Latest / ok storytime / My boss kept POLICING how often I pumped at work… so I plotted my escape! -r/BORUpdates | Reddit Stories | EP3058

Transcript

My boss kept POLICING how often I pumped at work… so I plotted my escape! -r/BORUpdates | Reddit Stories | EP3058 · ok storytime

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Angie.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And this is Riley, your favorite OK Storytime host. And
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: we got some great stories coming up.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: But before that, we have a quick two-minute break from
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: our sponsors that keep the show alive.
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: My boss kept releasing how often I pumped out work,
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: so I plotted my escape.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna pump when I pump and pump.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Currently, I pump and work at the same time from
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: my own office, usually three to four times per workday.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: My boss has made multiple comments insinuating that I pump
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: too frequently and that I should be grateful for my
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: ability to do so. My job is relatively flexible. I
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: work in sales.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I love my job.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: I'm consistently one of the top performers in our office,
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: and I'm not worried about being fired over this whatsoever.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Just pretty sick of the opinions. In the past, boss
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: has hinted at changing my pump schedule around to maximize productivity.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: I obliged. A male coworker and friend told me that
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: my boss asked if he thought I pumped too much,
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: to which he, my.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Friend, says.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: No.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Friend told me about this conversation and mentioned that our
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: boss spoke to a mutual friend who's a nurse and
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: childless and asked her how many times a day is
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: normal to pump. Her response was once, I'm not upset
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: with her, but I'm honestly sick of the comments from
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: my boss. There hasn't been a way to approach this
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: with them that's been effective. I'm honestly not sure how
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: to proceed. I like my job and love my coworkers,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: and I used to like my boss too. I'm feeling
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: super unsupported, and I know I'm a great employee. By
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: the way, this comes from Odd Toe. And if you
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: want to submit your own stories, go to the r
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: slash okay story time subreddit. I'm Sophia.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm Savannah.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: I'm Riley.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: And we're here to.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Give good advice goofily, but we don't have all all
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: the answers. We only know what we'd do.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So let us know what you would do in the comments.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: To add, we don't have an HR department. Too small.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Less than 10 employees small. I provided a decent amount
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: of context here, but I'm trying to keep things ambiguous
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: enough to stay anonymous. Feel free to ask questions if
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: more context is needed. Honestly, if you don't have any advice,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: but just want to offer words of encouragement, I'd appreciate
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: that as well. Hussafiffer says, I'm willing to bet he
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: asked at least one mom who pumped, and when the
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: answer was, oh yeah, that's totally normal, he moved on
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: to people who would be more likely to confirm his nonsense.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: OP says, I literally was circling back to this comment
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: to say this exact thing. He has a lactation consultant
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: as an immediate family member. If he was truly curious,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: that's who he should have asked. Extension Quail says, ding, ding, ding.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: That bit of information absolutely seals his motivation. And it's
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: not care for your needs or well-being. Sorry for that scum.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: LB says he hilariously starts every convo about it with,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: obviously you and the baby come first. But three years later, update.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Hello, everyone.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: I'm posting this update three years later. I had my
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: second baby girl eight months ago and realized I'm having
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: a much easier time at work than when I had
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: my first. I wanted to add some of the context
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: I was too afraid to include when I was worried
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: about it interfering with daily life at my job.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: If you like tea, I hope you have your cups ready.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: I went and got coffee. My ex-boss's mother is a
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: lactation consultant that supported me throughout my pregnancy.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: As she should, she's a lactation consultant.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: That's so interesting that she was like super connected to
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: you and her son was still questioning. She told me
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: that he breastfed until four years old.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: Wait.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: No shade to people who do this. There is no shade,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: but like.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: That is really funny that I remember we read a
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: story and like we learned, you know, some people do
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: like to do it for longer.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: But it is pretty hypocritical for him to be like,
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: it's a little strange that you're Cheating so much.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: It's not even like the baby's there. She's just pumping,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: which literally does not involve anyone. It's just her.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: She can do what she wants. And guess what? That
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: is what she's going to freaking do. But that knowledge
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: plus his.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Fixation on my pump schedule at the time made for
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: a much more uncomfortable working environment. Knowing that issue I
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: posted about was just a symptom of a larger issue,
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: which I'm sure is obvious if you read my last
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: post and my comments on it. Eventually, I realized it
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: and got fed up. I channeled my rage into literally
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: becoming the best and the most successful salesperson in his office.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I made myself as irreplaceable to his business that he owned.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: He directly profited off my success.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: As I could have with the intention to blindside the
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: F out of him when I put in my two weeks.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: My plan went swimmingly.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Screw this guy because he doesn't know.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: He doesn't know.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: He really doesn't. And also, it's kind of weird to
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: know that your boss was... feeding for four years yeah.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think i need to know that information yeah
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the story would have been the same but now that
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: i know but now that i know yeah pisses me.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: And like if you girls were like oh riley i
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: need to pump i'd be like great we have things
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: happening at this time knock it out before or after
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: but this time's like pretty important to the day but
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: i'll get i'll find.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: You time riley i need a pump then.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Okay show me the charts of how it will optimize
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: your child and how great those hours are and we
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: can talk Also.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Like your body kind of tells you.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you start leaking.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: It just starts happening and it's like, oh, my baby's hungry.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: My baby's hungry right now.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I gotta go.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Pump as much as you want, girl.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Pump to your heart's content. Your boss is your ex-boss
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: and his mom is your lactation consultant. So carry on,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: girly pop.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have done nothing wrong except take care of
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: your child and also do your job.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: When I put in my two weeks, he basically begged
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: me to stay. And he literally asked me what he
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: could offer that would make me consider staying. I laid
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: it out all on the line. I asked for one
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: and a half months of PTO, a hybrid work schedule,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: and a $ 15, 000 raise.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: And you deserve it. You deserve that, though. You probably
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: bring in way more than that.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: All more than the other job was offering, by the way,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: to which he obliged.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Whoa! Wait. Oh! Okay.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I told him I'd think about it over the weekend
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: and get back to him. I quit the following Monday morning.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. It felt good.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: The last two weeks of work were rough, but I
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: got through them knowing there was a light at the
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: end of the tunnel. Now I'm at a job that
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I love, where I'm respected and left the F alone
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: when I pump for baby number two. comments home rule
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: says mother effing queen obie says thank you minor setback
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: before the major comeback aha now that i have two
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: kids i struggle to imagine putting up with anything from
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: anyone that isn't blood related to me i was so
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: brainwashed and innocent back then and that's the end of
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: that story yeah why are we bang snaps yeah girl
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: protect your peace protect her she's like she said listen
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: now that i've had another child don't really want to
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: go through this again bye.
• 6:29
  Speaker 6: And that's the end of this story. We're going to
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: go to the next one.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: My coworker demanded me to be quiet while he eats
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and it's affecting my job.
• 6:38
  Speaker 7: What?
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Huh?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I need to talk about this because nobody in my
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: office will and I think I'm going insane. I work
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: at a tech company in Shenzhen. I'm not Chinese. I've
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: moved here for the job. I don't fully understand everything
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that happens in this office and I've accepted that. Sometimes
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: there are cultural things I just don't get and that's fine.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: This is not one of those things. I'm confident this
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: is not a cultural thing. I think this is just
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: one guy. There's a guy on my floor. I'll call
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: him Dale because his English name is Dale and I
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: don't care anymore. Dale started here in October. Seemed normal
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: at first. Quiet. Wore those slim fit dress pants everybody
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: wears here. Had a little desk plant. Fine. In November,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Dale started bringing fish for lunch. Not like from the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: canteen downstairs where they have an actual kitchen and like
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: eight options.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: His own fish. in a container.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: The microwave is not in a break room. The microwave
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: is on a little table in the open office right
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: between his desk and mine. We have a canteen. We
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: have a full canteen with real food made by real
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: cooks on the first floor. And this man brings tilapia
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: from home in a glass container and microwaves.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: It at his desk.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I can hear the turntable spinning. He stands next to
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: it and watches it rotate the entire time. Just stands
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: there looking at his fish spin. By the way, this
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: comes from OK Assistance 8735. And if you want to
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: submit your own stories, go to the r slash OK
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Storytime subreddit.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: I'm Savannah. I'm Sophia.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I'm Riley.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Hey!
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: And we're here to give some good advice goofily, but
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: we don't have all the answers. We only tell you
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: what we would do, but let us know what you
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: would do in the comments! The smell is unreal. I'm
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: not going to describe it because you already know. You
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: know exactly what microwave tilapia in a shared space smells like.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: It's that, but in Shenzhen.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: In the humidity. It lingers. I mentioned it to him
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: once in like November. My Mandarin is okay, not great,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: so I kept it simple. I said, hey Dale, do
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: you think maybe you could heat that up in the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: canteen kitchen? He looked confused. He said, but the microwave
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: is right here. I thought maybe I said it wrong,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: so I asked a colleague to translate just in case.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: She told him exactly what I said. He looked at
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: her and then back at me. and said in English, yes,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: but the microwave is right here. He understood me the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: first time. He just couldn't process why anyone would walk
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: downstairs when there's a microwave right here. It got worse
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: in December because he started bringing a side.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: This side is broccoli, also microwaved.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: So now we have fish and broccoli in a small
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: open office area. And I know Chinese offices. can sometimes
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: have strong lunch smells. I know that. But even the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: other Chinese colleagues were opening windows. This wasn't a culture gap.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: This was Dale. January is when things got weird. Dale
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: put a small sign on the microwave in Chinese that
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: said something about being courteous with shared appliances. I had
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to ask someone to read it for me. I thought,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: oh good, he's becoming self-aware. No, he put the sign
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: up because someone microwaves some kind of spicy hot pot
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: leftovers And he didn't like the smell.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: And then I put another sign up and say, Dale,
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: your fish is smelly. Go downstairs.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Dale didn't like the smell. The fish and broccoli guy
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: thought hot pot was too much. I stared at that
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: sign for maybe an hour. I couldn't read half of it,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: but I understood enough to know I was losing my mind.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Then in February, he started doing something I still don't
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: fully understand. He began eating at his desk with his
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: desk lamp off. Just sits in the distance. with his
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: tilapia and broccoli while the rest of us are working
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I asked a Chinese co-worker if this was a thing
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: she said no I asked another one he said no
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and also made a face so it's not a thing
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: it's a Dale thing I asked Dale about it and
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: he said he read on WeChat That eating in dim
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: light aids digestion. I didn't look it up. I don't
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: want to know if it's true because if it is,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: then this man is operating with information from a WeChat
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: article and I can't compete with that. Two weeks ago,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: he brought in a second container. I thought, oh God,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: what now?
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, it was rice.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Just plain rice. I was so relieved it was just
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: rice that I almost thanked him. I almost thanked a
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: man for only bringing rice. That's where I am now.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: My baseline has shifted so far that plain rice feels
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: like a gift. Oh, and I forgot to mention, he
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: eats with these metal chopsticks, not the disposable wooden ones
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: from the canteen, not even normal reusable ones. These heavy
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: metal chopsticks that scrape the glass container. It sounds like
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: a tiny forklift backing up every day for the full
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: duration of his lunch, which takes him about forever because
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: he chews each bite like.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: He's solving something. Well, he clearly cares about his digestion
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: because he's eating in dim light now.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: Can we just have this man in his own little
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: room while he eats?
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: Is that so much to ask for?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Last week is what made me write this post. I
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: was on a video call with our U.S.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Partner office.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Important call. I add my headset on. Dale walks over
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: to the microwave again, which again is right next to me,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and he taps me on the shoulder.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: I mute myself.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: He says in English because he knows I prefer it. Hey,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: do you mind keeping it down for a bit? I'm
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: about to eat. He asked me to keep it down
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: while he eats his fish in the dark at his desk.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: He asked me to be quieter for his.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Dining experience in the open office that we share.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: I said yes.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Dale, I'm on a call with the US team. He
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: nodded and said, yeah, that's kind of what I mean.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: The English is a lot. So my English is making
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: it hard for you to enjoy and eat your lunch? Whoa, what?
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: What's going on here with that?
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: You're so funny, Dale. My job, talking. In the language
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: he switched to to ask me. He wants me to
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: not do my job so he can eat microwave tilapia
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: in peace in the dark with his metal chopsticks. I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: went to my manager about it. He said, Dale is
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a little different, but his code is very clean. What
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: does that even mean at all?
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: What code?
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: His code?
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: His code? His moral code? Like what?
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: His code?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: His code?
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: His, what is it? The lines and the dots? The telegraph?
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: What is that? Why can't I think of it?
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: The one Morse code?
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Your Morse code? I said, that's great, but the fish.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: He said, have you tried talking to him about it?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I said, yes, in two languages. He said, maybe try again. Yesterday,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: he put up a new sign. Ah. It says something
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: about a quiet lunch zone from 12 to 1. He
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: laminated it. He went somewhere in this building and found
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: a laminator and laminated a sign declaring a quiet lunch
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: zone around the microwave he has colonized.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: For his daily fish ritual.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: There was no vote. There was no group chat announcement.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Dale just decided this.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Is a quiet lunch zone now.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Sure, why not? And I'm going to declare it's Dale
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: goes to jail day.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Every day for the rest of his life.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: It's so funny because we're not in the lunch zone.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: We're in the office. The lunch stone's in the other room,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: in the cantina. The sign has a little clip art
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of a fish on it with chopsticks. I know it's
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: not ironic. I know there is not a single ironic
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: bone in this man. He just thought a fish with
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: chopsticks was appropriate for a lunch sign. I asked three
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: different co-workers if this was normal. All three said no.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: One of them laughed so hard she had to go
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to the stairwell. One just said, that's just Dale. Like
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: that explains anything.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Stop letting him get away with it.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: The third one showed me that she eats lunch at
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: a mall across the street now specifically because of Dale.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: She's been doing this since December. She didn't even tell me.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I could have been going with her this whole time.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I just found out he's up for a promotion.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: A promotion for what? A new microwave? Oh, no.
• 14:19
  Speaker 8: Wait, wait, wait.
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: This might be good. This might be good because if
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: he gets a promotion, he has his own office.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: He can eat in there.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: True, wait, but read the next sentence.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: My manager said he's a good culture fit. I've been
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: eating lunch at a noodle shop down the street since
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: January and my jacket smells like tilapia, so maybe he's right.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: The culture now.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: Maybe?
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: I'm the problem.
• 14:42
  Speaker 7: Maybe I should just.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Turn off my desk lamp and accept it. I moved
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to the other side of the world for this job
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and somehow my biggest problem is the same one people
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: have in every office on earth.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Fish guy.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Fish guy is universal. Fish guy transcends borders and languages.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: This desk plant is thriving, by the way. Probably the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: broccoli steam.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Update.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: If you saw my last post, you already know about Dale.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Dale got the promotion. Of course he did. My manager
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: announced it during morning stand-up and everyone clapped and Dale
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: did this single nod. Didn't smile, didn't say thanks, just
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: one slow nod like a general accepting battlefield command. I've
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: never seen someone absorb applause like that. He just let
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: it wash over him and then sat back down and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: opened his fish container because it was 1158 and nothing,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: not even career advancement delays the fish. His new desk
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: is three spots closer to me.
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: No!
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: No!
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Opie, I thought it was right next to you. How
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: can it be three spots closer? No!
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: There were open desks by the window.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But by the door, by the elevator. He picked the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: one nearest to the microwave, which is also nearest to me.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: I think in his mind, the fish has bonded us.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: We are not bonded.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: I am a hostage.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: The day after the promotion, he brought a new container.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: My actual heart rate went up.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: It was soup.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: Fish soup!
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: No!
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Is that more smelly or Smelly.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: More.
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: There's a broth to it.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, it's true. Broth is pretty scenty.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: No, he didn't.
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: No, he didn't.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: And also, microwave's going to have to take longer now.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: Takes way longer.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: It's going to be hotter.
• 16:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: It's going to stay hotter for a longer time.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: It goes smell forever.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: So now, the daily lineup is tilapia, broccoli, rice, and
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a soup that smells like the ocean floor during a crisis.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: The whole floor got hit. Our office manager sent a
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: message in the company WeChat saying, saying, does anyone smell something.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Burning on four?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And Dale responded with, uh, no, that's my lunch, with
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a thumbs up emoji. Not embarrassed, not apologetic, a thumbs up.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: This man just got promoted, and his first act of
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: leadership was to proudly claim a smell that HR should
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: be investigating. I went to my manager about it, again.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: He said, yeah, I get it, but Dale's output is
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: really strong. His output?
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: What do you mean his output? His fish output?
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: His smell output.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Like, I don't care what his output is. Just tell
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: him that he can't eat in there, please.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: He didn't laugh. He said, maybe bring it up in
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: your next one-on-one with Dale. My next one-on-one with Dale?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Dale is not my manager. Dale is my problem. But
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: apparently their promotion means Dale now does peer check-ins with
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: people on the floor. So yes, I have a one-on-one opportunity.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: With the fish man now. That's where my career is at.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: But the thing that actually broke me is the fridge.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Dale brought a mini fridge. Personal, unauthorized, just showed up
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: on a Monday humming under his desk. It has a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: sticker on it. A cartoon fish.
• 17:53
  Speaker 7: Stop!
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: Enough's enough!
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Opie's gonna have a breakdown.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: I'm not doing this anymore!
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Opie's gonna have a full-on breakdown. And right next to it,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: he stuck one of those happy, cappy, capybara stickers we
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: got at the company retreat. So now there's a happy
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: capybara and a happy fish on Dale's unauthorized fridge, like
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: they're best friends.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Like they're in this together.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Every time I look at it, I feel like they're
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: both judging me for not accepting Dale's lifestyle. I asked
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: my manager about the fridge and he said, Dale mentioned
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: wanting to keep his ingredients fresh. I think it's fine. Ingredients?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: He's calling it ingredients now? It's not lunch anymore.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: It has ingredients. The desk is a prep station.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Dale is running a restaurant out of a cubicle and
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: management is fine with it because his code is clean.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: His code's clean!
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: His code's clean!
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: OP comes in again and the manager's like, how many
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: more times do I have to say this? This code
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: is clean.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Okay?
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: If you come in here... One more time, talk about
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Dale Smiley Fish. I'm gonna have to fire you.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, and remember the coworker who'd been eating lunch at
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the mall across the street since December? She quit last week.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Not directly because of Dale. I think she got a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: better offer somewhere. But on her last day, she stopped
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: at my desk and whispered, But.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: You still can.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I laughed.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: She didn't laugh.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: She just looked at me like I was the one
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: person she couldn't save and then walked to the elevator.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I think about that a lot. Now here's why I'm
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: writing this. Yesterday in the elevator, just Dale and I.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Quiet.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: He turns to me and goes, Hey, do you like seafood?
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: I said, I guess.
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: Why?
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: He said, no reason.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Just planning something for the floor.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: For the floor? Planning something for the floor? I said,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: what do you mean? Planning what? He just smiled and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: walked out and did the wave without looking back. The
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: man dropped just planning something and left like a villain
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: in a movie. Except this villain has a mini fridge
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and a laminator and I don't think he's joking.
• 19:50
  Speaker 7: Something involving Dale, seafood, and his understanding of what's appropriate
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: for a shared workspace, which as we've established is wildly
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: different from everyone else's.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: This man laminated a sign. He brought a fridge. he
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: earned a promotion microwaving fish. Whatever he's planning, he will
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: execute it with absolute certainty and zero pushback from management
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: because his code is clean. And apparently that's all that matters.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: His dust plant has a second pot now. He's expanding
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: on every front.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: I really don't think the pots are the issue here, OP.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: I think we're focusing on too many things and we
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: need to focus on one issue so that we could
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: really execute... the plan and stop him from fishy behavior.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: We'll update when I find out what the seafood plan is.
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: Pray for me.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Update two. The seafood event happened. Also, we moved offices.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Also, Dale brought his fridge. The seafood thing happened. I
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: need to start there because the last post ended on
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: he's planning something for the floor. And I know some
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of you said to claim an allergy in the elevator
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and I want to be clear. I had the window.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I did not And the seafood thing happened. And I
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was present for the entire thing. And I need you
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to know this before I get to the other stuff.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: You can't be mad because he said, hey, do you
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: like seafood? You had the opportunity to say, no, I
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: hate seafood. Never bring that around me. I hate it.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Thursday night, WeChat message.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: Whole floor.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Seafood hot pot tomorrow.
• 21:22
  Speaker 7: Bring.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Appetite.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: He attached a photo. Not a link to a place,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: not a shared order. A photo of a hot pot,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: from what I can only assume is his own phone.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Just a pot, on a Thursday night, no other context.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Management had apparently approved it. I don't know when he
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: asked or how he framed it, but by Friday morning,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: there was a portable hot pot on a table in
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the middle of our floor, and Dale was unboxing seafood
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: from bags he'd carried in from home.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I'm on gutter the width side. This is actually really sweet.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I stood there longer than was professional just watching this.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: He had shrimp. Things I recognized. Things I genuinely didn't.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: At one point, he added something that made the person
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: next to me go completely still in the way people
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: go still when they are privately reconsidering their life choices.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Dale gave a short speech. My colleague translated the part
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: that mattered. He said sharing a meal was the foundation
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of team trust. He said this while stirring a hot
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: pot he had personally transported on a Friday morning. Nobody clapped.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Everyone ate. The smell lasted through the weekend and someone
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: filed something with HR and HR said it was a
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: team event, so nothing happened. Anyway, our company got funded.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Happy Cappy made it into some tech news, which was
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: exciting for maybe a week. And then our CEO announced
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: we were moving. Scaling up. New floor and a WeWork
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: in Shenzhen. Proper branded setup. Real kitchen.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: The whole thing.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: They put Capybara stuff everywhere at the all hands.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: Mugs.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Wall prints.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Stickers.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I took a couple because honestly, the Capybara is kind
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of cute. I don't know, it grows on you. Dale
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: took the whole sheet of stickers. I was standing next
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: to him. He picked up a full sheet, put it
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: in his bag, made eye contact with no one. I
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: watched this happen and said nothing. I have no idea
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: what he needs that many Capybara stickers for. I decided
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: not to think about it. The new office is legitimately nice.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Open floor, glass meeting rooms along one wall. Proper kitchen
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: with ventilation.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: I was optimistic.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Thought maybe a fresh start, new space. He'd use the kitchen, whatever.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: That lasted about a week. By the end of the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: first week, Dale had claimed the meeting room. He didn't
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: do it officially. He just started booking the same room
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: every day, 12 to 1. Calendar subject line. L, just
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the letter. I asked our office manager what it stood for.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: She said lunch.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Just lunch.
• 23:40
  Speaker 7: Daily.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: The whole room.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: He sits in there alone. The walls are glass so
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: you can see directly in. And I walked past one
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: afternoon and he was in there. Lamp off. Container open.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Metal chopsticks.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: No sound. Just stale. In a glass box. In a WeWork.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I stopped for a second because sometimes you need a
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: moment to confirm that what you're looking at is real
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and not something your brain has constructed. The WeWork community
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: team noticed the smell after a week and sent an
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: email to our office manager asking about food preparation concerns
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: on the floor. She forwarded it to the CEO. He
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: forwarded it back to her.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Nothing happened.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Dale put a laminated sign on the meeting room door.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: New one.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: He must have found a laminator in the building.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Same text, though.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Quiet lunch zone, 12 to 1. Please respect. We work
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: staff took it down. Next morning, a new one was up.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: They took that one down, too. Third one appeared. I
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: think after three attempts, everyone just gave up because the
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: sign has been on that door for two weeks now. Oh,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and I should mention the fridge came. Dale's unauthorized personal
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: mini fridge made the move. The moving company packed it.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Someone put a company asset tag on it because they
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: assumed it was office equipment. It is now technically a
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Happy Cappy company asset. The Cappy Bar sticker and the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Smiling Fish sticker are still on it. It's under Dale's
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: new desk. His plants came too. Three pots!
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's not just one or two, it's three! I
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: think Dale's trying to start his own like off the
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: grid kind of farm situation.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know what he's been giving them, but they
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: are doing incredible. Best looking desk plants I've seen in
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: any office. Thriving, expanding on every front as always.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: There was this research done that bears actually help contribute
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: to trees in Northern America.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: This is true.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Because what they do is they eat salmon and they
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: leave the salmon bones next to the trees and then
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: it fertilizes the trees.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Great method for taking your plants. New person joined last month.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Desk closest to the glass meeting room. First day she
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: came over to me around 2 p.m.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Stood there for a second. and said, is that guy okay?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what to say. I said his coat
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: is very clean. She came in with noise-canceling headphones on
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: day two. I've had mine since February. We don't talk
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: about it. We're just both wearing them by noon. I
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: think I've stopped fighting it, to be honest. Dale is
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: weather at this point. You don't argue with weather, you
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: dress for it. The forecast at this office is fish.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Has been since November. You bring a headset. We'll update
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: when something happens. Something always happens. Notable comment that I
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: can agree with. I'm sorry you're living this, but it's
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: my favorite read. Keep up the series.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: It's raining fish. It's raining fish.
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: And that's the end of this story. We're going to
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: go to the next one.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: My fiance's cousin tried to crash our wedding right after
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: having her own same-day wedding.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: So she tried to double crash your wedding.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: My fiance, Nicole, and I had chosen our wedding date,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: booked the venue, and notified the immediate members of the
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: family of the date.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And the pending save the date mailings, Nicole's cousin.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Amber found out that we had announced the date and
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: called Nicole upset that we had booked a wedding on
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: her wedding day. We were confused because Amber and her
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: boyfriend weren't even engaged.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: What?
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: But she and her boyfriend claimed that they knew that
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: was the date they were getting married.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: You can't just call dibs on a day.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: We knew we had a prophetic dream.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: The Lord told us that we had to get married
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: on this day or else.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: Part of the prophecy. What, did you want Greece to
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: sink into the Mediterranean?
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: They did. They were going to do a courthouse wedding
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: with their families, then wanted to come to our wedding.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: I told everyone I wasn't comfortable with that because Amber's
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: side of the family are completely self-centered. And I didn't
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: want them trying to take over our wedding or reception. Oh,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: they so would. They just use your reception that you
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: paid for as their reception.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: She's like, I thought it was in the giving spirit.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: I thought you guys were kind.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I guess you never learned about sharing.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: I guess you guys freaking got stuck in kindergarten.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: I stood my ground and told Amber and her boyfriend
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: that if they got married on our wedding day, they
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: would not be welcome. And I'd let the planner and
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: venue staff know that they would be turned away. And
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: I'd be willing to hire extra staff to make sure
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: they were refused entry.
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: Oh my gosh.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: It's serious.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: I hired a sumo wrestler.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: It's actually just a sphinx.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: I created a sphinx using dark, mysterious powers.
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: Mm-hmm.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: And it will not let you pass unless you solve
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: its riddles.
• 28:18
  Speaker 7: Three.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Three of them. We also found out that the boyfriend
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: lost his job, which just cements my thoughts that they're
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: trying to get a free reception out of me and
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: my fiance.
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: Why don't we get a posse together? Round him up
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: and go find that missing job.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: He lost it.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Where is it?
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: We're not doing enough posse stuff.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: There's not enough posses in the stage. Let's get more.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Posses out there. By the way, this comes from Irishly Rucked.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: And if you want to submit your own stories, go
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: to the r slash OK Storytime. Separate it. I'm Sophia.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: I'm Dakota.
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: I'm Riley.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: And we're here to get good advice goofily, but we
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: don't know everything. All we know is that Chaos Kitten
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: donated $ 500. And if you know anything more than that,
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: please let us know in the chat. Nicole is upset
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: with me because they're family. But I'm just tired of
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Amber and her boyfriend trying to make every situation about themselves. Now,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: including our wedding. So am I the a-hole and edit? No,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: we're not getting married on Halloween.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: Because it's in October.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Oh, I thought we were just kind of saying things.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: Getting married on October 32nd.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: Edit two, my fiance doesn't want to share the wedding
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: or reception for those assuming she wants to. She doesn't
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: want to deal with the familial fight that will break
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: out between her side of the family and Amber's side
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: of the family. Her parents are paying half, I'm paying
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: a fourth, and my parents are paying a fourth. We're
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: not getting married on a weekday. I like that if
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: he's getting us clues to what day this is. He's like,
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: it's not on Halloween.
• 29:46
  Speaker 7: Whatever.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: It's not on a weekday.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: It's October. What's going on?
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: The city Amber lives in has Saturday hours for the
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: JP courts for weddings. Okay. There's an update. But do
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: you have any thoughts on what OP should do? How
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: do we confront Amber? Evil Amber. And her posse.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: You should spit.
• 30:05
  Speaker 7: Spin?
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: You should spit in her face.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Oh, I thought you said spin.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: You should pour an entire case, an entire cask of
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: Amontillago on her wedding dress.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: He got left at the altar. You know, I heard that.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Oh, wait, no, that's, I'm thinking of, um, what's his face?
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, you're not. No, no, you're not.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: I'm not?
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: That's the right story.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: I'm right?
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: The one where he got left at the altar? No,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: what's your favorite book, Riley?
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: My favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Count of Monte Cristo. Oh, he makes great sandwiches. He
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: got left at the altar. The cask of Amontillado got
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: stuck in some bricks.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Well, he wasn't able to make it to the altar
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: because he got falsely accused.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: They're actually in the same universe.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: There were too many people waiting in line for his sandwiches.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: He did also lose his job, too.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I can't keep track. Classic lit.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: What would I actually do? I would ignore these people.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: I would just ignore it and move on. Move forward.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Amber comes to you. She says, I want a giant wedding.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: And you go, five fingers to the face. Five fingers.
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: You do that.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: You go, you go, you go. Was that, did the
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: wind just sound like a woman? Was that a woman
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: on the wind?
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Update. Well, everyone, a lot has happened in the last
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: few weeks. Nicole's cousins and fiancé have announced their wedding
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: date two weeks after ours. Seems like problem solved. It
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: came down to a comment I made in front of
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: Nicole's twin sister, Brittany. Amber had announced their engagement and
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: said they were getting married in October, but no specific date.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: The three of us were chatting about things when Brittany
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: brought up the announcement and mentioned how it seemed they
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: were trying to steal the spotlight again. And I muttered
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: about them even stealing the wedding day. Opie's off in
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the corner like, mutter, mutter. Nicole had said she talked
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: to Brittany about it, and she had, but didn't tell
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: her they were doing it on the same day. Brittany
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: lost her mind about it. She three-way called Amber and
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Amber's mom and read them the riot act. It was
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: both glorious and extremely uncomfortable to listen to. There is
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: a lot of stuff between those parts of the families.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Brittany told them they had a week to figure out
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: when in October they were getting married other than our
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: wedding day, or she would tell everyone in the family
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: what they were trying to do.
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: What?
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: Amber's mom tried to downplay it all, but Brittany wasn't
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: having any of it. Even though she's about five minutes
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: older than Nicole, she was acting like she was a
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: much older protective sister. It was a long phone call,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: but in the end, they figured the.
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: Jig was up.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: You got them.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: Oh, the jig.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: A few days later, they announced the date, but since
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Amber's fiance lost his job and their families can't afford
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: a traditional wedding, they're only inviting a small portion of
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: their original guest list and having a Zoom wedding.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Oof.
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: Oh, that's really rough.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: That is tough. Luckily, we don't get back from our
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: honeymoon until the day after their wedding. Aw, shucks. And
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: that's the end of the amendo.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: What?
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: That's the end of the story. That's the amendo of
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: the end of the stendo.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I think I was going to say message.
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: You never say that.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: Into this message.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: That is the end of our message.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: Leave a message at the beep.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: Leave a beep at the end of the message.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: That's the end of the Mendo.
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: Hey, this is Riley, the new Californian here. We're going
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: to get back to these stories, but here's three minutes
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: of ads from our sponsors.
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: I gave my baby a lemon for a fun video,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: and my mother called me out.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: That's actually hilarious.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: And this does come directly from the subreddit, and there
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: are mentions of Caboose, spelled with an A.
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: Huh?
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: Mentions of the A-B-U-S-E. Caboose?
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I don't like this marker. I need a different one
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: before we start.
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: Well, I... No!
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: 30... No!
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: Female.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Wait! And Craig, my partner, 27 male.
• 34:01
  Speaker 7: Wait!
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Have a son.
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: Nine months, Jack.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: 30, female.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Craig, 27, male. And nine months, son, Jack.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: Nine months. I was trying to see if you could
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: remember it all. I didn't realize it was still up
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: on the screen.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I memorized that.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: I wasn't looking at the screen. A little bit of
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: backstory is that my partner and I found each other
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: when I was seven or eight months pregnant. Time is
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: a bit elusive as the baby wasn't dated correctly and
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: was a surprise baby. with Jack's bio father informed of
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: my pregnancy at about two or three months in, and
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: him opting to decide it's not his and have no involvement.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: All that is fine by me, and I am very
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: lucky to have such a kind and caring soul in
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: Craig to be my support. Craig and I have lived
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: together since Jack arrived, first at my parents' house for
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: a month until we were able to find a rental.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: Everything with our relationship has been amazing. I am very
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: close with both mine and Craig's family. and they love
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: having Jack in their life. In mine, Craig's, and the
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: eyes of his family, Jack is his son, with or
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: without the DNA. Skip forward to Jack being eight months old.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: We introduced solid foods when he was ready and wanting,
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: and we now have dinner together as a beautiful family
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: of three. Sometimes we let him dry bits of our
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: food for exploration. We were having fish one night, Freshly
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: caught snook. Yum. We live in the seafood capital of Australia,
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: so fishing is a common hobby for us and many others.
• 35:42
  Speaker 6: Jealous.
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: Snook?
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: I'll get, yeah, it just looks like snooki. A little snook.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I love her. I just watched her like three seconds ago.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. I hooked a snook. Wait, I really
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: want to know what a snook looks like. Is it
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: on the hook? A common phrase in Australia.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Can you show us what a snook looks like?
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you'll get it after we do this. I want
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: to take a look at this snook.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I just am not going to get it in my
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: mind if I don't see a snook right now.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: OP continues. By the way, it's normal with fish. We
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: have lemon wedges as is normal with the fish. We
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: have lemon wedges, by the way. Yes. Comes from AccomplishedFig4499.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: If you want to submit your own stories, go to
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: the r slash ok story time subreddit where this story
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: was submitted.
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: I'm Dakota.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I'm Savannah.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: I'm Keon. We're going to read this story. You're going
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: to listen to it. We're going to have things to say,
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: and you're going to have things to say too, but
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: you can't say them out loud. You got to put
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: them in the comments where we can read them. Opie says,
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: Jack has tried lemon two or three times before with
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: no issues, just little tastes. This night, Craig thought it
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: would be cute to capture the moment he tries lemon
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: on video, as you see on many social medias. Jack
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: tries it a few times on this single occasion, doesn't
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: mind it, and goes in for a big bite. The
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: juice hits him. His face goes red, and he makes
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: a sour face response. He doesn't cry, but I take
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: it away from him, despite him reaching for more. He's
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: not in pain. He's just got lemon mouth.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: All this is visible on the video that Craig filmed.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: We continued dinner as normal afterwards. I thought this was funny.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: I thought this was adorable. I sent it in the
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: group chat made for sharing Jack's moments with myself, Craig,
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: Craig's mom, and my mom and grandma. My grandma responds
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: with a thoughtful message along the lines of, it's great
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: that he's exploring the idea that not all foods are palatable.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: I also send the video to some friends who think
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: it's hilarious and adorable. Cut to the next day. I
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: talk to my mom as I do almost every day
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: and she goes off on me. She says how she
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: cannot believe that we did that just for our entertainment
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: and how Jack trusts us. And we betrayed that by
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: doing something purely for our own amusement, which isn't 100% true.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: Maybe like 50% amusement, if I'm being honest. This is dumb.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: This is very dumb. She says how she knows that
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: Craig enjoys raw lemons and eats them as is. But
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: Jack is not his biological son and doesn't have his DNA.
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: And we shouldn't have subjected him to such treatment. She
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: actually called it child abuse. endangerment and said how it
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: made her cry oh oh no.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Well you know i don't i don't think it's like
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: it's basically trying a new food i mean.
• 38:18
  Speaker 8: I don't know who hasn't done this who hasn't like
• 38:22
  Speaker 8: i've who hasn't given baby like a lemon to be
• 38:23
  Speaker 8: like oh they're gonna do that little face.
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah and then it's not like op was like no
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: baby you're gonna eat a whole lemon you're gonna keep
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: eating this lemon We.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Gave my nephew a lemon one time when he was like,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like I think over a year, like
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: a year and a half maybe or something.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: And we gave it to him.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: He ate the whole thing.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: No face, no nothing. I was like, you're a freak.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: So we discovered something.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: What was your genuine response to mom be here? I
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: think I would just send her like a funny picture
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: of someone just looking like.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:55
  Speaker 8: What?
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: The Westbrook. What?
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: What?
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about, Willis?
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: What?
• 39:00
  Speaker 7: What?
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: I don't know.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: She's acting like you put a helmet on this kid,
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: put it in trousers, and sent it over the trenches
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: in the First World War. Yeah.
• 39:07
  Speaker 8: Aww.
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: I don't know.
• 39:08
  Speaker 8: I would just say when life gives you lemons, you
• 39:10
  Speaker 8: give it to a baby.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: Craig overheard her saying that he's not Jack's real father,
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: and it hurt him quite a lot. The topic of
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: lemons in my family has now become a bitter topic. Sour?
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Nope. She missed that completely.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: Complete airball.
• 39:26
  Speaker 8: And you're one of us, Opie.
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: The rind is sour.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, bitter.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: Shut up. My mom won't seem to get over this.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Still thinking it is child endangerment. She said that she
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: did eventually apologize that Craig heard her say that, but
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: she didn't apologize for actually saying it. Majority of our
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: friends and family think it was harmless and expressed they
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: had done similar things to their children purely for amusement.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, like grandma said, it's like you're just teaching
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: the kid, well, sometimes things taste bad. I believe a
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: child is inclined to grow and develop more out of
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: nurture over nature, but it can be a mix. I
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: accept and agree with Craig that I shouldn't have sent
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: the video to my mom as she can be quite dramatic,
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: but I don't think it's child mistreatment, nor was it
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: fair to call out Craig's lack of paternal DNA. So,
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: Reddit and the people of OK Storytime and the a-hole
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: for giving my eight-month-old son a lemon after he's tried
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: them before. Did I mistreat my child? And that is
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: the end of that story. Um.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I'd have to say no. Not at all.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: You're 100% in the clear. Yeah.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Like, they're gonna... It's basically... like eating a food that
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you don't like or just trying it yeah just trying
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: a food and you know it's like but even he
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: reached for it after he's like ooh I don't wait
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: but he's.
• 40:43
  Speaker 8: Like yeah exactly he's still curious he's like hmm hmm
• 40:47
  Speaker 8: nah hmm.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: It's it's it's a different story your mom's acting like
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: you strapped baby down and waterboarded it with lemons not
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: what happened I don't think that's ever happened in the
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: history of anything there's.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: My snook.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I drew my snook. Look at her.
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: But congratulations on your snook fishing. It kind of looks
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: like a rabbit standing up in a dress.
• 41:19
  Speaker 8: I don't know. If my mom did that, if I
• 41:21
  Speaker 8: had a kid, I'd be like, that's just empty noise.
• 41:23
  Speaker 8: I'm pretty sure like you did worse to me as
• 41:25
  Speaker 8: a child.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: Like I wouldn't even engage in this. I just let
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: it go. And if she brings it up again, you'd
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: be like, mom, you're, you're actually, you're embarrassing yourself. Thank you.
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: I love you.
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: That's the end of that. I protected my father's relationship
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: from my sister, but he turned against me. Oh, good to... Hi.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: I said something meaning well, but even my dad, whom
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: I said it for, thinks I went too far.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: What?
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: So, I'd like to have an unbiased opinion. My mom
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: passed away almost five years ago. I was 24 at
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: the time. My sister was 17. She's always been treated
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: as the baby of the family by all of us,
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: and she did take our mom's passing very hard. According
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: to my dad, she'd have night terrors and he would
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: go downstairs to get her water. She stayed with him
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: for the first year of college before moving out. A
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: couple of years ago, my dad started dating someone. And
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: when he told us, my sister went ballistic, full on sobbing,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: begging him not to. The strain of that led to
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: him breaking it off. Same story repeated once more after that.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: My dad told me she was young and still coming
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: to terms with it, so he wouldn't take anything too far.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: Since last year, he's been dating another woman who has
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: two young boys of her own. My dad seems to
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: really enjoy her company. We've met her a few times,
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: and honestly, I love my dad and want him to
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: be happy. He's a great guy, and she seems to
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: make him happy. So when he told us he wanted
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: to have us all spend Christmas together, my sister again
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: had an argument and said that Christmas with him was
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: supposed to be her safe space. We had memories of
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: us as a family with Mom and asked him to
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: hold off. He said yes, and I knew he would because,
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: of course, he wasn't going to risk her not coming.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: And by the way, this comes from GrouchyJacket5570. If you
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: want to submit your own stories, go to the r
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: slash ok story time subreddit. I'm Dakota.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: I'm Sophia.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: I'm Riley.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: And we are here to read this story, and we
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: are going to have our thoughts, and you are going
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: to have yours. We're going to talk to you right now.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: Maybe give a little advice. And you can tell us
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: what you think in the comments below. And Opie says, Meanwhile,
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: when talking to me, my sister has been asking me
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: repeatedly if I think Dad is going to marry this woman.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: I said, I don't know. But if he wants to,
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: then I hope he does.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: Last weekend on the family group chat, my sister talked
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: about moving stuff back to his place. And that's when
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: I learned that she was planning on moving back after
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: she graduates in May. And my dad had agreed.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay. Seems cool. Seems chill. Everyone's on the same
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: page about this. Maybe.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: I was so annoyed.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: Okay, not on the same page.
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: She is pulling the same thing. This is clearly an
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: attempt to monopolize his attention and not let his relationship
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: with his girlfriend proceed further. I said as much in
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: the group chat. She said she just wants to move
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: back to be with dad and in the house where
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: we have mom's memories. At this point, I told her
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: to stop weaponizing our mom's passing and pretending like she
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: was the only one affected and that the rest of
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: us loved her less just because we want to look
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: past the grief that she was being manipulative and moving
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: back when she had no plans prior to learning about
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: his girlfriend. My dad kept texting me to shut up.
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: My sister left the group chat. She sent me a
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: long text, essentially calling me an a-hole and that her
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: relationship with dad is her own. My dad says I
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: crossed a line and should make up with her. Am
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: I the a-hole? Him taking her side is what's hurting
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: me the most. And there is an update.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: So you asked for the unbiased posse.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: The emboss.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: The embossy? The embossies.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Embosser.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: And that's us, and I gotta give it to ya.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: I think you're a little the a-hole.
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: Ooh.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:12
  Speaker 7: I agree.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: Oh!
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: And Riley, what say you?
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: I feel like your dad has his own relationship and agreed.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: So it's not really any of your beeswax.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: I think you had like space to say something. Cause
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: I think you're right. I think, I think that is
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: part of it, but I think it needed to be
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: less of like a dude, you suck. And more of
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: like a, Hey, you can't stay stuck in the same
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: place you were five years ago forever.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: And also maybe not having that conversation in the group chat.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, in the group chat feels pretty aggro.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, dad's just like, shut up, shut up, stop, stop.
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: Stop, please.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Stop fighting.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: Please stop, please, please, please, no. No, God, no, please.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: I think you could have done it nicely, but maybe
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: listen to your dad and apologize.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Update.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: I spoke to my dad this morning and brought up
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: that my sister is still in grief and it would
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: be kind to her if we suggested therapy. My dad
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: seemed on the fence about it, which is crazy.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: Crazy, and also a way better way to approach this.
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said I should go ahead
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: and suggest it to her if I want, but he's
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: concerned if he says it, she'll feel attacked and think
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: she's a problem, as per him. So I don't know.
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: I don't know how receptive my sister would be at
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: this moment to what I say after what happened. I'll see.
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: I'll try talking to her when she's more receptive. Also,
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: I appreciate the comments saying the lecture I gave should
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: have come from my dad and not me. My dad
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: once drove two hours at night to give her a
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: portable heater because the thermostat in her apartment was acting out.
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: and he couldn't have her wait until morning for maintenance.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: The lecture wouldn't have come from him, which is why
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: I said it. That's such a weird example to use
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: as why he wouldn't lecture his grieving daughter.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, that makes no sense. That's not comparable at all.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: My daughter was cold and freezing because her apartment was
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: not working properly, and so I, as a parent, wanted
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: to help her.
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: What?
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Why is that the comparison?
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: But it does feel like it wouldn't ever come from
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: dad because he's like, ooh, it'll, she'll feel, mm. Yeah,
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: this is just, there's no way that this has happened
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: for five years and the thought of therapy has just
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: been like a, I mean, I don't know.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: It probably has been suggested and then just pushed off
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: by the sister. Like, I don't want therapy.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Ew.
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: Comments from Dr. Character. Downvoted, by the way. You're the a-hole.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: Attacking her like this, no matter how warranted the attack is,
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: is in the family group chat for everyone to see.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: That's really a-holy. Oh, you should have talked to her
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: privately to try and talk some sense into her. OP says,
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: I just wanted to clarify it was an immediate family
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: group chat. Just the three of us, not an extended
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: family one. Gunpowder Lullaby says, everyone sucks here. This was
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: also downvoted. You and your sister both need therapy. Her
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: for grief and you for your thinly veiled jealousy slash
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: anger at your sister. thinly veiled jealousy what if.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: It's jealousy i think frustration.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: She's really like dude i just whatever i want my
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: dad to still have a life and she's preventing him
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: from doing that because she's like she can't process that
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: he's moving forward yeah and i don't know anyway op
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: says i just want to say i am not jealous
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: of her if it came across that way she's my
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: baby sister i love her to bits Little bits and
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: little pieces. I just think she's in the wrong here
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: and has been for a while, which is why I
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: said it. Consensus is not the a-hole. There's an update
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: after four months and 12 days. Oh, gee.
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: That's a ton of think on it.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: Really hope they go to therapy. I think that's definitely
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: what your sister needs. And maybe dad also needs therapy
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: if he hasn't gone. And maybe you need therapy just
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: to throw it in there and you can get the
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: family deal.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think a group family therapy... Probably would help.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: The best move.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: If I had to assess, which I do, that I'd
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: be like, go to get all three of you in
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: a room and talk to somebody.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Triple therapy. Agreed.
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: Agreed.
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: That would help. You might get a discount for it, too.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: Three for one.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Update.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: Hi.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: I thought I'd give an update since I'd taken some
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: advice from Reddit last time. I saw my sister the
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: next time when she was home for her spring break
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: and I had also gone to visit. She had already
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: moved some of her stuff back then. We had gone
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: out to eat with dad, but when we were back
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: and alone, I asked how it had gone when my
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: dad's girlfriend visited. She said she was over once and like,
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: and that was that. I had asked how my dad's
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: girlfriend felt about her planning on moving back. She said
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: it didn't come up and basically said she was moving
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: back to her house. Why would his girlfriend care? Which
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: to me seemed crazy. Okay, now you're... Stop it. You're
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: not dating your father. Why are you pretending to know
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: what his girlfriend thinks about anything?
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I think that is the relationship. It
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: is good that you care. And I think that keep
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: talking to your dad. But don't assume that, you know,
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: dad and his girlfriend haven't had that discussion already.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: Of course, she would have some thoughts about that. She
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: spends time here and has stayed over here. Her sons
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: have visited. I took stock of the feedback last time
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: and was gentle and understanding and just said that I
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: was sorry I wasn't here more in the months after
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: mom's passing. and we never really fully got the chance
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: to grieve, and I suggested therapy. She was offended by
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: that and asked if I was implying she was crazy
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: and was just like she's moving back home. What's the
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: big deal? When I spoke to my dad in passing,
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: he had mentioned he hadn't gotten the chance to tell
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: his girlfriend yet because it was still in flux, that
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: my sister's plans weren't certain yet, and seemed like he
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: thought it wouldn't be a problem.
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: Oh.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: okay so that's like a separate issue that your dad
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: needs to take care.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: Of nobody knows how to handle your sister in this story.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah that's a huge yikes that your dad hasn't even
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: brought it up with his girlfriend that is not your
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: issue to deal with but it is weird.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: And i i think we should have really pivoted around
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: like what you want me to go to therapy because
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: i'm crazy it's like No, I want you to go
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: to therapy because our mom is gone.
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: And I don't think anyone here knows how to deal
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: with it. It doesn't make you crazy.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Just makes you annoying to me.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: We meet again for Easter at my dad's place. His
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: girlfriend and her two sons had also come. I don't
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: recall if she said hi to them, but she maybe
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: spoke like a sentence to them that entire time. She
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: just spoke to me and dad and he was caught
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: between entertaining her versus his girlfriend and her kids. I
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: tried to make them, especially the boys, feel comfortable. I mean,
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: literally just go to therapy.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: I think you could only control yourself, so you go
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: to therapy and wait.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: That's a great point. Yeah. Yeah, and if your dad
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: is going to make the decision to let your sister
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: sort of dictate all of his relationships moving forward, oopsie.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: You can voice that you want that to stop, but
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: if neither of them are willing to do anything about it,
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: that's all you can do.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: OP continues.
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: Oh, boy.
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: I even went to my sister and said that, like,
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: this looks really rude. This is not how we do things.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: And she just said, we have no common interests. What
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: do you want me to talk about? Well, you're both
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: interested in your dad.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: That is true. You both like living in the house.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: I had gotten the advice that at some point, while
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: I love my dad and sister, it's time to step back.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: I didn't push anyone, but really thought my dad would
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: see that this was a precursor to what it would
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: be like. I don't know if he didn't recognize that
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: or maybe he did. but doesn't want to do anything
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: about it. But either way, my sister has moved back.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: Her job that she's starting is also work from home.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: I think she has to go in occasionally for which
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: she will make the one hour drive, but she has
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: moved back. I have no idea what her plan was
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: if she had gotten a job somewhere else and had
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: to go in, but it seems to have worked out
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: for her. I haven't gotten the chance to visit since
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: I'm going to visit them on Monday, but I've just
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: reminded myself what I was told. That it is their
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: relationship and it's my dad's call at the end of
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: the day.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: It is true.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: You're going to make yourself more upset by trying to
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: control the lives of other people. Even when they're making
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: silly decisions.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: It is true. Because that's why we have the freedom
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: of Will to make silly little choices.
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: We have Will's freedom. We took it from him.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: We took it. Free my boy Will. He didn't do
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: anything wrong.
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: And that's the end of this story. We're going to
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: go to the next one. Hey, it's Angie, your favorite
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: fake redhead host here.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: And we're going to get back to the stories.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: But here's a three minute ad break from our sponsors.
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: My sister married a man she barely knew and pulled
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: the prank of a lifetime.
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: Oh, boy, you had to be there.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: So a month and a half ago, my 35 female
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: youngest sister, 29 female, called me and asked for a favor.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: to get ordained and perform her wedding on her birthday,
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: April 1st. Now, I want to say that for a
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: multitude of reasons, I think this is a bad idea.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: And as a fantastic and supportive sister, I agreed after
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: telling her this was a bad idea. Now, to explain
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: why I think this is going to go horribly and
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: what is going to cause family drama. So, this will
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: be my sister's second marriage and only her third serious relationship.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: Her first marriage was straight out of high school at
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: 18 to the boy she'd been dating for three years.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: She had big plans that never materialized. And after a
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: couple years, they had my nephew. Now nine.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: But the marriage fell apart due to many reasons. The
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: biggest being an affair with his best friend. Oof. Which
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: was discovered when her former husband, further known as A,
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: found them together on a picnic table in the local
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: park one night.
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: Hey, you know, they were just, um... Cheating.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: Needless to say, they separated after that. Shortly after, my
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: sister found out she was pregnant with my niece, now six.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: Tough time to find that out.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: Pregnant with a picnic basket. Oh, man. Or no, she's
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: pregnant with ants. She'd give them birth to a million ants.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: And they're all going to eat that picnic. Which is
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: said to be the kid of her affair partner and
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: second relationship partner, Bea.
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: We call him Borf.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: I thought it was going to be Barney.
• 56:00
  Speaker 6: Barney.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: You can call him Beef. Beef.
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: Beef?
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: Okay, Beef.
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: My name is Beef Bors. I come from a long,
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: proud line of Bors.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: They went on to get a house together and plan
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: a future as well as have another child together, a
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: nephew now age three. Unfortunately, around the same time, A
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: left this world far too soon and very unexpectedly. By
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: the way, this comes from UsualArugula1317, and if you want
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: to submit your own stories, go to the r slash
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: OKStoryTime subreddit. I'm Sophia.
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: I'm Dakota.
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: I'm Riley.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: And.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Andy, we're.
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: Here to give good advice goofily, but we don't have
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: all the answers. We only know what we'd do. So
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: let us know what you would do in the comments.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: And OP says, Borf really, no, Beef.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: Beef.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: Beef really.
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: Beef who is a Borf.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: Family line. Beef really stepped up as a father to
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: my oldest nephew at the time. And by the time
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: my youngest nephew was two, my sister had convinced Beef
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: to propose and they had been planning to get married
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: August 2025. But Beef liked to talk to other girls
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: over the internet and sent them gifts and money. He
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: never actually met any of them in person, but still cheated.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: How shocking from someone that slept with his best friend's wife,
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: I know. So in like May of 2025, my sister
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: left him and moved out with the kids. My sister
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: then had a couple rebound relationships, none lasting more than
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: a couple weeks until she started dating a co-worker of
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: hers in late September, early October 2025. Known now as Carl.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: By mid-November 2025, Carl was living with my sister and
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: the kids full time.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Whoa!
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: Carl moves fast.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: Whoa.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: So she met Carl October and moved in the next month?
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: That's, you know what they say about Carl? Oh my.
• 57:46
  Speaker 6: What?
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: He's a Jarl.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
• 57:51
  Speaker 4: That's an old Norse. Is that just in Skyrim? It
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: was probably like, he's like a governor.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay. Governor Carl.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: And it's like, you know, that's an attractive thing to be.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: This upset Beef, who had been working easily with my
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: sister with childcare until this time, so neither of them
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: needed to do the custody battle thing. And he started
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: to make custody and things difficult, but not hostile in
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: any way, leading to Court getting dragged in. Needless to say,
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: we all thought my sister was moving way too fast
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: with her relationship with Carl. I told her I thought
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: this wedding was way too fast and probably a bad idea,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: but she insists that her and Carl just click.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: Your sister was born, the fool. Now, my father was
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: not invited to my sister's first wedding as they weren't
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: talking because he and my stepmother skipped her high school
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: graduation as they showed up at the last minute and
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: were going to have to shuttle from the overflow lot.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: And the little contact they had from her moving in
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: with our bio mom at 14... 14 went to no
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: contact until she was pregnant with her first kid. It
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: should also be noted, our father is an ordained minister
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: and has performed several weddings. and other ceremonies, so we
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: think he may be upset at just giving her away
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: and having me do the wedding ceremony, which I have
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: planned the heck out of and spent way too much
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: money to be able to do. Our stepmother has to
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: be the center of attention for everything. Even longer story
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: than this one. And who knows how everyone else is
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: going to respond when the dinner hosted at Carl's parents'
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: house turns out to be a wedding.
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: This is a disaster in the making.
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wouldn't really want to be involved in this.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: I'd like to just put a camera there.
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: A live stream feed.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: Just have one somewhere.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that you should monetize this because that's
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: the best thing you're going to get out of it.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: That's true. You could get some good stuff.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: You could.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: You really could.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like... Like what?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: What is it like?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: I don't really know.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: What is it like?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know any of the good stuff you could
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: get out of this.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: Anyway, there's more. Not going to lie, I'm kind of
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: worried about the backlash I'm going to get for helping
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: and participating in the Not So Funny April Fool's No,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: this is not a shotgun wedding. My sister took care
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: of that after her third kid. Oh, okay. No more kids. Also,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: for those who want to know, Carl is 27 male.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to know that.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to know anything about Carl.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to know that. Now I do.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: You've made us culpable now. But we also have an update.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: So to summarize, we ended up having to do two
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: weddings due to paperwork issues. Okay. The first was the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: official one, which we rushed through the I do's and
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: exchange rings and pronounce them married with just the kids present.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: They were there to give my new brother-in-law permission to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: marry their mom. Yes, they did understand what they were
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: agreeing to as best kids can. In fact, my three-year-old
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: actually talked it over with himself before a drink. He's like,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: so my mom's going to be married to Carl. How
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: do I feel about that? I guess I feel okay.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: It's kind of a big deal, though.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: He is a yarrow.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: He's a yarrow. I didn't think about that. He probably
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: has a really big house. I would like a really
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: big house. I've been getting into soccer, and I kick
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: the ball really good. So maybe that would be nice.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: He's very verbose for a three-year-old.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: Verbose is a good word.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: That night at the birthday party, we did a longer
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: ceremony for the whole family. My father gave my sister away.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: My mother was happy they added a hand fasting as
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: she's Wiccan, which I think is just when they tie
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: the rope around both hands.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: Pretty cool.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: My brother-in-law's mom and aunts were thrilled to be present
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: as his parents' generation had a habit of eloping with
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: over half his aunts, uncles, and own parents having done so.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: No one really likes weddings in this family.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: They're just like, we're just going to keep it low-key.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: Brother-in-law's grandfather and uncle thought it was a joke. And honestly,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: the most dramatic moment is when I looked at his
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: grandmother who went pale and I seriously worried for the
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: woman's health for a moment. But after a few deep breaths,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: she was fine. Thank God I hate when I need
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: to use my first aid training. OP has so many
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: side quests, ordained first aid training.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: I don't know what else. First aid. First aid's so easy.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: Do you have first aid?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: You get there first.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: You provide aid. First aid. Do you know how to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: do CPR? You know what's really important is second aid.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: What about it?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: You get to the hospital.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: On a very real level.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: No matter how bad of an idea something is, sometimes
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: you cannot stop someone from doing it.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: That's true. That's true. You either get off the bus or,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: you know, get on the bus or get out of
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: the way.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: Or you can get off the bus, too.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: And really, at this point, all you can do is
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: hope that her marriage with Carl goes well. Yeah. I
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: would keep an eye out for any potential red flags
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: and have that conversation if you need to.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: We got a little bit more to this story. My stepmother,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: who shares a birthday with my sister and has used
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: that for almost 30 years to be the center of attention...
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: was the only one that was unhappy. But we just
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: ignored her passive-aggressive comments that she hid from those that
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: didn't really know her. Overall, it seems most of my
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: concerns were just anxiety about being the efficient, though I'm
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: not going to delete anything from this post. My sister
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: can be slash is self-absorbed, but her kids are a
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: priority and my new brother-in-law is great with the kids.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: And I haven't seen any of the kids so happy
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: in a very long time. Maybe they have clicked. Maybe
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: we're all just cynical.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: Like I said, I said Carl's got it under control
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: from day one. That's what I said. I said Carl's
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: a yarl. Carl's a yarl. He's got it under control.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: You'll be fine.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: Don't snarl at Carl. That man's a yarl. All right, Dr.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Seuss.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 6: And that's the end of this story.