Today, I came to the conclusion that for the past several years, I have been wearing an invisible sign that only strange people have the power to read. It must say something like "Please approach me and say the weirdest thing you can possibly think of". When one of these people approached me today, I remembered several other instances where this happened.
*In late high school, I took flute lessons from a friend of my parents. I was driving home from her house and stopped to put gas in my mom's car one Monday night. At the gas station, I was minding my own business at the pump and wearing my school letter jacket and watching my breath in the cold February air. The woman at the pump next to me said hi. I was nice, smiled and said hi back. That's where the normalcy ended. She then asked me if I had my parachute. I thought maybe she was telling a joke so I asked her what she meant. She said that when they take us up, it may be so overcrowded that some may fall off the platform, so I should be sure to get my parachute before they run out. I was utterly baffled, but made the mistake of being curious and asked her what she was talking about. She looked at me as if I were crazy (yeah right lady! I'M crazy?!!) and asked me if I'd been living under a rock. She told me that an alien species was invading and the government had a spaceship built in preparation to take us up into space to save mankind, but that it was overbooking and to save oxygen, the last people to sign up would have to ride on the "balcony" or "platform" until we reached space, and then we could go inside. She then startled when her pump finished and said "Oh! My pod is filled!" got in her car and drove off.
*Last year, I was going to visit a friend. It was the middle of the day, beautiful weather. I stopped at store for a snack, and when I came back out to my car, there was a man standing nearby in a long, dark trench coat. He approached me and said hello. Because it was daytime and there were many people nearby, I didn't think anything of it. I just figured he needed directions or something. So I stopped and let him approach. He then went on to ask if I was interested in purchasing some "authentic Wisconsin cheese curds" and gestured to his nearby van. You know? Those white ones with no windows that always remind people of snipers now? He told me he was selling them out of his van, but that I would have to get in because the credit card machine was hooked up inside. I ended up just walking away and getting in my car quickly. The funniest part was that inside the store were bags of these same cheese curds and we were maybe 15 miles from Wisconsin at that store. It's not like Wisconsin cheese curds are hard to find in Minnesota.
*This fall, I got a flat tire on the highway and pulled over to call for assistance. This was also during the day and it was nice out, so I wasn't worried about anything. A teenage guy pulls over shortly after I get out of my car to stand out of the way of traffic. I of course, think he's pulled over to offer assistance. He comes over though and after he says "Man that sucks. Flat tire huh?" he asks me if he can have my phone number. Did I mention he was probably 10 years younger than me? I said no and he looked at me like he was angry and said "Geez woman! I was just trying to flirt. What's wrong with that?!" He then stalked off to his car and he drove away.
*My mom had surgery on her foot a couple of weeks ago. Today, I brought her to her doctor's appointment and while we were in the waiting room, she went up to the front desk to ask some questions. My mom's foot is all wrapped up in a cast and she is using one of those knee scooters, so it's pretty obvious that something happened to her. A man walks over to me and asks me if she's my mom. I smiled at him and said yes. He then asks me if her foot got caught in a bear trap. I thought he was joking so I chuckled and said she had surgery. He looked at me in disbelief and said "Oh...she didn't get caught in a bear trap?! I was sure that's what must have happened." He walked away shaking his head. I think this man was totally serious.
I have had other strange people approach me in my life, but these are the ones that stick out.I have no idea what it is about me, but it makes for great stories. Maybe one day, those four people will read about these things in a book and say "Hey! That was me!"
