In case no one gets it, the context is it used to be an expression, along the lines of:
Gas, Grass or Ass, Nobody Rides for Free
Additionally, Weed, Whites (pills), and Wine had a moment when Little Feat & Linda Ronstadt popularized Lowell George’s “Willin’”.
My dad used to say “your ass is grass and I’m the lawnmower” as a joke sometimes, but then he would beat the ever living fuck out of me with whatever was in reach and it didn’t seem like he was joking at all.
I was confused by what this meme meant, but it reminded me of that.
The meme is how you would pay for a ride, if you were hitch hiking. You can pay for gas, give the driver some weed (grass) or fuck him (ass)
God. That comment was a rollercoaster.
I'm ridiculously sorry you lived through that. Hopefully you're in a better spot, and pops is maggot food.
Still alive last I checked but dead to me if that means anything.
Whatever happened during that time was entirely not your fault. You were a kid, and entirely innocent.
Make sure you get into therapy to help get yourself sorted out. Don't let that period of your life define you: you deserve better.
Appreciate the kind words. Been in and out of therapy as needed for a decade or more now. Finally accepting things as they are.
Just keep swimming, friend.
This is your moment, change it to jumper cables or the like and become the lemmy jumpercables guy. Reads just like it.
Today I feel like telling you all some trauma because I’m avoiding work while I wait for Adderall and coffee to do their thing.
Many years ago I was a highly ignored, heavily traumatized kid. Despite living in a fairly big metro area, I lived on a long dead end street that was accessed via a 4-lane road that was technically a highway. The side near to the highway had several businesses with no close homes along the highway, and the 7 houses on the street were deeper in. There were some kids my age and they also were mostly ignored and heavily traumatized.
The neighbors parents were interesting. They were sort of like mine. Dad was blue color, an addict/drunk. Mom was a nurse. They weren’t financially okay as us. My dad had been given a successful plumbing business by my mom’s dad, but their dad drove a dump truck for a construction company. Their mom was an LPN (licensed practical nurse/lower paid nurse), and my mom was an RN (registered nurse - higher pay).
Weirdly, our parents didn’t seem to get along.
I always regarded their mom as being a better mom. She loved having kids, and really cared about her boys. And me, too, when I stayed with them. When she went to work, she packed lunches for us. At my house it was ‘find what you can.’ Anyway - their dad, though. He would spend his entire paycheck the day he got paid. Sometimes he’d buy something dumb - a new TV to set on top of the TV he’d bought just 6 months before, a bunch of fishing gear he’d use once before realizing he didn’t like fishing, shitty plastic chrome ‘upgrades’ for his car. But mostly, he spent it on booze. He even sometimes took us to the bar with him. We loved it - ordering virgin daiquiris at the American Legion and poorly playing pool at a table we could barely see over while he got intensely drunk. Then he’d careen down side streets to take us back home. He came across as jolly and even happy to most folks, but when his guard was down he was intensely angry, and very emotionally abusive. Once, and only once, in my teens, he even attempted to become sexually abusive, but apparently it is possible for two 14 year olds and a 13 year old to topple and hog tie a 500lb man.
I’d already started to fall out with the boys by then. My life path had taken my different places. My parents split up when I was 6, and by the time I was 8, we lost the house, and my mom had moved across the country to escape my dad, who died maybe a year and a half later. We came back to the area and I resumed my friendship, but from a different part of the city, and different schools. The older brother, who I’d always been friends with had changed. He got mean. He started picking on people for fun. Started thinking being an asshole was funny. The younger brother became more of my friend. He was kind, but always tried to please folks. He kept getting traumatized by now not only his dad, but his brother.
We hung out a few more times, but really, the last time I hung out with them was when I was 17ish. I drove over intending to hang out for a bit, but ate something that triggered an allergic reaction and wound up taking a bunch of Benadryl and staying the night. Their mom out to work a double overnight - I think I saw her in the morning before I left. At that point their dad had stopped working due to health issues. They had a girl there - 15-16ish, and apparently the dad was giving her his Vicodin, presumably in exchange for money (god, I hope it was money). She was gone in the morning before mom came home, but apparently she just hung out there while mom was at work and went into the nearby woods while she was home.
Their dad died about 5 years later, and at the funeral, I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. I had nothing nice to say. There’s a lot more that I cannot convey in this comment to you, reader, nor that I can even fully recall, but I remember looking at this family with that deep well of experience and emotion. They were my childhood best friends. Two damaged people that really, really didn’t get a fair shake. Both boys wearing stained T-shirts because they didn’t have nicer clothes. Didn’t finish high school. Didn’t have jobs. And the mom, who loved them all, and never got supported.
Leaving, I talked to the oldest. He said he was ‘working with’ a cousin that was showing him how to drive a big truck on the sly, so that maybe he could start driving dump trucks.
We stopped at his car, and he asked me if I wanted to go drinking with him - he told me he was gonna get shiftfaced. It was a Tuesday at 11 AM.
I politely declined as I read his bumper sticker - the first time I’d ever seen one - “Ass, Grass, or Cash, no one rides for free.”
It struck me as really sad and appropriate.
What a read, and terrible situation.
Thanks for sharing. In case you’re talking Benadryl still, its use has been linked to increased chance of dementia. PSA for anyone reading this comment
Thank you. I appreciate the head’s up. And I appreciate that you’re out here spreading the word. We need folks looking out for others.
I am aware of the risks, but I have a use case, as much as I don’t like that I do. I have an unknown food allergy that crops up randomly. I’m not even sure if it’s a singular food allergy or if it’s an allergy that only occurs when certain foods are combined.
In the situation above, my face swelled similar to how Will Smith’s face swelled in the movie Hitch (except it was my forehead/scalp). I was 17 and did not know what an anaphylactic reaction was at the time, and we were all so poor that we just did not go to the hospital. Fortunately, the last time it occurred was 15ish years ago (and we got the reaction before any swelling occurred), but I do still keep some around, just in case. It’s definitely not something I use normally.
I hope that my daily allergy medication use (Allegra) will help stave off any future reactions.
Food allergies suck! I am assuming you’ve worked with an allergy specialist to find a better alternative to dementia causing diphenhydramines. From what I understand some compounds are better than others
Honestly, no. I have mentioned it to my doctor, but for something that occurred once every 2-4 years from the ages of 9 to 22 (Oh, crap, I guess it’s been almost 20 years since the last flair up), they viewed it as a low priority when I got health insurance and got over my fear of asking for medical help in my early 30’s. (Cost reasons, not doctor phobia.)
Which I get - “Hey doc, I have an allergy to something - I don’t know what it is and it hasn’t occurred in 10 years. What do we do about it?” They gave me the advice I was already following - which, 10 years ago, was to take Benadryl and record the ingredients for everything I ate, so we could try to figure it out. I will slip a line into the document I keep for my yearlies to ask after what is an appropriate replacement for Benadryl, however.
Although, with my current knowledge and economic level, I’d probably just rush to the ER if anything above my chest swelled up. My insurance will blunt the cost just fine and I’ve got too much going on to choke to death.
Not going to recommend a product because I don’t know your med history, but you can look up over the counter alternatives online, they’re fairly cheap
I don’t get it?
Reading the other reply, I guess it's about 'payment' for taking a hitch hiker. As fuel became expensive now, the driver can no longer afford the other two options in exchange.
Ahhhhh
People used to have bumper stickers that said "grass cash or ass" as in payment methods for a ride. It often meant they were willing to give a stranger a ride. As fear and irony took over our nation it eventually became a shitpost. No one hitchhikes anymore tho
goofy ahh spunchbob font
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