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Your Anecdotes

Early last fall, after I lost my old job but before I went back to school, I was walking the dog when this stray dog suddenly shows up, mixed breed a bit smaller than my dog (Beagle...tall for a Beagle). He suddenly humps my dog. He kept doing it the all way back to my old apartment (over a mile). I couldn't just leave him outside so I lured him into the apartment, gave him bowls of water and some food and called the animal control.
 
I wouldn't say anecdotes happen to me all the time, but I am one of those people in whom, for some reason, strangers tend to confide.

Including nutty strangers. But sometimes only worried strangers.




So:
  • One time at the State Fair, a guy who I'd never so much as seen before stopped and chatted with me about this and that. No big deal - that happens a lot. But after a few minutes of perfectly innocuous conversation, out of the blue he switched topics and told me about his daughter, who he said had been kidnapped and in his words held "in a box." By that I mean I mean that literally we were talking about the weather one second and the next second he said, "My daughter was kidnapped. He held her in a box." This man turned out not to be a nut, actually - I mean, several years earlier, his daughter really had been kidnapped and repeatedly raped by this guy who held her for a couple of weeks - until police, following some pretty slender leads, managed to track him (and the daughter) down. The "box" was one of those big metal office cabinets, and the rapist locked her in it while he was away at work. But still...why tell me?
  • Another guy told me about a giant super computer located on Uranus that controlled numerous U.S. politicians and other prominent people. He referred to the affected people as having been "computered." I never figured out whether the super computer was of terrestrial origin or not.
  • Another guy told me that he had been on the CIA "death list" for 23 years. He talked to me about it several times, but I could never figure out exactly why - it apparently had something to do with his being a Seventh Day Aventist, but it also had something to do with Richard Nixon. He said repeatedly that "it" - whatever "it" might be - never would have happened if Judge John Sirica hadn't been disabled by a heart attack.
  • A woman told me that her house had been wired - the electrical wires had been turned into a giant antenna - so that the local fire department could hear everything she said, and, if necessary, broadcast it over the official radio channel.
In short, while interesting things don't always happen to me, interesting people sometimes do. ;)
 
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^ More like 75 versions of the same joke, judging from the friends and acquaintances I have told this story to. ;)
 
I get strangers chatting to me a lot too, Kate. Once a man who thought he was George Harrison followed me around the Elliot Bay Bookstore for 20 minutes. He was American and this was about a year after Harrison passed away, but he was insistent. He kept saying things like, "I have this band, you may have heard of us." :lol:

Once I was walking down St Mark's Place in the middle of the night (a street full of nightlife so I was safe). A middle aged man in boxers and flip-flops came up to me carrying two long-stemmed red roses. He said to me, "Won't you take my flowers? Nobody wants my flowers," and then pressed the roses into my hand. Then he brushed my cheek and said, "You have beautiful skin," and walked away!

Another time I was sitting in Starbucks doing a crossword puzzle when a woman with a thick Eastern European accent came up to me and told me a long story about how she was trying to bring her sister to America, some priest was helping them out, and a lawyer -- it was very complex. She then showed me a handwritten letter in very poor English and asked if I could rewrite the letter in proper English to send to the lawyer. I wrote it for her, as everything in the letter seemed harmless, she offered to buy me a coffee (which I politely declined), and left. Two or three years later I was sitting in the same Starbucks when another woman (definitely a different woman) with a thick Eastern European accent came up to me and asked me if I'd help her compose a letter. It was an odd coincidence.
 
^^ No coincidence. Your identifying information has been entered into the supercomputer on Uranus.

Which is definitely not of Terrestrial origin.
 
So, I'm in Laughlin, Nevada in the middle of summer. It's my honeymoon. I'm at a roulette wheel and the new wife is nearby playing slots. This guy sits down next to me and we chit-chat as we play. He says he just got done visiting his parents in Scottsdale, Az. I tell him we're going there as part of our honeymoon. Typical inane conversation. This goes on for over an hour and the entire time I'm scratching my head trying to figure out where I've seen this guy before. Finally, it hits me. He'd introduced himself as "Jay". I realize I've been gambling and talking with Jay Mohr, the comedian. My wife hit a jackpot soon after and I shook his hand and said good-bye.
 
Here's a *pleasing* anecdote. And like many of my other ones, this involves New York. :)

I'm on the subway - the 2 or 3 train, I think - and my cellphone is stolen. Or it falls off my beltclip, I can't remember which. Anyway, I figure it's lost for good, you know? I felt bad because it wasn't even mine, it's my dad's (he always lends it to me when I visit the city). So that night, I get back to my aunt and uncle's house where I always stay, and there's a phone message. For me. Seems that somebody FOUND MY PHONE and wants me to come get it. So the next day, I did! It was a very nice clinic nurse near Union Square, I went and got my phone back from her. She had found it on the train and started calling the numbers stored therein until she found one where she could reach me, which happened to be my aunt & uncle's phone #.
 
An Officer said:
... Apparently, I had just the right kind of face for a hippie junkie of the 70's. :confused:...
Click to expand...

:lol: Don't knock it! I, apparently, have the look of an Eastern European Immigrant. Was 'talent spotted' and spent a morning in the boot of a car with a lovely young man called Tom, occasionally getting pulled out by men with machine guns for a corporate video! The location was a 'secret nuclear bunker', best bit ~ as you drive down the high street of the town it is near there are big signs saying 'Secret Nuclear Bunker' :lol:
The place was set up like a living museum ~ we investigated in the afternoon and was really spooky. Have a photo of me in bed with John Major somewhere:shifty:
 
K'ehlyer said:
:lol: Don't knock it! I, apparently, have the look of an Eastern European Immigrant. Was 'talent spotted' and spent a morning in the boot of a car with a lovely young man called Tom, occasionally getting pulled out by men with machine guns for a corporate video! The location was a 'secret nuclear bunker', best bit ~ as you drive down the high street of the town it is near there are big signs saying 'Secret Nuclear Bunker' :lol:
The place was set up like a living museum ~ we investigated in the afternoon and was really spooky. Have a photo of me in bed with John Major somewhere:shifty:
Click to expand...

That's pretty good. :lol:

And, TSQ, I didn't "nearly" do the extra gig, I actually did. Got dressed in full costume and was out on location deep in the British countryside for four days, meeting all kinds of weird characters. Hey, it was good pay. :p

Just remembered the day I was approached my a middle-aged man in an actual trench coat... he wanted me to shop for and try on lingerie and other clothes with him, for the princely sum of about £300 pounds. I told him what he could do with it, of course, but I had a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the day. The cheek! Just bizarre.

That leads to the time when two people who also lived in the same apartment block as I did at the time tried to recruit me into their porno ring - yuck. Apparently, they thought they would be able to achieve this without my cottoning on... :cardie:

I remember waiting to be picked up by my aunt from a train station, and a young man just watched me intently for several minutes, then came over to ask in a whisper whether I had "gear", I asked him to explain what he meant, and it then became clear he thought I was there to supply marijuana. :rommie:

I've got so many of these sorts of scrapes... :lol:
 
Most of my anecdotes involve celebrities I've met at various conventions in one way or another. One of my favourites is from Toronto's Pride weekend in 2007. I was waiting for a bus after the bars let out, around 3:30 in the morning, when the other guy at the stop started a conversation:

Him: Are you coming to the parade on Sunday?
Me: I can't, unfortunately. I have a meeting.
Him: What kind of meeting?
Me: I work on a science fiction convention, and our last committee meeting before this year's convention is on Sunday.
Him (imagine this all in one breath): Oh-my-god-you-work-on-science-fiction-conventions?-Did-you-know-Ellen-Muth-from-Dead-Like-Me-was-here-for-one-of-those-last-year-and-I-wanted-to-go-but-I-couldn't-get-the-time-off-work-and-I-was-so-upset-because-I'm-her-biggest-fan-ever!
Me: Um... yes, I did. I actually ran that convention.
Him: :eek: *speechless, puts his hands up to his mouth*

We had our first date about a week later. About two months later, I was in Atlanta for Dragon*Con, and Ellen happened to be there. She didn't have anyone lined up at her table when I walked by, so she waved and called me over. We chatted for a few minutes, and I told her about the young man I'd been seeing and how he was a big fan of hers. I said, "I wouldn't normally ask this kind of thing, but I'm not holding anyone else up who wants your autograph. Feel free to say 'no'... if I called him in Toronto right now, would you say hello?" She said, "I'd be happy to!" So I dialed his number, but it went to his voicemail. So she left him a two or three minute message.

About an hour later, he called: "Oh-my-god-how-did-you-manage-to-get-her-to-do-that-thank-you-so-much-I-have-to-figure-out-how-to-save-that-message!!!"

Then, Ellen was a guest at Polaris 22, two summers ago. As the person mostly in charge of booking author guests, I was going to the airport to meet Jim Butcher (the author of the Dresden Files books). Three of us got into the limo to head over to the airport, and the person from the department that handles the actor guests said, "I hope you don't mind, we're picking up one of the actors on this trip too." I said, "Of course I don't mind." She said, "Good, would you mind standing near the exit from Customs with this sign?" and handed me a sign that said "E. Muth".

I was standing near the exit when she came out, saw me, and came right over. The exit from Customs at Pearson Airport is at the top of a ramp, so she looked down at me, smiled, and said, "Hi! Remember me?"

Later that weekend I found out she'd been watching the video footage of previous conventions that we air on the in-house TV system in the hotel, because we were walking through the back hallways of the hotel - she was on her way to her autograph session, and I was escorting Jim Butcher backstage - and she said, "I saw you on TV this morning!" I felt like saying, "Shouldn't I be saying that to you?" :lol:

Not nearly as cool, but still kind of cool, was the fact that David Hewlett nearly landed in my lap during the Constellation Awards ceremony a few months ago when Michael Hogan threw him off the stage (they'd improv'd a routine where Hewlett ran up to the stage when Hogan was announced as the winner of the category in which they'd both been nominated - Hogan chased him up, grabbed the award from him, manhandled him over to the edge of the stage and threw him off).

Okay, it wasn't that close - he missed me by about ten feet (I stage manage the show from a desk in front of the stage), but it sounds better that way. ;)
 
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