I used to work on the road and I’m no stranger to 8-16 hour drives so here are a couple suggestions.

Get some sort of long playing media. Have you checked if you can play files through the USB? Some cars of that era would play MP3s off of a USB drive. If your phone won’t play through the Bluetooth, does it have a CD player? 8 hours is about the length of a lot of audiobooks, you could get a hard copy of one of those or even just music CDs. Either way, it’s nice to have a backup to the FM radio for that long of a drive in case you end up on a stretch where there aren’t any good stations.

Speaking of backups, this is going to out me as an old dude but, I’d suggest a paper map of the area you’ll be traveling. You’re liable to hit some dead zones on that long of a drive and you mentioned some worry about keeping your phone charged. If you can get a paper map and highlight the route you want to take, you’ll have a good fall back. Bonus points if you get a copy of the same map to someone that you can call for help. When I was in college my dad and I had copies of the same Atlas (thanks for the free maps State Farm) and I would often call him for advice if I hit serious construction on a long drive.

Try to stay aware of your general alertness. If you’re feeling sluggish, don’t hesitate to stop at the next gas station or rest stop and get a coffee or pop or something. Personally, I’d steer clear of energy drinks because the crash when they wear off sucks if you’re driving. Even just getting out of the car and walking around often helped me. Alternatively, if it’s late and you’re really dragging, stopping at a rest stop for a quick power nap is not the worst idea. It sure beats waking up in the ditch (been there, would not recommend). If you have some music that really pumps you up, have a copy of that with you too. I used to carry a CD with the metal mix that we used to play to get pumped up before football games in highschool.

I’m not sure how many people still know this but most major highways have small green signs with numbers on them along the side of the road. These are mile markers. The exit numbers generally cover from the nearest mile marker. I mention this because they’re worth keeping an eye on. If you’re traveling by map, it’s a good way to gauge the distance to an exit you’re looking for and more importantly, if you need to call for help, knowing the road and mile marker will get help to you faster.

Seconding this. I’m a native of the upper Midwest so I’m a big fan of the seasonal emergency kits. I would add sunscreen or a long sleeved shirt to the list though. Can’t count the number of times I’ve been on a long drive that happened to keep the sun in the driver’s side for several hours and ended up with a pretty bad sunburn on my left arm.

When I was in my early twenties I was friends with this girl and, we would flirt with the idea of hooking up from time to time (never did though). One night we were texting and I honestly thought she was suggesting that she wanted one from me. I sent it, basically got an “OMG, WTF dude!?” In reply. Eventually, she admitted that she was trying to suggest it but only because she never thought I’d actually send it. At that point we were good friends (very much just friends) and I kinda suspect that she was trying to make me feel better about the whole thing.

So I guess the answer for me is… kind of?

So I’ve been thinking about this and I think it mostly depends on if my wife was also duplicated. If so, I could see the 4 of us living together and pooling resources. Possibly even working out some shenanigans to double dip or get out of some things. However, I can’t see my wife or myself being cool with an arrangement where a duplicate and I share my wife. I don’t know if I’d kill The other me over it but, I could see us coming to blows over it.

Okay but hear me out here. What if you both worked the same job 75% of the time rather than 50? You’re still working 25% less but, 25% of your pay is overtime which should be paying time and a half. It’s still a pay cut but if you’re both pooling your resources, probably not really noticeable.

I’m picturing me and my duplicate having a fight that devolved into us actually trying to kill each other over this because honestly, I’d rather shoot a man…no scratch that, I’d rather BE shot than give a speech in front of a significant number of people.

Yeah, my wife found it somewhere online a while back. Not having kids ourselves, we end up talking about our niblings a lot but we always felt like the phrase “nieces and nephews” was a bit cumbersome in conversion so, it filled a need for us. I keep hearing it from people that have no connection to us so it seems like we’re not the only ones who’ve latched onto in recent years.

I think my wife and I might be one of the last couples to be embarrassed enough about meeting on the Internet to lie about it. When we talk about how we met around our niblings, we always have to explain that “we met on the Internet back when that was something you lied to your friends about”

Same here! Only child of my adopted parents and only kid my birth parents had together so, I’m ending a couple of lines. I’m the god parent of a few niblings but if (God forbid) they should ever become my responsibility, they’re not getting a name change.

So I was about to recommend the ACLU mobile justice app but I went to check if it was still working and it seems to be down. Reviews suggest it’s been offline for a while. So if anyone reading this had also downloaded it and was assuming it would be there for you, maybe double check that.on your device.

Seconding this. If you’re handy, look into work as a field repair technician of some kind. I used to repair machine tools for a company that covered a tristate area. Not only did I not know what I would do from one day to the next, I didn’t know how long the day would be or if I’d even be home at the end of it or staying in a hotel. Money was great and the work was very interesting. Admittedly, the drive time and lack of a schedule for home life gets old after a while but, I did it for 15 years and the first ten were great. I was ready for another career after a decade but stuck it out for another five years because I was picky about the new gig.

No regrets.

I think that while there are some who make this assumption, I’m not sure that it’s the universal takeaway and it is certainly not a safe assumption at all. I work at a large organization in a department that is nearly 50/50 in person and work from home so most meetings take place online and are attended by people both at the office and in their homes. The work culture is such here that a virtual background is generally considered the professional approach to having your camera on even if you are at the office. The company has even issued several company branded backgrounds for this purpose. We know for a fact that many attendees have very presentable spaces but virtual backgrounds are the norm due to the amount of people attending from shared living spaces or drop-in offices.

Attending meetings with your camera off is also still very common. In fact, I have several co-workers who I didn’t recognize in person after working with them for over a year because their company picture was significantly out of date and their cameras were never on during meetings.

Seconding this. The best money is still money.

If you can’t get a good stable currency or you have legitimate fears that the currency you can get is in danger of some kind of collapse, gold or silver coins would be your best second bet. In this case you’ll want well known coins minted by an actual government such as an American gold eagle or the Canadian silver maple leaf rather than the coin shaped “rounds” that a lot of places sell. The rounds will have the same issue as jewelry, you’ll have to haggle over weight and quality every time you sell one. Actual coins issued by a government mint will have pretty well established values so they will be easier to sell at a fair price.

Oh, I have. More than once. The service at his house sucks so I don’t even have to fess up to it if I don’t want to, just seems like another dropped call.

Several years ago, I was in a waiting room while my father had heart surgery. Two things I remember were that for some reason they had us in an area that was primarily the waiting room for pediatric surgery and, a woman with one of the other families in the same lobby was getting a call every 5 minutes. I remember these things because the woman’s ringtone was “If I die young” by The Band Perry. Every 5 fucking minutes, this woman’s phone started screaming “If I die young, bury me in…” This was enough to make me want to fly off the handle waiting on my 60 year old father’s surgery. I can’t imagine if I’d been with a family who was waiting to hear about a child. To this day I can’t hear that song while seeing red for a minute.

OMG my dad does this while I’m on the phone with him. If I had a dollar for every time I had to tell him to turn off the video on his phone so I could hear him…

Bonus picture of Minerva

Same! Mine’s smart, entertaining, manages my social life, probably contributes more to society than I ever will and on top of that, for reasons that still escape explanation, actually wants to have sex with me which is probably the only reason I never turned into an incel. She is easily the best thing in this house, myself included.

If we’re talking strictly flavor, I guess I prefer pizza hut. Almost never order them though because if I’m looking for that style, Domino’s is noticably cheaper for pretty similar quality. If I’m in the mood to spend money on a good pizza, I’m going to a local place so pizza hut is just at a quality/price intersection that I don’t find myself looking for.

Right? The town I live in has a couple pretty good (for the area anyway) places that seem like they struggle. Meanwhile, everyone here raves about another local chain that makes what is IMHO easily the worst pizza in the city. Maybe even the state. That’s even counting the chains.

I used to be a believer that pizza is like sex, even when it’s bad it’s still good but, this place proved me wrong. Soggy crust, unseasoned toppings and, way too many of them (hence the soggy ass crust).