Norfolk Crooks

Norfolk and Virginia Beach aren't known for their brilliant zoning. Turn the corner in any good neighborhood and suddenly you've found yourself in a bad neighborhood. On any given day in a good neighborhood, you can find the hood rats walking the streets, looking for a convenient item to nab and sell for drugs. It can be a little unnerving at first, plus some of the bad neighborhoods look exactly the same as the good ones, but that's precisely why we rented our first year out here. Our apartment was the upper floor of an 80 year old home right off the main drag leading to the base, and with all the traffic and the shelter of being upstairs in what looked like a normal home, I think we missed out on a lot of the criminal shenanigans that take place around here. We also kept our cars behind a gate, so that helped quite a bit.

Now that we own a home and have been living here approximately a week and a half, we have found ourselves in all kinds of odd situations, situations I find necessary to document. You never know when you need a compilation of the funny crap that comes out of the mouths of crooks. I think we're getting the brunt of it right now because we're new to the neighborhood and everyone else is so jaded by it that the thieves know not to mess with them anymore. At least I hope that's why, because pretty soon my patience will run out and I'm going to start smarting off. Though funny, Ben doesn't like it when it comes from my mouth. He doesn't trust other people not to hurt me. My theory is if you catch them off guard they'll leave you alone. So far, so good.

For example, the other day I was at Farm Fresh (a local grocery store) and had just turned my ignition to find some guy tapping on my passenger window. I cracked it and he stuck up his wallet to show me "his" most likely expired Maryland ID. He then told me the longest, most convoluted story I'd ever heard, name dropping as many local businesses that have contributed to his woes as he could and then something about bus fare for him and his family. When he finally stopped to take a breath, I looked at him and asked, "Ok wait... are you asking me for money?" "Yeah please (salutes me). I was a marine and am a saved man!!!" "Oh, um, ok sorry I don't have cash (a lie, but I digress)." "That's ok! There's an ATM right over there!" Dude was crazy if he thought I was stupid enough to jump out of my car and let a perfect stranger follow me to an ATM to get him some cash and I told him so, saved or not. He ended it with a simple, "God Bless (I always feel a little dirty when people say that to me right after they just tried to hustle me)" and I took off as fast as I could, a little shaken at his audacity.

The very next day, I left my house at around 6:30 in the morning to go to the hospital for clinical orientation, when a guy who I saw coming from up the street stopped in front of my house and asked if he could come in and use the phone. Still bitter from the previous day, I said flatly, "No. You can't." "But my car broke down!" "Sorry." I didn't believe him anyway. I was taking Ben's car that day because I was out of gas and had to drive about 30 minutes away and as I got in, realized I had forgotten to take his cover (or hat that he wears as part of his uniform for you non-military folks) out for him the night before, as previously agreed as a condition for taking his car. As I ran back inside to give Ben his hat, THE SAME GUY comes rolling back by the house from the same direction he came from on a rusty old bicycle I know he didn't steal. Well at least not that day he didn't.

Flash forward to yesterday. We had a pretty good little Sunday that started at Lowe's and ended in a new lawn mower, weed eater, and leaf blower. I kid you not that very day as Ben is messing with his brand new weed eater, a guy (probably the same one who I saw last week and maybe even the one who our neighbor caught stealing from his shed) came rolling up on a bicycle and stopped. "Hey, lemme borrow that weed eater!" Ben: "No!" "Come on, man, I live right up the street!" "YOU CAN'T HAVE MY WEED EATER!" Do people really think we're that stupid?

It's times like these I get a little homesick. In Texas you can shoot at them. Texas is awesome.