#maybe the allergy shots in like 2 weeks will do the job make it seem like an unfortunate risk

[thehuns-bubble-tea]

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[7team7]

Choosing Fate: Chapter 4

Helping or hurting? // Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

A/N: Happy birthday to the best girl ever, Uchiha Sakura!! I also posted a super short one shot yesterday, so consider that an homage to her as well :D

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After the strangeness of living with a new family wore off a bit, Sakura started growing dreadfully bored. She couldn’t think about her parents and siblings for too long without growing teary eyed. The house was quiet most of the time, even when the entire family was home. Even when she tiptoed, she felt like the floors always creaked beneath her feet and she could never achieve the silent grace of the Uchihas. 

She tried making small talk with Sasuke but it usually ended quickly and in an awkward silence. It seemed that to him, a good life was a productive life, so he often met her efforts with a cutting, “What are you doing?” If she wasn’t keeping busy, it didn’t seem worth his time or understanding.

The jokes and smiles that flowed so freely in her childhood home were nowhere to be found here. She tried to think of different ways to spend time with him that didn’t include eating with his parents. He was a tough nut to crack. If they had to court each other before marriage, they both would’ve done a terrible job, she thought.

When she found him in their room packing up for another trip with his father one morning — this time, hunting — she offered to go with him, as silly as it sounded. She was just desperate. 

But Sasuke didn’t see the point at all and quickly wrote her off, “There’s no need. You would just get in the way. We’re almost ready anyways.”

She bit her lip, “Ah, you’re right. Sorry, I wasn’t sure. Just trying to help. This whole marriage thing is new to me too.” She forced out a laugh. 

“Sakura,” he started awkwardly, “I don’t want this just as much as you don’t.” He had paused in his packing and found her wringing her hands with a hopeful expression, but the light quickly dimmed in her eyes after he finished speaking. 

What were meant to be words of comfort were interpreted as words of cruelty, words that distanced. “I know you don’t want me, Sasuke,” she said, already exasperated. “But you don’t have to always make it seem that way. You can pretend for a second and be nice to me.” 

In a moment of frustration, he spit, “We don’t have to love each other to be married, you know.”

Sakura laughed without humor, “Trust me, I know. You think I want to love someone like you, let alone be married? Like you said, this is as bad as it is for me as it is for you. At least I’m trying to make the best of things.” Everyday, she discovered ways they were different. She didn’t understand him, but she wanted to. He was making it near impossible; they wouldn’t make any progress when she was always being kept at arm’s length. 

She marched out of their room quickly and left him to continue his preparations. She didn’t want to cry, and she knew seeing his face would’ve set her off. An apology rested on the tip of his tongue, but his pride held it back. 

He felt a strange sense of guilt settle in the bottom of his stomach when she still sent him off with a perfectly made bento.

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It had been two weeks since Sasuke returned from the hunting trip and things were icy between him and Sakura. She was always polite, but she wasn’t extending herself the way she used to. Even if he knew he could find the answer through introspection, he wondered what was wrong with her. The house felt dimmer than ever.

Their little argument faded into the background when new and more important issues needed to be addressed. What Mikoto originally waved off as spring allergies eventually revealed itself to be a nasty flu. “It’s all the pollen in the air, you know,” she insisted even after her first attempt at speaking was cut off by a bout of coughing. Where Sasuke was panicked and uncertain, Sakura was calm and composed — the water to his fire.

Sasuke admired how Sakura never left her bedside and cared for her when he couldn’t. He was surprised, even, that she would dedicate so much time to someone who, while friendly with her, was still a bit of a stranger. It would’ve been more convenient to call a doctor, but Sakura claimed she had it under control. His father, stoic as ever, still proceeded with all their plans. Even Itachi and Izumi were forbidden to visit lest they catch the same flu and spread it around. “She has Sakura,” Fugaku said matter of factly when Sasuke expressed concern over leaving Mikoto alone. They set out on a scheduled trip, taking care to wash up, but trusting Mikoto in Sakura’s hands.

When Sasuke was at home, he still left it to Sakura as she proved to be far more capable than him. Her hearty soups and cups of tea were always heated to the perfect temperature. She washed the bedding often, making sure her mother-in-law was always as comfortable as possible. She carried a heavy bucket of water into the room to keep a damp cloth on Mikoto’s forehead without spilling a drop. She even ordered Sasuke to go to the market and buy a specific herb that was nowhere to be found in their kitchen. 

Upon returning, he found her asleep against the foot of the bed. He felt bad that he had to wake her up, but he had no idea what to do with said herb. He felt, in a word, useless. But Sakura roused easily and thanked him as she blinked the sleep away. He watched as she expertly ground it into a fine powder, adding it to another cup of tea. Sasuke made a note of the process; next time he would let her sleep.

Anyone who displayed so much care for his mother was worthy of praise, he decided. 

He caught her in the backyard enjoying the brilliant sunset and a bit of fresh air after she deemed Mikoto healthy again, a week later. “I wanted to say thank you for taking such good care of her,” he started. “She always wanted a daughter, and I know she was sad when Itachi and Izumi moved out. Both my parents felt that way, really. She was very happy when it was decided that you would move in so soon after.” He didn’t really know why he was telling her all of this — in fact, it was probably the largest amount of words he’d ever said to her — but it felt like he owed her now more than ever. 

Sakura laughed lightly, “Well, I’m glad at least one person was happy I came here.” It really was reassuring, she had felt like an intruder for so long. Honestly, Mikoto was lovely and Sakura would willingly help her anytime. The circumstances of them living together were just a little unfortunate. Sasuke responded very seriously, “It’s not just her who appreciates it.” She, in spite of all her annoying tendencies, was growing on him. When he noticed the pretty blush dusting her cheeks, he quickly changed the subject. He really didn’t want to explore the implications of his words or her reaction.

“How did you even know what to do?” Sasuke asked bluntly. 

Sakura laughed again, and Sasuke still couldn’t help notice the way the fullness of her pink cheeks made her eyes crease at the corners. Such a useless piece of information, yet he couldn’t look away. “I have so many siblings, someone is always sick. We usually couldn’t afford an actual doctor, so it was always up to me to figure things out.” Sasuke nodded and looked out into the yard. None of the grasses or plants were quite the color of her eyes. 

He found himself thinking she’d make an amazing mother. He had been praised for his looks his whole life, and he took after his mother. He knew if their child took after Sakura, they would be beautiful.

He headed back inside when he noticed his heart rate speeding up. He tried convincing himself that maybe he was just getting sick too.

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After Mikoto made a complete recovery, she set out to visit her friends and family that had been kept away by Sakura’s orders. And once again, without someone or something to attend to, Sakura only felt trapped inside the house. The chores she used to despise growing up were ones she now wished she could pass the time doing. Was her father minding his back in the fields? Were her mother’s joints hurting with the change in the weather? 

Sasuke noticed Sakura staring out the window, looking terribly bored and melancholy on more than one occasion. He finally found the time to stop and talk to her, something he knew he should do more often.

“What are you doing?” He had something to give her, but was she..busy?

“I want my life back,” she stated dully while continuing to look out the window.

He sighed. She didn’t even try to sugarcoat it. Their marriage wasn’t his choice, but he was beginning to feel like some of her misery was directly a result of his neglect. And he didn’t like the way that weighed on him. “I’m not a thief,” he answered simply before placing a thick book on the table next to her, titled A Beginners Guide to Medicine.

He had never seen her eyes so bright.

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Sasuke took it upon himself to tutor Sakura from that point on. Even if they weren’t yet suited to being husband and wife, they didn’t have to ignore each other’s existence. Tutoring her gave him a goal, it helped orient their relationship. And she was an excellent student: diligent and hungry for knowledge. 

He discovers that there are gaps in her education, from times when she had to devote herself to helping in the fields or raising her siblings. He had always thought of being educated as a binary: either you are or you aren’t. She hardly seemed embarrassed, rather she was more determined to catch up to Sasuke’s level. He admired her impetus and found himself regretting taking his school days for granted. He couldn’t help but think the village would have been a lot more prosperous if someone like Sakura had been allowed to put her mind to solving its problems. 

Sakura grew to admire Sasuke, just a little bit. He was a strict teacher, but a knowledgeable and clear one. She had his full attention for once, and his intensity was impressive.

She privately decides to accept the book and his teachings as a birthday gift.

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A/N: I wanted to draw parallels to Sakura taking care of Sarada, and provide some sneak peeks into how Sakura gets into medicine in this AU. Also anyone catch the New Order reference?? Haha superheated is one of my favorite songs ever, so I just wanted to throw something in when I got the chance. There’s a lot packed into this chapter, hopefully it was ok! Sakura please tell everyone to stay home and flatten the curve :(

[cewfreeland]

Life in the COVID-19 epicenter

We’re on day 14 of staying at home to do our part to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, COVID-19. Everything considered we are doing so well. We’re a family with two teenagers who are finding joy in spending time with each other again. Brian and I alternate between depression and gratitude. Fortunately, we never seem to be in the depression part at the same time. That comes from being so different and also knowing when the other one is starting to spiral into the dark place. The other one rallies - reaches out through the unknown and finds a spark of joy to bring the other one out of the blue fog. 

One of my closest NY friends is recovering from a diagnosed case of COVID-19. He proactively reached out to me this morning to tell me he made it through the night since I have been bugging him every day to see if he was still in his apartment or had needed to get the urgent care that we hear our neighbors needing from the sirens wailing. Another close friend in NY lost her sense of smell and taste but seems to have come out unscathed other than those two symptoms.  I keep wondering if my short bout with fever/chills/cough/fatigue/shortness of breath/diarrhea in early March was COVID-19, followed by the kids having raging headaches several days after my illness.  Brian was in DC for most of my illness so I don’t think he got it. An antibody test cannot come soon enough.

Brian and I both have a remarkable amount of guilt. I think his guilt is centered on the fact that he is still employed while so many other artists and art workers are not. He also sees his industry hemorrhaging and with no end in sight. We watched the depression inspired film Cradle Will Rock about the Workers Progress Administration and the Federal Theater Project last night. He is optimistic that something that transformative will come out of this crisis. I have faith that he can be a part of this recovery.

As for me, the bright side is that people understand what public health is now!  The downside is that I feel like I can’t help. My grad school group chat has a really stark view of what healthcare workers are facing.  One classmate has had his surgical residency all but halted and transitioned to emergency surgery. Two pregnant classmates are still caring for patients - one in pediatric ICU (where she’s not seeing many kids, thankfully) and the other a radiologist (who is volunteering in other ways to relieve the pressure on her colleagues). Another classmate also lost a sense of taste and smell and was back at work 5 days later. She is an OB/GYN and is only delivering COVID-19 positive patients out of fear that she may still be contagious. Still another classmate is a pulmonary critical care physician who has not said much for a while, no doubt because he’s working non-stop. An anesthesiologist at Emory has become a media darling and we all cheer her on when we catch an op-ed in the NYT featuring her or catch her on CNN or MSNBC. I so wish we were celebrating Michelle’s sudden rise to fame for different reasons - her victory as a candidate for the Georgia State Senate, fighting for women’s rights, achieving better healthcare for her constituents. Unfortunately, she’s telling a sadder story right now - the reality of intubating COVID-19 patients as they struggle to breathe - giving them a shot to recover. That every breath the patient makes while she’s doing her work could be exposing her to the virus, and therefore her family, as well as the other healthcare workers. 

One classmate is part of the leadership team for the emergency department for one of the big NYC/Long Island hospital systems and she has been working to set up alternative entrances for urgent cases across their 19 hospitals. A physical therapist is transitioning her entire team from out-patient settings into in-patient settings. She and her colleagues are all being exposed every single day. One day, she’s with a patient with suspected COVID-19 status but not confirmed, the next she hears what she already knew about the status. And this happens each and every day.  They sound weary and calm. The reality of what we hear on the news made even more terrifying by their accounts. They are not dramatic, they are not overstating. They don’t have the time or the energy to add to the fury.  They are simply doing their jobs and the daunting incline on the graph of predicted patients forming ahead of them is simply something for them to climb - one day and one patient at a time. 

And I am working from home - not doing anything glamorous like I might have done if my life had not taken the detour it did 2 1/2 years ago. I am conflicted about how I feel about that. Since grad school ended, I have felt aimless - working full-time has felt very “lame.” I’ve dabbled with consulting, exploring getting my PhD, starting my own business. Being “still” is hard for me. And not being part of the central communications team at this time is hard as well. I am grateful to have moved on from that life and role - I feel like my work is more meaningful now - but there is an element of wanting to be in the drama. But I also think this is a lesson for me - to become comfortable with the long game rather than filling up space with busywork and crises. 

What I am doing is managing my team who has been thrown into unfamiliar territory. We hired these smart, courageous, and caring people to talk with people all day, every day.  And now, they’re at home, having to rely on the phone to connect with our 10,000 participants in the hopes that we didn’t catch them at a bad time. The worry is that maybe someone in their home is unwell and calling about research is not exactly on their minds. Or, perhaps they’ve lost their job and are worried about paying rent on April 1st, and May 1st, and June 1st. The good news is our team is brave and smart and empathetic and they may be just the ear that person needs at that moment. And medical research is something that more people understand now. They get how important it is to contribute to the cause. I started sending out little prompts each day to encourage communication, maybe a little humor, and at least some sense of community. Ironically, I worry more during my sleep about what “prompt” to send them than other things.  On Thursday, my prompt was “share your favorite coronavirus meme.” I sent out one about the Breakfast Club but quickly realized that I was only one of a handful of Gen Xers in the chat and many had not grown up in the U.S. and didn’t appreciate the humor. Epic fail.  

There has been discussion of doing testing on the blood samples given by participants collected in December, January, February and March (until we suspended enrollments) to see if we can see a true understanding of the incidence of the virus in populations across the country. That is VERY exciting to be a part of that possibility - to understand the DENOMINATOR in a more scientific and controlled way.  Additionally, there is some talk of running antibody testing on participants going forward. We have the infrastructure to do that and it would undoubtedly help the individual and the scientific community in ways we can’t even imagine.

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Brian has brought remarkable order to our unusual new existence. He has all of us up and doing our morning things as well as adding a few new rituals that are starting to feel normal. In addition to getting dressed, making beds, eating breakfast, he also has us taking our temperatures and taking an allergy pill Having allergy symptoms while we’re all very aware that any cough or headache could be a sign of infection is not an option. His parents sent us an extra stash of Zyrtec since we couldn’t get it at our local pharmacy. Amazon is running slow - for which I have no anger about - but it does mean that we are tied to what our local shops have on hand. 

Last week, we heard this woman from the Upper West Side comment on the local news that people were acting like it’s Little House on the Prarie. “People are making soup. They’re eating leftovers.” Lillian’s response was “That is what normal people do.” But our lives are different.  I have found my gatherer urge go into hyperdrive. Maybe it’s because Lillian is so picky or maybe because having what everyone wants at the exact time they want it is a way that I am feeling a sense of control over this insane time. We were almost out of flour, and I became obsessed with getting some. Our regular mail shipment of toilet paper is running low (as in we have about 10 rolls left) and our provider is saying it will be another few weeks before they’re back in stock. I feel this chronic fear that we’re going to run out of Lillian’s macaroni and cheese, the one thing she will consistently eat, and feel this pull to out and get her more. I became obsessed with getting hotdog buns - and we don’t even eat hotdogs normally - but when I found them in stock, I bought two bags.  I understand that hoarding is a bad thing, but I cannot deny the anxiety this situation has brought out in me and manifesting in wanting too many hot dog buns.  

Probably the best personal thing that I’ve done during the past two weeks is that I’m on a quest to achieve my long-term dream of being a runner. I’ve started “Couch to 5K” too many times over the past several years to count. I just started week 2 - I did week 1 two weeks in a row - so I’m finally moving forward further than I’ve ever gone. It feels like my lungs are getting stronger and my sense of accomplishment is getting satisfied. I find great joy in being in the gorgeous Fort Tryon Park, staying away from my neighbors, knowing that I’m investing in myself and my community even if it’s one lonely step at a time.  

[bravebones-archived]

TASK 003.

BASIC INFORMATION

Full Name: Amelia Susan Bones. 

Nickname(s): Am, Amy, Mel, Lia. 

Age: 20. 

Date of Birth: 12 April 1958. 

Hometown: London, England. 

Current Location: London, England. 

Gender: Female. 

Blood Status: Half-Blood. 

Pronouns: She/Her. 

Orientation: Bisexual. 

Religion: Agnostic. 

Affiliation(s): Order of the Phoenix. 

Occupation: Auror Trainee, Ministry of Magic. 

Living Arrangements: Shares a two-story with other aurors-to-be, as is required of all trainees. Once her training is completed, she’ll be moving back in with Edgar until she settles into a flat of her own (although he is currently unaware of these plans). 

Language(s) Spoken: English, French (semi-fluent). 

Accent: British/Cockney. 

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Zoey Deutch. 

Hair Colour: Brunette, with auburn highlights. 

Eye Colour: Hazel. 

Height: 5′4″. 

Weight: 49 kg. 

Build: Petite, with slight muscular tone in her arms and legs. 

Tattoos: A butterfly on her right wrist, and a bumblebee on her left one. She also has a tattoo that reads ‘Veritas Aequitas’ (Truth and Justice), which spreads across her lower ribcage. 

Piercings: None. She’s just never been particular inclined to piercings, particularly now that she’s about to be an Auror. 

Clothing Style: Amelia has always preferred comfort over couture. The contents of her wardrobe consist of oversized shirts, an abundance of jeans and pant suits, for the rare occasion that more formal attire is required. 

Usual Expression: Having always believed that a day without laughter is a day wasted, Amelia is found with a beaming smile on her face, more often than not. Animated and authentic in her expressions, her facial features are reflective of whatever emotions are brewing just beneath the surface. 

Distinguishing Characteristics: While there is much about Amelia that distinguishes herself from others of her likeness, the most common is the colour of her hair. The latter is something that she changes with considerable regularity, whereas there is little than can be done to change the former, apart from wearing high heels (and she’d sooner be caught dead than wear those). 

HEALTH

Physical Ailments: N/A. 

Neurological Conditions: N/A. 

Allergies: Dust, pollen, and anything that comes with the changing of the seasons. She also is allergic to dairy, although it only really bothers her if she consumes products where it is highly concentrated. 

Sleeping Habits: It is all or nothing, when it comes to Amelia’s sleep patterns. She will go for days sleeping for maybe 5 hours a night, and then crashes for an upwards of 12 hours (usually on the weekends or after a night of pub-crawling with Edgar). She is also known to fall asleep just about anywhere, and does so quite frequently. 

Eating Habits: Having to maintain some degree of mindfulness about her diet because of her job, she tries to fuel her body the way it needs to be. She’s also got a massive sweet tooth and a killer metabolism, both of which don’t particularly lend themselves to making the most nutritious of choices. 

Exercise Habits:  Since she was a small child, Amelia has never been able to stay in the same place for very long. It is rare and entirely uncommon for Amelia to go a day without exercising, whether that is through her training drills with Alastor or early-morning races with Edgar. Part of her consistent fitness routine is due to professional obligation, but a bigger part of it has to do with the fact that she truly enjoys being active.

Emotional Stability: 8/10. While not without her struggles in this area (particularly in light of the challenges of adulthood and the growing war), Amelia has always been adaptable and well-adjusted, and her emotional well-being is reflective of that. 

Sociability: Coming from a relatively big family and an equally large social circle, Amelia can count on her right hand the number she has actually been alone, and she much prefers it that way. The very definition,

Body Temperature: Cold, cold, cold. Definitely sleeps with three comforters in the middle of August. 

Addictions: Caffeine. She has also started to develop a slight dependency on calming draughts, although her need is far cry from an addiction. 

Drug Use: Pot, and nothing more. Her usage is strictly recreational, and the instances where she does light up are few and far between. 

Alcohol Use: Amelia drinks with some regularly (about 2-3 nights a week), although her indulging is mostly a social matter. She has acquired a taste for hard liquor since her training started and has a relatively generous stock of whiskey and bourbon at the flat.  

PERSONALITY

Label: The Audacious, The Recruit, The Truth-Seeker

Positive Traits: Audacious | Strong-Willed | Virtuous

Negative Traits: Competitive | Impatient | Stubborn

Goals/Desires: A free-spirit to her core, she is too preoccupied with what is in front of her to consider what will be in front of her one, two or five years down the road. But if she had to name one, it would be to play a part in helping win the war, and to secure a future worth living for her friends and family.  

Fears: Being alone, dark and confined spaces, spiders and thunderstorms. 

Hobbies: Quidditch, Exploding Snap, weekly visits to the pub and spending time doors (especially running, swimming and playing football). 

Habits: Cursing, hitting people when she gets excited, tapping her right foot and smoothing her hair, in the odd event its not in some form of an updo. 

FAVOURITES

Season: Summer. 

Colour: Purple. 

Music: Queen, or ABBA when she and Edgar go out for karaoke. 

Movies: The Aristocats. Edgar and Amelia still bond over this film regularly. 

Quidditch Team: Puddlemere United, despite Edgar’s constant attempts to persuade her that the Chudley Cannons are the far superior team. 

Beverage: A woman of varied tastes, it all depends on her mood. Sometimes she fancies a shot of Dragon Barrel Brandy, whereas others she prefers a glass of elderflower wine. 

Food: Literally anything from Mum’s kitchen. On any given day, the leftovers from her weekly visits home comprise about 90% of the contents of her fridge. 

Person: Edgar Bones.

FAMILY

Father: Jacob Bones, 60. The apple of his eye,  There is just something about the relationship between a father and his daughter, particularly when she is the only one of his children who is female. 

Mother: Amira Bones (nee Proudmore), 59. While they are the spitting image of one another, there isn’t much else they have in common. Their relationship was a bit tumultuous during Amelia’s teenage years, but their dynamic has since 

Sibling(s): 

Nicholas Bones, 24. They have never gotten on - not as kids, and definitely not now. Out of all the Bones siblings, their relationship is the most contemptuous, and she can’t stand the sight of him. 

Jeremiah Bones, 23. Their relationship is indifferent at best. She doesn’t dislike him, but she’s not going out of her way to spend time with him, either. For whatever reason, they just never seemed to click. 

Edgar Bones, 22. Best friend, closest confidante and favourite sibling, all rolled into one. Amelia could never contemplate the idea of an existence without Edgar, and their relationship is the most important one in her life. 

Children: None. 

Pet(s): 

Othello, an Eagle Owl. A gift from her father when she turned 11. 

Toulouse, a Munchkin cat. Warm and affectionate, he really lives up to the name of his breed. 

Family’s Financial Status: Her family is more financially set than most, but Amelia has always been conservatively modest when it comes to the matter of money. She could rely on their financial support with no issue, but instead chooses to support herself on her own income/resources. 

EXTRA

Zodiac Sign: Brave | Independent | Impulsive 

MBTI: ENTP (The Debater). 

Enneagram: The Opportunist (7, W8). 

Temperament: Sanguine.

Camp Half-blood: Themis Cabin (34). 

Moral Alignment: Chaotic Good.

Primary Vice: Pride.

Primary Virtue: Diligence.

Element: Fire.

[bangtanfancamp]

the Devil wears Gucci-Part 3

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Masterlist

▪︎series Masterlist

▪︎Kim Taehyung x reader(featuring Kim Namjoon)

▪︎1.7k words

•Enemies to lovers au, fashion industry au, loosely devil wears Prada au, f*ckboy au, fluff, romance, angsty banter

As the dedicated personal assistant of the genius mind behind House of RM, the empire that rules the fashion industry, your world is turned upside down the day Namjoon personally asks you to train his newest hire- the eternally insufferable opposite Kim Taehyung.

(Not my photo. Credit to vantaeholic)

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(Tae’s lunch || Tae’s POV)

I used one of my fries to poke the others around my plate, trying to figure out how I’d screwed this up all ready. I know I tend to joke around a lot, but it always seems to put women at ease. Things go better when they’re laughing. And whose day isn’t better for being flirted with?

I just had to work for the one girl who got pissed off by it. Everyone likes me. So what was the problem? Even the women at the cafeteria here liked having me smile at them or tell them how beautiful they were. Women liked that kind of attention, right?

Everyone goes through their day trying to impress the world around them, but everyone else is so wrapped up in themselves that they never even see them. I see it. I see how long the girl who took my order spent trying to cover up her freckles with her makeup, so I told her how cute they were. I saw how tired the woman who gave me my change was so I told her how much her eyes sparkled in this light. I noticed how nervous that cute girl across the office was so I smiled at her. What was so wrong with that?

Why did ____ have to look so disgusted with me all the time? I was just having fun. Life is hard enough anyway. People want to laugh. People want to be told they look good. And so what if I get a date out of it or someone invites me home. We’re all adults and we’re allowed to have fun. No one needs to be that serious all the time. And God, she worships that maniac, doesn’t she?

She got so mad when I mentioned it though. I thought girls liked talking about their crushes, but... maybe ____ is more private than I thought. Maybe I took it too far. It’s just so infuriating how she talks about him. She’s just so wrapped up in praising god Kim Namjoon- she made it so obvious that she had a thing for that egomaniac. I thought she’d finally laugh with me or at the very least blush and elbow me in the ribs, but she looked….i don’t know. She looked hurt. I think I crossed a line I didn’t mean to.

God, it’s barely been a day and I’d wrecked the only good part of this job. I noticed her the second I walked into that office. She got to me in 2 seconds flat. That hair, those legs, the way that skirt hit her curves- it made want to wrap my hands around those hips and bend her right over that jerk’s desk. God. I was already gone the second I laid eyes in her...

But then when she looked at me and I saw her face….she was beautiful. She’s quick and clever and obviously good at what she does. Everyone here seems to get along with her. I like ____. Honestly, she seems pretty cool. She’s just stuck on that douchebag. But hey, some girls are are really into that whole power and authority kink. Who am I to judge?

I just didn’t think there’d be any harm being vocal about things since everyone seems to think I won’t last here very long anyway. Might as well shoot my shot while I can, right ?

I slid my hips down in my seat and raked my hands through my hair. This place would never be my first choice, but it didn’t seem that bad, I guess.

There were things I’d much rather be doing with my time, but I’d do it for my mom. Anything for her. My stupid uncle in her ear caused this whole mess. At the end of the day, all of this was his fault for meddling in my life anyway.

Chin propped in my hands, I looked out the hundredth set of floor to ceiling windows I’d seen today wondering how long I’d even have this view when movement in the corner of the room caught my eye. It was ____. I felt myself starting to smile just because she was here. Maybe we could get on the right foot now and she’d loosen up a li-wait. She looked like- like she’d been crying. The skin beneath her eyes was puffy, and the light she’d had around her earlier seemed.... dimmer. Her teeth were clenched, her chin set extra high as she walked my way, white knuckling the tablet in her hands. She looked pissed. But calmly so, which was honestly scarier.

Crap, I really stepped in it this time, didn’t I?

I quickly scrambled to stand up from the table, but she pulled out a chair instead and sat down beside me. Folding her fingers together on the tabletop, she cleared her throat and looked up at me, challenge and grit lacing her gaze.

“Have a seat please, Mr. Kim.”

For the first time in a long time, I had no idea what to say, so I followed her instructions.

“I’m glad to see you retained enough information from our tour to have been able to find this place. That’s a good sign at least. If you already have the layout down, I’ll brief you on what a basic day here looks like. Tomorrow Namjoon will be returning from a charity gala in Miami. On a typical morning, he is to be greeted with his hot coffee of choice, typically an extra hot hazelnut latte with an extra shot of espresso. Not two shots. Not three. Just one. Trust me, he’ll know. He despises soy milk and has an almond allergy so no fancy milks unless you’d like to be wearing it as an accessory for the rest of your day. Now that is a normal day, however, when he returns from a red eye flight, he expects to be promptly greeted with the first step of the juice cleanse from the Buddha bliss juice bar down on 7th so he is not visibly puffy during any press work for the day….”

She rattled on like this in detail for the next 15 minutes and it finally started to sink in who the real power at house of RM was-_____. Sure Namjoon pulled the big levers, but she made sure he never fell apart and that seemed like a super power all by itself. She knew every like, dislike, allergy, pet schedule, dry cleaner, exercise schedule, person to kiss up to, person to avoid...And she knew every contingency to tweak things for so he didn’t go off the rails and downsize half a department for their assumed incompetency just because he was sleep deprived and jet lagged off a red eye after being dumped by his latest high profile fling.

Not gonna lie- it was extremely impressive. And kind of hot. I don’t know if I’d ever seen a girl that strategic and smart. She really knew what she was doing. How she managed to be three steps ahead of the world's youngest self made man was a fearsome thing to see. The way she analyzed all these situations made me wonder if she was analyzing me too, but I didn't think on that for too long. She didn’t romanticize him this time. I noticed that. Just laid out all the facts as they were and how to troubleshoot for all of them. It was like watching a master explain chess strategies, and I respected it.

But at the same time, it made me wonder. Just how much of a man-sized brat was Namjoon? it was kind of disgusting how much the man needed to be coddled honestly. How easily everyone accommodated his massive ego. It definitely didn’t help me hate him any less.

“So!” She resolved, tapping a stack of papers against the tabletop to level them out.

“I realize that was probably an onslaught, but you have to dive straight into the deep end to stay ahead here. Any questions?”

“Yeah, just one: what time do you get here every day?” I leaned forward on my elbows, searching her face. She seemed caught off guard by my question, quickly trying to rearrange her expression after feeling like she’d been in control for our entire conversation.

“Just before 7am. I try to beat Namjoon here so I can prepare things for the day. It doesn’t always work though. It’s almost like he sleeps here sometimes.”

“And what time do you go home?”

“On paper? 6pm. In reality? I’d say typically 10 on a good night. Somewhere between 11 and midnight on his particularly temperamental days.”

Holy crap. Was she serious? “Last question.”

“Okayyy…” she pulled back from the table, body language screaming discomfort about where I might be going.

“So, if you’re here- how many days a week?”

“Five.” She answered succinctly, tone clipped. “Unless we’re approaching a deadline for a project- then weekends become mandatory too.” Jesus.

“And any holidays?” I add. Her gentle face is steely and guarded. I wouldn’t trust me right now either, dollface.

“Of course not. But there often is more work to be done than that accommodates so I usually come in anyway.”

“Uh huh. Right. So! Let me get this straight- you know what? for your sake, let’s even round down some. Let’s say, you’re here six days a week, working anywhere from 11-15 hour days. At minimum, you’re working well over at least 15-20 hours of overtime PER week with no vacations— which is not only unethical, it’s illegal. All for the glorious empire of Kim Namjoon. So. Riddle me this-when do you ever get to live your own life?”

Silence.

She dipped and furrowed her eyebrows at me. I could see her lashes fluttering as she scrambled overtime to come up with a defensive answer for me. I settled back in my seat, arms draped behind my head, knowing in some weird way, that I had won.

“You’re beautiful. You’re young. This can’t possibly be the way you want to spend all your time. Tell me-When was the last time you slept in til the sun woke you up? The last time you had a Netflix marathon in a grubby old T-shirt with dorito stains on your fingers and a giant glass of wine? Or! even went out on actual date for that matter? Why are you here wasting your 20’s away in this place running Namjoons company for him and getting none of the credit?”

She gaped, beautiful mouth struggling open and shut like a fish freshly yanked out of the water. I couldn’t tell if she was furious with me or just lost. It didn’t look like she’d ever asked herself that before.

“Look, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll do my job here. I’ll do what you ask. But do me a favor and think about that. It’d be such a shame to see so much beautiful potential go to waste.” I pushed off from the table to stand. I felt my chest swell- I had the upper hand again. “Now, I believe you mentioned something earlier about finding me a desk space upstairs. Shall we get started on that? I’ll need a pleasing environment if I’m expected to slug through all of Namjoon’s nonsense on a daily basis. The closer to you, the better.” I started to walk away, not waiting for her but knowing in my gut she’d follow. She wasn’t the only one allowed to have a mic drop moment.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Part 4

Series masterlist

Thank you guys so much for reading til the end and visiting my little corner of the internet. I am SO excited about where this series is going. I started writing one of the last chapters first and have been going backwards to figure out what happened to get us there and- you guys- I can’t wait for you to see!! Should I try to come up with a regular upload schedule?? Let me know. ✨

[punkwhodrinkstea-blog]

Updates and Thoughts for the Future

Hello folks, it’s been a really long time since I’ve written anything on my ‘secret’ blog so here I go. It has been probably over a month now since I’ve done much writing and it actually depresses me. I have so much to write about and never enough time. Let me dive into the updates to my life with my reasons why. 

Since my last post on this blog, I started a Twitch Channel (under another name of course) and I have had a pretty steady schedule which has earned me very few views and followers but that’s okay. I’ve learned that so far I really like streaming. It could possibly lead to a career in gaming or gaming journalism or just living on donations from views. My fiancee told me about how people love to see happy, healthy couples because frankly, it's so rare these days. So I had her by my side for a few live streams and my views more than doubled. This has led us to believe that if I do all the main live stream and gaming work and she just shows up to play games with me that we would have a decent shot of getting a following. She and I are both quite good at making videos and preaching to the world so we are planning on giving youtube and Twitch a shot once we move out together. We can’t really give them a good try now because it is nearly impossible to have enough time make a steady flow of content and since we don’t live together she can’t always appear on the live stream. We both have jobs and work a lot and we are both saving up for school, we are still going to take the safer route of going to school and getting a ‘real’ job so we can afford to move out and get married. However, she is doing so well at her job she may put off going to school to make a bunch of money allowing for the moving out process to be easier and quicker. It’s very exciting. As of right now, Twitch is a very low priority and I can’t let it cause me to get sick or be in the way of seeing and helping my fiancee or taking proper care of myself. But most nights it’s not in the way of anything, but still, I have no need to aim high and do extra work right now to try and get more views, it’s simply a side hobby for now. 

Next up is my mental health. This blog was pretty much started due to my mental health and it was a major theme and subject for almost every post, but these days I hardly think about it. I don’t have any deep depression anymore or anything that lingers on for days, weeks, or months that haunt me. It’s gone and out of my life. I’m in a word, ‘cured’. Right now I’m actually more worried about my physical health because my new job is in a factory/warehouse place which has 7 am start time and 4:30 pm end times of full manual labor. It doesn’t help that I have allergies this time of year and they have actually killed my immune system enough to force me to take a sick day which is really bad. The only silver lining to this is that it gave me the time to write this blog post.  

As I said earlier, I haven’t gotten to do much meaningful writing, gaming articles, or even work on my book(s) I have 3 or 4 great ideas for novels and 3 or 4 ideas for short stories. The novels, of course, take a long time but I do think that I could finish a short story before school starts in a couple of months. Which leads me to my next point. I have a list of things I want to do before I die, but that’s a pretty vague list, I’ll just touch on the list of things I’d like to finish before school starts. I want to max out my Borderlands 2 character, beat Cuphead, Finish a short story, finish a semi-professional looking version of my Board game which is sorta done, just needs the parts to be 3D printed (that costs money so I have to wait), and I really want to beat Ghost Recon Wildlands Ghost mode. It’s a game I love and enjoy and since I don’t care much for many PvP games and I need an extreme challenge (because I enjoy beating difficult challenges) I thought I’d beat this mode, or die trying. I’ve been close so many times but something always goes wrong, usually, a glitch which is annoying. 

As for the future, I am going to be working my job until I start back at school in September and I might keep in for one shift a week if my fiancee and I think it’s a good idea which will depend on my school schedule and stress levels and how much time school proves to need. On the one hand, my life will be easier and nicer, on the other my fiancee and I get a bunch more money meaning more saving for our future home. Which leads to us moving out and getting married. That’s right folks, as soon as I finish College in April 2020 I am getting a job and as soon as possible my fiancee and I are moving out. We already have a couch, chairs, tables/desks, toaster, kettle, and a bunch of other things which I don’t care to write out. Once we move out it should free me up to at least have my evenings and nights to write, play games, help others and of course, be with my wife. We will likely be waiting 2-4 years before having kids mainly due to the fact that we’ll be in a small apartment or the basement of a house (and we’d rent out the rest of the house to someone else). Perhaps together we’d then work together to be successful on Twitch, Youtube and other online platforms which could even turn into our new job or at least one of our job’s. 

Being a successful full-time Twitch Streamer or at least a Youtuber is kind of my new dream job, its something I never really thought I’d ever want to be. But it would allow me to do lots of gaming and leave the rest of my spare time to writing, help others, doing other cool things and being with my wife/family. I know now more than ever that gaming will likely run through my veins forever, it is something I’ve always loved. Streaming gaming, and hopefully building gaming communities in the name of God is something I really want to do. I want to make the gaming world a better place through influence and passion. I’d get to let out my gamer side on a daily basis, be competitive, and do it all with my friends and hopefully my family. The rest of my life would be spent doing Gods work and hopefully writing a few books along the way and a few hundred more articles. (maybe make a few board games too lol)

My website is basically finished and all I am doing now is adding content. It mostly acts as a portfolio and a place for me to go when I need to remember what it is I do lol. I have a lot of hobbies so it is nice to have all my content in one place so when I don’t know what to do next, I can look there to remember all my hobbies and which one I should work on next. My fiancee has a very similar setup for her website and she seems to think of it the same way.

Anyway, folks, that’s really it for this blog post on this old retired blog. If all goes according to plan, next summer will be huge. I’d be moving out, getting married, getting a ‘real’ job, finishing school (for good), and hopefully starting a successful and fun Twitch and Youtube channel. Peace out folks and wish me and my fiancee luck on our future endeavors. 

*static sounds* 

[coalessscence]

one of my favorite worst things to Think About are the ways herb’s casually neglectful childhood sometimes just....surfaces in the every day world of his life now. and since his whole shtick is my childhood was perfect my father is basically god and i have absolutely no parent issues idk what ur talking abt, he winds up having to flail, having to learn on the way down, and try to keep up a cover that he knew all along. which, usually, doesn’t work, and just makes it all the more sad. here’s a few examples i’ve thought of because i don’t love myself:

someone around the station gets stuck with something metal and comments they might need a tetanus shot. herb was definitely never taken to the doctor’s for a checkup and regular vaccinations as a child, and since he works daytime hours lucille takes the kids while he’s at work, so he literally has never had a shot and he doesn’t fully understand what vaccines are, aside from cultural osmosis, so he asks in telling confusion, “what’s that supposed to mean?” @piper-aileen-lenox specifically, thnx for making me think of this and ruining my life xx

when herb and lucille moved in together (i imagine they were engaged but maybe not married just yet) lucille made it clear to her rather sexist fiance that she was expecting him to tow the line around the house just as much as her, which he agreed to, except when she asked him to do the grocery shopping thinking that was a harmless thing he could do (not like she’d trust him to actually get the dishes clean or fold her clothes so they don’t wrinkle). they almost never had food consistently in the house growing up and if they did eat full meals, they only had the food for THAT MEAL around because 1. herb sr. and ruby (herb’s parents) lived an erratic lifestyle of little to no money or a whole lot of money but only for a second because it was burning a hole in herb sr.’s pocket, and because 2. ruby quickly learned spending money on food ahead was pointless because either herb sr. hecked off somewhere w/o warning and it went bad, or his deadbeat friends hung around and ate it all, so she only bought for that day if they had the money for anything. but since no one was ever around to TEACH herb anything and he figured most things out on his own, herb doesn’t understand all this and he literally thinks you’re not supposed to by food until you run out or that you have to throw out whatever you have left at the end of the week because....... who knows ???? that’s just what he thought. it caused multiple arguments early into herb and lucille’s relationship before she figured it out and explained it to him because he didn’t know well enough to ask.

when herb and lucille’s first child, bunny, was born, he had to be shown how to hold a baby by the doctor. he had literally never held or even interacted with a baby before until that moment. he had no siblings (that he knew of), he had no friends as a child because if he wasn’t the bully he was the target and he was an ass just like dear old dad so no one liked him anyway, and he had 0 other family. lucille realized in that moment as she watched his palpable confusion when she extended their newborn child to him that he was going to have a lot of learning and growing to do. she hoped he was ready for it.

god that time there was a station fam barbecue early into herb’s wkrp career and someone, maybe mr. carlson, is like ‘WHO WANTS TO BE THE GRILL MASTER’ like its a big deal and everyone is like oh it has to be herb bc he’s the newest out of us and hes aware all the men see it as a status symbol and he CAN’T be less of a man than another man bc Ego (tm) so hes like of course im the grill master !!! and then panics for the next thirty minutes because he’s literally never even stood next to a grill let alone used one HOW DOES IT WORK the first fifteen minutes he doesnt even have the gas on rip

when herb was, like, 15, he taught himself how to drive a car because one of his “friends” (peers who was a bully that he called a friend and hung out with to stop also getting bullied but who was still bullying him anyway, herb was just brainwashed into thinking that’s what friendship is) wanted them to go out cruising and herb wanted to be a Cool Guy and not look like a chump so he lied and said he could drive. they got pulled over, because of course they did, and herb got in big trouble for you know, driving w/o a licences. the kicker though is that herb didn’t fucking know you can’t drive without a license or that licenses and road tests and drivers ed were even a THING because he literally raised himself and no one ever  t a u g h t   h i m   a n y t h i n g. anyways his dad got called home to deal with it from wherever he was away at at the time and he got in big trouble for interrupting dear old dad’s work anyways so :) what a healthy family

surprisingly, herb DID know how to cook the basics. grilled cheese, pasta, stir fries, a couple casseroles. lucille asked him about it because he was always such a Gender Roles (tm) type of man who wouldn’t even wear a brighter shade of red than like. maroon. in case it got loosely contaminated with the concept of the color pink and he’d have to change his name and move to alaska. so why was he doing a “ womans job “ (cooking) and herb just looked confused and said “what, guys don’t cook?” she told him that no, they usually didn’t and would have laughed at her if she tried to make them, and he laughed awkwardly and absently stirred the pot on the stove and shrugged in mild confusion. “that’s weird. if i didn’t cook i’d have... starved, i guess.”

the bad news is his cooking wasnt GREAT and lucille was happy to take over because again.........self taught. and he has one (1) brain cell so. not Great

LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW ALL CLOTHES DON’T HAVE TO BE DRY CLEANED. his dad literally wore clothes that had to be dry cleaned Every Day (and we wonder why the tarlek family was short on the food budget god) (and they were ugly clothes too akdhfjfg) and ofc if ruby washed her clothes, it was while herb was at school. he dry cleaned so many clothes that do Not Make Sense to dry clean in college before he slowly figured that out.

did not know what an allowance was. bunny asked him for one and not willing to seem stupid to his swift daughter he told her to ‘ask her mother’, who thought it was hecking weird that her money obsessed husband would say that, so she asked him why and after several long minutes he just shrugged helplessly and said “what’s an allowance?”

don’t even get me started on herb and lucille planning their wedding ( ‘what kind of stuff should we put on the gift register?’ “put on the WHAT?”  ‘what are we going to put on top of the cake?’ “there’s gonna be CAKE?”  ‘i can’t wait for daddy to walk down the isle with me, it’ll mean a lot to him’ “your DAD is gonna walk you down the isle....?? but you’re marrying ME, right?”   ) also herb not knowing the wedding look of the bride is supposed to be a Secret and barging into the room w a question or smth while lucille and her bridesmaids are getting ready, and everyone is hella miffed and he’s like WHAT i’ve seen her naked before and theyre all like THATS NOT THE POINT HERB

herb did Not Know about seasonal allergies. he just........didn’t know. he just thought god hated him and every spring and fall his head sprung a leak. and the whole time he was growing up no one A. listened to him complain about them and put 2 and 2 together, nor B. just taught him about basic first aid stuff in general for that matter he doesnt know shit. anyways, then lucille was like why are you such a tough guy just stop complaining and take some medicine for your stupid allergies and he was like take some what for my what now

ANYWAYS herb’s mom left while he was v young and he doesn’t remember much about her. herb’s dad was literally   n e v e r   home. the people herb’s dad left him with would work for obscenely low amounts of pay or owed herb sr. money and largely used all the money for their own food, drugs, alcohol, or other more unsightly business, and left herb alone to fend for himself. this is the disaster human that that produced, thanks, family dynamics! don’t abandon your children, kids, thanks for coming to my ted talk

[andyelson]

of all

Of All

Characters: Leati/Addison/wwe wrestlers..

** Warnings**

: Smut, XxX etc

:Authors Note::

This is my first story in YEARS upon YEARS. but with the help or the motivation, of Raven and countless others but i'd be writing everyone, forever but i read a few of hers and said, to myself

_ GET TO WRITING YOU FOOL!_

So here we go!

Addison just started, her new career finally starting fresh she always remembered Leati but it's been forever since she seen him does he remember her? does he even know she's back, her now job now is to cater to hospitals all over the tampa/ penscola area. treating sport injuries on the side.

5am wake up call:

_ SIERRA, HOTEL, INDIA_

briefly went off, her alarm when she knew leati was starting his profession in the world wrestling entertainment she couldn't help but fear for him the last time they spoke he was at georgia tech playing football and the wrestling world was where he wanted to be They last spoke on christmas before he left for his big break in football

** Forward to 3 years later**

Addison got up and thought to herself "

_ Today is going to be the day i take that ring tone off!!_

she found the carol of the bells play list and clicked through the 250 songs of christmas music but couldn't find something, so she left it on jingle bells. She then proceeded to start the shower, only to hear the same ring tone that she got woken up to, she answered," Hello this is nurse Addison Jess how can i help you what hospital are you located at". the man on the receivng end couldn't help but laugh his dark, low chuckle.. Addison yes i'm at the Leati Emergency Room.. they're treating me fare but you could help.. he said before she cut him off with "Leati"? as in the " i want to be a professional wrestler, cut off the girl and never talk to her again Leati"? she could hear the sigh in his voice, He then sighed and came back with a

_ "I'll let you go. sorry i bothered you. i'll get in contact with the doctor here_

Addison cut him off, and said

wait No. No you'll wait forever with them. i'm on call i just, didn't expect to hear from you. i didn't know if you had my number. I can come see you at your hotel. And we can go from there. Can i meet you in the lobby Leati at 6?

Leati smiled as big as a child at christmas, and said

_ Addy, it's almost christmas. Are you sure? Your probably really busy? but if you insist doc, 6:00 sure. I'll see you then_

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8d/09/9a/8d099a20e6537a5d4a54f69b31483cab.jpg

She finished her day at clincials and decided to check the weather, Naomi her friend at the hospital in Tampa kept looking over at Addison all day wondering why she was so excited and why she had to be out by 4:00.

_ Addy girl, you know it's almost christmas we're not going to get out of here until at leat 530, maybe even later girl your crazy to be thinking your going to get out of here at 4_

Addy just smiled and sipped her coffee,

_ I just don't know how else to tell you this Naomi.... _

Naomi laughed and turned her chair around to Addy,

_ Girll, you better spill or that coffee is going to be spilt and i know you and your cofee not to mess with you until ast least 4 cups!_

Addison, sighed and said

_ "Girl you remember Leati right? Leati Anaoi naomi asked? Addy nervously smiled and said "Mhmm. thats the one". Naomi laughed and said "girl, jon and him go way back i'd be stupid, to not know who that guy is,why though what's going on". Addison began Well, he called me and i was short with him, and now i don't know what to say to him because i'm not even interested but i answered my phone, because he called and you know when a patient calls i'm ** #1** it just kicks inside me, and i become this new person._ Naomi smiled and said _ Simple girl. Call him back and diagnose him as your date._ Addy smacked Naomi, and laughed as the two got back to work. Addy became nervous all day and didn't even know if she could pick her phone up to even dial his number she had his number and was nervous to even help him. nervous that he'd still be the same, Nervous that he looked the same, smelt the same. Nervous over a guy thats becoming a wrestler. Maybe he's made it to the big time and just has an injury and she would treat him and never hear from him again. She wasn't ready to let him go.

3:30 pm

_ Hello this is Addison Jess. how can i help you. what hospital or facility do you need_ she sounded so professional so intimidating, So sexy, Addison didn't get any response? she took the phone off from her ear, connection was strong. She decided to try again. _ Hello this is addison Jess. do you need emergency medical attention_ He finally spoke _ I don't know if its emergency, but i need attention, Addison it's me Leati. I have a left leg injury happened 2 1/2 weeks ago at a house show. I didn't get any medical treatment because Doc Anderson, wasnt around so i just haven't seen anyone. I'd like to see you so you can see it better, I'm no medical tech talker here. When can we set a time up._ She was happy he stopped talking, not like his voice was soothing and it sent shivers up her spine and in her most sensitive spots, because that was not even the case ( trying to be professional and not wanting to ask him where he was staying because she was going to make him feel better in ways no doctor could) She replied with a Yes leati, i can come meet you in say about an hour or two i have a few more patients and a couple write ups to write would 5:30 be okay? You could tell by his response, he was grinning ear to ear and finally spoke _ Yes. 5:30 sounds great Doc. I am at WillowSpring suites Room 1616.. My leg already feels better, maybe some dinner might be in an order and i'll be back in no time._ Addison laughed and said _ leati, i'll see you soon try not to move much and i'll see you around 5:30_ They both hung up Addison smiled all thorugh out the later parts of her shift, Naomi stopped by the station, as Addison was finishing up her last note. _ So me and jon are trying out this new cafe after he gets done at the gym he was wondering if you wanted to tag along, i also wanted to go to the new christmas store 2 blocks over and jon doesn't like shopping did ya wanna go?_ Addy looked up, and said _ I'm going to have to have a rain check.. i'm going to make a "Hotel, run safety protocal, on someone, new athlete in town thinks he broke his leg or hip. _ Naomi smiled and knew what her plan was but went along with it, _ Plus girl i gotta change. i smell like children, and germs from god knows what!_ they both laughed and started to shut their site down and walk out for the evening before leaving they hugged and naomi said for her to call her

** Getting in her white Jeep. Addison, ouldn't wait to see Leati. wondering what he'd look like wondering, what he smelt like wondering if he wanted the same things she wanted. She wanted him She wanted to help him she didn't know, why she wanted him she just knew she was ready to see him.**

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ad/d1/c7/add1c7914f79e1d7fe7726cb2b05ba1d.jpg

She pulled in to the hotel, and was taken back by the hotel and it's beauty she thought to herself well he is in the business backed by the McMahons so they wouldn't put their talent in a shank but by god this is top of the top. She wore her dark purple scrubs and her columbia jacket her hair was just freshened colored a blonde with dark underneath and her nails we're painted a cherry red color to match her toes. She looked at herself in her mirror about 50 times thinking to herself _ I' look fine. i'm a nurse. I'm not here to be his escort and sleep with him. But what if i am?_ She was hoping his injury wasn't serious, as she walked in the lobby she was seriously taken back by how spacious and beautiful it was. She asked the recepitionsit if there was a elevator near by the lady working the desk, replied with _ Yes Mam'm down the hall, on the right._ Addison thanked her and walked down the long corridor and pushed the elevator door.

She couldn't believe how beautiful this hotel was. She was so taken back by the rooms and how the structure was so breathtaking she couldn't wait to get back to Naomi and tell her about this one. She came to his room and her breath was gone she had nervous hands and she didn't know if she could even do this she looked at the room number 1616 she was hoping he wasn't in there and that it was a complete set up. she knocked and a soft voice

_ Come in please_

She smiled before walking in, knowing how polite he was was a shock. She shut the door behind her, and walked closer to him he was beautiful seriously so beautiful for the first time, her lower regions ached and she wanted to smack herself,for being this gullable she was a nurse she did this daily at the hospital She began her exam of simple questions. that she knew like the back of her hand but protocol. she had to ask.

_ "So mr. Anoai, i'm going to need you to just ask the simple questions, i do appologize for them, its just protocol". _

he laughed and said

_ Whatever you want doc. but please, before we start, can you call me Leati._

Addison smiled and wrote a heart and leati. like a 5 year old child. She said sure Leati, So now i start, she swallowed what seemed to be everything she needed to say. as she began, How much do you weigh: Leati said on average about 255 pounds. she smiled and wrote that on her piece of paper, and your allergies. he replied with lemon pepper and lemon oil. she then wrote that, and began to lick her lips praying he didn't see, what she was doing but he did (Busted) She thought She started but she stopped,

_ I can't ask this question Leati, but i have to and just know I am in no, way interested but, as she stopped mid sentance, she w went with the burning response, Whens the last time you had sex_ He shot his brown/blue eyes up at her, and said _ 2 1/2 years_ Happiness came rushing over her, she had to make sure she kept her happiness about that to herself and calmy restored back and wrote what he said. She then asked what kind of diet he was on and other questions. it was nearly 8:30. and she was starving, She glanced around the room and noticed a suitcase and leati was only wearing a tight fitted Black shirt with black basketball shorts. his hair was tied back in a low bun, she asked him where a good local bistro place was, he stopped her and said are you amplying we go grab dinner nurse? he smiled big by this time, and said _ I don't think the nurse is supposed to take the patient out for dinner_ Addison replied with "i'm breaking #231 rule of, conduct. Lets go for dinner it's part of the ritual. i need to uh see if you can eat. Leati laughed and said _ Ohhh i can eat_ Addison smiled and said lets see..

They walked down to a nearby cafe called LinPas Leati seemed to know where to go. They both grabbed a booth and looked at the menu's Leati ordered a medium Hazelnut coffee and Addison had the same but large, and both shared 2 large egg and cheese danish's with donuts. Addison felt like this was a date, she asked him about his family and he began with a _ My family is in the professional wrestling business My father, My late brother and I are in it, I'm in a bloodline of wrestling. I know when i last saw you I was in georgia tech playing football but that was forever ago. I feel like i don't even remember you from that. We have changed so much. My brother i think you remember him, more than you remember me. Yeah Matt passed hard time for me, my mom dad they took it the worse. Losing my brother the way we did made me think of coming back to georgia tech to teach, being in this business scared me of losing myself like we did Matt. _ Addison smiled and rubbed his hand as he began to tear up, she felt this overwhelming care for him. They began talking about what he's been up to in the business, _ "You know the positive stuff, been working for him. Been doing it for him, you know he would of wanted this more than anything, Been with the shield, for about 2 years Colby and Jon they're great theyre brothers to me especially since matt's been gone I feel that Matt sent them to me"_ ( THANKS BRO!) as he began to laugh Addison laughed leati said, enough about me. what about you. Addison smiled and said well i went to nursing school and began this crazy ride with Naomi. and shes been my partner in crime for years, I of course remember matt and when i heard the news it broke my heart I did send flowers to your parents and they thanked me for them. Leati smiled, and said yeah they mentioned you. i i I just couldn't bring myself to see you. but here we are. "Should we get back to the hotel? So you can finish your exam Doc?" Joe said Addison laughed and said we should, _ I wouldn't want you to miss the best part of the exam._ Leati laughed, and said _ WHAT? the shot? Yeah i'm pumped about that Doc._ Leati payed for the meal, and they both walked back to the hotel. Hand in Hand, Leati felt warm inside and really hoped this wasn't going to be the end. Just then, Addy's phone rang. I have to take this, we can continue walking, though we're almost there, _ hello this is " Addison Jess how can i help you. Oh hey! yeah, oh yeah still up for that one. Of course I can yeah i'll see you soon. Thanks for calling."_ Addy looked up and smiled, sorry friend of mine we haven't seen each other in a long time good to hear from old friends you know. Leati smiled as he held the door open for her, into the hotel. Leati stopped her, in the lobby, and took her hand in his, _ Look Addy you don't have to be my doctor if he...._ Addy looked at him confused? _He? Leati. it wasn't a "HE". it was a SHE. it was Naomi. she wondered if we had fell into a bliss, you know how she is you know how girls are. they're like trained gossip writers for STAR! and Entertainment weekley I want to be your doctor Leati. Lets go on upstairs where it's more quiet.

** ** ** 10:30 pm. the exam was over, and Joe was pretty tired. Addison diagnosed him with a Incarcerated hernia, His first concern was having sex. he blantly asked her, " Can i still engage in sex_ she sighed and said, I'll let this slide, Your not that bad YET but thats my diagnosis I need you to go see, my actual doctor that i work with so he can better run tests, and make sure But if your finding someone to get the last one in, i'm sure you will be fine. He smiled and she noticed him looking at her in a way.** 

He was anxious to even try the thing that he's longed for the most. They got back to his room, and she sat on the couch as he walked into the spacious kitchen as he ran his hands over his face he was so nervous not wanting to mess anything up. Leati heard clinkings of keys he thought she left he walked in the room, with 2 glasses of wine and felt relieved she was still there. she smiled up at him, and noticed the white wine she smiled and took her glass he sat next to her, and asked who she was talking too she smiled and said naomi you know she worries I just said i was staying late and i'd talk to her tomorrow i hope it will make her back off shes so protective but she has her rights. Leati smiled and took her glass from her and sat the glass down on the table, he smiled and went in for the kiss, addison he breathed into her mouth, You taste so good all she could do was moan back into his mouth of appreciation, he was such a good kisser one of those that you watch on a movie, his tongue tasted like heaven, and she wanted more but she could feel the wetness beneath her she hated herself for making him stop but she couldn't take much more, she removed her scrubs and kicked her pants off and sighed a relief revealing, her black bra and thong leati licked his lips and, smiled at what he witnessed addison asked You like? he choked on his breath and moaned and led her back to the bed Addison, took his sweats off, and revealed his boxers and his harden cock, she asked my patient ready for me i can see, he smiled and said you have no idea, how ready i am for you. *Concentrate, by Demi lovato started playing, Don't love ya cause i need to, but it's everything you do to me, make music when ya moaning from night until the morning.. just tell me when your ready and i'm going to paint your body with my lips... baby i do anything you want, lock me down like i'm your slave he slipped from his wallet, and grabbed a condom. Leati, moaned as he rolled the condom on, he was already swollen, and his cock was mad at him for protecting his hood, with a slight move she was on top of him, slow at first she couldn't bare the pain he was huge, he went slow at first but quickly picked up pace matching, her moans, he slowly started moving his hands freely and found her left breast she took his hand and firmly positioned it so he had to massage what was finally his. he slowly moved her over in the middle of the bed, and postioned himself in front of her, she couldn't help but pull him down so he was as close to her chest as he allowed himself, and began thrusting deep, giving her no warning that he was in charge, her moans became louder as he kept hitting every single wave of emotion that they had together, he came back up and started trailing kisses from her stomach, to her nipple, to her other and to her neck, all while thrusting deeper into her. Addison's body started convulsing more and more with each deep thrust he threw into her, she stopped, as leati asked Was it too much she didnt answer and got on all fours as, she instructed him to enter he asked are we sure we're ready for this? he grabbed the lube from her side of the bed and applied some, and entered her slowly as she moaned Don't go slow. i'm ready and i need you she said, Leati burried himself inside her as deep as her behind would allow. she began with soft moans of pleasure, as the moans became louder the screams we're right with the moans, Leati felt himself almost ready to cum but couldn't its too soon, he pulled out and addy sighed of disbelief he brought her down to him as she, was now instructed to lay on his side, as he began to fondle with her ever so swollen parts with one finger of his one move, and she was done for she licked her lips, and begged god and begged him to not stop. her toes curled and she threw her leg over his to give him more space his fingers quickened as he invited two inside her she came with seconds after he tried a third as she grabbed his cock it only took two to three pumps and he came hard and fast she enjoyed his juices all over her You taste so good leati, Your sweet on the inside and outside he smiled a sleepily smile, and laughed and said ditto doc, i only wish i could of came inside you. But that's next... they soon caught their breaths and driftedd into a sleep, For the first time Leati had it all.... okay okay okay this is my first story, in i don't even know. 3 -5 years i wrote actively when myspace was around. i miss those stories so much and i wish i saved them. I wrote heavily on randy orton. ( I blame my 2003 era) for him and my writings but thank god i upgraded to Roman. I hope my people that i tag enjoy this I know it's not as great as ya'lls. but Hallmark christmas movies inspired me and Jake, ( Long story on him) And Sex inspired me. I'll think about writing another part to this if anyone thinks i should. Thanks guys Enjoy

[dfnews]

Episode Recap of "Triple Date Night"

Season 4, Episode 2 - June 12, 2017

"Ben, Derick and Austin spend an afternoon at a trampoline park as Jessa, Jill and Joy search for the perfect date-night outfit. Meanwhile, Jill and Derick share big news with Israel; and Jinger and Jeremy settle into married life in Texas."

Let's all travel back in time to those days before Joy was married (an hour before this aired) and start airing courting shows just to confuse everyone. TLC's policy is to make its audience dizzy so they won't notice all the gay hate and female bondage going on with the Duggar cult.  

1. I'm watching the YouTube version of this episode where the Duggars' voices are all made deep as Darth Vader as a way to try to fly under the illegal upload radar. Jill and Joy sound so masculine and already deep voice Jeremy sounds like he's strangling to death. Those points may be what keeps me awake for this recap.

2. Jill, Jessa and Joy decide to go on a triple date with their boy toys. One of the opening shots is a toothbrush holder with dozens of brushes grouped together. I thought these girls had some medical training. Those toothbrushes prove they try to pray away the germs instead of using common sense. They pull out a clothes rack filled with $2 thrift store finds to wear for the date. They talk about clothes and style and that's about it. Austin is asked about Joy's style and he does the right thing by just saying, "I love it." Good boy! Joy says she's starting to wear dresses because Austin likes them. If Austin likes dresses let him wear them! He already said he loves your style so who gives a crap what he likes. Jessa gets onto the topic of her pregnancy with Hankster. This was filmed last fall or early winter before his birth. Jessa mentions, for the first time, that she has regular prenatal care. Amen! Hallelujah! We were never sure about that but I hope she means by a real doctor and not her unlicensed midwife friend. They talk about keeping the baby's gender a secret even though Hank, a boy, has been on earth for four months now. I think the secret is out. Five minutes in and we're still at the clothes rack. Jill says she'll wear whatever fits and doesn't make her sick. Jessa is confused about sick inducing clothing but I'm guessing Jill is in the early stages of pregnancy and hasn't told anyone yet. Jessa just thinks Jill is loony like the rest of us. After all that time at the clothes rack finding nothing the girls decide to go to town with the camera crew and leave the babies with grandma. How sweet of them. Grandma can barely walk but she can watch two very active toddlers. Way to go girls! How sensitive!

3. JinJer are in Laredo cooking. Jinger makes breakfast. Jeremy gets the coffee. Jeremy eats. Jinger is very quiet. Jeremy finishes his food and says he's gonna hit the books. Jinger says she has a lot of laundry to do. That's about it. They are both boring as hell! Jeremy says he does most of his pastoring research and writing at home which I guess is to keep an eye on Jinger and to take advantage of the always being available marital rape crap that Jinger has been brainwashed to think is okay. Jinger is allowed to leave the apartment by herself to drag all the laundry downstairs. I'm betting she is only allowed because the camera crew was with her. Jeremy later goes with her to collect the laundry. I guess he has to make sure it was done right before its allowed back in the apartment. What does Jinger do all day in that apartment with Jeremy underfoot? What a sad existence.

4. Jill, Jessa and Joy are now in a store looking through clothes racks. Jessa suggests some leather for Joy and she says she's not really into it. I bet some of Josh's side ladies were. Joy finally tries on a dress and comes out of the dressing room with that ugly mustard cardigan. Did she have that thing stuffed into her purse? I'm not sure if she ever bought anything but she didn't seem thrilled at all with the choices. Why? Because that is not Joy. They're trying to force nicer clothes on her because she's got a boy to please but what truly pleases Joy? Not this.

5. Time for the Duggar dumb boys talking head moment of the week. The producer asks them to name some fabrics and with utter surprise Josiah names spandex. Josiah has either been experimenting or talking to Josh too much. Jeer wins the dumbie award of the week with the fabric called "scarlet". Congrats, Jeer!

6. Back to sickly Derick and his gag problem. Again!? Didn't I complain enough the last time you filmed Derick puking? STOP IT!!!! Yes, we all know Derick is sickly but you don't have to show it. Old clips of scandalous Dr. Fedosky are shown again checking out Derick. People can comment below on Fedosky's history. It's not good. Hopefully he's clean now. Derick is then shown going to a female allergist. Yay, for an educated woman in this show. It's a rare occurrence.  Maybe she can smack some sense into him. It's found out that Derick has a ton of allergies including milk and nuts and he's never been tested before??? Dr. Merritt thinks his esophagus is spasming.  She wants to test him on some meds before he goes back to El Salvador and Derick seems unsure when he is going back. Whenever he can grift enough money from the gullible, I guess. Derick has suffered from seasonal and food allergies for over a decade. His palate, jaw and teeth were neglected as a kid. Where was his mom when it came to her son's medical needs? Maybe it's not her fault. Maybe Derick refused to get medical and dental treatment, but seriously! Why is Derick such a mess?

7. As the girls shop and grandma babysits, Austin, Ben and Derick go to a trampoline park to play. Derick promises to not puke in the trampoline park. That's always nice to hear before hanging out with that dude. Austin and Ben prove to be pretty athletic at the park. Derick flails around like a rag doll. The guys sit and talk after exhausting themselves jumping. Austin comes off as more mature than Derick and Ben. Ben talks about Austin having a job which is something Ben doesn't talk about himself. He has a job working for the Godbobber and once lied about being a real estate broker.  Derick talks about Austin being self-sufficient which Derick has no clue about since others are funding his life. I hope Austin went home and realized that he is way ahead of those two dumb-nuts.

*Time for the Duggar dumb boys talking head moment of the week part 2. The trampoline park referee tells the boys to not do certain moves because, I assume, they're dangerous. The producer asks the Duggar boys and Jessa about these moves and for once they're surprisingly not ignorant. They know exactly what these moves are that they are not supposed to do. We've seen many photos of the Duggars going to this trampoline park. I'm sure they've been warned about not doing these moves but I get the feeling the smug Duggars who don't like to follow rules from secular places break them all the time. Their smirks throughout this talking head pretty much prove it.  

8. Austin arrives for the triple date. Joy picked a dress and Jill is late because she's not feeling well. The girls act like they have no clue why she isn't feeling well. We all know they track each other's cycles and share pee pee sticks. They know. Joy can't find a shoe and asks Hannie and Jenni to help find it but they don't listen too well and move like snails so Joy ends up walking down the stairs to Austin in one shoe and one extremely filthy bare foot. Maybe the filthy feet these girls often have is to discourage foot fetishes. We wouldn't want to Josh up a new beau. Joy eventually finds the other shoe and Jill arrives. Time to party!!!

9. This is the most boring party ever!!! Jill is suffering from pregnancy sickness so she dictates what Derick can eat. I just know by the end of the night one of the Dillards is going to be puking in the parking lot. They chat about nothing and eat and then leave. All that prep for nothing.

10. Cut to the Dillard's House as the subtitle says but it's not really their mcmansion. It's Jim Bob's. He owns Derick. I wonder which Dillard donor purchased that North Face jacket Derick was wearing at dinner. Derjill attempts to tell a 19 month old that he's going to be a big brother. Of course Izzy is clueless but he does love the baby doll they gave him to play with. I hope they allowed him to keep the baby and didn't take it away because they think it might make him gay. They give Izzy a big brother shirt and Derick makes a comment about it not fitting over his grilled cheese tummy. I wonder if Derick is overly concerned about Izzy's weight. That could be a sign of Derick having an eating disorder. They break the news to the other family members over Thanksgiving in Branson. The Duggars are slow readers so it took them time and Jill holding poor Izzy up towards the ceiling for them to finally notice Izzy's big brother shirt. As I scanned the tables looking for Josh, because I know he was in Branson with them, I spy Laura DeMasie sitting at the table with all the grown boys. She's sitting between Jed and Jason. John is sitting next to Jason. She is with the Duggars too much lately and is the only nonfamily member at this dinner. Hmmmm. What the heck is going on? Maybe she and John are getting it on. Or maybe Jana. Jill gets all goofy trying to figure out how her mom raised 19 kids even though only a couple of minutes before they were talking about the buddy teams. Remember Jill? Remember raising your mom's kids? Yes you do. And as soon as Izzy can change Samuel's diaper, a new buddy team will be born.

Now get a decent toothbrush holder before someone calls the health department!

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You Lied Your Way Into A Job As A Surgeon! Can You Avoid Killing Anyone Long Enough To Collect Your First Paycheck?

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Surgeons. The masters of the flesh. The gatekeepers of the organs. The doctors who get to shave patients.

These are the green-wearing gods who know that the human body is but a chessboard, and that the nipples are the king and queen, and the belly button is the opposing king or queen.

Today, finally, you are beginning your journey as one of them.

Sounds sweet.

You have already gone through the arduous process of becoming a surgeon. After calling the hospital over and over every day for three weeks straight and praising Tylenol in the deepest voice you could muster to whoever picked up, being hung up on by countless doctors and nurses, you finally hit the big time.

Yesterday, you managed to get the chief of medicine on the line, who offered you a job after a mere 50 minutes of you bellowing to her about the white-and-red pill. Congratulations!

Thank you. I am a surgeon.

If you eat eight Tylenol fast, that’s one rabies shot.

Eating any more than three Tylenols in church is a SIN unless you brought enough for EVERYONE.

Okay. Being a surgeon is sweet as hell. You get to wear patients’ clothes around a hospital once the chemicals put them to sleep, you can eat as many tortilla chips as you want, and you can hide all of your favorite DVDs and family heirlooms inside toxic waste bins, the one place thieving pricks are too grossed out by to steal from.

That all sounds great.

Skittles are to math what Tylenol is to alchemy.

Tossing Tylenol into an above-ground pool is basically the same idea as tossing Tylenol into an in-ground pool.

George Harrison wrote three songs about Tylenol in the days just before his passing that his estate will not release.

Cool. But the best part of being a surgeon, bar none, is that incredible surgeon paycheck.

It’s no secret that surgeons are paid well, as every single day at 8 p.m., hardworking surgeons all over the world reap the fruits of their labor: a plastic bag filled with $600, given to them by their chief of medicine on their way out the door, in addition to a goodnight kiss on the forehead.

Hell yeah.

Exactly. So now that you’re a surgeon, you better do everything in your power to make it your $600 payday, because there is one universal stipulation that could jam you up: If a surgeon kills someone, everything completely goes to shit.

1) For starters, once a surgeon kills someone, they are NEVER allowed back in a hospital, ever. Even if you just want to go to hang out or to meet new lovers.

2) Your professional reference completely goes out the window. If a new job calls to ask about you, instead of a recommendation, the HR department hands the phone off to the absolute sickest pervert patient they have, and lets them air out whatever they’ve got kickin’ around up in their minds.

3) Lastly—and this one is the worst of all—you don’t get paid a dime, which would mean all of your efforts to become a surgeon were for NOTHING.

So, if you want to get to that sweet paycheck, you’re going to have to make it through one entire day as a surgeon without killing someone.

I’m excited to be a surgeon who kills no one.

The hospital. The place where people come when they are bored to take off their pants and scream. This will be your new surgeon home, and today is your first day of work. As far as anyone inside is concerned, you are now a fully qualified surgeon, so if you want those 600 clams, you’re going to have to hold your own and stay off everyone’s radar.

Enter the hospital.

“Please give me a surgery.”

Ah, shit. A sick kid is waiting for you right inside the lobby, and he looks all kinds of fucked up.

“I need a surgery pronto. I am dying, and it feels like none of my bones are connected to my other bones. I also have a rash that comes and goes. Please do surgery to me with your other doctor friends.”

Quietly tell the kid that he’d be doing you a huge favor by asking another doctor for help on this one, and hope that he’ll be cool.

Piss your pants and bail to the bathroom.

“If you don’t give me a surgery right now, I will scream. I will scream so loud and for so long, and I will point at you the whole time. It will go on for so long that the rest of the doctors here will have no choice but to send you to jail.”

Piss your pants and bail to the bathroom.

That was close. You’ve pissed your pants real good, and now you’re in the bathroom splashing your pants with water, the best way to clean pants that you’ve urinated in.

I know that. My pants are now much wetter, but not as much with piss as with water, so they’re practically good as new.

“You sure know your way around cleaning a pair of pissed pants, sport. Not bad at all.”

You look over and see that it’s the hospital’s janitor talking to you. He somehow opened the door in perfect silence while you were inside splashing your pants, and has been watching you for upwards of 90 full seconds.

“I’ve been watching you for upwards of 90 full seconds, and I can tell just by looking at you, you’re no surgeon.”

Yes I am. I am a surgeon, you jackass.

Remove your shoelaces and begin choking the janitor until he dies so no one finds out about the bullshit he just said, or about your method of splashing water onto your pants.

“Easy, easy. I’m not gonna rat you out. I’m gonna help you.

I take it that you’re in here lying to be a surgeon, hoping to get ‘The $600 Bag Treatment,’ huh? Well, you’ve got a friend in me. I’ve seen it before, and I’ll see it again. All you gotta do is make it until 8 p.m. without killing a soul and you’re in the clear. So whadya say you come lay low with me for the rest of the day, spend some time hanging with a new bud so you don’t end up killin’ no one before you get that money?”

Why are you being so nice to me?

“I, uh, how do you mean?” he says, visibly becoming self-conscious about the entire interaction so far. “I’m just tired today, so if I’m acting weird, that’s what that’s about, probably. Allergies are being weird, too.”

Okay. Let’s hang out.

“Follow me!” the janitor says before sprinting down the hallway. You do your best to keep up with him as he weaves in and out of patients and doctors before you finally arrive at a huge metal door. He slides open the rusty door to reveal a set of long, winding stairs that lead to a dark, desolate basement, and turns to you with a half smile.

“It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno,” he says before letting out a quick, uncertain laugh, looking over his shoulder at you to kind of check in and see if you’re laughing or anything at what must have been some sort of joke.

Smile and nod politely.

Pretend you didn’t hear what he said.

What are you talking about? What?

“That was dumb, never mind,” the janitor says, shaking his head as his shoulders slump, trying to explain his joke before slowly progressing into full-blown self-deprecation. “I was thinking, like, how in the old commercials, I’d be the delivery guy and you’re the pizza—I don’t know, forget it. It was dumb. Sorry.”

Okay.

You follow the janitor down the stairs and into the basement of the hospital, and lo and behold, it’s a full-blown bachelor’s pad! The janitor has stocked the place with some of the best things: a ping-pong table, a “Forever 27” poster, an old-timey popcorn machine, and a bunch of orange pill bottles filled with Frosted Cheerios.

“This is my chill zone. I’m down here almost all the time, which is why the hospital is filthy and patients always seem to get sick immediately after they get better.”

“We got all day, brother, so we could either sit down and talk about that important-looking guitar I have mounted on the wall over there, or we could stand near the stairs and wonder if Slash has ever signed a guitar and sold it for $20,000 online before, or maybe we could lay down on the ground and trade stories about the most expensive thing we’ve ever mounted on a wall. Your call.”

Challenge the janitor to ping-pong.

“I can’t lift my arms above my waist because of a power-washer accident.”

Give in and ask the janitor about the guitar on his wall, since it seems like he really wants you to.

“You got a good eye, kid,” he says as though you brought it up completely unprompted, proudly looking up at the guitar he somehow mounted unnecessarily high on his wall.

“Believe it or not, Slash signed that guitar, and I was lucky enough to spend all of the money I have on it. I usually don’t do this for anyone, but for you, I’ll climb all the way up there and get it if you want to hold it.”

Seems dangerous to climb up there if you can’t lift your hands above your waist.

“I’d climb anywhere for one of my boys.”

And what about those wires? You’d have to step all over those wires to get over there?

“I’ll put a very wet towel over them. I’m sure that will be fine.”

This looks way too dangerous. Say you don’t need to see the guitar, bail on the weird janitor, and head back toward the lobby to kill time solo.

Ask the janitor to get the guitar for you.

You’ve killed! You’ve killed!

You put the janitor in grave danger by selfishly asking him to grab his Slash guitar off the wall. After the janitor put a soaking-wet towel on top of his countless basement wires in order to walk over to the wall and begin his climb, he was immediately electrocuted and fell crashing to the ground without the ability to raise his arms and break his fall. It’s unclear if it was the electricity surging through his body that did him in, or if it was the way his neck snapped on a nearby stool because of the horrible, unnatural way he fell. But either way, he is definitely dead, and it is your fault.

You’re no longer a surgeon, and you can kiss that bag of $600 goodbye.

Restart at checkpoint.

Start Over

As you go back up the stairs and start heading toward the lobby, you can hear that he starts to follow you, but then locks himself in the bathroom you were in earlier and begins screaming at himself in the mirror for messing up what could’ve been a nice day. His screaming gets louder and louder before it comes to a halt after you hear the sound of him snapping his mop over his knee in fury.

Run away from the janitor as fast as you can.

“I need you to give me a surgery right now.”

Ah, damn. It’s the sick kid from earlier.

“I feel like I’m on a boat at all hours of the day, and my elbows are dry. I need you to cut me open and drain me out, if that’s what it takes, and to please get me home by later today.”

Give the kid a surgery.

You pick the kid up, throw him over your shoulder, and walk through the hospital looking for a good room to cut him open in. After 20 minutes, you finally find the room with all of the surgeons in it, and you slam the kid down on the empty table they’re all staring at.

Now all eyes are on you. You’re going to have to step up and say something pretty incredible to get all of these surgeons on your side.

Found a kid I think would be perfect for surgery.

This is the only patient I’ve seen twice so far, so I think he should be next.

It’s not delivery. It’s DiGiorno.

You’ve killed! You’ve killed!

After you said that ridiculous, dumbass comment, every surgeon in the room became furious at you and began hammering you with questions about your qualifications. You tried mumbling through more Tylenol facts, which went much worse in person than it did on the phone, and somewhere during your 25-minute verbal beatdown from the other surgeons, the kid died on the table.

You are no longer a surgeon, and you will never get a plastic bag filled with $600.

Restart at checkpoint.

Start Over

Share Your Results

Everyone starts nodding and smiling and patting each other on the back. Good shit.

“Ha, nice,” a woman says, whose voice you recognize from the phone as the chief of medicine at the hospital. She quickly anesthetizes the patient to finally stop him from grabbing and clawing at everyone’s surgical masks, and within seconds the little spaz is sleeping.

At that moment, the tallest doctor you’ve ever seen walks into the door wearing a backwards hat and confidently drinking Barq’s Root Beer out of a 2-liter bottle.

“I’ve never seen you around here,” he says after putting the root beer down firmly into the lap of the unconscious kid and eyeing you up and down suspiciously. “Enlighten us, fresh meat. Now, what surgery are we performing on this little man, exactly?”

Ah, this guy is onto you. Need something big here to throw everyone off your tracks.

Fuck you, pal.

Sorry, rookie, but surgeries don’t have names.

Wink at him.

“Doctors, you two can be mean to each other in the parking lot all day long if you want to, but that’ll be enough fighting in my hospital,” says the chief of medicine after banging her fist down onto the kid’s chest like a gavel to get everyone’s attention.

“This little boy is in dire need of a heart transplant. We need to start immediately.”

Let’s get started.

Piss yourself and try to bail to the bathroom.

“Doctors, that’ll be enough talk about whether or not there are actually types of surgeries or not, because there simply is not a correct answer,” says the chief of medicine after banging her fist down onto the kid’s chest like a gavel to get everyone’s attention.

“This little boy is in dire need of a heart transplant. We need to start immediately.”

Let’s get started.

Piss yourself and try to bail to the bathroom.

“Doctors, please stop winking at each other,” says the chief of medicine after banging her fist down onto the kid’s chest like a gavel to get everyone’s attention.

“This little boy is in dire need of a heart transplant. We need to start immediately.”

Begin surgery.

Piss yourself and try to bail to the bathroom.

After noticing that no one is reacting to you pissing yourself, you look around and realize that every surgeon in the room has also already pissed themselves. Then you remember that surgeons are constantly pissing themselves during surgery, like bicyclists during races, for reasons completely unknown.

Ah, right. Now start the surgery.

The chief of medicine takes out a toolbox from underneath the surgery-room sink and hands each surgeon a tool. She takes each tool out one by one and starts passing them down the line. One doctor gets a small shovel, one gets a large knife, another gets a pickax, and on and on it goes, until you finally end up with the flashlight!

“Um, yeah, that’s my flashlight, pal. I’m always the flashlight man around here,” says the root-beer doctor.

“No,” interjects the chief. “New guy can hold the flashlight today. I have a good feeling about this.”

Your new rival is stunned. He shoots you a dirty look, threateningly crosses his thumb over his neck, and then does it again with his other thumb, but slower. Then he quietly mouths something that you didn’t really get a good read on, but from what you did see, your best guess is that he was saying something like “Fracking mountains,” or “Simply delicious.” Then he is handed the worst tool: the blood napkin, the tool that wipes up all the loose goo and pus.

Turn the flashlight on and shine it at the kid’s organs.

Shine the flashlight in your rival’s eyes to make him squint.

“Ah, c’mon, man. Quit it. What the hell.”

Nice. Shine the flashlight at the kid’s organs now.

The surgery is now well under way. The chief is slicing and dicing and moving parts around left and right. It’s pretty much a one-woman show.

Most of the other doctors are using their tools just to kind of scrape some bones and stuff when they feel like they should get in the mix, usually after not doing anything for a couple minutes straight and getting nervous that someone will notice how they’re not really that crucial to the operation.

You’re getting bored by the whole thing at this point, but at least you’re holding your own with these docs and, most importantly, haven’t killed anyone yet.

Keep shining the light in the organs.

Surgery still going. Getting kind of repetitive. A couple doctors shuffled out for a minute and came back with crackers, but the crackers are all gone now. You didn’t even notice they had crackers until there were only, like, four left in the sleeve, so at that point, asking for some really wouldn’t have been cool.

Surgery is getting boring.

Keep shining the flashlight.

Surgery is boring as hell.Your arms got tired from holding the flashlight up, so you put it down for a minute and no one seemed to notice. You’re back up now.

Keep shining the flashlight.

Kid woke up and started screaming LOUD, but now he’s sleeping again.

“You were scared!” “No, you were scared!” “I wasn’t scared, you were scared!” The surgeons are all ragging on each other and having fun again. Finally got some juice in the room. Whole crew got a good laugh out of that one.

Keep shining the flashlight.

Woah, wait a minute. Oh, man. You see something inside the kid’s body. Wedged deep in between his rib cage and his liver, there looks to be something shining and throbbing, and you’re pretty sure you’re the only one who sees it.

Two doctors broke away from the surgery about 15 minutes ago to arm wrestle on a nearby stool, and the rest of the surgeons have all one-by-one walked over to form a circle around them so they can gamble. Meanwhile, the chief is still hacking away at this kid’s organs with all of her might, and seems way too dialed-in to notice the game changer you’ve found.

Become a hero in front of your new boss by immediately and dramatically yanking out whatever the hell is sticking out of this kid’s guts.

Play it safe by simply alerting the chief of the mystery object and seeing what she thinks you should do.

Lean your flashlight up against the kid’s chin and go gamble with your new work friends.

You’ve killed! You’ve killed!

You thought you were being a hero by yanking out what you thought were some sort of wet, shining metals, but were actually the poor kid’s veins. You are no longer a surgeon, and can go ahead and kiss that sweet paycheck goodbye.

Restart at checkpoint.

Start Over

“Those are veins. They are not ‘evil copper and metals sticking out of this poor bastard’s guts.’ Do not call them that.”

Damn. Misread that one. The chief is totally onto you now.

“But I appreciate you speaking your mind when you think something is amiss,” she continues, looking up and making eye contact with you for the first time. “That takes a commitment to the job that some of my other doctors lack at times,” she says, motioning to the doctors across the room who are now attempting to disguise their arm-wrestling gambling ring by draping a hospital gown over the two meaty, dueling arms.

Hold eye contact without blinking, slowly nod your head, and say “good.”

The chief reciprocates your unblinking eye contact and begins nodding in perfect unison with your nodding. This goes on for a good 20 seconds or so, the grunts of the two arm wrestlers and the slaps of cold, hard cash hitting the tile becoming the only sounds in the room.

At that moment, you and the chief simultaneously feel a romantic charge between you, and it feels beautiful and right. But that romantic feeling is immediately followed by a simultaneous paternal feeling, but it’s unclear who is the parent and who is the child. Then the two feelings of physical attraction and familial protectiveness fuse together into one singular emotion, and it feels disgusting to both of you.

Pretend you hear one of the gambling surgeons call you over to ask you a quick question, and then walk over to them.

“Yeah, yeah, go catch up with them. I’ll hold it down over here, cool,” the chief kind of half-mutters to herself and to you while shaking her head and getting back to surgery.

Look back over your shoulder and smile and nod.

Pretend you didn’t hear her and walk faster toward the arm-wrestling scene.

You walk over to the gambling circle and see the two exhausted surgeons pulling and pushing as hard as they can to win. The two doctors are so evenly matched that their arms aren’t moving or shaking in the slightest. If it weren’t for the veins about to explode out of their temples and the tears streaming down their faces, you’d have no idea how intense the duel was.

All of the other surgeons are quietly going apeshit. Almost all of them are either gently pounding their chests, gingerly slapping the ground, or shaking their fists in the air, all the while whispering bad arm-wrestling advice like “Win the skin!” or “Make him smooth!”

It’s definitely a pretty sweet scene, and you decide that you want to get in the mix.

Ask the doctor on your left to borrow a couple bucks to gamble.

Ask the doctor on your right to borrow a couple bucks to gamble.

As you go to ask the doctor next to you, your rival doctor steps in front and interrupts:

“Looking to get in on the action but lacking the funds, newbie? Don’t worry, fresh meat. I got you covered. Also, we’re rival doctors, just in case that wasn’t clear.”

Whoa, pretty cool to get a rival doctor on your first day on the job. That probably usually takes years.

“That’s my coat over there,” he says, pointing to a white lab coat being worn by one of the arm-wrestling surgeons. “Go ahead and take my wallet out of the pocket and take out as much money as you want.”

He then lets out a weird little laugh and looks around to see if anyone else is laughing. One other doctor did laugh, but he’s in the middle of a conversation with another surgeon, so you’re pretty sure the laugh had nothing to do with your rival.

That’s weird. Seems like that coat belongs to the doctor wearing it. You lying, asshole?

“I have coats all over this hospital that you wouldn’t know a thing about,” he says, raising his fist up to your chin real quick, trying to get you to flinch. You stand your ground and don’t flinch at all, though, and he sheepishly brings his fist back down to his side.

Tell your rival that you would never borrow money from his shitty coat, and that he’s acting like a real weirdo.

Trust your rival’s suspicious story, reach into the coat being worn by the arm-wrestling doctor, and take out some money to gamble with.

You’ve killed! You’ve killed!

In a brilliantly executed scheme, your rival tricked you into reaching into the coat of one of the doctors who is arm wrestling. When the arm wrestler saw you trying to steal his wallet, his mix of adrenaline and dangerously high blood pressure caused his heart to explode.

Your misconduct has resulted in a death, meaning you can no longer be a surgeon, and you will never see that sweet, sweet bag o’ cash.

Restart at checkpoint.

Start Over

“I, uh, good then,” he stutters as h

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[rayalez]

The Anti-Vaxxer Sisterhood — Part 2

(Part 1 is here.)

The story of the sisterhood starts with Deb’s tragedy.

Deb wasn’t always anti-vaccine. She was married to a prominent physician, Dr. Harold Markowitz. Twenty years ago they bought 1889 Houston together and had two twin boys, Harold Jr. and David.

Although both boys were vaccinated, it was only Harold Jr. who started to have complications afterwards.

According to Deb, the day after both boys had their MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine, she had to wake Harold Jr. from his crib, unusual given that the one-year old was almost always awake by 6 am and his brother, David, had been playing noisily in the room for at least an hour that morning. Something was not right. Harold was extremely tired. He whimpered and moaned. Most shockingly, he had a red rash all over his body.

The young parents took Harold Jr. to the hospital. The doctors thought Harold Jr. must have had some allergy to something in the house, that or a virus. They prescribed some anti-biotics and sent the Markowitz’s back home, advising them to try new bed sheets in case Harold Jr. was having an allergic reaction. Harold Jr. perked up later that day and seemed back to normal by the next day. Unfortunately, the same thing happened the following week. Unlike his first episode, Harold Jr. did not bounce back so quickly. He spent a few days in the hospital before being discharged. Then, a week or so after that, he was re-admitted to the hospital, the same conditions present — extraordinary tiredness, discomfort, and the red rash.

For months this cycled continued. During this time, Deb began to notice that even when Harold Jr. was “feeling better”, he was showing almost a dulled existence. At this age, parents expect to see their children’s curiosity and mental vigor shining brighter and brighter with each passing day. With Harold Jr., the opposite was true. He seemed to be growing distant, uncommunicative, enervated.

One day, during one of his many episodes, Harold Jr. slipped into a comma and never bounced back, eventually passing a month later as his mother sat by his bedside. He was 2 years old.

For months, Deb laid in bed. She could’ve easily stayed there, but the heart wrenching loss of her child was compounded by the fact that there was no valid explanation for it. It was like the devil was playing a game with her. She needed an explanation, something that might give some closure.

People close to Deb call her a pit bull. In law school she placed at the top of her class, moving on to a large law firm where she displayed a tenacity in the courtroom that intimidated and impressed colleagues. She quit her job after marrying Harold, but she never lost her drive, often working late nights at her non-profit fundraising position and volunteering for a number of organizations on the weekends.

One day Deb decided to set her considerable persistence on finding an answer for Harold Jr’s death. No physician ever told Deb that vaccines led to Harold Jr.’s death. And for a long time, one or two years afterwards, Deb didn’t really give vaccines serious consideration. Still, though she was too embarrassed to mention it, since the first time she had awaken Harold Jr. to find that awful red rash, she had some suspicion, some nagging thought, that the vaccine might have had something to do with it. The events were just too close in time to ignore. Get a shot one day, get sick the next.

At first she didn’t’ necessarily think the vaccine itself had caused the sickness. Maybe the needle was the culprit. If it hadn’t been properly cleaned, it could have delivered an infection. Then, late one night at the NYU Medical School library, Deb spotted a journal article about the anti-vaccine movement. Her life’s purpose was about to come into focus.

The article reported on the work of Dr. Indiri Singh, an Indian-born Canadian who conventional science blames for establishing the modern anti-vaccine movement. The article was dismissive of Singh and his followers, but it peaked Deb’s interest. She ordered a copy of Dr. Singh’s most read book, Vaccine Nation, scouring it late at night when her husband, who would have disproved, was asleep.

Throughout his career, Dr. Singh posited that modern-day childhood vaccinations are at the root of a host of troubles, from inexplicable death (like with Harold Jr.) to — most famously — rapidly increasing rates of autism among children in the past few decades. Dr. Singh claimed to have performed dozens of studies showing that vaccines weren’t just correlated with increasing autism rates and other conditions, but were in fact the direct cause. None of these studies were ever peer reviewed and they’ve since been debunked by numerous researchers throughout the years. Still, Singh’s work held firm in a small, but strident subset of the population.

Singh gave talks around the US and Canada, often at Holiday Inns. Universities refused to host him. One day in early February 2002, after telling her husband she was going to do some volunteer work, Deb got into her car and drove to a presentation Dr. Singh was giving in Hoboken, NJ.

She was surprised to see a packed room, mostly made up of women but some men were in attendance as well. Singh was charismatic and convincing and Deb couldn’t help but approach him afterward. She told him about Harold Jr.’s story and they quickly bonded, keeping in touch through phone calls and emails. Singh was impressed by Deb’s intellect and, being a former trial lawyer, knew she’d make a good public speaker. He also thought his audience would appreciate seeing the “human” side of the issue, a real mom who had suffered infinite tragedy because of modern vaccination. Singh asked Deb to join him on the road.

It was a difficult decision for Deb, mostly because she knew Harold — who until then assumed his wife had only a passing interest in the safety of vaccines — would not approve. She was right. Harold was a mild-mannered man and never would have prevented his wife from doing something she wanted to do. But he had serious concerns, not so much about the presentations but more so the fact that his wife harbored such views. As a successful medical doctor, Harold thought the anti-vaccine movement was pure charlatanism and was troubled that his wife had apparently been hijacked by it. A gulf quietly started to grow between the couple.

Dr. Singh was right — Deb was a huge draw for audiences. She was a natural, but more importantly, she had a genuine story that connected the “science” to the human side of the story. She knew she was having an impact when audience members went from telling her how long they had driven to talking about how long their flights had been. In a matter of months Deb was being invited onto conservative radio and had signed a book deal with a small publisher.

The Singh-Markowski one-two punch was short-lived. In 2004, the co-presenters had a falling out. It wasn’t so much that Deb was stealing Singh’s spotlight (though that might have added a layer to it). Rather, in speeches and on radio appearances, Deb began to up the ante, espousing a new view. Not only were vaccines harmful, she said, they were made intentionally so by governments and the pharmaceutical industry. This was too radical, even for Singh. The two went their separate ways.

Deb wasn’t the first one to talk about vaccines and mind manipulation. The conspiracy theory had been floating around among the usual bunker-owning suspects for years. It’s hard to compute how an extremely bright and gifted cosmopolitan woman like Deb could start to believe it, but in some ways it’s futile to try to make sense of a person’s conspiratorial beliefs.

Almost by definition, conspiracies can’t be proven, either because they really are the just the conjuring of an overly-active mind or because the person behind the conspiracy — if it does in fact exist — has already taken steps to hide it from the light of truth. Why do people believe in the unknowable? Why does a person believe in some things that are unprovable and not believe in other things that are equally unprovable? It’s like trying to rationalize one’s faith in the divine; you can’t really make sense of it. People believe in God because people believe in God. God’s existence is not provable, yet people persist in their belief, probably because the divine is a sort of answer for them — the solution to a riddle, the centerpiece of an incomplete puzzle. To Deb, I assume, the global vaccine conspiracy was a piece that happened to fit well in the puzzle of her life.

In 2005, Deb launched her website, which quickly shot up through the ranks of popular anti-vaccine internet bastions. Very shortly after, however, another tragedy struck. Harold committed suicide.

Harold was never able to get over his son’s death, Deb says, and she knows it was this unending pain that caused him to take his life. Deb says she might have done the same thing, if it weren’t for their other son, David, and the anti-vaccine message she had been tasked to spread. She feels terrible saying it, but at the time of Harold’s passing, they had grown so distant that she found herself feeling guilty for not again experiencing the infinite sadness she did when Harold Jr. died. She was crestfallen, but her despair did not reach the depths she thought it should.

Deb continued spreading the anti-vaccine message after Harold’s death. She limited her presentations to be with David, but she put extra efforts into her book writing and webpage, all the while connecting with thousands of people around the globe, from India to Beirut. Many were like her, trying to explain the inexplicable. Why is my son autistic? How did my daughter go blind in a matter of weeks? Why was my child ripped away from me? Why aren’t doctors able to explain these horrible things?

Mothers and fathers across the globe needed an answer. In Deb, many found someone who at least purported to have one. Whether speaking the truth or not, at the very least Deb offered a culprit, something that could be blamed. For many, that was good enough.

From this congregation the sisterhood took root.

***

Deb often engaged in personal emails with people who contacted her through her website. One of them was a woman in her early 30s named Tara McConnell from Dover, New Hampshire.

Tara and her sister, Eve, had had a hardscrabble life. Their mother was an alcoholic and freelance druggy. Their father was a huckster, often in and out of the house as he pleased. He sometimes worked odd jobs, but often didn’t work at all. Around town they called him “gimp” because he walked with a slight limp. He attributed it to a Vietnam War injury; to this day, Tara has no proof he actually served. Twice she had to bail him out of jail before she could even drive, using money she had saved up while babysitting or having to borrow from aunts and uncles.

At 20 years of age Tara got married to a Brazilian transplant named Raul. Originally Raul had come to New Hampshire to marry another woman, but was promptly dumped when he lost his factory job and was unable to make the bundles of money he promised he would after opening his own chain of private gyms.

Tara and Raul met at the local community college. Tara was a night custodian; Raul had just started working as a night security guard. On the first night they met each other, they’d made love in the college library.

Like her mother, Raul was a drunk and, worse yet, possessive. He railed against Tara when he thought she had looked at another man or another man had looked at her. Sometimes he’d hit her.

Besides her sister, Tara didn’t have anyone to turn to. Her father was living on the couch of an old friend, starting to die from cancer. Her mother was still an addict, sometimes coming over to grab a bite to eat.

Tara remembers one night her mother coming over and noticing a black eye she had.

“He hit you?” her mother asked.

“No,” Tara lied.

“No, he goddamn hit you,” said her mother.

For a moment, Tara thought she was about to see something from her mother that she’d never seen before — concern.

Instead all she got was a half-drunk, insincere “tell that goddamn mother fucker to knock it off.” She then left, sandwich in hand, getting into the crappy car of some guy Tara had never seen before.

Tara got pregnant, had a baby they named Felipe after Raul’s grandfather. For a time, Raul limited his drinking and showed some hope of becoming a decent father. But then Felipe started to have issues. He grew distant and didn’t speak. He would have epic tantrums that left the young couple feeling exhausted and bitter, at the situation, at the life, at each other.

The trips to the specialists became more frequent. Tara began to take more time off work for Felipe’s visits. This was a financial double-whammy. Tara was losing hours of pay to bring Felipe to specialists they already couldn’t afford.

Raul began drinking again, eventually losing his job after showing up inebriated one too many times. The couple then lost their home. Worse yet, Tara’s sister, Eve, her one well of support, had to move to Texas with her husband who’d just been re-stationed by the military.

Tara spent many nights thinking about how she’d leave Raul, and when. She’d run over the logistics in her head a thousand times. Where to put the note, what friend of hers they’d stay with for the first few nights, whether to leave her tiny engagement ring on the table or not. But she didn’t leave Raul. With no money and a child with special needs, and with her sister being thousands of miles away, a drunken partner was better than none at all.

Without a place to live and with no other good options, Tara, Raul and Felipe packed up and moved to Brazil to live with Raul’s mother and grandmother. (They sold almost everything they had to afford the plane tickets, keeping just some clothes and toiletries.)

Brazil wasn’t so bad. Raul got a job at a local school, and his drinking seemed tempered by the presence of his mother and grandmother. Felipe was enrolled at a pre-school that could support children with autism in a half-way decent manner. Though they mostly communicated in smiles and nods, Tara got along well with Raul’s mother and grandmother, finding in them a maternal connection she’d never experienced before. Soon, Tara had the couple’s second child, Ana.

It was in Brazil that the anti-vaccine spark first went off in Tara’s head. During Ana’s visit to the doctor to get vaccinations, the doctor posed a question that you’d rarely hear from an American doctor.

“Are you sure you want the vaccinations?” he asked Tara, speaking English in a thick Portuguese accent.

Tara was taken aback. “Of course,” she said, “What, do some people not get them?” Heretofore, she had never even thought to ask the question.

“Yes,” the doctor said, “Some mothers choose not to get vaccinations.” He explained the common reasons why, which intrigued Tara, given her son, Felipe, and the claimed link to autism. The doctor didn’t seem to actually believe the theories, but he said his patients deserved to be able make an informed decision.

What the doctor said gave Tara some pause and she told him she’d wait a day or two to think about the vaccination. The doctor put his needle away and said he’d see her some other day.

Tara had never before questioned why Felipe was born with autism and, frankly, she didn’t think the answer was all that important. But if autism was man-made, if it was in fact some pharmaceutical company’s fault, something they should have warned her about, she wanted to know.

She went online. In almost no time she’d happened upon Deb Markowitz’s anti-vaccine website.

Ana never got vaccinated, and neither did her new baby brother, Thomas. Tara grew into an anti-vaccine true believer, connecting with other parents of autistic children and posting frequently on the forums of Deb’s website. She calls these posts her “rants.” It was like the vestiges of her Scotch-Irish heritage, long dormant, had begun to burn bright. Tara was a forceful writer, and no doubt a fighter.

Eventually Tara and Deb began emailing each other directly. Deb was impressed with Tara’s disdain for the pharmaceutical companies, and occasionally posted Tara’s emails prominently on her anti-vaxxer website.

By 2009, Deb was becoming an anti-vaccine media empire. She needed some help, someone who could regularly post and edit content for her website. She gave the American lady in Brazil a job offer.

Tara was flattered but didn’t want to uproot her family from Brazil. Besides, they wouldn’t be able to afford New York City. No matter, said Deb, Tara could work remotely.

And that’s likely how their relationship would’ve stayed — confined to the cloud — if Raul hadn’t got arrested. Life back at home wasn’t all pluses. It was like yin and yang, coming back home to Brazil. While Raul’s home life had improved, his social life had darkened. He started hanging out with old friends and cousins who had spent their whole life in the favela, growing up to become low-level drug dealers.

Raul, made vulnerable by years of just scraping by, easily succumbed to the allure of making some side cash by dealing cocaine and other narcotics. One summer night in 2010, he and several of his friends were arrested for drug dealing and thrown in jail. His plea deal called for a 3 year sentence.

Tara remembers the night he plead guilty. As she tells it, she went down to the local beach at sunset and just stared off into the distance, a bit like a Lifetime movie. She could wait it out, wait three long years for a man who use to beat her, who she wasn’t sure she loved. In the meantime, she’d be in a country that wasn’t hers, raising three children with her imprisoned husband’s family. Or she could move back to the states, separating her children from their father for good. It wasn’t a decision she took lightly.

She confided in Deb, who kept in frequent contact with Tara during these times. Having lost her own husband, Deb could speak to the pain and advised how difficult it was to raise a child without a father. But she also spoke to the relief Tara might feel if she separated herself from Raul and made a clean break. In one email, she told Tara that poison is all around — sometimes it’s injected into our bodies, sometimes it comes in the form of another human being. What was Raul to her — a loving husband or a poison?

Two months after Raul’s plea deal, Tara packed up the children and boarded a plane to New York City. She arrived on Deb’s doorstep that night, 3 suitcases in hand and 3 children at her side.

The sisterhood had begun.

The Anti-Vaxxer Sisterhood — Part 2 was originally published in Fiction Hub on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Discover more awesome fiction at https://medium.com/fictionhub

[justanotherfacet]

Heads up

RL update under the cut (nothing bad but communication may be slow for the next couple weeks):

This week is apparently appointments and “EEK MY PARENTS ARE GOING TO BE IN MY HOUSE” anxiety. Next week they’re visiting (and being touristy while staying in a hotel thank you pantheon) because my BFF/the mother of the closest thing they have to grandchildren is getting married. I’m going to try to get the dry-cleaner or somebody to take a digital pic so I can show you what my maid-of-honor dress looks like. 

So basically it’s going to be eye doc on Tuesday, pest control on Wednesday, state “I’m disabled and I need help getting a job” people Thursday, getting a hard-core pro housecleaning job scheduled somewhere in there, and blessing the fact that Friday’s appointment is counseling because I am going to need it so I can tear into my state-ordered psych eval on top of the familial stuff. I tick a whole lot of “can skew this exam” boxes and they still stuck me with almost 5 hours of cookie-cutter tests and were all “oh, it’s just procedure” when I asked about it. I’m only contesting if something comes up not in my favor according to my ACTUAL counselor not the state employee, though. They seemed fixated on the possibility I have ADHD (which again, confounding conditions and THREE competent pros who I trust a lot more than you never mentioned?), so I have no idea how that plays out.

Can we get a) universal basic income or b) at least can I get a steady 20 hour/week back office job with no phones and no general public or heavy lifting so I can quit jumping through the state hoops while having the strong suspicion I’m going to either a) I’m going to completely end up failing to get a year-round job I can tolerate and or b) get one but end up getting fired/asked to resign for disability-related reasons AGAIN and having my best option byAugust or so be “guess I get to exploit taxpayers in January one more year, only with a commute this time”. (I enjoy the tax geekery at least at the level I normally see, 90-95% of the clientele are fine and most of the disputes are either fee-related (most of the time i tend to agree with the client but big-box non-management preparers don’t generally get to set prices) or situations where “XYZ firm let me do this” and I have to tell them “maybe they did but it’s not legal and I’m not doing it”, but I have done two out of the big three and both were questionable corporate-level.). 

The third firm helped rewrite the tax code for EITC to where TAX PREPARERS can’t really tell what the requirements for some of the stuff are and the test to opt out of their “yeah, we want $150 of your money for textbooks and 10 weeks of your time” scam is designed to fail even experienced preparers. (I know, because I failed. I went in with 2 years of volunteer-level training, 2 years of pro, a substantial amount of company-provided continuing ed credits, and following Kelly Phillips Erb/taxgirl from Forbes who writes about taxes including breaking down A-Z stuff and “here’s a form and what all the boxes mean” in ways I never saw in company training. 

(If you don’t want to mess with Forbes but that sounds potentially relevant to your almost end-of-season interests, googling her should get her wordpress blog. Obviously most of the ADVICE is aimed at people with way more money than we’re ever going to see, but I’ve seen 1098-T’s on the forms and I’ve done them in practice because plenty of people go to school and that’s most people’s tuition form for taxes. Also, basically any public figure who ends up in the news for tax issues may merit a column, so there’s an entertainment factor there as well.)

The opt-out test questions ARE out of the tax bible, but the test’s tricky questions had basically no relationship to the complex situations I would be much more likely to see in my neighborhood which was also where I was slotted to work if I’d gone that road.  A localized test for serious big-box imo might have included stuff like rental property, all kinds of self-employment headaches, or trades or oilfield W-2 employees (who might have out-of-state pay/situations where it MIGHT be worth their while to itemize for their unreimbursed employee expenses for travel/tools/work gear/licenses/whatever. Instead iirc I saw “insolvency” which I don’t think I’ve even seen blogged about like that at least twice, maybe three times. WTF?

***********************************************

Crip tax, example #16624363746

I’m privileged enough to have a family who’ll throw money at needed accommodations (which is more than a shitload of disabled people can say sadly) but because they’re footing the bill there’s a non-zero shot I’m going to have to move from my place of 15+ years because moving is cheaper than fixing the issues. I hated moving when I was a lot younger with way fewer chronic pain and fatigue issues, I really  hate the thought of it now. But I can’t qualify for assistance from anybody I’ve talked to so far (not a vet just a family member of two, not on MediCaid, and not over 60) and I can’t swing enough money to fix my bathroom without them, so I’m stuck.

My dad is planning to see if my shower/tub combo that was clearly designed by a drunk dudefratbro who never cleaned a bathroom in his life and didn’t know shit about ADA requirements either can be gutted/swapped out for what I actually want it to be without being more than the cost of my place. It’s a trailer, and the job requires both plumbing and carpentry so I literally can’t find ANYONE who’ll do the full job because it’s a trailer. Plus it’s an old one so the door’s only 24″ wide which means I can’t do a 1-piece shower unit (they’re way easier to clean imo) because they’re all at least 30″ across. (And yeah, if I had a wheelchair it wouldn’t fit either.)

What I want done is the current uncleanable setup gone and FRP paneling walls(reinforced fiberglass) with grab bars, a textured base that’s wide enough to fit my bath chair for bad days and a 3″ step-over lip to make it purely a shower stall installed. The problem is even the PLUMBING portion of that is almost 2 grand. And grab bars require actual plywood backing (even reinforced fiberglass won’t hold up to drilling otherwise according to the pros. Also, I am 85% certain that gutting the current mess is going to reveal a huge amount of water damage that may make my parents say “no more, this isn’t safe for your allergies but fixing it’s more than your place is worth (or just more than moving me into an apartment or something, idek)”. Houses appreciate (usually) but trailers pretty much always depreciate, at least ones like mine.

So I’m not facing homelessness like too damn many disabled people already, but I am facing a potential move and housing change that I don’t want because I’m disabled. There’s $2400 worth of MY retroactive disability checks on my floor that remind me every day “that six months of hell as a Verizon landline support call center rep was worth it for this but even more importantly because it means neither my family nor my state can claim I am capable of holding down a call center position”. There’s over 15 years worth of memories here. I just have feels right now, what can I say?)

Local peeps, If it had been a straight-up plumbing job, I would have gone with Chavarria’s Plumbing. Their dude actually LISTENED to what I was telling him rather than trying to sell me on tile (the way two “listed as retrofitters” did) and was actually the one who explained what FRP was and that it sounded like a good choice, the quote seemed reasonable and within the budget I’d given him, and IIRC they’ve done work for me before. Unfortunately, they are NOT licensed carpenters and the quote didn’t come with a referral to a pro for that or even a “hey, I’m (or they’re) not LICENSED but me/my cousin/”it’s complicated” does good work here’s contact info” solicitation. And I wasn’t quite up to even asking for that at that point, so that’s where this has been stalled for a significant length of time. I’m wondering if they WOULD have some suggestions, though.

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You Lied Your Way Into A Job As A Surgeon! Can You Avoid Killing Anyone Long Enough To Collect Your First Paycheck?

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Surgeons. The masters of the flesh. The gatekeepers of the organs. The doctors who get to shave patients.

These are the green-wearing gods who know that the human body is but a chessboard, and that the nipples are the king and queen, and the belly button is the opposing king or queen.

Today, finally, you are beginning your journey as one of them.

Sounds sweet.

You have already gone through the arduous process of becoming a surgeon. After calling the hospital over and over every day for three weeks straight and praising Tylenol in the deepest voice you could muster to whoever picked up, being hung up on by countless doctors and nurses, you finally hit the big time.

Yesterday, you managed to get the chief of medicine on the line, who offered you a job after a mere 50 minutes of you bellowing to her about the white-and-red pill. Congratulations!

Thank you. I am a surgeon.

If you eat eight Tylenol fast, that’s one rabies shot.

Eating any more than three Tylenols in church is a SIN unless you brought enough for EVERYONE.

Okay. Being a surgeon is sweet as hell. You get to wear patients’ clothes around a hospital once the chemicals put them to sleep, you can eat as many tortilla chips as you want, and you can hide all of your favorite DVDs and family heirlooms inside toxic waste bins, the one place thieving pricks are too grossed out by to steal from.

That all sounds great.

Skittles are to math what Tylenol is to alchemy.

Tossing Tylenol into an above-ground pool is basically the same idea as tossing Tylenol into an in-ground pool.

George Harrison wrote three songs about Tylenol in the days just before his passing that his estate will not release.

Cool. But the best part of being a surgeon, bar none, is that incredible surgeon paycheck.

It’s no secret that surgeons are paid well, as every single day at 8 p.m., hardworking surgeons all over the world reap the fruits of their labor: a plastic bag filled with $600, given to them by their chief of medicine on their way out the door, in addition to a goodnight kiss on the forehead.

Hell yeah.

Exactly. So now that you’re a surgeon, you better do everything in your power to make it your $600 payday, because there is one universal stipulation that could jam you up: If a surgeon kills someone, everything completely goes to shit.

1) For starters, once a surgeon kills someone, they are NEVER allowed back in a hospital, ever. Even if you just want to go to hang out or to meet new lovers.

2) Your professional reference completely goes out the window. If a new job calls to ask about you, instead of a recommendation, the HR department hands the phone off to the absolute sickest pervert patient they have, and lets them air out whatever they’ve got kickin’ around up in their minds.

3) Lastly—and this one is the worst of all—you don’t get paid a dime, which would mean all of your efforts to become a surgeon were for NOTHING.

So, if you want to get to that sweet paycheck, you’re going to have to make it through one entire day as a surgeon without killing someone.

I’m excited to be a surgeon who kills no one.

The hospital. The place where people come when they are bored to take off their pants and scream. This will be your new surgeon home, and today is your first day of work. As far as anyone inside is concerned, you are now a fully qualified surgeon, so if you want those 600 clams, you’re going to have to hold your own and stay off everyone’s radar.

Enter the hospital.

“Please give me a surgery.”

Ah, shit. A sick kid is waiting for you right inside the lobby, and he looks all kinds of fucked up.

“I need a surgery pronto. I am dying, and it feels like none of my bones are connected to my other bones. I also have a rash that comes and goes. Please do surgery to me with your other doctor friends.”

Quietly tell the kid that he’d be doing you a huge favor by asking another doctor for help on this one, and hope that he’ll be cool.

Piss your pants and bail to the bathroom.

“If you don’t give me a surgery right now, I will scream. I will scream so loud and for so long, and I will point at you the whole time. It will go on for so long that the rest of the doctors here will have no choice but to send you to jail.”

Piss your pants and bail to the bathroom.

That was close. You’ve pissed your pants real good, and now you’re in the bathroom splashing your pants with water, the best way to clean pants that you’ve urinated in.

I know that. My pants are now much wetter, but not as much with piss as with water, so they’re practically good as new.

“You sure know your way around cleaning a pair of pissed pants, sport. Not bad at all.”

You look over and see that it’s the hospital’s janitor talking to you. He somehow opened the door in perfect silence while you were inside splashing your pants, and has been watching you for upwards of 90 full seconds.

“I’ve been watching you for upwards of 90 full seconds, and I can tell just by looking at you, you’re no surgeon.”

Yes I am. I am a surgeon, you jackass.

Remove your shoelaces and begin choking the janitor until he dies so no one finds out about the bullshit he just said, or about your method of splashing water onto your pants.

“Easy, easy. I’m not gonna rat you out. I’m gonna help you.

I take it that you’re in here lying to be a surgeon, hoping to get ‘The $600 Bag Treatment,’ huh? Well, you’ve got a friend in me. I’ve seen it before, and I’ll see it again. All you gotta do is make it until 8 p.m. without killing a soul and you’re in the clear. So whadya say you come lay low with me for the rest of the day, spend some time hanging with a new bud so you don’t end up killin’ no one before you get that money?”

Why are you being so nice to me?

“I, uh, how do you mean?” he says, visibly becoming self-conscious about the entire interaction so far. “I’m just tired today, so if I’m acting weird, that’s what that’s about, probably. Allergies are being weird, too.”

Okay. Let’s hang out.

“Follow me!” the janitor says before sprinting down the hallway. You do your best to keep up with him as he weaves in and out of patients and doctors before you finally arrive at a huge metal door. He slides open the rusty door to reveal a set of long, winding stairs that lead to a dark, desolate basement, and turns to you with a half smile.

“It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno,” he says before letting out a quick, uncertain laugh, looking over his shoulder at you to kind of check in and see if you’re laughing or anything at what must have been some sort of joke.

Smile and nod politely.

Pretend you didn’t hear what he said.

What are you talking about? What?

“That was dumb, never mind,” the janitor says, shaking his head as his shoulders slump, trying to explain his joke before slowly progressing into full-blown self-deprecation. “I was thinking, like, how in the old commercials, I’d be the delivery guy and you’re the pizza—I don’t know, forget it. It was dumb. Sorry.”

Okay.

You follow the janitor down the stairs and into the basement of the hospital, and lo and behold, it’s a full-blown bachelor’s pad! The janitor has stocked the place with some of the best things: a ping-pong table, a “Forever 27” poster, an old-timey popcorn machine, and a bunch of orange pill bottles filled with Frosted Cheerios.

“This is my chill zone. I’m down here almost all the time, which is why the hospital is filthy and patients always seem to get sick immediately after they get better.”

“We got all day, brother, so we could either sit down and talk about that important-looking guitar I have mounted on the wall over there, or we could stand near the stairs and wonder if Slash has ever signed a guitar and sold it for $20,000 online before, or maybe we could lay down on the ground and trade stories about the most expensive thing we’ve ever mounted on a wall. Your call.”

Challenge the janitor to ping-pong.

“I can’t lift my arms above my waist because of a power-washer accident.”

Give in and ask the janitor about the guitar on his wall, since it seems like he really wants you to.

“You got a good eye, kid,” he says as though you brought it up completely unprompted, proudly looking up at the guitar he somehow mounted unnecessarily high on his wall.

“Believe it or not, Slash signed that guitar, and I was lucky enough to spend all of the money I have on it. I usually don’t do this for anyone, but for you, I’ll climb all the way up there and get it if you want to hold it.”

Seems dangerous to climb up there if you can’t lift your hands above your waist.

“I’d climb anywhere for one of my boys.”

And what about those wires? You’d have to step all over those wires to get over there?

“I’ll put a very wet towel over them. I’m sure that will be fine.”

This looks way too dangerous. Say you don’t need to see the guitar, bail on the weird janitor, and head back toward the lobby to kill time solo.

Ask the janitor to get the guitar for you.

You’ve killed! You’ve killed!

You put the janitor in grave danger by selfishly asking him to grab his Slash guitar off the wall. After the janitor put a soaking-wet towel on top of his countless basement wires in order to walk over to the wall and begin his climb, he was immediately electrocuted and fell crashing to the ground without the ability to raise his arms and break his fall. It’s unclear if it was the electricity surging through his body that did him in, or if it was the way his neck snapped on a nearby stool because of the horrible, unnatural way he fell. But either way, he is definitely dead, and it is your fault.

You’re no longer a surgeon, and you can kiss that bag of $600 goodbye.

Restart at checkpoint.

Start Over

As you go back up the stairs and start heading toward the lobby, you can hear that he starts to follow you, but then locks himself in the bathroom you were in earlier and begins screaming at himself in the mirror for messing up what could’ve been a nice day. His screaming gets louder and louder before it comes to a halt after you hear the sound of him snapping his mop over his knee in fury.

Run away from the janitor as fast as you can.

“I need you to give me a surgery right now.”

Ah, damn. It’s the sick kid from earlier.

“I feel like I’m on a boat at all hours of the day, and my elbows are dry. I need you to cut me open and drain me out, if that’s what it takes, and to please get me home by later today.”

Give the kid a surgery.

You pick the kid up, throw him over your shoulder, and walk through the hospital looking for a good room to cut him open in. After 20 minutes, you finally find the room with all of the surgeons in it, and you slam the kid down on the empty table they’re all staring at.

Now all eyes are on you. You’re going to have to step up and say something pretty incredible to get all of these surgeons on your side.

Found a kid I think would be perfect for surgery.

This is the only patient I’ve seen twice so far, so I think he should be next.

It’s not delivery. It’s DiGiorno.

You’ve killed! You’ve killed!

After you said that ridiculous, dumbass comment, every surgeon in the room became furious at you and began hammering you with questions about your qualifications. You tried mumbling through more Tylenol facts, which went much worse in person than it did on the phone, and somewhere during your 25-minute verbal beatdown from the other surgeons, the kid died on the table.

You are no longer a surgeon, and you will never get a plastic bag filled with $600.

Restart at checkpoint.

Start Over

Share Your Results

Everyone starts nodding and smiling and patting each other on the back. Good shit.

“Ha, nice,” a woman says, whose voice you recognize from the phone as the chief of medicine at the hospital. She quickly anesthetizes the patient to finally stop him from grabbing and clawing at everyone’s surgical masks, and within seconds the little spaz is sleeping.

At that moment, the tallest doctor you’ve ever seen walks into the door wearing a backwards hat and confidently drinking Barq’s Root Beer out of a 2-liter bottle.

“I’ve never seen you around here,” he says after putting the root beer down firmly into the lap of the unconscious kid and eyeing you up and down suspiciously. “Enlighten us, fresh meat. Now, what surgery are we performing on this little man, exactly?”

Ah, this guy is onto you. Need something big here to throw everyone off your tracks.

Fuck you, pal.

Sorry, rookie, but surgeries don’t have names.

Wink at him.

“Doctors, you two can be mean to each other in the parking lot all day long if you want to, but that’ll be enough fighting in my hospital,” says the chief of medicine after banging her fist down onto the kid’s chest like a gavel to get everyone’s attention.

“This little boy is in dire need of a heart transplant. We need to start immediately.”

Let’s get started.

Piss yourself and try to bail to the bathroom.

“Doctors, that’ll be enough talk about whether or not there are actually types of surgeries or not, because there simply is not a correct answer,” says the chief of medicine after banging her fist down onto the kid’s chest like a gavel to get everyone’s attention.

“This little boy is in dire need of a heart transplant. We need to start immediately.”

Let’s get started.

Piss yourself and try to bail to the bathroom.

“Doctors, please stop winking at each other,” says the chief of medicine after banging her fist down onto the kid’s chest like a gavel to get everyone’s attention.

“This little boy is in dire need of a heart transplant. We need to start immediately.”

Begin surgery.

Piss yourself and try to bail to the bathroom.

After noticing that no one is reacting to you pissing yourself, you look around and realize that every surgeon in the room has also already pissed themselves. Then you remember that surgeons are constantly pissing themselves during surgery, like bicyclists during races, for reasons completely unknown.

Ah, right. Now start the surgery.

The chief of medicine takes out a toolbox from underneath the surgery-room sink and hands each surgeon a tool. She takes each tool out one by one and starts passing them down the line. One doctor gets a small shovel, one gets a large knife, another gets a pickax, and on and on it goes, until you finally end up with the flashlight!

“Um, yeah, that’s my flashlight, pal. I’m always the flashlight man around here,” says the root-beer doctor.

“No,” interjects the chief. “New guy can hold the flashlight today. I have a good feeling about this.”

Your new rival is stunned. He shoots you a dirty look, threateningly crosses his thumb over his neck, and then does it again with his other thumb, but slower. Then he quietly mouths something that you didn’t really get a good read on, but from what you did see, your best guess is that he was saying something like “Fracking mountains,” or “Simply delicious.” Then he is handed the worst tool: the blood napkin, the tool that wipes up all the loose goo and pus.

Turn the flashlight on and shine it at the kid’s organs.

Shine the flashlight in your rival’s eyes to make him squint.

“Ah, c’mon, man. Quit it. What the hell.”

Nice. Shine the flashlight at the kid’s organs now.

The surgery is now well under way. The chief is slicing and dicing and moving parts around left and right. It’s pretty much a one-woman show.

Most of the other doctors are using their tools just to kind of scrape some bones and stuff when they feel like they should get in the mix, usually after not doing anything for a couple minutes straight and getting nervous that someone will notice how they’re not really that crucial to the operation.

You’re getting bored by the whole thing at this point, but at least you’re holding your own with these docs and, most importantly, haven’t killed anyone yet.

Keep shining the light in the organs.

Surgery still going. Getting kind of repetitive. A couple doctors shuffled out for a minute and came back with crackers, but the crackers are all gone now. You didn’t even notice they had crackers until there were only, like, four left in the sleeve, so at that point, asking for some really wouldn’t have been cool.

Surgery is getting boring.

Keep shining the flashlight.

Surgery is boring as hell.Your arms got tired from holding the flashlight up, so you put it down for a minute and no one seemed to notice. You’re back up now.

Keep shining the flashlight.

Kid woke up and started screaming LOUD, but now he’s sleeping again.

“You were scared!” “No, you were scared!” “I wasn’t scared, you were scared!” The surgeons are all ragging on each other and having fun again. Finally got some juice in the room. Whole crew got a good laugh out of that one.

Keep shining the flashlight.

Woah, wait a minute. Oh, man. You see something inside the kid’s body. Wedged deep in between his rib cage and his liver, there looks to be something shining and throbbing, and you’re pretty sure you’re the only one who sees it.

Two doctors broke away from the surgery about 15 minutes ago to arm wrestle on a nearby stool, and the rest of the surgeons have all one-by-one walked over to form a circle around them so they can gamble. Meanwhile, the chief is still hacking away at this kid’s organs with all of her might, and seems way too dialed-in to notice the game changer you’ve found.

Become a hero in front of your new boss by immediately and dramatically yanking out whatever the hell is sticking out of this kid’s guts.

Play it safe by simply alerting the chief of the mystery object and seeing what she thinks you should do.

Lean your flashlight up against the kid’s chin and go gamble with your new work friends.

You’ve killed! You’ve killed!

You thought you were being a hero by yanking out what you thought were some sort of wet, shining metals, but were actually the poor kid’s veins. You are no longer a surgeon, and can go ahead and kiss that sweet paycheck goodbye.

Restart at checkpoint.

Start Over

“Those are veins. They are not ‘evil copper and metals sticking out of this poor bastard’s guts.’ Do not call them that.”

Damn. Misread that one. The chief is totally onto you now.

“But I appreciate you speaking your mind when you think something is amiss,” she continues, looking up and making eye contact with you for the first time. “That takes a commitment to the job that some of my other doctors lack at times,” she says, motioning to the doctors across the room who are now attempting to disguise their arm-wrestling gambling ring by draping a hospital gown over the two meaty, dueling arms.

Hold eye contact without blinking, slowly nod your head, and say “good.”

The chief reciprocates your unblinking eye contact and begins nodding in perfect unison with your nodding. This goes on for a good 20 seconds or so, the grunts of the two arm wrestlers and the slaps of cold, hard cash hitting the tile becoming the only sounds in the room.

At that moment, you and the chief simultaneously feel a romantic charge between you, and it feels beautiful and right. But that romantic feeling is immediately followed by a simultaneous paternal feeling, but it’s unclear who is the parent and who is the child. Then the two feelings of physical attraction and familial protectiveness fuse together into one singular emotion, and it feels disgusting to both of you.

Pretend you hear one of the gambling surgeons call you over to ask you a quick question, and then walk over to them.

“Yeah, yeah, go catch up with them. I’ll hold it down over here, cool,” the chief kind of half-mutters to herself and to you while shaking her head and getting back to surgery.

Look back over your shoulder and smile and nod.

Pretend you didn’t hear her and walk faster toward the arm-wrestling scene.

You walk over to the gambling circle and see the two exhausted surgeons pulling and pushing as hard as they can to win. The two doctors are so evenly matched that their arms aren’t moving or shaking in the slightest. If it weren’t for the veins about to explode out of their temples and the tears streaming down their faces, you’d have no idea how intense the duel was.

All of the other surgeons are quietly going apeshit. Almost all of them are either gently pounding their chests, gingerly slapping the ground, or shaking their fists in the air, all the while whispering bad arm-wrestling advice like “Win the skin!” or “Make him smooth!”

It’s definitely a pretty sweet scene, and you decide that you want to get in the mix.

Ask the doctor on your left to borrow a couple bucks to gamble.

Ask the doctor on your right to borrow a couple bucks to gamble.

As you go to ask the doctor next to you, your rival doctor steps in front and interrupts:

“Looking to get in on the action but lacking the funds, newbie? Don’t worry, fresh meat. I got you covered. Also, we’re rival doctors, just in case that wasn’t clear.”

Whoa, pretty cool to get a rival doctor on your first day on the job. That probably usually takes years.

“That’s my coat over there,” he says, pointing to a white lab coat being worn by one of the arm-wrestling surgeons. “Go ahead and take my wallet out of the pocket and take out as much money as you want.”

He then lets out a weird little laugh and looks around to see if anyone else is laughing. One other doctor did laugh, but he’s in the middle of a conversation with another surgeon, so you’re pretty sure the laugh had nothing to do with your rival.

That’s weird. Seems like that coat belongs to the doctor wearing it. You lying, asshole?

“I have coats all over this hospital that you wouldn’t know a thing about,” he says, raising his fist up to your chin real quick, trying to get you to flinch. You stand your ground and don’t flinch at all, though, and he sheepishly brings his fist back down to his side.

Tell your rival that you would never borrow money from his shitty coat, and that he’s acting like a real weirdo.

Trust your rival’s suspicious story, reach into the coat being worn by the arm-wrestling doctor, and take out some money to gamble with.

You’ve killed! You’ve killed!

In a brilliantly executed scheme, your rival tricked you into reaching into the coat of one of the doctors who is arm wrestling. When the arm wrestler saw you trying to steal his wallet, his mix of adrenaline and dangerously high blood pressure caused his heart to explode.

Your misconduct has resulted in a death, meaning you can no longer be a surgeon, and you will never see that sweet, sweet bag o’ cash.

Restart at checkpoint.

Start Over

“I, uh, good then,” he stutters as h

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