My Weired Event is the subject of THIS THREAD.
Make of it what you will. 
This happened to me around 1990.
I had moved to Mississauga and gotten a job at a place that made computer terminals. The first place I roomed in didn’t work out. I spent some time living in a friend’s basement, but then a real basement apartment–three bedrooms, even–became available in an investment house owned by the parents of another friend. The top part of the house was rented out to someone else.
I located two roommates and moved in. It really was quite a nice apartment, new and spacious, if you ignored the disadvantages of basement apartments: few to no windows, an awkward entrance through a door in the garage, and noise from above.
The upper tenant was a single guy. He wasn’t around a lot, but he parked his car in the driveway. And every week it was a different car. He said he was an independent auto broker.
One day I came home from work to find a four-hundred-dollar phone bill. There were all these calls to Germany. The amount was maybe six times my usual bill. And I don’t know anyone in Germany, or speak German, even.
The calls were made at times when I was at work. I had no fast new computer, no high-speed internet, no remote access, no writing job; I had to go to the plant every day and tweak hardware. So I called the Bell Canada complaints department, and disputed the charges. They said they’d send someone over to look at the lines.
So I stayed home from work one day. The phone tech and I went to the junction box in the basement, just to make sure that everything was wired okay.
It wasn’t.
The guy upstairs had hard-wired an extension into my phone line and was using it to call overseas.
The Bell fraud squad got involved. A little later, I got a call from them. The guy had been giving out my phone number to people in South America and taking calls on my line while I was at work.
Around this time the guy disappeared. I found out from my landlord that he had skipped out and stiffed them about six thousand dollars on the rent. I found out in a later call from the Bell people that he had been picked up in Germany for speeding on the Autobahn. Twice. By the same cop.
My landlord rented out the upstairs again, to a family this time. I got to hear the kid’s tricycle rollong back and forth across the floor. But it beat high phone bills.
I was with some friends at the beach one day, when suddenly this swarm of bees swoops down upon us. We naturally panic and run around screaming. The swarm settles on a nearby baby stroller, and actually starts building a hive around it. The mother is there swatting at the bees trying to protect the baby, but the father eventually yells for her to get out of there, so she grabs the baby and runs. After a few minutes, there’s a brand new healthy beehive right on the handle of this baby stroller.
We called the lifeguards, and of course they had no clue what to do. Finally they had to get animal control to come over, and get the bees into a box. The family did get their stroller back in the end.
I must say it is one of the most surreal things I’ve ever experienced.
You’re gonna ride that pony for the rest of your life, aren’tcha?
I would, too.
When I was 12, I was one the phone with a friend when my dad walked into the room and handed me a shotglass of Goldschlager. “Take a shot!” he says. I put down the phone and gave him a strange look, but never one to turn down a free shot, I took it. Then, I handed him back the empty shotglass and was like “What was that for?”
At which point my dad got this sneaky grin. He put his hand behind his back, and it emerged holding an uncooked hot dog, with which he playfully slapped me before walking casually away.
I just realized that I never told that story to my therapist. I can’t imagine how I’ve managed to keep that from coming up in conversation…
Posted this before, but…
I once found a small piece of pale green notepaper on the pavement(that’s the sidewalk); written upon it in a neat hand were the words: Roxell Roxell Bowshot This was several decades ago now and it troubles me as much today as it ever did.
I was at a friends house in downtown Baltimore. After a very convivial night, I walked out early, early the next morning. It was summer, the weather was warm, birds were singing cheerfully and the sun was just peeking it’s cheery face over the horizon. I yawned and stretched, and then watched with amazement as a large, pink bowling ball rolled right down the middle of the street past me. I looked in the direction it had come from. Nobody. I looked at the ball, which proceeded down the street away from me, caught the slope just right, and neatly made the turn onto a cross street, disappearing from my life forever.
I dunno either.
There was the five-dollar bill that came out of the ATM with a bright bead of fresh crimson blood on it. Or there was the time that a raven brayed at me exactly like a donkey.
Daniel
This was clearly a passing alien probe.
Yeah, probably.
I just started a new job, and I’m looking forward to springing this story on my new coworkers.
I cannot wait for the day somebody says “I used to work with weirdest guy…”. I have the nuclear bomb of that conversation.
When I was in college, I decided to move off campus and out of the dorms once and for all. I planned everything weeks in advance, paid my deposit, set everything up with the new landlord, and told my roommate which day I was moving out. I went to church that Sunday, and came back to the dorm and began to quietly pack, while my roommate was still asleep. He rolled over and said, “be quiet!” So I tried making as little noise as possible, even though a friend was coming over any minute to help me move. A few minutes later, he rolled over again and said “Why don’t you just knock it off?” I said, “I told you I was moving out today, I’m just packing up. I got someone coming by soon.” Then he said, “I’m onto you, man, I know what you’re up to.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m onto you.” I said, “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.” He started getting angrier, “You can’t deny it. Just admit it.” I just shrugged and said “okay.” He rolled back over and I packed as quietly and as quickly as I could.
To this day, I have no clue what he was talking about. My friend and I determined it was either a dream, or same strange effect of drug use. But I really wish he would have explained what I did. In hindsight, I should have pushed the issue: “I’m working on lots of horrible projects you may have discovered. So how about you just tell me which one you’re onto?”
Not the weirdest thing ever, but more like an accumalation of things. I’ve been in 3 tornados, 11 tropical storms or hurricanes, 2 earthquakes, an avalancche, twice had my home flooded, had to outrun a wildfire, survived a blizzard outdoors (in a tent), had a boat sink on me, and been chased by sharks.
No one wants to go on vacation with me any more.
The “blood” was probably a red oil, used as a lubricant. Some of the grades of oil can look red.
When My parents were on vacation in England, they looked out of their hotel room to see the following:
A woman in a wheelchair (not a medical-type wheelchair, a bona fide dining table chair with a tiny wheel attached to each leg) being chased down a cobble-stone street by a three-legged dachshund.
While waiting in line for some fast food, I pulled some bills from my wallet and noticed one of them bore the following words in ball-point ink, “PUT THIS BACK WHERE YOU GOT IT FROM BITCH!!!”
One time I was sitting at the register in the comic book store. My co-worker and I were pretty bored, and I was kind of facing him, staring into the store, while he was facing toward me, looking out the front of the store. He had that distant spaced-out stare that people get, when he sudden kind of smiled and gave a short laugh. “What?” I asked him. He replied “I just saw a guy in a pink tutu riding a unicycle down the sidewalk.” Being naturally skeptical, I had to go and look. Indeed there was a grown man wearing a pink leotard and tutu, riding a unicycle down the sidewalk. That’s something you don’t see every day.
I don’t know if this qualifies, since it happened not to me, but to some apartment neighbors, and I was just the cause of it. But it makes a good story if you look at it from their side of the story.
Back in 1996, I was on a consulting assignment with my company (long term, about 6 months) in Overland Park, Kansas. It so happened that there were apratments there that could be rented as corporate apartments, and my company got me one of these instead of the usual hotel room for week after week. It was a nice 1-Bedroom, completely furnished. It was great.
As the months went by, I got used to halfway know some of my neighbors. One of these was a nice, sweet young lady across the hall and her husband.
One day, we were just idly chitchatting in the parking lot and I said something about being a consultant and flying home every weekend. She got a curious look in her eye and asked me how I got to and from the airport, which was about an hour away. I said I just rented a car every Sunday night, returned it the next Friday on my way out.
She cracked up! 
I thought she was having a seizure or something. When she got her breath back, she said, "OMG, my husband and I have noticed you’re always gone on the weekends, and then you come up in a different brand new car every week…we thought you were a DRUG dealer!!!’
Lots of material here, and you can search MPSIMS thread titles for “surreal” to find even more.
I was waiting for an elevator, and when the doors opened, it revealed only an elevator repairman standing on the top of the elevator car. The elevator was stopped on the floor below, and the repairman had opened the door to my floor for some reason. This was in a hospital in the middle of the day. He (needlessly) motioned for me not to get on the elevator.
I do! I’ll bring my camera!
It was a family tradition through much of the 90s that I spent New Year’s Eve with my brother, his girlfriend and a good friend. We had a routine that varied a little bit: this particular year was fairly typical. We headed up to Westminster Bridge, on the River Thames in London, with a couple of bottles of cheap red wine. There’s usually a really good crowd of people there - it’s right under Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and it’s not as crowded or as heavily controlled as some of the traditional celebration spots, like Trafalgar Square.
So, we arrive at around 9 pm, stand and chat to the crowds, share our red wine, wait till midnight, do a bit of celebrating with strangers and so on. At around 1 am the streets start to clear a little, so we head off to a local park (St. James’s for anyone who knows that bit of London). It’s very cold by now, but a clear and beautiful night, so we sit for a while on a bench in the park, looking for ducks on the water and generally feeling charitable towards the world, and filled with New Year glee.
I should point out here that I don’t believe we were particularly drunk at this point - it had been a long cold night, and we had shared our wine around - but I’m prepared to accept we may have been a little fuzzy. That doesn’t explain the weirdness however.
The four of us are sitting quietly, when along comes a middle aged man. In a trench coat and trilby. In St. James’ Park, to a random park bench. The man sits down next to us and says, in a quiet and husky voice “Douglas Hurd beats his wife”
Then he stands up and leaves.
It helps a little if you know who Douglas Hurd is (former Conservative cabinet minister, one of Margaret Thatcher’s government), but even without knowing that, it’s still a bit John Le Carre, isn’t it? I should also point out that I have no idea about the veracity of his statement.
I have a few good ones. My personal favorite was when I was in High School one day I got chased by a cow while walking to school. The strangest part was that I lived in a city.
So I was walking to school along my normal route when I noticed two people running towards me with their arms stretched out, not waiving just stretched out above their heads. Ok I thought things were a bit off at that point when this HUGE cow turns the corner and starts running straight for me. I had to jump into the ditch to get out of his way. And then he people with the outstretched arms came running by again.
Apparently the cow had escaped from a nearby vet and the people running around were trying to herd it back. Very strange.
Or there was the time where I was part of a group that lost 6 people on top of a mountain during a blizzard.
Again this was in High School, I was part of a hiking club and we decided we wanted to do this winter hike up a mountain. The school refused to let us go as a club because they thought it was too dangerous so of course we decided to go anyway, but not include the school at all. Great so 12 of us got out our snowshoes and started to walk up the mountain. This was apparently harder than anticipated because we only made it halfway on the first day, so we made camp and spent the night. The next morning half of the group wanted to continue to hike to the summit and the other half stayed back to explore around the camp. The group that went to the summit said that they would be back by 4:00pm. OK great.
At about 2:30pm or so it starts to snow lightly around the camp where I was but hey its winter, snow happens, it wasn’t that heavy. Then 4:00 comes and goes, it starts to get dark. The group at the camp decides to leave some tents, sleeping bags, and food at the camp in case the others make it back and hike down the mountain to let people know what was going on. So we drive to the nearest town and find a phone. Oh when I say town think village, it is a tiny place and the majority of the population is seasonal, for the summer, so it was really dead. We find a pay phone outside of a hotel and proceed to call everyone’s parents to say that we lost their kid. Now you can only say “Sorry umm you kid hiked up he mountain and didn’t come down.” so many times before it gets really funny, so we were laughing hysterically. One of the guys with us, his Dad was the Sheriff so when we called him asked where we were, we said outside the motel, which one he asks. So we walk out a bit to look at the sign. It’s just called motel. That’s its name. Well we thought that was hysterical as well, which didn’t help maters much.
So it ended up that the parents of one of the guys missing owned a cabin in that town and they told us where the key was hidden. We went there and called Search and Rescue. They showed up and started grilling us. It kinda seemed that they thought we killed them all and hid their bodies on the mountain.
Search and Rescue couldn’t go up until the next day so the next morning we headed off to the mountain again this time with some guys with snowmobiles. They headed up the path and it wasn’t long before they came down with the lost hikers.
Apparently they had made it to the top dropped all of their day packs, with their food and survival gear and went to explore a ranger’s cabin near by. Well by the time they got to the cabin a white out snow storm had come in and they couldn’t even go the 20’ to get the gear. They were above the tree line so there was no wood for a fire and spent the night huddled under a table trying to keep warm.
And the school thought it was dangerous :rolleyes: