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gallusrostromegalus · 10 months

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I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

~*Spiritual Experience*~

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

His process for unloading the fireworks is to 1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls. 2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things. 3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed 4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup. 5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her. 6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house. 7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too. 8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate 9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed 10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.

Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man? Answer: Absolutely Not.

There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else. (This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual) Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally. Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.

I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.

However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up. and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop" And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."

For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."

I move under the eaves. "Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled." "Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not." "Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."

Sometimes, the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.

The Gods were not merciful today.

It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this, But I got to see it today. Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before. Oh. I realized as it got closer. That's RAIN.

Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say, five to tent square miles, is instead concentrated into an area of say, my neighborhood exactly.

So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.

The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel. Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge. Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.

My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp. They do not have a tarp. They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.

Which is when the hail begins.

"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy. "HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!" "OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"

I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic. The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor. Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.

So. I was raised Agnostic -but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.

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(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)

#Family Lore #Long Post #Local Man Experiences Local Weather

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bomberqueen17 · 8 months

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letters

So in 1944 my grandpa got tuberculosis. It was bad enough that they sent him to a sanitarium up in the Adirondacks for a rest cure, which was what was recommended at the time. He'd been married to my grandmother for just a little while; they had a son, my uncle, and she was pregnant with my dad.

While he was there he wrote letters daily. He wrote a lot of letters, I think, to his parents and sister and friends. But the ones he sent to his wife, my grandma, she kept.

I don't know the chronology of it all, but after Grandma died, probably my dad found the packet of letters, as he was the one who went through her effects-- might have been his little sister, my aunt. Anyway the packet got circulated around, and then came back to my dad, who carefully organized all of the letters into a binder with individual plastic archival sleeves. Someone asked after them recently, and Mom found them and pulled them out. I was over there today, feeding her cat while she's on vacation, and so I leafed through them.

Grandpa's handwriting is similar, a bit, to my late father's, so I was able to read it reasonably easily. He started strong, the first letter he recounts how he fared in the rainstorm he'd apparently left home in, and then asks how Grandma fared.

How are you, my Baby? Did your schooner of sleep bear you safely thru the storm? If it didn't then you won't be reading this sorry excuse for a letter.

In that same letter he goes on to say,

Zounds! How can I create in this infernal bedlam? All the patients are up (as far as possible) and braying, the phone is ringing, Ma is delivering the Gettysburg Address + Pa is making more noise with a piece of wrapping paper than I could make with a hammer and a piece of steele [sic].

It rapidly escalates from there, and in a later letter he explains that the rest cure was so boring he had literally nothing to do, nothing to write home about, and so in an effort to keep from dwelling on how much he hated it there, he would write these flowery, possibly-repetitive love letters, because he simply had nothing else to talk about.

Your accounts of the marital woes of the [illegible, probably neighbors] are really hair-raising, but I don't think that the happiness of our marriage is due entirely to good fortune. As I have always said, we were made for each other a long, long time ago and our hearts refused to love anyone until the right one came along.

Looking at the postmarks, I realized they dated from right around the time of my father's birth, so I found the one that was sent the day after Dad was born, and it did not disappoint.

My beloved Words cannot express just how I feel this morning; I am all mixed up. You are so wonderful that sometimes I wonder what I ever did to deserve you. You are the one who is increasing our fortunes, for truly our children are the treasures that make us rich. You are so brave, so cool that I hold you in undying amazement. I am sure of one thing, My Darling; I know your sons will love you, not just because you are their mother, but for your own precious self, for the truly great woman you are. For the ordeal you have gone thru to bring these precious lives into being, rest assured of the eternal devotion of your menfolk. Last night all I could think of was you. I heard the night train coming into the station and my heart said "Run, run and catch the train before it is too late. Run to your loved ones and to hell with the results. Run, let nothing keep you from their sides." But my head said, "No, don't undo all that has been done. They also serve who stand and wait. Wait, and by so doing, prove your love to be more than the reckless love of youth, prove it to be the wise, guiding love that lives on long after passion has spent itself and thus spent, dies." And so I waited and the train left without me + my heart hated me for it.

Oh boy I cried, I sure did. (I had to look it up; "They also serve who only stand and wait" is from John Milton's Sonnet XIX.)

He always uses beloved or darling or somesuch as the salutation, but he often refers to her as Red within the text of the letters, because she had red hair. He occasionally made saucy references to their sex life, elsewhere in the letters. But mostly it's absolutely banger shit like this:

My thoughts and deeds, my smiles and tears, my happiness, my loneliness, my joy, my sorrow, my every breath, yea, even the final beat of my loving heart are poor blossoms placed on my altar of adoration, raised in humble gratitude to you.

Her name was Margaret, and I never knew her to have any nicknames, she just went by her name. Except to him, apparently. But as for him-- his government name was John, as was my father's, but my father never had to have a nickname, because there was never a day in his life Grandpa went by John. His name was Buddy, everyone called him Buddy, and he signed his letters as Buddy.

He died in January of 1978 of complications related to the damage to his lungs from the tuberculosis (not directly, but it was related). Grandma was standing in the hallway of the hospital, watching him sleep, waiting for him to wake up so he could meet my older sister, his third grandchild. He never did meet her.

She died in 2002 of congestive heart failure; I'd spent much of the preceding week with her and she'd spoken mostly of him.

#family lore #letters #history i guess

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bookcub · 4 months

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Best Books of 2023

I've already written quite a bit about these books and have a tag #best books of 2023 where I also include my honorable mentions, so here is a rapid fire of my best books of the year!

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual's Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J Brown

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

The Feast Makers by H. A. Clarke

The Mirror Season by Anne-Marie McLemore

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

Painted Devils by Margaret Owen

Sisters of the Neversea by Cynthia Leitich Smith

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

#best books of 2023 #the last tale of the flower bride #the magic fish #little thieves #the daevabad trilogy #kindred #spinning silver #refusing compulsory sexuality #the adventures of amina al sirafi #the scapegracers #family lore

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some1s-sista · 3 months

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I posted this in an Early American group on FB but thought y’all might like the story too.

This table came from my Nana (b. 1910 in Scotland). She kept her little black and white tv on it! When I was younger she told me the table was old when she got it. My grandfather had done some work for someone who couldn’t pay with cash so they gave him this table instead. This would’ve been the late 1930s or 1940s in Walpole MA, as he contracted polio in the epidemic of 1944 and although he survived he wasn’t able to work after that and my Nan had to go to work in the mills. People have said given the original finish, the hand cut dovetails and hand cut drop leaf supports, it was likely 100 years old when they got it, and if not it’s still definitely 1800s.

Oh and I included the last picture which is a spot on the top of the table where the varnish was removed because I spilt nail polish remover on it when I was 9 or 10. That’s probably why she gave it to me! Lol

#antiques #antique #this old house #family lore

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ell-dordo · 3 months

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Ozone family members real?? All of Ozone's family excluding his mother resemble Hale, his genes are dominant.

Windy: little sister

Hale: Dad

#dnd #dnd dragons #dnd oc #dnd character #dnd art #dragons #dragonborndnd #blue dragon #oc #lore #family lore

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ahedderick · 8 months

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For some reason, these old photos have darkened almost too much to see. I was able to fix them a little bit after scanning them. Anyhow, that's me, riding a large pig named Annabelle in 1971. With my father, who is, rather inexplicably, wearing a beret. Why the pig is wandering outside the pigpen with no lead rope or any means of human control is - a mystery for the ages. Honestly, the seventies were just like that.

#farmblr #family lore #pigs #farm animals #hogs

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whilereadingandwalking · 5 months

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Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo is a gorgeous multi-generational novel about the women of the Marte family. Flor has a gift: her dreams predict when someone will die. So when she declares that she wants to throw herself a "living wake" in five weeks, her sisters and daughter are justifiably worried. Stories of all six Marte women—four sisters, and two of their daughters—weave and spin, from their histories in the Dominican Republic all the way through their lives and struggles today in New York City.

Like many multigenerational novels, I sometimes had to remind myself who was who (there's a table of main characters, but I found an old-fashioned family tree much more helpful in keeping everyone straight). There was an interesting formatting choice that I found confounding. At first I thought it introduced flashbacks and memories, but at other times it didn't—I just wish there had been consistency, because without it, the choice just became a strange quirk. Occasionally a quirk of Acevedo's pacing would toss me out of the story unexpectedly as I tried to figure out what the clearly veiled meaning was, or what exactly the implications were meant to be.

But despite my small quirks with the style, Acevedo's novel is emotional, rich, and funny. It's got a quiet, raunchy humor of sex and romance and irony that then turns around and hits you with a little gut punch of emotion right when you least expect it. I live for a multigenerational story, and this one has that with complex sister-sister and mother-daughter relationships, romance, and history, all rolled into a cinematic narrative. It was difficult to put down and easy to fall in love with.

Content warnings for domestic abuse, substance abuse, incarceration, violence, attempted assault.

#family lore #elizabeth acevedo #bookworm #book blog #generational stories #my book reviews

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liminalmemories21 · 6 months

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Nice ask week!!!!

Do you have any "weird" family traditions? And, if you do, do you know how it started?

Thank you!

And, so, so, so many. But the one that comes to mind because it is so niche is October 3rd.

My father is Dutch, and went to university at Leiden. And on October 3, 1574 the siege of Leiden was relieved when the Prince of Oranje (William the Silent, for those playing along at home) broke the dijks and flooded the land around the city causing the Spanish to flee, and the starving townspeople to come out of the city and scavenge what the Spanish had left behind.

When I was a kid, this meant that we at hutspot and gelderse rookworst on October 3rd every year - hutspot is kind of mashed potatoes and carrots and onions, of which I was not a fan, and gelderse rookworst is a smoked sausage, of which I was and am a big fan.

When I went away to college my father wrote an eight stanza poem about the relief of the siege of Leiden and emailed it to me so that I wouldn't forget. I laughed and told a couple of friends about it.

And now 20+ years later this is a thing. My father emails it to me every year. I email it to a group of about 12 friends. And, if I don't get it out early enough in the morning, I get emails asking me where it is, and if I've forgotten what day it is.

These are people who have no connection to Leiden. Most people in the Netherlands don't have this kind of connection to the 3rd of October (unless, presumably, you live in Leiden). But these 12 people all know the story of the relief of the siege of Leiden.

Also, worth noting - the Prince of Oranje was so impressed that the city had held out and not surrendered that he offered them a choice - no taxes in perpetuity, or he would found a university there. They picked the university (or, so the story goes). Which is either extremely long sighted of them, or extremely short sighted.

#nice ask week #family lore

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l0ganberry · 23 days

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Have you guys ever had to explain Welcome Home to any of your family members?

I did and I'm really glad to say that my own Grandma loves Barnaby too.

She was asking me about what I wanted for my birthday so I told her about the Barnaby plush. Which, indeed resulted me to explain what Welcome home is. And I believe she likes it too.

She did said that she loves informational details and long texts. So it was great for me and her on both ends.

#At least she didn't call Barnaby a “gay bear”#My aunt call him that because “of how brightly colored he is”#smh #But at least I'm glad my grandma understands me.#she travels a lot so it's still great to pop in here and there to just talk to her.#especially about my favorite interests #our calls would be for hours but it would always be so fun and worth it.#I felt like sharing this information since it was actually very heartwarming to me to hear positive enlightments #on interests that I am deeply passionate about #same goes to all of you #Another reason why I'm here #is to be involved in something and share about what I'm happy about #and on what I would be greatly happy to do to spend my time on #Anyways #family lore #rambles #welcome home #barnaby b beagle

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hotvintagepoll · 1 month

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family lore- my maternal grandmother’s godmother is Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich’s daughter. Maria is like 90-something, still kicking, and probably healthier than my grandmother. She taught my grandmother how to make Marlene’s special scrambled eggs, and that’s still how we make them today. I told my mom that I voted for her in the poll, and I’m excited to tell my grandmother, because she’ll be pleased <3

(there is more family lore, should there be interest)

the interest is through the roof and I'm wondering how I can politely beg for the scrambled egg recipe

#marlene dietrich #asks #family lore

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gallusrostromegalus · 6 months

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The Van Has Officially Declared It Spooky Season

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I've got my parent's van for the week and it seems determined to establish my status as The Local Cryptid by terrorizing an innocent 7-11 clerk.

...I might need to back up a bit.

My mother is an eminently sensible woman who knows herself well, and when The Plauge hit, she knew she'd need some sort of mentally and physically engaging craft project to keep herself from going insane and massacring the local zoning and water management boards (even if they have it coming). So she and Dad acquired a utility van and converted it into a camper van because while they love camping, they're past the age where their joints and immune systems will tolerate sleeping on the cold ground in a nylon tent.

They did a terrific job of it and my mom taught herself woodworking and carpentry and now the van has it's own cabinets, fold-away dining table, and removable queen-sized bed with memory foam mattress. My Dad was already a computer engineer, but he learned the dark magics of automotive software and electronics to install after-market backup cameras, a media player that would take a terabyte hard drive and a solar-powered battery and outlet so they could wake up and just turn on the kettle and griddle for breakfast without having to exit the van into a cold morning on an empty stomach.

Truly, the height of Camping Luxury.

My parents are both in their mid-seventies and my primary life goal is to be at least half as cool and hale as they are when I get old.

Anyway, they take it out at least a dozen times a year and it works fabulously, but, being as I am on good terms with my parents and also finishing the process of moving house, I've been borrowing it to move large and cumbersome objects that will not fit in the back of my equally lovely but minuscule Honda hatchback.

It's a Great Van. Very easy and comfortable to drive. Stunningly good MPG for it's size. The best cruise control I've ever had in a car.

It's just also. Quirky. Mischievous, even.

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If this van has a fault its that it bears the unfortunate affliction that all lightly used white utility vans have in that the combination of an utter lack of branding features and the large dent/scrape I accidentally put on it while trying to escape a Denny's last Thanksgiving means that this vehicle is one addition of a Badly Spray-Painted "FREE CANDY" on the side away from being the sort of vehicle you see in an edgy horror movie.

It's got the same issue that Doberman Dogs have where they look like the sort of creature that likes to snack on toddler's faces whilst actually having personalities made of marshmallow fluff. This vehicle is unnecessarily menacing and I think nothing short of an airbrushed Epic Van Wizard will correct this. People see this van pull up and lean over and squint suspiciously at me when the driver's side door opens, and then look moderately confused when, instead of Charles Manson, a small, potato-shaped creature with neon purple hair and a statistically unlikely assortment of dogs emerges.

My own two dogs, Herschel the Hanukkah Goblin/Corgi and Charleston Chew The Taco Dumpster Dog, Do Not Like The Van. Even with the bed in it, they have a tendency to slide and roll around in the back, and both WILL chew through dog saftey belts or other attempts to secure them in there.

On the other hand, my house mate's dog, an exceptionally tall standard poodle whom we lovingly call "The Creature", loves the Van because SHE wears her doggy seat-belt with only mild complaining and gets to sit up in the passenger seat like A People.

Also like A People, The Creature likes to stand and walk around on her hind legs. It doesn't hurt her and it's entirely voluntary, but every so often I will feel a hand on my arm and instead of my husband or friend, it's a canine that's taller than I am on her hind legs who wants to stare at my face with soulful, concerned eyes. The Creature's favorite thing is that she is exactly the right height for me to hold her arm in Genteel Fashion and walk around the pet food or hardware store with her like I'm a count escorting a debutante around a royal ball.

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As it stands, I am set to inherit this vehicle whenever my Honda gives up the ghost, and I fully intend to paint an Epic Van Wizard on it when that time comes.

The other peculiarity of The Van is that while Dad did manage to successfully install all his after-market electronics, not all the electronics get along. Sometimes, they fight for Dominance. The Terabyte Music Player and the Backup Camera have a particularly contentious relationship, and turning on the music has about a 25% chance of turning on the backup camera as well, and turning on the Backup Camera is equally likely to turn on the music.

Firthermore, The Van has a favorite song.

I am not kidding that Dad filled an entire terabyte hard drive with music and the software to sort it via the radio controls, but of all the Early Boomer Dad Rock (Kingston Trio over The Eagles) and Irish Folk and Symphonies and the entire discography of Weird Al Yankovic, The Van's favorite song- The one it picks to play as victory music every time it beats the Backup Camera at their weird electronic game of rock-paper-scissors -is The Liberty Bell March by John Phillip Sousa.

You all know this song already.

...but in case you've forgotten the tune:

youtube

Yeah.

The Van's favorite song is the goddamn Monty Python's Flying Circus Theme Music.

It does not play this song at a normal volume.

Every time I turn on the Backup Camera and it manages to turn the music player on as well, The Van insists on absolutely blasting this nonsense on at the maximum volume it's physically capable of producing, which I know is loud enough to be heard from the Denver International Airport's Pickup zone when they Van decided to start playing it from the economy lot about half a mile away.

Perhaps it's The Van's way of honoring the aesthetic sensibilities and sonic enthusiasm of Mr. Sousa.

...I can't help but wonder if the purpose of an Epic Van Wizard is to control this sort of faerie-like malarkey, and channel these chaotic energies into things like Spell of Don't Break Down In Nevada or Enchantment Of Always Have Good Parking.

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So last Friday the 13th, I get a call from my friend and housemate, at said airport.

It's roughly 11PM at night, and I have already retired for the evening. I am in the exact minimum of clothing required to be a decent housemate and not scandalize the neighbors should I happen to walk by a window. My feet are up. There is a cat in my lap and fictional British people murdering each other in highly inventive fashion on the tv. -But my friend has returned from her friend's wedding,and either American or United Airlines has managed to lose her luggage, including, among other valuable possessions, the keys to her car. ...So she cannot just drive home as originally planned.

There are, as luck would have it, her spare set of keys not eight feet from me.

Being a good and decent person, I agree to bring the spare keys to her so she may get home before daybreak and not spend a semester's worth of tuition on an uber across the greater Denver traffic jam.

Being also that she Loves Activities, and it's her mom we're going to pick up, I elect to take along The Creature.

I am primarily focused on remembering how to get to the airport and not leaving my friend's spare keys on the counter, so I throw on a pair of flip-flops, step outside, remember that it's AUTUMN and my minimal evening attire is not sufficient thermal protection, step back in, grab the first coat in the closet I lay hands on, pull it on, check that I have her keys again and leave.

The trip to the airport is largely unremarkable, save that it becomes necessary for me to put on sunglasses to drive, despite it being nearly the witching hour and almost entirely darker than the inside of a cow.

It's necessary because this blissful darkness of night is violently punctured by a startling number of cars that seem to have installed miniaturized but no less powerful lighthouse bulbs in where their headlights ought to go so the oncoming traffic and sports cars that insist on tailgating me in the slow lane alike illuminate the road and my mirrors with the kind of radiance I'd normally associate with the arrival of a Seraphim.

I arrive at the distant highly discounted airport car lot where my housemate is waiting, deeply apologetic. It's nothing. I say. Once I see that your car starts up, I'm gonna go to that 7-11 across the way that I parked in front of, get a slurpee or something and I'll see you at home.

While she is retrieving her vehicle (an equally eccentric but much more stately Subaru that is old enough to be elected to congress) I rifle through the loose change in the glove box and discover that I have exactly $6.66 in small bills and coins. The Subaru, continuing it's long voyage into vehicular immortality, immediately starts up.

Upon her return, we all remember that my friend had all her camping gear in the backseat of the car and there is no room for The Creature to ride home with her parent, so I again assure her it's nothing, and will just take The Creature into the 7-11 with me. She is trained as a service animal and needs the practice after the plague.

I wave my friend off and turn to enter the 7-11.

I promptly trip over the jutting back bumper of The Van and fall, cartoonishly, face-first onto the sidewalk.

Fortunately, I have a lot of practice falling on my face, and have learned not to throw my hands out but instead cover my face, so my unexpected self-inflicted attempted curb-stomping lightly scrapes my hairline and nothing else -my sunglasses even stay in place- and I get up and resume my quest for a slurpee.

It's well known that the airport is a lawless place, and the 7-11 across from the discounted airport parking at the stroke of midnight is no exception.

I know it's the stroke of Midnight because there's one of those Audubon society bird-call clocks that makes bird noises, and my arrival is heralded by the twittering call of a Summer Tanager. I am almost charmed enough by the unusual choice of chronological device to excuse the exorbitant Airport-adjacent mark-up of Slurpee prices. I stand at the machine for some time, trying to decide on a size for the price and guess what the fuck "Blue Lighting Blast" is supposed to taste like.

The Creature is being Very Polite but is somewhat agitated, I assume because she *just* saw her mother for the first time in three days and then she LEFT with no explanation, so The Creature is on her hind legs, staring woefully into my eyes, asking to be escorted around the 7-11. Even though that's not what she's not supposed to be doing, there's nobody else in here, so I let her hang off my arm and discuss various Slurpee Flavor options with her.

We eventually decide on an experiment in which I try a Small Blue Lightning Blast, and discover it tastes a bit like licking a nintendo cartridge but in a pleasantly satisfying way.

I go up to pay and realize something is amiss.

The Cashier is a young man staring at me with wide eyes, one had over the register and the other wrapped up in his rosary.

I look down at myself.

In my haste to reunite my friend with her spare keys and service animal, I had left the house in the following accoutrements:

Flip Flops. Not matching. It's below freezing outside. That last part is not particularly odd footwear for the weather in for Colorado, but it's an important detail for the rest of the ensemble.

Assorted scrapes, bruises, cuts and welts on my arms and legs that come with doing outdoor work and living in a house with three dogs and a fully-clawed cat that all want to be in my lap all the time. It's cold out, so vasoconstriction has pulled the blood away from my skin, a trait that served my ancestors well during the last Ice Age, but leaves me with pale skin to contrast the various wounds and I look like a corpse that fell out of the back of a pickup truck.

The black Bootyshorts with "CRYPTID" painted in bright red gothic font across my ass, that @theshitpostcalligrapher gave me for my wedding present.

A peculiar but extremely comfortable garment that straddles the line between "Lacy Camisole" and "Industrial-Strength Sports Bra" like the Ever Given straddling the Suez Canal. It is also Bright Red. with black accents.

The Jacket I had grabbed out of the closet, which is in fact, a black Velour Dinner Jacket.

The Tokyo-Ghoul inspired reusable anti-covid mask a friend made me with the set of Coyote Teeth.

My sunglasses, which are shaped like a Halloween Bat. The lenses are the wings and the body is the nose bridge. It is ALSO bright red.

A Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle that I have been audibly affectionately calling "Dear Creature" who is hanging off my arm like she's my Prom Date.

The Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle is ALSO dressed up in a black Dog Sweater that has white bones printed on it to look like its an X-ray jacket showing off her skeleton.

I look like I am taking my Very Fancy Werewolf Girlfriend to a particularly casual Dinner Party for Vampires, but the thing that's really selling it and probably alarming the kid the most is the fun accessory I acquired in the parking lot not five minutes earlier:

The "Small Scrape At my Hairline" is actually a painless but PROFUSELY bleeding head wound that I had somehow entirely failed to notice covering my face, neck, decolletage and magnificent cleavage with blood like a Tarantino Film Extra.

This does explain why The Creature has been delicately trying to use her bodyweight to push me down onto the floor for the last ten minutes. So I don't injure myself while we wait for the paramedics she hoped this kid called to arrive, you see.

The Creature has such a High and Naive Opinion of humanity.

I decide this social situation is already fucked, and the only way out is through, and with haste, before I start dripping on the floor.

"Hi there!" I say cheerfully, to indicate this is a visually alarming but not terribly serious situation. "Just a Small Slurpee!"

The Cashier has entered the relevant code into the register before I finish the sentence. His gaze flicks off me just long enough to look at the total, and he grips his Rosary harder.

$6.66

"Oh cool! I have exact change!" I say, taking the money out of my as-yet-unsanguined pocket without looking and slap it down on the counter. "You have a good night and be safe out there!" I wave, leaving.

I get in The Van, mortified, buckle The Creature up, and as I make to leave, I have to put it in reverse, which automatically turns on the backup Camera.

It also turns on the music player.

I make eye contact with the cashier as the dulcet tones of John Phillip Sousa boom from the van hard enough to make the windshield and the windows of the 7-11 rattle for the nine-and-a-half seconds I have to wait to be able to turn the volume back down. Not knowing what else to to, I give him a thumbs up, and leave.

Anyway, now I know what my Future Van Wizard has got to be dressed like, and what their familiar is.

---

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#Family Lore #Dogs #It's Halloween babey #friday the 13th #blood mention #I hope that kid had a good night and at least one of his friends believed him #Long post #Video

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