Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Human Trafficker


So there was this post on craigslist and this guy, we'll call him Bubba, was selling a ton of stuff for the low. My husband and I decided to go check out what Bubba had to offer. We get there and I was a little concerned because it was late and Bubba stayed in a house tucked deep down this dark road. We joked that Bubba might be a psychopath killer and then I thought, "This is how horror movies start out", so I looked around the car for a weapon I could hide on my person and use if I needed to. Well, of course, we had cleaned the car out before we left so we would have room for the stuff we planned to buy and all I could find was a cross in my glove box and decided to just roll with that.

When we pulled up, hubby went to the door to check and make sure everything was okay and he motioned me to come on in. So Bubba introduced himself to us and he seemed to be your average middle aged white guy who liked to talk. He showed us all of his antiques that he had for sale which were pretty neat. Bubba said that he and his wife just divorced and he was selling his house and everything in it and was moving to Thailand. Apparently, most of his antiques came from overseas. He showed us dressers and plate sets from England, vases from China, and sculptures from Africa. Bubba then took us upstairs and began to show us animal hides. It was very strange because he wanted us to guess what animal each hide came from. Bubba took an incredible amount of joy in perplexing us when he showed us the kangaroo hide that we clearly couldn't figure out. He then showed us a kangaroo jacket that he purchased in Austrailia for $600.

At that point I interjected and told Bubba that we were more interested in the yard tools so he took us to the garage. Instead of showing us the tools, he showed us more hides and, you guessed it, he wanted us to continue playing the guessing game with him. Bubba then picked up this ratty piece of hide and told us it was a leopard skin and that, "It is soooo illegal to have this. I'm not even going to play around with selling it." Hubby and I were like, whatever dude, just show us the tools.

Instead of getting to the tools Bubba tells us this story about this bear skin rug he had with the head and claws still in tact. He told us that he sold it one year at a garage sale he had for about $75. Apparently it had changed hands a few times (it was worth several thousand) and finally ended up in the hands of the law. The cops showed up to arrest him and he had to prove that the bear belonged to his father and had died of natural causes thirty years prior.

So we feigned interest so we could finally get to the tools and, while we were looking at them, Bubba starts talking about how cops are pigs and how PETA outlaws a lot of cool stuff. He goes on to tell us about things he has on video that wouldn't believe like elephants playing soccer and monkeys wearing tutus twirling umbrellas and all kinds of weird stuff.

So FINALLY we are about to leave with our purchases and this lady (we'll call her "The Scream Mask" because that's what she looked like) walks out of the house (I guess she was living inside one of those closets because jabber jaws Bubba gave us the full tour of his house) with her head hanging down. Bubba didn't reference her by name he just said that "The Scream Mask" was from Indonesia and came with the house. We just laughed like we did at all of his other corny jokes like it was no big deal. Bubba responded by saying, "No, I'm serious. You know, human trafficking? She cooks and cleans and she really does come with the house."

On that note, we told him we were really tired and had to leave. I guess he had The Scream Mask living in one of those closets. Creepy!