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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Say_it_with_powers said:
Hi, I'm new on here. I have a few stories of (very) minor strangeness to share. One that comes to mind is the time I had a huge loaf of bread mysteriously appear in my shopping basket down the Co-op. I wasn't buying bread that day and it was a loaf of white bread which I don't usually buy. I'm guessing it was a prank although I don't remember there being many other shoppers around at the time.
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Welcome to the jungle, say-it! :)

It only takes one prankster. I was lingering in the healthcare/medicines section of Tesco a couple of years back, choosing anti-histamines. I must have attracted the attention of a mischief maker because when I got to the checkout I had acquired three packets of condoms and a large tin of talcum powder in my trolley. :oops:
 
That actually sounds a funnier prank than the loaf of bread. It would be awkward if they got caught doing it though...
 
yesterday i was laying a new rug i'd bought to replace an older one. As both were huge, room sized, it involved a lot of moving furniture about and sweating.
First i had to get the old rug out from under all the heavy furniture round the edge of the room which i did and then rolled it up to take out. As it is the width of the room ~10 ft by about ~12ft i thought i'd fold it in half after i'd rolled it to make it easier to carry downstairs. So i stood it upright, folded into an inverted U and decided to tie it together so I went to the kitchen to fetch some string and scissors.
Now my goto string for jobs like this is an old spool that belonged to my Grandad. It was full when i acquired it and over the years it's been used for everything that requires tying. I've never seen string quite like it its almost a flat tape but quite narrow, about 7mm wide, and cotton like, but very strong-i've used it to hold the xmas tree in place before, so i know that once it's knotted onto something its easier to cut it off than try and unpick any knots and unravel it.
Anyhoo i fetched the spool (sadly depleted these days) and some scissors and wrestling to hold the carpet closed tied it around the middle and then ran a longer piece around the inverted U to hold it in a more manageable size. For this i had to hold it together with my knees while i tensed the string and then held the knot with one finger while double knotting it. (and trapping my finger in the knot in the process).
Satisfied that the rug was now secured i took the string back into the kitchen and came back to take it downstairs, which took about 30 seconds i would have thought. Only to find the string was on the floor (about 3" away from the rug) laid out in a straight line.
Not very exciting but puzzling as i had double knotted the string tightly (i trapped my finger), which usually requires it to be cut off rather than unpicked, and the string, if it had just come undone and fell off would presumably still be in the vicinity of the rug, not stretched out in a straight line some distance from it.
A small thing but it gave me pause for thought.
 
On another forum someone writes:

@clive probably since you seem to know so much about everything.
A puzzle: I'm trying to record for evidence some sounds which someone is broadcasting into the house somehow (how is another mystery).
Music, female voices and male chanting, and also some kind of low rumbling, which can be heard by the ear quite well and loudly but which don't show up on the recording. Very frustrating to say the least.
Any idea how this might be possible and, of course, how to overcome it and make a recording?

A classic!
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/friday_squid_bl_471.html?nc=23#comment-6692334
 
Jacolantern - it was defintely the string you'd tied around the carpet and not another loose piece that had maybe fallen off the spool or some such thing? Just checking.

Uair - maybe it's a case of surfaces in the house picking up radio broadcasts? No idea why it wouldn't show up on recordings, though...
 
uair01 wasn't there a case some time ago of dental fillings picking up signals?
 
Is it? I've heard stranger, like our old VHS which could pick up TV and radio audio when on standby.

Either way, I'd be intrigued to know whether anyone else can hear these unrecordable sounds. If not, I'd suggest a call to a doctor, not a recording expert.
 
Ula- no, no loose or extraneous bits of string. And being a bit more organised than usual i'd been hoovering up as i dealt with the herculean task of freeing and rolling so it was just a plain, freshly clean light brown carpet we were standing on (hence the need for a cover-all rug). Maybe it was a reminder from my Grandad not to waste what little remains on the spool? :)
 
Wabbey, thanks for the link - very interesting. Was that to do with your own experiences?
If not, please could you describe what you experienced in detail - I think we'd all be fascinated to know.
Preferably on a 'dental radio' thread, otherwise Rynner will have a fit! ;)
 
I used to drive past the local church at night about once to twice a week or so a few years back. The road snaked down right past it and on the outside of the turn, just outside the graveyard there was a street lamp that was perpetually turning on and off as if it was plagued by bad wiring. It always (or at least way more often than not) tended to either turn off or on just as I drove by, almost as if on purpose.

However, I'm enough of a skeptic to assume it was all by chance. If it goes on and off often enough, of course it will seem like it does so right as I drive by. However, it kept this up for at least four or five years without getting fixed. Every night. I don't live in the slum or anything, and churches are usually ripe with cranky old ladies who'd call the council if the neighbour's grass were an inch too long. Funny how no one ever came around to repair it.

The icing on he cake, though, was that one day, just as I drove past the same churchyard, the high beams on my car turned themselves on! The light switch had shorted from wear and the "optical horn" started engaging in the standard position.

I honestly don't think it was anything extranatural, but it was kinda spooky how this graveyard seems to break any lamp that got near it.
 
A minor strangeness resolved!

Last time I did my laundry, a few weeks ago, a hankie went missing. I searched the washer and the dryer again, but no sign of it. Ho hum, no great loss.

Today I needed to do more washing, so I took the bath towel I've been using off the radiator and replaced it with the clean one from the last wash, which has been hanging on the bathroom door ever since - and the missing hankie floated down from behind it!

It's no mystery as to how it got there - I have a couple of man-made fibre shirts that create static electricity in the tumble dryer which sticks things together. But I missed seeing it when I folded my laundry to carry it home, and then again when I hung the towel up. So the hankie remained there until today! :rolleyes:
 
I was sound asleep earlier when I hear my husband's voice distantly calling, "kangaroo! Kangaroo!" He gently prods my shoulder. "Kargaroo! Kangaroo!"

I sit up groggily. Husband says, "it's time to wake up." I say, "okay, but why were you calling me "kangaroo"? :confused: He says "What? I was calling you by your name!" (which sounds nothing like kangaroo, by the way)

I was dreaming at the time, but this also had nothing to do with kangaroos. I was dreaming I was at the dentist.

Am betting my new nickname will be "kanga" now. :p
 
I recently needed to swap a SIM card from an iPhone to another phone. Wasn't looking forward to this fiddly job and put it off.
Waiting in line at Tesco, I spotted a SIM card removal tool lying on the floor. OK, universe, I'll do it! ;)
 
Every time I clear some drawers out a few days will pass and then....a situation will present itself where I could have used one of the disposed items. Why does that happen? Is some relation of the tangle fairy to blame?
 
Shady said:
That a bit like the 'Safe Place Syndrome' :p
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Yep, Im good at that one until I need what ever it was I placed in that safe place. I think my TV remote has secret legs at times.

And if its raining you can guarantee the lost item is somewhere outside.
 
I have mislaid a Bible. And not just a common Bible, but a doorstopper size 9*18*25 cm book. It doesn't just fall through the cracks. I have enough other Bibles, so no spiritual crisis in my house, but it's strange and irritating. Saying the standard prayer to St. Anthony did not help yet. Probably it's God sending the message: "you really should use that other translation" :)
 
My glasses broke last night. I have about twenty pairs, all cheap reading glasses. These were a simple clear plastic square-lens design.

I had put them on for a few seconds only and was exerting no pressure but the damn things cracked more or less dead centre of the nose-bridge and fell off my face!

They have proved robust in other situations and I had not been flexing them that day. :eek:
 
uair01 said:
I have mislaid a Bible. And not just a common Bible, but a doorstopper size 9*18*25 cm book. It doesn't just fall through the cracks.
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A crack team of ninja antitheists may have covertly entered your home, ceiling-hung from kevlar-threaded rosary beads. Think "Ocean's Eleven", mixed with the modern St Trinians, but all wearing Richard Dawkins and Desmond Morris facemasks.

But seriously: is it a family record bible, with all batches/matches/dispatches scrawled upon the endpiece, in a range of copperplate legibilities?

Are there not certain special significances regarding the accrued importance of such bibles? Isn't this also the same sort of bible that wedding rings are sat inside, for kirk hand-fasting?
 
I've mislaid my King James version of the Bible. It had some predecimal notes in it that I wanted to give to my grandaughter. I have a more modern version but I liked that one.
On the other hand as I was straightening up some of the books the other day one about Fathers fell down.
Later that day my daughter emailed that her mother in law's Father had died, so I'll see if she would like it.
 
Ermintrude said:
...is it a family record bible, with all batches/matches/dispatches scrawled upon the endpiece, in a range of copperplate legibilities?
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Shouldn't that be hatches/matches/dispatches? That's the version I was told, by various ladies from the nursing profession, with experience of these things.
 
rynner2 said:
Shouldn't that be hatches/matches/dispatches? That's the version I was told, by various ladies from the nursing profession, with experience of these things.
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Ah, but were you hatched or batched? Last time I checked, I was a mammal, therefore, I've always used the Huxlean term 'batches' in this idiom.

This needs to be taken back to The Board for a full adjuducation. The freedom of the western world itself may stand or fall over this one.

I throw myself upon the mercy of my pierres!
 
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Ermintrude said:
But seriously: is it a family record bible, with all batches/matches/dispatches scrawled upon the endpiece, in a range of copperplate legibilities?
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Nope. No such objects in my family. I'm the first Catholic (of the progressive sort) in two generations of Atheists.
But it was a special "literary" edition, without the chapter&verse numbers. Just text, printed like a novel. It is a very different reading experience from the traditional typography.

But not finding this Bible it is probably my punishment for swearing while searching for it. As I was groping in my bookcase, ten other books fell out and onto my foot. Then I used the Name Of The Lord in vain :)
 
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