changing appearance

After a somewhat awkward hour at work with Kelly, I came home to see my downstairs neighbors getting ready to paint the stairway that we share in the house. Yesterday I had been told to expect them at nine in the morning and they were right on time. I had only been home for a few minutes and they were already milling around my door with paint and brushes ready to go.

I guess that it needed to be painted, but I don't know why they chose to go with a shade of beige instead of white. Maybe they think that it'll cover wear and tear better. What I do know is that it I didn't sleep that well and I'm not sure if was because of the paint fumes or not.

With a month to go before my thirtieth birthday, I have to wonder if it will be as eventful as the day my friend Dan in California had. Here is the most recent email that he sent me with some editorial changes made by me. Most of the time his email comes in the form of one long run on sentence, which is fine with me, but does make for hard reading. I don't think that Dan will mind.

I spent about half an hour in the company of the LAPD, Beverly Hills that is, as they searched me and my car for drugs. I was turned around, bent forward with hands being held for me behind my back, feet spread apart and padded down completly. Had my eyes looked at for about five minutes-TWICE, and without my glasses they do not focus evenly and one drifts as you know.

They asked me what I thought I was doing there. I said, in full Fargo accent, that I was visiting from Wisconsin. I just wanted to see some of the town and I was told there's not much to see and asked if I had been at a party where there were people doing weed. My clothes would tell them, by their fresh sent, that I of course had not. I acted SHOCKED at the thought of people using drugs around me. A cop searched my backpack. I talked to the other cop with great enthusiasim about the monday night Packer loss and still with heavy accent how Coach Holmgren had Brett Favre's mind read. The other cop walks up behind and says he found this plastic bag in my car and holds it forward and asks what the small object in the bottom of it is. My mind cannot accept what is happening. I do not recognize the bag. I almost drop the Hicksville act and say " you asshole, that was not in the car and you know it!"

After me, the two cops, and my date look for about ten seconds. I know what to say. The cop says it first,"is that what...a raisin?" "Yes, that is a raisen." One cop breaks all the tension and says,"guilty as charged then,huh?" and laughs hard. Everybody laughs. I laugh and want to leave very badly. It was an ex bag of trail mix. Didn't he see that under his own flashlight? We get in the car and I signal and drive on. My date laughs hysterically and says," those guys are going "that guy sounds like the guy in Fargo!"

The whole reason I was pulled over...a headlamp out. Yes, I sould be frisked for that. I should have all my stuff gone thru for that. I should be held by force, bent over for that. But I was good. I was so good I actually said I had seen COPS on TV and understood they had to be sure and all that crap. Cop laughs and can't believe what a hick I am. I use phrases like "I seen" instead of "I saw". And the side street was dark and residensal. Oh, I also said I was trying to find a job to move to LA and the cop says,"YOU want to move to LA?" I ask If I said something wrong and he says if that's what I want to do, well...whatever. Like this town would eat me alive. What an asshole. That was the last day of my twenties. Hope yours, when it comes, is just as eventful. Oh, one little detail I left out: I had a pint of Guinness and two martinis in me at the time, which the Fargo accent covered nicely.

Um, I feel compelled to point out that Fargo is in North Dakota and not all of Wisconsin has said accent although Dan can affect one at will. Other than that one minor quibble, I think that Dan tells a much better comedic story than I do.

 
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