it's me against puberty

plus Chris Pine's reading recs, no more four a.m. Apple Pay privileges, sad kendall is sexy as hell, and a book I'm absolutely in love with

Good lord my kid is about to turn fourteen and no matter what I do, his room smells like a foot. He doesn’t smell like a foot, but his room? It’s like, feral.

I’m all about body positivity and natural human whatever, but like this smell is primordial. And when it started seeping into the hallway of my lovely home (!!!), I sent an SOS to my mom network. First of all, everyone assured me that the funk is an absolutely normal part of raising a teenage boy. Second of all, they came armed with advice: daily showers, frequent sheet washing, hermetically sealing the laundry basket, and if that doesn’t work, an air purifier.

Somehow I made it through covid without purchasing an air purifier—I’ve always been a bit skeptical, like what do these things actually do?—but one of my pals said if someone farts in her living room, this thing turns on a second later. Wow. I assembled the Coway Airmega and pointed it directly at the recumbent teenager yelling Fortnite into his Playstation headset, and t…