Terrible Analogies

I was sitting my cubicle at work coding a project when my phone rang.  This was the strange conversation I had:

Me: “This is HermanTurnip”

Voice: “You really should roll up your windows.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Voice: “I see your car every day in the parking lot with its windows rolled down a crack.  You should roll them up.”

Me: “Why?”

Voice: “Snakes.”

Me: “Snakes?”

Voice: “Yes.  Snakes like to crawl through open car windows.  It’s a known fact.”

Me: “It is?  Who is this?”

Voice: *click*

Not only do I not know who I just had this strange conversation with, I had never heard that snakes have a penchant for cars with open windows.  I’ve lived in Southern California my entire life and am well aware of the snake population (and am on a first name basis with a few), but at no point has anyone ever warned me about this “snakes like cars” phenomena.

Am I missing something, or has this mystery person been sniffing too many office highlighters?

Today I saw two thugs get into a fight at a gas station downtown.  I’m unsure what the argument was about.  I’d like to think that it was a disagreement over which school of art has a greater impact on the psyche of today’s youth, or perhaps it was an ongoing feud over which author was the superior writer while under the influence: William S. Burroughs or Hunter S. Thompson.

Whatever the reason, words and hand signs were exchanged between the pumps.  The guy closest to me calmly walked up to a punk wearing a white t-shirt who was cursing and gesturing wildly in his direction.  He then pushed t-shirt hood in the chest with a stiff-arm then clocked him once in the face.  T-shirt guy when down hard, covered his face with his hands, and slowly began to squirm on the oil-soaked pavement.

Alpha hooligan then turned around and slowly strutted back to his gold Honda Civic, removed the gas nozzle from his car and placed it back on the pump, closed up his gas cap and drove away, leaving our t-shirted hero lying on his back with his face covered in blood.

It seems as if everyone thinks they have a plan when they get into a fight, up to the point when they get nailed in the face by a guy with a wicked right cross.

Do yourself a favor and click the “full screen” button on the lower right and then follow the instructions on this video:

Heh…

Happy Friday! Hope everyone has a decent weekend. See you again on Monday!

I was woken up at 7:30am this past Saturday by the ringing of my cell phone.  Bleary-eyed and drunk with sleep I glanced at the incoming phone number, didn’t recognize it, pressed the “ignore” button and went back to bed.

A hour later, as I was enjoying a bowl of Trix, I picked up my phone and checked out my voice mail. This is what I heard:

Weird Message

It sounds oddly enough like “Buffalo Bill” from Silence Of The Lambs.  In my minds eye I can imagine him peering down a dank hole in his basement at his unfortunate victim, petting his dog as he says, “It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again…shoot, wait a sec, I have to make a call…”  He then stands up, slowly turns in a graceful arc as he tucks his junk between his thighs, picks up a phone, dials my number and leaves behind this cryptic message.

What.  The.  Heck?

Strange, creepy, and just a bit disconcerting.  I’m sure there’s a story here somewhere…

While picking up a case of Black & Tan from BevMo!’s refrigerated section this weekend I heard a dark gruff of a whisper behind me say, “That’s what Michael used to drink.”

Turning around I saw an older gentleman who looked like he was in his late 50′s and heavily tattooed from chin to wrists.  Well over 6′ tall, he had musical bars and notes inked around his neck, stars under his eyes, and a mermaid peeking out from under the collar of his blue t-shirt.  His forearms were completely covered in various shapes and shades.  Short-cropped gray hair and facial stubble framed a face with deep-set wrinkles betraying years of both heavy laughter and much furrowing.

I asked, “What’s that?”, not quite sure I heard him correctly.

“B&T,” he said with a voice that sounded like he gargled tacks every night before bed, “That’s what Michael used to drink.”

“Michael?” I asked, noting that he was wearing what looked like bermuda shorts, and that his legs were tattooed as well.

“Yeah, Michael and Al.  Well, that and plenty of other things.  Other guys, they’d be more up for some of that harder stuff.  The stuff you can’t drink.  Made me get it for ‘em, too.”

I wasn’t quite sure just how to respond.  ”Really?” was the best feeble response I could muster, but I’m not sure if he heard me.  If he did then he must not have felt like replying.  He instead put a huge left paw of a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me out of the way so he could look at the various makes of beer behind the frosted glass.  I wasn’t sure how to interpret this gesture, but it didn’t feel like a violent act.  I figured I didn’t want to get into it with this guy, so I blew it off and began to make my way towards the cashier.

And this guy followed me.

“Okay,” I’m thinking, “I’ll just make my way to the front, calmly put my beer down in front of the clerk, and hope that this guy’s not tweaking on anything.”

I approached the register and placed my 6-pack of beer on the counter, and the tattooed monster behind me calmly pushes my beer up a bit and places down an identical 6-pack of Black & Tan with an authoritative “Thump!”.  The letters tattooed on the fingers of his left hand spelled out “roll”.

I look up at the guy and he’s staring down at me with a weird vacant expression, like I wasn’t worth looking at.  Just another thing in front of him.  I’m now beginning to worry a bit.

I paid for my beer and walked out the exit without looking back.  Opening the door to my Toyota FJ I place the beer on the floorboard on the passenger side.  Closing the door and turning around I see a brand new silver Mercedes Benz G-class SUV pull up behind my truck.  It stops.  The tinted passenger window slowly rolls down and inside is the giant inked up behemoth.  He raises his right hand, forms it into a pair of devil horns and says, “Rock on,” in a deep, gravely voice.  He then smiled and drove away.

Like a stunned fool I waved back.

As I write this I’m still trying to comprehend it all. 20/20 hindsight makes me question what really went down. Was this guy messing with me? Did I know him from somewhere, or did he know me? To say that it was a surreal encounter would be like saying that Hieronymus Bosch was a boring painter. I’m sure I’ll figure it all out someday…