Category Archives: Weird

15 Days of Darkness, Indeed

A news item has been making the rounds, claiming that the earth will be plunged into darkness from November 15 to November 30, 2015. This is apparently due to an astronomical event between Venus and Jupiter.

According to Newswatch33- the origin of the news item- actually, never mind. I was going to embed direct quotes explaining how the giant ball of fire that has existed for centuries would temporarily be snuffed out for 15 days, then resume emitting light and heat as though nothing had happened, but I don’t have to because…

THIS. IS. FALSE.

How can anyone believe this stuff?

First, I’m not an astronomer; I took high school physics and I can deduce that the science does not hold up. There’s absolutely no logic to it.

Second, googling Newswatch33 brings up the fact that it’s a fake news website, that has spread some hoaxes in its time. That’s like believing what you read in The Onion, or those websites that periodically announce that Pope Francis is secretly gay and part of a global conspiracy to bring Christendom to its knees.

Third, the people believing and spreading this stupid rumor presumably have access to the Internet, where the second item on a Google search result is the Snopes.com article debunking the rumor. There’s the actual dark part of this story, that people will believe anything that sounds remotely plausible, without bothering to check the source and details.

The sun is not going out for 15 days. This isn’t The Purge: Anarchy where darkness falls across the land and lawlessness ensues. Anyone who believes this is welcome to place bets with me.

Wanna bet?

Whodunit?

I was commuting to work today, with all the passengers in the car minding their own business, when a talk show host came on the radio. He began reading a news report about four women who were found dead in a locked room in an apartment in the city. There were no signs of forced entry, and no markings on the bodies, two of which were clutching bibles. One of the bodies was identified as a senior civil servant, and the legal occupant of the room. What made the incident stand out, however, was the fact that the three other ladies were church members who had come to commiserate and pray with the civil servant lady, whose husband had died a week earlier in that same room.

The announcer went on to note that a pot of soup had been found at the scene, and had been taken, along with the bodies, to the mortuary for examination. He then invited listeners to call in to the station and discuss the case and the possible cause(s) of death.

Even before the talk show host finished, well, talking, a lively discussion broke out among the passengers, with everyone agreeing that it was a diabolical occurrence. (Not me, I was just watching this blog post write itself.) One man suggested that there was an evil spirit in the room, which killed the husband earlier, and when the women came to pray against it, killed them also. He wondered why people who were not “spiritually strong” would go up in a fight against a spirit which had already killed someone. Another person suggested that perhaps the civil servant lady was a “witch” or black magic practitioner and had something to do with it all. This theory was shouted down by the other passengers who countered that the lady would not have killed herself as well.

On the radio, people were calling in from all over the region, and they all seemed to be convinced that there were diabolical forces at work in that room where all the bodies were found- someone actually dubbed it The Evil Room. Only one person gave any thought to the possibility of it being food poisoning, at least in the case of the ladies’ deaths. This caller also asked if there was a generator in the vicinity, and the possible location of the generator exhaust in relation to the room. He suggested carbon monoxide poisoning from the generator fumes, pointing out that in my country where everyone has a generator due to incessant power outages, stories abound of entire families switching on their generators, going to sleep and never waking up.

The talk show presenter then asked, What about the first death, the death of the civil servant’s husband a week earlier? Was he suggesting that the same food poisoning or carbon monoxide poisoning happened on two separate occasions a week apart? Why hadn’t it happened to other occupants of the apartment?

Dear readers, this is where I turn to you. What do you think killed those poor people? Black magic, food poisoning, carbon monoxide poisoning, or some new theory? Sound out in the comments.

Weird Conversations

I was walking along the hospital corridors on a weekend, wearing fairly form-fitting jeans and a blouse, when I heard, “Sister! Sister!” I walked on, telling myself that no right-thinking person would address me as Sister. The call came again, more insistent, “Sister!” I turned. It was a middle-aged woman. I waited for her to catch up, thinking she probably needed directions. Instead, this happened, and in my native language, no less:
She: Good afternoon.
Me: Good afternoon.
She: Why do you like wearing trousers?
Me: What would you prefer me to wear?
She: God hates trousers, God does not want you to wear trousers.
Me: Okay.
She: BURN IT.
Me, walking away: Okay.