TexasCHLforum.com

I'm so disappointed in myself. I was caught Off-Guard last night around midnight.


I have always always been cautious of my surroundings. And last night just like every night I come home from visiting the fiance I was on the phone with her letting her know I had gotten home. Well I'm on the phone while I get down so I'm not 100% checking my surroundings. So as I get down and turn around to close door there is a a Man there approaching me. He literally was like 3ft from me. Totally caught me off-guard. I just yelled "Oh crap(not exact word if you know what i mean) you scared me!! " He acted startled and asked if I wanted to buy some T-Shirts because he was selling t-shirts. I looked and noticed he had no t-shirts so I just so Noo thanks.

i might have advised him not to be sneaking up on people like that.

RubenZ wrote:Well I'm on the phone while I get down so I'm not 100% checking my surroundings.

Like James Brown?
what're you driving, Big Foot?

DoubleJ wrote:

RubenZ wrote:Well I'm on the phone while I get down so I'm not 100% checking my surroundings.

Like James Brown?

Funniest post of the year. Period.

It should have been typed " 'get 'down" not 'while I get down'.

ala Navin Johnson (Steve Martin) from 'The Jerk'.

Just quoting a good ol' Texas Boy. (Steve Martin was born in Waco)

Especially in south Texas, instead of saying "I got out of the car." they say "I got down from the car." Its pretty common actually, and funny!

That reminds me of a time when I was caught off guard at a stop light.

Out of the blue, there was someone banging on MY DRIVER's SIDE WINDOW.

First off the mere fact someone was banging on my window scared the daylights out of me (even though it was broad daylight). Startled, I jumped and looked...

Second off, the person standing outside my window was short in stature, so her face was level with mine.

She had a "crazy, wrinkled old hag" look about her AND she was smiling with her toothless face.... and she was literally standing INCHES FROM MY FACE >>> if I hadn't been tied down by my seat belt I would have probably hit my head on the roof of the truck, I jumped again so violently.

Her mere physical appearance, as well as the fact that she was SO CLOSE TO ME (just on the other side of the car window) scared the daylights out of me.

My first reaction was to YELL at her (through the closed window), "YOU CRAZY OLD BAT -- YOU ALMOST SCARED ME TO DEATH!".

She just stood there with her toothless grin, nodding like she was agreeing with me.

Then I looked a little more closely, she had a habit like thing on her head - like a nun. I'm thinking she was a CRAZY nun! and then OH MAN I JUST SCREAMED at a nun! (I'm thinking to myself, "even if she is crazy and standing on the street, banging on my window -- I probably shouldn't be calling a nun a crazy old bat").

Then I widened my focus. She was on some fund raising drive with a bucket in her hand. There were other people with nun looking things on their heads spotted up and down the intersection, with buckets in their hands too.

Even so, why would any one step into a BUSY STREET and bang on someone's window. Good LORD!

All this happened within the short time it takes a light to turn from RED to GREEN on Garland Rd & Buckner Blvd in Dallas.

The light changed and I drove away. She still stood there, still smiling and nodding at me like she didn't hear me just call her a CRAZY OLD BAT . Maybe she didn't.

After I drove away and was a few blocks away, I got to thinking it over and got into a laughing fit. I had to pull over into a parking lot. I was laughing so hard I couldn't drive.

It was a really weird experience. It did teach me a lesson about paying attention to my surroundings during a stop at a red light!

Snake Doctor wrote:

DoubleJ wrote:

RubenZ wrote:Well I'm on the phone while I get down so I'm not 100% checking my surroundings.

Like James Brown?

Funniest post of the year. Period.

He has a nack for that...

iflyabeech wrote:Especially in south Texas, instead of saying "I got out of the car." they say "I got down from the car." Its pretty common actually, and funny!

No, "they" don't, unless by "they" you mean those of Hispanic heritage. The English/Spanish verbs don't translate exactly. I have never heard an anglo use the phrase unless jokingly.

This is not a rub against the group either, just an observation.

I remember as a young rookie cop in Corpus, my partner and I caught two teenage boys coming out from behind a building that was often burglarized. I asked them what there were doing, and one replied, "we were just throwing a leak". I was like, .

Another odd usage I heard;

A motor cop called in a grass fire, and said he needed the fire department sent because he couldn't "turn off the fire".

Though I don't really use the "get down from" language, it would certainly apply for my vehicle. I've got a 1975 Chevy G30 (1 ton) van with 265/75R tires on 16" wheels. It's definitely a step "down" to get out of.

Mrs.F, that is funny.
I bet that old woman had no clue how much she scared you.

MrsFosforos wrote:Then I looked a little more closely, she had a habit like thing on her head - like a nun. I'm thinking she was a CRAZY nun! and then OH MAN I JUST SCREAMED at a nun!

I'm not sure they're the same group, but there's a group that collects money at intersections in Houston. Both the men and women wear some kind of robes and head coverings. I think they're a cult. They're definitely not Catholic nuns or religious brothers.

- Jim

txinvestigator wrote: The English/Spanish verbs don't translate exactly.

A former colleague from El Paso would ask, "Can you make me a favor?"

Spanish doesn't contain the verb "to do".

KBCraig wrote:

txinvestigator wrote: The English/Spanish verbs don't translate exactly.

A former colleague from El Paso would ask, "Can you make me a favor?"

Spanish doesn't contain the verb "to do".

lol

Again, while still a young cop (but no longer a rookie) I regularly stopped on my way in to work in the afternoons at a little store across from my apartment complex to get a 24 oz diet coke.

The clerk asked me one day, "are you barely going to work?". I knew what she meant, "are you just (now) going to work.

"Here's yer sign."