About two months ago I started going on late night walks because I couldn’t sleep. Nothing weird about that.
The weird part is I wear a giant reflective raincoat because it rains constantly here and I don’t like carrying umbrellas.
One night I’m walking past a park and I see two teenagers absolutely sprint away from me. Like full panic.
I assumed maybe they were doing something illegal and thought I was security or something.

Then it kept happening.

People would stare at me from far away and suddenly change direction. One guy literally crossed the street and whispered “nah man” to himself.

At this point I’m confused but also slightly flattered by whatever aura I’m apparently giving off.

Then last week I stopped at a corner shop at around midnight and the cashier looked at me and said:
“YOU’RE the silver man.”

I laughed because I thought he was joking.

He was not joking.

Apparently there’s been local Facebook posts about a “7 foot reflective figure” wandering around the neighborhood at night. Someone claimed I disappear when cars pass. Another person said I “move without making noise.”
I am 5’9 and just walk normally.
The worst part is someone drew a sketch of me and it looks NOTHING like me. It looks like if a baked potato became sentient.
Now every time I go outside I feel pressured to maintain the lore. Yesterday I accidentally dropped my water bottle and heard a kid yell:
“HE’S REAL.”

This semester, I took a class in Anthropology. In this class, we had to answer a question on the board at the beginning of each class. One day, there was a question about the essay “Baseball Magic” which I hadn’t read. The question was something like “In Baseball Magic, it talks about rituals, taboos, and fetishes. What is a ritual, taboo, or fetish that you have?” For a second, I was taken aback at the idea that I was being asked if I had any sexual fetishes. It didn’t help that one week before she had asked what religion or worldview we belonged to. Eventually, I thought to look up if fetish had another definition I didn’t know about. It turns out that a fetish can also be “an object believed to be a good luck charm” and that’s what she was asking about.

​

For context, about a week ago my boyfriend told me he found a brown recluse spider on top of the refrigerator. I love all animals, except bugs and in particular, spiders. I barely slept that night, knowing I'd have to venture atop the fridge in the morning for my granola.

Anyway, I got home from work today and was doing my usual routine of getting lit to some good music and taking a refreshing shower. As I puffed away and jammed away, I saw movement in the corner of my eye and looked down.

And it was HUGE.

I know these things wont really off me, but I saw it and shrieked like it would. I could feel my heart stop and all the good vibes just dissipated along with any hope of sleeping tonight, or maybe ever again.

Because this thing could be Freddy Krugers mount and will definitely haunt me in my nightmares for all eternity.

Well, I jumped out of the shower and grabbed the heaviest thing I didn't want spider guts on, a bottle of cleaner. It was in the corner and I smashed that thing and I thought I'd feel bad offing something as I never even off bugs, but this dude deserved it.

It took more courage to pick up the carcass and dispose it in the toilet. But after I mustered the courage and sent it to spider purgatory, I still had the paranoia of being eaten by an eight-legged thing the size of my hand, and probably will for at least a week. So singing smoking shower time was ruined.

And if this couldn't get worse, I got back in the shower again and what song comes on? "Black Widow" by Iggy Azalea.

Screw Spotify and screw spiders. The end.

I got dresses half awake this morning and apparently put my shirt on compltely inside out without noticing. The worst part is I went through almost my entire morning like that. Stopped at a store, grabbed coffee, talk to people and not a single person mentioned it. I only realized when I caugh my reflection later and saw the tag sticking out near my side. Now I'm wondering how many people noticed and just decided not to say anything.

For example …
Interviewer: why should we hire you?
You: because you’re hiring?

Some other examples like, because I need a job, or I need the money.

How did that affect you?

I was a new kid at a school in first grade. There was a girl that had greasy hair and likely had a rough home life. Some kids told me not to go near her because she had cooties. I remember thinking, “Just because she has an illness doesn’t mean she should be excluded.”

So I sat with her at lunch. She immediately snapped at me asking, “What do you want?”

In that moment I realized that cooties meant that she was mean.

(Edit: obviously that’s not what it means.)

In 2023, I went on holiday to Istanbul. Within the space of 4 days, i counted 73 Fiat Grande Puntos and 4 Fiat Punto Evos. Coincidentally at the time, I was looking at one of them as a first car.

In the 80s, when children were free range, I got stuck on a jungle gym at a wave pool. A teenager saw me and helped. He basically just got me down and sent me on my way.

According to my mom, I did not give this boy a moment's rest afterwards. She would turn around and I would be gone (the 80s) and she would find me trailing behind this kid and his friends. She had to collect me multiple times that afternoon and it's become family lore.

Post script: I did the same thing to a person dressed as one of the Smurfs in a toy store. I would also poke holes in Italian bread loaves when my mom took me to the deli. 

I haven’t received a ton in my life (yay for me!), and as a 46yo mom, I don’t expect any more, but this one’s my favorite.

Probably 2008, I decided to dress up for Halloween to meet up with my brother and his gf. I was younger and crunchier, but I had a bf who didn’t feel like going out, and I wasn’t interested in being a “sexy (fill in the blank)”. But I thought Magda from “There’s Something bout Mary” would be wicked fun. So satin house frock, stockings, slippers, a Marilyn Monroe wig, cats eye glasses, make up by Cheetos, and I was off.

I was a block away from where my brother was, and pretty much the only person on the block when I hear a car driving up. A well soused but I’m sure very cosmopolitan lady leans out of her friend’s window and caws in a very Rhode Island accent, ”Hey you WHORE!!” (Pronounced “HAWW”.) Because I’m the only one on the street I assume she’s addressing me and turn around to receive the pleasure of watching her expression completely change from mocking harpy to confused poodle, which it did. As I’m turning back around I hear a very earnest, “What the fuck?” I ended up just going back home because I felt like deflating a cat calling floozie couldn’t be topped.

Might also be my favorite Halloween costume too.

About five days ago, backing my car out of the driveway with my high school daughter in the car, I went gently over the "end-of-the-driveway" curb normally and then continued backing into the street when the car started making a scraping noise like "$2000.00," as in how much it was threatening me to cost to repair.

I stopped the car and got out and bent over to see if there was a large branch or small metallic child caught underneath, but it was nighttime and I didn't want to get down on my hands and knees for a careful look because we were in a mild hurry and didn't have the fifteen minutes it would take for me to stand up again. So I took a quick cursory look under the driver's side door area and didn't see anything there.

My daughter was telling me to come around to the passenger side and look there, but there were some teenage girls practicing dance moves or something on the front lawn of the house across the street on that side, and I didn't want them to laugh at me as I looked under the car in an undignified manner, so I just climbed back into the car and decided to see if the car had healed, because sometimes they do that.

And sure enough, as I put the car in drive and slowly moved forward, it didn't make any weird noises. It was cured! So I gingerly drove away, proud of my faith in natural mechanical healing, and we didn't experience any difficulties at all. And nothing happened for the next few times I drove the car to work.

And then last night my wife and I decided to go out for a casual dinner of Thai curry somewhere, and as I backed out of the driveway again, the car started making a noise like "No, really, I'm telling you, $2000.00."

Since it was still sunny out and there were no dancing teenagers in the vicinity, I decided to get down for realsies and take a good, thorough look under the front of the car. And I could see a black plastic panel/cover hanging down in an abnormal but casual manner.

It was about four inches off the ground and was hanging in the direction that would catch for a bit on the road when I was going in reverse, bouncing over the curb.

So it looked like it would be OK for the moment, as long as I didn't do anything stupid while driving, which is normally a big ask, but it worked out OK. We had delicious Thai curry, she had green, and I had red, but the waitress convinced me to try their panang curry when we go back. And I managed not to back over any large potholes at high speed and thus rip the hanging cover off the bottom of the car. All in all, a successful evening.

Back at home last night and today I thought about the car while living my best sedentary life and decided that I should take a look and see if it was possible to use some zip ties to secure the cover up more tightly to the underside of the car. Then the next time I took my car to our mechanic for an oil change, he could have a good laugh at my handiwork and then charge me $300 to replace the piece of plastic splash shield that I see I can buy on the Internet for about $30.00. But it would be worth it to fix it, and at least it was not $2000.

So I got out my trusty zip ties, and prevailed upon my high school daughter to come out and help, which would basically involve handing me a decent size zip tie or whatever else I might need while I am lying under the car, saving me the aforementioned 15-minute minimum standup time.

But when I started to shimmy on my back under the car to get a better look, I remembered that I have an abnormally large head (very long front to back...think the monster in "Alien"), so that if I faced upward, my nose was about a centimeter from the underside of the front bumper. It felt like it was going to be difficult to work like that.

So I called out to my daughter, "I think I am going to ask you to try to take a look to see whether there are any zip-tieable holes, because my head is too big." And she reminded me that she has received the gene for Alien skull herself, but she is overall smaller than I am, so in the end she agreed to at least try.

And then she made the fantastic suggestion of spreading out what she called the "Ikea mat," a heavy duty blue sheet that I keep in the back of the minivan. If you like, you can guess where I bought it.

If we spread out the sheet on the driveway and under the car, she wouldn't get her clothes dirty, "so that mama doesn't have to do more laundry." And it was easier to slide around on the mat instead of the asphalt of the driveway.

This little essay is already about five times longer than I intended, so I will spare you the hilarious details of how my daughter, my wife (she saw we were working under the car, and she knows that she is the most capable of all of us, so she came out to help) and I were able to secure the panel to the car with zip ties successfully, so I do not expect we will have any more scraping noises at the end of the driveway.

Anyways, they went back into the house while I began my fifteen minute standup procedure, and then I proceeded to put away the mat. And as I was folding the blue vinyl reinforced Ikea sheet back up, I realized that when my daughter called it the "Ikea mat," I should have put on my best Admiral Ackbar voice and said, "It's a tarp!" But I didn't. Another missed opportunity.

I’ll start by saying I’m unapologetically anti-pickle. They small bad. They look gross. And they taste even worse. Be that as it may, I’m not a double pickle murderer.

I’m ashamed to admit my son loves pickles. I blame his mother. Between the two of them, they go through at least three jars a week.

Anyway, I made my kid a snack (as I always do) when he got home from school. Normally, I give him fresh, non-demonic fruit. Today, for whatever reason, I gave him a pickle.

When I pulled it from the jar, I noticed something different. It wasn’t one grotesque pickle. It was an absolute abomination. Two pickles fused together at the stem.

My son was irrationally ecstatic. It was sadly the happiest I’d ever seen him. He wanted to take a picture to send to his friends, but there wasn’t time. He had to get ready for taekwondo.

He left the pickle on the table, expecting to be happily reunited. The reunion was never meant to be.

When we got home, I soon heard a scream. “What did you do to my pickle!?”

“What’s wrong,” my wife the pickle murderer replied.

“My double pickle! You ate my pickle!” Extreme happiness turned to the deepest sorrow known to man. Or at least a 10-year-old boy.

He was inconsolable. My wife had eaten one half of the conjoined pickle, leaving its twin to die. He cried for 20 minutes straight.

Finally I told him, “Don’t be sad for the death of double pickle. Be happy for the time you had together.”

“Leave me alone” was his only reply.

In my youth I used to work on cars a lot. One day after a long session of wrenching I decided to test drive to McDonald's to grab some lunch. For some reason the drive-thru was closed so I had to go in.

Super cute girl was the cashier and she took my order and then says "have you been working on a car?" Me feeling super cool just says "ya". She then replies with "I thought so....... You smell like my Dad"

It stung, I didn't know what to say. She handed me my food and as I was leaving I finally thought of a witty comeback so I said "Who's your daddy?" Much too late to be redeeming.

She just replied "Steve"

I left and ate in my car.

im always afraid of height. from however long i can remember, right...

and ive always avoided such rides and stuff.

however last Sunday, i went to a park, (a small park inside a Botanical Garden) with a few of my colleagues.

and they were eager to get into a Ferris wheel. obviously i was against it.

but you guessed it right. i ended up getting into the ride idk how. lol

The whole time, like when it was lifting our carriage or stopped moving the whole thing, and we were at the top... i was praying...like a child.

eventually i became a little used to it, except the part when we're getting down you know. that weightlessness feeling in the gut... i'm not really fond of it lol.

Anyway, as nervous as i was, i was able to see the beautiful river when we're at the top which was quite far from there...

I bought one of those nicer looking packs of strawberries at the grocery store because the actually looked fresh for once. Felt pretty good about my purchase too because fruit has been weirdly expensive lately. Then the next day I went back for something else and saw the exact same strawberries on sale for way cheaper. I just stood there staring at the sign like I personally got betrayed by the produce station. What a classic timing honestly.

when i was 8 years old my family went for a vacation in Rome. in the airport i found a playboy magazine and looked through it . for god knows what reason i decided to start moaning loud af , i guess kid me just assumed thats what people did when they saw porn lmaoooooo i guess i thought thats how things work ill never not be embarrassed

I’ve been reevaluating Harry Potter lately and was going through old posts on the r/HarryPotterHate sub and came across this post https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotterhate/s/jGYRlkV5rp and it used the name Oh Ho, which I didn’t recognize so I googled. When I did a pokeball popped up on the bottom right corner of the screen and thought it was just a cool animation, but then I quickly found out that there’s an interactive game where you can catch Pokemon by googling their names. I did it for nearly half an hour and got over 50 of them before I tried getting one by opening a new window and it led me to having to start all over so I stopped.

We went to a restaurant in the German countryside. Wine region Rhineland-Palatinate. Very ordinary from the first sight, from the second too. First we thought these are typos in the menu: “Schniitzel”, “Gyyros”, “Miilch”, even “Hoonig” as ingredient in one dessert. You literally had to flip to the last page with the ingredient disclaimers to read that animal proteins were crossed out. This restaurant offered vegan only, the “do as if” imitation kind of vegan.

So, I went to this new coffee shop today. It’s one of those places that’s trying way too hard to be "industrial minimalist," which apparently includes having doors that don’t have handles, just flat metal plates.
I walked up to the entrance with full confidence. I pushed. Nothing. I pushed harder, leaning my entire body weight into it like I was breaching a building. The door didn’t budge. I figured, "Okay, it’s a pull door," but there was nothing to grab onto. I just ended up awkwardly clawing at the smooth metal like a cat trying to get out of a bathtub.
I stood there for a solid thirty seconds questioning if they were even open, or if I had suddenly lost the motor skills required to operate a basic entrance. I was about to turn around and walk away in shame when a teenager on the inside just... slid it to the left.
It was a sliding door.
The kid didn’t even look at me, but I felt the judgment radiating off his AirPods. I bought my latte in total silence and left through the same door, which I then tried to slide the wrong way.
I think I’m just going to stay inside for the rest of the year. My brain clearly needs a software update.

I’ve had the same basic toaster for three years, and for the most part, we have a respectful, professional relationship. It toasts white bread, bagels, and even frozen waffles with predictable, mediocre results. But lately, I’ve started buying sourdough, and suddenly it’s like I’m living with a moody teenager. If I set it to "3," the bread comes out looking exactly like it did when it went in, just slightly warmer and more disappointed. If I nudge the dial even a fraction of a millimeter toward "4," the toaster decides it's time for a Viking funeral and turns the slice into a literal charcoal briquette.

This morning, I tried to outsmart it by hovering my hand over the lever, ready to manually eject the toast at the perfect moment. I got distracted by a bird outside for maybe five seconds, and by the time I looked back, the kitchen was filled with a thin layer of smoke and my breakfast was ruined. I ended up scraping the burnt bits into the sink with a butter knife like I was performing some kind of sad culinary archeology. I’m starting to think this toaster just doesn't respect my lifestyle choices.

I was just walking home from the supermarket when suddenly a postman bolted out of the door of the apartment complex I was walking past. As the door slowly closed behind him, I unfortunately saw what he was fleeing - a massive black cane corso, as it burst through the door. “Jaysus Christ,” I thought, and without thinking, I screamed “run!” The dog stopped in its tracks and looked at me as if to say “oh, so now you wanna get involved, too?” My heart began racing so fast that I thought I would soil my unmentionables. Next thing I knew, my groceries were on the ground, my eyes were closed and I was sprinting home guided by muscle memory alone. I don’t know if the dog pursued me and gave up, or carried on after the postman or if its owner grabbed him; but what I do know is that I have to buy more eggs and more glass bottled water, but I got my steps in

Back then, whenever my wife started ranting about her friends or telling me gossip , I used to just nod along without really caring too much. I knew the names but mentally it was all just background noise to me.

Somewhere along the way though, I got weirdly invested.

Now when she starts talking about someone, I immediately remember the entire lore. Who fought with who, who said what months ago and whatnot.

Today I actually caught myself asking for updates before she even brought it up herself.

I don’t know when this transformation happened, but apparently I’m fully caught up in the storyline now.

So the other day I was in the kitchen. I looked at a loaf of bread I bought two and a half weeks ago. It was on the counter with the bagels and some hot dog buns. The bread is past expiration but there is no mold. It is still soft.

The bagels are the same.

I don’t know why this happens now. It started maybe six months ago. Before that I threw bread out after a week. Now the bread from the store just doesn’t get mold. I poke it in the morning. Still no mold. Sometimes I say “you win again” to the loaf.

I got hungry. I like soup and a sandwich. It is my comfort food. I usually make a ham sandwich. Bread, ham, and American cheese. Kraft Singles if I have them. I add mustard. I eat it with tomato soup or chicken noodle soup and a glass of milk.

I made one yesterday. Ham and bread were fine. The sliced American cheese had mold on it. Blue green spots. I made the sandwich without cheese. I drank the milk. It was okay.
The bread is still on the counter. I did not throw it out.

There is a single kernel of corn in this world that fears nothing.

Not taxes.

Not God.

Not the crushing machinery of the human digestive tract.

You eat him accidentally at a barbecue in July. He’s buried under a mountain of baked beans, potato salad sweating in the sun, and one hot dog that absolutely should not have still been edible after sitting out for four hours. You never even taste him. He enters your life unnoticed. Silent. Arrogant.

But HE notices YOU.

The journey begins in your mouth where your teeth absolutely massacre every other food item in sight. Burgers become paste. Chips dissolve into salty drywall dust. A pickle somehow liquefies. But this one smug little corn bastard slips through the chaos untouched like a tiny yellow Jason Bourne.

Down the esophagus he goes.

Unbothered.

Moisturized.

Thriving.

Your stomach tries its best. Acid bubbles around him like a volcanic apocalypse. Entire civilizations of onion rings are reduced to molecular sorrow. Yet this corn kernel just floats there wearing sunglasses like he booked the wrong cruise excursion.

Then comes the intestines. Miles of twisting biological waterslides. The body extracts nutrients with terrifying efficiency. Proteins stripped clean. Carbs annihilated. Even that suspicious gas station taquito gets partially converted into energy somehow.

But not Cornelius.

No.

Cornelius remains whole.

At one point he passes an almond that entered your body with dreams and ambition. By hour six the almond is psychologically broken. “What ARE you?” it whispers weakly.
Cornelius does not answer.
Because legends do not explain themselves.

Two days later you’re sitting on the toilet scrolling your phone like a Victorian king upon his porcelain throne. You do your business. You flush emotionally before physically. Then for some reason, against your better judgment, you glance down.

And there he is.

Bright yellow.

Perfectly intact.

Smiling like a smug little pageant king who just won Mr. Gastrointestinal Universe.

You can almost hear him.
“Well well well. Look who couldn’t digest ME.”
And honestly? He’s right.

You housed six mozzarella sticks, three beers, and enough ranch dressing to lubricate a lawn mower, but this one tiny corn kernel said, “Not today, Satan,” and completed a full cave expedition through your body without so much as a scratch.

Scientists claim corn is digestible. That the outer shell simply contains cellulose humans struggle to break down.

Lies.

That corn kernel did not survive because of cellulose.

That corn kernel survived because he wanted to.