I grew up in a house where we ate instant potatoes regularly, and real mashed on special occasions. When I first moved out on my own I preferred having a few chunks of un-mashed potato for the reason you mentioned. After many years I’ve gotten over that and like them silky-smooth. 

This reminds me of something that happened during my childhood, long before Instagram. My mom had just purchased some kind of sausage sticks for the dog and put them on the kitchen counter in a clear glass jar. Maybe a day later we heard my grandpa yelling my mom’s name from the kitchen. If you haven’t guessed by now,…

I’ve recently switched to “mashing” potatoes with a hand mixer. I’ve grown to prefer the silky smooth texture that I can get this way. My potato masher gets the most use when making guac, and I occasionally use it to break up whole canned tomatoes for sauce.

Most of the “articles” on here lately seem to be. It’s either that, or a whole generation of people don’t know how to make the smallest decisions in life.

When I first signed up for Venmo I was surprised to learn that it had a newsfeed like a social media app, and that it defaulted to payments between people being public. I immediately figured out how to shut that “feature” off. I really don’t understand why Megan would want all of her contacts to know that she paid…

Maybe they want’s something new? 

I’m also 100% behind the idea, and live in Michigan which should probably be on Central Time, but is Eastern. I would love to stay on DST because I enjoy the super late sunsets in the summer, but the idea of the sun not rising until about 9 for part of the winter isn’t super appealing. I can’t really have it both ways…

I can’t deny your first statement. 

We do not, that could be it. The front of our house faces south and also has a huge window, so that’s probably part of it too. 

I’m one of those lucky folks who started working from home 2 years ago, and will hopefully never go back to the office. I used to hate going to the store, but I now find that I sometimes get some enjoyment out of it simply because it gets me out of the house. We still do curbside pickup for most of our groceries for…

I guess my house must either have a lot more natural light than yours, or you have much more efficient window coverings, as I don’t see it working in my situation. 

While the prices of the items aren’t that much higher, tipping 15-20% adds a not insignificant cost to a Costco “trip”. When I look at this I don’t see the point of shopping at Costco vs a standard grocery store, as it certainly wipes out any cost savings. To be clear I’m not trying to tell you how to spend your…

Your fly method seems like it would only work at night. We utilize fly swatters, but we certainly don’t keep them on kitchen counters. 

I used Costco delivery a lot when we were completely locked down and not even going to the store. If you weren’t aware, the items are priced higher for delivery than they are in-store, and you of course need to tip on top of that. My average Costco delivery was probably $200 for the items, and I’d tip another $40 on…

For syrup it depends on whether you/the OP are talking about actual maple syrup or cheap pancake syrup. I refrigerate maple syrup after opening because the container always says to do so. Mrs. Butterworth lives in the cupboard. It’s annoying to heat up maple syrup once it’s refrigerated, but I defer to the…

It depends on the meal, but scrambled eggs would be a good example for me, because eggs in particular are something I like to eat as hot as possible, and I use a considerable amount of hot sauce (usually Franks) when I eat them. 

Thank you for listing hot sauce. I hate it when I’m visiting someone and they pull cold hot sauce out of the fridge to use with a meal. I like eating hot (temperature) food as warm as possible, and it drives me nuts to use cold condiments on it. See also: soy sauce. 

I don’t know if the following situation was a breach of etiquette, but it was strange. Many years ago a couple who were barely acquaintances invited my now-wife and out to a local brewery. We didn’t have anything else going on and we love beer, so we figured hey, why not? What they didn’t tell us was that they were…

Anything crunchy. I’m one of those people whose brain goes into an illogical rage when I hear the sounds of other people chewing, crunching, etc. I can recall barely pre-covid time on  an elevator in my office building where someone started chomping down on an apple right next to me. I’m lucky that I’m not in prison…

Right, but you theoretically need a car to drive anyway. You’re almost certainly better off buying it and driving it than turning the lease in and getting something else. That was also our thought process. We aren’t flipping ours at this point, we need a car.