"Terrel" and the Dirty, Used Underwear

I spent one year of my college career at the University of Kansas. Academically I've had better years, however socially, I excelled.  There is probably more than one story I could tell from these two semesters alone, but one tale stands out above the rest.

Ben Goodison and I lived in a tiny apartment on 6th street in Lawrence called Graystone Apartments, although better known by the people who lived there as "Ghettostone".  We had lots of friends in the complex.  There was John and Christi next door. John and Christi were the true incarnation of the modern hippie.  From their dreadlocks and Ty died clothes, right on to their authentic VW Van.  My sister Amber lived at the complex with her three roommates, and my (now) brother in law Brad and his roommates lived next to her. We all hung out quite a bit, and there was no shortage of partying on any given night of the week.

September 19, 2002 was my 20th birthday and I celebrated with enthusiasm. Like typical college kids we were drinking and partying until early the next morning.  When I finally got home I was plenty drunk and wanting nothing better than to go to bed and pass out for about twelve hours. I made it to bed, but about an hour into my slumber, there was a loud knock at the front door. I crawled out of bed and stumbled over to the front door and opened it, only to find there was nobody there. I said a few choice words and went to slam the door shut when I noticed a piece of paper taped to the door. I tore the paper off the door, flipped on the light and read:

"I will give you a case of beer for your dirty, used underwear. Leave them in a bag outside your door with a note that says what kind of beer you would like, and the beer is yours."

I threw the note down on the counter and went back to bed, not thinking much about it.

The next morning I found the note again and took it down to where some of my buddies were hanging out in their yard.  I asked around to see who the joker was that put the note on my door, but unsurprisingly nobody claimed it. Chalking it up as a joke, I threw the note away and didn't think much more about it.

Two weeks went by and not another word was spoken about the note. Ben and I had gone over to hang out with some friends and once again got home late. After a long evening we both went to bed and were asleep when BAM BAM BAM! This time I awoke to find a note taped to the outside of my bedroom window. Because there was no back door to our apartment, I had to walk clear around the building to retrieve the note. I ripped it off the window and took it inside to read:

"I will give you $20 and a case of beer for your dirty, used underwear. Put them in a bag and leave them outside your front door with a note saying what kind of beer you want, and the money and beer is yours!"

My curiosity had been peaked and I decided to find out once and for all who was playing these games in the middle of the night. I grabbed a pair of boxers out of my drawer, threw them in a bag, and wrote "Bud Light" on the bag.  However, this time instead of going back to bed, I waited by the window to see who would come back for the bag.

It was about 3:00a.m. and I had been waiting for about fifteen minutes, and was about to give up and go back to bed when I saw someone walking down the road under the street lamps. The person walked on by, stopped, turned around, and started creeping toward my door like they were trying to be sneaky. As they rounded the corner I knew that this was no longer a joke, and it was no longer funny.  In the street light there was a middle age black man, with filthy rags for clothes, complete with gloves with the fingers cut out. He looked like Ice T on the movie Surviving The Game.

The man ran up to the door, grabbed the bag, and ran off. About a minute later, he returned with the bag in his hand. He dropped it, taped a note on the door, and ran away. This time the note read:

"I see you came through. But, I asked for "dirty" underwear and these are clean. Take them and ........................................[use your imagination].............................and the money and beer are yours."

At this point I was not only creeped out, but very angry.  I ran in, woke up Ben and explained to him the situation. He jumped out of bed and we devised a plan.  I would put another bag outside, and wait for the guy to come back. When he came back, I would open the door, and Ben would give the guy a Louisville Slugger forehead tattoo.

We waited probably another thirty minutes, but the guy must have gotten a bad feeling, because he never came back to our door. We did see him one more time. He was running around looking in people's windows. The next day we showed the notes to everyone and told them the story.  After much debate, we finally called the police to file a report. When the officer got there he assured us that there was nothing he could do, and that the guy was probably a homeless man looking for "a way to pass the time". Well, needless to say, that made us feel better.

We told everyone we knew to keep an eye out for the guy that we code named "Terrel". Soon, everyone was talking about "Terrel" and our little incident. Even people we didn't know would ask us "Aren't you the guys that had that run in with 'Terrel'?" We luckily never had any more encounters with "Terrel", but we certainly had a story we would never forget.