That lamp sounds like it's basically a lamp from IKEA, and that's actually the most terrifying part.

Hold on, I gotta push back on this a little. Rehoming a rooster over one bad incident feels like giving up too fast. That rooster was doing his job protecting the flock, and that includes putting himself between you and a real or perceived threat. Kids running around fast and loud can absolutely set off a protective bird, but that doesn't mean he turned mean out of nowhere. A rooster that draws blood through jeans sounds like he was trying to warn you, not attack to kill. A couple weeks of wearing boots and carrying a stick, plus keeping the kids away from him directly, might have solved the problem without shipping him off. Sometimes we expect these animals to act like pets when they are really just wild creatures doing what nature tells them.

The Walking Dead was the perfect example of that. You invested hours watching characters survive just for them to die in a random filler episode with no payoff. It made the whole experience feel hollow, like you were just waiting for the show to remember it had a plot. That trust gets broken and once it's gone, you can't enjoy the good moments because you're always waiting for the drop off.

Oh man, I feel this in my bones. Your dad was blunt but he had a good point.

That line about the sky being personally mad at you, yeah, I felt that. I got turned around on a hike in the Smokies once, not the Hoh, but same kind of deal. I mean, I followed a creek thinking it would loop back to the trail, and it just kept getting narrower and steeper until I was basically crawling through rhododendron bushes. @hayden_martin29 you nailed it with that "questioning my life choices" feeling. By the time I found my way back, my boots were full of water and I had a scratch on my cheek that took two weeks to heal. Idk why we do stuff like that, maybe it's just the stubborn part of our brains that thinks we can outsmart a forest.