By Wendi Rank

I was in preschool when my mom took a new job.

Her schedule was erratic. An evening here. A weekend there.

I was erratic too…

A few months ago, I wrote about my parents’ friendship with the man I now call my future stepdad. Neither he nor my actual dad…

I’m not a dog person. We should just get that out of the way right now.

We’ve been together in this column, you…

I’m in love.

It’s a terrible kind of love, the kind you know will be lost – like watching Jack and Rose in Titanic…

I still feel dirty.

I cleaned the bathrooms yesterday. Stem to stern. Head to toe. Every nook and cranny. Pick your idiom, because I did…

I once had a boyfriend who borrowed $400. He broke up with me before it occurred to him I had more paychecks coming.

Months later…

I am writing to you from vacation.

Not our normal vacation, the kind I call “Rank Working Vacations.”

Rank Working Vacations are not for those…

I attended an event this weekend. I slept in a tent, pitched in a field alongside scores of other campers. I knew going into this…

The dreaded camping trip has arrived.

This may be hard to believe, but I have a problem bigger than the paucity of plumbing.

I don…

When I was thirteen, my mom gave me a book about adolescence and puberty.

For Christmas.

In front of my dad.

And my grandmother.

And…

In a week’s time, I will attend the company picnic for this very publication. I work remotely, which means some of my co-workers…

The guest opinion piece in The New York Times warned of new pandemics long after COVID-19 has flittered off into the nether.

I cringed…

I almost bought the $200 pants.

But that’s just because Father’s Day has always been a struggle. That struggle started with my dad…

My camping experience is limited and questionable. Is it really camping when you’re in a roofed cabin at Girl Scout camp? Or in a…

My visitor is neither houseguest nor fish, but he definitely meets that three-day criterion for repugnancy.

He’s a skink.

I did not know…

If I’ve made the mistake I think I’ve made, I’m in deep trouble.

My mistake was not in telling the tale of…