In the early 2010s, Cape Girardeau, MO was chosen as a location for some of the filming of Gone Girl. I lived there and it was the talk of the town. People were running into Ben Affleck at the local Andy’s and shit.

Meanwhile they put out a casting call for extras. I didn’t care about it but of course my girlfriend and her cousin went psycho about it and signed us up. We waited in line with at least a thousand other people only to finally get up there, and all they did was take a headshot and send us on our way. The girls were all disappointed that there wasn’t anything else to it while I the introvert just laughed about it.

Until I was the one they called back. Not only that, but it turns out they picked me to be a stand-in for Boyd Holbrook. I spent a week hanging out on David Fincher’s set, occasionally doing work while trying to avoid getting in trouble for doing things like accidentally sitting in Rosamund Pike’s chair. Then one of the assistant directors’ mother died and he had to leave, so they “promoted” me to production assistant. At one point I was sent to look for and found David Fincher’s missing iPhone.

Fucking surreal man. But I’ve got the 20th Century Fox W-2s to prove it.

Walking home from the bus stop, this much younger little kindergarten girl who I could tell had a crush on me, turned to me and said, “you drive me cookoo bananas!” then hastily turned into the street without looking where she was immediately hit by an oncoming car (which slammed on their brakes at the point of impact) and launched literally like 5 meters.

I can still see her flying through the air in slow motion in my memory.

The neighborhood Mom who hit her was inconsolable.

Best part of the story (and the only reason I would relay such a tragic event in this thread): she was somehow almost unscathed and was at school the next week no worse for the wear by all accounts.

She more than earned the nickname, “Fender Bender” given to her by the mean kids.

Commuting home via train. It derailed. I didn’t really notice it because I had my headphones on and read a book. It was a slightly bumpy ride, but that sort of stuff happens, right? I only realised something was off when people started smashing in the windees and breaking open the doors, climbing off and running away.

I packed my stuff, hopped outside and looked at the train. Sure enough, it was fully off the tracks.

I’ve never been in that small town before and had no idea how to get home. So, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of: Finding the nearest local pub, drinking a pint of beer, having a smoke and figure things out from there.

Met a sweet couple about my age over there who were on the same train and lived in that area. We had a lovely chat, a few more pints and then they dropped me off at the bus stop from where I could get back home. We became close friends.

Had a shotgun put to my head and marched into a house of gang members because I dared to try to pick my sister up from a party. Got yelled at and threatened, and left without her.

Came back a little while later to try once more and found ems/police/fire all over the place. That same person with the same shotgun blew someone elses head off after I left.

I had a friend with me, we elected not to stop the second time. A day later the police questioned us, we were subpoenaed to testify, and both got threatened by gang members for years.

Good times.

Not a movie, but there was a period of time when my parents’ house had them living upstairs, my older brother, his wife, and their young son living in the converted basement, and me temporarily staying in a guest bedroom after I had just gotten out of the Army. And we all worked at the family pizza restaurant together.

It was the perfect TGIF sitcom scenario.

I was walking through the city, watched as a man in a suit in front of me (I was walking behind him for a couple of blocks) picked up a briefcase beside a newsstand and got in the passenger seat of a waiting black car which drove off.

I’m in a spy movie, I guess.

Had an emotionally painful, self-esteem crushing experience at the hands of a high school girl that left me bitter and angry. Reconnected with her 15 years later and set about trying to hurt her the way I hurt. Wound up falling in love and getting married.

That’s some Hollywood bullshit right there but we’ve been married going on 15 years.

My ex wife was going to quit her job. She had the papers printed in her purse, the conversation ongoing in her head. She is the right-hand of the boss, keeping the company afloat and they have a friendly relationship, like knowing each others family around Christmas dinner ect.

Her boss asked her out at lunch to talk outside of the office in a nicer environment. She took the opportunity to give her resignation at the same time but first she had to listen to what her boss wanted to say.

He told her that he’s been very lately diagnosed with throat cancer, too late to do anything about it. Doctors gave him 6 month to live. He then started to cry.

Her resignation papers stayed in her purse that day…

Once i had a bike accident. The car was parked and the driver opened the door milliseconds before i drove by.

The bike smashed into his door and i went flying onto the other lane, where luckily no cars were driving at the time.

The movie like thing was that i landed rolling a few times and ended up on my feet without any injury or whatsoever. The bike was trashed, as was the car’s door. The driver was also pretty shocked about what happened. I was just wondering why nothing happened to me.

Ok, i was young ( 26 ) and I’m sure my body wouldn’t be so lucky nowadays.

On the lunch long time ago, I was complaining to my colleagues about surprisingly expensive pizza: “20 euros for the pizza! In some countries you would get a blowjob for that kind of money!” Few minutes later, another colleague joined us and I immediately told him: “This is 20 euro pizza!”. He answered: “What?? Did you get a blow job with it?” One female colleague noted: “I see you both visit similar kind of … restaurants”.

Standing in a convenience store when a car comes crashing through the front, and broken glass flies all around all the customers including me. None of us got hurt, but it was scary AF. Car was being driven by an elderly person who confused the brake pedal with the gas pedal.

I was at Goodwill one time and I swear to you I heard a conversation almost exactly like this at the jewelry counter.

employee: hello how’s it going today?

customer: pretty damn terrible

employee: oh, uh… well I hope it starts getting better soon

customer: it never does

I had sex once.

I saw a lady slip on a banana peel irl outside of the Disney store in Dublin, Ireland. I didn’t even know it was possible. I felt really bad bc I couldn’t go help her up because I was laughing so hard and had to go into the Disney store so it wouldn’t look like I was laughing at her. I was just more shocked that it actually happened.

My first kiss was in the rain.