Story 48: Association of Amateur Stalkers

Not based on a true story; just a bit of silliness.

 

I used to think I was all alone in the world, until I met some of my own kind the other day.  I was sitting in my car in the early afternoon as usual, waiting for my special someone to leave community service, when I spotted another car waiting nearby in that same expectant matter.  Like recognizes like, and while my first thought was that this was a private investigator some wife had hired, deep down I knew I had found a kindred spirit at last.

I had a few more hours of patient idleness ahead of me, so I figured I’d be friendly.  I swung my car around to be parallel with the other one and lowered my window.  The driver started panicking until I held up my binoculars, sheepishly.  He held up his own, and we laughed in our shared misery.  He had some time to kill too, so we chatted about our mutual interest.  Realizing that there actually were more than one of us out there, we decided to do what anyone finding themselves to be two or more of would do: we formed a club.

Not wanting to be exclusive, I sent out feelers on the wonderful interconnected net and was able to attract the interest of some locals to join us.  I arranged our first meeting to be held in my parents’ basement at 3:00 p.m. on a Sunday, since that was really the only time most of us were free from our duties and real-world jobs.

I never had thought much about how lonely my hobby is until I met others in the same boat.  We first discussed what our organization should be called, settling on Association of Amateur Stalkers since our first choice, Amateur Stalker Society, had the acronym of ASS and we felt that had a negative connotation.  We then each took turns presenting our current projects: some of us, myself included, are serial and cannot commit all our lives to just one object of devotion and must continually find someone new.  The monogamous ones are very dedicated and have perpetual restraining orders to their credit (another reason why I switch it up from time to time).  None of us take photos or trespass on property – we are strictly real-time observers.  At the end of the meeting, one of the members stood and arrested all of us for voyeurism, which we accepted as our due.  As I sit in my cell, I recall the cop, while still incognito, asking if we’d ever consider taking the extra step and going professional.

No, never, we all agreed.  Those guys are sick.