ArcaMax

...she thought she needed a token to get on Soul Train.

...she sold the car for gas money.

...when she saw the "NC-17" (under 17 not admitted), she went home and got 16 friends.

...when she heard that 90% of all crimes occur around the home, she moved.

...she thinks Taco Bell is where you pay your phone bill.

...when she missed the 44 bus, ...Read more

A young woman took her troubles to a psychiatrist. "Doctor, you must help me," she pleaded. "It's gotten so that every time I date a nice guy, I end up in bed with him. And then afterward, I feel guilty and depressed for a week."

"I see," nodded the psychiatrist. "And you, no doubt, want me to strengthen your will power and resolve in this ...Read more

"Can I get an unsweetened iced tea?" I asked the server who brought me a glass of water. My husband was out of town, and I thought it would be nice to treat myself to dinner in a fancy restaurant I'd heard a lot about. I had put on actual shoes instead of Uggs for the occasion, so I expected good food and service to match.

"Oh, I just do the ...Read more

I will speak to almost any room about the miracle of local news. However, one annual event strikes fear in my soul.

Yes, I am talking about the Great American Teach-In. When requests to present at this career day roll around, I pretend as if my hearing and vision have simultaneously gone out.

For one thing, time in a classroom will remind ...Read more

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Quoth the Raven, 'Caw'

One of the things I do actually love about the suburbs is the quiet. Of course, the quiet mostly happens in short spurts between clamorous bouts of home construction, lawnmowers, garbage trucks and barking dogs. But when I do get it, it's glorious.

So, naturally, as I was having one of those brief late-afternoon ...Read more

One morning, I had a big cup of coffee, as I usually do, and then I got in the car and drove 40 minutes to a clothing store I had been curious to check out. I don't normally drive 40 minutes to go shopping, but since I am a stay-at-home mom and everyone knows we stay-at-home moms just spend our time shopping and eating bonbons, I figured, "...Read more

A humble roller coaster exists, a sacred jewel of a ride that we as a culture don't talk about enough. This attraction features both open flames and footage of a young Brendan Fraser toting a whippy mochaccino. It invites the rider into a cinematic land of scarab beetles and museum antiquities, of open-shirt heroics and enough khaki to blanket...Read more

"Help!" I cried out meekly.

"Where are you?" asked my husband, looking around the bedroom.

"I'm in here," I responded. "In the mattress."

Truth be told, I wasn't actually IN the mattress, but I was sunk down so low, it looked like I had been swallowed up by the mattress. Our very pricey and well-constructed pillowtop mattress had not held ...Read more

It's fall festival season, haunted house season, trunk-or-treat season. Amid the 50/50 raffles, soft pretzels, paper plate crafts and carnival rides with names like MAWS OF DEATH, we must steel for the greatest horror of all:

Commemorative plastic cups.

I've got more of these cups than an abandoned cabin has Jasons. My kitchen runneth over ...Read more

We went three weeks and a day without a working dishwasher. And then when we finally got a repairman in, he fixed it in five minutes. When I asked him what the problem was, first he blamed the soap. ... Then he blamed me.

"The dishwasher sensed an excess of soap in the bottom of the unit," said Larry the dishwasher repairman.

I stared at the...Read more

Have you been in touch with your imagination lately?

I don't mean by hatching conspiracy theories or trying to manifest wealth, "The Secret"-style. I mean, have you let your mind get real weird with zero material stakes? Have you daydreamed for no reason but the pure pleasure of it? Have you sat in the woods and imagined a deranged clown ...Read more

When I went for oral surgery last winter, the doctor told me he could only do one half of my mouth that day or I wouldn't be able to eat for two weeks. Considering it would soon be bathing suit season, I didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing. But he convinced me otherwise and told me that if I was really gung ho to get it all done, I ...Read more

It used to be that Halloween offered a release valve on the year's serious discourse, a chance to invoke political parody and partake in the grand American tradition of free expression through overpriced synthetic outfits wrinkled from plastic casing. Remember dudes of yore who dressed like topiaries covered in chains? Bush/Cheney? No? Bueller...Read more