The Birth of an Odyssey

The idea for the Odyssey of Weirdness came about a month ago, while my friend Ed and I were on the phone.  Ed was telling me about something bizarre that had happened at a place at which he used to work, and mentioned that the workplace in question was actually in the book Weird NJ.

“Wait a minute,” I said, furrowing, “I actually have that book.”

It turned out that Ed did, too, and he got his copy and I got my copy and he directed me to the correct page and I read about where he used to work.  Afterwards, since I hadn’t actually read Weird NJ in five years or so and I already had the book out, I started leafing through it again, reacquainting myself with the (supposed) weirdness of my home state.  And then something occurred to me.

In the 45 years I have lived in New Jersey, I have seen maybe four of the places listed in the book.  I’ve actually been in about 83% of the towns they write about, but I’ve never actually seen any of the allegedly weird things.  And this suddenly became unacceptable, so I came to decision.

I would go on…an Odyssey.  An Odyssey of Weirdness.

I would chart a course to visit every single part of New Jersey that the book mentions and try to find and photograph the supposedly weird thing.  After all, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get away for an extensive “leaving the state” vacation this year due to conflicting schedules with my friend with whom I usually holiday, and this would also give me the opportunity to see some friends from college and graduate school that I haven’t been able to connect with for 20 years or more.  I had never done anything like this before—gone on an extended trip by myself with no fixed schedule and no one else’s satisfaction to worry about.  And, since I wouldn’t be leaving New Jersey, I’d never be more than a few hours away if I was suddenly needed back at home.

When I told Ed about it (and that he was partially responsible for the concept, since he was the reason I was browsing in the book after so long) he pointed out that the things that happen to me in my daily life are probably much weirder than anything that could be published in any book—as anyone who knows me well can attest to.  It took us only seconds to come up with an example:

Several months ago, I was in the Trump Taj Mahal visiting my money, and was playing my favorite slot machine. A man, who appeared to be in his late-fifties, sat down at the machine to my immediate left.

           

Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly saw what I immediately recognized to be open flame.  As the casinos in Atlantic City have only recently gone mostly smoke-free, a lot of the patrons aren’t yet familiar with where the smoking sections are, so, helpful citizen that I am, I turned to the gentlemen in order to give him this information.

Which is when I saw that the man was not lighting a cigarette at all, but was instead holding the match directly under his nostrils, apparently attempting to groom his nose hair by singing it out.

I turned back to my machine, immediately took my phone from my pocket and called Ed, which is what I always do when these things happen. 

ED:  Hello?

ME:  There’s a man sitting next to me burning the hair out of his nose with a lighted match.

ED:  Of course there is.

The reason that Ed had been so utterly blasé about this is that he hears this sort of thing from me on an almost bi-weekly basis.  It’s to the point where when he sees my name on his phone he answers with; “So, how far did you get from the front door today without encountering weirdness?” or, conversely, I just start the conversation with; “Well, my first mistake was leaving the house…”

The idea that my real life was much more bizarre than anything in the book sort of made me see the whole mission as a double-dog dare, which made my enthusiasm about the Odyssey treble, to the point that I decided to create a blog so that my friends can keep track of my encounters with New Jersey weirdness and do some comparing and contrasting of their own, if only out of morbid curiosity.  There are two things which I believe qualify me to make this scientific documentation:

1)       I am a college professor.  Research is my life.  I have spent seven years of my life and untold thousands of dollars mastering this skill and have been transferring this information to others for almost 18 years.

2)      I am a Nut Whisperer.

The term “Nut Whisperer” is actually the brainchild of Ed’s son (which I guess makes it Ed's grand-brainchild, or something), and is simply the title used to denote someone who routinely attracts insane people, or (if they’re really good at it) able to bring out the hidden, yet pre-existing insanity in people that appear otherwise “normal.”  It is the perfect descriptor for what I’ve been doing my entire adult life.  I inherited this ability from my mother.  My mom had an extraordinarily kind, compassionate, and gentle demeanor, and her facial expression always conveyed a remarkable approachability. 

If you were an 18 year-old guy who was grocery shopping on your own  for the first time and weren’t sure how far past the sell-by date you could safely unfreeze minute steaks, my mom would be the one in the store you would ask.  She could see it coming all the way across the Shop Rite—a confused patron would bypass dozens of other shoppers in order to approach her and ask her a bizarre question.

And I’m the exact same way.  I am so tuned in to the absurdity of humanity, to its otherworldliness, and to the truly surreal nature of mankind that somehow I project an aura that crazy people can sense that says, “Come, talk to me, I’ll understand.”  And I find it impossible to believe that any geographical location in my home town can compare to it.

But don’t take my word for it.  You can come with me.

You can follow the exploits of the Odyssey through this blog, which I’ll update each day with the results of that day’s findings.  If you’re a Facebook friend, you’ll be able to access it through my easy-to-follow links, or just check “follow this blog” on Blogger.

We’ll be starting out on Wednesday, January 9^th, in my home town, when we’ll be visiting the grave of Zippy the Pinhead, then packing in some other supposedly weird Somerset County stuff.  You’ll have the virtual experience of a lifetime.

See you on the road!

--Roxanne