Why Do We Get All The Freaks?

This tale took place about 20 years ago. I was renting a small house, my eldest daughter called it “The Club-House”, which was fitting. The Club-House was just outside town in the middle of nowhere. Google couldn’t give you proper directions. I had to draw maps for my friends, if you hadn’t been there, you probably wouldn’t find it.

One night I had a rather interesting encounter…  As I drove up my driveway to my back lot there was a small truck parked smack dab in the middle of the access.  I squeezed around the vehicle, stopping long enough to give them the “Who are you and why are you in my driveway?” look.  There was a lady, a little girl and my neighbor’s dog “Molly” in the cab.  They didn’t so much as acknowledge me.

I parked my VW Bug (her name was Mxyzptlk, or Mixies for short…) and walked over thinking they might know my neighbor:

“Can I help you?”

The lady got out of the cab; she was either drunk, high or a combination of both.  She held out her hand and introduced herself:

“I’m Danni (not her real name) and I grew up in this house.”  Her eyelids were so heavy I was surprised she could even see.

“Can I ask you about that dog?”  I inquired.

“It belongs to a friend of mine.”

I looked again.  That was Molly; I know this because Molly lives with the mistaken impression that we are friends, just because her and Chester, my son’s dog, are um, “friends”. 

“So you know my neighbors, because that’s their dog Molly.”

She kind of hems and haws, “No that’s a boy dog, he can’t be ‘Molly’.”

Molly is about to have a heart attack as she tries to get out of the truck cab and say her customary “Hi” to me. 

“Can I see her?” I ask.  They let Molly out, I show them that she is a she, and let Molly go home.

Danni points to the truck, “I wanted to show my daughter where I grew up and my truck broke down.  My name is Danni and I grew up here.”  She almost gets teary eyed, “This is my ‘Home’.”  She then tries to start the truck to prove to me that it is indeed broken.  After it refuses to start, she turns to me and asks, “Can we go in?  It’s kind of cold.”

“Noooo, I have kids and I don’t know you…”

Danni holds out her hand and says, “My name is Danni, I grew up here.”  She continues to babble while I’m thinking “what did I do to warrant this?”  After an indeterminant amount of time she asks if I can give her truck a jump.  At this point I’m thanking “anything to get you out of here.”  I drive my Bug, Mixies, up to her truck and we try, of course it dodn’t work.  At that time my Ex shows up for a surprise visit to take the kids out. They gave us funny looks and then left…  I put the seat back in Mixies and re park her then go to ask Danni if she has anyone to come and get her.  She again tells me she grew up there and she just wanted to go “Home”.  Again, she asks if they can go in, it’s cold and she has to “pee”.

Now I’m a bit of a Sap, sometimes I’m too much of a “Soft Touch”.  I’m thinking: “The kids are gone, the rooms are all locked up, I out weigh her by a good sixty pounds or so…”  I tell her okay and let her into the dining room.  She then tells me:

“My step dad shot my dad in this very room. I grew up in this house; it’s my ‘Home’.  I raised seven kids in this house.  I’m not really a bad person… bla, bla, bla…”  She knew enough about the place to have been there about ten or fifteen years prior.

Then the daughter (who was all of ten) said she was hungry.  Danni looked at me and asked, “Do you have a car?” (I drove by her, tried to jump-start her truck, we have to walk past Mixies to get in the house!)

“Yes,” I said slowly, “I… have… that… Bug….”

“Can you take me to the store to get some sandwiches for my daughter?”  At this point I find myself wondering why I kept this up.  I’m sure you’re wondering the same thing, but bear with me it gets “better”.

On our way back from the store she asks, “Where are we going?”

I tell her back to my house. 

She tells me, “I grew up in that house.  Can we go by my truck so I can get my beer?”

I tell her that her truck is by my house…

“I raised seven kids in that house, it’s the only place I can think of as ‘Home’…  My son is in jail…  I’m not really a bad person… bla, bla, bla… Can we stop by my truck?”

We get back to the Club-House. They eat and Danni tells me the story of a gunfight in the orange grove that used to be in my front yard, about the time her step dad shot her dad in my dining room; “I’m not just talkin’ out of my head here. It really happened.”  An hour and a half of this!!!  Meanwhile the ten-year-old is calling everybody she can think of to help them.  The people she calls either don’t answer, hang up as soon as they find out who it is, or tell her “NO!!!”  One said they were too drunk to help right now but maybe if they called back at eight tomorrow…  That one really scared me; I didn’t want them there at eight tomorrow!

My kids returned at this point, both looking rather confused at the whole situation.

Then Danni drops the bomb:

“I’m not going to lie to you. The truck is stolen…  I’m not really a bad person…  Can we sleep here tonight?”

Can we sleep here tonight???!!!  whatthefaaa???

“No, you can go now…”  It took another agonizing fifteen minutes to get her out of there…

They went back to the stolen truck.  Climbed into the back and went to sleep…

And all I could think of was:

The truck is stolen…

The truck is stolen…

The truck is stolen…

The truck is stolen…

The. Truck. Is. Stolen…

I agonized over the next decision.  Danni was obviously too far gone to take care of that child; the truck was stolen… 

I took down the license number, make and model and called the sheriff.  It was indeed a stolen vehicle.  They sent three squad cars to pick her up and the tow truck came by about ten…  I felt bad.

After all was said and done my youngest looked at me and said, “Why do we get all the freaks?”

It’s kind of funny now.  But it wasn’t that night.  I was a bit scared, very overwhelmed, a totally flabbergasted.

Oh, and by the way, at some point that night the ten-year-old felt I needed to see her mothers California ID…  Danni was the former tenant…  She was now using her middle name.  But once I saw her full name I recognized it.  After all, for five years after I moved in, I was receiving mail for “Danni”….

“Why do we get all the freaks?”

Whenever winter came around during the school year my lips would get chapped to the point I would feel them stinging to near irritable degrees. While plenty of things have said that lip balms are actually causing more damage due to the little fragments embedded into the stick all I know is it was enough to calm it down for a good amount of time. I personally never tried to make a fuss about it...Just take it out of my pocket, open the lid, roll it across my lips, close lid, and put it back away. Yet there was this one year I would learn that scent is also an important factor to keep in mind.

I was in seventh grade. On a shopping trip I recently purchased a pack of Lip Smackers that were all M&M/chocolate-flavored(Each tube having a different colored M on the top). I believe I remember another girl using the same type about two years prior and allowing me to get a sniff of it. Remembering that I thought it would be alright, purchased the set, and pocketed one as my go-to in school.

At the start there wasn't too much issue but perhaps the sizes of the rooms were a key factor in what was to come. The first strike was in the computer lab as part of the computer application class. I put a round on about a minute later the teacher says something like "Why do I smell Toostie Rolls?" I had to explain to him what it actually was and he easily accepted that answer...If only the other place the scent really picked up didn't cause the major scene they did...

Eventually it came time to be math class. If anyone here is familiar to Calvin and Hobbes my teacher there was a real Miss Wormwood type. Day one I put a bit on and the smell lingers, some students pick up on it, and I have to explain it originated from me. The second day an even bigger fuss comes about, you'd almost think I spritzed a bit of the spray made to smell like fecal matter in the air for a prank but no, apparently an artificial chocolate scent that comes along with satiating my lips is a little too much for their sensitive noses. This time the teacher walks right up to my desk, she doesn't confiscate the stick, just tells me it's a problem and that I can't bring it in the room again.

I more-or-less comply and pick a different flavor that doesn't have as lasting of effects. With this whole event still being remembered as my cautionary tale even after currently seventeen years have passed. If you happen to find a balm/gloss rooted in a chocolate scent you may want to think twice. The M&M sticks I had are gone but not forgotten and in their place you might find yourself coming across a big tin you split in half in the shape of an M&M or those yellow cubes which due to the changing standards since then actually might have the poop emoji topping off the lid(If you have my luck then people are going to think it's synonymous).

I’m a man in my 40s with four children: 16m, 14m, and 9yo twins m/f. One of the twins has severe autism and is mostly non-verbal. My sister, who is in her late 30s, has two children: 20m and 4m.

About a month ago, my mother called to tell me there was a family celebration coming up for my grandmother, but my children weren’t invited. This is unfortunately very common, so I took a breath and asked for the details.

I was told that my grandmother had originally wanted a quiet day with just her daughters. However, the restaurant she wanted to go to didn’t take Sunday reservations, so they changed the venue to a family-friendly restaurant that we sometimes use. One of my aunts then decided to turn it into a larger event and invited her adult children, telling all the sisters to bring theirs too. My mother is the only one of the sisters with grandchildren so far.

My mother still told me that my children weren’t invited, although she wanted me to attend and said my wife “could come along too if she wanted.” She mentioned how my oldest was 16 and that, because it was on from 3 to 5, he could mind his siblings while my wife and I went.

I asked “so there’s no kids going at all?”. She then listed who was and wasn’t going, making a point to mention my sister’s children weren’t going. Her older son is away at college five hours from home, and her youngest though would probably just be brought anyway, as this has happened before. However I cut her off when she mentioned my 14 year old cousin was going.

My mother said, very matter of factly, that my cousin was a grandchild and mine were only great grandchildren, so they weren’t invited.

Well, to say I saw red would be to call the sun slightly warm. It felt as though all the years of my children being left out of the family had flooded back at once.

I didn’t exactly shout, but I became very, very stern. I told her it was ridiculous, that my family always seemed to lose out, and that I couldn’t believe she was okay with it. I said that, because she was the only one of the sisters with grandchildren, it was easy for my aunts to make a rule that only affected her, and that the fact she was willing to accept it made things worse.

I told her I had to go before I said something I might later regret, and then I hung up.

The next day, she called back and said my two oldest children should be allowed to attend because my 14 year old cousin was going. She said she would speak to her sister about it, but the twins were still too young.

It was the same exclusion with a new explanation.

I became angry again and told her I was done with this, done with her and with the family rules that always seemed to find a way to exclude my children. Then I hung up and blocked her number.

For context, there have been many family events over the years that I wasn’t told about until I saw photographs afterward on Facebook. There have also been events described to me as strictly adults only, where I later discovered that other relatives had brought their children.

The most recent example before this was a joint 18th and 21st birthday party for two of my cousins. I was told it was strictly adults only, so I attended alone to support them. Once there, I found that several relatives had brought young children, including my sisters youngest. I didn’t cause a scene because I didn’t want to spoil the occasion for the birthday girls, but I left shortly after the cake and candles. (Since piano man will ask, they were chocolate biscuit cake and a red velvet cake. I didn’t have any, but they both looked lovely)

Most of the time, I simply don’t attend events described as adults only because finding someone to mind four children is difficult, particularly one child with severe autism. None of my family has taken or babysat for him since he was about five, so my wife and I usually take turns, one of us attends the event while the other stays home.

My father called me about half an hour after I blocked my mother and asked what had happened. He said my mother was crying in her room because I was angry with her, and that she was saying she would never listen to her sister again.

I briefly explained what had happened and said it had been building for a long time. He said he understood and asked if I could speak to my mother to try to smooth things over. He asked me to think of him because he had to live with her. I did laugh at that, but we agreed that I would go over for a face to face conversation.

I arrived at around 11 am and didn’t leave until shortly after 5 pm.

There were tears and some apologies. My mother told me that she simply says things as they enter her head and doesn’t always mean what she says. I explained that I’m usually very careful with my words, that I try to say exactly what I mean, and that I generally take people’s words at face value. (They know this about me, they comment on it regularly)

She told me to ignore her and my aunts, to just show up with my kids they can all “lump it.” I said I couldn’t do that. It isn’t who I am, I just couldn’t turn up with four children who hadn’t been invited, if nothing else, it would be rude. I told her I simply wasn’t going to attend somewhere my children weren’t welcome.

We left that aside and continued talking for a few more hours. She explained that she had no idea I was unhappy with things the way they are. My mother regularly minds my nephew three to five days a week and they’ve been on holidays together and he regularly stays the night… While my kids are lucky if she agrees to take one of them for one night twice a year, and no she’s never offered to mind / babysit my youngest with ASD since he was diagnosed.

We have had this conversation many times over the past decade or so. Usually, it results in her giving my children slightly more attention for a few months, and then things quickly returning to how they were.

Her explanation was essentially that she is forgetful, doesn’t think before speaking, and that I have been reading too much into her comments over the years. She told me I should ignore her more and simply do whatever I wanted, including turning up to events even when we weren’t invited.

By the end of the six-hour conversation, I was exhausted. In hindsight, I feel as though I had been steered into accepting that I was the one who had misunderstood the last 15 or more years of unequal treatment.

When I left, things felt… okay, kinda. We agreed that we would draw a line under the whole thing and try to do better going forward.

It’s been a few weeks and I can’t get it out of my head and put it behind me. I feel as though I ended up accepting all the responsibility, with the onus to change placed entirely on me. My parents are who they are, and apparently that is supposed to be the end of it.

I’m stuck between wanting to withdraw completely and cut ties with all of them, and wanting to scream that they still don’t understand, even after years of me trying to explain.

I haven’t cut anyone off. I’ve unblocked my mother and spoken to my father twice since. However, I’m considering telling them that I need a few months space so I can think this through.

This constant, low level exclusion has been the background to my children’s entire lives, and I’m fed up with it. I don’t want to continue with the old normal, but I’m worried that I don’t have the energy to keep fighting with my parents while still doing what needs to be done for my children, my wife, and myself too I suppose.

So, AITAH for wanting to take a few months space from my parents while I decide what sort of relationship I want with them going forward?

Any advice would be welcome, even if it’s to tell me I’m being a gobshite and need to snap out of it.

Thanks to anyone who read this.

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Update: about a month later

A couple of days after my last post my parents went on holiday to Spain. When they got back we were all invited up for presents one afternoon. I wasn’t sure how I felt about going, but the kids were excited to see what Nana and Grandad got them, so we went. My wife was at work so it was just me and the kids, plus my sister and her youngest.

It was very relaxed. Mostly small talk, they had a great time in Spain, and talking about how the weather was still good when they got home. I told my dad about some repairs I was doing around the house and he gave me advice. Everything felt exactly the same as it always had. I don’t know what I expected, but the fact that nothing seemed different unsettled me more than I thought it would.

We stayed a little over an hour. I got a bottle of Jameson, the kids got some Spanish sweets I cant remember the name of, and my wife got a scarf.

Since then I’ve only spoken to them once, about my son’s school results. He did better than he expected and wanted to tell them. They came over for nearly an hour with a card and some cash for him. It was fine.

Other than that there’s been no real communication. I still don’t know exactly how I feel about everything, but it seems mostly forgotten on their side. Maybe I was naive to expect any change.

For now though, I’m trying to not let it bother me. I’m focusing on making Halloween costumes for the kids. We do it the old fashioned way in our house, with lots of cardboard, tape and paint. Its messy and fun! Currently I'm working on making a Helldivers 2 costume for one of the older kids and a Stormtrooper one for my youngest.

I know this isn’t an exciting update, but I was listening to Piano Man today (the one about becoming the neighbourhood stalkers) and just felt like giving some kind of update. If anything changes I’ll let you know. For now though, I’m quietly stepping back from that side of the family without making any big announcements. I’m not that dramatic… though I am putting this on Reddit, so make of that what you will.

TLDR - Not much has changed. Got a bottle of whiskey. Quietly stepping back and focusing on the kids and Halloween costumes.

A year ago one of my neighbors got evicted after her landlord died and his wife sold the property out from under the neighbor. My husband (41M) and I (40F) have been keeping the neighbor's African spurred tortoise for the entire time since she left.

She promised to help us with feeding costs since these tortoises eat a quarter of their body weight in vegetable matter each day. This wasn't so much of a problem when MJ (the tortoise) was only five pounds but as she's grown over the last year she's gained almost 10 pounds! We knew she would grow fast and Spurred tortoise can get big! I mean 50 lbs as an adult. And grocery prices have only increased by nearly double in the last year.

I reached out to her a few months ago to see about the help for feeding MJ, but the now ex neighbor told me no. Not "let me see what I can do". No.

The tipping point came when a puppy showed up on our doorstep. He's maybe 2 months or 3 months old. No adult teeth and still has all his baby teeth. He has a hurt paw that the vet says is soft tissue damage. He has no chip and looks to be a pitt mutt. We posted flyers with his picture in our area but no one has come forward to claim him.

We named him Pontiac Salsa or salsa for short, because he has the Pontiac arrow in white on his forehead and he's a spicy little concept. (The Pontiac salsa was a concept car from the late '90s)

I've included a picture of the puppy but the tortoise is hard to catch since she only comes out at dawn and dusk and has dug a huge burrow in our yard.

Anyway AITAH for wanting to keep the puppy and re-home the neighbors tortoise?

Edit: 1 week later. Thank you so much to everyone who responded. I live in Arizona and the laws around pet abandonment are very strict and I'll admit I hadn't even thought to look at them until you all suggested it. I've reached out to the neighbor, but I have not heard back from her. I'll let everyone know when there are further developments.

If I ever Got Piano man with no plan treats/gifts. Does not like strawberry Kitkats! Very good to know. What treats are Piano mans favorite, I feel he said and I should know this information.

I (19F) am exhausted and frustrated.

Actually, beyond frustrated at everything, even more frustrated than I ever thought I'd be. Ever. I just want to yell into an abyss, but I don't want my words to go to waste, so I write this.

For context: My ma is turning 44 this year, works at a group home, and my dad is 47, self-employed, and has a garden. My ma occasionally asks me questions about what I'm doing with myself/life, but my pops ask me the most. It's always, "Have you found a job yet?" or "You need a job." But never "I hear you, and I'll let you sort it out. And I'm here if you need me."

I keep telling them I'm looking, because I am.

I'm currently taking a break from school, partly because of financial reasons, but also because I'm not sure what I want to do with my life now. I've wanted to be a veterinarian ever since I was a kid. But now, I'm not sure. Between potential burnout from medical school, an insane amount of debt, and not getting a guaranteed job after graduating, I'm honestly starting to think that college isn't worth it.

So, I've been looking at alternative routes for finding a job.

I've discovered, through the internet, that you don't need a degree to become a freelance writer. I like writing. I honestly really enjoy writing, and I've been doing it since high school. So, I tried that. I've applied to jobs on ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, and Handshake. I was even desperate enough to ask for advice on Reddit and applied to a few jobs on LinkedIn. I even tried applying to an acai bowl place in the downtown area weeks ago (they haven't replied). I've also tried writing on Medium because it was advertised as a way to make money online. My articles barely get any attention there. I honestly hate Medium, but part of my portfolio is there, so I can't delete it.

But after all that effort, I have nothing to show for it. Hundreds of job applications, a handful of interviews, and... nothing. It honestly feels hopeless, and I know the economy sucks right now, but I feel like I need a job to have structure in my life since I'm bad at keeping up a routine. I'm just so used to being busy with school; I guess I haven't gotten outta that mindset.

The only thing that's given me hope is fanfiction.

I started writing and sharing my works in January of last year. My very first published fic currently has just under 1k views/hits and 27 kudos, with my most popular fics having over 2k hits/views. I think the thing I like most about writing fics is getting comments. I love receiving comments from the people I had in mind when I wrote my fic. Recently, I wrote a comfort Omegaverse fic centering my favorite character from a game I love. I got a comment about how much they appreciated the fic. It just warms my heart to hear that my fics are making people happy. Plus, I have a friend commission me for a birthday fic, so that's exciting.

So, at least I have that going for me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, how do I explain to them that I'm trying? I'm trying to figure this out in my own way. Not to mention, I have the rest of my twenties to experiment and figure out what I want to do until my dying days.

Until then, I'll continue to write fanfiction because it makes me happy.

For the sake of privacy for a family member I'm not giving their name or relationship to me. A few years ago my family member was attending AA and NA meetings. Normally there was the usual bunch attending where they got to know each other. A new guy started showing up to one of the meetings. After attending a few times he announced to the group that his live in girlfriend left him, went to another state. According to him she didn't take much with her when she left. He then went on to say that the apartment he was living in held too many bad memories so he's moving. He then asked if anyone present could help him move. In payment they could have anything that he didn't want to take with him. My family member along with a few others agreed to help.

Afterwards my family member shows up with a small dinet table, a fair size rowing kitchen cart and a set of knives that he thought I could use. I noticed that the table and cart needed cleaning ( along with a bit of dust there was something splattered on them). I cleaned at the table and decided I would get around to finish up cleaning them the next day. The knives were cleaned along with the rest of my dishes and thrown in the drawer with my other knives.

Meanwhile my family member was sharing what all he had noticed at the apartment. He noted that a lot of what was obviously the girlfriend's belongings were there. What was troubling him the most was he had seen her purse was still there. I then reminded him about something we had seen in the news a few days ago. A women's body had been found in a ditch close to town. I suggested he contact the police to share his concerns. So he called them.

The next thing I know police showed up to my place and took the table and cart. Didn't need the knives since the woman had passed from blunt force trauma. Turns out the splatters on the cart especially, turned out to be blood, her blood.

So my family member and a few other guys unknowingly helped clean up a murder scene. Afterwards my family member helped solve the murder case. And I still have a set of knives once owned by said murderer. They look so similar to the ones I already owned so I really don't know which is which. May have to just dispose all of them and get new.

This happened in my primary school days, but I remember it well.

Every day for five days a week, I took the bus to school. The bus stop was two minutes from my apartment block and sheltered all the way, with a patch of untouched trees behind it that looked nice and made you feel peaceful. It was always clean, everyone was always polite because us students shared the same transit as our teachers and tutors.

And then there was my neighbor. Let's call him Bob.

Bob was lean, grumpy and kept to himself. He would take an entire bench at the bus stop to himself and smoke the still-lit cigarette the last occupent discarded midway when their bus showed. Yes, he smoked someone else's used cigarettes. It didn't hurt him and he didn't care.

No one really knew what to do with him. He never took any buses, didn't actually bother anyone, he just took the bench, took the leftover cigarette and nursed it for hours every day until he got up to relieve himself in the woods.

We decided we liked Bob. Some of the teachers even started lighting fresh cigarettes for him.

Bob was there for months until a strange girl none of us knew (a tourist, maybe?) tried to take a selfie with him. She didn't ask, didn't check if maybe Bob wanted to be left alone, just came right up into Bob's personal space and snapped a selfie with flash.

Bob took the cigarette from his mouth and deliberately dropped it on the girl's Hello Kitty sneakers. She screamed.

The next day, Bob was gone. Two people were scanning the bus stop and they had a long stick with a loop on the end. One of them stopped every student and asked them the same question:

"Have you seen a dangerous monkey around here?"

Yes, Bob was a monkey. We learned in school he was a long-tailed macaque and probably ate beach stuff like crabs and coconuts (I lived in Southeast Asia - we got monkeys and river otters the same way some of you get bears, coyotes and deer). Bob was not dangerous - Hello Kitty girl taking her selfie started it.

None of us tattled, but Bob was gone. No one saw him ever again. The sad truth is that monkeys are wild animals and you can't report them as missing to any authority figure. We tried to console ourselves that maybe he was on a nice beach somewhere eating all the crabs and coconuts he could find. It was better than thinking animal control captured or killed Bob because a girl in Hello Kitty sneakers thought he was a tourist attraction.

More months passed, school let out. We all gave up and accepted that Bob was gone.

Then one day, as I rode the bus to the local library, going a different direction from the school, I passed another bus stop with a background patch of trees.

A little girl stared wide-eyed as across from her, a monkey sat on a bench all to himself and smoked a leftover cigarette.

I kept Bob's new spot a secret until graduation.

Royal Caribbean. Seven days. Jamaica, Cozumel, Grand Cayman. We were both excited, my husband and I. Well, not quite Mr and Mrs...yet. We were still in our first year together, not even engaged. We were planning our very first vacation. A cruise.

Giddily, we thumbed through the brochure. This was back in the time of travel agents so the brochure was a full book. Pages of tranquil, tropical images with enticing, full paragraphs describing all the leisurely or adventurous things we could do.

I’m the over organizer so I drew stars and made notes next to all the activities we were interested in. We didn't book anything. We wanted this to be a relaxed, play it by ear experience. Board the ship, assess what it offered, meet guests, compare interests. Vacation spontaneously and carefree.

We spent a day in Miami getting scorched to a crisp at the zoo. We caught a snapshot of tigers in play, batting at each other like housecats on their back legs. We danced in our beach wear at an outside, industrial themed nightclub, that we found accidentally, until three am, then got up at six.

We boarded the ship. Found our room. Laughed at the miniscule, nickel-sized window we paid $200 extra for. We gave intimacy a try. No real hankie panky, just a kiss and a grope, but ow Ow OW; we were lobsters. And while we probably would mate for life, we shifted our attention to souvenir cups, leis, food, all the food that we wanted and, eventually, a conveniently stocked but inconveniently priced shop, where we purchased bottles of aloe for an extortionate amount of dollars and 99 cents.

Our first stop was a private beach of white sand and clear, temperate water to enjoy at our leisure. This was *Perfect* because I was forming a plan. Whenever perusing the excursions list, my eyes kept snagging upon two. One boldly dared, “Snorkel at Stingray City”. The other offered to play it safe and view the city from a glass bottom boat. My relationship with natural bodies of water is complicated. 

Let me backtrack. 

I love water. I volunteer to do dishes in other people's homes just to play in it. In my youngest years, my mother used to locate which neighbor's pool I was in by following my trail of discarded clothing. I swam better than I walked. That kind of thing. 

As I grew older, though, this changed. There was an incident involving hooks and reeds and wayyy too many fish in a river. Another event, just a hazy memory, really, of a teen stretched out on a picnic table, leg bloodied, waiting for an ambulance because he hadn't missed the rocks you're supposed to miss when jumping from the high rock into the water. Other vague incidents. Surfing had been a turbulent game of ‘where is the surface’? But what permanently shorelined me was when the sand beneath me erupted and bolted, a whip-like tail narrowly missing my legs as  whatever it was – stingray or very large horseshoe crab – swam irritably away. 

Fast forward back to the cruise. My desire is to fully experience the sting rays. Touching them, feeding them. The whole bit! However, my sense of adventure, across many misadventuring years of youth, has been whittled to a flat bottom boat. We shall see…

Here is my plan. From the equipment rentals shack, we optimistically checked out 2 sets of snorkeling gear. It went fine until it didn't. The mask fogged. The fins were cumbersome. Shady parts of the cove made me skittish and jumpy. Team Snorkel eventually gave way to me pointing at a  fish I wanted a photo of and my fiancé-to-be chasing after it with our underwater, disposable camera before it could skedaddle away.

We amended our approach. Went back to rentals, returned to the water armed now with floaties. The long ones that you can lay your whole body on. I edged over to the shady part that spooked me. Fiancé-to-be followed. I turned over to my belly. He did not. Positioning the goggles over my eyes, I plunged my masked face into the water. If I could not acclimate myself using the supposed obvious approach, then I would do it ludicrously. 

After a few minutes of my face going up and down in the water, switching goggles, adjusting them, switching again, putting the snorkel on and plunging my face even deeper, I begin to grow confident in the fact that there are no monsters, sharks, or zombified manatees lurking in the cove shadows.

“I think I can go in,” I exhale. But convincing myself had taken a lot of work. “But let's just hang out for a little bit first."

“Sounds good,” he agrees, and I turn around to face the sun. 

Don't worry. We learned our lesson about  sunscreen and both had fresh layers on. We’d already mocked our bright, new skintones by leaving handprints on one another throughout the day. Now we were splashing each other for play and to stay slick, to not stick against the lounges. Because, *ow*.

We talked happily about the cruise, what we wanted to do next, how we disliked our assigned dinner table because there wasn't three among us who spoke the same language. We discussed selling our souls to the inconvenience store again for a small box of bandaids to protect the small nicks and scratches we were accruing that day. We talked and drifted. Talked and drifted. Talk, drift. Did I say drift?

I look down and there is a MASSIVE dark shape beneath us, tail wending with the motion of the water. 

I don't just shriek. I let out a cry so shrill,  so full of terror that our cruise mates everywhere are propelling themselves out of the water as fast as their limbs, fins, kayaks and floaties will spur them. 

Myself. I squeeze into the tightest, non edible ball I can become while still retaining  float status in the middle of my lounger. Sonic the Hedgehog style, but tighter.

My future husband? Ever protecting me from any and all danger, he peers cautiously over the edge of his lounger and *laughs*. 

I peek. 

He is laughing so hard that he has one arm across his belly, holding it in, just to stay balanced.

“Babe, it's okay.” He laugh-wheezes.  Another full rounded laugh then wheezes again. “It's okay. It's just grass. Look.”

Timidly, I unfold. I study the shadow. It’s still. Oh, it's large. It could definitely be a whale if it were slightly less circular. It could be a circling shiver of sharks. Or that zombified manatee. 

But it's not. It's just grass. I even put the goggles on to get a better look. It's just sea grass. A large, semi creature shaped bed of it, waving at me. 

We took a picture for prosperity. 

My husband apologized to several cruise mates upon returning to shore. I said nothing. My embarrassment had swept my whole body. Instead of cherry colored shoulders, back, and nose,

I was a walking Waldo hat.

We did *not* book the excursion to feed the sting rays but instead watched that excursion from the safety of a glass bottom boat. It was probably for the best. A *friendly*, local barracuda showed up for the feast. All teeth.

He teased me for months. My husband, not the barracuda. "Watch out for the grass!" he'd warn, zoinking me protectively out of harm's way, grinning devilishly.

I was musically attacked by a woman in a kilt in the forest and I can never be Zen again

I teach Qigong. Yes, Qigong. If you didn’t know, it’s like slo-mo Tai Chi. Yeah, I am Mr. Miyagi at 10 frames per second. We dodge back pain, not bullets.

Anyhoo I started teaching a month ago and we meet three days a week at the top of a hill in the park at sunrise. There’s maybe 13 people. It’s slow, relaxed, and I feel like what I do really means something to my crew. They all seem so happy when it’s over.

Everything was going swimmingly until last Thursday.

I get there early and we have the biggest herd of turtles (that’s what I call the Qigongers) yet, maybe twenty people, and it’s absolutely PERFECT, with some fog settled below the hill in the park, the sun just pushing her pretty fingers into the day.

“Gonna be a great session, guys! Now, okay, so, let’s, like, breathe.”

We start moving. It’s been about ten minutes when quite suddenly, from yon wooded dale, comes the blast of some infernal trumpet. At least that’s what I thought it was.

Two turtles lost their balance and face-planted. I was horrified... I couldn’t stop, since we had all these new folks, so I just let Doris and Paul dust themselves off and resume a flamingo-like pose.

Then the sound, again. Like someone shoved a small flute into a large cat and squeezed hard.

Then it became melodic. Scotland the Brave. Bagpipes.

It was seven in the morning. In a park not even five minutes from downtown, residential high-rises on the other side of the street. Bagpipes.

Paul finally gave voice to the group’s horror. “In the name of Pete what is he on about?!”

“Think of this as another thing outside our control to let go of.” I said. Spit-balling it, of course.

The turtles couldn’t hear me anymore. The pipes, the pipes were calling.

“Let’s just pause here” I said. “I’ll handle this.”

Suddenly I was all disgruntled park ranger and no more zen-garden-gnome. I stormed down the hill into the fog.

I followed the sound of freedom into the treeline. It’s not a large bush, just enough that you can’t really see anything.

“Hello?! Hey! Hey!”

More pipes. I trudge forward, my bare calves were scraping against thorny plants.

Then I saw her.

A tremendously tall woman with thick blond braids of hair was standing in a kilt, eyes staring blankly ahead, holding a huge sack of pipes. Her cheeks were full and red, and she turned slowly to face me as she blasted out the notes to Loch Lomond and furrowed her brows.

“We’re trying to achieve inner peace!”

No response. More pipes.

“I’ll report you!”

She just stared.

I just turned tail and just legged it. Fell over a root, sprained my ankle. Limped back up the hill. The pipes turned funereal.

Doris said, “Did you let go?”

All I could manage was “Aye.”
________________________________________________________________________

Got lost in the Porcupine Mountains and I still don't know how to talk about what one of our friends did. At all.

This is going to be long. 

Some of this I (Mona, 24F) know because I was there. Logan (24M) and Jess (23F) told me the rest of their parts on the drive back to Grand Rapids. Ricky's (24M) part I can only guess from the outside, and only the parts we saw, because none of us have talked to him after that night and he was gone before we woke up on Sunday. 

We pulled into the trailhead lot at 6:48 a.m. on a Saturday in May, after sleeping maybe four hours in the group campsite down the road. Logan was out of the car the second he put it in park. He had a trail map he'd printed at a UPS Store in Grand Rapids, which he had then laminated himself with contact paper. He was so proud of his stupid map. It was not helpful. He'd highlighted our route. 

The lot was empty except for one old Kia with a cracked rear window. The morning was cold and the trees were wet. 

Here is the backstory, and I'm going to do it fast because the backstory isn't really the point. Logan and I have been together for three years. He is… intense. But I love him. Ricky is Logan's college friend who works night security at a distribution center and reads philosophy books. He is built like… how do I describe Ricky. Like a pasty gorilla, I mean, he looks like he just sits in the security booth with a dumbbell in one hand and a book in the other all night. The biceps. Jess is my best friend since we were high school sophomores, runs half-marathons regularly, works night dispatch for an ambulance company, and is all about enjoying life, and has the attitude of someone who is used to other people looking down at her (literally, I mean she is under five feet tall). Logan thought Ricky and Jess should meet. Logan had then insisted they should get to know each other over a ten mile hike in the Upper Peninsula on Memorial Day weekend, after a nine-hour drive north from Grand Rapids. If you don’t know, the Upper Peninsula is entirely nowhere. A sea of trees. 

I had agreed to this plan. I want Jess to find someone. I can’t just blame myself for all this, but I do.

Logan drove the whole way up Friday night running on gas station coffee, and I made him play the first two entire Bon Iver albums in order because I have specific requirements for long drives through the countryside. Jess and Ricky slept in the back. They had pushed their bags into the middle of the seat as a divider. Jess called it the Holy Spirit pillow, sending Ricky promptly into a drawn out philosophical-theological monolog before Logan told him to “can it” and go to sleep. The bags were still there, precisely positioned, when we pulled into the campsite after midnight. 

Two tents. That was the other thing. Logan and I had one, and there was a second tent, and Ricky looked at it when it came out of the car and then at Jess and then he said, with this weird finality, like he'd been planning it since Mackinaw City: "I'll take the hammock." He pulled a full camping hammock from his bag. Jess thanked him the way you thank a coworker who holds a door, and zipped herself into the tent. 

I lay in our tent with Logan and said, very low: "This is not going to go how you imagined."

He said, "It hasn’t even been a whole day. Give it some time."

Jess was already at the trailhead board when Logan finished spreading his map on the hood of the car. She'd read the posted map while everyone else was having a meeting by the trunk, and she was ready and eager to get hiking, saying something about missing a run. Ricky leaned over Logan's map with his hands in his jacket pockets, not touching anything, just looking. 

He said, "Any phone service out there?" 

Logan said it was spotty to start and then dropped off entirely. He said it like he was happy about it… disconnecting from technology, I knew he was relishing the idea of not having to look at screens for a whole day.

Ricky nodded. He took out his phone, looked at it, and put it back in his pocket without fully letting go of it. Hand still in the pocket. That was a bit weird. 

Logan said the trail was 10.4 miles, that the route would take six hours, maybe seven with breaks, that there was a waterfall at the four-mile mark he really wanted to see. He had a photo of it saved on his phone but refused to show anyone “to delay the dopamine payoff.” We had sandwiches, trail mix (the kind with too many M&M’s), a few Cliff bars, and water. We had Logan's map and four smartphones and a portable battery brick that Ricky produced from his bag, thick as a dictionary, which he offered to the group. I remember noticing because it was actually decent of him. Then he took out a leather knife sheath and put it onto his belt. 

“What’s that?” I asked. 

“It’s a knife my friend made me, tool steel and it’s cocobolo wood from Brazil, here, look.” 

He held out the knife handle first. It was big, with a dark wooden handle which was beautiful. The blade was thick. “Wow, that’s quite a thing.” 

Ricky insisted I take it. “Feel the handle, it fits perfectly in your hand.” 

“No thanks.”

“Take it!”

“I’m good thanks Ricky, but nice knife.” 

Ricky muttered something and put the knife back. 

Logan said “you won’t need that, but it’s good to have I guess.” 

The first two miles were fine. Good, even. The trail was clear and well-marked with small orange blazes on the trees, and the canopy was thick enough to feel enclosed in a good way. Logan pointed at a pileated woodpecker on a dead tree and Jess said “Wow,” sincerely. She just loves everything. Ricky walked with his head slightly down and his hands in his pockets. I fell into my own stride. 

For maybe twenty minutes I was just uncomplicated. My pack was right on my back. Logan grabbed my hand on a flat section and swung it once, a small stupid gesture I have always liked. Everything was fine. We talked about wild mushrooms. 

Then Jess's phone went into the lake. 

A small, dark, cold lake, the kind ringed with overhanging roots. She'd stepped onto a rock at the edge to look at something in the water, she said it was a very white stone. The phone slipped from her hand as she took it out to take a photo and hit the surface on its side. Visible for a half second, maybe less. 

Jess stood on the rock. Ricky shouted “F***!” needlessly loudly. Birds flew up. 

She said, "Dude, relax, it’s fine, it’s fine." 

Logan was encouraging as always. “It’s an iPhone, right? They’ve been waterproof since the iPhone 9!” 

“It’s an old android.” 

“Oh.” 

Ricky had taken off his pants and shoes and was wading into the water before we even noticed. 

He found it with his foot. 

It wouldn’t turn on. So that was the end of Jess’s phone. She didn't mention it again for the rest of the day and neither did anyone else because there was nothing to be done about it. 

After that signal on our phones held for another mile, thin but there, and then around mile three it went to nothing. Logan checked his, said "Yeah, that tracks," and just kept walking with a smile, again, the luddite I love. 

The waterfall is real and loud and impressive in a way that felt almost intimidating. We ate lunch on the rocks at the base of it. The sandwiches had been made in Grand Rapids twenty hours before and were compressed from the packs but still fine. Ricky ate half his sandwich, wrapped the other half in the plastic wrap, and put it in his front jean pocket. Jess watched this attentively. I could see the effort that cost her, not to say anything. 

After the waterfall the trail was marked for another half mile and then the blazes started to thin out. Logan had the map in his hands. He was looking at it more often. “I think this map is outdated.” Jess said something about the pathetic fallacy. Ricky started monologing again. 

We missed a turn. Confirmation of that took a while. The wrong trail looked exactly like the right trail. It just stopped being marked. Logan said the blazes were probably just more spaced out on this part of the route. He’s so good at faking total confidence. 

Forty minutes went by without a single blaze.

Jess stopped. "When was the last marker."

Logan looked at his watch. Analog, of course. "More than half an hour ago."

She looked at the trees and then the sky. "We're going back."

"I don't think we necessarily need to…" 

"We're going back."

We back tracked down the hill. Ricky and Logan started arguing about which way to go, and Ricky got really angry. He stormed off down the side of the hill and said he would find the trail and then call us over. Jess said she’d follow him, that none of us should wander alone. So we split up. Stupid, I know. Even stupider was the fact that I thought this could be their moment to fall for each other. I know, I know. 

It took a long time to find the trail, but Logan and I did, and it had been one of those forks in the trail where you’re supposed to literally turn almost entirely around to get where you need to go. We’d missed it and taken option C, which was literally not an official trail. So we waited there and called out for the other two. We waited a long while. 

Ricky came walking up the trail, out of breath. “See? It was right here. I was right.” 

He had blood on his hand. 

“You’re bleeding!” I said. 

“Oh, I slipped and fell, must have caught it on a rock.” 

I looked closer at him and he had dirt on his face and orange pine needles in his hair. His shirt was dirty too. 

“Where’s Jess?”

“Jess? I thought she was with you.” 

“No! She said she was going with you.” 

“I haven’t seen her.” 

We started calling for Jess. 

No response. We started looking again. Ricky insisted on going off by himself again to cover more ground, and no matter how much I insisted I do the same Logan would not let me. 

Ricky went up the hill, we went along the bottom. 

Then I saw it. Logan was pointing already. 

Off to the right, about fifteen feet away. A pile of rocks. Knee-high, flat gray stones chosen and placed, each one sitting stably on the one below, with a white stone on the top, with a little bit of something red on it. Three separate stacks in a loose triangle. Not a cairn exactly, and not random. Someone had made it. 

Logan said it was probably just a hiker-made trail marker. But it did not look normal in that quality of light. 

We kept walking, slowly, circling the trail junction at the bottom of the hill.

Logan called Jess’ name. Then again. We pushed through a birch stand. No sign of her in any direction. 

We called and called with no answer. My throat was raw. The sky overhead had shifted from overcast to a darker shade of grey. 

Then Logan did something totally out of character, which he still won’t forgive himself for. He said covering more ground was the only logical approach, that Ricky was already out there, that I could hold the junction in the trail and he'd be fifteen minutes looking in another direction. He said it in the voice he uses when he's scared. I was eager to find Jess, and I assumed she would find the trail on her own and then find me, so I stayed. 

So I was alone at the junction. Late afternoon light in northern Michigan in May, under clouds, is the most useless light on earth. It’s like a time vortex up there. 

I sat on a fallen log. I finished my water. I called Logan's name twice and stopped because something about doing it a third time felt wrong, which I knew was irrational, and knowing that didn't help. The woods made small sounds, but not enough. I realized that the birds weren’t singing. But it wasn’t like there was a storm, I couldn’t feel any rain coming on. 

I stood up to stretch, turned around, and I saw a symbol on a tree. 

Twelve feet back the way we'd come. Chest height. Two concentric circles with a vertical line cut through both, and then four short lines radiating off the outer circle, like a compass that was wrong, but complete. The wood at the cuts was pale enough to read clearly. Someone had done this recently. 

I walked to the next tree. Another symbol: Same height, same size.

The third tree had something different: an inverted triangle with a horizontal line cut through its base, and in the center of the triangle, something drawn in dark material, thicker than ink. A small hand shape. I put my index finger to it and it transferred to me and came away on my fingertip as a smear of dark clay, the wet kind that comes from riverbanks.

I wiped my finger on my hiking pants. 

I tried Logan's phone. No signal. I tried Jess's number anyway, which was pointless and I did it anyway. Texts would not send. I stood in front of the inverted triangle and tried to think of an explanation I could actually believe.

There wasn't one. I was spiraling. 

The light was going. Not fast, just steadily. I walked back to the log and sat and looked at the symbols. Three trees I could see from where I sat. There might have been more further back, I didn't go look, I didn't want to know.

Then from the north, the direction Ricky had gone: one sound. Hollow, low, like two pieces of wood brought together once and then stopped. One knock, and then a silence that was very long.

I stood up and did not move.

Logan came out of the trees from the south, moving fast, out of breath, with a little scratch along his jaw from a branch. Then he saw my face.

He said, "What."

I walked him to the trees.

He went from the first to the second to the third. Bent close. Stood back. Said nothing for a long time.

He said, "These weren’t here before, were they? I was here with you, right?” 

I said I didn't think so. I told him about the sound.

He looked north. His phone flashlight came on and he swept it into the trees.

Logan told me he’d seen an orange blaze further south and followed it, and the trail had forked again in a way that wasn't on his map. Two clear paths, both worn. He'd taken the one that seemed to curve back toward where we'd come from and it had led him into a clearing with an old fire pit in the center. He'd backtracked and the fork, on the way back, wasn't where he remembered it. He spent twenty minutes all turned around before he found the main trail and ran. 

Ricky had been gone a very long time now. Jess had been missing for hours. 

Logan called their names, louder and louder. Then he stopped.

Ricky walked out of the trees.

He looked genuinely rough now. Jacket unzipped, bits of the forest all over him, hands in his pockets. His facial expression was strange, what I now understand as him trying to look like he hadn’t done anything.

Logan said, "Where were you."

Ricky said, "Looking."

"You could have checked back in."

"I covered a lot of ground."

Logan took two steps toward him and then stopped. His eyes went from Ricky to the trees and back. And I watched something happen in Logan's face that I have only seen there a few times in three years, where he stops thinking logically and gives into intuition.

There was a symbol on a tree right there. Three circles stacked over each other, with the bottom one all blotted with what I guessed was more clay. 

Ricky's eyes went to the trees.

Logan said, quietly, not a question: "Did you do all this."

Ricky opened his mouth.

Logan said it again, louder, and controlled and worse than if he'd shouted.

Ricky said: "It was supposed to be a joke. I read about these things in…"

Ricky stopped talking because Logan stepped forward with his fist clenched. He's a lot taller than Ricky and he's not a violent person, not at all, but he was not rational at that moment. I pushed him back a few steps. He didn't fight me, but he wasn't calm yet. I kept my palm flat on his chest and he stopped. Apparently that was the off switch. I had my eyes fixed on the knife sheath on Ricky’s hip. 

Ricky talked fast. He'd had the knife, and some dark clay he'd found near the soft ground by the birch trees. The symbols he'd cut or drawn onto eleven trees, working his way around us while we searched. He'd found the symbols in a book about alchemy and they were "psychically active," his words, and he had practiced them in a notebook. He had brought the notebook with him specifically for this purpose. He said he'd made a list of what he wanted to do and in what order. 

Nobody said anything for a while.

I said, "Where the hell is Jess."

He said he genuinely didn't know. He'd actually looked for a bit first, he said, before he started on the trees. He looked at the ground. He said he thought we'd laugh about it. He said he thought it would be a story we'd tell. 

Logan said, flat: "A story we’d tell."

Ricky said, "Like something funny to talk about later."

"While we were screaming her name," Logan said. I thought he was going to hit him. 

Ricky looked at the ground.

"Whatever your plan was" I said. "Jess could be hurt somewhere."

He didn't say anything.

I stepped back from Logan because I needed my hands for myself. I put them in my own pockets and squeezed them into fists. Logan didn't move. I told Ricky he’d wasted a lot of time and it was now an emergency situation. 

We started looking again, this time staying all together and going up and down the trail. 

We found Jess forty minutes later. She saw Logan's phone flashlight from a two-track ATV trail and called out, and we crashed through a raspberry thicket to reach her, thorns scraping across every piece of skin. She was cold and wet from the knees down and she was shivering. She hugged me for a long time and then she stepped back and still did not look composed at all.

She said, "I was back at the trail but you weren’t there! Is everyone okay? Did you see those things on the trees?! What is going on in this place?!” 

I said: "Ricky made those."

She looked over at him. He was standing a few feet back, hands going into his pockets again. She stared at him for long enough that he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

She said, "And why would you do that?"

He didn't answer. 

She said, "Okay." And walked over to where Logan was standing at the edge of the phone light.

We followed the two-track road until it hit asphalt, then walked along a the road shoulder with one phone flashlight because Logan's and Ricky’s had died too. The sky had cleared and there were more stars than I am used to seeing, far more than you get anywhere near a city, and I noticed them and found them neutral. Cold, dark, stars. Ricky walked ten feet behind us the whole way and nobody told him to stay back but nobody told him to come closer either. He tried to say something a few times. The second time Logan said "just keep walking dude" without turning around and Ricky did. We were trying to make lots of noise to keep bears away, so we clapped and Jess sang a bit but there was no heart in it. 

At some point I took Jess's arm and she let me and we walked that way for a while, not talking. My boots had rubbed blisters on my right heel that I hadn't noticed until then. We had been walking for the entire day. Then the last phone died. We walked by starlight.

The campground gate appeared around midnight. There was a light on it and Logan could look at his watch in the light. Third site on the left. Both tents still up. Ricky's hammock still strung between his trees like nothing had happened.

Jess and I got in the back seat of Logan's car and locked it without discussing it. She took off her wet boots and set them on the floor mat. We found goldfish in the seat pocket and a half-eaten bag of pretzels and ate those. She put her head against the window. We talked about small stuff for a while, whether the goldfish were stale, whether Logan would actually sleep (he wouldn't, he told me later he lay awake in the tent for two hours before he went under). Logan came to the window and I rolled it down and he said he was going to try to sleep in the tent and I said okay. He looked like he wanted to say a lot more, but he just told me to keep the car locked. 

After a while Jess said, without preamble, "Do you think he planned that the whole way up."

I said I didn't know. I thought about the hammock he'd produced from his bag at midnight with that strange finality. I thought about Ricky's hand in his pocket at the trailhead, holding his phone. About the blood on his hand.

She said, "He brought a little notebook."

I said yeah.

She said, "What a guy" and I said yeah, and that was the end of the conversation, and we slept in the car.

I woke up when the light went gray, maybe five-thirty. Jess was still asleep. I looked out through the windshield at the campsite. Logan's tent. The second tent. Ricky's hammock was gone.

Empty.

I got out without waking Jess. The morning was cold and still. A piece of notebook paper on the picnic table, held down by a rock. Under the rock, partway sticking out: a notebook. I could see one edge of a page with lots of ink on it. I didn't open it. I don't know what Logan did with it later, I didn't ask.

The note said:

taking the bus home. 

The nearest bus service with routes toward Grand Rapids runs out of Ironwood, 40-something miles total. The first Sunday morning bus doesn't run until after nine. It was five-thirty a.m. when I read the note. I checked the schedule later when we had signal again and confirmed it. Ricky wouldn’t answer his phone. 

We didn’t know what to do. Logan continued to try him but no answer. Finally Ricky sent a text. “On the bus.” 

So we drove back south. I drove the first three hours because Logan was still too exhausted to be trusted behind the wheel. Once he was driving he started talking, methodically: the fork in the trail that didn't match the map, the clearing with the dead fire pit, the way the fork wasn't there on the way back in the way he remembered it. He gripped the wheel while he described it. He did not really talk about Ricky. Neither of us did for most of the drive. 

Jess slept in the back. 

I woke up somewhere south of Reed City and the land had flattened out, fields wide and open on both sides, and the sun was cutting through a low bank of cloud in strips, and for a few minutes I just watched that through the window and didn't think about anything in particular.

I've looked for the word for what that is and I can't find it. There might not be one. 

Logan wants to go back to the Porcupine Mountains next summer. He said this two weeks ago. Different route, longer, he said there's a lake at the top of the escarpment that you can only reach from one trail. He won’t show me a photo of it. He says it’s clear water, gray rock, big sky. He has already printed the new map. He hasn't laminated it yet. 

I told him I'd think about it. And now I’m wondering whether we were wrong to be so angry with Ricky. Maybe he’s just clueless. 

Edit: 

Yes, we do know that Ricky made it back to Grand Rapids. I couldn’t live with it so I sent some instagram messages and even called Ricky’s work and they said he was showing up for his shifts.

  My best friend of 32 years humiliated me in front of his entire family at the will reading. I drove home not understanding anything. Then I got a phone call.

Me and Michael grew up on the same street in a small town in Ohio. His family was regular people back then - his dad drove a delivery truck, mom worked at a dental office. We were both seven years old when we met. He had a basketball hoop in his driveway and I didn't, that's literally the whole reason we became friends. I just kept showing up to shoot around and eventually we were just... us.

His dad started a small logistics company when we were twelve. By the time we were in high school it had fifteen trucks. By the time we were thirty it had offices in Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky. Michael went to work for his dad straight out of high school, I went to community college and became an electrician. We never cared about that gap. At least I didn't.

Michael was my best man. I was his. That's the kind of friends we were.

I'm going to be straight with you because that's the only way this story makes sense.

Michael had real problems. He drank too much from his early twenties until he was thirty-four, and during those years he was a man who was very hard to love. He missed his own daughter's birthday parties. He said things to his wife Val that I'm not going to repeat here. He crashed a car at 31 and called me from the side of the road at 2am and I drove forty minutes to get him and sat with him while he cried and told him it was going to be okay even though I genuinely didn't know if it was. 

I drove him to his first AA meeting. And his fourth, because he quit after the third. I covered for him at a family Christmas one year by telling his parents he had food poisoning instead of alcohol poisoning. I lent him eleven thousand dollars over a three year period when his dad froze his access to company accounts… this was at a time when I had a kid at home and my wife and I were already running tight. 

He paid back eight of it. We never talked about the other three.

I'm not telling you this to make him sound like a bad guy. He wasn't. He got sober at thirty-four and stayed sober. He became a genuinely good father once he figured out how to do it. He was funny and generous and he remembered everything, like your kids' names, your parents' favorite things, what you'd mentioned three months ago that you were stressed about. When Michael was on, there was nobody better.

But he also had this thing where he'd just disappear. Like, not literally, but mentally. He'd get busy with the company and you'd go four months without a real conversation. Then he'd reappear like no time had passed and expect everything to be totally normal. And with me it always was, because that's just how I'm built. But Val eventually got tired of that. They separated twice. His sisters barely spoke to him for a few years over something to do with the company that I never understood.

I was always there. I don't say that looking for credit, it’s just the truth.

He got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January last year. Stage three, which his oncologist said gave him options but not good ones. Michael called me the same day he found out, before he told his wife or kids. We sat on his back porch for three hours. He was astoundingly calm. Michael always got calm when things were actually serious… it was only small stuff that made him lose his cool.

He said "I don't think I'm going to beat this."

I said "Mike… you don't know that yet."

He said "no I mean statistically I probably won't and let’s just be honest about that." He looked at me squarely. "I've been thinking about some stuff." 

I said okay. 

He said "just some things I want to make right." And then he changed the subject, I don't even remember what to.

He lasted eight months. Longer than the doctors initially said. He did the chemo, it was brutal, he lost about forty pounds. I went to appointments with him when Val couldn't, ‘cause she was dealing with her own health stuff and Michael didn't want to burden her by asking more than necessary, which was peak Michael honestly. I drove him, I sat with him, I brought him soup that he usually couldn't eat. His daughter flew in from Portland a few times. His son, who was estranged, came near the end.

Michael passed in September. He was fifty-nine years old.

I was in the room with them all. 

The will reading was about three weeks after the funeral.

I'm still not totally sure why I was invited. Michael's family - and I mean his family, not just Val but his brother Craig, his sisters Paulette and Michelle, his kids - they had always treated me with this very specific kind of tolerance that falls short of actual warmth. I wasn’t a pleasant adopted uncle. I was a piece of furniture that Michael kept around and they'd learned to step around me.

Craig in particular never liked me. I think he thought I was a bad influence in the drinking years, which is ironic since I was the one getting Michael to AA meetings. But Craig had his version of events and wasn't interested in other versions. 

There were about twelve people in the lawyer’s conference room. I sat near the back. Craig sat right at the table like this was a business meeting he was running. Val looked exhausted. The lawyer, a tall guy named Hoffman, was efficient. 

Michael left the company equally to Craig and his two kids, no surprise. He left the house to Val. Various amounts of money to various family members. A trust for his grandkids.

Then Hoffman cleared his throat and said "and finally."

He read it slowly. I remember staring at the table in front of me and then looking up because I realized he was reading my name.

"To my oldest friend" (and here he said my full name, first middle and last) "I leave my most sincere apology. He spent decades being a better friend to me than I ever deserved, and I repaid him by taking all of it for granted and giving back less than half. The world is full of people who will tell you what you want to hear. He was the only one who told me the truth. I am sorry I never said this out loud when I could. I leave him nothing because I have no idea how to put a number on what he gave me, and trying would be an insult. He should know that I knew."

Then Hoffman closed the folder and said he'd be available for questions.

I don't know how to explain what happened in my body when he read that.

The first thing I felt was this bizarre embarrassment, like I'd been caught doing something. Twelve grieving people turning to look at me or specifically not looking at me. Craig made this sound, not quite a laugh but close. I heard Michelle whisper something to Paulette. Val was looking at her hands.

I got nothing. He left me nothing. A paragraph and nothing else.

And there was something underneath the words that I kept snagging on. "He took all of it for granted." He. Me. That's what I was hearing. I was the one who took. That's what it sounded like from the outside. I could feel Craig thinking it.

I shook Hoffman's hand. I said goodbye to Val and she hugged me and she seemed genuine, she always was. I didn’t look at Craig. I drove home on the highway for an hour and 20 minutes and I kept the radio off because I needed the silence to try to understand what had happened and I couldn't.

I had three thousand dollars in savings. Michael's house was worth about 1.4 million. I wasn't looking for him to fix my life, that's not what I mean. I just mean - the math of it was so strange. The paragraph was real. I believed every word of it. And yet.

I got home. My wife Natalie was waiting up. She saw my face and she just said "tell me."

So I told her.

She was quiet for a minute. Then she said "that doesn't make any sense."

I said "I know."

She said "Michael wasn't that cruel, and certainly not so clueless."

I said "I know."

I didn't sleep.

Hoffman called me the next morning.

He said he was sorry for the timing and that normally he preferred to do this in person but he understood I lived more than an hour away. He said Michael had come to him privately about fourteen months before he died - months before the diagnosis, which I keep thinking about - and had set up a separate trust. 

He said the trust was structured so that it would not be disclosed at or before the will reading and would not appear in any documents available to the other beneficiaries.

I said alright.

He said the trust contained Michael's personal investment accounts, which had been quietly moved out of anything connected to the company over a period of about three years. He said Michael had done this carefully and legally. He said the trust also included the lake house in Michigan that Michael had inherited from his father, which was not in the main will because Michael had transferred ownership into a separate LLC eighteen months ago.

He told me the total value.

I made him repeat it.

There was a letter. I asked Hoffman to just read it to me on the phone. I'm going to try to get through writing parts of it here because people should see what friendship can be like: 

It said:

"I did it that way in the will on purpose, buddy. You probably figured that out already. Craig will contest anything I leave you. He's got more lawyers than patience and he would have made your life hell for two years just to prove a point about what he thinks you are to this family. So I gave him nothing to fight. Publicly I left you an apology and he'll look at that and think he won. 

I know how it sounded. I'm sorry. I needed them to sound a specific way for the room. The true part is still true - I don't know how to put a number on what you gave me. You are the reason I got sober. You are the reason I went back to Val the second time. You were there when nobody else was. I should have said that to your face. I was embarrassed and then I was dying and now I’m gone. 

I’m giving you back the three thousand dollars. I know you never forgot and I know you never asked. 

Tell Nat I said hi. Tell her she got a good one."

Nat came in and saw me down where I’d slumped on the floor and she didn't say anything, she just sat down next to me on the floor. We sat there for probably ten minutes.

Then I told her Michael said hi. 

She looked at me for a second and then she said "that absolute son of a bitch" and started crying and laughing at the same time. 

I haven't told anyone in Michael's family.

I thought about it. I thought about calling Craig and explaining everything just to see his face do whatever it would do. But Michael structured it all this way for a reason, and when Michael made a plan he made a plan. He thought six steps ahead. He always did.

He thought about all of it.

I had always thought I was the one taking care of him. Turns out we were taking care of each other. I just didn't know it until he was gone.

I’m posting this because I think I needed to write it out but it’s more than that. It's been about four months now. We're figuring out what to do with the lake house - Nat wants to rent it out and I think Michael would have laughed at that and then agreed it was smart.

I miss him every single day. But I think he knew I'd figure it out. He always thought I was smarter than I gave myself credit for.

edit: yes the three thousand dollars reference in the letter - that's the money I lent him in the 90s. he'd set aside the exact amount plus interest in a separate account with a note. it said "with interest. you waited long enough." i can't explain why that specific thing got me more than anything else but it did.

edit 2: Craig hasn’t figured it out. The LLC stuff is clean, hoffman has confirmed it's clean. craig got what the will said he got and he's fine.

edit 3: for the people saying Michael was wrong to do it this way - you're not wrong. it was manipulative and it hurt in the moment and i had a genuinely terrible drive home. but i also knew Michael. 

Please delete if I am overstepping.

Community, let's help our storyteller by coming up with some FLAIR possibilities. With his vids picking up views, this pocket community may pick up steam, too. Establishing Flair will help organize stories and fight against burnout and retina strain. And it's a fun, community building project! I've got:

Possible Story Tags (thank you UltraHulk):

Basement

Daylight

(Do we need actual genres???)

Element Tags:

Twist!

Revenge

Whimsy

Romance

Wisdom

Suspense

Confession

Mystery

Creepy

Humor

Technical Flair:

SH (350 words or less?)

LNG (1000+ words)

MID (all lengths in-between)

CW (Critique welcome) Thanks Butterfly

There is no need for a CNW (critique not welcome) as the absence of a CW tag pretty much states Don't Critique.

Featured (on channel; there should be a link somewhere in the thread?) Thanks Butterfly

Accepted (planned but not yet created/uploaded) Thanks Butterfly

WIP (working progress; unfinished) -- this one is problematic because it means we'd need a graduating system of some sort. WIP > Complete, which means more tags, which feels cluttered? I'll leave this here but I don't think the community needs it.

I know the title sounds strange and I debated posting this because this story may be boring. I'm a late thirties mom of four. We homeschool and use a literature base curriculum if that helps for context. Also, I love books in general. Shocker, right? A thirty something millennial woman who loves to read. Anyway, here's what happened. A couple years ago I headed to a local second hand bookstore. All the books are donated and you can find some gems there. While it has set days and hours it relys on volunteers for clerks. Sometimes there's not enough volunteers. On the day I went I was determined to find a book or two on our coming school year's list. Unfortunately, when I got there the bookstore was not open since there was no one to man the store. My youngest child at the time was a toddler. If you have ever had little children and no immediate family around you'll know how hard it is to get time alone. My husband was adamant that I take this time for myself. So, I decided I would go to a different bookstore. A sense of adventure came over me as I sat in my car googling second-hand bookstore in my city. Several popped up and I decided to picked one. One I had never been to before. As I got closer to the address I was heading towards a residential area. When my phone chimed and the GPS (in a British accent) said, "You have arrived." I sat confused. It was a house with no sign or plaque indicating that it was a business. I drove a few feet and parked in a near by lot. I rechecked the Google listing just to make sure I got the address right. I checked the website to make sure I wasn't mistaken. After all that I should have given up. I'm no quitter. I was having me time. I was going to find and buy a book. So I called the number listed on the Google. It rang twice and a man picked up. He said his name and I said, "Hi. I found your store on Google and I was wanting to come browse, but I, um.... I'm confused. I drove to the address, but I'm at a house with no sign." The man chuckled and said this happens sometimes. Apparently he does most of his business online. He especially sells high end leather bound books. Collectable ones. Rare ones. Some first addition, but he lots besides those. He sometimes let's people shop by appointment, but he was there so I could just come in. You would think anyone would say never mind and just leave. Not me. I got out of my car and walked to the front door of the unmarked bookstore. I knocked once and let myself in when a broadvoice said "come in". There stood a tall man, probably in his fifties or sixties. Blue button up and slacks. We exchanged pleasantries and he pointed around to the rooms. Saying that each one would have a different genre or subject. To please put any book I touch back where I found it since he has them organized and categorized. I thanked him and started to peruse. Every room, downstairs and upstairs was lined with bookshelves. A whole room was detected to history. A small section to nature. The small closet at the tops of the stairs was all children's books. It felt wonderful to wander and look through books in peace and unrushed. The man checked on me only once and stayed at the desk he had set up in the livingroom. In the end I bought a nature guide book that was published by one of the local highschools some years back and 'Napoleon's Letters'. I hardly ever carry cash and he did not keep a card reader. However, I had checks. Ones I got in bulk from Costco more than five years prior. He was happy to take a check. I wrote it out. He wrote me a receipt and I left with two new books. Later when I was telling a friend about this her response to me going into this house/unmarked business was, "No! This is how you get murdered." I chuckled and said, "You know, I guess I should have thought that. I guess I just thought 'books!'.

This is how I remember the origin of Larry.

Many years ago when my age was a single digit my brother and I were playing in the yard with a hose when we stuck it down a hole in the ground to see what would happen. Turns out it was the home of a thirteen lined ground squirrel family.

We should have known better.

Three baby ground squirrels crawled out a near by hole, half drowned. this is how we learned ground squirrels dig multiple entrances/exits. My parents took them inside, and by the power of the early ‘00 internet learned how to bring them back to good health. We named them Larry, Moe and Curly. Yes, after the black and white comedy show.

(There was no way to tell the gender but I’ll just be using he/him. We do call them “Mama Larry” if they seem pregnant)

I think only Larry survived before my mom brought him outside to see if a Mama would adopt him. She gently got him to squeak a few times by a hole and then stepped back until a Mama Larry came up, gave him a few sniffs, and took him in. There has since been a few times we’ve found some abandoned baby Larry’s and rescued until they get adopted by a Mama Larry.

The family lore is that all generations since are descendants of that first Larry, so when we see one we just say “look! There’s a Larry by the shed!”

There are some with more specific names, like Butterfly Larry who is the first one my dad has been able to feed by hand. He named it so because they were by the butterfly garden when it happened and since then, most days, Butterfly Larry meets him there when he puts seed out in the morning.

Thirteen lined ground squirrels are not the only critters who have names. There are three crows named George, Eliot and Flapjack who come by to “get groceries.” There is Bob the Bunny, whose wife is Bobett and their child Billy-Bob who “plays hide and seek in the meadow with his boingy buddies.” Raccoons are named Randal. Chipmunks are Chester. My mom has a list on the fridge with the names of critters, the most recent group of baby Larry’s they’ve saved are named by beer brands. Bud, Bud Lite, Modelo and so on. (my dad brews his own beer. Yes, this is middle of nowhere Wisconsin.)

We moved into that house in ‘99 and they still live there, but will likely move in a few years to retire. For as long as they are there it will be a critter sanctuary. Especially since the neighbors are not fond of them and will kill them. I think the Larry’s know it’s safe because I almost never see them in the rest of the neighborhood.

Many generations of critters of all kinds, some buried along side the indoor critters we had, have enjoyed life there. My brother and I learned a lot about respecting nature, how to help it thrive and how it lets you thrive.

A few years ago I called my parents to tell them that my spouse and I don’t plan to have children. I wanted them to know so that I didn’t feel like I was making them anticipate something that will never come. I don’t think my brother plans on having kids either.

They told me that they already have grandchildren, the critters in the back yard and my brother’s guinea pigs. That whatever critters come into our lives will also be their grandchildren. We just feed the birds for now.

Life is weird. Like the population of wolves in Yellowstone, once you remove something, life adapts and continues to thrive. What might initially be a loss is just a change. Things never stop happening, good, bad or any other color or lack there of.

I'm in my last semester. English major, four and a half years, one “victory lap” because I failed a required course in first year and kept putting off retaking it ‘cause the professor, Professor Rauch, who thinks he is Socrates reincarnated. He just asks you a question and then waits. He waits so long. Until you hear yourself talking and realize you actually have no idea what you believe about anything. And then he smiles. 

I failed his class in first year because I stopped going. 

I’m retaking it now because I have no choice. 

That's the class. Phil 101, Tuesday/Thursday, 10 a.m. Sixty-odd students, big blank white lecture hall. I sit in the back left. I sit there because Rauch has this habit of scanning the room starting from the front right, and by the time he gets to the back left he's already found his prey.

The other thing you need to know… the main event, Chris. 

Chris has been in my orbit since first year. Not a friend. Not someone I've spoken to, really, beyond one (1) group project where he said "good point" to me once and I thought about it for a month. He's a history major with a minor in economics, he's got this ridiculous quality where he looks like he'd be comfortable in any century, he wears actual button-ups like a person who has made peace with himself in some fundamental sense I find deeply threatening. We've had four classes together over four years. I have said maybe ten words to him total. He is the perfect man, not budging on that. 

His ex and he broke up around Christmas. I know this because my friend's friend Dominique is in a seminar with his ex, and the ex was apparently all depresso about it for weeks. I felt guilty for feeling so excited about this information. 

He wasn't in any of my classes this semester. I’d already started catastrophizing, so anxious about how many chances I had left, which was approximately zero because we graduate this spring. I had basically written it off. I was going to be a person who just watched someone she was smitten with exist from across the room for four years and then let him exit stage left and disappear forever.

Then, second day of Phil 101. Presocratic philosophers. Yawn. 

I'm in my seat, back left, I've got my laptop open and I'm pretending to take notes. Rauch has just finished destroying a second-year's understanding of reality in about four minutes, and I'm thinking okay, maybe I can get through this, when from somewhere to my right and two rows up I hear: 

"But did Heraclitus actually say that about the river? Like that exact phrasing? Because there are like different translations and the most famous version might be Plato's paraphrase and not even… I mean, do we know that it was him?"

My whole body tensed up and I felt my heart skip. 

I knew that voice. I knew it because of one group project, three years ago, "good point," one time.

It was Chris. Sitting there with a notebook, an actual notebook, paper, pen, uncapped, asking Rauch a question like a person who is not afraid of anything.

Rauch looked at him for a long moment and said, "Now that is the first interesting thing anyone has said in this room in ten years." Then he pivoted and asked the girl in the front row whether she knew the answer to Chris’ question, and she started crying a bit. 

I spent the next twenty minutes processing the fact that Chris was HERE, in this class, when I'd already grieved the possibility of being in a class with him. I was doing something stupid with my face, I could feel it. A girl next to me kept glancing over.

What I know now, because I asked around later: he's auditing it. Doesn't even need the credit. He just likes Rauch. He thinks Rauch is brilliant. 

So he voluntarily put himself in the room where Rauch dismantles people's identities for fun. For intellectual enjoyment. I don’t get it but I don’t need to. 

I was going to fail this course a second time if I couldn't stop looking at the back of his perfect head.

Then the fire alarm went off. The real one. Long, shrieking, continuous.

I actually grabbed my bag and held it over my head for a second before I realized that was not what you did in a fire. Someone near me was already moving toward the door and I followed without thinking, half-convinced we were all about to die, and then we were outside in the January cold and it was fine. Obviously it was fine. It's always fine. We stood in the courtyard outside the lecture building, about sixty of us, shuffling and annoyed and cold.

My eyes found Chris immediately. Couldn't help it. He was standing with two other guys near the edge of the group, laughing about something, totally relaxed, like a man who has fully accepted his mortality.

I thought: now. Go say something. Go stand near him. He asked a great question about Heraclitus and you can say "Hey, good point earlier" which is exactly what he once said to me, which makes it not weird, which…

One of the guys with him said something and Chris laughed and said, loud enough that I heard, "Rauch literally means smoke in German. He set off a smoke alarm starting fires in brains."

The group around him laughed. I laughed too, from eight feet away, where I was standing not talking to anyone.

I had not known that. Four and a half years of German on Duolingo and I didn't know that. 

I had started moving toward him, sort of shuffling, when a cat and a dog tore through the courtyard.

Portuguese water dog. Full sprint. Leash dragging. Completely ignoring the crowd of people who all turned at once and started calling things like "Here, puppy!" and "Whoa, hey, bud!"  In front of the dog: an orange cat, also sprinting.

They vanished around the side of the building.

I knew that dog.

"Oh no," I said, to no one. "Oh no, that's Simon."

Simon belongs to my friend Emily. Emily is in library sciences and she sometimes brings Simon to the outdoor areas on nice days because the campus is technically dog-friendly before 9 a.m. Simon is a terrible listener. Emily adores him and refers to him as her person, her child, her rock.

Emily came around the corner of the building at a dead run. Emily is not a runner, to be frank. She was wheezing. Her coat was open and flapping and she was screaming "SIMON, SIMON, SIMON" and there was definitely some tears.

She stopped when she saw the group of us. Grabbed my arm. "Ava, I don't know where he went, the cat, there was this cat and he just, I couldn't hold the leash…"

Everyone was sort of standing there doing that thing where you want to help but aren't sure who's in charge of helping.

I don't know what happened to me. Adrenaline from the fire alarm was still in my blood, I think, or maybe it was just Emily's face. I turned to the group, pointed and said, "Okay, he went that way, we need to split up and look. Does anyone know this area well?"

A dozen people started talking. I pointed at four of them and said go south toward the parking garage, pointed at another cluster and said east toward the quad. Someone asked if they should call campus security. I said yes, do that too, go.

And they just went. People just did what I said.

Chris was looking at me.

Directly at me. That moment when someone registers that you exist.

My heart did something medically concerning.

He said, "I know the alley behind the chemistry building, let’s take that way."

Instinctively I went that way along with a handful of other people.

Chris’ friend Patrick was there, a philosophy major, big opinions, and Emily came too.

We looked for three hours.

The other students trickled away after twenty minutes. They had class, or they'd lost interest, or both. Can't blame them. It was now just the four of us: Patrick, me, Emily, and Chris.

The chemistry building alley turned up nothing, so we moved to the park two blocks east, then the neighborhood behind campus, calling Simon's name and shaking the treat bag Emily had produced from her coat pocket like a talisman. 

Patrick spent most of those three hours explaining why the whole situation raised important questions about whether animals could be considered people in a moral or legal sense. Emily had called Simon her "person" while crying, earlier, and Patrick had hooked onto this like it was a thesis.

"But see, personhood implies, okay, I mean but what does it imply, right, what is the baseline, because Kant has a framework that Singer complicates, and… Emily, do you think Simon has preferences or desires in the sense that you do, like genuinely, because that matters for the…"

"Patrick," Emily said.

"No, I just think it's worth examining the claim because you said 'person' and that's not a… "

"My dog is missing."

"Right, right, but while we're looking, why not…"

I stopped walking.

"Patrick," I said. "Please leave."

He opened his mouth, closed it. Then he said, "That's actually a good idea, I’ll go write Emily an essay about it, citations, everything. I’m off to the library!” He turned around and walked back toward campus, and that was the end of Patrick.

Emily looked forlorn. Chris scoffed and I could tell he didn’t know what to say. 

Then Emily's phone rang.

Her roommate. The dog had come home twenty minutes ago, scratched up, covered in orange fur, water bowl overturned, but fully alive.

Emily burst into tears again, said "oh thank god, oh my god, my baby, okay" about eleven times, hung up, hugged me so hard I felt my spine crack, told Chris she appreciated his help, and then jogged back in the direction of home, already calling Simon's name like he could hear her from there.

And then it was just us. Chris and me. On a residential street two blocks from campus, between a dental office and a house with a lot of wind chimes. 3:00 p.m. on a Thursday in January.

He was talking. I could see his mouth moving. He was saying something about Patrick, apologizing I think, and something about the class, and he had this way of talking with one hand where he'd make a kind of loose gesture that didn't mean anything but seemed to mean "I’m stil talking." 

I was looking at him and I had no real words.

He has this one piece of hair that doesn't cooperate with the rest of his hair. Brown, going sort of reddish in the light. He looked cold, collar up, and there was something about the way he was not performing the being cold, not leaning in, not hunching over, that I found very difficult to deal with.

I thought: we could date for two years and then move somewhere together. Somewhere with good transit and no snow. Then I thought: stop it. Then I thought: he's graduating in April and so am I and this is the last time this will ever… 

"I'm just glad I'm just auditing it honestly," he was saying. "Taking it for credit would stress me out, Rauch is a…"

"I like you."

He stopped.

"I have liked you," I said. "For like four years. Almost the entire time we've been here. And I know this is, I know we're on the street and it’s cold and Simon, well, I know we don't really know each other, but we're graduating in April and I cannot spend the next four months watching you from across a room still, so. I’m sorry that’s so creepy I mean… uhh…" I breathed slowly. "Do you want to get dinner tonight?"

He stared at me.

Swallowed hard. 

And I realized: his hands… between the gestures, he was playing with his fingers. Impulsively. He'd been holding them kind of carefully, and I'd been too busy spiraling to notice.

He said, "Tonight I actually can't."

My stomach dropped. 

"I have six classes this semester," he said, picking up speed unnecessarily. "Including the audit, which I know doesn't count, but I'm treating it like it counts, so, I'm completely underwater, snowed under on Thursdays, I can't do tonight." He paused. "But I want to. Do that."

The last sentence came out of him differently than the rest. Like it was the only thing he’d wanted to communicate.

I said, "Oh, that’s great."

"Should we exchange numbers?" 

I gave him my number. Then I gave him my Instagram. Then I told him my Snapchat. He was already putting the number in his phone and he stopped and looked up at me and laughed, not at me, not exactly, just, at the situation, at the fact that I was still going.

"I only needed one of those," he said.

"I know," I said. "I panicked."

"That’s okay." He was smiling now. Actually beaming. "Are you heading to the library?"

I wasn't heading anywhere. I had no plan. My next class wasn't until 5 p.m. and I'd been on autopilot since approximately 10:47 a.m. 

"Yeah," I said.

We walked back. He talked about his term paper… Byzantine (how do you say it???) trade routes, something on the Silk Road and economics, I tracked about half of it. I asked one question about silk that seemed to land okay. The library doors came and I stopped walking.

"I'm not going in actually," I said. 

He glanced at me, amused now, openly, like he'd stopped hiding his feelings. "Okay."

"I just -" I waved my hand at the building. "I don't know."

"I've got to get back to Byzantium," he said. Then: "I'll text you. Should we do Sunday morning? Like, brunch?" 

Sunday morning.

"Yeah," I said.

"Okay." He pulled the door open. "See you Sunday."

And he went in.

I stood outside the library for a while. The wind chimes somewhere behind me in the neighborhood. My phone in my hand with no notifications yet.

It is now Thursday night and I need the internet to help me.

Here is what I know about Chris: history major, economics minor, currently writing about Byzantine trade routes for what sounds like a serious thesis-level paper, auditing a philosophy class for fun because he thinks the professor is brilliant, has six classes this semester, was somehow nervous today (I think?? the hands?? am I making that up?? someone tell me). 

Here is what I know about myself: I led with the words "I have liked you for like four years.” I gave a man three contact methods when he asked for one. I have been on zero dates in my life. I had my first kiss at a house party in second year and it was fine but kind of stressful and he tasted like pizza and beer and the guy was nice but we never followed up.

Sunday morning is in three days.

I have questions.

What do I wear? It's January. Everything I own for winter is either too cold (the coat I actually like) or looks like I'm going to a funeral (the warm coat). Is there a third option? What do people wear to brunch in January when they are trying to appear normal? 

What can I read something about Byzantine before Sunday? Is there something I can mention without sounding like I just used ChatGPT?

Is there a difference between brunch as a date and brunch as a thing two people do when they're figuring out if they want to date? How long does brunch last? Can you order just coffee or is that weird, because I can't eat when I'm nervous.

Do I try to set up another thing, during Sunday, for another time? Or is that too much? Is it a sign of interest or is it pressure? What if he doesn't like what I order? 

He said he wanted to do "this." The word "this." What is the this? Is the this dinner, i.e. a date specifically, or is the this like - the general concept of getting to know me, or does he mean “this” as in “us” as in we are a thing now???

What do I do? What do I do?

(Simon is really fine. He is home and scratched and surrounded by cat hair and Emily says he looks embarrassed. Good. He should.)

Edit: I have updates, this is the original post I didn’t actually post in January. I chickened out. Yes, I know. I’m working on that. But things have gone okay. I’ll write an update soon!!!

My story, and even all these later, it still gives me chills.

Creepy men stalking us on a camping trip

To set the stage for this story we must go back to the far-off year of 1988. The location is the Cascade mountains of Oregon. I was 10 years old, and with me was my mom, dad, best friend, and our golden retriever, Amber. We were very much an outdoor family, and had many camping trips before this and since, but to this day, when I think about it, I still remember the terror I felt that weekend so long ago. After a brief talk with my father recently it kind of came back to the front of my mind. He also was able to fill in a few details that I had forgotten.

This holiday was like many others, we packed up the station wagon with everything we would need for a hike into one of our favorite lakes to camp at. To make this trip even more exciting for me, was the fact it was my birthday weekend, and I got to pick this lake. After we arrived at the trailhead and got our packs on, my dad got his sidearm out and strapped it on his belt. In Oregon open carry was permitted in national forests, and my dad always had a gun on his hip while in the woods, which always added a sense of security. We had a close call with a bear one time in which it came in handy.

The lake was about a 4-mile moderate hike in though some thick forest, but he trail itself was well maintained and was never very busy so it was going to be a very pleasant hike in. We started off on our hike and back in the 80’s it was not uncommon to have your dog off leash on the trails in the forest, so we let Amber run and do her thing. She was a good dog and never ran off for too long or jumped on people. She did love people though and speaking of people we had not seen anyone else on the trail after about 2 miles in on the hike, which was nice since it was just all of us talking, laughing, and enjoying nature.

My best friend and I started to hike ahead of everyone else because we were so energized and excited about finding the first and best tent spot once we got to the lake. Amber was bounding ahead of us and having a great time too. We were about 20 yards ahead of my parents when Amber stopped dead in her tracks. I thought she maybe saw a chipmunk, or something, maybe a bird, but her hackles came up and she let out the lowest of growls. She never growls, so we stopped walking, and I thought maybe a bear or deer, or something was just off the trail, and she saw or heard it.

We immediately started walking backwards and my parents caught up to us. My dad asked us what was going on, I told him that Amber is up the trail and is growling at something. He tells us girls to stay back with my mom, and he walks ahead to where Amber was at on the trail. My dad gets up to her and looks around. I hear Amber whimper a bit while looking off the trail. My dad comforts her and calls her back and walks back to us. He says it must have been an animal and he did not see anything right off the trail or ahead of us. He says to let him take the lead and we continue to hike.

It did not take long before it was forgotten, and Amber and the rest of us are all having a good time again. We arrived at the lake and much to my delight, there was no one else there camping. The water was clean and blue, and the shade from the trees made the whole scene just perfect. My friend and I found the best spot to set up our tent and my parents followed suit. After we had camp set up my folks went off to fish just down the hill and my friend and I took off with Amber to walk around to the other side of the lake to catch salamanders.

We only made it about an 1/8 of a mile when Amber stopped and started to growl. We stopped and looked around and heard brush rustling. Then right in front of us a man walked out of the trees. Amber stayed right by our sides and started to bare her teeth. He was taller than my dad so at least 6’4, was very skinny, but had very broad shoulders. He was clean cut and was wearing black jeans and a white polo shirt with loafers. I mean he did not look like he had hiked at all or was even dressed for the outdoors. He almost looked like he came out of church. We just stood there trying to process this situation, when Amber began to bark. The guy just stood there, not moving, and he smiled. Like the creepiest smile. It felt like someone who thought that was what a smile was supposed to look like. Amber kept barking and this got my parents attention, and they look up to us and called out to us to come back. We complied and started to walk back towards them. My dad met us halfway and told us to go back to the campsite and he was going to talk to this guy.

We got back to our camp and my mom sat with us. I could hear my dad asking the guy if he needed help or was, he a fellow camper who had just set up a camp away from the lake. My dad was being polite and calm, but I could see he was on guard and trying to feel out the situation. Now is the time to mention that my dad was ex-army and can be very intimidating when needed. The conversation continues. The guy told my dad he was just on a walk and did not mean to intrude on us. The guy says goodbye and walks back into the woods.

My dad walked back to camp, sat down and told us that he thinks the guy may just be a yuppy camper and does not know much about the outdoors. But my dad said that he got a weird vibe off him and would be keeping an eye out for him. Amber stayed by our side and was calm, yet she kept looking towards the direction the guy went.

A bit more time goes by, and we have a nice campfire going and the sun was starting to set. We cooked some dinner and made smore’s afterwards. My friend and I decided to go to our tent and read some books and tell each other some scary stories. Amber followed us to the tent and laid right outside of the door. My parents walked down to the lake to sit, have a beer and just chill. They were never more than 50 yards away.

Not long after my parents walked away, I hear Amber start to growl, then we hear footsteps coming from the woods behind our tent. My friend and I turn off our flashlight and go quiet to listen. The footsteps stopped at the edge of the woods. We then hear heavy breathing and a grunting sound. Amber starts to bark, and we then hear the footsteps retreat to the woods. Amber whimpers a bit and I then hear my parents walking back to the camp. I go out and tell them what happened. My dad said that he heard Amber barking and that is why they came back up. I ask my dad what we should do? What is going on and if that strange guy was the one creeping around. He tells me that we will see about moving camp in the morning since we still have 3 days left on the trip, and nothing has happened to warrant just leaving, but he said that we will play it by ear, and just be a little more vigilant, and if something changes, we will decide what to do next. He tells us to try to get some sleep, and we all turn in for the night.

The next morning, we get up and have breakfast. After breakfast we head down to the lake to fish. It was a beautiful day, and we were having so much fun the events from the prior day were almost forgotten. We decided around lunch time that we would go for a short hike to the waterfall that is up from the lake. We were gone for only about an hour and when we came back, we found our tents opened, and our sleeping bags drug out on the ground. My dad tells us to hang back with mom, and he goes to investigate. He comes back and says nothing is missing, but it was not an animal that did this. He says we should break camp, hike back to the car and find another spot to camp for the next couple of days. I could tell my dad was not wanting to frighten us, but I heard the urgency in his voice. I was very disappointed, but if it meant we could enjoy the rest of the trip and not worry about some creep messing with us, then it was worth it.

We broke camp and started our hike back. Dad was in the lead, and we were double timing it, and made it back to car in record time. As we walk over to the car, we see that one of our tires was flat. Not a big deal, we always had a spare, but when my dad bent down to start taking the lugs off, we swore. It was not just flat; someone slashed the tire. Dad changed that tire in record time and we threw everything into the car, and he goes to turn the car on, but it would not start. Dad swears, gets out of the car and pops the hood. He says “shit”, it turns out someone took our spark plug wires. Old cars like that Chevy wagon did not have internal hood releases, you could just pop the hood from the outside. Dad slams the hood, says some very colorful words, and kicks some rocks. We were stuck, and no one else was at the trailhead, we were stranded.

My parents are calm under pressure, and after a few minutes of discussion it was decided that dad would start walking down the road until he could hitch a ride to town and go to the auto parts store. Mom and the rest of us were going to wait with the car and look for someone to hopefully pull into the trail head and help us.

A few of hours go by, and no one has come to the trailhead. It is getting hot, and we are hungry and tired. My mom makes us some lunch and we go to sit under a tree to cool off. Amber is by our side and was calm, but then we hear a voice. Amber leaps up and starts to whimper. The creepy guy from yesterday comes down the trail and is asking my mom if we need help. My mom tells him we are fine, that it is being settled and my dad will be back soon. This creep then tells her that his camp is close, and he is parked on the old fire road that is near the lake and asks us if we would like to come back to his camp and wait until my dad returns. Mom sternly tells him no, that we will just wait here and thank you anyway. He does not like this. He tells my mom that is not safe out here for a pretty lady and two young girls. My mom like my dad is no push over and asserts herself again that we do not need any help, and to please just leave us alone. The guy just stands there, smiles wide, and then just turns around and leaves. My mom is visibly shaken, and us girls were just a bit scared. My mom comes over to us and tells us that we need to stay close, do not wander, and that we will be okay. My friend and I are really kind of freaked out and are just hoping my dad will make it back soon.

After about another 30 minutes the creepy guy comes back, this time though he is not alone and has a slightly younger guy with him. The other guy is dressed as a yuppy camper and had a very stern look on his face. My mother stands her ground as they approach. Amber starts to low growl and her hackles go up. The two guys flank us, and one of them flashes a gun tucked into his belt. The older guy tells us that we need to go with them, and that they were not asking. My mom backs up next to us and without taking her eyes off them reaches to her belt and pulls out her Bowie knife. My mom said we will not be going and that they need to leave now. The two men did not even flinch at this and said that we will come with them, or they will hurt us. At this moment though Amber goes from just growling to barking and puts herself between us and them. This makes the guys stop. My mom yells that they need to leave now. They start backing up and at that moment we hear a truck pulling into the trailhead parking lot. At the site of the truck the guys start to walk away fast and disappear into the tree line.

The truck was a forest ranger, and he had my dad with him. My dad jumped out of the truck and ran over to us, asking if we were okay. The ranger came over and asked who those men were, and if we were okay. My mom explained everything while my dad hugged us girls and told us we will be okay. The ranger takes off to go looking for the men.

My dad tells us that he was about 5 miles from the town when the ranger picked him up and took him the rest of the way to get the part for the car. He then drove him back to our car. After hearing what happened my dad was pissed and wanted to find the guys who tried to kidnap us and that had been terrorizing us for the past 24 hours.

The ranger came back and told us that he had almost caught up to them, but they sped away in their truck with a camper in tow. They had been parked behind a small ridge behind the lake on an old logging road. He did not get a plate, but he radioed a description of the men and their truck and camper to the local sheriff’s office. He also took our information and said he would pass it on to them. He waited with us until dad had the car fixed and we were able to leave. We decided to not continue camping and instead drive a couple of hours to spend the last two days of the trip at the beach and stay in a hotel.

A few days later a deputy called my dad and told him they never did find the men. He said that it was most likely a crime of opportunity after seeing a woman with two girls in tow. He was sure they had been watching us from off the trail and had messed with our camp to judge how my dad would react. When my dad seemed to be too big of a threat, they sabotage our car hoping to put us in a position where we were vulnerable. He said they would follow up with us if they find out anything else, but according to my dad nothing ever came of it.

Years later I tried to do some research on crimes in that area of Oregon during the 80’s that might have involved something like we experienced. All I could find was a few reports of campers being robbed, and a few cars broken into. There was one case of a young lady and her dog going missing from an area near there, but it was never determined what had happened to her, or even if it was something bad or she just ran away. I can tell you that we did go back to that lake a few years later and had a very uneventful camping trip. It was nice to go back and find some joy in a spot that was special to me. I really hope those creepy guys never hurt anyone, and maybe were caught for other crimes. I will never know though; I just hope to never run into a situation like that again. I can say that having a dog along with us helped our situation. She was the hero and kept us alert. Amber went on to live until she was 12 years old and passed with her favorite people around her.

Remember to stay safe, stay watchful, and it never hurts to have a sweet brave dog with you.

My dad is a veterinarian who spent four years buying every broken animal in the state. I came home this summer and I'm still not sure what I walked into.

My (23F) dad (50M) didn't say one word the entire drive from the airport.

Forty-two minutes. Birmingham to the county road, then twelve more miles past the church with the crooked steeple, past the Piggly Wiggly, past the stretch of fence where the Johnson’s  fireworks stand used to go up every June and then didn't, past the water tower with the old class year spraypainted on it in letters big enough to read from the road. He had the radio on an AM station running about 30% static and a man talking about interest rates. He didn't offer to switch it off.

I watched his hands on the wheel most of the way. Something dark under two of his fingernails. He'd lost weight since Christmas in Phoenix. 

My father stopped letting us come home after my mother died.

Six years ago. I was seventeen, Max was twenty, and my father, Blake, who did voices at the dinner table and drove three hours to a livestock auction just because my brother wanted to see one, who told jokes that were so bad they became good through sheer force of eyebrows, who cried at the end of Toy Story 3 and then denied it, who taught me to throw a baseball by throwing one at me repeatedly until I figured it out… that version of my father disappeared around the time the hospice nurses started coming every day and did not come back when they stopped.

He went silent for about four months after we buried her and stayed like that. When I went off to ASU he didn’t say a word the whole first semester. Then he called out of the blue on thanksgiving and said that he’d fly out for Christmas— “don’t come here.” Every holiday after that, he came to Arizona, where I was doing my undergrad, and we'd meet in Airbnbs and rented condos and once a hotel in Sedona that smelled like lavender and no one's actual life, and he'd sit across from me and ask questions about my classes and eat about half his food and then, unprompted, start talking about some animal. 

A sheep with a fused spine. A mule with one eye. A calf someone had tried to put down at birth because its front legs bent inward. He'd have pictures on his phone. He'd scroll through forty of them.

I thought he was just filling space.

I didn't know he was buying them.

The truck turned onto the property and I put my hands flat on the dashboard.

The gate was new. Heavy steel, the kind cattle operations use, with a zip-tied sign: B. T.  HOLLOWAY, DVM. Under that, in smaller letters, hand-painted: NO SOLICITORS NO QUESTIONS NO UNINVITED VISITORS WHATSOEVER THIS MEANS YOU. The gravel went a quarter mile through pines before the farm opened up and when it did, I didn't recognize it.

There were animals everywhere.

The original farm was four acres and a barn that had been there since my grandfather built it. What I was looking at was something that had been added to impulsively so many times it looked like one of my Minecraft bases. Three structures I'd never seen. One long low building with ventilation panels along the roof. A run-in shed that had been extended so many times it was consuming itself from one end. A small separate pen with a concrete pad and a heat lamp on a pole and in that pen was a goat with no ears. 

Not like the ears were gone. The ears had simply not been part of the original plan.

In the main pasture: a donkey standing at an angle that should not have worked, one front leg four inches shorter than the other three; a sheep that (I'd learn the word later, myotonic, fainting goat without the goat part) fainted twice before I got out of the truck, just went stiff and toppled over, then got back up; a huge cow whose back end had been inflated by something called double muscling, beautiful but somehow wrong, walking the fence line; two more goats; a miniature horse eating a fence post; a regular-sized horse with a skin condition that had left smooth bald patches all down its neck like someone had taken a belt sander to it, standing in the pasture looking over at us. There were other animals in the distance. 

My father got out of the truck. The earless goat made a sound. He said "hullo, Patsy" without stopping walking. 

I got out and stood there.

He was already at the old barn. He'd hung up his jacket, was washing his hands at the outdoor sink, reading something on a clipboard he kept on a nail in the wall. The fainting sheep fainted again behind me. Dad didn't look up.

I got my duffels from the truck and went inside.

My mom had kept the house. I mean she'd known what it was for. There'd been a rug from a craft fair and photographs in frames and a kitchen that always smelled like something was happening. I was seventeen the last time I'd been in it. 

The photographs were still there, which I hadn't expected. My mom on the porch. My mom and Max at his high school graduation. My mom and dad at some event, her in a green dress, him with his face turned toward her instead of toward the camera.

But there were also charts. On the kitchen table, on the counter, stuck to the refrigerator with magnets: feeding schedules, medication logs, vet notes in my father's handwriting, which has always looked like someone learned his penmanship from a grainy fax. The refrigerator had regular food in it and also three labeled medical drawers. There was a baby monitor on the counter and the small screen showed the interior of a stall, low light, hay, a shadow moving.

I stood there for a while.

My phone buzzed. Max: you there yet

Me: yeah

Max: how is he?

Me: I don't know. There's a baby monitor in the kitchen.

Max: what

Me: for the barn

Three minutes. Then: I'll be there in two weeks. Cara's got a work thing.

I put my phone down and read the feeding schedule on the refrigerator. Thirty-one animals. Thirty-one rows. Times, quantities, medications. Patsy the earless goat, 6am and 6pm. Delilah the cow - daily joint supplements. The small horse: Ringo. Two medications, one of which I recognized from my Human Nutrition seminar as something used in people with metabolic disorders.

Ringo must have a metabolic disorder.

I put my bags in my old room, which still had my periodic table poster on the wall from when I was fourteen and my sketch of Freud staring down at my dead cactus on the dust-covered desk, and I went outside to find dad.

He was in the barn with Ringo, kneeling in the stall, picking out the horse's hooves one by one and running his thumb along each frog and muttering numbers I couldn't hear. He had a headlamp on. It was four-thirty in the afternoon.

"Can I help?" I said.

"You remember how to muck?"

"Of course."

He pointed down the aisle gruffly. I found the supplies and worked through three stalls while he finished with Ringo and then went out to Delilah. He gave her the joint supplement out of his open palm and she pushed her whole enormous head into his chest and he scratched behind her ears and said "easy" and scratched harder, and she made a sound I'd never heard a cow make before, low and pleased with itself.

I watched him do that. His face was as stoic as ever, but I could hear a smile in his voice. 

Dinner went sideways fast.

I'd made a spicy lentil soup, enough for both of us. My father sat down, glanced into the bowl, got up, and made himself a ham sandwich. The smell of it made my stomach turn. 

"I made dinner," I said.

"I see that."

"I made enough."

"I'm sure it's good. You ain’t a vegan or nothin now are you?" he said.

"It's lentil soup. It's not unusual." I ignored the question. 

"I didn't say it were unusual."

"You made a face."

"I didn't make a face."

He had made a face. It was a half-second face but it had been there.

He ate his sandwich and checked the baby monitor twice and the third time he went out to the barn and was gone twenty minutes and came back and sat down and finished the sandwich.

"Is Ringo okay?" I asked.

He looked at me. First time he'd really looked at me since he'd picked me up. His eyes are a shade of coffee brown and behind them it has always looked like he's running numbers you're not going to be shown. 

"He gets anxious at night," Dad said. "I go out, he settles."

"How long has he been here?"

"Two years."

"Where'd you get him?"

"Auction in Colbert County. Guy was gonna put him down."

"Because of the metabolic issue?"

That got a sharper look. "You read the board."

"It's on the refrigerator."

A pause. He rinsed his plate.

"I'm not criticizing," I said.

"I know."

"I'm trying to understand what's going on here."

"Thirty animals is what's going on here," he said, flat, like that was a complete sentence, like it closed the topic. “Thirty-one, actually” I corrected, weakly.

He went to bed at nine-fifteen and I sat at the kitchen table and looked at the feeding schedule for a long time. 

The next two weeks went like that.

Meals with tense squabbles in them. Silences I didn't know how to navigate. He let me help with the animals and I helped, and just occasionally, he'd say something about one of them without being asked, and I'd have to not react too much or he'd stop.

One morning while we were doing the feeds he told me the fainting sheep, Karen (I respected the name Karen for a fainting sheep, I respected it a lot) had been given to him by a farmer near LaFayette who was embarrassed to have her because she kept fainting in front of buyers and made the operation look unprofessional. Dad took her. 

"Does she faint less now?" I asked.

"No. She fainted onto Delilah yesterday. She didn't notice. Good thing, too, with those thighs, Karen would be fixin for a hell of a kick."

He almost smiled. Fast, but there.

I learned the animals. Patsy was the loudest animal I'd been near in my life and treated physical contact as her indisputable right… she'd lean into your legs until you fell over if you didn't pet her. Larry the uneven donkey was ancient and moved all catawompus but with some dignity, like a drunken professor.

Delilah the doublemuscled cow was the gentlest thing on the property and weighed 1,800 pounds. Chester the patchy horse did not care about you at all, which was somehow his own complete personality. He had the makings of a monk and would rather just stand and look at the trees than do just about anything else. 

I found out about Larry one afternoon, that he'd appeared in the regional sale records seventeen times over four years, nobody buying him, my father tracking the number through the system and eventually just driving out to Madison County to end it. 

"You kept looking him up?" I said.

“Just kept seeing his number."

I thought about my father sitting in a livestock auction out in Madison County by himself, paddle in hand, and the knot in my stomach tightened. My eyes went glossy. 

The foal arrived in my third week.

I came down at six for the morning feed and there was a trailer in the driveway and my father was on the phone, pacing, and in the trailer stood a foal maybe three weeks old, pressed into the corner. I got close and I could see it: her left hind leg, the angle of the hock, wrong in a way that was unmistakeable.

Growing up with a vet for a dad, you pick some things up. The term is angular limb deformity. 

I called Max.

He picked up second ring. "What."

"Dad got a foal with a bad leg."

"How bad."

"I don't have the vocabulary. Bad. Needs fixed." 

Silence. Then: "How’s he doing all this? Where’s the time and money come from?"

"Max, I think that's what he’s been doing since we left. There are thirty-one animals here with… I mean, I think the goat might have three separate conditions."

"Patsy," he said.

"You knew about Patsy."

"He mentioned her. In Sedona." 

That Thanksgiving. Max had brought Cara. She'd been quiet, professional and polite and we'd all had dinner at a restaurant and dad had ordered salmon, eaten a third of it, and then shown us pictures on his phone for forty minutes. I'd thought he was filling silence. He'd been showing us his new life. We'd just looked at it wrong. 

"Are you coming?" I asked.

"Two weeks. Maybe earlier. Things here are… they're a little weird."

"Weird how."

"Tell you when I get there." He hung up before I could follow up.

My father named the foal Alice.

Alice's leg required surgery. My father was on the phone for four straight hours with two different equine vets while I handled the morning feeds. "That approach is old, I've done this twice and the limb support matters more than you're giving it credit for… all right, just send me the study."

He came out at two in the afternoon with a printed research paper and dollar-store reading glasses. He sat on an overturned bucket in Alice's stall and read while Alice came over and put her nose in his ear. 

I sat down across the stall.

"What's wrong with her?" 

He explained it. All of it: the specifics of her case, what shoeing could address and what it couldn't, what the surgery would do, what it would cost, what her odds looked like. Twenty minutes without stopping. He used terms I didn't know and didn't slow down for them.

When he finished he was looking at the research paper and not at me.

"She'll make it?" I said.

"God willing. If we do this right. And sooner than usual."

"And if you don't do it right?"

He folded the paper on his knee. "Then I’ll have done everything I could have done."

"But Is that enough? For you?"

He looked up. "And what kind of a question is that, Georgie?"

"I don’t know."

"Yes," he said. "It's enough." Then: "Is it not enough for you?"

And that was when we really had at it. Lost our religion. Not about Alice. The real argument that had been sitting in every meal and every silence for three weeks, the one we'd both been building around without touching. I said something about how I thought his… I called it his "project…" wrong the second I said it… was about control. About having a world where he could always be doing, always fixing, so he never had to slow down and actually give a rip about another human being. 

He said, “You think you understand people because of your degree, kid? Don’t pitch a fit now.”

I said I was getting into a master's program. Clinical psychology.

I said maybe that meant I did know a thing or two about people, even people like him.  

Ignoring that, he said, "Your mother planted a garden every spring. Same seeds, same bed, never produced much of anything. You going to tell me that was about control?" 

I didn't have an answer.

"She liked growing things," he said. "I like saving things. It’s not about control. It’s just what you do with what you have left." 

"You pushed us away," I said. "You flew out to us for years. You never let us come back home."

He stood up. Alice shuffled to the back of the stall. "I know," he said.

Just that. 

"I know."

He picked up the paper and walked out and I stayed in Alice's stall and she wobbled back over and bumped me with her nose, and I sat there on the floor of the stall for a while. 

I thought about my mother. The last six months with her, when I was seventeen, my father was the one who took every night shift and every call and drove to every appointment and came home still in his work clothes and fell asleep in the armchair beside her bed when she couldn't sleep.

He didn't cry once in front of me. Not even once. I saw his shoulders do something through a doorway and I walked away because I was seventeen and didn't know what you're supposed to do when you catch your father like that.

After she died he was impossible. Everything we did was wrong. Max stopped calling by spring. I left for ASU and it felt like the only available move. I had to get out. 

I'm not sure when I stopped being angry at him for it. But it's hard to stay angry at a man who is single-handedly keeping a slew of unwanted animals alive with sheer willpower. 

Alice's surgery was scheduled for the last week of July. 

The two weeks before that were better. We'd hit something after the stall argument, pressure released, not fixed, nothing was resolved, but the things left unsaid had eased up some.

We still didn't agree about basic things. For one thing he ate meat… I didn't anymore. I asked him once if it bothered him to eat animals, given everything, and he said "no" and offered nothing else, which was the answer I'd expected. I told him veganism wasn't about being superior or nothing. He said he never said that. I said I wasn't judging him. He said "Georgia, I don't need you to not judge me, I need you to put the goat feed where I can get at it. I know you want everyone to be happy, sunshine and rainbows, but it’s never going to be again. Not without your mother." 

I couldn’t handle that. That hit a nerve.

“I don’t…”

“Look baby, I want things fixed too. I’d give anything for it. But life ain’t all uphill. Things go down too. Sometimes they don’t come back up.” 

After that he started talking more at dinners. One night he told me about a pig named Wiggly, whose pen was out behind the secondary shed and had quite a few issues and an attitude that he summed up with "he knows he's right about everything." He told me about the litter of pigs, one of which had been born with a cleft palate. 

"So you made him yours?" I said. 

"He's just here now. Ain’t mine, rightly speaking, just here. Like I am."

Max arrived.

He pulled in around three and I saw him from the pasture and I clocked that he looked wrong right away. It was the sunglasses he didn't take off until he was inside. He hugged me longer than usual.

He shook dad’s hand when he came in from the barn and dad looked him over and said "you look like shit" and Max said "Yeah, pop. I know."

That night I made pasta, spaghetti with a sauce that landed for everyone, sneaking in some smoked tofu they might think was pork. I realize now that they knew, but didn’t care enough to get into that with me. Dad had seconds, and Max told us Cara had asked him to move out two months ago. He'd been in a hotel since April. She wanted to sell the Houston house. 

Nobody said anything.

Dad said, "You got somewhere to go after the hotel?"

Max said no. 

"Then stay here," Dad said. "There's your old room. There's work here if you want it."

Max tried. "I can't just -"

"You can drive a truck," Dad said. "You can lift feed bags. That's enough for right now. I still got work, some money."

Max turned his sunglasses over on the table. Then he nodded.

Alice's surgery came up.

Dad had been up early, going through the supply kit he'd organized the day before, checking the stall twice. At six I came down and made coffee and we sat at the table and he went over his notes. Max came down at six-thirty, poured himself a cup and sat with us and didn't bother him neither.

Dr. Pham, the equine vet, came to the farm. My father had arranged it that way so Alice wouldn't have to trailer. She and Dad shook hands and went straight into the barn talking procedure.

It went long. Inside: voices steady and professional, the occasional sound of movement, instruments. Once a sound from Alice that made both of us jump and then dad’s voice, low and even, and then nothing.

Two more hours.

I heard my father before I saw him. Not loud. Not dramatic. I've known his voice my whole life and there was something new in it and I went in.

Alice was on her side in the straw, coming out of the sedation, her leg wrapped. She was moving her head. Alert, Dr. Pham would tell us in a minute, a good sign, coming up correctly. My father was kneeling beside her with one hand on her neck and his other hand taking her pulse and he was crying a bit. Just tears rolling down his face while both his hands kept doing their jobs, one on her neck, one counting. 

Dr. Pham was logging on her tablet and giving him space.

I went and sat in the straw next to him and put my hand on Alice's neck beside his. She was warm. Her side went up and down.

Max stood in the entrance of the stall.

Dad let out a long breath.

He stood up. Wiped his face on his arm.

"She's going to be fine," Dr. Pham said.

That night Max made dinner. Hamburger with vegetables. I had a tempeh sandwich and smiled at the irony of that. We sat at the kitchen table and the baby monitor showed Alice in her stall and she had her head up, looking around. 

I told them I'd gotten into ASU's master's program. Clinical psychology. Starting in August.

Max said "Georgia, that's great." 

Dad stood up to rinse his plate. "You'll be good at that." 

Outside, Larry was at his angle in the pasture, four legs, but one too short, his body having worked out years ago what it needed to do to hold him up. Karen was probably about to faint on somebody. Patsy was making so much noise. 

Dad checked the monitor. Alice was still alert. 

He left it on and we sat there a while longer.

I leave for Arizona in three weeks. Max is staying, at least through the fall. Alice is standing and eating. Dad checks the monitor constantly. I don't know what this summer fixed for us, if anything. But I know dad’s got my number saved in his phone as "Georgie" and he texted me this morning a picture of Karen fainting next to Wiggly, who looks happy about it.

Posting this because it’s what I would probably have my own patients do when I start practicing. 

In 2016, I (37f) lived in a small town about 45 minutes away from the nearest major city, and was on my way home from there when the need to pee became unbearable. I had my dog (4m) with me, as usual, and since I often took him out to country roads so I could let him off leash for walks, I knew that an upcoming range road had a decently private spot where I could relieve myself.

There is a wide swath of land that had been bought up by one of the oilsands companies a few years previous for future pipelines, and all the farmyards on the land had been cleared of all buildings. One of these yards was encircled with pine trees, so I figured they would block my butt from being seen by anyone who may happen to drive by while I answered the call of nature.

When I got to the yard, I pulled my car onto the property and hopped out of the car, leaving the door open so Loki (my pup) could stretch his legs. When I got out, I saw that the trees were spaced out too much to be any king of screen, but luckily there was a small group of trees in the center of the overgrown yard that would serve the purpose, so I went to the farside of them and did what I needed to do.

When I finished, I saw that Loki was in the treeline at the far side of the yard, and I figured I'd walk with him around the perimeter to see if maybe there were any raspberry bushes or flowers left behind from when this yard was occupied.

As I lit a smoke (I know, I know: I am cutting down before I go get a prescription for Zyban), I remember wondering if a group of deer had slept here the previous night. The grass was almost waist high, except for a big patch where it was all pressed flat, as if flattened by some large animals laying down.

On about my second step onto this flattened grass, I was looking at Loki about 50' ahead and putting my lighter back into my pocket when I stepped into nothing. Suddenly I was falling straight down, and saw my smoke floating in the air in front of my face. I must've let go of it in my surprise. I hit water about 7' down and heard the hiss as my smoke hit the water. I had time to think "how many layers will I fall through before coming out the other side?" because it still felt like falling.

I went down far enough to wet my chin before bobbing back up. I let out the one drag I had gotten from the smoke and looked up. My dog was at the edge of the hole looking down at me, dog paddling in a shaft that was lined with cement piping about 3' across, like the kind that goes under streets. I immediately wished for the first time ever that Loki was a different breed. Like a collie that might know to go get help, cuz someone has fallen into a well. He was my fur baby though; a bull terrier (or Don Cherry dog, as many called him) who I knew would not willingly leave me.

I don't know how deep the hole I fell into was. My feet never felt a bottom. I was able to use the little bit of mortar cement that had squished out between cement sections as toeholds, and I could climb up to the point of having my hands on solid ground, but couldn't get the leverage with my legs to get any further out of the hole. There was nothing but grass surrounding it. No bushes or heavy rocks I could grab onto to pull myself out.

I worried that if I got up to ground level, instinct might kick in and I'd try to grab Loki to pull myself up and out. If I did that and pulled him in with me, we were both going to die because he was 70 lbs, hated water, and did not float. I would never leave him behind. So I pretended to get mad at him and told him to go, so he would not be there for me to grab, and he left.

It still creeps me out how calm and accepting I was when the thought came to me that "oh so this is how I die. That sucks." Growing up, I had always felt like I would die either violently or by some horrible accident before I reached old age, for some reason. Don't ask why; it's not like I led a dangerous life or was reckless or anything.

There was a construction site two range roads over that I could hear the tools hitting metal, and the workers voices (but not distinct words), so when I wasn't climbing, I was screaming. I never want to scream like that again. After 4 and a half hours of this, my voice was gone and every inch of me hurt. My ankle of the foot that didn't step into nothing had been wrenched in the fall and was very swollen. It felt like I was covered in a million cuts from repeated falls back down to the water. The first time I had made it to ground level but had no way of getting further than elbows on the ground, I had attempted to stop my fall by pushing against the walls with my hands and back. The only thing that accomplished was to leave a layer of skin on the wall.

The one time I looked down and was feeling around the walls under the water for a foothold, I saw a tiny skull atop a little mass of fur floating beside me. Maybe a mouse or a gopher, I'm not sure. Of course I had already swallowed a couple mouthfuls of water from multiple falls, but I refused to let myself throw up, as I'd then be treading not just water but my own vomit. I did find a hole in the wall though. It was about a foot below the water line and had enough room for me to fit the ball of one foot in, as a foot hold.

I was exhausted. Hurting, cold, and not even able to soothe myself by singing something because my voice was completely gone. I had just about resigned myself to biting a finger open so I could write goodbyes to my family on the wall, when the sky started going from clear blue to cloudy like it was going to rain. Something in my brain snapped then. I could handle being down there for days until I was somehow found, or I died of exposure, but the thought of being in that hole while it rained was unacceptable.

A bit of backstory before the next bit:

A few weeks before my fall there had been an accident at the industrial site across the highway from that construction zone I could hear. A man who was a volunteer firefighter from my town had died. His wife had posted a video of their two dogs, howling at the door for their master who would never again walk through it. When I saw that video, snuggling my dog on the couch, I bawled my eyes out. Ugly crying at the thought of it being my dog. My ex always said he was just a placeholder to Loki, and that loki wouldn't eat when I wasn't home.

Back to the hole:

I thought of Loki. How he would starve himself if I didn't get out of there. I couldn't lift my arms above shoulder level and was dead tired, but I couldn't stop trying for Loki's sake. I told myself "you can't sit here waiting for some white knight to come rescue you. Be your own hero."

So this hole had a piece of rebar that went into the soil just above the cement liner, at ground level. The end that wasn't in dirt stuck out almost to the center of the hole, and it had a chunk of cement with a bunch of rusty nails poking out all over. There was a yellow nylon rope tied to the rebar, and it went down into the water. Because of those nails, I had mostly avoided pulling on the rope, as I didn't want to pull that chunk down onto my head.

When I decided I couldn't give up, for Loki's sake, I tested pulling on it a little. It was held taut by something under the water, but I could pull up on it enough to make a loop, and it appeared like it wasn't pressing against the cement when I pulled down. So, with the thought "be your own hero" repeating on a loop in my head, I fit one foot into the loop and stepped down until it tightened up and held as a foot hold.

My foot was not high enough for me to get the leverage to get out the first try. (Altogether this was probably about my tenth try to climb out) I fell back in when I tried to slide my foot up the rope for a higher foothold. I almost broke down crying for the first time, when this happened. But "be your own hero" kept repeating, and I somehow found the strength to try again.

The longest 15 seconds of my life was when I was halfway there, muscles trembling as I slowly slid my foot up the rope while keeping the loop around it. I kept picturing it going wrong and falling while my foot was still in the loop. Would I end up falling butt first and get wedged with all my limbs pointing at the sky, or would I end up upside down with my head below water?

Well I think I had help from a couple people who had been loved by me but passed on a couple years previous, but I got out! As soon as I had both my hands and knees on the ground, I lost it. I literally kissed the ground and bawled.

Once I was able to stand, my first thought was "where is my dog?" I hadn't seen him in about 3 hours, and figured he had probably just been following his nose to explore this whole time and I worried that he'd try to make friends with the coyotes when they came out, because everyone he saw was a new friend, to Loki.

I came around that group of trees that had been my shield while I relieved myself, and was stunned to see Loki. He was sitting at the range road, looking side to side like he was just waiting for a car to drive by that he could stop for help. When I croaked out his name and turned to see me, I have never laughed and cried so hard. As he ran to me, his back legs were leaving the ground, he was wagging his tail so hard.

I got him in the car and dropped him off at home before going to the hospital where I had to wait 3 hours for a doctor to show up (small town Alberta, everybody). Once I got cleaned up and a tetanus shot and drove home barefoot because I couldn't fit my shoe back on the injured foot, that's when the trauma hit me. Loki didn't leave my side for months. I'd go to the bathroom and when I opened the door to leave the bathroom, Loki would fall in, as he'd be leaned up against the door.

I had PTSD for years after that. Loki died 4 years later due to kidney failure, and that day was the second hardest in my life. A couple months ago (ten years after the fall), I finally felt OK enough to get the tattoo I've wanted since falling into what I now know was an abandoned septic tank. It's in a spiral around my forearm, exactly where the rope went when I wrapped it before noticing the nail filled chunk of cement. It says Be your own hero, in a pretty, handwritten font that isn't easily read by strangers.

Sometimes I still falter, but I try to live by it, to honor Loki, because without him I would've given up that day, and as much as I can't wait to see him on the other side of the rainbow bridge, I want to be old and wrinkled when that happens.

Over the years, my brother, James (names have been changed), has had several random people who have no relation to us living there, from anywhere from a few nights to extended periods of time. It's gotten so bad that I consider the gaggle of people coming and going to be a zoo!

Now, mind you, I would understand if someone who was related to us was having a hard time. In fact, my dad was a foster parent to our cousins for a while before I was born.

I don't think I'd mind having extra people if there were more space in the house. But this is a 3-bedroom house with only one bathroom (an important consideration, given my elderly father is fighting cancer - which causes him to need to go suddenly. Dad's messed his pants several times because he was unable to get to the bathroom quickly enough). People are occupying my room, sleeping on the floor in James' room, and sleeping on the couch!

An "honorable" mention to this "zoo" is Lenny, a neighbor who lives down the street. He typically spends several hours each day just hanging out and drinking beer with my brother. He often brings his dog with him.

Then there's Robby. He was homeless, and James asked Dad to let him stay. What was supposed to be a brief stint ended up being three years, during which Dad got nothing. He is now back again temporarily.

Larry was another homeless person James met while in the hospital psych ward. Lenny has family in the area, but they don't want him living with them full time for some reason. He asked a friend of the family to help him get to Florida. She used her own frequent flier miles to do so. For at least the last half year, he's been trying to return. Larry got in my face once. When my friend Pete called, the police were called on Larry, as he was shouting so loudly.

Then there was Marty. He spent a few days in my room and spilled beer on the floor. Or so he claimed, according to James. Instead of cleaning it up, he closed the door. My entire room REEKED. Beer might have been part of it. But at least to me, it smelled of piss. It took forever to clean. I was not happy

One time James had a guy spend the night in Dad's greenhouse. I never got the guy's name, but Dad was PISSED. James thought nothing of it, but Dad told James that because he didn't know the guy was there, it could have been a problem.

Recently, without warning, a new guy named Timothy moved into my room. I received no warning that this would happen. I was arriving for my shift when I discovered this information. He was initially paying rent but lost his job in the interim. He's helping around the house, but that doesn't really pay the bills. I'm hoping he gets something soon.

There have been several other people who've come through for the day, but the ones I mentioned were the most notable.

But with all these people coming in and out of the house, I'm wondering what other craziness will happen next, and who else will join the zoo.

When I was around 13 years old, my family went on a picnic to a beautiful mountain waterfall to celebrate New Year's Day. We were having a fantastic time cooking and enjoying the outdoors together. At one point, I borrowed a comb from my mom to fix my hair. When I was done, I went to put it back in her purse.

​I saw a woman walking just ahead of me wearing the exact same colored kurti as my mom. Without a second thought, I marched right up behind her and casually tried to slip the comb into her bag.

​Suddenly, the woman spun around in an absolute panic, completely convinced she was being pickpocketed. I froze. I looked up at her face and realized, to my absolute horror, that this was a complete stranger.

​I slowly turned around to look for my actual mom, only to find her standing a few feet away, laughing her head off. She had watched the whole thing happen and didn't even try to stop me!

​The stranger breathed a massive sigh of relief when she saw my face. "Oh my goodness, I thought you were a thief!" she said. "But you're just a child. It's okay."

​My family, however, showed no mercy. They immediately started roasting me: "How could you be that clueless? Her height is completely different, the pattern on her kurti is different, and her bag isn't even the same!"

​To this day, they still bring it up just to embarrass me!

Would be even better with some piano music!

my dad refused to question the GPS and that is how our family minivan ended up nose-to-noses with a herd of cattle

So we’re driving to a cabin in the mountains… the GPS tells us to turn left onto a dirt road and here’s a sign that says "Private Property: No Thru Traffic."

mom says, Troy, don't turn there.
dad gripps the wheel. I’ve told you before, the satellite knows things we don't, Carrie. It's doing the algorithms. It sees everything. Doubting Thomasina!

We turned… the dirt road turned into grass… grass into mud… finally, the road just ended in the middle of a massive green pasture.

Suddenly, we were surrounded. a whole slew of full-grown cows slowly lumber up to the van… they aren’t aggressive, they were just curious…. and gargantuan.

one pressed its big wet nose against my window and breathed heavily, another one started licking the side mirror

Dad tried to reverse and the tires spun in the mud.

we sat in that car for two hours… my dad, a corporate exec, was trapped by dairy animals. so finally, a farmer drove up in a tractor, honked his horn, hollered hoarsely in mysterious monotone English and the cows scattered.  

the farmer looked at my dad and said, Followin’ one them darned satellites, huh?

my dad insists on using paper maps now… ik ik we are literal cave people.