You, know what, let me just flat out say it, during my jogging days, I was a strange creature.

I don’t know what got into me, but I would just jog after midnight, and I liked it, it was great.

My jogging route approached 10 miles, ran by my current gym, for which I was too fat at the time.

And took me to a near by park entrance, thought as it was dark, I never went in.

Plus, it was a pretty shoddy entrance, as you had to bush whack down a muddy hill to get there.

I ran that route for long enough, to start worrying about my knees as I was pretty heavy.

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And I had rustle some jimmies, as my route took me through some quiet neighborhoods...

As I preferred sidewalks, over huffing and puffing on the side of a road.

And people surely noticed, a glistening plump-kin sucking their oxygen at 3AM.

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And prior to that as I was working on my endurance, I myself had a pretty scary encounter.

And with by far the most marvelous, and mysterious suburban creature.

Who also frightened me the most, as I thought it was a mutant rat.

And knowing how fast mice are, scale that up…

And the mutant rat would have been done chewing up my groceries before I knew it.

I feel, I literally had a Ninja Turtle moment, I kid you not.

But it turned out to be a wise and noble, opossum, who without a doubt lived a long life.

We looked at each other, he was curious, what the hell I was doing shopping so late.

Sports, my man, it was sports.

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Just as scary is the skunk, because they are cute as heck and look like kittens.

But oh my gosh, the story goes, that early Michiganders would carry pet skunks around.

To serve them as a low tech, but extremely effective bear spray.

Just gently lift the fluffy tail, and don’t point the hole at things you want to keep.

There is actually a local saying, don’t bring a gun to a skunk shootout, in deed.

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The fourth unusual creature, is also me, again, as I tend to try to out-strange, strange situations.

I just see strangeness as an invitation, and a challenge.

So there I was, bewildered in the liminal space, that the local supermarket parking-lot has become.

As I have just realized, it was another one of those, shut the town down and let the programmers starve, holiddays.

And all of a sudden, with one of my legs already in my car.

A well dressed man pulled up, he was absolutely a lawyer, the glasses and suspenders, whole enchilada.

And he goes, “Do you know where I can find a liqueur store”.

I blinked at him while trying to compute, the last time I saw a bottle of vodka.

Do supermarkets even sell them anymore? I don’t remember seeing any.

So I told him, it is no good for you, and he goes “But do you know where I can find one”

And I replied, somewhat mischievously, that there aren’t any liqueur stores here.

Because it is just a nice and wholesome, neighborhood.

As he walked away with a smile, probably to grab his gun.

And then my stomach grumbled, and I swiftly drove away in search for some gas station peanuts.

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I left the best for last, it was another day, in the same parking lot.

And after an hour or so at the gym, I went to get some bicycle parts.

Even if you don’t have a big butt, wide seat goes a long way, especially in fill day endurance bicycling.

And as I am walking, with aching muscles, trying to shake of the workout.

I heard the strangest freaking sound, I have ever heard a grown ass man make.

He was parked at a 45 degrree angle, in the middle of a street, almost blocking traffic.

Makeing the following sound, and I apologizze, but you got to hear this.

“ehehehehehehehehehe ehehehehehehev.”

This really happened, and it went on for entire seconds, before I noticed there was something strange going on.

So I turn around to face the sound, and holy guacamole, and this makes me speechless to this day.

He was making that sound at me, you are not going to believe this – but he was hecking me.

I have a heckler, that sound is a heckle.

And to another surprise at the time, he abruptly stopped making that sound.

And revealing that he is not in-fact touched or special, loudly and clearly stated…

In front of what has not welcome a group of 23 people, “He is walking like a bodybuilder but he is not a bodybuilder”

I took a moment to look at the commotion my waddle caused, and quickly hurried to the store.

As that noise resume, to heckle me some more.

I am not making this up, this really happened.

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And as a bonus, I wanted to add, that as I was writing this story.

A skunk went off, somewhere in the neighborhood.

I grew up around gassy horses, and angry chickens that wanted to peck me dead.

I didn’t know what skunks smelled like, until I was in my late teens.

For those of you in distant lands that never smelled one, it smells like soft and fresh tire rubber.

Dipped, in the most sugary, cherry chocolate syrup you can imagine.

It is not an edible smell, as the rubber comes across as a chemical type smell.

So from afar, and you can really smell a skunk marking territory, or searching for a lady, from miles away down wind.

Or so it seems, maybe there is just so many of them out here.

But up close, what I think happens, is that a burning sensation of spicy pepper gets in your nose.

I am only guessing, from what I smelled across the years.

But I expect more offending smells join in, and they get spicier the closer you are.

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In America, some skunks, presumably ones that aren’t afraid of humans, or rely on them too much.

Can have a procedure done that removes their smelliness, and they just become a lovely and no doubt loving, weird cat.

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I don’t know who wins the most unusual suburban creature award, but let me tell you something, I now have to close the windows in my house.

If this is part of some skunk mating ritual, then surrey, than all the skunk ladies got his disgusting message.