As I’m writing this, I’ve been in self-quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic for a few weeks. I am, of course, worried about getting the virus. Or maybe more so about it being dormant inside of me and passing it to someone else. But as I spend more...
Like a new cohort of workers affected by the coronavirus, I work remotely from my apartment. On a daily basis, my colleagues cooperate with my bulging head, projected like the Wizard of Oz on an enormous flat screen in our faraway headquarters. The same corkboard where I keep...
Unloading your dishwasher, you’re faced with two threats: pipin’ hot ceramic dinner plates and Tupperware containers containing a splash-in-the-face quantity of dishwater. The dinner plate thing is fine and normal — hateful, but fine and normal — but what’s the freaking deal with all these wet plastics?...
Obviously, you can just straighten out the bag and pour those remaining chip fragments into your mouth. Wasting food is terrible anyway, and that’s only become more true now that we’re trying to minimize our trips to the grocery store by making the most of our stashes...
Welp, you put it off as long as possible — and went through quite a few matchbooks in the process — but the very apparent stench creeping out of the bathroom yet again this morning means it’s highly unlikely you can hide one unassailable truth from your...
Spending a good chunk of money on a mattress is obviously a wise investment. You spend a third of your life asleep, or if you’re like me, more than half of your life at least reclined on a mattress. As with cars, toilet paper and cuts of meat,...
The new coronavirus has accomplished what many commute-crazed, meeting-ravaged office workers have been long awaiting: Their companies are finally encouraging them to work from home. While, for many of us, working from the comfort of our homes is preferable to working in a dreary office building in an even more dreary cubicle, it can also...
A clean, freshly made bed is a glorious sight. “Sleep in me,” it says. “Crawl into me, forget all your worries and sleep the sleep of a champion. Dream the pleasant dreams of the stress-free, and awake refreshed and invigorated for a day of splendidness.” It’s like Pennywise inviting...
Many of us have had our routines, in a matter of weeks, completely upended. Only a short while ago, we continued to commute to our workplaces. We still went to our gyms. We attended our weekly gatherings with friends and family. But now, almost everyone is being...
Because I’m not a parent, my general policy on parenting-related topics is that my opinion is worthless and that everything is probably a lot more challenging than it looks. I do have a seven-year-old niece who I wish was my child (if my sister is reading this: watch...
Despite people clamoring to buy the last 18-packs of double-ply toilet paper at the grocery store, the coronavirus really isn’t the butt apocalypse it might seem, since nothing gastrointestinal is among the primary symptoms. For some, the greater concern may be that quarantining prevents us from leaving the house much...
The first person I reached out to for this story was John Ratzenberger. Not because I thought he’d actually know the answer to my question, but because he’s played Toy Story’s Hamm for 25 years now, and I thought it’d be fun to talk to the guy. In my head, I...