• 2 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 26th, 2023

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  • theangryseal@lemmy.worldto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneRule
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    3 months ago

    Me too. God bless the Appalachian mountains.

    I’ve probably met more mouth breathing, lead paint eating morons (myself included. As a matter of fact, at one time I was a t-1000 Liquid Metal mercury from 50 thermometers in my hand moron) than most people will ever encounter in 10 lifetimes. I can count on one hand just how many of those people were truly bad people.

    If I have a visibly heavy load at work, it can be annoying how many people wander up and say, “hey ‘ere buddy. Yew gawn need inny hep wittat? I’ze just checkin’.”

    Open the hood of your car and you can summon an entire neighborhood. For real, need directions in the Appalachians, just stop somewhere with houses, open your hood and spend a few minutes staring at your engine.



  • I seriously have a boiling hatred for computers now because I couldn’t even be a little bit mean. I’ve snapped a few times when people blamed me for problems years after I worked on their stuff, but mostly I just got trampled on and robbed at every turn because I didn’t want to upset anyone.

    By the time I was mean enough to demand payment and things like that, I already hated it.

    My daughter is passionate about computers, so nowadays if I so much as want to tweak something a little bit I let her do it unless she don’t want to. I don’t want to burn her out too.


  • Your dad sounds like the childhood hero of mine who got me into computers.

    Severe ADHD prevented me from ever learning to code, but I became damn good at repairs and things and just general understanding of computers because he was available to ask questions at almost any time.

    He went to school auctions every year and got me a pile of hardware to learn from. He never asked for anything in exchange. All around great guy.

    I heard him on the phone a few times dealing with the people who he worked with though. Good god he was mean. I couldn’t imagine him being that way with me ever, but he was brutal when it came to work and money.

    A dude called him one time while I was sitting there, he listened for a few minutes and he said, “I’ve got a 14 year old kid here, he’s been doing this stuff for about 2 years. I’m gonna let him walk you through this for the 10th fucking time because you’re a goddamn idiot and feeling like a fool when you hang up the phone with a grown man isn’t teaching you any lessons. Maybe get a pen for this one because if I have to remind that a child walked you through it last time, I’m not going to be so fucking friendly.” I was so nervous, apologized multiple times, when I was finished walking him through it he took the phone and said, “now don’t you feel stupid? 25 years and this kid just schooled you.”

    He told me, “you gotta be real with idiots or they’ll bother you with stupid problems every single day of your life.”

    I wish that lesson had stuck haha, it just wasn’t in me to be mean. As a result, a hobby that I was passionate about all of my life is something I avoid like the plague now. People ruined it for me by bothering me constantly.


  • I can’t believe it’s been a year. Damn. I really didn’t think I’d make it. I half worried I’d go crawling back.

    My last two comments, one year ago were, “Memmy for Lemmy. Been happy all day.” (though voyager is my app these days) and, “Thank you. I already love it. I hope this is where all of the old heads go.”

    That was a response to my introduction to lemmy.world.

    I meant it when I said I was leaving. I wasn’t 100% sure I could make it after using Reddit for so long, but here I am.


  • All I know is that I long for it for some damn reason. As an Appalachian kid with too little to eat, that shit was heaven. I don’t know if it was just because I was hungry, but I was sad to see it go.

    This made me think of something else too.

    My mom used to stop at a gas station, send me in first with a food stamp dollar to buy a .05 cent piece of gum. My brother would do the same thing, then we’d drive down to the next station and do it again. Finally, at the third station we’d come to the car and give my mom the change. Once we were done, she could afford enough gas to go visit my aunt and my cousins.

    Once the EBT card came out that was over for poor folks.

    People would stand outside of gas stations and stop people, “hey bro, I’ll buy you two twelve packs of soda for two bucks. You can get a candy bar too.” They usually end up trespassed. The smart ones would sell the cards for half their value (smart? I know) so they didn’t get banned from stores.

    Working in a gas station in Appalachia I seen a number of people open their wallets and have several EBT cards.


  • Well that’s not the part I’m talking about. I’m talking specifically about the leadership.

    I’m an atheist who attended AA for years and I never worked the steps. The old heads definitely start to put the pressure on you after awhile though. “Yer higher power could be the universe.” Well, yeah, but it specifically says god.


  • AA got it right as far as that goes. Leadership revolves.

    AA would be one of the biggest organized cults on the planet if the founders hadn’t thought of that.

    Now, not everyone can be a leader, and those who can’t won’t generally volunteer. So, what you end up with in a small community is a handful of leaders who don’t agree on everything and therefore represent the needs of the people in the group a lot better.

    Whether we like it or not, positions of leadership tend to happen naturally. As long as we hold sacred the fact that there is no truly central leadership, it shouldn’t devolve into a cult.

    It might just be a part of our nature though. When you enter recovery they give you a list of places to avoid (they gave me one anyway) because the revolving leadership has fallen apart and a single personality has taken over.