Your motorcycle is a badge of freedom. Those leather and chrome accoutrements accentuate just how free you are. Free to reject the mainstream and ride your own path. Admittedly, it is a path crowded somewhat by all the other aging leather-clad weekend warriors refusing to conform, but it is your path nonetheless.

The time you dressed your monkey in that lil’ devil costume in the middle of July even though his tail required more room than the interior of that lil’ foam pitchfork provided.

The time you agreed to a second playdate for your monkey and your best friend’s monkey even after your best friend’s monkey refused to return the favor when your monkey picked all the fleas and ticks off his spoiled little back.

This live podcast recording is going to be so epic. The anticipation is palpable, and we’re sufficiently prepared to be both dazzled and rocked. We’ve been waiting six months for the tour dates to be announced and now that we know they’re coming here—here, of all places—we’re about to politely lose our minds.

Dear Charlotte,

Like the rest of us arachnids, when I was a baby spider, I looked up to you. Before I could even embalm a fly on my own, I’d heard about your barnyard heroics.

Who is the most reviled human being? Who is the brunt of the unkindest jokes? The title gives us away. It’s the mother-in-law.

In this lecture I will not propose that we mother-in-laws feebly protest our bad reputation. Hell no. I say, let’s get born again into society’s stereotype. Let’s use it to get the benefits we so obviously deserve. Above all, let’s help our children expunge those feelings of guilt towards us now, while we’re living, rather than suffer those unfixable feelings of guilt when we’re gone.