Vipachu Shenanigans

"A marriage ending isn't a failure at all. I spent eleven years with her. We were so in love that we couldn't image life apart from each other. We got our own place, adopted a dog, and supported each other through school. I thought if tow people loved each other enough the rest would fall into place, except... love isn't everything.

And I didn't want to believe that, but we were sitting in counseling one day, talking about our future and I realized we were describing two completely different lives. Where we'd live, what kind of life we wanted, what made us happy. And it hit me that- I love this woman and this woman loved me. And after eleven years of loss, grief, career changes, we were so deeply in love... but we weren't aligned. And I kept thinking 'We just need to try harder. We can find some compromise to make this work,' because that's what you're supposed to do when you love someone, right?

But the reality was, we had just become different people. Her trade school took her in one direction, my graduate degree in another and trying to force us back into who we were five years ago wasn't coming from a place of love. It was coming from a place of fear. Fear that, if this ended, it meant we wasted eleven years. But sitting there across from her, I realized: That's not how love works.

Those eleven years happened. They were real. The dog, our home, showing up for each other through grad school and trade school. I wouldn't change a single thing because loving someone doesn't mean you're meant to stay with them forever. And letting go doesn't erase what you had. We measure marriage by whether it lasts forever or not, but what if we measured it by whether it mattered?

What if we measured it by the love we gave, the life we built, and the people we became? Because love's job isn't to last forever, it's to help you become fully completely yourself, and sometimes the most loving thing you can do is give each other permission to be yourselves, separately. But the dog doesn't know were' divorced. He just gets two Christmases now."

Part of socializing and having friends is being a good listener even when you don't actually give a shit about the subject.

Your are hurting other people's feelings when you bluntly respond with "Anyway..." and then change the topic.

It can not always be about your preferred topic.

okay

Bi-pan solidarity

Lesbian-ace solidarity

And the

Asexuals aren't inherently LGBT and don't belong, either (unless they also happen to experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria). Some aces are also pretty homophobic.

We are stronger as a united front!

all ships, and rights for one are

rights for everyone!

I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.

Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:

Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.

No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.

So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:

Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:

Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.

Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.

POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.

When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)

If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.

In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so go drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"