The other day I had an issue with my @Chime account and called customer service. The woman who helped me was exemplary: kind, helpful, and responsive. I told her that, and she started crying. How cruel have we become that a simple "thank you" causes tears of gratitude? Here's a simple rule I'm shocked everybody doesn't know: when you're nice to customer service agents, they will go above and beyond to help you. They are NOT the company you're angry at. They are human beings making a shit salary, and don't deserve to be treated cruelly.

Okay so who’s ready to have their entire Christmas fucked up with the story behind my clown art? You guys better have a fainting couch close at hand, because hoo boy are you going to need it. Even though I only started drawing last month, this story starts three years ago, just before Christmas, with me in an antique store frantically trying to figure out what to get my husband. It’s hard to shop for a man you’ve been with for (at the time) 14 years!

I missed my connecting flight so I have to stay overnight at O'Hare and let me tell you guys being practically alone in an airport is fucking AMMAAAZZZIIIIINNNNGGG. If I was rich, I'd buy plane tickets but never go anywhere just so I could hang out in the airport overnight. I'm hanging out with the custodial staff, skipping down the moving sidewalk, finding little secret nooks I can pretend are forts. This is the BEST.

The @AthleticBrewing press trip ends today and I JUST remembered I can take pictures of my #Pokemon at this fancy hotel where the cheapest room costs $899 a night. Let me know your favorite Pokémon and if it’s in my Pokédex, I’ll send you pics! Zekrom’s in the lounge and he is DTF

I heard there are pomelos somewhere on the property so I brought my bag to this fancy beer pairing dinner and will go sneaking around after dessert. I don’t even want to eat these things. Im addicted to the thrill of the hunt. I had to sneak through another bush and duck under some stuff, but I found fruit!

I snuck behind the service entrance and found a bunch of fruit trees, and now I have to sneak back to my hotel room without anyone knowing I stole their lemons. @thatbilloakley I feel like you might know a little bit about lemon tree theft and could really use your help on this, buddy.

This hotel has a croquet area where I saw a bunny, so I will be ignore everything @AthleticBrewing has planned while I chase this bunny around the property. This is the first press trip I’ve ever been invited on and it’s probably going to be the last, isn’t it.

I've struggled with sobriety since I was a teenager, and not having adult-ish non-alcoholic drinks added to the difficulty. I'm now 40, 6 years sober, launched a weekly n/a drinks column on @thetakeout 3 weeks ago, and now have emails from SEVEN MILLION BEVERAGE COMPANIES. Note that this isn't a complaint--I'm ecstatic, but angry it took so long. In both my careers, in the food industry and now in food media, I've literally been laughed at when bringing up the topic. But how does it make sense the ONLY liquid that can go with food is wine?

In high school me and a friend stumbled upon this guy performing on some god forsaken cable channel, and saw a musical number that would change our lives—and our friendship—forever. I’m going to see if somehow the internet preserved it. In the meantime, enjoy the album covers.

https://twitter.com/wp_rick/status/1361891211682930688

I cannot find the live performance, but did find the official music video which is just as good, if not better.

I hate to say they’re “lucky”
COVID happened, but going into last year Kroger had like eleventy jillion dollars in debt. They had a good 2020 and refinanced some debt in January; definitely a company worth examining if you’re interested in big food.

simplywall.st/stocks/us/cons…

https://twitter.com/eaterla/status/1361772250731597831

Kroger has $13.5 billion in debt and $2.75 billion revolving credit facility, and want the public to think that paying their front-line cashiers an extra $4 an hour in TEMPORARY hazard pay is going to break them. Do not buy into these shenanigans.

Nearly every day I take a walk, grab a coffee, and sit for a while in front of Baltimore’s Camden Station. This is where Abraham Lincoln was nearly assassinated on the eve of his 1861 inauguration. Thinking about that little known story a lot lately, so today, I’m sharing it. 1/ Short bit of context: prior to Lincoln’s election, the was a goddamn disaster. Ideologically divided, hateful, and violent. The President, James Buchanan, has long been considered the worst in American history. I wrote this about him a few years back:

thrillist.com/travel/nation/…

I'm a food writer who's too close to this topic to write about it coherently, but as a former food business owner who has lost everything twice to circumstances beyond my control, I'm begging my media comrades: focus less on gift cards, more on mental health & inevitable loss 1/ The losses this industry is about to fact aren't just restaurants, and it's not just employees. I have nearly downed all my pills more than a few times while at the bottom. Not mincing words: we're facing a outbreak of suicides and substance abuse relapses. 2/

Right now I’m at a friend’s funeral. He was 22 and died of kidney disease. He was skipping dialysis because he was an hourly food service worker and couldn’t afford to lose any pay. I’m sitting here in the lobby, thinking about the people getting rich off the #ChickenSandwich. The enormity of these things really doesn’t hit you until you see a brilliant, funny, caring and very much loved 22 year old man lying in a his casket.

As suspected, I have been given an offer to write a book highlighting the 100 best restaurants in Washington DC FOR ZERO DOLLARS. And but of course I will be tweeting out all the details, because I am sick & tired of being asked to work for free. A THREAD:

https://twitter.com/robicellis/status/1148412444890546177

To preface: I was referred to this publisher by a dining site in DC. This book is part of the "Unique Eats" series, which requires me to eat at close to 100 restaurants. Email opens "I took a look at your website and am very impressed by your work".

Guys I am 99. 999% sure that I just got an email from a publisher asking me to write a book for them for exactly zero dollars. I am going to respond, and will update you all tomorrow. If it's what I think it is, I will invite all you other writers out there to help me compose responses to this flattering offer.

Hope you’ve really enjoyed you Monday so far, because I’m about fuck up your entire day with the most ill advised and flat-out terrifying real estate listing on the internet! Ok, you want to be festive. That’s cute.

I got a lot of very sweet messages this past weekend. The news reminded us all to reach out, but it didn't advise HOW to reach out so I figured that as someone who has lived with Bipolar 2 for 20+ years, I'd start a thread about how to reach someone living with mental illness. This is not to say anyone did a "bad job" reaching out. It is ALWAYS good to reach out in any way. I just want to hopefully help you understand the depressed brain, because it doesn't respond in a way most non-depressed people will understand.