No, I wasn’t.
He was inexplicably rude to me.
I forgot to mention. The bus was empty. Now I remember. That cane will haunt me for the rest of my life! Today, at least I can say, thank goodness it wasn’t at night or I might have messed my pants or who knows what would have happened. I’m telling you the old man was right out of Stephen King.
Thanks kambuckta for prompting me to relive all this. And thanks to Freudian Slit and spark for their vote of confidence.
What did he do that was rude? He sat down in an empty seat on a public bus–normal behavior. If I sat down and someone stared at me, I’d probably wonder if there was something wrong, which is what he did. The fact that you didn’t say anything at all is kind of creepy.
Him sitting next to you when there were lots of other seats is weird. But it sounds like you were both pretty skeevy.
Hey, no worries mate. Glad to help. 
I did say something. I didn’t stare at him. I looked at him because he was walking up to me as if he knew me. The bus was empty, remember? I looked at him and said to him, “There’s another seat over there.” You may believe I was rude, but I was uncomfortable.
Hey, I had my own WTF moment today…must be the weather or something down here.
My job is to telephone people to solicit donations for a particular charity. The people that I call are already supporters of this charity, and many of them have been doing so for many years…so that when they pick up the phone and I say, “G’morning, it’s kam callling for LandRightsForGayWhales, howya going?”…they know immediately who I am and what I want!
So I rang Gwendolyn, who promptly informed me that I cannot possibly have rung her because she doesn’t live there anymore.
What? 
I had one today!
I was at the grocery store and this older black lady said to me “Look at you in that outfit, you are cute! If someone looked up white girl in the dictionary there should be a picture of you!”
It was a bit “Buh?” but she was adorable and I think she meant it as a compliment.
My daughter has Western features and skin like Snow White’s. Sometimes her Thai mother gets asked “Are you the nanny?”
Thais are very candid so one quickly learns to accept comments that might seem rude coming from a Westerner. Far more troubling was a Frenchman (Hi, David! 
) who yelled at me, immediately after I introduced myself to him, “Are those your kids or did your girlfriend have them before you met her?”
Well, she did say he was an “Old man right out of Stephen King’s Thinner.” (I can’t comment further as I may be the only literate American who’s never read a Stephen King book.)
When my wife was 8 months pregnant, she was shopping at the grocery store and some lady came up to her, and without even looking her in the eye (or at her face at all), bent down, cooed “awwww!” and rubbed the top of my wife’s pregnant belly. And then walked on. Of course my wife was like, 
Once, when I was on my uppers, I ended up working in business-to-business cold calling for a stationery company (I lasted three days!). One guy that I rang up on his mobile got all furious with me: “I’m at a funeral!”
So apparently I’m supposed to be able to know that before calling him…?
And he was the one who chose to answer the call!
:rolleyes:
Still, it was a horrible job. I’m glad I got the sack (the only time that’s ever happened to me)!
Just remembered another one.
I once was woken up at about 2 or 3 in the morning by the 'phone ringing. I staggered downstairs, and answered it. “Is Steven there?” “There’s nobody here of that name.” “But is Steven there?” “There’s nobody called Steven here. I don’t even know anyone called Steven. You must have the wrong number.” “You’re lying! I want to talk to Steven!”
Sure, when people call me up at unearthly hours of the day, I lie my head off about who’s in my own home…!
My home phone number is 1 digit away from that of an escort service so I get some interesting wrong numbers in the wee hours.
The bizarre behavior I encounter most regularly occurs on the bus coming home from work.
The other week I got on the bus and took a seat. I was playing with my phone and wasn’t really paying attention to the other riders on the bus. We went a ways down the road, the bus made a few stops, and eventually we make a stop and someone sits down next to me. I thought nothing of it until I happened to look up to see where we were and noticed that me and this guy were the only people on the bus. It’s not like he sat down and started talking to me or something, and I’m not a hot chick, I’m a scruffy dude. WTF?!
Sometimes I have to wait at a stop for the bus to come. There are always at least a few other people there. The average wait is maybe 10-15 minutes. Inevitably the bus comes and the person getting on right before me has to spend an extra 5 minutes fumbling around in his/her purse/pockets/bag for their money or their pass. WTF?!
The most bizarre shit is when I and some other people have waited for the bus for 10-15 minutes, the bus comes, we all get on, and only 2 stops later, one of the people who got on the bus at the same stop as me rings the bell and gets off. Consider that the stops are at the end of every block. You can actually see where we got on from where this person got off. In the time we waited for the bus, he could have walked that distance and back a dozen times. Not only does this person only ride the bus for 2 blocks, but upon exiting the bus, he starts to walk back toward the original stop. WTF?!
Why? I have a convertible, and I have a cover that I often use if I’m parked someplace and I want some protection for it (rain, bird droppings, sun beating down and making the seats incredible hot, etc)
It’s a lot easier to put the cover on than it is to take the protective cover off the hidey-hole that the top folds down into, put the top up, and take off the foam pad that I use to protect the top when it’s folded down. Then do it in reverse when I return. Cover goes on in about 2 minutes - putting top up takes at least 5, and 5 again to put it down when I come back.
Not my own moment but I was with a friend who received an unsolicited sales call one day. His phone was loud enough that I could hear both sides of the conversation. He politely told the person on the other end that he (my friend) couldn’t talk to him because didn’t have a phone.
There was a pause and the caller spluttered for 10 seconds or so before saying “Sorry” and hanging up.
I expect he would have been along to post his WTF call to my friend but will probably read this first and decide not to.
I still remember that one Halloween. I was 11 and a group of friends and I were trick-or-treating a typical house and a woman in her early 40s answered the door. But she was laughing in a very drunk and slightly mentally disturbed kind of way… in a way I grew to learn later was definitely not acting.
She had no candy and said simply, " ha-ha-ha My husband is going to Kill me!!! ha-ha-ha "
I still remember all 4 of us kids taking 2 steps back from her door and saying almost in unison (in a non-threating “don’t-poke-the-dog-with-a-stick” kind of way), “…Oh-kaaaaaay…”
My second child was really blond and very big for his age. Often when we were out in touristy places Japanese families would want to take photos of him with their children.
We are getting together tomorrow and I will have to mock him about the fact that he is in photos on mantelpieces all over Japan, but no-one knows who he is.
Recently I was walking through the airport and as I was approaching a moving walkway a young couple who had been standing off to the side stepped in front of me to get on the walkway, forcing me to stop suddenly. I muttered something (I forget exactly what, but it probably had something to do with people who think they’re the only ones in the airport) and they must have heard me because the woman stopped, turned around, and started yelling at me that they had just come back from her sister’s funeral, and maybe I should think of other people’s feelings. I guess I missed the glowing neon sign over their heads telling me why they were at the airport.
Coming back from lunch yesterday and waiting for the elevator, and along comes a lady, perhaps in her 80s, in a wheelchair being pushed by an attendant. I wait for them to go in first, and the attendant turns the chair so the lady is facing forward looking at me before I enter the elevator. She gives me a big, bright smile and says, “You can sit on my lap!” 
Maybe he forgot something at home.
We were in the gift shop at the Anchorage Museum a few years ago, looking for a book for a gift, when an older man (obviously a tourist) turns to me out of the blue and angrily says: “You can’t find T-shirts with pockets in them!” Now, this gift shop doesn’t carry T-shirts or any other apparel for that matter. Secondly, why would I care? Maybe it was jet lag.