Professional Lesbian (TM) | running late, confident, with my phone almost dead | potato hype woman | skills include: networking while covered in glitter; making married women question their sexuality | 20 something | various parts of the midwest | she/her | my love is returned from being [figuratively] off at sea
For evidence that Terry Pratchett understood humanity on a deep and fundamental level, look no further than the breed history of Dalmatians, because that shit is straight out of Discworld.
Someone ask me how Dalmatians became associated with fire departments, it’s fucking hilarious.
I KNEW I COULD COUNT ON YOU TO ENABLE ME.
So, Dalmatians are at their core a stagecoach guardian. That’s what they were initially developed as.
(This can take people by surprise when they get a Dalmatian as a pet, sometimes. Mind you, some show-line Dalmatians are bound to perfectly nice pet-quality dogs who don’t have much of the actual breed instinct left; but these are not meant to be low-energy dogs, and they’re not at all programmed to be super friendly toward strangers by default.)
So, they’re stagecoach guardians; a well-bred, breed-typical Dalmatian was meant to run alongside a stagecoach for…basically ever, and to snap at anyone who got close enough to threaten the coach or risk getting in the horses’ way.
A brief digression away from dogs for a second, to talk about pre-automobile fire departments.
The essential detail here is that we’ve had fire departments since basically ever (and they were….not infrequently straight-up protection rackets of the “nice place you got here. shame if it caught fire and nobody was willing to come put it out for you” variety, but that’s another story). And we’ve had fire engines for much longer than we’ve had automobiles.
These fire engines (here’s one example) would be drawn by a team of horses, as fast as they could manage in the streets, to the scene of a fire once the alarm was raised, same as today. They’d have bells clanging and alarms going off, same as today. And, same as today, once they got to the fire, all the firemen on board would pour off, throw on the brakes so the engine didn’t roll away, and, you know, focus on fighting the fire.
At which point, because people have always been people
There was a very real problem in which bystanders would steal the fucking horses.
Like…these were powerful, fast-but-strong, extremely well-trained coach horses! They were valuable as hell! And it’s not like you’re stealing the fire engine, after all, right? It’s parked, taking the horses doesn’t mean the building burns down or whatever, you’re just….gonna walk off with them all casual-like.
So obviously, fire departments would prefer to not have to constantly purchase expensive horses and train them to be safe around fire all the time. So they needed guard dogs to watch the horses while they were distracted by the burning building. And the dogs needed to be nimble–no big slow heavy mastiffs–and able to keep up, and have an intrinsic instinct to guard horses. And if they were easy to (haha) spot coming, even better.
So yeah.
Dalmatians are firehouse dogs because opportunistic thieves were doing the 1800s equivalent of stealing fire engine hubcaps and putting the pump up on cinderblocks while everyone was looking the other way.
dude today a customer brought me a birthday card and asked me “is this a girl birthday card or a unisex birthday card? I thought it was unisex but when I scanned it at the self-checkout it said girl birthday card.” the birthday card was just a bunch of balloons with the text “happy birthday”. and then when I was like “i dunno I think that’s just the official name of the card on our system I’m sure a boy would be happy with the card” the customer was like “well if it is a girl birthday card can you tell me if this other birthday card is unisex or for girls? if the other card is unisex I’d like to exchange the girl birthday card for the unisex one”. Like what. You can look at the cards. With your eyeballs. You are holding them both you can see them and decide whether or not you want the card. What the fuck are you talking about why are you asking me this
my autistic ass never understood the obsession people had over strict gendering of stuff and all these different rules. and now I’m trans and free and loving life !
a couple of my co-workers are pregnant and were talking about what colour to paint the baby’s room and I had to restrain myself so hard from saying anything at all. they’re good people, just caught in the web of gender essentialist bs that most cis people are
The bizarre rules that some Cisgender™ people will impose, not only in themselves, but on everyone else, never fail to astound me. Back when I worked in a charity shop, I got asked at least once a week if a bag, a scarf, a hat, whatever, was “for women or men”, and almost every time I would answer, “it’s for people - if you like it and you can afford it, then it’s for you” and the number of people who put things back because they were still wary of wearing something that wasn’t for their gender was ridiculous.
One time we got a corporate donation which included about 200 white baby bibs, all with the same embroidered design of alphabet blocks in blue thread. I put them in a rummage box marked at 5 for £1, and for every customer who bought some, there would be at least one other customer who asked, “have you got any for girls?” Telling them, “yes, those can be worn by girls” was like speaking gibberish - several people told me, out loud, in the year 2018, “they’re blue, they’re for boys”.
I once had a customer ask if we had any bandanas because she wanted one for her dog. I pointed to some in the Accessories section, and she looked at them and said, “no, they’ve got flowers on and he’s a boy dog”. I think I had a full-on Bernard Black moment and just crumpled forward on to the counter.
Only once that I remember did someone actually listen to what I said. A chap brought some plain black loafers to the counter and asked if they were for men or women. I must have been tired or something, because I just blurted out, “fashion knows no gender” before I could think of a more customer service-appropriate response. He looked thoughtful, then pulled out his wallet to pay for them. Two weeks later, he was back at the counter to pay for a pair of purple sequinned slippers. He told me, “fashion knows no gender” with a smile. I hope, wherever that customer is, that they are still enjoying their purple sequinned slippers.
Man, I hope that girl managed to figure things out.
I distinctly remember during Ye Olde Hellish Childhood Days of being dragged to Baptist churches this one guest preacher that went on and on about how important it is for Christian men to be friends with other Christian men but how difficult it is for men to have friends, because of course when you become friends with another man you will naturally want to have sex with him, so the temptation, y'know? It’s tough, resisting those urges to have sex with all your man friends when you’re a man, all you men know what I mean. It’s so hard. You must be Very Strong In Your Faith before you can handle the responsibility of being friends with another man, so you will be able to Resist The Devil and not have sex with them.
14 year old me sat there in my pew, thinking. I think I know something about this man that he does not know.
Me, also in highschool: I don’t get why everyone is so bitchy about gay marriage. Who gives a shit if a guy decides he’d prefer to marry a guy? It literally does not matter. So what if a girl meets a girl and wants to kiss her? Obviously I’m straight, but maybe I’d get gay married if I met the right person. Maybe you find someone you click with. Why does it matter*
*sincerely believing that everyone was attracted to every gender the same amount, but heterosexuality was the *choice* to exclude same-sex opportunities, because religion maybe?
This is a documented thing! It occurs most often with hearts but can happen with any transplanted organ. It’s called ‘cellular memory’ and I wrote a whole paper on it during my freshman year of uni. It’s also why some transplant recipients experience new preferences, thoughts, and sometimes behaviors their donor was known to have. Like favourite foods or drinks, subtle changes in personality (like becoming a bit more daring, etc), and more. It’s usually temporary as the organ adjusts to its new person’s preferences, experiences, habits, etc. It’s fascinating and awesome and I would love to study it in-depth someday.
“Perhaps you have forgotten. That’s one of the great problems of our modern world, you know. Forgetting. The victim never forgets. Ask an Irishman what the English did to him in 1920 and he’ll tell you the day of the month and the time and the name of every man they killed. Ask an Iranian what the English did to him in 1953 and he’ll tell you. His child will tell you. His grandchild will tell you. And when he has one, his great-grandchild will tell you too. But ask an Englishman—” He flung up his hands in mock ignorance. “If he ever knew, he has forgotten. ‘Move on!’ you tell us. ‘Move on! Forget what we’ve done to you. Tomorrow’s another day!’ But it isn’t, Mr. Brue.” He still had Brue’s hand. “Tomorrow was created yesterday, you see. That is the point I was making to you. And by the day before yesterday, too. To ignore history is to ignore the wolf at the door.”
- A Most Wanted Man, John le Carré
John le Carré has not, at any point, been fucking around.
I love learning about other culture’s Houseguest Protocols but I hate hate hate when they don’t match up cause like
I (PNW Canadian, raised with etiquette from my old British great-grandparents) sleeping over: Can I help with dinner. Can I do the dishes. PLEASE let me do something useful. Im sorry I’m here. I can sleep on the floor it’s fine. You don’t need to cook for me I can go outside and drink pond water. Do you hate me
My friend (Indian, raised by entire extended family in Dubai) hosting me: Why won’t you let me feed you. Do you need more coffee. Am I doing something wrong. Do you have enough blankets? I will buy you warmer clothes. Here, you can sleep in my room, I’ll take the couch. Why are you crying? Oh God am I a bad host
Also,
Me (PNW, raised European etiquettes) making direct eye contact with a family member I have wronged: They will know by my forthright and direct body language that I am owning my mistake and not trying to lie or minimize my actions. By looking them in the eyes they can know that they have my full attention and I am fully dedicated to making things right
Family member (Cree, raised with Cree etiquettes) seeing me stare them down like I’m daring them to try shit: I can tell by their unwavering death-stare that they are not the least bit ashamed of themselves. Obviously they are lying to my face and also think I am an idiot. This is an act of severe disrespect
Before COVID shut the library down, I was helping a little boy and his mom find books.
“What do you like to read about?” I asked. “Dinosaurs!” This is common request, but can mean different things, “Okay. Do you want a story about dinosaurs, or facts about dinosaurs?” “Facts.” I took him to the dinosaur section (567.9) of the juvenile nonfiction. He picked out a couple books, and I asked him if there was anything else he was looking for. “Do you have anything on DNA?” I had to think about that for a second. “I think so…but I’ll have to look it up.” The boy beamed, “I want to find out how DNA works, so I can bring them back!” “We just saw Jurassic Park,” his mom explained with a smile that did not waver when she added, “We didn’t learn anything.”
Me: Did you know that medieval cathedrals weren’t actually supposed to be dark and rundown places with only stained glass as color? They were bright places full of light… the reason they look like that now is because of the centuries of accumulated grime and dust, here look at this restoration of the Cathedral of Chartres in France:
It’s based on actual paint from the times, and when you think about it, it makes a lot more sense, after all a church is supposed to be a bright place of hope. Yet when we think about the middle ages we think about grimy and dark cathedrals. I wonder how much of our conception of history is shaped by our current visions of historical buildings.
My Goth GF: listen, I don’t think this thing between us is working,
I decided to watch Bottoms and I’ve only had Hazel for about 40 minutes but if anything happens to this bizarre little lesbian, I’m going to kill everyone in this movie.
I mean, not counting all the times she gets punched in the face. She chose that for herself and seemed to enjoy it.
