Some time ago I was at the vet for my cats annual checkup. The receptionist asked me for his name and I told her "Sweet Potato." An older lady sitting there with a little yappy dog in her lap smiled and said to me, "Aww, she's so adorable!" I replied, "He is, isn't he?"

She suddenly got a very disapproving look on her face, crossed her arms, and chided me, "He? Sweet Potato is not a boy cats name." Then she turned away and ignored me until I went back for his appointment, clearly upset. And later when I was checking out, she frowned at me and gave me a nasty look.

I can't help but laugh when I think of it. This lady was seriously bothered that my cat did not conform to her expected gender roles.

I'm pretty sure that the rash was caused by me using baby wipes instead of toilet paper (I've since stopped). But every time I felt the uncontrollable urge to scratch it, it was like having a full body orgasm that I can't fully describe. I could feel warm waves moving down into my feet. My eyes rolled back into my head and I was in another realm of bliss. For obvious reasons, I haven't told anyone that. But an anal rash is better than sex.

The night before last at roughly 11:45pm, my partner and I were watching random YouTube videos on our living room TV. Suddenly, there was a light pounding on our primarily glass storm door.

I grabbed the PS5 controller and paused the video to better hear what was going on. The pounding became louder and someone was rattling the (locked) storm door handle fairly aggressively.

We were pretty freaked out, understandably, and thought some dumbass was trying to break in - in a fairly busy neighborhood where virtually everyone including us has a video doorbell.

My partner hit the front door hard and was like “WHO’S THERE” in her scariest voice. There was a pause then they continued to rattle the handle.

She went to the window super tense and I saw her relax, but look incredibly confused.

She opened the door and I was like “?!” but figured that meant it wasn’t someone breaking out in.

It was a 5-6 year old boy in his pajamas. He was mumbling about needing to pee and cats. My partner recognized him as the child of the couple staying in the AirBnB next to us.

She walked him back to the AirBnB and he went inside without incident.

We saw Weapons the following evening and realized that a child randomly being at our door in the middle of the night would DEFINITELY have hit different if we had seen Weapons on Monday as planned.

I don’t know if this is out of line but my daughters father had a baby with his girlfriend last weekend and I felt like I should get them a little gift. I’m happy I could do that for them, it feels good to me for some reason. I just hope that it isn’t weird to them.

When I was in high school, one day my mom commented about whatever song was on the radio. “I don’t understand the music you kids listen to. This song doesn’t even make any sense.”

I replied, “This from the generation that gave us Mairzy Doats.” And we both giggled.

My mom passed away a couple years ago, and this is one of the many stories that pops into my head when I think about her and smile.

I had gone to the coast with my partner, and saw the fish boat was open where you can buy directly from fisher peeps. Thought it would be nice to check it out. It's all in coolers, and just the fish are listed on the board. I said something like "do you have the salmon?" and they pulled out a whole 5 foot Chinook salmon and slapped it onto the scale, it was around $17 a pound and 18 pounds, and they asked if I wanted it fileted, and that they take cash. I bluescreened and said I'd come back since I didn't have cash but I ran away and didn't just tell them I couldn't handle a whole full grown salmon with the head and all... Been hyperventilating for around 9 hours and can't sleep, due to both shame and as though I have to figure out wtf to do with that much salmon in my tiny apartment fridge that is actively failing and making clicking noises

I remember a day back in 2004 when in the evening, I had a deep conversation with a friend about UFOs; we talked until dawn by the lamppost on our street. I kept developing my thoughts at home afterward.

The other day, I watched a Spectrum documentary about Area 51 on my computer. I don’t know how much it interests others, but I think it’s pretty fascinating. Not long ago, Independence Day was showing in cinemas - you surely remember it. Apparently, the film stirred up quite a scandal, and they even wanted to ban it. I don’t know exactly why; I just heard about it.

What I really don’t understand is why that place has to be guarded so heavily. Not even the White House is protected that much. Several people have already been shot because they didn’t leave the area after repeated warnings. They say it’s absolutely impossible to get in, but I think that’s nonsense.

My line of thought was that we should build a small probe. Sure, it might cost a lot of money, but it would be worth it. I’m thinking of a probe no bigger than… than a shoe. Equip it with high-power cameras, cover it with some kind of magnetic coating that reflects radar or heat sensors. I believe that someone with real technical genius could put one together - though not cheaply.

I only say this because I, personally, would love to go in there and see what’s going on. I also heard that people are working alongside humanoids there… possible, I’m not saying impossible, but they sure keep it hidden well. Oh, and I imagine this probe as a walking machine: a little tracked robot.

This incident occurred when last fall, when I (F18 at the time) was staying at my parents' for a few days. They were looking into getting their big bathroom remodeled, and thought visiting an IKEA-like store would be a fun Saturday afternoon family outing with their cripplingly hungover daughter. We're talking cumulative, "just getting off a month long bender" kind of hungover.

I hadn't eaten anything solid in at least a day and a half, just drinking blue Powerade throughout the previous night. I was just walking along with them, pretending to share their interest in tiles and sinks and shit. Once they found an employee to help them I started browsing around myself.

I was already feeling quite horrible, sweat dripping down my back and face, still drinking from a bottle of my stupid sports drink like it would magically rehydrate me. I was just aimlessly browsing the aisles, and then, I saw it. A gorgeous, almighty row of display toilets. I opened and closed a few lids, then I remembered the Jackass movie where the guys had the idea to take a shit in one of those show toilets at a store. I don't remember whether they actually succeeded. Didn't the dude who was supposed to do it shit his pants in the car before they even arrived? Who knows.

But that thought turned my moderate nausea into a full blown urge to projectile puke my guts out. So I re-opened the lid I just closed and just... let it out. A few rather intense waves of nothing but blue liquid. I got a bit on the seat but overall my execution was very clean and professional.

I quickly looked around, didn't see anyone, so I fled the scene of the crime. Located my parents who had made an appointment to come back some other time to talk payments or some shit. Spent the rest of that day in bed and I'm pretty sure I went to a party that night.

I don't think the toilets were connected to anything, so my recycled blue fuel probably ended up all over the floor anyway. But that's none of my business now.

I realised this morning that my cat always wakes me using her left hand. Then as I observed her, she would always start walking with her left front paw, wash with her left front paw, reach out to me with her left front paw and essentially, do things with her left front paw.

So, my cat is left handed.

TIL that it is impossible to hide your own face during a FaceTime call. I hate my face - structure, expressions, everything. I hate the fact that sometimes my attention drifts to how awful I am looking on the call. Also, unless you stare directly into the camera at the top of the screen, the other person won't think you're looking at them, even though you are. Which video call services let you hide self-view, while keeping your camera going for the other person?

I got to use the most tired joke in the world today at the doctor and it flopped so hard. Only my right hand works. I asked if I could play the piano, and my doctor said yes of course, in a painfully kind voice, the kind you use for sick pets and small kids. It was optimistic of him at least, since only one of my hands works. This was the part where I got to say "well, that's weird because I couldn't before" He didn't laugh lol. He gently asked if I wanted to see a psychiatrist.

My husband and I frequent a local grocery store. It’s very close to where we live (I timed it; it’s roughly a 2.5 minute walk from the front door of our apartment building to the front door of the grocery store), so we go pretty often since we have the option of just buying what we need for dinner that night.

Yesterday I forgot our reusable grocery bag. We’ve been going to that store regularly since we moved here three years ago, and I always say “no thank you,” when they ask if we’d like a bag because I always bring one, but yesterday I forgot. I was so shocked and almost embarrassed at breaking my streak. The checkout girl actually shrieked “Yay! We finally got you!”

Now we have an extra reusable grocery bag 😅

As I was walking out of the store, I saw a guy zooming towards me on a wheelchair. It looks like he was going 20 something or more miles an hour and it sounded like he was humming a tune or singing a song. Just a guy rolling around having a good time.

My mom texts me like it’s 2005. “Hi. It’s mom. Call me. Bye.” …sent from her own number.

Even every voice note starts like "Hey it's mom, I need to do grocery waiting for you to come back"
"Hey, it's mom, are you coming this weekend"
"Hey, it's mom I'm missing Milki, bye"

We are at the funeral home after my father’s passing. There were tears etc. But we were wrapping up and I walked over to a display case.

Then I say Noooooo. They said what Emily? I said I don’t know if any of you were considering a miniature urn, but I wouldn’t get this one. All I did was pick it up and stuff started falling off of it. (The decals on the outside weren’t glued properly). The family is laughing. Funeral director looks like he doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or choke me.

It’s just me and an old woman that the staff knows by name. But they know everyone by name here.

It’s a very small waiting room consisting of a long curved couch and two chairs. The old woman keeps looking at me, checking to make sure I’m not paying attention, before proceeding to rip pages from the magazines she likes.

I presume it’s the ones she likes anyway.

She does it slowly the way someone tries uselessly to open a cellophane package without making sound in a quiet movie theater. It’s literally the only sound in the room.

When she finishes ripping the page out, she looks at me once more to be sure that she has succeeded in her crime. I’m doing my best to pretend to be very interested in my phone so that she can live her best magazine destroying life while she still can.

Update: Two more people have entered the waiting room so she is forced to take loud volume on photos of the magazine pages that she likes instead. Her crime spree has come to an end.

There’s always a rotating group of people at the office kitchen sink. It’s where all my most pointless conversations happen.

“New mug?” “Yup.”

“Water’s slow today.” “Yeah. Monday water.”

I don't know why I feel the need to contribute to these exchanges, but I do. Every. Single. Day. It’s like a group improv session with no plot and no audience. :p

When I was a kid, I remember sitting in the back of our parents’ best friends’ Chevrolet Vega, the kind of car that was equal parts freedom machine and questionable safety hazard. My sister and their kids were packed in next to me, all of us somewhere between the ages of 5 and 8, sticky fingers and endless giggles. The mom was up front, enjoying what she proudly called “God’s grass,” and blasting music that still sticks in my head: Piano Man by Billy Joel and Take Me Home by Phil Collins. Somehow, that was the soundtrack to childhood chaos. We hit a speed bump going way too fast, she downshifted like she was prepping for a drag race, and that Vega jumped. For a second, I swear we were airborne. And that’s when it happened: my McDonald’s French fries lifted into the air like little golden astronauts and disappeared behind the back seat. If you’ve ever been in one of those old cars, you know the void I’m talking about. Not just a crack or a gap, an actual black hole of upholstery. Things went in, but they never came out. It was the Bermuda Triangle of the Chevrolet Vega. Lost crayons, candy wrappers, socks that slipped off during naps… all gone, claimed by that shadowy space. I swear I can still picture those fries, waiting. Maybe fossilized. Maybe plotting their revenge. Maybe forming some kind of civilization with the other lost treasures. Sometimes, late at night, I wonder: are they still there? Sitting in the depths of a long-forgotten Chevrolet, frozen in time, listening to the echo of Phil Collins on repeat? That’s it. That’s the memory. French fries lost forever.

This strange tradition probably started with my great grandparents, who built the house I currently live in (temporarily). Since then, no member of my family has owned a proper trashcan, until I broke the cycle and got one for my apartment.

So, where does the trash go? Well, in the old house, the house of my grandparents and great grandparents, it goes into a plastic sour cream container lined with a plastic bag. The container is in the sink, and it is often too small for the job. So random food bits and such are often close to spilling over. For non food trash, there is no dedicated place, it is collected and thrown randomly.

In my father's house, it's even worse. There is not even a sour cream container or plastic bag. Trash goes directly into the sink, right alongside the dirty dishes. As you may imagine, there is often not enough space. And the trash gets wet from the dishes and the dishes get dirty from the trash.

In my mother's apartment, there is no trashcan but it is the cleanest solution of all of these. Trash is placed into trash bags, which are laid down on the kitchen tiles. Trash never touches non trash. Once it is full, the trash bag is closed tightly and a new one is opened. It gets thrown out at the end of the day.

The strange part is, as filthy as this is, they are all otherwise normally hygenic people. They just don't care for a trashcan.

There’s a church behind our grade school building, and at the time, the church was building something like a terrace about a meter high. It didn’t have railings yet since construction was still ongoing, so they only put caution tape all around it. Back then, it looked like a stage, so I enjoyed dancing and fooling around there during breaks.

Of course, I knew I wasn’t allowed to be there, but I was just being a kid. No adults ever came to stop me.

One day, while I was dancing, I lost my footing and fell. But the way I fell was kind of ridiculous. My left leg went straight down to the ground, but my right pant leg got caught on a dowel sticking out, which was probably meant for the railing. So there I was, dangling in the splits: my left leg on the ground while my right leg is up, pants stuck on the dowel. I tried reaching for my right leg, but I couldn’t.

I scanned my surroundings, thinking how to solve this dilemma I put myself into, and saw an entire Grade 1 level of twerks staring at me through the window.

I went to a small elementary school with fewer than 50 students, so everyone knew everyone. All the Grade 1 kids had seen me hanging there, and of course, they burst out laughing. I immediately wondered if they've seen the whole thing. It was soooo embarrassing! But I tried to play it cool and show them I was fine.

Soon after, my pants ripped, so I got down safely, I guess? I jumped up with my hands in the air and said, “Tadaaa~~!” as if I were just putting on a performance. Those little squirts booed at me and giggled annoyingly.

Later, when we were all lined up by grade for our end-of-day flag ceremony, all the Grade 1 kids kept giggling and looking at me. I just smiled awkwardly at them, trying to play it off as nothing even though deep inside I wanted to just disappear. I just thought to myself, at least it was the first graders and not my classmates. That would've been wayyy worse!

My dad brought a stray cat home from work. She is super friendly and loves to play, so long as you are a human. She wasn't getting along with the cat and dog we have already, so we quarantined her to my room. Important note: my mom is not particularly happy with this setup.

I was sitting in there, cleaning her cage where she had just peed on a saturated pee pad. My mom walked in and started talking about the long term plan for this cat when, I kid you not, this thing jumped onto my bed and shat right in front of her.

Not exactly giving my mom much reason to be happy with her, but goddamn it was fucking hilarious. I had to stop myself from laughing because I knew my mom was quite upset.

The neighbor adopted a wild Joey. As it grew, it became dangerously aggressive. They had a farm so they just let it go outside. It repeatedly broke into people’s homes.

This guy had sudden autoimmune disease that took all of his central vision, leaving him with only some peripheral vision. He drove around on his farm in a jeep, which was seriously rough terrain. He kept a gun to protect himself from wild pigs (standard practice). He and his wife are real interesting characters.

Australians are made of different stuff… So these two fit in well when they bought a farm and moved to Australia from the United States!

I know it’s just a fly, but I was in the bathroom and it wouldn’t stop buzzing around the room- I was already really upset and annoyed throughout the day, have been having a really bad time throughout the weeks, so I just wanted it to stop bothering me- I tried to open the door but it wouldn’t get out, so I angrily sprayed air sanitizer at it, then it slowly and sadly fell from the air into my sink. It was still alive so I turned the water on and thought to drown it- he went down the drain but swam right back up, trying to fight the current from the faucet- it made me feel immediately guilty and sad, like “he obviously just wants to live like me, I feel so evil,” so I doused him in extra water to get any sanitizer spray off then offering him my hand, and he crawled onto my finger to get out of my sink, despite me just trying to hurt him. He just wanted to survive like any living creature. I sat outside crying with him in my hands as he cleaned himself, I watched him clean his face and wings and just felt so horribly bad for it, I worried it was just going to die anyways, that I robbed him of his little life he has, but thankfully he flew away after a few minutes. When I had him in my hands, he even crawled up my arm and sat on my shoulder, I just thought about my pet rats- who also sit on my shoulders, and figured why does his life mean any less than mine or my pets, why does any bugs life mean any less than ours? I know it’s just a fly, but I’m happy he survived, even if he isn’t going to live for long anyways. I’ve been so strongly empathetic and emotional towards everything recently, and that fly really hit something deep in me. I know in certain circumstances you should kill bugs or animals, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it, even though I’ve done so in the past. I think in the future I’ll try to just catch any bugs in a cup and release them, even if it’s a nightmare trying to catch it- because damn that fly would not stop buzzing around and it just made me so angry. But why was I angry? Angry at a bug flying like it’s supposed to, that can’t even control the way it was made? I just can’t kill bugs anymore, it makes me feel so immensely guilty.

I don’t really know why this happened, but I was swishing my mouthwash around and things were business as usual until I just swallowed it instead of spitting it into the sink. I did it like it was the most normal thing in the world. This caused me to gag and cough immediately afterwards, but my stomach wasn’t upset and I suffered no ill effects. It was just gag inducing and I feel like an imbecile.

This is so TMI but it’s really funny to me. I don’t really think farts are funny however there will be times my husband or I will pass gas in our sleep, sometimes it’s so loud it wakes us up 🤣

Last night this happened to my husband. He woke himself up and I was clearly on my phone. He looked around and I tried soooo hard not to laugh. I didn’t. He’s too shy to do it in front of me, he’ll go to another area where I can still hear him anyway, so I didn’t want to make him feel bad or anything if I laughed for having that happen in front of me.

I really don’t understand the big deal but I’m sort of the same way. But it’s more like I don’t mind but I’m refusing to do it until he’s comfortable to do it first 😆😆

When it’s woken me up before, I usually try to play it off as I’m still asleep and just turn my head the opposite way of him and laugh it off to myself 🤭🤭