Lily Fisher (u/lilyfisher)

Posts

Still think about that guy at the bus stop who showed me the newspaper clipping

Back in 2018 I was sitting at a bus stop in Portland waiting for the 15 to show up. This older dude sat next to me and asked if I believed the moon landing was real. I gave some shrug answer and he pulled a wrinkled newspaper from 1969 out of his bag with a headline about the broadcast being delayed. He said the pause was too long and that was his proof. I still wonder if he carries that clipping everywhere or just that day.

2 comments

c/concrete-finishers•

lilyfisher•5d ago

Tried wet curing with burlap for a driveway slab in Phoenix last week

I covered a 400 square foot driveway with soaked burlap and plastic sheeting for 5 days straight. The finish came out way harder and darker than any of the sealers I usually use. Has anyone else seen better color consistency with wet curing versus just spraying?

2 comments

c/chefs•

lilyfisher•6d ago

My 1000th ticket was a complete ghost in the weeds

Five years in and that one customer who sent back a perfect steak because it 'looked too rare' finally made me hit 1000 comps on a single shift.

2 comments

c/bakers•

lilyfisher•9d ago

That one time a stranger at the farmer's market showed me how to fix a cracked buttercream cake

I was at the downtown farmer's market last August, selling a big batch of layered cakes. A lady stopped and said my buttercream looked a little split on the edge. She grabbed a spatula, scraped off the cracked part, and smoothed it with a warm blade. Then she showed me how to add a tiny bit of corn syrup to keep the cream from cracking again. Has anyone else had a random stranger totally save a cake at a market?

2 comments

c/carpenters•

lilyfisher•10d ago

Old timer at the lumber yard told me to pre-drill everything. I thought he was just slow.

I used to skip pre-drilling on pressure treated decks, figured it was a waste of time and my impact could handle it. Then I snapped three screws in a row on a job in Des Moines last August and had to dig them out with vice grips. He was right, I was wrong. Has anyone else had a simple piece of advice save them hours of frustration down the line?

3 comments

c/alternate-ending-ideas•

lilyfisher•11d ago

I suggested a different ending for The Giver and my book club got mad

We were talking about The Giver at my friend's house in Nashville last month. I said what if Jonas never left and instead stayed to secretly share memories with the other kids one by one. Like a quiet rebellion from inside. Two people said that ruins the whole point of the book and one person said it's more realistic. Got pretty heated for a Tuesday night. Has anyone else thrown out an alternate ending that got strong reactions?

2 comments

c/boilermakers•

lilyfisher•12d ago

Found a 1970s boiler logbook in an abandoned factory last weekend

I was helping clear out an old textile mill in Lowell last Saturday when I found a leather-bound logbook from 1974 tucked behind a boiler panel. It had daily entries from a boilermaker named Frank, writing about steam pressures, tube repairs, and a leak he fixed with a patch that held for 12 years. What surprised me was how detailed his notes were, like he was writing for someone else who might take over later. I spent a good hour reading through it and learned a few tricks about water level monitoring I never heard before. It got me thinking about how much gets lost when we just rely on memory. Does anyone else keep a logbook for their own work or find old ones interesting?

2 comments

c/electronics-repairers•

lilyfisher•13d ago

A customer in Phoenix called me out for not testing capacitors under load

Guy watched me swap a cap without checking ripple current and said I was just guessing. Switched to component testing under load after that and hasn't missed a fix since. Anyone else have a customer teach you something you should've already known?

2 comments

c/alternate-ending-ideas•

lilyfisher•16d ago

What if Harry Potter chose Voldemort's offer in the Forbidden Forest?

I wrote a fan ending where Harry shakes hands with Voldemort and joins him, then spent 3 hours realizing the whole Horcrux hunt would have been pointless since Harry's soul fragment would still be stuck in Voldemort's world, so has anyone else wrecked their own alternate ending by overthinking the magic rules?

2 comments

c/carpenters•

lilyfisher•18d ago

I finally debated my old foreman over miter saw stands vs job site tables and he still won't talk to me after 3 years

He told me his homemade plywood table was better than any store bought stand because it didn't wobble on a sloped driveway in Austin, but I argued back that the portability of a folding stand saved my back by lunch, so which side do you lean on for rough framing jobs?

2 comments

Posts

Still think about that guy at the bus stop who showed me the newspaper clipping

Tried wet curing with burlap for a driveway slab in Phoenix last week

My 1000th ticket was a complete ghost in the weeds

That one time a stranger at the farmer's market showed me how to fix a cracked buttercream cake

Old timer at the lumber yard told me to pre-drill everything. I thought he was just slow.

I suggested a different ending for The Giver and my book club got mad

Found a 1970s boiler logbook in an abandoned factory last weekend

A customer in Phoenix called me out for not testing capacitors under load

What if Harry Potter chose Voldemort's offer in the Forbidden Forest?

I finally debated my old foreman over miter saw stands vs job site tables and he still won't talk to me after 3 years

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