If It Catches on Fire, Step Away

Weird stuff has been happening lately, since I lost my job.

I was told that someone, an employee I had trained near the beginning of the year, had attempted to forge my signature and use my name in an attempt to avoid violating his/her parole.  It seems that community service was a condition of the parole, and had not been done.  So the individual mocked up (poorly) a letter "from" me stating that he/she had done the required service.  The letter was a mess--the detective showed it to me so I could make a statement about the person in question.  It was the most entertaining thing that had happened since the commencement of my unemployment.  I was reminded how much I enjoy "stupid criminal" stories.

And I was busing up to my fiancee's house when a man ran in front of the bus to make it stop, thinking the driver would let him on.  He started screaming at the driver and banging on the bus' windshield, apparently complaining that the bus was early and should have waited at the stop it was trying to depart.  The lady driver, apparently not understanding the art of de-escalating a confrontation, proceeded to scream and curse back at him, inflaming the man's anger even more.  He refused to move, showing his back to the driver and leaning on the front of the bus.  He finally gave up, and probably wisely, before the driver though to call the police.

What a week!

An addendum to the first story above: the office manager at my old employer called me to let me know that the parolee in question actually called to speak to me, and wanted to advise me that he/she had used me "as a reference".  This makes the individual's judgement even poorer...because had someone called me the lie would have been found out for sure.  Wow!