Stranger than Fiction

Here are some recent WTF moments from my actual meatspace life.

A man sees me kiss my partner (in the heart of the 'gayborhood', mind you):
"Now I've seen it all!"

A woman asks me for the date of the Spring Equinox, one day late:Me: Sorry, it was yesterday.
Her: But it should be on the 21st!
Me: Usually, but this year it was the 20th.
Her: Well, I hate it when they go changing things, so it's the 21st to me.

A man asks for a black-and-white candle and I direct him to it:
Him: Is it this one? (Points to a dark-green-and-black candle)
Me: No, the one next to it.
Him: This one? (Picks up the same green-and-black candle)
Me: No, Sir. White is the color that isn't dark.

Two women arguing about my gender:Woman #1: Thank you, Sir. I mean Ma'am!
Woman #2: You blind, girl? That's a man!
Woman #1: No he's not. I mean she's not!
Me: He is, actually.
Woman #1: Oh my God, I'm so sorry, Sir! It was the earrings! I'm so sorry!

A man walks down the street shouting into his cell phone:
"People ride by everyday, and I tell ya, Moby Dick is in that motherfrakker!"
(He did not really say 'motherfrakker'; I just do not feel like digging through Blogger's TOS to see if I have to turn on the adult filter for deploying the F-bomb.)

A woman holding a tub of scented bath salt:
Her: Ooh, bath salts! (Turns to me) What do you do with this?
Me: ...put it in your bath water?
Her: Oh, I thought it was for burning!
Me: ...

Hodge and Podge

As explained in Nothing Unreal Exists, I lack a certain confidence in the realness of reality. I do not know the reasons for this, but a few experiences in my childhood definitely reinforced that doubt. This is one of the more bizarre ones.

Six years old, I woke with my face pressed against the straw mat upon which I had taken my afternoon nap. I saw something translucent and huge, taking up most of my visual field (though I could see through it). Its complexity and dynamism led the eye constantly, so that I could not focus on any part of it.

The Hodge-Podge.

It was not any thing that I could (or can) identify, but it looked like chaos and decay. My six-year-old mind compared it to the rotting corpse of a sparrow I had recently found while digging in my grandmother's flower trough. The vision grew more and more intense and menacing. Then, it changed.

A similarly translucent, equally indescribable vision of order and stasis replaced it. Its smooth perfection proved felt as monstrous as what came before. My eyes could find no purchase on its featureless...featurelessness. As a child, I compared it to an ornament belonging to my mother--a wooden bird meticulously covered with pure white feathers, lifeless and unyielding.

Just when the vision of order grew unbearably intense, it changed back into chaos, then to order, and so on. It kept flip-flopping faster and faster, which produced an odd sensation of involuntary movement, like free-falling without direction. Then, it just stopped.

I do not remember what I thought at the time, once the terror left me. When it recurred a few months later, however, I grew anxious. I decided that there was something wrong with me--probably a malignant brain tumor. When my grandmother and parents dismissed my concerns and other symptoms failed to manifest, I gradually forgot about the incident.

Every few years, it would happen again. Sometimes it comes while I lie in bed trying to sleep or wake, but I also experience it while meditating or just sitting quietly. I can discern no warning signs, but always recognize it when it starts--sometimes with one vision, sometimes with the other. Though objectively I know it never lasts more than five minutes, the hallucination suspends my perception of time and feels unsettlingly eternal.

I have tried to explain it away or attribute meaning to it, but nothing seems to stick. If a hypnogogic or hynopompic hallucination, why does it happen while I am wide awake? Did I accidentally ingest some mind-altering substance? Just as the vision defies description, so it defies my other attempts to make it fit into my worldview of the moment.

Questionable

Five strange questions asked by complete (and seemingly sober) strangers, plus ensuing conversations:

5. A lady at the light rail stop just walked up to me and asked...
Her: Are you gay?
Me: (Blink, blink) Kind of?
Her: (Nodding sagely) I thought you looked like it.
Me: ...Thanks?

4. An elderly customer at the candle shop, while paying for his purchase.
Him: Do you know how to cut the balls off a pig? A boy pig?
Me: No?
Him: You have to cut 'em off, or else you don't get your meat.
Me: Oh...I see.
(He spends next twenty minutes educating me on how to castrate and slaughter pigs.)

3. A well-dressed middle-aged woman on the street.
Her: Where can I find the nearest telegraph office?
Me: Sorry, Ma'am, I have no idea.
Her: Oh, shucks. (Hurries off.)

2. A young male customer at the candle shop.
Him: Do you sell sperm?
Me: No. (Awkward silence.) Do you mean human sperm?
Him: (Frowning) What else would I mean?
Me: Perhaps you could supply your own?
Him: What?!

1. A well-dressed guest at a friend's wedding, after I told her I wrote sci-fi and fantasy.
Her: What is sci-fi?
Me: Science fiction.
Her: Oh! (Pause) What's that?
Me: (Blink, blink) Um...you know, like Isaac Asimov, Star Trek...?
Her: I'm not familiar with that.
Me: ...Star Wars?
Her: Oh, I have heard of that. I did not know it was a thing...

In conclusion: Hail Eris and pass the hotdog buns!