Shortly after getting my driver’s license, I stupidly merged onto a road with a 40 mph speed limit without looking left.
A car was coming right towards my driver’s side door. The driver of the other car made their brakes squeal (this was before ABS). Right before they would have hit me and probably killed me (this was before airbags), they released their brakes, swerved around me, and kept going.
It was some really impressive driving, and it likely saved my life.High school girlfriend was a bit intense and told me she wanted me to marry her and that she wanted children. I was 16 at the time. I was terrified by that, because you know, 16, and she got mad at my nervousness. She dumped me a week later and wouldn’t you know it, married less than a year out of high school with now 3 kids.
I went on to get my degree, move far far away, get a much better job and a much better partner. I think back to who I would have been if teenage me had let myself be pressured into that. Small town, working at the gas station or pizza joint, supporting 3 kids…
God, I feel this. One of my uni girlriends was similar. I was attracted to bad women or women with problems, lol. Then I fell in love with a really nice guy who was like, the polar opposite of everyone I had dated prior. Fast forward years later, and we’re married and finally starting to think about having kids. Feels closer to the right time :)
As an EU immigrant, left the UK after the Leave vote but before Brexit and Covid.
It’s not a bullet but more like a whole lot of bullets.
Mind you, most of it was entirely predictable back then.
I moved to UK after school to get a university degree. Graduated in 2014, and despite having multiple interviews, had to move back home due to not being able to land a job. Eventually got employed elsewhere, and boy did it turn out pretty well compared to what would have happened if I stayed.
Can you elaborate on some of the bullets dodged? Not from that part of the world and I’ve only heard of the economic ramifications. I’d be curious to hear about it in greater detail, if you have the time!
The country moved to the far-right, the Industry I was working in - Finance - lost 40,000 jobs, Britain got general Economic stagnation worse than the EU, the value of the British Pound fell significantly against the Euro after the vote (fortunatelly I moved all my savings out of Pound-denominated assets evern before the Leave vote, so I personally was alright) all of the sudden as an EU immigrant you became a second class citizen with lots of extra hassle for living there (inside the EU, EU immigrants have the same rights as the locals, so when Britain left, they lost that), significant decay and problems with their National Health Service, really bad mishandling of COVID (especially in the beginning) and so on.
In some ways the place turned into a mini Trump’s-America, only with the extra nastiness of already being very classist country with very low social mobility from the start and a heavy “know your place” mindset - which is extra hard for immigrants because Britons see themselves as superior to all foreigners but Americans, so “Immigrant” is the lowest “social class” for them - and without the upsides that American has (mainly space and scale, natural resources and at least in some places good weather).
Mind you, most of those things are trends predating Brexit which were heavilly accelerated by it.
Bullet Bill on Mario Kart
I’m guessing .30_06 or .308, but I never saw the shooter. Just heard the zip of the bullet and then the gun.
Growing up in the middle of nowhere was an experience.
Russian military draft.
How did you do it? Must be crazy to look back at it with all the things that happened in mind.
Nice try, KGB
A lot of moving around, not knowing what city or country I will be at next week.
Was a wild ride for sure, glad I was fortunate and persistent enough to find a place I can tentatively call home again ❣️
I’m glad you made it!
9/11 happened a couple weeks after my family and I got back to California from vacation at Disney World and it always felt like we dodged possibly being on a hijacked flight.
This is overly dramatic. It’s not like you were on the same flight number, but the day before.
My uncle was sent from Canada to South Korea in 1983, to help with their CANDU nuclear reactors.
He flew on Korean airlines flight 007, a week before that same flight was shot down by the Soviet Union.
Almost went to college for art, decided last minute to do engineering instead. Still ended up getting heavily involved in art later in life because I had the financial freedom from tech to do so
My ex.
A bit too late to dodge
Came to say “ex” too. We split when engaged and before married, so yes, bullet dodged. We went our own ways before legal/financial/possible children complicated things.
That makes sense! Good on you
Large outlet center on interstate 40 in North Carolina between two metropolitan areas needed a Spanish translator. I applied and interviewed, having spent significant time working IT jobs in South America. They asked if I spoke Mexican. I said no, I am working proficient in Spanish. They said sorry, they were looking for someone who spoke Mexican.
I’ve left two companies before they went under.
Avail Vapor, was the most memorable.
A company that bet everything on vaping being this bougie, upscale thing similar to hookahs and built 100 stores across America(I helped).
Then it all came crashing down once people were just cool with just going to little tobacco shops like they always did, and Avail had 100 stores full of outdated hardware no one wanted.
Yep, down it went.
having kids. If I had established myself a bit earlier financially it might have happened before I saw the signs of where things were going.
Weekend of Sept 8-9 2001, went to a house party in long island NY with some friends from our then-town in upstate NY. Friends mom, our ride, ended up on a crack binge and the party house started getting, uhh sketchy. So four of us got out of there on foot walking down train tracks, pooled funds for a train to at least get back to NYC try to hop our train back up north somehow.
This was middle of the night Sunday the 9th, and we headed to the old liberty park after my friend in area didn’t answer his door. Slept in the park one block from WTC and had my brother upstate wire us money for the train, which we took after WALKING from wall street to grand central (no money). We got back upstate Sept 10, and the following morning 9/11 happened. My friend and I were the type to have been helping people get out of the buildings, he is a firefighter now, one of the others is a nurse.
Went looking for mushrooms in the woods with some friends. A few meters off a trail we found a rusty metal pipe sticking out of the ground. Looked like someone threw some chemical waste out. We tried to open it, to pull it out, we put a stick in (I get sweaty palms writing this down right now) and smelled the strange liquid. It didn’t work so we went home. One friend send the location to the local waste authority. They called a day later, it was a phosphorus bomb dropped by the British during WW2, it was still active and had to be defused. Fuck me! This was not deep in the woods, people walked by in plain sight for decades.
Possible bullet: May get made redundant rather than having to quit and find somewhere else - may get an easier out than just quitting.
