Ugh for sure. I didn’t even realize it until it was called out, but that episode also has no background music. It’s a subtle change but it makes everything so much more real and unnerving. Just thinking about that episode is making me cry now!

was the norm

In the US, it was only banned from being sold in 1996, but it wasn’t the norm for long before that. The last model year that leaded gas was allowed for cars was 1974. Yes, all Boomers and most of Gen X would have had high exposure, but it would have been fading out by the time younger Gen Xers were born.

And yes there are some non-car applications of it that are still legal to this day, but the overall frequency of it would have dropped a ton well before the mid-90s. (Source, and actual graphs of the decline over time)

If I may rephrase what I’m reading: You don’t want to tell him to leave you alone because you would be upset if someone told you that.

Here’s the thing: you don’t know that will upset him. TL;DR of the rest of my post: he probably won’t take it the way you would, and I highly recommend being straightforward with him.

I suggest reading about the difference in Ask Culture vs Guess Culture. Those of us who grew up in a guess culture manage our own actions based on what we think will be acceptable to those around us and won’t even initiate something if it would be deemed inappropriate, so it’s rare we have to be told “no”. Those in ask culture will just ask and be totally fine if told no, because they haven’t already done the pre-work to figure out if their request will be approved.

One of the best lessons I’ve had in the past few years is that other people don’t respond like me. I mean, that should be obvious. But it came up in the context of being a manager at work with an underperformer. I would be devastated if my boss told me I was not doing well at my job, and so I was terrified of telling my direct report that. I communicated the gaps in her specific actions for months, but we finally got to a point where I needed to have the conversation that I didn’t think the role was the right fit for her. It was one of the hardest days in my career. And she thanked me for it!

I was so scared because I was imagining how I’d feel hearing what I was going to say. But she’s not me! And instead of being upset, she felt relief to hear someone else say it.

You’re afraid of being rude, and that shows you have compassion and care for others. But I bet you that this coworker of yours just needs to be told, and not communicating with him is actually less kind.

A quote from a favorite book series of mine is a take on our “golden rule” through an alien culture: “The Iron Rule: Treat others less powerful than you however you like. The Silver Rule: Treat others as you’d like to be treated. The Golden Rule: Treat others as they’d like to be treated.”

I appreciate you breaking it down this way. It helps me understand the stance so many hold on landlords.

However, I think you’re missing a lot in your distillation that everything above mortgage + handyman salary is making money for nothing.

Owner also pays property taxes, insurance, all maintenance costs, all upgrades, and possibly utilities or yard care. The benefits for the renters include having a maintenance person on-call all the time, not needing to vet each tradesperson, not needing to get quotes, no expenses when an appliance breaks, no liability in case of a disaster, and more.

If I didn’t have a handy partner and the market was reasonable, I’d love to rent. I don’t want to deal with maintenance and I like having a consistent monthly fee rather than suddenly having to spend $2k on a new water heater like I did last month, or being afraid that our heat might die suddenly this winter because we weren’t ready to spend >$20k this summer to replace the air handler when it went out and needed a new part. Plus my partner took 3 half days off work to get 3 quotes for it. They each told us significantly different things that we needed to do, so we couldn’t decide if we were comfortable doing business with any of them. That shit is stressful! Having the assurance that I can call just one person and someone else will take care of it is worth a good price.

So the cost of owning some units is more than just the mortgage, and the benefits of renting are more than just a maintenance person’s salary. Distilling it to just those two things is an unjust comparison.

Should a person get stupidly rich off of being a landlord? No. That’s exploitative. The cost of renting should match the cost of the property and maintenance (as averaged out over time) plus the cost/savings of the additional benefits of renting. That’s all. But that’s a lot more than just mortgage + handyman salary divided out over however many units the landlord owns.

(Also this assumes the person is actually a good landlord, and we know there are many landlords out there who aren’t.)

Since it’s sort of related and I love this story, I’m telling it.

My sister and her husband didn’t raise my (now 5yo) nephew with ‘Santa’ being real, but they also didn’t ever say he wasn’t. When he was 3, we were doing a Zoom call with the extended family and someone asked him if Santa was real. He said, “Santa’s pretend-real.”

Basically, no, he’s not, but the concept of Santa is real enough and so we talk about Santa as real.

My uncle then said, “Kind of like God!”

What could have been a dark turn for many families thankfully was just a hilarious moment for ours!

Still my favorite way to think about and describe both Santa and God, lol.

If you expect the average person to be able to understand an algebraic equation better than the existing system, then I’d suggest you get out of your social bubble and meet more ‘average’ people.

But that’s just a ‘bone apple tea’ of “chest of drawers”? It’s not a correct term.

(I figured surely there’s an actual word for misheard terms being butchered in writing, but a quick search failed me so I went with the colloquial name.)

OP is wrong. Bra size is the ONLY women’s sizing that is related to specific measurements. It can still take a while to find a comfortable fit based on shapes, but the sizes are standardized across good brands.

Starting point to find the size: Measure the rib cage right under the bust. If even, that’s the number; if odd, round up. Measure the largest size around the bust. Subtract underbust from bust measurements. 1” = A, 2” = B, 3=C, 4=D.

It gets confusing from there in the US because instead of going alphabetically, the US just adds a D for every inch after 4 until some arbitrary letter then goes back to the alphabet. Using UK sizes just follows the alphabet and so is very simple.

You’re close! Both a 34B and a 32D would have the same measurement around their bust, but the bust size alone can’t be used to determine bra size. The rule is to increase band size by 1 increment (which is 2”) and reduce cup size by 1 increment (the letter) to maintain the same volume.

The volume of a 32D is the same as a 34C.

It’s been the opposite for women’s clothing in my experience. I’ve had to give up multiple brands as their shirts got too big. Same labeled size, same style, but it’s suddenly 2” wider.

Agree on all points! When I was had my first grownup job I was trying to build up my wardrobe and found a pair of jeans that fit and felt great. Size 3. I went back after another paycheck to get an identical third pair and when I got home, they were practically falling off of me. I had to exchange them for a 1, which was still larger than the size 3s from just a month or two earlier.

But a fitted bra? One of my best purchases ever. Getting in the right size resolved about 70% of my chronic back pain. Fit is different between bra types but decent brands’ sizes are standardized, regardless what OP says.

What age do you start remembering what you were like?

I became really self-aware at 11. I’m guessing a bit about being 10, but 6th grade (11-12) is when I feel like I started being the person I still am 20+ years later. Obviously I’ve grown, but it started then.

Probably that I’m alive?

I already dealt with (undiagnosed) chronic depression by 10. The first time I thought about killing myself I don’t think I even knew the word “suicide.” I also had an overwhelming sense that I wouldn’t live past 30. That might not have started until I was 11 or 12, but I think it was there when I was younger.

Weirdly my mom also had an overwhelming sense that she would lose me at a young age from the day I was born, which she didn’t have with my older sister.

Well, I’m past 30 now. My love of people in my life has kept the suicidal ideation to only that. While I still have chronic depression, I’ve learned to manage it better over the years and medication helps.

I genuinely don’t know why I was depressed or had suicidal thoughts that young. I didn’t have a traumatic home or childhood. My parents worked a lot but loved me and my sister without question. We didn’t have a lot of money but always had enough food. I loved school and had great teachers. I wasn’t sexually assaulted before I was 10 (I think I was 12 the first time). I don’t know and that bothers me.

ETA: I guess I was bullied at school by 10, so maybe that accounts for it?

I was fortunate that individuals in my elementary school actually made accommodations for me being ahead of average. My third grade teacher gave me a fourth grade math book and special assignments from it. The pull-out classes for smart kids were K-2 and 3-5, but I got put in the 3-5 class in second grade. My principal supported my parents in moving me to a different class because of teachers who weren’t supporting me (multiple times, actually).

My school was in a pretty low-income district, but I completely lucked out with educators (and parents) who fought for me.

Definitely still ended up on the gifted child > burnt out teen/adult who struggles with some basic life skills, but at least I didn’t end up struggling with my ADHD in school until high school because of the support in my younger years.

This 1955 featurette interpreted it as re-gifting daily. It ends up being a LOT of birds.

Many people mentioned clearing ALL the snow off your car, but I didn’t see people mentioning why. Here are some videos to elaborate how terrifying and dangerous it can be when people don’t do that.

One, two, three, four

It takes a lot of energy to clear the car off, but it’s critical. Don’t be the person that harms someone else just to save a bit of time and effort.

A DMV is accountable for driving laws and practices in their own state, not educating people about every possible driving condition anywhere.

Wait, are you saying that Virginia not mentioning what to do if a moose is in the road is “bad”?

Considering that the northern-most part of Virginia is still about 350 mi south of the closest range of moose, it would be pointless if not absurd for them to include it.

I’ve definitely talked about ND behaviors within minutes of meeting strangers at parties (either they bring it up or I do about myself, never calling someone else out for it).

I’m a nerd, therefore most of my friends are nerds, and so too are their friends. While I don’t have data to back this up, I believe most nerds are ND (I literally can’t think of any NT folks in my social circle). We tend to be good at pattern recognition, so identifying similar traits when there’s already the confirmation of being friends-of-friends tends to be enough to get into such topics, lol.

If I think of tasting a lime, my mouth puckers and salivates like I’m about to eat something sour. I could probably say I’m imagining the taste, similar to how you described, like a 1/10.

I think hearing is maybe like that but like 1/100 instead of 1/10? It’s hardest to explain that one because with the stuck song thing, it’s there. I know it’s there. I can’t not imagine the song when it’s stuck. But I don’t “hear” it in any way like my ears hear things?

Smell I can’t imagine at all, but I can usually recognize smells (“usually” because for things that are similar to a memory, like someone wearing the aftershave my dad used as a kid or something that smells like my grandmother’s house from 25 years ago, are likely a miss, but normal things I recognize without question).

Visuals are probably more like smell in that I just don’t have them, but remembering visuals is more critical so I’m better at coping with that one.

I will mention I’ve met people and then instantly forgotten everything about how they looked, like I could only tell you gender and race, but I recognized them when I saw them again. Now, I had context clues. Like I met a couple in a dive shop in town then saw them at the airport on the way to the trip we were both going on through the dive shop. I knew I’d probably see them at the airport and I knew them when I did. But I couldn’t have told you a thing about them until then! It was the weirdest experience, and I think not being able to visualize was the root cause.