Turn Around, Bright Eyes
I’m struggling with a classic case of Writer’s Block, here at Casa de la Sausage, so I’m going to play a game with you, Sweet -n- Sassy Internet. The game is called, “What’s The Weirdest Thing A Stranger Has Said To You?” and I’ll go first.
Before I got married (which seems like ages ago, but has only really been about 3 years) and The Daver was my boyfriend, I was in college in a town about 40 minutes drive from where I grew up (and where we currently live), but happened to fall right along the Metra line, which was my reason for choosing to attend this school.
Day after day, I commuted from here to there, riding gaily along the train (Train Time was the highlight of my day. It was the ONLY time that no one was demanding stuff from me. Faithful readers will know that my now 6 year old was then a 1 and 2 year old. A difficult one, at that). Some days, I would pop into the coffee shop at the station and grab a steaming cup of coffee to enjoy while I sat on the train.
One day, as I was exiting said coffee shop with my headphones on and music blaring, a typical commuter (many people who work in the city live out here, like The Daver) came up to me.
I knew it was a commuter and not a Crazy Person for two reasons: 1) The Crazies out here are more of the pill-popping housewife variety and were probably at home sleeping off last nights binge and not the Homeless Chic that one finds in Chicago 2) He was dressed head to toe in a obviously expensive tailored suit and was carrying a briefcase, AND looked like he was pretty damn certain that the world revolved around him (anyone who has commuted on the train and has seen Commuters knows the look I’m speaking of).
I myself was wearing my pink puffy coat, red snap up the side pants (awesome for random depantsing!), my blue Diesel shoes, and toting my purple backpack. I’m sure I was quite the gorgeous sight to behold, but remember, it was butt-assed early in the morning, I was a college kid who didn’t happen to live on a college campus and therefore couldn’t stumble out of bed and walk to class, I don’t have any subdued colored coats, and shit, I was fucking comfortable. I still own all of those pieces of clothing and will probably still wear them all together unapologetically.
So, rainbow that I am, I realize that this commuter is talking to me (a rarity, unless they are screaming at me to get out of their goddamned way), and I reluctantly pull the headphones from my head and say, “Excuse me?” to him.
“Did you know that your shoes don’t match your bag?” is what he has made me remove my headphones to answer, and what made me actually stop on the train platform to look at him incredulously.
I stared at him for a couple of seconds that felt much longer than that before answering, “Yeah, I know.”
Years later, I’m still fucking perplexed by him. I’m not angry, and he wasn’t being hostile about it at all (another huge shock for a commuter), he was just asking an honest question about my shoes and backpack.
Truth be told, I’m certain that my shoes will NEVER match my purse. And that, my dear friends, is okay.
Your turn! What’s the weirdest thing a stranger has said to you (and not just a homeless Crazy person)?
“Hey, you look like that girl, from you know, that movie, um, Save the Last Dance.”
Enough said. And, I don’t think I even really look like her!
“wow, the skin on your hands makes you look like a really old lady”
this was a statement made by a fellow college student…
I am a red head, with very fair skin…and yes, it’s “old” looking skin, but wtf?
Too funny!
“When’s your baby due?”
“Um, he was born 2 months ago”… or 2 years ago as the case may be. People suck.
Random 40-ish looking woman at the grocery checkout line (out of the blue) says, “Are you THAT girl in THAT movie?”
I reply, “No ma’am- I’m sorry… I’m the girl from THAT book”.
(What girl and what movie are still a mystery, but the look on her face– Priceless!!!)
I think that’s the cutest pick up line i’ve ever heard. You should keep the Daver, he’s sweet.
“Do you like frogs? I like frogs..” (said to me by one of my serial killer(ish) customers in a weird..slow southern voice while looking at the frog figurines on my desk) Hmm, maybe you had to be there..but I was fairly certain he wanted to take me home (in pieces) and show me his frogs.
Dude, I have so many random crazy person on the street stories. Tomorrow you will ask about those.
I like to compliment random people. If I see a woman in the store who is wearing a black and white large houndstooth patterned jacket, not designer – but you know she feels good when she wears it, I’ll stop her to say how much I dig it.
Okay, this might be a borderline crazy person story, but one evening I was sitting out on my porch late with a friend and a woman approached us to say she’d been kicked out of her home and her man had taken all her meat and did we have any meat we could give her.
Me and my friends were stopped along the street by a man who said we looked like nice people and could he get a cold soda please? Unfortunately, we had no cold soda in our purses.
Well, I think this borders on disgusting and inappropriate, but when I was pregnant with Adam the husband and I went to a party down the street of some people we vaguelly knew who insisted we show up because they were having a margarita machine and, of course, all pregnant women want to be at a party with a margarita machine, but the husband was so desperate to be friends with ANY of our neighbors so we went.
We got there right on time and the hosts were already quite inebriated. About three hours later while the husband was off schmoozing leaving me beached at a table drinking water, the host came up so, so drunk and told me, “You know, I love to do it with pregnant women”. Except he used a more colorful term. Then he invited me to meet him in ten minutes in the bathroom. I walked home by myself and needless to say, we don’t speak to the neighbors.
I couldn’t think of anything particularly strange just now, but this popped into mind:
Heavily made-up, spray-starch haired, polyester clad, street corner proselytizing bible thumper in heels and pearls standing in front of the grocery store, to jeans clad, no makeup wearing, long haired, sandal wearing, pagan hippie type on her way in: “Have you accepted JEEEZUS CHERIYUST as your PERSONAL LORD and SAVIOUR???”
Me, in return: “Um, no thank you ma’am, I clip coupons.”
Yes. Yes I did. Thank you and goodnight.
Shade and Sweetwater,
K
I work with this super annoying woman. I don’t like her, she doesn’t like me, it’s fine. Anyway, she ALWAYS says snide comments to me…and one day when I was talking to her, she stopped me in mid-sentence and was like, “Whoa! Has anyone ever told you that you talk way too fast.”
It was the last straw. My response was, and I am not kidding, “Has anyone ever told you that you are obnoxious and rude?”
When I had first brought Gracie home from the NICU and she was still tiny (4lbs), I had a person come up to me in the bank and ask me if she was a preemie, I said yes and she seemed amazed by the whole thing. G. started fussing so I gave the woman a “hungry baby” excuse and started to head for the door when she said to me “how do you feed her, do you just pour it in her mouth?” and I was like “she drinks from a bottle” and she responded with “Ohhhhhhh… I thought since she was so small maybe you had to feed her like a baby bird with a spoon or a syringe or something”. I just shook my head and walked away. I think that one will stick with me forever…
I’m trying to think if I’ve ever been accosted by a stranger like that, and all I can come up with was the time my sister and I went to the beach to lay out. And as we laid there, this geo metro drove just past us. Stopped, opened the door, and a guy waved his fluorescent green thong ass at us, and then drove away.
So our next trip to the beach, we took floats, so we could “lay-out” on the water and not have green thong asses waved at us. And some 50+ year old man waded out there (10-15 feet from us), stood there for oh, 2 or 3 minutes. Took the bra off, and then left. No words.
Well, its a toss between this: http://marlylynk.blogspot.com/2007/11/afraid.html
and a time when I was in a crowd of people deplaning, and some girl watching us said something. I didn’t know her, and she didn’t appear to be looking at me, so I ignored it. And then she started following me, yelling, “Fine! Ignore me! I was just saying hello!”
The crowd stared, and I just walked on… a little faster.
By the way, your fashion-conscious stranger was so totally flirting with you!
Hmmm, that i’m F*cking Matt Damon….heh
No, really it was tonight, although it wasn’t said, it was written. I work at a casino in a sports bar, and he had a comp for his meal, and on it it said, and I quote.
“I’ll give you sex for a tip.”
He was neither homeless, but quite possibly crazy. Thank god he didnt stick around to see me laugh my ass off.
I don’t care you wrote this a month ago, I have to share! (And my shoes will probably never match my bag either. At least not on purpose!)
In Canada 5 years ago, a guy walked by me and my friends on the street and said:
“Hi. I’m from Norway.” and then KEPT WALKING!! It has to be my favorite quote of all time!
I would have laughed so hard…
I don’t really have anything…sorry.