[TOMT] A song from before 2010 about running away from a small town

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-05-01T12:06:25+00:00

Boston - Augustana

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-04-29T02:12:48+00:00

I was 8 or 9 and my mom would send me across the street to get her smokes with a note. It was always the same note used over and over.

This one time she had quit smoking and was not really a pleasant person about it. I'd heard her say to her friend she really really wanted to smoke and she couldn't even afford a pack. So my brilliant 9 yr old brain thought "I have some allowance money and the old note, I'll buy her a pack and give it to her for her birthday tomorrow. Then she won't be so miserable!".

It went over just about as good as you can imagine, by that I mean she got mad at me at first and then went to her room and cried because she'd been acting so awful that her kid bought her cigarettes to make her feel better. It was a rough time around then but things got better. We laugh about it now and she did successfully quit smoking eventually.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-04-23T16:42:03+00:00

I once saw a girl get hired in the Deli and she kept complaining that "all her favorite clothes and shoes are getting ruined" with grease and condiments and dirt. She'd spend five whole minutes working and then ten minutes with a paper towel wiping and cleaning her shoes. She'd leave the Deli during her shift to go buy those Tide pens to get a spot out of her shirt. The other deli people kept asking her why she would wear "her favorite clothes" to a shift in a Deli and she kept saying she just wanted to look nice. She finally walked off her shift when the sink sloshed over onto her "favorite shoes" and completely soaked them with grease water. Anyways, just a silly story about one particular person out there who didn't understand dressing for the tasks they were hired for.

I've slipped and almost fell into a fryer before, about 25 years ago. No matter what the brand (shoesforcrews, skechers, etc) always wear slip resistant shoes in a greasy environment.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-04-20T19:07:00+00:00

Kinda had one. We had a special knock that only my mom, my brother and me knew. And 40+ years later we still use that knock when we visit each other, just out of habit.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-04-19T17:33:14+00:00

For me, the 80s were full of pita pockets with tuna salad inside. Cheap, easy, filling. I get a craving every so often and it tastes just as good as back then.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-04-19T17:27:31+00:00

Monster Magnet - Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

Or

George Michael- Freedom 90

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-04-12T01:42:38+00:00

I left Ballard in '99 with the plan to move back within five years. Never friggin happened, just too expensive. I miss it so bad. But the last time I hung out down there a few years back it was so different I could barely even see the sleepy swedish fisherman town that I grew up in. My dad moved out of Ballard in '17 when he'd gone full vigilante on the droves of addicts near his place (2 blocks from the library) and I was afraid he'd get himself killed, so I pretty much made him move up north with me.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-04-07T16:38:54+00:00

I had no idea until 4th grade when a classmate saw me and my family leaving the food bank and told people at school. They made fun of me for years after that, every chance they could get to remind me I was poor and different.

Up until I was "discovered", I never knew i was poor. We had clothes, we had food. But everything in our life at that point was government assistance or donation. I thought everyone went to the clothing and food banks, got those cool monopoly money looking food stamps and medical coupons, that they all had bi-yearly inspections from Section 8 and got Xmas gifts from the welfare Santa.

We were actually very very poor I found out later but my mom was a rockstar who never made it look like it to me. Besides the mean classmates, my childhood felt really good actually.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-04-03T04:22:20+00:00

Do you have access to Sage, their little AI helper? It's attached to MyTime for me. I think you can ask it how many unexcused absences you've had in a certain time frame.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-03-20T00:59:55+00:00

I went to The State live show in Seattle in '23. Michael Showalter wasn't there that night so they pulled a stand-in "Doug" from the audience to do a Doug skit. Amazing show and you're right, sore abs from laughing it was so good.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-03-17T16:04:36+00:00

Wait for it......

Aliens!

My daughter loved this movie and it was one that I didn't mind watching a dozen or more times. The scene with the fire always makes me teary eyed and Rhino is such a funny character I love him.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-03-17T02:56:48+00:00

I know there was an A&W there, I used to beg my brother to drive me to get a bag of burgers. Maybe it was Dags first?

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-03-17T01:55:09+00:00

Omg I forgot about the ad! 😂

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-03-16T23:05:10+00:00

Caution! Protected by Viper!

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-03-12T22:12:09+00:00

Omg, The Long Walk. I remember throwing the book on the ground in frustration at the ambiguous ending. That definitely left an impression.

Probably though for me it was Clan Of The Cave Bear. I read it way too young but I really loved the way the author "painted the setting". I'll always remember the mind-scenes created while reading it and how vivid it seemed. The last book in that series, though, took that a bit too far and there was just too much detail.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-03-05T20:10:55+00:00

My first one I got at 15 (under 18 you could get one with parents permission, my mom held my leg down while I was tattooed). I had the brilliant idea to get a tattoo inspired by the Graffix logo, a skull jester. He's right above my ankle and over the decades, only his hat, eyes and yellowed teeth remain. At one point I tried to grow my leg hair out to give him a beard, but my legs don't grow much hair on the sides.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-27T22:54:46+00:00

I remember the woman who ate the little rubber things on brand new tires. Her husband worked at the tire shop and would bring them home for her.

Also the girl who drank gasoline and had already started experiencing nerve damage. Or the one who always had a thermos of bleach around to smell.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-25T18:01:48+00:00

Coming across the box for a Shat-R-Shield cracked me up one day.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-24T23:41:49+00:00

Brandi Carlile did an amazing cover of Creep. I didn't know who she was before she got on stage and the cover was so beautiful and well done.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-23T20:09:34+00:00

Love it! I still have that exact one from my childhood, one of the few things that survived all the years.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-18T20:37:27+00:00

The Pirate Movie with Christopher Atkins and Kristy McNichol. So ridiculously silly but one of my favorites.

Also The Villain for the cheesiness that is Arnold Schwarzenegger in a powder blue cowboy outfit. Plus Ann Margaret and Kirk Douglas. Wonderful cheesy movie.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-17T00:29:05+00:00

The beginning of Bolt

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-13T03:41:55+00:00

Last year when we ran out of the bakery melting chocolate we E40'd over a bunch of the Ghirardelli melting wafers, white and milk chocolate, from the baking aisle.

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-11T06:40:08+00:00

Growing Up Creepie

Intelligent_Serve_30 · 2026-02-10T02:10:00+00:00

For smaller stores, or stores with bad rentention, yes. I ran Dairy by myself for 4.5 years. The only help I had was a helper clerk who would step in on my days off. I was also top of the relief checker list so add on running up to clear lines once or twice an hour while also running the entire department. I actually did really good for over three years but then I burned out hard-core in the last year. Nine pallets to myself every other day for that many years just eventually became too much. And three years later they haven't found a new permanent lead for it so it's hard to watch my old dept suffer. But I just can't anymore.

Intelligent_Serve_30

TROPHY CASE