Ugh!

My little girl is so much of a “handful”. She is 24-7.

How in HECK is someone able to take care of a kid when you are single? A single man or a single woman? How can it happen? I just don’t know.

Thank God, I have a wife (partner).

But what about some of my mm followers who are single with kids? How in the heck do they do it?

I… Do… Not… Know….!

Ugh!

…

Hat’s off to you gals and guys out there! You are better people than I am.

I just wanted to throw that out there. I honestly don’t know how you all able to deal with this. Ugh!

SALUTE!

Today…

When did a colleague try to claim credit for your work, but got found out?

Not at work, but in school. Funniest one: A classmate had not written his book report. It was middle school. He stole mine off my desk while I was in the bathroom. He erased my name, which was in pencil, and added his own to the front cover. He shoved it into a stack of reports on the teacher’s desk. Then, when I got back, I panicked, because I didn’t know where my report went? We looked everywhere. I was practically in tears. The teacher then said, “We are going to practice speaking by talking about our book to the class.” One after one, students started getting up, took their report and talked about their book. The teacher picked up one report, looked quizzical and asked the classmate to come up and read HIS title and report to the class. “You’re going to read the whole thing to the class.” she said. He walked up, not making eye contact with anyone. She handed him the book report and said, “Go on, read it.” He read the inside cover, “My book report is on the book, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” He paused, read ahead and shuffled around. The teacher said, “That has your name on it. Go ahead, read it.” He proceeded to read the book report about a girl who wanted to get her period. Then, read aloud why he and his friends “had similar feelings about getting my period, probably someday soon.” He stopped reading at that point. The teacher said, “Carolyn, I think we found your book report.” He nodded with his head down. He handed the teacher my report. He went back to his seat and put his head on the desk. I walked to the front of the class and talked about my book. (P.S. The boy from the story and I are friends now as adults. We laugh about that day. He writes really well, too.) 🙂

Pungent Javanese Beef (Semur Daging)

“Semur” means “braise” or “stew” with sugar, soy sauce, clove, nutmeg and pepper. Serve with hot boiled rice.

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons minced ginger root
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 (1 1/2 pound) beef boneless chuck, tip or round, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 tablespoon tamarind powder or pulp or 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons packed brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• Hot cooked rice

Instructions

1. Cook and stir onion, garlic and gingerroot in oil in 10-inch skillet over medium heat until onion is tender; remove with slotted spoon. Add beef to skillet. Cook, stirring frequently, until all liquid is evaporated, and beef is brown, about 25 minutes.
2. Stir in onion mixture and remaining ingredients except rice. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until beef is tender and sauce is thickened, about 1 1/2 hours. Skim off fat.
3. Serve with rice.

What is the most accidentally slick thing you said to a girl?

We were young. It was raining. We were drunk.

We’d been bar hopping for hours. It was a group of us in a party district here in Tampa.

She’d had too much. Poor gal.

She said she was feeling sick like she had to throw up.

I said – ~ “Now?”

She said, ~“Yes …really close to now”

I said, ~“Just go over here. Let it out.”

We broke from the group.

She had her hand over her mouth. Shuffled behind the building. She leaned over.

There were lots of people around this area walking around.

She had to yak. It was happening. In her skirt and heels, she’d be yakking soon.

She got to a corner behind this building. I took her umbrella from her, ~“Here, let me hold this umbrella for you.”

I held it over and patted her on the back while she spewed.

<Blehhhhhhh>

It didn’t gross me out. I felt bad for her.

I stood between her and passersby on the sidewalk so that she wouldn’t be too much of a sideshow.

She said holding that umbrella over and standing there was one of the sweetest things a guy had ever done for her.

I guess her bar was low. But I’ll take it 🙂

America is in Decline and We Should Worry | Niall Ferguson

What was the strangest piece of evidence ever shown to a judge in a courtroom?

I took a driver side rear view mirror to court.

I was on my motorcycle, heading from a health appointment back to my work. I was on a two lane county road. A shitbox minivan was in front of me, but since he was moving along nicely ( 10mph over) and the area was fairly regularly patrolled I just hung back behind him a hundred yards or so.

his driver’s side mirror started wobbling., got wobbling hard and then came off. Bounced a couple times ( very randomly due to the odd shape) skidded across my path and ended in the shoulder.

Of course I was on the brakes , but as soon as that thing was behind me, I whacked the gas and made my pass.

A quarter mile ahead as I’m going by the shitbox up pops a county cop from behind a rise-heading my way.

he had me dead to rights in the high eighties (55mph zone)

of course, he came around on me. He had to pass the minivan to light me up.

I pulled over. The usual stuff:

“ know how fast you were going? “

“ yep”.

“ I had you at 87 on radar, that’s a bit much don’t you think?”

“ I wasn’t staying behind that van”

“ why not?”

I said: “ you passed him twice( once opposing, once with) , didn’t you notice he didn’t have a drivers mirror? It’s laying on the shoulder back there in front of the house with the big white fence “

“ well, he wasn’t speeding, license and reg?”

hand them to him.

he comes back and tells me he’s gotta write it.

I tell him go ahead, but be aware that as soon as we’re done here I’m going back and grabbing that mirror to take to court.

fast forward to court date. I’ve got the mirror . Get called to the podium. Set it up there. Judge says, I’m sure there’s a story that goes with that.

I tell him I’ve got 480,000 miles of riding street bikes over 42 years. Part of the reason I’ve made it this long is that I avoid dangerous situations. If that means I speed to keep from being behind a vehicle shedding 20pound, cubic foot parts, so be it.

judge throws out ticket.

Loyalty

Since 2023 is coming to an end, what’s one thing you struggled with this year and how did you overcome it?

This year can, with a few bright spots, suck a bag of dicks.

My mom was diagnosed with cancer last November, thirteen months almost to the day before I write this. She died a couple—a few? I haven’t been sleeping so I can’t tell—days ago.

I’ve been with my dad in Florida helping care for her. At the end, she needed literal round-the-clock care, so it’s hard for me even to tell what day it is any more. My dad and I alternated 12-hour shifts, and during my off time I did things around the house that my dad is having difficulty doing.

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this exhausted before. I’m on my last nerve all the time.

My mom died at 9:36 AM, as my dad and my sister and I were on the way to the hospital to see her. Later that evening, I ran my dad to the ER when he started bleeding—he was hospitalized for three days, turned out to be an intestinal polyp, not life-threatening but they did do minor surgery to remove it.

There’s an endless stream of stuff I never thought about, that I never even considered, that needs taking care of. My mom’s name is on the title to the truck, my dad’s isn’t. The home hospice care people were supposed to come today to take the hospital bed out of the house. They didn’t call, they didn’t show, I don’t know why. This all happened just as my sister was taking a new job—her boss was extremely understanding and let her take her first week of work off to be here, not a lot of people would’ve done that—and I just ran her to the airport a few hours ago.

If you look at my Quora history, I’m posting at all hours. That’s because I’m only sleeping a few hours here, a couple hours there. If I’m absent for an extended period of time it’s probably because I’m in a hospital somewhere, with my mom before she went or with my dad these past few days.

I’m not okay. I’m not even close to overcoming it.

Pseudo Echo – Funkytown

What’s a rule your employer implemented that backfired terribly?

Many years ago, I worked at a factory that did plastic and wax injection molding. The guy running the place had worked there since he was in his early 20s, so you’d think he’d have a good handle on how things were done.

The problem with his leadership was that he had come up through the ranks as a salesman. He spent little to no time actually doing engineering or production. He was a wonderful salesman and a couple times landed contracts that were a great boon to the company. The man had a gift. He could have sold manure to a cattle farmer.

One of his biggest contracts was a government contract. We were going to be making parts for the US military. During wartime, these types of contracts are as good as they come. The type of high demand production runs that fill bank accounts. Workers were asked to work a minimum of 60 hours a week, with unlimited overtime pre-approved. Some of us younger workers were working 80+ hours a week – only going home during the work week to get some sleep, then coming right back at 5 a.m.

Bank.

I was running a machine that made a part, we’ll call it Widget X. Well, Widget X was a fairly large part that required a lengthy cooldown phase. You can’t just inject molten wax into a mold and expect it to hold shape until it has properly cooled. We only had one machine that was large enough to make Widget X, so it ran 24/7.

A few months into the production run, management was in a bit of a panic. Widget X was one of the most important parts of the contract and we were falling behind on production schedule. Engineering and quality control were asked to find a way to speed up production, but they told management the biggest time sink was in the cooling phase. There just wasn’t any way around that. If they lowered the temperature of the wax, it would be too thick upon injection and break the fragile ceramic cores in the mold. If they actively cooled the die, the wax would solidify unevenly and cause warping.

Mr. Leader, despite the fact that he had oversold our production capabilities, insisted that there was a way to increase output to meet demand. So he began looking into each and every step of the process.

Back to me running the machine. As I said, there was a very lengthy cooldown phase where the machine remained locked shut until the part was ready. During this phase, I took a little time to pick a new CD to listen to while working. (I said this was many years ago)

Seeing me “dicking around” with my Discman, Mr. Leader went into a fit of rage.

“NO WONDER WE’RE SO FAR BEHIND SCHEDULE!”

“That’s it! No more listening to music while working. We need to get back on track and I don’t want to see another set of headphones in this place until we do!”

If you’ve never done it before, injection molding has to be one of the most boring jobs on the planet. You press the two start buttons, wait for the machine to close, do its thing, then wait some more until the part is ready. You remove the part, push the buttons again, and wait. That’s the whole job.

Music was one of the few things that made the job bearable. We could disappear into our own heads and only surface every few minutes to restart the process. Now that we couldn’t do that, the boredom was up in our face. Staring at a giant metal press for 5–15 minutes at a time was dull. Very dull.

So, we had to find ways to amuse our minds for that time. Being the social creatures that we are, we turned to our neighbors and began talking to each other. The problem is that machine shops are really really noisy. In order to have a conversation that is not at a scream, we’d often have to take a few steps toward our neighbor.

This, as you could imagine, meant that the machine operator’s attention was not focused on the machine they were running, but on their conversations. Then when the machine was done running, they’d take a few seconds to finish their sentence and walk back to their machines.

Production slowed. In cases like the machine I was running, not by much. However, some of the smaller parts only had 30 – 60 second run times. An additional 10 seconds per part added up very quickly. Now parts that were running on-time were running behind.

Two weeks into the new rule, the owner of the company paid our department a visit. This almost never happened. He was always in his office on the phone or out on business. He had found out that every single part we were working on had fallen behind and wanted to know why. Mr. Leader had fed him a line that he didn’t buy for a second and was going to figure it out himself.

Luckily, the owner of the company understood production because he had done it early in his career. He knew how boring the job was and that asking employees to sit and stare while doing nothing was cruel.

He rescinded the no music policy immediately and production resumed at a normal pace. He also then called one of his friends in the business and subcontracted some of the production of Widget X to him.

In the end, nothing changed about how fast we could produce Widget X, but at least the rest of the contracts were back on schedule and we could listen to music again.

How is it legal for me to lose my driver’s license for a year if I refuse to allow a cop to search my car without a warrant? If I asked a cop to search his car while on duty and he refuses, does he lose his license for a year?

A Texas trooper stopped me when I was in my late twenties. I was installing floors and happened to be driving my work van.

The stop was on a divided US highway. Speed limit was 65 mph in a rural area. I was driving exactly 65 mph in the right lane, traffic was heavy but not bumper to bumper, everyone else was driving 75 mph and faster. I was Northbound, a Southbound DPS Trooper made a U-turn, caught up to me and turned on his lights. I pulled over. He asked why I was driving so slow and I told him I was obeying the law, also that I was driving a gas hog that punished me financially when I broke the law. He was looking through the back door windows and asked what was in the van; flooring installation and demolition tools, vinyl flooring, floor tile, a 12×15 roll of carpet and pad. He asked if I would consent to a search.

I said, “I will not consent unless you sign a statement acknowledging that I have informed you of numerous sharp tools, razor knives, saws, razor sharp scrapers which you could grab the wrong way and severely injure yourself on; caustic floor adhesives and solvents, you should read the label warnings before you open those; and you accept all liability for any harm to yourself or, damage you cause to any of the new flooring or anything else in the van. It’s expensive material and it doesn’t belong to me.” He looked into the window again, looked at me, and said that makes sense and he guesses I’m “okay”. He appreciated me telling him about the danger. He decided he wasn’t going to challenge my reasoning for what was clearly a conditional consent. Not an outright refusal. But absolutely NOT a consent.

He gave me a “better to keep up with the flow of traffic than obey the speed limit” speech to justify the stop. Which was not good advice. (Insurance can place at least partial fault if you are breaking traffic laws at the time of an accident.)

Soldier Makes Out Like A Bandit In Divorce, Now Teaches Men How To Beat Jezebel At Her Own Game

Don’t fear being alone.

How often did your parents dismiss, be defensive against, manipulate, make excuses for, or gaslight you when expressing many of their behavioral concerns to them, growing up, and what was it like?

I remember trying to talk to them about how I felt left behind whenever they would go on vacation and leave me behind. The excuse was always “Oh, it’s our honeymoon.” (I had a stepfather)

We NEVER celebrated Christmas after my mom married my step-dad. We didn’t have decorations or gifts or anything. The excuse was that he had 5 children and they couldn’t afford gifts for everyone. Well, 3 of those kids were adults with their own families. We would go to the oldest daughter’s house for Christmas dinner and the two youngest kids lived with her. (Their mother was an alcoholic.) Once there, we would discover the kids had gotten a new nintendo or whatever the gaming system was back then. Or, they got a new puppy or bicycle or whatever. While they were tearing through their presents, I would go to the bathroom and cry.

I had a really great boyfriend. He was kind and gentle and so respectful of me. But, because he was 3 years older, they didn’t want me dating him. They wouldn’t allow it. However, my step dad met this guy that was 3 years older than me that he wanted me to date and I refused. I kept telling him the guy was a big jerk, but, he wouldn’t listen. He tried to force me to date him. I refused. Later that year, the guy did meet a girl and married her. Two months later, he beat her half to death and she was hospitalized. THEN, “Mr. Wonderful” burned down the high school. Some great guy, huh dad! The guy I wanted to date is STILL a really nice, kind, gentle and respectful man. He’s very happily married.

I just always felt like I was in the way and a complete afterthought. I was inconvenient for them.

0:14 / 3:41

Battlestar Galactica (1920) | Fritz Lang Style |

After I gave my 2 week notice to resign, my boss keeps calling and emailing asking to tell him the name of the firm I’m going to saying he needs to do a conflict check. Do I have to tell him? I don’t want to leave on bad terms but it’s personal info.

Ah, the classic case of the curious boss post-resignation notice! It’s like a sitcom, only you’re living it. Here’s the deal: No, you’re not under any legal or cosmic obligation to reveal your next career move to your soon-to-be-ex-boss. It’s kind of like going on a date and your ex asking who you’re seeing now – none of their business, right?

Now, your boss might be donning the detective hat, citing the need for a “conflict check” – sounds super official, doesn’t it? But unless you signed some sort of agreement that requires you to disclose your next employer (which would be a bit unusual), you’re in the clear.

You want to keep things amicable, and that’s admirable. So, how about a diplomatic dodge? You could say something like, “I appreciate your concern for conflicts, but I’ve checked, and there’s no issue there. I assure you, I’m handling it with the utmost professionalism.” This way, you’re reassuring your boss without spilling the beans.

Remember, it’s your personal information, and you’re not hosting a reality show about your career moves (or are you? That could be fun). Keep it cordial, keep it vague, and soon you’ll be sailing into your new adventure with no strings attached. Break a leg!

No difference

What is the most amazing thing you overheard because people didn’t think you understood their language?

It was the morning after the night before, and a fellow student of mine was on the lab telephone, back when they sat on the desk and had wires going into the wall, explaining in German to his girlfriend how sorry he was, and how he would never drink again, and how he was going make a temple out of his body… His German was was not particularly fluent so so of the phrasing was particularly cringe worthy.

After about ten minutes of this, he seemed to have calmed her down, and he got off the phone. He turned to me, sitting at a computer behind a big 21″ crt monitor, and seeing my expression said “You don’t understand German do you?” I said no I didn’t, I’d only spent five months in Bavaria on an intensive course in it before going to college….

Has a surgeon ever opened someone up and realized immediately there was no chance of saving the person?

In the 80s we were trying to have children. They took us both in for a retinue of tests one of which found my wife with cystic ovaries. We are told this is a common thing, done every day. Called a resection. We excise the cyst, bring the parts back together, sew a couple of stitches and done. Day of surgery the Dr comes out to the waiting room in record time. He tells me they went to the left ovary 1st snip sew done, textbook case, went to the right, took one look, sewed her back up. Turns out when they went in on that side, they were 98%sure it was cancer but sent off a biopsy to be sure. But they were so sure they had already booked an OR for 2 weeks away. The good side of this was this is what I called a stealth cancer. One that normally by the time it manifests itself, you know what will kill you but because we were undergoing the fertility treatments, it was caught in the early stages and even though it came back 4 times, it did not kill her.

Cool trend

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aGxFIc1K-ro?feature=share

What would you advise a student who feels he already has a higher level of critical thinking, or even IQ, than most of his professors?

I have a master’s degree in engineering and have been working as an engineer for almost a decade.

A few years ago, I had a coworker named Matt** who worked in the our manufacturing department as a laborer. One day, Matt came to the engineering department to explain to us how to implement a specific part into our designs that would be useful for them in the warehouse.

Now keep in mind, Matt had no education past high school, he was wearing coveralls with grease stains on them, and he spoke in a very thick southern drawl. The complete stereotype of an uneducated person in the US.

As he explained the specific part and how to it could be used, I found myself rolling my eyes. But then I caught myself. The fact of the matter was, even if I was more educated or higher up in the company than Matt, at this specific moment, he knew something that I didn’t and he was taking time out of his day to explain it to me. So I shut up, I gave him my full attention, and I learned something I hadn’t known before.

This will serve you very well in all aspects of life.

If someone is trying to teach you something that you don’t know, something that’s useful, then listen to them. Give them courtesy and respect. It doesn’t matter if you’re smarter than them overall. It doesn’t matter if you’re more educated in other matters. It doesn’t matter if they’re a compete idiot in other aspects of life. If they’re teaching you something that you don’t know, listen.

You will if you’re smart, anyway.

**Named changed.

How did you get revenge on your boss?

Well, actually he did it for me. I worked at a company that built business machines. A little back story, I was a spray painter making almost $20 per hour and had been hurt and on worker’s comp, When I returned I had to go to lighter work in the assembly department which paid considerably less,but they left me at my previous rate,I did intend to eventually get back to painting so they left it be) Part of my “new” job was to test run and adjust them so they’d be ready to use out of the box. My supervisor(who I actually made more per hour than) was also supposed to double check the settings to verify everything was good to go. We had an issue with one of the adjusting tools and didn’t realize it until a whole order of around 40 machines went out.(Without him checking because as he put it, “I’ve got better things to do {which was usually sitting & watching us work}) Of course,they were out of whack and were returned. When asked, my supervisor told the manager that I sent them without his knowledge and that’s why they were wrong.Long story short, I was terminated for “insubordination & by-passing inspection”, which wasn’t true,but my word against his) So, I left and he looked all proud of himself because of his BS. About a month later, another full shipment was returned for the same problem (since I’d left, they didn’t replace me, they had him doing the adjustment/testing) He at first tried to say it was from a shipment I’d worked on, until they checked the date and saw it was 2 weeks after I was gone!!!! ..He was FIRED, not laid off. They called for me to come back…sorry,already had a new job making $4.00 more than I was there….KARMA strikes again

Demotion

What makes a person boring?

I’m sure he’s dead by now, so I will describe the most boring person I ever met. He had a name that was actually synonymous with boredom, but I won’t use it, on the off chance that he is celebrating his 100+ birthday somewhere.

He taught Nuclear physics, and it can be hard to make Nuclear physics exciting at the best of time.

But this professor took it to new levels.

He spoke in a complete monotone. Never a variation in tone or amplitude, just completely flat. He spoke at exactly the same pace all the time. Every word had exactly the same gap between it and the next word. If you were transcribing him, you would never add a comma, question mark or period, and certainly not an exclamation mark

I had prided myself on being attentive in class. I have never even fallen asleep in a dark room watching a boring movie, not once. I dozed off in his class, and was only woken up by the guy beside me, when his head hit the desk, when he fell asleep.

I felt devastated, that I had embarrassed myself and the professor by falling asleep, but he didn’t appear to have even noticed. Either he was used to it, or he was so wrapped up in what he was saying, that he missed it.

I actually learned a lot in that class, but mostly because he would hand out his notes, at the end of the class.

The thing that made this man boring, was a completely flat monotone voice, with no inflection.

Have you ever sabotaged food because someone was stealing it?

See this?

This is capsaicin. It’s on the order of 16 million SHU’s, though actual intensity will vary. If it gets in your eyes, it will blind you. If it gets on your hands, it will eventually get into your eyes. If it gets into your mouth you will regret it. there is not enough milk you can drink to neutralize it. And if you eat it it will make your entire digestive tract regret it.

My friends thought it’d be fun to produce some from capsaicin oil, distilling it down to the powder form. After masochistically playing with the stuff, one of my friends mentioned that someone from work was stealing lunches. Being 20, they thought it would be a great idea to put a sandwich in with this stuff, and for extra effort, mark the sandwich as ‘do not steal.’

So one day, nothing happened. Two days, nothing happens. Then we go on break and find paramedics attending to one of our supervisors, who was coughing and gagging and clawing at his tongue. Next day, we’re all lined up before the owner who informs us that if anyone ever puts deliberately contaminated food in the fridge, even if someone is stealing lunches, that person is going to be fired like no tomorrow!

So, because we were 20, when lunches started to disappear from the lunch room again, we glanced at each other and realized we still had more than a gram of this powder. Be a shame not to use it. The next day the paramedics return… this time to take the owner to the hospital.

Needless to say, we found other employment elsewhere.

Edit: Some people said that what we did was illegal. I dunno. 20 yr old me probably would have talked my way out of it. After all, when is it a trap and when is it seasoning? But as to ‘confessing’, statue of limitations has expired, like, 6 times over. But yeah, don’t poison food to punish a stealer. It just makes it two crimes instead of one.

What I would do instead is put green food coloring inside the middle of it and then see who looked like they’d just blown a leprechaun.

But no man…

What’s the funniest court case you’ve seen?

I didn’t think it was all that funny, but my courtroom was in tears over this, they were so amused.

I found myself sitting as a judge pro tem in Los Angeles County’s night court, which is held once a month at various courthouses in LA County. I had a Spanish language interpreter for this one case, and the lady before me was crying and doing her best to control her tears. I could tell she was very, very upset. I gently asked her what was wrong. Through the interpreter, she said she was so scared and so nervous about what was going to happen in court. I told her not to worry, no one is going to jail tonight, so let me see what was going on.

I read through the county’s paperwork, but my copy was terrible and I could only see that it looked like she was cited for an expired dog license, it had turned into an arrest warrant, and the bail was enormous. Then there were penalties on top of the bail.

I said, “Ms. Doe, are you really here for an expired dog license?” The audiences laughed aloud, and she said, “Yes,” with tears streaming down her face. I was confused because I had never seen anything like this before. I must have really looked confused, because the people in the courtroom laughed harder when I tried to read my terrible copy of the paperwork, then looked up at her which led to more laughter.

I told the woman that I am confused by why the fine was so high. Then she said she didn’t know what the fine was, and I told her it appears to be $7,000, give or take. She began to cry again, and the audience laughed again. I reminded the audience that they were in a courtroom.

I told the woman that it looks like the citation was given in 2012, and she said she got the ticket in 2002. I asked, “You got this citation 15 years ago, and only now you decide to come to court?” The woman nodded tearfully, and said, “yes.” Again, laughter.

I asked her what happened to cause this citation, and she said she was out jogging and had Goofy with her. I said, “Who’s Goofy?” She said, “My little dog.” I asked what kind of dog is Goofy, and she said, “a chihuahua.”

I asked her to go on, and she stated, “I crossed the street, and there was a police car that I didn’t see, and the cop motioned for me to come back across the street back to him. So I ran back across the street to him, and the police officer said I jay walked and he was going to give me a ticket. I told him that that was crazy, because he is the one who called me to come back across the street. Then he said he wasn’t going to give me a ticket, and he was playing with Goofy. Then he said that Goofy’s tag was expired, so he wrote on a paper to get Goofy’s tag renewed. I didn’t think it was a real ticket, because I didn’t have to sign anything, and it didn’t look like any ticket I’ve seen before….” The audience again started chuckling.

“I see,” I said with a sigh. “And where is Goofy today?” Her eyes welled up with tears, and she said he just died. And I asked if I was correct in believing that she got a note to update Goofy’s license it didn’t look like a real ticket to her, so now, 15 years later she decided to come to court. She said, “Yes, because I got a letter saying there was a warrant out for my arrest and I had to come to court. I thought I was going to go to jail today for Goofy’s license.” This amused the audience to no end.

I kept thinking that this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in court. I said softly to myself, “What to do? What to do?” which brought laughter to the room again. I asked if she has other dogs at home, and asked if they have licenses. She said yes, and yes, of course.

I looked at this lady with tear-stained cheeks and said, “OK, here’s what I’m going to do.” Her eyes were welled up with tears, she sucked in her breath and looked like she was going to faint. The courtroom for once became very silent. “This ticket is over 15 years old, you were never properly noticed, as you never signed a promise to appear, and the legal file has nothing indicating you signed any such promise, but you did appear when you received notice by mail, 15 years later. In the interest of justice, I am recalling your arrest warrant, and dismissing this citation in its entirety and waiving all fines, fees and assessments. I need you to go to the cashier and get a document saying this is all cleared up. Do not leave without this. I don’t want to see you back here on this matter. The cashier may ask for a $25.00 administration fee, and I am ordering that fee waived. If the cashier disagrees, have them call me, and I’ll walk over there and straighten this out myself.”

The audience applauded, and this lady, for once actually smiled, and said, “Oh my God, thank you, thank you.”

Then of course I said, “This concludes this matter. Next, I have matter number…”

Carnyx

What subtle behaviors suggest someone is spoiled?

I’ll never forget the phone call she had.

This was 5 years ago. She was the cousin of my significant other at the time. She was 22.

She is from a wealthy family. Dropped out of college. Her dad was fed up with her freeloading. He was paying for her rent, car, and phone.

She wasn’t doing anything productive, but partying and sleeping in until noon (Not that I was much better at 22, but I digress).

So apparently, she didn’t meet some internal deadline between her and her father, on getting at least a part-time job. There’d been missed deadlines in the past. But she was a daddy’s girl and he’d babied her since birth.

He finally sobered up and realized that if she was ever to be responsible, there had to be consequences.

On this round of consequences – he stopped paying for her phone.

Obviously, this phone was cut off eventually. She was super angry. She acted like it was a supreme act of betrayal.

She was at my house one day, when we had a few people over for dinner.

She borrowed my then significant other’s phone and was out on my front porch arguing with her dad.

When I opened the door to check on her, the only part of the conversation I caught was, “…yeah well, MAYBE IF YOU GAVE ME A PHONE THAT WORKS….”

It made me laugh because – there was nothing wrong with the phone he gave her. The phone worked fine.

But someone needed to pay for service in order for it to work 🙂 It reflected a very spoiled obliviousness towards the concept of money.

What is the pettiest thing you’ve seen a cheap person do at a restaurant?

Years ago, my girlfriend, her brother and her brothers friend went on a ski weekend.

Her brother and his friend had very high paying jobs at an international oilfield company.

Friday night we went to the bar, and I left the tip on the table when we left. Credit cards had to run through a machine with a carbon copy paper, so not convenient.

My friends friend, went to the washroom and I said we would meet him at the exit. While waiting at the exit, I saw him go to our table first, then join us at the door. I kind of wondered about that.

The next day we go skiing and have dinner at the lodge. I left a tip for my girlfriend and I. When I stand up, my friends friend says, you forgot your money. I said “Its not my money” and he said, “OK its mine then”, and grabbed it . I said “Its the waitresses” and he dropped the money and jumped back, like he was slapped.

I was livid, but we left the money behind, and went back to the hotel room. While driving in the car, I asked him what he thought he was doing? He said what are you doing? We were all stunned.

It turns out he was Australian, first week in Canada, and he had never heard of, or seen tipping before.

I had no idea at the time ,45 years ago , that Australians didn’t tip. He had no clue what tipping was.

So, he wasn’t cheap, but would have been made me look cheap, if I hadn’t caught him.

Earthquakes Asteroids Zombies: Predictions of Nostradamus

When was the day you first realised you were getting old?

I remember this VIVIDLY, unfortunately. I move from NYC to rural Vermont in 2013.

Around 2017, after getting to know a bunch of folks in the area, I decided to do something I hadn’t done in years. I got a library card. I took out the newly-released “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

I took it home, grabbed a glass of my favorite 19 Crimes red wine, and settled back on the couch. I opened it to the introduction, then adjusted the light a bit… then moved the book further from my eyes… then closer to my eyes.

I work in IT. I read stuff ALL DAY LONG….

HOWFUCKINGEVER…

It’s always backlit. I realized then that I hadn’t picked up an actual printed book to read in a few years. In that time my eyes degenerated a little AND NOW I NEED READING GLASSES!

I slammed the book shut and anyone reading this who lives in the northeast United States, likely heard the resounding, “GODFUCKINGDAMMIT TO HELL!” that I let out that day. I was 49 and was REALLY hoping to make it to 50 before I needed glasses. I consider myself VERY fortunate that that was the first time I felt like I was getting old.

RED DAWN (1984) | Opening Scene: Paramilitary Invasion | MGM

What was the most unexpected knock you got on your door?

On the winter night it was around 10pm, there was a sudden bang on my iron gate. Curiously I went out and saw a young girl who was alone nicely dressed but no warm clothes. She was bald with black cloth around her head, wearing a confused face.

She requested to come inside. I asked her about herself and her sudden visit. Safely standing out, other members of my family also joined us.

She explained that she was classmate of my son, whom she had not met since ages but remembered his name.

She explained the shocking story about her family involved in terrorism, which seemed more like a plot from a movie than a believable reality.

My son, who lives outside the India, was unaware of her situation.

I called him and he confirmed that the girl was in his class during school days, probably in class 4th or 5th he had lost touches with her, knowing nothing about her current circumstances. We were all now confused what to do next.

Sensing that the girl is not in proper mental health. I decided against calling police and opted to reach out the school management with whom I had good relationship.

They promptly search for records going back to several years and provided me her home address and phone number.

Upon contacting her father he arrived immediately and told us the family had been searching her since noon. He explained that their daughter is in deep depression and under medication. She tried to attempt suicide sometimes.

He expressed gratitude for our assistance.

But how she remembered my address and my son’s name is still to be searched.

Edit: we are living in small town mostly every one knows each other. Later we came to know that the girl was actually in bad mental state. She was weird in school also.

What relationship sin should you avoid at all costs?

You should never turn your partner’s generosity into your entitlement.

For example:

In my previous marriage, I cooked all the dinners. I would make his plate, and bring it to wherever he was. I would do this for anyone I cooked for, because I’m sweet like that. It’s a quiet way of giving affection and being considerate.

One time, early in our marriage, he had a busy couple weeks. So, to be thoughtful, I began packing his lunch for those days. He needed to leave early, so I began cooking and packing him a breakfast to reheat at work. These were things I did out of love and kindness.

Fast forward five years…he comes home from work every night and parks himself in the recliner with the remote control. I come home from my job, and immediately start cooking. I’m cooking our dinner, while he watches TV and yells from the other room to find out when it will be ready. I bring him his plate, and he eats while he watches the news. I eat at the kitchen counter while I’m cooking his lunch and breakfast for the next day. He is watching a show, and wants dessert, while I’m doing dishes. I no longer even get a ‘thank you’. In fact, if I get busy at my job, and ask him to take care of his own breakfast or lunch, he becomes angry if it’s longer than a day or two.

Fast forward 10 years…I come home from work every night and immediately start cooking dinner, while my kids do homework or play in the other room. I make their plates and bring them to the kids while they play. My son stops when I walk in, jumps up and down and gives me a hug. My daughter meets me halfway, takes her plate and says, “Thank you, Mommy.” I eat at the kitchen counter while I pack their lunches. My kids put their empty dishes in the sink and tell me how much they like what I made. I will cook for them forever…if they let me.

My ex-husband…he sits in somebody else’s recliner now, taking that person for granted.

I love doing nice things for the people I care about. However, nobody is entitled to my generosity.

My best relationship advice: Accept generosity and thoughtfulness as gifts from your partner. Do not use those gifts to make them your servant. Gratitude will make you both feel loved.

RED DAWN (2012) | Paratrooper Invasion Scene| MGM

Why is it that people would rather be ignorant than learn the truth about society?

In the wonderful movie “Men In Black 3”, J and K meet up with an alien named Griffin

Griffin is the last of his species, which has the unique ability to see every possible future at once. In many cases, this turns out to be useful because Griffin can avoid dangerous possible outcomes by changing his own behavior.

The movie is set in July 1969 and Griffin loves going to Shea Stadium because his favourite possible future is when the Mets win the World Series. Griffin shares his power with J and K, and J remarks:

“So this is how you see things? This is amazing!”

To which Griffin replies

“It’s a gigantic pain in the ass, but it has it’s moments.”

And that’s what it’s like knowing stuff.

It’s being a doctor and knowing someone is going to die or, even worse, will have to live with a terrible disease for years, or decades.

It’s being a lawyer and seeing that your client is going to jail for a long time, or is going to lose a very large lawsuit.

It’s being an accountant and realizing someone is cheating.

It’s being an engineer and realizing that an existing structure will fail well before its service life is going to be over.

It’s at this point that the people who are ignorant still have hope.

Let me explain an example because I was involved in it a few years ago. In a nearby city, a water main broke and a nearby historic building, about three stories high, had part of its foundation badly damaged – a gap of about 1 meter.

The city called in two engineers. There was nothing that could be done. The structure hadn’t failed yet, but it eventually would. The damage couldn’t be repaired – it would be cheaper to tear it down and built it again.

So the city ordered its demolition. Immediately.

It was at that point a chemical engineer tried to start a campaign, with public support, saying the structure wasn’t damaged that badly and this was just a scam for the owners to get rid of the building so they could make a lot of money. He started trying to throw his weight around, threatening to sue people who were trying to tear down the building.

I remember talking to him. He said the building was stable. My training is in law, but I’ve been working with engineering for over a decade by then and even I knew about “deal load failure” – a “stable” building collapsing under its own weight. He was asking my employer to stop the demolition. That’s well outside our mandate, and it would have been improper for us to do so. That’s another thing he didn’t know.

Anyway, disciplinary complaints flew around right and left and the chemical engineer was the only one who got disciplined.

Being informed is a wonderful thing, but it brings you no comfort.

What did your parent do that made you say “I will never be like my mother/father?

My dad was telling me a story about SEAL training, when they went and swam under ice up in the arctic.

Unlike this madman, he actually had a wetsuit on.

He said that when he went under the ice, which was white and thick, he eventually got lost. And under the ice, it was an even plane of ice in all directions, and his rope was gone. He had this sickening moment of realizing he might be stuck under the ice. Fortunately, he found his way—but the entire story gave me the heeby jeevies.

He also told me a story of coming back to a tent, and finding a giant walrus inside of it taking a nap.

I’m so much more docile and risk-averse than him. You couldn’t pay me to jump out of an airplane. In this case, the apple fell far from the tree.

What is the reason that Canada can afford to provide free healthcare to its citizens but some other developed countries (like US) cannot?

It’s not free. It’s a stone soup. A lot of hard work for what was seen as a ridiculous idea.

Imagine a poor village. Nobody has food security, and they’re all carefully guarding what little food they have.

A couple starving guys build a fire in the village square, and put a big pot of water on. They throw a big stone in, calling it a magic stone, and say that they’re making stone soup.

The magic is that it is delicious and will nourish anyone that eats it.

Anyone that wants some stone soup only has to add a little food. A scrap of chicken meat, a potato, a turnip, some cabbage, or just some wild herbs.

Everyone wants more to eat, so they toss in what they can, and receive a bowl.

In the end, they’ve helped craft a delicious soup. There is no more to eat than there was in the beginning, but the quality is much better than the daily turnips they’ve scrounged all their lives.

They learn to stick together, to help each other out, and to trust their neighbours. The poorest, hungriest people get a bit more than they put in, but this nourishes them, and next time there is a stone soup, they’ll have a bit more to contribute.

Even the initial hungry guys contributed something important. Though the stone cannot be eaten, the idea is delicious, and more soup can be made every day.

You know for damn sure that the second soup had a lot more food in it.

That is what Saskatchewan did in Canada starting about 1947, completing by 1962. They were the poor hungry guys, and they helped the rest of Canada see that it made more sense to be a community and help each other out.

Caught

What’s one thing you know now that you wished you knew earlier?

I don’t need validation from others.

It sounds simple, and you hear it all the time from self-help influencers. But growing up as an abandoned child, I spent my childhood, adolescence, and the first decade of my adulthood trying to get approval from my dad. Oldest story in the fucking book of pathetic people-pleaser children.

Now that I think back, the reason my dad never respected me is precisely because I tried too hard. I think he wanted a son with a strong personality, a son who could go toe to toe against him and have a shouting match. But he got a pathetic, timid daughter who changed her tone according to his whim. Except, I could never be the kind of child he wanted. Growing up, I was constantly reminded that if I didn’t behave, my grandma would kick me out of the house, and I would live on the streets. When you grow up in that kind of environment, you learn to watch the adults in the household. You learn to read their emotions and try to appease them to avoid a beating. And my dad hated that.

It was a losing game for me right from the start.

I grew a backbone against my family when I finally gained financial independence. My dad finally got the child he hoped for, someone with a strong personality who could match him in a shouting contest and throw the door and walk out of the house. I was able to do that because I had a place to go. I’m no longer afraid.

I felt that, at that point, he wanted to have a relationship with me. Because I was well-read and had some life experiences, not only could I carry a conversation matching his (supposed) intellectual level, but I could even talk about stuff he didn’t know. I could entertain him. And, of course, there’s the fact that I can speak English and help him navigate life in the US.

I’m no longer a chore, a responsibility for him. I’m entertaining, I’m useful, and I have money. I could tell his attitude toward me had changed. The annoyance and disdain were gone. He asked me to call him. He asked me to visit him. He got unhappy when I didn’t reply to his random text messages. Suddenly, the role switched. My dad was suddenly in my position, hoping for my attention.

I finally got the validation, the “fatherly love” I so desperately wanted as a child. And I didn’t want it. Because I know he didn’t change his attitude because he suddenly grew some empathy for me. No. He changed his attitude because my stepmother died, and he realized he had only one blood relative left who could take care of him when he needed it. And he made a pisspoor effort to “make nice” with me.

I think once I got over my childhood issue with my dad, nothing else mattered to me. I worked past taking negative feedback about my art in art school and later on the internet (LOL). I learned to ignore haters and just do my own thing. Through years of therapy, I learned to have very healthy self-talk. I learned to validate my emotions. I learned to analyze my actions and call myself out for questionable decisions without putting myself down. I learned to be my own best friend and biggest supporter.

When you know yourself, good and bad, it doesn’t matter how other people see you.

In the game Dragon Age 2, there was a little NPC banter between two companions, Isabela and Merrill. Isabela described how she would flirt with guys in a bar, and Merrill admired her flirting skills. Isabela replied, “You have no idea how many times they tell me to “fuck off, you pathetic old hag.” Merrill was shocked and asked: ”Doesn’t it bother you?” Isabela replied, “Why should I? They don’t know me. I know me.”

And that line just stuck with me over the years.

They don’t know me. I know me. Only I can validate myself. I don’t need to make other people proud. I want to make myself proud.

I wish I had known this earlier. I wish I weren’t that people-pleaser child who had desperately wanted validation from a narcissist. But then again, there are some lessons you have to learn the hard way. I’m just glad I finally learned it.

What did someone do or say at the bank that made you say, “You gotta be kidding me!”?

My wife and I married later in life. She’d built a complex life under her maiden name and decided she wouldn’t legally change her name. To do so would have been a nightmare of bank, credit card, investment accounts, etc being changed. I was okay with that.

We decided we would have three bank accounts, hers, mine, and ours.

Went to my local bank to set up the ours account. We explained we were newly married (yay! Joy!) and that we wanted a joint account. The woman looked at my wife’s documents and said she couldn’t create a joint account for us. When we asked why, she said my wife had to legally change her name to mine for her to open the account. We said that was ridiculous. The teller said that was the law. I suspected it wasn’t, but bank lady wasn’t budging. How to get around this impass?

I asked if she could just add J to my current account. The teller said no, because it was still the same problem.

I said, “I can add anyone I want to my account. If I’m stupid enough to put a homeless drunk man on my account, I can legally do that.”

The teller agreed. But she said I couldn’t add my wife without her changing her name.

We told her where she could shove that idea (politely of course). I immediately closed my account. We jaunted across town to another, apparently more progressive bank, opened up the ours account with the two different surnames and the rest is history.

Why did you stop being a car mechanic?

There is an old saying about doing a job you enjoy and you’ll be happy working, however there is another side to that which is if you do a job which you enjoy as a hobby, you will end up hating your hobby, and that’s exactly what happened.

When I was in my young teens, I’d love tinkering with mechanical objects. I worked for a bicycle shop at weekends and was well known for being able to fix bike problems. I had older friends who had cars (70’s Fords, Triumphs, that sort of thing) and I loved helping out working, on them. When it became time at school to pick a trade for my future, it was obvious, I’d be a car mechanic.

It was now the early 90’s and I was working my way through college doing day release and block release, while carrying out an apprenticeship with a Ford main dealer here in the UK. Times were changing and so were the cars. Gone were the overhead valve engines, or the single overhead cam engines, carburettors were becoming history, being replaced with ever more complicated fuel injection systems and multi cam, multi valve engines, and complicated emission control systems.

By the time I had finished my apprenticeship, I was starting to feel something was very wrong at the dealership I was working at. I had been earning the basic wage for several years (£29 per week until I was 17, then £35 per week). Despite having a high throughput in the workshop, the company never had any money for things like clean rags, WD40 and other sundries (despite the customer being charged on every job for these). Also, the garage rarely supplied special tooling we needed, or training we should all have been having on these new technologies. Warranty times were getting tighter, most of the cream service jobs were going to the top techs while us younger techs were getting all the fault diagnostics and warranty jobs, and a splattering of first services with little upsell.

Service department were pushing more and more work through, booking in clutches for while you wait customers, and customers were becoming more demanding.
There were days when I’d be working outside in the rain, or in the snow wearing just jeans, a tee-shirt and overalls.

Also I had a girlfriend, and before each date I’d fill a sink with the hottest water I could stand, and soak my hands in it before scrubbing and pumicing my skin and nails, just so I’d be clean.

A day came when a manager came to me and told me I wasn’t ripping people off enough and I needed to add more items to each job, I consider myself a fairly decent person and I really don’t like ripping people off. The manager told me that if I didn’t start ripping off customers, I’d have to start looking for a new job. Also if I mentioned to anyone that we’d have that conversation, he’d deny it!

By this point I’d been working there for 6 years, and still struggling to clear £10k per year in earnings, and my favourite hobby was now the thing that made me miserable. I left the garage and tried to move away from the trade. I started working an office job, I had some experience working in the customer service department at the garage and I had a friend who worked at a recruitment agency who got me through the door, now I am a software QA.

Many years after I left the garage, I met up with the service manager and we got talking. It turned out that two of the people who owned the dealership had gone to jail for fraud. They had been skimming off most of the profits from the company to pay for their extravagant lifestyles. Stables, tennis courts, swimming pools. While I was working outside in the rain, I’d been paying for these people to live the lives of film stars.

Over the years I had worked for another main dealer, working as service receptionist and costing clerk. I found that corruption was there too, not at the same scale, but customers got ripped off, quality of work was often poor, drug use was ignored and the managers/owners didn’t care. I left that job after less than 2 years, and since then I have avoided the motor trade as much as possible.

I still work on my own and friends and families’ cars, mostly servicing items. I’ll never do it professionally again.

Have you ever gotten your job back after being fired?

I was dismissed a number of years ago by an absolute thunderhelmet of a boss. I remember getting called into his office one day and he just started ranting and raving for no apparent reason. I guess I was just in the worng place at the wrong time and took the entire brunt of whatever it was he was pissed off about.

I was much younger back then, and I will admit that I had a much shorter fuse than I do now. I let him rant until he ran out of steam, and then I let him have it back both barrels. I told him exactly what I thought of him and that just sent him right over the edge again. I was told I had 10 minutes to pack up my stuff and get the fuck out!

My dad was an old union man, so when I got home and told him I’d been sacked, he quizzed me on it. He asked me had I done anything to warrant being called into the office. As far as I was aware, no. He asked “Has he suspended you or dismissed you?” Well since he told me to pack my stuff and get the fuck out, one would assume it’s a dismissal. He told me to ask my now ex-employer for a written explanation of why I had been dismissed. At first, the boss refused. He very quickly changed his mind when he got the letter from the Tribunals Service that I was intending to pursue them for unfair dismissal.

He sent me a bullshit letter with a load of bullshit excuses why they had decided to let me go, but the final one was the best of the lot. He claimed that I had been aggressive towards a senior manager (him) and had threatened him. That was bollocks. I had told him exactly what I thought of him “Fucking Fat, Lazy, Useless Bellend” I think were the exact words that I used to describe him, but at no point did I issue any sort of threat to him, nor was I particularly aggressive in my manner. I simply stood up for myself.

The tribunal went ahead and on the day he actually apologised for the confusion and told the tribunal that he would be happy to offer me my old job back. Too little, too late. I told the tribunal that the manner in which I was spoken to by him made me feel very threatened, hence the completely out of character response from me and that I did not feel comfortable returning to work a single day longer with that man. I felt that the offer of my job back was simply a tactic to deflect the outcome of the tribunal and that if I returned, I would be a target for his irrational behaviour and he would simply be looking for any excuse to terminate me again.

I won the tribunal and received my full pay from the date of dismissal to the day of the tribunal, plus a small financial compensation. I told the tribunal that the case was never about financial gain. I had simply wanted to clear my name and have the dismissal expunged from my employment record. I asked for any financial settlement to be donated to a homeless charity. I know that making that charitable donation hit that fat cunt far harder than handing it over to me.

Teachers – have you ever gotten through to a kid that was considered “unteachable” by others? What happened?

Let me tell you about Randy (fake name), who graduated from my precision machining class in 2007.

I recently retired from teaching in a technical high school where 11th and 12th graders spend a half-day at their local high schools in the area, and a half-day with us.

Randy applied for our firefighting course (important later in the story). Because it is such a popular class, he didn’t get selected. I told Randy that my machining class still had openings, so he applied.

The next day, his counselor phoned me and said Randy wasn’t smart enough to succeed in my class. I told her if Randy turned in all of his assignments and never gave up, he would not fail.

The new school year began with Randy in my class. Every day, Randy arrived with a big smile, excited to learn something new. At the end of every day, he told me a few things he had just learned, and I always responded that I was proud of him.

Toward the end of the school year, Randy begged me to attend a parent-teacher-counselor meeting to discuss his progress and future. Tech center teachers normally didn’t attend such meetings, and Randy’s high school was a 40-minute drive away from the tech center. Since the meeting was during my class time, and since I was convinced it was important for me to be there, my boss authorized a substitute teacher for my class so I could attend.

At the progress meeting, Randy’s first period teacher said he was always cheerful. He always turned in his assignments, but they were of garbage quality. He hadn’t passed an exam all year. The second and third teachers’ stories were the same. In short, Randy was a nice kid who wasn’t smart enough to learn much.

By the time it was my turn to talk, I knew why Randy invited me. I described a student who was excited to learn new things every day. Randy had poor scores on his first few written tests at the beginning of the year, but soon began averaging around 85-90%. Whenever Randy made a mistake in the shop, he asked for help, paying attention to not repeat his mistakes. I finished my presentation by saying, “If I was back in industry, hiring new employees, I’d hire Randy in a heartbeat. He works hard, and I can always trust him.”

Everyone was stunned except Randy and me. He returned to my class for a second year, and did well again. He signed up for online classes, and graduated from high school on time.

After graduation, Randy worked nights in a machine shop while attending community college during the day. He completed the firefighting course in the normal two years, and was hired by a local fire department.

A couple years after that, Randy was accepted into an EMT (emergency medical technician) training program, where he graduated with honors.

If my wife or I ever need an EMT, I hope it’s Randy! I’m confident we’d be in good hands. Of course, I’m still proud of him.

What is the most intelligent one liner you have come across?

My customer normally comes in on his own to buy 10 20L drums of industrial hand cleaner that my business manufactures – Grimetime. However this day his wife came with him and was actually driving.

He got out from the passenger side with his foot heavily bandaged and limping. After enquiring what had happened, I learnt that he had dropped a lawn mower on his foot which had subsequently removed his toes and a large portion of the rest of his foot.

Anyway the drums he wanted were right at the back of the pallet on the second level of the pallet racking and I was having trouble reaching the last 4 drums.

His snide comment was, “You’re too short! If you were taller you’d be able to reach!”

He is shorter than I am and without thinking or remembering he was a customer, I replied, “Hey, you can’t talk. You’ve always been shorter than me and but now you’ve lost half a foot!”

He was not amused but his wife roared laughing!

As funny as this was and even after more than 10 years, I still cringe at my insensitivity.

Not my finest moment as a human but probably my best one liner!

As a car mechanic, what is the craziest discovery you have found on an automobile?

Many years ago, when gas stations were gas stations and grocery stores were grocery stores, I worked in a full service gas station. This was back when the attendant pumped the gas, checked the air in the tires, washed the windshield, and checked the oil level.

A customer pulled up to the pump, released his hood latch, and got out of the car. He asked me to check under the hood and around the front tire wells. As he was coming down the exit ramp from the interstate, he said he had heard some strange squealing noises that sounded like something rubbing and it was coming from the front of the car.

After starting the pump, I raised the hood and started looking for rubbing marks, feeling for loose or broken belts, etc. I didn’t find anything. I checked the oil level and closed the hood.

As the hood latched into place, I heard the squealing sound. I looked around under the wheel wells and all around the front of the car with no luck. I was about to walk back to the rear of the car when I heard the noise again, this time a bit softer. I looked at the front of the car more closely and there it was, the source of the noise. One of the headlights was missing and sticking through the hole where the wiring harness connected to the headlight was a tiny little head. A small kitten had managed to get up under the hood and crawl up to the area behind the headlight receptacle. It had stuck its head through the hole and was now stuck.

When I showed it to the customer he said it must have gotten in there before he left home that morning and he had driven almost 200 miles, mostly on Interstate 10. This was the first time he had stopped. We pulled the headlight holder and kitten then helped the little guy get unstuck.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like to that poor kitten. 200 miles at highway speed smack in the face. I don’t blame it for squealing.

What overly simplistic life advice is deceptively effective if used correctly?

A man sitting in the hotel said to his friend “Look at that kid waiting tables, he’s so dumb that if I put 500 and 50 notes in front of him, he will pick up the fifty note…. let me show you.

He hollered at the kid, put both 500 and 50 bills at the table and said “Take a note of greater value out of these two”. When the child picked up the fifty note, they both laughed out loud and left, the child went back to his work.

Another person who sat besides and witnessed this called the child afterwards and asked “You’re a grown kid who still doesn’t know the difference between fifty and five hundred notes. How come? That’s a loss”.

The child smiled and said “This man often comes here and demonstrates the same thing to his buddies for kicks and giggles, to amuse over my stupidity as I pick up the note of fifty each time, they have a momentary laugh over this, and I get fifty rupees. The day I picked 500 would be the day this game will be over and… my income too”.

There is no need to be wise everywhere… especially when being wise affects one’s own peace, interests and happiness, then it is wise to become a fool.

What was it like when you were reunited with the child you put up for adoption?

I have also chosen to go anonymous to answer this question.

I got pregnant the second time I ever had sex.

I was 14 years old.

I came from a “good” family, and had good grades and lots of friends. Sex was something I thought you did to keep a boyfriend, I certainly didn’t enjoy it back then – there wasn’t much to it. I didn’t know anything about birth control and even if I did, I sure wouldn’t have known how to get it back then and this was well before the days of Plan B.

I had a feeling fairly quickly that something was amiss – so my two best girlfriends and I played hooky from school and took the bus to a nearby city to a Planned Parenthood office to take a pregnancy test. I remember us joking and laughing in the waiting area until the nurse came to get me. She took me into a private room and talked to me about my options – I could keep the baby if my family was willing to help me (I was too young to apply for any kind of government assistance), I could have an abortion, or I could give the baby up for adoption.

The first was out. I knew there was no way my family would allow me to keep a baby being so young myself and my mother would be very worried about what other people thought, but I didn’t feel right about having an abortion so I chose to have the baby and surrender.

My mother was enraged when I told her my decision – I’m sure partly with concern for how difficult it would likely be for me, but she also couldn’t handle the stigma of having a pregnant teenaged daughter. My dad told me that whatever choice I made, he would support me. I found a maternity home about an hour away and my parents shipped me off there around my 15th birthday. Luckily, I would up with a very compassionate ob/gyn who took exceptional care of me and treated me with kindness and respect.

When my son was born after a very long, difficult labor, he immediately put him in my arms as I had asked. I had 6 days to feed and hold and love my son before the provincial papers to surrender were signed. On that day, my parents came up to get me (and my mother probably wanted to make sure I didn’t change my mind) I loved my son with every part of my being, but I could see no way to care for him and give him the life I felt he deserved. I signed the papers.

It was a closed adoption, so though I was allowed to name him, I knew his name would likely be changed. I wrote a letter to him and another one to his adoptive parents and hoped one day they would let him read them. Just like the other poster (so far) on this question, I never stopped thinking about him and also struggled with the heartbreak and depression of the loss. I spent most of my high school years numbing myself with booze and pot, but I remained a good student, so most people didn’t see how deeply distraught I was.

From the day I surrendered him, I began counting down the years until I could try to see him again. I felt that I would wait until he was 18 before I registered with the provincial registry as they would only give me non-identifying information before then. I did register on his 18th birthday but he hadn’t yet registered and I wondered if he knew about me or ever wanted to meet me. When my family mentioned it at all, it was generally to remind me not to “intrude” on his life. I was expected to get on with my life and forget about him and though I became very successful in my career, I never married and never had any other children.

Eventually, by the time he was in his very early 20’s, the province that I live in opened up their records so that birth families and adoptees could find each other more easily. I could now access his identifying his information if I wanted to, but he could chose to veto my search if he wanted to. He didn’t. I was able to find him very quickly when the paper work finally arrived. By then I had the internet to make my search easier.

I finally worked up the courage to call him one Saturday afternoon. I gently explained who I was and who I believed him to be. He was overwhelmed and seemed very happy to hear from me. I fell to my knees on my floor just to speak to him. It was the most emotional experience of my life. We talked for a few hours and then I wrote him a letter to fill him in a little more on the missing pieces. That same night, his mom called me to introduce herself and, most wonderfully of all, to welcome me to the family. She had raised our son to know he was adopted, and always promised him that if he ever wanted to find me that she would support him and help him.

She told me all about him – funny little details about his childhood and his pets and his friends. It was incredibly touching to have her support and it made our reunion so much easier for everyone. I met with her first, along with her daughter (my son’s younger sister). Perhaps they wanted to size me up first, but I really didn’t mind. On that first meeting they gave me a photo album crammed with pictures of my son throughout his life. It was an incredible gift.

Finally, a few weeks later I drove to the city where my son lived – the same city I surrendered him in. He and his mom met me for dinner. I was so nervous and so was he. She was funny and warm and made it a little easier. The three of us spent the evening together getting to know one another. At the end of the evening, when I got out of the car in front of the hotel I was staying in, my son jumped out and hugged me. It was magic. I felt I had waited my whole life to hold him in my arms again. He was just over 7 pounds when I said good bye, he was a grown man when I held him again. It was beyond anything I had ever experienced or could accurately describe.

The next evening just he and I went out. He showed me the letter I had written to him the night before I surrendered him as a baby. His parents had given it to him when he was 15 and he kept it safely pressed in a book since then. I told him I was sorry if I caused him any pain by surrendering him, but that I felt I had no other choice and I wanted the best for him. He said he understood and that he had a good life and knew he was loved by his family, but also by me, that he understood how much I must have loved him to have let him go.

Since then, we’ve just continued to grow our relationship. His mom and sister now live in the city I live in, and we see each other as often as our schedules allow. My son and I did some travelling together and spent more time getting to know each other and see how much alike we are – both ridiculously stubborn and opinionated, both loyal, both with a love of travel and cultures. His mom often laughs at how similar we are. A few years ago, he married a fantastic girl and we all welcomed their first baby into the world just after Christmas.

Now, surrendering a child is not an experience I would wish on anyone. Neither would I wish being a pregnant teen on anyone. No matter what choice you make, the consequences are difficult and lifelong. For many, many years, I felt isolated from the rest of the world because I didn’t share this truth about myself, or if I did, it was with a sense of shame and loss.

When I found my son, I had to find some way to integrate my life with my found son and his family and somehow get everyone in my world to understand why this was life and death important for me and they could either support me or lose me. For some, it was easy, for others, far more difficult, but I am glad we all found a way to make it work. Families are built in a number of different ways and I am grateful to be where I am now. I know how lucky I am.

Why would white eggs be more expensive than brown ones?

I grew up in the country. We raised chickens for eggs. We had a few that laid white-shelled eggs, but mostly lots of shades of brown…some with light green, light blue, pink shells. It depends on the breed.

Most of the eggs you buy in stores are mass-produced in giant chicken sweat-shops. The chickens are given just enough nutrients to produce thin-white-shelled eggs. The yolks are pale and the cost per egg is cheap. It’s an exploitive money-game.

A humanely raised chicken that is fed properly and allowed to forage, will lay thick-shelled eggs with a fairly sturdy inner membrane. A farmer may choose to raise red hens, or something more exotic to help differentiate his/her eggs. Or maybe they just prefer a bird better adapted to their living environment.

Growing up, if I dropped an egg on the kitchen floor, the shell would break, but the membrane would still hold it together. You could still use the egg. Try that with the typical grocery store variety! Once you cracked the egg, the yolk was dark yellow to orange, and very prominent. They were likely fertilized too. Our eggs tasted different. Probably had a wider vitamin content, due to the hen’s diet…and those tough shells…calcium from bugs and the occasional oyster shell supplement.

I live in the suburbs now. I pay $5 or $6 a dozen for certified humane, pasture-raised chicken eggs. My sense of taste prefers the eggs from chickens that forage. My outer Momma wants my kids to eat the safest and healthiest food I can afford. Mostly, my conscience remembers my “pet” chickens, and the way I taught them to come running to me when I whistled. They had a good life…and a purposeful one.

Its not the color of the egg…it’s the content of its character.

What had been removed from your property that you thought would have come with the property before you purchased it?

People are so greedy. i was buying a estate house in Danville Virginia. it had all the appliances and old crappy furniture. before closing the relatives, all came to the house and stripped it including the toilets. I did a prebuy inspection the day before the sale and saw what they did and called my realtor and said the deal was off. the realtor cane and was PISSED. he got the other realtor involved and the estate person came and saw what had happened. both realtors were stunned. we talked for about an hour and the realtor for the seller got the estate person to come over and look what happened. she was appalled by what all her relatives had done. the house was not very expensive and would have worked for me. we all talked, and the price went from 70k to 50k (nobody really wanted the house except me) the estate person deducted the losses from the people who took stuff. i ended buying rally nice appliances at Home Depot Scratch and dent for about 2k and bought modern toilets for 200 each. it worked out well for me in the end. 20k discount is a big amount of cash. at the closing the title company issued me a check for 20k and i talked to the bank and they were ok with the deal. i bough the appliances and some of furniture then just paid the rest on the mortgage. I lived in the house for 3 years and sold it with the appliances and furniture to a young couple. it sold for 112,000. it is amazing what elbow grease and effort can do to an old rundown house.

I can’t recognize intelligent people, how do I recognize them?

Here are some low-key signs of highly intelligent people:

1. Most of them have the habit of staying up late into the night.

2. They may have bad handwriting because of the trouble with their mouth and hand keeping up.

3. They have unusual, out of the box, apparently ‘crazy’ ideas.

4. They’re prefer to be with their own company.

5. They’re brutally honest with what they don’t know.

6. They can talk to people they don’t like and hear ideas they don’t agree with and not get emotional.

7. They have a twisted sense of humor. They are most likely to enjoy and understand dark humor.

8. They have good body memory. Their bodies can pick up routines faster than others.

9. They use the Keanu behavior to boost intelligence.

Keanu Reeves says highly intelligent people play a game. They try to be wrong once in a while. They practice being wrong more often to reset their egos.

10. They can explain difficult matter in an easy way.

11. They can make connections between seemingly unrelated subjects.

Land of the Lost (6/10) Movie CLIP – Hadrosaur Urine (2009) HD

What’s something a poor kid would understand, but would utterly confuse a rich kid?

I am fifty six years old. I grew up hungry. My parents did the best they could and I never starved but there was never quite enough.

One of my co-workers grew up the same way. Her mother made giant pots of cabbage soup and kool aid without sugar. She is in her mid forties. We both have been food secure since the late 1990s.

We were both recently sent to a conference. The organizers provided all the food. This made us uncomfortable but we didn’t know why.

We both compulsively took a couple tea bags and small jars of honey from the drink station.

“Just in case we need a drink later.”

They had a breakfast buffet. I took an extra orange, a small box of cereal and some honey for my room. My friend did the same. We put the food in our room. We felt better.

“Just in case we are hungry later.”

They had an exhibition hall. At each station was a candy bowl. My friend and I stood and picked out candy at each table. We put it in our bag.

“Just in case we need a sweet later.”

Our young co-worker has never been hungry. Both parents have good jobs. Her godmother is a bigwig in the town. She watched us in amusement and exasperation.

“If you need food later call room service. Ask the valet to go bring you something if you don’t like the food in the hotel. You parked in valet parking right? You gave him a good tip? Alright, go take that stuff up to your room. I’ll save you a seat at the keynotes.”

She doesn’t understand. Just like the kids with money didn’t understand why Frances and I volunteered to be kitchen help in elementary school. Why we brought our backpacks to lunch on Friday, or how grateful we were when the kitchen lady filled them with bread and fruit and government milk and cheese.

Poor kids understand hunger . . .and hiding food. Even though I haven’t been hungry since 1997, I remember. Rich kids know food will always be there. They don’t know hunger, and they’ve never hidden food.

Now excuse me while I go hide this doughnut. . ..

Have you ever had a car that a mechanic said it’s unfixable and told to sell him the car or junk it but turned out to be a minor fix?

This happened about 30 years ago. My mother-in-law had a Mustang II that she loved and took great care of. When she was diagnosed with cancer, my sister-in-law moved in with her to take care of her during her final months. Sister-in-law used the Mustang for shopping and transportation for both of them.

Then one day, the car started making a horrible knocking noise. Sister-in-law took it to the respected Ford dealer, where mother-in-law had originally bought it. They diagnosed the car with a blown engine, said it was not worth fixing, and recomended trading it in on a new car. In-laws did not have the money for a new car.

My wife and I lived out of town, and were in town for a visit. Sister-in-law asked if I could take her to the dealer to pick up the car and bring it home. It still drove even though it made a knocking sound and ran terrible. We went to the Ford dealer, and they charged her $400 for the diagnosis. All they did was test the compression on the four cylinders, and some other made up stuff. I couldn’t believe it. Sister-in-law paid the $400, and I drove the car to their house as she followed me.

I was an amateur mechanic from my highschool gear head days, and it sounded to me like the knocking was from the top of the engine, and not the lower end. They had a cheap Walmart socket set in their kitchen tool drawer, so I offered to take off the valve cover and see if maybe I could find out what was wrong. It was just a broken valve spring!

We had to go back home, so I couldn’t fix the car for them. But I went back to the Ford dealer to get the $400 back for the misdiagnosis. They refused. I yelled that it was way too much, they were just trying to cheat us into buying a new car, and why didn’t their service shop warranty cover a misdiagnosis? They said they couldn’t refund money for work that was already done.

It was late Friday afternoon, and the service department waiting room was full of people picking up their cars. I made sure everyone heard every detail exactly as it happened. The people all stared silently at the floor as I made a scene. I pushed it to the point where the service manager was calling the police. I didn’t get any money back, but I’m sure it costed them much more than $400 in future service business and car sales!

The in-laws asked where they should take the car to get fixed. My wife suggested to call the nearest auto repair shop with the owner’s name on the sign. So, on Monday morning, they called Russ’s Auto Service. Russ answered the phone and made an appointment the next day. It cost $95 to replace the broken valve spring. The car ran for 5 more years, until it completely rusted out.

What is your best “one time my dad … ” story?

One time my Dad stole someone’s neglected dog and gave it to a kid for Christmas.

The dog lived kitty-corner down the street from my Dad’s house. The poor thing lived on a 3-foot-long chain in the middle of the front yard. One side of its little circle was covered in poop, and the other side had bowls he could barely reach.

The poor thing was often left out all night. Dad called animal control a bunch of times, and the owners had been contacted and briefly took care of the dog, letting it in every night and clearing the poop,, but always slacked off, and there the poor thing was again!

An occasional visitor to his home had a son about 8 or 10 years old, who would go down the street and pet the dog. He made up his own name for the dog, and the dog just lit up when he went over, usually with treats from Dad’s house.

A few days before Christmas the dog was out on his short chain shivering in an ice-cold rain. You could see him suffering from the kitchen window. Nobody was home at the neighbors… Dad walked over, bold as brass, unclipped the dog, and brought him in.

He gave the dog a nice bath and blow-dried him, ripped a huge golden bow off of a box under the tree and put it on the dog, and drove him over and gave him to that boy.

The boy had the dog for many years, and they were the best of friends.

Exactly

Has anyone been found by the child they gave up for adoption and wish the child did not find them?

This is kind of the other way around. My mother was born in 1948 to an unmarried couple, which due to the societal norms at the time could have made her life and theirs quite difficult If they had kept her. She was adopted at only 3 days old. She never wanted to know who her birth family was because she loved her parents so much. They gave her so much love and care because to them she was the miracle they couldn’t have. She believes that though they did not give birth to her, that they were fated to be her parents. For 70 years she lived happily as the only daughter, with no cousins or any extended family. Her parents friends were more like family than some people’s actual family. Her mother passed in the early 90s and her father in ‘99. They never told her anything about her birth parents. And we think now that the only person who knew about them was a family friend my mom called Auntie.

In 2016 I was in grad school & studying language and linguistics. A professor had a dinner party & after the meal he showed us this chart about his heritage based on a DNA test like AncestryDNA. I was fascinated by it & asked for it as a Christmas gift. Then in the summer of 2017 I was contacted by someone on Ancestry who asked how we were related because it showed us as closely related. I was busy writing my thesis & studying for exams while working that summer, so I politely responded that I wasn’t sure and that I’d look into it. I was also worried that it was my dad’s side of the family which he had avoided for decades.

I didn’t understand just how close our DNA was at the time since I was new to the whole thing. I learned later that it was saying that she was my mother, which seeing her photo later made sense as she looks identical to my mom. She was so confused and began asking her siblings and elderly aunts & uncles if they knew anything. She finally found someone who did and she and her siblings discovered that they all had an older sister that no one knew about all these years. You can imagine how surprised they must have been. They all wanted to know their sister.

My mom, who had known she was adopted and wasn’t keen to meet a new family, was pretty hesitant to speak with them. It was through messages relayed between me and her sister who found me that she even found out about it. My mom is very sweet and caring, but I think she was really overwhelmed. She kept putting off talking to them. She waited until just this past spring to meet with them (via zoom) for the first time. (We had planned to meet in person, but then the pandemic happened.)

In the end, though she was not looking for it and quite hesitant, she found that she and her siblings, especially her sisters, have quite a lot in common and seems genuinely happy to know them. She gets excited to talk to them now too. It’s pretty cool seeing their relationship grow as they all ask each other about how they grew up and what their experiences have been and laughing together about the fun stories they share.

What it is like to be married

Do you have original pictures that you took with your own camera that describe the living condition of ordinary Chinese people?

I want to post some pictures about China’s grassroots democracy. This place is a party’s community service station. The district congressman has office here, and the following posters are

1. The contact information of the district congressman belonging to the community is written below. Scan the QRcode to find him and he will “do something for you immediately”.

2. Announcement of the court election jury. Its publishing department is: The judicial bureau, the court and the police station.

3. Advertisements about free physical examinations for citizens over 65 years old, and telling them where the nearest hospital is around them.

Thanks for your upvotes, I have added a few photos.

This is a sign hanging at the door of another party’s community workstation, showing that there is a Communist Party lawyer who will work for ordinary people here for free at some specific time, and his phone number is also written on the sign.

This is also an advertising board for a community legal worker designated by the Party, with her contact information and service area details there. In China, the law is an easy tool for ordinary people. The litigation fee for small lawsuits is only 25 RMB yuan (about 3 US dollars), and the complaint can be drafted free of charge by legal workers of the Communist Party.

When this post has ten upvotes , I will post some modern art-style sculptures of the Communist Party.

I didn’t expect the tenth upvote to come so fast.

Now, the photo uploaded is a sculpture on a city street, showing the spirit of hammer and sickle advocated by the Communist Party. The hammer and sickle ☭ is a communist symbol representing proletarian solidarity between agricultural and industrial workers.The hammer representing workers and the sickle representing the peasants.

However, this sculpture was placed by a shopping mall nearby, which was set up to attract more customers. It is not a local party committee political propaganda.

My next update will post some real political propaganda sculptures when the number of upvotes reaches 20.

Well, I’ve got 20 upvotes . Now I’m going to post a real political propaganda sculpture, some very China thing, it is a stone.

Yes, this is a stone with Chinese characters on it, “seeking truth from facts”. The stone engraved with this sentence can be seen in almost every city in China, because this is a official political propaganda slogan of the CPC.

Amazing kitty rescue

What is the best thing you saw someone do when they got fired from their job?

He wasn’t fired. My step-dad work for the California Highway Patrol Acadamey as a gun Smith. He retired after 20+ years. He hated his job. He loved gunsmithing and even did it in his off hours, bur he hated working for the government office. One year, in the mid 1990s the CHP decided it needed to go through every gun used by CHPnand the academy and ensure they worked correctly, great. There are thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of guns, I never heard a solid figure. They had a year to do this. The most important thing for his complaint is that they had to fire a minimum of 100 rounds through each gun to ensure it was operating correctly. There were 3 gunsmiths to accomplish this task. They all ended up needing surgery for injuries incurred during this mass gun retrofit, shoulder, elbow, wrist with sever carpal tunnel like injuries (eventually it ended up he needed 2 surgeries on left shoulder, 3, on the right, 1 on each elbow, 2 on right wrist and one on left, and surgery on the right hand itself for sever trigger finger, and yes it is actually called “trigger finger”), the other two gunsmithshad similar sets of surgeries. They had to fight CalPERs for almost 10 years to “prove” this was actually caused by having to fire off approximately 1000 rounds per day for over a year, hmmmm 3 guys develop the same symptoms within weeks of eachother, working the same job, and need the same treatments, no it must be a pre-existing condition. And for those 10 years of fighting to get the surgeries, they *still* had to work. The state of California sucks, especially for their government employees. Then there was all the PC stuff. My step-dad was Japanese, and the most politically incorrect person I know, and it was usually directed at himself, ex. He had a circle of cardboard hanging in his workstation to indicate his mood (its nice to be warned), on one side was a frowning face, on the other was a smiley face with eyes like the laughing emotion 😆, he was told that was not acceptable, it was racist and he needed to take it down, my JAPANESE step-dad was told he could NOT hang that in his workstation, instead of arguing that it was accurate for his race he said “everyone’s eyes sqquinch up like that when you smile, how is that racist?” and then demonstrated with the surrounding crowd, they made him take it down anyway, that was in the late 1980s, before his injuries. Another example of non PC behavior: he was a rarity, a person without a middle name (my mother also has no middle name), his initials were KK, head office kept trying to get him to give them his middle initial, they stopped after he submitted K as his middle initial. A Japanese man with the initials of KKK it could only have been better if he had been black. On his last day of work I had bought him, at his request, a copy of Johnny Paycheck album with Take This Job and Shove It on it. He put it on the intercom system for the whole building as he left from his last day.

What responsibilities did you have as a teen that would make a modern helicopter parent’s head explode?

When I was 16, my 5 year old sister was expelled from a special summer school for special needs children. My sister was accused of calling another child the b word. My sister had a vocabulary of 2 words at that time, the b word was not one of them. After she was expelled, it dawned on me that she wasn’t going to get better unless I helped her myself. So for the rest of the summer, I dedicated 3 hours of the day devoted to teaching her words. The first hour was just going around the house, pointing at things, and saying their name out loud. The 2nd hour focused on conversation. How are you? What’s your name? How old are you? Just me questioning and answering everything, at least in the beginning. The 3rd hour, we just worked on her letters, writing and reading. Again, most of it involved me doing the talking, but she had to be there to listen. The first week was brutal. She cried, I cried. But after the first week, she understood I wasn’t going to let up. She started becoming more cooperative. I couldn’t believe it myself, but by the time September came around, we were going to the library and she was saying hi to people she didn’t know. Her 1st grade teacher even made a remark about her improvement to my mother on the first day. Obviously, this was just the beginning of a long road to catching up to her age level, communication wise. But it was at least, the beginning. I now understand that my sister’s misdiagnosis of autism was actually a defense mechanism to our abusive father. If I didn’t make her hunker down that summer, would she have eventually spoke on her own anyway? I’m honestly not sure, but I hope so. I always knew my sister was a bright girl, she understood what I asked her. She understood how the remote control worked. She was even smart enough to figure out that if she pretended not to speak, my father wouldn’t focus on her and most likely not start any fights with her that lead to her getting abused somehow. My sister is now on her last year of pharmacy school, and she even made a wonderful speech during my wedding 4 years ago. I remember looking at her during her speech, and being flooded with emotion while she spoke. Emotion full of pride and happiness of how far she has come. I am so grateful that I never underestimated her.

I’m a Believer – The Monkees

The Delicate Task of Loving a Misbehaving Adult

December 15, 2023

In the journey of life, one of the most heart-wrenching experiences we face as adults is witnessing our loved ones – be they friends or family – make unwise choices or behave in ways that are harmful to themselves or others.

Whether it’s a friend perpetually entangled in toxic relationships, a family member clinging to self-destructive habits, or a partner making choices that leave you bewildered, the helplessness can be suffocating.

As adults, we are accustomed to taking control of our lives, making decisions that shape our destiny. However, when it comes to the actions of those we care about, we are often rendered powerless. Watching a friend spiral into bad habits, or a family member persist in destructive behavior, can evoke a deep sense of helplessness. This feeling is compounded by the knowledge that, despite our best intentions, we cannot live their lives for them or make their choices.

But here’s the thing: sometimes, love isn’t about erecting guardrails or playing puppet master. It’s about accepting that, as adults, we have the right, even the responsibility, to navigate our own paths – even if those paths wind through pothole-infested back alleys.

It’s not about condoning their actions, mind you. It’s about acknowledging that sometimes, the most painful lessons are learned through stumbles and scrapes. And while our instincts may scream to warn, to protect, sometimes stepping back allows for a different kind of love to bloom – the silent, steadfast kind that trusts in their resilience, even when we doubt it ourselves.

This doesn’t mean becoming emotionally inert bystanders. Open communication, laced with empathy and devoid of judgment, can be a lifeline. But ultimately, we must accept that our loved ones possess an internal compass, even if it points north while the rest of the world shouts “south!”

Think of it like holding a pebble in your palm. Clench your fist too tight, and it slips away. But hold it loosely, with open fingers, and it finds its own equilibrium, nestled comfortably within your trust. That’s the delicate dance we play – offering support without smothering, guidance without dictating, and love that endures even when the path they choose forks wildly from our own.

So, the next time you find yourself wincing at your loved one’s choices, remember: sometimes, the greatest act of love is letting go, trusting that even in their stumbles, they are learning, growing, and finding their own unique way home. And when they do, with arms grazed and knees scraped, let your open palm be the first haven they find.

Because in the end, love isn’t about shielding them from every misstep, but about being there, with open arms and open hearts, to catch them when they fall.

What is the most inappropriate thing you have been asked to do or have done at work?

Falsify official test results.

“You gotta certify this periscope for install.”

“No, I have to INSPECT the periscope for install. It failed.”

“I am giving you an ORDER, here. You WILL certify this periscope for install! That submarine has to get underway tomorrow! It’ll take a week to get another one down here!”

“The periscope failed inspection. Here, here, and here. The gouges are too deep, as I measured them.”

“(insert expletive here), I’m giving you a direct order! Sign off on the inspection!”

“Put the order in writing, then. I’ll sign off as it being by direction, but I need the paperwork.”

And he did. I tucked the paperwork into the folder, and saluted. “I’ll take care of it, sir.” and walked out. 20 minutes later, I was before the Task Group Commander, showing him the uncompleted paperwork and the written order. My problem child was in the brig awaiting a court-martial before the sun went down.

Every step requiring a QA sign-off is present because someone died, something failed catastrophically, or the ship sank. Every. Single. One. Asking me to falsify test results is putting a gun to your head and telling me to pull the trigger. I may not pull it, but cell or bodybag, you are not ever going to be a problem for me again.

I have an IQ level in the 99th percentile. Why do intellectual inferiors think that they can argue with me?

Here’s a story that may help. The last time I checked, my IQ is in between the 98th and 99th percentile. A few years ago, I had to change the wipers on my car. I spent over an hour on those damn wipers, with no progress. They could not be put on. There was no doubt in my mind they were defective as I read the instructions, watched videos, and tried every possible solutions that came to mind. Eventually, an extended family member of mine pulled up, and asked what I was doing. This guy is probably your exact definition of stupid, because he was mine up until that day. He’s worked blue collar jobs his whole life, has a ninth grade education, and literally has a tattoo of a bird perched on top of his ear defecating onto his shoulder. As he got out of his truck, with a 40 oz Olde English in each hand, he asked me what I doing. I told him I was trying to replace my wipers, but it couldn’t be done. He cocked his head to the side, handed me his beers, and put the wipers on in about 90 seconds, all without saying a word. He took his drinks back and walked inside.

If Jesus himself had appeared before me, that would’ve still been the second most shocking thing of the day. Here’s a guy I always viewed as intellectually inferior, and in 90 seconds he gave me one of the most humbling lessons I’ve ever experienced. There’s no doubt in my mind I could score much higher than him on an IQ test. But I will NEVER consider him an intellectual inferior to me. In anything automobile related, or construction related, he is Albert Einstein and I’m Chevy Chase’s Gerald Ford.

Given the proper circumstance, I guarantee you I would have the exact same experience with 99% of the population (and so would you). Everyone is better than me at something. And given the proper circumstance, I could be in the reverse situation with just about anyone in the planet. I’d be willing to go head to head in a debate with Neil deGrasse Tyson on a range of subjects from the economics of various tax rates to how to navigate downtown Los Angeles, and any high school football player would mop the floor with me on a debate about nutrition or exercise, and likely be on par with me in terms of competitive business strategy (football teaches a lot). Does that mean this average football player is intellectually superior to me, or I’m intellectually superior to Neil deGrasse Tyson? The answer is no and hell no respectively.

“Every man I meet is in some way my superior; and in that I can learn of him.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Greatest How To Handle Your GF If She Asks For An Open Relationship Story That I’ve EVER Heard!

How could the United States expand sanctions on China’s chip industry?

A better question is how could the United States expand sanctions on China’s chip industry without repercussions that hurt the U.S. more than China? And the Answer is it can’t. It simply can’t!

Chips are nothing unless it is used as a component of a product for example a smartphone or a computer. And China as a market dwarfs the U.S. by several folds. Today there are a billion Chinese consumer of high technologies compared to say 250 million in the U.S.! That is 4 folds higher! China’s consumer market alone is 30–35% if the entire world! Can the U.S. not be hurt if these consumers are forced into buying a different chips?

But worst is that from the 2/3 of the rest of the world market, most of their products are either assembled or made in China! That constitute another 30–40% of the world’s market! So the U.S. by sanctioning China U.S. sanctioning the U.S. chip makers of some 60–70% of the market. Or it has direct influence or possibly sell to only 30–40% of the world’s market.

But that is just the first nightmare for the U.S. Next, China will make equivalent products within 3 year’s maximum and then. Even this 30–40% rest of the world market will choose a Chinese make that is cheaper, faster and better than the U.S. products. Your entire chip industry will thoroughly collapse and U.S. government will be faced with high unemployment and bankruptcy!

So if I were you, I will vote in a smarter U.S. government!

The Unruly Legacy of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Penis, “Jumbo”

December 15, 2023

Lyndon B. Johnson, the Texan titan who bestrode American politics like a colossus, wasn’t just a master of deal-making and arm-twisting. He was also a virtuoso of the grotesque, a man who wielded his larger-than-life persona and even his anatomy as instruments of power. And no body part played a more outlandish role than “Jumbo,” his self-bestowed nickname for his, shall we say, prominent appendage.

Jumbo wasn’t just a playful euphemism. It was a banner, a declaration of Johnson’s unvarnished masculinity, his disregard for decorum, and his uncanny ability to disarm and dominate in equal measure. He’d whip it out in conversation, brandishing it like a political cudgel, leaving colleagues both amused and discomfited. He’d conduct business from the porcelain throne, transforming the mundane into a performance of power, a reminder to all who dared to enter that even the most intimate act couldn’t diminish his authority.

But Jumbo was more than a mere spectacle. It was a tool, a calculated act of vulnerability that disarmed and drew in. In the stuffy halls of Washington, where power was often cloaked in formality, Johnson’s bawdy humor and open displays of Jumbo were a breath of fresh Texas air. He used it to connect with men who might otherwise have found him intimidating, to forge bonds of shared laughter and discomfort, turning vulnerability into a twisted currency of trust.

Of course, not everyone appreciated the show. Critics saw it as crass, a vulgar display of egotism. But Caro, in his masterful biography, “Master of the Senate,” argues that Jumbo was more than just a personal quirk. It was a carefully crafted persona, a deliberate performance of power that allowed Johnson to operate outside the traditional bounds of political decorum. He was the bull in the china shop, shattering expectations and asserting his dominance through sheer audacity.

And Jumbo wasn’t just about power. It was also about intimacy, a way of connecting with men in a way that transcended the usual political machinations. In the close-knit world of the Senate, where loyalty and trust were paramount, Jumbo became a shared secret, a badge of belonging in Johnson’s inner circle.

Jumbo was, ultimately, a microcosm of Johnson himself: complex, contradictory, and undeniably effective. It was a reminder that power can be wielded in unexpected ways, that vulnerability can be a weapon, and that even the most outlandish behavior can be a calculated act of self-promotion.

So, the next time you hear of Lyndon B. Johnson, remember Jumbo. Remember the man who dared to bare his soul, his body, and his ambitions in equal measure. Remember the Texan who rode roughshod over convention, leaving a trail of laughter, discomfort, and, yes, even a little bit of awe in his wake.

Red Cooked Beef (Hung Shao Niu Jo — China)

Ingredients

• 1 (2 pound) beef boneless chuck, tip or round
• 3 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons dry white wine or sherry
• 1 thin slice fresh or canned ginger root or 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 scallion, cut lengthwise into halves
• 1 clove garlic, cut into halves
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• Fresh cilantro (optional)
• Toasted sesame seed

Instructions

1. Trim fat from beef; cut beef into 1 1/2-inch cubes. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in wok or 12-inch skillet until hot. Stir-fry half the beef cubes until brown on all sides, about 2 minutes. Remove beef to 3-quart saucepan. Repeat with remaining oil and beef.
2. Mix water, soy sauce, wine, gingerroot, scallion, garlic, sugar and pepper; add to beef. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until beef is tender, about 1 hour.
3. Garnish with small sprigs of cilantro; sprinkle with sesame seed. Serve with hot cooked Chinese noodles, if desired.

Yields 8 servings.

Has a company ever done something so annoying that you swore off ever buying any of their products ever again?

Walgreens ran this customer rewards program in which you accumulated points and you could, whenever you felt like it, redeem those points for discounts from products.

Many of their promotions included bonus points. “+1000 pts if you buy this 12 pack of Coke!”

It was a basic rewards program. The points translate to dollars. You get it.

So I have one of these stores right by my house. I stop there frequently.

I kept savings these points up. I’d saved them up for over 4 years. I had close to $100 in my account. To be used whenever on products at their store.

I stopped in to pick up some drinks/snacks on the way home.

The lady says, “Would you like to use any of your balance rewards?”

I say, “How much do I have right now?” (I always checked. I was enjoying stacking them up.)

She says, “You have $21.”

Record stop.

“Hold up, I had a lot more than that in there. I’ve been saving for years?”

She says, “Yes they recently changed the policy. Only your most recent 12 months can count towards the purchase.”

I’m pissed off.

I say, “Well – let’s put the $21 towards this purchase.”

She says, “You can only use $5 for each purchase.”

<deep sigh>

I put the $5 towards the purchase.

I haven’t fully cut Walgreens off but I am in the process of cutting them off. I spend about 80% less there now.

Just as a matter of principle — I’ll make sure their competitor across the street gets multiples of the $79 that they took with the cheap policy change.

I hate shady business tactics.

Lesson: Any time you get points with a store — use them quickly.

It’s All FAKE | The Dead Internet Theory