So the last time I used TurboTax, it was all bubbly, asking questions and providing reassurances that we were “almost done”. That’s not realistic. Realism is going to the post office to look bewilderingly through the boxes of paper tax forms littered around the mailbox area wondering which ones apply to you, bringing home a handful of weird-smelling newsprint instruction booklets, and sifting through that shoebox of receipts you’ve been hoarding while you nurse a handle of whiskey and curse the tax reform act of 1986. Professional tax prep software somewhat recreates that vibe. Turbotax is a marshmallow fluff game guide complete with cheat codes.

Surprisingly, yes. The holy grail of magnet fishing enthusiasts are weapons (that are then usually turned over to police).

I haven’t tried metal detecting, but we went magnet fishing once. Caught lots of fish hooks and one mostly rusted but still intact shock absorber.

Dad let me watch Poltergeist when I was 6 and Mom let me watch The Shining when I was 7. I was also 7 when the Thriller video came out, and I think that scared me more.

The tightest end dump pile is still a fat line.

This is an amusing sentence out of context.

Maybe it wanted to turn around. Busch Gardens is just 40 miles back.

A very excellent point. I should have realized.

He might not have been fully up to speed yet. This sign is just past a weigh station (I’ve driven this stretch many, many times), and VDOT said he had just gone through the station. Though that doesn’t answer why the bed was up. Could have bumped the switch?

:::Edit to strike through this nonsense:::I am leaning toward the other explanation of drive shaft breaking and pole vaulting the trailer into the sign.

If that’s the case, why did they arrest the driver on reckless driving? Sounds like pure accident. Even if it was negligent maintenance, that’s not the driver’s fault, that’s on the trailer owner. Right? (IANACDL 😄)

To someone with ADHD, this is like telling them to just pull ya’self up by yer bootstraps. 🙃

On a scale from 1 to 10, that trailer was at a Snoop Dogg.

You did it all for the wookie, the wookie, the wookie…

My motivation

When it was first released, The Sixth Sense ending blew everyones’ minds.

Usual Suspects and Se7en as well.

Anything is edible. Once.

I made a Bespin Leia outfit to wear to the opening night of Phantom Menace. On the way to the theater, I got pulled over. The cop was very weirded out by me. I did not get lucky with just a warning.

Bertolli chicken parm and some garlic Texas toast is almost downright fancy, but it’s 100% dump, heat, eat.

I have had the train thing happen to me. There were no warning lights where the road crossed over. Fortunately it was a coal train going very slowly. Scared the living daylights out of me. It’s been 30 years since that happened and I’m still neurotic about railroad crossings with poor visibility.

A picture of my grandfather standing next to a woman, taken before he met my grandmother, and she is holding a baby. It didn’t surface until after grandpa’s funeral. It was taken 500 miles away from where my family lives. I live in that other city now. I wonder if I’ve met my half aunt or uncle randomly in passing?

Am Appalachian. This sounds about right.