jkr is literally posting upskirt photos to her social media. when will it finally get through to harry potter fans that their support makes her feel confident and correct enough to do things like this
If the holocaust denialism SOMEHOW wasn't enough for you to shut up about your favourite kids book as an adult; JK Rowling just committed a sex crime IRL against a transgender woman.
synopsis to you, it's just another summer spent lifeguarding at the pool. to gojo, it's a summer spent stuck as a sentient whistle. helpless, hot and horny. how does he thank you for restoring him as his human self?
content mirror sex, bathroom sex, public sex, p in v sex, death/murder, mentions of drug use (coke), bullying but not really, crack fic, naoya
wc: 4.1k
minors and ageless blogs dni!
a/n this is my whistle!jo x lifeguard!reader for the 50k/birthday object!gojo celebration of @madamechrissy :) love and miss you lots
another weekend, another shift at the country club.
only now, summer had officially begun. the days were getting longer, the air was much warmer than it had been over the past few weeks and many club regulars had made an extra stop at pool on top of their regular golf and tennis outings.
kids were mucking around, the staff at the poolside bar couldn't catch a break and worst of all, the frat boys from kappa phi delta, led by the charistmatic, boisterious and somewhat (secretly) soft president satoru gojo had decided to swing by. the frat choosing to come on this particular day was made even more stressful as you were rostered on with the one and only naoya zenin who was notorious across campus for being the fraternity's number one enemy.
just last night, the boys had hosted a big bash to welcome the change in seasons (they will find any reason to throw a party) and of course, naoya had been in attendance. while there were partygoers who tolerated him and the odd person here and there who would consider him an acquaintance or in rare cases, a friend, parties at kappa phi delta for the heir to the zenin fortune were generally spent invisible to or scorned by members of the frat. it's just how things were due to his foul personality and long standing family beef with the gojos.
why did naoya still attend these parties you ask? a party is a party, regardless of who was hosting. there was free alcohol (and drugs if you asked the right person) and lots and lots of women, why wouldn't he be there?
now unbeknownst to you — who'd opted to stay home to avoid working a shift in the blazing sun and overstimulating environment while hungover — satoru had refused to share with naoya the contents of the baggie that the fraternity was offering to partygoers by dangling it above his head, just out of naoya's reach until the shorter man gave up, fanning the flames of hatred for all things gojo which sat deep within his heart.
the shift started off as per usual. a dumb question here and there, telling off teenagers for sprinting, dealing with victims of sign blindness and cleaning up the vomit of a kid who'd eaten too much and was way too keen to get back into the pool.
the heat eminated by sun was starting to get to you by the third or fourth hour, and you could tell it was getting to naoya as well. where he'd normally make unsolicited comments about the patrons, whether it was a complaint, something unsurprisingly misogynistic or even about the way your work bathers hugged you in all the right places, he'd opted for staying away form you (thank god) and snapping at the patrons for the smallest of things for the last thirty minutes.
just as you walked off to top up your water, satoru took this as his opportunity to come to the rescue in all his shirtless glory and use this opening to flirt with you. leaning his forearm against the wall and using his tall, sculpted body to shield you from the sun, he tilted his head and waited for you to look up at him.
"we missed you at the party last night."
"we? or just you?" you teased. you knew for a fact that he was the only one out of the frat who actively sought you out or paid attention to you. the rest of them were on good terms with you but ultimately felt indifferent.
the frat president pretended to ponder for a moment, scrunching his nose and pursing his lips to one side, "mostly me, but suguru did ask about you so i think that counts."
"well unlike you," you start as you twist your lid back onto your bottle, "i had work today and i can't afford to get sent home and lose my hours."
the two of you lingered by the fountain for a little while longer with satoru doing most of the yapping with a flirtatious comment here or a compliment there as you faced the pool but you didn't mind at all. it was making the time go much faster and yes he was quite the eccentric character but he was definitely not bad to look at, and you got to hide a little from the sun under the guise of customer service, though you definitely could feel his eyes raking over your body several times.
your work uniform was absolutely ridiculous, probably designed by some perverted baywatch fan but the pay was too just good so you chose to suck it up. of course you'd get some inappropriate comment that absolutely no one asked for from a crusty ass man, but admittedly on the odd occasion, it gave you a bit of an ego boost because you absolutely did look hot as fuck in it.
eventually though, naoya had noticed your absence and spotted your figure next to gojo's. immediately triggered, the hatred that was very much still heavy in his heart started bubbling inside him like a volcano. the fact that it was satoru there next to you and with a tinge of jealousy that the white haired man was able to speak without being deemed repulsive by most women, something in him snapped.
naoya beelined towards the two of you, hands balled into fists by his sides as he marched closer.
"gojo, a word?"
satoru only whined in response, "do i have to?"
"i need to speak to you about distracting my colleagues while they are working. among other things."
"so we're having a chat about how i shouldn't be chatting with you guys?"
if it were physically possible, naoya would be blowing steam from his ears by now. you on the other hand, stepped away to walk a lap around the pool to hold back your laughter which was a losing battle at this point.
now that you were finally out of the way, naoya dragged satoru to the storeroom, away from the eyes of the public and slamming the door behind him.
gojo circled naoya, looking around at the dingy space filled with racks of swim equipment, cleaning equipment and random tools, "did you bring me in here to try to make out with me or something? cause you're not really my type so thanks, but no thanks."
"GOD!" the man beside him screamed, throwing his head back and cursing to the skies, "can you shut up for two seconds so i can focus on killing you?"
the white haired man's gaze darted to naoya, both cautious and curious. "i'm not quite sure what that's code for lil bro."
overcome by his rage, naoya lunged at gojo, tackling him to the ground where he kept him pinned. punches and kicks went flying, and it was almost enough to keep gojo down until he had an opening to attempt pushing his battered and bruised body up. sensing that it was now or never, naoya wrapped his hands around gojo's glorious, annoyingly beautiful head and twisted, ending his life with a loud craaaaaack!
the lanky body fell limp in his grasp, but then suddenly a bright blue light began radiating from the corpse, growing more and more intense until it reached all throughout the room as the body floated out of naoya's hold. what the fuck?
the light gradually dissipated, and all that was left behind was a shiny white whistle on a blue lanyard, suspended in the air for moments before it plummeted down to the ground in front of naoya's feet. baffled but ultimately shrugging off what had just transpired because he was insane and believed that this was gojo's just deserts, the man stood from the ground and picked the whistle up.
this was just too good. there was absolutely no way that the boisterous frat president, rival of his bloodline and the ultimate chick magnet had turned into this pathetic little piece of plastic?
after readjusting his clothes and combing his hair back into place using his fingers, naoya strutted back onto pool deck, swinging gojo by the lanyard. if he could hurl from the sheer intensity that he was being spun at, he would, but alas he had been reduced to a measly piece of plastic and was cursed to just exist uncomfortably.
the torture finally came to an end when naoya reached the lifeguard chair right by the pool, haphazardly tossing the whistle on top of the plastic seat. but little did gojo know, this would lead to some of the best moments of his new life as a whistle, and that his new lifestyle may not be all that bad, because it led to him discovering heaven in the form of you.
the first interaction as his reformed self happened when you'd wanted a break from standing and walking in the heat all morning, opting to give your legs a break by taking a seat with some shade on the very same chair that gojo was laying on. you climbed up the rungs of the ladder, turning and sitting riiight on top of him.
of course, you'd immediately jerked up off of the seat to inspect what you had sat on, but for that split second, in gojo's mind, time moved in slow-mo as he was fully wrapped in the warm and fuzzy flesh between your thighs and the musky yet somewhat sweet smell wafting from your pussy that was just so you.
it was almost impossible to fathom that this was the closest that he had ever been to you, and in that instant, he'd become addicted to your dizzying scent. little did he know, life as a whistle was was only uphill from here.
fortunately for the both of you, your last whistle had been misplaced, so this…replacement came at the perfect time. you climbed down the ladder with your newfound whistle in one hand, wearing it around your neck once you were back on the ground.
the whistle rested perfectly on your chest, and gojo was convinced that the gods has blessed him post-mortem and this was his heaven. he spent the next few of your shifts bouncing on your soft tits with each step that you walked around the pool, wishing he could become human again momentaritly to punch whoever's gaze lingered on your perfect body for a little too long and his personal favourite — being blown by you.
each and every time you tried to grab someone's attention, you'd pick him up and place him between your plump lips, blowing sharply. the ball that rolled and rang inside the chamber mirrored what probably would've been his heartbeat if he still had one. the way that you coated him in your spit was pure euphoria and oh how he wished it were something else in your mouth instead. but this would have to make do.
there were also times that you had to jump into the pool — whether it was to rescue a child or help a struggling swimmer — and although gojo knew that he should be sympathising with someone else who had a traumatic experience, all that he could think about was how enticing you were with your wet bathers clinging even tighter to you, how the sun reflecting in the droplets cascading down your body made your skin glisten and how he was now able to fit all snuggly in your cleavage. was death even a punishment at this point? if he had the chance to be human again, he would preach that death was absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
if he had to name one more blessing from this whole experience, it would be the fact that he got to come home with you at the end of each shift. you would hang him and your bumbag on your door which gave him a view of everything, he'd watch you get changed, stripping yourself out of your uniform and slipping into something else. it wasn't his fault that he had no longer had any eyes to close, so he just appreciated the view of your delectable body that he was offered. nor was it his fault that he didn't have ears to block when you pulled your rose toy out in the middle of the night and treated yourself to a self-care session, filling the room with your whimpers and moans.
a few weeks had passed since gojo's accident, and you were working once again when a couple of the frat boys had swung by just around closing time with the intention to 'watch the sunset' with some cocaine. sadly, they had to scrap their plans after being caught and kicked out by your colleague, kiyotaka but thankfully, they were just a bunch of nuisances but not big enough assholes to put up a fight.
kiyotaka clocked out shortly after that incident and now you were in charge of closing the pool by yourself. you'd checked the changerooms, set up the blanket over the pool and closed folded all of the umbrellas and lounges. as you were spraying and wiping down the tables that got all sticky and trashed throughout the day, you spotted the baggie with a decent amount of cocaine still inside it that the boys had forgotten to take with them.
out of the goodness of your heart, you decided that you would reach out to gojo to give him and the boys their coke back. and honestly, although he was very much a pest (an attractive one at that), you had grown used to seeing his face by the poolside at least once a week. after pondering on gojo for a little while longer, you realised that you hadn't seen him around on campus either and as much as you didn't want to admit it, you were really starting to miss his presence.
you returned the cloth and spray back to the storeroom before making your way back to the table with the baggie, throwing and catching it with your hand as you did your final checks to ensure that everyone had left and for any lost property. what you didn't realise though, was that they hadn't resealed the pouch properly and some of the powder was flying out, eventually leading to some falling all over your uniform and whistle.
you barely had the time to utter "for fucks sake!" to yourself before the whistle started to shine a bright blue, spreading kind of like rapunzel's tears on eugene's stab wound in the movie. you winced and held up a hand to block the light from your eyes.
just as you were about to take a peek to see if whatever this phenomenon was was over, you were knocked down by a presence on top of you that felt suspiciously like a person. when you opened your eyes, you were greeted with the sight of the one and only satoru, his face dangerously close to yours.
"did you miss me?" he asked with a shit eating grin plastered on his face.
"maybe, maybe not." you choked out. the man may not look heavy but boy did his height and muscle weigh you down.
"get off me!" you complain with a push.
he did as he was told, but as he shifted his weight onto his arms above you, you felt something long and hard brush against one of your thighs. was that man seriously hard right now?
"there's absolutely no way you're hard right now." you tell him in disbelief.
he gets up and offers you a hand to help you up which you take. "of course i'm hard. i spent weeks with you feeling, seeing, smelling and hearing everything. winding up on top of you when i came back doesn't help at all."
this can't be happening.
you turn towards the gates to walk out, looking back at him to tell him to follow you but he speaks first.
"would you care to help a friend out?"
this was insane, but you were pent up and sufferring from a dry spell. a hot, shirtless guy who wasn't an asshole was offering you a good time so why not take him up on his offer? and so you ditched your gear, took his hand in yours and dragged him into the change rooms.
the sound of skin slapping on skin as satoru bent you over the sink echoed throughout the room. the ceramic tiles amplified and blended the sounds of your moans and his whimpers into a sinful symphony that would make any passerby blush.
"i've waited for this since that hot afternoon when you sat on me," the man behind you huffed out as he dug his slender fingers deeper into the flesh of your ass over your red bathers, sure to leave a bruise with the way that he was holding on for dear life as he lost himself between your gummy walls.
"is that all it took?" you asked, turning back to look at him.
satoru planted a chaste kiss on your lips, perhaps to sweeten you up before the next words left his filthy mouth. "i've always thought you were pretty but that one whiff of your pussy got me hooked on you."
you pushed yourself up at his words, unsure if you were the freak for getting even more turned on by his comment. but you couldn't let his ego inflate further. so you settled for an insult.
"you're such a pervert!" you scolded.
but he wasn't buying your look of disgust. not one single bit with the way that your pussy had clamped down on his cock when he made his confession, the pulse making him shudder as he worked even harder to piston himself into you.
a large hand on your back to pushed you back towards the sink, allowing satoru to fuck even deeper into you, his swollen, leaky tip brushing past your sweet spot every time that he hit your cervix. the stimulation was enough to have your toes curling and hands gripping the bench for purchase until your knuckles turned white as stars swam in your vision.
you could barely keep your head up by this point but one of satoru's hands grabbed you by the chin, commanding you to watch the faces you were making in the mirror as he rammed into you from behind.
"baby look at all the pretty faces you're making just for me," he whispered into the shell of your ear, panting as he pounded into your weeping cunt. you looked absolutely fucked out. drooling from one side of your mouth as your mouth hung open, your brows furrowed as you struggled to keep your eyes from rolling and body rocking in time with his thrusting.
"so beautiful for me, aren't you?" he asked, hand letting go of your face and sliding down to squeeze your tit before pulling your bathers further to the side and finding your throbbing clit. the touch had you squeezing your thighs together, wanting to trap his hand there forever and ever.
all that you could manage to respond with was a weak, mhm, but no, that wasn't satisfactory for a guy like satoru who moved his hand away from your thighs, the loss of contact earning a whine from you.
"i'll only let you cum if you tell me how pretty you are for me, so let's try this again," he said, lowering his face to press his cheek against yours, watching the mirror with you. "what are you?"
"'m beautiful," you cry out, trying your hardest to fight off the cloudiness in your mind.
"thaaaat's right," he praises, giving you what you wanted with his hand making its way to your clit once more, rubbing steady circles on it this time as he continued to rock the two of you back and forth, your wetness gushing out and running down both of your legs from where you were connected. "just for me?"
you nod desperately like your oncoming orgasm depended on it. mostly because it did.
"yes! j-just for you satoru."
the heat blooming from your bodies was almost enough to rival that of the lights radiating from behind the mirror which reflected every lewd expression that he was drawing out from you almost mockingly. from behind, he hummed in approval, fingers and cock working together to make you fall apart.
"being by your side as a whistle was both heaven and hell, you know? got to spend my time all up on your body but i couldn't do a thing about it. i couldn't speak, couldn't touch, couldn't cum." he growled, the pace of his barrage on your pussy increasing as he chased his high.
why were you so turned on by this weird paranormal shit? a cute guy that you knew became a whistle, basically perved on you for days on end (not that he had a choice of where he was) and came back after you spilt some magic fairy dust coke on him and now you're letting him take out the pent up frustration from being so close to you?
"oh, you poor thing," you tease, looking back at him.
"but you're going to fix that for me, aren't you?" he asks, pressing another quick kiss to your lips before pulling away with a devilish grin, turning you by your hips so that your back was against the wall as you were facing him.
you nod eagerly, hiking a leg around his waist and wrapping your arms around his neck to press your bodies impossibly closer to each other. your walls clenched around him, ready to milk him and begging for a climax of your own.
"fuuuck it feels so good inside of you," he whimpers, playing with your clit harder to feel your pussy fluttering around him again, "i'm gonna cum soon."
"me too," you breathe out, breath fanning over his face. he buries his face in your neck and you can feel the coil in your tummy winding tighter and tighter as he slams into you, each brutal movement of his hips taking you higher and higher until you eventually reach your climax.
your head is thrown back as you cry out one final time, walls pulsing around his thick cock as your juices spray all over him. the way that you're squeezing him is just too much and so he barely holds himself together until your writhing and mewling have faded into a shaky stop, before he pulls out of you with a strangled groan.
the sticky ropes of cum that spurt out of his tip are viscous and gooey, staining the fabric of your bathers and clinging to the skin on your exposed legs and its oh so messy. so much of it comes out that a part of you is surprised that he stopped cumming at all.
the both of you are spent, panting in sync as he fixes his boardshorts before going to wipe you up with the paper towels by the sink, fixing your swimsuit that was pulled to the side.
that was so much better than satoru could've ever imagined, and he had just about all the source material to work with. there was absolutely no way that this could be a one time thing or he might just pass away again if that were the case.
the sheen of sweat coating his body and the way that his tufts of white hair clung to his forehead had you wanting to pounce on him again, but you didn't know how much time had flown by while you were getting railed in the fancy ass change rooms and your post-nut clarity told you that you had to get going or the receptionist would come looking for you to return the keys to the pool which would get you caught and fired.
you two freshen yourselves up in the sink then collect his belongings that were left behind when he died from lost property (where naoya shoved all of gojo's shit in the before the rest of the frat left and you could realise he left his things behind). after handing him his phone and clothes, you make your way over to yours in the staff bay, throwing a shirt on because god forbid whoever is still around at the club eating dinner or just conversing sees the mess that the two of you made on your clothes and between your legs.
when you reach the parking lot, you look at him to say your goodbyes but satoru cuts you off.
"i really hate to be a bother, but don't have a ride and my phone is dead."
for fucks sake. you were probably tethered to this man forever now, but you suppose life could be much worse.
thank you to @bluukive for beta reading!! photos are from pinterest and the gojo pfp is by @/teaforgods on insta and x
hey does anyone have that poem. about the author seeing two boys cuddling on a hotel lobby couch, where he refers to it as something like an island of safe anonymity or smth. its been 5000 years my college boyfriend had it written out and pinned to his wall
So it's national Recreational Explosives, Hand Loss and Wildfire day, and unlike 2023, there is nary a drop of rain in sight.
Despite being slapped upside the head by God, my put technically inclined neighbor has acquired TWO pallets of fireworks this year.
The state is of no help: my city police department has made it pretty clear they don't intend to respond to any fireworks calls this weekend. I've sent the pictures I took to the county tipline and received and automated email reply saying that it will take several weeks to process my case. Perhaps he will get jail time later, but this does not actually you know. Stop him from setting the neighborhood ablaze. Going up to his door the week prior and very politely asking him to move- not cancel, just relocate - his celebrations was met with calling me a "nosy bitch" and "I'll set one off in your ass!".
Sometimes God needs us to make our own miracles.
My miracle comes with several layers, and plenty of opportunities to back down without losing face. We'll see how many are needed.
The first wave has already been deployed: a psyop directed at the Visiting Mother In Law of the miscreant.
I got up at 8:30 AM this morning to make sure I'd be in the front yard of my house, casually doing yardwork with Herschel. His participation was essential.
For those of you who are new here, Herschel is the world's most charming Cardigan Welsh Crime Tube, who thinks everyone in the world is his best friend and that people come to the house to see him specifically. So at 9:04 AM when the visiting mother-in-law appeared around the corner on her daily power-walk around the block, Herschel employed his natural Corgi instinct to make friends with everyone and cheerfully tossed himself on the sidewalk in front of her, belly up for expected tummy rubs.
"OH AREN'T YOU DARLING!!" My target coos, kneeling down to pat him while he makes him like snuffling noises of glee. She is at least 70. I think her bright pink leg warmers and terrycloth headband might be original from her jazzercise days.
"I'm so sorry! Herschel you're going to trip people doing that!" I apologize, going up to greet the woman. "I'm [REDACTED], I don't think we've met..?"
"No, I'm just visiting my daughter and her family- my name is Barbara. And who is this?" She asks Herschel, whose whole back end is waggling with glee.
"This is my service dog Herschel." I explain while he rolls around on the pavement. "I just wanted him to get some time outside before the pyrotechnics start."
"Oh. Yes." Barbra grumbles and I know I've got her. "My son-in-law is planning something extravagant." She says with such disdain it practically comes out of her nose. This is a woman who loves her daughter and dearly wishes she married someone, anyone else.
"Yeah, he got rained out and sick the last two years, so I think he's compensating." I agree.
"Oh he's definitely overcompensating!" Barbra spits, then shakes her whole body like a dog. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't complain. You said he's a service dog?"
I go for it.
"Yeah! I have... Neurological problems." I say and that is technically true. "I've um. Lost a lot of things, like a sense of time, or appetite, and his job is to remind me to eat or take my meds or alerts that I'm having an episode. My personal dog-tor!" I say, patting his adorable little head, and he leans on me, equally adoring.
"Oh, is that why-?" Barbra starts to ask, gesturing at the top of her head, but stops herself.
I hadn't planned this, but yesterday I'd shaved my head to deal with the heat and now only have a quarter inch of hair, which doesn't really hide the scars from when I got run over by a minivan. They're bright red with the heat and exertion of yard work.
I decide I'm okay with lying to a stranger to prevent my house from being set ablaze.
I sort of... Crumple to the ground and drop the rake I was holding, and Herschel immediately climbs into my lap to comfort me as I start to cry.
"Oh my God." Says Barbra.
"I'm sorry!" I gasp, tears streaming down my face. I've been stressed and this is honestly very cathartic. "I'm sorry to dump on you, I'm just so scared-!"
"Oh my God. It's bad." Barbra realizes.
"D- do you know what-" a pause as Herschel tries to manually clear my nostrils like a good service dog. "-oh, Herschel... It's - do you know what an astrocytoma* is?"
*An astrocytoma is a type of brain tumor.
Barbra turns white and sits down next to me. "I'm so sorry... I- one of my friends from church had one, it was agony but she's alright now!" She tries to reassure me.
"It hurts! Everything hurts all the time!" I sob. "And- and I'm scared, so he's scared and I feel bad for hi which just makes it worse and then there's the-" I gesture at the sky. "I have surgery in a month to remove as much of it as they can and do biopsies to see if I need radiation too but..."
"-but all that noise must be Hell on you and your doggy." Barbra nods.
"It'd be fine if he went down to the lake of something but, that house's driveway is like, a hundred feet from my bedroom, I can't sleep and it TERRIFIES Herschel..." I whimper pathetically.
"Well. I may be able to do something about that." Barbra decides.
"Oh no, I don't want to intrude!" I mock-protest.
"No, we're the ones intruding dear. I'll have words with him." She growls. I get the impression she's been waiting for an excuse To Have Words With Him.
"Th-thank you. Um. It's getting hot and I'm a mess, we should probably go inside..." I mutter and Barbra very kindly helps me and Herschel to the front door and tells me she'll be by later with watermelon as we wave goodbye.
From the porch, I watch her furiously power-walk back to her daughter's house, wrench open the front door, and issue a battle cry of "HEN-RY!!!" before it slams behind her.
Now I realize that this may not have been the most honest or ethical thing to do, but I figured it's more polite and ethical than the next step, which is chemical warfare, courtesy of Bath & Body Works :)
Well, they Psyop seems to have worked! That cul-de-sac, and indeed my entire block is perfectly quiet tonight!
Unfortunately I cannot say the same of the surrounding neighborhood, so it has been necessary to deploy The Stench.
The Stench is a mixture of Odoriferous chemicals meant to be discreetly poured over a surface (preferably something hot, like a sidewalk or fence in direct sunlight) to render an area temporarily uninhabitable, Similar to spraying coyote pee on your garden to discourage the rabbits. I can't give you a full recipe because I forgot to take notes, but elements include:
Spoiled beef broth, which is both rancid and unexpectedly sour (boiled to kill bacteria)
Expired milk, the most retch-inducing ingredient for me.
Several bottles of Liquid Ass
Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce
Concentrated Dog Urine
and FOUR bottles of Bath & Body Work's Cucumber Melon, which smells light and fruity when used as a light body spray, but in concentration smells like an entire fruit cart left to rot, possibly along with the carcass of the fruitseller.
The resulting solution smells like raw sewage, a fraternity dorm fridge when the power's been out for a week, and a roadkilled skunk. It's impressively vile. Herschel wanted to roll in it so bad.
I've spent the last few hours strolling the surrounding neighborhoods until I found the source of the mortars and flying explosives that are the real hazards, ingratiating myself into the parties, and discreetly dousing the lawns and fences nearby until someone goes "OH GOD!" and gags, and the party breaks up shortly thereafter. I returned home because I ran out of The Stench, despite hiding five 2L soda bottles of it in a backpack.
I will call it a success though, because while I can hear fireworks, they're all at least a mile away from me. In total:
Fire Hazard Parties derailed: 13
Screaming: 10
Crying: 13
Vomiting: 4
Fight blaming each other for causing The Stench: 5
Called the city to complain about The Stench, on the assumption it was a sewage issue, and then waited right next to their pile of illegal fireworks, for the fire department to show up: 2.
Guy who claimed to be enjoying the smell: 1
Party was partially derailed by The Stench, and partly by the fact they actually did start a fire: 1 (every human was alright, the pyro's roof, not as much)
Stray dogs caught and returned home: 2
So next year: MORE STENCH.
Until then, I have a corgi zooted on trazadone on my feet, and we bid you goodnight.
(If you would like to support a disabled storyteller and/or fund more stench research, you can donate to my Ko-fi or pre-order my Family Lore book on Patreon)
The thing you Must understand when writing relationships is sometimes them not breaking up is the bad ending. Sometimes them getting together at all is the bad ending. Whether this means "story about letting things go" or "torture the Character more effectively by understanding this" is up to you, but do not forget this. Okay goodbye.
I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.
-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a
~*Spiritual Experience*~
I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.
Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.
He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only
BARELY
enough space for the fireworks
and certainly none for his truck.
So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand.
This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.
He begins,
and this is crucial to what happens next,
by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it
unsecured
on his lawn.
Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.
His process for unloading the fireworks is to
1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls.
2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile
He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things.
3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed
4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup.
5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her.
6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house.
7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too.
8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate
9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed
10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.
Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man?
Answer: Absolutely Not.
There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else.
(This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual)
Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally.
Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.
I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.
However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up.
and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop"
And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."
For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."
I move under the eaves.
"Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled."
"Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not."
"Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."
Sometimes,
the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.
The Gods were not merciful today.
It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this,
But I got to see it today.
Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before.
Oh. I realized as it got closer.
That's RAIN.
Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say,
five to tent square miles,
is instead concentrated into an area of say,
my neighborhood exactly.
So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.
The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel.
Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge.
Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.
My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp.
They do not have a tarp.
They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.
Which is when the hail begins.
"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy.
"HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!"
"OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"
I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic.
The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor.
Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.
So.
I was raised Agnostic
-but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.
---
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Always Reach for Greatness @literatureatthebowofnails - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
