I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.
My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.
If you would report an undocumented immigrant to ICE you would have reported me to the Nazis and I don’t fucking trust you
A note:
I live in a state where you “have to” report anyone you suspect of being undocumented (that wonderful hellhole of Arizona). Now in practice this law has fallen far short, thank goodness. But if you live in such a place and they start enforcing it, here is how you get around it:
Assume everyone who doesn’t speak English is visiting.
Never ask about their job, because if they tell you they work here then you know they’re not visiting. You see them a lot for several weeks or months? Hm. Someone in the family must be ill. That’s terribly tough. They always dress in old, ratty laborers’ clothes? I feel you, my dude, I can’t afford new clothes either, and my dad has the fashion sense of an aardvark, so sometimes it’s not even about “affording” them. They say they’ve been here for years? You must have misunderstood. Spanish isn’t your first language, after all. First and last name? It never came up, or you don’t recall–you meet a lot of people.
And then, if you’re asked: no, you haven’t seen anyone residing illegally in the United States. Just people visiting.
Very good very important addition
Essentially, this is the civil society version of a work-to-rule strike.
Don’t do more than is expressly asked of you, and do what you are asked with such an intense attention to protocol that not asking you at all becomes more effective than even bothering.
In this case:
“Have you seen an illegal immigrant?”
“Could you describe an illegal immigrant, officer?”
*officer describes a person who is in the country without appropriate paperwork, or who has crossed the border illegally*
“No, sir, I haven’t seen any illegal immigrant.”
And this is correct. You have NOT seen an illegal immigrant, because you have no way of knowing if Jose Fulano is here legally or not. And since you can’t see his paperwork (or lack thereof), and did not personally see him cross the border illegally, you are only answering precisely the question asked.
I’m not American, and I have like, three followers, but this is important.
I really believe that in the beginning they felt the same as me. I feel like I was cherished and I felt their love. That’s why it was fun and we have good memories.
But as time goes on, we get comfortable and maybe things get boring. Maybe I didn’t satisfy some need they had and it got harder and harder to pretend to feel the same about something that no longer excited them.
I guess it’s true. My life is pretty boring with a set schedule. We share very little common ground, we can’t build a bridge on good intentions and then expect it to last forever.
People here would say, “why all the fuss, it’s not like you’re dating them.”
I think actually being friends requires just as much effort as dating.
That or an equal amount of loneliness and coincidence that your schedules are both open and able to meet easily.
She got a warning for another unrelated mistake that she made and was asked to apologize to a different coworker. She refused and said either our academy gives her better conditions or she’ll walk. Guess what the academy chose? Because it was the beginning on the semester and she decided to quit, she cannot use our academy on her resume and couldn’t receive retirement benefits (she quit.)
I wish her the worst.
The family member who died was our family dog Minnie. I still think about her everyday. Nobody but my family understands. My friends try to be nice, but to them its like when you hear your friend’s aunt or uncle died. You know it’s sad but you can’t relate. Or really care.
Minnie had diabetes. It was diagnosed around 3 weeks before she left. One day she got sick and had a fever. It turned out she had an infection in her kidney and in the process of diagnosing that, they found out about the diabetes.
It didn’t register at the time being, but thinking about it now, it was a death sentence from the moment we knew. For the rest of her life she would have to receive two shots of insulin a day and she was not having it.
The day I came back to hawaii she went to the emergency room. I still didn’t realize how serious it was. Two days later after sleeping 3 hrs a day wrapping her in wet towels and holding her up to help her breathe, we decided to let her sleep and stop the pain.
Or so I say, but in a way I wonder if it was because it was too hard for us to take care of her that way. That we didn’t see any hope. We took her on a last drive and we carried her around the neighborhood where we used to walk here. I couldn’t stop crying because it didn’t make sense it was the last time we could do this together.
Then we took her back to that horrible hospital with the workers who I still don’t think saw Minnie as anything more than a dog and a number. That horrible cold hospital. That hospital is what Im the most sorry about. I’m sorry we left her in there for even a day. I’m sorry we put her to sleep when mentally she was still there and she was fine in her head.
Putting a dog to sleep is a horrible experience I sincerely hope anyone reading this will never have to experience. It felt the same as if I were to put my son or daughter to sleep. A baby.
It’s worse because they don’t understand they didn’t have a long life to reflect. They’re not ever adults.
It was horrible, I don’t think the vet tech did it right because after the vet said she was gone, she jerked. That will stay in memory forever.
I wished that it couldve been me dying instead.
I still wish that.
In a way I blame my mom. She has a fear of doctors and hospitals and refused to take Minnie for years except for a yearly checkup. She claimed Minnie was extremely healthy. I blame myself for choosing to live away from home and not spending more time with her.
