Strange Day...

Any one that knows me probably considers me strange. I'm not afraid of being strange or different, and everyone knows that. However, even I can have strange days. Today, thus far, has been one of the strangest I've had in a very long time...

I got up this morning, and got ready for class. I only have one class on Fridays, Japanese, and I was very much looking forward to it because it's currently my favorite class. Since it was raining, I decided I better leave earlier than I normally do, and got on the road at roughly 10:30 am. I made a quick stop to get a bit of gas, and that's when the first unusual thing happened. I say unusual because it's not strange just... unusual. For the last few months, I've been using a program on my phone (T-Mobile's G1) called "Mileage" which keeps track of your gas mileage, fuel costs, etc.. Today, I spent the exact same amount and got the exact same amount of gas that I did earlier in the week according to the app. Like I said, that's not particularly strange, but it is unusual given the way gas prices change and the amount of money I might happen to have that day. Any ways, it set the mood for the day.

I hopped on the freeway, headed North on I-75. About half a mile past 7 Mile Road, there was an accident on the freeway. A car had obviously spun out or something and was facing the wrong way near the center divider. On its side. Now, I can get facing the wrong way in rain... The road is slippery. No big surprise there. I could even understand the car being on its side if it were facing the right way: it might have hit the divider and tipped over. But backwards AND on its side? What the hell? Did it do somersaults and fail to stick the landing or something? Besides being on its side, it didn't seem to have a whole lot of damage, so, no, I don't think that's what happened...

Got to school, did the Japanese thing, had a good time. I decided to get an iced coffee in Oakland Center (Oakland University's student center building) before I hit the road. While standing in line, I saw some delicious looking brownies and decided to have one. After I ordered, I stood there confused and staring at the receipt while I waited for my drink. The medium Iced White Chocolate Mocha is priced $3.29, and the brownie costs $1.45. That's $4.74 right? Apparently, not according to the cash register. It decided the price was $6.09. I kept staring at the receipt thinking that maybe I was charged for whipped cream and/or the large size mocha, but I wasn't. I got a medium drink, no whipped cream. I did the math in my head, and double checked it with my phone. It couldn't be taxes, because that was $0.37 in addition to the $6.09. What I had encountered was a computer screwing up on REALLY SIMPLE math... The cashier didn't screw up, because the receipt showed the correct prices, it's just that the register's computer randomly decided to charge me more than a dollar extra for my goods. What the fuck? I spoke to the manager nicely and explained that the cashier hadn't done anything wrong, it's just some completely bizarre behavior out of their register. The manager rang it up on a different register which showed my total (including taxes) to be $5.02, and she triple checked on the register that gave me the wrong result, and it too showed the correct price now. So even they were freaked out about what happened... I made up my mind right then that I had to go buy a lottery ticket for tonight's MegaMillions drawing with that dollar...

Which of course lead to more strange occurrences. I almost always buy my lottery tickets at a grocery store in Highland Park on Woodward and Manchester, and since it was on my way home, it was easiest to stop there today. As I was coming off the freeway, I looked over and saw ANOTHER car on its side facing the wrong way on the freeway, and proceeded to wonder what's with this day. I slipped into the market, and got my ticket just before the cashier closed down the lottery station for her shift or lunch, and returned to my car. Now, there were two other people that had also just returned to their cars near me. One was in the next car over, on my passenger side, and the other was on her passenger side. The furthest car left without any problem, and I got myself together and backed out before the car adjacent to me was ready. Can you guess what happened?

That's right! The lady next to me backed into the front end of my car! We pulled back into our spots and looked at the damage on my car, which fortunately wasn't significant. It was really just a matter of exchanging paint. Sadly, my car has worse damage than that caused by my father (who owned the car before his passing several years ago) and some anonymous asshole that backed into my rear bumper at some parking lot last year. So I shrugged off the damage, and told the lady not to worry about it. It was just par for the course of my day, and we went merrily on our respective ways.

I got home and explained my day to my mother and told her that I was not going to leave my man-cave for the rest of the weekend without being dragged kicking and screaming out of it. She kindly suggested that I go and get another lottery ticket with a particular combination of numbers inspired by my drink prices, and drop off a letter at the post office. This is rare. My mother doesn't have anything against buying lottery tickets, but she almost never suggests that one be purchased. In her belief, this is probably God's way of giving me a hint about what to do, and given the odd day that I've had, with the completely bizarre cash register incident, that there must be something more to today than just the oddities. So I left the house once more, mailed the letter and got a second lottery ticket...

And I had another interesting incident... As I was driving back to the house, a car behind me suddenly sped up, swerved around me into the middle lane (I was in the left lane on a one way street), and made a left turn in front of me, sliding and screeching tires and all. I don't even want to know what the hell that was all about...

I don't know if I'll win the lottery tonight or not, I would really love to given the fact that I'm broke and have bills to pay, but I'll tell you this much, I'm damned near afraid to leave my room right now...