uh yeah, I sure HOPE it does

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

for example, when chatting with coworkers, i’ll often ask if they have any fun weekend plans. but let’s be real - we all feel like friendless losers when someone asks that question and we go “uhhhhh… no.” so instead, i phrase it as “so, do you have anything fun planned over the weekend, or are you just going to enjoy having some time to relax?”

phrased like this, there’s rarely any awkwardness. you’ve presented two options & given both equally positive connotations, so your conversational partner has an automatic “out,” so to speak

but it works for higher stakes conversations too!!!! my mom was saying this weekend how she and her neighbor both like walking around the neighborhood & that she wanted to suggest they take a walk together sometime, but was worried about how to approach the conversation

so i said “how about you just say ‘i’ve noticed we both like taking walks! would you be interested in going for one together, or do you use walks for some precious alone time?’”

now Walking Neighbor has an automatic “get out of jail free card” if she wants to say no!!!! which means my mom doesn’t have to worry about the conversation being uncomfortable, because she’s set it up to go smoothly

When I was 14, my friends and I went to see Madagascar 3 - told our parents and then walked to and from the theater by ourselves. When I got home, my mom asked me all kinds of questions about the movie, and I told her about it, and I kept singing the stupid Afro Circus song

One day, between our pokemon trips, my friends and I crashed at my house. We bided our time by baking some sugar-packed monstrosity brookies and settling down for a movie.

About halfway through, my dad comes up, visibly shaken. We pause the movie and ask him what what's up.

"Did you put...something... in the brownies? I had a couple of them, and I'm feeling weird."

My friends and I are thoroughly confused for about two seconds. And then it clicks. This entire time, my Dad has been convinced that 'Pokemon Go' has been code for hotboxing. He's placeboed himself into thinking that we've made weed brownies under his own roof. Mind you, to this day, I have never had even a puff of weed.