Forgiveness in the #MeToo Era, the Dads Who Chase Bats and A 40-Year-Old Childless Male Goes Trick-Or-Treating By Himself

Happy Día de los Muertos, amigos. If your post-Halloween Instagram feed is anything like mine, today is a day of scrolling through innumerable photos of parents and small children in costumes. For the record, my one-year-old twin nieces went as tennis doubles partners.

If you’re a middle-aged, childless adult, though, there’s probably no good reason for you to dress up — that is, if your name isn’t C. Brian Smith and you’ve been asked by your editor to spend your Halloween trick-or-treating, by yourself, sans children. Then, it’s kind of your job.

Needless to say, he got some side-eye. Find out how bad it got — and what the cops thought about his night on the town — as well as everything else on MEL today, below.

Must Read

“Women on What It Would Take to Forgive in the Age of #MeToo”
Since the beginning of the #MeToo era a year ago, detractors have claimed that the movement’s aim is to publicly shame and destroy alleged abusers. But talk to victims and they’ll tell you: The goal isn’t retribution — it’s contrition. But making true amends for crimes that often devastate the lives of the abused takes a lot more than saying, “I’m sorry.” READ MORE

An Earworm is Born

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here: If you don’t want a viral children’s song stuck in your head, proceed no further.

That little ditty, which from what I can tell is about a family of sharks, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, has racked up almost 2 billion views on YouTube. While it would be easy to believe that the genesis of such an earworm would be as full of hope and wonder as the music itself, in reality, the question of who created it is so complicated that numerous parties are fighting over the rights.

BA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA Bat Dads

Blink and you might have missed the second biggest thing happening on Twitter the last couple of days (you know, besides Halloween) — people recounting stories of their dads chasing bats out of the house:

There are so many! Is chasing a bat out of a house a dad rite of passage? For your shitpost-reading pleasure we’ve collected a few of our favorites — but I’d argue that no bat-chasing story will ever out bat-chase this scene from The Great Outdoors:

Bats: Not even once.

Fuck Off, No Nut November

Okay, it’s official: The internet has gone too far with this whole “challenge” shit. Bucket of ice water on the head? Fine. No drinking in October? Sure. Burning your forearm on the stove? You do you.

But no jerking off for an entire month? FUCK YOU.

Miles Klee writes about how this phenomenon started as a joke on Reddit, but has since made the short jump to masculinity-obsessed, right-wing extremism. And why the best way to combat such a bastardization is to do the exact opposite — Yep, boys, this November, never stop nutting.

No Money, No Problem

A friend in high school who was really into stocks used to tell me that if I wanted to make my money work for me, I had to invest it or else lose it to the cost of inflation. To which I answered, “But Danny, I have no money.” Not much has changed in the almost 20 years since I graduated, but the fact that I have no money isn’t actually a deterrent to getting into the game. There are loads of ways broke people can start investing with as little as $50.

It’s the Terpenes, Stupid

Girl Scout Cookies. Green Crack. Bubba Kush. There are a crazy number of cannabis strains out there, each containing distinct levels of THC and CBD, and therefore, a unique high that’s based on that blend. Or so we thought! That’s because new research suggests every weed strain contains, for all intents and purposes, the exact same levels of THC and CBD. So then why do we feel different levels of “high,” and why does one high feel so different from another, if all weed has the same level of THC? The answer: Terpenes.

Ouch

There are a lot of different ways to make war on your testicles, from nuking them with a laptop, to, evidently, accidentally sitting on them. But while sitting on your junk isn’t bad for them in the long run, sitting all day — without doing much of anything else — is.

A 40-Year-Old Man Went Trick-Or-Treating Last Night, And Lived to Tell About It

To answer your question, no, it isn’t illegal to be 40, dress up and go trick-or-treating without any children in tow. C. Brian Smith knows — he emailed the LAPD to make sure:

This is the tale of what happened next.