BS: Truly Strange People

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:08 AM

Oh, and when I see a spider lowering himself from above on a line of webbing, I intercept the line with my finger and hoist him a bit higher. He lowers himself further, I hoist him higher. He panics and lowers himself really FAST!!! I hoist him up even faster! At this point the spider usually decides it's time for an emergency crash dive or a complete bailout...in which case he generally reaches the ground and makes a run for it. I don't know how they go about severing the line in the case of complete bailout, but they're quite good at it.

The above also works well with certain small caterpillars who lower themselves from high tree branches on a silk line. Their reactions to being given "the hoist" are very similar.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:11 AM

Interesting point, Ebbie. ;-) I bark back at them a lot. Most dachshunds are pretty neurotic regardless, but I may have contributed to it some.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:50 AM

Your dachsies may have been a couple that were *not* going to be neurotic. You'll never know...

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:23 AM

Years ago, when I lived in Ann Arbor, there was a guy that used to stand out on the Quad making fervent speeches.

He behaved exactly as if he had a thousand rapt listeners, and often paused while they laughed, applauded, or cheered something he had said. He resembled Joe's friend, though tended to wear slacks and a white or sport shirt--he never made eye contact, and looked past you if you tried to make eye contact.

Never knew who he was, and have always been curious--

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 02:58 AM

I'm not strange at all...which is very strange.

I loved Ebbie's post of (14 Jun 07 - 06:53 PM)..Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:19 AM

OOOoooh!! I remembered something else.. it was the alphabet thing that reminded me... All those even steps I'm having to make? I count 'em.

I count my steps.

I count stairs and the steps I take up them.

I never count further than 20 though. That's just about enough to get me across a junction (intersection) unless I'm going diagonally across a crossroads.

I don't do it all the time - I managed 6 miles on Sunday without counting... I don't know what triggers it, why I do it or if it's considered strange, but I do it unconciously until I find myself at around 6-7. Then I'm aware I'm doing it and carry on to 20.

I once told a psychologist this. I haven't seen her since and that was about 5 weeks ago. I hear she's been in hospital...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 07:37 AM

ROFL

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 07:48 AM

There are people who are terrified of clowns.

Once found a whole webring devoted to people's web sites about that...

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 08:48 AM

I don't think my family is strange, even though

* My brother once had two canoes, two cannons, and a coffin in his garage. Since he sold the coffin at a yard sale he only has one canoe (the other fell apart, but he has the parts), two cannons, and a trailer-mounted grain mill. AND grandpa's personal still (the sheriff busted up the commercial one).

* My uncle stored 120 rolls of toilet paper against the Y2K meltdown.

* Another uncle moved a log cabin, piece by piece, from Missouri to Illinois.

* The "TP Uncle," who lives in a small city, grows and cans most of his own vegetables. He also shoots one deer a year for meat, which he butchers himself. He's 80.

* My other brother makes wooden cooking tools, knives and (muzzleloader) guns. He also owns a beheading sword and two switchblades.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Becca72
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:05 AM

I feel less strange the more of this thread I read. I have just a touch of OCD (it apparently runs in the family). The icecube tray is my biggest focus. I have to use even numbers, always right to left and always across from each other, so that everything is even all the way down. If I use ice at another house and it is taken out willy-nilly I have to fill the tray and start over. I also wear my clothes in the order that they're hung in the closet, though I'm getting better at this. Now I just do it with the pants (pants on one side, tops on the other) and can find a top to go with, rather than having to hang in the order of outfits on laundry day.

The "mooing at cows" comment brought back a memory for me that made me laugh out loud. My father used to have a '39 Packard (I'm pretty sure it was a '39..he'll correct me if I'm wrong) with a "bull horn"....a horn that sounded like a cow mooing. Every field we'd pass he would stop and sound the horn. There is just something very funny about a field of cows looking up with that "WTF???" expression...

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 09:20 AM

Son used to roll the window down, stick out his head (at 65 mph) and scream LOPER GOATS at the antelope herds.

People nearby have a herd of ostriches. When they are along the fence I honk at them. Ostrich have a pretty cool WTF look too.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 10:23 AM

Some of you need to review the topic. It's about truly strange people. Phobias don't count. Lots of otherwise normal people have them and they are usually treatable. Yelling something at a herd of antelope is somewhat odd but certainly doesn't qualify as truly strange unless the herd yells something back.

Truly strange is like someone I once heard about who, after reading a page from a book, tore it out. So if he read "War and Peace" it would be confetti by the time he was done with it. And you couldn't lend him your books unless you didn't care what condition they were in when you got them back. Libraries in his areas banned him. That type of behavior is inexplicable, usually nobody else does anything that weird, and it generally isn't treatable. These people were born weird and will die weird.

People with phobias know they have a problem (fear of clowns is actually a very common phobia and EASILY treatable) and it interferes with their daily lives and they don't like that. Truly strange people, otoh, think they're the only ones who are normal and it is the rest of the world that must change its ways to suit their idiosyncrasies and not them. They have no intention of changing their ways and wouldn't know how if they wanted to and they never want to--it never occurs to them because they don't think they have a problem no matter how weird they act.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: JennyO
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:07 AM

When I was a child, my grandfather used to like annoying sheep. He would pick a flock near the road and blow his car horn to make them run away. We thought it was terribly funny at the time. I'm sure the sheep didn't. He also used to like driving through a tunnel just as a train was going over and he got us to all yell and scream at the height of the noise. That was rather liberating. It was almost a 'barbaric yawp' - long before I'd ever heard of them.

I can see some signs of the obsessive compulsive in myself when I make my detailed little lists of how much petrol I've used and distances I've travelled, and how much I've spent and how much I think I'll have at the end of next month etc. It's always a challenge to see how close I can get to my predictions.

When I put socks on, I usually hold them up to see if one is slightly longer, and I put the one I think might be longer on my right foot, and usually first. I prefer to start sleeping on my right side, and if I am feeling a bit cold, it's more important for my right side to be warm, otherwise I feel unbalanced.

So now I'm living in a house with somebody who lives in total chaos, hangs his clothes on the floor, delights in wearing socks that don't match, scatters stuff on every available surface, never organises anything, and never throws ANYTHING away - wrappings, envelopes, empty tins, scraps of paper, mountains of wood - AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH! I think the universe is playing a giant joke on me! Obviously I'm meant to learn something.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Mickey191
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:16 AM

Rap - Your family is in the lead so far with strange behaviors. Aren't you proud? At this moment I have 68 rolls of toilet tissue in my cartrunk. I'm not strange thou--just a canny shopper.

Years ago we had a male neighbor who was about 40 & unattached. His Mum would drive him up from NYC. Lots of times she would drop him & head immediately back. He would stay with only a two wheeler for transportation. Instead of hearing a tv or music while we were gardening or sitting on the patio. we'd hear train whistles. Once in a while we'd hear "All Aboard-Toot Toot."

I spotted him one day riding his bike in a town 12 miles away--he had earphones on whilst peddling away. He came home & I offered him ice tea & for the first time he came over. I asked what kind of music he was listening to. He explained the tape was " wonderful & exciting" it was from his collection of Baltimore & Ohio train whistles approaching Penn Station. He also had _other_ great whistles too. He handed me the earphones-I Said:"Thanks but no--my heart couldn't take that much excitement." I think I hurt his feelings.   

Now I know why Mumsy would drop him off & head back to NYC.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:27 AM

For years I have read phrases such as "the dog jumped through the tornado fencing" and then checked to see if it was divisible by three, four or five. I add the letters up (they come to 36, so three or four works)) but I then note that adding the dots from the i and j brings the total to 38 which works for none of the numbers. I have NO idea why I do that. It bugs me at time, especially when I am watching films that have subtitles. I have missed more movies that way. ("Uh, did you enjoy the movie?" "Why, yes, thank you, it was a perfect five!" Sheesh . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:27 AM

My father had in his shed, when he died, tool boxes containing:-

15 screwdrivers, of which only 8 were in any condition to use

8 hand saws of varying size

11 hammers in various conditions (can it still be a hammer if it's lost half the head?)

28lbs of assorted screws

2 WD stamped (army issue) petrol cans dated 1952 (oddly enough, the year he married my mum)

31lbs assorted nails from panel pins to 8inchers

5 cold chisels (big ones for removing tiles, splitting wood ect, not woodworking)

3 rasps

1 pair pincers, rusted shut.

12 spanners, ranging from tiny bicycle to 12" adjustable tank spanners.

And that was AFTER the major clearout he'd had.

I'm so glad I don't take after his side of the family.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:41 AM

My grandfather had a drawer that contained 153 (or it may have been 157) decks of playing cards. Some marked, some 'brailled', some shaved, some closed but previously opened and stacked in certain ways, some with certain cards shaved, some just normal, etc. That man was a master at card tricks, and he was also one helluva bridge player. He could recall every card that was played and by whom. Of course, for a man who spoke about twelve languages (he didn't, but he had me convinced he did), a man who met Thomas Crapper, William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Ralegh, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, Elizabeth I and II, various members of the Han Dynasty and John the Baptist, remembering 52 cards was not even a mild mental workout for him. I don't know that he was strange, but he sure was different.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 11:52 AM

I never considered it strange, but I guess some people would. At 7:00 PM EVERY evening, he would announce in a loud voice, "I'm going to take a crap, Mary." (Mary was my grandmother, his wife.) And off he would go for between 20 and 30 minutes with crossword puzzle in hand. He did that for all the years I knew him.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:14 PM

We did a thread on roughly this topic awhile back....in it you can read MY favorite story to which this is the direct link.

Don't some you have a 'Lucien' in your past?

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Mickey191
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:20 PM

Ah Bruce--Now I see where your humor comes from. Good Genes! Sounds like a real regular guy.

What time of day do you make YOUR announcement?


Liz, That sounds like my Dad's tool shed. His motto-save! You never know when something might come in handy. Funny-last Sat. I went thru my in house tool box. Had the usual 3 or 4 of everything, so I gathered my nerve & gave all excess to a neighbor. Felt good too. My Dad once made a window fan for his shop out of a metal garbage can lid & an old engine. It could cool a morgue. It worked great-but looked soo weird.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:26 PM

Liz...I'm not sure which compulsion is stranger...his saving all those things or your detailed documentation of them...*grin*

Having a home workshop myself, I can attest that the basic rule is "The only way to be sure of having enough, is to always have a bit too much."

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:32 PM

I received FOUR dozen flatpicks from a friend at Christmas. I cannot find ONE now. BUT, I have four old part-sets of used strings.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:45 PM

Four dozen? All missing? You don't suppose the local mice now have a lovely plastic condominium inside the wall?

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:46 PM

Liz, you should have seen my dad's lifetime collection of stuff. Similar to your dad's, but before the major clearout! He saved everything, even the dust on the shelves. Hundreds of old tools, metal parts, lumber, screws, nuts, bolts, fasteners, caulking, plastic sheet, fiberglass, plumbing accessories, books, magazines, bottles, a kite, old skis, boating hardware, shaving accessories, shelf objects, coat hangers, plastic bags, wooden dowels, metal rods, electrical boxes, rolls of tape, burnt-out fuses (mixed in with a few good ones), old cans of paint, solvents, metal shaping machinery, very dull hand saws, engineering manuals from before WWII, framed paintings, a Dallas newspaper from Nov 22, 1963 (he was there in Dallas on a business trip the day Kennedy was shot), old letters, bric-a-brac, pieces of drywall and panelling, unidentifiable whatnots, and total absolute irredeemable junk.

I have hauled away uncountable vanloads of it to the dump.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:54 PM

Sorry. FIVE part-sets of used strings. And a thin flatpick that I don't use.

I have wondered that myself, Bill.

I still have a Biology book from 40-some-odd years ago that says humans have 24 chromosomes. Just thought it might come in handy someday. SOON, it goes to the dump. Next twenty years or so.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: JennyO
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 12:59 PM

You people who know how many tools you have are very lucky. I know I have a blue toolbox with some assorted things in it, a set of screwdrivers in their own box, and a rather incomplete set of assorted pliers, sockets etc that fit in another box. All fairly normal I think.

However, I keep a very close track of them, because John has rooms, outdoor benches, floors, back of the garage, assorted big and little boxes full of tools all mixed up with rubbish, bits of wood, metal, plastic and god knows what else. If I lend him any of my tools, which he might want because he couldn't possibly know where HIS things are when he needs them, there is a good chance I'll never see them again.

Not only that, but he leaves a lot of tools outside in the weather, and of course they rust. After last weekend's wild storms, I discovered his large toolbox full of quite good things sitting outside with the lid off. When I said "your tools are underwater", he tipped some of the water out and left the box where it was. We've had more rain in the last few days, and last night I reminded him of his tools out there, and he said "Nothing much I can do about that", and did nothing. They are still there. Drives me nuts!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: HouseCat
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:01 PM

Weird neighbor update:
He has taken an electric sander and sanded a huge cross into the paint on his front door. I wonder who he's trying to keep out now.
HC

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:17 PM

I have, and use, tools that are 60 to 100 years or more old. You never know when you might need a gun worm, for example. And my collection of nails has moved from Ohio to Indiana to Kentucky to Idaho -- I bought them in Ohio about 30 years ago.

And being a fencer I sometimes practice outside on the patio under the deck. Golfers give someone stabbing with a sword at ball hanging from a string very odd looks. Actually, just walking around with an epee in your backyard causes you to receive odd looks.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:20 PM

"Actually, just walking around with an epee in your backyard"

You have just solved the barbeque skewer problem for a meal with ten or more guests.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: JennyO
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:21 PM

Tomorrow when I have a bit more time, I'll tell you about one of my former flatmates. We called her 'Mad Margaret'. A lot of my ex flatmates were odd, but Margaret was the oddest of all.

LH, your dad saved things. So do I. I have a large collection of things. John doesn't save, his things just sorta pile up and never leave. Put it all together and what we have here is not a collection - more of an accumulation.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Gulliver
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:29 PM

When I was living in Naples I visited a Poor Clares (as we call them) convent on Ischia in the Bay of Naples. I visited a room there where the dead nuns were placed. When a nun died she wasn't buried but was propped up on a metal stool with a bowl, something like a toilet, in this room. Every afternoon the nuns gathered in the room in the presence of the corpse for a few hours, to meditate on death and the afterlife. The corpse would be left there until it decayed and the bones fell into the bowl.

I found that pretty strange.

BTW, there was a Poor Clares convent near where I live until recently--I wonder whether they had the same tradition...

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:35 PM

Well, I can tell you that using a sword makes it a lot easier to pick up paper and trash in the yard. And since it's my yard, I don't care HOW people look at me. They get too annoying and my vorpal blade goes snicker-snack.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 01:57 PM

You are truly mad, Rapaire. Thank God you don't live in Blind River. It wouldn't be good, eh? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 02:07 PM

By the way, I have told Denny, the talking Hadrosaurus, who accompanies me wherever I go, not to mind the fact that people keep ignoring him. "They're simply in a state of denial, Denny. They think dinosaurs are extinct, so they WILL not acknowledge your presence. Don't be offended." Denny takes it all with good humor. I normally order an extra serving for Denny whenever I eat at restaurants. He's vegetarian. Good thing. He specially likes hanging his head out the passenger window when we're out driving.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 02:40 PM

Handsome creature, Little Hawk. But you must have a fairly large automobile.

Don Firth

P. S. Ever take Denny to Denny's?

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 02:55 PM

My family prefers to think of itself as "charmingly eccentric" instead of agreeing with the opinion of the rest of the world: "They're nuts!"

As my niece once said about my brother, he of the coffin and the cannons, "Dad's different, but he's never dull." Of course, this is the same niece who was taken on a deer hunt at the age of 10, and when the time came to field dress a deer...with her older brothers certain that as soon as the body cavity was opened she'd get sick...said, "COOL!!" and went on to get a degree in biology.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Bert
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 03:15 PM

Er, am I the only one who howls at the moon???

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 03:16 PM

"with her older brothers certain that as soon as the body cavity was opened she'd get sick...said, "COOL!!" and went on to get a degree in biology."

Took lots of guts to do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 03:26 PM

Nothin' strange about that. Not in my world.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 03:35 PM

No Bert, you're not. Am I the only one who dances outside in rainstorms - not always fully clothed...?

Bill D - I know exactly what you mean. I have what must be amounting to several hundred skeins of embroidery thread. Have I got the right colour for the pattern I want to work now?

Answers on a skein of DMC 3846 or 340 to........

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 03:51 PM

*grin*...Liz...almost 30 years ago, I lived alone for 2 years in a house with a huge yard, surrounded by high bushes. On several occasions I went out into warm Summer rains, just because I could! And one Winter, there was something like 20 inches of snow dropped on us....I couldn't get to work for 3 days, and I was bored, so one afternoon I went out and jumped naked into a snow drift...just to see what it was like. It was, like, cold...I guess I stayed there all of 7 seconds. Warm rains are better. I haven't lived anywhere that was really safe to do since then.

(Across the street in a park, a bunch of guys crazier than me played football for an hour in 20" of snow...but they were fully clothed.)

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:07 PM

Yes indeed. And the deer was one for the record books -- a true gutless wonder.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:27 PM

Taking Denny to Dennys is a fabulous idea, Don. Thanks! We'll do it ASAP. He is fairly small for a Hadrosaurus, I think. Perhaps he is the rare pygmy Hadrosaurus...or maybe he has some growing to do yet. I'm not sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Mickey191
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:47 PM

Liz asked:
Am I the only one who dances outside in rainstorms - not always fully clothed...?

Is that when you count your tits, Liz?


I've heard from the local bi-KNOCK-ular dealer that his business has doubled since the rains came.Maybe you should ask for a cut?

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Mickey191
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:51 PM

From Mickey, The titless wonder: In my neighborhood black curtains are moving like hot cakes!!! Guys are giving their telescopes to the Salvation Army!   

Oye Vey!

Subject: RE: BS: Truly Strange People
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jun 07 - 04:52 PM

No, I count my tits from the back bedroom or from the back door. I get a better view of them from there.

LTS