Domestic Affairs · By Design
The dent behind the door is not an accident of use. It is the predictable output of hanging a swinging slab beside a fixed obstacle and shipping it without a stop.
By Hollis Carver
The Kitchen Desk
The unglamorous half of taco night, costed by the head, with the caveats nobody prints on the bag.
By R. Dunmore
Domestic Affairs
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
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
Domestic Affairs
The musty note in the bathroom is not a nuisance to mask. It is an early-warning chemical signal, and your nose is absurdly good at reading it.
By Vera Stipple
The Kitchen Desk
Six forks between the cupboard and the table, and the best branch at each. The history is made up. The oven temperature is not.
By R. Dunmore
Domestic Affairs
Owning the right number of socks is not a personality. It is a buffer calculation, and it fits on one line.
By Iris Petty
Diversions · Puzzle of the Day
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
What the household owns, cleans, stocks, repairs, and shares its premises with.
Food, cooking, and provisioning meals that continue tomorrow.
What the household reads and watches, listed rather than reviewed, and kept here all year: the registers, the tens and the family files.
The puzzles page, and the strip. Sincerely presented. Quietly impossible.
Notes on the edition, and notices from the paper.
