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)
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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So I just simultaneously did, and possibly didn't lose my job today :)
Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.
So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.
But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.
It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?
So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:
Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.
And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.
So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".
So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.
I don't know what else to say aside from I've been laughing all day and I'm gonna have a hell of a time explaining Schrodinger's Unemployment to the benefits office.
Update that is not an update because I'm basically certain this isn't what actually happened:
My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.
Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.
Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.
Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).
Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues
(also shout out to the person who proposed Carmen Sandiego)
According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.
Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.
For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.
So now I'm officially out of a job. Because my workplace was literally stolen in the night.
Actually fuck it let's share some photos cause I wouldn't be inclined to believe this myself. It's not like anyone can stalk me at my job now and I'm not gonna have to see any coworkers that might find my tumblr.
Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life
Aaand a close-up:
The last remains of a once Very Much Solid And Immobile Workplace
I wish people would stop saying “It’s July. Well done for wasting half a year.” Did you make someone smile in the past six months? Did you stroke a cat or throw a stick for a dog? Did you learn a new fact or teach someone a new joke? Did you laugh, cry, scream or sing in the past six months? Because if so, congratulations for not wasting your time at all.
Happy Birthday to my Marceline, 8 years ago today (July 2, 2025) she came into this world five days before her due date to see wtf was so funny 🤣 this post, like many other things, are on a long list of topics to discuss when she’s older lol
It’s July 2 2026 internet, help me wish a Happy Birthday to my brilliant and beautiful 9 year old, Marceline! I’ve shown her (most of) the comments and she says “thank u internet 😁😁”
He didn't steal 10 million dollars. They made that number up as a loss, they never fucking had it. Rockstar has spent more than a billion fucking dollars on GTA VI and will likely make billions more when it gets released.
Uber is a fucking shell game of a company designed to leech investor capital and output bootleg cabs.
Nvidia posted a profit in 2023 of $4.37 billion. This is like someone stealing less than a penny from me.
And they lock this kid in a prison hospital for LIFE?
What with GTA VI going up for pre-order i'd just like to remind everyone that rockstar conspired with the UK government to lock an 18-year-old away for life for hacking them.
Some time ago (I think in 2021) I had to go see a neurologist over really scary symptoms that resembled seizures. I was a nervous wreck about what I was feeling and had barely slept all week, which seemed to be apparent to the doc’s assistant when I sat down in the exam room for questioning or whatever. Dude was pretty young and soft spoken, around my age. He was laser focused doing something on one of those tablet-laptop Surface things as I spoke, presumably writing down my symptoms.
Midway through talking about my symptoms my voice audibly started shaking as I was describing them, clearly upset.
In the middle of my monologue he turns the tablet to face me, closes whatever program he has open and the wallpaper is this fucking collage of pictures of lord farquaad from shrek, lovingly decorated. Dude just sat there placidly smiling at me until I noticed and stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. We sat there in silence like this for like a solid minute before I started wheezing laughing. Before I could even say anything else or process it he picked up the tablet and wordlessly left the room, and I just sat there dumbfounded until the doctor showed up. 10/10 doctor experience tbh
I didn’t own a cell phone at the time to get a photo so this rendition from memory is all I can provide you
ID: a digital drawing of a man in scrubs sitting on a wheeled stool, serenely smiling with his elbow on a rolling cart, where a tablet is flipped open to show an approximation of the Lord Farquaad screensaver. end ID
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