PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Wow l remember the old fuse boxes, you screwed the little round fuses in and out.

 

Within reason; This happened in a common area and not on private property, but I still want to share the story...

Back in 2007-2008 when we lived in the Furlong townhouse, there was a serial flasher loose in the neighborhood; The worst part was he actually lived there!

Our neighborhood had a beautiful community center with a pool and a gym; This guy (a perv in his late teens or early 20s) would go into the gym when there were middle-aged women working out, wearing workout clothes including too-loose gym shorts (but no underwear), and do jumping jacks in front of the unsuspecting women. His shorts would go below his waist and you could see EVERYTHING. This was some troubled kid who lived with his parents, but it took at least a couple months until they figured it out; My next door neighbor, a divorced mother in her mid-40s, was one of his victims. She was not particularly phased by it, but her two teenage sons wanted to track the guy down and break his legs.

They finally found the flasher after almost half a dozen women complained, and he was banned from the community center indefinitely; They put in a more advanced card reader-based security system and there were no issues for the rest of the time we lived there. There were almost 390 individually owned homes (mostly townhouses, but some condos) in that neighborhood, and I probably only met 5% of the residents despite living there almost a decade, so I never met the flasher...

 

Even the military-owned WWII-era shitbox in California, where we lived from late August 1996 until early March 1997, had an updated electrical system by the time we moved in...

I've NEVER lived in a house with a fusebox; That Navy house in California had been built in an era when people still used outdoor clotheslines to dry their clothes (Either 1941 or 1942; I forget). As a result, it did not even have a laundry closet, so the washer and dryer hookups were installed in the already-tiny kitchen...

That house also only had one bathroom, located upstairs, and no dishwasher; 1996 was the one year we didn't get a full-sized Christmas tree because it wouldn't have fit in the house!

 

ok that may be a bit extreme, but my grandfather lived in a condo where they had a community pool and I’m sure his HOA fee paid for some detoxing.

 

The biggest issue in that neighborhood the theft of portable GPS units from cars by heroin addicts. They did not smash windows, luckily, but rather they would try door handles until they found an unlocked car; The local police department got so fed up with the calls that every year at the annual HOA meeting, the chief of police would make a personal appearance and plead with residents of our neighborhood to lock their doors and keep their belongings out of sight.

 

DOOTY!

 

And did I tell you about the time in 2014 when a drug addict showed up out of nowhere while I was bringing in the garbage and I ended up calling him a taxi to get him off our property?

 

X2!

 

It’s a classic, and he’s been on tv a lot lately. Think I’ve seen Scrooged about 15x more than I planned on.

 

It was in like October or November of 2014, so it was late in the year when it gets dark before 5pm; I went out to bring in the garbage and recycling, and as I was rolling the cans up the driveway, this 20-year old kid (he later told me his age) comes running up the driveway saying "You gotta help me! You gotta help me!"

He scared the shit out of me, but I did not see him as a threat; However, I was on high alert and ready to grab my Louisville Slugger out of the garage if needed...

He followed me into the garage (Looking back on it, I should have told him to get the fuck off my property, threatened to call the cops, and shut the door) and curled up in a fetal position on the garage floor; I went and got my mom, and we were utterly dumbfounded about what we should do. He was not trying to force his way into the house, but rather just curled up in a ball on the floor...

The story he told us was that he was 20 years old, and had been in Air Force stationed in Japan, but had been kicked out for underage drinking or something (pretty sure the legal drinking age in Japan is under 21, and military under 21 are allowed to drink in other countries when not on duty, so this made little sense to me). He told us that his parents lived in our neighborhood, and he had come home to an unfriendly reception after being kicked out of the Air Force; He also said that there were people after him, and he didn't want to go home and risk them hurting his family. He mentioned that he had been hiding in the bushes in someone's yard for hours, and that these people who were after him were walking around the neighborhood searching for him. It had been raining, and he was covered in mulch, so the "hiding in the bushes" story made sense; He also smelled like he'd shit his pants...

My mom asked him, "So, there are drug dealers after you?"

Our allegedly dishonorably discharged airman looked at my mom and said "No, drug users..."

The story was all over the place; He was obviously on something and made absolutely no attempt to hide this. My dad was unreachable at the time for whatever reason; I wanted to call the cops, but my mom was worried that he'd remember our address and do something to us or our house in retaliation. We ended up not calling the cops...

This poor bastard had a fairly new iPhone, but it was a Japanese-spec iPhone with a foreign carrier that did not work in America and was useless; Amazingly, he had some money and a valid credit card on him. I allowed him to use my iPhone to call one of his friends and ask if he could stay there; The friend in question, who lived in Doylestown, okayed this.

Part 2 below...

 

shoot, sounds like a case of PTSD and maybe half nuts before deployed. I would have told him to get lost, or show some proof of his history before letting him trot on my property.

 

I remember him telling me he didn't have a driver's license; I forget whether he told me his license was suspended, or if he just didn't have one (I think it was suspended). He may have had a license, but he didn't have a vehicle, and even if he had those two things he was in absolutely no condition to be riding a bicycle or even walking, much less driving a car...

Aside from the fact that this guy was sketchy as hell and I didn't know what he was capable of us, I wasn't about to let him in my truck because he was filthy and literally smelled like shit! This was before I was using Uber (otherwise I would have called him an Uber and ate the cost purely because I felt sorry for him); We came to the agreement that I would call him a taxi, and he would pay for it using his credit card.

The taxi was an hour away, and my mom and I wouldn't have let this guy in the house even if he didn't come across as super sketchy and unpredictable, because like I said he was dirty and smelled bad...

He was absolutely convinced there were people after him, and it was cold and drizzling, so I gave him an old blanket from the garage and told him he could hunker down in the bed of my truck until the taxi showed up; He thanked me and spent the next hour hiding under a blanket in the bed of my Tacoma.

FUN FACT: I have a history of not taking kindly to strangers coming anywhere near my truck, so this should tell you how bad I felt for this poor bastard!

My bedroom in our old house was above the garage and overlooked the driveway, so I had a clear view of my truck; I would look out the window often, and he stayed there the whole time; I saw a black Chrysler 300 (there were no normal taxis available, so the company sent a slightly-more-expensive "luxury sedan") pull up, and then he got in and the car drove away. I never heard from the guy again, or heard anything from my various sources in Doylestown that anything bad happened to him, so I'm guessing he ended up being alright....

 

I asked him if he had a driver's license or a military ID, but he had neither...

 

Well one of two things either looking to use you for money or food/booze, or just legit messed up. I always feel bad for people like that and you can never know who to trust in this world. I see too many negative stories on the news (not that I believe everything I see on there or that the story they tell is accurate), but unless I’m with a group of people, or I personally know some history on the fellow, my life just isn’t worth the risk to go out on a limb for a stranger. Sad as it is but that’s just what times have lead to. If someone needs help and shows up at my house (I live in the middle of nowhere on a huge farm field) I am either not answer or the person is getting a pistol pointed at their cranium until they’ve convinced me why I should trust them.

 

I think he was legit messed up, and the Air Force story was somewhat believable, but I don’t think he or his family lived in our neighborhood; I was think he was coming down off a bad trip and had woken up in someone’s bushes with no idea where he was...

 

I think it was a hallucinogen; I worked at a bar for four years, I’ve seen people who were on high on coke, and this guy did not seem be exhibiting any of those symptoms!

 

Likely meth. Should have checked his molars LOL

 

Also, I learned to keep my windows rolled up in certain areas, even nice areas...

One time in 2016-2017ish, I was heading back to the bar where I worked with a large of amount of booze in the bed of my truck; It was a nice day, so I had the windows down and was blasting Billy Joel...

This guy (white guy, in his 30s or 40s and a bit rough looking, but nice enough) comes up to my window while I'm at a red light and asks for bus fare; I gave him the money, but I learned to keep my windows up when in the vicinity of a SEPTA bus stop!

 

I wouldn't haven touched him with anything but my aluminum bat, and luckily it didn't come to that...