Friday Facts #18: Toilet Paper Edition

You can take this blog post, and use it to wipe your ass, for all I care.

1) The oldest toilet may date back to the 26^th century BC, but toilet paper is considerably newer than that. The Chinese invented toilet paper, and they've been using it since at least 589 AD. Other people, such as the Arabs, thought this was disgusting, but nevertheless, the Chinese were manufacturing ten million packages of toilet paper per yer by the 1300s. These packages ranged in size from 1,000 to 10,000 sheets. Some were up to two feet by three feet (60.9 by 91.4 cm) big. That's actually a pretty big freaking sheet of toilet paper. The imperial family had extra-soft sheets made. Of course.

The imperial asshole is very delicate, you know.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, people were making due with toilet paper alternatives. These included corn, wood shavings, rags, grass, leaves, snow, and sand, for some reason. Some people used their hands, afterward washing them with water and soap, because you would.

2) The typical American uses about 50 pounds (23 kilos) of toilet paper each year, which is half again as much as any other Western country. Yes, kids, we're that full of sh*t.

3) We also export a lot of toilet paper. In 1999, we exported $44, 331,000 worth of toilet paper to Canada. The second largest consumer of American toilet paper that year was the UK, which purchased $579,000 worth of American toilet paper.

4) In 1973, the United States experienced a toilet paper shortage. The oil crisis was in full swing, and Johnny Carson (you know, the comedian) thought he'd make a joke about there being a toilet paper shortage. Carson didn't count on the age-old American custom of believing everything you see on the television/read somewhere.

No one's offended -- the Americans stopped reading when I told them they were full of sh*t.

On 19 December 1973, Carson joked to his audience that the United States was running out of toilet paper. By noon the next day, you couldn't find a roll for sale anywhere in the country. Carson soon apologized and explained that he was joking, but it took three weeks to get toilet paper back into American supermarkets. Some people bought so much toilet paper that morning that they were still using it for years.

5) You know how, sometimes, when you go into a fancy hotel, you find the end of the toilet paper roll folded up into an interesting shape? Yeah, there's a word for that. It's “toilegami.”

Just thought you'd like to know. ~ Richard Faulder

6) According to Ann Landers, one of the most controversial topics in the nation is whether the toilet paper should dispense from the topside or the bottom side of the roll. And here I would've thought it would be abortion, or gay marriage, or immigration, or something like that.

We know which side our bread's buttered on. ~ Elya

70% of Americans prefer the toilet paper to be dispensed from the topside of the roll. Factors affecting this preference are said to include political beliefs, age, socioeconomic status, and gender. It is believed that most people who prefer the toilet paper dispensed from the bottom side of the roll own a cat.

Indeed. ~ Derik DeLong

Fun Friday Facts #17: Thanksgiving Edition

Endless Christmas music is playing on the radio. Our homes and streets are decked with boughs of holly. Kids are sitting on the laps of costumed men in malls across the country – it can only mean one thing. That's right, folks, Thanksgiving is almost here!

Bet you didn't know that:

1) Americans eat about 280 million turkeys each Thanksgiving. The average Thanksgiving turkey weighs in at about 15 pounds (6.8 kilos), yet, somehow, the average American manages to eat 16 to 18 pounds (7.3 to 8.2 kilos) of turkey each year. We are, apparently, a nation of wizards.

Pictured: Average American. ~ Piotrus

2) While the first Thanksgiving supposedly occurred at Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts in 1621, the holiday didn't become official until 1863. President Abraham Lincoln designated the final Thursday in November as the nation's official “Thank God we're not gonna starve this winter” celebration. Thanksgiving Day was America's third national holiday, after Independence Day and George Washington's birthday.

3) The establishment of a Thanksgiving holiday was the work of Sarah Josepha Hale, the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” I bet you didn't even know there was an author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

There totally was.

Ms. Hale was a native of New England, where the Thanksgiving holiday was typically celebrated sometime between October and January, depending on the preferences of individual states. The holiday was unknown outside of New England, and Sarah Josepha Hale believed that ought to change. So much so, that she spent almost 40 years petitioning federal and state governments for the creation of a Thanksgiving holiday. As editor of Lady's Magazine and, later, Godey's Lady's Book, Ms. Hale published yearly editorials about the importance of Thanksgiving. She lobbied Congress regularly, wrote yearly to each and every U.S. governor, and wrote to five successive U.S. Presidents, hoping to win them over. The fifth and final President on Hale's list, Lincoln, finally agreed, since he didn't have any other pressing problems to attend to.

Hmmm...what shall I do today? Wait! I know!

4) Congress officially designated the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in 1941, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to push the holiday back a week, to the second to last Thursday in November, in 1939, 1940, and 1941. He hoped to stimulate the Depression-era economy by giving folks an extra week to shop for Christmas gifts. It didn't work, however, because most states just kept celebrating Thanksgiving on the final Thursday of the month, while some states went ahead and started having two Thanksgivings.

Like Texas. Texas had two Thanksgivings. ~ TUBS

5) The average Thanksgiving dinner includes pumpkin pie, turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and sweet potatoes. Naturally, none of these things were actually served at the “first” Thanksgiving. Well, except for the turkey. They had plenty of turkey.

Gobble. ~ Nordelch

What we know about the “first” Thanksgiving comes from a short passage in William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation and from a letter written by Edward Winslow in 1621. The two men describe the meal as consisting of venison, bass, cod, fowl, wild turkeys, and corn. The menu may have also included nuts, dried fruits, goat's cheese, eggs, carrots, radishes, cabbage, and beans.

Pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and all those other things we think of as traditional Thanksgiving fare became traditional because Sarah Josepha Hale said so, in all of those editorials she kept writing.

Long live the Thanksgiving Queen.

Fun Friday Facts #16: Extinct Animals Edition

As you've no doubt figured out by now, it's Friday again. If you're still thinking it's Thursday, well, it's not.

This week, we'll be taking a look at some of the world's deadest animals. Such as:

1) The quagga is apparently what happens when you cross a zebra with a horse. It was, apparently, named after the sound it made.

Imagine it making that sound and try not to laugh.

The quagga is one of many animals hunted to extinction because for its hide, tasty flesh, and because it was in our freaking way, dang it. Wild quaggas were wiped out sometime in the 1870s, and the last captive one died on 12 August 1883. Naturalists of the time were a bit confused about zebras in general, because each zebra has its own unique pattern of stripes.

They're like snowflakes if snowflakes looked like horses. ~ Pharaoh Hound, Fir0002

As a result, they had a bit of a hard time classifying zebras into distinct species. So, the quagga has the distinction of being the first extinct animal to have its DNA analyzed. Genetecists at the Smithsonian Institution have determined that the quagga was not, in fact, a separate species. It was, just a really weird-looking zebra, so I should probably kick it off the list.

Get out of here, you.

Scientists with the Quagga Project are now trying to bring the quagga back. They're going to do this by breeding weird-looking zebras together until they get some that look weird in just the right way. As of 2005, they've managed to come up with a zebra foal that sort of looks a little bit like a quagga.

2) The aurochs is the ancestor of our domesticated cattle. It looked like a cow.

Surprisingly enough.

Aurochs were, however, much bigger than regular cows. The average bull was about 5 feet 10 inches (1.8 meters) tall at the shoulders, and holy sh*t, that's taller than me.

These ginormous cattle were native to Europe, Asia and North Africa. They were popular subjects for prehistoric cave paintings. Humans began domesticating them about 8,000 years ago. By the 13^th century, the aurochs' massive range had dwindled to a small section of Eastern Europe. By the 17^th century, the aurochs survived only in Poland. The royal family attempted to preserve the species by appointing gamekeepers to provide them with grazing lands. Hunting the aurochs was forbidden, on pain of death.

The last aurochs died in 1627, on a royal game preserve in the Jaktorow Forest. Her skull is on display in the Royal Armory museum in Stockholm, Sweden.

Because when you invade a country, you totally loot its giant cow skull.

3) Not so long ago, the passenger pigeon was one of the most numerous birds in North America. When European conquest (I mean, er, settlement) began, there were probably anywhere from three to five billion passenger pigeons in the US. As late as 1866, a flock of 3.5 billion birds was spotted passing over southern Ontario. The flock was said to be one mile (1.6 kilometers) wide and 300 miles (483 kilometers) long. It took 14 hours to pass overhead.

That is a lot of freaking birds.

The passenger pigeon died out because we hunted the f*ck out of it. Passenger pigeon meat became a popular food in the early 1800s, because their sheer numbers meant they were easy to hunt and cheap to buy. Professional hunters would find a colony of passenger pigeons and kill as many as 50,000 birds per day, selling the meat in the cities for food or fertilizer. Some trapped the birds alive to sell as shooting targets. Poor people, servants and slaves usually didn't get any other type of meat.

Unfortunately for them, passenger pigeons were extremely social creatures. Their colonies often covered hundreds of miles and included tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of birds. They nested communally and needed to gather together in huge numbers in order to breed. By the time it was realized that the passenger pigeon was going extinct, there weren't enough birds left to establish a breeding flock.

4) The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, went extinct in 1936. A few people have reported seeing them since then, and have even come up with grainy photographs and footage, but the continued existence of this ugly bugger remains unproven.

The thylacine is thought to have become extinct on mainland Australia in the 19^th century, largely due to competition for food from dingoes and humans. It continued to thrive on the southern island of Tasmania until the 1930s. The thylacine was a carnivorous marsupial, and one of only two known marsupial species in which both male and female specimens have pouches.

The male used his to cover his nuts. I'm not joking.

These animals hunted at night, probably by ambush. Evidence suggests that a group of thylacines would single out a prey animal, then run it into exhaustion. Other thylacines would wait in the bushes, then leap out and kill the weakened prey. They may have hunted wallabies, wombats, birds, kangaroos and possums. The Tasmanian emu, one of its primary food sources, went extinct around 1850, and this may have contributed to the thylacine's own extinction.

For the most part, however, humans are blamed for eradicating the thylacine. Aren't we just awesome.

European farmers in Tasmania believed that thylacines were killing their sheep. As early as the 1830s, bounties were introduced. Other factors contributing to the thylacine's extinction are believed to include disease, extinction of the animal's prey species, and destruction of its habitat. A law to protect the thylacine was passed on 10 July 1936. The last wild thylacine was probably killed in 1930, but not to worry, we captured them on film. 

5) No list of extinct animals would be complete without the dodo bird, possibly the most widely-known extinct animal of all time. These flightless birds lived on the island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. Their extinction was entirely our fault.

As usual.

The dodo was a ground-nesting bird, about 3.3 feet (1 meter) tall, and weighing about 44 pounds (20 kilos). It tasted like chicken.

No, actually, it tasted like crap.

Dodos enjoyed a life free of predators on their island paradise, so they never developed that crucial survivial instinct known as common sense. When humans arrived on Mauritius, the dodos showed no fear of them, or their animal friends. While it's commonly believed that the dodos were hunted into extinction, please remember that they tasted like crap. It's more likely that the dogs, cats, pigs and rats humans brought to Mauritius were responsible for killing off the dodos, both by eating them and by destroying their nests. The official extinction date for the dodo is 1693, a little more than 100 years after the species was discovered.

This is why we can't have nice things.

How to Be an Independent Woman (for Realsies)

Recently, I was told that I'm a “feminist” blogger. This was news to me. I didn't set out to be a “feminist” blogger, and I don't see myself as one. The mantle has been thrust upon me. Maybe because I don't blog about cooking (don't cook), or my kids (don't have any), or beauty tips (don't need any), or whatever else it is women are “supposed” to blog about. Household hints, or crafts, or gardening – whatever this mysterious topic, I'm beginning to suspect it's only supposed to be interesting to other women, and then only on the most non-threatening level.

It's true I've said some things that have made some men uncomfortable. Not all the men, of course, just the ones who suspect I might be talking about them. I blog about all kinds of sh*t, and only about half a dozen of the fifty-some posts I've done so far have anything to do with men or their behavior, but you know how it is, ladies – dare to suggest that a testicled individual may be anything less than utterly perfect, and you'll be heaped with scorn, branded a foul-tempered unf*ckable dried up old hag, and sent off into solitary exile in a cabin in the Yukon. Figuratively speaking.

And if you think that's bad, try telling one not to interrupt you.

But, I digress. I was going to say that, no matter what I set out to be or how I see myself, I am, nevertheless, apparently a “feminist” blogger. If you're going to have a mantle thrust upon you, you may as well wear it gracefully.

So, in the interests of feminism in blogging, I'm going to share with you ladies (and fellas, what the hell) the qualities and skills, that, in my opinion, help to make women more independent. Here goes:

Earn Your Own Money

This one probably goes without saying. You can't be independent if you don't have any money, unless, of course, you live in some sort of tribal society where the barter system is used. If so, good luck being an independent woman, because you're probably a commodity yourself.

Unless you're an Amazon, in which case, you should be writing this for me.

Fix Your Own Car

Okay, I'm not saying you should be able to take the whole car apart and put it back together again. This is a complicated procedure requiring various and sundry tools, and I'm a reasonable person. But you should know a little bit more about the car than where the gas goes.

The gas goes here. ~ Mariordo Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz

Learn how to check your engine oil and tire pressure. Don't let a man see you do these things, however, because he will laugh and make some snarky remark along the lines of “I've never seen a woman check her tire pressure before,” and then you'll have to say, “I've never seen a pig who could speak before.”

It's also good to know how to change a flat tire, since these things tend to occur at awkward moments, like when you're driving on a creepy mountain road in the middle of the night in an area with no cell phone service. Life's a b*tch like that.

Alternatively, avoid mountain roads like the plague. ~ James Tanch, Jr.

I also know how to flush a radiator and change its pipes, change the engine oil and filter, swap out brake pads, change spark plugs, and bypass the starter solenoid on a 1977 Dodge Sportsman RV.

I learned all of these things the hard way, by taking several cross-continental road trips in a series of broken-down, rusted-out sh*tboxes.

Pictured: The Hard Knocks School of Auto Mechanics. ~ Jeremy Holmes

Learn to Throw a Punch

Or karate, or something. It's almost inevitable you'll be attacked at some point.

Punching is especially good for b*tch-fights. The other b*tches will be slapping, so you'll have the advantage.

Do Your Own Home Repairs

Most home repairs are fairly simple. Hanging a shelf or plastering a hole in the wall is not rocket surgery. If you're an adult, you should be able to assemble that bookcase from IKEA without blowing anything up. I've had boyfriends who didn't know how to reset a tripped circuit breaker (or change a flat tire, for that matter), so it's just as well you figure out these simple home-repair matters for yourself. Your life will be easier, and it'll save you calling the electrician over a burnt-out light bulb, like a roommate of mine once totally did.

I wish I'd been home to see that. 

Open Your Own Jars

Of all the obstacles in my life as an independent woman, it's the godd*mn f*cking jars that get me every time.

F*cking jars.

Honestly, I don't what it is. Maybe my hands are too small (unlikely), or my grip is too weak (very likely), or my upper-body strength is lacking (possible). Whatever it is, for some freaking reason, I always freaking struggle to open the f*cking jars.

Maybe women just aren't meant to open jars.

There are tricks to it. You can tap the side of the lid with a spoon, which loosens it up, I guess. If that doesn't work, you can run cold water over the lid. That makes the glass contract, or something. If that doesn't work, you can scare it open by cussing loudly and threatening to smash it.

Smashing the jar is cheating, but the jar doesn't know that.

Fun Friday Facts #15: Amish Edition

This week for Fun Friday Facts, I'm going to blog about the Amish, because I've always been fascinated by them. Besides, they've come up in conversation several different times with several different people recently, and that's got to be a sign, right?

From God.

In any case, it's not like they're going to read this, is it?

1) The Amish are descended from a 16^th century religious movement known as the Swiss Brethren. The Brethren were one of the many Protestant sects that formed during the Reformation. Like the Brethen, the Amish are Anabapists, which means they don't get baptised as babies, like many other Christians do. Instead, they believe in adult baptism, on the grounds that the person to be baptised should be old enough to make an informed decision about the matter.

Makes sense to me.

For most Amish, baptism occurs between 16 and 25 years of age. They must be baptized in order to get married, and they're only allowed to marry other Amish people.

2) In the 18^th century, many of the Amish emigrated to North America. They did this to escape persecution and religious wars, and to make better lives for themselves. They settled down first in Pennsylvania, but later began to disperse throughout the American South and Midwest. The French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War, provided some motivation. Many Amish communities were assimilated into the general population by 1860. Those who remain identify as either Old Order Amish, who are very traditional, or Amish Mennonites, who are a bit more progressive.

Pictured here. ~ Gilabrand

3) Due to their Swiss German roots, the Amish continue to speak a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch. They speak High German during church services, which usually occur in a community member's home. They learn to speak English at school, which they typically attend in schoolhouses run by the community. Most Amish finish school in the 8^th grade, and don't go on to high school or university. Children who require additional training, such as in a trade, may receive it from their parents or another community member after finishing their basic education.

4) Contrary to popular belief, the Amish do take some advantage of modern technology (as you may have noticed in that picture up there). While most Amish communities place severe restrictions on the use of electricity, telephones, televisions, radios, and the like, these decisions are usually made democratically on a district-by-district basis. Some communities are more strict than others, but many Amish use telephones, computers, electricity, and other modern conveniences when necessary.

For instance, many Amish sell their farm produce and handicrafts to the general community for a profit. They'll normally contract with local non-Amish friends to do the actual selling, but some communities will use computers and telephones to organize business deals. While Amish women usually make most of the clothing for themselves and their families, there are some things they may prefer to buy. These things include socks, underwear, work gloves and hats.

An Amish family might accept a car ride, but only if the journey is long enough to stop them going by horse-drawn buggy. They wouldn't make a social phone call, but they might use the phone to notify their family members if someone becomes ill or dies.

They also ride around on these. ~ Ad Meskins

5) Unlike some religious orders, the Amish do take advantage of modern medical care. They're pretty much all descended from the same group of about 200 original immigrants, so genetic diseases that are are rare in the general population occur more frequently in the Amish one. Thanks to the Amish and their detailed geneologies, doctors have learned a lot about many genetic diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and dwarfism. They've even come up with effective treatments for some previously deadly illnesses, such as maple syrup urine disease.

That is seriously a real disease, you guys.

6) Also contrary to popular belief, the Amish do pay taxes. They pay most of the same taxes as any other Americans, except for Social Security taxes. In 1961, the IRS decided that the Amish weren't required to pay Social Security taxes, since it's against their religion to buy insurance or accept government benefits. The exception became law in 1965.

Since the Amish don't buy insurance, they pay their own medical costs. If a member of the community needs medical treatment, the others will generally pitch in to help. According to this website, many Amish seek major procedures in Mexico, where it's cheaper.

"Amish in Mexico" sounds like an excellent feature film. ~ Jorge Martinez

7) In many Amish communities, teenagers over the age of 16 are allowed a period of relative freedom known as “rumspringa,” or “running around.” During this period, they're allowed to fraternize with non-Amish teenagers, go on dates, drive cars, wear modern clothes, drink booze, and all that fun stuff. They're not baptized yet, so they don't have to adhere to the strict religious rules that adult Amish follow. They're supposed to use the time to explore the outside world, so that they know what they're getting into if they decide to become baptized and make a lifelong commitment to the Amish faith. Most Amish teenagers sow their wild oats and then settle back down to the quiet life.

"Mexico wasn't that great, really." ~ Ernest Mettendorf

8) Most young Amish don't date, as such, but they are given plenty of time to socialize with eligible bachelors and bachelorettes in the community, or in nearby communities. Many Amish are fully aware of the dangers of inbreeding, and will try to find marital partners from other communities in order to avoid it. Socializing among the Amish occurs in the evenings, after the farm work is done, and on Sunday, after church. Picnics, barn raisings, baseball games and other activities give young Amish people time to get to know each other.

While it's apparently not cool for a young Amish lady to let her sweetie escort her to events, it's okay for him to take her back home again, even if it's already dark and they're alone. A young man may visit a girl at home, but only late at night, after her parents are in bed.

I don't care what the Internet says, I don't believe that. Not one bit.

9 Reasons I Hate Being Smart

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I'm smart. Like, really smart. Statistically speaking, I'm smarter than you. But I'm not here to brag – I'm here to complain.

Ignorance is bliss, they say. Stupidity isn't the same thing as ignorance, but the stupid people of world seem pretty f*ckin' happy, all the same.

The grass is always greener over the septic tank, right? Stupid people might be happier, but they're also stupid. On the other hand, they're also happier. Here are some of the reasons why being smart makes me miserable:

1) I Have Problems Making Friends and Maintaining Relationships

It's difficult to forge a deep connection with someone when, the whole time you're listening to them, you're thinking to yourself, “Damn, what an idiot.” This happens to me a lot.

Other people don't find it easy to connect with me, either. If they're not struggling to understand me in the first place, it's probably because I'm going on about how smart I am, as if to rub it in their faces.

2) Men Don't Like Me

Well, they do, just not for very long.

Of course, I'm arguably famous for scraping the bottom of the man-barrel. Nevertheless, it seems not many men appreciate a woman who is clearly smarter than them. As far as I can tell, the ones who do are all about 50, which puts them just a tad out of my age bracket.

That said, I would totally do Henry Rollins.

Most of the guys I go out with, or even just observe in the wild, seem to like playing the role of the smarter, more competent one. As far as I can tell, I'm supposed to play along by acting all giggly and impressed. Needless to say, that is not the way we do things chez McAtee.

And by "we," I mean "I."

I know men have fragile egos that need to be stroked, but you can't pretend you're something you're not. The facade falls apart rather quickly, in fact.

3) Most People Irritate Me, Anyway

Seriously, they do. I can't tell you how many times I've sat around at some party listening to two or more ladies of my acquaintance go on about something completely idiotic, like which breast implants they're gonna get. The teardrop ones are the best, apparently, because “I totally knew this girl who got them and they looked soooooo natural.”

Please, somebody shoot me.

4) Simple Things Elude Me

Yes, they do. That might not sound very smart to you, but that's because you don't understand the nature of genius.

When you have a complex mind, you tend to see things in a complex manner. This is fine most of the time, cause a lot of what goes on in the world is fairly complicated. Some things aren't, though. What I'm trying to say is, I go around pushing on “pull” doors.

Like this one. ~ Alcook101

5) I Keep Walking Into Things, Because the Deep Thoughts Take Up All My Attention

I have the forehead scars to prove it.

6) Hard Work is Harder

Oh hell yes it is. See, I've been smart all my life. I didn't fall into a vat of radioactive waste when I was 25, or anything like that.

I coasted through school pretty easily. Aside from a couple of years in high school when I was all, “F*ck this noise, I'm going for a smoke,” I always got good grades, and I never really had to study. I double-majored in college, and graduated summa cum laude with Departmental Honors. I never pulled an all-nighter and every paper I handed in was a first draft.

To be fair, I'm pretty good at first drafts. ~ mpclemens

Before you get all proud of me or jealous or whatever, keep in mind that through all those crucial years of growing up, I never had to work hard at anything. I just appeared and kept my eyes open, and I succeeded. Sometimes I didn't even do that, and I still succeeded. Everything came too easily.

No matter how smart you are, there comes in a point in life where you have to put in effort to thrive. When everything comes easily until you're 22, you never learn how to do hard work. It's a hell of a thing to have to master as an adult.

7) My Memory is Too Good

They say that memory is the biggest part of intelligence, and I guess they might have a point. You do better in school if you can remember what your teacher said. You do better at life if you can remember exactly how you f*cked up before, or even better, exactly how that one dude you heard about f*cked up before.

The trouble with having a good memory is that, well, you tend to remember things. The brain lends more weight to bad memories, since the caveman who remembered the bear attack avoided its lair and went on to have kids of his own. If you remember too many bad things, though, you tend to get depressed a bit too easily.

Not to mention, I creep people out. I've been trying not to do this, but occasionally I find myself drunkenly telling some acquaintance his own life story. Not until I see the look of horror spread over his face do I realize that he doesn't remember telling me this stuff the last time we were drunk together, and now he thinks I'm a stalker.

I have trust issues, partly because I remember just about every single thing everyone I know has ever said and done in my presence. On the one hand, that makes it easy to figure out who I can trust. On the other hand, it also makes it easy to see just how few people are worth trusting.

8) So, I Worry Too Much

Partly because I have too many memories of things going horribly wrong, and partly because I know how few people are worth trusting. But also, partly I'm aware of how many things could go wrong. My overactive brain is constantly working out new scenarios and presenting them to me at three in the freaking morning.

Shut the f*ck up already you stupid piece of sh*t brain.

9) ...And Then I Drink Too Much

Cause at least when I'm drunk, I'm not worried about all the things that could go wrong, like liver disease or falling and breaking my teeth out, two of the common consequences of drinking.

I swear to God, Brain, I will kill you with booze if it's the last thing I do.

Or maybe I'm just trying to dumb myself down enough for that boob job conversation up there. Hard to know, really.