Human beings are sometimes – many times – endowed with a near perverse talent for stupidity. That much we have established.
Technology, made by those humans who usually consider themselves the sharper knives in the drawer, is often instilled with a mind boggling ability to confuse and annoy. That we’ve also established.
But what about the very world in which we live? This place that we call Earth. This place that many fight to protect from the stupidity of generations passed. This place that others fight to destroy because saving it is just too hard. The planet Earth, which we call home. It has its quirks, too.
What do I mean by quirks? Well, what’s this page about? Weirdness. Weirder than marshmallows. Hard to explain, impossible to ignore. In this case, any anomaly that you just don’t get, that doesn’t make sense, that makes you look up and say, That’s Just Freaky.
All right, an example. I was in, I believe, seventh grade. The local carnival was going on, and I went with my best friend, Emily. My sister drove us, then left us to our own accord, with instructions to meet her at 8:30. We wandered around, played some games, went on a couple of rides. Then we checked our watch, and it was 8:15, or, you know, somewhere in a five minute span. Cool, we said, just enough time for one more ride. We just happened to be passing one of Emily’s favorites.
I don’t remember what this thing was called, but I’ll do my best to describe it. It was a tall metal pole jammed into the ground with four – let’s call them branches – protruding from it. Each branch in turn had four mini-branches, each of those housed a cart, which dangled from its end. When it was going, the main branches turned to the left, the mini-branches swung the carts to the right. So basically you were turning, at very high speeds, in two directions at once. It was great.
So, you’re saying, where’s the weird part? Hard to explain, impossible to ignore. It’s coming, relax.
We rode this ride, and I can’t stress this enough, once. Only once. We didn’t say screw it and go again. We didn’t have time, we had to go meet my sister. So we got off after one ride and started to head to the parking lot. About half way there, we met up with my sister, and boy was she fuming. She’d just come to look for us, she’d been sitting there waiting forever. Huh? We checked our watches. It was nearly 9:00. Whoa…
Have you ever been on a ride that lasts forty-five minutes? It sure didn’t go that long from where we were sitting. More like five, from my best estimate. Emily and I just looked at her, dumbfounded, then finally left. What we should have done is stop, look at each other and say…
That’s Just Freaky.
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