As I walked home cheerily from a muscle punishing yoga class on Saturday, I saw this on the side of the road:
an abandoned, rusted, wheeless grocery cart, filled to overflowing with strings of Christmas lights.
What the hell is that all about? It was an image I could NOT get out of my head.
What’s a weird thing you saw or overheard that you couldn’t shake?
jarbaby
I Still talk about this one.
I’m at the grocery store, behind me is an older gentleman buying two items. A box of a dozen doughnuts, and liver sausage.
Those two shouldn’t even be in the same bag together! I mean, what kind of a household only needs those two items!?!?! and at the ** same time** Yuck! Double yuck!!
gee thanks, now I can’t get that image out of my head again.
A few years ago I was inspecting my Sprite can after I finished its contents and concluded that “Limon” was probably a combination of the words “lemon” and “lime.” I kept thinking about this merger and began telling all my friends about the revelation, but most of them had already discovered Sprite’s clever word usage.
Limon. . .huh.
wring, that reminds me! A few months ago I was at the Jewel, and a woman ahead of me was buying SEVEN boxes of tampons and three gallons of orange juice.
What’s happening at her house?
jarbaby
the ** mother** of all PMS cases!
So I’m in the laundromat at about 10:30pm on a weeknight (laundromat closes at 11:00pm). A woman comes running in, deposits a ten dollar bill into the change machine, receives her quarters, and begins to dash out to her still idling car.
I would have wondered about this one for the rest of the night had I not asked her why she had just done what she did.
Any guesses?
Hey, it’s the 10 Items or Less game! I play it in the grocery store every chance I get. To play, all you need to do is find the oddest combination of items that a single person is waiting to pay for, and decide what story it tells about them. Very fun. I can’t remember any examples right now of other purchases I’ve seen people make, but I do clearly remember one time when I waited in line holding the following:
5 cans cat food
1 half-gallon milk
1 tube athlete’s foot medication
1 box tampons
1 pint Haagen Dasz.
I felt like the least desirable woman in the history of the world, buying those things together and realizing what I would have conjectured about anyone else buying that combo.
And back to the OP, I found a worse-for-wear pair of khaki pants in a Walgreens parking lot. How they wound up there, I will never know, but they weren’t the only clothing there. Over the course of a year I saw shirts, shoes, socks, and once some tighty whiteys there. Always made me wonder.
Feeding the magic-fingers bed at the Motel Sex? 
Late in the evening my mother and I pull in to an empty parking lot at the local drug store. She steps out of the car directly into a sandwich. it is sitting there in an open styrofoam takeout container with a side of fries. The sandwich is un-eaten and untouched, the only this, apparently wrong with it is my mother’s foot which now sits in it. Weird.
Late in the evening my mother and I pull in to an empty parking lot at the local drug store. She steps out of the car directly into a sandwich. it is sitting there in an open styrofoam takeout container with a side of fries. The sandwich is un-eaten and untouched, the only this, apparently wrong with it is my mother’s foot which now sits in it. Weird.
Went with a group of friends to a weekday matinee at our local movie theatre when I was in college, and of course being midday it was nearly empty except for us. We’re goofing around waiting for the movie to start when something rolls up under the seat and hits my friend in the foot.
He bends over only to find a potato. A potato half wrapped in aluminum foil. A potato half wrapped in aluminum foil with three holes drilled through it.
Being the kind of guy he is he quickly stood up, held the potato aloft, and asked if anyone was missing a potato. Of course no one claimed it, so he eventually put the potato down in the aisle beside his seat.
Then the previews started. Shortly after they did a young kid (looked about 12) walks down the aisle and picks up the potato. My friend turns to him and says “Oh, so it’s your potato.” The kid looks back at him, says “No man, it’s not my potato!” and the LEAVES THE THEATRE!
I’ve puzzled over this one for years.
In our neighborhood,hanging from the power or phone wires crossing a road is a pair of sneakers tied together. For the life of me I can’t figure WHY some kid would toss their shoes up there… or HOW for that matter. Goodness knows my perfect child would never do such a thing…
Driving to Austin from Colorado, in a straight shot, I looked over through bleary eyes to see an emu running down the road next to the car. I probably did several takes, and rubbed my eyes, but it was definitely an emu. Just running down the road.
Sure, I found out later why there are emus running down the road in Texas, but it was very strange at the time. The other passengers and I probably discussed it the rest of the trip.
Years ago, I was in the express check-out line at a supermarket in California, about five minutes to six on a Saturday evening. Right across the street from the market was a historic adobe that was often rented out for weddings and such. So two guys in tuxes come up to the check-out, and one of them says, “Excuse me, but would you folks mind if we went ahead of you? I’m late for my wedding.” He was holding an egg beater–you know, the old-fashioned hand cranked mixer that you used to play helicopter with when you were a kid? That’s all he was buying, just the beater. Everyone else in line just stood aside. I told him, “Sure, you can go ahead if you tell us what you need that for.” He checked out and presumably went off to married bliss, but I never got my answer.
So, if you’re reading this …
A few days ago, I saw the most bizarre thing.
I live in Montreal. It’s really cold here. We still have plenty of snow on the ground.
It was a fairly nice day, so there were dry patches of sidewalk, interspersed with snow and slush.
Walking up the hill to my house in the evning, my boyfriend spots, get ready for this, footprints. Of bare feet.
They led about 3 blocks from the corner to the top of the hill, visible on the dry ground and obviously getting wet by stepping in the puddles.
My boyfriend is convinced that someone went swimming, but I don’t believe him.
OH my god. This reminds me of a story. About four years ago, a group of my friends drove down to Southern Indiana for our friends wedding. We were in the car for like four hours, and getting a little grumpy, some were dozing. I glanced up and saw, I SWEAR TO MY LORD JESUS, a giant two humped camel.
“A CAMEL!” I cried, and everyone jolted awake. I swore to god for months and months that I saw a camel, and of course for the rest of my life, everyone just yells out random animals when we’re in the car.
Finally, just recently, we remembered the story, and my friend who was getting married that fateful day said,
“OH yeah, there’s a weird guy who owns camels, down the street!”
VINDICATION!
jarbaby
You know what?
In Turkish Limon means Lemon!
Just FYI!!
Good Old Shoe:
He’s the Runt of the Litter
Waal that’s true
N’I found him jest hiding in an Old Work Shoe
N’he got into mischief, as a Pup will do.
But I never had a better than my Good Old Shoe.
Waal, we’s out jest a-huntin, on a Cold Fall Day, and
it seems like that Possum 'bout to Get Away…
Scene: the honeymoon suite of a large hotel.
The door bursts open. An ecstatic groom steps over the threshold with his beautiful new bride in his arms. A grinning bellboy places the suitcases inside the door and pauses for his tip. The groom reaches in his pocket and hands the youngster the first bill that comes to hand. The boy looks at it, gulps, and backs out hurriedly, closing the door behind him. The two fling themselves into each other’s arms, kissing madly with a passion that would melt lead. Soon, their fingers are ripping at the cumbersome costumes that they have worn through the ceremony just concluded; but this is real life, not a movie, and the seams and zippers do not cooperate. They break and laugh breathlessly, then begin to strip as quickly as they can. For all the seeming complexity of wedding dresses she is done first, and is on the bed in a few whisps of lingerie specially picked weeks before by the time her new husband is shed of his tux.
“Are you ready for me, lover?” Her voice is low, sultry, and full of promises that beckon from the beginning of time.
“Oh, my love, my beautiful one. I have waited for this moment for ages.” His hand moves from the pocket of one of the suitcases. It contains a rotery egg beater. Slowly, ever so slowly, he begins to turn the handle.
Her eyes widen…
**
Well, duh. Bachelor Party. Am I the only one who’s seen this paragon of filmography here?
As for my stupid thing (hee hee), my parents live on the second floor of a building, in an apartment over a storefront. On top of the storefront is a tarred roof accessible from windows in my parents’ living room. One day I looked out to see a plastic grocery store bag sitting on the roof. (The roof is about 20’ above the sidewalk.) So my mom orders me to retrieve it (I would have been happy to leave it there, but noooo). It contains clothes, including a 10-year-old Cubs shirt, underwear, worn-out khakis, one sock and…a crazy straw… What the hell?