s/o Craziest things strangers have said to you

[ravinlunachick]

The big family thread made me recall an incident when I was out and about with The Boy, who was maybe 6 months old and sitting up in my ring sling. A lady in Wal-Mart came up to me and asked, "Does he not have any legs, honey?"

 

:001_huh:

 

I just laughed at first, but then I realized that she was serious, so I lifted him out to show her that he did, in fact, have legs. I wonder what she would have said if I had told her that he didn't. What kind of person even asks a question like that?

 

What about you? What crazy things have strangers said to you?

[Joker]

We had someone ask older dd for a lock of her hair. :001_huh: Dd has beautiful red hair and the lady wanted to take it to her beautician to match the color.

[ravinlunachick]

We had someone ask older dd for a lock of her hair. :001_huh: Dd has beautiful red hair and the lady wanted to take it to her beautician to match the color.

 

Creeeeeepy. What did you say?

[newlifemom]

We had someone ask older dd for a lock of her hair. :001_huh: Dd has beautiful red hair and the lady wanted to take it to her beautician to match the color.

 

:001_huh: I mean that's a huge compliment, but :001_huh:

 

:D

[Joker]

Creeeeeepy. What did you say?

 

We thought she was joking but she waited for a response. We just laughed it off like it was a joke and walked away. Quickly!

[tntgoodwin]

I was working the counter at Chick-Fil-A and these two girls asked me (purportedly for a college sociology class) if, as a male, I preferred "T" or "A" for women (except, they used the actual words).

 

Also, about three people in line behind them were some people I recognized from church. And an employee of mine, a teen female, happened to walk up to ask me a question at the time.

 

AWKWARD.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

When I was riding the bus to work one day, a crazy guy asked me if I wanted any spaghetti, then pulled a baggie full of spaghetti out of his pocket. I declined.

[smillard00]

Creepy about the hair!

 

Dh was in seminary when dd was born. Some of the younger single students were admiring her one day and they wanted to know how old she would be when her eyes opened. Like a puppy! :lol: "Oh they should be open any minute now." LOL I think she was just always asleep when they saw her.

[MrsJewelsRae]

I had a very large man come up to me as I taking my baby out of the carseat at the mall and it was dark- he asked me if he could have a hug- and he held his arms out to me!!!! I backed into the van and said "no". He called me a b*tch and lunged at me. My dh, whom he was unaware of as he was getting ds out the other side of the van, came after him shouting like a bear and chased the guy off. I think he was stoned. Really freaked me out.

 

When I was 12 a man clearly in his 30s asked me for my phone number. Seriously. When I refused he tried to pressure me, being all nice, even after I told him I was only 12 (stupid, I know). He said he thought I was like 17, then he asked if I wanted to go swimming at his house, said he had something I could wear in the pool if I didn't have my swimsuit with me. I refused again and finally managed to come up with an excuse for him to leave me be so I could walk away. Ick, pervert. Wish I had the sense at the time to do something about it and get him arrested. I still remember his creepy shorts he was wearing- they had ducks on them wearing water rings and sunglasses. Ugh. :ack2:

[Haiku]

I posted this in another thread last summer, when it happened:

 

I just went to pick my kids up from day camp. Another mother started talking to me as we waited for our kids. She asked me which kids were mine. I pointed out my son and daughter, and she asked how old they are. I gave her their ages. The kids are less than a year apart and are of different races.

 

This women looked at me, laughed, and said, "You must have been busy and not overly picky!"

 

Tara

[Joker]

I posted this in another thread last summer, when it happened:

 

I just went to pick my kids up from day camp. Another mother started talking to me as we waited for our kids. She asked me which kids were mine. I pointed out my son and daughter, and she asked how old they are. I gave her their ages. The kids are less than a year apart and are of different races.

 

This women looked at me, laughed, and said, "You must have been busy and not overly picky!"

 

Tara

 

:001_huh: What did you say? I don't think I would have been very nice.

[specialmama]

I had a very large man come up to me as I taking my baby out of the carseat at the mall and it was dark- he asked me if he could have a hug- and he held his arms out to me!!!! I backed into the van and said "no". He called me a b*tch and lunged at me. My dh, whom he was unaware of as he was getting ds out the other side of the van, came after him shouting like a bear and chased the guy off. I think he was stoned. Really freaked me out.

 

When I was 12 a man clearly in his 30s asked me for my phone number. Seriously. When I refused he tried to pressure me, being all nice, even after I told him I was only 12 (stupid, I know). He said he thought I was like 17, then he asked if I wanted to go swimming at his house, said he had something I could wear in the pool if I didn't have my swimsuit with me. I refused again and finally managed to come up with an excuse for him to leave me be so I could walk away. Ick, pervert. Wish I had the sense at the time to do something about it and get him arrested. I still remember his creepy shorts he was wearing- they had ducks on them wearing water rings and sunglasses. Ugh. :ack2:

 

:svengo: Wow. On both counts.

 

I know I've heard weirder things than this, but it's recent, so here we go. I went to Tim Horton's DRIVE THROUGH and ordered coffee for Impish and myself. After she told me the amount, she asked, "would you like this to go?" :001_huh: Uhh, hey now, what a great idea! :w00t:

[cathmom]

The big family thread made me recall an incident when I was out and about with The Boy, who was maybe 6 months old and sitting up in my ring sling. A lady in Wal-Mart came up to me and asked, "Does he not have any legs, honey?"

 

:001_huh:

 

I just laughed at first, but then I realized that she was serious, so I lifted him out to show her that he did, in fact, have legs. I wonder what she would have said if I had told her that he didn't. What kind of person even asks a question like that?

 

What about you? What crazy things have strangers said to you?

 

I used to use slings like that, and I had multiple people ask where my baby's legs were. I would just answer, "S/he's sitting Indian-style." It does look weird from their perspective.

[Forget-Me-Not]

This is more what someone did, but my SIL and I still laugh and laugh about it. Our families met at IHOP one morning for breakfast. My baby at the time was about 10 months old. The service was s-l-o-w and she was hungry and fussy, so the waitress said she'd bring her something to snack on. I was thinking maybe she'd bring her a plain pancake or a package of saltines. Nope. It was a HUGE dill pickle spear. I think she had 3 or 4 teeth at the time. Now it's become a family joke: "Just give that baby a dill pickle!"

[tntgoodwin]

My kids LOVED pickles at that age. And lemons. They just suck on them.

[kitten18]

Creepy about the hair!

 

Dh was in seminary when dd was born. Some of the younger single students were admiring her one day and they wanted to know how old she would be when her eyes opened. Like a puppy! :lol: "Oh they should be open any minute now." LOL I think she was just always asleep when they saw her.

:lol::lol::lol:

[meggie]

This happened to DH today at work: Someone called in and he was working on their TV and found out he was in Utah. "Utah huh? Do they have buildings there yet or is it still fields and desert like everyone says?" :001_huh: DH thought about replying, "No buildings yet. I'm just using a cow as a computer and a poodle as my keyboard." He didn't though, his supervisor was listening in doing a QA ;)

[MamaSheep]

I was working the counter at Chick-Fil-A and these two girls asked me (purportedly for a college sociology class) if, as a male, I preferred "T" or "A" for women (except, they used the actual words).

 

Also, about three people in line behind them were some people I recognized from church. And an employee of mine, a teen female, happened to walk up to ask me a question at the time.

 

AWKWARD.

 

Ack!

 

I think that's when you say, "I like women with brains and good manners."

[wapiti]

This is a different sort of random stranger story. Many years ago, DH and I were at the playground with dd (our only child at the time; we were struggling to conceive more - long story). An old man with a foreign accent, apparently there with a grandchild, came up to us, complimented dd, and then said that next year we'd have "a boy; no, two boys!" He shook his finger in the air with that last bit, as he was walking away. Never saw him again. It was rather eerie, and totally freaked me out. The following month we conceived our twin boys.

[Maverick_Mom]

We had someone ask older dd for a lock of her hair. :001_huh: Dd has beautiful red hair and the lady wanted to take it to her beautician to match the color.

 

What did she think your dd was, a human paint chip?! Unbelievable.

[MamaSheep]

When I was 19 the college I went to had a huge winter break from Thanksgiving until after Christmas, and I went home and got a short-term job bussing tables at a fairly nice restaurant to make a little extra book money. When I was discussing my work schedule with the manager it came up that I'm Mormon (because I requested Sunday as a day off and he asked what church I went to, no big deal). A few weeks into the job I was helping with clean-up after closing time and one of the waiters came over to give me my share of the nights tips. He seemed sort of nervous, and he was cute (I totally would have let him buy me dinner), so I smiled at him and tried to look friendly, and he said, "Can I ask you something?" I said, "Sure." He said, "Is it true that you're a...ahem...um...a Mormon? 'Cause I heard that you were." I told him it was true. He said, "But...I thought you said you were earning money for college." He sounded thoroughly confused. I had no idea what on earth he was getting at, but I told him yes, I was on break from college and earning a little extra money picking up some restaurant shifts during the busy tourist holiday season. I'd opted for bussing rather than waiting tables because I didn't want to have to memorize the ingredients for all the dishes on the menu (which was a requirement at that restaurant) if I was only going to be there a few weeks. He looked even more confused. Next he asked, "But wait...how old are you?" At which point I figured he thought I wasn't old enough to be in college or something. Which wasn't all that unusual because people have always thought I looked younger than my age. I told him I was nineteen. At that point he got downright agitated and said, "Then you CAN'T be Mormon!" So now he was trying to draw some connection to my religion, my education, and my age, and it wasn't computing for him. And I was completely mystified as to why ANY of those details (which were really none of his business anyway, thanks very much, if he was going to act all weird about it) should put him in such a state of upset. I assured him that I was, indeed Mormon and asked why he was asking these questions. He said, "Well I heard Mormons lock their girls in the temple when they turn sixteen and keep them there until a missionary comes back from his mission and claims one for his wife. And they DEFINITELY don't let girls go to college." I told him that was not true, and he went off in a huff. Weird.

[Crimson Wife]

When I was 16, one of my responsibilities was picking my brother (then 12) up from his karate lesson. Someone asked me one time if I was my brother's mom.:lol:

[myfunnybunch]

I had a man on the bus ask if he could show me and my ds his tattoo. Apparently, it was some kind of cartoon character and he thought my cute little boy would like to see Donald Duck. Then he started to unbutton his shirt.

 

I think he was socially inept (as opposed to creepy), because after I said, "No. No thank you! That's ok, keep your shirt on!" in a slightly alarmed voice, he looked like he suddenly realized that he was scaring the nice lady, lol. "Oh. Oh yeah, yeah. Sorry." He look so embarrassed, poor man. So we chatted about the weather the rest of the way to our stop.

 

I was glad, though, that I spotted the bus driver watching just in case he needed to step in. Our exchange student at the time was newly arrived to the U.S. and didn't quite know what to think. We laughed about it a lot later.

 

Cat

[LisainOhio]

My daughter is adopted from Guatemala. We brought her home when she was 6 months old. I was in Target a few days after getting home and was so exhausted. I could tell that an older lady was following me and looking and I kept thinking "why doesn't she just ask?"

 

In the mean time, another lady said "Oh your baby is beautiful. where is she from?". I said "Guatemala" then she asked me how we would understand her when she started to speak. I was confused at first then realized the lady thought she would speak spanish. I explained that she was only 6 months old and would learn english.

 

I walked away trying not laugh when the other lady..the stalker..appeared in front of me. She gave me a disapproving look then sort of grumbled out "is her father like a mexican or something?" I was irritated and really just wanted to buy diapers in peace. It wasn't my finest moment but I grumbled back "I really have no idea who her father is" then wandered away ...leaving the lady with her jaw on the floor.

[Dandelion]

When I was 15, I got a job at the McDonald's in Mannheim, Germany (my mom is German and we lived in Germany for most of my childhood).

 

There were many immigrants from other European countries working at this restaurant (mostly men). One day, soon after I started working there, one of these men followed me to the Strassenbahn station (public transit) after my shift. I had seen him around the restaurant but had never talked to him before. He asked me to marry him!! I was totally freaked out and just mumbled something like "No!!! I have to go." and walked away.

 

The next day, I told one of my co-workers about it, and she said "Oh yeah, they do that all the time." She clued me in that he just asked because marrying a German girl was the quickest path to citizenship. Well, I have never had German citizenship - I have always been an American citizen. He asked me again a couple days later (:001_huh:), and I told him that I was an American.

 

I was able to work in peace without any further marriage proposals after that. Guess the word spread. ;)

 

P.S.: for those of you wondering, this strategy of "just ask a German girl" did work sometimes. One of our co-workers (a German lady in her 30's) actually did agree to one of these impromptu marriage proposals. It was a very sad situation.

[AndyJoy]

When I was an 18-year-old senior in high school most people thought I looked 15 or 16. I had one particular grocery store clerk really confused because I would grocery shop for my family during school hours because I had a free 2nd period w/no homework to do. She would look at me oddly every time, but never say anything.

 

Then one day I came in with a 5-year-old, 3-year-old, and 2-year-old who I was babysitting for the weekend. I could see a lightbulb go off in the clerk's head as she was thinking, "She's one of those drop-out teen moms!" She said, "Oh, so these are your kids! That's why I see you during the day." I laughed and said, "No, I'm just babysitting. I'm 18 and still in high school." I could tell she didn't believe me. As I left, she queried, "Are any of them yours?"

[La Condessa]

Happened to my sister, not me.

 

She was at the park with her five little boys (ages 2 to 7) and a man there with his two boys asked her if she did group babysitting. She said no, they were all hers. Then he asked if she had twins or triplets, and she told him no. Then he asked, "Are they all from the same man?"

[FlockOfSillies]

"No thanks, we'll sit right here in the car and drink it."

[FlockOfSillies]

ROTFL. That is hilarious! "Give that baby a dill pickle!" Nom, nom, nom...

[Ravin]

My younger sister lived with me for like 6 months when I was stationed in VA Beach. We were in the bank one day when the teller asked, "So are you twins?"

 

I'm 2 1/2 years older than her, so I replied, "She is, I'm not." Which of course confused the woman.

 

It was great after many years of "are they twins?" being asked of my sisters (who are identical twins) while I was ignored as the uninteresting one. Growing up, my dad used to answer, "No, they're six months apart."

[KatieJ]

Last spring when my son got married, I had met my DIL's grandmother at showers and such, but she didn't know my husband. When we walked into the rehearsal she asked me if this man on my arm was my son in law. ( She also knew my daughter, but hadn't met her husband.) I replied, no, he is the groom's father, my husband. She looked shocked and said, well, I was expecting someone older..you know. (I have gray hair, he does not. :glare:)

I just looked at her and said, well, he is older than me. ( 6 months, but it counts). She backed up and said, I think I had better quit talking now.

[Carrie12345]

Oh, I bet I could come up with a better one, but now sling-related incidents are stuck in my head, lol,

A woman in the grocery store once approached me and asked "Is that a BABY in there?!?" Uh, no. There was a great deal on frozen turkeys a few aisles back!

 

I've also been asked if my girls were twins. I guess I could get past the fact that one is blonde and fair while the other is brunette and a darker tone, but one was a 25lb baby while the other was a 40lb toddler.

 

Oh, wait! A neighbor once asked me if I knew where I could buy pot. I guess some people think housewives know all the neighborhood dirt!

[mom2scouts]

I posted this in another thread last summer, when it happened:

 

I just went to pick my kids up from day camp. Another mother started talking to me as we waited for our kids. She asked me which kids were mine. I pointed out my son and daughter, and she asked how old they are. I gave her their ages. The kids are less than a year apart and are of different races.

 

This women looked at me, laughed, and said, "You must have been busy and not overly picky!"

 

Tara

 

I'm sorry but that made me :lol::lol::lol::lol:. I really hope she wasn't serious!

[mom2scouts]

Supposedly there's no such thing as a stupid question, but some of these stories make me wonder.

[Ginevra]

Well, this wasn't all that strange, but I did think it was a question that had tremendous potential for the asker to have their foot in their mouth.

 

Eating at a restaurant with my dh and kids, the waitress noticed DS6's beautiful blue eyes. I have brown eyes and dh's are hazel and our other children have brown eyes. She said something like, "That's so surprising that he has blue eyes when none of the rest of you do."

 

It so happens that blue eyes show up from time to time in our gene pool, but there are dozens of circumstances, not all of them pleasant, that could have explained his blue eyes. I'm surprised she didn't consider that. He could have been adopted, could have a different father, could be someone else's child, etc.

[littlebug42]

My youngest daughter was born with a clubfoot which was treated with casting as an infant. Her first cast went on when she was just 10 days old. Throughout her infancy, we dealt with many accusatory stares etc as if we had broken her leg. We did get one, "What happened to her?" said in the most judgmental voice possible. At this point, I just wanted to scream, "She made me mad so I snapped her leg in two" but of course, I didn't. I politely explained that she had been born with a birth defect.

[LaxMom]

When the boys were infants, I brought them into the highschool so my oldest daughter could show them off to her baby loving Spanish teacher. Her English teacher happened along and asked if they were my daughters! We all just looked at him for the longest time...

 

I had to wonder how he would miss a 15 yo pregnant with twins. :confused:

 

(reason #1013 to homeschool, a two parter: a: teen pregnancy is so rampant as to be unremarkable, b: the teachers are not wearing their Captain Obvious panties to work)

[Jamee]

My younger sister lived with me for like 6 months when I was stationed in VA Beach. We were in the bank one day when the teller asked, "So are you twins?"

 

I'm 2 1/2 years older than her, so I replied, "She is, I'm not." Which of course confused the woman.

 

It was great after many years of "are they twins?" being asked of my sisters (who are identical twins) while I was ignored as the uninteresting one. Growing up, my dad used to answer, "No, they're six months apart."

 

My dad and his brother would string people along this way. They'd ask if they were twins and my dad would say yes--his twin passed as an infant though. When asked how far apart they were, my uncle would respond 15 months. It usually took people awhile to catch on.

[SunD]

This is a different sort of random stranger story. Many years ago, DH and I were at the playground with dd (our only child at the time; we were struggling to conceive more - long story). An old man with a foreign accent, apparently there with a grandchild, came up to us, complimented dd, and then said that next year we'd have "a boy; no, two boys!" He shook his finger in the air with that last bit, as he was walking away. Never saw him again. It was rather eerie, and totally freaked me out. The following month we conceived our twin boys.

 

Ooh! I was at McDonald's with my DDs, who were 2.5 and barely 1. I was very newly pregnant; I hadn't even missed a period yet. I only knew because I was charting my cycles. A woman was leaving the play area with her kids, and she stopped to compliment DD2's hair bows. Then she said "This next one is a boy. He is coming in fall, right?" :001_huh: Um. Yeah. September. And total shocker ... it's a boy!

[CariS]

I get asked all the time where my kids get their red hair. I have two both redheads, me not so much. It's more annoying then strange and I often want to answer the same place people get brown or blonde hair. I find it funny when people do a double take and mumble "two redheads?!" Really? The worst/best was when one day at work I was nursing my then 6 mo dd. (Yes I had my 6mo at work and nursed her in the middle of the store.) A costumer not 6 feet from me asked my coworker if I dyed my daughters hair. When my coworker laughed the woman claimed that my dd's hair color was not something you could have naturally. :rolleyes: I should have asked her if she had been living under a rock until that day.

 

~Cari

[ravinlunachick]

Oh, I bet I could come up with a better one, but now sling-related incidents are stuck in my head, lol,

A woman in the grocery store once approached me and asked "Is that a BABY in there?!?" Uh, no. There was a great deal on frozen turkeys a few aisles back!

 

I've also been asked if my girls were twins. I guess I could get past the fact that one is blonde and fair while the other is brunette and a darker tone, but one was a 25lb baby while the other was a 40lb toddler.

 

Oh, wait! A neighbor once asked me if I knew where I could buy pot. I guess some people think housewives know all the neighborhood dirt!

 

These are cracking me up!

[BlsdMama]

Happened to my sister, not me.

 

She was at the park with her five little boys (ages 2 to 7) and a man there with his two boys asked her if she did group babysitting. She said no, they were all hers. Then he asked if she had twins or triplets, and she told him no. Then he asked, "Are they all from the same man?"

 

;)

 

LOL, this makes me think of a question we get once in a while if DH and I are together with the children.

 

"Are they all yours?"

 

"Yes."

 

Pause.

 

"Together?"

 

:D "Yes."

 

And with more polite people they don't ask, but you can tell they are wondering. Our oldest is three years older than the next one. She has extremely curly hair, has darker hair, and looks a good five years older than Christian at least... I know what they're thinking, I just think it's rude to ask.

 

 

 

Each year we take "school" pictures of the kids on the public school's first day of class. Daddy takes the day off, we get pictures with him as well. It's all fun. Well, DH has one of these photos at work on his desk - him with all the kids. A few times people have remarked that there are only SEVEN kids in the picture... They keep assuming oldest DD is his wife. It REALLY creeps him out, lol.

 

And finally, the rudest thing ever said and not particularly funny, someone asked DH at work once how many children he had and he had replied with the number at the time - eight, seven living. So the woman wanted to know what happened to the one that wasn't living and he explained she had died when she was a baby from prematurity. The woman told him that no, she didn't "count." Um, really? :glare: DH told her that our Hannah did indeed very much "count" as she was very much alive, loved, and our daughter, but she then insisted that no she did not. DH walked away. Wow. Alrighty then. :001_huh:

[Sushi's Mom]

I used to work in a jewelry store. There was a guy who was a church member of a co-worker, and he would stop in a lot to say hi to her. He was in a wheelchair and I think had cerebral palsy or something like that. My co-worker said he was a very lonely person and asked if I would chat with him, too, so of course I said yes. He started to come in several times a week, even when co-worker wasn't there. He would tell me about this girl he liked, and I would talk about my boyfriend. After a few months he started to look at rings for her. He always asked me to help him pick something out.

 

Finally he decided to buy the ring, paid for it, then turned around and presented the ring to me and asked me to marry him! I felt so bad to have to turn him down, he really was very sweet, but the guy I was dating is now my husband.

[laughing lioness]

At my Dad's viewing his wife's dd (whom I've met 3 times) (my mom is deceased) sat down next to me right after I came back from a mascara burn cry in the bathroom (I'd been introduced to her the year before at my sister's funeral) and said she knew my Dad had been a lame grandpa to my kids and to my sister's kids but she wanted to assure me that he had been a GREAT grandpa to her 3 kids and that he loved them VERY much.

 

On my good days I am chalking this up to socially retarded insensitivity.

[Joker]

I get asked all the time where my kids get their red hair. I have two both redheads, me not so much. It's more annoying then strange and I often want to answer the same place people get brown or blonde hair. I find it funny when people do a double take and mumble "two redheads?!" Really? The worst/best was when one day at work I was nursing my then 6 mo dd. (Yes I had my 6mo at work and nursed her in the middle of the store.) A costumer not 6 feet from me asked my coworker if I dyed my daughters hair. When my coworker laughed the woman claimed that my dd's hair color was not something you could have naturally. :rolleyes: I should have asked her if she had been living under a rock until that day.

 

~Cari

 

Older dd gets asked if she dyes her hair all the time, too. It gets worse as she gets older because they don't seem to believe she doesn't. It's very strange how some act around redheads.

[Scarlett]

My kids LOVED pickles at that age. And lemons. They just suck on them.

 

Mine too! My mom gave him his first one around 7 months or so I think.

[Scarlett]

At my Dad's viewing his wife's dd (whom I've met 3 times) (my mom is deceased) sat down next to me right after I came back from a mascara burn cry in the bathroom (I'd been introduced to her the year before at my sister's funeral) and said she knew my Dad had been a lame grandpa to my kids and to my sister's kids but she wanted to assure me that he had been a GREAT grandpa to her 3 kids and that he loved them VERY much.

 

On my good days I am chalking this up to socially retarded insensitivity.

 

 

 

 

:001_huh: THAT is horrible.

[WishboneDawn]

My son has what I think is the World's Cutest Bellybutton. It's not quite an innie and not quite an outie. One day when we were at a family get-together and he was a toddler in a diaper the boyfriend of my husband's grandmother pointed at his belly button and asked, "Are you going to get that fixed?":glare:

[ravinlunachick]

BlsdMama, that is so terrible! Of course she "counts"!

[jewellsmommy]

At my Dad's viewing his wife's dd (whom I've met 3 times) (my mom is deceased) sat down next to me right after I came back from a mascara burn cry in the bathroom (I'd been introduced to her the year before at my sister's funeral) and said she knew my Dad had been a lame grandpa to my kids and to my sister's kids but she wanted to assure me that he had been a GREAT grandpa to her 3 kids and that he loved them VERY much.

 

On my good days I am chalking this up to socially retarded insensitivity.

 

 

That is awful! :confused: