Apparently, when she was having one of her kids, another woman in maternity unexpectedly had twins. (Well before ultrasounds, in the late ‘40s or early ’50s. Also before health insurance was common in the US.)
That brought the total bill up to quite a bit more than they had planned and were prepared for. The hospital’s solution? Hold the babies hostage until the family paid up 😱 While racking up more charges all the time for keeping them there, of course.
Those people probably wished the hospital would accept a sack of grain instead.
That family wasn’t asking, but not too surprisingly other people in maternity ended up pitching in to cover the difference and try and get those babies home. They were still there when my Nana and her child left, and she was hoping it didn’t take too much longer to spring them.
Hopefully a hospital couldn’t get away with that now, but who knows.
Tip when talking to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
When they ask you to say something again. Stop getting annoyed. The worst is when you say never mind and drop the conversation.
Just repeat what you said instead of making that person feel bad for not hearing you mumble.
Not deaf or hard of hearing myself but people who are have told me that repeating using different words and facing the person to facilitate lip reading can be helpful.
Facing the person and making sure your mouth is clearly visible can definitely help.
I’m HOH, with a side order of auditory processing problems. Repeating with different phrasing isn’t necessarily going to be helpful in that case, if the person is still trying to process and mentally fill in the blanks in what was said the first time. It can really scramble my brain sometimes, when I know people are trying to make things easier.
That’s probably more likely to help people who aren’t dealing with significant auditory processing weirdness too. If you’re not sure, it may be better to ask what would help most?
Pleasant surprise: the Amazon delivery guy came back a few minutes ago, instead of waiting for tomorrow! And we’re better set for cooking.
(Plus a few other things like shoe insoles, but I was particularly glad to see these because I wanted to use some of the oyster sauce tonight.)
I was glad to find some celiac-friendly Chinese soy sauce, because all I can find locally now is Kikkoman. Which is a lot better than nothing, but a pretty different flavor profile. I also added a liter bottle of the Kikkoman when I saw it, because why not. Glad to more readily be able to get the smaller bottles, but they don’t last that long.
And hopefully I can remember not to basically hoard back the oyster sauce this time. The last one sat in the fridge until it molded, with about half the bottle left 🙄
the fact that we can’t drink sea water even tho its the most common type of water just bc its 3% salt yet we can safely consume multiple forms of literal poison and even benefit from doing so just blows my fucking mind
Wel, too much caffeine can kill you or at least give you a heart arrhythmia.
Too much of anything does, really.
Caffeine is worse at killing you than almost any other drug we use. The difference between an effective dose and a fatal dose is called the “therapeutic window”. For caffeine it’s something like a factor of fifty, and unpleasant side effects keep most people from getting anywhere close to that dose. Most drugs have a therapeutic window between a factor of two and a factor of ten.
Some people manage to hurt themselves with caffeine by eating heaping spoonfuls of the pure stuff.
Some other drugs with unusually large windows: ammonia in smelling salts has a window of about a thousand, and LSD has never been known to kill someone, despite idiots taking huge doses, so its therapeutic window is large but unknown.
Epistemic status: I have read a few books on pharmacology. But it’s not my profession, and I didn’t even bother to check any of the “facts” above. So take with a grain of salt.
How many grains of salt do I need to take it with to die though?
The lethal dose of table salt in an adult is about five tablespoons. Most rocks are safer to eat, albeit less tasty.
*Really*? Much lower than I would have guessed, although now that I think about it I guess it makes sense.
the salt bit suggests a deeply upsetting horror movie murder scene and I wish I hadn’t read it
Monday is the end of the comment period for a sweeping National Park Service proposal that will have a dramatic effect on the ability of Americans to protest in sight of their government.
Under the proposed new rules, protests around the White House and the
National Mall would require permits, protestors would be barred from the
sidewalk north of the White House. The proposal also seeks public
comment on charging protesters fees for permits to gather.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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