The Ladies of the Harem of the Court of King Caracticus

Last night was an adventure, but the kind you wish never really happened. We went on visits to new girls in ye old Relief Society which are always very fun since I love hearing stories. It's rare that I get to be IN a story during said visits but this time, Sarah and I almost purposely inserted ourselves into one. One of the girls (hereafter refered to as A) we were going to visit had a bit of a strange living situation that we were not quite sure about from the get go. When we called A to schedule the visit, she invited us to come to dinner with her "roommate" who was according to A, a millionaire of middleeastern descent who, according to A, gave her money if she introduced him to pretty girls. She said she could use the extra cash and would we help her? Uh...can you read the headline now???...RS presidency caught in SL pimping scandal. Needless to say, According to ME, we did not have dinner with solicitous wealthy roommate. BUt we decided that it might be a good idea to check out the situation for ourselves since it sounded so very odd.

And so the adventure began...The house was certainly in a wealthy neighborhood and when A let us in, she mentioned that she was in the act of moving THAT night to a location in ogden to stay with one of the women that she had introduced to wealthy roommate. She said that roommate had a sick father who was being picked up from the airport that night and so she had to be out so that the sick father had a place to stay (odd because the house had like 5 bedrooms). We talked for a bit during which time A told us some fantastical stories about her life and experiences all of which were soooo very dramatic and a little unbelievable and I sat in a chair that was the mother of all massage chairs.

just as we were about to leave, roommate came out of his room. HE was way normal. Like stunningly normal and goodlooking and it suddenly became clear that he was actually kicking A out of his house, although he was trying to be moderately polite about it and that he thought we were there to help her move. Sarah and i offered our help and then hightailed it out of the very strange, awkward situation.

Later that evening after other visits..I realized to my horror that I had left my purse at the creepy house. The situation was grim- if my suspicions were correct, A who was a pathological liar who was moving to realms unknown in ogden had found my purse and picked it up, never to be seen again. OR A complete stranger (wealthy roommate)had it somewhere in his house and I only knew which house was his, but nothing else. So I made my friend come with me and we set out to stalk wealthy roommate and his sick father by sitting outside his house. After about 1 1/2 hours, a car pulled up and stopped suspiciously before turning into the driveway. I jumped out and went up to his window and it was obvious that he did not trust me. I explained that I had left the purse in his house (we knew it was in there because my friend had called it and we heard it ringing through the front door)and could I just run in and grab it. Note: there was no sick anybody in the car with wealthy roommate. Just a cute boy who was much less suspicious of me than WR. WR looked at me as though I had a secret bomb strapped to my chest but finally agreed to let me get my purse when I said that I didn't even really know A...that I was simply an innocent church-going girl who got sucked into her web of deceit (I forgot to mention to him that i was prone to fits of unmitigated drama). Turns out that WR hired A to keep house for him (and who knows what else...) but that it didn't really work out for a few reasons, mostly that she is pathological. Thus the sick dad story to remove the Kato Kailin of Salt Lake from his basement room.

I drove away with purse in hand thinking how very much like a weird Robert Altman film this whole experience turned out to be. Strange lives interconnecting in strange ways through odd characters. We really do live in a movie.