You ever want to know whether a town is blue collar or white collar??? Go ahead, next Saturday set your alarm for 5 am. Wake up. Get out of bed. Get dressed. Get your keys and get in your little car. Start driving around. If you see other cars on the road it’s blue collar. If you’re the only car then it’s white collar.

When I was 10 or 11, I hung out with a girl who smelled really bad. She didn’t seem to have taken a shower at all, and everyone talked about how stinky she was. I guess I didn’t want to make her feel ostracized, so I asked her if she wanted to hang out one day, and we played in a park.

Several days later, I was playing Donkey Kong in my apartment when I heard my mother screaming in fear like she had seen a ghost.

While I was wondering what had happened, the girl walked into my room and sat next to me. She hadn’t knocked on the door or rung the doorbell; she had just walked in like it was her house.

When I saw her, I was too confused to say anything, so I turned back to the TV, and continued playing the game.

She then said,

“Since I came here, why don’t you let me play it?”

I was still confused, but I told her,

“Okay, next time I die.”

I didn’t die for a long time, and she eventually got up and left. I then heard her opening the fridge and eating something. I was thinking,

“Is this really happening?”

I then heard her opening the door and leaving. This was when I finally paused the game and went to check what had just happened. When I went into the kitchen, my mother also walked in with a confused face, and asked me,

“Did you invite her?”

I didn’t. And we saw three empty jelly cups on the table. We were too shocked to say anything for a bit, and my mother said,

“Such a weird kid.”

We started locking the door after that day.

I was watching a movie with my husband a few months back and a character in it died and it was like I got a flash of a memory of the feeling of death. There’s no other way to describe it that I remember how I felt when I died. I have (to my knowledge) never died. I am 33 years of age. But I somehow remember it so clearly, not what happened or how, but the feeling of peace when my heart was stopping and slipping into the dark. I wasn’t scared, I felt warm and calm.

I don’t really know where else to share this, my husband doesn’t believe me, not even sure I believe me at this point.

I have this feeling of being guilty after what my word of mouth utter. Just yesterday, we have this girlfriend of my husbands friend, always complaining about what her bf did to her. So as a good friend I'm always here for her as a shoulder to cry on and giving some advices ( but, never been obeyed). Not only her who did this to me. My house is open to anyone, they sleep, drink, and etc, here. They're feel at home whenever they are here. I treat them as i was a maid in my own house😮‍💨. Whatever they need I gave it to them. To make the story short. The girl chatted me yesterday morning at 3am, nagging about what she went through and her bf did to her. I wasn't in the mood to listen.Yes, i admit it, I do read her chats but I'm feeling sick of her everydays complaints and maybe because I have lots of Problems also to think of. So here it goes... She said that she wanted to send his bf out of the house and I am the one who will take him in. Because she can't handle him anymore.(She's always saying that/they always saying that(the bf)). Just because they are used to sleep here whenever they have problems, she/they think that its ok to kick his/her bf out then I will let him/her be here at my house, whenever they're here they always had their fights and may parents saw and heard them all the time. I'm feeling sorry for my parents because anyone who's been sleeping here dont feel like other people to them but they treated them as their own child. They give food, cook food, taking care of them and etc. But whenever the are here they always! always had a fight!! And my parents are hearing it.. Its not the 1st time they had their fight here so sorry,Its a no for me. Sorry, but We are always taken for granted and I don't want that happen anymore 🥹🥺. So I just chatted her that - No, i Dont want any burden anymore, Im too stressed and tired, pls dont I have my own problems too.. So the girl get mad at me, saying thats she will never tell anything about me anymore and never replied. It's fine with me, but my ego if making me feel guilty🥹. Nowadays It makes me realize that You dont have to know everything to make you a superior or less knowledgeable about other person ,but it makes your life more peaceful and quiet.

They know me, Im lively, cheerful and always have this smiling face even though i have problems. Maybe they just feel that It's okey to me.

This is not the first time, That my husband's wife's of his friends are mad at me/us. I dont know, but they are just like that. They make issues about me and my husband, but me and my husband always make them feel as part of the family.

Im feeling guilty but maybe it's right to do so. Be brave and face the reality. I can handle this🙏.

Do you think what I did is right?

Yesterday I was texting my friend in the evening and we wrapped up our plans for the week, then I went to bed to mindlessly scroll on Instagram before I slept. I opened the app and I was already totally zoned out when a sponsored ad appeared on my feed, 'hmm, she looks familiar', I thought to myself and then read the text on the slides and it all sounded so familiar. It took me a minute but I realised it was a sponsored ad featuring my friend I was just talking to. I felt silly not realizing it immediately. When I see her again I'll tell her how there's no escaping her

So. Awhile back I finally found a source that would really like some baked goodies. I tried and failed to leave the house twice to do this. But baking is an excellent core workout with delicious results.

So I decided it would happen. I made some of the muffins the previous day, the cookies at 2am (I was so worried about bugging my neighbor) and more muffins in the morning. I had actual selling donations in the car too, so I was like...let's do this shit. About a 29 minute drive and I'm always so worried about my car.

But I got there and got everything to them. So proud of myself!! I did it. I left the house without it being a doctor's appointment!

Then my fucking Check Engine light came on, on the way back home. Sonofabitch...

In Jazz Band at my high school every single year we have to make a trip to Indiana to do something called the Jazz Perdue festival. Which is this whole thing where we sleep over at a hotel and leave school early on a bus and play for judges and get a score. For most of it you’re supposed to attend performances by other high schools, but they have a big cafeteria there with a lot of great food and for the most part I just go on my phone in there. In my freshman year, I really didn’t have any friends in Jazz because I thought everyone there was weird and lame. The only kid who I sort of knew was the other bassist and so when we had to go with another person to do something I always went with him. But eventually we got to the part where I could be alone on my phone in the cafeteria and he sat next to me and said something so banal and boring that I just laughed in his face. Ever since then he’s hated me. For the rest of the day I went with this autistic kid and did like physical competitions with him. So who could run faster, who could do more push ups, etc. And it was great. Then the next year I did the same thing but I went with him the whole time and it was great.

So anyway, today I’m on call with this absolute bum of a girl. And we always make a big deal about who has to hang up when one of us has to leave. And when she does she always texts me afterward about how hard it was. So today she had to leave and I said, “Well I guess you have to hang up since you’re the one who has to leave.” So we talk for a bit more and she says, “Okay tell me about the most boring thing that’s ever happened to you.” So I start telling the story I just told and she hangs up on me after like three sentences. Afterward she texted me and said she didn’t want to hang up on me while I was saying something interesting.

I work in a big hotel, and sometimes in the locker room I see an older woman who works in one of the hotel restaurants (judging by her uniform). This morning I saw her putting a stack of around 10 small dishes directly into her purse.

If the kitchen was giving her dishes they didn’t need, they probably would’ve wrapped them up. But this was just a naked stack of dishes, straight into her purse. So she probably either stole them, or she brought them from home.

I'm a janitor and im always at work and always moving around. I don't really ever speak to people and work outside. Usually when people do speak to people it's just a hi or a very short conversation and I usually smile and wave at people. Heck I don't even really know most of the security guards names nor do I think they even know my actual name just my nickname but they usually just say hey to me. Well from Tuesday to Thursday I was out of work because I got a concussion. I hadn't told anyone about my concussion and just went back to work because I thought no one really cared that I was out. This one security guard came up to me and my head still hurt and he usually just says hey but this time he was like is your head okay are you okay? I was very confused and the next day he asked the same question then was just like I had notice you haven't been in so I asked your boss and he told me and so he was like how did it happen and who do I have to fight? I told him everything and he was so concerned and was just happy that I was back.

This morning, like so many mornings before it, my son woke up early and started to fuss. So, per routine, I got him a bottle ready. I just grabbed one of the small 4oz bottles, though - during the day, he normally feeds from bottles double that size. Circumstances at the moment lead me to grabbing the half-size bottle.

Well, he drank all 4 ounces. I honestly wasn't expecting him to - guess he was hungry.

Now, my wife has been trying to share some sign language with him. Here's what's relevant to this story: when we finish whatever we're doing - feeding, bathing, changing clothes - we shake our hands at the wrists and say, "All done!" Well, when I noticed he finished the bottle, I did so. "All done!" And a beat passed, and he scrunched up his face and wailed, and he refused to let go of his empty bottle. I said his name and gently scratched his head. "Son, look, it's all gone! You're all done!" Eventually I took the bottle from him, held it up for him to see, and gave it back. He tried to drink again, but of course, the bottle was empty. So he let me have it as he quieted down a little. I tried to gently scratch his head again, but he grabbed my thumb and pushed it away.

I realize this doesn't exactly sound like a happy story, but for what it's worth, he did calm back down and fall asleep again eventually. Of course, I had to feed him again a few hours later. What excites me is, I think this means he's starting to acquire language. I think his answer to, "all done" was an emphatic, "Like hell we are!"

Growing up, my mom had a cat named Miss Kitty. She was older than me, crankier than me, and meaner than me, but I loved her anyway (gotta respect your elders, ya know)

Anyway fast forward to me being an adult and the first cat me and my husband (then boyfriend) adopt is a tortoise shell cat named Leonessa, who I notice has the same demeanor and pattern as Miss Kitty. At one point I realized that the cat that helped raise me was a diluted tortoise shell and that, like my mom, my first cat in adulthood was the same type as her first adulthood cat.

Very fitting considering I’m her carbon copy. Makes me smile to think about.

My paternal and maternal grandmothers dated the same man at the same time in the 1950's. My maternal grandmother ended up pregnant for this man and that is how my mom was born. Around the same time, my paternal grandmother got married to a different man and my dad was born.

Both my grandmothers kept being friends and their children (mom and dad) were now friends. Later in the years my mom got pregnant for my dad but they were not together for long after that.

This was a long time ago before communications were ubiquitous. You could actually be cut off from the world, and it was great.

It was January 1997 and I was back in Phnom Penh after seeing some of the sights in Cambodia, I wanted to go somewhere as remote as I possibly could. Ratanakiri province, in the northeast, fit the bill.

It was about 350 km away. You could fly in very easily, but that would be too easy. I had to do it the hard way, by land, to get a sense of just how remote it was. Easy does not an adventure make.

By land, it was a 3 day trip. There was no real road, just a track that required a 4 wheel drive vehicle to go.

I travel for the trip, not the destination. A 3 day road trip was bound to be an adventure. Road trips are always good. But this would not be the kind of road trip that I was used to. They usually involved roads.

My mistake was not thinking about obtaining more cash first. You use so little travelling in this region that you tend to forget about it. I was used to getting cash wherever I needed it.

However, just being in Cambodia, at this time, was remote enough. It took an hour to obtain cash in the capital city, Phnom Penh. This involved going to a Thai bank that ran the transaction through their Bangkok HQ, and finally producing some real cash for me.

For the first leg of the trip, you could go by jeep or boat. I had heard stories of the boat scraping the rocks on the river bottom, as the dry season progressed, however, at this time we were only a few months into the dry season.

So, naturally, I braved the boat up the Mekong river for the first leg, stopping at Krachi for the night. This town took all of 5 minutes to walk around, nothing interesting here, except for just being here. I got a room then went looking for food. It already felt remote.

In the morning I bought some travel food and then boarded a jeep for the next leg, up to Stung Treng. Thankfully, I am slim because we were seated 5 across in the front seat, with more in the back.

Each leg cost US$10.

Very quickly any sign of civilization disappeared and we were now driving on a bumpy, dried mud track surrounded by flat plains, broken only random stands of trees. The landscape was baked dry by the searing tropical sun.

Fortunately, the cold, dry air of Siberia manages to force itself far down south, across the plains and mountains of Asia, and make for rather pleasant weather, in what passes for winter in Cambodia. It was rather reminiscent of June in central Canada, a strong sun, but a hint of cool to the air.

The light north winds were like air conditioning, fighting the scorching sun for supremacy. The dry winter air both accentuated the cooling effect, but also let the full force of sun glare down on the landscape.

Looking out across the grassland, It seemed as if it would be a smoother ride if the driver just left the baked mud path and drove through the low grass. This would have the added benefit of avoiding the checkpoints.

Part of this trip included the driver paying off military checkpoints, guys holding machine guns. There were just few guys standing there, in the middle of nowhere. Not a single sign of civilization in sight, except for the tiny wooden guard hut.

For the whole trip, the was no sign of anyone else. Not one other vehicle was encountered, except for the one that would take me on the third leg of the trip.

After 7 hours, as the sun gets low and the forest gets thicker, I see a jeep ahead, with a guy lying lifelessly across the hood. We are just short of Stung Treng to the north and there is a path through a break in the dense forest to the east.

Our driver comes to a stop next to the other jeep and says something that I don't understand. Then the guy on the other jeep comes to life and starts yelling "Ratanakiri, Ratanakiri." I understand this and manage to get the idea that he is driving his jeep to the town I'm going to, right now.

It's past 4 pm now.

Possibly stupid me, thinks "hey, I can get there one day early." Forgetting that I'd miss seeing the town of Stung Treng. And the arrival time. Only as I write this did I realize that I missed having dinner as well.

So I get in the jeep and go. It soon gets dark, very dark. We are now in dense, virgin tropical forest on a muddy track. This is really rough, and slow going. Up and down over wet, uneven ground and through mud puddles that would swallow up an ordinary car.

In the middle of the forest some light appears. There are bunch of dried leaf covered huts scattered randomly around. One of them has an open side and holds a big screen TV attached to a generator.

The entire village is sitting on the ground, in a semi circular rows watching the giant TV. A truly bizarre site to see. This is not what you see in National Geographic.

Hours more in the pitch black jungle and finally it opens up and then a tiny town appears. It's midnight, and the town is completely closed up, another detail I conveniently forgot. I had visions of sleeping on a bench until morning.

However, in true SE Asia fashion there is somebody selling food at the main corner, definitely needed. Clearly the seller knows the jeep's schedule.

Next, the friendly jeep driver offers to drive me to a guest house. Any one would do at this hour, but we try my selected one.

The Mountain 2 GH has a big panel steel gate, way out front of the house. The driver takes the initiative and bangs loudly on the steel panel. Nothing happens for a while and I feel the bench calling me. However the driver is much less polite than me, and has no compunction about disturbing people. He keeps banging.

Eventually, someone comes out, and I get a nice big bed in a huge stately old, colonial French style house, that has lots of open space inside. The guest rooms hug the outside walls, leaving a large, empty interior that is open through the 2 floors.

Morning comes and I go explore the town. It's a really small town, no real shops, and definitely no banks. There are only a few places to eat, and I start to meet people.

Later that day, I run into the British girls again. I knew them from Phnom Penh. I would have met them in Stung Treng, if I hadn't skipped it. They had left Phnom Penh the day before me.

Cambodia, then at least, had a strong presence of international aid agencies. It was divided into 3 regions, the American, Canadian and Japanese regions. We were in the Canadian one, run by CIDA, conveniently headed by an American guy.

CIDA had just completed a really nice dock in the crater lake that was just outside of town. The British girls and I had got in the habit of making a daily trip out to the lake for a swim, using said dock, conveniently provided to us by CIDA. I didn't see this project benefiting the natives much.

But it sure benefited us. We would get motorcycle taxi rides out, have a swim, and walk back to town to eat.

The CIDA head guy apparently had a very expensive pair of sunglasses, that he had lost in the lake. He dove into the lake, off his new dock, forgetting to take them off.

I believe that he was quite upset about this. He had issued a reward of US$25 for anyone who could find them.

This would be quite the sum of money to anyone living in the area. For context, someone living in a city in nearby Vietnam would make $30 a month working 6 or 7 days a week. Vietnam was quite a bit more advanced than Cambodia.

He figured that such a princely sum would motivate someone in the town, or surrounding countryside, to find the sunglasses for him. However, it seemed that no one was able to claim the reward.

For me, several days in, I realized that my cash level was falling below what I would need to take the plane back. I didn't need the "adventure" of the land trip again. The plane back to Phnom Penh was $50. Yes, the plane was $20 more than going by land. If you add in overnight stays and food, land travel was no cheaper than the plane. So, I was stuck.

Now, I literally grew up around water and swimming was second nature to me. I enjoyed free diving and was also a scuba diver. So I figured that I would help the guy find his sunglasses. An extra 25 bucks would also be quite useful.

So, I went to the CIDA office and told them of my intent to find the sunglasses, and asked if anyone happened to have a diving mask or swim goggles. Surprisingly, someone did have a diving mask, which they lent to me.

Now that I was set, I was wondering how many dives it would take to find the sunglasses. How many hours would I spend searching. I am not someone who gives up easily. Since I love diving, this was going to be fun.

I figured that they would be hard to find since no one else had been able to find them. Were they very deep, or had they slipped under some rocks or debris?

I was mostly wondering if the threshold between fun and work would be crossed. Doing what you want to do is fun, doing what you have to do is work. Sometimes the same task morphs from the former to the latter, as you have to finish what you started.

The next day I set out with the British girls for our daily swim. Now the moment of truth has come. Will I find the sunglasses and claim the much talked about reward? The pressure was on.

After getting wet and used to the, pleasantly cool water, I donned the mask and started my dives. Each dive is just over a minute, as long as I can hold my breath.

Lucky, and uncharacteristic for tropical fresh waters, the water in this crater lake is crystal clear.

One dive and nothing. How many more dives, I wonder. It takes longer to recover your breath than the dive itself.

Second dive. Dive down, equalize the pressure, then swim along the bottom as it slopes down. Immediately I see it, something glinting in that purplish rainbow way that expensive sunglasses do. There they are, as plain as day, I had found them. This was too easy.

They weren't even that deep, only about 12 or 14 feet down. This wasn't hard at all. Oddly enough, I was a bit disappointed at how easy it was. I love the water and now I didn't need to keep diving.

Later that day, I returned to the CIDA office and triumphantly returned the famous sunglasses to their owner, and collected my 25 bucks.

Now I had enough money for the plane back to Phnom Penh.

When I was 14, my high school theater club voted on the next club president. The previous president was nominated again, but she didn't really want to be president again plus she didn't really care in the first place, so for her speech she literally just said, "Hi, I'm James and I have a big butt" and we all laughed and re-elected her anyway.

Nobody did anything stupid recently that made me think of that.

I went to visit my mother again today in the hospital where she is getting physical therapy for back pain. Old age can be miserable sometimes. Anyway, I left for several minutes so a nurse could help her clean up after lunch.

The hospital is 5 minutes from home so I ride my bicycle there. I rode another block and bought a cold sandwich and a Starbuck's Double Shot Energy drink at a gas station and rode another block to a new Starbuck's built where a small bank was a year ago, sat down outside in their covered patio and enjoyed chicken salad and a banana.

For those who would ask I did go inside and get permission though I hadn't bought anything from them.

I have another Starbuck's story "brewing", so if I forget to post this month, ya'll can put me on notice.

I was at the snake river saloon and steakhouse in Keystone, CO with my family. We were enjoying a really nice meal, sharing laughs, talking about the good ole days, etc. It was nostalgic in the best way possible. The atmosphere in the steakhouse was pretty nice, not a 5 star establishment but you should probably button up for the occasion.

Anyways, my gigantic porterhouse, mashed potatoes, and broccolini arrived. Taking small bites and being the polite young man I am, I couldn’t help but notice the woman sitting at a table across from us kept staring at me. Not ogling, she was staring with disgust. She was sitting with her SO and I assume it was an anniversary dinner or some special occasion. I have no idea why, but her glaring projection was obvious and it really started making me feel uncomfortable. Even my mom called it out. After about 10 minutes of watching this woman glare in disgust at me I had enough. I said to my mom “this is going to freak her out”… the polite young man was gone.

I threw my fork and knife down, picked up the steak with my hands, and ate it like an absolute madman… maybe caveman is more fitting. Once the steak was obliterated, after sucking on the bone, it was time for mashed potatoes. I picked them up with my hands and threw that shit back. With gravy on my shirt and on my mouth I looked like an absolute buffoon that should probably be institutionalized. I massacred the broccolini and at this point my family was laughing hysterically aside from my sister who called me a “pig”.

The look on this woman’s face was priceless. Pure horror and shock. Utter disgust. She wanted a show and she sure as hell got one. I was a feral human, someone who lived in isolation for years and had never been to a restaurant. I kept this up for about 10 minutes. I was shoving bread into my mouth, chugging wine, even washing my hands with the butter. Our antagonist had enough. She grabbed her purse and abruptly walked out leaving her man at the table. It was a masterclass in being an uncomfortably disgusting patron, but honestly eating like that was empowering. I felt like a king of sorts. So now I just have to figure out how to get the stains off my nice shirt.

My favourite actress has, for a long time, been Japanese voice actress Kohara Konomi (AKA Koko-chan). As such, I often follow what she's getting up to on social media. She usually keeps people up to date on events relevant to her and her loved ones, and over time, I've spotted the most amazing coincidences:

Koko-chan's cat shares her birthday with my wife

Koko-chan's father shares his birthday with my father-in-law

Koko-chan's mother shares her birthday with my mother-in-law

Koko-chan herself shares her birthday with my brother-in-law.

This is nothing more than a staggering coincidence but I think it's really cool. My wishful thoughts obviously often try to convince me the universe is trying to tell me something.

That is all.

An asteroid crashed down into the Earth, leaving nothing but a crater, that crater would remain for thousands upon thousands of years, but a month ago something peered out of it, a strange man with dreads and almost like a piercing aura that surrounded him, wherever he went he left a trail of stars, the Stars had a hum and sung beautiful lullabies during the night. Then a second person crawled out of the crater, it was a girl with long shiny hair, almost glittery, she walked almost as if floating, she always wore a nice white dress, filled with stars. Her eyes held the future and the past of what had happened, her eyes bore the secrets of the past that she had gone through, the two people that appeared out of the crater were soulmates forever Bound by what had happened, Dagger and Dove were their names, they were never apart, wherever one went you would likely find the other. They made each other happy most times, but whenever they were unhappy with each other or something else, you could tell the signs were thunder and lightning; it would crash and light up everything around. Their eyes could burn anything in their path that looked at them wrong, but sometimes they burned each other; they had countless shiny scars that were etched into their soft skin, each scar resembling a time when they clashed with each other.

So, I'm a pretty naive person. I don't mean to be, and you'd think the fact that I'm aware of this would help, but it really doesn't. I can't help it.

Anyways, I went to 5below while I was out shopping to see if they had a specific littlest pet shop I was looking for while my boyfriend went elsewhere in the store. I sat down on a little pink stool there while I looked at the boxes to see which one I wanted (I was decoding blind codes). The conversation went as follows:

*Him: hey, you took my stool!

Me: jumps up oh I'm so sorry! Here you can have it back!

Him: no it's okay, I'm totally kidding. I wouldn't fit on that stool. You're not interrupting anything important

Me: well, I'm not doing anything too important either haha. I'm a whole adult staring at kid's toys right now...

Him: Yeah, well I have to figure out how to make everything from this top shelf fit on the rest of the shelves.*

At this point, I'd like to note that he and I both definitely had reason to be there, so he wasn't hanging around me awkwardly. There was no way he could condense the shelves any further so he had some real stuff to figure out at this point.

*Me: well, I may have dropped physics and math, but it doesn't take a mathematician to realize this ain't adding up.

Him: haha yeah, this seems impossible... So, do you collect those things?

Me: yeah! I do!

Him: how'd you get into that? And what are they?

Me: oh, they're littlest pet shops! They're just little toy animals. I've been collecting since I was three, and... (Cue at several minute explanation of the history of this toy, all of its different "waves", company buy outs, why I quit collecting, why I began collecting again, and which other toys the new company has revived as well. At this point, he's actually just standing next to me looking at me and no longer at the shelves.)

Him: wow, that's all pretty neat! I like some of the other figures we have around here.

Me: oh yeah, I think the Funko Pops are neat. I have a couple dragon ball ones at home.

Him: oh wow! Mine isn't a Funko pop, but I have a big figure of Super Saiyan Four Gogeta. Shows the size with his hands

Me: wow, that's badass! I have a buu figure that's a bit smaller that I just got. I also have a Super Saiyan Trunks figure, but his sword is broken and he's missing some background pieces.

Him: that's pretty cool! Which buu is it? Kid? Majin?

Me: oh, it's Majin Buu!

Him: that's my favorite!

Me: me too. I really enjoy him and my LPS and I keep them all in a curio cabinet.

Him: do you have a photo?

Me: maybe in the background of something, let me check (spends a minute looking). Sorry, all I can find is my cats.*

I'm still setting the LPS blind boxes on the ground near me at this point, promising to put them back when I'm done counting the codes, and he says he's happy to clean up after me. Then, my boyfriend walks over and scares me, so I jump and then laugh and give him a friendly nudge.

After this, I look over to continue the conversation with the employee because I was actually really enjoying it! I don't talk about my special interests often because I fear I'll annoy people but he seemed interested. However, he wouldn't look at me and he walked away. I was a little disappointed but thought he must've gotten busy. My boyfriend then told me he was going to wander a minute longer, and magically the employee reappeared, but he still didn't seem interested in talking. I found what I was looking for and told him I was going to gamble away my $5 to see if I guessed right and he said "nothing wrong with a little gambling, have a nice day. Nice to meet you." He was still polite, but his voice was a lot less spirited. I can't think of why else he'd suddenly stop when my boyfriend showed up, as my boyfriend was not rude and also wasn't bothered at all that I was talking to this guy (he says I make friends everywhere and he's used to it).

I wonder if he felt like I wasted his time when he realized I have a partner. Pretty disappointing because I thought I'd made a new friend, but that's just the way it is sometimes.

ETA: also, I put the toys back exactly as I found them! Don't know why but I felt this was an important detail (as important as any detail can be in a pointless story).

ETA 2: also probably not super relevant, but I do hope I run into him again shopping there. He was really cool and I could see us being friends if that's really all he was interested in. I don't think people can ever have too many friends

After I dropped off my grandmother at her church, I had some time to kill today before I went home. So first I drove to a mall and walked around looking at stuff I want when I have money, and then I drove to my church's charity shop to look at some more stuff.

While looking at the clothes section, I noticed a South African Athletics edition jacket that looked really nice and was my size. I really really liked it and I knew it wouldn't be there if i came back another day.

I saw it was a little more than the cash I had on my card, but I decided to call and ask my friend who lives 6 hours away if he could spot me a little cash so I could get the jacket. I told him how much it was, he said he would send the cash soon.

5 minutes later, I got the bank notification. He sent the full amount for the jacket and some cash on the side, he called me in that moment and said to get some ice cream too, because he was sure it was hot in my city (it was boiling).

Anyway, I bought the jacket and a book, but unfortunately the shop next door didn't have ice cream. But I am very grateful for having such a good and kind friend.

I'll be sure to get some next time.

My father was born in '31, and my mother was born in '34. I was born in '65, when my mother was 31 and my father was 34, and their ages added up to 65. I have three older brothers but the math doesn’t work out for them the same.

That’s the whole story, but the moderator bot rejected my first submission because it didn’t have at least 200 characters, the way this submission apparently does.

Winter is approaching which means I need to drain the water out of the barrel on my balcony before the water will freeze and destroy the barrel. I do this with a short hose that I fill with water and then put one end inside the barrel and the other outside. The water flows outside as long as the outside end is above the inside end. I bought the hose last year specifically for this purpose. Then I put it away. But where? I have been searching everywhere. While searching I got this song by Nelly Furtado stuck in my mind - "I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away. I don't know where my soul is, I don't know where my hoSe is..."

My neighbors have chickens that sometimes run off, and one was in my front yard when I was leaving. She followed me to my car, which was funny and cute, but to make my husband, who was talking to me from the porch, laugh I said alright girl, let’s go and opened the back of my car. She jumped in! My husband and I were doubled over and there was a chicken in my car. I poked at her and she flapped around and jumped out. My neighbors probably won’t ever know their chicken wants a joyride.

The day I got deep fried!

Now in more detail than I have ever transcribed it.

First thing you should know is that I'm a dancer by profession.

I feared losing my limbs to infection caused by these dirty grease burns, feared the scarring from the burns would never fade so that I could feel confident again—people would stop asking what happened to my arm—and I skipped a whole year of shorts weather at least to accelerate the fading of the deeper burn scarring on my leg by keeping the scars out of the sun.

🌞

It might have been a Tuesday. Work started fast food breakfast shift at 7am sharp.

I'd come in freshly rolled out of bed and showered after two scrambled eggs and roughly six shots of vodka (three before the eggs and afterwards, three more).

I was pretty damn stoned and also probably coming down out of a several-day bupropion binge (crushing and snorting the pills was my preference at the time).

Coworkers around, the clock rolled up to 10:15, then maybe 10:20AM—time to start changing over from breakfast to lunch, maybe. I just remember needing nuggets in a big hurry. And I was usually pretty decent at my job.

Despite my constant inebriation, I was among fast food's finest, holding down multiple stations, sliding left and right in the residual grease on the floor for forty-five minutes out of every hour since the hourly moppings were only so effective for so long. In my crew shoes! (Clown shoes.)

And that cup of hot grease should NEVER have been set above my head.

I asked one of the doctors I saw what would have happened if the grease had hit my face instead.

He said, "You would most likely scream from the pain at first, then the hot grease would pour into your mouth, burning your throat shut until you asphyxiate."

I was like, " . . . thanks, bro."

Morbid curiosities. Whatcha gonna do.

Just Kitchen Safety Tips™

What was the point of this post?

At the moment I dipped my head slightly to grab a bag of nuggets from the freezer, the brim of my work hat hit the plastic plate holding the cup of hot grease, which coated the top half of my forearm along with spots on my belly and leg.

In utter disbelief I raised my arm to my face and had just a moment to hope that perhaps it had cooled down already.

Silly me.

Cue the jumping around shrieking in pain flailing my limbs.

Grease clings.

The burns were unlike any pain I have ever experienced before then or since.

I felt smited by a higher deity.

Struck down in my prime.

But that was later on during the depressing months following.

I kept working that job another year or more.

In the moment, I knew both my arm and leg were burning with such insane intensity.

Survival instinct kicked in, and I went to yank off my pants to give the fresh burn on my leg some air

Survival instinct kicked in again, and I immediately stopped what I was doing since I was the working in a place that employed people underage and did not want to see that lawsuit

and then I just started laughing maniacally and basically didn't stop til I arrived at urgent care and realized I had to still fill out a paper with my burned (dominant) arm before they could see me

But they got me in quickly and gave me burn cream in a big ol' tube, told me to slather that on twice a day, gave me some bandages and gauze, and basically set me up for success in recovery besides the mental stuff.

It's weird

I guess it was October then—I got burned during the month of October. That must be the reason why the incident has been on my mind.

So much pain. So much smell of chicken nuggets coming from every pore on the surface of my blistering red skin

It was a second-degree burn, the doctors said.

The manager tried to belittle the severity of my injury, delaying my treatment so another employee could go to the drug store down the way and buy burn supplies for me. He returned with sunburn cream (?) and other basically useless junk in this type of situation.

I had to insist that I receive medical treatment. Is that weird?

And I wasn't quite "with it" in that moment anymore. Remember the hysterical laughter response? And the hot grease still burning hot on my leg, mhmm.

The manager shoved some stupid paper in my face and I signed it just so he would get the eff OUT of my face and let me leave in peace to get treatment for this injury

The scarring left me feeling disfigured for years but has now thankfully faded to what appears like just a bit of sun damage on my arm

The scars on my belly and thigh are deeper but have also faded with time.

Around that time shortly before or after the burn, got really into listening to Gucci Mane and friends' music, trap music, mostly down south stylings.

It was therapeutic then and still is.

Those moments of all-encompassing pain will never leave my memory.

I hated the burn and myself so much then.

I got one day off work.

The day I returned, the manager immediately asked me to work the deep fryer that day, "blah blah we're having an inspection and you're the best". Whatever. FYI, fresh burns and heat like that radiating from the grease vats don't mix well, and besides, I needed a freaking break from the damn grease, you know?

I assembled and wrapped sandwiches instead mostly for a while although I still had to help out on cooking stations when we were busy or my goofy-ass coworkers were in the process of dropping the ball. On my shift, we don't drop the ball. My kitchen does NOT crash.

Anyway blah blah PTSD (?) I'm over it I'll talk to my psych about it soon.

This is short but this is just an incident that's always kinda stuck with me. I hope I'm in the right place for it

So this one time I'm in Barnes and Noble. Flipping through manga, minding my own business. And from around one of the shelves comes a bride.

This woman just comes through in a full on poofy wedding dress. She's got some people with her talking and I don't catch what they're saying but there's this sense of urgency and panic and she goes straight for one of the employee doors.

She goes into the back and I start looking at manga again. 5-10 minutes later someone (might have been the same woman but I couldn't tell) comes running out of the back area with a wedding dress in a garment bag.

I've always been curious about what happened but I didn't want to be nosy.

To preface this, let me just say I would sell both my kidneys and my only functional fountain pen for the Indian food at my College's Dining Hall. Seriously, this is not a joke, I can and will hand over my first born, donate my life savings, whatever it takes, for that scrumptious cheesy goodness that is my college's saag paneer.

So when I went at 9:20 PM to find the Indian stall had closed down, I was positively flabbergasted.

Appalled.

Disgruntled even. Seeing that empty desert of a counter that once held something so divine elicited a profound state of heart-shattering shock -- one that even a CS midterm could not evoke.

I headed back to the front of the hall in a state of near tears to return my meal ticket in defeat, when one of dining hall workers stopped me.

She wished me a happy Diwali and took note of my name to refund my meal swipe, without prompting. We spent ten minutes chatting about how we deeply appreciated the heavenly creation of paneer and masala, and how it proved the existence of something higher in our universe -- a purpose that ameliorates the bleak, forgotten lives that we downtrodden academic victims lead. The grief I had been feeling at my loss of saag was replaced by commiseration and camaraderie. To top it off, at the end, she handed me her cupcake, saying it was the least she could do for me.

So, to the worker at my college dining hall, who met a weepy, 4'11 Indian kid at 9:21 PM, thank you. I may have not gotten saag but I still left the building with a smile. May your pillow always be cold, your paneer always warm, and your day always good.

Seeing posts about people's candy bowls being pilfered this Halloween reminded me of a Halloween a few years back.

I work evenings so unless Halloween happens on a day when I'm off work, I'm not there to hand out candy so this was a rare opportunity for me. I wasn't really sure what to expect, so I bought two bags of fun size candy to hand out. I live in a working class neighborhood of old houses and townhomes, and didn't anticipate a ton of kids.

Sure enough, the evening was pretty slow and I wasn't going through much candy. I don't really know how to interact with children, so I didn't really say anything other than "Happy Halloween" when kids would come knock on my door. Then I'd just hold out the bowl of candy and give no instruction on how many to take since I didn't care and most kids would just grab one anyway. Because I had so much, whenever kids would look indecisive or if they asked how many they could take I'd tell them to go on and grab a couple.

At one point these two little kids, a boy and a girl, came up and didn't say trick or treat but I didn't really care, I just held out the bowl to them anyway. The boy who was maybe six turned to the girl who was maybe four and said in Spanish that they could take one, then he changed his mind and said two, then changed his mind again and said three.

It was pretty adorable that he just decided these rules for my candy bowl, when I had not provided any. I couldn't help but laugh. I don't know if he had assumed I couldn't understand him or if he was worried he did something wrong because he looked up at me in surprise, all deer in headlights.

I don't actually speak very much Spanish and I didn't know if they spoke English, so I wasn't sure what else to say but "esta bien!" And gestured for them to take the candy. Each of them grabbed a handful, which for their tiny hands was probably 3 or 4 pieces and ran back to their waiting parents.

This was 15 years ago. This might be boring but bear with me.

I was playing a mortal Kombat game. Basically there’s this character in the Mortal Kombat series called Kitana who uses steel fans 🪭 (it’s a fighting game).

Anyways, one of her famous moves is when she throws the fan at you. It is the funnest part of playing with her.

Now when I was a kid, I took video game characters so seriously and Kitana was my favourite character. So when I bought a new game and saw Kitana was in it I was overjoyed.

But she didn’t have the fan toss move. Long story short, this was the only game I could play with Kitana. But I was determined, there had to be a piece of the puzzle I was missing.

On the internet, the fan Wikipedia (no pun intended) said that she could throw her fans once per round and if they “connected”, they would hit the opponent (long story short, they were referring to the fact that if you pressed two buttons together, she would throw her fans at the foe but you could only do that once per battle).

But that’s not what I understood. I thought what they were saying was there was a way to throw only one fan at your opponent and keep the other one, and if you did that you could keep throwing fans the whole battle.

I spent months, years, trying different button combinations, different settings, jumping (in game)….you name it I did it.

I had DREAMS on a more than occasional basis that I preformed the action correctly and threw one fan only, which only encouraged me to try in real life more. I gave every last bit of myself trying to figure out how to get her fan toss move to activate.

But there was no fan toss move. There never was.

I wanted it so, so bad. I wanted it more than I wanted to go swimming or out to eat, more than a vacation…it was what was missing from my life (at that time).

Eventually, I very slowly but surely accepted that there was there was no fan toss. It’s been 15 years and when I think about it now, I can still kind of feel the despair, anguish and frustration I felt then after trying so hard to do something that was never possible in the first place.

I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover

So I used to be big into the whole original character trading/selling scene. Had a toyhou.se, I deleted it (and all my social media) three years ago and ditched everything in favor of my own mental health. But I used to create character designs that I'd attempt to sell or trade for other characters. Out of curiosity, I went perusing for my old designs on toyhouse out of curiosity, and found one of them owned by a very specific username. This username is the same as the one my Mom's friend uses on Instagram. I messaged them and yeah, it turns out we literally did a character trade three years ago. That's before they even met my mom lol. Probably one of the most wild coincidences I've ever experienced in my short life!

They apparently really enjoyed my designs and art back then, it makes me happy to know someone genuinely appreciated the mediocre little guys I made back before my shoulder gave out :)

this happened many years ago. my little sister, who was around 7-8? at the time was cleaning the windows and the mirrors with windex. she was happily cleaning the windows and merrily spraying… but… she had her mouth open and accidentally ingested the most minuscule amount of windex. so naturally, she freaks out thinking she’s going to die and runs to my father (a physician). she explains what happened to our dad in tears, barely intelligible. my father didn’t say a word but instead took the bottle of windex from her and had a sip. it was to show her that it was okay and she’d be fine. but she ended up freaking out about him dying too.