I live somewhere sunny in the USA, and a woman stops and stares at me in absolute disbelief. She says, “ericxjo??? Is that you???”. At this point I’m very confused because my name is neither common nor rare, but she clearly knew me and my name. I totally forgot, as far as I knew, who this was. Must have been someone who knew me very well, the way she was looking at me. “I thought you were in Australia!!” (at that point in my life, I had never been to Australia). So I said, “um, no, I’m here…” and we start to talk and she sits down. I’m a bit worried about her so I sit down too, she looks, well… concerned and shocked. After a little while, she finally realizes that she doesn’t know me after all. It turns out that she mistook me for her SON, who lives in Australia. She showed me pictures of him. Might as well have been me. There was no difference at all, it was like I was looking at a picture of myself. I joked that we should call him (I was seriously wondering if he sounded like me). His mother also mentioned that we had the exact same mannerisms and walking style. She also admitted at first she thought I was her son putting on a fake accent…

So I’ve never met my doppelgänger, but I met his mom!

I was walking down the sidewalk, and I was coming up behind another fellow who was walking slowly. When I was just a few feet behind him, I must have stepped on a stick or a leaf or something, and it made a cracking sound. The guy turns around facing me and shouts “YOU DIDN’T BREAK THEM EGGS, DID YA?” Surprised, and having never encountered an actual crazy person before, I simply informed him that I did not, in fact, break the eggs.

At this point, he begins walking alongside me, and talking about some stuff that doesn’t really make any sense to me. I try to be polite and chat a bit, but I’m really just hoping for him to leave me alone.

He finally says “I want to give you this”, and he hands me what appeared to be a blue glass object, about the size of a small stone. He proceeds to tell me that if I have this object, the ladies won’t be able to resist me. He continues “now let me show you how to use it. First of all, you gotta keep it in a safe place”, and then he proceeds to pull another of these objects OUT OF HIS MOUTH.

I thanked him for his kindness and hurried on my way, just wondering if there was anywhere nearby that I might be able to wash my hands. After I put some distance between us, I looked back at him, just in time to see him turn towards another person, and I could faintly hear: “YOU DIDN’T BREAK THEM EGGS, DID YA?”

I have a shocking number of these stories. I’m a very friendly-looking, non-threatening person so I guess people just feel comfortable talking to me about any old thing.

One time I was walking round town and made eye contact/smiled at a woman walking the other way to me (small village habits-hard to break) and she suddenly started talking about the weather to me, so I awkwardly stopped and made some non-comittal response. She mentioned she’d sat on a bench after it had rained and motioned to her arse and asked me if I thought she’d get a cold.

I was like “I don’t think it works that way…” and then she asked me to TOUCH HER ARSE to confirm it wasn’t wet. For some reason my response wasn’t “Umm, wtf, no I’m not touching you…” but just repeatedly confirming that it didn’t look that wet and I was sure she’d be fine because she wouldn’t stop asking.

Eventually I managed to get out of that situation without fondling a complete stranger, but I will forever remember that day.

I was going to work, waiting at the bus stop. This guy walks up to me and says some super racist shit like “awful lot of slur round here, huh?” I gave him a weird look and he goes “oh, sorry, are you not a skinhead?” I told him I wasn’t and he apologized and walked away. That’s when I realized my clunky steeltoe work boots and shaved head really did make me look like a skinhead…

Picked up a hitchhiker pushing a baby stroller in the middle of the night. He had somehow walked nearly 15 miles from the nearest town, and had at least another 10 to go to the next one.

He gets in the car and he’s clearly homeless and drunk as fuck, but I honestly thought he was gonna die out there on the highway, so I decided to drop him off in the next town despite the possible drama. He was full of wild tales, and would start and stop them with no context whatsoever. The one I remember was when we had been driving quietly for a bit and he suddenly intoned in a mournful voice:

“My mother was Cherokee. She died in the snow.”

Immediately followed up by “you gotta cigarette?”