Drunk People Rules

by on October 3, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

“I’m not letting drunk people into the pool after hours so they can drown themselves on my shift. That is way too much paperwork for me to want to deal with.” Yes, I said those words today. Not to the people in question, but to coworkers. And yes, drunk people wanted into the pool at my workplace after hours. I did not let them in. I really do not want to explain why I overrode the automatic locks to let stumbling, mumbling, barely able to walk and stand up drunk people into a place that can kill people who are not careful. That would not be a good conversation. So I prefer to stick to the rules and just not let them into the pool. It is closed. I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything about that. And the more people try to force me to buck those rules, the more I stick to the rules. Especially the rules designed to protect people from our own stupidity.

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Dawn

by on October 2, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Dawn DeMarco and Jesse retired to Kansas after their trip around the worlds, but there were some things a princess from Camelot could never truly adjust to. Midwest farmers tend to be a stoic and practical lot. Despite centuries of technological progress, it still takes biological humans to maximize the crop yields for the next harvest. AIs can’t match them, and most cybers avoid the field entirely. Farmers wake up each morning, put on some rugged clothing, and then go out into the fields to feed America and the worlds beyond. That old Paul Harvey tribute to the farmer still holds true today. Dawn DeMarco was not raised to live in that kind of world, but she turned that into a virtue rather than a hindrance. She decided it was her mission to bring high fashion and classy parties to a world known for barn raising parties and blue jeans. She is stubborn like that.

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Dawn

by on October 1, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Camelot was a real trip for Jesse. Dawn DeMarco was a princess on a planet built to look and feel like a permanent Renaissance Festival, and she took him to all the best places. Her family was not very impressed with her for dragging a dirt-grubbing farmer home with her, and a rather large number of would-be princeling suitors became highly offended at the whole affair. A few even challenged Jesse to duels of honor over it. Jesse may have been a farmer, but he knew exactly how to handle a situation like that. Ask Dawn if she wanted the princeling beaten or humiliated, and then follow her wishes to the letter. A lady likes a man who can defend her honor, and so does the family of such a lady. By the time Dawn and Jesse left Camelot, her family loved him, princelings around the world feared him, and all the princesses wanted a real life Cowboy just like him. Made for some interesting trips for the Cowboys that followed them.

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Dawn

by on September 30, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Dawn DeMarco made it all the way through The War without dying once, and Jesse kept up with her the whole way. He was the only one that really managed to do that. The rest of us went in and out of her life and plans as The War took us to and fro. But Dawn and Jesse were a matched pair the whole way. She was a royal princess, he was a Kansas farmer, and they never hid that to the people of the Hyades. The only thing they hid was how fond of each other they were growing. From each other, at least. Everyone watching them knew exactly what was going on, and most of us were taking bets on when they’d notice. Then one day they looked at each other and realized the truth. Katy won that bet. The rest of us just smiled and shook our heads as they both retired and walked away from all of the fighting the moment War’s End came. They toured the stars for a while, visiting places they had always wanted to see, and went to Camelot for a time.

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Dawn

by on September 29, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Tarrant County made us peacekeepers. Charles made us businessmen. And Dawn DeMarco made us the centers of attention of every ball and party over hundreds of lightyears of space. They all made us an example to the people of what they could be. It took flexible minds to play all those roles, and I did not think we were gonna succeed at it. I’ll never forget that one day Dawn pulled me into a corner and gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten. She said that we would fail and make mistakes. That there would be many we could never help, no matter how hard we tried. We simply couldn’t drag the people out of generations of chattel slavery. All we could do was lend them a hand, and those with the drive to succeed would hold on for dear life and drag themselves out of it. And they would pull others up with them. She was so right. We did not save the Hyades Cluster. We gave them the tools to save themselves, and oh my God, did they really go off and do that in the end.

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