During my years as a plastic injection mold maker, I have encountered some very strange individuals. Now, they might say the same about me, but these guys were truly over the top.

My favorite case is a man named Mike. I was working in Seattle, and the mold making shop was typical of those in the area because it had so many people from all over the world. In fact, I think we had at least 10 nationalities represented there. Mold makers from Taiwan, Korea, Germany, Portugal, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland, Brazil and various other countries.

Mike, however, was born and raised in the Denver area. He was a Viet-Nam vet and was clearly affected by the horrors of war. He used to randomly laugh like Satan, quite loudly so that anyone in the building could hear. Then he would begin talking about burning gooks and laugh again.

I tried to befriend him, thinking I might be able to help him in some way. I even had him come to church with me once. Unfortunately, he scared the little children and the parents asked my why I brought him there. They were right, I should have just met with him one-on-one, if at all.

The last day I saw him at work, before he took off to rescue his daughter, was when I gave him a ride one Saturday morning to go to work. When we arrived at his apartment, we found him sitting in an overstuffed chair, surrounded by 24 oz. bottles of malt liquor and breathing in huge quantities of marijuana smoke that filled the room.

Somehow he managed to get to work with us, the next day he was gone.

Two months later he returned from rescuing his daughter in Denver. Seems she had some rough times and so did Mike. He came into the shop with no shirt on, broken glasses, and a gun in his pants waist!

He was ranting how he was the best mold maker in the shop and demanded his job back. I don’t know how the very civilized Swiss owner managed it, but Mike disappeared, never to return. Thankfully!

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