Standing speechless, mouth agape

[JET73L]

What startles you? Nothing major or lifechanging, just minor stuff that causes you to suddenly become completely and utterly confused.
For example, this afternoon I was getting a coffee from a machine at the university (of a flavour I particularly like and rarely find, to add insult to more insult). I put in the money, punched in my order, watched the coffee pour down into the overflow drain, and stood there, expression of contentment belatredly frozen upon my face as I wondered why there was no cup. This left me so shocked and surprised that for nearly two hours I was unsure of whether to laugh or cry. It happens commonly, just never before to me, and I'm still slightly numb as I now think about it.
Things happen, many so horrifying and gruesome that we wonder about the underlying truth of the universe- yet still we are surprised, shocked or amazed, by the smallest events. In awe or in shock, what utterly pointless things have, seemingly randomly, caused you to stop in unexpected confusion?

Admins: If you find this to be philosophy, go ahead and move it. I don't think it belongs there, so I posted it here. Your forum, your choice.

[Terminal Est]

Well, if I had to be surprised for every time I lost my coffee in the machine, I would be one continuously awed individual.

Mostly, it just pisses me off.

But a very interesting thread. Although, I cannot really say what surprises me in such ways, not on a regular basis, in any case. For some reason, trivial things fail at surprising me.

But here is one thing from recent days; my boyfriend and I have rented ''Hannibal Rising'' this past weekend, and I saw a preview for a remake of the first Halloween film-directed by Rob Zombie!

Of course I wish to see it, but it came out of the blue. I had not heard of this beforehand, and I was completely surprised.
At first, I knew not that it was Halloween, but after just a bit, they were talking about a boy, and showing a child with a knife and all, and I screeched out, ''Is this Halloween?!''
After I had said this, the famous Halloween theme song started to blare, and we saw Michael Myers bust through a door.

But, the whole time, I was so shocked that they had made a remake of this and that I had not heard of it until then. Eric was all like, calm down already.



So, I suppose this is rather trivial after all...but I was just surprised, so much so that it completely covered up how neat I thought this was, and how much, it should have been evident, that I want to see it.

Things happen, many so horrifying and gruesome that we wonder about the underlying truth of the universe- yet still we are surprised, shocked or amazed, by the smallest events. In awe or in shock, what utterly pointless things have, seemingly randomly, caused you to stop in unexpected confusion?

A very good point indeed. I have some thoughts about such, however I think I will wait a little before posting it, to leave room for the core content of this thread.

[JET73L]

Go ahead. that's part of the point of this thread, as well as the actual anecdotes. But you do seem to understand exactly what this thread is about, as I did not expect from anyone within the first couple of replies.

[Terminal Est]

I was going to present my theory on the matter of spontaneous awe, however, I have once again been subjected to it myself, just yesterday at work.

So I shall elaborate on such first.

Well, in short, one of the janitors at work grabbed my ass yesterday!! I was in the process of tidying up the kitchen after it closed, (And that is not even my job.) and usually the janitor, this forty year old or so man came in to clean it up and did this to me.

The thing is, he always tried to surprise and scare me when I am at work, by startling me and making me jump. It usually works, and is all fun and games. I usually just laugh about it, but this time he had decided to do this instead.

And so, since I have always simply perceived him as a jolly old man, I was more then surprised at this new facade of his, so much so that I could not even be angry or disgusted.

Until later, anyway. This one was not so fun as the Halloween anecdoted I posted earlier.