The Perils of Living on a Corner

Throughout my life I've had some very funny, and interesting experiences. I'm going to attempt to tell you some of them in a series of hubs. Now, don't shoot the messenger if they're not all funny or interesting to you, but they were to me. You see, I don't take myself too seriously, I tend to find humor in a lot of adverse situations, not all do, so, in that spirit, these stories might not be funny or interesting to all, however I do hope that you, at least, will enjoy them.

I live on a busy corner in a small suburban area, outside of a medium size suburb. My corner has a two way boulevard stop sign. Over twenty years ago the county came through, and did major restructuring of the roadway. We received sidewalks, where there were none, they even changed the design of the street, one thing being, they put a big dip in the street that previously wasn't there, (later this dip will play an important part in a story). Being that this is a public corner, I have no say over what my yard is sometimes used for. I was told by the county that all of my yard wasn't my own, especially on the side that doesn't have a sidewalk yet. I'm setting this all up for stories that I want to tell. Don't you just hate those long lead ins to stories, me too, so I'll just begin.

It appears that my corner is a stop off for all sorts, man and beast. Bees seem to want to land here, no matter what. Once we had a swarm of bees come and set up a hive in a tree, outside of our bedroom window. We called a beekeeper, from the yellow pages, and when he arrived it was apparent that he was as much afraid of the bees as we were. He stayed about three days, running, and jumping around from the bees more than we did. The last day he was there, he said he was going out to lunch and would be back, good thing I didn't hold my breath, he never came back, even to collect his fee. We eventually found the real deal, and he successfully removed the bees.

Years later we had another swarm come back to a different part of the house, as a matter of fact, in the house, where they lived for six years off and on. They actually lived between the ceiling of the downstairs and the floor of the upstairs. We came to regard them somewhat as pets. We looked forward to them coming home in the evening. Surprisingly enough only two of us were ever stung. We still have remnants of the honey in the rafters, but because my husband used those poison bombs, in attempt to drive the bees out, we can't eat it.

One of my, I think, funny stories happened when a Real Estate agent put a sign in the yard, on the side of the house that had no sidewalk. About mid morning I received a knock at the door asking if they could take a look inside, puzzled I asked why. The person preceded to say that they had noticed that the sign said, open house. I explained that I didn't put the sign there and my house wasn't for sale. My daughter and I went outside to check out the sign and sure enough it said open house.

While we were standing, pointing and complaining, a lady passed by and spoke nicely. Well my daughter and I decided to go back inside, and the lady followed, she proceeded to walk from room to room, with us following closely behind. Mind you now, as quick as I walked away from the sign I never gave it another thought. The lady walked through the whole house downstairs, with my daughter. and me following her, looking at her and signifying quietly to each other. Clueless me, still not realizing why this woman was in my house and not wanting to upset, what I thought was an otherwise unstable individual, just kept following her. Just as she got to the steps to go upstairs, she asked, "what's up there?" I said, " bedrooms, why." She said, "I want to take a look." Again I asked, "why?" She said, "because I'm interesting in buying the house. It was then, and only then, did I remember the sign outside. After explaining the situation to her, we all had a big laugh. Needless to say I removed that sign and never allowed another one to remain in my yard.

This one is my funniest story pertaining to living on the corner. Bear with me, this one is kinda long. As I said before, the street restructuring created a dip, later explained to me as a water runoff. Cars traveling at a pretty good clip can, and do, lose control at times. Near misses, and actual accidents have happened there.

Well this particular time a car was traveling very fast, lost control, spun out and hit the curb. My husband and I ran out to see what had happened. I didn't just stopped at the curb, although my husband did, I went over to the car, and as the man exited the car with his back to me, I began to question him to see if he was alright. Now get this, my husband was standing back and taking this all in. I leaned over the man's shoulder, as he was bending down to get his things out of the car and asked, "are you alright?" He never once looked at, or answered me, he just kept gathering up his things . I assumed that he was in shock and proceeded to say that to him. I said, " sit down you're in shock." Mind you, I was so close to him that he had to feel my breath on his neck, but he never even acknowledged my presence, as he turned, I turned, but he was careful to keep his back to me all the while. I called to my husband to come and help me, but he just stood there looking at me.

Finally as the man finished gathering up all of his belongings, he proceeded to walk down the street, with me right behind him trying to get him to sit down, because as I continued to state to him, "you're in shock." I called to my husband to come and help me, it was then that he (my husband) said to me, "Freta get back over here." Now you know, I didn't listen, the man started to walk faster, so did I, he started to run, so did I, trying to catch him. My husband finally having enough, forcefully said to me, "Freta come back here. Coming to my senses, I ran back home, by this time from about half a block away. My husband revealed to me that he thought, maybe the car was stolen. Well, we called the police, and guess what, the car was stolen, and, by that man. When I explained what I did to the police, through raucous laughter, they asked me what he looked like. I could not for the life of me tell them, because he never let me see his face.

Let me explain myself a little. I'm that person in the crowd who will have to always make sure everything, and everyone is okay. I actively get involved at all cost. And this one time it could have cost a lot. In hindsight the man could have had a gun, or a knife, not wanting to leave a witness behind, and, as they say, taken me out. LOL! I live again to tell more stories, and I will. Stay tuned.