My father-in-law is notorious for overcooking chicken breasts. He always buys boneless skinless breasts and then proceeds to cook the shit out of them. No one says anything, because we're guests in his house.

When I was in high school, it was "kidney infections." Which I know are a thing, and can be very serious...but I'm pretty sure that "missed periods" aren't a symptom, and it was kind of funny how every girl who was out of school for a week with a "kidney infection" had been fretting the week before about how late her…

I'm still poor, and a lot of our furniture is cast off from relatives, but I'll be damned if I drink out of a Mason jar. (Especially since I don't can—unlike my mother—and therefore have no reason to have any of them in my house.)

I grew up in a time/place where drinking out of Mason jars meant you couldn't afford to buy glasses when there were perfectly good canning jars sitting around. I'm not buying Mason jars specifically to drink out of now.

Oh, blergh, that might have been even worse than just putting it on my toast. At least I wasn't counting on it getting all gooey and melty. I was just hoping it wouldn't taste like powdered death. (I was wrong.)

I just hate mayo on hot food, especially burgers. It has nothing to do with calories and everything to do with wanting to enjoy my food. Granted, I wouldn't have complained about dryness if I ordered a turkey burger with no condiments. (I also happen to like turkey burgers better than beef burgers. Again, nothing to…

Oh yes. I used to work night shift at a Denny's, and I'm pretty sure the reasoning was a combo of "if he throws a Moons Over My Hammy at me there will be witnesses" and "but it's two a.m. on a Tuesday so they probably won't be people I know."

At one point as a teenager, because my mother would not allow sugar in the house (it was all Sweet 'n' Low), I tried to make cinnamon toast with Sweet 'n' Low instead of sugar. I was, as you can imagine, very used to the taste of the stuff used in drinks, baked goods, etc. Even so, I think sometimes I can still taste…

Coffee guy was 50. That's not exactly "little old man" territory.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, sure, your kid's being obnoxious, take the concert tickets away and sell them. But there's no need to tell Facebook why. If anyone asks you about them, you can always say, "I bought them for my daughter, but now she's not able to go, so we're selling them." Completely true, and still avoids…

This is true! I just turned 43, and one of the things I am loving about being in my 40s is that there are SO MANY fucks that I no longer give.

It's not a question of "emotional porn" versus "regular" porn; it's a question of written porn/erotica vs. visual porn/erotica. In other words, "dirty books" vs. "dirty movies."

And it's black cats and dogs, the ones that are hardest to find homes for ANYWAY. (Which is why MrsPye and I have decided that when we adopt another cat, yes, we're putting personality first, but a black cat is getting priority over any equally-charming cats of other colors.)

Yeah, there are all kinds of "funny" stories my mother likes to tell about how "hilarious" it was that Little Magpye used to worry about all kinds of things.

I genuinely wish you luck. I loved teaching; the reasons I left had nothing to do with the school where I worked or the kids I taught.

I have cousins who are half-siblings who barely knew each other until the younger one was about 35. My uncle and his first wife had a nasty divorce; she got full custody of the kids and moved out of state. (My uncle, not the greatest father in the world, didn't make a lot of effort to see the kids, either.) Then my…

A woman's higher voice sounds more boyish than most adult men's voices (also, a slim woman, well-costumed, will look more like a boy than an adult man generally will). A lot of the reasons it's not an actual boy are the same reasons lots of teenage characters on TV are played by adults: it's easier to work with adult…

That sounds a lot like the town where I taught, to be honest. And yeah, if one slips, you just go right on like you never said anything.

And in this case, it doesn't even sound like a lack of child care, as in a kid spending all day in a park. It sounds like a kid going to the park by himself, with a way to get in touch with his mom any time he needed to.

I think it might depend on the kid and the location. I was allowed to go certain places alone at 7, but it was a small town, and I was a really cautious/reliable kid (I once walked home in the pouring rain when my neighbor offered me a ride home, because I decided she was a stranger—I couldn't remember her name other…