I work in retail and evidently there’s something special about me that makes people love to share TMI with me. I mentioned in another thread about a man who was dressed in baby clothes and couldn’t talk about anything else but how awesome it is to dress in baby clothes. But he was obviously a weirdo. A couple days ago I had another customer, who looked and seemed very normal, who saw fit to tell me that he has a friend who has slept with, gasp, 5 or 6 women. And that the friend has done better than him. I didn’t know how to respond to that other than with nervous laughter.
Strangers are always telling me the weirdest things but I’m sure they tell you guys strange things also.
The high cost of being a good listener. Take it as a kind of screwy compliment. You seem trustworthy, sympathetic, easy to get to know, maybe you have a friendly face. Ultimately, all of these things are good, all taken with all. You’re actually doing something right.
I tend to get TMI stuff from my friends/people I know, rather than strangers.
My mother tends to tell me details about her bowel movements. Or she tries to, and I try to cut her off.
On a side note, a while ago I told my mother what TMI meant. Well, I told her it meant “too much information.” Then something happened at my mother’s church - in the church newsletter, there were a few too many details about some mundane aspect of the church, so it was more information than the churchgoers required. My mother then said that the church people were getting “TMI.” I had to explain to my mom that that’s not quite what TMI means.
Oh, and by the way, I have three huge damn pimples on my back! :mad:
Yesterday, I popped some kind of zit on the back of my head, where I still have hair. But when I got the discharge worked out of the hair, it was more like a booger than pus. Weird.
On any form of public transportation though, the person who has a story to tell will end up telling it to me. I don’t know what it is about me that makes folks aware that I’ll be too timid to tell them to stop talking to me.
My TMI magnet is miscalibrated. Total strangers want me to diagnose their rashes and their bff’s menstrual problems, but my own patients “forget” to tell me they went to the emergency room last week. :smack:
I attract old lady TMI. Usually only old ladies who need colonoscopies, but sometimes other kinds of old ladies. One old lady once told me she orgasmed 11 times in one night on a beach (or was it 7 times? I forget). Another old lady took me to the kitchen, pulled down her knickers and showed me her punani. I’m still not sure what I was supposed to see, it was all in Romanian. I think it was about a car accident…
Me too. I’m horrible with directions, so much so that Bill and I have an agreement. If we are going somewhere and I’m giving directions and we get lost…its his fault because he knows better than to listen to me.
I always warn people to not listen to me and I do try to be helpful, but I’m quite sure that most of them ended up in BFE while looking for the tree that has started turning red.
::giggling:: Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m great with directions. But if I’m getting stopped on the sidewalk while late getting somewhere, or I’m just not feeling charitable, I simply might not give the right directions. I’ll say, “Oh, sure, that’s up three stoplights and then turn left,” just to get them out of my face.
If they get me with the right timing and in a good enough mood, I’ll even whip out my phone and map it for them if I don’t know from memory. That happens less often, though.
I’m the one they ask for a cigarette. WTF? I’ve never smoked in my life.
If I’m in a good mood–with or without time on my hands–it just pisses me off, and I want to start yelling at them, “What the hell are you asking me for?”
Right now at my retail job, I’ve been mostly stuck at the cashier desk wearing a fresh and highly visible surgical scar on my neck. I changed my nametag to say “Hi! My name is: Oh my god! What happened to your neck?” to have some fun with it and keep people from being weirded out.
Now I get to hear all about everybody’s recent surgeries. Brain surgery here, heart surgery there. I wasn’t expecting that, but at least it’s relevant.
In related TMI, a couple years ago a lady I was helping shop randomly went off about how “if you ever get cancer be sure to avoid Stanford Medical” for treatment. She went on for ten minutes about her three different cancers and this or that clinic was great, but Stanford was pure evil or something. I assume she didn’t have anyone else to vent to. Now that I’m an oncology patient myself… it still seems bizarre.
Wearing a wrist brace whenI was a bagger meant that everyone wanted to tell me all about their health problems. And if they had no health issues, then they’d tell me about their cats health issues.
In my bank teller days I was a magnet for TMI. I guess people thought that because we had to keep their account information private they could tell us anything. We knew who was cheating on their wife, who didn’t pay their taxes, you name it. The teller window is not a confessional, people!
And while we’re at it, I have a nasty ingrown hair in my nether regions.
That’s not TMI that’s just noise.