Crazy things that happen to you

[Kitty_Sheridan]

@Mr Vim....gotta love Spongebob....we are fully paid up members of the Conch club..! And I embarrass my son by singing the c.a.m.p.f.i.r.e s.o.n.g. loudly...

@Burton, that sounds fascinating! Tell us more!

K

 

[shazzabanazza]

I used to work for the Northern California Tennis Association in SF when I was 20. My parents had died, I was on my own and trying to do well in my first "big girl" job. I was typing a flyer to be sent out to all the big-monied members and sponsors for a Silent Auction. I made a typo. A major boo-boo.

Take a look at your keyboards now...notice the "S" and the "A" keys are right next to each other? Well, the flyer went out to all these well-to-do swells inviting them to a Silent Suction. The merits of suction v. auction for a fund-raiser were never discussed, as the Exec. Director scrambled to boot me out the door unceremoniously. Was I bummed that I was fired? Yeah. Did I laugh so hard about it that I cried? Oh yeah!!

:rofl: Oh Lily that is a crack up! I love it!

 

[Burton]

Kitty as you asked I've spent nearly 2 years out on Wake Island the famous WWII battlefield site in the far western Pacific and was recently selected for a position wintering over in Antarctica. Its quite an extreme change in climate and for some could be considered a crazy thing to happen but for me not out of the norm. I wouldnt dare print the true crazy stuff.

 

[The Good]

Well here's another thing that happens to me, very frequently too. Today after my anthropology class, after speaking a bit with someone, he told me that I sound like I'm from Germany, or just Europe in general. Frankly, I don't know why I sound the way I do, especially since I've been born in the state of California. I just don't sound typical for the area. It's difficult to describe, I suppose, but I've been told that I sound; British, Irish, French, German, Russian, and one time, Italian. My voice is typically deep and mellow, and I have a tendency to sound as if I'm whispering (admittedly a bad habit, and I'm occasionally told to speak more audibly). I don't think this is a mental illness sort of phenomenon either, at least I would like to believe it is not. And I do mean it when this happens a lot, it seems that not a month goes by without some remark towards my "accent" or where I'm supposed to be from.

About the best thing I've been told, was that I pretty much sound like Clint Eastwood (I'm not exactly trying to impersonate him, either, despite my username). I guess the next best comments would be that I sounded either like Agent Smith or Neo from the Matrix...

 

[scottyrocks]

This just happened to me, and I just posted it yesterday in another thread, but its crazy.

<< Last Sunday, I was driving with one of the boys, on local roads. I got a little confused as to what street my destination was on, so I pulled over to make a call.

I was on a residential main drag, one lane each way. There were no cars parked on my side as far back as I could see. I pulled up in front of the last house on the street, as it was the last parking space before the gas station on the corner. I dialed my phone.

I look in the rear view mirror, and there is a car behind me, as in right behind me. I continue with my phone call, now becoming increasingly aware that the driver, a kid, is looking at me. This was unusual because normally when someone pulls over, they're usually doing so because the need to do something, whatever it is, not sit there and so obviously look into the car in front.

So now I begin to look into the rear view and notice that he is even closer than he was before. I get out of my picked-up-my-new-yesterday new car, my phone at my ear, walk back to the other car, and ask what is going on.

He says, 'I want to park in front of my house.'

I must have had a puzzled look on my face, and I said, 'What?'

He repeated what he had said. I said I was on the phone and I'd be moving as soon as I was done.

Here is where it got Twilight Zonish.

He said, in a rather indignant tone, 'Excuse me, I want to park in front of my house,' meaning you move right now.

Me, being me, said that I would move when I was good and ready.

Now, keep in mind that there was a whole block of parking spaces just behind where I was parked. I also thought to myself, if someone was sitting in front of my house in their car when I pulled up, would I pull up right behind them and actually sit there and wait for them to pull out, or park and go in the house? And would I get indignant with the driver? Silly questions, aren't they?

So now, he tells me he's going to call the police. Huh? Are you serious? I ask him if he's going to use 911 or the precinct number. He says 911. I ask him if he thinks this is an emergency. He says yes. I tell him to call. They will laugh at him when they get here. I tell him I'll call.

As I turn to go back to my car, he says something like look how you're acting in front of your kid.

I get back in the car and finish my call. The 'kid' asked me what happened, and I filled him in on the parts he didn't hear. I ask him what he thought of the situation. He said the guy is nuts. He didn't actually use the word 'nuts,' but that was the general idea.

When I pulled out, and was waiting at the light on the other driver was walking back and forth across the street 'inspecting' the scene. I would have loved for him to have made the call to the police and then waited around for their reaction but we had an appointment and were bordering on being late. >>

 

[PrettySquareGal]

It was the height of tourist season in Newport, and I must have looked like a hot mess. I was barely able to see but I remember hearing some sort of 'clanging' noise. By the time my buddy came around with t he car, I had about $4.38 in my bucket. I guess i looked like some wine-o or rummy looking for a handout.

That is the best!

 

[PrettySquareGal]

When I was in summer camp as a kid, the swimming instructor walked up to me and started talking very slowly and LOUDLY, using his hands, asking me DO YOU WANT *does the breast stroke in the air* TO GO SWIMMING? I looked at him, confused. I didn't understand why he singled me out to yell at me. Then another counselor started saying "Swim! Swim!" over and over. Finally, I asked why they were talking to me like that. Turns out they thought I only spoke Spanish?! The only Spanish I speak if what I learned on Sesame Street and from my friends.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

The craziest thing happened to me just today. While reading a post about 'parking'...I seemed to enter into another dimension of other worldly discernment of inconsideration. It seemed to become even more Twilight Zonish until I later realised that I had probably only been warped into some kind of NY state of mind. Luckily my midwestern upbringing directed me back to courtesy and out of Opposite World. :eeek:
HD

 

[Undertow]

Years ago, while I was still in law school, my friends took me out for my Birthday...I guess i looked like some wine-o or rummy looking for a handout.

On the flipside, I bet someone $5 I could get people to hand me money on the street. He was an idiot and took the bet. I dressed up like a homeless guy and tapped away on a little djembe drum for a few hours - and didn't make any money. I was starting to sweat when some drunk fool came up to me and said, "Cash rules everything around me..." I responded, "Cream, get the money - dollar dollar bill, y'all." (For most of you unfamiliar, it's the chorus of a Wu-Tang rap song)

This guy almost wet himself. He handed me $40 (two twenties) and said I was the coolest homeless guy he'd ever met. I picked up my extra $5 from my friend and called it a day. Haha, no kidding, easiest gas/dinner money I ever made.

I've lived some pretty strange adventures that I won't copy down here. Safe to say I ought to be locked up or dead.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Well I saw a bargain Safari Jacket and matching pants on ebay , at a very reasonable price but when it arrived it was actually for an "Action Figure" no chance of letting the seems out on this!

 

[Yeps]

When I was in summer camp as a kid, the swimming instructor walked up to me and started talking very slowly and LOUDLY, using his hands, asking me DO YOU WANT *does the breast stroke in the air* TO GO SWIMMING? I looked at him, confused. I didn't understand why he singled me out to yell at me. Then another counselor started saying "Swim! Swim!" over and over. Finally, I asked why they were talking to me like that. Turns out they thought I only spoke Spanish?! The only Spanish I speak if what I learned on Sesame Street and from my friends.

I had a similar experience recently. I found out that one of the doctoral students here thought that I was not American, and specifically that I was eastern-european of some flavor, probably Romanian. She has known me for quite a while. Apparently when we were singing in Prague, she noticed how well I was doing speaking in Czech (I memorize phrase books pretty easily) and assumed it was because I spoke some similar language, or something like that. She gets a pass on not noticing my blatant American accent due to the fact that she is Puerto Rican and English is not her first language.

*also, it doesn't hurt this false image that I dress the way I do. It is not your typical modern American style, as you well know.

 

[scooter]

Binkie, that action figure story is the bomb. I actually laughed out loud when I read it!

 

[Big_e]

When I was in summer camp as a kid, the swimming instructor walked up to me and started talking very slowly and LOUDLY, using his hands, asking me DO YOU WANT *does the breast stroke in the air* TO GO SWIMMING? I looked at him, confused. I didn't understand why he singled me out to yell at me. Then another counselor started saying "Swim! Swim!" over and over. Finally, I asked why they were talking to me like that. Turns out they thought I only spoke Spanish?! The only Spanish I speak if what I learned on Sesame Street and from my friends.

Before I came to the Fedora Lounge, I didn't dress as well and always wore old t-shirts, jeans and my ratty old Dallas Stars baseball cap. Everywhere I went, strangers would first talk to me in Spanish. I was suprised how many non-hispanics knew Spanish around here. I went to the clinic one year for shots and the nurse also talked to me in Spanish. I responded in my "Spanish with Texican accent" and she laughed and then switched to English. She said that she spoke to me in Spanish because I looked like one one those "homeless Mexicans that stand at the corners looking for work.". Ouch!
Now that I dress better, I'm getting the reverse. Hispanics, mostly Mexicans that talk to me in their best English, then they talk about me amongst each other. Their eyes get wide open when I respond to them in Spanish or correct them that I was born in Peru.
Ernest

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Interesting, Big_e!

 

[DNO]

I’m a retired high school teacher in Toronto. Years ago, while on a break, I was reading about a project in Ireland to build a reproduction of a 19th century immigrant ship. An hour or so later, a former student dropped by to say hello…not an unusual event in my former school. In the course of conversation, I asked him what he was up to. He replied that he was just visiting his parents and that he was working as an apprentice carpenter building a reproduction of a 19th century immigrant ship in Ireland…the same one I’d just read about. What are the odds of that?