Amy, the important thing is that even when extinguished, these valiant gastropod's bodies were converted into adorable jars of facial cream.

If the knights wore chain mail, did the gastropods wear snail mail?

So anyway, there are not one but two angles of this now.

If said gastropod stared at you for a moment, would that be called stalking?

How did we ever survive college without Blackboard, Twitter, and SnapChat? Oh yeah, we walked to class and wrote things down.

Yes, it's halloween season, but that's just cruel

http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/scary-wake-call

Boats are for little people, need a yacht to gain a bit of clarse

http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/yacht-crashes-dock-cruise-ship-squeezes-through-narrow-canal

Best concert opener evra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh_9NY56Sxw

On fictional knights fighting snails:

Well, that would help to explain why there's a nursery rhyme about 24 tailors setting out to kill a snail. But...they don't dare do it.

Perhaps the snails represent politicians?

Their glacial pace of progress and inevitable trail of slime, I mean.

"Someone asks Reddit what it's like to regret having children"

http://www.refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,433045

First ones listed:

"You feel trapped."

"But can I be honest with him and tell him I never wanted him? Nope. I have to keep the illusion alive as long as possible to not fuck up his life anymore than it already is."

"I don't regret having my daughter. I regret telling my wife I wanted children."

"I'm putting on an act every day so that they never have a clue I didn't want to make them."

"It's like serving a prison sentence."

"It’s soul crushing."

"I opted out, before I could regret it."

"My husband and I have like parenthood to Stockholm syndrome."

The short thread includes a link - provided by Freya - to a jaw-dropping commercial for Hotels.com. I find it a bit hard to believe that it was ever on TV - if it was. But it's amazing.

Some other comments from the long Reddit thread itself:

–]wanawanka 465 points 1 day ago*

Kids for eons were raised by more than just their parents. There was a whole village or town of people raising them together. Granted kids have school and camp or whatever but the modern family unit puts a lot of time and attention pressure on just 2 and sometimes 1 person.

[–]spiteful-vengeance 272 points 1 day ago

This is something that really stood out for me when I lived with relatives in Malaysia.

Raising kids is a different story when all the uncles and aunts (9 of them) are helping out.

[–]Redgen87 90 points 1 day ago

Yeah I know it's not possible for every person but let me tell you it seems to be almost integral to every person's happiness to have more than just the mom and dad helping out. My aunt, my mother, my grandparents, my wife's dad and her sister all help out to an extent and it makes things way easier than they would be. My mom helps more than everyone else but even just that 3rd person makes a world of difference.

[–]TheForRealThanos 45 points 1 day ago

Similar experience here. I was raised by several aunts, uncles, and cousins until I was 6. Moved to the US and was shocked at how unsupportive and uninvolved my western side of the family was. Not to mention how little respect their children had for their parents/extended family.

Why_So_Slow 59 points 1 day ago

It's not just other adults helping out. It's also other kids keeping them company. Nothing more annoying, boring, and exhausting that constant need to entertain a small child.

I love my kids, I love reading to them, taking them on trips, cooking together, but those fucking pretend play games and Pokemon cards are so awful :/ That's why I love playdates, no amount of kids is more work than having to fake enthusiasm for another round of some stupid game with no rules.

[–]MinimumExamination8 -10 points 16 hours ago

My parents taught us how to entertain ourselves. Was reading before kindergarten. Mother said I'd be happy sitting in a corner with a book. Mothers had their work to do. This idea that children need to be constantly overseen and have no room to just explore and imagine, they have to have their tablets and babyshark and endless entertainment. They are not doing well as they age, as I've noted with millennials. They feel entitled and are often lazy as fuck with no real survival skills. Used to be you raised a kid to leave the nest and be independent. Glad I grew up when I did.

@Lenona,

The fun part when someone confides you that they regret having children is when you tell them that they shouldn't have spread those legs in the first place and their reaction goes like this:

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1016588150263762944/xAulFVUY.jpg

Just checked in on Hillary's latest.

Still vicious and paranoid.

Pardon my ignorance, Sixclaws, but where does that photo come from?

Btw, I just saw that hotels.com ad on TV, hours after I posted the above comment!

But let's not forget that there ARE still many communities where refusing to have children will get you shunned - and before then, pretty much everyone you know, related to you or not, won't hesitate to ask you (and other young couples) "why haven't you had children yet?"

In other words, it's seen as a social duty, just like getting a job. Since *I* was raised among people who minded their own business and never asked questions like that, I have no idea what it's like to try to go against the grain, but I'm sure it's pretty hard. Having kids you regret having isn't just a matter of being careless about birth control.