A Special Kind of Crazy

The problem with being a writer is that people often think I have to be a little bit crazy myself to come up with some of the things I come up with. I find that hard to argue. Sure, it seems normal to me to come up with all the characters and stories and twists that I do, but most people don’t roll that way. There are even times when I’m surprised by the things that I come up with out of nowhere. And then there are times when I run across something even I never would have dreamed of.

That, my friends, is called reality.

Regular readers of this blog will remember the landlord / housing troubles we encountered over the past couple of months. To summarize for new readers: the house we rent was foreclosed on and sold at auction without our knowledge. We had until the end of our lease, but it turned out our landlord had been lying to me all along and continued to lie when I tried to get answers about what was going on with us. He had me convinced his wife had horns, a tail, and cloven hooves.

Turns out this guy’s something else. I’ve alluded to that too, but the more we get into the situation the more we learn and the less we want to know! I have trouble understanding the depths a person could sink to because I’ve never suffered this flavor or intensity of addiction. Not drugs or alcohol, but gambling. That’s where every penny of my very expensive rent payment went. That’s where his daughter’s college fund went (after he forged his wife’s signature to get it). That’s where the money he received for pawning his wife’s wedding ring and jewelry went. And the list goes on.

It also turns out that the house we lived in was not the first one he’s had go into foreclosure. Different tenants were involved in the prior one three years ago. Would have been nice to know that before we got involved in this one. The great news is that we’re out of there and appear to be finished with it. He has no idea where we moved to. Neither does his wife, although we continue to communicate with her.

Oh, and speaking of his wife? Well she’s his ex-wife now and his daughter is afraid to spend time with him because he’s unstable and violent (he t-boned his wife’s car to keep her from getting away on one occasion and hopped the fence of a gated community to confront her another time). As far as my many talks with her, I’m genuinely feeling bad for her. She’s not a bad person like he’d have the world believe. She works hard and is enduring a personal hell that is much worse than what we went through.

This is the kind of stuff I’d expect to come out of a B grade movie, not real life. I’m not sure I could have come up with all of it, or if I had I would have laughed at myself and said, “No way, nobody would do that!

It appears I’ve been giving crazy people too much credit.

 

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