A group of rough looking boys walked past me today and all I heard of their conversation was “he’s got that anxiety disorder bro so I went with him so he’d be more comfortable” and it made me realise the world isn’t all that bad
The pet store I worked at had a pen with rabbits near the front door. On every side of the pen were huge signs saying “You can pet me, but don’t pick me up!” One day two absolutely huge guys came in and one immediately reaches into the pen to grab a rabbit. Before i could say anything his friend grabbed his arm and asked him “did you see the sign?” He said “yeah! it says that you can pick them up but don’t pet them!” Then he went quiet for a moment and softly said “I didn’t read it right did I?” And his friend just puts his arm on his shoulder and said “its ok, i know you’ve got that thing where words get mixed up. Let just pet these cute lil shits” And I still haven’t gotten over that interaction.
I was walking my dog through Boston bc he likes the likes car rides. He’s a little thing tbh we call him short and long. So this huge scary man with a full beard approaches me like “hey can my buddy and I pet your dog? He gets nervous around dogs but your’s is so small I think it’s a good place to start.” Ofc I was like “yes he’s very friendly!” So this guy brings his equally big friend over and they sit on the floor while this man looks terrified of my tiny dog so big man number one asks “can I pick him up?” And i say yes so he picks him up and puts him on man number two’s lap and man number two is abt to freak out and his friend straight up just goes “hey man, it’s okay just relax I’d never let anything hurt you. He’s a good boy.” I’ll never forget it ever bc I know that man looked at me (5'3 , glasses, probably wearing a sweater vest) and my dog (kinda goofy looking little thing) and was like ‘ah yes the two least intimidating living things I’ve seen in Boston all day he’ll feel relaxed around them’ and went out of his way to help his friend. It makes me so happy
I love this
I was (of course it was) in NYC at the time, riding on the R train and this burly, tall, leather and black jeans with fuck off huge steel-plated knee-highs and a fourteen foot lime green mohawk gets on the train and sit’s down, his jansport backpack making this Ghu-awful THUNK as he sets it between his feet. And no one says anything. Everyone saw him because how could you not?
And he opens his bag and starts rustling through it and sets aside some YA novel that I don’t remember but that it had this absolutely lovely lavender purple cover. and then he pulls out his fucking knitting and just goes to town. Just, minding his own business, knitting away intently, listening to his earbuds.
And wasn’t a person on that train gonna say a DAMN thing about it. No one pointed or made any comments because this dude was built to crush motherfuckers. And he was knitting in public so you know he knew no fear and was happy and confident and then this little girl walked away from her mum and walked straight up to him and waved and her mother looked surprised (but not scared, this is NYC - we don’t know fear because we’re too busy). But the guy sees this little girl wave at him and just gives her the BIGGEST SMILE and waves back and takes out an earbud and says hi and they start talking about knitting and how he learned on his own and she wanted to learn and her mother didn’t know. But he suggested that there were knitting clubs and a lot of them were free and would happily help a new little knitter like her.
It was the single most adorable and heart warming thing of my life. Like here’s this dude with a Rancid t-shirt that looks like it was probably printed in someone’s flat fifteen years ago with an anti-nazi patch right over his heart and enough metal in his clothes to be worth recycling but a little girl waved and what type of nasty, heartless fuck doesn’t smile at kids? That ain’t punk.
Used to work at a nature center, which was attached to an elementary school. Occasionally the fire alarms would go off, and for the most part, we’d all just go about our business (weekly fire drills for the kids didn’t mean that the snakes tanks didn’t need cleaning).
In the middle of one of these alarms, I had a lovely 7’ long red rat snake wrapped around me while I was cleaning up. (She was my favorite - active, but polite, never bit or struck or pulled back to threaten it, or musked me, no matter what I did with her). Of course, law of averages, there had to be one that was a “real” alarm. Bunch of big firefighters come in, demanded to know why we weren’t outside with everyone else, the work’s.
And then they started screaming.
High pitched, girly shrieks. As first one, then another, noticed I was wearing a snake.
And, of course, the screaming brought more fire fighters over, who also screamed… let’s just say I had three trucks worth of dudes gathered around me, stunned that I would -wear- a snake. Who, of course, saw new people and was doing her best to make friends.
Once the false alarm was sorted, they all came back, to a man, to meet the snakes. I had enough for each of them to “try one on.”
These big, buff dudes, who risk their lives running into raging fires without a thought, had to hype themselves up for me to put a young hog nose in their palms. Anxiety sweat dropped down their faces and soaked through their undershirts as I let the red and grey rat snakes cool around their arms. When the garden snake slipped down one guy’s collar, I thought he was going to drop dead from a heart attack, right there. But they all did it! And survived!
I just wish I’d taken pictures to show the third graders when they came in after classes finished!
I go to college early or fall semester because of marching band and so do a lot of the fall sports teams right? So I’m in line in the dining hall, waiting for some spaghetti or something and two dudes from the soccer team or football team or something are behind me, just chatting, and I’m alone so I’m lowkey eavesdropping. At some point Sports Boy 1 notices another sports boy and points out the pants he’s wearing to his friend, Sports Boy 2. And he says something along the lines of “Those were the pants I was talking about before. What do you think? Could I pull them off?” And Sports Boy 2 looks around and finds the pants Sports Boy 1 was talking about and goes “yeah I think you could pull them off,” and then he paused and almost like an afterthought said “but you know, what’s important is that you feel confident in them,”
And man I sat there so touched because like, yes bro preach that body postivity to your friend, remind him that it’s not about what other people think but how he feels.
My life to have witnessed the firefighters meeting the snakes. Bless their hearts 🤣🤣🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍
London Underground, a few years ago. Punk guy - ripped jeans, leathers, multi-coloured mohawk, facial tattoos, safety pins where they really don’t belong, bottle in hand - talking to these two googly-eyed German tourist girls. Tells them how to get to wherever they wanted to go, cool free places in the neighbourhood, what to look out for. Gets up to leave with the final warning: “Just promise me you’ll be careful who you talk to, okay? Some pretty weird people in this town.”
These are so sweet😄
This has gotten better since I last saw it.
Every time this crosses my path, it has beautiful new stories on it.
