It seems to me that I have been cursed with an unusual kind of curse; that weird people with weird minds gravitate towards me to share their innermost feelings. Somewhere down the road, I guess I must have said out loud that I think it’s funny when these types of things happen to me. And ever since then, the universe said, “perfect!! Finally, someone who we can send these people to!!” It’s not funny, universe. It used to be a funny and a good story to tell but now it’s getting weirder and more creepy.
My first encounter was when I was really young and naïve. My grandparents took my older sister and me on a trip to tour Disney Studio out in California. You can imagine how thrilled we both were. Little did we know that we were about to encounter the strangest couple in our tour group. So, it was a week-long trip and we stayed in a hotel with our whole group; we did everything with the group. In the group was what you might expect in a Disney Studios tour group: little kids with their parents/grandparents, some teens, young adults who are super enthusiastic about Disney, and then there was this older couple. They were alone, no kids, probably in their late 40s to early 50s. These people were a bit off, by that I mean, well just look at the situation.
The whole time the husband just HAD to get to every gift shop that was around. He also loved talking to my sister and me, but the weird thing was this: towards the end of the trip the couple somehow lured us in their hotel room. I didn’t really get scared until he opened his laptop and I saw the screen saver. It was a picture of a well-photographed gun, meaning it was propped up on a red silk fabric in the background. At the time, guns scared me to the point of near fainting. I saw the picture then promptly said with wide eyes, “that’s a gun,” then the man proceeded to tell me all about it. How we got out of there untouched is beyond me, but hey we made it out safe.
The next incident was on an airplane, probably to go see relatives, when this woman sat across the aisle from my sister and me. She was really something; super friendly, like to the point where a middle-aged woman, you know... shouldn’t be. Anyway, she started talking to us about normal flight small talk like where are we going, are we excited to be on a plane, etc. then she asked a weird question, “do you guys like spider-man?” My sister and I looked at each other and shrugged (we didn't but we went along with it). Suddenly this woman whips out her carry on bag and pulls out spider-man pajamas. I was young, but I was young enough to know that what she did was very weird.
Later in life, the weird people stopped coming up to me, probably because I was the weird pre-teen that they wanted to avoid. But they soon found me once I grew out of my strange looking appearance. The third incident was when I was getting a haircut at the amazing Great Clips. It was my hair stylist and she soon started talking to me about sex trafficking. I was not about to argue with her since she was the one with the scissors in one hand and my hair in the other. She started giving me tips on how to travel alone without looking like I’m alone. Her only citation was the movie Taken. The whole entire time she was cutting my hair I was smiling, not saying a word other than “uh-huh, yes I understand.” Granted this wasn’t that weird, but imagine walking into all of this when you are just expecting a quick trim.
This next one is recent. I was on my way back to school from home in North Carolina with the biggest hangover of my life. I was planning on going to sleep as soon as the plane lifted off, but the universe had other plans for me. Right as we are about to leave the gate, a stinky, crusty, Bloomington townie sat next to me. He was quiet for about ten minutes. First, it was the usual “hey how are you? Where are you going? Where are you from?” type of conversation but it quickly escalated into him telling me his whole life story while he is offering his phone number and address to me all while ordering whiskey and cokes. The smell of his Jack Daniels breath damn near killed me. He talked the whole entire flight, not stopping for a breath. Eventually I just put my headphones in and ignored him but that did not matter, he still talked and asked me questions. He told me how much money he makes a month (500 dollars if you are wondering), how many kids he has (2, each with a different mother), he even had the courage to ask my opinion on Trump (he surprisingly isn’t a fan of The Donald), and the list goes on. He gave me survival tips too. Want to know how to survive off of ten bucks per week? This guy does, he will tell you even if you don’t ask how, “you buy a pack of cigarettes, a Slim Jim, and a piece of cheese,” try hearing that without making the dirtiest face back at the guy. The worst part was, he never left his seat so I couldn’t move. I mean I really felt like I knew this guy my whole life with the amount of information he gave me.
All these experiences, plus more, really make me wonder who I was and what I did in a past life. Maybe I was the crazy person sharing excessive amounts of information to strangers, showing my pajamas to little kids, and luring them into my hotel room. Who knows, but what I do know is this: if you are the type of person that likes to (rather, tries to) make insightful conversation with strangers, don’t. You never know what will happen when you share your life story with a stranger. You might become the butt of someone’s joke, or better yet be turned into an article.
