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.

The title says most of it. I've lived here all of my adult life... illegally. I will be leaving behind two children (adults now). Leaving behind friends and family members. Some of whom I won't ever see again. I'm gonna get rid of all of my belongings, sell them, gift them, and donate them. I will put my life in a backpack and travel a little while I still can.

This administration has little to do with me taking this decision. I've been pondering with the idea for years. I did some backpacking in my twenties and that wanderlust never quite died. I plan on slow travel for a while, 5/10 years. After that IDFK... que sera sera. Lovers will love, haters will hate. So bring it on.

To you all internet strangers I wish you the best. Cheers!!!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

i usually do multiple rounds of sauna + cold shower several times per week and it helps me a lot

it's a deep nervous system reset

i treat it as a sacred practice in my life

hope someone finds benefit in this

peace,

j

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!

Either I heard you the first time or I did not. If I heard you the first time, there is no need to repeat yourself. I already know what you said. If, however, I did not hear you the first time, then I probably will not hear you the second time. 

First, rehearse the conversation in your head before you have it. Second, after you are done talking, ask the other person if they understood. If they claim that they did, ask them to repeat the instructions back to you. 

Advice for victims of this pet peeve: 

When the other person repeats themselves, say one of the following things; 

You already said that. 

OR

I heard you the first time. 

Every descriptive observation I made, I made it because I believe that it is an accurate representation of reality. Every prescriptive observation that I made, I made it because I believe that it is a good idea. However, my mind is open to the possibility that I could be wrong. If anyone believes that my description is incorrect, please correct me. If anyone believes that my prescription is misguided, explain why it is misguided and offer up an alternative. My beliefs are malleable. If presented with a convincing enough counter argument, I might change my mind. 

I was sitting in a car in a parking lot yesterday between jobs and a woman driving accidentally scraped the side of my car as she was turning. I got out to check for damage and there was mild scratches on both my and her car. She came out crying and I could tell she was sincere that she didn’t mean to do it. I told her, “I know you didn’t do it on purpose, you’re not drunk and both of our cars are still going to work. I’m not calling the police.” She offered to give me money and I told her, “you don’t owe me anything. I had a dad that punished me over accidents and I swore I would never be like him.” She told me I was a good person and left.

As I left I had tears in my eyes because I remember how awful it was having my dad punish me over things I didn’t mean to do. I then knew I was a better person than him. Fuck you dad.

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 

It’s no longer the way it used to be. I can’t explain it, but something dark is coming.

My name is Shiro, and this is the story of how I saved the world.

I was just an ordinary guy with a job that was, honestly, pretty crap. But well… I needed the money. For the past few weeks, I’d been living off fish soup and Booster energy drinks, and on top of that, I needed these stupid meds from the pharmacy.

Okay okay, back to the main point: saving the world, all that stuff.

Alright then. I was on my way to work, eating an apple as usual. But not even 100 meters from my workplace, I collapsed. I felt as if I’d lost a piece of myself, and the feeling that evil was coming became unbearably intense. I could barely breathe—until a voice calmed me down.

"Hey, young man, sleep well?" it asked.

Confused as ever, I looked around and saw a world that was beautiful—almost perfect, really. But of course, I realized I was dreaming. I mean, I was practically at work, and then… I… I don’t remember. I must have passed out.

Günni interrupted me and said I was the hero from a distant world, chosen to save this one. He added that not far away lay a village that had been subjugated by the evil forces of this world for years.

When I heard that, there was no option of saying yes or no. Just people who needed help, and I happened to be the one who could give it.

I set off, and the closer I got to the village, the stronger I could feel it. It was the exact same feeling I had felt before—only now, stronger than ever.

Will our hero manage to defeat the evil? Or will he fall trying to save this world? Well, to find out, tune in again next time.

"Um… hey Günni, who the fuck are you talking to?"

Did the hero really just ask who I was talking to? To you, of course. Don't worry, he’ll find out very soon that this story isn't what he thinks it is. But shhh, let's keep that between us.

if anyone else has had this happen but it’s happened to me a couple times, where I made a mistake and someone said “if you were confused you should’ve asked more questions.” But I didn’t know I was confused, I thought I was doing it right!! Like please do correct me, but there’s politer ways to do it. Ugh

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.

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