Bill W

Chances are, he will, but you'll have to read the next chapter to see what he actually does. 😜

I think if Devin has a choice between eating mice as a bird or fast food as a human, he'll take the latter. 😜 Yes, Mac made an error in judgment, but hopefully he'll be ok.

Yes, Mac was injured, but I didn't kill him off. However, if that happened I'm not sure which choice I would have made, since the story is about their relationship and future.

I'm not sure it's something Devin is adamant about, maybe just curious, but I doubt it will become an issue. As far as Chick-fil-A's hiring practices and requirement, I have no direct knowledge, but I assume they try their best to weed out any undesirable characters and select only good church going applicants.

We'll soon see, but I believe he feels he won't be noticed as a bird, so let's hope he's correct.

Chapter 30 – The Stakeout When we went on stakeout again the following night, I hadn’t been on duty very long when I saw a bus pulling onto the campus and it parked near one of the athletic facilities. That set off alarm bells in my mind, because there were many expensive items at that location which would definitely attract a group of thieves. I flew closer and landed on a nearby building so I could get a better look, because I was thinking the thieves might be using a bus this time. I

The word insolent comes from Latin insolēns, meaning "unaccustomed, unusual", combining the negative prefix in- ("not") with solēns, the present participle of solēre ("to be accustomed"). It entered English through Old French in the 14th century, evolving from meaning "strange" or "unfamiliar" to specifically describe "rude, arrogant, or disrespectful behavior" that disregards social norms and authority, essentially acting "out of custom". According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word insolent first appeared in English around 1386, notably in Geoffrey Chaucer's writings (like the Parson's Tale), meaning someone contemptuous or proudly disdainful of others, originating from Latin. The sense of "contemptuous of rightful authority" became common later, around the 1670s. Examples of "insolent" in a sentence: "His insolent stare made her feel disrespected and angry." "With an insolent grin, the villain ignored the hero's warnings. "She couldn't tolerate his insolent remarks and told him to leave." "The captain punished the insolent soldier for talking back to his superior." "The new employee's insolent attitude towards the manager quickly got him fired." "This shows how Kate has a mistaken identity because she appears rude and insolent."

This is a very detailed story, with a large cast of characters, that recounts the events of what happened during one of the most memorable events of the 21st century. It is the personal story of a young staffer, from a political family, who gets a job working for a Congresswoman on January 6, 2021. The information comes from news reports and one side of the political aisle, but give it a read, no matter your political leanings.

Wow, that was one detailed recounting about January 6th with a large cast of characters. Very impressive. I hope our discussion about your story doesn't get us drawn and quartered because they're done outside of The Pit, but I think we're safe since we're talking about your story. However, I will keep this comment generalized, just in case. I know we have a large collection of conservative members, so I hope you don't get blowback about this being liberal propaganda, although I don't think any of them are political revisionists that will try to rewrite what happened on that day.

Just in case any of you were wondering, pluck is not an abbreviation for pot luck.

The word "pluck" comes from Old English pluccian, meaning "to pull off", from Proto-Germanic plukkōną. It is related to words in other Germanic languages like German pflücken ("to pick"), Dutch plukken ("to pluck"), and Norwegian plukke. It potentially stems from Vulgar Latin piluccare, related to Latin pilus ("hair"). Meanings evolved from physically pulling (feathers, hairs, strings) to metaphorical senses like "pluck up courage" or the noun for animal organs (heart, liver, lungs) removed by plucking, which led to the slang for "guts" or courage. It also is used in euphemisms such as "Pluck a rose" for going to the necessary house (toilet) in the garden, attested from the 1700s. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the verb "pluck" ("to pull or tear") appeared in Old English (pre-1150), while the noun "pluck", initially meaning "pulling the heart/viscera from an animal", first appeared in Middle English (1150-1500), with the earliest known use around 1440 in Promptorium Parvulorum. The noun meaning "courage, boldness" in a figurative sense into boxing slang around 1785. Examples of "pluck" in a sentence: "I plucked a lemon from the tree." "He plucked a stalk of dried fennel." "I have to pluck or wax my eyebrows." "He plucked the baby out of my arms." "I plucked off a little crunchy chunk of meat." "Jill rose, plucking bits of straw from her clothes." "She was plucked from the corps de ballet to take on Juliet." "After you kill the chicken, you must then pluck its feathers." "It must have taken a lot of pluck to walk along a path that was marked “Danger." "The agency plucked her from obscurity and turned her into one of the world's top models." "After being pummeled throughout the entire fight and knocked down five times, the boxer showed a lot of pluck by finishing the the ten round match."

It may not kill anybody, but it can sure distract them during class so they miss out on what the teacher is saying or what they're working on. That could end up affecting their grade.

Sorry, I guess I overlooked Baxter at the end of the list.

From what I've heard from my grandchildren, students don't shower after gym classes and many, if not all, of those playing sports don't shower after practices or games. I find that to be both concerning and unhealthy, and I wonder how many students have to sit near a smelly classmate who had PE during a period earlier in the school day.

If you like Sci-Fi and don't mind wading through a fair amount of technical information, then this story should be a must read for you. As usual, you'll find @Lee Wilson's tale creative, with well developed characters, an interesting storyline, and his usual wit and zany outlook on life. This means you won't be disappointed if you're familiar with his other stories, so sit back and enjoy, because I know I did!

I loved this story Lee, but then I love Sci-Fi stories. However, you did confuse me at one point, so I have to ask you to explain. You wrote: Cashman was the largest. We figured the doctor was the most important of our little family. Schmidt was the second largest, Turner and Haas were next. Due to his prohibition of leaving the ship, the smallest was named Baxter. Gold and Cooper were the fifth and sixth largest. Now, if Cashman was 1, Schmidt 2, Turner 3, and Haas 4, shouldn't Baxter have been 5? That would have made Gold 6 and Cooper 7. I thought I could check the list that followed to clear this up, but Baxter wasn't listed in the list. What happened to Baxter? Just clear that up for me, if you will. Thank you.

@Summerabbacat, I'm 77 and don't have a problem reading the European dates, such as 30 September (30/9) or 4 July (4/7) to American (although when both the day and month are less than 13 it can get a little confusing if I don't know which system is being used). That's why I always write out the month in my stories, but other than that, I'm not sure why you find it so confusing.

I thought of the same thing, @drsawzall. No matter how much time the earth has before the sun envelops it, those in charge of these missions better check out potential future home planets better than what was done of this mission.

As someone who spent the summer of 1973 in the UK, this article helped me understand a little better why so many of the older shopkeepers had difficulty making change when someone purchased something. They had spent their entire lives working with the old system and couldn't figure out how to covert the new coins to something they could understand. It was definitely a challenge dealing with any of them, and I found this not only true in London where I spent most of my time, but also all around the entire UK. Not only did I take short trips away from London while I was there, but I also spent the last few weeks I was there renting a car and driving around and exploring the rest of the UK. Thanks for the enlightening and humorous explanation.

I was in England during the summer of 1973 and many of the older shop owners in London were still having trouble with the new decimalized monetary system. When you purchased something and paid for it, those older shopkeepers would look at the money you paid them, and if it wasn't the exact price of the item, they'd look at it for several second and then reach for the coins they thought you should get back. Sometimes they gave back too much and other times not enough, but they would never listen to complaints either way. I tried to tell one shopkeeper that he had given me back too much money, but he kept flipping his wrist upward, indicating that he wanted me to just go away, so I did, and that wasn't the only time it happened. I just hope none of them went bankrupt because they couldn't understand the change in the monetary system.

It's not my body's furnace or metabolism, it's how the cold weather affects my body. To turn up my body's furnace I would have to exercise, and that makes me hungry too, so that wouldn't be much help either. I think my body feels the cold is telling it to eat more and build up fat to insulate itself, because fat/blubber is a good insulator.

There are two problems with that idea: I still have to go outside, and raising the thermostat exceeds my budget for heat on a fixed or limited income.

As summer progresses into fall and the weather starts to get colder, I'm like a bear getting ready to hibernate, because I suddenly have a voracious appetite.

The word voracious comes from the Latin vorax ("greedy, ravenous), which derives from the verb vorāre, ("to devour" or "to swallow"), ultimately stemming from the Proto-Indo-European root \*gwora- ("food" or "devouring"). English adopted the term in the 17th century, initially through its noun form, voracity, meaning extreme greed or appetite, often used for food, but also for activities like reading. This root appears in other words like omnivore, carnivore, and herbivore. Often mixed up with veracious (truthful), but voracious relates to "devouring" (the 'o' sound), while veracious relates to "truth" (the 'e' sound, like 'true'). According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and other sources, the word voracious was first used in English in the mid-1600s, with the earliest known evidence from 1635, appearing in the writings of poet John Taylor. It's formed from Latin roots related to devouring, and its first recorded use shows it meaning "greedy in eating" or "intensely eager". Examples of "voracious" in a sentence: "Joseph Smith was a voracious book collector." "One reason is the voracious world demand for timber." "The magazine's readers had a voracious appetite for more." "He has passion for movies and a voracious appetite for the genre." "Moles have a voracious appetite and can eat 70-100 percent of their weight daily." "The one thing handed down by my father and father-in-law is a voracious love of reading."

For anyone who hasn't read it, this short story is definitely worth a read.