Crazy Magnet

I have a gift.  I have cultivated it for years.  It's a natural gift, one I have tried hard to reject, to cover, to mask, but when you have a gift... people know.  They can sense it, you know?  Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to cover it up, it comes out even stronger than had you just accepted it in the first place.  So, yes, you who know me have already figured it out, but I AM A CRAZY MAGNET.

Some of you have witnessed this phenomenon first hand.  It happens most often near bus stops, but, really, they come out of the woodwork wherever I go.  They tell me their stories.  They engage me.  There is irony here.  I have developed this very closed, dower demeanor in public.  I don't talk to anyone except service providers when I'm wandering about.  I'm not a chatter in public places.  I'm hardly a chatter anywhere, really.  But the demeanor that says, "Whoa! Disengage!" to your average person looking for socialization and camaraderie, says, "Totally talk to this person.  They are fascinated by your antics," to your garden-variety crazy.

My best crazies I met when I rode the bus to and from downtown every day.  I began to categorize them.  There are always mumblers and drunks, you know, the harmless ones.  They would usually sit next to me and begin ranting.  It became somehow known that I was a kind of crazy-whisperer on the 12, and the bus drivers would often give me silent cues to "help direct" said person off at the next stop.  I could usually oblige.

Then you have the dramatists.  (They are secretly me favorite.)  They are fascinating and harmless.  There was "the chief" - he wore feathers all over his body that he picked up on the road and walked with a garbage poker.  There was "safety guy" - he wore about 20 blaze orange safety vests piled together.  He told me he wanted to be visible when he wandered from St. Paul to Minneapolis and back everyday.  That's just plain smart.  Then there was "the human chalkboard" - he asked everyone he met to sign him.  He was almost always covered in signatures... his clothes, bags, skin, everything.

But my favorite of all time was the "E. Coli Outbreak Lady."  She was a gem.  She stood on a corner with her hand poised like a puppet and wrapped in a doll dress.  Her ratty hair hung down to her knees, and she swayed as she shouted like a sidewalk evangelist, "E. COLI OUTBREAK!  SAY 'NO' TO PEACHES AND STRAWBERRIES!  E. COLI OUTBREAK!  SAY 'NO' TO KISSING!  EEEEE COLI OUTBREAK!  SAY 'NO' TO DATE RAPE!!!"  Very sound advice.

So, although I have yet to figure out a way to use my gift for the betterment of mankind, I have, at the very least, gathered some excellent stories to tell at parties.  Do you have any Crazy Magnet stories?  I'd love to hear them!