Strange Strangers

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Strange Strangers

Post by Meteorite » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:05 pm

Okay, I was doing my shopping today and was headed towards the bus station with my trolley-load.  Coming towards me on the path were a group of teens I didn't know when one of them, a girl, saw me and called out:

GIRL: Can I have your biscuits?
ME: (confused, and not quite hearing) What?

We drew closer and then she said:

GIRL: Can I have a toilet roll?

No, you can't have a toilet roll!, I thought.  Besides, I was still figuring out what biscuits she meant. (I later realised she was talking about my Crispy Bacon in a Biskit, which was at the front of the trolley)

ME: Why?
GIRL: I'm a trolley inspector and I need your toilet roll.

This brought on a confused smile from me and a look that said 'You can't be serious.'

GIRL: Ugh, fine.

And she walked off with her mates, leaving me slightly bewildered.


My Mum said it was probably a joke when I told her, and I'm inclined to agree.

But, how about you?  Have you had a random encounter with a perfect stranger that has left you completely confuzzled?
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Marco » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:19 pm

You ruined their school project. :(

Or their sleepover party, depending...
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by D.B. » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:36 pm

I take it we're ignoring crazy cat-lady type people? I met one of them the other day. He said something I just couldn't understand and pointed at the clock behind me. I nodded, which seemed to please him, and with another incoherent exclamation he wound his winding path along to harass some other poor pedestrain.

As for more normal weird strangers... hmm, schoolkids generally seem to ask me strange stuff. Particulally if there's large groups of them. And no matter how you react they always giggle. They must sense I'm a past nerd or something.
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by SirMustapha » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:50 pm

Years ago, I think. Some guy who was walking in front of me said he was robbing me, and told me to remove my watch and give it to someone on the back. A silly joke, most certainly. Just a very boring one.

On the other hand, I have a friend who's very likely to make sudden whacky questions to random people on the street. I was carrying 10 bags of sugar (one kilogram each) to the busstop for her, and she wondered how heavy it could be. Then suddenly, she jumped at a fella outside the supermarket, asking how much a new born baby weighs. Half a minute later, she told me she wanted to carry the bag, and went hopping her way merrily, yelling "it's not that heavy!"

It's not a very entertaining story, but I amuse myself wondering what people were thinking as such a crazy girl went by. I should have kissed her mouth.
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Casper » Thu Sep 08, 2005 11:04 pm

Once, my bro was talking with his mate whilst in town. They were just minding there own buisness when all of a suden, some random dude turn's around and shouts "WHAT!!!"... I was'nt there but there's a feeling when you know somebodys talking directly to you (the fact their looking at you), so my brother and his mate just start laughing at him and walk the other way.

Thats the only experience I've had of strange stranger's excluding drunks, crack rats, and granny's that make conversation with themselves.
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Terry Y » Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:27 am

First I should say this: I like to take long walks with my iPod.  But it seems that every stinkin' time I'm walking on my merry way, some freak driving by will shout some incohearant (drunken?) thing at me.  For no reason whatever.  And it's starting to get on my nerves. 
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Sheana_Molloy » Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:54 am

If there's one thing I've learned, it's to not go walking around wearing & listening to your iPod, unless you replace the trademark earphones with generic ones.  It's just askin' for trouble!  Though perhaps only in certain parts of the country...

Oh, I've met my share of crazies and just generally odd people.  Between New York City and Savannah?  You betcha.

To list a few:

-A chubby old black woman draped in lilac wandering vaguely down the street, who came to a stop in front of me, glared, and said "You're a n*gger, you know that?  You're a n*gger".  Then she toddled on her way.
-Short, fat, bald old white man with glasses, all in black clutching a book, muttering as he went down the street.  As he passed he glared at me and shouted "c*cksuckah!".  He continued to shoot glances at me as he walked on, and when he crossed the street and was waiting on a corner to cross to another street, he kept glaring at me.
-Random black guy in one of those floppy berets and rather dishevelled, kinda dirty clothes tried to hit me up in front of the local Kroger's for my phone number once.  He was quite blunt and said he liked a woman with a lot of meat on her, and did the cliche wavy gestures in the air thing.  When I rejected him he said, "It's cause ah'm back, ain't it?".

I've also encountered random odd people who were technically speaking English but were harder to understand than the Jive-talkers in 'Airplane!', seen other odd people off in the distance, and so on.

I also saw a pimp once.  No fur coat, but he had the standard hat and technicolor shades of blue & yellow figured predominantly in his clothes!
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Orange Box » Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:18 am

On the way to work, I have to walk past a "bad" neighborhood, where I've met some amazing, crazy people. Two incidents come to mind:

- An old man wearing a dirty jacket pointed his bony finger at me, and commanded: "Get the f*ck outta my country, Sir! Right outta this country, damn!" (flavor country?)

- A very normal-looking guy in a black business suit preached that "Arab cab drivers are suicide bombers! Do not get into the taxi!" at a busy intersection.

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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by c_nordlander » Fri Sep 09, 2005 8:01 am

Heh heh, disturbing stuff. I don't seem to get a lot of these, but there are some occurrences:

-young, completely unknown man just outside my block who asked me for directions, then started asking whether I had a boyfriend and if I wanted to go out with him tonight. (I can't have been more than fifteen years old at the time.)

-some bloke in a car trying to chat me up (this being a couple of years ago). He seemed to lose interest when I told him off.

Well, that's about it. I don't get accosted by weirdoes a lot, though when I go to the library at home it happens that people mistake me for a librarian and ask me where to find books and things. I live in a boring world. Not that I mind.
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by archonix » Fri Sep 09, 2005 10:44 am

There are two encounters that I can recall. The first was when I was but a wee lad, wandering the streets of Manchester looking for that fabled model shop, called The Model Shop oddly enough. Some strange lady with a granny-bag trolley thing started shouting as she went past, as if she was talking to someone. But nobody was there.

The second was completely silent, and I think I've mentioned it before. I was on a train home from Uni one day when this scruffy looking bloke gets on. After about a minute I noticed the hair on my arms bleaching white and realised my eyeballs were melting, for he was accompanied by a stench that even Foul Old Ron might be unable to stand. He stayed on for two stops, looking like he couldn't stand the sight of us all, then left. The entire train stank for the rest of the journey. I seem to recall it was a little more corroded about the door when I got off, and the paint was probably peeling away.
Immaterial wrote: Heh heh, disturbing stuff. I don't seem to get a lot of these, but there are some occurrences:

-young, completely unknown man just outside my block who asked me for directions, then started asking whether I had a boyfriend and if I wanted to go out with him tonight. (I can't have been more than fifteen years old at the time.)
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Hmm... perhaps I'm one of those crazy raving people and just don't know it. For all I know I could be sitting in the middle of a street somewhere, shouting out all these messages that are, in fact, entirely in my mind. It could even be 1655.
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Tony_Baritone » Fri Sep 09, 2005 5:26 pm

I seem to only notice the truly odd-acting folks around hotels.  Once when I was much younger I was up in the Northwest waiting to check into a place while a very nondescript-looking guy, 25-35 years old, started asking pointed questions about my family, how many siblings I have, whether both my parents are alive, whether they still love me, etc...needless to say, I got out of there and checked into another place.

Something similar took place in St. Louis a few years ago (I've probably discussed this in chat before).  I was ready to leave and had called a taxi to pick me up in front of the hotel.  It never came, and so I spent half an hour trying to avoid talking to a clearly drunk old man who felt the need to continually reassure me that he was "a people person" and that he thought I looked like one too.  Again, when it became clear that my cab wasn't coming, I started walking--it was pretty easy to outrun him and lose him down a couple side streets--and made my way to the bus station through a deserted, unlit part of town at midnight.  Fun times.
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Sheana_Molloy » Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:22 pm

Ahh, Graham just reminded me of the crazies I met in London!  I was out back of The Forum waiting to see if any members of the band were going to come out, when a guy who looked disturbingly similar to VG Cats' Dr. Hobo, complete with what looked like a bag on his head, wandered up.  He kept muttering and glaring at people, and at one point came right up behind me and started shouting the names of Native American Indian tribes at the back of my head.

There was also the drunk Scot who looked/sounded a lot like Ozzy Osbourne, and the young guy in a coat and big hat who suddenly gave the thumbs up, declared, "Smoke on the water!  Fire in the sky", and went on his merry way.
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Tigersrock144 » Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:32 pm

yes I've had many but one seems to spring to mind which was quite recent
I was walking home from school and was nearly home, by then my friends allready reached their homes but I have to walk that lil bit further :/
Anyway as I was walking, two teenages past me.  Obviously a couple (boy/girl holding hands) and they looked kinda chavvy.  Anyway just as I passed them the boy shouted out to me in a REALLY babyish voice "I LOVE YOU!" so I was sort of freaked out o_0
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Terry Y » Sat Sep 10, 2005 7:17 am

I must add to this thread with the one time I visited Washington DC.  In 1998, (the end of my senior year in high school), we were outside Ford's Theater waiting to get in when a large black man approaced us.  He wore an ice chest full of bottled water and claimed to be the "Water Mack Daddy ofthe East Coast."  Of course, maybe he just saw 200 white kids and said, "Here's my chance for a little fun!" 
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Re: Strange Strangers

Post by Bothead » Sat Sep 10, 2005 12:25 pm

I remember one night at the end of a gaming club session in town, a drunk came up to us and asked where to find the "wizard's key," obviously taking that from the Simpsons.

Also a few years ago while I was walking down the road wearing a Liverpool jersey, a van drove past. Some guy stuck his head out and yelled "Hey, do you know where Goodison Park is?" He was talking about the stadium where Everton (Liverpool's rivals) play. And this happened in Dublin, not Liverpool.
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