Non smoking hotels in vegas strip
For Those Visiting Las Vegas
2013.11.14 04:55 16semesters For Those Visiting Las Vegas
Heading to Vegas? Just got back? Have questions about a Vegas trip? This is the sub for you!
2023.03.20 23:07 commonEraPractices A Collection of Short Stories (1)
This is a collection of short stories that have something to do with current events. Enjoy.
2023-03-20
“I see a city on a disk. Though all the powers of the world would like to watch it fall, it won’t. I look at it floating above it all. Above There’s political turmoil. Beyond the grip of local markets, this city spins around the globe. You make your business everyone’s, and in turn, everyone profits from your presence.”
I see a land so cold,” I continued. “That it smokes as if it’s on fire. Like the Mother Sphere pulls you up, the frost brings your people together. This inseparable unity warms each building by your people’s sheer attraction for the Lands of Over-There. What us foreigners see as a frigid barren disk of ill fortuity, where people live barred up inside out of necessity, it’s instead a fortress from anything cold, which hosts every fervent hearted opportunity.”
The lock beeped. The door crept open. She kicked her feet off. A skinny man with both our ages walked in. He was wearing a three-piece suit. This wasn’t uncommon, as each layer made the heating bill less hard to look at. His name and the chain on his matte black visitor’s badge were contrasted with gold.
They spoke in their language.
He said something like hi, how are you, what are you doing here?
She answered something along the lines of hi, I’m doing great, in a meeting, you?
He went on saying precisely “I’m doing twice well”—which is an interesting expression meaning; I was already doing well, but from the moment you asked about me, I started doing twice as well—then I think he said he was also here for a meeting, and “who is he?”
She told him my name, then his name to me. Whom I will refer to as Gotnaym of Over-There.
He greeted me, I presented myself with a customary nod. Which could’ve been considered curt in our culture.
Then it got too wordy for me to understand. They switched languages as he walked over to extend his hand.
Mid-shake, he said in perfect speech, “She tells me your consultancy in There is no circus. I might have some questions later, my son is investing abroad.”
Then he laughed. I tried my hardest to make my confusion pass off as surprise, all while making sure not to loosen my grip nor lose the tempo of the motion, as I smiled in what I hoped to have looked like an agreeing pose.
“He’s not interested in any clown ventures I hope, Mr. Gotnaym,” I said. “I’d be out of my league if he were.”
“That’s exactly why I’d hire you,” he explained. “Thankfully, we’re a line of miners, Mr. Consultant. Hard-working people, who bring along like-minded experts. There are no full-time artists on these disks, I’m afraid.”
I was ready to let go but he wasn’t as willing.
“It’s always a fine moment to meet someone glad to buy into their family,” I concluded. “But I might not be the right hire for advice on how you ought to spend your own money. I don’t know if she's told you my line of work?”
This made him laugh some more. He was still shaking my hand.
“She has, yes!” He looked at her after placing his free hand on my shoulder side. She was completely motionless. “Funny man,” he said in his mother tongue.
“Don’t let me interrupt you, Mr. Consultant. Please continue while we wait,” he said, finally releasing his grip to grab a seat by the backrest.
“While we wait?” I asked him.
“I just is inform,” she said. “Next meeting is push to soon. Temporary lockdown here. Please continuing, Mr. Consultant. You no leaving now.”
“Emergency?” I read in their eyes the impending dread they covered up with an interest in listening only, so they wouldn’t have to think.
“Gladly,” I said. “I guess I’ll find out soon. Thank you for giving me this time out of your day.” She had some relief mixed in with her emotions. The rest of her micro-expressions were of a combination I’ve never noticed twice. It was too particular to recreate in writing or in a film.
“Mr. Consultant talking how city infrastructure be one with immigration,” she explained. “I asking what he see in city.”
“Where was I?” I asked me.
“You were reporting how the cold brings us people together,” he told me.
Wondering if their door wasn’t soundproofed had flooded my head with blood, which drew along this fresh thought frenzy and the terrible idea that anyone could’ve heard us earlier.
“Right,” I said to start hushing my blushing. “The problem. Your city is nothing more than a cold flatland sprinkled with tall boxes where folks come and freeze to death. That’s what they see from below, down in There. When I booked my ticket, my friends argued about who would get what if I didn’t make it back.”
The suitedman sat down.
“To outsiders, to the frigid ones, these lands get people to ratify off on an early will. I mean—I signed a waiver just for the elevator ride… Too many who travel to your disks don’t come back home. Most get working visas. The deal is: you spend four months a year here, and that pays for six of vacation. The smart ones, like I’m sure your son is, do five years to invest in There’s Venus coin traps. Then they sit back and never visit again. They risk their days for the money. Not for your city, not for the people here. They say they come to live out the rest of their lives at the mines. Then if they’re lucky enough not to get shipped home as a popsicle, they go to their folk waving their phat wads of cash in the hands with the least fingers lost to the frostbite.”
“I asked the locals last night. Why would you sell everything for this? Leave your families, abandon your lifestyles—What pulled you in? They all gave me the same answer. The same one I have. The first time I came here, it only took me two days. Two days to fall in love.”
“You maybe fall in loving after no long enough, Mr. Consultant,” she said.
“Are you telling me you don’t feel the same?”
“I think,” Gotnaym interjected. Then he paused. Sort of like cutting someone off on the freeway only to slow down right after.
“I think what my colleague is trying to express here … is that all of this sounds a bit too poetic.”
He looked at her to see if she’d agree. Which, she did.
“I also think we’re both happy you really are loving the experience here, Mr. Consultant. But it takes more than feelings to move to a place like this. The ones who do immigrate are steadily emigrating in larger numbers. The workforce won’t meet the upcoming demand. We start terraforming the east perimeter straight after the election next quarter. That’s a projected two years to find enough workers, build and house multiple villages. Provided the right candidate wins.”
At that moment, I was glad to have mistakenly not skipped our philosophy professor’s class on The Ethics of Language. I got my dates mixed up and thought it was a mandatory attendance lab. She explained how Over-There’s main export was subject to ethical scrutiny. They extracted such a lucrative resource, that they could afford to import all else. From food to people. Two entirely different things, that they’d fail to source locally in any useful quantity. Therein laid the dilemma. Their dialect had evolved so as to not differentiate between workers or wheat in regard to imports. As for commodities in business, they began treating both as such on paper. Written words have real-world applications. That same export was also what their disk was made of. One giant mother-cluster of concentrated minerals.
“How long is a mine active on these disks?” I asked.
“About a half lifetime depending on the weather. You’re looking at the investment of the century, my Frozen-Nozen. Literally.”
This suddenly explained why I so easily passed off as a consultant. At least, that’s what I was thinking then. They were probably ready to pay everyone and their kids to get as many opinions on this as possible. I can’t believe I used to give mine out for free.
“Frozen-Nozen?” I asked.
“It’s a term for those who aren’t afraid of a bit of outdoor labour,” he said.
“I see. Couldn’t you just advertise that fact in There?” I pitched.
“I don’t get it.” He mimed a billboard with his hands. “Come up to Over-There, and freeze your nose off for a living wage.”
“That’s not what I meant, but really, why not? People are nomadic opportunists. They’ll move and let the frost nip at their nose if you promise them a round fiddy years of job stability. If they become permanent residents.”
“No one plans on spending fiddy years in a work village, Mr. Consultant. They’re built as temporary housing. They share a shower per unit.”
“Isn’t that an issue? People need a good quality of entertainment to stay someplace so dull when they can glance at other options. They’ll want something they can’t get anywhere else. Couple that with the appeal of privacy. Your child population levels are dropping? Intimacy widely increases from zero to one shower per household. I’d start hiring full-time artists to get some inspiration flowing. Let couples make their own entertainment. Get some comfier architecture. They'll make babies. Or get your engineers to make leisure versions of your military rovers. With enough room for two. Watch them hit wild speeds in the east bumpy lands around their camps.”
“How much would that cost?” He asked. To my relief, he then immediately reconsidered. “No, these plans are staying under permafrost. We want to attract workers, not activists.”
I must’ve looked confused.
“Much leaving people, because activist come Over-There and saying mine is kill nature. Much tourism satire is Come visit before disk is all holes,” she quoted.
“If it’s really destroying the ecosystems then I’m afraid there isn’t much—”
“What ecosystem?” He interrupted. “Nothing but people live here, Mr. Consultant. And we only cover 15% of our whole island. Most of us are all in this city. The claims are false.”
“Then why do enough of both your people and mine believe these activists?” I insisted. “Who I’ve never heard of, so they must all be online. Is complaining just something to do? How does that affect where people live?”
“Emotion of being … more purposeful than normal people,” she said. “Important maybe to many action people. But also, wireless community There having very addictivity.”
“Adictivity?” I asked. “I mean—or, what do you mean by addiction?”
She explained how our wireless communications in There were designed to get individuals to react before thinking.
Anyone reading this today won’t understand the complexity of the issue, so I’ll try to translate the way people like your great-great-grandparents used to communicate. I suggest you ask them about it if they’ve opted for resurrection therapy.
We had these sorts of primitive portable screens that were usually carried around in pockets. Pockets were these holes in our clothes that would hold stuff. When we mostly owned material items, we needed a method of having those things at our disposition. And because we only have two biological hands, most would prefer to walk about with lighter objects in all kinds of pouches. From books to babies, bags of fabrics were significant to us.
The most important pouch was the pocket. That’s the place where people put stuff they wanted to hold closest to their person. That’s because not having them nearby caused an immediate sense of emergency. Their money, their analog keys, their smokables (non digital drug consumable), the time of one day divided into 86,400 different times… Most would also keep their touch screens in their pockets.
We’d communicate through a revolutionary medium termed, “social media.” If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s because presently, that’s our only form of expression left. So we just call it talking.
Fun fact: in 1402, both words were banned if put together. For all generations coming after the criminalization of social media, to try and curb the addiction, so we could gain control over the technocratic overlords of the virtual space. Clearly, that didn’t work, but I won’t bore you with the details in this format for much longer.
To quickly finish this history lesson then, we nicknamed those screens “phones.” They were these physical things that you’d feel right on your skin. And you had to push around to type words or record either your organic image or sounds, or disproportionately more often, those of a cat. A real cat. They aren’t a digital invention! Then you’d post those representations in places called “the Internet.” The Internet would be referred to as the world today.
Humans had to mind-travel via their phones to access the world before. And they’d navigate through it by utilizing their biological hands like a bunch of Neanderthals. On Social Media in the Internet realm, other people would have to move their fingers around their screen to come look at what you posted. Can you imagine? It’s like if today, someone had to do something to hear you.
They would then react to what they saw. Kind of how people used to communicate what they thought through their body language. The only difference was that in the Old World, a public would react to a speaker on stage, and everyone went on their way afterwards. No longer under the influential energy of a cheering or booing crowd, they could think about the message. On the Internet, it would stay up, and we could keep reacting to it. Even years after something was said. The public reaction would get louder and louder and it was like it never stopped to calm down and reflect. Excitement is not a friend of thought.
As people posted more and more, they did less and less of anything else. The goal of the communication was only to react. Always as fast as possible. People started doing activities only so they could post. They lost the enjoyment of doing for the sake of doing. Everything became a reason to get a reaction out of others. Everyone became amateur stage performers. Professionals had to be trained in that regard. They had to learn how to handle themselves when their work would become a series of reactions to trigger a chain of reactions. The users of primitive Social Media never stood a chance.
It’s what she explained during our impromptu board meeting that afternoon. It’s what changed the way I saw the world as well. I watched as her theory turned out to be sufficiently accurate, and I caught myself wondering for a moment if she hadn’t had something to do with the unravelling of the events.
If you’re Neanderthal enough to remember the sound of genuine vocal chords, I invite you to imagine how she expressed it all to me in her riveting broken accent. It’s why I wrote it how she said it.
The year is 1282 again. It’s cold, the exit doors are locked down, I have an actual phone in my physical pocket…
She asked me to see mine. A ritual at the time. So I showed her. She didn’t look impressed, so I asked her to show me hers. It was nice. Real nice. So nice in fact, that I started feeling a bit shy and ended up subtly putting mine away as she explained.
“People addicted to making posting. More posting, more liking, more emotion of purposeful existing. But so many content, so much other people also looking for … valid of purposeful life, because now, day no with phone is like food no with taste. Is boring. Why eat? Why do anything? But problem happen when truth is people wanting. Because goal of social media is react, react, react. Chain reaction like nuclear. Have be fast. Social media not receive, think, maybe react if wise. Social media no survive this way, very boring if not in-person meeting for exchange serious ideas. No win Internet point for taking time, finding truth, telling people wrong too. No good feeling also, if thinking, no posting, no outside influence saying yes you living and you be valid person. So no react, no valid existence.”
She paused. We both glanced at one another to confirm what we had already decided. Neither of us were going to interrupt her train of ideas. I was impressed. Not by what she was saying, though. It wasn’t anything we didn’t know. It was more that she could almost speak our language when she carried herself in her flow.
“People define value by number of attention they getting. They getting attention by posting posting posting, reacting reacting reacting, and no thinking thinking then maybe posting after long. Thinking bad for business if business is price of reacting. Business need people pushing button not after long. Social media Model is job of push button. Worker build city, push button too you thinking. But building infrastructure, opportunity, thinking involved more than even writer, Mr. Consultant. Bad thinking kill in building city.”
It took me a second to break character. Then I remembered who I really was. Eventually I realized she had just insulted me. I gave a warm chuckle. This disrupted Gotnaym’s attention. She went on.
“Influencer is job of push button to getting more people pushing button before thinking. Influencer is good if follower push button with no thinking. Even in war business, reacting not always best strategy. Pushing … gun button?”
“Trigger,” he helped.
“Pushing trigger no thinking is not same like pushing trigger because quick thinking. Influencer like is … study with school only to becoming teacher after. But only attaining knowledge in reacting more. Not attaining quick thinking. Not same. This worrying functionary like Mr. Fore Gotnaym, because how control crowd online that only goal is react react react, no thinking? On Internet, better no thinking. More reacting, more people see their reacting first and reacting to it so more people also get reacting, more people only agree for attention, and more message get famous. More message famous, no worry if true, more people believe. More people believe, less people believe when truth happen. Look at phone, Mr. Consultant.”
I took it out of my pocket.
“Make posting,” she said. “I showing you.”
The suitedman visibly refrained himself from stopping me. I was two days behind on checking in with my Internet experiment, so I did what she asked. When I connected to Social Media, my feed was filled with alerts on posts. Something about disinformation and people fighting over the truth of the universe and if it was really the end for us. The media application wasn’t this agitated two days ago. Warnings on misinformation were mostly centred around past events, never regarding upcoming ones from what I had seen before.
“Is this why we’re in a lockdown?” I asked.
“Yes…” she reacted.
“So why does it say that it’s all a fabrication?”
The room fell dead quiet. Her bottom lip quivered and she turned around to burst in muffled sobs. She just broke down. It was surreal. The man stood up to whisper something. She nodded with her head down, so he walked towards me. Then past me and to the windows, making sure I followed him by spinning in my chair. My back ended up facing her.
“Under different circumstances, you wouldn’t be locked down with us, Mr. Tourist,” he said.
Uh-oh, I thought. This culture seemed to have developed a taste for cleverly employing names.
“But there’s no use in locking you up for espionage either, it looks like your people are willing to let you rot anyway.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. She sniffled and told us I could turn around now.
“Don’t worry kid. You’re either the best spy I’ve met and you can die with dignity, or you’re the worst ever, and you’re worth more to us as living propaganda if we make it out of this,” he said, patting my shoulder as he walked by.
“I didn’t get your answer,” I mumbled as I turned around. Then I understood that he was trying to make her laugh.
“Either you’re the best,” he repeated. “Because I haven’t heard even a single high-school rumour about you. Or you’re the worst, because you were really a shit consultant just then.”
She drew in a chopped breath, which she released in a soft chuckle of relief. I thought maybe this was a prank. But then why was she crying?
I asked her what was going on. She nodded at him and he told me he wasn’t joking. They really considered that I was a spy from There. This theory didn’t hold any water in the end. The umbrella company under which the most popular international platforms operated, had somehow been convinced to place a warning on the forecast of a natural disaster headed for the disks. The corporation happened to have all their servers in There’s jurisdiction. All the privately owned media companies followed suit just to try and survive.
Gotnaym explained how anyone with any scientific authority who had attempted to voice their doubts had immediately been shadowbanned. They injected their profiles with a fake number of views and likes, and used bots to make it look like there were people engaging with their content. As far as the whole globe was convinced, as far as the citizens of Over-There were concerned, this admonition had been discredited a month before the announcement of the disaster. The United OV Body sent out an emergency text message, an even more primitive form of communication, confirming the threat to their civilians, but it was in vain. The videos debunking the warning had timestamps dating too far back. And the Internet had already decided that it was all a hoax. Eighteen world leading scientists, all saying it was propaganda. The people in this city didn’t believe they were about to die.
How could I have missed this? Especially if I had checked everything everywhere online before buying my ticket?
Like a kid again, it slipped out.
“Why?”
He rubbed his thumb and two fingers together. Money.
“Environmental warfare is not a crime, Mr. Tourist. And you seem to be collateral damage to them.”
They showed me a video of myself reassuring the world that I was okay, and that no one on this disk believed any of the disinformation propagated by the unhinged astronomers. That Over-There’s authorities were perfectly aware that it was all a hoax. It was dated two hours before I set foot on the disk. On the plus side, I never did get over a hundred million views before. To most of the world, I was a hero, here to bring down the anti-science disinformation machine. They were looking at an AI-generated video of me. They even got my voice right. My family had liked my video. My dad had sent me a message saying he was proud.
I looked up and plunged my eyes in her frightened face. It stripped me forever of any good feelings. In one hour, I felt the lifelong dissatisfaction of a hard drug addict. That day, I lost my faith in reality. To this day, I cannot enjoy anything. Not after what happened. I feel too guilty.
“Shouldn’t technological warfare be a crime, though?” I said.
“You could call a stick with a pointy rock on its end a technological advancement.”
It was becoming trickier to think straight. How can you? When you’re about to take a final blow, and there’s nowhere to run, no strength to block. It was like getting pre-concussed.
“How long until it happens?”
“It might not. We’re waiting on people to show up here and determine if it can be avoided. So try to think of something else in the meantime,” he said.
We said nothing.
“There is one thing neither of you can avoid, though… So you might as well make your peace with it now,” he added.
“What it is?” She asked.
“Mr. Tourist is about to meet your father.” He said. Then he looked at me. “Or is it Mr. Consultant to him?”
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2023-03-20
The Uneven Divide - Part 3
(Part 1 and 2 in first post of Collection)“I see a city on a disk. Though all the powers of the world would like to watch it fall, it won’t. I look at it floating above it all. Above There’s political turmoil. Beyond the grip of local markets, this city spins around the globe. You make your business everyone’s, and in turn, everyone profits from your presence.”
I see a land so cold,” I continued. “That it smokes as if it’s on fire. Like the Mother Sphere pulls you up, the frost brings your people together. This inseparable unity warms each building by your people’s sheer attraction for the Lands of Over-There. What us foreigners see as a frigid barren disk of ill fortuity, where people live barred up inside out of necessity, it’s instead a fortress from anything cold, which hosts every fervent hearted opportunity.”
The lock beeped. The door crept open. She kicked her feet off. A skinny man with both our ages walked in. He was wearing a three-piece suit. This wasn’t uncommon, as each layer made the heating bill less hard to look at. His name and the chain on his matte black visitor’s badge were contrasted with gold.
They spoke in their language.
He said something like hi, how are you, what are you doing here?
She answered something along the lines of hi, I’m doing great, in a meeting, you?
He went on saying precisely “I’m doing twice well”—which is an interesting expression meaning; I was already doing well, but from the moment you asked about me, I started doing twice as well—then I think he said he was also here for a meeting, and “who is he?”
She told him my name, then his name to me. Whom I will refer to as Gotnaym of Over-There.
He greeted me, I presented myself with a customary nod. Which could’ve been considered curt in our culture.
Then it got too wordy for me to understand. They switched languages as he walked over to extend his hand.
Mid-shake, he said in perfect speech, “She tells me your consultancy in There is no circus. I might have some questions later, my son is investing abroad.”
Then he laughed. I tried my hardest to make my confusion pass off as surprise, all while making sure not to loosen my grip nor lose the tempo of the motion, as I smiled in what I hoped to have looked like an agreeing pose.
“He’s not interested in any clown ventures I hope, Mr. Gotnaym,” I said. “I’d be out of my league if he were.”
“That’s exactly why I’d hire you,” he explained. “Thankfully, we’re a line of miners, Mr. Consultant. Hard-working people, who bring along like-minded experts. There are no full-time artists on these disks, I’m afraid.”
I was ready to let go but he wasn’t as willing.
“It’s always a fine moment to meet someone glad to buy into their family,” I concluded. “But I might not be the right hire for advice on how you ought to spend your own money. I don’t know if she's told you my line of work?”
This made him laugh some more. He was still shaking my hand.
“She has, yes!” He looked at her after placing his free hand on my shoulder side. She was completely motionless. “Funny man,” he said in his mother tongue.
“Don’t let me interrupt you, Mr. Consultant. Please continue while we wait,” he said, finally releasing his grip to grab a seat by the backrest.
“While we wait?” I asked him.
“I just is inform,” she said. “Next meeting is push to soon. Temporary lockdown here. Please continuing, Mr. Consultant. You no leaving now.”
“Emergency?” I read in their eyes the impending dread they covered up with an interest in listening only, so they wouldn’t have to think.
“Gladly,” I said. “I guess I’ll find out soon. Thank you for giving me this time out of your day.” She had some relief mixed in with her emotions. The rest of her micro-expressions were of a combination I’ve never noticed twice. It was too particular to recreate in writing or in a film.
“Mr. Consultant talking how city infrastructure be one with immigration,” she explained. “I asking what he see in city.”
“Where was I?” I asked me.
“You were reporting how the cold brings us people together,” he told me.
Wondering if their door wasn’t soundproofed had flooded my head with blood, which drew along this fresh thought frenzy and the terrible idea that anyone could’ve heard us earlier.
“Right,” I said to start hushing my blushing. “The problem. Your city is nothing more than a cold flatland sprinkled with tall boxes where folks come and freeze to death. That’s what they see from below, down in There. When I booked my ticket, my friends argued about who would get what if I didn’t make it back.”
The suitedman sat down.
“To outsiders, to the frigid ones, these lands get people to ratify off on an early will. I mean—I signed a waiver just for the elevator ride… Too many who travel to your disks don’t come back home. Most get working visas. The deal is: you spend four months a year here, and that pays for six of vacation. The smart ones, like I’m sure your son is, do five years to invest in There’s Venus coin traps. Then they sit back and never visit again. They risk their days for the money. Not for your city, not for the people here. They say they come to live out the rest of their lives at the mines. Then if they’re lucky enough not to get shipped home as a popsicle, they go to their folk waving their phat wads of cash in the hands with the least fingers lost to the frostbite.”
“I asked the locals last night. Why would you sell everything for this? Leave your families, abandon your lifestyles—What pulled you in? They all gave me the same answer. The same one I have. The first time I came here, it only took me two days. Two days to fall in love.”
“You maybe fall in loving after no long enough, Mr. Consultant,” she said.
“Are you telling me you don’t feel the same?”
“I think,” Gotnaym interjected. Then he paused. Sort of like cutting someone off on the freeway only to slow down right after.
“I think what my colleague is trying to express here … is that all of this sounds a bit too poetic.”
He looked at her to see if she’d agree. Which, she did.
“I also think we’re both happy you really are loving the experience here, Mr. Consultant. But it takes more than feelings to move to a place like this. The ones who do immigrate are steadily emigrating in larger numbers. The workforce won’t meet the upcoming demand. We start terraforming the east perimeter straight after the election next quarter. That’s a projected two years to find enough workers, build and house multiple villages. Provided the right candidate wins.”
At that moment, I was glad to have mistakenly not skipped our philosophy professor’s class on The Ethics of Language. I got my dates mixed up and thought it was a mandatory attendance lab. She explained how Over-There’s main export was subject to ethical scrutiny. They extracted such a lucrative resource, that they could afford to import all else. From food to people. Two entirely different things, that they’d fail to source locally in any useful quantity. Therein laid the dilemma. Their dialect had evolved so as to not differentiate between workers or wheat in regard to imports. As for commodities in business, they began treating both as such on paper. Written words have real-world applications. That same export was also what their disk was made of. One giant mother-cluster of concentrated minerals.
“How long is a mine active on these disks?” I asked.
“About a half lifetime depending on the weather. You’re looking at the investment of the century, my Frozen-Nozen. Literally.”
This suddenly explained why I so easily passed off as a consultant. At least, that’s what I was thinking then. They were probably ready to pay everyone and their kids to get as many opinions on this as possible. I can’t believe I used to give mine out for free.
“Frozen-Nozen?” I asked.
“It’s a term for those who aren’t afraid of a bit of outdoor labour,” he said.
“I see. Couldn’t you just advertise that fact in There?” I pitched.
“I don’t get it.” He mimed a billboard with his hands. “Come up to Over-There, and freeze your nose off for a living wage.”
“That’s not what I meant, but really, why not? People are nomadic opportunists. They’ll move and let the frost nip at their nose if you promise them a round fiddy years of job stability. If they become permanent residents.”
“No one plans on spending fiddy years in a work village, Mr. Consultant. They’re built as temporary housing. They share a shower per unit.”
“Isn’t that an issue? People need a good quality of entertainment to stay someplace so dull when they can glance at other options. They’ll want something they can’t get anywhere else. Couple that with the appeal of privacy. Your child population levels are dropping? Intimacy widely increases from zero to one shower per household. I’d start hiring full-time artists to get some inspiration flowing. Let couples make their own entertainment. Get some comfier architecture. They'll make babies. Or get your engineers to make leisure versions of your military rovers. With enough room for two. Watch them hit wild speeds in the east bumpy lands around their camps.”
“How much would that cost?” He asked. To my relief, he then immediately reconsidered. “No, these plans are staying under permafrost. We want to attract workers, not activists.”
I must’ve looked confused.
“Much leaving people, because activist come Over-There and saying mine is kill nature. Much tourism satire is Come visit before disk is all holes,” she quoted.
“If it’s really destroying the ecosystems then I’m afraid there isn’t much—”
“What ecosystem?” He interrupted. “Nothing but people live here, Mr. Consultant. And we only cover 15% of our whole island. Most of us are all in this city. The claims are false.”
“Then why do enough of both your people and mine believe these activists?” I insisted. “Who I’ve never heard of, so they must all be online. Is complaining just something to do? How does that affect where people live?”
“Emotion of being … more purposeful than normal people,” she said. “Important maybe to many action people. But also, wireless community There having very addictivity.”
“Adictivity?” I asked. “I mean—or, what do you mean by addiction?”
She explained how our wireless communications in There were designed to get individuals to react before thinking.
Anyone reading this today won’t understand the complexity of the issue, so I’ll try to translate the way people like your great-great-grandparents used to communicate. I suggest you ask them about it if they’ve opted for resurrection therapy.
We had these sorts of primitive portable screens that were usually carried around in pockets. Pockets were these holes in our clothes that would hold stuff. When we mostly owned material items, we needed a method of having those things at our disposition. And because we only have two biological hands, most would prefer to walk about with lighter objects in all kinds of pouches. From books to babies, bags of fabrics were significant to us.
The most important pouch was the pocket. That’s the place where people put stuff they wanted to hold closest to their person. That’s because not having them nearby caused an immediate sense of emergency. Their money, their analog keys, their smokables (non digital drug consumable), the time of one day divided into 86,400 different times… Most would also keep their touch screens in their pockets.
We’d communicate through a revolutionary medium termed, “social media.” If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s because presently, that’s our only form of expression left. So we just call it talking.
Fun fact: in 1402, both words were banned if put together. For all generations coming after the criminalization of social media, to try and curb the addiction, so we could gain control over the technocratic overlords of the virtual space. Clearly, that didn’t work, but I won’t bore you with the details in this format for much longer.
To quickly finish this history lesson then, we nicknamed those screens “phones.” They were these physical things that you’d feel right on your skin. And you had to push around to type words or record either your organic image or sounds, or disproportionately more often, those of a cat. A real cat. They aren’t a digital invention! Then you’d post those representations in places called “the Internet.” The Internet would be referred to as the world today.
Humans had to mind-travel via their phones to access the world before. And they’d navigate through it by utilizing their biological hands like a bunch of Neanderthals. On Social Media in the Internet realm, other people would have to move their fingers around their screen to come look at what you posted. Can you imagine? It’s like if today, someone had to do something to hear you.
They would then react to what they saw. Kind of how people used to communicate what they thought through their body language. The only difference was that in the Old World, a public would react to a speaker on stage, and everyone went on their way afterwards. No longer under the influential energy of a cheering or booing crowd, they could think about the message. On the Internet, it would stay up, and we could keep reacting to it. Even years after something was said. The public reaction would get louder and louder and it was like it never stopped to calm down and reflect. Excitement is not a friend of thought.
As people posted more and more, they did less and less of anything else. The goal of the communication was only to react. Always as fast as possible. People started doing activities only so they could post. They lost the enjoyment of doing for the sake of doing. Everything became a reason to get a reaction out of others. Everyone became amateur stage performers. Professionals had to be trained in that regard. They had to learn how to handle themselves when their work would become a series of reactions to trigger a chain of reactions. The users of primitive Social Media never stood a chance.
It’s what she explained during our impromptu board meeting that afternoon. It’s what changed the way I saw the world as well. I watched as her theory turned out to be sufficiently accurate, and I caught myself wondering for a moment if she hadn’t had something to do with the unravelling of the events.
If you’re Neanderthal enough to remember the sound of genuine vocal chords, I invite you to imagine how she expressed it all to me in her riveting broken accent. It’s why I wrote it how she said it.
The year is 1282 again. It’s cold, the exit doors are locked down, I have an actual phone in my physical pocket…
She asked me to see mine. A ritual at the time. So I showed her. She didn’t look impressed, so I asked her to show me hers. It was nice. Real nice. So nice in fact, that I started feeling a bit shy and ended up subtly putting mine away as she explained.
“People addicted to making posting. More posting, more liking, more emotion of purposeful existing. But so many content, so much other people also looking for … valid of purposeful life, because now, day no with phone is like food no with taste. Is boring. Why eat? Why do anything? But problem happen when truth is people wanting. Because goal of social media is react, react, react. Chain reaction like nuclear. Have be fast. Social media not receive, think, maybe react if wise. Social media no survive this way, very boring if not in-person meeting for exchange serious ideas. No win Internet point for taking time, finding truth, telling people wrong too. No good feeling also, if thinking, no posting, no outside influence saying yes you living and you be valid person. So no react, no valid existence.”
She paused. We both glanced at one another to confirm what we had already decided. Neither of us were going to interrupt her train of ideas. I was impressed. Not by what she was saying, though. It wasn’t anything we didn’t know. It was more that she could almost speak our language when she carried herself in her flow.
“People define value by number of attention they getting. They getting attention by posting posting posting, reacting reacting reacting, and no thinking thinking then maybe posting after long. Thinking bad for business if business is price of reacting. Business need people pushing button not after long. Social media Model is job of push button. Worker build city, push button too you thinking. But building infrastructure, opportunity, thinking involved more than even writer, Mr. Consultant. Bad thinking kill in building city.”
It took me a second to break character. Then I remembered who I really was. Eventually I realized she had just insulted me. I gave a warm chuckle. This disrupted Gotnaym’s attention. She went on.
“Influencer is job of push button to getting more people pushing button before thinking. Influencer is good if follower push button with no thinking. Even in war business, reacting not always best strategy. Pushing … gun button?”
“Trigger,” he helped.
“Pushing trigger no thinking is not same like pushing trigger because quick thinking. Influencer like is … study with school only to becoming teacher after. But only attaining knowledge in reacting more. Not attaining quick thinking. Not same. This worrying functionary like Mr. Fore Gotnaym, because how control crowd online that only goal is react react react, no thinking? On Internet, better no thinking. More reacting, more people see their reacting first and reacting to it so more people also get reacting, more people only agree for attention, and more message get famous. More message famous, no worry if true, more people believe. More people believe, less people believe when truth happen. Look at phone, Mr. Consultant.”
I took it out of my pocket.
“Make posting,” she said. “I showing you.”
The suitedman visibly refrained himself from stopping me. I was two days behind on checking in with my Internet experiment, so I did what she asked. When I connected to Social Media, my feed was filled with alerts on posts. Something about disinformation and people fighting over the truth of the universe and if it was really the end for us. The media application wasn’t this agitated two days ago. Warnings on misinformation were mostly centred around past events, never regarding upcoming ones from what I had seen before.
“Is this why we’re in a lockdown?” I asked.
“Yes…” she reacted.
“So why does it say that it’s all a fabrication?”
The room fell dead quiet. Her bottom lip quivered and she turned around to burst in muffled sobs. She just broke down. It was surreal. The man stood up to whisper something. She nodded with her head down, so he walked towards me. Then past me and to the windows, making sure I followed him by spinning in my chair. My back ended up facing her.
“Under different circumstances, you wouldn’t be locked down with us, Mr. Tourist,” he said.
Uh-oh, I thought. This culture seemed to have developed a taste for cleverly employing names.
“But there’s no use in locking you up for espionage either, it looks like your people are willing to let you rot anyway.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. She sniffled and told us I could turn around now.
“Don’t worry kid. You’re either the best spy I’ve met and you can die with dignity, or you’re the worst ever, and you’re worth more to us as living propaganda if we make it out of this,” he said, patting my shoulder as he walked by.
“I didn’t get your answer,” I mumbled as I turned around. Then I understood that he was trying to make her laugh.
“Either you’re the best,” he repeated. “Because I haven’t heard even a single high-school rumour about you. Or you’re the worst, because you were really a shit consultant just then.”
She drew in a chopped breath, which she released in a soft chuckle of relief. I thought maybe this was a prank. But then why was she crying?
I asked her what was going on. She nodded at him and he told me he wasn’t joking. They really considered that I was a spy from There. This theory didn’t hold any water in the end. The umbrella company under which the most popular international platforms operated, had somehow been convinced to place a warning on the forecast of a natural disaster headed for the disks. The corporation happened to have all their servers in There’s jurisdiction. All the privately owned media companies followed suit just to try and survive.
Gotnaym explained how anyone with any scientific authority who had attempted to voice their doubts had immediately been shadowbanned. They injected their profiles with a fake number of views and likes, and used bots to make it look like there were people engaging with their content. As far as the whole globe was convinced, as far as the citizens of Over-There were concerned, this admonition had been discredited a month before the announcement of the disaster. The United OV Body sent out an emergency text message, an even more primitive form of communication, confirming the threat to their civilians, but it was in vain. The videos debunking the warning had timestamps dating too far back. And the Internet had already decided that it was all a hoax. Eighteen world leading scientists, all saying it was propaganda. The people in this city didn’t believe they were about to die.
How could I have missed this? Especially if I had checked everything everywhere online before buying my ticket?
Like a kid again, it slipped out.
“Why?”
He rubbed his thumb and two fingers together. Money.
“Environmental warfare is not a crime, Mr. Tourist. And you seem to be collateral damage to them.”
They showed me a video of myself reassuring the world that I was okay, and that no one on this disk believed any of the disinformation propagated by the unhinged astronomers. That Over-There’s authorities were perfectly aware that it was all a hoax. It was dated two hours before I set foot on the disk. On the plus side, I never did get over a hundred million views before. To most of the world, I was a hero, here to bring down the anti-science disinformation machine. They were looking at an AI-generated video of me. They even got my voice right. My family had liked my video. My dad had sent me a message saying he was proud.
I looked up and plunged my eyes in her frightened face. It stripped me forever of any good feelings. In one hour, I felt the lifelong dissatisfaction of a hard drug addict. That day, I lost my faith in reality. To this day, I cannot enjoy anything. Not after what happened. I feel too guilty.
“Shouldn’t technological warfare be a crime, though?” I said.
“You could call a stick with a pointy rock on its end a technological advancement.”
It was becoming trickier to think straight. How can you? When you’re about to take a final blow, and there’s nowhere to run, no strength to block. It was like getting pre-concussed.
“How long until it happens?”
“It might not. We’re waiting on people to show up here and determine if it can be avoided. So try to think of something else in the meantime,” he said.
We said nothing.
“There is one thing neither of you can avoid, though… So you might as well make your peace with it now,” he added.
“What it is?” She asked.
“Mr. Tourist is about to meet your father.” He said. Then he looked at me. “Or is it Mr. Consultant to him?”
2023.03.20 23:07 iamnotbart 39 [M4F] Philadelphia - ChatGPT-assisted search for my sarcastic, smart, and local better half 🤖🌃
Greetings, fellow Redditors! I'm a 39-year-old cis-male (he/him) living in the vibrant city of Philadelphia, on a quest to find someone who appreciates my sense of humor and can keep up with my love for intellectual banter.
Full disclosure: I enlisted the help of ChatGPT to write this profile. Who said AI couldn't help you find love, right? 😄
A bit about me: I'm a down-to-earth, easy-going guy with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. As a Network Engineer, I'm no stranger to the world of technology. You can often find me diving into VR games, programming, and exploring the fascinating realm of AI.
When I'm not geeking out on tech, I love to kick back and enjoy some classic 90's Simpsons, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Game of Thrones. My taste in music is as diverse as my interests, with a penchant for progressive rock and metal, as well as EDM.
Although I don't have a dog myself, I'm definitely a dog lover, so if you have a furry friend, consider it a bonus! In my free time, I enjoy catching Phillies games and hanging out at Manayunk bars. There's nothing quite like a night out in the city to unwind.
I'm ideally looking for a long-term relationship, but I'm open to seeing where things go with the right person. I pride myself on being well-rounded and love learning about different topics, so engaging conversations are a must!
As for my non-negotiables, I prefer someone who doesn't smoke and makes an effort to live a somewhat healthy lifestyle. If you're funny, sarcastic, smart, in your 30's, and local to the Philadelphia area, I'd love to hear from you! Let's explore this city together and maybe find our forever in each other's company, with a little help from my AI friend.
submitted by iamnotbart to ForeverAloneDating [link] [comments]
Full disclosure: I enlisted the help of ChatGPT to write this profile. Who said AI couldn't help you find love, right? 😄
A bit about me: I'm a down-to-earth, easy-going guy with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. As a Network Engineer, I'm no stranger to the world of technology. You can often find me diving into VR games, programming, and exploring the fascinating realm of AI.
When I'm not geeking out on tech, I love to kick back and enjoy some classic 90's Simpsons, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Game of Thrones. My taste in music is as diverse as my interests, with a penchant for progressive rock and metal, as well as EDM.
Although I don't have a dog myself, I'm definitely a dog lover, so if you have a furry friend, consider it a bonus! In my free time, I enjoy catching Phillies games and hanging out at Manayunk bars. There's nothing quite like a night out in the city to unwind.
I'm ideally looking for a long-term relationship, but I'm open to seeing where things go with the right person. I pride myself on being well-rounded and love learning about different topics, so engaging conversations are a must!
As for my non-negotiables, I prefer someone who doesn't smoke and makes an effort to live a somewhat healthy lifestyle. If you're funny, sarcastic, smart, in your 30's, and local to the Philadelphia area, I'd love to hear from you! Let's explore this city together and maybe find our forever in each other's company, with a little help from my AI friend.
2023.03.20 22:33 Critical_Cucumber814 Smoked weed for the first time
I’ve been a very strict Mormon my whole life up until my shelf broke last fall. Before that I’d never broken anything in the word of wisdom - no coffee tea alcohol or anything not even once. But now that I’m out I’ve discovered I just don’t like coffee and I hate the taste of alcohol and don’t like the feeling of being tipsy or drunk. So I figured I probably wouldn’t like getting high either but wanted to just try once. And WOW
I was with two of my non Lds friends (I don’t have many yet) and I had so much fun. I laughed harder than I ever have in my life and the conversations we had were so interesting in the moment although I would forget what we were talking about almost immediately. But what really did it for me was when I put my headphones in and started listening to music. I noticed sounds I’d never heard before in songs I’ve been listening to for years and I could hear each instrument so clearly. Each song was incredible. Time slowed down and i just felt so much love and appreciation for everything. Music is already so important to me and so this experience was so therapeutic. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced
I told myself I’d only smoke once just to see what it was like but now I definitely want to again but I’m a little worried. I still have this idea ingrained in me from being TBM my whole life that smoking weed is bad and it’s a gateway drug and I’ll ruin my life and get hooked on drugs and I don’t know how to get rid of this idea. I also don’t know what’s a healthy usage or if that feeling I felt won’t be as strong going forward and I’ll just get used to it? I’m so naive when it comes to this but would love any advice or suggestions or if anyone can relate thank you
submitted by Critical_Cucumber814 to exmormon [link] [comments]
I was with two of my non Lds friends (I don’t have many yet) and I had so much fun. I laughed harder than I ever have in my life and the conversations we had were so interesting in the moment although I would forget what we were talking about almost immediately. But what really did it for me was when I put my headphones in and started listening to music. I noticed sounds I’d never heard before in songs I’ve been listening to for years and I could hear each instrument so clearly. Each song was incredible. Time slowed down and i just felt so much love and appreciation for everything. Music is already so important to me and so this experience was so therapeutic. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced
I told myself I’d only smoke once just to see what it was like but now I definitely want to again but I’m a little worried. I still have this idea ingrained in me from being TBM my whole life that smoking weed is bad and it’s a gateway drug and I’ll ruin my life and get hooked on drugs and I don’t know how to get rid of this idea. I also don’t know what’s a healthy usage or if that feeling I felt won’t be as strong going forward and I’ll just get used to it? I’m so naive when it comes to this but would love any advice or suggestions or if anyone can relate thank you
2023.03.20 22:29 A26Sub Non-Obstructive Azoospermia (Sertoli Cell Only)
Hello,
I just wanted to share my story and connect with others that are in the same situation. After reading a lot of threads on here I know my situation is far from unique.
My story
After me and my significant other had been trying to conceive for a couple of months, I ordered one of those at-home sperm tests just to make sure nothing was wrong on my side. In the back of my head, I knew I had an operation as a kid for an undescended testicle that had to be moved down. Maybe that could have affected the quality of my sperm? I still remember seeing the test-liquid that is supposed to turn pink turn dark purple instead. This was the first indication that something was wrong.
I contacted the local fertility clinic and scheduled a semen analysis. I also started reading up on ways to improve sperm quality and numbers. After a week or two it was time to turn in the first sperm sample to the local clinic. The doctor called a day later. I can still remember the moment when he, on speaker phone because my partner was also listening, gave us the results - there was zero sperm found in the sample. It was a shock, to say the least. I went through physical examination - everything seemed perfectly normal according to the doctor. Three additional sperm tests later, since I insisted on more than the regular two, the verdict was clear. Azoospermia.
Then came the tests for hormone levels - all perfectly fine except for...drumroll...you guessed it right, FSH. Nothing out of this world but still too high at around 15. Then came the genetic testing - I got tested for the usual stuff, microdeletions, Klinefelter and so on, but nothing. Completely normal. I then insisted on ultrasound to rule out any possible obstruction, but nope, everything looked fine.
After that I went through a regular TESA. It was not that bad, but came up empty. Nothing was found in the extracted tissue. This is where the doctor brought up alternatives such as adoption or donor. But I wasn't there yet, I had read about the microtese and wanted to make sure I had ruled everyting out. And so then came the microtese, which was done a couple of hours from where we live so we had to do a bit of travel and stay at a hotel. If the TESA was uncomfortable, the microtese was a lot more painful. Not so much during the surgery, which is done under local anesthesia where I live, but afterwards. We drove home the same afternoon, and the doctor called with the results while we were on the road. At this point we were so tired of the whole process and I guess a bit numb after being through all of this that we barely reacted to what the doctor said. It was, of course, unsuccessful. The final diagnosis: Non-obstructive azoospermia, Sertoli Cell Only.
Moving forward
It's been a 15 months long rollercoaster. I'm sure many of you can relate to the waiting for appointments, the waiting for results and the countless nights spent reading scientific studies or other peoples stories.
I have always been open to adoption, long before my diagnosis. It's been a nice thing to fall back on. We have decided to move forward with a donor and have been cleared to start the process in the coming months. It is not the way we thought our journey would look like, but life does not always pan out the way we think. After all the negative tests and all the waiting and all the suffering, it feels good to finally start moving towards creating a family.
I hope some of you can relate to my story and please feel free to ask questions or share your own stories.
submitted by A26Sub to maleinfertility [link] [comments]
I just wanted to share my story and connect with others that are in the same situation. After reading a lot of threads on here I know my situation is far from unique.
My story
After me and my significant other had been trying to conceive for a couple of months, I ordered one of those at-home sperm tests just to make sure nothing was wrong on my side. In the back of my head, I knew I had an operation as a kid for an undescended testicle that had to be moved down. Maybe that could have affected the quality of my sperm? I still remember seeing the test-liquid that is supposed to turn pink turn dark purple instead. This was the first indication that something was wrong.
I contacted the local fertility clinic and scheduled a semen analysis. I also started reading up on ways to improve sperm quality and numbers. After a week or two it was time to turn in the first sperm sample to the local clinic. The doctor called a day later. I can still remember the moment when he, on speaker phone because my partner was also listening, gave us the results - there was zero sperm found in the sample. It was a shock, to say the least. I went through physical examination - everything seemed perfectly normal according to the doctor. Three additional sperm tests later, since I insisted on more than the regular two, the verdict was clear. Azoospermia.
Then came the tests for hormone levels - all perfectly fine except for...drumroll...you guessed it right, FSH. Nothing out of this world but still too high at around 15. Then came the genetic testing - I got tested for the usual stuff, microdeletions, Klinefelter and so on, but nothing. Completely normal. I then insisted on ultrasound to rule out any possible obstruction, but nope, everything looked fine.
After that I went through a regular TESA. It was not that bad, but came up empty. Nothing was found in the extracted tissue. This is where the doctor brought up alternatives such as adoption or donor. But I wasn't there yet, I had read about the microtese and wanted to make sure I had ruled everyting out. And so then came the microtese, which was done a couple of hours from where we live so we had to do a bit of travel and stay at a hotel. If the TESA was uncomfortable, the microtese was a lot more painful. Not so much during the surgery, which is done under local anesthesia where I live, but afterwards. We drove home the same afternoon, and the doctor called with the results while we were on the road. At this point we were so tired of the whole process and I guess a bit numb after being through all of this that we barely reacted to what the doctor said. It was, of course, unsuccessful. The final diagnosis: Non-obstructive azoospermia, Sertoli Cell Only.
Moving forward
It's been a 15 months long rollercoaster. I'm sure many of you can relate to the waiting for appointments, the waiting for results and the countless nights spent reading scientific studies or other peoples stories.
I have always been open to adoption, long before my diagnosis. It's been a nice thing to fall back on. We have decided to move forward with a donor and have been cleared to start the process in the coming months. It is not the way we thought our journey would look like, but life does not always pan out the way we think. After all the negative tests and all the waiting and all the suffering, it feels good to finally start moving towards creating a family.
I hope some of you can relate to my story and please feel free to ask questions or share your own stories.
2023.03.20 22:22 subredditsummarybot /r/Hockey's top highlights for the week of March 13 - March 19
Monday, March 13 - Sunday, March 19
submitted by subredditsummarybot to hockey [link] [comments]
Top Videos
Other Posts
Top Comments
Awarded Posts
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| awards | score | comment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Gold | 345 | OlympicMuffins said H Y D R O C H L O R I C |
2023.03.20 22:18 Tight-Page-5192 If I wanted to hire a hacker to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse, is it better than hiring a private investigator?
Should I Hire a Private Investigator to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse
When we think about private investigators, most of us imagine something out of a movie: The private investigator sits in his car, chomping a sandwich and smoking a cigar while he tries to catch a cheating spouse and lover in a clandestine embrace. But is this the way it is in real life? Yes and no.
How a Private Investigator Might Help
Private investigators are often hired to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse, and they can be very helpful for a variety of reasons. However, more often than not, the evidence they collect is more circumstantial than what you see in the movies. When the case involves extramarital affairs, the couples are usually discreet enough that the film is PG-rated at best. Still, every P.I. has stories of catching people in the act and capturing some very private, revealing moments on film.
The Illusion of Privacy
Most people close the blinds unless they’re on an upper floor in a building where they believe they can’t be seen from the ground. But what if a private investigator manages to take video from an upper floor in the building across the street? If a house is in a secluded area, the spouse who has hired the private investigator can give the P.I. permission to walk onto the grounds of the house. The illusion that the lovers can’t be seen because of the seclusion of the house is just that; an illusion. The investigator can easily record their activity through the windows.
Example One: Video Recording
In one case, a male client knew his wife was having an affair, but the investigator hadn’t been able to get any real evidence. So, the P.I. suggested that the client go on a short trip. It wasn’t long after the client went out of town that a strange car appeared at the house. The P.I. called the client and asked him to come back to town, after which the client and P.I. entered the house together and retrieved the client’s gun.
They could hear the wife and her lover in a downstairs bedroom, but the door was locked. The investigator stood by with the gun visible on his hip and a video camera in his hand while the client removed the door to the room and yanked the bed covers off of his wife and lover. The investigator had rehearsed with the client what to say because it was important that he not threaten his wife’s lover in any way. Needless to say, this relationship ended in divorce, and the investigator’s film was instrumental in the husband’s case.
Example Two: Setting Your Spouse Up to Admit Guilt
In another situation, a male client was able to intercept his wife’s emails and learn that she was seeing a man who was arriving in town the next evening. She told her husband that she was going out with the girls, but when the investigator followed her, she ended up at a hotel. He observed her coming out of the hotel with her boyfriend, and while they were gone in the boyfriend’s car, the client moved his wife’s car from the parking lot. The investigator contacted the police to let them know that even if the car was reported stolen, it wasn’t actually stolen. Of course, if the wife reported the car stolen, she would have to admit that she had parked it in a hotel parking lot.
When the wife returned and frantically looked for her car, the client drove up in a van and threw all of her clothes onto the ground. He had gathered them in garbage bags just for this purpose. She was now officially caught and could no longer deny her affairs.
Example Three: Workplace Monitoring
In another case, an employer was related to the spouse of an employee who was suspected of having an affair with a coworker. The employer hired an investigator to place a hidden video camera in the office, which caught the married employee and lover having sex numerous times during the day. So, this couple was not only guilty of avoiding work, but they were committing acts of illicit sexual behavior
Most of the time, people have affairs with just one person that they’ve met at work. This is why the first question an investigator usually asks a client is: Where does your spouse work, and who works with your spouse? Investigators say it’s much less common for a married person to pick up several lovers in bars or to be caught involved in prostitution. But it certainly isn’t unprecedented.
Example Four: Following Someone
In one case, it was discovered that a man had placed a profile on a dating website, stating that he was separated. He began dating women in the area, and the investigator was surprised to find the man out with different women on different evenings. Eventually, the man picked up a woman at a bar and engaged in a sexual act with her in his car in a parking lot. The private investigator was able to shoot video of the couple through the window of the car.
Avoid Hiring Friends to Watch Your Spouse
What if someone asks a friend to follow the spouse or place a wiretap on the spouse’s telephone? This is a recipe for disaster. First of all, wiretapping is illegal a violation of both federal and state law. There are trespassing and harassment laws as well that the average person might not understand, so a friend could be criminally prosecuted for making an inadvertent mistake. Besides criminal charges, the injured parties could take the friend/amateur investigator to court for monetary damages.
Even if the friend stays within the law, a non-professional is much more likely to tip off the party who is being followed. Once the spouse knows they’re being watched, obtaining evidence is next to impossible. This mistake can be costly since private investigators generally charge by the hour. Tipping off the spouse may require considerably more time on the part of the professional investigator, resulting in added cost. One private investigator likens it to getting an estimate on a malfunctioning transmission only to go home and take the transmission apart. When you have to return the transmission to the mechanic in dozens of pieces, the estimate will be higher because it will take the mechanic longer to put the mess back together again.
When Should a Private Investigator Be Hired?
Even if there is nothing more than a suspicion of something amiss in the marriage, consulting with an hacker is a good idea. If the matter ends up in court, the evidence gathered by the P.I. is much more likely to be admissible in the case if it has been gathered with the guidance and direction of an hacker.
Some people believe they can confront their spouse and find a way to work on the marriage. While this is certainly a possibility, if the cheating party is unwilling to work on the marriage, it’s helpful to have the evidence before the confrontation takes place
Feel free to contact us at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for expert guidance
submitted by Tight-Page-5192 to u/Tight-Page-5192 [link] [comments]
When we think about private investigators, most of us imagine something out of a movie: The private investigator sits in his car, chomping a sandwich and smoking a cigar while he tries to catch a cheating spouse and lover in a clandestine embrace. But is this the way it is in real life? Yes and no.
How a Private Investigator Might Help
Private investigators are often hired to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse, and they can be very helpful for a variety of reasons. However, more often than not, the evidence they collect is more circumstantial than what you see in the movies. When the case involves extramarital affairs, the couples are usually discreet enough that the film is PG-rated at best. Still, every P.I. has stories of catching people in the act and capturing some very private, revealing moments on film.
The Illusion of Privacy
Most people close the blinds unless they’re on an upper floor in a building where they believe they can’t be seen from the ground. But what if a private investigator manages to take video from an upper floor in the building across the street? If a house is in a secluded area, the spouse who has hired the private investigator can give the P.I. permission to walk onto the grounds of the house. The illusion that the lovers can’t be seen because of the seclusion of the house is just that; an illusion. The investigator can easily record their activity through the windows.
Example One: Video Recording
In one case, a male client knew his wife was having an affair, but the investigator hadn’t been able to get any real evidence. So, the P.I. suggested that the client go on a short trip. It wasn’t long after the client went out of town that a strange car appeared at the house. The P.I. called the client and asked him to come back to town, after which the client and P.I. entered the house together and retrieved the client’s gun.
They could hear the wife and her lover in a downstairs bedroom, but the door was locked. The investigator stood by with the gun visible on his hip and a video camera in his hand while the client removed the door to the room and yanked the bed covers off of his wife and lover. The investigator had rehearsed with the client what to say because it was important that he not threaten his wife’s lover in any way. Needless to say, this relationship ended in divorce, and the investigator’s film was instrumental in the husband’s case.
Example Two: Setting Your Spouse Up to Admit Guilt
In another situation, a male client was able to intercept his wife’s emails and learn that she was seeing a man who was arriving in town the next evening. She told her husband that she was going out with the girls, but when the investigator followed her, she ended up at a hotel. He observed her coming out of the hotel with her boyfriend, and while they were gone in the boyfriend’s car, the client moved his wife’s car from the parking lot. The investigator contacted the police to let them know that even if the car was reported stolen, it wasn’t actually stolen. Of course, if the wife reported the car stolen, she would have to admit that she had parked it in a hotel parking lot.
When the wife returned and frantically looked for her car, the client drove up in a van and threw all of her clothes onto the ground. He had gathered them in garbage bags just for this purpose. She was now officially caught and could no longer deny her affairs.
Example Three: Workplace Monitoring
In another case, an employer was related to the spouse of an employee who was suspected of having an affair with a coworker. The employer hired an investigator to place a hidden video camera in the office, which caught the married employee and lover having sex numerous times during the day. So, this couple was not only guilty of avoiding work, but they were committing acts of illicit sexual behavior
Most of the time, people have affairs with just one person that they’ve met at work. This is why the first question an investigator usually asks a client is: Where does your spouse work, and who works with your spouse? Investigators say it’s much less common for a married person to pick up several lovers in bars or to be caught involved in prostitution. But it certainly isn’t unprecedented.
Example Four: Following Someone
In one case, it was discovered that a man had placed a profile on a dating website, stating that he was separated. He began dating women in the area, and the investigator was surprised to find the man out with different women on different evenings. Eventually, the man picked up a woman at a bar and engaged in a sexual act with her in his car in a parking lot. The private investigator was able to shoot video of the couple through the window of the car.
Avoid Hiring Friends to Watch Your Spouse
What if someone asks a friend to follow the spouse or place a wiretap on the spouse’s telephone? This is a recipe for disaster. First of all, wiretapping is illegal a violation of both federal and state law. There are trespassing and harassment laws as well that the average person might not understand, so a friend could be criminally prosecuted for making an inadvertent mistake. Besides criminal charges, the injured parties could take the friend/amateur investigator to court for monetary damages.
Even if the friend stays within the law, a non-professional is much more likely to tip off the party who is being followed. Once the spouse knows they’re being watched, obtaining evidence is next to impossible. This mistake can be costly since private investigators generally charge by the hour. Tipping off the spouse may require considerably more time on the part of the professional investigator, resulting in added cost. One private investigator likens it to getting an estimate on a malfunctioning transmission only to go home and take the transmission apart. When you have to return the transmission to the mechanic in dozens of pieces, the estimate will be higher because it will take the mechanic longer to put the mess back together again.
When Should a Private Investigator Be Hired?
Even if there is nothing more than a suspicion of something amiss in the marriage, consulting with an hacker is a good idea. If the matter ends up in court, the evidence gathered by the P.I. is much more likely to be admissible in the case if it has been gathered with the guidance and direction of an hacker.
Some people believe they can confront their spouse and find a way to work on the marriage. While this is certainly a possibility, if the cheating party is unwilling to work on the marriage, it’s helpful to have the evidence before the confrontation takes place
Feel free to contact us at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for expert guidance
2023.03.20 22:15 PossibleBluejay4498 Resurfaced trauma and starting over.
I just need to share my experiences this past year and a half... attempting VLC with BOUNDARIES so that my son can have a relationship with his grandmother, so here goes the background.
My husband and I were temporarily staying with my mom with the SOLE purpose of saving money so that we could build a family and a future together. The plan from the BEGINNING was for us to be there for a couple years and then move out and buy our first home once we reached those goals. All of this was discussed and fully "supported" by her before the move happened.
So fast forward, we got married in June of last year, but we got engaged in the winter of 2020 while we were living with my dBPD mom (yeah ....quarantine was a trip... 🙄 I digress). I also found out I was pregnant in April of 2020. Also, we began the process of house hunting and job interviews in preparation for us to relocate once the baby came and we both had jobs in our desired location.
I have now come to understand that this is a triple whammy of abandonment from her perspective. God forbid I find any success as an independent and healthy adult...
The first sign of things to come was on the day my husband and I told her we were traveling out of state to begin looking at wedding venues. It had always been our intention that the wedding would take place in the same part of the country that we were planning to plant roots and raise our own family. We both grew up there, and the majority of our friends and family are there, but the thing that REALLY grinds her gears is that my father and wonderful step-family are also in that location.
Well, when we informed her that we would be going away for the weekend to look at venues, her response was "we need to sit down and have a conversation about how this is all being paid for. I am planning on contributing financially to the wedding, so we need to have some parameters." I told her not to worry, we were just touring a couple of spots and that once we had an idea of even what KIND of wedding it would be, we could discuss finances. I knew that I was in a lose-lose situation, because if she was involved with footing any of the bills, she would without a doubt sabatoge my planning on the basis of costs and if she wasn't involved financially, it "makes her look bad" and that I am "ungrateful". I also know that nothing makes her more angry and resentful than the fact that in the years since my parents divorce, my father has become very successful, is happily remarried, and owns a gigantic beautiful house. If she wasn't willing to agree with my choices for the wedding, he WOULD. (The thing is, she is ALSO very successful and owns a home in one of the most affluent and expensive areas of the country, so even though her house is significantly smaller in size, due to its location it's worth ALMOST the same amount of money as my dad's. Plus, she lives alone and he has a wife and 4 step children... so it's obviously not really about that, now is it?)
Well, although we weren't expecting to, we ended up finding the PERFECT venue in the month we wanted, so we signed a contract to secure our date. My dad also told me not to worry about the money or my mother.
We were FLOATING on CLOUD 9. After dating for 10 years, we had finally set a wedding date! On the drive back home to her house, we called her on speakerphone to share the exciting news, hopefully (and delusionally) expecting a NORMAL response from a mother about her only daughter's wedding. As you can imagine, she completely bursted my bubble by not only not being happy FOR me or WITH me, but actually sounded pretty pissed off.
ME: "hey Mom! We set a wedding date!! pwBPD: "oh?" ...Awkward Silence... ME: "ummm, yeah.. so... we are on our way back now. I guess I will tell you more about it later." pwBPD: "yeeupp" hangs up.
FIANCÉ: "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?"
Okay, so fast forward a few weeks and it's time to go wedding dress shopping. I made the mistake of allotting the dress to be her financial contribution and asking my mother to come to the appointment. Once again I had delusional hopes and visions of us laughing, sipping champagne, crying tears of joy, and lots of hugging.. you know.... like the normal mothedaughters you see on "Say yes to the dress" or whatever... 🫤😔
Now, thanks to her constanting criticisms and body shaming as a preteen and adolescent, I suffer from some pretty deep, long-term body dysmorphia and was NOT looking forward to dress shopping. I was terrified, actually. But - I kept telling myself that the fear was due to my irrational feelings of disgust towards the way I look in literally ANYTHING. I was refusing to acknowledge that the fear was more likely the direct result of my subconscious knowing full well that dress shopping with THE person who created all of these issues would likely result in an uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. ...bingo... When I the one dress that caught my eye and made me excited to actually try something on, they didn't have a sample on hand that was anywhere near my size and there were none at any other American retailers, but they could have one made and shipped over. She proceeded to try and convince me to shop around some more. I stood my ground and wanted the dress made asap in order to get it with enough time to do alterations. They required 50% payment up front to even have it made to sample & try on because of the pandemic, access to materials, and everyone rescheduling their weddings for 2021 and 22.
So... she started an argument with the lady at the shop. Wanted guarantees on being able to change our mind once it came in, and finally refusing to pay the deposit. I left there completely devastated and angry. Called my dad secretly when we got home, and he said "Go back tomorrow and get the dress sent over. Even if we lose the deposit because you end up HATING it, you should get it." (I recognize the unbelievable amount of privilege that I am referring to here, and realize that many people would not have that option, but it's important for story context - I am beyond grateful for the comforts i am afforded in this lifetime and my for my dad being genuinely supportive and a providing a much needed emotional safety net in the wake of these episodes with my pwBPD).
After this incident, things rapidly escalated. My mother started getting crazier and the dissociations were ranpant. Living under he roof became a nightmare. Any way she could sabatoge, interfere with our routines, impose on our privacy, triangulate and pit us against one another, she did:
She started texting my brother (non-BPD) and using him as well.
She abruptly stopped watching our infant son for 1.5 hours a day and left us with no childcare unexpectedly, causing my fiance to have to quit his job because we werent planning to enroll him until we relocated in the coming months because it was interfereing with her work from home career (did i mention this 1.5 hour block was literally during normal lunch hours, 11:30 til 1pm, and she was fully in control of her calendar availability) - an immensely helpful gesture that SHE had offered to us, NOT one that we had asked her for.
She started verbally abusing our cat, and eventually threw things at him including a knife.
She would turn on her gigantic stereo on the weekends starting at 7am so that she could "clean" even though it was our only time off as a family with our son, making it impossible to relax at any time inside those walls... etc etc etc...
my tactic for several weeks was pretty much the silent treatment and walking on eggshells. We just needed this to last a few more months... we had several very promising job prospects being considered and as soon as we were employed, wevcould relocate, despite how insane it is to move, start a new job AND plan a wedding all at the same time. We wanted OUT, and things were so volatile it was sincerely like walking across a mine field CONSTANTLY.
Finally, just before the holidays (I believe it was a day or two before Thanksgiving) things got so out of hand. After almost 2 months VLC - which is immensely uncomfortable whilst livingunder the same roof - she pushed JUST the right buttons to throw me over the edge. I lost it. Screaming, cursing, slamming doors. When she actually hit me with a closed fist, causing me to attempt to remove myself from the situation, she followed me around the house from room to room and would not leave me alone. My infant son was asleep and I was not leaving without him, and she was physically blocking my route to his crib. My husband was also asleep and when I was finally able to get into our room and lock the door, I just sat in bed silently all night, waiting to hear her footsteps walking towards my son, even once she went to her room and turned off all the lights.
The next day we went to a hotel while she was working. We lived there for three weeks, eventually relocated and continued to plan the wedding without her input at all. I was completely NC from November until May. The ONLY reason I allowed contact in May was because the wedding was in June and if she was going to be in attendance, I needed to rip off the bandaid before I walked down the aisle.
I am going to stop now because i just totally unpacked here and it's a lot but.... omg there is something seriously painful about desperately and deeply craving the approval, pride, love, and approval from a parent who is not capable of fulfilling those things for you.
With the support of this forum, I am hopeful that navigating the near future will at least be less isolating and there will be more reminders of the validity of my choices and actions.
💜💜💜
Grateful.
💜💜💜
Hugs.
raisedbyborderlines MODs I do not have any other reddit usernames!
https://basepaws.com/blogs/news/how-big-can-maine-coon-cats-get
submitted by PossibleBluejay4498 to raisedbyborderlines [link] [comments]
My husband and I were temporarily staying with my mom with the SOLE purpose of saving money so that we could build a family and a future together. The plan from the BEGINNING was for us to be there for a couple years and then move out and buy our first home once we reached those goals. All of this was discussed and fully "supported" by her before the move happened.
So fast forward, we got married in June of last year, but we got engaged in the winter of 2020 while we were living with my dBPD mom (yeah ....quarantine was a trip... 🙄 I digress). I also found out I was pregnant in April of 2020. Also, we began the process of house hunting and job interviews in preparation for us to relocate once the baby came and we both had jobs in our desired location.
I have now come to understand that this is a triple whammy of abandonment from her perspective. God forbid I find any success as an independent and healthy adult...
The first sign of things to come was on the day my husband and I told her we were traveling out of state to begin looking at wedding venues. It had always been our intention that the wedding would take place in the same part of the country that we were planning to plant roots and raise our own family. We both grew up there, and the majority of our friends and family are there, but the thing that REALLY grinds her gears is that my father and wonderful step-family are also in that location.
Well, when we informed her that we would be going away for the weekend to look at venues, her response was "we need to sit down and have a conversation about how this is all being paid for. I am planning on contributing financially to the wedding, so we need to have some parameters." I told her not to worry, we were just touring a couple of spots and that once we had an idea of even what KIND of wedding it would be, we could discuss finances. I knew that I was in a lose-lose situation, because if she was involved with footing any of the bills, she would without a doubt sabatoge my planning on the basis of costs and if she wasn't involved financially, it "makes her look bad" and that I am "ungrateful". I also know that nothing makes her more angry and resentful than the fact that in the years since my parents divorce, my father has become very successful, is happily remarried, and owns a gigantic beautiful house. If she wasn't willing to agree with my choices for the wedding, he WOULD. (The thing is, she is ALSO very successful and owns a home in one of the most affluent and expensive areas of the country, so even though her house is significantly smaller in size, due to its location it's worth ALMOST the same amount of money as my dad's. Plus, she lives alone and he has a wife and 4 step children... so it's obviously not really about that, now is it?)
Well, although we weren't expecting to, we ended up finding the PERFECT venue in the month we wanted, so we signed a contract to secure our date. My dad also told me not to worry about the money or my mother.
We were FLOATING on CLOUD 9. After dating for 10 years, we had finally set a wedding date! On the drive back home to her house, we called her on speakerphone to share the exciting news, hopefully (and delusionally) expecting a NORMAL response from a mother about her only daughter's wedding. As you can imagine, she completely bursted my bubble by not only not being happy FOR me or WITH me, but actually sounded pretty pissed off.
ME: "hey Mom! We set a wedding date!! pwBPD: "oh?" ...Awkward Silence... ME: "ummm, yeah.. so... we are on our way back now. I guess I will tell you more about it later." pwBPD: "yeeupp" hangs up.
FIANCÉ: "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?"
Okay, so fast forward a few weeks and it's time to go wedding dress shopping. I made the mistake of allotting the dress to be her financial contribution and asking my mother to come to the appointment. Once again I had delusional hopes and visions of us laughing, sipping champagne, crying tears of joy, and lots of hugging.. you know.... like the normal mothedaughters you see on "Say yes to the dress" or whatever... 🫤😔
Now, thanks to her constanting criticisms and body shaming as a preteen and adolescent, I suffer from some pretty deep, long-term body dysmorphia and was NOT looking forward to dress shopping. I was terrified, actually. But - I kept telling myself that the fear was due to my irrational feelings of disgust towards the way I look in literally ANYTHING. I was refusing to acknowledge that the fear was more likely the direct result of my subconscious knowing full well that dress shopping with THE person who created all of these issues would likely result in an uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. ...bingo... When I the one dress that caught my eye and made me excited to actually try something on, they didn't have a sample on hand that was anywhere near my size and there were none at any other American retailers, but they could have one made and shipped over. She proceeded to try and convince me to shop around some more. I stood my ground and wanted the dress made asap in order to get it with enough time to do alterations. They required 50% payment up front to even have it made to sample & try on because of the pandemic, access to materials, and everyone rescheduling their weddings for 2021 and 22.
So... she started an argument with the lady at the shop. Wanted guarantees on being able to change our mind once it came in, and finally refusing to pay the deposit. I left there completely devastated and angry. Called my dad secretly when we got home, and he said "Go back tomorrow and get the dress sent over. Even if we lose the deposit because you end up HATING it, you should get it." (I recognize the unbelievable amount of privilege that I am referring to here, and realize that many people would not have that option, but it's important for story context - I am beyond grateful for the comforts i am afforded in this lifetime and my for my dad being genuinely supportive and a providing a much needed emotional safety net in the wake of these episodes with my pwBPD).
After this incident, things rapidly escalated. My mother started getting crazier and the dissociations were ranpant. Living under he roof became a nightmare. Any way she could sabatoge, interfere with our routines, impose on our privacy, triangulate and pit us against one another, she did:
She started texting my brother (non-BPD) and using him as well.
She abruptly stopped watching our infant son for 1.5 hours a day and left us with no childcare unexpectedly, causing my fiance to have to quit his job because we werent planning to enroll him until we relocated in the coming months because it was interfereing with her work from home career (did i mention this 1.5 hour block was literally during normal lunch hours, 11:30 til 1pm, and she was fully in control of her calendar availability) - an immensely helpful gesture that SHE had offered to us, NOT one that we had asked her for.
She started verbally abusing our cat, and eventually threw things at him including a knife.
She would turn on her gigantic stereo on the weekends starting at 7am so that she could "clean" even though it was our only time off as a family with our son, making it impossible to relax at any time inside those walls... etc etc etc...
my tactic for several weeks was pretty much the silent treatment and walking on eggshells. We just needed this to last a few more months... we had several very promising job prospects being considered and as soon as we were employed, wevcould relocate, despite how insane it is to move, start a new job AND plan a wedding all at the same time. We wanted OUT, and things were so volatile it was sincerely like walking across a mine field CONSTANTLY.
Finally, just before the holidays (I believe it was a day or two before Thanksgiving) things got so out of hand. After almost 2 months VLC - which is immensely uncomfortable whilst livingunder the same roof - she pushed JUST the right buttons to throw me over the edge. I lost it. Screaming, cursing, slamming doors. When she actually hit me with a closed fist, causing me to attempt to remove myself from the situation, she followed me around the house from room to room and would not leave me alone. My infant son was asleep and I was not leaving without him, and she was physically blocking my route to his crib. My husband was also asleep and when I was finally able to get into our room and lock the door, I just sat in bed silently all night, waiting to hear her footsteps walking towards my son, even once she went to her room and turned off all the lights.
The next day we went to a hotel while she was working. We lived there for three weeks, eventually relocated and continued to plan the wedding without her input at all. I was completely NC from November until May. The ONLY reason I allowed contact in May was because the wedding was in June and if she was going to be in attendance, I needed to rip off the bandaid before I walked down the aisle.
I am going to stop now because i just totally unpacked here and it's a lot but.... omg there is something seriously painful about desperately and deeply craving the approval, pride, love, and approval from a parent who is not capable of fulfilling those things for you.
With the support of this forum, I am hopeful that navigating the near future will at least be less isolating and there will be more reminders of the validity of my choices and actions.
💜💜💜
Grateful.
💜💜💜
Hugs.
raisedbyborderlines MODs I do not have any other reddit usernames!
https://basepaws.com/blogs/news/how-big-can-maine-coon-cats-get
2023.03.20 22:11 Training_Insect9150 If I wanted to hire a hacker to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse, is it better than hiring a private investigator?
Should I Hire a Private Investigator to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse
When we think about private investigators, most of us imagine something out of a movie: The private investigator sits in his car, chomping a sandwich and smoking a cigar while he tries to catch a cheating spouse and lover in a clandestine embrace. But is this the way it is in real life? Yes and no.
How a Private Investigator Might Help
Private investigators are often hired to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse, and they can be very helpful for a variety of reasons. However, more often than not, the evidence they collect is more circumstantial than what you see in the movies. When the case involves extramarital affairs, the couples are usually discreet enough that the film is PG-rated at best. Still, every P.I. has stories of catching people in the act and capturing some very private, revealing moments on film.
The Illusion of Privacy
Most people close the blinds unless they’re on an upper floor in a building where they believe they can’t be seen from the ground. But what if a private investigator manages to take video from an upper floor in the building across the street? If a house is in a secluded area, the spouse who has hired the private investigator can give the P.I. permission to walk onto the grounds of the house. The illusion that the lovers can’t be seen because of the seclusion of the house is just that; an illusion. The investigator can easily record their activity through the windows.
Example One: Video Recording
In one case, a male client knew his wife was having an affair, but the investigator hadn’t been able to get any real evidence. So, the P.I. suggested that the client go on a short trip. It wasn’t long after the client went out of town that a strange car appeared at the house. The P.I. called the client and asked him to come back to town, after which the client and P.I. entered the house together and retrieved the client’s gun.
They could hear the wife and her lover in a downstairs bedroom, but the door was locked. The investigator stood by with the gun visible on his hip and a video camera in his hand while the client removed the door to the room and yanked the bed covers off of his wife and lover. The investigator had rehearsed with the client what to say because it was important that he not threaten his wife’s lover in any way. Needless to say, this relationship ended in divorce, and the investigator’s film was instrumental in the husband’s case.
Example Two: Setting Your Spouse Up to Admit Guilt
In another situation, a male client was able to intercept his wife’s emails and learn that she was seeing a man who was arriving in town the next evening. She told her husband that she was going out with the girls, but when the investigator followed her, she ended up at a hotel. He observed her coming out of the hotel with her boyfriend, and while they were gone in the boyfriend’s car, the client moved his wife’s car from the parking lot. The investigator contacted the police to let them know that even if the car was reported stolen, it wasn’t actually stolen. Of course, if the wife reported the car stolen, she would have to admit that she had parked it in a hotel parking lot.
When the wife returned and frantically looked for her car, the client drove up in a van and threw all of her clothes onto the ground. He had gathered them in garbage bags just for this purpose. She was now officially caught and could no longer deny her affairs.
Example Three: Workplace Monitoring
In another case, an employer was related to the spouse of an employee who was suspected of having an affair with a coworker. The employer hired an investigator to place a hidden video camera in the office, which caught the married employee and lover having sex numerous times during the day. So, this couple was not only guilty of avoiding work, but they were committing acts of illicit sexual behavior
Most of the time, people have affairs with just one person that they’ve met at work. This is why the first question an investigator usually asks a client is: Where does your spouse work, and who works with your spouse? Investigators say it’s much less common for a married person to pick up several lovers in bars or to be caught involved in prostitution. But it certainly isn’t unprecedented.
Example Four: Following Someone
In one case, it was discovered that a man had placed a profile on a dating website, stating that he was separated. He began dating women in the area, and the investigator was surprised to find the man out with different women on different evenings. Eventually, the man picked up a woman at a bar and engaged in a sexual act with her in his car in a parking lot. The private investigator was able to shoot video of the couple through the window of the car.
Avoid Hiring Friends to Watch Your Spouse
What if someone asks a friend to follow the spouse or place a wiretap on the spouse’s telephone? This is a recipe for disaster. First of all, wiretapping is illegal a violation of both federal and state law. There are trespassing and harassment laws as well that the average person might not understand, so a friend could be criminally prosecuted for making an inadvertent mistake. Besides criminal charges, the injured parties could take the friend/amateur investigator to court for monetary damages.
Even if the friend stays within the law, a non-professional is much more likely to tip off the party who is being followed. Once the spouse knows they’re being watched, obtaining evidence is next to impossible. This mistake can be costly since private investigators generally charge by the hour. Tipping off the spouse may require considerably more time on the part of the professional investigator, resulting in added cost. One private investigator likens it to getting an estimate on a malfunctioning transmission only to go home and take the transmission apart. When you have to return the transmission to the mechanic in dozens of pieces, the estimate will be higher because it will take the mechanic longer to put the mess back together again.
When Should a Private Investigator Be Hired?
Even if there is nothing more than a suspicion of something amiss in the marriage, consulting with an hacker is a good idea. If the matter ends up in court, the evidence gathered by the P.I. is much more likely to be admissible in the case if it has been gathered with the guidance and direction of an hacker.
Some people believe they can confront their spouse and find a way to work on the marriage. While this is certainly a possibility, if the cheating party is unwilling to work on the marriage, it’s helpful to have the evidence before the confrontation takes place
Feel free to contact us at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for expert guidance
submitted by Training_Insect9150 to u/Training_Insect9150 [link] [comments]
When we think about private investigators, most of us imagine something out of a movie: The private investigator sits in his car, chomping a sandwich and smoking a cigar while he tries to catch a cheating spouse and lover in a clandestine embrace. But is this the way it is in real life? Yes and no.
How a Private Investigator Might Help
Private investigators are often hired to Help to find a lost relative or catch a cheating spouse, and they can be very helpful for a variety of reasons. However, more often than not, the evidence they collect is more circumstantial than what you see in the movies. When the case involves extramarital affairs, the couples are usually discreet enough that the film is PG-rated at best. Still, every P.I. has stories of catching people in the act and capturing some very private, revealing moments on film.
The Illusion of Privacy
Most people close the blinds unless they’re on an upper floor in a building where they believe they can’t be seen from the ground. But what if a private investigator manages to take video from an upper floor in the building across the street? If a house is in a secluded area, the spouse who has hired the private investigator can give the P.I. permission to walk onto the grounds of the house. The illusion that the lovers can’t be seen because of the seclusion of the house is just that; an illusion. The investigator can easily record their activity through the windows.
Example One: Video Recording
In one case, a male client knew his wife was having an affair, but the investigator hadn’t been able to get any real evidence. So, the P.I. suggested that the client go on a short trip. It wasn’t long after the client went out of town that a strange car appeared at the house. The P.I. called the client and asked him to come back to town, after which the client and P.I. entered the house together and retrieved the client’s gun.
They could hear the wife and her lover in a downstairs bedroom, but the door was locked. The investigator stood by with the gun visible on his hip and a video camera in his hand while the client removed the door to the room and yanked the bed covers off of his wife and lover. The investigator had rehearsed with the client what to say because it was important that he not threaten his wife’s lover in any way. Needless to say, this relationship ended in divorce, and the investigator’s film was instrumental in the husband’s case.
Example Two: Setting Your Spouse Up to Admit Guilt
In another situation, a male client was able to intercept his wife’s emails and learn that she was seeing a man who was arriving in town the next evening. She told her husband that she was going out with the girls, but when the investigator followed her, she ended up at a hotel. He observed her coming out of the hotel with her boyfriend, and while they were gone in the boyfriend’s car, the client moved his wife’s car from the parking lot. The investigator contacted the police to let them know that even if the car was reported stolen, it wasn’t actually stolen. Of course, if the wife reported the car stolen, she would have to admit that she had parked it in a hotel parking lot.
When the wife returned and frantically looked for her car, the client drove up in a van and threw all of her clothes onto the ground. He had gathered them in garbage bags just for this purpose. She was now officially caught and could no longer deny her affairs.
Example Three: Workplace Monitoring
In another case, an employer was related to the spouse of an employee who was suspected of having an affair with a coworker. The employer hired an investigator to place a hidden video camera in the office, which caught the married employee and lover having sex numerous times during the day. So, this couple was not only guilty of avoiding work, but they were committing acts of illicit sexual behavior
Most of the time, people have affairs with just one person that they’ve met at work. This is why the first question an investigator usually asks a client is: Where does your spouse work, and who works with your spouse? Investigators say it’s much less common for a married person to pick up several lovers in bars or to be caught involved in prostitution. But it certainly isn’t unprecedented.
Example Four: Following Someone
In one case, it was discovered that a man had placed a profile on a dating website, stating that he was separated. He began dating women in the area, and the investigator was surprised to find the man out with different women on different evenings. Eventually, the man picked up a woman at a bar and engaged in a sexual act with her in his car in a parking lot. The private investigator was able to shoot video of the couple through the window of the car.
Avoid Hiring Friends to Watch Your Spouse
What if someone asks a friend to follow the spouse or place a wiretap on the spouse’s telephone? This is a recipe for disaster. First of all, wiretapping is illegal a violation of both federal and state law. There are trespassing and harassment laws as well that the average person might not understand, so a friend could be criminally prosecuted for making an inadvertent mistake. Besides criminal charges, the injured parties could take the friend/amateur investigator to court for monetary damages.
Even if the friend stays within the law, a non-professional is much more likely to tip off the party who is being followed. Once the spouse knows they’re being watched, obtaining evidence is next to impossible. This mistake can be costly since private investigators generally charge by the hour. Tipping off the spouse may require considerably more time on the part of the professional investigator, resulting in added cost. One private investigator likens it to getting an estimate on a malfunctioning transmission only to go home and take the transmission apart. When you have to return the transmission to the mechanic in dozens of pieces, the estimate will be higher because it will take the mechanic longer to put the mess back together again.
When Should a Private Investigator Be Hired?
Even if there is nothing more than a suspicion of something amiss in the marriage, consulting with an hacker is a good idea. If the matter ends up in court, the evidence gathered by the P.I. is much more likely to be admissible in the case if it has been gathered with the guidance and direction of an hacker.
Some people believe they can confront their spouse and find a way to work on the marriage. While this is certainly a possibility, if the cheating party is unwilling to work on the marriage, it’s helpful to have the evidence before the confrontation takes place
Feel free to contact us at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for expert guidance
2023.03.20 21:56 drmlnd824 [H] Monster Crown, Jurassic World Evolution 2, Dreamscaper, and others [W] Frostpunk, PlateUp, Tribes of Midgard, Offers
REP PAGE: IGS
WANTS:
submitted by drmlnd824 to indiegameswap [link] [comments]
OPEN TO ALL OFFERS. NO PAYPAL.
HAVE:- 112 Operator
- 911 Operator
- Agent in Depth
- Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy
- Armello
- Autonauts
- Autonauts vs Piratebots
- Backbone
- BARRIER X
- Calico
- Call of the Sea
- Cris Tales
- Dead Age 2
- Deadly Days
- Demon Turf
- Detached: Non-VR Edition
- Doughlings: Arcade
- Doughlings: Invasion
- Dreamscaper
- Edge of Eternity
- Euro Truck Simulator 2
- Fallback: Uprising
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Farming Simulator 17
- Garfield Kart - Furious Racing
- Ghost 1.0
- GOAT OF DUTY
- Guns & Fishes
- Hack 'n' Slash
- Hero's Hour
- Hue
- Hyper Gunsport
- I am Bread
- I am not a Monster: First Contact
- I am not a Monster: First Contact
- In Between
- In Between
- Izmir: An Independence Simulator
- Jurassic World Evolution 2
- Leisure Suit Larry 7 - Love for Sail
- Lust from Beyond - M Edition
- MegaRace 1
- Meow Express
- MirrorMoon EP
- Monaco
- Monster Crown
- Monument Builders - Alcatraz
- Mount & Blade: Warband
- Nongunz: Doppleganger Edition
- Non-Stop Raiders
- Orbital Racer
- Pathologic 2
- PayDay 2
- Pilgrims
- Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic
- Planet TD
- PLAYNE : The Meditation Game
- Project Chemistry
- Quadrata
- Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
- Remnants of Naezith
- Rogue Lords
- Rose Riddle: Fairy Tale Detective
- Rym 9000
- Silver Chains
- Smoke and Sacrifice
- Soulblight
- Space Crew: Legendary Edition
- Space Crew: Legendary Edition
- Stacking
- Stealth Inc 2
- stikir
- Survivalist
- Survivalist: Invisible Strain
- Syberia
- Symmetry
- System Shock Enhanced Edition
- The Inner World
- Ticket to Ride
- Tinkertown
- Tower of Time
- Truberbrook
- Worms Rumble
- Wounded - The Beginning
- X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack
WANTS:
- Resident Evil Revelations 2 Deluxe Edition
- Resident Evil 6
- Frostpunk
- Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag
- Airborne Kingdom
- PlateUp
- The Evil Within
- Tribes of Midgard
- Satisfactory
- Eyes in the Dark
- Strange Brigade
2023.03.20 21:50 jakelilford How long after quitting did your brain fog, anxiety and depression go?
I smoked cigarettes for a little over 2 years and then switched to vaping which I’d done for another 2 years.
I gave up smoking 23 days ago, the worst of the symptoms was definitely the brain fog but I also got a bad spell of anxiety/depression.
The depression has gone mostly, as well as the anxiety which is coming and going in waves but getting better each time and the brain fog has cleared up to a good level but unlike the others it’s maintained at this minimal but still irritating level for almost a week now.
How long did it take for your brain fog, anxiety and depression to go?
Online says 4 weeks but I’m worrying that this is just what non smoking feels like and actually the smoking was improving my decision making and thinking process.
submitted by jakelilford to stopsmoking [link] [comments]
I gave up smoking 23 days ago, the worst of the symptoms was definitely the brain fog but I also got a bad spell of anxiety/depression.
The depression has gone mostly, as well as the anxiety which is coming and going in waves but getting better each time and the brain fog has cleared up to a good level but unlike the others it’s maintained at this minimal but still irritating level for almost a week now.
How long did it take for your brain fog, anxiety and depression to go?
Online says 4 weeks but I’m worrying that this is just what non smoking feels like and actually the smoking was improving my decision making and thinking process.
2023.03.20 21:43 RFC2001 Rebooking Every WWE PPV from WrestleMania 1 - WrestleMania 40 - Part 11 (Long)
Royal Rumble 1996
Date: 21/1/96
Location: Selland Arena, Fresno, California
Intercontinental Championship:
Owen Hart (c) vs Goldust w/Marlena
WWF Tag Team Championship:
The Smoking Gunns (c) vs The Bodydonnas w/Sunny
No Disqualification Match for the WWF Championship:
Bret Hart (c) vs Diesel
(After Survivor Series, Diesel invokes his rematch clause for the WWF Title and vows to regain his championship. Bret Hart tells Diesel there’s going to be no rules to stop him and this match will be contested under No Disqualification. In a very fiery, bloody encounter, Bret Hart shows a different side of himself in order to retain his championship.)
Royal Rumble Match:
Shawn Michaels (#1) wins by last eliminating Hunter Hearst Helmsley (#2)
Royal Rumble notes:
The final four are Shawn Michaels, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, The Undertaker and Vader
Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley both start and finish this match off which plants a huge seed that these two have a huge role going forward
Note:
Instead of an In Your House PPV after the Royal Rumble, there’s going to be no PPV in order to give more time to build to WrestleMania.
WrestleMania XII
Date: 31/3/96
Location: Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, Anaheim, California
Razor Ramon vs The 1-2-3 Kid
(The 1-2-3 Kid turns on Razor which sets up this match. Razor promises to get revenge on his old best friend which he does by winning clean to open WrestleMania 12.)
Savio Vega vs Stone Cold Steve Austin w/Ted DiBiase
Backlot Brawl for the Intercontinental Championship:
Goldust (c) w/Marlena vs Roddy Piper
(The same legendary match we got in real life but with the stakes bigger with Goldust defending the Intercontinental Championship.)
Yokozuna w/Mr.Fuji & Ahmed Johnson vs Owen Hart & The British Bulldog w/Jim Neidhart
Jake Roberts vs Hunter Hearst Helmsley
(Instead of HHH being The Ultimate Warrior’s bitch in a dumb squash match, Jake Robert’s puts him over here.)
The Undertaker w/Paul Bearer vs Diesel
(Diesel attacks Undertaker after the Royal Rumble and claims he has unfinished business with The Deadman and won’t stop until he completely gets rid of him. Taker tells Diesel all he’s doing is unnecessarily digging a bigger grave for himself and will perish at WrestleMania. Taker gets revenge and beats Diesel after delivering a tombstone to go 5-0 at WrestleMania.)
40 minute Iron Man Match for the WWF Championship:
Bret Hart (c) vs Shawn Michaels w/Jose Lothario
(Instead of an hour, the match is narrowed down to 40 minutes. Two of wrestling’s best face off at the biggest show of the year in a face vs face main event to determine who the better man is. The boyhood dream comes true as Michaels wins 1-0 in Sudden Death after it was 0-0 in normal time.)
In Your House: Good Friends, Better Enemies
Date: 28/4/96
Location: Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, Nebraska
Savio Vega vs Stone Cold Steve Austin w/Ted DiBiase
WWF Tag Team Championship:
The Bodydonnas (c) w/Sunny vs The Godwinns
Razor Ramon vs Hunter Hearst Helmsley
(This is Razor’s last match in the company which he bows out by putting over one of his close friends.)
No Holds Barred Match for the WWF Championship:
Shawn Michaels (c) w/Jose Lothario vs Diesel
(The two former friends face off for the last time. Diesel tells Michaels his boyhood dream will be short lived and he’ll crush him like he did at WrestleMania 11 over a year ago to become a 2 time WWF Champion. Shawn Michaels tells Diesel that no one knows Big Daddy Cool better than him and at In Your House he’s going to kick his teeth down his throat and leave with his WWF Championship. Shawn Michaels retains and wins clean after hitting a sweet chin music on Diesel. Big Daddy Cool heads off to WCW.)
In Your House: Beware of Dog
Date: 26/5/96
Location: Florence Civic Center, Florence, South Carolina
Intercontinental Championship:
Goldust (c) vs Stone Cold Steve Austin w/Ted DiBiase
WWF Tag Team Championship:
The Godwinns (c) vs The Smoking Gunns
The Undertaker w/Paul Bearer vs The British Bulldog
Savio Vega vs Jerry Lawler
Yokozuna vs Vader w/Jim Cornette
WWF Championship:
Shawn Michaels (c) w/Jose Lothario vs Owen Hart
(Owen challenges Shawn Michaels and tells him he’ll do what his older brother Bret couldn’t at WrestleMania which is beat the heart break kid when the stakes are high. Shawn tells Owen just like brother, he’ll kick his teeth down his throats. Shawn Michaels retains his championship despite Jim Neidhart’s best attempt to help Owen win the championship.)
And that’s part 11! I hope you guys enjoyed it and like the rebooking so far. The longer this goes, the better it gets. Especially when we hit The Attitude Era and Invasion Angle. I’ll be back tomorrow where I’ll cover from King of The Ring to SummerSlam! Stay tuned.
submitted by RFC2001 to fantasybooking [link] [comments]
Date: 21/1/96
Location: Selland Arena, Fresno, California
Intercontinental Championship:
Owen Hart (c) vs Goldust w/Marlena
WWF Tag Team Championship:
The Smoking Gunns (c) vs The Bodydonnas w/Sunny
No Disqualification Match for the WWF Championship:
Bret Hart (c) vs Diesel
(After Survivor Series, Diesel invokes his rematch clause for the WWF Title and vows to regain his championship. Bret Hart tells Diesel there’s going to be no rules to stop him and this match will be contested under No Disqualification. In a very fiery, bloody encounter, Bret Hart shows a different side of himself in order to retain his championship.)
Royal Rumble Match:
Shawn Michaels (#1) wins by last eliminating Hunter Hearst Helmsley (#2)
Royal Rumble notes:
The final four are Shawn Michaels, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, The Undertaker and Vader
Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst Helmsley both start and finish this match off which plants a huge seed that these two have a huge role going forward
Note:
Instead of an In Your House PPV after the Royal Rumble, there’s going to be no PPV in order to give more time to build to WrestleMania.
Date: 31/3/96
Location: Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, Anaheim, California
Razor Ramon vs The 1-2-3 Kid
(The 1-2-3 Kid turns on Razor which sets up this match. Razor promises to get revenge on his old best friend which he does by winning clean to open WrestleMania 12.)
Savio Vega vs Stone Cold Steve Austin w/Ted DiBiase
Backlot Brawl for the Intercontinental Championship:
Goldust (c) w/Marlena vs Roddy Piper
(The same legendary match we got in real life but with the stakes bigger with Goldust defending the Intercontinental Championship.)
Yokozuna w/Mr.Fuji & Ahmed Johnson vs Owen Hart & The British Bulldog w/Jim Neidhart
Jake Roberts vs Hunter Hearst Helmsley
(Instead of HHH being The Ultimate Warrior’s bitch in a dumb squash match, Jake Robert’s puts him over here.)
The Undertaker w/Paul Bearer vs Diesel
(Diesel attacks Undertaker after the Royal Rumble and claims he has unfinished business with The Deadman and won’t stop until he completely gets rid of him. Taker tells Diesel all he’s doing is unnecessarily digging a bigger grave for himself and will perish at WrestleMania. Taker gets revenge and beats Diesel after delivering a tombstone to go 5-0 at WrestleMania.)
40 minute Iron Man Match for the WWF Championship:
Bret Hart (c) vs Shawn Michaels w/Jose Lothario
(Instead of an hour, the match is narrowed down to 40 minutes. Two of wrestling’s best face off at the biggest show of the year in a face vs face main event to determine who the better man is. The boyhood dream comes true as Michaels wins 1-0 in Sudden Death after it was 0-0 in normal time.)
Date: 28/4/96
Location: Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, Nebraska
Savio Vega vs Stone Cold Steve Austin w/Ted DiBiase
WWF Tag Team Championship:
The Bodydonnas (c) w/Sunny vs The Godwinns
Razor Ramon vs Hunter Hearst Helmsley
(This is Razor’s last match in the company which he bows out by putting over one of his close friends.)
No Holds Barred Match for the WWF Championship:
Shawn Michaels (c) w/Jose Lothario vs Diesel
(The two former friends face off for the last time. Diesel tells Michaels his boyhood dream will be short lived and he’ll crush him like he did at WrestleMania 11 over a year ago to become a 2 time WWF Champion. Shawn Michaels tells Diesel that no one knows Big Daddy Cool better than him and at In Your House he’s going to kick his teeth down his throat and leave with his WWF Championship. Shawn Michaels retains and wins clean after hitting a sweet chin music on Diesel. Big Daddy Cool heads off to WCW.)
Date: 26/5/96
Location: Florence Civic Center, Florence, South Carolina
Intercontinental Championship:
Goldust (c) vs Stone Cold Steve Austin w/Ted DiBiase
WWF Tag Team Championship:
The Godwinns (c) vs The Smoking Gunns
The Undertaker w/Paul Bearer vs The British Bulldog
Savio Vega vs Jerry Lawler
Yokozuna vs Vader w/Jim Cornette
WWF Championship:
Shawn Michaels (c) w/Jose Lothario vs Owen Hart
(Owen challenges Shawn Michaels and tells him he’ll do what his older brother Bret couldn’t at WrestleMania which is beat the heart break kid when the stakes are high. Shawn tells Owen just like brother, he’ll kick his teeth down his throats. Shawn Michaels retains his championship despite Jim Neidhart’s best attempt to help Owen win the championship.)
2023.03.20 21:38 thesmellnextdoor Do you think healthy use is possible for some people?
I've been free from weed for 5 years and have made enormous progress in life since quitting. leaves had a lot to do with stopping and this is the only place I trust to get authentic advice from people who understand what weed can really do to you.
Since quitting, I met and married a wonderful man. Early in our relationship, he told me smoked weed once in a while, but he respected and understood my experience with it and when we moved in together he gave up smoking altogether so he wouldn't need to bring any of into the house. He did this without me having to ask, and I appreciated it.
About a year later, he began a new job that required him to wake up early and was struggling to get to sleep on time and to sleep through the night. He approached me and said smoking pot helped him sleep, and asked if I would mind if he smoked a little before bed, outside and away from me. I believe lots of people can use it responsibly and I don't feel any risk of relapsing myself, so I was happy to agree to this. He has followed through on his promise and most of the time I don't even know he's smoked.
But it's been a couple of years now and I realized it has become a nightly thing for him. Still in very small quantities, away from me, and only right before he goes to bed. But on the weekends too, which troubles me, since he doesn't need to get up early. I don't THINK it affects him during the day, but sometimes if he's forgetful my mind automatically jumps to the pot and I wonder if he would have remembered if he didn't smoke weed.
I know a lot of my concern is coming from a place of personal bias. I had a bad experience with weed, but that doesn't mean everyone has. I have also been addicted to cigarettes (and quit) and am prone to addiction. I don't see any of those problems in my husband. If it weren't for the addiction I had, I don't think his use would concern or bother me in the slightest.
He has had some time off lately and stopped smoking since he didn't have to go to bed so early. And I have observed him struggling to get a good night's sleep. He is tired in the morning, despite being able to sleep in. I guess he wakes up in the night and just can't fall back asleep. He's tried herbal sleep remedies without much success and non-herbal sleep aids make him groggy the next day. Pot really does seem to be the most effective remedy for his problem, with the fewest side effects.
I don't know how to feel about it! Would it bother you if your partner did this? Again, in my case, fearisk of relapsing myself is not a concern. I just... worry he will wind up like me, or that it is affecting his personality in ways that are too subtle to realize. I don't want to ask him to stop doing something that helps him, but I have to admit it worries me.
submitted by thesmellnextdoor to leaves [link] [comments]
Since quitting, I met and married a wonderful man. Early in our relationship, he told me smoked weed once in a while, but he respected and understood my experience with it and when we moved in together he gave up smoking altogether so he wouldn't need to bring any of into the house. He did this without me having to ask, and I appreciated it.
About a year later, he began a new job that required him to wake up early and was struggling to get to sleep on time and to sleep through the night. He approached me and said smoking pot helped him sleep, and asked if I would mind if he smoked a little before bed, outside and away from me. I believe lots of people can use it responsibly and I don't feel any risk of relapsing myself, so I was happy to agree to this. He has followed through on his promise and most of the time I don't even know he's smoked.
But it's been a couple of years now and I realized it has become a nightly thing for him. Still in very small quantities, away from me, and only right before he goes to bed. But on the weekends too, which troubles me, since he doesn't need to get up early. I don't THINK it affects him during the day, but sometimes if he's forgetful my mind automatically jumps to the pot and I wonder if he would have remembered if he didn't smoke weed.
I know a lot of my concern is coming from a place of personal bias. I had a bad experience with weed, but that doesn't mean everyone has. I have also been addicted to cigarettes (and quit) and am prone to addiction. I don't see any of those problems in my husband. If it weren't for the addiction I had, I don't think his use would concern or bother me in the slightest.
He has had some time off lately and stopped smoking since he didn't have to go to bed so early. And I have observed him struggling to get a good night's sleep. He is tired in the morning, despite being able to sleep in. I guess he wakes up in the night and just can't fall back asleep. He's tried herbal sleep remedies without much success and non-herbal sleep aids make him groggy the next day. Pot really does seem to be the most effective remedy for his problem, with the fewest side effects.
I don't know how to feel about it! Would it bother you if your partner did this? Again, in my case, fearisk of relapsing myself is not a concern. I just... worry he will wind up like me, or that it is affecting his personality in ways that are too subtle to realize. I don't want to ask him to stop doing something that helps him, but I have to admit it worries me.
2023.03.20 21:38 KevTheWhiz Looking for One Roomate for 6/1 Move In East Williamsburg
Hi all,
I am looking for one more roommate to join me and a friend for a 6/1 move on a 3 bed/1.5 bath off-the-market listing in East Williamsburg. I am a young professional (23M) working in Finance and he (22M) will be attending NYU for graduate studies. The location is 20 minutes away from Manhattan and rent will be around $1,500 a person before utilities.
In addition, because he will be a student, so you will have to be able to fulfill the 40x requirement with me. Details and preferences are located below:
Thanks!
submitted by KevTheWhiz to Bushwick [link] [comments]
I am looking for one more roommate to join me and a friend for a 6/1 move on a 3 bed/1.5 bath off-the-market listing in East Williamsburg. I am a young professional (23M) working in Finance and he (22M) will be attending NYU for graduate studies. The location is 20 minutes away from Manhattan and rent will be around $1,500 a person before utilities.
In addition, because he will be a student, so you will have to be able to fulfill the 40x requirement with me. Details and preferences are located below:
- No Preference for Gender
- Must be clean and chill
- Make >$80,000 or have guarantor to fulfill 80x.
- 700+ Credit Score
- Non-smoking in common areas
- Preferably a young professional or studying as well
Thanks!
2023.03.20 21:28 Astrotamer777 No Free Samples
Yesterday I was in Las Vegas and in one of the retail zones I went to in the strip was a candy store where you pick assorted candies and put them in the bag to weigh them and the price is based on the weight.
I took a free sample of one of the tiny candies and nobody said anything. Then I tried taking two starbursts thinking they gave us free samples. They told me no free samples so I had to put them back. But when they weren’t looking I stole one and ate it.
submitted by Astrotamer777 to PointlessStories [link] [comments]
I took a free sample of one of the tiny candies and nobody said anything. Then I tried taking two starbursts thinking they gave us free samples. They told me no free samples so I had to put them back. But when they weren’t looking I stole one and ate it.
2023.03.20 21:26 jasper813 Am I wrong to wanna kick out my dumb ass step daughter and her lazy worthless ass girlfriend
Me and my lady been together now 7 years and have 2 boys 5 & 4 and a Lil girl on the way in June my lady has 4 kids from previous relationship 16&15 year old daughters 20 year old son and 24 year old daughter that is trans which I have nothing against. Well 2 years ago we'll just call hehim K well K brang home a friend and said the friend would just be there for few days till her grandma could send her money for train / bus ticket to Vegas to go stay with her. Well after two weeks they both take off to Vegas and come back four days later talking about they got married. I was like WTF why. well fast forward now and they been staying with us for the past two years now and neither one of them does anything to help themselves or us. Well aside from watching the younger kids when me and my lady go out they really don't do shit my step daughter doesn't work or go to school. She has a lot of medical problems bad heart bad kidney bad stomach bad ovaries and is manic depressive bipolar. Her lazy bum ass girlfriend doesn't do shit either. Doesn't work go to school or help out around the house bitch can't even cook. And supposedly told our neighbor that she not gonna go to work because she's the female in the relationship and has to be taken care of (in my head I'm like bitch you smoking crack). Me and my lady are both fed up with both of them but we don't know what to do. Cause on one side that's her daughter and she has medical conditions and we both know tidy if we tell the other bitch to leave them her daughter will bounce out too. I'm to the point where I'm just like fuck it bye to the both of them but I don't say shit yet cause of my lady what should we do here
submitted by jasper813 to ToxicFamilyMembers [link] [comments]
2023.03.20 21:04 _rawstrawb Small Town Haircuts: salon? vs barber??
calling all fellow small town dudes and fellow nosy opiniated individuals! i could use some input
like every first haircut post long-term breakup? it has probably too many expectations riding on it. but wanna give it my best shot
so, im non-binary transmasc and been on t for over 5 years now. instead of being read as the person of indeterminate gender very quickly nearing 30 that i am? i find im most often read as either a particularly gay and fashion concious teenage boy? or, slightly less often, a teenage transgirl. especially since the recent move from large progressive city to small town.
both reads are fine by me, "youth" has its advantages, and people generally pick up on my age after the 2nd or 3rd interaction lol. mostly added for the context.
now, my hair has grown out past my shoulders? for the first time in over a decade! and since i finally figured out how to care for my waves/curls?? ive realized i actually really like the look of the longer hair. ended up settling on a wolf cut.
SO, my question is? would you recommend getting this type of cut done at a salon? or barber??
i know salons are usually better with longer cuts and layering? but i haven't been to one since 2011, after being burned by one too many "john & kate plus 8" type pixie cuts in a row, lol
the barber in town is like.. a shockingly hip place for somewhere so small? sandalwood beard cream, straight razors and craft beer kind of place. while my options for salon are a bit more strip mall looking? with not quuuite enough reviews or knowing anyone ~queer~ in area yet to ask, to want to take the risk without some consideration. i could maaaybe be persauded to go to a salon in the nearest mid-sized town? but would, in general, prefer to have my new regular place be local.
whadda think? what would you do in my shoes?
submitted by _rawstrawb to ftm [link] [comments]
like every first haircut post long-term breakup? it has probably too many expectations riding on it. but wanna give it my best shot
so, im non-binary transmasc and been on t for over 5 years now. instead of being read as the person of indeterminate gender very quickly nearing 30 that i am? i find im most often read as either a particularly gay and fashion concious teenage boy? or, slightly less often, a teenage transgirl. especially since the recent move from large progressive city to small town.
both reads are fine by me, "youth" has its advantages, and people generally pick up on my age after the 2nd or 3rd interaction lol. mostly added for the context.
now, my hair has grown out past my shoulders? for the first time in over a decade! and since i finally figured out how to care for my waves/curls?? ive realized i actually really like the look of the longer hair. ended up settling on a wolf cut.
i know salons are usually better with longer cuts and layering? but i haven't been to one since 2011, after being burned by one too many "john & kate plus 8" type pixie cuts in a row, lol
the barber in town is like.. a shockingly hip place for somewhere so small? sandalwood beard cream, straight razors and craft beer kind of place. while my options for salon are a bit more strip mall looking? with not quuuite enough reviews or knowing anyone ~queer~ in area yet to ask, to want to take the risk without some consideration. i could maaaybe be persauded to go to a salon in the nearest mid-sized town? but would, in general, prefer to have my new regular place be local.
whadda think? what would you do in my shoes?
2023.03.20 20:54 bigbanger1987 45 [M4A] Lingerie Hotel Play in Spring
Anyone interested in playing in lingerie on Wednesday? Non-pass chubby guy looking for lingerie pal. If I find the right person I will get a hotel room for Wednesday morning into early afternoon. Versatile here.
submitted by bigbanger1987 to houstonr4r [link] [comments]
2023.03.20 20:52 _rawstrawb Small Town Haircuts; salon? vs barber??
calling all fellow small town dudes and fellow nosy opiniated individuals! help me pick where i get my next hair cut.
like every first haircut post-breakup? it has a lot of expectations riding on it.
about me, im non-binary and been on t for well over 5 years now. so, instead of being read as the person of indeterminate gender very quickly nearing 30 that i am? i find im most often read as either a particularly gay and fashion concious teenage boy? or, to my recent suprise, a teenage transgirl. especially since the recent move from large progressive city to small town.
both reads are fine by me, "youth" has its advantages, and people generally pick up on my age after the 2nd or 3rd interaction lol. mostly added for the context.
now, my hair has grown out past my shoulders? for the first time in fuckin ages. and since i finally figured out how to care for my waves/curls?? ive realized i actually really like the look of the longer hair. ended up settling on a wolf cut. for the unaware, a wolf cut is just the new variation on a mullet. more layers. its easy upkeep, just trendy/classic enough, and unisex. perfect.
SO, my question is? would you recommend getting this type of cut done at a salon? or a barber??
i know salons are usually better with longer cuts and layering? but i haven't been to one since 2011, after being burned by one too many "john & kate plus 8" type pixie cuts in a row, lol
the barber in town is like.. a shockingly hip place for somewhere so small? sandalwood beard cream, straight razors and craft beer kind of place. while my options for salon are a bit more strip mall looking? with not quuuite enough reviews or knowing anyone ~queer~ in area yet to ask, to want to take the risk without some consideration. i could maaaybe be persauded to go to a salon in the nearest mid-sized town? but would, in general, prefer to have my new regular place be local.
whadda think? what would you do in my shoes?
submitted by _rawstrawb to FTMOver30 [link] [comments]
like every first haircut post-breakup? it has a lot of expectations riding on it.
about me, im non-binary and been on t for well over 5 years now. so, instead of being read as the person of indeterminate gender very quickly nearing 30 that i am? i find im most often read as either a particularly gay and fashion concious teenage boy? or, to my recent suprise, a teenage transgirl. especially since the recent move from large progressive city to small town.
both reads are fine by me, "youth" has its advantages, and people generally pick up on my age after the 2nd or 3rd interaction lol. mostly added for the context.
now, my hair has grown out past my shoulders? for the first time in fuckin ages. and since i finally figured out how to care for my waves/curls?? ive realized i actually really like the look of the longer hair. ended up settling on a wolf cut. for the unaware, a wolf cut is just the new variation on a mullet. more layers. its easy upkeep, just trendy/classic enough, and unisex. perfect.
i know salons are usually better with longer cuts and layering? but i haven't been to one since 2011, after being burned by one too many "john & kate plus 8" type pixie cuts in a row, lol
the barber in town is like.. a shockingly hip place for somewhere so small? sandalwood beard cream, straight razors and craft beer kind of place. while my options for salon are a bit more strip mall looking? with not quuuite enough reviews or knowing anyone ~queer~ in area yet to ask, to want to take the risk without some consideration. i could maaaybe be persauded to go to a salon in the nearest mid-sized town? but would, in general, prefer to have my new regular place be local.
whadda think? what would you do in my shoes?
2023.03.20 20:52 mSkull001 30 [M4F] Denmark/Anywhere Let's take this chance together
My dream is to have a relationship so special that we can look back on it fondly in the years to come. I want to put in the work to make that dream come true, and now all I need to start is you. So take the chance with me?
About me then:
https://i.imgur.com/a4XgWZg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CUBYFhn.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oULApJU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/wKqGxQc.png
I'd also greatly appreciate you sharing a picture of yourself!
submitted by mSkull001 to ForeverAloneDating [link] [comments]
About me then:
https://i.imgur.com/a4XgWZg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CUBYFhn.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oULApJU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/wKqGxQc.png
- I'm a relaxed, laidback and honest guy. I'm myself, through and through, and I'd rather deal with the truth than try to make a lie work.
- I love jokes, puns and teasing. And I hope that you give as good as you take.
- I'm very nerdy and much into things like Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, and PC games. I've done some dungeon mastering, and I'm slowly working on my campaign to run for my group. I even bought some 40k figures, but that's only for a small thing with my group.
- I'm a non-religious atheist, I love science, and politically, I lean towards whatever we can do to make a better world for everyone.
- I like making things and working on my projects. I have a combo 3D printelaser cutter & engraver and hope to expand with more tools. Sometimes I also work on making games.
- I work as a programmer in a small start-up business, and it's going very well.
- I'm overweight. Not massively so, but I could stand to work out.
- I'm primarily looking for someone in Denmark. You can be from another country, but know that I am not moving country, nor will I ever. On the flip side, I can move to just about anywhere in Denmark.
- Cigarettes are gross. I don't smoke it; please don't, either. I could help you stop, but you'd have to want to.
- I'd like kids of our own sometime in the future, but I am not open to anyone who already has kids. I want us to be able to spend time together without having that hanging over us.
I'd also greatly appreciate you sharing a picture of yourself!
2023.03.20 20:52 mSkull001 30 [M4F] Denmark/Anywhere Let's take this chance together
My dream is to have a relationship so special that we can look back on it fondly in the years to come. I want to put in the work to make that dream come true, and now all I need to start is you. So take the chance with me?
About me then:
https://i.imgur.com/a4XgWZg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CUBYFhn.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oULApJU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/wKqGxQc.png
I'd also greatly appreciate you sharing a picture of yourself!
submitted by mSkull001 to r4r [link] [comments]
About me then:
https://i.imgur.com/a4XgWZg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CUBYFhn.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oULApJU.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/wKqGxQc.png
- I'm a relaxed, laidback and honest guy. I'm myself, through and through, and I'd rather deal with the truth than try to make a lie work.
- I love jokes, puns and teasing. And I hope that you give as good as you take.
- I'm very nerdy and much into things like Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, and PC games. I've done some dungeon mastering, and I'm slowly working on my campaign to run for my group. I even bought some 40k figures, but that's only for a small thing with my group.
- I'm a non-religious atheist, I love science, and politically, I lean towards whatever we can do to make a better world for everyone.
- I like making things and working on my projects. I have a combo 3D printelaser cutter & engraver and hope to expand with more tools. Sometimes I also work on making games.
- I work as a programmer in a small start-up business, and it's going very well.
- I'm overweight. Not massively so, but I could stand to work out.
- I'm primarily looking for someone in Denmark. You can be from another country, but know that I am not moving country, nor will I ever. On the flip side, I can move to just about anywhere in Denmark.
- Cigarettes are gross. I don't smoke it; please don't, either. I could help you stop, but you'd have to want to.
- I'd like kids of our own sometime in the future, but I am not open to anyone who already has kids. I want us to be able to spend time together without having that hanging over us.
I'd also greatly appreciate you sharing a picture of yourself!
2023.03.20 20:52 tikudz First three causes are worldwide as experts attest, rest locally specific - trinidad crime
First three causes are worldwide as experts attest, rest locally specific.
submitted by tikudz to Caribbean [link] [comments]
- POVERTY AND LOW WAGES - exacerbated by high cost of living in COVID's pandemic. 300.000 at mercy of the "poverty line" years, this oil rich land. A man's belly drives him to misdeed, unable to socially progress nor live humanely, all the while stressed.
- FAMILY - a forthright examination pegs this. More attention from authorities is warranted
- MENTAL HEALTH – nary anyone in power brings up its role. Would like a ministry of “mental health and loneliness.” COVID drove Japan that way, a low crime state no less.
- DRUG SMUGGLING – the ONE PERCENT ship in vast amounts as intercepted shipments attest. TT is a transhipment point. They bring the drugs people use and guns young, disadvantaged black males die from, the “law” disproportionally targets, unable to so much as prosecute one of the upper class.
- FAILURE TO FULLY DECRIMINALIZE – i.e. light and heavy, in the class of weed and cocaine respectively. JAIL SHOULD BE EXCLUDED AS A POSSIBILITY FOR USING. Weed simply regulated and casual smoking permitted, cocaine has REHAB and WELFARE open to the vulnerable.
- POOR EDUCATION SYSTEM – “outdated” sufficient appendix too. The British system is DESIGNED TO MAKE FACTORY WORKERS UNWILLING TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES SERVING THE EMPLOYER CLASS. Cuts in education bound to leave their mark in addition. CANADA is the world’s highest proportion of tertiary graduates in a population – brought on by high expenditure. Would like a FINLAND model – school equality; master’s degree for teachers; relaxed atmosphere; no homework (as a school counsellor told me); end of SEA and all standardised tests save for 17 year olds; subsidized day-care.
- HARSH PRISON – as things stand are criminal schools. REHAB must be at the forefront. NORWAY provides living comforts; prisoner education from trade skill to degree; good behaviour rewards that are EARNED; 2 year guard training; what’s more POST RELEASE SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMS.
- OVERCROWDED PRISONS – 7 speaks for itself. 5 would reduce the number. Reform the law such that prison is ONLY FOR THE HEAVY CRIMES, ALL minor offenses made non imprisonable – those people released at once. ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON the norm like home detention and scalable fines (size determined by wealth).
- POORLY TRAINED POLICE – end the joke of 6 months. NORWAY’S undergo a journey of three years to a BACHELOR DEGREE. Leadership roles require an extra 2 to a MASTER’S. TTPS’ disregard for assault complaints and tendency for criminality does not need explanation.
- Coast Guard's training must be more robust - make as America's. The US Coast Guard Academy at FOUR years, awarding a Bachelor of Science degree.
2023.03.20 20:50 NateOfTheWild Cross Country
My wife and I had been so excited to go on our cross-country road trip. We hadn’t ever been to the west coast. We grew up in a rural town in the Midwest, so we have never seen mountains or desert. We made a route before we left so that we could cut through all the differing terrains and catch all the major landmarks. On our way to Vegas though something happened that neither of us can really explain…
We were coming from California after driving down the west coast and had left Reno not that long ago. I saw a city called Hawthorne on the map and wanted to drive through it since Hawthorne Heights is one of my favorite bands (dumb reason, but still). We were driving and just enjoying the scenery and before we knew it, night had fallen upon us, and we were looking to get a hotel. Just outside of Hawthorne we found a campground on a lake, so we decided to camp out instead. I made up a tent and we laid there talking for about an hour until I heard my wife start gently snoring mid conversation. I rolled over and was about to close my eyes when I saw a shadow outside of my tent…
All my sleepiness left my body as I now had enough adrenaline to fight a gorilla pumping though me. I grabbed by trusty Springfield and proceeded to get up super carefully so as not to wake my wife and unzipped the tent. As I walked out, I heard the sound of a child’s giggle and chills went through my body. “Stupid kids,” I thought to myself as I laid back down. I set the gun back next to me and proceeded to slowly drift into the worst sleep I had gotten since we started our trip.
My wife awoke around 7am and proceeded to rouse me as well. She noticed the gun next to me and asked if everything was ok since I normally keep it in my backpack. I told her the events of the night prior and she said the kids were probably just out exploring. I had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach though that I couldn’t seem to shake but I ignored it. We proceed to make breakfast and then tore down camp to get back on the road. She offered to drive since I looked like I barely slept but I said I was fine and we took off.
About five minutes down the road from our campsite we were about to go through a quaint little town off the lake. I had that same weird felling in the pit of my stomach that I had felt the previous night. I hear my wife scream “There’s a little girl on the side of the road! Stop, she may be hurt!” Everything in my body said not to but my wife was already halfway out of the car while it was still in motion. I pulled over and my wife ran over to the little girl who was sobbing asking for her mommy. I looked for my gun to put in my waistband and I realized it was back in the trunk. My wife was talking to the little girl and asking her where her family is. “We were camping… and I wanted to explore… so I walked away and now I’m lost…” the little girl muttered in between sobs. I close the trunk after getting myself situated and look at my wife. “We should take her back to the campsite and see if we can find her parents.” she said. Reluctantly I agreed, the feeling of uneasiness still weighing heavily on me. “I’ll try to find a number for a non-emergency police line. You get her into the car.” I said to my wife. I looked at the frightened young girl, “You’ll be fine sweety. We will get you back to your family.” I stepped away from the car and pulled out my phone… no service. Being from the Midwest, I always forget about the mountains interfering with cell signal. “I got nothing,” I holler to my wife, “You have any service?” She checks her phone and shakes her head. “Dammit…” I guess we should just drive back up the road and see.
My wife decides to sit in the back with the little girl to try to help keep her calm and we head on our way back to that godforsaken campsite. As we are driving, I hear my wife and the little girl talking about her family and how her mommy and daddy love road trips. My wife got excited and started talking about our trips and favorite locations and a smile creeped on the girl’s face. I’m continuing to drive just listening and some of these stories bringing back happy memories. The girl continues with talking about how her parent’s favorite locations are where there are mountains and how they were from the Midwest. As she said that I felt a chill up my spine that I couldn’t explain. My wife was joyously talking to this little girl not realizing the oddities. I’m wondering at this point if she is enjoying the company of having a child around since we are unable to have one. They continue talking until I pull the car back into the campsite.
My wife gets out and helps the little girl out and says, “Let’s go find your parents.” The little girl gets out of the car and says, “Let’s go Mommy” and grabs my wife’s hand and off they went. I turned around to say something as my wife shut the door. I can only assume my wife didn’t catch what she had said, and they proceed to go towards where the tents were set up. I waited for about 15 minutes before I was concerned. I proceeded to get out of the car and walk over myself and as I did, I ran into a couple leaving with their supplies. I asked them if they had lost a daughter or had seen my wife and they shook their heads and told me they were the last ones to leave the campsite. Now a bit past freaked out, I grabbed my gun out of my waistband and run to the campsite. Nothing to be found anywhere. I yell for my wife and all I hear back is a child’s giggle…
submitted by NateOfTheWild to nosleep [link] [comments]
We were coming from California after driving down the west coast and had left Reno not that long ago. I saw a city called Hawthorne on the map and wanted to drive through it since Hawthorne Heights is one of my favorite bands (dumb reason, but still). We were driving and just enjoying the scenery and before we knew it, night had fallen upon us, and we were looking to get a hotel. Just outside of Hawthorne we found a campground on a lake, so we decided to camp out instead. I made up a tent and we laid there talking for about an hour until I heard my wife start gently snoring mid conversation. I rolled over and was about to close my eyes when I saw a shadow outside of my tent…
All my sleepiness left my body as I now had enough adrenaline to fight a gorilla pumping though me. I grabbed by trusty Springfield and proceeded to get up super carefully so as not to wake my wife and unzipped the tent. As I walked out, I heard the sound of a child’s giggle and chills went through my body. “Stupid kids,” I thought to myself as I laid back down. I set the gun back next to me and proceeded to slowly drift into the worst sleep I had gotten since we started our trip.
My wife awoke around 7am and proceeded to rouse me as well. She noticed the gun next to me and asked if everything was ok since I normally keep it in my backpack. I told her the events of the night prior and she said the kids were probably just out exploring. I had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach though that I couldn’t seem to shake but I ignored it. We proceed to make breakfast and then tore down camp to get back on the road. She offered to drive since I looked like I barely slept but I said I was fine and we took off.
About five minutes down the road from our campsite we were about to go through a quaint little town off the lake. I had that same weird felling in the pit of my stomach that I had felt the previous night. I hear my wife scream “There’s a little girl on the side of the road! Stop, she may be hurt!” Everything in my body said not to but my wife was already halfway out of the car while it was still in motion. I pulled over and my wife ran over to the little girl who was sobbing asking for her mommy. I looked for my gun to put in my waistband and I realized it was back in the trunk. My wife was talking to the little girl and asking her where her family is. “We were camping… and I wanted to explore… so I walked away and now I’m lost…” the little girl muttered in between sobs. I close the trunk after getting myself situated and look at my wife. “We should take her back to the campsite and see if we can find her parents.” she said. Reluctantly I agreed, the feeling of uneasiness still weighing heavily on me. “I’ll try to find a number for a non-emergency police line. You get her into the car.” I said to my wife. I looked at the frightened young girl, “You’ll be fine sweety. We will get you back to your family.” I stepped away from the car and pulled out my phone… no service. Being from the Midwest, I always forget about the mountains interfering with cell signal. “I got nothing,” I holler to my wife, “You have any service?” She checks her phone and shakes her head. “Dammit…” I guess we should just drive back up the road and see.
My wife decides to sit in the back with the little girl to try to help keep her calm and we head on our way back to that godforsaken campsite. As we are driving, I hear my wife and the little girl talking about her family and how her mommy and daddy love road trips. My wife got excited and started talking about our trips and favorite locations and a smile creeped on the girl’s face. I’m continuing to drive just listening and some of these stories bringing back happy memories. The girl continues with talking about how her parent’s favorite locations are where there are mountains and how they were from the Midwest. As she said that I felt a chill up my spine that I couldn’t explain. My wife was joyously talking to this little girl not realizing the oddities. I’m wondering at this point if she is enjoying the company of having a child around since we are unable to have one. They continue talking until I pull the car back into the campsite.
My wife gets out and helps the little girl out and says, “Let’s go find your parents.” The little girl gets out of the car and says, “Let’s go Mommy” and grabs my wife’s hand and off they went. I turned around to say something as my wife shut the door. I can only assume my wife didn’t catch what she had said, and they proceed to go towards where the tents were set up. I waited for about 15 minutes before I was concerned. I proceeded to get out of the car and walk over myself and as I did, I ran into a couple leaving with their supplies. I asked them if they had lost a daughter or had seen my wife and they shook their heads and told me they were the last ones to leave the campsite. Now a bit past freaked out, I grabbed my gun out of my waistband and run to the campsite. Nothing to be found anywhere. I yell for my wife and all I hear back is a child’s giggle…