Nov 2nd, 2005
Brush with fame
Sunday was quite the eventful day. Not only did Colin walk, but we had a star in our backyard. Woke up around 7:30am to the sound of Sevi barking - Sevi never barks unless someone is here that she doesn’t know.
I go downstairs, and she’s barking at the kitchen window (it’s about fifteen feet above the ground). I look down and there’s a guy standing there staring at the house, but not doing much else. So of course I’m freaking out, I mean I’ve got Jess and Colin in here and some guy lurking around my backyard. He proceeds up to the living room side of the house, and positions himself in front of the window, which happens to be where the heater vents. At that point I noticed he had leaves all through his hair, and a pretty glazed look on his face.
So I knock on the window and ask him what the hell he’s doing? Let’s just say this guy must have had a fun night, because he was close to incoherent. He mumbles out a few things about how cold it is, but generally can’t put thoughts and words together, thanks to being cold, stoned and drunk.
I suppose now that he’d made contact, he thought it was time to get inside and warm up - so he heads over to the side door to our house and starts trying the door. We have a window in the door, so I’m just standing there talking to the guy trying to get in. Our conversation moved forward a little bit at this point, after I repeated to tell him that I wasn’t going to let him in and he should just go home - to my telling him I don’t know who he is: “I’m Carter” (great, that explains it), followed by “I’m Lenny Kravitz” - to my asking him if he lived around here and that he should go home: “I’m not that country” (except for sleeping in my backyard I suppose) - reacting to the dawning realization that I wasn’t going to let him in: “I’m not trying to break into this chicken coop” (that’ll score you points).
In hindsight we figured out that the Lenny Kravitz comment referred to what was a somewhat subtle Halloween costume, and this guy must have had a hell of a time at a party the night before - so much so that he passed out in our backyard. Eventually the fact that he wasn’t going to get warm here penetrated the haze, and he took off (he was surprisingly nice about it, very careful when opening and shutting the gate).
You’ve got to love Halloween. The upshot was that a little later, after walking the dog, I walked into the backyard to see where this guy had settled down for the night, and saw that he’d left a Trojan (which is probably still there, haven’t checked since) and a $10 bill. Guess that was the rent for the accomodations, so he ended up buying us breakfast. Thanks Lenny!