Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
not voting for hillary clinton is a vote for donald trump
But also THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO CHOICES IN THIS ELECTION pls people, I know it seems unlikely, but if everyone who didn’t want either candidate wrote in a name, someone else would stand a chance [and we could live with ourselves, not having voted for one or the other]
no they wouldn’t, literally do not do this
please educate yourself about nader and the 2000 presidential election before encouraging this literally terrible idea
People on both sides say “Not voting for my candidate is a vote for the other guy” No, it’s just not a vote for your fucking candidate. Vote for who you actually believe in, otherwise you might as well not vote. If Hillary actually gave a damn she would try harder than just say “Vote for me cause I’m not Trump” No bitch, how about you show me something I can believe in. God damn, no wonder so many people don’t fucking vote.
*sigh*
Let me explain why they say a vote for a 3rd candidate or not voting for Hillary is voting for Trump:
The United States does not have a direct democratic voting system. We have an indirect system called the electoral college.The electoral college is a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.
To win the Presidency you do not need a popular majority; you need the majority of votes of the electoral college.
The way the college works is that the two parties select the delegates that will serve as electors, and the electors pledge to vote for the candidates, depending on their party affiliation, of either the democratic or republican party. So, when people go vote, they are actually going to vote for electors that have pledged to vote for a specific party/candidate.
Each state is allocated a different number of electoral seats, and so not every state is truly worth the same given that every candidate is racing to secure 270 seats (minimum required to win the election).
What’s important to note is that the electoral college is a winner take all vote in 48 of the 50 states, meaning that the candidate with the higher number of votes in a given state will get ALL of the seats. This is one of the reasons why third party candidates are a wasted vote.
Based on our country’s history, most States around the country have already been defined as either red or blue, because the majority of the people that go and vote in said states tend to stick to either one or the other no matter who is on the ballot. It becomes a bit of loyalism to a party or, more accurately, just a strong distaste towards the ideals of the other party. However, there are a few swing states that really define the elections, for each election cycle they tend to change depending on who is on the ballot.
Now, third party candidates, which is often used as a protest vote, have never worked because a) they are not written into every state ballot, meaning that there are states that don’t offer these candidates given that they did not qualify b) have rarely gotten enough votes to even be up for electoral seats c) ALWAYS end up hurting one of the two candidates, for, in close runs, they can make one of the other two candidates lose a SWING STATE.
This is what happened with Ralph Nader in 2000. The votes that he received hurt Gore in certain states, particularly florida, which led to Bush winning as he had the majority of electoral seats even though he did not have the majority in popular vote.
Now, in the latest poll, it shows that the race between Hillary and trump is very close, and, when third party candidates are involved, it actually HURTS Hillary’s chances.
Now, if it hurts her enough, Trump can obtain the much needed swing states. If he gets over 270 seats (and thus more than hillary) he WILL win the goddamn election.
This is not a year to vote for a third party candidate. This is not a man you want in the oval office of the most powerful country in the world.
There is nothing NOTHING you can pull out that will make Trump the lesser of two evils.
We live in a country that has a two party system, so yes, a vote for a 3rd party candidate or a non-vote IS actually a vote for trump.
I was a Bernie supporter too, but “Bernie or Bust”ers are fucking idiots. Yes the system is corrupt, but you certainly wont fix anything by letting Trump win. Put your personal ideals aside for the good of the country.
my favorite part of capitalism is the slippery slope of knock off cereal branding devolving from catchy, colorful names to literal descriptions of what’s inside the box
when youre describing your product as ‘spheres’ youve reached critical mass
No, this is great. Product labels focused more on explaining what the product is than on branding are good. I sure wouldn’t have guessed that some small circular cereal would contain lots of oats if they weren’t called “Fruity Oat Rounds” unless I specifically went around looking for oat-rich cereals.
Also, store brands are great. They’re typically cheaper than name-brand goods without a significant corresponding drop in quality. Maybe they hire fewer branding consultants and run fewer ad campaigns and that’s why they’re cheaper? IDK.
It would all be worth it just for the global running joke of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! knock-offs.
Still waiting for someone to put out “Butter With Chinese Characteristics.“
A map of about every primary passenger railway in the USA for 2016, commuter rail included.
Surely there are more trains lines about than this ?!
Nope. We’re animals. I’ve only trailed by train twice in the U.S., and it was the same line, once DC to Philadelphia, and once DC to NYC for work once I discovered the train was two hours faster than flying and cabbing back into NYC.
I do forget though that you guys fly everywhere and trains might not be practical. I live on an island the size of one of your states !
Fun fact: the busiest railway station in America (Penn Station in New York City) gets fewer passengers than Liverpool Central.
I knew the US had a much less extensive rail infrastructure than us, but bloody hell, the fact that there are ENTIRE STATES that literally don’t have passenger rail is madness.
I’d still love to travel on it some time, mind.
Just imagine the jobs you could create by building a decent railway system!
Behold, the end result of graft and political corruption.
I had no idea most of the US had no regional lines? Like, I live in tiny little MA with one of those clusters of red. Does everybody else have to DRIVE???
yes. we drive. and it’s terrible.
D: This is actually distressing.
to be fair some cities do have good bus systems
but….yeah.
what the shuddering fuck? That’s IT?!
actually we used to have a lot more, but as far as i’m aware i’m pretty sure the car companies bought a lot of railways and then destroyed them to force people to buy cars
Also some of those states that don’t have rails also have more cows than people.
Also our trains are slow and it’s usually much faster to drive than to take a train. We don’t have those speed rail things.
When you suddenly understand Sheldon’s train enthusiasm
And then there’s Europe:
And because that looks a tiny bit cluttered (and because we’re a German blog), here’s a railway map of Germany:
In red are the high speed InterCityExpress lines, blue are the InterCity lines and the grey ones are smaller regional lines.
And for Americans who don’t know how large Germany is: It is half the size of Texas.
Consider that this map does not show local lines, for example: This is Hamburg
This is Berlin
This is Cologne
And this is Munich
(Aesthetic.)
Munich’s network deadass has more lines than the entire state of MA
like the one thing i miss about australia is the public transit (and meat pies ngl)
I live in MA, which multiple people here have pointed out is unusually good in comparison to the rest of the country. I live about 10 miles from Boston, my town does not have a train.
The only thing I can access by train, and this still would require me to walk a mile to the nearest bus stop that barely ever has on time buses, to take THAT to the subway and if I want to use the commuter rail to the other parts of MA I have to take the subway into Boston first. in other words to get to my friend who is accidentally accessible by public transport (only one friend is) I must walk a mile to the bus, take the bus to the subway, take the subway to north station to transfer to the commuter rail, then take that 40 miles instead of 30 because I had to go 10 miles south to access the train that goes north and the whole thing I think takes around 4 hours?
It’s a 30 minute drive.
So yeah, if the other countries want to complain about gas prices, WE REALLY FUCKING NEED THEM THAT LOW. Public transport is non-existent outside of major cities even if you are fairly close to one. It’s not just trains my town only has the ONE BUS and it goes down ONE ROAD ONLY it has less range then the FUCKING SCHOOL BUSES DO.
and this is a big deal because millennials can’t afford their own cars. Any job that requires reliable transport DOES NOT mean public transport (because ours is poorly maintained and usually late/broken even if you have access) so that means almost every job requires “owns a car”
I have wondered why I never hear people from the US talk about taking the train, this explains it :o
We have an Amtrak station in my town but I’ve only used it a few times. 1. It goes through each direction once a day. I would absolutely love to take the train to Minneapolis when I go because I hate driving in MSP but the times are impossible for a day trip. 2. For Minneapolis or Chicago, it takes longer than driving and it’s also more expensive, especially for more than one person. 3. I did take it to New York once for a bit less than flying but it was a 20 hour trip. Even with driving to Minneapolis or Madison to go to the airport I can be in NYC in 5 hours flying. I could drive to NYC in 12-14 hours. 4. It’s NEVER on time, because passenger trains have to give way to freight trains. And I’m talking anywhere from 2 hours late to being cancelled altogether and Amtrak chartering buses to take us to Chicago because the train was going to be more than 8 hours late because of a derailment out west
I would, however, love to see the development of more high speed passenger railways.
This is Canada.
It might not look like much, but most of us basically don’t stray too far north. I’ve only ridden lines in Toronto and Vancouver, but it’s a pretty decent network for the population of our country.
Also, this is GO, the main GTA public transit system.
What can be done to deter pharmaceutical companies from jacking up prices of critical drugs? To prevent Wall Street banks from excessive gambling? To nudge CEOs into taking a longer-term view? To restrain runaway CEO pay?
Answer to all four: Fulfill Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign pledge.
When he ran for president, Bill Clinton said he’d bar companies from deducting executive pay above $1 million. Once elected, he asked his economic advisors (among them, yours truly) to put the measure into his first budget.
My colleagues weren’t exactly enthusiastic about the new president’s campaign promise. “Maybe there’s some way we can do this without actually limiting executive pay,” one said.
“Look, we’re not limiting executive pay,” I argued. “Companies could still pay their executives whatever they wanted to pay them. We’re just saying society shouldn’t subsidize through the tax code any pay over a million bucks.”
They weren’t convinced.
“Why not require that pay over a million dollars be linked to company performance?” said another. “Executives have to receive it in shares of stock or stock options, that sort of thing. If no linkage, no deduction.”
“Good idea,” a third chimed in. “It’s consistent with what the President promised, and it won’t create flak in the business community.”
“But,” I objected, “we’re not just talking about shareholders. The pay gap is widening in this country, and it affects everybody.”
“Look, Bob,” said the first one. “We shouldn’t do social engineering through the tax code And there’s no reason to declare class warfare. I think we’ve arrived at a good compromise. I propose that we recommend it to the President.”
The vote was four to one. The measure became section 162(m) of the IRS tax code. It was supposed to cap executive pay. But it just shifted executive pay from salaries to stock options.
After that, not surprisingly, stock options soared – becoming by far the largest portion of CEO pay.
When Bill Clinton first proposed his plan, compensation for CEOs at America’s 350 largest corporations averaged $4.9 million. By the end of the Clinton administration, it had ballooned to $20.3 million. Since then, it’s gone into the stratosphere.
And because corporations can deduct all this from their corporate income taxes, you and I and other taxpayers have been subsidizing this growing bonanza.
Hillary Clinton understands this. “When you see that you’ve got CEO’s making 300 times what the average worker’s making you know the deck is stacked in favor of those at the top,” she’s said in her presidential campaign.
And she’s taken direct aim at executive stock options.
“Many stock-heavy pay packages have created a perverse incentive for executives to seek the big payouts that could come from a temporary rise in share price,” she said in July. “And we ended up encouraging some of the same short-term thinking we meant to discourage.”
Yes, we did. Specifically, her husband and his economic team did.
Case in point: In 2014, pharmaceutical company Mylan put in place a one-time stock grant worth as much as $82 million to the company’s top five executives if Mylan’s earnings and stock price met certain goals by the end of 2018.
But the executives would get nothing if the company – whose star product is the EpiPen allergy treatment – failed to meet the target. Almost immediately, Mylan began stepping up the pace of EpiPen price increases. The price of an EpiPen two-back doubled to $600 – a move Hillary Clinton has rightfully called “outrageous.”
Stock options doled out to Wall Street executives in the early 2000s didn’t exactly encourage good behavior, either. They contributed to the near meltdown of the Street and a taxpayer-funded bailout.
Now that Wall Street is no longer restrained by the terms of the bailout, it’s back issuing stock options with a vengeance.
According to a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies, the top 20 banks paid their executives over $2 billion in performance bonuses between 2012 and 2015. That translates into a taxpayer subsidy of $1.7 million per executive per year.
Hillary Clinton has proposed penalizing pharmaceutical companies like Mylan that suddenly jack up the prices of crucial drugs. And she’s promised to go after big banks that make excessively risky bets.
These are useful steps. But she should also consider a more basic measure, which would better align executive incentives with what’s good for the public.
It’s doing what her husband pledged to do in 1992, if elected president – but which his economic advisors then sabotaged: Bar corporations from deducting all executive pay in excess of $1 million. Period.
We usually see “elephants”—or “wolves” or “killer whales” or “chimps” or
“ravens” and so on—as interchangeable representatives of their kind.
But the instant we focus on individuals, we see an elephant named Echo
with exceptional leadership qualities; we see wolf 755 struggling to
survive the death of his mate and exile from his family; we see a lost
and lonely killer whale named Luna who is humorous and stunningly
gentle. We see individuality. It’s a fact of life. And it runs deep.
Very deep.
Individuality
is the frontier of understanding non-human animals. But for decades, the
idea was forbidden territory. Scientists who stepped out of bounds
faced withering scorn from colleagues. Jane Goodall experienced just
that. After her first studies of chimpanzees, she enrolled as a doctoral
student at Cambridge. There, as she later recalled in National
Geographic, “It was a bit shocking to be told I’d done everything wrong.
Everything. I shouldn’t have given them names. I couldn’t talk about
their personalities, their minds or their feelings.” The orthodoxy was:
those qualities are unique to humans.
But these
decades later we are realizing that Goodall was right; humans are not
unique in having personalities, minds and feelings. And if she’d given
the chimpanzees numbers instead of names?—their individual personalities
would still have shined.
“If ever there
was a perfect wolf,” says Yellowstone biologist Rick McIntyre, “It was
Twenty-one. He was like a fictional character. But real.” McIntyre has watched free-living wolves for
more hours than anyone, ever.
Even from a
distance Twenty-one’s big-shouldered profile was recognizable. Utterly
fearless in defense of his family, Twenty-one had the size, strength,
and agility to win against overwhelming odds. “On two occasions, I saw
Twenty-one take on six attacking wolves—and rout them all,” Rick says.
“Watching him felt like seeing something that looked supernatural. Like
watching a Bruce Lee movie. I’d be thinking, ‘A wolf can’t do what I am
watching this wolf do.’” Watching Twenty-one, Rick elaborates, “was like
watching Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan—a one-of-a-kind talent outside
of ‘normal.’”
Twenty-one was a
superwolf. Uniquely, he never lost a fight and he never killed any
defeated opponent. And yet Twenty-one was “remarkably gentle” with the
members of his pack. Immediately after making a kill he would often walk
away and nap, allowing family members who’d had nothing to do with the
hunt eat their fill.
One
of Twenty-one’s favorite things was to wrestle little pups. “And what
he really loved to do,” Rick adds, “was pretend to lose. He just got a
huge kick out of it.” Here was this great big male wolf. And he’d let
some little wolf jump on him and bite his fur. “He’d just fall on his
back with his paws in the air,” Rick half-mimes. “And the
triumphant-looking little one would be standing over him with his tail
wagging.
“The ability to
pretend,” Rick adds, “shows that you understand how your actions are
perceived by others. I’m sure the pups knew what was going on, but it
was a way for them to learn how it feels to conquer something much
bigger than you. And that kind of confidence is what wolves need every
day of their hunting lives.”
In Twenty-one’s
life, there was a particular male, a sort of roving Casanova, a
continual annoyance. He was strikingly good-looking, had a big
personality, and was always doing something interesting. “The best
single word is ‘charisma,’” says Rick. “Female wolves were happy to mate
with him. People absolutely loved him. Women would take one look at
him—they didn’t want you to say anything bad about him. His
irresponsibility and infidelity; it didn’t matter.”
One day,
Twenty-one discovered this Casanova among his daughters. Twenty-one ran
in, caught him, biting and pinning him to the ground. Other pack members
piled in, beating Casanova up. “Casanova was also big,” Rick says, “but
he was a bad fighter.” Now he was totally overwhelmed; the pack was
finally killing him.
“Suddenly
Twenty-one steps back. Everything stops. The pack members are looking at
Twenty-one as if saying, ‘Why has Dad stopped?’” The Casanova wolf
jumped up and—as always—ran away.
After
Twenty-one’s death, Casanova briefly became the Druid pack’s alpha male.
But, Rick recalled: “He doesn’t know what to do, just not a leader
personality.” And although it’s very rare, his year-younger brother
deposed him. “His brother had a much more natural alpha personality.”
Casanova didn’t mind; it meant he was free to wander and meet other
females. Eventually Casanova and several young Druid males met some
females and they all formed the Blacktail pack. “With them,” Rick
remembers, “he finally became the model of a responsible alpha male and a
great father.”
The personality of a wolf ‘matriarch’ also helps shape the
whole pack. Wolf Seven was the dominant female in her pack. But you
could watch Seven for days and say, ‘I think she’s in charge,’ because
she led subtly, by example. Wolf Forty, totally different; she led with
an iron fist. Exceptionally aggressive, Forty had done something unheard
of: actually deposed her own mother.
For three
years, Forty ruled the Druid pack tyrannically. A pack member who stared
a moment too long would find herself slammed to the ground, Forty’s
bared canines poised above her neck. Yellowstone research director Doug
Smith recalls, “Throughout her life she was fiercely committed to always
having the upper hand, far more so than any other wolf we’ve observed.”
Forty heaped her worst abuse on her same-age sister. Because this sister
lived under Forty’s brutal oppression, she earned the name Cinderella.
One year
Cinderella split from the main pack and dug a den to give birth. Shortly
after she finished the den, her sister arrived and delivered one of her
infamous beatings. Cinderella just took it, as always. No one ever saw
any pups at that den.
The next year,
Cinderella, Forty, and a low-ranking sister all gave birth in dens dug
several miles apart. New wolf mothers nurse and guard constantly; they
rely on pack members for food. That year, few pack members visited the
bad-tempered alpha. Cinderella, though, found herself well assisted at
her den by several sisters.
Six weeks after
giving birth, Cinderella and several attending pack members headed out,
away from her den—and stumbled into the queen herself. Forty
immediately attacked Cinderella with was, even for her, exceptional
ferocity. She then turned her fury onto another of her sisters who’d
been accompanying Cinderella, giving her a beating too. Then as dusk
settled in, Forty headed toward Cinderella’s den. Only the wolves saw
what happened next, but Doug Smith and Rick McIntyre pieced together
what went down.
Unlike the
previous year, this time Cinderella wasn’t about to remain passive or
let her sister reach her den and her six-week-old pups. Near the den a
fight erupted. There were at least four wolves, and Forty had earned no
allies among them.
At dawn, Forty
was down by the road covered in blood, and her wounds included a neck
bite so bad that her spine was visible. Her long-suffering sisters had,
in effect, cut her throat. She died. It was the only time researchers
have ever known a pack to kill its own alpha. Forty was an
extraordinarily abusive individual. The sisters’ decision, outside the
box of wolf norms, was: mutiny. Remarkable.
But Cinderella
was just getting started. She adopted her dead sister’s entire brood.
And she also welcomed her low-ranking sister and her pups. And so that
was the summer that the Druid Peak pack raised an unheard-of twenty-one
wolf pups together in a single den.
Out from under Forty’s brutal reign, Cinderella developed into the
pack’s finest hunter. She later went on to become the benevolent
matriarch of the Geode Creek pack. Goes to show: a wolf, as many a
human, may have talents and abilities that wither or flower depending on
which way their luck breaks.
“Cinderella was
the finest kind of alpha female,” Rick McIntyre says. “Cooperative,
returning favors by sharing with the other adult females, inviting her
sister to bring her pups together with her own while also raising her
vanquished sister’s pups—. She set a policy of acceptance and cohesion.”
She was, Rick says, “perfect for helping everyone get along really
well.”
To treat common mites, beekeepers coat their bees in powdered sugar. This kills the mites but doesn’t hurt the bees, and they will clean it off anyway. It does, however, make them look like tiny bee ghosts until they groom themselves.
Skunks are natural predators of bees. They will grab a mouthful of bees and suck the juices out before spitting out the bees’ carcasses. To keep the skunks from doing this, beekeepers will build their hives high enough that the skunks have to reach their front paws up to get to the hives. This way, their bellies are exposed and the bees are able to fight back and sting them. Either way, bees die.
Bees are curious, and they may follow you around for a while just to see what you’re doing. Most bees will trail you for a yard or two, but one breed will stalk you for up to half a mile.
*** bees are curious** that is adorable omg
I would be interested in seeing a skunk grab a mouthful of bees. And i like how bees went from curious to stalking real quick
Okay but no one included a picture of ghost bees soooo here:
I was talking with a beekeeper at my parent’s summer blowout party over the weekend (my life is awesome in the oddest ways) and he clued me in to a kind of bee called the ankle-biter that has been bred to fight mites in other bee colonies by BITING OFF AND EATING THE LEGS OF THE MITES and if that isn’t the coolest thing then get the fuck out I am 1000000% here for those bees
I was VERY WORRIED THERE for a second because it almost looks like a– bunch of fungus covered partially dead bunch of bees or something. But that is precious. They’re little… linen-looking small walking sugar collections. Excellent.
I had to look up sugar coated bees myself and I found this beauty:
@james-tee CLAUDIA!!! I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THIS WAS A THING!! SUGAR BEEEEEES.
ACTUAL SUGAR BEES OMG
The memes were true: sweet dreams really are made from bees.
-Got a free salted caramel frappacino from the suspectedly gay barista, Parker
-Sold a bra to the mom of a sixteen year old girl who was cringing the entire time
-Had a very engaging conversation with a three year old boy about colors. We both like blue.
-Served an old woman who I thought had an impressive mustache, but it was just nose hair
-Watched her and two other women with her get trapped between two sets of automatic doors because they did not understand how to open them. How they got through the first set, I still do not know.
-Sold fifteen gallons of kitty litter to a soccer mom who refused to break eye contact
-Got a second free starbucks drink. This one was a pumpkin pie one that wasn’t even on the menu. I like this barista man.
-Gave dozens of children stickers. Several of them squealed when they got them. This is the best part of my job.
-Sold an old man $200 of furniture and got him to sign up for a Target credit card. Before he finished the last step, he turned and walked away with his cart without a word.
-He still hadn’t paid. I called him back and he apologized, saying “sorry, sometimes my diabetes makes me do that.” He didn’t finish getting the card.
-A woman came up with $220 of items. After a wad of coupons and a stack of free gift cards from other promotions, her total went down to $55. I want her to teach me.
-Saw a girl skipping down the aisle in what can only be described as a pink princess fairy wedding dress. She was filled with happiness and if I hadn’t been on the clock I would have taken her. At the very least, I want that outfit for my own.
-Got approached by a large man named Jason. He told me not to steal. I will take this advice to heart.
-Met a woman referred to only as The Cat Lady. She asked if I wanted her to buy me a keychain from Ross. I told her I had no keys. She nodded solemnly and walked away, whispering their exact location inside Ross, just in case.
-Got called into the HR Head’s office at the end of my shift. I was expecting to be yelled at for some reason. She and another lead showered me in compliments for ten minutes straight, saying a lot of managers had been saying great things about me all day. Not what I expected, but I’ll take it.
Day Two:
-Intimidating farmer man in overalls and pigtails came through my checkout. He bought a bucket. He spoke no words. He made no eye contact. He left me with questions.
-Three college boys came through, each buying spandex and makeup wipes. They spoke no words. They made too much eye contact. They left me with more questions. I question when this job will provide answers.
-A three year old came through, pushed by his personal chauffeur. He bought one small Spider-Man onesie. He carried out the entire transaction on his own. He was the most polite customer I have had so far.
-Three people walked away without their change. Only two returned.
-A man bought thirty light bulbs with a coupon. He told me he did not need thirty light bulbs. He just likes coupons.
-He then walked to customer service, claiming to have returned several things he did not mean to. He then walked a lap around the store and left. He did not leave the store with his light bulbs. They were nowhere to be found.
-A customer came through looking nervous. She leaned over the counter. She whispered to me. Someone had pooped in the baby supplies aisle. All evidence pointed to it not being a baby.
Day Three:
-Two children came through the line. They were chanting to their mom through heavy streams of tears. “WE WANT STICKERS MOMMY.” There were no stickers at any of the registers. They continued crying. I failed my people.
-An old woman bought five bottles of wine and a large bottle of vodka. Her license told me she had lived through World War II. Her smile told me she was still living.
-I sorted through the candy in the checkout lanes. I was meant to set aside candy that had expired in the last month. A box of Kit Kats was found that had expired in February of 2015. One was missing. I hope the poor sap is okay.
-Clearance school supplies have arrived. A man bought 71 spiral notebooks for $6. A woman bought 110 folders for $4. I hope they meet each other. I would like to see the child of two math problem characters.
-A bearded man named Rusty came through. I sold him a bottle of Crystal Light powder and a gallon of water. The powder was empty. The water jug had an inch of pink water left in it. How long has he been inside the store already. His beard intimidated me too much to ask.
-An elderly man in a fedora pushed two full carts into my lane. They were both filled to the brim. He bought 52 12-packs of Mountain Dew. 12 were diet. He repeatedly told me he was 80 years old. As I handed him his receipt, he leaned in and whispered, “I’m going to get DRUNK.” He pointed at his carts, smiled at me, and scurried away with his definitively alcoholic purchase. I wonder if he knows. I wonder if he cares.
Day Four:
-The store is having a 10% off your entire purchase sale. I have a coupon to scan if anyone asks for it. I scan it if people don’t ask for it if they’re nice to me. I don’t scan it if they’re rude. Power is a new sensation. Power is a good sensation.
-
Because of the sale, we have been flooded with guests itching for a bargain. When I need to go on my break, the manager has to stand in front of the line and tell people to go somewhere else. As the line died down, I prepared to leave. A new wave of people approached. She whispered to me “run as soon as you can.” I did not see her after my break.
-An old man comes through the line and loudly announces that “this is a cash thing. No cards!” His clarity is appreciated, but also questioned.
-A young man follows him. He jokes, “this is a card thing. No cash!” His smile shows he was a kind man. His joke shows he was a dad.
-A confused teenager follows after. He whispers, “……….cash”. He thinks he has to announce his payment type. I do not correct him.
-Children continue to handle their own transactions. This makes my day good. One girl had her own wallet and told me “thank you for your help, sir”. This makes my day great.
-
Five hours into my shift, I discover small figurines of Bambi and Pluto behind my register screen. Knowing that I am experiencing the happiest place on earth for a bargain price is nice.
-A customer purchased hard salami. The store sells a product called hard salami. How anyone can work or shop here with a straight face remains beyond me.
-A small girl waits in the cart as her mother pays for her transaction. She decides she had enough. She shouts, “Let me out of here!” She attempts to leave the cart. She realizes the walls are too tall. She sits down and accepts her fate with a shocking level of grace.
-A grown man sees a coloring book on a shelf. He calls after his wife, who has already walked away. “There’s a coloring book here. This is just pitiful.” No one has any response for this.
-I met a man who looked like Harry Potter if, instead of getting out of the cupboard at age eleven, he stayed in there for fifteen more years with nothing but Red Bull and My Chemical Romance albums.
-A woman gets 69 cents back in change. I know that I will likely get reprimanded if I make a 69 joke to a customer. I do not speak to the customer any further. I am trying to decide if it is worth losing my job or not.
-A little girl in basketball shorts kicks the candy rack multiple times. I expect her to turn around and show that she is throwing a fit. Instead, she seems calm and please. She is having the time of her life. I look forward to seeing where life takes her.
-A child in my lane gets a toy. A child in the next lane yells at him for having a toy when he does not. Toy-having child prepares to throw the toy at toy-lacking child. Parents pick up their respective children. Thus ends the Baby Feud of 2016.
Paris-based artist Dorota Pankowskawas inspired by the twitter logo construction, which was made from 13 circles. She challenged herself to create figures of 13 animals with the geometric shape.
Pankowska confesses: “Only 13 circles? I doubt most of the animals will even be recognizable…” but surprisingly, I was pretty happy with what turned out. Sometimes I was even happy before I hit 13 circles, and I would “cheat” a little by adding the remaining circles on a sharp corner to simply round it out a little, instead of being forced to change the shape of the animal. But hey. :)