He’s actually my one celebrity encounter. He was vacationing near where I lived and accidentally cut in front of me in line. I said, “Hey, I’m line here,” (it was a little hard to see as the line curved sharply behind an awkwardly placed display so I wasn’t rude, but I was tired and a bit brusque) and he apologized…

I think that many forms of Christianity are a bit like your Mafia analogy, although I don’t think mine does. I belong to a somewhat atypical branch of Christianity that doesn’t interpret Hell as a literal place. I believe that it is a metaphor for living in ways that distance yourself from God and other people, rather…

It also strikes me as quite contrary to the idea of free will. If God has my life all planned out, I don’t really get a choice, do I? What happens was always going to happen, and nothing I do can change it.

Well, it is in Arkansas y’know...

One easy way to distinguish between rescuers and bears is that rescuers usually wear bright colors, carry lights and may periodically shout your name. Also, rescuers generally avoid mauling and/or eating you except in the most dire situations.

No, you can take them home at this particular park because it has special rules allowing it. There are a few mining/geology-type parks around the country that let you keep your finds like that, though I think this is the only diamond one.

I just want to note that, while the headline is funny, the real reason these women survived is that they were smart and stayed with their vehicle. That’s almost always the best thing to do in these situations. There have been many cases where a family gets stranded and one or two people leave in the hopes of finding…

She’d appreciate it, although I’m not going to tell her because she’d probably just get mad at me for talking about her on the internet. ;)

I see this with my grandmother a lot. I talk loud and slow to her because she has both hearing loss and cognitive issues, and it causes a lot of people to mimic me but use basically baby talk instead of just increasing volume and slowing speed but still talking to her like an adult, if that makes sense. She always…

You can only edit for a limited time. I think there’s a time limit, and I think you also can’t edit anymore after someone replies to you (and maybe just stars your post? IDK exactly).

Thank you. :) I remember reading about that now that you and others have filled in some details (when I tried to search for it I just got a bunch of results about some romcom) and yeah, that’s very different (and also very unusual just in itself...most of the time when people intentionally “disappear,” they just leave…

I think you may have meant to respond to someone else. I was the one who didn’t know who the “runaway bride” was at all, and stated that usually you have to do something pretty egregious (like faking a kidnapping) to be charged for the search efforts. ;) But yeah, others have informed me that apparently the runaway…

I’m not familiar with the “runaway bride” case you’re referring to, but if she was billed for the search it is quite unusual and usually only occurs when there’s some sort of deliberate action on the part of the subject that gets law enforcement involved. For example, staging a kidnapping might qualify. That doesn’t…

No problem, and thank you for being willing to listen. I know it does sound so unbelievable. If I hadn’t spent a lot of time working at a rape crisis center (which has a lot of overlap with domestic violence for depressingly obvious reasons) I wouldn’t believe it either. I’m glad people have been mostly polite!…

Not even the Bible, just the Old Testament. I’ve met a few right-wing Christian fundamentalists who honestly support stoning as a punishment for adultery. I mean the story where Jesus saves a woman from that fate for that very offense and is basically like “hey that’s not cool guys” is pretty much one of the most…

I know everyone is jumping on you so I wanted to start out by saying that I saw that you acknowledged your lack of information. :) But I do want to point out that even if we were talking about full or joint custody rather than manipulative court battles, it wouldn’t be that outside the realm of possibility. Many…

This is exactly how I feel. I am morally opposed to conversion therapy, and I think forcing or coercing anyone into it or providing it to minors (which is basically coercing them into it, since they’re dependent on their parents for so much) should be banned. But I do know some adults who have willingly undergone it…

It seems like this supposedly sacrosanct “presumption of innocence” outside of the actual trial mostly comes out in rape cases. I’m probably dating myself here, but I remember during, say, the OJ Simpson trial no one was arguing that he should be assumed to be innocent. There were debates about whether he was guilty…

I really loved how gracious he was. One of his first responses was to tell her it was okay. :) That’s the kind of silly mistake anyone can do and I’m glad he was so nice about it right away.

Her "u been gd?" tweet to the Dalai Lama literally made me laugh out loud. I didn't really know who she was before (I guess she's on Brooklyn 9-9? I've heard I need to watch it but haven't yet) but I'm totally charmed.