Have you ever found a naked man in your garage?

Yes. This really happened.

My husband and son were visiting family in Australia a while ago and I was left to my own devices at home, in Canada. I had been hanging out with a friend after work and got back home after dusk. I clicked the garage door open and as I was pulling the car into the garage I saw a man, wearing nothing but a towel, standing in the dark, far corner of the garage. He resembled a frightened deer, arms and legs in awkward positions and his eyes bulging out at me in confusion, the whites of his enlarged eyeballs appearing florescent in the dark.

My mind quickly went through the short list of men who had keys to our house and any potential reason they might be naked in our garage in the dark. My mind went quickly blank as I couldn’t conceive a reason why my father would be in his birthday suit in my home (sorry dad, but…ewww).

I began to roll down my car windows slowly, and smiled at the man.

I’ve been asked repeatedly how I didn’t freak out at that moment. Well, I’m apparently the goofy twin of James McAvoy from the movie Wanted, in the scene where he shoots the wings off of flies. On an average day I’m the person you see walking into a glass door. But, in dangerous situations I can see everything around me happening in slow motion. In moments where I feel a true threat, I somehow process 100 cues simultaneously and make genius-level decisions at the speed of light and with the calmness of Data from Star Trek.

Then, the situation stabilizes and I walk into the glass door again…

So, back to the story.

My superhero-in-danger brain told me that the man was frightened and since fear leads to the fight or flight response, I needed to look calm and unthreatening. I kept smiling as I got out of the car. Keeping the garage doors open to the street I said in a gentle tone “heyyyyyy, I don’t think this is your garage.”

The man pleasantly responded “I know. I broke in.”

Yup. That's what he said.

Then he proceeded to tell me the whole story.

He was wandering the neighborhood, checking car doors. Lucky me, my husband left his car outside and forgot to lock the doors when he left for Australia. So, the man decided to take a nap in my husband’s car, but, then he noticed the garage door opener (which my husband also kindly left in the car). So, he opened our garage and through the garage went into our house.

(At this point in his story, the towel-man paused, scratched his chin and said “you should really lock your house better.”)

It was a particularly hot day and our two very large Kengal dogs were sleeping. The man made it into our kitchen and began to make himself a sandwich when the dogs awoke and entered the scene. They decided to give him only a warning, in the form of ripping his clothes off of him.

(If you are wondering what a Kengal is, they are the dogs in the cover photo — in Africa they are used to guard farms from lions.)

The dogs then positioned themselves in front of the garage door, ready to finish the job if the man decided to re-enter.

So, not being able to get back into the house, and being only in his underwear now, the man decided to go out the other door from the garage, into our backyard, where he took a bath in our pool.

As he finished his bath and was drying himself off, I entered the scene.

It was obvious towel-man wasn’t aggressive and that he had some sort of mild, intellectual disability. So, after receiving his promise that he would never again enter my home, I went into the house, patted the dogs (who were still sitting and — I swear — smiling at the garage).

I found the sandwich the man had left in the kitchen and brought it back for him, along with some of my husband’s old clothes. Then, I drove him back to his group home. And this was how I thought our encounter ended…

Two days later, I arrived home from work to find a car blocking my driveway. I parked my car on the road, walked up to the mystery car and found that all its windows were open. On one of the car seats was a pharmacy slip with the patient name and phone number. I picked up the slip and dialed the number.

“Hello?

“Hi, is this Pablo?”

“Yes, yes it is.”

“Hi Pablo, do you drive X car with X license plate?

“Yes?”

“Ok…so, why is your car blocking my driveway?”

“Actually, I don’t know. But, I reported it stolen two days ago.”

As Pablo happened to be out of town, visiting family in New York, he gave me the police report number so that I could call the police and inform them that his car had re-appeared in my driveway. I hung up with Pablo and was about to dial the station when lo-and-behold, there’s towel-man coming down the road with a bag of snacks he had picked up at the neighborhood convenience store.

He practically skipped up to me, chewing on his Twizzler and shouting out “Hiii!”

I looked at him, fuming, and responded with “Did you park that car in my driveway?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Did you know it was stolen?”

“Yes, I stole it!” he merrily burst out.

That was the moment I lost it. James McAvoy would have been disappointed. I have only a vague memory of what I verbalized — something about Police — but mostly I think I just screamed in the middle of the street. Then I quickly went in my house, locked the door and dialed 911.

As I was waiting for the police to arrive I looked out the window, and there was towel-man, just sitting dejectedly on the curb, across the street. I had expected him to run, but, he was going nowhere. Not only that, but I now noticed that all his stuff was there. Bags and suitcases of stuff. He had brought what must have been all his belongings with him. I now realized that he had come to move in with me.

The police arrived and picked up towel-man. Then they talked with me. Apparently, towel-man had been robbing all the surrounding neighborhoods. They had been trying to catch him for a while. But, when I turned him down as a room mate he just let the police pick him up and confessed.

And, when you think the story can’t possibly go on…it does.

A couple of men then came to pick up Pablo’s car. To be polite I said “Hello” to them and added “You must be Pablo’s family.”

They responded with a negative. They were actually Pablo’s parishioners. Towel-man had stolen a priest’s car.

So, what’s the moral of this story? I’m not sure. But, even though it’s been a while now, I still think about it occasionally. Sometimes I have an urge to take shooting lessons and chase down flies. Sometimes I pat myself on the back for singlehandedly bringing down the neighborhood robber. Other times I laugh aloud at the memory of having harbored a priest’s stolen car. And still, other times, I get sad. Really, really, heart-achingly sad, that such a tiny kindness made a man think we were best friends. What does that mean? Does it mean that this is the most kindness that he had received in an inconceivable amount of time? Ever?