Today while I was sitting at a stoplight, a car passenger at the light across from me jumped out of the car, bolted toward the pedestrian crossing button, pushed it, got back in the car, and rode away.
There were no pedestrians anywhere.
WTF?
Your turn.
That was me! (OK, not that exact incident).
Driving to work, I have to turn left onto a major street (two lanes each way plus right and left turn lanes at intersections) from a T intersection on a small feeder street (just one lane each way). About a year ago, I discovered that the sensor in the feeder street was somehow not triggering a green light for my turn.
After sitting there for more than five minutes, I was just about to chance an illegal turn against the light (it was about 6 AM, so traffic was light), when I had an inspiration. I got out of my car, walked over to the pedestrian button for the direction I was driving and pushed it.
Sure enough, about thirty seconds later the walk signal changed and then a few seconds after that I got a green light. For the next couple of weeks I would stop, wait 2-3 minutes and then get out and “force the issue”.
They eventually got the sensor to light connection working so I haven’t had to pull that trick since.
I don’t know if 11 AM on 11 November is of any particular note in the US (or indeed elsewhere outside of the UK - where it’s a remembrance thing). But Today at 11 AM in a rather upscale department store, Mrs T and I were surprised by an announcement over the PA system to the effect that there would now be two minutes of silence. This has never happened to us before, so it was somewhat WTF-ish. But what made it much more WTF was that both of us were pissing at the time (in separate facilities, I hasten to add), both actually in mid stream, as it were. I mean, under the circumstances you ain’t gonna stop; y’know, so I paid my respects by pissing as quietly as I could.
Unnerving or what?
j
BTDT. Works good.
Back in Ye Olden Dayes of mechanical treadles inset into the pavement to sense waiting cars, that was a standard move on a motorcycle. Motorcycles were simply too light to push the button hard enough to register. Still occasionally needed when the sensor is a wire loop slit into the pavement. The modern camera-based sensors don’t have that problem.
Hmm.
From what I can recall, we were both on a four lane road (two per side) at a T-junction, going in opposite directions. The light turned green just as the guy got back in the car. Damnedest thing.
Three of them, all the same.
Stepped out to collect a paper one morning and heard gushing water. The fire hydrant on the corner of the property had its four-inch cap off and the valve wide open. Water was projecting a good three feet into the street. Although we were in the county the water was from the city of Mesa so I called the utility department to report it.
A half hour later a city truck rolled up and the worked shut the worker shut it off and screwed the cap back on. I talked to him and said I had no idea who’d done it or why.
Six months later the same thing happened the same way only I didn’t talk to the city employee.
Four months after that I saw the same thing except there was a Gilbert PD patrol car parked by the hydrant. I called out, “Hey!” and the car sped away. I called again, told them it was the third time, reported the cop car, and gave the number on the back of the car. The shut-off was as usual and that was the last time it happened.
The really weird part was although we had a Mesa PO address it was in unincorporated county. The sheriff’s office had jurisdiction, neither the Mesa nor Gilbert PD and the closest Gilbert was was some four miles away.
We used to live in a subdivision consisting of rows of nearly identical houses with attached garages. We didn’t know most of the neighbors well. Early one Sunday morning I happened to look out the living room window and saw a naked woman bolt from a car parked in the driveway across the street and run into the garage through the open door and then into the house. A man standing in the open garage went behind her into the house and closed the garage door.
I assume they were the residents of the house, but I cannot think of a benign scenario to explain this. I assumed she was sleeping naked in the car, but I didn’t see her actually get out of it, and I didn’t see any other cars or anywhere else she might have come from. And why wouldn’t the guy at least get her a robe? So, wtf???
Well perhaps they saw no one on the street nor sidewalk so assumed no one was looking.
Maybe, but it still seems very callous of him not to at least grab her a jacket or something to cover herself with, rather than stand there in the garage watching her sprint up the driveway. Something obviously happened the previous night/early morning, and it doesn’t seem like it could have been anything good.
I was sitting at a bus stop when a limousine pulled in across the street at an abandoned gas station. The limousine sat there for a couple of minutes then a second limousine pulled up. Everyone piled out of the one limousine and got in the second limousine then they both drove away.
In Germany it is not a remembrance thing at all, logically. Germany lost WWI after all. But the 11. November at 11:11 hours is the beginning of the carnival season, which culminates with the carnival itself, shrove monday and tuesday. For the Catholics it seems to be a very important thing, particularly in Cologne and Mainz. They call it Fastnacht, and it is celebrated in some parts of the USA under that name as well, wikipedia tells me.
I was in Cologne once during Fastnacht, and they go nuts. To come back to the OP, being there as an outsider is a truly WTF moment. The alcohol consumption and the sexual desinhibition is crazy. I don’t think I want to be there ever again.
Fastnacht in Cologne sounds bad. I think it might be the friendly kiss taken out of context by crazy tourists, right?
Friendly? Kiss taken out of context? Err… not exactly. I am talking truly WTF. Like being in a bar, meeting a couple who was going to get married in a week time, and she grabing me, schlepping me to the toilet, and wanting to copulate with her standing there.
Just to be clear: I refused. I had only known her (and her soon to be husband) for ten minutes. And never saw her (or him) again.
If that is not WTF, I don’t know what is.
I’m so outraged, Pardel-Lux, that this happened to you !!! My little words could not ever express that!