My late father was a blaster, the kind that blows up rocks and stumps, etc.

He got promoted to head blaster for the district when the previous head blaster retired.

Dad immediately went out to the dynamite shack where they stored the dynamite, and did a detailed inventory, since he hadn’t been allowed in there before, and couldn’t find the old inventory.

Apparently the previous blaster hadn’t done an inventory in a long time . . . Worse, he had just ordered so many cases of dynamite a year, regardless of how much had been used . . . And on top of that, he hadn’t rotated his stock, just piled the new dynamite on top of the old.

Old dynamite becomes unstable as it ages.

Dad and his helper had to restack all these cases of old dynamite to put the oldest stuff on top, and then use the dynamite up as fast as they could . . . the rule of thumb was that if you thought you’d need two cases, you took three and shot it all. There were a lot of heavily loaded shots towards the end of the day.

Fortunately, dad took over as head blaster at the end of the year, so the dynamite on hand was at the low point and they used up most of it over the next year.

I have been known to blurt out stuff as I am a (female) senior citizen with “no filter.” Nothing unkind though.

I was walking through a discount store when a group of three people cross my path. They appear to be store executives.

Female Executive #1. Excuse us.

Me: That’s okay….um… you should be a model. You’re tall and slender and probably are pretty under that mask.

Females Executive #1. Thank you! You just made my day! (She seemed pleased)

Me: I was just thinking it, until you spoke to me. It sort of came out.

As I’m fleeing, I hear the following:

Executive #2. How do you like my store now?

I was visiting my friend and her two kids, who call me their Uncle. I love kids and have spent most of the day with them already. When dinner time came around my niece decided she didn’t want to even try her meal, despite her mom assuring her it was something she liked. My niece is usually a great kid that goes with the flow, but on the occasions she does decide to be stubborn she is *very* stubborn.

When my nephew finished his meal and asked to watch a show before bedtime I took him to pick out a show, but his sister was told she wasn’t allowed to get up until she at least tried some of her food. Neither mother nor child are going to budge on their stance, and so my Niece ends up bawling her eyes out at the table still not allowed to get up.

After I got my nephew’s show started he was too engrossed in it to play with me. I was due to leave soon anyways so I figured with all the kids preoccupied I might as well say my goodbyes now, but first I’d make one last attempt to resolve things with my niece.

Me: “[niece] it’s late and it’s about time for me to go home. I wanted to stay and play a little longer with you but It’s almost time to leave and I can’t play with you until you eat so if you aren’t eating I’m going to go home now.”

My stubborn niece, who has just spent 40 minutes doing anything she can to avoid eating, begging, crying, and throwing tantrums, takes one look at me and then grabs her fork and immediately stuffs food into her mouth. I don’t think she has ever displayed how much she valued me more than her willingness to give up on her fight with her mother just to have a few more minutes of play time with me!

Since her brother is too caught up in his show to interact with me anyways I stick with my niece as she eats. We make it a game that she gets a kiss on the cheek each time she takes a bite, to some happy giggling from her each time. At one point she gets her kiss only to open her mouth up to show me she hadn’t actually ate the food she put in it, grinning manically at her deception. From then on the game is that she gets a kiss if she swallows her food, but she can always try to trick me and see if I’ll fall for it (I didn’t after that…)

In the end not wanting to leave right after niece finished her dinner, having implied that we would play some after dinner if she ate, I offered to give my niece her bath and ended up staying an extra hour helping to get both kids tucked into bed.

Now every visit with the kids includes my staying to help tuck them in. I will also randomly get messages from her mom saying her picky eater is refusing to try something and jokingly asking if I can come over and magic her into finishing her dinner.

at our school, the hallways are narrow, and I have french class the same period 6th graders go to lunch. the part I have to go through is also where 6th graders and other 7th graders go through to get to lunch or a world language.

so, my friend and I are trying to get through, when almost 45 6th graders run through, some standing in the middle of this 6-foot wide hall, and they aren’t even staying on the right side, which teachers have tried to enforce. and almost 10 of the 6th graders have the audacity to yell, “move out of the way, we have to get to lunch!” and when every 7th grader just keeps trying to get to our 30 people french class, I hear him mumble, “f*** you all”
they must have really needed to get to lunch 5 minutes early.

I work a variety of jobs, from freelance to healthcare. I have recently finished a freelance job that was particularly taxing, but that also paid pretty well. So, I decide to reward myself and buy myself a rather expensive sweatshirt from one of my favourite stores. I also choose this store since they offer a discount to healthcare workers, and this will cut down on the cost of the shirt.

I go into the store, easily find the sweatshirt and buy it. However, when I am paying, I noticed the price is $10 more than I thought it would be. It isn’t until I get home when I notice that the tag on the sweatshirt was $10 more than was advertised online!

I decide to open an online chat with the company, more curious than anything if their prices are different online than in store, so I can look out for that next time. The first question I ask is just that, and the response is that sometimes stores will actually discount the item if there are only one of them left! Not the case here, but I then tell them what happened when I purchased the shirt.

To my surprise, the customer service rep tells me that the price is supposed to be the same online as in-store, and that they will refund me the difference. I guess mistakes are made all the time, but this is an international store, and I’m surprised I caught it!