#A Plumbing We Will Go

[persimmonsimmer]

Sam relished the luxury of a long, hot shower.

By the time she was done, Citlali and her son had long since left. Carl was waiting for her.

Carl: “So?”

Sam: “Same as yesterday, and the day before. Levels are higher than background noise, but only just, and there’s no telling what’s doing it. It’s too faint. Diffuse. Almost like it's fading—but I'll need to take more readings to confirm even that much.”

Carl shrugged. “Then keep taking readings. Everything you've recorded so far confirms we’re in the right area. You’ll find something more concrete eventually.”

Does it? Will I? Or are you just seeing what you want to see?

Sam changed the subject. “What did Citlali want?”

Carl seemed to be friends, or at least on friendly terms, with most of the town. Many of the locals frequently dropped by to speak to him, but Citlali was by far their most regular visitor.

She always seemed to have some excuse for stopping by, whether because her son, who seemed enamored with Carl, was dying for a game of catch, or, occasionally, because she wanted to drop off a hot meal. (Whatever else she thought about Citlali's omnipresence, Sam was grateful for the food; neither she nor Carl was much of a cook.)

Carl: “One of her dogs is going to have puppies. She offered me one. I told her I’m liable to take the whole litter. Tempt me with a cute face and a pair of big brown eyes, and I just might not be able to help myself.” He chuckled.

Sam frowned. “A dog is quite a commitment.”

Carl grew more serious. “This is a long haul, Sam. You should try to accept that. You may as well start considering Panorama home.”

“It's not home for me. I told my sister I’d be back.”

Carl just shook his head. His small, maddening smile said You know better.

[egberts]

nevermind they're not digging up the yard anymore because we don't need 3 feet of replacement we apparently need 30!!! because the pipes outside are from when the house was built!! in 1959!!!! they're made of clay and they're collapsing

[hawnks]

Me reading any period-piece fanfic: wow that’s sexy <3 but very incorrect

[spokelseskladden]

while i wouldn't like living in any other time period due to knowing like. The basics of history or whatever, I'm gonna be real with you all. The current one I'm living in isn't all that appealing either.

[scaryscarecrows]

So on today's episode of Scary Learns to Fucking Plumb despite NOT GOING TO PLUMBER SCHOOL...

My under-the-sink has leaked when using the garbage disposal for...oh, about year. More than, actually. We mentioned it to Grandpa Landlord, who slapped another gasket on there and went, 'ya-ha-ha! It's fixed!'

It wasn't, but the leak started literally three months after my dad passed and we weren't up to fighting about it. So fine. Whatever. Leak fixed.

The leak has gotten really bad over the last few days. So we investigate, figuring that 'we'll just get another gasket and deal with the real problem later when we're less busy'.

Well. We go to put a new gasket on and.

AND.

The problem?

You ready?

The pipes don't connect.

They touch a little--the gasket probably helped lengthen it to keep the leak from becoming really bad--but they're not connected.

Turns out, a piece was either lost or damaged beyond use when we got a new sink in last year, AND RATHER THAN FIX IT AT THE TIME, the idiot handy-dude they called out just shoved everything together and bailed!

AND.

AND.

When we bring this up, because it's been long enough that we ARE willing to fight about it, Grandpa Landlord refuses to attempt anything because 'I don't know about that', tries to call the plumber (the same sexist, useless plumbers that left me to fix everything LAST TIME AND CALLED ME HONEY AND I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO JAIL FOR MURDER BUT I WILL), and gets butthurt when we say no. So hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Lowe's we go at our earliest convenience to get a new pipe.

I swear to God. When it's time for Grandparent Landlords to go in a home, I am providing the Home with a free remote to smack them with. I will visit once every six weeks at best and that will be IT.

[drumlincountry]

Watching the dungeon meshi anime is really scary. Americans in there.

[medicinemane]

And maybe you'll be like "but if you don't trust businesses, how can you trust welfare?"

I fucking don't. My mom trying to get on food stamps fucked me up because a lady I never met without my permission got my SSN from my mom and started editing my files. My heart still races to this very second whenever I think about it, it kinda messed me up bad and I'll never ever ever see any kind of recourse

And I'm terrified that I'm gonna lose my medicaid just cause I inherited some money from my grandpa

And I've never even applied for disability cause it kinda doesn't matter finding out if I'd qualify or not cause of my depression, when the rules are so restrictive I don't know if I've even be allowed to keep my house

I do not fucking trust these things on a personal level. I feel like out of a lot of people I have the most to fear from them cause I'm on the edge of having things work, and that gets you punished

...but I need medicaid in order to have insurance (and when you strip out the finance side of medicaid, I love medicaid... they're honestly incredible insurance... I just... I just... dental is like 90% of why medicaid is so important to me, ever since I found out this state pays for it I've actually been able to do cleanings which is important to me cause I can't always get myself to brush)

And I think things like disability and food stamps are pretty damn important on a personal level, and honestly are also good for the economy cause they get people spending... it's practically a free cash infusion into the economy, cause these are people who need to buy stuff

There's just so much important stuff welfare does that it's worth dealing with government

No, what I want is more accountability so if someone gets my SSN from a 3rd party like my mom they're held to HIPPA styles standards where that's not ok to access my files without my permission (She changed my fucking address and tried to get medicaid to investigate me for fraud! Never even met me)

Like have some accountability there and in every situation

Secondly I want less punitive focused rules. I'd frankly prefer bezos get on disability than smack down some poor sod cause they got $2000 in the bank or cause their friend lets them live with them for free

If there's gonna be a cut off on these programs, it needs to be a solid step above the poverty line, cause... by definition I assume poverty line denotes kinda the minimum expected income people can reasonably live off of, and if you take away benefits people are gonna lose a chunk of money to covering that stuff themself, so you need a buffer before you kick people off

I don't fucking trust the government for a second, I've actively been fucked by them and on a personal level I avoid everything but medicaid and only that cause everything but the money is pleasant to deal with and I kinda need it (honestly if I was rich I'm not even kidding that I'd rather give medicaid like $400 a month than some insurance company, I sincerely like them as insurance)

But I'd trust them a lot more if they were less punitive, less out to hunt me down and gut me cause someone handed me a fiver or cause I started to get on my feet, and if government employees had concrete rules they had to follow that were actually transparent and enforced

Like 90% of my problems with welfare go away if they're held accountable and there's less "catch the welfare cheats" mentality going around

I don't trust the government in the slightest, but sadly there some jobs it kinda has to do, so I'd just rather force it to be an open book where the public can keep an eye on it and if they step out of line there's consequences (sort of like I don't trust most mega corps but happen to sometimes need stuff from them... did you know literally every cell service provider has been illegally selling shit like your location data to random people like bounty hunters, and the FCC just slapped them with a fine that's 0.02% of their yearly incomes and debated even doing that? I even can offer a source on that)

...I don't trust much of any authority cause they constantly fail me and kinda screw me. Don't trust doctors either, but I still gotta go to them, you know? ...they're just... they're real bad at listening... so many systems need systemic change

(You know who I really don't trust is the cops. I could point to so many examples. My uncle doesn't trust cops either, and he's an ex Fire and SWAT paramedic, he worked with them and we still got into a long conversation where he basically tore into them far better than I can)

(I don't trust authority that's not accountable)

[anavatazes]

My sweet PTSD Husband, Joel, is a craftsman and overall handyman. Thanks to years of living in shit places and growing up in 100+ year old farm house and helping my dad with that place, I am pretty handy with plumbing. So, today, I am taking my flared up ass, and working on an uncooperative drain line. The cats are curious, and Mara is thrilled that Mommy is tearing shit apart 🤣.

Joel for, uh, reasons...

[egberts]

waittt if he’s been cleaning the roots out for that long, wouldn’t that count as proof that the previous owners knew about the problem and didn’t disclose it?

that's what I'm saying!!!!!! but also if he's had a deal with the prev owners for that long then what if he's friends with them? or won't say anything against them? and why didn't he warn us when he gave us the card. could've prevented a whole lot of headache!! and why didn't his phone number work? and why isn't his company name on google? it's so weird 😭

[savrenim]

just like. deeply hopeless right now.

[themself]

everyday i see people online like "oh yeah if revolution is so good why havent you done it yet" "go ahead and solve our problems by revolutioning ill sit here trying to gradually fix them in reality" is like. has the voting done anything either. has the liberal change youve argued for helped either. no. did the voting solve the problems.

[myatlantispoets]

so like what is it with men and fishing

[thesquidkid]

I just found out that my grandmother (and other family members, but finding that out hurt less) does not believe in climate change

Yesterday at dinner, my aunt was asking me about the different masters I was looking at (she's like one of the very few supportive ppl in my family, and one of the few who actually seems interested in my studies)

So I told her that I was looking at master programs regarding systems and control, and more precisely, at courses that were related to meteorology, climate, and environment. My aunt was asking me questions, it was a fun little conversation, and I got overexcited talking about weather patterns and the importance of research (I have been obsessed with weather since I was 6, and the first job I ever wanted to do was meteorologist)

And that point, my grandma turned to us and said something along the lines of "it's not real, you kids just invented it to annoy your elders"

This single sentence was like an arrow straight to the heart. Because she then went on about how ridiculous it was that climate would change, that we only had different cycles and that this was simply one of them.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but this is just the drip too much. Whenever I talk about my interests, I get shut down because "there are more important things in life than mathematics".

From the ages 6 to 12 I kept telling ppl I was going to be a meteorologist. My grandmother laughed at me every time, saying "it's cute to have dreams". Now I know she never believed that my interest were real.

Anyway, I'm off to another family meal, and I'll make sure to not mention climate, the weather, or mathematics.

[freckleslikestars]

Okay, someone please settle this argument I’m having with my dad:

Someone has hung a basket of their things (in this case face cloths and scrubbies) with those Command removable hook things (you use a double sided sticky thing and it gives a really strong hold) in the shared bathroom. Because you take longer and hotter than average showers, one of the hooks keeps falling off and so the basket falls down. Do you:

A) inform the person whose basket it is that it’s fallen down and the hook needs replacing, but other than removing the basket from the other hook so it doesn’t fall and damage the sink it’s over, do nothing else to interfere

B) inform the person that it’s fallen down and offer to rehang it if desired, but if you can’t remember how it was hung/don’t think you can do an appropriately satisfactory job at rehanging it, you don’t touch it and leave it to them

C) don’t say anything and rehang it incorrectly and wonkily, and then when the other person points out that you did it wrong and you should have just left it to them, kick off and insist that the other person is being ungrateful.

[on-my-way-to-the-woods]

We've moved again, and again things should be somewhat better here, but I'm damn tired of moving.

This makes, what, 12 moves since I lost my stable job in early 2021?