Panties Man
Yes this one is in fact a true story (despite my previous fictional bus story). I’m not clever enough to make this up.
So I’m taking the bus home to my car yesterday. The bus stops where I get off and I’m the only one to exit. As I’m walking toward the rear of the bus I notice a man crouching at the bumper of the momentarily stopped bus. He sees me and quickly gets up and starts walking towards me with a strange grin on his face.
“That’s the second bus I’ve tagged today,” he says.
I do not understand him. The guy looks to be in his forties and seems to be dressed as one of the many homeless people around Chapel Hill. Also his front teeth are rotting.
“Yep,” he continues “I got 2 cop cars and an ambulance earlier today. But it’s always funniest on a cop car.”
Still not understanding I give him a quizzical look. He nods his head toward the bus, which is now moving away. I look back and there emblazoned on the bus’ bumper lies a bumper sticker reading “I Heart Panties”. I of course start laughing near-maniacally. This makes the man’s smile widen from ear to ear exposing his brown and broken incisors.
We cross the road between traffic just as a cop car is pulling up to a stop sign at the small intersection across from us. I cannot believe the luck. “Watch this” he says nonchalantly. He makes to cross the street behind the cop car and “stumbles” part way to the ground with perfect timing as he swipes a sticker out of his pocket onto the cop’s bumper just as the copper begins to pull away. I just watch amazed at the site of the police car pulling away proclaiming that “I Heart Panties” to every person behind him.
“Wow, man!” says I. “You were totally right. It is much funnier on a cop car.” He just smiles and nods and we part ways.
So somewhere around Chapel Hill there is an aging man bringing a small bit of humor to our streets with such a simple, even silly, little sticker. What drives him to do this? Based on his response to my laughter I think it’s simply imagining people’s reaction when they see his sticker that makes this man do what he does. Therefore, I salute you Panties Man. With so much bullshit in the world, it’s nice to know that there is at least one man who works all day just to bring a few momentary smiles to our roadways.
Alfonso and the Sandwich-Making Robin
I just had an immensely weird and mildly amusing experience, and I thought I'd share it.
I was just outside the lab sitting under this short tree. I was kneeling down leaning against the tree. There was a chipmunk (Alfonzo – I’ve seen him about once a day for two years) digging for nuts and whatnot about 15 feet away. All of a sudden a robin flew down about five feet away, and while cautiously watching me proceeded to catch an earthworm from the mulch around the tree. There was a large crust of bread about ten feet away that had been there all morning (between the bird and the chipmunk) and the Robin flew straight to it and, I shit you not, he began making an earthworm and bread-crust sandwich. Actually, it was more like a salad. But he would break up the bread, then tear the worm, then pick up a piece of the worm with a piece of the bread and eat it. I was just sitting their mouth agape at this freaking bird reinventing the sandwich.
It was disturbing I tell you.
But there is more.
About five seconds later Alfonzo the chipmunk stands on his hind legs (as they are wont to do) and looks directly at me. He then runs to about 2 feet away from me, stops and looks at me again. I tried to be relatively still to see how close he would come (I assumed he didn't realize I was there). After staring at me a few seconds he walks up to my foot (keep in mind I am kneeling close to the ground) and he puts his front paws on my shoe, flattens his body to the ground, looks up at me, and begins waving his tail in this methodic left-right fashion while staring right at my face. He does this for about five seconds before slowly sauntering off to look for more nuts. I swear to god he was trying to tell me something (probably something like "hey you - I know you", or "why the hell are you always hangin’ round my crib?" or maybe he was saying "damn you're one large fine-ass specimen of a man - for a chipmunk"). He could have been saying that - really - maybe he's retarded and doesn't know the difference.
I'm still not sure if all this really happened or I'm just going insane. Or maybe God is just screwing with me. It would be a pretty funny joke. I'd be doin' all sorts of crazy shit like that if I were God.
Imagine walking around a corner to find three raccoons playing jump rope.
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed my tale.
Cursing in the Rain
I'm driving along Interstate 40 to go to work in my 1988 Jimmy. Some of you may be familiar with my "Barney Wagon". I've had it over seven years (since the beginning of sophomore year of high school), and it's big and old and dirty and purple.
Right…so I'm cruisin' along and I think, "damn my windshield is dirty". Now the logical move one might make in this situation is to spray windshield washer fluid across the window and turn on the wipers… right? So this is what I did. No sooner did I have the wipers wiping away the dead dipterans from my windshield, than all of a sudden the wipers lock up while pointing at a 45° angle. "Shit", says I as I continue driving while cursing the vehicle that has carried me faithfully throughout my later adolescence and early adulthood. I get to work - ho-hum as usual - and do my duty to big daddy capitalism. It starts raining outside - not a drizzle mind you - but a cold hard shower.
"Damn!" thinks I as I continue paying my tribute to Mr. Bush and his minions. So the day ends thankfully and I arrive outside to find the rain has ceased. I jump into the Barney Wagon, with wipers saluting, and start the one hour trek home. I immediately check the wipers, which abruptly swing down to their original positions as if they had been waiting all day for that moment. You see where this is going no doubt, but there will come a major plot twist in this story shortly. So five minutes later a flash flood strikes. I turn on my wipers, which begin doing their job, and I can still barely see out the window it's raining so hard. Five minutes later my wipers return to their "half-mast" position and refuse to budge another inch. I pull over to the side of the interstate, get out, and screw around with the wipers trying to get them to revive.
They don't.
So I sit there for two hours waiting for the rain to stop. Finally it eases a little and I take the treacherous journey home, staring wide-eyed through a thousand myriad lenses of water. I make it home an hour later.
That was two weeks ago and they still don't work. I lied about the major plot twist.