You know how your mirror fogs up when you take a shower and you can write messages on there when you get out?  And then next time you take a shower the message is there?

It's a great way to remind yourself about something.  Or leave love letters.  Or whatever.

The next time I take a shower at someone's house, I'm going to write "I take showers here when you aren't home".
Because holy crap.  How scary would that be?

I'm thinking that whoever it was that let me shower at their house wouldn't ever suspect little old me of doing something like that.

Funny thing (that really isn't funny at all but it's a great story so I'll tell it here) is, it happens.

I had a client a million years ago when I worked in transitional housing aftercare who had a son who kept telling her about the man in her closet.

The boy was three.  If you know anything about three year olds (and wow do I know things about three year olds) is that they will do anything in their power to get you to stay with them at night or let them stay up all night.  Anything.

Anything.

So, knowing something about three year olds as this lady did, she told him to go to bed.
Same thing, every night.

Mama, that man is in there again.
Mama, that man told me a bedtime story.
Mama, that man sang me to sleep.
Mama, that man said it's so cold that he has to sleep in my room tonight.  Can I sleep in yours?

Go back to bed.
Stop telling stories.
There is no one in your room.
You can't sleep in mine.

Sounds a lot like what goes on in my own house, now that I think about it.  Except for the man part.

Looking at this story at face value, through clinical eyes, you would say that she was doing the right thing and it was probably just a passing phase and a byproduct of what they've recently been through.  Looking at this story through non-clinical eyes, you would say that she's just a crazy homeless person and her son is just as nuts.  She loses either way.

The lady, let's call her Molly McButter.  Her name was not Molly McButter, but it was equally as Irish.
The boy, let's call him Mohammad.  Because that was his name.  Mohammad Mustafa Khalil McButter.
Molly didn't give Mohammad his father's last name because his father wouldn't marry her.  Molly's mom didn't give Molly her father's last name because her father wouldn't marry her mother.
It was tradition.
A solid family tradition.

All Molly wanted for herself and her son was a solid family.  With traditions.

Molly landed herself homeless in a roundabout way.  She was a single mom, working somewhere officey as a front desk girl.  She had a nice house close to downtown.  A college degree.  A beautiful son (who refused to play anything but Pretty Pretty Princess and Beauty Salon, but that's another story.  He also ate deodorant by the stickful.  Whatever.).  Molly had it all.

Including a motorcycle.

Which crashed one day, leaving Molly in a coma for six months.  She lost her job, her house, her stuff.
Her mother took in Mohammad, but wouldn't take Molly in when she got better.

See now, Molly's mom is Southern Baptist to the extreme.  A woman so darkskinned she is practically purple.  So holy that she oozes spirit.  A woman who wraps herself to the hilt in rich royal blues and emeralds and scarlets.  Molly's mom looks like a ripe, juicy cocoon.  A very tall and slender cocoon. Her headwrap makes her well over six feet tall.
She also dabbles in what she calls "The Ways of the South".
She is a horrifically delicious mix of Jesus and Voodoo and I think she put a spell on me because I can't forget anything about her. 
Molly's daddy is a Jewish stockbroker.  Real high powered stuff.  Gucci loafers and BMWs that you can't just buy, you have to know someone who knows someone who knows how to special order BMWs.  He is teensy tiny roly poly pasty white.
He looks like a grub.

Molly's daddy wouldn't take her in either.

It's because Molly went and got herself involved with the Iz Lambs.

That's how her mom said it.
"Now Mollychild", she would say, "maybe if you just gave up runnin' 'round with them Iz Lambs we could shake the Jesus back inta you and you could just up and come on home, now.  Change the boy's name and get on witha normal life, now".

Her dad just shook his head and wrote her checks and wanted nothing to do with anything but her bank account.  He gave her enough to go to college, he gave her enough so she could get by, but he refused to acknowledge his grandson and his daughter's new faith and wanted to make sure she knew that by letting her stay (technically) homeless.

So, once she came out of her coma, Molly got herself settled into some good old fashioned Philadelphia Housing Authority property.  It wasn't bad, actually.  It was nice.  It was in one of the Korman buildings.  I love that because most people who live there are traveling professionals who need temporary furnished housing while they do something big and important and expensive here in Philadelphia.  Little do they know, some of their neighbors are just cleaned up homeless people.  Suckers!!

The particular building Molly was living in was a free-standing apartment house.  There were eight or so units in there, and if you could get yourself in the basement you could climb a service ladder that lead to the access panels in each apartment and it just so happened that the access panel in Molly's place was in Mohammad's closet.

Molly came home from work late one morning (she got herself a new job once she started feeling better) because she had forgotten to bring something with her and there was the Boogey Man, standing in her bathroom, her towel around his waist, her toothbrush in his mouth, and her brush stuck squarely in his hair.

Oh the horror.
Can you imagine?

Everything turned out okay.  She backed out of the place and ran to the neighbor's house to call 911.  Mohammad identified the guy in a picture line up.  They found a busted window in the basement and a duffel full of his things.  Mohammad was little enough that he just kinda forgot about it.  Molly was okay after some extensive therapy, which she probably needed anyway.

But there was a man, in her apartment, using her things, taking showers in there when she wasn't home.

Holy crap.  How scary would that be?