catbum

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Okay, this is fascinating ... And makes me wonder how often this--what I will call "academic honorable discharge"--really occurs across institutions, well-known or not.

I haven't delved into your sources yet, so this is my somewhat educated guess ... Environmentally, this type of social breakdown makes sense with the lack of proper oversight, seasoned leadership, and organization appropriate to the study population. But did the low sodium diet itself serve any factor in the violence that occured in this botched study? Like, did kids being dietarily withheld a critical electrolyte affect the speed and intensity with which cracks in the camp structure split open?

Not trying to be too lighthearted here, but my guess in short: The kids went extra bonkers because of altered body and brain chemistry, with a lack of sodium (assuming the diet was initiated on Day 1) being a key aggressor in... making teen aggression more aggressive?

Right?! Especially if it was an off-the-cuff agreement. But if I had a few minutes to think it over, I would buy that anyone serious enough to get verifiable competitive offers using a third party would be serious enough to come back for those better offers if the current employer doesn't bite. (This is assuming you can't arrange new employment without the temp agency's involvement for whatever contractual reason. Not sure how they typically work.)

Have you heard any specific reasons for the mail hoarder's actions at your current workplace, or is it still a fresh case? I'm guessing it was nefarious, since the mail outbox was closer and seemingly more obvious than the secret stashing cabinet. Just wanted to be a dingus to intended mail recipients? I'd also be curious if it was all mail they handled or just select pieces. So many burning questions!!

I am a contractor so I don't work in a standard office setting right now. I miss the heck out of juicy office gossip, at least about those who deserve such sordid stories! (Karen in accounting is actually really nice, Carl.)

With the rest of the house being normal-to-very clean, it's almost like the parents were never able to make her clean her room because she was a territorial "devil" child, and they just let it slide for years and years.

Maybe what started as s genuine attempt at hangout ended up with her finally recognizing how embarrassing the situation was, leading to her cooling off during later chats?

Either that or it was all an elaborate ruse to get the wild child a free room cleaning and the parents were somehow in on it and everyone except you in this story is actually nuts!

Quite the spectrum of possibility, really. But honestly, I have a feeling your help might have helped her grow up and out of her family's (or her own) neglect. It was a kind thing you did, regardless of the weird-ass circumstances!

I'm sorry but why does he look like an aging emo?

I love this! Free cat scratchers might not seem like they have much value, but has anyone seen the price of those ready-made things?! They're pushing $20 for a large-ish flat scratcher at lower volume places like TSC, but Target isn't much better, still $10 for a 10" x 18" flat cheapy.

Down with bougie cat cardboard!!!

[Warning: ridiculous existential musings incoming from your question. I lost someone recently and I'm questioning everything.]

What if the Religious Right is some kind of modern-day antithesis to the Tree of Knowledge, its grotesquely interwoven branches of congregants luring others to eat from, and live within, their Tree of True Evil?

What if, at the Fall, Adam and Eve were merely releasing themselves from their creator and captor, from God himself, through eating the forbidden fruit? And that Eden was no utopia, it was really just a prison?

What if God is the bad guy here? And the Religious Right are a reflection of God's actual being and not the God described so perfectly in Scripture?

What if God is now manifesting himself through the Religious Right, rather than Scripture, to convince more of his "children" to return to his "watchful" guard, to be rewarded in Heaven, to live with Him, in Him, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, all Glory is Yours Almighty Father, forever and eeeeveeer??

I mean, he put us here, right? Why can't he just stop the whole thing in its tracks? Or ... Maybe he doesn't have all the power in this sticky Creation situation? Maybe...

Wait. Why does God sound like a scumbag ex?

Guys, what if we have it all backwards?

What if we have a Mom God, and Dad God just made up that bullshit about the rib to explain away any questions about a possible Mom God, let alone ever giving her a written word? (I made her, so I speak for her.)

What if we're in the middle of some sort of nasty interuniversal deity custody dispute??? Maybe Mom God didn't want us to suffer, so we were emancipated, and our entire existence was supposed to be Deity-Free, but Dad God couldn't handle not having control, taxing the shit out out of us with biblical directives even he doesn't follow, instead of receiving some secure attachment to Mom God via knowledge of the physical realities of this world.

Is Dad God just looking to yank all his kids back, and I mean all of them, no matter how willing or unwilling they are to go home with Almighty Daddy? But he can't, because he can't just rapture us outright, or the jig is up, and so we have to live according to see who gets lucky enough to stay at his house and drink all the Holy Mountain Dew and eat all the Holy Hot Pockets we can guzzle down?

What if the Devil isn't a fallen angel at all, but actually Mom God being slandered and literally demonized by Daddy? And Mom God was only here trying to bring us knowledge of our own autonomy and ability, to set us free?

... Maybe Dad God is only trying to get more child support so he can buy more simulators on Steam and never actually play them because he's greedy and lazy and every other deadly sin he likes to project onto us. I mean, we were made in his image, right? No wonder everyone is capable of inhumanity. Dude wants to keep us locked up. That seems pretty inhumane.

Yet he says he is perfect. "Yeeahhh, everything wrong you filthy humans is because of that damned snake in the tree!!!" No, we were always the way we were, Dad God, that "damned devil" was just trying to help us get out from under God's graceless grace.

We are a forgotten Steam sim, mommy tried, and daddy never loved us.

^ahhhhh^ ^im^ ^so^ ^high^ ^sorry^ ^guys^

Edit: apparently I can't spell deity.

Alright. As I yield to yet another cannabis-laced existential crisis, picking idly, furiously, at my own damn identity and supposed role in whatever this place, space, realm is ... Well, this hit me (pun shockingy not intended) and my current mental state so close to home, it's not even funny. Except it is. In a bittersweet way, I love it.

I love this style of webcomic (bookcomic? lul) and I feel like I'm about to dive headlong into another beautifully depressing, identity-shattering rabbit hole like I did with Elan School.

Edit: I'd never seen this or the full book before, so if you do check out Elan School (which is non-fiction btw, at least in this reality, hahaha), be warned, it's a lot longer than 22 pages. So worth it though. A wiiiild ride.

Alternative Protein ... because sourcing your nutrients somewhat humanely from a farmed food animal is WOKE PROPAGANDA

She looks like she subsists on a diet made purely of literal crickets and collagen injections anyway. Gives her that hollow, sinewy vibe she likes so much. And with all that lean protein just sitting there, why would she not give the freshly slaughtered Cricket a little nibble? Waste not, want not after all. Now that is the conservative way, Kristi!

[I hate that I wrote this out and that I'm supposedly her constituent.]

Oh

Oh no

Not the person you replied to, but you make a great point. There's most certainly ulterior motives for joining forces. However, I would prefer to work alongside and run against (in future elections, may the voters work to keep them in existence) a relatively honorable opponent using this tactic as a means try to keep their seat, rather than their turning farther right, emboldening and embodying every trait of a traitorous enemy.