My class 10/10 lost the plot today. I don’t even know where to start or how to explain to their parents that I think they’ve all turned into tiny little rebels.
9:10 - we are studying a report about Chernobyl in guided reading. Several are looking at me gone out when I explain that nuclear power can be dangerous. “So why use it?” one asks. Why indeed.
9:12 - we are now discussing renewable energy. Several more express outrage and ask why the country doesn’t have to use renewable energy. Several more state that we should avoid pollution because it kills polar bears and stuff right, Miss?
9:13 - I mention that it’s a complicated issue because of different viewpoints, and that certain people, say Drumpf, don’t believe in climate change.
9:14 - chaos.
9:15 - small child suggests someone murder Drumpf. I say that murder is both bad and illegal.
9:16 - the class have learned the word impeach and are shouting IMPEACH TRUMP IMPEACH TRUMP IMPEACH TRUMP while banging on the tables.
9:17 - headteacher comes in to see what is going on. Small child tells him quite angrily that SOME PEOPLE JUST DECIDE TO NOT BELIEVE IN SCIENCE WHICH YOU CAN’T DO BECAUSE IT’S SCIENCE. He backs out of the room quite quickly.
9:25 -I have abandoned plans for grammar and the children are now writing persuasive pieces about Why We Should Use Renewable Energy.
The saga continued after lunch when we continued our WW2 topic work, learning about the holocaust.
1:35 - we are discussing Kristalnacht. The class are collectively outraged and appalled. One is in tears.
1:40 - “Miss, I fucking hate Hitler.” that’s okay, but please express your hatred of fascism without the F word or I’ll have to ring your Mum again.
2:00 - small child who suggested murder earlier says “isn’t this exactly what Drumpf tried to do to the Muslims?” There’s a heady mix of realisation and outrage in the room.
2:13 - “Racism makes no sense” says a child, looking quite confused.
2:33 - “Hitler would have killed me because I’ve got cerebral palsy, right?” says a boy. He is tackle-hugged by a girl from across the table. I have to pretend I’m not crying.
2:34 - The rest of his table have made a pact to never let anyone hurt him. I am still pretending to be super chill. I am obviously failing as another child offers me a hug.
2:37 - I ask the children to look at nine examples of things the nazis did against Jewish people, and then arrange them in a diamond with what they consider the worst at the top.
2:38 - Mutiny. They all collectively decide to arrange all nine cards in a line and say that they’re all awful things so they all go at the top.
2:39 - I tell them if they kind find a way to fit a line of all nine in their books then fair enough. Smart child suggests a circle. Everyone cheers. We have a break, and they go outside raging about Hitler, Drumpf, racism, prejudice and injustice in general. I am handed a very strong tea by my TA who congratulates me on my gang of angry eleven year olds.
Faith in humanity both challenged and restored. Bring on tomorrow.
I LOVE YOU AND I LOVE YOUR CLASS AND I LOVE THIS STORY AND YOU ARE AMAZING
so at the bar in which I work, there’s an unofficial rule that all of our door staff must have names that start with D or rhyme with ‘doorman’, which has led to me befriending a trio of six foot four men with beards called Doorman Logan, Doorman Drew, and Doorman Dan.
now, let me tell you now that Doorman Dan is the absolute love of my life. I don’t care that he’s a decade older than me and has a fiance. you know when someone is so extraordinary or impossible to define that they’re simply referred to as ‘a character’? that’s Doorman Dan. now, before I get into his personality, let’s describe his appearance. imagine the most stereotypical Scandinavian person ever: tall, white-blond, strong-jawed. now, add a heavy South Walian accent and an orange jumper.
that’s Doorman Dan.
since meeting him last year, I’ve discovered:
he once had a dream that he had a tattoo that said ‘shit happens’ on his left arsecheek, so when he woke up he decided he had to fulfil the prophecy and got it tattooed on his arse by a bloke called Junkie Jeff at 9AM
he forgot to call his girlfriend for three months while he was in the army, and was completely unaware they had broken up until he wished her a happy Christmas and she responded with ‘what the fuck Dan’
accidentally married his army buddy in Vegas for thirty-six hours
he saw someone beating up a guy for being gay, and instead of jumping in and fighting back he decided to get absolutely bollock-naked and stand in front of the homophobe until he got freaked out and ran off
he has a millionare buddy who rings him up once a month for ‘mystery adventures’, one of which has resulted in Doorman Dan no longer being allowed inside any John Lewis shops
he is convinced the love of his life is not his fiancee, but a man named Ned. upon being asked who Ned is, he shrugged and responded with: “I’ll know when I meet him.”
he runs an Instagram account dedicated to his pet rabbits and refuses to let people into the bar unless they follow him
his fiancee booked a wedding venue before he even proposed. “I don’t even know if I’m invited, truth be told.”
when he caught a couple having sex in our loos, he didn’t want to intrude so he just gently knocked on the door and asked if they’d like a snack
he has created his own non-alcoholic cocktail called Doorman’s Sunrise because he feels left out being the only person on the dance floor without a drink when he’s patrolling the bar
I could honestly write a ten-season sitcom about him
On the topic of humans being everyone’s favorite Intergalactic versions of Gonzo the Great: Come on you guys, I’ve seen all the hilarious additions to my “humans are the friendly ones” post. We’re basically Steve Irwin meets Gonzo from the Muppets at this point. I love it.
But what if certain species of aliens have Rules for dealing with humans?
Don’t eat their food. If human food passes your lips/beak/membrane/other way of ingesting nutrients, you will never be satisfied with your ration bars again.
Don’t tell them your name. Humans can find you again once they know your name and this can be either life-saving or the absolute worst thing that could happen to you, depending on whether or not they favor you. Better to be on the safe side.
Winning a human’s favor will ensure that a great deal of luck is on your side, but if you anger them, they are wholly capable of wiping out everything you ever cared about. Do not anger them.
If you must anger them, carry a cage of X’arvizian bloodflies with you, for they resemble Earth mo-skee-toes and the human will avoid them.
This does not always work. Have a last will and testament ready.
Do not let them take you anywhere on your planet that you cannot fly a ship from. Beings who are spirited away to the human kingdom of Aria Fiv-Ti Won rarely return, and those that do are never quite the same.
Basically, humans are like the Fair Folk to some aliens and half of them are scared to death and the others are like alien teenagers who are like “I dare you to ask a human to take you to Earth”.
We knew about the planet called Earth for centuries before we made contact with its indigenous species, of course. We spent decades studying them from afar.
The first researchers had to fight for years to even get a grant, of course. They kept getting laughed out of the halls. A T-Class Death World that had not only produced sapient life, but a Stage Two civilization? It was a joke, obviously. It had to be a joke.
And then it wasn’t. And we all stopped laughing.Instead, we got very, very nervous.
i Still cant believe sneaking out is an Actual thing that teenagers Do
this is just so unrealistic to me like what the fuck how do yall do it??? i have Arguments and Questions
1. like what am i supposed to do if i live in a building??? do i just wait for the elevator?? do i take the stairs?? mind me there could be a Lot of stairs 2. how THE FUCK do yall manage to do all this shit without waking anyone up?? this is So Fake!! if i so much as sneeze into my pillow my mom will come into my room and see if my ass is okay and then complain that i woke her up 3. HOW THE FUCK DONT YOUR PARENTS REALIZE YALL ARE GONE?? AND HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO COME BACK?? WHAT THE FUCK!! 4. if my mom found out that id been going places in the middle of the night u bet your ass id be dead the next day 5. i dont believe in this concept At All
i mean i guess it’s possible the way american houses are built but it’s still a bit far fetched imo but yea growing up in Puerto Rico in an urbanizacion it was like lmao you can’t sneak out in a house like that. first of all our windows are miami style of whatever, second of all there’s only 1 functioning door (technically our house had 2 but 1 of them had potted plants on both sides so it was never used but in any case both were on the same side of the house), and the house is so small like you would hear someone opening and closing it. plus you just know at least 1 person on your street would be up and would spill that piping hot tea to your parents the next day.
so my sister snuck out of the house one night because we live in an old house in the country that’s always creaking and “settling” which, good news: is perfect for sneaking out because there’s always weird noises anyway; bad news: we’re in the middle of the woods and there’s always creepy fucking noises
but hey, what are white girls gonna do except sneak out at night and through the woods to go have sex with their boyfriends?
what could go wrong??
and I do literally mean through the woods. our driveway is a quarter of a mile long through actual wooded area, and she wasn’t smart enough to grab a flashlight. but she could sort of see the headlights of her boyfriend’s car at the very end so it wasn’t so bad going down to be picked up
except when she got dropped off, she had to make the trip back up the driveway, through the dark scary woods, with no light whatsoever, at like 3 am or some other Gonna Get White Girl Murdered time
and she was high as fuuuuuuuuuuck
so she’s creeping her way back up the driveway, trying to move slow or else she’ll fall off the ground and get lost in the sky forever. really fucking high
then she steps on a frog
because we also have a 3 acre “pond” like our property isn’t fucking creepy enough already and my first-time-to-ever-be-high sister stepped on a FROG and apparently it both squished and belched, and keep in mind that with no light whatsoever she doesn’t know what the fuck just happened AT ALL
I wake up to a series of frantic text messages
hlp he lp HEL
dont’ tell momd and dad
i jsut murdered somtheing
also, just for context, this is also the sister that pierced her own ears and gave herself a stick’n’poke tattoo with a lighter and my mom’s sewing needle because she “got restless” and picked a fight with a girl two grades above, half a foot taller, and probably a hundred pounds heavier AND WON
(it doesn’t matter if you’re smol if you get ‘em on the ground and get on top)
anyway
so waking up to an “I just murdered something” text from her was … actually kind of inevitable. siblings are either ride or die or no officer I’ve never seen that person before, and that night, I decided I was ride or die
so then I take MY dumb white girl ass out into the woods in the middle of the night, but at least I’m smart enough to take a flashlight. sister had already texted me she was “onthe driveways” but again, that’s a quarter mile journey
finally I arrive at the scene of the crime
sister: sitting in the gravel, crying, makeup a Mess
frog: laying still beside her, looking like a slightly smaller Jabba the Hut
she points at the frog and sobs that it’s a heart. obviously a frog. a fucking BIG ASS frog, but still. I’m relieved, but also super pissed, because I drug myself out of bed, snuck out too, and dangled my sumptuous human body in front of all the Forest Monsters on my way down here and there isn’t even a fucking body
just a frog, which I pick up to show her is not a heart, and turns out to only be stunned! not dead! still very much alive and full of pee!!
so it pisses all over me and slimes out of my hand, escaping into the night
also, I totally held my sister’s hand with my Piss Hand as I led her back home because she deserved it
I know a guy who ended up becoming a professional chef because of the tim burton charlie and the chocolate factory movie and i guarantee none of you will be able to guess how
ok so this movie came out like, 2005ish? And this kid was in his early teens, so 12-14 years old i guess. And he’s watching this movie and there’s the scene where the chewing gum kid, Violet something, is chewing the gum that tastes like a three course meal and the first two tastes are tomato soup and roast beef and that’s all well and good but then it gets to blueberry pie and OOP she’s all swollen up like a ten-foot tall human blueberry.
And this kid, being the age he was, had just kinda started puberty and might’ve had a little crush on Violet to start with, so all the feelings and hormones got a lil mixed up while watching that scene and he ended up with a great big inflation kink.
So this is a thing for a few more years, he’s cranking his hog to deviantart pictures of big ol balloon ladies and the kink develops (as they sometimes do) into one where he gets off from watching those videos where people eat a ton of food.
But then from there he starts to become interested, not in the person eating the food, but the food itself. Pretty soon he’s watching cooking video tutorials and attempting to cook for his family and within a couple years he’s got good. Real good. So good, in fact, that he publishes a modest cookbook at age 17 and makes enough money off selling it to buy himself a car. By the time he’s graduated highschool he’s had scholarships and apprenticeship offers from no less that 5 separate cooking schools, three of which were international.
He told me all this inbetween throwing up in a bathtub at a party we were both at. I hadn’t actually met him beforehand but id seen him around school a few times (he was a couple years older than me).
Last I heard of him, he’s working as the head chef in some big boy restaurant back in my city and has at least one award for something.
And that’s how some guy became a professional chef thanks to tim burtons charlie and the chocolate factory movie
“The blue-ringed octopus, despite its small size, carries enough venom to kill twenty-six adult humans within minutes. Their bites are tiny and often painless, with many victims not realizing they have been envenomated until respiratory depression and paralysis start to set in.[8] No blue-ringed octopus antivenom is available yet, making it one of the deadliest reef inhabitants in the ocean.”
Holy shit
And this is why I don’t go in the ocean anymore
Also the blue rings literally only show up when it is distressed so this person has angered it!!! You are in danger friend!!!
Actually this guy keeps them as pets they’re on his instagram (william_exotique) and he frequently holds then and I just? Don’t know why? And also every picture or video he posts of them shows the blue rings so they’re always in distress I just do not understand why he’s doing this
I mean OP pretty much covered it. A blue ringed octopus is almost on the level of CONE SNAIL on the list of things you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT PICK UP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
But ask and you shall receive, On this episode of “Fun Facts With Cuckoo,” DEAD. YOU’RE DEAD. EVERYTHING IS DEAD AND YOU SHOULD NEVER TOUCH ANYTHING IN THE OCEAN EVER AGAIN.
There are many things that will kill you.
[citation needed]
There are fewer, but still many things that will kill you FAST.
There are yet fewer things that kill you fast and by such an overwhelming margin of overkill that nervous laughter is our only solace in the dark of this terrible, surprisingly Lovecraftian world of unearthly horrors that we live in.
Of the things that I know about which will kill you fast via just plain insultingly potent venom, which is a not insignificant number of things because I know a not insignificant number of things, there are about 3 things in the ocean – IN THE WHOLE OCEAN – which are so insanely, mind-bogglingly deadly that there is pretty much no possible hope for survival (I mean you CAN, but god help you if you’re ever in that situation, because god’s just about damn near the only thing that CAN help you). THE. WHOLE. OCEAN.
Those three things are the Irukandji (a tiny (1cm) species of box jellyfish, which has stingers not only on its tentacles but on its BELL, for reasons no one has definitively figured out, and is so toxic despite its size its sting can cause a severe brain hemorrhage), the cone snail (a group of carnivorous sea snails that is accepted to be the most venomous animals on earth, with a STUPIDLY fast acting and extremely powerful neurotoxin that has in at least one case killed a human ALMOST INSTANTANEOUSLY, because the swimmer who found two beautiful shells (unfortunately cone snails tend to have very pretty shells which makes people want to pick them up) was holding them up for a picture and ended up being stabbed in the neck by not one but TWO cone snails at the same time, and it is believed that she was literally dead before she hit the ground, I mean LITERALLY in a 100% non-fictional and non-exaggerated way, in between the time the two cone snails stabbed her and the time her limp body hit the sand, she was not alive anymore), and the blue ringed octopus.
It is POSSIBLE to survive any of these. But not without immediate medical attention. Of these three, the Irukandji is by far the most treatable, because Australia and other coastal regions (including Florida and other parts of the US) are kind of experienced in dealing with box jellyfish.
The blue ringed octopus will fucking kill you. There’s no antidote for their venom, ONE COMPONENT OF WHICH (tetrodotoxin) is 1200 times deadlier than cyanide. It’s a powerful neurotoxin (most of the worst venoms are because the species that produce them need to kill or at least paralyze their prey quickly, like jellyfish whose fragile tentacles could be damaged if their food doesn’t stop struggling) that attacks the sodium channels and causes muscle paralysis. It doesn’t necessarily kill you quickly. It PARALYZES you quickly, so that you can’t really call for help or describe the problem, and you will probably end up slowly suffocating from a paralyzed diaphragm. Tetrodotoxin can be metabolized by the body in a matter of hours, but it can also kill you in a matter of minutes if you get a lethal dose (which isn’t much, the
LD50
or median lethal dose, the dose at which you have a 50% chance of survival, is only 8 MICROGRAMS per kilogram of body weight (as tested in mice)). This is, by venom standards, not a large amount, which means the animal that is capable of putting this venom inside your body is very very good at killing the absolute shit out of you.
DON’T TOUCH THE BLUE RINGED OCTOPUS.
Now, because overkill is my motto, let me briefly explain why Conus geographus is the undisputed champion of YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE, AND FURTHERMORE FUCK YOU FOR THINKING OTHERWISE.
A cone snail walks into a bar. You’d expect the bartender to ask, “what’s your poison,” but they were paralyzed before they could ask and OH LOOK they’re already FUCKING DEAD ON THE GROUND.
Conus geographus is about 4-6 inches long and nature’s equivalent of Avada Kedavra. Cone snails literally have their own KIND of toxins named after them: conotoxin. Not only is there no antidote, but their venom AGGRESSIVELY RESISTS our ability to find a cure, because we barely understand how it works AND conotoxins are so internally varied, even within a single species, that any one antidote isn’t going to help because they’re constantly mutating and evolving their venom to prevent their prey from evolving a resistance to it. Plus their venom is like, a bunch of different venoms all at once JUST IN CASE any one of them wasn’t good enough.
I want you to read these two sentences from the wiki page on conotoxin:
“Conotoxins have a variety of mechanisms of actions, most of which have not been determined.”
Remember how the
LD50 of tetrodotoxin is 8μg/kg? Conotoxin is 160 times more potent. FIFTY NANOGRAMS PER KILOGRAM HAS A 50% CHANCE OF KILLING YOU. A 220-POUND HUMAN HAS A 50% CHANCE OF SURVIVAL AGAINST JUST 5 MICROGRAMS OF CONOTOXIN.
I DID SOME MATH.
IT WOULD TAKE 7-9 MILLIGRAMS OF CONOTOXIN TO KILL A BLUE WHALE, THE HEAVIEST ANIMAL TO EVER LIVE. (based on weight estimates from 300-400,000 lbs.)
Conus geographus is so fucking deadly that “In two cases of envenomation, only 0.0002-0.0005 mg resulted in severe paralysis.”
THIS THING KILLS STUFF SO HARD THAT BEFORE YOU HEAR THE FIRST “MORTAL KOMBAT” IN THE MORTAL KOMBAT THEME, THERE’S PROBABLY ALREADY BEEN A FATALITY.
And guess what? Cone snails don’t do that NOOB SHIT with the superficial biting or stinging. Your wetsuit or gloves won’t protect you. Because homeboy didn’t bring teeth to evolution’s knife fight. Oh no. It brought a motherfucking radula POISON HARPOON. It’s lightning fast and has way more piercing power than some silly little cnidocytes or salivary bacteria.
Another component of their venom is being researched for its potential as a pain reliever. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT????” you might reasonably ask. And you would be right to do so, because science has gone too far and has surely sinned against the very image of Mollusca Kedavra. Well, it turns out the answer is “Research shows that certain component proteins of the venom target specific human pain receptors and can be up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine without morphine’s addictive properties and side-effects.” That’s right, the part of their venom that SPECIFICALLY DOESN’T HURT YOU is up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine.
Also, Conus geographus (along with one other cone snail species, C. tulipa) is the only known non-human animal to weaponize insulin. In addition to the normal insulin that the snails produce for their own use, their bodies manufacture an ADDITIONAL insulin molecule that is similar to the kind produced in fish (which they eat) for the sole purpose of stunning their prey through hypoglycemic shock. BECAUSE APPARENTLY THEY DON’T FEEL LIKE THEY’D KILL YOU HARD ENOUGH OTHERWISE.
IF you are going to survive the ALMIGHTY CONE SNAIL, WHO KNOWS NO FEAR, TRIUMPHANT HEDGEMON OF THE MOLECULAR ARMS RACE, TRUE BORN HEIR TO THE SCYTHE OF DEATH ITSELF, FISHSLAYER, GOD AMONG MOLLUSKS, WHOSE WRATH IS MERCIFUL ONLY IN ITS BREVITY, ADMIRABLE IN ITS BEAUTY AND UNSULLIED BY THE UNWORTHY TOUCH OF MORTAL HANDS OR SCALES OR REALLY ANYTHING IN RANGE OF ITS RADULA HARPOON, then literally the only thing that’s going to save you is for you to be kept alive artificially (externalizing your respiratory functions to force your body to continue breathing, basically) until the effects of the venom wear off. And because of how quickly this venom acts, you need to get that medical attention VERY, VERY FAST.
And if you don’t get it, you will still be conscious while the paralysis slowly suffocates you to death.
