Scary Neighbor Too


There they were, standing there, like two Praying (I should say Preying) Manti (the plural of Mantis). When I saw them, I halted, but it was too late, I could see my reflection in their bugged out eyes, and I noticed a pause in their conversation, the pause of recognition. Too late, no way to escape.

In a matter of seconds I found myself trapped in a conversation about computers, and certifications, and how to find a job. I felt bad for both guys, one is so thin that he looks like the Crypt Keeper, or that guy that was being starved to death in the movie "Seven". He really, really creeps me out. He talks with a slow cadence as if he is on a breathing machine like Christopher Reeves- but he's not. His blue eyes are almost alien-like and they have this way of looking at you, and through you at the same time. A cold blue that chills you to the deep inside like a big drink from a coke slurpee after you have been out in the sun all day at baseball game in August in Texas.

The other neighbor lives with his mother and has to be at least 35. He is not scary to look at, rather, he looks quite normal. I hear it's the normal ones you have to worry about. The crazy thing about him is that I think he is shizophrenic, even weirder is that he has a twin who I think is also schizophrenic and they are identical twins and I never know which one I am talking too, or which personality, or if there really is two of them! Who knows?!! It could be just one and everytime I say, "Hi, Ben" He automatically says, "I'm Ben, David's my brother" and vice versa, when I say "Hi David". It is really starting to freak me out.

So I am stuck in this strange conversation for fifteen minutes talking about Javascripting when the Alien-Thin-Scary-Blue-Eyed neighbor is asking me aout the importance of HTML in the relationship to web design, and the other normal looking, but not normal in the head neighbor jumps in and says, "I don't know" when it was obvious that the ATSBE neighbor was talking to me. Normal Neighbor on the outside but seriously messed up in the head continues to say, "I don't know" repeatedly, and then he says, "I use Juno. 9.0, that's it, Ever heard of Juno?" At this point I am too scared to laugh, I know that I am dealing with 5 degrees of psycho and I am catching a chill. Even the Alien-Thin-Scary-Blue-Eyed neighbor is looking at Normal on the outside but not in the head neighbor as if he is indeed crazy. At this point there was nothing left to do but scatter and take cover, knowing that at any moment Normal on the outside but not normal in the head neighbor could start talking about nothing as if it was something, and myself and Alien-Thin-Scary-Blue-Eyed neighbor know that it is time take to make our exit. We did so, awkwardly, so quick and awkward it was that I hardly remember if I said anything at all, or if I just bolted to the car and headed straight to Starbucks, all I remember is that 15 minutes later I was in the line at Starbucks, in a cold sweat, ordering a Venti Java Chip with a double-shot of Juno 9.0 hold the HTML. And when he asked me if I wanted whip cream with that, I said, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know".