Tonight I may have had an encounter with the smoothest human being on earth.
As many of you know I work as an actor in a haunted house. This is a fun job for many reasons, but witnessing people’s reactions to being scared is by far the best. I’m a scare window actor, which means I hide behind a section of the wall that is held up by a latch that I can lift and drop away suddenly, scaring people with both my scream, and the loud sound my window makes upon being dropped. I have a small hole drilled in the wall to look through to see people passing.
The smoothest human being on the planet wore a white hoodie. He came in a group with three other friends. I did not expect to scare him much. After a while you can kind of gauge just by what you can glimpse from your peephole whether someone will be a good scare or not. Men in their 20’s in a mixed group of friends typically do not get scared easily. But this guy was wearing white in my blacklight-equipped hallway, so he had made himself an easy target and I had to take advantage.
I dropped my window precisely when he was in front of it.
He leapt back toward the wall on the other side of my narrow hallway and his drew back his arm like he meant to punch me.
“This is it.” I thought. “I’m finally going to be socked in the face for scaring someone.”
But I was wrong.
His arm kept curling back behind his head. Smoothly, flawlessly, effortlessly he tucked his hand behind his head, leaned back on the wall opposite me, and propped a foot up on the plywood frame of my open window, reclining with ease.
“So, come here often?” He asked.
All of this occurred within the span of a second. Maybe two.
I was shook. I was stunned. I almost broke character.
I shrugged. “Only on the weekends.” I replied with my character voice. His group laughed. He double finger gunned me and walked on.
I will never forget him.
I cannot stress enough how perfect his transition from his fear reaction to his playboy act was. It flowed so naturally.
He is already a legend in my haunt.
Most people have a fight-or-flight instinct. This man has a third option: flirt.
Must have been a bard.
#ImagineYourOTP
We need the second part where the SmoothGuy comes back every weekend on his own to that same peephole when no one else is watching to get a scare from TheSpook but it ends up as a flirt game within the two every weekend.
And a third part fastforwarding to the future where SmoothGuy tells his children, “I met TheSpook in a haunted bouse. It was love at first fright.”
“Which author would you want to bring into 2015″ is such a hard question to answer I mean you could watch Arthur Conan Doyle despair over everything Sherlock Holmes within the last century or you could present Douglas Adams with an iPad
I would quite like to unleash Dickens on the Tories.
imagine William Shakespeare in the age of social media. 24/7 supreme dick jokes and the world celebrates.
Victor Hugo vs Twitter’s 140 character limit
Okay but Oscar Wilde on Instagram
Give Asimov an actual real robot
Show Lovecraft a mixed-race president and watch him shit himself in fear and anger
Poor George Orwell. “I wasn’t writing a fucking instruction manual.”
I would like Jesus to clear up a few things
Jane Austen devouring all the romance novels she can get her hands on.
y’all are missing a perfectly good opportunity to punch lord byron.
tchalla hacks buckys phone location so he knows where he is if and when he wants to beat his ass
he just gets bored and he’s like hmmmmmm bucky’s only two miles away frm me time for pain buck boi
forget the tony and steve man pain, i want to just see scenes of Bucky standing in the self checkout line with a loaf of bread and TP then suddenly tchalla is there throwing a shopping cart at his ass and they start fighting. bucky in the bathroom washing his hands calmly before tchalla kicks the door open and they start fighting. tchalla having a sandwich in the park until he sees bucky coming then he throws it at his face and then they start fighting.
Bucky’s about to dive in the pool, T’Challa runs up, drop kicks his ass and flips out of the splash zone.
it’s very important to me that sometimes t’challa is in a high-level but very boring cabinet meeting about grain prices or smth and his secret Danger Phone goes off and he glances down at it and then grimly says, “i must go.” and everyone’s like, wow. our strong and brave prince. off to protect Wakanda in her hour of need again. meanwhile t’challa’s just hit bucky barnes with a SPECTACULAR flying clothesline outside a Home Depot in bed-stuy
I bet for the professors teaching Ravenclaws is like herding cats away from empty boxes.
Older Ravenclaws have finely honed the art of asking just the right argumentative questions to direct their teacher onto an entire-class-session-long tangent about something entirely irrelevant to the course material.
Can you imagine Ravenclaws trying to overhaul the entire school system with Muggle ideas. Trying to figure out how to best teach people, more concerned with how people learn than what they’re learning.
“Why do we force people to learn things they aren’t interested in, we should create our own curriculum.”
“We should figure out everyone’s learning styles.”
“We need smaller class sizes.”
“No, no, wait, guys, what if we eliminated grades entirely.”
Yeah, Ravenclaws would drive Hermione up the wall.
“Fire the whole staff and start over.”
“Present more opportunities for seventh-year independent research!”
“Why hasn’t anyone made magically modified calculators yet?”
“Why are we still using quills and parchment when pencils exist? Please explain.”
“I don’t want to enter the work force directly after school, what are my options for higher education? Is there magical university?”
“I don’t feel confident in my professor’s qualifications because she’s teaching me astrology but doesn’t know any facts about space beyond about the year 1764.”
Muggleborn Ravenclaws forming rogue study groups to teach other students chemistry and algebra and English literature, just imagine.
“They call this the astronomy tower but we’re learning about the effects of Venus when it’s in the fourth house and the professor doesn’t believe Neptune is a planet I am really concerned.”
“Okay but what’s the oxidation state of Mandrake root in pepperup potion?”
“But can you apply differential calculus to arithmancy or not?“
“The portrayal of the witches in Macbeth has some pretty troubling implications, also, I don’t think their potion would have actually done anything.”
what’s new pussycat just started playing in this restaurant and every millenial in the room shared a knowing, fearful look
It’s fucking Tom Jones? Millennials are you too stupid to realize that Tom Jones is the reason some of you exist? (Think about it for a second, you’ll get it)
The SMH team have a Harry Potter party and everyone has to go as a character, no excuses.
Jack is forced to be Harry, even though he’s way too tall, but everyone wanted to see him in glasses and to loudly proclaim he looks just like his father, but has his mother’s eyes. Holster and Ransom wanted to find him a real owl but Bitty said no.
Ransom goes as Lee Jordan and spends the entire night commentating on the events of the party at great volume.
Dex is a Weasley. Which Weasley, you ask. All of them. (no, he was not given a choice).
Bitty was given suggestions such as Professor Flitwick and Professor Umbridge because of his height. He ignores both and goes as Dobby instead. People throw clothes at him all night.
Shitty goes as Dumbledore and spends half the evening dispensing Sherbet Lemons and wise advice. The other half is taken up by muttering cryptic warnings to Jack, who doesn’t understand most of them.
Holster agonises for eight days over his decision, before finally choosing Professor McGonagall, who is in his top 5 favourite characters of all time. He spends most of the evening chasing after Ransom, telling him to watch what he’s saying in a high-pitched voice and a passable Scottish accent.
Lardo goes as Sirius Black, and is undoubtedly the coolest person in the room. She shows up on a motorcycle. No one knew she could even drive one. Her moustache and flow rival Shitty’s.
Chowder goes as Hagrid, who was always one of his favourite characters. His costume is so good that it takes the team half the night to realise exactly who it is, and that’s only because he brings out his largest stuffed toy shark as a “pet”.
Nursey goes as Gilderoy Lockheart because they’re both extremely good-looking and has everyone around him laughing all night at his perfect blend of self-absorption and complete incompetence. He composes poems about himself on the spot.
Parson crashes the party halfway through the night, loudly announcing his displeasure at not being invited, and that “My father will hear about this”.
I’m just dying while thinking about a hotel employee calmly Googling “How to fold a towel in the shape of an elephant,” and then going out to buy eye stickers.
I think these would guarantee return bookings. Loving the elephant.
I worked in a hotel for a year. Hotel staff LOVE silly requests because otherwise our job is just mundane. It gives the front desk a chance to do something creative.
Speaking as another former hotel owner, this shit would have ABSOLUTELY made my day.
I’ve spent some time wondering at Dumbeldore’s rational for hiring Gilderoy Lockhart and I’ve reached the following conclusion.
When Dumbledore met Lockhart, all he thought was “Oh, this is going to be hilarious.”
I always got the vibe that Dumbledore was like, “there is no possible way for this man to be a Death Eater,” and hired him on the spot.
I like the idea of Dumbledore overcorrecting all the time.
First professor was a death eater? Lets get one who definitely isn’t. That one was an egoistical jerkface? I’ll hire literally the most humble and unassuming human on Earth. Lupin got kicked out by a bunch of parents? Lets go for a man who is incapable of taking any shit from anyone…. etc.
This is actually really good for babies’ brain development. You’re laying the groundwork for conversation, teaching them through example that people take turns talking and listening.
Did you know that babies from affluent families hear an average of thirty MILLION more words before age 5 than babies in families below the poverty line? For context, Les Miserables is about 650,000 words and it looks like this:
So it’s like reading this book 46 times.* And that’s not the total number of spoken words, that’s the GAP between affluent and poor babies. And these are the years in which the brain undergoes the most development. It’s mind-boggling.
So what I’m saying is: keep doing the thing. Do it to all babies, all the time. Narrate your day. Ask them for opinions. (“Should we buy the large bag of potatoes or the small bag?” “Gaabooglagje.” “Yes, just as I thought.”) Point out colors and shapes and letters. Let them scribble outside the lines and treat their babble like talk. Sing them nursery rhymes and Raffi songs and songs from the radio. All of these things are going to build their brains to prepare them for kindergarten and beyond.
*Please do not read Les Mis 46 times to an infant. They don’t even care about the Parisian sewer system.
Don’t tell me what to do I’m going to read Les Mis 46 times to my child until they start a toddler uprising
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 