maybe love’s not for me

Ethan had always been pretty competitive and even though he knew that carnival games were rigged probably ninety percent of the time, he still couldn't stop himself from trying to win a giant stuffed animal at one of them. After all, there could be a pretty face nearby that he could offer it to and maybe even hit a few of the rides with. And being that he was a baseball player, the first game to naturally attempt a win at would of course be the knock-a-block. There were three blocks stacked on a platform and you had to use a softball to knock all of them clean off the platform to win a prize. However, after his second or third attempt, he was starting to get a little nervous at his own skills. "I swear, even though I'm not a pitcher, I do know how to throw this thing where it needs to be, it's probably just the fact a softball is bigger than a baseball, you know?" He chuckled nervously to person nearest him, knowing full well that he could throw a softball just as well as he could throw a baseball.

Getting used to having time to herself again was something Liv hadn't expected to be so...strange. For so many years, Fi had been her constant companion, always glued to her side, and somewhere along the way she'd stopped asking herself what she wanted to do. Now, with her daughter growing more independent by the day, it felt like she was learning her own hobbies all over again instead of automatically following wherever the young girl's latest obsession led them. She'd never been big on sports, but these games had to have been easy enough right? Standing near a game she recognized to be a variation of the bottle knock down, she tilted her head a bit while watching the current man trying his hand at knocking the blocks from their platform. "I'm pretty sure these things are designed to humiliate you, don't worry," she remarked when he made a comment about the fact that he hadn't knocked anything down yet. "That and get you to spend more money. In any event," she paused for a moment. "I doubt you're doing worse than anyone else that has tried to knock those things down."

Gotta say, I really don't get more frequent reminders that I'm probably not ready to have kids than I do when I go to the grocery. I was there today just grabbing a few things and I see this kid just bawling their eyes out and, even though I know it's probably just a tantrum because they're not getting their way, my heart starts hurting and it genuinely upsets me. And if that's how a child crying makes me feel when it's not even mine then, phew... yeah, definitely not ready. Not that I'm in a rush or anything, for the record, but still. The curse of being a softie, I guess.

Honestly, I don't think that's a sign you're not ready for kids. I think it's a sign you're a decent person. The fact that your first reaction was concern instead of annoyance says a lot. And for what it's worth, most of those grocery store meltdowns aren't nearly as serious as they sound. Sometimes they're tired, sometimes they're overwhelmed, and sometimes they're crying because the universe cruelly refuses to let them bring home seventeen boxes of cereal. If anything, I'd say it's a good sign that your heart goes out to them. The world could use a few more softies.

Why do people think that it’s ok to bring food into a library? This is a place for studying and reading, not for you to eat your lunch!

See, this is exactly why I could never work in a library long-term because I’d eventually snap and start handing out citations like parking tickets. That or I'd just start banning people from the library altogether, which...you know, defeats the purpose of a library. There are approximately eight million places to eat lunch. A library is one of the very few places specifically designed to keep sticky fingers away from books. But also, pizza sauce on a Wimpy Kid book feels like the most aggressively middle school crime imaginable.

I've got to think that even if it wasn't recently cleaned, it's gotta have at least some off-taste to it. Especially if it wasn't recently cleaned, like either it's cleaned and then will have that chemical, maybe chlorine kind of taste, or it's not and then some lingering residue even if it was flushed and nothing in the bowl besides the water. Man, I'm shuddering just thinking about it. Dude's probably lucky he didn't end up with e. coli or something.

I feel like you're right. Logically that makes sense. But I just don't know how he wouldn't have been able to taste the difference, especially with how many cups he drank. I mean...what does his normal water taste like? How much water does he drink? Does he drink water? I have so many questions.

You wound me!! I'm so sad now.

I'd say I'm sorry, but we both know I'm not.

It´s that one day of the year, April 30th, and our whole generation has one song stuck in their mind. Or at least that one sentence from that song. You know the one I´m talking about. And I know you wanna say it, so let me hear you finish this... 🎼 IT`S GONNA BE...🎤...

Absolutely not. I have been hearing that all over campus today. Not a chance in hell.

See, that somehow wouldn't be as bad to me as drinking toilet water. It would still be disgusting, but something about drinking toilet water just...nope. I'd never be able to drink water again. Or look at my kid the same.

The little voice in my head that sounds weirdly like my mother is horrified -- horrified -- at the very idea of that, and I think that's probably why it's best that I stick with canine kiddos for the foreseeable future. Not that Pepper wouldn't stick his snout in the toilet for a drink if he could, but fortunately my little old man is at least a foot too short for that, and hasn't figured out how to drag over a step stool. YET.

Believe me, I get that. This whole situation made me realize just how lucky I got with Phoibe in that department. She's had her moments where she is unmistakably my daughter, but she's pretty much perfect. I kind of hit the jackpot with her; I feel like it was karma's way of being like 'my bad' after all the other shit I went through lol. I'm glad Mal is too short to get into anything like that, but that doesn't stop her from causing her own chaos.

Alright, that's all terrible and most definitely a great anecdote to use as birth control for anyone even vaguely traipsing into the baby fever territory... But I've gotta ask, how could anyone not even taste like a hint of something off, I mean toilet water has to have some kind of chemical taste to it, right?

I genuinely have no idea how it never occurred to him to wonder where she was getting the water from. Like...I feel like that should have been common sense, but apparently not. Logistically, I don't know if toilet water tastes different than other water. If the toilet is clean, I feel like it'd just be the same water that comes from the sink or dishwasher or something like that. I'm not an architect so I have no idea how that works, but I would think if your toilet had one of those freshener things in the bowl then it would definitely have a chemical taste.

PM: You’re right. All of it. I left. I made a choice, and you both lived with the consequences of that choice every single day while I didn’t. That’s on me, entirely. I’m not here expecting forgiveness, or access, or some kind of retroactive claim to being a parent. I know I don’t get to step back in and pretend time didn’t pass or damage wasn’t done. I don’t think I deserve anything from you — not trust, not patience, not even a reply, honestly. I’m not looking for redemption on demand. I don’t think I’m owed a second chance, or any chance at all. I just didn’t want to keep being the person who never even tried to acknowledge the harm he caused. If the only thing I ever get to do is take responsibility without being welcomed back into your lives, then… that’s fair. I can live with that.

PRIVATE:

I don’t know, Liv—if something floats around in a tattered cloak, sucks out souls, and makes everyone relive their worst trauma, I’m gonna go ahead and slap the “bad vibes” label on it and move on with my life. “Born from despair” sounds like the PR spin their lawyer came up with.

Born from despair does seem like a company line, I'll give you that, but it's the truth; they were created from the heinous shit that dark wizards did on the island. But see it's the truth, which leaves the question of if they don't have souls or a conscience then can they actually be considered evil?