All I wanted was a Pepsi

In my in box this morning from Andrea:

Today it is raining, as usual, in this desert town.

I decided last night that I was going to spend the day inside, working. I didn't even get dressed. I was doing laundry, checking email, minding my own business
and getting revved up to look at the prospectus.

You know, there's a fair amount of traffic on my street - it's a popular rush-hour shortcut, and every afternoon the ice-cream truck goes by, playing its little song. So I didn't think much of it the first time I heard the clown horn.

But it persisted. Honk honk, honkhonkhonk, honk, over and over. I finally gave in to my curiosity and went to the window. There were two electric wheelchairs in my driveway. No other vehicles were around.

I put some clothes on and went out. "Can I help you?" I asked, trying to pretend this was normal. A this point, the second wheelchair had disappeared but the first was halfway to the wheelchair ramp on my porch, stopped.

"I'm here about the apartment," said the driver of the rickety little thing. He was not wearing shoes, but had on clean white tennis socks and shorts. There were sores all over his legs and he had a plastic bag in his lap.
"I'm so sorry," I said, "but I don't have an apartment."
"But you're renting a room," he insisted.
"No, I'm sorry."
"But it's right here in the newspaper," he said, pulling a neatly folded classified section out of his bag an holding it about an inch from his eyes. "It's right - oh, I"m sorry, I have the wrong address," he said.
The driver of the second chair, who might as easily have been his wife or his mother, whirred up the street and said, "wrong house, it's down here."
"Gosh, I"m really sorry," he said, making no move to leave.
"No problem," I replied. "Good luck."

"One more thing," he calls, as I started to close the door. "Could you give me a push? I'm stuck."
When I came down the steps, I saw that the little plastic front wheels were buried past the axles (or whatever you call them) in the gravel. I got down on all fours and dug the chair out while he rocked vigorously back and forth, like a turtle trying to right itself. At last, I got my shoulder behind the seat (the handles were broken off jaggedly) and shoved, and off he went.

"Bye bye," he called, "thanks!" and rolled down the street, honking his little clown horn.

...
Apparently, when the gods of the surreal have me locked and loaded in their sights, there is no point in trying to hide. If I stay in, they come to my door, honking their little horns and refusing to be ignored.

I am very afraid.