Episode 48: Ned is the worst stalker I have ever met

Friday

Ned is the worst stalker I have ever met. Actually, I guess I haven’t met the good ones, really, because they’re that good. But, I digress. I’ve been seeing him everywhere: at the record store downtown, near the gym I go to, and on my ride home one night he’s parked a couple of blocks up the street from our house. Each time, he says the same thing: 

“Hey, what are you doing?”

I say what I say....

“Oh yeah,” he says. “I’m stalking you.” 

Ned would make a terrible spy: he thinks that people can't see him if he's wearing sunglasses. He’s the opposite of covert. On one of our several milk-crate “liberating” expeditions on campus, he announces that if we get busted, he’s going to say that he doesn’t “speak-ah dee Eenglish.” And he says it like that, intending to sound like he’s got a thick Cantonese accent. Instead, he sounds Spanish. 

“How is it possible,” I say, “that I can do a better Cantonese accent than you, and you grew up in a   Cantonese-speaking house?”

“Fine,” he says. “If we get caught, I won’t say anything. I’ll just run away.” 

“How?” I say. “Your tendon is screwed.” As I say this, I reflect that the next time Ned sees me, he might actually try to run me over. I am surprised that he hasn’t already. I think that the only thing keeping me alive these days is that he needs me to be his milk-crate mule, aka jackass.