I'm pretty far away. Maybe give them to a good cause instead. Does your part of the world have food banks?

Meanwhile over on this side of the pond licorice-flavoured treats and teas are getting harder to find.

Who who?

If you're doing to deep fry a turkey, you absolutely need to know what you're doing and have the right equipment.

Stuffing can be as easy as buying a box of Stove Top stuffing mix (which a lot of people love) and following the instructions or as complicated as the person wants to make it. I feel that Tae would prefer the simple approach.

I guess you're right. He has friends who could never own a car --- their economic situation is extremely tight -- but my son compares himself to people who have cars, not to people who don't.

... learned through experience that the best way to navigate these situations is to set boundaries for myself (as the kids say) and try to increase my understanding of how his brain works.

We aren't in the UK, but if we were, I strongly suspect he'd be diagnosed with PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance -- some people call it Persistent Desire for Autonomy, which I kind of love). If I tell him to fix his attitude and grow up (or some version thereof) he *will* do the opposite. I've...

... my car when he has recently made poor choices with his unsafe car? These questions are not rhetorical. I really want to know why. What is going on in his brain? If any of you were once young and had a brain like his, could you help me understand?

... this was unacceptable to him, so he's doing to take his friend's motorbike? So here are my questions as an old fogey. 1. Why is he so embarrassed to be seen walking to the restaurant? I was not concerned about this at his age? 2. Why does he think I'd trust him to make good choices with...

... this evening, he asked permission to take my car alone to a restaurant two blocks from here. He could easily walk there. He doesn't want to, because he thinks he'll look stupid walking there and doesn't want to be cold. I offered to drive him and drop him off far from the restaurant door....

... one is driveable, but unsafe. The other used to be safe but recently developed a problem (not his fault) that now makes it an undriveable brick. He has driven both cars without our knowledge or permission. He drove the unsafe car a long distance and did donuts in a restaurant parking lot...

Now I have to go watch it. For the 8941st time.

There might also be scope for the workaholic to tell dream boy to grow the eff up, but I can't quite picture that yet. I think dream-boy reading workaholic the riot act might already be a form of growing up and that might be sufficient. Okay, I'll give that a try.

"... for your bullshit. You can't sleep because you're a toxic perfectionist that thinks nothing and no one is good enough except me. And I can see the writing on the wall, one day I won't be good enough for you either. Go fix yourself, then maybe can spend time together again."

... I want them to save each other. But so far I've had dream boy teaching workaholic to have fun and cynical workaholic saving naive dream boy from industry creeps. So cliche. I think maybe I need them to have a fight. I think maybe I need dream boy to say "I love you, but I ain't got time..."