probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
52K notes
·
View notes
A Persuasive Argument - dpxdc
"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."
"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.
"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.
"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"
"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.
"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."
"This is where I live."
"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"
"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"
"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."
"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."
"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."
"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"
"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"
"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"
"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"
"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"
"Please, call me Bruce."
"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."
Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.
"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."
3K notes
·
View notes
Look, friends.
Do you think this is a post about my adorable baby succulents? No. Look harder.
It's about the GIANT HOLE IN MY FENCE that I had to patch up with cardboard.
I can't blame Pampérigouste for this one; the brutish nature of the damage is not consistent with her usual modus operandi. Pampe outsmarts locks like Arsène Lupin; she doesn't charge at fences like a bull who saw a red cloth. This is Pampe Pondering A Fence Problem:
No, the damage to my fence looked a lot more mindless this time. Boorish. Boar-ish. I'm blaming a boar. A deer would have destroyed the whole thing rather than just the lower half. Note that there is not a single tuft of llama wool on the damaged wire mesh.
(Note no.2: the boar's smile was originally meant to be a tusk but it really just looks like a sardonic smile)
I brought some chicken wire to patch up the hole—but there wasn't enough of it. Then it started raining and I felt persecuted and decided to just cover the hole with cardboard and go have my morning coffee and get back to this later.
This is not an Innocent Pampe post; there is no such thing. My temporary cardboard solution lasted 8 to 10 minutes. I'm not sure exactly when she got out, but by the time I went back outside to repair the fence there was a Pampe-shaped hole in the cardboard.
(Not really; she just kind of lifted or ate a corner then wormed her way through the very small opening. I think.) (See, this is how you recognise a Pampe escape: you're not entirely clear on what went down, you just know there was a llama inside and now there is a llama outside.)
It was still raining and I didn't feel like going after her, plus it felt pointless to bring her back in her pasture before the fence was repaired, so I went in the barn to look for my tools and rummage through leftover pieces of previously-destroyed fences, hoping to find something the right size.
Then I heard Pampelune's hyena shriek, aka the llama alarm call. It was followed by:
horrified chicken screams and frantic feather noises; the soundtrack of a violent fox attack
infuriated barking from Pandolf
very loud panicked braying from Pirlouit
basically, chaos.
I ran outside just in time to see Pampe emerging from the woods at a full gallop, pursued by a bear. I didn't immediately identify the animal that was chasing her as the giant dog that he was, because he was running with a weird gait, with his legs going everywhere like he was frolicking at top speed (I now know that this dog is a puppy that has learnt to run just a few months ago, but that didn't occur to me at the time because this puppy is the size of a calf.)
Pampe was running towards the cardboard through which she had escaped and she managed to squeeze through her small corner hole again (I assume—there were trees blocking my line of sight and I only saw her again once she was in the pasture, running for her life along with the other 2 llamas + donkey.) Meanwhile, the dog didn't see the corner hole and tried to power through the cardboard much like a boar, or was carried away by his momentum and didn't brake in time; I don't know. In any case, when I reached him, he was stuck.
My large piece of cardboard was tied to the fence posts and still holding strong, but the middle was a bit soggy with rain and not too solid, so the dog's head went right through it. The rest of his body didn't.
He could have probably finished breaking the cardboard quite easily, but for some reason he instantly gave up. On life. By the time I got there the dog was half-in and half-out of the pasture and he looked defeated. Which made my piece of cardboard look like a mediaeval beheading apparatus with just a hole for the head.
I went to lock an angry Pandolf in the barn and checked on the chickens along the way (ruffled & offended but fine); I was hoping the dog would figure out how to extricate his head from the cardboard in the meantime. He did not. I tried to call him in a friendly tone (from behind) to encourage him to free his head by stepping back, but the concept of taking a couple of steps backwards in order to extract his head from the hole might as well have been advanced engineering. He clearly had no idea where his head was, where his body was, how to make the two a coherent whole again, and he started whining pitifully.
I untied the rope I had used to attach the cardboard to the fence posts, then wriggled the piece of cardboard a bit to try and free the dog's head. The dog was alarmed by the wriggling and took several steps back—but I didn't manage to hold on to the cardboard so it just moved with the dog. He clumsily ran away, taking the cardboard with him, wearing it around his neck like the world's largest cone of shame.
He immediately got stuck between two trees.
I was starting to find the situation hilarious, but the poor dog did not—he lay down and started making sad broken noises like a malfunctioning dog-robot. He didn't look very threatening but he was still a very big (and stressed) dog so I felt a bit wary of touching his head to help him, and decided to run home to get a box cutter. I figured I could easily rid him of most of the cardboard and leave him with just a soggy cardboard collar that would soon fall apart. I heard my landline phone ringing from afar and ran faster, and it was one of my nearest neighbours, the retired lady who lives on the plateau.
"I've been trying to reach you!! I saw your llama in my garden earlier, I was going to give her a little treat—" (she loves Pampe, for some reason) "—but then my dog saw her too."
I know this woman's dog—he's a tiny thing with fragile nerves who thinks the whole world is out to get him, so I asked anxiously, "Did Pampe scare your dog?" and she said "Oh no! Domino is here with me; but I have a new dog. His name is Texas."
I thought of the gigantic puppy currently sobbing in my woods, held prisoner by two trees, a self-inflicted cone of shame and his total lack of reasoning skills.
"Yes", I said. "I've met Texas."
The old lady asked worriedly if he'd scared Pampe ("Il est un peu zinzin" she said—he's a bit crazy. "I wanted to call him Rex, but then I met him and thought—Texas!!") I told her I was pleased with her dog for scaring Pampe, because she needs to learn that her pasture is her only hope for safety in this cold uncaring world and as soon as she steps out of it she returns to her lowly status as a prey animal. Then I ended the phone call because I was worried both about Texas and about the large hole in my fence. Thankfully all my animals were still terrified and hiding far, far away from Texas.
Texas actually managed to free himself before I attempted to cut the cardboard, but he still thought of me as his saviour and was very happy to follow me through the woods back to his owner's place. Before we left I propped up the cardboard against the damaged fence, and despite the hole in the middle no llamas escaped in my absence; I think the whole area still smelled like Texas and fear.
I'll admit I was initially tempted to leave Texas with his head stuck in the cardboard in a more permanent capacity in order to patch the hole in my fence with this amazing anti-Pampe Cerberus. Like this
(I know this artistic rendering makes my llamas look like frightened carrots and my donkey like a bunny but I will not be taking constructive criticism at this time)
3K notes
·
View notes