That week in Aurora where every attic was 120 degrees" sounds like a nightmare honestly. I read somewhere that raccoons love attics because they're warm and dark, so you basically had a sauna plus a wild animal standoff. I bet that extra hour must have felt like ten in that heat.

Jeez, I read somewhere that the whole MSG scare started because of a fake letter sent to a medical journal back in the 60s. Some dude literally just made up symptoms and it became a whole urban legend. Meanwhile my uncle's been putting that stuff in his chili for 30 years and he's fine, runs marathons at 65. I tried it in my scrambled eggs after hearing about it on a food science podcast and yeah, it's night and day better. People will believe anything if you wrap it in a lab coat.

Oh I gotta push back on this a little. I mean, maybe it's just me but I actually prefer no tape for small patches and cracks. The tape adds bulk and you end up with more sanding anyway. I've been patching holes in my old house for years and if you just fill the crack with a good setting compound and let it shrink, then do a second thin coat, it blends in way better than with tape. The tape always leaves that little ridge line you can feel even after painting. Idk, I think people got sold on tape because it's easier for beginners but for someone who's done it a while, skipping it can give you a flatter finish. Plus you don't have to worry about bubbles or the tape peeling up later.

25 years on the same dredge boat" is wild. That's basically a whole career sitting on the same hunk of metal in the same river. It's cool your boss remembered though, most places would just let that slide right by. Snuck up on me too a few years back when I hit 20 years at my old warehouse job. You blink and suddenly a quarter century of your life is just gone, all that time spent moving stuff from one place to another.

Relax, it's just pants lmao. Nobody's asking you to go on a huge treasure hunt or drop art gallery money on them. There's a whole middle ground between cheap fast fashion and expensive designer stuff.