A Peck of Gold

Peanut Butter Fury

We had a strange experience last night. I will try to condense this as much as I can, but it's a rather long story. I mentioned our crazy neighbor a while back, so this is part two to that post.

Let me set the scene. A month ago, I gave "Patsy" a jar of peanut butter - it was supposed to be some home remedy for her sick dog (I didn't ask...). She stopped by on Sat. and I was standing in the doorway talking to her. I never open it all the way, because her dogs will run in, plus I am doing everything I can to limit her visit. Anyway, Wrenn said, "Don't come in." Which was not nice and I got on to her - but she says that to anybody - the mailman, whoever. Everything was still okay, and Patsy went to her apartment, seemingly fine. Okay. Scene is set.

Saturday night, Patrick and I are in the living room and we hear this huge BANG! It scares me to death! Patrick swings the door open, and Patsy is way across the yard with her dogs. Patrick says, "Patsy??", to which she angrily yells back "I didn't want my stinking dogs to bother you (mumbles something else)!" At this point, I look down and see the peanut butter jar. I picked it up and we shut the door, stunned. She had just hurled this at our door as hard as she could!!?? If it had hit the window, it would've surely broken it - it was that hard.

So we're sitting there, thinking, what the heck is happening here?? Either she's mad at us, or she's mad about something else and taking it out on us. It's hard to figure out, because she is truly, actually crazy, and it could be anything...

We are laughing and stunned for about fifteen minutes. Then I think, you know what? No. That is not acceptable. No matter what's wrong, you can't just go around throwing peanut butter at people's doors when you get mad. So I decide to take it back up there and find out exactly what's going on. I walk up the steps, knock on the door, and she opens the door. Right off, I know she must be off her meds, or something, because she is wild eyed, hair flying, and is walking around like a pitbull. I said "Do you want this?? Why did you throw this at my door?" She says "NO, I didn't want to knock on your door because I didn't want my dogs to stink up your house and bother you!" She's waving her arms up and down, and looks like she is about to explode - I'm serious. She looked like a Berserker, and I knew she was about to totally lose it. She keeps mentioned the dogs, and I say, "WHAT are you talking about? What is wrong with you?!"

At this point, her dog comes running out, dragging his leash, and starts to get tangled around me. She is extremely agitated and grabs the dog with both hands, and HEAVES him across the room! I don't mean a little toss - she hurt that poor dog, he's yelping and crying, and I am totally in shock! Then, she barrels off into her room, leaving me standing in the doorway with that stupid jar of peanut butter, and now I'm thinking, oh yeah, she's going to get a baseball bat or something to beat the crap out of me! I'm outta here! I set the jar down, and walk down the stairs(okay, briskly) . Before I can get back in our door, she throws that jar across the yard again. I come inside, and report all this back to Patrick, who is just as shocked and astounded as I am. We are still laughing though, because no sane person would EVER act the way she was - it was nuts. Nobody goes from just fine to insanely furious like that.

About an hour later, she knocks on our door and apologizes. Her explanation was that Wrenn hurt her feelings. I said, "Well, I'm sorry, but she's TWO YEARS OLD. You gotta let stuff like that roll off of you, Patsy." She said she didn't think I liked her because she was picking up signals from me. She also thinks I'm a dog hater. I couldn't really say, "You are irritating and self centered and I don't want to be around you and let your dogs (who DO stink by the way) lick all over me and my kids and if you are picking up signals then you should act like any other person and TAKE THE HINT!". So, what I did say was "Look, I know I am probably distracted when you come by, but I've got a lot going on down here, and you shouldn't get all bent out of shape. And if you ever DO get mad at me, then come down and here and tell me - you can't just throw peanut butter and freak out when you get upset." She said, "Well, why do you hate dogs?" -Sigh- I cannot make this woman believe I am not a dog-hater, no matter what I say.

I know that sounds very cruel of me, and I feel bad for disliking her so much. I consider myself a nice person, I try to be friendly. But she is seriously unbalanced and I can't do more for her than I've done.

I ended it with "Okay Patsy - peace. Let's just let it go."

Anyway, that was such a bizarre event, I just had to blog about it.

Posted by Shannon at July 28, 2003 10:05 AM | TrackBack