You are thinking of Sorbitol, which is a laxative. Splenda doesn’t do that.

I meant, if it wasn’t clear, that we gave $40 to each employee - like, we gave out over $200. We tip 30-40% normally, anyway - a $40 tip on our usual $20 tab isn’t a huge deal, especially if it’s a holiday!

My partner and I (two heavyish middle aged lesbians, one using a walker and still looking bald from chemo) are often treated as less-than-desirable patrons at restaurants as fancy as Blue Crab and Crapplebee’s - but no Waffle House has been anything less than amazing to us. On the evening of New Years Eve (7 pm-ish),…

My partner is like this - her mom still thinks of Taco Bell as exotic food, has spices in her cabinet that she bought for $1 at Wal-Mart about ten years ago (so cheap spices that were likely old when purchased, opened, and left in a cabinet for a decade) that may as well all be the same spice, and turns her nose up at…

That’s exactly it. Every financial institution can set limits on free transactions, or charge as much as the market will bear for each one, but they cannot allow more than 6 automatic transactions.

My mom did it in the toilet bowl once. By urinating on a bowl full of bleach. She sat down, started to feel ‘bad tingling’ after a few seconds, and luckily was aware enough after the fact to flush quickly and run the overhead fan.

I use plain old vegetable oil, and will leave a small amount sitting in the pan, with the pan on the back of the stove so the pilot light keeps it warm, for a few days if it starts sticking. It really helps - I’ve got a half dozen pans that are from 20-100 years old, and they get used for everything.

I use plain old vegetable oil, and will leave a small amount sitting in the pan, with the pan on the back of the…

I have a Fiat 500 Lounge - same reason. Our minivan? Leather interior. I just give people the stare when they ask us to help move big stuff. Nevermind that I loaded 300 pounds of topsoil in the van, and have carried a wheelchair in the Fiat...

So adorable! She needs a honeybush tea dragon, now - lovely, sweet tea and would be a lovely companion for chamomile. I see a nice round smiling dragon. :-)

Oh, don’t even mention Lowes. We bought a new water heater from them when we discovered that ours had sprung a leak (turned out to be a crack in the back of the tank!). They sent out a contractor, that told us the (small) cabinet it was in was too narrow to fit the new heater (by 1/2 inch). I offered then and there to…

My handwriting has always been awful. My mom and dad weren’t big on penmanship, and in my immediate family only one person had remarkable handwriting - my paternal grandmother, who even now at almost 80 has handwriting that could be (and should be) a typing font.

Depending on your school of thought, it’s taking the bottom sheet and folding it over so that you encounter a pocket when you try to slide into the bed, taking the top sheet and doing the same thing, or making the bunk up so that the top sheet is pulled down and tucked in so much that you can’t pull the thing above…

My parents did that to me, too, freshman year. Tossed out almost everything I’d left at the house, assuming that if I’d wanted it I would have taken it with me (they did save my high school yearbooks and a couple of small things in a musty plastic tote). Then they threw away my bed, gave my room to my sister, and when…

It’s a tossup. Either the Coca-Cola branded hotdog/bun warmer that my dear partner insisted on buying (but hates because it doesn’t get it done enough), the corn zipper that doesn’t work, or that entire set of plastic microwave cookware I got rid of when we moved. All super useless.

There are options. You can get four sevings, once or twice a month, or eight servings, again once or twice a month. They also have a smaller list of ‘sharing size’ snacks that come in bigger packages and those can be customized for timing of delivery. They have dramatically expanded all their customization of…

You think there is actual crab in those things? I’ve had them with real crab maybe once, at a really upscale place. The best ones are filled with cream cheese, fake crab (that’s really colored pressed fish) and sugar, and are almost a dessert.

I ‘invented’ this for a young inventor’s event when I was about 9. I suspect I was one of ten in just that contest that did. It’s a good thing, though - and yes, we used it. Actually used it on the patio, and I had a place to hook the dog’s collar so it couldn’t get away easily, and some places to stand on so the…

This is exactly why I now have to wipe the seat, automatically, before I can sit on a public toilet. Both because it allows me to confirm that the seat is attached (this is an issue, believe it or not, in more bathrooms than you’d believe) and dry, and that the toilet paper exists. Also, I’ve read multiple times that…

My partner nearly died from cancer complications about four years ago (it was very, very touch and go for five weeks or so, and iffy for months afterwards). Once she was healed enough to be coherent, we discussed this in great detail, and we have already decided to make diamonds from each of our ashes for our kid…

Mine is less ‘vacation’ than ‘from hell’. My mom and sister had, finally, come out to see me in my new married person house (admittedly, a 14 hour drive) after not having driven out there for the four or five years since we moved. My grandfather had been in hospice, but we (my partner and I) had just come back from…