1. Either when I was in elementary school or early middle school, I was pushed from behind into the deep end of a pool (~10 feet IIRC) not knowing how to swim. I didn’t have the chance to take a breath, so I wasn’t buoyant and struggled to make any more progress than ~3 feet below the surface. I was underwater long enough to get tunnel vision and start to pass out; I was pretty upset at the kid that pushed me in and why it took him so long to help me out. Sure, not really life or death, but enough to get me exhausted and have memories of my young life flash before me.
2. While working at a grocery store, I was nearly hit by a car driven by some dick kid flooring it in the parking lot while I was bringing in shopping carts. To this day, people zooming through parking lots really aggravates me.
3. Heard and felt a ricochet from a .243 Winchester FMJ round next to my left ear when sighting in a scope as I shot a target pinned to a round hay bale ~50 yards away. The round/shrapnel was estimated to be within 2 inches of my head. I’m unsure how the ricochet traveled at almost the same angle of incidence. I just know that I felt it whiz by.
4. Fell 8-12 feet while free soloing the King and Queen Seat in Maryland and managed to turn during the fall and blindly catch my arm. I estimate that I caught myself 35-40 feet from the ground.
5. Had a gun pulled on me a couple times.

Does the 21 year old need a father figure at that age? Is their biological or step-father not around? I don’t see the need for the 21 year old to accept an 18 year old as a father figure since they’re already an adult. Express personal boundaries but let them live their own life.

Agreed. A few of my physician/nursing friends mentioned that they see these kinds of injuries on rare occasions and have always been attributed to patients in serious mental/emotional distress, so this level of desperation is unfortunately still out there.

It could be a desperate suicide attempt. The magnets get trapped in the bowels by sticking together at various points, necrotizing or rupturing the intestines or other tissues, which can cause peritonitis or ultimately sepsis, which can be fatal.

Void cattoos

Any number of places. It could have been a stowaway in luggage, imported livestock, etc.

It only takes 1 opportunity to change your life.

This issue always baffles me.

The amazing thing about owning a penis is that I can still pee sitting down and there’s never any drama. Have to poop? Don’t even have to move! Have to fart? Go for it! Not farting in your underwear makes them smell fresher for longer, anyway.

Unpopular opinion: profanity is massively overhyped and people that excessively swear tend to irk me. There are so many ways to passionately express emotion, at least in the English language, yet so many are fascinated with only a few. The word “fuck” in particular loses all gravitas after hearing it 150 times a day for most of my life. I’ve had to stop watching certain shows because swearing felt so excessively forced to perhaps come across as edgy, and it broke all immersion for me.

A long time ago in a synapse far far away in another corner of my brain:

I suppose, but… coming from the world of GC Impreza coupes (where the doors are very long - similar in length to F-body Camaros and whatnot) and even NC Miatas, I think this driver just has main character syndrome. The empty spaces nearby may have not been empty when the other car arrived, and people just frankly don’t think about things as much as we may think they do.

I never noticed how modest my childhood lifestyle was until my 1st grade teacher asked the class what we all did for vacation during the school break. I worked on a ranch or stayed home playing with secondhand toys. I remember thinking “wait… is this what people do? How?” I remember missing out on many opportunities as a child (travel, sports, restaurants, etc) due to finances, but still don’t consider it being a “poor” upbringing overall. My parents did the best they could with what they had, and I think having limited opportunities actually helped me be more creative with my time.

Anyway, back to the point… when we had them available sometime after getting a microwave, I ate hot dogs like this periodically in elementary school through college.

It is a recurring meme and wasn’t designed or published by Chik-fil-A.

Hey, that’s good marketing. It grabs attention and we’re talking about it.

The breaks worked similarly when I worked hourly shifts in the US:

• <= 6 hrs: 1x 15m paid break
• > 6 hrs: 1x 30m unpaid lunch, 2x 15m paid breaks

It was most common to be scheduled for 6 hr shifts so the company could avoid paying for the extra break.

People are often advised to not lock their knees for a long time while standing (ex: marching band, or standing at attention in the military), and you cannot force anyone to have healthy posture. The ergonomics of these seats appear to take some of the load off the legs and feet, but it’s something to consider for patrons with more sedentary lifestyles. Many people believe themselves to be fit individuals until they are placed in uncomfortable conditions for a long time or experience unexpected stress. They could manage to injure themselves in some way, then find some reason to litigate.

“No mames” is a slang phrase in Spanish which is used to mean “no way” or “you’re kidding me,” but with a crude connotation, similar to “no f—ing way” in English.

Google Translate shows it as being more vulgar:

_{sad richmond noises}

But imagine the traffic 🙃

Let me tell you a story.

December 2017. I was moving across the United States with my gf (now ex) from Maryland to Oregon. We were packing up a 1600sqft 3br house where 90% of the stuff belonged to her. About half of the way through packing, she took a 1-way flight to Oregon to start looking for houses to rent. I wasn’t happy about this but I vastly underestimated the remaining work to be done and couldn’t convince her to stay.

I rented a 26’ Penske truck and car trailer and, after discussing the timeline and general itinerary, convinced a friend to drive my Miata to roadtrip with me since I can’t tow 2 vehicles at once. I then spent the next 4-5 days alone (friends weren’t available to help), sleeping about 3 hours at a time and making as much progress as I physically could before collapsing. I was behind on time and had to extend the move-out day with the landlords 3 times. My gf was sympathetic over the phone but couldn’t help at that point. Two days before the move, my friend asks if he can bring his gf along. I said it wasn’t ideal since this was gonna be a fun roadtrip as bros where we make an event out of it together, but he’s doing me a huge favor, so… fine.

Now the day of the move, my friend and his gf arrive and we eventually load the last 20% of the trailer and get my gf’s Prius on the tow dolly. It’s now nighttime but I can’t stay to the following day, my landlord said. But wait, there’s an issue with the trailer brake. While inspecting the trailer, a neighbor yells at us and threatens to call the cops because we blocked her driveway while trying to pull away. I responded “great! You think they could help us with this?!” This only set us back maybe 20 minutes and we hit the road, driving through the night.

The next day was relatively uneventful as we cruised through the miles. My friend and I chatted a little when stopping at gas stations, but he wasn’t super talkative with me; I assumed he was chatting with his gf most of the time. I had expected him to stay with the truck to help alert me if I was looking drowsy, had any breakdowns, etc, but to my dismay, he darted off. I called, asking where he went off to, and he said that he’d meet up with me later. Uhhhhh… not OK, but what else can I do? I can’t afford the $3k to have my car hauled to Oregon at this point. Fine… I guess.

Many more hours go by and I don’t hear much from my friend. I pulled over onto the hard shoulder to give him a call and… he’s in an entirely different state! (I think I was in Iowa at this point and he was in Missouri.) He said that he got a hotel in Kansas City and invited me to stay there as well. It was about a 45-minute detour (IIRC) but I hadn’t had good sleep in over a week, so I said I’d meet him in the room. Of course, as I was pulling back onto the road, the right-side tires veered slightly into the soft shoulder and felt the trailer lean drastically to the right as they sank into the soft embankment. I managed to correct onto the hard shoulder and felt the wave of frustration wash over me: I’ve never driven anything remotely this large and this is exactly why I was hoping to have a travel buddy!

I eventually met up with my friend and his gf in the hotel room and slept in a bed for the first time in a week.

The following morning, we met for continental breakfast and I managed to keep my cool about how everything had been going, but did make it clear that I’d expected us to stay together. That is, until he and his gf expressed how they wanted to reroute to go through the mountain roads (they’re in my Miata, after all… but it’s December) and then visit family in Salt Lake. What… my truck was overloaded and had difficulty making some of the hills already - I didn’t feel comfortable traveling on the narrower mountain roads. The details of the subsequent conversation are fuzzy but we were at an impasse. They’d made up their mind and, despite my reasoning, them ditching my car in Kansas City and leaving seemed a much worse option than going alone.

So I went it alone.

I got very good at backing up such a large trailer (with a Prius on a trailer behind me) as I navigated the Pac-Man-esque parking lot, then was back on the interstate. With no one else to account for, it was just me and the road ahead of me. The hours flew by. Until… I got a panicked call from my gf. She was having a panic attack with the whole housing situation and felt like she needed me as soon as possible. She felt lost and I felt helpless. At this point, a switch flipped in my mind. New objective: get to Oregon as quickly as possible.

I drove through Kansas, through Colorado (not through mountain passes), through Wyoming (and saw a spectacular meteor shower in the jet black sky), and Utah. Another panicked call came while driving through Idaho, only more tense. The pressure was getting to her, and my cumulative stress and exhaustion was getting to me. The call went very poorly and we were on each others’ last nerves.

Night fell as I drove through the Cascades. Snowfall was blinding as I gained elevation. I would call this a whiteout; the only thing I could see were the flashing red hazard lights from a semi in front of me. If the semi were to drive off the road, I was sure to follow. To my bewilderment, a bold BMV driver blazed past the semi and me. Even more astonishingly, they used their signal when passing. Not having had any positive human interaction in a long time, I started a Signal video chat with my parents. I showed them the whiteout I was driving through, which understandably made them extremely nervous. What made it worse is that the call dropped shortly after. I can only imagine how they felt…

I reconnected with my parents and my gf as I drove along the Columbia River. I drove from Missouri to Oregon in a single sitting and I was the most tired I have ever been; I apologize to anyone else on the road while I was driving. I eventually arrived at the Airbnb after what felt like an eternity. I shared an unenthusiastic greeting with my gf as the tension had not yet dissipated, and my friend (and his gf) met us for coffee. The next day or three were spent looking for a place to call home, which we did eventually find, but I have not heard from or spoken to my friend since. Nor have I paid him back for the gas charges he left for me in the center console.

Shoulda just hired movers.