The Best Time I Occupied Wall Street

@waitykaitie WAIT. I used to work for a nonprofit down there! You aren't in 120, are you??

DO I KNOW YOU???

Anyway, I just about to say how going out down there after work was so bad.

@Lily Rowan

I'm not in 120 so sadly I don't think we know each other! But I think this indicates the next NYC hairpin meetup should take place on the oh so hip Stone Street. Hairpinners occupy wall street (drinking spots). Whoever finds the banker with the highest salary wins!

@waitykaitie Heh. Can you imagine?? Hilarious. But I don't live in NYC anymore…

@waitykaitie Many summers ago, I briefly worked for the ACLU, which was (still is?) down in those parts. We shared a building with, among other evil firms, fancy pants law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. It was always very easy to tell who was fighting the good fight, and who the minions of evil were.
PS, I love the idea of a hairpin meetup on Wall St!!! I've actually started timing how quickly I can scare off banker types (I work in a field that occasionally requires going to various events frequented by rich people, so I get a lot of practice).

YES, BURN IT DOWN

@melis PUNCH EVERYTHING.

@melis CLEANSE IT CLEANSE IT

@thebestjasmine I don't want to be too devil's advocate-y here, but I know a lot of those guys through my business. They're used to real-deal gold diggers coming around. Asking Jane her cup size was their not-very-with-it but standard "clever" response to realizing a girl is only interested in their bank account.

@eccles But wasn't she pretty clearly interested only in interviewing them for her job as a professional reporter? I mean, if she were a gold digger, she'd probably have a better angle than "fake NPR researcher who asks probing questions about your integrity."

@eccles That actually makes these guys seem even MORE terrible, not less. Because it means that they cannot relate to or respect any woman, and assume that every woman is a gold digger and useful only for her breasts, even when she is a reporter with a microphone in hand.

@eccles I kind of took it to mean, "you just asked me a kind of rude, personal question let me respond in kind with a rude and personal question" Sort of an object lesson in questioning.

@LucyLu Those of you who are defending them because it was just another rude personal question — do you see nothing gendered about that question? Do you think they would have had or did have the same attitude with Jane's male colleague? Do you think that normally when reporters are doing stories and asking legitimate questions of the person that they're interviewing related to the story that they get asked what their cup size is in response?

"They weren't trying to harass her." Seriously, set it all on fucking fire. A man asking a professional woman who is interviewing them for her job what her cup size is isn't trying to harass her. In what world?

@LucyLu Exactly. It's a stupid, knee-jerk, drunken response by 20-something dudes who think they're being clever. OBVIOUSLY a more mature person would have been like, "oh, hey, I'm on the radio!" But they weren't trying to harass her any more than they felt harassed by her.

That said, finance guys, in my experience, are the rapiest, most entitled group of dudes out there.

I don't know what to say to people. As far as I can tell, most finance guys are people who kind of accidentally got offered $150k saleries to sit on the phone right out of college. Of COURSE they're justifying themselves in the douchiest ways possible. Wouldn't you?

@thebestjasmine I mean, in fairness, she was interviewing them while they were drunk, in their off-hours, candidly, without an appointment, in a bar.

@eccles So in what way does that excuse them for asking her cup size and saying that she must only be a demo dolly? How does any of that make a difference?

@thebestjasmine I agree. Drunk is not an excuse. Much like people who get drunk and suddenly start spewing racist epithets, that shit doesn't come out unless it's in there. And very shallowly under the surface, apparently. Perhaps actually right on the surface.

@thebestjasmine They're being defensive.

Do YOU have warm feelings for all aspects of the media? Like, if FOX News came up while you were drunk and was shouting like, "HEY YOU WITH OPINIONS, WHY ARE YOU SUCH A DIRTY HIPPIE??" would YOU necessarily be like, "Well, in point of fact..!"

I mean, maybe you would. In which case, you are an extremely tidy drunk. But my basic point in life is that the bad guys are not necessarily as bad as we think. Nor are we so good. I am not really into team sports, myself.

We have met the enemy, ladies, and they is us. As Pogo said.

@eccles No, but I sure as hell wouldn't throw sexist comments at them. I would tell them I didn't want to talk to them. We are the enemy for being angry about sexist comments? No, I think it's the sexists out there who feel that they're entitled to look at and talk to women in the way that they do. And the women who defend them, because boys will be boys, and they were just drunk, and they're not all that bad.

@thebestjasmine Them's fighting words.

You know that.

I don't think much of anyone in the world is on my side here. But my basic point is that most people feel hurt and defensive, even if it's for stupid reasons. Maybe it's not much of a point. I'm pretty sure it's not.

I just don't have the rage in me that the rest of you seem to have. I'm more in the "live and let live" camp. And I don't really blame Wall Street for taking advantage of what they've been given. Blame the system, not those stupid boys.

@eccles if it makes any difference, they weren't 20-somethings. they were middle-aged married men with families. does it make any difference? i'm confused, haha

@thebestjasmine The best benefit of the doubt I can give it IS that they didn't mean to sexually harass her.

They did sexually harass her, though.

And as was said up thread, that kind of makes it worse. If your idle banter is by default, rapey…. ugh.

@Jane Marie Ugh, Jane, I'm sure it was really (and reasonably) offensive at the time. I'm also sure that as a journalist you must receive a mixed reaction many places you go.

I just have a problem with the way we go around vilifying people. Either as groups or individuals. The other side will do the same to us. It's not helpful either way.

That's just how I see it.

@Craftastrophies Yeah, they're a super-entitled, non-thoughtful group of people, by and large. They have the kind of money that buys insularity.

I don't forgive them for that.

But maybe one or two out of the hundreds I have met are not like that.

@eccles Yes, it is helpful to vilify men who sexually harass and demean women. Because then we teach the women that they do that to that that behavior is not okay, and that they are worth more than that. Because we teach another generation of women that we have their backs, and that they don't have to just sit and take that behavior. And because it shows men how damaging that behavior can be, and how it can affect women for years (read some of the stories in some of these comments). It is totally okay to vilify people who do and say terrible things, and trying to excuse that behavior is much more harmful.

@thebestjasmine I think it is unhelpful to dehumanize the reactions of anyone.

They can then dehumanize you.

We must be better than that which we vilify. That's my contention. I'm probably ridiculous for thinking that. But that is what I work with.

I've been dateraped more than once by these assholes, before learning not to date them, so "ridiculous" is certainly a fair assessment.

@thebestjasmine @eccles I agree about vilification, but… what if they're vile?

I mean, it's rough that some people good people get thrown in with the stereotype, and generally I am against that, and I am against utilitarian equations that make the minority experience less important. But when it comes to the whole not treating other people like human beings, and making them unsafe thing, I… think they need to be vilified.

I think most people, here especially, understand that this is not every single person working in finance on wall street. But it IS most of them, it seems, and it also seems that it's a culture that downright encourages them to be this way. It's gross.

@Craftastrophies

I'm not affiliated with a political side because, as an individual, I find it difficult to take an objective moral stance. I can just see their perspective. But, I was raised in a weird way, by heavily Christian conservatives, who put me in a hospital and drugged me when I started to ask questions. And then exorcized me.

My general perspective is that people who think differently from you are probably not–in their own world–insane OR evil. I was raised to think liberals were insane and evil. I disagree now. But I think that gross characterization hinders… mmm… viable thought. (Viable? Functional? Useful?) If I hadn't stepped outside of my own world–at all costs–I wouldn't now believe that liberals could have a point.

BUT, most people do not have the experience of swinging radically, at all costs, between positions, and retaining sympathies. So, I'm going to bed. I'm glad you guys are fighting the bad guys. I didn't mean to interrupt.

@eccles I hope we didn't make you feel attacked. While the conversation is important. I've just come from a discussion with someone who triggered me several times, while saying how 'fun' it is to have these hypothetical discussions! (Argh)

I think the point about dehumanising is really important. Because besides being not a good thing to do, it actually doesn't get us any further. There's no way for anyone to redeem themselves or learn, once that's happened.

However. I have a real hard line about this whole gendered insults/violence stuff. Rape culture blah blah. I know most people would think a line like that is offensive but minor. But it really is the start of a long, horrible road down violence and hate. It already IS violent, in my opinion. It's the type of violence that I want 'my side' (whatever that means. What does that meeeaaan) to avoid – the violence that comes from seeing people as things.

I'm with esme weatherwax on this one. The trouble always starts with seeing people as things. And I don't ever feel ok giving people a pass on that. It's hard to do that – to sit there and refuse to laugh at bawdy jokes – and not feel enough anger that it clouds rational thought, but it is possible.

@Craftastrophies "Seeing people as things" sounds like a bad thing to me too.

How do we go about changing that?

Do you change when people you don't like and don't respect shake their fingers at you? Okay, that question sounds condescending and obvious, I don't mean it to be. We don't change when that happens. So, seriously, how do we do this?

@eccles Yeah, this is THE problem.

I think we do it by being humourless feminist and not buying into the idea that it's harmless, because when people laugh at jokes about sexual violence, people who perpetrate sexual violence think it's ok. We do it by trying to convince people who aren't as far down that road that it isn't harmless, and getting them to join the fight. By endorsing and practising enthusiastic consent. By teaching kids about that and about gender equality, building it into their world at the bottom level.

And sometimes it just can't be done. That doesn't mean that person who can't/won't change (and really, why would they?) isn't human. It means that they are not safe. This is, essentially, my line. Those people can do what they like, but no one, ever, should have to feel unsafe because of it. And it's not like we can all just avoid them every day. Some of us have to work with them!

This got way more heartfelt and depressing than I meant it to.

@Craftastrophies No, truly, I get it. I, myself, feel entitled to work in a 100% bear-trap free environment. That is just the kind of entitlement-generation I was brought up in.

@eccles

@eccles i love you and really appreciate this discussion. i think you are 100% right about everything: not dehumanizing people and ALSO drawing distinctions between what is on and what is not … and it's tricky and necessary to do both at the same time.

if we say that we are more evolved/better, then we actually have to be more evolved/better … but this doesn't mean letting anyone off the hook for being an asshole. it just means not becoming an asshole ourselves.

just wanted to say thanks <3

I think it's a really key different to make between saying "all guys who work in finance are rapey douchebags," and saying, "the specific guys who asked Jane her cup size and accused her of being a demo dolly are sexually harassing douchebags." The first is lumping people into a possibly-dehumanizing and maybe unfair group, while the second is describing the actual behavior of actual people, specifically.

@eccles, et al: This was a really great discussion in that it stayed civil. And on the internets, no less.

@Hot mayonnaise Yeah, I have a lot of respect for Hairpinners in general, for that reason. By and large, this is an amazing group of kind, smart women. I think Edith and Jane should be thanked for having set that tone.

Ladies in leadership, yo.

@eccles in vino veritas. I won't go drinking with my finance coworkers because of the gross shit that comes out when they're drunk – suddenly, every woman in the bar can be bought and if they disagree they're uppity bitches. I've gotten a lot of shit from coworkers for refusing to put myself in a situation where they seem to think my presence, coupled with alcohol, is a free pass for sexual harassment.

I think it'd be a more offensive question if bankers weren't so notorious for bragging about their bonuses.

@parallel-lines Yeah, we're definitely not going to find the class acts of Wall Street in a bar.

I mean, those guys were jerks. AND the situation was ripe for ugliness, which is what you're saying. But, in truth, I can only think of one investment bank/financial firm where I, as a woman, would want to work.

I guess there's a part of me that just feels like there's a level of irresponsible journalism here (and Jane, I totally get that this was an assignment. No blame.) If the New York Times wanted to publish an article on how people lived in the South Bronx, would it really be fair to conduct the entirety of their research in a stripclub?

@Hot mayonnaise Seriously. Go team!

@eccles Oh girl, I think that you've gone too far the other way. I totally agree with you that it's terrible to attack someone for what/who they are — I'm not down at all for attacking someone for being Christian, or for working on Wall Street, or for being a football player, etc. However, attacking someone for what they DO is totally appropriate, and I think completely necessary. You note that I think most of the comments here are not "Every banker is a terrible human being and has no hope of becoming better"; to the contrary, they are "people who say things like that to women are terrible."

Also, I really don't see the strip club/bar parallel. Or why it's irresponsible to do interviews in a bar after work, especially when the point of the interview was to find a gathering of people who work on Wall Street in a more casual environment.

@eccles – the salaries are not accidental. I sometimes hang out w/ people who work HR at major wall st banks, and it is HUGE fights between back office and front office managers over just how huge a signing bonus the "fresh outta cornell" dbags can get.

Nobody hates finance front office like finance back office.

@eccles Hmm, you know, I hadn't even thought of that. I mean, the nice guys are probably home with their kids or at pottery class, or whatever.

On the other hand, those guys are definitely awful. And it seems, from what other people here are saying, that they are not an unfair sample?

I;m so grateful for the tone and courtesy here, too. These discussions make me sad and tired enough (anyone want to move to mars with me?) without people getting mean. Which is why I usually never have these discussions.

@Craftastrophies

I totally get your sad/tired feeling. Maybe that's why I'm on the "things aren't so bad" side that annoys so many people. Looks like Stockholm Syndrome, even. But human misery is a constant, and happiness is a choice, right?

The truth is, there are a LOT of awful ones. Power corrupts, we've heard. And yeah,
@thebestjasmine, these guys in this situation were definitely among the awful ones.

What worries me is that creating a smear piece, a character assassination of All of Wall Street and All That We Think It Means based on the actions of some drunk guys in a bar, misrepresents the true situation as well as the genuinely hard working, decent folks that are there as well. They make a TON of money, more than they deserve, but at a huge price. 100 work weeks. Work that can shut down their own weddings, keep them from seeing dying parents. And these fresh college graduates show up to that game… just seeing the money, not realizing the sacrifice. And then they get used to the money. And they have to justify the sacrifice. And they become horrible.

So that's all TRUE.

But if you vilify the individuals, you miss the point of what actually needs to be changed. They're just products of a system. Granted, they're probably Type A, not-often-thoughtful individuals who are attracted to this particular facet of the system, but a character attack is not actual serving anyone except our own ego desire to say THOSE GUYS: BAD. US GUYS: GOOD.

I think we really really need to understand that, lest we get sidetracked into the wrong argument. Do we really need to chop of the young Dauphin's head? Yeah, he's a spoiled brat, but is he really the problem?

Fuck… I'm probably the Scarlet Pimpernel here. I don't know what to think about that. But GOSH wasn't Jane Seymour lovely?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084637/

@eccles See, now I'm picturing you as Richard E. Grant. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182408/ And you are VERY attractive in period dress, may I say?

Yeah, I see your point. I mean, part of the reason a piece like that works (fair notice, I haven't actually listened to it yet, I can't on this computer) is by using synecdoches. Ok, I did just want to use that word. But basically, it makes the people represent the whole system. And it works in this instance, I think, because it has a valid point. Those people are a product of a system, a system which, as you say, is not nice even to the people that make it up. It makes them horrible, and they are horrible for real reasons. Well, some of them were maybe already horrible? But also for real reasons (shakes fist at kyriarchy).

Well, and again, Wall Street makes a nice synechode for the kyriarchy. Here are these people who are the sucess stories, who ar reaping all the benefits. But the system is doing awful things to them, too. Besides all the overt stuff, it can't be nice to live in a head that thinks that all women are only objects, gold diggers, etc. Where then companionship and love? I am super tangenty today, but I feel like… I feel like I probably know lots of people who have date raped other people and have NO IDEA that that's what happened. But once you've done that, you're invested in a world where 'they didn't say no' or whatever is an ok reason. Because otherwise you're a rapist! And most people really really do not want to be a rapist.

I'll make it personal. I have a history of abuse, and I've done things a few times with partners and afterwards thought 'oh, shit. That buys right into that pattern/was actually emotionally abusive.' That is fucking scary. If you're trapped in a system or a pattern of behaviour, and you can't catch the early stages, you basically have to be invested in the system because otherwise you're a super awful person. The problem is, then, that you have to do all kinds of twisty thoughts to make it ok – 'they deserved it' 'they made me do it' 'they are lazy' 'I still have MY job because I work hard' 'get a job, hippy!' And then no one can change anything because everyone is too personally invested in destructive systems.

Ok, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. But basically, I take your point about the personal vs the public. I still see it as part of the same problem, but they need very different tactics. Whatever those might be.

@Craftastrophies I learned the word kyriarchy today! Things are going great!

And I am very VERY foppish, you're absolutely correct. It's my outrageous dimples what does it.

I think where you and I have both gone with this is the shared agreement that what is described (and quoted, because I was able to listen to it on my computer) here is ugly. AND it is a reflection of systemic ugliness, which is more significant. AND I hear you saying: if you can see your own disease, and halt it, why can't they? Or why WON'T they?

I don't know, dood. Maybe they're just truly terrible people, worse than the rest of us, and need their heads on pikes. Maybe they need jeezus. Maybe we need a system that doesn't reward buccaneers.

But, I mean, Johnny Depp is sexy. Who doesn't want to be Johnny Depp?

Just by the by, it's been totally great talking this out with you. Thanks for not writing me off as a sexist victim, perpetuating the patriarchy. Writing helps the thought process, no?

@eccles Aaaw, thanks to you, too! It is definitely making me feel less glum about it all, although I'm still glum in general. I mean… fark. And thanks for not writing me off as a righteous, humourless feminist. Which I am, though. But I am ALSO a sexist victim, perpetuating the patriarchy. Its really hard not to perpetuate the patriarchy.

Do you also raise one eyebrow at a rakish angle? Because that + dimples + eye crinkles with cheeky grins are my KRYPTONITE.

I didn't mean to say 'if I can see it and stop, why won't they', as such. I mean, I have a lot of advantages, the first and biggest one being that I had people around me who called me on my shit before it got to the stage where I couldn't admit it to myself. And even then it was HARD man. SO HARD to admit that you might be doing terrible things to people. I mean, to give myself props I did seek out people who would call me on stuff, but again I had the luxury of doing that, and of starting form a place where I knew I had shit that needed dealing with. If I'd been constantly positively reinforced for doing those things? I do not think I have that much strength of character.

This is my own personal struggle with the women in my own family – each generation gets less abused and less abusive, but only by rejecting the ones who came before. Even if they made massive progress. Because even if they did make massive progress – my own mother is SO MUCH better than hers – it's a difference of scale, not of kind. I guess this is less irrelevant than I thought to the discussion. I mean… how do you make it clear that that behaviours/system/whatever is unacceptable, keep yourself and other people safe and ok, AND leave room for growth and change. I mean, basically no one wakes up one day and goes 'shit! Women are human too! I must change EVERYTHING!' So how do we reward people for taking baby steps, and being less abusive and awful, while they are still BEING abusive and awful.

If anyone knows the answer to this, please let me know, and I will tell my mother

I guess part of the problem is not only that the system rewards bucaneers, but that it rewards them so extremely, and also punishes those who choose not to behave like that. That is, to move it sideways again, the problem is not that we have a society that likes frat boys. There is technically nothing wrong with frat boys. It's the we have a society that shuns and oppresses men who choose alternative models of masculinity. Has anyone here read Sheri S. Tepper's 'A Gate to Women's Country'? Because she did this concept much better than I. Likewise, traders who DON'T plunder and cheat get sucked under because there's no room for them in the system. Every system has flaws, but if the system ONLY rewards people who are dodgy, there's nothing but flaw.

Hm, I didn't meant to delete that comment. I been drankin'.

I think that it's clear the system is flawed, but to explain "it's nothing but flaw" would require a much fancier degree than the one I currently possess. I don't believe in straight socialism, personally. But capitalism run amock clearly has it's self-destructive tendencies as well.

I'm interested in what you said about your family. I was raised by a very religious, abusive family, that had the absolute best intentions. They rejected me, because they saw my behavior as evil. That's why I decided not to reject them. I wanted to be better than that. I wonder if that's created a Stockholm-Syndrome-y mentality in me, that accepts persecutors and oppressors and defends them. I wonder if my opinion is credible. It might not be. Or it might just be much, much more broad than most people's. What I wonder most of all is how my opinion might affect the next generation. Based on what you're saying, the answer is probably: not well.

Maybe we DO need to attack injustice immediately, personally, painfully, humiliatingly, wherever we see it. Maybe my parents should be publicly humiliated for what they did to me. I think about it all the time.

Or maybe we should be better than what they did to us.

Or maybe there's a middle ground. But what does that look like?

@eccles I am going to come right out and support you in what you're saying. Are these guys, in this bar, clearly assholes? Oh yes. In fact, I don't think anyone would disagree with me when I say the investment banker culture is the nastiest culture on Wall Street. I wouldn't quite go so far as to call it rapey, but it's definitely sexist, sometimes to the point of misogyny. The upside (from the perspective of people who aren't in that culture) that most people don't recognize is that of all the young jerks who come in to investment banking, with their huge bonuses, only a few will ever go on to become middle-aged investment bankers. Most of them flame out spectacularly or pathetically after just a few years, and since they tend to spend their money like it's going out of style, they're basically left to find a totally different career without much to build on. So there's that.

But to apply the behavior of a few dickbags in a bar to all of "Wall Street" is ridiculous. There are tons of people who work in finance. There are the admins, the assistants, the HR people, just like every other industry. Even amongst the higher echelons, most people are perfectly decent. Full disclosure: my husband works on Wall Street. He is a really, really nice guy. His friends and coworkers are really nice guys. They don't make money by doing things like investing in fraudulent mortgage-backed securities or running Ponzi schemes. They find the Bush tax cuts ridiculous. And there are lots of other people on Wall Street who are nice, normal people just doing their jobs. The reality is, investing in business is a huge part of how the economy functions. That's where businesses get their money to expand and add new jobs. When the economy sucks it sucks for Wall Street guys too.

This isn't to say there isn't some ugliness, especially at a few key firms (and yes, Goldman is one of them.) But finance is a huge industry with a wide range of companies. There are the ones where 25-year-olds stagger around drunk bragging about their bonuses, harassing the admins who cry in the bathrooms. There are also the ones where a lot of smart people manage money, where women run funds and hire equally smart women just out of college. It's frustrating to me to see the best of the industry every day in what my husband does, while never reading anything but negativity in the media.

And, side note – before losing my job (to my boss's girlfriend, no less), I worked in advertising. And I assure you, it was full of braggy douchebags just like those assholes in the bar, and full of weepy, constantly degraded women with no hope of advancement since they possess ovaries and breasts – I was one of them. I think the phenomenon of total unfairness for women is not unique to any industry.

Interestingly, I was also raised in a hyperconservative fundamentalist religious area, though by parents who were somewhat more liberal, being transplants. It really does make you see that people, individually, aren't evil, or don't think they're evil. They're just repeating what they were raised to believe in. We're all indoctrinated in one thing or another, at the end of the day.

@nicemarmot This is not adding to the conversation at all, but… I really love your username.

@thebestjasmine @Craftastrophies @eccles @Hot mayonnaise @et aliae

@ The Hairpin

So FUCKING SMART

I have much much more to add, but for now…

THIS.

Also, soooo….What's ***your cup size*** ?????

Cup of Wisdom, that is! Ginormous, I can tell, very very overpowering. Good questions ultimately result in great, interesting & creative answers. Fo' reals.

shout out to @charina (w/yet another viewpoint)

@Aaron Davidson@facebook You seem to be implying that the government and wall street are two different things.

@skepchick …Rebecca? All my favourite things are converging!

@AuntAgatha No kidding! If Tina Fey or Neil DeGrasse Tyson shows up I'm going to faint.

@skepchick *blog-star-struck* hi rebecca. i like you.

@AuntAgatha Favorite things converging: that happens a lot around here.

I am more than semi-amazed that this whole Occupy Wall Street situation hasn't turned incredibly, incredibly violent.

Not to mention semi-disappointed.

@Megan Patterson@facebook jinxies!

@karion Well, not since WaMu went under we don't.

@karion Ever been to the east side? Or Belltown? Yeah, there.

@squid v. whale Yeah. I used to work over there and the entitlement/privilege was just so overwhelming at times. I remember having moments where I would look at some customer and think, "what kind of evil have you been involved in."

@karion Two words: Bellevue. Oh wait that was only one. Ok, um Bellevue SUCKS ASS. Wait, I went too far that time.

@karion yes we do. I was married to a woman who worked as an admin assistant in the finance industry. Just about every single (male) broker in her company was an asshole. It goes with the territory. Oddly enough, the woman brokers were usually very nice people.

@missedconnections Not sure the "poor bastards" in this scenario are the lured guys.

@missedconnections I see ads for this kind of thing on Craigslist every day!

@Xaxa I dunno, I see your point. But if someone was talking to me for a radio story about, say, how fat I am, then I would see the relevance of the question even if I didn't want to answer it. I would like to think that at least I would decline politely. But maybe this is these guy's idea of a zinger?

@Craftastrophies It reminded me of this utter douchebag who came up to some friends and me in a northern virginia bar once with the opening line, "which are you, teachers or nurses?" Naturally, I set him on fire.

@WaityKatie NNNNNNNNNNRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Craftastrophies I would too, unless I was drunk. Then who knows…

@WaityKatie "Naturally, I set him on fire". I sure hope so.

@WaityKatie I have had someone say that to me at a bar also! What the hell, is this A Thing now? Unacceptable.

@C.SanDiego Oh nooooo, really?!? Maybe it's a line from some movie that juiceboxes like or something?

@Craftastrophies I now make sure I have sunglasses with me when listening to TAL. I was afraid I'd become known as "that girl who walks everywhere, and cries"

@anonymass can we all just meditate on how "awnaw" is one of the best songs? of all the songs, i'd say it's probably top-ten?

@pussy-strut Yeah, Nappy Roots is pretty awesome.