Friday, July 13, 2012

Josie - Quantum Jumper?

You only have my word that my friend Josie is a sane, honest, and sincere person.  She doesn't ask for these things, but they continue to happen to her.  They always catch her off guard.  Here are two more experiences that happened to her recently (told from my POV), which I originally recorded on my personal blog:

[June 16]This morning, I noticed two of my rats starting what I like to call a "silent scuffle." Bishop and Farnsworth are such good friends that when they DO appear to have a fight, they go through the motions, but there is none of the squeaking and screeching you hear with two less affectionate rats. It's kind of like watching a silent movie. So when I saw this silent scuffle about to start up, I grabbed my iPhone to get it on film so my friend Josie could see it. She had heard about their scuffles, but I'd never filmed one.

Disappointingly, just as I started recording, Bishop and Farnsworth toned it down and just sat there sort of swaying their heads back and forth, merely considering starting a scuffle. I thought to myself, "Well, this is boring. But Josie would probably find it interesting since she would be able to tell what they are actually doing." (Josie knows "rat language" very well.)

But when Farnsworth started grooming Bishop, I realized the show was over and I just stopped the recording and went about my morning. The video wasn't worth sending even to Josie.

This evening, Josie accompanied me to a vet visit for my brother's dog. On our way, I asked if she had seen the two rat videos I had sent her yesterday. She said, "Yes, I saw them this morning." then she laughed. "I saw the one with the 'silent scuffle.'" I looked at her in confusion and she continued, "You know, where the two rats were swaying back and forth in front of each other."

I knew I hadn't sent her the video she seemed to be describing; I hadn't even told her I had recorded one of their scuffles. So I just decided she was referring to a video with a part I didn't remember happening, or she was just confused. We were interrupted, but resumed the conversation later. When she again brought that video up, I said, "I didn't send you that video."

She insisted I did, and she grabbed her phone to pull it up. Meanwhile, I grabbed my phone to pull up the video of the near silent scuffle. When I showed it to her, she said, "Yes, that was it."
"But I didn't send this to you," I said. "I just decided it was too boring and I quit recording and did something else."

Again, she insisted I did send it to her. And, like I said, she had already described the video, even before I'd shown it to her. She decided that maybe my iPhone had sent it automatically.

However, when she went to her email to show me -- it wasn't there. Only the two videos I remember sending her were there. She told me it had been a Youtube link within an email, like the others. I showed her no such email in my own sent messages OR in my uploaded videos in Youtube. I then showed her the steps I have to take to send her a video (with this particular one, I'd have had to clip it and that takes me some time since I have to decide which part to send) and there are even more steps to uploading it to Youtube then sending it as a link.

But the fact remained that she had been able to describe this video before we had realized there was no way she could have seen it. (Also note that I have only ever sent her three videos total. Two of those were yesterday and one was months ago. None of them had a scene like the one she had just described that I had filmed.)

To make this more interesting, she told me that as she was watching it, she had figured - considering the boring content - that I had wanted her to tell me what the rats were doing -- which was exactly what I was thinking at the time of recording.

There is no explanation as of yet for this.
[June 1]
Recently, Josie gave me a candle warmer.  The following day, or sometime around there, Josie's mom mentioned that her room smelled like the rat cages.  Josie knew it was because she didn't have her candle warmer on and, since she'd given it to me, her mom told her to get another one out of the cabinet.  They have several.

The first one Josie pulled out was covered in green wax from a previous candle.  Her mom noticed and told her to get another one while she washed this one up.  Josie specifically remembers the scrubber her mom used to wash it up (a detail that became important later for reasons you will see.)  Josie waited and just used the one her mom had washed up.  She took it to her room and turned it on.

It was either the following day or the day after that that Josie's mom happened into her room again and mentioned it smelled like the rat cages.  Thinking she must have forgotten to turn the candle warmer on, Josie went to do so, but the candle warmer wasn't there. 

"Did you take my candle warmer?" she asked her mom.  Her mom had not, but she suggested Josie get one out of the cabinet where they kept them.

Confused, Josie went to the cabinet and in the very front was the same candle warmer her mom had cleaned up the day before -- with the green wax still on it.  Josie pulled it out, and her mom said, just as she had the day before, "Get another one and I'll clean that one up." 

Baffled, Josie asked her mom if she didn't recall these very same events taking place before today.  Her mom had no clue what she was talking about.  Only Josie seemed to have experienced the whole scenario beforehand.