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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • you ended up wading through mud

    Horse shit. In cities, you waded through horse shit.

    As someone who has done extensive reenactment in period dress, sometimes in towns dedicated to realism that banned cars and relied on horses for travel, you wouldn’t believe how terrible even a dozen carriages and a few dozen private horses can be to your skirts/trousers and shoes. Especially when it rains.

    People sometimes make light of women in the past who changed their outer clothes two or three times a day, but if you were in town, your attire would be absolutely foul after a few hours in the same outer skirt. A long cloak helped immensely to keep your skirts or trousers from soaking up horse sewage.

    Once cars took over, that stopped being a problem, cloaks weren’t as desirable as they obscured fashion, and coats became shorter and more for protection from the weather than from horse shit.

    There was a bit of military influence, but that was more about fashion than functional influence.

    e: clarification




  • LillyPip@lemmy.catoaww@lemmy.worldSnakes can be cute too
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    9 months ago

    I don’t get many contextual opportunities to share this story, but yeah, I get you. I like snakes fine if they’re not in my personal space, and they’re really good at blending in.

    When I was 13, we were driving from Phoenix to a town in Mexico. There’s a long stretch through the desert before you reach the border that’s literally nothing but highway. Before you hit it, there were signs pointing out the last place for gas and refreshments, with a ‘now or never’ vibe. It was the height of summer, so of course we stopped and I got the largest drink I could find.

    It turned out my eyes were bigger than my teenage-girl bladder, and about midway through the most desolate stretch, I had to pee badly. We pulled over, I hopped out, and made for a set of dead bushes that were the only cover in range suitable to protect my modesty. I squatted awkwardly – everything was hot and pokey – and just as my business started, I heard a sharp rattle from right behind and below me.

    I panicked and launched myself forward, just spotting a coiled rattler in a patch of shade under the bush, who was pretty annoyed I’d nearly pissed on him. I scrambled back to the truck, ass bare to the world, too scared to bother with my shorts.

    My family found it hilarious and I didn’t live it down for years. I learned two things that day – rattlers will usually warn you before wasting their venom on something too big to eat, and fear (or humour) always trumps dignity.

    TLDR: Always check the shade under bushes before pissing in the desert.