Sesame Street - New Age Style

Does anyone remember that song they sung? "...It's the people that you meet, when you're walking down the street, it's the people that you meet each day..."  I ask this because recently, I feel like I've meet similar looking people in that picture and not on the street as such but on the Internet. 

Never ceases to amaze me who you bump into on the Net. I'm not on commission so I can safely say, most have been through the social media site, Facebook. Okay, so once you've set all your security options to "No Freaks Allowed," it's a pretty safe place to catch up with old friends and new family. To date, I have hooked up with an old college mate and have since met up again, laughing our heads off at your rebellious times - when we got "done" for wagging school and where Miss Brown caught us having a sneaky cig up the field. Sorry Miss Brown. Or the time I got marched out of class for sneezing by Mr Turnbull and  stood in silent protest claiming he was "discriminating." No one even knew what that word meant, least of all me, but it gained me a few brownie points with the kids in the class and I'm pretty sure it scores high in Scrabble. But oh how we laughed over the end of year school programme books with pictures of us, taken without our knowing, so that, yes, they weren't that flattering and lusted (again) over those boys we lusted after some quarter of a century beforehand. Odd cause so much time had passed and yet everything remained the same. We were both still idiots, cracking up at all things considered socially unacceptable, only now we could smoke a cigarette pretty much wherever we wanted and I know what discrimination means now. 

I've also managed to reconnect (yes, I think that's the correct term) with past lovers who have gone on to marry the most insanely beautiful women. I'd like to think I set the benchmark for that one even if it's an opinion not shared by many, and again, nothing much seems to have changed there as well. They're still of the opinion that separating was a life saving event for them and I'm still stalking them to ensure they get blamed for any self medicating issues I might like to have. Once again, they too have gone on to produce offspring which is an odd concept when you still think they're too young to vote or you remember them getting asked for ID at a local bar. And yes, of course, they have their wee horror stories about me only, this time when they talk about it, I seem to come off better than when the event took place. Either that or it's really taken them 25 years to get over something I embarrassed them about and only now feel safe enough to laugh. Times like when I stood, as a guest visitor in some (shall remain anonymous) New Zealand Air Force barracks and thought it would be real darn clever if I just whipped over there, yanked their fully decorated Christmas tree and flung it out the window... only to be, rightfully, chased by men in uniform and then getting all uppity that none of them would help me lug this thing in the back of me car. Oh what fun I must have been. Yeah and okay, there was that time I dive bombed fully dressed into a spa pool while everyone else was busy munching on BBQ sausages. Forget whose place that was. Now though, now I am an adult. Well, actually, it's more about not being agile enough to dive bomb into a paddling pool let alone something above ground that requires the lifting of any bodily bits. But still. Let's call it maturity, you know, just for argument's sake. For old times. 

More recently, I've joined a wee group of like-minded crack pots who have me constantly in stitches over their comments, their mishaps in life, and just how much complete strangers can actually have in common. We called the group, Half Baked Cookies. It helps that we're all nuts but even still, some of the similarities are uncanny. Like (mutter mutter, cough...anon person) who ran over a lady last year. She only mentioned this cause I said I wrapped my car around a power pole and she suggested  I get out the car next time I attempt pole dancing. But what she said was true. She did run over some chick. Well actually, the lady in question ran out from behind a bush and threw herself at her car. That's more like the truth. Still, funny as, especially when she said her daughter, who was sitting in the back seat all buckled up and safe like, propelled out the car and went screaming up the road "My Mum's killed someone!" Turns out the woman survived, even if it meant she tried to do it again only this time with a neck brace and in a wheelchair. Some people just don't learn. 

I guess when you think about it, our wee group is pretty much like those Sesame Street characters - a bunch of colourful misfits that... "It's the people that you meet when you're walking down the street, they're the people that you meet each day."