Whidbey Weirdness

At first I thought I was imagining the weirdness of this town, but with each new experience I realize that my initial assessment of the locals was pretty accurate. Yesterday I had my 3rd weird experience with some locals so I thought I would explain ALL of them to you to better illustrate my point.

Experience #1: When we first moved to Oak Harbor it took almost 3 weeks to get our internet set up at home. Mr. V and I spent a lot of time at the town library checking our email and playing around on the internet. One day I showed up at the library and had this conversation as I sat down at an open computer:

Random creepy looking man: "HI!!!!"

Brooklet: "Hi."

(random creepy looking man continues to stare at me)

Random creepy looking man: "Are you Daniel's sister?"

Brooklet: "No, I'm sorry. I'm not."

Random creepy looking man: "Oh I'm sorry. You looked just like her.Amazing."

Brooklet: *smiles politely* "No problem."

(I continued to check my email, not giving another thought to the creepy looking man next to me.)

(fast forward to 2 weeks later - I'm at Kmart picking up some random items.)

Brooklet: *pays for items and begins walking out of the store*

Random creepy looking man: "HEY!!!!"

Brooklet: *looks at man confused - doesn't recognize him*

Random creepy looking man: "You're the girl from the library!!"

Brooklet: "umm....?"

Random creepy looking man: "You remember. I thought you were Daniel's sister!"

Brooklet: *starting to remember* "Oh hi!"

(I continue walking out of the store, my hands filled with bags.)

Random creepy looking man: "So how are you?"

Brooklet: "Umm, I'm good. Just picking up some stuff that I needed for the house."

Random creepy looking man: "I'm John!" (note: I have no idea what his name really was, so for the purpose of this story I'll call him John.)

Brooklet: "Oh. Hi John." *begins the process of figuring out how to get to my car and away from this guy."

John: "And what should I call you?"

Brooklet: "Oh I'm sorry. I'm Brooke."

John: *tries to shake my hand even though I clearly have my hands filled with bags* "Its so nice to meet you Brooke. Did you know that I'm writing a book?"

Brooklet: "uh no I didn't." *wonders why I should have known he was writing a book*

John: "Yep. Its a true story. Its all about my life and the things I have gone through. That's why I was at the library. I was working on my book."

Brooklet: "Oh" *takes a step closer to the parking lot*

John: "Yep I'm writing a book. But I have some problems spelling words. That's why I use the computers at the library. They tell me if I spell something wrong. Its a beautiful day isn't it? Its not often you can see the sun around here."

Brooklet: "Yeah I've noticed that."

John: "I was in the Navy. That's why I live here. Because I used to live here when the Navy told me that I had to live here. I worked for the FBI too. After the Navy. I worked for the FBI but I don't anymore so I live here again."

Brooklet: *stares at man's nasty crooked rotting teeth and rudely wonders if he was a janitor at an FBI office because there is no way this guy was actually IN the FBI*

John: "Are you in the Navy? I was in the Navy."

Brooklet: "No, my husband is in the Navy. We just moved here so I should get going. I still have lots to unpack."

John: "Oh ok. Well it was nice meeting you. What's your name again?"

Brooklet: "Brooke"

John: Oh thats right. Brooke. The girl from the library. Maybe I'll see you at the library soon." *his face lights up* "You can proofread my book! Like an editor. I'm sure you can spell better than me. Will you help me and proofread my book?"

Brooklet: *knows the internet will be set up at home in a day and probably won't return to the library for a while* "Uh....sure...I guess."

John: *looks at his watch* "Oh! Look at the time! I should probably go home. See you later!"
(he's gone before I had a chance to blink)

I chalked up this particular incident to bad luck on my part, and a random strange guy on his part. When I told Mr. V the story, he concluded that the guy was probably a serial killer. Awesome.


Experience #2: Mr. V and I are bargain hunters. We love garage sales, thrift stores, antique stores and anything of the sorts. We've found some amazing things throughout our bargain hunting experiences, including some items that are almost brand new (and some that are completely brand new). If you look around enough, its amazing what people will throw away, when there is no need to throw it away. So one day we were driving by a neighborhood that had a "Free Stuff" sign on the street. We decided to swing by and found out that this family had a garage sale the day before, and anything they hadn't sold was being given away for free. (note: Since this is a huge military town, LOTS of people have garage sales all summer long, and when they are over, the leftovers are given away for free. We have found that its all people who are moving to a new location and they are happily selling things that still look brand new. Its worth it to check out once the nice weather rolls around again.) I had been looking for a magazine holder for a while, and one of the first things I noticed was that there was a free magazine holder on the street. It was dusty, but otherwise looked brand new. So of course we stopped. I grabbed the magazine holder and Mr. V picked through some other things. As we were looking through stuff, the owner of the house was still bringing stuff outside and encouraging us to take everything. We ended up with the magazine holder, some flower pots, a space heater, toaster oven, interesting pieces of driftwood and some other random things. As we were hunting through stuff we ran into Weird Whidbey person #2.

Random man: (to Mr. V) "Oh hi! Do you live in this neighborhood?"

Mr. V: "No we live across the street a bit. We just stopped by because we saw the sign for the free stuff."

Random man: "Yeah this is great isn't it? I live in this neighborhood and people are really nice around here. These are my kids - *points to 2 kids on bikes* - This is Tommy (again, I have no memory of their actual names so I'm making some up), Tommy is 10. This is Jason. He's 8. I have 3 other kids. Let's see....Anthony is 7 and Carla is 5. And oh! Matt is 11 and I'm their dad. They love their dad. They love spending time with me. And I love spending time with them. See? These guys on the bikes with me. We're just out riding around having fun."

*As he's talking, Tommy or Jason losses interest in his bike and starts picking up random things from the free pile. I cringe as he picks up MY magazine holder that I've claimed and drags it across the street, probably scratching it up, then drops it hard on the ground. Images of my perfect magazine holder disappear as I realize its probably scratched and cracked. Thankfully, no damage was done.*

Random man: "Hey do you like the outdoors?"

Mr. V: "uhhh yeah I do"

Random man: "My family and I go hiking a lot. We like Deception Pass, and we also like Mt. Erie and this place and this place (he goes on to mention several other hiking areas). We go hiking whenever its nice outside. But we didn't go this weekend. No. This weekend we're just riding our bikes around having fun. You should come hiking with us. Not next weekend because we won't be here. But the week after that. Yes definitely, you'll come hiking with me, my wife, and my 5 kids. Because we love hiking and we like hiking with our friends. You can be our friend now too."

Mr. V: *stares at man with baffled expression*

Random man: "Hey have you been here long? Let me guess, Navy right?"

Mr. V: "uh yeah"

Random man: "Oh wow! I was in the Navy. What do you do?"

Mr. V: "I'm a pilot."

Random man: "A pilot. WOW! What kind of pilot?"

Mr. V: "P3's"

Random man: "You know I know we have P3s around here and we also have Prowlers. Those planes are different from each other. I used to work on planes. A long time ago when I was in the Navy. I worked on planes. On the ground though. WOW! So you're a pilot huh? What are you going to do when you get out in...what...2 years?"

Mr. V: "No actually I have about 6 more years before my commitment is up."

Random man: "WOW 6 years? Thats a long commitment. But you can fly commercial aircraft then right? Will you do that? Will you work for an airline? I would work for an airline. Because then you can still be a pilot!"

Mr. V: "uh huh..."

*During this time, another child has shown up, along with several other people who are now digging through the free pile. The 3 children continue to play with items in the pile, making me nervous, because they look like they are about to destroy everything I have claimed. Meanwhile, Random man has somehow lured us away from the free stuff, so now the neat little pile that we collected is in danger of being claimed by some other person. I am getting annoyed quickly.*

Random man: *goes on and on for a while about flying, while Mr. V stares blankly at him trying to figure out how to get away.*

Brooklet: *sighs loudly*

Mr. V: *Takes my cue and starts wandering back to his pile of stuff and moving it into the car*

Random man: "So yeah we should definitely go hiking next week. I like making new friends. I'll call you ok? Oh wait, I can't get your phone number because I left my phone at my house. My house is only 3 streets away. You can wait here and I'll go get my phone..."

Mr. V: "no no no...its ok. Look just give me your number and I'll call you." *obviously attempting to NOT give this man his phone number*

Random man: "No! I know what we can do. You can call me. I'll give you my number right now. Thats right, where's your phone? Ok are you ready? Type this number in, and then call me. Right now. Call me. Now you're number will be on my caller ID and I can call you back! Great idea!"

Mr. V: *does what he is told...unhappily*

*after a few more weird exchanges about the Navy, hiking, and airplanes we managed to get away from this guy when I started carrying stuff over to the car, and standing next to the car. Mr. V said he had to help me and we booked it out of there. We concluded that this man must also be a serial killer. Thankfully, he must have met a new friend after us because we never got a phone call from him.*

So this brings me to my 3rd incident. This one happened yesterday and confirmed my theory about this town being crazy.

Experience #3: Around 4:00 yesterday afternoon, our doorbell rang. I opened it to find 2 elderly people standing there with smiles on their face.

Woman: "Hello there!"

Brooklet: "Hello..."

Woman: "We're your neighbors. We live behind you."

Brooklet: *wonders what we did wrong since we have lived here for 5 months without ever seeing these people* "Oh...hi. Nice to meet you."

Woman and Man: "Nice to meet you too."

*silence*

Woman: "So we just wanted to let you know that we have a cat."

Brooklet: *thinks they must have noticed the 9 cats living in our house* "Oh?"

Woman: "Yes our cat. He's black."

Brooklet: *trying to fill in silence and figure out whats going on* "Oh...I like black cats."

Woman: "OH! How nice! I thought you might be a cat person because of your decorations!" (we have a cat garden decoration in our front yard)

Brooklet: "yeah. We have a house full of cats. 9 of them actually."

Woman: "WOW! 9 cats? Oh good. Then I know you like cats."

Brooklet: "....."

Woman: "Our cat likes to roam around. Sometimes he jumps over the fence that separates your yard from ours."

Brooklet: *making a connection* "Oh! We've seen a black cat in our backyard. We put food out for him because we didn't know if he was a stray or not. He doesn't seem very friendly, but he's not wild either."

Woman: *giggles* "Oh he's not mean. He's just shy."

Brooklet: "Well, I'm glad that we know he belongs to someone now. All of ours our strays and we had been wondering about him. I'm glad I didn't take him inside if he is yours."

Woman: "Oh well he may not be our cat."

Brooklet: ".....???"

Woman: "There are several black cats that roam around here. Our neighbor has one. We have one. And another house has one. But ours jumps over the fence a lot. And over the fence is your yard."

Brooklet: "Well, we've only seen one black cat in our backyard and when he leaves, he jumps over the fence to your yard."

*Mr. V appears at this time*

Mr. V: "Maybe we can take a picture of him the next time he is here and you can see if its him."

Man: "oh we probably couldn't tell if it was him or not."

Brooklet and Mr. V: *blank stares as we try to figure out what the heck these people want*

Woman: "Your cats don't go outside do they?"

Mr. V and Brooklet: "no..."

Brooklet: "We're kind of paranoid about letting them out. Plus one of ours ran away from us, and didn't come back home until 3 months later. We don't want to go through that again."

Woman: "Oh how nice! He came back home?"

Mr. V: "Well someone found him and returned him to us."

Man and Woman: *look amazed*

Brooklet: *seeing that that didn't 'get' it* "Well he had a collar on with our phone number. So a man found him, read his tag and called us."

Woman: "Oh. We used to put collars on our cat. But I don't like them. If someone were to grab my cat, the collar just makes it easier for them to grab. And I don't want someone to grab my cat." (note: I have heard of people with cats who don't like their collars. I've heard of people who are afraid of collars that don't stretch or snap because they cat can get caught and choke to death. I have NEVER heard anyone say they don't like collars because someone might grab the collar and therefore grab the animal.)

Mr. V and Brooklet: "Oh..."

Woman: "Plus he's a black cat and they are targeted more." (note: I knew that. Humane societies put out notices every year at Halloween telling people to be careful with their black cats, so of course I'm now wondering why this woman lets her cat outside if she thinks there are too many dangers outside.)

Man: "Yeah we don't want something bad to happen again."

Woman: "I had another cat. I had to take him to the vet because he was constipated. They X-rayed him and found a pellet in him. Someone shot him with a pellet gun! Can you believe that? Its so dangerous for them outside. That's why we only let ours out at 7am every morning. He comes in at night." (because clearly, the world is only dangerous at night. There is no way someone would shoot him with a pellet gun during daylight hours...)

Mr. V: "If you let him out at 7, we usually see the cat around 8 in the morning. So I bet its him."

Man: "Artie."

Mr. V and Brooke: "Artie?"

Woman: "That's his name."

Brooklet: "Oh....well if I see him again, I'll call him Artie...."

*This random conversation continues for a few more minutes. They eventually leave, without ever telling us why they came to our house. Did they come over just to tell us they had a cat? Did they come over to make sure we liked cats since their's apparently hangs out in our backyard? *

Side note: Mr. V decided too late that when they mentioned the dangers of letting cats outside, we should have said "Oh you have a black cat? That's really too bad. I hope it wasn't the black cat that we saw squished on the road last week..."

So, in conclusion, WHY do they weird ones keep talking to us? Who are these people? None of those conversations made any sense, so we're starting to wonder why these people seem to flock to us. Maybe its US. Maybe we are the weird ones because we just don't 'get' these people....ugh...who knows....