Dad Brog (#159): PSA to parents of students

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is probably a little bit of a stretch as far as classifying this as a dad brog, but my kids are students and have teachers, and obviously mythical wife is a teacher and deals with kids and whatever, this is a dad brog, fucking deal with it

But back to the subject of this post, this is a PSA to all parents of students, specifically those who wish to get holiday gifts for their children’s teachers:

Stop buying mugs and candles.

Unless your children’s teacher is celebrating their very first holiday season as a teacher, it’s safe to assume that they already have no less than four holiday mugs and three scented candles, most likely from Yankee Candle or Bath & Body Works.  Otherwise, multiply these numbers by the number of years in which said teacher has been teaching, and that’s how many fucking mugs and candles exist in their homes.

And if the teachers are anything like mythical wife, they have no earthly idea on how to remove them from their domiciles, so they end up accumulating and taking up space, and I, as a teacher’s spouse, end up creeping closer and closer to a breakdown from our house slowly descending into becoming an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive, covered in so much cliché crap that is pawned off onto my wife under the guise of being in the spirit of the holidays.

This goes quadruple for my wife, who has the olfactory abilities of Wolverine, so she’s extremely sensitive to scents and therefore doesn’t like 80% of the candles given to her because they’re wonky and smell weird or bad, and they never get used, and currently just exist in a giant stack behind our Keurig.  And she doesn’t drink or even like coffee, so any mugs that comes with a coffee mix or a Starbucks gift card is pretty much lost on her, even though I like it when she bequeaths any Starbucks gift cards to me, the accumulation of yet another mug makes it not worth it.

Yes, I understand that any form of gifts to teachers are voluntary and are given with the best of intentions, and I’m not trying to put a kibosh on my wife from getting free shit with thoughtful intentions.  It’s just I’m challenging all other parents to be better and be aware that the teachers of their kids more than likely have a ton of fucking mugs and candles, and they are probably long past no longer welcome, even if they’re not allowed to say it.

Gift cards are always welcome, even if weirdos like mythical wife don’t drink coffee, thus making Starbucks ones pretty useless, but places like Target, whatever grocery chains are nearby, or even the American Express ones that nobody likes to buy because they’re usually an activation fee included on those.  Chick Fil-A, or whatever chain joints are around the area are welcome, and of course, Amazon.

Baked goods, be it completely homemade, or shit purchased from the local grocer or commercial bakeries are always welcome.  Snacks or treats in general are pretty welcome, but always a risk, not knowing what dietary restrictions the teacher may or may not have.

Failing all else, holiday cards, with just nice messages or greetings are welcome and superior to moar mugs or candles.

The point is, please please please stop buying teachers mugs and candles for Christmas.  It makes me think that these are cruel re-gifts, or were add-ons from larger purchases, that these parents are cleverly disguising as unique gifts for the educators of their children, with passive hopes that getting in their favor will prove beneficial to their children in the future.  Obviously I’m not the teacher in my house, but if I were, and I sniffed out a potential re-gift, yeah, it might influence my attitude towards their kid; but not in the way that they had hoped for.

Just like my attitude towards gift giving over the recent years, if you can’t give a thoughtful gift with genuine intention, don’t feel obligated to get one.  It’s better to give no gift, than a shitty thoughtless one, and I’d personally rather receive nothing, than receive something that contributes to the existing clutter in my home.

Score a point for staggered episodic television

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

An interesting thing happened to me recently – I caught up with a bunch of television and I had nothing to watch.

I was on the treadmill doing some incline walking, and I had reached the end of episode S0504 of Stranger Things.  But as the credits began rolling, there was no rapidly scrolling next episode button ready to shotgun me into the ensuing episode.  I had reached the end of what was released, because Netflix has strayed from what made them who they are and like many of the bigger titles they’ve dropped over the last few years, they’re deliberately staggering the release of them, presumably to maximize how long they can milk content to their viewers, but more likely to ensure that those pleebs sharing passwords have a little more difficult as far as trying to bilk trials and get all the content for free in a concentrated amount of time.

Later on in the evening, mythical wife and I were watching S0203 of Culinary Class Wars, and Korean television is notorious and deliberate in how they break episodes apart.  So when the episode ended, at an obvious cliffhanger as far as delivering results of cooking challenges go, the same thing occurred; credits begin, no next episode button.  Returning to the landing page of the show, is the becoming all-too familiar sight of “New episodes releasing on X date” prompt on the following episode, and suddenly we no longer have anything to watch.

Combined with shows that already operate in weekly episodic releases like Pluribus, and Disney+ and even HBO Max are known to stagger their content with shows like Daredevil: Born Again and even silly crap like The Chair Company, and it’s apparent that the pendulum of television consumption has already passed the precipice where all shows were required to drop entire seasons at a time, lest they would be doomed to fail, to kind of swinging back in the direction of olden times, where such is no longer a requirement in order for a show to succeed.

The funny thing is, I don’t really hate it.  Anymore, at least.  Sure, there are times where I get lost how into a show I start becoming, and it’s a definite do not want moment when you realize that there is no next episode available to watch, and you have to wait for it, but at the same time, for people like me, who always feel strapped for time, the forced break from spending more time watching television isn’t necessarily always a bad thing.

I caught up with Pluribus and thought to myself, welp, with no more episodes to watch, I may as well go do something else, and although what I may or may not have done after watching television might not necessarily have been more productive or satisfying, but the point remains is that I did them 60-90 minutes earlier than I would have, had I watched, just one more.  And being able to tackle those things 60-90 minutes earlier means I wound down my day that much sooner, and I ultimately get more sleep which is always a good thing considering I have to get up at ass o’clock every single day without exception.

Also by not having shows drop entire seasons at a time also helps eliminate that FOMO or rather, fear of not getting spoiled, because inevitably there are people, websites, social channels and/or other internet entities that speed run every new piece of media that comes out, and then spoils the ever-living fuck out of them on social media platforms for people to accidentally see while they’re doomscrolling.  I have to say it’s liberating knowing that within a short amount of time, I’m caught up and at the same stage of Stranger Things as the vast majority of enthusiasts of the show, and that there’s pretty much no chance that I’m going to get spoiled to the inevitable ending, because it hasn’t officially dropped yet.

The point of all this is, that I’ve made jokes about how the money-grubbing direction of the media market is going to inevitably push people back towards the development of what’s basically old school cable television, but in some regards, by passively going back to methods of the past, all these television platforms are inadvertently re-training the olds, and training the kids of today about weekly episodic releases or programs complete with advertisements, and I feel like within 2-3 years, we’ll be back to the resurrection of formal cable television, but people are actually going to like it instead of constantly threatening to cut the cord. 

Maybe it’ll be delete the apps when this age arrives, and everyone will be so arrogantly gleeful about uninstalling Netflix and Disney+ to sign up for cable services.

Cable2 is going to be so lit.

My feet are destroyers of gear

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of my least favorite feelings in the world is when you get that tacky feeling on the flat of your food from inside a shoe, and when the opportunity is there, you take the shoe off to check, and yep, there’s a hole forming in your sock.  Inevitably, this last gasp of my sock’s integrity happens when I’m at work, or out of the house and going to be out of the house for a length of time, which means there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it for at least several hours.

No matter the tech or innovation or special manufacturing methods done by today’s sock makers that claim to be more resistant to wear and promise to last longer than the package of boring ass tube socks you can get at your local Ross for 60% the cost of retail, there is pretty much no pair of socks that my feet are incapable of wearing holes through.  Most of the time, it is outer sole of my foot where holes begin because I grew up bowlegged and it’s clear that my weight applies more pressure to the outer parts of my feet, but I’ve had holes form near my heel, of course on the outer part.

Additionally, I have toes where the nails kind of angle upward, not to mention the fact that my second toe is long and sticks out further, which according to podiatry sources, is called a Greek foot, and if I do not be mindful of the length of my toenails, they basically become little blades that gradually saw away at socks, and holes will eventually form in the toes as well.

On that note, I was putting on my treadmill shoes in preparation for a treadmill session, and I noticed that the fabric on the big toe part of my left shoe had a hole in it.  I stuck my hand into the shoe, and apparently over the passage of time, the big toe on my left foot has worn a hole through the padding and now all the way through the fabric itself.  Which is kind of interesting in how the hole is very horizontally straight like it was stabbed through, because that means my big toe nail has managed to slice a hole through the shoe, which is made more interesting in the fact that none of the running socks that I use have sprouted any holes, so I guess this was some really concentrated friction in order to cause this breach.

Where I’m getting at is that it’s clear that I have some pretty fucked up feet that are complete destroyers of foot apparel.  Socks never last long before I eventually bore holes in them, which sucks because I’ve had to toss many socks with designs of patterns that I’ve enjoyed and been unable to find replacements for.  And it’s apparent that my feet are capable of ruining shoes in ways other than simply wearing out the soles.

Seriously, I like to believe that my feet would be some ASMR channel’s dream feet, as far as repairing them.  I need to get my feet out on the internet to entice one of these channels to do their magic to my feet, so that they can make some money on the content, but more importantly so that I don’t have to pay for it at all.

It’s one of those moments where I begin to ponder that my fortune should come from having footwear that is special catered towards people like me with brutal runner’s feet that seem capable of destruction, but if I actually took the time to research on the internet instead of assuming that I’m the first person in existence to ponder this, I’m sure there are hundreds of companies out there that already are doing it, and perhaps I should be looking to them to equip my feet, instead of settling for shitty plebe gear that can’t keep up any further.

I sure hope Murakami likes the taste of defeat

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

MLB: latest Japanese sensation, Munetaka Murakami, signs with the Chicago White Sox on a 2-year, $34M deal

When Murakami’s name, and his intention to pursue a move into MLB made it to American media, I was one of many who had the same thought – go to the Dodgers.  Failing that, he’d go to the Yankees, or Red Sox or Mariners; teams who have had a good relationship with Japanese players and media.  Or maybe even the Phillies or Blue Jays, teams with big wallets and feeling the pressure to win now.

So when news broke that he had signed with the Chicago White Sox, all I could do was throw my head back and laugh heartily, because I don’t really think the man could have picked a worse place to land than the Southside of Chicago.

Like, did Murakami do any research before making his choice, or did he just leave everything to his agent/representation to do all of it for him and make the decision on his behalf?  I feel like it has to be the latter, because I can’t imagine any ballplayer would voluntarily go to the Chicago White Sox, unless they were like a hometown kid out to try and prove a point or something, and even that’s a stretch of a hypothesis.

The White Sox are coming off of their third straight season of losing 100 games, and two years removed from literally setting the all-time record in losses with their historic 121-loss season.  If I’m a free agent hot shot wanting to make a mark and set a team on fire, the White Sox are absolutely the worst team to try and accomplish such.  Even if his hitting prowess does translate well to the Majors, it won’t change the fact that the rest of the team sucks, and the only rookie* record that he’ll be chasing will how many walks he’ll be issued when the rest of the league starts pitching around him.

*term used loosely  on account of the fact that he has 7 seasons of NPB experience, but MLB is a slave to appearances

Plus, just about everything else about the organization sucks, from their management who has clearly no motivation to win much less put a competitive team on the field and seem to be going through the motions of pretending like they’re rebuilding while more than likely just churning and trying to just make a paycheck, to their shitty ballpark which is basically the living embodiment of the stigma of shit being on the south side of cities being, shit.  Obviously, he is under no obligation to live on the Southside of Chicago once he relocates to the United States, but traffic in the region is pretty turrible, and he’s going to be playing an interesting game of either living near the park and being remotely close to the Southside, or living somewhere nice but run the risk of being victimized by the shitty traffic of the city.

What’s even funnier to me is that above all else, from a holistic perspective, everything about this deal already seems like a big-ass L from the onset.  Not that a $17M annual salary is anything to scoff at, even for professional athletes, but for a guy with the name, pedigree and aura as Murakami, not to mention MLB’s gigantic raging boner for Japanese players, I feel like he’s taking a really big settling deal, especially considering the fact that he landed on the White Sox.  There is no team in baseball that wouldn’t benefit from a guy that, even if his aggregate production were slashed to account for the league and culture shift, and he became “just” a 20HR/80RBI guy, there are definitely teams who pay more for that, and it’s hard to believe that it was just the White Sox that came knocking.

I get that his general MO of high-power, low-contact is concerning for many, but Kyle Schwarber literally just signed for $30M per year over the next five years.  Sure, teams are taking a gamble when it comes to his character, ability to gel with a clubhouse and they have no idea what his presence will do to a team’s chemistry, but I still feel like that Murakami probably left at least $3-5M per year and another year on the table with the deal that he took.  I mean, good for the White Sox and when the day is over I’m not going to lose any sleep over any dude getting the short end of the stick, but I just feel like Murakami’s camp really dropped the ball at getting their man paid, and signed with a team that doesn’t absolutely suck.

Either way, I sure hope he really doesn’t mind losing, because he is going to be doing a whole lot of it over the next two years.  Maybe it’s all part of the plan to take such a short-term deal, because by the time his two years of Southside prison are up, the Dodgers or Yankees will be in dire need of a new DH, and then if he’s been playing his cards right, would be the most ideal candidate to swoop in and then sign his big fuck-you I’m Japanese bitch contract then.  He is after all, just going to be 27 around that time, still very much reaching his physical peak.

But until then, we’ll see how much he can tolerate being on a squad that’s all but assured to lose at least 85 games a year for the life of this deal, and if he’s still got the willpower and cojones to try and be a baller, or if he’ll be just another White Sox player whose had the life sucked out of them.

In other news, there is such a thing as the National Lacrosse League

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

YT: two lacrosse goalies fighting at an NLL game

When I first saw this clip, one of the first things I thought to myself was, how old is this player that took off the jersey with the logo that look precariously similar to the Washington Capitals logo?  When he turned around, the male pattern baldness on his head shone like the fucking diamond on top of the pyramid in The Mummy Returns, and I thought to myself, man, high school boys got it rough if they’re going bald this early in their lives.

But then I learned that the NLL at the corner of the screen stood for National Lacross League, and it wasn’t an abbreviation for some city or province in Australia that I’d never heard of in my life, so that meant that these guys were somewhat grown men, playing lacrosse professionally, and I’d just learned that there was such a thing as the National Lacrosse League, that actually affords a bunch of Chads, Trents, Jaxsons, Rhetts and Wyatts the opportunity to get paid to play lacrosse.

The only thing that I can fathom being whiter than the NLL is the crowd of people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.

Secondly, I wondered what in the world had to have been said or done in order for the two goalies to get so triggered to where they thought the absolute next and only option was to start throwing hands?  I admit that I don’t really know anything about lacrosse* beyond it’s a bunch of white guys using nets on sticks to try and get a ball into the net of their opponents.  But I do know that said nets are a substantial distance away from one another, and a quick Google search says that they are 100 yards apart, which is the same distance between endzones in futbol americano (a real sport), so that’s quite a distance between nets, and their goalies.

*to the point where my hands don’t even have the muscle memory to type out lacrosse properly; seriously, I’ve forgotten to write the ‘e’ at the end of it at least six times at this point, and I keep having to correct it

Needless to say, I’m curious to know what the heck possibly could have been said or done between these two Chads from so far apart, to where they mutually agreed to meet up and start swinging.  Surely, there had to be a preexisting beef that just needed a spark to ignite physicality; maybe they had a disagreement about a Charlie Kirk podcast or one accused the other’s dad of insider trading or something, either way, the wussiest fight in the world was still the result of it.

Seriously, when both guys shed their MegaZord’s worth of armor, it was basically two guys whose offseason regimen is clearly 2-3 cycles of P90X, and they really had no business trying to throw punches.  Neither guy went down, there was no blood or even the slightest indication of a bruise, and I’m guessing even before the first punch was thrown, one or both of them probably felt the sense of wtf am I doing, but because they had started it, it had to happen, regardless of how pathetic it ended up being.

Regardless, poor form though, from both Luke and Trey.  This fight was enough to get NLL some ESPN exposure to where people under rocks like me can learn of their existence, but not nearly to the quality to where I talk about it any other fashion than ridicule and airing out my grievances with white guys.  Had they gone a little more full R-word and maybe hit a good pro-wrestling move like this kid dropping an avalanche head-scissor Fame-Asser, then people might be willing to put a little bit of respect on the NLL’s name.

Money woes, the 2025 edition

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A little while ago, I got an email that was clear to be pertaining to the settlement of some class action lawsuit that I clearly put my name in the hat in, some time ago.  I do that when I can, sign up to be a plaintiff for class action lawsuits, when they are applicable to me.  Sometimes, the eventual payoff is nothing more than a few bucks, if even currency at all, but there have been some in the past that I’ve actually gotten some substantial money from–a true set it and forget it kind of reward that’s always welcome if and when they inevitably settle.

This particular settlement wasn’t paltry; it was like $129, automatically deposited into my PayPal account.  Ordinarily, this would be something that’s I’d be happier about, since a basically free $129 would be welcome at any time of my life, and it’s not that I’m not welcoming any sort of monies incoming, it’s just that especially over the span of the last month, I’ve been hit with constant atom bombs of expenses, and I was already two feet underwater before December started, but now I’m basically in the line of sight with the Titanic currently, and $129 is going to do absolutely dick or butt as far as my current levels of debt is concerned.

Years ago, I used to have this thought process that when shit was going poorly, expenses would just start coming in from out of nowhere, at around $300 at a time.  Unexpected bill, car issue, pet emergency.  Eventually, it kind of went up to $500-600 an incident; needing tires, appliance malfunction, unexpected kid-related expense.

Over the span of the last month, it’s clear that the rubric has once again changed for the worst, and it’s like the array of unexpected expenses are just starting at $1,000 a pop, with no ceiling on them.  The fucking bus-passing ticket cost me a grand, new tires for my car are exceeding $1,000, another critical expense that I had no lead time to prepare for was like $6,000+.

Naturally, like many people who understand what the concept of economics is have pointed out, the rate in which people are compensated at the rate in which expenses globally have increased are not even in the same galaxy of being commensurate, and it all leads to the conclusion that this has basically been the worst financial year of my entire life.

And I say such without any hyperbole, or trying to deliberately exaggerate for effect, this year, twenty twenty-five, has been the worst year of my life as far as finances go.  I have never racked up as much debt in my life as I’ve racked up this year, and there are very long and uncertain futures as far as paying such debts back without them suffocating me any worse in the future as they are doing in the present.

My outgoing expenses are obliterating my incoming earnings like Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland, and an ungodly amount of expenses typically just fall back onto my credit cards, neither of which have a particularly favorable interest rates, and it’s in my best interests to pay them back as soon as possible as to not get sucked into the vortex of interest.

And the worst part is that almost none of these expenses are really the case of me being an irresponsible shithead and having overleveraged myself or living way beyond my means.  I have a wife.  I have kids.  I have an au pair.  I have a family member that seemingly absolutely refuses to help me help him.  I’m basically everyone’s fucking ATM and everyone’s fucking safety net.  All of which amounts to everyone vacuuming up my money, leaving me with absolutely nothing but scraps, debt, anxiety, depression and a whole lot of pent-up frustration.

So as one might be able see, getting a free $129 at this current juncture of my life doesn’t really have much impact.  It merely scratches at a mountain of debt that has materialized massively especially over the last month.

Needless to say, I’m depressed as fuck, which is kind of sad considering we’re in the throes of holidays currently.  I can’t afford to Christmas shop, and even if I could, I’m so over gift giving again, because I’ve been in such financial peril for so long now that I can’t get in the right headspace to where I can be happy to give gifts because I could afford them without jeopardizing my ability to survive.  I’m sick of feeling obligated to have to get gifts, and I would rather receive nothing so I didn’t feel like I had to reciprocate, and the only gifts that I actually want to see are those going towards my children.

I’ve been so depressed that I can’t bring myself to write about the number of things that under normal circumstances, I’d want to carve out some time to write about.  The John Cena retirement.  Philip Rivers’ return to football coincidentally timing with his existing retirement benefits nearing expiration.  Mick Foley vs. Politics.  Pluribus, the latest Vince Gilligan masterpiece.  The Braves actually not having a shitty offseason for once.  Notre Dame being bitches about missing the CFB playoffs, and the shitshow that the CFB playoffs are doing to bowl season outright. 

These are all things and topics that I notated to myself as things I might want to brog about, but I just can’t seem to bring myself to do so, because when I’m not working, I’m parenting, when I’m not parenting, I’m fretting about finances, and when I’m not fretting about finances, I’m cleaning up my house because nobody else gives a fuck to help out.  And if I’m lucky, I get a little bit of time for me to get my daily exercise and Duolingo in, and then it’s off to bed where I have to be the first one up every single fucking day because nobody else is going to ever relieve me of, duty.

I’m always operating against a clock of some sort, I have no time for myself, I’m drowning in debt, with no relief in sight.  I am a tiny solitary planet of stress, anxiety, depression, frustration and rage, with no relief in sight.  Everyone in my life deserves to get a better version of me than what’s currently in existence right now, but short of the momentary glimpses of light that my children bring me, without more help than the nothing I get from the world, this is the only version of me that is available.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Well this is going to make a real lean Christmas

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today, I got a ticket it in the mail.  When I saw the words “traffic violation enclosed” I winced because I knew that there was an extremely high chance that it was not me that was the driver at the time of the violation, seeing as how I barely get to drive my own registered vehicle these days, as my au pair uses it to do all of hauling of my kids to school and extracurriculars.  However, I was not upset with them because I’m sure it was an honest mistake, and it was more than likely to have occurred in the process of while they were taking my kids somewhere they needed to be.

Bringing the envelope into the house, my mind raced at what the possible fine was going to be, the last time I got a traffic camera violation, it was like $55, and when I got a school zone camera violation that was overturned on account of it not being a school day, I still saw that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $125~ish.  I hoped it was closer to the traffic camera, and not the school zone.

Turns out that the violation was that of passing a stopped school bus on a multi-lane road with a center turning lane, which I’ll admit that I had to stop and think about the rules on that one, but I probably would’ve stopped out of doubt.  And the time stamp confirmed that it was at a time in which it was the au pair taking my kids to extracurriculars, so it wasn’t my own doing; but seeing as how the car is registered to me, that’s who the ticket is directed at.

As for the violation, I imagine my face looking as close to possible as Jim Carrey’s The Mask as humanly possible when I saw the comma in the number: $1,000.  One thousand (fucking) dollars.

My knee-jerk reaction was that, this most definitely had to be a fake, a scam.  Even with the accompanying photo evidence of my car before and after the bus, this fine of a thousand dollars couldn’t possibly be right, especially seeing as how I’ve never had a violation of this nature in my record before.

So searching for it on my own on the internet, I find the city municipal site pretty quickly, and sure as shit, it’s no fake.  It’s an actual program, that’s been softly rolling out since like 2022, and any semblance of lower first violations all flew out the window as of July 2024, where the program rolled into the territory where all first violations are one thousand fucking dollars.

$1,000 for a school bus is absolutely draconian.  This is some Commonwealth of Virginia-levels of extreme punishment.  I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to where I can figure this out, but it doesn’t change the fact that the timing of it, and the flagrant intention of it is going to really ruin my life a little bit right now.  I’ve spent all of 2025 in some of the worst financial standing that I’ve ever been in my adult life, and I’ve been digging and fighting and persevering all year long, and just as I’ve been able to clear some debts right in time for the holidays, getting this ridiculously large fine just feels like I’m being kicked while I’m already down. 

This just reinforces the feeling I’ve had most of the year that I’m just this gigantic fucking punching bag for life’s cruel scenarios sometimes.

I get the whole idea of the program, and I am all about increasing safety for children.  I’m not butt-hurt over the notion of buses having cameras equipped to catch and penalize those who don’t follow the laws of bus safety, I’m just in a state of being flabbergasted that the fines are just so astronomically high. 

While venting my shock at the high violation cost, I came across this news story that echoes my general concern, and this quote is the best/worst/most ironic part of the whole thing:

A fine needs to get people’s attention, yes — but it shouldn’t be so high it’s impossible to pay,” (State Rep and who helped write the law Don) Parson said.

Additionally, this same person was quoted saying:

What we’re doing here is trying to protect children —and it is very important — but I also think $1,000 is too high,” he said.

I’m just in a state of disbelief, honestly.  This $1,000 fine is going to absolutely kill me.  No, I’m not going to lose my home or anything, but it’s not something I can just shrug off.  In all likelihood, it’s just going to be put on my credit card, adding to the debt that has been going in the wrong direction over the last two years, and it’s going to live rent-free in my head for a little bit.

I’m not going to shirk off the accountability and put it onto my au pair, because she got it while in service of my family, so beyond a cursory discussion to be careful of stopped school buses, I’m going to eat the burden, because the last thing I want is this to lead to her visa getting revoked because America sucks and I’m sure there have been foreigners deported for less.

But a $1,000 fine, this time of year, due by Christmas, absolutely blows.  I already stress over the obligation to buy gifts, but this basically consumes the vast majority of my gift buying budget.  Nobody is going to feel sorry for me, and I don’t think it’s really going to be accepted if I just nope the fuck out of gift giving outright because of this, and I’m trying really, really hard to keep my composure in light of this, and not let it ruin absolutely everything in spite of its extreme efforts.

I want to ask the rhetorical question on when will life start to get any easier, but the real question is if it ever really will at all?