The Four Weirdest people i have ever met in my entire life.

Okay, I'll Start with Switch, because I just mentioned him in the comment box of my last hub.

This guy was weird. I was working at a place called...lets just call it cinerjerks. It was a call center (the call center my last hub was about). When I first started, maybe 2 or three days in, I was sitting at my little cubicle thinking "this is so nice." I mean, even though i was a hated telemarketer, the office was clean, nothing was broken (like a few other ccall center places i worked in) and the people were relatively normal. Some out of place piercings here and there, but nothing to write home about. In walks Switch. Now, his real name was randell, but everyone called him switch. Which was confusing to me at first, because i had heard the manager say "hello randell" and then the guy next to me leaned over and said "that's switch." So, not knowing him, had i had to address him, I would not have known which name to use. (ever been in that situation??!!)

Anyway, this guy looked like he had never smiled in his entire life. he was clad head to toe in all black, 3 lip piercings, huge gauges in his ears that i could fit my fist through, and long thin poker straight scragaly black hair with light roots. Oh, and really light eyes, like a really light powder blue color.

Anyway, i watched him mutter what i can only surmise was a "hey" to the manager, and walk to his cubicle to sit down. It was a rather slow call day because it was right before christmas, and since everyone was tapped out from buying gifts, no one was ordering anything over the phone.

All of a sudden his phone rang, and this guy got out of his chair, stood straight up and smiled. it was one of those times where you see a really alarming smile, and think "please just stop smiling." I was so astounded by his immediate personality switch, that i ignore my own phone for at least three separate call ins. Switch turned on like a light, and sonded like the most spikey haired, blue collard shirt, bright white teeth guy you could imagine. he got thesale, plus 3 up sells, and overnight shiping. As the call ended he made a joke, laughed a heartly laugh, and thanked the customer. When it was over, he said goodbye and hung up. his face morphed back into its origional state of "we all die anyway so why try" and he sat down and picked up one of his many horror magazines, and resumed his pasty, long haired, black wearing, loner personality.

This happened the same exact way every day that i worked there.

When we would go on lunch or break, he would take out this really dirty "this is where i keep my pot" canvas bag, and pull out what can only be described as penny candy. It was relly old time stuff like "bit-o-honey" and "mary janes" He even had this stuff that kids used to eat to disguise their breath if they were drinking or smoking. I cant remember what it was called, but it came in little square red and gold pouches. I happened to be outside one day and he came out and sat down uncomfortably close to me as if i wasn't even there. We sat there smoking in silence, until he put his cigarette out, and pulled out one of those little red and gold pouches. not being able to resist, I said "randell"  (yea, out of respect and fear i decided better call him by his real name) "randell, what is that" he looked at me, and gestured for me to hold out my hand. I did, and he emptied what looked like tiny black charcoal squares onto my palm. he then dumped the rest into his mouth. (which by the way was "creepy clown" huge when his jaw was fully extended) Following his lead, i proceded to empty the stuff into my own mouth as well. It had to be the most disgusting thing i have ever or will ever put in my mouth. This stuff tasted like potpouri. And not the wood chip potpouri, the oil stuff. i spit it onto the ground, and after 5 minutes of clearing my mouth of all traces of the stuff, and drinking from my soda, and spitting, and poping some gum, i looked at him and said "what the fu*k was that?! he just smiled this huge creepy smile that was so not the same as his fake call answering smile, and got up and went inside.

When i got back in, i told the guy sitting next to me what happened, and he just laughed at me and explained what it was. He said it was liccorice based, but im telling you that stuff didn't taste anything like liccorice.

So that was switch, and my strange encounter with him.

 This guy I met at another call center job i had. I worked there a few years brfore i worked at cinerjerks. This place was a mess. The cubicles were messy, the people were rude, and it was pretty much like being in detention, only we all had to get 5 surveys completed an hour. Lets call this place " Eye see Are."

I was in my last year of high school when i started this job, in the late spring of 2003. This job lasted until late winter 2004.

it started out okay, as the only rule was to get however many surveys an hour that night that was mandated by an alchoholic woman who sat at a desk facing all of our stations.

She was weird too, by the way. She used to drink before work in her car, and eat sunflower seeds all night. By the end of the night, there was a pile of seed shells the size of a grapefruit on her desk. usually I had one or two shells stuck to the bottom of my shoes when i got home at night, but anyway...

Back to eliot.

Eliot somehow always was assigned the station next to me. Lucky me, right? Well, im a weirdo magnet. Anyway, we happened to be reading the same author that night. I had my sci fi novel with me, and he had his graphic novel with him, and they were both by neil gaimen. i leaned away from the table just for a second, and looked over at the clock. I caught his eye long enough for him to say "neil gaimen, huh?"

The offensive smell that poured out of this guys face crypt was so aweful i cannot even describe it in words.

Me, being polite, and just barely able to breath without vomiting, got out a "yea hes my favorite" and got up to go to the bathroom for a breath of fresh air.

When i got back to my station, i smiled at this black girl who was really funny, and really loud. She was always singing, and talking, and making everyone laugh. She followed me with her eyes, and when i sat down, to my horror, eliot was ready to continue on about neil gaimen.

he couldn't even get one word out before this girl, i think her name was sandra, yelled out: "Eliot, leave that poor girl alone, were not gonna have anyone left workin here, if you keep scarein' people off wit dat stank ass breff."

hahahahahahaha, To this day i can't think about that without cracking up. I laughed so hard after Sandra said that, that i had to excuse myself to go outside. Even after that, i was on the phone with a homowner doing a survey about At&t, and out of nowhere i started cracking up, and had to hang up on him. i was sent home that day, and the whole drive home, i was laughing histerically with tears streaming down my face.

The next time i sat near Eliot, he had a huge pack of spearmint gum on the desk, almost like he was telling me that he had the situation under control. The gum did curb the vomit impulse, but you could still smell a hint of something. Kind of smelled like there was a dead cat under a porch somewhere in there amongst his bicuspids. Sandra had walked past me after i sat down, and stopped to ask me how it was going. She looked over at the gum, and touched Eliots shoulder saying "okay, okay, got some gum, okay." hahaha, like she was not going to let the breth thing go without letting him know she knew he had an issue. That shit makes me laugh, im sorry for all the cursing, but holy god remembering this is fun.

anyway, with his wrigley breath curve, he asked me if i was married. Now, i was about 19 at the time, so it was a weird question to me. Looking back, i guess its not so weird. And i knew he didn't want to ask me out or anything, it was just a question. He went on about how he goes to the comic shop every saturday, and i found out we watched the same show (coupling) all of the time, and we talked about neil gaimen. Then it dawned on me. How old is this guy? I honestly cant tell you if he was 22 or 42. Their was something weird about his face and body that made his age some kind of enigma. he would say things about living with his mom, but that could have been a kid still at home, or a loser old guy living with his mom. I don't know.

I caught Sandra outdise one night on break at around 8:30. I went up to her and said "listen, i want to ask you a question about Eliot, but you cant be funny about it, because i have to sit next to him, and i don't him to think im laughing at him for the rest of the night."  Sandra kind of smiled and said "mmmmmhmmm, okay, i could try." I asked her how old Eliot was, because i couldn't tell if he was 20 or 40, and she said "i never wondered about that before, but that's somthin, cause i don't think i could even guess."

I thanked her for not making me laugh, and told her id let he know if i found out how old he actually was. I turned around and got as far as 4 feet before she said "mmmmm, stephie, how it working out sittin next to him w dat creepin ass breff..." i turned around slowly trying to keep my decorum, and said very calmly, "Its ok, i think the gum is helping a little..." she then walked over and leaned in really close, looking at me, and studying my face. She said in a very low voice "yea, but it still stink tho, right?" i finally just let go, and laughed, and said, yea, its still bad, but not as bad as it was." Then, as she was walking away, she looked back and said "his mouth just smell, and that's all there is to it, you can shove as much gum as you want up my a**, but it still gonna smell like shi*."

Now, i know that she was being mean, but if you could have only witness this breath for yourself, you would have been laughing too. Even what she said wasn't that funny, unless you knew her, and knew how serious she was, but how funny anything she ever said was.

For a long time after that Eliot would sit next to me popping gum like nobody's business, and telling me stories about how his mom only ever ate green jello, and how the guy at the comic book store had a cat that wore an eye patch. Just the weirdest stuff you could think of. On one of my last days there, when work was starting to get too slow, and shifts were being cancelled, and i knew i was going to have to find other work, eliot sat down next to me. He had graduated to those mint strips that dissolve in your mouth, and was although still stinky, even more tolerable than he was with just the gum.

I looked over at him, and said "Eliot, how old are you." He looked over at me and smiled, and said "how old do you think i am." I was kind of stunned, and kind of put in a corner, as it seemed he was aware of his untelling features. I said "Um, im not really good with ages, i was just wondering." Eliot, still siling said "well im not good with questions." He then got up, and walked out right in the middle of his shift.

I never saw eliot again, but i have to say that he was on of the weirdest people ive ever met. Only because its almost as if he didn't even have an age. Most nights i would just sit there freaking myself out with thoughts that he might not even be human. I mean, the breath was that of an underworldly demon, and his face...i just couldn't put my finger on even a guess of what his age might be.

That night as i was walking towars my car, Sandra walked up to me, and asked me if i found out how old Eliot was. i told her what had happened, and without skipping a beat, she said "girl, we may never know how old he is, but i guarentee, hes just about as old as his toothbrush..." And while she was walking towards the bus stop, I could hear her talking to herself saying things like "might wanna run some tests on that toothbrush, might could find out about how old his stank mouf really is..."

And that was my experience with Eliot.

 There was a short three month period after i quit "Eye see are" That i got a job at Starshmucks.

This is where i met Jared. Jared was completely paranoid. For some strange reason, he was under the impression that the government was watching everyone at all times. He was one of those guys that thought "if i just take the proper precautions, ill be safe." Safe from what, i don't know. All i know is that this guy definitely deserves a place in this hub.

The first time i noticed anything unusual about him, was about 2 weeks into my working there. For the first 2 weeks, the manager was clocking me in, because  they didnt have a number for me yet. Well when i showed up for work monday morning, the manager gave me my number, and told Jared to show me how to clock myself in. I watched as he put his hand into his pocket, and pulled something out. I assumed it was going to be a piece of paper or something with his number written on it, but it was just a metal card. He held his hand with the metal card above the screen while he punched his number into the register, and pressed enter twice, looked at me, and walked away. I did everything he did minus the card thing, and once clocked in, I walked over to the manager. I was sure at that point that the metal card had something to do with the clocking in process, so i asked him when i would be getting one.

The manager looked at me like he had no idea what i was talking about, and told me that there was nothing more that i needed but a winning starshmucks smile, and that i was all set. He went into the back, and that's when i found out just how weird jared really was.

This girl named rene who was always chewing on a huge wad of bubbicious, walked over to me and introduced herself. A puerto riccan guy named anthony clocked in, and rene immediately said "anthony, jared did the card thing right in front of the new girl." Anthony looked shocked, and I just kind of stood there feeling slightly out of the loop. "He's paranoid, girl, he's an f-r-e-a-k frizeek. Anthony went into the back room to get one thing or another, and rene started to clue me in.

Aparently, the card was some kind of weird way that Jared was trying to "block" his clock in signal from being monitored by BIG BROTHER.

She also told me that Jared refused to get a licence, and drive a car, as both had "micro chips" in them that were "easily trackable" by the government. Oh yea, he was one of those.

"wait a minute," I said "what the hell does a 21 year old kid think the government wants with him." "No one knows" rene told me. "all we know is that he wont do anything "traceable" or anything that may or may not keep track of where he is. The only reason he got this job was because he said his mother thought it would help with his paranoia." "So then he's aware that he's paranoid?" I asked her. "No, hes aware that everyone else either thinks he's paranoid, or knows what's going on, and life is like some kind of huge conspiracy."

She then went on to explain to me that as paranoid as he was, he was the one keeping track of everyone else.

She warned me not to leave out a pay stub or an old time sheet by mistake, because that was the kind of thing that Jared collected. He was keeping tabs on everyone in his life, aparently trying to figure out who was watching him, and when.

As much as i didn't want to believe this, as much as i wanted to shrug it off, and just take what they were telling me as "messing with the new girl", there were too many strange coincidences that followed durring the rest of my 2 and a half months at Starshmucks.

In the following days i noticed that jared drank an excessive amount of coffee. black coffe. He would drink 4-6 cups durring his 8 hour shift. i can't even handle one cup, as coffe makes me nervous, so i cant imagine it was any good for his paranoia, but im pretty sure it had something to do with it.

Like i said, i didn't work there for very long, just 3 months, and th rest of what i remember is kind of scrambled, so im just going to list some of the things that i remember.

• One day i got to work early, and was just sitting in my car smoking. I see Jared ride up on his bike, and when he sees me, he makes this face, like he's alarmed that i was there, like i was watching him or something. I swear to you on everything that is sacred, that when he took off his helmet, there was a shiny metal coating of tinfoil.
• Jared had a little pad he carried around with him, and he frequently took it out, and joted things down. One day on his break, rene and i watched as he was in the parking lot, and seemed to be writing down the licence plate number of a guy that started just 3 weeks after me.
• i left my hours sheet on a table one day after work with a bunch of my stuff, and went to the bathroom. When i got back to the table, it was gone.
• I heard the manager yelling at him in the office because he couldn't find the schedule he had just created, and Jared was the last one in the office.
• Jared would stare at debit and credit cards customers paid with, as if commiting the numbers to memory. He was confronted more than a few times by the customers for this, and by the manager.
• i found out that the manager was in fact his uncle, leaving me to believe that's why all of this was tolerated

Yes, jared was paranoid, and he was an actual person. At the time that i quit the job, he had been on "vacation" for a week. rene and anthony, who i mostly worked with assumed that his vacation was at Ancora Mental Hospital, but as to where he really was, i don't care. I wasn't freaked out about him, it actually made the time fly by at work, but Starshmucks just wasn't the job for me. There was something about the smell of coffe and mochachino that started giving me serious headaches, and so i quit.

I do wonder though sometimes how he's doing. Maybe he got help, or maybe he's still out there feeling like the world is watching his every move. I feel sorry for him. Its got to be tough feeling that kind of paranoia.

 As some of you may know, i went to a penecostal school for a few years. When i was in ninth grade, in the middle of the year, we got a new kid. Now in any other school, this kid might have been able to just fly under the radar. Not in a private school. Usually private schools are small. For instance, i only had 3 people in my tenth grade class, and we were all girls. Well, beings that we all knew each other, and were like on big family, you could see how hard it could be for a new student to come in and make friends. Especially if that kid was weird. Steve was weird.

Steve never talked. And im not saying that he had trouble carrying conversation, or that he only spoke when spiken too, im saying he was mute. he had the ability to speak, he just wouldn't. I was always nice to everyone, and as most of you know, i was the kid who always befriended the underdog. So Steve was a challenge for me. I can remember sitting at the lunch table next to him asking him questions. I was trying as hard as i could to get him to talk to me, but he would just nod or shrug, or stare hopelessly at his bologna sandwich.

It was then that I got the idea. I got a piece of paper, and wrote my questions down, and he wrote me back answering every one of them. When we had gone through 3 or 4 pieces of paper, i wrote "Now if i ask you a question out loud, will you answer me?" Steve wrote yes, and I asked him if he'd like to hang out sometime. Steve spoke. Steve said "yes."

Now, when you befriend the person who has no friends, you should be careful. Im telling you this, because its something my mother would tell me, and then give me a big "i told you so" when things didn't quite pan out the way i expected. What i expected was normal friendships, and that is seldom what i got.

That friday night, the phone rang, and my mother answered it. She handed me the phone and said "steves mother wants to talk to you." She was smiling, as this is the start of the weirdness she knew was coming. I took the phone, and steves mother said that steve wanted to talk to me, and she put him on the phone. "hello?" I said after hearing nothing for a solid minute. "hey" said steve. he asked me if i wanted to come over the next day for a few hours, and i agrred. We gave our mothers the phones, and they figured out directions, or whatever.

The next day when i arrived at his house, it seemed that his mother was stuck in the fifties. The couch was covered in plastic, and i being a big girl at the time, found that horrifying. not only was i wearing shorts, and stuck to that couch like glue, but whenever i stood up, there was a huge mark on the plastic of which i can only describe as what it looks like when you breath heavily onto a pane of glass. I was leaving butt marks that looked like hot breath.

The movie that was on, was friday the thirtenth.

His mother asked me if i was thirsty, and to be polite i said yes. She went into the kitchen, and after 15 minutes of a loud noise that i didn't recognize, she came back out into the livingroom with what she called "fresh apple juice." The "fresh apple juice" was an amber colored liquid with huge apple chinks floating in it. Aparently the noise i didn't recognize, was a food processor, and 3 apples screaming for mercy. It tasted exactly like 3 masacred apples would taste.

i took the polite 3 sips that you take when somethig repulses you. The first sip to taste, the second sip to make sure it was actually as bad as you decided after the first sip, and a third to assure the maker that you like whatever they offered you.

Steve asked me if i wanted to see his room. I said ok. His mother said "make sure you close the door." Which was totally strange to me.

his room was covered in blood. Haha, got you there! What i mean is, it was covered in horror movie posters and figurines. He actually had action figures of murderers, and movie murderers, like leather face, freddy, and jason. The paint theme was "blood splatter" and he had books like "top ten American serial killers." I caught his bloody knife clock out of the corner of my eye, and said "my mom wants me to call her around 3"

I called my mom, which she knew no matter what i said was her cue to come and get me. Just to let you know, my standard was "Well you wanted me to call you, yes everythings fine, no his mom's really nice."

My mom was there in fifteen minutes, and i acted like i didn't want to leave. My mom of course, gave me her usual speech about how im just a weirdo magnet, and that i just ask for this kind of trouble. She laughed at the juice thing, though. We were always a "shoprite instant iced tea" family.

And that was my short friendship with steve "future serial killer!"

 Yes, all of these people were people i knew, and everything i have written in this hub is completely true. I dint fabricate any of it. These people were weird, and walked in and out of my life, leaveing an impression on me that i still can't shake. I hope you enjoyed reading this hub, and again, its just another peek inside the pink umbrella.