A couple days ago I woke up at exactly 5AM. Now, I am a fairly early riser, but to wake up that early during Christmas vacation just wasn't Christian. My hubs had been fighting a cold, so I didn't want to disturb his slumber, although judging by the strangled Sasquatch noises that were emanating from his snoring form, I think he might have been the reason I had been awoken.
Anyway, I lounged perfectly snug and content in my micro-flannel sheets and amused myself with a bit of reading about all the nonsense and chicanery going on around the globe on my handy dandy digital augmentation (phone) when suddenly, at exactly 6:17 AM, my curtains lit up like they were getting hit with a disco light wielded by an inebriated nun.
I popped out of bed and flicked open the curtains. On my barn road in front of our house was a red Jeep Cherokee. It was behaving in a most peculiar fashion.
As I stood there trying to figure out what in the heck was going on, the driver of the Cherokee proceeded to drive up the barn road a bit, very slowly, stop, reverse a bit, drive forward, stop, reverse a bit more, drive forward. It was almost like the vehicle was being driven by a pharmaceutical-addled creature. That or the driver was a somnambulist plow truck driver.
Either option was a bit disconcerting.
The driver then backed all the way down the barn road, drove around my driveway circle about 17 times (I counted), then went back down the barn road, executed a super slow motion three point turn, drove down the barn road, around the circle again, and stopped.
By then I knew that I was going to have to get the hubs up. One, it was not cool that some weirdo was trespassing on the farm in the middle of the dark. And two, it was just too weird of an incident to not share with someone whom I love.
The hubs served in the military until they blew him up and paralyzed him after four surgeries. His training though, that has stayed fresh, so part of me just likes to get him up in an emergency and watch the beauty that is him going all tactical. While he was getting his pants on, I walked out and flicked on the surface of the sun lights in our carport. Then, as he was grabbing one of our shotguns, I walked up to the dining room window and saw that Cherokee Red was driving down our barn road again at a blistering 3mph or so.
Since the hubs was about ready to go full tactical, I knew I had to have my bit of fun, so I flicked on the dining room light, walked up to the window, raised my pistol in the air with one hand and waved the other hand while smiling my best smart donkey smile.
The Cherokee stopped.
By then my hubs was out the door. I knew I wouldn't be seeing him for a bit. My daughter had emerged from her cave and was inquiring most loudly about the situation, and I watched as the Cherokee drove down the barn again, turned around super slowly, drove out to the circle, went around it once, drove down our road to our neighbors, pulled into their driveway, stopped, backed up, and went on down the driveway off of our property.
I'm telling you, it was one of the weirdest displays I have ever seen. Which of course is why I am leaning towards pharmaceutical inebriation as the cause of the incident. I thought about calling dispatch, but the person never actually did anything bad, aside from trespassing and raising some blood pressure. Honestly, I think we probably scared them more, I mean seeing a maniacally smiling hobbit brandishing a Sig Sauer would probably wreck me if I were high.
The hubs returned and I made us a large pot of coffee. It then dawned on me that we had just had our one crackhead incursion of the year. Seriously, we get one every year, although 2020's was the absolute king of all the encounters. 2021 waited until the very end before sending us our yearly engagement with the under the influence peeps, and it was more of a mystifying than scary encounter, so for that I am truly grateful.
Who knows what this year will bring!?
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's still warming up from going out into the blizzard and taking some frozen seasonal farm photos iPhone.