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It's Simon! The Day I Was Recognised By A Stranger

When my youngest first went to kinder there was a little boy who came up and started chatting to me. He asked me how his older sister was which was a bit strange as I'd never met him. I mentioned it to his Mum and she looked at me oddly and said he didn't have one.
He became great friends with my daughter and was always at our house. I was further surprised when his mother said one day that they had written into their wills that I was to have him if anything happened to him, but thought it was because we were friendly.
When they were moving a couple of years later she told me he had told her that I had been his mother in a former life.
Strange thing was I'd dreamed that he had been my son but I had never said anything to anyone.
 
A friend of my mother had a son who was killed at about 7 in a road accident. Many years later she met a psychic woman, who spontaneously told her that the boy she'd lost had 'come back' into the family as the child of her daughter.
:eek:
 
I don't think he heard my girlfriend say my name, nobody could hear anything except his singing!
Steve is a very common name so he could easily have mistaken me for someone else. Thanks for all the replies though!


he didn't ask what the frequency was though, that would've made me seriously paranoid! :p
 
Psychic Tramps

Back to the tramps....

I was walking through town the other day, I hav to walk across a narrow bridge to get home. On the bridge was one of the towns tramp population shouting at people as they walked past. As I walked past he looked at me, pointed and shouted "What does he know, he's a foreigner" odd thing was I'd accepted a job teaching abroad that day, this was after returning from travelling only to find that england sucked and I didn't like it anymore. So I guess in effect I was a foreigner.

It's only once you've lost everything that you're free to do anything
 
About 10 years ago when I was a decorator, me and 3 workmates went to paint a canteen at a Rolls Royce factory.
The factory is about 50 miles from here and I had never been before.
As we entered the canteen an old woman was leaving, she looked straight at me and said "Hello Pavlos (real name)"
I just stood there, my mates looked at me with mouths agape while this old woman just wandered off.
After I had recovered from the shock I went to look for her.
I never saw before or again.
 
Similar things happened to me when I was young. It's just that my Mum knows a lot of people who seem to know me (but I don't know them). It must be that when I was much younger I had an obvious family resemblance, and these people remembered me.
So it's a bit surprising for an old woman to come up to me in the street, and say 'Hello David'.
 
They know where you live, too.

One Sunday morning some years ago, my brother Gerard said to me over breakfast, "There was a girl here looking for you last night."

As blurry as I was from having been out clubbing the night before, I managed to drag my eyes away from the TV and swallowed my mouthful of toast. "Who was she?" I asked. "You know all my friends." It was true. Gerard and I had grown up only two years apart, gone to the same school, moved in overlapping circles. I often brought friends home, and they all knew Gerard.

"I don't know this one," Gerard said.

I asked Gerard to describe my visitor. Average height, short red hair, wearing a trouser suit, driving a small car. In her early twenties.

"It wasn't Jenny, was it?" I asked. Jenny was the only redhead I knew. Gerard knew her. He said it wasn't her.

I was stumped. I asked Gerard what my visitor had wanted.

"She said 'Hi, is X in?' I told her you were out. I asked if she wanted to leave a message, but she said 'No, that's okay' and got into her car and drove off."

I was baffled. I hadn't been expecting anyone, and it hadn't been anyone my brother had recognised. I wondered who my visitor was and what she wanted.

I kept an eye out over the following weeks, but she didn't return. I asked around my friends and none of them knew anything. To this day I still don't know who she was, how she knew my name and address, or what she wanted.
 
There is one chap where I work who has always called me Diane (even though that's not my name and not the name on the door to my office that he looks at as he walks past and still calls me Diane). I have given up correcting him (this has gone on for about 3/4 years) and I was astounded when another colleague walked past my office this week and said, yes, you guessed it, Hello Diane...

By the way, my name's not Rachel either...
 
Negation

It's a way of negating your individuality and usurping any power you may have there. I'd file a formal complaint and push your real name in their face using name tags every chance I got. If you don't, you'll have been co-opted.

Also show how repeating even a glaring untruth eventually institutes it as a "fact" -- as we see with the right-wing lying governments.
 
Yup FraterLibre, exactamundo M8.

I caught an old episode of The Bill recently, where a sexually-harassing PC called Santini continually calls a colleague he's assaulted 'Rosebud' instead of her normal nickname of 'Rosie', probably short for 'Rosemary'.

The name 'Rosebud' has movie connotations of course.
It's a way of reducing her to ;) without spelling it out.

Must own up to a bit of this meself though - I jokingly advise friends to call all lovers 'Darling', all teenage boys 'Handsome' and all animals 'Sweetie Pie'. :D
 
Differs

Peoples' responses differ, but the constant repitition is the thing. You'll even see it in politics, where a big lie is repeated so much that the opposition starts using those very terms and even sometimes inadvertently validating the lie by responding to it. The Bush League's success at framing Kerry the way they want him is a good example.

As for labeling people this way, it does have a certain satiric / comediic value but can backfire dreadfully, and cause lasting harm.

Call a girl fat for a few months and watch her go anorexic / bulemic, for instance.

Or the continual bullying that, at Columbine, led Klebold and Harris to exact their revenge with suicideal and senseless violence.

"Jeremy spoke in class today..." -- Pearl Jam.
 
Something sort of similiar happened to me yesterday..I was walking out of my house, there were a group of kids messing around on the porch next to mine. One of them called out 'hello', i said 'hello' back..then one of the kids yelled 'She's dead!'.

Not as a joke. They didn't laugh, or continue, the way kids do. They just ignored me completely, and went back to their playing. Freaked me out no end. I walked down the street wandering if I'd segued into a vampire or a ghost without realising.
 
Dead To the World?

Perhaps they meant it as in being dead to Them, of no consequence, not a worthy interruption?
 
Re: Dead To the World?

FraterLibre said:
Perhaps they meant it as in being dead to Them, of no consequence, not a worthy interruption?
Click to expand...

It could be..but are eight and nine year olds, while capable of that kind of distinction, capable of recognising and expressing it? Wouldn't they just turn their backs?

or maybe they were just annoying little brats
 
My Vote

Although it's my policy never to underestimate a child, I'd vote for the latter. Annoying little brats are common as any other kind of vermin. lol

I do remember playing with friends at about that age and shouting, "You're dead," or "I'm dead," or even "He's dead," were perfectly in context with, say, playing BONANZA or MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
 
could have been "she's dead" as in "she's going to be in trouble" (perhaps in context with something they were talking about that you didn't hear)?
 
There's no possibility of using this story to decipher the child's meaning, but I can't resist it anyway.

A woman whose day job is in an elementary school office, to whom this happened, is the source.

Two friends come in from recess, one little and loudmouthed, one big and silent. "Ma'am, ma'am, I think Jimmy's dead!" cries the little one. "We can't hear his heart!"

She looks up at Jimmy, the bigger boy, who looks concerned but healthy. "Well, Jimmy," she says, "are you breathing?"

He thinks about it a minute, then nods.

"Then you're alive," she says; and the boys depart happy.
 
Perfectly believeable...

...if they were American high school students.
 
I can remeber, when I was a child, trying to find my pulse, failing, and getting very worried! When I did eventually find it it was going very fast!
 
Shane said:
More of a coincidence, but;

My cousins name is Michael Shaun, his fathers name is Sam, his mothers name is Ludmilla, and our grandfathers name was J.D His ex-roommate's name is Michael Shawn, his fathers name is Sam, his mothers name is Ludine, and his granfather's name was J.D.
Click to expand...

I have a co-worker who's married name is Betty W. Now, her last name is NOT that common (I won't say what it is for privacy reasons) but her mother-in-law is Betty W. and there is a cousin who married into the family whose name is ALSO Betty W. What makes it even weirder is that their names are not short for anything, like Elisabeth. It's just Betty. One more weird tidbit is that there is a street several blocks away from the office named for someone in her husand's family so Betty W. works near W street!
 
RachelVK said:
There is one chap where I work who has always called me Diane (even though that's not my name and not the name on the door to my office that he looks at as he walks past and still calls me Diane). I have given up correcting him (this has gone on for about 3/4 years) and I was astounded when another colleague walked past my office this week and said, yes, you guessed it, Hello Diane...

By the way, my name's not Rachel either...
Click to expand...

Call HIM by the wrong name every time you see him and see how long he keeps calling you Diane. If he complains, tell him you're just returning the "favor".
 
I went to the Maldives a few years back and, being trapped on a small island with no escape, became friendly with all the other couples there. There was one woman in particular whose name was Jenny, but for some inexplicable reason I kept referring to her as Fiona. I have no idea why, but in my mind her name was Fiona. I dont know anyone called Fiona so its not like she reminded me of someone I already knew. I can only assume that I knew this woman in a previous life and her name was Fiona back then.
 
OK, this is a FOAF story. But reliable as I know both friends.
My friend (Mary) went to visit her friend (Rita) at college in another city.
As soon as Mary arrived, they went into town and occasional people on the street began to greet her ("Hey, Sally, tell your mom I said 'Hi!'"), or ("Sally, you missed the meeting Friday, were you sick?"). They tried to shrug it off, and went into a small diner to have coffee and catch up. They sat for a little while, and their waitress came up to take their order.
Her name was Sally, the resemblence was very strong....

Second story, again Mary is involved. Shortly after she gave birth to her son, another friend came to visit. The friend apologized for being the bearer of bad news, but she'd run into Mary's husband Tom a week before. Tom was at a shopping mall, with the baby in a stroller, walking with another woman. They laughed alot, gazes locked, and kissed occasionally. Mary's friend was so angered she strode up to Tom and gave him quite a piece of her mind: poor Mary, at home still recovering from child birth, and he has the gall to take the baby out and stroll about in public!! With his obvious MISTRESS!!!
Only problem was, on that day, at that time, they figured out that Tom was at home with Mary, having a dinner celebrating the birth of their son.

Poor guy at the mall, whoever he was....
 
I enjoy owning older cars, and presently have a 1985 Mercedes. After being disappointed at the quality of mechanics, I switched to a small shop with only 4 bays. I dropped by one day to make an appointment for some work, gave the receptionist my name (she's seen me many times) and she then said "Right, you'll be bringing in your 450SEL." I replied no, I own a 380SL that they have worked on several times. She retorted "No, you have a 450SEL that we have worked on." At this I looked around to see if Rod Serling had stepped through the door. I repeated my name, which is not all that common, my last name being anglicized French. "Right" she repeated my name and insisted I own a 450SEL. We went back and forth a bit and then I spelled it for her and she apologized.
Seems there is another bloke who goes to this same out of the way Mercedes only shop that has the same name (at least pronounced) as mine.
I was tempted to look him up but decided against the idea.
 
Professor_Pretorius said:
I enjoy owning older cars, and presently have a 1985 Mercedes.
Click to expand...
That's newer than anything I've ever owned! :shock:
 
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