Me, two glasses of wine in: "yeah so here's an in depth conversation about my identity as a nonbinary person, and my struggles with transphobia in 2023"
Median Center-Right American Dude at the party, also two drinks in: "Damn that's crazy, I never thought of it like that. Man, I'm sorry you gotta deal with this shit."
Me: "Ahh it's alright. I deal."
Random Guy: "People should just chill tf out."
Me: "Damn right"
Random Guy: "So if you're non binary, and, sorry if this is offensive but I don't know the right words here. Like, is it cross dressing for you if you wear a skirt?"
Me: "Its- hm. Huh. I have no idea."
Guy: "It must have been nice to go to school with other trans people. Like, you must've felt safe."
Me: "No actually it was the opposite. It just made me even more upset and confused. I didn't know what being non-binary was. I saw people that transitioned from one gender to the other and knew I wasn't that. It took me a long time to figure this shit out."
Guy: "man that sounds rough. No wonder you guys are upset all this time this sounds painful."
Me: "Well, it sucks until it suddenly doesn't. It sucks and then it rules hard."
Guy: "so It's like working out."
Me: [both of us are now nodding wisely] "it's like working out."
Guy who has only ever played undertale seeing a skeleton for the first time: "holy shit"
Dude
He’s just up there
Story time about something similar, actually!
I’m a pilot, and thus like 85% of my friends are ALSO pilots and one of them is just this delightful older guy that named Bruce. Bruce is a man of simple pleasures, he likes mediocre bbq and to take his vintage J3 Piper Cub out like, every other week just to have the old girl not look so sad in the hangar. We also live about 30NM south of an air base and, according to him, there was a squad of fighter planes out and they wanted some guys to go up in their planes for intercept practice (with pay, obviously) so the guys could get real time practice looking for unfamiliar aircraft.
Bruce, a man who doesn’t need it but wants to say he flew with some fighter jets, takes them up on their offer and takes the old girl up for them. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with a J3, this thing is slow as shit. Like, horrendously slow. And there was a decent headwind that day blowing in off the coast and Bruce gets the brilliant idea that he’s going to do something they can’t. So Bruce turns that old cub into the wind and just flies slow enough that he’s genuinely flying BACKWARDS and the next thing he knows are these three jets screaming past him, wings wobbling something fierce as they’re all about to stall, and the pilots yelling over the radio like “How are you DOING THAT”
He likes to say he owned the air force something awful that day.
Cessna 172 Skyhawk
So many people who love generative AI don't have a creative bone in their body and can't imagine anyone actually enjoying the time and effort it takes to write something or draw something.
so today a public health official guy came into my class to give a lecture on disaster awareness and he was talking about house fires and mentioned that the reason people most likely die during a house fire is because they refuse to leave their pet inside or they go back to get their pet. and right when he said this my friend immediately turned his head and looked at me and in that moment I had the most complete and genuine acceptance take over my body. I would 100% in front of my family and Jesus himself walk straight back into some raging inferno that was once my house to go get my fat cat. I nodded back
the best part of this post is reading all the tags from animal people who would also go back to save their pets. like no hesitation. walk backwards from heaven straight back into hell. someone even said they would go back for their fish. amazing
If you are a person who would walk into a blazing inferno for your animal, and your pet has free movement around the house, here’s a training exercise that could help save you both:
1) Set off your smoke alarm or play the sound on your phone (if your home has no smoke alarms, pease get some!)
2) stand BY THE FRONT DOOR to hand out treats
Do this a couple times and then keep it up NO EXCEPTIONS. Accidentally set the alarm off cooking? Treats by the door. Smoke alarm sound on TV? Treats by the door. Changing your smoke alarm batteries twice a year like you’re supposed to? Give them a test run and your pets get treats by the door.
Most dogs and cats will clue in VERY quickly that hearing that specific sound means go to the front door and wait for treats.
If there’s an emergency and even if you leave by another way, you will still know the most likely place your pet(s) is and can direct first responders to help.
You can also do this for any other kind of emergency alarm. My friend had both her cats trained to go to the front door for a tsunami siren.
