Aug 8, 2016

The Mysterious Fresh Freeze Incident

Something pretty strange happened while I was picking up some take-out tonight from a local drive-up 50's style diner here in town called Fresh Freeze. It's located at the edge of a shopping district in the middle of town on the corner of F and Harris streets. This is a fairly busy street corner.  I parked on the outside edge of the lot which would put my car facing the street instead of the building. I remember because I usually park in front facing the building but couldn't because there were a lot of people there. I don't know why this is significant but I'm trying to paint somewhat of a picture here. In the corner of the lot next to my car is a big 50's style Fresh Freeze sign.  It was still very light out and as I was walking back to my car I noticed a guy standing near the sign on the sidewalk. He looked like he could be a homeless type person. There's a pretty significant homeless problem in this town and ever since the city evicted 100's of people from a homeless camp recently with little thought on how to help them, they've sort of spread out around town. He wasn't full-on hobo though. He looked like a typical grungy young person I may have hung out with in the 90's. Beanie, longish hair, long trench coat. Imagine, Jay from the Kevin Smith movies.  Anyway, I notice him but pay no further attention to him and continue walking to my car with my food and milkshakes.

I get in my car, set the bags down on the passenger floorboard.  Make sure the milkshake holder is secure for the drive home. Still bent down I plug my phone in and tap the auto-window-down button sort of all in one motion. As I sit back up, window now down, I notice something right outside my car door.  It's the guy.  Right. There.  Sixteen inches from my head. He's in a wide legged stance and with both hands, he's pointing a red digital camera at me reciting this line very bluntly and with full seriousness.  "DO NOT TRY TO CONTACT ME - I WILL FILE A RESTRAINING ORDER AGAINST YOU" all the while snapping as many pics as he could before I opened my door. I unplugged my phone opened the camera app and got this bit of video, shouting "why are you taking pictures of me"  as he briskly walked away repeating the forementioned warning.



I got back into my car and followed him down Fst.  I had my camera open and ready on burst mode to catch a shot of him.  Apparently so did he.  As I got closer to him I notice that he's walking on the sidewalk at a medium pace, It looks as if he's removed his coat maybe to try to disguise himself. But the interesting thing is that he has his camera pointed backwards. At me!  I slow my car down as I pass and now we're dueling with cameras like members of opposing street gangs during a drive by shooting.  


All I was able to get was this blurry series of pics  as I passed.  


Here's an animated gif of the pics. 


He's probably just some poor guy off his medication and is just having a mental paranoid episode. He probably thinks he's some kind of rogue agent and everyone he sees is in some evil organization that's after him. For all I know the red point-and-shoot digital camera doesnt even work and he found it in a dumpster or something. Just another prop in his delusion.

This whole thing was just sort of surreal and I dont know how to feel about it. I just hope he doesn't try to track me down with my license plate number and stalk me or something.  

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