In general, we are lovers of plentiful things, so I can only hope that this fact (and our desire to continue that trend) will off-set the negativity that surrounds "precious" things.

Not two days later, I read this beautiful poem by Alice Walker, which made me want to dislike a family heirloom that I can't help but love...

We Alone

We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.

Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.

This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce.

1) Please show this picture to girls who feel ugly because they don't have personal stylists.

2) Please show this picture to girls who think having sex is hot and pregnancy probably wouldn't suck that bad.

But since I like to make up words too, I just wanted to point out my preference for "HYSTERIOUS" when combining hysterical and hilarous.

Then, the last sentence of the story is about how she was married to another guy. the last sentence says, "he died in 1999."

I thought this story was about PEARL, oh great IHT. I'm sure this gentleman figured prominently in her life after the war - however, the point is, her life-story stands on its own. RUDE.

So anyway - it's been 15 minutes since the last post - what's the deal, CHAD? New to the Gawker Network?

Am I confused? Can a Newspaper be a "liability"?

Also - The guy on the phone is crackin' me up!!

"I kinda like the New York Times. Can you send that? Can you just send the first 24 pages of the New York Times? I'll just pay you for 24 pages."

Amazing.

"I'm giving up on the news."

Yes.

I'm quite sure a lot of people did this. In fact, I have a conspiracy theory that some people put other people's names and known info on those forms.

When I got my first credit report after college, I had over 15 open lines of credit. Only half of which I knew about.

WHERE DID THEY COME FROM????

This happened to me with an eyebrow piercing way before TSA abuse became the norm. The abuser was Delta (out of Hartsfield) - I was flying on a buddy pass and my eyebrow ring didn't fit their dress code.

People always ask me "why didn't you just put a bandaid on it?" ... the answer is because a) I didn't know it was an issue in advance and b) once the guy at ticketing saw it, he wouldn't let me cover it up. He refused to issue my boarding pass until I removed it.

(I had never removed it in the two years I'd had it. It bled. Then I really needed a bandaid.)

Needless to say, by the time I got to San Francisco, it had already started healing up. I had no way to sterilize the jewelry but forced it through anyway because I am obviously hard-core.

Two weeks later, I woke up to a pink, puffy eyebrow. Thanks, Delta!

I think the biggest thing that gets me is how some people say to get out of debt you "just need to increase your income" - like it's so easy.

It's hard to get a job out there, and even harder to get one that pays decently. So... I feel you, is all.

BEN: Post something about who the good and ugly of credit counselors!!

i don't know if it's true, but i'm not testing it out.

HYSTERICAL!! Well Played, backbroken...

Seriously though - self-adhesive stamps are all the rage now. When was the last time you bought stamps?

Utility: Duh, no postage. They make money when you are too lazy to buy a stamp.

Magazine cards: Duh, postage-paid. They make money when you return your card quickly and easily.

Duh. (I just wanted to add one more for emphasis.)

Next quiz!

Even still, I'll take L5P over Buckhead any day.

i agree that this is semi-ridiculous. just show them the stupid receipt. or - you know, don't buy an effing gun to start with!!

I guess they just hope that whatever ends up on there, you won't notice, and you'll just blindly pay back what you think you owe...

Next time your friend tries to put you down for being au naturale, just tell her she's going to be a raisin at 40. That's probably not true, but who cares? Haha.

@washionfore: i'm going to be in nyc next month so maybe i'll check out ricky's. i'll ask my stylist friend about the new v. old b&b stuff too and see if she has any other suggestions. thanks!

Oh jeez, That's what I was gonna say. I was Velma for halloween, but I kept my knees together!!

what spray powder do you use now? i've heard of it and want to try, but don't know where to look.

Start washing every day again though, and it'll be greasy the second day.

You just have to ween yourself off of that crazy American idea that one-day multi-showering is okay. Plus, I live in Atlanta, and we gots a water crisis on.

Oh, and my original point was that most people would give anything to start fresh with no debt, no transgressions and a safety credit card or family to fall back on.

No matter what he says he did, in the back of his mind, he always had the knowledge that he could quit at any time. Having this kind of out certainly changes your outlook and likely provides a positivity a real person would have to fight really hard to achieve.

Sorry I'm so behind and there's no way I'm reading all 90 comments. But I totally agree with this devil's advocate position.

The first mistake in his experiment is that he had nothing to overcome - he started "from scratch." A lot of people have credit card debt, child support, hospital bills or limited education, and I'm pretty sure that adds pressure when trying to pull yourself up by the bootstraps in just 10 months.

I am educated and mostly un-depressed and it's going to take me a lot longer than 10 months to get out of the situation I'm in. So I have a hard time believing that his story is representative of anyone other than upper class kids who slum it for the sake of a sociology project and a book deal.

Also - there is no music. I can hear their feet shuffling on the floor and the silence packed around their ridiculous words. It's like... a high school play. Is this show always so bad?

I concur with NOQUARTER. His car wasn't stolen out of the dark parking lot, he wasn't electricuted from the exposed wiring, the wilty broccoli didn't poison him. And seriously, he finds time to vent about "overcooked eggs"? So many worse things could have happened to you, guy. Zip it.

Ridiculous.

These particular questions are phrased in a way that makes you want the one that instantaneously seems like a better deal. It's sort of like 4 quarters versus a dollar (but not for kids).

It might not be the better option, but on-the-spot, I often think in fractions and proportions, not necessarily the final amount. If one seems like twice as much, it doesn't matter if the second option is 50 dollars more in your pocket.

That probably makes me as stupid as the rest of America, but I bet it has a lot to do with the findings of this survey.

If you would slap a patron in the head with a breadstick or hang up on a customer with a problem because she said something "off" to you - I have to go ahead and suggest that you might not be in the right business.

Maybe you should try something where you don't have to be nice to people and get to hit things a lot. Like, firewood-chopper.

I was under the impression that sales people are supposed to know what their selling.

However, from experience at RS, I know this is true:

I needed "one of those thingies that you can plug into the phone that will record the conversation," and was given two options. I took the more expensive option that the sales person seemed convinced would work for me.

It didn't. I needed to return it, but kept putting it off.

Which leads to my favorite RS issue: Return policy.

I finally took the device and the receipt back to the store, only to be told that I couldn't return it because my receipt was expired. I asked if he would take it without the receipt and he said sure. But he couldn't take it from me now, because he knew my reciept was expired.

I turned around, drove to the other Radio Shack down the block, told the guy I didn't have the receipt and he gave me my money back. In cash.

Thanks, RS!

I ordered some flowers from a group of people as a gift, and thought it would be easier if I received a physical bill in the mail so that we could split cash/checks up later. Thinking that 1800Flowers would send me a bill for the one purchase to my mailbox, I clicked the "Bill me later" icon.

What I didn't know was that by clicking the button and putting in my mailing address, that I would actually get a CREDIT CARD bill in the mail a month later.

Needless to say, I called them that day, and canceled the card. I already have enough credit issues, I don't need them sneaking up on me. Maybe it asked me to read terms and I didn't, or it was clear and I'm a dope, but I'm pretty sure there was nothing on that site that led me to believe I was signing up for a credit card.

If you ask me, the "pitfall" of these alternate payment methods is that they're sneaky liars, and I already have enough regular creditors that qualify under that title.

Eight years of hard college and graduate spending and making $5.50 an hour or less at internships and student jobs equalled a big problem for me.

Plus, fancy legislation made my two day late payment turn into a 10% APR jump on a different card with the highest balance.

I'm still young, and bankruptcy wasn't an option. Maybe it was, but I wasn't going to consider it. It'll take me 4 years, but I will pay off my debt. And I'm really going to pay it, not just slack off and settle, or cop out and weasel out of it. I hate credit card companies for sure, but I hate it when I hear about people getting out of paying debts they created, when somehow, I managed to find a way.

Anyway, CCCS has been working alright for me, but I'm only a few months into the program. Maybe when I'm 30, I can start thinking about a mortgage.

The "skinny" argument as posted above makes it sound like it's her strongest point, when it's actually her weakest. I agree that a "skinny" coffee shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings, but it could seriously disrupt some people's mornings...