I Attract Weird Shit. How About You?

So, I’m not sure about you guys, but I seem to be one of those people who attracts weird shit. (Pardon the language—there is just no other way to describe this. I know y’all know what I’m saying.)

No, seriously, weird shit happens to, near, in front of, or around me constantly. I’m not sure if it is truly following me around, or if I just happen to notice it so much because I'm such a people gawker. Recently, something happened that was about a 8.5 on the weird shit-o-meter. This incident gave me an Alice in Wonderland meets Pulp Fiction with a splash of Harajuku kind of feeling, so the only possible thing I could would be to share it with the tens of you who like to read my blabber.

Recently, I was shopping for my daughter’s birthday and since she wanted new room décor, a friend and I were wandering about Bed Bath & Beyond in the hopes of finding something that a 12 year old would like that wouldn’t break the bank. As women sometimes tend to do, we were sort of aimlessly meandering through the store, chatting and vaguely paying attention to what was on the shelves. We headed down one of the main aisles and at some point, stopped to look at something. I was looking to the right and while she was facing forward, she was looking right, as well.

As we both absentmindedly moved forward, my friend put her hands on the shopping cart that was directly in front of her. It took her about .5 seconds to realize that it wasn’t hers and she stopped moving forward. In that same miniscule amount of time, I started moving the same direction and realized too late that she had stopped. As I crashed into her from the back, I heard her gasp in surprise and simultaneously we both made eye contact with… A LARGE GREY POODLE.

Fox and a Parasol

Alone. Silent. Motionless. It was sitting still as a statue in the back of the shopping cart and tall enough to look at both of us square in the face. She shrieked, I shrieked, but the shiny eyed poodle didn’t even flinch.

After recovering ourselves, we both started laughing and walked away. I mean, it just isn’t every day that one runs into a lone 40 to 50 pound poodle at Bed Bath & Beyond, you know? A mere moment later, here comes the owner around the corner and this is where shit went from weird to completely nuts.

“WHAT did y’all do to my dawg?! You scared my dawg!” this woman shouted, in one of those voices that lets you know that her dog is her "baby." At first, while still laughing about it, we answered that her dog had scared US, ha ha ha. Then there were more dramatic exclamations about us scaring her dog and then I got mad.

To be fair, I’m not super long on patience and have a fair amount of Scotch-Irish blood running through my veins, so it took about two seconds for me to get kinda pissed. “Your DOG was sitting in a shopping cart, ALONE, in Bed, Bath & Beyond!” I exclaimed. “It scared US! You have to be kidding me! And if it wasn’t BY ITSELF, this wouldn’t have happened!” I guess poodle lady sensed the home-grown West Ashley crazy and moved along muttering to herself.

It was just kind of surreal, you guys. I mean, you just don’t expect to run into a good-sized unattended dog sitting a shopping cart while in the Yankee Candle section at a home goods store. Every time something like this happens, I just wait for someone to kick open a side door wielding a maching gun whilst wearing Hello Kitty clothes. Or is that just me? Anyway, sure, I’ve seen my fair share of “purse dogs” while out shopping but this run-in took the cake. I was just trying to find a cute mirror for my daughter’s room and wasn’t even in a boutique—this is a hardcore corporate store, so I was completely unprepared for the weird!

So, what I’d like to know is what kind of weird shit happens to y’all? I know that I cannot possibly live so unique a life that this kind of stuff ONLY happens to me. Tell me I'm not alone...