I'd be less pissed if they weren't charging $5 extra for this. Still wouldn't be not-pissed, because this is problematic in lots of other ways, but jeepers. Seriously?

Yes! I can take pulls of a bottle of bourbon without smudging my lipstick.

Ooh, but have they ever gotten "dietary evangelists"? Note, I am vegan and I have completely support people who choose a gluten-free lifestyle, even for non-celiac reasons, but when I worked at a natural foods co-op I collected some amazing theories and diatribes from customers.

While I appreciate your willingness to say "no job is invariably better", I do think our culture makes a bit of a value judgement. I will be in the restaurant/food/tavern industry until the day I die (because it's what I love), I've already learned that sedentary office-bound jobs are terrible for my brain, but some…

Exactly. What still cheeses me off about my examples is that the only charges (or discipline at all, really) went to the kid who didn't actually physically injure anyone.

My younger brother once had assault charges pressed for squirting chocolate milk in the face of a kid who had just slammed his (li'l bro's) head into the table. We got him out of the charges which is why I feel comfortable mentioning it. The head-slammer had no consequences, despite camera footage.

This is just another reason for me to follow Craig Ferguson around with puppy-dog eyes.

He was a bichon mix, so 15 was right around average. Honestly, we were expecting to be able to keep him for at least another year before his kidneys tanked unexpectedly.

OH, I AM SO EXCITED!

My dog used to love baby carrots!

Thank you. He was 15 years old, so it's not an outright tragedy (I mean, it still is to me; he was my best friend), but there will always be that question of whether there was anything we could have done to make his life better for longer. When stuff like this comes up it's hard not to feel like I failed him.

This breaks my goddamned heart. When we learned about my little guy's food allergies years ago, we switched him to chicken jerky treats because the ingredient list was short. He died of kidney failure in February and I still miss him every day. I know we did everything right based on the knowledge we had, and it might…

THIS. THIS ALWAYS.

This. I can't even with the number of times I've gotten sat in what seems like a reasonable rotation, but because party uno wandered in a couple at a time (making me run back and forth for drinks at each interval), they're finally ready to order and get the ball rolling exactly when party dos is closing their menus…

Yes! I was actually going to recommend fostering too, but I know it can sometimes be a hassle, getting approved as a critter foster home can take time, and fostered critters often take extra tlc and/or don't bond as well right away (all perfectly understandable, but not always optimal for "I just need some cuddles").…

I am a total cuddle-needer, and I'm lucky now because I have a long-term human and a cat, but before that I had a cuddle-bug of a dog, and while it's not the same as having a real person's arms around you, sharing his heartbeats and his breathing got me through a lot of dark loneliness. If your move can include a pet,…

I have a giant sidepiece of blackberries because of Seamus Heaney. Alienating people who ask about my ink is a cherished hobby!

I have noticed men uptalking.

I have a lot of feelings about MichFest (my dear friend has gotten thoroughly shat on over the past two years for daring to ask to attend, and I've been the one proofreading a lot of her communiques), so, yeah, gonna keep that under my vest. But. Thank you, thank you for writing about this, and for taking the time to…

... Nah. She probably does.