ArtieShaw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Faye_Messner

Some people just like to fuck their shit up.

The kid is 18. Were y'all assuming he was older for some reason?

Holy shit. Warlock must be a thing with trucks? A year or two ago I was travelling to an unfamiliar city and the person at the rental counter couldn't find my reservation. She asked, "the only vehicle we have available is a truck, is that OK?"

Whatever. Fine. The flight was delayed and I need dinner and a drink. I'm not going to be picky about a 2 day rental on a business trip.

Let's just say that expectations were exceeded (in a WTF way) when I got out to space B29 in the parking garage and got my first view of The Warlock. It was pretty much this exact truck, but in a different color and with about 100 loose acorns in the bed.

The Warlock did make an impression on our clients when I rolled up to their office the next day. The conference room was close enough to reception that I could overhear the #1 question of the day as employees drifted in or out: "who's driving The Warlock???"

I've always called it "map brain," and am fascinated to watch people who don't have that ability.

For example, my husband has been to the library and he has been to the grocery store. From home, he can get to either without any trouble. But if he's at the grocery store and needs to go to the library? He'll need to go home first. He just can't visualize the steps if it's a new path. He's a brilliant guy, but he has a foggy brain map.

I'm pretty much the opposite, but what I love about GPS is that they'll tell you which lane is optimal for the next exit. If it's a new route, that's super helpful.

Oh, those eyes. You are about to be murdered.

Out of idle curiosity about your username, I'd like to ask.

Dune, cryptography, or both?

That would be ideal. I've also seen a few with weirdly discrete foot pedals. I like that idea, although the ones I've encountered haven't exactly nailed the design.

I unintentionally pissed off a bully during a floor hockey match in high school PE class. Long story, but I did something to make her angry - still no idea what it was - and in that moment she was screaming at me to apologize. I just recall her screaming "SORRY!!! SORRY!!!" at me during a game.

I didn't realize I had done anything wrong. I was definitely not trying to be competitive or aggressive at a PE game, so WTF? But apparently, "It's OK. Apology accepted" was not the answer she wanted. She lost her shit and I gained an enemy for the rest of senior year.

Fortunately - and this is the good outcome - she was the most incompetent bully I've ever encountered. Sure, she was mad AF and willing to hold a grudge in the way that only 17 year-old girls can do. But I had emerged from a hot crucible of actual fucking competent bullies years before this.

I was captain of the fucking Math Team, bitch. You think calling me "Nerd" is going to hit? Hell no. I own that.

Years earlier, I fought two of my former besties on a snow covered hill in the local park and my only regret was that I was wearing mittens that mitigated the damage to their faces. I'd do that again if I had to.

Point being - she couldn't do me any harm. Laughing at her made her madder. That was the best part.

tl/dr: I accepted an apology from someone who wanted me to apologize to her, and I gained the most incompetent bully ever. It added some needed comedic relief to me and my friends during a stressful final year of high school.

This advice always gets downvoted, but it works for me. I'll offer it for what it is.

When I lose something I'll take a moment and politely ask the thieving house elves to give it back. Then I stop thinking or stressing about it. I usually find it within a day.

1. Throwaway comment that mentions a potato chip tin that's not directly relevant to the comic
2. Top image results link to etsy and I'm not bothering to check the rules about that
3. It's not hard to find
4. Never expected anyone to lose their shit about it

Excellent work, though

Ah - my depression era grandparents never threw things away. One reason: they could re-use the object if it were durable enough. And they did.

By the '80s (maybe earlier?) they were complaining about the culture of trash. Their survival instincts were telling them to save and re-use. Their shiny new culture was telling them to throw that shit away.

I won't link it, but an image can be found easily. Right now I'm looking at a New Era Potato Chip canister that lives in my office. (It's weird - seriously, google it. "Feast Without Fear.") It's still good for storing things.

Sure. Late '80s. It was pitch back, triangular, small, slow, and quiet. My mother was driving and we were on our way to an astronomy meeting. Which is to humble-brag that we had both spent a fair amount of time staring at the night sky and could identify most aircraft/stars/planets/meteors etc. It moved in a truly bizarre fashion.

I think I noticed it first because it was a super slow set of lights. Our car was going about 45 mph and we seemed to be outpacing it easily on a parallel path. I could see trees on the edge of a farmer's field and it was lower than the tops of the trees. That was the point of reference. It was absolutely out of the ordinary. Although we were outpacing it, my mom made a wrong turn at the next intersection. It was actually fortuitous because this put is directly in the flight path and I was super curious to ID it.

When my mom saw it I just remember her saying over and over - "ArtieShaw? ArtieShaw, what is that? What is that???"

When I realized that she was equally weirded out, one of us clicked off the car radio and one of us lowered the windows. That's when we realized that it wasn't just quiet, but completely silent and flying maybe 25 feet above the ground. There were lights on it, but they didn't illuminate the aircraft at all.

After passing under it, she needed to re-route the car. And the next bit is probably the part the freaked me out the most. It followed us.

I was able to keep eyes on it for the entire time because I wasn't driving. In fact, I was partially out the window of the passenger seat. When we got back to the main road, she pulled over in the dirt lot of a farmer's market stand on the corner.

It flew over us again and we agreed that we couldn't see more detail beyond "small, unbelievably black triangle." She got her shit together well enough to drive, and we went on to the astronomy meet.

The amateur astronomer friends were very skeptical about what we saw. And we were clearly rattled, so they were kind about trying to provide rational explanations. I remember drawing a diagram of the shape in the dirt with my generic Keds sneakers. But as the night wore on, many of them shared similar stories. The one I remember best is from a person who was camping in the inter-mountain desert who saw the exact same object, but that it was so large that it blotted out a good portion of the sky. They also claimed to have chased it for about an hour.