Coworker: Here, Let Me Help You With That

Coworker: Here, let me help you with that

Me: No thanks, I got it

Coworker: But it's heavy; Let me help

Me: I've been carrying card tables since I was 7; my first job had me moving/stocking furniture from a warehouse to a storefront. A maybe 5 pound skinny-table isn't that heavy

Callback to my senior year of high school when I went to compete in Shakespeare Comp. (I placed 13/20 in the chorus section. The song I chose is called In Darkness Let Me Dwell)

I am a very superstitious person and everyone knows this. One such superstition is about Shakespeare's Scottish Play.

For those who don't know, the basics of it are as follows: Shakespeare used an actual incantation in the play. The local witches didn't like this, so they cursed the show, causing major mishaps during any production. People have died while in a cast for it, or they've been injured. I read about where someone swapped the prop knife for a real one and one of the actors got stabbed.

Anyway, a lot of people (myself included) believe that the curse runs so deep that the very name of the play activates it. When said in any context outside of the actual show, bad things happen. It's why most people refer to it as The Scottish Play (it takes place in Scotland) instead of by it's actual name.

There are a few ways to put a hold on the curse, but people who don't believe in it don't like them because "they make me look ridiculous".

It's especially bad if the play's name is said in a theatre.

So! Cursed play, Shakespeare Comp., I'm performing on the second day. It was on a college campus, but the entire campus had been turned into various theatres for the competition's purposes.

My class is sitting in the main building, me getting ready to go perform and the others waiting around to go watch a play. (They watched one while I was performing because I was only allowed 2 audience, but I got to watch Pirates of Penzance with them) One of my classmates doesn't believe in the curse, but he is well aware that I am. Just as I'm ready to get in costume, he says the name of The Scottish Play. I turned on him and very kindly asked him to go undo the curse because I could not afford to be cursed by proxy. He refused. I went to perform.

I met up with everyone afterwards and we went to watch Pirates of Penzance (a very good musical, very funny) before heading back to the main building to get on the bus that would take us back to the hotel.

There was a drop off in front of the main building, barely a foot, that everyone was jumping off because the stairs/ramp were on the other side of the wall and no one really wanted to go that far. I was at the back of the group in costume - a wedding dress and character shows, don't ask - so I was the last one to jump down.

My friend knows I fully blame him for what happens next and that I'm only slightly joking. I still don't forgive him.

The heel of my shoe caught the seam where the cement ends and the patch for the tree starts. My ankle went right (towards the tree) and the rest of me went left (towards the bench). My friend, Rigs, heard me fall and came back to help. Another friend, Ris, and the VP on the trip with us both came back as well. Ris went back to the group and got our teacher and another friend, Ken. I was in pain and feeling crowded, so the only person I would let stay with me was Ken, though the VP had to stay. The others went ahead and the bus came around because I couldn't walk.

When we got back to the hotel, I was the last off, but, again, putting weight on my right ankle was not gonna happen, so Ken's boyfriend princess carried me into the hotel. When we got to our floor, they got the rolly chair from the room I was in and that's how I got back.

Changing outta the wedding dress was a pain because I don't like changing around people, so I didn't let anyone help me. (Dressing rooms are different) (And I had to change my bra. I don't care how much I trust the three I was rooming with, I was not about to be tits out in front of any of them)

My teacher's wife (who was with us) bought an ankle brace while the VP bought some crutches. I went to the doctor's the day after we got back (it was a three day trip) and I was told that if it had been a drop from any higher or if there had been even the slightest bit more weight in it, my ankle bone would've fractured or broken.

I had to wear a boot for two months, and I wore the ankle brace whenever I had to perform, made the NYC trip (for choir) hell. It still hurts from time to time, though it's been about two years, give or take a few months.

Anyway, that's the story of how I almost broke my ankle.

Also, I saw another guy on crutches the next day. I asked him what happened and he said that his friend had said the name of the Scottish Play, too.

The people have spoken!

Secret third option it is

For Enough Caffeine to Kill an Elephant

This will impact the direction of the story, although you won't see how until much later (if you even realize it at all)

Please reblog so that I can see how many want what fate

(watching Arrow)

Berry is such a bean! I love him

Can I just have a billionaire's credit card for a day? Please?

I promise I won't do anything malicious with it! I just need to get food and a car and a house, a few cats, a cargo trailer, and a vacation

Let's make it even worse:

Word of mouth gets the news of the one Wayne who no one can hold for longer than two hours, the same one that somehow messes up all the equipment, all the way to Arkham Asylum. The guards like to gossip and the Rogues have nothing to do but listen and plan.

The Joker (or whoever you want, but I think he'd be the most traumatizing, all things considered) makes up a plan for his next escape and passes it to his leak in the guards so that his goons can start getting things ready. When he breaks out, he makes sure Scarecrow and Killer Croc (and maybe Firefly?) get out so they can run distraction while he plans for something bigger.

In the month between his breakout and launching his plan, he takes all of the research and recon his goons have done and gets what he knows he'll need. Then, three days before the month's end, he calls in the ransom.

The catch is that all of the equipment is ghost proof. It's all made to be able to catch even a glimpse of a ghost, let alone hold one in place.

And, because The Joked wants everyone to know that he was the one who succeeded where everyone else failed, he records everything.

The first day Joker has Danny, he makes a video and sends it to random people. It doesn't get pinged for the Bats because it's been a year now of Wolf Cries about a kid they've never seen in the hands of anyone who claims to hold him.

The second day, Joker makes another video, torturing Danny. He sends it to more people, different than the first day. Still, no one comes for the kid.

Danny's losing hope. Weren't the vigilantes supposed to help people in this situation? Sure, he's been fine every other time, but the Bats and still checked the minute the ransom had been released!

Joker finds the whole thing both very funny and slightly frustrating.

On the third day, Danny is unconscious during the whole video, blood loss having knocked him out. The Joker likes an audience- likes to perform, so he hijacks all of Gotham's radio waves and broadcasts his third video to everyone. He tells Batsy that he's disappointed that he would leave yet another child alone at the mercy of The Joker.

From then, it's a frantic race against time to find Danny and save him. They don't know what the Joker will do, but he keeps mentioning who he was the one who figured out that the kid's a meta, that he was the one to keep the kid when everyone else who had tried had failed, that he was gonna make the kid laugh.

Danny gets taken as hostage mistaken for a Batfamily member.

The criminals keep trying to have evidence of any sort for the Wayne’s but they keep getting tech issues and video/photo corruption any time they try to have photographic proof of their hostage.