#Well... I posted these for an application but didn't end up using them whoops

[fizzingwizard]

The skin on my hands is so dry and chapped. That's normal, it's winter, but it's never been this bad before. It's cracked so much there are actual cuts, and since I have to use alcohol spray regularly (because part of my job is changing diapers and other lovely toddler life stuff), it's literally painful.

Last year my coworker gave me a set of Disney princess hand creams for my birthday x'D I never used hand cream before, but since my skin's so bad, I pulled it out and tried the Ariel one (bc she was my fav when I was a little girl). Wow, hand cream is amazing! My hands instantly felt better. They were dry again by the end of the day but I was like yay, I get to put hand cream on again! Also my hands smell so lovely now haha.

Why didn't I know the magic of hand cream before? Well, like I said, I would get dry skin but never this bad, so there wasn't a reason. Also, Idk but my dad really raised me to be suspicious of... anything that says it'll do anything. Medicine says it'll get rid of your runny nose? It's lying to get your money. Coupon says buy one get two free? It's a scam to make you pay for stuff you wouldn't have bought otherwise. School says taking this course will look good on your college application? They just want students to take the course.

It's not like he was wrong - unethical capitalism, which is, uh, what we've got, is very prone to totally legal scams. But what I have found as an adult is... things work a lot more often that I expect they will. Things do what they say they will a large part of the time. I think it's the impact of my dad, who learned these lessons of caution as an adult, teaching them to me when I was an impressionable little kid and didn't have the experience to differentiate between what was scammy and what wasn't. It's helped in some ways because I don't tell to buy things just because they're on sale if I don't have a need for them. But it's also made me wary of buying anything unless I absolutely need it.

My mom has been a big part of making my expectations more reasonable. Like my dad, she's cautious, but her big thing is "do some research first." My dad was never about that, he wanted to drive home the risk of scams, not how to avoid them. And my mom, back then, didn't teach us about that stuff. I don't even know how much my dad intended to teach - I think it's more his personality to just talk about whatever he's thinking. If he's bothered because a mechanic ripped him off, he's going to tell his eight-year-old kid about it. My mom, however, wouldn't do that, even though she'd probably also have a useful story of how she then looked around, talked to people, and found a good mechanic. Now that I'm an adult she is more forthcoming.

And for what's it's worth, my dad is a lot more laid back now lol. Like he used to be Lord of the Thermostat. Didn't matter how cold I was, "just put on a sweater." But now, he just turns up the thermostat himself... I was absolutely shocked. Imagine the house being warm in the middle of winter! But what about the electric bill?? So, what changed? well, he got older, so now he feels the cold at least as much as me and my mom do :P

Me: I'm gonna write a silly post about how I discovered the wonders of hand cream teehee everyone will laugh. Oh no, my hand slipped and I wrote a reflective memoir on my childhood and my relationship with my parents instead... again... whoops.

[scremas]

Oh boy big dorohedoro dumb WIP