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Nattie — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:44:18 -0800

Creep me out! Lately I've been on an "unsettling stuff" kick -- I like feeling unsettled and I find it creatively inspiring -- but I'm running low on things to explore. It's hard to articulate precisely what I'm looking for, but it tends to be stuff that almost certainly isn't true but for the few minutes you think about it, it's really unnerving. The underlying theme in what unnerves me seems to be that reality appears to be one way, but in fact it's this other, more sinister way. Examples of stuff is conspiracy theories -- New World Order theories, CIA experiments in mind control and paranormal stuff --, weird religious or spiritual ideas about "evil" supernatural phenomena, some theories of time and space (which I am not so quick to put in the "almost certainly not true" category), etc. Oh, and then lately Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video and all those articles about the occult symbolism -- she has a lot of unsettling pictures where she doesn't seem human. Weird mysteries fit the bill, too, like the Taman Shud case. Other pseudo-scientific ideas, like the Parasite Eve idea that because mitochondria have different DNA they might actually "take over" a person completely, work too.

Also, this is even more subjective, but the more plausibly expressed the idea is without actually being realistic, the better; it has to lead me on a bit or else I never feel unnerved. So, for example, your standard Bilderberg Group conspiracy theory has some element of feasibility that David Icke's "oh btw they're all blood-drinking reptile ppl from another dimension lol" doesn't; the former is unsettling until you give it a few moments thought, the latter is just too ridiculous out of the gate. Anything that starts from some kind of evidence, even if misrepresented or misunderstood, seems to work, which is probably why pseudoscience is good for this sort of thing. Also, I've noticed that stuff that uses apparently made-up evidence works too, provided that the made-up evidence is of the kind that sounds possible and you'd have to actually look it up to know better; conspiracy theories tend to do this a lot, like they say that so-and-so noteworthy person said XYZ, or they make up noteworthy people altogether.

In other words, the sort of stuff that if you take what's presented on good faith instead of scepticism, the unsettling conclusions seem plausible.

I'm looking mostly for shorter things, like ideas, short stories, and maybe short films. I'm not entirely opposed to books and movies, but my inability to "believe" anything creepy for more than a few minutes greatly dilutes my enjoyment of longer things. Long stuff takes an investment of seriousness I just can't muster for anything like that. When it comes down to it, I don't believe in anything supernatural and I don't think any grand scale conspiracies are likely. "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro, for example, didn't unsettle me as much as it would have done in a shorter format, although it was fairly unsettling. I'd be willing to try more things like that, even though it's less likely to be effective.

To be clear, fiction or nonfiction or fiction-masquerading-as-non-fiction are all cool.

Stuff I am *not* looking for:
- Certified real scenarios, at least for the most part, because those tend to be genuinely upsetting or just piss me off, and that's not the feeling I'm looking for with this question. However, if the certified real scenario *sounds* like something that's so bizarre as to be made up, it might qualify; so something like "however many people die because of Corporation X's negligence and that's unsettling" isn't what I'm looking for, but some real CIA experiments seem to fit anyway, like the mind control experiments are just weird to imagine. Things that allegedly happened but are under dispute work pretty well, too.

- Edging into "scary story" kind of stuff, gore doesn't unsettle me. When it comes to horror genre things, I need weird paranormal stuff going on to feel freaked out, not blood. I don't care if blood/violence is present as long as there's weird stuff going on, but it needs to be more inspired than something like the Jason movies. The Ring/Ringu is the best example I can come up with of something that was violent but that wasn't the main scary part; the scariness mostly came from how alien the girl was and how little was explained.

To put it another way, what's something you read/watched/heard about that gave you an eerie, upsetting feeling, even though you knew better? I realize none of my criteria are precise and I'll probably get a lot of answers that don't effect me much, but give it your best shot.

Bizarre behavior in a male acquaintance left me wondering if he's dangerous. Am I overreacting?

aquafortis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:53:50 -0800

Bizarre behavior in a male acquaintance left me wondering if he's dangerous. Am I overreacting? The other day, I approached an older male acquaintance after he gave a university lecture. When he saw I was about to speak to him, he "gallantly" took my hand and lifted it in the air (imagine an 18th century courtier leading his lady to the gavotte) and gently eased me WAY into his personal space while tilting his head toward me. He's extremely soft-spoken, so even though our toes were almost touching at right angles and he put his other hand in the small of my back, I thought it was eccentric and charming. Sexy, even. He held my hand as we put our heads together and whispered to each other for a minute. Nice, right?

Sure. Until I wanted my hand back, and he wouldn't let go.

When I tried to pull away, he suddenly dug his thumb into the hollow of my wrist joint on top of my hand and tightened his index finger around the back, pressing deep into the small hollow on the underside. I panicked a little--toppling back a step, tugging my hand back twice, and twisting in both directions. Nothing; his grip was perfectly positioned around the joint. When I looked at him, he seemed like he was in an honest-to-God trance: with glazed eyes and parted lips, he was staring straight down my sweater watching my breasts shake as I tried to free myself. WTF?

He didn't snap out of it till I said "Hey! Uh, here!" To which he looked up blandly and said "Huh? Oh..." released me, and kept talking for a few minutes like nothing happened. As I was about to leave, he gently clasped my hand and gave me a tender, dreamy, loving look and said he'd call me to talk about [insert academic subject here] and was greatly looking forward to it. Jekyll and Hyde much?

What's really terrifying is that if he ever tranced out on my throat and nobody was around to snap him out of it, I'd be dead. Not to mention the fact that I'm very strong for a woman: I can bench more than my bodyweight, and once when a big football player-type grabbed my wrists and tried to rape me, I was able to break his grip--and now I'm powerless to get away from someone because he's got me in some kind of goddamned ninja wristlock?

Question: what in the world happened? Is there any other plausible explanation for this besides "high-testosterone schizophrenic", "sadistic psychopath" "violent sex offender" or "serial killer"? What's the Occam's Razor explanation here? Would a frontotemporal dementia palmar grasp reflex account for the perfectly administered lock and trancelike leer? Should I write his adult son an anonymous letter suggesting that dear old dad needs a functional MRI? Is the horrible vibe I'm picking up here way out of line? Am I making a big deal out of nothing? Obviously I can't be alone with him in private, but I'm seriously wondering how safe it is to be together in public. What would you do? And what's the best way to get out of this kind of wristlock short of a huge haymaker to the temple? All advice welcome...thanks!

"The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems."

d. z. wang — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:17:28 -0800

Does "creepy" have specific meaning? I'm trying to understand what it means to be "creepy". Are there specific behaviors or traits universally recognized as creepy? Does it vary from person to person? Or is it just a catch-all term for unsociable behavior?

Is it possible for girls to be creepy? Is creepy behavior different for girls than for guys? Is it necessarily tied to interactions between genders?

And, is "creepy" different from "creepifying"?

Not looking for stories about creepy people you've met, unless you really have no other way to explain some aspect of creepiness. Hearing these stories is what got me writing this question in the first place.

Recent Female-Sung Torch Songs, Somewhat Creepy

adipocere — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:12:40 -0800

I'm looking for torchy songs, hopefully recent, sung by women, with a somewhat creepy, stalkery bent. Examples:

Neko Case's cover of "I'll Be Around," off of Blacklisted — she's a good source of these. Another example is Melody Gardot's "Your Heart Is as Black as Night." You know, something that sounds a bit like a lonely song of unrequited love, until you step back and realize that she might be singing this, for the hundredth time, from her car parked outside of your house at three a.m.

"Rope of Weeds," by Elysian Fields is a less-perfect fit. The Tre Lux cover of Duran Duran's "The Chauffeur," though spooky, is just outside the range of what I'm listening for.

What is this scary statue?

grieserm — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:39:03 -0800

[Creepy statue filter] I moved into a new place a couple of months ago, and there was a creepy statue left outside. Does anyone know what the hell this thing is?

Half a loph is better than none.

Panjandrum — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:38:34 -0800

Aside from mugging the tooth fairy, what's the best way to get my hands on a substantial number of real human teeth? It's for science.

Am I overreacting to this creepy guy who keeps trying to meet my wife and her friends?

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:48:48 -0800

Am I overreacting to this creepy guy who keeps trying to meet my wife and her friends? I apologize for this being a bit long and probably confusing.

My wife has a core group of five friends that she's known since high school. Three of the five girls are married and a fourth is in a long-term relationship. We're all close. About 3 or 4 months, the fifth girl started having sex with a married guy from her church. She been good friends with this guy's wife and daughter for a while too, which makes it all the more despicable. He's also told her that it's not the first time he's cheated on his wife.

Initially, all of this girl's friends, including my wife, were pretty disappointed in her. The collective disappointment turned to anger when this guy invited all of her girl friends out to dinner to get to know them. Just the girls. Well, they basically all told the friend that they think he's a creep and nobody wanted to meet him. We thought that was that.

Whenever we're with this friend, she's CONSTANTLY texting with this guy. And he's always asking her possessive questions like "Who's there?" and "How much have you been drinking?"

Weeks later, she roped one of the girlfriends and her boyfriend into meeting this guy. They confirmed their initial suspicions that he was creepy. Especially when they started inappropriately making out in front of everyone. He even started texting THIS girl after the meeting and trying to talk to her on the phone.

So last week, the friend moved into a new apartment in this guy's town (which we later found out was directly in between his work and home). In celebration of the new place, they all had a "girl's night" at the movies. After the movie, they went to see the new apartment. As they're walking around, who shows up... this frickin guy. With a case of beer nonetheless as a "peace offering" for the girls. Fortunately, my wife had come home directly from the movie and missed meeting him. But the other girls awkwardly left and were pretty livid about the whole thing, basically feeling like they were tricked into meeting him. I was beyond pissed about the whole thing, as was my best friend (who's married to one of the girls who was there). I later found out for sure that it was this guy's idea to stop by and say 'hi' to them and the girl told him it would be ok. It was most definitely not ok.

So I found out what I could about this guy afterwards and wrote him an email... to his work address, to make the point loud and clear:

I don't care what you do with [REDACTED]... but my wife and the rest of my friend's wives do not want to know you. You and [REDACTED] both know that. Do not put yourself into a situation to meet my wife or any of my friend's wives again.

Stay the fuck away.

I guess he got the message last night while he was with her and got so scared that he left and went home to his wife. The girl immediately called her friends to apologize for putting them in the awkward situation and took responsibility for it. She chatted with me this morning and tried to explain, but I basically told her that I think this guy is a piece of shit and nobody wants him around them. I've accepted her apology, basically because I think her being that dumb doesn't mean there needs to be bad blood between us. But I absolutely don't forgive this guy for weaseling his way into everyone's lives.

So again, the question is: am I overreacting to this guy? It seems to me like he has some delusional fantasy about cheating on his wife with not only this girl, but her friends as well. It was enough to feel like she's making us guilty simply by knowing about what her and this guy are doing. But him figuring out how to get his way regardless of the wishes of my wife and her friends is putting me (and the other husbands) over the top.

unsettling ambient music?

MaddyRex — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:01:10 -0800

Looking for something along the lines of the theme to the movie Halloween, the Dark Knight Soundtrack or the background music to this amazing commercial Nothing with words, no thrasher metal, nothing atonal or screechy. Just soft, creepy ambient music. A clear, heavy beat might be nice but isn't necessary. Thanks!

A question for (straight) women about varieties of casual eye contact with semi-strange men

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:30:28 -0800

A question, especially for straight women, about varieties of casual eye contact with semi-strange men: At campus, a large workplace or other site with lots of people you see fairly often, most of whom you don't end up acquainting with, to what extent do subtle (or less subtle) differences in how men make passing eye contact affect your impression of them?

I'm not necessarily even talking about overt flirting here, but rather of being at all approachable in the first place, particularly to women who might understandably be wary of drawing attention from men who they don't know but are going to have to see every day, even if they, upon first hint of a smile, turn out to be awkward creeps (disclaimer: I've at least been one).

I do, occasionally, make such unspoken friendly connections with strange women, and then it's a lot more fun and easy to actually flirt and chat up than it is without, even when there otherwise is obvious mutual physical attraction. However, I have hardly a clue of why this happens at times, and doesn't at others. I want to know a) if it really is a matter of variations in eye contact (what else could it be?) and b) if it is, what exactly are the details that make the difference!

Thanks a bunch, I know you'll make my day :)

Creep me out in rhyme

Caduceus — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:37:39 -0800

Teach me new creepy children's rhymes. I'm looking for creepy, sing-song childhood rhymes, or at least ones that seem like they could be jump-rope or nursery rhymes. If they're even creepier when actually recited by children, so much the better.

The classic example is Lizzie Borden took an axe, of course, though despite the subject matter it rates pretty low on the creepiness scale. And Ring-around-the-rosie can be creepy, but only when you know what it's about and it's done right.

Examples of the sorts of things I'm really looking would be the rhyme from the beginning of the "Hush" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (this), or the rhyme from Stephen King's The Tommyknockers. I'll happily accept any examples, either made up for books or film like my two examples, or real ones actually used by children.

I'm looking for some specific spooky Christmas music, can you help me?

mrzer0 — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:17:44 -0800

Some time ago either on MeFi or BoingBoing there was a link to a bunch of songs that I *swear* were Christmas songs played in the wrong key or one half-tone down or something... Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about and where I could find this (again)? They sounded frightening, yet eerily awesome! I have been searching like crazy for this, through old chat logs, old bookmarks, through the web (both MeFi and BoingBoing archives) and so far no such luck! At least not anything that is reminding me of it. Is it possible that it was not Christmas songs?

I was just telling some friends about it and wanted to provide a link. Thanks!

The borrowers at work?

charmcityblues — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:04:24 -0800

Objects keep disappearing in my apartment. Please help me figure out why, and what to do. In the past few weeks, several objects of nominal value have disappeared from my apartment. The objects include a DVD, a pair of socks, a can of beans, and a mug.

As far as I know, no one has broken into my apartment. Among other things, valuable items such as my laptop, camera, and iPod are undisturbed.

I have not lent any of these things to anyone (and really, the DVD is the only lend-able item of the lot). I live alone in a tiny studio apartment, so it's not a handsy roommate.

I am a very organized, "place for everything, and everything in its place" kind of person, which is why I became aware of the missing things. I have also thoroughly searched (including under furniture, behind the stove, etc. etc.) and am convinced that these items are really gone.

The inconvenience and expense of replacing these items is minor. But I am concerned that there is something creepy going on that I should do something about. But I can't exactly call the police and ask them to investigate my missing socks. (And I'm not in the least superstitious; no ghosts here).

What should I do?

Happy happy happy all the time shock treatment, I'm doing fine

simbiotic — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:54:23 -0800

I found an antique electro-therapeutic apparatus at a thrift shop. Now what? I haven't been able to find any real information from googling. I brought it to an antique shop but they had no information about value or resources for finding a buyer. They estimated the date to turn of the century by looking at the hinges and the dovetails of the box and the cotton insulation and fine copper wiring. I have no idea if this is accurate.

It's kind of creepy to have sitting around but I am not sure if I want to sell it. I'd like to know the value or if a museum would be interested. At this point I don't have money to invest in an appraisal. Since we do live in LA, of course the apparatus already has a movie offer. I'd like to know if it should be insured and for how much.

There are pictures at the flickr link in my profile. I've also transcribed the instructions from the inside label. Maybe the language would be helpful is dating it?

But Not The Wasp Factory, Please

A Terrible Llama — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:22:14 -0800

Okay, so I found a recommendation for Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory via an old AskMe thread and picked it up. Unfortunately, this was the thread I probably needed to see. Kill all the people you want, fictional characters, but hurt animals and you've lost me forever. I'm not capable of the kind of detachment required to read about waging war on bunnies or oh. my. god. setting fire to dogs.

What I liked about the Wasp Factory: very clean prose style--I'm not in the mood for frilly writerliness, but I also don't like mechanical writing, where you feel like a non-writer has a story to tell and everything is just plot, plot, plot. TWF had character-based forward momentum to it.

If I could have gotten past the animal stuff, it was INCREDIBLY compelling and had moments of dark humor, plenty of surprises, a vibrant narrator, a creepy sense of place, and even though ultimately I couldn't get through it I was really into it--I flicked through to pick out the plot so I'd get to know what happened without reading in terrible detail about the animal horrors. Basically I cheated.

So, what can I read that: has clean, sharp prose and is as compelling but is animal-torture free?

Books I've liked: The Pat Barker WWI series, Lolita, some Elmore Leonard, The Living by Annie Dillard (if anyone's looking for a recommendation: this is about settling the pacific Northwest, which sounds thuddingly dull but Dillard will be beautifully prosing along and will knock off characters without a second thought and merrily plink along to the next paragraph while you're still blinking the image away--in a weird way, it's got the same breezy momentum as TWF. I really liked it.), the story 'Brokeback Mountain' -- the writing is sheer unrelentingly awesome. I liked The Shining, too.

I think I'm in the mood to be creeped out--I'm home all day with an infant and would like some escapism (not that the rigors of changing diapers every three hours isn't riveting.)

Also, I will revisit the book recommendation threads again, but I was wondering if anyone had specific recommendations with the above in mind...

Help me keep a chinchilla without cockroaches.

Brainy — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:19:44 -0800

How do we keep a chinchilla in an apartment where roaches might be present without killing the chinchilla or attracting tons of bugs? My girlfriend wants to bring her chinchilla to our apartment and I would like that too. However we've seen more than a couple of roaches (including one gigantic one in the sink the other day*) I'm worried we'd pretty much be bringing a roach attractor into the apartment.

The cage she currently has is homemade and constructed of wood and wire...something roaches would have no problem getting through. There are solid plastic cages, but air holes = bug holes. Are there any bug proof cages out there?

What about rodent food that wouldn't attract roaches?

Will we have to be more careful with the insecticide, is the chinchilla in more danger because of his size?

My girlfriend and I (and Kirby the chinchilla) thank you!

* Bonus question. we sprayed Raid Roach Max into our sink to kill it. What's the best way of cleaning this poison out of our sink?

Scream Therapy?

vizsla — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:13:03 -0800

Why do women (predominantly) scream? Is it a conscious choice? What goes through their minds when they're screaming? I've noticed that young girls do it frequently while playing in the schoolyard I live near too. Don't mean to sound like Ted Bundy here. I was just listening to the RFK assassination tape (from a recent MeFi thread) and it was punctuated by some very disturbing female screams. I also once heard the most blood-curdling scream outside my hotel window in the middle of the night and was never so scared in my life. I thought somebody had been murdered and the whole street would be crawling with police and shocked bystanders. It turns out it was probably just a drug addict having a bad trip and a routine event. But it continues to spook and perplex me.

Lordy mercy what's in the bedroom with us?!??

Mutant — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:02:17 -0800

So exactly what is crawling about our bedroom at night and how can we catch it, exile it or kill it? We live in Central London in a two bedroom, two story garden flat.

About one week ago I woke up at night which is rather unusual as I almost always will sleep the entire night through. I've spent a lot of time working in Africa, sometimes in very, very crappy conditions (read that as tents out in The Bush) and that experience seem to have hyper developed my sense towards things creepy crawly.

So I heard some rustling under the bed, but soon fell back asleep. The wife slept soundly.

Same thing happened a few other nights. I'd wake up, hear this rustling (I've got a lot of finance books and research papers lying about the bedroom) but even if I turned on the lights couldn't see anything. And with the lights on the rustling would stop.

We've got these nifty little LED robot lights in some of the longer hallways, that will turn on when motion is detected. It helps us move about the flat in the evenings without turning on the overly bright hall lights. So I unmounted two of the robot lights, but them under the bed thinking perhaps I'd see the lights activate during the night. But even though rustling, still nothing (just a data point that of itself proves nothing as I'm aware that overly slow or rapid motion past a robot light will not trigger it).

Three nights ago I finally woke the wife during one of these episodes. Sure enough, she heard the rustling and her hearing, much finer than my live punk rock show damaged senses, indicated the point of origin in a particular corner of the room, later moving towards our bed (nice one that!).

So we purchase six of those glue traps and they catch. Nothing.

What the hell can this be? Surely if this was a rodent it would prefer to spend time either in the kitchen or a large, walk in upstairs closet where all the food is? And we've seen no rodent droppings. I lived in New York for thirteen years and know the ways of The Roach; specifically, if we had those insects then we'd be seeing them, especially so downstairs in the kitchen.

I fastidiously take out the garbage after each meal, but even so there is bread and potatoes other tidbits in the kitchen. But no signs of either insects or rodents. I might be inclined to think British House Spider but the seasons not appropriate and I've had them in the past; they just sorta scuttle about the flat and surely don't go rustling my research.

So we're foxed on this one. Any idea on what it could be? And how to dispatch it?

Yeh, our flat is indeed haunted but the ghosts never leave The Lounge and really don't bother us anymore than playing music and laughing sometimes late at night.

OLD MAN FACE!!!!

shmegegge — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 12:32:40 -0800

Where does old man face come from? You know, that sort of moon shaped jutting chin thing. It was a lot easier to find cartoony versions of the face shape I'm looking for on google, so here are some examples. 1. 2.

I'm sure part of it has to be a missing teeth thing, but I've seen guys with chins that definitely jut or maybe just have some kind of growth. is this an explained phenomenon or what?

"people dying, children crying - look, fingernails in your back..."

trinarian — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:46:27 -0800

Help identify a strange and creepy children's song from my past that seems ungoogleable. I have a very distinct memory of coming back from YMCA summer camp with my older sister. As we were driving away, my she starts singing a song she learned that day with the kids her age. I remember the tune and some of the words, and it was creepy as hell to a seven year old. My mother made her stop singing it, I think she did the whole thing for me another time, but now she's forgotten anything of it.

The lyrics I remember was a chorus of, "people dying, children crying" followed right after by a stop of the tune and something like, "look! fingernails in your back." I think this might have been followed by something physical like putting nails to your back. The entire song was describing some kind of war-torn wasteland or nuclear apocalypse.

The tune was something like "dah dahn dah dahn da dahn da dahn - dahn!" for that above chorus.

It was extremely catchy and burned holes in my head with apocalyptic visions - I still remember it 20 years later. I don't think there's anyway they could have made it up, it's too catchy. Anyone else remember this words or know the origins to this?

Creeping myself out.

Jess the Mess — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:17:09 -0800

What are these reddish brown stains on the floor of my "vintage" apartment? I'm not sure if I really want to know the answer to this question but here goes: I live in an old (circa 1920's or older) apartment in Chicago with wood floors. Both this apartment and the one I lived in before (also quite old) had very dark reddish brown stains on the floor when I moved in. In this apartment, they're in the bedroom. The other one was in the bed/living area of the apartment, which was a studio. Both were groupings of several stains of varying sizes, the largest being about a foot in diameter.

The morbid part of me wants to think they're blood stains, but could they just be from a drippy plant or something? Also, why is this apparently so common, if it is blood? As far as I know there hadn't been any murders or anything in either apartment.

Songs that make you go "eee!"

Bookhouse — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:58:34 -0800

Know any creepy songs? I'm looking for songs that creep people out. This thread is close, but i don't need Halloween-themed songs, just songs that make you very uneasy. I'd prefer songs that (1). Don't require really listening to the lyrics to get creeped out, (2.) At least somewhat resemble rock/pop/electronic songs (as opposed to classical or experimental noise) and (3.) isn't just campy (Monster Mash, goofy metal).

Are you really only ever six feet away from a spider at any given time?

birdlips — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:05:42 -0800

Are you really only ever six feet away from a spider at any given time? I was watching Law and Order the other night and on there one of the characters said, "You are only ever six feet away from a spider at any given time". I was wondering if anyone knew the validity of that statement? I don't particularly like spiders, I wouldn't go as far to say I am afraid, but I just don't like them.....my wife, however, now that is a different story.

Thanks!

I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name

Firas — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:57:45 -0800

Suggest some 'love' songs with an uneasy obsessional edge to them? In other words, complete this set:

1- Ava Adore / Smashing Pumpkins
2- Closer / Nine Inch Nails
3- Possession / Sarah McLachlan
4- #1 Crush / Garbage ("I will burn for you, feel pain for you, I will crawl on hands and knees until you see, you're just like me.")

(Bonus points for an urgent/pulsing musical backdrop like this one.)

Why is the dryer half as full as when I started it?

ArgentCorvid — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:22:12 -0800

Sometime during the last hour or so, half of my clothes have disappeared from my building's communal laundry facilities. What do I do? Into the dryer went ~8 polos, 2 pairs of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, and some socks & underwear. Out came 4 polos, 1 pair of jeans, 1 T-shirt and not as many of the others.

The situation:

My building has 12 apartments in it (4 per story, 3 stories), with 2 washers and 2 dryers on the middle floor in a common area.
There are 2 other similar buildings in the immediate area.
Access to the buildings isn't controlled.
The buildings are in a residential neighborhood, & not a crime-intense area
I don't know most of the other Tenants in the building except the neighbor across the hall, and the neighbors immediately above and below. Most of the residents here seem to keep to themselves and I rarely see most of them, so unless I catch the person wearing my stuff, I couldn't even guess who did it. None of the tenants I know seem to be a likely suspect.
I do have renter's insurance, but haven't checked if it's worth it to submit a claim. (probably not)
No, I wasn't watching, the dryer takes ~1 hour to run.
I haven't done anything (that I know of anyway) to piss off the neighbors.

I'm kind of at a loss, here. Do I call the police? Knock on doors until I find the apartment with a pile of my clothes in it? It's midnight here. I'll probably call the Landlord in the morning, but what else can I do, other than make a trip to the mall?

Spider ID?

ztdavis — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 21:32:58 -0800

What kind of spider is here, hanging out above my bed? I would guesstimate that from leg to leg the guy you see there is probably 1.5"-2". Is it the somewhat hard to identify brown recluse (who isn't even supposed to be native to Chicago)? Will I die? How best can I kill it from a distance? I am staying awake anxiously awaiting your answers! And thanks!