Do you have any Interesting stories to tell ?

Apple Sky said:

I once owned two black cats called Poppy & Pip, we had to move house & the house we moved to was next to a very busy road, sadly Poppy & Pip got knocked over & so I buried them in the Garden.
The next day I arrived home too find Pip sitting upon his grave, as you can imagine I was in shock, I thought he'd come back to life
After a while I realized what must have happened, Pip must have some how tried to find his way back to to the old house & didn't quite make it so he came back home, I found out that the black cat we had buried belonged to the farm further down the road.
You can imagine my delight.

In the end I took Pip back to the old place where we used to live & luckily enough a kind neighbor took Pip in & looked after him where he found love peace until his dying day.

It was heartbreaking to part with him but I had no choice but to give him up.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

Click to expand...

What a lovely, if unusual, story! Thanks for sharing it with us.

I have plenty of interesting stories to tell, but none that a Christian would even be remotely interested in hearing.

Learning always said:

What type of stories are they?

Click to expand...

One is being in the wilderness with no people around. Not relying on others to get through the wilderness. Getting to see nature up close and in person without interference or intrusion.

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
― Henry David Thoreau

"Be empty. Be still. Just watch everything come and go. This is the way of Nature." - Laozi (Lao Tzu)

Since dogs are now the topic.

We had 2 dogs. They each raised their own kitten. Trying to hurt one of those cats was a good way to die, the small dog was 105 pounds.

Sadly, the larger and younger dog had a tumor in his spleen. So an emergency splenectomy. The vet said that if the biopsy came back as not cancer he would probably be fine. It came back as cancerous. The vet said we had a choice. We could do nothing and he would have a good 3 months or we could try chemo and all have a miserable 6 months (and spend a few thousand dollars in the process). He said that getting a second opinion for something like this makes sense, We did and it was the same.

Almost 3 months to the day I was at work and started feeling ill. I waked into my bosses office and said I did not have any urgent issues and was feeling ill and was going home. I arrived home to have my wife tell me Joey had fallen and had trouble getting up (at about the same time I started feeling ill). He had no appetite at dinner time and not long after that he could not get up and even breathing was work. Eventually the vet was able to get here and end things.

My now ex wife still insists I was telepathically linked to Joey.

When I was a kid we lived for a time in a small apartment right next to our landlady. Late one night my mom heard howling coming from nextdoor, which was odd because the landlady had no dogs.

The next morning a strange dog showed up at our place and just hung around. That same day my mom learned that our little old Irish landlady had died the night before. She remembered the howling she had heard from the landlady's apartment and was instantly reminded of the legend of the Banshee who would howl at the approach of death.

The dog stayed with us for quite a few days before we finally heard from her owners and they came to pick her up. She had a home somewhere around town, but I've always thought it curious that she entered our lives when she did and that she stayed with us for so long.

Someone told me this story.
The LA Cats edged out the Austin Rabbits in a 70–70 deadlock when Gary Smith slipped past his defender and hit the winning shot. The Cats were through to the National Basketball Cup Final against the NY Foxes — once again, thanks to Gary, their star.

The Foxes had chased the Cup for years, but Gary blocked their path like a tiger. The Cats had won six straight titles, all thanks to him. He was so confident they’d win again that he’d already booked and prepaid the celebration lunch, tips included.

Furious, the Foxes’ boss snapped, “He thinks he’s a tiger. Turn him back into a cat — whatever it costs.”

Analysts dug through match data and found one pattern: recently, Gary’s performance dipped slightly on Tuesdays. They didn’t know why, only that it was their clue.

On Monday, they sent Darren Cunningham, an analyst posing as a journalist. Gary agreed to a long “biography” interview, but after half an hour of stories of being raised in a single parent family — none of it useful — he abruptly checked the time and left. Darren noticed his slow, stiff walk: injured feet. He was wondering why had Gary left so suddenly?

Darren tailed him through the streets. Gary turned a corner and vanished.
Ahead, far down the street, stood the Grand Horizon Hotel. But Gary’s injured feet made that impossible. There was no universe in which he had covered that distance in a few seconds. Refusing to believe Gary could fly, Darren studied the street meticulously.

The street was wide, lined with shopfronts and service doors. It was unlikely Gary had crossed to the left side, so Darren focused on the right. He judged that Gary could only have entered one of three nearby doors. He tried each one; all were locked except a metal door stamped with GHH. Darren pulled it open and stepped inside.

It was a hidden back entrance to the Grand Horizon Hotel, favoured by gamblers. Inside, following the echo of Gary’s heavy, limping steps, Darren moved down a service corridor, wondering what Gary Smith was hiding.

I've always been hard of hearing and I've worn hearing aids since I was about six years old. I'm now 71 so I'm no stranger to the technology although they still don't solve all issues eg. noisy backgrounds and social situations with several people talking at the same time. An audiologist (not the one I've mentioned below) said that to hear well in noisy backgrounds our brain needs two good ears.

Other readers with hearing aids would know what I'm talking about.

But that's bye the bye.

I got married in September 1991 and moved from the northside of Brisbane to the southside (actually a bit further south).

But before that if I needed hardware I would go to a local hardware store which had a family name. I'll call it Smith's Hardware for the sake of the story but it was actually a different name.

Anyway I was talking to my current audiologist a few months ago. Her maiden name was the same as the hardware store, but I hadn't thought anything about it as it was a fairly common name. But then she said she grew up in the next suburb to the one where I grew up.

We reminisced a bit and she said her father owned the local hardware store. When she said that the connection between the two names came to mind and I said "Was that 'Smith's Hardware'?" She said it was.

But later I cast my mind back. I remembered seeing a schoolgirl working there to help out in the store and at the time I had this strange sense she would become significant in some way. It spooked me a bit at the time as I wondered why a schoolgirl should have this effect.

As the years passed and nothing happened I pretty much forgot about it. But when she told me the store was her fathers, I started to remember the incident.

So I told the audiologist the story and she said she used to work in the store in 1991. Her siblings worked there a few years later, but I moved out of the area in September 1991 and never had any reason to go back there. So it was definitely her, not her siblings.

The "significance" of the schoolgirl in the hardware store was that years later she would become my audiologist!

I think God was giving me a minor hint that there would be some connection, but I had no idea what it would be at the time.

It also means He sees our future.

This is more of a humorous incident told to me by another cab driver when we were both waiting on a rank.

There is a hotel in Brisbane which used to be known as "The People's Palace". At that time the Salvation Army owned it so it was 'dry' (no alcohol).

But eventally it was sold and reverted to a backpackers hostel, with a "Down Under Bar" in the basement.

Anyway when it was again licensed, a cab driver was waiting outside when an inebriated bloke said to him "Hey mate, do you know where the Down Under Bar is?".

The cab driver thought to himself "Will I tell him or not?" since the bloke was standing right outside the premises. Then he thought "Nah, blow him!" So he said "OK mate, hop in and I'll take you there."

The bloke got in and off they went down Edward Street, right into Margaret Street, right into George Street, right into Turbot Street, and back into Edward Street pulling up outside the backpacker's hostel, where he'd picked him up.

"It's downstairs" said the cabbie, "and that'll be ten bucks".

The drunk paid him, got out and then said "Geez mate, I'm glad you were there! I never would have found it by myself!"

Here is the rest of that story...

It was a hidden back entrance to the Grand Horizon Hotel, favored by gamblers. Inside, following the echo of Gary’s heavy, limping steps, Darren moved down a service corridor, wondering what Gary Smith was hiding.

Darren suspected Gary was an addicted gambler. Gary walked with single-minded focus, bypassing the bar and the casino, straight to the all-you-can-eat buffet. Darren watched from behind a plant as the star scorer devoured plate after plate of food at alarming speed.

Weakness identified. Gary's Tuesday performance slumps made perfect sense; he was addicted to the Monday night buffet. The Foxes now had their secret plan: treat Gary to a buffet before the final.

On Monday night, thirty-six hours before the Wednesday Cup Final, Darren was sent to request another interview with Gary. After a brief moment, Darren bought Gary a disarming glass of wine at a quiet bar, softening his discipline. Then, Darren casually mentioned a special buffet at the Grand Horizon Hotel.

Gary hesitated. “Free buffet? Great… but Wednesday’s the Cup Final.”

“Relax,” Darren replied, feeding him a fake rumour that the Foxes’ best player was sick. “A buffet doesn’t mean you have to stuff yourself.”

Gary stood up so fast his chair nearly toppled. “We'll win anyway....Let’s go.”

What followed at the hotel was absolute carnage. As Gary attacked the food like a man possessed, Darren texted the Foxes’ coach: “It’s done. He’s eating like a man trying to win a buffet championship.” The coach replied: “Good, well done.”

On Wednesday, the Cats looked ready—all except Gary. He walked into the arena pale, glassy-eyed, and heavy-footed, his stomach waging a brutal rebellion. He blamed a bad night's sleep when Coach Santini asked why he looked off.

From the first possession, Gary was a shadow of himself. His explosiveness was gone, his footwork was sluggish, and he missed layups blindfolded, clutching his stomach after rebounds. The Foxes pounced relentlessly. By halftime, the Cats were down by twelve.

The second half was worse. Gary’s legs betrayed him, his vision blurred, and his passes sailed out of bounds. As cameras zoomed in on his pale face, unmistakably suffering from Monday night’s feast, the Foxes widened the lead. With two minutes left, the Cats were down by eighteen and the Foxes' bench was already celebrating.

When the final buzzer sounded, Gary sat in silence on the bench, looking at the floor. Coach Santini patted his shoulder. “Don't worry, Gary. We'll try again next year.” Gary could only nod.

The Foxes celebrated on the court as the Cats walked off in silence. Gary Smith, the league’s golden boy, had been defeated. He finally understood the truth: he hadn’t lost to the Foxes. He’d been defeated by himself.