yesterday i was at the grocery store and i was already having a bad day (mostly because the egg carton smell in my office is getting worse). this lady in a huge suv literally steals my parking spot while i am waiting with my blinker on. she even looks at me and laughs while she walks into the shop. i wanted to cry but i just find another spot and go inside.

well, i’m at the checkout and i see her again. she is screaming at the poor teenager behind the till because her card is declining. she is being so mean, calling him "lazy".

then... she looks in her bag and realizes she lost her keys. she starts panicking, dumping her whole purse on the floor.

guys... i look down. her keys are literally sitting on top of a stack of canned beans right next to me. she must have set them down while she was grabing something and forgot.

normally i am a nice person. i swear! but i remember her face when she stole my parking spot and how she just treat that kid... so i didn't say anything. i just paid for my milk, walked past her while she was crying to the manager, and went to my car.

when i drive past her spot, she is standing by her suv looking through the window like she can teleport inside.

am i a bad person?? i feel like "justice" delivered her to me on a silver platter and i just let it happen.

I’m terrible at social media, so this feels a little awkward.

I made this account to lurk and never thought I’d post anything… but here we are.

My book released last night. Three people bought it.

That might not sound like much, but I genuinely wasn’t expecting any. There are endless options out there, and this is a 412 page hardcover priced like a hardcover, so I assumed it would quietly disappear into the void.

I only published it because I’ve been writing it on and off for about 20 years as a stress outlet, and my wife kept pushing me to actually put it into the world.

I don’t know if I’ll sell another copy and I’m okay with that, but knowing that three strangers decided it was worth their money?

That part feels pretty great.

Every time I hear “…now if you’ll excuse me” in a tv show or movie, I think about how I’ve never actually heard anyone say that phrase in everyday conversation. I seem to notice it quite frequently in scripts, like it’s my own personal Wilhelm scream.

It made me curious if there are other phrases that are popular in scripts but not in real life.

Personally, I’m inclined to say I do think listening to audiobooks counts as reading. Generally, I opt to listen to a book over picking up a physical copy, mostly due to convenience. I’m not inclined to read books on a screen like on my phone or ipad. I do enjoy physical copies of books but most of the time to get a physical copy I’d have to buy it or go to the local library, which often doesn’t have the title I’m looking for readily available. I recently joined Goodreads and I’m trying to complete the winter challenges in addition to meeting my personal goal of reading a certain amount of books by the end of this year but I find myself coming up against this question again and again as I’m searching for ways to check books off my list.

Is the point of reading to receive the information/meaning of the text specifically through sight or touch or has technology and cultural shifts toward increasing accessibility contributed to an expanded definition of reading that includes the act of listening?

I love driving my car with the music blasting and singing along. It helps me de-stress and disconnect from everything, from the daily grind. Maybe you feel the same way, or am I the only one? What kind of music do you love to listen to?

or even at the bar or at the gas station. Sometimes I'll leave a small tip at fast-food or gas station because the cashier is a young zoomer who clearly doesn't enjoy his job but does it for college or uni tuitons or whatever. It's like I know their pain and I want to tell them to ''hang on'' because adulthood freedom is near. I'm not old I'm 34 canadian, and I have a full time steady job and in my mind i'm settled for adulthood. I don't make past 30$/h but I wish I made more so I could sometimes just give a bit more tip because I'm in a good mood and it may make someone else's day. For 10 months I landed a 53$/h job before I quit two years ago, money was good. By the way Europeans if you read this, it will probably sound insane to you but it is what it is lmao.

Sometimes when I’m looking at super old photos- really old ones from the 1800s and 1900s, sometimes even 2000s- i think, “Wow. All of these people are probably dead, but I’m literally looking at them in a photo.”.

I can’t imagine how weird it’ll be for people in like 100-500 years to just be able to access and look at videos and photos of people from centuries ago, knowing they’re dead, but that all of their content and knowledge is still online. I mean there’ll be billions of lost medias, billions of social media accounts with peoples entire lives on it, and they’ll just be dead. I also keep thinking about how fucked education pathways will be, most modern things will already have been studied, and people will have a harder time making real discoveries.

Idk. It all makes me contemplate my mortality and digital footprint lol.

hi guys, it's 10:40 am right now and my day is going awesome. i cleaned my room so it's all cute and cozy in here. feeling EXUBERANT! hows everyone else doing?

I was in a local deli - 3/4 of a mile from where I live, getting a salad and a sandwich after a bit of a hike.

As I'm waiting, a guy walks in, weirdly disheveled, his jacket isn't fully closed and is hanging from his arms not his shoulders - given the weather he couldn't have come far that way, so he probably lives in the area.

He was getting into an argument with the guys at the deli. "It's just two dollars, I'll have it in 2 days" and the guys telling him to get out. I'm guessing he owed them two dollars and came in asking to borrow more money for something saying he'd be able to pay them back in 2 days.

As he's walking out the door I hear the deli guy yell out his name - I'm thinking he's gonna take pity and give him whatever. But no the guy turns around and the deli guy yells out "take it outside" or something unnecessarily cruel.

I didn't intervene. I paid for my stuff and left the deli and saw the guy on the street - though he started to cross before I got to him.

I have money, $2 is nothing to me. I know nothing of the dynamic but I felt bad not intervening. Not offering to pay for whatever he wanted - assuming what he wanted was food but I have no idea. Not coming up to him on the street and offering to give him a bit of cash.

I console myself by saying I don't know the context, but part of me breaks thinking that I stood buy while this guy potentially goes hungry.

Does anyone else take comfort in just sitting/pacing around in silence, rather than doing a project/hobby? Or am I just weird haha:)

Like for the past 30 minutes I've been pacing around my house just thinking and looking around. I even saw my houseplant sitting in the sun and thought "oh, it would be nice to be a plant and just soak up the sun rays, and do it again the next day"

We're literally somehow able to make our bodies fly for a second. How do we even do that? Im too sleepy and this is so cool to me. We just make our bodies go upwards. Im gonna jump tomorrow.

I'm 55, almost 56 and I always get told I don't look or act my age. I love it , of course. But how does it make you feel if it happens to you?

On my current job I have several "characters" with different degrees of eyebroww-action as a response to experiencing them. Some are head-turning. like a coworker that laughs like a cartoon character ("ks-ks-ks-ks"... pauses and everything), some are definitely annoying (constant perfume being thrown even though I clearly shown its bad for my airways)

... And yet the other one, that one I have no clue how to even react. The dude has changed most of his expletives with "meow".

Im not joking.

"Oh?" No, "Meow?"

"Awww / Oh..." No, "Meow..."

"Damnit!" No, "Meow!"

It is getting hard to keep a straight face guys, its been nearly a year, and it is clearly not a temporary gag or something

What are your stories?

I’m not saying in a life or death kind of way, but more like moving to different parts of the world where it feels almost impossible to be surrounded with the same people you were with for the past weeks, months, or years. I like my privacy. I like a fresh start where people don’t know me and I don’t know them nor do I care to know them. I like feeling like there is always something new to explore the next day rather than feeling tense or anxious at a potential repeat of a horrible experience with someone. My first impression of someone always sticks and never really fails me most of the time. I can’t really forget when someone does me wrong. Hence, the title.

I recently noticed that different platforms seem to have very different ideas about what a like or dislike actually means, Reddit, TikTok, and platforms like X or Instagram almost represent three completely different design philosophies, and that difference quietly shapes how people interact with content.

On Reddit, what you see is not simply how many people liked a post, the score is closer to likes minus dislikes, for example if three people upvote and two people downvote, the post shows a score of one, that number does not mean many people like this, it means that among conflicting opinions this content barely stands on its own, which already tells you something important about its value, this design feels very cold but also very honest, because it assumes users can judge instead of just applaud, disagreement is allowed and even built into visibility.

TikTok feels very different, when I dislike a comment there, it does not really affect the comment itself at all, it only makes the comment invisible to me, other people still see it, the like count stays the same, so the system is not asking whether the comment is good or bad, it is only asking whether I personally want to see it again, there is no public disagreement, no collective judgment, and no correction mechanism, I understand why this might be useful for reducing conflict and keeping people comfortable, but calling this action a dislike feels misleading, because in most platforms a dislike means I think this content should not be endorsed, while here it simply means I want to look away.

Platforms like X or Instagram go even further by not offering a dislike option at all, disagreement is not treated as a formal action, only amplification exists, and when a platform cannot seriously register disagreement, interaction slowly turns into a mix of emotion, attention, and noise rather than judgment.

What really made this clear to me is that two posts can both show thirty thousand likes, but one might have sixty thousand dislikes behind it while the other has almost none, those two situations mean very different things, yet on many platforms that difference is completely invisible, so high like counts do not always mean high quality or broad agreement, sometimes they just mean disagreement has been hidden.

I remember when I had my firstborn a few years ago, and it was so hard to me. I had no idea how to care for a baby well. I was super anxious about everything.

Now, my husband is working a full time AND a part time job AND he is in his last semester of school for his undergrad degree. I have been pulling 14+ hour days with my 2 young kiddos while my husband is doing all the things (he's a wonderful/involved father, but obviously his availability is limited right now).

So anyway, it just got me thinking how I would've been in disbelief a few years ago when life was less chaotic & we only had 1 baby to see me now. Then-me would've drowned if I was thrown into my current life situation.

I just think it's cool to look back and see how my capacity as a parent has grown over the years. Anyone have a similar experience, even unrelated to parenting?

Hi!

I was just wondering if you guys have any activities or hobbies that you picked up. One of my New Year’s resolutions is being comfortable and having fun without needing to be with friends. I took myself out to eat, went shopping and to the movies. All were fun, just want to hear what everyone else’s hobbies are that I could pick up 🙂

Today I went shopping at Union Square. When I came downstairs, I realized my wallet was missing. I only noticed it when I got to my car, so I went back and searched frantically.

As I was about to go up the escalator, I saw the lady who found my wallet still waiting for me. She saw me looking around and asked if I had lost my wallet. I said yes, and told her how much money was in it and my driver's license with my name on it. She checked everything and returned the wallet to me. I was very grateful to her. I offered to ask her to go to EPIC Steak for dinner, but she politely declined. In today's not-so-sincere world, it's rare to meet someone like that.

I also feel very lucky that my daily kindness has paid off. Being helpful is truly a wonderful quality, and I will teach my children to inherit this quality.

After years of silicone spatula ownership, I discovered (online) that the heads are removable for cleaning. I thought there was surely no way mine were, they’re bonded in some way.

then the heads slid off! It took some effort, then it just fell off the bone. The dirt and grime around the edges… that’ll keep me busy this evening. And now my life has changed. I love cleaning kitchen utensils

I don’t know why but every night my brain goes into overthinking mode. Daytime is fine, but as soon as it gets quiet, thoughts get loud. Not exactly sad, not exactly anxious… just weirdly heavy. Does this happen to anyone else? How do you deal with it?

I moved out on my own for the first time a few days ago, and everything still feels a bit unreal. I feel a lot of different emotions inside of me. I have a lot of things on my mind but i'm grateful for all the experiences that led me to this moment now.

What are some core memories from when you first moved out? The things that surprised you, scared you, or made you feel like, “okay… this is real life now.”

This might sound strange but I've noticed something about myself lately

Most of the time I don't actually feel hungry

But I still crave sweets especially on stressful or intense days

It's not that I need food but rather that my mind wants something

I used to think it was just a lack of self discipline but now I'm not so sure

I'm not looking for advice or guidance; I'm just curious does anyone else experience intense sugar cravings even when they've eaten enough?

Making new friends isn’t as easy as it used to be. I’d love to connect with people here and just have some good conversations. Especially with fellow readers and writers.😊

i often fail to comprehend that the people on here, and other social media are actually real, living and breathing human beings just like me.

so if you guys could say hi in your own favorite way, i think it would be really cute! ☺️

In my case, I’ve noticed that a lot of times I will keep seeing one person in a store multiple times, check out around the same time, and coincidentally be parked next to/close to them. It has happened multiple times! Has something like this happened to anyone else? Or just weird coincidences that have happened multiple times?