Can I return this? - Every so often something odd or exciting happens around here. Well, this past Christmas weekend proved to be one of those times for me, but in the darkness of the horrific earthquake and tsunami my experience is of little consequence.
None the less, it is my intention to post the events of this last weekend, if not for the readers of TGS who might find the oddity in them, at least for my memories in a hope to find some meaning in the going ons - a common human desire.
So to that end I will begin with Friday.
Have you ever had someone take advantage of you, in the face of the fact that had they asked you willingly would have given your aid?
If so than you know the frustration of my Friday afternoon.
For a number of months now, a man has been illegally dumping in my Church's dumpster. I've caught him doing it several times, but never was able to get to the dumpster in time to confront him on it before he pulled away. He always does it when there are no cars in front of the parsonage, which I surmise is because he thinks no one is home.
Why is this a problem? Well, there are plenty of public dumping areas in the Pinellas County area and his want to dump construction materials and fill up the Church dumpster, something my small Church can do on a weekly basis all by its own daily workings, creates problems for the Church.
Problems like trash sitting in cans for too long in the Florida sun awaiting a week to pass for the next dumpster pickup. Consider too the wild and wandering domestic animals that find such smelly soon to be maggot ridden cans a smorgasbord.
Okay. So Friday, late morning, the 24th of December, soon after the emptying of the dumpster I, inside the parsonage assisting my mother with Christmas preparation, hear this loud, hollow, metal thud.
I go outside and find the afore mentioned man throwing bags of concrete mix, a vacuum cleaner, and metal into the dumpster.
Probably a bit too loudly (although he was some thirty feet away), I said something like, "Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
He yelled back that he was dumping trash.
To which I said, "You can't do that, it's not your dumpster. Now get your trash out of it."
This is when he, probably standing around 6'1", charged me like a linebacker trying to kill the quarterback in a blitz.
Having come close to the front of his shiny blue Ram 1500 I stopped and didn't move.
He pulled up short of tackling me, got in my face, and began with every expletive and insult to my person he could think off interspersed with assurances that he would do what he pleased.
He finally asked, "What are you going to do about it?"
To which I replied, "If you don't get your garbage out of the dumpster, I'm going to call the police."
"Go ahead," he challenged.
So I said okay, pulled my cell phone from my belt, and started walking around him to the rear of his truck where I could get his license plate number.
That's when he physically assaulted me.
He grabbed for my cell phone and tried to rip it from my hand and with his other arm grabbed me around the shoulder in an attempt to throw me in the bushes.
Needless to say I'm a bit harder to throw than that.
He let go and I looked him in the eye and asked, "What do you think you're doing?"
"You tried to touch me," he replied.
I hadn't of course.
At this point I should've just left. Heck, like the officer would later tell me, it would have been better to just phone them from inside the house, but I didn't. I continued to the rear of his big honkin' truck and dialed 911.
The adrenalin was coursing through my veins at warp speed by this point so I guess I wasn't thinking clearly. Evidence of this was that I couldn't seem to figure out which button to push on my new phone so to get the bloody thing to immediately dial. The new button layout was throwing me off.
The guy, who I now know as Christopher, followed me to the rear of the truck and raised his fist in the air preparing to strike me.
Holding the phone to my ear I locked eyes again with him and he let fly the punch.
Again, he pulled up short and didn't strike me.
At this point my mother was there and tried to talk to the guy to calm him down. Finally finding the right button on the phone I proceeded to talk to the 911 dispatcher telling her what was going on and giving her the license plate number.
Christopher, I guess, finally got the picture that his bullying tactics weren't going to work and began to unload the dumpster.
Still on the phone, now patched over to the Sheriff dispatcher my mother and I watched Christopher pull away. No he didn't get all his stuff out, but thankfully he didn't harm my self of my mother either.
About five minutes after hanging up, a Sheriff's officer called me and asked about the plate number and state. Turns out the 911 dispatcher, after giving the officer the number, later called back to correct what was given. Only the correction was incorrect and the first time correct. I told the officer the correct number and she pulled up his info and then hung up from me.
Don't get the idea I was all cool and calm during the incident. I did raise my voice with the guy, well short of yelling. But never was I concerned or afraid. I'm not certain if that was stupidity or just assurance in the rightness of my position.
Half an hour later, two police officers showed up at my door and took both my and my mother's statements. He asked if I was bruised or injured.
I wasn't. Although on Christmas day a bruise did appear on the hand he grabbed and is still slightly visible today.
The lead officer pulled up a picture of the guy on his computer and asked me if that was him.
It was.
He then told me that he would be going over to Christopher's house and giving him a warrant to appear before a judge to face a battery charge, but that if Christopher gave him any sort of lip he would throw him in jail for the night.
Which, given his temperament, I figured Christopher had a good chance of spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, if not the whole weekend, in jail.
I frankly didn't like that prospect.
The officer said that, given Christopher's record, he could see that Christopher wasn't exactly what one might call "good people."
My desire for justice was tempered by my desire not to see this guy spending Christmas behind bars. Also, creeping in was the thought that should he end up in jail, Christopher wouldn't be happy once out and might try to do harm to the Church property when no one was around.
So I waived the pressing of charges.
The officer said they were still going down to talk to Christopher and let him know just what kind of Christmas gift he had just been handed. Also, the officer said he would "put the fear of God in him."
So, I was then well into Friday afternoon and proceeded with the normally planned activities, which meant preparing some plants I was going to give as gifts. Most of them would now be belated Christmas gifts because several hours were occupied with the dumpster incident.
Returning to my original question, the frustrating thing is, and I noted it to the officer, had Christopher come to the door and asked if he could dump some stuff in the dumpster we would probably have said, "Yes."
A number of hours later, something happened to me just before my family and I were going to head over for the annual (some twenty odd years now) Christmas Eve get together with another family.
I hit the bottom of the adrenal rush. If your adrenalin has ever raced furiously, you know what I mean.
Suddenly, I had to find a spot all alone where I could think, relax, and catch my breath. I realized then the serious danger I had not only placed myself in, but also my mother.
I thank the Lord for His goodness.
I didn't realize this post would be as long as it is, so I will stop here and call this part one.
Fourth coming will be part two.
Right now I need to step away from the computer and deal with part of the damage wrought from the event that takes place in part two.
