It's that goddam Loch Ness monster

One of the best South Park skits/jokes I can remember is the one about the Loch Ness monster and him always asking for $3.50--pronounced tree fitty.  For reference:


TREE FITTY!

JsE | MySpace Video


Genius.

Last night--and I swear this would only happen in New York--I got a visit from the Loch Ness monster himself.  Let me explain.

Last night around 9pm I was on the couch watching TV in my PJs waiting for Wifey to come home from a long night at the office.  Suddenly, someone buzzed the intercom.  Wifey has her own keys, but sometimes when one of us is home we get lazy and buzz the bell instead of whipping out the keys.  Since I hadn't heard from Wifey in a while I assumed it might be her--although it would have been weird for her to leave the office and not tell me.

I answered the intercom and it is most definitely not Wifey.  It's some guy saying that he's Pete (or John or somebody) and that he lives next door.  There does happen to be one guy that lives on my floor that I don't remember his name and I figured it was him and he had locked himself out.  So I buzzed him in and thought that was the end of it.

Well, this dude comes into the building, comes up to my apartment and knocks on the door.  Figuring it's the dude from down the hall.  Turns out it most definitely is not the dude from down the hall.  And from this guy's appearance he doesn't even look like he lives in the building.

He introduces himself and says that he lives in the building next door.  He proceeds to tell me that his daughter has suffered an accident and has a collapsed lung and that he needs to buy her a nebulizer and some sort of prescription drug.  Even though he tried running his credit card to buy it the card was declined or didn't go through.  So he has to buy these things in cash and needs $38 to buy them.  He said he would repay me as soon as possible, but that he needed cash right now.

At this point, there already seem to be gaping holes in his story.  A collapsed lung sounds extremely serious--why wouldn't this girl be in a hospital?  And for $38 wouldn't you turn to a familiar neighbor or a friend or a relative or a co-worker?  I was obviously not convinced.  It didn't help that I had never seen the guy before.  I was expecting to see this guy to shake off his man costume and reveal himself as that goddam Loch Ness monster.  And this Nessie was marked up to match the market!

My next door neighbor pops his head after hearing the conversation through the walls.  Apparently this guy had buzzed every bell in the building in order to get in.  He puts on his suspicious face when he hears this guy's spiel--which only convinced me more to get out of this situation fast.

To prove who he is this guy shows me his driver's license.  It's for an address in the Bronx.  How are you proving that you're my neighbor--in Queens--if the license you show me is registered in the Bronx?  He says he drives for the city and that it's a commercial license (that is true, it's written across the top) and that for commercial licenses they are registered under where you work and that he works out of the Bronx.

I told him politely that I had no way of knowing that he was really my neighbor, really in need of the money, or really going to pay me back.  He "ok, that's fine, God Bless" with a tinge of guilt laced through his words.  Let me tell you, I'm Catholic enough to know when you mean "God Bless" and when you mean "fuck you."  This guy meant the latter.

As he turned around to the elevator I swear I saw his prehistoric tail poking out from the leg of his pants.