When Russell is talking about his father and how he never comes to see him anymore—how they used to count cars and get ice cream.... Jesus, I can’t even. I want to give Russell ALL THE HUGS.

I’m so sick of the “the confederacy is not about racism and the civil war was not really about slavery argument.” Of course there are many motivations behind confederate pride and many causes of the civil war. But racism is inextricably intertwined with the movement and slavery was an integral part of the civil war,…

Oh stop, you.

Short version: our family vacation was interrupted when we were detained by US customs and had our RV confiscated, leaving us out on our asses with all our stuff. We took an 8-hour train home.

When I was in fifth grade, my family rented an RV to go to Niagara Falls (our Nantucket home was under renovation and you’ve…

I did this, too! At camp. It failed miserably.

We should all form a club. We could pretend we have double the membership.

I doubt it—the person implies that the candidate has an identifiable opponent he doesn’t want to win. Clinton doesn’t have one yet. I’m guessing it’s not presidential at all.

The letter writer says he/she doesn’t want the opponent to win, which seems to assume that he/she knows who the opponent is. That makes presidential unlikely (or at least Clinton—but even if it were a Republican, it doesn’t seem likely they would be focused on an opponent at this point as much as getting the…

Well, better than at a funeral.

“[T]he VA is not authorized to provide, or cover the costs of, in vitro fertilization, abortion counseling, abortions, or medication to induce abortions.” The Post reports that ban is the result of “conservative opposition to assisted reproduction and concern that some fertilized embryos might be discarded.”

(sigh of relief)

PLEASE CLARIFY WHAT YOU MEAN BY “STUFFED CAT.”

I wish I could star this a thousand times.

It’s very, very, very unlikely. First, you would have to have an open cut in your mouth or a sore of some sort that the virus could get into you from the condom. But second, HIV does not live very long outside the body. By the time the kid found the condom, any virus in it would be dead. The chances of getting HIV…

Cereal for dinner and Enya on repeat... is he me in high school?

That's ridiculous of that woman. Anyone providing a service to a kid generally works twice as hard (and often gets paid less by default if, for example, there is a cheaper "kids menu" of items). It takes them twice as long to cut kids' hair because they won't sit still and they have to be extra careful. I usually tip…

Back in the 70s my mother was one of a handful (and perhaps only) young women in school administration in the area she worked (in a major city). She has told me that she decided not to learn how to use a coffee maker because she was always asked to make coffee at a meeting with other men. So she would just decline,…

I knew a guy in college who never went to this one class. Around the time the midterm is coming up, he goes to his section. At the end, he asks the TA when the midterm is again. She says, "Tu..." and he's thinking "Tuesday," but what actually comes out is "Two o'clock."

He and his friend have done no reading and gone…

I'm making jewelry now!

"Isolated incidents."