My Kid About Her First Hand Experience With Chiggers, Im Sad That Chiggers Are Really Real

My kid about her first hand experience with chiggers, “I’m sad that chiggers are really real”

Same

dany and her babies 🐉🖤

And now I understand what George Rodrigue was on about with all the blue dogs.

living in a village of farmers is the fucking best i just left a party and the butcher was like hey i got some bones for your dog. your dog specifically because i like the cut of his jib. hell yeah

do you know how fucking great it is to get home tipsy as hell wake up your dog he is already exited to see you and you are like here you go a big bone for your majesty...my man thought he was damn heaven!! so good

Me: oh yeah, if you think school photography is hard now, try imagining doing this with film.

The new girl: what's film?

Me: ... film. Like... film that goes in a film camera.

New girl: what's that mean?

Me: ... before cameras were digital.

New girl: how did you do it before digital?

Me:... with film? I haven't had enough coffee for this conversation

Please be honest with your chefs/servers about your food allergies and severity. Trust that people are decent and don’t want to cause customers pain or trips to the hospital. But food service workers are not doctors and are not paid to be or trained to be doing a health history on every single customer who asks for a menu modification. If you have an allergy or are ordering food for someone who does then it is on you the customer to be your own advocate.

Hey real quick PSA: If you have food allergies TELL RESTAURANTS. I know it’s inconvenient and sometimes people are shitty but for real, please, tell waitstaff it’s allergy specific, don’t just order it without the allergy ingredient.

This was brought up in my mind again since my step-MIL would get furious if someone presented her with a food she couldn’t eat with her Crohn’s but she’d never told them in the first place what she couldn’t have or how severe her reactions were.

When I worked at the pizza place a ton of people would order pizzas without cheese for a variety of reasons, but only occasionally would they say it was because of an allergy.

This one day a white lady came in and ordered three pizzas with no cheese. I have no explanation for why I followed up, especially because she was extremely moody and snippy. But I asked, “Is this because of an allergy?”

“Yes,” she snapped.

“If it’s for an allergy you should know we do use a small amount of cheese in the red sauce as well. Is the allergy severe?”

“What? Yes, he’ll literally die, his throat closes up and stuff.”

I stared at her. Someone she was serving pizza to would die on contact with cheese? And she didn’t even bother to tell us that?!!?? Why in gods name was she even in a pizza place???

“Don’t you have anything without cheese?” She demanded.

I ended up doing a garlic rubbed crust with toppings.

I had to scrub down all the counters and surfaces and grab fresh bins for all the toppings to try to avoid any cross contamination and the extra time made her roll her eyes in exasperation. Like I’m sorry safety protocols are inconvenient but I hope this person you’re trying to murder leaves your life.

But anyway. Please be safe. Disclose your allergies.

C’mere, kid.  I want to tell you a secret.

Whoa, whoa, not like that!  This isn’t one of those “strange man tells you something that you’re not supposed to share with your parents” situations.  I want you to share this with your parents.  I want you to share this with the whole world.  You wanna be my prophet, you go right ahead.  It’s not like most folks are gonna listen, but every so often, one of you people decides to try, and I’m always grateful, even if I don’t think there’s any point to it.

Okay.  You with me?  You listening?  You cleaned your ears out recently?  Because if you’re gonna be my prophet, I don’t want you to go around telling people I said something I didn’t.  That’s happened to so many of my friends.  They lay out one message, and folks pick it up and turn it into something terrible, into some sort of cudgel to beat people with.  And that’s not what I’m about.

Okay.  You’re good?  Then here you go.  This is the secret, this is the essential thing I wish you over-important primates would hammer through your heads, this is what matters:

People are essentially good, and essentially the same, everywhere you go.  Optimism isn’t shallow, and being a happy person doesn’t make you a fool.  You’re allowed to irrigate and plant flowers in your heart.  That won’t make you weak.  It won’t make you irresponsible, or petty.  Be joyous.  Find your light and nurture it, and once it’s strong and healthy enough to light up your room, open the windows and share it with the people around you.

There’s a lot of shadow in a lot of folks.  A little light can help to beat it back, and can bring us a better world.  All of us, not just the divine, and not just the damned.

Do your part, prophet or no.  Nurture and protect your joy.