So, remember that guy I told you about a few posts ago? The weird old guy who came into my work talking about time travel and asking me if I believe in Jesus?

Yeah. I ran into him again. On the bus.

In Scarborough.

I’m a little worried.

The other weekend, an old guy came into my work just before we closed. He walked up to the counter with $15 in his hands and said “Gimme your biggest burger.”

The biggest burger we have is a pound, so I was a little skeptical that this guy would be able to eat it, but he was entirely adamant about it. Everyone else was closing up, so I took his order, threw the burger on the grill, and dressed it for him. While I was dressing his burger, he started making small talk. It was a pretty normal conversation at first. He asked me about the restaurant, where I’m from, and so on. When I had answered all his questions, he told me “I like your history”. 

I kind of just looked at him awkwardly and thanked him. I turned around to continue cooking his burger and he muttered something while my back was turned. I turned around, smiled, and asked “I’m sorry? It’s very loud back here.”

“You know there’s time travel, eh?” he told me.

I looked at him quizzically, and saw my coworker giving him the same look out of the corner of my eye. I just laughed and said “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah there is.” He said, giving me an awkward smile back. “You believe in Jesus Christ?”

His question kind of took me off guard, and in an attempt to be polite I said “Oh, that’s a tough question.” He told me it was fine, I gave him his burger, and I turned around to go into the back room and tell the other people working with me what had just happened. While I was telling the story, a guy I work with who had been mopping the front came into the back and asked where the guy had went. “He was there a second ago while I was mopping, and there aren’t any footprints leading to the washroom …. Maybe he’s Jesus! He could walk on water!”

My coworker and I joked for a minute about the possibility of this old guy being Jesus, when he walked out from the direction of the bathroom and went back to his seat.

My friend said “Damn it, too bad he wasn’t Jesus.”

Only in Oshawa

Conversation related to me by my daughter who was at a start of year party/concert at UOIT.

drunk guy: What’s your name?

my daughter: ‘her name’

drunk guy: What’s your name?

my daughter: ‘her name’

drunk guy a minute later: What’s your name?

my daughter: ‘Megan’

drunk guy a minute later: What’s your name?

my daughter: ‘Penny’

This went on for awhile, my daughter constantly coming up with new names, till she said “Molly”

drunk guy: That’s really pretty.  You want to grind?  I’m really good.

I understand my daughter declined the kind offer.

Only in Oshawa

-That guy sounds like he was just brimming with class. Great story!

I used to know a guy who lived in a sketchy apartment building on Simcoe street, and a few buddys and I used to go there to sesh pretty often.

One of my friends, Nick, told me about one time he went there without me. This sketchy guy that he knew showed up randomly one day, and they started talking. Now, when I say he was sketchy, I mean in and out of jail constantly for some pretty stupid reasons. While they were talking, the guy told Nick to come check something out in the bathroom. 

A few minutes later, a gunshot went off. The guy had pulled Nick aside to show him the gun he had in his waistband, and Nick (being the smart guy that he is) accidentally fired it. Nick and the guy dipped, leaving the guy who owned the place by himself until the cops showed up.

Only in Oshawa. 

I lived in Oshawa for a couple years when I went to Durham. I didn’t have a car at the time so I always took the bus and I always saw the same dude with bunny ears on walking down Simcoe Street North.

I lived in the apartment building at the intersection of Simcoe and Rossland. My apartment windows were ground level and it was summer when I first moved in so I had the windows open with just the screens on them. In the first week I had a sketchy fuckin dude bend over and look into my window and ask me if I had a cigarette he could bum off me.

Obviously I said no.

I saw him many many times after that and it just started to seem second nature and normal when I’d see him picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot and smoke them as I left for school. Fuck.

Pretty sure he’d wait til I fell asleep to come into my apartment and crawl in bed with me, but was the ultimate of creepers and would just be gone by the time I woke up.

Oshawa man. Oshawa.

-That’s nuts! I knew a guy who lived in an apartment on that corner, in the sketchy ass building right across from Northminster United. This actually reminded me of another story, I’ll have to post it soon

I pass memorial park on my way to the bus after I finish work. The other night, there was a homeless man sitting on one of the benches close to the side walk.

As I walked by, he said “HEY SWEETHEART!”

I glanced at him and kept walking, and he yelled “OH COME ON, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THAT!”

He then continued to call everyone who passed him sweetheart.

Only in Oshawa

This morning after I got into Oshawa, I went to the bus terminal down town to buy some DRT tickets. On my way there, a group of teenagers stopped at a red light beside me. One of them was holding a cigarette, looking sort of lost, so I asked him if he needed a lighter. I lent him my lighter, the light changed, and I walked ahead of them.

When I got close to the terminal, I noticed the shadow of someone walking oddly close behind me in the corner of my eye. All of a sudden, I felt someone tug on my backpack, so I whipped around. A girl from the random group of teenagers was standing behind me, holding the bottle of coke I had in the side pocket of my bag.

She laughed and said “Can I have a drink of your pop?”

I gave her a dirty look and without even thinking said “Are you fucked?”

She handed me my drink and ran away.

Only in Oshawa.

Last week, I started college. I was at school 12 hours a day until Friday, when I have one class that ends at 9:20 in the morning. I was excited to take the train home and be back in Oshawa, anticipating the time I would have to walk around downtown before I worked. I got off the bus right across from my work, went and talked to people, and nothing overly exciting happened. I left work to go get some other stuff done, and waited at a bus stop nearby.

Almost as if to welcome me back to Oshawa, a girl was standing at the bus stop, headphones in her ears, dancing and singing quite loudly to herself. The bus showed up, and it was packed. Every row of seats had at least one person in it, there was no choice but to sit next to some random, so I sat next to a guy while other people got on the bus. Another girl got onto the bus, wide-eyed, and whispered to herself “Oh, fuck me…”

I finished what I needed to get done and went home. On my way back to work, I sat at the back of the bus. A couple got on not too long after me, and the guy sat rather close. When he sat down, I noticed he had a tattoo on his neck of script that looked like a 12 year old had done it. It said “Hater Proof”. I laughed, and he looked at me as if he was about to rip my head off.

While I was walking towards work, I passed an older guy. He had to have been in his mid-forties, if not fifty. He was wearing a light blue shirt that looked as though it was see-through, his entire gnarly gut in full view. I say it looked see-through, but he could have just been excessively sweaty. 

I worked for 4 hours, rather uneventfully, and left to catch the bus. Around Simcoe and Athol, I passed a homeless man. If you’ve been around downtown a lot, you should know who I’m talking about when I say it was the lumberjack looking one. I’ve seen him around all the time, and he generally seems like a nice enough guy. As I walked by though, he screamed “FUCKHEADS!” and started punching the air.

To top it off, on the bus ride home a girl went to get off of the bus. She stood at the back door, no more than 2 feet in front of me, and as the bus stopped she tripped. I’m assuming she stubbed her toe or something, but she bent over and shut her eyes, opening her mouth wide as if she was about to scream. When the back door opened, she looked at me then ran off the bus.

It felt good to be home.

Only in Oshawa

I was riding my bike downtown one day. I biked past a lady and her dog who were seated on a bench. The dog immediately started barking at me. The bench was located near a set of traffic lights so I stopped to wait to cross. The lady laughed and said, “sorry, my dog hates your bike”. Then her tone of voice changed drastically to something totally menacing. I think she meant to say it under her breath but she said it loud enough for me to hear: “he also hates you.”

Needless to say I biked as fast as possible away from them.

Only in Oshawa >__>

- I’m at a loss for words. That’s just incredible