really long, but worth the read if you have the time
Last night was one of the crazier nights I've experienced. Since gas prices are expected to soar as Rita hits the refineries, Patrick and I both filled up our cars last night. I went to fill up at the bp on North Ave. because it's one of the cheaper places around, even though it's fairly shady. I paid at the pump and never went inside; this was around 10 or 10:30. I went over to Patrick's room afterwards (by the way he rooms with David Miller) and we napped till around 2:30. We got up because we were planning on doing work and I needed to move my car before I got ticketed. We went over to my dorm to do work, and when I had to get my student ID out to swipe it for my parking deck, I noticed I didn't have my Debit/ATM card. We searched my car and my bag, but I didn't have it. I decided I must have dropped it when I paid for my gas, and after going online to check the activities in my account (and discovering there were more "pending" than I could remember making) we went back to bp to see if it was still there or if anyone had turned it in (yes, very unlikely I know).
When we got there around 3:15 the first thing I noticed was a blond woman, fairly dressed up, standing by herself in front of the store looking fairly scared. At first I thought she might be a prostitute, although, she looked too nice for a prostitute in that area of town. As we walked past her it almost seemed like she mumbled to us, which made both Patrick and I think she might be a little crazy. Well, inside they said no one had turned in a debit card and it wasn't outside on the ground by the pump I had used. As we got in my car to leave, I noticed that the woman looked rather upset by these two black men who had spoken to here, I didn't hear what they said nor could I make out what she responded with. I did hear, however, one of the men say as he was walking away "No disrespect, no disrespect" fairly defensively, which made me think he had assumed the same thing I had and had propositioned her, and she had gotten fairly offended. Her voice sounded odd to me, so I still thought she might not be all there, but I decided she might not be a prostitute. Since she was a well dressed, scared white woman alone in a kind of seedy part of town, I felt bad for her, and asked Patrick if I could ask her if she was ok. He was hesitant, but he let me, so I asked her if she needed help. She said someone was supposed to pick her up, but they hadn't come, and she had no way to leave. I asked her where she needed to go and she said Buckhead (which is about 10 minutes away on the highway). Also, I realized as I talked to her the reason her voice had sounded funny was because she was French. I asked Patrick if he would mind, and he said it was ok, so I told her she could get in the backseat and we would give her a ride to wherever she was going.
At first when she got into the car I tried to tell her that if she had been stuck there much longer, there was a MARTA station (Atlanta's public transportation - buses and train) nearby that would start running and get her fairly close to where she needed to be. I'm not sure if she understood what I was talking about or not, but MARTA made her launch into a discussion she'd had (with a bus driver from what I could gather?) about what her last meal would be - "lemonade with spaghetti and meatballs of course!" - and she said he told her his would be some kind of breakfast foods with an apple turnover for dessert, and she couldn't get over how ridiculous this would be. ...This reinforced Patrick and my's belief that she wasn't all there. She asked us if we lived close by and I told her we are students at Georgia Tech which prompted her telling us she had her Bachelor's in Creative Writing and was taking some time off before going to graduate school, and that she was 25 (although she looked closer to 30) and from Versailles. She then I guess was telling us something about the reason she was in America (I think) doing research, some kind of social experiment. Somehow this also tied into her general opinion of America. She started talking about how in America the poor are just as class-conscious as the rich and want name brands and how everyone wants to be better than somebody else. She said she had been living like these poor people for six weeks and couldn't stand it. Then she said that America is under a fascist regime and is just like Russia in 1907 (this is where Patrick and I looked at each other again). She said that she liked America though and wanted to stay "not for all the silly reasons like the land of promise or the American Dream" but something about how some Americans have a really good spirit. Not a lot of Americans though, she had discovered some that were very bad. Then she mentioned that she might have killed a guy the other day. (yep, we didn't even have to look at each other that time)
She then explained that she was walking by herself down a dark street in another not-so-great part of town and there had been a man following her. She stopped and asked him to stop following her, but he told her that he was making sure she was alright. A little further down the road he knocked her down and started trying to force her to 'spread her legs.' She said "and then I realized what was going on and I said 'please do not commit this crime, it is not worth it'." Apparently he would not listen and there was a struggle/scuffle, and (lucky for her) she found a big rock or concrete block and hit him fairly hard in the head with it. She said she had been wearing a white dress and it was covered with blood and he didn't get back up. Apparently she felt fairly bad for maybe killing the guy. Patrick goes "oh my gosh, why didn't you call the police?" and she responds "oh darling, it is in God's hands." I was like "but if you called the police, they could go get him and keep him from doing that to more women." Again her response was something to the effect of "It is God's will and I must trust in him. He will judge both our actions. It is in his hands." We were both, again, fairly dumbfounded.
She then asked if we were dating, if we were going to get married, and how old we are. Patrick said he was 22 and that I'm 19, and when he said how old I am she giggled and was fairly condescending that it was beautiful that we/I am so young and idealistic to help a stranger (i.e. herself). She also mentioned somewhere along the way that it was good that marriage was a long way off for us because most American don't realize that marriage isn't supposed to bring fulfillment, it's to help support the family. She herself had been married three times.
When we got to Buckhead she had us drop her off at a really nice apartment complex. As she got out she repeated several times how much she was going to pray for us. I thought about waiting for her to get in the door to make sure she was ok, but as she seemed to have some trouble trying to get in, Patrick said it might be creepy just to sit there, so we left. Neither of us were sure whether or not to believe any at all of what she said. Between claiming to live on the street, going to a really nice apartment complex, and not being able to get in by the time we left and also claiming to be 25 and already married 3 times, she was a fairly sketchy character. Eventhough it upset my mom when I told her about it, I didn't really feel that she was that dangerous, especially with Patrick with me. If I were to do it again though, I might have Patrick sit in the backseat and her in the front, that way if she did attack me he could stop her. As it was I think our jugulars were fairly easy targets.
When we got back to my room, I called Wells Fargo to cancel my debit card and get a new one, and I discovered that I must have dropped it at bp because there were two charges on it after that to an Amoco Station in a close-by skeezy part of town. They said they would be filed as fraudulent charges and I would be reimbursed (spelling?). My new card arrives in a few days.
In other news: here's Patrick and I after we went to see Phantom of the Opera Wednesday night:
.jpg)