Anecdotes.

[Dirty n Evil]

All right, I'm going to post a few stories... and they're 100% true. But I'll space them out, so I'll tell them one at a time.

I've mentioned my roomie, Paul. Paul is a very black and white sort of guy. There is no God, life is short and then it's over, supernatural phenomenon only gets talked about because someone listened to a kook and passed on the information as "reliable testimony".

Several years ago, I was up late at night and watching some stupid movie on television (I believe it was "Sphere" with Dustin Hoffman and Samuel L. Jackson... I really wasn't paying attention to it) when Paul comes out of his room at around 3 am looking very shaken. He walks past me like he's moving almost mechanically, and sits down before saying a word. When he opens his mouth, he asks "Dude, do you mind if I just sit here for a bit? I just need a moment." I say sure, not really certain what's bothering him, but know not to press Paul about anything.

We watch the end of the movie (I wanted those two hours of my life back!), and when it's done he reaches over to the remote and turns off the television - a sign he wants to talk then. So I give him my full attention, and let him vent or rant or whatever he's going to do. It wasn't what I expected.

"Chris, you know I don't believe in ghosts. Never believed in any of that bullshit. But I was sleeping in my bed, when one moment I'm asleep... and then the next one I'm not. I'm aware that there's someone in the room with me, but it's dark so at first I don't see them. Then I see this guy. He's white, he's in his early twenties, and he's looking right at me. Only... he's standing too close to not be on the bed. I look down him, and I'm aware that he looks as though he's going right through the bed. Like he's a projection from a film or something. And where he's standing is right over my shins, and from that spot down I'm completely numb. I just lay there looking at him looking at me, and I know I'm far too awake to be dreaming this. I have this feeling like maybe he was shot in our apartments, I don't know. Then all of the sudden, he's not there and the numbness in my shins starts to go away. I stumbled out of bed and came out here."

He was more freaked out than I'd ever seen him in my life, so we talked for a little while longer. But hearing Paul admit this story, you kind of have to know him to understand how unlikely it was to share this. It was like hearing Wayne Gretzky say "I've always hated the sport of hockey", or that Tom Cruise was going to put himself on a medication heavy regimen. It was something you'd never expect, and I for one believe Paul that he saw what he saw. We have moved from that particular apartment, and ever since that night Paul has never told me he's had any sort of experience like that again.

[JVDifferent]

I had an interesting experience with the dead myself, actually. Still not entirely sure what I think of it.

I was eighteen when my grandmother took me around the Czech Republic to visit relatives, both deceased and currently living. I have a lot of family over there that I had never met before, and I had just finished high school, so it was an awesome getting-to-know-one's-roots kind of experience.

Anyway, one day my grandmother takes me to some cemetary somewhere in the outskirts of Prague to visit either her grandmother or an great aunt or some other matriachal type figure. Slowly we made our way between the graves, and at the exact point we stopped in front of the one we intended to visit, I got a severe, wrenching pain in the gut. Now, I have a cast-iron stomach, so there's no way it could have been food poisoning, a stomach bug or a food allergy. And I never get period pain, so it wasn't that either. Nonetheless, I was close to doubling over in pain at the time. Out of respect for our miscellaneous relative I bore it, and waited quietly for my grandmother to finish paying her respect.

Immediately after moving away from that particular grave, the pain began to dissipate. In fact, by the time we reach the war memorial graves at the opposite end of the cemetary, it had completely disappeared.

The only conclusion I can really draw from the experience is that that particular deceased lady just really didn't like me. Bitch.

[Tenjen]

XD

[Otaku201]

Today is the first time I've knowingly deterred a crime. Today was my first armed assignment.

I'm posted at the entrance to the store. The manager of this store was smart enough to grow some brains following the Tinley Park murders. It was 10:05 AM, a Mexican guy with a shaved head, face tattoos, and all around looking gang affiliated walks in nonchalantly. Sees me, looks down at my waist, stops dead in his tracks, turns around on a dime and walks right back out.

[Fen]

Talking about Paul on the other thread made me reminisce a bit.

In case it weren't obvious, i was quite the troublemaker at school. Not that I wanted to be, I actually try to be as polite as possible to my elders but...well. let's be blunt: I'm obnoxious. Always have, always will be. The poor teachers I liked thought I despised them, the teachers i despised thought i defied them and most teachers just called me damaged goods. But i did do my share of memorable mistakes.

Starting 8th grade I started going to concerts. Now, back then i was this COMPLETE antisocial person who would be bullied a lot and never talked to anyone. And here I was, starting to show up at school with bruises, sleeping in class and always tired. (I did tend to skip a lot anyway, but let's ignore that). Me being blind as a bat, I'd always be in the front row, always bruised, always tired. I noticed that kids stopped bullying me and I was glad that they outgrw it. But I later went to the same school(it was a 5-12) for highschool and about 15 of my former classmates were in my new class. Anyway, i started being more sociable in highschool. In 10th grade I was talking to one of them and she said "yeah, we all just figured out your parents beat the sh*t out of you so we decided yo give you a break". "but if anyone asked I'd say I got them at concerts" "Dudette. No one imagined that you were cool enough to go at concerts."

Anyway, after a while everyone just realised I was crazy and just dropped the subject. Another fun event with my bruises was in 9th grade. We had the toughest Physics teacher in school, but for some reason she was fond of me despite my hating physics, sleeping in class and doing basically everything that she never tolerated.
(for some reason I think I've told this story before =/)
One day i show up hungover after a 4-hour punkfest. Bruised as usual, I just go to my desk and instantly fall asleep. My head was resting on one arm, which was completely lain on the desk. Me sleeping was a regular occurance, but at one point the teachers stops at my desk and asks in the most motherly voice I've heard her have.
"Why do you come to school?"
"To not get expelled for being absent"
"Is that all you're worried about?"
"Yeah, pretty much"
"ok, i'll give you the day off. Go home and sleep".

So I left the class, flabbergasted but grateful. Afterwards, my deskmate sent me a text "teach asks if you're on drugs". I'm used to people assuming that I do so i just shrug it off. Then i get home and look in the mirror.
On the inside of my elbow, 3 small bruises from last night. That looked like needle-shot bruises. >.>

Completely unrelated, this teacher was literally chasing me through schools after finals begging me to improve my grade because I could do better. She was the first to actually try to help me with that rather than just sighing and giving me whatever. <3. I loved her.

[Dirty n Evil]

Fen, that physics teacher of yours sounded great. Thanks for sharing that story.

[Otaku201]

From one of my crazier bretheren

Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting.

Well, for example, the other day my wife and I went into town and went into a shop.

We were only in there for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.

We went up to him and said, 'Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?'

He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him a Nazi turd. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires.

So my wife called him a shit-head. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote.

Personally, we didn't care.

We came into town by bus and the car had an Obama sticker. We try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired. It's important at our age…68

[Asaryu]

Wow...that's inconsiderate and fucked-up.

68 or not, I wanna slap that man silly.

[JVDifferent]

Admittedly, I would have found the story hilarious if the car had belonged to George Bush Jr. Or Hitler. Or Cthulhu.

I think you might have gotten the words "crazy" and "asshole" mixed up somewhere along the way.

[Otaku201]

Wow...that's inconsiderate and fucked-up.

That's the point, and you forgot hilarious.

[Asaryu]

I'm afraid that due to being born with an inordinate amount of empathy, I fail to see humour in things that genuinely hurt other people.

Apparently in the world that your fuckwit friend lives in, that's a disability.

[Bear]

Yeah.. its just not funny at all as practically, it is commiting a crime it that they're costing someone else a fortune in damages just to be jackasses.

[Radbaron]

Sigh....

old internet joke gets 7 people riled up.

News at 11.

[Dirty n Evil]

Okay, I have a funny anecdote to break this.

My co-worker friend Megan and myself trade barbs constantly. I like it when I get to act like a bratty little kid, and we do this to one another. The only thing is, I get a lot more "zingers" on her than she manages to get me with. But today, I really got her with one good.

Megan's boyfriend is named Brandon, and he's a very slender and pale kid but we get along well. All three of us are self-admitted geeks, but Megan is the one who takes it over the line as she adores the Twilight books. Today, she told me that she got Brandon to agree that for Halloween the two of them would dress up as Edward and Bella (in case you didn't know, the hero & heroine of the books). I quickly responded, "Well, Megan, since you're the more masculine one of the two of you, you'll be going as Edward, right?"

She quickly gasp and made a shocked face at me... was about to say something, and then acted shocked all over again. "Aw, that's a burn against Brandon, too!"

"Yup, that's a two-for-one deal on burns I have going for today. Care for a second helping?" Meanwhile, her fellow cafe worker Kim is dying laughing and ducking behind the counter because she knows Brandon... and all it would take is a wig and a couple of rolled up socks strategically placed and Brandon might do as well as Dillon as far as passing for a girl. Megan just squints her nose at me and pokes me with her finger before turning away, calling me Evil.

[Dirty n Evil]

I have a little anecdote to share that my mother told me while we were having lunch.

My stepfather "Sully" is paralyzed from the waist down, and has been since he was 22. He's acquired a good sense of humor about it, and he's a great sport. Unfortunately, he isn't "numb" in the way that you might expect... he doesn't have any muscle control from the point of his injury all those years ago, but he does feel pain in his extremities. It's quite bad, and despite being lightly medicated for it he suppliments this with marijuana - he says it's the only thing that really takes the pain away.

A few weeks back, Sully had a friend over that was a pot smoking buddy - so my mother turned in, let the two guys have a guys' night since she doesn't smoke but knows how much it helps Sully. Well, in the middle of the night she hears Sully call out for her, "Chris, help!" (My mother is Christine.) She starts to get up, calling back out to him wondering where he is. He's right there on the floor, explaining he's fallen and needs help to get into bed.

My mother gets up, helps Sully into bed and asks him how did he fall? Sully explains that the pot his pal got him was sooooo strong that Sully literately forgot that he couldn't walk and tried to get up out of the chair and climb into bed. So they're both laughing their asses off, because he's been paralyzed for over half his life and he's never gotten that stoned before. This, from the guy who has "special cookies" that were so strong that when my half-brother Junior ate two of them went blind he was so high.

My family is messed up.