We often come across weird things in the world and, if you’re anything like me, end up super curious about what they might be.
Luckily, we live in the age of the internet, where the answer is often a google away and if that doesn’t work, we can always ask Reddit. Reddit almost always knows.
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These bits of gunk fell out of the bathtub faucet.
I’d totally worry about mold or some sort of eggs, but it’s actually bits of dried plumbers’ putty.
It’s probably a sign that maintenance is required, but that’s way better than mold.
This isn’t usually part of a hotel room’s package.
It’s an absinthe spoon, which is used to hold a melting sugar cube over your glass.
It’s never fun to find bug eggs in your home.
These particular ones belong to stink bugs, so it’s definitely in your best interest to clean them out ASAP.
Someone wondered what these aprons represented in a photo they saw online.
They are Freemason lodge officer aprons. Usually, new masons are gifted them as a symbol of membership.
This heavy metal object was found in a creek.
It’s a sluice box and was used as part of a gold mining operation, trapping larger nuggets in its grooves.
Sometimes, you’re just really curious about a food you’ve never seen before.
Khachapuri is a traditional Georgian dish featuring a bowl made of bread with a cheese filling. This variation involves adding an egg yolk and butter while the filling is still hot and mixing it into the cheese.
Delicious.
A deep hole was burrowed in someone’s yard overnight.
It’s probably the new home of a Cicada Killer Wasp. These guys are huge and kind of terrifying, but assuming you avoid stepping directly onto their burrow when they’re home, they’re docile.
Lawn games can seem very strange if you’re unfamiliar with them.
This one is called Kubb and involves trying to knock over the other side’s “kubbs” with wooden batons and then the “king” in the middle.
I’ve played a lot of this with the New England branch of my extended family.
This hospital bathroom has fancy, air freshening toilet paper dispensers.
The person who asked what it does was understandably confused, since the bathroom air was apparently anything but fresh.
Agriculture has become pretty high-tech, so someone wondered what these devices were.
They were arranged around a field full of cows and are traps for horse flies. So not quite as high-tech as one might have assumed.
One Redditor wondered why the disk for their video game had developed a white crud around the spindle.
There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that this is likely a sign of the two layers of plastic making up the disk de-laminating, which can lead to the disk no longer working.
The good news is that it is currently still working and Forza Motorsport 2 is a 12-year-old game, so that’s a pretty good lifespan.
Someone was confused by the middle symbol in these prohibited items.
Understandably so, since the entire sign is upside down. It doesn’t affect the cigarette much, but what looks like a random cassette tape on the left is actually a radio and the middle one is a hot dog and soda. So no food or drink.
I love finding weird devices in antique furniture.
These are the pieces of a telegraph key, the tool operators used to send messages. If you imagine the pieces put together, you’ll probably recognize it from many period films featuring Morse code.
Have you ever wondered why a lot of elevator doors have a small hole in them?
It’s called a “drop key hole” and allows emergency crews to unlock landing doors in case of people trapped inside.
Yeah, I’d question a weird blob thing appearing in the lake you always swim in.
It’s most likely a colony of Pectinatella magnifica , which are tiny freshwater animals that group together and feed off particulates filtered out of the water.
It’s not dangerous, but definitely weird.
This is early proof that our own very specific devices will one day baffle later generations.
This tall thing with siding rods was found in an abandoned storage unit. You’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a well-preserved tool from the past, but it’s actually a holder for Nespresso pods.
“Found this in an abandoned asylum” is not usually a good sign.
Thankfully, this isn’t a torture device. It’s a portable X-ray machine missing its tube assembly.
There’s nothing like finding a mysterious gooey pink organism on the side of your house.
Honestly, I would wonder if I found something like this clinging to my house, too. It’s a variety of slime mold, and yes, it’s gross.
Upcycling can create mysteries, too.
Somebody must have loved their silverware enough that they didn’t want to get rid of it when it broke, so they added a nice tassel and turned it into a bookmark.
Thrift stores often have the neatest looking things, even when you have no idea what they are.
This thing isn’t just set dressing for a mad scientist’s lab — it’s technically known as a hygrothermograph, and it’s used to measure and record temperatures over a long period of time.
You could be forgiven for thinking this was some strange, ultra-modern boat.
It’s ultra-modern for sure, but not a boat; instead, it’s an experimental tidal energy production converter.
This was found while beach combing on the Olympic Peninsula.
They are squid eggs, which is both cool and weird. You can toss them back into the water, but it’s unknown whether or not that will actually prevent them from dying.
At least whoever found this thing didn’t find it the hard way.
Those spines look like they would be no fun to step on in bare feet. However, it turns out people handle these things all the time — it’s a ragworm, which are commonly used as fishing bait.
You see the strangest things stuck in traffic sometimes, don’t you?
I would have thought it was some kind of large-scale agricultural tool, but no, it’s art — it’s a “Mars molecule,” the creation of artist Mario Martinez.
Someone was baffled by a thing they pulled out of the Adriatic Sea.
Given all the ancient shipwrecks in that part of the world, you have to wonder. However, this is something more modern, an insulator for a power line. How it ended up in the sea is another question entirely.
Kids of a certain generation will be familiar with this.
It’s a toy bomb that you put a paper cap into. You toss it up and when it hits the ground, the cap goes off with a satisfying pop.
I am jealous of this estate sale find, even though the buyer didn’t know what they had.
It’s a beautiful set of Chinese ink sticks, which are often made of soot and glue. Colored inks replaced much of the soot with powdered pigments.
Judging by the designs, this set is meant more as a decorative curiosity than for regular use.
This thing doesn’t look out of place in a garden, even though it’s hard to say for sure what it is.
But Reddit had the answer, of course — it’s for steaming and then bending lengths of wood.
“My friend just moved in to a new flat and this is her neighbours garden,” explained Redditor DanBread.
Theories ranged from a unique memorial to pets who have passed away to a voodoo shrine.
No matter what, I’d want to get to know those neighbors, because they’re sure to be interesting.
Okay, finding some random vials of yellow liquid definitely raises some questions.
Thankfully, these are harmless unless you have a scent sensitivity. They’re an old school perfume sampler called “nips” — kind of like the samples you find in magazines, from the days before that was possible.
