I've been doing it for 18 years now, and I haven't quite turned into a troll. I consider myself lucky for the opportunity. It certainly made my time as a single mother easier.
Recommended reading! The "about us" page at the bakery is adorable. And don't miss the re-imagined lyrics of "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald" at Metafilter.
I see from Charlie's Twitter feed that Joy had won a contest at a harvest festival already. Good on him to re-use useless giant pumpkins for a fundraiser! But I wonder what happened after the drop. Broken pumpkin makes good livestock feed. Did they pick up all the pieces and haul them out of the bus? Or did they just haul the bus off and never speak of it again?
Although they aren't about monsters, I will always remember two movies that traumatized everyone around me, but left me feeling "meh." One was The Exorcist, because I had already read the book, and The Day After, because I'd read research on nuclear fallout. Hollywood can never recreate the horrors that written text had left in my head.
That link was great! I'm glad we learned the results at the bottom, because I was thinking, what if the intended never read the acknowledgments? Or the paper? Not every romantic partner understands such esoteric subjects.