tacodaemon posted:

You ever see those comic book ads from the 70s for the apple-carving kits that are supposed to look like shrunken heads when the apple dries out?

Tunicate posted:

Tunicate posted:

Today in one of our classes I introduced the children to two apples (the children didn't know this, but before the class I had repeatedly dropped one of the apples on the floor, you couldn't tell, both apples looked perfect). We talked about the apples and the children described how both apples looked the same; both were red, were of similar size and looked juicy enough to eat.
...words...
The tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words.

Bobby Digital posted:

One more seed in the bottom left apple half and we'd have loss.jpg

Then again, if seed were missing we wouldn't have loss.jpg

Fathis Munk posted:

Bones Bones Bones Bones Bones

tacodaemon posted:

You ever see those comic book ads from the 70s for the apple-carving kits that are supposed to look like shrunken heads when the apple dries out?

mostlygray posted:

My 3rd grade teacher tried to do that speech. She didn't do it as eloquently, but she used the same analogy as the story. The fact was that she liked smashing up her apples before she ate them for some reason and used it as a teaching moment.

It failed miserably; none of us learned anything except that our teacher was weird and liked bruised apples. I was made far stupider for her efforts. I also tried bruising an apple to see why she liked it. Don't try it. It's disgusting.

quote:

While waiting for the airport shuttle to arrive at my hotel in Dallas this week, I was enjoying a Lone Star waffle and sipping my coffee in the lobby/cafe across from two older gentlemen rambling on and on about Muslims and terrorists and Muslims and abortion and Muslims, and well… you get the idea. I’ll do my best to paraphrase what was actually a lengthy discussion that began when an image of President Obama appeared on the TV screen above the juice machine.

“Son of a… I still can’t believe my daughter helped elect that pedophile worshipping raghead to the White House,” a mustached man blurted out with a volume and trajectory that was never meant to stay at their table. His golf hat wearing companion threw up his hands in considerable disgust as if to say, “I know, I know – what’s the world coming to?”

Having been witness to the last five minutes of their charming conversation, I wasn’t at all shocked by such a seemingly escalated turn of phrase. Instead, I mustered up enough pre-sunrise energy to reply from across the room with an air of innocent confusion, “Pedophile worshipper?” Bait thrown.

The man with a perfectly shaped rectangular snow-white mustache clarified, “Barry’s beloved Mahatma [sic] took his wife when she was only 5 years old.”

“It’s just disgusting,” the other chimed in out loud with what I’d come to learn was his patented hand gesture of unhappiness.

“I’m assuming you’re referring to Muhammad,” I asked, my pronunciation comedically clear, “and Aisha? Not Gandhi, right?”

The mustached man shrugged and rolled his eyes a bit, “Yeah, whatever.”

“And you, gentlemen?” I asked across the empty room. “Am I to assume that y’all are atheists?”

“Heavens, no, sir” the geriatric golfer replied. “We’re god fearing Christians,” the other added. Bait set.

“Oh, so you worship an intergalactic sex trafficker?” I asked with just enough of a hint of bravado to let the gentlemen know they were being challenged to a duel.

“Excuse me, son,” one replied curtly, clearly not asking a question, clearly knowing that I’m old enough to not likely appreciate being referred to as “son”.

“I mean, you do read your Bibles, don’t you?” I asked.

“I begin and end every day with the Word of the Lord,” asserted the mustached man, accompanied by righteous nods of agreement from his cohort. Duel accepted.

Hedging my bets, knowing that I’d look like a complete jerk in a hotel cafe if I was wrong, I called the man’s bluff, “Good for you, which translation?” I pointed to the man’s luggage, making a reaching gesture. “May I borrow it for a moment to read something?”

“I don’t, I, uh…” he stammered, as if trying to remember where he may have left his Good Book.

“No worries, I have one right here – Numbers 31” I pulled out my phone, never really intending to read an entire chapter in a hotel lobby. “You guys are fans of Moses, right? The burning bush, parting the red sea, the ten commandments, et cetera? He’s sort of the central prophet of the Old Testament, the ‘let my people go’ hero, right?”

They both shrugged in skeptical agreement, looking as if they had stumbled upon a bit of street magic that intrigued them, but might also turn them gay. “Careful, son,” Mr. Mustache half-invited half-warned me to proceed.

Before moving on, I felt it was probably a good time to find common ground, friendly asking, “What I mean is that we can agree that Moses was an extremely faithful servant to God, right? He did whatever God commanded, right?”

I could see them conjuring up images Charlton Heston for affirmation as they relaxed, now more confident with their answer, nodding somewhat cautiously, “Yeah, sure. Of course.” Let the games begin.

“So then, in Numbers 31 when God commands Moses to kill all of the Midianites, he does what he’s told, right?” I could tell this was likely the first time they had heard the word Midianite. “Actually, Moses spared all the women, and that’s when God who specifically told Moses to kill all the women too – except for the young virgins, right? Come on, guys – you know this story, right?”

“Of course, what good would it do to kill innocent girls?” the golfer replied. “By God’s mercy, he saved the girls just like he saved all of us. What’s your point?”

“Hmm… actually, they must have skipped this story in your Bibles,” I joked. “God actually trafficked these young virgins – stealing the girls from one tribe, forcing the child brides into marriages with the soldiers, trading as sex slaves with other tribes, selling them on the open market. I mean, that is the definition of sex trafficking, right?”

“You’d best stop right there, son,” the man with the mustache half-shouted, slapping his hand on the table with a force that was much more aggressive than I was comfortable with before finishing my first cup of coffee for the day. “My God™ has never done any such thing!”

“Okay, okay – I’m sorry, guys,” I tried to calm them, “you’re right. Your God didn’t do the trafficking himself.” I paused for effect before starting again, “But, that’s just because He couldn’t be seen by humans. It’s hard to take the money from your customers when your customer can’t see who to pay. So God ordered others to be the front men for His little crime ring, Moses and the priest Eleazar – intergalactic sex traffickers for God.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” one of them said. “I’ve had quite enough this blashphemy.”

“But, I thought you guys were Christians? Why wouldn’t you want to talk about the Bible? You said you read your Bible every day.”

“This bullshit isn’t in any Bible I’ve ever opened,” he answered. “We’re done here.”

“Oh, please, please,” I tried to calm again, “relax – you were absolutely right! God saved those virgins, alright. It’s right there in the Bible, Numbers 31. The best part where God commands Moses to save 32 of the virgins just for Himself! Imagine – the pick of the littler, cream of the crop!”

“You’d better zip it, son. I’ve had enough of your lies!” shouted the now livid mustached man as he stood up and started gathering his belongings. “You know what’s wrong with this country? It’s miserable hate-filled pukes like you ruining it for the rest of us.”

“Hey, now…” I put my hands up in a gesture of mock surrender, but really prepping to slap a fist away. “Don’t blame me, it’s in the Bible. No hard feelings, I wish you guys the best. May the next president worship and fear the same intergalactic woman killing sex trafficker that you do.”

“God drat it,” the golfer shouted, “now that’s about enough of this nonsense!”

“Careful my friend, though shall not take the Lord’s name in vain, Exodus 20:7,” I replied with an admittedly petty twinkle in my eye. “Plus, we didn’t even get to the fun part. According to Jesus’s own words, ‘Before Abraham, I am’ and ‘The father and I are one,’ Jesus is God, making Jesus himself the biggest intergalactic sex trafficker of all time. Wait a second, what exactly did Jesus do with these 32 virgins?” I paused for dramatic effect to let the men’s imaginations fill in the pieces.

After an awkward (red-faced)staring contest, the men turned to stomp past the front desk clerk, “Call us a cab,” the golfer barked at the clerk.

“I’d be happy to, sir,” the desk clerk offered, “but the shuttle will be here any moment.”

“Just call us a god damned cab!” The man stormed out through the automatic doors to the portico, pacing back and forth, pausing intermittently only to wag his finger through the glass.

“Making friends?” the clerk half whispered in my direction.

“Apparently the thought of sharing a free airport shuttle with someone who reads the Bible is just too much for some people.” I answered with an “awe shucks” shrug.

Indeed, nothing like a little Bible story to ruin a Christian’s day, eh?

Pththya-lyi posted:

They both shrugged in skeptical agreement, looking as if they had stumbled upon a bit of street magic that intrigued them, but might also turn them gay.

Pththya-lyi posted:

Horus Gilgamesh

Murphy Brownback posted:

Does anyone actually ever "wag their finger" as described near the end of the story outside of cartoons?

Murphy Brownback posted:

Does anyone actually ever "wag their finger" as described near the end of the story outside of cartoons?

chitoryu12 posted:

I found his website. Assuming he's being honest about his origins, he grew up as a dyed-in-the-wool evangelist Christian and was 100% faithful and annoying until he went to Africa and realized that none of the starving, dehydrated children he encountered on his mission trip wanted a Bible as much as they wanted some goddamn food.

EmmyOk posted:

We used to finger wag after we beat certain teams in fencing but it was solely to be as smug as possible.

EmmyOk posted:

We used to finger wag after we beat certain teams in fencing but it was solely to be as smug as possible.

hyperhazard posted:

Murphy Brownback posted:

I was mostly referring to it in the context of the story, where it was done in anger, not mocking.

e: unless for some reason the author of the stdh used "wag his finger" to mean "give the finger", then I could believe it. It just seems like the standard finger wag was a weird reaction to that situation that I can't imagine a real person having.

EmmyOk posted:

Ususally if someone says waving a finger in the face they mean pointing up close

hyperhazard posted:

Pththya-lyi posted:

lameborghini's story sounds like the kind of bullshit rumors high schoolers spread about other girls they don't like (e.g. this story). Then thesmashingofpumpkins tries to one-up lameborghini.

MizPiz posted:

Ladies, you just can't trust hotdogs.

quote:

I just wasted 10 minutes of my life on this.

Selachian posted:

Responses are full of people telling him how awesome he is.

Fathis Munk posted:

"well if my guy can't win I'm taking my ball and going home." *pouts*

What a smug idiot.

Selachian posted:

The thing that gets me is, I know some of the people who are giving this guy attaboys, and they're not stupid -- but none of them shows a flicker of doubt about this "I confronted a political opponent, turned back all her arguments with the sheer force of pure reason, and left her spluttering helplessly" bullshit story.

Atmus posted:

Also people just like entertaining stories sometimes.

oldpainless posted:

If you don't pretend to believe other peoples bullshit on the internet, then they are not going to believe yours.

Tunicate posted:

Melted snowflake refers to it as the "The Economy of Belief" which I think is a nice term.

quote:

At times, it seems This Troper's father is a walking Crowning Moment Of Awesome. The incident that springs to mind most immediately is the following. We live near an enclave of Jehova's Witnesses, and for years they pestered us godless heathens, trying to convert us to their religion (as they are wont to do). My father finally got sick of it, and one day as they came to make another attempt, he was just out of the shower. So my father, a soaking wet, hairy, middle-aged man, greets them at the door. Naked. They have not come back since.
This tropers father managed to do the same thing (he got tired of getting woken up early on saturdays) by walking out, shirtless, with a revolver stuck down the front of his pants, a cowboy hat on, and an open bear. They did not come back for many a year...and, when they did, they were faced with this very troper, at the tender age of thirteen...practicing with a broadsword taller than he was, hacking on a four-by-four. I shouldered the blade, and just grinned at them (I didn't even know what they were. I just loved showing off my dads neat sword). They traded looks, and started walking away very quickly.

quote:

This troper finally got bored with people bullying him at school, and so after three months of planning and laying groundwork, he managed to round up all 9 of the people who had been making his life a misery, coaxed them into the school basement, locked the door with the only key, and promptly switched off the fuses for the basement lights, and used the PA to send them ax crazy messages based on a test i asked a friend to run on them (Who claimed it was for their pyschology.) as to what would freak each and every one of them out, and did so for the better part of two hours, until finally unlocking the door silently, sneaking in, locking the door behind me, and getting a friend to turn the lights back on. Two of them actually wet themselves, and not one of them has come near me since. It's such a shame we don't have a section for 'crowning moment of batshit crazy'.

quote:

This is more of a Crowning Moment of 'that guy is crazy'. It was the first time I ever stood up to a bully, and happened when the bullies in my hometown started pulling poo poo in public. When I was 16 there was an episode during class that got two other students expelled from class, and they blamed me. The normal procedure around here to beat up someone is to get them at the gates with a bunch of backup on both sides, so at the end of the day, there were eight guys waiting for me by the gate. But I didn't have backup. Instead of going eight on one, they decided to make empty threats. I just said "gently caress you guys, I'm going home". Next day, they spent the entire day making threats, blocking my way in the hallways, spitting at my feet, etc. At the end of the day, an entirely unrelated guy bumps into me and grabs a friend of mine by the neck, accusing him of stealing his girlfriend. I tried to defuse the situation peacefully, but the guy just called me a pothead and started threatening me too. I was understandably pissed off at this point, so I pulled a knife on the guy. He ran for it, and the leader of the other guys (who was watching) ran too. At night he calls me to apologize. It tasted good.

quote:

In this troper's Junior year of high school, a guy in his class that many people found terribly annoying was sitting behind him, throwing bits of paper in his hair. This troper told him several times to stop, and he did not. Finally, getting fed up, he turned around, grabbed the guy by his hair, pulled his head forward and bashed his head against the brick wall. The troper's friends were dumbstruck. The teacher did nothing but sit there, agape, while a lot of people in class applauded. This is not the best part. The best part is the guy this troper attacked did not retaliate. This troper recently found out why, from a person whom the victim told: he was terrified of this troper. This troper, who had never been in any sort of physical confrontation, nor committed a single act of aggression throughout high school. The guy went on to join Army Special Forces, and is still afraid of this troper, after four years.

Khazar-khum posted:

In this troper's Junior year of high school, a guy in his class that many people found terribly annoying was sitting behind him, throwing bits of paper in his hair. This troper told him several times to stop, and he did not. Finally, getting fed up, he turned around, grabbed the guy by his hair, pulled his head forward and bashed his head against the brick wall. The troper's friends were dumbstruck. The teacher did nothing but sit there, agape, while a lot of people in class applauded. This is not the best part. The best part is the guy this troper attacked did not retaliate. This troper recently found out why, from a person whom the victim told: he was terrified of this troper. This troper, who had never been in any sort of physical confrontation, nor committed a single act of aggression throughout high school. The guy went on to join Army Special Forces, and is still afraid of this troper, after four years.

quote:

with a revolver stuck down the front of his pants, a cowboy hat on, and an open bear