Mildred

I inhereted Mildred about 7 years ago.

She's been calling the office for 30 years with complaints. My bosses boss passed her onto my boss after 10 years...my boss had her for about a dozen...and now she's mine. She's a little old lady who complains about everyone and everything...but her main gripe is that they built a park behind her house 25 years ago. While some people might like living behind a park, Mildred " didn't ask for it and doesn't want it".

Two summers ago she had an epic battle with a 12 year old girls softball team that screamed and cheered. That came to a head one evening when Mildred wheeled her snow blower and lawn mower to the edge of the yard and cranked both up to full blast. " They like noise ?" she asked rhetorically, " Then they'll get noise." Despite the girls best efforts to shower the blower and mower with dixie cups the racket drowned out any attempts to hear the umpire or any of the coaches and the game came to a halt. After that it got a lot quieter during softball games. Mildred had made her point.

Over the years I've come to learn that mostly Mildred isn't calling to complain, she's calling because she's lonely. So I've learned to quickly side step any issue that she's calling about and change the conversation to how her son is doing ( " A big executive who's very smart and nearing retirement) to how her garden is coming along ( azalias are blooming nicely thank you) to how my family is doing ( I don't tell her my daughter is playing softball btw).

So I wasn't surprised when she called Tuesday because I hadnt' heard from her in a while and it was a holiday weekend and she gets a little lonely around the holidays.

She opened by asking, " Have you guys been spraying out here, because there a weird odor in my car and I can't figure out what it is "

" No, we haven't...what's the smell ?"

" It smells like rotting cabbage...it's terrible. It's not in the Lincoln, only in this car. And I didn't think you guys did, but I thought I'd ask. I'll tell you what it is....it's those people across the street with their carrying on and their drugs, and their drinking....they did something to my car...I KNOW IT !"

Now I had heard this from Mildred 100 times. Whenever she couldn't find her rake..the druggies across the street did it. When the mail didn't come, the Puerto Ricans down the block stole it. And in every case I get a call a couple days later that the rake was behind the hedge or the mail wasn't delivered because it was election day.

So I tried to calm her down, " Now Mildred, it's probably nothing."

" IT"S NOT NOTHING...IT SMELLS TERRIBLE !"

So I suggestion reasonable possibilities, " Maybe an animal climbed up into your engine block and died ? Maybe you hit something on the road and didn't notice ?"

She was relentless..." That's possible but I looked all over the engine and under the car and can't see anything. I'll tell you it was the DRUGGIES ! I knew they were up to no good this weekend, I had my eye on them."

In the end Mildred decided to take the car to a garage and have them look at it. I asked that for my own curiousity she call me when she found out where the smell came from.

Later in the day the phone rang

" I TOLD YOU !"

" what happened Mildred ?"

" They did it, they did it, they did it !"

" What did they do ?"

" I took the car to the mechanic and he looked under the hood...no dice...
....he looked under the body....no dice....
...he looked in the truck...no dice...but it smelled bad...
...so he lifted up the matt in the trunk where the spare was..
...and do you know what he found...."

( I was sooo tempted to say 'dice?' but I refrained)

" What did he find Mildred ?" I asked really curious.

" A TURD ....in fact a couple of TURDS....big ones !!!!!"

" What ?!?!?!?!"

" That's right ...SOMEONE GOT IN MY TRUNK, LIFTED THE MATT, AND TOOK A CRAP IN MY TRUNK !!!!!"

So Mildred was correct...it was the druggies !

That aint right man, that just aint right.