π₯³πͺπΊπ₯πβ¨οΈπ€ππ€©πβ€οΈβπ₯π€ͺπ‘πππ€Ί
Apparently I won a poetry contest with something I wrote just to check all the boxes of an assignment?
Poetry isn't my usual medium, so I dunno what that's all about, but my English teacher gave me a writer's notebook with an astronaut on the cover and some fancy pens as a congratulations, so I'm happy-
Back in my early twenties when I weighed about 90lbs I was always freezing cold. For this reason I wore jackets like an exoskeleton, layering a button up, hoodie, and an outer long wool coat. The upshot of this was always having tons of pockets, in which I carried a vast array of things.
Practical things like my keys, wallet, chapstick, of course. But also less conventional things like stray buttons, paperback books, little toys, nail clippers, and open bags of candy when I offered strangers new acquaintances candy they always said yes which either says they werenβt raised right or Iβm more charming than years of being told not to do that.
I really loved my coats but I did sometimes need to move quicker than they allowed. I remember a friendβs utter astonishment when I saw someone I needed to run up to and said hold my coat. He was left holding my carapace and when I returned he couldnβt stop staring. βYouβre so small under there, Iβve thought you were a normal person this whole time but it was all coat!β
At the doctors office getting weighed a week or so later I asked if I needed to take off my coat and boots. She said no, and I stepped on the scale. βA hundred and twenty pounds,β she announced.
My eyebrows shot up and I said, βSorry, hang on.β I shucked my coat and boots to her impatience and stepped back on.
Her eyes widened and she looked back from me to the coat before saying accusingly, βNinety seven.β
I nodded and redonned my protective carapace.
Genuinely considering starting a business where I do what I can to repair people's phones for a MUCH cheaper price than the actual companies charge you. I HATE intentional obscurity and the lack of right to repair with a burning passion, and I've been slowly accumulating the proper tools and knowledge to open up phones from 2018 and up and repair any hardware issues I might find. Software is where the idea gets a bit more complicated, but there must be SOMETHING that can be done to keep an older ("older") phone running at a decent capacity (any tips/methods are WELCOME please and thank you) but yeah. Saving for college or else I'd do it for free, but yeah, I think it'd be a good service to provide. I'm an engineering/robotics kid, so I'm familiar enough with tech to do a good job, especially after all the experimental repairs I've done on old phones for friends and family or discarded phones I collected. Any advice is welcome.
I spent a lot of time handcuffed and in a cage in high school, for a charity bit the grocery store I worked at would do
the bit was that I was "put in jail for having too big a heart" and customers could donate to my bail to get me out (and the money would go to a children's hospital or something)
now. I was very clearly a teenaged employee handcuffed inside a large cage. and I would honestly tell people that I had been in there for hours. and people would say, that's terrible! that's awful! and I would show them my wrists red from the tight handcuffs, and say but I'm sooooooo close to making bail.
and then they would dump some cash in the basket, I'd thank them, and they'd walk away.
and every so often, one of the managers would come by and collect some of the cash, so I could keep being soooooo close to making bail.
I was very good with this bit. Parents with small kids would pay $5-10 if I told their children I had been placed in jail for not cleaning my room/doing my homework, etc. For people in their 20s, I'd threaten that I was very bad at playing the harmonica, but I WOULD play it and we'd all suffer unless they paid me. and for the most amount of money, older men in suits would almost always pay $20s if I avoided eye contact and stammered a lot.
eventually, the managers started to feel bad because I was in the cage so fucking long and often, that I'd need someone to brace me when I got out because I'd have no feeling in my legs. wobbling like a newborn giraffe.
but I would also rake in at LEAST $100 an hour in charity.
so they were like, hey champ. can we, uh, give you a pillow to sit on. in the cage. would you like a pillow so you're not just sitting on a cold metal slab. can we give you a pillow.
and I had to explain to them that if they gave me a pillow, people would think I was more comfortable, so they wouldn't feel as bad, so I'd bring in less money.
the compromise was that they'd bring me a nice coffee every couple hours, which I would have to try to block with my body from the customers.
all this money went to charity. that's what the money was for. it's what was on the sign. but how much they were willing to pay was very contingent on how comfortable I looked, never mind the fact that I was still a teenaged employee handcuffed inside a cage.
and out of the dozens of shifts I did this on, not ONCE did ANYONE say, hey kid I'm going to go talk to your manager because what the fuck is going on here. they would just drop money in the basket, and I'd thank them and sip from my secret drink.
I actually had people get MAD at me that I told them I was far away from bail, they donated like $15, and then 20 minutes I got let out because my shift ended.
again. the money was for charity. it was on the sign that was very clearly placed on the upper half of my cage.
so yeah. even when people think they mean well. people can be really, really fucking stupid.
ways i have tricked people into thinking i am competent:
bought a really nice looking fountain pen
that sounds like a joke but fountain pens are cheap as shit and when you use one people look at you like youβre a fucking wizard
this hero 901 cost me $3 on ebay and i donβt know why people assume that this is a pen for intelligent people but they do
it works better when i am using a nice notebook and not the avengers notebook that makes it look like the hulk is grabbing my sweet pen
i write in code which for some reason leads everyone to assume that i am some kind of da vinci motherfucker, instead of the reality, which is that i am writing about dicks and donβt want anyone to know
it looks like i am constantly taking notes on everything which is both intimidating and inaccurate, just the way i like it
i bought a usb clicker/laser pointer for $11 and now it seems like iβve got this shit on lock, like i am so pro at giving presentations i even own accessories
holding a clicker makes you seem at least 10% more like you know what youβre talking about iβm pretty sure
i check the weekly freebies on creativemarket every monday so now i have a huge folder of pro-looking website themes and powerpoint templates and fill-in-the-blank resumes (also a lot of autumnal clipart and watercolor flowers and script fonts but that is less relevant)
i bought a ceramic coffee mug at world market years ago and it makes me look like a productive coffee-drinker because no one knows itβs full of hot cocoa
i donβt know why drinking coffee makes you look busy it just does even though iβm pretty sure it statistically reduces productivity
bonus: not only does no one know iβm just drinking Depression Chocolate but they think i am being Environmentally Conscious rather than Poor As Shit
extra bonus: i can take a sip whenever it looks like someone is going to ask a question and then they ask someone else
i almost never have to answer questions and i leave the room a lot because i have to pee constantly so double extra bonus
βThatβs a very good question, and one that deserves an in-depth answer, so if youβd like to leave me your card Iβd be happy to discuss it with you later one-on-oneβ akaΒ βhow DARE you suggest i waste everyoneβs time answering this question right nowβ aka βlmfao i have no fucking clue what you just said please let me secretly google that okayβ
bonus: now it seems like you are a sophisticated grownup who assumes everyone has A Card and if they have to settle for writing their email on a scrap of paper you can feel smug about it even though in your heart you know that you are no better
iβve got anxiety and poor impulse control and anxiety about my poor impulse control so i generally say jack shit about shit and this constant silence is often misinterpreted as aloof observation
no one knows that my air of mystery is actually a bad case of the shy and i am too shy to correct them so it works out
when iβm on my laptop and i donβt want anyone to notice how much iβm dicking around i turn the brightness way down so they canβt snoop without being obvious
at least one window of notepad++ with some random html page or css stylesheet in it makes randos assume you are some kind of genius doing some genius shit, unless they are CS major randos, in which case i guess find an intimidating looking excel spreadsheet and hope for the best
Actually just thinking about this earlier- Transfem Zelda and transmasc Link are just so right in my mind
Link and Zelda are the t4t couple of all time
I think they should make that pre-storm smell into a drug and let me snort it. Or let me scatter it in the air around my neighbor's house and watch him go slowly insane as the sunny days smell like storms and also make him slightly high so he's wrong about the weather all the time
Stepping out the shower, staring down the cowboy in the mirror, and swinging my massive dick like a lasso for our daily showdown. I haven't won yet, but I'll be damned if I don't get his ass one day