Posts made by hedgehog

@mietze

It's the worst. I'm so sorry.

@mietze

I empathize. And I sympathize. It's a mixed-up pile of shit.

@Bobotron

What city, which venue?

@surreality

And mine isn't even a quarter of how bad yours was. Good lord, woman.

@surreality

With the exception of seeing old friends and a really great family trip to the Caribbean in January, 2016 is a fucking dismal shithole of a year.

@Arkandel

At least my husband was able to SMS me a photo of Inu while I sat crying in the Ved Vesterport Cafe Baresso (which wasn't even the Cafe Baresso I was supposed to be in, but goddamnit, Copenhagen, they're more prolific than Starbucks). I didn't even get a photo of Neko when it happened while I was in Toronto in August.

Apparently the good citizens of Copenhagen are used to random Americans crying in their cafes, though, as nobody bothered me about it.

@Pondscum

Oh, I am so sorry. And so full of empathy. At least you got to be there with the fluffy buddy. I had to deal with the experience of having my best baby boy kitty of 13 years put down while I was in a foreign country. AGAIN.

It was the 9th of June and my heart is still broken.

@Ganymede

If you all collapse, then that just means more Bill's Donuts for me when I am there in June. And also Graeters, because I like to think that the people who actually make those things are magical robots who won't fall victim to the Great Pollination of Montgomery County.

I've experienced an odd twist on this, where people have come into the shop my character owns, a public on-grid hangout, while he was there, and then completely ignored him. I mean, I get it - in real life we don't necessarily talk to the guy who owns the record store (unless he's also the one staffing it) but due to the nature of the MU* beast, it's pretty dickish.

At the same time, however, I have learned of the joy of puppets, and if I want to be elsewhere, or am not in the mood to pose ':stands at the counter, going through paperwork while potential customers mill about the store, doing their own thing.' a bunch because I know that the people hanging out are going to just keep to themselves? My character ducks out the back door and lets his employee run things.

@Vorpal

That utterly sucks. I'm sorry.

@Cobaltasaurus

I got this when I worked bakery/deli all the time. Some asshole would watch me sweep and mop and cover all of the salads, then walk up at 11PM and ask for a quarter pound of fucking fruit fluff.

I licked a few serving spoons in my time. No regerts.

@mietze

I waltzed in for my shift this afternoon with a new razor-cut/clipped/cropped mess of hair dyed a kind of glorious coppery cherry color. My dad-friend (the only male to regularly volunteer, might I add) turned to me and said 'I see you're here to scare all the kids!' right in front of her and her cronies. It was life-affirming.

She's gone next year, off to Queen Bee the volunteering at the middle school. I shan't miss her.

So. My son's school has done a free/super cheap bookstore in it for the past 30-something years, or so. It's a great endeavor, but the lady currently in charge of it is kind of a piece of work - meanly gossipy, cliquish, has not a lick of self-awareness, and doesn't take it well when people don't think exactly as she does, or fall to their knees and worship at the feet of her daughter and her friends. I don't do that. I don't even play favorites when I'm volunteering there and my son's grade comes up to buy/pick out things.

After four months straight of my devoting most of my day there every Friday, this past week (our last official store of the school year), she pulls me aside to tell me that 'parents have called her at home to complain that their kids think I am scary.' No indication of what grade(s) these kids are in; no indication of what it is about me that is 'scary'. When I tried to delve deeper (because, if there is, in fact, a legitimate complaint, of course I will endeavor to mitigate things) all she could say was 'maybe it's your hair'. Because apparently overgrown graying pixie cuts are super frightening these days. No other explanation was offered, she didn't tell me to stop volunteering, nada. It was all very odd, incredibly hurtful, and just some downright mean girls bullshit from a fortysomething. It was also suspect that parents apparently went straight to her, rather than to the school,, and that she couldn't have told me about this at all during the week, but instead waited for me to actually start my shifts?

So, since she couldn't tell me what grades were involved (or, remember, any concrete complaints), and I had signed up to volunteer for the whole day tomorrow for a related event, I un-volunteered for all slots except my son's grade, because all of those teachers and kids know me, and one girl asked me if I was a vampire, but I've known her since she was two, so whatever...they see me every damn day. And I have never gotten so much as a peep about being corporate goth from the administration, or any of the parents in our cohort or other staff, so...yeah. Fuck Debi.

@Thenomain

I'd suspect that you lived around Northwestern too, with this. Now I'm just sad to know that college students are privileged dicks everywhere.

@VulgarKitten

Yes. And on sphere channels, too. I've been told it's because my PC doesn't put out at all.

@Coin

I concur that people, as a rule, are problematic. I suppose that irresponsible cyclists confuse me most of all because I feel like they should have a bit more sense of how squishy we all are, since they aren't generally encased in two tons of plastic and steel and fiberglass, and therefore don't get that false sense of security.

@Coin

I also can't explain what I see to be as flawed designs for bike paths. Even the ones here where cars park on the outside of the path/lane, so that the bike lane is between the curb and said parked cars? Seem rife with problems, particularly that of oblivious passengers opening car doors right into the lane, or stupid double parkers.

I try to have empathy for cyclists, especially for those who actually obey traffic laws and use hand signals and such, but it gets a little more eroded each time I have one call me a bitch or threaten my kid because he didn't move off of the sidewalk fast enough, or when they ignore stop signs while we're crossing an intersection. I shouldn't have to play chicken with some self-absorbed NU kid biking while using their cell phone.

@Coin

Explain this weirdness of biking to me, if you could? We live along a major thoroughfare in our Chicago suburb, one that runs north-south. Bicycle riding is expressly forbidden along this corridor, because some civic planner, in their infinite wisdom, made a two lane street four lanes without actually widening them. Bike riding on the sidewalks parallel to this street is also forbidden for grown-ass adults; also, there are perfectly bike-friendly side streets a block east and west that they can ride on. This does not stop assholes from expecting pedestrians to move the hell out of their way while they barrel down the sidewalk on their fixed-gears. Why do they do this? Why not use the side streets with their four way stopsigns rather than ride illegally on the sidewalks and have to deal with stoplights, skateboarders, toddlers, dogs, strollers and bus stops? What is the logic?

@Rick-Sanchez

It had so much promise, but has degenerated into that or tea parties. Or unseelie who are just rapists and orgiastic bores. With Oirish and Cockney accents.

@Ganymede

As well as piskeys, clurichan, boggarts, river hags,. But they tried to rectify that Sluagh thing by making them...vaguely slavic. Scandinavian Trolls are not giants. Ljosalfar are more interesting than Sidhe. Why are there no dwarves/Dokkalfar?

So many questionable decisions.