How I Broke My Phone

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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How I Broke My Phone

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Ice Cream Jonsey: So I leave work at 6:30PM last night. As many of you know, I try to keep my "ranging distance" to half a square mile in the world.

Ice Cream Jonsey: I accidentally got out of my comfort zone and don't know where I am and suddenly I'm starving and just need food for basic human sustenance.

Ice Cream Jonsey: So I happen upon one of those carry-out only Pizza Huts.

Ice Cream Jonsey: I hate myself, so I walk right in
Ice Cream Jonsey: I order a personal pan pizza with pepperoni and the gal tells me to wait for 8 minutes and it will be out.

Ice Cream Jonsey: So I do and it does and I eat it in the car and it is DELICIOUS
Ice Cream Jonsey: I hate Pizza Hut. It was amazing!
Ice Cream Jonsey: This place is in one of the shittiest parts of Denver.
Ice Cream Jonsey: Possibly, by extension, the shittiest part of the entire time zone.
Ice Cream Jonsey: But this 4" pie was incredible. So I get home and I now I need to get rid of the box, right
Ice Cream Jonsey: Because I don't need Melissa seeing it.
Roody: haha

Ice Cream Jonsey: I don't need her knowing she committed to a man capable of eating a personal pan pizza in his car. For her benefit.
Ice Cream Jonsey: so I try to stick it in the recycle container
Ice Cream Jonsey: But for some reason I screw up this action, raise my head when I shouldn't and hit it on a cabinet
Flack: If at some point you start hiding pizza in your garage and eating it...

Ice Cream Jonsey: This causes the following:
Ice Cream Jonsey: 1) I am in pain
Ice Cream Jonsey: 2) The knock causes the cabinet to open
Ice Cream Jonsey: 3) The open cabinet causes a glass bottle of olive oil to fall out
Ice Cream Jonsey: 4) The olive oil CRUSHES my phone, sitting on the table underneath.

Ice Cream Jonsey: I mean, it was turned to fucking powder.
Ice Cream Jonsey: It's completely spidered, but it won't even turn on. So that's a first.

Ice Cream Jonsey: Anyway, I have a coda for this, which is apparently I never threw the box out.
Ice Cream Jonsey: Melissa threw the box on the floor in the office after I went to bed.
Flack: WOW.
Ice Cream Jonsey: Yeah
Roody: wow
Flack: This is one fucking expensive pizza.

Ice Cream Jonsey: Yes. And you know what? It was THAT good.
Ice Cream Jonsey: You can apparently get an iPhone 5c for $0.99 on Verizon, so when it shows up on Friday I'm going right back for another personal pie.
Ice Cream Jonsey: Getting right back on the horse

Flack: You might make it a medium to make it worth the head lump and the phone and the shaming next time.
Ice Cream Jonsey: That's true. Part of me never wants to go back there, like how the girl from Heart doesn't fuck that guy again in "All I Want To Do Is Make Love To You."
Ice Cream Jonsey: "Just live in my memory / You'll always be there"

Roody: I've always felt like the right thing to do is to be wary of Pizza Hut, but it's also unwise to hate. It hits the spot sometimes!
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

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The Happiness Engine
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Post by The Happiness Engine »

BEST OF.

My best phone destruction was also my most recent: Over winter I was visiting my parents and NOTHING is better than winter hot-tubbing. I was also on-call, so figure I'll put my phone on the table next to the tub and start the process of changing and building myself a drink (plastic cup only, not too big or weak to need to pee constantly, not too small to need to get out and refill it), getting a towel, going outside, FREEZING while I fumble the lid open and fire things up, and then I motion to my friends who've been comfortably waiting in the nice warm house that it's safe to dash out and get submerged.

After settling down into a nice relaxing bath and starting to make conversation I suddenly remember that the ONE step I have forgotten is "remove phone from swim trunks pocket and place on the table next to my drink."

Needless to say, complicated electronics do not enjoy the soothing power of heated bubbles as much as my aching back.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I haven't done that one yet, but it's coming. If I had my act together I'd be putting in a hot tub at the new place, but that might have to wait a few decades. Water's probably the one way I haven't been zapped yet.

In a way, I'm shocked that my phones last as long as they do, and they usually only last a year. I think I had one "survivor." I had an $8 Android-based phone from like 2007-2009. It didn't suffer from a splintered screen, nor did it lose speakers or microphone.

Actually, 90% of my phone problems would be solved if they would just put a freaking Star Trek Communicator-like clamshell thing on them. I need something I can flip up that protects the screen. I don't know why that's so difficult. Make the communicator.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

Get one of the bluetooth things that lets you simply slap your nipple area and Boom-bam! Phone active. Just don't let olive oil bottles hit you there cause it'll hurt more.

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Post by Tdarcos »

"A Tale of Two Phones"

1. Back when I could walk, so that puts it sometime before 2005, I went to the bathroom to take a piss, then reached down to flush, forgetting my phone was in my shirt pocket. I think it was one of those inexpensive phone only (no special features and can't run apps) no-contract phones, so I think the replacement wasn't very much.

2. Sometime a month or two ago, I realize as I'm rolling out of my room that I had run over something thick enough to make the chair climb and fall, I look down and discover I've run over the case that my phone is in. Well, despite the fact me and this chair together weigh about 600 pounds, while the phone is now a white screen, surprisingly enough it will continue to ring if called even if you can't answer or turn it off.

So I end up replacing a phone that cost my sister $69.95 as a Christmas present to me, I was able to find another T-Mobile branded Android phone at Target for the no-contract price of an unbelievable $39.95.

Here's a tip someone at T-Mobile told me. Any phone branded to them can be used on any plan, just move the Sim card. So if you purchase a pay-as-you go phone and put in a chip from your contract plan, it will work. So you can purchase any phone branded for them and use it on any plan they offer.
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Flack
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Post by Flack »

Why can you not walk?
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

I had run over something thick enough to make the chair climb and fall
Did you used to own a cat?


THE
ZERO LIVES
AARDVARK

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Post by Tdarcos »

AArdvark wrote:
I had run over something thick enough to make the chair climb and fall
Did you used to own a cat?


THE
ZERO LIVES
AARDVARK
Yes, but it was back when I could walk. She was a beautiful calico named Princess. I loved that cat and I know she loved me. I was the only person that when she was outside she'd come to me and would let me pick her up. I remember her very fondly, and I have a story about her if anyone is interested.
Alan Francis wrote a book containing everything men understand about women. It consisted of 100 blank pages.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Commander, I am interested.
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Post by ChainGangGuy »

Tdarcos wrote:I remember her very fondly, and I have a story about her if anyone is interested.
I know we may not say it around here very much, Tdarcos, but, please, go on...

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Post by Tdarcos »

Tdarcos wrote:She was a beautiful calico named Princess... and I have a story about her if anyone is interested.
My mother was a bit of a cat person (another story) and we somehow ended up with an extremely cute calico kitten named Princess, as I suspect the cat we had, its purported mother named "Bent Ear" was gray, and none of the other kittens looked anything like Princess, and she was about 50% larger than the other kittens in the litter, that Bent Ear may have stolen Princess from some other cat's litter, mistaking it for her own.

I know that Princess was once a cut kitten and grew up into a very pretty, "professional" cat. Well, you know how a mother cat will pick up its kittens when she wants to discipline them, well, one day, Bent Ear is trying to drag Princess back to the nest, who by then, was about the same size as Bent Ear, and was giving her a tough time. In a hilarious scene, Bent Ear is trying to drag a cat as big as she is by the nape of the neck, while the supposed "kitten" was trying to resist arrest.

We had two dogs at the time, so Princess grew up with them and was friends with them, but when she was outside, woe to it to any dog that tried to challenge her.

We brought her with us when we moved from Southern California to Washington, D.C. which by then she was probably eight years old. She was a large cat, as you can guess from the story of her mother trying to drag her. In fact, me and my brother had a running joke because for probably ten years running my mother thought Princess was continuously pregnant, although she never had any litters.

When we moved to DC Princess invited a friend over, which they came in by jumping the ground-floor fence, then jumping from the fence to our front balcony and into the living room. The guesr cat was a somewhat large gray male which we named Mugger, and he ended up staying with us too.

Well, when I said Princess was a "professional" cat, I meant that except for me she would not acknowledge anyone else outside, and we did not have to keep a litter box as she always went outside to do her business, and if she was having intimate relations with Mugger or any other cat, she didn't do that in the house.

Which I discovered one day when I was out at the end of the walkway and heard a noise, to discover Princess being fucked "doggie style" by some other male cat; I don't remember if it was Mugger or some other male that turned her fancy.

Which then allowed me to know in that minute, exactly why Princess had never had a litter. I can explain it by what happened when I took her to the veterinarian one day for shots and a check up, and the vet asked me if Princess had been spayed or not. (I didn't know, my mother and I hadn't but I wasn't sure if my sister might have) so I said, "It doesn't matter, she's a freemartin."

By luck, I had discovered a term he didn't know. A freemartin is an animal that's born sterile, as I explained, which was why Princess, despite being eager (or at leas willing) to mate with other cats, had never gotten pregnant.


If there's more interest, I'll tell more of her story.
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Post by Flack »

Please, go on.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Please, we implore you.
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Post by Tdarcos »

Princess learned to protect herself when she felt things were dangerous to her. We had stuffed her in a cat cage along with our dog Teddy Bear in a dog cage for the flight from LAX to Washington National via Houston, then she stayed in the cage in the car for the trip to our new home.

As is the recommended practice, we brought her into the house, left the cage open, and left her. The cat will decide when to get out of the cage. We were all busy unpacking and we discover mthe cage is empty and Princess is gone. So n0w everyone except me is outside calling "Princess!" and lopoking for her. I was inside either I was too tired to do more walking or I was still unpacking, so I was in the living room.

An amazing thing happened. Maybe an hour or so later I am looking out into the kitchen, and I notice the door from the cabinet under the kitchen sink opened, and cautiously, Princess peaked out. Apparently something had scared her as a result of the move, and she had beelined for the kitchen and figured ouit how tro use her paw to shiv open the cabinet door and hide in the darkness.

So when I saw it I was able to tell everyone we found her, and we could call off the search.

This was her "safe space" - decades before I had heard of that term - and whenever she got scared over something, she'd repeat her original process: Run for the kitchen "with all deliberate speed," use her paw to open the sink cabinet door, and boom! in the door and out of sight until she felt safe.

Later I discovered ahe did nopt hide under the sink. One time I was in the kitchen getting silverware to eat, and there was a funny sound and the drawer would not close properly. So I pull the drawer out and discover Princess at the back end of the top drawer. Thus \I realized, not only did she run under the sink, she'd jump up into the back of the kitchen drawers and hide in the space behind the top drawer.

After a few months of living there she acclimated toi the environment and the neighborhood, and even picked up a boyfriend (Mugger) as I explained in my previous note.

There is more to Princess' story including the so-called "rape" I had to perform with her and Mugger a couple years later, if anyone wants to hear more, ask and I'll continue the story.
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Post by Flack »

10 POST ABOUT PRINCESS
20 GOTO 10

Keep 'em coming!
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Post by Tdarcos »

We later moved from Washington, DC to Montgomery County, Maryland, which is right over the line, about 5 miles away. I rented a cargo van, about the size of a large SUV, the difference being it has two seats in the front and the rest of the truck is empty. All our furniture (except beds and my computer table) was rented so it was enough space for various belongimgs and my computer.

We brought Princess, Mugger, and our dog Teddy Bear along, probably in the car where everyone else sat. And, as was the successful practice, the cats were left in their carriers with the door open. By then, since this was the second time we'd moved, Princess understood and simply came out when she was ready.

This, however, did not mean she didn't find herself a safe space. One day I was down in the basement putting clothes in the dryer, when I heard a noise from above the furnace, and I saw two orange eyes. Princess had found a spot in the crawl space to hide when she was scared.

At one point both Princess and Mugger developed an ear infection. The veterinarian gave us two bottles of some pink ointment that had to be squirted in one of each cats ears, every day until gone, as is standard practice to kill a bacterial infection.

The cats did not - I mean really did not - like this stuff going in their ear. So, we'd do each cat by force. When they weren't expecting it, I'd catch one of them. I'd get them to the kitchen table where my mother would hold the cat down because her aim was not good, and I'd squirt the liquid in.

Lather, rinse, repeat with the other cat.

I| used to joke about this, as my "rape incident," because my mother "held them down, and I stuck it in."

Don't try to tell me cats are stupid. It got to the point that if I had the bottle of antibiotic in my hand, "wheet!" as both cats took off like a drug dealer when a police car approaches, and ran for someplace else, Mugger usually running upstairs, Princess to her "safe space" in the basement crawlspace above the furnace.

So, eventually I'd corner Mugger, bring him back down, then administer the procedure. Princess, I'd get her because her crawl space was a dead end, she could only baack up about one foot. Again, give her the treatment and let her go. She'd rub her ear on the carpet, then run back to her safe space for a while.

This continued every day for about two weeks or so, until, as instructed, we ran out of the antibiotic.

----
In my next installment, I'll discuss what happened when Princess got hit by a car.
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Post by Tdarcos »

I'm going to interrupt this thread to mention Buttons.

My mother decided to go to a pet store and buy another dog as a companion to Teddy Bear, this one being a purebred of some small breed, I don't remember which. The dog even came with the paperwork to register him with the AKC if we chose. We even picked its "official name' which had to be unique among all dogs registered: "Sir Buttons of House Robinson," which I figured was extremely unlikely to be in use. We never did register him, and I don't know why.

A small dog was about right since Teddy Bear was a Lhasa Apso. And Buttons turned out to be very interesting.

First, Buttons was a thief. He'd go upstairs looking for things to bring downstairs to play with, and he'd steal them. Often proudly showing off his "loot." Sometimes he'd grab things that I had no idea how a maybe 10 pound dog could drag all the way down a flight of stairs. I said to my mother that one day I expected Buttons to drag one of the mattresses down from the upstairs bedrooms.

Second, Buttons didn't like cable TV. We had one connection in the living room, so I bought a splitter and about 50 feet of coax to run the connection around the walls, turn the corner and up the side of the staircase, around the corner and into my brother's room. Buttons didn't like this. He'd go over to the wire at the bottom of the stairs, and chew on it. This would end up breaking the connection.

So, | bought a cable cutting and crimping tool plus connectors so I could put a splice in where the dog had chewed up the wire. I also picked up a couple of things, a bottle of Elmer's white glue and a bottle of garlic salt. I then liberally coated the exposed part of the wire for about six feet in both directions from the splice with Elmer's, then heavily coated it with garlic salt all over. And waited.

Sure enough, Buttons went over to have a snack, and I| encouraged him, by saying, "Go on, try the nice tasty wire." And he did. The immediate response was he spit it out and shook his head, like he couldn't believe the new flavor, and didn't like it. So he tries again, and this time he spits it out and even rubs his tongue on the carpet.

After that, Buttons decided to leave the cable TV wire alone. But he had something new to try, which I'll explain in the fourth item.

Third, Buttons got used to getting dressed to go out for his walk. Before I would walk the dog each day, I'd get the harness and leash, put the harness on the dog, hook the leash, then out we'd go for about a half an hour.

Soon, Buttons would look forward to this, and, like Princess and Mugger noticing me with the antibiotic as I mentioned in my previous item, he'd respond. The difference was, Buttons loved going out, so as soon as he saw the harness, he'd immediately roll over on his back and wave his paws, knowing he had to "get dressed" to go out for his walk.

Fourth, sometimes his walk wasn't enough. Montgomery County, Maryland was very big on recycling. When they started they gave every household in the county a blue recycling bin about the size of two milk crates. After we'd had it a few weeks I found we were constantly overflowing it, so I called the county and they had UPS deliver another one.

Turns out Buttons was also very interested in recycling. Sometimes he had to go to the bathroom and couldn't wait for his walk. So, he'd take a dump on the floor. But, being a very polite dog, and interested in "recycling," he'd turn around and clean up after himself, going along with the county's recycling plan. As a result, I'd never have to clean up his messes. If I didn't notice it as soon as it happened I'd have no way to stop him. I'll spare you the details as I'm sure you can figure out what he did. My sister says coprophagia is a practice of dogs who are bored.

When we moved, I went to Fort Washington, Maryland and the rest of the family (including Buttons) went to my sister's place in Arlington, Virginia.

----
I'll resume the story of Princess in my next missive.
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Post by Tdarcos »

Princess got hit by a car.

Princess got to go out basically any time she wanted. If she wanted to leave and someone else was coming in or going out, she'd go over and walk out the door. If she wanted out otherwise, she'd walk over to the front door and park next to it, giving everyone a look like, "Hey, can't you see I want to go out?"

Sometimes I'd see her walking around the yard or sitting on top of the backyard fence. This was a substantial "fort" type fence which is 6' tall timbers supported by a log at the top and bottom, the log being wide enough for a cat to sit on.

When she wanted back in, she'd park at the front door and wait. She had such a "majestic" look, sitting on her haunches with her two legs standing proud, brown, white, and tan splotches on her back and face, white chest and legs.

So one day she's gone an inordinately long time, my mother is worried. So |I go out the front door, turn right, then walk the block along Evergreen Street - Our house sat on the corner of Franklin Ave and Evergreen Street and it was three years before I learned the name of the side street - then turned the corner and continued around the block, calling out her name. I've come almost all the way around, I'm thinking she's gone and I've been on a fool's errand.

At the house next door on the left, I can hear mewling, like an animal in pain. Under the car in the neighbor's driveway I find Princess, lying on the ground in obvious pain. I call a cab and the Veterinarian for an emergency appointment.

Turns out her hip is broken, most likely from being hit by a car, and it's come apart from her side. In cats, this isn't a problem; they're so flexible that if it doesn't knit she probably won't even notice. But she requires absolute rest for six weeks.

For the first time, Princess has a litter box, about three feet away from where she lies most of the time, so it won't be too far and her food and water on the other side. Princess didn't mind using a box, I could see her get up painfully, do her business and go lay down.

About five weeks go by and Princess is more-or-less her usual, happy self, and wants to go out. I mean, wants to go out. But, the doc has told us she must heal completely for six weeks before she can go outside again. Well, you can't believe how fast a cat can run for a door when she wants out; eventually someone had to pick her up and hold her whenever someone wants to go in or out. And any time the doorbell rang she's right at the front door, strategically placed for a quick exit. As I said, don't think cats are stupid, she got to realize the doorbell as a sound indicating the front door was going to be opened.

Finally, the 42nd day comes. So, I walk to the door, open it wide, and just stand there. And just like with the antibiotic, Princess makes a beeline out the door and she's gone, frisky as can be, doesn't even notice her previous injuries.

She stays out quite a while, knowing my mother would worry I go look, and she's just sitting on the back fence, enjoying the sun. Once she gets hungry, I suppose, she comes back to the front door. And all is normal again, she gets to go out any time she wants.

----
Again, I'll wait for someone to ask for more on Princess. Or on Dapper, the cat whose name got changed.
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"Oh, they moved!"

Post by Tdarcos »

Another background story, "My mother the cat person."

Rewind our story several years to the mid 1980s, where we were living on the second floor of a typical "open face" eight-unit apartment that there are tens of thousands in Southern California. 465 Almond Ave, Long Beach CA. Apt 6, second one at the top of the stairs. It still looks the same now as it did then if you look for it and use Street View in Google Earth.

My mother liked dogs, which is why were were living there as they allowed them. Then my mother decided to feed the neighborhood cats and this attracted them. Lots of them. Some, such as Bent Ear, hung out in the closet of one of the bedrooms, pumping out litters of kittens.

At least you could say this; the place was clean. All the cats went outside to do their business, sometimes by jumping on the bed, jumping up to the window, then across the roughly 3 foot gap (sidewalk behind the building that leads to the utility meters) to the fence between our building and next door.

When I say "all the cats" I mean it literally. When my mother would feed the neighborhood cats, I mean all of them. Neighbors got to notice at a certain time every afternoon, every neighborhood cat would vanish before returning about an hour later.

During this time I was on a temporary job for a regional paint manufacturer, writing Cobol programs for their Decsystem 20. So I was gone most of the day. Unitil one day I go out to the kitchen during feeding time, and I notice the cats. And cats. And more cats. Maybe 15, 20, I don't know. I looked at the floor, and it was paved solid with cats; you literally could not see one square inch of the floor.

I looked at the writhing mass of feeding felines, and I said, "We got too many fuckin' cats!" This was not an overstatement. One time I picked up a handful, held them in my arms, and said, "Some people have a cat of nine tails, I'm holding nine cats with tails!" It didn't even seem to make a dent in all the cats hanging around,

In the mean time, the people directly below in Apartment 2 got evicted, probably for non-payment of rent. So, anyway, me and my brother are fairly large me, we make quite a bit of noise both walking around the apartment and up and down the stairs. So, once it had been cleaned out, the landlord kind of, shall we say very strongly suggested that we move downstairs to reduce noise problems.

Okay, no problem, put in a change of address, move the electric to the new apartment, and find out that yes, the lower apartment has phone service, just plug the phone in, and discover that General Telephone of California (now part of Verizon) charges $40 to flip two switches or whatever it takes to move the phone line 20 feet.

Well, eventually somebody didn't like us having all these cats. Did they come talk to us or say something? No, they decided to narc on us and call Animal Control.

So, a short time after we were ensconced in the downstairs apartment, a uniformed officer from the City of Long Beach Department of Animal Control, came by to ask us about the people who used to live in the now vacant apartment directly above us.

My brain went whir-cliick as I thought of an answer. I remembered something said by Lazarus Long in Robert A. Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love" about the two best ways to lie: (1) Tell the truth, but not all of it; (2) tell the truth, and maybe all of it, but do it in such a way the person is sure you're lying. In my case, #1 was right. So, I simply said three words:

"Oh, they moved!"

He thanked me and left and we heard nothing again for the rest of the time we were there. It probably helped that shortly after this visit we got rid of most of the cats, keeping Bent Ear, Princess and maybe three or four others until we moved a few years later.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Please, elucidate your thoughts.
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