I used to live in downtown Oakland, notoriously not the safest city. I was stumbling home from a night of drinking around 3am one morning, and this guy on a bike rolled up on me out of nowhere and he just goes “hey man, you scared of black people?” He was an older black man that appeared to be disheveled and possibly living on the street, and I legit just laughed and was like, no, I grew up in a city, and I live here, so no, not at all haha. And he just goes, “Alright. You have a good night.” and he rode off.

Like 5 years later, I’m waiting for my bus one morning to go to work, and the exact same thing happens. Rolls up on a bike and asks me if I’m scared of black people. Again, I say no, kind of being like dude leave me alone not this again, and he replies “I know you’re not. I remember you. Have a great morning.” He shook my hand and rolled off, never saw him again. Just such an odd experience haha.

I met a somewhat old man on a Greyhound a few years ago who was pretty delirious and drifting in and out of sleep. Turns out he had been traveling non-stop for three days, heading from Georgia to his home in Oakland. He had been on a roadtrip with his friends in (what he described as) a cursed Mitsubishi which broke down a final time some 2500 miles from home. All his friends took flights back, but our protagonist did not bring any kind of ID with him and couldn’t take a plane. So there he was, having not slept much at all in 3 days, on the i-10 between Tucson and Phoenix.
He also borrowed my phone to call his wife, who it seemed had not sanctioned his roadtrip at all and was very mad at him. She eventually hung up on him. Handing my phone back to me, he assured me that she wouldn’t stay mad at him after seeing his baby-blue eyes upon his arrival in Oakland.

I don’t remember so many of the details, but hearing this guy’s life story and about his impulsive cross-country roadtrip was kinda strangely inspiring.

I was just picking up food at a gas station and had a woman stair me in the eyes and ask me if I believed in god. I thought she may have been setting up for a joke about the touch screen, but when she just asked again and I silently walked away. She then moved onto another person and I waited for my food to be finished outside. When I came back in, she had cornered an employee. There was a trump rally outside, so I do believe that she was more likely to have been an evangelical over something else.

I grew up in Honolulu, and every once in a while there would be a tsunami warning. I don’t know how old I was—I would guess 6 years old, give or take a couple of years—but during one tsunami warning my parents drove up a ridge and parked on the side of the road to wait it out. We had a VW Vanagon, and I remember sitting in the van playing with toys to pass the time. At some point, a girl around my age joined me in the van. Her parents had the same idea as mine, and I guess they invited her to play with me while we all waited.

I’m in my 40s now. I still think about that girl from time to time.

I was biking near campus in a bike lane and an old truck matched my speed (maybe 15mph) and then the truck came into my lane a little so I slapped the side to make noise. The passenger was a girl and her window was down so I yelled something and she looked back at me a face that I can only describe as “I don’t want to be here” but then she looked forward again and I noticed the driver was looking over his shoulder at me with a big smile. Anyway, he forced me off the side of the road and I rolled to a stop in some grass and was totally fine, just shocked that someone would do something so reckless. He easily could have bumped me and I could have ended up under a tire. The truck then shot off (in a 25 zone).

Slow day at work, called a Dell support rep to deal with some equipment that needed to be replaced and ended up talking with them for 2 hrs. I think they must’ve been bored too because I remember telling them directly that we could end the call or keep talking if they wanted. They not only were comfortable with it but said they’ve never just chatted with someone.

Same idea as OP, it was like catching up with an old friend.

Maybe not the strangest but here are 2 from my vacation to London last month:

2 women walking past. One of them says:

“I talk a lot of shit, but my fart is bigger than my shit.”

Then in Covent Garden I met a very polite drug dealer:

Excuse me, do you need any weed or coke? No, well then have a very good evening.

Nice guy, big smile.

A day or three after Hurricane Ivan finds me (white), my two roommates (white and Taiwanese) and a stranger (black) from around the corner playing cards on the porch. No power or water, it was all we had to do.

Black guy keeps getting us white guys mixed up. He gets our names wrong again and the other white guy says, “I’m John, he’s Jules.”

This guy is stumbling over himself apologizing and I cut him off, “It’s all good! I know we white people all look alike to y’all.”

An intense 2.54 seconds follows while everyone looks around the table to see if it’s OK to laugh. Then we just started howling. Whew.

I was in Japan with my Fiance pre-covid and we were traveling from Ueno to Harajuku. It was early-ish morning and the train was pretty full by the time this woman who seemed to be in the elder age range was standing in front of me. Where I come from it’s just polite to offer your seat to people who are older, so I did just that. For context, I speak enough Japanese to maybe converse with a 5 year old. We had a little exchange that went kind of like, “please take my seat” -> “oh no, I couldn’t” -> “I’m getting off soon” … that eventually ended with us sitting next to each other.

She was surprised to learn that I didn’t speak Japanese fluently after I felt like I was struggling through a few simple conversations about the weather. And I wish I could remember what she said, but it ended up with her saying something like it’s ok because we understand each other, “hearto to hearto”. And she placed her hands over her heart and then over mine. Goddamn, that was the most anime moment in my life and nothing is going to live up to that memory.

Sitting in the window seat on a flight to work in Florida. The sun was setting and the sky was gorgeous. Full flight.

The lady next to me was somewhat disheveled and sad. Noticed the ankle bracelet and that she didn’t speak English with the flight attendant when trying to ask for help.

She noticed me marveling at the display outside and said “beauty”. A ‘no engles’ and a ‘no Espanol’ later, we fumble through enjoying a sunset together. Just two humans traveling together to very separate destinations. She cried. I cried. Used Google translate to say “sorry we make this difficult for you. I hope for the best”

The flight home was another gorgeous and full sunset flight. Another lady sitting next to me, both soaking in the beauty. She was a little older with what seemed to be her husband, both dressed to a T.

A ‘no engles’ and a ‘no Espanol’ later, we fumble through enjoying a sunset together. Just two humans traveling together to somewhat similar destinations.

Such a beautifull tragic things humans can be.

I was sitting at the bus stop one day, heading into work. As I’m sitting on the bench, with headphones in, some guy stands up and waves at me to get my attention. I’ve seen him before; he’s usually at the bus stop at the same time as I am on most days, but we’ve never talked until now. I take out my earbuds, and he points at the ground behind me and says with a smile on his face “Are you gonna finish that?”

I look back where he’s pointing, and there’s a dirty shoe on the ground behind me. The joke didn’t quite land, but just to be polite I said “Haha, it’s all yours”. He takes a step over toward the shoe and gently nudges it with his foot, and then lets out an “Oh fuck”. I turn to look at the shoe again, and that’s when I realize that it’s not empty. There’s a whole severed foot in the shoe, with flies and maggots starting to make a home in the stump.

We called the cops who came out, taped off the bus stop and took down our statements, and then I’ve never heard anything else about the situation since then. I never found a news story about the foot, no follow-up from the PD about it, nothing. The bus stop was open the next day. Never saw that guy at the bus stop again after that, either; no clue if he was involved in the foot situation or if it just shook him so hard that he changed his route to work.

This is a great question!

When I was like 17, I was driving (the speed limit, no music playing) through my friend’s neighborhood when I passed a woman out grabbing her mail. I gave a little wave and smiled, and she looked at me like I had just punted a fucking infant.

I felt so offended, and I’ve never forgotten that look on her face- I would love to know what her perspective on this is/was.

Ha, interesting question, really cool answers all around.

For me, it was many years ago when I went with a friend to visit a common friend that was studying in Vermont (we 3 are from Europe), and using the occasion we went to visit new York as well. One night we went to have a walk around Times Square and took the subway to get there. I was just standing there checking out the map to keep myself busy when this huge black guy wearing an even bigger fur coat that was sitting started talking to me and asking where I was going and if I needed help.

At first I awkwardly said that I didn’t need any help, I was just looking at the map to keep busy. He insisted asking where I was going, to which I answered to have a stroll around times square. He got quite cheerful and said he was going in the same direction and he knew a shortcut. At that point I got a bit suspicious but the guy said changing the train we would get there faster, I confirmed that indeed the other train was going in that direction and he told us to follow him. Despite my suspicion as long as there was plenty of people around I decided to trust him and go with him.

After the change of train he told me he knew another trick about that station, everyone was going to the normal stairs but he told us if we go a bit further we can avoid those stairs. He took us to an escalator that took us into an exit straight at Times square.

In the meantime we started talking with him, he told us he was going that night to have a guy’s night out with his friends and they were going to Atlantic City. He started telling us about his life, he was a music editor, and was married, and loved to help people visiting new York. By the time we got out into the street it felt like we were quite close friends and we stayed there a bit still talking, he was one of the nicest random people I have ever met, we took a photo together and he gave me his contact card in case I ever returned to NY (which I didn’t).

I’ve thought about him ever since and wondered how he was doing. It’s a great memory I have of such a simple random encounter.

I was flying from Calgary to Phoenix to visit family and it was a later flight, but still pretty packed. They were getting ready to close the plane and leave the gate and the seat next to me was still empty! I was stoked! When all of a sudden this lady came busting into the plane, she made it with seconds to spare. I’m watching her walk down the aisle and of course she ends up sitting next to me. Oh well. I put my headphones on and stared out the window while the plane takes off.

After a bit my album ended and I went to get a snack out of my bag. Now, when the lady had sat down she immediately put her head in her hands and just stayed that way till she could put the tray down, then she rested her head on her arms. You could just tell she was so torn up and sad. So I got my snack (chocolate covered blueberries) and she sat up a bit, so I offered her some. Well, that started a conversation I will never forget as long as I live. We both were in these crazy situations that were so alike, it was uncanny. And that no one in our normal lives really could understand or help with. Yet there we were, able to be that comfort and support we so desperately needed. We talked nonstop for the rest of the trip. The rest of the plane vanished and we were in our own zone.

When we landed we walked through the airport together to get our luggage and parted ways at the baggage carousel. We didn’t get each others numbers, just a hug and a thank you. I hope she’s doing ok. Sometimes the universe puts you exactly where you need to be, like it did for us that night. Thank you lady from 32B, I will never forget you.

There was the old bar fly at the pub I drank at when I was an alcoholic, he was a Vietnam war vet that was one of the people that got sprayed with agent orange, he got lucky that he didn’t have any real health issues and his kids were fine, he would just tell me stories about his life and the many jobs he had, was just a cool old dude who was enjoying his final years. Every time I hear the song the Gambler I get reminded of him. RIP Shorty, you little old nutjob.