Ah, America. Where the flies never breed, land on your food, or even dare to enter kitchens. Where public toilets NEVER smell bad and are always immaculately clean. Food born illnesses never happen here, either. I mean, as long as children being shot dead is palatable to you, it's a bastion of cleanliness, godliness, and morality. Never mind our shameful infant mortality rate. God bless the USA. We're equally fucked up, but still better than everywhere else, am I right?

So for me, I was overweight and ended up working apart from my family for 10 mo. And at that time, I said that all my excuses had disappeared - my time was my own, my apt had a gym, I didn’t have to cook meals for anyone else, could stock the kitchen as I wanted/needed. So I did portion control and 3-day military diet once a week and lost about 30kbs in 2012 and kept it off.

Turkey - lovely restaurant with kitchen next to rest room. No screen doors. No screens on windows. Toilets are holes in floor in cubicles with shower curtain for privacy. Many flies and bugs. Flies migrate from kitchen to toilets to dining room. Bad dysentery. China near Souzhou - hospital. Latrine in a long building outside with open door, no real door, no screen or glass on door or windows.. Toilet is open concrete trench spanning about 8 cubicles, no doors or curtain. Straddle trench to do your business. It just sits there, no way to flush. Whenever someone thinks of it (not often), they squirt hose into trench to wash the stuff toward the drain. Flies everywhere. China - Beijing, parents pull kids pants aside, open crotch, sh$$ in gutter. Philippines - toilet in private home ceramic-lined drain in floor. No paper. You use hose to wash yourself, when there is water. Thailand market - no cubicles, just ceramic squat toilets, no paper, water hose broken. Flies breeding.

I'm the OP from the Parenting page that's about to be a great grandma. DH and I are leaving for home in three days. I've updated the post office, had our home phone, cable and Internet taken off vacation status, packed three totes with clothes, washed sheets, bedspreads, got drawers packed up, cleaned the freezer and pantry and donated food to a soup kitchen. DH made a list of tools he brought here and wants to take back home. Oh, yeah....then he went to the pool. And he doesn't understand why I'm pissed.

Christians are well versed in losing their shit. Not all of them though. My brother is a pastor, and he's the least bible-thumping Christian I know. He never even asks me about my religion, probably because I never offer any views or opinions. And he's my brother. I wish more Christians were like him. He runs a massive soup kitchen program and a lot of children's programs. What he doesn't do is judge people. I'm not religious, BTW. I'm more of a spiritual person, I believe more in karma. But if there is a God, and he's a loving God like they say, I cannot imagine he'd let a decent person go to hell for using the critical thinking skills that He provided me with. And if He does, I guess them's the breaks.

Rolling my eyes at my DH for real. The kids and I were gone all week (DH's doing), and DH spent the whole week complaining he had nothing to do. After I drove the whole night through to get home and spent the day cleaning up from vacation, then DH decided that all the furniture needed to be rearranged and that some trash collector needed to come over at 8PM to "evaluate" the stuff we had to see how much he would charge to haul it off. And DH keeps making comments about "I moved such and such so you can get started rearranging that room the way you want it. Just let me know when you get started." Umm... What was wrong with doing this while I was gone? Instead of waiting until I'm back and exhausted to start 1189735 projects that I will have to finish while you're at work in order to be able to use the kitchen and living room? *sigh*

God, me too. I recently had to move in and share an apartment with a roommate due to falling on hard times financially. She has guests at least once a week. At one point she wouldn't even tell me they were coming over and I'd walk out of my room, underdressed, to some stranger standing in my kitchen. I had to have a discussion with her to at least tell me when she had people coming over even though I couldn't stop her. One of her guests spent the night, and nearly and entire day afterwards, lounging on the couch. Dude we're almost 30!! Love the roomie but man I prefer living alone!

Yeah, I actually do have laminate in my kitchen and I love it. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to just buy more for the rest of the downstairs. The main problem is that DH gets cranky when the house is all jacked up during a remodel. Maybe we could stay in a hotel while they're installing it.

I'll never divorce my husband. He's my best friend. He smokes too much and buys too much stuff on amazon without talking to me about it, he leaves his shit everywhere and makes a gargantuan mess out of the kitchen doing something as simple as boiling an egg- but he's my best friend. I can't imagine not having him around.

Stupidest invention ever: Laundry-soap-scented garbage bags. Because everyone wants to spend $$$ on trash bags that will make their kitchen smell like Gain and onions and smelly meat trays. Gross.