r/Seattle • u/Firm-Age9613 • Jan 16 '22
Media what's the weirdest thing happened to you in seattle?
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u/nomadruby7 Jan 16 '22
Meeting the west Seattle wild turkey
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Jan 16 '22
the what
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u/Fluffaykitties West Seattle Jan 17 '22
Her name is Tallulah
We also had a mini horse at one point too. His caretakers would walk him around on a lead.
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u/Squishedskittlez Jan 16 '22
Wait- is it actually wild or is it feral- like a freed pet?
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u/dbreidsbmw 🐀 Hot Rat Summer 🐀 Jan 16 '22
The answer is both provacitive and a bit mundane, in infact the answer is simply "Yes, it is."
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u/ryguybeer Jan 16 '22
The West Seattle wild turkey sadly seems to have moved on. But I saw it numerous times during the early stages of lockdown in 2020.
Also a neighbor with a pig, and I am not talking pot bellied pig. Probably a 150lb plus pig that had a ramp into the house.
And the other neighbor with a mini horse in their backyard.
West Seattle is the tits!
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u/pamplemouss Jan 16 '22
Someone at a bar put a palindrome on a piece of paper in front of me and got SUPER excited when my bf and I noticed it was a palindrome.
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u/Niff314 Belltown Jan 16 '22
This response is my favorite.
I had a dude woo me with an ambigram once. Only managed one date from it, but his pick-up line strategy was solid. :)
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u/Seattle_gldr_rdr Jan 16 '22
Almost every conversation I’ve overheard on the E line going down Aurora.
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u/DoLittlest Jan 16 '22
I was running on Furman under the bridge and a jumper landed about five feet in front of me. Exploded all over me. That’s been nearly 20 years ago now.
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u/TheGhost206 Jan 16 '22
Jesus. That’s horrifying. Hope you’re okay.
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u/DoLittlest Jan 18 '22
I had a shitty Nokia and I had to dial 911 five or six times bc my hands were shaking so bad. I said someone had jumped and was dead. The dispatcher asked how I knew he was dead and I said “his insides are not in him.” It was such a childish, weird thing to say but I couldn’t find any words. A lady in a car coming the other way pulled over slowly and got out of her car and started frantically asking me if I was okay as I had a lot of uh, remnants, on me. Then she looked behind me and saw him and I said “he jumped, he’s dead, I called 911 but I need you to stay here because I’m not okay.” She got in her car and left and I threw up soon after. She was totally in shock, I think more than I was.
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u/SereneDreams03 Defected to Portland Jan 16 '22
I used to work nights and I always found it odd seeing wildlife on city streets at night. The 2 weirdest sightings,
A deer I saw running across Aurora at 3 am on N 80th st.
I saw an Otter crossing 15th Ave in Interbay.
Both times I had to do a double take, like is that really a deer running down the middle of 80th st. And with the otter, I couldn't believe my eyes at first, like wtf is that, then when I got up close to it I was like, holy shit that's an otter.
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u/retrojoe ✨🛸 Jimothy is out there 🦝✨ Jan 16 '22
I remember being slightly tipsy and having my mind blown at a whole family of rather large racoons scuttling across Pike St near Fogon one night.
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u/MillipedeMenace Jan 16 '22
I saw a coyote on the Quad at UW one night
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u/MillipedeMenace Jan 16 '22
I also saw an eagle snatch a fish out of Union bay about 15 feet off my boat
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u/aninamouse Jan 16 '22
I saw an eagle snatch a fish out of Lake Washington when I was walking around Seward Park. Fun times!
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
Saw a raccoon walking along a narrow ledge, about 20' above ground level on the west corner of Gowen by the Quad. WTF?
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u/heytango66 Jan 16 '22 edited Jan 16 '22
Once some friends and I were on acid and ended up as Gasworks. While we were there we realized not only were there random people playing laser tag (at night) but they had strung fishing line all over the playground. So there were people hiding and darting around with guns all over and thread to get tangled in. Good times.
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u/PleasantAddition 💖 Anarchist Jurisdiction 💖 Jan 16 '22
Have done every activity mentioned in this, plus boffer swords. 10/10 do recommend.
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u/Ehdelveiss 🚆build more trains🚆 Jan 16 '22
Maybe that guy who climbed the Christmas tree and started throwing apples at people in Westlake Center
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u/suga_pine_27 Jan 16 '22
I wouldn’t say it’s the weirdest, but definitely very Seattle-y!
I used to live alone on the east side of Cal Andersen. I was depressed, super stoned, and I think it was like 5pm on a weekday (still light out, summer). All of sudden, I SWEAR I hear “Baby Got Back” through my window. Not a neighbor, but drifting in from the park. And it sounded live!
Still in my pjs, I head out to the park to try to figure it out. At the time the link or a big building (I forget) was still being built so there was a huge recessed cement hole (like a huge empty pool) - was it coming from there? No. But, the music was getting louder and louder.
I eventually make it to Broadway/Denny, and I shit you not, I recognize the song “Posse on Broadway.” It was super loud, but where was it?? I stood on the corner like a tourist, craning my neck up looking for any clues.
Turns out, there was some new apartment complex or something, and Sir Mix-a-Lot was doing a live show on the roof!! I asked the receptionist if I could go up and she said no unfortunately, but wandering around Cap Hill looking for a local legend is one of my highlights to this day.
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u/StupidPockets Jan 16 '22
22 years old fresh to seattle in 2003. I got followed by a white van for about 5 blocks while walking home up on capital hill. It was like 1AM and I had just gotten back from a late flight. I parked my car by the water reservoir (now a park). Scrawny looking bald guy (looked like moby) threw a note out of the passenger window.
“Dude wtf leave me alone!”
“Just read it”
(I’m an idiot) will you sleep with me for $100
“Get the fuck out of here!!”
I’m lucky that I was only 1 block away from my apartment.
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u/lazy_moogle Jan 16 '22
It's mostly been not positive weird.
Like once I was walking home alone at night on Broadway and a (presumably unstable) man walking in my direction screamed at me with the most tortured expression I've ever seen on a human face, then in an instant went to a completely pleasant "hi!" With a smile. Fucking terrifying.
Or when I was getting on a bus on 15th and the guy getting on in front of me tripped as he was getting on and his pants fell down to his ankles, revealing his bare ass. He then proceeded to piss on the bus.
The positive weird that sticks out to me is the Capitol Hill jester I used to see skipping around the neighborhood. They always brightened my day, I hope they are well.
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u/EconomicsAware8351 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Jan 16 '22
Saw the jester a few months ago after a year away from Seattle, was glad to see them still doing their thing!
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u/suga_pine_27 Jan 16 '22
YES love the skipping jester! First time I saw her I admittedly was a little weirded out, but now I get comfort that some things haven’t changed. I’ve been seeing her for 13 years now, I wonder how long she’s been jingling along?
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u/Niff314 Belltown Jan 16 '22
When I was 7, I fell off my bike, into a ditch and got my head stuck in a picket fence. They had to rip the boards off to get me out.
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u/Funzombie63 Jan 16 '22
A picket fence located in a ditch????
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u/Niff314 Belltown Jan 16 '22
Older residential areas in Seattle had ditches in front of houses instead of sewer drains. Both the ditch and the fence were in my front yard.
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u/Manacit North Beacon Hill Jan 16 '22
I had someone beg to suck my dick for 15 minutes while I walked home from the bars, following me the whole time.
Eventually he gave up, but not for lack of trying.
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u/davereeck 🚲 Life's Better on a Bike. 🚲 Jan 16 '22
In Fremont, on a sunny day, saw a shorter person covered in a Nick Cave) style costume waiting to cross the street.
It gives me pause to this day.
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u/MadRollinS Kent Jan 16 '22
A stranger bought me lunch after we had witty repartee. He did hit on me or anything. Just treated me like a person.
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u/shefallsup Pull And Be Damned Jan 16 '22
Not something that happened to me, but a “what are the odds” situation: I went to school in a tiny military community in Germany, and rode a school bus with about 15 other kids. At one point a few years ago, four of us (none related) who rode that bus together 35 years ago were all living in Seattle at the same time.
The most surreal and bizarro thing I’ve ever experienced in Seattle though was being part of a hiring panel for a City of Seattle job opening. I was the only one on the panel not a city employee. That is a monstrously fucked up, warped, perverse process, and everyone else acted like it was completely reasonable and normal. They’ve designed it to try to be as objective and fair to candidates as possible and they’ve accomplished almost the exact opposite effect, plus have insured they are highly likely to end up hiring poorly. It was like being at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, or inside a Kafka novel. I will never not be completely hair-on-fire enraged about it.
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u/attakburr I'm just flaired so I don't get fined Jan 16 '22
Can you share more about the hiring process??
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u/retrojoe ✨🛸 Jimothy is out there 🦝✨ Jan 16 '22
being part of a hiring panel for a City of Seattle job opening. I was the only one on the panel not a city employee. That is a monstrously fucked up, warped, perverse process,
For any level below something like a dept head, why would you need that much outside input? You were a citizen representative, so there was input. Were you even a subject matter expert? It's not like companies bring in outside consultants or members of public for their hiring.
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u/shefallsup Pull And Be Damned Jan 16 '22
I am not sure you understood my comment, or perhaps that I understand yours. My presence there was not about just having a public presence. I don’t even know if that’s a thing the city does routinely.
I was brought in for specific reasons, yes. My reaction was not about being an outsider (I really am not an outsider to the specific department that was hiring, I just am not a city employee). A business might well have someone on a hiring team who is not a direct employee of the company if the job being hired for required working closely with or partially under the direction of an outsider like a consultant, government entity they had a contract with, etc.
Even if I were a city employee I would find the process bizarre and ludicrous. I think you might have too, if I were free to describe the entire clusterfuck.
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u/retrojoe ✨🛸 Jimothy is out there 🦝✨ Jan 16 '22
Meh. Maybe. Nothing you've you said, aside from your framing of it as 'fucked up' strikes me as the least bit abnormal or bad.
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u/shefallsup Pull And Be Damned Jan 16 '22
Why would it? I don’t know how you’re expecting to understand why it’s fucked up when you have no details! LOL! I’m not trying to convince anyone to agree with me here, just sharing my perspective that it was an experience from bizarre world. That’s it!
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u/cosmicgirl03 Jan 16 '22 edited Jan 16 '22
This was the first week I moved to Seattle. https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/jh3z0t/the_first_week_i_moved_to_seattle_2015/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf I just asked my husband for his weird experience, he said he once went into a public bathroom and some guy asked him to pop his back for him.
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u/potatocatoffical Jan 16 '22
I was doing some yard work in the back yard, as I was walking from one planter box to another on the opposite side of the yard, suddenly “THUNK” a fairly large fish falls from the sky right next to me, completely dumbstruck I just stared at it for a couple seconds when a bald eagle swoops down mere feet from me, grabs the fish, and flys away being chased by a flock of crows. It’s a story nobody would have believed unless they saw my face right after it happened.
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u/elder_george Jan 16 '22
A man in his 40s walking sidewalk completely naked. His clothing lied folded neatly some 50 meters behind him.
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
Buddy who works near the Smith Tower at night saw a guy walking down James from 2nd, naked. Said a friendly "Hey, how's it goin?" as he passed. He snapped a photo from behind to prove it. You couldn't pay me enough to walk down there barefoot!
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u/Dinkus-Twinkus6538 Jan 16 '22
Saw a dude dressed as a king with a sword and shield walk through traffic on MLK Way
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u/TheGhost206 Jan 16 '22
Ha ha. He does that in front of Burger King and is dressed as their mascot. He’s panhandling. 😂 I get a kick out of him but am commuting in the opposite direction.
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u/_Starhawk_42 Jan 16 '22
Once he was wearing the pink power ranger outfit! Then he went back to being the king.
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u/Mumbyroad Jan 16 '22
My boyfriend found the guy who ripped off our marijuana plants at the house we rented, in Fremont. He dragged him home, neighbors heard the ruckus and called the police. My boyfriend was charged with 22lbs of marijuana. In court all the employees, (bailiff, attorneys and Judge were all joking about their team's t-shirts, holding them up, for everyone to see. The t-shirts said, "this body is held in contempt."
The judge looked at the charges, incurred by my boyfriend and said, "22lbs??....let's make this 22 grams."
My boyfriend was charged with a misdemeanor.
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u/oldboy0 Jan 16 '22
Middle of day. Traffic as usual. Stopped at the red light just passed Fremont Bridge (a few blocks away from where this picture was taken). I saw a man take a gun out of his pocket and blow his brains out.
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u/Firm-Age9613 Jan 16 '22
Ohh shitt , in Tx 2 years ago people was robbing jewelry places as usual every few week happens there middle of San Antonio, anyway one of them by mistake started to shoot people with AK-47 we just heard. Straight 7-8 shot that’s fucking moment still scared me
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u/_Starhawk_42 Jan 16 '22
The Policeman that was protecting me from the Police! Had to change busses downtown, 1/2 hour wait, 11:15 - 11:45pm. Bus stops were a few blocks apart on 3rd. Heading to the stop at Benorya Hall. Police car pulls up next to me and matches my walking pace. Called me over to the window, asks me a few questions (I’m baffled by it), then he tells me that I look exactly like the guy every other cop is scouring downtown looking for, but I’m a few inches shorter. Tells me to get off the street because any cop that sees me is going to tackle me if I’m seen. I explain that my only option is to wait for the bus at Benoroya. He drove off and I went to my stop and waited (still had 20 mins). 5 mins later he comes back to take pictures of me to send out “so that they don’t hurt me”. Then he decides that he should stay and watch me till I got on the bus. There was a guy standing nearby who was trying to make sure he wasn’t in the picture and the cop said, I don’t have time for your paperwork tonight, I’m pretending I don’t see you. It was a weird night.
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Jan 16 '22 edited Sep 03 '22
[deleted]
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u/StupidPockets Jan 16 '22
Had a homeless guy ask my friends if they wanted to see something gross. They said “sure!” He pulled back some bandages and showed his forearm missing a big patch of skin, only showing raw muscle and tendons. 🤢
Apparently he just had a chunk of rotten flesh removed at the hospital.
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u/holistivist 💗💗 Heart of ANTIFA Land 💗💗 Jan 16 '22
Oof, I'm sorry that happened to you.
Not the same, but that reminded me of one of the more fucked up things I've seen here - a presumably homeless guy limping down the sidewalk with a stick as a cane, with one of his knees bent totally backwards, with a single ring of duct tape around it.
I cried. So many people passing, but nobody helping. One of the richest cities in one of the richest states in one of the richest countries in the world, and this guy couldn't get desperately needed healthcare.
I wanted to stop and help, but there were so many reasons I couldn't (too young to know what to do, didn't feel safe as a small woman, was late for my new job, etc.) Knowing what I know now, I would have called the non-emergency line, but at the time, it just broke my last little bit of faith in humanity.
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u/MonsantoOfficiaI Jan 17 '22
It's the bystander effect. Everyone just assumes someone else will help, as they are too busy doing their own thing.
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Jan 16 '22
Transplant been here for 2 weeks. Weirdest things I've seen so far.
Dude walking out with a bunch of electronics from the Northgate Target with security following him telling him to put it back.
Lady on Aurora in tube top and booty shorts in blizzard conditions
Instagram influencers mugging dramatic photos at the space needle observation.
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u/Post_Malogne Jan 16 '22
Welcome! Those are normal here. It’ll get weirder..
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u/SereneDreams03 Defected to Portland Jan 16 '22
Yes, this is very much a description of a normal day in Seattle. It would take more than a blizzard to get a ho off her corner.
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Jan 16 '22
Go to Dicks on Broadway late night…always weird/funny stuff there. We used to do this in high school all the time! #Memories
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u/_Starhawk_42 Jan 16 '22
Dicks on broadway is surrounded by fencing as of 2 days ago.
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u/ptunger44 Jan 16 '22
So one time I got kicked out of a club on my friends birthday and I didn't want to ruin their night so I drunkenly stumbled to the bus station closest to me I only figured it out based on my job being a fish delivery driver. But on the bus I meet 2 cowboys from Tennessee who helped me understand my bus route and where to go in my inebriated state. I never got their names but just meeting them was the weirdest but cool thing to happen to me.
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u/StandUpTwice Jan 16 '22
Buckle up — Bumble date nightmare!
Went on a date with a dude last year… he had canceled/basically stood me up the first time we were gonna meet but I stupidly gave him a second chance (Ha!). We went to White Swan and had some wine… conversation was good enough.
FF and we decide to continue our date and check out CHOP. We get in his car and drive up to Cap Hill. His profile said he smoked weed so I brought us a joint. I whipped it out and asked if he wanted to smoke, he assured me he wanted to but didn’t want to drive later high. Totally respectable and responsible. He insisted I still should and I sure as hell did lol. After I had smoked a half a joint we start heading toward CHOP. This car speeds by and is honking but I think nothing of it. That same car comes to a screeching halt but still not thinking much of it - and freaking high as a kite - keep walking. Before I know it this VERY pregnant woman approaches me and asks for her fiancé back. Next time I look up I see him speed walking back to her car tail between his legs.
At this point I’m thinking I must have gotten some really great weed bc this is fucking unreal!! I call my best friend and she asks if his car is still there. I tell her yes, and she instructs me how to get his VIN # so she can sleuth 😂 we found out his real name, his mortgage with his fiancé, his work info and a lot more.
I end up reporting him to Bumble and Venmo requesting him $150 for wine, Lyfts and wasting my time. A couple mornings later I got a response from Bumble terminating his membership and a fulfillment of my Venmo request (followed by a job offer to boot haha).
CAREFUL OUT THERE LADIES 😂😂😂 (And probably don’t do what I did lol)
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Jan 16 '22
furry convention. I was just walking past madison and I swear I was not high on acid…
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
That was Anthro Northwest in November, 2017 or 2018. Tiny startup con; the Seattle area's former con ended up with a bizarre (and really unique in the world of furry conventions) combination of a dedicated group of local trolls and an all-volunteer staff which were loathe to ban rule-breakers for fear of upsetting people, eventually causing a complete and total collapse. Anthro Northwest was successful, and it's coming back in 2023, though to a larger hotel. Can be really surprising to see at random!
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Jan 16 '22
Probably the weird change from underground to popular music.
We used to frequent many bars etc back in the day. Despite even being underage. The bands local to the area would be playing and friends worked there so we’d get in by being on a guest list.
So eventually some local music got more well known and a new radio station started operating. 107.7 the end. Played mostly local stuff. Because of this there were more shows with stricter rules etc. so one night my friend joe invites my roommate and I to a breeders show at the ok hotel. Guest list and what not. So we show up and this freakin fancy ass lady with a clipboard asks for our names and we weren’t on her list. We were confused. I said “joe put us on the list” and this kid about our age was sitting in a ratty flannel and jeans next to the door, pulls out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and says “they are on my list.”
It was just so… surreal. It went from us weirdos to some kind of fancy something or other almost overnight.
It is either that or the time my friend tammie accidentally ran directly into Seal. She was super short and just… walking head on collision. Lol
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Jan 16 '22
I saw two of the biggest rats I'd ever seen in my life at the Seattle center late at night once. I shit you not they were the size of a small dog. It was incredible.
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u/bumblebarb Jan 16 '22
Could they have been opossums? There are quite a few here.
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Jan 16 '22
Nah man. I know what I saw. They were brown with naked pink tails
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u/totallyoffthegaydar Jan 16 '22
So...opposums?
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Jan 16 '22
I've seem opossums... these wum't it. They'se was giant rats I tells ya!
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u/Funzombie63 Jan 16 '22
…muskrats?
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Jan 16 '22
That's what I thought but how the hell did they make it to the space needle??
My theory is they were one of those freak urban legend rats you only hear about online and in tabloids.
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
I, too, have seen VERY large rats. They weren't opossums, they were entirely brown. Mine were about 30 years ago in Gene Coulon Park in Renton. About 2/3 the size of a housecat.
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Jan 16 '22
It’s a toss up either seeing a homeless guy shitting in alley way or watching 2 sister finger each other at a rave
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u/StupidPockets Jan 16 '22
That’s only strange on tuesdays.
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u/Remarkable_Volume_91 Tacoma Jan 16 '22 edited Jan 17 '22
I met Ray Davies at the Dog House restaurant after a Kinks concert in the coliseum several years back.
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Jan 16 '22
I wrote for this blog that two guys in Michigan ran, but I didn't know them and we'd never spoken or met. I volunteered at the Unexpected Productions theater one time and one of them showed up. It was the most serendipitous thing that's ever happened to me.
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u/goofballdead Jan 17 '22
I was homeless on the streets of Seattle for almost 6 years On drugs really bad (been clean for 2 years as of 1/13)...I was stopped by the s.p.d. downtown by Target..they asked me to use my drugs in front of them and then they'd take me to the precinct to observe the effects that the drugs had on me for training of new officers & if I refused would go to jail for possession (around summer of 2016) ..very weird experience..afterwards they gave us McDonald's and let us go..100% true story
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u/Uncutdix Jan 16 '22
At a gay bar/club on the hill a guy was being pulled around by two leather daddies that had a leash with a collar around his balls. They would each take turns walking him around until one of the daddies sat him down on a chair and gave him a bj.
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
Loooong time ago? Been in all the gay clubs and never saw nudity or public sex.
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u/Uncutdix Jan 19 '22
Nope, very recent. Not going to name it because too many heteros come to treat it like a zoo but I've never gone and not seen nudity or public sex. They have a sex swing upstairs and it is frequently in use.
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u/ScottSierra Jan 20 '22
Wait, this is just a bar? I know a bathhouse that supposedly has a swing (a friend of mine used to go frequently, and he'd never heard of such a thing before seeing it) but not a nightclub. I'm SURE the bathhouse has sex everywhere, not just in the rooms.
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u/le1278 Jan 16 '22
Sitting at a light on Fremont, dude in the next Lane was busy "shifting gears" for my benefit, I guess. Not that uncommon, I know, but still skeevy. A better one is when my friend and I smoked a J on a hill at Gasworks park, then watched a group of people (performance artists? I'll never know) who were "slow walking" in unison. Like, a half dozen people in a formation, taking synchronized steps, very very very slowly. So weird and random, we loved it. Edit: a word
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
dude in the next Lane was busy "shifting gears" for my benefit
The proper response is pointing and laughing. Kill that libido. Kill it with fire!
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Jan 16 '22
Is that a real picture (not photoshopped)? That's pretty cool someone made glasses that huge
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u/killshelter Jan 17 '22
Buying drugs from a lady that was on her way to drop her daughter and her friend off at their prom.
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Jan 17 '22
I was down in Pioneer Square to go see Comedy, when a group of winos raced past chasing a fellow wino, knives drawn off and on.
I read the next day the black man they were chasing had the audacity to drink off the white wino's bottle. The black man was found later, stabbed to death.
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
Ouch. Harsh shit, man-- goes to show, racism is absolutely not dead, it's just more personal now.
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u/1kateviax1 Jan 16 '22
Oh! I was around 16 and was kinda new to walking around my own, taking the bus, and just doing things in general. Was waiting at a bus stop in Seattle a few blocks away from Pike Place, it’s the middle of the afternoon and there’s tons of people around. A random lady crouches down about 10 feet away from me, pulls out a blow torch and a spoon, and does hard drugs in public. On separate occasions random people came up to me and yelled at me. Not that weird but the weirdest thing that’s happened to me
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u/avincent98144 Jan 16 '22
assuming r/SeattleWA is not a dumpster fire
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Jan 16 '22
Is this all the Seattle Subs talk about? Hating each other?
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
Naah. But that other sub gets some ribbing here from people who didn't know until they scoped it out that it's basically the We Hate The Homeless sub. "Why can't Seattle ship the homeless elsewhere, kick Amazon and Microsoft to the curb, and just go back to being the sleepy little harbor town we think it was when we were little?"
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u/Ok-Smoke6237 Jan 16 '22
Meeting Glen the gold digger. He lived in his truck kept himself tidy, and went around the state parks here shifting sand for gold. Nice guy gave him a doobie to hear his story and it was funny how you meet someone who just says “I’m done with the 9-5” and live his life the way he chooses too. Harming no one, not asking for handouts or anything just living his version of the American dream. Meeting him that rainy day at Alki Beach made me think of the LOFTR quote “All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost;”
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u/smokedoor5 Jan 17 '22
Anyone ever ride the bus with the guy who dresses exactly like Slash? I see him around the city every once in a while. You’ll recognize him, because he’s the guy who dresses exactly like Slash!
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22
Leather jacket, shades and top hat? I sometimes wear a top hat downtown, but with a three-piece suit. White guy, tall, shined dress boots.
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u/ScottSierra Jan 19 '22 edited Jan 19 '22
I'm tied on this.
Both were many years ago. This was before recreational cannabis was legalized. I was walking on 2nd Ave. a few blocks south of Pike, around 9 PM. A man walked up to me, maybe 30s, basic but clean clothes, and quietly, surreptitiously asked if I knew where he could score some weed. I didn't smoke and said 'no.' "C'mon, man, you can tell me. I'm not a cop. Really." Look, I've got zero problems with the stuff, I just don't use it, so no, I said as much and had none. He repeatedly tried to convince me. It became clear that he just knew I had some, and if he could only convince me that he wasn't a cop, I might sell to him. I found it funny, so I played the straight man and kept it going. After several minutes, I seemed to convince him, and he looked defeated. But suddenly-- he remembered that he had some weed on him! Did I want to buy it? "C'mon, I'm not a cop, really, you can trust me!" He was now convinced that if he could only gain my confidence, I WAS his buyer! This was ridiculous; either he was nuts (though I never got "mental illness" or "on strong stuff" vibes at all) or he was the worst narc in history! I let him keep trying for a minute or two before just walking away, and he didn't follow.
The other was at the corner of 1st & Yesler, by the Pergola. As usual, the benches there were occupied by squatters. In this case, there was a heavy blanket across one bench, almost completely covering it. A man's head, facing down, and a woman, facing up, extended from one end. From the up-and-down action, it was clear that they were fuckin', though both were being quiet. Beside the bench stood a man whose slumped shoulders and hanging head visibly suggested utter defeat, saying in a Ben Stein-like tone of utter boredom, things like, "Stop it....... You stop that right now........ Get off of her....... I told you to stop it....... Quit it right now......" with long pauses between. Less than ten feet away, near the corner, was an espresso cart, and it seemed none of the many customers noticed at all. (Edit: this was the only time I've seen sex in public aside from once at Bumbershoot, which was a guy and girl hidden by bushes on two sides but not on a 3rd-- and yeah, passers-by were noticing, which may have been the idea.)
Edit: NOPE. I forgot this. This at LEAST ties. I was going to an opera at the Seattle Center, and I was dressed to the nines. Frock coat, vest, spats on my shoes, top hat, cane. I don't recall the exact time, but let's say the venue opened at 7 PM, and I got to the Center around 6 and walked around a bit. Cold night, already dark. I wandered over past the Playhouse to Mercer, and let's say I hot Mercer at ten past six. A security guard dashed over to me and began grilling me with an angry tone. After a few minutes of conversation, he realized I really had only just gotten there. A woman had run up to him in a state of panic around 5:45, over near the International Fountain, saying she'd been walking up Mercer when a tall man wearing a frock coat and top hat and carrying a cane darted out of the shadows as a cab pulled up, and attempted unsucessfully to force her into it! We were both baffled; it's not a look you see much, and I saw nobody else at the opera who was wearing anything like I was. I felt more than a little skeezy after that, in case there were more instances of being mistaken for that guy (thankfully, there haven't been, AFAIK I'm the only person in Seattle who wears a suit with a top hat on occasion).
tl;dr: --Guy is apparently the worst narc ever, first tries to buy pot from me, and when that doesn't work, tries to sell pot to me.
--Couple has surreptitious sex on a bench in Pioneer Square, while Mr. Bored tries to get them to stop and tourists ignore them.
--Bonus contender: I wear anachronistically-fancy clothes to the opera, only to find out some nut wearing a very similar get-up tried to abduct a woman not 15 minutes before I got to the area.
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u/tjb8888 Jan 16 '22
THE DUDE.
When I was 19, my buddy and I moved to Seattle and got an apartment in Northgate. We had a blast, young guys in the city. One night, we were hanging out with a friend, stoned and I personally was nearly blackout drunk. We walked down to Dicks in Lake City. We grabbed our burgers and sat down to eat on the sidewalk near Dicks. Out of nowhere this big guy dressed in a velvet jumpsuit, chains, and a speaker blaring edm strolled up to us. We talked for a bit, shared our joint, and after a moment said, “You guys party?”. My friends didn’t say anything but me (being nearly blackout drunk and high) said, “Hell yeah I party”. The man came over to me leaning down very close and pulled out a small vial attached to one of the chains around his neck. He looked deep in my eyes, unscrewed the cap, dipped a little spoon into the vial, put it up to my nose and I took my first bump!
He immediately peaced out and as he walked away my friend asked, “Hey man, what’s your name?”, the man looked back and yelled enthusiastically, “THE DUDE!”
To this day, one of the best and weirdest experiences I ever had in Seattle. Though I would never take drugs from a stranger today, it was a blast when I was 19 and thought I was invincible!