I had one of the strangest encounters of my life while bartending the other night. it was a typical random Tuesday, and very slow due to it being mid-August. a lady walked in around 10 PM: older (60+ F), quite short (easily 5 ft), heavier set, and wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog baseball cap. she came up to me at the bar and started taking small cards out of her pocket and placing them on the bar top. they depicted many child-like Halloween characters with a short, colorful description detailing that she was deaf and asking for donations in exchange for a sticker. taped to the bottom of the card was a small silver ghost sticker, something you would see at the Dollar Tree. she flipped over the card to reveal an ASL key, detailing alphabet hand signals, vocalizing to me as best she could. finally, she presented a handwritten note explaining how her mother passed away and she needed money to drive up to West Virginia and Charleston to retrieve her ashes. I was so flustered and confused, but eventually I told her that I was so sorry and couldn’t help her because I was on the clock. without much contest, she gathered the cards and left. The whole interaction was incredibly bizarre, to the point where I’m questioning if it was even real; there were multiple people sitting at the bar and they didn’t seem to bat and eye in confusion.

anyways, I’m posting this to see if anyone else has encountered this individual before around Tallahassee. at the end of the day, she did seem like a person in need, but there was something so deeply off about the whole thing. my gut is telling me there’s more to this, and it’s off-putting, almost dangerous. please respond if you have any more detail.