I first met the Crazy Lady
when my youngest was about 7.
During a neighborhood garage sale
she sold him a tricycle that didn't work --
the front wheel didn't turn.
By the time he had dragged and pulled it home,
he was beyond frantic, as any child that age would be,
convinced that he had not only spent all his money,
but that he had somehow broken the trike.
When I looked at it, I told him he had not broken it,
and that he should take it back to the lady
and ask her to return his money.
Back he went, dragging and pulling the trike,
and later he brought it back home again.
"Daddy, what does 'Let the buyer beware' mean?

Now I was ticked!
I called her on the telephone, introduced myself,
and she told me the same thing!
I explained to her that in this case
the buyer was a seven year old boy,
and that she was taking unbelievable advantage
of the fact that he was an innocent, trusting little boy,
and she was an adult who was teaching him
that grownups can't be trusted.
She said she wouldn't give him back his money.
It was all of five bucks, and she wouldn't return it,
because the buyer "had made a fair purchase."

Now I was doubly ticked!!
I put the trike in the back of my GMC Rally Wagon full-size van,
drove to her house and pulled into her driveway,
the nose of my van inches away from her garage sale tables.
She came around to my window and wanted to know
what I thought I was doing,
and I told her that I brought the tricycle back
so she could take it back and return my sons' money.

"I'll do no such thing!" she exclaimed, and I put it in gear
and let the transmission start pushing her damn table up the drive.
I figured in a minute something would give and a table leg would snap,
and I really didn't care.
She had a lot of lamps and pretty glass things on those tables.
She yelled at me to stop, and I told her that if she didn't return the five,
then I was going to put her garage sale items and tables into her garage,
and likely out the back wall.
And I didn't stop moving.

She yelled okay, and went to her precious money box,
snatched a five out and brought it over to my window.
Then she threw it at me and it landed on the ground.
I put the van back in gear again.
She looked at me like I was the crazy one,
but she stooped down and got the bill,
and politely handed it to me.
I got out, got the trike from the back of the van,
and threw it over into the middle of her lawn.
I then got back into the van,
told her not to try to take unfair advantage of little kids again,
and backed out and went home.

For a long time I didn't see her putting stuff out
for the annual neighborhood garage sale.
She probably ran out of broken crap to sell to unsuspecting kids.
I look forward to the day I see her name in the obits.

But that's not the reason I'm writing this...
You see, I found out that the Crazy Lady has a rather unique way
of "earning a living."
She sues people.
Right now she has several lawsuits going in more than one locality,
and I am indirectly involved in one of them,
and this time, if I still had my van,
I think I would just drive it through her front door...
but sadly, that van is history.

Anyway - about five years ago she was walking around canvassing,
clipboard to her chest, and a dog startled her,
after she had startled the dog,
and she brought the clipboard up and hit herself in the chin
with the metal part at the top, and it cut her.
What a wonderful thing she thought this was!
She sued the owners of that dog,
saying it was a savage beast and had bitten her!
The lady who owned the dog saw what happened,
but no matter - as in the case of 'Let the buyer beware,'
I guess it was her idea to let the courts decide.
It's taken five years or so,
and the Crazy Lady and her brother are working their butts off,
going around the neighborhood,
talking bad about the dog (now long dead),
the people who owned the dog,
and how the beast was an evil and dangerous animal
capable of tearing Crazy Ladies limb from limb
and pulling down buses and trucks from the highway!
No doctor has indicated that the self-inflicted scratch
from the metal clip at the top of the clipboard
was a dog bite,
and no matter how many times her brother
tried to get the dog to come to the fence at the edge of the property
so he could claim whatever he was trying to set up,
nothing of any substance has come to their side of the argument,
except their very expensive lawyer,
whom, I hope, is costing her a bundle -
at least the cost of a broken tricycle,--
and he is along for the ride - he gets paid either way.

She is suing for one million dollars. Yes, really.
For a scratch that she caused to her chin years ago.
But her brother is along for the ride, too -
after all, she'll share, right?
So, about at the end of their legal maneuvers,
all they can come up with is the fact that, in 1991,
seventeen years ago, when my oldest was their paper boy,
he had startled a dog belonging to the folks being sued,
and the dog had bitten my son.
Not much - just a slight scratch. And the dog had his shots.
Nothing more than a good lesson for a paperboy
to make his presence known. Something any mailman knows to do.
So they are saying that the "vicious beast" that "attacked" the Crazy Lady
also bit my son, and is their "proof" that the dog in question
certainly must have also bitten the Crazy Lady in the chin.

They didn't do their math very well, because the dog that bit my son
has been dead many, many years,
and there is a big difference between the two animals, anyway.
So now I am involved in something that is becoming a pain in the posterior.

My purpose in writing this is twofold - one is to get it out of my system,
the other is to make folks understand that in this world of ours,
you have to beware of the Crazy Lady who has no other form of gainful employment
other than to go around ripping off insurance companies.
Makes me wonder why people like her and her brother
are allowed to breath my air?

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