JUNGLE ROCK

One thing about going to a liberal arts school with a reputation like mine is that people often showcase these eccentricities that they--correctly--assume nobody will really question. I do some goofy stuff myself, sure, but something happened yesterday that was so counfounding it just completely breached my tolerance barrier for weird campus behavior. I was on my way to a fencing class, just listening to music and minding my business. A tall-ish dude is walks out of his dorm and begins in my direction. Just as we reach the moment where we would otherwise pass by each other, he literally jumps up into the air right in front of me and sticks out his tongue. He lands, shoots this weird look into no particular direction and keeps on walking.

I was baffled by the act, and even kind of angry that someone would think it was OK to do that to someone they didn't know, so I took off my headphones and asked him what he was doing. He replied that he was trying to catch a snowflake on his tongue but missed. I didn't quite know what to say to that. He wasn't trying to weird me out, he just wanted a stupid snowflake, and didn't understand why I thought it was odd to do something like that to a stranger. All I could I do was get off a half-assed sarcastic response to the effect of, "Oh, I guess I had my headphones on so I didn't hear you warn me."