24 Years Ago - Stalking Memories & Raspberry Kimonoes

The twisted tale of the past couple weeks of the thwarted perusal of Gavin Newsom by Han Shin, the much scrutinized photo of them with His Honor wearing a raspberry kimono and Sup. Dufty's characterization of the alleged stalker as "a cross between Liberace and Hello Kitty" brought back some bittersweet memories.

Back in the period of 1983 to 1985, Junk Thief was the object of at least two stalkers of varying levels of mystery. One called Junk Thief's home regularly, giving an actual name and pleading to hook up, claiming to be a former neighbor. Repeated refusals of the offer did not deter him. It went from annoying to creepy when he proceeded to describe what I was wearing and where I was standing in my living room, visible from the eight-foot glass windows nine stories down. For no apparent reason, the almost nightly calls ceased for six months, would return for a week or so and finally disappeared.

Around the same time, a female friend (I won't use the FH word for fear of linking her to Ann Coulter) in the top image where she is wearing her ever popular bee keeper uniform was being pursued by a married municpal employee. She caroused my involvement by calling the guy to tell him to stop. Although it encouraged him to give up on annoying her, he proceeded with a series of "I gonna getcha" calls and carved his name into the fender of my car. Not a great idea to leave your signature when vandalizing property. By coincidence, I met him on a work related assignment with my job as a newspaper editor, and we both seemed to be a bit surprised by the dramatic disparity in our mutual physical statures -- he was at least seven inches shorter than I. Though I am pretty much a total wimp, I sometimes under estimate how I am perceived by men smaller than I, even banty rooster types such as him.

Oh, and around the same time I did a series of stories about a sex scandal within an evangelical church (why do they never happen with Unitarians? Oh, right, Birkenstocks aren't too sexy). Anyway, I got a series of calls from unidentified members who promised to expose me as a faggot and Nazi. And then it advanced to "gonna getcha" and even death threats. Maybe it goes back to my dad's teachings of the best way to diffuse a bully is to ignore them. So I usually responded to the "Gonna kick your ass, faggot" calls with "Fine, could you give me a time range on that and your name so I can plan my day." Those calls never amounted to anything.

And THEN, I went on a date with a guy who revealed just after kissing me goodnight that he was in a long-term relationship. Oh, great. I called it off and never had a second date, but his significant other (I finally gathered after details that crept up in the calls) phoned me at work and home off and one for nearly 18 months. This little queen's violent banter was even more threatening than the evangelicals. And he just as mysteriously would disappear or reappear, and then he stopped.

Then, two years later, his mother came to work at the same place as I. Shortly after she became irate with her supervisor (whom I had huge conflicts as well), the supervisor started getting threatening calls from an unknown male who used the exact lines that my mystery caller sent.

I never got any snapshots from the waste down or pink kimonoes, but, ah, the memories of being stalked. One of the advantages of rotting away into my dottage is that the risk of being the object of an inappropriate obsession diminshes daily.