We lived in an apartment complex that had several sewage backups that flooded part of our basement. We don't have kids and I've been in full surgical menopause for years, so we were certainly not flushing diapers, pads, or tampons. The problem was eventually traced to neighbors a few apartments upstream — who had been…

Wow. He has to be one of the most gorgeous cats I've ever seen. Even if he is a kibble rustler!

Never thought of that, but then again I hate both mayo and lettuce on sandwiches, especially hot ones. I'm the weird person who orders burgers without lettuce and tomato, and then gets a garden salad as a side dish.

I'm half Italian too. Tomatoes are one of the few foods I'm at all snobbish about. And it's mild snobbishness. They just have to be the ones that are bred to taste good rather than to be dropped from an airplane. Then they have to ripen on a vine in real soil. Fresh tomatoes in season are insanely good. I don't have a…

This just plain rocks.

We tend to get creative with our post-workout protein smoothies, so we rarely make the same kind twice (and Mr. Sububi and I typically crave different flavors at any given time). So, we buy bags of frozen fruit and then pick and choose as we go. However, here's one thing that's saved us time, money, and hassle: When…

Shows about anus-obsessed racists who can talk to ducks.

I think Johnny Galecki has more sex appeal in one raised eyebrow than Brad Pitt has in his entire body. I'm not kidding.

I was a female "incel" from age 14 (when I started being attracted to boys in an explicitly sexual way) to age 20 (when I finally had sex for the first time). It wasn't surprising; as a teen, I was physically and socially awkward and emotionally inhibited. That's not uncommon for either males or females at that age.…

Instead of attempting to understand and remedy their own immaturity, they're congregating in forums where the participants consider their own pathologies to be brilliant and heroic.

Excellent point. A few years back, Mr. Sububi briefly took up recreational target shooting, and took a gun safety class (he wasn't applying for a license to carry, though some members of the class undoubtedly were.) His instructor emphasized those same points, namely: There's always a very slight chance that you might…

The central myth among the hard-core gun-hugging crowd is that if a criminal starts shooting people, one of their number can react, return fire, and single-handedly save the day. He (it's usually he) will never react too slowly, never miss, and never mistake another "good guy with a gun" for the aforementioned…

That was also true of the northeastern U.S. when I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was true across most ethnic and socioeconomic groups. It was simply none of anyone else's business.

Those damn sugar alcohols really are nothing to butt-sneeze at. I got diarrhea from my first- and last-ever packet of Truvia, which shocked me; I'd consumed stevia before (and have had it since) with no ill effects. A closer reading of the label revealed that the stuff is laced with erythritol. Damn lucky for me that…

That's pretty much the point of domestication, though. Dogs have been bred, for a long portion of human history, as working and/or companion animals. It is (or should be) much safer to keep a domestic dog or cat than to try to make pets out of, say, chimps or wild cats, which have never been selectively bred to live…

I realize that owner negligence is probably the most likely explanation for the dog's aggressiveness — it was roaming unleashed in a residential area, for one thing. But is it also possible that animals as intelligent as dogs or cats can become dangerously aggressive due to their species' equivalent of mental illness?

Interestingly, I just left a family party a bit early because the big slice of cake I ate is now making me sleepy. It was great cake and I regret nothing, but it certainly took the wind out of my sails for the afternoon.

I've never forgotten being told by someone — don't remember whether it was a college career counselor or a recruiter — that all resumes boiled down to the same six words: "I am looking for a job."

Dang. In the interest of full disclosure: My name is not actually Ruby. :-) Glad to hear so many people love it, though!

That sounds unbelievably depressing.