Seriously. I don't even like strangers to *breathe* on me. I would be brushing my teeth every minute of every day.

“Why somebody bite me?”

If the universe were just, Ryan would have burst into flames then and there.

Thanks for the detail. I’m glad you feel overall at peace with your parents; I think that level of scrutiny and judgment from my dad would have made me insane. As it is, I became a pro early on at shutting down conversations.

Kyle’s facial expression clearly says, “Oh, god, this sucks, just get through it, it can’t last forever.”

Would you be willing to unpack that a little more? My dad did a very similar thing - ex., he gave me all these teeny figurines from a particular place, and then was upset that I didn’t really treasure them. It kind of made me feel like my life was not my own. I still think of it as more an annoyance than anything…

“... and mama likes to punish!”

Oh my god, that's it exactly. Fuckers.

I am so outraged at that child. Parents should have better sense - or at least *shame* - about creating little monsters like that and unleashing them on unsuspecting others. My daughter had a friend sleep over who came into my husband’s and my room in the morning to tell us to wake up. Horrible thing.

Heh. I never thought of it this way. I’m white and my family extends back to Civil War times, but they were Appalachian, and poor. I always figured that at least I didn’t have any plantation owners in my ancestry, so that was a comfort. What a ridiculous blindness that was. Of COURSE my family did some really bad…

Sheesh. You’re getting a lot of heated responses, unfairly. I do get what you’re saying - what does a person think upon realizing that they’ve mistakenly had intercourse with a dead body? That’s a barrier that, you’re right, most rapists do not cross. It’s particularly problematic in this case since, given the decade…

Hm. Okay. Maybe it’s just my southernness speaking, but pretty much every speaker I’ve ever heard says “gonna.” :-)

How do writers/editors determine whether to quote a person as saying “gonna” or “going to”? The WaPo went with “gonna,” which makes me wonder. The victim had been suspended from school, and her mother had maybe not reported the suspect’s statement to police, which is odd. Was the writer trying to shade this family as…

Inconceivable. No doubt there will be several women, all with names, back stories and character arcs.

Ditto. I am sad that Krakauer has disavowed the Everest movie. But I will still go see it.

Oh, for Pete’s sake. When my daughter was born, my doctor did a lot more than just sit around and then catch her.

That is an amazing story. Good on you! A point of confusion, though - did you have to get permission from a doctor to give this woman aspirin? Or did I misread?

I love this kitten’s one angry eyebrow. “What’s YOUR problem?”

“Why are you being so mean to me”? That alone makes me think she's performing. Who talks like that?

This could result in a situation like you see in Basic Training - “Everybody be sure to thank Private Jones for your extra 5-mile run today.” Theoretically, the rest of the frat could issue a more of a social punishment against these assholes than the university ever could.