Lost In Translation

Hey there, Friends.

So, I'm going to need a little help.  I'm going to describe a little scenario for you, and then I need you to help me figure out what the hell was going on.  This has been bugging me all day.  All the reasonable explanations I have come up with make no sense in this situation.

You game?  Fantastic!

Allow me to start by sharing my artistic rendering of the scene.  I made it special just for you, Friends. (If local people can figure out where this is then I will be super proud of myself!)

I didn't say it was good -- I said it was an artistic rendering.

As you can clearly see (or maybe not), this is a traffic intersection. Most important points being:

A) Guy in Truck

B) Me

You are looking at the two little rectangles in the intersection with the circles near them, not the big labels I wrote near the bottom of the page. I was trying to clarify the drawing, but that might have made it more confusing.  My bad.

The scene:

It's the middle of a sunny day. Guy in Truck and I are both stopped at red lights.  He is waiting to go straight across.  I have my blinker on and am waiting to make the left turn.  The two sides of the intersection that we are on do not get green lights at the same time.  Ever.  It just doesn't work that way.  This is also a rather lengthy light to sit through, as the main road (going North-South) gets most of the traffic and time.

There is no one behind me as I just missed getting through the light.  There is no one in the lane to my right.  There are a couple of cars next to Guy in Truck.  Oddly, is there very little traffic going up the main drag.  This is rather unusual, but it also means there is a clear view across the intersection most of the time.

Guy in Truck flashes his headlights a few times, and starts waving to me.  His side gets the green light first and he proceeds to stare at me as he drives by, not watching the road where he is driving.

Everybody on the same page, Friends?  Do we all understand the scene? Excellent. Now we are going to play a little game called....

WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?

(Title could use a little work, I admit.)

Theory 1: I Must Know This Guy

No.

If I knew this guy we wouldn't be playing this game in the first place.  Really, Friends.  That was a lame thought.  I did not recognize him, and I did not recognize his vehicle.  I didn't even vaguely recall him as a library patron from work.

Theory 2: He Is Trying To Warn Me About A Fire Truck Behind Me

Still no.

There was no one behind me.  I'm not completely oblivious to my surroundings when driving. Nothing was coming into or out of the fire station.  Also, if something where to happen there would be sirens.  Lots and lots of sirens.  At this particular intersection a blue flashing light also goes off to warn drivers of impending emergency vehicles, and my side would have immediately gotten a green light so they could exit faster.

Theory 3: He's Warning Me There Is A Police Car Ahead

Maybe?  But still pretty inapplicable.

I know people will sometimes flash their headlights at oncoming traffic as a warning that police are shooting radar ahead.  I had a pretty clear view of the intersection, and there were no police cars in sight.  Also, I was not heading in the direction he was coming from.  I had my turn signal on, so it would be pointless to warn me about something in a direction I was not going to be traveling.

Theory 4: He's Trying To Tell You There Is Something Wrong With Your Car, Dumbass!

Possible, but still wrong.

I will admit this was my immediate assumption.  I thought maybe my tire was going flat or the like and he was trying to let me know.  I had no indicator about a problem on my dash, and everything was fine when I checked it out at home.  It was also the middle of a sunny day, so I did not need to have my headlights on, or my high beams for that matter, so he couldn't have been telling me to turn them down/off.  It wasn't raining, so he wasn't trying to tell me to turn them on either.  This theory proved to be wrong.

Theory 5: He's Being Carjacked And Is Trying To Signal For Help

Yeah.  We've gone to a dark place on this one, Friends. 

I freaking hope that was not the case.  Message obviously did not get through.  The fact that I haven't seen or heard anything about anyone being carjacked today (or lately at all) is keeping me from feeling like I maybe failed the dude in a very important way.

Theory 6: He's Trying To Flirt With You, You Clueless Wonder

Is this even a thing?  Tell me this is not a thing.  

As we have previously established, I fail at noticing when someone is flirting with me when they do it face to face.  The chance that I would ever figure it out via Interpretive Intersection Communication is zero.

Guys, if this is a thing -- don't do it. The whole staring thing just creeped me out.  I'm not advising you to follow someone in traffic and stalk them to get their number either.  Just consider it a missed moment and go on with your life.  Maybe you'll bump into each other again at some point.

Maybe other people would find the staring flattering.  It was so fixed that I find it a bit creepy.  Like I'm wondering if this dude was memorizing my license plate number in an attempt to track me down later.  

That's sounds crazy, I realize.  

Real talk: I'm like flypaper for freaks.  I don't know what it is about me that makes me so attractive to the more eccentric personalities out there, but it's true.  It happens a lot.  

For example: My admirer who stalked me at work, wrote me bad love poems on the internet, and was trying to sell his personal belongings to my coworkers.  

You want another one?  How about the guy who wrote me a note saying he'd been watching me at work for several years, and wanted to take me out.  I should look him up on Facebook under a certain name, not his "government name" (because, as it turns out, he had a criminal record).  And what was on his Facebook?  Many pictures documenting the healing process of his huge scab (cause of said injury unknown), and really bad homemade videos of him trying to rap. 

A third, just to round it out nicely?  Sure thing, Friends -- I've got tons to choose from! Let's go for a non-work related deal. How about the guy I met in the grocery store who asked me out for coffee, then spent the entire time talking about his ex-girlfriends.  And there were several -- complete with pictures of each one!  They were all blonde, and rather short. I was very obviously not his type, and the whole thing felt more like I was his therapist. Did I mention that he ordered decaf because, after we arrived, he thought that maybe he wasn't supposed to mix caffeine with his medication?  Yeah. But I did get free coffee out of it, so not a total loss.

Back to the point:  I have a bad track record with attracting the odder parts of the male population. Guy in Truck was being weird.  He might be a totally nice, normal dude -- but that was kind of creepy and my track record makes me leery.

Here's Your Time To Shine, Friends!

What the hell was Guy in Truck trying to accomplish earlier today? Let me know what you think.  I turned this over in my head a lot, as you can probably tell, and I've got nothing.  Can you come up with any other logical explanations for his behavior? 

*At the very least you could reassure me that the guy wasn't being carjacked.* 

Happy New Year....Maybe?

Happy New Year, Friends!

I know it hasn't been 2016 too terribly long, but I hope it's going well for you so far. Mine's been pretty good, lots of room for improvement though.  That's what the New Year is for, right?  A fresh start.  365 days to fill with new adventures.  Maybe I'll travel to some exotic locale.  Maybe this will be the year I finally find someone who will put up with me get a boyfriend.  Sky's the limit!

I'd like you to join me in a game I am currently playing, Friends.  You don't have to do anything but keep reading.  It's a lazy person's game (also works if you are hungover.  I don't know what all you got up to last night).  All you have to do is sit around and ponder the possibilities.  Sound good? Excellent! Because that's what we are doing.

Friends, allow me to introduce you to a game I am calling:

What's Up With the Neighbors?

How To Play:  I will provide you with the meager amount of evidence I have, and then we will think of all the things that might be going on.

Why Are We Doing This:  Because we can.  Because I am bored of playing it by myself and decided to share my fun imaginary game.  Because Jazz-kitty woke me up way too early to get her breakfast.  I also might be procrastinating on starting to clean the house.  All valid reasons.  

Ready?  Let's begin.

Evidence (aka Flimsy Amount of Details That I Have Gathered):

-- Last night was New Year's Eve.  People celebrate in lots of different ways.  Some people go out and get totally smashed, some go out to a fancy and romantic dinner, some stay at home and have a quiet celebration, some just sleep right through it and don't care.  I have no idea what the neighbors did.

-- My cat is a spoiled brat and woke me up much earlier than I wanted so that I could feed her breakfast.  It was when I went into the kitchen to get her food that I first noticed something was going on at one of the houses nearby. I could hear the music they were playing while I was in my kitchen.

-- There are 2 possible houses that could be the source of the music.  The neighbors in question are usually pretty quiet and keep to themselves.  They are friendly and will chat, don't get me wrong.  I just don't see them outside very often.  They also have a lot of   people who are always around. I'm not really sure how many of them actually live in either house.  I don't pay that much attention.

-- I did not notice anything unusual when I got home last night.  There was no sign of a wild party raging in the near vicinity, no police or emergency vehicles hanging around.  I wasn't drunk and overlooked it, since I drove.  It was cold, and I hurried inside. 

-- Somebody in the neighborhood felt the need to set off fireworks around 1:30 this morning.  I don't know who it was.  I was snuggly warm in bed and trying to sleep, and I chose to stay there hoping it was going to be a short round of holiday craziness.

-- The same song has been playing, on repeat, for almost 2 hours now.  Possibly longer.  I can only vouch for the amount of time I have had to listen to it.  

-- It's the choice of song that really makes this game fun and increases the possibilities.

Aw, yeah...someone had an interesting night!  

Now We Ponder the Possibilities:

1)  Someone had a reallly good time. Like they might still be celebrating and/or reliving the night.

2) Someone is having a moment.  Maybe they can't remember what happened last night.  Or maybe they remember exactly what happened last night and are now in the midst of an existential crisis, trying to come to grips with the situation.

3) Someone passed the hell out with their music on and this song is going to play until they finally wake up and turn it off.  Or someone gets annoyed/concerned enough to call the cops.

4) Their friends dropped their drunk ass off at home, and decided it would be hilarious to leave this song playing for their friend to wake up to in the morning.

5) Someone had a party.  Whomever was in charge of the music left it playing, and now there is no one there who knows how the technology works and they can't turn it off.  

6) They really, really love this song and want to share it with the whole neighborhood.

That's all I've come up with so far.  Join in my game, Friends!  What do you think is going on with my neighbors?  

Right now, I'm just glad I like Jamie Foxx and this song.  It makes the whole thing highly amusing. Other songs could have made this much more worrying, depressing, and/or annoying.  

Happy New Year, Friends.  Hope you are having a great start to the year!  

**Edit:  And just short of the 3 hour mark, the music has stopped.  Well, at least I know whomever it was is alive and functioning.**

Bingo: a library story

I'm in the middle of working 11 days straight at the library.  I'm not even sure what day it actually is anymore.  It's all beginning to blur into one big mess of patron problems.

To keep myself amused, I have been playing a game every day: Library Bingo.

Author wishes to remain anonymous, unless someone wants to make it into a real game.  If that's the case, I'll be happy to put you in touch with them. :)

To give you an idea of how my week(s) have been going so far, I'll just say that if I had gotten the square "Found Drug Paraphernalia" on Saturday then I would have had a bingo.   I'll let you all guess which other squares were involved.

Words With Friends

Do you play Words With Friends?  So addicting! 

I have a few problems with what words are and aren't allowed.  It rarely seems to work out in my favor.

One of my friends that I often play seems to know magical words that it will accept.  Gox?  That's apparently gaseous oxygen.  WWF totally let him play that.  Me?  I tried to play the word 'slut', and it wouldn't take it.  Come on, man!  Everyone knows what a slut is, and it isn't even that bad a word.  It's not like I was calling someone a name, or implying that your game was a slut in some way.  I would have gotten a lot of points for that.  Not fair.

Same friend, different game, played the word 'rexes'.  Everyone knows 'rex' means king in Latin.  Okay, maybe not everybody, but I would assume most people do.  You have to read Oedipus Rex in high school.  I thought this worked basically the same way as Scrabble, and foreign words weren't allowed?  Apparently having many kings in Latin is just fine and dandy.  I tried to play the word 'uno'.  Denied!  Latin is cool, but not Spanish? 

You know what word it will count?   It let me play the word 'shitty'.  Crazy, right?  I figured I would give it a shot and get denied once again, but it worked!    It can get you a lot of points if you play it in the right place.  Helpful hint from me to you.

I keep having one issue lately.  I tend to play a lot of WWF on Facebook.  If you play on Facebook, you know you are going to get a pop-up ad after each move before you can take your turn in the next game.   (I'm assuming that you have multiple games going at the same time.)  When you finish making all of your moves in all of the games you are playing, and after you get the pop-up ad you can close, it pops up another box to try to get you to start a game with another friend.  This screws me up all of the time.  I never remember it is going to happen, and if you aren't very careful to hit the close button, you will accidentally start a game with someone.  I've done this 3 times now.  I'm not even sure the people actually play the game.  I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to those people, since I immediately resign the game.  I hope Facebook isn't notifying you every time I make this boo-boo.  To all of my friends who have a name starting with the letter A, I apologize in advance.  This pop-up "start a new game" box seems to be listed alphabetically, so there is a very good chance I will accidentally start a game with you if I have not already done.  My bad.  I promise to pay more attention from now on.