11. Yummy!

“When I was a teen, I drank a mug full of melted garlic butter for $5 at work.”

12. That’s wild.

“When I was a kid, a neighbor paid me to be “a live scarecrow”in his garden.

My job was to chase the birds and other animals away that might otherwise destroy his garden when he wasn’t home to guard it.”

13. Definitely sad.

“Not really “weird” and more “sad”. I once hugged an infantryman for 40 minutes at a time, once a day for three weeks. I am also male.

I was a psychologist for the British Army for a few years before I changed careers. Usually pretty pedestrian stuff in terms of the kind of psychology assistance you need to give to servicepeople. Usually people with PTSD or other trauma, family problems etc.

Usually you would just talk for 40 minutes at a time, check up on their well being, offer advice, put them in touch with other support programs if needs be. Pretty standard. There was one guy who, for three weeks straight, just came in to have a good cry and hug for a bit without really talking much.

After that he opened up and talked to me (although I already had his referral notes, I knew what had happened to him).

I mean, my job was to talk, but if he wasn’t ready and just wanted to hug and cry until he *was* ready, I wasn’t going to refuse. Dude was in a seriously bad place. In the end he retired and went on to a new career.

I wasn’t given details of where service people went if they retired on mental health grounds, but I was told he had a positive outcome. Unfortunately, all that is is code for “they didn’t commit or harm anyone else”. So fortunately I know he’s (presumably) still alive and hopefully doing well, but I can’t be sure.”