#over a melon and because Richard wanted to start a fight

[paleshelter29]

Gets microphone: BENJAMIN DESERVED BETTER!!!!! Thank you for coming to my BENtalk.

[tysonthebitcher]

The time i got arrested in Florida

*Names have been changed When you picture getting arrested on spring break, you picture things like getting in a fight, having sex in public, getting too drunk, or better – all three. But this wasn't anything like that; the time I got arrested sums up my life. When I was 17, I got arrested on Spring Break in Florida. I don't even bring this up when people talk about getting arrested. It’s by no means a "bad ass" story. But when I do tell people I was arrested, they automatically want to know why.  This isn’t your cool and normal Spring Break “who outdrank who” story. This is a random and "uncool" arrest story. I don't even like to tell people. Honestly, I’m not sure why I’m telling you now…but fuck it In high school, I went on Spring Break with my friend, John. Because I was 17, it was one of those “high school” Spring Breaks. We’ve all been on these “all-inclusive vacations.” You know, the trips where you just go with your friend’s family because you are too broke, too irresponsible, and just slightly too underage for your parents to let you go anywhere by yourself. So this is the best you are going to get.  But hey, don’t let the details get in the way of the facts, you get to tell people you went somewhere. This was going to be the first time I was on my own: It was a huge deal for me. My parents always thought I was too "irresponsible" to go anywhere or do anything, let alone wipe my own ass, by myself.  I had gotten caught in a few minor fuck ups, but I was right at the tipping point where I was starting to gain their trust back and things could go one of two ways: I could be the son they’ve always wanted, or I could go with John and be a 17 year old on Spring Break.  It took a lot of convincing but, the choice was obvious. My parents ended up letting me go.I was going to be with John’s family…what could go wrong? . Well...actually a lot can go wrong. ​ When Spring Break rolled around, John, his parents, and I drove down to Navarre Beach, Florida. I had never even heard of the fuckin’ place, but it was Florida. How horrible can it be? Wrong. It’s more than slightly horrible. It might as well be located in Satan’s asshole, and renamed to Dante’s 10th Circle of Hell. Like all naïve high schoolers, we were expecting rivers of beer, and mountains of topless college chicks. Wrong again. Upon arrival, John and I instantly realize there is a reason we had never heard of this place. It is one of those near death retirement communities, where the only women you will see are wearing a one-piece and a foam golf visor. It was one of those quiet, dust-farter destinations for the old people who came to Florida for long walks on the beach, and to watch the sunset. Throughout the week, we did boring touristy shit with John’s parents, like visit museums and sight-see. I'll admit it wasn't bad. Then again, at this point in my life, shopping at a Walmart in a different state would have been fun for me. Prior to entering this hellish wasteland in sunny Florida, John and I got some irresponsibly awesome 21 year old to buy us liquor before we left. We hid the vodka in a couple of water bottles and smuggled it down with us. Even though the place sucked, we still were excited. Our standards were still low; getting drunk in someone's basement was still considered "new and fun.” Drinking in Florida was more than good enough for us. Throughout the week, we made sure to conserve and ration the gut-wrenching warm vodka. When nights rolled around, we took shots and wandered aimlessly around the deserted hellscape, looking for any sign of human life. The whole week we hadn’t seen anyone that hadn’t been born when Richard Nixon was still in office, but on the last night we were there, slightly buzzed on warm water bottle vodka, we went wandering desperate to do anything. That’s when the warm vodka Gods spoke to us. When we got down to the pool, there was a small glimpse of hope. We saw some kids our age, so we approached them and started talking. Turns out they were 15 and from Indiana too, and in the same situation as John and me.  There was our glimpse of hope: two girls, and a douche. The brother, the douche, and sister looked inbred. But their friend, Jennifer, caught our eye with her big melons. John and I were so desperate, we looked past inbred Jack and Jill so we could hang with this girl and her big cannons.  There wasn't really anything for us to do so we started walking around, bitching about this shitty paradise we were in. ​ John and I were content; we were kinda drunk, and since we were in high school, just walking next to a hot female got our penises hard. While we were walking, Jack was telling us about how they were playing ding dong ditch earlier.  That stuff stopped being fun for me in 4th grade, so I instantly knew these fucking kids were even lamer than John and me. Feeling nice, or drunk, or bored, maybe all three, I chalked it up as they were probably just bored like us. We continued to walk, and Jack started to play ding dong ditch again.  I felt like I was babysitting this giant pecker.  I felt like I was too cool to be hanging out with these incestual people, and for me to think that is a huge red flag. John and I laughed and went along with it. Fuck it, I even joined in a couple times. Here we were, playing ding dong ditch in fuckin’ Florida. Other teenagers our age were on Spring Break having sex and lasting a whole two minutes. Or getting limp wristed hand jobs.  Either way, I was envious. Instead we were ding dong ditching condos of old fossils who probably couldn't even hear it. Although lame, John and I were glad to be doing something. But then shit got weird. Like one of those "you had to be there moments". These things happen for some strange reason, and when they do, and you really don't what the fuck you were thinking. A string of bad luck happens, and it's almost like it was meant to be. At this point, we are acting like a bunch deranged toddlers who escaped Chuck E Cheese, laughing and acting like reckless buffoons. The more we laughed and fucked around, the more of that reckless teenage "fuck it" chemical got pumped into our little bird brains.  We gave no fucks and just wanted to have fun. It was almost like we took a back seat in our bodies while some crazed maniacs were manning the control stations. We continued watching Jack ding dong ditch until we got to the garbage room where you throw trash down the chute. For some fuckin’ reason, Jack opened the door to look inside.  He flings the door open, and in the process, breaks the garbage room door. The metal rod snapped right off the door, and fell in front of his guilty feet. We look at each other…then like most teenagers, we just start laughing. I don't know if it is a phase or what, but fucking stuff up was just fun in high school. I don't fuckin’ get it now. But it was. It seemed like everyday something got fucked with. If something could be broken, it was.  Luckily ,I don't think it was just me; teenagers just like fucking with shit when they’re bored. Teenagers are just shitty selfish individuals who don’t even think about consequences. It's almost like that part of the brain isn’t developed yet. If you didn’t go through that "break shit" phase, this whole story will leave you even more shocked. When the door broke, and we all start laughing like a pack of wild hyenas, Jack got egged on even more. The difference between a teenager and an adult, is the adult stops, and the teenager keeps fuckin’ going to make his friends laugh. Then out of nowhere, Jack hurls this metal rod off the 14th floor and it hits the ground. We laugh at his Olympic javelin throw , and start going to the other floors to break other garbage room doors as we now know how much fun this teenager pastime is... The harmless game of ding dong ditch quickly turned in a category five shit storm. We were on a vandalism rampage. We broke three or four more doors and tore down some paper signs. Shortly, the storm was over.  We decided to go walk around outside and cool off. We walked around for an hour and headed back to our condo. While walking back we run into this 20-year-old dick bag with roid rage, wearing a pink polo. He stopped us to tell us that the cops are coming because that metal rod that came sailing off the 14th-floor balcony, almost hit someone.  Also, turns out that throwing anything off a balcony is considered a felony. Who would have thought? This butt fuck in the pink polo pointed to the condo behind him, and asked if we knew anything. John and I play dumber than my parents were for letting me go on this trip. Meanwhile, the other 3 dumb fucks go on to explain to this guy that we weren't doing it in the building he pointed at but we were in another one.  Like that fuckin mattered?! The guy then starts flipping out talking about how the cops thought he might have done it and if he gets arrested "hes going to crack our skulls." We then saw the cop cars parked in front of the condo. We decided we best just get the fuck away from the whole situation – a real ding, dong, ditch. We decide we probably should head to the beach and lay low until the cops left. We waited at the beach for a good half hour. Continuing on with the night like nothing happened; we walked to the lone gas station by our condo. As we got to the gas station, we saw three cop cars leaving the condo and driving away. They drove past the gas station. Suddenly, all three cruisers pull a U-turn and head back our way. The worst part is, if we would have waited at the beach one more minute, we would have been in the clear from all the shit that was about to rain down on us. They stopped us and told us that someone told them to look for a "red-haired kid" and someone with a blue hoodie on. The red-haired kid was John, and Jack was the hoodie wearing bastard.  We had figured the skull crusher ratted on us. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize we were fuckin’ guilty. One by one, they talked to us to hear our stories. They knew they had caught us with our pants around our ankles. They hit us with all that cop bullshit, which if you aren't familiar with, you might as well just put the handcuffs on yourself. They said they knew the truth and were trying to break us. They actually didn't have any evidence, so if we would have just denied everything we could have walked away again. But we didn’t have a consistent story so we got fucked – and not in the envious limp wrist handjob type of way. After the brutal bloodbath,the cops told us to get in the car and we headed back to the condo, while they continued to mentally butt fuck us even more. We were grade A fucked, there was no getting out of this one. When we get to the condo there was a fuckin’ platoon of cops waiting. You would have thought we were clubbing puppies and not breaking door hinges. We get to the police circle jerk and notice there is a different group of kids in trouble too. We then found out they were skinny dipping when the cops came to investigate the garbage door massacre of the 14th floor. They saw them and arrested them. Lady Luck must have been sucking dick somewhere in a corner, because she wasn't with any of us that night. The cops continued questioning us and Jack started lying, saying I was the mastermind behind this circus show. It was every man for themselves at this point. I wasn't going to jail for that inbred fuck. I would have been home free again, but John "did the right thing" and told them I broke a door too. He really just wanted to save his own ass because he was going to be joining the Air Force – what a dick, but hey John, thanks for protecting our country. Jack and I got blamed for the doors, and Jill got charged because she ripped off the paper signs in the elevator.  John really should have been there with us, because he ripped some paper signs too, but I didn't want to ruin his chance at the Air force.  The only innocent one was Jennifer. I thought committing acts of vandalism was the best way into her pants, but she wasn't impressed. It was now 3 am, and the cop said she had to call my parents since I was a minor.  The cop put the call on speaker phone and called my house   A call from the cops is the last thing any parent fucking wants, let alone at 3 am during Spring Break. My dad picked up the phone half asleep and heard, "Hi Sir, this is Sergeant Kelly from the Navarre Beach Police Department. I am calling to inform you that your son is getting arrested."  There was a pause, where I could almost hear the brick my dad was shitting fall right out of his ass. They talked for a second, and then he did that white dad thing, where he thanked the officer and said he was glad I was at least safe. Glad I was safe? It probably would have been better if I was in a coma. The three of us on the freelance demolishing team, got corralled into the back of the cop car and made the 40-minute maiden voyage to my new home, jail. I was in and out of sleep most of the way there.  At one point, I woke up and the two cops were fuckin’ talking about Disney World. Here I am on the shittiest night of my life, and these guys were just calmly talking about visiting Disney World. Dicks. It wasn't really until I got to jail that it really hit me. There I was, in some random fuckin’ jail in buttfuckville, a thousand miles away from home. Everyone watches those cop shows and everyone tells themselves they are never going to jail. So, now being here, it felt surreal, and it was a total nightmare. They told me I was getting charged with "criminal mischief", and Jack with a felony for throwing the garbage room rod over the balcony. Jill got charged with "criminal mischief" for tearing paper signs off the wall…. I wish I could make this shit up. They took my belt and gave me some rubber slippers. I got processed and got my mug shot, and new Facebook profile picture taken, and thrown into a holding cell with Jack. If they hadn’t taken my belt, I most likely would have strangled him. Jack was acting like some big bad bad ass earlier. Now, he was laying on this concrete slab, bawling his eyes out and crying about how he wants his mommy. It's like I was in some stereotypical jail movie.   I was furious at that mosquito dick for getting me into all this, so I wasn't the most sympathetic to his river of tears drowning the cell. I told him to go cry on the ground so I could sleep on the concrete slab we called a bed. He continued his blubbering on the floor while I tried to get some sleep. When morning rolled around, John and his family came to pick me up. We were leaving that day, so the car was already packed up. We headed straight back from picking me up from Jail. You can only imagine how fuckin awkward the whole car ride was with John’s parents. Especially since John didn't get arrested, and this was really the first time I had met John's parents. They took me on vacation with them, and I get arrested. Apparently that’s frowned upon. The whole car ride I played back the whole situation and thought of all the things I could have done differently. We pulled into my driveway, and my dad was standing there.  He told me to go to my room, while he talked to John's dad. My dad came up later, and was surprisingly calm. Which made me more scared. I was wishing he would have yelled at me, so I could yell back. But instead, he took the other road. He was "disappointed" in me which made me feel even worse. To no surprise, I was grounded. This wasn’t my first rodeo, I knew the routine. I had just got ungrounded, and there I was grounded again. This time around, I was grounded for six months, and I had to pay $3,000  for a lawyer in Florida. Luckily, my lawyer was able to get the charges dropped. Worst part of the night? I didn't even get to see Jennifer's titties; all I got was an "I got arrested for breaking a garbage room door" story from Spring Break. At least Jack was a felon.                  

[twdmusicboxmystery]

7x13: Details

 Okay, just wanted to go over some details in the episode.

1. The number 5. We saw 5 Kingdom-ers at the beginning with the cantaloupe: Richard, Ezekiel, Jerry, and two others. Then when Carol kills walkers in the tree, she kills four with the sign and one more with a knife: 5 total. Probably pointing us back toward S5 for, you know, some odd reason. ;D

2. Candlelight Theme. We saw it with Carol at the beginning when she woke from her nightmare. After Benjamin dies, we see it with Morgan as well. Both are in psychological distress when we see this. Of course, there are Norman’s famous lines about Beth being the light in the dark tunnel for Daryl. Daryl was in serious psychological distress after the prison went down, and Beth helped him heal from that. This kind of lighting almost always signals serious emotional angst.

3. 63 on the wall again. @bluesandbeth told me that in issue 63 of the comic books, Michonne is thought to be dead…but then turns up alive. Hmmm.

4. I wondered if Nabila meant anything specific. It means “Noble or Excellent.” Another thing I didn’t mention on Monday was what she said about burning the garden down. She said the beautiful thing was that, “If you want, it can all grow back. ” They “get to come back,” but it’s always a choice. Carol was making a choice by staying alone in that cabin. She was in a self-imposed Purgatory and wasn’t progressing at all. Now she’s made the choice to move forward and become part of the world (the Kingdom) again. Same with Ezekiel choosing not to fight the Saviors.

5. Benjamin’s girlfriend. Benjamin talked about some girl who helped him with the picture, but wouldn’t tell Morgan anything else about her. A Nonny suggested maybe this was a way of paralleling Benjamin with Zack. He definitely does have a similar, boyish look to Zack. For me, it depends on whether we ever meet this girl or not. If we do, we’ll have to see what role she plays in the show. If not, she’s only symbolic. The thing is, this was more than just a minor detail. Morgan asked Benjamin about her at least twice. They really drew attention to this, so I’ll be interested to see where, if anywhere, it goes.

6. Jerry’s cobbler. Okay, small totally silly note here. I think the cobbler has come to symbolize something good. Maybe happiness, normalcy. We saw it with Carol in 7x02. Only a place like the Kingdom that’s well settled and has a decent food supply could reasonably expect to have or make cobbler. Anyway, Ezekiel told Jerry to leave the cobbler. Yeah, it was a funny–gotta love Jerry’s smile–but also kind of random. I wondered if it was a foreshadow that bad things were afoot. (Yes, that was an extremely lame pun. Someone else also pointed out to me that a “cobbler” is someone who makes shoes. So the cobbler could also be tied to the shoe/foot theory. Just throwing that out there. ;D)

7. The Kingdomers gave the Saviors their guns. We’ve seen this before, as Negan took all the guns from Alexandria. But this made me think of Noah giving up his gun and giving into Dawn at Grady. Not only did that result in disaster where Beth was concerned, but I do think it showed his weakness as a character and led to his death later on. (X) Here, Ezekiel and co give up their guns. Not long after, Benjamin is dead.

8. The Saviors said they were going to “teach them” just like the Claimers. Small detail, but Gavin said, “You have to learn the stakes, so we’re going to teach you.” This not only points us back toward S4 but shows that the “bad guys” in this season are being set up as parallels to earlier things we’ve seen.

9. We again saw the theme of the Saviors killing someone for what someone else did. I thought it was interesting because in this case, it wasn’t supposed to happen. Gavin was surprised when he turned around and Jarod had shot Benjamin. He was supposed to kill Richard, as Gavin originally said. This has become more than just something intentional on Negan’s part.

10. “It’s As or Fs, no Is.” “One, not more not less.” I was a little confused by this part. Assuming these are letter grades with A being the highest and F being “fail,” and I’m assuming I = Incomplete, then it makes sense in the dialogue. They’re saying the drops have to be all or nothing. But I was reminded of shirt Daryl wore at the Sanctuary. It had a red A with what looked like an I super-imposed over it, which doubled as a handle of sorts. Not sure if this is what they’re going for, or even what it all means, but it’s what I thought of.

11. Carol planted tomatoes. We’ve seen tomatoes a lot, especially around Morgan, and most recently at the Kingdom. The thing I noticed was that on this package, it says, “Boston pickling.” I thought it was a pickle reference. @bluesandbeth told me that this company most often does cucumbers, not tomatoes. This may even be an incorrect pairing–something they put together for the show. A double pickle reference and paired with the tomato reference. ***Update: I need to fix the above reference. I misunderstood the information sent to me. Boston Pickling isn't a company. It's a type of cucumber. Im looking into it further but just know for now that we can't find any evidence that there is any such thing as a Boston pickling tomato. That type of plant, from what we've seen, doesn't exist. Just wanted to clarify. Thanx for the correction @bluesandbeth! 💖***

12. Family Doctor sign in background. Lots of people have sent me doctor or ER signs that have been in the background. I guess I’m finally starting to pick them up on my own. This one was behind Morgan, specifically when he found the missing melon. You know, the one that was separated from the others and hidden? As though a doctor or medical institution may have had something to do with that?

13. “Benjamin, get your gun up.” Okay I’m gonna be a total TD geek about this. They called attention to this twice. Richard says it when they first stop at the road block, and then Morgan thinks about it again after Benjamin’s death. It’s what makes him realize that Richard was the culprit. Richard says it just as he secretly separates the hidden melon from the others. I couldn’t help but think of the fact that Dawn’s gun simply wasn’t “up” far enough to have shot Beth. So right when the melon was separated from the others, “Benjamin, get your gun up.” I’m probably really reaching. Meh. Whatevs. It’s what it made me think of.

14. Babies Crying - Richard mentions this several times when telling Morgan about the camp he used to be in. It made me think of episode 5x09 where we not only saw an emphasis on Judith crying from 7x01, but we also heard echoes of it all throughout the episode. Now we had an emphasis on it here.

15. Finally, @sparklepoodles pointed this out to me. It originates in 7x10, when Daryl keeps Richard putting his plan into action that would have gotten Carol killed. Not only did they foreshadow Richard’s death through dialogue. (Richard: I would die for the Kingdom. Daryl: Then why don’t you?) but look at this picture:

Tell me that’s not a foreshadow of Richard’s death and, more specifically, to Morgan strangling him. 

16. The bull rider picture. I wanted to do this one last because it’s the most intriguing to me. I don’t have a specific theory, but I just wanted to share some observations. This is important, not only because it’s exactly the kind of detail they like to hide symbolism but it was also emphasized in the quiz on TTD.

I had to research bull fighting and found that I knew very little about it. Basically, it’s all about a fighter (commonly called a matador) showing off his skill by killing a massive, angry bull. It’s a brutal sport and they do kill the bull by the end. Usually. In the first stage, the bull fighter observes the bull, looking for strengths and weaknesses, and takes steps to weaken it physically, often by stabbing it to cause injury and blood loss. In the second stage, more steps are taken to weaken the bull, including stabbing it with barbed sticks that will remain in order to weaken its strong neck and shoulder muscles. The killing, in which the matador must several the bull’s spinal cord, happens in stage 3. It’s very dangerous for the matador, of course, but almost always fatal for the bull. (There are some special cases where they might let the bull live, but that’s rare.)

I don’t see a whole lot of TD things in this symbol. I’m side-eyeing a few things, but overall, I think this is a very strong Morgan symbol. In fact, it’s probably a very negative sign for Morgan. Morgan is the matador. Benjamin, however, is not the bull. Richard is. How do I know that? Well, for one thing, Morgan didn’t kill Benjamin, but he had to use his strength and skill to kill Richard. Another thing I read? After the bull is finally killed, it’s body is dragged through the arena by a team of mules. Kinda like this:

And then there’s the fact that there is a blue prohibition sign (the circle with the line through it) over the entire picture, as if to warn that this would be a very bad thing for Morgan to do. To me, that just points to his downward spiral even more.

It did occur to me that the three stages of the bull fighting could represent Morgan’s bouts with sanity, but since he’s the matador, I’m not entirely sure that works.

And the things I’m side-eyeing? @bluesandbeth pointed out that how the bulls are killed isn’t so far off how walkers are killed in the show, which I think is a good point. You could, of course, relate this to Beth specifically because they didn’t stab her in the brain. (I had a Nonny point out that Morgan stabbed Richard in the brain despite an obvious head injury, which is a super-interesting observation - X).

The only other thing that caught my attention here is the red cape. It’s the traditional symbol of the matador, which is how you can tell (other than the bull) that this is a picture of a bull fighter. But I immediately went back to the red cape/poncho/whatever-it-was in Beth’s cell. 

I’m not sure how that would tie into this, unless it’s as anti-parallel. Morgan killed Richard, but he might have saved Beth.

And then there’s the fact that the prohibition sign on Morgan’s painting is GREEN. Just saying.

So anyway, like I said, no specific theory. Just observations.

That’s everything I had in my notes. Anyone pick up any other tidbits?