In November of 2023, I wrote "15 museum exhibits I would love to see" --but now I have more ideas! Will ICE Melt?: A history of immigration policies and their enforcement in the US Sick Chic: How being ill has be "in" from consumption to addiction and back again Let's Eat Babies: An examination of the history and relevance of satirical publications Me at the Zoo: YouTube's history from its first video onward Poisonous, Venomous, or Somehow Both?: You bite it, you die vs it bites you, you die vs any bite'll do the trick What's in a Name?: Naming regulations then and now for babies born in the US Hoarding vs Collecting: When is the accumulation of items a hoard and when is it a collection--and why does that distinction matter? Seven Bobcats? Yes! Six Rabbits? No!: Why and how exotic pet laws vary by US state--and why that matters A Raccoon Named Rebecca: The oddest and most loved US presidential pets If You Can't Make Your Own Serotonin, Store Boug...
For this piece, I had 15 minutes to write something including the five words firefighter, station, fuss, dictate, and think (which were selected by a Random Word Generator I found). Firefighter Max was not having a good day. First off, there was a fire. Yes, yes, yes, it was his literal job to fight fires, but usually he just got to hang around the station with his firefighter pals. They'd workout, joke, talk about weird things they'd found in wreckage, and even take turns cooking. His job was usually no fuss--even though he was a first responder. But today was not a usual day. The alarm had rung at exactly 3:33am, which Max knew because he had jolted awake and immediately checked his watch. Trouble always comes in threes, Mike said to himself. That's what his mother used to think anyways. Not that Max let his mother dictate his thoughts. Well, not anymore. Back to the fire. It was a roaring blaze, completely engulfing what used to be a quaint green house. It wasn't ...