#haven't had the time to go outside and go to pharmacy to buy medicine so yeah...

[einsatzzz]

i studied so much the past few days my brain just did a forced shutdown on me last night and accidentally reset my sleep schedule to that of an old person’s hahaha 🤣🤣🤣 passed out and woke up at like around 4:30am (b4 this reset, i wake up at around 4:30pm), then i did some more studying----that was so weird though because it was this sudden wave of rlly bad headache and nausea. at the very least, i didn’t throw up. i need to be more careful ig

#personal #haven't had the time to go outside and go to pharmacy to buy medicine so yeah... #i need to push my wake up time around 6hrs more bc it would be bad if i suddenly feel sleepy during work #anyway i think i finally gained momentum with studying and ive gotten used to it again #the grind(tm) never stops #<----i fucking hate the grind actually; i can't wait to get this over with on sept/oct #only studying so hard rn bc if i fail then my suffering extends further #im not a masochist lol

[chaoticskyy]

The one you mentioned in the notes of your fic? I guess that's about you? Im kinda interested in the other one now too

OH! Okie yeah your right it's about me.

SO. You're gonna need some context about who I am, where I come from, and what that means.

I'm an afro-indigenous person from Guatemala dad's side is the mixed black side, and mom's side is the primarily indigenous side. The region we're from is best described as Texas but worse. I carry a machete in my truck just in case, and every male elder I know wears a cowboy hat.

The mestizaje of the region is pretty through, most people are mixed indigenous with white, and of course, it's Guatemala. Half of us are "wholly" indigenous. I stick out like a sore thumb, not because I'm dark skinned. Black Guatemalans exist but mainly farther north, in Izabal and port regions. I'm fairly light skinned, but I have really curly hair, I'm tall for the region and not to being vain, but I'm really pretty.

Once I hit puberty, I haven't really been allowed to wander around on my own for safety reasons. You see, we live in a region where the organized crime that reigns isn't gangs, it's narcotics trafficking cartels. They usually leave you alone, unless you approach them for whatever reason. Like you want money and are willing to launder for them and things like that.

Narcos have this nasty habit of picking out women they deem attractive and sponsoring them, essentially being their sugar daddies but like Worse. Usually, the sugar baby can get put of the relationship scot-free, but in this case, women are known to be killed.

The fear has always been I catch the eye of one of them, and I have to flee the country for a long while. Or until they relocate. It's a fairly warranted fear, I've been approached by Narcos for dances, drinks, etc. I have been followed even while I've been in a large family group by these men who all clearly have pistols and bodyguards and are driving bulletproof SUVs. I've been saved every time by my family stepping in before I knew something was wrong.

Now that you know all of this info, let's get to the night I nearly got kidnapped! To be extremely clear, I have no idea what their specific intentions were other than that they wanted to take us away from the place we were at.

My mom's Gabapentin prescription had run out during our last trip to Guatemala, so my mom, my aunt, and I decided to head into town from my grandma's village to buy the medicine. My sister and younger cousin begged us to go, but I put my foot down and told them to fuck off because every time they left the house they made us spend more money than planned and the medication was going to be expensive.

Gotta say thank God I was an asshole to them that day.

My mom has some serious brain fog when we got to the 24HR pharmacy, she had tried to hold out and suck up the pain but I backfired on her and she wasn't able to hold out as long as she wanted which meant it was 9pm by the time we had headed into town. So she shoves the money into my hands and tell us to go get it.

We walk up to the pharmacy and wait in line outside. The pharmacy itself had been closed leaving only a tiny window for money and drugs to be exchanged. There's only two people in front of us, and then two men get behind us.

Blue shirt has a pistol on each side and a wicked looking knife on his right. Yellow shirt keeps looking me up and down. He only had one pistol.

It's no biggie. My own mom has a revolver in the car herself. Guns are the norm around here. If you don't have one, you at least have a machete. I hadn't noticed then, but they had purposely placed their truck at an angle, preventing anyone from passing the tiny road.

Then they start talking. Mind you, there are no alarm bells in my mind right now. I'm actually incapable of feeling anxiety while on my medication, not to mention my risk assessment skills are lacking due to the Autism. Yellow shirt does most of the talking, trying to sus out who we are and what we're doing. I don't realize things are wrong until my aunt is shaking with the wallet in her hands when I hand her the money to pay.

To me, the entire conversation was reading unwanted male attention, but still being like the sort of pushy politeness common in Latin cultures. This plus the fact that men especially get whatever they want can make even everyday interactions feel like microaggressions.

They get closer, and I corner myself, hoping that if we look ugly enough, they'll leave us alone. My aunt is panicking and trying to throw them off our scent, and then Yellow locks onto me and says "Your not from around here.". A fact in his eyes. He's wrong, but not entirely, I'm not from town, and I don't live in Guatemala anymore.

I'm just interesting looking to most people.

My aunt interjects, because I'm kinda a bitch to men and at the time I wasn't aware but she was worried I'd get us shot or worse.

This is kinda when I start to realize something is Wrong. My mind starts racing and now I'm fully prepared to piss or shit myself to avoid being raped.

Then my mom comes in and saved the day.

Bless her.

She's this stout pretty looking woman, she's got this habit of being confrontational and kinda a bitch. She managed to save my grandma from getting murdered once, and the woman can take one look at you tell you how much you weigh and give you an estimate of how long it would take her to cut you up butcher style. It's her favorite party trick, and is honestly unnerving. She also has very low self esteem, and when her disabilities flare up even more so. Which makes her swooping in and saving us all the more impressive.

My mom maneuvers the car to get closer and asks us what's taking us so long. Just as it was time for our turn, I go into autopilot and start talking to a pharmacist I can't see. The lucky bastard is hidden behind a bullet proof wall. Just out luck, he has to search for an alternative medication.

Mother is trying to distract them, and figure put what's going to get them to stop bothering us. Blue shirt points out that the car she's driving, a Mercedes-Benz SUV is not a common site. European engines around here are not common, and a car is life and freedom. He starts asking about the car and who my mom is, and who we are. How much she'd sell the car for.

My aunt had purposely been avoiding sharing any identifiers, including my last name. While it does have sway, it's often not enough, and it can backfire since people believe my father's family has lots of money and is a proud bunch.

My mother, on the other hand, introduced herself with her household name. This made Yellow shirt pause, and Blue to stop leering at me. After some needling on both ends of the conversation, it turned out that Yellow shirt and I are distantly related.

This finally allowed me to slip past Blue shirt and into the car.

When we got to my grandma's, started properly freaking out. Turns out my mom was fully ready to give them the car in exchange for our lives.

My aunts husband was fully freaked out because apparently those men are like known criminals. Like deep into being Narcos lakeckeys. They aren't Narcos themselves, but they like orbit the same spaces. According to him.

Also NOTE DO NOT LET THIS DISCOURAGE YOU FROM TRAVELLING IN GAUTEMALA!

I DO NOT GO TO TOURIST ATTRACTIONS OFTEN, I EXIST IN PRIMAILY RURAL RESIDENTIAL AREAS OF A NON TOURIST DEPARTMENT. THE BIGGEST WORRY FOR TOURIST IN TOURIST AREAS ARE PICK POCKETS AND FOOD POSIONING!

BE SAFE!

#the floof speaks #ask and you shall receive

[sirfrogsworth]

The Death of Swipey Swipe

Now that I can drive I have been out in the world a bit more.

To pick up milk. Or medicine. Or fast food.

Stuff like that.

So far my observations are grim.

People driving don't seem to have any patience whatsoever. They all do dangerous tactics and maneuvers in the hopes of *maybe* saving them a few seconds of drive time. They will cut people off to get a few car lengths ahead. They will turn in front of someone because they just can't wait for another car to pass. And there are so many tailgaters. I drive about 5 mph above the speed limit and people still ride my ass. I'm sorry, but I am not getting a ticket just so you can get somewhere a minute faster.

None of these tactics save a significant amount of time. The only thing that *might* get you somewhere faster is speeding on the highway where you have a long enough stretch of road to actually make up time. Everything else is just dangerous for no reason. Saving 30 seconds is not worth the risk.

Then I went to the gas station to buy milk. Actually, I had originally planned to buy milk at the grocery store, but the line to check out was to the back of the entire store. Everybody was stocking up because of a big winter storm brewing. So I put back the milk and decided Quicktrip would be much faster. And it was. But there I saw three people not wearing masks at all. No one cared. Then I went to the register and the two employees were wearing masks, but they weren't covering their noses.

This is why my mom is in the hospital right now. I get that masks can be uncomfortable, but getting sick with COVID was much worse. I don't ever want to feel like that again. It took me a few tries, but I finally found a mask that fits well and is decently comfortable. I've even started to forget I'm even wearing it. If you don't like your mask, it is worth looking around for something that better suits your face.

Another adventure into the outside world was getting my dad some Mucinex D. The kind with the Sudafed in it. They didn't have it at Walgreens, but thankfully because this is America, there was a CVS directly across the street. I was worried they didn't have it either, but then I noticed a bunch of cards that said Mucinex D on them. They instructed me to go to the pharmacy to buy it. They keep all the stuff with Sudafed behind the counter.

My question is... Do these hoops you have to jump through seriously hamper the production of meth?

How much crystal methamphetamine is kept off the streets by storing my dad's medicine on a shelf behind the counter?

When I went to check out, they had to literally scan my driver's license before I could buy it. (A driver's license that came in the mail not 30 minutes earlier. How lucky was that?) Am I now on some list as a possible meth manufacturer?

Then it came time to actually pay for the Mucinex and that is the part that made me feel super dumb. I haven't paid for things in a store for a long time. Everything has been online. I went to swipey swipe my card and they were like, "Do you have a chip?"

"Ummmm... maybe?"

"Or do you have wireless?"

"What now? Don't I just swipey swipe?"

"If you have a chip you stick it in the bottom. If your card has the wireless symbol on it, you press it against the top."

I then had to admit I didn't know what she was talking about and handed her my bank card to inspect. Apparently, I had the chip and had to stick it in the bottom. She looked at me like I was Encino Man.

I'm guessing the new methods are more secure and will be transitioned to over time. And I admit the swipey swipe is an outdated and insecure technology... but it is the most fun of all the payment methods. I wish we could swipey swipe the chip, but it seems to be more of a stick it in and hold it.

In any case, please wear your masks... over your nose.