Hello, welcome to my parlor. I see you're admiring the tokens on my shelf. All have frightfully fearful origins, I'm afraid. And soon, you will be afraid too! As I go through each item and tell you the positively horrifying tale behind each, it's possible your young heart will--
Oh, you're over twenty-two and you're out of college? Okay, don't look at those horrors, come over here to the mundane wall.
Stand right--over a little, over a little... Riiiight, here. NOW! Wait, sorry. Feet on the yellow circle please. The circle. On the floor. I'm pointing at it, I'm pointing at it--yes. Thank you. Sorry, it's an insurance thing. Anyways.
NOW! Now you will know true fear! Quake in your worn out pair of reasonably priced Costco sneakers that are slightly the wrong size but you feel anxiety about returning even though Costco is notoriously good at returns!
Your latest read is a nearly 80k word long Soap Ghost fanfic that you can't tell anyone about?
Your coworker likes to read the same books as you too, and she's been asking more and more questions about what books you've been reading lately. How are you going to tell her the last novel-length work you've read is a fanfic of two of the most alpha fictional men that have ever existed falling deeply in love with each other? She's over thirty, from India, with a child and husband--she will not comprehend what a "COD" is. Enjoy hearing her say, "Ghost, what is that?" in your NIGHTMARES!
Is your coworker just nice or does he want to talk to you outside of work?
What's that? Your cool helpful remote coworker is really nice and funny and you enjoy talking to him? You'd like to ask for his Discord to hang out with him outside of work? Enjoy building up the infinite courage to do that! He probably just sat in those calls for hours with you because he's nice!
You have two pairs of work pants -- can anyone tell you only have two??
Pants are expensive and painful, and two pairs have served you well for two years. Let's be real, you still feel like a kid playing dress up each morning, so the idea of dropping a lot of money on a professional wardrobe feels like counting chickens. But it's okay, no one can tell that's just two pairs of the same slacks in different colors... OR CAN THEY?
Putting a bleach tablet in the toilet tank -- did you sprinkle bleach all over the floor and now your skin will slough off?
Nice attempt at being clean, except... did that package just sprinkle microscopic pieces of concentrated ultra-bleach all over the floor and toilet seat? What if someone eats off of that? THEY'LL EXPLODE. Have fun trying to sleep tonight without that image in your head.
Was that salad you ate on Monday abnormally wet or was that a normal wet?
Gosh, what a nice salad. And you added carrots and chicken tenders? Wow, that's really nice. Too bad the salad leaves are sopping wet, right out of the bag. Did whoever bag this just skip a drying step, or are they normally this wet? It's a new bag you just opened so you don't want to toss it, so enjoy eating that and wondering if every cramp for the next three days are the cold talons of the wet salad reaching for you from beyond the grave.
You just got your first dye job but now you're worried you'll lose your job before your second session?
Wow, your hair looks really nice! Finally pulled the trigger on that dye job, huh? That's fun. Except you're reminded of the impermanence of employment in America and now you're feeling like a jackass for spending anything and keep thinking of a reality where you get laid off before turning your hair into the color you actually wanted. MWAHAHAHA!
Look at it! Gaze upon the mundane horrors and see them gazing back at you! Truly the mundane are more horrifying, more terrifying, more dreadful than any wild nightmare of the imagination!
CURRENT RAT EVENTS
Haven't killed the mint yet. Almost did a few weeks ago. But then I watered it, trimmed off the dead leaves, and it stabilized. It's pretty green now, so I haven't killed it yet. I think it does whatever the mint equivalent of sweating is when it sees me coming with its little beady mint eyes.
Eight of Wands (upright)--Movement, action, speed.
This entire post is scarily accurate to how I think about so many things. I read so much, I bought a kindle years ago just to download fanfics from ao3 to so that it brought up less questions what was I reading on my phone. What's this book? Oh, it's just a random romance, not a 300k slow burn masterpiece of 2 entirely fictional men in a situation that their fiction didn't intend, where I do not need to waste my time on the character description and already have a basic understanding of looks, relationships and likes unless otherwise specified as different....
ReplyDeleteWhen cleaning the kitchen, I will spray Lysol and even thought my drink is sitting on my desk at the opposite end, it is now completely full of cleaner and I am going to die if I drink it.
I talk to my also cool remote co workers who are all 20 (how, HOW) and feel like a dinosaur cause I know for a fact that I thought my 25 year old co-workers where old when I was 20. Then I feel like a creep for zero reason, cause damn how can I relate to 20 year olds without saying slay clocking it. One told me she was in middle school during covid during a work meeting and she couldn't get over that I was in my SECOND year of university. Getting old sucks.
I am eating a taco bowl from a fast food place that I know is vegetarian, and then look through every grain of rice just to make sure some stake didn't randomly jump into the bowl out of spite.
I will hold the handle of the tram with one hand, only one and touch nothing else with that hand. It literally itches and tingles until I know I can be home and wash it.
It like irrational fears that are so rational, then when describing them to family and friends, you get how silly they sound. But damn they are so real.