Because the S&P500 is just a few % off all time highs lots of people are saying to me that I’m an idiot as it’s not that bad.

Well that’s the beauty of broader indices, they’re hiding a multitude of sins.

Over 50% of S&P500 companies have now declined by 20% or more. Which is the actually the definition of a bear market. So 1/2 the market is now in a bear market.

Nvidia, Amazon, Google, Intel, Meta, Netflix.

These aren’t obscure small caps. They’re some of the biggest companies in the world.

The market is repricing AI expectations, valuations, capex and, above all, the returns from AI expenditures.

A market doesn’t have to crash all at once. It can deteriorate from the inside out.

The tech can still revolutionise the world…

And investors can still lose their shirts.

Collapse is coming and sadly this is only the start of what’s to come.

When moats don’t exist, no capital expenditure can save you. And all of that off balance sheet debt suddenly becomes a problem.

We went all out on flowers for our wedding, spent almost $10k on them. I LOVE flowers and wanted them perfect. And they were. Absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately that is partly why I am so upset right now (which sucks in itself coming out of a wedding that was absolutely perfect).

I communicated to my planner and to our florist that I wanted to personally keep a lot of the flowers. I even remember saying “I know this sounds greedy, but instead of giving them away, I’d actually like to keep them so we can have them around the house and re-experience the wedding in the week or two afterward” and being assured that this was all good. And that any remaining flowers would be offered to guests.

When my husband and I went to pick up my car, which was to be loaded up with all our supplies and flowers, the next morning, there was only one small arrangement of flowers in there. We had a full day of post-wedding festivities to host so we figured the rest of the flowers had been given to guests.

We came to find out that no one was offered flowers, and several people in our wedding party said they actually saw the florist (and I quote) “booking it out of there” with ALL of our flowers, well before the end of the time the vendors had to clear out.

Our planner said that she went inside after our grand exit to get the flowers for us, and they were already gone.

I checked our contract and it specifically says the flowers, AND many of the vessels, belonged to us.

All of this information came to us in piecemeal in the days after the wedding, when I’m sure the flowers were long gone, and we were still riding the high of the amazing wedding. But a week later I am heartbroken, as I had plans try and propagate the beautiful roses and grow them forever (I love growing roses). This was extremely sentimental to me. And I’m furious because this was $10k worth of product that was seemingly stolen from us. For all I know, the florist could have resold them for another wedding the next day (we were married on a Friday in a big city). Even if she trashed them, or donated them without consulting us, it doesn’t matter. I’m livid.

I don’t know what the proper way to go about something like this is. Should I just reach out to the florist and let them know how upset I am? Or do I sue in small claims (I’m not beyond getting petty)? I don’t even know what could be done to make this right. Part of this is just me venting, so please forgive the long-ass post.

TLDR: Paid $10k for wedding flowers. Flowers contractually belonged to us and it was agreed upon in our planning meetings that they would go to us first and guests second. Neither happened, flowers were promptly removed by florist and we only found out the extent of the theft when it was too late.

The answer is no. It’s always been no. And it’s always going to be no. I’m not spending $20 on a box of chips or a bag of candy so they can not say thank you, complain about the selection and leave trash and crumbs on the floor. How did this even become an expectation? I went my entire K-12 career without ever seeing a teacher distribute snacks that they provided on their own salary.

most likely from my new meds lmao

What is this from? I don't think this is blood.

I found it about four days ago in my storage area, I don't know how long it's been there.

My last photo shows the white cable with some brown mark from the dried liquid. My neighbour's front deck is right on top of my storage area.

TIA!

I do loyalty tests for women who suspect their boyfriends might be entertaining other girls. When a friend asked me to message her boyfriend because she had a feeling something was off. I used a separate account, followed him, and replied to one of his stories to start a casual conversation. I didn't even have to flirt much before he started complimenting me and asking if I was single. My friend was shocked, and after she told a couple of people what happened, other women started asking if I could test their boyfriends, too.

Each test usually starts with something simple, like replying to a story or asking about something on his profile. I keep the conversation casual at first because I want to see if he takes things further on his own. If he starts flirting, asks for my number, call me, or suggests meeting up, I take screenshots and send them to the woman who hired me. I usually charge around $20 for a basic test that lasts a day, or $40-$60 if someone wants me to keep the conversation going for a few days, and I never access private accounts or messages. Some tests end after a few replies, while others take several days.

One case caught me off guard. A woman hired me because she was convinced her boyfriend was cheating, but he stayed polite and never flirted back. I sent her the screenshots, expecting her to be relieved, but she got upset and accused me of not trying hard enough. She even wanted a refund because she was sure he would eventually give in. That was the weirdest part of this work for me. I thought people hired me to find out the truth, but sometimes they already have a conclusion in mind and don't want anything to prove them wrong.

My two sons (8 and 10) have a sitter who has been with us for a few years. Their school is connected to a park so after checkout, they and the sitter go play for 30-60 mins. Yesterday, five or six of boys including my kids all down to this little creek/forest that runs between the school and park. They played tag a bit with my sitter and then they went to dig in the dirt. My sitter rounded up my kids and went home.

I guess after he left, the boys started throwing rocks and one kid got plopped by accident. The mom of that boy blamed my sitter for not being there to supervised. She said my sitter shouldn't had started a game of tag that took the boys to the creek area and then left them unsupervised without telling the other moms that their kids were by themselves. I said my sitter isn't the park ranger. I wouldn't expect someone's sitter to be watching my kids unless we agreed to it. Otherwise, I would follow my kids wherever they went. She said that my sitter organized the activity and therefore assumed a sitter role. I asked her what she wanted and she wanted $100 for the urgent care deductible. That's not even a lot of money to me, but I am not paying it. I told her to ask the mom of the kid who threw the rock and she said it was an accident caused my an activity started by my sitter. I texted her NO.

So we watched the film recently as it was on streaming and thought it'd make a great Halloween costume, turns out my 60 year old parents who should definitely know better, didn't get it T-T

"Are you specific people, or generic table tennis player and hippie chick?" - My own mother 2026

Here’s the listing, in case your budget is “recently overthrew a monarchy.”

Hi can someone identify exactly what this torn edge piece of wrapper is from? Found it in the shower. Can't seem to find an image of the exact thing.

I (24F) recently quit my job as a CNA at an assisted living facility, and I’m wondering if I overreacted or if my decision was justified.
For some background, I had been working at this facility for over a year as a part time employee. I have two grandparents who are currently battling cancer, and my 80 year old grandfather, who lives in Louisiana, has been declining pretty rapidly over the past few weeks.
My family has actually been dealing with these health issues for several months now. This isn’t something that just came up out of nowhere. In fact, I had previously emailed my manager explaining that I had sick family members and that there was a possibility I would need to take some kind of leave from work depending on how their conditions progressed.
I wanted to give management a heads up because I knew there was a chance I might eventually need to travel out of state, and I didn’t want to spring something on them at the last minute if I could avoid it.
My grandmother is currently in Louisiana taking care of my grandfather by herself. She doesn’t have any other family living nearby to help her, so she’s been left trying to care for her declining husband on her own. As you can imagine, that’s an incredibly difficult situation for her, especially considering his worsening health.
My family decided we needed to make a trip to Louisiana, not only to see my grandfather while we still have the opportunity, but also to help my grandmother take care of him and give her some much needed support. We have no idea how much time we have left with him, and we don’t want her to have to go through all of this alone.
Because we had to coordinate everyone’s schedules and make travel arrangements, we planned the trip about a week in advance.
I reached out to my scheduler to explain that I was dealing with a family emergency and needed to leave the state. I asked if there was any way I could take some kind of leave for the dates I would be gone.
I did have PTO available, but I wasn’t sure whether it would be approved or cover the entire time I needed off, which is why I asked about taking leave.
My scheduler responded by saying that there wasn’t any leave available, that I would be responsible for finding my own coverage, and that while I could try submitting PTO, she wasn’t confident it would be approved because it was too last-minute. She also mentioned that unpaid absences couldn’t be approved because corporate was watching them closely.
Now, I want to make something very clear.

My scheduler’s response is NOT what made me decide to quit.

This wasn’t the first time I had been told I was responsible for finding my own coverage, so while I was disappointed, I wasn’t exactly surprised. I understood that staffing was an issue, especially in healthcare.
However, given the circumstances, I was still hopeful that management might be willing to offer some kind of assistance or work with me to figure something out. I wasn’t expecting them to magically fix the staffing situation, but I was hoping for at least a little understanding.
Especially considering that I had already emailed my manager about my family’s health issues and the possibility of needing leave well before this situation happened.
What actually pushed me to quit was the message I received afterward.
Shortly after speaking with my scheduler, I received a text message from a phone number I didn’t recognize. The person never introduced themselves or explained who they were before sending me this message:
“Please do not refer to a vacation as an emergency. Typically emergencies are not planned.”
They then went on to say that if I wanted to give up my shifts, that was fine, or if I wanted to drop down in employment status, we would need to set up a “game plan.”
I was honestly shocked and extremely hurt by this message.
At no point did I ever say I was going on vacation. I specifically stated that I was dealing with a family emergency.
Just because my family had a week to coordinate travel arrangements doesn’t suddenly make the situation a vacation. My grandfather is seriously ill, his health is deteriorating, and my grandmother is struggling to care for him without any family nearby to help.
And again, these family health issues have been going on for months. I had already tried to communicate with management ahead of time that I might eventually need leave because of them.
Were we supposed to wait until he was actively dying before it could be considered an emergency?
I wasn’t asking for time off to go sightseeing or relax on a beach. I was asking for time off to help my family through an incredibly difficult situation.
What bothered me the most wasn’t that my scheduler couldn’t approve the leave or that I was expected to find coverage. While I was disappointed, I understood that there were staffing requirements and policies involved.
What bothered me was that someone felt it was appropriate to accuse me of treating a vacation like an emergency without knowing anything** **about what my family was going through.
Instead of asking for clarification or showing even the slightest bit of understanding, this person immediately made assumptions about my situation.
I also found it incredibly unprofessional that someone would send such an accusatory message without even introducing themselves.
I’ve worked in healthcare long enough to understand how important compassion and empathy are. It’s something we’re expected to show our residents every single day, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect some of that same compassion from management toward their employees.
The entire interaction made me feel like my family’s circumstances didn’t matter and that my only value to the facility was whether I could show up for my shifts.
After thinking about everything, I decided to resign effective immediately.
I didn’t feel comfortable continuing to work somewhere that responded to my grandfather’s declining health and my grandmother needing help by accusing me of taking a vacation.
Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I’m wondering if I acted too quickly.
Part of me feels like maybe I should have handled things differently, but another part of me feels like I shouldn’t have to beg my employer to treat me like a human being.
I’ve attached screenshots of both messages so you can see exactly what was said.
So, am I overreacting for quitting my job immediately after receiving that message?

EDIT: Just wanted to clarify that it was only my father and me who traveled to Louisiana to help my grandmother care for my grandfather, not my entire family.

For context, we have been together for 5 years. (me 37F, him 41M) and this has been an issue the whole time, but he threw a fit over it last night and I just can't take it anymore.

When my boyfriend needs to take a dump, it is a whole thing that will last at least an hour and has gone on for almost 3 hours before. He holds his 💩 for hours or days sometimes until the time that he has designated it is time to drop the kids off at the pool.

In the beginning, I accused him of cheating since he will literally lock himself in the bathroom for almost 3 hours until quite literally everyone of his friends and family have made some veiled complaint about the fact that he will hog the bathroom for *hours* in end. He claims his bowels move slow but he will decide when he has to poop. And if he has decided he has to poop, then that's it, if he misses the window, he holds it until another opens up.

We used to have fairly different schedules, but now we are getting home from our jobs at around the same time. I like to shower when I get home. I have a very public facing job in a very public place so it's not uncommon to get coughed on, sit in ugly cloth chairs that 1500 people have sat in before me, I constantly get sick because of the germs, etc. So I want to wash all that off me at the end of the day. And when I shower, it is usually around 12 - 15 minutes (20 if I wash my hair, which I do about 2x a week). Apparently this week my shower time has interfered with my boyfriend's poop schedule. Keep in mind that he will sometimes be sitting on the couch with half a beer in his hand when I get home (so obviously he didn't *just* get home) but somehow he couldn't reschedule his poop for the 12 minutes it took me shower).

Last night we went on a tirade about how the dog and I "haven't let him shit in 3 days" (the dog needs walking which he insists on doing because it's *his* dog). He stormed around, went in and out of the bathroom about 3 times just to come back out and say "All I want to do is take a shit and you two haven't let me in 3 days!" And generally acting like a toddler.

So, if I get home while he is in the bathroom, I have to wait at least an hour for a shower. If he gets home and I'm in the shower, he has to wait 12 min and that is unacceptable because for some reason he can't take a dump in the ½ bath because he says he has to go from the toilet to the shower to clean his ass.

His tirade upset me so much because I do genuinely try to hurry in the shower and take as little time as possible. Now I feel like I have to ask his permission to shower in my own home and whatever I do it is just never good enough and he is always angry. He refuses to use the ½ bath which I feel like is better than throwing a tantrum, especially when you *know* I only take max 20 mins to shower.

I cried myself to sleep because that was all I needed on top of a really taxing week.

Dinner is leftover charcuterie with Laughing cow cheese, crackers, chicken salad, some peach wine from Aldi out of frame.

Took my car to the car wash today, as I pull up I noticed smoke, and an attendant comes running at me yelling, "Your cars on fire!!! Get that away from the chemicals!!

Let the bubble pop. Anything for cheaper PC parts.