piecesofbread

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at dinner people were talking about how much they cried during their weddings and my one cousin said she was SO determined not to cry, made it through the entire ceremony, but then during the reception her husband leaned over and asked 'hey, do you want me to get together a plate of roast beef and hide it in our room so we can have Night Meats?' and she went 'night meats?' and started sobbing because that was so romantic to her

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Post on my dash about medical debt reminded me of the time tumblr saved me two grand. I don't think I told y'all about it because I am out of the habit of posting everything I do on tumblr lol

So. Last December, I had a bad cavity filled, and about a week later, I woke up with half of my face paralyzed. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, freaked me the fuck out. Fortunately I had some level-headed Discord friends who a) told me what Bell's palsy was so I could look it up and b) reminded me to call my dentist for an emergency appointment. Dentist was also pretty sure it was Bell's palsy, but urged me to go to the emergency room to get checked out, because one-sided facial paralysis is also a possible indicator of a stroke. And you don't fuck around with strokes.

Bell's palsy, if you, like me of 6 months ago, don't know, is a harmless paralysis/muscle weakness on one side of the face that can be caused by a variety of things. It usually goes away on its own after a few weeks but also you can speed up the process with steroids.

I was pretty sure I was not having a stroke, because I'm Red Cross first aid certified and I know the symptoms of a stroke, and while one-sided facial paralysis is one of them, I didn't have any of the others. Also, I had quit my shitty job in October, which meant I had a shiny new marketplace health insurance plan and hadn't even touched my deductible. But I called my parents from the car and they urged me to get checked out and promised to help me pay off the emergency room bill if I needed it, because they're good people and they love me even if they drive me crazy sometimes. So off I went to the nearest emergency room.

Emergency room staff also didn't think I was having a stroke, because I waited ALL AFTERNOON, periodically having a new person come up to me and ask me to smile, hold both arms out to the side, press down on their hands, and tell them what month and year it was. (They don't ask who the president is anymore. Hmm, I wonder why.) One guy had me drink a cup of water while he watched. I cannot stress enough that I did not have any medical tests other than a physical examination: no CT scans or MRIs, no IV drugs or blood draws, nothing.

I get diagnosed with Bell's palsy and given a prescription for Prednisone. And then they give me a phone number and tell me to talk to this person about administrative stuff. So I call, and the dude on the phone verifies my name and date of birth and insurance information, and then he says, "It looks like your copay today is going to be $2400. How would you like to pay?"

I am, to this day, kind of impressed that he didn't even stutter over that number, but I assume working in a medical call center drains your entire soul. At this point, it's about 7pm, and I've been in the hospital since 2pm, and I'm stressed because half my face doesn't work, and I know that I can't afford $2400 because I quit my shitty job with nothing lined up back in October. But, I still remember every tumblr post I've ever read about health insurance and the medical system and how you can negotiate down a bill. I am not looking forward to this process, it sounds like a pain in the ass, but the alternative is paying $2400, so I say the magic words: "Send me an itemized bill."

I kinda expected the guy to try and get me to pay up front, but he just says "Ok" and finishes up the process. I get discharged, go to the only open pharmacy at that time of night to get my Prednisone, have the pharmacist tell me the prescription isn't written right and he can't fill it, go home, and have a screaming sobbing meltdown because I have used up every single milligram of cope in my entire body. (I got my steroids eventually, and the Bell's palsy cleared up in a couple weeks.)

A few weeks later, I get the bill in the mail. I brace myself and open it...

$300.

Turns out, after going through insurance and processing and everything, they couldn't actually find $2400 worth of stuff to charge me for. Shocking! Who could have predicted!

I might have been able to argue it down even more, but I was fed up with entire thing, so I paid the $300 just to be fucking done with it. Sometimes the cheapest way to pay is with money.

What if I had paid that $2400 up front? Do I think they would have been like, "Oh, oops!" and refunded me $2k? Well, possibly, but I am not optimistic.

So, thank you to everyone who has ever posted about navigating the US healthcare system on tumblr. Because of you, I knew how to handle this situation even when I was tired and stressed.

Don't forget to ask for an itemized bill, folks.

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Entry level jobs haven't existed since the 2008 crash. 90% of hiring managers won't hire recent graduates. A quarter of job listings are ghost jobs. Companies hire part time so that they don't have to give benefits. Federal minimum wage hasn't increased since 2009. The True Unemployment Rate is 25%. Master's are the new bachelor's. For most the job search takes over a year. 75% of resumes are never. actually seen by the hiring team.

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i think it's important to acknowledge that the reason why mastercard/visa has such a stranglehold on american society is because cash is not the main form of payment in the usa. the predominance of card has effectively privatized currency

in japan, one of the reasons why dlsite and other similar websites are able to just remove visa as a payment option instead of changing any of their merchandise (aside from the fact that visa doesn't have a monopoly here) is because cash payments for online transactions remain an option. even if you don't have a jcb credit card or paypay or whatever, you can still pay for your online purchases using cash by taking your barcode to a convenience store, and you can do this for essentially every online vendor, meaning credit card companies can't just impose their moral judgments on your purchases with much repercussion

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i'm on a lot of nyquil right now

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one of my most firmly held beliefs is there's no such thing as an inappropriate book for a kid and people try to debate me saying like buhhhhhh I shouldnt have been reading the things I did when I was a kid and it's like cool but did you die??? did anything bad happen to you?? or were you allowed to think about what you did and didn't know and walk away when something got too intense or whatever.

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This guy seems to get it. Sometimes test screeners are just wrong.

"Why would he save the squirrel" Just say you don't get Superman and leave.

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Why would anyone trust AI to do anything ever again? What does "I panicked instead of thinking" even mean when it's a computer speaking? Why is it allowed to describe itself in this way? Great new update! Your computer can now decide to delete anything from your files autonomously, but it will also say: "oops, I fucked up."

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I'm printing Transformers bookmarks this year!! They're taller than this, but here is the character art on each of them! <3 I hope you like them!

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do you recognize this cassava flour?

if you eat anthony's cassava flour regularly, lead safe mama says: stop eating it immediately and try to get to a doctor to get your blood lead levels checked. put the cassava flour in an additional bag, mark it as unsafe to eat, but do not throw it out. the lead levels are so high that there might be a recall and there might be a major lawsuit.

some of you may have seen my post about bob's red mill cassava flour containing a LOT of lead. anthony's cassava flour has lead levels several times higher.

consumer reports tested bob's red mill cassava flour at 333 ppb. lead safe mama tested bob's red mill cassava flour at 303 ppb of lead. anthony's cassava flour tested at 1,178.5 ppb of lead. the proposed action level for children is 5 ppb of lead. anthony's organic cassava flour also tested high for arsenic and cadmium.

The amount of Lead found in this Anthony’s Organic cassava flour product is incredibly alarming and we are filing a report with the FDA to request a formal investigation and recall of this product. Children (and even larger humans) who have been consuming this product on a regular basis will likely test positive for Lead in their blood. We encourage anyone who has been consuming this (or any other Lead-contaminated product) to ask their doctor about getting a Blood Lead Level (BLL) test as a baseline immediately, especially if you have not had one recently — more on that here. If you have some of this product in your pantry, please set it aside in a separate baggie clearly marked DO NOT EAT and find your purchase receipt (if possible) to put in the baggie as well. Please also stand by for any potential formal recalls or potential litigation against the company. Do not throw out this important evidence as it could be helpful to others. Thank you.

lead safe mama posted these results on april 30, 2025. as of july 23rd 2025, I (rune) have still not seen any recalls of any anthony's products.

more information, what you can do to help, and how to find lower lead options here.

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I don't think people in apartments or other shared living buildings (duplexes, dorms, rented rooms, etc) should be throwing parties or vacuuming or blasting music in the middle of the night, but I think a lot of complaints from people in apartments are so mean-spirited and completely in denial of what it means to live an apartment building. Your upstairs neighbors have lives and kids and friends and bodies. They are going to make noise and you've just gotta expect that.

(Also, as a heavy walker, not all of us can control how loudly we step. Some of us have disabilities that affect our gait and some people are just bigger and naturally have louder steps. That's life.)

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I need to see BDSM haters go on rants about the evils of capsaicin

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My response to Ozzy Osbourne dying was literally “but I thought he was on tour right now” as if that somehow prevents you from dying idk.

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Based off two real customers I had lol