Market Chipping

Someone in your friend group is REALLY excited that a popular artist just release a new song or album? Now's not the time to crush them by telling them how much you think that artist is overrated and that anyone who listens to them just doesn't know any real music. They're not hurting anyone, why make them feel bad or dumb just for being happy and excited?

Your co-worker tries to share something positive they read in the news, such whatever country you live in now has lower rates of alcoholism, or more trees than ever were planted last year in re-forestation efforts? Ask if yourself if it's necessary to "yeah, but" their positive news with a spin on making it negative. Is that helping at all or serving any purpose? In a lot of cases it's not helpful or necessary.

What do you really have to gain from crushing someone's excitement or attempts at being positive? Ask yourself what your real intentions are. Ask yourself if you actually have anything worthwhile to gain outside of crushing someone who was excited or trying to be positive.

Is it true?

Is it necessary?

Is it loving?

   “I can never do that,” said Anne determinedly and darkly. “You can punish me in any way you like, Marilla. You can shut me up in a dark, damp dungeon inhabited by snakes and toads and feed me only on bread and water and I shall not complain. But I cannot ask Mrs. Lynde to forgive me.”    “We’re not in the habit of shutting people up in dark damp dungeons,” said Marilla drily, “especially as they’re rather scarce in Avonlea. But apologize to Mrs. Lynde you must and shall and you’ll stay here in your room until you can tell me you’re willing to do it.”    “I shall have to stay here forever then,” said Anne mournfully, “because I can’t tell Mrs. Lynde I’m sorry I said those things to her. How can I? I’m NOT sorry. I’m sorry I vexed you; but I’m GLAD I told her just what I did. It was great satisfaction. I can’t say I’m sorry when I’m not, can I? I can’t even IMAGINE I’m sorry.”    “Perhaps your imagination will be in better working order by the morning,” said Marilla, rising to depart. “You’ll have the night to think over your conduct in and come to a better frame of mind. You said you would try to be a very good girl if we kept you at Green Gables, but I must say it hasn’t seemed very much like it this evening.”    Leaving this Parthian shaft to rankle in Anne’s stormy bosom, Marilla descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed in soul. She was angry with herself and as with Anne, because, whenever she recalled Mrs. Rachel’s dumbfounded countencance her lips twitched with amusement and she felt a most reprehensible desire to laugh.

what does this have to do with boiling your surgical tools? well look, the boiling water releases bubbles of steam which carries the malign influences up to heaven. you boil a knife, you send all the miasmic particles off with the steam to heaven. if you rinse the knife off in a bucket the water isn't hot enough, the particles go into the water and then right back on to the knife. you gotta boil it to get the particles all the way away. how can a tool or rag or a bed have miasmic particles on it when you can't smell them? humans have a lousy sense of smell. look at your dog on the hunt. are there no rabbits in the woods just because you can't smell them? we know that miasma is carried on the air, and is what makes stench so dangerous, and we know that humans can't smell worth a damn compared to dogs cats horses etc. a dog can smell if a rat died in a corner of the room last week. you can't. do you think licking the spot where the rat died is going to go well for you? luckily, what humans lack in snout we make up for in brains. we have extra brains where our sniffers should have been. God set that up for a reason.

and why does a rinse with wine spirits work? man, look how fast alcohol evaporates. my guess is that because wine contains a lot more vice than water, it evaporates a whole lot faster, in sort of an equal and opposite way that a rock falls faster than a feather. if you want the miasmic particles to get off there FAST, you dunk it in something that's going back to heaven at a gallop.

❝ Sometimes family is more than just the people under your roof. — Orphan Black (2013–2017)

push in your chairs when you get up from tables.

when people don't push in their chairs, people with bulky aids like wheelchairs and rollators can't get through. also a lot of people who use canes have wider gaits than able bodied people, and having a chair in the middle of their walking path is a real obstruction. while some of us are able to push chairs out of our way, a lot of us are not, and wind up boxed in/out because somebody didn't push in their chair.

May I present the best apple:

4 year old me: why must we do this

Fantastic old woman in the leopard print coat: "Why yes, my tooth IS real silver! Nobody ever asks me that. Do you like cats?"