My camping experience is limited and questionable. Is it really camping when you’re in a roofed cabin at Girl Scout camp? Or in a used, pop-up camper with your parents and siblings in 1980? Shouldn’t a tent be involved somewhere? If you’re saying, “Yes, yes. A tent should be involved if you’re really camping,” then…

My visitor is neither houseguest nor fish, but he definitely meets that three-day criterion for repugnancy. He’s a skink. I did not know what a skink was until he showed up last year. Encyclopedia Britannica says skinks as a subset of lizards – a far more benign descriptor than my skink deserves. Skink bodies are…

If I’ve made the mistake I think I’ve made, I’m in deep trouble. My mistake was not in telling the tale of my movie buddy’s ill-timed cough. She’s still talking to me. No harm done. Thankfully. Nor was my mistake in telling my husband he loads the dishwasher like a maniac. He lays the coffee…

Everybody should have a movie buddy, that person – people if you’re lucky – who accompany you to any movie, any time. My movie buddies and I have seen everything together, from Black Panther to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer. Abraham Lincoln as a vampire slayer was not a great concept. But movie buddies don’t cast…

I’d just like to register a concern about Mother’s Day. Breakfast in bed. Mother’s Day and breakfast in bed are shipped more than Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. And while I will forever hope Jen and Brad realize they were meant to be, I never want to see a Mother’s Day that serves me scrambled…

I’m fully vaccinated, which for me means one thing. I can’t avoid socializing. As an introvert, the thought of hitting parties, joining the swim club, or finally agreeing to that road trip with the girls overwhelms me. I’m no fan of the pandemic, but I did enjoy not talking to people. Socializing on any scale…

Tyrannosaurus rex teenagers were calamitous. Their presence altered any ecosystem unfortunate enough to host them. It’s possible they had a role in whatever freaky biology made dinosaurs so big. They were so different from their parents some argue they should be classified as a different species. A different species. For further research into adolescent T.…

There is pen ink on the living room lampshade. Oil paint is ground into the family room carpet. A weird goo is crusted into the hallway floor. And a throw pillow is missing. A year into the pandemic forcing us home, my house is battered. Even our outdoor space has seen better days. The garage…

The long and short of this story is the scammer got my parents to purchase $2,000 worth of Best Buy gift cards. And they gave him access to their bank accounts. And let him move in with them. My mom baked him her famous cheesecake tarts, and my dad turned over the remote control. OK.…

I was married under a falsehood. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. My intended had employed treachery and trickery to get me here. I’m too far gone to be saved. But, like Jacob Marley, I am here for your sake. What has my betrayal got to do with you? You’re not…