DOD16: Emergency Vasectosode

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that wouldn't harm a fly, unless that fly couldn't figure out a goddamn zipper merge. I'm Tom Curry, and I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick.

0:00:39 Eli: Oh, teasing the episode already, I'm teasing the episode already.

0:00:43 Tom: This is a double teaser, right? Because we're going to talk a little bit about the pickup drop -off line, but speaking of the fly, what's going on Unzipping yours, Eli? How was your of vasectomy, great or super great it was

0:00:54 Thomas: Oh

0:00:58 Eli: It was so bad, it was so, but this is the, this is the craziest thing. This is the only thing I can assume. You know how the patriarchy truly, and I'm not doing this ironically, you know the patriarchy truly dominates all areas of our society, right?

0:01:03 Thomas: No I'm ah yeah

0:01:04 Tom: Really, it really

0:01:18 Eli: And like it is incredibly difficult to be a woman. It's true except for one thing. They must have gotten together with the patriarchy and the matriarchy was like, okay, cool. We will be essentially chattel for the first 2000 years of human history. But when the vasectomy is invented, you lie and you tell everyone that it's not a big deal. And then it's just going to be fine in 48 hours. And the patriarchy was okay.

0:01:17 Thomas: Oh

0:01:33 Tom: Come on.

0:01:38 Eli: I guess I'm

0:01:39 Tom: No,

0:01:34 Thomas: No I'm so I'm still worried about this because I think men should give vasectomies and I'm gonna give a second me I'm worried you guys are both gonna scare people and me but I'm definitely still doing it

0:01:46 Tom: Come

0:01:48 Eli: Not saying don't get a vasectome. I'm saying prepare for your ball, ball sack to have been turned inside out, as opposed to the mole removal they pitched this thing as. Right, my doctor said I would be good to work the day of my vasectomy. On the, when I asked him for pain meds, I was like, hey, and just in case, can I get some pain meds? Because it's a Friday and your office closes for two days. He was like, you know, most people don't even need Tylenol. And I waslike yeah, but just in casetow. And then he turned my ball sack inside out. So first things first, let's talk about the definition of, I can't feel it, because we have two very different definitions of the ability to feel. One is the full pain of what it's like to have someone cut open your ball sack, and you don't have that. But you can very, very clearly feel a guy fishing around in your ball sac and then finding the goop and then being like whack, and then you smell

0:01:48 Tom: On,

0:01:51 Thomas: Okay no

0:02:45 Tom: Yeah,

0:02:45 Eli: It when he burns it closed.

0:02:47 Tom: That is gross, I will, I will agree with you there, the sound and the smell because you can also hear the scalpel and you can hear the cauterizing tool so it's

0:02:47 Eli: Yeah, yes,

0:02:50 Thomas: Put me to sleep I don't want to be awake

0:02:57 Eli: Go

0:02:57 Tom: Like it's like it, it's a steak sizzling, like it, like a bad sound, it's not a good sound.

0:02:58 Eli: To sleep. Yes, go, and yes,

0:02:59 Thomas: I'm insisting on it no I'm fucking fuck it I'm insisting I don'T CARE I 'LL PAY OUT OF POCKET I DON'T GIVE A SHIT I DONT

0:03:04 Eli: You, insist on it, do it, get it done in a back alley if you have to, Thomas, do not be awake for that shit. Also,

0:03:13 Thomas: NO THE OPPOSITE OF THAT I WANT A FRONT ALLEY I WANNA YEAH I WANA NICE LAB COATS AND PUT ME TO to sleep and whatever, you know? Oh,

0:03:21 Eli: My guy, I've, in the most bored fucking voice possible, kept saying, he's still bleeding. That's the only thing he said throughout the whole time. He's still bleeding, he's still bleeding. At one point, my instinct is to joke, and I'm like, you gotta let this guy focus, he's got your literal testicles in his hand and the night time, he said, you're still bleeding. I said, well, you did slice open my ball sack, like, in my defense, and slice open my balls

0:03:22 Tom: Oh, so like

0:03:31 Thomas: Oh

0:03:47 Tom: You feel a little guilty for still bleeding, like, oh, I'm sorry, I'll, I'll try to stop that.

0:03:49 Thomas: Man.

0:03:50 Eli: I'm sorry, but I hope I don't

0:03:52 Tom: Coagulate! Coagulate! Damn it!

0:03:53 Thomas: Oh God.

0:03:52 Eli: Inconvenience you, so they cut up your ball sack, they close your ball sack up, and the pain again. Again, he was like, you're going to be numb for the rest of the day. You'll feel some soreness tomorrow. I don't know what people are defining as soreneness. People, if you're feeling this, what I'm feeling right now, and calling it sorenness, go to the hospital right away, wherever you are. Just take your car and find the nearest hospital and go there, because this is not sore. Soreness is, oh man, what a good workout.

Out, I have been walking around like I've been trying to balance a fishbowl between my thighs for the last four days, and my balls, my balls are the size of and the color of a gala fucking apple, okay, it's it's fucking, they just, it's absolutely decimated. And they're like, oh yeah, no, wear tight underwear, because here's the thing, you have to wear this tight underwear, I got a jock strap beforehand, you have to wear tight underwear, because it literally is, just if there's a slightest movement, if there's a breeze near you, yeah, you're being tortured for a thousand, and they're like,

0:04:16 Tom: Oh my god. Yeah,

0:04:39 Thomas: No, I can't do this. I can. Oh no.

0:05:00 Tom: That does suck. Yeah.

0:05:04 Eli: Well, you gotta ice it. So I've just got this ice pack in front of my fucking, poor babysitter, my babysitter comes over, and I'm just clutching this ice back to my genitals like her worst nightmare, and she's like, oh, how is the procedure? And I was like, bad, I'm gonna press hard against this thing, please don't look into the light.

0:05:23 Tom: Yeah.

0:05:24 Eli: Also, I'm going to say this, Tom, you've been at live shows, you've seen what I wear, I'm not a particularly well endowed man, but my boy has been terrified this whole time, between the gal apple and, my, he looks like a cartoon worm poking out of an apple. That's what I've been dealing with the last few days, I don't think my dick will ever come out of my foreskin again, he's just in there, he's in there like a cartoon Inuit, just being like, no, I saw my shadow, I'm not coming out for another six weeks.

0:05:57 Thomas: No.

0:05:57 Eli: Yeah, they

0:05:56 Tom: Yeah, there's, I, there is definitely like six more weeks of winter for a long time after that. Like, yeah, I

0:06:02 Thomas: I didn't even think about this. How many fucking, how many weeks of hockey am I missing? No, for real? Like a month. What are we talking?

0:06:07 Eli: Said they go oh what

0:06:10 Tom: Tried to go back. Well, I'll, I try to go back to CrossFit 10 days and it was terrible. It was literally terrible.

0:06:11 Thomas: You did the workout. You told us. Yeah. 10. That was 10 10 days?

0:06:16 Tom: It was 10 days. Yeah. But I had that infection, but I had that infection. So the infection had to clear up. So

0:06:10 Eli: Yeah

0:06:17 Thomas: Oh my God. Oh, that's true. It's true,

0:06:22 Eli: I I am, I got it done Friday, we're recording this Monday, and this is, this is technically the day that I'm allowed to have sex again. And when they, when they were doing the pre -thing because they sold it as such a minor thing, they were like, "Try not to have sex for three days afterwards." And I was like, well, I, I don't know, doc. I sure do love sex. I'm like, oh, no problem, doc! I might never fucking have sex again! And then I did the absolute worst thing you could do. I did the absolute worst thing you can do, which is that I googled liars on the internet being like, "My pain from my vasectomy never went away. I got it when I was 22 years old. Now I'm 57 and I still wake up screaming every morning, burning as the bus explodes into my and so I'm reading these liars on the internet and I'm like, what, and and some of them are like, and then I couldn't ejaculate anymore, and I'M JUST LIKE

0:06:22 Thomas: No, no.

0:07:11 Eli: IF I AM GOING TO BECOME A SERIAL KILLER IF THIS AFFECTS MY DICK FOR MORE THAN FOUR DAYS SO FINALLY TODAY I GO IN FOR MY Follow-up AND I AM CONVINCED I'M IN SO MUCH PAIN AND DISCOMFORT AND I'M SO I 'VE fucking gala apple I'm just so convinced he's gonna be like oh my god we hit your mizzen mask like I'm so sorry sir you have the word and he's like oh you're healing up really well and I was like what this this would be

0:07:11 Thomas: I'm like, oh God.

0:07:39 Thomas: Oh man. Dick

0:07:43 Eli: If I put a picture of my my scrotum, it was a massacre, twitter would censor the image what are you talking he was like yeah no this is this is looking really good yeah the wound is really clean and you're you're doing well yes dick I was like dick Dick my guy. Also Also, let me just say, you got to get those good drugs. Had I not had the drugs, there would have been a John Q situation. Okay. Without a doubt, I would have John, I wouldn't just dive through the window of a CVS and started eating until the cops came because he wanted me to go with Tylenol and ibuprofen. It, what you need, here's what I needed to do. Okay. And here's the thing.

I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from getting a vasectomy because I'm sure in the end game, I'm going to be glad my penis is eventually the color of a penis again, as opposed to, you know, a lovemaker's couch from the 1970s. Here's the thing. You just got to take the week off. Right. All this 48 hour stuff, I've scheduled three records, including this one. Right? Four records if you include this one, so I, my job, they said you could be good to work in 48 hours.

My job is sitting in a chair talking, and I have barely been able to do it in the last 48 hours. If I worked at a job that required me to so much as stand, I would quit. I would just be like, yeah, I know I've been here for 35 years, but I literally can't come into

0:07:54 Thomas: Semen, come on dick semen. Don't do me like that.

0:09:06 Tom: Yeah

0:09:07 Eli: Work today. But yeah, you're gonna take a week off, you're going to get the good meds, you're go to, you are going to go to sleep.

0:09:14 Thomas: Sounds like the sleep part won't solve this aspect of it.

0:09:17 Eli: No.

0:09:17 Thomas: Still gonna have grapefruits. My

0:09:17 Eli: You won't. Yeah, you

0:09:19 Tom: You will be you will be nightmarishly amazed at how enormous enormous your ball sack can get, like, it is, because I had a problem, like it was, it was literally like grapefruit, like a full grapefruit and I was like, that, I was just at one point, I'm like, that skin has got some fucking stretch in it though, like at some point you just have have to admire it like that is

0:09:19 Eli: Will wake up a grapefruit.

0:09:27 Thomas: God. Oh my. Oh, well, that I believe. Yeah.

0:09:33 Eli: Yeah. Well, yeah. Here's the, here's the pinnacle of my suffering. So I'm sitting there. I've used the bathroom and I'm sorry. I know this is going to get a little scatological folks. Feel free to forward 30 seconds. Sitting there .I've used the bathroom. It's time to wipe. And my balls are too big for me to wipe! I literally cannot get past my balls. There's no, I need an extra foot onto my, right, I need to wipe from the back like a pilgrim.

0:09:45 Tom: Wow you gotta go around back oh

0:10:11 Eli: Right yeah exactly so I'm not, now I'm trying to stand up and I'm just, I'm like, because every effort hurts, so I am trying to do the hover and like gently swab at myself from the beck while this fucking balloon just bobs back, banging and against my thighs.

0:10:05 Thomas: Oh, no. Like a kid. Oh no.

0:10:29 Eli: Just every, every, ah, screaming, ha.

0:10:31 Thomas: Okay. First question. Do we just lose our entire listening audience that we've just, you know, struggled with and build with this new show? Second question.

0:10:40 Eli: I'm the real shit.

0:10:41 Thomas: Can we just invite next several months of the show, just a series of of success stories of just, Hey, if you had a good vasectomy and it was like, Oh, I was boning that same day. I did actually filmed a porn that same later that day. It was a, yeah, it was an orgy. It was just everything. I was all over. Give me your, your vasectomies success stories, please. Oh, my, I gained an inch on my dick afterwards. I actually had two orgasms every time. Now it's double double

0:10:33 Tom: My god wow

0:11:02 Eli: You're positive. Every time.

0:11:06 Tom: This is she came while they were doing It, yeah. It was a little awkward for them

0:11:11 Eli: While they were doing it, the pleasure.

0:11:10 Thomas: Yeah they installed a clitoris in my, like, so get some please, just

0:11:14 Eli: Oh, the pressure of having myself turned inside out like a freshly peeled mango.

0:11:18 Thomas: Somebody give me a success story. I just please, God. Well,

0:11:21 Eli: Okay, but here's what I'll say though. If that success story reaches my desk instead of Thomas's, you're getting some hate mail back. So you better be careful where you send that success story because you're getting a picture of my dark, of my black hole -colored scrote.

0:11:37 Thomas: Guess kid number four. I guess we're having kid number three. I'm

0:11:40 Eli: Have as many as you need, man. Have as much as you want. As many as your need. Have 12, have 15 kids, repopulate the earth single -handedly.

0:11:41 Tom: Oh, My God. You

0:11:45 Thomas: Gonna be a Catholic all of a sudden. It's, yeah, Yeah.

0:11:52 Eli: Sister's going to be so pleased.

0:11:52 Thomas: Oh, will.

0:11:54 Eli: Yeah,

0:11:54 Tom: Oh, wow, is an aggressive response to that procedure, my friend. I

0:11:57 Thomas: I really look. Tom's story didn't bother me because it's Tom. I thought, look, Tom has just he has bad Tom luck. You know, Tom gets the short end of the balls of the shaft. So he gets.

0:12:07 Eli: He's got Tom lung. Right.

0:12:04 Tom: Do have bad luck. Yeah. Yep. Everybody gets the short end of my shaft, though it's that there is no other option so

0:12:11 Eli: If you, if you told me, if you told me Tom's mom's monkey burst into his vasectomy and grabbed one and stuffed it into his mouth like a fresh grape, I'd be like, "Yeah, man, Tom, Tom, them's the breaks for Tom."

0:12:18 Tom: That tracks. Yeah

0:12:28 Thomas: But now to hear Eli, privileged person of the century. Injury yeah nothing bad happens to you and it should it should happen. I'm

0:12:32 Eli: Nothing bad happens to me. Well, you know what yeah

0:12:28 Tom: Nothing bad happens to Eli, but all right. But, Eli, Eli, how, generally speaking, what's your pain tolerance like? Do you think? Yeah, and Thomas Smith, yeah,

0:12:36 Eli: Zero. Zero gotta

0:12:45 Thomas: Not okay, I'm not scared of the pain. I don't want grapefruits for balls, and I don, and I, and I want to be able to have, I'm a frequent haver of sex, not to brag, I'm very frequent haver sex, I'm not, this is a, and hockey, what if it was some, goes wrong, I can't play hockey for a month. I can't do that. No way. Fuck. OK, is there is there going to be like I've seen stuff about that male birth control pill? Maybe maybe I'll just hold out for that, you OK. Real talk. The real component of this is the stuff women routinely do for this for birth control is a horror show, and They never We never hear about how horrible it is. My wife described, her, my wife got the IUD, just her story when we, you know, early on when we met, she told, she had gotten it like just before we got together, and she told me the story of it, I was scarred like it was a World War One, you know,

0:13:06 Eli: Do it in the off season. Listen,

0:13:20 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. It's a nightmare.

0:13:21 Eli: Yeah, a mustard

0:13:40 Thomas: Like a trenches, so I was like, that is, yeah, yeah, that was the most horrifying. And I come to find out that is par for the course. Getting an IUD is just A guy takes a stick and just rams it like it's a battering ram all the way up in there. It's like horribly. And, and that's just what they do. And we don't even hear about it. Like nobody, you know?

0:13:42 Eli: Guessing, yeah, yeah,

0:13:45 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to be. Yeah, yeah.

0:14:01 Tom: That's because women, women are used to just enduring a level of agony. That's just like, yeah, it's just called being a woman. And like, I think we're just like. Yeah, man, my nuts are just like they're just they're pampered. They're eating figs. My my my nuts. They're in a hammock with Eli's kids eating figues all day.

0:14:08 Thomas: Yeah. And even, even they're in,

0:14:18 Tom: You know.

0:14:14 Eli: Yes. They've Literally been In A Hammock.

0:14:18 Thomas: They're They're in a natural hammock. Balls are in their nature's hammock there in it. And

0:14:19 Tom: Right. Yeah.

0:14:21 Eli: Yes. I will say, though, this is the least sympathy I have ever gotten. I post on Facebook because I was like, "Hey, I'm dying." 97% of the responses were like, "Oh, you should see when I got my eye and ear." You should say this is not like what I meant. Well, you should try to know. "Hey, fuck you. They cut my ball sack open."

0:14:35 Thomas: Yeah,

0:14:41 Tom: Yeah.

0:14:42 Eli: I don't care what you win. Unless the Russians were trying to get codes out of you, I fucking win. I win this week. I win.

0:14:43 Tom: You gotta

0:14:49 Thomas: Even just birth control pills throw off the whole fucking thing. There's no there's no easy solution. So I am still firmly committed that I will find a way when one way or the other, I will find away to not be the cause of pregnancy after that. You know, like Lydia is done with birth control.

0:15:01 Tom: Do it, man.

0:15:09 Thomas: I'll say that. I want to make sure.

0:15:09 Eli: I just want...

0:15:09 Tom: When is Your procedure, Thomas, do you have it scheduled?

0:15:12 Thomas: No, we got to make sure that scombert is, you know, alive and healthy where, you know, we're we're I'm not I'm

0:15:13 Tom: Right. Right. Right, yeah. Okay. Alright, you're gonna be fine, because you're, you play hockey, it's a contact sport, you're used to getting like, like

0:15:23 Thomas: Not used to my balls being the size of pumpkins. Oh, I don't I don'T like I idea that yeah, it's fine. I don't if it was just if it's just a thing that hurts I that is irrelevant to me. I'll figure it out.

0:15:25 Tom: Ahhh. You'll be fine. Right. Yeah.

0:15:36 Thomas: But if it's a gross weird like grapefruit infection situation that that stuff bothers me.

0:15:42 Tom: That's unpleasant. Yeah.

0:15:43 Thomas: I can't. Yeah.

0:15:44 Tom: That is unpleasant.

0:15:44 Eli: No, this isn't infected. That's the natural response, Thomas. No infection required. Look, just don't say it's an easy thing. If the doctor had been like, like, "Hey, man, you took the whole week off, right? Because I'm gonna turn your ball sack inside out." I'd have been like, "Oh, thank you so much, I will not schedule four audio records in this period."

0:15:46 Thomas: Yeah! Oh, my All right.

0:15:48 Tom: There's a lot of swelling, yeah.

0:16:07 Thomas: That's a good point. Expectations are like a major component of things, well -being in this. Like, if someone's like, yeah, it's, you Know, it'll be a bad week. It'll be A Bad Week.

0:16:08 Tom: Yeah. Right.

0:16:17 Eli: Absolutely. If they had I

0:16:17 Tom: Then you're just like all right, it's a bad week, whatever,

0:16:19 Eli: Just saved. Someone has their, their vasectomy, and they're like, "Oh, holy shit, that fucking sucks, they're gonna take the whole weak off," and they'll be like, "Oh, it wasn't actually that bad," you... like I had a good experience as opposed to these motherfuckers that were like, "Like, oh, no, we're going to do that and we're going to remove a mole on your shoulder at the same time." So you're probably feeling both the same about.

0:16:38 Thomas: All right, but I'm going to tune in in a week and make sure, like, you're actually okay in a, a week, you know.

0:16:43 Eli: Oh, well, I'll tell you how you'll know. If I'm not better soon, it's going to be a very special episode. Patrons already know whether or not I'm better, Thomas.

0:16:43 Thomas: Oh, God.

0:16:55 Thomas: How do we get out of this, are we, can we be done with it, let's talk about my pending prison sentence.

0:16:59 Eli: But I wasn't the only one. I was the only ones who took a hit to the balls this week. Thomas, you've got a story for us about the score. Thank you. Thank you,

0:17:06 Tom: Nice transition, nice transition, Eli Bosnick,

0:17:02 Thomas: Yeah. Oh. I, there's a reason that I've had to edit out every 15 seconds. "This call is being placed from a California correctional facility." You haven't heard it because I'm a genius editor and it's really smooth, but the, I am under arrest, I am currently, I'm a little, this is a, this is a little raw, this is raw as Eli's nutsack almost, and rhetorically, you know, like I'm not emotionally yeah, my my, my emotions are the size of a grapefruit right now, they're not. So, I, I think I talked a little bit about this drop-off situation, the other day, the other episode, I can't fucking, who knows when this schedule of everything happens, but I mentioned it. And so this morning I go to, I keep seeing a bunch of stuff of people saying, I've seen the emails. I could play dumb, but I'm not going to play dumb. I've seeing the emails. There are emails of them saying, "Hey, don't park in the drop-off zone." And I'm like, "That's a great idea." Well, I wouldn't park in a drop-off zone. It's a drop-off zone. That's

0:17:14 Eli: Thomas.

0:17:28 Eli: Thomas, is the size of a grapefruit right now?

0:17:39 Tom: Yeah. Right,

0:18:06 Thomas: Yeah. That sounds good. And I guess I just didn't understand what they actually meant. Let me, let me paint a picture for you. I've told you about this horseshoe. Most schools in America have this fucking horseshoe where an entire dealership of cars just parks and lives there forever for all time. Here's another wrinkle that I didn't know that's going to piss, piss everybody off even more because we all should be mad about my one school that Phoebe's in. This school during during the pandemic, I guess, had to make some funding decisions and they cut all buses. Are no buses to my kids' school in the entire, yeah, no buses. So not, not that my kids would necessarily take the bus. Cause we do live really close. Although I don't know, maybe we would, I don'T know. But like, that means nobody's taking them. There are No buses. So everybody has to be physically dropped off unless they live like right down the block and can walk. They have to be physically dropped off. So that's the cars. It's a fucking nightmare. Every day. It is a nightmare.

0:18:21 Eli: Yep.

0:18:41 Tom: There's wait, what? Oh, my God, so do you have to get off this record and leave for tomorrow now, like, okay, all right yeah. Oh, my God.

0:19:08 Thomas: Yeah. Here's another component.

0:19:10 Tom: What?

0:19:11 Thomas: So there is the main horseshoe as I started talking about. And that is like the most of the school. Because I have a kindergartner. You know, I have a kindergarten that is a small section of the school way off to the left. There is like a TK building. There's a kindergarten building. And And there might be either another kindergarten building or like a first grade, you know, it's just the little kids. It's the little fucking kids. And the, the spots in front of that are the ones in question that said there's like five spots there that, and it's the side of a street. They're not like gridded out parking spots, but it's Just like a side of the street where the signs say drop off and pick up only drop off. And pick up on is what they say. No parking. Second I was the best parent in the world father of the year I was five minutes early I had phoebe we were ready and so I was like

0:19:57 Eli: What?

0:19:58 Tom: Wait. Wait. Wait, tell us about that. How did you get Phoebe out the door, or did you do the race thing?

0:20:00 Thomas: Uh Well, having acquired a, uh, Lydia having acquired a dog, um, helped. How? Because everybody was up, who God knows what hour, except me, trying to get a couple more hours of sleep, feebly trying and failing to get a couple more hours of sleep. And, and so they were already ready to go, and was up so early, she had Phoebe ready already, you know? So I didn't do anything, actually. That was entirely a joke. I did get Arlo ready, but whatever. He's easier. She got Phoebe Ready, and she packed her lunch.

0:20:04 Tom: Okay.

0:20:24 Tom: That doesn't count. Fuck it, no points. Right.

0:20:33 Thomas: Yeah, so Lydia's the true superstar, as always. To But be fair, got Arlo Ready, got them both in the car, getting them out the door on time. And so I start looking for a spot. I have another kid in my fucking car! You know, I have a two kids and I have to take Phoebe right now and drop her off on the time limit. Cause it's, and it's also, you know it's it's as I've said, it's about a quarter. No, it's a mile away from home or whatever. So it's on the way out. And so I got to drop off Phoebe and I, and leave Arlo in the nice air conditioned vehicle.

Or if I want to take a metric year, I can take them both, you Know, and then I can drag them like the ship that I talked about in the other episode in the Les Mis movie. So those are my two options. Be a hundred years late and never maybe come back because you're trying to walk two toddlers or whatever, or just get a close parking spot and be able to drop off Phoebe in five seconds, et cetera, et cetera.

So I see the wide open spaces. There's literally not a car in sight in this one section and literally not an odd car in site for the entire city stretching out forever after that. There's no, people are parked in people's driveways. If you lived anywhere near there, I would be calling the fucking police every day. People, people, this is absurd. This is not an acceptable situation that everybody in the world has to drop their kids off. There's No Bus. Everybody has to drive a fucking vehicle, gas guzzling piece of shit vehicle and park it all over the world. Like every hills they're fine. They're finding alleys.

0:20:46 Eli: Yeah. Of course people's living rooms backward

0:22:06 Thomas: Yeah. Living there, just driving into houses. It's stupid. Stupid so I see those spots I see that as I've now looked for a parking spot anywhere for fucking four minutes now it's 8 39 and so now I have two seconds to get Phoebe there I see the spot I'm like well I'm dropping my kid off it says pick up and drop off I'm droping my fucking kid off I go in the spot um I take Phoebe out and I'm like all right I'm dropping you off I'll run you over the building I'll running back it's down one flight of stairs and like a hundred feet you know Now, this is they require

0:22:06 Eli: Backyards you

0:22:36 Tom: You actually have to take her all the way to the door?

0:22:39 Thomas: You for this is this is the part when I, you overturned the this

0:22:42 Tom: You can't just like pull up and open the passenger door and she just walks into the building you have to bring her into the classroom and like hand her to someone that

0:22:49 Thomas: Is what's not clear to me. And I will find out soon. But I believe I am supposed to stand in a fucking line with her like the soup Nazi reference I made last time. Stand in a line with Her and wait. So there these and I want to remind you these spots I'm talking about that are the drop off pickup only. These are not the main horseshoe the main horseshoe is down the street that's where the bulk of the school is that's where 89 ,000 cars are just parked in a circle trying to get through these are right next to the kindergarten and so in my brain I'm like alright no parking yeah I wouldn't park here to like go to a school event or go I wouldn'T do that but I am dropping off my kid and because of your rules dropping off my kids means I have to walk her down to the door so

0:23:05 Tom: Can't be right.

0:23:27 Tom: Right, that is absolutely nuts, but

0:23:36 Thomas: I think alright right so I says to myself I am dropping off my kid fuck it I'm just doing this there's nobody here I'm not taking a spot from anybody nobody's waiting on a spot whatever I get out I start unloading Phoebe and furthermore if I've got here I got a question for you guys because we're really going to get into semantics and fucking rules I've Got Arlo just waiting in the car he's dropping us off if I had if Arlo was an adult somehow that'd be okay like if I brought Lydia I

0:24:02 Eli: Should have just put him in the Driver's seat

0:24:03 Tom: Just Put

0:24:04 Thomas: Should Have I I should have Put Her in the driver's Seat.

0:24:04 Tom: I Was Gonna say hant Just Put Him In the driver's seat.

0:24:08 Thomas: We're really committed to these dumb, meaningless definitions of shit because I, and I, okay, so here, I should tell the story. I start getting Phoebe out and a lady who I don't, I feel bad for this lady. I don't know who she is. I don't know what she was doing. I don't know if she worked for the school or if she is a parent volunteer. I have no idea. A lady starts yelling at me instantly. I, mind you, all I've done is open my door and started to get Phoebe be out for so for all she knows I am just dropping Her like fucking whatever, you Know, but she's already yelling at me because the nothing that's there has to be there apparently and so I'm like, yeah, she says, no, hey, no, no parking, drop Off and pick up only.

I say, oh, that's great, I'm dropping off my kid, that's perfect, here I'm dropping her off and was not prepared for this, I don't think I guess, and she gave me a, oh, yeah, you're not, she starts like she can't figure out out what to say in response. She's like, no, you don't know. You kept in sputters for now. And meanwhile, I have in my mind, I'm not in interested any interaction with this lady whatsoever. I'm interested in getting my child out of the car and getting her to the fucking kindergarten door on time. And I've decided I don't care. I do not care about this interaction. This

0:24:04 Eli: Exactly Yeah

0:24:34 Tom: Right. Wait.

0:24:45 Tom: Yeah. Oh.

0:25:17 Thomas: Is what I'm doing. So she yells at me. And then she, I guess, didn't have a plan. Like, like, I think she just thought her mere presence would be enough to word everybody off. And I guess it was, except this dad who just wanted to get fucking Phoebe to the door on time and didn't want to walk A Half A mile With two toddlers.

0:25:31 Tom: Yeah. She Didn't bring Her bear Mace and police baton for the drop-off day.

0:25:36 Thomas: Yeah, she's gasping for threats. You know, she is just really true. And she's, and I'm like, yeah, I'm dropping her off. And she goes again. I said, yeah, I'm I'm droping my kid, like, this, I have, I have, this is me dropping, it says drop off, I'm dropping my kid off. And meanwhile, I've not really even looking at her. I'm just like, I'm driving my kid off, you know?

And then she's like, oh, I'm gonna, you can't, I 'LL take a picture of your car and I'm going to send it to the ch, whatever, you know, police. I was like, okay, yeah, just do that, that's fine, I don't care. Well, literally, I don't care about talking to you, I'm just doing this thing right now and whatever you do, just whatever, I just don't CAREOBOUT.

This, IS, this is fucking, I am so mad about this situation, I'm not going to talk to you at all, and so she's doing that, she's yelling at me. I'm like, I'm just taking my kid and Arlo's sitting in the car, and I take Phoebe to the line.

And because it was eight 40, and because I have this person yelling at me, and I, she, she went off, I don't know what she went to do, she's going to fucking get a baseball bat and bash my car or what, I'm not sure what her plan is, but she left. I walk the, you know, 50 feet to where I needed to drop off my kid, cause I'm dropping off my kids.

It's in the name, dropping her off is what I'm doing, I go in the line and I see the 400 parents waiting in lines with their kids because this is the Soup Nazi rules or whatever, and normally I'm like, yeah, whatever, I'm, well, I'll do that because whatever, I like my kid and I like being around my kid, but on this particular day I need to get back to my car because a person was very, very mad at me for being in that zone when nobody needed it at all, and it was, there's nobody else waiting for me or anything.

And so I just, I, Phoebe's backpack on her, I grabbed her shoulders and I said, you know, are you okay in this line? She was a little confused, but that's what kids are all the time. And she seemed fine. She was standing in the line. She's three feet from the door and I just left. And I'm pretty sure they will be taking my child from me and I will be banned from school grounds

0:27:25 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:25 Thomas: Forever. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am a fugitive currently, actually, is really what's happened. I haven't been arrested, that was, that joke didn't make sense. I I'm on on the run from The Law And I go back, get in the car, drive off before anybody needed the spot or anything, before anybody, before the other car that was doing a drop-off had even dropped off their kid, like in that time it didn't matter. And I'm just so fucking mad because what they have done is they've made rules such that the only people who need to park an hour away and walk are literally the people with the smallest children in the entire school Because Everybody else is allowed allowed to just kick their kid out the car. And I want to, I want to say this, the only person I would feel bad for, and the only reason I feel bad about what I did, and I'm probably not going to do it again, is I don't like the feeling of I'm cheating the other parents somehow, like that. I don't

0:27:34 Eli: You're On the Lamb. Right.

0:27:59 Tom: That Makes No sense, right?

0:27:59 Eli: Right.

0:28:16 Tom: That

0:28:16 Thomas: Like, I don't care about rules or this lady. I, that I don't care about. That's not, that's irrelevant to me. You're enforcing a sign that says that I don't care, so sorry, but I do care about like being the dick and do cutting in lines. You know, I'm not a cut in line person, like it feels, a it feels line cutty to me because other people, I guess, don't have jobs. All policies about schools are geared for and created by a passive income family where both parents actually live at the school, that's Every every Single Policy.

0:28:45 Tom: Is True. Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:47 Thomas: What am I supposed to do with my other kid, what if Arlo was an actual baby, which he, I will have a scombert in a few short months, so now I got to put a baby Bjorn on and fucking lead three kids like Moses through the desert to park in someone's garage a half mile away, have them be pissed at me, walk my kids all the way because you've created these, these rules, and given you have not fulfilled your fucking job as a school, you have not given me the ability to drop my kid off, you haven't, there's not whatever, I don't know what needs to happen, you need to create like a kindergarten drop -off zone for kids who who specifically have this rule that you have to fucking hand escort your kid to the teacher, if that's the rule, okay, one of these two things needs to go away, like either that's the rule and okay then I need a designated fucking parking spot, it's not a mile away, or don't make that the rule, I will just drop my kid off out Of the car and drive off.

0:29:41 Tom: That Rule, I like, that rule is fucking nuts, I remember when the kids were little and like you would drop them off, and the way that they would handle like the little kids is they kind of have like almost like a fireman's brigade, so so like there'd be somebody at the, so you come around the horseshoe, and then when it was your turn for your kid to get kicked out of the fucking car, there'd be a teacher and they'd open your door and your kid had come out, and then they would be like, all right, and then there'd been another like person who would attend your kid from your door to the door of the building. And then inside the door, the building, somebody else was standing there to bring them to the right line. Seriously. It was like a fucking fireman's brigade. They were always attended. It didn't take an enormous amount of staff and it, and you could just drive up. You were like, "I love you," or whatever and get the fuck out and then they were the fuck out. Yeah.

0:30:10 Thomas: There You go, that's Perfect, yeah.

0:30:29 Thomas: I Love You, that's What Tom always said, I love your. Whatever, all right, get the fuck out.

0:30:34 Tom: Do. You know what, I actually do, I actually tell my, my stepdaughter every single day when I drop her off at school, I tell her to have a, she's so ornery and she's so like contrary that I've been doing this for years, every day, have a terrible day, no, I'm gonna have a great day, every we've been doing this, we've been playing this dance now for years, I tell her, I'm like, I hope you had a terrible day, I never have, told her to sleep well, I'm, night, crying, she's like, no, I'm gonna go to sleep and have a great night and have great dreams, and I'm like, well, fine, it's, I only Tell Her Mean Shit

0:30:46 Thomas: When's

0:30:50 Eli: That's Great Thomas

0:31:03 Thomas: She gonna catch on to this Reverse Psychology Yeah Well, this, end the way the school is constructed, it actually wouldn't even take, it would take maybe one teacher, like there would be, you could have one teacher at the bottom of the stairs, egg, you know, like, hey, come on, kids, escorting the kids or just directing them to their classroom, my you know, kindergartners aren't fucking idiots, like, they know where their classroom is, they can walk to a line, and they're less likely, kindergartens aren't like the, you adolescents who are going to try to fucking run away or break something, for the most part, like, you could easily do that, it drives me fucking insane, this policy, I don't know what to do, I think I have to just not be a part of this, I can't be a I

0:31:05 Tom: Right This is insane, right

0:31:40 Eli: Thomas You realize what you're falling into, you're falling into the PTA trap, this is how everybody ends up in the Pda, they're like, oh I could fix this, I have a solution for this, I'll join the Ppa, and it seems nicely funny, and two years later, you're like, the marshmallow squares don't go on this table, and you've forgotten what joy feels like

0:31:46 Thomas: Know man yeah well I had that exact thought occurred to me, I was like, there's, there must be, if I'm mad about this, surely the other parents who, who have to tote their whole entire, you, families to the kindergarten door, I've got to be mad about that. But then I realized, like, no, honestly, I'll be the only asshole. There will be literally one person who's upset about this, and it will be me. And then there will be, because I go, I actually do see on drop-off, I see the mom with, like, the three fucking kids and the baby bjorn, dropping their kindergartner off, I guess they walked the eight miles to the school, and they're just fine with it, everybody in suburban America is all a bunch of okay.

0:32:38 Tom: No, this would never fly in the midwest, it's too fucking cold for that shit. It's It's too fucking cold.

0:32:42 Thomas: Oh, that's a good point, everybody in Fucking California suburbia is so much about, like, it's, it's a reason why he had it, was an Operation Junior Varsity, what was that, with the cheating in the colleges with that, member, whatever the fuck that was that's That's the same attitude, it's It's everybody here has to be doing the maximum amazing for their kid at all times. And it's this arms race of like, no, if you don't park, if you don't arrive there at 7:30, an hour and 10 minutes ahead of time, get the good parking spot and walk your whole kids, set up a tent, camp out there. If you don't do all that, you don't, you aren't a good parent. So that's your option, Thomas. Your option isn't find some fucking sensible way to deal with this thing. Your option is just, ought to be better. You ought to do gum earlier. Or do that, there will be zero sympathy if I tried to run this by the PTA, whatever.

0:32:54 Eli: Yeah Yeah And

0:32:55 Tom: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, God. Okay. I actually want to talk about that piece because that's, I, I have felt this like a thousand times that, like insane. And I remember when that operation junior varsity, whatever the fuck it was called, it came out varsity.

0:33:37 Thomas: Varsity Blues What was it, yeah

0:33:40 Tom: Yeah something like that. Like, all of that nonsense, all of the shit is so performative for the other parents. It has nothing to do with the outcomes, comes, that are achieved for your kids, nothing, we talked about this briefly before, like, I got my kid got it so you can brag to the other fucking parents that your kid got into a, you, this school or that school, or they're, you know, oh, my kid's now on travel wrestling, and they do double volleyball sport time, or whatever the fuck that they fucking brag about, and you're like, really, because none of that matters, literally, not like, all that matters is they enjoy themselves and they're psychologically and emotionally healthy, like that's the only thing that matters, all of the rest of that is a performance in a competition for other parents to stand around the fucking garage drinking beer and bragging about shit they didn't even do, like they're, like, that by proxy bullshit, I don't do any of that like that all that shit is fucking just complete trash, it's the, like bragging, oh, my kids, uh, my kids started reading Shakespeare seven hours after he was born, you're, you're like, great, fucking who

0:33:40 Thomas: Oh Yep Totally Yep Yeah Yeah It's The worst

0:34:44 Tom: Cares by time, kids are three, that all evens out

0:34:44 Thomas: Yes

0:34:37 Eli: Look, if Well That's a bad example Tommy should Tommi should use a good example, that's, you're gonna confuse the podcast listeners, does that make any sense, now, now they're, now they're confused, well, here's the thing, no, because look, here's the thing, I should be the varsity, right, of this trio, of this dynamic, I should be like, I'm gonna fake Max's water polo photos, which by the way, is is the fucking

0:34:48 Thomas: 100 % yeah I I understood you were

0:34:47 Tom: Right yeah I'm I'm that is, you, that's still you

0:35:07 Eli: Yeah that's in our outline for me, it's like, and then Eli defends fraudulently getting your kids into college, except here's the thing, to a T, these kids did not want to do this right like, don't get me wrong, there is no law of man or god I won't break for what Max wants right, if Max wants to eat the flesh of another little boy in his class, it's happening, all right, kids have accidents all the time, them's just statistics, but this notion of parents forcing their kids to do things, their forcing kids into activities they don't like. I mean, I can't describe how liberating it was to, as hard as I was pushed in the activities that I loved, and I was push really, really hard, if I didn't want to do something, I did not do it. Ever. Right? I was on the football team for a single match. Went to the practices.

0:35:19 Thomas: Yeah right yeah yeah obviously

0:35:19 Tom: Yeah

0:36:04 Eli: I loved the practices, A game, whatever they're called. I got hit for the first time by a guy who had a beard and six kids in the fucking sidelines. I made this noise because I will remember it for the rest of my life. As I landed on the ground, I took my helmet off. I walked off. I handed it to my dad. I was like, "Hey, I quit. I don't want to do this anymore." More And the coach was like, "Come on, boss, to get it back in there." And I was like, "Hey, Jeff, your name's Jeff, Jeff, I don't want to do this anymore. Send another child out to your weird human sacrifice." And dad was like, "All right, let's

0:36:05 Thomas: You call it a match

0:36:40 Tom: Yeah

0:36:41 Eli: Go to Wendy's, the musical starts up this summer, like, that's that's the thing, I am all about, look, again, I know my place, I am all about representing the, but you, kid wants to, they have to want to be in the hammock you can't force them into the a hammock, it's so bad, I, I have this, for, for a whole other episode, is like, I don't want Max to play sports because I don't ever want him to lose, like the image of him losing for me is

0:36:44 Tom: Man yeah man it's the worst what you're the worst, oh

0:36:53 Thomas: Yeah yeah oh okay I don't know about that yeah you had us, and you lost us, Eli, Eli.

0:37:11 Eli: Because I can't picture my beautiful boy, my heart and soul, he loses and he's sad because these fucking flesh golems got more points in the whatever, absolutely not, I am not allowed to do it but this idea of forcing your children to do this stuff, it just completely, I just completely don't understand it, I don't know who it's for

0:37:23 Tom: My god that is, we, that is totally a separate episode now I

0:37:35 Thomas: Yeah. Where do we go, Tom? Do we go with the valid point being made or do we yell at Eli for this?

0:37:39 Tom: We we have to yell at Eli later because that's a whole episode like I've, that's a whole separate thing about teaching kids to deal with loss, Jesus Christ you knucklehead I love you buddy

0:37:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's let's stick to the to the varsity blues then, because you're totally right, Tom. It is just about each other. It's this is specifically California, too. It's a bunch of super uber privileged white people who don't have fucking any problems. So they they got to like, this is the thing. This is their struggle that they got to do is just best each other in whatever the thing there is, the one currency in all this stuff, the social currency in any conversation among parents of this thing is the extra bullshit you did for your kids. If I were to at all, in any conversation intimate, like, "Oh yeah, but it's fucking, you know, this, this is how I was able to like not have to do an extra thing for my kid," I would be ostracized. They'd be like, "Like, I don't know what's fucking." Our social currency here is you do a bunch of bullshit for your kid and try to do it more than the other parents. That's the social currency.

0:37:50 Tom: Yeah Yeah. Yep yeah I And I think like a lot of that nonsense, I was thinking about this, like, I think a lot of that nonsense comes from like we are this like hyper, like we have this this crazy work ethic culture that like absolutely fetishizes work. And then we take people that have like internalized that idea and then we say, "Well, now your job," and and we think of it as a job, right? And we're even told to think about this in some ways as a job.

Your job is to raise these kids. You're like, "All right, well then I'm going to do all these other things." And then, then you're like, "Well, fuck that, actually doesn't result in a raise or a promotion or any other performance metric that I can show." And so, and actually most of that shit that you do doesn't do anything for the kid either. So it's not like your kid, it's any fucking better off for most of that.

Oh, I played fucking you Beethoven to my fucking belly, and yeah, none of that doesn't, it's all fucking nonsense. But so, but like they do all this stuff so they can, so that's the new performance metric that's

0:39:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:41 Tom: The new, like, performance review in a work-obsessed culture that needs to equate raising a family with the like toxicity of the workplace.

0:39:51 Thomas: Well, as much, as we want things to be differently, uh, allegedly in blue states or whatever among, among you know progressive people everything is still geared for a stay at home like you have one person working and one person staying at home capable of dedicating their fucking lives to this nonsense like if I was a single parent if I you one more scombert which I'm gonna have and had a like a job where I had to get there on time can you fucking imagine how I'm supposed to deal with this like how i'M SUPPOSED TO TAKE EVERYBODY OUT WALK A QUARTER MILE WITH with them, get there early enough to do all that fucking shit. And remember this folder goes there and this folder go there and this shit is that rule. And this it's all geared toward someone who's full -time job can be paying attention to very unimportant bullshit about kindergarten.

0:40:08 Tom: Yeah yeah

0:40:38 Eli: And should also point out, like, not to get not funny because we want to keep it fun, but like this compounds on kids. Right. Because if you have a job and you've got a scumbag and you got a bunch of kids, your kid comes into school tardy, that is you literally lowering your kid's grades. Right. That is lowering your kid's social status in the school. Right, is built to compound on kids with less money, with less, by definition, less of a social safety net, less structure at home. Right.

And it builds, and it puts them at a disadvantage so that those things snowball right from tardiness to missing school to, you know, truancy and all the truanci laws are are genuinely built on punishing poor people. Right. That's what truancy laws are for. Right. And we have listeners who have told us their nightmare stories about, you know, truanci laws. And Tom, I know you've dealt with a little bit of that craziness as well. Like, there is all these traps built into society that are just built to like compound your slightest misstep on the heads of your children, on the shoulders of your your children.

0:40:45 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, yeah.

0:40:46 Tom: Oh 100 100%. Yeah.

0:41:44 Tom: And 24 % of kids live in single parent households or 24 % of households are single parent. Households is actually this statistic. So, yeah.

0:41:51 Thomas: Oh, okay. Either, either way. Yeah yeah.

0:41:54 Tom: So, and I grew up in a single parent household, and there have been times in my life where I have been, for various reasons, I've been, primarily if if not completely, but I'm primarily responsible for like taking care of like a lot of the kid work and working a job, and these things are not compatible. In the 80s, when I grew up, it was easier because my dad could be a single parent dad because, like, nobody expected the parents to do All this shit

0:42:18 Thomas: Well, I was just going to to ask you, Tom, is as heroic as your dad really was in this respect, like he did so much be as a single parent genuinely no jokes, he, you know the trains ran on time, even though he, no, I'm just kidding. Uh, but but could could he have done this situation where he's got to get, he's got to take you to kindergarten.

0:42:19 Tom: Yeah did so much yeah yeah yeah oh Yeah.

0:42:30 Eli: That's a, that's a great comparison. Yeah, absolutely. I agree.

0:42:38 Thomas: He's gotta park a mile away, walk you and your brother, hold their, your hands, wait for the fucking teacher forever. By the way, you know what, this isn't, oh, wait until 8:40 and then everybody gets to go in. They've, they've created a system that makes this fucking happen. They wait in that line until 8:40. And then what happens at 8:40, when allegedly is the time that they have to be there, by the teacher, one at a time, says hi to the kids, said, "Oh, hi, so-and-so," has a, at least a minute-long interaction with them with

0:42:37 Tom: No, How

0:43:10 Thomas: Every kid.

0:43:10 Tom: Are you supposed to Go to work after this? Oh my god.

0:43:12 Thomas: Yeah and I'm just waiting I saw my spot in the line. I'm like, I can't, I'm parked in the drop -off zone. I gotta fucking go. Like, I can't do this.

0:43:13 Tom: God.

0:43:19 Eli: You just got, You got a bullhorn, you're just like, microphone yourself. Hi, my, my daughter says hi, you just walk into of the car not

0:43:25 Tom: Yeah. No, I,

0:43:25 Thomas: Yeah. Your dad have done that and then gone to work and been on time? Like, think of the burden that adds.

0:43:30 Tom: Because, because I'll tell you what, like my dad had to do. Like, so my dad, we were up, I moved in with my dad. I was six years old. So I was, it was February of grade. So it was the middle of the year in first grade, I was six years. And so I moved him with my Dad and I had to go to school obviously right away. And so my Dad had to find some, my Dad would be up at, we're up at six o 'clock. My Dad had had to take a train from where he lived downtown to work. He worked at a, at a bank at the time downtown. So he had to find another family to watch us from six o 'clock until it was time to walk. And we walked.

0:44:07 Tom: And it's funny. Cause like I, we walked as like six year old kids down and you, this won't mean anything to you unless you know, but down 63rd street, which is right by. And when I say right by, I mean, one block away from Midway airport in Chicago, we watched several blocks down 63rd street. It is a very busy street. Um, and then you have to make like a couple of crossings to get to the school. And that's just like, that's what single parent, they put their kids in danger is the way they solve this problem.

0:44:07 Thomas: There you go. Yeah, but not really. Really any danger there, like for the most part. I mean, the stuff that we police, like leaving a kid in a totally air-conditioned car for two minutes that you get the cops called on you if you do is completely safe and more safe than walking your kid in the street. Yeah.

0:44:36 Tom: The right. Yeah. I, I was going to say like, I 100, say that the risk of getting hit by a car was the big risk. That was was the big, that was the big risk, right? So six years, like, I don't think I was going to get snatched. I'm not like suggesting that, right. Like I realized that the, the rate of like stranger kidnappings is, and has always been to minimously statistically low. So like that's not the worry. The worry is like a six year old kid doesn't always look both ways every time if they're excited because there was a butterfly, you

0:44:56 Thomas: Yeah. That's fair. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:45:10 Eli: Zero.

0:45:18 Thomas: I I would not trust Phoebe to. I, I mean, here's the thing. I actually would. She would be able to do that, but I wouldn't ever. I would feel too horrified to have her walk down the street as a, as a kindergarten. But you know what, I can completely trust her to do once already on the school premises: walk down the only perfectly path straight to her classroom in view of 100,000 teachers in the entire school and wait in the line that she's supposed to be in. That, fine.

0:45:26 Tom: Would never do it. Right. Yes.

0:45:44 Tom: I will say, though, too, the other thing is that, um, unsupervised as little kids did also open us up to a lot more bullying. So we were harassed by the older kids and, like, like we were bullied sometimes on our way to and home from school because you're told, like, they're all unsupervised, you know. So, like, and again, it's the 80s, so like it was like bullying was an accepted part of just how kids Josh around, you know. And so there was, I will say, like, I do think that there is more danger to that level of just solving that problem. But it's how single parents have to solve problems.

0:46:02 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:46:20 Tom: And the way they solve the rest of that shit is like they just don't do it. Like they don't read the emails from the school because they can't read them all because there's a fucking million of them. Them. There's a thousand of them.

0:46:27 Thomas: There's a thousand of them a day. I get a thousand emails.

0:46:30 Tom: Dude, wait until wait until your kids are older and they have a different teacher for every subject and every one of those teachers emails you sometimes every day, sometimes several days a week, and then you have multiple kids. You can it is

0:46:29 Eli: Yeah,

0:46:30 Thomas: I can't do it. Oh my God. I can'T keep up with that many emails for my job. Like literally I can. Can't and let alone having a separate job. And here's the other problem, because 96 percent of the emails are nothing at all times, yeah, and now that means that my brain can't see them. My it's I'm the robot from Westworld, fucking, where I'm like, this is nothing to me. And then they're like, no, but deep in fucking the click wrap agreement of this email that I sent about your kindergartner, kindergarten should be, you go to a fucking classroom, someone has a fucking dinosaur toy and tries to teach your kid like a single letter or a sound, that's, that's it, it doesn't

0:46:45 Tom: Yeah, I, yeah, you just just ignore them after a minute. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yep.

0:46:59 Eli: They're there yeah, yeah and

0:47:24 Tom: Yep,

0:47:24 Thomas: I'm all for the learning. It, there shouldn't be this many fucking bureaucracy folders and color coding, whatever, fuck, it's stupid. So you've, you've made, you've trained me to just ignore everything you're sending me, yeah.

0:47:25 Tom: Yes, man.

0:47:34 Eli: They're they're In identical fonts, right, the, like, drop off time has been changed from seven o'clock to 7:05, if you come at seven, and will fire your child out of a cannon, is in the same font and format as, like, it's springtime, which means we'll be playing the flower flu, which is, like...

0:47:55 Tom: Yeah man.

0:47:46 Thomas: Yes, exact you're not even, you're not even making a joke, Eli, that's literally the emails. I have four of them a fucking day about this kid

0:47:58 Tom: No, it's exactly.

0:47:59 Eli: No, we deal with... We deal with it with Max's preschool, and again, this is... My wife is a fucking supermom because my wife is basically spellcheck for my terrible parenting mistakes, right? Like, and I'll give you a great example. Example, Matt Max has a nut free preschool, which I super appreciate. And I think is great. Like I'm so happy that it's exactly that, you know, I'm not allowed actually near the building for a week because yeah, that guy's like 80 % nuts right now. He can't come in here.

0:48:21 Thomas: That's why you got your nuts removed, yeah, that's what they take one, look at you, like, you can't bring those nuts. Yeah.

0:48:25 Tom: Nice full circle that's a good callback.

0:48:32 Eli: It's a nut free classroom, but I don't know that it is seven in the morning. I'm just like peanut butter sandwich is something he eats, and I'm making him the peanut butter sandwich, and luckily my bride, my brilliant super mom of a wife, is like, hey, is that peanut butter, and I'm like, no, it's human shit, what are you fucking, of course it's peanut, it's just like, no, man, you can't make him peanut butter, you gotta make him a different thing, it's like, okay, thank you, but she, she is constantly, that stuff

0:48:36 Thomas: Oh

0:48:49 Tom: Oh

0:48:56 Thomas: My hundred percent. And my kid is the one that the rule is for. And I still occasionally just in, in, I'm just on autopilot and I'm like, oh yeah, you can have that snack. And then Lydia will be like, wait, what is that? And I'll be like. Oh fuck. No, no, you can't have that. Like it's so hard.

0:49:13 Thomas: 100% of all the time. Somehow Lydia can do it. Cause she's fucking perfect. No. And you know, Lydia slips up on certain things too. Like Like they're humans are just humans. It's impossible to be a hundred percent on at all times, but yeah, like it's incredible. And I will say this, uh, lovely wife has an amazing music career and all that, but like she has the time to devote to that, right?

0:49:11 Eli: Yeah

0:49:12 Tom: Man yeah

0:49:34 Thomas: Like I, neither, nobody in my household has the time to devote that, and our allegedly progressive society, we've created this fucking, and school bureaucracy bullshit that make, that forces you to have like one stay-at-home parent who can dedicate their entire mental energy to these, yeah, oh, man, oh,

0:49:51 Eli: We have three, we don't even have two, we have free, we have of three, my babysitter is like a super genius mentat from the future. She's here 97 days a week and I'll be like I'll be like, why are you putting a thing into a balloon, and she'll be like, oh, don't you remember, Max's tomorrow's balloon day, right she

0:50:01 Tom: Yeah

0:50:02 Thomas: I need your babysitter. Didn't you read email 7 of 42, that you get

0:50:10 Eli: Right.

0:50:10 Tom: Oh but what, about, like, when they do, you guys, you're probably not at the place where then they also all have a different Google Classroom, or different like, yeah, man, so all All the kids now, they have different, each teacher has the ability to assign work digitally through whatever, no

0:50:10 Eli: No,

0:50:10 Thomas: Oh, god, really? That's

0:50:20 Eli: There's none.

0:50:29 Thomas: Not just a COVID thing, that's a, that's all the time, yeah,

0:50:30 Tom: Man, they've all just kept it. So like all the kids that I have, Chromebooks and like sometimes they're on Google Classroom and sometimes you have to like log into this like local system called Tyler for this school and this other system called, you know, Chompa Chomper for that school. And then you got to like, log into a different thing to put fucking money into their accounts so they can have a lot. You gotta have your digital life that you have to attach as well to all of this is fucking bonkers, man. It's absolutely nuts and nobody can keep track of any of it and the kids look to us and they're just like, we're not sure what to do.

And I'm just like, man, I don't fucking know either. I don't know, just, I'm just gonna write on a piece of paper. I don't think this is important and I'm gonna sign my name, like, I, none of this, just none of this, fucking man. It And I'm only half, half kidding, because when we got Aislinn's schedule, she went into sixth grade this year, and she transferred into the public school from the private. When she went in to sixth grade, they assigned her a schedule, and her, like, elective, we want her to have, like, home ec or art, like that's just who she is, she would excel in either one.

They instead put her in tech applications and there is literally nothing of value for her as a person in tech obligations, and we were, we're going to, to fight to get it changed. And we, we, I will tell you, like, we did eventually get this changed, so I'll skip, to skip ahead of that. But Haley and I were talking and we're like getting ready to go to this meeting, and she asked me if I'd go and advocate, cause I'm a little

0:51:08 Eli: I

0:51:11 Thomas: Yeah, tech

0:51:55 Tom: Like, you know, louder, maybe more aggressive about that sort of thing. And I was like, yeah, of course I'll go. I mean, I'm happy to. And what I said is like, I's going to go to this class. I'm just going to tell him, we don't think this class has any value and I don't care if she participates and I won't support her attendance. So you can change the class, but if you make her go to this class and she chooses just to sit there and do nothing, and you call me and say she's sitting here doing nothing, I'm gonna say, yeah, it's that I'm okay with that that, I literally don't care, you she's in sixth grade and F in tech applications will not chase her her whole life, who fucking cares yeah, but have to like just tell people like, this doesn't have, have value.

0:52:10 Eli: Sir, right, as an American. So

0:52:29 Thomas: Applications, huh, oh,

0:52:34 Eli: Favorite thing about the Chum Chumma, because, I because I teach at a bunch of different schools, right, I teach the college level, I teach high school level, my favorite thing in the world is the explanation video that they make you watch for each Each new system is, I guarantee you, designed by the devil to make parents regret their decision to have children. It's just like, hi, welcome to Whiteboard Pro Plus Negative B. Here, you'll find the Goober tab. On the Goover tab, each of your students' assignments are arranged by letter, but the third letter in the word, not the first one. You'll be able to add to your child's calendar on the first of each month between 7am and 6 .59am and remember

0:53:06 Tom: Yes. Dude, this is not even wrong. This is not even wrong, yes,

0:53:26 Eli: If you want to reach out to your teacher anytime, you can do so on Wushu, which will send a text message directly into their fucking brain. It is a combination of complete Orwellian, like, invasiveness and oblique non -usability and nothing in between you can write on this white piece of paper and we'll delete it for you. Also, here's your teacher's social security number, and this button turns green whenever they fall asleep at night. Oh,

0:53:43 Thomas: My god, you're

0:53:45 Tom: Yes. Every school website is impossible.

0:53:59 Tom: Dude, that is not even the barest exaggeration at all. We a parent-teacher conference conference and the teacher sat across from us and said, "So what do you want to talk about?" And I look, I was like, I what just what she's like she said she said she's this is this is your time, so what do you wanna talk about, and I was just like, I wasn't prepared to have an agenda for this, like, right yeah

0:54:15 Thomas: The teacher, what how's my kid doing in math sorry

0:54:19 Eli: This speed dating's going badly how

0:54:30 Thomas: Was I teaching my kid in class this whole time, shit, uh, let me think, let me to get out, let me drop a report card

0:54:34 Eli: Have you been doing in my kids class

0:54:37 Thomas: Yeah

0:54:38 Tom: There was this, like, Hayley and I exchanged this moment of just like, like, shock and disgust, like, neither of us have any interest in this kind of like fucking, where do you see yourself in five years, interview bland ass fucking mediocre bullshit, it's just like, what do you want to fucking, how's she doing, asshole, what are you kidding me, uh, right,

0:54:55 Thomas: I have every interest in my kid and how she's doing, but you're right, it's like the bullshit of, like, this, I'm not the driver of that, like, you tell me, I want to, get I'll tell you what, if my kid is doing badly in something, this probably won't happen, I want a good chewing out from it, you know, I wouldn't mind it, I wouldn't mind a little, like, the math teacher being like, Arlo just fucking, instead of numbers, he just picks puts his finger in his nose and wipes it on this, on the math test, and I want to feel like That's what I want, I don't want to, hey, what do you want to talk about, you know, fucking what?

0:55:23 Eli: Yeah,

0:55:25 Tom: Yeah. But Like, again, like, don't put that onus on me, like, I, like, I am not, I am here to support your job, right? Educating the kid, that's your fucking job because you're in the education field. I dropped him off at a school, you are a fucking educator, like, here to support that, I guess, in the sense that I want to know about it and if there's something I can do here and there, that's fine, I'll fucking do it, but like, this is not my full-time job, I don't have a fucking paycheck for this.

0:55:29 Thomas: Yeah. Look, I don't wanna get so galaxy brain and apologies, but this is the broader trend of, and it's actually really insidious, of like, no, no one's an expert in anything, the parent knows best, at their, you, you ever have a medical procedure? Like, we've had serious, uh, yeah, sorry.

0:56:11 Eli: I had one last week, my balls got cut open, Thomas.

0:56:15 Thomas: You ever had, oh, this is the part of the story, I promise it actually relates, when, of the appointments we've had for Scombert, you ever had a doctor tell you something where you're like, okay, um, and here's the life-saving, amazing, miracle medicine, now, do you guys want want that, or should should we sacrifice a chicken in front of you and you're like, do I want, what, what, and they have to ask stuff as though I might be a fucking anti -vex asshole who wants you to do nothing, they did it with the, god, the blood testing, the blood tasting for, all this testing for Scombert to find out, like, yeah, if he has the following things like

0:56:13 Tom: Yeah Oh, yeah oh

0:56:31 Eli: Yes, yes. Yeah

0:56:48 Tom: It's a whole separate, yeah,

0:56:53 Eli: He might come out inside out, do you want to see that, or do you want it to be a fun sub, would you like your wife to give birth to Eli's testicles?

0:56:55 Thomas: Yeah yeah Or would you like to reenact the last scene in The Fly, where your baby might come out as part fly, part machine, and then you have to kill it with an ax, because just, just because you don't think doctors are real, would you like, us, the way they present it nowadays, doctors is like, yeah, do you, should we do that, or do you want, because you never, you never know, yeah

0:57:25 Eli: I'm gonna show you that scene from Alien, where she opens the pod and the creature screams "kill me now" that's your choice as a parent, do you, you want that? Yeah.

0:57:31 Thomas: Yeah yeah And you're like that, why is this my choice? Just, your story time reminded me, why is it on me, what are you talking about? Why is that on me and it's the same thing with the teachers. It's like everybody and it is the same thing we are seeing with Republicans and the curriculum too. They are like no teachers don't know anything. I know everything and it sucks because both sides are kind of playing into that really.

0:57:34 Tom: Yeah yeah yeah What?

0:57:54 Thomas: You got the parents of school with that attitude of like, they are so fucking brilliant, they know everything, teachers don't, and then you got on the right, it's my dare, you have a gay character in a book that my son might see, or whatever, you know? Like, it's, God,

0:58:06 Eli: Let me let me take a moment to shout out our pediatrician, who again, we are his only clients, but to be fair, in his hospital there is no spacing out or waiting on vaccines, right, the, when we went to go to get, deliver our baby, he was like, hey, just so you know, we do not space out vaccine schedules, we do not skip out vaccines except for medical reasons, so you, you cannot be a part, no one can be a part of our practice. If you miss a vaccine, you are no longer in the practice, and we got Max vaccinated, we talked about this, we got Max vaccinated by the state because we needed, like, the state to get him with the Moderna and to stab the baby at the time, and he was like, okay, the day you get him vaccinated, I need you to drop by the card so I can Xerox it and put it in his file, because if he does not have it by his next checkup, they'll just write you off the books and you're not on our practice anymore. So yeah, that has been

0:58:08 Tom: Yeah

0:58:29 Thomas: That's awesome.

0:58:30 Tom: That's Great. That's

0:58:58 Thomas: That's fucking, I, can I have that? I need, California is the worst at this. They, they fucking play into it, you Know?

0:59:00 Tom: Awesome I

0:59:02 Eli: Yeah yeah no, it's, it's, it's really, it's really, really damaged, and we're also super grateful, with our preschool, our preschool sent out a thing this year just being like, hey, get your kid vaccinated, we don't care yeah

0:59:16 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, that is great, because we have taken this appeasement route with that shit. That is actually probably one of the instances I am talking about. Where they are like, now, do you want to get this shot with the, what do you mean, do I I want, give me the thing. That's the science medicine. Like that's you've you're you're brilliant or somebody's brilliant. You've figured out the schedule of the miracle drugs that my kid is supposed to get. You tell me I'm not, why I'm on chart. Why the fuck, why would we give people the indication that even the option of like, wow.

0:59:18 Eli: And

0:59:21 Tom: Know, yeah

0:59:46 Eli: Parenting books do the same thing, right? You ever be reading a parenting book and you get to a part where there's a very obvious thing you should do, right, like, but putting your kid to sleep on their back is really a great idea, it's different for each family, but, you know, sometimes smothering is an option, you just done it like I said this episode's about my sack for the most part, this is the vasect, this is the, this is going to start a vasectomy revolution, men taking entire month deserved months off for their vasectomies, all before we go, an important question, why did you do this to me, why did you let me, what is the difference between a well-dressed man on a unicycle and a poorly dressed man on a bicycle? A

1:00:05 Thomas: Well, we've, this has been an angry episode slash Eli Sack episode.

1:00:08 Tom: A lot going on here, oh my god, yeah what oh

1:00:45 Eli: Tire, thank

1:00:48 Thomas: These have been good lately. I like these ones.

1:00:48 Tom: That was actually really good yeah

1:00:54 Thomas: It for today's show in the bonus story that patrons are hearing right now. Well, actually a week ago right now, but still you get it. Tom talks about his son going on a waterslide and getting to the top and not wanting to go down it. Hilarity ensues. August bonus is out for patrons. Talked about three movies, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Turning Red, and Encanto. What do they have in common? Toxic parents, as possibly the villains. But do they get it right? Fun discussion. Lots of opinions on that. And so many reasons to pledge on patreon.com/dearolddads, including the fact that patrons were a week ahead, and so therefore we're two, three episodes ahead. For if you can't do that, we totally understand. We love you so much. Thank you for listening. Share the show with your friends, your family, or whoever needs it. That Facebook group. Interacting with us. And we'll see you next time.

1:00:52 Eli: You

1:01:48 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.