Attacked by Frying Pans (Following Death)

This is a follow-up Post of The Grim Reaper’s Neighbor.

When it came to my attention that I didn’t know what happened to my Grim Reaper neighbor, I decided to revisit my old neighborhood. If I knew I was going to be attacked by a frying pan and nearly hit by a car, I don’t know if I would’ve bothered.

As it was, it happened. And I discovered several things in doing so.

One, my neighborhood is no longer my neighborhood. The cars were all wrong, the house colors too, and front yards didn’t have the right toys left out.

Two, all my old neighbors figured I was a criminal recently released from jail, going to jail, or (in the recluse with too many cats opinion) an escaped convict. I hadn’t realized I was such a charming child.

Three, old habits die really, really hard! And one of those is apparently getting into trouble and having near-death experiences.

Having left my old neighborhood nearly 10 years ago, I knew returning that the place wouldn’t be the same. In fact, I even wagered I would feel very much the stranger. I just didn’t realize the how much everyone else would view me as a stranger and distrust me for it.

So, when I came upon a crying little girl (who’d taken a spill from her bike) I didn’t realize the trouble I was walking into. Now, I didn’t act foolishly – in fact, I went against my natural Daycare-born instinct. I didn’t pick her up, I didn’t even touch her beyond helping her to her feet and holding her hand (and even then I kept a fairly loose hold and comfortable distance).

Unfortunately, by time I had gotten the girl down street toward her house her Mom had seen me. Maybe I look like a criminal (I mean, all my neighbors seem to think I am) or maybe I’m just naturally a suspicious looking person (though I work at a Daycare, so I can’t really vouch for that) but whatever the reason, the Mom panicked.

She grabbed the frying pan (apparently the closest thing at the moment) and went about a plan of attack – from behind. Clever mother, I must say. She didn’t run out the front door, screaming with the frying pan held high. No, she went out the back door, through a neighbor’s backyard, and came up behind us.

Then she yelled and threatened the frying pan. This scared the little girl who started crying all over again. Unaware it was her yelling that scared her daughter, the Mom continued yelling at me to let her girl go (who had clamped onto my hand) before taking a swing.

Luckily, I’ve read Harry Potter and knew to duck. Luckily, I’ve worked with little kids for 3 years now and knew how to get the girl’s hand off mine. Unfortunately, the girl wailed even louder and fell down, which drove her Mother to swing again.

That attack missed too but the rebound of it caught my left hand (which was frantically waving innocence by now) and knocked it pretty damn good. Swearing, I quickly stepped away as she clearly wound up again and tripped over the curb. The concrete painfully broke my fall and it felt like damaged wrist snapped.

Because the whole world was screaming around me – the Mom, the girl, and the pain of my left hand and now my bottom – I didn’t realize my most obvious danger until the screaming brakes were so close it was all I could hear.

Oh good lord! I’m going to die because of madwoman with a frying pan and a car! It was so pathetic!

I cringed, because that ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ paralysis was all too real (and no longer funny), and waited. The tap of metal to my cheek nearly made me pass out.

I’m alive–I’m friggin’ alive! Alive!  The car had manage to stop, a bloody miracle, and the Mom had stopped yelling. In fact, I think her eyes were wider than mine. And I was quick to notice she’d dropped the frying pan so to hold her hands to her mouth. 

She started to babble when the driver got out, so I just laid down and collected my thoughts. I’d just about died, or at least gravely injured. I hadn’t done that in years, not since I was 12 and I was thrown into a metal bench.  Bloody hell.

It wasn’t until I focused on the man standing over me that I realized the sheer irony that was now my life. It was my old neighbor, the Grim Reaper. And thus I became officially creeped. I don’t see him for 10 years and when I do, he’s nearly killing me with his car – that I wouldn’t have been in front of had I not been attacked by a frying pan! Ooh, the irony.

And he remembers me. Not as a criminal, however. After a brief talk with the Mom, with my participation this time, and my promise that I wasn’t going to press charges – strangers with your kids is always horrifying – I finally talked to the Grim Reaper.

I thanked him, for everything. When I was eight, all the little times in-between, and just now. My Grandma always said to thank the Grim Reaper if he should ever spare/save your life – it was only proper, seeing how it went against his nature.

Unfortunately, he was in a hurry and stayed long enough to ensure I was OK, dismiss my thanks, and mourn over the fact that I hadn’t escaped my tendencies to get into trouble. Once he was gone, I felt dizzy. I didn’t even know his real name still! Good lord, this man was creepy but awesome.

I, however, plan to leave it at that – I thanked Death and I’m satisfied. I refuse to return to that neighborhood in case I really die this time.

The Grim Reaper’s Neighbor

Growing up, I had a myriad of strange neighbors. From the angry magician with the shotgun (he’d do a magic trick for you then run you off his property),to the family that didn’t speak English (I almost blew my hand off with a firecracker at their house), and to the typical recluse with too many cats (he’d only venture out to spook children that would ding-dong-ditch him), we had everyone in our neighborhood.

We even had the Grim Reaper.

He wasn’t the recluse with too many cats and he wasn’t the angry magician, he was just my next-door neighbor. A man fun to ding-dong-ditch and the one who always gave out the best candy on Halloween. He was nice, in an aloof sort of way, but he was odd. Almost in a creepy way, when I think back on it.

 He was always there whenever something happened. My mom can tell dozens of stories of him walking me home when I was hurt or just after I’d gotten into trouble.

And that’s the creepy part about him and everything else. Whenever I was hurt, no matter where I was in the neighborhood, he was there. For no reason at all; he was just there.

It wasn’t until I was older and I had moved away that I began to refer to my neighbor as the Grim Reaper. Or rather, my friend suggested the idea when I told her about him.

See, there was this one time when I was out in the woods (behind my friend’s house) by myself. I had gone to work on our tree-house, which hadn’t taken the last thunderstorm too well. It was wet and humid and no one knew were I was exactly. Mom thought I was with my friend, and my friend thought I was with my Mom. No big deal. I was 8, I could handle myself.

That is, until one of the floorboards (which had rotted out over the years) gave out on me and I fell. Now, I’d fallen millions of times – that was part of being a kid. But I’d never fallen out of our tree-house, which was pretty high up, through a dozen little branches (which all snapped when I hit them) and landed on my shoulder (nearly my neck/head).

It hurt. I mean, it hurt bad. I couldn’t even breath it’d hurt so much. I couldn’t move either, which will freak anyone out (especially an 8-year-old kid).

This is where the story gets strange. The fall had dislocated my shoulder and my position was jamming it back up into my neck. There’s a couple of more technical things which had happened but I don’t remember them. The point is, the way I was laying and because of the state and position of my shoulder, I was strangling myself. (Or something to that effect.)

I don’t remember much, just a lot of burning pain in my throat, shoulder, and hungs. My head was wozzy too, and my nose felt like water had gone up it.

And then he, my neighbor, the Grim Reaper, was there. Out of nowhere, for no reason, he was just there. I hadn’t screamed, remember I couldn’t even breath, and no one knew I was out there…but he was there. He rolled me around, jostled my shoulder rather painfully, and then picked me up. (Obviously Death wasn’t a Medic, or he wouldn’t've done that).

I obviously hadn’t died but the doctor, at the ER, said I had come damn close to. But why was my neighbor there? The treehouse was in the woods behind my friends house, which is clear across the neighborhood from his house. And I wasn’t on the edge of the woods but a good ways in – you couldn’t see the house from the treehouse. I hadn’t screamed, because I couldn’t. And he’s wasn’t exactly out hiking in my friend’s backyard…

I hadn’t thought about it until my friend brought it up, but it was creepy. Who was this neighbor? Why did he find me that night? How did he find me? And why was he always there, just watching me? I can’t remember a time when I didn’t get hurt outside that he wasn’t there.

Maybe he was a guardian angel or maybe he was Death. But guardian angels aren’t supposed to be creepy and look like skeletons (he was really tall and skinny). But Death’s not supposed to protect you from dying…

Or maybe I just have nine lives. Whatever the reason, my neighbor looked like the Grim Reaper and, according to my friends (and me, I guess), acted oddly (almost like a confused Grim Reaper). Maybe he just liked me, he did always give me candy corn and none of my friend…

I don’t know though but I do know I had some odd neighbors. Everyone does, right?

The Life of Odd Facts

You ever wonder why you know some of the things that you do? Why, when people ask the some of the most random things you have (on occasion) been able to answer?

Where do these facts come from? What possessed you to learn them? Sure, in High School most of what you learned was trivia. Who fought in this battle and who wrote this book, well, those aren’t things critical to your everyday life and future. Unless you’re a History or English major or you’re on a Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, but that’s another story.

But what about the stuff you know that you didn’t pick up in High School? Like the life span of medieval men and women (average: 29 for man) or that Dai Vernon was the only magician to discover the secret to one of Harry Houdini’s tricks while Houdini was alive. How did this get into your head?

Is it from being bombarded with information every hour of the day? From radio, to advertisements, to t.v.? Or is it our friends, co-workers, and strangers (who already learned the trivia from other people) that spread the knowledge? Or maybe its just the internet, which is now a constant presence in our lives. Some of the most random stuff pops up on the internet.

And yet, to play both sides, does it matter? If you have trivia, it just means it was something worth remembering. Because how often do you keep something in your memory that you don’t want to remember?

So, the fact that punctuation didn’t come around in English until the12th century must mean more than that grammar test you failed in 9th grade.

And everyone knows statistics are fun to read and will usually stick in memory. Such as, 33 percent of people polled online believe that scratching a person’s vehicle is a more effective form of revenge than burning down their house.

So why do we have such trivial knowledge stuck in our minds? How come it stays, instead of going in one ear and out the other (like an order from a boss?) I don’t know, but what I can say is that everybody is learning more everyday because of everyday things, such as t.v and internet and print items.

And what we retain and what we don’t, well that depends on the person.

Abercrombie and Fitch – Moose Killer?

The first thing the costumer said was, “That moose is real!”

Why yessir, the moose is real. And that canoe was stolen from a small native American tribe in Oklahoma. Oh, and those mannequins are refurbished cadavers! You’re quite astute.

Abercrombie and Fitch is a clothing store, people. Nothing more and nothing less. In fact, that Hollister  store everyone loves over A&F is owned by A&F. That’s why all the clothing looks similar!

So why does everyone assume the worse of A&F? Its a clothing store, not a moose killing, canoe robbing store.

But, my friend (who works at A&F) has more costumers ask her if that moose’s head is real. Never-mind that its so obviously fake and that every other A&F has an identical looking head. Because, you know, all moose look a like. They’re all really, really big and really, really strong and harder than hell to kill – and completely identical. Oh and don’t forget, A&F has killed so many they’ve endangered the animal.

Hatred for A&F is amazing and its unique. How many people complain about American Eagle? Or The Buckle? They sell clothing that’s just as suggestive as A&F. In fact, JCPenny’s does. So what, they’ve pictures in of people half-clothed or not in the front. They’re a store and that’s advertising.  

They’re not hurting you or your family. But people hurt the store. Vandalize the posters in the front, steal piles of shirts, and accuse A&F of killing moose.

So, indeed, yessir – we kill moose and steal canoes and dress up refurbished cadavers. Not only do we kill moose, we kill all the identical ones. And all those canoes, we made sure to get them alike too. And those cadavers, well, we just about put enough layers on them to keep them from rigor mortis.

Welcome to the world of A&F.