Foster's Beer and a dead bird

During the time I attended Bible school in Tulsa, I had a bi-polar, schizophrenic female neighbor (whose name for the moment escapes me but for this blog I shall dub her Sheila). You could always tell when Sheila was not on her medication because she adopted a faux-Australian accent and wear a tight spandex cycling get up complete with unnecessary cup/jock strap. Whenever she was like that I tried to avoid her at all costs.

But one very sad and unfortunate day a bird died and was lying stiff as a board near the bushes by our apartment unit. For one reason or another Sheila was moved with compassion and soon filled with righteous indignation for the untimely “murder” of this bird. She promptly came to my door, because I guess Koreans have a reputation for random avian genocide, and shoved the carcass of bird and asked me with her fake Australian accent, and very accusingly I might add, “do you know who killed this bird and gouged its eyes out?” The poor deceased bird was missing its eyes. With as many of the fruits of the spirit I could muster, I told her that I had no idea but it could have died of natural causes and insects probably ate the eyes. Then with bulging eyes and spittle launching out of her mouth she accused me of the defenseless birds demise.

Thus being depleted of the little patience I had left I told her I would not have wasted my time killing the dumb little bird and closed the door on her bugged-eyed face. Not very nice, but who likes to be called a murderer. But the shutting of my front door on psycho Sheila’s face was only the beginning of many episodes of weirdness to come.

The next day Sheila built a small altar for her dead bird and placed it on the banister, so I had to look at it every time I went to my car. It's festering, rotting body was offensive on many fronts. Since she had been so bold to knock on my door, I repaid her the favor and knocked on her door to demand she put the voodoo-ish altar and dead bird in her house. Dumb-Dumb decision number 2. Begrudingly she hurled the altar and rotting bird into her house.

But the hits just kept on rolling. She threw corn flakes on my car and my roommate’s car not too long after our visit. I guess so the birds would come and eat it, thus scratching our cars and giving the birds opportunity to defecate on the hoods to add insult to injury. I asked her what her problem was, to which she promptly replied something to the effect that I was a bird killer or some such non-sense.

The last straw came when I was getting into my car to leave and she was standing outside her house in full cycling spandex regalia complete with jock strap drapped with the Australian flag over her shoulders like a cape and nursing the biggest can of Fosters beer I have ever seen. Yup she was giving me the stank-eye. If looks could kill I would have been as dead as her enshrined bird. Psycho Sheila then put her Australian flag under the tires of my car. I asked her to move it or I would be forced to roll over it. She refused and when I was pulling out she said “Hai-yah!!” and kicked my passenger side door with her big old boot and left a huge dent. I hopped out of my car and asked the obvious, “is you crazy?!!!” I told her I was calling the police and dared her to leave. Sheila snatched the cell out of my hand and got up in my face. I really wanted to knock in her front teeth but decided to get my roommates cell phone and told her to get out of my face, when she pushed me down the stairs. With out thinking I screamed for my roommate and my cousins. I must have screamed like someone was killing me because they came pouring out of the apartment like it was on fire. I quickly told them what happened and that she pushed me down the steps. Sheila quickly ran into her house to get her bike and the five of us tried to restrain her from leaving before the cops got there. With the strength of what seemed like two or three full grown men she pulled at her bike. When all of a sudden everyone just let go of her and the bike and she half hurled down the steps and was up like a cat and off on her bike to flee the scene.

The Tulsa cops FINALLY showed up. I explained to them what happened and said that basically it was my word against hers. They did not do a single thing, typical. They advised me that next time to make sure no one was around and punch her lights out. The cop told me that once she had grabbed his rear-end and told him he had a nice back-side (that was a clean up of the vulgarity she used in actuality). He got offended and told her to back off, after which she began taunting him and asking if he was a homosexual. I returned to my house steaming and frustrated waiting for what the next psychotic episode that I was sure was to come.

Thus concludes my infamous Psycho Sheila story. Consequently, she did get back on her medicine and came to my door to apologize and offer an prehistoric computer as payment for the damages. I told her to forget about it and just to stay on her meds. She moved out two weeks later.