I don’t have any significant mental health issues, but I can see the appeal.

Sometimes you just really need to get stuff off of your chest. Ideally you have people close to you that you can vent to, but some people don’t, and even if you do, sometimes they’re just the wrong kind of people to have that sort of conversation with.

And just being able to say something out loud can help you figure things out on your own. Sowe programmers and such do “rubber duck debugging” where they just explain the code and the issues they’re having to a rubber duck or stuffed animal or something on their desk, and the act of talking through it sort of engages different parts of your brain and often that’s enough to find the issue (I remember one time back in high school I was taking a programming class, I was presenting my project to the class, it worked, but it was a mess of ugly spaghetti code, and as I was up there explaining it out loud for the first time, something just clicked and I realized how I could have done it a much better way.) Some people feel really stupid talking to a rubber duck though (especially if it’s someone who’s already afraid that people think they’re “crazy”) so having an actual human to talk to could be really helpful for them.

And a lot of these things have other resources they can offer. They may be able to help you find a support group, therapist, housing assistance, have some sort of a crisis team they can send out to meet with you, etc.

And for what it’s worth, I work in 911 dispatch. This will vary a lot around the country of course, but while we certainly do get a decent amount of calls from crisis hotlines, they’re basically all for people who are in imminent danger of harming themselves. And the number of those calls I get is absolutely tiny in comparison to the amount of calls I’ve transferred to 988 and our police never so much as drove past the callers house.

“large” is relative.

Unless you’re incredibly thorough about totally cleaning out the vault, ATM, every teller drawer, etc. you’re probably not gonna be able to get more than a few 10s of thousands if you’re lucky

But even a few thousand, or hell, even a couple hundred could be huge for a lot of people.

That might be rent for a month or a couple of months when they’re really struggling, what they need to keep their car from getting repo’d so they can get to their job, pay for some badly needed home repairs, medications, etc.

I’m not struggling, but I’m not exactly doing great either, a couple extra thousand bucks on-hand would be amazing for me, and for some people it could be literally life-changing (even life-saving)

I’ve given 2 strangers strangers a jumpstart in a parking lot at night over the last year or so. I suppose technically those people I helped know about it, but I haven’t been going around bragging about it to anyone (until now I guess)

My all accounts, I’m a heavy sleeper, there are basically only 3 things that will reliably wake me up

My alarm clock
Having to pee
My dog throwing up or whining to go out (usually an indication that she’s gonna have diarrhea)

I sleep through my wife’s alarm going off (usually several alarms, she like to hit snooze,) showering, turning lights on, listening to podcasts while she gets ready, the sun coming up (I work partially overnight, I’m usually in bed by about 4 or 5 AM,) landscapers mowing the lawn outside my window, kids screaming at the nearby playground and school, fireworks, thunderstorms, construction (although I was not able to sleep through the siding repair I had done with a guy hammering on the wall directly behind my bed)

One time my wife was able to get me out of bed and stand me up so she could fix the sheets without me being fully awake.

When I was a kid my mom could vacuum in my room without waking me up.

Currently, which US politician is serving as president?

Also if we want to split hairs, the presidential election was 7 months ago, but you specified “this last election”

Which for about half of US states means a 2025 primary election. Not to mention all of the non US lemmings who might have had more recent elections in their own countries.

And I sure hope none of them voted for Trump because he wouldn’t have been on any of those ballots.

I mean, it probably takes about as long for me to remove the seats from the van as it does for me to find a broom and sweep out the truck bed to make sure my mattress doesn’t get dirty because I’ve been using my truck as a truck, so six of one, half dozen of the other.

And truck bed or roof rack I’m anal about securing my loads, so I’m gonna spend a few minutes fucking with ratchet straps either way, box springs are light so unless you’re really short it’s pretty trivial to get them on a roof rack.

Plus you get the benefit of being able to carry more passengers when you need to. Haven’t found a pickup yet that will seat 7 or 8 people.

Probably not in a minivan, but I’ve personally loaded pallets into cargo vans with a forklift

I’ve moved many a mattress in my parent’s minivan. With the seats folded down or removed and a bit of an angle and/or squishing in a bit you can usually fit a queen, maybe even a king depending on the mattress and van. Box springs are harder, but often still doable, and in a pinch can be easily strapped to a roof rack.

They also have a '93 ranger with the 7ft bed, still chose to use the van for mattresses as often as not, to need to strap anything down or cover them if there’s rain in the forecast.

I did a road trip with my wife a few years back and borrowed their Sedona, took out the back seats, threw a “queen” sized air mattress (I’m pretty sure it was a little undersized from a real mattress, but still pretty close) and the mattress was a little squished on the sides but otherwise fit pretty comfortably in the back, we slept in the van for about a week moving between different campsites.

Know what mattresses don’t fit comfortably in? The 5.5ft beds a lot of pickup trucks have these days.

Yes, but I work a weird schedule with more days off than most (but slightly more hours overall because I work 12 hour shifts) and I’m on night shift, so lots of time to myself after my wife goes to bed.

My work is also pretty chill about what we do with our down time, and there’s usually plenty of it on night shift so I’ve been known to bring my switch in with me and play it at work on occasion

No kids, and we’re both kind of homebodies (my wife moreso than me) so we’ve been known to game together on occasion too.

Streetlight Manifesto- 3 times

I don’t think it’s so much about what he did as VP as much as the fact that his time as VP kind of set him up to run for president later.

We are all ready well-into the discussion and you just kept going further down an absurdist rabbit hole

I made a solid effort to have a good faith discussion, and you came in with ridiculous claims that tightening a bolt with pliers instead of a wrench is somehow breaking a thing worse. Balls in your court now to defend that or else I can only assume that you’re just looking to stir up shit.

Then I will continue to assume you’re a troll since you refuse to prove me wrong.

You know, I’m pretty certain at this point you’re trolling, but I’m curious to hear how you justify this

If the reason something is broken is a loose or missing bolt, how does tightening that bolt with pliers instead of a wrench equate to breaking it further?

You could use pliers, you could very carefully hit the corners of the head in a clockwise direction with a hammer, you could spend a lot of time training the strength in your hand and arm to tighten it by hand, you could use a dremel, saw, or file to cut a slot into it and tighten it with a screwdriver

But it’s a lot easier to use a wrench.

Genuinely don’t know and don’t like 911 since police are involved.

911 dispatcher in the US here

This will vary a lot from one jurisdiction to another, I can really only speak to county I work in

But while in theory every EMS call also gets a police response, probably more than half of them the only action the police take is to tell us “not responding unless requested”

And if they do respond, a lot of time they don’t do much besides sit at the end of the driveway with their lights flashing so the ambulance can find the house easier.

Things like overdoses, assaults, shootings/stabbings, psych emergencies, cardiac arrests, etc. they do of course show up to because they may actually need to do something.

And if you live in a bigger city or rougher part of the suburbs, sometimes they may even take their sweet-ass time getting to those.

And if you live in a rural area, there’s a decent chance you’re covered by some part time or regional police department, or state police/county sheriffs who are stretched way too thin covering a huge area with maybe 2 or 3 officers on duty at any one time, they’re probably not gonna show up in a hurry if at all either.

Like I said, it varies a lot, some towns in my county I can count on police being there before the ambulance (whether or not they actually do anything once they’re there in a different story) and in others the cops don’t give half a fuck unless someone is actively dying.

If you do find yourself calling 911 though, for the love of God, don’t tell them you don’t want police on your medical call, I swear that might be the most surefire way to make sure they do actually show up in a hurry. If that ends up in the notes of the call it makes the cops think you’re hiding something or I don’t know, planning to jump the EMS squad or something, some cops can be pretty panicky, paranoid weirdos like that, or sometimes just spiteful.

Is it easier or harder to tighten a bolt without a wrench?

The more difficult it is to repair something, the less possible it becomes to repair it.

Damn-near anything is possible to repair with the right training and equipment but there is a very wide spectrum between what an average person can do with tools they can easily pick up at any hardware store for cheap and a little common sense and some YouTube videos to guide them, and repairs that require specialist knowledge and equipment.

When something is made more difficult to repair, it slips further into that specialist end of the spectrum, so it’s possible for less people.

It’s complicated.

In most of the US except for a handful of states, you can legally own a silencer, there’s a couple extra hoops to jump through, but nothing too dramatic. Most law abiding gun owners in the US could probably get their hands on one legally if they cared enough to do so.

In other parts of the world, laws are kind of all over the place ranging from totally unregulated to totally illegal. I haven’t done a deep dive on this myself, so this is all 2nd or 3rd+ hand hearsay so take it for what it’s worth, but I’m told that some places regard them as almost a safety (hearing protection) or courtesy thing so you’re not making too much racket with your guns.