Someone I know recently told me about an odd interaction he had at a Walmart in Texas (I know, I know…narrow it down, right?) that left him perplexed and uneasy.
An elderly man in sunglasses spotted him from across the busy store and, seeing him depart, beat him outside, cornering my friend and talked to him as if they were lifelong friends. The elderly man went on to lecture him on a variety of issues, including politics.
However, the individual appeared to have no specific facts to discuss, instead launching into a Dadaist rant that alarmed my acquaintance. To be fair, much of his distress was caused by the fact that the old stranger was He was, after all, blue. His skin was a deep blue color.
After a few minutes of this rambling chat, my friend was able to get out of the situation, and the elderly blue gentleman drove away in his Cadillac. So my pal asks if I’ve ever met anybody with blue skin. As it happens, I did. Methemoglobinemia is an uncommon (often inherited) illness that develops when there is an excess of methemoglobin in the blood, resulting in a bluish hue on the skin.
This would most likely appear as a stunning blue tint on someone with fair complexion. The “Blue Fugates,” a 19th-century Kentucky family, were a well-known example of this frequently inherited condition. And Irish doctor James Deeny treated the “Blue Men of Lurgan” in 1942. Still, this doesn’t explain the other strange features of my friend’s blue guy encounter that troubled him.