I thought about what kind of guy he was, and decided I didn’t need this thread to digress to that discussion.
The latest Nutjob encounter (AGAIN at Metro!):
There is a local older woman who is widowed, very rich, very lonely, very…eccentric. She pretty much spends her days going from bar to bar, drinking chardonnay all along the way, trying to come up with new creative projects, some of which have some good ideas and some of which are just plain bizarre. She tends to semi-stalk people that she knows will be receptive to her ideas or at least listen to her talk on and on and on…henceforth she will be known as ROLS (Rich Old Lonely Stalker)
I was at Metro with a friend and ROLS came in, saw us, and pretty much invited herself to our table. She started telling us about a new “game” that she intends to play with her adult children (who are in their 30s and 40s): the “ABCs of Life” game, which she made up on the plane ride back from a golf tournament. She wrote the letters A-Z on a couple of napkins, gave them to me and my friend, and said, “For each letter, you will have 3 seconds to write down the first word that starts with that letter that you think of when you think of me. GO! A!..B!..C!..” My friend and I tried to keep up as best we could, and of course we weren’t going to write negative things, since she was obviously going to want to read them or have us read them…so after that, we tried to convince her that if she wanted to use something like that to get honest opinions from her kids, she should make it anonymous and allow them as much time as they need to write out their impressions. She had a tough time seeing how that would be better but eventually I think she got it. OK, so far so good. My friend then left, and since I had just gotten a fresh glass of beer, I was gonna have to stick around with ROLS for a bit. Then she started telling me aobut her husband’s accident 17 years ago and how the hospital didn’t have a doctor see him for nearly four hours and how that lead to his brain damage and so forth…then completely out of the blue, she says in a rather loud voice: “I’m John the Baptist and my husband was Jesus, and now he’s DEAD!”
AWKWARD.
I remember my aunt talking to my mom once and just right out of the blue saying, “Adam and Eve spoke english, you know.” Completely out of the context of the conversation. But we all knew she had to be a little nuts to have married into the Toad Family to begin with.
I was doing a shift at the rescue station one weekend June-ish, when a guy came in and wanted someone to give him allergy injections. Well, OK I said, it’s not any different than doing insulin, so I did it for him.
In the ensuing conversation, he went on about:
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cars coming on the market that burn saltwater (same process as what was in the news this week)
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how the decline in railroad route-miles and the passing of steam power will be the economic downfall of the country. (I’m a rail buff myself, but he had no clue regarding the economic and productivity advantages diesels had over steam)
-several crackpot conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the Iraq war.
I mentioned the guy to the chief, and his response was “That guy IS NUTS!”
I seem to have a talent for dating them. At least in Atlanta.
Last boyfriend - we’d been going out for a while. Met families, stuff like that. I knew it wasn’t going anywhere, but I also knew I was leaving town in September. (Yay!) He knew that too, and wanted to keep dating until I left.
Then, 4th of July weekend, he told me that we both wanted to break up, etc, etc. I was naturally surprised, but he seemed like he had made up his mind, so I left. Nothing you can do in a situation like that.
Then, according to him, I started stalking him. How I could be doing that from my apartment ten miles away without driving by or calling him, I’m not really sure.
Then he made sure that all of his friends, many of whom had become my friends, knew that I was an evil bad satan-witch whose only purpose in life was to drive him miserable. (That’s when I found out who were really my friends)
…time passes…
About ten days ago I stopped by his office to drop off a bag with the books I had borrowed. Approximately a 10-second interaction.
Then I started getting text messages :smack:
Gosh I looked so pretty
It was really nice to see me
and on like that :rolleyes:
Now I’m going to be using him to pack boxes. I’m having back surgery in 2 weeks and moving out of my apartment at the same time. I can’t pack loads of books. But I’m happy to take advantage of Mr. Nutjob’s muscles to do it for me. As long as there’s someone else here …
I just found out that not only does my mom have a cousin known as “Red Face Roger,” but that Rogers dad is known as “Goofy Uncle James.” James was a welder for the Pullman car company before becoming an itenerant preacher. He would not enter any room in which a TV was playing. When visiting Aunt Beattie, he’d ask, “Is that devil-box on? I can’t come in if that devil-vision is on.” Once, his brother in law (my granddad) was in there when this happened and replied, “You goddammed sonovabitch can stay out there then!” James was a jolly fellow who would just break out in laughter for no reason with no warning. When approaching an intersection in his car, he’d just drive out into the middle of the intersection and ask the person riding shotgun, “You see anyone?”
Anyhow, Saturday my mom was on the phone with Red Face Roger. Ten minutes into the call Mom asked him about his back troubles and he responded, “Yeah, it’s OK. Hey, did I tell you I cut off three of my wifes fingers?”
“How’d you do that?” Mom asked. “With a chainsaw” he said.
My family is nuts.
I went to Walmart this morning and a man was talking out load. I looked and he had his shirt half open and two wires held to his chest with bandaids. He didn’t have a ear bud or visible phone. He was dressed up like he had a wiretap on him. Was he crazy or a plant? I’d have to go with crazy.
I have been meaning to post this for a while. This is almost OT.
For a number of reasons, I have decided to become more polite. I like it. I like being nice. It is remarkable how many people are confused or enraged when you are polite to them.
Me: “After you,”
He: “Smart ass!”
Me “WTF?”
Maybe he was hoping for “Age before beauty.”
Somebody did that to me once; held open a door and said “Age before beauty.” I got to use Dorothy Parker’s response as I went through: “Pearls before swine.”
I have been healed!
At work this morning (It’s a supermarket, Market Street for anyone who knows it.), I went to the washroom on the way back from my break. I took off my glasses to splash some water on my face, and the guy at the next sink asked what had happened to my eye. I told him "Detached retina … silicone to make it stick … cloudy cornea.) He said he hoped my eye would heal in the next couple of weeks. “I doubt it; it’s been years.” So he reached out to grab my forearm, closed his eyes (with head tilted back a little), held on for a few seconds, then opened up and said “It will heal in two weeks.” What could I do but thank him on my way out the door?
I told my boss, who rolled her eyes, so I said to her “You’ll know it’s true when Jesus comes out of the washroom, long straight hair and little beard, just like in all those portraits over the centuries.” (Yes, that’s exactly what he looked like.) She never saw him come out. We decided that he must have Ascended instead.
A few years ago, we were waiting in an emergency room cubicle. We sat there for over an hour waiting to be seen, and a woman in the next cubicle was having quite a conversation. We only heard her side of it, but she was clearly listening to someone else and answering.
Finally curiosity got the best of me and I walked by. She was sitting there by herself, having a conversation with her imaginary friend. :eek: