Buy Refrigerator: self

Showing posts with label self. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

My depression is honestly just getting the best of me. self

I'm a 19 year old girl, if that helps you put this in better perspective, I guess?

Well, anyway. I have crippling depression and anxiety and my family can't afford my medications any more. I was on Lexapro 20mg for anxiety/depression and suicidal thoughts. Abilify 10mg for mood swings, dissociation, and ADHD. I was doing wonderfully during the time I was on them. I had never been better in my life. But it's been months since I've had my medicine... I'm slipping again. I'm not really suicidal, just... I don't really want to exist. I feel like o have to stick a key in my back and wind myself up to get out of bed and do anything other than sleep or eat. I feel like I'm sinking in molasses while wearing concrete shoes.

I've had to break the news to my boyfriend that I'm too depressed to give him the affection he deserves any more. I want to love him, desperately. But I feel nothing. There's a void where all positive feelings used to be. I can't even love my boyfriend any more, because my brain is all screwed up. How sad is that?

I'm so constantly fatigued. Every joint in my body is achy. My muscles are always sore. It's a physical chore to breathe and speak. I'm always short of breath. Socializing, even leaving the house for anything, tires me to the point where I need to come home and take a 6-8 hour "nap."

We can't afford to go the doctor or get my medicines refilled. My mother works a dead-end job at a dollar store, making minimum wage. We're living check to check, barely scraping by. We're eating chili and bread for thanksgiving. I'm not working currently because we don't have enough money to renew my ID. That's about 60 USD. I've never had a job before and don't know if I'll be able to hold one due to my current mental condition.

My dream is to become a cosmetologist... But beauty school, where I'm at, is about $18k for the one year it takes to be certified. But that all feels like a pipe dream now. I just sit at home and hold the fort, waiting til tax returns come in so we can have some extra cash to get my ID.

We don't even have a working refrigerator. We use an ice chest and buy 2 bags of ice every other day. It gets us by. But some days, I wish that milk weren't a luxury. I like ramen, but sometimes I wish we could have McDonald's. I like McDonald's. Double quarter pounders are really good. The last time we had that was when my mom found 10 bucks on the floor at work. It was so good. But I know that I can't get greedy, or ask for too much.

When I get Christmas or birthday money, I give it all to my mom so she can pay bills. What else am I going to do with it? It's not sensible to buy the makeup that I want. So we buy food and pay the bills. It's a little sad. Sad that 98% of our problems can be solved by money. My dad had to cut off the phone bill, since he's bankrupt and living at my grandma's house after having his second stroke in June. He's only 51 and he's already had a heart attack and 2 strokes.

He and mom divorced when I was 6 cause he was abusive. But I still love the man even though he's awkward and antisocial and kinda weird.

I'm only able to be on the internet at all because I have a disconnected phone that can hit my mom's Wi-Fi hotspot. She keeps her phone at home when she goes to work and just calls her cell from the work phone if she needs to contact me.

I've been blessed with a lot of good things and talents. I can sing(even though I have stage fright and don't like to sing in front of people), and I'm good at doing my makeup.

But sometimes, I get really sad because I just barely graduated high school with passing grades even though I'm smart. I just have no motivation or hope for my future. I know I could be making it big right now, if only we had a little more money. I wish we could eat better than we do. We don't starve, but we just eat canned foods and pastas and bread, things like that.

I wish our car worked better, so we could actually go to my grandpa's and spend thanksgiving with him. But my mom has to work tomorrow anyway. We've gotta save gas. And she can't drive far anyway, she's got a '93 Buick regal that's barely keeping up and starts to smoke after driving more than 3 minutes.

I wish a lot of things. But I mostly just wish that I could be happy. I appreciate everything I have, but somehow I still feel so empty and depressed. So worried that I'm being a burden. Upset that I can't do more for my mom right now. I don't know what to do any more. I'm just tired.

I don't really expect anyone to respond to this; how could people on the internet help? This is just misfortune and circumstance. It'll work itself out. I guess. I'm so exhausted of people saying to "stay positive" or "things will get better" when I never had a social life as a teen because of these money problems and my grades; I was always grounded because I never tried in school. I had no motivation to try because of my depression. I was suicidal most of my teenage life and have been hospitalized twice because of it.

I'm at the point of pretty much being resigned to the fate of life always being like this. I just walk around the trailer aimlessly, sighing and staring off into space. I get exhausted and have to stop every 5 minutes while simply doing the dishes from so much stress on my mind.

But this is all out of my hands and I'm just so tired of feeling lonely and depressed and anxious about the future. Starting to wonder if I even want a tomorrow if it's all just going to be the same. I sleep all the time in the hopes that I won't have to deal with reality any more. I simultaneously want to go out and have fun with my friends on adventures like a normal teen, but I also just want to stay inside and cry in the dark.

I don't know any more; I'm just rambling at this point, I'm sorry. I don't expect this to get much attention. I just wanted to put this out there. Let my feelings be known I guess. I don't mean to be attention seeking even though this is what it may look like. I'm just tired of being lonely. I hesitate to tell my friends about what I'm feeling so I don't burden them. I don't like telling my mama what I feel because I don't want her to stress more about me not having my medicine. I don't like to see her cry! It hurts! It hurts a lot. I'm getting a little incoherent here; I'm crying a lot. I'll cut it off here I think.

TL;DR- 19 year old girl who's really depressed that comes from a bad financial situation. Feeling a little lost. Sorry for bothering you guys.

Submitted November 23, 2017 at 05:07AM by rinny-chan http://ift.tt/2jfLSCv self

My depression is honestly just getting the best of me. self

I'm a 19 year old girl, if that helps you put this in better perspective, I guess?

He and mom divorced when I was 6 cause he was abusive. But I still love the man even though he's awkward and antisocial and kinda weird.

I've been blessed with a lot of good things and talents. I can sing(even though I have stage fright and don't like to sing in front of people), and I'm good at doing my makeup.

TL;DR- 19 year old girl who's really depressed that comes from a bad financial situation. Feeling a little lost. Sorry for bothering you guys.

Submitted November 23, 2017 at 05:07AM by rinny-chan http://ift.tt/2jfLSCv self

Saturday, September 16, 2017

My roommate is fuckin nuts self

I've been living in a college townhouse for just under a month, with 4 other randomly assigned roommates. Three of these people are just normal dudes, however the fourth is extremely strange and this makes living with him very uncomfortable.

He's an extreme clean freak. Of course everyone appreciates sanitation when living in a communal house, however he has made it his business to make sure that our common room shows no sign of human life. If you leave a personal item on the coffee table or put your shoes next to the door, he will take those things and leave them at your bedroom door. The fridge is constantly rearranged by him, seemingly at no pattern. Speaking of fridges, just today he brought in a gigantic, beat up, smelly refrigerator to store raw hunted venison. It is alright for that refrigerator (which he says only he is allowed to use) to take up a major portion of our already limited living space, however a backpack or a cup on the table is unacceptable.

He's very insensitive. He eavesdropped on a phone conversation of mine in which I was discussing my struggle with depression. The next day when I mention I'm gonna live it up that night, he says "I thought you didn't want to live"?

Last night though, my friend came over and he brought some LSD. My roommate asked us what our plans were, and we told him we were gonna do acid. He says to us "Hey, my mom is in the other room". Turns out his mother is staying here all weekend, and he didn't feel the need to let anyone know. Secondly though, why the fuck would I care about his mother's sensibilities regarding drugs? I'm an adult in my own home and she can shove whatever opinions she may have about what I'm doing with my night.

Anyway, his mommy has basically spent all day today hanging around the house and watching TV. She complained about me burning sage in my room because she thought it was marijuana, and she asked me "how I was raised". Nothing like receiving petty judgement from some crusty old bitch who is spending the weekend in your living room unannounced.

I really don't know where I'm going with this but this dude is seriously one of the strangest people I've ever met. He thinks he's in the military even though he's only former ROTC. He never stops talking about how much he wants to fuck black girls. He can't keep his lies about his sex life straight. For example, he called me a loser for never having had anal only a few nights after he drunkenly confessed that he's had sex only once. However he will still tell you about all the crazy hookups he's had without blinking twice. He was actually complaining about my friend and I watching TV at 9 pm on a Friday and expressed his (and his mommy's) disgust at the sight of us using illegal drugs. He's only 20 but drinking for him is A-OK. He's the ultimate cockblock and is an immediate buzzkill. During a party, he will start doing dishes.

TLDR: This guy fucking sucks.

Submitted September 17, 2017 at 03:15AM by howdareyoutakemyname http://ift.tt/2wxAYwy self

Thursday, July 27, 2017

I just won a fill the fridge at work, what would you guys suggest that I ask for? Nothing outrageous in terms of price. self

It's for the refrigerator at work and the freezer.

Submitted July 28, 2017 at 12:49AM by bleepblopbloop http://ift.tt/2vc8exd self

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Details self

This is not normal, not worth reading, and is something of a meditative exercise I thought would be good to do, for unknown reasons, around 12:30 p.m. today. It seems that pushing 12:30 a.m. seems oddly appropriate and full circle. You won't want to read it. It won't be thoughtful. It won't provide insight. I'm just trying to remember.

I woke up at 7:45 a.m. and made myself available to work for the delivery company.
I made a dreary-eyed swipe through facebook and then rolled over and proceeded to go back into my half-asleep half-awake state that carries me until close to 11 a.m. when the company opens for business.
As has been his habit, Ike, the dog, spent a portion of that sleep time also asleep nestled against me.
11 a.m. comes around and I haven't been pinged on.
I find this frustrating, mess around on my computer, and begrudge my phone to go off with the familiar sound that signifies they need me at the kitchen.
I decided to download and transfer some show files to my tablet.
I get tired of waiting and decide to drive to the kitchen regardless.
I park next to the queue and pull out a clarinet which I practice for a half hour before getting pinged.
I continue to play, confused by why the A has a resistance the lower notes don't.
For Saturday around lunch there's 3 drivers and it's fairly slow.
I watch an episode of Friends from College while delivering 2 orders.
While I'm waiting on my third order, I get a notification that an item I posted on Ebay sold.
I did not think that item was ever going to get sold, and my day took an entirely different direction.
Now I was concerned about what had happened to the item, heat wraps, because I was sure they had gotten packed and mixed up in the flurry of moving recently.
It's around 1 p.m. and all I can do is try to imagine where I last saw the heat wraps.
I had one pack of hot wraps, 1 pack of cold wraps, and I thought I had made special pains to put them somewhere fairly easily accessible in the off chance they actually sold.
I look through my car and take things out of my trunk.
I attempt to visualize if they were somehow in the apartment I'm staying in and I just lost track.
I decide until I explore every corner where I suspect they might be, I'm not going to be able to relax.
I decided to sign myself off of work and drive to my plot of land and garage.
First, I had to drive back to the apartment and grab my van keys in case I left them in there, and I also had to check in on and lock Ike up.
I put Ike in the bathroom with his food and water because he hasn't shit the last few times I took him out and I think his crate is too small to be trapped in for too long.
I leave the apartment and get halfway through the parking lot before I realize I forgot the key.
I return and grab it while scolding myself for forgetting the exact reason I even bothered to drive back to the other side of town in the first place.
I start driving to the plot and start another episode of Friends from College.
The ride felt like it took longer than I wanted, but the mission came first.
I parked my car next to my van and went to search it for the wraps.
The sun is out and I'm immediately drenched in sweat.
I begrudgingly marvel at my body's ability to retain water as I wipe sweat off my sunglasses, which have a habit of sliding off my face already.
I walk to my shed and proceed to rearrange and pick through some of the places I thought I would have put them.
I find my refrigerator magnets and decide I want to finally put them on the wall that separates the back from front in the van.
I walk to the van and arrange them after a fruitless search does not turn up the wraps.
I decide to open the garage door and stare ominously at my moving truck.
Part of my general list of tasks is to move house things from the truck to the garage and storage shed things to the broken moving truck.
There is a chance the wraps are in one of the boxes at the back of the truck.
I decided to open the truck, and find that the bay glass window at the gate has shifted just enough that I can only open it about 6 inches.
Proceeded to pull up and down until I've splashed too much sweat on my glasses and start really feeling the heat coming down from the sun.
I think maybe I can jostle the window forward by lunging the moving van and hitting the breaks.
The van does not really run, inches forward and dies.
I grab a mop and try to inch the window back a bit.
Much to my surprise, it works and I get the door up most of the way before it catches on a table that has also shifted.
I grab the pills and stuffed animal bags I used to buffer the window and throw them in the shed.
I take the last 2 pillows and put them on the ground as I rotate and place the end of the bay glass window onto them.
I walk the window from each end to the garage door and hoist and push it into the shed.
I take the mini fridge, white boards, mattresses, and table from the truck and put them into the shed as well.
I open the toy chest, which didn't have the wraps, so I put it aside.
I open the freezer, which had scattered tools and things I kept behind the bar, but no wraps.
I take out the black gutter tubing I found for free on Craigslist and lay it on the ground next to the garage.
I take out the bar stools I said I'd put at the counter in the apartment.
I glance at the back of the van, one of my stadium seating platforms laid on top of other things my path to them.
I shuffle along the platform feeling all of the vehicle keys and lock for the back of the van in my pockets.
I learn how hot the top of the moving truck is.
I decide to take a break and go back to my car with the bar stools and sit in the air conditioning for a while.
I pick ticks off my jeans and flick them back into the weeds.
I swap out my better looking ill-fitting glasses for poorly colored better fitted ones.
After a solid portion of sweat dries, I walk back to the van and continue the search.
One by one I do a bad dismantling of the boxes that I think the wraps would be in.
I pick up rope, video game controllers, and my drum pad, but no wraps.
Literally everything I own is now in these two "rooms" and I can't find them.
I'm tired, hot, and incredibly uncomfortable with the amount of ticks accumulating on my body.
I decide to pack up and leave. I close and lock the doors on the shed and start walking back to the car.
Forgetting my drum pad, controllers, and rope, I turn around and retrieve them.
I sit in my car and take in the air conditioning for 2 minutes before I decide to do one last sweep of the van.
I open the driver's side door and see a line of ants crawling in the crevasse.
I use a napkins to sweap them out, concerned they had discovered the flavoring I leave in the van.
I open the side door and pick up each mildewy cushion and stack them on a counter, despite knowing I had just done as much a week ago when I used them to protect solar panels.
I confirm there's nothing, lock all the doors and return to my car.
I make it 100 feet down the gravel-ish path before a tick falls out of my hair onto the back of my neck.
I do another tick check and find 2 more, all of which I use a quarter to saw through on my dashboard.
I continue to drive, scratching at my head hoping to dislodge more ticks I cannot feel through my hair.
I spend the first 20 minutes of the drive humming songs I can't remember to myself and poorly belting out Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" which has been stuck in my head for over a week.
I decided to start another episode of Friends from College.
I eyeballed several McDonalds as I drove home as I was craving a Coke, finally attempting to stop at the one in Elletsville only to find the service too slow the the drive-thru as long as the previous one's I skipped.
I left the McDonals without ordering anything and decided to go to Wal-Mart for anti-tick help.
I took the wrong exist and had to take a backroad to get to 2nd Street.
I was stopped in traffic by a train.
Upon arriving to Wal-Mart, I proceed to the garden section and contemplate buying 2 bags of bug repellent, but settle for one, and then find the Deet containers which I slipped 2 of into my back pocket.
I walked to the front of Wal-Mart past 8 aisles before finding a cooler than held the Coke.
I pay for my bag of bug-repellent dust and Coke and leave.
I get back to the apartment and realize I've forgotten to buy a replacement heat wrap to send to the buyer on Ebay.
I go back to Wal-Mart and find the heat wrap.
I pay with a store-credit card I've forgotten to use the last 3 times I've been to that store.
I return to the apartment and attempt to access the shipping label from Ebay.
I retrieve my printer from the closet and borrow my projector cord having misplaced the ones that didn't fit securely in the printer during the move.
I attempt to set it up to wirelessly print with my chromebook.
I learn a half dozen ways why my model of printer will not work with my chromebook and I individually put in the wifi-password twice, scrolled letter by scrolled letter, because I didn't realize it could differentiate between capitalized and lowercase letters.
I grab my other broken screen laptop and plug it into the TV.
I plug the printer into the laptop.
Not being set up on the wifi yet, it doesn't download the printer drivers.
I connect to the wifi and download both the simple and complete version of the drivers for my printer.
The simple do not install.
The complex require me to run into my settings and enable something I don't know how it got disabled.
I install the larger package and reset my computer.
I re-open the pages with the shipping label and pay for and print it.
I make myself available to work again.
I put my bowl of previously cooked tater-tots in the microwave, 20 seconds after which I get pinged on to work.
One of the roommates enters with his girlfriend.
I let the microwave finish and bring my label and and heat wraps with me.
I arrive and run inside to grab a Sierra Mist.
I get back to my car and watch Friends from College and finish off my tots.
I make two deliveries, one in the same apartment complex I'm staying in across town a half hour before close.
I decide to go back to the kitchen just in case for any last minute orders.
I go inside for a Sierra Mist and Mountain Dew combination drink and talk and joke with some of the kitchen staff.
They start to clean up and I return to my car.
I sit there finishing an episode as no further orders come in.
I return to the apartment.
I search my clothes for a complete set and realize I'm out of clean underwear.
I grab my normal clothes and a pair of swim trunks and take them to the shower.
I examine myself in the large mirror for more ticks and take extra time brushing my fingers through my hair and scratching my scalp.
I get done, dressed, and take to the couch to start writing this.
I engage in small talk with a roommate
A little later the roommate's girlfriend comes in and inquires if I'm to be here tonight.
I explain my circumstances but also take the hint.
I put on shorts and proceed to the bars.
On the drive I realize though I just got out of the shower I forgot deodorant and used the emergency cologne I keep in the car.
I park in the garage around the corner from The Back Door.
I hear the music from the street, walk in and pay the $2 cover, and proceed to the bar.
I order a PBR because it's the cheapest thing on the menu and tip $.50
I watch the different groups around me and catch a girl do a lean to check out if I'm hot.
She concludes I'm not to her friends and retort in my head that she has 2 years left of wearing shorts like that.
I drink the PBR before going to the dance floor.
I dance for 4 or 5 songs, sometimes next to one girl in particular, but not with her.
I return to the bar for another PBR and wipe down my face with the bar napkins.
An acquaintance walks in and does not like my cold peace sign flash to his wave as he heads to the bar.
We banter a bit about the proper kind of introductions in the future.
I head back to the dance floor for 2 more songs before I decide to head outside to the porch.
I stand against the railing for a few minutes and check my phone before wandering away mouthing the words to the song playing.
I walk around the corner to the taco truck outside of Atlas.
I accidentally obscure a couple checking out the menu which I was looking for as well.
I order a $3 chicken taco and make a circle around the cook standing in different places as I wait.
A very drunk mid 40's hair stylist notices and compliments my hair.
She stumbles up to me while her friend tries to reign her in.
I let her play with my hair and tell me how she thought I might be someone her sister recently started dating in town.
Her friend thanks me for letting her play with my hair and corrals her back to where they were standing.
I get my taco, a fork, and a napkin and start to eat and wander around again.
I cross the street to where the other Taco dealers were and continued down past The Comedy Attic.
I decided to sit up on a small wall the separates the parking lot and street.
I hear music from The Root Cellar and contemplate popping in for a second.
The light above my head goes out.
A drunk-enough guy walks up to me and says he's putting out the word that there's some seriously messed up drugs going around in town after asking me if I was from here.
He explains he's seen too many good people die for no reason and that he doesn't judge what I might do, but just to be careful.
I tell him I've seen the lights from all of the recent overdoses, but I don't do those kind of drugs.
He says he doesn't either and we fist bump and he leaves telling me to take care.
I walk back to my car in the parking garage and am tempted to steal a city ladder laid in the level below it.
I drive back listening to the DJ mash-up of the most popular radio station.
I get home and continue to write this.
A roommate comes out of his room, grabs laundry, places Ike in the crate, and goes back to his room.
I flirt with closing my eyes for the night and lazily scan for a place to add more unnecessary detail.
I add a few more and decide I can return to this later despite feeling it has served its purpose; a purpose I still cannot define.
I adjust my way too old and irritating contact lens, scratch my chest, end this sentence and click publish.

Submitted July 16, 2017 at 01:18PM by sadallthetimeagain http://ift.tt/2vq6qN1 self

Sunday, June 18, 2017

A Call to Arms to my black brother's and sister's. Answer the call please! self

I have been a black female for 36 years in this wonderful and complicated country which I love dearly. I love that we fight, that we're free, that we're not perfect, but, we try. I love and pray for mercy everyday for us black people. I love and pray for all Americans. But I don't know what it means to be white and would make a poor spokeswoman anyway (I know obviously).

This past year has been a real head trip for me. Courtesy of the election of President Donald Trump, I burned all the bridges I had remaining with my white friends and in that freedom has come peace and clarity. Not because white people are so inherently evil but because I am so inherently evil. Little background and then I will get back to the point. I had a lifetime movie of the week childhood. Yes it sucked, but it's over. Anyway, during a real row with my white lady friend said, “the democratic party wants to keep you poor” (because I'm black, obviously). Then suddenly I realized my father wanted me to be poor. For whatever reasons, he wanted me to suffer, truly suffer. Not because he didn't produce me under the bullshit, Republican, nuclear middle class family ideals. Side note, this concept is a complete fabrication of true historical family dynamics and was propagated to sell Maytag refrigerators. It's just the real truth, don't shoot the messenger.

I thought of my father unclouded by my love or my prejudices and really saw him. Not my soul brother hero dad, who somehow managed to fight his way out of the Jim Crow South. And yet, this man who literally and figuratively held my life in his hands, who felt I was his legacy, in his inconceivable and irreconcilable cruelty, ( I can use no other words) frankly set me up to fail. I believe the truest purpose of family is redemption. We each get at chance at bat, if we strike out then we can take what we learned and hopefully pass it down to our children. I imagine all loving parents hope they can succeed where we failed, hit that homer right out the park. This preoccupation we all have with wealth for wealth sake has tricked us into believing that only the rich can be successful parents. The true value of being rich is the influence it unlocks. Wealth without influence is a hat trick. And a family without love is a prison.

When I was in the third grade I started the first steps of puberty. That's right, I am talking about body odor. Deeply embarrassed, I came home with a note from my teacher that it was time I started using deodorant. I remember being extra attentive in my bathing for school the next day. I remember staring expectantly at my father to nod his approval of my cleanliness and hand me a stick of deodorant. Instead he looked at me with disgust and sprayed me with a spritz of perfume and sent me off to class, where, of course I once again stunk up the classroom. Just like that, I was a social outcast, practically for the rest of my life. I think about that look on his face and I can't see how he didn't know 20 other faces in that classroom was going to look at me just like that and didn't care. Why would he do something so humiliating? I'll never know, the dead keep their secrets from the living. But what I knew right then and there was I could no longer trust my father and I was on my own. [In case you're wondering, the saga of the pee girl unfortunately continued far longer than really made sense honestly.]

The social rejection that followed destroyed my self esteem. Isolated and depressed I spent my whole life watching TV like it was real life. One day, I learned about Malcolm X. He was everything I wanted my father to be. Brave and slick, he always looked so genuinely happy to be a father in his family pictures. At the very end of Spike Lee's film Malcolm X, after his assassination scene, various people stand up and declare “I am Malcolm X.” And it happened, suddenly I found something that made me feel pride in myself despite my circumstances. I no longer had to just be me, I could transcend, I could survive by being black. Not only could being black instantly force others to include me, it could give me the power to not be afraid of my father, of my peers opinion, of greater society, naw it was everything.

Here's the problem, I was so comforted by what I thought in my mind was so powerful that I didn't grow up. While many will die, blacks are eternal, I had a permanent father substitute. In my head, you don't meet me, you meet a black woman. And I planned my life as if every experience was a battle to crumble white supremacy instead of you know other people. Instead of pursuits that would've enriched my life and lighten my pain I searched out petty battles that paid their victories in less than dirt. I've been so angry because I'm walking around dead. Of course white people aren't people or worst yet they're the living! You see, then yeah how we think of white people as magic, well news flash, magic=life. What do we really want?

I've dealt with racism and it's beatable. That's it, that's all there is as far as that goes these days. I understand it is complicated to move into the future when it feels the past is so unresolved. I have an odd sorta anecdote, when I lived in Japan a very angry Japanese woman angrily shoved the famous manga Barefoot Gen in my face and demanded I answer for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I straight up laughed in her face (I was 17). I didn't mean disrespect but the idea I could stand in and answer for the deaths of thousands when forget about me, my father wasn't even born (He was born in 1949) seem well ridiculous. My honest thought was she was being ridiculous. I realized right then that it is a hard truth of life sometimes when something is done, it's just done. No fan fare, no streamers, no trials, no post game analysis-just over. All us descendants can do is learn whatever lesson there may be if any and keep moving the dial of human civilization forward. It's not a shameful thing to be descendants of slaves and that history isn't a final verdict on the integrity of American whites. We all need to commit here and now about what our legacy will be and how future generations will judge us. I am definitely not saying to abdicate our responsibilities to make this country fairer and better.

It's been really hard to understand that I've been a shitty person. But as Charles Offdensen mostly said, a {wo}man can not serve two masters. Make peace.

Submitted June 19, 2017 at 02:41AM by StellaMae9 http://ift.tt/2rFIpnB self

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Dear Black People self

Dear Black People,

It's been really hard to understand that I've been a shitty person. But as Charles Offdensen mostly said, a {wo}man can not serve two masters. Make peace.

Submitted June 15, 2017 at 03:03AM by StellaMae9 http://ift.tt/2t32ZeX self

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The Sims 3 is everything I'm afraid adult life will be like. It's soul-crushingly depressing. self

You go to work for 8 hours. You come home, check the mail, pay the bills, and you don't have any food so you go to the store. You drive right back home and cook some food and eat it. You put the rest in the refrigerator, take a shower, and go to sleep.

You really wanted to read some books or play some games, but maybe you can do that tomorrow.

You wake up in the morning and brush your teeth. The bath tub is dirty so you clean it. You pick up the newspaper outside and throw it away. Your carpool arrives. You work for 8 hours. You get back home. You go to the bathroom. The toilet is stopped up. You unstop it. You take a shower. You eat the rest of the leftovers. You start reading a book for a few minutes but it's already time to sleep.

It's just day after day of pointless, tedious, inescapable work and you never get a break. Even for a moment. There are things you could be doing to improve your circumstances, to get a promotion at work, to make your life just a little bit brighter. But you just don't have the time, and you never will.

Submitted May 17, 2017 at 04:16PM by winter_mutant http://ift.tt/2qvBNVj self

Friday, April 28, 2017

Starting karate at 32, I don't want to be like Dwight Schrute. self

The reaction didn’t surprise me, when I told two female coworkers I was taking karate.

“Kah-rah-TAY?” one said, purposefully butchering the word.

The other added, “Just like Ross Geller.”

Ross Geller. Of all people, these two women had to compare me to the least-likeable character from “Friends.” The world of ‘90s and ‘00s sitcoms considered it comedic: the idea of a grown man taking karate. Geller did it in Friends. Dwight Schrute did it in the Office. Cosmo Kramer did it in Seinfeld.

In particular, the writers on Seinfeld and The Office lampooned the idea of adults participating in what many people see as a children’s activity. Indeed, Kramer and Schrute are the only adults in their respective classes. Hilarity ensues as Kramer spars tiny children, chasing them around the room. Meanwhile, Schrute’s dojo teaches -- as three of its primary tenets -- to “Obey your parents,” “Do your homework,” and “Keep your room clean.”

Knowing I fit the profile didn’t help my pride. A 30-something-year-old man. No kids. More than six feet tall. Perhaps a little on the zany side myself.

Imagine my embarrassment, when I learned I would be the only adult in my first class.

As four of us waited for that class to start, one of the girls asked, “Has anybody taken Biology yet?”

I tried not to sigh.

A problem I don’t understand

The Dacula Dojo, where I study American karate in a suburb northeast of Atlanta, also teaches Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I’ve seen the people in the adult class. They’re all men. At least one of them is old enough to be my father.

Martial arts are incredibly popular, generally speaking. Plenty of us know a guy who “does MMA” (mixed martial arts). It’s a billion-dollar industry. UFC now has like-minded people talking about fighting in a way they never did before. They speak in reverent tones about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the superiority of “ground and pound.”

The study of judo and jiu-jitsu made Ronda Rousey the top-class fighter she became.

Then again, her epic defeat came at the hands of a more traditional fighter: kickboxer Holly Holm.

Which is why I don’t understand the relative lack of adult interest in American karate -- which draws its style from both traditional Japanese karate and modern kickboxing. So many men and women never try it. They never even see it in person. Considering our current gym culture society, that doesn’t make any sense to me.

CrossFit gets all the love, I guess.

I hate cardio

Most of my life has been spent working behind a desk or sitting at home playing video games. A handful of times, I became a gym rat for a couple months, then returned to my old lifestyle.

At my lower levels of fitness, cardio has been difficult. A slow walk from my recliner to my refrigerator would already have my heart rate above 100 beats per minute. Pushing it above 135 on the elliptical would just set my legs on fire, as weak as they were.

At my higher levels of fitness, my legs and my heart are too strong for the machine. Getting my heart rate into an effective range takes blinding speed. Reaching a point that’s actually beneficial, aerobically speaking, becomes tedious and frustrating.

I hate tedious and frustrating.

Martial arts are different.

A personal trainer once told me about lifting, “It doesn’t get any easier. You just get stronger.” I could easily apply the same idea to martial arts. Simple physics dictates more power means more energy. The stronger I get, the harder I punch. The harder I kick, the more calories I burn. I don’t notice how hard my body is working, because I’m just trying to punch faster. To kick harder. To execute every move with more precision. More speed. More power. Better technique.

It’s the best full-body workout I’ve ever had.

I’m not alone anymore

Several other adults have since joined the karate program at The Dacula Dojo.

One of them joined us after her karate center in Flowery Branch discontinued its adult program due to lack of interest. She’s a blue belt in her 60s. Karate keeps her young, and it helps keep her healthy. She says, most importantly, that she just doesn’t want to stop.

The rest of the adults came as novices, as I did -- not even allowed to wear a white belt until they earned it, taking several classes and eventually kicking through a board.

Those other guys are all fathers, and they’re all always smiling.

One joined to help his son learn, the way parents sometimes have to brush up on their math to help with a child’s homework. He seemed surprised to find out how invigorating it was.

One of the other guys watched his daughter take karate for six months, before he got tired of sitting on the sidelines. She’s in the adult class now (Ages 13 & Up), so her father also gets to spend more time with his teenage daughter. After just a few classes, he was already bragging about the effect on his golf game.

The other guy makes me think of the prototypical suburban soccer dad. On the one hand, he’s trying to get his young son involved in something. At the same time, he has always wanted to study karate himself. You can see the passion in him. He had clearly thought about doing this for a long time. He just never did.

Maybe he didn’t have the time. Maybe he didn’t have the drive or the courage.

Or maybe that’s just me. Those were certainly my insecurities. My reasons for not doing something I had always wanted to do.

I started studying martial arts when I was seven years old. I quit when I was eight. For nearly 25 years, I made excuses. My work schedule didn’t allow it. There was nowhere nearby that taught the style I wanted to learn. (I had this misguided perception that karate was somehow “less than” compared to more exotic-sounding styles of martial arts, such as Hapkido or Krav Maga.) I didn’t want to seem any more like Ross Geller than I already did.

I didn’t have a good reason to walk into The Dacula Dojo; just the suggestion of a friend, who happens to be an instructor there.

...and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in a very long time.

We’re all white belts at something

I never understood the practice of board-breaking until I actually did it.

It took me three tries to get my foot through one inch of wood. I failed twice. By the time I threw that third kick, the crowd of people had stopped their drumroll on the floor. My failures were punctuated by their silence.

...but when the board finally snapped, I experienced something. I felt a surprising amount of accomplishment in that moment. When the instructor tied my white belt around me, I knew it wasn’t just being given to me. I had earned it.

My dojo has a 19-year-old assistant instructor, who dropped a big piece of wisdom on me recently: “We’re all white belts at something.”

I’ve seen so many people in my life (myself included) fear failure. Afraid to seem like an amateur, they often avoid things they don’t already know how to do.

I don’t want to be that guy anymore.

At the dojo one night, before I could walk onto the mat, a little boy at the drinking fountain got in my way. Barely taller than my knee, he took one long look up at me, and with wide eyes and drawn-out syllables, he said, “You’re a white belt!?”

He didn’t have to say, “like me.” He wore a white gi and a white belt just like mine. The two of us were technically at the same skill level. For some reason, that didn’t embarrass me. He was clearly amazed that an adult -- especially one my size -- could be a beginner at anything. So I mustered up every ounce of pride I could, smiled, and told him, “I sure am.”

We all start as beginners. We fail. We keep failing. With practice, over time, we start to get better, and we start to fail less often.

I know karate isn’t for everyone, but it’s something I really enjoy. I want to share that excitement. I want more people to get involved. I want to change the perception that sitcoms put on adults in karate. It’s a lot harder than it looks, and it’s a lot more fun than you might expect.

Give it a shot. Get out of your comfort zone. Ask around about adult classes close to where you live. Whether it’s karate or jiu-jitsu or taekwondo, I would love to see more adult men and women involved in martial arts.

...and if you’re in my area, swing by The Dacula Dojo. We’d love to have you.

Submitted April 29, 2017 at 01:02AM by Lazlodamus http://ift.tt/2oU6ZvI self

Friday, February 3, 2017

I miss the internet of the 1990s.... self

It was slow, web browsers were somewhat terrible, but the internet was comprised mostly of nerds like me, not these brigading thoughtless goons. The amount of misinformation or simple "if you don't think like us, we'll drown out your cogent debate with idiotic noise" is deafening.

Back then, you had to at least have a basic understanding of computers to log into the internet.. now it's on fucking refrigerators.

Submitted February 04, 2017 at 10:30AM by _REDSTOOL_ http://ift.tt/2jJjU5e self

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

r/All top has drastically changed, so here's a list of some famous threads in case any are buried. self

Jar Jar Binks is a knowing Sith collaborator - Star Wars
Reddit turned Spanish - AskReddit
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning - LegalAdvice
the story of Jarrett Jess and Z - BlackPeopleTwitter
Soon I will be gone forever - GetMotivated
Fucki Mold; Stephen/Stephen - NoStupidQuestions
Anon works IT - 4Chan
A final response to "tell me why Trump is a fascist" - EnoughTrumpSpam
Found a Stray Cat - SubredditSimulator
Florida Man gets in the most awesome fight ever - SubredditSimulator
is the Reverse Flash actually a refrigerator
Daredevil discussion Episode 1 - Arrow
Ken Bone AMA - IAMA
showing up on Google Images when you type "Comcast" - CircleJerk
no link between MMR vaccines and autism - Science

also some personal favourites:

I am 16, in a marching band, and have autism and ADD. Make me cry. - RoastMe
Welcome to r/MoviesCircleJerk! - MoviesCircleJerk
Gay people make me puke - GoldReplies
I figured out why I hated Suicide Squad so much - RPG
final gettogether for the Breaking Bad cast - BreakingBad (spoilers, I guess)

comments:

Yeah, you like that, you fucking retard? (slightly NSFW) - AskReddit
Geraffes are so dumb - Pics
what happens if you win the lottery - AskReddit

Saturday, September 3, 2016

911 call transcript self

Dispatch: 911, what is your emergency?

Caller: Life is meaningless.

Dispatch: Sir, is everything okay?

Caller: Eh, alright. Not great, but alright. I've been in kind of a weird funk lately.

Dispatch: Are you in any immediate danger?

*Caller: Well that's kinda what I'm trying to figure out here. I've been having all these weird thoughts lately, and I got on Google and looked them up. It says I'm having an, uh, give me a sec. An exi... existential emergency. I don't feel sick or anything, but I'm not a doctor so I figured I should report it just in case.

[Pause]

Caller: Hello? Are you still there?

Dispatch: Yes, sir, I am still here. I am just trying to figure out what is going on. What is your emergency?

Caller: I just told you. I am having an existrendal [sic] emergency.

Dispatch: Sir, this line is for actual emergencies only.

Caller: Wait, so this isn’t actually an emergency?

Dispatch: No, sir.

Caller: Oh, thank God. That’s a load off my mind. So could you answer a few of my questions?

Dispatch: Sir, what is your location?

Caller: Did you hear me? I actually asked you something. This cheap phone is always cutting out. The reception has never been the same since I dropped it in that glass of Coke. It's also really windy here. I asked if you could answer a couple of questions I’ve been thinking about lately.

Dispatch: Sir, I am required by standard protocol to find out your location. Could you please tell me where you are?

Caller: Okay, sure. I'm at the park. The one across from the mall. It has all those trees and stuff. I'm sitting on the bench by the pond.

[Pause]

Dispatch: Please stay where you are. We have an officer on his way to your location.

Caller: Okay, that hardly seems necessary when we're already on the phone here. And we haven't even started talking yet! Anyway, I was sitting in my kitchen. The Bonanza mini-marathon was over, and my room mate Dave was out buying more turtle food, so I was really bored. I was so bored that I just sat by the kitchen counter and watched this lady bug climb up the side of the container of some pie. My mom baked it for me. It kept trying to climb up the side of the container, and every time it got up to the lip around the edge, it would fall off. Then it would get back up and try again. It just kept trying to climb this pie over and over. Over and over and over. Anyway, I--

Dispatch: Sir--

Caller: Hold on, I'm not done yet. Eventually my mind wandered off somewhere else, and somehow I ended up trying to fix the wobbly leg on the refrigerator. I eventually fixed it. Two index cards and a Gatorade cap. So as soon as I'm done repairing the fridge, I'm really excited to use it as quick as possible, so I'm like, "I should put the pie in there. That'll keep it good." So I walk back over to the pie, and I see the lady bug standing right on top of it! The little guy finally made it up the pie! Now it's right there, smack dab in the middle of it. Probably munching away on that thing like it's the last thing it'll ever eat. Then it turned out that it was, cause I swatted that little thing off the top of it and stepped on it.

Dispatch: Uh huh.

Caller: Then that's when all this crap started. I'm not sure why, but I looked at that lady bug, and then it just hit me. I'm that lady bug. So is everybody. All my life I'm trying to do stuff. We're all just trying to do stuff. Then we fail over and over, cause that's what you've gotta do to get what you want. It's okay though, because eventually we're gonna get up onto that pie, and it's gonna be awesome. But then when we finally get up there, even if it is awesome, anything can happen. Some guy can just smack you off the top of your goals and step on you with his new Nikes that just came in from the internet. Hell, he might do that before you even get on the pie! It's gonna happen at some point, so why do we even put up with it? What's the point of even trying to get on the pie in the first place? Do you get what I mean? Do you ever feel like that?

Dispatch: Is this one of your questions?

Caller: Sort of. I guess what I'm asking is this: What's the point of it all? Why do you keep going? Why should the lady bug keep climbing the pie?

Dispatch: Sir, are you sure everything is okay? Are you going to hurt yourself?

Caller: What? I'm just sitting here on a bench. It's probably the safest thing in the world. You're getting sidetracked. What do the smart people say about this? You're like, a cop or something. Aren't they smart? They're smart. What is the answer to this question?

Dispatch: I am not a police officer.

Caller: Whatever, man. Cop, firefighter, it doesn't matter. You're still not answering me. Tell me what the answer is. I'd really like to know.

Dispatch: [sigh] What you're asking is one of the oldest questions there is. Nobody has the answer to it.

Caller: Fuck! Really? Shit, can I say fuck on here?

Dispatch: What…? You can say whatever you want on here.

Caller: Okay, cool. I don't wanna get in trouble. So are you serious? Nobody has figured this out yet? What about like, Einstein?

Dispatch: Einstein was a physicist. This wasn't really his subject.

Caller: Damn, really? I mean, he figured out how to blow shit up better than anybody, and why stuff falls. You'd think he could figure this out. Why couldn't he?

Dispatch: I couldn't tell you. Sorry.

Caller: Are you sure you're a cop? I'm pretty sure there are SOME people that would have this figured out.

Dispatch: I told you. I am not a cop.

Caller: Well that much is obvious now. I'll talk to that one cop when he gets here. He'll know.

Dispatch: Okay. Is that everything, then? [Sharp inhale]

Caller: Yeah, that's just the first part. Maybe you'll know the answer to this next one.

Dispatch: [sigh]

Caller: So you know, the lady bug is climbing the pie, and it just kind of assumes that the pie is gonna be great. But what if it isn't? Like, what if the lady bug is really feeling some apple pie, and then it finally gets up there and then it's some kind of pie it doesn't like? Bumbleberry. I hate bumbleberry pie. So how do we know that what we're working for is the right thing? Like, we've all only got so much time to climb the pie. How do we choose which pie to climb? I mean, the lady bug only had one, but it could have gone over to the fridge where one corner of it was almost touching the ground. What if it liked something in there better? What if I get to the top of one pie, and it turns out it was bumbleberry the whole time I was trying to get to it? Then I see that all along there was an awesome looking key lime pie over in the fridge? Do you know what I mean?

Dispatch: Mhm.

Caller: There are so many things to choose from in life! What are the odds that I'm gonna choose the right one? It just seems so pointless to even try.

Dispatch: Sir, you've contacted an emergency phone line. We get calls like this sometimes. If you're thinking about hurting yourself in any way, you need to tell me.

Caller: You keep going back to that. I don't get it. Why would I hurt myself? If I'm gonna hurt anybody, it's gonna be Dave!

Dispatch: Excuse me, you're going to hurt Dave? Why are you going to hurt Dave?

Caller: That butt muncher ate my pie! I mean, I didn't want it any more anyway, after having some bug crawling all over it. Gross! But still, it's the principle of it. As soon as he gets back from the turtle fair, he's gonna be in a world of hurt!

Dispatch: Sir-

Caller: Please don't tell the cops I said that! I'm not gonna hurt him bad, just maybe like an Indian burn or something like that.

Dispatch: [sigh] Okay.

Caller: But yeah. All the pies. How on Earth are you going to climb all of them? Well, obviously not all of them, but you know what I mean. There are so many to choose from. I mean, I guess I could just do my best to get to as many pies as I can. At least one of them has gotta be good. Right?

Dispatch: Sure.

Caller: Wait. So maybe the point is to just do your best to get to all the pies you want. If you do your best, you should be able to get to at least, like, I dunno, three of them. Unless you're really unlucky, one of the pies will be satisfactory.

Dispatch: Okay.

Caller: Have people figured out the answer to this question?

Dispatch: Sort of.

Caller: So there's still some work to be done, huh?

Dispatch: Sure.

Caller: Okay, because I really feel like I'm getting somewhere with this. Thanks for your help. 911 is great. Now I see why so many people call you guys. Do you guys have like a Yelp page or something? I'll give you guys an awesome review.

Dispatch: 911 does not have a Yelp page.

Caller: Oh well. Anyway, we're getting side tracked again. So if I figure out the answer to this question, who do I talk to about it? Should I go to like, the mayor? Nah, that doesn't really doesn't seem like that kind of deal.

Male Voice: [Inaudible] received a 911 call from this location.

Caller: (Yeah, we're actually getting this sorted out pretty well on here though. I think I found out why to do stuff! I'll tell you about it in as second.) Sorry, 911 guy, I just got distracted. That cop you sent here keeps trying to talk to me. So anyway, we were just figuring out who I should talk to once I get this figured out.

Male Voice: Sir, please [Inaudible] right now.

Dispatch: You know, at this point, this is more on the side of police work than dispatch work. You should talk to him about it. And hang up.

Caller: Okay, I'll talk with him about it. We'll bounce some ideas off of each other and see how it goes. I'll see if I can set up a Yelp page for you guys.

Dispatch: Do not do that.

Caller: Okay, yeah, you're right. It should be you guys to do it.

Dispatch: Yeah, sure, hanging up now.

Caller: Goodbye!

[CALL ENDS]

Submitted September 04, 2016 at 10:20AM by OnIowa http://ift.tt/2cb99Ef self

Sunday, August 14, 2016

YOUR JOB IS WHATEVER THE FUCK YOUR MANAGER SAYS IT IS: A Rant self

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Friday, August 12, 2016

It's hard to find a place to rent self

My room mates for the past year are total wads. When the girl isn't working she's drinking, popping xanax and watching cartoons or fantasy garbage and the boy just sits on his ass or lays in bed watching cartoons, playing xbox while popping pills and smoking pot. His disability application is in its third year. These people are older than I am but I cannot refer to them as adults because they cannot meet their responsibilities, and when they make an half-gesture at doing so they expect a cookie.

As my old man would say, you do not get a cookie for doing what you're supposed to do.

The room we rent is small and the roof leaks out of the air vents that do not work. We complained for months until we bought a window unit via craigslist and knocked out the window to install it ourselves (those old slat crank windows.) We got our own refrigerator as well, as the slobs liked to take our food from time to time (and lied when confronted.) We rent the additional screened in porch that's about the size of our room in exchange for mowing the large yard (if I didn't do it they never would), but it leaks so bad we had to rent a storage unit for our things after it began to storm badly in the past month because it leaks and floods.

We've had to throw out most of our furniture because of the cockroach problem, which persists anyways though not as badly as before, since we took care of extermination in our room ourselves.

We share cat litter duties, one week apiece between the four of us. They went one week and a half without touching the litter, dumped it and told us it was our week. We had left notes reminding them of our duties, notes ignored or erased from the whiteboard. When we neglect it for a day, we are given passive aggressive notes or knocked on the door.

Well, fuck them.

The other night we made a list of our issues and sat them down. The boy sneered and made comments and shot glares at us, but I handled the situation and told them of our issues, how we feel they never attempt to correct or help us correct them (they own the house) and finally, after the boy complained about us yelling (we're in a small room with two dogs, both full time students with part time jobs; tensions peak at times) I thought to myself "I just took out a fat student loan, I'm done here" and gave them the two months notice required in the rental agreement.

Now here's where I run into a problem: it is hard to find a house we can afford (we probably make about 1500 together) that also accepts animals. Yeah, here's the real issue: we have a large dog (~70 pounds), a very fat small dog, and six cats. No getting around it, we have six fucking cats. How did we get six cats over three years of living together? We're animal rescue volunteers, it just happened.

The problem isn't the number, numbers can always be fudged. The problem is a) finding a place in our budget (ideally 650-800), b) close to school and work (I have to bike; my car is broke, scheduling prevents us from sharing a car and bus system sucks) and c) finding a pet friendly place. It's hard to get all three because in our area most pet-owners let their animals trash places and there seem to be next to no rentals in our narrow unincorporated area within budget (currently 1.5 miles from work and 6 from school, don't want to move further than that as I'll be biking about 50 miles per week.)

We have one month until the money comes in to persuade a lenient landlord in an ideal situation to make exceptions and another month after that to move between work and school. It's exciting, but it also sucks dick.

Submitted August 12, 2016 at 08:16PM by alwaysupvoteTRUNKS http://ift.tt/2bndILq self

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Abundantly free tea, coffee, and cocoa of all varieties at work, yet people walk in with Starbucks? self

Is there something that fantastic about Starbucks?

Where I work, there are all kinds of nice amenities provided around the office. There are pantries full of a wide selection of teas, coffees, hot cocoa, soda, nutrient beverages, etc. There are also snacks, like fruit or leftovers from company-provided lunches. Hell, sometimes there is even beer in the refrigerators for grabs.

The other beverages and snacks aside, the main point is that the coffee provided comes in all strengths and flavors, and different brands. There are various creams, sugars and sweeteners available, too. Even cane sugar, if that's your thing.

And yet some people walk in with Starbucks every morning. WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING!!?!???!!!?!??

Submitted May 05, 2016 at 06:35AM by goat-worshiper http://ift.tt/21ysmzQ self

Friday, April 22, 2016

Supporting local businesses backfired on me today. self

My boyfriend was rushed to the ER this morning at about 8am, and had to undergo an emergency abdominal surgery. He is visiting me at school and doesn't have any family closer than three hours away, so I've been the only one at the hospital, the communicator to his very worried family, and the person that doctors and surgeons have spoken to all day.

That being said, eating food didn't cross my mind until about 30 minutes ago (about 12 hours of functioning on water and a cup of coffee). The cafeteria closed at 6pm, but luckily a local coffee shop had a kiosk-type setup that was open with sandwiches, salads, etc. After experiencing a whole new level of stress throughout the day, I meticulously picked out my ideal soul-warming meal, consisting of a delicious-looking German Chocolate cupcake and a hearty vegan black bean burrito.

I contently made my way to a small refrigerator filled with water, juice, and hipster-y bottled sodas. While carefully contemplating which beverage would be the perfect accomplice to my meal, I noticed that they sold locally bottled rootbeer and non-local rootbeer. Wanting to support my small town, I chose the local beverage without question.

Feeling satisfied with my decision to support small businesses, finally getting to relax and stuff my face with food, I take a sip of what I expected to be a bold, creamy, thirst-quenching sip of freshly bottled rootbeer. I was anything but prepared for the stevia-tasting, watered down liquid that washed over my tastebuds like the contents of a septic tank.

It was lo-cal rootbeer. As in "low-calorie". Not local. I'm done with today.

TL;DR: Tried to be a good citizen and support a local soda company. In my state of delirium, I was saddened to discover that I fucked up by misreading "lo-cal rootbeer" as "local rootbeer", thus drenching my mouth in septic sauce.

Submitted April 23, 2016 at 06:04AM by redwinecat http://ift.tt/22UUPPD self

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Is there any greater disappointment than laying in bed dreaming of cereal and to get up, pour a bowl of cereal, open the refrigerator... And there is no milk! self

No text found

Submitted January 13, 2016 at 12:10AM by DontGiveaFuckistan http://ift.tt/1N5M6B7 self

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Worst Service ever from sears, what are my options small claims court? self

Bought a $2500 fridge, Kenmore Elite 29.9 cu.ft. 4-Door Bottom-Freezer Refrigerator w/Dispenser, in April, spent another 800 on 5 year warranty. December 7th the fridge stopped working, everything thawed, water all over hardwood floors. Called the service and the could not a tech to my house for over a week. They ordered some weather stripping for the fridge, not sure why, which arrived and was never used. Called back and the automated service moved it up to the 11th. Tech came said it needs a new mother board, it will be shipped to my house but they couldn't come back out until the 24th, the day before christmas. Really Christmas with family in the house and no fridge or freezer. But wait we are eligible for a rental. Turns out the rental is anything we can buy for less than $100 and maybe they will reimburse? I paid almost 3k for the fridge it's been 2 weeks during the holidays, but wait it gets better. Put the new mother board in it doesn't work, It is very obvious it is not working but you have to wait for 24 hours to tell them and schedule another call. Next call, new service man comes out spends 20 minutes and says it's the compressor. Orders a new part says he can't come out till till the 5th of January, were getting on a month now without a fridge, can't store lunches, dinners have to eat out more than not. I have kids and it is getting more and more expensive. Compressor arrives technician puts it in and low and behold it works, thank god. I go out and buy new food since we can keep it from spoiling now and stock the fridge, not too much mind you because we are still unsure. Notice ice maker isn't working and call back. Rep on phone looks it up and after another 15 or 20 minutes on the phone he says there is a reset button under the mechanism on the ice maker, I push it and water flows, what a great sound. January 7th was a good day, cold stuff in freezer and fridge and ice. Wake up this morning, January 8th, to my daughter screaming there is water all over the kitchen floor. Not only has the ice-maker melted all the ice, the water running down the front of the fridge has now buckled my hardwood floor and it is not working again.

Submitted January 07, 2016 at 09:18PM by k0piluwak http://ift.tt/1THtywC self

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Taking Food Safety Practices Seriously self

I am posting here today because for a several months, I have felt really conflicted with feelings of disgust while working at my job, and I'm not sure what I should do.

I work at a major retail store. Like most retailers within the recent decade or so, this retailer has discovered that there is a market for opening up a grocery section of the store. I specifically specialize in the refrigerator and frozen areas.

The store I work brings in a lot of revenue; I guess we rank near the top in the US. We are always crowded with shoppers. Because of this, we end up getting a lot of product shipped in each night, but the store's design is flawed in that the focus of its construction was on floor space and the backroom is EXTREMELY limited.

What this is means is that we get a ton of frozen and refrigerated product that sits out on a pallet, in room temperature, sometimes for hours. The overnight workers and managers also really don't give a fuck and with the occasional overnight shifts that I have picked up with them, I learned that they end up dividing all the boxes of product up to sit on the sales floor before unboxing the product. At least, this is an efficient system. But technically, we are supposed to trash the food as it thaws for more than 30 minutes, sometimes we go casually over at an hour... but I know for a fact that food thaws and they just sell it anyways.

Another problem is that our store is incredibly short-staffed, so there isn't enough people to work the product/manage the cooler and freezer storage, ect. While talking to management and a young intern who is my age, I've racked up different explanations of why that is. The highest of managers and the intern put the blame on corporate policy, like there is some maximum amount of hours we can have, but my direct supervisor always mentions how strict his boss is with the payroll, which makes me really suspicious that the store staffs way shorter than it needs to in order to preserve that high revenue and ranking.

This is so sketchy, and I can't imagine it is legal that they endure their costs in this way. It was obvious to me that the quality of the food would be poor (ice cream no longer is ice cream after a while), but last night, I stuck up for prioritizing food safety again (like I was trained to!) only to frustrate my managers. When I got home, I did a little bit of googling and read about foodbourne illness, and how bacteria can form and increase while that food is thawed. This made me nervous. I talked to someone who works low level customer service in the store about this, and she thinks someone should report them. Some co-workers in my department, meanwhile, deny that its any big deal. They specifically mention that the frozen food will hold better while its still all condensed on a pallet.

If someone reads this, what do you think? I have thought about resigning to not be apart of it, I have tried transfering but that takes a while and has been a very political process since I have learned that the grocery managers figure it to be easier to keep me locked in grocery instead of hiring someone new. I'd prefer though, that I don't quit... mostly because I'm studying computer science which gives me potential to get a great job higher up, where I can pay off my over $100k in student loans. They also have a lot of other great benefits, like tuition coverage if I wanted to continue education with a new degree or grad school.

I'm morally opposed and disappointed that the store does this, and yet, it sort of seems like the economics/available space ect. sort of puts the managers in a place to make hard choices. Does anyone have ideas of what I should do?

Submitted December 16, 2015 at 03:42AM by Throw_Away_Bad_Food http://ift.tt/1No7ULO self

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Refrige-raiders self

Think. A show where someone is filmed raiding their own refrigerator for their roommates food. Starring honey boo boo, only on tlc

Submitted September 12, 2015 at 12:36PM by cp424 http://ift.tt/1KhbKpS self