“
Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think.
It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
Because if you cannot or will not exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life)
“
When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and "whites only" signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, goodhearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners--and wished them well--nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation... Our understanding of racism is therefore shaped by the most extreme expressions of individual bigotry, not by the way in which it functions naturally, almost invisibly (and sometimes with genuinely benign intent), when it is embedded in the structure of a social system.
”
”
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
“
They went up against white mobs, water hoses, vicious dogs, the Ku Klux Klan, trigger-happy nightstick-wielding police, armed only with their belief in justice and their desire for freedom.
”
”
Assata Shakur (Assata: An Autobiography)
“
Sacraments are like hoses. They are the channels of the living water of God's grace. Our faith is like opening the faucet. We can open it a lot, a little, or not at all.
”
”
Peter Kreeft (Jesus-Shock)
“
You are not a man, I thought. A man doesn’t drink sparkling water; he chugs tap water from a hose after changing his oil.
”
”
Alessandra Torre (Hollywood Dirt (Hollywood Dirt, #1))
“
He scrambled to grab a hose and pointed it at us. A pathetic stream of water trickled out.
What are you going to do? Giguhl said. Moisten us?
”
”
Jaye Wells (The Mage in Black (Sabina Kane, #2))
“
What in god’s name happened to your nuts?”
“They met a jet-powered water hose.”
He grimaced.
“They’re already healing.”
A rare glint of amusement lit Lawrence’s eyes. “You have balls of steel.”
“You have inappropriate humour.
”
”
Dianna Hardy (Releasing The Wolf (Eye Of The Storm, #1))
“
The liberal state is neutral between capitalism and its critics until the critics look like they’re winning. Then it moves in with its water hoses and paramilitary squads, and if these fail with its tanks.
”
”
Terry Eagleton (Why Marx Was Right)
“
I didn't ask my mother to buy me a trumpet or a violin, I started right on the water hose.
”
”
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
“
The onset of grief bore no resemblance to his experience with depression. Depression meant disconnection, shutting down, a dangerous quiet. Now William’s feelings whipped around inside him like a flailing water hose.
”
”
Ann Napolitano (Hello Beautiful)
“
Houses nearby were burning, and when huge drops of water the size of marbles began to fall, he half thought that they must be coming from the hoses of firemen fighting the blazes. (They were actually drops of condensed moisture falling from the turbulent tower of dust, heat, and fission fragments that had already risen miles into the sky above Hiroshima.)
”
”
John Hersey (Hiroshima)
“
For the briefest instant, his brain was the only thing that reacted. Mistake, thought his brain. Then the mouthful of water, mixed with what remained of the almond toffee crunch, fire hosed out of his mouth, arced across the table and hit Mary Turlington just above her bosom.
”
”
Stuart McLean (Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe (Vinyl Cafe, #5))
“
A breach of integrity stops the flow of energy, just as a pebble jammed in a garden hose stops the flow of water.
”
”
Gay Hendricks (The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level)
“
We as a black culture have been through so much from slavery, lynching, dogs sicced on us,water hosed down, shot and killed in America. But we shall still overcome everything!
”
”
Alcurtis Turner
“
There is a movement behind my breast that feels like someone has turned a hose on full blast, and the water that has been baking in the pump in the summer heat floods out, scalding. This is love, and it hurts.
”
”
Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones)
“
have a kink as solid and full of habit as the ones in the hose. Slowly I pull out the full length of the hose and lay it where it needs to be before I turn on the water. Inside, too, I must unroll my full attention. Old habits of thought twist themselves into kinks and knots. We will be forced to acknowledge this again and again.
”
”
Gunilla Norris (A Mystic Garden: Working with Soil, Attending to Soul)
“
Irish grabbed her hand and kept the water directed at the wall. His voice cam across her radio. "Hannah. Wait. What do you see?"
She stared. She saw fire. A lot of fire.
But then a pattern started to emerge. "A message?" She guessed. Then she looked mroe closelt. "A star? What does that mean?"
"That's not a star," said Irish. "But it's definitely a message."
"It's not a star?"
He let go of the hose, the water streaked across the flames on the floor.
"No," he said. "That's a pentagram.
”
”
Brigid Kemmerer (Sacrifice (Elemental, #5))
“
My thoughts flew back to his kisses, and I put a hand to my mouth absently. His mouth quirked as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, and I pulled my gaze from his before my face burst into flames. Jordan threw a rope of garland at me. “Am I going to have to take a water hose to you two again?” I
”
”
Karen Lynch (Rogue (Relentless, #3))
“
In this world, you are very much like a water hose in the garden. Love flows through you, just as water runs through this hose. Love comes from God, just as water comes from the well. The water doesn’t depend on the hose, just as God doesn’t depend on you. But the water needs the hose to pour on the garden, and the flowers need the water. God needs you to pour his love in the world, and people need his love.
”
”
Dragos Bratasanu (The Pursuit of Dreams: Claim Your Power, Follow Your Heart, and Fulfill Your Destiny)
“
It’s what David Foster Wallace was getting at in his famous speech, “This is Water”: “Learning how to think . . . means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.” Fanfiction is about exercising this choice. It helps us not to get hosed.
”
”
Anne Jamison (Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World)
“
There were little girls who would snuggle up to any grown man and try to guide his hand inside their underwear, and there were kids who compulsively bit their own arms. Kids who would suddenly start twitching and banging their heads against a wall, not even stopping when the blood ran down their faces. Kids who waddled around oblivious to the stinking load in their own pants. Watching children like this, it was all too easy to see why their parents beat them. It was only natural to hate such kids, to ignore them and shower only your other children with love. Who wouldn't? But of course that wasn't the way it really worked. Such behaviors weren't the reasons parents abused children, but the results of abuse. Children are powerless. No matter how viciously they're beaten, children were powerless to do anything about it. Even if Mother hit them with a shoehorn or the hose of a vacuum cleaner or the handle of a kitchen knife, or strangled them or poured boiling water on them, they couldn't escape her; they couldn't even truly despise her. Children would struggle desperately to feel love for their parents. Rather than hate a parent, in fact, they'd choose to hate themselves. Love and violence became so intertwined for them that when they grew up and got into relationships, only hysteria could set their hearts at ease. Kindness, gentleness - anything along those lines just caused tension, since there was no telling when it would turn to overt hostility.
”
”
Ryū Murakami
“
Just as successful in work and marriage was Harvey, William Tew’s oldest son. After working for his father in the family business for seventeen years, in 1870 Harvey established a rubber factory with his brother- in- law Benjamin F. Goodrich. The story goes that the pair came up with the idea after large fires swept through Jamestown, which still consisted mainly of wooden buildings, sometimes wiping out entire neighborhoods. In winter, the fire brigade was repeatedly rendered powerless when the water froze in its leather hoses. The discovery that water stayed liquid in rubber hoses made the fortunes of Harvey and his brother- in- law and formed the basis of a company that would grow into one of the world’s largest tire producers.
”
”
Annejet van der Zijl (An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew)
“
After one raid set London’s Natural History Museum on fire, water from firemen’s hoses caused seeds in its collection to germinate, among them those from an ancient Persian silk tree, or mimosa—Albizia julibrissin. The seeds were said to be 147 years old.
”
”
Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz)
“
It was in this last job that Osman formed most of his convictions about his fellow human beings. No one should try to philosophize on the nature of humanity until they had worked in a public toilet for a couple of weeks and seen the things that people did, simply because they could – destroying the water hose on the wall, breaking the door handle, drawing nasty graffiti everywhere, peeing on the hand towels, depositing every kind of filth and muck all over the place, knowing that someone else would have to clean it up.
”
”
Elif Shafak (10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World)
“
When are we going to wake up and call it what it is? They degrade blacks; instead of getting sprayed by a water hose, we are now getting sprayed with bullets! Instead of getting a peaceful night’s rest, our doors are getting kicked in! Oh, and instead of suffocating us with their white sheets or tying a noose around our necks and hanging us from a tree, they suffocate us by putting their knee on our neck instead. Let’s keep it real here. Who are we fooling? Racism has still has a heartbeat, and I do not see it dying anytime soon.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Why Are You Obsessed with My Race?)
“
81. “When are we going to wake up and call it what it is? They degrade blacks; instead of getting sprayed by a water hose, we are now getting sprayed with bullets! Instead of getting a peaceful night’s rest, our doors are getting kicked in! Oh, and instead of suffocating us with their white sheets or tying a noose around our necks and hanging us from a tree, they suffocate us by putting their knee on our neck instead. Let’s keep it real here. Who are we fooling? Racism has still has a heartbeat, and I do not see it dying anytime soon.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Why Are You Obsessed with My Race?)
“
I was for the first time in my life living within the limits of my attention's resources. I was observing as much information as I could actually process, think about and contemplate. The fire hose of information was turned off. Instead, I was sipping water at the pace I chose.
”
”
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again)
“
Let me tell you,” the nun went on, “everyone is equal under God! Prejudice is nothing but ignorance, jealousy, pettiness”—she shook the hose with each word, sending undulating arcs of water into the flower beds—“and intolerance is responsible for all the violence! It’s drilled into children from the beginning.
”
”
R.D. Rosen (Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Holocaust's Hidden Child Survivors)
“
Okies who had just stepped into the corridor long enough to get a tin can of water for our boiling radiator. There are other stories, other dilemmas, but the characters never change. We’re always standing around, unwashed, uncurled, harried, penniless, memory gone, no lipstick, no hose, unmatched shoes, and using the dirtiest cloth in the house to bind our wounds. Makes
”
”
Erma Bombeck (Forever, Erma)
“
As I started to walk, it seemed like nothing around me was moving. The trees were as still as in a photograph, and the windows of all the houses were shut tight. There were no people around. No cats, no dogs, no crows. There wasn’t a single sparrow in the sky. My eyes were tingling from the heat. Once the water from Grandpa’s hose was too far away to hear, the only sound left was the cicadas...
”
”
Hiroko Oyamada (The Hole)
“
To picture what happens during the late stages of sepsis, imagine a garden hose with small holes placed throughout to turn it into a sprinkler. When a normal amount of water goes through the hose, the sprinkling effect is constant. If the flow decreases, the sprinkler effect becomes more erratic, and if the volume of water in the hose lessens even further, the sprinkler will turn into a leaky mess that waters only the strip of garden it rests on. The
”
”
Theresa Brown (The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives)
“
Clarisse’s friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I’d used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn’t there. “Like he’s ‘Big Three’ material,” Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. “Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking.” Her friends snickered. Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers. Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won’t. Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse’s grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me. I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall. She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away. As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started. The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn’t been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn’t been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.
”
”
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Books I-III)
“
I went online to compare different colors of noise. White encompassed all audible frequencies and reminded me of TV static; pink was a mix of frequencies, with reduced higher frequencies, with a sound closer to ocean waves or falling rain; brown sounded lower, with the hint of a rumble, like a strong wind; blue was higher, with a hissing quality, like water spraying from a hose; green supposedly captured the background sound of nature; black noise was…silence.
”
”
Gretchen Rubin (Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World)
“
Another part of Bit's unifying urban theory is sprinklers, that you can gauge a neighborhood's wealth by the way people water. If every house has an automatic system, you're looking at a six-figure mean. If the majority lug hoses around, it's more lower-middle class. And if they don't bother with the lawns... well, that's the sort of shitburg where Bit and Julie always lived, except for that little place they rented in Wenatchee the summer Bit worked at the orchard.
”
”
Jess Walter (We Live in Water: Stories)
“
Report!” Freddy shouted. His fellow agents called back about their condition. They were all accounted for. One had a slight burn and another had been cut, breaking through a window to flood the basement with water from a garden hose—a futile effort, of course. There were no serious injuries, however. No, the only victim here was Henry Loving’s past. I rubbed my stinging eyes, wondering if, as I’d speculated, this had in fact been a trap all along. I was alive but this round of our game was a decided loss for me. Scissors
”
”
Jeffery Deaver (Edge)
“
He sits in an old armchair in the corner covered with bits of blankets and a bucket behind the chair that stinks enough to make you sick and when you look at that old man in the dark corner you want to get a hose with hot water and strip him and wash him down and give him a big feed of rashers and eggs and mashed potatoes with loads of butter and salt and onions.
I want to take the man from the Boer War and the pile of rags in the bed and put them in a big sunny house in the country with birds chirping away outside the window and a stream gurgling.
”
”
Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt, #1))
“
New Rule: If you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you may as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it seems that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable--and not try to pretend the insanity is equally distributed in both parties. Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man and a madman.
Now, getting more than two hundred thousand people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement that gave me hope, and what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August--although it weight the same. But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just top giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan, and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side. Forgetting that Obama tried that, and found our there are no moderates on the other side.
When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is "dominated" by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist, and by people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin...all of them. It's now official Republican dogma, like "Tax cuts pay for themselves" and "Gay men just haven't met the right woman."
As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded--but thinking Bush is a war criminal? That's the opinion of Major General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib.
Republicans keep staking out a position that is farther and farther right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which now is not the middle anymore. That's the reason health-care reform is so watered down--it's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax.
But it's not--I know because I've lived in L.A. since '83, and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. All of us who live out here have had that experience: "Oh, look, there's a mountain there." Governments, led my liberal Democrats, passed laws that changed the air I breathe. For the better. I'm for them, and not the party that is plotting to abolish the EPA. I don't need to pretend both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I can only what climate scientists say about it.
Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German shepherds, they have a point, too." No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare. This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob."
Liberals, like the ones on that field, must stand up and be counted, and not pretend we're as mean or greedy or shortsighted or just plain batshit at them. And if that's too polarizing for you, and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
Humming again, he takes the hose and washes away the soap, taking his time, touching me everywhere with admiring hands. “We should probably get out of here,” he says eventually. “Yeah.” The water shuts off, and Wes grabs both towels off the rack where they wait. He ties one around his waist, then drops one over my head and begins to rub my hair dry. “I got it,” I say, lifting my heavy arms to do the work. “Could you see what Blake left me for clothes?” “He brought flannel pants, so I brought your jeans this morning. Hang on.” Wes dries himself hastily and climbs back into his boxers. I hear him thumping around in the room, jumping into his clothes. He returns with underwear and jeans for me. “Stand up, babe.
”
”
Sarina Bowen (Us (Him, #2))
“
I suppose we were worn down and shivering. Three a.m. is a mean spirited hour. I suppose we were drenched, with the cold hose water trickling in at our collars and settling down at the tail of our shirts. Without doubt the heavy brass couplings felt moulded from metal-ice. Probably the open roar of the pumps drowned the petulant buzz of the raiders above, and certainly the ubiquitous fire-glow made an orange stage-set of the streets. Black water would have puddled the city alleys and I suppose our hands and faces were black as the water. Black with hacking about among the burnt-up rafters. These things were an every-night nonentity. They happened and they were not forgotten because they were not even remembered.
”
”
William Sansom
“
Much as I admire sand’s miraculous ability to be transformed into useful objects like glass and concrete, I am not a great fan of it in its natural state. To me, it is primarily a hostile barrier that stands between a parking lot and water. It blows in your face, gets in your sandwiches, swallows vital objects like car keys and coins. In hot countries, it burns your feet and makes you go “Ooh! Ah!” and hop to the water in a fashion that people with better bodies find amusing. When you are wet, it adheres to you like stucco, and cannot be shifted with a fireman’s hose. But—and here’s the strange thing—the moment you step on a beach towel, climb into a car, or walk across a recently vacuumed carpet, it all falls off.
”
”
Bill Bryson (Notes from a Small Island)
“
lucky.” I didn’t like his joke, not at all. “I’m serious, Fritz. Something bad is going to happen.” “It’s only leftover worries from yesterday.” Fritz stared at me a moment too long, as if trying to convince himself of his own words. “Now let’s get to work.” Things went fine for a few hours. I was in the garden, clearing more weeds, and had already emptied out a lot of the dirt from the basement. But then I saw Fritz at the basement window, hissing at me to come inside, and to hurry. His eyes were so wide, I could see the whites from here. The reason for the pit in my gut. I dropped the spade and hurried for the building, careful not to make it look like anything was unusual, if anyone was watching. But when I ducked inside, Fritz had already returned to the shelter, and I breathlessly raced to follow. “What’s the matter?” I called while descending the ladder. My answer came as soon as I entered the tunnel. Water trickled beneath my feet and sank into the soil, creating a dense mud. The farther I walked, the more water there was. At the back of the tunnel, Fritz had exposed a pipe that was now spurting out pressurized water like a fireman’s hose. The hole in it wasn’t large, but it was enough to cause significant damage and was getting worse. The streams of water tore dirt from the walls and sent it in chunks to the ground. Our tunnel was flooding, and if we didn’t find a way to stop the water, it would collapse entirely. “How
”
”
Jennifer A. Nielsen (A Night Divided)
“
Add your typical shower and claw feet
Owners claw foot tub, consider incorporating the most traditional sense of joy in the ease and comfort revolutionary shower, governments are mainly engaged in the race just to check in early for power within very ready. Clawfoot tubs wear’s now includes a shower; there are many strategies to use the shower in the bathroom now. Even if a person must be determined in those particular individual hairs, can be costly and impractical. Although the site has a separate shower grow, keep in mind that you want the products and save more modern maintenance. Value management easier and more efficient to add a shower curtain and bath address.
The information is not expensive, there are some ideas that you can include in the acquired shower. Contractor or plumber can provide ideas and even to make for you. The original can take water heater shower bath in the direction of the feet and the creation of a rod with an en suite shower room, and when the curtain. Shower curtains apartment surrounded significantly reduces splash of water leaks. Another option would be surplus tiles on the long term, the use of H2O "enemy" and shower rod and curtain also furnished, "L" of the aspects described in determining the bath. What will be more expensive and bathroom alone for a long time, some people are afraid of this option.
On the way to the drain in the shower, you could be the cables hidden in the bathroom near the wall. The second course in the HVAC responsible for pre-tube immediately describes the bath to the option in the direction of the traditional classical appearance. There are several different types of decorative lighting and lids which are made in such a way that appears to choose in the hoses pin and presented a lot of good taste on the market.
For those who are willing to deal with their own tasks, traders improving the registered owner of the Depot and Lowe's contain a number of "do it yourself" kits are unique measurements. Such kits are barrels and other containers, as defined above use’s shower built for joint legs. Everything requires a few simple policies and lower resistance to the purchase is detected. This kind of "precursors" of the water, you can judge for yourself in the shower longitudinal shower, shower curtains and thoughts. If you take even more concerned that the easiest only independent bathroom each provider in the health of office workers only in the direction of the support of others and crank implementing rules. Have a good friend or spouse and children of a member who keep an eye on your health, as it is commonly known.
No need for the resolution, that the decision to migrate to an item in the shower of his classic bathroom was somewhat effortlessly came to rise. It goes in the direction of maximizing claw foot tub, or take an impressive ease of use aerosol own desire. Many decisions wonderful shower curtain in the direction of the changes the rest of the room was coming towards a holistic view of their cosmetics, and a lot of fun to drive in the direction of your claw foot tub.
”
”
Elite Shower
“
Taylor held a finger up to Val and Kate. “Hold that thought for a second while I get this.”
As she headed into the living room, she overheard Kate mumble to Val, “Hold what thought? I haven’t understood a word she’s said yet.”
Taylor unlocked her front door and opened it. Before she could react, Jason barreled right in, all fired up.
“Where have you been?? I tried calling you—is your cell phone off? I need you to tell me who the hell I can sue. I just met with Marty—we got back the mock-ups for the new publicity posters the studio’s going to use to promote Inferno .”
Jason stormed into the kitchen, so engrossed in his rant he didn’t notice Valerie and Kate. He opened Taylor’s fridge and helped himself to a bottled water.
“And get this,” he fumed angrily, “the dumbasses who designed the posters have me pictured in this scene where I’m putting out a fire with all these other firemen. But if you look at the poster from the side, the water from the hose of one of the other firefighters looks like it’s shooting right out of my crotch. And the best part is, they want to put this poster over the theater entrance for the premiere. I can just see it—” He gestured grandly to the air. “ ‘Come see Inferno! Get pissed on by Jason Andrews!’”
With that, he threw Taylor a wink. “It should be right up your alley.”
Finished with his rant, Jason took a sip of water. Then he finally noticed Kate and Val. He smiled charmingly.
“Oh. People. Hello.”
Kate and Val sat in silence at the table. They stared at the sight of this god, this ideal man of modern time, standing before them in all his glory.
”
”
Julie James (Just the Sexiest Man Alive)
“
A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace.
Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops.
One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward.
It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . .
I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was hard to spot a woman wearing a dress or anything other than very casual pants or even shorts. Had I not known that they were coming to the school for church meetings, I would have assumed that there was some kind of sporting event taking place.
The dress of our ward members compared very favorably to this bad example, but I am beginning to think that we are no longer quite so different as more and more we seem to slide toward that lower standard. We used to use the phrase “Sunday best.” People understood that to mean the nicest clothes they had. The specific clothing would vary according to different cultures and economic circumstances, but it would be their best.
It is an affront to God to come into His house, especially on His holy day, not groomed and dressed in the most careful and modest manner that our circumstances permit. Where a poor member from the hills of Peru must ford a river to get to church, the Lord surely will not be offended by the stain of muddy water on his white shirt.
But how can God not be pained at the sight of one who, with all the clothes he needs and more and with easy access to the chapel, nevertheless appears in church in rumpled cargo pants and a T-shirt? Ironically, it has been my experience as I travel around the world that members of the Church with the least means somehow find a way to arrive at Sabbath meetings neatly dressed in clean, nice clothes, the best they have, while those who have more than enough are the ones who may appear in casual, even slovenly clothing.
Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.” In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation—look the part.
”
”
D. Todd Christofferson
“
There is a rustle beside me and then the water moves. When I open my eyes, Wes is naked and standing in the shower stall, too. He’s unhooked the showerhead, which is attached to a hose. Humming to himself, he eases it around to rain down on my shoulders. “Tip your head back,” he says softly. When I do, he wets my hair. The water disappears a moment later, and then Wes’s hands are lathering up my head. We’ve showered together a hundred times, but never like this. I hate being dependent on him like this. Leaning forward, I rest my forehead on his hip bone and sigh. He just keeps going. The strong hands that I love so much skim the back of my neck, my shoulders, behind my ears. He rinses me next, shielding my forehead with his palm to keep the soap out of my eyes. They sting anyway from frustration. Then he kneels in front of me. When I look up, a serious pair of gray eyes are right there, level with mine. “Hey,” he says softly. “H-hey,” I stammer. Don’t mind me, I’m just having a fucking breakdown.
”
”
Sarina Bowen (Us (Him, #2))
“
So what really happened, and what became of them? The basement entry, while dangerous, wasn’t quite as dramatic as modern myth would have you believe. The pressure suppression pool drainage valves couldn’t be reached because most watertight basement corridors and surrounding rooms were full of water. The solution required a team of highly trained firemen wearing respirators and rubber suits to charge their fire engines and the Chemical Troops’ protective armoured vehicles into a loading bay beneath the reactor. There, they placed four special, ultra-long hoses into the water before retreating to the safety of Bryukhanov’s bunker beneath the administration building. After three hours of almost zero water movement, the dejected firemen came to the crushing realisation that one of the armoured vehicles must have driven over and severed their hoses. A fresh team brought twenty new hoses and re-entered the reactor building. They emerged an hour later, feeling exhausted and nauseous but triumphant; the replacement hoses were in place, the remaining radioactive water could finally be drained.201
”
”
Andrew Leatherbarrow (Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster)
“
He thinks about it for a moment. "All right. I'll go firts"
He takes a deep breath.
Do you know what a bidet is? One of those fancy toilet things with the hose to was your-"
I know what it is," I cut him off.
Well. I didn't. At least I didn't when I was ten. We were on vacation in New York when we got to the room, I went into the bathroom and saw it there. And I just stared at it for a while trying to figure out what it might be."
This isn't going to end well, is it?"
Finally, I did figure it out. Or at least I thought I did."
You didn't!"
Oh, yes I did. I called out, 'Mon, Dad, there's a water fountain in the bathroom.' They tried to rush in and stop me, but they were too late."
....
This spring I took the SAT at the comunity college. About halfway through the test, I adjusted the way I was sitting and-"
He cuts me off. "Oh, my God. You're Fart Girl!"
Fart Girl?" I say, mortified. "You mean, you heard about what happened?"
He started laughing. "I didn't hear about it. I heard it. I was there, in the same classroom. I didn't know who did it, but I definately heard it." He laughs some more. "The whole section was cracking up.
”
”
Jamie Ponti
“
He was walking down a narrow street in Beirut, Lebanon, the air thick with the smell of Arabic coffee and grilled chicken. It was midday, and he was sweating badly beneath his flannel shirt. The so-called South Lebanon conflict, the Israeli occupation, which had begun in 1982 and would last until 2000, was in its fifth year.
The small white Fiat came screeching around the corner with four masked men inside. His cover was that of an aid worker from Chicago and he wasn’t strapped. But now he wished he had a weapon, if only to have the option of ending it before they took him. He knew what that would mean. The torture first, followed by the years of solitary. Then his corpse would be lifted from the trunk of a car and thrown into a drainage ditch. By the time it was found, the insects would’ve had a feast and his mother would have nightmares, because the authorities would not allow her to see his face when they flew his body home.
He didn’t run, because the only place to run was back the way he’d come, and a second vehicle had already stopped halfway through a three-point turn, all but blocking off the street.
They exited the Fiat fast. He was fit and trained, but he knew they’d only make it worse for him in the close confines of the car if he fought them. There was a time for that and a time for raising your hands, he’d learned. He took an instep hard in the groin, and a cosh over the back of his head as he doubled over. He blacked out then.
The makeshift cell Hezbollah had kept him in in Lebanon was a bare concrete room, three metres square, without windows or artificial light. The door was wooden, reinforced with iron strips. When they first dragged him there, he lay in the filth that other men had made. They left him naked, his wrists and ankles chained. He was gagged with rag and tape. They had broken his nose and split his lips.
Each day they fed him on half-rancid scraps like he’d seen people toss to skinny dogs. He drank only tepid water. Occasionally, he heard the muted sound of children laughing, and smelt a faint waft of jasmine. And then he could not say for certain how long he had been there; a month, maybe two. But his muscles had wasted and he ached in every joint. After they had said their morning prayers, they liked to hang him upside down and beat the soles of his feet with sand-filled lengths of rubber hose. His chest was burned with foul-smelling cigarettes. When he was stubborn, they lay him bound in a narrow structure shaped like a grow tunnel in a dusty courtyard. The fierce sun blazed upon the corrugated iron for hours, and he would pass out with the heat. When he woke up, he had blisters on his skin, and was riddled with sand fly and red ant bites.
The duo were good at what they did. He guessed the one with the grey beard had honed his skills on Jewish conscripts over many years, the younger one on his own hapless people, perhaps. They looked to him like father and son. They took him to the edge of consciousness before easing off and bringing him back with buckets of fetid water. Then they rubbed jagged salt into the fresh wounds to make him moan with pain. They asked the same question over and over until it sounded like a perverse mantra.
“Who is The Mandarin? His name? Who is The Mandarin?”
He took to trying to remember what he looked like, the architecture of his own face beneath the scruffy beard that now covered it, and found himself flinching at the slightest sound. They had peeled back his defences with a shrewdness and deliberation that had both surprised and terrified him.
By the time they freed him, he was a different man.
”
”
Gary Haynes (State of Honour)
“
Grabbing my hair and pulling it to the point my skull throbs, I rock back and forth while insanity threatens to destroy my mind completely. Father finally did what Lachlan started. Destroyed my spirit. The angel is gone. The monster has come and killed her. Lachlan Sipping his whiskey, Shon gazes with a bored expression at the one-way mirror as Arson lights the match, grazing the skin of his victim with it as the man convulses in fear. “Show off,” he mutters, and on instinct, I slap the back of his head. He rubs it, spilling the drink. “The fuck? We are wasting time, Lachlan. Tell him to speed up. You know if you let him, he can play for hours.” All in good time, we don’t need just a name. He is saving him for a different kind of information that we write down as Sociopath types furiously on his computer, searching for the location and everything else using FBI databases. “Bingo!” Sociopath mutters, picking up the laptop and showing the screen to me. “It’s seven hours away from New York, in a deserted location in the woods. The land belongs to some guy who is presumed dead and the man accrued the right to build shelters for abused women. They actually live there as a place of new hope or something.” Indeed, the center is advertised as such and has a bunch of stupid reviews about it. Even the approval of a social worker, but then it doesn’t surprise me. Pastor knows how to be convincing. “Kids,” I mutter, fisting my hands. “Most of them probably have kids. He continues to do his fucked-up shit.” And all these years, he has been under my radar. I throw the chair and it bounces off the wall, but no one says anything as they feel the same. “Shon, order a plane. Jaxon—” “Yeah, my brothers will be there with us. But listen, the FBI—” he starts, and I nod. He takes a beat and quickly sends a message to someone on his phone while I bark into the microphone. “Arson, enough with the bullshit. Kill him already.” He is of no use to us anyway. Arson looks at the wall and shrugs. Then pours gas on his victim and lights up the match simultaneously, stepping aside as the man screams and thrashes on the chair, and the smell of burning flesh can be sensed even here. Arson jogs to a hose, splashing water over him. The room is designed security wise for this kind of torture, since fire is one of the first things I taught. After all, I’d learned the hard way how to fight with it. “On the plane, we can adjust the plan. Let’s get moving.” They spring into action as I go to my room to get a specific folder to give to Levi before I go, when Sociopath’s hand stops me, bumping my shoulder. “Is this a suicide mission for you?” he asks, and I smile, although it lacks any humor. My friend knows everything. Instead of answering his question, I grip his shoulder tight, and confide, “Valencia is entrusted to you.” We both know that if I want to destroy Pastor, I have to die with him. This revenge has been twenty-three years in the making, and I never envisioned a different future. This path always leads to death one way or another, and the only reason I valued my life was because I had to kill him. Valencia will be forever free from the evils that destroyed her life. I’ll make sure of it. Once upon a time, there was an angel. Who made the monster’s heart bleed.
”
”
V.F. Mason (Lachlan's Protégé (Dark Protégés #1))
“
It starts with a thwack, the sharp crack of hard plastic against a hot metal surface. When the ladle rolls over, it deposits a pale-yellow puddle of batter onto the griddle. A gentle sizzle, as the back of the ladle sparkles a mixture of eggs, flour, water, and milk across the silver surface. A crepe takes shape.
Next comes cabbage, chopped thin- but not too thin- and stacked six inches high, lightly packed so hot air can flow freely and wilt the mountain down to a molehill. Crowning the cabbage comes a flurry of tastes and textures: ivory bean sprouts, golden pebbles of fried tempura batter, a few shakes of salt, and, for an extra umami punch, a drift of dried bonito powder. Finally, three strips of streaky pork belly, just enough to umbrella the cabbage in fat, plus a bit more batter to hold the whole thing together. With two metal spatulas and a gentle rocking of the wrists, the mass is inverted. The pork fat melts on contact, and the cabbage shrinks in the steam trapped under the crepe.
Then things get serious. Thin wheat soba noodles, still dripping with hot water, hit the teppan, dancing like garden hoses across its hot surface, absorbing the heat of the griddle until they crisp into a bird's nest to house the cabbage and crepe. An egg with two orange yolks sizzles beside the soba, waiting for its place on top of this magnificent heap.
Everything comes together: cabbage and crepe at the base, bean sprouts and pork belly in the center, soba and fried egg parked on top, a geologic construction of carbs and crunch, protein and chew, all framed with the black and white of thickened Worcestershire and a zigzag of mayonnaise.
This is okonomiyaki, the second most famous thing that ever happened to Hiroshima.
”
”
Matt Goulding (Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture)
“
We’re talking now of late August evenings in Minnesota. That world consists of the din of lawn mower blades turning in raucous slicing circles like buzzards over prey, the throb of a
racing boat’s outboard motor on the Lake.
Garden hoses run with cool water and wash over the last flowers of the year before the autumn turns all the green to brown. In the afternoons, children run through sprinklers on the lawn and men burn piles of last autumn’s leaves. Mothers prepare suppers and read novels under the shade of summer hats, carefully watching over their children from afar. All is safe and good in the summer. But Thom Algonquin can no longer hear the lawn mowers humming, boat motors churning, the hoses splashing or the children playing.
He doesn’t smell the leaves burning or help his mother prepare supper. Thom Algonquin is seven years old and he has walked too far into the woods near his home on Lake Superior. He hears nothing save the sound of sunlight and trees, birds, and his own feet pattering along atop the underbrush. He is not so sure he can hear these things exactly though. It has now become clear to him that he has gone too far, too deep into the old woods. He is accustomed to going a little farther than his mother allowed, but he has walked miles past that line now. Though his heart races he does not scream or run or cry. He looks around for home but each direction is identical to the others. He remembers his Cub Scout manual saying that moss grows on the northern side
of tree trunks because there is less sunlight. But the aspen trees have no moss on them at all, and the big white oaks have moss on every side of their trunks. He holds his breath and listens. He hears his heart beat, and somewhere behind that, he hears water, waves and lapping tides. The Lake. He can always find home from the Lake. His father told him to simply keep the water on his left hand and walk until he is home, should he ever get lost. Thom moves toward the sound of water. He walks quickly but doesn’t run, doesn’t panic. If he runs he will know that something is wrong and that he is scared. He does not want to know these things, does not want them to
become real, so he walks quickly but calmly.
”
”
Spencer K.M. Brown (Hold Fast)
“
As Sam came to a panting stop, a jet of orange flame burst from a high window.
Several dozen kids were standing, watching. A crowd that struck Sam as very strange, until he realized why it was strange: there were no adults, just kids.
“Is anyone in there?” Astrid called out. No one answered.
“It could spread,” Sam said.
“There’s no 911,” someone pointed out.
“If it spreads, it could burn down half the town.”
“You see a fireman anywhere?” A helpless shrug.
The day care shared a wall with the hardware store, and both were only a narrow alley away from the burning building. Sam figured they had time to get the kids out of the day care if they acted fast, but the hardware store was something they could not afford to lose.
There had to be forty kids just standing there gawking. No one seemed about to start doing anything.
“Great,” Sam said. He grabbed two kids he sort of knew. “You guys, go to the day care. Tell them to get the littles out of there.”
The kids stared at him without moving.
“Now. Go. Do it!” he said, and they took off running.
Sam pointed at two other kids. “You and you. Go into the hardware store, get the longest hose you can find. Get a spray nozzle, too. I think there’s a spigot in that alley. Start spraying water on the side of the hardware store and up on the roof.”
These two also stared blankly. “Dudes: Not tomorrow. Now. Now. Go! Quinn? You better go with them. We want to wet down the hardware—that’s where the wind will take the fire next.”
Quinn hesitated.
People were not getting this. How could they not see that they had to do something, not just stand around?
Sam pushed to the front of the crowd and in a loud voice said, “Hey, listen up, this isn’t the Disney Channel. We can’t just watch this happen. There are no adults. There’s no fire department. We are the fire department.”
Edilio was there. He said, “Sam’s right. What do you need, Sam? I’m with you.”
“Okay. Quinn? The hoses from the hardware store. Edilio? Let’s get the big hoses from the fire station, hook ’em up to the hydrant.”
“They’ll be heavy. I’ll need some strong guys.”
“You, you, you, you.” Sam grabbed each person’s shoulder, shaking each one, pushing them into motion. “Come on. You. You. Let’s go!
”
”
Michael Grant
“
Chappell had brought a Mrs. Frazer to the island. She used an unorthodox divining method, much like water-witching, to detect metals under the surface. She found indications that copper, gold, and silver lay everywhere underground. Dad’s goodwill evaporated when she insisted that she needed to work at the Money Pit.
It is clear, from a description of Mrs. Frazer in Dad’s letter to Fred Sparham, dated May 20, that Dad did not believe in the woman’s methods:
Chappell brought a woman over who had a secret sort of metal finder. She has been back twice since. Mildred calls her Witch Hazel, and it’s more fun that a barrel of Monkeys. She runs around dangling a piece of plastic hose (clear) with a piece of metal in it that looks like a steel and brass plum bob. She has the whole lot hanging from a chain. She also has a gadget she takes out of a bag that looks like a pair of horns. Then she puts these horns against her forehead and goes around like a Moose. You just can’t believe it at all.
”
”
Lee Lamb (Oak Island Family: The Restall Hunt for Buried Treasure)
“
Pride, anger, naivete, and nostalga are like Stalin's communists waiting to deliver Poland out of the hands of Hitler's Nazis. What looks like a rescue only recovers and repeats the oppression. When God's people walk out of God's house and respond to the folly they find under the sun by becoming foolish themselves, there is little wonder why it can seem that God is nowhere to be found in the news, our neighborhoods, or our daily toil. We become like firefighters who, upon entering a burning building, disdain the water hoses and instead turn confidently to blowtorches and try helplessly to douse what blazes.
”
”
Zack Eswine (Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes (Gospel According to the Old Testament))
“
Getting ready on the day of launch takes much longer than you’d think it would, like so many aspects of spaceflight. First I take a final trip to the banya to relax, then go through the preflight enema ritual—our guts shut down in space initially, so the Russians encourage us to get things cleaned out ahead of time. The cosmonauts have their doctors do this, with warm water and rubber hoses, but I opt for the drugstore type in private, which lets me maintain a comfortable friendship with my flight surgeon. I savor a bath in the Jacuzzi tub, then a nap (because our launch is scheduled for 1:42 a.m. local time). When I wake, I take a shower, lingering awhile. I know how much I’ll miss the feeling of water for the next year. The Russian flight surgeon we call “Dr. No” shows up shortly after I’m out of the shower. He is called Dr. No because he gets to decide whether our families can see us once we’re in quarantine. His decisions are arbitrary, sometimes mean-spirited, and absolute. He is here to wipe down our entire bodies with alcohol wipes. The original idea behind the alcohol swab-down was to kill any germs trying to stow away with space travelers, but now it seems like just another ritual. After a champagne toast with senior management and our significant others, we sit in silence for a minute, a Russian tradition before a long trip. As we leave the building, a Russian Orthodox priest will bless us and throw holy water into each of our faces. Every cosmonaut since Yuri Gagarin has gone through each of these steps, so we will go through them, too. I’m not religious, but I always say that when you’re getting ready to be rocketed into space, a blessing can’t hurt.
”
”
Scott Kelly (Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery)
“
Many years later, the people would stand up to water hoses and sheriffs’ dogs to be treated as equal. But for now the people resisted in silent, everyday rebellions that would build up to a storm at midcentury. Rocks stuffed into cotton sacks in Mississippi at weighing time. The COLORED ONLY signs pulled from the seat backs of public buses and converted into dartboards in dorm rooms in Georgia. Teenagers sneaking into coffee shops and swiveling on the soda fountain stools forbidden to colored people in Florida and then running out as fast as they’d come in before anybody could catch them. Each one fought in isolation and unbeknownst to the others, long before the marches and boycotts that were decades away.
”
”
Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration)
“
If you want to give these hardy specimens a helping hand in dry periods, then it is better to drench them thoroughly, giving them about 5 gallons or two watering cans per 10 square feet. This is easier with a hose, although this makes it trickier to measure the amount. A good way to work out an estimate is to fill your watering can using the nozzle or attachment that you normally use to water the beds, and measure the time it takes
”
”
Peter Wohlleben (The Weather Detective: Rediscovering Nature’s Secret Signs)
“
You’re a haaaard man, McGee” was Harold Peary’s inevitable retort as Gildersleeve. McGee and Gildersleeve lambasted each other throughout Marian’s long absence, the Gildersleeve character coming to full prominence during that time. They snarled and bickered, borrowed tools and forgot who owned them, fought it out with hoses while watering their lawns. In August 1941 The Great Gildersleeve became the first major series to spin out of another program; Peary and Gildersleeve left Wistful Vista for the town of Summerfield, where Gildersleeve would become the water commissioner and raise his niece and nephew.
”
”
John Dunning (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio)
“
In Avoca, Pennsylvania, an Austrian American was accused of criticizing the Red Cross. A group of vigilantes tied him up, hoisted him thirty feet in the air, and blasted him with water from a fire hose for a full hour.
”
”
Arthur Herman (1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder)
“
water hose on him and Trevor. Only
”
”
Carolynn Carey (Dealing with Denver (The Barbourville Series Book 3))
“
The middle place still has a lot of life left, so we'll store up these years like a treasure, remembering them one day just as fondly as the first phase of our family when we were dirty kids drinking water out of the backyard hose.
”
”
Jen Hatmaker (Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life)
“
The buzzing beneath my feet intensified as I neared the small pool of water. This had to be the gazing pool I'd heard about. Sheltered by tall, skinny evergreens and shrubs that held heavy clusters of small, delicate white flowers, it was shaded by the canopy of an old live oak tree that had moss growing at the base of its trunk.
Curiosity drew me in. Faint ripples pulsed along the water's surface as the small pool burbled gently, peacefully, as if I relieved to be unburdened of its long-held secret about Bee. I studied the burbling, wondering what caused it, because it didn't appear that anyone had placed a running hose beneath its surface. There was no equipment at all. Just clear water.
A knee-high mossy stone wall enclosed the pool, and ferns grew along its foundation, nestled snugly, their fronds rustling in the warm breeze. Suddenly I felt the urge to sit and stare into the water, and I absently smiled, thinking the gazing pool had been appropriately named.
”
”
Heather Webber (In the Middle of Hickory Lane)
“
Hey, we’ll let Huckleberry enjoy his lunch. Speaking of something, if you are in a better mood now, come with me to the Rainforest Room. I have something to show you. I wanted to wait until you calmed down because it means a lot to me, and I hoped you might be happy for me. Here, come with me.”
He led her back to the previous room, which had amazing, rare rainforest plants in it.
“Check this out!”
He tossed her a magazine that said Horticultural Digest on the cover. Holly neatly caught it and opened it up to the dog-eared page.
Blaring across the page in huge font was the title: WILLIAM SMITH, THE RAINMAKER OF SHELLESBY COLLEGE’S FAMOUS RAINFOREST ROOM. It was a five-page spread with big glossy photos of the Rainforest Room sprinkled throughout the article.
“Five, count ‘em, five pages! That’s my record. Until now, they’ve only given me four. Check it out: I’m the Rainmaker, baby! Let it rain, let it rainnnn!”
William stomped around in make-believe puddles on the floor. He picked up a garden hose lying along the side of the room and held it upright like an umbrella.
“I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling. I’m happy again.”
Holly squealed with laughter and applauded.
William jumped up on a large over-turned pot and shifted the hose to now play air guitar while he repeated the verse.
“William, there is no air guitar in that song!”
“There is now, baby!”
Holly exploded again in laughter, clutching her sides.
After a few more seconds of air guitar, William jumped off the pot and lowered his voice considerably.
“Thank you, thank you very much,” William said in his Elvis impersonation.
He now held the garden hose like a microphone and said, “My next song is dedicated to my beagle, my very own hound dog, my Sweetpea. Sweetpea, girl, this is for youuuuuuu.”
He now launched into Elvis’s famous “Hound Dog.”
“You ain’t nothing but a hound dogggg.” With this, he also twirled the hose by holding it tight two feet from the nozzle, then twirling the nozzle in little circles above his head like a lasso.
“Work it, William! Work it!” Holly screamed in laughter.
He did some choice hip swivels as he sang “Hound Dog,” sending Holly into peals of laughter.
“William, stop! Stop! Where are you? I can’t see I’m crying so hard!”
William dropped his voice even lower and more dramatically.
In his best Elvis voice, he said, “Well, if you can’t find me darlin’, I’ll find you.” He dropped on one knee and gently picked up her hand.
“Thank you, thank you very much,” he said in Elvis mode.
“My next song, I dedicate to my one and only, to my Holly-Dolly. Little prickly pear, this one’s for youuuuuu.”
He now launched into Elvis’s famous “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.”
“Take my hand, take my whole life, too, for I can’t help falling in love with you.” With that, he gave her hand a soft kiss.
He then jumped up onto an empty potting table and spun around once on his butt, then pushed himself the length of the entire table, and slid off the far end.
“Loose, footloose!” William picked up his garden-hose microphone again and kept singing. “Kick off the Sunday shoes . . .”
He sang the entire song, and then Holly exploded in appreciative applause.
He was breathing heavily and had a million-dollar smile on his face.
“Hoo-wee, that was fun! I am so sweaty now, hoo-boy!”
He splashed some water on his face, and then shook his hair.
“William! When are you going to enter that karaoke contest at the coffee shop in town? They’re paying $1,000 to the winner of their contest. No one can beat you! That was unbelievable!”
“That was fun.” William laughed. “Are in a better mood now?”
“How can I not be? You are THE best!
”
”
Kira Seamon (Dead Cereus)
“
The hose of the pool cleaner had snaked out of the water and was touching his shoe.
”
”
Bentley Little (The Resort)
“
How did you feel? I said it like Gerj says things, out of nowhere without any warning. She turned off the hose. When? I had been working up to that all day. When my mother handed me to you. I watched her carefully. Reluctant. Gerj bit her lower lip. Do you know this word? I thought about it. I don’t know what it means but I know how it feels. And then we went back to watering the beets.
”
”
Rob Bell (There's Only One Noon Yeah (WHERE'D YOU PARK YOUR SPACESHIP? Series Book 2))
“
Zun-zet
Where the western zun, unclouded,
Up above the grey hill-tops,
Did sheen drough ashes, lofty sh’ouded,
On the turf beside the copse,
In zummer weather,
We together,
Sorrow-slightèn, work-vorgettèn,
Gambol’d wi’ the zun a-zettèn.
There, by flow’ry bows o’ bramble,
Under hedge, in ash-tree sheädes,
The dun-heäir’d ho’se did slowly ramble
On the grasses’ dewy bleädes,
Zet free o’ lwoads,
An’ stwony rwoads,
Vorgetvul o’ the lashes frettèn,
Grazèn wi’ the zun a-zettèn.
There wer rooks a-beätèn by us
Drough the aïr, in a vlock,
An’ there the lively blackbird, nigh us,
On the meäple bough did rock,
Wi’ ringèn droat,
Where zunlight smote
The yollow boughs o’ zunny hedges
Over western hills’ blue edges.
Waters, drough the meäds a-purlèn,
Glissen’d in the evenèn’s light,
An’ smoke, above the town a-curlèn,
Melted slowly out o’ zight;
An’ there, in glooms
Ov unzunn’d rooms,
To zome, wi’ idle sorrows frettèn,
Zuns did set avore their zettèn.
We were out in geämes and reäces,
Loud a-laughèn, wild in me’th,
Wi’ windblown heäir, an’ zunbrowned feäces,
Leäpèn on the high-sky’d e’th,
Avore the lights
Wer tin’d o’ nights,
An’ while the gossamer’s light nettèn
Sparkled to the zun a-zettèn.
”
”
William Barnes
“
Father Grigori had spent all day purifying himself at the hotel. When he arrived, he looked extra sparkly and squeaky clean to my ghost vision. He was dressed in his fanciest priest clothes and carried with him a black satchel. When he unpacked it, it seemed like a clown car full of holy water. I had no idea where all the bottles came from, surely that much holy water couldn't fit in that satchel. I wondered if he was going to load up a damn super soaker with it all and hose down the house with super righteous Jesus water.
”
”
Dennis Liggio (Damned Lies of the Dead 3D (Damned Lies 3))
“
When the Doctors were not dragging screaming patients away to the operating rooms, they would experiment in other ways by designing the most uncomfortable and painful ‘treatments,’ such as hosing patients down on a regular basis with ice cold blasts of water, or forcing them into steel cages or boxes, to be kept there until they calmed down, or tying them almost permanently to their beds, with the restrained patient barely able to move their limbs at all. This could last for days, weeks.
”
”
Stephen Young (Haunted Asylums, Morgues & Cemeteries)
“
Is there a problem? I mean, I wasn't expecting you, or anyone, tonight."
Drew held out a hand to help her from the car, snatching it back when she got out on her own.
"There is a problem."
"What?" He tensed. "Did M.J. come back? Is he giving you trouble?"
"I can handle my brother."
Tyler moved closer. Drew stepped back, his eyes suddenly wary. Sighing she grabbed the front of his t-shirt, the fingers of her other hand threading through his thick, dark hair. Soft. She remembered the feel like it was yesterday. Her hope had been that he would as eager as she was. The attraction was still there, it was time to do something about it. Apparently he wasn't going to make this easy. So she did what she had all those years ago when he wouldn't make the first move—she kissed him first.
Prime rib to a starving man. Ten years without even a taste, Drew couldn't help but devour her.
The kiss was primal, out of control. Mouths seeking the angle after angle, tongues duelings. And the way Tyler tasted. Sweet and spicy and utterly delicious.
In his dreams, he imagined this differently. Slower. He would show her how a man kissed as opposed to the boy he had been. One touch of her lips on his and all those grand plans flew out the window along with any common sense he ever possessed. Tyler was in his arms. Familiar yet new. He needed her and he was never letting go.
Drew's hands went under the hem of her shirt slowly sliding up her smooth, hot skin. He could feel the erotic combination of vulnerability and strength in the subtle muscles of her back. She had filled out, they both had. He wanted to spend days discovering all the differences then start all over again, just in case he missed something the first time.
The kiss was neverending though the desperation, instead of lessening, scaled higher. He could lift her into his arms, carry her into the house, rip every scrap of clothing from her delicious body and fuck for hours.
Fuck. Well, fuck.
The word wasn't exactly a bucket of cold water, the desperate heat running through his veins needed more than that. But it did lift the haze. If he didn't stop this right now, there would be no turning back.
"Tyler."
The word sounded foreign, all guttural. His voice was hoarse with passion and his body was calling every swear word known to man. Why are you stopping? Beautiful woman. Willing. Her hands all over you. Right now she was reaching between his legs. The first caress was almost his undoing. It felt so good, so right. No could touch him like Tyler.
The sexual haze enveloped him again. Don't fight it, his body urged. Feel her lips on your jaw, your neck. God. Her teeth biting your earlobe. That alone brought him close to going over the top. Damn his good intentions. Talking was way overrated. Pulling her in until their bodies were flush and he could feel every long, luscious inch of her—plastered against him. Drew was going in for another kiss when her words did what his own reasoning couldn't. It wasn't a bucket of cold water, it was a fire hose—turned on full blast.
"Fuck me, Drew. Right here, up against my car. Let's get this thing done, once and for all.
”
”
Mary J. Williams (If You Only Knew (Harper Falls #3))
“
People who raise dogs to fight should be shot. Men who steal a little girl’s dog to bait a fighting dog should die the slowest, most torturous death possible. Their skin should be separated from their flesh with an air hose through minute slits and then have water from the Salton Sea injected slowly into the cavities while someone rips off strips of duct tape from their balls. But that’s just off the top of my head.
”
”
Rhys Ford (Dirty Laundry (Cole McGinnis, #3))
“
As a society, our collective understanding of racism has been powerfully influenced by the shocking images of the Jim Crow era and the struggle for civil rights. When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and “whites only” signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, good-hearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners—and wished them well—nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation.
”
”
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
“
The misunderstanding is not surprising. As a society, our collective understanding of racism has been powerfully influenced by the shocking images of the Jim Crow era and the struggle for civil rights. When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and “whites only” signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, goodhearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners—and wished them well—nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation. Many
”
”
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
“
Pike pulled the hose from the side of the house, filled the bucket with sudsy water, then rinsed the car. He began at the nose, rubbing the car with his hand to slough away the dirt. The cat came out to watch. The water splashed his fur with liquid shrapnel, but the cat did not move. Pike
”
”
Robert Crais (Taken (Elvis Cole, #15; Joe Pike, #4))
“
Prophets do not bring new truth. Revelation is simply a revealing of what is already true and bringing it to bear upon our heart and soul. Revelation is based upon insight into the written Word of God, not into visions and dreams and prophecies. These other things are simply tools for expressing the Word, they are not the Word; no more than the water hose is water, it simply delivers the water.
”
”
Chip Brogden
“
Highlights of the Brunel featured the likes of Mr. Iraci, our landlord, coming around and being greeted by myself, stark naked, painting cartoons on my bedroom wall to liven the place up a bit; or Eddie showing another pretty girl his technique for marinating venison in a washing-up bowl full of Bordeaux wine.
Our housekeeping kitty of funds would miraculously evaporate due to Hugo’s endless dinner parties for just him and up to ten different girls that he had been chatting up all week.
Stan developed a nice technique for cooking sausages by leaving them on the grill until the hundred decibel smoke alarm went off, indicating they were ready. (On one occasion, Stan’s sausage-cooking technique actually brought the fire brigade round, all suited and booted, hoses at the ready. They looked quite surprised to see all of us wandering down in our dressing gowns, asking if the sausages were ready, while they stood in the hall primed for action, smoke alarm still blaring. Happy days.)
I also fondly remember Mr. Iraci coming round another time, just after I had decided to build a homemade swimming pool in the ten-foot-by-ten-foot “garden” area out the back.
I had improvised a tarpaulin and a few kitchen chairs and had filled it optimistically with water. It held for about twenty minutes…in fact just about until Mr. Iraci showed up to collect his rent.
Then it burst its banks, filling most of the ground floor with three inches of water, and soaking Mr. Iraci in the process.
Truly the man was a saint.
”
”
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
“
I wanted life to be a film so that I could rewind it to when I first saw Gringo on the big screen. I was sitting happily between Flathead and Hercules, feeling the luckiest and most protected child in the world. Back to the time when I rode with Happiness on the bike in Qala, when Aida and I first kissed, and when Papula and I danced under the cascading water from the hose. I did not want to stop running, or stop thinking of those wonderful times when I had been happy,
”
”
Kae Bahar (Letters from a Kurd)
“
blood pumping from his neck like water from a hose.
”
”
John Sandford (Gathering Prey (Lucas Davenport, #25))
“
begin a daily use of the self-control techniques you’ve already learned. Remember to practice the Safe/Calm Place technique every day to strengthen it, so when you feel disturbed you can bring back the positive feelings. If you didn’t find your mind moving into something negative, use the bilateral thigh tapping or Butterfly Hug to increase the positive emotions and sensations. You can also use the Breathing Shift technique to calm yourself when you’re feeling stressed, and the Cartoon Character technique to deal with negative self-talk. Or use the Water Hose or Wet Eraser to help deal with nagging negative images. All these tools can help you to remember that you can be in control of your body and mind. As you explore your own unconscious processes, you’ll find that understanding why things are happening can help even more.
”
”
Francine Shapiro (Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy)
“
The hot air wrapped me up like a blanket, curling around my body and making me want to hang my tongue out like a dog. And then spray it with water. From a fire hose. On full blast. I don’t know, I think the heat was messing with my mind. It
”
”
Robert J. Crane (Destiny (The Girl in the Box, #9))
“
What really separates ordinary citizens from emperors, monsters, superstars and immortal leading brands? “Normal” people simply don’t have the huevos to withstand disgrace. They usually don’t use fire-hose blasts of negative attention as an opportunity to run out and court more negative attention, by throwing up on the prime minister, or purposefully running down the parking valet, or instigating an “ethnic cleansing” or “accidentally” shaving their crotch in a public water fountain. But,
”
”
Cintra Wilson (Caligula for President: Better American Living Through Tyranny)
“
The McDonald brothers kept their potatoes—top quality Idaho spuds, about eight ounces apiece—piled in bins in their back warehouse building. Since rats and mice and other varmints like to eat potatoes, the walls of the bins were of two layers of small-mesh chicken wire. This kept the critters out and allowed fresh air to circulate among the potatoes. I watched the spuds being bagged up and followed their trip by four-wheeled cart to the octagonal drive-in building. There they were carefully peeled, leaving a tiny proportion of skin on, and then they were cut into long sections and dumped into large sinks of cold water. The french-fry man, with his sleeves rolled up to the shoulders, would plunge his arms into the floating schools of potatoes and gently stir them. I could see the water turning white with starch. This was drained off and the residual starch was rinsed from the glistening morsels with a flexible spray hose. Then the potatoes went into wire baskets, stacked in production-line fashion next to the deep-fry vats.
”
”
Ray Kroc (Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's)
“
Grandma likes to sit on the top step of our front porch and water the flowers and fall asleep in the sun. She tilts her head way back to feel the warm sun on her face. The instant she falls asleep she loses her grip on the hose and it flips all over the place and then she knows she's had a nap and also completed a household task.
”
”
Miriam Toews (Fight Night)
“
It was Sunday. Chance was in the garden. He moved slowly, dragging the green hose from one path to the next, carefully watching the flow of water. Very gently he let the stream touch every plant, every flower, every branch of the garden. Plants were like people; they needed care to live, to survive their diseases, and to die peacefully.
”
”
Jerzy Kosiński (Being There)
“
The Zombie Firetruck by Stewart Stafford
Sirens moan, grave duty's flash of red,
A mortuary whiff of something dead,
Hoses trained with brains they suck,
Your friendly neighbourhood zombie firetruck!
All that remained of the human fire team,
From the zombie pandemic of 2017,
Still in their uniforms, their only treasures,
Apocalyptic times call for end-time measures.
When they reached the fire, people did scoff,
They lurched, staggered, body parts fell off,
As they wandered around, fire hoses forlorn,
These knightly living dead faced a blazing dawn.
The chief, hat off to his skeleton crew,
In a voice once alive, now croaky like flu:
'To the hydrant, my ghouls, let's save Gothik Town,
Or they'll call Ghostbusters, we'll be the clowns!'
A glowering inferno, a cremation scene,
Zombie firefighters, brave and light green.
Through smoke and ash, they gravely stand,
Composed decomposition with skeletal hand.
Axeman Bony Ed led their clattering charge,
Into the smoke, his cadavers did barge,
The townsfolk looked on in dead of night,
And disbelief, tiredness and mild fright.
There soon followed medic Cemetery Phil,
Decaying Murphy, Old Salty, and Dead Drill,
Slab Stevens, Madly Hyde and Molly Voodoo,
Determined to shake their initial hoodoo.
A mother and baby backed by burning drapes,
Team Macabre charged up the fire escape,
Saving both and getting everyone out,
Drank Brainer Ade as they leaked like a spout.
Somehow, undead teamwork saved the day,
No lives were lost as the water sprayed,
Doused the flames, cool flatlined heroes,
Much zombie kudos, no longer scary zeroes.
The crowd cheered, did they ever doubt it?
High fives lost hands but new ones sprouted,
Frankenstein proud in their flapping flesh,
Sure to get medals at the HalloweenFest.
With a final groan and a clatter of bones,
The zombie firetruck headed back home.
Rotten yet proud, in their reanimated way,
The risen would fight fires another day.
© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
Once they got into the Mission Module, the standard of cuisine would improve, York knew. But while they were stuck inside the Apollo they had to make do with squirting water into color-coded plastic bags of dehydrated food. Still, she wasn’t about to complain. The Command Module was like a cute little mobile home, with its warm water for food and coffee, and toothpaste, even a system for the guys to shave. Gershon came floating up with a handful of gold-painted bags. “Hey. I found these at the front. None of us is coded gold, are we?” Stone smiled. “Nope. I had those put there for you to find.” York studied the bags. “Beef and potatoes. Butterscotch pudding. Brownies. Grape punch.” She looked at Stone. “What’s this? None of this was in my personal preference. In fact, I hate butterscotch pudding.” “I thought it was kind of appropriate. This was the first meal the Apollo 11 crew ate in space. Straight after translunar injection, after they left Earth orbit for the Moon.” “All right,” Ralph Gershon said, and he pulled a hose out of the potable water tank and squirted the spigot into his bags with enthusiasm. York looked at the bags again. Butterscotch pudding, in memoriam. Bizarre. But maybe, after all, it was appropriate.
”
”
Stephen Baxter (Voyage (NASA Trilogy #1))
“
His 1968 film of Finian’s Rainbow, a fanciful 1947 Broadway blast from the left by Fred Saidy, E. Y. “Yip” Harburg and Burton Lane, is a guidebook to other movies and musicals. Coppola packs his film with intrusive references that proclaim the artifices of filmusical style and the tension between credible storytelling and musical convention. The editing of an arrival by train comes directly from Hallelujah; a dance with laundry on a clothesline from Dames; the aerial floating on that clothing from Mary Poppins; the spray of fire hoses on a burning church from Strike; the passing of water pails, “Keep the water coming,” from Our Daily Bread; the use of blackface from two decades of filmusicals between The Jazz Singer and The Jolson Story.
”
”
Gerald Mast (CAN'T HELP SINGIN': THE AMERICAN MUSICAL ON STAGE AND SCREEN)
“
Oh Oh! I just read a recipe that suggested I should NOT wash/clean the chicken before preparing it because "the splashing water can contaminate the area". Now, I *know* a Haitian did not post this tidbit, because my mother stops short of spraying the chicken with high-powered hoses filled with lemon juice and vinegar! She'd be horrified!
”
”
Liz Faublas
“
IN MEL’S WORDS The 10 Commandments of Square Foot Gardening I. Thou shalt not waste space with a large row garden. II. Thou shalt not use or dig up your existing soil. III. Thou shalt not use a hoe, shovel, or rototiller. IV. Thou shalt not waste seeds by planting, then thinning. V. Thou shalt not remove your Square Foot Garden “grid.” VI. Thou shalt not use any fertilizer, insecticides, or pesticides. VII. Thou shalt not plant more than you can harvest or take care of. VIII. Thou shalt not waste water by hosing, sprinkling, or heavy irrigation. IX. Thou shalt not fail to grow all your vine crops on a vertical support. X. Thou shalt not fail to replant each square as it is harvested
”
”
Mel Bartholomew (All New Square Foot Gardening)
“
There is a movement behind my breast that feels like someone has turned a hose on full blast, and the water that has been baking in the pump in the summer heat floods out, scalding.
”
”
Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones)
“
Obama spoke of being inspired by the courage of Black civil rights activists and freedom riders, who faced dog attacks, fire hoses, and police brutality, and “who risked everything to advance democracy.” Yet under his watch, private security working on behalf of DAPL unleashed attack dogs on unarmed Water Protectors who were attempting to stop bulldozers form destroying a burial ground; Morton County sheriff’s deputies sprayed Water Protectors with water cannons in freezing temperatures, injuring hundreds; and police officers and private security guards brutalized hundreds of unarmed protestors. All of this violence was part of an effort to put a pipeline through Indigenous lands.
”
”
Nick Estes (Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance)
“
we are, collectively, experiencing “a more rapid exhaustion of attention resources.” When I read this, I realized what I had experienced in Provincetown. I was—for the first time in my life—living within the limits of my attention’s resources. I was absorbing as much information as I could actually process, think about, and contemplate—and no more. The fire hose of information was turned off. Instead, I was sipping water at the pace I chose. Sune is a smiling, affable Dane,
”
”
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again)
“
What riches there once were, what beauties! Raindrops on roses and crop tops on cuties. Now it's just tear gas and water hoses, and Mexican children tied up with strings. These are a few of their favourite things. Quarry every mountain, wreck every stream.
”
”
Lucy Ellmann (Things Are Against Us)
“
minor explosions kept recurring, intensifying fires. By 1600 the last main control telephone was so weak that Captain Sherman, fearing he would lose contact with the engineering personnel, ordered them topside. The safeties were opened, the ship halted, and preparations to abandon ship were made as all water pressure was gone and firefighting was now impossible. Admiral Fitch ordered destroyers with fire hoses to stand by to receive excess personnel. The Morris stood alongside with hoses while personnel descended by lines to her decks and safety. The fires were now beyond control, and explosions were occurring more frequently. Captain Sherman, meanwhile, fearing the ship would blow up, had had the sick and wounded transferred to whaleboats. Admiral Fitch directed him to abandon ship. Captain Sherman passed the word, and orderly disembarkation began. By 1800 the admiral and captain prepared to leave the ship, but not until Captain Sherman had made an inspection and found, on the starboard side in an after-gun gallery, some men having difficulty disembarking. He ordered them to shift aft and disembark from that point. The executive officer, Commander Mortimer
”
”
Albert R. Buchanan (The Navy’s Air War: A Mission Completed)
“
Keep your wheels on the ground to minimize suspension strain. If your motorized RV has trouble leveling on a sloped RV site, use leveling blocks to even things out and keep your tires firmly planted. While leveling jacks are helpful, you don’t want to rely on them solely if it means they lift your tires off the ground like your RV is about to take off! That is less stable, and also puts your RV’s leveling system and suspension under unnecessary strain. If you still can’t get level, consider parking your RV in the opposite direction in your campsite—even if it means you need to run the water hose and/or power cord underneath the RV to reach hookups on the other side.
”
”
Marc Bennett (RV Hacks: 400+ Ways to Make Life on the Road Easier, Safer, and More Fun! (Life Hacks Series))
“
Tennessee was moored inboard of West Virginia and became wedged hard against the forward quay as the latter ship settled and finally sank to the bottom. Arizona's oil fire engulfed the stern of the vessel and caused serious fires aft, especially in the officers' quarters on the second deck. The explosion of the magazines aboard Arizona showered Tennessee with burning powder and debris. The forward magazines were purposely flooded as a precaution against the many fires on the ship. These fires were ominous for a long period and were so intense as to warp the stern plates and cause some pulling out of hull rivets. In order to minimize fires the vessel played several water hoses over the stern to keep the burning oil on the water at a distance. Also the engines were turned over to make five knots and the wake was effective in keeping the oil clear of the ship. There was no movement of the ship even when the engines were run at ten knots. This shows how securely the ship was wedged between West Virginia and the quay.
”
”
Homer N. Wallin (Why, How, Fleet Salvage And Final Appraisal [Illustrated Edition])
“
It’s mayhem, it’s chaos, and then the hose is unleashed.
An icy torrent of water knocks me to the ground and separates me from Seth. Water fills my nose, and I choke on it, coughing hard and desperately trying to shield my eyes from the worst of it so I can see. The spray moves away from me long enough that I can stand on shaky legs. It’s a fight to regain my bearings, my vision still blurred, and stray limbs and bodies tangle across the ground, tripping me with every step. The gate is at my back, and everywhere I look is a mess of water, people, and mud. It’s so loud; even when I blink away the last of the water, I still feel too disoriented, like I’m disconnected from my body. I slip. My shoulder slams into concrete, and I breathe through the pain as I force myself to my feet again. Someone shouts my name, but then there’s a guard in front of me, his helmet visor pulled up so I can see the wicked gleam in his eyes when he pulls out a small black object from his belt. I spot the metal prongs and realize what’s about to happen. Terror lances up my spine, thick and suffocating in my throat. I can’t move.
Behind me, Ajei screams.
A large hand wrenches me back by the arm, and I lose my balance. Electricity crackles from the end of the taser, missing my drenched side by a centimeter as I crash to the ground hard. “We saw you!” Someone screams. “We have a video! Murderer! You tried to kill him!”
Without warning, hands are everywhere, grabbing me and pulling me back to safety. “No, wait!” I shout, struggling to free myself from their grasp. I can’t leave now, not like this. I need to be up at the front, strong in the face of danger, just like our ancestors. I need to make my family proud; need to protect them and the land we were blessed with the way I promised I would. There’s a cry of pain, and I catch a glimpse of Seth yanking my attacker’s arm behind his back until he’s forced to drop the taser, which Seth kicks away. His eyes are ablaze, and he’s utterly ruthless, but despite everything, I can only think of how beautiful he looks. Then, he swings out a leg and takes out another guard who is going after a fleeing Ajei, her phone in her hand from where she had been recording everything.
He spies me on the ground amidst the throngs of protestors, something like fear on his face, and roars, “Get him out of here!
”
”
Joy Danvers (Guardian's Guard (Alden Security #3))
“
Clothes Washer Hoses and Filters
A couple of years ago, I came home from running an errand and heard the sound of rushing water (like a waterfall!) coming from my basement. I tore down the stairs and saw what looked like the Old Faithful geyser spewing water from behind my washing machine.
I immediately cut off the water at the supply stop behind the washer, but there was quite a pool on the floor. I cut the power to the washing machine (at the electrical panel), then unplugged it and moved the appliance back from the wall.
The washer was about 15 years old, and so were the hoses that ran from the supply valve to the machine. Made of rubber, they had grown brittle and corroded with minerals from our well water over the years. One of them finally split; that’s what caused the gusher. I’d never given them a thought before the split.
If you’ve had your washing machine for eight years or more, it might be wise to replace the supply hoses now, before they do to you what mine did to me! Insurance companies—who often wind up paying out for the damage done by burst hoses—advise homeowners to replace supply hoses every 3 to 5 years.
”
”
Judy Ostrow (The Complete Idiot's Guide to Simple Home Repair: Fast Fixes for Every Part of Your Home)
“
I was working towards my bachelor's degree in creative writing at Arizona State University when videos, pictures, and stories from these protests started blooming across my Facebook feed. I saw Native people holding their ground and being ground down by the opposing police force. I saw them bitten by dogs and hosed down and maimed by rubber bullets hitting their faces and bodies, all while bright white words scrolled across the bottom of the video, explaining the situation and giving statistics.
”
”
Leah Myers (Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity)
“
We were disappointed that we had not been able to find any survivors on the sunken ships, but after six days of sounding, we were sure no one was alive within them. While our diving crews were occupied sounding the ships and freeing the USS Tennessee, the shipyard constructed two diving barges, each one twenty feet wide and thirty feet long. Buoyancy was provided by three cylindrical pontoons. Wooden planks formed the deck, while corrugated sheet metal on the roof provided protection from the elements. A long pipe spanned the upright stanchions along the side of one barge, which provided an area to hang the divers’ rubberized canvas dresses. Along the opposite side were hangers for the four sets of lifelines and air hoses. A large workbench was situated in the middle of the barge. Installed at one end was a wooden diving ladder that led down to the water four feet below. Next to the ladder was a table that held the diving telephone equipment. Four dressing stools were neatly stacked near the table.
”
”
Edward C. Raymer (Descent into Darkness: Pearl Harbor, 1941—A Navy Diver's Memoir)
“
Me: In college, I was clipping my toenails and ended up having to wear an eye patch for a month. Mr. Wrong Number: Disgusting, but impressive. #2? Me: I once got stuck in a tipped-over porta-potty. Mr. Wrong Number: Good Lord. Me: Music festival, strong winds. The thing blew over, door side down. I still have nightmares. Mr. Wrong Number: I want to move on to #3, but I have to know how long you were trapped. Me: Twenty minutes but it felt like days. My drunk friends lifted it enough for me to squeeze through the door crack. Mr. Wrong Number: I’m assuming you were . . . Me: Absolutely covered in waste. Mr. Wrong Number: I just threw up a little in my mouth. Me: As you should. And just to add a cherry to the top of your entertainment sundae, the story ends in me being doused with gallons of high-powered water that were dispensed by a fire hose. Mr. Wrong Number: Wow. You definitely can’t top #2. Me: Oh, you ignorant little fool. #2 is but a warm-up. Mr. Wrong Number: Well give me #3, then. I thought about it for a minute. I mean, there were hundreds of embarrassing bad luck moments I could’ve shared with him.
”
”
Lynn Painter (Mr. Wrong Number (Mr. Wrong Number, #1))