1. Last year Greg and I are gchatting and he says, “I just got a Facebook message from J.” He’s an old friend from high school; neither of us have talked to him in years. ”He’s asking me to buy him a bus ticket. But something doesn’t sound right. This message is erratic, weird. He says the cops have his wallet and also stole his laptop? Also, why is he asking me?” Maybe it’s a real emergency, I suggest. Or something else. “Drugs?” I ask. “I don’t know,” he says. He goes back and forth. I decide I’ll buy the bus ticket, whatever, end this little conversation and everyone’s questions right now, move on from speculating whether our long lost friend is in crisis and actually needs our help, or has hit bottom in a different way. I look up the bus ticket. It costs $178. I can’t afford it. “I can’t either,” Greg says. We don’t buy the ticket. We don’t know what happens.
Sometimes I think, this is either the best excuse for having an emergency credit card—I would have bought him that ticket—or the the worst (I would have bought him that ticket).
The State of New Jersey of recently passed a law requiring that your pets to wear seat belts while driving in the car. Pet owners will have to purchase a seat belt extension harness for their dog. The maximum fine for not having a seat belt on your dog is $1,000.00. Meanwhile, the maximum fine in NJ for not having a seat belt on your child is $46.00
—SEEMS REASONABLE, via MetaFilter
