This Happened

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Jul 18, 2021 4:57 pm

I thought we had a thread like this already but maybe I'm thinking of a previous version. Anyway, I needed a place for observations of the bizarre things that go on in life so that I could post this story, for which I desperately need an outlet for reasons that will make themselves clear:

The background of the story is that at various times in the past month I have been sick or hurt in one way or another. Last week I had to spend two days mostly in bed sick, but even so I got up and did my usual work. The people here are not entirely without sympathy, but it's for damn sure no one is catering to me or waiting on me hand and foot when I'm sick, and this ox goes down only when it is felled and forced. If I'm sick but somebody has to answer the door, I'll be jumping up to put those clothes on. If the paperwork has to be filled out and I feel like s*** then I'm going to get up and fill out the paperwork, you know what I mean?

So now the pendulum has swung the other way and it is another person who is sick, and I feel bad for this person because you don't like to see people being sick and unhappy. I genuinely do feel bad and wish to help, even though the patient is relentlessly cranky, and certainly is not going to get up and answer the door or put on clothes or deal with the dog or fill out the paperwork or anything else that isn't absolutely essential. And that's how it should be!! It should be that way!

So we arrive at our story. I'm in the kitchen doing something when the phone intercom starts going off, the one that loudly rings all the handsets. Breeep breep breep!!! I inquire about what's going on in case people are dying or need water or something, and I'm told to send up a person to clean a piece of cat poop off the bathroom rug. As it happens I am procuring toilet paper for another person at that very moment, since their restroom is out of toilet paper, so I yell to the others to go up and help with this cat situation. Apparently no one responds because after about 30 seconds the intercom starts ringing again. Now I'm very far from a phone handset and doing something else with the laundry, so I can't get to it and the intercom keeps going and going and ringing and ringing until I can finally come over and inquire, what else is needed now? Reader, nothing new was needed. The person ringing the intercom, because they are too weak and urgently need help, was safely ensconced in their bed a very long distance from any dangerous cat dropping, but they were mad that a person had not yet appeared to gather this item. I called to my child, please come up and deal with the cat poop! But the child has its earphones on and is not listening. Yet another child indicates that the cat was making the motions and noises of vomiting earlier, so the thing being identified as a poop is more than likely a hairball or vomit blob, which after all is usually the same color and shape and size.

I decide to investigate because the kid is so slow and I need to go up there anyway. I move the large dog out of the way and slip into the bathroom. There is no cat poop anywhere. There is no cat vomit anywhere. I report this finding. My report is disbelieved. People are very cranky about this. It must be dealt with immediately. So I go back in and look all around on every possible portion of the floor to ensure that I am not missing something and my eyes aren't playing tricks on me. No cat poop, no cat hairball or vomit. Nothing.

The child assigned to clean the cat poop finally arrives. The two of us dance around the large dog and trade places. This whole time, the sick person who is too sick to do anything except to be cranky and criticize everyone else has been crankily criticizing the notion that there is no cat poop in that bathroom. Indeed, he insists that we are both wrong! The joy of proving that we are both wrong is tempting enough to overcome the perils of rising from the sick bed. I scoot out of there in a hurry because I don't want to be present for the argument between these people about what they are seeing or not seeing on the bathroom mat.

As I turn to call the dog along, he licks his lips enthusiastically and I suddenly realize what has happened: the cat threw up something, and the dog preceded me upstairs and ate it with relish! I am paralyzed with the silent laughter. They are still debating about cat poop in the bathroom.

Mando · Post by **Mando** » Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:46 am

It reads like a Reader's Digest story. I loved it.

bralbovsky · Post by **bralbovsky** » Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:48 pm

Clearly, one of your children did respond to your call.

There is no solution to this. The seeds were sown, probably by a loving but foolish mom.
In our family, illness always comes with the fear of being left behind for the wolves.
My son has exactly the same arrangement you do. It's not fair.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Tue Jul 20, 2021 6:08 am

This story is much, much more entertaining when you’ve met the cranky person in real life. I can imagine the exact exasperated demands for help and incredulous disbelief. So good.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Aug 07, 2021 11:16 pm

True story:
I go to a thing and there's a woman there with a mask underneath her nose. Because a mask has one of those special cookies that conforms to your nose - first it was talking about mice and now it's talking about cookies I don't even know.
Let's try this again:
The thing that conforms to the nose is v-shaped and so when it's upside down it like dips under the nose in the opposite manner. So it looked for all the world like she was purposely wearing the mask in such a way as to stick her nose out of it fully.
And this person's job was to process a line of customer.
So there she is might as well not be wearing the mask.
I am usually able to behave properly in public but I think I lost myself for a moment and was just staring with a kind of hostile horror at her nose area, when I kid you not, this woman raised up a finger and fingernail to her nostrils and began to pick her nose right there in front of me with her mask gapping and dangling underneath her nose and the whole time she's talking. Talking whilst picking the nose. I have not seen the like of this.
Well that's a lie I'm pretty sure I've seen toddlers trying to talk while also trying to pick their nose but even then it's pretty gross even for a kid. It takes some work even for a kid.
now I realize from time to time we all get a itchy thing in our nose and we have to extract it. That's why the world has given us tissue. If you can't get tissue there's a lot of other things you can substitute but what you can't do is be in the middle of talking to strangers with your gappy mouse hand to your nose because of covid and then all of a sudden you're picking your nose right there.
It gets better though y'all: she then handed me a paper with that same finger touching all over it that she had just had in her nostril!
I just stood there frozen in horror and kind of shrink back from the paper physically, lol.
I've lost touch with what is wrong with the fellow humans these days.

DMDarcs · Post by **DMDarcs** » Wed Aug 18, 2021 10:17 am

This picture is literally around the block. Last night was fun!

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Wed Aug 18, 2021 2:46 pm

Holy crap! Did it affect your or Bludevyl's house?

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Wed Aug 18, 2021 2:46 pm

(Crap. Get it? I'll let myself out.)

DMDarcs · Post by **DMDarcs** » Wed Aug 18, 2021 9:02 pm

My house was fine. Bluedevyl got a ton of water in his basement, but not from the sewage plant.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Wed Aug 18, 2021 10:06 pm

How awful! Are these the remnants of Fred?

DMDarcs · Post by **DMDarcs** » Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:18 am

I believe so.

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Thu Aug 19, 2021 11:48 am

My father-in-law's camp is still dealing with the huge rainfall. Leaky roof, runoff that poured down the outside stairs like rapids. Lake rose like two feet since Sunday. We were planning on spending all next week there on my vacation but looking like not... Delta was going to keep us local, and now rain looks like it's going to keep us home.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Sep 03, 2021 7:55 pm

I have nowhere and no one to complain about this to, so I'm sorry in advance but this is how it is: sometimes you need to yell into the void that being hangry is not an excuse for being a dick. That's all.
Tldr explanation omitted for everyone's well-being and continued success and thriving.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:43 pm

Changed mind again: the commentary of Bots selling Medicine has somehow felt like a grotesque comedy after one pours out the heart. Long story short:
The man had a toddler tantrum because he couldn't find his bag of potato chips (which were on the pantry) and blamed me for it, would not apologize for the tantrum, blamed me for that too as usual, pretended he DID apologize when he didn't, and in all this helped make me late to see my kid's band performance, which I then missed. Very much feeling sorry for the self ensued, pointlessly.
Now I have been bought off with:
Culver's raspberry lemon ice (honestly just made me mad because I cannot turn it down when it's in my presence and it only makes you fatter), and building an internet-purchased, assembly-required stool (shows the usefulness of a spouse, yes, but here I am going to take my car in while others sleep in, and the car was 10000% NOT on my side of the grand labor division that has so marked twenty years of my life).
Let's see how little will need to be added to the buyout. Oh I also got a text saying I'm Sorry. Necessary.

Stan · Post by **Stan** » Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:57 pm

That sucks. This is normal in the sense that is a common sort of thing to happen but it's also bullshit that no one should have to put up with.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:09 am

Stan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:57 pm That sucks. This is normal in the sense that is a common sort of thing to happen but it's also bullshit that no one should have to put up with.

I appreciate your commentary and it was worth it to have written down what happened just to read your reply, and for the purgative effect.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:07 am

I'm sorry this happened to you. I know we're only hearing one side of this marital story, but that side sure seems to suck. My marriage goal has always been: don't give my wife a reason to complain to her friends about how mean or stupid I am. I'm certainly not perfect in that regard. But when I hear stories such as yours, it reminds me why I'm trying.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Sep 04, 2021 7:56 pm

Oh, he is very good most of the time. I'm sorry to be complaining about it. My problem is that I do have some friends (shock!) but for various reasons it isn't the type of thing I can discuss with them. One got divorced and her ex-husband is friends with my husband; one got divorced and her husband actually did really bad things so I feel like it would be idiotic for me to gripe about potato chip incidents; and my closest friends are extremely happily married in one case to a close friend of my husband and in another case in such a fundamentally happy and wise way that I would be embarrassed to admit anything. But like I said he is very good, and the only real complaint I have is I don't like being married to a smoker because that's not good. I live like a spoiled princess, though I do work very hard and I would say I definitely do my share of the work and then some. As I get older I am tired and slacking more, since you realize how it is. My husband has only made me genuinely upset on about six occasions: 10/10/03, 5/3/04, 5/5/07, 7/?/08, 7/31/09, and 8/7/10. Very good for the last 11 years, and imagine being married to the kind of crazy witch who cannot help remembering all those dates. Just imagine having to live with someone with a brain like mine, but you know I didn't choose it. I came this way!
Plus he's assembling me a bunch of chairs and I can't be mad because I don't want to do that. It is really, ultra nice to have someone to assemble your chairs. Maybe he feels slightly guilty and is being extra nice? Doesn't matter why. I really like the chairs.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Sep 05, 2021 3:16 pm

Eh, same BS just happened again today, for a similarly stupid reason.
The pattern is always the same stupid thing:
Husband says a rude thing or does something annoying or inconveniencing.
He can't possibly admit that he has said something rude or done anything annoying.
He is perfect, he is beyond criticism, nothing can be said against him.
Therefore if anybody is even slightly annoyed about anything he does, it's very clear that it's their fault. This includes him losing his own potato chips, this includes him locking you out of your own bedroom. These things are your fault even though it seems pretty clear that they're not your fault. Don't worry, they are.

Editing to say:
Details are not important; the only important thing is to go to the gym or go swimming because that's our happy place.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Sun Sep 05, 2021 3:30 pm

Some of that sounds uncomfortably familiar.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Sep 05, 2021 4:31 pm

I have the solution: go swimming! There is only happiness.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Sun Sep 05, 2021 6:23 pm

Phoebe wrote: ↑Sun Sep 05, 2021 4:31 pm I have the solution: go swimming! There is only happiness.

That’s is a damn good idea, but it’s crappy weather here so the pool was closed.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:09 am

Phoebe wrote: ↑Sat Sep 04, 2021 7:56 pm Oh, he is very good most of the time. I'm sorry to be complaining about it.

Like I said, I realize we're only hearing your part of the story, and you perhaps are only sharing your frustrations but not your joys. But I sympathize with you, nonetheless.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Sep 06, 2021 1:41 pm

Good news: many compensatory good deeds were performed. I don't know whether that was an accident (which is still just as good) or if there was some degree of intentional making up for being a way. Either way it's nice that we have peace in the valley and good behavior. I appreciate the support; My gripes are small ones but sometimes you have to gripe for sanity.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Tue Sep 07, 2021 4:20 pm

This darn dog has figured out how to open the gate that is supposed to prevent him from coming upstairs. But we can't ever catch him in the act and figure out how he's doing it. Is he somehow opening the cat door and going through that? Is he somehow slithering through a space between the banisters on the stairs? We have no idea.

Stan · Post by **Stan** » Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:32 am

While walking from my car to work, I felt a slightly wetness on my thigh. My immediate thought was, "I fucked up and didn't close my thermos all the way." This is a reasonable conclusion as I fail in this way every year or so. I check the front pocket of my bag. Leaked wasn't quite right. The flip top had opened up and dumped the entire pint of coffee into the bag. Things were floating in the pool and the bag was slowly leaking as it's not designed to be a beverage container. Everything got soaked. Here I am in caffeine withdrawal trying to figure out meeting notes on a browned and crumpled notebook.

I thank the gods it wasn't my other bag with my laptop in it.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Oct 01, 2021 4:28 pm

Nooooooooo! Coffee the supporter of life should not transform into a betrayer!

Potato chips doing better:
I threw a potato chip left behind on the table by a child to my dog - I tried to fling it through the open door into the adjacent room where by dog was, but I Missed and instead flung the chip - which somehow went perfectly vertical and flat for this brief moment - straight through the 1/8 in vertical gap between the door frame and the open door. The chip arrived unblemished on the other side, where the dog leapt up and grabbed it midair. This event could not be duplicated if I tried two thousand times.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:13 pm

Just found out that a good friend is getting divorced.

And my friend’s yahrzeit started when the sun went down.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:59 pm

Hey that experience is so real - our brains must store important information of this type in a way that connects to the inner calendar, and then we feel it later not just in mind but in body. I hope you are able to have some private quiet for remembrance.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Fri Oct 22, 2021 11:07 am

We've reached the tipping point in the school year, at least for one of my classes--it's slipping away into anarchy, and I don't know how to stop that from happening.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Oct 29, 2021 2:11 pm

Bored by meetings I became distracted by watching a documentary on Mongolian Judo - this was essentially a pornography, from my individual perspective and lived bodily experience - and the next video I was given, while recovering from twenty minutes of watching (clothed) wrestler gentlemen run up and down the steppes and carry one another through rivers for training, was this one. I have literally spent 10 straight minutes now crying - completely sodden with the helpless, bursting tears of hysterical laughter - having to use an actual paper towel to wipe off my face instead of a mere tissue. This is not really "funny" in the sense that... well, it's not a joke but it's beyond the mind's ability to cope. I can't take it. Tears are coming out and the whole torso is convulsing with the preliminaries of involuntary laughter simply from thinking about it again so I have to stop:

OK have recovered enough to point out, this all started with innocent efforts to listen to the sounds of Mongolian stringed instruments and singing. That led to this and that and finally the document about Mongolian Judo, might as well post that too. You may or may not take the same intense delight in watching this that I did, but it's an amazing video simply for investigating the workouts. You know, try this workout at home, that kind of thing. The way they do the pushups into a downward dog, for example. Anyway, the main guy they are interviewing here, "my lucky shirt" green shamrock shirt guy? I like him.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Oct 31, 2021 12:53 pm

Help meeeee my spouse has to liquid-fast for a whole day before doctor visit tomorrow and he hasn't even hit the hangry stage yet, barely awakened, and already whining about how it is MY fault his pop is not cold, and if I don't like the whining that's my fault too because you know, obviously. The whining is something in nature like floods or ice or me needing to fetch the pop, but not wanting to be blamed and cried to all day is my doing. After all, I could decide I like this. It's my job not only to fetch the pop from the store last night, which I did, but to put it in the fridge rather than leaving it beside the fridge. Ice in the pop to cool it is an option for peasants; unacceptable. Upside: today we dine on Chicken.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Nov 05, 2021 9:15 pm

Today I am very pleased with Mike even though he and his family are heartless and do not wish to come visit me, because I took his advice about grocery shopping and then ended up paying something like 74 cents per gallon of gas today on my giant 16 gallons worth of gas. So I saved like $36 because of Mike.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:42 am

I've spent a huge amount time this morning tracking down plagiarism. Despite being told repeatedly, many of the students think that copying something from a website and turning it in is okay. Sometimes they end up finding something unrelated to the question on Google.

And I can't get the students to do a fucking thing today--just constantly circulating, tell them over and over and over, and telling them to put phones away and get to work.

I've heard people say that the key to teaching is forming good relationships with students. I think I have pretty good relationships with my students, and it doesn't do a fucking thing.

I hate this job. I fucking hate it. I feel like it's killing me.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Tue Nov 09, 2021 12:43 am

Unfortunately I have no answers but if you hate it you have to try to find a way out, a passage to something you would enjoy spending time doing at least a little more. Or maybe just the kind of job where you can be quiet and left alone for the most part?

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Tue Nov 09, 2021 6:48 am

This happened! I mad a bacon-wrapped cheese-stuffed meatloaf for my boys and they loved it! They hated meatloaf before this. It was joyous, even though I couldn’t eat it.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Tue Nov 09, 2021 9:05 am

Phoebe wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 12:43 am Unfortunately I have no answers but if you hate it you have to try to find a way out, a passage to something you would enjoy spending time doing at least a little more. Or maybe just the kind of job where you can be quiet and left alone for the most part?

Realistically I can't change careers--we need the insurance and the pension. Maybe there's something else in the system that I could do, but I suspect the fact that I'm terrible at my job would prevent me from getting one of those.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Tue Nov 09, 2021 11:57 pm

Civil service maybe? We are told that the job market is getting better for job seekers but I don't know if that's really true. For example, haven't heard that it is causing employers to offer better benefits like they once did, so until that happens... Anyway, I like to blithely insist that you must be better at what you're doing than you realize, but I know it's got to be a hard slog day after day when you hate it.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Wed Nov 10, 2021 7:22 am

Phoebe wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 11:57 pm Anyway, I like to blithely insist that you must be better at what you're doing than you realize, but I know it's got to be a hard slog day after day when you hate it.

Oh, I'm that bad. I've seen what my colleagues do with the same students, and it's clear.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Wed Nov 10, 2021 3:11 pm

On the other hand...... (isn't this how mansplaining happens? please let me mansplain your job to you!)
It is also true that some kinds of teaching don't really "take root" immediately but, more like the ginkgo tree, take a while to really get rolling in a mind or a life. And some teachers are loved and produce a lot of organized activity, but they may not teach as much or as deeply as teachers who aren't as loved or productive of functional organization. Like I have known many teachers who are amazing at keeping the machine running smoothly, but do they teach other things of value? That is a subtler question.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Wed Nov 10, 2021 3:34 pm

That's a nice thought, but I don't think I'm like that. Just a lousy teacher. One of the tenured incompetent teachers people talk about as huge problem in public education.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:30 am

When I went to sleep I was unable to mansplain a response to this, but now immediately upon waking this morning, I was given the answer: "Mrs. Carleton". C. was feared throughout the school for her merciless chemistry classes and everyone said to take chemistry from the big guy with the beard instead. Part of the problem was that C. had advanced degrees and not gear her teaching to the masses but to the small percent who were going to go on and take college chemistry or even become doctors or something. Her theory was that everybody else would get something of value - let us be clear that C is one of the reasons I don't do drugs to this day, because she let us know the unvarnished factual truth about how they affect our brains, both good and bad - but her unique ability was to teach to the top and let everyone try to scramble after if they might. The experience was glorious and I ended up taking the third chemistry course because she was so awesome a teacher for me, despite being so loathed by everyone else. She made little effort to present her material in a manner conducive to widespread successful student learning and would in fact ridicule people with her sardonic wit. Most teachers were suited to most students already, on her view, and she was uniquely suited to something else. It was invaluable. Now, I hear you saying you offer nothing of value even to a subset of your students, but that much I can't believe. You're not a bully so right there you've done something, and you know a lot more than the average teacher whose methods you consider better. Some of your students are going to thrive from being around that, whether you're as effective with the bulk of them or not. You're not harming them and you're giving them an example of what a person who values the intellect and reasons well might be like, so you know that in itself is a huge help to some. They're going to get a model of adult life they're not used to but might need, and maybe it's not right now they need it, but later.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:39 am

Last night, this happened!

Post by **Mike** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:41 am

Hey! It's a wolfhead!

Looks good!

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:48 am

Mike wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:41 am Hey! It's a wolfhead!

Looks good!

Right? In fact I did originally find this because I wanted a Wolfhead (like my nickname). But then I put it on my right calf to also represent the wolf Franki from my books. I place to get a tribal stylized raven on my left calf to represent Munch.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 7:33 am

That's a very cool tattoo.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:05 am

I'm pretty sure most of my students (or at least a lot of them) have contempt for me. And I've given them good reason to feel that way.

Post by **Mike** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:40 am

Kyle wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:48 am
Mike wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 5:41 am Hey! It's a wolfhead!

Looks good!
Right? In fact I did originally find this because I wanted a Wolfhead (like my nickname). But then I put it on my right calf to also represent the wolf Franki from my books. I place to get a tribal stylized raven on my left calf to represent Munch.

I need to schedule my next one. If my guy thinks he can do it, I want one of those that looks realistically like a patch sewn onto my inner forearm. I'm torn between making the patch Captain America's shield or the Nerd Pride logo.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 10:09 am

Mike wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:40 am I need to schedule my next one. If my guy thinks he can do it, I want one of those that looks realistically like a patch sewn onto my inner forearm. I'm torn between making the patch Captain America's shield or the Nerd Pride logo.

Huh? What do you mean sewn on patch?

Post by **Mike** » Thu Nov 11, 2021 1:58 pm

Kyle wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 10:09 am
Mike wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:40 am I need to schedule my next one. If my guy thinks he can do it, I want one of those that looks realistically like a patch sewn onto my inner forearm. I'm torn between making the patch Captain America's shield or the Nerd Pride logo.
Huh? What do you mean sewn on patch?

Like this...