With the Kevin Smith movie Clerks as a reference point, a Reddit forum asked Redditors, “Late night store clerks, what is the strangest thing that’s happened on the job?” As you can probably imagine, the wild and funny stories came pouring in. Below are a few responses. Visit the link above to see more.

kane55: "I worked at a small convenience store in the early 1990’s. They had one of those fry delis that had chicken, jojos, corndogs, burritos etc. This particular night I had run out of burritos and chicken. I also shut the thing down and cleaned it all out about an hour before closing. About 5 minutes before I was closing up a guy walked in and asked for some burritos. I told him I was out of them, and that I was just about to close and the fryer was shut down. He walked around the store for a minute (I assumed he was looking for something else to buy) and then he came up to the counter, pulled out a knife and told me if I didn’t cook him some burritos he was going to stab me. I freaked out, but told him I had none to cook. I showed him the freezer and told him I would happily cook anything he wanted from it, but he will see I was out of burritos. He looked in it for a minute, turned to me and said, “You really are out.” I replied, “Yeah.” He then put the knife away and left the store.

Aquaman-:

I worked at a 24/7 gas station in a small college town. One night, the club across the street had a fight break out and about 50 people were pepper sprayed by the police when they responded at about 1:30am. Five minutes later cue 50 angry club goers busting into the store, running to the dairy cooler, dousing themselves in milk and then running back out. I just stood there in utter confusion and then told my boss I didn’t want the late shift anymore.

Sara_laughs_tidwell:

I work nights at a gas station in a pretty good neighborhood in New Hampshire, so usually it's pretty boring. One night I did have a customer really creep me out. I was just getting ready to close down the store when a little old man came in. He was small and dressed in khakis and a button down shirt. I made the usual small talk of asking him how his day was going. Then as I was handing him his change he firmly grabbed my wrist, made direct eye contact with me and said "hell is a real place and the devil has already got his hand on you girl, be careful"

Via: Uproxx |  Image: Miramax

The U.S. Coast Guard saved a man adrift in a sailboat last night after he survived a 66-day ordeal at the mercy of Atlantic Ocean waves and weather. Louis Jordan was rescued some 200 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Jordan ran into trouble after setting sail on a fishing expedition when a storm capsized his sailboat, broke the boat's mast and damaged his communication gear. He told a reporter,

"I was planning on catching some big ones," Jordan recalled. "On the way there, my boat capsized. I was actually sleeping, that's when it happened. The whole boat had turned around and I was flying through the air somersaulting and the ceiling was the floor and the floor was the ceiling and this side was the other side and everything was upside down and backwards."

Read more on this story at NPR. 

Image: freakinawesomenetwork

Did you ever collect trading cards as a kid (or as an adult)? I remember a number of them being passed around when I was in elementary school. Can't say I've ever seen any of the cards presented in the grouping in this article, however. The collection ranges from slightly odd to outright bad taste. The card shown above, from a series called "Dinosaurs Attack," falls into the odd category. Topps manufactured the pre-Jurassic Park dinosaur cards in 1988. They featured images of dinosaurs attacking citizens of the modern day, such as in the masterpiece above. 

Below we have Desert Storm trading cards, made by Topps in 1991. I don't know about you, but I think there is something bordering on obscene about a trading card set based on a war. Does anyone disagree? Weigh in with your opinion on that or your experience with odd or other trading cards below, if you're so inclined. 

Image: delcampe.net

Aliens | Image: Twentieth Century Fox
Hudson: “Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?”
Vasquez: “No. Have you?”

Sometimes when things are tense in a movie or tv show (or even in real life), a bit of comic relief is a welcome element. One surefire way to get a laugh is to make a sarcastic or derogatory remark at another's expense. The more of a jerk the character on the receiving end is, the bigger the laugh. Shown here are a couple of examples from science fiction and fantasy television and film. See more in this article. 
 Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Image: Fox
Spike to Giles: “Oh, poor Watcher. Did your life pass before your eyes? ‘Cup o’ tea, cup o’ tea, almost got shagged, cup o’ tea?’”

Coulrophobia. It's defined as an "abnormal fear of clowns." Somewhere in between the time of Poltergeist and It, fear of clowns became much more of a "thing." How do you feel about clowns? Do you find them at all creepy? While I'm not a fan of the idea of mimes or clowns, they've never scared me. I have a friend, however, who can't stand the sight of them and is truly startled by every clown, even those that aren't made up to look scary.

The article linked below lists twenty frightening clowns from television and film. The clown shown in the photo above is unlike the others in that he isn't a fictional character. Aside from biopics that would feature simulations of the photo above, he's only been seen on television via documentaries and the news. He's deranged serial killer John Wayne Gacy, executed by the state of Illinois in 1994 for the monstrously brutal killings of 33 males. If you're unfamiliar with the case, read about Gacy and his clown alter ego he called Pogo, and you'll see why he's absolutely terrifying.

See which fictional clown characters from film and television this article rated the scariest. What do you think, readers?

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It poured nearly all day here today, so I know how poor soggy Simon's Cat feels about the downpour he faces in this video. Just when one thinks they've mastered the technique of staying dry, a new challenge presents itself. Don't worry, summer will be here soon enough, kitty.
-Via Laughing Squid

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Today on game show The Price is Right, a contestant won a car by accident when spokesmodel Manuela Arbeláez made a mistake during a game. Arbeláez, who was so rattled and embarrassed after her faux pas that she hid behind the game board while wiping tears from her eyes, certainly didn't upset host Drew Carey or the lucky contestant who realized right away she was going to benefit from Arbeláez's error. (Arbeláez later joked about her mistake on Twitter and said she wasn't in trouble at work.) 

Sorry, Manuela. Look on the bright side: at least you didn't fall off a treadmill! 

Before traveling to Italy for the first time, I was only given one piece of advice that I can remember: be prepared for Italian men, for they are aggressively flirtatious and handsy. It turned out to be great advice. As I wasn't armed with any more key pieces of information about spending time there, I winged it the rest of the way through.

But what of these bits of Italian advice to travelers who are planning their first trip to the United States? A list at Mental Floss features the following "heads up":

8. AMERICANS ARE IGNORANT, BUT NICE.

Of course not all Italians think Americans are nice. Yahoo poster bg says that “The average American has a low level culture and education, most only know English and that inadequately. With the excuse that they are the first country in the world, their arrogance does not allow them to recognize that there are other cultures. The strength of their culture is sports, junk food and Hollywood.”

But, as poster Alessandro notes, “The ignorant are everywhere, but at least in the U.S. they are friendly.”

See eight other Italian tips for those traveling to the United States here.

Have you ever been petting a dog who lets you know in no uncertain terms that you've cut short the behavior prematurely and need to report to duty again asap? My dog has a little move we call the noseflip. One bump of his nose underneath your now resting hand will make the hand go flying in the desired petting direction. Aaand repeat. It seems as if every one of the canines shown here have mastered their own set of unique moves.

From a confidential Transportation Security Administration document that was leaked to The Intercept by, according to them, "a source concerned about the quality of the program," comes this checklist of behaviors said by the TSA to be indicative of possible terrorist activity. The checklist is a guide for TSA agents to score suspects at the airport. It is part of a controversial protocol called SPOT, an acronym that stands for Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques. Each behavior on the checklist that is identified in a suspect scores them "points." 

Part of the list of behaviors reads as follows:

• Excessive Throat Clearing
• Exaggerated Yawning

After flying home from my last vacation still suffering from the remnants of a virus, its safe to say I could have been classified as dangerous based on those two behaviors alone.

Read more on this story and see copies of the TSA documents in question, which include the other behaviors that mark airline passengers as suspicious, at The Intercept. 

AMC

Imgur user MorbidMalignant made a series of infographics that give credit where credit is due in terms of zombie and people killing on The Walking Dead. The carnage fest is such fun to watch that viewers may have lost count, so these graphics are a handy guide to the slaughter. The top nine killers of Season One are below; the rest of the graphics and stats on the top ten killers from the remaining seasons are here.

Just when we think our dependence on technology has reached its zenith, another development drives the point home. UK-based Ajit Johnson works with the idea of our society's perpetual plugin with this series of posters called #This_Generation.

This ongoing project employs the minimalist style so popular now with simple illustrations on solid red backgrounds. Whether one regards these representations as depressing or simply the state of things, the messages are arguably on target. 

See Ajit Johnson's full series of graphics here.

Approximately one year ago, when Matt King and his brother Kevin were stuck in traffic on the way home from college for the weekend, a bored Matt made a silly video of himself making high-drama faces while lip syncing to a Beyoncé song. He had a Vine account. He thought the video was stupid, but his brother encouraged him to post it anyway. He did. It was the first Vine Matt had ever posted. 

What a difference a year and six seconds can make in this fast moving and strange digital world. Matt now has over 550,000 Vine followers, and his internet fame has changed his life. He's moved from Austin, Texas to Los Angeles. Corporations began to offer him money for his internet consulting services. All of the contacts he made netted him a dream job at Apple, and the story doesn't end there. 

Read the rest of Matt's trajectory to internet fame here. It's enough to make one want to sit around dreaming up stupid six-second video clips.

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To mark the recent tenth anniversary of Doctor Who, visual effects expert John Smith created this montage, which he designed for fans so they can take a look back at some of the more memorable moments. -Via Laughing Squid