Deep fried pickles, done correctly, are the bomb. Crispy, not soggy. Chips, not spears (for the love of all that is holy). Little bit of hot sauce in the wash. Yep.

The only thing I can think of is this guy is having a flashback of a dungeonmaster off in a corner plotting new pain and misery for his buddies, and his stupid jock self comes up to him and asks what’s up with the graph paper or whatever, NERD, and the kid can’t be fussed because he’s in his happy place. Oh, the…

Dodge ball. Dodge ball for lunch privileges. Rope climbing to “earn” your textbooks.

“He’s just a — he’s a cool shop teacher: ‘Hey, what’s up, fellas,’ ”
...
“I go sit down with a kid who’s alone, playing ‘Dungeons and Dragons,’ and I just try to see whether there’s any problems.”

Jeebus. I could fuel a whole long weekend of laziness on that thing.

I still don’t understand why my people can’t see the Present Dent for what he is, which is what he is, which is what he is.

Maybe he only gets any if he asks for it in Spanish.

Any Democrat who claims to support women’s empowerment and our national security but opposes her nomination is a total hypocrite

ZOMG MICHELLE WAS SO MEEEEAAAANNN!!! DOESN’T SHE CARE ABOUT COMMON COURTESY AND NOT HURTING PEOPLE’S FEEEEEEELINGS???!!!!!

...or a control scheme to sell me something LOL

That last part is most important. I can’t stand dealing with people who try to get all Peas In A Pod at me when it’s obviously a control scheme to feed their lonely egos rather than any genuine chemistry.

See also: self-fulfilling prophecy. Working with someone right now who is so convinced everyone finds her annoying and can’t stand her, and making a spectacle of herself in response to that projection, that eventually it’s all become too true.

Makes sense. If the re-wiring PTSD causes isn’t met with the willowy resilience of childhood, it’d seem more likely to break a brittle adult brain outright than leave it a bit twisted.

And that’s not even getting as far as the institutions (conservative church, gun lobbies, warmongering corporate citizens in need of good patriotic cannon fodder) that help reinforce all that mess. Some days I think we’d almost need to just let them blow the world up so we could start over.

In order to not be scared, they need to know and confront their fear, and where it really comes from, to understand it and to grow from it. Hatred, after all, is pretty much fear wearing armor and toting firepower.

I have often considered the Hypocritical Conservative Prosperity Gospel sects to be the Church of Judas, especially considering that whole thirty pieces of silver thing. And also wished they would eventually hang themselves on their own entanglements.

The problem is that this fearfulness is built into the very nature of child-rearing for authoritarian types. You’ll hear about fear and respect (of god, one’s parents, etc.) as synonyms in these environments. It’s self-replicating programming and does not need to correspond to any reality but that which is…

I work at a place chock full of right wing yoyos. The first week of the “better paychecks” they were just crowing about how it was because of the “GOP tax plan” but I told my supervisor just watch, it’ll come back somehow.

Huh-uh. It would be all too comforting to think that the right-wing uberconservative madness will die out with the baby boomers, but I work among Trumphumpers and they ARE passing their nastiness on to the next generation. I keep meeting women in their twenties who will all too happily announce that they didn’t vote…

I don’t think it matters what you call it because the bottom line is this: no one has more actual, detrimental entitlement habits than they do, and they will find a way to project their own worst traits onto anybody but themselves, no matter what the names. See also, “no, you’re the puppet.”