Domestic Affairs · Stores
Editor Locates Hell in the Hamper; This Desk Locates the Thermostat.
You cannot end the laundry. You can stop making decisions inside it: one wash class, one buffer quantity, one identical load, forever.
By Iris Petty
Morning Edition 2026-08-22 Price: Free, Obviously
From the archive · 2026-08-22 ← Today's edition
Domestic Affairs
Flushing the Toilet Declares War on the Shower; a $40 Valve Brokers Peace
The scald when someone flushes is not a quirk of old pipes. It is an unregulated pressure split, and it has a standard part number.
By M. Plumb
Domestic Affairs
Utility Bills Household for the Fifth It Stopped Using
Portland General Electric's residential customers used 20% less electricity in 2024 than in 2000 and paid 141% more for it. The appliances worked. The savings were collected by the unit price.
By Hollis Carver
Diversions
Public Works: A Story in Eighteen Panels, Told at One Panel Per Week
The paper's first comic strip. It is silent, it is weekly, and it concerns a routine municipal inspection. We are told it has an ending. We have chosen to trust the process.
By The Editor
The Kitchen Desk
You Are Paying a Stranger to Cut a Block of Cheese Into Sticks
Build a week of grab-and-go snacks yourself on Sunday, once you know how long each piece actually keeps.
By R. Dunmore
Domestic Affairs
Eight Pairs Stand Between You and a Legally Interesting Underwear Situation
Owning the right number of socks is not a personality. It is a buffer calculation, and it fits on one line.
By Iris Petty
The Kitchen Desk
The Coffee You Drank at Two O'Clock Is Still Awake at Ten
Caffeine leaves at a fixed proportional rate, not a fixed hour. A quarter of the afternoon mug is still in circulation at bedtime, and the people who insist it does not affect them are the ones sleeping through the evidence.
By Vera Stipple
Diversions · Puzzle of the Day
The Total-Coverage Word Search
Every letter in the grid belongs to a word. There is no filler, in any direction. You may circle the entire thing.
Attempt it →
The Sections
Domestic Affairs
What the household owns, cleans, stocks, repairs, and shares its premises with.
The Kitchen Desk
Food, cooking, and provisioning meals that continue tomorrow.
The Parlour
What the household reads and watches, listed rather than reviewed, and kept here all year: the registers, the tens and the family files.
Diversions
The puzzles page, and the strip. Sincerely presented. Quietly impossible.
From the Editor's Desk
Notes on the edition, and notices from the paper.
