Our Steph was cookin' with gas today:

Theodosia: How much do au pairs cost again? Could I get one for my cats?

Steph L.: I'll do it, Theo. I charge $50,000 a year, but included in that price is the knowledge that your Kitty Au Pair loves the Jossverse.

• ****

Jacqueline Zahas:

And, lastly, random idiot-phone-person gripe: Phone rings. I pick up and say, "Doctor UnusualLastName's office," and the person on the other end says, "Ah, oh, err, hello. I'm calling from San Francisco General Hospital, and I'm trying to find a way to get in touch with a doctor by the name of UnusualLastName. Could you possibly help me?"

What is this? Some sort of nuance of phone etiquette I'm too coarse and uncouth to comprehend? Has Emily Post declared "Hi, I'm from SFGH. Is Doctor ULN available?" unbearably vulgar? Or, possibly, is this person overly cautious from having been lied to once too many times? Does she have a history of calling, say, laundromats and pizza joints that just pretended to be the very offices of the very people she was looking for (and so slyly that they gave their false names before she even spoke), and she lives in mortal fear of the entire phone universe as a great big web of deceit? What?

It's obviously a very, very petty first-world miniscule kind of problem, but it's mightily irritating, and over the past six months the number of calls like this has increased exponentially, which is what makes me feel like maybe I'm missing some big cultural shift that everyone is in on but me.

Trudy, in Bitches

If the Iraqis really want to hide arms from our crackerjack intelligence community they'd be better off going down Big Honkin' Missile Silo Boulevard to Slaughter the Kurds Street, dropping the suckers (gently) in Nah Nah George Bush We Hate Your Daddy And You Too Square AND FINDING A SAUDI PRINCESS TO SIT THERE WITH A "NO WEAPONS HERE" SIGN.

From Natter 4, Erin G. and ita

Hey, all. I'm not dead or anything. Just black.

You'd be surprised how many times I say that, myself.

connie neil:

"I'm a Spike's Bitch, and I'm OK. I fic all night and I oost all day."

Elena:

And, oddly, you wear women's clothing and hang around in bars.

connie neil :

Do not!

... oh, wait, yeah, I do.

BHP, on the deviant behavior of a pet rabbit:

Buffista 1: Butterscotch Bunny was *hot!*

Buffista 2: Are you kidding? I can never respect him again.

Buffista 3: BB would never do that. You're making it up.

Buffista 2: Butterscotch Bunny should be neutered NOW.

Buffista 1: Okay, but it was hot up until he dunked her head in the water dish.

Nutty:

I have no textual basis for this being true, but I like to think it's an elegant fanwank.

Jen:

I can't imagine you wanking in anything but an elegant fashion

Hil sets 'er up, and Betsy knocks 'em down:

Hil: Proper YIVO Yiddish says "yarmlke."

Betsy Hanes Perry: YIVO?

Now I'm imagining a digital recorder saying "Nu, you're watching that naked vampire again? Your mother would die."

When Natter turns to geography:

ita: Which are Pacific Theatres?

John: My first thought was of WWII and the Philippines. But I guess that's not what you meant.

I Shall Return!

Madrigal in Natter:

I stopped believing in the tooth fairy when I found out that other kids got stuff in exchange for the teeth. For us the tooth fairy was more like a garbage man, coming in early in the morning, banging against stuff and cursing and roughly extracting the material then stomping away. Or maybe hearing our father step on legos and Barbies was supposed to be the reward instead of money.

Betsy in FanFiction

They are having a winter storm in Charlotte, and I feel all wistful.

Where do I go for a lobotomy?

Dana

Popslash fandom?