Life can take us by surprise sometimes. Even if you live a relatively calm and mundane life, every now and then something can happen that deviates from your standard routine. Sometimes it's a good thing, other times it's not. Either way, whether it's a situation you found yourself accidentally in, a chance encounter with a stranger that was a bit odd, or something else, these interesting moments tend to stick with you.
60. Unfair Fare
59. Elevator Freestyle
58. It's Going To Save Your Life One Day
57. "Do I Know You...?"
This is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me, period.
56. God-Tier Gamer
55. Lost At Sea
I was at the beach, and a tugboat came from very far out at sea and stopped just short of beaching itself on the beach. The captain came out, looked around, scratched his head, got back in the tugboat, and went away.
54. Mental Magic
53. Ring, Ring, Ring: Banana Phone
52. You're Caught In Some Kind Of Time Warp
51. Maybe Just Act Normal Next Time?
50. Jesus Takes The Wheel
49. Walk A Mile
48. The Americans
Image by Michael Siebert from Pixabay
47. The Non-Mugging Mugging
46. The Secret Handshake
45. A Speedy Hand-Off
Downtown Charlotte, about ten years ago. Standing on Tryon near 3rd or 4th, and a car (a black Mercedes) is stopped at the light across the street. A bicyclist whizzes by me, moving opposite to the direction of the car. Just then, the car starts to move, and cyclist holds out a document folder/envelope of some kind. Hand-off happens, and cyclist keeps booking, and the car goes in the other direction. All of this was done at speed, without any kind of lull. If I hadn't been looking directly at the hand-off, I wouldn't have seen it.
Definitely one of the stranger things that stands out to me.
44. Accordion To You
I was driving down the highway, just minding my own business. All of the sudden I see a car standing on the emergency lane.
The driver, a woman in her 40s or 50s, is standing behind the barrier, passionately playing an accordion and singing.
There was no traffic jam or anything; I guess she just suddenly felt like she wanted to make some music. On the highway. Alone.
43. Wedding Witness
I was paying off a bushel of parking tickets when I was approached by a man dressed in a three-piece suit. He offered me $100 to be a witness for his wedding, being that his best man wasn't going to be able to make it. I said heck yeah. Walk into the room and it was myself, a judge, and two other guys. Was I surprised? Yes. I thought the best man was running late. Again, wrong. Watched the two guys get married, then went afterward to celebrate with them. Coolest guys I have ever met. Got another parking ticket. Still friends today.
42. Cemetery Chocolate Club
It was the first year in college and I joined this club called the chocolate club; I had no idea what it was.
In the first session, there were like eight people plus the leader, and the leader led us to a graveyard and told us to stand in a circle facing inwards. He then proceeded to hand us each a chocolate ball and told us that we had to hold it in a specific way with only our middle finger and our thumb. He then mumbled some random words and then signaled us to eat it and so we did.
Never went back again.
41. Cat Called
While on the balcony of my apartment, I was watching a cat staring into the night sky while sitting on a brick fence for a good 10 minutes. Then I watched as another cat appeared out of nowhere, walking towards the first cat. They proceed to be intimate (cat-intimate). It was really weird as if they had planned to meet there or something.
40. Swinging Sunflower
Car slams on its brakes on a busy four-lane road. A woman jumps out and reaches into her back seat. Grabs what looks like a giant fake sunflower plant and swings it around her head. It seems like for a minute but perhaps it was only 30 seconds. She throws the sunflower back in and jumps back in the car and speeds off.
Me and four other people just stood there in disbelief at the entire sight.
39. Prying A Little Too Much
I was on a packed subway going home when an old man squeezes in at the last minute. There are two or three people holding the bar by the door when the old man starts to tell people this is his and no one else can hold on to it. Obviously, everyone ignores him, so he starts to pry people's fingers off and hitting their hands. After most people let go, one of the younger guys that got his hand pried off argues with him, so the old man decided to follow this guy and pry his fingers off wherever he grabbed. It was entertaining to watch.
38. Kooky Cookie Monster
I was in a sandwich shop and this tall, lanky man who was obviously not so there dances through the doors yelling, "I'm the Cookie Monster" repeatedly until the people behind the counter gave him a cookie. As he was walking out he throws his cookie at my head and gets about two feet away from my face and says, "You gotta have a daily dose of cookies to be a Cookie Monster like me," and then dances out through the door.
37. Shrek Service
I went to a religious Shrek service dedicated to the great Ogrelord above us all. The sermon was pretty good, but the songs were horrible.
36. Down In Flames
I watched my neighbor's house burn down. It was surreal. There is no way to describe the magnitude of emotions and shock of seeing something there for seven years and gone in two hours.
I can still feel the heat when I close my eyes. It felt like you had a blow dryer in your face even though we were sitting on our deck 100 feet away. I've seen fires on tv. It was nothing like that other than in looks. I felt terrible for the family, but from a clinical standpoint, seeing that big of a fire in real life was awe-inspiring. It felt so powerful. An immense power of destruction. It was a very bittersweet experience.
35. Foot Fees
Pulled up behind a car with the license plate "UNARMED" at a drive-through ATM. The foot comes out the driver's side window with ATM card held between toes. Foot proceeds to work the touch-screen and enter/retract the card, then just drives away. What.
34. Why So Serious
Was walking in the hallways at school with my friend, when a kid walks up behind my friend and whispers to him "If only I could remove your kidneys." The same kid got suspended three weeks later for cutting his mouth like the Joker.
33. Ghost Girl
I was walking home nice and happy at around 2 AM. Residential neighborhood, upscale suburb. Little girl, bout six years old, just hanging out on the street by herself. I was like, little girl, are you a spooky ghost?
Called the cops and they came. Turns out a lot of stuff can go on behind closed doors in suburbia; her parents literally didn't care about where she was.
I know that sounds really tame, but imagine being a little happy in the middle of the night in a totally quiet suburb, everything is quiet and still, and suddenly you just see a little girl playing with her dolls on a street corner. It was really spooky.
32. Painting For The Bird
I went to the local pancake house with my gal pals after going to a shadow cast of Rocky Horror Picture Show. We were all dressed up, corsets, fishnets, platform go-go boots, and I was wearing a bright orange feather wig. We were sitting there, eating pancakes and stuff, when this tall, lanky, disheveled homeless man walks up to our table.
He sits down next to me without any sort of greeting, turns to me, and asks, "Are you a bird?" I say yes. He then proceeds to take the ketchup and spray it all over the table, yelling "I'm painting! I'm making a painting!" He does the same with the honey and the mustard. When his painting was done, he nods to me and walks off.
Memorable.
31. Clowning Around
My brother came home from work one day and said he saw a clown rolling a barrel down the highway. We thought he was joking with us and teased him about it for a while. Turns out it was a rodeo clown who was rolling his barrel across America.
30. Saved By A Stranger
A few years ago I passed out in bed. Before that, I had put a pot with a glass lid on the stove to make tea. I wake up to a text message from a stranger saying "What's up?" I text back saying "You got the wrong guy." They say sorry and that's that. Now I'm thirsty. I enter the kitchen and see the pot on the red-hot electric range. All the water had evaporated/turned to steam and the glass lid had spiderweb cracks from the heat.
I text the number the next day explaining how their text helped me and they reply "No problem." Now, I don't know how much danger I was in, but I never get texts from people I don't know and the timing was perfect.
29. Beer At The Bruins
My dad and brother were at a Boston Bruins hockey game last winter, sitting in the lower level, about 15 rows back from the glass behind one of the goals.
At one point, a shot was taken by a player and the puck deflected off the stick of a defender, up and over the glass into the netting. Except, the puck went so high it lobbed up over the net and fell into the crowd. An unaware guy was sitting in his seat, holding his drink.
The puck fell straight into this dude's drink. The guy wasn't even looking. Looked down, realized what happened, stood up and chugged the rest with the puck still inside. The section went crazy.
28. Walking In Jerusalem
I was walking through Jerusalem a few months ago when I saw a young woman, mid to late 20's, dressed in a baggy hippie dress. She was standing in the middle of a pedestrian walkway holding an electrical cable attached to a portable radiator.
I jokingly said to her, "Taking your radiator for a walk?"
And she looked at me with bewildered eyes and said slowly, "It feels like I've been walking for days."
At that point, I got totally creeped out and just noped right along.
Maybe not the craziest thing but bizarre none-the-less.
27. Donkey Drag Race
I'm from Pakistan. One time, in the middle of the night, I was driving on an empty road when five or six people racing donkeys and screaming on the top of their lungs appeared out of nowhere. That stuff was crazy.
26. Strange Sight Come And Gone
Years ago I was driving and stopped at a red light. A woman gets out of the car behind me and comes up to my window. She says "I know you have been following me all night!" She then reaches in and takes my glasses off my face. She says, "If you want these back you know where to find me!" I sat there, stunned. She got back in her car, went around me and drove away. I tried to chase her but I couldn't see.
25. Can't Catch A Brake
My girlfriend's neighbor's house went up in flames, but when the firetruck came, it never stopped. It drove straight through the house and completely destroyed everything. Brakes just didn't work at the wrong time.
24. The Sounds Of Sneezing
I remember back in the middle school band (I still play, saxophone) where I sneezed while playing, and it made a terrible noise out of my instrument. Then the person next to me does the same thing. This goes on until finally, the entire band had sneezed while playing. Our director just sat there speechless for five minutes.
23. Skiing Through The Afternoon
At 4 PM every day, and I mean EVERY day on my way to work, I see the same lady, about 60 years old, walking down the street with ski poles. She walks as if she's cross country skiing, and wears a full-body latex ski/scuba suit and sometimes a cowboy hat with Christmas lights on it. Crazy stuff, right? For the first time just last week I see this lady walking down the same street but this time she's in full business attire, good makeup, etc. just having a chat with someone normally.
22. Picking Pinecones
My sister and I were chilling out in our kitchen, and we looked out to see a man dressed in a nice suit walk into our backyard. He didn't notice us and walked under one of our pine trees. He then looked around suspiciously, reached down, and picked up a pinecone off the ground. He put it into a ziplock bag, looked around again, then scurried off, never to be seen again.
I still have zero clue why anyone would do this.
21. A Slow Roll
One morning I woke up and looked out the window. There was a car upside down on the road. By itself. No police, ambulance or shocked people from an accident around it. Didn't even hear a car crash. I walked downstairs to have a look and a young woman climbed out of it. Turns out she was driving slow, blinded by the sun and drove up a parked car that had a low front. Her car just rolled on its top slowly. Hardly any damage to both cars.
20. From Night To Day
I remember when I was a kid there was one night during the summer where all of a sudden it wasn't night anymore. Literally at 11:30 at night it went from being pitch black outside to all of a sudden, daylight. I remember everyone walking out of their houses onto the streets and just talking to each other, like "What the heck's going on?" Cops and some military personnel showed up and told us all that everything was fine and not to worry. Like, just go back in your homes everything is fine, we assure you. After about an hour it went back to being pitch black again. I still will never forget that night just because of how bizarre it was. Still don't know what happened. I think the papers claimed it as some sort of military drill. But it was no drill, it was daylight at 11:30 at night.
19. Just Skating By
When I was about 13, on the last day of summer before starting high school, my friends and I were out skateboarding in our neighborhood. Suddenly, numerous police cars start swarming the area, pulling up to the one big house amidst the rowhomes. We wisely decided to stick around and see what was going to happen. Crime was really bad where I grew up so we assumed we were about to see some kind of raid. They rushed the house and carried an unconcious man away from it. A few minutes later, the house ACTUALLY IMPLODES. Just falls into itself with one of the loudest sounds I had ever heard. A dust cloud formed and started spreading, so we ran. Turned out the man who lived there turned his gas on. Still not sure what made the house fall in on itself, but we all had a crazy story to tell on our first day of school.
18. The Wall Of Death
So my friend went to a death metal concert and experienced something called the wall of death. Basically what happens is the audience divides straight down the middle with about 10 meters between, and when the band gives the signal both sides charge at each other as hard as they can. The really daring/stupid stand in the 10-meter gap to feel the full force of it.
17. Hopping To The Music
Several years ago I agreed to drive a friend to a Flaming Lips concert. I knew nothing about them but trusted my friend's musical taste. During the opening band, my friend positioned himself at the stage while I wandered aimlessly towards the back of the standing room. From the corner of my eye, some guy is peering at me from within a room where there are props and lights and some such stuff. It wasn't too long before I got suspicious and was about to relocate when he motions me to him. It was crowded and wasn't too guarded so I got within earshot. He needed my help. I was suspicious. Why me? I expressed my reluctance and he started to explain himself. You see, apparently, The Flaming Lips has a bunch of people dressed up in bunny suits to dance in the crowd for "She Don't Use Jelly," and one of the people never showed. So before I knew it, this guy is shoving me into a huge hot and sweaty bunny suit telling me to just go with it and dance. He throws me out into a now very crowded audience and I have no choice but to do just that. I can't express how perplexed my friend was when I unmasked in front of him. A bizarre night for the both of us.
16. Finding A Penny
I was approached by a strange homeless man while I was killing time in an airport. My flight arrived around midnight, and I found the ticket counter was closed until 4 AM. The place was deserted. After an hour, I see a homeless-looking man walking toward me, from the other end of the ticketing area. As he gets about 30 yards away, he shouts "Hey!"
Me: "Yes?"
20 yards away: "Hi! Did you know you're a penny?"
Me: "Excuse me?"
10 yards away: "Did you know you're a PENNY?"
5 yards away, with me thinking I may be about to get attacked, me: "I am?"
Him: "Yeah... METAL."
Point made, he continued walking past and exited a short while later. I remain perplexed to this day about what context there could be that would make sense of that interaction.
15. Baby Overboard
My sister and I were driving to Clearwater, Florida from St. Pete one day, and traffic on 19 is always bad with the stoplights. Well, the car two spaces ahead of us kind of throws/drops this bundle on the ground. The woman in the car in front of us gets out and picks it up, and it's a freaking baby. The people in the car that dropped it jump out and take it back and this is right when the light had changed so they basically jump in the car and drive off. It made the local news from what I remember.
I remember thinking if I were that woman they would have needed an act of God to get the baby out of my arms. YOU JUST THREW IT OUT OF YOUR CAR!
14. The Amused Amish Man
This has got to be the strangest and most confusing thing I have ever come across.
So I live in a small neighborhood in Michigan that is known for liquor, churches, and the Amish. I was driving down a dirt road some ways into the country where a lot of the Amish community lives. I stopped at a stop sign basically in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden an Amish man with absolutely no clothing (probably in his late 50's) walks out of a ditch to my right! He just stood there with a grin on his face and just waved at me like everything was completely normal. The image will forever be seared into my brain.
13. Beverage-Loving Rodent
I saw a squirrel get inebriated. We'd had a huge house party at this valley resort and there were cups left out on the patio . . . a bunch of tired people were standing by the window and I went over to see what was up. A squirrel climbed up on a patio table, put its nose in a cup, and started lapping up the drink -- really getting in there. Once it was finished and turned to get off the table, it was stumbling around like crazy. I was in awe.
12. The Thoughtful Thieves
A friend's house had a break-in a couple days ago and pretty much everything was stolen. They had literally searched through every corner of the house and every single piece of furniture had been flipped upside down. The weird part is that in all of his kids' three bedrooms they hadn't touched anything. Their Xbox and iPhones where still there, and they had even put their piggybanks neatly on top of their beds. It's really really creepy when I think about it; is there even a thing as gentlemen-robbers?
11. Life Like A Movie
My family was the subject of a recent "based on a true story" film. It was filmed locally, so I went by the set a few times. Watching someone pretending to be you is weird. And it's not really even you, it's "movie you" who isn't dressed like you, doesn't look, act or talk like you...is only BASED on you. I hated it.
10. Wandering Water Marks
Freshman year of college a soaking wet barefoot girl walks into our dorm room in the middle if the night and asks for someone who is not me or my roommate. She is in a complete zombie-like state. Eyes super wide open, shivering and talking nonsense. She tries to climb into my bed. I get up, walk her to my door, and send her on her way. A second later I'm fully awake and open the door to go get her thinking she might need help. All that was there was wet footprints and no sign of the girl.
9. An Ode To Apple
The first thing that comes to mind was the night Steve Jobs passed away. I met some friends at a place I never really go to, one of whom worked at an Apple store. It turns out, there were probably 70-80 Apple store employees from around the city there that night and they kept standing on chairs and tables saying stuff and making toasts to Jobs. I like Apple products and I've had corporate jobs where they beat the brand in a bit too hard but holy smokes, that was a weird night.
8. Quite The Clot
I am the proud owner of largest blood clot ever that someone lived through. Got it while in training to go to Afghanistan. Woke up one day and legs looked like tree trunks. Took them almost a week to figure out what was wrong. When they did I was airlifted from Landstuhl, Germany to Walter Reid in D.C. I wasn't allowed to move, but with all the fluids I was being given had to relieve myself a lot. Two female SSgt's had to assist me. Right when I got to Walter Reid, I lost consciousness and saw heaven. To that point, I didn't know blood clots were that serious until seeing a deceased friend and coming to in the ICU with my family there. Usually, clots are small, say the size of a pinhead, whereas mine extended from a couple inches above BOTH knees, through the bilateral illiacs, and up the inferior vena cava to an inch below the heart. Resulted in collapsed veins and losing a lot of mobility.
7. For The Record
I was part of the setting of a world record. The most beach balls thrown in the air at one time.
6. The Paper Storm
I was once driving down the highway when the doors to the semi-trailer 100 yards in front of me opened. Out from the void rolled toilet paper. Hundreds of bouncing toilet paper rolls exploded into a fluttering white cloud that quickly filled my entire view. As quickly as it started I had driven through the wall of the stuff and the ordeal was over, but for miles, I would notice small white pennants dangling from the antennas of other motorists.
5. An Electric Performance
Saw a guy get electrocuted by a guitar on stage. Blue sparks flying from his hands, convulsions, people screaming.
Bassist kicked the amp plug out of the wall. Saved his boy.
Guitarist threw his guitar at a wall, yelled and walked out the front door.
4. The Tickle Fighter
3. Monkey On Wheels
Hanging out on the stoop of the village general store drinking smoothies. The general store is at the top of a massive hill. A van with no windows pulls up and the driver doesn't get out, but the back doors swing open, a ramp slides out, and a chipper-looking fellow in a wheelchair emerges out of the back of the van. He's got a small monkey casually sitting on his shoulder. He then waves peace at the driver and proceeds to absolutely bomb the hill with the small monkey as his wheelchair derby sidekick.
2. All Aboard, Headless Horseman
While waiting for the subway I saw a man on the platform unbutton the top 4-5 buttons of his shirt, pull it up over his head and button them back up. He then boarded the subway all headless-horseman-like and sat there like it was no big deal.
1. Pretty Petty
A girl walks into a gas station. Guy breaks into her car and steals what he thought was her purse. Cop runs after on foot. Burglar throws the bag into the air, and makeup goes everywhere. The kid almost died over some used makeup.
