Ok I need to vent a little bit and because I know there is no solution about it…
Some people may think I’m too dramatic but I’m still pretty shook up by the experience.
I was walking on my street on the way to the park with my 1 and half year old kid. It was 6pm and still daylight. I live on a narrow residential street, one way with a bike lane on one side and four speed bump on this section, in front of a school and the speed limit is 30km at all time. I was about to cross the street, when two cars were racing down the street. Luckily I heard them (their accelerations were super noisy) and I had time to step back and grab my kid!
I didn’t have time to see them coming! They were driving at 60-70km at least. And right in front of us the one behind try to pass the other one because there was no car parked in front of the school! However, as he was getting on the bike lane he almost run over a bike!
It’s a very quite and safe neighborhood, my kid who barely learnt how to walk usually wander by itself, to pet the cats on the street, smell the flowers and says hi to all the neighbours. I usually don’t let my kid go in the middle of the road, but you never know what a child might decide to do! And today, I was getting ready to cross, I was just waiting for my kid to reach for my hand so I could carry it in the other side, then…. Vroouuum
I just had time to grab my kid and jump back in the sidewalk! I had my phone in my hand so I took pictures as they passed by… they were the fast I only got their rear from far away. I was so pissed and scared for our life that it took me 10min to stop shaking! But I didn’t wait that long to call 911 and give them the plate number of one of the car!
Am I overreacting? I mean everyone saw those news about killed during street racing, and here it’s during the day, near a playground/school in a residential neighborhood!!! I mean what’s the hell!
So o call 911 but there is little chance they do anything because “they have other priorities”! I guess those guys will have to kill another kid before they become a priority! WTH! I even thought about trying to get the info of the car owner and post it online but I don’t know how to get it… and maybe that would be too much!
After today, I don’t feel safe anymore, I feel those crazy story can happen to me (I know it now)! What can I do!
Thanks for reading me
Edit : typo
This is an old story, like, more than 10 years old, but I occasionally find myself thinking and still fuming about this, and I don't have anyone to tell it to.
I had a job working at a Headstart preschool. It didn't pay great, but I loved the work. Like, to the point that I would sometimes go in on my days off because it was fun job. I loved the kids, I felt like I was doing something meaningful - we were a preschool in a very low income area, we had kids from the local homeless shelter, new immigrants, kids who had been kicked out of other preschools for behavior issues... we took them all, and it was great.
It was just a satisfying job that was also, somehow, not too mentally taxing. Like, when I went home from work, i was home. It wasn't like when I taught at an elementary school and would go home and do hours of work to prepare for the next day. It honestly was just a joy to go to work, something I know is incredibly rare and I truly valued it.
I had a coteacher, who I'll call Shelly. Shelly and I got along alright, not amazingly, but alright. Although over the years, she changed in some odd ways. The first and weirdest one was she began to smell. Our preschool was not religious, but it was located in a large, old school Anglican church, with very high ceilings, and there were days that I would walk into the church (not our preschool classrooms) and be able to smell that she was there. That's how bad it was. And it was doubly frustrating because we had very different fashion styles. She tended to dress up ,and I always was in jeans and a t-shirt. So while I don't know for sure, I'm would imagine anyone coming into the room would smell the B.O., look at the two adults in the room, and think "well, that must be coming off the woman in the old t-shirt, can't be from the woman in the little black dress."
But I tolerated it because what else could I do? We were a small preschool, no HR department. And I don't know how to bring that up without being super rude.
But that wasn't the thing that ruined the job.
Our preschool had two separate programs, morning and afternoon, with room for 16 kids in each. Because of the neighborhood we were in, there were a lot of kids who would come and go (like, kids from the shelter who would get housing, and move away, that sort of thing), so our supervisor was always out doing community outreach to make sure we were full. We weren't always full, but that was part of her job.
But our supervisor ended up making a financial error, and got fired (she landed on her feet, I still hear from her occasionally, she's fine). The board of trustees offered me the job, but I know I'm not an administrator, so I refused, and they offered it to my coworker Shelly. And she took it. Which initially I was happy about because it would mean she would not be in the classrooms with me, and I wouldn't have to smell her.
One of the first things Shelly did was align our preschool with a large local Community Health Center (CHC). Which meant we were no longer an independent preschool run by a board of trustees made up of a bunch of old church ladies, we were now a part of a large organization with hundreds of staff. There was a slight increase in benefits, which initially came with a slight decrease in pay, which I remember finding a bit funny, but that was fine.
But almost immediately things got worse at the actual job. Our preschool was maybe a 4 minute walk away from a local library, with no street crossings in between, and we had, for years, taken our kids to the library once a month. We'd usually ask for one parent volunteer for that day, and if we couldn't get one, we'd ask a librarian to come to the preschool and walk with us so the kids would be safe. Suddenly, that was no longer permitted because of safety and liability concerns (the CHC was not willing to take the risk).
For years we had had random "water days" in the summer when it was really hot, where we would set up kiddy pools and sprinklers in our little backyard. I had gone and bought a bunch of kids clothes from local thrift shops using my own money and we would tell parents at the beginning of the summer that if the weather was hot, we would have water play day, and then if they were too wet, we would put them in the thrift store clothing, send them home and ask the parents to return the thrift store clothes. We would get about 80% of the clothing back, but it was fine. The kids loved it, no parents ever complained. But the CHC said that wasn't allowed anymore. We could only have Water Days on preplanned days when the parents could send their own change of clothing. And that effectively ended it because how could we know when the weather was going to be good for it?
We had also done monthly field trips to local museums and parks (again, always with volunteers -- we had 3 volunteers who came on regular days every week, and we would ask for parent volunteers as well). But the CHC thought this was too much of a liability risk and no longer permitted it. So that sucked.
But then something else began to happen. When we would lose children from the program due to them moving or aging out, they were not getting replaced, and our numbers got really low. This had happened before, but only ever for a month or so. This went on for several months. And of course, the CHC was super concerned. Because while we were a non-profit, and the parents didn't pay, we got money from the government to cover the cost of each child, and if there weren't enough children, the preschool would actually lose money.
The CHC started coming down on Shelly after maybe 6 months of this, but it just didn't get better. I arrived one morning to do my morning preparations and I could hear Shelly in the office with someone from the CHC and Shelly was yelling something or other, and then I heard her say "Well, maybe I shouldn't be here then", and that was the last I saw her for almost a year. She quit that day.
We got a new supervisor within a week, who did the proper community outreach, and we were filled within maybe 2 weeks again. So Shelly just hadn't done her job. But the problem was that 6 months of not being full had put us very firmly in the red, so the CHC decided to stop our preschool having 2 programs for the morning and afternoon and reduced us to one full day program. And that's when everything fully went to shit.
When you have a preschool that is open for 6 hours or more, suddenly there are things legally mandated by the government that you have to do. We had to provide breakfast, 2 snacks, and lunch. We had to have a nap time, craft time, and indoor and outdoor playtime (separate times). And this would have been fine except for the fact that the CHC had another preschool and so to save costs, they decided to combine the bus routes, which because of timing and schedules meant that our kids were with us for exactly 6 hours.
All of those government mandated things? They take up exactly six hours. So we had ZERO flexibility. I don't know if you noticed, but there was nothing in that list of things that included activities like reading together, circle time, etc. Basically, there was now no real teaching time going on.
Oh, and naptime was hell. People think it would be relaxing, but trying to get 16 kids to go to sleep at the same time is a nightmare. They are not all tired at the same time. Some of them don't nap anymore. Some of them cry, some of them need to be held to fall asleep, and then others get jealous, it was just... the worst. And it was government mandated to be, I think 2 hours? So it was two hours of trying to get kids to stay on their cots. I hated every second of it. We all did.
I was literally sneaking time during this whole ordeal to read and do educational circle activities with the kids. Like, I'm not exaggerating. My supervisor would be out for the day for something and I would think "OH GOOD! She's gone, I can have storytime today! Maybe we can do a counting game! YAY!" Because I would get in trouble if she was around because it was taking away from the things that we were legally required to do. The job went from being super fun, fulfilling and meaningful to feeling like I was babysitting and just making sure the kids didn't die.
I was the last of the "old" teachers to quit. I stuck it out for maybe 18 months. There had been, I think 5 staff from before the Community Health Center. The rest of them all quit within the first year.
Now, this might seem like just a random consequence of Shelly being bad at her job. But here's where it gets worse. Maybe 2 months before I quit ( and yeah, this definitely had an effect on me and wanting to stay), Shelly came back to visit. She and I were having a friendly chat, and I was telling her about the changes and how we were now a full day program and she looks away and says -- "You know, when I started, it was just half day. Not two half day programs, we were only open in the morning. I really liked it then. And I didn't need any more hours, that was enough for me to live on."
I looked at her a bit confused and said "well, I'm glad it was 2 half day programs by the time I started, I could barely make due with that income, to be honest."
And she shrugged, and then said "I kinda thought that if we couldn't fill the two halves, the Community Center would take it back to just mornings. I guess they went the other way."
And I just stared at her. And I think we spoke for a few more minutes and then she left.
She never said it outright, but I'm certain she deliberately tanked the program to try and cut it back to a halfday program but they went in the opposite direction. And made a wonderful job into a miserable one. And I think that was what took the wind out of my sails. I was out of there (and literally out of the country -- I live in Korea now) within a couple of months.
I saw that people previously recommended Monty’s, Connor O’Neill’s and Regents but I was wondering if anyone had recs on which of these (or others) is most likely to have the game on (with the best watching environment). Thanks for all the help!
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When you sup with the Devil, it is best to bring a long spoon. Bill "Shaky" Spearman, Terran Age of Expansion philosopher and movie producer
We are each our own Devil, and we each make the world our own Hell. - Oscar Wildman, Age of Expansion Bongistan Warlord
She comes with either thunder and brimstone, or silence and sweetness. Either way, it is always best to remember that she is the Detainee, and bound for a reason. - Tal.re'k, Trena'ad philosopher.
The Detainee is at her most dangerous when you feel you are beyond her power. - Da'amn'dmo'o, Lanaktallan Philosopher, before his disappearance from a locked room.
Nakteti set down the multitool and sat down, wiping her forehead. Her fur was matted with sweat, working out in the shadeless sun. There were no clouds in the sky to keep the anomaly from beating down on her, the strange radiations emitted by the anomaly converted into standard sunlight by some kind of field generated by the innermost layer of the SUDS.
They were almost done.
One more separation, and the intertwined timelines, slices of the past wedged against the present, would be undone. The SUDS would return to operating at a single temporal point.
Then the work to put back together the shielding around the anomaly could begin.
Nakteti looked at the buildings around her. All of them had a slight second image, like a light case of double-vision after too many narcobrews.
A far cry different from the multiple overlapping versions.
Storm clouds began to form over her as the temperature plummeted. Nakteti looked up to see the clouds spiraling out from a central point that was a dark mass in the sky. She reached up and touched her temple, putting two fingers on her datalink and opening a channel to her ship.
"Chuck, I've got storm clouds. I don't remember the weather generator scheduling any rainfall for today," Nakteti said.
There was no answer.
"Chuck, are you there?" Nakteti asked.
No answer. No hissing of 'dead air' where the implant added the hissing noise to let someone know the system was working, there just wasn't anyone there. It was dead silence.
"Nakteti to Surscee, can you hear me?" she asked.
Dead air.
"Nakteti to Magnus, do you read?" Nakteti asked.
Still nothing.
She pushed up the power and tried again.
And got nothing.
She stood up, squinting at the clouds. Wind was picking up, heavy with the smell of rain, and drops were starting to patter on the asphalt of the parking lot the last of the temporal disruptors were being set up.
"Anyone at all, can anyone read me on this channel?" she asked.
Dead air.
Before she could say anything else a hand dropped onto her shoulder and a voice spoke.
"Being alone is bitch, isn't it?"
She shrieked in fear, throwing herself forward into a roll, landing on her catching hands before kicking off, her gripping hands pulling her daggers from her belt. She came up smoothly, turning in place, to stare at who had touched her.
The Lady Lord of Hell stood next to the disruptor, lighting a cigarette with a steel cased lighter.
"You look like a fool," the Lady Lord of Hell said through the exhalation of smoke, tucking away the lighter and pack in one breast pocket on her dark blouse. She reached out and put one hand on the temporal disruptor even as she took another drag and removed the cigarette from her mouth, exhaling smoke.
Nakteti heaved a deep breath, slowly sheathing her daggers. Her muscles were twitching, thrumming, as fear chemicals raced through her bloodstream.
The Detainee was wearing her typical dark charcoal gray skirt and blouse ensemble, belted at the waist with a black belt, cufflinks with an odd rune on them, the flag lapel pin, and the red flower at her throat. Black boots with silver buckles that vanished under the ankle-length skirt. Her fingernails were manicured and enameled with blood red coloration.
"What do you want?" Nakteti asked, knowing her voice was hard and harsh due to the fear. She pushed the urge to submit down and away, clenching her teeth.
"You," the Matron of Hell said simply. She exhaled smoke again, even though she had not taken a drag, only her gunmetal gray eyes visible in the faint suggestion of a face through the smoke. Lightning flashed, reflecting off the smoke.
"I will not let you take me," Nakteti said.
The Lady Lord of Hell shrugged, stepping through the smoke as thunder rumbled.
For a moment, there was a perfectly shaped hole in the smoke left behind by her passage.
"Take?" the Matron of Hell asked. She gave a low, sultry chuckle. "I did not come to take."
She took a drag off her cigarette, stopping just out of knife reach of Nakteti, looking down at the Tnvaru female.
"I need a Hell Guide," she said softly. "You'd make an outstanding one."
"A what?" Nakteti asked.
"A Lord of Hell, a Hell Guide, to find lost souls and bring them to me," the Matron of Hell said. "It would be you who would seek out the paths that have been lost or forgotten, gather the souls, and bring them back to me."
"Why would I do that?" Nakteti asked.
The Matron of Hell smiled, a mouth full of interlocked triangular teeth. "There are many reasons. After all, you have come to the end of your travels. The end of your journey. Serve me, and you can continue on exploring, blazing trails, and traveling," she smiled.
Nakteti frowned as the thunder boomed, closer now than before.
"Already your loyal crew have agreed to serve me, leaving you alone, Nakteti," the Lady Lord of Hell said. "Magnus and Surscee with just the temptation of sweet fruit, Chuck with the agreement to give him full rein over himself and freedom from enslavement of the biological," she said. Her smile got wider and wisps of smoke eeked from between her teeth. "You stand alone, now, Nakteti. With none to save you."
She turned and began walking in a circle around Nakteti, who turned to keep the Matron of Hell in sight.
"Magnus and Surscee abandoned you. Chuck has fled from your bondage. Even Major Carnight is beyond you. You are as alone now, even more so, than when Enraged Phillip saved your motley crew and badly damaged vessel by interposing himself between you and your natural predator," the Matron of Hell said.
"No, they would not abandon me. They swore oaths of blood and loyalty to me," Nakteti said.
The Lady Lord of Hell snorted. "To a xeno," she chuckled as the lightning flashed again, closer, from horizon to horizon. "To an alien. An oath to an alien."
"You have nothing to offer," Nakteti said. "Nothing that would convince them to break their oaths, their friendship, their loyalty." The last was said through the rumble of thunder.
The Lady Lord of Hell smiled wider. "In a time where their people are riven and essentially extinct, you think that an oath to an alien, a strange creature who is so inhuman that you have too many arms, holds more weight than the word of she who cares for the souls of the departed?"
"No, they would never break their oaths," she said. Lightning flashed, lighting everything up, so close that Nakteti felt her fur raise up.
The Detainee's face was still slightly shadowed.
The Lady Lord of Hell smiled wider as thunder rumbled around them. "I told them that you released them from their oaths. That you were done with them. They had served their purpose and you no longer needed them," she said. Lightning struck the ground around them, dozens, hundreds of bolts, scattered as far as Nakteti could see. The world turned bluish white for a moment.
Nakteti shook her head. "No, they would not believe you. You are the Detainee, the Lady Lord of Hell, the Matron of the Damned, lies slip from your lips as easy as breath to a baby," she said.
"If you think so," the Detainee chuckled, her voice almost lost in the bone-shaking crack of thunder that went on and on.
She stopped, holding out a hand, as the thunder faded.
An ice cube was in her hand, a tiny figure of a Terran inside. Lightning miles away glimmered on the surface of the ice.
"Of course, there is Major Carnight. Their uncle. Beloved brother to their mother," the Matron of the Damned smiled. "Leave them behind, be my Hell Guide, and I will restore him."
Nakteti shook her head as the thunder rumbled, shaking her bones. "No. He was my friend, my first human friend, and he would not have me make a deal with one such as you."
She closed her hand and steam burst from between her fingers with tiny screams.
"I can restore him. There are things beyond your knowledge, your understanding, that keep him frozen on ice. No true love's kiss will save him. No dragon's breath. By denying me, your quest to save him fails, Traveler. Swear allegiance to me, and I will restore him, restore the Twin's beloved uncle, and return to you your first human friend," the Detainee said. She exhaled smoke, the gunmetal gray eyes staring at Nakteti through the smoke.
Nakteti shook her head. "No. I gave my oaths to them as surely as they gave them to me. Major Carnight is in my care, and I have sworn to protect him. I will not break my oaths, my bond, my word," Nakteti said.
The Detainee moved over to the disruptor and put her hand on it.
"All your effort will come to naught by your stubborn refusal to serve me, Traveler," the Matron of the Damned said, smiling that shark tooth smile again. "Swear to serve me," the last was said in iron hard tones.
"No," Nakteti said. Lightning flashed around them. Something in the distance exploded, sending up mile high trails of sparks.
"They have abandoned you. Serve me, join them," the Lady Lord of Hell said, her voice mixed with the thunder.
"No." Again, lightning flashed.
"Serve me, Traveler, save your first human friend," the Detainee stated, her voice cold as space as the lightning ripped and tore around them.
"No." Lightning hit so close that Nakteti's fur stood up and her fingertips went numb.
"Thrice asked, thrice denied," the Detainee said through the world-ending crash of thunder
She looked at the disruptor for a long moment. She pinched the top with two fingers, moving it over only a few feet before setting it down.
"So be it," she said. She looked off to the West, where lightning was raking the ground from the storm, then slowly to the east, her eyes narrowed, her mouth tight.
Her face hardened and she looked at the charge she had shifted.
Lightning began to arc from the sky and Nakteti realized with horror it was going to hit the disruptostabilization charge.
The Lady Lord of Hell touched the top and the charge fired off.
Through the howling of chronotrons, Nakteti heard the Detainee's voice even as the Matron of the Damned vanished as the lightning struck, missing the charge, the Detainee, and Nakteti.
"You'd have made an outstanding Hell Guide."
The explosion of the electricity superheating the air knocked Nakteti through the air and she hit the ground in a heap.
Darkness claimed her.
-----
"Easy now, milady," Magnus's voice was gentle. "You've got some burns. I gave you med injection, but your fur's a loss."
Nakteti's eyes fluttered and she opened them, looking up at the Terran, who was staring down at her.
"What happened?" Nakteti asked. She could feel the tingling burning of medical nanites at work, could smell burnt fur, and her right arms were numb.
"There was a slight radiation surge from the anomaly," Surscee said, from just beyond her sight. "Without the great panels, the SUDS tried to protect the surface with sudden storms, tried to discharge the energy as lightning by striking it into the superconductor grid built into the middle of the layer. Lightning hit our carefully planned setup, overcharging the system."
Nakteti sat up, wiping her mouth. Magnus helped her with careful hands.
Chuck was standing by the deployed disruptostabilizer.
"It's a good thing you adjusted for the slight elevation change," the Digital Sentience said. "If you had put it in the original position, the disruption would have failed and caused a cascade instead."
Nakteti slowly got to her feet, accepting Magnus's offer of a wineskin. The water inside tasted of limes and helped clear the strange taste of berries and tinfoil from her mouth.
"It wasn't me," Nakteti said. She looked around. "The Detainee came to me, told me each of you had sworn to serve her. Right before she left, she moved the charge and fired it."
Chuck frowned. "Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure," Nakteti said softly. She drew her sword slowly, grounding the tip and leaning against it.
Her legs were getting pins and needles as feeling came back.
"What's our status?" Nakteti asked.
"The layers are separating. The anomaly's gone back to normal," Chuck said. He pointed at the buildings at the bottom of the space elevator. "The mat-trans station came online. It goes to the primary control room."
"Hopefully we'll find the repair crew there," Nakteti said. She was breathing heavy. "Give me a minute to catch my breath and we'll head out."
Chuck nodded.
Nakteti looked at the other three. "I knew she was lying. None of you would break your oaths," she said. "We have come too far together. All of you value your own honor and your oaths too much to break them at the behest of the Devil."
All three nodded.
Nakteti looked at Chuck, straightening up. She slowly sheathed her blade.
"Where is the primary control room?" she asked.
Surscee smiled.
"Atlantis."
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