Interesting People I Have Known . . .

If you ever get writer's block and feel you haven't got another creative bone in your body, try working at a New Age bookstore for a month. I guarantee you will meet characters you could never have dreamed up in a million years.

Way back in my late twenties and early thirties I managed a large New Age bookstore, and during that time I met some of the most insane and wonderfully eccentric people I have ever known in my life.

For example:

A motherly hereditary witch who brewed an amazing protection potion according to an ancient family recipe. She shared it only with a handful of close friends because it required several drops of her own blood. According to legend, the potion protected against any attack be it spiritual, emotional or physical. (Some found it had the added benefit of persuading police officers not to issue you a speeding ticket.)

A family whose guest bedroom was possessed by a demonic dresser. It seemed a horned grinning face in the natural grain of the dresser's top drawer made folks a bit uneasy and interfered with their sleep. It was later bought by an enterprising man who aspired to sell this unique furniture item and its haunting history on Ebay.

A slender Romanian girl who bit a male co-worker when he teased her. The agitated young man became further alarmed upon learning that her hometown was actually Transylvania.

The gorgeous male stripper who had two 10-foot long boa constrictors, drove a gold jaguar, and carried huge chunks of quartz crystal in his trouser pockets. He later became a born-again Christian minister.

A man who desperately wanted to learn the secrets of shamanic shape shifting, so that he could transform himself into a bug and be crushed to death under a woman's red high heel shoe.

A group of magicians who manifested Pan in their living room, invoking his protection against evil people who were kidnapping pets off front porches in the neighborhood. The goat-foot god was a mite bit pissed about THAT, and the kidnappings quickly came to an end.

A self-proclaimed spiritual teacher who believed he had been taken up into an alien Mother Ship and was heavily into S&M, Betty Page, and Jesus Christ.

A tiny old lady with thick horn rimmed glasses who believed that terrorist Buddhist monks were bent on destroying Earth.

A hard-working single mom who could:
--light a candle for a new fridge and find it waiting for her the next day at the side of the road.
--ask if an opportunity is as good as gold and look down to find an $800 gold chain lying in a deserted snow bank.

A author who writes popular books about monsters and aliens and magic. He keeps a rubber brain in a bubble tank in his office, a "farting fairy" statue on his bookshelf, and believes that peanut butter is one of the five main food groups.

Sooooooo. . . what unusual people have you known in your life?