Parking Lot Poignancy Comes Courtesy Condiment Combatants, Flashlight Gladiator, Woeful Hoeless – September 25, 2011
• Monday, August 15 9:54 p.m. Car window smash-and-grab of a “piece of equipment” on the Plaza’s south side. As should be obvious by now, heroin is not hard to find in Arcata.
• Wednesday, August 17 10:08 a.m. A man said that while he was out of town, his tenant/roommate drank some $350 worth of his alcohol, with numerous empty bottles left the tale to tell.
• Thursday, August 18 9:28 a.m. An I Street resident reported getting a 4 a.m. phone call from a man who slurredly said he was lying on his living room floor and could not get up. The caller said he knew the man, but the call recipient had no knowledge of him. The distressed caller said he was on Brigid Lane, and it turned out that he had been sent assistance at 8:13 a.m.
9:59 a.m. A $300 mountain bike was left unlocked at an Old Arcata Road school.
1:33 p.m. A physician reported a patient who had sought treatment for injuries to her face, shoulder and chest last August. At the time, the victim lived with her adult son who had a substance abuse problem. He had pushed her down, crunching her eyeglasses into her face. The son moved out and she no longer has contact with him, but she’s still sore from the attack. The victim had asked the doctor not to report it, but doing so is mandated by law. The victim said no violation had occurred and she didn’t want any assistance.
1:33 p.m. A long-haired man in tie-dye apparel made a scene when he was not allowed to open an account at a Plaza bank. On stalking off from the scene, he dropped a baggie of white powder.
2:39 p.m. A Blake Court resident reported that a buck trapped in her backyard was becoming “quite frustrated.” It may have been slightly humiliated as well, as another deer outside the fence observed the buck’s failed efforts to escape. Eventually it did, gathering up what was left of its dignity and prancing on.
2:50 p.m. A youth reported being offended by a man holding a sign at Sixth and F streets which read, “The cops arrested my hoes.”
4:51 p.m. A person left the keys in a car parked on I Street, and sometime during a two-hour absence, a drivey tove liberated the vehicle.
• Friday, August 19 11:11 a.m. It’s unlikely their friendship will be the same after that encounter in the parking lot the night before. When the friend swung a large flashlight at her, she fell and hurt her knee.
11:40 a.m. A boat vs. building collision took place at a K Street car wash.
4:38 p.m. A motorcycle’s license plates disappeared on Janes Road.
5:05 p.m. A woman reported her male roommate having entered her personal space and confronting her two days previous. She had to push him out of the way to pass. He’s also been entering her bedroom, she said.
5:33 p.m. A man called to report problems with his psych meds. “Something is building up,” he said.
• Sunday, August 21 12:16 a.m. A party on Wisteria Way extended out into the street, with two vehicles (one of them a large truck) idling as satellite funtime facilities. Officers showed up, admonished the drivers and issued the hosts a warning notice.
1:27 a.m. A laptop computer left in a car at 10th and I streets was smash and grabbed.
6:44 a.m. A person using a Plaza porta-potty noticed a smattering of shotgun birdshot inside.
7:37 a.m. A weirdling outside an I Street cooperative supermarket tried the doors on a bread van, then tried to climb into the info kiosk. He was arrested on a drunkenness charge.
12:18 p.m. A person having a panic attack found it hard to breathe, and a friend took care of him.
1:14 p.m. A woman’s purse with car keys inside was stolen from a Plaza bar. When she went out to look for her car, it wasn’t there.
6:49 p.m. While details of an encounter are in dispute, it was generally agreed that in principle, she shouldn’t throw bottles at anyone.
10:55 p.m. Perhaps it’s the new uniform for they who stand in intersections (in this case, 11th and F streets) and howl at passersby – socks and underwear.
• Monday, August 22 5:19 a.m. One man supposedly slammed another in the right shoulder with a hunk of wood on Greenbriar Lane.
6:10 a.m. A car that doesn’t lock was entered at Samoa Boulevard and J Street during the night, and trash on the floor rearranged.
12:27 a.m. A car left with the window part way down at Davis Way and Stromberg Avenue was an easy score for a slithy tove, who was soon to enjoy a woman’s backpack and $50 cash.
12:37 p.m. An arrangement involving computer repairs in exchange for cash and marijuana didn’t work out so well, with the techie entering the client’s home uninvited and even “putting a hit out on him.”
1:16 a.m. Someone from the highly reputable sounding “Winner International” repeatedly called a woman telling her she won cash, and only had to wire money to the company via Western Union to get her fabulous nonexistent prize.
1:45 p.m. “Kids” were reported smoking the dope in Sunny Brae Park every day between 9 a.m. and noon, then from 3 to 7 p.m.
• Tuesday, August 23 1:59 a.m. A group of boys around age seven riding bikes reportedly put a fake sword to a girl’s back and told her she had to go with them. One boy was to be banished from the apartment complex.
3:25 p.m. A woman who was drinking and smoking pot at the transit center was asked over and over to leave, wouldn’t and was arrested.
• Wednesday, August 24 6:30 a.m. An Illinois resident had been making obscene phone calls to hospitals all over the country, including Arcata’s.
1:35 p.m. A bald, stocky man keeps asking a woman out even though she tells him she has a boyfriend and isn’t interested in him.
3:40 p.m.
A bongo squad at Plaza’s middle
Were bothering folks just a little
With rhythm-caused blues
Cops came with bad news
They had to pare back paradiddles
10:26 p.m. An evictee at an Alliance Road apartment complex took the news pretty well, yelling at neighbors and taking pictures of their kids.
10:10 p.m. A woman’s car on Union Street was coated in an amalgam of marginally edible substances including eggs and frosting (yum?), toothpaste (umm?) and toilet paper (dumb).
• Thursday, August 25 12:07 a.m. Two midnight drunkos at a Valley West shopping center sprayed each other with ketchup and mustard. The condiment combat complete, one then turned his ineffectual furies on a guy camping in a truck in the parking lot. He took his fixin’-enriched shirt off, wrapped it around his fist and tried to punch out the window. But his tiny fist glanced off the glass, and the truck’s occupant drove it away. Police pulled the truck over, and the driver said he hadn’t called for help because he was afraid of getting in trouble for camping.
