Domestic Affairs · Stores
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
Morning Edition 2026-09-13 Price: Free, Obviously
From the archive · 2026-09-13 ← Today's edition
Domestic Affairs
Under Your Sink Sits a Maintenance Event Nobody Disclosed at Purchase
It is not a hygiene failure. It is a five-to-ten-year putty replacement that shipped with the sink and was never written down.
By Vera Stipple
The Parlour
Grading a Century and a Half of Zombie Paperwork
Fifty-three filings from the cane field, the farmhouse, the shopping mall and the apartment block, sorted by when the events claim to have happened rather than by when somebody got round to printing them — and carrying, over my objection, eighty years of documents in which the zombie is the injured party and 1968 is where the word changed sides.
By Casimir Vane
Domestic Affairs
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
The Parlour
Selected Vampire Readings, and What Would Catch Us Out
A reading list rather than an argument. Eight filings from the register that between them predict most of the rest, and the secondary literature the register was built from — including the books that would catch it out.
By Constance Tally
The Parlour
The Working Canon of Alien Contact, Compiled From the Cinema, Which Would Not Lie to Us
The history of extraterrestrial arrival, assembled from the only archive available. With corrections, and one personnel matter regarding our staff illustrator.
By The Editor
The Kitchen Desk
Forehead Pain Traced to the Roof of the Mouth, Where It Is Actually Happening
It is not caused by how much ice cream you eat. It is caused by how fast, and by where the cold lands. The pain you feel is not happening where you feel it.
By R. Dunmore
Diversions · Puzzle of the Day
The Curse Crossword
Once a month, on the 13th, the crossword loses its manners. The answers are unprintable. The clues, very nearly.
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.
