True Story©… You Got Serb’d!

 

     I have been working from home since March 19^nd, 2020.  According to a designation I signed off on in January, that has gone from an indefinite designation to a permanent one.
While it was still in “indefinite” status, I treated my working-from-home privileges with kid gloves.  This means I never log in late, I work sick if I have to and I do my damned job WILDLY efficiently.  To make a long story short I have my dogs, I can listen to podcasts and music on my speaker and not a pair of earbuds, my house has rarely been cleaner and my yard has never looked better.  I don’t like people enough to have to deal with them every day.

     What that also means is that for that time, I operated with absolute PROTECTION of my work from home designation.  I insist on working in a front room with the blinds open so I can see when someone is coming.  This allows me to waive them off with an “I’m on the clock” warning without having to deal with the kind of people who walk neighborhoods and knock on doors in the middle of the day.  AT&T salespeople, Jehovah’s Witnesses at the old house, Mormons at this one (yes, I live in a black neighborhood), people scamming solar panels, etc…  Anyone who might come to my door unexpected will learn full well they will have to deal with my dogs when doing so, as I am not putting them up either.  The possibility of letting Yeti out tends to dissuade people from even staying on the porch once they have seen him.

(... because he is large)

     So back in February, I am here at the desk.  Wife Person™ is away teaching you peoples’ bad-ass kids, my daughter is at school herself.  Just me and the boys in the house on a random Tuesday.  I go upstairs for a coffee refresh and the dogs – even the big one – start barking.  If anyone knows anything about the general dynamic and personalities of my dogs it is that the little guys will bark if one of the orioles in my front yard farts.  For big man to get excited, there needs to be a larger animal or a human being out there.  I look out the front blinds and see two random white people dressed alike walking up the street perpendicular to mine.

I text my next door neighbor “If these white people knocking on doors interrupt my work day, I’m ruining lives.”  She replies with an eyeroll emoji.

     After coming off of the street facing ours, they went down the block to the right and then back up our side of the street.  Naturally, they make it to my front door roughly about 45 minutes later.  Not to let the two of you in on more than what you need to know about me, but 45ish minutes is an ETERNITY for someone with an imagination and connections such as my own.
They got to my door and rang the bell…

Me: “I’m on the clock…  Make this quick!”

Salesperson: “Do you own or rent?”

Me: “Own, why?”

Salesperson: “Well we’re going through the neighborhood looking to assist homeowners lower their bills with solar.”

Me: “Now is a bad time, I am working.”

Salesperson: “Well maybe we could schedule a better time for you?”

Me: “Probably, but probably not.”

Salesperson: “There’s always time to save money.”

Me: “Well then come back at 12, that is my lunch hour.”

     They obliged and walked on down the street…  45 minutes later, they were back…

Salesperson: “Look…  We’re not trying to sell you anything though.  Do you happen to know in general about where your credit score stands?”

Me: “Of course I do, but why do you need to know that if you’re not selling me anything?”

Salesperson: “Well, in order to--…”

Me: “Have you ever heard of how the weather in Macedonia is in the summer?”

Salesperson: “Macedonia?  Does that even exist anym--…”

Me: “HOLY SHIT, WHAT’S THAT?!!?”

Salesperson: “Huh?”

     In JUST that moment, three people in an unmarked white panel converged on my driveway and grabbed the salespeople and threw them into it.  They never saw it coming.  The fact that we had this conversation in the plain view of both my and my neighbor’s doorbell camera gave me plausible innocence.
Speaking of my neighbor?  She texts me…

Neighbor Person®: “What the fuck was that!?”

Me: “Supervillain shit.”

Neighbor Person®: “What happened, though?”

Me: “I knew they were coming…  I told you I was gonna fix it.”

Neighbor Person®: “Yeah, but how?”

I will tell you, dear readers, what I told her…

     When I saw them coming down the street, I contacted The Syndicate from back in the Supervillain vs Supervillain accords using Moe’s burner phone.  Once on with them I asked if they had any ready-to-go identities from some, like, war-torn former Serbian country to assign someone in a quick pinch.  Given the number of people their organization simply disappears without a trace, of course they did.  This would only be the beginning…

     With the offending solicitors now in the hands of a support team in an undisclosed location, their clothes were taken and two similarly-sized people dressed as them – masked up but with nametags still in plain view – came back to the neighborhood and took THEIR car to go and ostensibly be seen on camera robbing the Wells Fargo, Truist and Credit Union around the corner from my house in fast sequence.  We’re dealing with an international crime syndicate here, they pulled these heists off as smooth as an episode of The Blacklist.  While the heists were being completed, The Syndicate was busy using their network to quickly delete references to their captives’ legitimate identities and replace them with the stolen Macedonian ones.  This made them appear, on the surface, to be (now-) criminal  undocumented immigrants on the run.  Once the news of the robberies hit the local news, they cut them loose.

     Now free of their captors, they IMMEDIATELY ran to the local authorities unaware that they were (now) Serbian bank robbers.  With a cock-and-bull sounding story about being kidnapped and stripped only to be re-dressed in the following hours and simply cut loose with no explanation--… 

Right, the police came to my fuckin’ house the next day.

Detective: “What can you tell us about the day they were picked up?”

Me: “I can tell you they knocked on my door and I told them to sod off because I was working.”

Detective: “And they say they came back.”

Me: “They were high-pressuring me, so I needed them to come back on my lunch so I could escalate ‘sod off’ to a proper ‘fuck off,’ but then--…”

Detective: “Then what?”

Me: “Damnedest thing happened.  A kidnap van pulls up and yoinks them right off of my steps.”

Detective: “What’d you do?”

Me: “I ate my lunch, I went back downstairs and did my fuckin’ job!”

Detective: “You didn’t call 9-1-1?”

Me: “And get myself picked up next?  Shiiiiiid!”

Detective: “And this all happened right here on your front porch?”

Me: “Yep!”

Detective: “I see you have the doorbell camera, does it record?”

Me: “Everything that gets as close as the bottom step and until 30 seconds after they’ve moved out of it.”

Detective: “Do you have access to it?  Like to send to me?”

Me: “Sure, what’s your email?  I’ll send it right now.”

Detective: “It’s ‘piggymcpigface@fuckdapolice.com’  Thanks”

Me: “You got it…  Good luck!”

     I sent him the video complete with clear audio showing me clearly trying to get OUT of any conversation with them when the van came down the street in plain view of the camera and snapped them up.
… I was done dealing with the authorities.

     Watching the news, I realized that I ALWAYS want to remain in The Syndicate’s good graces.  They had managed to scare or turn these peoples’ FAMILIES on them, scrub their entire lives in America and replace them with two people who had allegedly fled Macedonia in the 90’s and were presumed missing or dead during that trip but had apparently reappeared as these criminals.  A spate of other crimes through the years were quickly attributed to these door-to-door salespeople.

I be telling people to leave me the hell alone while I am trying to enjoy my work-from-home life.

     With the somehow airtight preponderance of evidence against them in even just the bank robberies, they were quickly tried and railroaded through the system and just as quickly deported to what is now known as The Republic of North Macedonia, where I sincerely hope they can quickly learn to speak the language(s) and reconnect with whatever remains of their new identities' long-estranged families that may or not remain after the wars.  Maybe they might even score themselves a Yugo!

    Maybe they'll somehow clear their names and make it back to the States and learn not to knock on my fuckin' door.