When people talk about time travelling to the past, they worry about changing the present by doing something small in the past. People rarely talk about changing the future by doing something small now in the present.
Brazil mourns Chapecoense crash victims at packed stadium wake
On a rainy Saturday that only accentuated the grief, 20,000 people filled a tiny stadium under umbrellas and plastic ponchos to say goodbye to members of the Chapecoense football club who died in a plane crash.
Roughly 100,000 people took part in the ceremony to pay tribute to the victims of this week’s tragic plane crash in Colombia on Saturday. As the team’s stadium – the Arena Condá – has just 19,000 seats, two giant screens were set up outside for the crowds in the surroundings. The ceremony happened under torrential rains. “God also cries. That’s why it is raining so much today,” said Luciano Buligon, Chapecó’s mayor.
A message of Brazilian player Neymar was shown during the ceremony (see video above). “From here in Barcelona: My condolences. My prayers go to the families and the warriors that are gone. ‘Tamo Junto.’ May God bless and comfort us forever. Vamos Chape!”, said the player of FC Barcelona.
Thousands also lined the roads as the coffins were driven in a procession from the airport to the stadium memorial.
Soldiers wearing berets carried the coffins into the stadium on their shoulders, sloshing through standing water and mud on a field filled with funeral wreaths, club and national flags, and other tributes.
As the ground became wetter the number of coffins brought into the stadium grew as fans paid their respects to the dead. Some 100,000 people took to the streets - half of Chapeco’s population - and around 20.000 packed into the team’s stadium for the tribute.
A floral tribute marked out the centre circle at the home of Chapecoense Real football club, where 10 days ago the team celebrated their progression to the final.
Hundreds of floral tributes were left on the field as the coffins were carried on the pitch one final time.
Fans who could not get into the stadium took any vantage point possible to pay their final respects to the tragic team mates
Brazilian soldiers react during a memorial ceremony with the coffins of the victims of the plane crash in Colombia.
Relatives of the members of the Chapecoense enter the field and hold up cards bearing images of the players who died in the crash.
Fans mourn the loss of the people during the crash and hold each other during their grief.
Fans inside the stadium said their thanks to Colombia for their response to Tuesday’s tragedy near Medellin.
I’m a guy in my 20s and I don’t flirt. I’m not one of those guys who can come up and deliver a pick-up line with a straight face, or ask a girl out. I get way too embarrassed and blushy. For whatever reason, I have this irrational fear that someone should think I’m hitting on them.So I just don’t flirt. EVER.
Anyways, I was staying with my mom for the weekend and she asked me to go get groceries for dinner, as she had just gotten back from work and was exhausted. I was happy to do it as she was buying. No big deal right? WRONG, BUT WHO COULD FORESEE WHAT WAS TO COME?
So I drive to the market, collect the groceries, and pretty soon I’m looking to check out. I get in the only checkout lane available and immediately see that the cashier is very…very pretty. Too pretty for me to handle. I quickly whip around in search of another lane open, but there were none. I gather myself and think,‘YOU CAN DO THIS. DO IT FOR YOUR MOTHER.’
So accepting my fate, I strategize the most plain and standard transaction possible between her and me. ‘Stick to what you know’ I thought to myself.
Before long it was my time to shine. I presented her with my groceries for scanning and proceeded to fumble around with my wallet (this was pretty much the entire plan). All was going extremely well and we were even getting along with enthusiastic dialogue such as (her:) “Did you find everything ok?” and (me:) “Yes”. Then she hit me with a question that, in my calculated strategy, I had forgotten to plan for…
“Do you have an express card with us that you’d like to use?”
“No, but I have a phone number for one” is what I found myself saying. It was an instinctive, reactionary response. I gave her my phone number while still absent-mindedly fiddling with my wallet.
A moment passed.
“…I’m sorry sir, that phone number isn’t coming up in our system…”
My mind clicked. Not my phone number, my mom’s phone number. My mother. My mothers credit card. I was about to present a woman’s credit card after trying to get a discount with a wrong number. ‘This looks really bad’ I thought to myself.
So I turned to her, as casually as humanly possible, and said,“Oh, that’s my cell phone number”
This pause was longer, so long I looked up, and in her face I saw the comprehension. In her mind, I just pulled the smoothest shit in the history of shit. I was the coolest of cool in her eyes: giving her my phone number in the slyest of ways. She started to smile and this is when I realized what I’d done. She looked at me realizing how cool I was and I looked at her realizing how cool she thought I was.
Obviously, like all smooth people, I freaked the fuck out.
“OH, NO, IM SORRY DON’T USE THAT NUMBER, YOU… I HAVE ANOTHER NUMBER, NOT MINE, MY MOMS, I HAVE A MOM.”
I paid for the food and I got outta that store as fast as possible - leaving the cashier in a haze of confusion as I furiously fast walked away - destined never to be smooth again.