… or something, AKA The Thread With the Terribly Long Name.
Anyway, here’s the story.
Last night after work, I was walking to my girlfriends house to go and cook for her (she has a serious case of the Flu and I’ve been Florence Nightinggale for a week now) when a streetcar passed me. This in itself is not unusual, since Amsterdam is packed with streetcars. The streetcar had “De Telgraaf” sponsoring all over it (it’s the largest, although by far worst, Dutch newspaper). On top is a scrolling marquee, cranking out the current headlines telegramme style.
So I’m looking at the headlines, when the following phrase hits my optical nerve:
“T-Ford wins Car of the Year Award”
Insert Twilight Zone tune here
I was stunned for a moment and thought I had somehow travelled back in time some eighty-odd years. Then it hit me that they meant to say “Century” instead of “Year”. But for a moment or two, I was really surprised !
Does anyone have a similar experience where you thought yourself to have landed in a different era all of a sudden ?
Incidently, for the Car of the Century site, go to www.cotc.com .
(Also, I realised I just made a thread that could just as easily have been started by Dougy Monty… Header using the word “Things”, personal experience story, followed by a closing question inviting other Dopers to share similar experiences…)
When I was in college, my roomie and I bought a wonderful 1930s floor-model radio (which I still have). We got it home, set it up and turned it on–by a marvelous coincidence, we turned it on to a nosalgia station that was playing complete 1930s radio shows, comercials and all.
We were totally freaked out, but in a good way, and were highly disappointed when the night’s programming returned to the “present.” I still recall we heard a show named “The Strange Dr. Weird.”
Time, the mid-1960s, an early-fall evening. I and a friend, both fairly young, are walking from the church near my house to his house about a half mile away. Over the last month he has gotten very deeply into Spider-Man, who is in his first round of popularity at this point. He is pretending to be Spidey, and reaches forth his hand, middle and ring fingers bent back towards the palm and hand at near right angle to forearm, in the approved arachnohominid superhero position for web-shooting. We are passing a tree on our left; he is aiming at a bush slightly ahead of us and to our right. As he extends his arm, he connects with a previously unseen spider web spun between the tree and the bush. About two beats while we are both stunned. Then he delivers the perfect line: “See? I told you I could do it!”