The Hundred Before

What have you been up to? Um well it's getting warmer so I've been having to brush my cat every day.

Like no it's not that interesting of a thing to say. But now they can respond to it. They could say, man yeah it really is heating up, I've been trying to think of things to do inside more often. Or, oh you have a cat? What's their name?

Working in retail is really fun, and the times when major fuck-ups happen, they can be either anxiety-attack inducing, or make it possible to get through the rest of your god-awful shift with a smile depending on the customer. My all-time favorite absolute fuck-up is as follows:

This kind woman is just doing her thing. She scans her membership card from her keychain. The register beeps to acknowledge the scan. We continue as usual. Neither of us notice right away, but after I’ve scanned a few more items, I hear a very quiet, “Um,” from the lady, very polite. I look at her. She is looking at the screen of my register, blinking. I, too, look.

And lo and behold. There is a charge of over four-thousand dollars ($4,000) worth of garlic bread staring us in the face. There are no words for a minute. We’re just… in awe. How did this happen? How the hell did this happen?

She didn’t even have garlic bread in her cart.

I sputter a partial apology - I was incapable of forming actual sentences in the moment - and try to void the garlic bread. Since there was no garlic bread to scan, I try to manually remove $4,000-some from this transaction.

Well, the registers don’t like it when you try to void off more than five dollars ($5) from a transaction, so naturally it pings my manager for confirmation, but she’s not by her pager.

At this point, both myself and the lady are just… dumbfounded. She’s not even mad. I’m not even all that embarrassed. Both of us are just looking at the screen. There’s a bit of laughter, but it’s mostly just… confusion.

I have to call through the whole store for my manager on the intercom because she’s not answering. She shows up, ready to override and void it, when she too, sees what exactly is being voided.

“What… did you do?”

“I genuinely. Have literally. No. Idea.”

She voids it, and I go to finish the transaction and tell the woman her total (minus the garlic bread). My register pings. It tells me that she hasn’t scanned her membership card. Odd. I distinctly remember her doing that. The woman goes to scan her card again, and I notice that her library card is stuck to her membership card. I tell her gently, and she separates the two and scans her card.

My manager, hovering nearby still, sees this and says, “I think it mistook the barcode of her other card for garlic bread, and the remaining digits were read as the price.”

And that’s when the laughter really came over us. There were no hard feelings at all. In fact, the woman was incredibly glad that the receipt still showed the garlic bread and the voiding of. I will remember it until the end of time, my only regret in the entire situation being that I didn’t take a damn picture, because she has proof and I don’t. But I swear to God it happened.

american starwort: welcome to a stranger

arbor vitæ: live for me

austrian rose: thou art all that is lovely

belvedere: i declare against you

branch of currants: you please all

campion rose: only deserve my love

coltsfoot: justice shall be done

currant: thy frown will kill me

daily rose: thy smile i aspire to

four-leaved clover: be mine

hemlock: you will be my death

honeysuckle: generous and devoted affection

ice plant: your looks freeze me

japan rose: beauty is your only attraction

justicia: the perfection of female loveliness

love lies bleeding: hopeless, not heartless

maiden blush rose: if you love me, you will find out

mourning bride: i have lost all

peach blossom: i am your captive

purple lilac: first emotions of love

spindle tree: your charms are engraven on my heart

tussilage: justice shall be done to you

vernal grass: poor, but happy

volkamenia: may you be happy

white rose (dried): death preferable to loss of innocence

yellow rose: decrease of love

zinnia: thoughts of absent friends

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane! It'ssssss Wthursday here, and instead of the Scorpions, I bring you...an actual storm? So kind of close? [shugs] Anyway, enjoy some of the DA2 gang doing what the gang does best--stayin' aliiiiiiiiivvvveeeeee, as I type away at chapter 7 of my Handers madness.

Tagging: @softeasun @hircines-hunter @blossom-adventures @babydinosaur930 @mylosingdogs @mareenavee and @archangelsunited, no pressure, of course.

Throughout Violet’s life, there had been many times when she questioned herself. Thought about where she was going, what the purpose of it all was, if she was doing what was right. Try harder, be better, this was the constant mantra repeated under her breath, thrumming under her skin. If not her, then who? Who would it fall to then to pick up the pieces, set everything aright? And still, somehow, it was always upon her shoulders that guilt settled like a heavy mantle, blame weighing her down like an anchor until she drowned in it.

An especially apt metaphor as any if Kirkwall is to be concerned, water everywhere, and nowhere to escape from it.

Looking up at the sky, Violet cannot help but feel the irony of it as rain falls around her in sheets, grey on grey, stone walls saturated and slick as rivers run down the sides, spilling into the streets in great puddles. Water everywhere to wash things clean. Under ordinary circumstances, it would be bothersome, traipsing through the mud, dirt, and grime of Kirkwall, but all she can feel is lightened despite the fact her cloak has long since soaked through.

For the first time since she was a girl, she knows she has done something right, and there is no one to tell her otherwise.

As she casts a look behind her, she grins as Varric and Aveline reluctantly follow her through the late autumn shower down into the Docks.

“I’m glad one of us is happy about nearly drowning out here.” Varric pulls his hood down over his head further with a scowl. “And you owe me a new pair of boots.”

“Anything else?”

“The next round at the Hanged Man would be nice”

She chuckles as they descend the stairs. “Aye, aye captain.”

“The only captain I see is this one.” He snorts, pointing a thumb back towards the guard captain.

“I’m glad some of us haven’t forgotten.” Aveline retorts.

That’s not problem solving. It’s barely catharsis, in practice. It doesn’t just create more problems than it solves, it destroys more solutions than it creates.

Put the apocalypse down, and back away slowly.

Voting as Fire Extinguisher

When the haunted house catches fire: a moment of indecision.

The house was, after all, built on bones, and blood, and bad intentions.

Everyone who enters the house feels that overwhelming dread, the evil that perhaps only fire can purge.

It’s tempting to just let it burn.

And then I remember:

there are children inside.

TO THROW A WRENCH IN THE BLOOD MACHINE: Five (Season-Appropriate) Metaphors for Voting

by Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre

VOTING AS PRESSURE ON THE WOUND: After the battle against the killer robots, I become aware that my leg is bleeding. And I know that applying pressure does not, on its own, heal the wound, but it will buy time for the medic to arrive, for the healing to begin.

VOTING AS FIRE EXTINGUISHER When the haunted house catches fire: a moment of indecision. The house was, after all, built on bones, and blood, and bad intentions. Everyone who enters the house feels that overwhelming dread, the evil that perhaps only fire can purge. It’s tempting to just let it burn. And then I remember that there are children inside. 

VOTING AS THIS ONE SMALL THING I’ve tracked the werewolf to its lair, deep in the basement of the old doll factory just outside town. Upon entering, I have the option of flipping the light switch from off to on. Either way, the battle will be difficult. Either way, victory is not guaranteed. But the werewolf can see in the dark, and I can’t. So I will do this one small thing. I will summon what light I can. And I will keep going.

VOTING AS HIGH GROUND, CLEAR SIGHT LINES, AND MULTIPLE ESCAPE ROUTES It’s been said that during the zombie apocalypse, the undead are not the biggest threat, that the real monsters are the human survivors who will hoard resources, betray one another, and fight endlessly amongst ourselves. And it’s true: survival is about so much more than just not getting eaten by zombies. But not getting eaten by zombies is still an important part of the plan.

VOTING AS WRENCH IN THE BLOOD MACHINE Our village has existed in the shadow of Dracula’s castle for years, and has been the site of many battles against him. Now, he’s running for mayor. His platform: rather than turning into a giant bat to hunt his victims one-by-one, he will take control of the village’s resources, its watchmen and bureaucratic machinery, creating a system that will more efficiently identify victims and supply him with fresh blood.

Will defeating Dracula at the polls end his reign of terror? No. But what it will do is deprive him of one specific set of tools that he will otherwise use to hurt people. It will allow us to think offensively rather than defensively, because when the forces of darkness are not knocking on our doors, it frees us up to go knock on theirs.

And yes: there is always more work to be done. There is always more horror beyond that which is right in front of us.

And those who study monsters are right: if we only think short-term, we lose.

But those who fight monsters have taught me: short-term and long-term thinking are not mutually exclusive. We use every tool we have access to, every opportunity to shape the terrain of battle, every advantage we can seize. We don’t split up. We don’t leave anyone behind. We don’t wait for some hero to save us, whether a knight in shining armor or an opposition politician. We fight the monsters. And when the sun rises, we do the work of creating a world in which there are no monsters.