day 1 at the communal puzzle club: i see a puzzle with a sign next to it that says "please help with our communal puzzle" and i say to myself "don't mind if I do" and did the whole thing

day 2 at the communal puzzle club: i get gently reprimanded for not sharing the puzzle experience with the others. in my defense I thought they needed all the help they could get

day 3 at the communal puzzle club: we start a new puzzle and i put one of the pieces in my pocket and save it for later so i can be the one who puts in the last piece

day 4 at the communal puzzle club: the puzzle is almost complete so i reach into my pocket and realize i left the last piece in my other pants which are currently in the washing machine. i feign ignorance

day 5 at the communal puzzle club: the others are suspicious but they have no proof. they check my pockets before i leave but little do they know that this time i ate the pieces

day 6 at the communal puzzle club: i put an entire bottle of miralax in my coffee to get the pieces out of my digestive system but they are too far dissolved to be usable. my stomach is in so much pain and i can't stop shitting but i rinse off what's left of the pieces and make it to puzzle club anyway, only to find out they don't meet on mondays. i am inconsolable.

day 7 at the communal puzzle club: i realized those pieces are incriminating evidence so i slipped them in someone else's pocket. i should be good as long as they don't find residual traces of my dna

day 8 at the communal puzzle club: there is an odd feeling in my gut. i feel as if something has been awoken in me

day 9 at the communal puzzle club: i am in such deep focus that the others are starting to fear me. either that or they are cowering away from the communal puzzle out of sheer respect for my skills

day 10 at the communal puzzle club: i'm getting better and better, i can now do several puzzles in one day. the others are discussing what to do about me in hushed tones. little do they know my laser focus allows me to hear everything they say. they aren't a threat.

day 11 at the communal puzzle club: the club manager unlocked the door but already i am inside. ive been here all night doing puzzles in the dark. they threaten to ban me from the club so in response i pick a 500 piece puzzle at random and complete it in under 45 minutes, just to show them who the real authority is

day 12 at the communal puzzle club: i have been officially banned from the communal puzzle club. in a fit of rage i grab as many pieces as i can and eat them, making sure to thoroughly chew and swallow every single one. if i can't do them, no one can.

day 13 at the communal puzzle club: it's monday again. the club doesn't meet today. it's the perfect opportunity to break in and do as many puzzles as my heart desires, without any of the club's petty drama to distract me

day 14 at the communal puzzle club: i am in jail because the club manager snitched to the cops like the pathetic weakling they are. this is the worst night of my entire life there aren't any puzzles here

day 15 at the communal puzzle club: the judge let me off with a restraining order since I didn't actually steal anything. i show back up to communal puzzle club just to make a show of ripping the order to shreds. no piece of paper will dictate my life, only jigsaw-cut cardboard has that power. nothing else.

day 16 at the communal puzzle club: everyone is so quiet today when I walk in. I eat some pieces in a show of force, just to remind everyone who's in charge. I comment that they taste somewhat like strychnine, they say it's just because Ravensburger has a new method of chemically processing their pieces. sounds plausible. 30 minutes later i am convulsing violently but i beg them not to call an ambulance until i finish the puzzle i was working on. but the bastards don't listen and I'm shipped off to the hospital kicking and screaming.

day 17 at the communal puzzle club: i spent the night in the hospital. a detective comes in and says they're investigating the manager of the communal puzzle club for attempted murder and asks what i know. i tell him honestly that i ain't no snitch and spit in his face. he says they have more than enough evidence to prosecute regardless.

day 18 at the communal puzzle club: the club manager is on trial for attempted murder and i am called as a witness. i tell the judge that i ain't no snitch and spit in his face. i am held in contempt of the court

day 19 at the communal puzzle club: the defense makes a plea of justifiable self defense, citing the restraining order that isn't even 1 week old. somehow the judge buys that flimsy defense. i mean, this is the same judge who didn't even recognize me from that same case despite being the same judge. i think the poor old man has dementia so i make a motion for a mistrial. it gets shot down because the system is corrupt.

day 20 at the communal puzzle club: the judge says i should get jail time but he decided i should be in a mental facility instead. i don't know why he would think that, i have been nothing but sane my entire life. god forbid a woman have hobbies

day 1 in the psych ward: they have puzzles in here this is amazing

day 2 in the psych ward: all the puzzles are missing a few pieces. this is unacceptable. im going to go insane

day 3 in the psych ward: i have been informed that they do not use the word "insane" in here so i take back my previous statement.

day 4 in the psych ward: i need to find those missing pieces i need to find them i need to find them i have been questioning everybody all the nurses all the doctors all the patients all the miscellaneous hospital staff but nobody knows anything. this is hopeless. i will never be able to overcome this trauma. my life is over

day 5 in the psych ward: it's so boring in here. without complete puzzles there's nothing to do except watch tv but the only channel they get is the local news. i begrudgingly watch out of nothing but all-encompassing ennui. but one of the stories is about the communal puzzle club and suddenly i am overcome with nostalgia. turns out there was a series of alleged poisonings attributed to that location. strychnine was found in three people so far, one of whom was myself. but the others didn't survive. this confirms my suspicion that i am in fact the chosen one

day 6 in the psych ward: with a renewed sense of purpose i will attempt to convince the doctors of my "sanity," but i also came to the realization that they don't care about sanity, they only care about sedation. they want to supress my passion, eradicate my truth, condition me to fall in line with the rest of the "sane" people. with that knowledge, i was able to tell them everything they wanted to hear. i acted polite, pretended i was cured, i even feigned complete disinterest in puzzles! it made my stomach boil but i did it, i convinced them, and just like that, i was free.

day 28 at the communal puzzle club: i don't know why everyone was so surprised to see me again, it's only natural that i'd come to finish what i started

(i know this is supposed to be day 27 at the communal puzzle club but day 27 was a monday so nothing happened) like what am i gonna say, "day 27 i sat alone in my studio apartment eating cereal and biding my time"

day 29 at the communal puzzle club: the communal puzzle club has been disbanded, the club manager has been arrested, and the whole place is swarming with cops. i watched as they hauled off a bunch of expensive looking printers and like a billion reams of paper and loaded them onto a big police truck.

apparently, the communal puzzle club was just a front for document forgery and counterfeit cash, and i had been inadvertently sabotaging them this entire time. which is sad because i support both of those things. but it also explains why they met 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and why they had their own building despite having no profit model and also why i was the only one who seemed to actually care about the puzzles. everyone else was too busy making fake passports to care.

in hindsight, i always knew they were all a bunch of casuals. but i didn't mind because they had so many excellent puzzles. I asked one of the officers if i could at least have the puzzles but he said they were already taken and locked away in the evidence room. the thought sickens me- all those puzzles, gathering dust, never to be assembled again. or maybe the pigs just took them for themselves! so they could have all the puzzles they want while the rest of us ordinary, law-abiding citizens have nothing to do except die of boredom!

the moral of the story is that we can never have nice things because of the fucking pigs. fuck the police.

My mom got phished in an EXTREMELY refined scam that pretty much anyone could fall for-- basically her account was already pre-hacked and they spoofed the bank's number exactly, called her pretending there was fraud, and read back legitimate and fake transactions and personal info so she wouldn't suspect they weren't the bank. Then discouraged her from logging in claiming the account was locked so they could investigate the fraud-- all so she wouldnt catch them making massive purchases using her stolen info.

We have the same boss and when she told him what happened he recommended she call the bank directly, so she did and they managed to catch it in time before $20k of transactions went through. Very scary

I guess the lesson here is never ever answer your phone, I love that fraud is so rampant an entire form of mass communication is now useless

ANYONE can fall for phishing scams- my mom is extremely smart and we discuss common scams that target her age demographic and she still fell for this. If it happened to me I may have fallen for it too. Always be careful!

that's EXACTLY what happened to me last spring. it's dire out there....

that’s EXACTLY what

happened to me last spring.

it’s dire out there….

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

If you EVER get ANY call from ANYONE claiming to be a bank or other important group asking you for anything, tell them you will call them back and call them yourself. Do not call a number they give you, look it up yourself.

Banks don't call people, IME. They send emails and texts and put notices on your online account. Credit cards sometimes do I believe, but in that case, just call the number on your card back.

Never take a call from anyone and assume they are who they say. Period. These people are skilled at social manipulation. They will always tell you there is a crisis.

And don't just google the number, use your bank's official site! A lot of search engines are now providing phone numbers of scams instead of legit ones. Also make sure the url of the site matches the one available on cards and other papers you've been given by your bank because fake sites can look VERY convincing.

FYI: the U.S. government will not call you. Is someone calls and says they're the IRS? They're lying. They say they're the sheriff? Lying. ICE? Lying.

The United States will mail you information. If the government needs to reach you, check your mailbox.

The IRS are generally pretty forgiving and will accept that humans make errors. They will never demand immediate payment for back taxes, ever. They know that's not feasible for most people, so they'll usually make a payment plan and help you out. (This is, of course, assuming you're an individual who fucked up their taxes, not someone running a massive tax fraud scheme.)

There’s also a scam going around right now for folks in the USA who use toll roads. NONE of the texts are real, the EZPass website has a huge banner on the site saying they’re all scams.

I think I've reblogged this a few times because I work in bank fraud. And the thing is, sometimes the bank does call! I have personally called tons of customers. And while it makes my job harder, I would STILL prefer if every one of them told me, "I can't prove you're really my bank," hung up, and called the number on their card. Don't worry about being rude by accusing a real bank agent of being a scammer. It's fine. Hang up, and call back.

The only way to know who you're talking to is if you make the call. And before sending a lot of money somewhere, run it by someone you trust--no one is immune to a good scam, but a friend will be in a different headspace, and more likely to recognize emotional manipulation.

Your bank, the IRS, and any legitimate person calling for non-scam reasons will NEVER EVER throw a fit about you hanging up and calling back. Scams don't work because people are stupid, they work because they stress you out, put you on edge, and prime you to not trust people who can actually help. People do not make smart decisions when they think they're in trouble, and above all else what they need to do is keep you on the line with them, so they will try to convince you that you are in trouble, you cannot trust the cops or your bank/credit union/ect., and if you hang up something really bad will happen to you. If you suspect you're being scammed, just say that they caught you at a bad time, or something came up, and ask if it's okay to call them back later. A legit employee will be understanding and agree, a scammer will immediately start doing everything they can to make you way too scared and stressed to hang up.

My fiance worked at a credit union for 8 years and they were trained to notice and intervene if they suspected someone was being scammed, and he told me the number one thing that signals a scam is a member coming in looking fucking terrified while on the phone with someone who is essentially screaming at them that the credit union staff cannot be trusted and that if they hang up the world will end.

It's a scam, every single time. They work by trapping you with fear. Just tell them you need a minute and will call them back, and then contact the bank/credit union/ect. yourself with the number on your card or their website. If they respond to you saying you need a minute and will call back with hostility or by upping the stakes, especially if they say you can't trust the authorities and that hanging up will cause something bad to happen, you're talking to a scammer, and you can safely ignore anything and everything they have to say.

Also scammers can sink in their claws easily when you are distracted or tired. Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it can't (I keep telling my teenager this regarding everything else bad in the world).

One nice distraction was going to the zoo with my gf and kiddo yesterday. Saw some water torts, land torts, giant torts, a sleepy sloth, giraffes, a polar bear, lions and a tiger. Got in lots of walking and sunshine too, which helped my brain chems.

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