Our Odd Little Corner

Our house sits directly on a street corner at the intersection of two streets, one fairly busy, the other fairly sleepy.  There is something about this corner.

There is a stop sign (2-way) halting traffic on the sleepier street and there is something about it that people regularly ignore.  The stop sign is merely a guideline, a suggestion.  There is something that makes people pull a u-turn in the middle of this intersection.  It must look a like a good place to turn around.  There is something that makes people on the busier, non-stop-sign street come to a stop anyway.  There is something that makes them stop and sit there for a long time.  There is something about this corner that makes it seem like a good place to whip out your phone and text message someone, or check directions, or reapply lipstick or have a fight with your boyfriend.  Or stare blankly yet somehow menacingly at the happy married couple sitting outside on the front steps of their charming little house on the corner.  What I'm trying to say is that there is something odd about the little corner on which our house sits.  And we regularly see all kinds of odd traffic and odd behaviors and just shake our heads and say to each other only in Waco.

Yesterday Keith had a whole new experience on our odd little corner.  He was outside, enjoying a lovely sunny day when a car pulled over in front the house and rolled down the passenger window, engine idling.  Inside was a very round, not particularly friendly-looking, somewhat elderly man.  Or as Keith put it, your typical crotchety old guy (we'll call him TCOG for short).  Assuming that the man needed directions Keith walked over and leaned down to peer in the open window.

"You sure need to mow your lawn," TCOG opened randomly.  "It's going to rain soon and that grass is going to start growing again."

Incidentally, our lawn does indeed need mowing, a fact that was brought to the attention of our lawn mowing guy back before Christmas, but alas no mowing has yet commenced.  Keith politely informed TCOG of said situation.  At which point TCOG turned the key in his ignition, shutting down the engine.  He proceeded to talk to Keith for close to 20 minutes, rambling inanely about money, kids these days, the cost of all the things his pesky grandkids have broken (lawnmowers, transmissions, weed eaters), money, retirement, his worthless son-in-law (got the weed eater stolen from him), the neighbors who moved out down the street (they were noisy), money, the neighbors who moved in down the street (TCOG is sure they've got three families living in one house "and that's not legal"), the fact that TCOG's wife wouldn't be home from work for another hour, and of course, money.

A snippet of TCOG's riveting conversation:  "I pay my grandson ten bucks to mow the lawn.  Ten bucks, I mean, that's a lot of money.  Don't you think?  But then I get to thinking about the costs associated with his mowing the lawn.  Like the gas I bought for the lawnmower, what's that, about three bucks?  And regular lawnmower maintenance, I pay for that lawnmower not him, what's that?...So I decide I want some of my ten bucks back..."

And as delightful as all of this obviously must have been, Keith is standing there stooping down to the window, back cramping, mind reeling and every time he tries to extricate himself, TCOG veers into yet another topic and he's off.  No connection from one story to the next, no transitions between them, no line of logic to follow and worst of all- no stopping him.  At one point it occurred to Keith that TCOG might be going into some kind of shock, maybe diabetic?  Like maybe his brain was somehow unhinging and he just couldn't stop rambling, but Keith didn't know what to do about it.

TCOG did finally quit talking, turn the engine back on,  and drive away.  Keith never did find out why he pulled over in the first place.  Our best guess is that he was just a lonely, typical crotchety old guy who was looking for someone to talk to, just trying to pass the time until his wife came home from work.  And while it's an amusing story there's also something about it that breaks my heart a little bit.  You know what I mean.

So this is the kind of encounter that our odd little corner seems to attract.  Once again we look at each other and shake our heads.  Only in Waco.