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Ultimate thrift shop find: Kitty accidentally gets 'donated' while hiding in a recliner

cat thrift store, cat recliner, missing cat

Images from Denver Animal Shelter's Facebook page.

Imagine rummaging through secondhand finds in your local thrift store, only to find that some items include a bonus feline at no extra charge.

Montequlla the orange tabby had somehow not gotten the memo that he and his family were moving. As they dropped off furniture, including a big recliner chair, to the Denver Arc Thrift Store on New Year’s Eve, they had no idea that poor little Montequlla was tucked away inside.

Luckily, the staff began to notice the chair meowing.

Though the family had already left, the store called Denver Animal Protection to make a report.

Jenna Humphreys, the DAP officer who responded to the call, told the Denver Channel:

"Sure enough, there's a recliner out front, and there's a little orange tabby stuck inside. Very friendly, couldn't get out. They said that they had noticed the meowing shortly after somebody had dropped it off."

Officer Humphreys scanned Montequlla’s microchip and tried to call his owners, to no avail. According to the Denver Animal Shelter, the microchip had not been updated.

A friendly reminder to keep your microchips updated, pet owners!

Meanwhile, Montequlla’s family were back home, frantically searching for their beloved pet. When they eventually realized he might have accidentally become a furniture stowaway, they immediately called the thrift store.

The stress of moving can often cause cats to hide. They are notoriously averse to change and try their best to escape the chaos in favor of something familiar. Fortunately there are ways to help soothe your anxious kitty into the unknown.

While we’re on the subject, recliners can pose a huge risk to cats. There are several horror stories out there, and I won’t punish our readers by going into detail. But suffice it to say, you should always check underneath a chair to avoid serious injury.

But this story does have a happy ending, as Montequlla is very much unharmed and back safely in the arms of his owners, who are “relieved” to be reunited with their furry adventurer, according to Humphreys.

Judging from the look on his face in this photo, this cat will not forget his trip anytime soon.

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Heartbroken wife files for divorce after DNA test reveals 2-year-old son isn't hers

She first became suspicious when her son didn't have blue eyes.

via Liza Summer and Liza Summer

A woman in distress contemplates her future.

It’s pretty common to hear a story about a man whose life is turned upside down after a DNA test proves that he’s not the father of a child he thought was his. However, hearing a mother dealing with the same scenario is rare. That’s why a recent post on Reddit has so many people talking.

A user named ThrowRA-3xbetrayal claims that a DNA test shows her husband is the father of the 2-year-old boy they’ve raised but she isn’t the biological mother.

The story began 6 years ago when the couple tried to conceive but had no luck. The woman then discovered she had a “medical condition” that meant she couldn’t bring a baby to term, which resulted in a partial hysterectomy. The woman, who refers to herself as the family’s “breadwinner” took on multiple jobs to pay a surrogate to have their child.

“I still had my ovaries so we started looking into cost of a surrogate. It is really expensive! My close friend since college who'd already had 2 kids of her own, offered to serve as the surrogate for us to cut down on costs. After two disappointing IVF sessions that did not result in pregnancy, she became pregnant on the 3rd try and carried a boy to term for us,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote.

The couple was over the moon after the birth of the boy and the surrogate became a bigger part of their lives.

dna test, paternity test, maternity test A woman in distress being comforted.via Liza Summer

“My friend and my husband started talking more and I would sometimes come home from my weekend job to find her already hanging out at our house when my husband was there,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote. “I chalked it up as innocuous and it's good for her to know my husband better since she was in the process of hopefully carrying our child for us. I was grateful to have someone helping us have a child.”

But the mother became suspicious because the baby’s eyes were brown when she and her husband’s were blue.

The mother took the child to a doctor’s appointment and she received some devastating news. She discovered that her son’s blood type is B+ while his father’s is O+ and She is A+. The doctor said it was “biologically impossible” for her son to have that blood type given his parents’.

ThrowRA-3xbetrayal thought the fertility clinic made a horrible mistake. She took a DNA test and found that her husband was the boy’s father, but she was not the mother. “Then my husband confessed that he'd slept with my friend (our surrogate) on a few different occasions during our struggle to have her get pregnant with our embryos,” ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote. “This means what I thought was our son conceived by IVF and carried with a surrogate isn't my son at all and was, in fact, conceived the old-fashioned way, which I can't ever do.”

The woman says that the terrible news felt like a triple betrayal. The woman has decided to divorce her husband and wants to give up any parental rights to the child. Her husband, the surrogate and her family all believe that she’s wrong to give up rights to the child that she’s raised for 2 years.

She asked Reddit’s AITA forum to tell her if she was in the wrong and the community responded with overwhelmingly positive support, affirming her tough decision.

dna test, paternity test, maternity test A happy toddler playing on the beach. via Taryn Elliott/Pexels

The most popular commenter said that she should sue the surrogate for taking her money without having her baby. “One of the things that gets me is that you were working extra jobs to pay for the surrogacy which I am assuming included her medical bills and financially supporting her. I would speak to a solicitor about suing her for your money back. She knew that if she was having sex then there was always a chance that the child was biologically hers,” they wrote.

Another affirmed the wife’s decision to leave her husband and to surrender any parental rights. “He cheated... it's not yours. I will absolutely tell you what I tell men posting this. It would be wonderful if you love the kid enough to stay, but if you're in shock and damaged too much to do so, you aren't the A**le for walking away,” they wrote.

Another pointed out that if a man were in this position, no one would judge him for giving up his parental rights. “If these roles were reversed and you were a man saying that his wife had cheated and had another man’s baby, people would have no problem telling him that he’s within his rights to leave and have nothing to do with the child if he doesn’t want to,” the commenter wrote.

If the story that ThrowRA-3xbetrayal wrote tells is true, it’s an incredible tragedy. She fought so hard to have a child only to realize she was living a lie two years later. So, let’s hope she found some solace in the hundreds of people who supported her decision to move on with her life while also sharing some great advice on going forward.

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What are the 'non-obvious' signs someone is super smart? Here are 15 that people notice.

You can tell by the way they interact with people and ideas.

via Associated Press/Wikimedia Commons

Albert Einstein writing on a blackboard.

There are some obvious ways to determine if someone is highly intelligent, like when you see them work out a complex trigonometry problem on a blackboard or when they can easily explain the science behind mRNA vaccines or dark matter.

But there are also those we meet at social gatherings who immediately make us think they are very smart. Usually, it isn’t because they are making a long-winded speech about the fall of the Roman Empire or explaining quarks. We know they are intelligent because of the way they interact with people and ideas.

A Redditor named SomethingAbout2020 asked people on the AskReddit forum to share the “non-obvious signs” that people are intelligent. Many of their responses centered around how highly intelligent people are open-minded, curious and don’t waste their time arguing with others.

Brilliant people are confident in what they know, consider other people’s opinions and readily admit when they don’t know the answer.

Here are 15 of the best responses to the question: What are the non-obvious signs of a smart person?

1. They know what they don't know

"They acknowledge areas where they lack knowledge."

"'Never pretend to know something when you don't' is something I always teach. It covers lying and ignorance."

2. They consider other people's ideas

"They’ll listen to the other's facts and points and take them into account when giving an objection."

"One of the best developers at my last job and manager of a project I was at is an extremely intelligent person. ... One thing I noticed is how he would take everyone's opinion into account. He would take my opinions into consideration even if I'm not a smarter person or know less about development."

3. They make you feel smart

"Talking to a dumb person will make you feel smart. Talking to a smart person will make you feel dumb. Talking to a very smart person will make you feel smart."

4. They see patterns

"Part of the reason smart people throughout history are well-known is because they discovered something new and figured out how to maximize its potential. Darwin was a guy who discovered a bunch of islands with slightly different animals. He then collected and analyzed that data to come up with the theory of evolution, which was largely correct. Einstein’s theory of relativity was based off of his observation that physics acted on everything equally. He figured out that “exceptions” were because of the way high-speed objects interact with the universe’s speed limit (the speed of light). He recognized these exceptions by gathering them and recognizing the pattern between them all, then created his theory of relativity based on that."

5. They consider multiple intelligences

"They realize not everyone is smart the same way. Your 'stupid hick neighbor' might have dropped out of school in 8th grade, but he can drive your car once and tell you exactly what's wrong, then fix it. That a**hole in school that had no empathy for anyone and showed no emotion made that sci-fi sh*t you thought would never be real. Yeah, she's dingy and her worldview is tiny, but she's the best teacher you've ever met and inspires tons of kids to go on and do great things with themselves. There's no one-size-fits-all answer here, really."

People who are super smart are probably familiar with Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. The theory suggests that people have more than just one type of just one type of intelligence, like being good at mathematics. Gardener says there are several, including musical, spatial, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and kinesthetic intelligence. This theory opens the door for people to appreciate different forms of intelligence that may not be of the academic variety.

6. They choose their battles

"When another person is not able to process something and, therefore, sticks with his opinion, after a few tries, the smart person just gives up. There is no use in trying to make someone understand something while they already have an uneducated opinion."

7. They speak to their audience

"They know how to explain concepts on just about any level, tailoring that level to their intended audience, and without coming across as condescending in any way."

"I heard a saying that went 'you have to be an expert to explain it simply.'"

8. They're confident in their intelligence

"Not constantly bragging about their intelligence. If they truly are smart, people can figure that out pretty quickly without them doing anything to show it."

"You generally only brag about things you're insecure about because you seek validation. If you are very comfortable with your intelligence then you may not care if someone misinterprets you and makes you look dumb or something. You have nothing to prove. That's not just for intelligence but for anything."

9. They're funny

"I think the smart people are even more funny than stupid people because smart people understand the complexity behind humor and can make their jokes reflect that."

Scientific studies show that people who are funny, especially those who have a dark sense of humor, are more intelligent than their not-so-funny peers. Researchers argue that it takes cognitive and emotional ability to make people laugh, and analysis shows that funny people have higher verbal and non-verbal intelligence.

10. They mind their own business

"This is a big one. They keep to themselves and deal with their own drama."

11. They aren't necessarily great students

"Believe it or not 'average' or 'above average' students are often smarter than those with straight A’s on the report cards. They do enough to pass well and get what they want but don’t let the academic system control them. Life isn’t all about booksmarts. This shows they are independent thinkers and don’t get wrapped up in designed systems. Not all, but many. Many kids who are forced to always be exceptional in school can end up the worst off and can develop deeper issues."

12. They are good listeners

"They actually listen to who they are talking to as opposed to waiting for their turn to talk."

13. Curiosity

"It really does seem to be one of the single greatest differentiators between average and smart."

14. Comfortable in silence

"Being comfortable enough to allow a moment of complete silence while you think when the natural instinct of most is to immediately start replying tells me that you are, at the very least, mindful of what you want to say."

15. Unattached to their opinions

"Most of the smart people I know are not pushy with their opinions; by contrast, most of the opinionated people I know are flaming morons. I don't know if there's a correlation there, but my anecdotal experience has always been that the more eager someone is to state their opinion, the less that opinion is probably worth."

See what researchers found when they tested a bottle of Fiji Water against a glass of tap water.

Is bottled water REALLY all that bad?

via Free Stock Photos

A young woman drinking bottled water outdoors before exercising.

The Story of Bottled Waterwww.youtube.com

Here are six facts from the video above by The Story of Stuff Project that I'll definitely remember next time I'm tempted to buy bottled water.

1. Bottled water is more expensive than tap water (and not just a little).

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

A Business Insider column noted that two-thirds of the bottled water sold in the United States is in individual 16.9-ounce bottles, which comes out to roughly $7.50 per gallon. That's about 2,000 times higher than the cost of a gallon of tap water.

And in an article in 20 Something Finance, G.E. Miller investigated the cost of bottled versus tap water for himself. He found that he could fill 4,787 20-ounce bottles with tap water for only $2.10! So if he paid $1 for a bottled water, he'd be paying 2,279 times the cost of tap.

2. Bottled water could potentially be of lower quality than tap water.

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

Fiji Water ran an ad campaign that was pretty disparaging about the city of Cleveland. Not a wise move. The city ordered a test of the snooty brand's water and found that Fiji Water contained levels of arsenic that weren't seen in the city's water supply.

How was that possible? Sarah Goodman of the New York Times explains:

" Bottled water manufacturers are not required to disclose as much information as municipal water utilities because of gaps in federal oversight authority. Bottom line: The Food and Drug Administration oversees bottled water, and U.S. EPA is in charge of tap water. FDA lacks the regulatory authority of EPA."

3. The amount of bottled water we buy every week in the U.S. alone could circle the globe five times!

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

That sounded like it just had to be impossible, so we looked into it. Here's what our fact-checkers found:

"According to the video, ' People in the U.S. buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week.' National Geographic says for 2011, bottled water sales hit 9.1 billion gallons (roughly 34 billion liters).

A 'typical' water bottle is a half-liter, so that's about 68 billion bottles per year. Divided by 52 weeks would be a little over 1 billion bottles of water sold per week in the U.S. Because that's based on a smaller 'typical' bottle size, it seems reasonable that a half billion bottles a week could be accurate.

The Earth is about 131.5 million feet around, so yep, half a billion bottles of varying sizes strung end-to-end could circle the Earth five times."

4. Paying for bottled water makes us chumps.

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

Beverage companies have turned bottled water into a multibillion-dollar industry through a concept known as manufactured demand. Bottled water advertisements used a combination of scare tactics (Tap water bad!) and seduction (From the purest mountain streams EVER!) to reel us in.

Well, we now know their claims about the superior quality of bottled water are mostly bogus. And research shows that anywhere from a quarter to 45% of all bottled water comes from the exact same place as your tap water (which, to reiterate, is so cheap it's almost free).

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

5. Bottled water is FILTHY.

It takes oil — lots of it — to make plastic bottles. According to the video, the energy in the amount of oil it takes to make the plastic water bottles sold in the U.S. in one year could fuel a million cars. That's not even counting the oil it takes to ship bottled water around the world.

And once we've guzzled our bottled water, up to 80% of the empty bottles end up in landfills or noxious-gas-producing incinerators. The rest is either recycled or shipped to countries like India where poor people without environmental and labor protections have to deal with it.

On top of all that, the process of manufacturing plastic bottles is polluting public water supplies, which makes it easier for bottled water companies to sell us their expensive product.

6. There are 750 million people around the world who don't have access to clean water.

Photo by H2O for Life.

A child dies every minute from a waterborne disease. And for me, that's the core of what makes bottled water so evil.

The video wraps by comparing buying bottled water to smoking while pregnant. That may sound extreme, but after learning everything I just did about the bottled water industry, I can't disagree.

via The Story of Stuff Project/YouTube

If you're properly disgusted, here are a few ways you can help destroy the bottled water industry:

Don't buy bottled water. Get a reusable water bottle. The savings will add up.
Rally your schools, workplaces, and communities to ban bottled water.
Demand that your city, state, and federal governments invest in better water infrastructure.

This article originally appeared on 5.7.15

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Comedian riffs on how different generations talk about their childhoods and he's not wrong

"Then you've got millennials, who basically had the complete opposite upbringing to Gen X…"

Photo credits: Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash (left and center), Andrea Piacquadio (right)

Memories from childhood vary widely between the generations.

There have always been gaps between generations, though arguably those gaps have grown larger with the accelerated social and technological changes of the past century. Generational differences show up in all kinds of ways, sometimes creating friction or misunderstandings but also providing great material for comedians.

Jake Lambert has created a whole series of videos pointing out some of the differences between how boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z do various things, and they’re hilariously spot on.

One thing that separates one generation from another is the way our upbringings played out, and Lambert’s video “How the different generations talk about their childhoods” nails that fact. Naturally, individual childhood experiences will differ and there's some exaggeration for comedic effect, but overall he's not wrong.

Watch:

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“First of all, you’ve got boomers who like to let you know how much the world was a better place when they were younger," he begins. "That people just left their doors unlocked 24 hours a day and that basically crime wasn’t invented until the 1970s.”

Yep, that's the story a lot of boomers tell.

“Then you’ve got Gen X," he continues. "They like to let you know how hard their upbringing was, that they’re from the 'school of hard knocks,' how they were just left to their own devices. If they weren’t at school, they were just told to go outside and keep themselves busy until it got dark.”

Also accurate.

Lambert then describes millennial upbringings, which were basically the polar opposite of Gen X, and then the weird technological paradox Gen Z has grown up with.

People weighed in on Lambert's assessment and shared some of their own childhood experiences.

“Gen X here … every video you hit the nail on the head! I totally relate.”

“As a millennial, I had to warn my boomer parent about the dangers of the internet — we’ve come full circle, y’all.”

“I like to think of my Gen X childhood as feral, and I'm glad I survived.”

“Funny as hell about GenZ parents!”

"It’s the internet is a dangerous place while documenting everything on all the socials for me….🤣🤣🤣"

"I'm an early millennial and got both gen x and millenial upbringing."

"Gen X definitely learned about stranger danger, but we were still outside all the time."

"I was a mix of Millenial and x, was kicked out of the house until the sun came down, but also told about all the strangers that would willingly kidnap me if I talked to them/opened the door/answered the phone."

"Okay, what Gen Xer is complaining about being left to our own devices? Most of us LOVE that facet of our childhood. We had so much freedom and independence. It was the best! 😍"

"I brought up my 'School of Hard Knocks' just last week to an Xer, haha. But, seriously, we were left a little too much alone. We have great childhood stories, though. Kids these days would have the cops on them if they did all we got to do."

"Boomers have very faulty memories! I should know, I am one."

You can follow Jake Lambert on Instagram.

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Jennifer Garner shows her epic workout routine to go from 'fit' to 'Marvel fit' for 'Deadpool'

Making her cameo appearance as the iconic dagger-wielding Elektra took some serious work.

@jennifer.garner/Instagram

She really is a superhero.

Folks who follow Jennifer Garner on social media are well aware and fond of her often adorable antics, down-to-earth sense of humor and heartfelt kindness. But let’s not forget—she’s also pretty badass.

And nothing proves this quite like a recent video the actress posted to her Instagram showing the incredibly intense workout she endured to get ready for the return of her Elektra persona in “Deadpool and Wolverine.” Seriously, some of these exercises look Olympian level.

When Ryan Reynolds and “Deadpool” director Shawn Levy approached Garner about joining the film, she was, as she put it, “fit but not Marvel fit.” Plus she hadn’t worked with sais—Elektra’s signature weapon—in two decades.

So, to make this “impossible dream a reality,” Garner did weapons training, martial arts drills and two strength workouts a day with her stunt double Shauna Duggins. Which, judging by the clip, consisted of tons of plyometric jumping involving a mini trampoline, boxes, resistance bands, dumbbells, the whole works. There’s even an upper body exercise where she planks on a bosu ball that looks particularly excruciating.

But wait, there’s more! She also committed to boxing three times a week, plus cardio. Lots and lots of cardio. Garner mentioned working with Peloton, and can be seen running and swimming throughout the clip.

Just goes to show how much behind-the scenes work it takes to make something look effortless. And mind you, this was all this for a cameo appearance!

See on Instagram

Two other cool things worth noting. One, when Garner says she was already fit, she ain’t lying. Her regular workouts are nothing to sneeze at, and she prioritizes nutrition (remember her viral “big fat daily salad” moment?). This no doubt made the bounce back much easier. And while we might not all be able to do daily salads and intense exercise, there are consistent healthy habits we can all stick to that give us a strong baseline. So the moment we are tasked with becoming superheroes, we’re ready!

Two, even while in great shape, Garner does not ace every move on the first go, especially with those sais. But there is a measurable, noticeable progress that happens. And her having a smile on her face the whole time undoubtedly helps. She even wrote that there was a lot of “laughing at sore bodies.” A good attitude goes a long way, just saying.

In other words, Jennifer Garner really is a superhero—inside and out!

By the way, if you're feeling brave, part of Garner’s routine, provided by The Limit, is available on demand here.

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