There was one of those hyperspecific polls that had an option like “your grandfather told you war stories that he never told anyone else” and now I feel like I have to tell the story about how a spider saved my grandpa’s life in WWII and how my family doesn’t kill spiders because we owe our existence to that One Single Spider
So to set the scene, it's the height of WWII in France and my grandpa—a 6'3" 20 year old upper Michigan farm boy—has been separated from his company after their temporary camp was shelled. My grandpa (who, I have to add, was nicknamed 'the Suicide Kid' at this point because he worked in demolitions and bomb interception and kept taking the jobs no one wanted with the expectation that he was never going home anyway) is scared out of his wits, wandering around the French countryside alone. He has to move at night and sleep in barns and sheds during the day to hide from people who most definitely want him dead.
On one of these days, he finds a farmhouse of a very jittery couple who agree to let him sleep in the barn, with the conditions that he sleeps in the barn loft and if he's found, they disavow all knowledge that he was there. He agrees, because he's exhausted and will sleep in a hay pile if he has to. My grandpa manages to fit all six foot three inches of himself into a feed trough stored upstairs and tries to get some sleep.
However, right when he's half-snoozing, he hears motors outside and sure enough, here are some very angry officers of mixed Nazi and Vichy make confronting the couple saying someone up the road spotted an American soldier walking this way. They wouldn't know anything about that, would they? No, of course not.
All the while, my grandpa—now trying to figure out how to either escape the barn unseen or how to fight off six? seven? eight? people at once—freezes up and waits for the inevitable. While he does, a HUGE spider crawls next to his head and onto the loft railing. For one second, he thinks about swatting it away, but that would risk him being seen and killed.
So, instead, he lays there and waits to either fight to the death or get executed in a feed trough. And while he lays there, the spider starts making a huge web on the railing. My grandpa's transfixed by this thing. He watches her go around and around, building a solid web before plopping herself off to one side and waiting for breakfast. At the same time, the officers finally go into the barn.
My grandpa can hear them searching around, turning over crates and checking animal pens. Then, he hears one say to check the loft.
And then another say, "Don't bother. Look at the spiderwebs up there. No one's been there in a while."
And they leave.
Because my grandpa didn't swat the spider away and let her build her web, the officers thought no one was there and left him alone. They drive off and my grandpa immediately thanks the farmer couple and hauls ass out of there as soon as he can.
After this, my grandpa refused to kill any spider, and his kids did the same. Because if it wasn't for her, he wouldn't have lived and would never have had kids or grandkids. So we owe her one.
There's the man himself. Go grandpa!!
reblog this post to fill the bowl of the person you reblogged from with soup and let them drink the best juice in the world
thinking about how much work i could get done if i would do it
the only thing stopping me from ruling the world is that i was born without motivation or drive
I want to be good at things without having to do the things
this man found a gemstone the size of a new york apartment on the side of the road and said "sorry im excited about rocks" about it
“This is the most honkin’ skookum rock” bro.
i know a lot of people won’t know who this guy is but he’s running a company that’s building electric semi trucks because tesla sucks so bad and they named it Edison Motors because they’re stealing Tesla’s idea.
"sex" literally isn't real. "ohhh i just had sex" you "had" sex? where did it go? did it grow legs and run away?? idiot
me at any given time: can we just buckle down and focus on the task at hand please???
my brain:
my brain: ……….ranibow sprimkle……………
ranibow sprimkle……..
kepchup.
SPINCH
B A N C H
chichen nuggest
b R o G L e
strawbebbies..
this post almost moved me to tears
Tag yourself, I’m spinch or rainbow sprimkle
I’m kepchup lmao
Brogle and rainbow sprimkle
This is so charming I feel punched in the solar plexus and I’m here for this sort of gentle, sweet violence.
some additions from my own collection
World Heritage Post
warrior cat named websight
they have a wife named mouseclick
the couple and their beautiful children trackpad and firewall (thanks to tags for name suggestions)
Valid Warrior Cat Names Seal of Approval
I remember reading all the warrior cats stuff and then like a year or two later finding the fandom online having completely forgotten everything about it
Is it weird that I have to think about what counts as an appropriate response for myself in a conversation?
What I mean is that in most conversations I'm actually going through the lists of things I could probably say and then sorting them into things I would say (given the context) and things I wouldn't.
Like is that weird?
I'm literally there like "no that's not something I would say; it sounds wrong and would be uncharacteristic of me" as though I'm role-playing some fictional character or something, trying to work out how they'd act.
Idk it could be completely normal but it feels like a strange thing to have to think so much about lol
forgot to post these magpies i doodled yesterday .
I love magpies so much
This is incredible
THE SHINY WINGS
It's so good
Guys I downloaded vinted this morning because it looked really cool BUT I FAVOURITED A BUNCH OF STUFF CAUSE IT WAS COOL AND PEOPLE ARE MESSAGING ME OFFERING DISCOUNTS AND STUFF I'M SCARED ;^;
a bunch of lil guys
I want these on like bookmarks
Or like slapbands
Or those weird plastic bracelets you sometimes get at events or the royal British legion does them I think
I would buy any of those products
Fixing my friends' code is nearly always just me looking up their errors for them
Or researching the library they're using our smt
















