Beware of Strange (non-mechanic) Men in Red Bathrobes! And other strange tales...

So tonight at work a woman approached me as I attempted to clean up a mess of Budaberg Ginger Beer. It was a sticky, treacherous place to be, and why she chose to talk to me instead of one of the numerous other employees will forever remain a mystery. Her car had died, and did I, or anyone there have a set of jumper cables? If you know me, you know I am a sucker and a softie to boot, so you will nod your head when I say that although I didn't have jumper cables myself, I took it upon myself to find her some. I asked three other people until I found a set, and then somehow finagled myself into giving her the jump. Or attempting to.

I got my car situated and we hooked up the cables and....not much happened. She got some dashlights and little else. We thought maybe we'd just give it a few moments to juice up, and as we stood there chatting, up walks Red Terrycloth Bathrobe man. In the middle of our parking lot (this is a huge, very public lot, mind you--we're basically in an outdoor mall) is walking a middle-aged man, wearing nothing but the aforementioned bathrobe and some flip-flops. I kid you not. He approached us saying "I'm no mechanic, but I trained in diesel school...." Wait, what? So diesel engines aren't considered mechanical? But I digress. He proceeds then to tell us that I shouldn't have my car on to give her a jump, and that if he only had a pen light he could open up either of our batteries to look inside and tell us whether they are any good. Now it may be that I'm mistaken, and correct me if I am, but didn't they stop making the sort of battery that requires water (and therefore that you could check in this fashiong) about 10 or 15 years ago? After the "if only I had a penlight" lament, we got a little lecture on the best types of batteries to buy and how once he had to take his battery out and swap it with his buddies car to get 'em to work. It was very surreal. And I'm sorry I missed it, but apparently when he *finally* walked away, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a big-ole bottle of (presumeably) prescription pills. It was just odd. Bathrobe Man.
And the follow-up to that is that I never got her going...almost 30 minutes of jacking with it, and...nothing. I had to go back to work. However, a nice (and presumably sane--he was at least wearing "public" clothes!) young man came by and offered to take up where I left off. She returned the cables less than 5 minutes after I came back in, which leads me to wonder where the hell we went wrong, and if I should be concerned about my own battery.

So yeah. That was the big strangeness of the evening. And then I came home and captured these images for posterity:

Wherein Bucket shows his complete and utter disdain for the freaky amoeba ball. Could have something to do with the fact that we'd just put it on his face.

And then there is the other, happier, side of Bucket:


He was actually yawning, but it's more fun to think of it as a guffaw. :)