Exhibit B: The Creepy Cable Guy

(More evidence that my creepy house is haunted, and well....just creepy.)

The day after I moved in, the DirecTV guy arrived promptly (PROMPTLY!!) for his noon appointment to install a satellite dish and four receivers.  He showed up not in a big, white DirecTV van like I was expecting, but a 20+ year old brown van with a bashed in headlight and a spare tire on one of the rear wheels. 

Let me start by saying that I am not in the least bit afraid of "weirdos".  If you grew up in the neighborhood I grew up in, you'd understand why.  I'm generally trusting and unless I get a really weird vibe, I don't let a person's appearance dictate my opinion of them.  But this guy....this guy was effin' creepy!!!

Have you ever seen photographs of the freak that kidnapped Elizabeth Smart?  He looked JUST like him.  No joke, exactly like him.  He had scraggly, chin length hair, a dirt-smudged, leathery face, and hands and fingernails that were absolutely filthy.  His eyes were actually a pretty color, a very clear, pale blue.  But they seemed to look through me rather than at me, and there was definitely something not right behind them. 

Regardless, he was there to do a job and I was desperate to have my DirecTV installed before the new episode of Army Wives that night, so I invited him into my home with a smile, even though I felt very uneasy doing it.

I was incredibly thankful when, shortly after he arrived, my in-laws dropped by.  Without me saying a word, my mother-in-law whispered, "Oh my gosh, he looks like a serial killer!"  I nodded, trying to laugh it off.  My landlord, who came over to fix the shower, brought his 4-year-old little girl with him.  I kept her close to me while her dad worked, as I didn't want her winding up alone with the creepy guy.

But after my in-laws were done chit-chatting and tinkering, and after my landlord was done repairing and his daughter was done playing, it was just me and the creepy guy once again.  For the next eight hours.

EIGHT HOURS.  That's how long it took him to install the satellite dish and receivers.  Before he left, he asked me to give him all tens on his evaluation (yeah right!!!) and gave me his personal cell phone number in case of emergencies.  Satellite dish emergencies??

I watched as he pulled out of the driveway and disappeared into the night, and then locked and relocked every window and door in the house before going to bed.  The next day, my landlord came back over to check on his handy work and remarked, "Man...that cable guy was creepy.  Looked like a stalker or a kidnapper or something."  I laughed and agreed.  All day, I felt him watching me through the giant picture window in the living room.  I closed all the windows and all the blinds, even though I was enjoying the view and the breeze, and hunkered down on the couch with my eyes trained on the back yard, looking for signs of the murderous cable guy lurking among the trees.

I only took the dogs out when I was on the phone with my husband, rushing them both through their "business," which resulted me scrubbing puppy pee off the carpet multiple times that day.  I didn't care.  Puppy Pee vs. Crazed Maniac With A Pic Axe?  I'll take puppy pee every time.  I went about my routine of locking and relocking all the doors and windows before I went to bed.  When I got to the front door, the one we don't use because it sticks, I found it not only unlocked, but slightly open.

That solidified my fears.  I was officially being stalked by the creepy cable guy.  While a more reasonable explanation might have been that one of the boys tried to get the door open and gave up when they realized it really was as difficult as I told them it was, I would hear none of it.  It was him.  I know it.  

With my heart pounding, I grabbed the dogs' leashes to take them outside one last time.  I flipped on the porch light my landlord had just replaced a few weeks earlier.  Nothing happened.  It was burned out.  Freaking out, I turned on the tiny LED flashlight on my phone and took the dogs just to the edge of the driveway, scanning the pitch black woods with eyes that had not yet adjusted to the dark.

After a few minutes, we ran back inside.  I locked the door and stood with my phone in my hand and my mind racing as I calculated my next move.  I slowly, quietly, and very deliberately scoured the entire house for signs of the blue eyed intruder I just knew was hiding somewhere.  I looked in closets, behind doors....everywhere, until there was only one place left to look....the basement. 

My basement is scary during the daytime when you're not going down there for the sole purpose of searching for a serial killer.  So, as you can imagine, I was TERRIFIED as I slowly made my way down the stairs, my son's little league bat firmly in my grip.  Luckily, my basement is one large room and is pretty much empty and wide open, so it didn't take me long to verify that it was unoccupied.

As I hurried back up the stairs, I tried to ignore the small window leading to the crawl space under the addition on the back of the house.  That crawl space is big enough and creepy enough for all kinds of monsters and murderers to hide in.

I went to sleep that night sure that I was going to wake up in some abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere.  But the creepy cable dude didn't make his move that night.  I know he will, though.  He's out there somewhere, waiting....watching.  You can laugh if you want, but when I go missing.....it was Daryl from DirecTV.  Remember that.  That is all, my pretties.