Storytime thread

Edward_Stryfe · June 10, 2016 at 11:48 PM

Post stories be them good or bad recent or ancient just share your experiences, wisdom and knowledge with the world for all to see.

Today I had a bit of an FML period. There's a store that sells 2nd hand games, movies, music, comics, manga, vinyl, and so on. It's just a few miles (ie 3-4km) away from my house by route of major freeways. I took my bike there today as I usually do and on the ride there all is well and I make it to the store without issue. As I get off my bike though I hear a hissing sound and have a bit of an "oh sh!t" moment like "pleeeeease let this not be what I think it is." Unfortunately it was there had been like an enormous splinter of wood that managed its way into my tire. I left it in in hopes that the splinter staying there could slow the leakage of the air and went into the store since I went through the trouble and made it there seemingly without issue.

I usually go to the PS / PS2 section since those are the cheap games that I can afford that and the movie section has some good deals as well as the music. I scan through the PS2 shelf swiftly and frantically desperate to do something with the $4.00 USD that I had on me. I spot a Ratchet and Clank game, "Ratchet: Deadlock" which was in my price range and I recalled the multiplayer on the game being absolutely fantastic. I have no recollection of the campaign mode though especially since I hadn't ever owned or borrowed it. I picked it out and set it to the side on the shelf so I could remember where it was and went to the CD section to see if they had anything of particular interest which they had the Kingdom Hearts soundtrack that I couldn't afford. Anyway after 10 minutes of digging through the CD's to no avail I go back and the Ratchet and Clank game is still there so I grab it and buy it.

I walk out the door and look at my bike and the tired looked like it had melted. This isn't the first time this has happened to me either which is the really sucky part. Just outside the door they have a "Free bin" which is just a few bins that the fill with stuff they bought but couldn't sell or that people just didn't want and I picked up some book that looked like it was part of the D&D series. Didn't have a cover though, I was just doing everything I could to avoid the inevitable. I pull my grocery bag out of my pocket and put the game and the book in and go to get on the bike to at the least make an effort to ride it but it just made things worse. So I rode it out the parking lot to the freeway. I then got off of it and started walking it this is the first time this has happened to me in this side of town though. When we lived downtown I had this happen to me in a much more shady kind of place where this didn't look so weird but I was like a guy in a kayak in the ocean with a bunch of sailboats and my paddle broke and now I have to use a ladle.

A police officer even pulled over and asked me if I was getting on interstate because I was nearing the exit which was an awkward and rather embarrassing encounter to say the least not to mention it's 95°F (35°C) and humid as all get out so I then had to walk over some major freeway exits and down a long service road before I got to my neighborhood by the time I get there I'm exhausted and drenched in sweat but just a half a dozen blocks from home. Nearing 3 blocks to the house there's this little sweet sweet old lady that was just cruising along in her 3 wheel bike that a basket and she looked at me and just said, "Awe, sorry." And I wasn't even sure how I should have replied to something like that so I just smiled and kept on and said, "Ueh, tch yeah"

Needless to say embarrassing but now that I think of it kind of comical. Not to mention all was made well when I came home to my three irresponsible siblings that I was responsible for at the time and who were supposed to clean and do chores, actually did them this time. And there was cookies so all was well

I still haven't tried the Ratchet and Clank game yet but if it works I'll say that that day was a win just for the game the cookies and the story to tell XD. Anything interesting happen to you guys lately? Or maybe something uninteresting that you can still write for us/me to read ?

'zilla · June 13, 2016 at 5:32 PM

I like this idea, and I think I'll enjoy reading others' posts just to know how a piece of your lives are like.

Seems you had an interesting day! Life's adventures are not always what you expect, but when the unusual happens, life will often show you something new. In this case, a sweet lady and a suspicious police officer!

Today I cruised around the city on my new electric bike like a motorized couch potato. I was amazed how much of a difference it made from fighting uphill on a normal bike. I headed to the north edge of the city, where there's a small lake and then a vast forest. I used to live in these parts almost ten years ago, so I returned to some places of memory: a thicket where I searched for shamrocks, a rock where I once spent an hour of my birthday meditating. Everywhere smelled of warm pine sap and flowers, and people were swimming, sunbathing, or just sitting on wooden piers being happy with the summer. (It must have been a sweltering 22°C) I also couldn't help but recall a memory of a Swedish colleague swimming naked in this lake some years back. I hadn't been aware of her clothing situation until she emerged from the water. She didn't care if anyone saw her, a confidence I can only respect.

That's not quite a whole story, but it's all I have time for now. I'll find a better story for my next post.

Edward_Stryfe · June 13, 2016 at 6:21 PM

Quote from 'zilla

In this case, a sweet lady and a suspicious police officer!

Don't forget the cookies

Quote from 'zilla

That's not quite a whole story,

That's alright feel free to share the whole story whenever you can, its always nice to reminisce, I've done that a few times, I'd go out at night and walk around lost in thought and consumed by insomnia.

Quote from 'zilla

I'll find a better story for my next post.

Don't stress it, this was a great read, looking forward to your next contribution.

I have a few more under my belt that I'll tell in time soon enough. But I have some business to do before I can dedicate the time to writing them, so sorry about that.

_LS_ · June 13, 2016 at 7:36 PM Official Post

The other day I took a walk down to my local grocery store to pick up a couple things, and on my way back I was kinda regretting that I didn't bring my car. The stuff I bought was heavy, and my house is uphill from the grocery store. As I'm approaching the first intersection I'll have to cross, I stop to resituate the items I'm holding. As I'm doing this, I notice a young woman walking barefoot along the sidewalk. She's walking slowly. The way you might walk if you were imitating someone who was sleep walking. And something about her looked off to me. For real the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw her was "I sure hope she doesn't pull a gun out of her purse."

As I'm adjusting my burdens, she turns to me and asks "Are you alright?" At this point I've got my groceries hefted and my path will take me right past her. I respond "Yeah, I'm fine. What about you, are you alright?" She replies "Yeah, well, I'm pissed off." I stopped to listen to her, and she starts to mumble a whole lot of stuff that I did not understand in the slightest.

Now, there are a lot of homeless folk, and a lot of developmentally disabled folk where I live, but this woman didn't appear to be either of those things. She was well dressed and groomed, was wearing fresh makeup. Maybe 25-30 years old. She didn't have any of the mannerisms I'd expect of a disabled person (which I say as someone who works with disabled people as his profession atm). If I had to guess I'd say she was at least a moderately affluent young woman who was tripping on a whole heap of drugs at the moment.

So I listen to her for about 8-10 minutes. During that time she mumbles a lot of stuff that is completely indecipherable. Out of the whole thing I pick out the phrases: "I'm a hot mess!" "Should I go back there?" and several mentions of a "he/him." I think. This whole time I'm trying to think of what I should / can do for this woman. I ask her if she needs me to take her to the hospital, but she doesn't seem to hear me. I probably should have been a little more forceful about it, but then again having a strange man insist that she go somewhere with him might not have been very good either.

Ultimately she says resolutely "I'm going back!" and begins to walk briskly back in the direction she came. I wished her luck and walked in the opposite direction, towards home.

Edward_Stryfe · June 13, 2016 at 9:49 PM

Quote from LinkSkywalker

The other day I took a walk down to my local grocery store to pick up a couple things, and on my way back I was kinda regretting that I didn't bring my car. The stuff I bought was heavy, and my house is uphill from the grocery store. As I'm approaching the first intersection I'll have to cross, I stop to resituate the items I'm holding. As I'm doing this, I notice a young woman walking barefoot along the sidewalk. She's walking slowly. The way you might walk if you were imitating someone who was sleep walking. And something about her looked off to me. For real the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw her was "I sure hope she doesn't pull a gun out of her purse."

As I'm adjusting my burdens, she turns to me and asks "Are you alright?" At this point I've got my groceries hefted and my path will take me right past her. I respond "Yeah, I'm fine. What about you, are you alright?" She replies "Yeah, well, I'm pissed off." I stopped to listen to her, and she starts to mumble a whole lot of stuff that I did not understand in the slightest.

Now, there are a lot of homeless folk, and a lot of developmentally disabled folk where I live, but this woman didn't appear to be either of those things. She was well dressed and groomed, was wearing fresh makeup. Maybe 25-30 years old. She didn't have any of the mannerisms I'd expect of a disabled person (which I say as someone who works with disabled people as his profession atm). If I had to guess I'd say she was at least a moderately affluent young woman who was tripping on a whole heap of drugs at the moment.

So I listen to her for about 8-10 minutes. During that time she mumbles a lot of stuff that is completely indecipherable. Out of the whole thing I pick out the phrases: "I'm a hot mess!" "Should I go back there?" and several mentions of a "he/him." I think. This whole time I'm trying to think of what I should / can do for this woman. I ask her if she needs me to take her to the hospital, but she doesn't seem to hear me. I probably should have been a little more forceful about it, but then again having a strange man insist that she go somewhere with him might not have been very good either.

Ultimately she says resolutely "I'm going back!" and begins to walk briskly back in the direction she came. I wished her luck and walked in the opposite direction, towards home.

That's a trippy one people can be amazingly unpredictable. I can only barely imagine the kind of circumstances that'd lead to that kind of behavoir, kind of disturbing if you go and look at it with no perspective and look at all the variables.

_LS_ · June 13, 2016 at 10:13 PM Official Post

I'm not an expert on the drugs, but I suspect heroin may have been involved.

Edward_Stryfe · June 13, 2016 at 10:16 PM

Quote from LinkSkywalker

I'm not an expert on the drugs, but I suspect heroin may have been involved.

I know a few people who do it, I would know probably if I was there. But if she's barefoot and talking about some guy chances are you're probably right.

Edward_Stryfe · June 14, 2016 at 10:27 PM

I guess this one is good, I have a few minutes so it's short.

I was hanging around with a friend of mine last year and we were trying to climb this weird tree. I was determined to get up into it. After about 10 minutes of determination and cutting my hands open on branches I get into it. I had done it, felt satisfied and was ready to leave. So I being only about 6ft (~2m) jumped down. I get down and hand to roll cause I fell weird and twisted my ankle, I saw blood dripping from my foot and I was tired from being outside so I went inside to wash up and watch Napoleon Dynamite with my friend. I get into the house and go to the kitchen to start washing my hands and face when my mom screams, I freak out wondering what had happened and she said "What Happened!" I am confused as can be and see her point at the tile floor I had walked over. There was a thick trail of blood I look at my foot and through a ~1cm wide circular hole I can see bone. Turns out I landed on a sapling that my mom had trimmed. It felt more like a needle stuck into my foot, I guess adrenaline took care of the pain at first, that night though and the month after I felt it reeeeal good.

Silent Lion · June 17, 2016 at 4:19 AM Official Post

This is a cool idea. Likin the stories.

I had the day off on Wednesday. As a stay-at-home dad, that means my wife took the kid out and I was left alone. I used to savour living alone, but after nearly six years of living with my partner, and sixteen months with the baby, having the house to myself seemed suddenly strange and unnatural. An anxiety sets in that is alien to me. So, I try and learn some programming, read a book, all the things I love. But it doesn't take the edge off it. I decide to go out, get some excercise (which for me is in short supply) and go somewhere new. I pull out my old commuting bike, and I'm shocked to discover that it works. I mean, I've left it to rot in the rain for over a year, and besides slapping some vegetable oil on the chain six months ago, I haven't touched the thing. But no - chain's fine, gears are fine, breaks are fine. Apart from pumping a little air into the tyres, I'm off.

There's a couple of nature reserves not too far away from me. One of them is right along my old work commute, but I never got round to visiting it. So that's where I end up. I wasn't actually my intention - at first I was just rehashing my commute for old time's sake, then I take a detour into an estate, get a little lost, find a subway under the motorway (freeway) and find myself in the forest. Anyway, soon the forest clears and there is the most amazing view. I'm a sucker for a good view. Every so often I hit a sight that stops me dead, and I just gotta look at it. This one is a hill that falls away from me into a rolling valley filled with wildflower meadows, bordered by another wooded hill on the far side. And the sun is just breaking through the rain from the right, giving everything a gleaming, mystical glow.

As I continue the trail then curves to the right through the valley and opens into a field of millet and more wildflower. This particular reserve is known for its plentiful variety of plantlife. One of my hobbies is wild food and herbalism, so I'm in paradise. I've soon got a carrier full of pineapple weed, chamomile, and all the regulars. It rains again but that just adds to the experience. The trail goes on through a patch of stunning chesnut forest, and I get hopelessly lost. When I eventually emerge from the reserve on the far side, muddy and exhausted, I am faced with the prospect of retracing all my steps. Except no, because as it turns out, I'd gone in a bit of an arch, and I recognise myself to be on a road that leads downhill all the way nearly to my home. Win!

I couldn't have had a better day. I came home feeling genuinely elated.

_LS_ · June 17, 2016 at 6:58 AM Official Post

So a few years ago, I wanna say around 2012 probably, but maybe it was early 2013, I was playing in a weekly D&D group on Mondays. I was often immensely tired for these games, as they began just as I got home from a fairly demanding job, after sitting in rush hour traffic for 45 minutes. One day the referee announced that instead of our normal campaign, he had agreed to playtest something for Zak S, and that Zak would be sitting in on our game to watch us play, then he'd want to ask some questions at the end.

Now at the time I was only vaguely familiar with Zak. If anybody in the indie D&D scene is "famous," it's probably him, but back then I hadn't really read much of his work. And I was dead fucking tired that day too. My attention faded in and out over the course of the session, and I didn't participate beyond making some attack rolls here and there. When the session ended Zak chatted with the group to get a sense of what needed fine tuning, but honestly I was only vaguely aware of what had even happened, so I kept my mouth shut.

Years later, now being much more familiar with (and enamored of) Zak's work, I was reading his most recent book at the time, "A Red and Pleasant Land." The book was a big deal. It won tons of awards, and gained a lot of recognition even outside the microcosm of indie, retro-inspired D&D. If I had to make a guess, I'd say it's the single most successful product to come out of the creative movement that I'm a part of. And as I'm reading it, I come across the Harem of the Red King, and I realize I've totally been there before.

Turns out I was fortunate enough to playtest one of the most important D&D releases in recent years, but I was too tired to pay attention to it while it was happening. If it's true that luck is just an opportunity you were prepared for, then this was an opportunity I missed.

I don't have my copy with me at the moment, but I think I've even got my name in the damn thing.

'zilla · July 3, 2016 at 3:58 PM

A few years back, I went to a conference in the north of Norway. It was 1400 miles away and I decided to use public transport. It was a 40-hour trip non-stop, luckily it was through beautiful landscape.

And it was a great trip. The train passed through a big, mountaineous national park. At one time, I saw some creatures on a hillside close by the train. I'd never seen them before, but it wasn't hard to guess that they were muskox. After centuries of absence, the government has reintroduced them here. As I passed them, these rugged ancient bulls charged each other and banged heads in a rival showdown. That's not something you experience every day. I saw a moose too that day.

As I passed further north, the land sort of gave way to mountains and ocean, and I felt as if the humans living here were in constant danger of rolling off the country altogether. In this land of giants, I eventually reached my destination: a rare flat piece of land, an island covered by a city. After so long on the road, I was a bit sleepy to say the least. There was a midnight sun that night, but I couldn't bring myself to stay up and see it.

The day of the conference, rumors were spreading that someone important was visiting that very city. What a strange coincidence, we thought, and why here of all places? We heard a helicopter arriving with the guest. I didn't think much of it, but in a free moment, I took a stroll through the city and saw a military ship depart from the docks. And though I cannot be completely sure, because it was a short glimpse at a distance, there's a high chance I saw the US Secretary of State that day, at the empty docks of a tiny Norwegian city way out in nowhere, just by coincidence. Seeing as this was a few years back, I am referring to Hillary Clinton.