I love living in Philadelphia.

As I walked my dog to the relatively neglected park area by my house this morning, I noticed what appeared upon first glance to be a crazy woman singing Jesus songs to herself outside the gate. This by itself isn’t that big of a deal considering the neighborhood I live in so I politely made my presence known and said, “Good morning,” as I passed her.

She ignored me and started to mumble to herself, facing the park, while I took my dog in and let her off the leash. This is when she started talking to herself loudly about how “This woman here is a witch”, how you could tell because I was wearing all black, that I shouldn’t be in there and that I was interrupting her while she was trying to repent. I turned and looked at her quizzically, but she wasn’t moving from her spot on the other side of the gate so I ignored her and went back to playing with my dog. 

My boyfriend came out of our building to meet me in the park and came upon this stranger alternately reciting prayers and berating me for being a witch. Once she realized he was with me she accused him of being Satan and started yelling at me, “Are you a witch? Are you a witch? Are you a witch?” over and over. She was so loud that our neighbor across the street stuck her head out her window to see what was going on.

The crazy lady finally yelled at us that we weren’t allowed in the park because it’s private property and that she knew he was Satan and I was a witch. Then she asked if we were going to be in there much longer because she wanted to repent and walked away talking to herself.

I love living in Philadelphia.