“Only 1 brain cell between these 2 and it’s being used to eat a box”

Across from the the crustacean tank was a small octopus tank. This little fucker squeezed out of a tiny hole at the top of his tank, walk across the hall, and get into the crustacean tank. He would then hunt and eat. After he was done, he crawled back out and get back in his tank

Octopus Escapes from Tank to Prowl on its Neighbors

Octopus Escape — 600-pound (272-kilogram) octopus wriggles through a passageway the size of a quarter

Legging It: Evasive Octopus Has Been Allowed to Look for Love

A baby spider, by contrast, weighs about 1 mg; roughly 3 million times lighter.

i see my dog

absolutely no one: 

not a soul:

So if wolves do this by themselves, in nature, that means that we saw them playing this game and thought “huh, that wolf enjoys fetching the stick it’s throwing for itself, maybe I could throw it further and it would like that more?” And thus began our two species’ mutual favourite game to play together

“How much is it to fill a Venti with Espresso?”

“I- I’m sorry?”

“A venti cup. How much to fill it with Espresso?”

“Oh. uh. Well, it’d be I suppose… I only have a button for a Quad. I don’t have special pricing for twenty ounces of espresso in a single… drink.”

“Price is the furthest thing from my mind right now. How many ‘add shots’ is that?”

*deep breath of fear* “It’d be a quad with,” *clears throat* “uh, sixteen additional shots of espresso. But, ma’am, I should tell you that the shots will start to get really bitter if they have to sit and wait for us to pull twenty of them-”

“Taste means nothing to me.”

At this point I am truly fearing for my very existence in the presence of what must clearly be an eldritch being.

“Oh. Well, okay.” I put on my absolute best customer service smile to hide my terror and accept that I must face this dragon, fae, or demon with dignity. “We can certainly get that for you! The price will be _____.”

She begins to pay, I shit thee not, with golden Sacajawea dollar coins. We are a block from Wall Street, and this eldritch demi-being is paying for an unholy elixer with golden coins. My life will end soon, I am sure of it.

“Do you still have the ‘Add Energy’ packets?”

My heart began to race at this request. “Yes ma’am.”

“How many can I add?”

Futile though it is, at least I know the rote response to this. “For health reasons, we won’t add more than one per drink and we cannot sell the packets individually.”

“One then.”

I alter the order and tell her the new price. She pays, dumps the change and five golden dollars into the tip box. I write the order on the venti cup and pass it silently to the girl working the hot beverage station. Normally we called and pass, but this was … not something to be spoken aloud.

My fellow takes the cup, not thinking anything of the minor break with protocol, until she sees the order. She stares at me. “No.”

The woman, which I call her for no other greater insight into her terrifying being is within my grasp, simply stands on the other side and says, calmly but with a commanding tone I expect of Admirals in bad movies, “Yes.”

My fellow barista pales before her task. But we are dutiful, we are true to our task, great though it may be. She sets about clearing the two brand new Mastrena’s of all distraction, and sets two tall cups in the ready position. The energy packet is emptied into the venti cup, and the shots begin pouring. 

The barista was damn near shaking. This woman’s gaze felt like the fires of the sun. Finally, the shots are pulled, the cup is filled, and the hand off takes place.

Our visiting Incomprehensible takes it to our milk bar and adds a dollop of cream. Satisfied, she proceeds to down what must have been half the damn cup.

Then she smiled at us, like a benediction and I was honestly filled with joy. And horror. She left, and we knew nothing more of her after that.

When I talk with other former employees, we quickly begin talking about “The Company” as if we’d never left, perhaps knowing that part of our soul still powers that awesome and terrible corporate machine. And when I share this story, other Baristas at first act shocked but quickly settle and comes the chorus, 

Well one day back in…I think Summer between 2010-2012? my younger sister and I had nothing to do but play Runescape in our free time. I did what all aspiring heroes do, I was happy to go out and commit mass goblin murder. My sister was more creative. At first she went to train Smithing in Al Kharid, which is this desert area with easy access to iron, coal, a player bank, and a smelter. So basically she made craploads of steel for hours on end for like a week. But then she realized she had nothing to do with the steel. She could go find a smith with an anvil and train Smithing further, but that was boring since she’d already been grinding forever. So she went to the Grand Exchange and sold it all. 

Thousands of units of steel ingots. 

And it sold like immediately, since there was always a large amount of people training Smithing at the level they could use steel.

Obviously she became fabulously wealthy and didn’t know what to do with her newfound wealth. But since she spent a lot of time at the Exchange, she knew basically how the market worked. I’m not 100% sure on what the thought process was for her, but she essentially realized a basic economic principle: If she could control the supply and demand for steel she could accelerate her profit margins. 

So like any reasonable 12-14 year old, she bought out about twice as much steel as she sold. Flooding the market had almost halved the price, and she now was both the supply and demand. Of course, as a result of some mystery person buying tons of steel, the price went up again. So she went and sold it at the higher price. She spent about another week or two playing Carnegie before it got old and she retired to Lumbridge with fat stacks of gold and the finest armor money could buy (but she couldn’t wear due to low Defense level). 

So here’s a true story: my father, sometime in the 70s was looking for his first job. He went to the local McDonalds and told the staff, [manager’s name] said I was supposed to start today. They took his word for it and started training him and by the time the manager saw him and asked who he was, people just said “oh that’s the new guy.”

Somehow this actually worked. My dad worked there for a couple of years as a cook. He even won an award plaque which he had on the wall until the day he died.