I used to live in the Village of Hickory Ridge in Columbia — the neighborhood of Clemen’s Crossing, actually. In the neighborhood of Hawthorne was an oddly named street – Satan Wood Drive. I always thought that was kind of weird, but I certainly didn’t think that the naming was a mistake, or that people get all freaky living there …

(Also, I guess it was a slow news day at the Baltimore Sun)

Residents have adopted a variety of coping mechanisms. A priest who lives on the street sprinkles holy water around his house each year. Another man obscures the name by giving it a French pronunciation. Others simply call it S Street…

Then Sandy called to order drapes from J.C. Penney. She spelled out the address for delivery, and the saleswoman dropped the phone.

“When she finally got back on the phone,” Sandy recalled, “she said, ‘You won’t believe this, your order number is 666.’”

There are other stories as you go down the row of houses. And jokes:

“You think you have it bad, this guy lives in hell.”

“Well, I guess I should finally pay you back” (the street having frozen over)…

As if to counteract its sinister name, the street has attracted a number of ministers. There is Johnson, an associate priest at the Orthodox Church of St. Matthew in Columbia, who sprinkles holy water through his house every year. Until recently, a Methodist minister lived a few houses down. A third minister has one of the street’s two signs planted in his front yard….

The first three numbers of my home phone number? 666.

But you don’t see me sprinkling holy water through my apartment.

It was just a very strange night. Every two weeks or so, one of us drivers usually has a crazy story to tell – a woman answers the door nude; or we get a $50 tip on a ten buck pizza; or a three headed dog bites our leg.

Tonight everyone had a story, names changed to protect the guilty.

* Apu was headed south on Jarrettsville Pike after a delivery. Just before he hit the Baltimore County line, a truck sped past him. If you’re not familar with it, Jarrettsville Pike is a two lane road, and heavily traveled, especially at 5:30 on a Friday night. So while Apu is barreling down at sixty, this jackass is doing at least eighty (if not more). He jumps into the oncoming traffic’s lane to scoot past Apu, jumps back into the correct lane … hits a patch of ice … and you’ve probably guessed it by this point, but they were still cleaning it up four hours later. I didn’t see it, but Apu told me that he would be surprised if the driver was still alive.

* Aldrin took a delivery to Carroll Road when a passenger jet – a big one – came past so low he said “I could’ve hit the fuckin’ thing with a rock, if I’d had one, which of course I didn’t.” There’s no airport for a plane that big within twenty miles, and I doubt Osama Bin Laden really wants to bomb Baltimore County.

* In our parking lot, we have customers who like to apply the “our car deserves two parking spaces” rule. The Magistrate came back from a delivery, found a car taking two spots, said fuck it, and parked his car (properly) in one of the two spots the offending car was trying to take. This of course meant that the car’s owners stormed into the shop demanding he move it. He told them he’d be out in a minute when his deliveries were out of the oven.

Silly Magistrate left his keys in the car, and Owner Husband got in and started moving it, and Magistrate walked out of the store cursing up a storm. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU FUCKING THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

A great swearing match was to be heard at all corners of the parking lot, and ended when the “we can’t park” couple tore out of the lot in their car, the woman screaming, “Screw you asshole!” No, screw you, cunt. Y’know, if this was Texas, and Magistrate carried a piece, he probably could’ve shot the husband when he was trying to move the car, and gotten away with it. Sometimes Maryland sucks that way.

* As for me, I was east bound on Sweet Air Road when the truck in front of me ran over a dog. Not a tiny lap poodle dog, but a good sized retriever-ish dog. I don’t know that the dog was a retriever, just that it was about that size, and besides I had more important things to do than make a canine inspection, like some crazy swerving to avoid a) the truck which then came to a screeching halt b) the pieces of dog and c) oncoming traffic. This should be a lesson as to why you should never let your dog run free unless you have a fenced in yard.

I think I’ll have my appetite back by January.