Nearly twenty-years ago while I was employed with a smaller city in a larger state, I had a few encounters with a woman who lived in a van. For the purposes of this blog post we will refer to her as “Velmax,” for in fact that is her name. Interestingly, but not too relative to this post, Velmax was from Kansas too – at least that was where she was licensed to drive – but, in my heart I always felt that she has to be from Missouri. Anyway, she and I struggled to communicate, so our limited encounters were short and nasty – with the last one lasting less than two minutes. If you keep reading, and why wouldn’t you, you will likely conclude that I was mostly at fault for the trouble in our brief and tumultuous relationship. I certainly played a role, but crazy-is-crazy.
In many states law enforcement jurisdictions overlap. There are police at the state level, the county level, and often at the municipal level. The point being that within the same geographic area a person may interact with different jurisdictions of law enforcement. Occasionally at City Hall in St. Marys a motorist will stop by to pay a ticket only to learn that their ticket was issued by Pottawatomie County. The point is that it is understandable that some people may be confused with which jurisdiction that they have been dealing with, especially if there is no paperwork involved. This takes us back to Velmax, for in fact that is still her name, and she is still relevant to this post.
Nowadays it may not be more common for people to live in a vehicle, but it is certainly much more accepted, popular, and sometimes even profitable. Today there are many individuals, couples, and even families that “boondock” by choice. But we must harken back to the pre-YouTube days to when vehicle-dwelling was often much less celebrated and occasionally caused entire neighborhoods to place angry calls to local law enforcement about such. And that in fact is what Velmax kept encountering, regardless of where she parked/camped. Perhaps her lack of hygiene played a role in this matter, perhaps it did not – we will probably never know at this point – because at some time during the last two decades she has to have bathed or at least been caught outside in the rain for a time.
If Velmax parked in a parking lot that jurisdiction’s officer would approach her and ask her to leave, or sometimes the county would do the honors. She’d leave that town and head to another town only to be treated the same way. So, by the time Velmax crossed paths with the now defunct CCPD she had had numerous unwanted encounters with a variety of law enforcement officers. She had finally had enough and some kind soul had directed her to me. I still remember when we first met, it was somewhat surreal as she kept screaming, shaking, and accusing me of harassing her – on and on – I tried explaining to her what I thought was happening – didn’t matter – same level of rage, etc. Well, as it often does, a person making a complaint demands to see “my boss” or “my supervisor.” And here is where a lifetime of sloppiness finally caught up to me – well, it sort of caught up to others…but still.
Although I had told Velmax correctly that the city council met on the first and third Tuesdays of every month, she had asked me to write it down. So, I quickly wrote it down – but did not spell out the word “and”, but instead used a symbol that is often used to denote the word “and”, and no it was not an ampersand “&”.
Imagine if you will, a small rectangular piece of white paper with a sloppily written and closely situated “1” and “3” – and between said “1” and “3” a small scribble. You may, as Velmax did, take that to read as “13.” As in the next meeting is on the 13th. (Even though I specifically said the first and third Tuesday of each month.)
As it turns out the city council did not meet on the 13th that month, but another organization did meet at city hall that night. Velmax, reportedly showed up to their meeting to express her displeasure about the rude treatment and in her word’s “harassment” by the city’s law enforcement officers. And of course, these people had the audacity to deny that they were the city council. And of course, she didn’t believe them and kept on complaining. As it turns out, she spent about 15-minutes chewing-out the local Lions Club.
At some point, she had to have realized that she was wrong because she made her way to city hall and tried to shove that piece of paper with the sloppily written “1” and “3” in my face – screaming at me to explain myself. I looked at the paper and said that I had of course written it and it made sense to me – which only enraged her more.
So Velmax finally made it to a city council meeting – and by this time her antics were well known. She was recognized to speak and immediately was out of control. After about a minute or two law enforcement escorted her out of the building.
Until recently, I had always thought that Velmax was going to be the “craziest” person I was going to have to deal with – turns out I was wrong. My new thought process is to designate a person as – “the craziest person so far.”
In many states law enforcement jurisdictions overlap. There are police at the state level, the county level, and often at the municipal level. The point being that within the same geographic area a person may interact with different jurisdictions of law enforcement. Occasionally at City Hall in St. Marys a motorist will stop by to pay a ticket only to learn that their ticket was issued by Pottawatomie County. The point is that it is understandable that some people may be confused with which jurisdiction that they have been dealing with, especially if there is no paperwork involved. This takes us back to Velmax, for in fact that is still her name, and she is still relevant to this post.
Nowadays it may not be more common for people to live in a vehicle, but it is certainly much more accepted, popular, and sometimes even profitable. Today there are many individuals, couples, and even families that “boondock” by choice. But we must harken back to the pre-YouTube days to when vehicle-dwelling was often much less celebrated and occasionally caused entire neighborhoods to place angry calls to local law enforcement about such. And that in fact is what Velmax kept encountering, regardless of where she parked/camped. Perhaps her lack of hygiene played a role in this matter, perhaps it did not – we will probably never know at this point – because at some time during the last two decades she has to have bathed or at least been caught outside in the rain for a time.
If Velmax parked in a parking lot that jurisdiction’s officer would approach her and ask her to leave, or sometimes the county would do the honors. She’d leave that town and head to another town only to be treated the same way. So, by the time Velmax crossed paths with the now defunct CCPD she had had numerous unwanted encounters with a variety of law enforcement officers. She had finally had enough and some kind soul had directed her to me. I still remember when we first met, it was somewhat surreal as she kept screaming, shaking, and accusing me of harassing her – on and on – I tried explaining to her what I thought was happening – didn’t matter – same level of rage, etc. Well, as it often does, a person making a complaint demands to see “my boss” or “my supervisor.” And here is where a lifetime of sloppiness finally caught up to me – well, it sort of caught up to others…but still.
Although I had told Velmax correctly that the city council met on the first and third Tuesdays of every month, she had asked me to write it down. So, I quickly wrote it down – but did not spell out the word “and”, but instead used a symbol that is often used to denote the word “and”, and no it was not an ampersand “&”.
Imagine if you will, a small rectangular piece of white paper with a sloppily written and closely situated “1” and “3” – and between said “1” and “3” a small scribble. You may, as Velmax did, take that to read as “13.” As in the next meeting is on the 13th. (Even though I specifically said the first and third Tuesday of each month.)
As it turns out the city council did not meet on the 13th that month, but another organization did meet at city hall that night. Velmax, reportedly showed up to their meeting to express her displeasure about the rude treatment and in her word’s “harassment” by the city’s law enforcement officers. And of course, these people had the audacity to deny that they were the city council. And of course, she didn’t believe them and kept on complaining. As it turns out, she spent about 15-minutes chewing-out the local Lions Club.
At some point, she had to have realized that she was wrong because she made her way to city hall and tried to shove that piece of paper with the sloppily written “1” and “3” in my face – screaming at me to explain myself. I looked at the paper and said that I had of course written it and it made sense to me – which only enraged her more.
So Velmax finally made it to a city council meeting – and by this time her antics were well known. She was recognized to speak and immediately was out of control. After about a minute or two law enforcement escorted her out of the building.
Until recently, I had always thought that Velmax was going to be the “craziest” person I was going to have to deal with – turns out I was wrong. My new thought process is to designate a person as – “the craziest person so far.”
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