Have you ever accidentally scared a stranger? Tapped the wrong person on the shoulder? Walked by too quickly?

Two weeks ago I was walking into a friend's apartment through the sliding glass door. It was completely dark and I didn't expect it to be, so I called her name three times and then walked back outside...

I was three doors down. I had gone into the wrong apartment and shouted her name. I hope no one was home.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 1999

Answers

No, I don't freak out strangers. Only friends. (He said, in a Peter Lorre voice...*grin*)

--Al of Nova Notes.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 1999

Um, yes.

Only I was really drunk at the time, and I was belligerently insisting to the nice man in his underwear that he was in my apartment. Fortunately I eventually realized I was on the wrong floor.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 1999

Oh my God that is so funny. Did you freak yourself out when you realized you were in the wrong apartment? That would have made me totally nervous. I'll bet the person was home and watching you from their chair in the corner of the dark room...ooooo...they were probably just about to leap up and snatch you but you escaped just in time!! How could you not know that you can make a deposit at an ATM? You know how to build web pages and get all crazy on the Internet and you are unaware of Universal ATM Etiquette. For shame. Let me clue you in. First of all, you must stand at least four feet behind the person who is currently using the machine lest they think, as that lady did, that you are trying to surreptitiously read their PIN over their shoulder so you can then somehow...use their PIN with YOUR card and get THEIR money?? I don't know but stand back for goodness' sake. Also, while standing there, you may look anywhere but at the person currently using the ATM. There is no where else to look but you MUST NOT look at them or acknowledge them in any way! (This same rule applies to elevators. Whistling songs you haven't heard in years is also appropriate in these cases.) I don't know what people think you're going to do with their four digits, but when you get up to the machine yourself you MUST behave in the same way. If ever you are out at night and standing alone at an ATM and another person - who may look deceptively innocent - comes within 150 yards of you, you must go into full, Tae-Bo Super Attack Conqueror mode and kick their ass. Even if they are walking their dog or coming home carrying a sack of groceries. You never know about people..

-- Anonymous, November 09, 1999

My best friend and I are the queens of freaking strangers out. Our specialty is elevators. One of our favorite ploys is to walk in and start talking to each other very animatedly. Usualy it's one of us telling the other some captivating story. Y'know..."So she showed up, at three in the morning, at his house, carrying that little revolver of hers like it was a battle axe, all drenched and shivering in the rain, and sobbing her heart out like she was gonna collapse right there. It took us so long to get out of her what had happened...she wouldn't even let us pry the gun out of her fingers! She just stood there in the entry way crying and wailing and whimpering "I didn't shoot him! I didn't!" And about that time the door opens, and we get off. It's very amusing to turn around and see all the people staring at us out of the closing doors like the VCR just broke in the middle of The Spanish Prisoner. It's hysterical.

Another favorite I do alone is to get on, and just as the doors close, turn around and just stare everyone in the eyes the whole time I'm on there. It makes people SO uncomfortable.

Of course there's Quack's favorite...she often gets on, opens her p0urse and holds it up so she can peer into the opening, and asks in this totally normal voice "You gettin' enough air in there?" Heh heh...that usually clears the place out real fast at the next stop.

Bill and I like to get on and start arguing in really loud voices like the worst Fiancee Feud in the world. We'll shout and point fingers and insult and accuse...something we never do in real life...seriously...what, you don't believe me? But anyway...we really ham it up, and we've actually had people try to give us sixty-second counseling sessions on the elevator. It's absolutely the funniest thing ever!

http://www.ri-ality.com

-- Anonymous, November 09, 1999

I seem to be generally intimidating to strangers. I once frightened two missionaries who came to my door one morning. I had just taken a shower, so my damp hair hung down to my waist like Cousin It's brunette brother. At that time I also had a full beard, which made me look like Charles Manson. The nice ladies handed me a tract and fled.

I once knew a guy who would go into grocery stores and shop from other customers' carts. He would wait and watch them until he knew they would see him do it, then he would casually take something out of their cart and put it into his. When they would catch him doing this and accuse him of "stealing" from their carts, he would blandly observe that "it isn't yours - you haven't paid for it yet".

He too would stare at people in elevators. Only he would ride the elevators over and over again. Sometimes he would sing. Other times he would make strange noises - beeps, burps, fake flatulence, that sort of thing. Other times he would start talking to one of the passengers, as though he was continuing a conversation he had been having with this person outside of the elevator, when in fact the person had never seen him before.

This guy is a psychology professor, by the way.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 1999

I used to try to freak people out on the freeway. I'll have my passenger pretend to be dead and i'll make myself look pretty pissed off. We even have gloves with fake blood on them. i suppose it just means i'm morbid. oh well it's just me

-- Anonymous, November 10, 1999

I haven't really freaked out any strangers in a long time with the exception of maybe passing a little old lady too fast on the street causing her to clutch her bag. Other than that, I try to observe the rules of everyday living. However, when I was about 3 years old, my mom was pregnant with my brother. So, being the inquisitive, very talkative child I was (still am) I demanded to know "how the baby got into your belly" My mom told me. The next day we were on a bus going to her doctor and another pregnant woman got on the bus. I marched right over to her, pointed at her belly and said "I know what's growing inside you and I know how it got there" Needless to say, the woman changed her seat and my poor mother was pale and mortified. I got a firm talking to after that one.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 1999

I once had a long, thin bike seat that was pink. I wondered why nuns would avert their eyes and teenage girls would giggle when I rode past until a friend at work said, "That's about the most phallic thing I ever saw." I swapped out the seat that evening.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 1999

Yes, I freak out strangers all the time, sort of like you El Squishy. It's sort of a hobby actually.

I enjoy singing along with muzak in grocery stores and elevators. Usually like the opera singer that I wish I were. And in my kitsch-y southern girl way I enjoy talking to people who have no desire to speak with me, like in line at the photomat, or at the dry cleaners and at the gas pump. "Nice day we're having!!" (it's Seattle by the way, we don't have nice days, just wet ones). Anyway I say "Nice day!" and so on and the people will usually say, "Uh, it's like raining, ya know." And I respond, "hey, love the rain." They never say anything after that, they just quickly get their pictures/clothes/gas whatever and get the hell away from the redheaded freak with the southern dawl.

One time I actually scared a lady when I asked her what she thought of this year's tomato crop at the grocery store, she freaked and said "Please, I don't have any money on me." So I said "Then what the hell are you doing at the grocery store?" Geeze, why don't people talk anymore?

-- Anonymous, November 10, 1999

I work at a help desk, and we all (6) sit in this one big cube facing out from the center, so nobody can see anybody except with peripheral vision, or turning their heads. Which helps to provide some really minor, inconsequential feelings of privacy.

Unfortunately, I sneeze really loud. With no windup.

First time I sneezed, I thought the guy to my right was going to have a heart attack or something.

Also, once in a while I yank open the men's room door on my way out, just as somebody was about to push it open from the other side. Major stuck-with-a-cattle-prod jumping action, yessir. Not that I jump when it happens to me, mind you. Got nerves like steel. Honest.

Oh, and in case you're ever wondering, if you're following somebody through a lobby and there's enough people that you're actually following fairly closely, watch out for revolving doors. I followed one lady into a revolving door and ended up in the same section with her. I thought I was gonna get maced.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 1999

I don't intentionally freak people out, but complete strangers tend to respond in kind regardless.

I think people assume that since I have blue hair and facial piercings, I must be about to mug them and kick their poodles or something. *shrug* :)

I do scare people in my office all the time though, since I'm shorter than the cube walls and they can't see me coming. :)

-- Anonymous, November 10, 1999

Well, I am not especially scary, just thoughtless at times...

I was already out of the gates when my daughter ran by and gave me her rat. I was in hurry, so I just placed the rat on my shoulder and proceeded on my way to the photo shop.

I did regret my decision as the photographer squealed and had to force herself to serve me at all.

"Here is a cat around here somewhere," she told me instead of good bye

-- Anonymous, November 11, 1999

Hmmmm, personally I love to tease people with cellphones. I travel by train a lot, and when someone's cellphone rings, it works like a charm when you holler: "Could you get that, please? I'm rather busy right now!" or "If it's that Sandra Bullock character again, tell her I'm not here!" or something along those lines.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 1999

The mens room at the grocery store we go to is a one room affair located right next to the checkout lines. Invariably, my 8 year old son has to go number 2 while we are there and since there is a large contingent of elderly men who shop there, a line of grey haired men forms the minute he goes in. Today, there was a particularly aggressive senior waiting for my son to finish. From my place in the checkout line I could see him knocking on the bathroom door every thirty seconds or so. When I had finished checking out, I went over and started banging on the door myself and calling my son's name. One of the checkout clerks asked me if anything was wrong and I saw my opportunity. I announced to about fifty people waiting in the checkout lines that I was trying to get my son out of the bathroom because this guy next to me had to go

-- Anonymous, November 13, 1999