# Extremely strange people you come across **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 22, 2004, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125 "2004-11-22T16:53:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JayElle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4bbf92/32.png) [@JayElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JayElle)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/61 "2004-11-24T02:58:57Z")
I love our local Mr. Snazzy Man. Mr. Snazzy Man hangs around the bus stop and can be seen in either an elbow length red jacket with matching red high-water pants, a red tie, and red shoes or the purple version of the ensemble. Seeing Mr. Snazzy Man never fails to cheer me. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/62 "2004-11-24T03:13:40Z")
> [@Eliphalet](#): > > In _San Francisco_??? When did Lady Sally move from New York? > > Darn, there go my vacation plans! Sometime after she closed the House? At least now she doesn’t have to play clothes rack for Charles while he’s beagling around. Why does this change your vacation plans? ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/63 "2004-11-24T07:22:13Z")
I once sat across a seven-foot albino wearing a trenchcoat. When a couple with kids got on, I gave up my seat to them. As I went to stand, I got a glimpse at what he was wearing under his coat or should I say not wearing under his coat: pants. As I got off at the next stop, I realized that he was masturbating too. :dubious: :rolleyes: :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/64 "2004-11-24T09:47:52Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > Sounds almost like [a Dan Aykroyd character](http://www.lovefilm.com/view_dvd.php?dt_id=838). He wasn’t Mother. Too intense. His spiel bordered on logorrhea and the look in his eyes was … unusual. (FTR, _Sneakers_ is one of my favorite computer movies, right up there with _WarGames_ and _Tron_. ;)) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/65 "2004-11-24T13:35:52Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > He wasn’t Mother. Too intense. Figured as much. Why did you think I said “almost”? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/66 "2004-11-24T13:36:57Z")
_Sneakers_ is the first DVD I ever bought, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Hoshiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Hoshiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoshiko)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/67 "2004-11-24T15:32:21Z")
I once sat at a table with an aunt of mine who was selling things at a flea market. It was a pretty slow morning and we were listening to the radio and chatting when we heard a strange _click, click_ _tinkle_ _click, click_ _tinkle_ noise headed straight for us. It was “Ringo Starr” dressed in a purple velvet shirt and red pants, with black beatle boots and about 20 beatles buttons pinned on him everywhere. He was also wearing a black feathered hat with chains on it, and he had chin-length black and grey hair and an oooold black briefcase. He wanted to know if we had any buttons for sale. He didn’t seem to care too much that we didn’t, because he sat on the edge of the table and told us all about the glamour and hardship of being a world famous musician. And then he told us about his many houses and cars around the world. And then he told my aunt that she would make a perfect 2nd wife, and that his first wife wouldn’t care because he was Ringo Starr. He also didn’t seem to mind too much that she told him “Thanks but no thanks.” Apparently her problem was just that she “didn’t believe him.” But Ringo “had proof.” He threw his briefcase onto the table and starting bringing out torn magazine photos and album covers to prove to us that he WAS Ringo Starr. If you’re ever at the flea market in West Valley, UT you should check him out. He’s pretty nice, and he gives autographs for free. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/68 "2004-11-24T15:48:46Z")
> [@KRC](#): > > …used nuclear missile parts… Waitaminnit. _Used_ nuclear missile parts? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/69 "2004-11-24T15:55:22Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Waitaminnit. _Used_ nuclear missile parts? :dubious: Maybe they’re decommissioned Soviet Bloc junk. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/70 "2004-11-24T16:16:55Z")
Hey, **Hoshiko** , my mother in law tells me that possibly the same guy turned up in the little tourist mall where she works in St. Augustine, FL. He chatted up people and bought some cigars. There are several things wrong with this scenario: Ringo Starr does not go out in public in the US, or many other places for that matter. If you pass him on the beach at St. Tropez, he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms not to talk to him or take his picture. Despite his charming persona, he is really a fairly obnoxious person IRL. The chances of him showing up where you are and being funny and engaging and carrying a briefcase of clippings to prove who he is, is zero and none! ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/71 "2004-11-24T16:18:19Z")
Hey, **Hoshiko** , my mother in law tells me that possibly the same guy turned up in the little tourist mall where she works in St. Augustine, FL. He chatted up people and bought some cigars. There are several things wrong with this scenario: Ringo Starr does not go out in public in the US, or many other places for that matter. If you pass him on the beach at St. Tropez, he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms not to talk to him or take his picture. Despite his charming persona, he is really a fairly obnoxious person IRL. The chances of him showing up where you are and being funny and engaging and carrying a briefcase of clippings to prove who he is, are zero and none! ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/72 "2004-11-24T18:17:27Z")
Regarding the used nuclear missile parts: Well, obviously there must have been a nuclear war at some point and this guy’s friend was a survivor. So he built his time machine and sent us all back to the time before the war…yeah, that explains it. (Okay, now I’m getting weird.) ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/73 "2004-11-24T18:36:04Z")
Random thought that hurts my head, and is really quite inane: If time travel were possible, wouldn’t we already know it? It’s a sure bet that whoever invents time travel, or one of the later adopters, will visit a time period previous to our current one. Of course, they’d try to travel under the radar, so to speak, but eventually as time-travel becomes more reliable and safe, it’s going to turn into a boon industry. Somewhere, some careless person is going to let slip that he’s a time traveler; the gig will be up, and we in this present time will already know about it. No? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/74 "2004-11-24T18:40:49Z")
> [@TellMeI'mNotCrazy](#): > > Somewhere, some careless person is going to let slip that he’s a time traveler… Yeah. Mental institutions are full of 'em! ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/75 "2004-11-24T19:02:32Z")
We don’t live in an area that is condusive to the average every day crazies. We do, however, have what I refer to as the Bike Man. I am pretty sure he is mentally not all there, but able to ride his bike all over on our dirt roads. I don’t think the collects pop cans. He has on some fatigues and a back pack, but doesn’t look old enough for a Vietnam Vet lost soul and too Not There for a Persian Gulf vet . His bike helmet is what is the comical thing: he has a stuffed animal ( skunk, I think) attached to it somehow. I am fairly sure this man does not have a regular job and he rides his bike all the time, even in the winter. Which isn’t easy in our area. We do have some kind of group home located right near our library. The people that live there ( a sprawling Victorian Mansion that always has someone rather odd sitting on the front porch) use the library alot. There is always one guy who asks in a booming voice to the desk clerk "\*\* WHERE ARE THE BOOKS ON CALCULUS?\*\* and proceeds to speak in a tone that everyone inside the building can hear about how he needs to study it. I don’t know how the librarians in NYC can handle the yokels there. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/76 "2004-11-24T19:29:04Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > On the very rare occasions when she isn’t there, you can usually see a small number of rolled-up pieces of paper, three to five, tied with what looks like colored yarn, and inserted into the chain-link fence. Reminds me of the Louis L’Amour story about the widowed woman who wrote of her lonliness on small pieces of cloth and attached them to tumbleweeds. Should you ever have the opportunity to pick one up and unravel it, it’d be interesting to know what you’d find. ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2004, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125/77 "2004-11-24T19:57:51Z")
Well… back in NB, Canada, there was a fellow who everyone knew to see, but didn’t know his name. He didn’t speak very much - I mean, he was friendly enough, and would speak when spoken to, but I’m from a very small town, with very small minds, and so if someone isn’t instantly gregarious, they _must_ be a snob. :rolleyes: Anyway, this guy, personality aside, had a lot going against him socially… you see, he only had one outfit - jeans and a flannel shirt, a tuque, padded orange coveralls, and rugged, worn old workboots. His face was usually filthy, and he had a lot of scraggly beard. He often smelled very bad… one wants to stand downwind of him. He carried an old, green cloth backpack at all times, and rode his bike everywhere he needed to go. He frequented a local greasy spoon restaurant, often drinking coffee, sometimes ordering a large breakfast. He never bothered anyone, and people rarely bothered him. He was often seen in ditches, picking up trash, and sometimes collecting cans and plastic bottles, and taking them to the recycling place. One day, shortly after he left the restaurant, there was a well-dressed man sitting at the counter who watched him walk out, and he said to one of the waitresses: “You know, I went to school with that guy. He used to be a lawyer. He’s a very intelligent person, but he just wants to be left alone now.” We were all stunned to hear this - after all, this is a guy we’ve seen… well, for many of us, most of our lives. He’d never been anything more than “that stinky fellow who rides his bike and often picks up trash from the ditches.” So, next time he came in, we gathered around, and one of the waitresses finally just asked him: “What happened? We heard you used to have a job.” The guy just faintly smiled, took a deep, deep breath, then told his his story. He used to be a very successful lawyer. He was born into money, and he then made a lot of money. He was a lawyer for ten years, when one day he just realised he wasn’t happy at all. His life felt empty and phony. He hated the people he worked with, he hated what money made him feel like, and what money made others think of him. So, he decided to give it all up. He bought himself an acre of land - and he lives there. No house, just a little tent for when it rains. I have no clue what he does when it snows, I should have asked. Someone must take him in, or he might have a little home/shelter somewhere. Anyway. Everything he owns, he carries in his backpack. He donated all of his money to various charities, and now he earns his money by recycling the cans and bottles he finds on the side of the road. He eats whatever he can find on his land, and that I can and do understand - there are plenty of nuts, seeds, berries to be found, and he plants his own vegetables. He also traps rabbits. He can often afford to go to the restaurant to get a coffee, and he saves up his extra money for a once-a-month big breakfast there. It was the most I’d ever heard the man speak. I don’t know how much of it was true, but considering there was the other guy who supposedly went to school with him, it sounds like he was a lawyer in the past. He doesn’t _seem_ crazy, but who really knows? And then on the “strange because they’re ignorant and opinionated” side, there’s an ex-friend of mine, who I could tell endless stories about… (the same one who says “old wise tale” and “never lick a gift horse in the mouth”). One day we were watching the movie [“About A Boy”](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0276751/) - a British movie, based on a British novel, with British (plus one Australian playing a Brit) actors. It’s set in London, I believe… Anyway, as we were watching it, Hugh’s character says something particularly arrogant. My friend sighs, and then says, exasperated: “_Americans_!” I looked at her, startled. I said “They’re British. They’re in London.” “Well, I’m sorry, but that looks like New York to me. And besides, I mean, Hugh Grant is in it. He’s doing a really lousy British accent, though, but he’s an American, after all.” I blink. Me: “Hugh Grant is British.” Her: “Oh, please, he’s so American.” Me: “He was born in London…” Her: “Yeah, but he must have come to America at an early age.” Me: “… I… I don’t _think_ so…” Her: “Either way. He’s American\* now\*.” … Okay. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremely-strange-people-you-come-across/276125.md?page=3)