Second fun leech story of the week: During a panel at San Diego Comic-Con several years ago, I casually mentioned going wading in the local leech pond to collect leeches for my axolotl.
lies are hard to make up. you have to be consistent, and believable, and ensure that the audience is held engaged in the alternate reality you create and that's fucking exhausting. true stories are where the real weird shit happens, 'cuz reality has no obligations towards suspension of disbelief.
Yeah I am not pressing the button for assistance and then waiting like 10 minutes for the lone Walgreen's employee to shuffle to the aisle so I can ask them to please unlock the Embarrassing Personal Hygiene Products case so I can buy a tube of Your Body Is Gross ointment.
Anti-theft deterrent also means anti-sales. Nice job, eggheads. "Upon discovering that an item they want to buy is in a locked case, less than one in three shoppers (32%) get a store employee to unlock the case." www.retailbrew.com/stories/2024...
Most end up trying to find the product in another store, according to a Consumer World survey.
Hello, new people! My name is Seanan; I write books, comics, and tie-in fiction. Before I became a professional author, I went to college, and in college, I was a bio major (herpetology). I also did years of animal rescue. I do not tell lies for free: my animal stories are always true.
Having worked in an ENT office for a minute now, probably every otolaryngologist has at least one of these stories. I cannot elaborate because HIPPA.
A small reminder that will do no good but might make me feel better: I get paid to tell lies. I do not get paid to use Bluesky. If I am telling funny animal stories, they are 100% true, even when told in a humorous way. You want lies? PAY ME.
I love that @neolithicsheep.bsky.social has unlocked all my funny terrestrial leech stories. There are so many.
I knew a biologist--still do technically, she's not dead--who went on a field expedition and came home with a NASTY code. No symptoms but absolutely DEVASTATING congestion. She was talking like a plugged-up cartoon character for months. Nothing helped.