I hated beef steak for the longest time, In my childhood beef steak was burnt hard until no taste or happiness remained.
I thought I hated beef steak.
Then my wife cooked beef rare and holy shit on a stick there’s actual taste in beef… I didn’t know that until I was in my mid 20s.
Luckily my parents had the answer, They totally asked and just did what my parents wanted.
I don’t talk to my parents anymore.
I had a similar experience with steaks and pork chops growing up. My dad liked his steaks well done.
I’ve cooked some steaks with the understanding that they can be better and they were, especially the one that I accidentally cooked perfectly. That said, I still don’t get the hype steaks can get. Yes, it’s better when cooked perfectly medium rare, but still not even close to a good curry or a perfectly cooked piece of breaded chicken (if you’re thinking like the frozen stuff, you should try eating at a restaurant that makes its own chicken wings or strips, holy fuck is there a difference there, too). The perfectly cooked steak was even better when I put the 2nd piece in a sandwich.
I’ve never had breaded chicken… It seems like it’s American version of chicken schnitzel just prepared slightly differently.
I absolutely love chicken schnitzel.
Neighborhood unions are a thing that should be normalized. Start a neighborhood union in your town today!
Wait… Isn’t that exactly what an HOA is?
No. An HOA has power over you. A neighborhood union gives you power over external parties through strength in numbers.
HOA will complain you have trash on your lawn. A neighborhood union can help you take on the waste management company that keeps half ass emptying your cans and leaving the remainder blowing in the wind.
An HOA will fine you for having the police show up at your house repeatedly. A neighborhood union can help you push back against police harassment.
An HOA will tell you you can’t plant veggies in your yard. A neighborhood union can join together to coordinate planting, tools, and other resources that could reduce the blight of grass farming.
An HOA is usually a compulsory organization with obligatory fees acting as a layer of government without the usual methods of redress when it’s out of line. A neighborhood union is a voluntary organization created to serve a common good.
Cool, thanks for the explanation.
Your parents weren’t telling you stories they were telling you truth
I’ll never forget about the guy on reddit who talked about his poop knife 😳
Did you ever hear of the channel S.V. Seeker? Honestly my favourite bit of niche internet drama, I can’t even begin to list the crazy shit that went down but basically a madman with zero knowledge of sailing let alone boatbuilding welded together an ill-conceived hulk roughly according to the plans of someone who is himself a nutter; misadventures on the way include pouring a lead keel and poisoning the topsoil if not himself, faking an explosion and resulting traumatic brain injury to learn who his ‘real fans’ were, and creating possibly the scariest boat I’ve ever heard of which no doubt will end up on the news one day having becoming a hazard to navigation.
Anyway he’s the first person I ever heard of using a poo knife. He was openly advocating the practice, as well as a ‘poo nest’ to prevent splashback.
a ‘poo nest’ to prevent splashback.
Well, that’s a rubbish name… but you can’t deny the logic behind a helipad.
Helipad? You mean the stink diffuser?
Good god — part of me wants to learn more about this guy and a very large part of me doesn’t.
This what I came here looking for. That story haunts me every time I go to the bathroom at a friend’s house for the first time. I’m just waiting for the day I see a knife next to the toilet.
I knew a poop knife family. They had 10 kids though, that might have had something to do with it.
I just feel like, and maybe I’m misunderstanding the usage instructions here, but if you have to use a knife to scrape poop off your behind… you should probably see a doctor about changing your diet.
Its not to scrap it off your butt… but to cut it into smaller pieces in the bowl…
No…
I am not making that up…
Oh my god 😳
Some older toilets can clog up from having too-small passageways. It’s a thing lol.
lmao, thanks for making my night.
Apparently super common and a religious thing.
Never thought I’d feel so warm towards a toilet brush before I read that story.
What kind of religion requires a diet that creates logs that need to be manually broken up to flush? I know US style toilets are more prone to blocking but that seems absurd to be so common.
Dog think it’s the consequence of diet it’s just ideas of cleanliness or it’s the tool they traditionally had before toilet brushes were invented (I’m spitballing here)
That was so long ago, and still to this day pops into my head.
Though I had no idea it was a religious thing! That’s news to me, though I’m not sure I want to Google and learn more about it.
Momofink’s parents are based, and HOA should be the villain in every story
Pocket knives every day, everywhere, coming out of your ears. Weirded me the hell out the first time I got in trouble for having a small, helpful little tool in my pocket. I was taught how to safely handle one when I was 8, and have always had one in my pocket since I was 14.
Like… of course I have a pocket knife. I have a spare in my backpack to give away, I have a collection at home, and I have favorite styles and designs. They’re great gifts, they’re always useful, fit in your pocket, and weigh nearly nothing. Why don’t you?
This was me as a kid. An assortment of Swiss Army knives, always available. Finally got one of the good Victorinox ones, and it was my EDC in high school. Totally normal in the redneck town where I grew up. I flew on planes at least twice with one on me, connected as a keychain. No one cared.
The week after 9/11, I was in college in a large coastal city, and a friend that worked at the campus TV station was asking people to be on their “talk show” which was just 3 random students with nothing better to do, and a theatre minor to moderate. Sure enough, 9/11 came up, and everyone was shocked, shocked I tell you, that box cutters made it in the plane.
I said I carried a pocket knife around because it’s a tool. And that I had managed to make it on a plane with one before, so it’s not that shocking. I had one on me at the time, like one does.
The looks I got - it was like I had told them I invented plane hijackings and was about to murder then all right there. Instantly they were the Us, even the moderator, I was a violent and terrifying Them. With a 3 inch folding blade I wouldn’t trust to cut more than a baby bell cheese. Fortunately, literally no one watched the show, but I just thought it was the other 3 people being weird.
Nope. City people just don’t expect to do things for themselves a lot I guess. Or something, I’m still not clear on what they’re thinking.
Anyway, my EDC these days is a Kershaw tonto blade. Love the big wide stumpiness of it. What’s yours?
I keep a Morakniv Companion in my backpack for bigger jobs like splitting wood, but the pocketknife I have in my pocket is just a little folding Gerber. My giveaway knife is a cheap Ozark. I figure it’s better than no knife at all, but for actual work I try to use good tools.
Fair. I still get a lot of use out of a Leatherman I’ve had for 20+ years.
At my uni, we technically have a rule banning pocket knives on campus, but because we have engineering and animal science students on campus, it’s not a big deal when you see people carry pocket knives.
I think my university had similar, however almost every engineering student had one…
Animal science I get, but why do engineering students need them?
For stripping wires, making small modifications to 3D prints, cutting tape, etc
Engineer does need a knife… but all other tools attached to that Swiss army knife, leatherman…etc.
Probably for cutting boxes and opening bags. You never know what you might need a knife for until you do.
it’s for threatening slow walkers who are blocking the way from the eng students’ fifth to sixth lecture of the day across campus after getting out of a 2 hour shitty lab period
They just think they’re neat. :)
Ah, the Marge Simpson justification. Fair enough 😁
That sounds a lot like Albacete and Andalucía with all those navajas, especially the gifting part (Navajas de Albacete are a well-known souvenir here in Spain)
I grew up un the impenetrable forests of southern sweden, always had pocket knives (fällkniv or morakniv). They were totally banned in school so I guesd we all figured that one out.
Moraknivs are my favorite knives! They’re sturdy, the grips are comfortable, and the bevels are easy to sharpen by hand with a whetstone. The steel is good, and as long as you keep it dry and oiled, they last forever.
They’re fantastic blades, Swedes have excellent taste.
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve mistaken a knife for a mollusc…
There’s an entire group of molluscs called “razor clams”, and their shells can be sharp enough to knick skin. I have lost enough faith in humanity, I would wager that at least one person has accidentally left the house with a pocket clam.
You’ll never guess what they’re called in Spanish
Oooooooh. Those are pretty. New quest item unlocked. <3
Europeans in shambles.
I must be the only decent HOA president around, the way everyone else is bad-talking them. A couple months ago, I got all five buildings full of townhomes re-roofed, and came in under-budget by ten percent. I also got to pick the roof shingle color, and I went with deep black.
I’m in this role cause I was the only person who showed up to the annual board meeting who wasn’t the board. Honestly I felt a bit like Michael from the Good Place—rest of the board vacated and then I had twenty-seven people’s homes in my hand? Very odd.
But I’ve done my best to be a good steward to the neighborhood. I bet people don’t even think the weird old lady with a cane taking pictures of pretty stuff is the president. They just see me doing whatever I do and don’t even know.
I think the difference between me and lawn-measuring karens is that I’m not a dick.
Give it time, HOA becoming evil always happens eventually…
Can you elaborate? How will I become evil?
There’s also a big difference between a condo/townhouse HOA and a suburban neighborhood one. Condo HOAs are focused on maintaining shared facilities and that would otherwise be too expensive for the owners to care for. Suburban HOAs for single family homes are all about enforcing uniformity and control.
I’m a doorman for a high-rise condo building. The board is often the biggest complainers who use their position to get special privileges for themselves. One board member nearly succeeded in getting our Christmas bonus removed. Now we have a lady who is convinced her unit is infested with mold in spite of numerous tests showing otherwise. She’s trying to get the building to pay for the full gut rehab of her unit.
In both cases their are shared maintenance expenses for the allotment. Like roads, drainage, and other things taxes would pay for but they cut themselves off from city by allowing an HOA.
Shitty that they even exist and anyone thinks it’s a good idea to trust unqualified people to manage projects they have no experience in usually. All a scam to let the developers cut costs and pass it onto the residents.
Now most of these HOAs are managed by older residents and most of them have a “I’m gonna die, why should I care” attitude about future planning.
roads, drainage, and other things taxes would pay for but they cut themselves off from city by allowing an HOA.
Wtf?! That’s insane!
Shitty that they even exist and anyone thinks it’s a good idea to trust unqualified people to manage projects they have no experience in usually. All a scam to let the developers cut costs and pass it onto the residents.
rAmen!
In my experience you are definitely the exception. Good on ya
Good on you, bud, I’ve done the same. I understand the Internet is always in an uproar over HoAs but it’s cooperative self governance. In our community we collectively own the land. A good HoA is essential. I have a background in fiscal analysis and budgeting and I can provide my neighbors these skills for a healthier neighborhood.
I’m sure there’s some dickhead on the Internet claiming we fined him unjustly for his broken window. He probably won’t tell you that it was broken for five years, caused a pipe burst that flooded his widow neighbor’s unit and forced her to discard her deceased husband’s possessions. Then waited until the following year’s frost without acting.
It’s a total pain in the ass of a gig and at least 30% of your residents are unpleasable. But the alternative is a working class neighborhood gets run by that one person who’s happy to fine for out of season decorations. If motherfuckers stepped up and acted like the board members they want to see, maybe they wouldn’t constantly whine about what are, to the majority of them, purely hypothetical tyrants.
Yeah, I’m sure there’s HOAs run by tyrants, but done right, it’s a social thing where we pool our resources and keep our houses up.
I think the difference is you got handed power/responsibilities nobody wanted and other hoa presidents sought it out for the power
If you shingled my house with deep black, I’d call for your removal.
I live in NM, and you’d turn my house into an oven.
Fortunately, my HOA has no restrictions on shingle colors. I chose the whitest once I could get. My HOA is decent, mostly they just deal with the landscape company, and keep people from trashing their own yards. I haven’t raked leaves or mowed a lawn in nearly 30 years. My front yard always looks good.
It’s good that I’m in Portland where it doesn’t roast. And if you call for my removal, I’d gladly step aside. Means you’d be the president then. I was drafted into this role against my will, and so would you be.
But these are townhomes, not stand-alone houses. The three houses in the confines of the neighborhood pay enough money to maintain the street they’re on, but they’re excluded from roofing and painting costs.
nods
The Santa Clause rulesI was drafted into this role against my will
JFC
Basically, if I didn’t accept the position, the HOA would enter into a receivership and everyone’s fees would have to go up, to cover the cost of administration.
So I stepped up.
<<HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!>>
I think it’s one of those roles where you if do it well, no one will notice.
I never had an HOA that wasn’t abysmal, so I’d say you are a very good exception.
By joining a HOA you already proved you’re an asshole though.
Heternormative Overlord Associations are fucking creepy, you telling me some fucking busybody with no life can tell me what colour to paint my fence if I lived in America?
Fuck right off. I thought y’all were the Land of the Free.
Here in Europe, we can do what we want as long as it’s within health and safety rules, without some weird stepford cult being like “it’s not approved by the council of elders!”
HOAs do exist in Europe too. Because it’s impossible to coordinate maintaining shared property without them.
The central heating system is showing its age. With what technology will it be replaced? Gas? Oil? Heat pump? A connection to district heating?
If it’s a heat pump, should you put solar panels on the roof? If so, who pays for them? Everyone? What if some don’t want to? How will revenue be shared if only some are willing to pay the cost? How will you calculate how much it costs to heat one apartment whose owner shares ownership of the solar panels versus how much it costs to heat one apartment whose owner doesn’t?
I don’t have a fence. Or a yard.
I just handle the roofing and painting contracts, and any sort of local landscape concerns.
This HOA looks after five buildings holding twenty-seven townhomes. There’s no lawns to mow here, no real interpersonal conflict. Residents pay into an HOA fund and then their building gets maintained.
I have never enforced any sort of rule otherwise.
But I can be an asshole if you need me to be.
Also, how are you assuming that I’m heteronormative? I’m a disabled trans woman. :/ I sign contracts for neighborhood maintenance.
Hi tanis!
how are you assuming i’m heteronormative
Yeah I laughed when I read that one, always fun seeing someone you know from a smaller community “out in the wild” 😝
Crazy that commenter couldn’t be bothered to scroll through your post history even a little.
But yeah generally HOAs are pretty bad (although for townhomes/condos they’re kinda necessary). I believe Last Week Tonight had a great segment on them. A lot of them have pretty shady part-corporate part-governmental authority in ways that just does not go well for the residents. (Often) They’re basically for-profit government bodies.
Yup, I would rather drag Finnmark out here one time and do five buildings of roofs every twenty-five years (I’ve been in this two years), rather than have every single homeowner call their own roofer out here to patch the twenty horizontal feet that is directly over their house, necessitating a new service fee each time, with the quality varying from segment to segment of each block of townhomes.
For people who’re shitting on me for having this role, for some reason, the alternative to an HOA is a capitalist nightmare where everyone is on their own.
Honestly you’ve turned me around on this
I still don’t think HOAs should exist, but it’s obvious now they need to in places that are a capitalist hellscape
But only if they’re run by people who aren’t petty bourgeoisies, which sadly there’s too many that are.
In places that have some amount of social democracy, the job of the HOA is done by the government.
If Jeff down the road ain’t fixed his leak in 3 years, then people report it to the gov, and the gov gives Jeff two options; fix it, or we charge you money and fix it ourselves
Well, I’m a disabled trans woman who does fine art photography, and I was mustered into this role. I don’t like the responsibility, but I’m the only one who accepted it, so I’m going to do it right. I’m not being paid, I just sign contracts and oversee work crews and look at a budget report every month, and make sure all my dudes in their houses they own, don’t start dying cause their house is falling apart.
I promise you, I’m really not an asshole. I pay more HOA fees than anyone else out here cause I fucked up the math, and rather than call a meeting to try to get a quorum together to fix it, I just eat the $90 extra a month.
I just want my tiny neighborhood to keep being a neighborhood.
Yeah like, you’ve shown to me that I’ve only ever heard of the bad cases, but there are cases where it actually works.
My new opinion is it’s a necessary evil like how charities are, in a perfect world they should not need to exist as social policies will meet the needs of the people. But in the imperfect world we actually live in, those needs are not met, and so charities have to pick up the slack.
Same for HOA, USA and some of the less socialist parts of EU need them, cause the gov aren’t doing their fucking job, so somebody needs to do it.
Oh yeah, for multiple family housing it’s essential to pool resources somehow.
Spoiler: You’re not
I guess you’re right. There are no decent HOA presidents. But how would people who share a building collaborate on things like roofing and painting otherwise? They’d have to come up with the money eventually or things would fall into disrepair.
If I’m a dick for doing this, then so be it. Folks need durable and maintained buildings. I’m not even being paid.
They just think co-operation will magically emerge, or something
The plan of what to get at the grocery store is an actual physical list people fill out as they think of things they need
My mom’s the absolute opposite. I’ve suggested making lists, and she is vehemently against them for some reason. She’d rather go to the super market, walk up and down every aisle, hoping to remember what she needs. Then when she inevitably forgets something, she just sends me (or one of her other kids, or my dad) to go pick up the thing she forgot. It makes zero sense and does nothing but inconvenience the rest of us just because she refuses to write things down.
The only way that my spouse and I remotely come close to buying everything we need at the store is by using AnyList and training ourselves to add items to it the very moment we realize we need it. I’ve pulled out my phone in the middle of a doctor consultation just to add “Cat Litter” to the list, because I know if I didn’t do it then, I’d forget, and wouldn’t remember again until it was too late and the cats were already in active revolt.
until it was too late and the cats were already in active revolt
I forgot to get cat litter one time and yeah, this kinda happened lol. Awkwardly had to get litter at like 11 pm…
Been there, cats started using our laundry, clean or dirty. Little bastards.
And not just randomly thinking of things.
Figuring out what ingredients need to be used soon.
Then using that to plan out what meals will be made between now and the next shopping trip.
The figuring out what’s needed to make those.
Then figuring out what from that list you already have.
Then subtracting the “already have” list from the combined ingredient list of those planned meals.
Then writing that list down.
Dude my wife is a master at looking at the fridge and coming up with a meal from the ingredients. It’s some kind of chef super power. Eternally grateful she’s on my team.
My family keeps and uses toothbrushes at the kitchen sink, because when I was growing up I didn’t want to get poop particles from the toilet on my toothbrush.
The rest of my family just kind of followed along.
Hope you don’t breathe while in the bathroom
You mean the airtight bathroom I guess, or you can’t breathe elsewhere either.
That’s a weirdly specific curse…
Good instinct but isn’t this what bathroom cupboards (the one with the mirror that you put above the sink) are for?
Also close toilet lid when flushing.
Yes, that reduced the quantity but does not eliminate it.
You can’t eliminate it in any room.
Unless you capture yours and everyone elses farts in a jar.
Until then, it is in your hair, your clothes, your table, your table utensils, and your food.
The show Mythbusters did this in 2004! The episode is called “Toothbrush Surprise” because they were so surprised when the control toothbrushes away from the bathroom had fecal bacteria right from the start.
They talked to a microbiologist, who said fecal coliforms are impossible to avoid. Farting in jars won’t help, it’s already everywhere.
Keeping the toothbrush in a different room is provably completely pointless. It’s superstition.
Ironically, keeping it in the open in the kitchen is likely worse than keeping it in a cabinet in the bathroom.
But nobody cares because it doesn’t matter outside of a hospital, but if it makes you feel better go ahead, but sincerely no need to panic.
I worry about pooh on my toothbrush. But I got these toothbrush covers instead.
I just close the lid before flushing
I suck it out before brushing my teeth
Make sure to swish afterwards so none of it gets stuck between your teeth
You are a scholar. I don’t even want other people’s toothpaste moisture on my toothbrush
Definitely put that on your online dating profile lol
My mom didn’t know how to drive and neither did my grandmother and that translated into “women can’t drive”. I was terrified when my friends mom drove us to school for the first time.
I used to think coffee was for men and tea was for women because of the adults in my family’s preferences
There’s a whole group of people near me with this problem (not cars though). I think they may have cracked it this generation around as there’s very few boys.
My mother hates driving and tried to avoid it and my grandma didn’t, neither did my aunt until my uncle died in his mid 50s. Never really thought about this until now.
This is how myths can lead to morality. If we all grew up with stories like this there wouldn’t be any HOAs
Yea too bad decent people dont lie to their kids enough about things that are just a little evil and make them into huge deals.
…and then the driver didn’t signal to turn and the cement truck couldn’t stop and crushed the driver to death. Remember kids, be predictable when driving.
I realized later in life both my parents had a weird idea of what love meant.
So that’s what I had to figure out later in life. I’m not complaining, glad someone showed me.
Can we start a separate chain to hear about the awful ones?
at first i thought “nah, we were perfectly normal” and then i remembered hanging the winter door.
Like replacing the screen door with one with windows, or hanging a new main door?
the house had an extra set of door hinges on the inside, and we had an extra door we put up behind the regular door in winter to kep the heat in.
it used to be more common but i don’t think i’ve seen it on a house built after the 1920s.
My parents had windows like that, house in sweden from maybe the fifties?
We put decorations in between.
oh yeah the windows too! we took those out in summer because they didn’t open.
Many homes have storm doors, usually on the outside. But, if the door swings out, instead of in, then the only place for a storm door is on the inside. Most front doors swing in, but not all.
only place i’ve ever seen doors that swing inwards is north america. it’s such a weird setup; the wind pushes through but inside air gets trapped.
I think doors that swing inwards are more common in most countries I’ve been. I think the reason is mostly security: if the hinges are on the outside it’s very easy to remove the door…
Although it’s probably still less effort for a robber to just break a window in most cases, so probably not always for security but rather started as a security measure and then people just got used to it…
here hinges are usually embedded in the frame, and we tend to use security doors with multiple locking pins so you can’t remove them when locked. it’s also safer in that if there’s a fire or something you don’t want to step back closer to danger to open the door.
Tbf HoAs, and by proxy their presidents, are loathsome in nearly every manner.
Bros before hoas.
