Weirdness in the World

A few years back, right after I graduated from college, I moved back to my hometown and worked at the local coffee shop while trying to find another job. I always worked the morning shift because that was my favorite. Well, when working the morning shift I had to get ready and leave the house by 5:30 AM to get there and open the shop, because if I didn’t have the coffee ready when the shop opened at 6:00, there was hell to pay from the regulars who came in at that time.

My hometown is pretty small, and at 5:30 in the morning, I was lucky to see another car on the road, let alone someone out walking, but one morning as I was driving along, my headlights flashed across someone who was doing just that. Walking down the street at 5:30 in the morning. And not just someone, it was a guy dressed up like Jesus. No lie. He had on a long white robe and sandals, and had long brown hair and a brown beard. He looked just like every picture of Jesus hanging up in my church. It was bizarre, but hey, who am I to judge what other people do, right?

Well later on that morning, Ray, my co-worker for the day looked up and in a startled voice said “Jesus Christ!” and had a surprised look on his face. “No literally,” he said, “Look! Jesus Christ!” The same guy I had seen earlier that morning was walking past the store. He was in town for a while and would pop up in random places, and just confuse the heck out of everyone. My hometown, though I love it, is small and conservative, and anyone not behaving “normally” confuses people. And this guy definitely fit that bill.

Now, fast forward to this morning, when I met yet another strange character on my way to work. This was the second time I’ve seen this woman, and the first time I thought it was a fluke, but this morning there she was in the same exact place.

So, yes. There’s this woman that I’ve seen twice now, that stands on a highway overpass, dressed like a character straight out of a Harry Potter book. She wears a long black robe, a floppy polka-dotted bow tie, a black top hat, has wiry hair sticking out in every direction from under the hat, and is leaning on an umbrella. She stands at a point in the road that is just on the other side of a hill, so when I come upon her it startles me a bit, because she seems to come out of nowhere. I’m very curious as to what she’s up to, because it’s a strange place just to be hanging out – on a highway overpass located on a country road. It’s also right next to a small cemetery, which just makes it even weirder. Someday my curiosity may get the better of me, and I’ll have to stop and ask.

Yeah, probably not. I might be to big of a scaredy cat to actually stop and talk to this particular stranger.

While these people may seem strange to me and others though, I have to admire them. They bring interestingness to this world. Far more than I ever have, that’s for sure.