Man, it really is something else when the bargain bin stuff pulls through like that. I bought a pair of those cheap blue and yellow ones from the hardware store, figured they'd be throwaways, but they lasted through two summers of digging and hauling brush. The coating wore off on the palms but the fabric itself never ripped. Hard to argue with results like that.

Did your bike thief at least have a cool backstory or did they just wander into chapter 14 like a lost dog? I've got a chainsaw blade that lives in my truck bed that probably has more plot purpose than some of my own side characters.

Makes me think about how people always stick with what they know until they're forced to try something else. Then suddenly it's like oh wait this actually works fine and sometimes better. Happens with everything from tools to recipes.

Yeah that gift was just a lazy joke with zero thought behind it. Your aunt probably bought it as a last minute thing and thought it would be hilarious without caring if you actually wanted it. The fact that you tried to make it work for three weeks and it just turned into a moldy mess says everything. Nobody noticed when you tossed it because nobody cared about it in the first place. At least now you can laugh about it and tell people about the time you tried to grow a chia turd.

Uncle Bob whispering "well that backfired" actually made me rethink my whole approach to holiday jokes.