My father died in Japan in February and I could not get back.
I told exactly one American, and only because he asked a direct question at a bad moment and I have never been able to lie fast enough.
He did not say he was sorry.
He said, "You busy Saturday?"
I was not busy Saturday. I have not been busy on a Saturday since I arrived in this country.
He wanted help moving a riding mower to the other side of his garage. The mower runs. He drove it out himself. I want to be accurate here, because I have thought about it a great deal since: the mower ended that day about two feet from where it started.
We were in the garage five hours.
There was a small refrigerator out there with beer in it and one orange drink belonging to his grandson, and neither of us touched the orange drink at any point.
We discussed a shelf. We discussed a bolt for some time. Around one o'clock we spent close to forty minutes on the correct way to coil a hose, and he was wrong, and I told him he was wrong, and he told me to prove it, and I proved it, and he said "huh," and that was the end of it.
He did not mention my father once.
I had prepared for it. In my country a man in mourning is approached with fixed phrases that have been in service four hundred years, which is the entire purpose of them, and I had built mine in English over three nights. They were not good. They were ready.
I never used them. I still have them written down.
At six he said, "Same time next week?"
We did that for five Saturdays. We moved a workbench. We rewired a light that already worked. One Saturday we sorted screws by length, which is not a job. That is somewhere to put a man.
In April a neighbor three doors down lost his mother.
I do not own a mower. I own a boat trailer that does not need to be moved.
He came at eight. He is coming again this Saturday.
I have not said one word to him about his mother and I am not going to.
He knows what time.
I just helped a random guy dig sand crabs out from under the sand for fishing bait.
He was walking under the Washington Pier with a net, so I asked what he was doing.
“Catching sand crabs.” So naturally… I started catching sand crabs too. Caught a bunch of big ones.
He looked a little confused about who I was. Probably thought I was a cop. Nope. Just a random sand crab catcher, one who caught more than him I might add.
I call these little moments “Strangers & Freaks,” after the GTA V missions.
Every now and then I’ll ask random people what they’re up to, offer to help, or just ask if I can tag along for a bit.
Sometimes you’re posing against a wall because a couple that’s absolutely blitzed wants you in their Abbott Kinney photo shoot (they don’t have a camera).
Sometimes you’re helping a hungover woman dig her phone out from under the pier.
Sometimes a group of models would rather ride with you to a bar than wait for an Uber in a sketchy neighborhood.
And sometimes you follow a homeless guy to what he swears is evidence JFK was an alien, only to discover it’s a shopping cart full of junk.
Not every “Strangers & Freaks” mission has a fun ending. Most of them don’t. But they almost always make for a better story than sitting at home.
Flock Safety removes its license plate readers, finalizing eight-month breakup with City of Syracuse
All readers have been removed, police and the company said.
One lawmaker who led efforts to remove them called on other entities to also cut ties.
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https://t.co/O7IacZpOjU
🤣🤣🤣A 🇷🇺Russian special forces soldier fires an under-barrel grenade launcher during a room-clearing drill and accidentally takes a ricochet straight to his balls
My wife is lying on the couch right next to me, zonked out to an episode of CR after doing the dishes and mending my workboots.
Six months ago, we got married. Twelve months ago, we were strangers.
God willing, there's one last chopper headed your way, and the pilot is a cutie.