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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Victory said:
Today I bought a few books of postage stamps from the supermarket.
For non-UK readers, they were books of six stamps each, which are small shiny paper cards, one fold, sealed with a small amount of adhesive, with the stamps inside.

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Just after I bought them, I remembered previously having previously bought stamps and when I got home, one of the books had four or five stamps in it, not six.
Someone had opened the book, taken them for personal use, then resealed the book with a bit of glue or saliva and sold them for the price as if the book contained six stamps.

This time I was still inside the supermarket, so I checked them, and in the fourth of the four books I bought, there were only five stamps.

The supermarket changed this book for a new one containing six stamps.

In future I will check them at the till when I buy them, or buy from the post office where they can be bought in an adhesive backed sheet, and hence counted as purchased.
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One of the sales assistants must have done that. Something like that happened to me when I bought a DVD years ago. Sales assistant did a switcheroo and I saw her do it, but I didn't suspect anything naughty. When I opened the DVD, I noticed that the plastic wrap looked 'hand done' and the DVD with the film was missing. The other DVD, with all kinds of other stuff on it, was there. Took it back and got a replacement.
Always best to check.
 
The stamps are in the till (they are counted as money) so it could only be an assistant who did it. But I bet I know what happened -

the stamps were delivered in their bag. Manager got them out ready to put into tills. Someone in the office needed a stamp, intended to buy the book of stamps, used one stamp and then either forgot, or manager had already whisked the book of stamps away and put it into the tills. They aren't sealed, it's just the pressure of having all the books of stamps together in a rubber band and the stamp adhesive kind of sticks the books shut, so the till person wouldn't know they'd been opened.

Happens sometimes in the shop where I work. So often that I now check all the stamps before I sell them.

Either that, or demons. Demons is a viable alternative excuse.
 
My first thought was that someone had bought a single stamp and the assistant took it out of a book and then forgot to put the book in a different place. There again it's many years since I worked in a supermarket and a good few months since I set foot in one so what do I know? Probably they are not sold singly these days.

Sollywos x
 
Sollywos said:
My first thought was that someone had bought a single stamp and the assistant took it out of a book and then forgot to put the book in a different place. There again it's many years since I worked in a supermarket and a good few months since I set foot in one so what do I know? Probably they are not sold singly these days.

Sollywos x
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They aren't. It's the whole book or we send you up to the Post Office.
 
hunck said:
I just found something glinting on the floor on the landing outside my bathroom. Turned out to be the small blue washer from my Braun electric toothbrush which fits between the rotary brush head & the main body gubbins.

The only time I take the head part off is when I change it, which I haven't for several months, otherwise I just rinse it under the tap after use. It'd either been there since last time I changed it or..
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Ghost dentist! Terrifying on every level.
Just kidding. I love my dentist.
 
pandacracker said:
Oh, and on @Trevp666's suggestion I have done a searches for sprocket, weevil and perineum.
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In my former life as a Russian Studies researcher, I thought the "Soviet Perineum" would be the ideal label for that nondescript period between Brezhnev's death and Gorbachev coming to power. Unaccountably, it failed to gain traction.
 
catseye said:
The stamps are in the till (they are counted as money) so it could only be an assistant who did it. But I bet I know what happened -

the stamps were delivered in their bag. Manager got them out ready to put into tills. Someone in the office needed a stamp, intended to buy the book of stamps, used one stamp and then either forgot, or manager had already whisked the book of stamps away and put it into the tills. They aren't sealed, it's just the pressure of having all the books of stamps together in a rubber band and the stamp adhesive kind of sticks the books shut, so the till person wouldn't know they'd been opened.

Happens sometimes in the shop where I work. So often that I now check all the stamps before I sell them.

Either that, or demons. Demons is a viable alternative excuse.
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The price of stamps has got ridiculous (old man groaning and whinging) - I'm surprised they aren't stolen more often.
 
Trevp666 said:
I play them at their own game. I deliberately do searches for things I have absolutely no interest in buying, randomly, almost daily, just to mess with their algorithms, and it works. Double Decker buses, Motorboats, Chain Mail replicas, surfboard wax, microlights, a job lot of 1000 rucksacks, handbrake cable for a Ford Cortina.....anything that comes to mind....it soon makes the targeted advertising go all out of whack, I can tell ya.
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I did this using searches for pig breeding- highly amusing results!
 
Is it for sale too? :)
And does it need watering?
cat1.jpg
 
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A nice little coincidence from the cosmic joker.
I'm currently arranging my fathers funeral, and I spoke to the lady who will be the funeral celebrant. Her name is Vorriey. I asked her about her name as I'd never heard it before and thought it rather lovely. She explained its a Manx name. Later that evening I settle in bed with the latest copy of FT, and i open it randomly on the letters pages. The first thing I see? The letter about the bottle brush cat, and Vorriey Irving o_O
 
I was having a conversation with my son in law about the thing where one thing happens and you suddenly start noticing loads of incidences of the same thing - like when you buy a Skoda and suddenly every car you see is a Skoda, or you learn a new word and suddenly it's everywhere on the radio and TV and in every book you read.

Is there a word for this? We were trying to decide if there was a word other than co-incidence for when this happens, and I was sure there was but just couldn't think!
 
Cherrybomb said:
A nice little coincidence from the cosmic joker.
I'm currently arranging my fathers funeral, and I spoke to the lady who will be the funeral celebrant. Her name is Vorriey. I asked her about her name as I'd never heard it before and thought it rather lovely. She explained its a Manx name. Later that evening I settle in bed with the latest copy of FT, and i open it randomly on the letters pages. The first thing I see? The letter about the bottle brush cat, and Vorriey Irving o_O
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My condolences, Cherrybomb.
 
catseye said:
I was having a conversation with my son in law about the thing where one thing happens and you suddenly start noticing loads of incidences of the same thing - like when you buy a Skoda and suddenly every car you see is a Skoda, or you learn a new word and suddenly it's everywhere on the radio and TV and in every book you read.

Is there a word for this? We were trying to decide if there was a word other than co-incidence for when this happens, and I was sure there was but just couldn't think!
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Synchronicity? OK, maybe not quite.
 
Isn't it a type of confirmation bias? I mean, the Skoda driver might be living somewhere in which there were already a lot of Skoda owners, but it went unnoticed until they owned one themselves. Or they're just not taking much notice of other vehicle makes and models as those are 'other vehicles' and not 'Oh look there's a Skoda'.
 
Trevp666 said:
Isn't it a type of confirmation bias? I mean, the Skoda driver might be living somewhere in which there were already a lot of Skoda owners, but it went unnoticed until they owned one themselves. Or they're just not taking much notice of other vehicle makes and models as those are 'other vehicles' and not 'Oh look there's a Skoda'.
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That was my thought as well. The Skodas and the words or whatever were always there and your subconcious filtered it out as it wasn't important enough. But then you've put a maker down so it pings up so to speak.

Sollywos x
 
Cherrybomb said:
A nice little coincidence from the cosmic joker.
I'm currently arranging my fathers funeral, and I spoke to the lady who will be the funeral celebrant. Her name is Vorriey. I asked her about her name as I'd never heard it before and thought it rather lovely. She explained its a Manx name. Later that evening I settle in bed with the latest copy of FT, and i open it randomly on the letters pages. The first thing I see? The letter about the bottle brush cat, and Vorriey Irving o_O
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I worked with a lady called Vorriey - like you I had never heard the name before.
 
Moirrey, Voirrey - Manx form of Mary, now found more in the vocative form Voirrey.

so like moira?
 
catseye said:
I was having a conversation with my son in law about the thing where one thing happens and you suddenly start noticing loads of incidences of the same thing - like when you buy a Skoda and suddenly every car you see is a Skoda, or you learn a new word and suddenly it's everywhere on the radio and TV and in every book you read.

Is there a word for this? We were trying to decide if there was a word other than co-incidence for when this happens, and I was sure there was but just couldn't think!
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I've heard it referred to as the Baader Meinhof Phenomenon
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/

Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one stumbles upon some obscure piece of information⁠—often an unfamiliar word or name⁠—and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase “That’s so weird, I just heard about that yesterday” would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.
 
tl:dr - Techy's bedroom light switched itself on.

After last night's hand-burning incident we went to bed. About 01:30 one of the car alarms went off.

I didn't hear it but it woke Techy up. He noticed that a. the car alarm was sounding and b. his bedroom light was on.

He never has the light on at night so he assumed I'd heard the alarm, gone in to wake him up, switched the light on and decided to sort it out myself without bothering him after all.

So he got up to assist me, and noticed as he passed that I was actually still asleep.

When he opened the front door I woke up and went downstairs, to find Techy looking for my car key. The alarm had stopped by then so I didn't know what he was doing. I handed the key over and he checked the car and all was well.

We chatted about it and he told me about his light being on. It's a dimmer switch so has to be turned all the way round, not flicked.
Techy reckons it's the ghost again.
 
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