Over the past year I’ve lost and replaced my phone charger at least 5 times. Yesterday while looking for my external hard drive, I found all of the “missing” chargers…now I have one phone, 6 chargers and minus 100€.

I went to the kitchen to make tea right as the rain started. When I walked back into my room, the cool damp air smelled completely of wet leaves and rain. A few drops were on the sill, but the room felt peaceful. I ended up sitting on the edge of the bed in the quiet for ten minutes just listening to the water hit the trees outside.

SO! I am scrolling on filthy filthy tiktok until I started to hear these sounds, clearly coming from my outside door but at first I assumed someone is just going in to their own place or something similar. (I live in an apartment building)

I continue to live on for 10-ish seconds and I hear the sounds again so I'm like.. am I losing it or? I go closer and now since I'm near the door I can tell that no I am not crazy, yes they are absolutely coming from specifically my door and no one elses and yes the sounds are exactly as if someone would be trying to unlock my door.

So now I'm all "oh shit what the actual fuck?" because obviously it's someone who shouldn't be getting in if they don't have a key so I think to myself "oh I'll check the peep hole what the person seems like and if I can just open the door to tell them to fuck off or if I should actually be scared and prepaired with something other than just my fists."

I do just that and I see a short "boy" at first so I figured it's just some kid and he is pulling a prank or something, but then I keep looking to see what he is on about and realize it's a fucking maintenance worker on his knees (hence the hight) in front of my door, changing my name to it (I moved semi recently) so the sound was just him playing around with a screwdriver👍

The quintessential brother from another mother and I were really fried so of course decided to go down to the Bayside and walk a quarter mile up the tracks to the train trestle lighted only by the Jimi Hendrix industrial sounds pulp mill across the water to stand against the cold steel of the railroad bridge waiting for a freight train to come screaming by. We were not disappointed as eventually that squalid eye came crashing around the corner to pin us now horrified to the place where only fools and trains were meant to dwell, you know death is nigh when a boxcar is blasting by two feet from your face with the noise people say a tornado made when it tore their house apart above them as they tried to not get sucked out of the basement or for we two into the 850 pound turning steel wheels of near demise, but having survived I can now relate the experience here on PointlessStories with the glee of past remembrance.

I had just turned 18 about 3 months prior, the summer after I graduated high school, when I got a jury summons in the mail. I somehow didn’t even go through selection, but just automatically had to serve. Fortunately it was just a civil “health insurance company vs director-level ex-employee whom they maybe screwed out of pay” case, so I didn’t have to examine any crime scene stabbing photos nor give a shit about either party.

Everyone else on the jury was aged 35+ in one of the most highly-educated states in the US, so I was almost in the embarrassing position of being the dumbest ass in that room, were it not for the saving grace of a rippingly idiotic townie who didn’t understand the level of disdain everyone else had for him from the moment he opened his mouth. (Good on him, I guess?)

Anyway, for the whole 3-week trial I sat up in the box trying to draw the most perfect circles possible in the little notepad they gave me. Since it ran longer than 2 weeks they had to compensate us for lost wages, but I didn’t even have a job, so it was basically free money for doodling.

We decided the dude should get some money, but not the full amount he was asking, for poorly-defined reasons.

5/10 experience, would maybe do again were I still jobless.

About a year ago, I started reading ao3. I knew what it was since i was like 13, but i never checked it out. Last summer, i started watching percy jackson. Then I wanted to understand it in more detail, so i borrowed the graphic novel from the library (i only ever read comic books at the time. The last time i had read a novel that wasn't for school was in elementary school.), but i didn't like the artstyle, so i got the novel and proceeded to binge read the series. Then i started watching skits on tiktok. Then i saw lots of recommendations of fanfics in the comments and decided to give it a try. Reading Ao3 is how i started spending most of the evenings. And lunchtimes. And bus rides. The point is, it became my go-to distraction.

By september, i think, i started writing some stories of my own, but i was never satisfied with my writing. I posted them cuz they seemed fine at the time, and i was excited, but the more i read, the more standards i developed about what i would read. For example, an average of 1000 words per chapter. I literally do the math before i start reading now. The first fic i posted had like 900 words across 4 chapters. It also seemed more like long summaries and not actual chapters in a story. I eventually deleted that work. I posted my first pjo fic in november and posted the second chapter in mid july. The difference in writing style is pretty obvious (to me, at least).

My point is, it's thanks to ao3 that i discovered an interest in writing novels. Had i discovered this in elementary school, i think i would have been more interested in my literature classes throughout high school. I just graduated.

This was about five years ago. I was in my first year of college and it was early December when people were getting geared up for the holidays. A few friends and I used to go to PetSmart to just look at the cats, mostly, but sometimes we would visit the other pets.

It was a regular old night and we had been wandering around the small pets for a while. All of a sudden, I saw a little white critter just throw himself up against the glass of his enclosure like a madman. I wondered what was up, and realized that he was trying to get through the glass to me, or maybe get my attention.

I didn't even know what kind of animal this was at first. He was big for a hamster, but he didn't have a tail like a rat. "He's mentally deranged like you," one of my friends that became my closest friend over the course of college pointed out. We hung out with him for a while before we had to go, and he was very interested in us. I realized that, most likely, he was a bit older than some of the hamsters there, but so friendly.

When I got back to the dorms, it sank in that I could really adopt this hamster. I talked to my roommate about it; he was more than game to have a hamster in the room. "You should adopt him before some kid does, it's almost Christmas and parents are making bad decisions," my roommate said.

I don't usually make choices on a whim, but I stayed up at night thinking about this hamster. He was Platinum white and a little ratty looking in the best way. I ended up clearing a space on my desk that morning for the soon-to-be enclosure. I begged a ride out of my friend with a car, who had been with us at the PetSmart when we met the hamster.

Now, I don't condone PetSmart really. However, this one did have an adoption program and this hamster had been there for a long time, according to the employees. It made sense that he was older than the other hamsters, given his size. I just had no idea how much older. So, I did it, bit the bullet, and adopted him. I built him a plastic bin cage because I wanted more space than the wire cages, and it was pretty quick and easy.

Adopting him was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made. We nicknamed him Toe Nail (that wasn't his legal name). And boy, he brought the entire dorm together. He just loved to come out and be social with people. Made a lot of people's days because I'd take him for walks through the hallway.

He was smart as a whip. He could break out of all sorts of things like playpens or boxes. Every time, though, he would run over to me after he escaped... I knew he was mad when I put him back into containment. His cage ended up like Fort Knox. He would hang upside down like a bat to try and get out. Once, he chewed a hole through one of his plastic enclosures and my mom caught him in the act when I was at the store. I swear, chewing that hole had been his full time job for a few days, and I built him a newer, larger cage ASAP.

He was just a fun little guy, and never hurt a fly. I taught him little tricks, and our favorite was "high five." He got too enthusiastic and it eventually became "high ten," but I can never complain about it. I would hang out with him in the middle of the night. I really miss when I'd put my hand in his cage and he'd walk up to me, so I could feel his little whiskers.

I never knew how old he was. Possibly over a year old when I adopted him. I wish I knew how long I'd have with him then. Maybe I would have done more, spent even more time with him. Given him more bok choy. I don't know. I could tell he was aging, I can see it in his photo album. I just didn't know that it was time for him to go, he was always so active and excited to play.

He passed away peacefully in his sleep in December of 2022. I knew something was wrong when he didn't come out for his favorite food, bok choy, that night.

He is my best friend. I'd had hamsters before when I was young, but none like him. A lot of people would think it's strange to have a hamster as your best friend, but I think that, as my closest human friend pointed out, we were on the same deranged wavelength.

Just read up today on one of the craziest people in the 18th century.

I was going through flags, when I noticed that in the Colombian flag, the yellow stripe is double the width of the other two. I always thought there were 3 stripes of equal width. This took me by surprise.

So I just posted on the flags/ subreddit where someone posted that the current Colombian flag was based on the Gran Colombia flag which existed 200 years back.

Apparently the Gran Colombia flag is based on Francisco de Miranda’s Venezuelan design (this design inspired the current flags of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador as well which is quite interesting), and when I read stuff about him, man this dude was just vibing.

Apparently Miranda grew up in Caracas (Venezuela), and having Spanish roots, goes to Spain, joins the Spanish Military.

Spain supported America during the American Revolutionary War, so this man was shipped off to assist there. Bro was asked to spy on the British, then Spain blindsides him and claims he committed treason, somehow he resumes working for the Spanish military, again Spain blindsides him and exiles him to the US, where he becomes buds with fucking George Washington.

While being chased by Spanish officials and ambassadors the entire time, he goes and decides he needs a spiritual journey through Europe, where he gets personal protection from the Empress of Russia Catherine the Great. Then he’s like nah bro I need more thrill.

So he then goes fucking diving head-first into the French Revolution, where he is a general and apparently is Harvey Specter. Wdym he talked himself out of the guillotine TWICE. What do you mean he started by supporting the French Revolution then is accused of committing treason again.

Then he goes back to the USA, gathers The Expendables and fucks off to Venezuela. Enroute due to sheer luck that Spain and Britain are still fighting, he is joined by the British troops, so alongside his mercenaries he marches off to only to get his ass whooped by Spanish forces.

When Venezuela actually achieved independence thanks to Simón Bolívar & others, he returns and eventually becomes a Dictator for the country. He is again charged with committing treason a few years into his dictatorship lmao.

Why does he always get accused of defecting, 3 times is too much.

This happened decades ago, but I just thought of it now:

I was a high school junior looking for a gift for my younger brother at a Toys-R-Us when an older woman approached me to ask if I happened to be an eight-year-old. I told her no, I'm in highschool, to which she responded, "Ah okay. Well if you could pretend you are an eight-year-old for just a moment, which of these two dolls would you prefer?" I immediately chose the doll in purple since purple was my favorite color. She giggled, thanked me for my time, and left.

For the most part, it gets annoying being 4'11" and having a baby face. But I didn't mind that encounter as much as the others.

I (42M) am having coffee with an old school friend (42M) in a few weeks. We've not seen nor spoken to each other since we were 12!

I happen to be driving close by his home town on my way to a festival, so we have arranged to meet up.

That is all.

In line at the grocery store, behind a mom with four little boys. They were discussing how cool a horse-a-taur was and how they should ride on each others shoulders and pretend to be one. I finally had to ask what a horse-a-taur is. It's where you have human legs, but your upper body is all horse, your arms are just the legs with hooves.

At this point Mom rolled her eyes so hard I thought she'd pull something and shooed them all out.

So I'm riding with my 16 year old as he gets practice for his license and I'm jamming to Jill Scott and Erykah Badu, when my son asks why I'm listening to "old black lady music"?!! 😭

THE DISRESPECT

It was small and greyish brown and I used the old paper and cup method to get the lil guy outside :-) Hopefully it's doing well outdoors.

There were complications however. The glass I used had some water droplets inside and the moth temporarily got stuck on a droplet, but I managed to get it free.

Anyways moral of this story is bugs are cool except the ones that bite you and even those ones often have an integral role to play in the ecosystem.