Ever heard a story too wild to be true? We all have. But then there are those stories too wild to simply have been made up. The story I am about to tell you, though bizarre, really happened.
It all started on a hot summers day in Oklahoma City. Two boys (who we will call "Billy" and "Bob" in order to protect their identity) around 12 years old decided to take a bike ride down south on Meridian to see Bob's mom who worked at a Subway on Meridian and SW 21st St. When they reached the intersection of Interstate 40 and Meridian it was during the heaviest part of the lunch hour traffic jam. Since there are no sidewalks along that portion of the road, they decided it would be safer to walk their bikes across rather than try to ride them in such heavy traffic.
Little did they know but they were about to encounter someone who would disrupt their plans and change their lives forever.
As Billy and Bob started to cross under the overpass everything appeared normal. Until they noticed a truck slow down and keep pace with them. Then the window on the truck rolled down. Neither of the boys recognized the thin woman inside so they decided to ignore her and kept walking and talking. Soon she started to yell at them through the window. She told them she wanted to talk to them.
They could see that she was smoking something and she just made them uncomfortable. They believed she was high and wanted to offer them drugs. They told her that they don't do drugs and kept on walking. She followed them past the IHOP, past the Burger King, past the other business along Meridian continuing to yell at them.
Eventually they reached the parking lot of a local bank, passing a teller who was checking on a problem with the ATM. She noticed the unusual behavior of the truck and continued to watch the boys crossing the parking lot. She was still watching when the lady in the truck whipped into the far side of the parking lot effectively cutting the boys off. She parked in front of them blocking their way and got out.
At that exact time, the head of the bank's HR was headed to lunch and saw her block their path. When the lady grabbed Billy's bike and started yanking it out the protesting boy's hands, the bank employee knew something was wrong. She confronted the situation but the lady claims that the boys sold her the BMX bike worth several hundred dollars for twenty bucks and then didn't give it to her and instead took off with it. Billy and Bob were terribly upset and were simultaneously telling the bank employee how she had followed them all the way from the highway and had been harassing them. The head of HR did not have her cell phone, so she ran inside and called 911.
By the time she called 911 and made it back outside the lady has succeeded in snatching the bike from the boys and had it in her truck. Despite the pleas of the boys to give the bike back and the bank employee's suggestion to wait for the police, she zoomed off leaving some stunned and angry kids in her wake.
But the boys were smart, as you will see. They observed and memorized her license plate number and got a really good description of her truck. The boys were taken inside to wait for the police and allowed to call their parents to come pick them up. Within a hour they were on their way home, having filed a police report, lost an expensive bike, and gained a story to be told the rest of their lives. A story that belongs in the library of the "Stranger but True."
After all...
The Truth is Stranger Than Fiction.
