vikings made their woman handle the finances because they thought math is witchcraft
The idea that unicorns are only able tamed and captured by virgins originated as a medieval joke. The idea was that it took a mythical creature to catch a mythical creature.
There was once an English minstrel called Roland the Farter. He was awarded lands by the king on the condition that he turn up to the court every Christmas to perform his characteristic “whistle, leap and a fart”. His children could keep the lands after his death if they learnt and performed the same trick.
There is graffiti from the Norse invaders that reads (roughly) “ I slept with Ingiborg, the most beautiful woman in the world ”
A close friend of Alexander the Great named Dioxippus, once told one of his generals, named Coragus, to stop being so up himself, Coragus took offence and challenged him to a duel in front of all of his troops unaware that Dioxippus was a champion of Pankration, Ancient Greek Wrestling. Coragus turned up with all of his weapons and armour, Dioxippus turned up naked with a club, lathered in Olive Oil. The match was over in about 5 mins and Coragus got his arse well and truly kicked.
When an army of Swedes went off to war with the Norwegians, they left all the women to manage everything, however, in the village of Smaland, right on the Southern Border, they were attacked by an opposing force of Danes. The women, led by a woman named Blenda, responded to this by inviting the invaders in, feeding them, making them comfy and basically having a massive party to get them REALLY drunk. When all the invaders all passed out, the women slaughtered them all with anything they could find, and when the men came back, the King was so impressed that he basically granted them a bunch of new rights that were previously unavailable to them. From that point on, all daughters had the right to inherit property, money and land equally with their brothers, and were allowed to wear military-style garments around town and at their weddings. They were also given the prestigious right to wear the Royal Coat of Arms on their clothing – a tradition that has lasted to this day.
The term in Chess “Checkmate” is thought to have come from the Persian term “Shah Mat” which means “The King is dead”.
Captain Benjamin Hornigold, the mentor to Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, once captured a ship just so he could steal all of the crew’s hats, because his crew had gotten drunk the night before and thrown all of theirs overboard.
Napoléon Bonaparte, the Corsican soldier who eventually became the Emperor of France following the French Revolution and Maximilien de Robespierre’s “Reign of Terror”, was terrified of cats.
If the @staff here ever release an update for the windows phone app, I swear I’ll have a heart attack.
That thing is still on version 1.0
The mobile website is more useful (which is saying a hell of a lot)
You enter a brightly light, nondescript room. In the center of the room is a cat. The cat is screaming about something.
>_
>PET
You cannot reach the cat.
The cat’s screaming continues.
>_
>SCREAM IN COMPLIANCE.
The cat may want to converse with you. You scream at the cat unintelligibly, as loudly as possible.
The cat seems unperturbed, and responds to your scream by screaming more loudly.
>_
>THROW MOUSE TOY AT CAT
You notice a cat toy on the floor nearby. Hastily, you pick the toy up and toss it to the cat. Unfortunately, you aim poorly in your haste and strike the cat in the face with the toy.
The cat stops screaming. She is not pleased.
>_
>SUMMON DOG
Though you have no magical powers that you are aware of, you approach the cat and attempt to cast a spell of Summon Dog. Surprisingly, a small dog appears near the cat.
The cat, perhaps surprised by the dog’s sudden appearance, begins screaming again.
>_
>OFFER FOOD
Nearby is a small container of cat food. You present it to the cat, who immediately consumes the entirety of the container and promptly falls asleep.
You have reached the end of the Cat Ownership Simulator. Thank you for playing. For a more realistic experience, we recommend playing the Cat Ownership Simulator every day for the next 15 to 20 years.
One time I used my retail voice on a coworker and she was like, “Don’t use your customer voice on me, I know you’re dead inside like the rest of us, it’s just frightening and weird”
The other day I asked for a table for two in my customer voice and the waitress squinted at me and I cleared my throat and said “Sorry, still in service mode” and she dropped hers and we swapped stories about our day and my boyfriend was like “You two just became two entirely different people in like .5 seconds…”
I can be bitching up a blue streak about a customer-from-hell while the store is empty, and when the phone rings swap over to my retail voice practically in mid-sentence. I even have managers and salespeople from other stores in the chain fooled into thinking I’m infinitely friendly and helpful, and my manager’s husband thinks I’m one of the most professional people in the store. One assistant manager’s daughter dubbed me Perky-Pants because she mostly dealt with me over the phone, and was shocked to the core when I dropped an F-bomb at her graduation picnic.
The acting required in the service industry is beyond the pale. My cousin freaked out when she came to see me at work because I was all smiling and nice while helping someone who was asking inane questions and who basically forced me to walk them to the product and put it in their fucking hand but I was nice as pie until I turned around to walk away and my demeanor changed back to normal and I muttered “what a fucking moron” under my breath as I got back to my cousin. She just looked at me shocked and said “no wonder you’re so exhausted when you get home.”
this is actually referred to as emotional labor in criminology, and is considered one of the hardest forms of labor
I do this at work too. I’ll flip from being grumpy as hell, to nice as pie, and back on a dime.
Though having an open kitchen does make it harder to hide my snark much of the time
