HOAs say “ew no that’s for the poors” and good luck finding a house that’s not in an HOA within a reasonable commute to your job

In my neighborhood, he’d be technically following the rules, but I’d still be annoyed and mutter about morning people thinking they’re better than everyone else.

Had me in the first half, ngl

I think it’s a red flag because rushing you (without a valid, stated reason) is an attempt to override your instincts while pressuring you to take a certain action. Outside of safety-related situations, that kind of situation has never gone in my favor.

Others have already pointed out that we’re indoctrinated into the myths of American exceptionalism and rugged individualism from a young age. I very much agree, but those myths are only part of it.

That indoctrination, combined with our lack of safety nets, shows up as a hypercompetitive attitude. (“It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.”) We feel pressured to be the very best so we might earn the privilege of feeling secure and stable. Trash-talking and bragging are hamfisted attempts to portray high status.

If you look at our social injustice issues through that lens, the injustice makes a certain kind of disgusting, antisocial sense. One who’s internalized the hypercompetitiveness will look at someone lying in the middle of the ground in a public city and think: they just aren’t trying hard enough, they just couldn’t compete. We look to others’ misfortunes for reassurance that we’re good enough, that we’re at the front of the pack. To make oneself smaller, to put oneself second, becomes unthinkable. (“Second place is first loser.”)

Can you experiment with using nonverbal communication to signal that you’re ready to go? Things like:

• If standing, shift your feet so they’re pointing away from the person (if ineffective, can escalate by rotating the whole leg away, which you can then escalate by shifting more weight to the turned-away leg)
• If sitting, put your hands to your knees/lower thighs (think an extremely subtle version of the Midwest USA joke where you slap your knees and say “welp!”)
• If sitting at your desk, gradually begin rotating back to your work (gently swivel seat back so your legs are under the table, can escalate by rotating your torso back to your work while keeping only your head turned, and if they’re still super clueless you can return your hands to your keyboard/work as well)

It’s bizarre. I’ve taken my Adderall before a flight, so as not to disturb my neighbors, and then dozed right off as soon as takeoff was over. But give me coffee stronger than 1/10 caf, and I’ll be a goddamn menance.

For being a low-key menace. https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf

Because not paying your taxes will draw attention from what remains of the system. I’m not thrilled about paying taxes to the dead and looted corpse of our government, but it’s better to stay under the radar.

It doesn’t count as DEI if you’re hired to be a sex object (disgusted sarcasm)

Not on purpose. I’ve found that making every effort to pass as normal is far more advantageous. If I have to choose between being treated like a child because I’m different vs. being disliked because people can tell I’m hiding something but not what that something is… well, I’ll take option B.

Tell me you hate your wife without telling me you hate your wife. Clearly he also just uses her as a maid/housekeeper, because who’s sitting at home on their days off?

You discovered the problem in time, and you took her for prompt veterinary care. You absolutely deserve your pets!

The only thing more aggressively suicidal than a dog/cat is a human toddler. It’s impossible to stop your pets from getting into everything.

My cats have eaten more than their share of plastic, mainly because my natural state is “wasn’t there something in my hand a minute ago? Where could it be? And what could it possibly have been?! Ooh look I see snacks!” Luckily they’ve always horked it back up, but I worry that one day they won’t puke in time.

So, I try to be careful not to set down plastic, even going so far as to mutter, “Don’t open your hand. Go to the trash. Do NOT open your HAND. You are going to the trash. After that come back and <finish the thing>. DO NOT OPEN your stupid HAND! You are going to the trash can. Then go back and <finish the thing>. But first the trash can. But DON’T open…” and so on, for the entire time it takes me to throw the thing away and (ideally) return to what I was doing.

It takes enormous effort to keep the house perfectly safe. Making housekeeping my hobby didn’t work well for me. So instead I know my pets and their normal behaviors, keep a good pet insurance policy, and call the vet when there’s anything weird that’s taking too long to resolve.

You’re giving your pets a much better life than they’d have at the shelter. So, yes, you DO deserve them, and they deserve you.

Yes, when collaborating with someone who was only familiar with light mode and felt disoriented by the different appearance. I wanted to scream and hiss like a vampire.

During morning rush hour (a near-standstill occasionally broken by brief periods of 10mph movement), I once saw a woman eating a bowl of soup/oatmeal/whatever while steering with her elbows.

It seemed to be a regional norm to eat breakfast in the car because a 20 mile commute generally took 1.5-3 hours and often moved slower than a walking pace, but that was the only time I’d ever seen someone eating food that required a dish and utensil.

The acronym “Laws” is a little too on the nose. I’d ask whether anyone involved in the development of these has seen the documentary film Robocop, but clearly they have and thought it was a great idea.

A pill organizer, if the original containers are too large (or too numerous) to be practical. I’ve only flown domestic USA, but security has never bothered me about it.

I use a portable AC - this is different from a window unit. The unit itself stands up inside your room, and it has a flexy hose that goes into a flat panel that’s about 10 inches high and expandable widthwise. You lift the window a bit, put the flat panel in the open spot, then close the window so the light pressure keeps the flat panel in place. It’s all on the indoors side of the screen, so it counts as being inside your house and nobody can complain.

(Assumptions: you have the typical American sliding windows, and your HOA doesn’t have rules about the inside of your house like curtain color or whatever)

How do you do, fellow humans?

I’m confused. When I lived in apartments, I never built them myself. Can you explain how one builds one’s apartment?