youre standing on my neck

jamie | 22 | they/them

[reddwoods]

magical girl moment. she ATE

[boopsloop363]

[sambuchito]

the thing is.. it is the humidity that gets you...

[beemovieerotica]

dystopia

[sylvrndoodles]

finally finished the whole set :D!!

[hedgehog-moss]

I went to the small pizzeria in a nearby village last month and asked for a calzone, and when she brought it to me the owner had a look on her face I can only describe as bitter.

Naturally my first assumption was that she was judging me for my food order (maybe calzones are too easy compared to other pizzas and she felt under-challenged as a pizza chef?), but then I looked at my calzone and the more I looked at it, the more I felt like it might have been a failed attempt at a cat calzone.

(I didn't ask for a cat calzone, just a calzone.)

If I had immediately identified it as a cat calzone I would have of course said something about it, such as "Aww that's so cute! You made it in the shape of a cat!! Thank you!" — but it was too late. I hesitated too long, and it was just failed enough that I wasn't sure it was meant to be a cat.

I think this poor woman knew her cat calzone was a failure and I wouldn't be able to recognise her effort for what it was, hence the bitterness in her eyes when she brought it to me.

I asked my friend if my pizza looked like a cat to her, and she said "Are you saying this because of the olives? I think they were just placed randomly."

no, I think they were meant to be eyes, and a cat nose. And those are the ears. Wait, I'll turn it in your direction so you can see

Friend: "It's just a pointy calzone... Maybe you should ask the chef if she meant to make it a cat?"

If I tried to make a cat calzone and the recipient of this gift went like 'hey, sorry, is this weird-looking thing meant to be cat?' I would sell my pizza restaurant and drown myself in the river.

After considering this, my friend said we could brainstorm a better phrasing—but then we ended up agreeing that since the chef didn't go 'haha sorry I tried to make a cat and failed!!' when she brought my pizza, the options were a) she didn't try to make a cat; b) she feels humiliated by her failure, and either way it's better to say nothing.

But I felt deeply curious about this unresolved mystery, so this week when I went back to the pizzeria I asked for a calzone again.

The options were now: a) the chef brings me a better, recognisable cat calzone and I immediately remark upon it and she's happy and we erase the failed cat calzone from the historical record and never mention it ever;

or b) the chef brings me a normal calzone, which suggests that the vague cat shape from last time was accidental and just another instance of chronic cat pareidolia.

(I refused to consider option c) The chef brings me another failed, hardly-recognisable cat. She just doesn't seem like the kind of person who would let that happen to her twice.)

Here's the photo of the failed cat calzone from last time, which, according to my friend, just looks like a pointy calzone with randomly-placed olives and not a deliberate attempt to make a cat:

And here's what the chef brought me this time:

THAT'S A CAT.

I knew it!!!!

And it looks so sad!! This cat calzone looks like it will burst into olive oil tears if you once again fail to identify it as the cat that it is

But I didn't; I was so ready this time. I went "A cat!!!!! It's so cute!" and the chef went like yes!!! I tried to make one last time but it looked weird :(

I said I was pretty sure it was a cat last time and apologised for not bringing it up and she said no, it's my responsibility to make it a decent cat. She also said she was glad I'd come back and ordered another calzone because she was really bothered ("vraiment embêtée") by that first failed attempt, and wondering if I'd noticed an attempt was made (and failed)

That's so relatable. It's like when you make a really embarrassing spelling mistake in a text and you're not sure if the other person has seen it and is judging you for it. Should you bring it up? Can it go unnoticed if you don't? It's the cat calzone equivalent of that. I'm so glad we were able to clear the air.

[egberts]

companies are delusional if they think consumers don't notice shrinkflation. less food in the package, less medicine in the jar, less whatever in the wherever, it doesn't matter where and it's almost always noticeable. like i just finished one box of medicine and we opened another allegedly identical one that we just bought and lo and behold, the four middle medicine segments were gone from the package. they took out four pills from the same sized box and sold it at the same price without any indication on the box other than the small number in the corner. ridiculous

[tabbydragon]

I bought a carton of my favorite tomato soup last week and noticed that the nutrition facts looked weird. So I compared the new one to the mostly empty carton already in my fridge.

The serving size was the same, but the calories per serving had gone down by like 15. Odd. The ingredients list previously listed tomato as the first ingredient, and then water. Now water is first. They’re watering down the fucking soup and charging the same for it. I’m so fucking done.

[kawaiijohn]

This sort of thing is also really infuriating when you work in a kitchen or make bulk food for serving- in my field, everything is done by weight and calculated to the calorie (public school cafeteria) and all recipes need to be approved by a board before we can make them. They're standardized, by fucking law.

So we should know how many boxes of product it should take to make x amount of servings, right?

Tell me why for the last two years, every time we make mashed potatoes with the supposedly same dehydrated mix, we need more and more mix to reach our numbers? Supposedly, one carton should make 77 servings- it's made 77 servings for the last five years.

So why are we suddenly only getting 70 out of the box on average now? We're making it the exact same way every time. We make this recipe every other week. Why is it noticeably different.

We have to weigh everything to get accurate serving counts for governmental records and reimbursement from the government.

Why are the bags of frozen berries that say five pounds on every packags only weighing out to 4.3 pounds at best? We aren't draining them, they should weigh at least 4.9 because that's normal in the margin of error and the bags weigh nowhere near the difference to make it up. Now we won't have enough to make our target serving count bc we only ordered enough for about fifty extra servings like we always do.

Why is the chicken nugget brand we've been buying for years from the same brand suddenly way fucking smaller? The serving we use is 6 pieces bc legally we have to offer two grams of protein for a menued meal at the highschool level- so has our serving size changed without them telling us? The box doesn't say it's changed but we notice this sort of thing because we do the same menu every couple of weeks.

It's infuriating to have to make up the work because companies are trying to be fucking sneaky about this shit.

[shadovvheart]

i will... draw for fun... the things that..... bring me joy ...

[coolerhope]

Every time Hoid makes an appearance in a book, my brain immediately just thinks of this post

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Little life advice:

Everyone who says not to set your stove clock or microwave clock because you won't use them and don't look at them anyway is lying.

Set them.

Because sometimes, you will come come from a week away when no one was in your home, and see the stove and microwave clocks blinking and go, "Oh shit, the power went out while I was gone, even though it's clearly back, which means every single thing in my fridge and freezer might have gotten room temperature and refrozen, and will give me food poisoning."

And it will be the only indication whatsoever not to eat it.

Anyway, just got back from the grocery store, but at least I don't have botulism.

[fangirltothefullest]

For the freezer thing in case you do forget to do the clock thing... put a cup of water in your freezer and freeze it. Then place a penny on top. If you come home after a long period, check the penny. If it's sank it's been thawed and refrozen. Throw that food away.

[against-stars]

my father said to me once that one of the things he deeply regretted was not putting music on for his father while he was fading away. he told me that grandpa would just sit in his old armchair in the quiet, and not until after he’d passed did my dad think of how he could have played of his favorite classical music tapes for him so grandpa could listen to something while he still could. i was very young when this happened and not much older when my dad told me this, but it always stuck with me as something important.

my mother died at home in a hospice cot, slowly shutting down over the course of about a week. when she had stopped responding, i remembered what dad told me about wishing he’d played music for grandpa, and i put the radio on her favorite country music station and kept it on for her until she died.

daddy died in hospital. no cassette players, no decent radios. the day after he was brought in, i thought again of what he told me, and i bought a little portable bluetooth speaker. even though he never woke up, was never aware, i played music for him too.

there’s no real significance to sharing this, not really. my motivation is selfish, again: i just want to hope that someone might think of this when their loved one is stuck in silence somehow, and maybe they’ll play music for them, and they won’t have to regret not doing so. i want to hope it helps someone. and i want to hope that someone will remember my dad with me, even in just a “story i read on the internet” way.

[eirianerisdar]

Hey, OP, you actually might have done a very significant thing for your parents indeed. Hearing is the last sense to go when someone is passing away. It’s why palliative care doctors tell patients’ relatives to continue speaking even if the patient stops responding. So even if your mother and father could not wake or respond to you or those around you, they perhaps could have heard the music they so loved, and perhaps were comforted. So what you did wasn’t selfish at all, and I’m sorry for jumping on to your post, but it’s likely that playing music for your parents as they passed away did much more for them than you might have known at the time.

[sandetigerrr]

When my dad was hospitalized, I would play the music we used to listen to together, and I still can’t listen to some Leonard Cohen songs without getting really emotional about it. And I had a collection of poems that I would read to him. He never responded, but I still quite dearly hope it did something for him before he died. I think there’s so much love wrapped into this post and it actually made me cry.

[beemovieerotica]

I feel like I would have been diagnosed with OCD a lot earlier if the vast majority of screening questions (for mental illnesses in general) weren't based on the person's perception of their own behavior, in isolation. and what i mean by that is asking someone with OCD "do you wash your hands excessively?" is not a good question.

a person with OCD believes they are washing their hands the correct number of times. it's not excessive. we believe we're exhibiting best practices and helping to keep everything clean.

better questions might be, "does it seem like you wash your hands a lot more than your friends or family?" "do you get dry patches or cuts on your hands from washing your hands?" "do you find it deeply distressing, more so than how you've seen other people react, when you get something on your hands that you can't clean off right away?"

being asked "are you overly preoccupied with bugs, symmetry, and contamination?" also got "no" responses from me years ago in my life. what they didn't ask for, and didn't know, was what *exactly* I was doing in my day to day life that genuinely ate up my time and mental space to a concerning degree, but I *didn't know* that other people don't do this.

"do you spend a lot of time cleaning?" -> no, it's not a lot. it's a good amount. why?

"do you become frustrated because it seems like no one else meets your organizational and cleanliness standards - do you often 'take over' for other people because they can't do it right - do new friends seem surprised by how strict you can be about your living space?" -> oh. yeah. yeah I get it now.

[lakevida]

i don't like soup what do you recommend

complete ego death and rebirth

[soberscientistlife]

⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

Conservatives are going nuts oner this

[texmexdarling]

Yeah. The unrealized gains tax would only apply to you if your net worth is 100mil+.

[gutsandeverythingg]

caption

[daco-showman]

crazy that Walt Disney just wanted to draw a rat and monopolise media corporations but now they spawned some neo pagan consumerist religion where they have to train staff specifically to detect and remove human ashes that are covertly spread in their parks

[wizardarchetypes]

most important thing to remember about being a woman is if youre married you have to go under the covers with your husband and laugh cutely and play wrestle so when you die to progress the narrative he can remember it in slow motion montages

[wizardarchetypes]

in this world we all have our roles