I binge-read them too (well, the first time at least). How can you not?! I thought the Red Wedding was even more tragic on the reread - you watch Arya get SO CLOSE to reuniting with her family and it is just crushing when you know she's not going to make it in time. Although obviously she's lucky she wasn't there...

Jaime would definitely have been a great bargaining chip, but both the book and the show made it fairly clear that Robb's men were going to kill him in a murderous rage long before he could be used to bargain for anything. Then you've got a dead Jaime Lannister to explain to a very angry Tywin Lannister. If Robb had…

Ah! That's probably it. Damn my love of little luxuries...

With me it's more like, "What on earth are my grandkids going to think of me?" Seriously. It seems like every generation takes a massive step forward in acceptance & rights, but has to fight the blowback of previous generations. So what are we going to hold on to? I want to be cheeky and say "robot babies not okay,"…

Sorry, not to nitpick, but why did you include Chile here? They're the most stable country in Latin America. I lived there in 2009; now I live in Argentina, and let me tell you, the difference is palpable. Prices have gone up twice in the five months I've been here. Honestly not trying to derail, just wanted to stand…

Yes! I have always wanted an Internet.

Or pride. My senior class started with 127 and finished with 85. Kids ranked 70-85 were damn proud to be there, and I'm pretty sure kids 80-85 didn't find out until the week of the ceremony - you know, after the aunties flew in from out of town and went to the party store to buy air horns - whether they had actually…

This piece especially. It's graduation. These administrators are about to let these kids out into the world for the first time, and it's like they just. can't. let. go. I mean, graduation is a celebration, not a final exam (which, presumably, they already passed or they would not be at graduation).

Seriously. He can mind my gap any time.

If he has a heart, that's awesome. He may simply not notice those social signals or he might consciously be ignoring them. Either way, it means you at least have a chance to sit down, be extremely direct, and actually make a difference - not only for your coworkers, but in his life too. It probably won't go well…

I've been lucky enough to have mostly good bosses and exactly one sociopath. I know exactly how I'd talk to the reasonable people, but I don't have the first clue how I would get through to the other one.

In that case, I say do it. Think of the best possible way to make your approach, give it your best shot, and if it backfires really badly, you can walk. As others have said, the gap in your resume can easily be explained by the pregnancy.

Makes sense. If I were in your position, I would want to try. Not saying you have much of a chance, because he sounds like a true nutter. But I would want to walk out of there knowing that I'd spoken up. It sounds like things are probably going to fall apart when you leave anyway, so what have you got to lose?

It sounds to me like the current work environment for your coworkers is already awful. If you speak up, how is that going to make things worse for others? (I just can't conceive of a worse situation than my employer commenting on my nipples. UGH.)

Same in my high school, EXCEPT! My guidance counselor actually bumped a remedial kid from the valedictorian spot. I stormed into the office demanding to know who had the number 1 spot, he did some investigating, and then all of a sudden it was just "taken care of." The remedial kids went to an entirely different…

So the US cares a lot about state versus federal government, with the general idea that everything that can be done at the state level should be done at the state level, including education. Thus, No Child Left Behind can require each state to create a set of standards, but NCLB can't mandate a set of standards and…

Replying to myself with that Captain Awkward URL: http://captainawkward.com/2012/08/07/322…

Another voice of support here. What he did is Not Okay. That encounter would have left me shaking, crying, and raging. I'm so glad you got out of there okay.

I was set upon by a waiting room full of grandmas when I was a paralyzingly shy girl of six. They all got up from their chairs, cooing, and lurched towards me in slow motion like zombies with a redhead fetish.

Amen. And not just in Biblical times. Until the Industrial Revolution, most people in the West were surviving by bare margins on farms where everyone — men, women, and children — worked from sunup to sundown on whatever tasks were necessary to keep them alive. The entire concept of middle-class women vacuuming in…