As a Floridian I can only say: I’m sorry. Consider this a preemptive apology for the 2016 election as well.

There are some local teen-ish kids who hang out near the abandoned house behind us. They just sit back there, drinking McD sweet teas and bullshitting with each other. It bothers my next door neighbor, but honestly doesn’t bother me at all. They aren’t doing anything bad, they are just hanging out, and they are even…

Ah, swampy SC. The place where teenagers and ground men think it is a good idea to pick up living snakes and throw them in the woods. A place where you can be tubing on the river and have a snake crawl up on your belly to sun himself. A place where snakes fall into boats from trees or crawl into the river on one bank…

When I was thirteen, we got HBO and “The Sopranos” started. I watched it with my mom. She didn’t preview it for me, but we watched it together, violence, nudity and all, and we often talked about what we had seen, dramatic themes, and the violence that had occurred. We did the same with R-rated movies starting at that…

So maybe this is where raising kids in New Orleans is beneficial to everybody. I'll never forget my 5 year old daughter skipping down Bourbon Street in a smocked dress and patent leather shoes cradling her teddy bear, on her way to her aunt's rehearsal dinner at Antoine's. She was digging the music, and could have…

I am PATHETICALLY grateful to have escaped Florida alive (though maybe Louisiana wasn't the ideal survival choice).

Mmmm, Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers.

I grew up with two girls that were homeschooled as friends - their mother inspected my overnight bag to make sure I wasn’t bringing in things from the “outside”. Eventually we lost touch but reconnected again after I had gone to college.

New hashtag: #Florida child

SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Kissing water moccasins may cause cotton mouth.

Confidence, confidence, confidence, confidence. Instill in her an appreciation for her own voice and the ability to use it when things are not right. Do not make her hug/kiss or otherwise physically interact with adults at their request because that is counterproductive to teaching her body autonomy. Do get her self…

Honestly, there’s not a ton you can do to protect her from other men, but you can influence all the men and boys in your life to be better feminists, and to influence all the men and boys in their lives to be better feminists. Shut down other men’s objectifying behavior every time you see/hear it. That’s so, so…

I was 10. It was Halloween. My mom finally gave in and bought me the $40 pretty witch costume I had begged for the past 3 years. I was so excited! And then my neighbor’s son, who was in his mid-20s, visibly appraised my body and commented that I had “really grown up.” He started coming to the yard that next spring to…

I don’t want to hijack the thread, because these stories are amazing (and almost uniformly sad). I have a request, though — I’m the father of a 9-year-old daughter, and I’m genuinely curious if there’s anything I can do to help prepare her for what’s coming.

Omfg yes. I needed this. Had a woman call in screaming about her wireless cable box not working. I ask her how far her modem is from her box and she goes (in a super redneck voice) “LISTEN, mah house is lahk...2,500 SQUARE FEET, OKAAY?!” So I ask again and she responds with “500 feet!”

Jamie Allmeyer’s story reminds me of my checkered history of ordering drinks in Utah. There’s the time I was told the wine special was “peanut gringo.” There’s the time my wife and I ordered two margaritas and had four individual glasses delivered to our table (Cuz, y’know, we each wanted two margaritas a piece. At…

When I was a kid, we lived near a reservation in California. I had a few Native American classmates, but the majority were white. One weekend, one of the boys who lived on the reservation had a birthday party. He invited our entire class, including the 25-ish white students. Of those white classmates, only me and one…

What the shit???? When I was a kid, my parents made me go to several classmates’ parties that I didn’t want to go to. They also made me invite people I didn’t want to invite to my parties because they didn’t want kids left out. I strongly believe this taught me a valuable lesson about including people and doing the…

When I was 8 I insisted on inviting the boy from my class (who had behavioural problems, due to a poor family life) to my birthday party. Other parents took my mum aside to ask her ‘if she was sure’. My mum was worried and checked with my, and apparently I replied that I knew he didn’t get invited to parties a lot,…