(Pflugerville, TX) Two officers/members of the Attorney General's Office showed up at the front door of the HM Magazine offices today. I was on the phone with columnist Kemper Crabb at the time. He is getting on a plane to speak at the great Meltdown Conference tomorrow, and was calling to assure me that he'd turn in his column before he left. I told him that men with badges just arrived, and he laughed and said, "If you need me to bail you out, let me know."
These two guys both had the coolest gold and silver badges clipped to their belts. Very shiny and impressive badges. After introducing themselves, they asked if we knew our ex-neighbors in our subdivision. There's been a total of six homes in this neighborhood/subdivision. We were the first to move out here, but then over the last four years others have moved in. This particular couple had moved out about a week or two ago and these guys asked me if I knew where they moved to or when. I wasn't able to answer this question, because I didn't talk to them much.
Sam and I have referred to this neighbor as "Ruby Ridge," because this guy belted out a veiled threat at one of our community's meetings back in September: "If you thought Ruby Ridge and Waco were something, you ain't seen nothin' yet!" He told the man who purchased our rented land that he'd kill him. This guy has gotten himself in a whale of trouble.
I was disappointed, cuz when I saw them I was hoping maybe they were from some benevolant organization that was going to buy our home/office from us or something! To recap: the land our office sits on is rented. Our office is a 5-bedroom home that is actually one of those fancy manufactured homes. It seemed like a good idea at the time we bought it (in early September of 2001), but has turned out to be a real drag. We have paid a lot rent on the land we've been on, but this land was sold out from under us and this new owner is kicking everyone (over 150 families are living in the two subdivisions -- ours is the isolated one, with only two homes left on it now) out. We all have to be moved by January 31st. The problem is: we don't have a place to move! We don't want to move to another rented land community and have this possibly happen again, so we're looking for land to buy. And looking... And looking...
I'm off early today (even though it's deadline) to vote; and Sam is off to a Mae and Mute Math show at Emo's. I'll be doing some proofreading and writing work at home on my notebook. But I just wanted to share how exciting the visit from the Attorney General's office was and how cool those badges looked.
Be sure to check out all the new exlusive online content we posted today. Have fun watching those Narnia trailers, etc.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at November 8, 2005 03:41 PM