photo by strep72 on flickr

Well, let’s see.. there was Forrest.

He worked with us on theatrical projects in the 1990s when we were doing that up in Ashland, and he used to call the house and leave long rambling voice mails for coffeesister, aka Dorian, aka MY WIFE, telling her how lovely she is and how much he wished she’d consider leaving me.

He’d frame it as a joke – HA HA! – but I never found it to be that funny, because she and I had been through a lot together and EVERY TIME HE CALLED – which was OFTEN – he’d leave those types of messages.

I finally confronted him out in the parking lot after a show and he acted as if I was overreacting and blowing it all out of proportion because, after all, isn’t it perfectly acceptable to call another man’s wife and hit on her all of the time?

After much intense discussion, he told me he did it because he didn’t feel that I was right for her and now he was “coming clean” and fessing up that it was never a joke but that he was sincere all along in wishing that she’d run off with him.

I told him that if he called again he’d have a hard time talking to her at all after that, because I’d show up at his house in the middle of the night and cut his tongue out while he was sleeping.

Then I’d cut his balls off and put them where his tongue had been.

This effectively put an end to his calls. He joined the Peace Corps shortly thereafter and we never saw him again.

I was going to throw a few more characters in here, but I think I’ll just make it an occasional series.

To those of you who’d say, “Hey RhodesTer, YOU can’t write about weird people, because YOU’RE weird too!” Well, I’ll say to you, I KNOW I AM, but what keeps one weird guy from writing about others? Where in the rulebook does it say I can’t? And what IS this “rulebook?”

Where did you get it? Did it cost much?

Can I get one on AMAZON?