all the weird things in the world
Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 8:16PM All the weird things in the world happen to me.
Like the time I spent two hours talking to a famous person having no idea who he was until he left his card.
Or the time I got on a train and had to moderate a dispute between a blind man and a deaf man.
Or the time I won a radio contest that one of my friends entered me in and I was forced to go on a limousine ride for two ridiculous hours around the city I've driven around in my entire life.
I can guarantee you that:
1. Any grocery cart I choose will have at least one bockety wheel.
2. The line I get in to pay will experience a technical difficulty of some sort, resulting in what was once the shortest line now being the longest line.
3. Any plane I am within two gates of will be delayed.
4. Anything I choose to wear will malfunction or develop a stain within an hour.
5. Any mentally ill person -- the more raving the better -- in a mall, a museum, or the internet, will find me. And want to talk to me for a really long time.
If you've spent any time with me in person, these facts are well documented. I have multiple independent sources that will say without qualm, "Oh yes, crazy people love Sharon." Give me ten minutes alone in a restaurant while you sit in a nearby booth and watch what happens.
Do you think a foil hat would help?
I recently visited -- and loved -- Syracuse, NY, where I was teaching at a knitting retreat.
On the plane there, I was pleased that the seat next to me was empty. After the delay, which I'm sure I caused, I was anxious to just get on the plane and go.
However, we did not take off after everyone was seated. We waited. And waited. A gate agent boarded the plane, looking for empty seats and writing down their locations. Of course, that meant someone on standby needed the empty seat next to me.
Soon, an elderly woman was assisted down the aisle, tiny and frail, with a purple perm that was flattened on one side and poufy on the other. A large male gate agent was carrying her bag and her portable oxygen tank.
The flight attendant followed them down the aisle and helped her locate the seat, motioning for me to move out of my seat so they could help this person get situated.
As soon as she was shown where she would be sitting, this woman said loudly, "GOSH DARN IT."
Except, she didn't say gosh darn it. This being the kind of site my children can read, I'll refrain from actually repeating what she said. But it was exactly what gosh darn it is a euphemism for. And it was said emphatically.
"SHOOT." (Insert what shoot is usually a substitute for here, and just imagine that throughout the rest of the exchange.)
"WELL, GOSH DARN IT. SON OF A BISCUIT." (Ahem.)
"SHOOT, GOSH DARN IT."
Now, this was a small regional jet.
The kind that I -- and this large gate agent -- have to stoop to stand up in. We stood there in the aisle that is -- at best -- six inches wide, blocked by this tiny woman who obviously found her seat next to me quite unacceptable.
The flight attendant, who was courteous the entire time, said, "Ma'am, your oxygen tank needs to fit all the way under the seat in front of you. The plane can't leave until we get it under there." The flight attendant struggled to fit it.
"SHOOT. GOSH DARN IT, SON OF A BISCUIT." The woman said more loudly.
Of course, now the entire plane can hear her. But they can't see her, she's a tiny woman in row 10. Who can they see? Me, of course. Giant bellied me, standing in the aisle. So the entire plane is now staring at me like I've just arrived to class in my underwear.
"It's a good thing these planes are so spacious," I joked to the man stooped over next to me. "I would feel terrible for anyone having to stand in the aisle for any length of time."
"Oh, me too," he replied. "You're fortunate to have been given such ample space on a huge plane like this one."
The woman got louder when the flight attendant tried to put her white windbreaker into the overhead bin.
"I NEED MY COAT, GOSH DARN IT. THERE'S AN APPLE IN THERE THAT A WOMAN GAVE TO ME BACK AT GATE C17 AND I HAVEN'T HAD AN APPLE IN A LONG TIME. THEY'RE NOT IN SEASON IN MONTANA. I NEED THAT APPLE."
The flight attendant said, "Ma'am, I've already closed the overhead bin, and the flight needs to depart the gate. You can retrieve it after take off."
Wrong answer.
"I REALLY NEED THAT APPLE, SON OF A BISCUIT. THE WOMAN AT C17 GAVE IT TO ME AND I NEED A BITE OF THAT APPLE."
The flight attendant walked away, and at this point, I'm quite sure this woman has some dementia issues.
Except.
Except her first words to me when the attendant was out of earshot were, "I probably shouldn't talk that way to her. But I really want that apple. And they don't give you any space on planes anymore."
I decided I was going to be as nice to her as I could be without making a martyr of myself. She is someone's mother. She wasn't going to become nicer or quieter if I was mean to her.
The plane was finally hurtling down the runway, ready to do the impossible, which is propel itself into the air and remain aloft until it arrived at a precisely calculated destination halfway across the country.
As soon as the nose left the ground she said to me, "GOSH DARN IT, WOULD YOU MOVE OVER?"
I took a second to clench my jaw and said as nicely as I could, "Well, I don't really have anywhere to move over to. I am sitting all the way against my own arm rest."
"NO, YOU ARE IN MY SEAT. LOOK AT YOU. YOU'RE TAKING UP SOME OF MY SEAT."
I've never pretended to be a small person. But I don't weigh 500 pounds here. My airplane fitting abilities are more of the wow, my legs are four feet long and the space in front of me is not variety.
I decided to play the I'm-having-a-baby-back-up-off-me card. "Well, I'm moved over as far as I can be. If I could move over more, I would. And I am having a baby in a few months."
"SHOOT. ARE YOU HAVING A BOY OR A GIRL?"
"A little girl," I replied, hoping to steer the conversation onto something other than the size of my backside, which was clearly crowding this woman out onto the wing of the plane.
"WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE HAD A BOY."
There's really nothing one can say to that, given this particular scenario. Was I going to argue about how I contribute the X chromosome either way, and that the gender of the baby is determined by the father? Was I going to say, "Try and make me?"
The only possible answer was, "Would you like me to get that apple for you now?"
Except it was the wrong answer.
That just seemed to set her off more.
"GOSH DARN IT, WHAT I REALLY NEED IS A BITE OF THAT APPLE THAT THE WOMAN AT C17 GAVE ME. I LIVE WAY OUT IN THE COUNTRY IN MONTANA AND WE CAN'T GET APPLES THIS TIME OF YEAR. SHOOT."
My internal dialogue coach wanted me to say, "Really? No apples in Montana? REALLY? I'm pretty sure you can get apples in Montana in March. There are apples year round just about everywhere."
But I didn't. I clenched my jaw. Which is slightly less painful than biting one's tongue. But it can lead to bruxism, so watch it.
I got out of my seat to find this woman's apple. A man in the row behind us gave me a thumbs up.
Thumbs up for what? Thumbs up for putting up with the sailor-mouthed woman? Thumbs up for finding her apple? Thumbs up for being a giant pregnant woman on a too small plane?
She was happy to see her apple, and dug her blue sparkly acrylic fingernails into it. They looked like this, but more chippy.
She took one tiny bite and then stored it in the seat pocket for the entire rest of the flight.
I read a book on my iPad.
"SHOOT, CAN YOU MAKE PHONE CALLS WITH THAT THING?"
I looked at a magazine.
"GOSH DARN IT, MAGAZINES ARE NOTHING BUT SMUTTY ADS THESE DAYS, SON OF A BISCUIT."
The irony. It killed me.
I was reading Better Homes and Gardens. The ads are for things like cholesterol medication and carpeting. The mouth on the woman next to me, however? Smutty.
Over the course of the flight, the woman said GOSH DARN IT 29 more times. She said SHOOT 38 more times, SON OF A BISCUIT 12 more times, and WOULD YOU MOVE OVER eight more times.
At the end, I finally just said, "Sure." when she asked me to move over, and I pretended to scoot closer to the thing that was already digging into my side.
When I got off the plane, the flight attendant apologized to me.
I wish she would have just given me a cookie or a pat on the head or something, that would have helped a lot more.
I think I racked up some karmic brownie points, because on the way home, the seat next to me was empty and the plane was on time.
And guess what? It's now Thursday evening. I left Syracuse on Sunday. Not one person -- not one -- has emailed me to comment on my clothes, my hair, or my makeup during the knitting retreat. I have, however, gotten a number of nice people who thanked me for coming and said they hoped I would come back.
Maybe some of the weird things that were destined to happen to me happened to someone else instead. It's only fair, I think.
How about you? Do strange people come up to you in grocery stores wanting to discuss things like cat litter with you too? Do you ever come into the dining room to find your 95 pound dog standing in the middle of the empty table? Do strangers tell you look matronly when you wear your hair up? No? I'm the only lucky one?
Yarnista
Oh my. Case in point. I just had to remove the equivalent of a 17 page Word document diatribe in the comment section that included things about how Jesus was used to create the Matrix, and how masculinized women are the only hope for the world, and how Hawaiians, who were the real first Americans, ruined their people by eating too much pork and ignoring fish.
And other more disturbing stuff too. But it's a lovely illustration of how the crazies can find me, even on the vast world wide web.
Reader Comments (40)
Wow, that sounds like a brutal plane ride. You have my sympathies. I have spent many years working on a superpower that I call "radiating evil" that I can successfully deploy in crowded public transit situations to keep people from striking up conversations with me. It's pretty effective most of the time. However, it has no power in retail situations where every third person seems to think that I work at the store in question.
who was the famous person?
You have my sympathies too! Flying is already stressful, and that sounds awful. I'm so glad you got an empty seat next to you on the way home. Like NerdGirld above, I have worked carefully to develop a "radiating evil" kind of aura. Not one person tried to touch my belly when I was pregnant, very few people touched either baby, and I don't often get trapped in conversations with strangers. I start reading or put headphones on the second I sit down somewhere, and I give answers sort of like "mrmrmble" when asked questions. There *was* the super awesome time that we paid for a plane seat for M so we could put him in his car seat. The person in front of us complained that they couldn't recline their seat, and the flight attendant, instead of telling them to be grateful that the baby wasn't screaming, asked us to take the car seat out of its base and turn it sideways. Ummm, no freaking way? I asked her what they tell passengers when they sit in a row in front of an exit row. "we tell them the seats don't recline." Really? And your first instinct in this situation was to ask the parents of a 4-month old baby to move the car seat?
I especially love that the guy a row or two behind you never offered to let you sit or help get the apple. Wouldn't want him to strain himself.
My horsedog would stand on the table if he could figure out how to do it. :)
You should write a book! While this wasn't funny happening to you, hearing how you put it is!
p.s. It astounds me that you get comments about personal appearance. If they aren't compliments folks shouldn't be writing them.
Sharon, I'm sorry things like that happen to you, except I'm laughing so hard it's hard to say that with the proper amount of sympathy. gosh darn it, son of a biscuit.
Snicker.
Well, the most recent insane comments I got were while pregnant (Pregnant women get crazy comments from strangers? No way!) with Sean. I can't tell you how many times a woman would look at me and say, "Any day now, huh?" When they ask that when you're only a few weeks away from you due date it's mildly amusing. Not so much when you're only 6 months along. Yep, this woman thought I was full term with another trimester to go. But the best comment was from a woman who looked at me the week before Sean was born and said something like "Thank God for c-sections, huh?" I didn't understand at first, but of course not shocked because people really don't know how to filter what they say to pregnant women. She went to on comment about how it was great that there were c-sections so women like me didn't die having big babies like I clearly was having. I don't remember how I responded.
Oh, when I was pregnant with my first, I couldn't wear my wedding rings because my hands were so swollen. On 3 occasions, while waiting in line somewhere, someone around me would start having a loud conversation about all the "unwed mothers sapping up government resources" and then looking pointedly at me. I'm not sure which part of that was the most offensive because it was galling on so many levels. And it happened 3 different times with 3 different people. Crazy.
Anyway, I'm glad you're back home safe and sound and that you had such a good trip, aside from the crazy woman.
Yup, crazy people love Sharon. I've seen it.
I'm sorry your flight was so...interesting. I know how you feel about the ridiculous things people say to pregnant women. I've never been told I look matronly with my hair up (though I'm certain people think so, but I don't really care - it bothers me when it's down), but just this week someone asked me, first, when my due date is (two weeks), and was I having twins? (No.) Then proceeded to announce "Oh, well, your belly is HUGE!" That's the second time in a month I have had this conversation. But at least she didn't swear at me.
Thank you so much for giving me a great laugh! I must say you handled a terrible situation well. I had a similar situation years ago on a bus trip - unfortunately long distance, so glad when it was over. My sympathies to you.
I must sy that you write so well of your experience, hence my laughter.
Oh, I'm totally OK with laughing at what comes my way, so laugh away. (I do.) it's either that or harumph around, and that's no fun.
I love that story. My husband and I joke that no matter where we go or what we're doing, we're going to get the freakshow people that love to over share. I was at my dermatologist getting ready to have more moles removed (I'm fair skinned and covered in moles & freckles so it's a regular thing) and the nurse who was suppose to just numb me up took over 20 minutes to tell us about how her boyfriend doesn't have to work anymore because the surgeon who did his "snip snip" procedure messed up and it got all infected. At the grocery store we get the person who likes to comment on every item scanned. At restaurants we get the server who loves to tell us their drunk stories. I think it's because we smile a lot & try to be friendly. I need to learn how to have the "don't mess with me" face when I'm out in public :)
BTW - Your classes at the retreat that I took were great, you looked wonderful and I'm already planning my projects using everything I learned from you!
I'm not sure I would have been as successful as you were in putting up with that woman. Flying is always nerve-racking, and nobody needs to deal with a potty-mouthed crabby woman. I'm glad your return flight was better.
Well, shoot. Gosh darn it, those sons of biscuits should have given you a free ticket for that ride!
Sharon, I am a "nut magnet" as well. No matter where I go, the quirkiest person in the group will always want to be my BFF. My new "besties" have done things such as flashing my poor dad to dying brunette hair auburn and styling it to look like mine (she was olive skinned with classical Mediterranean featured and I am very much a ginger Scot). A fav of mine developed a distaste for me based on the fact that I really enjoyied our ceramics class and was asked by the professor to submit a peice in the student art show. As we shared a small studio space, I always said hello to her at the beginning of every class. The uglier she got, The more congenial I would get. One class I gave my usual ' " Hello, Mary." and she would responded with, " No Hello for you!". So I nicknamed her ther pottery nazi, as a homage to Deinfeld's soup nazi. My kids always asked about her when I got home from class because we all grew to enjoy her antics.
I talso have horrible checkout kharma. I always seem to find something that has no tag and is the last one in stock. ALWAYS. I'll tell the clerk it's the only one, that I searched, that there s no need for a "price check" but they always do it anyway...sigh. My furniture purchases are always overly complicated. My dining room table took 1 YEAR to be delivered.
Also my dog, half chow, half border collie, howls like a crazed lone wolf when the I cream truck drives through our street. Our icecream comes every single day...it's ridiculous, and quite hilarious. This dog also steals my candy. He opens drawers, carefully opens bags, gobbles the goods, then...get this...he closes the drawer! How do I know it was him and not one of my 3 kids? Well...the next day his poo sparkles from the foil wrappers. Seriously.
Take comfort in the fact that the is a woman in Richmond Va who completely "gets" you.
For the record, this is not even close to the best Yarnista/weird cosmic collision story there is...not even close...
Oh god, what a nightmare! So sorry you had to put up with that. This actually sounds a lot like my sister - for some reason, crazy people are always trying to get up in her shit and/or hit on her. And we're both vegan, but when I tell people I am, people are like "whatevs" but for some reason when she tells people there's always someone in earshot who barges in to the conversation and tells her how 'stupid' that is. WTF?! She's like a tiny sweet polite 24 year old, she doesn't need some jerk being rude to her.
People! Sons of biscuits. ;)
OH my word!!! LOL
I am so sorry your flight out was so bad!
I am glad the one back was so much better though!!
My mum is an ER nurse, and she has one of those faces that invites complete strangers to tell her their life stories and all of their secrets. I, unfortunately, inherited this. The most bizarre instance happened when my husband and I first started dating. We were living in cities 6 hours apart, and I was taking the bus up to see him, and I had a two hour layover in Toronto. I decided to wander around Queen St W, which is usually a fun and funky part of the city. As I was walking, one of the guys standing at the street corner fell in beside me and started talking to me. He started telling me about the vampires in the city, and he kept asking to see my teeth so that he could see that I wasn't one of them. I was young enough that I didn't want to create a scene, so I eventually showed him my teeth so he'd leave me alone. He looked closely, laughed, and said, "You just need to be careful to bite the men when you're _____" (I'm sure you can figure out what that means). We were stopped at a traffic light, and he just turned and walked in the other direction.
OMG, I am so sorry she was such a potty mouth! Just remember, though, you are beautiful, not matter what and the weird stuff? It was going to happen anyway, you just happen to be standing in the way and got hit with it. . . several times! ;)
I just had to laugh as I read your story. Many of those things happen to me as well it seems but luckily not quite to that degree. Thanks for sharing.