Stranger things have happened.
Many thanks to the Redditors who responded. You can check out more answers from the source at the end of this article.
1. When I was 19, I worked at a record store. One night, I confronted and tussled with a booster (shoplifter targeting bulk amounts for resale). Unbeknownst to me, he had a box cutter and he opened my face from the top of my ear (near the temple) down to the corner of my mouth.
I’m bleeding all over the place and freaking out (as one does). A random customer dressed in chef’s whites is the only person in the store not freaking out. He takes me calmly to the employee bathroom, applies a wet compress to my face, and just talks to me very nicely, keeping me as relaxed as possible, until the ambulance and police arrived.
I’ll never forget that guy’s kindness and composed demeanor. Never got his name and never saw him again.
jack11058
2. When I was a teenager I worked the night shift at a grocery store. There’s some pretty funny folks who do their food shopping overnight.
One older guy came in every Wednesday when he was done work around 4am. He’d always buy some canned soups and whatnot. When he’d come up to my till, he would take the cans out one by one and roll them down the conveyor belt and try to get them to scan across the machine before plopping into the bag. They never did register on the machine- but it made a mundane job so much more fun.
It was such a routine that as the summer was coming to an end, I told him the next week would be my last night shift as I was starting college soon (which was the most I had ever said to him). He congratulated me and promised he would be back the next week.
Well sure enough the next Wednesday he was back with a small army ration of canned foods. He looked at me and I just knew we would get one of those damned cans to scan into the machine before falling into the bag.
It took around 15 tries, but we finally heard that fateful ‘Blip’ as one of the cans slowly rolled across the machine before tumbling into the bag. We jumped. We cheered. We high-fived. I never saw him again.
rubytwixt
3. Was at a Festival and some girl walked up to me and started talking to me about how her and her boyfriend had just had a big argument. A couple minutes in her boyfriend storms over and points at me and says “who is this guy!?”.
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Feeling a bit tired and too worn down to be intimidated or argumentative I said “I’ve got the sh–s”. He suddenly changes his tune and tells me to try peppermint capsules, then his girlfriend chimes in and starts talking about charcoal tablets and the two of them bond over their respective remedies for IBS and walk away wishing me a pleasant evening.
NeverSawTheEnding
4. Studied abroad in Japan once and had some interesting times, both good and bad.
One of the good ones was the day I got on a train to visit a temple. I was sitting there, minding my own business, and this elderly Japanese man sits next to me. He had this big, happy grin on his face, and immediately started chatting with me. It took me a second to process that A: he, a Japanese man, had voluntarily started talking to a complete stranger; B: he wasn’t being creepy at all; And C: he was speaking perfect, fluent English.
Yeah, everyone in the country knows a little, but this guy sounded like a native speaker. Also, no one in Japan would start talking with a stranger in a train. We got some weird looks for clearly being two strangers who were launching into conversation.
We ended up talking for hours, I wound up missing my stop and we got lunch instead. The guy was really cool, he had studied abroad in America in the 50s, coincidentally in my home state, and had worked for years as a professional translator. He still had a notebook of something he was translating for fun, and I helped him smooth out a few phrases.
We talked about religion, politics, food, traveling…I wish I could have talked with him more or at least kept in touch. We eventually just parted ways and I never saw him again. Talking to that man was like being at home again for a little while, and it really helped me move past my homesickness and start interacting more with the people around me. All because we got on the same train.
Enshuu
5. A homeless guy came into the church where I was practicing the organ during the week. At first, he seemed to be sleeping in a pew.
Later, he called up to me in the loft and asked if he could see the organ up close, which I was happy to do. He was fascinated with its size and complexity.
He told me that he had been a professional painter, but lost his job because of drinking (which he claimed to have since given up – and I believed him).
The memorable part was that I introduced him to the pastor who decided to take a chance and have him do some painting around the church in return for a place to stay on the grounds (a room in the former rectory) and food.
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It worked out perfectly. The man painted many rooms throughout the campus with professional workmanship and eventually became the church sexton.
Back2Bach
6. I was at a gay bar and asked the old guy beside me: “Come here often?” and he answered: “Not since they plastered over the glory holes.”
laterdude
7. I was at a black tie event for New Years Eve. At midnight, they dropped hundreds of balloons from the ceiling and almost instantly people started to pop them. An hour or so later, drunk me decides to roam around to see if I can find an unpopped balloon. After fifteen or so minutes of searching, I find one by the dj table and start walking back to my group of friends with it. This guy, who also has a balloon, stops me and yells “You found one too!” We were instantly friends and referred to each other as “Balloon Guy” for the rest of the night.
half_monkeyboy
8. When I was 15 I was on a tram heading home after school, this lady in her mid 40s who sat across from me asked if I knew where the local town hall was which is renowned for being a pretty lush concert hall for orchestras and such. I told her it was on my walk home and I’d show her in person.
She then proceeded to tell me she was heading to a concert to watch her son play the piano. Being the proud Vietnamese mother she was, she invited me to join. I accepted the request and next minute I find myself sitting in a reserved row with all the extended family members all dressed in formal suit and tux etc… while I sat there with my back pack and jumper tied around my waste. I was introduced to everyone. Went home afterwards to do my homework and it kicked in what a strange moment of time that was. For some reason I didn’t tell me my family my experience and only now I really appreciate that memory.
CaptMadDogMorgan
9. I decided to take a break while driving from one side of the state to the other and stopped at a rest stop. Upon getting out of my car and heading towards the McDonald’s/Dunkin donuts/convenience store plaza, I looked down as I came upon a pile of hair.
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Someone had either lost their weave or got into a rest stop fight and had it pulled out. I said out loud to myself “that’s unbe-weavable!” Some random business guy in a suit and tie passed by and told me to “weave it alone”. It was the best interaction ever.
Dumpbuttnuggs
10. I was in a hostel in Paris and dead tired from the flight over from … I think Minneapolis? Anyways, it was just me and some girl from Argentina who was equally tired. The room at bedding for six. It was six in the evening and I’d already showered and lying in bed flipping through a guide book. She’d just showered and lying in bed flipping through a guide book. We kinda stared at each other and I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere since it was still early.
She didn’t speak a word of english. Which is fair because I didn’t speak a word of spanish. Neither of us spoke a word of french either.So I point to a photo in my book and she points to a photo in hers and off we went exploring paris.
Despite the language barrier, it turned out to be one of my favorite memories. My only regret is that I dropped off a roll of film somewhere in Georgia (US) back in January 08 and promptly forgot about it.
Mailen, if you’re seeing this and can read english, hope you also had fun.
If anyone ever developed film in Hinesville Georgia in January 2008 and saw a roll of an asian dude and a white girl in Paris, that’s mine. Hope they turned out well.
rocket_pork
11. I used to work at a hardware store called Menards as a cashier. As part of the job, we’re required to have small talk with the guests to make things friendly. Well this couple comes in my line with a ton of screws. A ton of screws. The whole cart was full to the brim in boxes of screws. For some dumb reason, the greeting I give them is.
“Wow, looks like you guys have a lot of screwing to do!”
I immediately realize what I said as my heart drops and they just respond with “Huh?” as if they didn’t hear me. I just continued the small talk for the rest of the check out while sweating bullets and praying that they didn’t hear me imply that they had a lot of upcoming sex to take care of. I finish the check out and tell them to have a nice day, thanks for shopping at Menards, yadda yadda yadda. Then he grabs the receipt out of the printer box, looks back at his wife and sees she’s already walking away, says “You too. Oh, and you’re right we have a lot of screwing to do”, winks, and walks away.
HplusGaming
12. I was out in an unfamiliar city and ended up separated from my mates with no phone battery. Being beyond drunk I got talking to a couple of homeless guys.
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One of them had a power bank I could use but didn’t have the right cable. One gets up, walks around the corner to an off license and buys me a cable and a can of carling to drink while I charged my phone enough to call my friends. They were actually chill too. Really funny dudes.
It stuck with me and I can’t stand it to hear people talk badly about the homeless now. They could’ve robbed me, I mean I literally gave one of them my phone and I was too pissed to chase anyone. The dude didn’t even want the money back for the can and the cable because he didn’t want me to break a twenty. It really drove home that all people are just people kinda thing.
ReefNixon
13. On my 18th birthday I was on my way to Vienna to meet up with my GF at the time. I had arrived the morning before my birthday but got restless and decided to just take random trains. I ended up in Zagreb that night but didn’t want to spend money on a hostel so I got a piece of cardboard and started sleeping in front of the station. My then GF was from Zagreb, hence my desire to see her home town even though I was alone.
After an hour or so a security guard told me to follow him back to his office. I figured I was getting arrested, but was 17 (for a few more hours) and didn’t give a crap. When we got there he said ‘it’s dangerous, you can sleep in here’. We started chatting, he spoke English really well, and said he learned it from the Simpsons. He said aye caramba and no problemo a lot.
We chain smoked together, and talked. We went through 6 pack of cigarettes that night, walter wolf I think the brand was called. We talked about women, he’d just met a girl but wasn’t sure if he was in love, the war since he was ethnically Croatian from Bosnia (he said he hated serbs but hated himself for hating them), music, Wages (19 kune an hour). We drank coca-cola and joked about getting some hookers (he tried to find some but they were too expensive). At 3am we went to another guard shack and made Bosnian coffee, which he said was the best coffee in the world. It was shockingly delicious.
At one point he asked if I wanted a hat, I said yes, and I had indeed been looking for a hat. He gave me an ozujsko pivo hat (I’m sure I still have it somewhere), I gave him a CD I’d been listening to. At 7am I walked out of the shack, could barely inhale, and got on a train for Budapest, which is a story in and of itself. I made it to vienna eventually, met up with my GF and her family and had a nice couple of days. This was 2004, he was 25 then (15 during the war). I saw him from the window of a train a year later but didn’t say anything. Never saw him again after that.
HalflyDone
14. Paid a bus ticket for a guy once. Well, not really for him, but for his 20-year old dog.
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Guy hadn’t any money with him and would be forced to walk 2 hours to his destination if the bus driver wouldn’t let him in.
He just hugged me while crying, saying “Thank you” a thousand times. Will never forget that.
jerryblack31
15. During my freshman year of college one weekend me and some friends went out drinking, and I had waaaaaay too much. I ended up wandering away from my friends so that I could explore the scene I guess and ended up passing out in the bushes in the quad on campus. It was pouring rain and I’m not really sure how long I was asleep but I ended up getting woken up by a guy who walked me back to my dorm while we facetimed his girlfriend. Never got his name but anytime I see him on campus we share “the nod”. If it wasn’t for that guy I would have for sure been arrested so I’m very thankful.
Gunnasty
16. It was more of a group of strangers. You know those pirate ship rides at the amusement park? Yeah, it was near closing time so I chose that to be my last ride. It began to rock slowly as usual, and as the side I was on gained reasonable height, people started to scream. The people screaming thing is a normal thing anyone would expect when they ride this, so when the other side went up and then down, they screamed but just a little louder. What ensued was a screaming competition between the two sides. I don’t know why, but it always makes me happy to think back to the time I had a screaming competition with strangers.
Vhftb
17. I was in a Steak and Shake about 10 years ago in the summer at 2AM. Not sure if you have been to a fine establishment such as this, but at the end of the meal you get up and pay at the register. A girl is paying for her food and at the end of the transaction goes “Keep the change ya filthy animal” a la Home Alone. The entire place erupts in laughter. It warms my heart to think that at that Steak and Shake at 2AM we were all united in the Christmas spirit.
ZeneParker