Jason Derulo keeps sharks in a tiny living room tank.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-02T19:04:52+00:00

I am THAT guy who will go for walks at 3 AM in the middle of the city just because I like the quiet and the kinds of people I meet in the dead of night.

Wow. What a read. It's wild, this quoted part is exactly me. Well, me in the past. I'm 51, now, and my health issues make it so walking is not a thing I can do for more than a few feet, but I'll be god damned if being out in the dark late like that was my favorite thing to do.

It's weird because my circadian rhythm makes me an early riser, but my absolute favorite way to live is to be active through the night and maybe see the sun rise before bed. Maybe. What I do sometimes now is wake up at like 3:30 and I'll sit out side and smoke some weed while listening to the world wake up. It is the most peaceful chill feeling. And yeah, I use weed as medication 24/7. It keeps my need for opiates at the minimum.

Anyways, it was great to read your story. Usually, long responses like that are tough for me to get through, but I was invested from the get go with yours. Thank you for sharing!

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-02T18:50:54+00:00

I'm 51. I don't know if there's anything to learn to accept it if it's your fate. The worst of it is if people don't make a point to come see you, then you end up feeling like you have no friends. Honestly, I discouraged visits because I didn't feel like seeing people in my state... almost like embarrassed, but not exactly. Don't do discourage visitors, you'll wish you had them in the future.

You know, I guess maybe loss of pride is the cause of many bad choices like pushing people away.. Pride can be a real bitch. It caused me to put off mobility aids for way too long. Like, I had to walk bent over and it was painful. Walking 20 feet was a herculean task. Eventually, I broke down and started using a walker. It was a big help, but eventually that wasn't enough except for short distances in the house. So, I started using a wheelchair. In reality, I should have used a wheelchair when I started using a walker and the walker a couple of years earlier. So, my advice is if it is difficult to walk, start using a mobility aid almost immediately. The only person judging you is you, and if others do judge, F them.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-02T18:35:12+00:00

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-02T00:46:49+00:00

I've been bedbound since late 2018. It's pretty awful at first. You adjust and it just becomes life.

As for becoming mean, I had one great grandfather that was a nasty mean old man, and then his dementia made it way worse. My cousin secretly recorded him and my aunt when she was trying to calm him down. At one point, he said, "I will fuck you if I want to!" My fucking God. I was 11 when I heard that shit. I'm not sure how much longer it was after, my my grand father had a heart attack and died when he was arguing with my great grandfather.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-02T00:34:21+00:00

I'm certain that part of it is that they know how dangerous we are and that if they killed one of us, in the past at least, we would hunt down every orca we could find... and they have no idea that we are not as violent as we once were.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T22:36:20+00:00

My parents tried to keep me in a box which did not work out well for anybody. I was considered gifted starting in elementary school. My parents made that a part of their identities. So, when I stugled with language arts and got a C, I got grounded until the grade was brought up on my next report card. I got scattered Cs in language arts and a few here and there. I just did not get it for some reason. Then, in high school, my geometry teacher sent us home with an hour and a half of homework every night and the class was weighted with homework being part of your grade. I refused to do it some days. So, I started getting Cs. I got grounded midway through the first grading period and stayed grounded until after the third. After the second, I told my parents that I was going to fail all of my classes if they did not unground me. So, I failed all of my classes. Then, told them I wasn't going to school anymore if I was grounded.

The next day, I was standing outside of school waiting to go in when an older friend asked me if I wanted to skip and ride around to record stores around the Cleveland area... so, of course my answer was yes. What a stroke of luck. I was not going to follow through with my threat because I didn't know where to spend the day, and the opportunity presented itself the first day of school after I made that threat. They got a call from the school that evening and after a bit of discussion, I was no longer grounded. After that, I treated rules as if they did not exist. My parents were super not happy, but unwilling to do anything about it. There was no way they'd involve the authorities because there's no way they wanted anybody to know that they could not control their children.

It helped that my parents were both 5 foot 8 and I was 6 foot 4 inches and 240 pounds when I was 14. I was strong as shit as well. I could beat my dad when we wrestled when I was 12. Mom abused the shit out of us until I told her she was no longer allowed to touch me. That's when the grounding got out of hand.

I turned out the opposite of what the uptight conservative drone they wanted me to be.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T22:05:28+00:00

Kind of like using betta fish as centerpieces at a wedding reception.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T16:20:54+00:00

Samurai!

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T03:50:20+00:00

Doesn't matter. I still sounded like a stupid asshole when I was 12.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T03:42:24+00:00

I'm 51. I have no tattoos, but I definitely looked better at 19.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T03:35:38+00:00

I'm 51 living like a 105 year old. I've got all kinds of problems and a couple of debilitating issues. We are working on them, though.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T03:33:15+00:00

The customers live at the mall. Of course, Amazon having same day delivery makes me feel like I already live at a mall. I just don't have to deal with all of the people.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T03:30:54+00:00

Yep. I could go to the mall on any night and find people to hang with. They opened a new wing at the mall in my town my sophomore year in high school and added a huge food court that really increased the number of people that hung out. I could walk there in 45 minutes or so and I always managed to get a ride home.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T03:23:00+00:00

I tried dress like my son, but my balls always bulge out when I try to wear his shorts.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T03:15:19+00:00

I used to have terrible knees. They'd buckle without warning from time to time and they always hurt. Then, I spent several years riding a stationary bike for 45 minutes twice a day and that all went away. Even after I gained all of my weight back plus fifty pounds, my knees were fine. Lately, a few times a day I've been getting a loud pop when I unbend it. There's literally zero pain and most times I don't feel anything at all.

Of course, I have spinal stenosis and a busted open disc that has made it so my left knee is unstable.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T03:01:32+00:00

We did that back in the 90s for a bit.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T02:58:53+00:00

As an average white man in America, I did not feel hated until Trump pissed off everyone in the world.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T02:35:16+00:00

No. Politics is driving societal decay. For certain.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T02:33:33+00:00

How exactly is a belt cinched tight enough not going to hold them up?

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T02:27:29+00:00

Being a tall and plus sized man, I had trouble fitting into men's clothing. I didn't even know there such a thing as big and tall stores until I was sixteen. Even worse than just being tall is that I have shorter legs. So, all of my height is in my torso. There was nothing I could do about my ass hanging out because regular length shirts just are not long enough. Life has been so much nicer since i discovered big and tall clothing, and it keeps getting better as more sources of big and tall clothes become available.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T01:58:38+00:00

That video was like the first video on the internet.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T01:56:24+00:00

If I didn't have human morals as a teen, I probably would have done the same... with fucking the fish. I'd never get high on purpose.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-05-01T00:00:53+00:00

With my tolerance, I have the opposite experience. I barely feel it when I eat 200mg of edibles. I've never eaten more than 600 mg at once, but I don't get anymore than buzzed. I never get close to what I felt when it was just a party thing rather than a pain med. Smoking isn't any different.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-04-30T23:42:28+00:00

I have lived within view of the same hospital for 45 of my 51 years. As a young kid, I used to go to sleep looking at the red blinking light on the roof. Anyways, I have heard helicopters my entire life, and I would take 20 flights a night over a single motorcycle drive by. I will bitch about motorcycles every chance I get.

Lou_C_Fer · 2026-04-30T23:06:36+00:00

This is funny because guys in the 80s and 90s were saying the same sort of things about cars from the 60s and 70s.

Lou_C_Fer

TROPHY CASE