I thought it would be the ruptured appendix, but it turned out to be the dental abscess that made me wish for death.

Life has a way of surprising you. Take care of your teeth

Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you

I also find it degrading, but honesty costs me something here. That’s why I’m looking for ways to deflect instead of pretending

“Not great but I don’t want to expand on it” is pretty much exactly the kind of response I’m looking for

Thank you for teaching me some new words

I use this a lot. It makes me think of that old poster with the cat hanging from the tree. Something cute to think of when I’m fighting for my life

I’m also a fan of “feels like Monday” through the rest of the week

I’m a big fan of doing my best. My best happens to be shit a lot of the time, but it’s still my best. As long as you’re doing your best, and not trying to kill yourself by doing more than your best, I think there’s honour in that

Around here it’s definitely more of a greeting. I wish it was more of a genuine interest because then I wouldn’t feel so weird about answering truthfully when things aren’t great.

The context can make a big difference here. Friends and family are more likely to actually care. With coworkers and customers it’s often better to keep them at arms’ length because a negative response can get you labelled as not a team player, or receive customer complaints.

Some days I worry I’ll be too candid with my employer and I’ll lose my job as a result. That one is probably my own biased perception, but shit, it’s happened before.

Even as someone who’s often bothered by the question, I’m fairly guilty of asking it myself, you’re right that there’s no escape.

My grandfather is quite ill, and his usual response is “as well as can be expected”

I’m a big fan of this one, I started using it as a mantra when I got sick of “this too shall pass”

Am retail worker. I’m taking notes here

I’ve looked at adopting. I don’t want biological children, but I still want to raise kids and give them what I never had.

In my jurisdiction, adoption sucks. You have to foster a child for 24 months before you can legally adopt them. That seems fair, on the surface I don’t have any problems with that. While you’re fostering, it invites a lot more scrutiny, like visits from the state to make sure you’re a fit parent - something bio parents don’t have to deal with unless there’s already been a complaint.

We have kind of weird legislation though. Like, while you’re fostering a child, the bio-parents have a right to see them (unless they were forcibly removed for neglect or whatever). I’m not sure exactly what’s involved in the process, but the bio-parents can also decide to take their kid back.

So imagine you’ve bonded with this child, you’ve cared for them for a year and a half, and at this point you think of them as your kid. Then the parents, whom you might not have ever met, take your kid away. That’s got to be difficult to deal with.

The good news is that if the parents decide that they’re not cut out for parenting after all, you can foster the same child (that’s got to be crushing for the child). Bad news is that resets the clock on your 24-month fostering before adoption. I have a friend in childcare told me this story - no idea if it’s true or not - about parents taking their kids back for a week or two before getting tired of them and abandoning them again, often in a continuous cycle. The kids and the foster parents definitely suffer for that.

So anyway, these are the local rules for operating within our foster care system here. Most adoptive parents choose to instead work with some overseas outfits - but then you’re looking at a five-figure application fee, plus a ton of interviews and traveling. Which again, I’m not really opposed to the background checks and such, but you can make a baby for free without any of that. Plus I’m not really sure how you can properly vet an organization to make sure that there isn’t any trafficking involved.

My wife is also open to adoption but she also wants at least one bio-kid of her own. I’ve always thought that’s got to be a weird dynamic for the kids. Or maybe it’s not, I don’t know I’ve never been adopted.

I’m sorry for your loss. Grief is never easy, and it’s especially more difficult when you have the responsibility of managing your loved ones’ estate.

My mom lost her mom a few months ago. She was the executor of her estate too, and she also lamented that she never got the time or space to mourn. My relationship with my grandmother was complicated, for me the hardest part was knowing that I’ll be doing the same for my mom someday, probably sooner than I’d like.

I tried to help her through it, but she wouldn’t really let me. I think she felt that cutting through all the red tape and working through family stuff gave her something to keep her occupied, although it was clear that it wasn’t easy. She’s finally starting to make the time to mourn now, and I know that someday you’ll get a chance to too.

Anyway, I’m not much of a mom, but if you need help, advice, or someone to send you a hug, I’m here for you

My always-on doomscroll device’s weather app today told me about an aviation accident that killed two people in another country

I just wanted to know if the snow was going to let up, why am I getting international news of death and dismemberment?

Literally an hour ago my boss tells me he doesn’t think I’m working fast enough because things aren’t always getting finished. I tell him that six months ago the labour budget was reasonable and but now I have half as many hours to do the same amount of work.

He tells me it can’t be helped, the labour budget is what it is. I tell him that the work can’t be helped without more labour, because it is what it is.

Anyway, I guess what I learned on the job is if you use management’s own words against them you’ll get written up

I used to suffer from a lot of existential dread. Like, not sleeping because time spent sleeping was bringing me closer to the time I’d no longer exist.

Whether you worry about it or you don’t, some day you will stop existing. Worrying about it frankly doesn’t help. In fact, it detracts from the dubious pleasure of existing. In my experience, not having fun existing makes me no longer want to exist.

A lot of people advocate for distraction, although personally I think that’s just a temporary escapism. I think we need to confront our eventual non-existence, accept it as a fact of life, and then move on by trying to find meaning in what we have left. Way easier said than done.

CBT is a school of therapy about restructuring our thoughts, and it has a lot to say about confronting the fear of the unknown. Cultivating spiritualism and religion is a traditional way of approaching the problem, although I’d encourage people to seek out and learn what other cultures are saying instead of blindly accepting what their parents’ church says.

Personally, I had a religious experience while accidentally tripping balls on psychedelics. I’m not sure I’d specifically recommend that, it could just as easily backfire, but it helped me and you can find lots of testimonials with a similar story. Maybe it’s better to start with therapy and religion

I think bringing the cart to the corral is the bare minimum, and generally people will try to get away with the minimum for most tasks and social obligations. If you don’t at least bring it to the corral you’re deranged, but beyond that I’d rather a job is done half-assed than not at all.

If I get to the corral and there’s two or three loose carts I’ll stack them with mine. If there’s six or seven I won’t fix them all but I’ll still be as neat as I can.

If the store has different sized carts, this is always a bigger problem. People generally are uncoordinated at figuring that out.

My grocer has one of those schemes where the carts are unlocked by putting a coin in them, and you get the coin back when you return the cart. It works pretty well for keeping things tidy.

Bring back THAC0 Thursdays!

Temporarily out of stock

“Inadvertently” does a lot of heavy lifting here. I believe the intentions behind people’s actions usually matter more than the outcome. This probably doesn’t scale well to large organizations or government, but on the individual level it goes pretty far.

Now that said, the feeling of betrayal from a loved one probably hurts more than from an enemy: from an enemy it’s expected. Although I suppose your enemy is motivated to hurt you more grievously than your loved ones are