Wednesday, August 20, 2008

And When Your Hands Get Dirty, Nobody Knows You At All

Here is a picture of me with my face all different kinds of distorted in the fun house mirror at the arcade at Hyde Pier.

Seriously, I don't know what kind of bizarre juju is hanging over our town this year, but it's getting pretty ridiculous. At work this afternoon, I got a message that there was ANOTHER lock-down at my daughters' school and both of the other schools they went to when they were younger. Jaysus! We live in Iowa for Christ's sake.

This time it was because of this creepy professor in town. He was accused of groping co-eds for the promise of an A+ and was suspended from his job. All of that was weird enough, right? Well, then we started hearing all this other shit, but like how this usually goes, it's all partial knowledge and hearsay and supposition and on and on like that there.

What I could figure out from all of it, is that the creepy professor wrote a suicide note and took off with his high powered rifle. The authorities (whoever they are) found his car parked at upper Hickory Hill Park and then at some point decided to put all the schools nearest to the park on lock-down for about 15 minutes. I called my girls and told them to stay away from the park, which is just two blocks from where we live.

Some people were saying that they weren't sure if the girls who accused the professor were telling the truth. As far as I'm concerned, once you take off in your white Ford Bronco, or head to the park with your high powered rifle, it's pretty evident that there's something real going on.

Here is a picture of the girls in front of the Hilltop Tavern, when we used to live above it.

Tonight we met at The Hilltop Tavern for supper club and everyone there was still talking about all the drama at the park just down the street. There was supposedly a SWAT team combing Hickory Hill and I wondered how a 66 year old professor was able to elude them all these hours. Sure, we also talked about other stuff, like our weekends and about how excited we were for NFL football season to start, so we could spend our Sunday afternoons at The Vine eating wings and watching men beat the shit out of each other, but mostly we were trying to piece all the afternoon's events together.

A couple of us girlies went back to my friend K.'s house afterward to hang out on her back porch. K. lives right next to the cemetery and park, where the creepy professor was said to be lurking. At first we talked about how little we understood men and all agreed that if you asked a guy why he did the things he did, he'd likely just say, "I'on'tknow." My friend T. wished they came with a manual, but I'm sure guys could say the same thing about women...Or else they'd just write us all off as crazy and not care about exactly why we do what we do.

Then we saw a helicopter fly over, and K. texted someone who was a little more in the know, who told her that they were using ultraviolet (I wrote ultra violet here, but I meant infrared. I'm leaving the original as further evidence of my dorkiness) lights to look for what they thought was just a body at this point. Not long after that, we heard what sounded like a gunshot coming from the direction of the park. It was kind of eerie. I went home pretty soon thereafter, and while I'm writing this, I have no idea what happened to the creepy professor.

I'll update you when I know.

13 comments:

-RM said...

Holy shit that's freaky!!! I hope you and your kids stay safe.

Also, I did write all females off as crazy = ). Some are good crazy..others are just bat shit crazy.

rel said...

Churlita,
Crazy scary when dufus' go off their shit. Hope it gets resolved without anyone getting shot.

Handbook for males:
If it feels good, do it.
rel

Anonymous said...

I would say this crazy dude wrote his own subpoena by going on the lam....pretty good story as far as stories go. Proof once again that life is still stranger than fiction.

We males talk the very same stuff about you girls, we don't understand you. We also think girls are crazy, so you were right on both fronts. Dating and relations would be far too easy if we all understood each other...where would the fun be in that?

Mr Atrocity said...

Yipes that's scary. It's even scarier when you don't actually know what's going on and eveyone is feeding off one another's fears and worry.

Anonymous said...

If this professor is on the lam, I hope they find him. There have way too many violent events lately and we don't need to hear of another. Be careful out there.

Susan said...

Wow. See, one more reason for me to come to Iowa-creepy professors!

matt said...

I had Dr. Miller for a class called "Political Psychology". It was about assumed bias in the electorate and the actual on the ground voting patterns. Interesting class.

Miller had been fired from Michigan a year before for "unscrupulous practices".

I think it was for plagirism.

DJSassafrass said...

Now that I am somewhat of a reporter again--this story is dominating my days. I have been calling him "Prof. McSkeevy Grades for Boobs," but not in the news of course.

Churlita said...

RM,

See? And we say that all men are crazy...It's just a different kind of crazy than we are.

Rel,

Me too, Rel. Me too.

Evil-E,

We said that too. Guys are so attractive because we can't figure them out.

Mr Atrocity,

Exactly. It's a veritable feeding frenzy.

Alien,

I know. It's not like the park is that big. It can't be that hard.

Susan,

Okay. So, come visit already.

Matt,

Did he seem like the kind of guy who would one day crack like this?

DJ,

We were calling him the boobie grabber too. He's got a million nicknames now, I'm sure.

MrManuel said...

Wow, who knew that there was that much excitement in Iowa. I agree, once you take off with your gun....

Tara said...

That is really freaky, especially not knowing what's true and what isn't regarding the whereabouts of a nutcase with a rifle. Definitely keep us posted and most definitely be careful out there.

matt said...

No, not really. He did kind of have a Les Nessman air about him.

Chance said...

"...and I have no idea what happened to the creepy professor" is an awesome line and really ought to end more blog posts.