Mexican grocery stores

I was in the neighborhood and ready to eat, boil in bag meals were $3.49 for two servings, some at $2.99. That's a ton cheaper than MREs and you can easily get gluten free options. Options ranged from spicy curries to rice and even desserts.
They're also good to eat just as a quick lunch or dinner.

I’ve recently moved to north-Norway and I was surprised to walk into the local grocery store and see 2-3 empty cars with the engine on parked right in front.
First off if the locals do this it really is a sign of that Norway is a safe country. I mean the key is in the ignition!
But my question is why? I’m not even going to talk about the environmental reasons but don’t you care about gas prices? And anyway what’s the point? I guess the idea is to keep the engine warm but any reasonably recent car (which they all are) will start no problem at the current temperatures.
It’s funny there’s actually a small sign in front of the local coop saying to think about the environment and turn your engine off but people seem to do it regardless.

I (25F) left my country to go in another one for work, career and money. I have two degrees in aerospace engineering and I work at a space agency, but I regret every single minute I spent studying, every minute I could have spent with my family, pets or Friends. I regret everyday I could have spent to go to the beach, and instead I used to stay inside and study. I regret all the times I yelled at my little sister which wanted to play with me, because she was disturbing my studies. The thing I want the most is to go back to my little small house in the countryside, with clean air and all animals around me and my family and friends. I hate living in the city, the cars, the apartment's complex, not having a garden, I can't even have a pet in the apartment I am renting now. I want to go back but I can't, my soon-to-be husband loves here, we are making a lot of money (he's also an aero. eng.), and he want stability and I don't want to leave him (mind that we are not rich, like we can afford rent, bills and groceries and still have 1500€-2000€ at the end of the month to spend as we like or to save. This is not to brag, just to give a better look at the situation I'm living). My parents aren't rich, and they always pushed me to study and have a good job so I won't end up like them (they didn't go to school, can barely read and write) and now I am taking care of them and of my 3 little sisters (I send them half of my salary every month) and even if I know that they won't be mad at me if I decide to go back, I don't have the heart to tell them this and to stop providing for them. For example my sister started university but she's not liking It, so she wants to leave it and she can do it now because we are not struggling with money anymore so there is no rush for her to go find a job or start a career, and I am happy like this, I want my sisters to find what really makes them happy and I don't want to be the one to say "no I won't give money to the family anymore, so finish your studies fast so you can start to work" or something like this, I want to say "take your time, I am here for you while you find your way". My friends say that I am lucky and that I shouldn't come back because where I am from is impossible to find a job in my field, and I won't never have a good job like the one I have now in my small hometown, which is true, and it will be a shame to throw up a successful career in space field to go back at the farm. The fun fact is that I don't even want to be and engineer, I want to open a book store, it always has been my dream, but I need money to open it, which maybe I will have in 10 years if I start saving the rest of the salary I am not giving to my family or to pay rent and bills. And still I know that if I open it back in my city, it won't last long (not a good business), and I will end up with no money, no book store, nothing. Also, I can't go back to my old house and stay there Forever, because of course my parents live there, and I don't think they want me to live with them for the rest of my life, but they want for me to be Independent and have my house and my own family etc. I know that I may sound ungrateful, I have a good job in which I am very good at, money and a lot of free time as well, and I know that you're thinking that I should just shut the fuck up and a lot of people would want what I have, but this life that may sound perfect is killing me. I also have depression and general anxiety disorder and OCD, which are not helping. I am attending therapy, which sometimes works, other not, like this. I just want a simple life, I want sunny days to spend in the garden, I want to stay with my family and my pets, but I know I can't have it because money run the world and if I come back I won't have them. I tried to apply to "small jobs" in my hometown (like cashier) so to have enough money to survive but everytime they refused to hire me because "it will be a shame to hire someone with such a degree" (I think they are afraid I would leave to have a better paid job, or that there is something shady if I look at jobs like this with a degree like mine), and if I lie on my resumee, removing my qualifications, they don't hire me because it looks like I am 25yo without any job experience or degree. I feel stuck in this life and I don't know what to do, I don't want to disappoint everyone, but everyday I am feeling sadder and sadder and I feel like dying. When my bf is not home I spend the time crying or taking my meds to calm down or sleeping because I keep thinking about my home and my friends and family and I don't see a way out from all of this.
Sorry for the stupid long post and if there are mistakes, but english is not my first language.

I spent more time than I’d care to admit looking for cotija cheese at Sobeys. Does anyone know if there’s a grocery store in the East end that sells it?

Throaway account because my friends/coworkers know my reddit. I just keep applying to all these jobs but I either get auto rejected or just ignored, what am I doing wrong? For context, I apply to grocery store jobs and other barista jobs. I just want to get out of my current one.
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In these days of high inflation you might have to keep your grocery stores honest. I saved $2.25 today because my item scanned incorrect at checkout. Usually staff won’t argue. I was at shoppers, I used self checkout. The amount seemed high for my mid afternoon snack, I paid and checked the receipt. Sure enough the milk scanned wrong.
All I had to do was wait at the till and tell the lady the proper price. They have their scanner code of conduct prominently displayed so I was ready to point out that I’m supposed to get the item for free (my inner Karen was ready to speak to the manager). No fuss though, I got my refund and walked out with a $2.25 credit on my card.
It’s hard to keep track of all the prices of your items, but check the receipt before you leave the store you never know when it might pay off.
Google “scanner price accuracy code” and you’ll find a list of retail participants.
Has anyone had a different experience?

Chapter 1:
Jerry Brenson was having a hard time not getting pissed off at the way the car kept jerking around, making it damn near impossible to roll his tightly held cigarette. What a piece of shit it was anyways, it looked like the cross between an impregnated white pill and a scarecrow with all its frayed edges of tobacco poking out like straw.
"Would you stop driving like a goddamn animal!" he bellowed at the driver. Then he resumed his work on unraveling the piece of shit and evening everything out. The tip of Brenson's tongue stuck out of his mouth as he worked at it. Within a few seconds the passenger side front tire plunged into a half-foot pothole and Brenson's jaw clenched shut on that tender red meat sticking out of his face. In an instant it resembled a tiny pink balloon swelling up and getting ready to pop.
"FUCK!" Brenson screamed after a long second of seething white pain, which was now commencing to roll like waves through the bottom of his jaw, and somehow up into his fucking forehead! Before he had time to return from the moments that threw his whole being into a chaos of agony, he knew with dreadful certainty that he had bit off a chunk of his tongue. He would see it there if he opened his eyes and looked down. And with that, an image of a huge bulging red thing on the floor that was flopping around like a decapitated fish came to him. With wide eyes that seemed to burst open like fireworks, both hands flew to his mouth so that Brenson suddenly looked like a little girl getting the best birthday present of her life.
And then, hallelujah, he thinks, praise Jesus, God, the Buddha, anyone and anything that saved his precious tongue. It was still there. Hurt like hell but it was still there. He looked around on the floor in a sudden surge of paranoia (maybe a part of it really was down there) and to his blessed relief the only thing he saw were a pair of work boots stuffed onto his oafishly large feet.
All of this occurred in about 3 seconds, after which Brenson's brow contorted into a fierce angle of rage, and a powerful sense of the injustice and incompetence and of all the damned stupid negligent habits of this buffoon of a partner settled on him. He turned to the driver and smacked Dale Enrsten upside the head.
"Ouch!" Dale wailed in his deep Mississippi drawl. The car swerved to the left when Dale's arm instinctively went up to protect his face. "What the hell was that for?" He asked stupidly.
"For nearly getting my tongue bit off asshole. Now drive."
Dale returned a frown towards Brenson, and tried as he may to appear the least bit intimidating, Dale looked more comical than anything. There was something about his fat head and thin brown hair on a receded hairline that gave the air of an overly large boy preparing for boarding school.
Dale turned back to the road and decided that what would cheer him up would be a couple of chili dogs, add the cheese please, with a bud light and a pack of skittles. There ought to be a gas station in the next mile or so, god knows when the last time they saw one passing through this shit hole was. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a smoke, no two smokes, then handed one over to Brenson.
"My apologies captain. This road's covered in more potholes than your mom's vagina."
Dale cackled out a wheezing laugh and then lit up his smoke. He puffed out a large plume of white smoke that was torn away by the passing air out Dale's open window. He looked out that window, and glanced nervously at all the red stone. Their surfaces were inundated with marbled cracks. Every so often he'd see a pale bush growing between a couple of rocks. They looked more like skeletons than plants. Yes it was true, Dale Ernsted hated the desert. He hated all deserts. They made him feel like a clock was always ticking, and when it went to zero baby, oh my oh my, Dale baby if you’re out here, you gonna be fish food. Well not out here I wont, he retorts back to his own morbid fantasy, more liable to be lizard food, or coyote. Yeah, that's right, Dale thinks there probably are coyotes out here, and if the car broke down, well not a lot to eat out here but a couple of dehydrated dying men. What would be a better treat for a pack of hungry canines?
And following this train of thought Dale wonders what it would be like if Brenson and he really were surrounded by a pack of coyotes, how many would it take, maybe five? Six? Would Dale watch Brenson go first, or would it be Dale who Brenson catches a glimpse of getting his arm torn off from the shoulders down when the wolves begin demanding his own full attention. Look at that, now they turned into wolves. He didn’t think there were wolves out here. His expression changes into a frown of contemplation.
"Are you listening to me?" Dale hears Brenson angrily ask. The wolves go away. He realizes Brenson had asked him something.
"What's that?"
"Find a place to pull over I need to take a leak"
Dale's small eyes dart around at the escarpment and mesas and the fine layer of brown dirt swirling over the two-lane highway.
"No, I think there's a gas station up a bit. Not too much farther now."
Dale doesn't say anything else. He turns the knob on the radio until Bon Jovi is playing We’re Not Gonna Take It, and guns the Camry down the long stretch of desolate waste before them.
The desert sun was lowering in the west, making the car’s long shadow race ahead of them. By the time they see the dusty gas station with a white roof and big red letters painted on a discolored sign reading QuikStop, the sun was almost touching the horizon and Brenson had to pee like a mad horse. One or two stars could be seen faintly wavering in the turbulent purple sky fading into black.
Dale pulled up to a gas pump and he and Brenson got out of the car.
“Well” Brenson stretched out the word just as he was stretching out his back, leaning heavily into it with his arms on his hips, “Give me the money and I’ll get some food and beer. You get the gas”.
Dale reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty.
“Two cheese chili dogs and skittles” he said miserably. Brenson did a quick nod and walked off.
Dale found that he wasn’t doing anything but standing there watching Brenson walk closer to the gas station when the thought popped into his head: you know I think might kill that fuck, yeah I might. And then he turned around as if it was just a cloud passing by.
He was listening to the gulping sounds of gasoline filling up his tank when he saw a white toyota pull up and park on the side of the gas station near the ice chest and propane tanks. There were two people in the car. They looked like Mexicans to Dale. A man and woman. They got out of the car, shut the doors, walked around the corner, and entered the gas station. Dale wasn’t particularly interested in them but then something caught his eye. He thought he saw movement in the backseat of the toyota.
There it was again.
He realized it was a child.
It was a girl with long brown hair tied up in a ponytail. A little Mexican girl. Kids shouldn't be left in a hot car all alone he thinks righteously. But what should he expect from these people? Look at that piece of shit rig. He realized again that he was in a trance, staring angrily at the back of the Toyota.
Dale's eyes surveyed from the Toyota to the gas station entrance. The glare of the sun reflected everything outside so it was impossible to see in through the windows. Then something inside him went on autopilot. He had something to do he realized, and he had to do it fast.
He fastened the nozzle back onto the pump and briskly walked over to the white Toyota. His heart began racing. He peered in at the girl in the backseat. No one else was in there. She was wearing a blue tank top and black shorts. There was a doll, something from a disney cartoon in her hands, Dale insanely thinks, but is barely aware of any of these thoughts as the door of the Toyota slowly opens up and the girl turns her head away from her doll, up towards her mama with a smile, and sees Dale’s huge head lurching in like a troll plucking a princess from a tower.
Her face shrivels into a scream but before she can let out the breath, Dale’s meaty hands are over her mouth, and without any effort he pulls her out of the car and clutches her entire body in a bear hug. There's a heart pounding moment when she sounds like a grunting dog struggling in a trap and he knows her scream will escape from his sweaty armpit. Then there's an instant of pure lucid absurdity where he seemed to see himself from the outside. What would the girl's parents do if they walked around the corner right now? He couldn’t just put her back in there and go about pumping gas again could he? Oh I'm just ole friendly Dale giving your girl here a nice good hug cuz I could hear her cryin' for mommy.
Then he kicks the Toyotas door shut for god knows why and scrambles to his car. He hustles to the trunk, realizes the switch is up front, and skids to his knees at the driver's side door. He’s pressing the girl so hard against his chest he can almost feel her head bouncing off his beating heart.
Then he hears the satisfying click of the trunk unlocking, and with surprising speed he places the girl in the bed of the trunk, takes a bandana out from his back pocket and ties it like a rope around her mouth. The girl’s eyes, shaking with terror, watch grimly as the troll closes out the darkening sky with a metallic clink.
Then Dale jumps into the driver's seat, turns on the engine, and cranks up the radio. Another song by dear old Bon Jovi by god! Dale feel’s exhilarated. He doesn't even know it yet. All he knows is this music sounds better than anything he’s ever heard before, and why wouldn’t you look at that, he’s not even sore with Brenson anymore for slapping him in the face earlier. He can’t wait to have a beer! And there's ole Bren heading back towards the Camry now.
But then Dale realizes with a jolt of panic, the parents! The girl’s parents are going to be out any minute! With the mother of all anxiety attacks Dale’s car speeds towards Brenson as he walks out of the gas station at a magnitude that probably made Brenson think oh fuck I’m going to die by the look on his face, but Dale’s car screeched to a halt just a few feet away.
“What the fuck’s that about” Brenson sneered. The sneer was more one of habit than anything else as Brenson was so surprised that there wasn’t really room for anything else. His arms were full of supplies and he almost dropped them all over the ground.
“Get in now!” Dale yelled. He reached his arm over and threw open the passenger door. Brenson sat down and before he could shut the door, Dale shut it himself by accelerating in a curve out the gas station parking lot, and wouldn’t you know it, he didn’t even use his turning signals when he brought the Camry onto the highway and raced into the black eastern sky.
Chapter 2:
“Jesus man, you think I robbed the place?”. Brenson was unsure what had gotten into him. “Shut up for a minute. Give me a beer”.
Brenson had never seen Dale so serious. The man’s face looked like a machine. His thin lips were pressed so tightly you could barely see them. And he was scowling at the road. His eyes kept bouncing to the rearview mirror. Brenson could see beads of sweat rolling over Dale's pockmarked forehead. And the odometer was reading 95 mph. He sure as hell hoped he wouldn’t suddenly get another dose of Dale’s special potholes. He made sure his tongue was planted firmly on the roof of his mouth and his seat was buckled.
“Uh Dale..are you alright there partner?” Brenson asked.
“You seem like somethin just bit you in the ass.”
Dale guzzled down his bud light, burped and wiped his mouth, then reached for another one. After he cracked it open and took a good long gulp, he bellowed “Wooo! Lordy..oh yeah” He was heaving deep breaths between each word. Then his gaze turned away from the road and locked with Brenson's eyes.
“Pal, when you were over in that gas station there..” he paused and glanced towards the backseat of the car as if someone were sitting back there. He couldn’t keep it hidden from Brenson now could he? They had 100 miles left to drive.
Brenson looked back and then over at Dale again.
“ain't quite sure how to say this", the look on Dale's screwed up face as he thought about what to say next made Brenson think of a large boy again, one that was trying to work out a hard math problem like how much his groceries would cost.
"I may have picked up a passenger,” Dale finally said.
“What?” That came out of left field and Brenson didn't know what it meant.
“I just kind of..took her” he said this last as if Dale himself was surprised at what he was saying.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Brenson was getting a sick feeling. What fuckup did Dale just get him into now? He knew Dale liked cats and sometimes he would take them off the streets or out of people's yards if he liked how they looked. And he knew Dale had about 9 cats stuffed away in his trailer, but Brenson wasn't hearing any meows coming out of the back seat now was he? And Dale's eyes were looking at something far away, unfocused on something so far away like Venus.
And then Brenson noticed a muffled sound like there was a load of groceries rolling to the side in the trunk as Dale took them around a tight bend. For just a moment he was worried that maybe he had put the beer back there and it was gonna get all fizzy, but then he remembered the beer in his hand and the rest on the floor by his feet near that imaginary chunk of meat flapping around down there. He felt the tip of his tongue and took a swig.
"What the fuck did you do" Brenson remembered the two Mexicans that walked into that gas station. He had eyes on them the whole time.
“Dale?” Brenson asked with a looming understanding that sped towards him like a Mack truck. Dale had done something magnanimously fucked up.
“What the fuck did you do!”
“She was boiling back there!” Dale pleaded. He was an eight year old child again, explaining to an angry stepmom why she had found a drowned cat in the bathtub. He didn’t have any choice, it had bit him and that was not okay, that was not okay by any standards of civilized man. What else could he do?
“Dale!”
“I saved her Bren!”
They were both yelling now.
“She was gonna be dead back there! You saw those mexis didn’t you?”
“Pull over!” Brenson demanded.
“No.”
“Pull over now!”
Dale kept on speeding. The odometer read 105. To Brenson it felt like the flimsy car could at any moment flip over a hundred times if the slightest gust of wind brushed against them.
“Pull over right fucking now or I’ll beat the shit out you right here!”
Brenson’s fists were clenched into a barb of hairy knuckles. He was really going to do it Dale observed, and then they’d both be piles of scrap strewn all over the road.
Dale gave a defeated sigh and took his foot off the accelerator. He was going to have to show Bren one way or another. They were already miles past that shit hole station anyways. What the hell. The Camry disengaged from warp speed and soon Brenson could hear the crinkle of gravel under the tires as the Camry pulled off onto the shoulder.
Outside the night was as silent as the land was empty. A brilliant splash of stars painted the canopy of the sky in a way that gave Dale a cosmic sense of his own importance. He shuffled over to the back with Bren, a disappointed look of guilt was likewise splashed across his face, why no mah, I’m not the one that drowned Muffin, but ya know, she wouldn’t stop biting. But Dale remembered the feeling of her slick fur bunched up between his fingers and the way her intricately delicate neck felt like so many scrawny bones. A jolt of disgust seemed to roll through him like a shockwave and he tried to shake off the memory of that limp cat as fast as possible.
Then that cave of darkness opened up and it was nighttime outside, and the girl saw with a cold panic that made her cry that there were two trolls looming over her now. They were both huge and disgusting. The one on the left looked like a giant baby with patches of wiry fur in tufts up and down its neck and chin. Its teeth were yellowed and it was smoking a cigarette. She didn't like how it was eyeing her, like she was some kind of precious crystal that it wanted badly.
The other was just as big, not as fat though, more muscular. He had a mop of scraggly black hair and a full beard covering the mouth. He looked like a biker. And he looked like he was really mad at her. She heard herself crying.
"Mamá" She tried squeaking through the rope. "Donde mi mamá"
And then, no, no please, everything was getting dark again. She howled and squirmed but the lid of the trunk did not care.
Brenson was biting his bottom lip. He was supremely pissed off now. What the fuck was this lunatic thinking! He looked at Dale and was about to begin a royal case of pummeling his fat ass into the ground for getting Bren caught up in this bullshit, lord knows he's had a clean record apart from a mild six months in Kentucky State Penitentiary when he was twenty two years old. And this asshole, this stupid fat asshole made him an accomplice to whatever crazy bullshit was flying around in that fat fucking head of his!
But Bren noticed that far away in the direction they had come were a pair of tiny headlights. They were heading this way.
Instead of beating Dale into a mess worthy of the crime of getting Bren caught up in kidnapping charges, he said "Lets get the fuck out of here". And then jumped back into his seat, slamming the door.
"Come on!" He yelled out when he saw that Dale was still standing on the side of the road like an idiot. Dale hurried up, revved on the engine, and the Camry was back on the highway doing 92 mph. Bren cracked open another beer and drank the whole thing in one go. He didn’t complain about the speed.
Chapter 3:
It was about two in the morning when they pulled up to Bren’s trailer. Bren got out and walked around to Dale’s side. He was mildly drunk. Bren put his hands on his knees and bent down as if he was going to say something to Dale, but in the end he turned around and left without saying anything. He was too pissed off.
“See you in the morning.” Dale called out after him in an annoyingly loud voice, but Bren didn’t turn around. His thin white door shut loudly and Dale pulled away and drove off to his own trailer at the end of the gravel road.
At this point he had a conundrum on his hands. He had to get the girl inside without her making a lot of noise. And then once inside..what? Tie her up? Keep her in his bathroom? It’s not like he had a basement to put her in. And what the fuck was he doing anyways? His hand reached for his forehead. He was thinking. Then he unlocked the trunk and when the dim light in the trunk came on he saw with stabbing horror that the girl was dead.
“NO!” He shouted at her as if it were her fault.
"Oh dear Jesus no!”
He felt like he was about to cry. It was the cat all over again. He really didn’t want to kill it. But then he saw the rhythm of her small diaphragm. She was sleeping. Dale oh dale oh dale, what are you doing?
He wiped the sweat off his brow, then reached in and picked her up. She weighed about as much as a pillow, and when Dale opened the door of his trailer, a cat seemed to catapult itself outside making him trip over his own feet. "Shit! Henry!" He gave an involuntary yell over his shoulder when he saw which one did it. Then, understanding that he totally did not have anything under control, he stopped in his doorway and simply stood there with the little girl cradled in his arms. She felt warm. His girl. Yeah, that sounded right. It was his girl now. His little Mexican girl.
A few more hungry cats came out of the shadows begging for food. He shushed them and kicked his leg around without putting any real effort into it just to make them go away.
He had to secure his girl.
But how was he going to get any sleep tonight? He had to be absolutely sure that she could not get away. Then as he was walking in, thinking about how he would tie her up (he did have some duct tape, rope, maybe some wire ties..oh but he didn't want to hurt her wrists), he felt a sudden uneasiness about Brenson. Did Dale think he'd go to the cops? Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut and the music loud. He should have slowed down when Bren asked and he should have… Wait, just wait one cotton pickin minute Dale, he says to himself. The girl. The girl first, then Bren. Maybe Bren was still awake and he'd pay him a little visit, have a little chat just to make sure they were square, just to see if everything was cool, but only after he was sure the girl could not escape.
But should he actually leave her alone?
"Get moving!" he said to himself. And then walked into the back of the trailer where he kept a tool shed. The girl was still sleeping in his arms. Whatever nightmares she could possibly be having, would she really want to wake up?
He chose duct tape, the principle reason being it was easiest to reach while clutching a small human being. And although she felt like a feather before, the longer Dale held her in that death grip, the heavier she seemed to get.
He laid her gently down on a Layzee Boy and found himself holding his breath and needing air when he was certain she was still sleeping. Dale unfolded the leg rest, and then very delicately began unwinding the duct tape around her legs. This turned out to be a bitch because the duct tape was prone to making offensive scratching sounds as it was unpeeled from its spool.
About an hour later the girl was strapped in the chair in an extended position. Mounds of duct tape secured her arms, legs, torso, hands and feet. He took special care to untie the bandana from her face, knowing that she could suffocate in her sleep if it stayed on there. That special feat gave him a sense of pride for remembering. He already got one point in the game of taking care of her by damn. Though he'd have to figure out how to keep her quiet. Lastly, he strapped down her head using a generous supply of tape.
Now he surveyed his work like a skilled practitioner, his mouth closed, eyes narrowed, and giving short nods of satisfaction. Yes he did do a good job. Both on the tape job, and on the girl. She was adorable. He was imagining what it would be like three years from now, when she had forgotten all about that old shit hole family she had, a fact that Dale would NEVER bring up, and how happy they would look playing in a park, eating hotdogs. He's pushing her on a swing and look at that! At the very end of the pendulum's arc she leaps through the air, legs pointing like arrows in perfect form! She glides through the air and lands on her feet. Both arms reach up into the sky, she beams at Dale saying look what I just did daddy! Then she's running, his little girl is running right at him! She leaps into his arms and oh god how he hugs her, squeezes her, suddenly he notices that her skin is so soft, there's a gleam in her eye, he looks at her mouth
Somebody knocked twice on his front door.
The force of that sound coming from that door made Dale almost scream. The cloudy glaze over his eyes burned away as fast as if Jesus Christ had just now ripped open a hole in the sky and let all of heaven's mighty armies come march on through.
His head jerked up and banged against the corner of a kitchen cabinet that he had been standing near but he barely felt it because panic and paranoia were through the fucking roof ladies and gentlemen. That's right, Dale Ernsted was about to melt into a puddle and seep into the floor.
But he had to do something about the door. He crept slowly, as if the slower he moved the more invisible he would become. At this point he was trying to make himself as flat against the wall as possible so he could peek out the curtains without the intruder noticing. He quickly poked his face into the curtains and looked out the window. There was a man still standing at Dale's door. And the man instantly turned towards Dale and looked him in the eyes.
Dale screamed and put a hand over his mouth.
It was Bren. It was just fucking Bren. He pulled away from the window and noticed he was breathing like he had run a half marathon.
Dale opened the door and there was Bren pissed off as ever before. He didn't ask to come inside but came inside he did, brushing past Dale without saying a word. He stood in Dale's living room, hands on hips, something like concern on his face, and was just standing there gaping at that girl stuck in all that mound of duct tape. He was shaking his head in disbelief. Then Bren turned around and said in whispered tones, "What in fucking Christ is going on here Dale?"
They both walked outside and Dale shut the door.
Inside the trailer the girl remained taped to the Lazee Boy, breathing those deep occasional breaths that are only ever seen in people deep in REM sleep. Then she opened her eyes. If Dale could see those eyes now he would say they looked evil. To Bren, who had a larger vocabulary than Dale, he would say cunning.
In truth she had never been asleep. And although she heard only a little of the conversation between the two ogres that captured her, she knew that Baby Face, as she thought of Dale, believed she was asleep. And for this she thought he must be the dumbest person imaginable. What moron would think anything but a tranquilized rhinoceros was asleep after all that had happened to her.
She played through the sequence of events that led her to this terrible situation. It was an unreal situation. How could this happen to her? But that's not useful, she thinks, it isn't useful to wonder about why, only how and what to do about it.
She took the opportunity while the two trolls were outside to scan as much of the room as possible. Looking for doors, windows, anything that could be used as a weapon. Although she knew she had little chance of using anything but a gun against either of those two guys. They were big and mean looking. But she thought Baby Face probably had a gun, either on him or by his bed, maybe in a closet.
She would have to escape. She knew there was a door in the back, though she couldn't see it, because Baby Face had brought her back there and she could feel the outside air coming in. It seemed to be some kind of extension to the trailer. And when Baby Face had stood on his toes reaching high up to get something off a shelf, she stole a glance and saw that it was some kind of shed that led outside. There were at least two doors. It was going to hurt so bad to take this tape off. She didn't know what to do about that yet. She could barely move any part of her body.
Then she heard one of the men approach the door and the hinge began to squeak open.
Dale poked his head in and stared at her for a good ten seconds. She was still sleeping. Good. Then the door closed.
Her name was Mariana and her eyes were now looking up at the ceiling, lips quivering, trying to hold back the tears from escaping. One did though and it traced a small trail down her cheekbone before it finally fell to the floor. She hoped her cheek would dry before the trolls came back inside.
Chapter 4:
That same morning Bren woke up to a pounding headache that felt like a vein was about to burst from the left side of his head. His bones creaked as he got out of bed and he walked to his refrigerator and pulled out a beer.
He wasn't trying to get drunk, those days were long past him. It was just to get rid of the headache. He had work today. And it was Bren's turn to drive so he was gonna have to waltz over to dumb fuck Dale's house and drag his ass out of bed. Although he wasn't so sure how much stock he put in folk traditions and rules of the game, so to speak, now that his relationship with Dale has been, shall we say, tested.
Although he wasn't as angry as he was just a few hours before while he chewed out Dale for being the stupidest motherfucker he ever laid eyes on, he still felt he should give him an ass pounding after he, Bren, resolved this entire state of affairs. Because it would be Bren, not Dale, who would have to do that. As much as he wished he could abandon Dale and just say fuck it, he was deeply concerned about his own involvement in what transpired the night before, and he was gravely imagining getting fifty years behind bars because of some lunatic he decided to take up a business deal with. Who was the real retard here, Bren thinks in a self deprecating way, who would get into business with someone like Dale?
Never mind all that, he would have to do something about this. He could not allow Dale to go off on his wild fantasies. Bren's chief concern was that Dale would fuck up somehow and land Bren in prison. He was slowly shaking his head back and forth as he sipped his beer, realizing just how deep the sinking sand really went in this case, all the anger he felt the night before came rushing back tenfold as he realized what he would have to do. What he would make Dale do. As punishment.
Meanwhile Baby Face was still sleeping. Mariana heard him snoring. She decided to let herself sleep after he had passed out on the floor near this duct tape prison. She would need her strength and people need to sleep as much as they need to eat was what she convinced herself with to even allow her to try to sleep. It wasn't even a guaranteed deal. Who could sleep during something like this?
But she found that when she closed her eyes and knew that Baby Face was drunk out of his mind, and that meant he would probably be asleep for awhile, then she could sleep. And oh how she drifted down, pulled down just as she was pulled out of that car, with a monster waiting for her at the bottom. A monster that looked like some huge grotesque baby thing that had snot pouring out of its nose like a fire hose held her, its decaying fingernails scraped at her, and it cackled at how amazing she was, licking her back and purring like a cat.
She screamed and then she was back in her car with all her things! Not in a dream, she was actually back in the car and her parents had told her they would pick her up a snickers.
She knew Baby Face was out there. Scrambling up on her elbows she looked for him out the window. He was pumping gas and smoking a cigarette at the same time. What a stupid freak! Yuck! But he was going to come over here. She watched him looking at something over at the entrance, and then his head was turning towards her. She ducked. And then slowly peeked her head up and saw that he was walking over here. He looked like some kind of rodent, like a rat that was sniffing out cheese.
She needed to leave. Mariana grabbed the door handle and shaked at it but it wouldn't open. None of them worked. She was trying to remain calm, kept finding her right hand reaching up and twirling her hair and then stopping herself. She licked her chapped lips. She had an idea.
The door opened and before Baby Face stuffed his stinking head in through the open door, Mariana turned around and asserted herself. She loudly and very clearly said "Dale! Where is your gun?"
The monster stumbled backwards as if shot, and fell slightly to its knee. The way its knees popped back and forth and the way its elbows gesticulated in erratic ways made Mariana think it wasn't even alive. It was some kind of zombie. And when its head rolled back up, and it looked at her, its teeth clacking together like a puppet being pulled up by the strings too quickly, she saw that Baby Face, Rat Baby Face, had long white whiskers and huge front teeth. They were stained with cigarette smoke but they still looked sharp.
It said in a gravelly voice choked with beer and chili, "under my bathroom sink, where I always keep it.", driblets of chili dripped down its white gums, which also held a healthy portion of gooey chewing tobacco. Beer froth dripped out its eyes as it jumped into the car with Mariana and began stroking its long bony fingers through her hair saying all the while in the voice of a corpse "How pretty..how pretty..how pretty". She wanted to puke and get away from it but - then Rat Baby Face opened its mouth and bit into her neck.
Mariana woke up blinking away tears. She swallowed and took in a deep breath through her nose, somewhat rocking back and forth, but otherwise totally immobilized.
That's when she heard Baby Face snoring. That's also when she noticed the bathroom out of the very furthest edge of her peripheral vision.
Mariana knew what she had to do.

THERE IS HOPE. Hello everyone, I have a personal experience to share that may sound unbelievable to some. Recently, I have been using raw bone marrow as a cream and have achieved impressive results.
I purchase raw beef bone marrow from the grocery store and apply a small amount onto the inner foreskin, frenulum, and head of my penis. I then fold the outer foreskin and cover it with a skin cone, allowing the stem cells from the bone marrow to be absorbed by the inner parts of the penis.
The bone marrow has almost no smell. Its texture is very similar to butter. it, it contains an abundance of stem cells . Stems cells are cells that can transform into any types of cells. However I do not know the exact mechanism, which is probably way more complicated than this . I do not know the 'How' or 'Why' it happens. I am just reporting what i observed on myself.
'I have noticed a 20% increase in size of my frenulum remnant, which suggests that it has absorbed the stem cells and updated itself.
Additionally, I have experienced fast healing and no more stretch marks. What's even more fascinating is that I have been able to grow new skin without the need for tugging.
I encourage you to try it for yourself and see the benefits. Please let me know if you have any question. I have been experimenting this for only 2 weeks .
​

I had just gotten off and parked my cart in front of the electric carts by the hallway that goes to the break room. The cart had my groceries I just bought and all my work stuff was in it as well.
I walked into the break room for 2 minutes max, came back and my cart was...gone.
I had no idea where it went so I walked around looking for it but didn't find it. Finally, I got an MIC to look at the security camera footage. It showed an older man with glasses enter the store and walk by my cart, out of view of the camera. Then the cart gets pulled out of view.
Me and the MIC were all over the store looking for the guy and my cart. We never found the guy but the MIC found my cart sitting somewhere. All my stuff was still there.

What's the most outrageous thing you've ever seen in a grocery store?

Savor - 4% back on dining and entertainment (this is grandfathered so I dont pay a fee)
Verizon Visa - 4% back on groceries and gas (primarily use neighborhood Walmart, ingles and food lion as grocery stores)
Altitude Reserve - 4.5% back on travel and Apple pay
Cash+ - 5% back on furniture stores and Fast food maybe?. (Most of the categories on the cash+, I either will never use or I’m certain I could get 4% or 4.5% back using other cards. Imo if i can get 4% or better on another card, I try my best not to waste a 5% category on it as the difference is minimum.
with that being said, based on my setup, what should I utilize my custom cash cards for?
Now groceries would normally be an obvious one but since Citi specifically excludes Walmart from counting imo ill come out better using the verizon visa for that, I would just use the cash back to lower my phone bill each month.
another candidate I’m considering could be Streaming. I’m aware the cash+ has this category as well but youtube tv coding is what I’m concerned about the most. I’ve heard mix reviews about it not coding properly.
Lastly gas is in consideration as well for being used. It’s a card I wouldn’t have to carry as well since I’ll add it to Apple pay. My fallback/backup card if Apple Pay isn’t accepted at a gas station would be the Verizon visa which nets 4% back on those purposes.
​
also I do have the rewards+ as well which makes custom cash cards effectively 5.5% back.

And we have our first report. I tried to attach upload the image from Imgur and I’m kind of a rookie so I’m not sure it uploaded. But I wanted all of you to share this very typical photo. When she saw I was taking pics I asked her if this was a Qualified Service Animal. She said it was an emotional support animal. I said that doesn't qualify as a Support Animal. Her witty response was “Bitch!”
I finished my shopping then went to the service desk to get a copy of their Food Permit from the Environment Department. She let me take a picture and asked why I needed it. I explained, and told her I know what they are up against with people bringing in their non-Service dogs. She said “you have no idea”, and “they argue with the greeters and get really ugly and it’s not worth the argument”. I said I would be making complaints to the Environment Department and we would let them address this. She was totally fine with this. About 5 other employees were standing around listening.

I started delivering with uberEATS walk. Recently I got a pickup order from convenience/grocery stores but the order was heavy! I could barely make it to the drop off location, is there a way to see what the order entails before agreeing to pick up?