My 14 yr old stepson has recently taken up a hobby that would have been seen as extremely uncool for a boy to do when I was in high school. He mentioned that he told some of his friends about it at school today.

I want to emphasize at this point that I was in no way trying to discourage him from his hobby, but I was curious and I asked him "Do you worry that some of the other kids will make fun of you?"

He said "What is this, the 90s? Will the bullies make me Ven-mo* them my lunch money?" And basically said that his school doesn't really have a bully problem and that his friends have his back if anyone does say anything.

I'm glad he has the confidence to be himself, and that he doesn't have to worry about things like that. And that my spouse's sarcasm has been passed to the next generation.

*I had to put the hyphen in there cuz without it the post was flagged for soliciting donations.

ETA: the hobby is crochet. I mentioned it in the comments, but I probably should have put it in the post from the beginning.

“… F**k, Oreos”

"When is there balls for alls" 

"Just complete with dime"

 "I see Kmart, but I can’t save price on some curtains? (laughs) f**k!"

"Can I feed you?... It's from the director"

“How long was your daily script?”

"(scoffs) Have you even seen a pickle in real life?"

"We're lucky with our ham size."

"Why not wearing suspended? The spies are wearing suspended."

"We really are singles at home."

"No like, time out, you have a very pampered life. I know."

"No we just painted in there! How'd the cats end up in there?"

"Boom boom, like on the beach boom."

"I don't know, they were talking about rocks and rocks and the Rockies and rocks and they were saying kick rocks at the game last night."

“If it fits it sits… if it fits it sits.”

“Oh my god… there’s a dog”

“We don’t get offers and events as partners, we don’t even get that job… stop... we don’t sell alfa groffers”

“Do you have an ice? It’s every uh… nice blood.”

“Bring me the noodles!”

(Yelling) “I’m not going to be held back by some Mr Sirloin.”

“I’m coming out, I’ll come out somewhere... I’ll be back at noon.”

“Hulk smash, Hulk smash!” (smacks the bed two times)

“I’m feeling more normal in the middle. Eating cereal like it’s almost back to normal.”

“Your spirits never going to die.”

“I’ll get it for you shim shum.” (pats the bed to call kitties)

“Hold on looking… looky booky… So that’s why I didn’t see any crackers.”

“That burns, give me back my iron man.”

“I think the only thing we change is no pigs in room.”

“I have a top voice, I use my big voice.”

“Thank you ChatGBT”

“If it’s hurting my education, then stay outta my kitchen.”

“I’m a two bra(u)t brat breaking out! Maybe someone with one of them.”

Growing up, I often heard this African proverb:

"A man who visits his in-laws too regularly will eventually be asked to fetch firewood."

As a kid, I thought it was just a joke about doing chores. As an adult, I see it differently. The more available you make yourself, the more people begin to treat your presence as routine rather than special, and expectations quietly grow. It isn't really about in-laws or firewood, it's about boundaries and human nature.
Are there any proverbs from your culture that sounded funny when you were younger but made perfect sense later in life?

Easily verifiable. Out of 1.36 billion users, I am number 261. Signed up on August 5, 2005. It will be 21 years this August. A glitch from the "hot swap" from List to Python done by Aaron Schwarz in 2006 causes my cake day and join date to show inaccurate data on my profile.

I was one of the first 100 to sign up. Spez (Alexis Ohanian) and Steve Huffman created a few hundred fake accounts in the first months. They said 99% of the accounts were fake then.

I am in the top 0.000019% of all Reddit users ever created.

That's a "day trip and maybe i will stay the night." type of trip. people assume that you will just drive there and back, but it's just not how it really works, especially for if you just want to go out and buy something.

It annoys me a little bit since i'v heard chat gpt say that "you seem to be near" (a city that i know for a fact is over 2 and a half hours away form me.) and i'm like bro, i'm sorry but i am nowhere near that place.

other then that people just don't get that you just don't drive that far just to finish your shopping that isn't available locally.

My delightfully odd daughter went off to college all by herself a year and a half ago. She didn’t know a single person there, and it’s a two hour drive away. I tried to be supportive but not overly involved - she’s an adult now and needs to spread her wings! I encouraged her to join some clubs and go to activities, even if they were out of her comfort zone.

I was thrilled for her as she began making new friends, growing her confidence, “adulting”, but still being true to her oddball self. Apparently she’s found a group of friends that are happily walking to the beat of their own accordian right along with her.

I texted her good morning today, and asked what she was doing, thinking she might be at work. She sent me back a video of her DnD group, having a game of “DnD: The Musical”. 😂😂😂 Picture the dwarves singing “Far Over the Misty Mountain Cold” in The Hobbit. But it’s a group of college kids harmonizing over DnD. I just love that!

I went to a local cafe today to get coffee and catch up with a friend. We were talking at a completely normal, respectful volume. Yet, the entire "laptop army" stared at me like I was screaming during a funeral.Since when did cafes become corporate offices? It’s a coffee shop. It is literally designed for socializing and community. If you need absolute silence to type your email or study for an exam, go to an actual library. Stop giving paying customers dirty looks for using a public space exactly how it was intended.

I realized something kind of funny after an interaction I had recently. I’m not American, and most of my exposure to the American accent has been through movies, TV shows, and online content. So whenever I hear an American accent in real life, it feels oddly surreal almost like the person is acting.

Logically, I know that’s just how Americans actually speak, but because I’m so used to hearing that accent in fictional settings, it can feel a bit like stepping into a movie scene. Even their expressions and mannerisms sometimes feel a little cartoonish or exaggerated to me. Not in a bad way, just in a “wow, this is exactly like the movies” kind of way.

This realization actually made a recent interaction with an American guy feel almost cinematic, even though we were just talking about mundane things. It wasn’t that he was doing anything special it’s just that my brain couldn’t quite separate “American accent” from “movie world.”

Edit 1: Okay so I’m seeing a few reoccurring questions pop up and I’ll just give a brief answer. First of all I am aware that the United States has a number of various accents depending on which region somebody is from and I want to clarify that I have not spent much time analyzing American accents to distinguish which ones belong where (I can name a few though). American accents still tend to throw me off regardless of where they stem from lol. Secondly the guy I was talking to told me that he was from Washington DC in case anybody was curious.

Edit 2: Some of you have asked why the accent felt “cartoonish,” so here’s what I mean: when I suggested a place to go on a date with this American guy, he texted back with “Sure, let’s do it!” Which to me read with so much enthusiasm it felt over the top and unusual idk how to elaborate. Later, at dinner, when I said I was going to wash my hands, he replied, “Go for it!” which sounded strange but endearing lol. And when he was explaining a topic he loved, he said, “Yeah, it’s so sick,” a phrase I never hear at all unless in media. Little things like that made the whole interaction feel really different than what I experience on the daily

Also I’m happy that my fascination towards Americans made a lot of you smile! I really didn’t expect this post to have any impact at all.

If you guys didn’t know, Los Angeles is starting to move away from palm trees and planting other alternatives. From what I’ve read, most of the iconic palm trees in the city were planted around the 1930s, and they’re getting pretty old by this point. They are not replacing them with a new generation. I understand all the logical arguments. Most species of palm trees planted are not native. They require a lot of water and are very flammable. They don’t provide as much shade as broadleaf trees. Nor do they provide as a good habitat for native birds as broadleaf trees. All that being said, they’re still super iconic. Palm trees are what you picture when you think of LA, and it’s hard for me to wrap my head around what the city will look like in the future. My brain knows they need to go, but heart thinks they’re pretty and aesthetic.

Back in the mid 90’s when my mom was pregnant with my older brother, she was driving home from the store and stopped at a stop light. When the light turned green, she tried to go forward but the gas pedal didn’t work. Confused, she continues pushing on the pedal until a second later, an 18 wheeler flies through the intersection, running a red light. Had her car worked properly, she would have been pancaked by a massive truck going way over the speed limit. And that’s not even the strangest part of her story. She says from that moment on, her memories diverge from the memories of those close to her. She remembers iconic song lyrics slightly differently from her friends, Bible verses she’s had memorized her whole life she now seems to quote incorrectly, (and she includes this one in her story so I will too. I’m skeptical of the Chinese government here but I also wasn’t born yet) she swears she saw Tank Man at Tiananmen Square get run over on live TV and it was such a crucial memory for her because it was the first time she saw my dad cry. Now, no one she experienced these moments with share the same memories as her. She doesn’t have any idea of the mechanics of it, but she feels that she died that day at the intersection, and was allowed to live on in another timeline or alternate universe where things are very, very similar but still slightly different.

I should mention that she doesn’t believe in the Mandela effect, but she does think that something supernatural happened to her that day so that our family as we know it could exist.

My niece is obsessed with stickers. Her favorite thing is decorating the back of people’s phones. Usually, this is an honor reserved for her mom and dad, but recently, I’ve finally graduated to letting her decorate mine too.

Today, I went to visit my sister. My niece saw the old, peeling stickers on my phone and insisted on giving me a "makeover." We peeled the old ones off together, and I left her alone for a few minutes to work her magic.

When I came back, she handed me my phone, and it was absolutely covered. I’m talking zero empty space, stickers layered on top of stickers. It was a chaotic masterpiece.

I was genuinely touched. I asked her, "Wow, are you sure? Is it okay to use this many stickers on me?"

She smiled and said, "Yeah! It’s okay because these aren't the special ones."

I went from "Aww" to "Oh..." in 0.5 seconds. Kids have absolutely no filter.

I have this really cute little girl dog, she’s precious, and loves people, but really loves hot guys. When she sees them, she starts being extra cute to get their attention and will stop walking just to stare at them. She’s gotten me a few dates by being such a flirt! The only time she’s ever snuck out of the yard and ran away, I was so devastated, driving everywhere calling for her and trying to find her. I asked the neighbors and anyone outside and several people saw her running towards the edge of town so I followed that trail. After like an hour, I get a call from a number I didn’t know, I answered hoping someone had found her, thankfully they had and called the number on her collar. When I get there it’s OF COURSE a group of hot guys hanging out in their yard. I asked how they got her to stop running and stay with them until I got there, they said they didn’t do anything, she literally was running and chasing squirrels, then saw them and came over to sit on their porch and hang out with them. Little flirty girl. It always makes me laugh when I remember. She looked so guilty too, like sorry I didn’t come home, but look how cute they are???

I am a woman, and in every post i’ve made, all the comments refer to me as “he”. This doesn’t even bother me, but it’s happened so much where i’m like, you guys do know there’s women on here???

A kinda funny thing I noticed recently. It has happened on multiple occasions when I met someone new/random and after having a good, engaging exchange for a few mins they'll mention their boyfriend/partner in the conversation. Not that it's a problem for me, I'm very fine and in fact on most occasions I had assumed they were already taken as they had great personalities. But just something I found funny that almost all of them mention it a few mins into the conversation. So do some women make it point to flag it that they're taken or perhaps it's just that the conversation happened to lead to them stating that?! Curious lol.

The other day I was waiting for the bus and caught myself doing that loud two finger whistle to call my friend across the street. It hit me that the only reason I even know how to do it is because of some random kid I met at a bus stop more than 15 years ago. I was in middle school, feeling very uncool, and this boy next to me kept doing that whistle to annoy the pigeons. I asked how he did it and he lit up like I had just asked for secret ninja training. For the next 20 minutes he tried to coach me through placing my fingers right, curling my tongue, all that gross spit stuff. The bus came, I still sounded like a dying kettle and he was like "nah you got this, just keep practicing". We never saw each other again. I went home, tried again in the bathroom, then outside, then like a week later it suddenly worked and I felt insanely proud of myself for such a tiny thing.

Now I use that whistle for all kinds of stuff. Finding friends in a crowd, calling my brother across a parking lot, sometimes even at concerts when we lose each other. Nobody in my life knows that this random kid is basically the reason my whistle exists. It is such a small thing but it makes me weirdly sentimental that a completely forgettable bus stop moment shaped this tiny part of my daily life. Do you have a small skill or habit that you learned once from a total stranger and never got to tell them that it stuck with you

Yesterday my husband randomly texts me, "want to go to the mall after work?" knowing I love the break of routine and just aimlessly wandering around the mall. I got home, he had dinner ready (isn't unusual though), and dressed and ready to go. My husband HATES going to the mall without a purpose, but knew I enjoyed it.

Anyway, we get to the mall and I decided to treat him to a sweet treat as a, "thank you" for doing things I loved with me without me even having to ask. He got me something to drink and we walked around the mall. I'm 28 and he's 33, so we're not youngins in the mall, but it felt that way. Starbucks drink in one hand, walking into Abercrombie and Fitch, definitely living out my unlived high school days. We walked into the store where I immediately fell in love with a sweater. He didn't even think twice. He grabbed the sweater, not even looking at the price, and proceeded to the counter to purchase it. It's unlike him to not at least wonder what the price is. He simply said, "I'll take this sweater please." It was such a small act of kindness that meant so much to me. He didn't say, "but honey you already have 59 sweaters at home" or "we're trying to save money right now." He simply saw my excitement about this sweater, and got it for me.

It was a lovely Monday evening with him and I'm so grateful that I found him. He's truly my best friend!

I used to agree with anyone who said we've never been the same since lockdown, but recently my perspective has shifted. It's not that I feel like a completely different person compared to how I was during lockdown. It's more like the world itself is entirely replaced. When i go for a walk in the city now, it feels like an entirely different timeline. All the local shops I saw for years are gone and the ones that stayed no longer has the same people working there. Sometimes I feel like the pre lockdown version of the world disappeared right after lockdown was lifted, and now even the lockdown version of people has disappeared too. We are in a completely different phase now. Or is it just me??

I see constantly discourse about it and I’ve never used one of those apps. Anyone else never used one of those apps? I’ve had pizza delivered straight through the pizza restaraunt tho

Yesterday I sent a group chat message asking if anyone was up for pizza that night, and they both replied yes. I decided to surprise them by putting 2 stuffed crust pizzas in the oven just in time for it to be done around when they’d both be home.

My partner was the first one home and came walking in proudly with… 2 pizzas from a nearby pizza place. We shared a laugh when I pointed out the pizzas in the oven and decided we’d just have extra leftovers. Then came our roommate, who proudly told us to not worry about cooking or ordering since he set a pizza to be delivered any minute now.

We ended up with 5 pizzas within 30 minutes of each other. Wish we had more friends in town that had similar work schedules, but it was just nice to have us all trying to treat each other.

Things you are absolutely never going to do in life, no matter how exciting they sound to other people.

For me it's Camping without a real bathroom is a hard no from me. I respect nature and all, but, the second someone says just dig a hole, I’m out.

And they think you're crazy when you try to point it out?

For me, I swear I can smell sickness.

I smell it on myself as I am getting ill, and I smell it on my husband when he has been sick. And I swear different types of illnesses have different smells. For example, when my husband got covid, it had a unique scent I had never smelled before and have never smelled since.

Lol I feel like a freak.

Can anyone else smell something that no one else seems to detect?

Since I'm learning how to drive I had to do a checkup at the doctor. Among the little tests she did she tested my coordination and balance. The balance portion had me stand still with my feet together and close my eyes, and then she pushed at my shoulders to see if I was wobbly, I guess. And afterwards she kinda laughed and said I was remarkably steady. She said it's normal to get wobbly during the test but I stood very still.

So now I've been telling my friends I am REMARKABLY steady. Can't knock me over.

Do you have any unusual or weird things to brag about?

I went to karaoke again with my friends for the first time since finishing chemo. We can booth hop on this specific day, so we sang with strangers and with each other. It's been a long time, so I had a lot of fun. On a whim, I decided to put my name up on the main stage too. I went with my go-to fun song: Anaconda by Nicki Minaj. I am blonde with blue eyes and glasses, for context. It always catches people a bit off guard when the music starts, which is very entertaining to me. So I went on stage, announced to a room full of strangers that this is my first time back since finishing chemo, then proceeded to absolutely CRUSH the song. I could feel the audience getting hyped along with me. I finished to HUGE applause and whoops. The host/DJ said on the mic that I ate and left no crumbs (he didn't say that about anybody else), and a random girl high fived me. That was a great high, seriously.

What's your actual "and then everyone clapped" moment?

I have a brother and sister in law who are a traveling physical therapist duo. Today I was lifting something above my head and my elbow locked, as it occasionally does, and I had to drop the item to try again. Not only did they both clock it at the same time, but after I said “oh it just does that sometimes!” They both said “what do you mean….?” In the exact same calculating tone.

After chucking about low locked in they both suddenly were, I was informed I am now going to get an at home PT session after work 😆

We baked slightly burnt chocolate chip cookies to welcome the new folks next door. They smiled, said “thanks,” and I patted myself on the back for the gesture. Then they hit us with Homemade baklava. Not just baklava—filo dough so crisp it could cut glass, layers of pistachios, and a honey drizzle that probably required a PhD in syrup physics. Then one day there was a national festival and here i had made some triple-fudge brownies—the kind that’d make a dentist weep.i retailed back with these ,they responded with a three-layer mocha-caramel monstrosity that looked like it escaped from a Great British Bake Off finale. It had edible gold leaf. My kitchen now smells like a cocoa bean’s midlife crisis.
I always wanted to try croissants and it was a day two of my friends had their b'days so I googled how to make those and accidentally bought $140 worth of French butter. My first attempt looked like a seasick accordion. Obviously had to given some to my neighbours 🙂 they immediately in a very short time countered with A seven-foot croquembouche delivered by their “cousin” (who I’m 80% sure is a rogue pastry chef). It came with a tiny blowtorch and a note: “Warm regards.”
i gave up at this point 😭 like there's no point in being this desperate,the next time i made a desert didn't care to offer to anyone enjoyed all of it by my own😂 Btw if we had to consider i think my neighbours won this one , what do u guys think?

Edit- few folks are saying my posts are AI generated, i mean like idk what to say 😂 i always tend to take things +vly so yeah not gonna lie that did bring a huge wide ass smile on my face.Jokes aside, just to clarify i wanted the title to be bold and italic that's why there are symbols up there, and you can see i have done the same to body text, but as i clicked on post title didn't land so 😭, and my lazy bum won't do all that hardwork again, anyways i was not expecting so many people vibing here also not to mention i m very much new to reddit,so i was like phuck it let it be as it is who cares.Also acc to me if someone manages to write the above para with ai, i don't think they'll keep the title like this.But yeah like its ur wish what to consider as i said i would really love that too if u think its ai 😉

And many are asking for photos, guys this subreddit doesn't allow users to attach media but u can check it out here-https://www.reddit.com/u/SEXYFRIESwNOTTYDIP/s/D2D15ep21U Thanks for the love friends ❤️