As a homeowner, all I could think once the excavator showed up was, "Oh, this is gonna be *expensive* G*d*mn puppies!" I hope they replaced the drain pipe when they were done... does this make me a terrible person?

Definitely not the first time this has happened: [www.wesh.com]

This happens to me on the bus pretty often. A man is trying to talk to me and I'm trying to read. I'm being politely non-committal ("yes" "no" "um") and suddenly he's all, "What, don't you like black men? You don't wanna talk to me 'cause I'm black?!" Um, no, I don't want to talk to anyone, by especially not a…

Heh, this guy thinks teachers can't be bribed. Funny man. In my PC country, paying for grades was standard procedure. Lazy students paid to pass, bright students paid to get the high grades they'd earned. As students got older, fees got higher. University fees were the most expensive. Some teachers didn't even bother…

If I were the parent of a girl at this school, I'd be pissed because I had to go out and buy all new uniforms. Those things are not cheap.

Yeah, I know. For A Chorus Line, specifically, the text has notes on a number of physicality-specific lines that are EXPRESSLY permitted to be cut or altered, including comments about one character's red hair, provided she isn't a redhead, and a joke about wanting a large chest by one character, which is directed IN…

Ooooh man, I just remembered! I helped produce A Chorus Line once, and we had no black actors try out, so an Indian kid was cast as Richie. Which is fine, there is only one oblique reference to Richie's race in the show; take it out and his story line can be of a poor kid from the South, rather than a poor black kid.…

I once saw a repertory theater production of "Big River", and the actor playing Huck was black, the only other black actor in the show besides the one who played Jim. It made the show extremely awkward to watch, but the worst parts were Jim and Huck talking about morality and slavery. I'm cringing just thinking about…

Some studies of fertility have found that in times of food plenty, there tends to be a slight increase in male children, while in times of famine or stress, female children are more likely. This is theorized to be because a female child all but guarantees a third generation, while a male child can father more…

Are you sure he fired you for being a dude? Are you sure it wasn't because you're kind of an asshole?

That transition from "I wanna fuck you!" to "Fuck you bitch!" seems to be the natural progression street harassers. First the sexual come-on, then the angry rejoinder upon "rejection." I say nothing: "Fuck you bitch!" I say, "That's rude": "Fuck you bitch!" I say, "Do you talk to your mother like that?": "Fuck you…

Reading this made me feel like an anime character with one of those throbbing x-shaped veins in my forehead as my eyes turned red and my teeth became serrated edges in my gigantic square mouth. I blame you, Louisiana.

Team Nobody. Katniss is a psychopath, Peeta is a manipulative jerk and Gale is a hot-headed idiot. On second thought, perhaps they all deserve each other.

I loved Barbie just because she was a portable, easily available doll with a vast wardrobe. Her most identifiable characteristics (blonde, blue-eyed, big-boobed and dressed in pink) were her least desirable to me. I played with her from age 4 until 13 (yes), and I always treasured the "different" Barbies: my one black…

The Tain?

Rickets is Vitamin D deficiency (i.e. sunlight). Which completely blows my mind, cause how the hell can you wrap your baby up So Much that they get a sunlight deficiency? Crazy! But it used to happen a lot, 'cause of fears that an exposed (non-swaddled) baby was at risk of death from ague and chills.

Aww, I loved Ethel. So many of the other characters strike me as nearly cardboard in their black/white affiliations: e.g. Anna is a kind, pretty martyr while O'Brien is a venomous, ugly bitch; Mary and Edith will eagerly destroy one another just to gain the satisfaction of seeing the other hurt, while gentle Sybil…

Completely agree. I've seen it in mothers-in-law in Central Asia who terrorize their (kidnapped) daughters-in-law, and in groups of high school girls slut-shaming an outsider they don't like. Women and men are equally capable of exploiting weakness and using abuse to control people.

I'm make pretty much all the money, and recently purchased a house (in my name) and moved in with boyfriend/fiance as tenant. The "it's my money/house" argument happens about once a month. He wantswantswants a full-time job but just can't find one. I know it plays on his self-esteem and he broods on it and gets…

My experience with ESL students (in Asia) is that they know *exactly* what all the "bad words" mean, and how offensive they are. They just enjoy getting a rise out of the English teacher by using them, plus then you have to derail class time for 10 minutes to explain why "fuck you bitch" et. al. are not proper forms…