i am my own affliction

I had to wait quite a while for the doctor to see me, but fortunately the nurse who was helping me had an excellent bedside manner and went out of her way to distract me. She expertly did this by getting me talking about books I'd read recently.

I went all in on criticizing the last book I'd read. I don't remember what it was, but I really hadn't liked it, and I denigrated it as "Misery Porn". And she was like "Hmm, that sounds interesting, tell me more". So I gave a general plot synopsis. As I was telling her that most of the characters were immigrant miners, she interrupted me to say "That's interesting, I didn't realize that there were mines in Missouri".

And at that moment time stopped for me and I realized that the entire time I'd been talking about the book, she'd been assuming I was talking about porn set in Missouri. I had just assumed that she had understood from context that when I said "Misery Porn", I meant "A story that is gratuitously depressing so that readers will think it's deeper than it really is".

Nerds (affectionate): Actually, Missouri has many lead mines.

Health care professionals: This is just what working with patients is like.

Actually, Missouri

has many lead mines.

Basically, a lot of truckers feel VERY attached to their trucks, to the point where it's common for truckers to refer to them as their "first baby".

So, knowing this, this trucker's wife organised a photoshoot where her husband's "first baby" got to meet his "second baby". Kind of like those pregnancy photoshoots with dogs?

I was a year above most of them at school so they threw a "goodbye" murder mystery for me just before graduation, and about 2/3 of the way through the game we all realized that everyone had at least attempted to kill the victim. The game then shifted from "whodunnit" to "who succeeded in dunninit" which we all felt was not only super fun but above the usual level of narrative complexity for those games.

“Oh, that’s just Rh’lygh.”

“Its…what?”

“Yeah, he’s been a total lifesaver this semester.”

The dark figure drew closer in a shroud of mist and extended a claw like hand that slowly wrapped around Brenda’s shoulder. She glanced at her forearm, upon which strange welts arose that arranged themselves into barely intelligible runes:

Remember you need to study for that biology exam.

“Thanks, I will Rh’lygh, but I’m meeting Brian first.”

He’s no good for you Brenda.

“Rh’lygh, we’ve been over this.”

Your brain is a 25-watt computer.