Daunkin'

Photo by Luca on Unsplash

The title of this post is not actually a word. It was created by a man I’ll call R. He lived in the townhome community I lived in most recently. This is the same community that I talked about earlier with the story about B. If you haven’t read it yet, you can read it after this post.

Pea Pods and Parking

R lived two buildings down from me. He helped out around the community. He ordered a new light pole once. We are talking about a very tall light pole. He thought we needed it to brighten the area so people would feel safe. He didn’t get approval from the management company that oversaw the purchases. He told me they were pretty mad.

He was constantly walking around the complex doing things. If you walked down to the mailboxes, you would see him doing work at a woman’s place. He knew her and she traveled a lot for her job. She let him watch her place while she was gone.

He liked to go to Dunkin’ Donuts, except he called it “Daunkin’”. Whenever I ran into him, he would talk about “Daunkin’”. Apparently, he met some friends there.

Whenever he would see me, he would insist he was going to take me to Daunkin. I told him that wasn’t going to happen. Once I tell you about him more, you’ll see why I didn’t want to be in a car with him.

R was in his sixties with white hair. He and his wife slept in separate beds in separate rooms. How do I know that? He showed me.

He was kind of strange. He invited me over one time because he was having issues with getting a PDF document saved from his email. At least that’s what I thought at the time. He started showing me his house and his antiques. He talked previously about how when he was in the military, his mother had passed away and his sisters got all of the antiques. He told me he only got a clock and not something he got to pick out. He was pretty angry that he didn’t get to come home and choose what antiques to receive. Then we went upstairs to where his computer was. It was located in an area outside of the bedrooms. He showed me an email where he was supposedly having trouble getting a PDF document downloaded. The reason I say supposedly is because I saw the PDF already on his desktop. So I think he just said that to get me up there to show me his antiques and other items. He showed me some model planes and model ships and some other figures.

He showed me his wife’s bedroom. I didn’t go in, I just saw it from the hallway. There was an ornate wall covering over the headboard. From a distance, I saw his bedroom. It looked like he didn’t have a bedspread on the bed. All I saw were sheets.

I thought that was going to be the last time I was there. Wrong! A few days later, he said he wanted me to come back because he needed help with another PDF document. I thought, “Yeah right!” He had the file on the desktop again. He didn’t need me there. I don’t know if he was feeling lonely or what.

He started doing pressure washing for the driveways and the back concrete porches. He had a new contraption that was shaped like a circle that would make it easier to get the cleaning done quicker. He wanted me to email our landlord to see if he wanted R to clean our place. I emailed him and he told me to have him do it. R was scheduled to come over on Saturday morning at around 10 a.m. Instead he showed up at 8 a.m. What happened next I couldn’t believe. I was still in my pajamas when I answered the door.

Here is our conversation:

R: “Sorry to wake you and your wife.”

Me: “We’re awake.”

R: “I thought I would start on that driveway and porch early.”

Me: “Okay. I’ll be right out.”

I couldn’t believe what he had said. I went and got dressed. I opened the garage door so he could hook the pressure washer into the plug.

As he was approaching the plug, I said to him, “She’s my Mom, not my wife.”

I don’t think he comprehended it and I had to repeat it. All I could think of was, “here we go again”.

I decided to hang out in the garage to make sure everything went okay. To tell you the truth, I didn’t trust him and I didn’t want to leave the garage unprotected. While he was doing the driveway, he started talking to our neighbor. Then he started talking to me. So I started to inch out of the garage and into the sun. We ended up talking about the show “Antiques Roadshow”. We both watched it. He told me that the new episodes aired starting on Sunday. I told him, no the new air dates are always on Monday nights. He didn’t agree with that and kept telling me it was Sunday. A couple of times I was so close to him that the pressure washing fluid hit my shorts and my shirt. Since bleach is used, those two items had to be thrown out once I was done because they were destroyed. I usually wear a hat out when I’m outside. This time, I had forgotten. So once he was done with the back porch, I had a sunburn on the top of my head and arms. I was outside so long I didn’t realize it. It was a couple of hours. To top it off, I had to help him carry the equipment back to his place.

A few days later, he told me that his wife wanted to take my Mom and me out to dinner as a thank you for helping him with the computer problems. I told him that wasn’t going to happen. We didn’t even know them. He told me that I was going to go out with them. I reiterated that it was not going to happen. I told him that if he wanted to pay me for the work, that would work for me. I charged him $25/hr. I think I got like $50-$60 from him. He never called me again for computer problems.

In fact, he dropped me altogether and never spoke to me again.

As the community was preparing for Hurricane Matthew, everyone was boarding up their townhomes with shutters. R was going around to everyone’s place, except for us.

I guess he was offended that we didn’t want to go out to dinner with them. But who would want to? They never had anyone visit them. There’s probably a reason for that.

Until next time, happy reading.

-Matt