I don't know if I've been waiting for a chance, but it made me laugh and an invitation to tell it is enough to get me to recount it.

It's about two guys who frequent the bar I work at, both are great guys but very different.

Ken is a black man in his late 30's, he was prom king, has more than 2k facebook friends, he promotes some of my towns most popular black social events for people in his age group and younger. He is a handsome, charming, super chill guy who loves hip hop and is a mover and player in the local black young adult community.

Julian is a high strung white kid in his early twenties, talks at a million miles a second and is the furthest thing from chill. He pushes opinions on anything he feels passionate about with relentless arrogance and feels passionate about hip hop.

Both these guys know each other by site, they have shot the breeze as regulars at a bar do but neither really knows each other well. They started up a conversation about hip hop and it was intense. "What's the greatest album," "who's the greatest MC?" "who's got the smartest lyrics?" "who's got the best flow?"

Julian was a terrier, verbally pulling, nipping and shacking in favor of his favorite artists. Laid back Ken responded with gentle "come on man what about xxxxxxx or yyyyyy, don't you think that they really left a bigger mark?" Julians all invective, Ken all calm persuasion. About an hour and a half into the discussion Ken's looking tired, he has a "someone please shut this guy up" look on his face.

By this time I was a bit concerned about the way things were heading, it was close to close and I had a lot to do. I wasn't looking to nursemaid a conversation. I hold both guys in esteem and didn't want to see any distaste or bad blood between regulars but I also wanted to go home, so I let it flow. I probably shouldn't have. Kens like royalty. His house is kitty corner to back patio of the bar, he was the first paying customer that wasn't a friend of the owners, he was a paying customer before the place actually opened for business. Kens brings in a lot of business and more importantly he sometimes even brings us dinner (Ken is an excellent cook). Basically he is a solid gold customer. He is a friend and a guy I maybe should have saved from having to listen an hour and a half harangue from some starry eyed kid. Did I mention Ken is also the primary caregiver for his ancient, alzheimer's ridden, frail and demented grandfather? Shit, Ken is one standup guy.

Julian is a pretty solid guy as well. We aren't a kid friendly bar. We don't serve dropshots, long islands, energy drinks or a great many other youth friendly drinks. We mostly serve great big pores of reasonably priced drinks. If you want to order something that has more than two ingredients it better be a margarita, old fashioned, hot toddy or collins, don't try ordering a "white gummy bear" because it isn't' going to happen. Back to Julian, if you find a kid (24 year old) who is fun, social, can hold his liquor and is happy to get a great big shot with a free beer back, you want him to stick around. We could use some more kids (diversify, diversify as long as it's on your own terms), he'll grow up to be a mature drinker and maybe I don't need Julian to feel the stink eye from Ken when he's bombastically throwing himself around the place.

Julian also has the distinction of being a bit of a hero. When out with a young lady, late at night, he was assaulted by a insane sex maniac at knife point. Julian and his date were held at knifepoint for about a half hour. The man jumped out a bush while Julian and his date were walking. He put a knife to the young ladies throat and another against Julians ribs. He told Julian that the girl was dead if he tried anything or ran. After about a half hour standoff, in which the guy promised to do a bunch of super horrible sexual stuff to them both, the guy took a poke a Julians ribs, drawing blood. Julian exploded in a desperate do or die assault. He managed to free the young lady and she ran for help. In addition to several vicious defensive wounds on his hands and the shallow wound in his side, Julian was stabbed just above his collarbone and had the knife exit just under his shoulder blade, puncturing his lung (it was a stupid long knife to get stabbed with and the guy buried it in Julians chest). The assailant ran from the scene and Julian collapsed. Julian ended up spending a little less than a week in the hospital and didn't pay for most of his drinks many weeks after the incident, The sex maniac was apprehended that very evening. So basically, he is a young, loud mouth affable hero whose way I try to smooth and civilise.

Roughly estimating, I'd say that the odds of a glorious celebration and understanding between generations, race and Suburban/Urban backgrounds cemented between love of hip hop was at about 20%.

Ken asks Julian how old he is, Julian tells him that he is twenty four. Ken smiles. "Twenty four?, Twenty four?, Awwww, you are nothing but a baby." He says "You don't know anything." Ken proceeds to quiz Julian about the foundations of Rap. While not amazing in the scope of his knowledge, Julian mostly keeps his footing on the shaky ground of a twenty four year old white suburban background, especially when contrasted against thirty seven year old hip hop party producer Kens intimate knowledge. That being said Ken was on the attack. Ken had been through and hour and a half of arrogant and bombastic lecturing and was going point by point through the cannon, finding gaps in Julians armor. Then they came to Tupac.

"What was Tupacs first album" Ken asked?

"Oh Shit, Oh Shit, I don't know what his first album was" Julian said, looking up at the ceiling, ponderous and unmanned. "What was Tupacs first album? I have no idea." he said.

"Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.." said Ken, pursed lips, head tilted back, smiling. You could see the "you don't know shit kid" coursing through his countenance (Wikipedia says that Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.. is his second album but I could give a fuck).

"Well how could I know that?" Julian replied "That album obviously wasn't meant for me!"

Kens jaw dropped and burst out with a huge guffaw. Ken laughed for the next twenty minutes, he probably laughed as he headed home after I had kicked everyone out of the place. I know Ken added another facebook friend and hopes to get Julians jest on World Star, and having an additional facebook friend and I bet Julian goes to Kens next party.

Same night some guy tried to order a "Jim Crow" neat. I'm sure he was vacillating between a Jim Beam or an Old Crow and just had everything go wrong, but shit... To his credit he took the debilitating but good natured mocking he got with humility and proceeded to return to his table, drink his drink and get another. It's surprising how often bartenders have to navigate race, class, sexuality and general realities.

I don't think I've written a story in years. Half in the bag here, thinking about someone who passed recently, it would have been his birthday today. I'm sure that my grammar is atrocious, ah well. There was a time many years ago when I could reliably write narrative, hope I didn't waste your time.

Oh, I never pass up a chance to tell a good story. I've got one, only a few of my friends have heard it. A memorable night in the hills to say the least...

I went to school in a bleak, rural area of northern Montana. My graduating class was barely 30 kids and there wasn't much for us to do except drive around, drink, and shoot things, which we did often. I had this buddy who had just bought an AR-15, a semi-automatic wet dream. He called me up one evening and we hopped in his beater of a truck with a big thirty-aught-six Springfield, a .22, and his brand new AR-15, and headed out to the hills to shoot the shit and shoot shit. He had that old truck for so long the odometer rolled over dead. This was back when I was a junior in high school.

Halfway there we stop at a pile of used-up tires and tested out the AR-15. The thing fired off easy and the power was scary. We got bored quick though and decided to head out further, deeper into the hills.

The Chinook winds that came down from Glacier Park and flowed through Browning howled in our tiny hometown at a constant pace, but out here in the hills, it was even louder. Sharper. In the cold October night it bit your skin and whipped it red. My buddy and I didn't mind much at all though, seeing as we were used to it just as much as anyone else who was shacked up in the area. But when you're out in the wide open space surrounded by those dark hills, it starts to affect you a little more.

We set up the thirty-aught on the tailgate of his pickup aimed down at a mucky pond in a steep coulee below. The thing kicks like a mule, which is why we've got it set on the back of the truck. It's hella loud too, like a cannon. I'm up and I get behind the old gun and aim right in the center of the pond. Squeeze the trigger, wait for the impact of the butt. A huge splash like an artillery shell was just aimed at the pathetic little pond. The eruption of sound carries even further in the wind, out here in the middle of nowhere.

We talk for a while longer and spotlight a few rabbits and soon it is very late. It was a Friday night so we had nowhere to be but we were both freezing and our ears were ringing. We both hop back in the truck and my buddy turns the key.

Thick fog on the way back. So thick and heavy that the brights on his pickup do practically nothing and in the pitch black we're just driving by the feel of the bumpy dirt road and the wide turns around the foothills. Him and I had made this drive a thousand times before but we're both on edge. There's no cell service out here, and if you get stuck or your car doesn't start or you get in a wreck, tough luck. You're on your own. That's just the way it was out there. Little white crosses posted on the sides of the road, marking spots where drunk drivers had died or where someone had been murdered long ago.

After some slow driving we're out of the hills, back onto the flat rancher country that will take us back home. The fog is still dense but we've both settled down a bit as we get closer to civilization. At least what we called civilization. The both of us start to loosen up and talk about our girlfriends and school and sports and all the things teenage boys talk about.

So we're driving along, just talking, when in the three feet that I can see in front of the headlights an old woman's wispy white hair and black eyes appear.

"Yo!"

My buddy punches on the break and rips the emergency handle. I'm sent flying forward and my head hits the windshield, bounces off. We're in a full slide, the loose dirt and gravel sending the pickup careening out into the low ditch and brambles off the side of the beaten road. The guns on the rack behind our heads slam into the side of the window and crack the glass.

Things are still. The pickup has done a near 180 at this point. Our headlights are pointing directly at the old woman, who still stands still as ever dead center in the dirt road. She didn't even flinch. When I saw her face before my buddy hit the break I thought we were about to kill her. I thought for sure, she was dead. Road kill. But for a woman who just about had her face rearranged by the chrome grill of my buddy's pickup truck, she looked calm as a Hindu cow. Her skin was withered and her eyes were black as the night and she was draped in a loose nightgown. Barefoot. What was left of her snow white hair was all over the place in a rat's nest. She didn't move.

The both of us sat still in the pickup as the dust settled. The woman still won't move a muscle. My skin crawled. I didn't dare breathe. My heart about to explode. I reached back and gripped the wooden stock of the Springfield. Now my friend is opening the door.

"Are you out of your mind?"

But he keeps going like he didn't even hear me, keeps walking slow toward the motionless woman. It was like something out of a horror film. The sense of dread I felt was swallowing me up. My grip on the Springfield tightened. My buddy grabs her by the hand, and starts to lead her back to the truck. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I scrambled to the other end as they walked closer, the woman quiet as ever, taking slow, deliberate steps toward me and the pickup.

It turns out, this woman was the wife of a rancher that lived out there raising cattle. She was suffering from Alzheimer's, and was known to wander out alone at night in the flatlands and the hills that surrounded their ranch. My buddy, ever the country bumpkin, knew a few of the ranchers and just so happened to know this very woman. The three of us sat in the truck with her in the middle and we drove her back to the ranch. She never spoke.

I hear that she's dead now. Succumbed to that terrible disease. But I could never get it out of my head how terrifying that night was and how terrifying the idea of this elderly woman walking around all on her own in the pitch black where the coyotes roamed. Could you imagine? Out there alone in the wide open darkness with that wind just howling. Not so much as a streetlight for miles. Just the thought of it sends a shiver up my spine. And sometimes I wonder if her spirit or whatever still roams around the hills at night... Maybe I could hear her voice in the wind? Ah... But she never said a word. Not one.

God just writing about it creeps me the fuck out.

ok CHAOS_, your turn.

No? OK, my turn. I save all my weird stories for an excuse to write a blog, but perhaps some stories never find their way there or anywhere.

Like the time I was sitting up in the attic of my mom's house with my then-boyfriend Dennis and my sister-in-law, Heather, who was staying in one of the downstairs bedrooms for the night. My mother was in another country. It was after midnight. My sister-in-law had come up to tell us that my brother would be phoning her from LA at 6:00 a.m. and we might want to unplug the attic phone so the ringing didn't wake us. This was before cell phones were ubiquitous. We promptly unplugged, but sat around talking for another hour. Dennis, suddenly grabbed the phone cord and plugged it into the wall. Ten seconds later, it rang. It was my brother who, for some reason, decided to phone at 10:00 p.m. LA time, hoping Heather was still awake.

Dennis said, "I just knew I had to plug in the phone. I don't know why." He claimed he was a little psychic. Sadly, Dennis developed MS and died in the early 00s. He didn't see that coming.

Another time, I was in my 22nd week of pregnancy when an ultrasound showed that the baby I was carrying had no heart. It would live as long as it was inside me, but die in my arms as soon as it was born. Doctors had given me a needle that would cause me to go into labour -- an induced miscarriage. It was the saddest time of my life. I hadn't told anyone in the family about this development. My sister who lived 5 provinces to the west, my sister who I hadn't talked to for about six months, phoned my apartment. My husband told her to phone the hospital and gave her the number. Her call reached me in the hospital room while I was waiting for the contractions to begin. In my darkest hour, my sister suddenly had a very strong feeling that she should phone me.

Both these stories are probably just coincidences. I don't believe in magic, but I do know there are some eerie things that are very hard to explain scientifically (so far).

I guess I tell a lot of stories in my real life, so I don't really think I haven't had a chance to tell any that I wanted to.

However, I have had some strange things happen to me that seemed surreal, that nothing really came of.

For example, I was once hungover as fuck in Paris during my study abroad and late for a class trip to some museum or other, (not one of the major ones) and I thought I could make my way there by taking a side street. So, I'm walking and smoking and trying to maintain my bearings and I round the corner and I almost run into a little person (is that the correct/accepted term?) who is also an albino and dressed completely in black and wearing a black beret.

He nodded at me in acknowledgement and trudged on his way to wherever he was going. I have often wondered where he went and what he did when he got there.

Another time a friend and I were talking about our troubles with women and pregnancy scares, how we were unsatisfied with the company we worked for. It was a sleepy kind of day and we were chatting in a deserted bocce/boules court surrounded by a gate, just back from the street. I don't recall exactly what I said, but I do remember that it put us both into a contemplative silence. Then, out of nowhere, a butterfly landed on my lips and stayed there for about a minute. I slowly turned to my friend and shot him my "do you see what I see?!" look. Eventually it flew away, but for the rest of the day I had to keep telling myself that there aren't really such things as omens, but a worm of doubt crawled into my brain and laid eggs. It made me think about what I know and question my certainty of "knowing" things.

Yet another time, I was swimming in some really fantastically clear water off a beach about an hour from my grandmother's house. The beach was much cleaner than the one I frequented at the time and I remember remarking on that to my cousin and my then-girlfriend. After about half an hour, the tide brought an object close to us. I couldn't see very clearly as I didn't have my glasses, but I kept squinting at it to make sure it wasn't some kind of gigantic jelly fish. For one, the color was wrong. It was white and kind of orange. I called my cousin over and I said, "hey, doesn't that look like a cat?" He immediately begins backpedaling, because with his superior vision, he could see that it was not a cat, but a cat skin.

I have no idea why anyone would want to skin a cat. They aren't even very good to eat. My girlfriend was pretty grossed out too and I guess a little disturbed. I couldn't stop laughing when I thought of it though. Not because I advocate cruelty to animals, but just the absurdity of the situation and how not long before I had been under the impression that the beach was incredibly clean and welcoming. Oh well.

I still don't quite believe this one myself, but here it goes.

It was a weekend night in February and we had gone out to the bars to celebrate two friend's birthdays. Quigley's is the bar we frequent most, mainly because it's right across the street from our school's music building. The bar is very quaint. Wooden tables, dim lighting, friendly waitresses. One of the best selling points about Quigley's is their mug club. You make a one time purchase of a mug and bring it back to get great deals on beer. For a place with some fantastic craft beers on tap, it's a dream come true.

So, we're here at Quigley's. They normally have live music on the the weekends and this was a normal weekend. The place was packed. There were about six of us standing at a table, drinking and enjoy the live music. All of a a sudden, two hands come from behind and cover my eyes. Seeing as many of my friends go to Quigley's, I just assume it's one of them.

"Josh?"

A woman's voice responds, "nope."

"Bethany"

"Nope."

Now, my friends and I aren't necessarily "normal," so I do a completely normal thing for me and reach behind and tickle this person's stomach. To my surprise, this person't stomach doesn't feel normal (again, I have less than normal friendships).

I turn around, and to my surprise standing behind me is some woman whom I've never seen before. Slightly embarrassed, I apologize to her and let her know that I was expecting a friend. She had very obviously been there a while and was fairly drunk. She says not to worry about it and turns around. Shaken up a little, I turn around and continue talking with my friends.

Not two minutes later, she turns around and asks me why I'm not drinking. It's February so I'm still high on my New Year's Resolution of saving money. I let her know I just didn't want to spend money that night. She laughs a bit then walks away. Upon her return is a mug full of Angry Orchard. Not really knowing how to respond, I thank her and feel that the least I could do is have a conversation with this woman who is so eager to talk. We start conversing and almost immediately she begins to tell me that she's 32 and goes to the gym often. My friends are more than interested at this point so they're listening in. She begins to tell us that she has nice abs for a 32 year old woman who birthed a couple kids (having tickled her stomach, I knew she wasn't lying). I nod to be as agreeable as I could be but she kept persisting on showing us. So we comply and she shows us her abs, which were very defined for a person of any age. The conversation downs down a bit and we each revert to our original groups. After my friends and I finish talking about how strange that exchange was, we talk about whatever college students talk about on a weekend at the bar.

We're interrupted by the woman.

She jumps straight to it. "I have nice boobs for 32 year old, want to see them?"

...........none of us know how to respond. She's at a table with a few people. She tells us that the man next to her is her boyfriend and she already got the okay to flash us in the middle of Quigley's. Someone in our group tells her that two people in our group are celebrating their birthday. That's all the validation she needed. Right in the middle of Quigley's, on one of the businest nights, she lifts her shirt to her chin and we see her breasts in full glory. I must admit, they were beautiful, even if she wasn't 32. Not knowing how to respond again, we try to be as formal as 21 year-olds can be in the situation and awkwardly compliment her chest. She thanks us, then walks away. Needless to say, we're speechless. None of us had ever been in that situation before. All we can do is exchange glances at one another of amazement.

When this woman returns, without any sort of warning, she does it again! We gawk for a few more seconds, then she turns back around to her table. I've never seen that woman at Quigley's since. I did have a friend tell me once that he was asked by a man if he wanted to partake in a three way with him and his girlfriend. I can't help but wonder if it was the same woman who flashed us her 32 year old breasts in the middle of Quigley's.