Those "did I just see that" moments

[ChadTower]

Have any recently?  When something so unreasonable happens you aren't sure you saw it properly?

Yesterday a guy shows up to my house to buy a Neo Geo cab.  I told him ahead of time it had to come up the bulkhead steps and that I could supply a hand truck but he would need help.  He said he was fine with that. 

Dude shows up and is probably 150lb soaking wet.  He can't move this alone.  His help gets out of the car... and she is 8 months pregnant.  I almost choked the guy out right then and there.  In order to make sure she wasn't going to be involved in moving this thing I end up doing 90% of the work myself to get it out of the basement, loaded into their SUV, out of their SUV, and into their apt.  Now my back is killing me today.

I'm still in shock this guy would have his 8 months pregnant wife help him move an arcade game.   

[Jouster]

Maybe they wanted her to deliver it early?  And you deprived them of that...some people.

Jouster

[shardian]

I think he brought her for another reason...one that you fell for hook line and sinker.

[ChadTower]

Primarily because the price I got was so good.  Had he paid less I would have just told them to come back with more help.  I didn't want this buyer off the hook.

[CCM]

Why were you so against helping him get it out of your house and onto the truck? 

I've sold a few cabs and I've always helped load them.  I would never go to the buyers house and help unload, but helping at my house hasn't been an issue.

[ChadTower]

Why were you so against helping him get it out of your house and onto the truck? 

I've sold a few cabs and I've always helped load them.  I would never go to the buyers house and help unload, but helping at my house hasn't been an issue.

Back issues.  Often times I will help, always help with a pin, but my back isn't up to it this month.

[shardian]

Back issues.  Often times I will help, always help with a pin, but my back isn't up to it this month.

... but I thought you were only a month from playing shape?

I'm always happy to help people that come to haul off my junk, especially when they are paying me to haul it off. The main reason though I prefer to be hands on is to make sure they don't break any of my stuff.

[ChadTower]

... but I thought you were only a month from playing shape?

I was... for some reason my back has been wonky the last month or so.  I think it's because I haven't been lifting but I'm still moving heavy crap around.  It's a spot I've injured a couple of times now.

[boykster]

I have a similar story to Chads:

we inherited one of those crappy cable gym systems from a co-worker of my wife.  we had it setup in the office (while the gym is under construction) but we decided it was too craptastic and that we didn't want it.  I placed an ad on CL with a picture of the system and a pdf of the manual.  listed it as FREE - haul it away.  I stated that I would help disassemble the set, but that they would have to re-assemble it and haul it away.  I get a ton of responses, and finally decide on one person who says they can come pick it up ASAP.  As we correspond by email, I send her more pics, and suggest a small SUV or pickup truck.  

This tiny woman shows up 45 minutes late (or course, it's CL) in a Hyundai excel - that is loaded with all kinds of crap.   Trunk is full, backseat is 1/2 full of clothes and junk, etc.   she insists we'll get it to fit, and we proceed to disassemble the gym...well I proceed to disassemble the gym because all this flaky woman wants to do is talk about our cats and dog, etc.  I've got better things to do, so I start taking it apart and have her take the pieces downstairs.  She stacks them IN FRONT of the front door so that it won't open    All the while, she keep saying that she's not sure she'll be able to figure out how to put it back together....too bad, not my problem  

After about an hour of this, we finally shoehorn everything into her already overloaded car and send her on her way.  We got a call from her 10 minutes later...she got lost trying to leave our neighborhood......

[shardian]

I can beat that.
I sold a living room set on CL for $75 to a lady down in Charleston. She seemed like a nice older lady that had just moved into her apartment and didn't have any furniture at all. She said she might be able to get the church to lend her a van, but it would be a few days. She asked if it would be possible for me to deliver it to her, she could pay my gas, etc. I said "not a problem, I can borrow a big truck from work, but it will take me about 2 hours worth of driving". Anyways, It took a 1/2 hour to get home. I had to load the furniture myself - luckily the stuff wasn't too heavy. I finally got ahold of my wife's stepfather, so he came with me to unload at least. It took another 40 minutes to get to the ladies house. We unloaded, the lady was telling her story of how she got here, etc, blah, blah. She handed me 4 $20's, then get this: said  "5 bucks back". I didn't know WTF to say!! I tried to recollect our previous conversations to see how in the ---fudgesicle--- she thought I had offered "free" delivery, whicg took up my whole evening. Anyways, I was on the spot, had her, her old friend and my "helper" staring at me, and I was kind of happy that I was even able to unload the furniture and get it out of my basement, so I went ahead and chalked it up to a loss and gave her $5 bucks change.

So in retrospect, I learned that telling an old woman "not a problem" when she offers to pay you to deliver furniture, in her mind means "oh, so you'll do it for free".
ALWAYS get a price and confirm for "extra's".

[Dervacumen]

Have any recently?  When something so unreasonable happens you aren't sure you saw it properly?

Not so recently, but my wife and I heard sirens as we were pulling up to busy intersection, so although the light was green we slowed down to stop.  We looked over to the on coming traffic lane and just entering the intersection headed toward us was a car going about 25 miles per hour - not fast at all - and a couple of police cars in pursuit with sirens blaring.

Then we looked closer at the car that was being pursued and noticed the inside was fully engulfed in flames and you could barely see the man driving it, who was looking down at the floorboard in panic.  We kinda freaked out, took an immediate right turn at the corner, pulled over and tried to remove the image from our minds.  That was around 1998.  I still can't get it out of my mind.

[FrizzleFried]

I was about 10 years old...in stop-n-go traffic on the freeway.  Some rice-rocket biker was lane sharing down the middle of a lane at about 60 mph.  Not sure what happened...all I saw was the bike fly past our car and then he lost it and ran right in the back of a big rig box truck.  This was before the requirement to have the low hanging "bumper" on the truck...half the guy stayed at the back,  the other half of the guy ended up lodged under the back of the box truck.  My dad was quick to push my head down and not let me look as we drive by,  but I saw.  It was crazy.  We got to the shop (we were going to dads work) and he had to spray down his truck as there was hundreds of little red drops all over it.

[AtomSmasher]

About a year ago I was pulling up to a 4-way stop sign in a fairly busy parking lot and a baby stroller came rolling through the intersection.  From the angle I was at I could see that the stroller was empty, but most other people could not.  Probably about 10 to 15 people started running to the stoller from different directions to try and stop it, then a car drove up to it real fast and a guy jumped out of the passenger and stopped the stroller.  I looked back to see where the stroller had come from and there was a lady loading her kids into a van, completely oblivious to the scene she had caused.

[Ed_McCarron]

Driving down I-95 right after a thunderstorm.  Guy in a red pickup merges into traffic, loses control, and proceeds to do a few 360s.  Everyone saw him coming, calmly slowed down, and let the guy do his thing.

He finally got control, never touched a thing, and went back on his merry way.

I'm sure he had to change his undies after that.

[Dervacumen]

Driving down I-95 right after a thunderstorm.  Guy in a red pickup merges into traffic, loses control, and proceeds to do a few 360s.  Everyone saw him coming, calmly slowed down, and let the guy do his thing.

He finally got control, never touched a thing, and went back on his merry way.

I'm sure he had to change his undies after that.

I did that on the slopes the first time I went skiing.

[Grauwulf]

I have a story similar to Ed's. I went to college in Sault Ste Marie, Ont. and I used to drive home to my parent's place for the weekend on a regular basis. Well myself and one of my classmates were southbound on I-75 in Michigan somewhere just south of the Mackinaw bridge just putting along in the slow lane in my pickup truck headed home for Christmas. We're only doing about 50mph or so because it's getting dark, it's snowing and the road was slick. The road crews had been having trouble keeping the inner lane clear, so there was probably 4" or more of snow and slush there, you couldn't safely drive in it. Anyhow, out of the corner of my eye I see this red Chevy Corsica come ripping down the on ramp doing at least 10mph over the posted ramp speed and I told my buddy to watch him because he was probably going to wipe out at the bottom of the ramp and take us out with him if I couldn't get over in to the inside lane and slow us down. Hitting the brakes to slow down probably just would have spun us out too. So I got off the gas and eased over in to the deep slush just in time to see the guy spin out about 3/4 of the way down the ramp, come off the side of the ramp mostly backwards, clear the ditch, land in the slow lane, slide across in front of us, careen off the guard rail, spin back around frontwards while shooting back across both lanes and nailing the inside guardrail at the bottom of the ramp. Thankfully he didn't pop back out in front of us again, but it was a scary situation. I'm sure the other driver was cleaning crap out of his drawers after that ride. 

[shmokes]

A couple months ago I was sitting in my brother's living room talking to my little sister.  We were just chatting, having a conversation and there was a fly buzzing around the room.  I wasn't watching the fly.  I wasn't even consciously aware of it.  My mind was one hundred percent on the conversation I was having with my sister.  Suddenly my arm shot out and I caught the fly in mid-air as it flew past me like I belong in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  My sister just stopped talking and looked at me like I was crazy and I could feel the fly squirming around in my hand.  I said, "What the ---fudgesicle---?  Julianne, I just caught that fly."  And she, of course, was like, "Whatever, no you didn't."  And I said, "I swear to god.  I didn't even mean to.  I didn't even know it was there.  But it is squirming around in my hand right now."  So I held my hand up to her and opened it so she could see the fly buzz away again.

So.  Effing.  Weird. 

[delta88]

someone threw my keys at me once and I was totally looking in the other direction.. My arm flew up and I caught them.. Like I had eyes in my ears!!!  That kinda stuff is cool.. them keys where movin too!!!

[Apollo]

Driving along at night with my mates, I was about 17. We drive up to a T intersection with a left and right turn just ahead, a motorcycle is coming from the right doing around 60km/h and a car from the left at about the same. All is fine until the idiot car decides to turn right in front of the motorcyclist without signalling. The weird thing was that the guy in the car had no seat belt so the motorcyclist and the car hit and the bike rider goes flying about 20 meters through the air and the driver of the car flies straight through the windscreen and lands about 10 metres away, weird, I still don't quite know how that happened, he left a nice body shaped hole in his windscreen. Needless to say they were both pretty ---fouled up beyond all recognition--- and I'm pretty sure the driver of the car died.

[saint]

Best moment of my college career -- bunch of friends and I are at a table, drinking beer, celebrating something. I'm at one end of the table, buddy is at the other end. Table is long enough that there is room for 3 chairs on each side between me and my buddy, though as I'd been imbibing beer for a bit it seemed about a mile.

Buddy says something obnoxious to me. I'm holding a pen. With my elbow resting on the table, after he says whatever he said, I flick the pen at him. It flies across the table, smacks him squarely between the eyes, and rebounds perfectly back into my hand like it'd been on a spring. Didn't move my hand at all after I let go of the pen until I caught it.

Best part was the way I suavely put the pen back in my pocket like it was no big deal. Of course, I may actually have done a whooop and a little victory dance, I dunno.

Spent a bit of the rest of the night trying to duplicate the feat to no avail.

[geomartin]

One of those "did I just see that" moments I recall was during my machinist apprenticeship.  The shop owners son worked at the shop doing odd jobs and clean up (He was usually completely trashed on whatever he could find to get high on).  The owner asked him and one of his friends to paint the shop one week during the swing shift when it would be less distracting.  To my amazement, I watched him put a chair on top of a 55 gallon drum, put the drum on a fork lift and had his buddy drive the fork lift (raising and lowering it) while he sat in the chair to reach the 25-30ft ceiling.  The whole time, a couple nice roller extensions were leaning against the wall. 

[jbox]

I'm always happy to help people that come to haul off my junk, especially when they are paying me to haul it off. The main reason though I prefer to be hands on is to make sure they don't break any of my stuff.

I can't believe not one person commented on this... 

[ChadTower]

Now you made me consider his junk.   

[shardian]

I'm always happy to help people that come to haul off my junk, especially when they are paying me to haul it off. The main reason though I prefer to be hands on is to make sure they don't break any of my stuff.

I can't believe not one person commented on this... 

Hey, there is a difference between "junk" and "stuff".

[Glaine]

Not as good as all your stories, but just yesterday a trucker was on the side of the highway with a pretty big fire underneath it, so I sped by hoping that if it explodes I don't go with it after doing a double take. There was a firetruck there blocking a lane, but they were all just looking at it like "Well, can't be helped. We showed up thats good enough. No need to try to fight this fire or anything."

[t8erbug]

About 18 years back, I was in jump school at Ft. Benning GA. We were filming a graduation jump and watched a Cptn. burn in with no parachute from 1250 ft. He had a complete failure. I couldn't take the camera off of him and almost got in trouble for my color commentary.

[shmokes]

What does burn in mean? 


I thought of another . . . this this isn't a "did I just see that" moment so much as a "did I just see that" month. 

The job that I had for the past eight years, up until just recently, required a lot of commuting, as I was the network admin for six different offices spread out over five rural counties.  There was a 1 - 3 hour drive between any two offices.  Utah is possibly the most beautiful state in the nation, so couple these scenic drives with audiobooks and being on-the-clock and you can see that it wasn't a bad little setup.  But there was this one period of time when I just kept seeing the weirdest ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- every time I had to drive from one office to another.  It started with a tarantula.  I was driving down the freeway and a big-ass tarantula was crossing the road.  No big deal, really, just not something you see every day.  Then, two days later, driving down the same freeway, probably within a few miles of where I saw the tarantula, a bald eagle landed in the shoulder of the freeway just where I was driving past.  I mean, so close that if I had been standing outside my car at the time I could have reached out and grabbed the thing before it could fly away.  And let me tell you, when a bald eagle is all stretched out in landing-position, with it's wings and legs fully extended, it's like seeing a man suddenly drop from the sky.  That thing was HUGE.

Then, about a week later, same freeway, but going in the opposite direction and about 20 miles away, I'm driving along, and off to my right, about 1/4 mile away there is a mountain ridge.  So there's not much flat land between me and the mountain.  Suddenly (this wasn't a sound that gradually got louder) there is a loud, roaring sound just back and to my right.  I thought, "What the ---fudgesicle---?  That sounds like an effing jet egine."  I turn my head, and there, flying so low that I can see the entire thing, meaning that it wasn't in the slightest obscured by the roof of my car, and only a few hundred feet away from me, is a fighter jet.  I could see the pilot.  And just behind him was another guy in an identical jet following him exactly, like he was shadowing him or something.  shortly after flying past me, they flew up and over the mountain ridge.  Absolutely jaw-dropping.

And it wasn't over.  Two or three days later I was driving out to one of my offices, and shortly after getting off the freeway, as I was heading into town on the main road, I had to stop and wait for a peacock to cross the road, full-on dragging like five feat of those cool feathers behind it.  It was really strange and unexpected, cos it's not like Utah has peacocks running around all over.  I'm sure they aren't indigenous.  I found out later, actually, that some people nearby raise them as pets and one had got away, and since then I've seen them in the area on two more occasions, but as you can imagine, the first time you see something like that you wonder if you aren't still asleep, or maybe going mad.

Unfortunately, that was just a very very very strange month for me.  Everything went back to normal after that.

[ChadTower]

What does burn in mean? 

He jumped chute failed.

[t8erbug]

I guess this is the wrong place to use the term "Burn In".  In this instance the term "human yard dart" might work. better.

[Glaine]

Anyone have any good "saw someone in the car next to me doing crazy stuff" stories? We've all heard about people picking their noses, but I've heard of a guy playing his guitar while driving and another guy that had a full face of shaving cream and using an old timey razor to shave while driving.

[Dartful Dodger]

Don’t under estimate the strength of a pregnant woman.  Two years ago my volleyball team had a 6 month pregnant woman on it.  Even 6 months pregnant she was able to carry our team through the finals.

... yeah the rest of us are that bad.


Today’s "did I just see that" moment

Getting gas this morning I was standing in line behind a little old lady buying cigarettes.  It was a huge ordeal because they didn't have the lights she wanted.  She kept rattling off brand names and they didn't have any of them.  She finally mentioned a name they had so she bought them.

She turned around and I noticed she had tubes in her nose going down to the portable oxygen tank in her purse.  She put the pack in right next to the tank.

[SavannahLion]

Anyone have any good "saw someone in the car next to me doing crazy stuff" stories? We've all heard about people picking their noses, but I've heard of a guy playing his guitar while driving and another guy that had a full face of shaving cream and using an old timey razor to shave while driving.

I've got bunches.

Some very common ones. All of these were while they were driving. I've seen people;

(not just women) putting on makeup.

shaving, both razor and electric, with and without shaving cream.

reading newspapers while driving (a map I can understand, but the newspaper??).

playing video games. All types to those on their cell phones, gameboys, PSP's, and even home consoles people install in their car. Ironically, I've never seen drivers watch a movie.

work on their laptop using one of the most ---fouled up beyond all recognition--- up products I've seen in years.

change the diaper on their baby. I think that's what she was doing, otherwise I'm not entirely sure why she threw a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- filled diaper out her window.

pop zits.

giving/receiving hand jobs and blow jobs. This is a lot more common that people think.

Masturbate. Not quite as common as the above, but still happens and I've seen both sexes do it.


change their clothes.

Moving along. I finally found my WTF, did I just see that moment?

Back in High School, I was on the bench during P.E. during a free excercise period. Two kids were tossing a football back and forth in the gym. As the football peaked at its arch, it suddenly stopped and fell. Puzzled, the kids looked around the air where the football went down, but couldn't see anything very clearly. It took several minutes of looking, but it was finally figured out that someone had strung a thin steel cable about 3/4 of the way to the ceiling. The football just happened to hit this wire dead on.

[Xiaou2]

 When I was young, there were a group of mischievous kids in the neighborhood,
and I was there too.    This one guy takes a lighter, and shoots it at this kids head.

 The lighter actually LIT!   

 Now, it wasnt very nice... but it was funny as hell cause it seemed impossible
that it actually was able to light for a moment.

---

 Within this year, I was rolling down the road and saw a bus parked on the
side.   It was on fire!   I slowed down a bit on the approach...  but then as
I got near I was worried it might explode, so sped up.   

I was on the farthest lane away from it, which was about 3 lanes away... and
even with my windows up, and traveling at good speed... I felt a huge blast
of heat as I passed it!

 Luckily, all the passengers had left the bus long before it caught serious fire.

---

 My Brother has always been poorly coordinated.   One day a friend gave
him his bike to try to learn how to ride.    Well, my brother was wobbling
all over the place,  as if he was drunk and half asleep.
 
 I was watching from the road about 20ft away... and all the sudden he
veers off to the right and clips a sidewalk with the front tire.

 He wasnt even going very fast.. and yet the bike goes completely airborne
maybe 3 to 4 ft high!  (both tires!)    Then, it lands back on ground, and
hes still going as if it never had happened!   

 There was not expression, he didnt move in his position or posture,
nor was there any sign of panic or outwards expression.   It was so
surreal that I was dying with laughter and disbelief at what I saw.

 Later, I tried for hours to replicate his monster airtime feat.  I
never could do anything like it!   

---

 Ill leave the ghost sightings for another post

[Thenasty]

We (men) always have a thing about women. We don't want to see them do anything that might hurt them. So deep inside CHAD, it kick in but the guy did the wrong thing for using her as a bait 

[ChadTower]

It's a possibility but I think this guy was really just that passive.  He had no idea the game was going to be that heavy and the relationship was pretty much he works and hands her the check and then he sits on the couch.  I've had guys try shenanigans buying games before, it's usually transparent, so if this guy was baiting me he was a hell of a lot better at it than anyone I've dealt with thus far.

I need to start lifting again.  I miss the days of being able to move cabs around like they're made of styrofoam.

[shardian]

I have a funny one: I thought I told this one already, but apparently not.

When I was around 10 or 11, I was hanging out at my friends house riding bikes. We always made up crazy games to pass the time. This time, we took one of those plastic kick balls - the cheapo marble colored ones that weigh like an ounce - and tried to knock each other off of our bikes. So one of us would ride by slow, and the other would chuck the ball to knock the other off. Seems impossible right? Well maybe one of us would get lucky and hit the other in the face or something to send him off balance. Well anyways, it was my turn to throw. I throw the ball at his wheel, and somehow it perfectly landed in between his front wheel and the frame, thus locking up his wheel. His back wheel came up and he did a front flip and landed on his ass with the bike on top of him. I almost peed my pants from laughing so hard. We tried for like a solid week to do it again and never could.

[ChadTower]

Heh.  I did that once as a teenager.  I was riding home from work with a plastic shopping bag of clothes on the handlebars... it jammed between the front wheel and the frame part the wheel attaches to... wheel stops dead and the bike and I both flip over and land face first on the pavement.  I think I was actually out for a bit as I don't remember it actually happening, I just remember riding and then sitting up on the pavement wondering how I got there.

[shardian]

Another one from my childhood days.

At the little league field, we had a pebble lined creek. Alot of us would get together and throw little pebbles at each other. Well one of my friends was throwing bigger rocks and it really started to piss me off. He threw a final rock then took off running to avoid retaliation. I picked up a rock about the size of a golf ball, but which was kind of pointed on one side. He was pretty far from me at this point, and running at a slight angle - all while laughing his ass off. I chucked the rock as hard as I could at him - never actually intending to hit him or even thinking it had a chance anyways. Well as soon as the rock left my hand, I just knew it was destined for its mark. I think I might have even yelled at him to watch out. Anyways, midlaugh and all, the rock smacked him right in the back of the neck. He stopped, turned and looked at me with a shocked expression, then turned and ran screaming for his mommy. I felt bad, but oh man that was funny. It was so worth the yelling I took from his mom. I mean, the odds of hitting him with that rock were so frikking bad, I don't think I could ever pull that off again.

[ChadTower]

I did that too!

When I was 15 or so this girl I was dating and I were looking for a place to get some privacy... but my little brother kept following us on his bike.  So eventually I yelled at him enough that he started to go home.  We were on an old railroad path (tracks gone) in the middle of the woods.  He's probably 40 yards away when he turns around to pretend he's coming back, I yell at him and throw a rock the size of a baseball in his direction thinking there is no way in hell I can even reach him nevermind hit him.  He turns back to go home and the rock hits him square in the back, while he's riding, probably 45 yards from me.  He falls off the bike into the ditch and barely moves... then gets up and runs off screaming like he just got hit by a rock at 45 yards.  This one wasn't funny, though, as if that got his head it would have killed him.  I don't think Tom Brady could have done that more than once nevermind me.

[Jouster]

This one time...I went to pick up an arcade cab...I didn't really want to move it by myself, so I had my pregnant wife come with me.  We get there, check out the cab and start to take it downstairs...the guy asks who else is gonna help me move it.  So I point to the old lady...sucker sighs and grabs the other end.

Beautiful play.

Jouster