One Tale of Many a Weird People

I attract odd people to me in public. I don't know how I do it. I don't particularly go out of my way to encounter odd situations but they embrace me all the same.

This morning I stopped to get a coffee before hitting the walking track / gym when I-Don't-Understand-Personal-Space showed up behind me in line. I didn't pay attention at first. Delightful predictions of cream, sugar, and caffeine tickling my tongue raced through my mind so it took me a moment to notice the intruder. Once I did I looked back and was surprised to see his psycho-sorta-calm-and-distant-expression.

We moved forward in line. Step forward by me. Step and a half forward by him. This line leech was determined to stand right behind me with that emotionless stare spread across his facade.

I decided to say good morning to him and ask him how his day was going so far. Perhaps conversation would erase the awkward closeness or even persuade him to disengage from his coffee mission.

It did not.

I was met with an odd growling noise. Staring for a long second, I noted that his face retreated back to unreadable craziness. Quickly, I returned my gaze to the cashier and silently counted the seconds until I could get outta there.

Until I departed, victorious in my brewed reward, he remained all too close behind me.

Happy New Years 2011

Welcome aboard to 'numbers-I-have-to-remember', 2011! I'm sure you'll make a fine addition to my numerical memory even if this time new year you'll be obsolete. I must confess, I have mixed feelings about granting you access to my life.



This New Year's Eve I went out with a friend and his buddies. I had a lot of fun and there's so many incidents I could write about and if I'm not too lazy I will. For now I am gonna abridge the good times because I'm prone to rambling.

We went out to this beer and burger joint. I might have swiped a pack of crayons off the table in the front and drew little notes for the waitress to find after we left. My favorite one was:


Face it, aliens do love laser beams.

After shoving burgers down our grills, we were off to the casinos!

Tonight, as it is most days of my life, my hiccups were a common topic. I'm a fantastic noise maker! I can whistle really dang well and I can even chirp like a cricket.



However, the noise I'm most famous for is my "MEEP!" This vibrant squeaky noise comes in all octaves, tones, lengths, etc. It doesn't matter if it is small or large - every hiccup I have I automatically feel my face flush because someone is bound to comment and / or laugh at me. Truthfully, I don't mind. It is funny but I feel really self conscious about too.



I imagine my hiccups appear something like this.

One of my friends has constantly, non-stop, provided laughter at every hiccup I've unleashed on to the world. At first I laughed too and told him that it'd get old eventually. Maybe those words sparked a challenge but he is consistent in his damned laughter and time to time it crawls under my skin. Shooting him a dirty look has no effect.



Playing nonchalant has no effect either : IN FACT, trying to ignore the hiccup even happened will sometimes make the laughter of those around me even more hysterical. I suppose I'm not a great actress when my role is 'flippant' and 'disinterested.'



After tonight, I have a choir of laughter to count on to pick out my 'MEEP' in a crowd.

Gambling was pretty fun. I actually do enjoy the activity in small doses. I don't play 'serious business' casino games. I enjoy the penny slot machines! The others in the group seemed more driven for sophisticated money-loss.

This is pretty much accurate of the group dynamic.... imho.



After ringing in the New Year standing in a crowd of drunk old-people in the casino we packed our bags and went to another casino. I was starting to get a little tired so I was thrilled when we discovered a grill that served coffee.



As I was standing in line.... he approached me from behind. The other person in the group making a purchase had already left and it was just me standing there as my marvelous frozen caramel latte blended. He was an older gentleman with one thing on his mind -









I was terribly confused. Was he referring to my weight? Was he talking about the milk the woman had just put in to the blender? Was he noting the hamburger sliders cooking on the grill behind the register? If only he spoke English but nooooooo... he didn't!



I never really did figure it out but I was terribly amused that he kept pointing at things and at one point even drew an invisible cow in the air in hopes that his game of charades would bridge our gap in communication.

Dastardly Digital Device

I am a huge fan of cruising. Driving? Not so much. Cruising? Yes!

Driving means that there is not only a destination but a time in which you must arrive at said destination and while that’s fine and dandy… not the same! Cruising is freeing. You WANTED to just aimlessly travel about from place to place.

Yup! Doop doop deedah!~ Life is grand as I just carry on in my ve-hick-a-lur!

Wait! Hark! What is that? No. That isn't angels serenading me from the heavens. No... this.. Yes. YES! This experience CAN get better. How? Oh, hold on to your bootstraps, cowboys!

The car radio just shot out a symphony of audio pleasure! Oh, joy! Indescribable joy! Getting Jiggy Wit It has never brought so much happiness to a human speciman.

I do enjoy the radio more than CDs about 60% of the time. I’m so indecisive when it comes to choosing what song to listen to next. My touch pad is constantly molested as I go to my music player and hit next about thirty times until I settle on a song but that will change sometimes two minutes in to that selection. My MP3 player is also a victim of this if I have it plugged in.

I have no control over the radio! It has a mind of its own and somehow that makes the experience all that more rewarding when something comes on that I truly wanted to hear. I must take a moment to sigh in admiration. Such a magical thing!

It is so cute too! :D

There is one itsy bitsy problem with it though…

You see, when my MP3 player is plugged in the display reads, “Multimedia device,” and all is well with the world. The radio only displays the radio station for half a minute before switching to the time.

This would be mega helpful if I knew how to set the damn thing. So the 12:00 just flashes and my radio stares at me knowing my dark secret.

How embarrassing when people enter my mobile domain! The glowing green screen is no longer informing my passengers of the device being played, the radio station, or the incorrect time. No. It is now announcing my incompetence and downright laziness to everyone.

What defeat… How shameful.

Today I decided to end the games! “No longer shall me and my musical device be at odds,” I confirmed boldly but I think the clock radio knew what was up and it was ready to go toe to toe.

I couldn’t find my owner’s manual and I wasn’t about to turn around to go inside to look it up on the internet. My one finger army was going to figure it out all on its own. The other nine digits shook with anticipation but the brave soul was pumped with me and we would come home with our shields or upon them!

After a few minutes of thoughtful pressing, pushing, and holding down it was obvious that the enemy’s defenses were strong. That’s when rapidly slamming buttons at random came in to play.

ALL OUT STRIKE! Full assault! TAKE TWO!

Bravery and enthusiasm could not outweigh the technological advantage our opponent had.

It wasn't really a bloody battle ( in fact, I don't even think I chipped a nail ) but the pain of defeat was still pretty awful.

....smug bastard radio. One day.... one day I'll just give up completely, reveal my secret to someone close, and convince them to fix it for me.

6 AM = Killing Machine

Today I got to work the morning shift at work. I particularly like getting out at a decent hour where the rest of the day hasn’t already been consumed and I have a few hours to chill out before bed without compromising the hours of rest I obtain. I dislike pulling up to the parking lot and finding customers crawling around the entrance like zombies.

Seriously! Don’t you guys have something else better to do? I can understand being somewhere early and waiting for service but what good is it doing you to press your face against the locked sliding doors of a store? What advantage do you get out of rushing in to the store before even the employees walk in? It isn’t a race. I’m not going to give you a gold star for beating me to the counter. There is no discount for being a retard. Knock it off.

So I decide to enter slumber land with the intention of switching my laundry at an early hour, throwing my head over the side of the tub for a quick wash, and jumping back in to bed to snuggle soundly under my blankets.

I dreamed of laundry. As a child I thought that my clothes got bubble baths and inside the swishing-swashing machine there was a party of valiant bubbles gobbling up the pieces of dirt and dried up food on my clothes.

It really is a great process if you take a moment to think about it. So few things in life are as reliable as laundry.

As far as the need to make my hair smell like strawberries and cream and silky smooth… I am notoriously guilty for not wanting to spend the time in the shower every single day so if I haven’t done anything to make myself a disgraceful mess the day before I’ll just toss my head over the side and wash my hair under the faucet. It’s a great time saver because I’m one of those people who will spend an hour in the shower watching the steam, making shampoo Mohawks, etc.

The only bad thing about this method of cleanliness is that I’m always paranoid someone will walk in on me. I don’t know why I have this idea in my head that someone would but I can’t help but always pause in mid hair scrubbing to ponder how unflattering I probably look at that moment and just how big my butt must appear.

So slumber continues until 6:00 AM. There’s a faint hint of light entering my room but not all is at rest in my room. Aside from Zoot, my cat, sleeping on my head there is another occupant of my room. THE PHONE.

I sometimes believe my phone is out to get me. It stalks me as I sleep. I know it does! I mean, I have no physical proof but I just KNOW. Silently it stares at me with great anticipation for when it can receive a text message, phone call, or an alarm will go off just to startle the crap out of me.

Then when that time comes….

Awful. Don't be fooled by the cute, pink exterior. I’m debating about putting a restraining order on the dang device. I could even describe the noise as ‘violent’ at times.

So being abused in to an awakened state of being put me in to a dreadful, robot like state and I don’t know how I functioned in to making my body move but I somehow managed to get out of bed. I'm used to being a bubbly, happy morning person but -

Things were going well between my bed and the washing machine. My sensors didn’t pick up any disturbances and it seemed as if the AI was doing fine on cruise control. However, upon arriving at my destination I was met by a friendly spider of monstrous proportions.

Seriously. This thing had the body the size of a quarter at least. I don’t have a problem with tiny spiders but big creepy crawlers tend to freak me out. A typical response from me would have looked like –

However, my programming took over and the consequences of crossing my path and disrupting my mission was fatal for Mr. Eight-Legs.

Poor, little bastard.

My killing spree didn’t end there. Chilling out in the bathtub was another multi-eyed beast waiting to wish me good morning. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

This morning – I was the Spider Terminator. I attempted sleeping again but I was unable to deactivate. If only those dang customers were small enough to smash with the laundry detergent dispenser….

That Moment Before Someone Arrives

I thoroughly dislike that moment of severe worry, anxiety, and panic when someone ARRIVES.


Here’s an example - So you are alone. :D Things are awesome! You’re putting together a puzzle or something else completely socially acceptable.

Thumbs up to relaxation and puzzles! Right? Right!

Then someone calls to inform you they’ll be over soon. Part of you goes, “Oh no, someone is coming!” but you’re also a little relieved because you have time to prepare but people normally don’t get off the phone when they’re ‘over soon’ so it happens more like –

You have no time to prepare now and you’re about to get caught RED HANDED doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Most people I know are pretty cool and they just carry on with their lives and let their invader enter their space without altering their plans or actions.

Not me.

I start to question what I’m doing, how odd it looks, how successful I was at doing what I was doing, etc.

“Do I hurry up and put the puzzle together as fast as I can so I can impress them? Do I hide the puzzle under the couch in a frantic manner so they don’t know I was even doing a puzzle to begin with? OH JEEZ they’ve been standing outside the door for like a minute in a half now while I’ve been trying to figure out how to not look like a pathetic loser or an over achiever that tries too hard…! Dammit! I just wanted to put together a puzzle! TWO MINUTES NOW?! I bet they think I’m in the bathroom and THAT’S really embarrassing cause that means that they would think I was on the phone with them while in the bathroom and my hands are dry so I didn’t wash my hands but I don’t want to greet them like -

…that would be really, really awkward.”

Normally, I’m not accused of anything outlandish and my extreme anxiety is completely unjustified but I’m still plagued. It is a truly a double edged sword though because moments like these mean that the time BEFORE you were all alone.

It is fantastic being alone! There are all sorts of wonderful things you can choose to do or not to do while alone and nobody will ever know!

I can be just as equally boring and responsible as I can be out of my mind insane so even when I’m doing very normal, productive things ( without any evidence of my mind producing a single, silly thought ) I still feel like I’m doing something totally outrageous that someone would surely judge me for.

I also believe there’s an awkward lapse in time that occurs between someone standing on the other side of your front door until they find their way in to your home. A serene looking living room suddenly turns in to a massive contortion of oddity and blasphemy before returning to something vaguely familiar – or at least this is what I believe people see when they bravely cross that threshold in to my abode.

Anyone I’ve ever explained this to has tried to reassure me that they don’t enter my home and see me dancing with fish under a disco ball and I most certainly never feel this way when I enter someone else’s home but I am still convinced this moment exists. Due to this personal reassurance I have developed a moment of immense fear when the first signs of an intruder are acknowledged.

In an effort to protect this stranger, friend, loved one, etc. from witnessing something truly terrifying I make an extreme effort to produce the most normal atmosphere I possibly can even if the situation doesn’t call for it.

Even at the cost of my own physical well being.