Strange

It appears that not only I, but also a friend of mine is a freak magnet. This is her story:

"Sunday in the Jazz-Café. A man was putting two chairs together in a very laborious way at the table where I was sitting. He used one chair for himself, the other one for his jacket.

Now what did he look like? I’d say like Crocodile Dundee of Germany in retirement. A hat, the weather-beaten look, three pockets on his belt. One pocket for a knife and the others for his mobile phones. And a very big knife at that, which he obviously needed in order to capture the city crocodiles.

First he started to make the table more cozy for himself, so he put some wax figures on the table. Then he started talking to me. I tried to follow, but as it turned out it was not that easy. Because:
1. He switched from German into pseudo-Spanish or English and then back and forth.
2. He spoke to me as I should know all the names he mentioned or as I was travelling with him to all the places he was speaking about (and apparently had been to).
3. Within one sentence he switched between topics.

Other funny things he did: smoking pipe and cigarettes in parallel, disappearing for some minutes, coming back, sitting down, jumping up again, arranging the things on the table. He was not able to sit still for one second.

Suddenly he fetched a piece of wood and gave it to me. After a while he took it back again and started to carve a pattern, then gave it back to me. Other things he presented to me: a stone with a look of a potato and a plastic rose.

OK, then the band played the last song. Goodbye, have a good time, etc.


Epilogue:
Last Sunday, I met him again. He was with his girlfriend. This time not at the table I was sitting. But he still did the same strange things. This time I got a real rose. Another woman did too and his girlfriend got some more roses.

Don’t ask me where he has hidden them all the time, I suppose in his shirt. (or under his skirt, editors note :)

He then disappeared – this time for longer than he used to. He came back and you won’t believe what he gave to me: a complete Chinese dish set plus chop sticks. Some time later after he disappeared again, he came back with a dog. And so on and so on.

I’d say he is completely “off one’s trolley”, but it got me thinking about what might have happened to him in his life. And I think one reason is that he cannot come over that his children don’t want contact to him anymore. And apparently he feels very very sad about this, especially with his daughter. Last Sunday he said, maybe my daughter will come tonight. Of course she didn’t.

It’s a tragedy. This guy is really friendly, generous, cares about other people, but whatever happened to him, most people will not speak to him due to his strange behaviour."

Like I said, it's a good thing I'm not the only freak magnet around...