Freaky, freaky, freaky now

It�s been a weird week.

I know you expect that coming from me. After all, weirdness follows me like a cloud of stale patchouli. Come on vacation with me � dare ya� � and there�s bound to be one �What the f*ck?!� moment after another (remind me to tell you about that trip to Ireland in 2001 sometime). But even considering that the norm in my life includes certain levels of inexplicably weird, this week has been particularly so.

Let me condense it into three major events for you:

� My discovery of The Thing living in my a/c conduits.

� My spooky psychic moment at work.

� My encounter with the cabbie who thought he was cursing out my doppelganger but who actually was screaming and ranting at me for no reason at the corner of Riverside and South Congress during rush-hour traffic. I�ll save this one for last.

First, The Thing in the vent:

So. It�s Sunday night, I�m totally sober, and I�ve just scared the crap outta myself by watching Stephen King�s Rose Red on USA. The whole movie was about how this house was haunted by spirits that sucked the life out of Julian Sands (who looked extremely yummy I must say) and anybody else who happened to drop by. There were howling things. Walking undead with pointy teeth. Living mirrors. Carpets that kill. You know, great stuff to watch when you�re home alone and just about to go to bed.

I�m sitting on the couch, I turn off the TV with the remote � and that�s when I hear it. A snuffling sound coming from the a/c vent, which by the way was a good 12 feet up on the living room wall.

At first I was seriously spooked. Imagine the sound a dog � let�s say a boxer � with a cold would make if he fell asleep inside a metal garbage can. What kind of ghost would make noises like a congested noseless canine? Not a pretty ghost � say in a Patrick Swayze kind of way � that�s for sure.

Then I thought maybe the house wasn�t haunted. Maybe I had a raccoon stuck in there. But I�ve never seen one in my neighborhood. Maybe it was the possum that likes to climb the live oak in my back yard. Eheh-eeew! No way in hell was I going to wait for that possum to chew its way through the grate and nibble my toes off while I slept. Uh-unh. So I did what any Texan caught without a gun would do, I put on my bring-it-on face and grabbed a can of Raid and the biggest shoe I could find.

And then. It started. To Whine.

So, Plan B: I went in search of my cordless phone. That�s right, I was totally chickening out. I�d decided to crash on the couch of a friend. It was like 2 a.m., and I had to decide who I could afford to piss off more Greg or Birddog. Only, I couldn�t find it. Oh, the agony. At any moment, I imagined, The Thing in the vent was going to pop out, land on my head and give me rabies if it didn�t rip my throat out first � AND I COULDN�T FIND THE FRIGGING PHONE!

Then a magic thing happened: I hit the handset-locator button. And after about 3 seconds of that high-pitched, incessant beeping, the whining and snuffing stopped and I heard the sound of tiny clicking, claws fading away.

It�s six nights later, however, and I�m still not taking any chances: there�s a big ol� can of Raid and a Bic lighter on the night stand.

That�s right. Anytime you wanna come back you snufflin� SOB, we�ll get it on! Bring your claws and your rabies. We�ll see how you like an old-fashioned Texas BBQ�

Enough with the smack-talk. Let�s move on to my psychic moment:

Wednesday-ish [I�ve been working sleep-deprived (usual), 12-hour days all week long, so it�s all started to blur together], I�m walking into the office with a newly pregnant woman who works in another department.

We make small talk � we know each other, but it�s not like we�ve ever hung out together or anything. I ask her about baby names, and we start talking about how we both hated our names as children and went hunting in baby-name books for better ones. She starts joking about how she wanted a new first and last name.

I laugh and make up a name for her. I mean something really far out there � rhymes with Mindy Malkovitch � a totally made up name. I swear.

She looks at me funny and asks how I knew her sister-in-law�s married name.

And I�m floored. I mean, my sister�s the one with the prophetic dreams. I can barely find my way back to my car at the mall.

It was just a freaky, freaky, freaky moment. Of all the names in the wide world, what are the chances that I�d pick the unusual name of her husband�s sister? Neither of whom I�ve ever come close to meeting by the way.

Step back Ms. Cleo.

To top off weird week, it seems my doppelganger, who I passed while she was going the opposite direction on a Hartsfield Airport escalator once, has apparently moved to Austin � and pissed off the Yellow Cab driver of hack No. 252.

Here�s the story: I left work at a reasonable hour for the first time in a week on Friday. I even caught the tail end of rush hour. My eyes were glazed over, I was staring into nothing while waiting to go south on Congress from Riverside, when the cab driver in front of me sticks his head out of his window and starts yelling.

I�m thinking maybe there�s a serial killer in the back seat who keeps popping up when I�m not looking (all urban legends are based on a thread of truth, right?), so I roll down my window a crack and yell, �Sorry?�

Then the cabbie gets out of his car and starts miming Robert DeNiro at me. �Oh, what � you don�t remember me?!� And then he starts calling me all kinds of names. And then I roll the window back up and make sure all the doors are locked. And he�s still calling me names. I could read his lips � he made it easy by enunciating so clearly. And loudly. And lengthily. And with such enthusiasm.

People in cars next to me were looking back and forth between both of us like they were watching Sampras and Agassi go at it. Very colorful curser, this cabbie. Too bad it was wasted on someone who has never seen him before.

Message to cabbie: Tell your psychiatrist it�s time to shuffle the Thorazine.

Message to my doppelganger: Skip Yellow Cab, call Roy�s Taxi. Trust me.

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