Stuffed Animal Storage Ideas

... inside of his jacket—a stuffed animal of some kind, with boxing...? Could the bird be the storage device for a version of ... it, his mind buzzing with ideas. Satoshi Ren snorted. "It's just ... before Satoshi was not an animal, but a shuffling decomposed human, ... draw for him… He'd suggest ideas to Ishikawa later. Suzuki Yui's ...

... inside of his jacket—a stuffed animal of some kind, with boxing...? Could the bird be the storage device for a version of ... it, his mind buzzing with ideas. Satoshi Ren snorted. "It's just ... before Satoshi was not an animal, but a shuffling decomposed human, ... draw for him… He'd suggest ideas to Ishikawa later. Suzuki Yui's ...

.... At the end was a storage compartment. Locked. Inside, the chattering ... someone had crossbred one of stuffed animal so popular in Perlia with .... Jay slowed, breathing hard. "… Any ideas?" he asked. The creature looked ...

For a bit of background: My childhood dog Stevie (female black lab), died about a year ago now, I know that’s quite a long time at this point but she was my dog at my dad’s house, and growing up with divorced parents- sometimes she was the only thing I was excited about when going to his house on the weekends. Anyways, my dad and I don’t talk much at all anymore, we haven’t for about 5 years or so. He called me to tell me she wasn’t going to make it through a surgery and we were going to lose her. She was 12 so she had a good life, but I never got to say goodbye. I saw her a few times when my dad would come to get my brother but it had been a few months since I had seen her when she passed. I never got to say goodbye. Fast forward about a year, my dad was clearing out a storage unit and ended up dropping off my entire bedroom on my front porch. In there was this, a stuffed bear a high school boyfriend had gotten me for Valentine’s Day. Being the immature 16 year old I was- when he broke up with me, I let it become a dog toy. This feels like one of the only things I have left of her. I want it to stay this way, but I don’t know how. I can’t think of a good way to honor it. I’m moving to an apartment in New York soon so I’ll be low on space but, I want ideas of how to memorialize it in a way that’s both tasteful but still the toy she played with. TDLR; my childhood best friend passed away about a year ago and I just came across what is most likely the only thing of her I have left since she passed with my dad whom I no longer speak to. How do I memorialize this (medium sized) toy. submitted by /u/whysowonk to r/Petloss [link] [comments]

I don’t want to do the ceiling hammock thing (I’ve done it before and wasn’t a huge fan). I tried this wall organizer thing but I just don’t like how it looks. I want something that looks tidier but you can still see the plushies (so not like… shoved into one of the stuffed animal storage chair situations lol). Any ideas? Apologies for the mess on my bookshelf but just trying to get most of my plushies in the pic so there’s an idea of how many I have. There’s like maybe half a dozen more in a different room but this is the majority of them. submitted by /u/alewiina to r/HomeDecorating [link] [comments]

i know cats will often bring their owners “gifts” and such, but my cat will go all the way down the basement, pick up a stuffed animal from storage, drag it upstairs and then just ditch it in a random room. she’s not bringing it to me and she’s not meowing to alert me either. yesterday she brought up 11 over the course of the day!! any ideas as to what she’s doing? i think it’s cute but i have no idea why she’s going thru the trouble of hauling them upstairs just to deposit them so randomly submitted by /u/SnooDoggos3272 to r/CatAdvice [link] [comments]

Tripping over stuffed animals on the floor? These 35 DIY stuffed animal storage solutions keep your plush toys organized and accessible. 👉 Click on the link for the full article. https://preview.redd.it/22qe8ew8fowf1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b210a719f14df66b0e95e9fa53c3077ff5131877 submitted by /u/These_Sugar_2327 to r/TeddyBearMaking [link] [comments]

So I've had this idea for a while and I think it would add a significant challenge to the game that would make use of a currently pretty useless item in the game: the meat storage cooler. Placing meat or food outside acts as a fridge and prevents it from spoiling for significantly longer but this makes it easy to stalk-pile a ton of food and just not have to make use of the game's hunting element. A way to counter this way overpowered mechanic would be to add foxes! Overview: They would be relatively docile and not attack unless actively provoked (running up to, throwing stones up close or with nowhere to run to, etc). While they can be found, hunted and killed like most other creatures, they are stealthy and very rarely spawn near a player (Similar to the moose). They're biggest "threat" would be their tendency to scavenge just about everything in their path. Fox Spawning Mechicantics, Territories, and Hunting: They can spawn on all difficulties, increasing in activity on higher difficulties. They spawn in every region aside from the far territories. Their territory is determined by small fox dens that can be found in an area with 1 or more rabbit groves and/or ptarmigan nests. Each den only has 1 fox. If there is a fox den nearby these groves, multiple decimated carcasses can be found in the area where the rabbits or ptarmigans should've spawned, but didn't. (Theres carcasses cannot be harvested and are purely for show.) You dont ever actually see the animals being hunted but if the player is close enough to the area, screeching and barking can be heard coming from the direction of the grove or nest. Every single grove or nest (except for ones up in high elevations that a fox could not access) can have a fox den spawn nearby for that specific grove. For the first several days, foxes themselves will not spawn in the area until the number of rabbits or ptarmigans in that grove or nest assigned to that den has reached 0. The amount of rabbits or ptarmigans will remain unchanged for the first 2 days fox den appears and the number will decrease every 1-4 days a fox den remains active. Bones clusters can also be found around the fox den the longer it remains active with more spawning as the population of the assigned grove decreases. A specific skull bone will spawn in the middle of the den once the population has reached 0 and actually foxes can be found in the area. Eventually, after the grove population has reached 0 for a certain number of days (Higher difficulty = fewer days) the fox den will appear collapsed and the fox assigned to that den will no longer spawn. If this happens, the grove will take significantly longer to return (up to 35 in game days on higher difficulties). After this period and the grove has returned, another fox den can potentially spawn in the area restarting the cycle. If you wish to stop the fox from killing off the grove before the population has reached 0, you would need to blow up the den with a noisemaker, forcing them to "move on" to a new shelter (Leave the area). The next 48 hours after the den was destroyed, the grove or nest will return to normal and no new dens can spawn for a certain number of days. (Higher difficulty = Fewer days to respawn; no sooner than 7 days). If the den is attacked whilst the fox is spawned in and wandering the area, it will immediately despawn or run away from the player until out of sight before despawning. Fox Behavior Once Spawned In: You need to remain in the fox's territory for at least 20 in game minutes before a fox can spawn. At dawn and at dusk, there's a small chance the fox will leave its den and wander the area until the following sunrise or sunset. This does not apply on pilgrim however and they will spawn 100% of the time the following dawn or dusk. The fox also won't spawn in the player is too close to the den at the time of spawning. (Higher difficulty = lower spawn chance per hour). They will roam the area silently, admitting very quiet footsteps that can't be heard unless you're listening very closely for them. They will flee from wolves, bears, moose and cougars. They will also ignore deer and other foxes (in the unlikely chance they meet). If the fox comes in contact with a rabbit or ptarmigan from another grove, they can be seen charging, hunting and killing them similar to wolves. The fox also has the second highest detection range (just behind the cougar) and they will bark and howl if they spot you. They will stare at you and howl unless you move closer to them. If you charge them, they will immediately flee until they are out of range of the player. (They will than despawn) Once this happens, the fox will not spawn again for at least 48 in game hours. If this happens again after the initial confrontation, the fox will leave the area altogether causing the den to collapse and become abandoned. (starting the cycle earlier than usual). Attacking/struggling: There is a rare chance that can be increased in the game settings on custom mode where rather than darting away when you approach them or aim a weapon at them, they will begin to charge you rather than fleeing. The player will enter a brief, few second struggle animation where the fox lunges at the player, the player attempts to block with his/her left arm, the fox bites the arm, the player yelps and shakes the fox off, the fox loses its grip, falls and finally runs away. The player is guaranteed a sprain, blood loss, and infection risk all on the left arm. (Additional blood loss and other injuries may occur on higher difficulties but those 3 things are 100% guaranteed to happen). This can only happen on the player's second encounter with that fox meaning the fox will abandon its den afterwards. Higher difficulties increase this chance of happening (interloper/misery = 100% on the second encounter). Hunting Foxes: If the fox spots you it will stare at you until you make a move. If you move towards it or aim a weapon at it, it will immediately flee. If you move away from it it will continue to stalk you for a bit longer until you move far enough away; it will then flee. When it runs away from you, it will run in a sharp zigzapping pattern making it very hard to hit with a weapon. If running away after you back up from it or if its charging after a rabbit/ptarmigan, it will run normally. The fox does suffer from bleedout, with weapon effectancy similar to deer. If the fox is hit, it will flee back to its den where it will hide until it fully bleeds out and dies. (Unless the hit is critical, then it just dies right where it's at.) The player can then approach the foxes den where they will fox the foxes hind legs and tail sticking out with a trail of blood. The player can interact with this and pull the foxes body out, allowing it to be harvested. Doing this will cause the den to become abandoned afterwards, starting the cycle over again. What Havested Fox Parts are Usefull For: Aside from fox meat which can be cooked or used in trading with Sutherland and guts you can get from any animal, you can harvest fox hides which take 7 days to cure indoors. Once cured, you can craft fox fur leg warmers, an outer layer only sock item. They are very warm and don't restrict your movement at all. You can also craft arm warmers that take the place of an additional outer layer gloves slot. Similar to the leg warmers, these are also very warm and don't restrict movement, but they are less warm than the leg warmers though they are less demanding on materials to craft. Both of these items are very waterproof but they also have poor durability. The final clothing related use of fox fur is you can craft fox fur insulation. A direct upgrade from ptarmigan down insulation in every department except for a few. The fox fur version is less durable, heavier, and it can only be worn on the outer layer (meaning you can only have 1). Aside from clothing, fox hides can be used to craft decorative rugs which can be used in safehouse customization. You can also craft a fox fur bedroll which is better than the down stuffed bedroll but far less durable, heavier, and it takes longer to craft. (Note: You don't need a pre-existing bedroll to craft it but you do need ptarmigan down). Fox hides can also be traded with Sutherland. Trading with him is the only way to unlock the fox fur arm warmers and the fox fur insulation. (both of these items require fox fur to acquire). The fox fur leg warmers however can only be found in the Hunters Prepper's Cache. Scavenging Player Items: Any shelter with a rabbit grove or ptarmigan nest nearly can now become a target of those furry, orange thieves. The primary (and arguably most annoying) mechanic) of foxes is that they will steal food items that have been left outside your base while you are away or inside the base. It won't steal from you until after the first bone cluster has appeared at their den, signaling it has begun hunting its grove or nest. After this, it will consecutively steal any food items left outside. It doesn't steal very often at first but once the whole assigned grove or nest has been cleared, it will begin stealing much more frequently. It's also worth mentioning the fox won't abandon its den if you keep providing the fox with at least 1kg every 12 in game hours (Unless it spots you twice of course). Foxes can never actually be seen taking items as they will only do it once you're away. They will also never take any kind of carnivore meat, only herbivore meat and fish. They will also take any cooked food item that has been made with herbivore meat or fish that has been left outside. The only ways to avoid this happening is to make your base in an area with no nearby rabbit groves or ptarmigan nests so no fox dens will spawn nearby or to craft a predator decoy. The predator decoy is a medium sized, net-like object that can be placed outside. You can then fill this with bear or cougar meat and the smell will keep foxes away. You can fill it with a max of 5kg of meat, losing about 0.02kg an hour or 0.5kg every day. This means you will need to refill the decoy every 10 days after filling it to max. The predator decoy will also work to prevent wolves from spawning nearby but it won't work on cougars, bears, or moose. This won't work on timberwolves however. I hope you all like my idea! and im open to any feedback, suggestions, or questions! submitted by

https://preview.redd.it/4duoy1tjf5uf1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64dd80425938495d5d8da00bf7fa51aa06ecf406 When you have little ones, baby toys seem to multiply overnight! While these cute and cuddly items are essential for your little one’s development, they can often create clutter, especially in small spaces. But fear not! We’ve compiled an array of innovative toy storage ideas to keep your area tidy without sacrificing style or function. Read on and discover how to reclaim your living space without discarding those precious baby toys. Think Vertically: Utilizing Wall Space One of the best ways to maximize storage in any room—especially where baby toys are concerned—is to take advantage of vertical space. Here are some clever solutions: Wall-Mounted Shelves Customizable wall-mounted shelves are a simple yet effective way to free up floor space. You can arrange shelves at different heights to create a visually pleasing display while keeping baby toys organized. Consider using clear bins to categorize toys based on their type or size, making it easier for your child to tidy up. Hooks and Pegboards Installing hooks or a pegboard can turn your wall into a beautiful work of art while serving a practical purpose. Hang up soft toys, stuffed animals, or even play mats. This method adds a fun, interactive element to the room, allowing your little one to see their toys showcased and accessible. Multi-Functional Furniture: Double Duty When dealing with limited space, multi-functional furniture can work wonders. Here are some options to consider: Storage Ottomans Ottomans with hidden storage compartments can be a game-changer. These plush pieces provide a comfortable spot to sit while also functioning as a storage unit. Simply lift the lid to store away or retrieve toys. This creates a convenient and appealing solution for both adults and children. Convertible Cribs or Beds https://preview.redd.it/od05u12lf5uf1.jpg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9986e40a84b002b2b92e1bf3d988f51f00bee3c If you're designing or redesigning a nursery, consider cribs or beds that come with built-in storage. Some models feature drawers beneath the mattress for extra space, perfect for keeping baby toys at hand yet out of sight. As your child grows, these beds can adapt to their changing needs! Baskets, Bins, and Buckets: Get Organized Using baskets, bins, and buckets is a fantastic way to keep baby toys neatly organized and easily accessible. Here’s how to implement this storage solution: Stylish Baskets Get creative with colorful and stylish baskets that can blend seamlessly into your decor. Place them within reach of your little one so they can learn to toss their toys back after playtime. You can even label the baskets by toy category, making cleanup a fun, educational activity. Stackable Storage Bins Stackable storage bins are a space-efficient way to manage toy organization. Opt for transparent bins so your child can see what's inside without rummaging through every single container. You can also involve your little one in the process by letting them choose where specific toys go! Incorporate Fun and Functionality https://preview.redd.it/amgpwyhmf5uf1.jpg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4d9f88b061c20ec9ff8c94078d0d127e43a4e54c Creating a storage space for baby toys doesn't have to be bland! Here are some playful yet practical ideas: Playroom Art Transform your toy storage into an art piece. Use colorful boxes or bins that enhance your child’s playroom aesthetic. You can even decorate plain containers with stickers or paint, allowing your little artist to contribute to their space. Low Shelving Units Invest in low shelving units to create a dedicated space for different types of toys. Keep the shelves stocked with books on the bottom row for easy access, and store toys like blocks or playsets above. This encourages independence and promotes easy cleanup for your growing child. Out-of-the-Box Storage Solutions Sometimes, traditional storage solutions won’t cut it. Here are some unique options for toy storage that can charm both parents and kids: Over-the-Door Organizers Over-the-door organizers aren’t just for shoes! Use them to stash smaller baby toys, art supplies, or even puzzles. Hang them on a closet door to keep toys clutter-free and out of sight when not in use. The best part? You can adjust shelves or pockets based on your child's changing needs. Rolling Carts Rolling carts bring versatility and mobility to your toy storage solutions. They're perfect for keeping toys organized while allowing for easy access during playtime. When you're done, simply roll the cart out of sight. You can even color-code the carts or assign each one for a specific type of baby toy, like art supplies, action figures, or puzzles. Embrace the Magic of Minimalism Above all, a minimalist approach can work wonders for toy storage in small spaces. Here are some tips on how to embrace this philosophy: Regularly Declutter Make it a habit to sort through baby toys regularly. Does your child still play with them? Have they outgrown a particular toy? Decluttering doesn’t just help with storage; it allows your child to focus on quality over quantity, promoting a better and less overwhelming play environment. Choose Quality over Quantity Buy toys that offer multiple uses rather than a single purpose. This will help reduce clutter while engaging your child's creativity. Look for toys that can serve as educational tools while also being fun. Additionally, consider rotating toys every few months to keep playtime interesting and avoid overwhelming your little one. Getting Creative with DIY Storage Solutions If you're feeling crafty, there are plenty of DIY ideas to create toy storage that is both unique and personalized: Repurposed Furniture Repurposing old furniture can yield fantastic results for toy storage. Transform a vintage dresser or bookshelf into a toy chest, applying a fresh coat of paint for a bright new look. Don’t forget to use child-proof latches to keep your little one safe! Fabric Toy Bags Create fabric toy bags for smaller items or stuffed animals. These can be hung on hooks or placed in decorative baskets. They serve as a stylish solution for organizing toys while allowing for easy access and mobility. Plus, your child might enjoy picking toys from their personalized bags—making cleanup a treasured routine! Stay Inspired with a Final Touch The journey to conquer toy clutter in small spaces doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With the ideas listed above, you can transform your space into a clean, organized, and vibrant play area your kids will adore. Remember, the goal is not only to store baby toys effectively but to do so in a way that sparks joy and encourages responsibility in your little ones. So put on those creative caps and start imagining a beautifully organized space that fosters creativity and organization. Here’s to a tidier home and happier playtime! Read the full article https://newbornurseryfurniture.com/blogs/nursery-furniture-1/creative-toy-storage-ideas-small-spaces submitted by /u/Serina_L to r/newbornNursery [link] [comments]

Hi everyone! I have a few hundred plushies in my collection since I’ve been collecting my whole life. Most of them sit in boxes due to lack of storage. Can anyone share their storage arrangements to give me some ideas on what to do with mine? Thanks so much submitted by /u/okayamount to r/StuffedAnimals [link] [comments]

Stuffed animal storage in small spaces can be simple and convenient with smart solutions to organize and protect your collection. Click on the link for the full article. https://preview.redd.it/i6allq09hnoe1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2edf4780e5b40bc15b147617bd9db65c56b187d1 submitted by /u/These_Sugar_2327 to r/TeddyBearMaking [link] [comments]

[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki] The day was sunny and warm. A little too warm to be walking carrying forty-kilos of gear, but still warm. On the plus side, it wasn't raining. On the left side of the dirt road, which at times was more pothole than road, was burnt and charred forest, with wide leaved rust colored fern fronds poking up everywhere. On the other side was the berm where the angled blade of the earth mover had pushed the excess dirt and rock when the road had been made then cleared last. There was also a long lined of burnt out armored vehicles, some of which had plowed partway through the berm. Beyond that was more charred forest, broken up now and then by the fallen walls of a ferrocrete building that had been been burnt till the lime had caught on fire. Walking along the side of the berm opposite of the road were two Dra.Falten. One was in a rumpled uniform patterned in stripes of various green, unpolished heavy boots, with a hard-shell torso armor. The other was wearing a uniform that was slightly rumpled but otherwise pristine, dirty socks on her feet and a wide polished black belt around her waist. The rumpled one had their helmet hanging from their canteen, their rifle hanging down off of their shoulder from the sling, and a single bag hanging on his back from two straps and a rucksack hanging off the other shoulder and the hooks on the back of the hardshell armor. The other had two bags, both held in place by a strap over each shoulder, as well as a pistol in a holster on the belt. The rumpled one was a male that was a foot shorter than the large female in the cleaner uniform. "You should wear your helmet in case of a sniper," the female said. "Then he'll just shoot me in the neck," the male said. He lifted his atmospheric mask up to his face, pressed the button on the small tank on his belt, and took a deep inhale. "Ah, that's the stuff." "What happened here?" the female asked, pointing at the burnt out vehicles on the side of the road. "Grenky striker ambush. Two months ago, after they finished providing security while FOB Misty Lake was being built," the male said. "Caught them in the open with their screens and anti-air down." "Why?" she asked. "CO decided that the chance of ambush was minimal and didn't want to put excess wear on the systems," the male shrugged. "You see it all the time. Wear on the components means the mechanics have to replace the part, which means its not deployable, which means the officer gets asked why so many of her tanks are inoperative, which means she gets yelled at." The female frowned. "The Grenky have been pushing pretty hard the last three months," the male said. He gave a shrug. "Probably push us and the Dommies off planet in the next year or so." "We are the Dra.Falten Empire," the female started to say, her voice huffy. "Captain, they outgun us, they have battlescreens on their infantry and we don't, they have battlescreens on their strikers and we don't, there's more of them, and they were preparing for this for years," the male broke in. He jammed his hands in his pockets. "It's just the way it is," he said, his voice low. The female officer opened her mouth, then closed it. After an hour or so the male sat down on the back deck of a carbonized APC hull. "Take a break," he said. "Don't give..." the Captain started to say. The male was already digging in his rucksack. He pulled out two bagged meals, throwing one at the Captain. She dropped it. He tore his open, squinting as he looked at the labels. "Oh, score! Roasted frumfel meat with buttered popcorn stuffing!" he ripped into it and began tearing open the packets to eat with his fingers. The female looked at hers. Gepta Meat and Turga Nuts - Not For Officer Consumption She looked at his. Not for Enlisted Consumption "Give me that," she said. "No. You're lucky I even grabbed you food," the male said. He looked at her. "How long have you even been in country?" "What? What does that have to do with.." "How long?" the male asked, scooping more roasted meat and stuffing into his mouth. "I have been here nearly a month," the female said. "One year," the male said. He pointed the food package at the large cylindrical bag he had been carrying. "Before that, Charmeka-3. Before that: Bhrestikin-4," he said. "I got here two months after the Strevik'al jumped our settlers and our settlers jumped theirs." He gave a snort, shoveled in another bite of food and kept talking even as he chewed. "Turns out the Grenky settlers had false-flagged both of us," he said around a mouthful of buttered popcorn stuffing. "By the time we figured it out, the Grenkies were hitting us everywhere. I got here just in time for the New Moon Winter Offensive." The female blinked rapidly several times. The male took a swig off his canteen and went back to eating and talking with his mouth full. "We were stacking bodies for sandbags, pouring water or pissing on the snow we covered them with to freeze them in ice," the male said. He tossed the wrapper away and ripped open another one. "Ooh, brownie with T-Bug chocolate chips!" he started taking bites out of it, closing his eyes and sighing as he chewed. "That was right when the Grenkies went to hvee weapons instead of their old plasma guns." He tore open another pack, gobbling down the salad. The female opened the main meal, flinched at the smell, then started eating petulantly. "Busted from Operations Sergeant to Rifleman Fifth Class after the Battles of the Neufetter Eclipse," the male said. "Ordering the men to retreat from a worthless fucking hill after all the officers fucked off to the afterlife while I still had forty-percent of them almost got me summarily executed for cowardice." The female nodded. "Was that your assigned objective? To hold that hill?" The male nodded. "Then I would have executed you," she stated. She put her hand on her pistol. "Why were you not?" The male shrugged. "My endless good looks, boundless charm, and gigantic penis?" He went back to eating and after a moment stared at her. "You going to eat your food or shoot me? You need to decide on one before you can do the other, Field Captain Strechen." The female glared for a long moment, then looked down at the meal. She ate slowly, gagging more than once on the foul taste. The male, one Rifleman Second Class Tawtchee-9912743, took off his boots, hanging his socks from the rucksack and pulling out another pair that were warn and littered with darning patches. He wiggled his long toes for a moment then pulled on the socks and the boots. He sighed, looking at the female's feet. "Those have to hurt." Captain Strechen nodded. The male sighed and got up, wandering down the line of vehicles. "What are you doing?" the female called out. When the male didn't answer she weighed getting up and finding out. And maybe shooting him for disrespect. She fantasized about that for a while, smiling to herself as she ate the disgusting food paste that passed for a meal. The male came walking back, carrying a heat damaged rucksack that had a pair of boots hanging off of it. He bent down, measured the boots against the female's feet for a moment before she yanked her feet back, then got up and walked away again. "Where are you getting that?" the female asked on the fourth try. "Tank crew storage compartments. Most of them had booze in it that exploded from the heat, some are full of melted crap, but I'm finding a ruck about every fifth one," Tawtchee said. He knelt down. "There, that one looks good." "I'm not wearing the boots of someone who died," Strechen said, pulling her feet back again. "Your choice," the male said. He sat down, took a few hits off of his mask, and then got up, gathering up his gear. He had pulled several field cloaks out of the packs and was busy tucking them into his own pack. "Planet smells like ass," Tawtchee complained after another hit off his tank. He looked at Strechen. "Up you go, Captain." "My feet hurt and I am still fatigued," she said. "Sounds like a you problem," the male said. "I'll give you ten minutes, then I start walking." The Captain thought for a long moment about calling the male's bluff. She pulled on the boots, wincing at how they pinched her little toes, then stood up. "Let's go," Tawtchee said. He started walking. Captain Strechen ran to catch up, then started walking next to him. He kept ignoring her questions, just steadily walking along next to the berm, skirting artillery craters now and then, but always avoiding standing on the road. The sun was low in the sky when he finally spoke. "Why did you choose Dead Man's Highway?" Tawtchee asked. "The route is only a third as long as the other routes. I chose it for speed," Captain Strechen said, her voice haughty. "Yeah, there's a reason that you shouldn't use it unless you're part of an armored convoy," Tawtchee said. "What is that?" the Captain asked. Tawtchee turned his head to look at her, even as he thumbed the button on the atmo cylinder to get a hit of good air. He looked around, where there were scattered burnt out vehicles on the road, then back at her. "Guess," he said. He sighed. "Do you still have your map?" The Captain nodded and dug it out of her pocket. Tawtchee just grabbed it, moving over to a burnt out hovertruck that the pods were sunk into the dirt. He spread it out and looked around. He dug in a pocket and pulled out a compass/sextant combination. It was crude and lacked any electronics. He checked a crack watch, then went to work. After a minute he put a pebble on the map. "OK, we're here," he said. He sighed. "Dead center Dead Man's Highway," he looked at her as he traced another route with his finger. "This route stays behind our lines. It's three times as long, but stays in green zones," he traced the shorter route. "This one is straight through No-Ma'am-Land." She frowned. "Are you sure about our location?" Tawtchee nodded. "Yes," he said. He examined the map slowly and kept looking around. Finally he tapped it. "All right, there was a small town, population two hundred, about two miles away that way," he said, pointing. "We'll go there and..." He suddenly ducked down, grabbing the Captain's arm and yanking her down. She went to yank away then thought better of it, crouching down next to the burnt out vehicle. Tawtchee laid down and wiggled into the narrow space between the vehicle and the loose dirt, grabbing Strechen's ankle and tugging. Making a face of disgust Strechen climbed after him, her face twisted with disgust at the dirt and grease beneath the burnt out vehicle. There was a slight buzzing in the air that slowly got louder. Strechen saw a small drone, roughly a meter wide, bobbing and weaving as it moved across the burnt out forest. "Dommy drone," Tawtchee said softly. He looked at her. "Speak softly. Whispers carry." Strechen nodded, feeling her mouth go dry. "Looks like recon, I don't see a swarm or swarm controllers," Tawtchee said. Strechen slowly drew her pistol. Tawtchee grabbed her wrist. "They'll know we're here. Right now it looks like its flying on auto." For nearly ten minutes the drone bobbed around, scanning vehicles and moving on. "Yeah, it's using shape comparison. It's on auto," Tawtchee said, his voice strangely muffled. Strechen looked over and realized the male was eating a salad bar. The drone suddenly leveled out and hovered for a long moment. "Shit, that just went to manual," Tawtchee swore. The drone suddenly tilted to the side and raced off, gaining altitude. "Whew," Tawtchee said. He took another bite of the salad bar, grinding the nuts on his back teeth. He looked at Strechen. "Probably the rescue party, or they spotted some Grenkies." After about ten minutes, the whole time Strechen stared out at the burnt woodline, Tawtchee kicked her foot with his own. "Let's go. We need to make it to whatever's left of the village," Tawtchee said. "But rescue could come along..." Strechen said. "You really want to ride in a vehicle?" Tawtchee asked, waving at the burnt out lines of vehicles, some Strevik'al, some Dra.Falten, and a few Grenklakail. She stared for a moment, then shook her head. "Good choice. We'll take you to see the elephant yet," Tawtchee mumbled. He handed her one of the field cloaks. "Here, wear this," he said. She sniffed and flinched. "That smells terrible." "Drones don't go off smell," Tawtchee said. He shrugged. "Suit yourself." Strechen watched him arrange the field cloak over the gear on his back, then wrap two around his torso that were slightly too big for him. He tucked in the excess to his belt in a single fold, then looked at Strechen. She pulled the cloak around herself, internally cringing at the smell of rotted and burnt meat. The hike was long, several times the pair had to duck down and pulled the face shield across the hood. Clouds were moving in, heavy dark clouds holding a hint of poison from the runoff from destroyed factories. "Acid rain tonight," was all Tawtchee grunted. Finally, they reached the settlement. It was almost dark, the shadows long and deep, when Strechen realized that they were almost to a wall. When it came out of the shadows, she almost groaned in frustration. There was just a fifteen foot length of wall, with two windows, that didn't meet other walls at corners. It was blackened by old scorch marks and soot. "Stay. Here," Tawtchee said softly but forcefully. Strechen was took fatigued to argue as the smaller male vanished into the shadows. She stretched out her legs, trying to forestall cramps, then sat down on a rock and waited. The male came out of the shadows, not from where Strechen had expected, which would have been the way he'd gone, but instead on her right. She hoped he hadn't noticed that he had scared her. "Clear," he said softly. "Found a good spot. Second story floor didn't collapse all the way. We've got a little spot with a roof, almost four walls, and some carpet so we aren't sleeping on the dirt. It's a good spot." "How do you know it's a good spot?" she asked, following him. "Others have used it. Probably deserters," Tawtchee said. Strechen said nothing, despite her hackles raising at the idea of someone abandoning their duty to the Empire, following the smaller male. They had to almost crawl through some fallen rubble. It was a small area, barely eight feet by six feet. There was layers of carpet on the floor. "Way of Means Sucks" and "Means of Way Bites Bad Popcorn" were scratched into the walls. "Screw the Emperor!" was written in Grenky runes. "I was here. Now you are. We are both in Hell" was written in Dommy script. "Get some sleep," Tawtchee said. "If we leave just after dawn, we should make our lines by just after lunch." Strechen wanted to argue, but just leaning back against her duffle made her eyes heavy. She just nodded. After a few moments she went to sleep. She woke up to the male climbing on top of her, one hand groping her, the other hand holding her muzzle shut. She struggled and wiggled and he slapped her. "Dammit, hold still," he grunted. He felt up her chest and suddenly pulled back. She could faintly see him, a pinlight on the ceiling providing just enough light. "Stupid slag," he grunted. "Brain shot officer dipshit." He pulled a knife from his mouth and brought it down to her chest. She felt him cut something off of her harness. He held it up. "Fucking idiot." It was her personal transponder. "Your beacon? You've had it on? Really?" he snarled. He wiggled off her, moving to the gap that was now covered by an extra cloak. He grabbed his rifle and kicked his way out. After a moment she followed. He was crouched down, barely visible, wrapped in his cloaks, looking down at the single street. He was on a second story floor that ended in empty air, the wall missing. She scrabbled up the debris to crouch down next to him, holding her cloak tightly around yourself. "Where are you... where are you... where..." the male was saying, his face hidden behind the face cloth. She pulled her own cloth over her breathing mask. "There," he said softly. He set her officer's transponder, now wrapped in the foil packet a meal normally came in, on the shattered tile and pulled a grenade off his harness. He quickly taped them together. "Please tell me momma isn't here." She frowned, looking out. She couldn't see anything. "What is it?" she said softly. "Mole rat. Grenky make. Shit, they lost control of them months ago," he said. He pointed. "By the pile of blue tiles." She frowned, rubbing the stud on her face cloth, switching from ambient light to IR then UV then back to enhanced ambient light. Captain Strechen saw it right when it poked its head out of the dirt of a crater in the tarmac road. It looked like a mechanical rat without any fur or casing. It immediately looked at where she was crouched down next to Tawtchee and wriggled out of the dirt, hopping forward rapidly. The IR sensors pinged as it scanned the pair crouched down. It shook itself and tried again. "It can't see us because of the cloaks. It can't home in on the beacon because of the foil," Tawtchee said. "Let's see what happens next." A part of the tarmac suddenly cracked and lifted. "Aw, crap. Big momma," Tawtchee said. He patted himself, pulling out a grenade and looking at it. "Frag. Dammit," he looked at her. "Stay here, and for the love of buttered popcorn, don't help me." What revealed itself was a large cone with eight legs. It had treads embedded in the body, only the cleats clear of the shell. As she watched it extended almost a dozen tendrils around the widest part of the cone, irises opening up to reveal lenses as it began looking around. The smaller one ran up, extended a 'tongue' that tapped a nodule. The nodule opened up and the smaller one plugged itself into the revealed socket. Strechen looked around. Tawtchee was nowhere to be seen. Two others ran out of the shadows, copying the first one. The big one slowly turned in a circle, the articulated spidery looking legs clicking on the broken tarmac. It suddenly raised up, the tendrils extending out. The end of the cone suddenly irised open, revealing grinders, blades, and rock crushers, all lit by a sullen red light from further into the meter long cone. Something arced out of the darkness, landing in front of the big one. It shrieked and charged forward, lowering the opening and scooping up dirt and the object. A second later there was an explosion that consumed the conical mechanical monstrosity and sent robotic parts showering across the street. She stayed silent, crouched down on the ruined floor. A tap to her boot made her jerk around. Tawtchee motioned at her. "Come on," he said. She followed him back to the little nest. "What was that?" she asked. "Grenky mole rat. Autonomous subterranean killer drones," Tawtchee said. "The Grenkies used them heavily in the beginning but lost control of them about five months ago. You doni't see them often, they usually haunt out of the way places. Like this one. Now they just kill whoever they find," he patted his rifle. "They want your gear. Electronics, batteries, e-clips, whatever." "Can't they shut them down?" Strechen asked. Tawtchee shook his head. "No. They lost control," he wave his hand to encompass outside. "It's a Pratty-Chan Very Special Shit Show." Strechen frowned at the mention of the animated AI avatar that haunted Dra.Net. "You don't have another beacon on you, do you?" Tawtchee asked. "No," Strechen said. "Good. Your turn for guard," he waved at a small piece of thermal/EM camo tacked on the wall. "There's a viewport behind that." He laid down and turned away from Strechen, his rifle held between his knees, barrel pointed downward, butt plate up by his chin. "Try not to shoot yourself in the dick." [First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki] submitted by /u/Ralts_Bloodthorne to r/HFY [link] [comments]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/missingmygflikecrazy AITA for buying my girlfriend a singing bear? Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole TRIGGER WARNING: Racism Original Post July 29, 2020 My gf and I have been together for about nine months. We started dating right before COVID, so she moved in pretty quickly. Living with my gf was amazing. I grew up in a house where everyone was very cold to each other, while my girlfriend is affectionate and takes care of me in ways I never knew possible. She lost her job due the pandemic, and went to being a full-time homemaker. She does all the cooking/cleaning since I pay bills (before you call me lazy, she doesn’t like it when I cook or did chores), and because I make good money I like to buy her gifts. It's usually something small, but it became a daily ritual for me after work to stop at Walmart or the dollar store and buy her a small gift. She loved it. Before I get into why the bear made her so mad, here's context: my gf is black, and the bear I got her had button you push to make it sing, and the song was Jungle Love. I thought it was funny, but my girlfriend lost her mind. She accused me of seeing her as these horrible things I don't want to repeat, and I kept trying to tell her I didn't mean it that way, I love her like crazy and think she's better than me in every way – and why would I be dating a black woman if I was racist??? But she kept insisting I need to apologize for my "casual racism", so I finally just got fed up and said, "Yes, I'm sorry I've bought you so many gifts that I slipped up on one." She ran upstairs crying and called her brother to pick her up. She was at his place for the rest of the day and thankfully he managed to calm her down, but she refused to come home until I sent her a video of me dropping the bear in the fireplace. I told her I’m fine throwing out the bear, but I'm not gonna turn on my fireplace in the middle of summer and record a stupid video. Also I feel like a bear stuffed with electronic components burning in my living room is a bad idea. I already threw the damn thing in the dumpster, but she insists I really loved her id go pull it out of the dumpster and burn it. We argued back and forth for several minutes before she hung up. I texted her brother asking him to talk some sense into her, and he just texted me back "I aint gonna defend your dumbass anymore, just take the L and get lost already" I tried to call him, but he blocked me, so now I'm wondering if maybe I should have just burned the stupid bear to make my girlfriend happy. It's still sitting in the dumpster outside, it's not like it's too late . . . but how would I send her a video if she BLOCKED me? It's killing me how much I miss her. If I knew she’d react this badly, I never would’ve got the bear. I tried apologizing, but that wasn't good enough, she wanted me to perform some weird ritual instead. Now I wish I’d just done the weird ritual, but Im still not sure I deserved this kind of reaction for buying her a bear that sings. I understand I could have handled the fallout better, but am I really the asshole for buying my gf a singing bear? VERDICT: ASSHOLE RELEVANT COMMENTS burnerbetty7 Yeah man, this is straight casual racism. It's dehumanizing because those tropes of jungle fever and jungle love literally equate black people to apes and other animals. Instead of realizing this, you doubled down and didn't even apologize. Yta OOP That's not true, I did apologize. I can accept a YTA judgement, but come on burnerbetty7 "I'm sorry I bought you so many gifts that I slipped up on this one" is not an apology dude, are you serious lmao. You're ex gf was desperately trying to make you realize how hurtful and racist this was and you respond like this??? Lmaooooo ~ Kjtl Wow, a lot to unpack here. Info: did you purchase the ‘jungle love’ bear because you thought it was an ironic take on your interracial relationship? Edit: based on OP’s response: YTA. you did something racist. You didn’t get her a cute gift, you got her something that symbolizes ignorant views and racist sentiments. For generations black people have heard slurs and insults in the same vein as your little ‘joke’. It isn’t funny when you think about the context and all the negative experiences your girlfriend and others of her race have suffered for generations. You were stupid, thoughtless and ignorant. OOP Yeah, but we've both made jokes about it before. She would jokingly call me her sugar daddy "both financially and physically". I honestly thought she would think the bear was funny. ~ MyFickleMind Info: who was the song by? A Google search showed too many options. I have a suspicion about which it was though. Just want clarification. OOP Steve Miller Band. MyFickleMind Okay, not the worst one. Did you honestly not think about what that phrase would conjure to her? Or did you actually buy it because you thought since she's black she would find the jungle reference funny? TOP COMMENT burnerbetty7 Yeah man, this is straight casual racism. It's dehumanizing because those tropes of jungle fever and jungle love literally equate black people to apes and other animals. Instead of realizing this, you doubled down and didn't even apologize. Yta Update Sept 12, 2020 Well, I just came here to tell you guys that I set things right with my girlfriend and burned the stupid bear like she wanted me to. I sent the video to some mutual friends who sent it to her, so she unblocked me and called me. I told her how much I love her and that I'll do whatever it takes to get her to come home. I also told her I'm going to be a better listener when it comes to racial issues, and I've made a lot of progress in that regard. After we talked on the phone, she told me to come pick her up. I stopped at Starbucks to get her her favorite drink and a cake pop (she loves those things) on the way, and when I brought them to her she threw her arms around me and said "this kind of stuff is why you'll always my favorite douchebag white boy" so that was nice, lol. Anyhow, I've basically been grovelling and spoiling the hell out of her for the past month. She still won't let me cook or do chores, so I watched some tutorials on giving massages and started doing that every night when I get home from work. Her daily gifts are also more thoughtful than normal, and last weekend I converted the attic into a library for her (something she always wanted but I originally said no because I use the attic for storage, so I had to do quite a bit of finagling but I made it work because she's worth the trouble) so now she has a cozy spot to read her books. I'm still waiting on the beanbag chairs to come in, but it's almost finished. I just want to say thanks to the people who pointed out how dense I was being. My girlfriend is the love of my life, I want to marry her and have kids with her, and I'm glad the internet was here to tell me to stop being a stubborn idiot and to start being more understanding of her perspective. Thanks for kicking me in the ass, Reddit. I may not deserve my girlfriend, but I did deserve to be called an asshole. I'm gonna be better from now on. * Editor's note: AGAIN- PLEASE REMEMBER THE NO BRIGADING RULE. Do NOT dm OOP or comment on their posts. This is becoming a serious problem on this sub and we don't want to get banned. THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP submitted by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I want to be able to have him in my sight but not in immediate danger of falling, but this means that even bins are off limits as he just seems a bit unstable around them. He'll try to climb shelves and just seems like he'll fall if I'm not spotting him. I need to be able to put him in a space where I can step away. Is toy rotation just the best idea (and just have the few toys that are out in a small box or on the floor), or are there any store solutions for toys that aren't climbable? submitted by /u/llamatotherescue to r/toddlers [link] [comments]

Hi guys! I love plushies and I’ve got quite a collection of them that keeps growing. My one thing is, how do I store them? Does anyone have any cute tips? I know there are storage bins and the hammocks but I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas or ways they made theirs look cuter? Thank you! submitted by /u/BraveFund to r/femalelivingspace [link] [comments]

So I'm not a stuffies person, but my mom was. After her and my dad got divorced after 40 years of marriage, I bought her a huge 7 foot sloth to essentially replace my dad on "his half" of her bed. She lived sloths, and loved and cherished "Charlie". My mother has since passed, and Charlie was mine again. He has tremendous sentimental value to me, so no matter how small my living space has been I've always found a spot for him. Well im downsizing and as much as I don't want to, I need to put Charlie in storage. I can't find a vaccum bag big enough to fit him, and would be devistated if I shoved him in some contractor bags or something and he got damaged in the storage unit over time. Any ideas on how I could store a seven foot behemoth of a stuffed animal without damaging him? submitted by /u/PopularPudding5741 to r/declutter [link] [comments]

My stuffed animal collection is getting a bit out of hand... I tried buying an actual hammock because the xlarge one I had from Amazon ended up being outgrown, it's no longer big enough for all of my BAB, Squishmallow, and other random babies. Unfortunately the actual hammock is not working out, it's too big and no matter how I tried to hang it, it just isn't working. Do you guys have any different storage ideas I can look at? I don't have a lot of room for a whole shelf, but I'm open to ANY ideas, if it's a perfect fit and strikes the right inspiration I can definitely make the room for anything. TYIA! submitted by /u/calliecasket to r/buildabear [link] [comments]

First |Next Journal entry: 2 Date: Day 1 I guess Name: Greg George Mission successful, by flim-flam-golly gosh! I am the God-damned master of skulkery. Hell yeah. Dr. Johan says that it's important to be honest with your feelings in your sanity journal, and I feel like gloating. So first thing is the door. The Bleivuses are tall. TALL. Come to think of it the girl from the cell incident towered over me while I was huddled in the corner. I know it was a kennel, but calling it a cell makes me feel better. Dr. Johan isn't here to be disappointed in me, so I'm going to keep calling it a cell. Shut up internal therapist voice. Anyway, door. I think that Bleivus girl would have to reach up to about her shoulder level to grab the door handle. I had to hop. Now this being the first time I was fully sober AND trying to move deliberately, I did a normal hop. This was an error. I flipping flew up to the top of the doorjamb. I was so surprised that I grabbed the trim and just hung there for a second, and only thought about drop ambushing my hosts and shouting "BOO!" at them for a little bit. I allowed myself a quiet chuckle, habits and all that, and dropped down to the floor, grabbing the handle on the way down. Hell yeah. Took a minute to examine the door, and it looks like a normal hollow door with a spring loaded latch. I couldn't find a lock, but if this highly advanced alien society has figured out screwdrivers, then that could very easily change. I'll need a contingency. Objective added: Find long thin ridged object. Outside was a hallway, and a glance down toward the open archway got a very clear view of what looked very much like a cartoon. I couldn't tell what was going on, but 2D stylized Blievus was making a bunch of humming and clicking noises in what seemed like a rhythm. I could see the outline of a Blievus in front of the... uh I guess it's a TV. Although from there it seemed like there was actual depth to the cartoon. As interesting as alien educational cartoons and how freaking weird they looked when I moved from side to side were, I was more interested in the four doors before me going down the hall; there were two on the left and two on the right. Door number one on the left was obviously a bathroom, if the big, glistening pastel pink tub with a spout sticking out of the wall directly across the door was anything to go by. When I stepped across the threshold, the change in texture from slightly rough and a little giving to polished and slick prompted me to look at the floor. Either the floor in the hall was wood or some kind of high tech substitute, where the bathroom felt like some kind of enameled metal. It was cold like enameled metal anyway. To the right was a basin that stood just above my outstretched fingertips, and I could see there was some kind of spout and a handle to either side, so I was pretty sure it was the sink, and to the left there was a long depression in the floor with standing water at the bottom and a button on the wall at just about my eye level on the wall behind it. Great, I'll have to squat for the necessaries. Anyway, I didn't feel like rooting around in the cabinets and drawers along the sink wall, so I just fiddled with the lever over the tub spout. Contrary to all good sense, pushing the lever toward the wall got the water running, and turning it to the right was for hot water. Insane. I shut the tap off without trying to figure out how to divert the water to the shower head in slotted bracket on the wall. It looked like it was meant to be used as a wand or shower head, but without jumping up to grab it, it was useless to me. A glance down the hall told me that nobody was suspicious, or coming to check on the puppy, or going to the bathroom. Putting me in the back of the hall was actually tactically sound of the Bleivuses, since I'd have to creep by every potentially occupied space. Somehow I doubt they did that on purpose. The Bleivus outline was kind of slumped, like they were bored of the show. I feel you kid, I remember waiting for the crappy kiddie show to end so the proper cartoons can start. Sympathies aside, it was time to try door on the right number one. This turned out to be the master bedroom. Well, there was a massive bed dominating the space, and the massive floor to ceiling chest of drawrers and wardrobe along the wall opposite the foot of the bed. A minor detail that I found just a teensey bit disquieting was the overhead storage cabinets on the other walls including the door-side wall. I decided not to root though the tidy room because obviously they'd notice and I hadn't decided whether I was behind enemy lines or not. I just backed out into the hall and shot a glance toward the end to make sure the bored outline was still slumped toward the weird TV, and then a glance upward to confirm my suspicions. Yup. That was more overhead storage. It was starting to feel like I'm in an alien RV, which had implications I'd worry about after completing my current mission. Door number two on the left was much more promising. Untidy and festooned with plastic and plush objects I was pretty sure were toys. Maybe the Bleivus girl was a toddler? Well if she was, she had rapidly outgrown her clothes, since when I picked up a pair of what were probably pajama trousers from the neatly folded pile of clothes on the rumpled bed set into the wall, I noticed that they'd fit me. Well, they were far from a perfect fit, since the cuffs rode at about halfway between my knees and ankles, were a tad tight about my thighs, and had an uncomfortable draft about the back on account of the hole for the kid's tail. So I followed my training and yoinked a second pair to wear backwards. Problem solved with the minimal effort. I dropped my blanket to be able to move more freely, but got chilly while searching for anything that would fit my secondary mission objective. Another easy solution, all I had to do was nab the soft shirt at the top of the pile. I pulled the extra sleeves inside the shirt for obvious reasons, and went to rummage through the cabinmates and drawers built into the walls, as well as the other berth, which was apparently just a place for more stuffed toys. I don't care how silly I looked in toddler pajamas, they were soft, warm, and didn't drag on the ground like my trusty blanket, all of which were important on account of my lack of proper underpants, how chilly they kept the place, and my desire to sneakify. Door number two on the right was obviously Bleivus girl's room. There was only one berth, and any cabinet door big enough had a poster of the same group of five male Bleivuses in tattered clothes, gaudy bling, and making aggressively stupid poses toward the camera. God save me, my rescuer is into alien boy bands. I hope they don't suck as bad as Earth boy bands. I gave her room a once over, but I don't find anything immediately useful, but apparently she was into sketching, if the supplies piled haphazardly on the desk against the wall opposite to the door was anything to go by. I don't know how they judge talent in her culture, but I thought she was a talented thirteen year old or so. I'm glad to find the supplies since it means that her parents cared enough to encourage her talent and interests, which boded well for my treatment. God, I hope this isn't a sick joke or dream or whatever before I get chucked back into the arena. Whatever. Time to take my cheeky peeky for the sneaki breeki. So looks like the bored kiddo is sitting on the floor in front of the weird TV still. Holy crap the thing was stupidly huge. Like takes up half of the fucking wall huge, and the room in front of me was like five yards wider than the left and right side rooms, plus the hallway combined! Oh, and on either side of the hallway were these huge ass sofas, which was convenient for me because the likewise huge space between their backs and the wall was perfectly me wriggling sized. This way, I could avoid Bleivus mom, or Mom because that's shorter, who was keeping half an eye on the toddler from the other sofa. I went right and peered out from the shadows to gauge my prospects. The dad one was doing something with what looked like a holographic interface at a desk tucked into the corner to my left. He looked pretty intent, so whatever he was working on must have been important to him. To my right, there was a long table with a bunch of Bleivus sized chairs around it. I tensed, and sprang forward, but on a shallow angle. I am a stealth god in low G. I was in the open less than a second and was able to quietly roll to a stop without even jostling one of the chairs. At the other end of the table, I saw my next challenge, Bleivus girl, who I've decided to henceforth call Lucy on account of it's the first girl name that popped up. I'm fresh out of standard issue crayons, and she's doing something, going between what looks a lot like a kitchen sink and a cooktop. The only cabinet with seals around the doors was just a little bit obviously the fridge, and my best bet for something edible. A stealthy glance upward, and I could see more overhead cabinets with nice, big, sturdy looking handles. Nice. Ever so slowly, I crept for the fridge, and upon opening the left side, found it full of fruit with a spattering of vegetables. At least the colorful round things looked vaguely fruity to me. Promising. Thinking quickly, I tied the ends of the extra sleeves shut for some makeshift pockets and stuffed half a dozen different fruits down them (I avoided the foul smelling ones, and let the fridge close with a light thump. Lucy heard it and looked in time to stare at the fridge in puzzlement while I laid on the seats of the chairs to be more deeply shadowed. When she turned back to whatever she was up to, I slunk over to the other end of the table to check on the dad. He hadn't even noticed. By the time I was at the kitchen end, Lucy had poured something into a wide, shallow bowl and was carrying it toward the TV area, so it was a perfect opportunity for me to see if there was anything useful laying loose. One quick hop onto the table later, and I saw gold. A yellow plastic knife, not a disposable one, but one of those ones for little kids to practice using silverware with. Which means that it won't be missed and if it's found in my closet the toddler will get the blame and face no trouble for it. Probably. I briefly thought about arming myself, but rejected it on the grounds that a kitchen knife going missing would be a big deal. It was easy for me to silently leap the gap from the table and collect my prize, but I wasn't home free yet. The cartoon noises stopped, and agitated humming, buzzing and clicking started. I could tell it was agitated because the dad tore his attention away from his holograms and joined in the noise party. Fortunately, I'd leaped up to grab one of those handles the second the noise profile had changed, so I escaped his notice. I shimmied from cabinet handle to cabinet handle like I was Prince of God-damned Persia, giddy with my low G capabilities, until I could sort of angle to see a family meeting going on. Lucy looked upset, her arms were waving around, and she was clutching my blanket in one of her hands while Mom made slower humming and buzzing noises and placating gestures with all four hands. Then, the dad pointed at the door and said something with a confident posture, while the toddler, Linus because it goes with Lucy, seemed on the verge of tears. I was starting to feel a tad bit guilty, but Lucy calmed down and bobbed her head up and down right before they all broke up and started looking around. The funny thing is, all four of them were looking down low, and on Earth that would have definitely been the thing to do because lurking about the overhead storage was a downright feat of strength in 1G. However due to factors they had no way of knowing, I was able to swing from handle to handle all the way back into the hallway, where it was just a matter of waiting a few seconds for Lucy and Linus to scamper from the bathroom to his room. Then it was a simple matter of dropping to the floor and stepping through the conveniently open closet door. Lucy had even helpfully put my blanket on my pillow for me. Mission successful. Hell yeah. Log: 6000000.8.20, Personal, Captain Yormdrill Today was rough. Stars save us what some people will do to other living creatures, it's enough to turn the stomach. So we got the poor creature squared away in the old storage closet, which frankly should have been cleared out years ago, but I put it off just in case I might need a tea tin full of mismatched fasteners, or a docubox full of old robotics papermags. Well tossing the mags hurt just a little, but they were in such poor condition there was no point in keeping them. But I'm going off on a tangent. Sweetie, I know you're reading this, so I'm going to give you a warning: it was really really bad, and you'll see why Mom and I didn't tell you about it. I started with the medical report from the shelter's initial scan. Bruising all over its face, arms and torso, and even some to its knees and the tops of its feet. Its hands had repeated microfractures, as did its ribs and forearms and kneecaps. I was honestly shocked it didn't die from the pain of so many repeated blunt trauma injuries. It seemed like its saving grace is how dense its bones are. I'm a pilot and captain, not a biologist, but any blow with that much bruises I've ever seen has broken bones. But worse is that it had electrical burns about its neck. There were some details that might be useful in making the poor creature comfortable, such as the shelter theorizing that it had omnivore dentation and digestion. Hopefully we have something on hand that it can digest, and finding it is Trandi's mission. She's starting with making vumnoon since it's usually for the infirm. I warned her that her fist try might not be successful, and she assured me that she wouldn't give up after one try. Some other interesting things: apparently it secretes oils on its skin, so regular bathing will be needed, it can self regulate by secreting saline, indicating it is adapted to warm environments or sustained exertion. So maybe we should get it more blankets, I guess? I'm not an expert in this kind of thing. Then, I watched part of this [Imbedded video:] The video was from the perspective of a helmet camera, so the officer's manipulator appendages gripping a stun rifle were in view, in this case a trio of tentacles with three appendages at the ends. The camera showed the officer in the middle of a stack up for a door breach in a dynamic entry as somebody counted down from five from out of view. There was a muted boom as the door was blown open and the stack filed in screaming variations on "GET ON THE GROUND DROP YOUR WEAPONS!" Once the squad spread out, the camera got a view of the room, which was a lattice of walkways surrounding pits in the floor about four feet square by ten feet deep. "GRAV GRAV GRAV: 2X STANDARD MOVE WITH CAUTION," but the officers seemed to be able to move at a great enough speed to quickly incapacitate the group of googly eyed bipedal lizard gangsters. The officer looked into one of the pits and the camera showed a quadrupedal mammal with large curled horns and a long split tail up to its ankles in cleaning solution, struggling to stand on obviously swollen legs. It bleated in distress and the officer lost his lunch on the floor. [End video] I really couldn't bear to see the creature we adopted in those conditions, so I stopped it there. Just knowing that a living being that had endured such fetid conditions was harrowing enough. However, things got even more stressful when Trandi went to try to feed it, and it had vanished from the storage closet. She was distraught, nearly in tears, and clutching the blanket from the shelter. "Daddy he's just gone, I looked in the rooms already! What if he's hurt himself?! What if he's trapped?! He's probably scared and all alone!" Yoivdrill was starting to get upset too, and I could see the tears welling up, but Trevdi came in clutch like the wonderful mother she is, "He's in a new place, sweetie. He probably just wanted a look around, and think about how little he is, he could be taking a nap pretty much anywhere and be hard to notice." "Besides," I interjected, hoping to add a little stability, "it can't get through the bulkhead since a biometrics scan won't work." She stiffened her lip and shook the tears from her eyes and said, "Okay, small. I'll take Yoivdrill and we'll check the cabinmates and cubby holes. Maybe he wanted a smaller den." Clever girl. Trevdi and I searched the living and kitchen areas, and I got an earful. "I know what you're doing," she chided me gently. Gently, but still I bristled, "So what am I doing? Because I think I'm looking under the table for Trandi's pet." "Heart, you know what you're doing, and you know I don't mean physically right now. Is that how our children should deal with taking on something painful?" "You know why I was against pets at all, and this... stars Trevdi, it was brutal." "And how does remaining detached change that?" "All right, all right. I certainly don't want to be a cold example, but I..." "My love, I do not expect you to go cuddle him in his den. Just try calling him a he and not an it." "You are right, and I think I can manage that much." "Mom, Daddy, he's not anywhere!" We made our way back to the hallway to help the kids to a more thorough check, and what did we see? What else besides the creature sleeping on his bed under that blanket from the shelter?! "Void take me!" "Daddy said a bad word!" Yoivdrill very helpfully pointed out. "I think that door needs a lock," I mused, "I don't think I can handle a scare like that again." Well, everyone knows how that argument went, I'm sure we all think it was memorable. Me against Trandi in her first real argument, and her opponent not going easy on her, and in regards to her Halfway Gift no less. For the record, you did very well and you did get me to concede that cooping him up in there would be needlessly cruel, which is why you were in charge of when it's locked or unlocked. Dear Diary, I don't think I like growing up anymore. Like you spend your whole little years looking forward to your Halfway Gift, but it's not just getting something cool or cute or whatever. You have to take care of it. I thought I understood, but now I know better. Today was the scariest thing that ever happened in my whole life ever. So yesterday was my Halfway and we were on station so Mom could do her thing, she and Daddy were pretty happy so I think the cargo she sold here went for a good price. Anyway, Daddy's trying to get me to go to the robot store, but he's the one who likes robots, not me. I mean, I like working on some of the maintenance bots with him, but that's 'cause it's fun to work with Daddy, not the stupid robot stuck in a crawlspace again. So anyway, Mom finally convinced him that I should have a pet since a living thing can love you back, unlike a dumb robot. The shelter was really sad, and I don't know why but I wanted to look at the adult animals first. I just think it's that people always want the babies, but sometimes the grown-up animals never leave. Some of them were trying to scare us away from the kennels, so I knew Daddy would say no to them. But then I saw him, I learned he was a him a little later but that doesn't matter. He just had the cutest face, the right number of eyes, round ears, a pretty pink skin except for some dark splotches on his cheeks and around one eye, and like this red mane of hair. I couldn't really see anything else since he was all cocooned in the blanket the shelter gave him. The shelter guy said that NOBODY could even get close to him, but he looked so sad that I just had to try. The let me in and not only did he NOT run away like he did for everybody else, but he reached out to me! That's how I KNEW I couldn't leave him there, even if he would.... [here there are some words forcefully scribbled out] not make it. But that's all just the setup. We got him home and put in him the old storage room with a nice, soft bed and the blanket from the shelter. I think the shelter people must have given him a sedative 'cause he didn't wake up even when Daddy pulled him out of the transport crate. So everything was going smooth, and Daddy told me about how maybe he can eat fruits, so I got the idea to make vumnoon for him, since it's supposed to be easy to digest for sick people. Should work for a cute little lemur, right? But when I was cooking, he disappeared! Poof! GONE! Seriously, after I couldn't find him, the whole family looked EVERYWHERE, even Yoiv. I honestly thought that I'd have to just take him room to room looking for the little guy. I was SUPER scared because I just learned about how sometimes a pack animal will go away to find a quiet place to lay down and [here there are more words scribbled out more forcefully] not get up again. But Mom and Daddy thought that maybe he was just looking around the quarters, or wanted a smaller den to feel safe. But we found him RIGHT IN HIS BED, oh and he put the bed up on one of the old shelves, so I think lemurs like him don't like to sleep on the ground. Daddy CURSED real bad when he saw, then said he wants to LOCK HIM IN THE CLOSET. It was my first real argument, and I could tell that Daddy was going after my points like I was a grown up, so I had to think fast about how to defend what I was saying. I think I won, kinda. It's my job to make sure the door is locked when it's important for Sneak to stay put. That's his name, I just decided. Plus it'll make writing about him easier with a name. I hope I can get Sneak to walk around the quarters a little, but maybe he just needs to get comfy with it. First |Next Okay, so I was inspired just a little. submitted by /u/TheCurserHasntMoved to r/HFY [link] [comments]

TLDR: Too many stuffed animals. Kids are attached to said animals. How do I reduce the amount while navigating the emotions involved. Today I spent an unreasonable number of hours dragging the various toys/clothes/trash out of my kids room today so I could shampoo the gross carpet. I have my 3 daughters (9yr, 7yr, 5yr) in one room. The room is more often than not just complete chaos. I’ve been trying to teach the younger two (the worst offenders) how to clean up but it…isn’t going great. We did a big purge not too long ago trying to lessen the potential mess. They really don’t have a crazy amount of toys. Each category of toy has a bin & it all fits neatly with room to spare. The Barbie’s and dolls I can handle but the dang stuffed animals. They are taking over! My 9yr old in particular is VERY attached to her stuffed animals. We have sooo many and they are so hard to store with limited space. We don’t have the storage space. I built a “stuffed animal zoo” awhile ago but it is now unable to contain them all. I talked with them about going through all of them & picking favorites while donating the rest. I emphasized how other kids will enjoy them & give them good homes. This was met with a great deal of sadness and some tears. I’ve always had an emotional connection to stuffed animals, feeling horribly guilty if I “abandoned” them. I worry my kids may be feeling the same. I want to help them get through what will probably be an emotional event but I haven’t a clue how to handle it correctly. My parents opted to just hoard and never make me get rid of toys or process my emotions in a healthy way! I have no idea how to deal with all of our emotions. Any advice is appreciated! Side note: these have slowly been accumulated over the past 10yrs & I’ve done what I can to stop more from coming in. It’s just been extremely overwhelming for me to tackle. I have tried the rotate toys thing and it just doesn’t work for us- I always forget so I figure it’s best to just donate the things now vs in 8 months when I remember. submitted by /u/CertainlyNotYourWife to r/breakingmom [link] [comments]

It was a frosty October morning, the morning I found Albert's mangled remains, and I didn't yet suspect there was a direct correlation between my wife's folding addiction and his untimely demise. He’d been half-buried in the woodland surrounding our garden, just beyond the vegetable patch. And staring down at the corpse, all I could think was: bloody hell, that’s the third time this month… “Well, Albert Eggstein is dead,” I announced, as I re-joined my family in the kitchen. “Foxes must have got in again,” Kerry said from the breakfast counter, her back to me. “Not a chance. That coop cost more than the damn car, Houdini himself couldn’t break in.” At the far side of the table, Ben piped up and said, “It’s the monster. I saw it outside my room the night Hen Solo disappeared, remember Dad?” “There’s no such thing as monsters sweety,” his mother replied, setting down a cup of hot chocolate in front of him. With a cutting glance in my direction, she added, “Phil, animals live in forests. Some of them eat chickens. Mystery solved.” Not wanting to kick off another fight, I ignored her tone and instead pointed out I’d already made Ben a hot chocolate earlier. “Yeah, but yours tasted weird,” he replied, before drinking the new one in two gulps. Since his tenth birthday, that kid had practically been inhaling food. I said, “By the way, the pumpkins are looking ripe. What do you say we finally carve them?” After breakfast, all three of us worked on jack-o-lanterns in the garage. Together, we made quite the trio: Ben with his green eyes and blonde hair, the old ball and chain sporting a thin build and dark complexion, and finally me, the freckly redhead. Just as I finished etching my stencil, Kerry clamped down on her own palm, juicy blood seeping between the fingers, two of which were already wrapped in plasters. “Silly me,” she said, her voice all casual. My attempts to inspect the damage got brushed aside. “It’s fine, I just nicked myself. I’ll go get a bandage.” “That looks pretty nasty. We should—” “It’s fine, Phil, I just nicked myself. I’ll go get a bandage,” she repeated, then disappeared upstairs. “Is Mom gonna be okay?” Ben asked. “She’ll be fine bud. You know her, just a bit of a klutz sometimes.” ‘Bit of a klutz’ was an understatement, my dearly beloved had this uncanny ability to injure herself under the most unlikely circumstances—whether by getting caught between a prowl of warring cats or dropping ceramic plates. Once the pumpkins were done, I marched upstairs and knocked on the door to her changing room. Footsteps shuffled down a creaky stairwell. A door inside Kerry’s room brought you to the attic, the only way of reaching the third floor. When we bought the house, before Ben, she insisted on keeping that area for storage. In exchange, I got the garden. A key twisted in the lock, the door inched open, and then Kerry’s head poked through the narrow gap. “What?” “How’s the hand?” “It’s fine. I’m not dressed.” I pushed my foot beyond the threshold so that the door wouldn’t close. “I don’t mind,” I said, with a cheeky grin. “Well I do.” Had I not reeled away, that door would have mashed all five of my toes. In order to maintain the delicate feng-shui, Kerr’s room remained strictly off-limits. She kept things neat and meticulously organized, especially clothes. Three days later, while Ben and I played Fall Guys in the lounge, he out of nowhere said, “You’d never move to Australia, would you?” “Where’s this coming from?” “Garys parents argued all the time and they split up. Now his dad sells surfboards in Australia.” From the anxious expression, you could tell he’d given this matter some serious thought. His parent’s compost heap of a marriage had clearly alarmed him. “I promise if I move to Australia, I’ll take you with me. How’s that?” Even after a friendly nuggie, the poor kid still seemed upset. “Something else on your mind, bud?” He lowered his gaze, shivered. “I saw the monster again last night. It was watching me sleep from the hallway.” My hand dropped onto his shoulder. “Hey, you know they’re just dreams, right? The scariest thing you’d catch wandering around this house after dark is your mother in her face cream and hair rollers.” After tousling his hair, I carried our empty chocolate wrappers and Pepsi tins toward the kitchen, but on the far side of the door, I froze. The needle I didn’t feel, only a warm puddle growing beneath my foot. I bit down on a scream. As I hopped toward the bathroom, blood splashed all over the white floor tiles. Kerry appeared, said, “Oh,” then followed me along with a dishtowel, soaking up dark red pools. Sitting on the toilet, I struggled to get a grip on the slippery needle and, in the end, was forced to use a pair of clippers to twist it out whilst simultaneously reassuring a panic-stricken Ben there was no reason to panic. Annoyed, I said to Kerry, “How’d you manage to leave this crap on the floor anyway?” “It must have dropped out of my sowing kit,” she said, her rag wet and squelchy. Each time I took the pressure off my sole more blood gushed out. “I need you to drive me to hospital.” “What, for this?” “Kerry, I’m leaking like a tap.” “Fine.” She disappeared into her inner sanctum for a quick change of clothes before driving me to hospital, where she complained incessantly throughout our three-hour stay in the waiting room. “See? All that time wasted over a fucking bandage,” she said on the drive home. I supressed the urge to call her a heartless witch. In bed that night, the earlier conversation with Ben slid into my brain. My son suspected our family unit might wither and die. Surely the least I could do was attempt a little marital de-weeding? Over the coming weeks, each of my date suggestions—romantic dinner for two, spa weekend, jazz cruise—were mercilessly shot down by Kerry, who insisted she either didn’t have time or was too tired. How could anybody tend the emotional needs of a spouse that spent all day hauled up inside their secret lair? One night, deciding I had nothing to lose, I chanced my luck at some romance by rolling over in bed and kissing along her bare shoulder. A drilling elbow to the ribs sent me careening back. “Not tonight.” “There’s a surprise,” I muttered. This spurred her to flick on the bedside lamp. “What was that?” “Nothing.” “Speak up Phil. If you’ve got something to say, come right out and say it.” Under my breath, I mumbled, “It’s just…lately I think you’ve been acting a little…selfish.” “Selfish?” That sure did it. After five minutes of furious finger-wagging and spittle hitting me in the face, a welcome distraction came in the form of a little rap at the door. “Ben, is that you?” He stepped into the room rubbing his eyes. “Did we wake you?” He nodded. “I’m sorry bud. C’mon, let’s get you back to sleep.” I swung both legs out from beneath the blanket. “Can I have a hot chocolate?” With a weary sigh, I slid under the sheets again while he and his mother lumbered down the hall, and after he got his treat, she opted to disappear into her room rather than continue the stern lecture. The facts stared me in the face, plain as day: I’d become a doormat. A braver man—or perhaps one possessing some semblance of a backbone—might have bit the bullet and tossed the relationship into the compost heap. Sadly, I wasn’t a braver man. I was, however, an exceptionally petty one. My revenge came in the form of discarded clothes left scattered around the house; either tucked behind the washing machine, under Ben’s bed, or on the window ledge in the guest room. By morning, they’d all be meticulously folded and placed back in the proper drawers because Kerry couldn’t control her obsessive compulsions. Was this act of defiance pathetic? Yes. But picturing her endlessly infuriated by the little seeds I’d planted gave me an immense sense of satisfaction. Sue me. While not busy with this ‘secret project’, any pent-up energy got channelled into the garden. Soon, there was an impressive produce collection: peas, leaks, sweet potatoes, even garlic; anything you could grow in a milder climate. And, even though he’d suddenly gone off strawberries, Ben became my dutiful helper. As the only child in the world who enjoyed maths homework, he had a good mind for figures, and so he kept track of the number of vegetables, along with when they'd be ready for harvest. Unfortunately, all attempts at instilling healthy eating habits were torpedoed by Kerry, who indulged him with hot chocolate three times a day. The ice Queen mostly remained hauled up in her den, emerging to fold after dark, a true creature of the night. When not napping, she shuffled around like a zombie, and if she was clumsy before, her gracelessness reached a whole other level: soon her fingers were permanently wrapped in bandages like an Egyptian Mummy, her arms permanently bruised. At one point, after three days of silent treatment, she called me into the kitchen out of the blue. A spatula had become wedged inside the top drawer preventing it from opening all the way. “I can’t get it loose,” she said. She put one foot against the wall and pulled with both hands. As I stepped closer to help, she lost her grip and crammed an elbow straight into my nose, producing a sickening crunch. “Silly me,” she said, immediately holding a dishrag against my face. “Here, tilt your head back.” Throat already congested, I rasped, “Kerry, what the hell.” “Quit being such a baby. Hold still until the bleeding stop.” My free hand shivered the spatula sideways until it slipped out. “You couldn’t have managed this yourself?” “Thank you,” she replied, her voice a few notches short of genuine, before she gestured toward a document on the centre island. “By the way, you need to sign that. It’s the new life insurance policy. I’ve upped our coverage.” “What? Why?” “Well, our trip to the ER got me thinking: you never know what might happen. You said it yourself, you could have bled out. Here, gimme the cloth. I’ll chuck it in the wash.” Later that day, I turned tiptoed around turning the house into a bombsite of scattered clothes—a true Arc de Triomphe of disarray and disorder. But the following morning, the mess hadn’t rearranged itself. Odd. Normally Kerr’s radar homed in on even the most well-hidden items. This I dismissed as a rare ‘off’ night, but those lonesome socks and crumpled underwear refused to budge. Suddenly, I’d lost my release valve. All three of us sat down in the kitchen one morning, silent. As Kerry placed a hot chocolate in front of Ben, my eye happened across the top of her wrist, mostly hidden beneath the sweater. “What the hell happened to your arm?” “Nothing.” In the split second I managed to reach over and pull back the sleeve before she wrestled it away, I glimpsed the beginning of a nasty mark, red and inflamed. It looked as though she’d been attacked by a rabid wolf. “Like hell nothing.” “Phil, enough,” she bellowed, loud enough that Ben flinched. That became my checkout point. There were zero indicators our relationship might ever bloom again. My gut told me the two of us would trudge along, quietly draining the life from one another, until Ben departed for university. What I couldn’t have known was how huge a red flag those unfolded clothes were, and just much danger we were in… It happened on a Saturday. Ben and I spent hours harvesting potatoes and tomatoes, then replanted seeds and trimmed stems—the works. At sundown we dropped the tools into a wheelbarrow, too sweaty and exhausted to tidy them away in the woodshed. After some TV, I ushered him upstairs into bed, and as I read him a bedtime story, his lower lip got all wobbly. Weird. It had been weeks since his last nightmare about the monster. “Everything okay bud?” He avoided my gaze. I cupped his chin and used it to steer his head up. “Hey, you know you can tell me anything, right?” Those teary eyes finally met mine. “Well…I was wondering…you’re not gonna walk out on me and mom, are you?” I closed the book. “I’m not gonna lie bud, your mother and I are going through a rough patch. But whatever else happens, I promise I’ll always be there for you.” “You wouldn’t disappear without telling me?” “Of course not. Why would you think that?” “Because Mom said you would.” I stared at him, dumbfounded. Marital decay I could stomach—hell, I’d even accept 50% of the blame—but what gave that woman the right to poison my relationship with my own son? I stormed up to the make-up lounge and pounded the door so furiously hinges almost splintered. A hysterical Ben tugged my arm, begging me to forget what he’d said. Poor kid probably figured he’d as good as filed the divorce papers. I didn’t tell him to leave. Part of me wanted him here as witness, selfish as that may sound. When the door finally shivered open, I demanded an explanation. “I’m busy. We’ll discuss this later,” Kerry said, like her word was law. Rage bubbled up, deep inside the pit of my stomach. Again with the dismissal. How long could one man live like a eunuch? I pushed into the room, Ben clinging onto my shirttail. Inside, there sat a make-up table with a mirrored front, cabinets, clothes hangers holding up fancy coats, and a sowing machine. Kerry stood motionless, veins pulsing along her forehead. Enraged, I said, “You’re taking out new life insurance policies all while telling Ben I’m about to walk out? What kind of game are you playing here?” Just then, there came a metal groan from beyond the door at the top of the stairs. A hush fell over all three of us. Kerry’s eyes flicked toward the attic then she suddenly shifted gears. “You’re right. Come downstairs, we’ll talk things out.” From the look on her face, she clearly had something to hide. But what could be up there? What could possibly be so important our marriage became a distant afterthought? “Now,” she hissed. This piercing sound made me hesitate. What sort of reaction might she have to a direct act of disobedience? I reminded myself this didn’t matter. My days of being a spineless weasel were done. I started up the stairs. “Ben, get back into bed now,” she screamed. A locked door beyond the steps opened at a shoulder charge while, behind me, Kerry faked the world’s most unconvincing panic attack, insisting she needed a doctor immediately. Inside the darkened space, a cord dangled beside my skull. At a pull a weak bulb blinked on, illuminating stacked boxes, clothes racks, and rickety furniture; a controlled, meticulously organized mess. I couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead. The air up there tasted stale, sickeningly warm. My ‘better’ half stepped in front of me, her panic attack miraculously cured. “Now you know my secret. I spent too much money on shoes and handbags. I’ve…I’ve got a secret credit card. It’s maxed out, I’m an addict. Let’s talk this out in the kitchen.” At the far side of the room, beyond stacked boxes, metal jingled around. In response to this, Kerry stabbed her tongue inside my mouth. “Come to bed,” she whispered. I held her shoulders and used them to steer her aside. Through a narrow gap there hovered a pair of eyes, regarding us from the shadow of the corner. I pushed away a tower of boxes and then froze. Before me lay some kind of torture hostage. A thin pale figure, barely visible in the gloom, wore a metal collar attached to the wall by a heavy chain. What. The. Fuck. Had my wife been keeping an anorexic sex slave? For a moment I felt relief our love life had welted… Ready to channel months without intercourse into the ass kicking of a lifetime, I stepped forward, but as I did Kerry threw herself in my way and laced her hand with mine. “I didn’t want any of this. Nick, he…he manipulated me. I had no choice.” Nick? So this bastard had a name. “Kerry,” I said, still in a state of complete shock, “this is…” As I took a second, harder look at the intruder, my voice died away. Those eyes glowed, two circles of green light in the outline of a skull marked by liver spots. Beneath pale skin vertebrae, cartilage, and muscle fibre shone through, connected by a network of blue and black veins. I didn’t think anything so frail could possibly live, yet the concaved chest went up and down in little heaves, the chain rattling away. “At first I could manage alone,” Kerry continued. “I just let him have a little taste of my own every now and again. Or I’d fish tissues and clothes out of the bin whenever you got cut. He’d wander around the house at night, and nobody got hurt. But lately sustaining both him”—she hesitated, as though realizing what she was on the verge of saying—“I just haven’t been able to keep him…satisfied. I hoped the chickens might do, but he said there was no substitute for human. And the less I could feed him, the more dangerous he became. Then he said I had to let him eat you. He said we had to get rid of you, but I refused because I love you. That’s when he took a bite at me.” She held up her wrist, the scars still prominent. “So I locked him away up here to keep you safe—to keep us safe.” A soft hand caressed my cheek while she reaffirmed her love, her right arm behind her back. “Come downstairs. I’ll explain everything.” This pathetic act didn’t fool me. When she made her move, I was ready. My hand caught Kerry’s wrist in mid-air, the knitting needle halting mere inches above my left temple. Her eyes went wide with fear. The two of us stood there, my fingers sinking deeper into her flesh. She released the weapon which dropped onto the floor, and when she tried to wriggle free, I let go. Her momentum carried her across the room, toppling over a box of garments along the way, where her skull collided with the angled wall, hard. A red ink blot smeared across slanted wood boards as she slid onto the floor, directly beside her ‘secret lover’, whose nose twitched like a rabbit sniffing out a juicy carrot. He leaned over her, far as the chain would allow. ‘Nick’, she rasped while he hunched over her body, drawing long, satisfied inhales. Frail hands, capped by long curved nails, ran all over her damaged skull and then the creature licked blood off its fingertips, groaning with delight. Every subtle movement carried this elegant, almost regal manner. His mouth opened, revealing long, curved fangs longer than Cayenne peppers—fangs capable of stripping flesh off a live chicken… Groggy and confused, Kerry’s eyeballs rotated up towards him. “Darling,” she muttered. A single digit pressed against her lips. Her companion smiled. Then, those fangs plunged deep into her neck. Kerry shrieked, her body quickly draining any sort of nutritious element. She deflated like a balloon after someone released the stem, her squeals becoming raspy croaks, quickly melting away. This macabre display startled a shocked gasp from me. My feet remained rooted on the spot. Meanwhile, ‘Nick’s’ muscles flexed and writhed, his belly swelling. Blonde hair sprouted from the taut skull, his spinal column becoming less defined, the wrinkles less pronounced. Now he appeared almost alive, better-ripened. As the withered husk vaguely resembling the lady I married slumped onto the floor, a voice behind me screamed: “Vampire!” This broke my paralysis. I spun toward Ben, whose cheeks were wet with tears. Oh shit. Even though this awful series of events made zero sense, I knew we needed to run, fast. I manoeuvred him toward the stairs with a series of stiff, desperate shoves. From across the space, there came a metal groan and I glanced back right as the prisoner snapped the chain binding him to the wall with his bare hands. Although free, he didn’t come after us immediately because coloured garments lay spilled across the floor—collateral damage from Kerry’s earlier tumble. My wife’s lover scooped these up, began folding, and set them on an antique side table nearby. Holy shit. The serial folder wasn’t Kerry. It was Nick… Those dazzling eyes scanned me from head-to-toe, a long, forked tongue whipping across a thin set of lips. He appeared completely calm, like the idea of us escaping was simply unthinkable. The steps flew beneath Ben and I’s feet. We charged past the make-up room, downstairs, along the hall, into the garage, only to discover a shadowy figure hanging from the rafters like a bat. How on earth did he move so fast? We franticly scrambled for the sliding glass doors at the back of the house, but outside, beyond the vegetable patch, the shadowy figure sat perched on a fence post, those glowing eyes silhouetted against the darkened forest. As a wintery breeze carried a cruel, quiet laugh across the garden, it occurred to me this cat-and-mouse game most likely delighted our pursuer. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. That left only one option… The wheelbarrow lay perfectly still fifteen metres ahead of us. I ordered Ben to make a break for the woodshed. “But Dad—" he protested. “MOVE.” Heart pitoning in my chest, I trampled over strawberries and grabbed the hedge shears and held them out defensively. A single leap made Nick sail straight over the vegetable patch. Before I even knew it, an icy claw clamped tight around my throat, the force driving me down amongst the broccoli, breathless. My hands unintentionally released the shears. Above me, a glistening tongue slid out to wet the grinning mouth. I glimpsed pink-stained teeth, hooked fangs. This was the end. Any second now that bastard would drain my body and bury the remains in the soil, like the chickens. A sharp nail cut across my throat, and then Nick sucked the blood off his finger with delight, eyes rolled back in his skull. “Oh, I’m going to make you pay for what you made me do to Kerry,” he said. “I was so hungry; I simply couldn’t resist.” He tapped his metal collar. “I want you to know, Phil, these chains were meant for you. Kerry and I planned on keeping you locked up as an inexhaustible supply of blood. But lately, the ravenous hunger, it simply became too much, what with Kerry rationing the food supply. So I agreed to be locked up while she got all the ducks in a row, and now look what unfolded. Well, at least my sweet Kerr-bear will know the man who forced me to feast on her flesh died screaming in—” Out of nowhere, a child-sized object vaulted onto Nick’s back and stuffed some kind of vegetable inside his mouth. This sent my opponent into furious convulsions. Only when I forced myself to sit up did it become clear Ben was paint-brushing Nick’s face with a portion of garlic he’d dug out of the vegetable patch. The pair whirled around, a bulb half-lodged inside the vampire’s frothing mouth. He whipped his top half forward, simultaneously sending Ben airborne and dropping onto his knees, and hacked up a tidal wave of blood, both hands clutched around his own throat for relief. Fury washed over me. Having an affair with my wife was one thing, but nobody hurts my son, even the undead. In one smooth motion I jumped up and grabbed the shears and then charged forward with every ounce of strength I could muster, arms outstretched. Nick was too distracted to prevent the sharpened steel from piercing his chest, right where the heart would be. When I released the handles, they stuck out all by themselves. A death rasp went up. Expanding from the entry point, the bloodsucker’s body evaporated like dust, peeling away in every direction across the torso, the breeze carrying the scattered remains away. Within seconds only the shears and metal collar remained, both of which dropped into the soil. It was over. A battered Ben staggered to his feet, his breaths slow and choked. Pained even. I scooped him into my arms then the two of us collapsed amidst the turnips, sobbing. - For some time, I believed we’d escaped the nightmare (mostly) unscathed. The beast died, I’d escaped a toxic marriage, and—after a months-long investigation—the police conceded they had no idea where Kerry disappeared to. Sounds like a happy ending, right? Wrong. Over the coming weeks, Ben’s appetite dwindled to the point he couldn’t even keep hot chocolate down. The poor kid had so little energy entire days passed without him so much as climbing out of bed. A series of dietary specialists were completely mystified. Then one morning, while he sat behind the breakfast table, I studied his blonde hair, those green eyes, and had a sudden, chilling realization. At the counter, I poured out a hot chocolate. Subtly, I pricked my finger with a needle, shook a few drops of blood into the cup, and stirred vigorously. Here went nothing… Ben took an apprehensive sip, slapped his lips together, and beamed. “This tastes great, just like the ones mom used to make.” And then I watched, horrified, as my son drained the liquid in a single gulp… submitted by /u/lightingnations to r/nosleep [link] [comments]

submitted by /u/_itssjess4_ to r/squishmallow [link] [comments]

“Here you go, master cultivator.” Jack looked up from his design spec software as a heaping pile of meat-bun thingies were placed in front of him. “Thank you.” He smiled, much to the relief of the visibly nervous waitress. Some small amount of color had just started to come back into her pale cheeks when An coughed unsubtly. “And mine, mortal?” There was no missing the slight undertone of a growl in his ‘student’s’ voice. “H-here, mistress cultivator.” The woman stuttered, putting down a significantly larger bowl of food in front of the cat-woman before fleeing back toward the kitchen. An sniffed peevishly at the retreating proprietor’s back, before sighing in contentment as she started tucking into the massive meal in front of her. Jack watched the entire byplay with little more than an amused raised eyebrow. While he’d momentarily considered chastising his student for her less than affable treatment of their waitstaff, he eventually decided against it. She’d just gotten back from shadowing his army trainees on their morning run around the town. Something he knew for a fact that she considered beneath her. Still, she’d done it without complaint, simply because he’d asked. And would continue to do so until his little army was capable of protecting itself. That earned her a little leeway in his mind – so long as being rude to waitstaff did not become a recurring theme with her. That was a good way to wind up with food poisoning or worse one day. And while he was sure his gene-mods would be up to the task of flushing out whatever any of the local peasants might think to put in his food, he’d rather not go through the indignities of that process. With that in mind, he turned towards his own meal and inhaled deeply. It smelled good. Perhaps a little lacking in spices compared to the food back home, but it would still no doubt taste a thousand times better than the nutrient pellets he’d been subsisting on for the last few weeks. It had also been crafted with care, which went a long way toward compensating for whatever ingredients the small inn might have lacked. Still, I’ll have to see if we can’t import some spices when I finally get around to solving the town’s burgeoning food problem, he thought as he bit down on a meat burn with relish. That’s a problem for later though. For now… He turned back to the holographic display floating above his wrist, ignoring the way An’s eyes noticeably lit up at the sight – then soured as she saw the subject. It was camera footage from his recent opening of the nearby apartment complex. Specifically, footage of a rather cute peasant girl. A cute peasant girl that if he wasn’t totally misreading things, was in the act of “eye-fucking” him while Xin gave his speech. Given that most of the people around town could barely bring themselves to look at him, that took guts on her part. Jack couldn’t deny that he was intrigued. Especially given the young woman’s looks. Raven haired and green eyes, the peasant girl had more homecoming queen in her than An’s scrappy tomboy look. Which was not to say that one was better than the other. That was like asking if you preferred rainbows or sunsets. Pretty girls were pretty girls. And were it not for the fact that he’d been incredibly busy the last few weeks, he might have chosen to act on An's obvious infatuation with him. …Provided said infatuation was born of actual attraction and not some weird local obligation to service her teacher. Jack knew he wasn’t a good guy, but few things ruined a fun thing more for him than the idea that a person he was with was being coerced into it. He was at least better than that. More to the point, there were plenty of ways for a man to get his rocks off without having to feel like a dirty scumbag afterward. So yeah, An presented a few issues for him. Not least of which is that if there is a way for the lass to figure out that I’m not a cultivator, the pair of us getting naked and bumping uglies together is probably it. The Scandinavian man’s gene-mods were tough, but knowing his luck, that’d just make it more painful for him when his superpowered playmate reduced his hip bones to a fine powder. …Still, what a way to go, he thought. He shook his head. Even if An didn’t find out that he wasn’t a cultivator during the act, there was also a decent chance that she would figure out that he was a human and not… whatever the locals were. No one had commented on his lack of animal features, but he’d seen more than a few searching looks. Thus far he figured they thought his animal features were hidden or subtle. Like the scales that ran across Kang’s torso. Scales that Jack had only seen when the man stripped down for his soak in the healing sludge. Sighing in disappointment as he glanced at An, he returned his attention to the significantly less risky peasant girl. And he smiled at what her interest represented. He was powerful here. And power always attracted people. Some people might have found that an ugly feature. Jack didn’t think so. It just was. Power was an attractive quality. To men and women. That was all there was to it. Sure, power could be transient, but what wasn’t in life? So yeah, he wouldn’t think any less of someone trying to get close to him because of what he represented. Least of all an illiterate peasant girl. Because from all he’d seen that cultivators were the main power of this world – and according to An, overwhelmingly women – in the mortal world it was still very much feudal China. Perhaps a little more equal, he allowed, given the cultivator influence, but still old school. Coming to a decision, he turned his hologram around until it faced the final member of their table. “Xin, see this girl here,” he prompted, drawing the ox-man from the rice porridge thing he was eating. Which equated to a significantly smaller meal than both Jack and An had. Which made sense. Xin was a big guy, but didn’t have cultivator nonsense or gene-mods to feed. The man in question looked a little wide eyed as he regarded the space age bit of technology, but he adapted quickly enough to actually take in the subject of the hologram rather than the hologram itself. Which was one of the things Jack liked about the guy. He adapted quickly. Of course, then a strange look came over the mayor’s features. “I do, great one.” “Extend an invitation to her to meet me tonight.” An scowled but said nothing. Xin nodded, making to stand, but Jack reached over and grabbed him before he left. “And I do want to stress that this is an invitation. She is well within her rights to decline. If she isn’t interested I won’t be offended. Stress that to them as well. That will be the end of the matter.” To his right, An gave him an odd look as she absently bit into her meatbun. One echoed by Xin. Still, the man eventually nodded, the tightness in his features receding slightly. “I will convey your wishes exactly as you have described them to me, Great One.” He bowed. Jack just waved him away, before a quick mental command through his implants had the hologram change form once more. This time to a map of the surrounding area – and the ground beneath it. Jack had no doubt the mass of symbols and geological readings would mean little to anyone not familiar with a HEV, but he himself smiled as he saw that his latest project was well on the way to completion. Sure, it likely wouldn’t be functional for months, but that was no problem. Ideally he’d never have to use it. With that in mind, he flicked off the hologram and absently popped another meatbun into his mouth. They really were good. ------------ “How are they?” Jack asked from his position on the wall. Behind him, An scoffed but otherwise kept her peace. Down in the courtyard below them, his ragtag militia were picking through the equipment he’d had delivered that morning. Given that his small army was nearly two hundred men in all, it was a feat that would have taken him three trips via wagon, but had only taken one after he’d shoved it all into subspace storage. Admittedly, a little wasteful where his suit’s power supply was concerned, but he figured he could afford to let it charge for an extra hour or two later on, now that his manufactory had reached a decent degree of automation. No longer did he need to oversee or help with every little thing. And that opened up a number of options for him. “Passable,” Kang answered. The trio watched as, below them, Gao and the other former guards ran the recruits through how to don the plate metal suits with significantly more patience than they’d shown on the run earlier that morning. “You sound dissatisfied,” Jack noted. “The equipment you have provided is wasted on them, great one.” The former-guard asserted, looking quite resplendent in his own gleaming suit of plate armor. “Especially these new helmets.” He cradled the bulbous looking helm in his hands with all the care of a proud parent cradling their child. Which Jack thought was a little much, even if he himself was rather proud of the design. Humble as it was. Because helmets had been one of the things he had no pre-designed solutions for. And he was no medieval expert. He wasn’t much of an expert on anything. He did however know that generally the purpose of armor was to deflect rather than absorb blows. That was as true for corpo security drones as it was for medieval knights. Which was why the prevalence of secondary ears in the local populace had presented a problem for him when he’d finally got down to inputting armor designs into the fabricators. “No longer will a flush strike be directed down into the head of the wearer, possibly killing the wearer even if the blow fails to penetrate,” Kang said, running his fingers across the smooth surface of the helmet. Sure, it looked a little funny – and made the wearer look like they had a massive forehead – but it would let a sword blow slide clean off while simultaneously keeping those precious ears safely tucked inside. For now the issue was that they rang like a bell when struck – which was obviously disorientating when you had your damn ears in the thing – but that could be solved later by stuffing them with hay or cotton. Apparently the locals either just cut holes in their helmets, meaning that ear injuries were common, or left two armored ‘cat ears’ atop the head. Protrusions that served excellently to catch a sword blow and let the full force of it be transferred right down into someone’s brain, rather than simply sliding off like Jack’s design would facilitate. “Seemed pretty obvious to me.” Jack shrugged. That seemed to take the shine off of Kang’s enthusiasm, as he looked down. “Ah, I suppose… now that I’m looking at it, it rather is.” “Why don’t all guards have helms like that then?” An asked, disinterest coloring her tone. “Aesthetic, young mistress.” Jack glanced over to where Gao’s voice had come from. While they were talking, the outspoken younger guard had apparently walked up to the base of the wall. “Guards like us are as much a symbol of the sect’s authority as we are keepers of the peace.” It was actually rather amusing how quickly Kang and An shot him a venomous look. Not that he seemed to notice. The half-dog’s focus was entirely on Jack. “You really think that’s it?” The Scandinavian asked curiously. “Vanity?” The young man bowed. “How many cultivators do you see wearing armor? Yourself excepted, great one.” Though his words were flippant, his tone indicated great respect. Then again, just about everything the former guards said to him these days indicated great respect. The former cripples practically worshipped the ground he walked on for healing him. Which might have made another man uncomfortable. Jack was not another man. He reveled in it. …He also wasn’t a cultivator, so he had no idea what they usually wore. The only example he had was An. And all she wore was a leather breastplate over that odd robe dress thing. “There are reasons for that,” An muttered venomously. “Reasons beyond the purview of mortals.” “Of course, young mistress.” Gao bowed lower, his voice utterly toneless. “This lowly mortal begs your forgiveness for speculating on matters beyond his station.” An continued to bristle for just a moment, before letting out a small harrumph and turning her gaze away. Gao for his part was as utterly unflappable as ever, but Kang did let out a small sigh of relief. Jack noticed none of it. So apparently armor is a big no for cultivators? He pondered. Why? More importantly, if it is, why has An not commented on me wearing a big fuck-off suit? He didn’t know. And that was annoying. What was more annoying was that he couldn’t just come out and ask. …There was too much he didn’t know. And he couldn’t afford to remain ignorant forever. It was enough to make him think he might have been better to come clean about his origins were it not for the fact that it sounded more insane than the lie – and the fact doing so would guarantee someone would come along and try to take his stuff. Hell, An herself might. That was just how cultivators operated apparently. They were the ruling class. And if he told the truth, he would be just another mortal with a fancy mystical artifact. The fact that it made him the equal of a higher tier cultivator wouldn’t matter. He sighed, turning his attention back to his little army. It seemed that despite their lackluster headwear, mortal guards did have proper armor - though what that constituted, Jack had no idea. It wasn’t like his small band of cripples was allowed to keep theirs when they were discharged. Which is why, prior to this moment, he’d just imagined an ancient Chinese soldier, with all the accuracy – or lack thereof - his lack of knowledge on the subject entailed. Still, no one present had complained about the designs he’d put together, so clearly he was doing something right. Then again, most of it wasn’t his own work. Just stuff he’d ripped wholesale from a file labeled HEMA. Which was apparently some kind of sports thing. With swords. Not his idea of a fun time, but he’d thank the crazy bastards for ensuring those designs ended up in the sporting section of his strictly civilian database. If only the Napoleonic era recreationists had thought to label themselves as a sport rather than as a historical society, Jack lamented. Then those designs might have also shown up in my database. Though at that point I might as well wish that airsoft or skeet shooting managed to make it through the fuckin’ censors. He watched as the recruits continued to don the gear. Even from this distance he would see the wide smiles on their faces. Which wasn’t too surprising. It was a pretty comprehensive piece of kit. And he was sure it would have cost a small fortune back in the feudal era. Sure, he had no idea what that translated to in fantasy land, but he figured it would be roughly the same here. And he was just giving it to them. The group looked more than a little janky as a whole, given they were wearing the metal plate over their work clothes, but he didn’t much care about that. Uniformity could come later. Though hopefully not too much later. One of his aerial drones had happened upon a relatively nearby bog a few days ago, with what looked to be an oil reserve in residence. So now he was digging in that direction. With any luck it wouldn’t be too long until he could start producing plastics and synthetic fibers as a result. Another thing to add to the list, he thought tiredly. “Great one?” Jack raised an eyebrow, startled out of his thoughts by Kang’s soft voice. “Yes?” he asked. The other man shuffled awkwardly. “I… I do not mean to be rude, but are you sure about this?” Jack’s eyebrow raised slightly higher, and he could have sworn a bead of sweat broke out on the other man’s forehead. He carried on quickly, finishing his thought. “If you would only give me time, I could turn this rabble around. Give you real warriors, the envy of the Empire. Versed in the three tools. The sword. The spear. The mace. Men who know how to ride, not just march. A mere six months is all I ask.” Jack didn’t even bother to point out that he’d not provided maces or swords. Only spears to the recruits below. Kang wasn’t dumb. He’d clearly picked up on the fact that Jack could produce goods quickly. The man wasn’t dumb. Prior to this conversation, he had even requested a few small items for the troops that Jack hadn’t thought of. Still, this was not one of those items. “We don’t need it.” He said simply. “You’ve got two – with on the job training - months. Teach them how to use a spear, march, form a line and set up a camp. That’s all I need from them.” Mostly because he planned to transition to guns sooner rather than later. At which point skill with a sword would be as useful as tits on a bull. The only reason he was bothering with spears was that he needed something for them to practice with while he figured out gun production. Other than that, all Jack really wanted was for Kang to instill his future soldiers with some degree of discipline and the ability to act as a unit. Kang deflated, but gamely continued on. “Then they will hardly be real guards at all. Without skill on the horse, how are they to patrol the outlying province in a timely fashion?” Jack scoffed. "We don’t have outlying provinces. Everything these men need to protect is standing right behind you. For now, your only concern should be teaching them how not to be eaten by wild beasts.” And later, deterring whichever assholes comes riding around to take a bite out of my pie, Jack thought as Kang deflated. Because that asshole always exists. Even my faux cultivator status isn’t going to keep him away forever. Or her, he supposed. Because he or she is going to show up eventually. They always did. AN: A combo of the newest patreon chapter being a bit longer than usual, illness and edits for SSB1 book three made this chapter late. Apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience :D First / Previous / Next Another three chapters are also available on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bluefishcake We also have a (surprisingly) active Discord where and I and a few other authors like to hang out: https://discord.gg/RctHFucHaq submitted by /u/BlueFishcake to r/HFY [link] [comments]

I am NOT OP, this is a repost. Mood Spoiler - justice served hot like coffee Original post by u/schnitzeldehuahua. My MIL is always right & now I am ALWAYS late (self.JUSTNOMIL) submitted 4 years ago * by u/schnitzeldehuahua I have replied to other posts but this just happened last night & continues to unfold so I thought I would make my own. As a bit of background, I have a policy of accepting that my MIL is always right: when she said I could not keep a secret, I started spilling my guts; she said I was a lousy driver & from then on when she told me to turn right, I turned left & vice versa. This has been going on for decades, but they only moved to live near us ~10 years ago & up until last year they spent at least 1/2 the year in their other home or traveling (Yep, they are loaded) so they have only been feeling my incompetence fulltime for 9-10 months or so. This week is the anniversary of an event that while very meaningful to them (& therefore should be meaningful to us), is virtually unacknowledged by the rest of the world. Moreover it is a crazy-busy time for all the family involved (my husband is a professor, I also work in academics & mid-terms are upon us) & his sister's family (her husband & son work in accounting, her daughter in property management-tax season & the first quarter financials are happening right now). But none of that is more important than EVENT which must take priority over everything else. The NILs will not even consider postponing the reunion-style activities to a weekend. Everything has to happen in the original 24 hour window, beginning w/a cocktail party last night, then tennis & golf today & a big formal dinner this evening. No, I did not marry a Trump, but sometimes it feels that way. Last night was the opening salvo. My husband has office hours that end at 6pm & rarely does anyone show up so late, but the mid-term exam was last week. I went to pick him up maybe 10 before 6 & there was a line of students still waiting to speak w/him. He scrambled, made appointments, etc. & we got out by 6:30 & walked in the door of the NILS apartment before 7pm. & walked into a wall of screeching because we were LATE. We should have been there by 5 (what?); husband is screeching back that he told them we would not be there before 6:30 & so forth. Then we walk into the main room where my MIL announces to everyone that we were late because I just cannot be ready on time. In fact, I am always late. I'm just one of those people who has no respect for other people's time (not quite the words she used, but that was the gist). All my husband's protests that he was the one w/the appts until 6pm go unheard. She did at one point tell him to stop covering for me (exact words!). This morning I was due at brunch a 11. It is 11:57 right now & I thought I would type this out for all of you. Then I am getting in the shower. My MIL has called 7x because she is borrowing my coffee urn for this brunch (that right, the NILS are the 1% but she can neither purchase nor rent her own coffee urn). Bitch, you said yourself I am always late, maybe you should have made other arrangements. Hope your friends are enjoying their coffee-free brunch. & Update: it's 1:19, I just dropped the urn off (MIL called 3 more times & then husband called & asked what the deal was-he was kind of laughing actually. I told him "remember how I am always late & other people's schedules mean jack shit to me?" He laughed for real; he has classes until after 3 today so he noped out of this particular brunch). Anyway, I dropped the urn off. The caterer looks...unhappy. She apologized (to me! poor thing) & said that the coffee station "somehow" never got put on the contract. I told her I was certain MIL had requested it not be because she is a cheapskate & planned to use mine & not to worry too much. Then I scooped up my SIL & niece to go get our nails done. MILs parting words "be back by 2, we need to be out of the room by 3". That's right she thinks we are cleaning up. Someone's in for a mid-afternoon surprise! & lastly yes, I am aware I am a bitch. No one has to PM me. You are all right, there are nicer ways to handle this. Yep, yep all of that is true. Right this minute, I could be explaining to my MIL why I feel disrespected & why I think she is wrong & that she should be more considerate. We could have a whisper argument right there in the middle of her annual shindig. Instead I'm deciding on nail polish. I'm thinking something goth. Or neon green! UPDATE Post #1 The magic words: No Thank You! (self.JUSTNOMIL) submitted 4 years ago by schnitzeldehuahua This is a kind of follow-up to my post earlier today about my MIL & the coffee urn & how I am never going to be on time for an event of hers ever again. Specifically, she told a roomful of people I was always late & disrespectful about it & I haven't been on time for anything since. It was only last night, but I am planning to make this a regular thing. When I left off, I was settling on a dark magenta nail to really clash w/my naturally ghost white pallor. My niece took the neon green because it matches her dress for the evening, to the degree that any one color would. She looks like a jewish Carmen Miranda. I'm not kidding, not even a little bit. Her grandmother is going to shit a brick. My SIL got a blush peachy pink because she is a grown-up. While we are having our nails done, our phones did not stop ringing. The guy who was dealing w/all of us (we had no appointment & were in no particular hurry) kept asking if we needed to answer. None of us did. Later we found out the calls were from MIL, but also the caterer because MIL took off to get her hair done (I imagine) & they had no one to hand off the coffee urn (mine!) & the contents of the open bar (mine NOW! no, not really, I don't have the storage) to. In the end my husband dealt with it, chewed his mother out for not cleaning the urn & told her not to ask to borrow it again (it really is a bitch to clean-I got a good deal 15 or so years ago & I'm pretty sure the pain of cleaning it is why). MIL was very unhappy & said that I said I would be back for all that stuff & what was going to happen now w/the booze, w/the room deposit? & that's when husband called me-this call I took. He asked if I had agreed to clean the room, etc. & I said Nope, first I heard of it was when we were leaving to get our nails done & when MIL asked me I said "No thank you". Which made him laugh because whenever his parents give me a direct order I always pretend they are asking if I want something & I always answer "No thank you!" & I am stopping here to repeat: Someone tells you to do something (get me a beer! give me the baby! Clean up this mess!) & you smile & say "no thank you!" & go do something else. Anything else. Take the baby to see the curtains in the other room, ask another person in this room how her IBD is, go make a cup of tea. Anything at all, just don't sit there waiting for an argument. I call it a non-confrontational confrontation because it leaves the orderer w/nothing to do but admit s/he is giving orders & since they are (in my world anyhow) trying to pretend that I am the rude one, I like to do it politely. Back to the call. I said "I said 'No thank you'" & husband starts to laugh & asks MIL if she had talked about this w/me before today (he knew she hadn't) & she grumbles-that's what it sounded like on my end, anyhow. We talk back & forth about a few things & ultimately he says "Schnitz never said she was going to take care of the room clean up, you never even asked her to. She, SIL & Niece all just had their nails done, so they sure aren't coming back to do it now. SIL is going to meet BIL & Nephew at the hotel. Niece is getting ready at our house & we will all be back here before dinner". She whines some more, he says to me I'll be home soon & hangs up. When he got home, I learned he took the coffee urn apart in her kitchen, made a big mess (it is not hard to keep the grounds from falling around but there is a trick to it) & brought it home clean (YAY). This is what he was doing while she was bitching about how unreliable I was to not deal w/the event clean-up. This is a fairly typical interaction w/the NILS. They are not pleasant people. Everything is just another step in a negotiation w/them. I know some of the previous post's comments said husband should stand up for me etc. etc. & he does. It just doesn't stick w/them from one encounter to the next. Right this moment he is just getting out of a long hot shower after ranting about them when he got home. He was told to be at the apartment at 5:30. It's 6:55 right now & we are going to be at least another half-hour. The phone has not rung once, so I guess he got thru to them this time, but I don't think it was worth the aggravation. UPDATE Post #2 In which I get home fairly early & have a good night's rest, the end. (self.JUSTNOMIL) submitted 4 years ago by schnitzeldehuahua Last follow-up to MIL said she already knew I am always late & what gave her the idea I was the clean-up crew?. We (me, husband & niece) walked in the door of the event right around 8:30 the night of. Anyone following along might remember Husband told his mother we would be at her & FIL's apt. by 5:30. Or she told him. I really don't know. Either way, we never went to their apt. & instead got to the event as the first people were arriving. MIL broke away from reception line to grab husband & niece (not me!) to join her FIL, SIL & BIL (SIL's husband). Husband ditched the reception line more or less immediately, Nephew showed up from where ever he was (not the reception line, maybe he was just arriving as well) & joined us (me & husband) & tells us there was quite a ruckus when he & his parents showed up at the apartment as apparently the caterers STOLE THE BOOZE from brunch! It took about a minute & a half to sort out that they didn’t hang on to & disposed of only the bottles that were open as they cannot leave them unattended & they cannot transport open containers from one facility to another (brunch was at the club in the NILS (narc in-laws) living complex, dinner was at this other swanky place). I was a no-show to deal w/the brunch clean-up, so all they could do was toss it. The story of the caterer’s larceny was the talk of the evening! & again: yes, the same firm was handling dinner. As for the evening, I never spoke to the NILS. I tried to thank them for dinner, but they were clearly avoiding me. Me, niece & nephew were at the kids table (52, 33, & 30 respectively, but yes, we were among the youngest people there). Husband made excuses at his table & joined us more or less as the appetizer was served. At one point a man I do not know came over from NILS table to talk to husband & ended up sitting down w/us for a while & then wandered off. He seemed pleasant enough; if he was enlisted to persuade my husband to ditch me & go back to his own table it failed, but for all I know he is just interested in husband’s work. We left when dessert was being brought out (after toasts, etc. we aren’t animals), as husband had to work at 9am the next day & Nephew was leaving on the red eye that night (he also had to work the next morning...in a city roughly 1k miles from these events), so we took him w/us. Niece moved to sit w/her parents, SIL thanked me for the mani-pedi (I think she enjoyed herself, it’s hard to tell. She didn’t put up any kind of fight to answer her phone during the post brunch melt down, which is a good sign). & that’s that. No more drama, at least not for me. I am now permanently late for all NIL events, but otherwise nothing has changed. Oh & no more loaning out the coffee urn (husband has learned that lesson the hard way). UPDATE Post #3 Remember my coffee urn? (self.JUSTNOMIL) submitted 4 years ago by schnitzeldehuahua last week I wrote about an annual event in husband's family (nothing to do w/a religious holiday, just lousy timing this year) & there was a whole episode in which my coffee urn. My. Coffee. Urn. was a bit player. The coffee urn's part in this was to arrive late to brunch w/me, the owner of said coffee urn. & later for my husband to spend X amount of time cleaning it/trashing his mother's kitchen because caterers don't clean not-their equipment if you don't ask them to (apparently MIL didn't) & husband had the good sense to know if he brought it back dirty after confirming NILS (narcissistic in laws) could borrow it when I had already said NO! he would be spend the next few weeks sleeping on the sofa...in someone else's house. Yesterday I got a call from a friend of MILs asking if I could please bring MIL's coffee urn back (!) as they want to start using it at their weekly bridge club thing. I was speechless, briefly. Usually I can predict what crap she is going to pull but I did not see this one coming. So I stalled & told the bridge-friend that I had NO IDEA where MIL's coffee urn was (because it doesn't exist!). I certainly didn't take it home after the event as I was not even there at the end of the event & bridge-friend agreed that I had indeed left before the end of the brunch & never returned; I knew I could count on my MIL bitching about me to her friends about how I failed to clean-up after the brunch. Then we both waited for the other to speak but I have a policy of not filling silence after I have provided a response. Finally, she said something along the lines of MIL said I took it & I said I know the caterer left all the stuff that wasn't theirs in the room & my husband went & brought it to the NILS (this is true, actually). I have not even been to their apartment since the cocktail party the night before the brunch. & then a bright bulb went off in my head & I said: You know what? Why don't you go to MILs house & ask to see the place she stores her coffee urn (this thing is a monster, ~3 feet tall & all boxed up it hangs over the edge of our closet shelf by a good 2inches. I know damn well there is no coffee urn sized hole in any of her storage spaces). Maybe someone cleaned & put it away for her? There's a little back & forth, but I avoid the conversation I am sure I was being steered to (it's not her coffee urn, it's mine. Mine. MINE) & I like to imagine my MIL trying to explain to her bridge group that while it is her coffee urn, she stores it at my (smaller) house. tl;dr: MIL has a friend call me to borrow my coffee urn claiming it's hers. I play dumb-dumb-dumb & tell friend I don't have MIL's coffee urn & the place to look for it is somewhere in MIL's own apartment. FINAL UPDATE My coffee urn was not a coffee urn, but it was mine (self.JUSTNOMIL) submitted 4 years ago by schnitzeldehuahua I cannot believe how much time I have given over to writing about this coffee urn. But here goes what WILL BE the final word on it. I am quite sure. To recap: my NILS (narc in-laws) had a brunch, borrowed my coffee urn & then after I got it back, a friend of my MIL called asking that I return MIL's coffee urn soon so they could use it for their bridge club. Because I am wary of anything MIL, I denied having MIL's coffee urn, failed to mention the coffee urn I do have that is my own & settled in for the second act. Several people suggested my husband buy her a coffee urn of her very own, perhaps for mother's day & it turns out he had the same idea because unbeknownst to me... Roughly the same time MIL's friend was calling me, MIL called my husband. All I know about their conversation is it did not go the way MIL had hoped. The only reason I had loaned her my coffee urn to begin w/was after I had said NO! when she asked me if they could borrow it, she cried to my husband & said I had said yes & then changed my mind. I realize I could have said "Eff you all" & just not gone along w/husband asking me to "please please please just this once pretty please" (almost a direct quote), but I chose instead to loan it to her as inconveniently as I could manage & this was apparently the thrust of her argument why the coffee urn should reside w/her going forward. Other things happened in the background that were unknown to me, but the one thing I did know going into lunch at the NILs last Sunday was that husband was toying w/buying his mother a coffee urn of her very own & that he had flat out told her he was not supporting her claim on mine. Everyone caught up? Good! Now the long part: We are in the dining room of their retirement community. I am once again stuffing my face w/shrimp cocktail (I really love shrimp cocktail!) when who should walk over but the friend of MILs who called me. They have a brief chit-chat so riddled w/head jerks in my direction & hanging sentences ("so are we.....hmmmm?") I cannot believe they think I don't notice. I assume they want someone, anyone to ask "what's up?" No one does. Finally friend cannot take it any longer & just blurts "I know you lied to me" & was taking a breathe to continue when husband said "I lied to you? when?" which took even me by surprise. MIL starts oh-noing, & this is not the time, & other crap, but husband repeats himself. & friend says "not you, Schnitz. Schnitz lied to me when she said blah-blah-blah" & then he said it: I agree, SOMEONE has been lying. But Schnitz does not have MILs coffee urn. I looked into buying MIL a coffee urn of her own, but I cannot afford it". Let me break here to say my husband & I each have 20-30 years in our chosen professions & no children. We aren't as well off as the NILS but we could certainly afford a coffee urn. My expression was just as WTF as everyone else's. & that's when he laid it all out. In an attempt to locate a coffee urn like mine for his mother, he learned that -- you can skip the specifics of coffee urn vs. chafer by skipping the asterisked bit 1)my coffee urn is actually a coffee chafer as it was made to work w/canned heat -I actually knew this but had no idea there was another name for it. Also, I never use the canned heat because 2)it was fitted w/an external heating element that slides between the carafe & the canned heat holder-thing. & apparently that is key, as this electrical element does not block anyone from also trying to use canned heat & this is a major fire hazard. As a result, --they no longer manufacture the unit I have but it is quite prized among people who prize these things. & it is worth right around 2k. Yes, you read that right, two thousand dollars. We all sort of sat there just kind of winded & then he said the thing that made up for all previous transgressions. He told his mother that she had spread around that I had stolen (his word) something worth thousands of dollars from her in an attempt to take the same high value item from me. & that I deserved an apology. Now. In front of her meddling friend (he didn't use the word meddling). & fellow redditers she did it! She apologized, throwing just the littlest bit of blame on the friend (friend misunderstood) which I know she is going to pay for, but that's between them. & then she asked if she could borrow it (certainly the only reason I got an apology). I said "Hell, no, I want to sell it! Can we sell it?". Husband said he had, in fact, found a buyer (the caterer from the brunch). So we sold it. The End. I am NOT OP, this is a repost. Original post by u/schnitzeldehuahua. submitted by /u/ifeelnumb to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

So, I (34F) have been having my kids (9F, 14M, 16F) clean up their rooms and storage spaces this past few days because their living spaces are extremely messy. While nothing has come up with my 9-year-old, my other two kids have been setting aside things they want to get rid of and/or donate (clothes, trinkets, toys, etc.) My husband (39M) has been applauding them for taking the initiative here, but I have been strongly against my kids getting rid of any stuffed animals of any kind, and I was surprised to see this cause friction between me and my family. More than once I've seen my older children put their childhood teddy bears, cats, dogs, dragons, and more in the "to donate" bag and I've had to take them out. I keep telling them that they may miss their stuffies someday and wish they never got rid of them and that even one that looks exactly the same wouldn't replace them, but they refuse to change their minds. I even told them that I could find a place to keep the stuffies until they changed their minds so that the stuffies wouldn't take up any of their storage space, but my son called me a "womanchild" for caring so much and my daughter accused me of treating her like a child. This hurt me, but I stopped them from getting rid of the stuffed animals anyway, and they've both been annoyed at me since. I brought this up with my husband last night because I didn't understand why they were so annoyed, but he laughed off my concern and told me that I needed to let my kids grow up. This pissed me off because it wasn't about them growing up, it was about getting rid of something they might want back when it's too late, and I'm not proud to say we traded some harsh words over some stuffed animals. In the end he called me childish and went to our room and I slept on the couch out of shame. So, now I am wondering... Is this too strange of a hangup for me to have? I don't think it's wrong to have my children keep their stuffed animals if they don't have to worry about storing them themselves, and I wish my own mother had done this for me when I was younger because I only have three of my treasured childhood stuffies left because I didn't consider the memories I was giving up forever when I got rid of the other ones back then. I can't even remember the names of most of the ones I got rid of anymore even though I remember how they looked, and I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone. Am I being too pushy with my kids? Am I babying them too much? Does this really make me a "womanchild?" EDIT: Since I've never tried posting here before, I was a little overwhelmed to see all these replies. You all are very fast here. Anyway, while it stung to see all the anger, it did put some things into perspective for me. Especially the comments about projecting, those resonated a lot and made me realize I had to have an open talk with my family. When I was young and got rid of my own stuffed animals, this was because my childhood home was short on space. I had to get rid of some every time I tidied up, it was the rule. I think my mother may have also just had something against stuffed animals specifically because she once told me I liked them more than her. Anyway, my point is, I didn't want to put my kids through that, so I pushed too far in the wrong direction for sure. We ended up talking about some other things as well, which I won't go into the specifics of because it's not relevant to the main problem, but basically there were other problems too, because some of the childish things I did out of habit my children thought I was doing to treat them like kids even though it's the way I act around other people too. It hurts to be called embarrassing by my own children, but I should have realized they felt this way sooner. As for the stuffed animals we have agreed that the kids will reevaluate if they really want to get rid of each one or not, but I am not allowed to intervene if they still decide to get rid of it on their own. Daughter also likes the taking photos of stuff she gets rid of idea, though my son doesn't see the point much. And to answer some things I saw a few times: No I am not a hoarder. Like I said, I only have three stuffies left from my childhood, and not many other childhood belongings either. As for other stuff it comes and goes as needed (well... except for sewing supplies, I maybe have too many of those). As for the idea of just taking the stuffed animals they wanted to get rid of and hiding them, I did consider that but I have a bit of a personal gripe against lying to my kids for any reason, even if I feel it's for a good reason or think it's harmless. So I could not have just snuck the toys away under the pretense that I still got rid of them. Anyway you all, thank you for the replies and advice. Sorry for being the a-hole here. submitted by /u/throwawaytoys1 to r/AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]

My husband and I always wanted our son to be adventurous. We wanted to watch him grow up asking questions about everything, seeking out answers, and looking for adventure. It seems like whenever parents have a deep desire for how they want their children to be, their children instinctively know and go the complete opposite direction. As Sam grew up, he became very introverted and would actively ask when it was time for bed. He loved to sleep, and our doctor gave a lot of explanations. All the illnesses had been checked and crossed out before he said "I think he just likes to get away from reality. He likes his dreams more than he enjoys life." This was at the age of eight. This actually depressed us as parents. What could be so wrong, so uninteresting about his life that he would come home and just sleep? The doctor recommended that we plan family activities that were geared towards him as a way to engage him in life. "Give him something to be excited about after school." So, for our very first trip, we decided we would go on a hike. The mountains were about an hour away, and we considered this a mild introduction to our new family habit. When we told Sam where we were going, he was ecstatic. We knew then that hiking had been the right activity. On Saturday, we threw together some backpacks, lunch, water, and even a magnifying glass so Sam could inspect everything closely. He was so excited the entire way there. We were all thrilled. When we parked at the trailhead, Sam leapt out of the car and almost ran up the trail without us. I had to call him back so we could keep an eye on him. The hike was short, maybe half a mile, but Sam tried to run it like a marathon. We kept calling for him to come back and check out this bird, or this butterfly, or the log that looked like a grandpa's face. He would come and look to humor us, but then run ahead. Eventually, we gave up trying to point things out and let him just run through the woods. We were pleased that he had taken so well to the trip. For once, Charlie and I felt like we knew what we were doing as parents. Anyone who's a parent knows how that feels. We got to the end of the trail and ate our lunch. We were at a ledge along the mountain that was more like a hill. The sun was high overhead and we could see over the trees for miles. Sam quickly downed his lunch and we let him run off into the trees. "Not too far," I warned him. He obeyed, and we could always see him. From the rock where we sat, I watched Sam while Charlie went to the bathroom. I watched Sam pick up sticks, swing them at bushes and tree trunks until the stick broke, then pick up another one. He picked one up that was too short to be swung, but he smiled wide at it and ran around with it in front of him, using both hands. Finally, he ran over to me and said "Mom! Feel this stick! It feels so cool!" "Oh yeah?" I grinned, taking the stick from him. It was in the shape of a Y, and when I grabbed one of the sides of the Y, it was perfectly smooth. It looked like someone had taken a knife and whittled a bigger branch down into this smooth, sling-shot shaped stick. The two sides of the Y were curved, almost like bicycle handlebars. "That's very smooth!" I said to encourage him. He looked at me funny, then ran back into the woods to keep playing. We packed up lunch, stuffed everything back in the backpacks, and announced that we were ready to hike back. Sam came back without a fuss, and we began walking down the trail. Instead of running ahead, Sam lagged behind, still clutching the Y stick. He held it in front of him with both hands as before, and was swinging it around slowly, as if it were a magnifying glass and he were searching for something. "Come on, Sam," Charlie encouraged gently when he stood in one place for too long. We both had to stop because he had fallen so far behind. He was pointing his stick into the trees, arms outstretched. He kept looking from the stick to the trees, as if trying to line something up. We both waited patiently for a few seconds, but the heat was getting to us and we were ready for an air-conditioned car. "Sam, honey, let's go," I called. "Okay," he called back, but didn't move. Charlie sighed and walked back to him. He put his hands on both of Sam's shoulders and guided him down the trail. The whole time, Sam kept both hands firmly on the stick and tried his best to point it back towards the trees where he'd been looking. He didn't point it towards where he had been standing, I noticed later, but at a spot past the trail and into the trees. Always at one position. Charlie finally got him to where I was, and we kept walking. Sam eventually stopped pointing his stick, and instead kept it down in front of him, both hands still being used to hold either side of the Y. We drove home, pleased that Sam was taking home a souvenir. Our day trip had worked. He was getting involved with life. We were one step closer to our adventurous son.   Over the next couple of days, lots of things started happening. They all seemed disjointed and not connected in the moment. Later, memory would connect them for me. Sam went back to his sleeping routine. He would come home from school, go into his room, and play for a bit by himself while dinner was being made. I got him to work on homework, then served dinner when Charlie got home. After that, he went straight to bed by his own choice. This wasn't abnormal for him, so I wasn't any more concerned than usual. A few nights after we got home, I noticed that Sam's bedroom light was on even though he'd gone to bed hours ago. His door was closed, so I went to go and turn off his light for him. I figured he might have left it on when he fell asleep or something. The second I opened the door, Sam leapt off the floor and jumped into bed, like he knew he was in trouble. It was only 7 in the evening, I wasn't about to yell at him for not going to bed when he said he was. His rapid jump into bed had me worried though. "Sam? What's up?" "Nothing," he said in that kiddush tone that screams I didn't do anything! I looked around the room and saw what I always saw: his toys were out and lined up in some game he must've been playing. Nothing was out of place or irregular. "You jumped up as soon as I came in, anything wrong?" "No." "Okay," I said slowly, unsure of what else to say. He looked at me with untold terror in his eyes. "Are you sure nothing is wrong?" I pressed. "I can hang out with you for a bit, if you want." He stared right through me, his eyes wide. It took him a few seconds to reply. "No, mother, I'm going to bed now. C-can you turn out the light?" I blinked. He's never called me "mother" in his life. I should have pushed myself in and sat on his bed and talked until he admitted what was wrong. But I didn't. Charlie called my name, and it distracted me. I wished him a good night, turned off the light, and shut the door. Talking later on with Charlie about it, Charlie thought that maybe he had somehow discovered masturbation, even at his young age. "When you rub around on the floor the right way, it just happens," Charlie told me. Apparently, that was how he had discovered it. So, I chalked the situation up to that.   Sam also kept carrying that Y stick around everywhere. He always kept it within reach. During dinner, he kept it on the table. When I told him that sticks don't belong on the dining room table, he kept it on his chair next to him. He took it to bed and kept it next to his head. He even took it to school. I tried fighting him on it once, but he claimed he was taking it to show and tell. I was about to insist that he leave it home, but he looked like he might cry if I came down firm. So, I let him on the condition that if his teacher mentioned it to me that I'd make him leave it home. He agreed.   One day, Charlie was taking out the garbage and the bag caught on the door jam. The contents of the bag spilled all over the floor, and he quietly cursed and went to get another bag. That was when he found about 20 of Sam's toys in the trash. They varied from stuffed animals to action figures. Confused, Charlie asked me if I had thrown them away, or was punishing Sam for something. I told him no, and was equally puzzled. Sam, for some unknown reason, had been throwing his own toys away. Together, after dinner, we sat down with Sam at the table to ask about the toys. We saw it as a cry for help. "They were selected," he said in response. "They weren't doing a good enough job, so they were fired. Their time was up." Charlie told Sam that we don't throw toys away because they cost money and we don't waste things. Sam nodded, but I saw his hands clutch the sides of the Y stick tightly under the table. He was stressing. Something was going on. We ended the conversation on a light note, and Sam understood why we were upset. He promised not to throw away any more toys, then ran off to bed. I just remember thinking how strange the sentence was "their time was up." That was an adult's line: not something you hear from kids.   Sam's school sent an email to all the parents, about two weeks after our hiking trip. The principal pleaded with parents to not let their children come to school if their child was sick, as there was a very serious flu going around the school. He even admitted that five teachers and thirty students had been sick over the last week alone. I showed it to Charlie, but he didn't find it as weird as I did. "Hand sanitizer breeds super bugs," he shrugged. "Just tell Sam to wash his hands more often."   The final straw for me came a few nights later. It was a Wednesday night when I woke up for no reason. Charlie was snoring next to me, but in a lull between snores, I heard a whisper. Fear seized my throat, and I lifted my head off the pillow slowly to peer at the bedroom door. Someone moved in the dark, stumbling along. Someone small and short. Sam. Irritated, I got up and walked to the door. I saw Sam skip away, as if he were crossing a field of spiders and was desperate not to get any on his shoes. "Sam," I whispered, walking out after him. I turned the corner into the family room, but he wasn't there. I heard bare feet race across the kitchen floor, and that made me angry. The little shit was hiding from me. I walked through the family room, and noticed that the clock on the wall was way louder than usual. Or maybe I was hypersensitive because I was exhausted. When I entered the kitchen, Sam was facing me. He stood next to the fridge, and the small LED's on it lit up his expression. He was terrified, and his little Y stick was pointed right at me. "Sam," I hissed in annoyance. "It's late. Go back to bed." "I... need water," he said, still looking at me with wide eyes. It was an obvious lie, but one not abnormal for kids caught up past their bedtime. "Okay, then get some water," I sighed. "Can you get it?" He asked, still clutching the stick and pointing it my way. He must've seen my "mom" look, because he reemphasized. "Please." I walked forward, and that's when I noticed that he pointed the stick around me. He was pointing at something behind me. I whirled around really fast and stared into the... empty darkness of the family room. The clock was still noticeably loud. It sounded like a person saying the actual words. Tick tock. Tick tock. I looked around the room for a full thirty seconds. Nothing moved. "What are you doing up, Sam?" I asked, turning back to face him. He looked at me with real, true terror in his eyes. The stick was shaking in his hand. "Sam," I hissed, snapping a little bit. "It's not time yet," he stuttered, barely glancing at me. His gaze was transfixed beyond me. "I'm not ready yet." For half a second, I wondered if he was pretending to sleep walk. Then I wondered if he actually was sleep walking. Then my tiredness washed over me and I got irritable again. "It's time for bed," I insisted, walking towards him. Still, he kept his eyes behind me, and the stick pointed into the family room. "Okay, okay," he said, defeated as I approached. He took slow, unwilling steps towards the family room. I stood behind him, watching to make sure he went to bed. I saw his head look back and forth, scanning the room as he entered. He was looking for something. He looked back at me with uncertainty. Suddenly, he screamed. "MOM! WATCH OUT!" I instinctively whirled around, hands up and ready to attack whatever was there. Nothing. Nothing but darkness and the far kitchen wall. I ground my teeth and glared down at him. He was still shaking, pointing his stick into the empty kitchen. I was beyond annoyed now. This stick had been out of control for weeks. "I think you need a break from this," I said, snatching the stick from his hand. "No! NO!" He screeched. Sam practically leapt at me, but I jumped out of the way. This was the only way, I assured myself. This stick wasn't healthy after all. "Don't! DON'T!" He cried and yelled, following me through the family room and into the hall. All the attention that he'd pointed into the kitchen was now directed at me. He tried to jump and grab at the stick, but I held it above my head. I felt like a teenage older sibling, teasing my younger brother. But this was necessary. I regretted waking Charlie up, but I pushed my way into my room, tossed the stick onto the floor, and turned back to get Sam out. "Give it to me, give it to me, GIVE IT TO ME!" He demanded without taking a breath. I pushed him out and shut the bedroom door. I flipped the lock on the handle and sighed. "Wuz goin on?" Charlie mumbled. "I took the stick away. He was playing with it all night," I sighed, coming back to bed. Sam was pounding on the door. I convinced Charlie that we should ignore him, let him tire himself out, and tomorrow we would lecture him. He verbally agreed, though I could sense that he didn't agree inside. It took an hour, but Sam gave up, and we went to sleep.   The next morning, my throat felt like I had swallowed sandpaper. The flu. Of course. My stomach rumbled and rousted me out of bed. I found myself starting to run to the master bathroom after my stomach turned nauseous. I puked up spaghetti from dinner the night before. Stumbling out of the bathroom, I had to move aside for Charlie, who couldn't make it to the toilet and threw up into the sink. "Not you too," I sighed sympathetically. "I haven't been this sick since I was a kid," he moaned, rinsing his mouth out. I rubbed my eyes, still tired from Sam's ordeal last night, and got in the shower with the lights off, hoping it would help my light sensitivity. Charlie decided to call in sick and rest for the day. I got ready for the day so I wouldn't lounge around in my pajamas all day, feeling even more sick. When I was completely ready, I unlocked the bedroom door and stepped out. Sam was nowhere in sight, which meant he had gone back to bed. Good. "Sam, I hope you're getting ready for school," I said loudly. No reply. I went to his room, and found the door shut as usual. I twisted the handle and pushed, but the door was stuck. "The hell..." I muttered quietly. Using my shoulder, I shoved hard against the door. I heard a clatter, then the door opened. As I entered, I saw three things right away. One, a chair had been placed under the door handle, preventing it from opening easily. Two, the window was wide open, with the screen missing. And three, Sam wasn't in his room.   We called the police immediately after searching the house from top to bottom. If we hadn't called them, I have no idea where we would have started. Should we have driven around, looking for him? Called his friend's houses to see if they knew where he was? The police were helpful, and I spent a miserable half-day sitting by the phone, puking my guts out and worrying about Sam. The police were out driving around, searching for Sam with his picture taped to their dashboards. Charlie was dead asleep when I wandered into the bedroom, debating lying down. But I couldn't sleep while Sam was missing. The sickness would let me, of course, but the guilt of falling asleep while this was going on was too much. I saw the stick, which had landed partially under the bed when I threw it last night. All this because of a stick? Maybe the doctor was wrong. Maybe he did have something wrong with him, but it was mental. Psychological. Maybe instead of a doctor, we should take him to a psychologist. In an attempt to stay awake, I decided to search the house for the fifteenth time. This time, I carried the stick with me. "Sam," I said, loud enough to be heard while I walked through the family room, kitchen, and to the stairs. Maybe he was hiding in the storage room downstairs. Maybe behind a few boxes. "Sam!" I said again. "I have your stick! I'm sorry I took it! Please come out, mommy is really worried! You aren't in trouble!" I descended the stairs, and halfway down, I thought I heard him reply. It was faint, far away. The words were impossible to make out. "Sam!" I cried desperately, spinning around on the stairs to try and figure out if he was upstairs or downstairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a leg dart around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, towards the storage room. My hunch was correct. I sped down the stairs and turned the corner. The door was closed. I tried to twist the handle, but he had locked it. "Sam, honey, open the door please," I pleaded while reaching for the key at the top of the door frame. When he didn't unlock the door, I stuck the key in and twisted. The door popped open to reveal our pitch black storage room. The room was in the middle of the house and had no windows. It contained our water heater and the control system for the heat and AC. The room was so large, though, that Charlie had built shelves for us to keep our seasonal decorations, our camping supplies, and extra food and water. "Sam," I said more quietly, feeling uneasy. Something about the room was getting to me. "How does the clock tick, mother?" Sam said from somewhere in the room. I froze. The word mother made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Something's not right. Something's not right. "S-Sam, c-come on out now," I stuttered. Light spilled in from the doorway, but it didn't illuminate enough of the room for me to search. I slowly stepped toward the center of the room where a string hung down from a single bulb in the ceiling. With one hand, I kept ahold of the stick. With the other, I reached out to search for the string. I couldn't see it, but I knew it was there somewhere. Suddenly, the door slammed shut, and at that exact instant, my hand brushed against hair. Long, greasy hair at my shoulder height. Sam wasn't that tall. The hair was tangled, and long. I yelped and jumped back, startled by the door and the hair simultaneously. Sam giggled. "Do you know how the clock ticks?" It came from my left, along the wall. The hair had been to my right. What else was in here with us? I was paralyzed. I couldn't see a damn thing. My phone was upstairs, so I couldn't use that as a flashlight. The ceiling light was somewhere in front of me, and the door was somewhere behind me. Every time I started to reach out, I remembered touching the greasy hair, and recoiled. "CHARLIE!" I called upward, hoping he could hear me. Hoping he was awake. "Tick tock, tick tock," Sam said again. My brain instantly remembered the sound the clock had made the night before. It was the same voice. Faintly a voice, and faintly background noise at the same time. "Sam," my voice hoarsely whispered. I had to throw up again. I swallowed bile and felt one more time for the string. It brushed my hand, and I jumped back before realizing that I was feeling string, not greasy hair. Resolutely, I launched my hand out and grabbed at the string. It swung into my hand, and I yanked on it, hard. The single bulb buzzed to life, and something moved to my right. I screamed at the top of my lungs when I saw white and black. It's taken me a long time to place the shape, but now I'm certain. A deer's skull partially covered by stringy hair darted away from the light, circling behind me. In absolute terror, I squeezed my eyes shut and didn't dare open them. In the battle for fight or flight, I turned into the ostrich: burying my head and hoping it didn't see me. I started sobbing, and wanted to run for the door, but I was too scared to open my eyes. "Mommy?" Sam called from my left. I didn't respond, I was sobbing too hard. "Mommy, help, I'm stuck." Very, very slowly, I moved one finger and looked to the side. Sam was huddled up on the top shelf. I couldn't see his face, but I saw jeans and his favorite shirt. "C-come down and let's go," I whispered. "I can't, it's going to get me," Sam whimpered. I tried hard not to sob again. "Come and get me, please," he begged. I fought through the terror and stepped toward the shelf, still covering my face and using a small gap in my fingers to navigate. When I reached the shelf, I closed my eyes and held my arms up. "Climb into my arms, Sam. I'll get you down and we'll go get your dad," my voice broke at the end. "I'm stuck. My shirt is caught," he cried. "Okay, okay," I said, trying to be brave for him. "Guide my hand to where it is and I'll get you loose." He paused. "It's... at the back of the shelf. You can't reach." I bit my lip to stop its trembling. With both eyes still closed, I placed my hands on the top shelf, and my foot on the bottom shelf. The stick was placed on the shelf so I could use both my hands. I hoisted myself up so I could reach, and balanced precariously. "Where is it, honey?" I asked, refusing to open my eyes. "Reach here," he said, and I could feel him rotate so I could reach over him. I did, and my hand ran straight into a mess of tangled, greasy hair. My eyes opened in shock. It stared back at me for only a millisecond. In that millisecond, it spoke. Not with words. But in my head. Do you know how the clock ticks? It is fed by death. The shelf under my feet collapsed, and as I fell, my hands pulled the shelf until it toppled over, coming down on top of me.   I woke up in the hospital, much to Charlie and Sam's relief. It was a tumult of information and questions. They asked why I was down there, and instead of sounding insane, I said that I'd been searching for Sam again just in case. Sam had been found walking on the road in the general direction of the hiking spot. He wasn't very far, thankfully, and was unharmed. When Charlie practically yelled, asking why the hell he had left in the middle of the night alone, Sam said he needed to find another stick to stop the monsters. The police were, of course, recommending that he talk to a psychologist. They'd overheard the conversation. Charlie didn't wake up until the police were at our door with Sam in hand. That was about an hour after the shelf had collapsed on me. Sam and Charlie had gone looking for me in the house, and found me under the collapsed shelving. The police had been right there, thankfully, and I was rushed off to the hospital. Some of my ribs were broken and so was my left leg. The shelf that had collapsed on me had held our camping tent, the fake Christmas tree, and a few other half-empty boxes. I was lucky that it wasn't the food storage shelving. The door was locked when they got to it, and the key wasn't in the lock, so they had to break it down. The second Sam saw the scene, he apparently stood over me in a protective stance, looking all around. Charlie left to get the police before they left upstairs.   A couple of days after I got released from the hospital, and after Charlie had recovered from a flu that knocked him off his feet, I got to talk to Sam. I asked him outright what had been going on. It took a few minutes of him denying that anything was wrong. "I saw the... monster," I admitted, which a parent really shouldn't do to their child. "You did?" He asked incredulously. I nodded. "You and dad never saw them before. When did you see them?" "Them?" I asked nervously. Sam told me what had been happening for the last few weeks. He had stumbled upon the stick by literally tripping over it. It had "spoken to him" and he took it to play with it. Whenever he had the stick, he could "see the monsters." "They were scary, but they stayed away when I pointed the stick at them," he said. A few of them had followed us home, walking alongside us on the trail. They came into the house at night and snuck around. They came into Sam's room, our room, everywhere. "They told me that someone had to die. They told me that you had to die." So, he offered the monsters toy sacrifices to satiate their hunger. But, they were unsatisfied. "Whenever I didn't have the stick, I could feel them try to grab me. But they stayed away whenever I had the stick. They kept telling me that your time was up." "Whose time?" "Yours, mommy." They sat with him at night and changed "tick tock" at him. They tried to convince him to put the stick down. They offered him candy that the "big, blurry man" pulled out of thin air. At school, they followed him and said they would hurt people until he put away the stick. Five teachers and thirty students got the flu while they threatened that. He held on to the stick as often as he could and patrolled the house at night to keep them out of my room. That was until I took the stick. Apparently, he had grabbed the stick from a skeleton in the woods. It looked like an animal's skeleton. He had seen another one just like it when he got the first one, so he was going to go back and get the second one so the monsters would "stop smiling." One had followed him on the streets, he said. But now, they were all gone. And after looking through the mess of the collapsed shelving, so was the stick.   Sam told his psychologist about our conversation. His psychologist told me very angrily that I should not have admitted anything like that because it fed into his delusions. He was being looked at for possible schizophrenia. I'm thinking I should be tested too. How else do I explain everything that happened? One detail stands out that I can't explain. I had unlocked the door to the storage room and left the key in the handle. So why was the key found dangling from the light bulb string? submitted by /u/stickinthewoods38 to r/nosleep [link] [comments]