38 Comments
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Mary Braun Bates, MD's avatar

I am almost retirement age. Boring is the goal for me. I do not wish to be found interesting by anyone except myself and my immediate family.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

And that’s a perfectly reasonable request.

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John Boyd's avatar

I am already there and doing just that. It is even more satisfying than you think it will be.

So very, very satisfying.

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Flatland Jonny's avatar

Every day is Saturday.

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John Boyd's avatar

Exactly!

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Burt Arthur's avatar

Me too 😉

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Devin Gates's avatar

I'll be mellow when I'm dead!

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Miriam Boland's avatar

I still read Marvel Comix

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Stephen Beals's avatar

As you should.

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Miriam Boland's avatar

My brother, when he first went to make his fortune (ha!) in NYC, got a job at Marvel drawing Silver Surfer. He told us that Submariner and Sufer were the ones given to green newbies to work on.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

Really? Well, congrats to your brother! Not everyone got nice royalties off of those.

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Miriam Boland's avatar

Yep, but I think the pay was low for a fellow like him, so he started doing set design, which he liked better, even though off-broadway the pay still sucked!

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Stephen Beals's avatar

It did, yes. The guys I knew in college who would’ve been great at superhero comics never considered it. Being a storyboard artist paid much better.

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Fell Choice's avatar

You inadvertently illustrate a key advantage of crappy jobs; the store next door is also understaffed. I didn’t have a career either, but jobs in my field were too scarce to quit, so being infected with honesty in childhood* meant years in actively hostile workplaces. One of my life’s best days was getting laid off with severance from a plant I’d worked in for 14 years. That was 2006, and I still dream about being stuck there.

*Yes, even in my 30s and 40s, after decades of contrary experience, I still felt it was my duty to tell my bosses what they needed to know, instead of what they wanted to hear. Be careful what nonsense you teach your kids.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

I can only pretend to care as much as the other managers for so long. They are aware of this.

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The Devil Kitty's avatar

My best friend always tells me "Normal is a setting on washers." Who wants to be a washer?

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Stephen Beals's avatar

I love this!

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Willy from Philly ButNotReally's avatar

Love this, and your name 😉

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The Devil Kitty's avatar

My Void inspired both username and avatar; he's lucky he's cute enough to get away with it!

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Sumotoad's avatar

Peaches do not ripen off the tree. They get mushier and are so-so if you add enough sugar, but they’re still not ripe. Pears, yes. Avocadoes, mos def. Tomatoes, no also.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

They need to stop the lie and use the word degrade. They degrade off the tree.

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Sumotoad's avatar

There used to be peach and pear orchards here. As a kid I earned my money working in them. The softball-size peaches drenched my face in sugary juice that was sublime, a flavor we’ll never find a store.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

Someone gave us actual pears when I was a kid, and I couldn’t believe how good pears could be. I’ve been ranting about the sad state of store pears since I was a kid, basically.

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The Devil Kitty's avatar

That explains why the peaches I ate in childhood tasted so much better than the current ones available. When I was a kid, we got them from in the state with a day's travel at most. They still offer them in season in small, more expensive batches, but most are shipped in from California or South America.

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DAVID's avatar

I’m not here trying to be weird. I’m here just sabotaging store tomatoes by growing delicious ones and then spreading them around to friends and neighbors. I’m still waiting for someone to say mmm, that’s really good. Store tomatoes are gross.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

A fellow rebel!

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Arrietty's avatar

When you're a stranger...🎵 sorry, I had to.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

They are addictive lyrics.

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W. Michael Johnson's avatar

I too dreamed, literally for years, after working at a particular place. It should have been a creative, collegial job. The company had a national reputation and a sense of play not often found in the big leagues. Unfortunately, my company was owned by a larger company, where they decided they didn't like the way our managers (the founders) were doing things. Most of my colleagues at HQ were fired. Within weeks, I found myself absolutely in the wrong place, but I hung in because the money was pretty good, I was edging into middle age, and I suspected I could do no better. Then I found out I was probably next on the chopping block. I bailed out.

I did fine. No complaints. But my subconscious kept dragging me back into that office as I slept.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

I’ve heard of similar scenarios several times. Parent companies sound like a nightmare. I’m happy to have worked only for a super conglomerate and not for its subsidiary.

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Jim's avatar

Adam Mastroianni would disagree with you about the level of weird. Whether that's because the weirdness quotient is actually getting lower or that most weirdness just gets lost in the vaster weirdness I don't know. I found the poll wasn't for me there was no I'm weird because I can't help it choice

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Stephen Beals's avatar

“Weird is just an opinion, man.” Would be a better option.

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Hobbes's avatar

My eighth grade science teacher was Mr. Thomson. He would be dismayed to learn he had been spelling his name wrong all these years.

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The Devil Kitty's avatar

Just wanted to let you know the polls don't seem to work for me, I click on my choice and it does nothing. Not really sure what I'm doing wrong.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

I spend half of my day, it seems trying to fix stuff that makes me say, “Hmmm, that’s weird.” That sounds like either a browser or Substack thing. It’s the same standard poll everyone else uses. All I can offer is a “Hmmm, that’s weird,” which is pretty useless. Sorry about that.

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The Devil Kitty's avatar

Huh, and now it's working for me! Maybe I did something wrong with my account. Either way, not your fault.

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Stephen Beals's avatar

I love it when things aren’t my fault.

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Hobbes's avatar

I picture Hannibal Smith of the A-Team saying that. Poor Schmo Who Need Help: "Help me, A-team! I have problems only you can solve!"

Hannibal Smith: "Well, we didn't cause them. Go away!" *says to the team* "I love it when things aren't my fault."

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