Suspicious Much?

What makes a person suspicious? Is it the clothes they wear? The way they move? Is it the color of their skin? I don’t think any one factor can or should be a reason to label someone as suspicious, however that all changes if  a few things come together.

Take Tyrone for instance (I don’t actually know his name but this guy looked like he could be a Tyrone).

I was driving to work yesterday when I saw Tyrone’s shiny red sports car in my rear view mirror. Tyrone must have been in a hurry, as he was coming up behind me pretty quickly and weaving through traffic rather erratically. He must have been late to work. Finding a whole in the traffic, Tyrone managed to get over to the next lane and opened up the throttle on his shiny new convertible. As Tyrone was pulling up next to me, I was starting to admire his car when I actually got a good look at Tyrone and did a double take (I’m sure you would have too).

"Would you like to arrest me now officer, or would you rather wait till I knocked over the liquor store down the street?"

Now I’m not one to jump to conclusions but I think Tyrone looked fucking suspicious. Now some of you may disagree but take a moment to let me explain myself. Take a look a at what I like to call my “Equation Of  Tyrone’s Suspiciousness”:

Black Guy + Sunglasses = Not Suspicious
Black Guy + Convertible Red Sports Guy =Mildly Suspicious (Black guys don’t really drive convertibles on the East Coast)
Black Guy + Hoodie  = Mildly Suspicious (Unless you live in FL then you fucked)
Black Guy + Hoodie + Sunglasses = Mildly Suspicious
Black Guy + Hoodie with hood up + Sunglasses = Dial 9-1 and just wait
Black Guy + Hoodie with hood up + Sunglasses + Convertible Red Sports Car + Erratic Driving = Someone call Officer Dick Asshole!

You really can’t really see it in this picture but what self-respecting thug drives a red convertible Mitsubishi Eclipse with glitter in the paint? I’m mean seriously, tell me you wouldn’t pull that guy over. I know I would.

@TheKrayze1

Officer Dick Asshole

"Oh HE'S black, let's get him!

When it comes to officers of the law, (cops, pigs, one time, po-po, babylon, five-0) I’m on the fence on how I feel about them in general. Usually I have nothing against police officers, AS LONG AS THEY ARE DOING THEIR JOB. They are here to protect and serve (last time I check) and I’d rather have them around in the event that I ever need to call on them, than need them and be shit out of luck (which is most often the case).

I have friends that are officers and they are cool as shit, totally different from the dicks that I’ve had the privilege of dealing with on occasion. Of the tidbits of information that I’ve learned from them over time, one thing I was told is that an officer isn’t allowed to run anyone’s plates or do a search on a person unless they have reasonable suspicion that this person may be breaking the law or has an official reason for said search. Which brings me to the meat and potatoes of this post.

Last night after a quick trip to the laundromat, I was on the back to my apartment when I realized it would be in my best interest to put gas in my car while I had the opportunity. I pulled up to one of the pumps, popped the gas lid and after making a quick call proceeded to fill my tank. Literally 2 minutes later, Officer Dick (I don’t know his name obviously but he’ll forever be known to me as Officer Dick Asshole) pulled up. At first I thought he was just doing a random sweep of the area or had stopped to get something from the convenience store. Nope. Officer Dick, stopped his car right in front of mine and blatantly proceeded to run my tags.

Did I do something illegal? Is it against the law to sit in your car while you’re pumping gas? Or maybe it was because I was the only black guy at the gas station at the time. Maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe he ran everyone’s tags that was there getting gas or something from the store, right?  I highly doubt it though, cause after my search obviously came back clean he proceeded to drive off.

ASSHOLE!

@TheKrayze1

Deep Sea Adventures

Don’t let the title of the post mislead you. I’ve never been deep-sea diving in my life. Shit, I can’t even swim (don’t judge me). It is relevant to the story so keep reading.

Back in my freshman year of college I met quite a few interesting people, especially women (no surprise there). Of the interesting people who I met that year, this story focuses around 1 in particular. Her name is Joy-Anne. Now Joy and I  started hanging out a great deal and over time I started to develop feelings for her. I’m not sure she felt the same way and at this point it doesn’t matter.

One night during the fall we were sitting in front of Wilkinson Hall (the name of my dorm), having a nice little chat. Now I happen to think that my conversations are very engaging, fuck that, I KNOW my conversations are engaging, so I have no idea what happened that night. Anyway, while we were talking, another male student whose name I can’t recall at the moment, started approaching us. At first I thought he would just walk past us and continue in to the dorm, but instead he walked up to Joy and whispered something in her ear. What happened next I will never, ever, forget.

After whispering in her ear, he extends his hands to help he up off the steps and they both walk off together, completely forgetting that I was there. No “goodbye”, “see you later” or “I’ll be right back”, nothing. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Words could not express how infuriated I was.

Therein lays the rub.

During our college orientation we were each given a good bag of items that included a lanyard with the school name and logo that I hung around my neck with my dorm room keys. In my anger at the aforementioned situation I took my keys from around my neck and hurled them through the air without thinking. A few seconds later I heard the telltale “plop” that indicated that my keys had found a home in the fountain that sat in front of Wilkinson Hall. Fuck. Now I have to get my feet wet to retrieve them. After taking off my shoes and socks and rolling up my jeans to a safe height I walked over to the fountain and stepped on to the concrete rim. The keys were far into the fountain but they were far enough in that they were out of arms reach.

I remember setting one foot in to the fountain and my feet making contact with the bottom.

That was all I remember.

From eye-witness accounts that were near the scene I was told that the minute my feet touched the bottom of the fountain I slipped, screamed out the word “shit” and disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

I don’t remember any of that. It all seemed to happen so fast that all I remember happening is me putting my foot in the fountain and then emerging from the fountain soaking wet. Needless to say I had to walk through the dorm lobby (after grabbing my keys of course), which  in hindsight had a lot more people in it that normal, and up to my dorm room to change.

I woke up the next morning reliving the events in my head and was grateful that my adventure occurred at night and there weren’t many people to witness my embarrassment. I found out later that morning after I walked into the cafeteria that I was greatly mistaken. Apparently between me going to bed and waking up to get breakfast, the news of my escapades had spread throughout the campus.

I had now earned the name Jacques Cousteau. FML.

Moral of this story? Shit, I don’t even know. Pick something.

@TheKrayze1

Yeah, So That Happened

Yesterday was the first day at my new job, and as far as first days go it wasn’t so bad. The managers and trainers that I’ve interacted with so far are pretty nice and the few people who I’ve had the pleasure of talking with aren’t so bad either. There are 84 people in my training class so that’s pretty much a guarantee that there would be no shortage in a variety of individuals and personalities. That being said 95% of the people were African-American and I’d say 85% of those were…..urban. I’m going to try to refrain from saying ghetto, but I’m not making any promises.

Prior to my start date I received and email from my recruiter detailing everything I needed to bring with me and also a brief paragraph explaining the dress code in regards to what is and isn’t acceptable. This isn’t my first rodeo so when I see the term “business casual” I already know what they are looking for. Now granted I’m not really sure what this means for women so much, but for men it mostly means no jeans, t-shirts of any kind, sneakers, flip-flops etc. I got there early so there weren’t very many people, but as the minutes passed more and more people started to file in. From what I could see most if not all were reasonably dress.

Then it happened.

In walked this guy that couldn’t have been more than 26 or 27, head held high and dignified wearing what seemed to be a freshly brushed tan velvet suit, blue silk shirt and tie and gators. At least I think they were gators. They could have been snake-skin for all I know, but it was still ostentatious none-the-less. I mean home boy was deck out. I’m all for looking dignified and professional, but there is such a thing as going overboard and that was a great example.

Not quite what he was wearing, but you get the idea. High Fashion.

Once that parade had made its way by, everything got reasonable quite, which is understandable since no one knew each other yet and the atmosphere was somewhat tense. A few minutes goes by before someones phone goes off breaking the silence. At least I thought it was, until it kept going and going and going. That’s when I realized that it was actually someones IPod that they had cranked to the max. How ghetto(I tried) is that? I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t want to hear your crappy rap music, not to mention that’s quite unprofessional.

Moving on.

Eventually we get into our training room, the day progresses and we come to a segment where we are required to participate in a computer chat room exercise. You may not quite grasp the severity of this situation so let me paint a picture for you. There are 84 people in my class, each of them have their own computer at their workstation, and we’re all supposed to engage in a group chat in an unsupervised chat room? Good idea.

It wasn’t so bad at first, but then the ghetto (fuck it) came out. I can’t quite describe what happened so I’ll provide a picture.

Good times.

The rest of the day went by pretty smoothly but who knows what will happen as the class continues. With this group I’m pretty sure anything can happen.

@TheKrayze1

You Must Be Shittin’ Me!

I pride myself in being a very calm, collected and patient individual. I’m usually very level-headed when it comes to things that may drive other people over a fucking cliff. I’m not bothered by many things and if I find myself in a disagreement I try to remain as rational as I can and try to see both sides of things. That being said there are a few things that work my nerves.

In the apartment complex I live in the people are pretty nice. Most of them aren’t loud and most are very polite and cordial. I’m not friends with any of my neighbors, but if I pass them or anyone else in the hall pleasant greetings are always exchanged.

All that is about to change.

Simple enough right?

My complex allows pets given certain parameters are met. Some have cats, others have dogs and since most people take their dogs outside to do their business, there are allotted stations that are present for the disposal of your their fecal matter. I’ve never had an issue nor have I ever heard of anyone having an issue dealing with anyone not cleaning up after their pet, until today.

Upon returning home from running some errands and visiting my sister (another story I’m going to blog about), I passed a woman sitting on the steps to my building wearing a shower cap (she was black, you don’t even have to ask). Upon passing her I got hit with a very pungent odor and thought to myself “Man this woman smells like straight ass. How can anyone come out of the house smelling that?”. As I continued up the steps I noticed that there were brown smudges going up the steps and as I put 2 and 2 together I realized that someone must have stepped in dog shit and tracked it up the stairs. As upsetting as it was that I would have to smell this unpleasantness until it’s cleaned up I wasn’t too upset about it. Shit happens. However, as I got to the top of the landing I realized that my previous assessments were completely wrong. What was waiting for me in from of my neighbors apartment door was a somewhat freshly stepped in pile of shit on their “WELCOME” mat.

Yeah, that happened.

Who the fuck does that?! Who lets their pet take a nice big steamer on someone’s door mat and not have the decency to clean that shit (pun intended) up? I could not believe what I was seeing. Thankfully is wasn’t in front of my door or everyone on my level would be dead, but still, that’s just wrong and seriously gross. As a matter of fact I think it might still be there…gimme a second to check…yep still there.

Nasty fuckers!

@TheKrayze1