We’re just about done here, then on to HR for your employee identification card. I just need to finish securing the device to your wrist. Please don’t attempt to remove it. The electronic lock can only be opened by a company representative upon termination.

No, not termination in the sense of dying. In the sense of termination of employment. Although it could be said, from the company’s perspective, that once you’re terminated you’re “dead” to us.

It was four in the morning and Douglas was sweating, the harsh Alaska sunlight blasting through the window of his efficiency cube.

“Hell!” Douglas said, the worst word he could say without risking a fine.

He sat up and fumbled for the air conditioner. His cube was such that he could reach almost everything, from door knob to toilet handle, while sitting in bed. Douglas turned all the dials on the AC unit and checked the plug seven times. He was about to kick it again when he saw that his alarm clock was blank.

“The power is out?” Douglas asked aloud. “Then why do I smell squid-waffles, huh?”

There comes a moment in every woman’s life journey when she reflects on her choices. Maybe it was the decision to attend the same college as her high school boyfriend. Maybe it was the decision to move next door to her in-laws. In your case, it’s the decision you made to wear a jumpsuit to your ex’s wedding.

And now, here you are, in a beige bathroom stall at the local Hyatt, facing the greatest challenge of your adult life: figuring out how to use the toilet while wearing a jumpsuit.

I, Professor Pumpernickel, Chief Socialsciencology Researcher at the American University of America, Guam, have spent the past year alongside my faithful unpaid grad assistants scouring these United States for a codex of sorts—a Rosetta Stone that might decode for us the most cryptic of scripts, the most undercutting of utterances: those curiously curt words barked at us by our fathers.

Unfortunately, the last known copy of that 1902 classic, The Man’s Guide to Manning, appears to have burned up in a Springfield, MO, garage in the late 90s after a tragic turkey deep fryer accident.

Have you ever found yourself wondering: “Man, what is up with German?” Sure, we all have! Well, I’m here to answer that question once and for all.