My eighteen-months-older sister. What’s that quote - “The bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral.”? Every occasion dominated by her needs, her upsets, her emotions, her memories of being a fat child and teen, badly mistreated by the rest of the family, shunned by her peers - a very pitiable story.

Way, way back in the 1980’s, when all phone lines were ‘landlines’, answering machines were rare, and caller ID was not available, I was in Grade 11, home alone, and at the mercy of a persistent prank caller.

Well, she probably didn’t.

“Besides how incredible the footage is, it’s rather ironic how little I actually have to say about it.”

From the article, it seems like the writer may not have known “At Seventeen” is a real song - but it might just have been a confusing paragraph.

I am confused - these lyrics:

We had to move from one side of our apartment building to the other after a family of six moved into the small apartment next door and installed their teenagers and their stereo into the bedroom, which adjoined ours. Things were very loud, long after midnight.

Something like that happened to my father - the man contracted to clear out trees on the neighbouring property managed to cut down some prime timber on my dad’s farm ‘by accident’. Dad took him to court, and got a decent payout. I hope you get justice, and your tree-killer neighbour ends up bankrupt. 

This is an actual Fox News headline:

No - but thank you for asking! The disease was, “Yokkaichi Zensoku” (Yokkaichi asthma) a debilitating and painful lung disorder caused by the extreme amount of air pollution in the area in the 1960’s and 70’s. In its time, it was more infamous in Japan than Minamata disease - Hedora, the smog monster, was based on…

My husband, K, and I used to live in Japan - not a super-fun part of Japan, (our city had a disease named after it!) but we did have a few people come to visit.

I would argue that the mid-late 70’s were far more harmful - beyond Lolita - in terms of young girls being portrayed as sexualized ‘nymphets’. 12-year-old Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby. Jodie Foster in The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver. Pop songs: Hot Child in the City, My Sharona,…

One Thanksgiving, my sister and I were at my parents’ house for dinner. We are the youngest of four siblings, and the only ones to show up for the holidays. In the middle of dinner, my mother looked down the length of the table at my father and said, “Sometimes I wonder if we would have been happier if we had stopped…

Not mine, but my daughter’s: “I despise formal restaurants. I find all of that formality to be very base and vile. I would much rather eat potato chips on the sidewalk” - Werner Herzog.

AAaaargh I hate to do this, but you may be the only people on earth who will understand: what if the Clovers ALSO stole their chants and routines, but from a school that was too far away to notice or protest?

“Diana was apparently a fashion icon when she was married. I had no butt bows and Little Bo Peep dresses were ever in.”

Have you thought about planting something like an elderberry or hawthorn tree/shrub along your property line? Both trees have a reputation for banishing/repelling evil spirits - the Elder tree is particularly good. “The leaves and berries are used for protection and in breaking spells that were cast against you or to…

“Yeah, this episode felt definitively that Michael wasn’t Michael.”

AAaaaah! My mother used to lengthen my too-short polyester stretch pants by attaching fabric at the bottom. She hid the joining seam with fancy rick-rack; the kids all called me “Spanish Pants”

True story: the last time Canada and the US had pig-fueled conflict, it led to a 15-year armed standoff. (Pig War, 1859) That was over one pig - imagine how high the stakes are with eight times the pork.