Hey wait … I’m in a comment section now!

Fortunately, the vast majority of what I drink is water, which apparently doesn’t appeal to spiders. I do look in my cups as I sip from them now, but arachnid presence does not appear to be a prevailing threat for most of what I consume.

What happened on Wednesday?

edit: also, What Happened to Monday?

It’s not a word one sees often, agreed, but I love it.

A while ago, I moved to a rural area and placed my recliner next to a semi open fireplace / chimney.

In that timeframe, many times I’ve had an unattended open topped cup containing a sugary beverage with a straw on it; most of those times it’s been a fine experience.

Two of those times, I’ve picked up the beverage without looking in the cup and taken a few big chugs through the straw, only to then look in the cup as I set it down and realize that there was a spider type critter (once an unidentified species, once a harvestman).

Both times I immediately spat out anything I could and went for mouthwash.

Nowadays I look in my cups before chugging.

I wish I had a better place for my cups.

What are you, my erstwhile employer?

No other woman has ever done that to me unless I was already in a relationship with them. I don’t mind a casual hair ruffling, but if that’s what it was it’s still surprising to me.

When I was in my early twenties, a girl I had a crush on but who was dating my friend came up behind me and scritched my head. I’m married to a different woman now and have a kid, but I still wonder about that interaction. I can relate.

For me, the impaction was only mitigated after leaving the peroxide in for an extended period.

I did have a pool-related impaction one other time before I started using q-tips regularly. I went to the doctor for that and they pushed it out using some kind of manual water pump. It worked and the obstruction came out of my ear, but until that happened it felt like earwax (and water) were going to come out of my nose. I don’t know if that’s normal, but it was unpleasant.

One last mostly unrelated (and entirely unprompted) aside: my first encounter (that I remember, at least) with q-tips was right when I was a boy approaching puberty. My mother cleaned my ears with wet q-tips and I complained of the unpleasant feeling. She told me “if you don’t keep your ears clean, no girl will ever stick her tongue down your ear!” At the time it sounded nice just to have any contact with a girl, but now that I’m an adult I have to avoid wondering about that sentence that my mother said to me.

Oh, I don’t disagree regarding regular use being a pain. I used 3 q-tips after every shower (one per ear for the various crevasses, then the opposite ends of a shared one to - as you say - scoop from the main canal). For at least two reasons I wouldn’t want to use peroxide that way every day.

However, twice in my life I’ve gotten my ears clogged to the point that q-tips just made it worse. In both of those cases, peroxide worked miracles.

Thanks for the edification!

This is the second time tonight I’m posting this exact comment (after this sentence):

This statement is upsetting.

There’s mostly just one way to find out.

What is the other type?

This statement is upsetting.

Have you tried hydrogen peroxide?

Can’t comment on the work / tools part, but while not perfect, gaming on Linux is excellent now. The only Windows system on my network is my wife’s work computer and that’s been the case for years.

Works well for cans, though, in my experience.

For a while I had a fiber SFP that was amazing at opening cans, too.

I used to have a Linux laptop at work. I was even allowed to install my chosen distro. Then the IT department said “we don’t really know Puppet or how to manage Linux, but we know JAMF, so you’re all getting Macs now.”

My job satisfaction has gone down since then. However, in more positive news, they did end up giving away the old Linux laptops to the employees when they moved office.