I also have a very large oil painting of an Atlantic puffin.

This is a tough one because 'strange' is in the eye of the beholder.

Well, my garage is decorated with toy swords, spears, and knives, mostly because they were used in the play I directed for the school where I used to work. So, they have sentimental value. Most people kind of do a double take when they see them, because they are not visible unless you walk all the way into the garage.

I don't know why I can't throw them out. They both always wore those nightgowns and fancy robes until they passed.

I'd open it and see her colour.

I have at least one laundry basket and a trash bag full. I suspect there's some mates in there, but I don't have the patience or attention span to go through them.

remain mateless. and alone.

I found over 20 usable pairs.

than a quarter, didn't hurt at all, and left a hole in my gum. Gross!

Of plastic grocery bags!

sanitation and recycling will not take them.

of mates with no socks!

... my huge collection of hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkeys. And my collection of drafting tools. Oh, and my collection of scary fabric dolls.

Other than that, I seem fairly normal.

fabric dolls.

I bought when I was a teenager for $5 just to annoy my mom. It's huge - my dad always called it Old Sparky. I'm now pushing 70 so I've had it for over 50 years and it was old then.

I was a field service technician for Wang Laboratories. I will never forget having to align hard disk drive heads on a 10Mb disk drive, as big as desk. Insert an alignment card, connect up an oscilloscope, move the heads ever so slightly to catch the blip on the O-scope and tighten the screw...the very act of tightening the screw often threw the alignment off...so loosen and start again! I HATED doing that work!

The digital era, attendant with its infinite softwares, hardwares, and humanity's increasing reliance (dependence?) on it ultimately rests on human knowledge as the essential interface between it all--and across the scope of time and change.

Are we in rational control such that we will preserve the collective knowledge of humanity? Or are we racing forward in an unbridled and irrational manner with little or no concern for possible calamity? And if (when) a calamity upends the current order of things and we are plunged into another "dark age," who or what will be able to reclaim the digital record of humanity?

Concerns aside, I recently sent my floppy discs from the early 90s to the landfill.

manual I CAN'T find.

a partner when I have finished doing my laundry. Now I have a whole pile of mateless socks. CBC News once did a contest for suggestions on why some socks lose their mates in the laundry. The winning entry was "it isn't what is happening. The lint just got all together and formed a new single sock".

Full size, works fine. I bought it for $1200 when I retired nine-plus years ago. I am addicted to Ms. PacMan, have been since the 1980s, and yes, I'm pretty good at it. I can get all the way to the end of the game, in fact, when playing the speeded-up version. (I don't believe any mortal human being could do that on the standard-speed version, not unless there's some trick or glitch in the programming that I've never heard of.) I've only ever seen three other people who could get to the end of the game in the speeded-up game. I used to be pretty good at Galaga, too, but I have played exactly one game of Galaga since the 1980s. Yes, that was on the machine that's in my living room. I bought the machine with some of my retirement income when I retired. My machine also plays original PacMan, speeded up or standard speed, if you enter a left-right-up-down sequence with the control knob at the start of the game. I used to be really good at PacMan, too. I knew two really good ninth-key patterns. I've now forgotten more about that game than I ever knew, though.

-- Ron

I collect 'em so that I can drop 'em off at Krogers for "recycling" or whatever they do with them. The problem is I always forget to take them with me when I go shopping.

My almost ex-wife offered to give me some and I think I will take her up on it.

While people living in residential homes get curbside recycling, those of us living in apartments have to drive our stuff to one of few recycling locations. I don't imagine we are anywhere near close to banning the plastic grocery bags.

My step son told his kids (17M, 13F, and 11M) to clean up their room and gather up things to pass to their younger cousins. They dutifully loaded bags and brought them to our place. My wife is the the clearinghouse for these operations.

She started sorting clothes and shoes. The shoes started to line up with an occasional pairing. We still ended up with about 20 unmatched shoes. We're holding on to them hoping the mates will show up in the next round of cleaning.

I also have a discus that I bought at a yard sale because it was brass and mahogany and very pretty.

Best regards,
Sorghum Crow

Have it hanging on wall next to my bed. Prowlers beware.

His bestie gave it to him decades ago. Not sure where it came from.

Husband did manage a stopover in Ireland where he had to change planes for trans Atlantic flight back to the states. So long ago, he carried his chain saw thru the airport and no one raised an eyebrow.

Usually caught up in clean sheets. But now I put my dirty socks in a small zippered mesh bag and wash them in that bag and never have missing socks anymore. I got my hubby to put his socks in his own bag also!

But I also have my collection of salt and peppers shakers which I keep exclusively in my dining room and on a shelf in my kitchen of cat S&P shakers!

Divorced, 1985. I've also got one of our two daughters, and an adult granddaughter in MY house. That's sort of a box of socks with no mates. I live in the shed.

I have a big box full of lizard bowls, UVB bulbs, hot rocks and light fixtures for the bulbs. I have had two iguanas, one of which was a once-in-a-lifetime pet. The other was a bitch.

In pen & ink- from 1773.

The recipes all seem to include butter, sugar & whiskey!

I went to an estate sale. The deceased was a scientist that did very complex work, some of it was obviously for the government based on the nature of the field of work. I picked up a few items. At the checkout table they put my items in a cardboard box. When I got home I unpacked my items. Wedged in the box, between the corrugated dividers, was an old memo pad with the deceased person's name on it. It was the type of old memo pad that you would keep near a phone on your desk. It still had quite a few sheets left on the pad. On the back of the pad, on the supportive cardboard side, "CALL CIA!" was written in large case block letters. Taken together, the two words, marked by an exclamation point, seemed to radiate a great sense of urgency. How many times have you grabbed something to write on in a pressing situation? I wondered why the back of the pad, not the front? It was a quick grab for sure. A desperate reach when time was of the essence.

I've wondered what it was about. I had imagined that the scientist was on the phone, and was in the midst of a conversation and a dilemma, while his wife frantically tried to get his attention - perhaps she wrote the note and shoved it in front of him. Or, he may have jotted it down himself, as he received advice from a concerned coworker or friend who was on the other end of the phone.

When I was much younger, my mother listened to Paul Harvey, host of the radio show, The Rest of the Story. It featured stories, many times about famous people, but withheld certain facts to keep things interesting until the end when those facts would be revealed. Then, he'd say the tagline, "And now you know...the rest of the story.

The only problem here is I don't know the rest of the story!

on the story"

It contains things I found that interested me. For example…a shed snake skin probably 18 inches long, weird looking rocks or stones, shells of various lake denizens, washed up wood pieces found at the bay that are polished over the years.

I saw something online where those are popular things for teachers to buy on eBay - for arts and crafts. It's not going to be a side-hustle or anything since I'm going to sell them for cheap just to see if it's true. I keep adding to the collection and procrastinating on listing them.

for me. There are all kings of things you can do with them. I didn't know they sold of e bay.Thank you TIalocW

The fossilized poop is easy. But the fossilized animal holes are made when an ancient hole gets filled in with a sediment and forms it.

A inert 75 millimeter WW1 cannon shell casing from a WW1 army camp. Found while metal detecting. The camp was closed down and almost everything buried or burned when the Spanish (which should have been called the Kansas flu) flu hit the camp. Along with several other odds and ends I’ve found.

He said "me."

I also have a shoe box of single socks. But I think the strangest thing is a bend wood rocker that hasn't had a seat since someone sat in it and broke it decades ago. It's still sitting upstairs waiting to be "fixed."

Last edited Tue Oct 29, 2024, 09:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Contains objects that once belonged to loved ones who have died.

Letters, photos, cards, glasses, wallets, even a pair of pajamas. All kinds of things.

cat toys. i also got stoles to make catnip toys. i wear mismatched socks. ijust have 'different' collections. the very old bagel i had on my wall was weird til it broke in the wee hours.

It's not in my house anymore though. I built it from scratch in my basement shop around 2009 but couldn't find space for it upstairs. I put it on display in a friend's novelty/amusement store in downtown Minneapolis for a couple years and then sold it to a private collector.

I guess it's obvious now where my username came from.

Still sealed, but well beyond any reasonable use-by date. Some appear to be fermenting and occasionally one starts frizzing and seeping out.

...or, consider using them as an "organic weed killer" perhaps? And keep a few of the visually unique ones for display, in a location other than the kitchen.

A lamp, pick axe, etc.

mimicks your voice in a cutesy voice and it moves as you do copies you.

I bought it for my hubby as a joke gift last year, he loves it, on his desk.

It sits, on the wall in my studio, above the mixing console, in between the speakers.

I'm afraid I'm going to walk in there some day and there will be two of those things.

About 25 years ago, my brother, a strange dude if there ever was one, sent my then toddler son, some animal skulls and a preserved small shark in a jar.

It was his idea of a gift.

As it turns out, during his art education, my son did make drawings involving these objects. I believe he still has them.

I am estranged from my brother, and haven't heard from him over 20 years, by the way, but it has nothing to do with his gifts to my son.

My son found them interesting, and in fact, brought them into "show and tell" when he was in kindergarten, first or second grade.

Don't have it anymore.

strange things that are in my house. Some of the things that I will mention may not be strange for others reading this.


There are 2 separate stereoscopes in the house along with the photo inserts.


There is 2 separate cats in their cremation wood boxes in my living room. One cat guards the one end table and the other cat guards the end table of the opposite side of the couch. This may not be strange for people that have lost their pets.


There's also a Victrola in my home. The thing is tall and does takes up some real estate inside the home.

I don't find it to be strange, those make great clean-up rags that are tougher than those disposable shop towels.

I give all my white socks one last wash before they are retired, then in the bag they go.

My paternal grandfather was an undertaker. At the time, it was protocol for undertakers to wear beaver top hats at funerals...thus the brush. The real prize would be the hat itself, but I have no idea what happened to that.

Keeping wild lizards and birds happy.

My folks took a trip to the Holy Land in 1972 with my grandparents. My Dad was elated when he found a small bottle of Heinz Ketchup at some market there!

He brought it home, where my mother still has the bottle in the pantry. We laughed over this so much, you go to the Holy Land and all you brought back was a bottle of ketchup?

He just recently passed and this story was told at his funeral.

Black and white logo in a glass bottle with a metal white screw top!

Thank you for your kind words, he was a wonderful man that will be missed immeasurably.

There is no such thing as no match socks anymore, my grandchildren wear no matched socks all the time (even when there is an actual match) apparently it is the thing to do now.

And all of his old computer equipment.