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.
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Comic Talk and General Discussion *
Everyday Observations of Strange Humans
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:That is an incredible story, KimLuster! I was expecting the neighbours to say "Eddie? But he's been dead fifteen years…"
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…!
Ezra! Oh Ezra! We’d been kayaking all day and were dead-tired. The sun was setting, and we weren’t far from our takeout point so we were just going with the flow, very quiet and peaceful… Then we hear this put-put-put sound and we look down the river and this canoe comes around the bend, perfectly silhouetted against the setting sun. Only 1/3 of the canoe is actually in the water – the front 2/3s are sticking out of the water at a high angle. We can tell there’s a man in the back of the canoe and it looks like he’s sitting way up high, in what looks to be a barber’s chair, with his feet propped way up… in the canoe!! As he gets closer that’s EXACTLY what it is. It is the epitome of relaxation!
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The canoe itself is aluminum, and it looks like someone had taken a shotgun to it several times, and then patch the holes with wood, metal, whatever they could find, and the man had nailed a trolling motor to the side of the canoe with a 2x4 (thus the put-put sound). We’re wildly curious and greet this man (who has huge side-burns and wearing jeans and a ragged vest). He says in a voice that’s a nearly perfect rendition of Karl Childers from Slingblade, “Hey there, my name is Ezra – that’s from the Bible!”
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Ezra immediately starts in with groaners such as “if you use a shovel for a boat paddle, you might be a redneck”, to which he produces a shovel and uses it to paddle closer to us. We’re all laughing and he thinks we’re laughing at his jokes when it’s mostly him and his antics and voice. He invites us to his campsite – of course we say yes!! A ways further down the river we pull in to the bank and there’s several tents and two men (one shirtless, the other in overalls) come out them to greet us, and their beards are so long they reach their crotches!! Our takeout spot is at a bridge about half a mile away (we can see it). My husband whispers, “If I hear banjo music I’m gonna be at that bridge in 10 seconds!”
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Ezra has made this water slide from slabs of plywood with no coating on them - just bare wood. And there’s no curve in it – the slide looks like a giant flat wooden Hockey Stick, but Ezra is clearly proud of it and wants to show it off. So he splashes some water on it (reduce friction!) and shoots off down it. He hits the bend of the slide and you can literally hear the ‘crack’ and it bounces him and flips him backwards into the river. I just know he has to be dead (and with an ass full of splinters) but he just burst out of the water yelling “Yeah!”
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Ezra and his friends invite us to stay the night, with promises of music and moonshine! Several of our group thought about it, but…. Nahhh…! Still, every time we do that part of the river again, we hope we see 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: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.
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.
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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!
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.
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:Hahaha!
And that's how you met Skreem. :D
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."
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!
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