO! I am just commandeering it"
Maybe my rollicking laughter at this point was a bit of overkill, but Hey, its what we pirates do.
By the time we got out to the tooner my hostages (ride) were getting into the spirit of the thing. The wee little boys were huddled protectively around the wee little female and casting mutinous glances in my direction. I was standing on the point of the boat, if I had had boobs I would have made a kick ass hood ornament thingy.
The wife and kids were valiantly trying to start the tooner, the toe heads were ? Paddling ? but the paddles did not quite reach the water, so really they were just splashing.
But they felt good about themselves.
The captain, the stuttering boy wonder, hollered, "AHOY THE BOAT" and I stepped gracefully on to the floating floor.
Oh the cleverness of me.
I still had his rope, which was tied to his boat.
and they were fresh out of boarding axes.
So they towed us back.
Arrrgh. I sang sea chanteys all the way home.

Pirate hat arrrgh