So we went to a sushi bar, and the way they did it, I had never actually -- I'd had sushi in restaurants before, but I'd never had this kind of a -- the sushi experience at a sushi bar. So, the man, the chef, was preparing the sushi in front of us while we were at the bar, and one of the first things that he did was oysters. He asked us -- he was willing to make us whatever in this fabulous dinner that we wanted. It wasn't a predetermined menu. He had some go-tos, but no, you know, specific menu. We had no idea what was coming, no idea how many kinds of sushi we're having. It was all just kind of a mystery. So, we're -- he brought out oysters, and that was one of the things -- my son had really wanted to try oysters. I was indifferent about it, but um -- I was okay with it. I thought, "I can try one oyster." So, we are sitting. So we're looking up at him, he is up on a platform making the sushi. And he prepares -- he asks us if we want oysters and we said, "Yes, we do." And he puts the oysters in the bowl up on top. So it's like, we're like making like a 45 degree angle looking up at it. So all I can see is this silver bowl, which is probably the size of a softball. And on top, it looks like the bowl is filled with oysters. It looks like there's gotta be 20 or 30 oysters in there. And I just -- my eyes got huge, and I'm -- he's watching our impressions to see -- you know, he wants to provide a good experience for us. So -- this is the chef, I mean. So he's watching us, and he could tell by the look on my face. I thought this was a humongous bowl of oysters, and there was no way I wanted to eat that many oysters. So he goes, "Oh, you don't like, you don't like." And he starts to take it away and my son is like, he's reaching up, "No, no, no, don't take it away!!" And then, so I said "No, no, we'll try, we'll try them. It's okay." But he was so responsive to like, just my…

Have I ever gone through a phase that was drastically different than the rest of my life? I think maybe I'm in that moment right now. My husband and I have decided after four years of infertility, like, we're done trying. We have exhausted reasonable options and we're left with one option to try with a very low success rate given what our problem is. And so, I'm in this phase of like trying to get our poop in a group. I think we've just been kind of assuming like, "Everyone has debt, we'll just live with it forever." And with the state of the world, I'm like, "This isn't acceptable," and so we are budgeting, we're making sound decisions, we have a plan. I'm soaking up every opportunity to make extra money, doing all these little random things and then putting that money on credit cards to get them paid off. We've already paid off one, we're kind of like, momentum is there, and this is very different. I have never stuck with something as long. I've never made good financial decisions. I mean, I shouldn't say never, I’ve made some. But like, I've had debt since I was in college because I never knew how to like manage money effectively. And I never really thought too far into the future, and now even though my future doesn't look the way I thought it was. Like, I thought I would have kids by now. I'm 37. I thought I would be a mom with several, and now that may not happen and it's likely not happening through me. If I'm having kids, it's gonna to be a fostering or adopt situation more than likely, and that's probably a couple years away just because financially, I don't feel like we're in a place for it. And so we're really soaking up like being aunties and -- an auntie and uncle to several -- like of our actual niece and nephew, and then also, you know, friends' kids who call us that. And we are in a different phase of life. Our future that we're looking forward to is like, "How do we enjoy our time? How do we enjoy our marriage? How do we plan to have a good retirement?" Knowing it's probably just us. And what's that gonna look like? Because again, we both really envisioned children, and that's…

I was teaching fifth grade and it was the end of the school day when kids are getting their stuff. It's a little hectic, you know, you're just getting your backpacks, you're waiting for the bell to ring. Kids are chatting with each other, whatever. And then someone's like, "Heyyyyyy, someone needs you in the hallway," and I could see that there was a student I didn't recognize in the hallway, which is usually not a great sign. If a student you don't know is asking for you, that makes you think, like, "Uh-oh, something serious must have happened." Because if it wasn't that serious, they'd probably just tell their own teacher. But apparently it needs to be handled now and here. And so I went out to the hallway and I braced for the worst. And, you know, the other bad omen at the time was that the student waited for the door to close before she told me what happened or what was going on, which is also a sign where I was prepping myself, I was like, "Oh my god, she needs privacy. This must be pretty bad." Um, I thought maybe someone hit her or like touched her inappropriately, I was ready for anything. And, you know, she had a hard time getting started, you know, she couldn't make eye contact, and she was like, "This is pretty awkward, but..." And I was like "Ah no, oh please." And she's like, "But, my mom was curious as to whether you'd ever wanna date her friend?" Which was a complete -- completely unexpected. And so unexpected that I didn't know how to formulate a response because my mind went 100 different ways in a split second. One of the prevailing directions my brain went was like, "Alright, am I getting match-made by a ten-year-old?" And, "Is that -- that's not okay, right? That's weird. This is weird. Yeah, this is weird." So I didn't know what to say. You know, maybe I should have said, "Well you know that's not really my place to say, and I don't know if it's your place to bring this up." Instead, I just kinda like mumbled and I was like, "I, I, hnghuh, hah, ahduhna." And I kind of just made like a knowing, like, "I gotta get going, sorry I can't do this," and I walked away. And this…

On Saturday I feel like I was doing a bunch of stuff, but I was like -- but I don't feel like I was getting through my to-do list. So then I, instead of writing a to-do list, I wrote like an 'accomplished' list, like, parallel to my to-do list, and my joy skyrocketed, okay? Like I was really sad that I just barely got a fraction -- I couldn't cross anything off the to-do list, because everything that I had done, it was partially -- as much as I could get done of that to-do list item. Like for example, laundry. I had two ginormous baskets with some extra, so in the end it ended up breaking down into about six loads of laundry. And did I finish all six loads of laundry? No, I did three loads of laundry, and that was about all I could really, that I really wanted to get done. And like, could I have really pushed to get it done? Yes. But I just had other things that I was like, constant -- you know, a little bit over here, a little bit over there, a little over there. And um, I think in the past, I would have like really beat myself up for like not finishing. Like, "Oh, you get so distracted." Well, no, because life -- I only have so much time. And to do three loads of laundry instead of six is just much more beneficial to me, because now I have all the basics that I need to keep going. And I will get these other three done at some point, but it's not critical anymore. And so it like lowers -- it's like real-time re-sorting of my priorities as the task gets like partially completed. Or like food prep. Like, I feel like I did food prep, like pretty significantly. Everything that was going to rot in the next two days has been cooked or frozen. Is everything food prepped? No, but now I have four more days on like the remaining items in the fridge, of unprepared uncooked things. So, like again that -- like the frequent -- like the urgency of that has like diminished. But again, I didn't like accomplish every aspect of that task and so it just makes me feel -- I was feeling extremely defeated and just like, "Wow, I can't get anything…

Actually, over the summer, I was down in Indiana, like Southern Indiana. And it was really hot and humid. And at one point in my stay, like I was in a old house, like pretty old house, and the windowsill -- like, well I guess before that, I saw that on the ground, there was a lot of maggots. I don't know where it was coming from, because more just kept appearing for no reason. I kept vacuuming them up, right? And then I looked above the area where it just seemed to appear from, and it was dropping out of like, the lower part of the windowsill. Like, I don't know where that’s coming from.   But yeah, that was not great. I was thinking, I was telling them, I think the property manager about it, and stuff like that. But um, so I had -- and filled a request, but it ended up that I just kept vacuuming it for a couple of days and then just no more came out anymore. So maybe I just vacuumed them all up. But yeah. So even after that, there was sometimes flies appearing out of nowhere. So I’m like, "Is that from the maggots or is there like a way for them to come in?" Because neither is a very good. But yeah, I don't really like that. 

Well, when I was about five years old, I would sometimes take Nestlé Quik powder and put it in a little cup and keep it hidden upstairs in my house, in my granny's room, where I would sleep sometimes. And my granny had dementia and Alzheimer's, and she didn't know what was going on. She didn't know I even snuck that little cup in her bedroom if she didn't keep her bedroom too clean. And this was the 80s, when I swear there was more mice, more ants, more bugs, more everything.   And I used to stick my little finger in that little cup of Nesquik, and stick it in my tongue. And you know, sometimes hold the cup up and shake some into my mouth. And I don't know how long I had it there. Again, I was five years old. I don't know how long I had it there. I don't know how long it had been sitting there.  All I know is that one day, one day I went up there to Granny's room, and I tipped that cup up, and started drinking the little powder out of it. And then when I opened my eyes, as it was tipping into my mouth, all I could see were ants in the bottom of the cup, crawling all around. In the Quik powder! In the Nesquik powder! Eugh! I can barely think of it right now. But yeah, literally that was one of the grossest creepiest, crawliest things that has ever happened to me in my life. And I spit out what was in my mouth, and there were ants in my mouth. And that was just absolutely ew. My skin just crawls now to think of it. So that's my story and I wish I didn't have to stick to it. 

Note: There is language that is excluded in the transcript but not excluded in the audio  So, I remember this would have been like 2001? Or 2002? I was hanging out with my -- my boyfriend and I were going to garage sales, looking for records. And we went to one, at the end of this long driveway.  And we get there and there's only like two or three records sitting there. Maybe it was like a half a bin or something, not very many records. And those -- we looked through it and we didn't see anything. And so we got up, and the lady, the older lady whose sale it was, was like, “Oh, do you like records?” And we were like, “Yeah, we do.” She’s like, “Do you wanna see some more?” We’re like, “Yeah! We do!” And she's like, “Well, okay, come with me,” and she lets us into her house and there's these rickety old stairs that go down to like a Michigan basement.   Like, you know concrete, it wasn’t, well it wasn’t, I don’t think it was a Michigan basement. What is a Michigan basement, is it like dirt floor? So I'm pretty sure this was like, just concrete floor. It was unfinished, kind of real musty and dusty. You could tell that it had been flooded at some points.   And um, she points and she's like, “There you go,” and it's an entire wall of records. Top ceiling to floor. Entire wall. And she goes, “These are my son’s records. I've been asking him to get them out of my house for years, and he won't do it. So, you can have whatever you want. A buck a piece.” And me and my boyfriend look at each other like, “Oh my god. Okay, thanks.” And so, we spend the next like hour or two, like combing through every single record.  And they were very mold -- some of them were very moldy. Like there had been a flood, and the bottom shelf was just like water damaged all the way up the spine and they were all stuck together and stuff. But, once you got past the bottom shelf and you go up a bit, some of them were still a little moldy and still stuck together a little bit, but some of them were just fine. So, we went through…

So, I have a nut allergy, and I've always ignored the, like, “May be processed in a facility that might have nuts” warning because, you know, that's basically just there so you can't sue them. Like, it is the, “Do not sue us” warning. That is, that is all it is. It has no other meaning. But anyways, my roommate bought me some chocolate covered blueberries, and she was, like, being extra careful checking. Like, “Hey, this is just the Do Not Sue Us warning, right? Like, you don't care about this.” She sent me a picture of the label, and I'm like, “Yeah, those look good. Love chocolate covered fruit. That's actually so kind of you.” Um, I ate a blueberry and had an allergic reaction, and it ruined, like, the entirety of my day. So I'm not sure if, like, my allergy is getting worse, or if I should take the “Do not sue us” warning more seriously, but this is, like, the second cross-contamination based incident that I have had in recent times. 

My granddaughter -- she's a very kind-hearted girl, still is, but when she was about three, they were having, for some reason, an infestation of black -- big black ants in their house. And -- so I was over there for supper one evening, and these ants kept showing up. You know, there'd be one on the floor, there'd be one on the counter, there'd be one on -- climbing up the table leg. You know, they were just -- they were just being pesty. And so I would kill them. And she was very upset that I was killing these ants. And finally, I said to her, “This is our house. This is -- this is your house.” I said, “You don't want to share your house with ants.” I said, “Ants have their house. They do not want to share their house with you.” And after that, it seemed like it was okay. At least she didn't horribly object to me killing ants, or her parents killing ants. And by the next year, when it was time for ants again, they didn't have such a big infestation, but she had gotten over the, the theory that it's -- you can't kill ants. So yeah. Very kind. Loves all wildlife. And that's wonderful, but I draw the line at sharing my house with ants.

I'm not afraid of bed bugs like a lot of people because I know what I'm looking for. I inspect my furniture when I buy anything. I usually buy new. But I also know that, in my opinion, they are easier to get rid of because they take so long to replicate. And on a college campus, we don't get them in massive amounts because our students do not live with us long enough, or live in spaces where they're easy to survive without being found rather quickly.  So keep in mind, college housing, you have pretty standard, basic furniture. There's not a lot of nooks and crannies in the furniture for a bed bug to hide. The mattresses are generally covered in, like, a plastic fabric, which they would not wanna be on. They come with our students.  It's like -- we had a girl -- two years ago now -- adamant that the bed bugs were from us. That, you know, she moved in, and it's all over her stuff. And we came in with Terminix, and we actually located where the majority of them were, and it was a fabric box that she’d bought on clearance at At Home. And we were like, "Yeah, they're in this. Like, this is where they came from. We can see the eggs still, and you had only been here two weeks, so to have this many crawling around the apartment, like -- they've been on this container for a while.”  And she was pretty horrified. She had not noticed them because, of course, it was dark fabric box, but it was a good reminder to all of us, like, check everything you buy ‘cause you never know. But they don't give me the heebie-jeebies because they are -- I like to refer -- like, when I talk to our students, they are sloths. They do not move quickly. They do not replicate quickly. It takes 10 days for one of them to mature, and at that point, they can start reproducing.  So, I think that that's something that people need to understand. Like, they're not like fleas. Fleas reproduce crazy fast, which is part of the reason I'm terrified of them. But bed bugs? Nah. They're slow. They are super slow. So hopefully I've just educated everybody.