u/TangeloVisible9600

Military vet here. A regimental surgeon is the only reason I’m currently re-racking 45 pound dumbbells at Planet Fitness. Right after he amputated a tentmates leg near the Rappahannock River, he shoved a spoonful of chalky creatine into my canteen, wildly claiming the powder would prevent muscle wasting on the front lines. I drank the gritty water just to wash down the taste of hardtack, entirely unaware that those white crystals would permanently lock my cellular energy into an indestructible loop. I still feel as strong as I did as a young volunteer when I spent a freezing December morning digging rifle pits behind a stone wall at Fredericksburg in 1862.

Is this ethical or poor style? Do we need to obey the FA after the future invents these?

Snake dike: Bring a standard rack of Phantoms.

"I slapped a Phantom Vector onto the blank face and made the clip."

The air at the base of Desolation Row (5.12a) was thick with chalk dust and unearned familiarity.

Barnaby adjusted his vintage, organic-cotton bandanna, his breath coming in measured, meditative inhalations. He had just lowered to the ground after a transcendent ascent. He hadn’t just climbed the rock; he had engaged in a silent, respectful dialogue with the mineral consciousness of the cliff face.

That was when Chad, wearing neon shorts and reeking of energy drinks, ruined everything.

"Bro!" Chad yelled, slapping Barnaby on the back with a hand that had never contemplated the deeper metaphysics of friction. "You absolutely crushed that route! You demolished it, man!"

Barnaby froze. The universe ground to a halt. The ambient sound of crickets seemed to drop an octave in sheer horror.

"I am sorry," Barnaby said, his voice dropping to a skin-crawling whisper. "What did you just say to me?"

"I said you crushed it, dude! You killed it!"

Barnaby recoiled as if Chad had suggested they go microwave a kitten. "Crushed it? Demolished it? Killed it?" He looked up at the pristine limestone, his eyes welling with protective tears. "Do you see fractures, Chad? Do you see structural failure? Did I bring a pneumatic jackhammer to the crag?"

"What? No, it’s just a expression—"

"Words matter, Chad!" Barnaby’s voice echoed across the canyon, startling a flock of innocent crows. "I did not 'crush' this ancient, majestic monolith. I communed with it. I whispered to the micro-crimps. I offered my fingertips as a humble sacrifice to the friction gods. To say I 'demolished' it implies a violent, capitalist subjection of nature!"

"Bro, I just meant you climbed it really fast—"

"I was a feather floating upward on a thermal of pure intent!" Barnaby was pacing now, his climbing shoes squeaking aggressively on the dirt. "If I had 'crushed' it, the route would now be a pile of scree at our feet. Do you see scree, Chad? Look at me! Do I look like a wrecking ball to you?"

Chad blinked, slowly backing toward his backpack. "I mean, your technique was sick..."

"Sick?!" Barnaby gasped, clutching his chalk bag to his chest. "Now you imply my flow state was pathological? That my movement was a disease? I'll have you know my biomechanical alignment was perfectly aligned with the Earth's magnetic field!"

"Okay, my bad, man, I'll just—"

"Go," Barnaby hissed, pointing a chalk-whitened finger toward the parking lot. "Go back to your plastic climbing gym and 'smash' your plastic holds. Leave me to apologize to the stone for the violence you have brought upon its ears."

As Chad scrambled away, Barnaby gently pressed his forehead against the starting hold of the route.

"I'm sorry he said those things to you," Barnaby whispered to the rock. "You are not crushed. You are beautiful."

Are missionaries required to share a bedroom with their companion? This was always the scenario in my mission. In one area, there were 8 of us bunked up in a single room. It felt like an unhealthy and awkward scenario for a young person experiencing a highly hormonal stage of life. Bathroom time was the only "alone" time I experienced in two years. Curious what it was like for others. Do missionaries ever get their own bedrooms?