Okay readers. I need some help figuring this one out. The Evil Overlord and I had an even weirder, and scarier encounter than my last post. We’ve come up with a theory, but I’d like to hear your thoughts. And so the story begins…

[box]Listen to the audio version above and subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
Or enter http://abouttruckdriving.com/truckerdump.xml into your favorite podcast app.
Download the intro/outro songs for free! courtesy of Walking On Einstein
Mystery Feedback Song – Only a cheater would click this before listening to the podcast! You aren’t a cheater, are you? [/box]

Tired of eating in the truck, The Evil Overlord had been riding me for a couple of weeks to get her to a Flying J salad bar. At last, I accomplished her request when I pulled into the Salina, Kansas Flying J. We were seated and happily munching away on our salads when the weirdness began.

As we humans tend to do, I was scanning the room every now and then as The Evil Overlord and I chatted. We weren’t particularly jovial or loud, nor were we speaking softly or secretively. That’s what makes this all so odd.

As I glanced around the room, I noticed a table full of hunters and a couple of pregnant waitresses. I had asked them earlier if they were contagious, because I really didn’t want to get pregnant just yet. Next, my glance passed over a large black man who was rounding the salad bar. When I say “glance,” I mean glance. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second.

My eyes had already moved on when my peripheral vision detected a sudden movement from the guy at the salad bar. When I looked back, he had turned directly toward me and was glaring right into my eyes. He had a mean look on his face. At first I grinned, believing him to be a trucker who was trying to be funny. As he continued to stare at me without a blink, my expression changed to a look of confusion. His stare went on for 10-15 seconds.

Well, I’ve got to tell you that I was as confused as a hillbilly at a Physics convention, so I got up and started to walk towards him to find out what was going on. He immediately took two quick steps and got right in my face. I backed off a bit and asked him why he was looking at me like that. His only response was, “You got a problem with me?” I said, “No. I don’t even know you. Did I do something to offend you?” Then I got the old classic, “Do you wanna take it outside?” Naturally, I declined.

Maybe I should explain something about myself real quick. By my very nature, I’m not a confrontational person. I don’t much like to argue and the only fight I’ve ever been in could hardly be considered a fight at all. It happened when I was in my early 20’s when an upstairs neighbor had come downstairs to complain about the noise from our party. We had said a few words and he and his girlfriend had vanished. The next thing I knew, I was being picked up out of the rocks.

Later on that night a friend told me what happened. I had stepped out of our front door, which just so happened to be right next to a dark corner. Wielding a large electrical cable wrapped in rubber, the neighbor had jumped out and cold-cocked me from behind. I was out cold before I went face down into a pile of sharp rocks. Still unconscious, the guy flipped me over and starting punching me in the face. Only after a large friend of mine grabbed the guy’s arm and threaten to rip it off did he stop and retreat.

A few days later, battered and bruised, I approached the guy and he told me that he was sorry. He said he had been jacked up on coke that night. Although that’s hardly an acceptable excuse, I let the matter go, despite the fact that my friends and my brother wanted to beat the guy into a bloody pulp. As I said, I’m non-confrontational. What would whooping this guy solve? Nothing at all. All that to explain to you that I NEVER would have tried to pick a fight with this wacko at the salad bar.

So, after I declined Mr. Demented’s invitation to step outside, I just shook my head and walked back to our table. The Evil Overlord wanted to know what was going on since she had her backed turned to all the action. As I explained to her, he continued to glare at me. A minute later he turned around and began to fill up a to-go container at the salad bar. Every few seconds he would look over at me again and shake his head. Finally, he started to walk out of the restaurant. But he wasn’t finished yet.

As he walked past the table of hunters, he stopped and glared down at them. Not one of them paid him any mind, so after 10-15 seconds he wandered off. Still, he continued to look back at them and shake his head. I have to think that he was lucky that those hunters weren’t a bunch of Bubba’s who might take offense at being glared at.

Outside, he continued to turn around and look at the truck stop doors like he was expecting someone to come running out at him. Instead, he made his way towards an older white man who was walking his dog and talking on the phone. I was anticipating more trouble, but instead he walked to the passenger side of an old maroon-colored car. He then said something to the man, to which the guy answered and pointed at another maroon car in the parking lot. The psycho went over and proceeded to get into the front passenger seat. The old man put his dog in the back, got in, and drove off.

So what do you think? Sure, the guy was looking for trouble, but why? What was he doing with an older white man and his dog, and why did he walk towards the wrong car with the right color?

The Evil Overlord specializes in making back stories out of people she sees. She thinks that the black man was clearly “off-balance,” possibly mildly retarded. She also thinks that the older white gentlemen must have been his guardian who was taking him somewhere. She also thinks that this guy was a classic example of a guy that “loses it” and unloads a round of bullets into a crowd. She was ready to hit the deck if he started heading back toward the building. Luckily, that didn’t happen. That sounds like a decent explanation to me. Got any theories of your own?

I know one thing for sure. With all the weirdness that has been going on lately, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I woke up with my tongue stapled to my lip.

Photo by NatalieMaynor via Flickr