I'm guessing y'all are thinking, "Hmm, Guapo's life seems kinda boring. I guess not much goes on in his life." It's true sometimes I go through long periods of time without having anything interesting happen to me. Yes, even someone like El Guapo lives the life of an average American from time to time. But I kind of prefer it that way sometimes because the alternative would be going through another "Raynesha" experience. Sometimes I'll reference Raynesha and some people have no idea what I'm talking about. Well, I'm about to tell you the story of Raynesha. I still have nightmares about her but I do this because I love you guys.
This took place March of 2012. Basically a year ago. I have a friend who makes hardcore music and he invited me to one of his shows in Castro Valley. I'm not a fan of that type of music but I came out to support my friend. (How sweet of me!) The event was called the Burrito Bro-Down. Let me just say this: If the title of the event is Burrito Bro-Down I can only assume that the burrito comes along with the price of admission. No! That was not the case. I had to pay for admission AND for my burrito. I basically bought one burrito for the price of two. And it's not like it was one of the best burritos I've ever had. My mind wasn't blown away by the tastiness of the burrito.
The route from Castro Valley to Oakland is the 580 freeway. (The better of the two freeways that run through Oakland.) When you reach Oakland you start in Deep East Oakland and make your way towards West Oakland. This is just some information in case you need a reference point. So we are on the freeway and I'm asking the lady some questions to make small talk. The lady's name was Raynesha and spoiler alert, she's a fucking weirdo. So the first thing I learned is that she got to the show by taking a bus and walking to the venue. That's a long ass commute for a local show. And she rambles on about how she does this a lot by herself. In fact, she does a lot of things by herself like going to the movies and going to the park and so on. Apparently she invites her friends and they always say no. She's also 29 and living with her parents because her parents don't want her to be out on her own. The more she goes on the more sorry I feel for her.
Those feelings of compassion don't last very long. When we reach the Oakland city limits I tell her to let me know when we reach her exit. She glosses over that and notices that I have The Chronic playing in my car and begins to describe frame by frame what happens in the "Dre Day" music video. I've seen the music video and what she was describing was nothing like the video. At this point I'm also noticing that she's speaking really very slowly and oddly. She would say things like, "And then... they see... they see the guy... and then the guy... he walks that way..." I could only assume she was either on drugs or something so I ask her. She replies by saying, "Do... Do I look... like I'm on... on drugs?" Yes. Yes, she did look like she was on drugs but I wasn't about to say shit because at this point I was kind of scared of her. Especially after she told me loves to watch documentaries about serial killers and keeps a journal about her favorite ones. And when I say "favorite ones" I'm not talking about documentaries, I'm talking about serial killers.
I'm getting kind of freaked out at this point and I've realized that we are almost leaving East Oakland and getting closer to downtown. I point this out to Raynesha and she tells me to get off at the next random exit. From there she just points to streets for me to turn on, dropping little nuggets of information in between the directions such as how her parents were racist towards Hispanics and would kill me on sight. These aren't things you tell to a person giving you a ride to make them feel comfortable. I'm debating in my mind if I should drop her off at a corner or something because I'm fearing for my life. Plus, it didn't seem like she knew where she lived. I decided against it and eventually we did get to her place. Now, we exited the freeway close to downtown. Her house was all the way back by the colosseum. We had passed that freeway exit maybe 12 exits before. So we get to her place and it's in a pretty bad neighborhood, worse than mine maybe. She goes on to thank me for being such a nice guy for giving her a ride and I'm just trying to get her to leave my car so I can get out of there. But first she has to check her purse to make sure she has everything. She's fumbling through her bag very slowly so immediately I'm thinking I'm about to get jacked. I start praying in my mind but it was unneeded because she wasn't going to rob me. She finally exits my car and I book it. I head home just thanking God that I will never have to see or hear that person ever again.
Wrong! She gets my number and starts texting me and calling me. When she texts she uses numbers in place of letters. For example instead of "What's up" she texted "Wut5 u6". First of all, she's 29 and she's texting like a 6th grader from Oakland. Second, it's extremely inconvenient to write like that so she's going out of her way to text badly. Naturally I ignore her calls and texts in hopes that after a few days she gets the point and leaves me alone. That doesn't happen. (My assumptions are usually pretty off.) Weeks go by and then months go by with me receiving either a call or a text from this psycho almost everyday. And this is happening at the same time that the religious cult-like club from Chabot was harassing me and trying to save my soul. (Another story for another time.) Finally one summer afternoon she left a voice-mail for the first time saying something about how she's looking for me and that she will find me eventually. I think that was the last time she tried contacting me and that was five months after I met her. So is the Ballad of Raynesha over? Right now, I'd like to think so. But I've been wrong before.
So that's the story of Raynesha. I hope nothing like that ever happens to any of you. The obvious moral or the story is if you ever feel like doing something nice for a stranger, don't. Like my mom always told me, "Stranger Danger." She also told me that if I took candy from a stranger and he kidnapped me that she wouldn't look for me. So next Saturday is my 20th birthday! Yeah, the Guaps will have been alive for two decades. Basically a 20th birthday starts the one year countdown until the 21st birthday so I'm excited for that. Don't feel like you guys need to get me anything. You reading my wonderful blog is enough. However if you really feel like giving me a present you could tell all your friends to check out this blog. The next time your friend is rambling on about how her mom is in the hospital after some car accident causally slip in a "Check out guapoknowsall.blogspot.com". Have a great and Guapo St. Patty's Day and and enjoy the rest of your week. Stay Guapo out there!
