Crazies in Colorado Springs

So about a week ago, my highly eligible kindred spirit candidate, Lauren, and I are spending that particular Saturday afternoon driving around the Springs, heading to grab a bite at Chipotle after successfully perusing a craft fair at Fountain Ft. Carson High School. After which, we were planning to head to her house to take in an episode or six of the shamefully addictive Showtime series The Tudors on DVD (Who didn’t love Henry the VIII? What’s that? Oh….Everyone. Ok so the real reason I watch (lust?) is because Jonothan Rhys Meyers plays his character in the series and I have only two words to sum up his performance: Drool Inducer). Anyhow. On our way to Chipotle on this particularly gorgeous fall day, we are chitchatting at a degree and pace equal to that of those pair of old ladies you always see at nursing homes sitting in wheelchairs with the knitted afghan’s over their laps desperately debating whose aches and pains and broken hips and incontinence problems are worse, as Lauren pulls into a left-hand turn lane behind a Ford Explorer. Nothing show-stopping yet. But then Lauren and I watch (yet unphased, as we continued our serious discussion on a topic that I can not for the life of me remember, and the reason for this, I’m quite sure, is due to the immediately following sequence of events that caused my mind to achieve overload status as it could not make sense of what it was processing and chose to voluntarily delete data, and this conversation immediately preceding the craziness is lost forever in Amber Amnesia Land and is unable to be recalled). Now this is when things began to get weird. A young, yet rather intimidating, pregnant woman opens and exits the passenger side door of the Explorer. She promptly runway-struts her way to the rear of the Explorer, props one hand on her waist, props the other against the rear window, and exhibits an expression that can be best described as though she is good and ready to properly beat a bare-bottomed child caught stealing money from Daddy’s top dresser drawer with a wooden spoon (this is an entirely different story to be more appropriately shared at another time). That, or flip a few gang signs and draw a sorts of concealed weapons from her maternity jeans and go TombRaider style on the unsuspecting people of Colorado Springs. A few seconds go by, then some secret signal is transmitted (a trunk release lever is pushed perhaps?) and she opens the trunk, and lo-and-behold, a full-grown man with a full-grown molester-stash rolls out of the trunk. At this point Lauren’s and my conversation has ceased in mid-syllable, in order to fully conceive the scene before us. Lauren also executively decides that this would be the ideal moment to auto-lock our doors, and does so. Why this gentleman who might be most easily identified in a police line-up was laying in the trunk and not sitting in a seat like a typical human being may prefer is still a mystery to us, as it appeared that he (America’s Most Wanted poster-boy), Preggers, (The She-Thug on hiatus), and thus-far, the unseen Phantom Driver, were the only living creatures in the vehicle, and so, assumably, there would be ample seating. IJusDontGetIt. She-Thug places both hands on her hips, throws her head and shoulders back into a praying-mantis-I dominate-you-arch, and begins to not so politely converse with MugShot. They shut the trunk together as the left-turn-signal light turns green. Now the situation has abruptly warranted Lauren's and my direct involvement as the passengers in the vehicle behind the non-moving vehicle in a left-hand turn lane at a very busy intersection. Before Lauren or I can audibly express a “whathaheckerwesposedtadonow’, She-Thug and MugShot begin pushing the Explorer into the intersection. Lauren pulls forward to stop in the Explorer’s spot just as the light turns red, so we can again, be blessed with front row seats to watch Act II. Act II begins with She-Thug and Mug-Shot rolling the Explorer just onto the shoulder and ends with She-Thug transforming into less She-Thug and more Preggers as she doubles over and grips her belly. Well, so sorry Lara Croft, but you shouldn’t have tried to save the world by pushing a Jeep when you were 6 months pregnant. And more importantly, what was up with the evasive Phantom Driver? Lauren concluded that Phantom Driver had better have been more pregnant than Preggers the She-Thug was, or else her butt should have been pushin’ instead of sittin’. The turn-light changed to green before we could witness Act III, but, as it turned out, we were in store for yet another play...

So we finally pull into the Chipotle parking lot, which is in the SouthGate shopping center, and a few blocks down from a Home Depot. Lauren and I are about to exit the car, when an elderly man walks right beside my passenger side door pushing an empty Home Depot cart. Huhhhhhhwhaaa????????? For your comprehension convenience, I will reiterate two things: Home Depot is 3 blocks away. The cart is empty. Then, he pushes the cart up onto the curb in front of Lauren’s car, abandons it, and proceeds to walk off without looking back. Lauren and I are dumbfounded. We don’t even exchange so much as a word about this particular event until later in the day when our brains are finally settling back into place. Then, before we can even open our doors to head into Chipotle, a group of five men who appear to work as salesmen for the same cell phone company approach Lauren’s car and just stand between its hood and the freshly abandoned Home Depot cart. For the second time in a period of 13 minutes, I hear the auto-locks of Lauren's car click into place. A sixth cell-phone-company salesman strolls to my side from the rear of Lauren’s car and unlocks the driver’s side door to a white van 2 parking spaces down from us. Like a mother goose and her cell-phone-polo-shirted ducklings, the sixth-cell-phone-company salesman unlocks the van and the five remaining men single-file into the van and drive away. Lauren cautiously unlocks the doors, and we exchange a knowing glance that in light of recent events, this may be the last Chipotle meal we may ever devour together, and we shall cherish every bite. After we get our Chipotle (to-go, no less, Southgate Plaza has blatantly made its point…we will not be staying to experience the atmosphere) we get back in the car and as she is trying to back out, a Subaru screams (literally, I tell you, I heard shrieking) up next to my door, double-parking itself into the lane next to Lauren and Lauren’s lane. Lauren has to pull forward to re-maneuver so she doesn’t hit the obnoxious woman’s Subaru as her rear tire is fully in our lane. The entire time the Obnoxious Subaru driver is glaring at us and giving us dirty glares and mouthing words that resemble obscenities (poor woman had no way of knowing that the petite-chica staring back at her was a lip-reading Speech Therapist) because she can’t open her door to exit her car until we back out. We safely and slowly exit the parking spot, and just as we think nothing more can happen, a speed-walking, Spandex-wearing & Ipod-bearing marathon mad-lady narrowly avoids having her next power-walk be the one through heaven’s gates, as Lauren slams on her breaks so the lady can pass a comfortable 3 yards away from the pedestrian crosswalk and at the same time, pass so close to the hood of Lauren’s car that the oblivious-turbo-stepper could stick out her tongue and get a palate full of elaborate bug juice samples fresh from the grill.
My kindred spirit and I did survive this day. We did lust over the Tudors that afternoon. We have eaten Chipotle again. But we have not returned to Southgate Plaza since, and have no plans to. You can not make this stuff up.
But somebody had to make THIS up, do you know who it was?:

Who can it be knocking at my door?
Go 'way, don't come 'round here no more.
Can't you see that it's late at night?
I'm very tired, and I'm not feeling right.
All I wish is to be alone;
Stay away, don't you invade my home.
Best off if you hang outside,
Don't come in - I'll only run and hide.
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?Who can it be now?Who can it be knocking at my door?
Make no sound, tip-toe across the floor.
If he hears, he'll knock all day,
I'll be trapped, and here I'll have to stay.
I've done no harm, I keep to myself;
There's nothing wrong with my state of mental health.
I like it here with my childhood friend;
Here they come, those feelings again!