What possessed me to go over to chat with the self proclaimed faith healer neighbor when I saw her sitting on her porch swing tonight? Am I a glutton for punishment? Have I gone loco? Or was I just incredibly bored? Either way, that’s what I did. I went and say on her porch swing with her and had a nice chat. It was rather relaxing I must admit and in the beginning I enjoyed it. She was telling me her usual take of woe about how her husband hasn’t worked since last September but is taking a truck driving course and hopes to get a job sometime in the next couple of months. She tell me that they are so broke living off her paycheck alone that she had no money to buy gas to take her daughter to school yesterday. The private Christian school her daughter goes to is 25 miles away and she only had an eighth of a tank of gas. So she takes her daughter to school yesterday planning on sitting in her van in the parking lot all day because she doesn’t have enough gas to go home and then go back to pick up her daughter. She is telling this to one of the other mothers and the woman hands the faith healer her credit card and tells her to fill her tank up and give her the card back that afternoon. Silly woman! What does the faith healer do? She fills her van up with premium gas, not the cheap stuff. Then on the way home she decided to stop by Walmart and charge 9 tomato plants, some flowers and plant fertilizer. She was sure the woman wouldn’t mind. I have a feeling this woman won’t be lending her credit card out again.

So now that the faith healer has tomato plants she needs tomato cages. That’s where I come in since I am rich, or at least according to the faith healer and her daughter I am. She tells me her tale of woe and begs to ‘borrow’ a couple of tomato cages. I have 10 extra cages but I didn’t tell her that…then. Eventually she wears me down to the point where I offer her a couple of cages. A “couple” of cages. She comes over to my back yard to get them and tells me (not ask – Tells me) that she needs a few more and proceeds to grab several more. It got to the point where she had 8 of my 10 tomato cages. My jaw is hanging open at the turn of events and the way she has manipulated me once again. But it gets better. As she starts to leave with my 8 cages she says “wait a minute, I should really get another” and proceeds to grab the last 2, taking all 10 of my spare tomato cages before she hastily departs. I am left shaking my head in the dust wondering what the hell just happened and how I ended up giving her all of my tomato cages. I still don’t understand it. Maybe I’ll sneak over there some night after they have gone to bed and take my cages back. What the hell happened again?