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When I was about 20, I was working alone overnight at a gas station and started throwing up like crazy. Couldn't get a hold of the managers (it was a chain, there were several) ended up calling a regional manager and told him he had about 30 mins to get there or I was locking the doors and throwing the keys on the roof. It was 24 hours, so there was only one set of keys.He got there and I just left, I was feeling like death. It was a great job, great pay, and great benefits. As I was walking out he noted I'd need a Dr's note to return to work. I almost went straight to the ER then, so I wouldn't lose my job. But my house was on the way and by the time I got there I simply couldn't drive one more mile. I crawled into my apt, crawled into bed and didn't move again for days. My GF was taking care of me, but all I was doing was drinking NyQuill every time I woke up and passing back out. I had a 103 degree fever for days. Finally my GF talked to my mom, and my mom told her to take me to the ER.They checked me out, gave me IV fluids because I was dehydrated, said I had mono, gave me a RX and sent me home. Next day I was worse, 104 fever, still couldn't eat or drink. So I was on a fourth or fifth day of not being able to hold anything down and with a super high fever. My mom had enough, she came over herself and took me to the hospital. She read those doctors the riot act about them sending me home the day before and insisted they admit me.They did. Then 6 hours later they moved me into an isolation room. People had to wear masks to see me. I was in a wing all by myself. Thought it was a little weird, but I was so out of it didn't really care.They thought I had legionnaires. It only had a 50/50 survival rate the first time you get it, and the test took several days to get results. So they treated me for that. I kept getting worse. Results came back negative. All of a sudden I'm seeing 6 different doctors a day. They are taking blood samples like every hour, and flying them all over the place. Doctors are flying in to take a look at me from all over.They have no idea what's wrong with me. They are starting to think I have some exotic something from working in the gas station. The CDC is getting involved.My organs are shutting down, they don't know why. I'm turning yellow. They tell my family to say their goodbyes. (Only found this out later, no one told me anything at the time. Not that I was awake much.)Since the legionnaires test came back negative they had been trying different types of antibiotics every 6 hours, just to see if anything worked. It wasn't.Finally, they met with my family and asked permission to try an experimental antibiotic that was still in testing. At some point I guess I had either signed my consent over to my parents (don't remember) or they took it away since I was so out of it. But either way, my parents agreed and they tried it out.It was like fire in my veins! I swear it was molten lava! I could taste it in my mouth, and it made me dry heave non-stop (I hadn't eaten anything solid in almost 2 weeks by this time) but within hours I was doing better. In a few days I was fine. I was released a little later.They told me if that hadn't of worked, I was a day or so from dying.They never did figure out what I had. Still don't know. I was told if they ever did figure it out, they'd name it after me.The medical bills almost killed me tho! In the end they comped all the lab test, like 100k, wrote it off to research. All the specialist did the same. In the end all I ended up owing was for the room and meds. Was like 30k. Insurance covered all but like 3k. I lucked out. All around.So that's how I almost died.That experimental antibiotic never got approved. The effects were too severe I was told, it was too aggressive. But lucky me, it saved my life. Right place, right time.H. Kaplan has reminded me that this wasn't my first time almost dying. And that has reminded me of another time too.I don't remember this well, I was 5 or 6. I got really really sick and my parents got really worried so they rushed me to the ER. I don't remember this at all, but once there they started questioning me, and found out I had been eating onions out of my neighbors garden with his daughter. My best friend back then. I remember eating the onions, green onions straight out of the ground.They called that neighbour, and found he had sprayed his garden with pesticide that morning. They had him go read them what it was, and were able to treat me. I turned out fine.But my parents told me that if they hadn't of been able to find out exactly what was making me sick, they might have not been able to treat me.All I remember is the onions…. They make me sick to this day, if raw.This one was in the papers, if not my part of it.So I was about 7, and me and my mom are in town running errands. My mom says “We need to get the car washed, and get you a hair cut. Which do you want to do first?”For the first time, and last time, in all my childhood, I chose to do the thing I hated first. And save the thing I loved for last.I hated HATED haircuts. I was a hyper child and they always cut my ears. Always!!! But I loved the carwash! It was one of those that they took your car, ran it down a track, and you could watch from the windows inside. They had these steps under the windows so kids could watch. It was so much fun.The hair place was one business over from the car wash, and for whatever reason that one day I chose to do that first.We get there, and my mom is going to go first. She hands me a quarter or two to go get a pop from the soda machine in the back. It's one of those old time soda coolers where the glass bottles are hanging from rails in a chest like cooler.Just like this:Google imageAnyway, it's in this hallway that's got no windows and covered in mirrors. Little one foot by one foot mirrors. I put my money in, and I'm sliding the bottle out when all of a sudden it seems to me the earth titled 90 degrees. All the mirrors come crashing down shattering on the floor and I'm thrown to the ground. I run back out to the main room, soda forgotten, screamimg “I didn't do it! I didn't do it!”My mom's in the chair, crying. Everyone's crying. All the floor to ceiling windows are gone. Glass is everywhere. She just holds me crying. A few minutes later some police men show up and herd everyone out of there and down behind this retaining wall. They stay with us and keep everyone down.After awhile they allow us to leave. To get back home we have to drive back by the carwash. It's gone. And I mean gone. Nothing is left standing. Nothing, it's leveled.If I had chosen the carwash first, there is no doubt we would have been in there. I would have been standing at one of the windows watching.Propane Gas Blast at a Carwash Kills Employee; 15 Others Hurt

My father is a narcissist — I don’t know if he has been formally diagnosed with NPD, but he was diagnosed with Bipolar I in 2019, when he experienced a full-blown mania for the first time at the age of 60 and drove his truck into a lake. This was the first time my dad was assessed by a psychiatrist, and I believe that if not for the mania, he would have been diagnosed with NPD. However, he was treated and medicated for Bipolar I because he was grandiose and manic. He attended group therapy for people with mood disorders, but dropped out after a few months after he decided that therapy wasn’t for him.NPD and Bipolar Disorder both run in my dad’s side of the family. Three brothers — my dad is the oldest, and he has always competed with the youngest brother for his narcissistic mother’s attention. The youngest is highly narcissistic — there was a running joke in the family about the rotation of girlfriends he would bring to family dinners. The middle brother, also with late-blooming Bipolar I, is the black sheep of the family, a meek and humble man compared to his brothers — he married a woman with narcissistic traits.So, it wasn’t enough to be raised by a narcissist, but I’ve been surrounded by them my whole life. I am an only child, due to my mother’s birthing difficulties and was regarded by my parents as a “miracle baby.” My parents brought me up in an isolated rural area, so what I did and who I hung out with was very much restricted by my dad’s willingness to drive me somewhere.My childhood was relatively boring, for the most-part. My parents both idealized me and saw me as their Golden Child. My teachers told them I was gifted and my parents did everything they could to make my childhood easy, so that I could focus on schoolwork and excel. I learned that I could get away with a lot as long as I did well in school.When I was young, I felt like my dad treated me more like a son, the way he forced me to take part in sports and be athletic like him, even when I complained that I wasn’t interested in it a lot of the time. I hated teams sports because I was picked on, but I played softball for years. I hated going to practices and tournaments. I got by only because I was a good pitcher — my dad even hired a private coach for me. As if this was how I was going to help make him shine. I wasn’t even interested in playing softball after high school.He always pushed me hard, to keep up with him. Never took it easy on me. I hated playing games with him because he would win every time. When we went skiing or cycling, he would always take me down challenging terrain, even when I wasn’t confident I could follow him. It didn’t matter if I was afraid. He’d be down the slope and I wouldn’t have a choice but to follow. Sometimes I got hurt trying to keep up with him and that was just part of the learning process. Whenever I got hurt, he didn’t want to be held accountable by my mom for putting me in risky situations, so he taught me to lie about my injuries. One time I got a concussion from skiing off a cliff and my mom never found out about it. He didn’t want to upset her so we just pretended like my injuries didn’t happen.As an accountant, Math was a skill my dad valued highly. Up until grade 8, I excelled at math, but in grade 9, there was a test to pass in order to be put into Honours Math, and I didn’t make the cut, which my dad saw as unacceptable. He pulled every string he could so that I could retake this test and pass and take Honours Math. With my dad’s help, I passed and made Honours — and I hated it. I hated being forced to compete with other math nerds, kids who actually liked math, something I wasn’t remotely interested in. But I did it because it was what my dad wanted.Really, these were most of the worst things that happened to me so I didn’t see my childhood as that bad. My dad snapped one time and told me to stop acting like a bitch, once. Mostly, he was level and reasonable with me and he called me out on my bad behaviour when I started acting out and upsetting my mother.As I got older, we bonded over alcohol and weed, and he used my approval to justify his bad behaviour. My dad would frequently drive intoxicated, with me in the vehicle, and he never even tried to hide it from me. Sometimes he would let me in on a secret that he had beer in his coffee mug, and then I would have to cover for him so my mom didn’t find out. He subtly manipulated me in this way for years before I realized what he was doing and it made me sick.The worst of what he did and of what I witnessed was what he did to my mom. Every day, he would raise his voice, berate her for something, complain about something she did, swear about this and that, criticize her for not doing things the right way or for taking too long to get ready to leave the house. Whenever my dad was home, there was tension in the air. He was never physically violent, so as a child and even as a teenager, I didn’t understand his behaviour as abusive. I normalized it and accepted it as a healthy way to vent anger. I mirrored his tone sometimes and threw similar tantrums. When I idealized my dad, I often took his side and agreed that my mom was being over-sensitive or too emotional. I was often quite harsh with her as a teen as result. When I realized how wrong I was about my dad, I felt awful for the way I treated my mother growing up. Sometimes my dad would rain affection on my mom, maybe when he felt bad, but she never returned it. I never understood my parents’ relationship and didn’t believe they were in love. I felt like they stayed together out of necessity, because my mom was physically disabled and couldn’t work, and my dad needed someone to do the housework.The scariest experiences I had with my dad were always in the car. He had terrible road rage, and if my mom was also in the car, there would be arguments AND road rage, while my mom panicked about my dad’s reckless driving, and my dad yelled at her to relax, and drive even more recklessly to prove a point. He got lots of tickets, but he also dodged lots of tickets with a radar detector and also by smooth-talking cops. He was always good at dodging consequences. I survived these car rides with headphones, books, and dissociation.I’ve written about some of my dad’s other classic moments in other answers which I don’t have the energy to recap now. This is just a sampling of what it was like growing up with him.For years, I invalidated the emotional trauma of growing up in a narcissistic household, because physically, I was well looked after and felt I honestly had it pretty good compared to others. However, the emotional and psychological damage resulted in me developing Borderline Personality Disorder and CPTSD. I was never allowed to consider that there was something mentally wrong with me. As long as I did well in school, there was no reason to doubt. My dad didn’t believe in “shrinks” and emotions simply weren’t worth discussing. My mental health went untreated for 27 years because my dad convinced me there was nothing wrong with me and I didn’t deserve to get help.Since my dad’s stay in the hospital, his attitudes have changed towards mental illness. He is accepting of my diagnosis and the fact that I need medication, but he hasn’t accepted responsibility for the trauma he caused and I doubt he ever will. As long as he stays on his medication, he has his anger issues mostly under control and he has mostly stopped drinking. I don’t hold out that he’ll return to therapy someday, but I hope that the worst of his behaviours are behind us.My parents are still married and we are in regular contact.

What was socially accepted in the Middle Ages that today would be perceived as terrible? The fairy tale images of luxurious castles, sumptuous banquets, noble knights rescuing fair princesses, idyllic country life~~all that is fiction belied by the reality of a time when the filth and hygiene conditions were not as easily surmounted as in modern times. The fact that the population was living in hamlets and villages surrounding the castles only made matters worse. There were no sewers nor concept of waste; food leftovers would mix with human feces on the floor; animals carrying virus and bacteria would sleep in the same space as the people caring for them.Here are some of the very negative social conditions of the Middle Ages that would never fit in with modern life:Wives (and women in general) had very few rights whatsoeverEven though rape was considered a crime in most parts of medieval Europe, the particular laws governing sex were different when you were married. A wife could not legally refuse her husband’s sexual demands, but a husband couldn’t refuse his wife’s advances either. The popular belief was that women were always longing for sex, and that it was bad for their health not to have intercourse regularly. To make a long story short, women were seen (and used) as strictly for the purposes of sex, bearing and raising children, cooking and cleaning. Medieval females obtained a status of married women very early. At the age of 12 a girl reached the age of majority and was entitled to marry. Among the royals and the nobility, the choice of her future husband based entirely on her parents’ will. While the life of a peasant was undeniably more difficult, those that were lower on the social ladder had much more freedom to love and court whomever they chose. Poor peasant women generally did not marry until much later than those of the upper class; as young children they began working to help provide for their families, and marriage would deprive poor peasants of a much needed worker. Love was a much more public affair in the lower classes. When a peasant woman did reach an appropriate age for courtship, she would most likely court a young man from the same village and would do so publicly. The couple would usually meet at markets and festivals, and according to recorded ballads the woman would be wooed with gifts of food, money and clothes. It was the poor, actually, who could marry for love.The Marriage, 1350s, miniature on vellum by Niccolò da Bologna, 1350s, National Gallery of Art, Washington DCRoyal and noble women couldn’t even pick their partnersMarriage for the rich and royals in medieval times was very different from what we would define as “marriage” today. For one, royal and noble women didn’t have a choice in terms of who they married and sometimes didn’t even know the man before they wed. Simply put, marriage wasn’t based on love and romance for the upper classes.Some wife-beating was toleratedSociety as a whole approved of a certain degree of violence shown towards women. In a Medieval theological manual, a man is given permission to "castigate his wife and beat her for correction..." The Christian church vacillates between support of wife beating and encouraging husbands to be more compassionate and using moderation in their punishments of their wives. A medieval Christian scholar, Friar Cherbubino of Siena, writes Rules of Marriage, in support of wife beating. In 1405, Christine de Pizan writes in The Book of the City of Ladies about women's basic humanity and better education and treatment in marriage for women. She accuses men of cruelty and beating their wives. In 1427, Bernard of Siena suggests that his male parishioners "exercise a little restraint and treat their wives with as much mercy as they would their hens and pigs." However, the most severe cases were taken to court, and the provincial laws show that a man was not allowed to beat his wife to the extent that she was badly hurt or died. On the other hand, the accidental death of a battered wife did not necessarily result in execution as it would if the victim had been a man. There are indications that the judicial system had a similar attitude towards violence against women as the church, in that a man was virtually obliged to punish his female family members. Even though we have little knowledge of how these laws were applied, it is apparent that women and men were treated somewhat differently.Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève le Roman de la Rose, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 14th century:People did not have last namesImagine how confusing it would be to have only one name. In the medieval period, most people had only a given name such as William. To help differentiate, some were known by their city of origin or a site where they dwelt and thus William became William of Nottingham, while others were identified as William of the forest or William from the meadow. Another way for someone to differentiate himself was to add his profession or attribute after his name and thus William became William the Butcher, for instance. Other names were patronymic, such William John’s son = Johnson. Many were nicknames, such as William the short or a very pious man would be labelled William the priest or monk.Some land workers belonged to the lord in Medieval EnglandThe people we tend to refer to as medieval peasants wouldn't have recognised the word "peasant" at all: it was a 15th century French term. Land workers were actually quite hierarchical and split into distinct groups. The 1086 Domesday Book states that the English countryside comprised 12% freemen, 35% serfs or villeins, 30% cotters and bordars and 9% slaves. Villeins, cottars, bordars and slaves lived in a perpetual state of bondage and effectively belonged to the lord of the manor: they couldn't leave his service- or even get married- without permission.Reeve and serfs in feudal England, c. 1310. From Wikimedia Commons <Serfdom | Wikiwand&gt:The penitentiary system was literally barbaricThe penitentiary system of the age wasn’t as civilized and humane as the one today in most parts of the West. If you ended up losing your freedom, hell was waiting for you. Jails were first dungeons in castles or castle towers such as the Tower of London. A prisoner wasn’t fed and didn’t get water every day and of course there were no social activities or sunshine. Most prisoners were in irons in their cells to prevent escape attempts and many of them either died from starvation or disease. Torture was a common procedure. One gruesome device was the choke pear, a metal contraption that torturers would insert into a victim’s orifices and then expand. Rats were also used in a gruesome procedure. A starving rat would be placed on the victim’s belly and covered with a hot metal container. The rat would be forced to escape the only way it could: by burrowing into and then through the victim’s stomach. Two medieval torture methods used simple devices and the force of gravity to inflict unimaginable pain. The Judas Cradle was a pyramid-shaped spike that a victim would be forced to sit on, so that it penetrated their anus. The Spanish Donkey used a similar principle, but victims would straddle a wedge-shaped board with a pointed top. Torturers could strap weights to the feet of their victims to increase the suffering.Judas Cradle, via http://pinterest.com:Cruel and unusual punishmentIf you were sentenced to death in Medieval Europe, you’d probably hope for something quick like a beheading. Certain execution styles were designed to make death as long and painful as possible. Drawing and quartering, for example, required the victim to be dragged behind a horse, hanged until almost but not quite dead, disemboweled while still alive, and then pulled or cut into four pieces.Wholesale massacres of scapegoatsAs the bubonic plague swept through Europe in the 1340s, no one knew what caused it or how to cure it. Some thought it was a punishment sent from God, and thousands of Jews were murdered as heretics in an effort to get back on God’s good side.The Sixth Plague of Egypt, Moses is throwing handfuls of soot into the air; the boils resemble bubonic plague symptoms: Miniature out of the Toggenburg Bible (Switzerland) of 1411:Sending children as missionaries into a war zoneOf all the harebrained schemes in the Middle Ages, it’s hard to beat the Children’s Crusade. Staged in 1212, it involved sending children to the Holy Land to convert the Muslim population peacefully. According to accounts, the children only made it as far as Italy before merchants promising to take them to their destination instead sold the kids into slavery.People with mental issues were treated like dirtHaving mental issues in the Middle Ages was a real problem. Mental disorders were seen as a sign of demonic possession, moral failing, or sin. Beatings were administered as punishment to the mentally ill who acted up for the disturbances their behavior caused and as a means of “teaching” individuals out of their illnesses. Others who were considered dangerous were flogged out of town, thrown in jail, or executed for being possessed by the devil. Treatments included exorcisms, whipping, and trepanning—drilling a hole in the patient’s head to let the demons out. That’s using your head! Happy times!Detail of The Extraction of the Stone of Madness, a painting by Hieronymus Bosch depicting trepanation (c.1488–1516):Using cemeteries as social gathering placesWhere do people go for fun in this town? Try the cemetery! in Paris In the Middle Ages, cemeteries could be the social hub of the community, hosting theater performances, local elections, trials, and lots more. These spaces were essentially the equivalent of a modern day public square or park with all of the interactions that took place in and around its grounds. They were also a place of business. Merchants would display their wares on top of gravestones or in the covered walkway underneath the arcaded cloisters when there wasn’t enough space in the designated market area. Shops in cemeteries were exempt from taxes, and prostitutes would ply their trade among the tombstones.Urine used for washing and drinkingUrine is another sample one of the all-curing substances, used to treat all kinds of health problems throughout history. Especially amongst the nobility, face washing and exfoliations were done with urine. This bodily fluid was believed to eliminate skin impurities and to be even more effective when warm. If we compare it to now, this practice is gross but not off the mark. Several antiseptic products are made with ammonia, which is found in urine. Plague infected people and thus, they believed that bathing in urine few times a day, would help to relieve the terrible symptoms of the disease. A glass or two of the liquid was also recommendable. During the years of Black Death, clean, uninfected, urine was collected and given or sold to the people in need. One of the craziest stories comes from an Italian physician, Leonardo Fioravanti, who used his urine to save a soldier’s life after his nose was cut off in a fight. Fioravanti, thinking quickly, picked the man’s severed nose up off the ground, dusted off some sand, and urinated on it. The doctor, incredibly, was able to sew and reattach the urine-soaked nose back onto the man’s face. And for the rest of his life, the man could smell through that nose—whether he wanted to or not.Men wore corsets and other feminine clothesManly fellows would have hated the way men dressed in medieval times. By the early 1400s all the fashionable young noblemen wore tights and corsets in a vain attempt to get the leanest possible waist.The Competition in Sittacene and the Placating of Sisigambis (detail) in Book of the Deeds of Alexander the Great, illuminations attributed to the Master of the Jardin de vertueuse consolation, about 1470–75:Male Fashion Showed Off The BulgeLeaving something to the imagination fell out of fashion sometime around the 14th century. The men of England started getting into a new type of clothing—and it wasn’t much different from going out with nothing on at all. The hot new look for the 1300s was a doublet called a courtpiece, a tiny little piece of cloth that only drooped down two inches below the belt. From the waist down, they’d be wearing nothing but their undergarments, which, in those times, meant wearing the tightest, thinnest leggings physically possible, customized to make the bulge between your legs as visible as possible. As time went on, the fashion just got weirder. Instead of merely showing off what God gave them, men started wearing codpieces with padded crotch areas, designed to make them look as big as possible. Knights, by the 16th century, were even wearing them into battle. A suit of armor would come equipped with a massive, exaggerated metal codpiece that jammed out from between their legs. More often than not, they were even custom-designed to be pointing out. They didn’t serve any actual military purpose except, perhaps, to let the enemy know: You can knock me down, but I’ll still be erect.Armor of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (1549), Metropolitan Museum of Art:Hay floorsThe floor of the poorest homes was covered with straw. People believed that stacking hay would keep things clean and comfortable. Yet it proved to be better at keeping the waste of mice and pests. The smell would become so unbearable that hay would be changed every year.Medieval cuisine was generally unhealthyEarly medieval food was basic and the ingredients were homegrown. The masses ate a lot of bread, poor-quality meat (mostly pork) that was rich in fat, while there was a serious lack of fruits and vegetables.The vast majority of people, even children, drank alcohol regularlyWater was rarely drunk in medieval times due to the difficulties in obtaining clean water. If water had to be drunk, spring water was preferred, as it was less likely to cause disease than river water. Water was also believed to be bad for digestion, and for all these reasons people consumed large portions of wine, beer, cider, ale, etc.,Medicine was based mostly on superstitionA medical diagnosis during medieval times involved astrology and other wild theories that today would sound utterly crazy. For example, bloodletting was one of the most widely accepted and respected methods of treatment, since most physicians believed the body would get rid of every disease or illness if the “bad blood” was removed from the system.13th century illustration of bloodletting:Doctors Spread Dung On Expecting MothersIn the medieval times, doctors didn’t really have a lot of ideas on how to keep an expecting mother from dying. Pretty well the only thing they knew how to do was to rely on divine intervention—so that’s exactly what they did. Monks and midwives would sit by a pregnant woman and pray, calling on the child to come out “without dying, and without the death of your mother.” Or else they would rely on magic. Sometimes, they’d feed a woman vinegar and sugar and cover her in eagle’s dung, kind of just hoping that eagle poop might be something that keeps women alive.Aborted Fetuses Were Used As A ContraceptiveWomen who needed contraceptives or an abortion could visit women who called themselves sorceresses—but these women didn’t exactly sell condoms and birth control pills. The contraceptives these women sold were incredibly disturbing. They made magical amulets that were supposed to keep a woman from getting pregnant. Inside each one was a pair of weasel’s testicles, a child’s tooth, and a severed finger cut from an aborted fetus. They sold love potions too, which were pretty much the same thing. Their love potions contained extracts of the purest essences of—you guessed it—aborted babies. Apparently, their customers would drink these.Public ToiletsRomans excelled at constructing aqueducts, canals, and bathrooms that together would create an effective sewage system for the time. However, this practice was forgotten during the dark ages of Europe. Privileged folk would have a common pit with stone toilets. But eventually the water would get stuck, causing pests, vermin, and a stench so bad that it would end up being shut down. The rest of the people would go pee or poop just about anywhere on the street or their home. When they were finished, they'd cover it with dirt, hay, or grass. The peasantry often used a cesspit for their own waste, which might then be taken and spread on the fields as a fertiliser.Hygienic practices without toilet paperDespite a primitive version of toilet paper already being used in China during the first centuries of our current era, medieval people would use their hand, some tree leaves, sticks and sphagnum moss to wipe themselves. This led to the spreading of intestinal diseases if the hands were not washed properly.Eating with one’s handsMost people did not have forks, although spoons were common. This led to a practice of washing one’s hands before and after meals, despite a fallacious belief that medieval personal cleanliness was non-existent. However, during the meal people would wipe their hands on the tablecloth runner (as people were still doing in England in the eighteenth century). Louis XIV was still eating with his hands. Forks were not unknown in Europe. The personal table fork was most likely invented in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, where they were in common use by the 4th century. At an imperial banquet in 972,Theophano Sklereina, the Byzantine wife of Holy Roman Emperor Otto II, nonchalantly produced one, astonishing her Western guests. Because pasta had become more common in Italian eating habits, the fork soon displaced the long wooden spike used for eating the pasta. By the 14th century the table fork had become commonplace in Italy. By the 16th century, forks had been adopted by Portugal, Spain and somewhat in France. The rest of Europe did not adopt the fork until the 18th century as it was viewed as an unmanly Italian delicacy.Public bathrooms, balnea, were constructed in many placesDespite the generally held myth that medieval people avoided bathing, they were in fact very scrupulous in washing themselves. At first the public baths were open to people of both sexes and of all ages, who cleansed themselves in big tubs in the nude. Later, they appear more like brothels. It appears that in most of these facilities there were working women “available” not only to cut hair and shave beards, but also to services “extra” to compensate with a few deniers.Watriquet de Couvins, Dits. V.1300-1400. Manuscrit français. Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms-3525 réserve.Medieval Public bathouse in Burgundy. Men and women together wash, the richest eat while bathing, Faits et Dits mémorables de Maxime Valère (c.1470-1480) Staatsbibliothek de Berlin:Criminal animalsUnder medieval law, animals could be tried and sentenced for crimes, as if they were people. There are records of farm animals being tried for injuring or killing people. Some mice were publicly tried for stealing part of the harvest and in another case a swarm of locusts was convicted of eating crops. They didn't even bother to show up in court to defend themselves. Stupid locusts. Not a nice time or place to be for animals or the people who love them.Drolerie from a medieval manuscript showing killer rabbits: Bréviaire de Renaud de Bar (1302-1304), fol.-89r-108r, Bibliothèque de Verdun:10 Truly Disgusting Facts About Life In Medieval England - Listverse25 Reasons You'll Be Glad You Don't Live In Medieval Times7 Habits From The Middle Ages That Are Sure To Gross You Out42 Disturbing Facts About the Dark History of Medieval Europehttps://digitalcommons.bard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1145&context=senproj_s2017