At a walk in clinic, met the doctor, she looked like a model, was glad I was there for heart palpitations anyway.

I think I'd look good in overalls, but the mouse ears I'm not so sure about.

"Kid, I feel for your situation, but I'm called Grammar Nazi for a reason. Call Mama Pancake. She has a thing for stories like yours."

I passed along her public number and hung up, throwing up as the urge to correct The Illiterate Kid swelled up without an outlet.

It hurts...it hurts so much. He was my Nemesis, and his rambling always got the better of me. Using they, them when referring to everyone had started as a ploy, but I always figured there was more to it. Not that I could help him, given who and what I was. Did he really think after all that I was the one he should reach out to?

Probably, but then he was a tool. Also, pretty sure his dog was a robot built by his dad's company. Bit of a drama queen, getting upset by a tomagachi with extra steps.

No matter as Pancake would sort him out. She was far more than just bulging muscle.

Once everything was out, I cleaned up and drank some water before sitting down in a meditative pose. It was important to review any poor grammar during stressful conversations and forgive myself. Mental health is important. Besides, my doctor said she was proud of my progress, and that gave me joy.

For a moment I considered a foreign idea...and why not? Kid was under stress as well and shooting him with deadly invective didn't seem called for.

I sighed for myself only a few times before starting the breathing exercises...

Watched the timelapse. Looks like they changed their minds on what they were actually building at least 5 times.

No doubt someone more knowledgeable can explain why they had to build over, then drain, then build over, then drain again, then build, then fill.

Not if the film hasn't been developed and you don't trust yourself to develop film that's 80 years old.

Followup - the party goes great, and the gig makes more money than cartel operations. So the cartel makes it a regular thing, making huge amounts of money, until the copyright and trademark owners catch wind of things and want their cut.

She knows.

She's been playing innocent since she was a third your age, but you weren't born from nowhere.

The real FU is your interpretation of things.

When I was about 10 my mom told me she wished she never had met my dad. When asked about me and my siblings, she was like - eh. This is not what's happening here.

You are literally overthinking this to find the bad in it. Reframing it to make yourself some kind of victim here. You're not, she's not, and the dog did you a solid.

You had ZERO investment at that time - none of anything you had happened had happened yet. And unless she's saying she wished the dog picked differently, all this means is that her system worked.

In fact, that's the thing to take away from all of this: her system worked. So be glad she had a system that worked for her (for both of you, really). Whether it was a good system doesn't matter.

And stop framing it like she would have thrown away everything you built up just because the dog had a bad day - you hadn't built up anything at that time and no one can see into the future like that.