I finally met one.
There's no exciting ending to this story, nor is there any point to posting it.
So there I was, picking up a bag of food for my dog, and I think "Hey, I need more deodorant, and its only a couple aisles down..." so I head in the general direction checking in the aisles and round the corner and there they are. In front of the section of shelves stocked full of various brands is a guy, so I stand there for a second while he does whatever he's doing.
Then he abruptly stops what he's doing, wheels around and says in an irritated voice, "Can I help you?"
He's mid 40s, in jeans, and he has a jacket on, but he's wearing a blue shirt and has about 2 dozen sticks of deodorant in his cart so I figure he's an employee.
I tell him "Nope, just need to get behind ya for a second there."
He stares at me blankly for a minute and asks "Do I know you?"
"Don't think so..."
"Do you drive a truck?"
"Yeah."
"What does it look like?"
"Big... tan..."
"Over by XXXX (name of a park in front of my house)?"
"Yeah.... that one.... why?" At this point I'm getting a little suspicious.
"Have you been following me?"
[Eek3]"No sir. I have no idea who you are."
"I don't believe you. I think you're following me."
"Sir, I don't know who you are and I've never seen you before in my life."
"Then why have your friends been following me?"
"Sir, I don't know what you're talking about. If you don't mind, I'd like to get my deodorant and be on my way."
"I don't believe you. I think you're following me."
"You really think I'd be carrying around a 40lb bag of dog food on my shoulder if I was trying to follow you?"
"I dunno. Maybe. What's your name?"
"XXXXX"
"XXXXX what?"
"XXXXX XXXXXX. That's spelled X-X-X-X-X-X-X. Would you like me to write it down for you?"
"No I.... I think I can recall that. So why are your friends following me?"
"What do these friends of mine look like?"
Another blank stare, a "Just leave me alone OK?!" and he turns and walks away.
There was more to the conversation, but its a lot of repetitiveness and I don't remember it all exactly. And yes he's completely serious with all of this... one of those guys that you could tell something just wasn't right in his head.
So I find and grab the deodorant I like and walk out of the aisle. He'd apparently tried to go to the customer service counter, but they were closed, so he came back and turned into the big main front aisle right in front of me, heading the same direction I was, completely oblivious to me being there.
Great, he's gonna notice me at some point and then he'll really think I'm following him.
Then he turns around, and I tell him "I'm heading down there, all the way at the end. Not following you."
So we get in line (of course he goes to the same one I do), and he keeps looking over at me with these shady looks and then finally writes something down in a little notepad he had in his shirt pocket. I let a couple people pass in front of me hoping it'll put some distance between him and I in the parking lot. The lady I ended up behind just looked at me and made the "he's crazy" hand motion thing... said she heard the entire conversation earlier and that the guy is a freaking whacko. Yeah ya think lady? He finishes up with his purchase of a metric ton of deodorant sticks and leaves.
I get outside, SA turned up to max, and I see him loading up his car maybe 60m from the door. My car is a couple rows over from his, almost as far, and I have this big thing of dog food in my hands... great. So I head to my car, and he starts heading in my general direction. Maybe he's throwing something away or... I dunno, something. Nope, he's on a line to intercept me.
I shift my grip on the bag so that I could throw it at him easily and keep calmly heading to my car. He stops right in front of me and starts going on about how the gov't is following him, and he KNOWS it, be cause of some emails he sent a couple years ago about some corporations or something. Nutjob. I want to get to the car which is only about 15m away at this point, but I don't want him to see what I was driving, and I don't want to turn my back on him, so I keep saying stuff like "Sir, all due respect, but I really am not interested in why you think the government is following you, its none of my business and I'm gonna get going now." But he keeps going on and on about it with no sign of stopping so I just focus on checking my back regularly to make sure he isn't keeping me in conversation to have buddies sneak up behind me.
Finally he stops making noises with his mouth and starts walking away. I put the stuff in the trunk, get in the car, lock the doors, put my gun on my lap and my phone on the seat beside me. I start pulling out and... low and behold... he ends up in front of me at the stop sign out onto the street. Fawking great, he's seriously gonna think I'm following him... at least he won't call the cops or anything.
So there I am following him down the road and he starts slowing wayyyy down... I was going maybe 15 when I passed him. No blinkers or anything, pulls off to the right and then cuts left across all of the lanes into some alley way... presumably trying to outfox me and my team of evil black suits.
Then I drove home and that was that.
