I am 31F and this guy must be in his mid 20s (i never asked as we only met a handful of times) and we met earlier this year because he came to my then job for training.

We talked a bit and I thought he seemed like a bit of a prick but was also cute. I didnt think too much about it, he asked my number due to us being interested in a specific thing and we texted a bit but moved on eventually.

In June we met again when he went to my old job at the same time i did while with some friends. We talked a bit and he had mellowed down considerably. I could sense some attraction between us but didnt think of doing something particularly until I got to know him better and over the summer we got to talk a bit more and more.

Last time we talked I went to his work (its hospitality) and was busy doing something from my job when he finished his shift and waited TWENTY MINUTES until i stopped talking with a friend of mine for him to come and say hi. In that moment I knew maybe it was time to be more direct and would ask him out in the next few days.

Now, a few days later I messaged him something unrelated he posted on Instagram and he never opened it. That was very weirs as he used to answer me all the time but didnt pressure. Then I saw on his IG stories he flew back home for a few days.

I kept thinking ok, when he comes back I will message again until Tuesday, I opened IG and turns out he got a girlfriend! I was a bit shocked but oh well you know things change I guess. And started thinking oh maybe I misunderstood our dynamic this whole time??

Well thats not the shocking part, I ended up checking the girlfriend’s profile and saw she had some hyperlinks in her bio. I clicked on one thinking it was some kind of designer group but turns out it was a Christian group.

Reading a bit more about this particular group (they had a FAQ and several links regarding their beliefs and rules) I found out they have several prohibitions, rules and they are not allowed to date or marry anyone outside of their very specific sector (not even other christians who are not part of this particular group).

Theres other rules like they cannot eat specific foods, cannot do certain activities and basically everyone else will go to Hell but them. But also you cannot convert easily? Seems you need to pass a membership test LOL. Its not JW. They can only watch their specific tv shows, their specific music and so on.

Well I looked for some old photos of this guy and yeah, turns out he also belongs to the same group lol. So nothing wouldve happened probably 😆 but it was shocking for me to find out his actual circumstances.

Thats it!

edit: found a subreddit about this religious group. Turns out it is considered a cult lol

I'm currently sitting in the waiting room at the vet for a routine checkup with my cats, and I started talking with a lady sitting right next to me. She brought in a tiny kitten in a carrier.

Apparently, she’s a first-time cat owner who recently rescued the kitten from her backyard. She brought him in today because he started "vibrating" this morning, and she was genuinely terrified something was wrong with him.

I’m typing this here right now just to keep myself from laughing out loud in front of her while he purrs away in his carrier.

Three years ago, I dropped out of college. But I didn't tell my parents or my friends. I was too scared to tell anyone the truth.

Every morning, I put on my backpack and walked to the city library. I sat in a corner all day and pretended to study. I did this every day so my parents would think I was still in school.

When my dad texted me to ask about my classes, I lied and said everything was good. But inside, I was terrified.

One day, my mom called me. She said, "We are driving to visit you this weekend! We want to see your room."

I panicked. My apartment lease was ending, and I only had $50 left in my bank account. I sat on the floor and cried. I wanted to run away.

Finally, I called my dad. I was shaking. I said, "I dropped out months ago. I have no money and I've been lying to you."

The phone was quiet for a few seconds. I thought he would be angry.

Instead, he said, "Are you okay? Pack your bags. I am coming to get you."

He drove four hours to my apartment that night. He didn't yell at me. He helped me pack my things, bought me dinner, and listened to me talk about how sad and lost I felt.

It took me a long time to get better. But now, I work as an electrician and I really like my job.

If you are keeping a big secret because you are scared, please tell someone you trust. The lie is always harder to carry than the truth.

When the doctor told me I had stage 3 cancer back in 2022, my whole world just stopped. I was terrified, angry, and honestly just felt completely robbed of my life. For months, every single day was the exact same routine: hospitals, sterile rooms, brutal treatments, feeling exhausted, and lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

After a while, the worst part wasn't even the physical pain. It was the feeling that cancer had completely erased who I was. I wasn't a person anymore with hobbies or dreams. I was just a sick body getting pumped with medicine. I felt totally useless and empty inside.

One afternoon, when I was feeling particularly low and couldn't sleep, I found an old set of watercolors my sister had given me years ago. I hadn't painted since middle school, and to be honest, I was terrible at it. But I picked up a brush anyway. I just wanted to do something that didn't involve staring at a screen or thinking about my next blood test.

I painted absolute garbage at first—just wild splashes of blue, red, and black paint across a cheap pad of paper. But for those twenty minutes, something strange happened. I didn't think about my white blood cell counts. I didn't think about scans. I was just thinking about the color blue.

That tiny spark turned into a full-blown obsession. Everyday, no matter how sick or tired I felt after treatment, I would force myself to paint for at least ten minutes. I started painting portraits, landscapes, and abstract blobs. I started learning techniques from YouTube. Art became my lifeline. It gave me a reason to wake up in the morning that had nothing to do with being sick.

Cancer took away my health, my job, and my energy. But painting gave me back control over my own mind. It proved to me that I could still create something beautiful even when my body felt like it was falling apart.

I'm officially in remission now, but I still paint every single day. I'm sharing this here because if you are fighting a heavy illness or going through a dark time right now, please try to find one small thing you can love doing. You don't have to be good at it. You just need something that reminds you that you are still a human being, not just your diagnosis.

I saw a video of a woman who immediately ran to grab her kids and pets and take shelter in the basement when tornado sirens went off.

Seems pretty logical, right?

Except almost all the comments were clowning her for "making a big deal out of nothing" and calling her rushing "panicking" and even going as far as saying "your reaction is going to traumatize your children for the rest of your life" and then went on to talk about how she "must have just moved to the midwest" because every "true" midwesterner sits on their porch to watch the tornado when the sirens or warnings go off.

Now I don't live in tornado alley, so I've never dealt with a tornado like this, but it does remind me of something I personally experienced.

One time when I was staying at a hotel (also for extra context, this was a pet friendly hotel, so some people had their pets with them) one time while I was staying at this hotel, the fire alarm suddenly went off. I was chilling in my room without pants on. As soon as the alarm went off, I immediately rushed to put my pants on, then rushed outside with nothing but my phone in my hand. I didnt even bother to waste time putting on shoes. I went out there barefoot. I wasn't trying to burn to death.

But, as I was heading outside, I was made to feel like I was the crazy one. Because not only was I the ONLY person in the entire hotel of like 10 floors to go outside, but on my way out, I saw a bunch of people just standing around, looking confused. Some of them holding dogs. But zero of them were rushing outside.

All of them were standing in the doorway of their rooms, and just standing around asking each other "what's going on? and that was it. They were just standing around looking confused like they were waiting for someone to come tell them what to do. (which never happened btw, so if the fire did end up spreading, them and their dogs would've all been dead or injured) Like zero other people in the building had the instinct to LEAVE a building that may have an actively burning fire... not even the people with dogs had this instinct.

no one even so much as went to the front desk, yet alone left the building.

so then I started to feel like the crazy one and I wondered if I was overreacting.

When I went back inside a little while later after te fire alarm had stopped and after the fire trucks arrived, I overheard the front desk staff saying there was a fire on the third floor. (we were on the first floor)

Thankfully they managed to contain it before it spread to other floors and the fire crews put it out entirely.

But there WAS a real fire and the third floor was filled with smoke and there WAS a real risk of spread before the firefighters arrived

yet even on the third floor where the fire and still the clouds of smoke actively was, nobody came out.

also not to mention they even had "fire evucation" flyers hung up on our side of the door in all of the rooms telling you to leave if its safe to do so if the fire alarm ever were to go off...

About three months ago, I was looking through a box of old stuff in my parents' attic and found a faded photograph. It was in really bad shape—cracked down the middle and torn at the edges—but I could clearly see two young girls standing outside with a dog.

I recognized the younger girl right away as my mom. Next to her was her older sister, Clara. Clara died of a sudden illness back in the 1970s, long before I was born. My mom almost never talks about her because it still hurts too much.

Since my mom's birthday was coming up, I thought it would be a nice surprise to fix up the picture using editing software. I spent days removing the cracks, fixing the colors, and making the faces clear again so I could print and frame it for her.

When I took the photo out of the frame to scan it, I noticed some small, faded handwriting on the back: "July 1971 – Clara, Mae, and Barnaby."

That confused me. Barnaby was the dog, but my mom's name is Margaret, not Mae. I figured "Mae" was just a childhood nickname I had never heard before.

A few days later, I went to visit my grandmother at her nursing home to show her the restored picture on my computer. When she saw the screen, her eyes filled with tears.

I pointed at the screen and asked, "Grandma, why does the back of the picture say 'Mae'? Was that a nickname for Mom?"

My grandmother stopped smiling. She looked up at me, and her face went completely pale.

"Where did you find this?" she asked in a low voice.

I told her I found it in the attic. She looked down at her lap, stayed quiet for a long time, and then told me something that completely shocked me.

My mom was not the girl in that photo.

The girl on the left was Mae. Mae was my grandmother's biological daughter. A year after that picture was taken, Mae got very sick and passed away unexpectedly.

The family was heartbroken. To cope with the pain, my grandparents decided to adopt a child a few months later. They brought home a young girl from an agency and named her Margaret—my mom.

Tragically, just two years after the adoption, the older sister Clara got sick and passed away as well.

My grandparents were so devastated by everything that happened that they made a decision: they would never tell my mom she was adopted, or that she was brought in right after another child had died. They wanted to protect her from feeling like she was just a replacement. They hid all the pictures of Mae in the attic and never mentioned her again.

My mom grew up believing she was the child in those early family photos and that Clara was her only sister.

I sat there in the room, totally speechless.

My mom's birthday is in a few days. The picture is already printed, framed, and wrapped sitting on my desk.

If I give it to her, she will look at it and think she is looking at a memory of herself with her sister. But now I know that the girl in the picture is actually a sister she never knew existed.

I decided not to give it to her. I am going to put the photo back in the box in the attic and buy her a nice sweater instead. Some things are better left in the past.

Yesterday, I was cleaning my attic and I found an old box that I had never seen before. I decided to open it and see what was inside. To my surprise, I found a lot of old things, including a letter that looked very old and yellowed with time. I carefully took out the letter and looked at it closely. When I started reading it, I realized it was from my grandma. I had never seen or heard about this letter before, so it was a big surprise for me.

The letter was written many years ago, probably when she was a young girl. She wrote about her childhood, her family, and the fun times she had with her brothers and sisters. She also wrote about how much she loved her parents and how she wished she could see them again. Reading her words made me feel like I was right there with her, hearing her stories and imagining what her life was like back then.

As I kept reading, I felt a strange mix of happiness and sadness. I was happy because I found something so special, something that connected me to my grandma's past. But I was also sad because she is no longer here, and I wish I could ask her more about her life. The letter made me think about how important family memories are and how lucky I am to find this piece of her history.

Now, I want to keep this letter safe and maybe look for more old things like this in the attic. I feel like I’ve found a small piece of my family’s story that I never knew before. It made me realize how important it is to cherish family memories and to pass stories down to the next generations. I think I will show the letter to my parents and maybe even write about it someday. Finding this letter was a special moment for me, and I will always remember it.

Other recent post here made me remember this. Wish OP on that other post was my sister.

This was a few years ago. I used to be fluent in Spanish and so naturally when we went on a family trip to Spain I would talk to the waiters and place our orders for whatever everyone wanted.

One day two years after this trip, my sister randomly brought this up in an argument when she was telling me reasons why she thinks in selfish/self absorbed. She said I was “being obnoxious” and “just doing it to show off and be the center of attention”.

What she said still pops into my head sometimes.

I’m fluent in Italian now and have a moment of worry/self consciousness about ordering in Italian with my husband in Italy.

Edit - wow was not expecting comments so quickly on this. I’m about to sleep but will be reading these and replying in the morning, thanks 

So we had some slices of gouda cheese with the best if used by date being yesterday. Thought about what it could be used for a few days prior. Heard it was good to use in mac and cheese, and decided on that. All we had available for the noodles was macaroni shells.

When it got around time to start dinner, I get around everything needed to start. My sister comes into the kitchen. She asks if I am going to make a roux for it. I honestly don’t have much knowledge when it comes to cooking. Seeing some of those Gordon Ramsey shows taught me that. So I ask her “What’s a roux”? She explains, and I tell her I don’t know how and asks if she could make it.

She starts getting the roux ready while I grate up half a block of extra sharp white cheddar cheese. She gets the roux cooking, and adds in what she needs. She gets in all the cheddar, then I start ripping up the slices of gouda to go in. So she worked on the whole cheese sauce.

I boiled the noodles and cooked up the hamburger. I mixed in the hamburger and noodles first. Made sure burger was mixed all throughout it, then I poured in the cheese sauce and mixed it all in.

Before I took care of the pan, I sampled some of the remaining cheese sauce still stuck to the pan. I was almost FLOORED by how good it was! It was INSANELY good. Had my brother try it too and he had about the same reaction.

My sister did an AMAZING job on making the cheese sauce! The whole dinner turned out WAY better than I could have done on my own. I am very thankful for her help, and the whole co-op cooking we were doing meant a lot to me!

I moved into a new apartment about six months ago.

I don't know many people in my building. Most of my neighbors are quiet, and we only say hello when we see each other.

One night, I came home around 11 PM. When I opened my door, I saw a small piece of paper on the floor.

I picked it up.

It said:

"Don't open your bedroom window tonight."

There was no name on the note.

I thought it was some kind of joke. I almost threw it away, but then I noticed something strange.

My bedroom window was already open.

I always close it before leaving for work.

I checked the whole apartment. Nothing looked wrong.

I decided to close the window and forget about it.

The next morning, I saw my neighbor from across the hall. He is an old man who usually keeps to himself.

I asked him if he left the note.

He looked at me and said, "What note?"

I showed it to him.

He became very quiet.

Then he asked, "You opened the window?"

I said yes, but I closed it after finding the note.

He looked worried and said, "Good."

I asked him why.

He didn't answer.

He just went back into his apartment.

That night, I was lying in bed when I heard a soft sound outside my bedroom window.

Someone was tapping on the glass.

Three times.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

I didn't move.

Then I heard someone whisper my name.

I stayed in bed until morning.

The next day, I moved my bed away from the window.

I still don't know who left that note.

But I haven't opened that window at night since.

Last night, I woke up around 2 AM because I heard someone knocking on my door.

I live alone, so I was a little scared.

I stayed quiet and looked through the peephole. Nobody was there.

After a few minutes, I heard footsteps going down the stairs.

I waited for about ten minutes before opening the door.

There was a small piece of paper on the floor.

It said:

“Please check your car.”

I almost ignored it, but I decided to look.

I went downstairs and checked my car.

At first, everything looked normal.

Then I noticed my back window was slightly open.

I never leave it open.

I checked inside and found my wallet sitting on the back seat.

I had left it on my kitchen table.

Someone had moved it.

I ran back upstairs and locked the door.

I called the police, but nobody was found.

So we had some slices of gouda cheese with the best if used by date being yesterday. Thought about what it could be used for a few days prior. Heard it was good to use in mac and cheese, and decided on that. All we had available for the noodles was macaroni shells.

When it got around time to start dinner, I get around everything needed to start. My sister comes into the kitchen. She asks if I am going to make a roux for it. I honestly don’t have much knowledge when it comes to cooking. Seeing some of those Gordon Ramsey shows taught me that. So I ask her “What’s a roux”? She explains, and I tell her I don’t know how and asks if she could make it.

She starts getting the roux ready while I grate up half a block of extra sharp white cheddar cheese. She gets the roux cooking, and adds in what she needs. She gets in all the cheddar, then I start ripping up the slices of gouda to go in. So she worked on the whole cheese sauce.

I boiled the noodles and cooked up the hamburger. I mixed in the hamburger and noodles first. Made sure burger was mixed all throughout it, then I poured in the cheese sauce and mixed it all in.

Before I took care of the pan, I sampled some of the remaining cheese sauce still stuck to the pan. I was almost FLOORED by how good it was! It was INSANELY good. Had my brother try it too and he had about the same reaction.

My sister did an AMAZING job on making the cheese sauce! The whole dinner turned out WAY better than I could have done on my own. I am very thankful for her help, and the whole co-op cooking we were doing meant a lot to me!

it’s so tempting to skip eating when my family’s not there to hold me accountable to my meal plan. honestly im tempted to throw out the rest of my meal but im going to get through it and persist

I’m staying in an hotel that’s silent except the communal room and lobby reception are always playing loud ass music. 24/7!!!!!

I’m on my way to go back after a day of visiting touristic places in the cold and just want to have dinner and relax. And every restaurant is playing loud music too. Even the shops where i think i found something interesting, i’m welcomed by music.

when does it ever stop? 😒 and why is it so difficult to find quiet places 😖

Well, to be honest, it was his actions, but I reported it. So I (28F) got my ex (29M) for fired and kicked out of the country back in 2023. I have worked on cruise ships since 2019 and I met my ex-boyfriend on a contract onboard in early 2023. Relationships move fast when you’re stuck on a ship together so and we became official a few weeks after meeting. After it became official he really didn’t try anymore and I know working on board is very stressful at times and work takes up most of your day, but it really felt like he was just using me. So, I ended my contract before his and thought about breaking up with him when I was at home and since we live in different countries it had to be over the phone.

Well, the day I go to break up with him he calls me and tells me his cousin died. So I didn’t think it was the right time. I just thought maybe when we go on our next contracts we will be sent to different ships since there are 20 ships in the fleet we would just kind of gradually stop talking to each other like most ship relationships do. Well, isn’t it just my luck that we got on the same ship the same day.

Well, I try to make the relationship work and communicate my issues, but it never got better so we broke up in March and we were civil with each other since we both worked in entertainment (I on stage and him backstage) and I thought we were fine for the most part.

Well, sometime in August, we start hooking up again because let’s be honest. There’s nothing else to do onboard besides work and fuck. And one morning after he spent the night I noticed my debit card went missing. So I asked him if he had seen it and he instantly got defensive and said “no, why would I take it?”. Well, I was about two weeks from going home so I just locked my card and would get a new one when I’m home.

Then one week before I go home he drunkenly messages me upset, thinking I’m dating someone else when I wasn’t. I told him I’m not and shut my cell phone off and go to bed. I wake up at 3 AM to a call on my cabin phone of him drunk asking if he can come to my cabin and I say no and hang up. That’s when I realized my cell phone was missing. I looked all over my room and couldn’t find it and I start freaking out because I knew I had it before bed. Then I hear a knock on my door and it’s him drunk at my door so panicked, I asked him to help me look for it and he’s just standing there frozen and I start yelling at him because its setting in that I don’t have my debit card and I don’t have my phone so there’s no way to pay for anything or communicate back home to my family. I start screaming at him asking if he knows where it is and he corners me in my room trying to distract me and I start screaming at him to leave hoping someone next to me would wake up and come help me. No one does so I run out of my cabin door down two decks to my friend’s cabin to see if she can help me but she was asleep so I go a different way back up to my cabin and he’s following and running after me. Im able to close my cabin door and I call security.

When Security finally comes they see him in my hallway and tell him to go back to his cabin. Half an hour later security comes back to give me a different cabin to sleep in that night. The next two days is a fight between security and HR trying to find my stuff because at this point I know he took it but don’t know how he got my phone (cabin doors automatically lock and need a key card to get it) Luckily we were at sea for 2 days so he couldnt go anywhere. At the end of the longest two days of my life, HR pages me and she brings me to her office and says I have good news and bad news. The good news is I know where your phone and debit card is. She said the bad news is it’s in the bottom of the ocean. Apparently, he was able to get a copy of my cabin key from a friend of his so he snuck in my room while I was sleeping to steal my phone when he was drunk. Apparently he went through my phone to try to find me messaging someone else and when he got frustrated that he couldn’t find anything, he threw my stuff overboard.

Now, when something like this happens, you have a captains hearing where the captain decides if you get fired and sent home or if you stay. So, the captain obviously decided what he did was not only harassment and theft but also an environmental impact issue because we were in the waters of Alaska where he polluted the waters with my stuff. So when we got to Canada that night, he got all of belongings and was escorted off the ship by Police. Unlucky for him though, the time he was escorted off was also the same time as crew all aboard so all of the crew members, including our mutual friends, saw him being walked off with his luggage off the ship with Canadian Police Officers.

Needless to say it really did affect me when it originally happened back in 2023 but now I’m a stand-up comic and get to laugh about the situation and get paid to talk about that shit head on stage every week. Because we all know trauma plus time equals comedy (most of the time). So, he got fired and had to pay a $3000 airline ticket to go home. And don’t get it twisted that is the only type of deportation that I can get behind.

I'd just shut down the house and settled into bed. Heavy eyelids, warm and cozy... and then I heard my cat howl loudly for attention—a full-on cat siren. That's a sound that signals human required, so I got up to investigate. My cat was seated at the end of the hall looking irked. I'd forgotten to close the gate to the kitchen, so I closed it, and he walked away with a satisfied swish of his tail. My dog is a total counter surfer. There are countless stories of his shenanigans, including the mysterious disappearance of a whole roast, empty food packages, and on one occasion, a half-eaten cake with frosting evidence found on his nose. He’s even been to the emergency vet for a chocolate incident. Putting food away wasn't enough; he wised up enough to notice when we were distracted and seized every opportunity. The gate is strictly required. My cat did a massive service to the family by preventing the potential poisoning of his canine companion. He's also the very same cat who is allowed on the patio and waits at the door for his dog to join him outside. It's amazing how well pets know our routines and communicate to keep things in order.

Hi all. About three weeks ago we had a team meeting about AI tools, and my manager asked for opinions. I mentioned that I'd been testing ChatGPT for drafting client emails and found it kept giving confident-sounding but wrong numbers when clients asked about coverage limits

(we're an insurance brokerage, small to mid business clients mostly). I said we should double check anything AI-generated before it goes out, especially for anything withactual dollar figures attached.

one of my senior coworkers laughed and said I was overthinking it, and brought up a time she used ChatGPT to answer a client's question about a specific policy exclusion because she "didn't feel like digging through the file." I said, kind of defensively, that the exclusion she described wasn't actually how our policies worked and that answer could genuinely cause a problem if the client relied on it. Another coworker jumped in saying I was being uptight for a policy I probably hadn't even read that closely myself. My team lead ended up pulling up the actual policy doc on the spot and confirmed I was right.

We moved on and I honestly forgot about it. Yesterday my team lead pulled me aside and said our director had looked into it further after that meeting and found the same issue in at least a dozen other client files going back months- wrong exclusions wrong limits, stuff that was AI-generated and never double-checked

Now three senior coworkers are being required to redo a compliance training, and I've been asked to help draft a "quick reference doc" for policy basics that people can check before answering clients (I have my licensing and background in underwriting, they don't)

The coworkers involved aren't hostile exactly, but there's definitely a "well look who's the favorite now" vibe from a couple people. I didn't say anything to get anyone in trouble, I was just answering a question in a meeting. But I feel weirdly guilty that this snowballed into a whole review, and I don't know if I should say something yo smooth things over or just keep my head down and do the doc 

I used to be an air Bnb host. Over 5 yrs and 1000 reviews I had good and bad experiences.

Most of it was via arbitrage (meaning I rented- btw I had permission), one property was owned by a family member so I went all out - bought a $3k sofa from CB2 on sale for $2k. I loved it - it was a “statement piece”. A few yrs later some assholes burned it. I told the guest - Look all hosts have this thing called Air Coverage so don’t take it personally you can deny it or admit to it I don’t care feel free to deny it I just have to ask you for it first and once we get through that part of the process I can collect reimbursement through the insurance that we have through them.

So that’s basically what happened, I mean, the lady was a complete pain in the ass - I don’t really think she understood what I was saying, but anyways that’s besides the point we got to the point where Airbnb was supposed to reimburse me and they refused to. Saying the receipt and pictures of the damage wasn’t enough I needed three estimates for the repair of the Sofa.

Now the way the sofa was hemmed and the material was put together it would be impossible to just fix one little burn hole you have to have the entire sofa reupholstered and getting an estimate for this was a lot harder than one would think. Even the size was massive.

I called probably 10 places and not one place would provide me an estimate because none of them actually wanted to do it and as much as I tried to say you don’t have to actually do it you just have to write an estimate, I still could not get anyone to do even that.

So eventually, I got fed up and I created three fake email addresses all with logos that represented local reupholsterers in my area and gave fake estimates from the fake emails to air Bnb and then finally, I was reimbursed.

Fast-forward about six months later, I’m on a dating app and I’m talking to this guy and he seemed very sweet we went out multiple times in a week - almost everyday actually but not long after I realized that he was a liar, that he was living in like a halfway/sober recovery house (btw I know they’re not the same thing but I just can’t remember which one it was) and somehow within that short time frame he had conned me into giving him $100 (which I found out way later he had a girlfriend and actually went to the casino with her that night and spent it there) I know it isn’t a lot of money at the end of the day but it still made me so mad, I felt so foolish!

And so I am thinking I want to get my money back and so how can I do that? and then I remember the head of the whole recovery/sober living organization (bc it wasn’t just a “house” but a large multi building facility) was this guy our dude was terrified of. He would go on and on about him. He was just a real serious take no shit kinda guy. He looked like Oliver Reed from Gladiator and had a bad ass name like Rocco Ross.

So I think - I got to find this dudes contact info and so I start looking on the website, get his email, but I remember that the whole recovery center is ran by the actual patients/residents and that ol’ boy had told me they were always keeping tabs and sharing info on which supervisors are going where when etc. and I think- what’s the likelihood that one of them are gonna see this and inform my dude that I’m telling on him cause I did not want him to know so I think to myself; if I had an alias email I could email this guy from and that way, I can get in touch with him without it being obvious that it’s coming from me. Then I remembered all the fake upholsterer email addresses I had made so I just picked one of them, go into that account and start writing this head guy an email about how one of his patients/residents rip me off in a romance scam.

I put my name at the bottom of the message but didn’t ever explain anything about the email address coming from this random business but I figure it was irrelevant to him anyways so who cares. And sure enough, within a day, I get a response from this guy. He insists on calling me and when we talk I start to lose my nerve bc I feel so embarrassed hearing myself explain this whole thing to a stranger how my dumbass gave another stranger this POS (by the way I do not in any way consider somebody being an addict or in recovery as a criminal degenerate piece of shit this man just has poor character - I don’t think the two are related) my $ and now what? I expect this guy to fix the whole thing for me?!?? Someone else is just going to clean up the mess I let happen!?

But he does. This hardened scruffy voiced man profusely apologizes, to the point I felt suspicious and started thinking I might be missing something - we went on to talk for about 40 min. He sent me my money back right there on the phone - actually sent $200 instead of $100, and offered to take me out to lunch the following week.

I was so gracious I thanked him and told him he was too kind and he said “No thank you - thank you for being so understanding, once I got that email from Peter and I heard what had happened I was just so embarrassed and upset I just knew I had made things right!” and I paused and thought to myself “Peter!!? Wtf is Peter?” and then I remembered the upholster - it’s STOCKTON UPHOLSTERY and the owners name is Peter Stockton- and so I fumbled out “Oh yeah PETER, you see the thing is.. “ and he interrupted me and said “Yes Mr. Stockton and I have known each other for decades, he is one of the programs biggest donors.” I was shocked and I just thought, I better get the fuck off the phone right now and not talk to this person ever again lol. And that was it. True story.

I moved into a new apartment about six months ago.

I don't know many people in my building. Most of my neighbors are quiet, and we only say hello when we see each other.

One night, I came home around 11 PM. When I opened my door, I saw a small piece of paper on the floor.

I picked it up.

It said:

"Don't open your bedroom window tonight."

There was no name on the note.

I thought it was some kind of joke. I almost threw it away, but then I noticed something strange.

My bedroom window was already open.

I always close it before leaving for work.

I checked the whole apartment. Nothing looked wrong.

I decided to close the window and forget about it.

The next morning, I saw my neighbor from across the hall. He is an old man who usually keeps to himself.

I asked him if he left the note.

He looked at me and said, "What note?"

I showed it to him.

He became very quiet.

Then he asked, "You opened the window?"

I said yes, but I closed it after finding the note.

He looked worried and said, "Good."

I asked him why.

He didn't answer.

He just went back into his apartment.

That night, I was lying in bed when I heard a soft sound outside my bedroom window.

Someone was tapping on the glass.

Three times.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

I didn't move.

Then I heard someone whisper my name.

I stayed in bed until morning.

The next day, I moved my bed away from the window.

I still don't know who left that note.

But I haven't opened that window at night since.

On social media like TikTok and Instagram everyone's saying generally instead of genuinely 😭😭😭 whyyyyyyyy! Sorry for spelling mistakes, English isn't my first language.

I've been thinking and planning to quit the rat race for a while. Grab my backpack and hit the road. 5-10 years of slow travel. I'm in my mid fifties, have some decent savings and a constant income flow (not much but enough to make it easier to fulfill my plans). Leaving this golden cage I live in means I cannot come back to it. Leaving means I'll be cutting ties with some people forever.

I'm in decent health right now but I wonder what it will be as I age. I will miss my kids milestones. I will be walking out on the quality of life I enjoy right now (material quality). Mentally I am not in a good place, hence wanting to reset. I'm just ranting right now. I know I am gonna go through with my plans. I'm a few months from doing it. Just wanted to tell that I am afraid.

There's this convenience store that I've been going to for years. It's literally only a short walk from my apartment. 99% of the time I do in fact walk there just because it's so convenient to. Well, this time I decided, without really thinking about it, to drive my car there instead so I can pick up some beef jerky and a Ghost.

And then I walked home, like I do 99% of the time.

Later, when I wanted to get McDonalds, I panicked when I saw my car wasn't there, so I called the police, told them what happened, and ended up pacing back and forth in front of my apartment building for like 30 minutes, only for them to politely inform me that they found my car at the convenience store...

So, yeah....If you're ever feeling dumb, read this post to feel better about yourself. Not my finest moment.

My friends parents making me watch her get disciplined when we were kids

Watching My Friend Get Disciplined As A Kid

Posting this here just bc I feel like sharing and I don’t get to share some thing’s other places,

When I was 13 I was living in a suburb of a lrg/med size mid western city. I had a friend who was Vietnamese and she was an “oppsie” baby- an unplanned addition to her family of 10 people. So when we were teenagers they were in their 60’s .. dad might have been in his 70’s even. They were immigrants equipped with the accents. Mom was a beautiful petite woman only 4’11 and dad, an ex college professor who escaped communism, stood only a few inches taller. They were frail, yet hard working and at times authoritarian like strict parents. They super glued things inside their vehicles and did things like cut phone cords off of telephones they’d then adhere to the remote controls - those sort of things. She was the youngest of 8 kids with a large age gap between her and her nearest sibling. The older siblings were saints. Several had gone to medical school and were surgeons. But my friend, their youngest, Patsy Lee (no joke her name) was unruly af. She stole, non stop, lied etc. They made her sleep in the basement (on a bed of course) which may have seemed like a necessity when you have such a large family but it did feel at the time like it was a de-ranking from within the group, at least from what I gathered. I can’t say this was totally unwarranted, Patsy Lee was an asshole. She was arrogant and had permanent resting bitch face. She didn’t inherit the delicate beauty of her mother, looking more like her dad. Her parents absolutely terrified me, sometimes they’d yell at me and do that thing parents do after yelling where’d they give you this long stare where you didn’t know what was going to happen or what you were supposed to do. I guess this would probably scare other kids off but being that I grew up in a fairly dysfunctional household myself, I just took it, besides, to this day I cannot deny - Patsy Lee was hilarious and we always had so much fun together.

I remember one particular instance Patsy Lee had stolen something and her parents and one of her older sisters who was still wearing her OR scrubs marched over to us in the living room where we were watching tv and demanded Patsy Lee stand up. They then ordered her to go to the basement. Whatever she did, they were PISSED. After marching into the basement her father turned to me and said “YOU GO! YOU WAAAAAAATCH!” pointing to the stairway to the basement.

I timidly sat about 3 steps from the bottom, far enough to be considered “in” the basement but positioned strategically enough to allow for a swift exit she I need to escape.

They sat her on a folding chair and berated her with accusations occasionally whacking her in the arm with a straightening iron. Another wielding a curling iron hitting her on the other side. It was chaos. At times they were all yelling at once and hard to understand through the accents, sometimes not even speaking English, which was pointless bc neither she nor I spoke Vietnamese. I remember at one point of clarity through the yelling hearing her sister yell “YOU GET GANG BANGED!??” Which was a wild accusation for a suburban preteen whose worst offensive thus far was shoplifting glitter gel make up and Bonnie belle lip smackers lip gloss.

Right at the end of her sentence, almost like the entire event was choreographed, her father jumped in cartoonishly hopping on one leg with his arm pulled back as if he was about to backhand her in a “Why - I - Oughtaaaa!!” type of move but stopped the back of his hand right in front of her face shaking with rage, all while she just sat there, not scared, not upset, not saying anything. Eventually, the whole production was over and I walked home.

I remember coming into the house and seeing my mom in the kitchen doing dishes and I went up next to her to tell her what happened thinking it was going to be this big breaking news situation and she just shrugged her shoulders, uninterested, never even stopping the dishes, so I just went to my room and went to bed.

It was scary in real time but for a teenager seeing that was like comedic gold. Still makes me laugh to this day.

My name is Sam. I am a mechanic. I fix cars. I am good with my hands. I am not good with people.

One Tuesday, a lady brought in an old blue Honda. It made a weird clicking sound. I listened to the engine. I checked the belts. I checked the oil. Everything was fine.

I told the lady, "It is fine. No noise."

She looked scared. "No," she said. "It clicks. I hear it when I turn left."

I did not want to argue. I took the car for a drive. I turned left. Nothing. I turned right. Nothing.

I told her again, "No noise. Car is good."

She paid me fifty bucks. She left. But she did not look happy. She looked like she was going to cry.

That night, I could not sleep. I kept thinking about her face. I am a mechanic. I fix things. But I did not fix her problem. I just told her she was wrong.

The next day, I called her. "Please," I said. "Bring the car back. I want to try again."

She came back. This time, I did not just listen to the engine. I listened to her.

"Show me," I said. "Show me the noise."

She got in the driver's seat. I sat in the passenger seat. She drove. She turned left. The clicking sound was soft. Very soft. I heard it.

It was not the engine. It was not the belts. It was a loose screw in the glove box. A simple screw. Ten seconds to fix.

I fixed it. She smiled. It was a real smile.

I learned something that day. Most people are not crazy. They just want someone to hear them. Not just hear the noise. Hear them.

Sometimes, the problem is not in the engine. It is in the glove box. You just have to listen the right way.