As a fellow European, you turning an obvious joke into some weird flex on Americans is cringe af.

Yeah, I think my sense of smell in general has never returned in full capacity. I think it's slightly weaker. Crazy stuff.

On a serious note, COVID isn't the only virus that can cause loss of smell (permanent or temporary). I lost it before COVID for a month or so, and it took some time for it to return completely. But to this day, there are still certain chemical smells (like deodorants in spray) that smell a tiny bit off to me.

Not in detail, but it actually does:

“Often the mothers are saying exactly what I am but need their child to hear it from an expert,” says Dr. Dendy Engelman, a Manhattan dermatologist. “They’re like, ‘Maybe she’ll listen to you because she certainly doesn’t listen to me.’”

While younger kids may be reasoned with, teenagers aren't as easy to handle as some say. Puberty is a hell of a drug.

IMHO, this is a very sensitive topic, and I'm glad I don't have kids for this to be a worry for me.

Smartphones became a big thing when I was already in high school, and social media at the time still wasn't this aggressive, but my father did monitor my activity on the PC, mostly secretly, and it made me feel anxious. This violation of privacy damaged my already shit/barely existent relationship with him. It's also why I'm so paranoid of secretly being monitored. You have to already have a pretty good relationship with your parents for this not to potentially mess you up, at least in my experience.

What the solution to this is, I don't know. Better digital/tech education in schools and at home would be a good step in that direction, but strict ad and product regulations should also be implemented, which - unfortunately expectedly - is being fought against (at least in the USA, according to the article).

Fyi it could be filters need changing. Right now if we turn on the aircon at work, I get terribly sore throat that would last for days. Turns out they change/clean the filters only once a year, and it's even worse in some other rooms where it also smells bad.

Cries in having no sunlight in the apartment. Mine didn't survive the dark apartment life, so can't confirm.

One of my family cats is currently at the end of her life due to kidney disease. It really sucks, glad they're doing something about it. Now if only they could do the same for dogs.

It's funny to me how easy English has it. All you have to do is use "they", and if people think that's awkward, they should see how difficult it is to navigate it in a language with complex verb conjugations with gendered nouns and verbs. It's complicated to the point that non-binary people will still use their assigned-at-birth (if that's the term?) pronouns, to save everyone - including themselves - a headache. There's of course a movement to change the language, but it's difficult.

I did that when I worked customer support. The only way I could retain the little bit of sanity I had left. But to be honest, we were so understaffed that even if I slipped, they wouldn't have fired me. There was one guy who was so angry with a customer that he wrote their number down, and then over his break called the customer with his private phone to argue with them. Still didn't get fired, lol.

Seems like they didn't set www to redirect to the main site. If you go to https://dripapp.org it works fine.

Not all. Jumping spiders and wolf spiders took all the good eyes and ran away with them.