It would be very easy to blame my
dear little commie sister for this, but in truth I am responsible for going
along with the gag myself. I should have known it was too weird.
It goes like this: One day, several years ago, my sister called me on the phone with a request. It seems that a woman had come to her door begging for help. The odd lady said that she was stuck here in Everett without funds and needed to get to Redmond, IIRC. She was at her wit’s end, she said. She begged Chris for a ride! She knocked on the right door.
That’s a pretty good distance from Everett, through savage traffic. Apparently, sister didn’t have access to a vehicle that day. So, she called me and asked me to drive her and this dame, I shall call Sylvia, to Redmond. No specific location in Redmond was mentioned.
Any sensible person would have said, "Nah, too flakey." Maybe I was curious. I don’t know why I did it, but I said OK and drove over to Chris’ house and picked her and Sylvia up. Sylvia was a small scrappy looking critter in her 50s maybe. She sat in the back seat looking oddly happy and not talking much. Pretty darn "Off!"
I was beginning to get the idea that this project was real dumb.
I asked Sylvia where she wanted to go, that she was in such a hurry to get to.
We were on 405. There is a big hospital in Kirkland on 405 called Evergreen. Sylvia said she had an appointment in the hospital. OK. So we parked outside the hospital and went in. Sylvia went ahead of us way down the hall. So, I turned to Chris and said, “Let’s beat it. Leave her here!” Chris agreed and we turned around to leave. But the wily bag lady twigged and came running to go with us. I should have just told her “No” right then, but I failed.
She wasn’t done yet. She wanted to go to a certain address on Mercer Island, a ritzy neighborhood, by the way. She gave me an address, and I tried to find it. We had cell phones back then, but it was like a Nokia brick. There was no way of locating obscure addresses.
This went on for a while. Sylvia looked happy as heck. She was loving riding around in the back seat. It became late afternoon. I was getting pretty tired of this game and Chris looked pretty embarrassed.
So, I parked. I called 911, I really did this. I told the nice girl on the line my problem. I had this woman in the car who was looking for this address and could they provide some direction. She said, “Stay right there! We’ll send an officer.” Lol!! And they did.
When the guy got to us, he collected Sylvia, who looked like all her fun was done now. It turned out that they knew her! She had done this before!
I have no idea what the Mercer Island police do with strange vagrant ladies. But, thank goodness it wasn’t my problem anymore!
I think I have left out a few other stages of this game of Sylvia’s. It took all day.
So, OK, it wasn’t really terrifying. It was just stupid. I went along with my gullible sister’s desire to help a female beggar at her door.
What would you have done, if your sister called with a request like that?
It goes like this: One day, several years ago, my sister called me on the phone with a request. It seems that a woman had come to her door begging for help. The odd lady said that she was stuck here in Everett without funds and needed to get to Redmond, IIRC. She was at her wit’s end, she said. She begged Chris for a ride! She knocked on the right door.
That’s a pretty good distance from Everett, through savage traffic. Apparently, sister didn’t have access to a vehicle that day. So, she called me and asked me to drive her and this dame, I shall call Sylvia, to Redmond. No specific location in Redmond was mentioned.
Any sensible person would have said, "Nah, too flakey." Maybe I was curious. I don’t know why I did it, but I said OK and drove over to Chris’ house and picked her and Sylvia up. Sylvia was a small scrappy looking critter in her 50s maybe. She sat in the back seat looking oddly happy and not talking much. Pretty darn "Off!"
I was beginning to get the idea that this project was real dumb.
I asked Sylvia where she wanted to go, that she was in such a hurry to get to.
We were on 405. There is a big hospital in Kirkland on 405 called Evergreen. Sylvia said she had an appointment in the hospital. OK. So we parked outside the hospital and went in. Sylvia went ahead of us way down the hall. So, I turned to Chris and said, “Let’s beat it. Leave her here!” Chris agreed and we turned around to leave. But the wily bag lady twigged and came running to go with us. I should have just told her “No” right then, but I failed.
She wasn’t done yet. She wanted to go to a certain address on Mercer Island, a ritzy neighborhood, by the way. She gave me an address, and I tried to find it. We had cell phones back then, but it was like a Nokia brick. There was no way of locating obscure addresses.
This went on for a while. Sylvia looked happy as heck. She was loving riding around in the back seat. It became late afternoon. I was getting pretty tired of this game and Chris looked pretty embarrassed.
So, I parked. I called 911, I really did this. I told the nice girl on the line my problem. I had this woman in the car who was looking for this address and could they provide some direction. She said, “Stay right there! We’ll send an officer.” Lol!! And they did.
When the guy got to us, he collected Sylvia, who looked like all her fun was done now. It turned out that they knew her! She had done this before!
I have no idea what the Mercer Island police do with strange vagrant ladies. But, thank goodness it wasn’t my problem anymore!
I think I have left out a few other stages of this game of Sylvia’s. It took all day.
So, OK, it wasn’t really terrifying. It was just stupid. I went along with my gullible sister’s desire to help a female beggar at her door.
What would you have done, if your sister called with a request like that?
❓
.jpg)
%20(1).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment