Weird Stuff that makes you sad

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

Oh goddamnit, this thread is making me cry.

What got me the worst though was what Quonk said. Old people always make me sad because they are so lonely and…I can’t even explain it. It’s as though they are nothing anymore and are wasting away, making room for the next generation, when they’ve lived full lives just like you and I will [hopefully]…but then one day we’ll be those poor old people sitting alone on a park bench, looking around us, wondering where our lives went.

My parents make me sad, just thinking about them getting older and knowing that one day they won’t be around anymore.

Oh god, excuse me while I go wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

82

Traffic cones on the side of the road in a battered, abandoned condition, especially when they’re covered with snow, or if it’s raining out.

83

The new Saturn commercial where there are a bunch of twentysomethings driving around a neighborhood that’s full of kids jumping rope, bouncing on trampolines and playing hopscotch, and then they come to a sign that says “Leaving Childhood” with a seemingly endless, desolate road ahead of them.
I always get sad at that commercial, even though at the end the twentysomethings decide to turn off the road, presumably to stay behind in Childhood.

84

As with others, this thread is bummin’ me out a bit.

So many things have already been mentioned that I’m not sure what else to say. The plight of some elderly is one that gets me.

Another one, that I hadn’t thought about in years, came up today. I was out for a Sunday drive, flipping through the radio stations, when I caught an old REO Speedwagon tune. I don’t know the name of it, but it starts with:

Heard it from a friend who,
Heard it from a friend who,
Heard it from another you’ve been messin’ around…

Just a dumb pop song from 20 years ago, but it managed to get itself associated with an episode in my life. I cranked it up and blew down the Interstate.

Yet one more, that truly surprised me. A few years ago, while searching for something totally unrelated, I stumbled upon a website dedicated to WASPs, and it had the story of my Dad’s first wife’s death when the bomber she was flying flipped over and crashed on approach. I knew of her, but I’ve never known the details. It was interesting, but it didn’t really affect me then.

A few days later my partner and I were shootin’ the breeze, and I started to tell her about it. And I started to choke up. That was unexpected. Since then there have been a couple of times when conversation lent itself to mention of the site, and I’ve similarly started to choke.

Huh? I never knew this woman - she was dead more than eight years before I was born. I’ve got her death certificate - October 16, 1944 - and a few photos, including a great one of her in one of those A2 flight jackets, leaning on a P-51. She was a gorgeous gal, and I’m sure my Dad had a hard time with it.

A couple of months ago I posted to a thread about experiences people have while being cabdrivers. I’m not going to go find it now, but as I recall, a lot of it was about some of the sadness I felt when, as the nameless stranger, I got to peek inside lives that were going to hell.

85

I get sad when I am at a store that has video games near the entrance, and there are kids around who don’t have money to play the game, and instead stand in front of the game operating the joystick pretending to be playing as the screen flashes with a sample of what an actual game would look like.

86

I’ve been in lurker mode for awhile now, but this thread had me tearing up so bad that I couldn’t just leave.

So many of the tings here also catch me when I see them, the lonely-looking elderly, children’s toys lost on the sidewalk, and the unappreciated gifts that obviously had a lot ov care put into them.

One commercial that I very nearly started crying over was one for IKEA that aired a while ago. It starts out with a woman cleaning out her apartment, and buying a new lamp. Her old desk lamp gets tossed in a box and set next to the garbage can. The lamp looks like it is looking in through her window, seeing her reading under her new lamp, and it starts raining on it, with sad music playing in the background. You really feel bad for this poor lamp, it still worked, all it wanted to do was brighten the world, but it got replaced by a newer better version. Then the loud Ikea guy bursts in telling you that you are crazy for feeling sorry for the lamp, and the new one was better anyway. I almost started talking back at that silly swedish guy “but the other lamp LOVED her! Look! How could she toss it out on the street!”

And yes, I am one of those people who has to apologize mentally to anything I have to get rid of before its time. :\

87

I get worked up over stupid things like this too sometimes. I remember one instance when I was younger. I was watching the Ducktales movie, and Scrooge’s maid makes him lunch, but he has to go to an urgent meeting or something, so as he’s going she says “What about your lunch?” and he yells “Sell it!” and storms off. For some reason this really depressed me.

It makes me sad when something made is wasted. Even if it’s mass produced, it still seems like effort on someone’s part went into it. It goes along with the whole “neglected old stuffed animals” thing.

88

errrr… why is that weird, Capt.Sheffield?

89

Abandoned pacifiers. Aaaagh. Makes me just bawl. I’m not really sure.

Also hearing a lot of Johnny Cash’s recent work–especially his cover of Hurt–and thinking of him as a frail old man who probably won’t live much longer. I grew up on Johnny Cash; he’s one of the few country singers I can tolerate.

Thinking about what my paternal grandmother told my mom about two weeks before she passed away, “<My dad’s name> is my favorite child, he always makes sure I have what I need. Don’t tell the others I told you, though.”

90

On the subject of abandoned stuff animals: One Thanksgiving, my SIL and I rescued a 4 foot tall pink and white stuffed elephant that had been abandoned in the middle of the road. We drove around for a while with it looking out the back window (getting very surprised looks and honks from other drivers) before deciding to donate it to the local thrift store. I like to think some poor child got a great gift that Xmas.

Old people all alone eating crappy food. Like the really old, poorly dressed guy at the bus stop eating one of those horribly cheap fruit pies that taste mostly of sugar and artificial flavorings. I wish I had the gall to ask if I could buy him something better from the bakery. Even a Hostess pie would have tasted better.

Once on a hot summer day when I was in a crowded laudromat, we flagged down the local ice cream truck. Most everyone bought some ice cream, except for two kids whose mother apparently couldn’t afford it. They just had to stand there and watch us eat. I didn’t have enough money on me to buy then some, and I wouldn’t have wanted to risk embarressing their mother. Again, I wish I had done it.

91

Sunday nights.

92

Here’s a strange one that haunted me for years: sex comedies set in colleges.

During my four years of higher learnin’, all of my friends found love (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), but I remained alone. This condition carried on for years afterwards, too. This meant that whenever I saw some variety of the college sex comedy, I grew depressed as I thought back to the aching loneliness of my time in school and how nothing had changed. It would trigger at least an hour of rumination and brooding.

It strikes me as weird to watch a happy little farce laden with boobies and fart jokes and somehow be gripped by overwhelming spiritual nausea. (Then again, maybe not. Tom Green is enough to make anyone question existence.)

93

There’s a long, skinny window in the hallway at my school that I walk past between my second and third hours, and there’s a pine tree outside of it. The sun shines on it when I walk by, and just that little flash of sunlit green makes me sad and nostalgic for summer.

94

I get this way too sometimes, with songs from when I was a child in the seventies. There are some specific artists/bands that my family listened to quite a bit: Chicago, John Denver, Jim Croce, Harry Chapin, Carole King (really, most of the mellow “singer/songwriter” genre), and so on. Other pop culture stuff from that time period has a similar effect.

Someone upthread mentioned about their parents getting older, and that is another thing that occasionally gets me teary lately. And in a lot of ways it kind of goes hand in hand with the whole childhood memories thing.

Some sentimental commercials do it to me, and I feel like I am being manipulated (which I guess is true!) but I still feel the sadness anyway.

95

Stores like Big!Lots (Pic n’ Save). And any little shops with murky lighting, dust, and employees who look like they’ve been there forever.

96

This is not at all heartbreaking like some of the other stories here, but I’ll mention it anyway:

I generally hate mosquitoes and kill them whenever I have the chance, but if I see one that had sucked so much blood it has trouble staying afloat, i hestitate before I kill it. When I do kill it, i feel bad.
I guess it’s because it reminds me of people. I think I expect pests and other animals to be perfectly efficient and consider imperfections a human trait. I also tend to think about how that mosquitoe must be completely content with satisfaction having a full stomach and a successful score. It would be like killing someone right after they got a bonus. (Yeah a bit of anthropomorphism on my part, but still…)

97

The smell of my grandpa-- a mixture of beer, Deep Woods aftershave from Avon, sweat, and tortilla chips. (he died last year)

The empty desks now in 10 classes. Two of my classmates died on friday, and all I can see now is where they used to sit.

98

wdcsmwscaa I am so sorry that you’re going through this much pain. I wish I could help…email me if you feel like venting, ok?

After reading that, my “Weird stuff that makes you sad” moment is kind of stupid. I got all choked up today after reading the “Luann” comic strip today - when she told the class she had made personal valentines for everyone in the class - and the teacher realizes he didn’t get one…I cried. Maybe I’m an idiot. :frowning: