Page 235 - NIXBOOK

An angry old man in a very densely packed suburban neighborhood was upset about kids riding their bicycles in the middle of
the street. Angry enough to call 911 and complain. I pointed out to him that there were 184 houses in the development, and if he
really had a problem with kids on bicycles, then he had definitely picked the wrong neighborhood to move into.

Me, in a living room talking to a kid and his dad about the kid’s seatbelt survival story. The kid – 18 years old - had somehow
major miraculously survived a crash in which he got in his dad’s Mitsubishi Montero and gunned it over a cliff. He sailed down
onto the beach below, smashing hood first into the sand at a vertical angle, and then smashing onto the roof. The vehicle was
completely, totally smashed. The drop from the road to the beach was around 40 feet. How the kid lived with only a few visible
marks was amazing. The other amazing thing was that had actually been a suicide attempt. So the kid learned that if you want
to kill yourself by driving off a cliff, you should, uh, not wear a seat belt.

Old guy, upset enough to call 911. I go to his house and he’s telling me all about how “they” are sneaking into his house and
stealing his food and towels. He doesn’t know who “they” are and concedes it could be a singular “he” instead, at my suggestion
for clarification. “He” (or “they”) were of course figments of his imagination, which is a nice way to say he was paranoid and
delusional. I spent some time with him, trying to talk some sense into him. (No success. My conversion rate is still zero. It is SO
on my bucket list to someday convince some crazy person that their reality is skewed. In my dreams I have a breakthrough, the
crazy person sees the light, and gets treatment. But no, every crazy person I ever met like that was also totally sure that they
were most definitely not crazy. SAD!) Anyway, this poor old guy kept getting his door locks changed to keep “them” out. I don’t
know what was worse; that he couldn’t replace the door locks himself, or that the locksmith charged him $140 bucks each time
he got called out there. And in the previous six months, the locksmith had been out there several times.

Family went on vacation, came home and found the house trashed by a burglar. Turned out it was actually a teen party gone
sideways. The high school kid who lived there knew exactly what had happened and totally lied to my face; when I discovered
the truth I wanted him prosecuted for making false statements and making me waste a lot of my time investigating a burglary
that wasn’t, but the JV division prosecutor declined to file charges.