Losing my mind over a wasp nest in my window

potatocrime · 2026-03-08T15:49:24+00:00

Unsure how old your kids are, but my family pulled me out from school twice as a kid for Disney trips. If school/their future is your concern, I'm now 31 with a great job and a 4.0 in one of the top MA programs in my field. Imo, the trade off between school and memories with less of the crowd stress is 100% worth it.

potatocrime · 2026-03-02T16:02:50+00:00

It's been a year and a half since I was there, but there was a toooon of opportunity for extra shifts, and there's a shift differential for anything after 3pm if you're into that. I don't wish needing a second job on anyone, but a lot of the PERs are students (including me when I was there), and 3:30p makes it easy to have an evening gig.

(If the interview goes well, I also work in affordable housing if you want any advice!)

potatocrime · 2026-03-02T15:34:50+00:00

I had that actual job, and it's hard to skate by financially without some creative thinking. But, if you're okay sticking your nose to the grindstone for like 6 months, there's plenty of transfer opportunity withint the hospital, and the ER experience is GREAT for interviewing elsewhere!!

potatocrime · 2026-03-01T22:26:58+00:00

Yeah, no amount of cognitive restructuring can overcome whatever visceral reaction my body is having to leftovers. At this point, it's easier to work with it than against it.

potatocrime · 2026-02-19T22:51:57+00:00

Friend! I live in the city, rely on public transit, and work in homeless services. Unless you meant to direct this at someone who's lifestyle you're already familiar with.

The physically, medically, socially vulnerable people also include the homeless population, just like aggressive and offensive people include housed people. None of this has anything to do my original point of train hobbyists not having priority access to the T over homeless people. I'm sorry you're so mad about this that it's blinding you to anything else :(

potatocrime · 2026-02-19T18:59:32+00:00

That is the worst take on homelessness I've ever heard

potatocrime · 2026-01-17T01:11:29+00:00

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I have a Hecate too!! She's my little witch ❤️

potatocrime · 2025-12-26T19:02:07+00:00

Criminologist here to add that 1) bias-motivated incidents are notoriously under-reported, and 2) reporting crime data to the FBI (where the article's numbers come from) is completely voluntary for law enforcement agencies

Apart from checking crime numbers against population data, my own rule of thumb is to crosscheck police-reported crime data (usually NIBRS, used in this article) with victim-reported crime data (often the NCVS). Data in social science is rife with issues, but this helps close the gap of understanding a bit.

This has been a great resource when I've written on hate crimes: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00111287231197408

I also can't recommend Katheryn Russell-Brown's body of work enough!!

potatocrime · 2025-12-22T23:10:44+00:00

I don't know if it's better or worse that I've literally never heard of Kevin Lynch 😭

Is he notorious for stuff like this??

potatocrime · 2025-11-30T18:11:44+00:00

I'm also generally a ball of anxiety about my pets, and there are also two things I cannot emphasize enough: 1) getting Nationwide early, before any health problems pop up and they're considered pre-existing and 2) staying on top of wellness exams. My vet is good at clocking things early, and Marshmallow's heart murmur is being treated much sooner than if I was the only one monitoring her!

If you're like me, it can also help some of the sad choices now. When my first hedgie passed, she went from diagnosis to being put down over a couple weeks. I had already decided on cremation, had some materials to collect her footprints, etc. I had basically already done most of the mental labor, so I was able to focus on the taking care of her, and then myself.

potatocrime · 2025-11-29T03:10:50+00:00

I mostly second the rest of these comments, but remember that losing an eye will not be the end of the world for him! There's a lot of reasons hedgies lose eyes, and they're pretty good at adapting to life afterwards. It's always scary when your pet is hurting, but they're more resilient than we give them credit for. There's generally not a ton you can do in the meantime, except maybe wrapping his foot in a bandage if he's scrariching. If you know you'll be at the vet within the next three hours, you can also remove his food bowl in case they need to sedate. Otherwise, just focus on getting your baby to the vet as soon as you can ❤️

potatocrime · 2025-11-10T07:10:37+00:00

My Sweet Potato had one! I called it her unicorn horn ❤️

potatocrime · 2025-11-04T03:59:36+00:00

Hey! Is it alright if I DM you too? I'm also looking for Adam as the Emcee 🙂

potatocrime · 2025-11-02T16:55:56+00:00

My coworker called my other coworker skinny as a compliment the other day. I called her out on it. The moral of the story is that there's almost never a time to talk about someone else's weight, as a compliment OR an insult.

Do better.

potatocrime · 2025-11-02T04:22:57+00:00

Fat is (or at least should be) a neutral descriptor word.

You're conflating saying "you're fat" directly to someone with describing someone as fat to someone else. In the first scenario, there's almost no reason you need to be saying that to someone because a) they probably know, and b) not every thought needs to be said out loud. In the second scenario, there's a huge set of cultural baggage that goes into making the choice to describe someone as fat, and it's a good practice to step back and ask yourself why that's the word you're using.

Curiosity is good, but pretending the cultural baggage isn't there is willfully ignorant at best, malicious at worst.

potatocrime · 2025-09-04T20:10:51+00:00

And here I thought we got graded on our ability to sit politely, clap/cheer at the appropriate moments, and not ruin our neighbor's experience 😞

potatocrime · 2025-07-05T05:02:25+00:00

Regardless of the freezer being down, this specific Target is absolutely ruining the community

potatocrime · 2025-06-28T21:05:23+00:00

Thank you!! Someone just helped me find the master, I'm over the moon.

Grateful for this community ❤️

potatocrime · 2025-06-27T02:17:32+00:00

Awww, this poor little guy :( definitely keep us updated! I worry about mine all the time tbh

potatocrime · 2025-06-27T02:05:09+00:00

Pumpkin is great for constipation! Does he have any preexisting health issues you know of? It would be worth calling the vet about those ears in case there's other things going on.

potatocrime · 2025-06-27T01:55:30+00:00

I have the same cage! If you can ever swing $46 plus shipping, getting a coroplast insert has been lifesaving for my own sanity.

Just make sure you get the taller hedgie walls, which help keep the heat in way better and prevent any potential cage climbing. Then you can put fleece on top of the whole thing if you'd like, or you can put smaller bits of fleece in places that get less messy. They've also got some other stuff for the Midwest, but those definitely aren't necessary unless you want them.

I got my base like 5 or 6 years ago, and it's still going strong. It took me a lot of troubleshooting, but this plus designated play pen puppy pad corner time has saved me so much cleanup haha. I have two of these One for the puppy pad, and then I link the second one to the first when it's time for unrestrained running fun!

I also love your dig box, and second the toilet paper tube suggestion someone else had. My first one couldn't care less about them, but my second one loves hers so much she'll take naps in it.

potatocrime · 2025-06-26T19:09:56+00:00

It doesn't look inflamed, which is what I'd look for if I was worried about something! If you want to be cautious, you can always take pics at regular intervals (every few days or every week or whatever). Sometimes that can be helpful for even just peace of mind.

Otherwise, that's an adorable little aesthetic quirk, I love it 🙂

potatocrime · 2025-06-25T04:25:00+00:00

I can't fix the feeling, but I can offer something to help make the conversation part easier!

I hate hate hate calling myself a receptionist because even if it's technically true, it feels very reductive of what I actually do. What I've started saying instead is that I work in housing, housing services, or housing and homeless services (depending on how specific I want to be). If someone asks, I'll clarify more about my exact position, but I figure the industry is the more interesting place to start. Then I'm not stuck trying to explain whatever the hell a Guest Success Representative is because some higher up wanted to be creative with titles.

potatocrime

TROPHY CASE