Stupid Things You Ended Up Pondering All Day

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

this doesnt fit here, but oh well…it creeped me out:

…was taking a shower in a train station after two days on a train from Canberra, Australia to Cairns, Australia (2000-3000 miles)…suddenly I look up, and theres a guy staring at me over the partition between our two stalls. When I saw him, he didnt try to hide, just kept staring at me with a goofy look on his face. He was gesturing with his hands and mouthing something, I couldnt understand what he was saying, but I got the idea. I gestured in my OWN way, telling him to get the fuck out of there…for the rest of the shower, I just tried to ignore him and not look up. Then, while I was drying off, I noticed a pair of shoes under the shower stall door, and I KNEW he was peering over the door at me. I was getting ready to yell at him that I was gonna go find the nearest uniform if he didnt leave, but then he disappeared.

Fortunately for him, Im not a 250-pound homophobe…but what if I HAD been and decided to teach him a lesson by kicking his ass? How could he obviously stare at someone without thinking of the possibility that they might seriously maim him for doing so?

Im sure this experience would be the ultimate fantasy for some gay guys, but it totally creeped me out, and I couldnt stop shaking for an hour.

62

Something I wasted a day pondering…
Does a “daytime only” radio station in Alaska
sign off for 6 months?

63

It’s October 1999 and my friend Chad and I have media passes to a Lansing, MI outdoor music festival called, appropriately enough, Octoberfest. We’re there having a good old time listening to Citizen King when two things happen that I still ponder to this day.

  1. I look to my right and notice a person in a tight fetal position obviously in a great deal of pain. All around him or her is the LARGEST POOL OF VOMIT I have ever seen. This thing is streaming down the street like water during a heavy rainstorm. I cannot fathom how one person produced so much vomit.

  2. We go backstage after the show because Citizen King stormed off stage after the promoters threatened to cancel if the crowd didn’t stop moshing. We go back, get a few quotes from band members, and head back to the front stage area. Then a seemingly normal looking guy, in his mid-50s wearing a baseball cap comes up to. The following dialouge takes place:

Guy: “Hey, you two, come with me.”
Us: “Excuse me?”
Guy: “Come with me.” He then starts to walk toward a trailer. For reasons I don’t understand, we reluctantly follow.
Us: “Where are we going?”
Guy: “You guys are with the Verve Pipe, right?”
Us: “What?”
Guy: “The Verve Pipe, right? You guys are with them. Follow me.”
Us: “No… no, man. We’re… we’re just here.”

At this point, I should mention that THE VERVE PIPE WASN’T PLAYING AT THE FESTIVAL AT ALL.

We then got the hell out of there. I swear you could hear the gears in our brains jam up when that guy mentioned the Verve Pipe. As Chad says, “There was no post of reality to grasp onto at all.”

Another incident, which I won’t tell in detail cause I wasn’t there, was when a guy in a wheelchair tried to steal Chad’s wheelchair. Strange!

64

I don’t know how many of you have seen or are familiar with the movie “Man on the Moon”, you know the story about Andy Kaufman played by Jim Carey. Well, My wife and I went to go see the flick opening night to enjoy reminiscing on the demented comedy that was defined by Andy. He’s always playing a joke on the audience – and never let up until the audience was confused whether or not it really WAS a joke. We’ll needless to say, the movie came upon the scene where Andy is taping a variety comedy special for NBC(?) and he wants to purposely insert about 10 seconds of the show with the vertical hold flipping out. Of course the producers were like - WTF! you can’t do that, the home viewers will think their tv’s are on the fritz. Well, Andy finally got his way and the Movie went on to the next scene - when all of the sudden the film starts flipping out - Andy Kaufman style - then goes all white. The movie going audience bursts into laughter and waits for the movie to begin again. And we wait. And we wait. And we wait. Now, were not sure whether this is a joke are not, but no one is going to get up to alert the theatre manager and fall victim to an Andy joke from beyond the grave! I s**t you not we sat there for almost 10 min. before ANYONE got up. Finally the rest of the movie presumed, and then a three-holed potato hit me in the foot! Na just kidding about the potato but the rest is true. In fact, up to that day a movie has NEVER stopped due to projector problems, let alone right after the vertical hold scene in an Adny Kaufman movie. It still freaks me out.

Oh, and we did end up getting free tickets for our inconvenience.

65

For fans of the surreal, the place to be is the neighborhood convenience store. Preferably working the night shift. Years ago, it was my job of choice, and it has provided me with quite a few interesting anecdotes.

This one took place in a Cumberland Farms in Rhode Island. About eleven o’clock on a weeknight. I’d gotten there maybe an hour before, and had settled into the nightly routine of blaring odd music and confusing the regulars, when a couple of college-age guys came in. They were well-dressed, in fact well-dressed enough to look slightly out of place, and had driven up in a nicely maintained older car.

They went directly to the cooler where we kept the (overpriced) eggs, and came up to the counter with eight dozen eggs.

“That’s a lot of eggs.” I said.

They looked at each other quickly. One said, “Yes, that’s a lot of eggs.”

They paid, and left.

The next night, about the same time. The same car pulls up, the same guys get out. They go to the egg cooler. They come up to the counter with five dozen eggs.

“That’s a lot of eggs.” I said.

They looked at each other quickly. One said, “Yes, that’s a lot of eggs.”

Emboldened, I ventured to ask, “What are you guys doing with all those eggs?”

Once again, they glanced at each other. One said, “Bachelor food.”

The other guy added, “Yeah. Bachelor food.”

Unbidden, the first guy reaches into his pocket, and brings forth a small flashlight, on which is a sticker, which says “Grover Bedtime Buddies”. He says, “We’re with the ‘Grover Bedtime Buddies.’”

Now, I’d worked in the dorms at college all the past summer, and I’d found some odd things while painting the dorm rooms. One of the odder things was a sticker I’d found on a closet. Which I’d stuck on the back of a random business card and put in my wallet, and promptly forgotten.

Until now.

I pulled out my wallet, drew out the card, and showed it to the two guys. “Well, I’m with the Oscar the Grouch Bedtime Buddies.”, I said proudly.

They didn’t blink. They didn’t hesitate. One guy replied, “Then you know about the Hair Club for Men.”

They had me. I didn’t know about the Hair Club for Men. I said, “What about the Hair Club for Men?”

They glanced at each other quickly. One of them said, “They’re committing atrocities.”

“Yeah. Atrocities.” The other one added.

They paid for the eggs, and left.

I’ve been wondering about that exchange for years.

66

Wow. I can’t believe I missed this thread. I’m bumping it because (1) it’s hilarious, (2) I have two to add, and (3) I didn’t want mrvisible to think his brilliantly surreal anecdote had killed the thread.

Okay. Number one:

Years ago, I’m walking down the street in Seattle, specifically on Capitol Hill. I’m on a cross street, walking up the hill from Broadway on up to 15th. (Just as frame of reference for Seattleites.)

Around the corner two blocks ahead of me, two guys appear. Sort of a more subtle Laurel and Hardy: one is taller and thinner, one is shorter and stout. They come directly towards me, on the sidewalk on my side. They aren’t talking, or interacting in any way; they’re looking straight ahead with blank expressions. And add this small detail: They’re wearing matching blue work jumpsuits, like mechanics outfits, but clean.

They’re two blocks away, so it takes a bit (maybe 30 seconds) for them to reach me. All this time, they don’t talk, don’t look at each other. Just walk.

They get to about ten feet in front of me. Then the shorter guy looks over (and up) at the other guy, and says, in an oddly firm tone of voice, “Chocolate.”

They pass me on one side. I’m frowning, slowing down: chocolate? I stop, turn around, and watch them walk away. They’re back to silence, looking ahead, just walking, until they disappear around another corner a couple of blocks away.

:confused:

And here’s another one…

Over Christmas, I visited my wife’s in-laws in Virginia. Our flight (from Seattle) was routed through Pittsburgh. (Yes, the same trip that produced the “radicchio” story I mentioned in a recent Pit thread.)

At one point, waiting for the connecting flight out of Pittsburgh, I had to go to the bathroom. Went one way: the first one I found was closed and walked. Came back, passing my wife in the waiting area, gave her a shrug as I walked past. Went on down the other direction. That bathroom was “closed for cleaning” with a cart blocking the door.

Now grumpy, and losing patience, I continued that direction, looking for the next restroom. When I finally got to it, I discovered that all the stalls were marked “out of order” except one.

And in that one stall, I was totally perplexed to discover, sitting on the back/base of the toilet, a bottle of Southern Comfort. It didn’t contain Southern Comfort, though.

It was full of urine.

I wasn’t about to touch it, but this was apparently the only working bathroom stall in the whole terminal, so I had no choice but to sit down and do my business with my backside a few inches from a liquor bottle full of someone else’s piss.

Who? How? Why? :confused: :confused:

P.S. I don’t remember who mentioned it, but yeah, the “99 beautiful girls, three ugly ones” slogan for the Deja Vu strip club is a well-known factoid here in Seattle. Here’s a non-adult link to a story about the club.

67

MWAHAHAHAHAHA Holy crap mrvisible that’s the funniest thing i’ve read in years. Killer story.

Fran

68

I’m checking in with another squirrel story. My undergrad campus, like many, was overrun with them. We had a theory the squirrels and chipmunks were warring for control of the campus.

Anyway, I see a squirrel holding a whole bagel in its teeth. No idea how he got a whole one. When he sees me it flips its head up and now is looking at me through the hole of the bagel. I still laugh at the image.

69

Plus others I’m too lazy to quote…

Y’all are still kidding, right?

Or is the manufacture of potato pipes a dying art? That’s suuuure what it sounds like… :smiley:

/end hijack

Odd things:

This story has become part of the family lore, and I am delighted to share it.

First off, for those who don’t already know, I live in the Yukon. I moved here with my family when I was a small child. It was a dramatic change from California, let me tell you!

At one point, we were living in a house about 15 or so km from town. One fine evening, the boys (my father and stepfather) went into Whitehorse for some reason or another that made it past my mother and stepmother. They were gone a couple of hours.

When they returned, both of them came into the house, looking a little pale. And they were very quiet. This roused the suspicions of the wives.

“All right guys, what happened?”

“You tell them.”“No, you tell them.”“uhn-uh. You tell them.”

“C’mon, what’s this all about?”

“Well, we were driving down the highway, almost home, when I could swear that I almost hit a peacock!”

“Yeah, right guys, we believe that.” :rolleyes: “This is the Yukon. What were you guys smoking and did you bring some home?”

“Nothing! We swear!” Like any wife is going to believe this. Well, okay, there might be…but not many.

Further discussion was happening, with my dads taking the worst of it, when there was a knock on the door. One of the parents opened it, and there was this guy on our porch. “Hi. I’m Danny Nolan, and I own the game farm right behind you. Have you seen my peacock?”

The gentlemen retire, triumphant.

70

Most of the time, it’s not things I see that bug me, but the things I read. Stupid stuff. This is my most pathetic story.

Back when Bruce Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love” album came out back in the 1980s, some dipshit columnist was riding the Boss over a reference in the first song about having “more good luck, honey, than old King Farouk.”

The writer was on his case because Farouk wasn’t that lucky at all, apparently being overthrown by his followers. I’m hazy about the history, but you get the idea.

So Bruce needed something to rhyme with the word “you” in the next line, which was “But the only thing I ain’t got honey – I ain’t got you.” OK, maybe Farouk is not the best pairing, but the song doesn’t suffer by it, and who the heck in America knows who King Farouk is anyway? And for that, he gets the no-doubt enormous pleasure of being lectured about it by a three-times-a-week Washington columnist coast-to-coast.

The guy wasn’t a music critic, BTW, just a journalist who needed a column that day. I’ve read a lot of crap in the newspapers, but for sheer nitpicky stupidity, that one still sticks in my craw. And the worst of it, I still can’t shake it

71

Kinda a variation on delphica’s story…

Driving past a row of warehouses, there was one that was torn down. Well, mostly torn down. The walls were gone, the roof was gone, doors gone, windows gone. You get the picture. Here’s an ex-warehouse, there’s nothing left but the concrete slab of a floor. And a toilet. With the bathroom door still standing.

That was it. Toilet, door and concrete slab. It was odd.

And a foil-wrapped half of potato with three holes drilled in it. Not really, but it would have been cool if the potato was there.

72

Here’s one I keep wondering about.

My friend got the Bangles Greatest Hits Video a while back and we were watching it, we get to this video of a song we didn’t recongnize but it had to be one of their eariler ones1 since they didn’t have the Bangles look in it.

Anyway, the gist of the video is them in the backseat of a limo singing their song and looking out the windows. And every so often they would pan to the driver who was…

Leonard Nimoy!

For some reason Spock was driving the Bangles around. He’d even do the eyebrow raise at his passengers in the backseat.

It will bug me forever until I know how the Bangles got Leonard Nimoy in a music video.

73

I vaguely remember a video of the Bangles in a limo, although I don’t remember Nimoy. If it’s the one I’m thinking of the song was called “Walking Down Your Street”. Or “…My Street”. If that helps.

74

It’s simple really. One hole to suck through, one hole to hold the burning marijuana and one hole to act as a carburetor. I have used such a device many times in my youth. Apples work well too. It’s no wonder the kid didn’t want to claim ownership.

Haj

75

:eek:
Maybe Bloody Mary’s???

(I know, it’s sick)

76

I have videotape of a lost weekend I experienced some years ago. I don’t actually remember doing any of those things, but there I am, on videotape, acting, er, like I’m unaware of what I’m doing.

Notable points include jumping off the top of a barn into a large round bale of hay. Drinking a lava lamp. Having conjugal relations with an early model Plymouth Barracuda (the ones with the big wraparound back glass). Sleeping under a cow. Driving my 1967 Chrysler Newport Custom into a cornfield, soiling my underwear, and flipping said soiled underwear into a tree. Driving back out of the cornfield naked from the waist down.

Every time I think about drinking again I watch this tape. it’s a powerful deterrent.

b.

77

When I was a senior in high school, my parents and brother moved in with my great-grandmother who was senile to care for her. The idea was I’d join them after I graduated, and dad spent a few days a week at our house until then. I used to drive down to see them (120 miles each way) on the weekends. One such weekend I’m driving along 495 in Mass (on my way home to NH) and I pass by a city when I’m half way home. It must be Lowell, since it’s the first of two sizable cities I’d drive through in Northern Mass. Twenty minutes later, I see signs for Lowell… to this day I have no idea where I was the “first” time I drove by Lowell.

A better story is one my dad tells about a driving incident that happened shortly before he and my mom got married. He was in some small Mass town (I think Fall River) driving on this narrow windy road with only one person ahead of him. The woman in the car ahead slowly comes to a stop, which confused him since there was nothing blocking the way. He stopped behind her since there wasn’t really enough room to pass her, and he worried that maybe he just couldn’t see an obstuction ahead. Then she started to back her car up. When she got within a few hundred feet of him, he started to honk the horn at her. She continued to back up, even though he was really laying on the horn, and must have known he was there by then. She backed up until she hit his car, drove forward a bit, looked out the window to see if there was any damage (there wasn’t) then floored her car, leaving poor Dad to wonder what the hell had just happened.

78

I always thought that Grimace was a bean bag chair. Maybe from a bean bag chair factory outside of Chernobyl or something.

79

FairyChatMom, PlanMan, gypsy_gurl – we’d do this every spring after gym classes ended. The shoes would be pretty groady by then.

Why throw them up on the phone lines? To confuse the simple people, just as in the Laurel & Hardy “Chocolate” post. Like the guys doing “Firesign Theater” bits as I walked across Boston Commons a few years ago. I just greeted them with “Shoes for industry!”

Here, outside the town of Monroe, WA some high school kids have been putting objects up in a tree on US2 for years. It amuses we locals to see what’s appeared in the tree. They’re down on their originality now: it’s only a Bush-Cheney sign.

80

When I worked as a lifeguard at our city pool we would always have to clean out the locker room after closing. Whoever got the toilets had the most fun. Well, one day when I had to clean them there was in only 4 toilets: a whole matching outfit, sunglasses, a shoe, swimming trunks and a hat which someone had defacated on, a different shoe, and 2 dirty pairs of briefs. It was defiantely a lot of fun to clean up. I always wondered where all that stuff came from.