#and read it in my driveway

[navybrat817]

Okay, lovelies. I'm not unreasonable. I totally get that people sometimes pull into driveways because they're lost, need to turn around, whatever. But, my God, please do not park in the MIDDLE of the driveway. I had to park on the street in front of my house because I would've hit this guy's car had I tried to park on either side of him.

At least the guy looked a bit sheepish when he saw me carrying my bags up to the front door.

[dreadfuldevotee]

having a car with ac and real backseat has done wonders for my reading habits ill tell you what

[berryblu-soda]

Anyways update i just didnt bother to post earlier:

fr God is good and the whole car crash my parents got into last week was so incredibly mild in terms of injuries!!!! worst was a bruised knee im pretty sure

ALSO-

*taps mic* HUG YOUR FREAKING LOVED ONES OR SO HELP ME!!!!!!!

[melvinthedepressedrobot]

WHY IS IT SO FUCKING DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THAT DRIVE AND LANE ARE DIFFERENT FUCKING WORDS

[andyridgeley]

me when im on hold

[zenobiaseptimia]

one thing to remember when reading about native plants online is the sun + moisture recommendations will be different depending on where your source is located geographically. i just read an article authored by an atlantan on white snakeroot where it says it likes partially shaded areas, but an article from my region, new england, says it likes sun or part shade. makes sense when you consider how much hotter the south is, etc.

[mifunebooty]

I feel bored. Stagnant. I must get on my driving lessons, drive, sign up for classes, read everything and go get my life since nobody else will give it to me

[laseratingfist]

i think the funny part right now is that sampo would treat me like this and i know this and wrote about this but at least he wouldnt. he wouldnt. i dont know. he would come back. i would want him to come back. this bastard, however, is painfully human and not the ideal in my head who can never hurt me in a way i can't forgive.

[ijltln]

I'm so sick of this besties

[phcking-detective]

you find the funniest robot/computer themed textposts what is your secret

I am so so so sososo SO chronically online, thank you for asking!

[adhdheather]

i know its been a while since i brought it up on here but God i miss ducktales 2017

[freakurodani]

so, apparently, as explained by my sweetheart of a doctor yesterday, its actually very common for a mood drop during recovery/release after a major illness but boy howdy, hello depression symptoms my old foe, we meet again

[gallusrostromegalus]

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.

---

(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)

[thiefnessman]

sometimes when i take a step back i realize like, oh of course i have paranoia issues, i have good reason to feel like someone is constantly watching and monitoring me bc that's not that far from the truth! my parents are kind of overbearing!

[the-best-bagel]

free roaming outdoor dogs a la cats are not a good idea and are just asking for injuries and conflict but unfortunately i've only ever had great experiences growing up in a neighborhood with a handful of those dogs and i miss themmmmm

[ifeellikeimmashitmyself]

Chat. Why is reading so hard.

Ive always loved the thought of reading. Sitting down and enjoying a goodbook. But i can never remeber the book long enough to determine if it's a good book or not. It's like i forget everything about the book instantly. The only way i can actually kind of remeber books is of i annotate.

I also hear tht people can picture the book in their head. But i cant do that. Not well. The only kind of picture i get it is the words in bubble letters like some kind of music lyrics video. And i can never picture any characters. I have to see the character in order for me to know what they look like.

I also suck at reading to myself. I get distracted too easily and often lose interest all together. I like having someone read to me, but i have to be following along in the book or else i'll get distracted. That's also why i can't listen to audio books or podcasts. I get distracted and cant recall anything.