I Submit To You That The Most Iconic Feature Of Any Animal Is Either Unlikely Or Impossible To Fossilize.

The Least Intimidating bakery in the village has closed for good so now I’ve got to go to the Intimidating Bakery, it’s awful. If you don’t have a PhD in being French I don’t recommend going to that bakery, here’s the humiliating account of the 3 times I’ve visited it so far:

the first time I went in there I pointed at one of those extra-skinny baguettes and said “a flute, please” feeling pretty sure of myself, and the baker said “… that’s a ficelle” (you idiot) (was implied) “a flute is twice as large as a baguette.”

That’s insane, first of all, a flute is a skinny instrument. Call your fat baguette a bassoon, lady—I made some timid remark about how it would make more sense for a flute to be a skinny bread and the baker said, “In Paris it is. I thought you were from the South?”

oh, that hurt

I guess I’m from the part of the South that’s so close to Italy the bread’s waist size matters less than whether it’s got olives in it, but I left the bakery having an existential crisis over whether living in Paris had made me forget my roots

the Least Intimidating Bakery just had normal baguettes vs. seedy baguettes vs. horny baguettes (easy mode, some have seeds, some have horns), while the new bakery has breads that are only different on a molecular level—there’s a good old loaf and then another, identical loaf called a bastard? google told me a bastard is “halfway between a baguette and a bread” but denouncing them like “those are not regulation-sized bastards” would get me banned from the bakery for life

on my 2nd visit (while I stood in line discreetly googling baguette terminology) there was an English tourist who asked for a baguette while pointing at what was either a rustique or a sesame and I felt a bit worried for them, but the baker just clarified “this one?” to waive any responsibility if they found out later it wasn’t a classic baguette, then handed them the bread without educating them in a judgmental tone and I felt envious

I know it’s because she thinks the English are beyond saving but still it made me want to come back with a fake moustache and an English accent so I wouldn’t be expected to play bakery on expert mode just because I’m French. I asked for a pastry this time and the baker asked “no bread with that?” which felt cruel, like she wanted me to sprinkle myself with ashes and admit out loud that my level of bread proficiency isn’t as advanced as I once believed it was

The third time I went, I had lost all self-confidence and I hesitantly pointed at a bread and said “I’d like this, uh—what is it called?” and the baker looked at me in disbelief and said “That’s a baguette.”

God.

for the record, if that stupid bread had been flanked by a skinny bread (ficelle) and a fat one (flute) then yeah of course I would have known to call it a baguette, but in the absence of reference points I now felt lost and scared of being called a Parisian again

it’s hard to express the depth of my suffering so I’ll just let the facts speak for themselves: this morning a French person (me) stood in a French bakery in France surrounded by French people and pointed at a baguette and said “what is this called”

i care immensely about roe v wade not being overturned and i watch a lot of videos about it but i feel very guilty because watching videos and thinking about it makes me feel incredibly dysphoric and uncomfortable and i know i shouldnt be uncomfortable about the discussion of the rights of uterus owners and the right to privacy in general, but i cant help it and it makes me feel like a bad person.

Remember, you can disappear into the woods whenever you want. You’re an adult.

if only i were a young unruly british lad in the 1920s shipped off to an elite boarding school in the country by my wealthy parents who were fed up with my rowdy behaviour, only to fall in love with astrology and the arts and meet like-minded individuals who formed a secret society dedicated to the thirst of knowledge,

i want to go to dashcon 2 so bad, i only live like 2.5 hours from toronto, but it just happens that on the day of it i’m going to be iN GERMANY i’ve never been abroad before either it just happens to be the oNE TiME

not to imply anything, but ive known lots of animals who explicitly hate adult men, but ive never known an animal to explicitly hate non-men, and don't people like to say that animals are the best judges of character?

healthy romance starts w friendship

and bad romance starts w rah rah rah aha ha roma roma

this little freak keeps sneaking into my garden and rubbing himself all over my flowers??Hello?????