hung up on the takedown

(originally posted 7/6/2012)

Ever get so bored that you just jump in the car and go out for a drive? I do it more than I’d like to admit. Just got back from one of those drives where I just let fate decide what I’ll be up to for awhile. Today I was not disappointed.

Usually it takes a lot of driving and numerous holistic turns to bring me to my destination but I was only a few neighborhoods over when I spotted my opportunity to kill a little time.

I pulled up to a stop sign and saw this somewhat chunky woman walking across the intersection with a sign that she obviously intended to post on a nearby telephone pole. Actually, in all fairness, she was a bit more than chunky. I know if I say she was fat then you’ll think I’m some mean judgmental person but the truth is she was fat. It’s not my fault that she was fat or that society frowns upon being fat but I’m certainly not going to have you imagining her in your head in some way that isn’t completely accurate. I’m not carrying that on my conscience the rest of today. Ok, so this fucking cow waddles her ass over to… wait, wait, wait. Now that was mean and judgmental.

Starting over. I’m sitting at the stop sign and I see this overweight woman leave her car and go put up a sign for a garage sale she was having (I assume it was her garage sale and she didn’t earn a living by posting flyers for other peoples garage sales up due to her aforementioned fatness). She then lumbers…  nope, I meant to say walked, back to her car. She drove past me and I couldn’t help but notice all the signs sitting shotgun next to her.

I suddenly realized what I’d be doing the rest of the morning.

I quickly got out, ran over to the telephone pole and ripped down the sign. I tucked it under my arm and sprinted back to my car. She had only put one staple in it so I was already feeling distain for her lack of commitment to the posting-signs-to-survive-high-winds endeavor she had obviously undertaken. I hopped into my car and turned it around in all haste and gave chase in her last-known direction.

It wasn’t too long before I came up on her walking back to her car again, a freshly posted sign proof that she had been up to her old tricks again. I waited until she had driven off then I jumped out and tore that one down as well.

Well, this little production was repeated about a dozen times. It was quite a rush I have to admit. Creeping around, tailing this poor woman like some demented FBI agent. Signs for her upcoming garage sale starting to clutter my backseat. With everything on the news these days about abductions and such I was a little shocked that this woman didn’t notice my following her. I guess when you’re fat you don’t worry about that stuff as much.

Turns out she wasn’t the only one who was behaving a little bit obliviously. I should have been aware that we were turning back to where this little performance started but I was having too much fun to pay attention to where we were.

Sure enough she pulls up to the original stop sign before I even realize that she had doubled back. I slow down and discreetly slide into a nearby driveway to see what was going to happen.

I see her big fat sweaty head swivel back and forth a few times. I’m too far away to make out much that’s going on in the car but the back of her fat head is clearly experiencing some agitation. And yes, calling her head fat twice in a row was clearly unnecessary. Obviously I don’t care that much about the image of her you have in your head because I never bothered to tell you anything about her ethnicity or dress so all of my holier-than-thou posturing about my “conscience” is bunk. If you find the story more amusing picturing her as a fat black woman in a short skirt, an enormous albino with a beehive hairdo and a prosthetic arm, or a mammoth Japanese hausfrau wearing a torn leotard and a Minnesota Vikings hat then far be it from me to interfere! You know what makes you laugh so just try to include the fact she was fat in there somewhere and we’re good to go.

So anyway, after a few moments she lurches out of her car (possibly knocking off her Minnesota Vikings hat… your call) and makes her way to the telephone pole. As if somehow a closer inspection will reveal where her beloved sign went to. What exactly was she going to see up close that she couldn’t discern from her car? I didn’t see her holding some CSI kit that she could break open or anything. She felt content at that point to start loudly saying something I couldn’t make out and looking around as her fat arms made these pumping movements up and down. I could barely make out the fact that she was sporting shower shoes. but I could see the arm fat swinging back and forth as if it was squished against my windshield.

She just kept looking back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

I’m crouched down behind my steering wheel mind you so I couldn’t see everything but it did get a little old. At what point is she going to figure out this little mystery and begin a new course of action?

At this point it’s becoming very clear that whatever intentions I might have had for this story to be an amusing little tale of taking down some strangers garage sale signs has turned into nothing more than a cheap opportunity to have you picture an enormous woman getting pissed. Do I even need to describe the fits she had as she revisited each empty telephone pole?

No. I didn’t think so.

Maybe I should give the address of the garage sale to make it up to her. Nah, just going to change the date of the garage sale and put the signs back up.