u/squishy6789

For fuck's sake, you've gotta love how life always seems to know exactly when to pile on.

Last night I got woken up by the thunderstorm. The power went out the second lightning struck, and in the middle of everything I heard water. Not the normal "it's raining outside" kind of water. The "something is very wrong" kind of water.

I opened the basement stairwell door and found water actively POURING from the seam in the ceiling. After some investigating, I found it's also leaking into the basement and is probably the reason behind the water damage on the basement floor I've been trying to figure out since last year.

The best part? I spent all this time thinking I must have screwed something up and failed to properly waterproof the concrete wall.

NOPE!!!

Turns out it wasn't the wall.

It's the fucking roof.

The same roof that was replaced after a hail storm 2 years ago.

So that's fun.

Nothing quite like waking up in the middle of the night to discover that one of the most expensive repairs you've already paid for has been leaking into your house for 2 years. Apparently life looked around, saw I was barely keeping my head above water, and decided to make that statement a little more literal.

Fucking wonderful.

Do not go to Fun Farm Pumpkin Patch.

Admission was extremely overpriced. I paid $82 total for myself and my two children, ages 6 and 11, and the overall experience did not justify the cost.

Most of the “photo op” areas were broken or poorly maintained. Multiple attractions throughout the property looked neglected.

We mainly came for the Giant Kite Festival. We arrived about 30 minutes after opening, and there was only one giant stingray kite in the air and another kite that looked like a parachute. About 45 minutes later, there were two stingray kites. Around an hour later, a gorilla kite finally went up. By the time we were leaving, they were just beginning to set up another kite. For a featured event, I expected the main attractions to already be operational when guests arrived.

The kids’ play area was actually pretty good, and my children enjoyed it. The giant inflatable jumping pillow was also fun.

Outside the gift shop they had giant bubble wands with a bucket of soapy water, but there wasn’t enough soap mixture in the bucket to actually make bubbles, so it was basically unusable.

The “critters” section was awful. They charged $3 for half a small cup of animal feed, but we could barely even approach the animals because the smell was overwhelming. I understand farms smell like animals, but this was beyond normal. The pens appeared severely overcrowded and hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. There was little to no visible grass, only mud and feces throughout the pens.

The tricycle track only had six tricycles available, and half of them were broken or unusable.

At the carousel, there was a loud mechanical clunk when they started it. Staff told someone to move because the gear on that section was broken, then continued operating it.

The kites being sold were massively overpriced compared to their actual value.

There was also a giant bench swing that appeared to exist only as a photo prop because it was chained so it couldn’t even swing.

At the giant slide, the potato sacks used for sliding were piled in a box and most of them underneath were wet and moldy.

The pick-your-own strawberries were priced at $5 per pound, which also felt overpriced considering the overall condition of the farm.

Overall, this place felt poorly maintained, the poor animals were overcrowded, they advertised 25+ attractions but most of them were closed, and not worth the cost of admission. I will not be returning.

So I lost the entire first bone of my left middle finger to a jointer back in November 2025.

I’d consider myself an intermediate woodworker. I’m mostly self-taught with a few classes mixed in. I’ve got my own backyard woodshop built out of a 12x16 barn-style shed, and woodworking is something I genuinely love. I love building things, fixing things, figuring things out.

Honestly, what caused the accident was basically a perfect storm of bad decisions and bad timing. Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have even been in the shop that day.

I had just gotten off work cleaning floors for a salon. I got done earlier than usual. Normally I stop and grab breakfast at McDonald’s after work, but I got off too early and they weren’t open yet. So I went home. Then I started messing with finances because usually my paycheck hits by then, but again, I was too early for that too. So I wasted time on my phone for a while and eventually went out to the shop.

I started cutting pieces for a project. The pieces had bevels on them, and halfway through I realized I should have jointed the boards first so I’d have clean flat faces before making the cuts.

The pieces were also pretty small, which I immediately questioned.

On top of that, I hadn’t put the guard back on the jointer because during the previous project I was making a giant circle and the guard was in the way.

I remember thinking the setup felt questionable, but I carefully ran one piece through anyway and it worked fine. Then I did a couple more.

The piece that got me had the bevel facing toward the blade. Because of the way I was holding it, when the board kicked back the bevel dipped downward and pulled my finger straight into the cutter head.

So yeah. Series of unfortunate events mixed with some really stupid choices. I know it was stupid. I already paid for that mistake.

The problem now is that eventually I have to use the jointer again.

I actually have a project sitting unfinished because I need it for the next step.

The last time I went into the shop, I pulled the jointer out for the first time since the accident. I put the guard back on. Took a deep breath. Checked the blades to make sure they weren’t damaged from literally eating bone. Took another deep breath. Made sure everything was aligned and level. Repositioned the machine somewhere safer. Took another deep breath.

After checking and double checking everything, I plugged it in.

And then I just stood there hitting my vape for like 15 minutes trying to convince myself to turn it on.

Eventually I unplugged it, shut the shop down, and went back inside.

I felt completely defeated.

Logically, I understand this was traumatic and it’s probably going to take time. But mentally I still can’t get the accident out of my head.

For the people here who went back to doing the thing that took a part of you — how did you do it? How did you get past that mental wall?

I'm a stylist working in assisted living facilities. Some facilities have the physical appointment book and were double/triple booking me. Some facilities provided a phone in the salon suite, I fucking hate answer phones when I'm working.

So, I created a google voice number so that resisidents and families of residents could reach out to make appointments directlu with me. So I would work the salon during work hours then spend an hour or 2 at home after work replying to calls and texts so that the resident and the families got my full attention.

The main issue was that the families needed to create an account with a payment method and an authorized services list before they can be seen and most of them didn't understand where to go or what to do and I would walk them through it. I was doing this for about a month and a half.

During this time home office added an appointment request button to these accounts.

Well I got reprimanded for providing an unauthorized "personal" phone number because it was against contract or something. I understand now that there may have been issues because of HIPAA and privacy but I legit was just trying to help. I didn't think about this as the only personal information that I requested was the residents name and facility, I take care 4 facilities and visit each once a week.

When I received my first appointment request from my Regional leader I was confused about the process and asked clarifying questions. I was trying to make sure I followed procedure so that I didn't get into trouble again.

At one point my Regional leader stated "It is a requirement coming from the home office" to which my response was "Oh no I get it, it's just new and I'm trying to figure it out" They snapped back with "It's not that complicated just add it to the schedule" After their response I just sent a thumbs up.

This is how home office implemented the account appointment request button for families of residents.

1. Facility has the physical appointment book and is filling in appointments throughout the week if residents or families contact them about appointments.

2. Family of resident submits an appointment request through the account.

3. Home office receives it.

4. Regional leader receives it, but if there is a District leader staffed then they receive it.

5. Regional and/or District leader contacts stylist of the specified facility.

6. Stylist schedules resident when they physically arrive onsite to specified facility (could be up to a week)

7. Stylist is required to confirm back to Regional and/or District leader

8. Regional and/or District leader confirms back to home office

9. Home office confirms with family of resident

But I was accused of overly complicating things for asking clarifying questions.