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The Miscellaneous Personal Anecdotes thread

  
 
Saveloy
15:42 / 24.08.04
I'm a right nosey bastard, me. I want to know everything that everyone is doing, all the time. Especially if it's not particularly out of the ordinary - the more mundane, the better. Did you go to the shops and chat to a nice old lady about the weather? Excellent! So give me a big thrill, please, and use this thread to post ordinary accounts of the sort of everyday crap that you've experienced. Okay, use it for extraordinary stuff too, see if I care. Think of this as a communal blog you don't have to feel guilty about.

There's only one rule: no lifestyle mag stuff, please. That means no brand names, no drug stories and no mucky carry-ons. Or over-elaborate recipes. I don't want to hear about how you lost your mess doing 300 gigahertz up the M25 on an organic Prada iPod full of cocaine, thank you very much.

I'll start us off with my own boring story of everyday suburban life:


Strange Comings and Goings Round the Back of the Shed

Putting the step ladder away last night, I heard a terrific huffing and
puffing coming from behind the shed. It was loud enough and vigorous
enough to have been a miniature steam train, or a big scary man in a
state of excitement. Suspecting that one of the neighbours had broken
in through the back fence and was doing something weird round there, I grabbed a torch and had a peek round the back of the shed, and blow me if it wasn't just a hedgehog, a tiny one. A tiny weeny hedgehog like THIS.

The strange thing was, he didn't seem to be doing anything that
warranted huffing and puffing - he didn't seem to be humping anything
or snuffling around looking for food. Is this just one of those things
hedgehogs do, or should I have whacked him on the head with a
spade?
 
 
Cat Chant
15:53 / 24.08.04
The hedgehog is a noisy mammal.
 
 
Lea-side
20:39 / 24.08.04
well, today i went to sign on for the first time (recently) and when i heard my name called, i went to sit down at a desk, behind which was a nice old man called steve. steve would be conducting my interview today, and proceeded to ask me whether i had brought with me my last 2 paychecks, passport etc and if i had filled out the forms. i handed everything over and he began to go through the forms looking for any mistakes and when he finished, turned to me and said "thats the best bit of form filling ive seen in months!, ever fancied being a civil servant?" i thought he was joking but in fact he was deadly serious and pulled up a job filling out forms for legal aid blah blah blah and set up an interview for me......
so, does this mean:
A: i have a natural skill for filling out very boring paperwork, or
b: people are generally very stupid and they WERE the best forms he'd seen in months, or
c: this man was just a bit rubbish at his job and has sent me to a hellish Kafka-esque doom of never-ending red-tape and phonecalls from legal aids briefs?
 
 
the cat's iao
00:33 / 25.08.04
In the past couple of weeks I've been catching the bus to get to work. It's a fairly short commute--only ten minutes! I've missed the bus a couple of times and ended up walking, which takes about half an hour. I'm thinking about getting a bike, because it would be cost efficient and healthy.

Anyway, the same bus driver picks me up every morning, at least he's been the same so far. I always like to be friendly to the bus driver, so I greet him every morning with a "How-do?" or a "Good morning!" and he knows who I am and has always returned the pleasentries. I used to get off at the stop that was about a block from my job, but a couple of times he was waiting at the lights and I would get up and walk to the front and ask if I could be let out there, as it was closer to the my work. Now it's the case that when we get to that intersection, he knows I like to get off there, so he opens the door without me even having to ask, which is really nice. We always bid each other friendly parting words, and as I step off the bus I have been saying, "See you tomorrow!" And so far, I have always seen him the next day.
 
 
Red Cross Iodized Salt
01:22 / 25.08.04
My anecdote begins about nine years ago. I was spending the summer in London and had just had one of those best-night-out-evar type nights out at Club UK in Wandsworth (it was a Final Frontier event for them that remembers them). Laurent Garnier has been playing records for somewhere in the region of fifty gazillion hours and he ends the night with this amazing techno track. It starts plainly enough: A minimal 4:4 kick, cymbal and hi-hat, with a single discordant, off-tempo piano chord banging away on top for several minutes. Then, out of nowhere, this massive oscillating analog synth squeal comes in and transforms the record into something that sounds like the tougher, cooler cousin of Underworld’s ‘Rez’. As it ends, the house lights come up on a sweaty, exhausted looking crowd dancing dementedly with huge smiles on every face. I go home that morning determined to get my hands on this record by any means necessary, despite the fact that I have no idea who it is by or what it is called.

The next time I go record shopping, I try to describe the track to one of the guys behind the counter. As I’m telling him about how great “the bit that goes ‘waaahhhhhhh-waaa-aaaa-wahhh-WHAAAAA’” is, he says that he reckons the record might be by someone (or someones) calling themselves P.A. Presents. Aside from that, he’s not sure what label it’s on, what the track is called, where it’s from or when it’s out. For the next couple of months, every time I’m in a record shop I check for stuff by P.A. Presents in the hope of stumbling across this track that has become etched in my head. It eventually turns out to one of those records that I’m always keeping an eye out for, but never find.

Cut to early 2001. I’m living in Boston and I don’t know anyone there who listens to dance music, so I spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about dance music with obsessive nerds on the 313 mailing list. It occurs to me that I might at least be able to get a track ID on the elusive record. One ‘waaahhhhhhh-waaa-aaaa-wahhh-WHAAAAA’ email later and some nice man confirms that the record in question is by P.A. Presents. He further informs me that it is called ‘Entangled.’ I respond by asking if anyone knows where I might be able to get my hands on a copy (this is in pre gemm.com days, or at least, pre my knowing about gemm.com days) but don’t hear anything back. A few weeks go by and I get an email from someone who tells me I should contact one Peter Aarsman, who runs a record shop in The Hague. I email this Peter Aarsman, telling him how long I’ve been looking for the record and happy I would be if his shop could sell me a copy. He mails back and tells me that he’s the P.A. in P.A. Presents and will happily send me one of the many copies he has cluttering up his apartment gratis.

Anyway, I ended up getting a copy of the record. It’s not quite as mind-blowing as I had remembered (it didn’t age as well as some other stuff from the same era), but it’s still one of the more cherished pieces of vinyl I have.
 
 
Maygan
02:06 / 25.08.04
Recently I've heard a sound track on the advertisemnts which portrays Mitsumishi cars. One is Everyday by Bon Jovi. I think this sound track goes well with the advertisemwnt. Then there's also Bring Me Back to Life by Evanescence in another advertisement.
Some time later, I watch a variety show on TV where participants gotta guess who's the real pole dancer among 5 people. The song they uses are Toxic by Britney Spears.

Later another advertisement tells me that all the above mentioned songs could be found on a CD called 'Big'. 'Big' even contain a sound track by Linkin Park. Avril Lavigne too. I think she like her own song Skater8 Boyzs.

The classified in the newspaper is a good read as I just found out it contains garage/factory sales. Even under the business opportunies section, u could find people asking for business partners.

My TV could only receive 2 TV channels. One is a oriental channel while the other is a english channel. The oriental channel is a wee bit grainy with mild ghosting. Info I dig up says it could be due to noise or signal reflection.

The english channel TV image alsways scroll upwards.
Info says signal to noise ratio must be of the order of 199 times.

I dunno if hedgehogs find antennas tasty. I think of hedgehogs finding antenna tasty cause I can't find them in my small grass patch. And the previous post.

Beer at a joint is my favourite haunt. Mixing LSD in it is very profound.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:47 / 25.08.04
white riot: the answer is b) - it is surprisingly easy to rise to a level of comparative excellence where certain mundane office-based tasks are concerned, even if you are mildly lazy and incompetent, simply because everyone else is substantially more lazy and incompetent.
 
 
Spaniel
08:20 / 25.08.04
Or perhaps D. He's a bloody devious bastard who knows how to deal with dirty scroungers.
 
 
doglikesparky
08:47 / 25.08.04
Relatively happy in my job, I was 10 months ago, moved against my will to another one of my companies offices about 10 miles away. I protested at the time but was told I had no choice in the matter and had to go.
The move added extra travel time and expense to my daily routine and put me in the immediate vicintiy of my manager who I particularly don't get on with (I had previously been remotely managed) and amongst a great number of people I didn't like very much. It also took me away from the comfort of working in an environment I knew well with people I liked and considered friends.
Over time, the new job became more bearable, I started to not dislike new colleagues so much and it became apparent that career opportunities were much more abundant in the new location but still I missed my old job.

10 months on, my management have now decided to move me back to my old post because of staffing problems (my replacement resigned) and I find myself once again in a happier environment, albeit one with no chance of progressing my career. I am though, much, much happier all round.

So now, 2 weeks ago, I was about to go on holiday for a fortnight when my (once again) remote manager gets in touch with me to tell me that a job has opened up back where I had been for the last 10 months and he thinks I should apply for it. I'm told that the application has to be in within the next 2 weeks but given my impending holiday they would hold it for a few more days for me so I could complete the application upon my return.
I spent the next 2 weeks on leave, not particularly enjoying myself because I was agonising over whether to apply or not. Do I stay put and remain happy or do I move to something I know I'm not going to enjoy in the short term but which will, in the long term, lead to better opportunities. By the end of the 2 weeks I had decided that although I didn't *want* to apply, I would for the reasons I've just stated.

So I returned to work, dutifully completed the application, submitted it and then received an e-mail form my manager informing me that the vacancy had been filled by someone from another of our offices because of a move on compassionate grounds. And that was that.
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
08:50 / 25.08.04
Mine is the tale of the 3am smoking club.

Whilst living in Toronto I never lived in a house with air conditioning, more fool me.
Naturally, for those who know, in summer it would get too hot and nasty to be able to sleep properly. Quite often I would be in bed by about 11pm but after a few hours of fitful sleep I would find myself unable to get back to sleep. Into the second, and by far the worst, summer of the three that I was there, I developed a middle of the night routine.
Firstly I would go and have a refreshing cold shower and then take a large glass of iced water with lime and go and sit on the steps outside my house for about half an hour while I smoked a few cigarettes before trying to get back to sleep. From time to time I would see people out walking about with that glazed look of sleep-deprived desperation that afflicts the A/C-less during such times.

I had noticed two people in the same street as me who would come out to smoke at about the same time, both gentlemen in their 40's, one I think was Chinese and the other was Portugese. One day, shortly into July, the Chinese guy just casually saunters over and in a rather odd manner casts his eyes about, maybe to see if anyone is watching, smiles at me, says a rather clipped "hi" and then sits on my neighbour's steps while he finishes his cigarette.
I returned the hi, but other than that we spend the time in silence and when he is finished he cast his butt into the gutter, stood up, made a faint nodding gesture with his hands clasped in front of him and then walked back home.
A couple of evenings later he sees me again and wanders over and the routine starts again. Look around, smile, "hi", sit down, smokes. Only this time the Portugese man is out and sees us and he smiles and waves. We smile and wave back. Smoking done we retreat, another smile and wave to the Portugese man, a nod and a smile from the Chinese man.

The next night the Portugese man joins us, sitting on my steps and from then on, for most nights that I'm at the house, I'm joined by one or both of them. Quite often I would bring out a jug of iced water with lme and some glasses and the other two occasionally bring sweet treats or cartons of juice.
I barely exchanged any words with either of them but there was a closeness worth more than words. I moved house at the end of that summer and sadly never saw either of them again.

I hope they keep the 3am smoking club alive.
 
 
Saveloy
12:10 / 26.08.04
Deva>

Thanks for that! The BBC site has one of the cutest hedgehog pics I've ever seen (the top one: close up profile as it peers upwards with an expectant look). So, they're just generally noisy buggers, then? Good, I like that, it seems right and proper. Any animal that bustles about in the dark making a racket is bound to be pretty straightforward and down to Earth - a solid, trustworthy sort, dim but nice. It also suggests that the one I saw wasn't sick or injured, so no tap on the bonce required.


the cat's iao & Seldom Killer>

Lovely stuff! Nothing makes me happier than hearing about people getting on with relative strangers. Do you find it makes a big difference to your background mood for some time after each encounter? It certainly does for me, and this is especially true of bus drivers. A miserable bus driver can really fuck up your day.

I used to know someone whose dad was the angriest bus driver in the World. The first (and only) time I went to her house he stormed through the living room shouting, with obvious sarcasm (and without looking at me once): "Lovely to see you, you'll be staying over I expect, can't wait to see you in the morning, have a nice stay." Brrrr...
 
 
Sekhmet
13:29 / 26.08.04
Rrrgh. No fun.

I find a smile and a friendly hello does amazing things with bus drivers. So many people are sullen or grumpy at them, they seem to think it's a apecial favor if you're nice.

In my city, they cycle the drivers through different routes every couple of months. By the time they've been on my route a week or two they know me, since I ride at the same time every day, and are generally quite nice. There was a fellow who used to pick me up in the afternoons for a while last year, and for some reason he got in the habit of calling me "Your Majesty" (nicely, not in a sarcastic way), which always made me feel pretty and regal. Well, last week they apparently moved him from wherever he's been onto the route I take in the morning. I popped onto the bus and immediately he says, "Well, hello, Your Majesty!" How many thousands of people ride these buses and the guy remembers me? It's been a year! Made me smile.

Another thing that made me smile: This morning I went to the little coffee shop a couple of doors up from my office, and while I'm waiting on my mocha, a homeless man shuffles in with his big bag of collected objects. I've seen him around downtown a lot. I get the impression he's just one of those people that has a hard time making it in society because of a slight mental handicap. He sort of casts around the place, looking a bit puzzled, and then shuffles up to the counter behind me. The man behind the counter is squirting whipped cream on my mocha, but he looks over his shoulder and says, "Good morning, Todd." "G'morning, David," says the homeless guy. David takes my pay, makes change, and while I'm juggling my change and my cup and my bag, David is making Todd a cup of coffee - obviously his usual, since he didn't order anything - and chatting with him about the weather, how's his back feeling, and so on. Yay. People are nice and life is good.

There's a Starbuck's literally across the street from this place, by the way. When my boss wants coffee he walks past this coffee shop to get to the Starbuck's. He was so relieved when they opened it. He used to speak in hushed tones about all the people with the piercings and tattoos at the coffee shop. Scary scary, tattooed people. He doesn't know I have a tattoo. I may tell him when I quit.
 
 
Grey Area
13:32 / 26.08.04
We have steps leading up to the portacabin I have my desk in. Today, one of my colleagues nearly fell face forward because of the algae growing on them. So I went and scrounged a stiff-bristled broom and scrubbed them down with a touch of bleach. Now the steps are clean and white and nobody can slip on them. At least not because of algae.

Tomorrow morning I will go back to the market and continue the discussion of my research with the Egg Lady, a woman who is older and wiser than me. And who is happier too, thanks to her having left her 9-5 job years ago in order to raise chickens and sell the eggs. Someday I hope to be as happy as the Egg Lady.

Only 4 months until Christmas.
 
 
Benny the Ball
08:13 / 28.08.04
There was a brass etching of a medievil (can't spell today) knight at the top of the stairs of one of the house that I lived in as a kid, both my sister and I hated it, it was totally creepy and dead looking, and I was obsessed with ghosts at this point (reading books about all creatures of the night, sneaking out at night to go wandering around the neighbouring cemetary where I lived). I was about six or so. My dad would stand at the foot of the stairs saying good night to me and my sister as we went up the stairs to bed, he would wait until we were past half way up and then switch out the lights and scream and shout that the knight was coming alive, coming out of the picture to get us.

He was fun like that.
 
 
gingerbop
11:15 / 29.08.04
Somebody mentioned "relative strangers" in this thread.
The other evening there was a knock at my door. I went to answer it, and there was a strange looking man standing directly behind it, not a pace or two back, but right in front of me; staring. I just about crapped myself.
It took me about 20 seconds to realise it was my brother.

Last weekend, I was in a pub in Inverness. One girl came up to me, and said- 'Hey, there's loads of pictures of you in the Sports Centre!' and her friend says "I know you- You used to go on the Jemimaville bus!" I didnt know either of them. I think I may be a celebrity.
 
 
flufeemunk effluvia
16:32 / 29.08.04
My mom brought home communion bread from church and I ate it with butter. When she asked me what I was doing, I said Jesus is really good with butter. I asked if she had any blood left. She didn't.
 
 
electric monk
14:26 / 15.02.06
A recent thread reminded me of this story:

My family took a "last vacation as a family" when I was twelve. I was determined to find a job that next summer so I could save up for a car. Since my schedule would be thus full, the fam did a huge, blowout trip: A cruise to the Bahamas and 3 days at Disney World in Orlando, FL.

The cruise was fine for what it was, but didn't really push the FUN button like I knew Disney would. I was determined to ride every roller coaster at least five times and make it twice that amount for the Haunted Mansion, my favorite-ever Disney ride. And, since this was to be the "last vacation as a family", my brother and I were told to pick out one very special souvenir from Disney. Anything (within reason) that we wanted.

So Disney was great. I don't think I reached my stated goals, but found one truly cool souvenir. Just outside the entrance gate for the Haunted Mansion was a Mansion-themed toy stand (natch). They had a nice array of ooky stuff, but what really caught my attention was the (to my mind) very lifelike and suitably spooky glow-in-the-dark skull. Awesome. Had to have it. Got it.

The trip winds down to that last day, and we're all just happily exhausted and wanting to get home. Navigate the streets. Navigate the airport and get to the baggage screeners. I put my bag on the conveyor belt and walk through the metal detector. Look back over my shoulder, and the screener guy has a very worried look on his face. He looks at my father and says, "Is this your bag, sir?" as my bag slides out the other side of the x-ray. "No, that's my son's bag. Why?" "Why?" says the screener, and leans in closer to my dad so he can whisper and keep one eye on me. "What? No, no. It's not real. Open the bag. He'll show you." Screener Guy walks to the bag, eyes locked on me, pops the latches and opens the bag. I grab right for the faux-skull and unwrap the t-shirt bundled around it. "S-see? It's a souvenir", I say. Screener Guy calmed after that, and I could see his posture relax as he let out a deep breath. "Just...just be more careful next time, okay?"

I still laugh about that.



(In case you hadn't guessed, the recent thread referred to above is here.)
 
 
Aertho
14:34 / 15.02.06
I got a skull too! I got mine at the Pirates of the Carribbean Ride. We drove though.
 
 
electric monk
15:11 / 15.02.06
Were they not the greatest Disney memento ever? I think so. I gave mine to a friend soon before I graduated from college. Looked for a replacement on a recent Disney trip, but I couldn't find one anywhere. Not at the Mansion, not at Pirates. %Wonder why?%
 
  
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