christmas is saturday and that means it’s one of the worst weeks of the year to be a retail or grocery employee, even in years when omicron’s NOT ripping everything to shreds. so here are some quick tips on how to not be the worst person in the store this week: 1: it’s december 21st right now. if there is something you intended to order/reserve in advance it is, in all likelihood, too late. if you are able to get your hands on it, know it will be largely due to the mercy and kindness of the employee who helps you.

for two years i was part of a team that handled holiday orders at the ~fancy~ grocery store where i worked; last year, i ran it. to encourage you to STAY HOME this season, here are some stories about some of the wild shit the holidays seem to drive people to do! to give you an idea of scale: the first year i was involved, we ran 800+ thanksgiving orders and 400+ at christmas; when i was in charge it was 1,000+ thanksgiving orders and 500+ christmas. (ps i will NEVER forgive this company for denying me unemployment after all this lmao)

so here’s a 🧵 i’ve been sitting on for a long time: i went through several rounds of trauma therapy and all i got was this lousy awareness that a huge portion of what happens to us in life is just the result of other people’s trauma i’m jk on the “all i got” front, of course; trauma therapy gave me a framework for understanding my mental health, the ability to identify damaging cycles, and coping skills i’ll be using for the rest of my life!! but like: wow. lotta trauma out there on the earth

sometimes i wonder if arthur conan doyle’s ghost is out in the world, weeping, because one of the best modern interpretations of sherlock holmes is the one where he is literally a mouse this is of course a joke; arthur conan doyle’s never had time to become a ghost. he’s too busy revolving in his grave because we still care about sherlock holmes at all

ZUKO: my father cast me out & sent me on the impossible quest of finding you! my soul has been consumed by the search! i am empty inside for want of finding the avatar, regaining my honor, and finally earning my father’s love!
AANG: so?
ZUKO: so how DARE you be ten years old the year is 2020 and i would still lay down my life for appa the flying bison

when i was 17 i worked at a bookstore; i helped plan and organize their harry potter and the deathly hallows release party. it took weeks of work i was probably too young to be trusted with, but it went off without a hitch. the books, some days before the release date, were shipped to the bookstore in special “don’t open until july 21 2007” boxes. they were kept under round-the-clock surveillance. as a 17 year old potter fan that was torture; i still have one of the boxes.

times are grim; taking an occasional moment to laugh can help avoid burnout. so i thought i would share with you the following Horrible High School Story: first, let’s set the scene. it’s spring of 2005 — lol — and i am a sophomore in advanced placement US history, or APUSH (or, more accurately, “a racist collection of obfuscations & outright lies with a pay-to-play test at the end,” but i digress).

there are more important things going on than jk rowling‘s ongoing meltdown about trans people existing, but it DOES remind me of an aspect of the trans experience that i think is worth talking about: the lag time. being out as trans is a wild, incredible, joyful experience; let’s start there. you spend however much of your life in denial and/or repression and then, one day: you stop. you figure yourself out; you come out. you get to live an honest life.

ohio, amongst many other places, is now on lockdown; i assume (read: HOPE) the rest of the country will soon follow suit. so for those just joining us in cooking food at home, here are these tips again, with a couple additions i forgot below:

https://twitter.com/dylan_thyme/status/1238547585968766977

if you bought frozen fish in a vacuum sealed package: TAKE IT OUT OF THE PACKAGE BEFORE YOU THAW IT. otherwise, you may receive the worst gift a fish can give you: botulism

hi, it’s me, a food service employee! & uhhh... no offense or anything, but i’ve seen how some of you... live? so in case you’ve, just spitballing here, found yourself w/ a pile of quarantine food but haven’t eaten anything but takeout in 25 years: here is some food safety info. food safety is very important!! without it you get food poisoning, which often requires medical attention, and the medical system is, uh, about to be real busy. so, as reading incentive, at the end of this thread i will include a curated selection of my wildest customer stories.

there’s a guy who periodically comes to my job, orders food, & doesn’t come to get it. he seems to delight in ordering the food; it has become clear, from experience, that he will never come get it. yet we must prepare him the food, in case this time, is the time, that he does, i think about this guy 80 times a day. why does he do this? is he terribly, ruinously lonely, or is this just what does it for him? did he read peanuts in his past & find himself thinking, as lucy pulled the football away from charlie brown, “this has awakened something in me?”

a brief story of transphobia in action for your friday afternoon: i have this customer who comes in to the food service job that i work. let’s call him eddie. the first time i met eddie, he’d been diagnosed with diabetes just hours before. he came up to me, distressed, and dumped out all his panic on me: the diagnosis, his fears about it, his concerns about what the hell he was supposed to eat.

been watching the recent conversations about the after-effects of gifted&talented school programs w/interest. i was in a (please read heavy airquotes) “gifted” program in school. it didn’t do great things for my brain! i don’t talk about it much, but i want to, semi-briefly, now. i was a verbally advanced child from very young; i have always, for whatever reason, been good with the english language, whether written or spoken. what i am not good at is executive functioning! there’s a whole cocktail of reasons why that boil down to mental health.

It’s been a week since Thanksgiving ended, which means the annual onslaught that is the Christmas season is truly upon us. This year promises to be a particularly challenging one for non-celebrators! So here’s a thread called Please Don’t Be A Christmas Asshole. First: people have lots of reasons for not celebrating Christmas. Some include:
-They’re Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise religiously disinclined!
-Painful family associations!
-Their name is Gerald Jimes & on a previous Christmas their wife was murdered by a man in a yellow sweater!