**Bertha. ** A customer who threatened me at work. I went into shock & didn’t react quickly enough. If I had complained immediately the supermarket would have trespassed her. I still see her but try to keep out of her way. She looks like Bertha from Two & a Half Men only younger & with dark hair.
Methusalah Not a stranger but only talked to him once. He has a bad arm so was moved into the laundry, which is the only job without heavy lifting. He can’t get anything right. he claimed to be colour blind so all laundry is now renamed in really big letters. Its still all going astray & I think he is literally blind. I was a defender cause I though our firm (in a rare moment of soft heartedness) was giving him a job till retirement - but he is 76! Either he is related to the boss (they look a bit alike) or he has something on him! (I kid, I kid!)
Rocket Boobies used to work at a now defunct record store. They were just, like, in your face! People stared unabashedly, and I don’t think she minded at all.
My girlfriend lives about a block away from, and across the street from her is a real nosey busy-body. We call her Gladys, as in Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched.
There is young man, slightly overweight that has a really rosy complexion particularly his cheeks. He is called Revlon.
There is nursing home nearby and there is a short gentleman who walks around the block about 3 or 4 times a day. He takes very small steps and drags his feet while he walks. We call him Buffalo, as in Shufflin’ off to Buffalo.
I feel really bad that I think of one woman at the gym as the Potato Woman. I am sure that she is nicer than the Bimbos on Treadmills, Lipstick Ladies (full makeup at the gym - why?!), or Steroid Suzie. Potato Woman has been going to the gym for years, seems to be much more diligent than I am - but is simply potato-shaped, and that’s that.
At my gym there’s Chatty Cathy, a male trainer who never stops talking. He’s very fit, and seems like a nice guy. The other regular trainer is the Quiet Man. There’s also Stick Boy, a younger trainer who carries a long dowel, I think he uses it to measure something.
Other gym regulars include The Professor, an older guy who sits on machines to correct what looks like student papers; the Three Little Pigs, several young men who are always there together; and Bright Socks, a lady who wears bright pink or blue socks and uses the stair-master.
** Pole-Guy**: On the way to work I often see this very athletic man running with a heavy-looking pole down the side of the street or on the median. He holds it as though it was a spear and he were a tribesman hunting deer.
**
Bus-Woman**: She’s this tired-looking, overweight woman who could be from 30-50 (she just looks very tired and has long grey hair so it’s hard to tell) who is always standing at the bus stop. I pass her every morning in the car on the way to work. Rain or shine, she’s out there with a newspaper or an umbrella. I feel so sorry for her in the winter when it’s cold and she’s all bundled up. She looks kind of sad and lonely…I just want to hug her! She used to wear a uniform for the Blue Plate Cafe (which is down the street from my work) but they closed it down.
On the rare occasion that I don’t see her it actually bothers me for a bit. Call it OCD (her being a stranger I’ve never talked to) but not witnessing her strength in the morning sets me off my morning routine.
Also I just remembered **The Strangler ** but he’s not a complete stranger. I sort of met him when my cousin and I were at a community lake. It’s this 25ish year old husky man with shaggy hair cut mercilessly short. He’s got a lot of chunky arm muscle and looks like he could wring your neck like a dish rag. He always wears a stained wife beater and deniem jeans.
It doesn’t help that he’s creepy and hits on my cousin a lot. He keeps showing up at parties that we’re at and at a rock show I attended recently. I had never felt such strong primal instincts of fear and danger when I first met him and the feeling still lingers.
The guy at the entrance to our local landfill who apparently runs the place is Captain Trash. He’s a talker. I get a kick out of it when I see him leaning on a vehicle ahead of me in line and ( if the driver is female) dry humping it.
IRL I am Captain Efficient. I’ve been doing basically the same work for 24 years but every year I come up with new ways to save energy.
There was this woman I went to college with–she wasn’t quite a stranger, because I did know her name, though I didn’t interact with her. My nickname for her was “Trekkie Weirdo” because she was obsessed with Star Trek, and got very irate and loudly argumentative if anyone ever disagreed with her interpretations of “the canon.”
Oddly, the spouse (who also went to college with me) had his own independent nickname for her from before we met: “Psycho Woman”. That one fit pretty well too.
At my last apartment building, I had
**
Creepy Asian Guy** (aka The Craisan): His apartment was on the second floor, facing the parking lot. He would sit at a table by the window all the time and just stare at people. I was going through a bit of a slutty phase, and I always felt really weird bringing people home when he was staring at me.
Perkins dude: Perkins dude was an older man (retired) who would catch the bus to every morning around 11 and come home around 2, always carrying a bag from Perkins and a travel cup. It took me three years to realized he was doing this nearly every day… I wasn’t home much during the day, but when I finally realized it, I felt a little sad for him.
The Orgy: In the apartment below me, one particularly quiet night, I heard people having sex. Okay, that’s fine. Within the next 10-15 minutes or so, I heard 4 different names. It was hard to fall asleep with that going on below me. I started hearing it about two or three times a month… so I bought a TV for my bedroom.
Just remembered another one, reminded by *The Orgy *above:
The Fuck You Brians. These were a couple who lived in the apartment below us many years ago. They would leave their window open (summer, no AC) and get into very loud arguments at 4 in the morning (I think the husband was in the military and worked odd hours). I called them this because that was one of the most common things I would hear the wife screaming at the top of her lungs (the husband didn’t raise his voice much–it was mostly the wife, who I think was usually quite drunk).
They got so loud one time that somebody called the police on them…and the police knocked on our door at 4 a.m. to ask if somebody had hit our car. Weird. Anyway, we moved shortly thereafter. It wasn’t all the FYBs’ fault, but they were definitely factored in our decision.
Stevie Nicks Jr.: This woman is in a night class I’m taking. She is always dressed in long flowing dresses, high heeled boots, has long frizzy blonde hair.
Bingo Bitch: This unpleasant older woman did nothing but complain, gripe, and hurl insults at other people at our table during bingo until I told her to shut up. She called me a nasty young lady. I replied that I was sick of listening to her. Then she went 180 degrees and started acting nice to everyone.
Cockroach Ear - My wife’s nephew who has his damned bluetooth thingee shoved in his ear all the time like he’s waiting to close a multi-million dollar real estate deal, except for the fact he works part time at Radio Shack.
I sell chicken at a farmers market on Saturday and it’s hard to get to know all the customers names right away.
So we have The Breast Sisters (who always buy our chicken breast packs and have rather large tata’s of their own), and Box Chicken Man (carries his groceries in a cardboard box) and Thigh Guy (buys leg packs only) to name a few.
Cigarette Lady, after a woman who lived up the street with some obvious mental and/or substance abuse problems. She’d ask anyone she passed on the street for a cigarette. We later changed her name to The Lady Who Delivered Her Baby In the Porta-Potty after she, well, delivered (and left) her baby in a porta-potty at a park nearby. She’s now in a state mental hospital, and the baby was fine.
The Beastmaster and the Beastmistress. 2 alcoholics who buy large quantities of Milwaukee’s Best from the BP in my shopping enter. The Beastmistress is famous for wanting to buy beer 15 minutes before it’s legal to sell, and wanting to get cash back on her EBT card.
