Don’t you just love it when people say you have unusual characteristics? For me personally, I am often having people tell me that “you have an unusual taste for clothes” or “you have an unusual appetite” or “you have unusual eyes” or just anything that pops in to their minds they always seem to associate it with being unusual. Part of me has often wondered whether I am really that unusual or just exactly what do they mean when they refer to me in that demeanor? Obviously, everyone’s connotations for varying words and subjects are going to be interpreted differently, so I just try to let it roll off my back and think of it as a positive comment in some diluted aspect. But nonetheless, it piqued my curiosity, and I thought that I may as well look up unusual in the dictionary to determine how off-balance people think I truly am.
1) not normal or usual;
2) different or strange in a way that attracts attention;
3) not commonly seen, heard, etc.
Hmmm…okay, well I personally hope that top definition does not apply to me. I have often considered myself to be quite a normal individual who just happens to be surrounded by a bunch of crazy people; but who knows, maybe I am the crazy one and they are all normal? (I really seriously doubt that, you just need to come hang out in this nut farm for a day and you’ll see quickly how unusual and just ridiculous some individuals can be!). But anyways, I think the definition that Merriam-Webster utilizes appropriately describes some oddities that I have found over the past year. Their characteristics seem to mirror this definition almost to a tee. Therefore, I have decided to dedicate this little letter of the alphabet to some of the things that I view as unusual and maybe even a little weird. So, here we go!
Most of my unusual candidates depicted in this blog all come from the same place – the North Carolina State Fair, a place that I love with my body, soul and spirit, yet it is a strange place with unusual exhibits and highly abnormal people! I remember last year when I was walking around in the Flower and Garden Show, I ran across this HUGE “thing” that resembled a cucumber. I immediately snapped a picture of it for my friend who is addicted to cucumbers (that, I still do not understand – she is unusual in her own special way but I still love her!). But the more I stood there and looked at it, the more I thought “What the heck is a Cucurbit?” because I know for sure, this is not something that is grown at my Wake County home. (It must be from JoCo or some neighboring areas – all this unusual there!) The Cucurbit is one of those items that is so unusual that you aren’t really sure whether to classify it as a vegetable or a thing! I even did a little research on the internet and ironically the only definition I could find to describe it was a plant within the gourd family. Hmmm….okay, then what exactly is the purpose of this steroidal-type cucumber? Obviously for this individual, it was a blue ribbon! But hey, if you can win a ribbon for something so unusual and relatively unknown, go for it! Maybe I need to grow a curcubit this year?!?!?
There seems to be some popularity lately with putting random faces on random things. When we go to the mountains, so many of the pottery places are now putting these weird, unusual looking faces on to mugs, pots and various pottery items for you to purchase. Now my Dad thinks these things are awesome and he has bought quite a few of these pottery faces, but I am actually kind of freaked out by them a little bit. I don’t particularly like walking in to my living room to see a one-toothed man staring me down from the side of a coffee mug with these really big bug eyes – that just seems rather freakish to me! So you can imagine my reaction when I see unusual faces on the side of PUMPKINS at the State Fair last year. Now don’t get me wrong, the individuals who craft these items are highly talented because I could not carve a face on the side of a pumpkin or on a piece of pottery to save my life. I am lucky enough to be able to carve my name on the side of a tree! But, these pumpkin faces just overwhelmed me. I couldn’t figure out how the pumpkin would not rot faster by cutting some of its outer shell off. Again, Dad was just in awe of them; while I maintained a safe distance as if the creatures might come to life and attack me! If one of those things winked its eye at me, y’all would’ve heard me hollering slam in Michigan! So it never fails that unusual faces will pop up in unusual places – always be on the lookout!!
And just when I thought life couldn’t get any weirder, I found this …In all honesty, this little bread creation is highly unusual, but it is also kind of cute. (It doesn’t freak me out quite like the pumpkins). This is where the definition about attracting attention applies for unusual because this bread creature definitely brought customers to the table! I go over to this booth to buy some of their absolutely delicious white chocolate chip baguettes and when I look down on the table this bread creature immediately grabbed my attention. I am assuming it is supposed to be a spider since it was relatively close to Halloween, but partly it kind of resembles a sweet little crab. Either way, I thought it was highly peculiar and just could not resist taking its picture. My question ultimately would’ve been did someone actually buy and eat the thing? Hmmm…I am assuming it was merely decorative, but in this day and age, there is no telling!
Okay, let me retract my previous statement of “and just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder...” this display of unusualness just went over the top, seriously! I have NEVER in my life witnessed such unusualness put on display quite like this. I mean I guess that saying “anything goes” is highly applicable in the South, but really, who takes a perfectly good sweet potato and decorates it?? Wow! Okay, in hindsight, it was a kids’ competition at the Fair where they decorate vegetables and enter them in competition, so I will grant them a little slack and grant them some points for creativity – a sweet potato mouse and a sweet potato baby? That is rather clever and even cute, but it is still really unusual and just flat out weird. How do you exactly come up with the idea of “hey, let’s take this fresh sweet potato and turn him in to a mouse…on a trap!” -- that is just what blew me away!
In many ways, we are surrounded by things unusual – it could be an unusual looking car or food or even the person in the cubicle next to you (no comments there, as I mentioned earlier, I’m surrounded – though it may not apply to a handful!) or it could be that your definition of unusual totally differs from someone else’s. Either way, I suppose we should just embrace the unusual as that seems to be becoming a more normal in today’s society. And if you want to say I have unusual clothes or whatever else, go right ahead, that just means you’re leaving someone else alone and I will find a way to spin it in to a positive! I don’t mind being called unusual, but I actually would prefer another “u” word – UNIQUE! But, as Alfred North Whitehead said:
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