AKA My Stalker

Let me pick up where we left off. Halfway through my glass of honeysuckle wine, which had been preceded by a share of the bottle of red that the five of us split, the alcohol in combination with my penchant for telling (or at least attempting to tell) a hilarious (and by hilarious I often mean horrible) story led me to tell the Moms who were there to celebrate another year of Moms' Club and discuss their memories of the past year about my stalker. Lane change.

Across the street, four houses down from where I live, there lives a sixty year old man. On any given day you may find his fire engine red, Ford F-One Billion, complete with hydraulics and contractor rack (though it appears to never have been used to do a lick of work in its life) parked on the street. He is there, air lat's and leathery fake-n-bake tan in full effect, clad in nothing but euro-shorts (too short, but not quite short enough to be daisy dukes) the same blue wife-beater, as ever (does he have a closet full of these uniform items?) gently, lovingly, painstakingly washing, drying, waxing and inspecting "big red". On the off-chance "big red" has already passed inspection, he may instead be giving his boat or jet skis or even his driveway a spa day.

I have lived here for over three years. He has lived there for at least that long. Whether for exercise or for lack of other transportation, I frequently walk around the neighborhood. A girl's got to get to Starbucks, the parks, the pool, after all, and sometimes the only way to properly tire out your four sons is to make them walk a few miles a day. So, as you can imagine, I walk right past this guy on many an occasion. At first he gave an appropriately timid, yet neighborly, "hi" as I strolled my then three children along the sidewalk. But my craze-dar is always on, and he pegged that meter all the way to eleven from the get-go. There was just something not quite right about him. Initially, I couldn't decide if it was scary creepy or just socially awkward euro-trash weird. As time went on I tended to think he was just socially awkward, definitely a loner (what with his only companions being the four wheeled variety) and certainly without the understanding of traditional American suburban boundaries: specifically the one that says don't hit on the mom of young children, especially not when she is ten months pregnant.

Yes, as time went on "hi" turned into "you look pretty today" along with its less polite cousins and while I like to think of myself as relatively hot stuff, I don't want THAT old dude (any old dude, really, but in particular THAT ONE, on this occasion) telling me about it. I wanted to shout at him, "WHAT about being 40 weeks pregnant and attempting to walk myself into labor for the fourth time, as if you CAN'T see the three children under 6 walking along with me says hot to you? Or is this some sort of testosterone fueled vestige of animal instinct at work here. What I look fertile? Might as well plant in that field as well?" I know it sounds vulgar, but given my pregnant mind, raging hormones and short fuse for old lecherous neighbors that was the PG version of what I was ACTUALLY thinking.

None of that, as annoying as it was, had yet catapulted him to stalker status. He gained that illustrious title only a few weeks ago. I was on my way home from Starbucks, with a pit stop at the little park, when I saw him doing a new chore-sweeping the sidewalk. I was tempted to give him high marks for cleanliness and diligence, when I realized - a moment too late- this was only a prop to give him an excuse to be on the sidewalk concurrently with my little group.

As he blocked our passage with his "sweeping" he asked, "You going to the pool today?" "No, not today," I replied. "Oh, really, I was hoping you were." He said it as if in saying it he might convince me to reconsider and go to the pool so that his hopes would not have been in vain. Preying on the human tendency to desire to be liked, to be perceived as nice, pleasant, pleasing...that tendency which is all too often far too present and prominent in women.

"Not going, got to get ALL these tired KIDS home." I started walking again, and while it was hard to get the double-wide MacLaren past his air lat's and broom, I managed to walk by with only one set of stroller wheels on the sidewalk - the other set suspended in air. He followed. "Are they both going to go sleep?" BOTH!!!!! DO YOU NOT SEE FOUR CHILDREN HERE? ARE YOUR THOUGHTS SO COMPLETELY EMANATING FROM YOUR little head THAT YOU CANNOT COUNT?????!!!!!!!!!!!!

I said goodbye out loud and walked faster but was stopped by my kids who have picked the wrong time to exercise safety first and were looking both ways for cars. "Is anyone else at your house? Are you alone?" came the friendly, Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka voice from behind me. And sheer dread swept after me. "I have to get home, I am expecting friends!!!"

I ran home, hoping that in the last three years he had not yet ascertained my specific address, ran in via the back terrace and called two girlfriends and begged them to come over. They did. We played outside with the neighborhood kids, making plenty of noise. At least it felt like we had strength in numbers. To this day I will not go to the pool unless I know another mom will be there, so he can't catch me all on my own.

Just as I finished telling this hilariously horrible story some guy we didn't know approached our group, informed us he was depressed because his team had just been eliminated from the World Cup, and asked if he could buy us a drink. Never the ones to turn down a free drink, we did not tell the waitress to return the drinks to the bar when she came out with a full tray. What we didn't suspect was that he was about to sit down, call his two self-important, auto-texting friends over and hijack our evening. But that is a story for another day.

The moral of this story arrives by way of my friend whose radar may be broken (and I say that in as loving a way as is possible, because she truly is super sweet and a wonderful friend). She was in a bible study with him some years back, and by her recollection he was just a sweet, genuinely nice older man. And the "nice" voice inside me begged me to stop being such a judgmental b-i. Despite knowing better, and in the face of this story I JUST TOLD, despite the fact that my instincts have never been wrong about anyone, I hear my outside voice saying something intended to paint me into a nice corner. Something like, "yeah, I guess he could just be a nice old weirdo." Coincidentally his ex-wife, who is one of this friend's good friends, came over her house the following day. Ex for a good reason as it turns out. He is a serious creep. A serious danger. Not to be underestimated as a threat. So ... for the record, sometimes nice is just overrated. Way overrated.