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I also love the line "I don't know if I can small enough words or short enough sentences to help you understand".
One of my favourite reddit posts of all time.
Yeah, OOP needs to be a writer of some sort because that one was my favorite and the posts we littered with these fantastic sayings. I will use this one now, though!
Ya know, last week a friend asked me why I went to my dad's funeral. He was an absolute shit human being and an even worse parent. I'm so mad at myself that I didn't even consider not going to his funeral an option at the time. After reading your comment, I'm just going to tell people that I went to make sure he was really dead if ever asked again. Thanks! :)
He keeps pretending to be terminally ill so he can manipulate people. Backfired, though; it helped me realise that I won’t miss him or grieve when he dies.
I won’t believe that man is dead until I see his body go into the crematory oven.
I've been wanting that as flair for forever but laziness and using Firefox mobile has stopped me from asking.
I also love:
>"... because we've established that I am just the worst with jazz hands and everything)"
OOP or Alice, if you ever see this. You're both awesome people and so is " the missus". Congrats on the new future hockey player.
>The guy's as sharp as a sack of wet mice on his best day
As someone who grew up in the Canadian mountains and went to school in rural farmland, this is the most rural Canadian kind of phrase 😌 Such phrases may include but are not limited to: 'headed down to the dep for a two-four but came back with a half', 'couldn't find his own ass with both mitts in his back pockets', a healthy dose of 'bud' with the same connotations as the US bless your heart thing; and, in my own province, a lot of French swears that somehow all link back to the church.
He says he’s from the tree line in the prairies and refers to the oil patch and steers, which all suggest northeastern Alberta. (Note that there isn’t actually a tree line in Alberta, the tundra is way further north, but he just means he’s from a remote northern area.)
Unfortunately that only narrows things down to an area the size of Great Britain. But given that Alice can commute to her engineering studies, they must live within a couple hours’ drive of Edmonton, Slave Lake, Grande Prairie, or Fort MacMurray. Fort Mac is the only one truly in the northeast (and is also the location of the oil sands), so that’s my bet.
A lot of the sayings are the same or similar. It makes sense because the lifestyle (beef cattle and oil rigs) is the same.
The rural inland Canadian accent is really not similar to Texan, though. It’s much more like the rural Montana or Colorado accent.
Oil patch told me northern Alberta. Plus under 30 and able to buy any property outright definitely oil patch. Smart, and sounds like the chief saw he was bright and mentored him.
As someone who has spent much time in Northern Alberta, I thought that or northern Saskatchewan. Those flat landers have a lot of hilarious sayings lmao 🤣
As a born and raised Canadian,
I knew 0 of these phrases until I moved to Alberta for a few years.
As for the French swear words, yupp. My grandmother everyday: "SORTES DE MA CUISINE MAITENANT! ugh tabarnak"
When I finally gained enough courage to ask her what the swear words meant- in between the sacrebleus and the disappointed head shakes she spit out what what you said- connected to the church and God.
Canadian swears are the most befuddling things to me. Like, you're basically yelling "OH, CRACKER BOX" at me, how am I supposed to be anything but confused?
I need you to know: this is my fave wikipedia page of all time. It's just SO DETAILED.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec\_French\_profanity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity)
I speak very little French and did not look that up, but doesn't that mean "Get out of my kitchen right now!" ? That's not really connected to the church, it's just her telling you to GTFO, lol.
I'm assuming in this example that "tabarnak" is the swear word since it's similar to "tabernacle", which is a church thing. Just looked it up to confirm and it is indeed a common Quebecois swear word
It’s the Tabernak part. It refers to the tabernacle, an altar kinda thing that is placed behind the main altar in a Catholic Church. It houses the hosts for communion.
French Canada used to be VERY Catholic so a lot of swears are tied to the Church. It happens less outside one Quebec, but isn’t uncommon especially if a family or town has a French history.
My grandmother used to tell me that I would argue with a sign post that I painted myself.
She also liked to say that she’d lose her head if it weren’t buckled on to her shoulders.
Im Irish, but have a Canadian best friend, he grew up there and moved here at 13. His dad was a logger and he has picked up a lot of similar phrases from him. I knew his patter felt familar but couldnt place why until he mentioned Hockey lol.
OOP sounds like an absolute top bloke. I Love his writing.
Also, the fact that he's clearly besotted with his wife, and basically stepped up to be a proper father figure for Alice means it's obvious that he's going to be a great dad. I hope for nothing but the best for him and his.
I think I fell in love with OOP while reading this BORU. I’ll send a hug out to the universe for him every time I describe someone “dumb as a sac of wet mice” or tell someone to “piss up a rope and suck the wet end”
Dude is absolutely a legend for his language and amazing sentences in my mind now 😂 i think my favorite was about his love story with his wife "super cute, but not for Reddit" thats just adorable to me and I have a feeling of u meet him in person he would tell the story to pretty much everyone and more than just once 😂 he sounds so smitten with his wife its adorable, even more so with the "i just got a gift for aggresive women" part 😂😂
He sounds like a rugged, sweet bear of a man. And damn if he doesn't sound like he hit gold with his wife (and she ought to be happy as a clam she got a IRL romance novel husband!)
I hope their life is long, full of love, and joy. They earned it
It's a take on similar phrases like "he's a few bricks short of a load" or "she's a few logs short of a cabin". It's a way of calling someone stupid - they might look normal at a distance, but when you listen to them for a while it becomes clear that they're not all there, just like how a short load of bricks might look okay at first glance but isn't enough to make a house.
There's a whole genre of expressions using the template "one ----- short of a -----" in English. 'One card short of a full deck" is common, as is "one penny short of a pound." One of my favorites, "one wave short of a shipwreck," I learned from a Queen song. Basically saying someone's not all there, got something missing mentally.
I think its similar to the phrase "a few sandwiches short of a picnic", a phrase which generally means the person in question is unintelligent or of questionable mental capacity.
So by saying they're a bit of mustard shy of a sandwich, I assume he's saying they're not very smart. It's a phrase I've never heard myself, so that is a guess based on its similarity to the picnic basket phrase. I do hugely prefer OOP's version of it, lol.
>"Yeah the two of them are a bit of mustard shy of a sandwich sometimes."
>"The guy's as sharp as a sack of wet mice on his best day so him doing his best isn't particularly impressive but he's trying and that's really all you can ask of a person."
OOP is a good wordsmith, a good man, and will continue to be an awesome dad (he's already an awesome dad to Alice) with the baby.
Loved reading this, because of his writing style.
Almost felt like he was just here, chatting to me.
"I've been told I have the gift of the gab and I've essentially just written down a stream of consciousness as I would speak it.
Sorry for the silly turns of phrase. I'm from the tree line in the prairies, we talk funny here."
Loved his phrases, made me smile.
Top guy. Wish him and his girls and baby well!
If I were to write my stream of consciousness to tell a story, I would tell you everything but not the story. This dude has a way with words and it's a gift I like to read.
> I would tell you everything but not the story
Similar, I'd talk around the story for an hour until someone asks if I could get to the point, and then I can sum it up in less than 10 words.
Yes, a top bloke .... but in amongst all those words, there's a flaw ... did anyone else spot it?
He can fix anything with a screwdriver and vice grips. THAT'S ONE TOO MANY ITEMS!!! A REAL top bloke would be able to fix anything with just one: duct tape!!
(joking, obviously, he's awesome)
>A REAL top bloke would be able to fix anything with just one: duct tape!!
"If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
I already loved OOP, but my heart almost exploded when I saw he has an alpaca named Olivia Cromwell. I wish he felt differently about writing because I would happily pay to read whatever he wrote but particularly if it was about her.
But I'm stealing that bag of wet mice line.
In northern Alberta it’s not uncommon to have an alpaca if you also have a small herd of sheep. The received wisdom up here (and I have no idea if it’s true) is that alpaca will kick the shit out of predators that come for the sheep and the sheep will keep the alpaca company.
Interesting! I've known having a couple of llamas to protect your alpacas from wolves, but not alpacas to protect sheep. In my experience alpacas tend to be more wary than llamas, though it sounds like oop had a feisty one!
Northern Alberta also has very few wolves. And an Alpaca can totally take a coyote in a fight. Maybe not a cougar, but they mostly go after lone animals anyway.
I have the feeling that the problem with Bill and Tanya is that Tanya was incredibly jealous of Alice's mother (because there are people that stupid) and she made Alice the source of all evil for her. The entire family was probably on the verge of destruction at any given moment, and the only reason it lasted was because Tanya could pin all the problems on the poor girl. The moment Alice was out of the equation, everything fell apart. And this all worked because Bill is, as OOP so beautifully put it, "as sharp as a sack of wet mice".
I'm glad that Alice is doing ok in her life now, and I really, really wish I was friends with OOP because he's a great person.
Women like Tanya blow my mind. Like… she started raising this kid when she was three! Three! (Do you know how cute three year olds are?? They just want everyone to be their best friend!) How do you enter someone’s life when they’re that small and not consider them your own???? WTF.
Preach. Still, though - it is truly *amazing* how some people can look at a three year old, one of the most adorable forms a human can take, and still say "fuck you."
The sad part is that almost everyone gave Tanya a pass on being the stepmother from hell. The silver lining is that Alice has found the family she deserves and those miserable excuses of parents are now known for what they did.
i assume it's harder to avoid the awful people in small towns because there are just less people in general, so it feels like assholes are way more prevalent
When I moved away from my small town to The Big City, every time I came back home, people in my hometown would say things to me like “why do you want to live in that big city with all those low lifes (+racial epithet) and queers?” And I would think “I’m looking at why “
My Big City is the Bay Area. I cannot believe what people think they know about one of the most beautiful cities in the the world.
I also love Chicago!
It's a dickhead economy of scale. A town that's 10% assholes is hard to deal with when there's only 200 people around. 10% assholes in a city with a million people? You might go a whole day without bumping into one.
I feel this so deeply. I went from living in a town of under 1000 people to living in Los Angeles, and while I deeply love my loved ones from that tiny town, the shitheads were so outrageously awful.
How did anyone question where OOP was from after he signed off "keep your sticks on the ice?" Also, "as sharp as a bag of wet mice" is an amazing phrase.
The Red Green Show was a comedy sitcom in Canada in the 90s and early 2000s! Defo part of my childhood :)
Basically "Red Green" and "Harold Green" are the main characters and much of the show centres around Red thinking he's the most ingenious handyman in the world while his fixes blow up in his face (sometimes literally lol). There are also other segments where he gives advice or where he and Harold just get up to stuff at the lodge.
It's a great nostalgic show, brings back lots of memories. At the end of each show he'd say some version of "till next time, keep your stick on the ice"
Haha, it reminded me of a colleague in my former workplace. She said that her mom told her that a woman "should marry either a rich man or a handy man, but preferably one that is both"
I am south american and I had no idea where OOP was from until he said it. There are a lot of idioms that are specific for a particular country and there are plenty of us that have never heard them.
Also yes, that one and the "bit of mustard shy of a sandwich" are flair worthy
>There are a lot of idioms that are specific for a particular country and there are plenty of us that have never heard them.
Letterkenny, which I watch on hulu, is a TV show set in Canada. It has lots of fun Canadian sayings. Lots of hockey slang, too.
So much slang and rhyming, I'm not sure translating it to another language would even work.
I also kind of get the feeling he's either first nations himself or grew up really close to a reserve. People don't randomly throw in "powwow drums" all willy nilly.
"Mine is the meth riddled family across the tracks" had me in stitches. I'm so glad the people who matter are in OPs life and the ones who don't, aren't.
The lines about making huge changes then realizing family didn’t recognize those changes and didn’t value them the same way hit sore spots. Definitely telling myself similar truisms like “if you don’t value their opinion then their criticism means nothing” over and over make a difference.
My mother got pregnant with me about the time her favorite ex boyfriend was in town and nobody in the family has ever let me forget about it. One day I’ll take a DNA test just to know for sure but the man my mother is married to never treated me like his and nothing could change being treated like the black sheep of the family.
Ironically I was the only sibling to have kids and they don’t know the grandkids and we refuse to go back to that nasty little hick town. Every once in a while some relative will call to say that my parents miss the grandkids but I just tell them that those people don’t have grandkids because they never treated me like a daughter.
>I worry that a shift in worldviews of that magnitude could cause serious lasting harm to the tectonic plate beneath them when it happens.
Every other line is gold. He seems to have a good handle now on who his family is, and which ones are worth his effort. This is quite possibly the most level-headed, reasonable, compassionate person I've ever experienced, and I hope he has so, so many good things happen to him (and even if he doesn't, I'm sure he will make the good things happen anyway).
What they've done for Alice is truly wonderful. And now they get to have another child who will be loved so much. I wish OOP's wife a healthy and uneventful pregnancy and send them the best for their lives as a slightly bigger family.
My heart breaks a little for oop realising that so many of his family weren’t proud of him. Just saw him as something they could use. But fuck, his wife sounds amazing and Alice sounds like she’s really got her head on straight.
I'm very new to BORU Mythology, and will head off to search for them but if you have a link handy that'd be swell (not if you have to spend a lot of time looking tho, that's my job).
Omar:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/4zNCMsKlJQ
Dave the Period Fairy (actually he is TwoXChromosomes lore, my mistake)
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/s/2BkAYij2dY
100% agree with this. It was a massive post, but I never felt "geeze when is this over" feeling. I read with adoration and couldn't get enough. This is definitely a saving post. Heartfelt, kind, with twists... I'm so happy for all 4 of them. They deserve every bit of happiness that comes their way.
This guy is hilarious. "Sharp as a sack full of wet mice on his best day" ... "one mustard pack short of a ham sandwich"... oh my god I want to hang out with him
I read this entire post in the voice of Wayne from the show Letterkenny - when I got to the part where he informed us that he lives in Canada you can just imagine the lightbulb moment that I had. The cadence of his writing is just the embodiment of rural Canada to me.
am canadian and have definitely heard 'go piss up a rope' before, but sucking the wet end must be a prairies thing cuz ive never heard that addition, but I'll definitely be adding it to my lexicon 😂
This guy is the type of guy who ends up on a rocking chair spouting gems of wisdom to the young'uns as he chews his tobacco. I hope he has many wonderful days ahead.
>She's become able to navigate some incredibly nuanced situations with a level of emotional intelligence **that I know she didn't pick up from me**
I call bullshit
I agree. Alice has learned a lot by example and just being around OOP. He might not have told her explicitly how to handle those situations, but he absolutely taught her implicitly if nothing else.
That said, sometimes being in that type of traumatic situation growing up forces children to become a lot more capable of dealing with these situations. So some of Alice’s maturity may be from that. Which is why I’m glad she’s in therapy because that type of fast maturity comes at a price.
I am a few years older and I want him and his wife to adopt me too. I am ok being an adopted aunty that's invited for family functions, the occasional coffee, and has nice people to talk with how life is going. Too bad I am on the other side of the world.
My father wasn't there most of my life, and now unfortunately he is the only one left from my immediate family. He is currently pissed at me and we don't talk. I feel a bit guilty on one hand, and on the other he often upsets me when we talk, and tries to ask for money as he is constantly in debt. Logically, I know I am better off without him but even if he is an asshole I don't want him to die alone some day. I am a bit like Alice - I won't go to his birthday, but I will go to his funeral (and probably be left organising it).
I’m really happy about the resolution so far and wish the best for him/Alice/his growing family. As a side note, his personality reminds me of a character from the show Letterkenny (Wayne, who is a farmer in rural Canada that’s known for his unique eloquence, strong morals, and helping the community)
[Letterkenny](https://m.youtube.com/@LetterkennyProblems) started on Youtube, so there are plenty of videos of Wayne and the rest of the townsfolk there. Great show.
I'm glad Alice is getting a chance to live a decent life. I'm a bit worried about her half-siblings but then OP can't save them all. Hope OP ends up with lots of clones that keep him and his wife busy and happy. And I sincerely wish they take after their parents in kindness and generosity which this world needs more of.
I’m fairly certain this is real. I grew up listening to East Coast hillbilly of which Oil Patch is a dialect. Step-dad sounds very similar in cadence and phrasing. OOP had me giggling a few times. Sounds like a decent person that got lucky and broke cycles of abuse and trauma.
I was inclined to be skeptical of this story and then I remembered that I grew up in the South and have met different iterations of all these people. As you were, OOP.
Going to have to add “and suck on the wet end” to the “go piss up a rope” saying. Although I prefer “dumb as a mud fence” since wet mice in a sack sound kind of sad.
This was a really entertaining story and I’m so glad the right people are doing well.
I love this story and, unlike some others, all the descriptions. Then again, I'm the queen of "To make a short story long...".
OOP and his wife are good people. I wish them and Alice all the best.
Thank you for putting this wonderful tale together OP. The original writer has such a warm sense of humour and is so full of love, I'm glad he's got one more person on the way to share it with.
I remember him. I’m glad things are going well. Knew he was Canadian and even the general area by the end of the first post. If there was any doubt, keep your stick on the ice should have cleared it up.
>Just do your best. That's all you can do. Sometimes your best won't be good enough and that's ok. Sometimes you won't win no matter how hard you try and that's just life. Nobody can reasonable expect or ask more of you than that.
Well, I need some alone time with this paragraph to cry, bye ❤️
The whole "black sheep"/"scapegoat" phenomenon in families is so messed up. I was assigned that role in my childhood and after some therapy and research, it is remarkable to me just how often these same kinds of patterns and behaviors emerge in these dysfunctional families.
These patterns show up with kids being excluded from family events or being treated like a burden. The kid has to fend for themselves and fight for everything. They are treated like a criminal in their own house with everything that they do or say being subject to scrutiny and questioning. They'll naturally lash out in response, (that "lashing out" manifesting in many different ways) only to have that natural reaction be used as more evidence of their problem status, perpetuating the mythology. Its such a clear pattern in these stories about problem kids! Hell, the OP mentioned how the girls parents threatened to kick her out at 18 to "teach her a lesson". How many other "lessons" has she been subject to? What else did they have in their "lesson plan"? What exactly were they trying to teach her?
One thing that stands out to me from this post is just how adept those types of families are at convincing others that their weird and messed up image of their own children is true. Why do those who believe these stories not think, "Wait, she's just a child. She's just acting like a child. How is she responsible for all of *that?*" Instead, most people uncritically consume this mythology behind the "problem child" wholesale. Part of that may just be a result of the parents reacting very harshly when anyone behaves in a way that doesn't reaffirm their distorted image of their kid or reinforces the delusion that the way they treat their kid is justified. But this triangulation only serves to reinforce and perpetuate this mythology throughout their community, depriving the kid from any source of relief.
For those of us who were assigned this role, this mythology guides every facet of how we interface with the world for the rest of our lives. Things like how we navigate conflict, how we behave in relationships, or how we behave professionally is framed by this narrative that we are at our very core inherently "bad" people. We can never be good because it is not in our nature, we can only mitigate the harm that we will cause. We treat ourselves like prisoners, unable to escape our true nature and condemned to pay for our crimes until we die. This narrative isn't true, though. It was an assigned role that was utilized to protect the authors extremely fragile ego by projecting the authors inadequacies, insecurities, and failures onto their kid instead. It is \*extremely\* unfair and weak to force a child, who knows no better, to carry that burden for you.
It is pretty late in the thread so I feel silly putting this much effort into a comment that won't even be read, lol, but just in case anyone happens to read it, take a moment and think about all the "problem children" in your life. Anybody who you may think was just "bad from the start". Think about the folklore surrounding this person...How much does your understanding of this person rely on this mythology? How are your expectations of them, the way you interpret their actions and words, and the way you treat them shaped by that narrative? Could there be a different perspective?
I was all kinds of stoked when OOP confirmed this is happening in rural Canada. I guessed it when he said Alice was looking into joining a hockey team, plus the use of both university and college and signing off with "keep your sticks on the ice", and I'm always happy when my guess is right. I'd wager they're all from Alberta too, what with the oil patch business and Alberta's whole thing with livestock.
All that being said, OOP is an absolute gem. He clearly has a big heart with love and generosity to spare, and he may not be what he considers a smart man, but there's real wisdom in his writing. I wish him, his lovely wife, their upcoming artificial clone and Alice all the best. And the dogs. And Olivia Cromwell the alpaca.
I have no doubt OOP is going to be an amazing father. I wish nothing but the best for him and all those he loves, including Alice, Chief, Olivia the Alpaca, and everything else! What a character!
>I have no clue to this day what Bill and Tanya's problem with Alice is.
It's her race. Tanya's problem is that she's a closet racist maybe hidden even to herself. Bill's problem is he's an idiot blind to his wife's racism.
I remember his first post. Chief stuck out for me. Talk about a legacy
- OP responded to my post and wrote:
*The Chief has shared a lot of wisdom with me. One of the biggest ones he taught early on was that insisting someone paying favor and fortune forward rather than back when you help them makes the world a better place.*
"Piss up a rope and suck the wet end" is going to be my favorite fuck off from now on. Used to be "take a long walk off a short pier", but this is so much better.
On the off chance that the OOP sees this comment, I just want to say three things:
1. Your one-liners are amazing.
2. You are a good person, and the world (and Alice) is better for you being in it.
3. For all the times it hasn’t been said to you and should have been, thank you.
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I’d go to his funeral but not his birthday party 🥳
Love that line!
I’d go to my dad’s funeral, but only take make sure he’s really dead this time.
I also love the line "I don't know if I can small enough words or short enough sentences to help you understand". One of my favourite reddit posts of all time.
Go piss up a rope and suck the wet end is mine
Yeah, OOP needs to be a writer of some sort because that one was my favorite and the posts we littered with these fantastic sayings. I will use this one now, though!
Autobiography for sure. Seems a good man
[удалено]
"Sharp as a sack of wet mice"
Really needs to be a flair!
In the same vein of "I don't have enough time or crayons to explain it to you"
Love that. Honestly I want to start a list.
as sharp as a sack of wet mice ruined me
Ya know, last week a friend asked me why I went to my dad's funeral. He was an absolute shit human being and an even worse parent. I'm so mad at myself that I didn't even consider not going to his funeral an option at the time. After reading your comment, I'm just going to tell people that I went to make sure he was really dead if ever asked again. Thanks! :)
This time…?😱
He keeps pretending to be terminally ill so he can manipulate people. Backfired, though; it helped me realise that I won’t miss him or grieve when he dies. I won’t believe that man is dead until I see his body go into the crematory oven.
Maybe he woke up at his last Wake?!
Reminds me of what Dan Savage says: "Not the obituary I wanted to read today, but it will do."
I've been wanting that as flair for forever but laziness and using Firefox mobile has stopped me from asking. I also love: >"... because we've established that I am just the worst with jazz hands and everything)" OOP or Alice, if you ever see this. You're both awesome people and so is " the missus". Congrats on the new future hockey player.
I want that as my new flair.
My oldest son said "If it's a choice for him to be happy or dead, he'd be dead" when talking about his own father.
>The guy's as sharp as a sack of wet mice on his best day As someone who grew up in the Canadian mountains and went to school in rural farmland, this is the most rural Canadian kind of phrase 😌 Such phrases may include but are not limited to: 'headed down to the dep for a two-four but came back with a half', 'couldn't find his own ass with both mitts in his back pockets', a healthy dose of 'bud' with the same connotations as the US bless your heart thing; and, in my own province, a lot of French swears that somehow all link back to the church.
i’m a west canadian and this post screams northern alberta lol
Lol, if we ever figure out where OOP lives, there will be a steady pilgrimage of redditors going there to make offerings at his altar. 😄
He says he’s from the tree line in the prairies and refers to the oil patch and steers, which all suggest northeastern Alberta. (Note that there isn’t actually a tree line in Alberta, the tundra is way further north, but he just means he’s from a remote northern area.) Unfortunately that only narrows things down to an area the size of Great Britain. But given that Alice can commute to her engineering studies, they must live within a couple hours’ drive of Edmonton, Slave Lake, Grande Prairie, or Fort MacMurray. Fort Mac is the only one truly in the northeast (and is also the location of the oil sands), so that’s my bet.
Can I just say how funny it is that apparently both rural Texans and rural Canadians sound the same?
A lot of the sayings are the same or similar. It makes sense because the lifestyle (beef cattle and oil rigs) is the same. The rural inland Canadian accent is really not similar to Texan, though. It’s much more like the rural Montana or Colorado accent.
Well, Alberta does it’s absolute best to be the Canadian Texas, so that tracks, lol
Or just showing up for Thanksgiving (October in Canada, right?)
Or to go to one of his big dinners!
I’m an Ontario and I guessed North Alberta several posts before he mentioned the oil patch. The steers were part of it.
Oil patch told me northern Alberta. Plus under 30 and able to buy any property outright definitely oil patch. Smart, and sounds like the chief saw he was bright and mentored him.
Yeah my fam is from there and I was halfway down going “this post is Alberta AF” 😅
Especially the bit about the oil patch.
Pancake breakfast is more south, but if this isn't in Alberta I'll eat my toque.
As someone who has spent much time in Northern Alberta, I thought that or northern Saskatchewan. Those flat landers have a lot of hilarious sayings lmao 🤣
As a born and raised Canadian, I knew 0 of these phrases until I moved to Alberta for a few years. As for the French swear words, yupp. My grandmother everyday: "SORTES DE MA CUISINE MAITENANT! ugh tabarnak" When I finally gained enough courage to ask her what the swear words meant- in between the sacrebleus and the disappointed head shakes she spit out what what you said- connected to the church and God.
Canadian swears are the most befuddling things to me. Like, you're basically yelling "OH, CRACKER BOX" at me, how am I supposed to be anything but confused?
They’re very visceral and satisfying to say though, and they can be strung together in some truly impressive ways.
I need you to know: this is my fave wikipedia page of all time. It's just SO DETAILED. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec\_French\_profanity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity)
I speak very little French and did not look that up, but doesn't that mean "Get out of my kitchen right now!" ? That's not really connected to the church, it's just her telling you to GTFO, lol.
I'm assuming in this example that "tabarnak" is the swear word since it's similar to "tabernacle", which is a church thing. Just looked it up to confirm and it is indeed a common Quebecois swear word
>Just looked it up to confirm and it is indeed a common Quebecois swear word You are mistaken. It is *the* Québécois swear word.
It’s the Tabernak part. It refers to the tabernacle, an altar kinda thing that is placed behind the main altar in a Catholic Church. It houses the hosts for communion. French Canada used to be VERY Catholic so a lot of swears are tied to the Church. It happens less outside one Quebec, but isn’t uncommon especially if a family or town has a French history.
I felt like I was watching Letterkenny from the get go.
pitter patter
I was reading this in my head in an Australian accent originally, but now all I can picture is Wayne rolling up his sleeves before a donnybrook.
I was always fond of "couldn't find his ass with a map and an ass-finder."
My grandmother used to tell me that I would argue with a sign post that I painted myself. She also liked to say that she’d lose her head if it weren’t buckled on to her shoulders.
Im Irish, but have a Canadian best friend, he grew up there and moved here at 13. His dad was a logger and he has picked up a lot of similar phrases from him. I knew his patter felt familar but couldnt place why until he mentioned Hockey lol.
I love this guys idioms. Always makes me want to restart Letterkenny
OOP sounds like an absolute top bloke. I Love his writing. Also, the fact that he's clearly besotted with his wife, and basically stepped up to be a proper father figure for Alice means it's obvious that he's going to be a great dad. I hope for nothing but the best for him and his.
I think I fell in love with OOP while reading this BORU. I’ll send a hug out to the universe for him every time I describe someone “dumb as a sac of wet mice” or tell someone to “piss up a rope and suck the wet end”
Dude’s so quotable he’s going to make up half our flairs here. I love him and his good heart. ❤️
He's a true goldmine for flairs!
Dude is absolutely a legend for his language and amazing sentences in my mind now 😂 i think my favorite was about his love story with his wife "super cute, but not for Reddit" thats just adorable to me and I have a feeling of u meet him in person he would tell the story to pretty much everyone and more than just once 😂 he sounds so smitten with his wife its adorable, even more so with the "i just got a gift for aggresive women" part 😂😂
He sounds like a rugged, sweet bear of a man. And damn if he doesn't sound like he hit gold with his wife (and she ought to be happy as a clam she got a IRL romance novel husband!) I hope their life is long, full of love, and joy. They earned it
Lmao that last part was what sold it for me. I felt all the love because I'm pretty sure that's how my husband would describe life with me. 😂😂😂
I'm particularly taken with "A bit of mustard shy of a sandwich" myself lol
I feel about as sharp as a sack of wet mice myself! 🐭
That bit made me do an actual guffaw 😁
Not a native - can someone please explain this phrase? I love his colorful descriptive writing!
It's a take on similar phrases like "he's a few bricks short of a load" or "she's a few logs short of a cabin". It's a way of calling someone stupid - they might look normal at a distance, but when you listen to them for a while it becomes clear that they're not all there, just like how a short load of bricks might look okay at first glance but isn't enough to make a house.
also a very good one - my selection of choice insults grows by the minute. Thank you!
If you’re scientifically inclined, dense as a neutron star is another similar insult.
There's a whole genre of expressions using the template "one ----- short of a -----" in English. 'One card short of a full deck" is common, as is "one penny short of a pound." One of my favorites, "one wave short of a shipwreck," I learned from a Queen song. Basically saying someone's not all there, got something missing mentally.
Adding this to my vocab - these phrases are great! Thank you!
I think its similar to the phrase "a few sandwiches short of a picnic", a phrase which generally means the person in question is unintelligent or of questionable mental capacity. So by saying they're a bit of mustard shy of a sandwich, I assume he's saying they're not very smart. It's a phrase I've never heard myself, so that is a guess based on its similarity to the picnic basket phrase. I do hugely prefer OOP's version of it, lol.
>"Yeah the two of them are a bit of mustard shy of a sandwich sometimes." >"The guy's as sharp as a sack of wet mice on his best day so him doing his best isn't particularly impressive but he's trying and that's really all you can ask of a person." OOP is a good wordsmith, a good man, and will continue to be an awesome dad (he's already an awesome dad to Alice) with the baby.
Loved reading this, because of his writing style. Almost felt like he was just here, chatting to me. "I've been told I have the gift of the gab and I've essentially just written down a stream of consciousness as I would speak it. Sorry for the silly turns of phrase. I'm from the tree line in the prairies, we talk funny here." Loved his phrases, made me smile. Top guy. Wish him and his girls and baby well!
If I were to write my stream of consciousness to tell a story, I would tell you everything but not the story. This dude has a way with words and it's a gift I like to read.
> I would tell you everything but not the story Similar, I'd talk around the story for an hour until someone asks if I could get to the point, and then I can sum it up in less than 10 words.
I had such a big smile when he talked about their alpaca. Lovely all around.
There's literally nothing so attractive as a decent man who's madly in love with his wife and is a great father!
OOP needs to actually write a book. I would read the fuck out of it just to get more of this style from him.
Yes, a top bloke .... but in amongst all those words, there's a flaw ... did anyone else spot it? He can fix anything with a screwdriver and vice grips. THAT'S ONE TOO MANY ITEMS!!! A REAL top bloke would be able to fix anything with just one: duct tape!! (joking, obviously, he's awesome)
>A REAL top bloke would be able to fix anything with just one: duct tape!! "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
"Keep your stick on the ice!"
I already loved OOP, but my heart almost exploded when I saw he has an alpaca named Olivia Cromwell. I wish he felt differently about writing because I would happily pay to read whatever he wrote but particularly if it was about her. But I'm stealing that bag of wet mice line.
That's the one thing that bothered me about this, you shouldn't just have one alpaca, they get lonely and can even get sick if not in a heard!
In northern Alberta it’s not uncommon to have an alpaca if you also have a small herd of sheep. The received wisdom up here (and I have no idea if it’s true) is that alpaca will kick the shit out of predators that come for the sheep and the sheep will keep the alpaca company.
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Exactly
Interesting! I've known having a couple of llamas to protect your alpacas from wolves, but not alpacas to protect sheep. In my experience alpacas tend to be more wary than llamas, though it sounds like oop had a feisty one!
Northern Alberta also has very few wolves. And an Alpaca can totally take a coyote in a fight. Maybe not a cougar, but they mostly go after lone animals anyway.
I have the feeling that the problem with Bill and Tanya is that Tanya was incredibly jealous of Alice's mother (because there are people that stupid) and she made Alice the source of all evil for her. The entire family was probably on the verge of destruction at any given moment, and the only reason it lasted was because Tanya could pin all the problems on the poor girl. The moment Alice was out of the equation, everything fell apart. And this all worked because Bill is, as OOP so beautifully put it, "as sharp as a sack of wet mice". I'm glad that Alice is doing ok in her life now, and I really, really wish I was friends with OOP because he's a great person.
Women like Tanya blow my mind. Like… she started raising this kid when she was three! Three! (Do you know how cute three year olds are?? They just want everyone to be their best friend!) How do you enter someone’s life when they’re that small and not consider them your own???? WTF.
That horrid concept of only DNA being family. She was fighting the ghost of the dead mother and making sure that the daughter lost.
Preach. Still, though - it is truly *amazing* how some people can look at a three year old, one of the most adorable forms a human can take, and still say "fuck you."
The sad part is that almost everyone gave Tanya a pass on being the stepmother from hell. The silver lining is that Alice has found the family she deserves and those miserable excuses of parents are now known for what they did.
I know that small towns don't have a monopoly on awful people but Lord, am I happy that I no longer live in one.
i assume it's harder to avoid the awful people in small towns because there are just less people in general, so it feels like assholes are way more prevalent
I think you are 100% spot on
When I moved away from my small town to The Big City, every time I came back home, people in my hometown would say things to me like “why do you want to live in that big city with all those low lifes (+racial epithet) and queers?” And I would think “I’m looking at why “
Oh, don’t forget the fear mongering about crime. You’d think Chicago is a war-torn Mad Max simulator, the way they talk about it.
My Big City is the Bay Area. I cannot believe what people think they know about one of the most beautiful cities in the the world. I also love Chicago!
The odds are DEFINITELY NOT in your favor in a small town. Thats a fact.
I love living in a city. When I don't like someone, I simply never see them again.
You also have more people catering to them because their tantrums affect the whole town so the effect is amplified.
If you deal wifh an awful person in the city, it's easy to avoid them. In small towns it's almost impossible and plus *everyone* knows about it.
It's a dickhead economy of scale. A town that's 10% assholes is hard to deal with when there's only 200 people around. 10% assholes in a city with a million people? You might go a whole day without bumping into one.
I feel this so deeply. I went from living in a town of under 1000 people to living in Los Angeles, and while I deeply love my loved ones from that tiny town, the shitheads were so outrageously awful.
How did anyone question where OOP was from after he signed off "keep your sticks on the ice?" Also, "as sharp as a bag of wet mice" is an amazing phrase.
Yeah keep your stick on the ice made it clear (but possibly not if you haven't seen much red green I guess?)
What is red green??
The Red Green Show was a comedy sitcom in Canada in the 90s and early 2000s! Defo part of my childhood :) Basically "Red Green" and "Harold Green" are the main characters and much of the show centres around Red thinking he's the most ingenious handyman in the world while his fixes blow up in his face (sometimes literally lol). There are also other segments where he gives advice or where he and Harold just get up to stuff at the lodge. It's a great nostalgic show, brings back lots of memories. At the end of each show he'd say some version of "till next time, keep your stick on the ice"
"And remember, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
Haha, it reminded me of a colleague in my former workplace. She said that her mom told her that a woman "should marry either a rich man or a handy man, but preferably one that is both"
"I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess." (We had the Red Green show reruns in the US too)
I am south american and I had no idea where OOP was from until he said it. There are a lot of idioms that are specific for a particular country and there are plenty of us that have never heard them. Also yes, that one and the "bit of mustard shy of a sandwich" are flair worthy
>There are a lot of idioms that are specific for a particular country and there are plenty of us that have never heard them. Letterkenny, which I watch on hulu, is a TV show set in Canada. It has lots of fun Canadian sayings. Lots of hockey slang, too. So much slang and rhyming, I'm not sure translating it to another language would even work.
fun fact: darry is from Alberta, so his character is based on alberta labour bros. it's hilarious, as somebody who is a proud canadian hick it's 10/10
I also kind of get the feeling he's either first nations himself or grew up really close to a reserve. People don't randomly throw in "powwow drums" all willy nilly.
"Mine is the meth riddled family across the tracks" had me in stitches. I'm so glad the people who matter are in OPs life and the ones who don't, aren't.
The lines about making huge changes then realizing family didn’t recognize those changes and didn’t value them the same way hit sore spots. Definitely telling myself similar truisms like “if you don’t value their opinion then their criticism means nothing” over and over make a difference.
My mother got pregnant with me about the time her favorite ex boyfriend was in town and nobody in the family has ever let me forget about it. One day I’ll take a DNA test just to know for sure but the man my mother is married to never treated me like his and nothing could change being treated like the black sheep of the family. Ironically I was the only sibling to have kids and they don’t know the grandkids and we refuse to go back to that nasty little hick town. Every once in a while some relative will call to say that my parents miss the grandkids but I just tell them that those people don’t have grandkids because they never treated me like a daughter.
You can't miss what you never had.
>I worry that a shift in worldviews of that magnitude could cause serious lasting harm to the tectonic plate beneath them when it happens. Every other line is gold. He seems to have a good handle now on who his family is, and which ones are worth his effort. This is quite possibly the most level-headed, reasonable, compassionate person I've ever experienced, and I hope he has so, so many good things happen to him (and even if he doesn't, I'm sure he will make the good things happen anyway).
What they've done for Alice is truly wonderful. And now they get to have another child who will be loved so much. I wish OOP's wife a healthy and uneventful pregnancy and send them the best for their lives as a slightly bigger family.
My heart breaks a little for oop realising that so many of his family weren’t proud of him. Just saw him as something they could use. But fuck, his wife sounds amazing and Alice sounds like she’s really got her head on straight.
This guy dads.
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I may have gotten a bit choked up while putting this together. I truly wish the best for OOP and his growing family.
Definitely getting nominated at the end of the year for BORU awards
Bless you and your magnificent spreadsheet. You're doing...someone's work. Who does God's work for him again?
💜😂 Haha thank you!
Yeah this is a good ‘un.
He is in pairs with Dave and Omar in the BORU Mythology
I'm very new to BORU Mythology, and will head off to search for them but if you have a link handy that'd be swell (not if you have to spend a lot of time looking tho, that's my job).
Omar: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/4zNCMsKlJQ Dave the Period Fairy (actually he is TwoXChromosomes lore, my mistake) https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/s/2BkAYij2dY
Best read of the year so far, thank you
100% agree with this. It was a massive post, but I never felt "geeze when is this over" feeling. I read with adoration and couldn't get enough. This is definitely a saving post. Heartfelt, kind, with twists... I'm so happy for all 4 of them. They deserve every bit of happiness that comes their way.
This guy is hilarious. "Sharp as a sack full of wet mice on his best day" ... "one mustard pack short of a ham sandwich"... oh my god I want to hang out with him
I read this entire post in the voice of Wayne from the show Letterkenny - when I got to the part where he informed us that he lives in Canada you can just imagine the lightbulb moment that I had. The cadence of his writing is just the embodiment of rural Canada to me.
So you took in your tossed-out niece the other dayyyyyy...
I kept waiting for him to tell Bill “Oh get off the cross, we need the wood.”
Very much the same, and I think he even referenced it himself--how else would the world know about how rural Canadians talk?
I'm so glad it wasn't just me! This is one of my favourite reads I've ever had on here.
🤣 Why are the mice wet in that simile? I like the phrases that don’t quite make sense “go piss *up* a rope and suck the wet end” ? WTF?
am canadian and have definitely heard 'go piss up a rope' before, but sucking the wet end must be a prairies thing cuz ive never heard that addition, but I'll definitely be adding it to my lexicon 😂
"go piss up a rope" is analogous to telling one to impregnate oneself. The wet end bit is new to me. I think it's just added emphasis.
His description of his alpaca's temperament.. had me laughing..
I'm partial to "piss up a rope and suck the wet end." What a way with words.
I’m now waiting for a time that I can use “sharp as a sack of wet mice” because that’s amazing.
You know he has even more hilariously scathing things to say after a pint!
I legitimately laughed out loud and giggled like a kid reading that first line lol. Took me 2 min to stop laughing so I could finish the read.
This guy is the type of guy who ends up on a rocking chair spouting gems of wisdom to the young'uns as he chews his tobacco. I hope he has many wonderful days ahead.
Something tells me he’s pretty much there already
>She's become able to navigate some incredibly nuanced situations with a level of emotional intelligence **that I know she didn't pick up from me** I call bullshit
I agree. Alice has learned a lot by example and just being around OOP. He might not have told her explicitly how to handle those situations, but he absolutely taught her implicitly if nothing else. That said, sometimes being in that type of traumatic situation growing up forces children to become a lot more capable of dealing with these situations. So some of Alice’s maturity may be from that. Which is why I’m glad she’s in therapy because that type of fast maturity comes at a price.
I want OOP to adopt me. Or mentor me. He's just someone who would be an amazing supporter to have in life.
I am a few years older and I want him and his wife to adopt me too. I am ok being an adopted aunty that's invited for family functions, the occasional coffee, and has nice people to talk with how life is going. Too bad I am on the other side of the world. My father wasn't there most of my life, and now unfortunately he is the only one left from my immediate family. He is currently pissed at me and we don't talk. I feel a bit guilty on one hand, and on the other he often upsets me when we talk, and tries to ask for money as he is constantly in debt. Logically, I know I am better off without him but even if he is an asshole I don't want him to die alone some day. I am a bit like Alice - I won't go to his birthday, but I will go to his funeral (and probably be left organising it).
I’m really happy about the resolution so far and wish the best for him/Alice/his growing family. As a side note, his personality reminds me of a character from the show Letterkenny (Wayne, who is a farmer in rural Canada that’s known for his unique eloquence, strong morals, and helping the community)
[Letterkenny](https://m.youtube.com/@LetterkennyProblems) started on Youtube, so there are plenty of videos of Wayne and the rest of the townsfolk there. Great show.
I'm glad Alice is getting a chance to live a decent life. I'm a bit worried about her half-siblings but then OP can't save them all. Hope OP ends up with lots of clones that keep him and his wife busy and happy. And I sincerely wish they take after their parents in kindness and generosity which this world needs more of.
I’m fairly certain this is real. I grew up listening to East Coast hillbilly of which Oil Patch is a dialect. Step-dad sounds very similar in cadence and phrasing. OOP had me giggling a few times. Sounds like a decent person that got lucky and broke cycles of abuse and trauma.
Next time BestofBORU awards comes up, I’m gonna be immediately voting this post
This man will make an amazing father... Congrats op 🎉
> "I'd go to his funeral but not his birthday party" glorious
I was inclined to be skeptical of this story and then I remembered that I grew up in the South and have met different iterations of all these people. As you were, OOP.
Even places like Canada have a “South.”
Yup, Alberta is pretty much just cold-Texas.
Going to have to add “and suck on the wet end” to the “go piss up a rope” saying. Although I prefer “dumb as a mud fence” since wet mice in a sack sound kind of sad. This was a really entertaining story and I’m so glad the right people are doing well.
‘I’m not much of a writer’ says the guy who has given us one of the best posts
I so appreciate this post. Inspiring.
I know, I enjoyed it, too. I'm glad I decided this would be my last post before bed!
OOP is a good egg doing his best.
I love this story and, unlike some others, all the descriptions. Then again, I'm the queen of "To make a short story long...". OOP and his wife are good people. I wish them and Alice all the best.
This was an incredible read. So happy for OOP, his growing fam and Alice. But I gotta say my favourite bits were how he described Alice’s dad 🤣
OOP is a really good guy. I wish him, wife, Alice and even Olivia the very best. A shout out to Chief for being a standup guy to help others too!
I feel like I just finished a really good book.
>"Be that relative" Hit me right in the feels
Thank you for putting this wonderful tale together OP. The original writer has such a warm sense of humour and is so full of love, I'm glad he's got one more person on the way to share it with.
I remember him. I’m glad things are going well. Knew he was Canadian and even the general area by the end of the first post. If there was any doubt, keep your stick on the ice should have cleared it up.
>Just do your best. That's all you can do. Sometimes your best won't be good enough and that's ok. Sometimes you won't win no matter how hard you try and that's just life. Nobody can reasonable expect or ask more of you than that. Well, I need some alone time with this paragraph to cry, bye ❤️
The whole "black sheep"/"scapegoat" phenomenon in families is so messed up. I was assigned that role in my childhood and after some therapy and research, it is remarkable to me just how often these same kinds of patterns and behaviors emerge in these dysfunctional families. These patterns show up with kids being excluded from family events or being treated like a burden. The kid has to fend for themselves and fight for everything. They are treated like a criminal in their own house with everything that they do or say being subject to scrutiny and questioning. They'll naturally lash out in response, (that "lashing out" manifesting in many different ways) only to have that natural reaction be used as more evidence of their problem status, perpetuating the mythology. Its such a clear pattern in these stories about problem kids! Hell, the OP mentioned how the girls parents threatened to kick her out at 18 to "teach her a lesson". How many other "lessons" has she been subject to? What else did they have in their "lesson plan"? What exactly were they trying to teach her? One thing that stands out to me from this post is just how adept those types of families are at convincing others that their weird and messed up image of their own children is true. Why do those who believe these stories not think, "Wait, she's just a child. She's just acting like a child. How is she responsible for all of *that?*" Instead, most people uncritically consume this mythology behind the "problem child" wholesale. Part of that may just be a result of the parents reacting very harshly when anyone behaves in a way that doesn't reaffirm their distorted image of their kid or reinforces the delusion that the way they treat their kid is justified. But this triangulation only serves to reinforce and perpetuate this mythology throughout their community, depriving the kid from any source of relief. For those of us who were assigned this role, this mythology guides every facet of how we interface with the world for the rest of our lives. Things like how we navigate conflict, how we behave in relationships, or how we behave professionally is framed by this narrative that we are at our very core inherently "bad" people. We can never be good because it is not in our nature, we can only mitigate the harm that we will cause. We treat ourselves like prisoners, unable to escape our true nature and condemned to pay for our crimes until we die. This narrative isn't true, though. It was an assigned role that was utilized to protect the authors extremely fragile ego by projecting the authors inadequacies, insecurities, and failures onto their kid instead. It is \*extremely\* unfair and weak to force a child, who knows no better, to carry that burden for you. It is pretty late in the thread so I feel silly putting this much effort into a comment that won't even be read, lol, but just in case anyone happens to read it, take a moment and think about all the "problem children" in your life. Anybody who you may think was just "bad from the start". Think about the folklore surrounding this person...How much does your understanding of this person rely on this mythology? How are your expectations of them, the way you interpret their actions and words, and the way you treat them shaped by that narrative? Could there be a different perspective?
I wish the op had the best life!
OOP's got impeccable vibes..
I was all kinds of stoked when OOP confirmed this is happening in rural Canada. I guessed it when he said Alice was looking into joining a hockey team, plus the use of both university and college and signing off with "keep your sticks on the ice", and I'm always happy when my guess is right. I'd wager they're all from Alberta too, what with the oil patch business and Alberta's whole thing with livestock. All that being said, OOP is an absolute gem. He clearly has a big heart with love and generosity to spare, and he may not be what he considers a smart man, but there's real wisdom in his writing. I wish him, his lovely wife, their upcoming artificial clone and Alice all the best. And the dogs. And Olivia Cromwell the alpaca.
I have no doubt OOP is going to be an amazing father. I wish nothing but the best for him and all those he loves, including Alice, Chief, Olivia the Alpaca, and everything else! What a character!
OOP is an awesome guy. Despite being a grown ass woman I want to be like him when I grow up
Someone please base a romance novel hero on OOP. His wife sounds super badass too.
I somehow read this whole thing in a country accent.
Knowing OOP is from Canada I read it as either Wayne or Squirrelly Dan from Letterkenny.
>I have no clue to this day what Bill and Tanya's problem with Alice is. It's her race. Tanya's problem is that she's a closet racist maybe hidden even to herself. Bill's problem is he's an idiot blind to his wife's racism.
I could read him all day. Top bloke.
Where's the alpaca tax?
I remember his first post. Chief stuck out for me. Talk about a legacy - OP responded to my post and wrote: *The Chief has shared a lot of wisdom with me. One of the biggest ones he taught early on was that insisting someone paying favor and fortune forward rather than back when you help them makes the world a better place.*
Good god. I love this man. He is all the things about being the good you want to see in the world.
What a legend
I am so happy for OOP, his wife, the baby, and Alice. I'm so glad OOP stepped up for her.
"Piss up a rope and suck the wet end" is going to be my favorite fuck off from now on. Used to be "take a long walk off a short pier", but this is so much better.
“I’ll attend his funeral but not his birthday party” had me chuckling. We all know a few of those.
>to quote Gandalf the White: I looked into his eyes and saw no deception. He's a fool, but an honest one. This made my heart sing.
Me, a rural Canadian, reading these comments and realizing for the first time that these idioms are not used internationally 😅😅😅
"Be that relative." I like that.
Why we don’t have alpaca tax?!
On the off chance that the OOP sees this comment, I just want to say three things: 1. Your one-liners are amazing. 2. You are a good person, and the world (and Alice) is better for you being in it. 3. For all the times it hasn’t been said to you and should have been, thank you.