WE ALSO NEVER COLONIZED INDIA. WE DRINK LESS TEA PER CAPITA. WE DO NOT HAVE A LONG HISTORY OF TRYING TO REGAIN TERRITORY IN BRITTANY. So how can we possibly have sensible gun control?!? Riddle me THAT, scholar!

Not only a gun nut, thinks "annoyed" and "interested" are synonymous. Good to know.

I can't say I'm surprised, but I'm gratified to find how QUICKLY we got to the dead-end, weak-ass "No other country is like the US, so no other country can possibly model how the US can develop" argument. Please don't expand on what our diverse economy has to do with our lack of reasonable gun control. I've just read…

I always got gifts in my Easter basket - the best one was one of those National Geographic learning books with all the pictures and captions, except it was about mummies. My mom had vaguely seen me looking at it in the bookstore and bought it for me, apparently without flipping through it. She was horrified to look at…

I'm living in Sudan, and let me assure you that EVEN HERE, we have Kit Kat bars. They're really a global phenomenon (which makes me happy, since they're my favorite American candy bar). The only sad thing is that here, you get three sticks instead of four.

And to Spanish speakers, when you say The Los Angeles Angels, you are saying The the angels angels. If you don't like it, start speaking a language with less history being influenced by other languages (which for the record is none of them). I'll start doing this the minute someone offers a way to differentiate chai…

I'm living in a Muslim country, and they call this "macon". Moocon is better, I will suggest it right away.

You're getting a lot of piling on here (including the person who brought GENOCIDE into the mix, oh god what), but I agree. Part of what makes one type of relationship different from another is the different set of boundaries that define it. For example, my boyfriend is not supposed to sleep with other people, but is…

Are you forgetting about the part where the cheese melts? I mean, I know people who don't like the taste of toasted bread, and I think they're wrong as fuck but I'm willing to let it ride. But melted cheese is one of the greatest things on this earth and I will go to the wall proclaiming this gospel.

This is EVEN WORSE AND MORE ENRAGENING. You people could be eating CHEESE STEAKS. WHAT EVEN IS WRONG WITH YOU i am so mad i can't even right now.

Also, they don't even toast their sandwiches. Why would you go to a Jimmy Johns to get an overpriced cold-cut when at literally every other sandwich shop in the world you can get a warm, toasty, cheese-melty delight?

The nails look less like Lorde's and more like the way married women here in Sudan wear their henna. When I first got here, I thought it looked creepy, since the henna here is very black (most women actually use synthetic dyes) and the black fingertips reminded me of frostbite, but very quickly I started seeing it as…

Just because some people will never be satisfied even when you do something right, doesn't give you a pass when you do something wrong. Again: easy not to be a jerk.

I was just thinking this. I don't remember watching huge amounts of Rescue 911 as a kid (although since my mom was a paramedic I probably watched more than average - she wasn't a "leave work at the office" kind of lady) but this is literally the only episode of that show I can remember.

You could have expressed this as "more feminine," and saved yourself a lot of angry replies and everyone else a lot of annoyance. It's SO EASY not to be a jerk.

Listen, anyone who has worked in a building with an escalator where the general public can access it has these stories. I used to work in a major museum, and I realized that a LOT of people are not as familiar with escalators/elevators as you would think. In my building, someone got their shoe so stuck in an escalator…

I agree with your sentiment, but this post is talking about changes in store mannequins, not designer's dress forms.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Won't someone please think of the castles!

To tell the honest truth, my life here is very exciting in the details and very boring in the big picture. The other day, my driver almost hit a camel in the dark. Exciting detail. But almost all my time is spent teaching first and second grade kids English. Boring big picture. Not bad-boring, just to say my life here…

Where I'm living now in Sudan, water heaters are generally considered an unnecessary luxury. My current apartment doesn't have one. And that works out fine, mostly, because it's really freaking hot here almost all the time, but it has, regardless, dropped my shower regimen from every-other-day at home to…