EVERGREEN – At about dinner time on Nov. 8, a deputy rushed to the Main Street bistro to remove an obnoxious presence in the dining room. Although the pernicious patron fled just before the officer arrived, a woman on the scene gave the following account. A middle-aged fellow in a sleeveless orange T-shirt had come into the restaurant and started going from table to table advising hapless customers to “(funk) off” and inviting them to tuck his flapping shirt-waist into his pants for him. After working up an appetite in this way, he loudly commanded the owner to serve him the “best steak in town” or he’d “own your restaurant.” Asked to leave, he got into a blue Ford pickup and roared away down the canyon to the Black Hat Cattle Co. in Kittredge, where he went inside and announced that he was “Jesus.” Then he headed for the little savior’s room, which is where the deputy finally caught up with him. “I ain’t (funking) talking to authority,” the man declared. “I have a problem with authority.” Due to his “problem with authority,” the officer had to handcuff the belligerent fellow before escorting him to the parking lot, where he admitted making a bit of a stir around town, but promised he’d be on his best behavior from now on. Satisfied with his contrition, the officer let him go and closed the case…

It took just a few seconds for the North Turkey Creek Road resident to determine that the person who called on the afternoon of Oct. 1 was neither friend nor relation. “No, thank you, we’re not interested” she told the telemarketer. Her admirable civility was apparently lost on the pesky peddler, who immediately called back and got the woman’s husband. “Your wife hung up on me,” he explained, only to be politely brushed off once more. Throwing his copy of “Willy Loman’s Sure-Fire Guide to Closing the Deal” out the window, he called back again: “You’re a tough guy and your wife’s a slut.” And again: “I’m going to come over and slap your wife around.” In fact, he called at least six separate times in less than 45 minutes, prompting the “tough guy” to call for back up. The responding deputy suggested the couple drop a line to the phone company about setting a “phone trap” for the truculent telemarketer.

Bills are a bummer, but the ominous little missive a Red Cloud Drive woman found tucked inside her mailbox one recent morning makes a Final Warning notice from Excel look like a mash letter by comparison. Neatly typed and addressed to “the residents,” it read “BEWARE, FOR THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU. STAY AWAY FROM THE DARKNESS. YOU’RE [sic] ACTIONS WILL BE PUNISHED TO THE FULL EXTENT. ONCE AGAIN BEWARE.” Whoo, boy. The unsettled postal customer said she didn’t know who might have sent such a message, but did mention having a quarrelsome history with a certain neighbor. A certain neighbor said she didn’t have anything to do with the menacing memo and didn’t much appreciate being implicated. With that, the case was forwarded to the dead letter office.

An audibly distressed woman called JCSO to report a fairly bizarre phone call. As she told it, a man with an unfamiliar but “distinctive” voice rang her up and began asking questions like “what are your weaknesses?” and “if somebody sat on you and tickled your ribs, would that be a weakness?” She asked that he identify himself, but he declined, saying that if she didn’t recognize his voice he’d rather keep her in “suspense” until she figured it out. After hanging up she tried to learn the man’s number through *57 but found it blocked. Neither could she get that information from the phone company because that office was closed for the day. The odd exchange upset her considerably because her husband is frequently away on business. A deputy advised her to contact the phone company in the morning and then call him with any new information. He also scheduled her address for extra patrols.

Juliet called the carabanieri in distress. She’d gotten into a fight with Romeo, her unofficial beloved of some two years, and now feared lest he was running rampant about her compartments, despoiling her cherished possessions and terrorizing her darling pets. Would a carabaniere be so kind as to escort her back to their once-happy nest and help end the lovers’ quarrel? A carabaniere would, but first wanted to know what had roused Romeo’s darker passions in the first place. “He lied to me,” Juliet lamented. Turns out she’d found Romeo’s former consort’s phone number “hidden deep inside his cell phone,” and he didn’t appreciate being called onto the carpet about it. After fortifying himself with deep draughts of ale, Romeo began explaining to Juliet exactly why “everything is your fault,” which is when Juliet decided to enlist a knight to champion her cause. Arriving on the doorstep at about 9 p.m., that JCSO knight found Romeo welcoming, gracious, even ebullient  ‘Tis true, Romeo said, that his and Juliet’s stars were a bit crossed, lately, but her belongings remain whole and un-besmirched, and her darling pets have never been more content. Alas, the law holds no sway over crimes of the heart, and as Romeo bid the courtly constable a cordial buona sera, Juliet retired to await the dawn in the parlor of a bosom companion.