This forum thread is meant for all the random encounters we have with humans as we meander through our daily lives. These posts can be long-winded recaps of real events or just a simple one-liner statement that can fit on a post-it note. In fact, you can even write your everyday observations of strange humans ON a post-it note, scan it, and post it on this thread. I hope this takes people watching to a whole new level.

I look forward to your outrage against humanity.

Yup. It's still kind of awkward when people jump up to open the door for me after I've already pushed the button for it to open automatically. This occasionally happens when I'm already heading out an open door.

I made one of those live window models laugh.

The title of this thread should be Everyday Observations of Strange Humans.

The safety guy at work is from Oklahoma. He can make you laugh so hard you get tears in your eyes. He does non-stop Jeff Foxworthy type one-liners as well telling some of the most outrageous growing up stories. You know life in some parts of the USA is like a country-western song.

My city has about 5 different styles of buses in operation, on each of which you make the back door open slightly differently…some more confusing than others. This has led to a strange phenomenon of very helpful graffiti scrawled on about 95% of city buses - stuff like “PRESS HERE {X}” and “NO GLOVES.” The city seems to have decided not to wash it off.

Oh my god I've met so many strange and interesting people in my life…! To me the most memorable are those where you just run across a strange person, have a surreal encounter/moment, and then never see them again…
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One time we went to visit our old home (for nostalgia sake, it was way out in the ‘country’) and a guy named Eddie had moved in there. He looked and dressed like a death-metal lead singer (just use your imagination) but he seemed very interested that we'd come by and he invited us in (yeah, we're stupid). He had a pet Pig (that acted like a dog) and a pet Rabbit (that acted like a cat) living with him, and they were very friendly and tried to play with us, get on our laps, etc. Still, the home was surprisingly well-kept and smelled fine. Then he saw that we'd bought a case of beer (it was in the car) and he offered us a VERY fine tool-set for the whole case (was he an alcoholic?), then he told us he'd like for us to hang out with him and his wife when she got home. We asked how long that would be and he said a couple years, seeing as she was in prison…
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We (very nicely) said it was time to go and he just hung his head sadly (long satan-goat beard dangling), saying he knew we were never coming back and he understood, and he waved goodbye… Initially we were just happy to get out of there without incident but then we realized he probably was really a nice guy despite all the weirdness, so a few months later we went to visit again. The house was gone, burned to the ground… and noone around had ever heard of the guy… But we have a nice tool-set to prove he existed…!
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That's Eddie! I'll tell about meeting Ezra later…

A girl hopped on the train yesterday who had fantastic hair; an amazing short haircut that suited her brilliantly.
Then I noticed her boyish face…
Then I noticed she was schoolgirl… But huge, almost 6ft with a bulky Rosie the Riviter build.
Then I noticed her legs: covered in thick black hair.

This was just layers of confusion for me… she wasn't a boy in drag, just a big young woman. Anyway, whatever, good for her. Its not her fault I was confused.

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Kim, that story sounds amazing!

KimLuster wrote:
Initially we were just happy to get out of there without incident but then we realized he probably was really a nice guy despite all the weirdness, so a few months later we went to visit again. The house was gone, burned to the ground… and noone around had ever heard of the guy… But we have a nice tool-set to prove he existed…!

That is an incredible story, KimLuster! I was expecting the neighbours to say “Eddie? But he's been dead fifteen years…”

Ezra! Oh Ezra! Wed been kayaking all day and weredead-tired. The sun was setting, and wewerent far from our takeout point so we were just going with the flow, veryquiet and peaceful Then we hear thisput-put-put sound and we look down the river and this canoe comes around thebend, perfectly silhouetted against the setting sun. Only 1/3 of the canoe is actually in thewater the front 2/3s are sticking out of the water at a high angle. We can tell theres a man in the back of thecanoe and it looks like hes sitting way up high, in what looks to be a barberschair, with his feet propped way up in the canoe!!As he gets closer thats EXACTLY what itis. It is the epitome of relaxation!
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The canoe itself is aluminum, and it looks likesomeone had taken a shotgun to it several times, and then patch the holes withwood, metal, whatever they could find, and the man had nailed a trolling motorto the side of the canoe with a 2x4 (thus the put-put sound). Were wildly curious and greet this man (who hashuge side-burns and wearing jeans and a ragged vest). He says in a voice thats a nearly perfectrendition of Karl Childers from Slingblade, Hey there, my name is Ezra thatsfrom the Bible!
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Ezra immediately starts in with groaners such as if you use ashovel for a boat paddle, you might be a redneck, to which he produces ashovel and uses it to paddle closer to us.Were all laughing and he thinks were laughing at his jokes when itsmostly him and his antics and voice. Heinvites us to his campsite of course we say yes!! A ways further down the river we pull in tothe bank and theres several tents and two men (one shirtless, the other in overalls) come out them to greet us, andtheir beards are so long they reach their crotches!! Our takeout spot is at a bridge about half amile away (we can see it). My husbandwhispers, If I hear banjo music Im gonna be at that bridge in 10 seconds!
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Ezra has made this water slide from slabs of plywood withno coating on them - just bare wood. And theres no curvein it the slide looks like a giant flat wooden Hockey Stick, but Ezra isclearly proud of it and wants to show it off. So he splashes some water on it (reduce friction!) and shoots off downit. He hits the bend of the slide andyou can literally hear the crack and it bounces him and flips him backwardsinto the river. I just know he has to bedead (and with an ass full of splinters) but he just burst out of the wateryelling Yeah!
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Ezra and his friends invite us to stay the night, withpromises of music and moonshine! Severalof our group thought about it, but. Nahhh! Still, every time we do that part of the river again, we hope wesee Ezra!
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This is 100% true folks. These people exists - who needs fiction!!

Freaky. That waterslide sounds wild! If Mad Max ever becomes reality, it'll start in America, not Australia. :)

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Some of the strangest people I saw in the US were the most “normal”, because it was like a characature of normality and it didn't quite fit in… Well, at least that's what I recall from the first trip.
On the yacht the Wowio people had hired to have a promo party event on at the 2010 Sad Diego Comic Con there were all these people there for the con, some in costume, lots of industry people mostly who were there for the promo aspect of it, but also a few people that just didn't belong…
I think someone had had a bright idea to hand out left over passes to bulk up the numbers. There were a group of Russian students who spoke almost no English who were following me about because of my big furry hat. They knew nothing about the gigantic con with thousands of people in strange outfits next to the boat, it was all a total mystery to them. The only point of familiarity they could find was my big Cossack hat, and they clung to it!

Also, another bunch with free tickets; a young couple. Both tall, slim beautiful and deeply tanned. Him with a mop of curly blonde hair and her witg salon style straight silky brown hair. The way they talked was straight out of “Valley Girl”, or like Michaelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I didn't know those people were real!
They buttonholed me in a corner to chat about Australia, Surfing down at Margaret River, and strongly urged me to go see “Big Sur”…? “Duuude! You HAVE to see Big Sur! You'll LOVE it! So bitchen!”
Nice people, but like aliens to me… And they were telling me about how everyone else was strange.

The wife and I were in London. She wasn't feeling well so she wanted to go to the drug store. I have to remind her it's called “chemists” As we come out she nearly runs down a smallish waifish punk styled girl. My wife starts gushing apologies and the punk just glares at her and says “FUCK off” in the best cockney style.

This exchange is so stereotypical of the American tourist running into the young angry Brit punk type that I double over laughing. The poor punk girl wanted to just disappear which is what she promptly did in the crowd. And I continued laughing. My wife was upset and I explained that it was a modern British idiom and not to be too embarrassed about the exchange.

People who mindlessly adhere so strongly to stereotypes like that punk girl in such a way that it becomes a substitue for their personality deserve to be laughed at. A lot.

Back, back, back many years ago when I was in high school we had a few exchange teachers from around the world… One was a Canadian man (I've told Banes this story). He was the first Canadian I ever saw in the flesh outside of the TV show Beachcombers.
He was a funny looking guy: skin as pale as a pudding, glasses, a weird blonde haircut and a peado moustache. The strangest thing though was that he wore short little shorts, a thin T-shirt, and sandals ALL YEAR ROUND, no matter what the weather! When it rained he might put on a thin nylon rain jacket over the top. That was his ONLY concession.

This was a very tough school and people made fun of him a lot when he first came, but he simply didn't give even half a f**k, he was as cool as a cucumber, always polite and friendly. And in the coldest weather we have here (which was obviously nothing at all to him), he still strutted around in a thin, tight T-shirt, tiny shorts, and sandals while we were all rugged up, shivering, and miserable.

For such a strange character in such a tough school he earned a lot of respect by just being himself and not changing. No one made fun of him again after the first winter.

ozoneocean wrote:
Back, back, back many years ago when I was in high school we had a few exchange teachers from around the world… One was a Canadian man (I've told Banes this story). He was the first Canadian I ever saw in the flesh outside of the TV show Beachcombers.
He was a funny looking guy: skin as pale as a pudding, glasses, a weird blonde haircut and a peado moustache. The strangest thing though was that he wore short little shorts, a thin T-shirt, and sandals ALL YEAR ROUND, no matter what the weather! When it rained he might put on a thin nylon rain jacket over the top. That was his ONLY concession.

A variation of that is actually really common in my city. If you pass by just about any reasonably busy bus stop, you'll see a guy in baggy knee-length shorts slipping on a slurpee (no joke, Winnipeg has been slurpee capital of the world 15 years in a row despite our long, cold winters). Equally true in the middle of summer and the dead of winter.

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I was a couple weeks into my job in a pet store and was minding the shop on my own while my manager was on a break. A girl came in dressed really strangely without fitting into any particular style genre - I can't remember all the details now, but she was wearing pillsbury doughboy pajama pants and this really creepy backpack made out of a realistic baby doll. She came up to the counter, asked somewhat timidly if we engraved dog tags, and picked out a heart shaped one. I asked her what she wanted on it, and she started spelling it out: “Um, I want it to say B…” I figured if she was spelling it out it must be a complicated name, so I interrupted and just asked her to write it down for me. I turned around for a few seconds and then turned back to see what she had written: “BDSM.” Suddenly clicked that she wanted me to engrave a tag for HER, and I think I reacted a bit awkwardly (I was 16 or so at the time). Unfortunately I hadn't been trained on the engraving machine yet, so it was made all the more embarassing because I had to go fetch my manager off her break to come show me how to make this human dog tag.

Ha! That's hilarious! How cool :D

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The other day I was getting into line in the self checkout area at the supermarket, when I noticed two gigantic denim tree trunks in front of me… I looked up and the guy on top of them was huge! He must have been around 7ft tall or close to it, his chest was massively oversized and his head was like a small cylinder (no neck, flat cropped hair) on top of that mighty human oak.
So, big guy, so what? Well, it wasn't like standing in line behind a person, it was more like standing near a truck or a wild horse: i.e. something huge, powerful, unpredictable AMD potentially dangerous. I felt like a slight bump from one of those big knees would send me through a wall, so I gave the giant plenty of room just in case and watched him carefully.

Now I know how small cats feel when there are big stompy people around. No winder they're so nervous!

In 2011 I saw Hulk Hogan standing not far from me in a door way in San Diego. He was just as cartoonishly big as he is on TV. This man seemed bigger.

I'm standing in a bus queue and as the bus pulls in, I notice a very large man staggering towards me in some kind of combat wear. He is clearly blind drunk and he's coming for me.

I board the bus before he reaches the queue and find a spot amongst occupied seats. He can't sit next to me now. Much to everyone's horror the driver allows him on board and ignoring my ploy he sits himself down in the aisle right next to me. The other passengers can relax and enjoy the show now. I hear them giggling as my new friend starts his barely intelligible rant.

I can make out some of it. He got out of prison today and made straight for the pub for his first drink in five years. I wonder what kind of crime results in five years inside. Did he get time off for good behaviour? He tells me about the fight he's just been in. The other guy's head was hanging off by a thread apparently. Do I want to see his arm? Yes, why not - show me your arm and the bus falls silent as everyone looks over.

My friend rolls up his sleeve and he's bandaged from wrist to elbow. He pulls off the bandage and reveals a massive gash along the length of his forearm and almost down to the bone. I can hear the other passengers wretching as I study the exposed tendons and say “Well that's quite something!”.

We have reached an understanding now. It's me and him against the world. My new friend gives me a pat on the back and staggers off at the next stop.

And that's how you met Skreem. :D

One time I saw a man with an incredibly muscular upper body wearing his shoes on his hands. In my imagination it's obvious how he developed his physique.

ozoneocean wrote:
And that's how you met Skreem. :D

Hahaha!

The other day i was talking to one of my co-workers and I mentioned my age and he said “50? You have way too much fun to be 50!”

Yesterday evening I got a pick-up line used on me for the first time in my life. I was walking into my favorite coffee shop and stopped the chat with some of the folks I knew outside having a smoke, when one of the hanger's on random people listening to the conversation used the line, “So I hear you're an apparel designer. Could you design me a pair of pants? Because I want something for you to take off of me.”

I broke down laughing and assumed it was a joke or the poor effort of some semi-attractive awkward girl just trying to be friendly to someone that everyone else obviously knew, before walking inside. Once in, I told my friend Lora behind the counter about it and just got, “oh that's Derek. He does that.”

Well hello, Mr. Groh. It has been a while since you last posted on the forums. That story had a twist ending.

Years ago I moved cities and signed up for work at a Temp Agency. I only worked a couple of labor jobs before getting a full time gig at the Video Store that would be the inspiration for my comic!

Anywho, at one of the jobs (moving computers and furniture out of an office building), one of the other workers was this middle aged guy who looked exactly like Austin Powers. He started talking to me and said he was divorced and that he'd been an accountant for a mobbed-up company.

He said he'd been making a successful living but was now forced to live under the radar because the people he'd testified against - the Mob, I guess - wanted to kill him! It was just like the movie “Midnight Run”.

At the time I assumed he was telling the truth. I mean, revealing these things to a total stranger seemed like a bad idea, and perhaps means the guy had a screw loose.

…Or maybe he got frustrated and had to share his secret now and then.

He did look just like Austin, though. The windswept hair, the teeth, the thick glasses. Amazing likeness! I saw him go by on the bus a couple years later. The dude was so distinctive looking; staying off the radar must have been difficult for him!

KimLuster, your stories are amazing! The first one is really something, with a shocking ending and everything! It'd make an interesting short story/comic!

As for Emmett - wow! You live in a Stephen King novel, it sounds like!

Banes, I think meeting interesting people is what makes life worthwhile!! Sounds like you've had your share of life too!! :D

There's this guy I'm doing a website redesign for and he looks and talks exactly like Vizzini from princess bride. At least with a British accent instead of an American one… But he sees himself as very intelligent and he licks his lips a lot like Vizzini, same face and hair…

I want to play chess with him one day. …or drink wine spiced with iocaine powder, which comes from Australia doncha-know?

ozoneocean wrote:
There's this guy I'm doing a website redesign for and he looks and talks exactly like Vizzini from princess bride. At least with a British accent instead of an American one… But he sees himself as very intelligent and he licks his lips a lot like Vizzini, same face and hair…

I want to play chess with him one day. …or drink wine spiced with iocaine powder, which comes from Australia doncha-know?

Inconceivable!!

I love those threads for inspiration. It's though for me to cooperate because I usually doesn't regard a person as ‘strange’ until I tell my encounter to someone and this someone is all ‘this person did WHAT and you still talked to him/her?!’
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I guess that the only person who weirded me out was a schoolmate that I had when I was 10. He loved to talk about meditation and other new age stuff. One day, he brought his zodiac stone to the school. It was, if I recall correctly, an amethist with the Gemini sign. I'm very curious and the first thing I did was to open the gem box and touch it. He then said, looking worried: “Don't touch other people's zodiac stones! You now have a curse and you will die at age 25.”
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Boy, I lost my sleep for a whole week.
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A PS: I changed schools and didn't see him again until I was 15. I was going to a spiritist youth group at that time and he was there. He had shaved all his facial hair (ALL of it, even the eyebrows) and one day he invited the group to have a snack at his house. It was then that I discovered that his mother was a wiccan (it explains the zodiac stones and the new-age stuff). Actually, I guess he was a wiccan, too, and just liked to go to our spiritist group out of curiosity (which is very common, we don't mind). He and his friends had a RPG group and they invited me in. I would have accepted, but his friends were all huge guys, all wearing black, piercings and weird haircuts and my father didn't let me join (specially when I told him that I would be the only girl). I never saw my schoolmate again after that. A pity.
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A second PS: I'm 27 now, in case you are wondering. Curses those days.

I want to share another story, because to this day, I don't know who was stranger on this whole thing: the MSN guy or me.
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It was at this time in which you would post your MSN in orkut communities ad join big chatrooms with complete strangers. I was part of a fantasy writers community and it wasn't surprising when a guy added me and started talking right way.
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He presented himself as an erotica writer, and I didn't judge him by it. I mean, one of my friends at this orkut community wrote erotica, so whatever. We small-talked a little and then he dropped the bomb: he was very ashamed of himself because he was having sexual desires for his child niece, and he didn't know how to deal with it. I adviced him to look for professional help, among other things. He remarked that I talked like his therapist, and I said that maybe it was because I went to therapists a lot (it was not a lot - I visited a therapist precisely once - but I wanted to make him comfortable). The guy went offline and I was all “well, job done”. Laugh at me as much as you want, I only saw him as a troubled guy.
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The next day, the guy started talking normal enough. He mentioned that he had professional help and asked if I wasn't weirded by him. I said that I was pretty chill with things, as long as it wasn't a crime. His talk became increasingly naughty after that, and I started to try to put some sense on him saying ‘things that my therapist told me’ (I just wanted to give those things more strenght, like I said, I only visited a therapist once in my life). He asked me why would I go to a therapist and I said it was too personal (because it was a lie, you see).
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He got more and more naughty until he sent me two explicit gifs. At this point, I was all “oh, so he is just a pervert wanting to get excited at my expense?” and started to have fun. I complained that he was making me upset and that my therapist wouldn't like it. I told him again that I didn't want to reveal why I was going to a therapist, until he got more and more curious. Then I made the ‘reveal’: I was a sociopath and I hoped he was chill at this. He asked what that was and I happily linked him to the wikipedia page on sociopathy (and, by extension, psychopathy). Than I said again that I hoped he was chill with it, that I should never have told him that.
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This is when the situation leaped to “mildly weird internet tale” to “unintentionally awesome”: there was a blackout at the place I was at that time and the power went off for half an hour. When it got back and I opened MSN again, the guy had disappeared from my contacts and I couldn't find him again.
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So, to recap: I lied to a guy about going often to a therapist to make him more comfortable about sharing personal things with a stranger. I reacted obliviously to his attempts at perversion simply because I'm an assex and I don't react to sex things like other people - I mostly don't notice it until it's too blatant obvious. I didn't want to tell him why I talked so much to therapists because I didn't want to be caught on my lie. I send him the article about sociopathy just as a cruel joke because I finally understood that he was just a pervert.
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And then, I weirded out a pervert so much that HE. BLOCKED. ME.
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Win?

KimLuster wrote:

Inconceivable!!

I don't think that means what you think it means… :D
I fucking LOVE that movie.

@Strix- that guy sounds like a particularly bad strain of freak, lucky you got rid of him like that!