Things must have changed since I was a kid in the US. I remember being told to start walking when my ride home fell through. They wouldn’t let me use a phone to call for another ride (pre cell phone). The teacher did ask if I knew how to get home and I did, but the only route I knew was along the high way.

That happened a few times.

It wasn’t that uncommon at the time. Take a look at this 2005 study the US GAO did on the issue: Social Security Numbers: Federal and State Laws Restrict Use of SSNs, yet Gaps Remain Also, this news article on the trend.

My college ID used to be my social security number, so maybe it was something like that? Iirc that’s no longer allowed in the US.

I would not want to try and explain “intersex” to some of my high school classmates (or my brother TBH). “You mean my kid was born a slur?”

Maybe Kentucky has changed in the past few decades, but I doubt it.

I’m sorry and I’m glad he wasn’t majorly injured.

Yeah, there’s also the confusion of not having literally seen or felt the kid being crushed, so chastising myself that it shouldn’t have been that traumatic. It took me years to accept that just hearing something can also be witnessing it.

Potato: the traditional ADHD houseplant. (Reminds me, I should see if any of my bag of potatoes have volunteered to be planted/have sprouted yet)

I (aurally) witnessed a kindergartener get run over by her school bus. I was on a different bus and our bus drivers were talking over the radio, then there was this ungodly wailing from the other bus. The other bus driver just kept screaming “I killed her, I killed her”.

Turns out the little girl barely missed the bus, ran alongside it to catch up, tripped, and fell under the wheels of the bus.

Once we got to high school, students on the killing bus were offered counseling. I, not being on the killing bus, didn’t talk to anyone about it until I went to therapy decades later.

Yellow school buses freak me out still, for that and abuse reasons.

Human Rights Watch was pretty concerned about prematurely assigning gender to intersex children, back in 2017. I expect there’s more regional variation in this than you’d think.

Samesies. Those darn intrusive thoughts!

TBH, I think Siegfried and Joy have elevated the trick to an art form. (Link is to a very short video example)

One of my professors wrote a major engineering textbook for his topic. It sucked. I value having a textbook written by someone other than the professor because that way I have a chance of encountering 2 ways to learn the concept.

The app openvibe does that for Mastodon and Bluesky. You have to have an account on both, though. I think they’re adding in other services eventually.

My aunt gave me a gift card as a housewarming present. I got glass leftover containers and I love them.