Hey everyone, let me tell you the story of my family. I don't know how much of it is true. It's just stories I find amusing. My family belongs to (or at least they believe) an old Turkish tribe named Avşar (Afshar). History goes back to 8th century. These people were basically nomads. Living on the back of a horse. No knowledge of agriculture or building and they stayed that way for a while. They came to Anatolia around 11th century and started to live in the Toros mountains. In the 19th century Ottomans became irritated with these people because its hard to get taxes from someone who doesn't stay in the same place twice. A tension started between the Sultan and Avşar people. Sultan comes up with a solution. He decided to settle down the nomadic tribes. But most of the tribe members preferred traditional nomadic life style and struggled against the Ottoman high commander. They stood up against it by saying "Decree belongs to Sultan, mountains are ours" This is a verse from one of their poems it became a song afterwards. They fought with the Ottoman army but many died. Those who lived were banished from mountains to south part of Anatolia. But they didn't stop living the way they know. These people were given land but they didn't know how to take care of it. So they ended up living like a nomad again. This time Sultan had enough. He put all of the nomads to ships and banished them to Cyrups. But on the way to the island nomads rebelled against the captains and took over the ships and returned to Anatolia. Later they were forcibly settled again. I will share some links I found and the song that was mentioned. Thanks for reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afshar\_people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadalo%C4%9Flu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw7eUIoDeFw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGIH3DHfqp4

My half brother (I just called him my brother) was born when I was in kindergarten. He's on my mom's side. My dad got married not long after, and I got a step brother with the same name as him. The marriage only lasted several years, and my dad got remarried. I got another step brother with the same name. (This is his current marriage). And after a few months of dating my boyfriend, I found out his middle name is the same name as my brothers' first name.

I also couldn't help but add this, even though I don't really count it because I was young, but I also briefly dated a boy with the same name as a teenager.

I'm not saying the name for privacy reasons, but it's a common name for young men in the USA. Everyone has probably met at least one man with this name.

Today when I was eating dinner I started to feel anxiety. I usually feel weird like that when I eat but this time was different because I had this thought: there’s more food I like here in the house and there’s no need to worry about what or when I’ll eat next. I grew up not knowing when my next meal would be, and I’ve been sick enough to not be able to eat for months at a time. But right now I have food and I am well enough to enjoy it. It made me feel better right away. I finished eating and made a donation online to our local soup kitchen. Hope everyone here has food in the house 🖤

My partner looked up a medical apparatus to purchase to help with a part of her body. She was reading out the 'science' of how the magnets work on the body and how it affects healing and whatnot. I told her it's bogus with nothing to back myself up at all, just that it doesn't sound legit.

She started pointing out that the website looks impressive and has research sources to back up their claims etc. so I asked if I could read some of the sources. She clicked on one at random that looked legitimate (peer-reviewed). I read through for a bit and found out the research paper was one that reviewed numerous other studies on magnets and their health benefits.

The conclusion of the study is that magnets don't have a restorative effect, or any impact on tissue repair, based on these other studies. The only thing potentially that they may affect positively is in regard to arthritis, the study couldn't conclude that the magnets had no affect on it. The product being sold incorporated magnets primarily to assist in tissue repair though. They either didn't read the study, or banked on potential customers not actually reading their linked sources.

I’ve been having some ear pain recently, so I went to the ENT to get them checked out. Turns out I had a huge solid ball of impacted ear wax in my left ear. It felt so weird while they were removing it. I felt like I had to cough. But it was also a strangely satisfying feeling. It was so big she had a hard time fitting it out through my ear opening. She showed it to me after she got it out. So satisfying. My ear feels so empty now.

They’re not sure if that was the cause of the pain, but otherwise my hearing is great and my ears look healthy! So that’s cool.

I know reddit "karma" really is just a representation of upvotes on this app (as opposed to religious karma), but it's kinda weird to me that my 💩positng account has higher karma than my Main. Like, this is the account I use to be a weird, goofball, and post about/ comment on any discussion (with a fundamental sense of ethics in mind) that I may encounter. In a way, I feel like this maybe reflects the general nature of Reddit.

My Main has started to become my curated content and serious, pg discussion account. I def encounter some crazy stuff with this account, so I might as well have an account when I need to chill out.

I just wanted to share this story bc it still irritates me to this day. When I was a senior in highschool I ended up getting into a program where I took all my classes at a nearby university and I never actually had to step foot in my highschool. I still received emails from them on my student email account though. This story is all about how I didn't end up walking at graduation (or even attending). I was in band for a few years and saw how my highschool did graduation and I just thought it was unnecessary, a big waste of time. Also a fact to keep in mind, I had never been to a graduation (besides my mother's from a community college) since I am the eldest person of my generation in nearly every category in my family. So I had decided early on that I had zero plans to participate in graduation. I always had throughout highschool but I had told my mom and our school guidance counselor this at the beginning of the year. My mom was absolutely distraught about it. Said things like, "Oh you are attending graduation whether I have to physically drag you there or not." "Do you know how selfish you are being by not letting the family get a choice to see you walking to get your diploma!?!" She even kicked me out of the car after picking me up from an event at school later that year when I brought it up again (she did pick me up again just a few minutes later). The guidance counselor didn't say much about the decision. The school year goes by. Through circumstances unrelated to this problem I moved out of my mom's place of my own accord for just until that summer. I had moved closer to the college to ease the strain of her having to drive me to the college everyday and bc I had plans to move far away for college and this seemed like the perfect test run. The end of the school year approaches and I get this email from my school. It says in big bolded letters that we were doing a practice graduation walk and that everyone must come it was mandatory. I arrived and was given a gown even though I never bought one and purposely did not pay the classes yearly student council agreed upon fees to cover them. Then we got paired up and practiced our seating and walk. After it was over I walked up to the guidance counselor again and asked why I had to be there. She kinda hushed me and brought me back to her office. She said and I quote, "I thought you were joking about that." I looked her dead in the eyes and said no. And that I am not going to the graduation ceremony. She looked distraught. "Do you know how selfish you are?!? We just practiced it. Now there'll be an empty seat there. And people will ask questions as to why you aren't there, they'll think you haven't earned your degree." I was stunned. I replied that she shouldn't have been surprised bc I had told her I had no intention of walking at the very beginning of the year. I then walked out. I did hear a rumor that my mother was in cahoots with her and had spoken on my behalf saying I would be there, but that is unconfirmed. Since I didn't live with my mother the graduation date came and went. I just walked into the school a week later and picked up my diploma and honor ropes from the office. I can't explain it but my interaction with the office lady made me think she had heard about what happened and was on my side.

Not a modern phone but the sort of ringtone made by land-line phones. Only issue is no one has a land-line anymore.

I'll pause what I'm listening to and it'll be gone. I'll resume and it just keeps ringing in the background. Thought it was the TV but switched video and nope I'm still hearing it.

One of my closest friends is a huge fan of Cars however she doesn’t know any of the characters’ names besides Mater and McQueen. A year ago, we watched Cars 3 and she kept calling the other cars by their color. For example, green car, yellow car, blue car etc. I just find it cute that she never calls them by their name but only by their color. When I asked her why she doesn’t call them by their name, she said she can never remember. She only remembers Mater and McQueen because they’re her favorites.

When I was younger I moved to a new town with some of my relatives in it. This included my dad's weird cousin I'm going to call 'Jane'. Jane was mid 40s while I was early 20s, I started applying for work around the town and Jane offered me a couple $100 to clean her apartment.

So I cleaned it. Though it couldn't just be a one and done thing, I would wake up to missed calls and texts at like 12am to 3am where this mid 40s woman was calling me in the middle of the night/early morning to try get me to come to her apartment because she was having 'emotional issues'. Basically she expected me to wake up and reassure her or something on demand; then got mad that I leave my phone on 'do not disturb' 99% of the time + I wasn't going to do that shit.

Eventually Jane moved away after stalking some man. When she moved she stole my hair straighter but left me with a random desk chair, cabinet, and munted vacuum cleaner claiming she will 'pick it up later'. Jane dumped it at my place without asking and expected me to be responsible for it, then for weeks I got calls where she was demanding I drive her junk to the neighbouring town for her to pick up between 2-6pm on a weekday. 1. I didn't even own a car at the time I just used a relative's car or walked around 2. I had a job and I wasn't taking the day off to drop her items off in a random town and wait for undetermined hours for her to finish work to get it. I told her to pick it up. Jane refused to pick up her items and spent ages just calling me telling me she will involve the police, I told her to tell the police she can pick up her items anytime but refuses to drive down and get them.

After about a year or so the items gradually disappeared. I literally don't know what happened to the chair or cabinet. I think other relatives just took them. I also changed my number. After several more months I threw out the vacuum cleaner. This woman lived/worked in a neighbouring town roughly 50 minutes away and over 18 months refused to pick up her items, though spent more time harassing me via calls.

After another year I didn't even live in the town anymore and my stupid mother gave Jane my number. So one day out of nowhere I get a call from Jane saying her manager needs a vacuum cleaner, because I had forgotten about it at the time I was like 'okay, why doesn't he go get one?'Jane's excuse for calling me after over 2 years was because her manager needed a vacuum cleaner and she needs me to drop off hers ASAP, the context was already senseless with factors of a manager needing an employee's vacuum cleaner yet again Jane was still expecting me to randomly pander to her demands. I was out shopping at the time.

I said idk where it is, then hung up and shortly blocked her number.

My little sister was the kind of kid that would start crying if you looked at her in a disappointed way.

Growing up, our version of timeout was to go and stand quietly with our nose on the wall for a couple minutes. And one time, I don’t know what my little brother did, but he was sent to the wall. I watched him go, grateful it wasn’t me, and then started laughing as my sister, only a year old at the time, followed after him sobbing and put her own nose on the wall. My mom immediately rushed to her and had to tell her that it was OK; she wasn’t in trouble. But I think it just distressed my sister to see my brother be put in time out.

My sister also had a crazy sense of style. Sometimes she would tie T-shirts together to make a skirt. Sometimes she would wear a silky lavender dress with bright red Ruby slippers. One time at church, she took her vest off and zipped it up over the outside of her skirt. My personal favorite outfit was the time she wore long socks on her hands, a crop top jacket, Jean Capris, long socks on her feet with sandals, and a carabiner dangling from the back of her capris with a little flashlight on it. I have no idea why. She was just artistic that way.

She always brought art supplies to church. One time, she took several pieces of paper, colored different parts of a body on them, cut them out, and taped them together. Before long, she had made a life-size paper friend and sat them next to her in the pew.

Going on drives with her was also a ton of fun. We would play a lot of car games that she didn’t understand. When it was her turn in I spy, she would say, “I spy something red–a car!“ Or “I spy something gray–the road!“ and it seemed like no matter how many times we explained the concept to her, she never got it. So we were just left there going, “is it… A car? Is it… The road?”

But here’s the point of this pointless story. One day when she was about four, she was riding in the car with mom and me. They picked me up from school and were driving me home, and on our way we saw a car accident. It was bad. One of the cars was completely accordioned, and as we passed it, we couldn’t stop looking at it and thinking about how horrible it was.

We drove on in silence for a couple minutes when out of nowhere my sister said, “sticks.… And tape.”

What? “What are you talking about,“ I asked.

“Five, six, seven. Seven sticks and tape,” she said, as if she’d made up her mind on the matter.

“Sticks and tape?“ Mom asked. “What are they for?”

“Sticks and tape to fix the car.“

I just came out of boys hostel let me spill(class 12/12th grade as some of yall call) The hostel is owned by the school and connected to the school building. I'll start with what happened during 2nd term(semester) exams. Study hours at night were til 1am at the latest but I was gonna fail so the warden luckily allowed us to study past 1. One of these early mornings only I stayed back. Later I started hearing light rocking sounds from the ceiling that is to say the desks and benches on the floor above were making noise. The sounds would come every once a while and when it did it would come like from several benches but not very loudly. I peeked through the side gates to the floor above which were locked, and saw nothing weird like all the doors were closed no shadows or movement either. I felt a bit uneasy but at the time I did not feel scared like actual scared. I also reasoned if the hostel was haunted I'd have known by now. I slept in my study floor that night/morning.

Later on the hostel was Indeed haunted at least according to the other boys it just never came as a topic of conversation to me. Like one time a friend saw an actual ghost girl, someone saw an old lady stare through the window, earlier an old lady was seen magically opening the hostel gate and FLYING inside on CCTV and one warden quit right after but idk the extent of the credibility of that one cause like wheres the footage it would have made racks by now but i understand it could get u in trouble with the school authorities. Another most recent time a whole dorm with their warden went ghost hunting cause doors were banging but the thing about that is our doors bang all the time due to air pressure. One time some boys tried to prank someone pooping inside one stall into thinking theyre all about to return to the dorms so these boys turned off all the lights and waited but no one came out. Eventually one boy climbed over the stall and saw nobody in there, the door was locked and they for sure heard flushing sounds in that stall from outside. Now recently we had been having board exams but the warden didnt let us stay awake past 11 pm and i was like why at the night before exam so I secretly studied past 11 and kept this act for some nights and initially I was scared now and turned on all the lights. The second or so night nothing new happened I heard sounds again this time it was a distinct scraping sound like the desk above dragging a little bit across the floor. Forgot to tell, the night of the ghost hunting but some time before they ghost hunted I took a flashlight and walked the corridors pretending I was a spirit. Next morning some guys from one dorm asked me why I was stroking them last night apparently at around 11:30 someone entered that dorm and stroked their legs and since I was strolling with a flashlight everyone saw me and thought it was me but my 'haunting' was at 12am Im not a creep yall

When I was in high school the was a girl the year ahead of me that was a stereotypical perfect popular rich cheerleader.

She drank Fiji water and went ON about how much better it was. One day one of the boys poured another bottled water in her water bottle and she cried. I mean makeup smearing tears. I genuinely felt bad for her. How much must this water mean to her to make her cry!

I felt like something that caused such an emotion must be life changing, or maybe I just wanted it because the cool kids drank it. I asked my mom for some and she said "No, it's too expensive". I'm an adult now and throughout the years I've occasionally thought about it and thought about getting it when I see it. But my mom was right. It's damn expensive for water, and as I got older I guess I cared less about it.

My work offers free snacks. Someone accidentally put out the CEOs Fiji water the other day. I was excited to finally after twenty years try this water, for free!

It's water. It's just ducking water. I literally cannot taste the difference. WTF do I was my thoughts on.

I'd joined guitar classes at around March 1st, and i always hated the sounds I made. I think it's partly because I have/had low self-esteem, I like painting too, but never felt anything but disgust towards my own paintings. A lot happened this month and after breaking up with a controlling best friend, I've started realizing that maybe, just maybe I'm not as worthless. Anyway, at the start, my guitar sounds sounded a lot... Crankier. Now whenever I hear the current ones, they sound so.... Melodious. Like pretty golden sparkles. I just wanted to tell someone without feeling like I'm bragging (I still suck at guitar lol) This is first post here, so let me know if I've done it right! :D

"Save the Best for Last".

I'm from Texas, home of Whataburger. Open 24 hours a day, been that way since I can remember.

It was around 1991/'92, I was 5 or 6 . My mom worked overnights at a nursing home when I was a kid. On weekends, she'd come home at 6 am, get us 3 girls up, and take us to meet up with her coworkers at Whataburger. They'd all pitch in on coffee (for themselves) and breakfast for us (since my mom was a single mother working for $5/hr). I remember one time we were eating our hash browns and that song came on. I don't know why I remember that specific song/time.

The other one is in first grade they were teaching us a song in sign language and that's the song they choose. I still remember the hand movements for "the sun goes round the moon".

That song was super popular, I suppose.

Over 20 years apart, and in completely different types of work, my Dad and I were both injured and sent to the hospital for Morgan lenses.

For those who don’t know, Morgan lenses are large plastic lenses attached to tubing, that flush the eye with saline. These are used when eyes are exposed to chemicals, etc, and need to be flushed throughly.

In my case, I was waiting tables, and industrial dish washer detergent splashed in my eye. My dad’s was much more dramatic; he was a cop, and the person he was arresting got his mace and sprayed him in the face. I remember him telling me about the ordeal as a kid.

As an adult, we both shared a laugh over the similar hospital experience.

Yesterday my great grandmother died, me and my cousin were there, on her house, he cried a lot, I did as well, but afterwards, we ate soup and talked about her moments alive, how good she was, how she died happy because all her kid, grandkids and great grandkids were around her, we joked about her meeting up with dead people and fighting in heaven, it felt like we were celebrating her live, making jokes and eating after crying rivers, I slept in my uncles house with my cousin, I stayed there until morning, it was nice having a family moment.

My mom moved to a different state a while ago, and today she sent me a picture of her new license plate. It was a vanity (custom) plate with a play on words from her name. I teased her about getting one, to which she replied that that has always been her license plate. Wtf? She was a stay at home mom until I left for college, and I went to a school without a bus service, and on top of that was very involved with music, so I was probably in her vehicle somewhere around 15-20x/week. Apparently I didn’t notice my own mother’s name screwed onto the trunk. Even once I turned 16 I didn’t have my own car, so I was still in hers when I drove. Still didn’t notice. Even now that we live hundreds of miles away from each other and when I visit her I’ll be looking for her car picking me up from the airport or something. . .still haven’t noticed. I felt like maybe she was joking to rile me up, but nope, she sent me three or four pictures from my childhood with the plate in the background.

TL;DR I apparently do not possess a modicum of observational skills

ETA: Weirdly enough, I noticed and still remember my dad’s (and use it as the base of many passwords) and I can remember thinking on multiple occasions “I should look at mom’s plates and memorize them too”

Decades ago when my son was 7.

His teacher a friend and work colleague, told me this.

Apparently in a class discussion he had said.

“I don’t know why they call it common sense, because nobody seems to have it. They should call it rare sense.”

After she’d told me she reiterated the story in the staff room to the amusement of all and as another said , “Out of the mouths of babes.”

Just broke up with my partner of nearly two years.

It was hard, theres a lot of emotions.

It wasn’t all bad, but I knew that we’d get another year or two down the track and I’d have to face facts: we have different values, different goals, different ideas of what life should be like.

It still feels a little surreal at this time. But I’m excited for the next chapter of my life.

Earlier today when I got out of my car, I noticed a few women across the street in distress. It didn't take long to realize one of them had gotten her foot stuck below a garage door to a parking deck. (It's a fancy place with parking under apartments, and it's made to look like the facade of the building it's in.)

I walked over, and one asked if I could help. For sure! I put one hand under the door, lifted, and POP! It rose enough that the foot in question was freed. I told the woman I was glad she was ok and went on my merry way.

I'm a middle-aged lady with the absolute crappiest of hands. I don't have much strength in them at all. And I was using my non-dominant hand because there wasn't much space on the other side of the trapped foot. I felt like a superhero! And I hope that POP! didn't break the garage door, but what else are you gonna do?

​

All my life I’ve been surrounded by people who like musicals but I really can’t find it in myself to enjoy musicals too. However, sometimes a song from a musical someone plays around me gets stuck in my head. When this happens I go to youtube, turn on incognito, and play the song. Sometimes I also watch performances and covers. I also do this when I have the sudden urge to watch gameplay of a game I’m trying to avoid playing. Incognito is really useful even with non-nsfw stuff, in my case solely because I don’t want those type of videos showing up on my recommendations

Not much of a story. I was in London for work and saw a musical because they are hard to get tickets to where I'm from.

I walked past a Nando's and thought I could really use some chicken. Just like clockwork a middle aged black guy with kind eyes said he was a ln artist who had never sold a painting in his life and would really like some chicken.

I was relieved because I had no cash but could easily get him some food.

We went inside and found that it was closed.

I felt really bad because he had seemed so invested in eating at Nando's. Hell, so was I!

So, I thought there was no way we could just psrt ways after all that so I decided to find a place to get him something.

I ended up finding a burger place and he got a chicken burger and a drink. I wasn't feeling it but he was happy.

When I paid for his order, I said goodbye as I was pretty sick and didn't want to infect people.

He was so grateful but I just told him that he could shout me next time.

It was weird because it was such a nice interaction that left me feeling so happy and connected to the world that I feel I owed him more than he owed me.

You're a good man, Noodles! Hope you're making some awesome art and having a lovely day. :)

Now that people are uncancelling him I figured I can tell this story again 🤣 I was at six flags in Texas with my youth group when I was in 7th grade and we were walking towards the exit. We knew Drake was performing there that night so all day we were looking for him to see if we could even catch a glimpse. I didn't get along with much of my youth group as we were in different social circles at school and they were not nice (go figure) so I was trailing behind them kicking a rock along the ground. As I was looking down I suddenly ran into someone (shoulder to shoulder) and I heard them say "oh sorry" before I could look up and when I did I was standing face to face with Drake bell. He kept walking and I just stood there speechless until my youth group leader came over and yelled at me for "trying to leave the group". Only good thing about that trip was I was the only one who got to see him, let alone literally run into him and none of the other girls did

So this happened last month at the Book fair. I was getting off from the bus and a little saw me for a few seconds and then said "miss you're so pretty" at first i thought i was hearing it wrong because i do not consider myself pretty. I asked her "what?" and she repeated herself. I couldn't believe my ears and was so giddy from inside lol. I couldn' make an appropriate response due to shock and just smiled at her, thanked her and pinched her cheek sweetly. This incident made my whole February. I kept thinking of it casually and just feeling o genuinely happy about it.

And just when I was about to forget about it, another incident happened. A little girl of my neighbours told her mother that "she is looking beautiful" The mother called me to her and told me what the little girl had said. I again couldn't believe it. The mother asked her to repeat and she shyly did. This time i told her that she is pretty and cute too and hugged her because there was just so much warmth in me!!!! This incident made my March.

Now, I think these comments hit me SO MUCH because i know they come from a pure place, a kid's heart. Adults can say these things too but they could just be being nice or being formal but these kids don't know better. They just said what they saw and what they felt. I felt soooo pretty because these little girls told me I was and I believe them. These are my two positive interactions with little humans i have had in the latest :))))

When I was 20, I worked at a daycare that would take the elementary school aged kids on field trips in the summer. So I took the kids to a local skating rink that always did the chicken dance as the last song before closing (to clean before reopening for the evening time slot). One of the kids was my friend's little sister, and her birthday was in a few days, so all the kids sat in the middle of the rink and she was supposed to dance in the spotlight for the chicken dance. She was only 6 and feeling shy, so I did the chicken dance with her. After the song, I see her dad is here to pick her up directly from the field trip. He greets me and says we were such good dancers and showed me the video. I was embarrassed, but also a little proud that I helped the birthday girl have a fun moment and her dad was able to record it to show her family later.

About 3 weeks ago, I hear a knock outside my house and see a police car. It's 4am. Immediately, I thinking the worst, a relative has died. When I open and the police officer says "are you Mr...." I say "yes". They inform me my car has been stolen and has been involved in a collision. A couple of young lads had been racing each and lost control and hit a car. No one hurt, but the culprits ran away from the scene. I didn't believe them. So I looked over their shoulders and sure enough my car wasn't there. Feeling a little empty but a sense of relief that it wasn't something worse.

I waited decades to afford and drive a decent car and invested thousands to repair and maintain it. Last year spent 3K replacing the drive chain.

Spent several weeks with the insures trying to negotiate a value for my car. It's counted as my fault. I got questioned by the police and more so by the insurers that I wasn't part of some scam. Which is understandable. I guess they must have lots of these.

But on a positive, I found a very decent car, not what I wanted but on a par with what I lost. Like me the seller spent thousands maintain it but needed to sell due to a change of career.

I now have a car that is in better condition than I'd lost. Immaculate inside and out and hopefully should not cause me too much trouble.

Sod you car thieves!

Top tip, if you have a keyless car. Keep the fob in a Faraday bag (they used some sort of electronic gadget to unlock the car by accessing my fob). Also I invested in a steering lock. Just to deter thieves and make it a little more difficult for them.

When I was in school, I acted out a lot. Blurting out nonsense "funny" answers during class, making dumb jokes, and otherwise being obnoxious. There was this girl who told me "you're smart, why do you act stupid?" one day in a fit of annoyance with my antics. She really didn't like me, and I remember her annoyed glares throughout the course of the year pretty well. Funny thing is, she hit the nail on the head pretty well. I had a broken home growing up so I acted out and said dumb/wacky things to try and get attention.

She'd frequently tell me to shut up during class when I was trying to be "funny" or when I was blurting things out. Which was frankly pretty understandable, and I'm surprised nobody else did too. She was what I would have considered 'semi-popular' and 'preppy' at the time, but super smart and I don't ever remember her being snotty or rude or anything.

One day, we went on a field trip to the local mall and I was absolutely dirt poor at the time. Everyone was eating lunch in the food court and I was sitting at a table reading a book because I didn't have any money to buy food with. This girl and a group of her friends came up to me and said "I got this for you" and set one of those styrofoam containers of teriyaki chicken and rice down onto the table.

Not even sure what I said, if anything. Probably a thanks? I think I was so taken off guard that I froze up a bit, but I'm sure I thanked her. She didn't say anything else, and they left. It was the best food ever - food court teriyaki just hits a little different. We never interacted again after that, as far as I can remember. I switched schools every 3-8 months because we'd lose our housing, so I think I just moved away shortly thereafter.

I still think about this interaction sometimes. Someone who made it abundantly clear that they thoroughly hated me still paid out of her own pockets to help me when I couldn't afford food. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just, not even pay attention or care that I was sitting there. I didn't even make it clear that I was hungry - I mean, I was hungry, but I was trying to play it cool and nonchalant so as to not be the subject of pity or ire. That means she must have really gone out of her way to put two and two together.

Remembering all this makes me want to try and channel that energy myself sometimes. There's some philosophical epiphany to be had here, about small acts of kindness leaving permanent marks on the world. Or something along those lines.

edit: I added some more context to parts of this

Went on holiday to India when I was pretty young, like 7 or 8. I was at this market full of people and market stalls full of different trinkets and stuff. There were so many people about and they were all so different to what I'd ever seen before.

There was this woman who was carrying a baby and the baby was naked which to my child brain I thought was so weird. Why are you carrying a naked baby in the market square? Anyway I must have been staring, this lady clocked me and immediately slapped me round the head lol

I was shocked and honestly I don't remember the slap being very painful but I was embarrassed because I didn't know what I'd done wrong. I remember looking at her in shock so she slapped me again, full whip. Baby wasn't even jostled tbh. After that I ran to my mum who was like a hundred metres away at a different stall and I was too embarrassed to even tell her. Anyway this memory popped into my head today. Classic core memory. Take note, staring not allowed lmao

This is so dumb but I can’t stop thinking about it this is truly such a pointless story.

The other day I took my cat to the vet. The building has two different veterinary clinics inside that share a lobby & the reception desks are side-by-side with a wall in between.

Just a few minutes before my cat had been howling very loudly, and while I was checking out I heard another crying sound. I didn’t say anything at first but after hearing a few howls I laughed and said to the vet tech “Isn’t it funny how yowling cats sound just like a baby?”

The tech laughed and said yeah it is funny. I kept hearing the cry and asked “where is it? why is it crying like that?”

She looked confused and didn’t answer, then the tech at the other desk started laughing and leaned over and said “no that IS a baby!” and showed me a carrier with a child in it.

I was horrified and said “Oh my god I am so sorry it literally sounded just like a howling cat!!” They were both laughing and thought it was so funny. If they hadn’t told me it was a baby I would’ve never known lol.