“Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning To Breathe Free. That Means Freedom In

J.J. Bittenbinder watching John Mulaney’s bit on his Street Smarts course

I absolutely LOVE people who pay with pennies!

Seriously. 4 years ago, I’m cashiering at a whacky mart on a register that holds all the smokes and alcohol. It’s 10pm and these two young men (early 20s) come up to the counter. They have three random novelty items (I don’t remember they were), but it was strange and unusual to get odd items this late at night. Maybe it was for some fraternity, I don’t know. It’s a college town so I get weird stuff from frats a lot. I scan the items and tell them their total is $22.xx.

Grinning at each other, they reach into their jackets and slam down two gallon zip-lock bags, full of only pennies. I stare them in the eye, but they didn’t even look back at me. Everyone else in line groan and went to other registers. These two kids knew what they were doing, but they didn’t know what they were in for because I prepared for this; I knew this was going to inevitably happen. I grinned with them, because I was gonna get paid during this. These pranksters are here for recreation. This convo occurs between Me, Ringleader (the other guy was silent and awkward), and a friendly coworker of mine.

Me: Is this $22.xx?

Ringleader: …

Me: Did you count it?

Ringleader: Nope.

Me: Are you going to?

Ringleader: Nope.

Me: Is it at least $22.xx?

Ringleader: Don’t know.

Me: Nice.

Coworker: Hey! You guys can use the self checkout. It can take all of your coins at once.

Me: Oh, don’t worry about it Cowor–

Ringleader: Nope, don’t trust them lady.  (Partner laughs)

Coworker: What? Why!?

Ringleader: Doesn’t count all your change right.

Coworker: I’ve used them before. It really works!

Me: (to Coworker) I got this.

I unpacked the ziplocks and threw all the pennies on the counter. It was a beautiful, massive shitstorm of a mess. And I digged in it. I was Frank in a dumpster in ‘It’s Always Sunny’. The two, still averting my gaze, start chuckling as if they were taking away my dignity. They whisper to each other “Dude oh my God,” “Dude yeah,” “Dude, hilarious.” I counted each penny, one by one. My coworker comes up to me.

Coworker: Guess I’ll help you count this.

Me: Don’t worry about it.

(She looks at me confused. Then she puts on her ‘get down to busy’ look.)

Coworker: I got your back.

Me: Oh…ok.

We worked up a system where we counted ten, put them in a pile, then with ten stacks of ten pennies we separated them, making $1 piles. We made progress slowly but surely. Some customers came to the line, but we advised them to get to another line. Some of them looked at us confused, but when they saw the counter full of pennies they understood. Some decided to wait, but when they realized it wasn’t going to take just a few minutes they took their leave. Another register in the liquor department opened so it wasn’t too bad for other customers. We get to about $12 (about 10min in) until I “knocked” over the piles.

Coworker: Neontonsil!

Me: Oops. Sorry.

(Coworker looks at my grin. I give her a wink and tilt my head, motioning her to leave)

Coworker: You know what, I think I better let you do this.

Me: Ha, alright.

(Coworker leaves. I look at the two guys. They are absolutely stunned at the fallen piles of pennies.)

Me: (To Ringleader) Yeah, I’m going to have to count all of this again.

Ringleader: ….Ok.

I started from zero. I count slower then ever, and made my way back up. The duo is entirely silent. I get to about $7, when suddenly I say:

Me: Drats. I lost count. I better start all over again.

Ringleader: Really?

Me: Oh yeah man.

Ringleader: Why!?

Me: I lost count, sir. I could be in trouble if my register doesn’t have the right amount of cash, and I don’t want to rip you off.

Ringleader: …

It’s about an hour later. My manager walks past, looks at me. I smile at him, and he looks at the counter. He walks away without a word. I eventually count all the change and surprisingly they had only $18!

Me: Hmm, I think that this is $18.

(The duo has been dead silent. They look done for the night.)

Me: I’ll recount it.

I fucking recounted it.

Me: I think this is actually $19.xx.

(Without a word, the Ringleader whips out a $5)

Me: Seriously? You had cash?

Ringleader: Needed to get rid of my change.

Me. No problem. I’ll just recount this again. I want to make perfectly sure that this is $19, since I counted $18 the first time.

Ringleader: Are you kidding me?

(I shake my head no, completely serious)

He takes out a $20 bill straight out of his pocket and throws it at me. My coworker gives the biggest WHAT THE FUCK face. Internally, I die as well, because they were smart enough to have a backup plan. And the fact that he was touching his cash in his pocket the entire time kinda messed with me. I take the cash, do the transaction, give him his change, thanked him and wished him a good night. The two start to put their pennies back in the ziplock bags and I didn’t help them at all. I watched them just as how they watched me. Lots of pennies dropped to the floor, but they didn’t care to pick them up. It looked like their souls were sucked out of them. It was past midnight and I clocked out way past when I was supposed to. A lot of my coworkers gave me a thumbs up or told me good night. Even my manager told me ‘good job,’ the only two words he ever said to me. Went to bed at the dorms after such a great petty penny night and crashed. Strange to say, but I’d love to count pennies again.

TL;DR I recounted 1900 pennies like 5 times. Was it 5 times? I better count again.

MY KINK IS KARMA Chappell Roan

You know the marshmallow experiment?

So there’s this experiment where researchers take a bunch of preschoolers and give them a marshmallow and they say, “ok, you can eat this now, or you can wait thirty minutes and then we’ll give you two marshmallows.”

And they leave them alone with hidden cameras and watch the struggle of willpower and it’s supposed to say something about delayed gratification.

And this thing gets used to explain why some people are better with money than others, or make various other better life choices. The Aesop here is if you can delay your satisfaction, you’ll get ahead.

But here’s a proposed version of that experiment that’s more realistic.

Give the kid the marshmallow and explain it all as above. Then come back 30 minutes later and say, “Sorry, actually we ran out of marshmallows, so even though you didn’t eat yours, you’re not getting a second one. Other kids got two, but you don’t. Also, every kid with fewer than two marshmallows has to give back their original marshmallow. Sorry we didn’t tell you that earlier now hand it over.”

Then call them back for a repeat experiment where you give them the same offer. See how many kids scarf that marshmallow down in two seconds flat because like hell they’ll trust you again.

the trans girl estrogenized puffy nips are some of the hottest things to ever fucking exist and you will never convince me otherwise

The Golden Girls - 7.06 - Mother Load

TW: Negative Venting, anxiety, depression, road accident

I want to start using tumblr like I would have in high school because I never did so, but this is going to be a learning curve so bear with me.

I’m a 22 year old queer lesbian, I’ve moved back to hometown after graduating college, and I feel like a failure. (Wow Night in the Woods sounds so good here) I feel like I wasted my academic career trying to become something I can’t be and find community when all I was finding were distractions to deal with the political stress of the world. I feel like the community I have found I’ve pushed away and don’t view me as a part of their community or that I’ve overstepped when I should’ve just communicated. My best friend, probably my first true friend, is taking a break from talking with me and I’m afraid I’ve ruined that friendship for the sake of finding love when I don’t fully love myself. I crashed my car after having a panic attack after being sleep deprived because I was trying to see my partner late at night after failing yet another interview. I feel powerless to fight the powers that be while also having to live as a consumer. I feel like the leftist spaces I do find have people who want to be perceived as the *best activist* that they cancel anyone who makes mistakes and ignore actually creating community for the sake of being politically correct. There’s nothing wrong with calling people out when they are being harmful on purpose, but I understand it’s difficult to recognize when people are being human and making mistakes or are just being assholes on purpose. Politics and amplified mental illness do not go hand in hand in terms of communication. When everyone is used to people being cruel it’s hard to trust that people can be kind. I’ve seen this happen so many times in leftist spaces now, through my dating life, friendships, and it’s frustrating.

I feel like it is impossible for people to connect when our communities disappeared during the pandemic.

I have typically liked writing in a journal, but i feel like tumblr can be a safe place for someone to blog and vent if need be.

I know it can be harmful in certain circumstances, but I am tired of not trusting people anymore and it all started with social media so I am going to try to fix that by being as authentic as possible. whether anyone reads or not is up to the algorithm.

All it comes down to is this: I am a burnt out queer neurodivergent human being who is afraid of being perceived who has developed major trust issues. I’m afraid of being perceived/judged by lovely humans who love me and have shown me love. Because I have been treated unfairly by people in the past. It doesn’t matter if I mask or not, people are always going to project their facts and feelings onto me, and I need to get used to it. So here goes nothing.

💞✨

I was bored, I created this, and away we go.

A princess and her knight. A magical morning with @sydney_lauren00

📸: @alexis.baker42

The importance of boycotting

Keep this in mind for all boycotting. From doing it for Palestine to DR Congo to whoever else needs our support.

i love gay people i wish they were real