*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free
invasive species encroach on lesbian territory
This is a common misconception because they’re such similar environments, but you should be aware that dads are native to Home Depot, while lesbians are actually native to Lowe’s. At this point, however, both dads and lesbians have made themselves at home in both Home Depot and Lowe’s to the point that trying to separate them back into their original ranges would probably do more harm than good to the delicate ecosystem of large chain hardware stores.
A properly raised and socialized Dad will be perfectly comfortable cohabiting with Lesbians. Its not really “encroaching on another’s territory”. You wouldn’t say that about foxes in a forest that also homes bobcats, would you? No. It’s just two different species that have both evolved to live in similar/the same environment. As long as they recognize each other as equals, Dads and Lesbians are more than capable of cohabitation.
Now, if you were to release a pack of Lumberjacks into a Lowes or Home Depot, that’s where chaos will reign. Being adapted to a far harsher and more demanding environment, the Lumberjacks would simply push Dads and Lesbians both out and also consume far more than a sustainable amount of resources. It would be like releasing bears at a country club.
As a former timber-harvester… I feel this is potentially accurate in theory. But highly improbable in actuality.
Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.
This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.
A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.
Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.
One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.
Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.
Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.
Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.
Please stop labeling Lumberjacks as dangerous roving social predators. They are intermediate level omnivores and remarkably peaceful unless threatened.
This ma be my most favouritest sentence I’ve read all day:
Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem.
trails by the highway just out of earshot of traffic
schools during breaks
those little beaches right next to ferry docks
bowling alleys
unfamiliar mcdonalds on long roadtrips
your friends living room once everybody but you is asleep
laundromats at midnight
• any target
• churches in texas
• abandoned 7/11’s
• your bedroom at 5 am
• hospitals at midnight
• warehouses that smell like dust
• lighthouses with lights that don’t work anymore
• empty parking lots
• ponds and lakes in suburban neighborhoods
• rooftops in the early morning
• inside a dark cabinet
galeries in art museums that are empty except for you
the lighting section of home depot
stairwells
•hospital waiting rooms
•airports from midnight to 7am
• bathrooms in small concert venues
I just got the weirdest feeling I swear
OK LISTEN THERE ARE REASONS FOR THIS!!!
A lot of these places are called liminalspaces – which means they are throughways from one space to the next. Places like rest stops, stairwells, trains, parking lots, waiting rooms, airports feel weird when you’re in them because their existence is not about themselves, but the things before and after them. They have no definitive place outside of their relationship to the spaces you are coming from and going to. Reality feels altered here because we’re not really supposed to be in them for a long time for think about them as their own entities, and when we do they seem odd and out of place.
The other spaces feel weird because our brains are hard-wired for context – we like things to belong to a certain place and time and when we experience those things outside of the context our brains have developed for them, our brains are like NOPE SHIT THIS ISN’T RIGHT GET OUT ABORT ABORT. Schools not in session, empty museums, being awake when other people are asleep – all these things and spaces feel weird because our brain is like “I already have a context for this space and this is not it so it must be dangerous.” Our rational understanding can sometimes override that immediate “danger” impulse but we’re still left with a feeling of wariness and unease.
Listen I am very passionate about liminal spaces they are fascinating stuff or perhaps I am merely a nerd.
I, for one, appreciate your passion for liminal spaces and thank you for explaining it to the rest of us.
honestly “i’ll do whatever you want” “then perish” is the single most powerful exchange possible in the english language and it’s from some bizarre “hewwo” obama rp
And there was that other post where someone dreamt that Obama said “violence for violence is the rule of beasts” like what is it about Obama that makes people come up with such raw fucking dialogue for him
my mother had a dream where he lived in the forest and she had a cigarette with him and he said “to become god is the loneliest achievement of them all” and put it out and walked into the mist and i’ve never fucking forgotten that
the insides of dead malls exist within a space that is separate from our own and if you explore hard enough you will find the gateways that link them together
savvy readers will connect the dots and realize this will effectively allow you to teleport from one location to another but this is not recommended as repeated traversals will merge one’s consciousness with the mall, trapping them inside forever
Hey, actual expert on this! Dead malls and the anachronistic realities contained within them are a new phenomenon caused by the overabundance of malls being built between the 1960s and 1990s, along with today’s economical decline. So not many people know this, but as previously said, teleporting and walking deep within the walls of dead malls leaves you at a very real risk of not coming back, physically and otherwise. Say for example you are coming across an old, abandoned K-Mart, do not enter the store, especially in the Fall fashion aisle of the ladies and girls department today. You can choose from our Hunters Glen collection, an array of fashion fall pants, sweaters and shirts, all in the latest styles and colors! For that sporty look, you have a great selection of novelty fleece tops, private labels, and label jeans! We also have a terrific selection of girls’ sweater and fleece separates to choose from. Don’t forget to use our convenient layaway on all these new fall fashions, and thank you, for shopping our K-Mart.
cursed soul of the shoppers realm, take leave from my sight. this world is not yours to inhabit.
So when i was like… Six? Seven? My family and my Dad’s parents took a trip back to Iowa to see the family there and record a video of all the places Grandpa grew up. Which resulted, at one point, in all of us hiking out to a cement slab int he middle of a cornfield and Grandpa saying “This is where the schoolhouse USED to be.”
The whole thing is pretty hazy becuase I was having heatstroke/carsickness most of the time but I remember the following:
Grandma in the backseat with me and my sister, working on the HUGE catherdal window quilt she hand-stitched to pass the time. It ended up being about 9ft by 12 ft when she was done, and we still have it at my parent’s house.
an ungodly amount of corn
which I realize everyone says about iowa, but the corn is one of the few thingsi recall with VIVID detail- the musty but very ALIVE smell of it photosynthesizing, the rouch texture of the leave and how my bare arms and legs got scratched up from hell to breakfast when i went wandering it. The violently geometric rows that would snap back to noneuclidian madness- I could never get to where I intended if i tried to cut across fields- Always on the wrong side or too far past where I wanted to come out. or on the wrong property, on one occasion.
You’re never alone in those fields, not really. There’s a distinct Otherness about being three feet tall in the midst of six-foot corn, the closeness, with gaps where you can see forever and ever, the constant rustling like you’re being pursued. I’m willing to chalk a lot up to paranoia but I know the Wolfdog has better senses than me and that when she growled at something, she meant business.
The one thing we did find in a field was a swan.
Just chilling, sitting in one of the troughs. It was there with a bunch of Canada geese, hiding in the shade from the midday heat. It let me get within arms length before putting it’s head up, looking me dead in the eye from a sitting position. It began a low, continuous buzz, like bagpipes right before they scream. Mazel warned it with a low “Whurf” noise, and it stared her down for a minute, before it decided I had some kind of prior permission and decided I could stay.
I also found a small ceramic otter, half buried in the dirt.
That field used to be a lake, apparently.
I’d also never been anywhere with lightning bugs prior to that august, and didn’t believe them until one of the Iowa cousins caught one for me and showed me that it was, in fact a bug and not the lawn about to explode from swap gas.
Maybe I was just sweaty and prone to spilling punch on myself but they rather liked me, landing all over my skin and hair. I felt lighter than air when they came, like I could float away with them into the night.
To the point where I went chasing them rather far into the woods until I ran into an old barb-wire fence, mostly rotted and easy to pass, covered in blackberries. I was about to cross when half a dozen turkeys came running full-tilt at and then past me, hardly chattering at all. I decided to take their lack of words and went hack to the cabin.
So you have some context for the WEIRD part of the trip.
We’re driving around the county of I can’t remember I was six and Grandpa is driving, and he turns down what I’d assumed was another dirt road when Mom starts asking about “Uh, do you actually KNOW the people who live here?” “Oh pshaw. it’ll be fine.” and I realized we were in some backwater Iowan’s DRIVEWAY, pulling up to a house, right about the time when the Bull charged the car.
“EDWIN THERE’S A BULL.” Shrieked my grandma, grabbing both me and my sister and heroically yanking us out our seatbelts and to the other side of the car, behind the quilt, in hopes it would protect us from potential impalement. Gandpa, Bless Him, stopped the fucking car and leaned out the window to look.
“Aren’t you handsome!” He laughed and the half-ton of angry pot roast stopped up short, blinking stupidly, before cautiously trotting up the rest of the way and attempting to stick his head in the car for skritches. He was stopped by the fact that his horns didn’t fit in the damn window.
Grandpa proceeds to drive the rest of the way up to the house, bull following us, before casually… getting out of the car, walking right up to the front door and ringing the bell. A Pair of the most American Gothic-looking people answer, looking bewildered at the elderly, plaid-covered man in front of them, offering them a ham of hand.
“My name’s Edwin, and I grew up on this farm- Did you ever meet the Fitzgerald’s? I was hoping I could show my family around where I was a boy.”
“Oh my god.” Said my mother, burying her face in the seat. “He’s going to be shot.”
“OH WELL COME ON IN!” The Gothic Americans say, apparently thrilled. “WE’VE GOT PIE AND LEMONADE AND AIR CONDITIONING.”
“…Or not.” mom shrugs, relived. For the moment.
So the family piles out of the car and into this house, which while rustic and probably charming, is also crammed to the brink with more fucking memento mori than a dutch painting museum that got invaded by a Dia De Los muertos parade.
I’m talking taxidermy animals, portraits where everyone is skeletons, mannequins covered in flowing cloaks, pinned insects and pressed flowers, tiny skeleton dolls sitting in corners, a literal wall of scythes, a hall of livestock skulls and on the mantelpiece, in a glass bell jar, an actual human skull. I, six years old and a weirdo, am immediately in love with this place.
“That’s Great-Uncle Richard.” The lady says, fondly. “He’s the one that your grandpa’s family sold the farm to!”
“COOL.” I say as Grandma takes out her rosary.
“COME ON IN FOR SOME PIE.” hollers the gentleman from the kitchen. We go in and there is not one but like, SIX fucking pies on the table and milk and lemonade and whiskey and an angelfood cake and it’s all very Norman Rockwell except for the part where the kitchen is Not Immune and there’s a centerpiece pf chipmunks taxidermied to be drinking tea in the center. I am DELIGHTED, my grandmother is praying harder. My mom had decided she’s going to enjoy this encounter and sits down for a lemonade and a slice of apple pie while my Dad gently tell my two-year old sister to not lick the skeletons.
Everyone has a grand time sitting around the table with these people, Lucille and Barry, talking about the history of the farm and long-passed relatives and crop yields and whatnot. Except for my grandmother, who is Too Catholic For This, and when my ADHD ass gets bored and asks to go look at the animals, says she’ll go with me, despite being decidedly non agrarian.
We go outside to find Mazel sitting in the water trough, becuase being part husky in Iowa in August is HARD, and sometimes one needs to get soaked up to the neck to cope. The Bull is displeased by Strange Dogs sitting in his trough, but she leveled him with a look and low noise that was more rumble than growl to remind him she was Canis Lupis Decidedly-Less-Familiaris and she ate his cousins ground up for breakfast and he decided he had important Bull Business on the other side of the barn.
We get into the barn where there were about 20 dairy cattle having a nap in the shade that afternoon before milking, and I point up and shout ‘LOOK GRANDMA JUST LIKE CHURCH’. Growing up agnostic had left me fuzzier on certain religious matters, and I naturally assumed that the gaunt, rather tortured looking figure hanging from the rafters was a crucified Jesus.
It was not.
It was, I would later learn, a sculpture of Great-Aunt Margret, wife of Richard-on-the-mantle, who had a wild sense of humor and had left instructions that she wanted to be strung up to watch over her beloved cows and also to terrify any would-be rustlers. Her family had the good sense to not leave an actual corpse hanging from the rafters, but whoever made that scultpure did a Damn Fine job capturing the pants-shitting terror Margret had been after. Grandma attempted to haul me out of there but I was much more interested in the cows, and merrily fed them scattered bit of hay through the bars of the queuing area before the milking stall under Margret’s watchful eyeless sockets.
I also found a nest of pitch-black kittens, a white and very arthritic hound that managed to get up and follow me around the barn anyway, and a fat, green-black chicken that came up to my navel and wanted chin scratches. There were various other odd decorations scattered around the property- the large, wrought-iron sculpture in the middle of the duck pond was particularly choice. It was constructed of several arches and a few curled spikes, so that when it was viewed with a reflection on a still day, it formed an eye. It was a splendid afternoon.
When I got back to the car, grandma had added another seventeen cathedral windows to the quilt out of spite and was ready to wring my grandfather’s neck. We hauled mazel out of the trough, patted the bull goodbye and left with some lovely family history and a furious grandmother.
Lucille and Barry passed away a while ago, but we always exchanged christmas cards, and I’m still Facebook friends with their daughter, Juliet. She;s thinking about turning the farm into an eco-amusement park.
So to actually answer your question, Jolly Ranchers.
in my experience with the three (3) i went to in the surrounding area it was. uh. you know when you step into a place and there’s nothing immediately noticeably wrong but you can just Feel that this is a Bad Space? like the kind of space where if you catch a glimpse of your mother walking down an aisle and turning a corner you know it’s a demonic trick and if you follow her it’ll lead you down a path to a dark space you can’t return from?
or you go in with your friend who’s right next to you but you get a text from them saying “hey i’m in the shoe aisle, you should come here” and you know it’s a trap from the devil? like other things:
only half of the dim, washed out, often flickering fluorescent lights were lit at any given time, usually only every-other set, leaving these valleys of darkness that made entire aisles inaccessible for fear of shadow people latching on to your soul like a dark passenger.
entire sections were just Empty. empty shelves with no product, never any employees filling them up, no boxes waiting to be unpacked, no signs saying what should be there.
no employees at all actually? wandering around the store even though the parking lots were full and you walked in with a group of 20 or so felt so lonely. you could walk the whole place and it was dead silent and the only other “people” around always were several aisles away with their back turned, unmoving. there was always only one cashier and there was never anyone in her line.
there was never any music on or announcements played? another place that does this are all the dollar trees in my area and it gives me anxiety. i feel like i’m being hunted, like i have to hold my breath and listen for the footsteps of beasts in other aisles.
the fitting rooms had a strange, dark energy to them. it felt like if you ever used them, whatever universe you closed the door on would not be the same one you stepped out into when you were done. the washrooms also contained this same dark energy.
passing the employees-only doors felt like wandering too close to a bears den. the glass windows never showed anything going on back there, no racks of product, no employees milling around. it was just pitch black, complete darkness. a hungry void.
leaving a target was the same disorienting feeling as leaving a dark theatre and exiting into the light. sound and colour and feeling rush back in. you feel like you can breathe again. a weight is lifted from your shoulders. you can’t remember any of the time you spent inside the target.
it is my sincere belief that the targets in canada never existed. the storefronts were put up, yes, but the stores themselves were vast empty caverns filled with dark dreams and sinister interlopers. passing through the automatic doors was meant to teleport us to the nearest american location, but something went wrong and we entered an unnatural zone halfway between the upside down and whatever it was that happened in the langoliers.
“but keeper where will people get their food from” THEY WILL LICK CAVE LICHEN GROWN IN THE SHAPE OF PURE GEOMETRIC SHAPES ON OUR CAVE WALLS, GAINING NOURESHMENT BOTH PHYSICALLY… AND SPIRITUALLY
DO YOU DOUBT THE TENNENTS OF DIRTMODERNISM
IT IS THE IDEOLOGICALLY PROPER THING TO CRAVE THAT MINERAL
*licking the espresso molds* we made a mistake following the comic book history blogger
You just don’t appreciate the fact that by carving a bunch of cubes into this mountainside I have converted our very lives into a constantly changing three dimensional comic book.
I’ve achieved the REAL revolution, a revolution of PURE ART
KEEP LICKING
*other cave dweller licking a latte flavored mold cube* I hear the Franco-Belgian comic theory blogger has a way better cave complex
this is it, this is the weirdest content I’ve ever seen.
just moving along like everyone else 