# 1 Hour of the top reddit stories of 2024!

An episode of [Reddit Stories](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1830891511), 7 Dec 2024, 1 h 08 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6333562020.mp3

1 Hour of the top reddit stories of 2024!

## Transcript

[0:00] What story do you really want to tell, but no one has asked the
[0:02] right question for you to bring it up?
[0:04] Story one. A few years ago, I stopped at a
[0:07] post office in one of those towns that claims it would be
[0:10] the murder capital of America if anyone actually knew it existed.
[0:13] In the parking lot, I was approached by a seemingly sane
[0:16] man who, without much context, gave me a copy of a book he'd
[0:19] written. I saw he had stacks of this book
[0:22] in the back of his old Camry, so I figured he was just excited to
[0:25] share his work with everyone who came to the post office parking
[0:28] lot that day. The book was called Code 205
[0:31] Part 1. It's not just a code, but also A
[0:33] Way of Life by Grimy Jones. That is not an exaggeration.
[0:37] You can look it up. It was published by an
[0:39] organization that helps inmates self published books while
[0:42] incarcerated. The About the Author section
[0:44] across from a full page advertisement for his Friends
[0:47] Rap slash Hip Hop mixtape had a nice picture of old Grimy and a
[0:50] description of his ambition to inspire others and make his
[0:53] family and friends proud through his writing.
[0:55] Staring at this incredible book, I felt a wave of humility.
[0:59] I too desperately dreamed of becoming a writer, but struggled
[1:02] to motivate myself to sit down and get the job done.
[1:05] But here it was, a man who, against all adversity in his
[1:08] life, had finished a book and achieved his dream.
[1:10] Even in prison he bettered himself for the sake of his
[1:13] loved ones. It was as if God himself had
[1:16] brought Grimy to me as a divine sign of the crossroads I had
[1:18] reached in my life. The book was a symbol for the
[1:21] choice laid before me, where I could choose to push myself
[1:24] toward my and Grimy's goal or continue to cower behind excuses
[1:27] and self doubt. With it in my hands, my passion
[1:30] burned and my hope soared. I felt I owed it to Grimy to
[1:33] finish his book, regardless of the quality, and then begin my
[1:36] own writer's journey. Upon actually reading it, I
[1:39] discovered that Grimy had written more or less a series of
[1:41] disturbing pornographic vignettes in his own personal
[1:44] brand of English. The titular code 205 is
[1:47] apparently a prison code for an inmate engaging in high risk
[1:50] sexual acts, such the slightly autobiographic main character
[1:53] masturbating to the female corrections officers.
[1:56] According to Grimy, these actions are offensive because it
[1:59] makes the female officers feel sad about how inadequate their
[2:02] boyfriends and husbands are when they see some nice prison meet.
[2:05] I gave the book a real effort, got to the part where the
[2:07] released main character jizzes in a McDonald's fryer after
[2:10] receiving a gummy blowjob from a grandma with her dentures out
[2:13] and promptly threw the book in the trash.
[2:15] Story 2. This is a story from a through
[2:18] hike I went on this past summer. I was over three weeks into a
[2:22] month long hike and I was starting to have major
[2:24] motivation problems. It was a rainy day and I decided
[2:27] fuck it, I'm not going to wear any rain gear because you just
[2:30] get hot in addition to being soaked.
[2:32] I climbed to the top of a lookout point and met a man with
[2:35] his two teenage children. He's super funny and nice and we
[2:38] hit it off and chat for a bit. He asks me about what I'm eating
[2:41] and how my hike it going after weeks of being mostly solo.
[2:44] Most of the time it's so good to talk with a good conversation
[2:47] partner, but it's storming and we're high up so we shortly part
[2:50] ways. ANYWAYS, the next day of my hike
[2:53] is brutal. My gear is still damp and my
[2:56] body was not holding up as well as I hoped.
[2:58] I'm fatigued to my core and I want to be done, but I'm
[3:01] determined to go 15 miles anyways one of my longer days.
[3:05] Mile 11 to 13 are a beach walk portion.
[3:08] I thought great, that'll be fun. Absolutely not walking through
[3:12] tiny beach rocks and hiking boots with a £40 back as hard as
[3:15] fuck. I dumped a full cup of rocks out
[3:18] of my shoes afterwards. I get to the end of the walk and
[3:21] there's a little bridge leading back towards the woods.
[3:23] On the bridge there's a sign that says lowest elevation point
[3:26] of the SHTSHT being the trail and I'm thinking to myself I get
[3:31] it, today is the worst day. God dammit SHT you bitch, you
[3:35] really know how to kick someone when they're already down.
[3:38] So I keep going and I make it to a road crossing with trail signs
[3:41] on either side and on the near sign I see a gas station bag
[3:45] full of goodies. In my head I'm thinking
[3:47] simultaneously no way and that it has to be for me.
[3:50] I get up close to it and in permanent marker, all caps, it
[3:53] says my very uncommon first name.
[3:56] I was speechless. Inside there was a full size bag
[3:59] of kettle chips, a 24 oz coke, an apple and an orange.
[4:04] The kindly man I spoke to asked me what food I missed most and
[4:07] how far I was going. I said potato chips in 15 miles.
[4:11] He delivered. Best day on the trail.
[4:13] I don't usually drink pop, but that Coke still a little cold
[4:17] was maybe the best thing I ever tasted.
[4:19] Story 3. When I was 12/13 for Christmas
[4:23] my grandparents bought paintball game passes for everyone my age
[4:26] and older. In my family about 15 of US1
[4:29] year we had to play with a bunch of strangers as one very large
[4:32] group and we all got divided into two random teams for a game
[4:35] of capture the flag while all these strangers we were playing
[4:38] with turned out to be assholes in poor sports.
[4:41] They were just cheating and not going out when they got shot.
[4:44] My family is all very fun and competitive so it did not go
[4:47] unnoticed and we all talk shit about it in between rounds.
[4:50] We all promised each other we would specifically target the
[4:52] strangers for being assholes in the last round.
[4:55] So it's finally the last round. We are divided into random teams
[4:59] of mixed strangers and family and I'm a petite 13 year old
[5:02] girl ready to kick some ass. Halfway through the round I see
[5:05] a guy on the other team belly crawling towards my half of the
[5:08] field. I had a narrow window to shoot
[5:10] at him and I took it pop right on his back.
[5:13] I can see the paint splatters and of course he doesn't get up
[5:17] and pretends he just didn't get shot.
[5:18] I guess one of those assholes. So I shoot again, Pop pop square
[5:25] on the back, clear as day. He is out, but he still doesn't
[5:29] surrender. Pop pop pop.
[5:31] I don't miss a single shot. He barely moves, he just starts
[5:35] crawling forward again. So I just let him have it.
[5:39] Pop pop pop pop wait. Pop pop pop wait pop pop pop.
[5:44] I pretty much empty my barrel of paintballs on his back.
[5:48] Finally I have to stop and he slowly rolls over and turns
[5:50] around sulking back to his end of the field like the sore loser
[5:54] he was. We finished the game and I don't
[5:56] even remember who won. We were all tired and sore and
[5:59] bruising. The next day my family is
[6:02] talking in the group chat about all of their bruises and welts
[6:05] my aunt texts. I bet uncle's name won the
[6:07] contest for most welts. He is like 30 on his back
[6:10] because some ass wouldn't stop shooting him and he couldn't get
[6:13] up fast enough because of his bad knee.
[6:15] To this day I haven't admitted that was me.
[6:18] I had no idea it was my poor uncle.
[6:20] Further background and explanation, I am somehow
[6:23] actually the biggest pacifist and close to the least
[6:26] competitive person in my family, and yet I have this brutal story
[6:29] of demolishing my poor helpless uncle.
[6:31] That's part of why I haven't told my family about it yet.
[6:34] It's so out of character it makes it hilarious and so it
[6:37] needs the perfect delivery story. 4I work at a movie
[6:41] theater concession. This is the story about my best
[6:43] shift so far. It was opening night for Spider
[6:46] Man Far From Home, which also happened to be on a Tuesday
[6:50] cheap ticket night. We also had plenty of showtimes
[6:52] for Avengers End Game so we knew it was going to be fucking nuts.
[6:56] We popped extra popcorn, stocked up cups and candy, had extra
[7:00] staff scheduled, and even the managers were ready to come help
[7:02] us. And I was on the main till that
[7:04] guest line up too. An hour into my shift, the rush
[7:08] begins. Line UPS all the way to the
[7:10] door, everyone's rushing to fill orders and I'm working my ass
[7:13] off with the biggest lineup. There's popcorn all over the
[7:16] floor and I knew that cleanup afterwards was going to be a
[7:19] pain in the ass. Then something happened that
[7:21] just brightened my day. Just as the rush was dying down,
[7:25] Spider Man and his girlfriend, not MJ, come up to my till in
[7:28] order. The guy had a full blown Spider
[7:30] Man costume for opening night, his girlfriend seemed like she
[7:34] just didn't want to be there and he was just so hyped for the
[7:36] movie it was honestly hilarious. I served them their food and
[7:40] drinks and gave him free butter say I liked his costume and told
[7:43] them to enjoy the movie but it gets better.
[7:47] Another guy came in with an iron spider costume.
[7:49] The suit from Infinity War but without the golden claws came in
[7:53] but didn't order anything from concession.
[7:55] As I was cleaning up I saw the guy in the spider man costume go
[7:59] up to the Iron Spider costume and they were like yo you
[8:02] dressed up too, Awesome man, and they acted like best friends
[8:06] even though they didn't even know each other.
[8:08] Later in the night a group of guests were leaving the building
[8:11] and I saw the two guys in costume chatting away like mad
[8:13] about the movie. The guy's girlfriend was just
[8:16] following behind them and he didn't even acknowledge her.
[8:19] It was hilarious. Story 5 I used to date this
[8:23] girl, let's call her Kim. We broke up and things remained
[8:26] relatively amiable between the two of us.
[8:29] I started dating someone else and she did the same so we
[8:32] pretty much lost contact. Fast forward a few years, my
[8:36] girlfriend broke up with me and one day Kim and I randomly
[8:38] started talking on social media. We decided to hang out and have
[8:42] a drink to catch up totally just as friends.
[8:45] We have some drinks and she starts to open up about how she
[8:47] wants to break up with her boyfriend but she is afraid to.
[8:50] She starts telling me about how she is literally afraid for her
[8:53] life. I think she is just being
[8:55] dramatic and so I laugh it off. She tells me that it is a
[8:58] serious matter and literally tells me no, you don't
[9:01] understand. If he showed up right now and
[9:03] saw us hanging out together, he would kill both of us.
[9:06] This freaks me out a little bit. So I decided it was time to
[9:09] leave. She begged me not to leave, we
[9:11] hugged and she latched onto me. I have never experienced that
[9:15] feeling in my life. The feeling that someone needed
[9:17] my presence to feel safe against an actual threat to their life.
[9:20] Still, I wrote it off as her being overdramatic.
[9:23] Two days later, her boyfriend shot her in the head with a
[9:26] shotgun and then turned it on himself.
[9:28] Murder slash suicide while I was sitting at home living my life
[9:31] without a care in the world. I know I shouldn't blame myself,
[9:34] but I cannot shake the feeling that I could have done
[9:36] something. I should have taken her more
[9:38] seriously, but here we are. I'm still alive and she is not.
[9:42] It still beats me up to this day, 10:00-ish years later.
[9:45] Edit Well this certainly generated more responses than I
[9:48] expected. Thank you for the people that
[9:50] took the time to say a few kind words, but I think I need to
[9:53] clarify a bit. I feel like I did a bit of a bad
[9:56] job telling the story. The way she told me was done so
[9:59] casually that it was very hard to take her seriously.
[10:02] She was seemingly laughing it off as much as I was.
[10:05] This wasn't a meeting set up by her to just to beg for my help.
[10:08] She wasn't crying or pleading for me to do anything, it was
[10:11] just something we talked about. I didn't immediately, although
[10:14] it was shortly after leave after she told me and run away
[10:17] expecting to be killed. We had a few more beers and went
[10:20] on to talk about other things out of a few hours of hanging
[10:23] out. The exchange I was telling you
[10:24] guys about took about 5 minutes. It's only looking back at it in
[10:27] hindsight that makes me feel like I should have taken her
[10:30] more seriously. It wasn't until she gave me the
[10:32] hug and asked me to stay a little while longer with her
[10:35] that I started to think there was something to be worried
[10:37] about. I feel like I shouldn't have
[10:39] used the word begged. That was probably a poor choice
[10:41] of words, and I get the feeling some of you are imagining some
[10:44] poor girl on her knees bawling her eyes out pleading for my
[10:47] help. Honestly, I wish that would have
[10:49] been the case so I would have taken her more seriously.
[10:52] As to all the people telling me I should feel bad, yes you're
[10:54] right and I agree with you, I do feel bad.
[10:57] I believe the point of me telling the story was to explain
[11:00] that I feel bad. I told her parents the same
[11:02] thing I just told all of you, and they told me not to blame
[11:05] myself, but part of me always will.
[11:07] OK, I'm going to go ahead and go see a therapist.
[11:10] Turns out I might have Asperger's.
[11:12] Thanks for the advice strangers. Story 6 I was stationed in Korea
[11:18] and my squad mates and I used to love just wandering around the
[11:20] cities aimlessly finding whatever we could.
[11:23] We once found a claw machine game in a skeevy back alley that
[11:26] had all kinds of adult toys like vibrators, cheap novelty
[11:29] panties, etcetera. While we were standing there
[11:31] laughing, an elderly woman started looking at them with us
[11:34] and said which one I can get. I pointed to a box with a pair
[11:38] of titty stress balls and put some money in and she got it
[11:41] first try. Claw machines in Korea are
[11:43] actually winnable, but they still take skill.
[11:46] Another time we wound up in an open air market and found a
[11:49] young guy to show us around after we gave him a bottle of
[11:52] soju. He only knew basic English but
[11:55] he was telling us about what everything was and which vendors
[11:57] were the best. We came to a stall with a bunch
[11:59] of weird cuts of meat and there was a display in the middle with
[12:02] what looked like a bunch of huge penises.
[12:04] We longer found out that they were beef penis.
[12:07] We asked our new friend what they were and he said don't know
[12:09] but it looked like big Dicks. A few nights later we ended up
[12:13] in a really cool arcade where we got our asses absolutely handed
[12:16] to us by a bunch of 10 year old kids in tech Ken.
[12:19] When we happened to win a round after a dozen tries, we high
[12:22] fived each other in yelled America.
[12:24] After that, every time we got beat by the kids they all joined
[12:27] us in yelling Korea. We use the skills we learned
[12:30] from the aforementioned old woman to win a butt load of
[12:32] candy from a claw machine and shared it with the Korean kids
[12:35] who showed us how to do some awesome tech and combo moves.
[12:39] But my favorite experience was when we were all half drunk, and
[12:41] by that I mean completely trashed and wandering around
[12:44] back alleys. We were trying to find a donut
[12:47] shop but we got totally lost and couldn't recognize anything
[12:50] around us. We were about to throw in the
[12:52] towel and flag down a cab when a young guy came out of the
[12:54] shadows, looked us over, and then motioned for us to follow
[12:57] him. The dude didn't speak a single
[12:59] word of English, so we had no idea where he was taking us.
[13:03] He led us through a bunch of narrow streets, each one darker
[13:06] than the last, until we were in a pitch black alley with a dark
[13:09] staircase. He motioned again to follow and
[13:12] walked down the stairs towards a faint blue light a couple of
[13:15] stories down. We were reluctant to follow
[13:17] because this is how horror movies start, but we were young
[13:20] and dumb and thought we're a squad of soldiers, we can handle
[13:23] whatever is waiting for us down there.
[13:25] So we went down the stairs and walked through the steel door up
[13:28] to the blue light inside. We realized that we were in a
[13:31] literal underground club with a full bar and a live DJ.
[13:34] When we stepped inside it was like the whole room stopped and
[13:37] stared at us. The young guy we were following
[13:40] said a few words to the guys in the club and then motioned for
[13:42] us to go to the bar. When we ordered a few drinks and
[13:45] didn't act like idiot Americans, everyone relaxed a bit and
[13:48] started to act like normal. We hit the dance floor and a
[13:51] group of college aged people taught us how to do a dance they
[13:54] called the Korean Shuffle. In return we offered to buy the
[13:57] next round of drinks and they convinced us to order something
[14:00] called the God Panther. The description on the menu was
[14:03] Korean so we had no idea what was in it, but it glowed bright
[14:06] green under the UV lights and was damn tasty.
[14:09] After that we got some shots of tequila and taught them how to
[14:12] play quarters. We all blacked out at some point
[14:15] and miraculously woke up in our barracks rooms the next morning.
[14:18] We told the rest of the platoon about this awesome place we
[14:21] found, and we spent the next few nights trying to find it again,
[14:24] but we never found anything that looked remotely familiar from
[14:26] that night. Most people thought we were
[14:28] making it up, but for the soldiers in 3rd squad, it was a
[14:32] memory that will always treasure.
[14:33] I was stationed in Korea and my squad mates and I used to love
[14:36] just wandering around the city's aimlessly finding whatever we
[14:39] could. What's that one story you've
[14:42] always wanted to tell on our slash?
[14:43] Ask Reddit, but no one has ever asked the right question.
[14:46] Story 1 My first and worst online date, The drunk and the
[14:50] baby. It's 2008, I'm 18 and I meet a
[14:53] girl on OkCupid. She's older than me, 25, Tilda,
[14:57] educated and a bit alternative. We agree to meet at a London pub
[15:01] for lunch at 1:00 in the afternoon, which is quite a
[15:03] journey for me, but I make it anyway.
[15:05] So she turns up a bit late with a baby and a baby carriage.
[15:09] I had no idea she had a kid before this, but I didn't have a
[15:11] problem with it. She doesn't address that I
[15:14] didn't know about her kid, but says she couldn't find
[15:16] babysitting. Cool, no problem.
[15:19] We both go up and order a drink separately and hang out and
[15:22] chat. We've been there for about two
[15:24] hours and she's gone up to the bar a whole bunch of times,
[15:27] mostly coming back with coffees and the occasional Coca-Cola.
[15:30] But then quite suddenly she falls forward onto the table and
[15:34] catches herself with her elbows and takes a big sigh and says oh
[15:37] man, I didn't mean to get so drunk.
[15:39] Uh, what? I tell her I didn't realize that
[15:42] she's even been drinking but she tells me that she's been having
[15:45] Irish coffees, rum and cokes as well as shots at the bar.
[15:48] So at this point I start looking for an out, but she's becoming
[15:51] more and more despondent and her one year old is sat in his pram
[15:54] so I can't leave in good conscience.
[15:56] I start encouraging her to get a taxi home and she starts to cry,
[15:59] apologizing and saying that I must hate her, but shortly after
[16:03] she closes her eyes and will only respond in Mumbles and
[16:05] groans. I try and get her to come around
[16:08] enough to get an address out of her, which I can't.
[16:10] So I take her phone which wasn't passworded. 2008 non
[16:13] smartphones. Most people didn't password
[16:15] their phone back then. Find a contact called mom and
[16:18] call it. I was hoping she could come and
[16:20] pick her up but it turns out mom lives in the South of Spain.
[16:23] She isn't one bit happy to hear from me after I explained what
[16:26] happened, but presenting myself as a friend nonetheless.
[16:29] She gives me an address to get her too.
[16:32] I asked the bar to call me a taxi, which they do and one of
[16:35] the bar staff take pity on me and help me get the woman, the
[16:37] baby in the stroller into the cab.
[16:39] I was about to give the driver money for the trip and see them
[16:42] off but I realized it was a bad idea because who knows what
[16:45] would happen. So I get in the taxi to go take
[16:47] her home holding a baby the entire way which I've never done
[16:50] in my life at that point. Turns out the driver is a stand
[16:53] up bloke and I explain what has happened and we have a laugh
[16:56] about it when we get there. He even assembles the pram for
[16:59] me as I take her and place her on her doorstep.
[17:01] I find her keys and get her door open, at which point some guy
[17:04] pops his head round the corner from the kitchen and asks who
[17:07] the fuck are you? I tell him my name and that I'm
[17:09] a friend and ask who he is. He says he's her fiance.
[17:13] Uh oh. He's pretty angry that I've
[17:15] gotten his fiance with his child drunk in the middle of the day.
[17:18] After getting the pram through the door he begins to carry her
[17:21] up the stairs and he says to me, you stay right there, you and I
[17:24] need to have a little chat. Nope, as soon as he turns the
[17:28] corner at the top of the stairs, I turn, make a run for it, jump
[17:31] back in the taxi who I asked to take me to the nearest tube
[17:33] station. Afterward I needed some
[17:35] catharsis so texted some friends who were locals and went out
[17:38] proper. And the kicker?
[17:40] On the train home that night I get a text message from her.
[17:43] Had a lovely time, can't wait to see you again.
[17:47] I block her number and never hear from her again.
[17:50] Story two. I was a huge slacker in high
[17:53] school. I wouldn't read reading
[17:54] assignments, I'd cheat on assignments and tests, I
[17:57] outright didn't do assignments if I didn't feel that the grade
[18:00] was worth the time, etcetera. Most of my teachers were aware
[18:03] of my laziness, and a few of them rightfully suspected the
[18:06] cheating aspect as well. My buddy was the same way.
[18:09] In my Spanish one class we had Spanish nicknames just for fun.
[18:13] Mine was Tomas and my buddies was Josue.
[18:16] This was the last period of each day, and our teacher would let
[18:19] us out before the bell would ring.
[18:20] If we were to finish class early.
[18:22] For each chapter in our textbook, we'd be given an
[18:25] assignment to make flash cards on which one side would be one
[18:27] of the chapters vocabulary terms and the other side would be the
[18:30] English translation. Easy assignment, right?
[18:34] Well, it was worth such few points that I couldn't be
[18:36] bothered to ever do it anyway. To grade them, she'd walk up and
[18:40] down the aisles between the desks, check for the stack of
[18:42] vocabulary cards, and move on to the next student.
[18:45] Nothing too thorough. It's the end of the period and
[18:48] we're ready to leave early as usual, which she said that we
[18:50] could do. After she checks our cards.
[18:52] She goes to check a Sway's cards and he actually has them done.
[18:56] I'm stunned just as much as she is as she continues up the aisle
[18:59] and with her back turned, Josue passes me as cards.
[19:03] As she approaches me she asks. Tomas do you have your
[19:06] vocabulary cards? Without even looking at me,
[19:09] expecting me to say no. Yes ma'am.
[19:13] I respond flashing the cards at her.
[19:16] She looks baffled. She knows that something is up.
[19:19] Josue, where are your cards? Oh, I put them away.
[19:23] Misses Reyes, Do you mind pulling them out and showing
[19:26] them to me again as host? Sway reaches underneath his desk
[19:29] for his binder. He of course doesn't say
[19:31] anything, but he doesn't have to.
[19:34] His facial expression says it all.
[19:36] I neither want to screw over my friend nor want to get caught
[19:38] cheating. How severe would the punishment
[19:41] be? Our friend Jamie is eager to
[19:43] have his cards checked so that he can leave early.
[19:45] Completely unaware of what's going on.
[19:48] Jamie walks up to Missus Reyes from behind and asks if she'll
[19:50] check his cards. She turns around and as she
[19:53] checks his cards, I give Josue his cards back.
[19:56] How do I get us out of this predicament?
[19:58] Missus Reyes turns back around and sees Josue with his cards.
[20:02] She then looks to me and asks Tomas now where are your cards?
[20:07] I threw them away. I sheepishly answer.
[20:10] She gives me the all too familiar look of disappointment
[20:12] and asks why would you do that? I continue.
[20:16] Let's be honest, you and I both know that I won't use them
[20:18] anyway. Well, go get them and show them
[20:21] to me please. This is it, we're about to get
[20:24] caught cheating. Is there a way out of this?
[20:27] I walked to the trash can brainstorming what to do when I
[20:30] get to it and don't have any cards to show her.
[20:32] Do I shamelessly act like they're suddenly missing from
[20:35] the trash can? Do I cut the bullshit and try
[20:37] the honesty route? I don't know, I continue to the
[20:40] trash can and am flabbergasted at what I find.
[20:43] A stack of the chapters vocabulary cards sitting neatly
[20:46] on top. No fucking way.
[20:48] I bring them back to my desk and show them to her.
[20:51] She looks to host way and he flashes his cards to her as
[20:54] well. With a surprise tone she says.
[20:56] I'm sorry that I ever doubted you too.
[20:59] She continues checking others cards and my buddy whispers.
[21:02] Whose cards are those? Dude, I have no fucking clue.
[21:06] The next day I tell Jamie about what happened.
[21:09] He asks. You know what's funny?
[21:11] What? Those were my cards.
[21:13] I threw them away on my way out of class.
[21:16] Those cards were there for only seconds and he had no idea that
[21:19] I needed him to put them there. What are the odds?
[21:22] Story 3 This is the story of my absolute worst Tinder date.
[21:27] So I meet this girl I've been chatting to on Tinder for a
[21:29] midweek post work drink. Everything is going swimmingly.
[21:33] She's funny, smart, super hot, and into me.
[21:36] It starts getting late and she invites me back to hers.
[21:39] Awesome. I accept, we book an Uber and
[21:42] off we trot. She lives miles away.
[21:45] It's a full 45 minute journey in the cab into the arts, end of
[21:48] nowhere in a random part of the city to the house she shares
[21:51] with a friend of hers. Not a problem, there are plenty
[21:54] of options for me to get to work the next day so we just make out
[21:57] a lot in the cab to pass the time.
[21:59] Get back to her is around 1:00 AM creeping past her housemates
[22:02] room to get to hers where sex happens.
[22:05] Result, I'm feeling pretty good about what I thought was pretty
[22:08] fucking good sex until she reaches for her phone midway
[22:11] through. Confusing, especially since she
[22:14] didn't exactly wait for a lull in the action.
[22:16] I am literally inside her as this happens.
[22:19] She dials a number and puts it to her ear.
[22:21] Who are you calling? I ask, unsure whether to
[22:24] withdraw. I do not withdraw, I'm just
[22:27] calling my boyfriend, she says. I think, unsure how exactly I
[22:32] should feel about this. I raise a number of pertinent
[22:35] points with her in response, including but not limited to you
[22:38] have a boyfriend, You didn't tell me that, and why the merry
[22:41] fuck are you calling him at 2:00 AM on a Tuesday night while you
[22:43] were literally having sex with a guy you met on Tinder?
[22:47] I do not withdraw. Putting her finger to my lips,
[22:49] she says matter of factly. It's ringing.
[22:53] I go quiet while still doggedly not withdrawing.
[22:57] The conversation between her and her boyfriend is hard to recount
[23:00] here, but the gist of it is that she tells him very directly
[23:03] exactly what is going on and then invites him over for a
[23:06] threesome. Now, with a bit of warning, I
[23:08] would probably have given a twos up some serious consideration,
[23:12] but not at 2:00 AM on a Tuesday with someone I've just met and
[23:14] another participant who have never actually met.
[23:17] I withdraw before I can say thanks so very much for the
[23:21] offer, but I fear I must politely decline.
[23:24] Her boyfriend responds. He is furious.
[23:28] Furious that she's having sex with another man, furious that
[23:31] she felt the need to call him midway through, furious that she
[23:35] would invite him over to join in generally, and quite rightly,
[23:38] not at all happy with the situation.
[23:41] They proceed to have a blazing row while I kind of hang out
[23:44] there, feeling a little bit stupid and trying to figure out
[23:46] how the fuck I'm going to get home from this place very, very
[23:49] far away from where I live. In the middle of the night, she
[23:52] hangs up. I have to go and fix my
[23:54] relationship with my boyfriend. He lives around the corner.
[23:57] I'll be 30 minutes Max. Just hang out here.
[24:01] Sure, OK. Why the fuck I decided to stay
[24:04] and not just run away is beyond me, but the bed was comfortable
[24:07] in the thought of a midnight mission to the other side of
[24:09] town did not fill me with good feelings.
[24:12] She leaves, I wait up for about 10 minutes before I fall asleep.
[24:16] I awake to my alarm. She hasn't come back and I'm
[24:19] alone exactly where she left me. Probably for the best.
[24:23] I make a quick dash for the bathroom for a shower before I
[24:26] head to the office. Passive aggressively used her
[24:29] good shampoo in the nicest towel I can find.
[24:31] I am wrapped in said towel as I leave the bathroom to get
[24:34] changed to go to work. This is when I meet the
[24:36] housemate. Erm, who are you?
[24:39] She says accusingly. She is small but clearly very
[24:43] angry about a strange man in her shared bathroom.
[24:46] I'm this is notariot, I was here with your housemate last night.
[24:50] I say very conscious that I am in a towel in her hallway.
[24:53] You're not her boyfriend, she says.
[24:56] Oh I know, trust me. I say.
[24:59] I'm in a towel in the hallway. Where is she?
[25:03] This is totally unacceptable. She says.
[25:06] How? Well she's not here.
[25:08] Long story, I say, still in the towel in the hallway.
[25:13] I don't believe you. Have you broken into my house?
[25:16] The conversations breaks down there as she starts screaming.
[25:19] She runs around the house to make sure things haven't been
[25:21] stolen and finds my clothes in her housemates room.
[25:24] She picks them up and flings them out of the front door,
[25:27] screaming that she's going to call the police.
[25:29] She Yanks the towel off me in the process.
[25:32] I get dressed on the street in the middle of a fucking London
[25:34] winter as two Hasidic mothers taking their children to school,
[25:37] walk past Perfect, call a cab, go to the office swearing never
[25:42] ever to use Tinder ever again and that I should never ever go
[25:44] back to this part of town in case the police arrest me and
[25:47] put me on one of a number of potential lists.
[25:49] A week later I hear from the Tinder date a single SMS reading
[25:53] I have your sock. That's it.
[25:56] Good luck and godspeed to you crazy Tinder girl.
[25:59] Story 4. When I was a kid we lived out in
[26:02] the country and this very preggers dog showed up on the
[26:04] farm. My stepdad told us not to feed
[26:07] it 'cause we already had more dogs than we needed and if we
[26:10] fed her she might stick around and have her puppies.
[26:12] So of course we secretly fed her.
[26:14] Just as my stepdad predicted, she had her puppies.
[26:17] We were thrilled but knew we would have to hide them from my
[26:20] stepdad. He is not a cruel man, but he
[26:22] would have killed them. It might be hard for a lot of
[26:24] people to stomach, but we were living pretty hand to mouth and
[26:27] he lived in reality of food for dogs versus food for kids.
[26:30] We didn't have the money to support a stray dogs, puppies,
[26:33] or heck even the money for gas to take them to the nearest
[26:35] shelter. After a few weeks of sneaking
[26:38] the Mama dog food in back of our feed shed, she stopped showing
[26:41] up. I worked on a dairy so I started
[26:43] sneaking a little milk home in my saddlebags to feed the pups.
[26:46] Unfortunately, after a few weeks of that, my stepdad found them
[26:49] and was pretty irate over the disobedience and stealing milk.
[26:53] However, with much pleading, my sisters and I convinced him to
[26:55] let us keep them. He said he wasn't paying for
[26:58] shots or food. Fine by me, I could make in a
[27:01] few weeks at the dairy to get this done.
[27:03] Unfortunately, orphan puppies have weak immune systems and
[27:06] they all got parvo before I had the money.
[27:08] My sisters and I spent all day and night for several days
[27:11] trying to keep them alive with eyedropper of water to keep them
[27:14] from getting dehydrated. One by one each pup succumb to
[27:17] the illness. Eventually only a single one was
[27:19] left and my stepdad, softened by our dedication, told us we could
[27:23] keep it if it lived. By some miracle she lived.
[27:26] We named her Sassafras and she was the cutest little corgiish
[27:28] mutt. One day my stepdad calls to me
[27:31] and tells me to grab a towel. I come outside with a bath towel
[27:34] and he shakes his head no and I sends me back to get a work
[27:37] towel. I come back out and he looks at
[27:39] me as sad as a true blue cowboy could look and says I'm sorry
[27:42] pumpkin, I didn't know she was there.
[27:44] He had accidentally backed over the puppy's head when he put the
[27:46] farm truck into reverse. Sassafras had been sleeping in
[27:50] the shade behind the tire. He says it's your dog, you need
[27:53] to handle this. I will never forget how
[27:55] surprisingly hot the insides of my puppy where as I scooped her
[27:58] into a towel to bury her. I was heartbroken.
[28:01] A month or so later my stepdad comes into my room with a
[28:04] holding baby possum in his hand next to his chest.
[28:07] I was perplexed because possums were a bane on the farm 'cause
[28:10] they killed chickens. I stood there confused and he
[28:12] gruffly says well are you going to take it or not?
[28:15] I cautiously reach out and grab it.
[28:17] It wasn't a possum, it was a blue heeler puppy.
[28:20] She turned out to be the most amazing dog.
[28:22] I was blessed to have her in my life for almost 17 years and
[28:25] could write a book on all the adventures we had together.
[28:28] I know my stepdad might get a lot of Flack from the Internet
[28:31] folks, but he was an amazing man who taught me so very much and
[28:34] offered very real and often hard lessons in the realities of
[28:36] life. I know I am better for having
[28:39] him in my life. Story 5 When I was 8, I had
[28:43] taken a summer acting class with a small time actor slash
[28:46] director, let's call him Mr. S. He had a short TV series in the
[28:49] works and had some of us kids who were his students act in it,
[28:52] for free of course. We all traveled a couple of
[28:55] hours to the countryside in Western India to shoot for the
[28:57] show Mr. S, He was directing the show had arranged for a bus to
[29:02] take us into the little town where we were shooting.
[29:04] The bus ride was mostly boring but we kids were trying to get
[29:07] to know everyone. One of the passengers was going
[29:10] to play the younger version of the protagonist.
[29:12] We had never seen him. When we asked him who he was, he
[29:15] told us his name A and that he was Mr. s s son.
[29:18] We teased him that he was lying because we knew Mr. s s wife was
[29:22] young and his son was a little boy, not a teenager.
[29:25] I just smiled and said no, I'm his son from a previous
[29:29] marriage. This was India in the late 80s
[29:31] and the idea that someone was married twice was strange to us.
[29:35] We just laughed it off and told him he was fibbing.
[29:37] He just smiled. The day of shooting finished.
[29:40] We kids didn't have any other scenes.
[29:43] I was dropped home past midnight and fell asleep as my parents
[29:46] tried to ask me how my day was. Nothing came of the TV show.
[29:50] It was soon a distant memory in my head.
[29:52] About 11 years later, I was on the hospitality committee of my
[29:56] college's annual festival. We basically had to welcome the
[29:59] special guests or judges and take them to their venues.
[30:02] This one day we were to have a singing competition and a mildly
[30:05] famous female singer and the winner of a national TV show for
[30:08] singing were invited as guests. When they arrived we asked them
[30:11] if they wanted something to eat slash drink and the guests sat
[30:13] around and waited for their show to begin and for them to be
[30:16] called to their venue. The guy who had won the TV show
[30:18] was cute but I've never heard of him before.
[30:21] My friends had seen him on TV. Oddly, he kept staring at me.
[30:25] I was just about coming into myself as a young girl and was
[30:28] never quite used to getting attention from the opposite sex.
[30:31] Do I know you? He asked me.
[30:33] I don't think so, I said, not sure if he was flirting or just
[30:37] being inquisitive. He asked me in a friendly
[30:40] manner, a whole bunch of questions in an attempt to
[30:42] figure out how he knew me. It was amusing because I was
[30:45] sure I'd never met him before. So you live in XYZ?
[30:49] Do you know the actor Mr. S? He asked.
[30:52] Yes, I took acting classes with him one summer.
[30:55] Did you by any chance act in the TV show he directed?
[30:58] That's when it clicked. He was a Once we figured out who
[31:02] we were, we started chatting like old friends.
[31:04] I told him that back then we were young and stupid and didn't
[31:07] realize that his father had left his mother and him for a new
[31:09] wife. I apologized for acting like an
[31:12] idiot back then. He immediately and freely talked
[31:15] about how he felt growing up abandoned and fatherless.
[31:18] We just sat and chatted while the people around us gave us
[31:20] strange looks. We instantly clicked.
[31:23] Soon it was time for him to go judge the competition.
[31:26] He left and I stayed to watch the show, but left because I was
[31:29] tired from a whole day of work. This was before the time of cell
[31:32] phones, so neither of us bothered to exchange numbers or
[31:35] stay in touch. When I came home, I was not too
[31:38] tired to tell my parents who I met.
[31:41] In the months that followed, I thought of him fondly.
[31:43] I wondered if I'd missed making an important relationship in my
[31:46] life. I wanted to talk to him again
[31:48] and feel the thrill of an instant connection.
[31:51] Many, many months later, my father came back from work and
[31:54] set down the newspaper that he carried to read on his bus ride
[31:57] to work. He said he'd read some bad news.
[32:00] What is it? I asked.
[32:02] Remember a There's a small news article that says he committed
[32:05] suicide. Alcohol poisoning.
[32:08] I was stunned. It made no sense to me.
[32:11] Why did I get to meet this guy who I had all but forgotten,
[32:13] only for him to disappear for good?
[32:15] If I hadn't met him a few months ago, the news wouldn't have made
[32:18] sense to my father. We would have ignored that
[32:21] little piece and gone on with life.
[32:23] The news also made clear that while I did make a strong
[32:25] connection with him that one day, I hardly knew him.
[32:28] We found out later that he was depressed and an alcoholic.
[32:31] I don't think he ever got over his father's abandoning of him.
[32:34] I always wonder what would have been if I had given him my phone
[32:37] number, but that's a pointless endeavor.
[32:39] Life is Strange story 6. I never get the chance to tell
[32:44] this story except at certain parties, so let me take you back
[32:47] several years to a Boo boo's boutique that was recently out
[32:50] of a bad relationship and exploring her sexuality.
[32:53] It always been interested in threesomes and group sex and had
[32:56] had threesomes before but it had been many many years.
[32:59] X had always insisted on monogamy despite knowing early
[33:02] on my feelings towards it, but he thought he should be allowed
[33:05] to sleep with other women so it was a part of myself I hadn't
[33:07] been able to explore. So newly single and slightly
[33:10] younger me is on the market swiping left and right on Tinder
[33:13] and I get matched with a couple. All throughout the messaging
[33:16] process I was talking with a girlfriend who wanted to arrange
[33:19] a threesome for her boyfriend as a gift.
[33:21] I was down so we set it up. I head over there and the
[33:25] boyfriend soon leaves to go to the store to buy condoms and
[33:27] cigarettes. So I'm hanging out with the
[33:30] girlfriend and we're chatting and playing with their kitten.
[33:32] Then she starts telling me how white people are the craziest
[33:35] race, that they shouldn't breed with other races so they don't
[33:38] spread their defective genes, and that interracial
[33:40] relationships with whites were wrong.
[33:42] For reference, girlfriend was black and Hispanic, boyfriend
[33:45] was black and I'm the whitest. I'm super awkward, but luckily
[33:49] boyfriend returns and we start getting down to business.
[33:52] As this threesome is unfolding, I noticed several things.
[33:54] One, despite being bisexual, this girl won't touch me and
[33:57] isn't really involved. 2 Boyfriend keeps looking over to
[34:01] her and asking if things were OK for him to do 3 Girlfriend keeps
[34:04] leaving to go outside to smoke cigarettes to calm her asthma.
[34:07] And four, whenever she does leave, this guy's demeanor
[34:09] changes drastically and he's much more into what's going on.
[34:13] She's also getting physically forceful with him, like she's
[34:15] pushing him into me. At one point he's ready to
[34:18] finish so he asks her if it's OK for him to finish with me.
[34:22] She kind of shrugs while saying yes.
[34:24] But then she goes outside. Boyfriend goes Oh no and goes
[34:27] after her and I can hear them arguing.
[34:29] Then they come back in and she's screaming at him saying that he
[34:32] told her to leave so she's leaving.
[34:35] He hadn't told her that but she's convinced.
[34:37] Then to looks at me and says you should leave I've already put my
[34:40] clothes back on and I'm booking my Uber so I'm like Yep I
[34:43] should. Then she goes no you stay here
[34:46] with him I'll leave. I'm like no I really should go.
[34:50] We all end up leaving the apartment together.
[34:52] I'm heading out to wait for my Uber.
[34:54] Boyfriend offers to wait with me since it's a rough part of town
[34:57] and girlfriend is going to the bus stop to take the bus to her
[35:00] mother's. Boyfriend asks her if she wants
[35:02] to take the car. She goes I don't want to take
[35:04] your car to my mother's and storms off.
[35:06] When she's gone. Boyfriend apologizes, tells me
[35:09] she's done this sort of thing before, arranging A threesome as
[35:11] some sort of test or something for him, then freaking out in
[35:14] the invites me back upstairs to keep fucking.
[35:17] I can't help but get a feeling that if I went back into the
[35:19] apartment, girlfriend would come back and see us together and
[35:22] then murder both of us. I decline.
[35:25] So he goes looks like you're fine, and leaves.
[35:27] This Uber takes 20 minutes to show up and I'm waiting alone
[35:30] outside at 3:00 in the morning in the rough part of town like
[35:33] an asshole. And would you believe it?
[35:35] But girlfriend comes back and acts totally friendly with me.
[35:38] We chat while she smokes for her asthma.
[35:41] I suggest the possibility she actually has anxiety and she
[35:43] says that makes sense. But lo and behold, boyfriend has
[35:46] come back out and gotten in the car and turn it on.
[35:49] Girlfriend springs up, stands in front of the car so he can't
[35:52] leave the lot, and screams about how he's taking her car.
[35:55] She wants her cat back, They're done.
[35:57] He's trying to steal from her. This was when my Uber arrived.
[36:01] Thank God you're here, I said. My Uber drives away and I think
[36:05] that's the end of this night. close, but there's more in
[36:08] store. This Uber driver is highly
[36:10] interested in what's going on. I don't give details but he has
[36:13] questions. He asks where I met them and I
[36:16] say Tinder. He goes, you're on Tinder.
[36:18] Me too. Then goes on a rant about how
[36:21] gay men are disgusting and afterwards asks if I'll show him
[36:23] my Tinder. I decline, then he asks I'll
[36:26] look at his again. I decline, then he asks my
[36:30] number. I told him I'd give him a good
[36:32] rating and then skedaddled. He rated my poorly.
[36:35] I was pissed. What crazy story do you need to
[36:38] tell? Story one.
[36:40] Late to the party, but when I was in high school in the few
[36:44] years after my primary source of income was selling pot.
[36:47] One day I was just hanging out at home with AGF.
[36:50] We went to the circle KA few houses down and got some beer.
[36:54] The clerk, who I knew pretty well at this point, asked if he
[36:57] knew where I could get a dub sack.
[36:59] I said sure and that I'd be back soon.
[37:01] I go home and forget about it. An hour or two later I'm like oh
[37:04] shit, remember, weigh it out and go back.
[37:07] He had already given me the money.
[37:09] Very important detail for later. So I waited until he had no
[37:12] customers. He came out and we went around
[37:14] the ice box just smoking and chatting.
[37:17] I handed him the bag. Now there was no one around.
[37:21] Empty lot except for this beat up Volvo facing the record store
[37:24] next door. If I had been paying better
[37:26] attention I may have noticed this Volvo had completely tinted
[37:29] windows which seemed odd to do on a beat up Volvo. 2 men get
[37:33] out of the car and approach US1 tall skinny guy wearing 100%
[37:37] denim and another guy who looks like Dog the bounty hunter in a
[37:39] beige sweater. They approach us and ask how
[37:42] we're doing. Me and clerk look at each other
[37:44] like you know these guys. Then all of a sudden the flash
[37:48] badges and yell EPD you're under arrest and cuff us.
[37:52] Separate us and search us. Beige dog goes through my texts,
[37:56] finds a couple dubious ones, a few crumpled up 20s, starts
[37:59] trying to get me to admit to doing a lot of Business Today,
[38:02] blah blah. Then they surprised me by
[38:04] walking me and my GF back to my porch saying they've seen me
[38:07] come and go quite a bit and just want to make sure you don't have
[38:10] a pound of heroin in there and they'll just charge me with a
[38:12] misdemeanor otherwise it will be jail and a felony.
[38:16] So here we are on my front porch, me saying there's no way
[38:19] I will let them in my house and to call my lawyer over and over.
[38:23] At one point my roommate walks out, says hi, gets in his car
[38:27] and leaves. At this point Dog explains that
[38:29] if I don't let him search the house, he's going to park a few
[38:32] squad cars on the lawn, extract everyone from the house and wait
[38:35] on a warrant and they will charge everyone in the house
[38:37] with every little thing they find in any room.
[38:40] I now know this is not legal. Then I was just scared.
[38:44] My roommate that had just left was a total nerd with a great
[38:46] job, straight edge, rarely drank and never smoked or anything at
[38:51] all. I was terrified of him losing
[38:53] his job. Unfortunately for me, I had just
[38:56] had an opportunity to get a quap of mushrooms at a steal of a
[38:58] deal. My area was super dried up on
[39:01] mushrooms at the time so I asked around and basically had all my
[39:04] deals set before I got it. This timing was perfect because
[39:07] just 30 feet away on the coffee table of my bedroom was 1/4 of a
[39:11] pound of mushrooms neatly weighted out into oz and 1/8 S
[39:15] top that with all the pot in there it wasn't looking pretty.
[39:19] So I propose that I let one of them into search just my bedroom
[39:22] and be done with it. I knew once I let them and they
[39:25] could do whatever, but I was out of options.
[39:27] Aged dog agrees. Canadian tuck stays with my GF
[39:31] who looks terrified like WTF are you doing at me And dog the
[39:35] sweater hunter enters with me. I lead him upstairs and walk
[39:38] right past my door, which thank God was closed and into the
[39:42] straight edge guys room. Dog completely turns it over,
[39:46] takes out drawers, turns the mattress over the hole.
[39:49] She bang. As he does this I quietly turn
[39:52] off the computer monitor with a background of my roommate and
[39:55] his GF glaring on it. Guy finds nothing, sticks with
[39:58] his agreement, and walks me and my shit eating grin back
[40:01] downstairs. My GF, probably assuming I'm
[40:04] going to prison for many years, is looking like she's about to
[40:07] die, but I'm just grinning. Guy still freaking charged me
[40:10] with a felony. Then they leave.
[40:13] Long story short, paid a lot for a great attorney who was friends
[40:16] with the prosecutor. Since no money was seen to be
[40:19] exchanged, the charge was knocked down to deliverance of
[40:21] marijuana. The prosecutor recommended the
[40:24] minimum sentence. I paid in $121.00 fine, did 80
[40:28] hours of Community Center at a local music venue, saw a ton of
[40:32] shows for free and retired from selling.
[40:34] Story 2. I saved a man's life and I never
[40:37] saw him again. 10 years later, this is still the craziest thing
[40:41] that has ever happened to me. In high school I worked as a
[40:44] lifeguard at a Country Club for a few summers to earn some
[40:47] money. It was a cushy gig.
[40:49] It was for Country Club members only, so a large part of the job
[40:52] was learning people's names and interacting with them, mostly
[40:56] just saying good morning Mr. Jarity and listening to some
[40:59] generic mumbling about millennials.
[41:01] Well, over the 4th of July weekend there were more people
[41:04] at the pool than usual. Each member could sign in one
[41:07] guest and there was a middle-aged man jumping off the
[41:09] diving boards who I hadn't seen before.
[41:11] He was over 6 feet, at least 230 lbs, and was doing gainers off
[41:15] the low dive into the pool to make big splashes to impress his
[41:18] Country Club member friends. Well, one particular jump he got
[41:22] a running start and slipped off the board at the very end.
[41:24] His momentum was already leaning backwards to do the jump and his
[41:27] body came off the board a few feet and his head rotated
[41:30] backwards and smacked right into the diving board.
[41:33] I can still hear the cracking sound in my mind.
[41:35] I'm sitting eight feet off the ground in the lifeguard chair at
[41:38] the diving well watching this all go down and I am praying
[41:41] that I don't have to do anything even though I knew shit was
[41:43] about to go down. I didn't see any blood, which
[41:46] was a good sign, but as I watched his body sink down I
[41:49] counted 110002100031000NO movement.
[41:54] Fuck. I blew 3 short tweets on the
[41:57] whistle, the cadence to signal to the other guards that I would
[41:59] need the neck board, and jumped in with my buoy making as little
[42:02] of an impact as possible in the water.
[42:04] My lifeguard training took over as I dove down 8 to 9 feet to
[42:08] grab this dude. He was out just making no
[42:11] movement whatsoever. Like I said, he was a big dude,
[42:14] but he wasn't as heavy in the water as I grabbed him and
[42:17] kicked us both up to the surface.
[42:18] I hoisted him onto the buoy and swam over to the edge where by
[42:22] now the other guards had stuck the board down into the water.
[42:25] I lined up his limp body with the board as we all work
[42:27] together to strap him into the board.
[42:29] The other guards pivoted the boards out of the water while I
[42:32] climbed out. I took a half second look around
[42:34] to a half dozen shocked faces and it became clear to me that
[42:37] this was my show. Great.
[42:39] Still obeying my adrenaline fueled rote memory of my
[42:42] training, I shouted for someone to call an ambulance as I made a
[42:45] decision. See, I thought he probably had a
[42:48] next injury. The board he was strapped into
[42:50] his design to not move his head so he doesn't further injure his
[42:53] neck or back. But he wasn't visibly breathing
[42:56] so I had to save his life at whatever cost it took.
[42:58] Or at least that's what my 16 year old brain decided.
[43:02] So I started chest compressions. What they don't tell you about
[43:05] chest compressions is that you are breaking shit.
[43:07] You can feel bones and cartilage cracking under your palms.
[43:10] It feels horrible. I still haven't been able to
[43:13] shake that feeling one round of 30.
[43:15] And then I did 2 breaths into his mouth.
[43:17] His head was already titled back a bit from being in the board so
[43:20] I didn't have to move his neck. After two breaths I went back to
[43:23] chest compressions and after 5 or 6 a little water leaked out
[43:26] of his mouth. He coughed a few times and the
[43:29] other guards picked up the board and whisked him away so fast I
[43:31] didn't even know what happened. I rolled over onto the concrete,
[43:35] a tinnitus like ringing in my head, my heart racing just
[43:38] sitting there taking it in. I went into some trance as my
[43:41] teenage body struggled to deal with what just happened.
[43:44] Start to finish. It probably only took about 6
[43:46] minutes, but it felt like a lifetime of stress and nausea
[43:49] had built up in my body. I was walked over to the guard
[43:52] shack, dried off, and walked up to the country clubs nicer
[43:55] member buildings. The manager, who was a friend's
[43:58] dad and had gotten me the job, sat down with me as we talked
[44:01] about what happened. I gave him the basic details,
[44:04] signed some documents, and was sent home for the day.
[44:07] Like I said, I was in some kind of trance and was just operating
[44:10] on autopilot. I'm not sure how much sense I
[44:13] was making at the time, and it took me several hours to process
[44:16] what just happened. I came back for my shift a few
[44:19] days later and I was told by another lifeguard that the guy
[44:22] was OK. I was thanked profusely by the
[44:24] member who brought him as a guest, but I never saw that guy
[44:27] again. This was still the craziest
[44:29] thing that has ever happened. I'm glad my instincts took over
[44:32] and I remembered my training. I might not have done everything
[44:35] exactly right, but I tried my best and at the end of the day,
[44:37] he lived through it. I hope that guy's doing OK.
[44:41] Story 3. This is a story from the early
[44:43] 1980s that is Kentucky Justice. In it.
[44:46] My family lived just outside of Cincinnati on the Kentucky side
[44:49] of the Ohio River. My father's older brother lived
[44:52] here as well and was a father to four daughters.
[44:54] One of his daughters, at the age of 18 or so, was dating a guy
[44:57] who was a little older than her who convinced her to move down
[45:00] South with him. My uncle approved and his
[45:02] daughter headed South with her boyfriend into a Kentucky holler
[45:05] that is extended family lived in.
[45:07] Time passed and my uncle hadn't heard from his daughter in a
[45:10] while and he started to grow concerned.
[45:12] My cousin called my uncle in distress from a payphone at a
[45:15] grocery store saying she was being mistreated by her
[45:18] boyfriend's family and being held hostage and worked like a
[45:20] slave. Before my uncle could learn
[45:22] more, the phone was cut off. At this point in the story, it's
[45:26] important to know my uncle was an avid hunter and gun
[45:28] collector. He explained to his wife and
[45:31] other daughters the situation. He packed up his Oldsmobile D88
[45:34] with his favorite guns and headed down to the holler his
[45:36] daughter's boyfriend was from. He was going down in hillbilly
[45:40] country where there were no street names, just dirt roads
[45:43] and family farms. By the time he finally found
[45:45] their farmhouse, it was night. The boyfriend's family was on
[45:48] the porch shooting shotguns off into the air, fully expecting to
[45:52] scare my uncle away. My uncle stopped his car 50
[45:55] yards from the house and popped the trunk.
[45:57] He methodically lined up his rifles on the hood of the car
[45:59] facing the house, tooling up like Arnold and Commando on the
[46:02] beach. My uncle was an extremely large
[46:05] man who was well known for having an explosive temper.
[46:08] Completely unfazed, he shouted up to the hillbillies.
[46:11] If my daughter doesn't come down in 5 minutes, I'm going to come
[46:14] up there and kill every man, woman and child I see.
[46:18] The boyfriend and his brothers ran back inside the house and
[46:20] not even one minute later my cousin came running out of the
[46:23] house with her single suitcase. Same uncle another time was
[46:27] driving on a bridge that spanned some small river.
[46:30] The bridge was old and only had enough room for one car to
[46:32] traverse at a time. He came to a standoff with three
[46:35] hillbillies in a pickup truck who were honking and yelling at
[46:38] him to back up. My uncle, ever stubborn, refused
[46:40] and instead got out of his car, figuring he'd show them how big
[46:43] he was and they'd change their tune.
[46:45] One of the hillbillies shouted to my uncle.
[46:47] You don't scare us. There are three of us.
[46:49] And my uncle, like a psychopath, shouted back.
[46:52] Do all three of you know how to swim?
[46:54] To which they relented and backed up their truck to let my
[46:56] uncle pass. Story 4.
[46:59] I'm from Belgium and I've traveled a lot with my parents
[47:01] when I was younger. When I was still together with
[47:04] my ex GF we traveled a lot as well but neither of us had been
[47:07] to the USA. So we told this to a befriended
[47:10] couple and a few beers later we started planning a trip to go on
[47:12] together because another mutual friend was studying in
[47:15] Philadelphia for a year and we might as well go visit him
[47:18] first. We went to New York and Philly
[47:20] for a few days, then took a plane to LA, rented a car and
[47:23] took a road trip troph Cali, Nevada, and Utah.
[47:27] During this road trip we'd often laugh about some of the dumb
[47:29] shit we'd heard or seen people do in America.
[47:32] We had a bunch of jokes about people in smaller villages and
[47:35] all kind of crazy stuff they might do. dot.
[47:37] We had just been to Sequoia National Park and we were
[47:39] looking for a place to spend the night and eat because it was
[47:42] getting late. Found some old farmhouse where
[47:44] we could stay in one of the fixed up cabins and ask the old
[47:47] lady who rented it to us where we could go and eat something.
[47:50] Mind you, this little town was called Pinehurst and had an
[47:52] extremely low population. She pointed us to the Pinehurst
[47:56] Lodge, which was basically the only restaurant slash bar slash
[47:59] store for miles. Went there, ate an amazing meal
[48:02] and decided to grab some drinks afterwards and shoot some pool.
[48:06] As we were playing pool, this old giant approaches us wearing
[48:09] a Jean shirt that said George W Bush.
[48:11] Picture of an eagle. He had a bushy mustache, looked
[48:14] very tough for his age, and we thought he was going to give us
[48:16] trouble about using the pool table and laughing too hard.
[48:19] He is, to this day, one of the kindest people I've ever met.
[48:22] He asked if we were having fun and if he could join us.
[48:25] He bought us moonshine, which we obviously thought was hilarious,
[48:28] and we bought him a few beers as well.
[48:31] Had a blast the entire evening dot while we were playing and
[48:33] drinking, the phone behind the counter kept ringing but none of
[48:36] us was paying attention to it by 23 H 30 All of a sudden a woman
[48:41] comes barging in with a gun in her hand, looks at us and stomps
[48:44] over. I felt myself getting nervous
[48:46] and getting ready to react if I had to.
[48:49] She stops behind our new friend, grabs an empty beer bottle and
[48:52] smashes it on his head. We were all perplexed with what
[48:55] happened. She proceeded to shout insults
[48:57] at the man and started hitting him.
[48:59] He calmly tells her to relax, turns towards us, shook our
[49:02] hands, told us that if we ever came back to be sure to let him
[49:05] know so we could hang out again, and then went outside with the
[49:07] woman. dot. As we stood there still trying
[49:09] to understand what just happened, the woman at the bar
[49:12] just shouts at us. That's his wife.
[49:14] He's a bit of a social butterfly and she had already called 10
[49:16] times to ask when he'd come home. dot.
[49:18] We thought it was pretty cool and all so we told her, oh OK,
[49:22] we're just going to leave as well then it's getting quite
[49:25] late. Oh no, my dearies, it's best you
[49:28] stay a little while longer. The shouting you hear outside is
[49:31] still them arguing and I can tell she's quite pissed at you
[49:33] guys because she blames you that he hadn't come home yet.
[49:36] And I have to say it wouldn't be the first time she shot at
[49:39] someone for keeping him too long at the bar.
[49:41] So best you stay a little bit until they leave.
[49:43] So we stay about 30 more minutes.
[49:45] All the while they keep shouting outside.
[49:48] Then we hear a car start and see a white truck speed off.
[49:51] Within seconds we see a second truck speed after the first one.
[49:54] This was in the mountains with very narrow and bendy roads.
[49:58] Both cars just leaving at an insane speed.
[50:00] We hear the bartender say she drives our children to school
[50:04] with the bus. You know this would never happen
[50:06] at home. 100% would go back to Pinewood Lodge in a few years.
[50:11] Story 5. I did not have a car when I was
[50:14] at uni which made going out with my friends a bit bothersome.
[50:17] I would constantly stumble home half drunk in the middle of the
[50:20] night or early morning, wait for the first train to leave and so
[50:23] on. One day I was visiting friends
[50:26] and the only way back home that late must have been between 1:00
[50:28] and 2:00 in the morning was a train which followed some God
[50:31] forsaken country route. My stop lay next to a small wood
[50:34] and a castle, Think 13th century central European castle.
[50:38] I knew the way because I have played there a lot when I was a
[50:41] kid. You have to follow a trail
[50:43] through some fields, past the stables where horses are kept,
[50:46] through a wooded patch that dips into a slope, past the woods
[50:49] around the castle, then along a narrow Rd. between 2 fields,
[50:52] past an abandoned gatekeeper's house that looks like a set
[50:54] straight out of a horror movie until you reach a bridge where
[50:57] you need to pass underneath to rejoin civilization.
[51:00] There are no lights anywhere. I was still a bit drunk and I
[51:03] considered just waiting for the next bus, but that would have
[51:05] been ours. It was summer, the weather was
[51:08] nice and I thought well I know this path by heart, easy peasy.
[51:12] So I started walking. Everything was fine until I
[51:15] reached the slope. As soon as the terrain dipped
[51:18] there was 0 light one. My left were the woods,
[51:21] completely black. On my right a hill covered in
[51:24] underbrush completely blocked the moon.
[51:26] I couldn't even see my own feet. There I was shuffling forward
[51:30] like a complete idiot, only one stray branch away from breaking
[51:33] my ankle. It took me forever to reach the
[51:35] end of the slope. Now you can imagine what it felt
[51:38] like to stumble in utter darkness in the woods at night.
[51:41] Every sound made me think I was about to get murdered at any
[51:43] moment. It was actually the thought of a
[51:45] former teacher of mine that kept me from panicking.
[51:48] He said that the forest is pretty much the safest place to
[51:51] be at night, because what kind of a NEP would be killer would
[51:54] wait for a victim in the middle of nowhere.
[51:56] We'd be more likely to get mugged in a dark alley near the
[51:58] city center. So I tried to be rational.
[52:01] Eventually the moon reappeared and I was at least able to see a
[52:04] bit better. I was just walking toward the
[52:06] abandoned house, congratulating myself on my bravery.
[52:09] When I shit you not, someone jumps out of the woods to my
[52:12] right into my path. It was so quick I wasn't even
[52:16] able to scream. A freaking jogger in full gear
[52:19] in the middle of the night in the woods without light.
[52:22] He just ran along the road ahead of me as if he had night vision
[52:25] or something. Anyway, I got home unmurdered,
[52:28] swore I'd never do something like that again, and did the
[52:30] same exact thing minus the jogger a week later.
[52:34] I honestly wonder how I made it past 30.
[52:37] Story 6. There was a kid I knew in
[52:39] primary school. I guess I'd call him a friend of
[52:41] mine, but honestly he was kind of insane and depending on who
[52:44] you asked I'm sure some of the teachers would have told you he
[52:47] was bullying me. I got into quite a lot of
[52:49] trouble with him. Well, actually technically it
[52:51] was mostly him who was getting into trouble, but I ended up in
[52:54] the principal's office so many times having to explain the
[52:56] crazy shit he and I used to get up too.
[52:59] On the one hand, he had a crazy, vivid imagination.
[53:02] He'd spend lunch time running around the school grounds,
[53:04] pretending to be in the thick of a battle in World War Two
[53:07] against the Germans, getting into epic firefights, etcetera.
[53:10] But he would get so into it, it was contagious, and I couldn't
[53:12] help but join in. He'd lead me into his imaginary
[53:15] fray, shouting move, move, move, grenade, get down, get down,
[53:20] private. Then suddenly at a moment's
[53:22] notice, he dropped down to the ground and start crawling
[53:24] commando style through some shrubs with the most intense
[53:27] look on his face. And he had this crazy ability to
[53:30] construct very impressive little bases.
[53:32] Basically Hut slash tents in the forest, mostly out of twigs,
[53:36] dead leaves and other stuff you just find laying on the ground.
[53:39] Try as I might, I could never build them as well as him.
[53:42] Hanging out with him was always an adventure because when he got
[53:45] into something he was so into it and I couldn't help but just
[53:47] join in and have a good time. On the other hand, he also wore
[53:52] steel cap boots to school. Would repeatedly remind me that
[53:55] he was wearing steel cap boots and would kick me in the shins
[53:57] with them to demonstrate. Pretty sure I came home with
[54:00] bruises on my legs multiple times.
[54:03] Pulled a box cutter on me one day on school grounds.
[54:06] Would have random outbursts of extremely aggressive behavior
[54:09] such as pushing me up against a wall, red faced and furious and
[54:13] looking like he was about to lay into me unprovoked.
[54:16] Despite his sudden and frequent mood swings, he was actually a
[54:19] fun kid to hang out with A lot of the time.
[54:21] I'd hang out with him after school, and honestly, I think
[54:24] his mom was happy to see that he'd made a friend because he
[54:26] tended to push other kids away with his behavior.
[54:29] The lunchtime war role play was always a blast, and it was great
[54:32] fun building stuff out of sticks in the Bush just because he got
[54:35] so into everything he did and it was contagious.
[54:37] Joining in was always a blast. I ended up in the principal's
[54:41] office so often to resolve disputes between us.
[54:44] The principal would often ask why I continued to be friends
[54:46] with the guy. Honestly, my friendship with
[54:49] this kid gave me a little bit of an insight into how abusive
[54:51] relationships might form and how people can end up feeling
[54:54] trapped in them and keep coming back despite their better
[54:56] judgement. He moved to another state after
[54:59] 6th grade and I never saw him again.
[55:01] He did send me one letter about a month after moving though.
[55:04] Apparently he wrote it at his school athletics carnival, Told
[55:08] me how he missed hanging out with me, and was gushing about
[55:10] how much fun he was having competing in the events.
[55:13] He wrote that he had just come third in the 100 meters race and
[55:16] was currently coming second in the 200 meters race.
[55:18] WTFI wrote back to him, but he never replied after that.
[55:23] Story 7 Basically this is the story of my experiences from
[55:27] when I was around 12 to 13 up until now.
[55:29] I used to live in a nice green two-story house in a family of
[55:32] five. My father was the only one
[55:35] working. He worked as a mechanic for as
[55:37] long as I can remember at the same place.
[55:39] His boss was someone I knew since I was little.
[55:41] His name was Frank. I had the sweets for a classmate
[55:44] named Ainsley, but my friends were trying to introduce me to a
[55:47] girl named Christina. I talked to Christina a little
[55:50] during a field trip for biology. We tried to catch snakes
[55:52] together, but I was too shy to keep talking to her without her
[55:56] starting the conversation, and she was too quiet and looked
[55:59] angry all the time. Then our misfortune started.
[56:02] Frank ended up being diagnosed with cancer.
[56:04] If I remember correctly, cancer took his life.
[56:07] My dad was out of a job and my family was no longer receiving
[56:10] income. After a few weeks, my mom ended
[56:13] up getting a job at a grocery store and she rounded up just
[56:16] enough money to pay for the month's rent.
[56:18] So we had four weeks. I started telling my friends
[56:21] Angel and Jose the bad news, told them we might need to move
[56:24] away. My dad was struck by an illness
[56:26] out of nowhere. We didn't know what was going on
[56:29] and he refused to go to the hospital.
[56:31] He puked everything he ate and it got to the point where he was
[56:33] bedridden and puking out pure water from what he tried to
[56:36] drink. So my dad wasn't getting another
[56:39] job anytime soon. Ainsley and I started bonding
[56:42] more, but she had a boyfriend at the time so my advances were
[56:45] short lived and I never could get far.
[56:47] Despite telling her my feelings for her time and time again, she
[56:50] was worried at the state of my household.
[56:52] A few weeks passed by again, we couldn't come up with rent and
[56:56] we got a warning thing about it. My dad couldn't stand up,
[56:59] couldn't talk, so my mom basically took him against his
[57:02] will to go to the hospital. He stayed there for a few days.
[57:05] In those days I and my two other brothers stayed home from school
[57:08] worried sick about him. Turned out he had diabetes and
[57:12] went weeks without insulin nor any food.
[57:14] He was lucky to survive as long as he did and the doctor
[57:17] predicted one more day and he would have died.
[57:20] We couldn't find the money for rent and my parents decided it
[57:22] would be best for the family to move out of state to live in
[57:25] Wisconsin with our grandparents. Rent would be cheaper so my mom
[57:28] would have an easier time providing for us, and my grandpa
[57:31] had diabetes so it would make it easier for my dad to cope with
[57:34] his new disability. Despite this being the second
[57:37] time he was saved from nearly dying by a hospital.
[57:39] First time was something in his kidneys was going to rupture or
[57:42] something like that. I don't remember what was going
[57:44] on. My father still hated going to
[57:46] see any medical professional. I made new friends in Wisconsin
[57:50] and I tried to keep up with my old friends, but it was to no
[57:52] avail. I just couldn't keep in touch
[57:54] that well and I ended up leaving them behind.
[57:57] Ainsley was still always in the back of my mind though.
[57:59] My first goal in Wisconsin was to make better communications
[58:02] with my grandparents. This was the first time I ever
[58:05] met them, so it was only natural.
[58:07] Even though at the time I was agnostic, I was the only one in
[58:10] my family to attend church with them, and with that I signed up
[58:13] for a youth group. In my youth group, I became
[58:16] friends with a furry. He weirded me out, but he and I
[58:19] mostly bonded over Undertale, which recently came out.
[58:22] I tried to avoid him when he started talking about his first
[58:25] Sona and all that. I don't remember his name
[58:27] anymore, sadly enough, but it did introduce me to a sliver of
[58:31] the fandom and at the same time taught me how I should avoid
[58:35] fandoms. But that's not the point.
[58:37] In Wisconsin we had a breather. My dad started even making money
[58:41] again and my older brother was being homeschooled through an
[58:44] online school and learning tad bits about cars from my dad and
[58:47] grandpa. In my Intermediate School
[58:49] emerged middle and high school. I started taking music classes
[58:52] to pass the time. Things weren't always good
[58:55] though. My dad and grandpa got into
[58:57] arguments a lot and my grandpa and older brother got in a few
[58:59] fights about the computer and how much time my older brother
[59:02] should be on it. My dad was getting sicker and
[59:05] sicker of needing to walk on egg shells all the time and
[59:07] frequently complained about wanting his own house again.
[59:10] The only thing that continued going well for me was my bond
[59:13] with my grandma and my guitar and flute practices.
[59:16] Otherwise my school was a nightmare.
[59:18] I made a few regrettable choices with wrong people, had a bad
[59:21] time with my grandpa with a grudge he held against me for an
[59:24] accident, and kept getting in the way of everybody, so I
[59:27] forced myself to go into a shell.
[59:29] Eventually my dad convinced my mom to quit her job so we could
[59:33] move out. We lived there for a few months
[59:35] and I was ready to move to the second semester of 8th grade by
[59:38] then. We moved in with who I used to
[59:40] call my uncle. His name was Tim.
[59:43] We lived in his basement, we set ourselves up nice and cozy and I
[59:47] remember binge watching Bleach through and through for damn
[59:49] near a month before I finished my stopping only for sleep
[59:52] marathon. I never was enrolled in school
[59:54] again while we stayed there, so I had plenty of time, but at the
[59:57] same time, I wasn't welcome in the living room for too long.
[1:00:00] It was always outside or in the basement.
[1:00:02] So after I binge Bleach, I spent a majority of my time by playing
[1:00:06] with Tim's little kid Troy, and when I got the opportunity to
[1:00:09] see them, his other two kids that he had partial custody over
[1:00:12] Lily and TJ. Lily and TJ have been my
[1:00:15] favorite cousin since I was living in the two-story house,
[1:00:18] but they only got to come over every other weekend while they
[1:00:21] were there. We had an amazing time and they
[1:00:23] let me get to know other sides of my family, namely my cousins
[1:00:26] Jeremiah and Charlie. But things again didn't stay
[1:00:31] that nice for long. Tim and his girlfriend let some
[1:00:33] guy named Alex move in also and he was a bad guy.
[1:00:37] He wasn't violent or anything and never once came off as being
[1:00:40] hostile towards me and my two siblings.
[1:00:42] But it turned out that he was slowly convincing Tim to kick my
[1:00:45] family out. My parents made deals with Tim
[1:00:47] again and again trying to kick Alex out and it became a battle
[1:00:51] of living situations. During this battle I learned
[1:00:54] more and more about Alex's time went on.
[1:00:56] Turns out he recently got out of prison and he was a drug dealer.
[1:00:59] The situation was getting pretty rough, so my parents made me and
[1:01:03] my younger brother Drake move in with my grandma for a month.
[1:01:07] I still wasn't enrolled in school.
[1:01:09] The month of boredom. The month of solitude.
[1:01:11] It took two days for me to learn my grandma had bed bugs in her
[1:01:14] living room. So me and Drake quarantined
[1:01:17] ourselves in a single room, one that was untouched for a few
[1:01:20] years, and we stayed there for the rest of the month without
[1:01:23] anybody watching us and a computer all to ourselves. him
[1:01:26] and I ended up with drastically different sleep cycles.
[1:01:29] He was awake during the day, I was awake during the night.
[1:01:32] I spent the time in absolute silence and I came to enjoy it.
[1:01:36] I like the peace I found in the dark and in the quiet.
[1:01:39] Nobody bothering me, nothing to have to do, no need to worry
[1:01:42] about anything. It enveloped me quickly.
[1:01:45] Just me and most the time either Sims 4 or Minecraft.
[1:01:48] Then paranoia started growing in me.
[1:01:51] At the time, the more popular videos on YouTube, or at least
[1:01:54] the videos that kept getting recommended to me, were deep Web
[1:01:57] exploration and creepypasta videos.
[1:01:59] They made me paranoid that someone was always watching me
[1:02:02] in the dark, knew where I was, and had control over the
[1:02:04] computer. That was my only break from
[1:02:06] boredom. Weeks of that paranoia kind of
[1:02:08] left its mark on me when me and Drake were reunited with our
[1:02:11] family. Finally, nothing got better.
[1:02:14] I felt unwanted by a majority of our house and was paranoid about
[1:02:17] them all thinking I was a waste of space, a waste of money and
[1:02:20] food. Another shell grew around me,
[1:02:22] closing me off from who I used to be.
[1:02:24] Within that shell was a permanent paranoia.
[1:02:26] The people were staring at me, hating me, so it was a lot more
[1:02:30] painful than the shell from Wisconsin.
[1:02:32] My parents were nearly kicked out plenty of times while me and
[1:02:35] my brother were gone. And then things got worse.
[1:02:39] When I got back, I found out Tim had bed bugs in his living room.
[1:02:42] His girlfriend questioned me about it and I said that my
[1:02:45] grandma had bed bugs. That was a horrible thing to
[1:02:48] say. It was the tipping point.
[1:02:50] My family had to move out within a month or two.
[1:02:52] We had to save up money to try and get on our own feet again.
[1:02:56] Then a few days later, a flood hit.
[1:02:59] Our entire basement was destroyed.
[1:03:01] I remember waking up in the middle of the night in water.
[1:03:03] We had to rush out before the water reached the electrical
[1:03:06] outlets and zapped us. We barely managed to save our
[1:03:09] valuables, but we had nowhere to sleep.
[1:03:11] Tim wouldn't let us sleep upstairs.
[1:03:13] We had no home. Me telling the truth broke trust
[1:03:16] and the flood finished us. If it weren't for me, my family
[1:03:19] wouldn't have slept outside for a week or two.
[1:03:22] Another shell formed just like that.
[1:03:24] One that I'm still dealing with to this day.
[1:03:26] A shell of guilt, feeling unwelcome, useless, hated and
[1:03:30] guilty really took a toll on me back then.
[1:03:32] It changed who I was, it made my personality fragile and broken
[1:03:36] up. I showed different faces to
[1:03:38] different people, shutting myself away and observing
[1:03:41] people, seeing how they react to different things and changing
[1:03:44] myself accordingly to best fit them.
[1:03:46] I no longer live for myself, I live to be defined by each
[1:03:50] individual. I came across so desperate to
[1:03:52] please instead of piss off that I didn't even know who I was at
[1:03:54] my core anymore. Eventually my family got a tent
[1:03:58] and we had somewhere to sleep that wasn't a bench or a car and
[1:04:00] it was nice. I still wouldn't call it a home
[1:04:03] though. Sleep was hard and I almost
[1:04:05] became an insomniac. My mom scrounged up enough for
[1:04:08] us to move into a smut motel, but the place smelled like ass
[1:04:11] and our neighbor was a prostitute.
[1:04:13] I was ashamed to live there. I finally got re enrolled in a
[1:04:16] school and I missed my entire 8th grade.
[1:04:19] I was in high school and already halfway into the first semester,
[1:04:22] over a year late. I had one set of clothes to
[1:04:25] wear, a white button up shirt and dress pants, and I had to
[1:04:28] wash them daily in a shower. While we were in the motel, I
[1:04:31] learned of an exploit I could pull off for free Wi-Fi.
[1:04:34] Shitty, but free. I tried to get back in touch
[1:04:38] with Ainsley, but we didn't talk long.
[1:04:40] I still had a crush on her despite our long distance and
[1:04:43] long break from each other, but she had a new boyfriend.
[1:04:46] I missed my chance. Then my dad ended up finding a
[1:04:50] great deal on a trailer. Someone was desperate to sell
[1:04:52] the thing and was giving us a ridiculous price for it for
[1:04:55] rent. We even got a month free of rent
[1:04:57] if we promise to clean it ourselves.
[1:04:59] We hopped on that deal and my God was it horrible.
[1:05:03] The place smelled rotten and to this day we still haven't been
[1:05:06] able to get the smell to be fully gone.
[1:05:08] It's in those carpets bad. I don't know what happened in
[1:05:11] there before us, but it won't leave, that's for damn sure.
[1:05:14] I had just a few weeks of my freshman year left and I was in
[1:05:17] another new school. Lucky for me, I've seen a few
[1:05:20] familiar faces. Unlucky for me, none of those
[1:05:23] faces recognized me. Angel and Jose completely forgot
[1:05:26] about me. My Big Brother got a job and is
[1:05:29] helping my mom out with providing for us, and I dropped
[1:05:32] my obsessive feelings for Ainsley.
[1:05:34] I knew I would get nowhere with her and I finally accepted that.
[1:05:37] Shortly after, I was sat next to Christina in a history class.
[1:05:41] We didn't really talk. I pulled my same old trick.
[1:05:43] I observed her through sound, got wind of what made her tick
[1:05:47] and built myself up accordingly. And me and her quickly became
[1:05:50] best friends. Much to my surprise, the me I
[1:05:52] built myself up to be was familiar.
[1:05:55] It was the old me, the original face I used to have towards
[1:05:58] everybody. She slowly broke through my
[1:06:00] shells and helped me open up and I to her.
[1:06:03] I learned her past was much much darker than mine and me and her
[1:06:07] basically became each other's therapists.
[1:06:09] I helped her and she helped me. It wasn't long before we
[1:06:12] realized we gave each other strength and our bond was more
[1:06:15] than a simple friendship. Me and her were our true selves
[1:06:18] to each other. Me and her were able to support
[1:06:21] each other. The more we hung out, the more
[1:06:23] we dug each other out of our traumas.
[1:06:25] We found each other dating. That was nearly two years ago.
[1:06:29] May 11th is our anniversary. We're both doing great now,
[1:06:32] still madly in love, still supporting each other in any of
[1:06:35] our misfortunes, both in the past and currently.
[1:06:38] We made plans to move in as soon as humanly possible.
[1:06:41] We practiced A partial abstinence, and now the only
[1:06:43] thing we're waiting for now that both of us are more mature is
[1:06:46] the opportunity. And in terms of my family, my
[1:06:48] dad had been trying to get disability and my mom and
[1:06:51] brother both work at factory jobs and have finally stabilized
[1:06:54] our living situations after nearly three years.
[1:06:57] My shells are almost entirely gone because of Chris Christina,
[1:07:00] and she is a lot more stable herself too.
[1:07:02] She is doing a lot better. Her anger issues are sorted out
[1:07:05] for the most part, she's a lot less negative and cynical, and
[1:07:08] she isn't suffering from depression or anxiety nearly as
[1:07:11] bad as she used to. Both of us sparked a light in
[1:07:14] each other, and despite all the hell I went through because of
[1:07:16] her, I feel like the luckiest man in the world.
[1:07:19] We both saved each other, and that's invaluable to me.
[1:07:22] She's invaluable to me. And that's my story, very
[1:07:25] condensed even though it doesn't seem like it to be honest.
[1:07:28] I could go on for hours about any particular subject in here,
[1:07:31] be it Wisconsin before Wisconsin, living with Tim,
[1:07:35] being homeless and meeting and hitting it off with Chris.
[1:07:38] And side note, Chris turned me into a furry myself not long
[1:07:41] after I met her.

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