Only in the Ridge…

Feb 28, 2012 by Lauren

Some odd things have been happening around here lately.  Things that I’m pretty sure would not happen in any world outside of Goofy.

 

A few weeks ago, our farm hand Scott was cutting down a tree in front of our rental house.  We told him he could take the wood home.  It’s down the road a bit, so I couldn’t see the progress. During all this, a strange man, obviously from the greater Goofy Ridge area, LITERALLY, 3 teeth in his entire mouth, knocks on my door.  Call me a city snob, but I’m still hesitant to open my door when I’m the only adult in the house.  This was one of those times I should’ve pretended I wasn’t home.  The Goofy resident at my door wanted to know if I owned the rental house down the road.  It seems he’d talked to our neighbor, found out we own the house and, as he went by, saw Scott cutting down the tree.  This STRANGER wanted to know if he could go onto our rental property, finish cutting down the tree (he claimed Scott was gone and hadn’t finished the job), and take the wood.

 

As is my usual stance, I feign ignorance and tell him he’ll have to come back later to talk to my husband.  As soon as the stranger left, I called Adam to report what happened.  Adam said he’d just driven by the house, the tree was completely down, and cut up, Scott’s stuff was still there, but he’d taken a load of wood home and had left a second load behind because it wouldn’t all fit into his truck.  So, in other words, this strange man, emphasis on STRANGE, thought he could just come on over to someone else’s property, pretend like he cut down my tree, and take all the wood that Scott had actually cut up and stacked.  WTF is wrong with these people?!  You would not believe how many people I get asking to come hunt on various parts of our property, which I also think is both ballsy and RUDE, but asking to cut down my trees…that was a new one.

 

Fast forward to yesterday.

 

This time Adam was home, so he answered the door.  Wouldn’t you know, it’s the same damn guy.  This time he claims he’s talked to Adam’s wife, who works at the “bus barn” (WTF is the bus barn?) and “his wife” said the house was available for rent, so he wants to rent it.  Before Adam can tell him we already have a new renter, this weirdo just word vomits that he already has a house in the Ridge and wants to get out of there because he’s basically behind on his payments.  Right, because that REALLY makes us want to rent to you, even if we did have something open.  Adam told him no, and he went away without any fuss, so that was good, but it really creeped me out.

 

I never told this guy the house was empty, available as a rental, nothing.  How did he know that?  It’s our neighbor’s daughter who’s renting the place now, so I doubt they’d have told him it was available.  People are SO WEIRD around here.  Who does this stuff?  Why the hell do people  here just assume that they can hunt on our property, cut down our trees, just knock on our door like I’m the frickin Wizard of Oz and I’ll make all their redneck dreams come true?!

 

I would say just call me the Redneck Wizard but apparently the term “Wizard” has a whole other (white supremacist) connotation around these parts.  Where the hell am I?  I feel like I’m going to hear the dueling banjos start up any minute!