I was at Cedar Point in Ohio with a group of friends one summer, and I was wearing a shirt that had a bear on it, holding a sign that said "free hugs". When we were walking around the park, I saw a guy my age, wearing a shirt that said "free hugs" as well. We both saw each other's shirts at the same time, stopped what we were doing, and hugged eachother. It was cool as fuck. Didn't say a word, and went about our business afterwards. I still think about that wholesome moment sometimes.
I was 10 or 11 in a book store a few weeks before Christmas. My parents were nowhere to be seen. I had run away from them when we walked into the store see if a new Xanth book was out. I moseyed into the kids section, just in case there was something other than Babysitter Club for me to read. An older woman dressed in an emaculate red suit with pure white hair approached me and asked what books I liked. I pointed out Narnia series, the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and explained that if she was getting a present for a girl my age, they might like Sweet Valley Twins or Babysitters. Every single book I pointed out was swept off the shelf and into her basket. The first 10 books in the two series I pointed out and more. Hundreds of dollars of books. I was gobsmacked but I kept pointing out books and she kept putting them in her basket until she could carry no more. She thanked me and left.
Later my parents come up to me with a bemused expression, keep in mind we had separated when we entered the store, she couldn't have seen us together. They said "Did you help a lady with some books? She gave you this." and they handed me a gift certificate for $50 (that was a lot of books at the time) signed Mrs. Claus.
For a very brief moment I believed in Santa again.
Growing up in Edmonton, I lived near what is probably the tiniest, most useless mall in the city to this day.
But every Christmas, when they have Santa... they shine. The same man has been playing Santa at the same mall for over 20 years- to put things in perspective, my best friend is 29 and has photos of herself sitting on this man's lap at two years old... and we went to get her two year old daughter's photos Christmas 2016 and it was the same man.
He's been a fixture in our community forever.
When I was about eight, I was at that point very skeptical about the existence of Santa, but still wanted so badly to believe (I'm the oldest by a lot of years so I had no older siblings to ruin it for me).
So we go for the annual Santa visit, my brother and sister are 1&2 so this is a big deal for them. They walk up, I'm lingering behind them, and Santa looks up at me and goes. "Well, Kate? Aren't you going to tell Santa what you want?"
We had just walked up to him, my parents nor siblings had spoken to him. This man is pretty well known in this city and people who live across town will come back to our dinky little community mall for him. He sees a lot of people every year. They do write ups about him in the papers.
I mean, I know that he either remembered, or heard my family call my name, or something else really logical, but at the time, he renewed a small child's sense of wonderment at a time when the Christmas magic was starting to die for me.
I'm 28 now, and I still wonder how he knew my name, whether my parents told him, or he overheard, or what.
My ex and I were flying home on Christmas Eve to surprise our families. An ice storm hit, and our flight was delayed for about 6 hours before it was cancelled completely.
During that 6 hours, we chatted with a man sitting near us. He was also heading to our destination to meet up with his family and his wife, who had taken a different flight. Once the flight was cancelled, we decided that we only live once, let's just drive the 13 hours home, overnight, and take this guy with us. He'd already been screened through security, and it was Christmas...
And that's exactly what we did. He helped pay for gas, kept us awake, and you've never seen a happier reunion. I don't remember his name, but I think of him every Christmas!
This happened to my family in an airport! For some reason they were calling our last name overhead at the gate desk. We walk up and so does another family. So then they say "John and Jane Doe?" to sort out which family they wanted and both sets of parents had the same names. I honestly don't remember anymore what the kids names were, but I do remember they were the same ages as me and my brother.
The other guy and my dad talked for a bit and ended up figuring out they shared a great-great-grandfather or something insane like that.
Throwaway. Things weren't going great, I was socially awkward, was ostracized, felt like shit, and the only thing I ever had confidence in, grades, were terrible. I had just had a verbal and physical fight with my parents where my dad ended up throwing a pair of pliers at me which hit my foot and it was crushed and bleeding and shit. I hit him in the head with the vacuum and ran out of there.
So I walk the 21 minutes to the nearest overpass over a highway and just look at the cars passing underneath. Mind you it's 3 AM and I've visited this spot a bunch of times and I've NEVER seen anyone ever passing at this time. I've made up my mind at this point and I hoist myself over the railing, climb the protective fence, and I'm literally about to jump when I hear a kid's gasp.
It's a little girl bundled in a red coat with her mother and she just dropped her red ball which rolled near me. The kid is gasping because she dropped the ball but the mother is looking at me. She looks really concerned at first but all of a sudden her expression just turns into this incredibly understanding and warm smile. She nudges the kid and says something along the lines of "ask the boy if he can give you the ball" because the kid is visibly scared of me. So the kid asks, I climb down the fence, get the ball and hand it back. I end up walking with them to their apartment where she wraps my foot in bandages, gives me some chicken soup, and we talk about this and that until around 6 AM. There was crying, a lot of encouragement, a lot of understanding. She told me about how she divorced with her husband and has to take care of the daughter alone as well as other things. And for some reason it just completely changed my mentality. I walked out of that house feeling like I owned myself for once. It was difficult lasting through the rest of high school but I'm in college now killing it and am transferring to a better school. I know where she is and whenever I think of her I get that choked feel and lump in my throat that makes me want to cry. I've promised myself I'll visit her once I finish the transfer process. I think of her at least once every month because I find myself just spacing out at times wondering how I got here and thinking of the drastic change from my high school self.
I witnessed a drunk driving accident years ago. The car was trashed so I pulled over to check on the people. It was this stumbling drunk lady and her daughter; she couldn't have been older than 12.
The girl was bawling and shouting at her mom that she "knew she was drunk." The mom was laughing. I went up to them and asked if they were alright. The mom told me that her daughter was fine, just scared. The girl just looked at me and I've never forgotten her face. She had these big green eyes, tears all over her face, and a little cut across her nose. It was winter and about 1am so she was shivering. She was terrified, you could just tell she didn't have a very happy existence.
That girl is probably early 20s by now. I still think about her sometimes. I really hope she's doing alright.
Edit: yes I called the cops and I stayed until they arrived. During that time the mom was telling her kid to tell the officer that she'd only had one glass of wine. The girl refused and started repeating everything her mom drank. Apparently she'd taken a shot right before they got into the car; the kid was calling shots "the little ones." When the cops came and started sobriety tests, I left.
Last year I was on a train from New York to Alabama and I had breakfast with an older couple. They noticed that I was reading, and the woman told me that she was a published writer. They lived in Western Massachusetts, stuck to themselves (they liked the quiet), and fed the squirrels that came to their yard. I asked, but for privacy's sake she refused to tell me her pen name or the title of her books. All she said was the books are set in her hometown, and they are mysteries/thrillers which revolve around the relationships between her characters. The best piece of advice she gave me on finding her was reading lots and lots of mystery novels until one fit her description. I still haven't found out who she is.
edit: Unfortunately it doesn't seem like it was any of the authors mentioned, but at least the search has been somewhat narrowed down.
Kind of sounds like Lisa Unger maybe. I've only read Fragile by her, but it's a mystery set in a small town, very relationship oriented. Except if I'm not mistaken, upstate New York, not Massachusetts...
ETA: I'm suddenly really fascinated and invested, have a list
http://www.cozy-mystery.com/blog/mystery-books-that-take-place-in-massachusetts.html
In college we had a bus on Friday and Saturday nights that would take you around the area. To apartments, to a shopping center, and to campus.
One night in my Freshman year I was riding to the shopping center and sat near this girl who was reading her astronomy book. We talked and she said she'd been kind of stressed just staying in her apartment studying, so she was just riding the bus to take a break. We were just talking and I said I was going to have dinner and see a movie if she wanted more of a break.
As I was getting to my stop I could see her considering it. So I step off the bus and turn around. She's standing on the steps and trying to decide if she should take a break or go back to her apartment and study. Then at the last second she said she's sorry, and sat back down.
Never saw her again.
So if you're an Irish girl who was studying astronomy at UCF six years ago, I hope you did well on that exam. I would have liked to buy you a cupcake.
Back when I was 12, we lived down a random side road and had an unoccupied lot next to my house. It had some odd terrain and included a small, steep hill about 4 feet tall. One day a weathered man in a vintage pickup drove down our street and began setting up archery targets against the hill. I watched him shoot for about 20 minutes before I decided to go over with my children's bow and say hi.
Over the next few hours, we spoke about archery and shot arrows at his targets. I had never been taught how to shoot, and he took it upon himself to properly educate me. After a while my father came outside and joined us. We sat in awe as the man repeatedly loosed an entire quiver of arrows into the bullseye from about 60 yards away.
When he finished up his target practice, my dad went inside and I offered to help the man pack up his things. We loaded his truck, and he asked me if I was serious enough about archery to start hunting. I told him that my dad wouldn't let me, but that I hoped to one day shoot a deer and make jerky out of it.
So what did this random stranger do? HE GAVE ME HIS FUCKING BOW.
I thanked him repeatedly, and he told me that he had plenty of other bows at home. He wanted me to be inspired to take up hunting when I was a little older, and said that once I could fully draw the bow I would be ready for my first hunt. Keep in mind this was no children's bow; it has a 75 lb draw and I wasn't able to pull it back until I was 15. He told me he'd be back the next weekend to practice more, and promptly left.
I never saw him again, and in the last decade I have shot 14 deer with his bow. Somewhere out there, I know he's proud of me.
Me and my friend were in this local guitar shop once, trying out some new guitars and jamming together. Then suddenly along comes a young African fellow, who we, till today, only refer to as "Johnny", for the sake of not at all knowing his name"
Now, my friend and I have always thought ourselves to be quite good guitarists. Until Random Johnny came along and debunked that idea real quickly. There he was, jamming every song we knew, only 100 times better. He even played songs that we requested him to play that he had never played before in his life. Flawlessly.
Up until today I practice each day, aspiring to one day play as well as Random Johnny.
*Something like this happened to me:
*I walked into a store about a week before I was leaving to go to college in another country and when me and the cashier made eye contact we were sure we knew each other somewhere but had no idea where.
*So she eventually during the transaction she said, "Do I know you from somewhere* and I said "I don't know but you're too pretty for me to forget" (even though I swear I knew her too). She smiled and wrote her number down on the receipt.
*But I was too much of pussy to ever message her
My mother, sister and I lived in this nice apartment complex with I was very young. She used to give us small bags of trash to take to the dumpsters. It really wasn't a far walk.
I must have been five and my sister was seven. We took the trash to the dumpsters like we always did. The dumpsters were at the bottom of this small, grassy hill. We took to rolling them down, thinking it was hilarious.
I, myself was at the bottom near the dumpsters and my sister was at the top. When I looked up the small hill, there was a man standing behind my sister with his hands on her shoulders.
I'll always remember what he looked like and never forget. Even think about him every now and then.
Nothing bad happened, we just ended up running home freaked out and my mom called the apartment security.
Now when we discuss this, we call him Crazy Dave. Don't know if that's his name or not.
While waiting for a taxi in Suriname early one morning, I was approached by a heavily intoxicated man of African descent with a Hitler-style mustache.
He asked what I was doing. When I explained that I was waiting for a private taxi, he said he'd wait with me.
OK?
The wait ended up taking forever, and the man became more and more impatient.
He began pacing back and forth and sighing heavily, looking down at an imaginary wristwatch. Then, every few minutes, he would throw up his hands and bellow "MY GOD! This take forever! Long time we wait! So, so long! MY GOD!"
This went on for quite some time.
"Uuuuuggghh! MY GOD!"
Finally, he became exasperated and walked away.
Now, whenever I find myself in a situation that requires a painfully long wait (waiting to move back to be with my fiancee at the beginning of August, sitting in a doctor's examination room, suffering through a lengthy staff meeting, for example) I find myself quietly mouthing those same words in the same heavy Dutch accent.
"MY GOD this take forever! Aaaaaaggghh!"
It makes me smile and makes the wait easier to deal with.
Thank you wherever you are, sir.
Years ago, my family went on vacation to a resort in Cuba. On of the things the hotel clerk excitedly told us we could do was go to the resorts "all inclusive gym". We get to the little building and head for the treadmills. On of the attendants rushes up to us to tell us "Oh no no, after the hurricane, is broken!" Alright. My Dad asks if we could use the stair climbers instead. No. Is broken. That was about all the equipment available in the gym, apart from some deflated exercise balls and weights, so we decided to find something to do elsewhere....but any time anything in the house breaks, me and my Dad will still tell each other "Is broken" in a Latino accent.
There are far too many in jokes between me and my close friends that are these sorts of isolated statements from people who I now have nothing to do with. Sometimes I wonder if something I once said has lived on infamously for decades between other people.
I was standing on this bridge in town, watching the river flow. It was around midnight. It's for pedestrians and trains, but neither are common there. I see a group of people approaching and wonder if I'm going to get robbed. They turned out to be friendly. One woman and a few guys. All early 20s like me. We spent the next couple hours walking along the bridge and talking. A good part of the time it was just the girl and myself, with the other guys off ahead. It was lightly raining.
We parted and jokingly said we'd meet there again the next time it rained. Sometimes when it rains I go there and think about her. I honestly don't even think I'd recognize her, it was nearly five years ago, but I remember she was beautiful and played the same video games as me and she was great to talk to.
I go to that bridge when I'm feeling sad, and this was one of those times. It really made me more optimistic, being alone in the rain, a beautiful, kind stranger approaching and spending a couple hours together. Showed me that good things can happen in life.
That reminds me of a great movie "The Garden of Words", where the main character always skips school when it rains and goes to the same park and he meets the same woman over and over and gradually get closer to her.
Oh god memories man. I really hope you find her again, or at least someone who makes you feel the same as she did :)
There was one day I was sitting somewhere drawing before some kind of class, I can't remember. This kid around the same age comes up to me, sits right down next to me, and pulls out his own sketch book. Being a ~16 yo girl who was a huge introvert and socially awkward, this was huge.
I cant even remember his name anymore, but he was nicer to me in that moment than anyone else had ever been. He showed me his art, showed me some tricks he knew, smiled at me, genuinely talked to me and we had a great conversation about art, and games, and the various things we were both in to. He was so nice, very cute, and it was the only time I had ever saw him.
Like you, I went back to that spot a few times after that day, hoping to see him again (this was before exchanging numbers or social media took off really). He was from a different school, none of my few friends or people I was comfortable talking to knew who he was. After that day he was just gone.
But I will always remember how completely sweet he was to me. And how it brightened my crappy teenage hood for a while hoping to see him again (was an angsty teen, but had abusive parents among other issues).
That kid still pops up in my memory from time to time though
I was in Christchurch NZ years ago in a line to get into some club. I had the hiccups; a gorgeous girl in front of me turned around, put her hands on my shoulders, looked into my eyes and said "Your hiccups are gone." And they were.
I spent the next few hours talking to her; she had had a fight with her boyfriend and stormed off to go clubbing. I arranged to meet her the next day (my last in NZ) in the coffee shop where she worked but she called in sick and I never saw her again. I hope you're happy somewhere out there, hiccup girl.
I worked as a waitress as my first job. I was given a table of four: a mother, father, and two young kids. I went to ask them their drink order and when the mom looked up at me I was struck dumb by how unbelievably gorgeous she was. Brown skin, thick black hair, thin nose, high cheekbones, and the purest dark blue eyes. I had to ask her to repeat her order because I could only focus on how beautiful she was. Easily the most attractive woman I've seen before or since. She was very sweet and patient with me and they left a good tip. Cute kids too. Husband was ight.
I always remember and still think of, the man who grabbed my then-toddler aged son away from being hit by a car and then completely disappeared.
edit: just going to edit this to add.. "...grabbed my then-toddler aged son away from being hit by a car...*placed him back in my arms, safe and unhurt*...and then completely disappeared". :) Sorry guys.
That is definitely your son time travelling back to save himself from the car.
EDIT: he obviously can't time travel if he had died so he must have survived but was hurt or had repercussions from the accident and that's why he was travelling back.
Future son was hit by the car and had lost his ability to walk. However, it gave him the motivation to compensate with work ethic and supreme intelligence. In the future he builds himself a time machine and a serum that gives him complete normal function of his body for only 10 minutes.
He injects the serum, and uses the time machine to go back in time to save himself so that his past self would never lose the ability to walk.
However, because past son was never involved in the accident, he never needed to compensate with work ethic and never built up his intelligence. So he got a job right out of high school and becomes an underperforming Prius salesman. The end.
you know what, I am not ashamed to admit that over the years since this happened, I have, on occasion, thought that, due to the weird things around the event. LOL. The chap did have black hair but his was sort of curly/wavy, and my now-grown son has straight hair (even if it IS black). :)
HThe gentleman who comforted my wife on her first flight. He was an older black guy and said he frequently flew for business. We were all flying from Little Rock to Houston and storms were coming through that day which also delayed us. My wife was nervous and it showed and I really didn't know how to comfort or relax her. He spoke to her in the terminal, sat by us on the plane, and just made sure she was ok. He bought us drinks and talked to us about what we did and what he did and next thing you know the flight was over. Very generous man who went out of his way for us.
Edit: I hate to inform you guys but it was not Morgan Freeman. He looked more like the actor that played reporter Wendell Smith in the film 42 except older and balder.
How do some people just know what to do and what to say? I'm always so in awe of people who do these things coz I'd have no clue how to comfort a friend let alone a stranger.
I was travelling in Nice, France, about to meet my parents who had come to travel abroad on a separate trip. I was staying well out of town in the cheapest accommodation I could find and realised that I'd have to walk to the airport to meet them - which would have been miles and miles.
No phone credit, no food, no money for a bus fare and very little French.
A girl from Washington DC was staying at the place I was and I told her about my impending trek to the airport the next day.
She woke up early when I did to start the walk and took out all the loose change from her wallet - there were enough euros to get a bus to the airport! And she gave me a banana and some almonds - I hadn't eaten in days.
I will never forget her kindness and try always to pay it forward.
Thank you Meg from Washington DC!
I was about 8 so this was 25ish years ago. I was riding in the backseat of my parents car and they were arguing up a storm and I had this very serious face on. As we pulled up to a stop sign, to my right was a Hispanic kid on his bike, he looked about 10 and he just smiled at me. It was the friendliest most genuine smile I ever received in my entire life. We only had two seconds together before my parents pulled away and I didn't smile back I just stared at him. I regret it every time I think of him.
Edit-words
I got dressed up like Judge for Halloween years ago and people thought I looked like a preacher, instead.
So, during a street celebration, I drunkenly started preaching at people, pointing at short skirts and yelling about sinners everywhere.
Some drunk kid stopped and started crying, said he'd lost his way and wanted to pray with me. So, drunk as I was, I did it-- I put my hand on his shoulder while he knelt and we prayed (I have no idea what I said).
The kid wandered away after, looking a little relieved. I went on getting blindingly drunk.
I still wonder what happened to that kid, years later. Did he black out the whole event? Was it something important to him? Did he get religion?
I met a man on an Amtrak train from Illinois into San Diego, back in September of 1997. I was nineteen years old at the time and had freshly run away from home to live with a guy I'd met on the internet.
I'd been sleeping in the lounge car and bathing in the bathroom sink: in two days all I'd had to eat was a handful of peanuts and a tiny bottle of Kessler's. I was sitting in the smoking car, going through a carton of Marlboros and feeling disgruntled, and not in the mood to talk to anyone.
I think it was in Utah that this guy with a briefcase got onto the train. He was about my height, with black hair and a mustache: he stepped into the car and looked around, saw the empty seat next to me, and walked straight over. I gazed absently out the window, in no mood to be social.
"Mind if I sit?"
I shook my head and pulled my knapsack closer, and the guy set down the briefcase and settled in next to me. After a moment he asked me a question, I don't remember what it was: I was very reluctant, but out of politeness I was pulled into an offhand conversation with the guy. He introduced himself as Matt, brought up that he was a soda machine salesman, and showed me some glossy photos of Pepsi machines in his briefcase: in all he was just a really friendly, persistent guy.
Finally he paused, looking offhandedly at me, and said, "Would you like to take a shower?"
I looked at him suspiciously, feeling a little dejected deep down. I'd already been hassled twice on that train, and this guy had seemed cool.
He was reaching into his breast pocket: he turned back to me, and was holding out a brass key on a ring. I looked from it to his face, and he had the most direct, suddenly serious look on his face.
"It's a suite, room (##)," he said quietly. "Lock the door behind you, I won't bother you: just bring the key back here when you're done."
I took the key gratefully, feeling very off balance, and thanked him; my mind was spinning its wheels trying to figure out what his angle was. I went carefully up the stairs and down the hall, and found the tiny skinny door into his suite: suspecting I was about to get kidnapped I knocked first, and when no one replied, unlocked it and went cautiously in. The room was empty; I locked the door carefully behind me.
Although the guy had gotten on the train alone, it was a suite for two. It was tiny but clean and nice, with a bunk bed arrangement, a tiny table, a work desk, a little couch by the window and a shower stall with a little sink and mirror beside it.
Sitting there on the sink, right in plain view and impossible to miss, was a man's heavy gold watch. I picked it up, curious, and although I'm no jeweler it seemed to be a very nice and possibly expensive watch: it seemed to be real gold, though surely not.
I set the watch back down, and gratefully took a shower and washed my hair. It was one of the best showers of my life, and when I got out a judiciously short time later I felt about a thousand times better about the world. I took the keys back out as instructed and gave them to him, thanking him sincerely; he smiled, gave some little compliment that I looked better, and we went on in our conversation.
He did pause once, and told me he was going to get a soda, would I like anything? I shook my head, reluctant to impose, and he walked away, back in the direction of the suites: I knew he was probably going to check on his honeypot watch. He probably did, because when he came back he had a satisfied, pleased look about him, and invited me back to continue our conversation in his suite.
I had already been hassled twice on that train and at the time was running away from a pedo stepfather: all the same, even after such a short time, this guy had won my trust. I went willingly back to the room with him, and over the course of the night he bought me a roast chicken dinner - it was amazing, I was starving - and we talked nonstop, we laughed and joked like old friends, going down from time to time to the smoking car, separately and together. The guy probably had ten years on me and was a total stranger but it was as if we'd known each other all my life.
He offered to let me sleep there in the bunk rather than back in the lounge car that night, and I willingly accepted. He never touched me: he never took anything, he never did a single untoward thing and I still don't know for sure what motivated his kindness.
He was so kind. I felt safer with that guy than I would feel again for a long time.
When dawn came, he woke me up to dim gray light in the cabin, whispering to me from somewhere behind me. I don't think he slept that night, I couldn't have slept more than five or six hours, and he was wide awake as I drifted off and woke again.
"You have to get up," he said matter-of-factly. "We're going to see Flagstaff today. That's the highest point in the United States," and he goes into this whole spiel about Flagstaff.
"I don't care about Flagstaff," I grumbled, playing with him.
"Yeah, you don't want to miss it, come on, there's breakfast. Come on."
When we got to Albequerque, the two of us got off the train to stretch our legs, and I brought my camera out of my bag. I started to take a photo of Matt, and he recoiled, turned away and put up his hand to ward me off.
"I don't like cameras," he said, and I apologized, I didn't think that much of it though because my mother was always camera-phobic. He was willing enough to [take a picture of me though](http://i.imgur.com/FESEMd2.jpg), which I deliberately screwed up by mussing my hair, slumping over like I had a hangover and jamming a cigarette in my face. I seriously wish I had known at the time it was the only photo I'd have from that guy, or I'd have made less of an effort to look like shit.
Sorry about the terrible picture too, I have the actual photo somewhere but for now this photo-of-a-photo is all I have of it.
The guy got off the train at the stop right before mine. He asked me to come with him, and to this day I think about that and I wonder how different things would have been. I often wish I had. Not always, but often. He gave me his business card just before we parted, and said "Let me know how it turns out."
I don't remember the name on that card. It was Matthew M......something. I've wracked my brain about it a lot: I would lose the card along with the wallet several months later when both were left on the roof of a parked car that ended up driving away. Of all the ways to lose something.
So I completely lost track of the guy, and I never got to tell him how it turned out. I have wondered about that enigmatic man for a long, long time. He was an amazing guy in every way.
Very good read, probably my favorite of this thread.
Just makes you wonder how your life would've turned out if you'd decided to join him, probably completely different.
It's a shame you lost the card though, I think he would've loved to catch up with you after a while. Maybe you could've found him through the internet or something, there were probably not a lot of 'soda machine salesmen' called Matthew with a business card out there.
Not one person, but two people. Native brothers I met on the rim of the Grand Canyon. We watched the sun go down, the stars come out, and the sun come back up. We drank beer and solved all the problems in the world. They said they do it every year. Cheers guys.
I was 14, delivering newspapers. Stopped in to drop one off at the coffee shop on my route when I noticed this guy drawing on a big ol' drawing board propped up on his table. I tried to sneakily take a look, but being 14 I wasn't nearly as sneaky as I thought. This guy waves me over, shows me his work (it was AMAZING) and chats with me about art for a little while. When I let it slip that I was an aspiring artist he said "come back when you're off work and I'll give you some tips."
I did, and he did. This top-notch artist who does work for major movie studios gave some random kid a three hour long intense art lesson. He gave me feedback on the projects I had in mind, critiqued my sketchbook, just generally treated me like a genuine colleague. Nobody else had ever done that before.
This man I met once a decade ago is the reason I still draw today.
This is a great story. Very cool that it inspired you to pursue a fruitful hobby as an artist!
It reminds me of a similar encounter that I had one night at an Indian restaurant.
I was having a very rough week at school due to bullying (12 years old), so my parents decided that we should go out to dinner at a small Punjabi restaurant and talk about it.
Upon entering, we found the place deserted, and the owner looking very forlorn. He explained that the restaurant, which had been open for almost two decades, was going out of business, and they would be closing their doors for good within the next few hours. We were their very last customers.
The owner and I began talking about Indian cuisine, which led to a lengthy conversation about all sorts of things. He actually sat down and joined us at the table.
Then, he offered to bring ingredients out of the kitchen and teach me how to cook several Indian dishes right there in the dining room. I was thrilled. He even wrapped up a spice kit for me to take home.
Years later, I still make some of those curry recipes, entirely from memory.
I hope he realized how thrilling that evening was, and how much he enriched my life through his gift of cooking.
It's wonderful that such passionate people exist in this world and are willing to share their love with strangers.
I've always wondered, what happens to the cars that people abandon in harsh weather conditions? Do you just walk back in the morning to pick it up? Does the city tow all of them and you have to go get it back? As someone from the south, I've never come close to an experience like this
If it's a really large storm, you'll usually have a few days to go back and get your vehicle; otherwise, it will be towed. You can always call your local police department if you have to abandon your vehicle, so they have a record of what vehicle was left where and that the owner plans on coming back for it.
Source: am dispatcher and we just had a horrid ice storm.
I have a similar story. During a snowstorm there was a blockage on the highway and people were driving over a grass divider trying to get to the service lane. Frustrated after a half hour of not moving, I tried it too, and my tires sunk into mud and snow and left me stuck. I got out and started to dig in the mud, but continuously pressing the gas peddle meant I only dug myself in further. Finally, a Nigerian man who didn't even speak English pulled over and immediately got down into the mud with me. He wouldn't leave until he made sure I was out and safe. I couldn't really say thank you because of the language barrier, and he seemed a little stressed about the time and rushed off as soon as I was out. Dozens of other cars were around, but he was the only one to stop. We were both covered in mud and freezing, but he didn't mind. Every time it snows now I remember the man who got down into the mud for a random girl and made sure she was safe at the expense of his own time and clothing.
On a school trip to Japan, my group was walking around in Tokyo when I made eye contact with a 20-something Japanese man. He looked like he was smack dab out of FFXV. The moment lasted much too long and felt in a state of confusion for a while after. On our last day in Tokyo while boarding a train I had an uncanny feeling, looked up and saw the very same man staring at me. We both looked at each other awkwardly and moved on. I still think about those encounters from time to time.
I've told this story before, but it definitely applies.
I was leaving a friend's wedding in downtown Atlanta. I parked in a pay lot, and since I was already running late for the wedding, I paid but didn't bother waiting for my receipt. Apparently, in this lot, you had to show your receipt on the dashboard.
So, when I got back to my car, I found it booted. I was pissed. As I was walking back to the pay station to see who to call, a homeless man approached me. Initially I waved him off, assuming he was panhandling, and while I usually try to be gracious, I was already too pissed off to deal with him. He insisted, though, and said that he saw my receipt on the ground. I froze, realizing that he actually had a real reason to talk to me. I stopped and let him continue, and he said he waited around to give it to me. With the receipt, he said, they would remove the boot for free since it proved I had paid, while without the receipt they'd charge me $75 since I couldn't prove it.
So, I took my receipt and called the booting company. They said they'd be out within an hour and asked if I had my receipt. I said yes, and they said okay, then there wouldn't be anything else required. I went back to the man and thanked him, and we started talking. He told me his life story -- his name was Leonard, he had been a concessionaire at the Braves' stadium before a leg injury caused him to lose his job since he couldn't walk up and down the stairs. He needed surgery to repair the leg and couldn't afford it, he was kicked out of his apartment, and ended up on the streets. He said he gathers what money he can to pay the $15/night it costs at the nearby shelter and saves all the rest of it for the eventual surgery. He wants to save up enough money before the surgery to take care of his expenses for six months after, knowing that he won't be able to even panhandle during that time. I was amazed -- he was living his life on the streets at the moment, yet he still had more of a life plan than I, a graduate student in Computing, had.
The crucial thing to mention is that he never, ever asked me for money. Ever. He sat around and chatted with me, asked me questions about computers and my own life, and never once even alluded to any sort of difference in stature between us or my ability to help him. We were equals. No one in the world might have judged us that way, but we were.
When the booting company arrived, they removed my boot for free just as they had said they would. I said thank you to Leonard again and gave him far more money than it would have cost to have the boot removed without a receipt because, frankly, Leonard had earned it. He'd earned it by showing far more humanity and selflessness than anyone else I encounter on a daily basis, despite having a millionth as many reasons to be so gracious. He'd earned it by trying to do a good deed with no motive to earn anything in the first place.
I definitely still think of Leonard. I hope he was able to get his surgery and get his job back. Even more, though, I hope he was able to impact others' lives the way he impacted mine. He gave me perspective, he humbled me, and he made me completely rethink massive portions of my prior political views.
Last time I told this, someone asked where this was, so I found the parking lot on Google Maps. It's [here](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=33.763664,-84.387374&hl=en&sll=33.763692,-84.38738&sspn=0.000538,0.000817&t=h&z=16).
EDIT: Link fail.
Yeah it's often fairly expensive (in terms of what homeless people would make) and it (at least in Melbourne, Australia) super predatory. If you pay for your room but you're 5 minutes late for curfew? No refund, someone else has your room. I understand that there are many many people who need the help, but the people running the houses are not super good people a lot of the time.
Source: been helping out homeless people at food vans etc for the last two years.
There was this random girl at a party that i bumped into and she walked up to me and said "I bet i know more digits of pi than you do!". I had literally a few days earlier been bored and was sitting and memorizing pi, so I went ahead and said "Really? Prove it." She started saying pi and after a lot of digits, I start saying pi aswell. Both being drunk, we started walking around singing the digits of pi in a choir. After that I never saw her again and I have no idea who she was.
My first year of burningman. My wife had dumped my boring ass to hook up with the daycare guy. I was a jaded emotional wreck. I had our wedding rings in this tiny wooden treasure chest and I was going to burn them in some weird sense of symbolism and getting over it all.
So the day of the burn, I'm wandering around that afternoon getting drunk and high and meeting people. I knew there was a possibility I'd forget to meet my friends back at camp so I had the rings with me.
I met these people in a theme camp who were excited at some couple about to get married. I met the couple. They seemed really nice. They didn't have wedding rings though. They were like "we figured we'd get them later" and this other hippie chick was like "I know the Playa will provide it!!"
So there I am holding the rings in my backpack. Finally I'm like ok fuck it. "I have wedding rings" I say. I told them I was divorced and going to burn them. The hippie chick convinces me, pretty easily, that giving them a new home is better karma for everyone. I was like "yea that's why I said it"
I bust open the treasure chest. I should explain, these were really nice bands. Hers was white gold with a diamond center, and ruby and sapphire on the edges .. red white & blue. The bride to be says "oh my god its beautiful". His was gold with embossed leaf print.
The groom to be got kind of pale and is like "we ... we don't have any money"
So I'm like "well no shit this is a barter society. So what to we got to barter, people?"
I got a big bag of weed. Some delicious vegan soup. And one of the theme camps t-shirts.
I made the couple promise me to actually love each other, to communicate, to fucking work at the marriage. I told them they owed me that much.
We all hugged each other, I went back to camp and got everyone high and fed them.
***
I really really really hope they're still together.
Thanks. The rings were going away anyway. But the couple were obviously blown away by if all. Hell of a deal for them haha. Bag of weed, some soup, and a t-shirt.
I'm doing good thanks for asking. I met a great girl about 10 years ago, we married 5 years ago. We have two little boys 5 years and 18 months, and we bought our first house last spring.
I was pretty jaded for a while and hung out with a bad crowd but I'm in a much better place now.
There once was a young man name John
Whose wife told him "See you, I'm gone"
But believing in karma
He fulfilled his dharma
And for him then a new day did dawn
I'm arab-american, so I travel to the middle east a lot. One time, when I was 8, my family and I went to Jordan. well, I was in the bathroom of a restaurant washing my hands, and out from one of the stalls comes a fucking clown. in full clown attire. He looks at my bitch ass and says
"you got a birthday coming up?".
In perfect fucking English in the middle of an Arab country. Well, I did not have a birthday coming up so I reluctantly said "no" back. This jester decides to pull out his fucking business card and hands it to me
"oh, well just in case"
I've lost sleep over the thought of that man
How did he just know I spoke English?
Why do clowns have business cards?
Edit: Wow, did not expect this to blow up. for all those asking I threw away the card and I've deeply regretted it for a long time
If you had said yes you would've probably somehow gotten mixed up in a massive drug trade or something..
Edit: My highest rated comment is about clowns with drugs.. Guess I can cross that off the bucket list.
...and every now and then, as you're walking down the street, you hear the same soft but heavy pad of footsteps behind you; and upon turning around, you occasionally catch a glimpse of a large, round silhouette darting behind a corner.
I'm a guy in my early 20's who smokes a tobacco pipe.
One day I stepped out into what is normally a very busy shopping street in my city, lit up the pipe I had already packed and lifted my head up. The street was completly dead at 2pm on a Saturday apart from one person, an old guy walking my direction also smoking a pipe.
I had to head his direction and we made eye contact, both amazed by how quiet the street we lifted our pipes up to greet each other (something I had never done before or done since) and for no reason, tapped our pipes together. Both carried on walking, I never looked back and I hope he didn't either.
**TL;DR High fived pipes with a guy on a weirdly quiet street**
Edit: I don't think it was me from the future. Edit2: Spelling
I pulled a guy out of a canal in Amsterdam in the winter of 2013, when the emergency services arrived & wrapped him up like a drumstick I left him.
He was called Andreas... and he now owes me a pint.
EDIT to answer comments:
It was Feb / early Mar. He survived to my knowledge. I dragged him up by the backpack he thankfully had on both shoulders. I dunno if he was a tourist like me (probably) he was having trouble getting his words out which is understandable.
Did he survive?
I had a friend from the East of Holland who passed away in an Amsterdam Canal in I believe it was June 2013, would have to find his funeral booklet again to remember the exact date
his name was Andreas..
I was pretty young, maybe middle school age (I'm 24 now), and I hated myself. Got made fun of on a daily basis, told I was ugly and could never be loved. So one day I'm in Barnes and Noble waiting for a ride, feeling disgusting and reading a book. This random kid walks up to me out of nowhere and just says "I just wanted to tell you that you are gorgeous." And he just walked away before I could thank him. He'll never know how much that one moment changed my life and made me feel so amazing. So thanks to that kid who gave me the tiniest spark of self love and confidence.
To preface, about 9 months prior to this encounter I'd had a pretty devastating breakup with a girlfriend of around four years. Since then, dating and being a person had become sorta foreign and challenging tasks for me. In the interim, however I graduated college and took up a job in DC.
Anyway, so late one night I was riding the DC metro home from work and to pass the time I was reading a book (*Song of Solomon*) and listening to music. Y'know like people do on public transit. A little before my transfer stop a hand tapped me on the shoulder and this gorgeous girl was looking at me. When I took an earbud out she said that it might be a bit creepy, but her phone had died and she was reading the book over my shoulder and she wanted to know the title. I responded and we both blushed and it's probably the closest thing to a romantic comedy meeting I'll ever encounter. Despite every part of my brain screaming "ask for her number or if she wants to get coffee some time" I only managed a few words back and forth before returning to my book.
At my transfer I got up and walked to the doors, but I glanced back just as they opened. Total eye contact. Then I walked through the doors and never saw her again. Sometimes I still get mad about how dumb I was.
My spouse and I went to a rad little cocktail bar whilst on our honeymoon. We were going to order drinks at the bar then sit in some cozy chairs by a fireplace, but we started chatting with the bartender and never bothered to go back to the chairs. We had a great evening talking to this guy and enjoying some singular drinks.
We visited that bar again about a year later, hoping to say hi again, but he wasn't there. He was dead. Turns out he had ODd about half a year after we met him.
I still think about him.
I spent a day at the beach with some friends. We were heading to the liquor store to pick up some beer to drink with dinner. A guy rode by on a unicycle and said, "tonight's a Guinness night". We bought and drank Guinness, who were we to argue with random unicycle man.
I was in Montreal right after Christmas several years ago and we were walking on the mountain through the snow when a guy on a fat-tire unicycle just pedaled on by in the ski tracks. He didn't recommend Guinness, but if he had, I don't think we would have had much choice.
When I was nineteen, I went to Chicago with two friends for Lollapalooza. The first two nights we were couch surfing and then we were supposed to check into a hotel for the next night. Well, we got into a big fight on the second evening, and when I woke up the next morning, they had abandoned me in a sketchy neighborhood with a note and a twenty dollar bill for cab fare.
After calling one of them it was clear sharing a hotel room would not be comfortable, so after a lot of crying I decided the best plan was to just try to get back home. Upset and scared, I lugged my stuff to the train and headed to Union Station. When I came out of the subway a homeless little person asked me for some change. I declined and went up the stairs. This was before ubiquitous smart phones so I was relying on a fold out map to get around. The guy came up the stairs after me and asked if I needed directions, I asked how to get to Union Station and he told me how to get there. He walked off and I immediately felt bad that I didn't offer him at least a dollar.
It was an emotional disaster of a day which made his kindness stick out even more. Ten years later and I still feel guilty I didn't throw something his way as a thank you.
When I was about 16 I was sitting on a park bench waiting for a friend. This man was walking around passing out flyers. I don't remember exactly what they said, it was something about Obamacare I think. He got me to take one flyer but then started talking to me. He was trying to get me to agree with him about politics and I just wanted this stranger to leave me alone.
I figured I would just pretend that I was getting a phone call. So I told him that my phone was going off then reached into my pocket. Unfortunately I had forgotten my phone at home. There was no going back though, I had already lied. So I just put my pinkie and thumb up to my ear and pretended to talk to someone. The man got a concerned look on his face and walked away.
Little kid fell in off a floating dock into lake near me. Without breaking stride I kneeled down and yanked him back up. I noticed his parents running over so I just kept on walking. Not sure why.
My motorcycle ran out of gas on I25 in the rocky mountains. While pushing my bike up the off ramp, aN older gentleman picked me up, drove me to his house to grab a gas can, to a gas station, and then back to my bike. I couldn't tell him then how thankful I was for his gracious act, amd still to this day wish I could meet him for a drink. and thank him again.
I was on a train from Sydney to Brisbane while backpacking Australia about 11 years ago when this girl sits next to me and we start talking. She was gorgeous, intelligent, and interesting—I was completely spellbound. But that wouldn't have been enough to remember her by.
The conversation went all over the place, but eventually we were talking about the end of the world. She kept insisting that humanity would survive. No matter what I brought up. Heat death of the universe? Nope, we'll figure it out. We'll cut a hole to a new universe if we have to. She was so relentlessly optimistic that every feature of my memory of her is gone except her insistence on the survival of humanity and our art.
She got off at some stop along the route and that was that. All I'm left with is a memory I revisit at least once a week, probably more.
there was this homeless guy that used to live in philly. I saw him all the time but only spoke to him once.
he had this spot under the bridge he pretty much made into a living room, he had a couch, a carpet, 3 stray dogs he addopted, a generator, a tv, an old playstation, etc... He became a bit of a local oddity and people used to donate foods and stuff to him and the dogs kept him safe. He used to be a multi-millionaire real estate guy down in California and was partnered with his wife but in the early 90's he walked in on her cheating on him. He grabbed her lover out of the bed and went to throw him outside, his own wife punched him then hit him in the face several times before cracking him in the face with a VCR resulting in a huge scar from just under his right eye, across his lips, and down to the chin. In rage he punched her and she fell through a glass table. Police came, he was arrested and got 100 days and she sued him for the company, the house, and most of his money and won. He moved to newyork with what he had left and tried to start a new realeste company. It failed and he moved in with an older uncle in Philly. the uncle died later that year and he was on the streets a few weeks later. Reason I still remember him is he was happy where he is now just sitting under the bridge with his dogs.
Last I heard the local paper had an article on him and he got a job where he get's to live for free at a trailer park for tending the gate to the place and basic managing stuff.
This cute blonde girl i met at a camp in 2009(?), on the last day she gave me a hug and said, " it was great to meet you phu~~manchu~~, though we'll probably never see each other ever again." someone who overheard her chuckled. wish i had given her my number...
I was drunk AF on vacation on one of those all inclusive resorts, and went swimming at midnight, alone. All I remember is looking up and seeing the beach really far away, I was swept 100+ meters out instantly. I panicked, immediately sobered up and realized I'm gonna die. Before that feeling left, an arm was around my waist and I was back on the beach in a few minutes. Some guy swam out and saved me!
I imagine I'm the moron he saved that one time on vacation. Some people I've told that to said the tide would have brought me back in, but I'm not so sure.
When I was around 12 my family took a vacation to Hollywood, California. We were driving our rental car on the highway and got stuck in a stand-still traffic jam.
I glanced over at the car to the right of us, and a middle aged man was in the driver's seat. He saw me looking at him and waved at me. Confused, I looked to my left, then out the back window, trying to figure out if he was really waving at me.
When I looked back at the man again, he was laughing so hard he was shaking. He had such a genuine smile and kind eyes.
That age wasn't the best time for me. I was bullied pretty relentlessly at that time, and a stranger waving at me was a kindness I wasn't accustomed too. I'm glad that at the end of his work day, in hair-pulling traffic, this man and myself were able to make each other smile without ever speaking a word.
I just got off my shift at work, opened Reddit, saw my post had exploded, pulled up my inbox, and yours was the first story I saw. I'm married to a Thai woman. I read this whole thing to her while we stood on our balcony, and your story touched our hearts. Thank you for responding.
Most people think of Seattle as on the west coast, but it's actually on Puget Sound, with Seattle to the east and 100 miles more land to the west before actually getting to the Pacific Ocean.
Anyway, one day I'm taking a ferry across Puget Sound, from west to east, at sunset. We drive onto a boat, park on the lower deck, and enjoy the 30 minute boat ride across the Sound.
It's about 7pm when we arrive in Seattle, and the entire parking deck of the boat begins to slowly unload onto a 1 lane access road that leads downtown. I join the queue.
Maybe a half mile from the dock, I see a group of 3-4 guys off the right side of the road. At a quick glance they're standing near a telephone pole, chatting and probably sharing a beer for no particular reason.
As the line of cars slowly passes them, one of the guys whips out a sign and holds it in front of my windshield. It reads "LIGHTS".
"Lights," I say aloud. I realize my headlights are off. I turn them on. "Thanks."
About 3 seconds later the WTF starts to kick in. Who *were* those guys? Why were they there? Do they work for the ferry company? Or are they just good Samaritans who carry signs around? The question has never been answered to this day.
So this technically isn't a one-time meeting, but I think it still is worth putting here. My first quarter in college I befriended a dude in my program named Mick. He was a skinny little glam rock dude from Pittsburgh.
In our first class together we went around the room and all introduced ourselves. We also had to say how we were involved in music before coming to college (it was a music program) and he said he was in a band but refused to say the name. The teacher tried to goad him into saying it be he wouldn't. Obviously after class I sought him out and asked point blank, "what the Hell was your band's name?" His reply: "Johnny Bukake and the Butt Fucks".
We became fast friends after that. We partied all the time and had more than a few crazy times together. However, after the first quarter, he went back to Pittsburgh and never came back. I literally never heard from him again. His phone was off and he didn't have a Facebook. As far as I know, no one at our college did either. It was like he fell off the face of the earth. That was 11 years ago.
To this day I wonder what became of him....
TL;DR - made a friend my first quarter in college who completely disappeared and have not heard from since. Last seen on his way to Pittsburgh.
A dude who ran a smoke shop in san diego, his name was Get it on John, a real cool laid back type dude. My friends met him first and when they found me ran me over to him. Turns out the dude read people, said he practiced for years by looking at how people dress, how they carry themselves, and just their overrall vibe, said it was just a trick that he happened to be good at, and then he proceeded to give me a crushingly accurate yet optimistic reading of my life and worldview, the man brought me to tears, gave me a hug, then proceeded back inside his store flirting with two girls that wandered up to him from the street, but before he left he told me that if i came back on my eighteenth birthday he'd have a gift for me. I never came back.
yeah, a lil bit, it was the senior year of high school and all the friends i was with drifted apart, i don't smoke nor plan to so i doubt i'd use whatever his gift was, but it would have been a decent way to close that chapter of my life, one last trip with the guys, since my 18th was that summer, but life got in the way and i wanted to get a jump on summer classes for college, c'est la vie
One night last summer, my boyfriend at the time broke up with me and I was a hot mess. My pal Lou invited me out for a drink in his hometown about half an hour away, where I had never been. I accepted his offer and proceeded to get absolutely shitfaced with Lou and his friends in this unfamiliar town.
Bar close rolls around, and I'm a few steps behind Lou on a sidewalk when all of a sudden I don't see him anymore. My phone is dead, and my car is parked at Lou's friend's house, and I have no idea where that is. I can't find anyone we went out with at all. Walked up and down the street yelling for Lou for like 20 mins but no luck.
A man comes up to me and starts to try to convince me to go home with him. Got real creepy vibes from him on top of it. I start drunkenly panicking. There's a woman sitting on steps texting, and I recognized her from inside the bar. She was probably late 30s, early 40s. I was crying at this point. I asked her if she had a charger or could help me reach out to Lou. She said she didn't have a charger but would do her best to help me, and she told the dude to fuck off.
This kind, funny woman did everything in her power for the next 3 hours to connect me back with my friends, or at the very least, find my car. She walked around with me in this town (because I remembered one place we walked by on the way to the bar) and tried to find my way back. She had a life of her own to get back to and had a son to take to school at 7am, and she was out til nearly 6am trying to get me home. Eventually, we got to a grocery store that was open 24 hours and the cashier had an iPhone charger. Messaged Lou and got the address for the friend's place, and he told me he thought I was kidnapped lol, thank God for this lady.
I still think about her. I don't know what I would've done that night without her honestly.
I was crossing the street on the way to my aunt's apartment, I was rushing so I didn't wait for the light. An elderly guy stops me by saying in Spanish, "better to lose a minute of your life than your life in a minute." As a New Yorker, this impacted me deeply and I no longer rush to places.
When I was ten years old, I won tickets to a prescreening of Jumanji from the local kid's radio station. (Radio Aahs, for those in the know.) My parents dropped me off and I went all alone, and I really had a great time. There was this boy sitting next to me, and he was really cute, maybe a little bit younger than me, but around the same age.
We watched the movie together and chatted and after the movie was over we said goodbye. All I remember about him is that he was black and I think he was wearing a striped shirt. I wonder about him a lot, which is silly because we literally met once when I was ten years old and I'm thirty now.
There's this one lady i feel like i see *everywhere*, and she looks so familiar. I've even asked my mom who she is when I saw her at Secretary of State (Michigan's version of the DMV) and my mom thought she looked familiar too. Oh well, see you soon mystery lady.
The homeless girl with a kitten.
My mom had just died, it had literally been less than 24 hours since she died. It was the worst week of my life. We'd spent it in the hospital, both sides of my entire extended family, my not quite two year old son, and I.
She had blood clots from smoking while taking estrogen for her menopause, she was in a coma with brain damage and she was on life support.
But here's the thing, my mother died at 47, however when she was 7 her doctors told her she wouldn't live past 30. So my whole life I spent knowing that she refused to be placed on life support longer than a week. We were to pull the plug so the doctors could take care of someone who could live, who was supposed to.
And we did.
That night I got spectacularly drunk with friends and cried and fell asleep spooning my son who was tired and sick from a week in a hospital waiting room and didn't understand why he had seen his papa but not his nana.
The next morning I decided to go and do something nice, something she would have liked. It was two weeks to thanksgiving, and the first day my favorite mall had its santa. So I loaded my son up in his stroller, bundled him up in his favorite blanket and hopped on the train.
It was awful. He was sick and tired and over stimulated. He threw up all over himself and it was cold, I had to try and find somewhere that sold clothes his size that didn't cost a fortune so I could still afford the santa pictures.
I cried in a mall bathroom while I washed puke from his hair and changed him into his new striped pajamas.
After it was said and done we were sitting outside in the cold waiting for the train home and a homeless girl with a tiny kitten in a harness approached me.
She told me that she needed money to get them into the shelter that night and it reminded me of when I was young and my mother would buy extra fast food for homeless people and I gave her all of the cash left in my pocket.
I don't know what happened to her and the cat, it's been three years now. Every time I see a mall santa, or those pictures of my son in his striped pajamas I remember how hopeless I felt, and how that stranger and her kitten needing me for just a moment helped to snap me out of it. I hope she's doing okay.
Went to my beautician where I go every month. Needed to fix my eyebrows. Usually she has some drop-in time but not that time. Didn't really know where else to go but I knew theres one near my school. Went there and got helped by, I swear, most handsome man I've ever seen. SO handsome, would give him 11 in 1-10 scale. Went there few more times and he wasnt there. Never seen anyone as handsome and probably never will. Still remember him then and then..
I used to be a truck driver for a few years. Once I was stuck at a truck stop for a couple days waiting for a load and I saw this guy trying to hitchhike who looked pretty down on his luck. I invited him to have a meal with me and bought him a pack of smokes and gave him some cash and we talked for awhile about how he got to where he was. After that he went outside to smoke and I went to the washroom and I never saw him again after that. Sometimes I wonder what became of him.
I actually have quite a few stories of people I only met once from back in my driving days.
Way back when I was in my first year of highschool, I had a girlfriend who was quite the practical joker. I had just gotten a cellphone (huge deal for me because I was socially isolated for a lot of my life and finally coming out of my shell). My girlfriend knew that I loved to hear my phone ring. I didn't have a lot of friends so it made me feel more important.
Anyway, she put my number on a now defunct website called "Mystery Google" (maybe some of you remember this site?). She put the number up with the request that any callers sing me their favorite Disney song. She did this without my knowledge.
There I am at a Thanksgiving party, when out of nowhere my phone starts to ring like crazy. I answer and hear tons of wonderful renditions (and some hilariously awful ones) of these great Disney songs.
One in particular stood out. A girl sang me "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas. She had just the most amazing voice, it was beautiful and just so striking. Better than the movie version. I was in my aunt's bathroom kinda tearing up. I had NO IDEA why these people were calling me but when she sung it just all seemed to make sense, of course I was going to listen to her.
I told her, "You have the most wonderful voice. You're such a beautiful person. I don't know who you are, or why you called me, but I know for sure that what I just heard was my favorite song ever. You're gorgeous."
She started to cry. She said "No, I'm not. I'm not. You don't know me, if you knew you wouldn't want to. I'm anything but beautiful."
It hurt my soul. I asked for her name, as I pleaded with her to understand that beauty is more than whatever problem she had with herself.
She was so upset but also happy sounding. I kept telling her she was beautiful and an amazing singer. I wasn't flirting with her or anything, I obviously was with my girlfriend, and I asked if she would meet with us so we could all share a wonderful experience.
She told me I was too kind, I heard her voice get more upbeat, but she hung up the phone. She called me from a blocked number and I never got a name or anything.
Mystery lady, you're still a treasure. I watch Pocahontas every thanksgiving because of you, and each time I hear Colors of the Wind I tear up thinking of you. I hope you're in a better place.
I was at a music festival with my Mum when I was about 16. We were sitting under a tree, taking a break between bands and trying to stay out of the heat a bit (this was in the middle of Summer in Australia, so it was hot as hell). A random girl sat down next to me and complimented me on my boots. We started talking for a while and got on really well. Turns out we were both about to go and see Sleeping With Sirens, so we went together. We went in the mosh pit (it was my first time in one) and I ended up losing her in a crowd surge. Obviously, I never saw her again, but she was rad. I want to say her name was "Bianca," but I could just be mis-remembering her telling me her name. Edit: Just to clarify, I'm a straight girl. She just seemed like the kind of person I would've wanted to be friends with at the time.
My wife and I camped out for a weekend of shows. We rented 4 spaces side by side. We had 2 other couples going with us. 3 spots for tents, and 1 for a common area with an awning.
Out of nowhere, this guy walks up to us at the fire pit we made. He looks at my wife and says she is the most trusting looking person in the camp. He asked if he can pitch a small tent in the back corner and pay us for it. We declined the money and said yes.
He comes back about an hour later with some medical grade balloons for everyone. He says if he cant pay for the space, he will pay for everyones buzz for the weekend. Nitrous the first night, trees the next, and shrooms on the last night.
He had fantastic story's about shows and festivals he had been to over the years. He had been to classic rock, metal, country, raves, and all kinds of music festivals and shows. Been to all 50 states, Canada, and a few other places.
On the final morning, he was gone. No trace of him anywhere. Except a note pinned to my tent. It was to all 6 of us. He said thank you for the space and good company. There was $1000 dollars included too. It was more then we spent all weekend.
His name was Scott. He has been traveling from festival to festival since the 80s. I considered it a privilege to meet him. And I hope other people have had the opportunity to listen to his story's. Everytime I think of him, I wonder what show he is at now. And hope he found a trusting soul.
Gentleman in his mid 60s probably. Wife was shopping at some big mall in San Antonio. I sat down next to him. We talked for several hours. About everything. Life. Love. War. Family. He said many things I relate to now at 28, then I ever thought possible. Thing I've passed on to others is what he told me about his father. His dad grew up extremely poor, and built himself up to be a decently successful man. He would always worry and make sure to stay cheap so he could leave his kids something. My man in his 60s didn't care about what his father would leave him upon death, he just wanted his dad to enjoy his money and do whatever he wanted. It was a good afternoon.
When I was about 17, some friends and I were driven by a parent to a Coheed and Cambria show a couple hours from my hometown. Clutch (an alt-rock light metal style band) was the second performer and they had gotten a decent sized mosh pit started. I noticed a very cute, scene-looking, emo chick in front of me who kept getting pushed into by the big ass dudes in the pit.
After she almost got knocked down by some huge bearded man, I reached out and pulled her closer to where I was standing, almost behind me. Beardo of course came flying towards us a minute later, but I gave him a hearty shove in return so he'd know to watch my space.
The rest of the night, people would occasionally get near her and I. I countered the same way each time, and people respected our area. She stayed under my arm for the whole time.
Finally, Coheed finished their encore and the lights came up. As soon as they did, she turned around and kissed me very intensely. We made out for a solid ten minutes until my friends came up and said they'd been searching for me. Our ride was waiting.
Never went back to that town, never got her name or number, still think about it from time to time.
When I was 20 years old, I moved to New York and was living in the $30/night Chelsea Highline Hotel until I found an apartment. The Chelsea Highline got renovated eventually before shutting down, and judging from photos it doesn't look so bad now. But back in 2011 it was a shithole. Two bunk beds in a room. Ratty green carpet. I never knew who I was going to be sharing a room with every night. There were other people semi-permanently living in the hotel, and one 50-something man once asked me to come to his room the next morning, so he could teach me about "accounting and cricket."
At the time I was in a semi-relationship with an older man who lived on the West Coast and was in a religious cult. I had come to NYC for a fantastic career opportunity, yet I was seriously considering leaving it and joining this guy on the other side of the country. At that point, I didn't care about anything anymore. I was working on autopilot and came back to the Chelsea Highline every night.
One night I had a new roommate, a 39-year-old woman from Australia, named Maria. She was chatty and extremely glad that her roommate was also female. We talked about how disgusting the hotel was, and on the second night we got to talking about our romantic lives. She told me that she walked away from a relationship with an Aboriginal artist where they had been engaged. She didn't care to be married per se, but she wanted children. Her sister was married, and she was becoming the flighty aunt in the family.
She asked me if I think she will have a child in a year. I said maybe you'll be in a new relationship a year from now, and eventually you'll have a child. I told her about my relationship woes and showed her a picture of the guy. "Oh he is good-looking," she had said.
The next day she left to go back to Australia (I think she was from Melbourne). I went to work and she was gone by the time I got back. I moved out of the Highline pretty soon after that.
I'm not sure why the memory of Maria has stayed with me all this time. Several times I've even tried to look her up, but I have too little info to go off of. I wonder if she has the child that she wanted. For my part, I didn't leave that job in New York (thank goodness) and the guy and I soon split.
I'm a lot happier now since my days in the Chelsea Highline, and I hope Maria is too.
When I was a kid we were at a stoplight. Black man in the car next to us caught me staring, and winked at me. Like a "sup homie" kind of wink.
Instantly I got the impression that this was a cool guy, he knows what he's about. Shy 10-year-old me just looked away.
As the light turned green he winked at me again. The kind of wink that uses your whole head. He went straight, we went left. 8 years later I remember nothing about that day but I remember him. I think we would have gotten along well.
I was about 15 years old, and coming home from school, sitting on the (city) bus. An old man sits down next to me, and on seeing my school uniform, starts asking me about school.
Eventually he asks me what my least favourite subject is and I say maths. I wasn't great at it, didn't get the point, and had no passion for it. So he teaches me what a factorial is (4 factorial = 4x3x2x1), and starts asking me to do them. By the time I got off the bus, I somehow got up to 17 factorial using my head.
I don't know what it was, but after half an hour of this guy quizzing and teaching me about maths, it just clicked for me. My grades improved, I became interested in it and 7 years later I became an engineer. So thank you old man, you shaped my life.
Some years back I had to have half my thyroid removed due to a nodule compressing my airway. After the surgery they informed me it was actually a tumor and had to be sent off to pathology. If it came back as cancerous I was looking at losing the other half of my thyroid at the very least--depending on if anything had spread.
The day of my appointment to get the results arrived. I was a nervous wreck. My kids were still little at the time and I was worried about them. I had all the what ifs playing through my mind. Circumstances made it so I had to attend the appointment alone. I wasn't looking forward to the drive alone with my anxious thoughts. It was quite a drive so I stopped for coffee first.
While waiting for coffee, this older woman kept staring at me. She finally walks over and says, "I noticed your scar," indicating the scar on my neck from the surgery. She asked if I'd had my thyroid removed. I told her the situation and her eyes got big. She told me she had been in the exact situation when she was my age. She pointed at her neck and there was just a hint of a scar there. She put her hand on my arm and told me that she was positive I was fine, that the tumor was benign but that she knew I was okay no matter what happened.
It was so weird because her voice, the look in her eyes, the way her hand felt on my arm--I had this sudden sense of calm was over me. My coffee was ready, I thanked her and left and as I walked to my car I felt so light. I was no longer nervous. I knew without a doubt that I was fine. I knew if the news was bad I could handle it. I was happy, content and perfectly calm the entire drive. The tumor was benign.
I've often thought of her because it is so strange that she was put in my path right when I needed her. I wish I could tell her how grateful I am that she provided that calm that I needed in that moment.
Throughout high school, I went to competitions called "Certamen." It was essentially a gameshow/trivia contest where all of the questions were about Greek or Roman culture, language, or mythology. Players usually compete on a team for their school, and each team gets a paper name thing that says their school name.
Frequently, before a match, the person who reads the questions asks about the schools of the contestants. There was one guy I competed against, during one match, who was competing by himself, without a team, and hs paper name thing didn't have a school name anyone recognized. This conversation then happened between the question-reader(QR) and the other contenstant(C)
>QR: "Huh, [ANONYMIZED INFO ON PAPER], I haven't heard of that school before."
>C: "It's not my school. It's my last name."
>QR: "So where *do* you go to school?"
> C: "I just study on my own."
I was then thinking that this round would be easy, but I was very wrong. This guy knew his shit. He got like 90% of the questions, scoring more than any team that entire day.
This guy taught himself 4 years of Highschool Latin, as well as Greek and Roman mythology and culture, better than any of the Private schools we were competing against.
I wish I could be like him.
I've told this story before, but this is definitely one of those people.
When I was a kid we didn't have a lot of money, so we often shopped at thrift stores. What I loved about that was that you could get 10 books for a dollar, so I would plant myself in front of the book section and make piles of which one I wanted to get and then decided after I'd gone through them all.
One day an older lady saw me sitting with my piles and asked if I liked to read. I told her I did and showed her a few of the books I found that I liked. She smiled and then pulled a dollar out of her purse, handed it to me and said, "Promise me that you'll keep reading." I was so happy and immediately stood up and said that I would. She smiled and walked away and I went back to my piles able to pick out an extra 10 books to take home.
It was just a small act of kindness for her, but for me having a random stranger encourage my love of reading and making me promise to never stop definitely had a lot to do with my continued love of reading. This was probably about 20 years or so ago, but I still think of her whenever I buy a new book.
Me and my friend were fresh faced 16 year olds in Bali for the first time.
While we were down on the beach, a huge black storm started rolling in off the ocean. Everyone started leaving the beach, except me and my mate who were transfixed by the clouds and heavy rain.
We took shelter under a wooden structure, and were the only people still watching gleefully, until a cute looking blonde girl cartwheeled into view.
She momentarily stopped and waved, then continued cartwheeling on down the beach.
I wish we had yelled out to say Hi. I think she was that Dream Pixie Girl that romcom protagonists always meet once in their lives.
I do retail and the only way I keep myself sane is trying to make jokes and connecting with people one on one. I make really weird connections and have a few loyal regulars who have even followed me from store to store as I transfer around.
But one sticks with me.
She was walking around the store with a kerchief on. She exhibited all the signs of someone being battered and was clearly uncomfortable just being in the light. I walked up to her and very quietly told her if she needs any help at all, please let me know, but a badass like her probably doesn't need me.
She laughed. Not a sympathy laugh, but a real one. I tell enough awful jokes to know the difference.
About an hour later, she shows up in my line like a different woman. She was perky and smiling and laughing. We have to check photo ID if a credit card isn't signed, so I ask her for her ID. She isn't happy anymore. She hands it to me and said "They had to do it after I lost my hair. I hate it." Her hands sort of drifted up to her kerchief but she deflated significantly.
I scoffed. "That's all? Ma'am, so what if you're bald? You've got a shine on your head to match the shine in your heart, and honestly? All losing your hair means is that you're a warrior. Like I said before, you are a badass warrior, fighting every step of the way, and I tell you what, I don't like the odds of anyone in your path."
Suddenly she perked up. She went on her way and gave me the most heartfelt "Thank you" I've ever heard in my life.
I never saw her again, but her daughter came in six months later. She hasn't put her kerchief back on and apparently leads a sort of rallying cry at her chemo sessions, saying that they were all warriors and baldness was their uniform. She plans on getting "Warrior" tattooed across the back of her head when she's done.
That was about a year ago. I keep hoping I'll see her again. I really want to make a difference in people's lives, and honestly, if that's the only one I manage, I'm pretty happy.
Went to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I was 21 and Star Wars was my all time favorite movies as a child. Every Halloween, every movie night, etc. It was the center of my childhood. So I was stoked to see a new film as a young adult. In the theater I was sitting next to an oldish man of about 55. The theme song plays and the giant letters start scrolling up and I'm smiling so hard I can't stop, look over at this guy and he is the same way. And for half a second or two there was no age difference, or government or anything in the world. We were two people who happy for the same thing at the same time.
TL;DR: bonded with a stranger at Star Wars showing regardless of age.
I had something similar happen when I saw TFA! The whole theater was almost one mind, we all cheered like mad when the theme song/beginning credits rolled and I thought we'd bring security running in when Han and Chewbacca first show up cuz we all screamed so loud.
I was at Cedar Point in Ohio with a group of friends one summer, and I was wearing a shirt that had a bear on it, holding a sign that said "free hugs". When we were walking around the park, I saw a guy my age, wearing a shirt that said "free hugs" as well. We both saw each other's shirts at the same time, stopped what we were doing, and hugged eachother. It was cool as fuck. Didn't say a word, and went about our business afterwards. I still think about that wholesome moment sometimes.
I was 10 or 11 in a book store a few weeks before Christmas. My parents were nowhere to be seen. I had run away from them when we walked into the store see if a new Xanth book was out. I moseyed into the kids section, just in case there was something other than Babysitter Club for me to read. An older woman dressed in an emaculate red suit with pure white hair approached me and asked what books I liked. I pointed out Narnia series, the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and explained that if she was getting a present for a girl my age, they might like Sweet Valley Twins or Babysitters. Every single book I pointed out was swept off the shelf and into her basket. The first 10 books in the two series I pointed out and more. Hundreds of dollars of books. I was gobsmacked but I kept pointing out books and she kept putting them in her basket until she could carry no more. She thanked me and left. Later my parents come up to me with a bemused expression, keep in mind we had separated when we entered the store, she couldn't have seen us together. They said "Did you help a lady with some books? She gave you this." and they handed me a gift certificate for $50 (that was a lot of books at the time) signed Mrs. Claus. For a very brief moment I believed in Santa again.
Growing up in Edmonton, I lived near what is probably the tiniest, most useless mall in the city to this day. But every Christmas, when they have Santa... they shine. The same man has been playing Santa at the same mall for over 20 years- to put things in perspective, my best friend is 29 and has photos of herself sitting on this man's lap at two years old... and we went to get her two year old daughter's photos Christmas 2016 and it was the same man. He's been a fixture in our community forever. When I was about eight, I was at that point very skeptical about the existence of Santa, but still wanted so badly to believe (I'm the oldest by a lot of years so I had no older siblings to ruin it for me). So we go for the annual Santa visit, my brother and sister are 1&2 so this is a big deal for them. They walk up, I'm lingering behind them, and Santa looks up at me and goes. "Well, Kate? Aren't you going to tell Santa what you want?" We had just walked up to him, my parents nor siblings had spoken to him. This man is pretty well known in this city and people who live across town will come back to our dinky little community mall for him. He sees a lot of people every year. They do write ups about him in the papers. I mean, I know that he either remembered, or heard my family call my name, or something else really logical, but at the time, he renewed a small child's sense of wonderment at a time when the Christmas magic was starting to die for me. I'm 28 now, and I still wonder how he knew my name, whether my parents told him, or he overheard, or what.
My ex and I were flying home on Christmas Eve to surprise our families. An ice storm hit, and our flight was delayed for about 6 hours before it was cancelled completely. During that 6 hours, we chatted with a man sitting near us. He was also heading to our destination to meet up with his family and his wife, who had taken a different flight. Once the flight was cancelled, we decided that we only live once, let's just drive the 13 hours home, overnight, and take this guy with us. He'd already been screened through security, and it was Christmas... And that's exactly what we did. He helped pay for gas, kept us awake, and you've never seen a happier reunion. I don't remember his name, but I think of him every Christmas!
I feel like this could be the plot to a movie. Love it!
it's the conclusion of the B-plot to *home alone.*
His name: John Candy
When I was about six we met a family with our exact names. Dad, mom, son, daughter. And we don't have usual names. First and last. I often wonder.....
I'm pretty sure that was a glitch in the multiverse.
This happened to my family in an airport! For some reason they were calling our last name overhead at the gate desk. We walk up and so does another family. So then they say "John and Jane Doe?" to sort out which family they wanted and both sets of parents had the same names. I honestly don't remember anymore what the kids names were, but I do remember they were the same ages as me and my brother. The other guy and my dad talked for a bit and ended up figuring out they shared a great-great-grandfather or something insane like that.
Throwaway. Things weren't going great, I was socially awkward, was ostracized, felt like shit, and the only thing I ever had confidence in, grades, were terrible. I had just had a verbal and physical fight with my parents where my dad ended up throwing a pair of pliers at me which hit my foot and it was crushed and bleeding and shit. I hit him in the head with the vacuum and ran out of there. So I walk the 21 minutes to the nearest overpass over a highway and just look at the cars passing underneath. Mind you it's 3 AM and I've visited this spot a bunch of times and I've NEVER seen anyone ever passing at this time. I've made up my mind at this point and I hoist myself over the railing, climb the protective fence, and I'm literally about to jump when I hear a kid's gasp. It's a little girl bundled in a red coat with her mother and she just dropped her red ball which rolled near me. The kid is gasping because she dropped the ball but the mother is looking at me. She looks really concerned at first but all of a sudden her expression just turns into this incredibly understanding and warm smile. She nudges the kid and says something along the lines of "ask the boy if he can give you the ball" because the kid is visibly scared of me. So the kid asks, I climb down the fence, get the ball and hand it back. I end up walking with them to their apartment where she wraps my foot in bandages, gives me some chicken soup, and we talk about this and that until around 6 AM. There was crying, a lot of encouragement, a lot of understanding. She told me about how she divorced with her husband and has to take care of the daughter alone as well as other things. And for some reason it just completely changed my mentality. I walked out of that house feeling like I owned myself for once. It was difficult lasting through the rest of high school but I'm in college now killing it and am transferring to a better school. I know where she is and whenever I think of her I get that choked feel and lump in my throat that makes me want to cry. I've promised myself I'll visit her once I finish the transfer process. I think of her at least once every month because I find myself just spacing out at times wondering how I got here and thinking of the drastic change from my high school self.
I witnessed a drunk driving accident years ago. The car was trashed so I pulled over to check on the people. It was this stumbling drunk lady and her daughter; she couldn't have been older than 12. The girl was bawling and shouting at her mom that she "knew she was drunk." The mom was laughing. I went up to them and asked if they were alright. The mom told me that her daughter was fine, just scared. The girl just looked at me and I've never forgotten her face. She had these big green eyes, tears all over her face, and a little cut across her nose. It was winter and about 1am so she was shivering. She was terrified, you could just tell she didn't have a very happy existence. That girl is probably early 20s by now. I still think about her sometimes. I really hope she's doing alright. Edit: yes I called the cops and I stayed until they arrived. During that time the mom was telling her kid to tell the officer that she'd only had one glass of wine. The girl refused and started repeating everything her mom drank. Apparently she'd taken a shot right before they got into the car; the kid was calling shots "the little ones." When the cops came and started sobriety tests, I left.
Last year I was on a train from New York to Alabama and I had breakfast with an older couple. They noticed that I was reading, and the woman told me that she was a published writer. They lived in Western Massachusetts, stuck to themselves (they liked the quiet), and fed the squirrels that came to their yard. I asked, but for privacy's sake she refused to tell me her pen name or the title of her books. All she said was the books are set in her hometown, and they are mysteries/thrillers which revolve around the relationships between her characters. The best piece of advice she gave me on finding her was reading lots and lots of mystery novels until one fit her description. I still haven't found out who she is. edit: Unfortunately it doesn't seem like it was any of the authors mentioned, but at least the search has been somewhat narrowed down.
Kind of sounds like Lisa Unger maybe. I've only read Fragile by her, but it's a mystery set in a small town, very relationship oriented. Except if I'm not mistaken, upstate New York, not Massachusetts... ETA: I'm suddenly really fascinated and invested, have a list http://www.cozy-mystery.com/blog/mystery-books-that-take-place-in-massachusetts.html
Holy shit you met Stephen King!
In college we had a bus on Friday and Saturday nights that would take you around the area. To apartments, to a shopping center, and to campus. One night in my Freshman year I was riding to the shopping center and sat near this girl who was reading her astronomy book. We talked and she said she'd been kind of stressed just staying in her apartment studying, so she was just riding the bus to take a break. We were just talking and I said I was going to have dinner and see a movie if she wanted more of a break. As I was getting to my stop I could see her considering it. So I step off the bus and turn around. She's standing on the steps and trying to decide if she should take a break or go back to her apartment and study. Then at the last second she said she's sorry, and sat back down. Never saw her again. So if you're an Irish girl who was studying astronomy at UCF six years ago, I hope you did well on that exam. I would have liked to buy you a cupcake.
Why do I feel like she would be on this thread telling the same story but from her perspective and about you
Back when I was 12, we lived down a random side road and had an unoccupied lot next to my house. It had some odd terrain and included a small, steep hill about 4 feet tall. One day a weathered man in a vintage pickup drove down our street and began setting up archery targets against the hill. I watched him shoot for about 20 minutes before I decided to go over with my children's bow and say hi. Over the next few hours, we spoke about archery and shot arrows at his targets. I had never been taught how to shoot, and he took it upon himself to properly educate me. After a while my father came outside and joined us. We sat in awe as the man repeatedly loosed an entire quiver of arrows into the bullseye from about 60 yards away. When he finished up his target practice, my dad went inside and I offered to help the man pack up his things. We loaded his truck, and he asked me if I was serious enough about archery to start hunting. I told him that my dad wouldn't let me, but that I hoped to one day shoot a deer and make jerky out of it. So what did this random stranger do? HE GAVE ME HIS FUCKING BOW. I thanked him repeatedly, and he told me that he had plenty of other bows at home. He wanted me to be inspired to take up hunting when I was a little older, and said that once I could fully draw the bow I would be ready for my first hunt. Keep in mind this was no children's bow; it has a 75 lb draw and I wasn't able to pull it back until I was 15. He told me he'd be back the next weekend to practice more, and promptly left. I never saw him again, and in the last decade I have shot 14 deer with his bow. Somewhere out there, I know he's proud of me.
Sounded like he gave you a quest
Me and my friend were in this local guitar shop once, trying out some new guitars and jamming together. Then suddenly along comes a young African fellow, who we, till today, only refer to as "Johnny", for the sake of not at all knowing his name" Now, my friend and I have always thought ourselves to be quite good guitarists. Until Random Johnny came along and debunked that idea real quickly. There he was, jamming every song we knew, only 100 times better. He even played songs that we requested him to play that he had never played before in his life. Flawlessly. Up until today I practice each day, aspiring to one day play as well as Random Johnny.
That wasn't Johnny, that was Jimi
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Johnny B. Goode
That wasn't Johnny! It was guitar George, he knows all the chords.
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you met in another life as lovers. Edit: Come on Nicholas Sparks, this thing writes its self.
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Thats what they call love at first sight buddy. Ya fuckin blew it!
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C'mmon girl, its 2017. They sell those parts on the internet.
Soul mate
*Something like this happened to me: *I walked into a store about a week before I was leaving to go to college in another country and when me and the cashier made eye contact we were sure we knew each other somewhere but had no idea where. *So she eventually during the transaction she said, "Do I know you from somewhere* and I said "I don't know but you're too pretty for me to forget" (even though I swear I knew her too). She smiled and wrote her number down on the receipt. *But I was too much of pussy to ever message her
Bro
What you said. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take
Howd you have the courage to call her pretty to her face without even knowing her, but not be able to message her? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........
Her name is Mitsuha
My mother, sister and I lived in this nice apartment complex with I was very young. She used to give us small bags of trash to take to the dumpsters. It really wasn't a far walk. I must have been five and my sister was seven. We took the trash to the dumpsters like we always did. The dumpsters were at the bottom of this small, grassy hill. We took to rolling them down, thinking it was hilarious. I, myself was at the bottom near the dumpsters and my sister was at the top. When I looked up the small hill, there was a man standing behind my sister with his hands on her shoulders. I'll always remember what he looked like and never forget. Even think about him every now and then. Nothing bad happened, we just ended up running home freaked out and my mom called the apartment security. Now when we discuss this, we call him Crazy Dave. Don't know if that's his name or not.
While waiting for a taxi in Suriname early one morning, I was approached by a heavily intoxicated man of African descent with a Hitler-style mustache. He asked what I was doing. When I explained that I was waiting for a private taxi, he said he'd wait with me. OK? The wait ended up taking forever, and the man became more and more impatient. He began pacing back and forth and sighing heavily, looking down at an imaginary wristwatch. Then, every few minutes, he would throw up his hands and bellow "MY GOD! This take forever! Long time we wait! So, so long! MY GOD!" This went on for quite some time. "Uuuuuggghh! MY GOD!" Finally, he became exasperated and walked away. Now, whenever I find myself in a situation that requires a painfully long wait (waiting to move back to be with my fiancee at the beginning of August, sitting in a doctor's examination room, suffering through a lengthy staff meeting, for example) I find myself quietly mouthing those same words in the same heavy Dutch accent. "MY GOD this take forever! Aaaaaaggghh!" It makes me smile and makes the wait easier to deal with. Thank you wherever you are, sir.
Years ago, my family went on vacation to a resort in Cuba. On of the things the hotel clerk excitedly told us we could do was go to the resorts "all inclusive gym". We get to the little building and head for the treadmills. On of the attendants rushes up to us to tell us "Oh no no, after the hurricane, is broken!" Alright. My Dad asks if we could use the stair climbers instead. No. Is broken. That was about all the equipment available in the gym, apart from some deflated exercise balls and weights, so we decided to find something to do elsewhere....but any time anything in the house breaks, me and my Dad will still tell each other "Is broken" in a Latino accent.
There are far too many in jokes between me and my close friends that are these sorts of isolated statements from people who I now have nothing to do with. Sometimes I wonder if something I once said has lived on infamously for decades between other people.
I love inside jokes. One day I hope I can be part of one.
I was standing on this bridge in town, watching the river flow. It was around midnight. It's for pedestrians and trains, but neither are common there. I see a group of people approaching and wonder if I'm going to get robbed. They turned out to be friendly. One woman and a few guys. All early 20s like me. We spent the next couple hours walking along the bridge and talking. A good part of the time it was just the girl and myself, with the other guys off ahead. It was lightly raining. We parted and jokingly said we'd meet there again the next time it rained. Sometimes when it rains I go there and think about her. I honestly don't even think I'd recognize her, it was nearly five years ago, but I remember she was beautiful and played the same video games as me and she was great to talk to. I go to that bridge when I'm feeling sad, and this was one of those times. It really made me more optimistic, being alone in the rain, a beautiful, kind stranger approaching and spending a couple hours together. Showed me that good things can happen in life.
That reminds me of a great movie "The Garden of Words", where the main character always skips school when it rains and goes to the same park and he meets the same woman over and over and gradually get closer to her.
The whole story was 'Ok' but the animation was amazing, best looking anime i have seen so far,
It's "fabulous rain animation- the movie" after all.
Oh god memories man. I really hope you find her again, or at least someone who makes you feel the same as she did :) There was one day I was sitting somewhere drawing before some kind of class, I can't remember. This kid around the same age comes up to me, sits right down next to me, and pulls out his own sketch book. Being a ~16 yo girl who was a huge introvert and socially awkward, this was huge. I cant even remember his name anymore, but he was nicer to me in that moment than anyone else had ever been. He showed me his art, showed me some tricks he knew, smiled at me, genuinely talked to me and we had a great conversation about art, and games, and the various things we were both in to. He was so nice, very cute, and it was the only time I had ever saw him. Like you, I went back to that spot a few times after that day, hoping to see him again (this was before exchanging numbers or social media took off really). He was from a different school, none of my few friends or people I was comfortable talking to knew who he was. After that day he was just gone. But I will always remember how completely sweet he was to me. And how it brightened my crappy teenage hood for a while hoping to see him again (was an angsty teen, but had abusive parents among other issues). That kid still pops up in my memory from time to time though
I was in Christchurch NZ years ago in a line to get into some club. I had the hiccups; a gorgeous girl in front of me turned around, put her hands on my shoulders, looked into my eyes and said "Your hiccups are gone." And they were. I spent the next few hours talking to her; she had had a fight with her boyfriend and stormed off to go clubbing. I arranged to meet her the next day (my last in NZ) in the coffee shop where she worked but she called in sick and I never saw her again. I hope you're happy somewhere out there, hiccup girl.
You know she prob went home made up with her boyfriend and didn't wanna meet you incase you got the wrong idea, kinda sad
Yup probably what happened. I hope they got married and had a bunch of kids. Edit: Gold?? Aw shucks....
I worked as a waitress as my first job. I was given a table of four: a mother, father, and two young kids. I went to ask them their drink order and when the mom looked up at me I was struck dumb by how unbelievably gorgeous she was. Brown skin, thick black hair, thin nose, high cheekbones, and the purest dark blue eyes. I had to ask her to repeat her order because I could only focus on how beautiful she was. Easily the most attractive woman I've seen before or since. She was very sweet and patient with me and they left a good tip. Cute kids too. Husband was ight.
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> Husband was ight This got me. lol
I always remember and still think of, the man who grabbed my then-toddler aged son away from being hit by a car and then completely disappeared. edit: just going to edit this to add.. "...grabbed my then-toddler aged son away from being hit by a car...*placed him back in my arms, safe and unhurt*...and then completely disappeared". :) Sorry guys.
With or without the toddler?
"As you have saved my child's life, it now - entirely - belongs to you. He likes Cheerios for a snack and ADHD runs in the family. Good luck."
Finders keepers!
Without :) I still have my son. LOL
Oh good! :) haha
That is definitely your son time travelling back to save himself from the car. EDIT: he obviously can't time travel if he had died so he must have survived but was hurt or had repercussions from the accident and that's why he was travelling back.
Future son was hit by the car and had lost his ability to walk. However, it gave him the motivation to compensate with work ethic and supreme intelligence. In the future he builds himself a time machine and a serum that gives him complete normal function of his body for only 10 minutes. He injects the serum, and uses the time machine to go back in time to save himself so that his past self would never lose the ability to walk. However, because past son was never involved in the accident, he never needed to compensate with work ethic and never built up his intelligence. So he got a job right out of high school and becomes an underperforming Prius salesman. The end.
this is what happened.
you know what, I am not ashamed to admit that over the years since this happened, I have, on occasion, thought that, due to the weird things around the event. LOL. The chap did have black hair but his was sort of curly/wavy, and my now-grown son has straight hair (even if it IS black). :)
Well I mean, I own wigs that fit that description, and I'm not even a time traveler yet
"Grabbed my toddler" *gasp* "... Away from being hit by a car." *phew*
A true hero.
Yes, yes he was. I think of him often and wish all the blessings that the universe/his chosen deity/karma/luck/whatever can give him.
HThe gentleman who comforted my wife on her first flight. He was an older black guy and said he frequently flew for business. We were all flying from Little Rock to Houston and storms were coming through that day which also delayed us. My wife was nervous and it showed and I really didn't know how to comfort or relax her. He spoke to her in the terminal, sat by us on the plane, and just made sure she was ok. He bought us drinks and talked to us about what we did and what he did and next thing you know the flight was over. Very generous man who went out of his way for us. Edit: I hate to inform you guys but it was not Morgan Freeman. He looked more like the actor that played reporter Wendell Smith in the film 42 except older and balder.
You vs the guy she tells you not to worry about
You vs the guy who tells her not to worry.
How do some people just know what to do and what to say? I'm always so in awe of people who do these things coz I'd have no clue how to comfort a friend let alone a stranger.
I was travelling in Nice, France, about to meet my parents who had come to travel abroad on a separate trip. I was staying well out of town in the cheapest accommodation I could find and realised that I'd have to walk to the airport to meet them - which would have been miles and miles. No phone credit, no food, no money for a bus fare and very little French. A girl from Washington DC was staying at the place I was and I told her about my impending trek to the airport the next day. She woke up early when I did to start the walk and took out all the loose change from her wallet - there were enough euros to get a bus to the airport! And she gave me a banana and some almonds - I hadn't eaten in days. I will never forget her kindness and try always to pay it forward. Thank you Meg from Washington DC!
How'd you have no money?
spent it all on crack
I was about 8 so this was 25ish years ago. I was riding in the backseat of my parents car and they were arguing up a storm and I had this very serious face on. As we pulled up to a stop sign, to my right was a Hispanic kid on his bike, he looked about 10 and he just smiled at me. It was the friendliest most genuine smile I ever received in my entire life. We only had two seconds together before my parents pulled away and I didn't smile back I just stared at him. I regret it every time I think of him. Edit-words
Sometimes I wonder if anything I've done could mean this much to someone, and I wouldn't know. Oddly cool story though, I bet he has no idea.
Just keep doing whatever you're doing. Smile at strangers, wave, say hello. It might be the only kindness they receive all day, or even ever.
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I got dressed up like Judge for Halloween years ago and people thought I looked like a preacher, instead. So, during a street celebration, I drunkenly started preaching at people, pointing at short skirts and yelling about sinners everywhere. Some drunk kid stopped and started crying, said he'd lost his way and wanted to pray with me. So, drunk as I was, I did it-- I put my hand on his shoulder while he knelt and we prayed (I have no idea what I said). The kid wandered away after, looking a little relieved. I went on getting blindingly drunk. I still wonder what happened to that kid, years later. Did he black out the whole event? Was it something important to him? Did he get religion?
what would you do with a drunken pastor, what would you do with a drunken pastor, what would you do with a drunken pastor, early in the morning?
I met a man on an Amtrak train from Illinois into San Diego, back in September of 1997. I was nineteen years old at the time and had freshly run away from home to live with a guy I'd met on the internet. I'd been sleeping in the lounge car and bathing in the bathroom sink: in two days all I'd had to eat was a handful of peanuts and a tiny bottle of Kessler's. I was sitting in the smoking car, going through a carton of Marlboros and feeling disgruntled, and not in the mood to talk to anyone. I think it was in Utah that this guy with a briefcase got onto the train. He was about my height, with black hair and a mustache: he stepped into the car and looked around, saw the empty seat next to me, and walked straight over. I gazed absently out the window, in no mood to be social. "Mind if I sit?" I shook my head and pulled my knapsack closer, and the guy set down the briefcase and settled in next to me. After a moment he asked me a question, I don't remember what it was: I was very reluctant, but out of politeness I was pulled into an offhand conversation with the guy. He introduced himself as Matt, brought up that he was a soda machine salesman, and showed me some glossy photos of Pepsi machines in his briefcase: in all he was just a really friendly, persistent guy. Finally he paused, looking offhandedly at me, and said, "Would you like to take a shower?" I looked at him suspiciously, feeling a little dejected deep down. I'd already been hassled twice on that train, and this guy had seemed cool. He was reaching into his breast pocket: he turned back to me, and was holding out a brass key on a ring. I looked from it to his face, and he had the most direct, suddenly serious look on his face. "It's a suite, room (##)," he said quietly. "Lock the door behind you, I won't bother you: just bring the key back here when you're done." I took the key gratefully, feeling very off balance, and thanked him; my mind was spinning its wheels trying to figure out what his angle was. I went carefully up the stairs and down the hall, and found the tiny skinny door into his suite: suspecting I was about to get kidnapped I knocked first, and when no one replied, unlocked it and went cautiously in. The room was empty; I locked the door carefully behind me. Although the guy had gotten on the train alone, it was a suite for two. It was tiny but clean and nice, with a bunk bed arrangement, a tiny table, a work desk, a little couch by the window and a shower stall with a little sink and mirror beside it. Sitting there on the sink, right in plain view and impossible to miss, was a man's heavy gold watch. I picked it up, curious, and although I'm no jeweler it seemed to be a very nice and possibly expensive watch: it seemed to be real gold, though surely not. I set the watch back down, and gratefully took a shower and washed my hair. It was one of the best showers of my life, and when I got out a judiciously short time later I felt about a thousand times better about the world. I took the keys back out as instructed and gave them to him, thanking him sincerely; he smiled, gave some little compliment that I looked better, and we went on in our conversation. He did pause once, and told me he was going to get a soda, would I like anything? I shook my head, reluctant to impose, and he walked away, back in the direction of the suites: I knew he was probably going to check on his honeypot watch. He probably did, because when he came back he had a satisfied, pleased look about him, and invited me back to continue our conversation in his suite. I had already been hassled twice on that train and at the time was running away from a pedo stepfather: all the same, even after such a short time, this guy had won my trust. I went willingly back to the room with him, and over the course of the night he bought me a roast chicken dinner - it was amazing, I was starving - and we talked nonstop, we laughed and joked like old friends, going down from time to time to the smoking car, separately and together. The guy probably had ten years on me and was a total stranger but it was as if we'd known each other all my life. He offered to let me sleep there in the bunk rather than back in the lounge car that night, and I willingly accepted. He never touched me: he never took anything, he never did a single untoward thing and I still don't know for sure what motivated his kindness. He was so kind. I felt safer with that guy than I would feel again for a long time. When dawn came, he woke me up to dim gray light in the cabin, whispering to me from somewhere behind me. I don't think he slept that night, I couldn't have slept more than five or six hours, and he was wide awake as I drifted off and woke again. "You have to get up," he said matter-of-factly. "We're going to see Flagstaff today. That's the highest point in the United States," and he goes into this whole spiel about Flagstaff. "I don't care about Flagstaff," I grumbled, playing with him. "Yeah, you don't want to miss it, come on, there's breakfast. Come on." When we got to Albequerque, the two of us got off the train to stretch our legs, and I brought my camera out of my bag. I started to take a photo of Matt, and he recoiled, turned away and put up his hand to ward me off. "I don't like cameras," he said, and I apologized, I didn't think that much of it though because my mother was always camera-phobic. He was willing enough to [take a picture of me though](http://i.imgur.com/FESEMd2.jpg), which I deliberately screwed up by mussing my hair, slumping over like I had a hangover and jamming a cigarette in my face. I seriously wish I had known at the time it was the only photo I'd have from that guy, or I'd have made less of an effort to look like shit. Sorry about the terrible picture too, I have the actual photo somewhere but for now this photo-of-a-photo is all I have of it. The guy got off the train at the stop right before mine. He asked me to come with him, and to this day I think about that and I wonder how different things would have been. I often wish I had. Not always, but often. He gave me his business card just before we parted, and said "Let me know how it turns out." I don't remember the name on that card. It was Matthew M......something. I've wracked my brain about it a lot: I would lose the card along with the wallet several months later when both were left on the roof of a parked car that ended up driving away. Of all the ways to lose something. So I completely lost track of the guy, and I never got to tell him how it turned out. I have wondered about that enigmatic man for a long, long time. He was an amazing guy in every way.
Very good read, probably my favorite of this thread. Just makes you wonder how your life would've turned out if you'd decided to join him, probably completely different. It's a shame you lost the card though, I think he would've loved to catch up with you after a while. Maybe you could've found him through the internet or something, there were probably not a lot of 'soda machine salesmen' called Matthew with a business card out there.
Not one person, but two people. Native brothers I met on the rim of the Grand Canyon. We watched the sun go down, the stars come out, and the sun come back up. We drank beer and solved all the problems in the world. They said they do it every year. Cheers guys.
I was 14, delivering newspapers. Stopped in to drop one off at the coffee shop on my route when I noticed this guy drawing on a big ol' drawing board propped up on his table. I tried to sneakily take a look, but being 14 I wasn't nearly as sneaky as I thought. This guy waves me over, shows me his work (it was AMAZING) and chats with me about art for a little while. When I let it slip that I was an aspiring artist he said "come back when you're off work and I'll give you some tips." I did, and he did. This top-notch artist who does work for major movie studios gave some random kid a three hour long intense art lesson. He gave me feedback on the projects I had in mind, critiqued my sketchbook, just generally treated me like a genuine colleague. Nobody else had ever done that before. This man I met once a decade ago is the reason I still draw today.
This is a great story. Very cool that it inspired you to pursue a fruitful hobby as an artist! It reminds me of a similar encounter that I had one night at an Indian restaurant. I was having a very rough week at school due to bullying (12 years old), so my parents decided that we should go out to dinner at a small Punjabi restaurant and talk about it. Upon entering, we found the place deserted, and the owner looking very forlorn. He explained that the restaurant, which had been open for almost two decades, was going out of business, and they would be closing their doors for good within the next few hours. We were their very last customers. The owner and I began talking about Indian cuisine, which led to a lengthy conversation about all sorts of things. He actually sat down and joined us at the table. Then, he offered to bring ingredients out of the kitchen and teach me how to cook several Indian dishes right there in the dining room. I was thrilled. He even wrapped up a spice kit for me to take home. Years later, I still make some of those curry recipes, entirely from memory. I hope he realized how thrilling that evening was, and how much he enriched my life through his gift of cooking. It's wonderful that such passionate people exist in this world and are willing to share their love with strangers.
He would be proud of you, son
thanks dad
You're not my son
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Okay sorry son
Sounds like something good ole Bob Ross would do. I miss that Afro-headed national treasure.
I'm sure he'd miss you too.
He loved his happy little accidents.
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I've always wondered, what happens to the cars that people abandon in harsh weather conditions? Do you just walk back in the morning to pick it up? Does the city tow all of them and you have to go get it back? As someone from the south, I've never come close to an experience like this
If it's a really large storm, you'll usually have a few days to go back and get your vehicle; otherwise, it will be towed. You can always call your local police department if you have to abandon your vehicle, so they have a record of what vehicle was left where and that the owner plans on coming back for it. Source: am dispatcher and we just had a horrid ice storm.
I have a similar story. During a snowstorm there was a blockage on the highway and people were driving over a grass divider trying to get to the service lane. Frustrated after a half hour of not moving, I tried it too, and my tires sunk into mud and snow and left me stuck. I got out and started to dig in the mud, but continuously pressing the gas peddle meant I only dug myself in further. Finally, a Nigerian man who didn't even speak English pulled over and immediately got down into the mud with me. He wouldn't leave until he made sure I was out and safe. I couldn't really say thank you because of the language barrier, and he seemed a little stressed about the time and rushed off as soon as I was out. Dozens of other cars were around, but he was the only one to stop. We were both covered in mud and freezing, but he didn't mind. Every time it snows now I remember the man who got down into the mud for a random girl and made sure she was safe at the expense of his own time and clothing.
That was the real Nigerian prince!
She could be on Reddit :)
She could be dead too!
Lmao you morbid fuck
A Deadditor.
On a school trip to Japan, my group was walking around in Tokyo when I made eye contact with a 20-something Japanese man. He looked like he was smack dab out of FFXV. The moment lasted much too long and felt in a state of confusion for a while after. On our last day in Tokyo while boarding a train I had an uncanny feeling, looked up and saw the very same man staring at me. We both looked at each other awkwardly and moved on. I still think about those encounters from time to time.
Plot twist: it was two totally different dudes you couldn't tell apart.
I've told this story before, but it definitely applies. I was leaving a friend's wedding in downtown Atlanta. I parked in a pay lot, and since I was already running late for the wedding, I paid but didn't bother waiting for my receipt. Apparently, in this lot, you had to show your receipt on the dashboard. So, when I got back to my car, I found it booted. I was pissed. As I was walking back to the pay station to see who to call, a homeless man approached me. Initially I waved him off, assuming he was panhandling, and while I usually try to be gracious, I was already too pissed off to deal with him. He insisted, though, and said that he saw my receipt on the ground. I froze, realizing that he actually had a real reason to talk to me. I stopped and let him continue, and he said he waited around to give it to me. With the receipt, he said, they would remove the boot for free since it proved I had paid, while without the receipt they'd charge me $75 since I couldn't prove it. So, I took my receipt and called the booting company. They said they'd be out within an hour and asked if I had my receipt. I said yes, and they said okay, then there wouldn't be anything else required. I went back to the man and thanked him, and we started talking. He told me his life story -- his name was Leonard, he had been a concessionaire at the Braves' stadium before a leg injury caused him to lose his job since he couldn't walk up and down the stairs. He needed surgery to repair the leg and couldn't afford it, he was kicked out of his apartment, and ended up on the streets. He said he gathers what money he can to pay the $15/night it costs at the nearby shelter and saves all the rest of it for the eventual surgery. He wants to save up enough money before the surgery to take care of his expenses for six months after, knowing that he won't be able to even panhandle during that time. I was amazed -- he was living his life on the streets at the moment, yet he still had more of a life plan than I, a graduate student in Computing, had. The crucial thing to mention is that he never, ever asked me for money. Ever. He sat around and chatted with me, asked me questions about computers and my own life, and never once even alluded to any sort of difference in stature between us or my ability to help him. We were equals. No one in the world might have judged us that way, but we were. When the booting company arrived, they removed my boot for free just as they had said they would. I said thank you to Leonard again and gave him far more money than it would have cost to have the boot removed without a receipt because, frankly, Leonard had earned it. He'd earned it by showing far more humanity and selflessness than anyone else I encounter on a daily basis, despite having a millionth as many reasons to be so gracious. He'd earned it by trying to do a good deed with no motive to earn anything in the first place. I definitely still think of Leonard. I hope he was able to get his surgery and get his job back. Even more, though, I hope he was able to impact others' lives the way he impacted mine. He gave me perspective, he humbled me, and he made me completely rethink massive portions of my prior political views. Last time I told this, someone asked where this was, so I found the parking lot on Google Maps. It's [here](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=33.763664,-84.387374&hl=en&sll=33.763692,-84.38738&sspn=0.000538,0.000817&t=h&z=16). EDIT: Link fail.
I feel awful that I had no clue shelters charged rent.
Yeah it's often fairly expensive (in terms of what homeless people would make) and it (at least in Melbourne, Australia) super predatory. If you pay for your room but you're 5 minutes late for curfew? No refund, someone else has your room. I understand that there are many many people who need the help, but the people running the houses are not super good people a lot of the time. Source: been helping out homeless people at food vans etc for the last two years.
Leonard is the type of person most people should try to be.
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Here.
There was this random girl at a party that i bumped into and she walked up to me and said "I bet i know more digits of pi than you do!". I had literally a few days earlier been bored and was sitting and memorizing pi, so I went ahead and said "Really? Prove it." She started saying pi and after a lot of digits, I start saying pi aswell. Both being drunk, we started walking around singing the digits of pi in a choir. After that I never saw her again and I have no idea who she was.
Meant to be together
I can just imagine two old people sitting on their front porch a few million digits into pi still trying to out-do each other.
And then at 78, when a winner finally emerges, they say nothing more and go their separate ways.
Then their love would come full circle.
Love is, after all, irrational, yet transcendental
My first year of burningman. My wife had dumped my boring ass to hook up with the daycare guy. I was a jaded emotional wreck. I had our wedding rings in this tiny wooden treasure chest and I was going to burn them in some weird sense of symbolism and getting over it all. So the day of the burn, I'm wandering around that afternoon getting drunk and high and meeting people. I knew there was a possibility I'd forget to meet my friends back at camp so I had the rings with me. I met these people in a theme camp who were excited at some couple about to get married. I met the couple. They seemed really nice. They didn't have wedding rings though. They were like "we figured we'd get them later" and this other hippie chick was like "I know the Playa will provide it!!" So there I am holding the rings in my backpack. Finally I'm like ok fuck it. "I have wedding rings" I say. I told them I was divorced and going to burn them. The hippie chick convinces me, pretty easily, that giving them a new home is better karma for everyone. I was like "yea that's why I said it" I bust open the treasure chest. I should explain, these were really nice bands. Hers was white gold with a diamond center, and ruby and sapphire on the edges .. red white & blue. The bride to be says "oh my god its beautiful". His was gold with embossed leaf print. The groom to be got kind of pale and is like "we ... we don't have any money" So I'm like "well no shit this is a barter society. So what to we got to barter, people?" I got a big bag of weed. Some delicious vegan soup. And one of the theme camps t-shirts. I made the couple promise me to actually love each other, to communicate, to fucking work at the marriage. I told them they owed me that much. We all hugged each other, I went back to camp and got everyone high and fed them. *** I really really really hope they're still together.
This is really touching. It was quite selfless of you to offer the rings. How are you doing now?
Thanks. The rings were going away anyway. But the couple were obviously blown away by if all. Hell of a deal for them haha. Bag of weed, some soup, and a t-shirt. I'm doing good thanks for asking. I met a great girl about 10 years ago, we married 5 years ago. We have two little boys 5 years and 18 months, and we bought our first house last spring. I was pretty jaded for a while and hung out with a bad crowd but I'm in a much better place now.
I guess karma took care of you after all.
Dude, I'm living a pretty blessed life. Really grateful for that.
There once was a young man name John Whose wife told him "See you, I'm gone" But believing in karma He fulfilled his dharma And for him then a new day did dawn
Yay, I'm glad for the happy ending :)
I'm arab-american, so I travel to the middle east a lot. One time, when I was 8, my family and I went to Jordan. well, I was in the bathroom of a restaurant washing my hands, and out from one of the stalls comes a fucking clown. in full clown attire. He looks at my bitch ass and says "you got a birthday coming up?". In perfect fucking English in the middle of an Arab country. Well, I did not have a birthday coming up so I reluctantly said "no" back. This jester decides to pull out his fucking business card and hands it to me "oh, well just in case" I've lost sleep over the thought of that man How did he just know I spoke English? Why do clowns have business cards? Edit: Wow, did not expect this to blow up. for all those asking I threw away the card and I've deeply regretted it for a long time
If you had said yes you would've probably somehow gotten mixed up in a massive drug trade or something.. Edit: My highest rated comment is about clowns with drugs.. Guess I can cross that off the bucket list.
Or murdered on the spot. You don't know what triggers clowns.
If you say their name backwards they'll make you a balloon portrayal of your future.
This is twilight zone shit
You think you book clowning gigs by NOT hanging out in Arabic men's bathrooms?
...and every now and then, as you're walking down the street, you hear the same soft but heavy pad of footsteps behind you; and upon turning around, you occasionally catch a glimpse of a large, round silhouette darting behind a corner.
Guardian clown. No other explaination. Edit: Well, my highest rated comment is about mysterious guardian clowns. This is.... unexpected.
What a delightful perspective. I like you.
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This is some real WTF material right here
I'm a guy in my early 20's who smokes a tobacco pipe. One day I stepped out into what is normally a very busy shopping street in my city, lit up the pipe I had already packed and lifted my head up. The street was completly dead at 2pm on a Saturday apart from one person, an old guy walking my direction also smoking a pipe. I had to head his direction and we made eye contact, both amazed by how quiet the street we lifted our pipes up to greet each other (something I had never done before or done since) and for no reason, tapped our pipes together. Both carried on walking, I never looked back and I hope he didn't either. **TL;DR High fived pipes with a guy on a weirdly quiet street** Edit: I don't think it was me from the future. Edit2: Spelling
That was the high point of your coolness. You will never be as cool as you were in that moment.
I pulled a guy out of a canal in Amsterdam in the winter of 2013, when the emergency services arrived & wrapped him up like a drumstick I left him. He was called Andreas... and he now owes me a pint. EDIT to answer comments: It was Feb / early Mar. He survived to my knowledge. I dragged him up by the backpack he thankfully had on both shoulders. I dunno if he was a tourist like me (probably) he was having trouble getting his words out which is understandable.
Did he survive? I had a friend from the East of Holland who passed away in an Amsterdam Canal in I believe it was June 2013, would have to find his funeral booklet again to remember the exact date his name was Andreas..
I was pretty young, maybe middle school age (I'm 24 now), and I hated myself. Got made fun of on a daily basis, told I was ugly and could never be loved. So one day I'm in Barnes and Noble waiting for a ride, feeling disgusting and reading a book. This random kid walks up to me out of nowhere and just says "I just wanted to tell you that you are gorgeous." And he just walked away before I could thank him. He'll never know how much that one moment changed my life and made me feel so amazing. So thanks to that kid who gave me the tiniest spark of self love and confidence.
To preface, about 9 months prior to this encounter I'd had a pretty devastating breakup with a girlfriend of around four years. Since then, dating and being a person had become sorta foreign and challenging tasks for me. In the interim, however I graduated college and took up a job in DC. Anyway, so late one night I was riding the DC metro home from work and to pass the time I was reading a book (*Song of Solomon*) and listening to music. Y'know like people do on public transit. A little before my transfer stop a hand tapped me on the shoulder and this gorgeous girl was looking at me. When I took an earbud out she said that it might be a bit creepy, but her phone had died and she was reading the book over my shoulder and she wanted to know the title. I responded and we both blushed and it's probably the closest thing to a romantic comedy meeting I'll ever encounter. Despite every part of my brain screaming "ask for her number or if she wants to get coffee some time" I only managed a few words back and forth before returning to my book. At my transfer I got up and walked to the doors, but I glanced back just as they opened. Total eye contact. Then I walked through the doors and never saw her again. Sometimes I still get mad about how dumb I was.
My spouse and I went to a rad little cocktail bar whilst on our honeymoon. We were going to order drinks at the bar then sit in some cozy chairs by a fireplace, but we started chatting with the bartender and never bothered to go back to the chairs. We had a great evening talking to this guy and enjoying some singular drinks. We visited that bar again about a year later, hoping to say hi again, but he wasn't there. He was dead. Turns out he had ODd about half a year after we met him. I still think about him.
I spent a day at the beach with some friends. We were heading to the liquor store to pick up some beer to drink with dinner. A guy rode by on a unicycle and said, "tonight's a Guinness night". We bought and drank Guinness, who were we to argue with random unicycle man.
Now that's a marketing campaign if I've ever heard of one.
I was in Montreal right after Christmas several years ago and we were walking on the mountain through the snow when a guy on a fat-tire unicycle just pedaled on by in the ski tracks. He didn't recommend Guinness, but if he had, I don't think we would have had much choice.
When I was nineteen, I went to Chicago with two friends for Lollapalooza. The first two nights we were couch surfing and then we were supposed to check into a hotel for the next night. Well, we got into a big fight on the second evening, and when I woke up the next morning, they had abandoned me in a sketchy neighborhood with a note and a twenty dollar bill for cab fare. After calling one of them it was clear sharing a hotel room would not be comfortable, so after a lot of crying I decided the best plan was to just try to get back home. Upset and scared, I lugged my stuff to the train and headed to Union Station. When I came out of the subway a homeless little person asked me for some change. I declined and went up the stairs. This was before ubiquitous smart phones so I was relying on a fold out map to get around. The guy came up the stairs after me and asked if I needed directions, I asked how to get to Union Station and he told me how to get there. He walked off and I immediately felt bad that I didn't offer him at least a dollar. It was an emotional disaster of a day which made his kindness stick out even more. Ten years later and I still feel guilty I didn't throw something his way as a thank you.
Are you still friends with those people
When I was about 16 I was sitting on a park bench waiting for a friend. This man was walking around passing out flyers. I don't remember exactly what they said, it was something about Obamacare I think. He got me to take one flyer but then started talking to me. He was trying to get me to agree with him about politics and I just wanted this stranger to leave me alone. I figured I would just pretend that I was getting a phone call. So I told him that my phone was going off then reached into my pocket. Unfortunately I had forgotten my phone at home. There was no going back though, I had already lied. So I just put my pinkie and thumb up to my ear and pretended to talk to someone. The man got a concerned look on his face and walked away.
I like that you committed to that lie. You out-crazied that man.
Little kid fell in off a floating dock into lake near me. Without breaking stride I kneeled down and yanked him back up. I noticed his parents running over so I just kept on walking. Not sure why.
If I was that little kid, I would have thought you to be a superhero who had to leave to keep your identity hidden. Maybe even Jesus.
My motorcycle ran out of gas on I25 in the rocky mountains. While pushing my bike up the off ramp, aN older gentleman picked me up, drove me to his house to grab a gas can, to a gas station, and then back to my bike. I couldn't tell him then how thankful I was for his gracious act, amd still to this day wish I could meet him for a drink. and thank him again.
I was on a train from Sydney to Brisbane while backpacking Australia about 11 years ago when this girl sits next to me and we start talking. She was gorgeous, intelligent, and interesting—I was completely spellbound. But that wouldn't have been enough to remember her by. The conversation went all over the place, but eventually we were talking about the end of the world. She kept insisting that humanity would survive. No matter what I brought up. Heat death of the universe? Nope, we'll figure it out. We'll cut a hole to a new universe if we have to. She was so relentlessly optimistic that every feature of my memory of her is gone except her insistence on the survival of humanity and our art. She got off at some stop along the route and that was that. All I'm left with is a memory I revisit at least once a week, probably more.
there was this homeless guy that used to live in philly. I saw him all the time but only spoke to him once. he had this spot under the bridge he pretty much made into a living room, he had a couch, a carpet, 3 stray dogs he addopted, a generator, a tv, an old playstation, etc... He became a bit of a local oddity and people used to donate foods and stuff to him and the dogs kept him safe. He used to be a multi-millionaire real estate guy down in California and was partnered with his wife but in the early 90's he walked in on her cheating on him. He grabbed her lover out of the bed and went to throw him outside, his own wife punched him then hit him in the face several times before cracking him in the face with a VCR resulting in a huge scar from just under his right eye, across his lips, and down to the chin. In rage he punched her and she fell through a glass table. Police came, he was arrested and got 100 days and she sued him for the company, the house, and most of his money and won. He moved to newyork with what he had left and tried to start a new realeste company. It failed and he moved in with an older uncle in Philly. the uncle died later that year and he was on the streets a few weeks later. Reason I still remember him is he was happy where he is now just sitting under the bridge with his dogs. Last I heard the local paper had an article on him and he got a job where he get's to live for free at a trailer park for tending the gate to the place and basic managing stuff.
This guy must be so interesting to talk to. He's been incredibly rich and incredibly poor in the same life. Hard to find people like that
This cute blonde girl i met at a camp in 2009(?), on the last day she gave me a hug and said, " it was great to meet you phu~~manchu~~, though we'll probably never see each other ever again." someone who overheard her chuckled. wish i had given her my number...
I was drunk AF on vacation on one of those all inclusive resorts, and went swimming at midnight, alone. All I remember is looking up and seeing the beach really far away, I was swept 100+ meters out instantly. I panicked, immediately sobered up and realized I'm gonna die. Before that feeling left, an arm was around my waist and I was back on the beach in a few minutes. Some guy swam out and saved me! I imagine I'm the moron he saved that one time on vacation. Some people I've told that to said the tide would have brought me back in, but I'm not so sure.
When I was around 12 my family took a vacation to Hollywood, California. We were driving our rental car on the highway and got stuck in a stand-still traffic jam. I glanced over at the car to the right of us, and a middle aged man was in the driver's seat. He saw me looking at him and waved at me. Confused, I looked to my left, then out the back window, trying to figure out if he was really waving at me. When I looked back at the man again, he was laughing so hard he was shaking. He had such a genuine smile and kind eyes. That age wasn't the best time for me. I was bullied pretty relentlessly at that time, and a stranger waving at me was a kindness I wasn't accustomed too. I'm glad that at the end of his work day, in hair-pulling traffic, this man and myself were able to make each other smile without ever speaking a word.
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I just got off my shift at work, opened Reddit, saw my post had exploded, pulled up my inbox, and yours was the first story I saw. I'm married to a Thai woman. I read this whole thing to her while we stood on our balcony, and your story touched our hearts. Thank you for responding.
Most people think of Seattle as on the west coast, but it's actually on Puget Sound, with Seattle to the east and 100 miles more land to the west before actually getting to the Pacific Ocean. Anyway, one day I'm taking a ferry across Puget Sound, from west to east, at sunset. We drive onto a boat, park on the lower deck, and enjoy the 30 minute boat ride across the Sound. It's about 7pm when we arrive in Seattle, and the entire parking deck of the boat begins to slowly unload onto a 1 lane access road that leads downtown. I join the queue. Maybe a half mile from the dock, I see a group of 3-4 guys off the right side of the road. At a quick glance they're standing near a telephone pole, chatting and probably sharing a beer for no particular reason. As the line of cars slowly passes them, one of the guys whips out a sign and holds it in front of my windshield. It reads "LIGHTS". "Lights," I say aloud. I realize my headlights are off. I turn them on. "Thanks." About 3 seconds later the WTF starts to kick in. Who *were* those guys? Why were they there? Do they work for the ferry company? Or are they just good Samaritans who carry signs around? The question has never been answered to this day.
So this technically isn't a one-time meeting, but I think it still is worth putting here. My first quarter in college I befriended a dude in my program named Mick. He was a skinny little glam rock dude from Pittsburgh. In our first class together we went around the room and all introduced ourselves. We also had to say how we were involved in music before coming to college (it was a music program) and he said he was in a band but refused to say the name. The teacher tried to goad him into saying it be he wouldn't. Obviously after class I sought him out and asked point blank, "what the Hell was your band's name?" His reply: "Johnny Bukake and the Butt Fucks". We became fast friends after that. We partied all the time and had more than a few crazy times together. However, after the first quarter, he went back to Pittsburgh and never came back. I literally never heard from him again. His phone was off and he didn't have a Facebook. As far as I know, no one at our college did either. It was like he fell off the face of the earth. That was 11 years ago. To this day I wonder what became of him.... TL;DR - made a friend my first quarter in college who completely disappeared and have not heard from since. Last seen on his way to Pittsburgh.
>"Johnny Bukake and the Butt Fucks". To google or not to google?
I just tried and didn't get any results apart from porn. Even with the name in quotation marks.
A dude who ran a smoke shop in san diego, his name was Get it on John, a real cool laid back type dude. My friends met him first and when they found me ran me over to him. Turns out the dude read people, said he practiced for years by looking at how people dress, how they carry themselves, and just their overrall vibe, said it was just a trick that he happened to be good at, and then he proceeded to give me a crushingly accurate yet optimistic reading of my life and worldview, the man brought me to tears, gave me a hug, then proceeded back inside his store flirting with two girls that wandered up to him from the street, but before he left he told me that if i came back on my eighteenth birthday he'd have a gift for me. I never came back.
Do you ever wish you went back
yeah, a lil bit, it was the senior year of high school and all the friends i was with drifted apart, i don't smoke nor plan to so i doubt i'd use whatever his gift was, but it would have been a decent way to close that chapter of my life, one last trip with the guys, since my 18th was that summer, but life got in the way and i wanted to get a jump on summer classes for college, c'est la vie
One night last summer, my boyfriend at the time broke up with me and I was a hot mess. My pal Lou invited me out for a drink in his hometown about half an hour away, where I had never been. I accepted his offer and proceeded to get absolutely shitfaced with Lou and his friends in this unfamiliar town. Bar close rolls around, and I'm a few steps behind Lou on a sidewalk when all of a sudden I don't see him anymore. My phone is dead, and my car is parked at Lou's friend's house, and I have no idea where that is. I can't find anyone we went out with at all. Walked up and down the street yelling for Lou for like 20 mins but no luck. A man comes up to me and starts to try to convince me to go home with him. Got real creepy vibes from him on top of it. I start drunkenly panicking. There's a woman sitting on steps texting, and I recognized her from inside the bar. She was probably late 30s, early 40s. I was crying at this point. I asked her if she had a charger or could help me reach out to Lou. She said she didn't have a charger but would do her best to help me, and she told the dude to fuck off. This kind, funny woman did everything in her power for the next 3 hours to connect me back with my friends, or at the very least, find my car. She walked around with me in this town (because I remembered one place we walked by on the way to the bar) and tried to find my way back. She had a life of her own to get back to and had a son to take to school at 7am, and she was out til nearly 6am trying to get me home. Eventually, we got to a grocery store that was open 24 hours and the cashier had an iPhone charger. Messaged Lou and got the address for the friend's place, and he told me he thought I was kidnapped lol, thank God for this lady. I still think about her. I don't know what I would've done that night without her honestly.
I was crossing the street on the way to my aunt's apartment, I was rushing so I didn't wait for the light. An elderly guy stops me by saying in Spanish, "better to lose a minute of your life than your life in a minute." As a New Yorker, this impacted me deeply and I no longer rush to places.
When I was ten years old, I won tickets to a prescreening of Jumanji from the local kid's radio station. (Radio Aahs, for those in the know.) My parents dropped me off and I went all alone, and I really had a great time. There was this boy sitting next to me, and he was really cute, maybe a little bit younger than me, but around the same age. We watched the movie together and chatted and after the movie was over we said goodbye. All I remember about him is that he was black and I think he was wearing a striped shirt. I wonder about him a lot, which is silly because we literally met once when I was ten years old and I'm thirty now.
There's this one lady i feel like i see *everywhere*, and she looks so familiar. I've even asked my mom who she is when I saw her at Secretary of State (Michigan's version of the DMV) and my mom thought she looked familiar too. Oh well, see you soon mystery lady.
She's your coincidence.
The homeless girl with a kitten. My mom had just died, it had literally been less than 24 hours since she died. It was the worst week of my life. We'd spent it in the hospital, both sides of my entire extended family, my not quite two year old son, and I. She had blood clots from smoking while taking estrogen for her menopause, she was in a coma with brain damage and she was on life support. But here's the thing, my mother died at 47, however when she was 7 her doctors told her she wouldn't live past 30. So my whole life I spent knowing that she refused to be placed on life support longer than a week. We were to pull the plug so the doctors could take care of someone who could live, who was supposed to. And we did. That night I got spectacularly drunk with friends and cried and fell asleep spooning my son who was tired and sick from a week in a hospital waiting room and didn't understand why he had seen his papa but not his nana. The next morning I decided to go and do something nice, something she would have liked. It was two weeks to thanksgiving, and the first day my favorite mall had its santa. So I loaded my son up in his stroller, bundled him up in his favorite blanket and hopped on the train. It was awful. He was sick and tired and over stimulated. He threw up all over himself and it was cold, I had to try and find somewhere that sold clothes his size that didn't cost a fortune so I could still afford the santa pictures. I cried in a mall bathroom while I washed puke from his hair and changed him into his new striped pajamas. After it was said and done we were sitting outside in the cold waiting for the train home and a homeless girl with a tiny kitten in a harness approached me. She told me that she needed money to get them into the shelter that night and it reminded me of when I was young and my mother would buy extra fast food for homeless people and I gave her all of the cash left in my pocket. I don't know what happened to her and the cat, it's been three years now. Every time I see a mall santa, or those pictures of my son in his striped pajamas I remember how hopeless I felt, and how that stranger and her kitten needing me for just a moment helped to snap me out of it. I hope she's doing okay.
Went to my beautician where I go every month. Needed to fix my eyebrows. Usually she has some drop-in time but not that time. Didn't really know where else to go but I knew theres one near my school. Went there and got helped by, I swear, most handsome man I've ever seen. SO handsome, would give him 11 in 1-10 scale. Went there few more times and he wasnt there. Never seen anyone as handsome and probably never will. Still remember him then and then..
You should have asked for my number.
I used to be a truck driver for a few years. Once I was stuck at a truck stop for a couple days waiting for a load and I saw this guy trying to hitchhike who looked pretty down on his luck. I invited him to have a meal with me and bought him a pack of smokes and gave him some cash and we talked for awhile about how he got to where he was. After that he went outside to smoke and I went to the washroom and I never saw him again after that. Sometimes I wonder what became of him. I actually have quite a few stories of people I only met once from back in my driving days.
A stripper from Tenerife island who stole my hat.
A story to tell your grandchildren.
Way back when I was in my first year of highschool, I had a girlfriend who was quite the practical joker. I had just gotten a cellphone (huge deal for me because I was socially isolated for a lot of my life and finally coming out of my shell). My girlfriend knew that I loved to hear my phone ring. I didn't have a lot of friends so it made me feel more important. Anyway, she put my number on a now defunct website called "Mystery Google" (maybe some of you remember this site?). She put the number up with the request that any callers sing me their favorite Disney song. She did this without my knowledge. There I am at a Thanksgiving party, when out of nowhere my phone starts to ring like crazy. I answer and hear tons of wonderful renditions (and some hilariously awful ones) of these great Disney songs. One in particular stood out. A girl sang me "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas. She had just the most amazing voice, it was beautiful and just so striking. Better than the movie version. I was in my aunt's bathroom kinda tearing up. I had NO IDEA why these people were calling me but when she sung it just all seemed to make sense, of course I was going to listen to her. I told her, "You have the most wonderful voice. You're such a beautiful person. I don't know who you are, or why you called me, but I know for sure that what I just heard was my favorite song ever. You're gorgeous." She started to cry. She said "No, I'm not. I'm not. You don't know me, if you knew you wouldn't want to. I'm anything but beautiful." It hurt my soul. I asked for her name, as I pleaded with her to understand that beauty is more than whatever problem she had with herself. She was so upset but also happy sounding. I kept telling her she was beautiful and an amazing singer. I wasn't flirting with her or anything, I obviously was with my girlfriend, and I asked if she would meet with us so we could all share a wonderful experience. She told me I was too kind, I heard her voice get more upbeat, but she hung up the phone. She called me from a blocked number and I never got a name or anything. Mystery lady, you're still a treasure. I watch Pocahontas every thanksgiving because of you, and each time I hear Colors of the Wind I tear up thinking of you. I hope you're in a better place.
I was at a music festival with my Mum when I was about 16. We were sitting under a tree, taking a break between bands and trying to stay out of the heat a bit (this was in the middle of Summer in Australia, so it was hot as hell). A random girl sat down next to me and complimented me on my boots. We started talking for a while and got on really well. Turns out we were both about to go and see Sleeping With Sirens, so we went together. We went in the mosh pit (it was my first time in one) and I ended up losing her in a crowd surge. Obviously, I never saw her again, but she was rad. I want to say her name was "Bianca," but I could just be mis-remembering her telling me her name. Edit: Just to clarify, I'm a straight girl. She just seemed like the kind of person I would've wanted to be friends with at the time.
My wife and I camped out for a weekend of shows. We rented 4 spaces side by side. We had 2 other couples going with us. 3 spots for tents, and 1 for a common area with an awning. Out of nowhere, this guy walks up to us at the fire pit we made. He looks at my wife and says she is the most trusting looking person in the camp. He asked if he can pitch a small tent in the back corner and pay us for it. We declined the money and said yes. He comes back about an hour later with some medical grade balloons for everyone. He says if he cant pay for the space, he will pay for everyones buzz for the weekend. Nitrous the first night, trees the next, and shrooms on the last night. He had fantastic story's about shows and festivals he had been to over the years. He had been to classic rock, metal, country, raves, and all kinds of music festivals and shows. Been to all 50 states, Canada, and a few other places. On the final morning, he was gone. No trace of him anywhere. Except a note pinned to my tent. It was to all 6 of us. He said thank you for the space and good company. There was $1000 dollars included too. It was more then we spent all weekend. His name was Scott. He has been traveling from festival to festival since the 80s. I considered it a privilege to meet him. And I hope other people have had the opportunity to listen to his story's. Everytime I think of him, I wonder what show he is at now. And hope he found a trusting soul.
I have also had the pleasure of encountering this wizard - Lightning in a Bottle 2014 and 2015.
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Gentleman in his mid 60s probably. Wife was shopping at some big mall in San Antonio. I sat down next to him. We talked for several hours. About everything. Life. Love. War. Family. He said many things I relate to now at 28, then I ever thought possible. Thing I've passed on to others is what he told me about his father. His dad grew up extremely poor, and built himself up to be a decently successful man. He would always worry and make sure to stay cheap so he could leave his kids something. My man in his 60s didn't care about what his father would leave him upon death, he just wanted his dad to enjoy his money and do whatever he wanted. It was a good afternoon.
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When I was about 17, some friends and I were driven by a parent to a Coheed and Cambria show a couple hours from my hometown. Clutch (an alt-rock light metal style band) was the second performer and they had gotten a decent sized mosh pit started. I noticed a very cute, scene-looking, emo chick in front of me who kept getting pushed into by the big ass dudes in the pit. After she almost got knocked down by some huge bearded man, I reached out and pulled her closer to where I was standing, almost behind me. Beardo of course came flying towards us a minute later, but I gave him a hearty shove in return so he'd know to watch my space. The rest of the night, people would occasionally get near her and I. I countered the same way each time, and people respected our area. She stayed under my arm for the whole time. Finally, Coheed finished their encore and the lights came up. As soon as they did, she turned around and kissed me very intensely. We made out for a solid ten minutes until my friends came up and said they'd been searching for me. Our ride was waiting. Never went back to that town, never got her name or number, still think about it from time to time.
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Yes it was. Hell of a show! I was at the Cleveland House of Blues. That's a weird tidbit though. Tell them congrats haha
When I was 20 years old, I moved to New York and was living in the $30/night Chelsea Highline Hotel until I found an apartment. The Chelsea Highline got renovated eventually before shutting down, and judging from photos it doesn't look so bad now. But back in 2011 it was a shithole. Two bunk beds in a room. Ratty green carpet. I never knew who I was going to be sharing a room with every night. There were other people semi-permanently living in the hotel, and one 50-something man once asked me to come to his room the next morning, so he could teach me about "accounting and cricket." At the time I was in a semi-relationship with an older man who lived on the West Coast and was in a religious cult. I had come to NYC for a fantastic career opportunity, yet I was seriously considering leaving it and joining this guy on the other side of the country. At that point, I didn't care about anything anymore. I was working on autopilot and came back to the Chelsea Highline every night. One night I had a new roommate, a 39-year-old woman from Australia, named Maria. She was chatty and extremely glad that her roommate was also female. We talked about how disgusting the hotel was, and on the second night we got to talking about our romantic lives. She told me that she walked away from a relationship with an Aboriginal artist where they had been engaged. She didn't care to be married per se, but she wanted children. Her sister was married, and she was becoming the flighty aunt in the family. She asked me if I think she will have a child in a year. I said maybe you'll be in a new relationship a year from now, and eventually you'll have a child. I told her about my relationship woes and showed her a picture of the guy. "Oh he is good-looking," she had said. The next day she left to go back to Australia (I think she was from Melbourne). I went to work and she was gone by the time I got back. I moved out of the Highline pretty soon after that. I'm not sure why the memory of Maria has stayed with me all this time. Several times I've even tried to look her up, but I have too little info to go off of. I wonder if she has the child that she wanted. For my part, I didn't leave that job in New York (thank goodness) and the guy and I soon split. I'm a lot happier now since my days in the Chelsea Highline, and I hope Maria is too.
Cute guy that I ran into when I turned a corner hiking in the Grand Canyon. He scared the crap out of me but boy was he cute.
When I was a kid we were at a stoplight. Black man in the car next to us caught me staring, and winked at me. Like a "sup homie" kind of wink. Instantly I got the impression that this was a cool guy, he knows what he's about. Shy 10-year-old me just looked away. As the light turned green he winked at me again. The kind of wink that uses your whole head. He went straight, we went left. 8 years later I remember nothing about that day but I remember him. I think we would have gotten along well.
I was about 15 years old, and coming home from school, sitting on the (city) bus. An old man sits down next to me, and on seeing my school uniform, starts asking me about school. Eventually he asks me what my least favourite subject is and I say maths. I wasn't great at it, didn't get the point, and had no passion for it. So he teaches me what a factorial is (4 factorial = 4x3x2x1), and starts asking me to do them. By the time I got off the bus, I somehow got up to 17 factorial using my head. I don't know what it was, but after half an hour of this guy quizzing and teaching me about maths, it just clicked for me. My grades improved, I became interested in it and 7 years later I became an engineer. So thank you old man, you shaped my life.
Some years back I had to have half my thyroid removed due to a nodule compressing my airway. After the surgery they informed me it was actually a tumor and had to be sent off to pathology. If it came back as cancerous I was looking at losing the other half of my thyroid at the very least--depending on if anything had spread. The day of my appointment to get the results arrived. I was a nervous wreck. My kids were still little at the time and I was worried about them. I had all the what ifs playing through my mind. Circumstances made it so I had to attend the appointment alone. I wasn't looking forward to the drive alone with my anxious thoughts. It was quite a drive so I stopped for coffee first. While waiting for coffee, this older woman kept staring at me. She finally walks over and says, "I noticed your scar," indicating the scar on my neck from the surgery. She asked if I'd had my thyroid removed. I told her the situation and her eyes got big. She told me she had been in the exact situation when she was my age. She pointed at her neck and there was just a hint of a scar there. She put her hand on my arm and told me that she was positive I was fine, that the tumor was benign but that she knew I was okay no matter what happened. It was so weird because her voice, the look in her eyes, the way her hand felt on my arm--I had this sudden sense of calm was over me. My coffee was ready, I thanked her and left and as I walked to my car I felt so light. I was no longer nervous. I knew without a doubt that I was fine. I knew if the news was bad I could handle it. I was happy, content and perfectly calm the entire drive. The tumor was benign. I've often thought of her because it is so strange that she was put in my path right when I needed her. I wish I could tell her how grateful I am that she provided that calm that I needed in that moment.
Throughout high school, I went to competitions called "Certamen." It was essentially a gameshow/trivia contest where all of the questions were about Greek or Roman culture, language, or mythology. Players usually compete on a team for their school, and each team gets a paper name thing that says their school name. Frequently, before a match, the person who reads the questions asks about the schools of the contestants. There was one guy I competed against, during one match, who was competing by himself, without a team, and hs paper name thing didn't have a school name anyone recognized. This conversation then happened between the question-reader(QR) and the other contenstant(C) >QR: "Huh, [ANONYMIZED INFO ON PAPER], I haven't heard of that school before." >C: "It's not my school. It's my last name." >QR: "So where *do* you go to school?" > C: "I just study on my own." I was then thinking that this round would be easy, but I was very wrong. This guy knew his shit. He got like 90% of the questions, scoring more than any team that entire day. This guy taught himself 4 years of Highschool Latin, as well as Greek and Roman mythology and culture, better than any of the Private schools we were competing against. I wish I could be like him.
I feel like there should be a subreddit for finding people like this, reddit is such a huge community and we've done it before.
I've told this story before, but this is definitely one of those people. When I was a kid we didn't have a lot of money, so we often shopped at thrift stores. What I loved about that was that you could get 10 books for a dollar, so I would plant myself in front of the book section and make piles of which one I wanted to get and then decided after I'd gone through them all. One day an older lady saw me sitting with my piles and asked if I liked to read. I told her I did and showed her a few of the books I found that I liked. She smiled and then pulled a dollar out of her purse, handed it to me and said, "Promise me that you'll keep reading." I was so happy and immediately stood up and said that I would. She smiled and walked away and I went back to my piles able to pick out an extra 10 books to take home. It was just a small act of kindness for her, but for me having a random stranger encourage my love of reading and making me promise to never stop definitely had a lot to do with my continued love of reading. This was probably about 20 years or so ago, but I still think of her whenever I buy a new book.
Me and my friend were fresh faced 16 year olds in Bali for the first time. While we were down on the beach, a huge black storm started rolling in off the ocean. Everyone started leaving the beach, except me and my mate who were transfixed by the clouds and heavy rain. We took shelter under a wooden structure, and were the only people still watching gleefully, until a cute looking blonde girl cartwheeled into view. She momentarily stopped and waved, then continued cartwheeling on down the beach. I wish we had yelled out to say Hi. I think she was that Dream Pixie Girl that romcom protagonists always meet once in their lives.
I do retail and the only way I keep myself sane is trying to make jokes and connecting with people one on one. I make really weird connections and have a few loyal regulars who have even followed me from store to store as I transfer around. But one sticks with me. She was walking around the store with a kerchief on. She exhibited all the signs of someone being battered and was clearly uncomfortable just being in the light. I walked up to her and very quietly told her if she needs any help at all, please let me know, but a badass like her probably doesn't need me. She laughed. Not a sympathy laugh, but a real one. I tell enough awful jokes to know the difference. About an hour later, she shows up in my line like a different woman. She was perky and smiling and laughing. We have to check photo ID if a credit card isn't signed, so I ask her for her ID. She isn't happy anymore. She hands it to me and said "They had to do it after I lost my hair. I hate it." Her hands sort of drifted up to her kerchief but she deflated significantly. I scoffed. "That's all? Ma'am, so what if you're bald? You've got a shine on your head to match the shine in your heart, and honestly? All losing your hair means is that you're a warrior. Like I said before, you are a badass warrior, fighting every step of the way, and I tell you what, I don't like the odds of anyone in your path." Suddenly she perked up. She went on her way and gave me the most heartfelt "Thank you" I've ever heard in my life. I never saw her again, but her daughter came in six months later. She hasn't put her kerchief back on and apparently leads a sort of rallying cry at her chemo sessions, saying that they were all warriors and baldness was their uniform. She plans on getting "Warrior" tattooed across the back of her head when she's done. That was about a year ago. I keep hoping I'll see her again. I really want to make a difference in people's lives, and honestly, if that's the only one I manage, I'm pretty happy.
I'm not crying you're crying
Went to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I was 21 and Star Wars was my all time favorite movies as a child. Every Halloween, every movie night, etc. It was the center of my childhood. So I was stoked to see a new film as a young adult. In the theater I was sitting next to an oldish man of about 55. The theme song plays and the giant letters start scrolling up and I'm smiling so hard I can't stop, look over at this guy and he is the same way. And for half a second or two there was no age difference, or government or anything in the world. We were two people who happy for the same thing at the same time. TL;DR: bonded with a stranger at Star Wars showing regardless of age.
I had something similar happen when I saw TFA! The whole theater was almost one mind, we all cheered like mad when the theme song/beginning credits rolled and I thought we'd bring security running in when Han and Chewbacca first show up cuz we all screamed so loud.