ArcaMax

Sometimes, I pretend to be a lunch lady.

I volunteer for shifts helping out at my boys' elementary school, work that entails helping the other lunchroom workers get set up for the rush, dishing out the food when the kids get there, and then helping restock the fresh fruit and veggies before I take off my apron and gloves and sit down next to ...Read more

I don't know if you've heard already, but there's a new pope in town.

Not only is he American -- the first U.S.-born head of the Catholic Church -- but he's also from Chicago, which is close enough to where I live to have sent a thrill of victory through me when I heard the announcement.

For Greek people, it's like hearing someone famous is ...Read more

Attorney General Pam Bondi recently congratulated President Donald Trump in a cabinet meeting, saying that he has personally saved 258 million lives.

Bondi said millions of fentanyl-laced pills that teenagers would have bought thinking they were "a Tylenol or an Adderall" (there, apparently, being a demand for black-market acetaminophen) have...Read more

President Donald Trump says he wants to be the "fertilization president." Vice President JD Vance posits that we need "more babies" in the United States. Elon Musk -- who's not an official member of the Trump cabinet but might as well be -- is a "pro-natalist" who's personally trying to rectify the depopulation problem by impregnating every ...Read more

The following is a transcript of a phone call you made last month to your internet service provider after you discovered that your internet was out.

Suspiciously robotic voice: Hello! You've reached Bromtast. My name is Valerie. How can I help you today?

You: Hi, "Valerie." I'm having trouble with my internet. I'm not getting a Wi-Fi signal ...Read more

Mindfulness meditation: It's all the rage.

If you've been anywhere, talked to anyone or visited any social media site, you've likely heard about some of the positive effects of mindfulness meditation -- how it can help with a wide variety of problems like depression, stress, insomnia, high blood pressure, male-pattern baldness, persistent ...Read more

Hi, my name is Jeffrey the Macaroni Penguin.

I am the prime minister of the penguin contingent on Heard Island, which was recently informed by Donald Trump, the president of the United States, that we would be subject to a 10% tariff due to an alleged trade imbalance with his country.

I'd like to take this opportunity to respond to the ...Read more

SMALL GROUP RE: TEXT THREAD CONCERNING STRIKE ON HOUTHI REBELS IN YEMEN

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Waltz: Hi, team. Creating a new Signal thread for the small group about the text thread concerning the strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen. Please reply with your favorite emoji to show you're receiving.

...Read more

If you trust surveys (and if you are an American, of course, you do not), you may be surprised to learn that we, as a nation, are a group of unhappy people.

The World Happiness Report, released recently, shows that the U.S. is the 24th happiest nation, continuing a steady decline from its highest point of 11th place in 2012. The data shows we...Read more

Maybe you're getting a little stressed out. Let's say it's increasingly difficult to ignore the political news these days -- the stuff about the looming government shutdown, the tariffs, the Tesla sitting on the White House front lawn, the green-card-carrying legal resident of the U.S. being detained for being a member of a group who said some...Read more

I went in for what I call a "shake and bake" recently, cooking like a chicken in a rotisserie under thousands of tiny red LED bulbs and then jiggling myself silly on a weight-loss platform.

I wasn't entirely sure how I wound up in a "wellness spa" looking like a sweaty submariner under emergency drills in "The Hunt for Red October," but most ...Read more