That which doesn’t kill you probably isn’t a parasitic wasp sting.

I just had the odd experience of using a manufacturer’s discount card to pick up a medication for my wife. The medication is relatively expensive and seldom covered by insurance.

According to the information on the card, if you have private insurance which covers the medication, the discount card covers the co-pay, so you pay nothing. However, if your insurance doesn’t cover the medication, the discount card covers the cost, and you still pay nothing.

Our insurance didn’t cover the cost, and we didn’t pay anything for the medication.

I don’t understand how that works.

I think it’s important to remember that the USA isn’t a single culture. Things vary dramatically even within a single state to say nothing of differences between states.

In some areas prom is very important. In others, not so much.

Only one of my three kids went to prom (Eastern PA).

Prom in my high school was a relatively big deal. You rented a tux or bought a dress. Some people would rent a limo. The prom was held in some kind of banquet hall with a fairly fancy meal. There’d be a DJ and dancing.

My wife was one year behind me in high school, and we attended FOUR proms (my junior prom, then the next year her junior prom and my senior prom, then the next year I came back for her senior prom).

I think for most people it’s just an opportunity to get dressed up, have a good meal, and dance. If you’re already dating someone, it obviously has more significance, but I had plenty of friends who just took another friend as a date for the prom and others who didn’t go with anyone. However, there was a lot of pressure to be a “couple”, even if you weren’t actually romantically involved with your “date”.

Typically the parents take pictures of the kids in their dresses and tuxedos. From the parents’ point of view, it’s a moment to sort of take note of how your kids are maturing and think about what the future holds for them. Lots of thinking about how old you are ;-)

Often there’s an after party that goes on late into the morning, and for many kids the after party is more important than the prom.

I think social media has had an effect on what prom is, but it also has the effect of distorting what it is to people who only experience it remotely. When you’re seeing the crazy YouTube videos and Instagram posts, you’re not seeing what prom is. You’re seeing a snapshot of what those particular proms are.

the 1950s. This was a high water mark for conservatism in the U.S., and in order to go on any date at least one parent, usually the girl’s dad, had to be present.

Perhaps this was a regional thing.

I was born in 1970, but from what my parents have described, dates were not chaperoned in the 50s unless you happened to have particularly strict parents. Like maybe if you were Amish or something.

Here’s the only thing I was able to find online about dating in the 50’s

https://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/projects/sombat.html

Long ago when my wife and I moved into our house, after we moved Kaybee the cat in, I witnessed a mouse run from under the dishwasher over to the cat’s dish, steal a piece of food, and run back.

I went and got the cat, took him to the kitchen, and sat on the floor with him to show him the mouse. The mouse repeated the theft, but Kaybee was still too freaked out from the change of residence to react.

A few days later I found a dead mouse on the floor with a piece of cat food in its mouth. I interpreted that as Kaybee’s way of saying, “I’m back on duty. All you mouse bastards are on notice.”

Being a dog, he is that much more likely to charge into danger to save his human. With cannon balls flying around, that carries a certain risk.

it has pedals like a bicycle

Are you taking about the Aptera from the video you linked?

If so, the Aptera doesn’t have pedals like a bicycle. It’s a fully electric vehicle (or it will be if it reaches production).

https://www.stroke.org/en/about-stroke/stroke-symptoms

It’s ok, Dr. Kitty licks his paws clean before every patient.

You might be a bot.

I run Linux on my personal machine.

My needs aren’t particularly demanding. Web browsing, watching streaming services, accounting software, some low impact games, 3D modeling, and running a video server.

I assembled my machine from $500 worth of parts 12 years ago. In between, I’ve added some RAM, and about 8TB of mirrored disk to store movies for the video server.

Admittedly, I’m starting to be concerned about the age of the disks, and I think I’d like a better processor, but money is tight.

Given the age of the thing, there’s a chance that it’s just going to drop dead one of these days, but it’s been running for years without me having to do anything but install updates for the OS.

ANLONE

From the 80’s when people could still pretend it was satire.

On the 90’s TV show Wings, there was a character, Roy Biggens, whose birthday was on Feb 29th, and his parents were dicks, so they only let him celebrate on Feb 29th. So, in the show when he was turning 40 years old he had a 10th birthday party with all the shit a 10-year-old would want.

If I recall correctly, he got the job by scaring the shit out of Kubrick.

The cheese should have been denim. What you have there is a cheesejurger.

Edit: actually, looking again, it appears there is a burger patty.

I don’t know what that abomination is.

The word, “oncoming”, is the critical piece I believe you may have missed.

What about three first names? Does the third one cancel out the second, or is the effect cumulative?

We put it in your brain while you were sleeping last night.

Don’t worry, we’ll take it out later. We just needed someplace to store it for a bit.

“Here buddy, I read these things can help with your PTSD.”