THE YELLOW BUCKET MAN

Posts

Pages: first 12 next last
Sometime back in mid-January, I died for about 2 months and came back to life. All those stories about the dark lord being resurrected and immediately kicking the heroes' collective asses are bull, because dying and reviving makes you VERY WEAK. Like, lose all your exp back to level 1 weak. So recently, I've been swimming everyday at the local community pool in order to rebuild my internal empire.

Recently, I've noticed that while the denizens of the pool tend to change relative to the days of the week, there is one who consistently shows up in order to fulfill his daily ritual.

The Yellow Bucket Man.

To give you an idea of his appearance, picture a tall, well-built black man, not unlike the one featured in those Old Spice commercials:



Impressive, yes? But there's something odd about him. You see, right now I'm on break recovering, and starting school again next month, so I'm free everyday to go at a time when most normal citizens would be slaving away in their cubicles for rent wages. So it should really just be the elderly and housewives that tend to swim at this time. Well there's no shortage of those folks, but Yellow Bucket Man (from now on abbreviated YBM) also shows up, seemingly everyday. I think there might've been one day where I didn't see him, but I could've just missed him/not been paying attention.

Anyways, he shows up everyday. But he doesn't swim. Nope. Instead what YBM does, is stand in the wading pool, and baptizes himself repeatedly with the poolwater, using a yellow bucket. He will do this the entire time he's there. Or at least, the entire time I'm there to witness this spectacle. I usually swim for half an hour, and my start time tends to vary a bit. But every time, I have seen him come in and do this. Or already be at it, and still be at it when I leave.

What is he doing? Is this some kind of religious practice normal people don't hear about? Is he just messing with us? I mean, pool admission costs something like 2$ everyday, so.. I just don't know what to make of this.

What do you guys think?
Sounds odd. I really don't know, but I do know that "yellow bucket man" immediately put this image in my head:
Bathing? some sort of skin condition that requires repeated dosage of chlorinated water at set intervals?
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
if it were me, i'd go right up and ask him! still, that might ruin this rare gem of repeatable people-watching.
I thought of doing that, but I'm afraid he might defeat me. I'm very easy to defeat right now.

Also, he makes baby noises when he walks. The first couple of times I thought it was just the kids' voices echoing off the wall or something, but nope, definitely confirmed today that it's him making those squeak noises.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I would ask the lifeguard, or whatever other attendant/employee is at the pool. Surely they must know. Surely they must have strongly considered banning him for the sake not creeping out all the other customers...

When I first read your description I assumed he was simply insane. Lots of people who really ought to be confined to mental hospitals wander the streets. In New York, for instance, you cannot legally be forced into a mental facility unless you can be proven to be dangerous to other people. He might also be retarded, and for some reason has been led to believe that this is how baptism works.

After thinking more about it, I find the latter far more likely than the former. If he's mentally handicapped, then the pool looks really bad for banning him, and might even get sued over it. If he's just mental, they really have no reason not to ban him, since that $2 per day cannot possibly make up for the negative stigma. I mean, I sure as hell would stop going to that pool if I saw that guy there more than once. They must lose a lot of customers.
Yeah, that's pretty much why I'm a bit afraid to "pull a Tardis" so to speak. I mean, chances are he's harmless, but on the off-chance that he isn't, I don't really want to be the one to prove that he needs to be put away. For the most part though, he doesn't bother anyone else. I've swam right past him a couple times before and he hasn't done anything suspicious as far as I can tell.

I do kinda feel bad for him though. It's quite possible that he used to be completely normal, then suffered head trauma or something. Still, part of me kinda wants him to be a weird rich dude that's just messing around, and the first one to call him on it wins a hundred bucks or something.
That was a fun read, actually.

About the YBM... just ask.
Or don't, if you're enjoying all the fantasy.
author=LockeZ
I would ask the lifeguard, or whatever other attendant/employee is at the pool. Surely they must know. Surely they must have strongly considered banning him for the sake not creeping out all the other customers...


I don't think they'd ban him for pouring water on his head daily. It's totally harmless, he paid his $2 to be there, and I don't think he's purposely trying to weird people out (if this were a prank, then he's got serious commitment). I mean, if the guy wants to pour water on his head, why not? Let the weirdo pour water on his head.

Neok, I vote you ask him what's up with the repeated baptizing.
I disagree with everyone saying that you ask!

Since this is a democracy, I vote that... you don't ask. Rather, I vote that you do your best to put it out of your head and dismiss it as one of those weird, unexplainable phenomena of our world... It's certainly an interesting observation, and I don't think it's wrong to share the story with other people. But, as you pointed out, it seems to just be the business of the pool ownership and the Yellow Bucket Man.

For realsies, what's better as a short story: that you encountered a Yellow Bucket Man with a unique, unexplainable ritual, or that you met some dude (who looks like the Old Spice dude) who keeps washing himself with pool water because he doesn't want to spend any money on steroid cream to treat the eczema spots he gets on his big bald head during the spring/summer, who then STOPPED because you had to go and make him feel all self-conscious about it??? (in this I concur with the tardis argument, above)

Or, alternative, if it's still too interesting/distracting to let go, then write an amazing short story about the Yellow Bucket Man as undergoing some sort of ritual cleansing or purification that harkens back to the days of that 'old time religion' while dispensing with all the cliches and the BS that practicing faith must necessarily involve in The Modern Age. Submit it to the New Yorker. Make big money at home. Cut out the middleman and pass the savings directly on to YOU. I don't know.
Hide in the bucket and spy on him

Eventually he'll say something that puts everything in context

(Actually, baptism is basically washing away your sins and being born again, but this fellow has such a smutty mind he feels the need to wash away his sins again and again and again. Ask him and prove me wrong)
author=Pokemaniac
Hide in the bucket and spy on him

Eventually he'll say something that puts everything in context

Wait YES this is brilliant! Some other ideas might involve secretly replacing the yellow bucket with:

a) A red bucket
b) A yellow cooler
c) Folger's crystals

Please report back with the results.... .... ....
LEECH
who am i and how did i get in here
2599
author=Neok

Pics or it didnt happen.
why did you quote the whole damn post ughhh
Also
author=Mr. Y
For realsies, what's better as a short story: that you encountered a Yellow Bucket Man with a unique, unexplainable ritual, or that you met some dude (who looks like the Old Spice dude) who keeps washing himself with pool water because he doesn't want to spend any money on steroid cream to treat the eczema spots he gets on his big bald head during the spring/summer, who then STOPPED because you had to go and make him feel all self-conscious about it??? (in this I concur with the tardis argument, above)


For other people he tells the story, if the ending is disappointing, he can always say that he never found out why he did such a peculiar thing if that were the case, only ruining the story for himself, but still having an interesting story to tell others in the future!
I actually haven't seen YBM for almost a week now. I guess he doesn't go on weekends (I only went Sunday. Didn't see him). He wasn't there on Monday either, and I had to skip the next two days for car maintenance purposes.

I hope nothing bad's happened to him..
you had your chance and you wasted it
YBM lives! Didn't see him at first. He snuck in at some point while I was swimming. To add to the story, he also keeps a red floater in front of him (those floating platform things people use to stay afloat while kicking, dunno what they're really called). Sometimes it tries to escape. At those times, he'll reach out and bring it back in front of him. As far as I can tell it doesn't really serve any purpose. Maybe to give the impression of a table?

My day just isn't complete without a YBM sighting.
Floater with no known purpose? Now you must ask!
LEECH
who am i and how did i get in here
2599
author=Natook
why did you quote the whole damn post ughhh


Sorry bout that, Was in a rush.
This morning I dreamt about the YBM. In it, he was a much younger version of himself, probably in his teens. He came over to my side of the pool and swam into the deep end, wherein I asked him what he was always doing over there on the other side (where he conducts his ritual).

You know what his answer was?

Swimming.
Pages: first 12 next last