Why would a total stranger come up to you, point to the ground and ask what are these?

Mentally ill, on drugs, or a weird dare from a friend possibly. I’d try not to take it personally.

@Mariah All of your answers are very possible but I’m thinking it’s a very strange dare.

It was the running away laughing that made me think of a dare, but yes that’d be an odd one.

Just thinking what the dare could be. She only made herself look foolish so I know it’s nothing personal. Thanks for the insight.

Part of the dare may very well to dare to look foolish. It may be nothing personal. Just you were at the wrong place at the wrong time. This seems like a dare.
I remember playing a card game once where the losers had to go and find someone and just say something foolish to anyone. Usually they try to pick someone who looks the least threatening. I once had to pick a woman in a crowd and tell her she was beautiful. Which lead to me explaining that I wasn’t hitting on her, but that I lost a dare and I honestly had to pick the most beautiful woman I found in the crowd, or be forced to say it to someone who wasn’t pretty which would suck because I’m a poor liar. She laughed and thanked me for the compliment and I couldn’t leave fast enough. As my friends watch from afar laughing. It’s something you do when you are really, really bored and young.

Count your blessings. Dare’s can be way worse.

I thought about confronting her but decided that wouldn’t do anything. When I was in one of the aisles, I saw her pass by and she looked at me like I was the bad person.

@Pandora Thanks for your response. I never thought of that. I can’t think of what else her dare could have been. I can’t believe these were grown adult women behaving this way. I’m still puzzled.

What was she pointing at?

What town did it happen in?

How was she dressed?

She appeared to be pointing at the ground, or could’ve been my shoes, wasn’t really paying much attention. There wasn’t anything on the ground.
It happened where I live.
She was dressed normally, her hair was down, greenish tank top and jeans, she looked neat in appearance. She appeared very young, maybe late teens to possibly late twenties.

I’m thinking she’s a little off. Don’t give it a second thought.

@JLeslie Thanks. Either’s she’s mentally ill or it was a vey strange dare.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you get loopy in the grocery store.

Just a good old fashioned dare. Did you see a group of teenagers outside giggling as you passed by?

No, she appeared to be with one other person, a grown woman.

I think some adults are very juvenile, and this may be what that was. 12 year old mentality.

I think I might have mentioned it at the Customer Service desk. Just in case she was harassing other customers.
I might very well have said something to the ‘grown woman’ she was with.

Just let it go…don’t take it personally. There’s nothing to be done, now.
You should try telling it to a few friends as a humorous story, just to take the unpleasantness off the memory.

Another thought came to mind. Maybe she is just a mean girl.

I’m not good at confrontation so all I can do is file a complaint with customer service if it happens again.

She could be actually having mental / emotional / high problems, or something could actually be going on. I tend to assess unusual behavior based on other clues about them, and a telling one in this case might be her way of being and the way she laughed, which I didn’t get to see/hear. I imagine (since that’s all I can do) that if I could hear the laugh, I would at least be able to take a guess about her state – did she sound “all there”, disturbed, drunk, nervous, bratty, etc?

I agree it could be a dare or joke or something. Maybe the woman she was with (mom?) had made some statement and the daughter was off to prove it wrong?

It could also be that she was deep in her own head due to drugs or stress or fatigue or grief and/or self-spiraling, and had something in mind but then shifted modes from one where she would ask to one where she would laugh and run away.

If you had said she were more interestingly dressed and/or there were something more interesting about the situation, I might think it was a social experiment or art attack or something, but it was so bland and substanceless that it doesn’t sound like it. Maybe she has friends who do things like that and was spacing out and thought it made sense but it didn’t translate.

She didn’t really give you much at all to go on, and we have even less via text. However I think it is interesting that a trivial non-communication can be so unsettling. That’s also pretty interesting.

It suggests to me that the place where you live and/or your own routine in pretty homogenous and predictable, when something minor and unexplained gets so much attention. Compared to, say, an international city where there is a wide variety of people including frequent foreigners who don’t speak the language and may try but get embarrassed and fail (another possibility), for example.

If she was a customer, I wonder what you expect customer service would/could do about it?

You guys are so old fashioned and aren’t up in the times of these young folks. I, a youngin, will enlighten you.
“What are those” (or “what are these”) is an internet joke that originated from a Vine (a six second clip of something funny posted to the website Vine). The video in question refers to this specific video. It became famous for its humor and many youngins, like myself, usually go up to random people and imitate the Vine because it is funny.

@BBawlight Thanks. I think you must be right. It still might be a dare, or someone who just saw that video and thinks it’s funny to make fun of someone. It’s obviously not very funny really. It can easily make the person it’s done to feel badly. Maybe young people need a better gauge on what is funny and what feels like teasing of being made fun of.

@JLeslie Well it’s not really teasing. It’s just a reference to a popular internet meme. If she did it to a person who knew about it then it would most likely be seen as funny by both of them. But it is strange when you don’t know what it is.

It’s more than strange. It feels bad. I bet for some people when they even know what it is it still feels bad. I think it really depends on the person. I don’t like practical jokes and similar unexpected things like that. Other people do.

I do think you helped a great deal here. Now the OP doesn’t have to wonder what’s going on.

@BBawlight Thanks for clearing that up. Not necessarily old fashioned but just don’t follow every single thing on the internet. And honestly, you’d probably think someone was making fun of you if you had no idea what the joke was about. But thanks for your answer.

They are making fun, according to that video. He was mocking that police officer’s shoes. What an ass.

@AshlynM I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything. I was just messing around a little :). But I agree that it would seem a little rude to me if I didn’t know. They probably didn’t intend any harm though.

Thanks, @BBawlight! I had no idea.
I think we all say and do pointless silly things when we’re kids. It’s really just a classic practical joke, and practical jokes can be seen by some as inherently funny.
I know I see some of those practical joke videos on Youtube, and I just look at it and think, “I would have killed them!” Others find the same thing hilarious.