Dooney and bourke bag vintage
LookAtMyCosmetics
2015.08.18 11:16 LookAtMyCosmetics
A place to post pictures of cosmetics, what's in your makeup bag, collections, vanities, storage ideas, skincare, hauls, vintage cosmetic items, and depotting.
2010.08.08 17:46 pophardpunk /r/Disneyland
2011.08.05 10:33 humanman42 Thrift Store Hauls : What did you find today?
A forum dedicated to sharing your thrift finds - garage sales, flea markets, pawn shops, and more are all allowed. Come join our community and share your passion for the hunt with like minded people!
2023.05.30 22:26 Xerxeskingofkings The First Rift War, chapter 6: Epiphany
++I regret to say, we have lost control of the system to these invaders.++
The words hung in the air of the command centre, literally stunning those present. It was almost impossible to imagine. The image of Quinn on the screen continued.
++I’m pulling back to the jump limit, to preserve whats left of my forces. The repair ships can rendezvous with us there, and contact temporary repairs to enable us to get to Ti’an for proper repair work.++
Himdo took some time to react, as the enormity of what the fleet-master was saying sank in. When he responded, he spoke with A tone that was equal parts surprise and indignation
“You’re abandoning the system?! We cant just let these humans have a sector capital! Its unprecedented!“
Due to the distances involved, their was a significant delay fore the fleet-master responded.
++The humans ALREADY have the sector capital, My lord. I am in no position to stop them. ++ Quinn countered. ++We need to fall back at Ti’an, wait for the Battle fleet to arrive from the Core, and then retake the system. Parbat is lost.++
Dar’cy reared onto his true-feet, bringing him to his full height
. “We may have lost the orbitals, but we still hold the surface. Unless they are willing to destroy their prize, they will have to dig us out!”
“They may well decided to do just that, Corps-lord” Dal’ton said. “Those ships have more than enough firepower to raze most of the planet if they chose to, but they lack the transports needed to occuy the system. Only the Palace is fortified enough to survive.”
Himdo shifted his weight slightly as he was reminded of the weakness of the planetary defences. The Central Command, ever-paranoid about rebellion in the Frontier (which was not without cause, considering Imperial history) did not allow much fortification of worlds in the frontier. Normally, only the governor’s palace was properly fortified against orbital attack. The rest of the world was at the mercy of whoever held the orbitals, and when the Imperial Navy was the only force around, it made sense.
“Incoming transmission form the Human fleet!” a comms tech shouted, and the terran admiral appeared on a screen, and began to talk again. The translation text indicated it was a repeat of their demands to release any human prisoners, or “suffer the consequences”.
Himdo turned and advanced towards the camera pickup
“You do understand what your facing, don’t you? The Great and Bountiful Empire is more than a thousand worlds! We will not be dictated too by some upstart species that doesn’t recognise how overmatched it is!“
The terran grunted, the translator labelling it as mirth.
++wiː ɑːr əˈbaʊt tuː teɪk kənˈtrəʊl ɒv jɔːr ˈɔːbɪtl speɪs ænd dɪˈmɒlɪʃ ˈɛvri ˈsteɪʃᵊn ɪn ˈɔːbɪt. duː juː ˈrɪəli wɒnt tuː luːs ɔːl ðæt ˈəʊvə jɔː praɪd? ++
“They ask if we are really willing to loose the orbital industry for our pride” Mer’es, the xenologist, dutifully translated
“Tell them we do not have any prisoners, they were taken further into our great realm.” Himdo lied.
The human nodded in agreement as he heard the message.
++ðæts tuː bæd. ɪn ðæt keɪs, pliːz pɑːs ɒn tuː huːˈɛvə dʌz hæv ðɛm ðeɪ kæn ɡɛt ðɪs ˈsɪstəm bæk wɛn ðeɪ ɡɪv ʌs ˈaʊə ˈpiːpl bæk.++
“They say they will hold this system until we return their people” Mer’es read out.
Himdo reared up in anger…then forced himself back down, and spoke with a tone of measured anger.
“Tell them anything they do here will be repaid a hundredfold onto their people”
The face of the human was hard as stone, his eyes as cold as the depths of interstellar space.
++juː ɑː ˈwɛlkəm tuː traɪ, bʌt ðæt wɪl nɒt hɛlp juː naʊ.++
“He says we can try, but it wont help us now” Mer’es said as the human admiral carried on
++ aɪ ˈɒfə juː ə ʧɔɪs. juː kæn səˈrɛndə, ænd ˈɔːdə jɔː fliːt tuː rɪˈmeɪn ɪn ˈsɪstəm æt ðɪs ləʊˈkeɪʃᵊn. ɪn rɪˈtɜːn, wiː wɪl lɛt juː ɪˈvækjueɪt jɔːr ˈɔːbɪtl ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌkʧə wɪˈðaʊt ˌɪntəˈfɪərəns, ænd liːv ɪt ɪnˈtækt. rɪˈzɪst, ænd wɪl klɪər ˈɔːbɪtl speɪs ænd ˈskaʊə ðə ˈplænɪt ++
“He offers is a choice, surrender and order the fleet to this location” A image of the system flashed up, a location not far form Parbat orbit highlighted, as Mer’es translated. “If we do, he will spare the orbital stations and even let us fully evacuate them. Or we resist, and he scours orbit clean and then starts on the planet.”
The terran spoke one final, short sentence, then cut the feed. Mer’es said “he says we have until he reaches orbit to choose”.
Dar’cy reared up onto his rear True-feet, and bared his fangs. “Choice? What nonsense is this? What makes him think we would agree to such terms?”
“Control of the orbitals” Dal’ton said sourly.
“You don’t think they are actually going to carry through with their dire threats, do you?” Dar’cy scoffed “They must understand the scale of the response it would provoke!”
“They just went face to face with the majority of the sector fleet and crippled it”. Dreams of Cogs, the gangly, simian Chief of Engineering interjected “Would glassing a major planet really provoke the Empire that much more?”
Dar’cy looked puzzled “Well...” he said, then composed himself. “Could they even damage the palace? I was told the planets rain-storms would cause plasma weapons to suffer excessive bloom and waste most of their energy in clouds.”
“That is half-truth, Corps-lord” Gor-sek, the small, hyperactive Vren who was the chief physicist for Dal’ton answered Iit would be inefficient, yes-yes, but perfectly possible for a point target. Also, their rail-guns will punch though that without issue. They would struggle to get though the damper field, but they could dig us out if they wish-desire it” He carefully did not mention what effect the Terrans could have on the rest of the planet and its inhabitants, as it was clear the Corps-Lord did not care what happened to the subject races who worked the systems industries.
Dar’cy’s ears flicked in annoyance, then the army commander stalked across the room, muttering to himself “Who does this human think he is, holding a knife to our throats and dicating terms? Who does that?”
Dar’cy then became aware of the gaze of more than 30 subject race techs in the room, all looking at him in amazement. “WHAT?" He snarled as they all jumped back to their work.
Gor-sek, however, skittered over “You act like that.” He explained. “The Empire jumped into Vren clan-space, destroyed any ship you encountered, and melt-fused to glass any clan that didt surrender fast enough for your liking”
Dar’cy looked up at Dreams of Cogs, who’d come up behind the rodent “We were still pre-stellar when you found us, but yes, this is EXACTLY how you guys act to everyone else”
“BUT WE’RE THE EMPIRE!” Dar’cy exploded in a rage so violent, the two subject-scientists literally ran in fear of their lives. “WE ARE THE GREATEST FORCE IN KNOWN SPACE! NONE CAN STAND AGIANST US!”
“ENOUGH!” Himdo, who’d been quiet until now, suddenly shouted, which brought the raging Dar’cy to his senses.
Himdo pointed to a comms tech “Order Quinn to move his fleet to the designated location, and send the mobile repair ships to meet him there.”
Dar’cy physically stumbled in shock, “your agreeing to his terms!?”
“Yes” Himdo said simply. the room fell silent, all eyes on the Noble.
“You said it yourself. Hes got a knife to our throat. If we are to have any chance of salvaging this…disaster” Himbo waved his armed expansively to encompass the events unfolding around them. “then we are going to need to Quinn and his fleet in as good a state as we can get it. If Quinn is here, the terran fleet will need to stay here as well, to keep watch on him. We have heavy elements of the Battle Fleet and over a dozen divisions of the Army en route to us, here. If we can keep the systems yards intact until they arrive, we might still be able to push them back.”
Himdo looked at Dal’ton “Your subordinates have the right of it, as well. These demons” for the first time, Himdo called them ‘demons’ without mockery “are acting like us. We need to stop thinking of them like just another subject race we can conquer with a few ships and some threats, and start thinking of them as our equals... at least temporarily.” Several of the staff in the room looked openly shocked. The Empire had not dealt with a near-peer opponent in over 300 cycles, not since Emperor Shaddam had broken the Tulak Hordes and secured the Core-ward borders of the Empire.
“if we can stall them here, we can regain the initiative. But for that to work, we will need to play their game, and set the board for my successor to capitalise on.” Himdo seemed to slump, and said in a quiet voice “Send the orders to Quinn”. The Lord High Commander then turned and walked out of the command centre
Dar’cy looked at the departing Lord High Commander with a mix of awe and condolence. He understood, as almost no one else in the room did, what Himdo had meant by “his successor”.
The Imperial Court did not choose the rulers of Imperial Domains by pulling names out of a bag. For Himdo to be granted such an honour was a sign he was destined high office in the Court, but that destiny was contingent on him delivering success.
Himdo had just admitted, to himself and his staff, that he fully expected to be recalled, tried and disgraced for his failures. If he was lucky, he might be allowed to keep title and current rank, but any shot he had at a nice Minsters position was gone. Himdo now know that Glory was beyond his grasp.
All that was left was the burdens Duty. Duty, to a government that was going to crucify Himdo to avoid looking too hard at its own decisions, the decisions that had sabotaged their chances before they ever met the humans.
Duty, that must be carried out, even in defeat.
This is part 6 of my ongoing work, the First Rift war. Part one is Post-Mortem.
submitted by Xerxeskingofkings to HFY [link] [comments]
The words hung in the air of the command centre, literally stunning those present. It was almost impossible to imagine. The image of Quinn on the screen continued.
++I’m pulling back to the jump limit, to preserve whats left of my forces. The repair ships can rendezvous with us there, and contact temporary repairs to enable us to get to Ti’an for proper repair work.++
Himdo took some time to react, as the enormity of what the fleet-master was saying sank in. When he responded, he spoke with A tone that was equal parts surprise and indignation
“You’re abandoning the system?! We cant just let these humans have a sector capital! Its unprecedented!“
Due to the distances involved, their was a significant delay fore the fleet-master responded.
++The humans ALREADY have the sector capital, My lord. I am in no position to stop them. ++ Quinn countered. ++We need to fall back at Ti’an, wait for the Battle fleet to arrive from the Core, and then retake the system. Parbat is lost.++
Dar’cy reared onto his true-feet, bringing him to his full height
. “We may have lost the orbitals, but we still hold the surface. Unless they are willing to destroy their prize, they will have to dig us out!”
“They may well decided to do just that, Corps-lord” Dal’ton said. “Those ships have more than enough firepower to raze most of the planet if they chose to, but they lack the transports needed to occuy the system. Only the Palace is fortified enough to survive.”
Himdo shifted his weight slightly as he was reminded of the weakness of the planetary defences. The Central Command, ever-paranoid about rebellion in the Frontier (which was not without cause, considering Imperial history) did not allow much fortification of worlds in the frontier. Normally, only the governor’s palace was properly fortified against orbital attack. The rest of the world was at the mercy of whoever held the orbitals, and when the Imperial Navy was the only force around, it made sense.
“Incoming transmission form the Human fleet!” a comms tech shouted, and the terran admiral appeared on a screen, and began to talk again. The translation text indicated it was a repeat of their demands to release any human prisoners, or “suffer the consequences”.
Himdo turned and advanced towards the camera pickup
“You do understand what your facing, don’t you? The Great and Bountiful Empire is more than a thousand worlds! We will not be dictated too by some upstart species that doesn’t recognise how overmatched it is!“
The terran grunted, the translator labelling it as mirth.
++wiː ɑːr əˈbaʊt tuː teɪk kənˈtrəʊl ɒv jɔːr ˈɔːbɪtl speɪs ænd dɪˈmɒlɪʃ ˈɛvri ˈsteɪʃᵊn ɪn ˈɔːbɪt. duː juː ˈrɪəli wɒnt tuː luːs ɔːl ðæt ˈəʊvə jɔː praɪd? ++
“They ask if we are really willing to loose the orbital industry for our pride” Mer’es, the xenologist, dutifully translated
“Tell them we do not have any prisoners, they were taken further into our great realm.” Himdo lied.
The human nodded in agreement as he heard the message.
++ðæts tuː bæd. ɪn ðæt keɪs, pliːz pɑːs ɒn tuː huːˈɛvə dʌz hæv ðɛm ðeɪ kæn ɡɛt ðɪs ˈsɪstəm bæk wɛn ðeɪ ɡɪv ʌs ˈaʊə ˈpiːpl bæk.++
“They say they will hold this system until we return their people” Mer’es read out.
Himdo reared up in anger…then forced himself back down, and spoke with a tone of measured anger.
“Tell them anything they do here will be repaid a hundredfold onto their people”
The face of the human was hard as stone, his eyes as cold as the depths of interstellar space.
++juː ɑː ˈwɛlkəm tuː traɪ, bʌt ðæt wɪl nɒt hɛlp juː naʊ.++
“He says we can try, but it wont help us now” Mer’es said as the human admiral carried on
++ aɪ ˈɒfə juː ə ʧɔɪs. juː kæn səˈrɛndə, ænd ˈɔːdə jɔː fliːt tuː rɪˈmeɪn ɪn ˈsɪstəm æt ðɪs ləʊˈkeɪʃᵊn. ɪn rɪˈtɜːn, wiː wɪl lɛt juː ɪˈvækjueɪt jɔːr ˈɔːbɪtl ˈɪnfrəˌstrʌkʧə wɪˈðaʊt ˌɪntəˈfɪərəns, ænd liːv ɪt ɪnˈtækt. rɪˈzɪst, ænd wɪl klɪər ˈɔːbɪtl speɪs ænd ˈskaʊə ðə ˈplænɪt ++
“He offers is a choice, surrender and order the fleet to this location” A image of the system flashed up, a location not far form Parbat orbit highlighted, as Mer’es translated. “If we do, he will spare the orbital stations and even let us fully evacuate them. Or we resist, and he scours orbit clean and then starts on the planet.”
The terran spoke one final, short sentence, then cut the feed. Mer’es said “he says we have until he reaches orbit to choose”.
Dar’cy reared up onto his rear True-feet, and bared his fangs. “Choice? What nonsense is this? What makes him think we would agree to such terms?”
“Control of the orbitals” Dal’ton said sourly.
“You don’t think they are actually going to carry through with their dire threats, do you?” Dar’cy scoffed “They must understand the scale of the response it would provoke!”
“They just went face to face with the majority of the sector fleet and crippled it”. Dreams of Cogs, the gangly, simian Chief of Engineering interjected “Would glassing a major planet really provoke the Empire that much more?”
Dar’cy looked puzzled “Well...” he said, then composed himself. “Could they even damage the palace? I was told the planets rain-storms would cause plasma weapons to suffer excessive bloom and waste most of their energy in clouds.”
“That is half-truth, Corps-lord” Gor-sek, the small, hyperactive Vren who was the chief physicist for Dal’ton answered Iit would be inefficient, yes-yes, but perfectly possible for a point target. Also, their rail-guns will punch though that without issue. They would struggle to get though the damper field, but they could dig us out if they wish-desire it” He carefully did not mention what effect the Terrans could have on the rest of the planet and its inhabitants, as it was clear the Corps-Lord did not care what happened to the subject races who worked the systems industries.
Dar’cy’s ears flicked in annoyance, then the army commander stalked across the room, muttering to himself “Who does this human think he is, holding a knife to our throats and dicating terms? Who does that?”
Dar’cy then became aware of the gaze of more than 30 subject race techs in the room, all looking at him in amazement. “WHAT?" He snarled as they all jumped back to their work.
Gor-sek, however, skittered over “You act like that.” He explained. “The Empire jumped into Vren clan-space, destroyed any ship you encountered, and melt-fused to glass any clan that didt surrender fast enough for your liking”
Dar’cy looked up at Dreams of Cogs, who’d come up behind the rodent “We were still pre-stellar when you found us, but yes, this is EXACTLY how you guys act to everyone else”
“BUT WE’RE THE EMPIRE!” Dar’cy exploded in a rage so violent, the two subject-scientists literally ran in fear of their lives. “WE ARE THE GREATEST FORCE IN KNOWN SPACE! NONE CAN STAND AGIANST US!”
“ENOUGH!” Himdo, who’d been quiet until now, suddenly shouted, which brought the raging Dar’cy to his senses.
Himdo pointed to a comms tech “Order Quinn to move his fleet to the designated location, and send the mobile repair ships to meet him there.”
Dar’cy physically stumbled in shock, “your agreeing to his terms!?”
“Yes” Himdo said simply. the room fell silent, all eyes on the Noble.
“You said it yourself. Hes got a knife to our throat. If we are to have any chance of salvaging this…disaster” Himbo waved his armed expansively to encompass the events unfolding around them. “then we are going to need to Quinn and his fleet in as good a state as we can get it. If Quinn is here, the terran fleet will need to stay here as well, to keep watch on him. We have heavy elements of the Battle Fleet and over a dozen divisions of the Army en route to us, here. If we can keep the systems yards intact until they arrive, we might still be able to push them back.”
Himdo looked at Dal’ton “Your subordinates have the right of it, as well. These demons” for the first time, Himdo called them ‘demons’ without mockery “are acting like us. We need to stop thinking of them like just another subject race we can conquer with a few ships and some threats, and start thinking of them as our equals... at least temporarily.” Several of the staff in the room looked openly shocked. The Empire had not dealt with a near-peer opponent in over 300 cycles, not since Emperor Shaddam had broken the Tulak Hordes and secured the Core-ward borders of the Empire.
“if we can stall them here, we can regain the initiative. But for that to work, we will need to play their game, and set the board for my successor to capitalise on.” Himdo seemed to slump, and said in a quiet voice “Send the orders to Quinn”. The Lord High Commander then turned and walked out of the command centre
Dar’cy looked at the departing Lord High Commander with a mix of awe and condolence. He understood, as almost no one else in the room did, what Himdo had meant by “his successor”.
The Imperial Court did not choose the rulers of Imperial Domains by pulling names out of a bag. For Himdo to be granted such an honour was a sign he was destined high office in the Court, but that destiny was contingent on him delivering success.
Himdo had just admitted, to himself and his staff, that he fully expected to be recalled, tried and disgraced for his failures. If he was lucky, he might be allowed to keep title and current rank, but any shot he had at a nice Minsters position was gone. Himdo now know that Glory was beyond his grasp.
All that was left was the burdens Duty. Duty, to a government that was going to crucify Himdo to avoid looking too hard at its own decisions, the decisions that had sabotaged their chances before they ever met the humans.
Duty, that must be carried out, even in defeat.
2023.05.30 22:26 callsignbruiser How to review a 1-night guest who has good reviews, but left cookies all over the place?
We had a guest for one night who has north of 30 positive reviews. Communication was a little bit of work since he didn't seem to read instructions or house rules, but we felt overall pretty good hosting him.
The thing is this: he left cookies everywhere. From little crumble pieces to entire cookies. The trash bin(s) are full of empty cookie bags. We believe that his good reviews are due to the fact that cleaners probably don't pass on the feedback to the host, so the host believes everything was honky dory. And, strictly speaking, it is.
Yet, I can't help but feel I should mention the cookies in the review. I just don't know how. Any ideas/experiences you can share?
submitted by callsignbruiser to airbnb_hosts [link] [comments]
The thing is this: he left cookies everywhere. From little crumble pieces to entire cookies. The trash bin(s) are full of empty cookie bags. We believe that his good reviews are due to the fact that cleaners probably don't pass on the feedback to the host, so the host believes everything was honky dory. And, strictly speaking, it is.
Yet, I can't help but feel I should mention the cookies in the review. I just don't know how. Any ideas/experiences you can share?
2023.05.30 22:25 Mrpssi ILPT Request: My brother is being targeted by his fellow classmates and I am unsure what to do.
Hello all,
I have been informed by my brother that a group is targeting and harassing him and I am trying to get evidence of them in the act. Since he is a sophomore and I am a senior, I almost never know how he is doing in classes or what problems, such as potential bullies, he might face. I was thinking maybe the installation of a micro camera on maybe his bag or in the classrooms he attends. If anyone has any ideas on how I could further this or act in a different way please let me know. (Before you ask the collection of evidence is to be presented to a counselor or school head so that has not yet been exercised)
submitted by Mrpssi to IllegalLifeProTips [link] [comments]
I have been informed by my brother that a group is targeting and harassing him and I am trying to get evidence of them in the act. Since he is a sophomore and I am a senior, I almost never know how he is doing in classes or what problems, such as potential bullies, he might face. I was thinking maybe the installation of a micro camera on maybe his bag or in the classrooms he attends. If anyone has any ideas on how I could further this or act in a different way please let me know. (Before you ask the collection of evidence is to be presented to a counselor or school head so that has not yet been exercised)
2023.05.30 22:25 Embarrassed-Battle-6 HELP! Advice for fixing vintage perfume bottle?
 | Hello! I recently bought this beautiful vintage bottle from my local antique shop, and I’ve been in the process of cleaning it the past few days. The spray nozzle that’s attached to it does not work; it seems to be stuck, since the nozzle will not go up or down. (However, it does twist left and right just fine.) I’ve been doing a series of baking soda, vinegar, dawn dish soap, and hot water to try and break down anything inside, and it still won’t pump. What can I do? submitted by Embarrassed-Battle-6 to ThriftStoreHauls [link] [comments] |
2023.05.30 22:24 loonmoondoom Sézane Leather Bags
 | Has anyone purchased a leather purse or bag from Sézane? Do you like the quality and does it hold up well overtime? I’ve been eyeing the Romèo bag for months and think I might finally get it, but the price is $345. submitted by loonmoondoom to Sezane [link] [comments] |
2023.05.30 22:23 RpDubC Gym Bag Help - Too Many Options
I’m looking for a 30l-40l bag. Currently using an old Northface Recon that I think is 30l. Being a typical half way down zip backpack, getting clothes, weight belt, knee sleeves etc in and out is a pain. I’d like water bottle pockets on the outside.
Any recs for bags under $200?
The 5.11 Rush 24 looks cool but will be heavy.
Kelty Asher King Kong 35 - although it looks really big. Under Armour cordura duffle looks cool but the backpacks straps look terrible. Thule Axoim 40l. Gonna check that out tomorrow in person. Eagle Creek 40l cargo hauler duffle but it looks flimsy and no water bottle pockets
I’ve got so many tabs open right now it’s hard to decide.
submitted by RpDubC to crossfit [link] [comments]
Any recs for bags under $200?
The 5.11 Rush 24 looks cool but will be heavy.
Kelty Asher King Kong 35 - although it looks really big. Under Armour cordura duffle looks cool but the backpacks straps look terrible. Thule Axoim 40l. Gonna check that out tomorrow in person. Eagle Creek 40l cargo hauler duffle but it looks flimsy and no water bottle pockets
I’ve got so many tabs open right now it’s hard to decide.
2023.05.30 22:23 SalernoXbox Honest Review of Fender Professional II Stratocaster - It plays better than my LP Standard which costs more than double the price
 | Fender really nailed it with this guitar, there isn't really anything to say aside from the price tag but then again, I genuinely believe that this is the best Stratocaster for what you get for the money. The Performer series would be a close second. I tried a few ultras in the store and the neck was super fast, but I personally preferred the deep c neck as it felt more like the original standard I know and love. The deep c is not "deep" at all, in fact it's more slim than the modern d on my les paul standard. It has nice fullness on the edges that gives the hand something to grip, playing chords is much more comfortable on the deep c I found than the slimmer necks. I'll break the strat down into all the categories I can try to list at the top of my head: submitted by SalernoXbox to fender [link] [comments] Neck - 10/10 : I may be a little bit biased but I think the deep c neck is the best neck that Fender has ever come out with. Between this and my standard, this neck just feels so much more pleasant and comfortable to hold. It speaks for itself. The rosewood is extremely smooth and easy to noodle around on. Mine came with this funky 2-tone grain on the wood that tripped me out a little at first but I learned to embrace it. The back of the neck has this super satin smooth finish and it is definitely super smooth, it's an extremely smooth playing guitar. Frets - 9.5/10 : I'm not giving it a 10 because I think Fender should be putting stainless steel frets on these instruments considering the price tag and especially compared to other brands that use them. But I think the Narrow Tall frets with the rolled edges are incredible. It's quite funny hearing people say "I'm going for the performer for the medium jumbo" or "Narrow tall is horrible" , I'm not sure how many people know this, but literally almost all of Fender's Custom Shop Strat's and a lot of the Telecasters, have Narrow Tall frets. $4000-$10,000 guitars and up, and almost every single one I looked at had Narrow Tall frets in the specs. There is obviously a reason why this is a thing, and I'm also sure nobody who gets a custom shop fender is going to be concerned over medium jumbo or narrow tall frets. I have no idea what the difference is between Narrow-Tall and Medium Jumbo if you put 2 in front of me, my Les Paul is Medium Jumbo and my Strat is Narrow Tall and never have I picked up one instrument over the other and went "oh, these frets feel different." Tone - 9/10 : I love the tone that comes out of these V-Mod 2 pickups, it has a very modern stratty sound to it, perfect for modern covers, jazz, some country, a little bit of John Mayer, I do think that some hotter more vintage pickups would have been really cool especially when you consider the implementation of the Narrow-Tall frets to try to give you that Custom Shop vibe. The push-push knobs are cool and there's a few positions I really like that almost sound like an acoustic guitar. Finishes - 10/10 : I think the Pro II line by far had the nicest paint finishes. Miami blue, Surf green, Dark Knight, Mercury Silver, Olympic white, even the roasted pine. The ultra line is great too, I think the Miami blue is more vibrant than the cobra blue, the finishes on the ultra just didn't catch my eye the way I hoped they would. The Texas Tea was in my opinion the nicest finish on the ultras. My 2 favorite finishes in the Pro II line are definitely the Mystic Green and Dark Knight. Reason being because it has the exact same sparkly paint as the ultras that reflect and shine in different lighting. It almost looks like a fancy car paint finish. It's a nicer paint finish than my Les Paul Standard. Versatility - 8/10 : It's definitely versatile, an HSS would be more practical if you're looking for a do-it-all guitar. The SSS version gives that authentic single coil strat sound, and with the coil tapping abilities, opens up for more acoustic sounding tones, muddier overdrive for punk, some really bright funky tones for country too. I use my LP for anything related to gain, so for me it was a no brainer to get the SSS version. The HSS is really good too, I had one before getting a LP and later on getting the SSS, while it may not be as meaty as some other guitars designed for overdrive, the HSS will get the job done. The SSS is everything I would expect from a classic single coil strat, and the coil tapping just opens me up to more tonal possibilities. Body & Weight - 10/10 : Extremely ergonomic guitar, especially when comparing it to a beefy LP. It's extremely light, easier to hold, more comfortable to play in bed, and a lot easier for high fret access especially with the contour in the back to help this. This is what I meant earlier with the Pro II being a mighty match for the ultra, the ultra is extremely fast yes, but the Pro II is also fast. If I would rate the speed out of 10 between both guitars, I'd give the ultra a 9.5/10 and the Pro II a 9.2/10. But if I were to rate the neck's in terms of comfort, I'd give the ultra an 8.5/10 and give the Pro II a 9.5/10 if not a perfect 10. So how I looked at it in the store was where did it differ the most? And it was certainly in comfort, I would rather sacrifice a little bit of speed for a lot more comfort than to sacrifice a lot of comfort for a little bit of speed. I fingerpick quite a lot when I'm not using a pick, and everything from Clapton inspired chords (thumb-work) to John Mayer's funky chord variations, it just feels super comfortable to play. and I can go very long periods without getting tired or cramping. When you factor in all of these amazing features and little touches, this is probably the best value Stratocaster on the market right now. The finish is premium and what you would expect from a high end American Fender instrument, you get unique Narrow Tall frets that actually works very well unlike the cheaper fender models that have it, and that is typically something that would only be found on a Fender Custom Shop. It has almost all of the compliments an ultra would, minus the ability to turn the single coils into humbuckers; but that goes with saying I would just get an HSS or 1 humbucking guitar and 1 single coiled guitar. And the ultra neck is no "improvement" but more of a preference for people who want a super slim fast neck. I think they can totally put both of these guitars at the same price but they won't do it because of marketing. This Pro II is a REALLY big upgraded and refined American Standard, while the ultra is a refined version of the Elite. All in all I am more than pleased with this fine instrument, I think that the competition of the Ultra tends to kick this one into the shadows sometimes, but it's price tag justifies every bit of this instrument. When I brought the ultra home for a week, I personally couldn't bond with it , mainly because it was more of a super-strat than the classic American Standard I always wanted to own. Let me know how your experience with your Fender Stratocaster is, which model you think is the best bang for the buck I would love to hear :) Cheers https://preview.redd.it/tfep1wj5t03b1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49c1e7be35641b67ec2697f571201c4b3a94580b |
2023.05.30 22:23 ecHoffeomen Does anyone have an idea what plant these seeds/fruits are from?
 | A friend of my sister just came back from a family visit in ghana and gifted her a bag of these. They are supposedly called salam salam (?), but i just cant find anything about them online. Top is the seed, bottom is the whole fruit as we received them. About half the size of a penny/euro cent coin. Would be nice if anyone could help out. submitted by ecHoffeomen to whatsthisplant [link] [comments] |
2023.05.30 22:22 callmymom332299 trash, rats, and flies… plz help
hey y’all
posted this on /philadelphia, but i’m also gonna repost it here bc i’m desperate for help. this is my 2nd reddit post ever to please bear with me.
i need some help/advice on dealing with a serious trash/pest problem. i’m writing this because i’m feeling stuck and need some help as this is starting to seriously affect my mental health.
some context (sorry if this is long): i currently live in on francisville in a basement/first floor unit of a row home apartment with 2 other roommates. every day there is a pile of trash in-front of our apartment. our building does not have a trash receptacle, or a specific place for trash. my roommates and i have purchased cans which we leave unlocked for anyone to use.
we are sandwiched between two other buildings, one of which (allegedly) has a trash room (and is managed by our property manager), and the other has an alley where their trash cans are stored. however, tenants from all both buildings and the units above us dump their trash into a combined pile in-front of our apartment throughout the week. the pile never goes away. trash collectors will take what’s in our cans and most of the trash bags from the pile, but i guess bags rip/it is set out un-bagged and the trash collectors don’t take any of it, leaving a giant stinky pile of trash in-front of our apartment 7 days a week.
the results are pretty gnarly. my basement window well gets filled with trash. i have gone as far as installing plastic and metal fencing around it to prevent trash from getting in. it’s effective but not completely.
the worst part is the pests. today alone i have killed around 20 houseflies, and there are still more flying around. i have heard pests crawling around our walls, and even had an encounter with a mouse once. we just got a crack in our foundation sealed today that was surrounded my mouse and rat feces. it was in the same alley as our neighbors trash bins, which is also an absolute mess.
i am a neat freak, so our apartment is pretty clean all of the time. i think the flies and mice get in here because we’re on the first floor so it’s really easy to get in when people are entering and exiting.
i’ve contacted our property management who continues to remind us any pests in our unit is our problem to deal with. we’ve reported the rats and trash to the city through 311 and the public health department several times but nothing has ever happened. it is miserable trying to cook a meal with flies buzzing my head, hearing animals crawling in our walls at night, and being greeted with a pile of trash every time i open my door.
the picture on this post is from today and it’s a pretty average size. sometimes the pile is bigger.
i know the easy answer is to move out, but we (stupidly) resigned our lease and are here until next july. the location is really convenient for our commutes to work and proximity to friends/food/stores.
any advice helps, thank you.
submitted by callmymom332299 to philly [link] [comments]
posted this on /philadelphia, but i’m also gonna repost it here bc i’m desperate for help. this is my 2nd reddit post ever to please bear with me.
i need some help/advice on dealing with a serious trash/pest problem. i’m writing this because i’m feeling stuck and need some help as this is starting to seriously affect my mental health.
some context (sorry if this is long): i currently live in on francisville in a basement/first floor unit of a row home apartment with 2 other roommates. every day there is a pile of trash in-front of our apartment. our building does not have a trash receptacle, or a specific place for trash. my roommates and i have purchased cans which we leave unlocked for anyone to use.
we are sandwiched between two other buildings, one of which (allegedly) has a trash room (and is managed by our property manager), and the other has an alley where their trash cans are stored. however, tenants from all both buildings and the units above us dump their trash into a combined pile in-front of our apartment throughout the week. the pile never goes away. trash collectors will take what’s in our cans and most of the trash bags from the pile, but i guess bags rip/it is set out un-bagged and the trash collectors don’t take any of it, leaving a giant stinky pile of trash in-front of our apartment 7 days a week.
the results are pretty gnarly. my basement window well gets filled with trash. i have gone as far as installing plastic and metal fencing around it to prevent trash from getting in. it’s effective but not completely.
the worst part is the pests. today alone i have killed around 20 houseflies, and there are still more flying around. i have heard pests crawling around our walls, and even had an encounter with a mouse once. we just got a crack in our foundation sealed today that was surrounded my mouse and rat feces. it was in the same alley as our neighbors trash bins, which is also an absolute mess.
i am a neat freak, so our apartment is pretty clean all of the time. i think the flies and mice get in here because we’re on the first floor so it’s really easy to get in when people are entering and exiting.
i’ve contacted our property management who continues to remind us any pests in our unit is our problem to deal with. we’ve reported the rats and trash to the city through 311 and the public health department several times but nothing has ever happened. it is miserable trying to cook a meal with flies buzzing my head, hearing animals crawling in our walls at night, and being greeted with a pile of trash every time i open my door.
the picture on this post is from today and it’s a pretty average size. sometimes the pile is bigger.
i know the easy answer is to move out, but we (stupidly) resigned our lease and are here until next july. the location is really convenient for our commutes to work and proximity to friends/food/stores.
any advice helps, thank you.
2023.05.30 22:20 kenfinite Arcade Stick Ita Bag
 | https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vipiink/fight-stick-travel-backpack-and-controller-case-ita-bags submitted by kenfinite to fightsticks [link] [comments] We recently launched a campaign for this bag that has been designed from the ground up to be the largest and most functional stick bag on the market. There are also round start enamel pins to be made (which may ship as early as this July!) and a controller case ita bag. If you like to show off what you're about while carrying around everything you need, give it a look! |
2023.05.30 22:20 saturnvvartq Is muscle weakness a normal part of COVID? If so, when does it go away?
I went so long not getting COVID, and then I finally tested positive 5 days ago.
The symptoms have been so weird, it's been a rollercoaster. It started off with a low fever, followed by fatigue and muscle weakness, and the worst diarhhea of my adult life (could be unrelated but nothing I ate was off.) I was congested for a few days, but that cleared up, and my fever only lasted a day. My taste and smell have been all over the place. I have been insanely hungry all the time.
But the whole way through, the thing that has really been bothering me is the muscle weakness. I can't even climb up the stairs or lift a grocery bag without my muscles hurting and feeling so out of energy. I get out of breath in like, 20 seconds. Basically everything else cleared up except for my muscles feeling very overexerted. My body heats up and I break into a sweat if I try to do any light lifting or stairs for too long.
It's really scary. I tried looking it up, but all I see are articles about long COVID. I desperately don't want this to last because my job requires a lot of physical exertion.
I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow so I can get a doctor's note. I know she can answer my questions, but I just wanna sleep tonight knowing that I'm not alone.
submitted by saturnvvartq to COVID19positive [link] [comments]
The symptoms have been so weird, it's been a rollercoaster. It started off with a low fever, followed by fatigue and muscle weakness, and the worst diarhhea of my adult life (could be unrelated but nothing I ate was off.) I was congested for a few days, but that cleared up, and my fever only lasted a day. My taste and smell have been all over the place. I have been insanely hungry all the time.
But the whole way through, the thing that has really been bothering me is the muscle weakness. I can't even climb up the stairs or lift a grocery bag without my muscles hurting and feeling so out of energy. I get out of breath in like, 20 seconds. Basically everything else cleared up except for my muscles feeling very overexerted. My body heats up and I break into a sweat if I try to do any light lifting or stairs for too long.
It's really scary. I tried looking it up, but all I see are articles about long COVID. I desperately don't want this to last because my job requires a lot of physical exertion.
I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow so I can get a doctor's note. I know she can answer my questions, but I just wanna sleep tonight knowing that I'm not alone.
2023.05.30 22:19 xRiceCak3 So, You Wanna Buy A G14? Read This First (2 Year Review GA401Q)
TL:DR - The G14 is a solid laptop for it's price range. The RAM and thermal temperatures are the primary downsides; however, what it sacrifices in thermal temperatures, you get back in slim portability and power. The RAM can become a downside if you don't buy one with 16 gb built into the motherboard.
I own the GA401Q g14 from 2021 for video editing and gaming. Packing a Ryzen 9 5000, RTX 3060, and 2 sticks of 8gb DDR4RAM, it does almost everything I want it to with only slight hiccups along the way. The portable-sleekness and performance are both what make the g14 a great laptop, and a great disappointment.
I think I should note: I have not upgraded anything on the laptop and don't plan on doing so.
This laptop lives on my desk most of the time, imitating a desktop. When I do take it off it's pedestal, it's a joy to bring around. Setting up my laptop at a friend or relative's house is really easy. It looks sleek and it fits into any bag while keeping a light, tight profile. One of the things I see mentioned least about it's design is how unaggressive it looks. MSI, Razer, and other brands bring aggressive colors and designs while, ASUS brings an everyday appeal. The portability and design are aspects I highly value over it's competitors.
When buying a portable-performance machine, you better hope that the "performance" part is true. In the case of the g14, it most definitely backs it's title. Rocking a Ryzen 9 5000 and a RTX 3060, you can bet you're performance will be there when you need it. Supporting it's dual channel 16gb RAM configuration, the device heavily optimizes off of all it's parts out of the box. Using The ROG Armory Crate Software, it's easy to optimize settings for performance, general use, or battery longevity. Overall, it's hard to be disappointed by the performance of the 2021 g14, even in 2023.
These reasons are definitely the laptops main selling points but, they easily become downsides after living with them for a while.
Firstly, the slim design of the g14 crams all of the components together with little concern for thermals. All normally thermal intensive actions are even more stressing on the device. I have heard of users experiencing overheating and crashing issues when it comes to this but, those situations seem to be outliers. Personally, I have rarely dealt with overheating but, I have had situations where I am doing too much at once and the laptop can not handle it. (I.E. Gaming, streaming, discord, and watching videos at same time).
Secondly (this one is a large can of worms), the "performance" is temporary. You're laptop is very non-upgradable. The only thing you can realistically upgrade on this laptop is the RAM to a larger size. In a world where everything is constantly improving, having the ability to incrementally improve your technology is very helpful. If you are going to purchase any laptop like the g14, then you need to accept that what you get is what you're stuck with.
Overall, I still think the g14 is a great option for it's price. The laptop takes a whole lot of performance and slips it into a sleek, non intrusive package that's easy to bring around. I'd definitely suggest picking up the g14 over it's competitors in the Razer Blade and MacbookAir.
submitted by xRiceCak3 to ZephyrusG14 [link] [comments]
I own the GA401Q g14 from 2021 for video editing and gaming. Packing a Ryzen 9 5000, RTX 3060, and 2 sticks of 8gb DDR4RAM, it does almost everything I want it to with only slight hiccups along the way. The portable-sleekness and performance are both what make the g14 a great laptop, and a great disappointment.
I think I should note: I have not upgraded anything on the laptop and don't plan on doing so.
This laptop lives on my desk most of the time, imitating a desktop. When I do take it off it's pedestal, it's a joy to bring around. Setting up my laptop at a friend or relative's house is really easy. It looks sleek and it fits into any bag while keeping a light, tight profile. One of the things I see mentioned least about it's design is how unaggressive it looks. MSI, Razer, and other brands bring aggressive colors and designs while, ASUS brings an everyday appeal. The portability and design are aspects I highly value over it's competitors.
When buying a portable-performance machine, you better hope that the "performance" part is true. In the case of the g14, it most definitely backs it's title. Rocking a Ryzen 9 5000 and a RTX 3060, you can bet you're performance will be there when you need it. Supporting it's dual channel 16gb RAM configuration, the device heavily optimizes off of all it's parts out of the box. Using The ROG Armory Crate Software, it's easy to optimize settings for performance, general use, or battery longevity. Overall, it's hard to be disappointed by the performance of the 2021 g14, even in 2023.
These reasons are definitely the laptops main selling points but, they easily become downsides after living with them for a while.
Firstly, the slim design of the g14 crams all of the components together with little concern for thermals. All normally thermal intensive actions are even more stressing on the device. I have heard of users experiencing overheating and crashing issues when it comes to this but, those situations seem to be outliers. Personally, I have rarely dealt with overheating but, I have had situations where I am doing too much at once and the laptop can not handle it. (I.E. Gaming, streaming, discord, and watching videos at same time).
Secondly (this one is a large can of worms), the "performance" is temporary. You're laptop is very non-upgradable. The only thing you can realistically upgrade on this laptop is the RAM to a larger size. In a world where everything is constantly improving, having the ability to incrementally improve your technology is very helpful. If you are going to purchase any laptop like the g14, then you need to accept that what you get is what you're stuck with.
Overall, I still think the g14 is a great option for it's price. The laptop takes a whole lot of performance and slips it into a sleek, non intrusive package that's easy to bring around. I'd definitely suggest picking up the g14 over it's competitors in the Razer Blade and MacbookAir.
2023.05.30 22:19 Character_Engine_930 AITA for refusing to use my own money to pay for a customer's groceries?
I am a cashier at a grocery store. A woman with 2 small kids came to my register and she was about 64 cents short. She said she didn't have anymore change and asked me if I could cover the rest. I told her I did not have any change on me as I don't carry my purse with me on the floor. I also told her I could not cover any pay discrepancies for customers because it happens more often that she might be aware and I make minimum wage. She asked me if I can just forget about it since it's only a few cents. I told her I couldn't because my register would be short.
She told me it's not a big deal and the company could get over missing a few cents. I apoligized but told her if my register is short by any amount I will get reprimanded and possibly fired because my manager may think I am stealing. She told me I'm sucking up to greedy corporations by enabling their behavior. I told her multiple people are short - imagine if I either used my own (minimum wage) money to cover it or just ignored it and get fired. She told me I am working a shitty job anyway so I would not be losing much. I told her I needed my job. I told her I could remove the candy from her purchase to even it out and she refused. She asked the person behind her in line for change and he declined giving her any money and told her that her behavior does not entitle her to handouts and it makes people not want to help her. She then tried to take her grocery bags and leave and I paged the manager. She told me that she is a single mom and we are making her life more difficult when we could easily just overlook a few cents.
submitted by Character_Engine_930 to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]
She told me it's not a big deal and the company could get over missing a few cents. I apoligized but told her if my register is short by any amount I will get reprimanded and possibly fired because my manager may think I am stealing. She told me I'm sucking up to greedy corporations by enabling their behavior. I told her multiple people are short - imagine if I either used my own (minimum wage) money to cover it or just ignored it and get fired. She told me I am working a shitty job anyway so I would not be losing much. I told her I needed my job. I told her I could remove the candy from her purchase to even it out and she refused. She asked the person behind her in line for change and he declined giving her any money and told her that her behavior does not entitle her to handouts and it makes people not want to help her. She then tried to take her grocery bags and leave and I paged the manager. She told me that she is a single mom and we are making her life more difficult when we could easily just overlook a few cents.
2023.05.30 22:19 FrostyArticle3613 I know they’re cancelled but I still love her 🙈
 | she’s my most practical bag as of the moment, love the fact that she fits alot, that I can wear her on the shoulder or crossbody, and her strap is super comfortable on the shoulder (and doesn’t slip off). submitted by FrostyArticle3613 to handbags [link] [comments] |
2023.05.30 22:18 Still_Ad7606 Growing in a closet with no carbon filter or tent
Small mimosa x orange punch auto micro grow using soil in closet. 2 gallon pot. Will some ozium scent blockers and the exhale bag help mitigate smell or will I be stinking up whole house? Closet is in the very back of house. Thanks guys.
submitted by Still_Ad7606 to Autoflowers [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 22:18 w1n5t0nM1k3y Why doesn't Tim Hortons have a dedicate kitchen and kitchen staff?
I've always been amazed that Tim Hortons offers so much food service without having a dedicated kitchen area and kitchen staff. So many times I'll go in, early in the morning, and it will take so long to make a couple sandwiches because they only have a couple people working there. Usually one person handling drive through and a person handling the in store customers. So if I place an order in store, the person who took my order now has to go make a couple sandwiches, and the entire line gets backed up. Also, because they don't have a larger dedicated kitchen area, everything tends to just be packed away, and nothing can be prepared quickly.
I compare this to when I worked at McD's in high school, and everything was so much more organized. Even in a small town with, we usually had a couple people in the kitchen and a couple people out front or doing drive through, even during the slow hours. The people working cash would just take orders, get drinks, and bag the food. The people in the kitchen would prepare the food. Nobody had to switch modes. If there was a hold-up with one person's food because they made a big order, then someone who ordered something basic or just a coffee could still get their order taken and get served because the person working the cash was never busy making people's food.
It would be one thing if Tim Hortons was just coffee and donuts, but the more and more they expand their menu, the less their model makes sense. If one person going into the store can backlog the entire thing for 10 minutes, then they need something to change.
submitted by w1n5t0nM1k3y to TimHortons [link] [comments]
I compare this to when I worked at McD's in high school, and everything was so much more organized. Even in a small town with, we usually had a couple people in the kitchen and a couple people out front or doing drive through, even during the slow hours. The people working cash would just take orders, get drinks, and bag the food. The people in the kitchen would prepare the food. Nobody had to switch modes. If there was a hold-up with one person's food because they made a big order, then someone who ordered something basic or just a coffee could still get their order taken and get served because the person working the cash was never busy making people's food.
It would be one thing if Tim Hortons was just coffee and donuts, but the more and more they expand their menu, the less their model makes sense. If one person going into the store can backlog the entire thing for 10 minutes, then they need something to change.
2023.05.30 22:18 galth88 Dooney and Bourke Nordstrom Rack Coupon Code
Click the link for Dooney and Bourke Nordstrom Rack Coupon Code. Save some money by selecting one of the current promo codes or coupons on that page. That page is updated regularly with the latest coupons, promo codes, and deals. Take advantage of the discounts by selecting one to use.
submitted by galth88 to DiscountLusty [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 22:18 KetaCon Cloyad LV Carpenter Denim
 | Hey everyone So I got my UPS package today after 10 days (Israel/Palestine). I ordered the new LV denim carpenter trousers from Cloyad, I posted a QC post before. submitted by KetaCon to FashionReps [link] [comments] I was trying on the retail version in store before purchasing a rep so I could have a clue what to compare it to. Fabric quality is quite high to my surprise, stitching is done clean on the inside and the exterior stitches look identical to the retail version. The QC pics made an impression that the denim is brighter than the retail version denim but it’s darker irl and feels correct. The monogram embossing is done very nicely. The smashed button is up to date and the amount of detail on the hardware is crazily surprising! The cuts are a bit off at the front, back pockets looks amazing and true to the retail version. It’s hefty and feels the same on the body as the retail version. The paper bag / tag came empty without any hardware replacements but I’m not surprised:) Zipper feels a bit cheap but runs smoothly, I’d have to be careful with it I feel. Size is true to retail. Some comparison pics are attached :) |
2023.05.30 22:17 chuckhustmyre [TH] MIRROR IMAGE by Chuck Hustmyre
William Bailey's forehead shattered the mirror like a sledgehammer. The last thing he remembered before he blacked out was the feeling that he was falling through the mirror. Sub-cranial hematoma, a concussion, maybe even a cracked skull--that had to be the reason for the strange feeling. The mirror was mounted on the wall just to the right of the bar, four feet tall by about three feet wide. As consciousness slipped away, common sense and his strong belief in the rational world told him that he couldn't fall through the mirror. He must have bounced his head off the wall and be falling toward the floor.
It seemed like just a second or two before William's eyes popped open. He lay on his back, on the hard wood floor of Fausto's, with Johnny Davis towering over him. Big Johnny probably wanted to finish him off, maybe kill him, and finally end their twenty-year-old feud. Either Big Johnny Davis and the ceiling lights above him were spinning, or William's head was spinning, but either way something wasn't right.
He raised his head and looked to his left, toward the bar. Except the bar wasn't there. Instead, he was staring at the bathrooms. That didn't make sense. It must be his brain that had gotten spun around. William turned his head and peered over his size-ten wingtips at the busted mirror. The wooden frame and most of the glass still clung to the wall, the rest sat broken on the ground. The bar had to be on his left. He looked again, and still saw the bathrooms. A brain bruise, maybe some fluid pressure building up might be the cause of it.
"Get up!" Big Johnny Davis said.
William looked up at him. Johnny stood behind him, just beyond his shoulders. Perfect place for him to stomp my head into the plank floor. Except Johnny Davis was holding out his hand.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here."
Davis looked scared. It was the first time William Bailey could ever remember Johnny Davis looking scared. William had always been scared of Big Johnny, but Big Johnny wasn't scared of anything or anyone.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Johnny glanced over his shoulder. William craned his neck to look where Johnny was looking, saw he was staring at the front door like a man terrified something bad was going to come through it. Big Johnny looked down at him again and pumped his hand. "Come on, get up. They'll be here any second."
"Who?" William asked. "Who'll be--" But before he finished, Big Johnny Davis reached down, grabbed him by both arms, and jerked him to his feet.
As he was dragged toward the door by the only man in town who truly hated him, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door. He had to have a concussion, probably severe; that had to be it, because the letters on the sign were backward. It said TUO.
As Johnny Davis pulled him out the door, William heard tires skid on the pavement.
"Where's your car?" Johnny asked.
William twisted away from the big man's grip, then turned to his left. "In the alley." He started to run, still not sure exactly what he was running from.
Behind him, Big John shouted, "The alley's over here."
William kept running but turned his head back toward Johnny. "I know where the alley--"
Something hit him across the midsection and toppled him to the ground. He got his hands up just in time to break his fall and managed to keep his head from slamming into the sidewalk. When he looked up he saw a shopping cart tumbled onto its side.
Once again, William found himself lying flat on his back, this time amid the spilled contents of the cart. It had been filled with junk: paper bags full of dirty clothes, canned food, bags of potato chips, a diamond shaped, orange road sign, and other trash that looked like it had been collected from back alley garbage bins.
The homeless man who'd been pushing the cart was scrawny, and wafer thin. His skin was the color of old shoe leather, and he wore a long gray beard, tangled and matted with food and bits of filth. He was sprawled on the ground next to his cart, half sitting up, staring at William with his bright blue eyes.
Car doors slammed, men shouted.
"You better get going," the homeless man said, as he cocked his head. "The police after you?"
Police!
Before William could assure the old man that the police weren't after him--he was a respected businessman and family man--someone behind him grabbed him under both arms and pulled him to his feet. William turned and found himself staring into the face of Johnny Davis. "The alley's that way," Johnny said, pointing to the other side of Fausto's. With one hand gripping William's jacket, Johnny dashed across the front of the bar toward the alley. The alley--right there, plain as day--on the other side of Fausto's, right where it shouldn't be, where it couldn't be. William had been here a thousand times. As you stepped out of the bar, the alley was on the left, Brockton's Ace Hardware on the right. Now everything was mixed up and in the wrong place.
Johnny Davis turned down the alley, dragging William behind him. After just a few steps, a spotlight flashed in front of them.
"Stop!" a voice commanded. "Get on the ground."
William couldn't see because Johnny was in his way. "Who's that yelling?" he asked.
Big Johnny stopped and William plowed into his back.
"Get on the ground," the voice boomed again.
William poked his head out from behind Johnny Davis's back. The blinding white light was in his face. He couldn't see a thing.
POP! POP! POP!
Gunshots.
Big Johnny sagged, then crashed to his knees. Instinctively, William bent forward and grabbed hold of Johnny. "What's the matter?"
More pops.
Johnny's big hand reached out and shoved William back toward the street. "Back door," he wheezed, then plunged forward onto his face.
William stood alone. Behind the white spotlight he saw blue police lights flashing. He was totally exposed.
POP! POP!
He saw flashes--little yellow spurts of flame--as something tugged at his jacket.
William had said "back door." What back door? Fausto's had a back door, but it didn't lead anywhere except to the open space behind the building used for trash and deliveries. Twenty feet of asphalt between the bar and the back of the building on the next block. William had parked his car at the end of the alley, but the police cars--or whatever they were--had the alley blocked off. The building behind Fausto's also had an alley that ran alongside it, but the owner had closed it off to keep the bums out. He'd put up a gate, padlocked it, and topped it with razor wire. It was a dead end.
Two more pops. Dead end or not it was better than standing here and getting shot. William turned and ran. He burst through the front door of Fausto's, dashed through the bar, past the shattered mirror, hit the back door at a dead run, and was outside behind the bar within seconds.
He could see the tail end of his car sticking out from the corner of the building, but with the cops blocking the alley, his car was useless to him. William glanced across the open space to the alley that ran next to the other building. The gate, the padlock, the razor wire--all still in place. To his right an overflowing garbage dumpster sat beside the back of Fausto's, jammed against the fire ladder.
The fire ladder.
An iron ladder bolted to the cinderblock wall.
William looked up. The top of the ladder was lost in shadow, but he knew it went up two stories to the roof. Last summer, when the toilet had stopped up, he'd come out back to take a leak and had stood behind the dumpster, peeing against the wall like a kid, one hand draped over the bottom rung of the ladder.
He slipped behind the dumpster. The smell made him gag. The bottom of the ladder was four feet from the ground. William reached up as high as he could, grabbed hold of the third rung, then hauled himself up.
Through the partially open back door came the sounds of heavy feet pounding on the hard wood floor of the bar.
Halfway up the ladder, he was exhausted--and scared. Shaking, he white-knuckled the ladder. Being more than ten feet off the ground terrified him. He needed a break, just a second or two to catch his breath. There was enough moonlight so he could see into one of the second story windows. Inside, junk was piled everywhere. Old barstools, a busted jukebox, furniture stacked almost to the ceiling. Years ago, old man Fausto lived on the second floor, but Jake, who'd bought the place from the old man and had decided to keep the name, used it for storage.
Below him, William heard the back door thrown open so hard it banged against the wall. He scrambled up until he reached the top of the ladder, then hoisted himself over the edge of the roof. Down on the ground a voice shouted, "There he is, up there."
Another gunshot. What the hell was going on?
The unmistakable sound of feet--fast feet, in shape feet, boot shod feet--scurrying up the ladder. Standing on the tar and pebble roof, William glanced around for something he could use as a weapon, shocked he was even thinking of such a thing. A five gallon plastic bucket was all there was. It stood upright, filled with rainwater. He picked it up and peered over the edge. A uniformed policeman was three quarters of the way up the ladder. Two more cops were right behind him.
William looked at the heavy bucket in his hands, thought about just dumping the water onto them but knew it wouldn't stop them. There was only one way to stop them, and that was to knock them off the ladder. He thought about warning them, maybe trying to scare them away. But they were cops. You couldn't scare them away.
So why had they shot Johnny Davis, and why were they shooting at him?
The first officer looked up and saw William staring down at him with the bucket in his hands. Their eyes locked for just a second and the cop stopped. In those eyes that stared back at him, William saw an almost maniacal determination that sent a shiver down his spine. The officer held his grip on the ladder with his right hand while his left dropped to the pistol resting in his gleaming leather holster. In one smooth motion he drew his gun and raised it toward William.
William Bailey tossed the bucket down the ladder. A shot rang out an instant before the heavy bucket thudded into the cop's head. Like a gruesome traffic accident happening before his eyes, William couldn't help but watch as the policeman fell, taking his two partners down with him. The last thing William saw before he turned away was a jumbled heap of black uniforms resting on the concrete below the ladder.
* * *
Hiding in the shadow of a telephone booth, thinking. Home. He had to get home. Had to get back to Marge and the kids. Maybe somehow he could explain what had happened. Vincent, his attorney, he would know what to do--maybe--but he was a civil lawyer not a criminal attorney. He wrote contracts and did personal injury on the side; he didn't get people out of jail who'd killed a cop by dropping a bucket of water on his head and knocking him and his buddies off the side of a building.
As the cab he'd been waiting for pulled up, William stepped out from the dark and climbed into the back seat.
The driver turned around. "Where to?"
William pulled the door shut. "Uptown. 1721 Audubon Court."
"Fare's gonna be about fifteen dollars. After dark, I gotta have the money up front."
"What?"
"Company policy." The cabbie shrugged. "A lot of drivers been getting stiffed."
William opened his wallet, pulled out a twenty and handed it across the seat. The driver took it and almost slipped it into his cash box, then took a second look at the bill. His face tightened. "What the hell is this?"
"Huh?"
With the bill stretched between his hands, the cabbie stared at it for a second then looked up at William. "You're either the dumbest counterfeiter who ever lived or you've been had."
"What you are talking about?"
The driver faced the bill toward William but didn't hand it back to him. "It's printed backwards."
William looked at the twenty-dollar bill in the man's hand. It looked like--it was--an almost brand new bill, nothing wrong with it as far as he could tell.
"Get out of my cab," the driver said.
William didn't know what the man was talking about but knew he didn't want to get out. This cab was his only way home. He reached for the twenty. "If you don't like that one I've got another--"
The driver pulled his hands away. "I ain't giving this back. I got to turn it in to the police." He dropped one hand behind his seat back, then came up clutching a pistol, an old German Luger by the looks of it, the muzzle aimed straight at William's face. "In fact, I bet they give me a reward if I bring you in with it."
William jerked the door handle and rolled out into the street. He sprang to his feet and ran, the driver's yells just background noise. Has everyone gone crazy or is it just me?
Home. He had to get home.
* * *
Rain. Driving, relentless rain. William was just two blocks from Fausto's. In two hours, that's as far as he'd gotten--one block an hour. Police cars prowled the neighborhood, shinning spotlights into every nook and cranny, lighting up every shadow. Everyone in Fausto's knew his name. He'd been going there three or four nights a week after work for years. The cabbie had his address. William had given it to him when he told the hack driver where to drop him.
Ten o'clock at night, with nowhere to go and no way to get there, William sat behind the closed Goodwill store, under an overhang that barely kept the rain off of him.
Huddled in the dark, head sunk between his knees, he hadn't heard anyone approach.
"You don't look so good."
Startled, William looked up, prepared to run again. It was the homeless man he'd knocked over outside the bar. The one with the shopping cart and the leathery skin. William relaxed a little. "Excuse me?"
The man pushed his cart closer. "You're not supposed to be here."
William looked around. "Why not?"
The old man grinned, half his teeth gone.
William found it nearly impossible to tell his age. The guy could be forty and maybe had lived a hard life, or perhaps he was a well-preserved seventy, pickled by a lifetime of booze. William waved him off, expecting a plea for money. "I can't help you."
The old man stopped just a few feet away. "Everything's out of place isn't it?" He had a strange lilting voice. Almost like an accent.
And he was right. Everything was out of place--from Johnny Davis to the cab driver--everything was wrong.
Strapped to the back of the old man's shopping cart was a plastic sign about the size of a loaf of bread. William recognized the sign, the words, the colors, the logo of a local supermarket chain, all were familiar to him, but the letters were backward, unreadable.
Rainwater ran down William's face. He pointed to the sign. "Why's it written like that?"
The old man looked at the sign then back at William. "Like what?" he said, then shuffled away behind his basket.
* * *
The rain came down even harder. William slouched in a darkened doorway across the street from Fausto's. Nothing made sense. Everything was messed up, backward, out of whack. Almost like this wasn't his home, like he was a stranger seeing it for the first time.
But that was crazy. He'd grown up here, gone to Brother Martin High School, dated Jenny Underhill who went to Cabrini, lost her to Johnny Davis, then got her back only to lose her again the first year of college to some kid who drove a Mustang. Two years later William married Marge at Saint Luke's. They had two kids.
This town was his home. He recognized it. He knew the people here, Big Johnny and Zeke, the bartender at Fausto's. But things were different, little things. John Davis for one. In trying to help him, the big man had gotten himself killed. That wasn't John Davis--at least not the one William Bailey had known since seventh grade. Everything looked the same but wasn't. Nothing was quite right.
But they knew him--or someone like him.
A strange sensation crept over him that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Maybe he didn't belong here. Maybe everything wasn't as it appeared. Maybe this wasn't his home. But if that were true, then whose home was it? Another thought, even scarier seeped through his brain. If he was here, who was there--at his home?
Crazy.
William dropped his head into his hands. Just considering such nonsense was a waste of time. Yet, here he was scanning the street, thinking of going back inside Fausto's, back to that mirror.
Not much time to think about it. The bar closed at three AM and it was already two-thirty. When he'd left--run for his life with Big Johnny--most of the mirror was still in the frame hanging on the wall.
Something about that damned mirror.
But Fausto's was dangerous, so a couple of hours ago William had found another mirror. In the men's room of a twenty-four hour gas station. The Chevron on North Rampart.
He had approached it cautiously, afraid he was going mad. As he peered over the sink into the mirror, he saw what he always saw, his own reflection. Holding up his left hand, he looked at the image in the mirror, at the watch strapped to his wrist. He noticed that the man in the mirror wore his watch on his right hand. Just the opposite.
William stood in the gas station bathroom for twenty minutes before he worked up his nerve. Finally, he took a deep breath, leaned back, then slammed his forehead into the dirt-streaked mirror. The glass shattered and cut his head. Blood dribbled off the tip of his nose into the sink. His reflection stared out at him from the other side of the mirror, blood running down his face, too.
I have gone crazy!
So the gas station hadn't worked out. Ducking police cruisers, William had wandered the streets, his head reeling. What was he doing?
On the sidewalk, he found a sopping wet magazine that the wind had blown up against the side of a newspaper machine. The cover caught his eye. He picked it up. It was printed backwards, the letters reversed, words running right to left. The spine was on the right. As he flipped through the pages, he couldn't read a thing. Then William had an idea.
In the bathroom of an all night restaurant he held the wet magazine up to the mirror. Perfect. The reflected image was normal, spine on the left, words running left to right, all the letters printed correctly. He could read it clearly. But what did it mean?
Then he drove his head into that mirror. The glass cracked. Someone walked in, a skinny waiter wearing an apron. He stood gawking as William leaned over the sink with tears of pain filling his eyes.
The waiter looked at the broken mirror, then jabbed a finger at William's bloody forehead. "What the hell are you doing?"
"An accident," he mumbled, pressing his fingers against the fresh cut.
The waiter turned. "I'm calling the cops."
William Bailey ran.
Now he was huddled in the rain staring at Fausto's across the street. Because he had nowhere else to go.
He stood and walked toward Fausto's. When he was halfway across the street, a police car glided around the corner, headlights reflecting off the wet pavement. The cops in no hurry, just cruising. William forced himself to keep walking, not to run. One foot in front of the other. In the downpour, odds were that the cops wouldn't even recognize him.
But they did recognize him.
The police car slid to a stop as its high beams clicked on and its blue strobe lights started popping. Both front doors flew open.
Like a sinner seeking the sanctuary of a church, William ran straight for Fausto's door. As he burst inside, Zeke looked up from behind the bar. "William! What the hell are you doing here?"
He ignored the bartender, running right past him, eyes focused on the broken mirror and its busted frame hanging on the wall.
Zeke again, "The cops been looking all over for you. Say you killed two officers and--"
Behind him the front door banged against the wall. "Police!" a voice behind him commanded. "Stop."
But William didn't stop. He kept running--running straight for the mirror. Reflected in its fragmented pieces he saw two uniformed police officers behind him, heard their boots pounding on the wooden floor. Just ten feet separated him from the mirror. At full speed he took two strides then dove. He stretched his arms out overhead and tucked his chin into his chest as his feet left the floor.
He felt one hand hit wall and the other strike broken glass. Then his head hit. More glass cracked, more skin split.
Darkness.
* * *
William's eyes popped open. He was staring at the ceiling. Rough voices, even rougher hands. They rolled him over onto his stomach and jerked his arms behind his back. He felt cold steel on his wrists and heard the metallic ratcheting as the handcuffs tightened and bit into his skin.
He tilted his head up and rested his chin against the floor. Blood poured down the side of his face; he watched it pool on the floor then seep between the wooden planks. By rolling his eyes up he could just see the empty spot on the wall where the mirror had hung. Lying on the floor, three feet from his head, was the broken frame and the rest of the glass.
The two cops grabbed his arms and yanked him to his feet, sending waves of pain through his shoulders and wrists. As they spun him toward the door, one of the officers said, "You're under arrest."
"Why?" William asked.
The officer pressed his face into William's. "Murdering your family for starters."
"My...my family." William felt his stomach cinch and his bowels turn to ice. A thought he'd had earlier in the night echoed inside his head. If he was here, who was there--at his home.
As the cops dragged him across the floor, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door.
OUT.
He was home.
submitted by chuckhustmyre to shortstories [link] [comments]
It seemed like just a second or two before William's eyes popped open. He lay on his back, on the hard wood floor of Fausto's, with Johnny Davis towering over him. Big Johnny probably wanted to finish him off, maybe kill him, and finally end their twenty-year-old feud. Either Big Johnny Davis and the ceiling lights above him were spinning, or William's head was spinning, but either way something wasn't right.
He raised his head and looked to his left, toward the bar. Except the bar wasn't there. Instead, he was staring at the bathrooms. That didn't make sense. It must be his brain that had gotten spun around. William turned his head and peered over his size-ten wingtips at the busted mirror. The wooden frame and most of the glass still clung to the wall, the rest sat broken on the ground. The bar had to be on his left. He looked again, and still saw the bathrooms. A brain bruise, maybe some fluid pressure building up might be the cause of it.
"Get up!" Big Johnny Davis said.
William looked up at him. Johnny stood behind him, just beyond his shoulders. Perfect place for him to stomp my head into the plank floor. Except Johnny Davis was holding out his hand.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here."
Davis looked scared. It was the first time William Bailey could ever remember Johnny Davis looking scared. William had always been scared of Big Johnny, but Big Johnny wasn't scared of anything or anyone.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Johnny glanced over his shoulder. William craned his neck to look where Johnny was looking, saw he was staring at the front door like a man terrified something bad was going to come through it. Big Johnny looked down at him again and pumped his hand. "Come on, get up. They'll be here any second."
"Who?" William asked. "Who'll be--" But before he finished, Big Johnny Davis reached down, grabbed him by both arms, and jerked him to his feet.
As he was dragged toward the door by the only man in town who truly hated him, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door. He had to have a concussion, probably severe; that had to be it, because the letters on the sign were backward. It said TUO.
As Johnny Davis pulled him out the door, William heard tires skid on the pavement.
"Where's your car?" Johnny asked.
William twisted away from the big man's grip, then turned to his left. "In the alley." He started to run, still not sure exactly what he was running from.
Behind him, Big John shouted, "The alley's over here."
William kept running but turned his head back toward Johnny. "I know where the alley--"
Something hit him across the midsection and toppled him to the ground. He got his hands up just in time to break his fall and managed to keep his head from slamming into the sidewalk. When he looked up he saw a shopping cart tumbled onto its side.
Once again, William found himself lying flat on his back, this time amid the spilled contents of the cart. It had been filled with junk: paper bags full of dirty clothes, canned food, bags of potato chips, a diamond shaped, orange road sign, and other trash that looked like it had been collected from back alley garbage bins.
The homeless man who'd been pushing the cart was scrawny, and wafer thin. His skin was the color of old shoe leather, and he wore a long gray beard, tangled and matted with food and bits of filth. He was sprawled on the ground next to his cart, half sitting up, staring at William with his bright blue eyes.
Car doors slammed, men shouted.
"You better get going," the homeless man said, as he cocked his head. "The police after you?"
Police!
Before William could assure the old man that the police weren't after him--he was a respected businessman and family man--someone behind him grabbed him under both arms and pulled him to his feet. William turned and found himself staring into the face of Johnny Davis. "The alley's that way," Johnny said, pointing to the other side of Fausto's. With one hand gripping William's jacket, Johnny dashed across the front of the bar toward the alley. The alley--right there, plain as day--on the other side of Fausto's, right where it shouldn't be, where it couldn't be. William had been here a thousand times. As you stepped out of the bar, the alley was on the left, Brockton's Ace Hardware on the right. Now everything was mixed up and in the wrong place.
Johnny Davis turned down the alley, dragging William behind him. After just a few steps, a spotlight flashed in front of them.
"Stop!" a voice commanded. "Get on the ground."
William couldn't see because Johnny was in his way. "Who's that yelling?" he asked.
Big Johnny stopped and William plowed into his back.
"Get on the ground," the voice boomed again.
William poked his head out from behind Johnny Davis's back. The blinding white light was in his face. He couldn't see a thing.
POP! POP! POP!
Gunshots.
Big Johnny sagged, then crashed to his knees. Instinctively, William bent forward and grabbed hold of Johnny. "What's the matter?"
More pops.
Johnny's big hand reached out and shoved William back toward the street. "Back door," he wheezed, then plunged forward onto his face.
William stood alone. Behind the white spotlight he saw blue police lights flashing. He was totally exposed.
POP! POP!
He saw flashes--little yellow spurts of flame--as something tugged at his jacket.
William had said "back door." What back door? Fausto's had a back door, but it didn't lead anywhere except to the open space behind the building used for trash and deliveries. Twenty feet of asphalt between the bar and the back of the building on the next block. William had parked his car at the end of the alley, but the police cars--or whatever they were--had the alley blocked off. The building behind Fausto's also had an alley that ran alongside it, but the owner had closed it off to keep the bums out. He'd put up a gate, padlocked it, and topped it with razor wire. It was a dead end.
Two more pops. Dead end or not it was better than standing here and getting shot. William turned and ran. He burst through the front door of Fausto's, dashed through the bar, past the shattered mirror, hit the back door at a dead run, and was outside behind the bar within seconds.
He could see the tail end of his car sticking out from the corner of the building, but with the cops blocking the alley, his car was useless to him. William glanced across the open space to the alley that ran next to the other building. The gate, the padlock, the razor wire--all still in place. To his right an overflowing garbage dumpster sat beside the back of Fausto's, jammed against the fire ladder.
The fire ladder.
An iron ladder bolted to the cinderblock wall.
William looked up. The top of the ladder was lost in shadow, but he knew it went up two stories to the roof. Last summer, when the toilet had stopped up, he'd come out back to take a leak and had stood behind the dumpster, peeing against the wall like a kid, one hand draped over the bottom rung of the ladder.
He slipped behind the dumpster. The smell made him gag. The bottom of the ladder was four feet from the ground. William reached up as high as he could, grabbed hold of the third rung, then hauled himself up.
Through the partially open back door came the sounds of heavy feet pounding on the hard wood floor of the bar.
Halfway up the ladder, he was exhausted--and scared. Shaking, he white-knuckled the ladder. Being more than ten feet off the ground terrified him. He needed a break, just a second or two to catch his breath. There was enough moonlight so he could see into one of the second story windows. Inside, junk was piled everywhere. Old barstools, a busted jukebox, furniture stacked almost to the ceiling. Years ago, old man Fausto lived on the second floor, but Jake, who'd bought the place from the old man and had decided to keep the name, used it for storage.
Below him, William heard the back door thrown open so hard it banged against the wall. He scrambled up until he reached the top of the ladder, then hoisted himself over the edge of the roof. Down on the ground a voice shouted, "There he is, up there."
Another gunshot. What the hell was going on?
The unmistakable sound of feet--fast feet, in shape feet, boot shod feet--scurrying up the ladder. Standing on the tar and pebble roof, William glanced around for something he could use as a weapon, shocked he was even thinking of such a thing. A five gallon plastic bucket was all there was. It stood upright, filled with rainwater. He picked it up and peered over the edge. A uniformed policeman was three quarters of the way up the ladder. Two more cops were right behind him.
William looked at the heavy bucket in his hands, thought about just dumping the water onto them but knew it wouldn't stop them. There was only one way to stop them, and that was to knock them off the ladder. He thought about warning them, maybe trying to scare them away. But they were cops. You couldn't scare them away.
So why had they shot Johnny Davis, and why were they shooting at him?
The first officer looked up and saw William staring down at him with the bucket in his hands. Their eyes locked for just a second and the cop stopped. In those eyes that stared back at him, William saw an almost maniacal determination that sent a shiver down his spine. The officer held his grip on the ladder with his right hand while his left dropped to the pistol resting in his gleaming leather holster. In one smooth motion he drew his gun and raised it toward William.
William Bailey tossed the bucket down the ladder. A shot rang out an instant before the heavy bucket thudded into the cop's head. Like a gruesome traffic accident happening before his eyes, William couldn't help but watch as the policeman fell, taking his two partners down with him. The last thing William saw before he turned away was a jumbled heap of black uniforms resting on the concrete below the ladder.
* * *
Hiding in the shadow of a telephone booth, thinking. Home. He had to get home. Had to get back to Marge and the kids. Maybe somehow he could explain what had happened. Vincent, his attorney, he would know what to do--maybe--but he was a civil lawyer not a criminal attorney. He wrote contracts and did personal injury on the side; he didn't get people out of jail who'd killed a cop by dropping a bucket of water on his head and knocking him and his buddies off the side of a building.
As the cab he'd been waiting for pulled up, William stepped out from the dark and climbed into the back seat.
The driver turned around. "Where to?"
William pulled the door shut. "Uptown. 1721 Audubon Court."
"Fare's gonna be about fifteen dollars. After dark, I gotta have the money up front."
"What?"
"Company policy." The cabbie shrugged. "A lot of drivers been getting stiffed."
William opened his wallet, pulled out a twenty and handed it across the seat. The driver took it and almost slipped it into his cash box, then took a second look at the bill. His face tightened. "What the hell is this?"
"Huh?"
With the bill stretched between his hands, the cabbie stared at it for a second then looked up at William. "You're either the dumbest counterfeiter who ever lived or you've been had."
"What you are talking about?"
The driver faced the bill toward William but didn't hand it back to him. "It's printed backwards."
William looked at the twenty-dollar bill in the man's hand. It looked like--it was--an almost brand new bill, nothing wrong with it as far as he could tell.
"Get out of my cab," the driver said.
William didn't know what the man was talking about but knew he didn't want to get out. This cab was his only way home. He reached for the twenty. "If you don't like that one I've got another--"
The driver pulled his hands away. "I ain't giving this back. I got to turn it in to the police." He dropped one hand behind his seat back, then came up clutching a pistol, an old German Luger by the looks of it, the muzzle aimed straight at William's face. "In fact, I bet they give me a reward if I bring you in with it."
William jerked the door handle and rolled out into the street. He sprang to his feet and ran, the driver's yells just background noise. Has everyone gone crazy or is it just me?
Home. He had to get home.
* * *
Rain. Driving, relentless rain. William was just two blocks from Fausto's. In two hours, that's as far as he'd gotten--one block an hour. Police cars prowled the neighborhood, shinning spotlights into every nook and cranny, lighting up every shadow. Everyone in Fausto's knew his name. He'd been going there three or four nights a week after work for years. The cabbie had his address. William had given it to him when he told the hack driver where to drop him.
Ten o'clock at night, with nowhere to go and no way to get there, William sat behind the closed Goodwill store, under an overhang that barely kept the rain off of him.
Huddled in the dark, head sunk between his knees, he hadn't heard anyone approach.
"You don't look so good."
Startled, William looked up, prepared to run again. It was the homeless man he'd knocked over outside the bar. The one with the shopping cart and the leathery skin. William relaxed a little. "Excuse me?"
The man pushed his cart closer. "You're not supposed to be here."
William looked around. "Why not?"
The old man grinned, half his teeth gone.
William found it nearly impossible to tell his age. The guy could be forty and maybe had lived a hard life, or perhaps he was a well-preserved seventy, pickled by a lifetime of booze. William waved him off, expecting a plea for money. "I can't help you."
The old man stopped just a few feet away. "Everything's out of place isn't it?" He had a strange lilting voice. Almost like an accent.
And he was right. Everything was out of place--from Johnny Davis to the cab driver--everything was wrong.
Strapped to the back of the old man's shopping cart was a plastic sign about the size of a loaf of bread. William recognized the sign, the words, the colors, the logo of a local supermarket chain, all were familiar to him, but the letters were backward, unreadable.
Rainwater ran down William's face. He pointed to the sign. "Why's it written like that?"
The old man looked at the sign then back at William. "Like what?" he said, then shuffled away behind his basket.
* * *
The rain came down even harder. William slouched in a darkened doorway across the street from Fausto's. Nothing made sense. Everything was messed up, backward, out of whack. Almost like this wasn't his home, like he was a stranger seeing it for the first time.
But that was crazy. He'd grown up here, gone to Brother Martin High School, dated Jenny Underhill who went to Cabrini, lost her to Johnny Davis, then got her back only to lose her again the first year of college to some kid who drove a Mustang. Two years later William married Marge at Saint Luke's. They had two kids.
This town was his home. He recognized it. He knew the people here, Big Johnny and Zeke, the bartender at Fausto's. But things were different, little things. John Davis for one. In trying to help him, the big man had gotten himself killed. That wasn't John Davis--at least not the one William Bailey had known since seventh grade. Everything looked the same but wasn't. Nothing was quite right.
But they knew him--or someone like him.
A strange sensation crept over him that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Maybe he didn't belong here. Maybe everything wasn't as it appeared. Maybe this wasn't his home. But if that were true, then whose home was it? Another thought, even scarier seeped through his brain. If he was here, who was there--at his home?
Crazy.
William dropped his head into his hands. Just considering such nonsense was a waste of time. Yet, here he was scanning the street, thinking of going back inside Fausto's, back to that mirror.
Not much time to think about it. The bar closed at three AM and it was already two-thirty. When he'd left--run for his life with Big Johnny--most of the mirror was still in the frame hanging on the wall.
Something about that damned mirror.
But Fausto's was dangerous, so a couple of hours ago William had found another mirror. In the men's room of a twenty-four hour gas station. The Chevron on North Rampart.
He had approached it cautiously, afraid he was going mad. As he peered over the sink into the mirror, he saw what he always saw, his own reflection. Holding up his left hand, he looked at the image in the mirror, at the watch strapped to his wrist. He noticed that the man in the mirror wore his watch on his right hand. Just the opposite.
William stood in the gas station bathroom for twenty minutes before he worked up his nerve. Finally, he took a deep breath, leaned back, then slammed his forehead into the dirt-streaked mirror. The glass shattered and cut his head. Blood dribbled off the tip of his nose into the sink. His reflection stared out at him from the other side of the mirror, blood running down his face, too.
I have gone crazy!
So the gas station hadn't worked out. Ducking police cruisers, William had wandered the streets, his head reeling. What was he doing?
On the sidewalk, he found a sopping wet magazine that the wind had blown up against the side of a newspaper machine. The cover caught his eye. He picked it up. It was printed backwards, the letters reversed, words running right to left. The spine was on the right. As he flipped through the pages, he couldn't read a thing. Then William had an idea.
In the bathroom of an all night restaurant he held the wet magazine up to the mirror. Perfect. The reflected image was normal, spine on the left, words running left to right, all the letters printed correctly. He could read it clearly. But what did it mean?
Then he drove his head into that mirror. The glass cracked. Someone walked in, a skinny waiter wearing an apron. He stood gawking as William leaned over the sink with tears of pain filling his eyes.
The waiter looked at the broken mirror, then jabbed a finger at William's bloody forehead. "What the hell are you doing?"
"An accident," he mumbled, pressing his fingers against the fresh cut.
The waiter turned. "I'm calling the cops."
William Bailey ran.
Now he was huddled in the rain staring at Fausto's across the street. Because he had nowhere else to go.
He stood and walked toward Fausto's. When he was halfway across the street, a police car glided around the corner, headlights reflecting off the wet pavement. The cops in no hurry, just cruising. William forced himself to keep walking, not to run. One foot in front of the other. In the downpour, odds were that the cops wouldn't even recognize him.
But they did recognize him.
The police car slid to a stop as its high beams clicked on and its blue strobe lights started popping. Both front doors flew open.
Like a sinner seeking the sanctuary of a church, William ran straight for Fausto's door. As he burst inside, Zeke looked up from behind the bar. "William! What the hell are you doing here?"
He ignored the bartender, running right past him, eyes focused on the broken mirror and its busted frame hanging on the wall.
Zeke again, "The cops been looking all over for you. Say you killed two officers and--"
Behind him the front door banged against the wall. "Police!" a voice behind him commanded. "Stop."
But William didn't stop. He kept running--running straight for the mirror. Reflected in its fragmented pieces he saw two uniformed police officers behind him, heard their boots pounding on the wooden floor. Just ten feet separated him from the mirror. At full speed he took two strides then dove. He stretched his arms out overhead and tucked his chin into his chest as his feet left the floor.
He felt one hand hit wall and the other strike broken glass. Then his head hit. More glass cracked, more skin split.
Darkness.
* * *
William's eyes popped open. He was staring at the ceiling. Rough voices, even rougher hands. They rolled him over onto his stomach and jerked his arms behind his back. He felt cold steel on his wrists and heard the metallic ratcheting as the handcuffs tightened and bit into his skin.
He tilted his head up and rested his chin against the floor. Blood poured down the side of his face; he watched it pool on the floor then seep between the wooden planks. By rolling his eyes up he could just see the empty spot on the wall where the mirror had hung. Lying on the floor, three feet from his head, was the broken frame and the rest of the glass.
The two cops grabbed his arms and yanked him to his feet, sending waves of pain through his shoulders and wrists. As they spun him toward the door, one of the officers said, "You're under arrest."
"Why?" William asked.
The officer pressed his face into William's. "Murdering your family for starters."
"My...my family." William felt his stomach cinch and his bowels turn to ice. A thought he'd had earlier in the night echoed inside his head. If he was here, who was there--at his home.
As the cops dragged him across the floor, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door.
OUT.
He was home.
2023.05.30 22:16 Shankdaddy_ [WTS] Hk45c threaded barrel, McRae Jungle Boots (10W), ECWCS Lvl VII Parka, DCU M65 field jacket, FILBE Waterproof Bags (56 and 65 liter),DK-5 Riot Faceshield, MLOK 9-slot Rail
Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/o1UJuMM
Boots - McRae black jungle boots, size 10W (I am an 11 regular in new balance if that helps, these boots fit me well), worn around the house a few times otherwise brand new - $130 + shipping
HK45c threaded barrel - used, I’ve had maybe 50 rounds through it, still in perfect shape, $235 shipped
Paulson DK-5 riot faceshield - fits PASGT helmets, new, $63 shipped
Midwest Industries mlok rail, 9 slot rail for an mlok handguard, mounted once, $18 shipped
Waterproof FILBE bag - new and in unused condition, 65L and 56L, $45 shipped each
Gen III Ecwcs level VII parka - Lightly used but still in great shape, size large regular - $160 shipped
M65 DCU jacket - Nearly new USGI Large field jacket in Large, no liner, $58 shipped
Pm me if you’re interested but comment as well for a flair check, PayPal F&F only, NO NOTES PLEASE!
submitted by Shankdaddy_ to GunAccessoriesForSale [link] [comments]
Boots - McRae black jungle boots, size 10W (I am an 11 regular in new balance if that helps, these boots fit me well), worn around the house a few times otherwise brand new - $130 + shipping
HK45c threaded barrel - used, I’ve had maybe 50 rounds through it, still in perfect shape, $235 shipped
Paulson DK-5 riot faceshield - fits PASGT helmets, new, $63 shipped
Midwest Industries mlok rail, 9 slot rail for an mlok handguard, mounted once, $18 shipped
Waterproof FILBE bag - new and in unused condition, 65L and 56L, $45 shipped each
Gen III Ecwcs level VII parka - Lightly used but still in great shape, size large regular - $160 shipped
M65 DCU jacket - Nearly new USGI Large field jacket in Large, no liner, $58 shipped
Pm me if you’re interested but comment as well for a flair check, PayPal F&F only, NO NOTES PLEASE!
2023.05.30 22:15 thelauryngotham Best method for vinyl stickers
I'm still getting the hang of this stuff, so I apologize in advance if I sound like I don't know what I'm talking about :)
I own a small coffee company and I'm needing to look into some printable vinyl for packaging (i.e. labels on bags of coffee) as well as for some fun/marketing stuff (stickers and such). I tried using a (relatively good) inkjet office printer on some printable vinyl. It came out with numerous lines, almost like an odd barcode design, like it couldn't handle printing a photo. It prints text perfectly so I knew something wasn't wrong with the printer per sé.
I'm hoping to find a printer would produce the closest results to something like Redbubble, on more of a consumer level. I don't need extremely large prints, I just need them to look impeccable for sticker and label applications. I'm also wondering how professional stickers are finished. There's always a nice satin layer on top....how does that work?
Do I need a dye-sub printer? Will inkjet work fine? How are these items finished with a nice coating over the top? I'm looking at the DesignJet T250, Epson XP-15000, Canon Pixma Pro 200, and Pixma iP8720 but am certainly open to more suggestions. If none of these will meet my expectations, you certainly won't offend me by being blunt about it :)
Thank you!
submitted by thelauryngotham to Printing [link] [comments]
I own a small coffee company and I'm needing to look into some printable vinyl for packaging (i.e. labels on bags of coffee) as well as for some fun/marketing stuff (stickers and such). I tried using a (relatively good) inkjet office printer on some printable vinyl. It came out with numerous lines, almost like an odd barcode design, like it couldn't handle printing a photo. It prints text perfectly so I knew something wasn't wrong with the printer per sé.
I'm hoping to find a printer would produce the closest results to something like Redbubble, on more of a consumer level. I don't need extremely large prints, I just need them to look impeccable for sticker and label applications. I'm also wondering how professional stickers are finished. There's always a nice satin layer on top....how does that work?
Do I need a dye-sub printer? Will inkjet work fine? How are these items finished with a nice coating over the top? I'm looking at the DesignJet T250, Epson XP-15000, Canon Pixma Pro 200, and Pixma iP8720 but am certainly open to more suggestions. If none of these will meet my expectations, you certainly won't offend me by being blunt about it :)
Thank you!
2023.05.30 22:15 wiifitboard [Thank you] pokémon + more
u/shipping_addict - thank you so much for the meowth card! i received it today - put a smile on my face. i grew up playing soul silver - but i agree that sapphire and diamond have great soundtracks too! i need to get back into playing the games. i mostly play pokémon go these days lol
u/jane_q - thanks for the vintage western vibes card - I actually need to watch the john wick series. A few of my friends really enjoyed it, the 4th movie looked super cool from the trailers. i hope your family chat calmed down - i hate being in group chats with my family for that reason, always messaging 😂
submitted by wiifitboard to RandomActsofCards [link] [comments]
u/jane_q - thanks for the vintage western vibes card - I actually need to watch the john wick series. A few of my friends really enjoyed it, the 4th movie looked super cool from the trailers. i hope your family chat calmed down - i hate being in group chats with my family for that reason, always messaging 😂