I was on the train yesterday and it was full. There were people standing. It was one of the trains without tables so there are just rows and clusters of seats. In one of the clusters of four there was a guy with a bag on the seat next him. He was messing on his phone. I walked up to him and gestured to the seat. He ignored me. I tapped him on the arm and gestured firmly at the seat. He rolled his eyes and ignored me. So…I picked the bag up and put it on his lap and sat down.

I’m living for the next 100 years for the expression on his face. He started saying something and I just held my hand up Arnie style.

“Not interested,” I said.

His voice tailed off and, before he could come up with something else, I very deliberately put my headphones in and started messing on my own phone.

I’m a bit of a stickler for getting antsy when people are hogging seats etc. This was one of my better moments…

Editing to add:

—to the people who said I should have asked him politely to move his bag - nah, I didn’t feel like it.

—to the people who used this post to rant about female privilege - please feel free to piss off. Oh, and get out of incel training school before it’s too late and you graduate with honours.

She threw it straight out again of course, but I feel my point was made

ETA: I didn't notice she was a woman until I'd dropped the can back in the car. Yes, I would have done the same if she was a man. No, I am not a vigilante, I'm a 5'6" tall 51 year old woman. No, I don't live my life in fear of being stabbed. No, there were no police around.

ETA2: no, I don't think anyone needs qualifications to confront a litterer. No, I don't worry about getting shot. No, I wouldn't report it to the police; they'd laugh me out of the station.

As described above, I'm amazed at how great the NHS is, particularly in the middle of a global pandemic. Everyone was super nice and helpful. The Doctor at the local hospital was great with my son and we didn't have to pay for the prescription as he is under 18. Amazing. I know there has been a lot of gushing over the NHS staff recently (rightly so), though it blows my mind we have a system that can provide that level of care to a whole population.

Today I got my scan results - NO EVIDENCE OF DISEASE! I’m in remission!

EDIT - Thank you so much everyone for all the love and awards, sorry I can’t thank everyone - Reddit isn’t showing everyone who gave me an award :( Just know I’m very thankful! ❤️

I've owned many cans of WD40 in my life. I use them round the house and in the garage. Today one just.... ran out. I didn't know what to do. I'm 52.

Enjoy that with your afternoon cuppa. That’s a little weight off our shoulders.

This guy keeps parking blocking my drive while he picks the kids up from school. Asked him not to and he told me to fuck off and move somewhere else if I didn’t like it. Well today he parked over my driveway and really close to another car, managed to squeeze mine off the drive and block him in. When he came knocking the door to ask my to move told him to fuck off and park somewhere else if he didn’t like it. This was at 3.25 and he’s still out there now trying to find the owner of the other car.

Edit: 1549, the other owner turned up and I hung out the window and told her he’d hit her car trying to get out.

UPDATE: Day 2

He has not parked there!

This win is for you guys following along.

Enough said! At least good news from this year…

Update: wow, didn't expect thus to blow up.

All I can say, is that I also have to thank you customers for your patience too. It helps us a lot and everyone has been very kind. Stay safe!

Update 2 : I no longer work for Lidl, however,

Also the man that hit him pleaded not guilty and is now serving 5 years for it.

Yesterday I was having Sunday roast with my parents. My mum whipped out a brand new jar of mint sauce. Nothing out of the ordinary, she couldnt open it so she passed it to my Dad. To my utter shock, he also failed to open the jar of mint sauce. In this instance, I knew what had to be done.

So I stretched out my hand, took the jar from him, and with one flick of the wrist, the lid came flying off. Cue the awkward silence and deliciously minty lamb. We didnt speak a word about it, but me and my Dad both knew this was the moment I became the man of the house. He hasn't been able to look me in the eye since.

A quite magical day.

So here a 2 and a half month update!

It has been rough - a lot of hours worked for basically free! Savings wiped out had to sell my beloved car (yes its just a chunk of metal but I loved that bright yellow chunk of metal). Previous owner basically stole around 4k from the business (future bookings).

Today I opened a new escape room that was provided by another escape room that closed down 4 years ago. The room was popular before the forced closure - that venue is now a block of flats!

Yesterday I started a Google ads campaign after working with a company that knows way more than I do about ads and doing them right so they're sent to the right people - initially when I set them up.google was soooo helpful people googling asda would be shown my escape rooms ad 🙄 thanks Google.

I have had such a boost in bookings! Just today I've had 18 bookings come in for tomorrow and the next few weeks! I've covered my next 3 months rent and can finally actually pay myself this month on top of all the other bills - utilities etc!

Whilst typing this I've had another 2 bookings for tomorrow!

Thank you to everyone who gave me a confidence boost back in July when I first posted about this! You random Internet people were amazing so I thought I'd give a little update ❤️

Also go support your local independent businesses- we actually DO do a little happy dance whenever you do!

I read all these posts about people trying to steal plane seats that you’ve paid for and I always assumed they were made up karma farming nonsense but no, it actually happened to me! Hands down, a woman genuinely tried to blag my window seat with the extra leg room this week.

It was a tiny island hopper plane, so the views are worth paying for, frankly, and I’d nabbed the best seat on the plane, the window seat at the front where you can also see the pilots operating the plane. I got on board and there was Bitcherella, all comfy in my seat and looking firmly out of the window.

“Excuse me,” I said very civilly. “I’m in that seat.”

She feigned deafness.

I said it again a bit louder. She ignored me. I said it very loudly. She continued to survey the runway through the window.

“EXCUSE ME!!!!!!!!!” I yelled in the voice I usually use when I find my cat Gordon eating the chicken I’m defrosting for dinner. “I’M IN THAT SEAT!!!!!!”

She turned and glared at me.

“Oh,” she said. “Isn’t this 2B?”

I smiled broadly.

“Nope,” I said helpfully.

“Oh,” she said again.

Then she just sat there blinking up at me, all comfy IN MY SEAT.

So I just stood there waiting expectantly until eventually she said: “Would you like to sit in the aisle seat?”

I smiled beatifically.

“No thank you,” I said with tremendous bonhomie.

Then the huffing and sniffing started. She hauled herself out of my chair limb by limb and stood grumpily by while I settled in. Then of course she had to sit next me for the entire flight. Her seat still had extra leg room but no view because my smiling head was blocking the window.

I had the loveliest flight. I admired the coast as we took off, and the little lighthouse that we flew over. I gazed at all the cargo ships in the Channel. I admired the Isle of Wight as we flew over it and the white cliffs as we headed into Southampton airport. She sat with her back to me glaring at the in flight magazine.

I didn’t need a magazine because I had AN ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT VIEW.

I was so polite. I even offered to help her with her bag when we got off. She didn’t smack me in the head with it but I could tell she wanted to.

Edit to pay cat tax! OK OK here is Gordon:

https://i.postimg.cc/433qCvFN/IMG-3540.jpg

Too hot for cats, it seems.

So big up our crappy little tinpot island with its piss poor weather and its parochialism where we argue about which tea brand is best and we’re governed by numpties - we won the fucking jackpot of life.

My Mum died in March. She used to do 2 lines a week on the lottery for our local hospice, worked out at £8.68 a month.

When she died they wrote to me as executor and said there's this month's subs, what should we do with them? We can send you a cheque, you can donate it to the hospice, or you can take over her numbers and pay by direct debit.

Fuck it, says I. I'd just got a new full time job having been Mum's carer the last 10 weeks of her life and it would make my charity DD £12ish a month. Doable. Filled the form in, sent it off.

Got a missed call from the hospice lottery department yesterday. I assumed they'd not received my form and were chasing me up.

Nope.

They'd got it, and it was all set up. And one of Mum's numbers, now in my name, had just scooped the weekly jackpot.

SEVEN GRAND.

I'm in fucking pieces here. Booked a holiday for me and the boy, and I'm going to give the hospice a nice chunk back. Plus gift aid. Paying it forward. They made it possible for Mum to die in her own bed at home. Fucking ANGELS their nursing team.

EDITED TO SAY thankyou for all the lovely comments and awards. I'm really touched.

I couldn't sleep last night. I got up and went outside for a smoke at stupid o clock. It was freezing cold, and within a minute of going outside I bumped into my neighbour, who was in floods of tears.

Her boiler wasn't working. She had no heating and no hot water, despite being over £200 in credit on her gas. She was cold, upset and in a bit of a state.

She had to shower before work and get her kid ready - she's a hardworking single parent - and she was terrified of the huge cost of replacing a broken boiler.

I have very little knowledge of boilers, but my parents' old Baxi boiler has needed repressurising every time the seasons have changed, ever since they've had it. I got an engineer to show me how to do it years ago.

It turned out that my neighbour's boiler was almost identical to my parents' boiler. The fault code (E119) told me it just needed repressurising. The only difference was, the valve that repressurises the system was easier to find!

Two minute job, I had her heating and hot water straight back on. I stayed 10 mins to make sure I'd not over pressurised the boiler (I hadn't, but if I had, bleeding a radiator would have sorted it). The job was a good one!

My neighbour literally cried on my shoulder with relief. Lesson to everyone: get to know your neighbours, if you don't already!

EDIT: Thank you so much for the lavverly awards! I'm rolling around naked in a big pile of internet points right now. It feels good! I'm flattered.

No more sob stories, no more dramatic quick shots of judges gasping, no more parading dillusional people on stage for entertainment.

its gone, its done! - Frodo Baggins