On having totally lost my mind.

It cannot possibly have been two-and-a-half weeks since the last time I posted on this site!

Let's see—there was a four-day incredibly stressful period in North Carolina, then a Saturday party to attend, then the Mt. Carmel Italian Festival, then a week of crazy shopping and sewing to get ready for a Saturday night wedding, then a Sunday baseball game, then a week filled with work. And through it all, the weather has been MIZ.ER.UH.BULL. Hot, humid, miserable.

I'll tell you about all that stuff another time. Right now I want to share that I have totally lost my mind.

Last Monday afternoon I met up with my boss down at the Lemon Grove to discuss a couple of projects. If you don't hang out in these parts, the Lemon Grove is an eclectic little café/restaurant/bar that's situated on West Federal in the heart of downtown Youngstown. It's the go-to place for air conditioning and free wi-fi, accompanied by a cup of whatever.

At the conclusion of our meeting, I walked out the front door and turned left to walk back to my car, parked a block away. And suddenly I heard a whacking sound. I couldn't imagine what was making such a whacking sound so, ever curious, I glanced around. Across the street I saw a 20-something or 30-something man in a white T-shirt and a black cap of some sort (were those really sequins?!). Nearby stood a younger-looking woman in a purple shirt. The man was holding what appeared to be a bullwhip, with which he was whacking away at the lush plants in one of the beautiful planters that line West Federal. (See the gorgeous planter on the left of the photo above? Those are the planters that have been installed on West Federal.)

I was instantly irate. So many people are working so hard to make and keep Youngstown beautiful. How dare he destroy public property like that. And, without a second thought, I started yelling at him. "Hey!" I used my loudest, most stage-projection voice. "What do you think you're doing?" "QUIT IT!!"

I had paused for a moment, and when I saw him glance across the street at me (and cease whipping the beautiful plant), I continued walking back toward my car. As I approached the side street, I started chiding myself. "Are you out of your ever-loving mind?" What was going to prevent this man for following me and using his bullwhip on me?

I scurried back to my car as quickly as possible, looking all around me, surreptitiously glancing over my shoulder to see if he was coming after me. He wasn't, and he had not resumed his whacking.

I quickly opened my car door, got in and relocked the door. Then I picked up my phone and started searching for the police non-emergency number—which was, by the way, not easy to find! I started driving down the street, toward where I last saw him, so I could sic the police on him. I saw him turn, cross West Federal, then begin walking north on the side street I had earlier crossed. He was followed at a short distance by the young woman.

I went to the next block, circled around that block to the south so I could come up the side street behind him. All the while, I was trying to watch for a police cruiser and trying to search for the phone number. I noticed him turn left and walk across the parking lot toward the DeYor Center. Now, as I watched him walk, it was clear—even to naive little me—that he was drunk or high out of his mind. He could hardly walk.

I pulled into the parking lot of the jail, turned around and drove back toward the DeYor. I pulled over to go onto the city's website to find the phone number. Once I had it, I dialed, as I pulled out and continued driving, turning to go past the DeYor Center and in front of the bus station, where he now was standing. The bullwhip turned out to be a belt, but still a device capable of whipping a poor unsuspecting plant, or my naive butt!

I finally got ahold of someone at the police department, told them what I had observed and where he was, and asked them to follow up.

Then I drove home. As I drove up Fifth Avenue, I kept just shaking my head. I've never done anything so outrageous in my entire life! What has come over me, in my old age, that I would burst out of my non-confrontational shell and yell at someone with the ability (and maybe the gun tucked in his back pocket) to do serious bodily harm to me?!

I don't think there's a moral to this story.

However, I did store the police non-emergency number in my contacts, for the next time I pop out of my shell and need to rat out some other drunk careening around West Federal!