Da rantiings of a Deranged Lunatic

Crazy story:Mark is walking in the Arlington-Notre Dame neighbourhood in Winnipeg. The area is down at the heels, but not a massive death trap like North Main. As he passes an alley, a homeless fellow of indeterminate age says "Pssst - Buddy. C'mere."
Mark steps into the alley, curiosity peaked. The homeless guy reaches into his pocket and pulls out a dirty scrap of paper cut from the news. It shows an article about Venus with a blurry photo of the planet. The guy points to the photo and says "Leavin' Thursday - wanna come?" Mark stammers his way through a polite refusal "No, I can't, really - I've got exams that week and I really don't want to miss out a full year." The homeless guy gives him a funny look, re-folds the newspaper cutting and tut tuts, saying "Too bad - coulda used you." Mark continues on his way, and the guy fades into the surroundings.
To this day, Mark regrets not going with this fellow at least until he got to see whatever it was that this guy had built or borrowed or whatever that he thought would take him to Venus.
The other weird thing was that Mark never saw this guy again, despite the fact that his girlfriend lived around there and he ended up moving to that neighbourhood about a month later.

Other than the fact that this sounds like the first chapter of a magic realism novel, I've no real reason to disbelieve him... Hmmmm wonder where that man ended up???? Crazy thought ..... Im just sayin....LOL   My friend told me about a trip he made to Florida while he was in high school. While exploring in some woods near Cross City, Florida, he and his friends came upon an abandoned military or industrial building. The roof was mostly gone, but the poured concrete walls, at least 30 feet high were intact. The floor of the building was littered with roof material and other debris, so it looked like a good place to look for snakes and lizards. One of the guys was looking at the top of the walls and noticed what he believed to be part of a snake's body sitting on top of the wall hanging over a little bit. Closer inspection with binoculars revealed it to be a Gulf Hammock rat