QnA4: You Breadwinsome, You Breadlosesome

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Tom: To Dear Old Dads the podcast that once again is taking a stab at its never-ending June Q&A list gentlemen I

0:00:37 Thomas: Yeah. Cause now it's like July or something. So we probably, we probably should be done with those by now is what you're saying.

0:00:38 Eli: Q

0:00:41 Tom: I feel like these Q&As are kind of like use it or lose it time like you know we're getting to the end of the year we've got to like get through these things or we run out of cues. This is

0:00:44 Thomas: Oh man.

0:00:52 Eli: Q&A's are our paid time off all of a sudden taking a vacation

0:00:55 Tom: It yeah it's our this is our PTO yeah I mean

0:00:54 Thomas: Can I, can I tell you how many brilliant, heartfelt, amazing emails I have in my inbox? I just can't get to cause of mental problems. Like it may, it reminds me of that. Cause there's like, we have amazing questions where we are almost getting through them, but I feel bad. Like any question unanswered, I'm like, "Oh, that person put thought into that," and I think of my my email inbox that I just I just quit I just stopped I just was I was keeping up with it kinda and then I just plain stopped and I feel so bad every day about it there'll be something from like 2019 probably in there that'll be the most amazing heartfelt brilliant thing and I'll just I have maybe like five years from now I'll read it and reply and and be like, "Hey, sorry."

0:01:04 Eli: No.

0:01:38 Thomas: He's still alive.

0:01:40 Eli: You Note speaking and maybe this is a little to inside baseball, but have you ever gone to the other inbox right the like this has been filtered for spam but beyond spam inbox and someone's like, "Hey, I just want you to know that tomorrow's my wedding and it would mean everything to me if and you're just like Oh fuck hey man do you remember two presidential administrations ago when you asked if I would wish you a happy birthday as you oh man you were sacrificing yourself on an asteroid for the rest of the planet and I'm oh yeah

0:01:47 Thomas: Oh yeah. Yeah.

0:01:55 Tom: Yeah I've seen yeah well okay but also a little insight but you guys I'm sure you get the same thing where it's like hey I'm going through can you give me a phone call and then they expect a phone calls have you gotten these

0:02:12 Thomas: Oh

0:02:23 Eli: No.

0:02:21 Thomas: No. That's, I don't have any of that. No. Somebody from the podcast world tells

0:02:23 Eli: Those. Those, I Get and Those. Yeah.

0:02:24 Tom: Yeah like I'll just we've gotten it I've gotten any number of people like hey uh you know this you really you know you said some things you know really whatever anyway I'm going through this thing if you could call me and then they leave their number and then THEY TELL YOU LIKE I'LL BE AROUND ON SATURDAY AND I'M JUST LIKE NEAT WHAT

0:02:27 Thomas: No

0:02:27 Eli: Yep.

0:02:35 Thomas: Way. What? Okay. I, that is, that's insane. I'm sorry, that's insane. That's insane, I would never, never.

0:02:48 Tom: WHAT IT'S INSANE I'VE NEVER ONCE CALLED OH JUST HEY AND There's... there's SUCH PRESUMPTION IT'S It's amazing.

0:02:54 Thomas: If my wife told me to call her, I wouldn't call her. If Lydia told me, Lydia sent me an email saying, hey, call me, I'd be like, nah, I'm Sorry. I guess divorce, I don't know, I'm not calling anyone ever, there's no calls. Every call is a hostage situation. Everything that makes me call anything, they are a terrorist that has strapped me to a bomb and is like, you have to do this or else that's the mentality of me calling anyone. I hate it.

0:03:00 Tom: What?

0:03:00 Eli: No. Yeah. It's

0:03:23 Tom: I call people. I call you. I've called both of you guys any number of times. Like your boomer friend is on the phone. That's what's happening to you guys. Your boomer buddy is calling, and you're just like, oh, yeah, I got it. He can't send a message. So we got to talk on the phone like it's the past.

0:03:37 Thomas: Don't mind getting calls. Now that I think about it. No, I don't mind getting called. It's the calling people. That's what I don't like. I don't like having to call somebody. It's some weird anxiety millennial thing. I think it seems to be pretty common.

0:03:49 Tom: Haley has the same thing. In your relationships, do you outsource the calling? Does one of you guys have responsibility if you have to make a phone call to make an appointment?

0:03:58 Thomas: I mean, everything is so online now. I can't even think of what that would be.

0:04:01 Eli: Oh, me and Anna, it is definitely me. I cannot tell you how many doctors or medical representatives we have called on speakerphone for me to be like, Anna, do the thing where I'm legally allowed to do this. And she has to be, like, my name is Anna. This is my birthday. He's allowed to talk, because she hates that. She hates any phone calls, but anything paperwork related. If my wife is gonna be on hold, she needs to psych up for it like it's a fist fight with a homeless guy in a Wendy's parking lot, whereas I'm just like, I'm like, here we go, Slay the Spire, couple.

0:04:07 Tom: Yeah. Yes.

0:04:30 Thomas: Oh yeah. God.

0:04:39 Tom: Yeah, I make all of Haley's appointments. Like if she needs an appointment, I'll be like, do You want me to call him? She's like, oh, my God, yes. I'm like, okay, we'll just call. I don't care. Just pick up the phone. I'll call him. We'll get it done. On. I'm, I'm the guy, like I'm the phone call guy.

0:04:48 Thomas: It's amazing. That is a superpower. Superpower. There. Should be a movie about you as a comic book superhero where, like, the whole world, like, can't make a phone call but you have, like, superman powers and you're just like, "Yeah, I'll make the phone call." Everyone's like, "What, oh my god, my hero."

0:04:58 Eli: Mhm. Yeah, Was just me and Tom going in to push a button that fires a nuke at the asteroid.

0:05:07 Thomas: Oh.

0:05:10 Tom: Funny. 'Cause that same, that same anxiety has become true, uh, I've found in the workplace with millennials. So I've, I work with a wide variety of, of age ranges in my group that like work for me and with me and like younger people, they absolutely do not want to get on a phone call. Like, I mean, they will not do it even Even for work. I had a woman that worked for me and I'm not, I'm not even kidding. She worked for me.

I had something that was important. I needed to talk to her about it. And I sent her an email. I'm like, "Hey, when you get out of your, you transactions, give me a phone call. Here's my number." I'm driving, but I need to talk today. "You can send me an email" that's somebody that where I was her boss's boss. "You can send me an email." No, I am not sending an email, I'm driving. I am dictating this while I'm driving. I need to talk to you. Call me as soon as you can. Here is my number. "I'm not going to call you, we can do this over email," so I fired her immediately.

0:06:01 Thomas: I actually agree with that. I agree with that.

0:06:03 Tom: Because I was like, I can't, like, that like we're, here's our conversation, you don't work here anymore. I can, it is unbelievable. How many people are so, like, "I'm not going to pick up the phone." It's like, I, you sometimes just But you can Leverage your I'm

0:06:17 Thomas: But Your Boss's Boss. Is that what you said? Yeah. If Your Boss Is Boss Tells you to Call them, you fucking call them, all right? Come on. Oh,

0:06:24 Eli: You got a call. I

0:06:20 Tom: The Boss's boss, I Am Two Levels Above Right I Can't tell you how many people, I will call, they'll miss the call, then they'll message me on Teams, "Hey, what'd you need?" And again, two levels up, I'm, this is a hundred percent two levels up, "Hey, what did you need?"

0:06:33 Eli: Need You to answer The

0:06:37 Tom: I needed you to answer the phone. I'm old, we're talking that's how how this works.

0:06:37 Eli: Phone. Start

0:06:39 Thomas: Man, okay. But I just I Just realized I had a, a moral quandary, and B, from that moral quandry, a phone story specifically that applies to this. And this was, um, because a listener question, uh, and Sam asks, talk about phone calls is what I have, Patron, in the Patreon thread. Nobody's Gonna check, nobody's going to go back and check, like, "Wait, was that a question or did they just make up?" Yeah, patrons kind of about Conrad Michaels on Patreon said, so here's, here's my quandary. You know, I think I've mentioned before when we did lawn talk famously, we've done lawn talk, um, that in the California drought, There's that no water. I didn't water the lawns. I let them die. I thought I I was being a good citizen. You know, there's signs telling people not don't water your lawn. Like, you

0:06:58 Eli: Start talking about phone calls.

0:07:05 Tom: I'm gonna email it to us yeah.

0:07:08 Eli: Oh, if only, if only yes.

0:07:28 Tom: What?

0:07:29 Thomas: Know, it's a drought. You can't want to have a fucking water-wasting thing crop that doesn't do anything. And so I did that. And then come to find out we need to get some tree trimming done because that hasn't been done forever. Apparently the last owners didn't do that. There's oak trees. I actually have a room that has an oak tree in it. It's like we had we had to open one of our rooms to the oak tree to move in

0:07:48 Eli: To the oak tree. And

0:07:51 Tom: Well,

0:07:51 Thomas: Yeah It's paying us rent in acorns. It's not, I don't even. Yeah.

0:07:54 Eli: And There is nothing that people will be more casual about than "that tree's gonna fall on your house," right? Like, of all the things, if you park in the wrong spot in the state of New Jersey, nine people will come to your house and tear you apart like four horses in ancient Greece. But I had a tree about to collapse onto my house and they were like, "Yeah, if you can get to that in in the next 10 to 12 years, that'd be awesome."

0:08:02 Thomas: Wow.

0:08:18 Tom: I, I had a house that got hit by a tornado back in like 2014, somewhere right around there. And, and like, this huge old ass tree got split in half and, like, fell. And I remember, I went to the, I went to the house because it was a house I was renting out. I had moved out of it but kept it as a rental. And so I went to the house and, you know, took a look at it. This huge fucking tree had fallen and it had missed the garage and it missed the house, which is a huge bummer because the insurance payout would have been great.

0:08:22 Thomas: Ah,

0:08:48 Tom: But like it just and it was just laying there being an enormous giant fucking tree. So I actually went to Cecil's father-in-law, and I'm like, hey, can I borrow a chainsaw and an axe? And then I borrowed a buddy of mine, not Cecil.

0:09:02 Thomas: There You Go, You Don't need an axe, just the chainsaw is fine. I have Very, very Often. Yeah, oh,

0:09:05 Tom: Well, you know what? It turns out that is, if you've ever cut a tree into manageable pieces, and it is a big tree, that is the hardest I've ever worked in my entire life.

0:09:16 Thomas: Yeah, And

0:09:18 Eli: Yeah, now imagine you're a child and your dad tells you.

0:09:21 Thomas: And My debt

0:09:22 Tom: Thomas, your tree was made entirely out of snakes.

0:09:22 Thomas: No, Have I even told you about the splitting wood? Sorry, I've told, told you about the firewood. That was bad enough. There's also the splitting wood. That was the fucking worst. So, like, after we've cut down the goddamn tree, and I'm in the middle of my drought story that I got to finish. But after, after we cut down, my dad, you know, chose the tree that was furthest down the hill to make us fucking walk straight uphill with a wheelbarrow, the million pounds of logs.

0:09:44 Tom: Well, the other one was near the dog's grave, so, like, you don't want to disturb it.

0:09:46 Thomas: Yeah, no, fine. Yeah. Um, and so after doing all that, it would get to the point where, because the tiny fucking wood stove, that was the point of all this, that this tiny minuscule little wood stove, there was supposed to heat our whole house, now keep in mind, it doesn't get that cold in California, so pretty much work, but not really, I mean it gets, you know, it gets below, it gets to freezing at night on, you know, for a lot of days of the year, and we have this one little tiny stove for a house, by the way, that is one story, story, so it sprawls like all over because there's nothing but room in the country, so we had a really like long ass house, the point is heat wasn't getting anywhere but like that one room and uh, that the mouth of that thing, like the opening where you put the firewood in, that thing was unnecessarily tiny, and so even after all the firewood bullshit, it wouldn't, anything that was slightly too big, we'd have to split the wood, like with a mall and a, um, you know, like these, uh, what

0:10:28 Eli: Right.

0:10:46 Thomas: Do you call it?

0:10:29 Tom: Jesus Christ. Yeah, Mauna. Yeah, Uh-huh.

0:10:45 Eli: Like the sexy TikToks, yeah.

0:10:48 Thomas: Do you see him on TikTok? Okay. What you see on TikTok is people swinging an ax at the easiest split wood in the world. If you ever see someone, and I'm not joking about this, it 1 million percent depends on the tree. Like you get like pine, certain pine trees, they're somehow, it's almost like an ice cube tray. Like they're ready to break in the way that you need. Yeah. Yeah, like they're to split in the right way.

0:11:07 Eli: Yeah, they're a banana.

0:11:14 Thomas: If God, I spent so long trying to split certain oak logs that had like knots in them and like branches, they just won't split. They're like, "No, I'm sorry, I'm not doing this for you." And you know, my dad had real, uh, good tolerance for me not completing a job how he wanted. No, I would just be out there forever, like it wouldn't, he'd be like, "Okay, well, just you're out here until that's done." So I just have to do that forever. Yeah, no, it's the worst, hardest work ever.

0:11:36 Eli: Well, you could have been the original sexy TikTok woodman.

0:11:37 Thomas: Yeah,

0:11:40 Tom: You could have. You could've been doing some fucking, some thirst traps with some splitting wood, yeah.

0:11:44 Eli: Yeah.

0:11:42 Thomas: It's like a 11 year old Yeah. So here's my quandary.

0:11:46 Eli: Very specific audience.

0:11:48 Thomas: Here's my quandary as the tree guys do on the bid for the work that he's, they're never going to schedule still. I'm still waiting on that. He's telling me there's these trees that he's like, Oh, you're going to lose that tree. And you're gonna lose that. I was like, oh, what? Why am I losing these trees? And he's Like, well, those two right there require a shit ton of water, just like tons of water. I Was Like, what why? Ah, and he was like yeah, it looks like, you know, they were probably just leeching off of the lawn.

0:12:13 Tom: Oh.

0:12:14 Thomas: And so now I have this big ass tree. This is a, this is a sizable tree. One of them's a little, little smaller, still pretty big. And the other is a sizeable tree that covers, you know, like an important part between the me and the neighbor, you know, a massive tree. And now I'm going to have to be like, okay, I guess I have to water lawns now to have, to have tree.

0:12:14 Tom: Shit. Can't You just water the tree only, that

0:12:35 Thomas: Yeah, but it's going to be the, I mean, it's fucking the same. It's two trees that were leaching, you Know, so I feel like it's like I would would just water the lawn. If though, if watering the lawn was making it work, watering trees is weird. You have to water them in certain ways. So now I'm like, do I just grow a lawn? And then like, someone's going to be like, oh, I remember when you said you were so great for letting your lawns die. And then I'll have this green lawn again. I don't know. I'm in a quandary. I don't want to let the tree, it's so big. It would be, it would be weird. It must've been the wrong kind of tree for the area is what, what it must be. So here's the phone tie into this. So I am I'm looking into the sprinklers. The other thing is the, the previous neighbors just like ruined the fucking lawn sprinklers before we moved in some, or they hired like somebody to do something and they like lawn mode, the sprinkler heads. So they're all broken.

0:12:41 Tom: Sucks.

0:12:59 Tom: There's no way you can let the tree die, you don't want to let the three die.

0:13:24 Eli: Sure,

0:13:25 Thomas: And so I'm working at Yelp. I'm trying to call a sprinkler guy. I'm wishing I was Tom. Cause then I could just call people, not worry about it.

0:13:25 Eli: Yeah, Oh.

0:13:25 Tom: That's great, you Just Pick It up. The phone, I

0:13:32 Thomas: I love, I Love being able to, to Yelp message. You know, it's great. Yelp massage. And then I play phone tag with this one guy. He's got good reviews, you know, not a ton. He's got like 60 reviews on Yelp and he's, you know, he's pretty much five stars. I'm like, alright, that should be fine. Here's why I hate calling people. I realize I had the phone call that is the epitome of why I fucking want to die rather than call someone. So we play phone tag for a year, keep in mind I've already sent him a message with like all the details of everything, of course, which I think you can see where this is going. So we played phone tag for several days and I finally, I'm like, alright, I'll just call. He forgets to call me a million times. So I call him, finally get through to him, and he is like, hello, hello. And that's the other thing, people, um, with businesses, you know how they answer their phone now, hello, like

0:13:32 Tom: Got you. Man.

0:14:16 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:14:17 Eli: Yeah.

0:14:17 Thomas: Oh, Am I talking to a just a guy or is this, nobody's like, hi, uh, Sam's lawn care here, you know, like nobody does that anymore. It's so fucking annoying. I don't know who I've called, I just called a num, I don't know you.

0:14:17 Eli: Every day.

0:14:17 Tom: Right Yeah.

0:14:31 Thomas: I just dialed a number and some guy goes, hello. I'm like, what?

0:14:35 Tom: And Then you have to be like, uh, wait, uh, is this Sam's tree lawn service what

0:14:35 Thomas: Okay. Is this Yeah, you've just outsourced the thing where you say what you are to me. Now you're like, I've outsourged that, is this fucking Sam sprinkler lawns care, whatever. Yeah, okay. This is Thomas, we've been, uh, you know, we're trying to get back and back and forth, we're try and get in touch. Phone. Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to call you a bunch of times and

0:14:44 Tom: Yeah.

0:14:57 Tom: I just don't care, though. I love this.

0:14:58 Thomas: Then silence. Okay, um, so I I I need I got this, these sprinklers, they think they've been ruined, you know, can you come take a look at the thing? And then more silence and the guy's like, and I go into detail now because I've had this happen enough times, I'm like fuck it, I don't care, fine, I'll be the showman, I'll just go into detail as to everything, and then after I'm like, yeah, and this is this situation, the trees are gonna die, there's the sprinklers here, then he goes, um, I need to just come over and see what's going on.

It, like, he has no, hasn't listened to any of it or care, and by the way, if that was what you needed to do, why don't you go ahead and stop me or say a single thing before I go into the whole situation, because you are silent, because I have called, apparently, not a business, I don't know what you are, God, it's the worst. So that's the epitome of the bad phone calls, you call someone where, like, they're the business, they say hello, and then you're like, hi, I was Thomas, is this lawn care, yeah, and then silence, and you're like, what do I do with that silence, what, what do you, what do your business owner want me to do, what

0:15:32 Eli: Yeah. None of it

0:16:04 Tom: Yeah.

0:16:04 Thomas: Seriously, like, what am I, um, I would like to talk to you, okay, oh

0:16:09 Eli: Oh.

0:16:09 Tom: But 100, this has been my exact experience hiring any kind of contractor to do anything. It's like it's it's, they're good at being contractors, and then they also think they will be good at running a business, but they literally are the worst at running, running a business ever, ever, 100% of the time, with no exceptions to any contractor I have ever. I remember trying to get a chimney repaired on the first house and I never got it repaired. People didn't show up. People just would like, they'd come out. I'll start it on Thursday. Then they never show up on Thursday and some other guy shows up to get back to you with a quote. They never get back.

0:16:14 Thomas: It's the worst yeah

0:16:15 Eli: For sure yep nope

0:16:27 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:16:38 Eli: Text

0:16:51 Tom: It's like they know how to repair chimneys, but have absolutely no idea what goes into running the business at all and you're like that's fine just hire someone to do it, I

0:16:55 Thomas: I think demand is so high in California, I thought I was just that everyone had so much, much business, they didn't give a fuck, which I was like, yeah, all right. I get it. I probably wouldn't, wouldn't give up either. But then you're just in this powerless position of like, all right. But this guy was like yeah, so just text me your address and all the details.

0:17:07 Tom: Think that's part of it too

0:17:17 Thomas: Yeah. He said, text me address and the details, why didn't we start there? Why did I have to call?

0:17:16 Eli: Me, God, text me that's how, I need you to answer the phone, hi text me the address and all the details wheels

0:17:24 Tom: Yeah

0:17:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and I was just like, well, I'm not doing that. I'm sorry. That interaction was so bad. I was like, I'll just, my trees are gonna die. I don't care. I'll find another guy or the tree will fall on my house. I literally would rather a tree fall on my house than talk to that guy a single time ever again. So that's, that's what's going to happen.

0:17:32 Eli: Yeah and I, I will say, as someone who runs a business that people have to call on a pretty regular basis because of the magic show I used to run in New York, I guarantee you 95% of the business I ever got was just that I can hold a competent phone call right so I do a whole thing there's a Google uh service which is what I use for the magic show and so there's like like a little, you've reached a taste of magic. And by the time people get on the phone with me, they're already halfway to Disneyland. They got a big commercial giant -sized lollipop in their mouth. By the time I get on and I do my stupid half -interested hello, they're all going to be like, they're in a land of wonder and adventure. I paid Google to make a robot that did that for me.

0:17:55 Thomas: Yeah. Nice. There you go. It's so annoying. Like if that guy had paid a robot to just be like, hi, this is Sam's lawn care. I'm going to get your fucking sprinklers. Anything, the slightest effort. I would have felt like, oh, this is great. This guy actually gives you.

0:18:27 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:38 Eli: Especially if he had said, fuck, it's the opening message. Hey, welcome to Sam's fucking sprinklers. Will we raw dog your lawn till it's nice and wet and you're just like, wow.

0:18:40 Thomas: Yeah,

0:18:43 Tom: You You Could actually hear the toothpick in his mouth that he's chewing while he's talking to you. Yeah.

0:18:55 Thomas: Yeah. Well, okay. We nailed that patron question. Should we?

0:18:59 Tom: Yeah.

0:18:58 Eli: We got it. Alright. I hope that's a good answer for ya.

0:19:01 Thomas: So anyway, should I let my tree die? Like for real? I don't think I should let two trees die. Here's conundrum. The I was telling you about, they say, hey, don't water your lawn. We're in a drought. But they do say water your trees. So now I'm like, well, what if I water my trees by watering my lawn?

0:19:04 Eli: No.

0:19:19 Eli: This definitely the no I'm not parking because I'm just dropping off scenario. All over again, you gotta, if you're gonna water anything, you gotta water the trees, and then if you don't water the tree, you gotta let them die, die, um.

0:19:33 Thomas: That All right.

0:19:33 Eli: You should use this opportunity to punish your children. Right? You should, be whatever's going on at home, you should be like, oh, Arlo, um, you know, if you watch too much TV that the tree outside dies, you know that, right, kid? And just as it starts to gray, just be like, I guess we didn't need to watch Toy Story one, two, three, then.

0:19:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:50 Eli: Three, two, one. Huh, buddy. But watch Neverending Story so he has a real anthropomorphic relationship with the tree beforehand, get a horse out there, you can put in some quicksand.

0:19:51 Thomas: Toy Story 3, 2, 1.

0:20:05 Tom: I would let the tree die, 100. Yeah.

0:20:06 Thomas: But it's a between. Hold on. It's on the like property line between neighbor like my me and my neighbor. It's a very big, beautiful tree. And you're telling me you just give up that that space. Again, I want to emphasize the sign said water your trees like because trees for some reason in a drought, I think because it keeps the fucking ground together, maybe. They're like, you do need to keep your trees in the drought, but you don't want to keep your lawn. So I don't know.

0:20:13 Tom: Yeah.

0:20:30 Tom: As a, as a guy who lives in the Great Lakes basin, I don't, like, I've never had to water anything. That's a bizarre

0:20:36 Eli: Check

0:20:35 Thomas: Well, that's a very different thing then.

0:20:39 Tom: Idea. You know, but I, I know what I would do and that's because I'm too lazy to water the tree, like, I'm not saying it's the right or wrong thing. I just know I'd, one day I'd look out and be like, I'm supposed to water that, as it's creaking to a shot.

0:20:40 Eli: Your water privilege, Tom. Yeah. Yeah. No

0:20:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I know. So these two trees, he said, yeah, you got a lot of those every fucking day, basically. But the oak tree. So we're going to lose an oak tree because of.

0:20:57 Tom: Every day. No way. There's no way. No yeah.

0:20:59 Eli: If I had to water my son every day, I don't think I would do it. Yeah.

0:21:01 Tom: Make a Thomas, make a dining room table out of it, fuck. That every day, every day, this,

0:21:06 Eli: Right.

0:21:09 Thomas: Well, OK. OK, what I was going to say, though, is that there's an oak tree that's dying, too. And that's worse because he was like, you got to do that one once a week for like an hour. That's impossible. That can't be done. If I have to do something every day, I will set a routine, you or like I'll figure out how the fucking machine works to like auto do the whatever.

0:21:30 Tom: Is too much work.

0:21:30 Eli: Sure. Nope.

0:21:31 Thomas: But for once a weak for like in our I have two soak the ground around this.

0:21:31 Tom: No no dude.

0:21:35 Thomas: Oh, I can't do that.

0:21:36 Eli: Nope.

0:21:36 Tom: Fuck.

0:21:36 Thomas: That's not.

0:21:36 Tom: That shit. Fuck that baby panda ass goddamn tree that can't figure out how to survive. Fuck. It, it either eats the eucalyptus or it dies.

0:21:41 Thomas: Oh, yeah. This hundred -year -old oak tree, majestic, beautiful oak tree.

0:21:46 Eli: It's hey, it's

0:21:44 Tom: Yeah. Well, you know, what, it it had a good run.

0:21:46 Eli: Probably racist. It's probably a racist tree in

0:21:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:21:51 Thomas: You know what? You're right. It probably is a racist.

0:21:53 Eli: The name. Yeah. Kovat denier, right?

0:21:53 Tom: Is it a white oak?

0:21:57 Thomas: White's only oak, yeah. COVID.

0:21:58 Eli: All, its stories are probably boring. I

0:22:02 Thomas: If I could ask it, it would probably be like, you know, you actually don't need water. That's government telling you.

0:22:09 Tom: All right so we do want to do a question all

0:22:11 Thomas: Question two.

0:22:12 Eli: Yeah, let's get to a question.

0:22:14 Tom: Right. All so, right, this one is from Danilo, maybe, probably mispronouncing that. Those of you who grew up poor, did you, and do you fear slipping back into poverty and how your kids would adapt to their new environment? Not just the loss of material security, but also what they may have to do or become in order to survive. I grew up in Baltimore, where The Wire was set. It is a big fear of mine. Eli, do you want to go first? I think as poverty,

0:22:15 Eli: Mm. -hmm I, was gonna say, take it away, gentlemen. You don't have to to pretend, Tom, yeah.

0:22:42 Tom: I don't want to pretend I grew up in poverty the way that I think somebody who grew up into Baltimore. My three jobs to make sure that we didn't experience the worst effects of poverty. So as a kid growing up, I didn't know that I knew how precarious our financial situation really was until I was much, much older. And it was fairly precarious. So will say that I think I'm sure, Eli, you worry about this, too. Like, I am all the time still like I don't feel like short of like crazy billionaire money. I don'T feel like any amount of today's security buys you a hell of a lot of tomorrow's security. So it is a worry of mine for

0:23:25 Eli: I mean I might

0:23:28 Thomas: Are you worried about for you or for your kids?

0:23:29 Tom: Me and the kids. For, yeah, me and the kids. I'm keenly aware of how quickly events like medical events, car accidents, things like that can slip out of your control and, you know, within a handful of minutes, change all of your planning and disrupt the entire financial future you've sort of... yourself, I think, on a trajectory, and it assumes that nothing bad happens to disrupt that trajectory, but I, I also have seen in my life, with family members and other things, I've seen bad things happen to people that deeply disrupts that trajectory, and and they don't ever financially recover despite having made very good decisions for 20 or 25 years prior. So it is something that I do worry about, and I do think

0:23:30 Thomas: Okay. Right. Right.

0:24:11 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. People are like, okay, if I die, I'm set, right? And I'm like, okay, that's a good first step, but like, what if you get hurt and can't work anymore, like, what then? Uh, and the answer is most people don't have a plan for that. Hey, big shout out to Policy Genius, who did not sponsor this episode, who hooked your boy up with disability insurance. So everyone gets a raise, and I get wheeled around to whatever events I enjoy at that point. I mean, I talk for a living, so it would have to be a long hill covered in thorns.

But in all seriousness, like, that is, uh, because of the experience I had as a kid of watching my dad's business go under, um, have, have spent a lot of my life very, very scared of that happening to my family, especially once Max was born. So, and it was almost funny because when Anna and I were like, okay, we're ready to have kids, I literally made us wait until my disability insurance came into effect, because they were like, oh, we can get you for 2020, but we can't get you for 2019. And we were like, ready to start trying, and I was like, we should really wait until 2020. I don't want

0:24:19 Thomas: You That's been my plan. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Yeah wow.

0:25:24 Tom: Yeah.

0:25:24 Eli: To wait, um, so yeah, I mean, I, I, yeah, it's probably not. I, that all the time, also, because I'm incredibly bad with money, like I talk about how bad I am, and that's, that is funnier, so I tend to emphasize that. But like, I have put a tremendous amount of time and effort into being like, hey, how do I make it so I can never fuck up my family's finances? I don't have credit cards. Right?

0:25:24 Tom: That's good.

0:25:26 Thomas: No, that's not good.

0:25:48 Eli: Like, that's a great example, is like, once I got, with, I remember very clearly, I was with Anna for a couple of years, and like I don't even remember what it was, I had like a slightly overdue credit card bill, and I got a fee or something, and I just canceled the card because I was like, this is how debt begins. And so, to, to this day, now I miss out on all the cool miles and shit that you guys get, because I walk up with my charge card like an eighth grader who's learning to use their allowance properly, and I'm like, hello, please decline this if I don't have the proper amount of money, good sir.

0:25:48 Thomas: Oh yeah.

0:26:23 Tom: Please

0:26:23 Eli: And that. Yeah. Um, I think about Max's preschool and child care. We were talking off air the other day about like how expensive it is to have full-time child care, and how lucky we are to do that, and how it's almost, it is unfair, because it then enables us to make more money, which allows us to have the child care, but like, if you don't have money at the beginning of that cycle, you're just completely fucking, fucking fucked. Yeah.

0:26:24 Thomas: Wow.

0:26:24 Tom: Decline this,

0:26:44 Thomas: Yeah you it's funny. I think I probably grew up the poorest of all. I'm not sure. It's hard to say. I don't know why I'm saying of all of us. Tom, which one?

0:26:58 Eli: It's my, it's between you two.

0:27:00 Thomas: So the funny thing is, I don'T worry about this at all, really. Don't know why. I'm trying to think of why that is. For one, so, okay, so growing up, we, I had hand -me -down everything. There were, God, also there was like, And another family that we were friends with, my brother was friends with them, you know, a son in that family that was his age, and et cetera, et cetera. And one day they, they just, I have no idea what the conversation was or how this happened or what the details were, because I was a little kid. But one day, they just gave us like several boxes of their old shit. And it was like manna from heaven.

It was like there were toys in there that I was like, we never would have had. I think it's that they knew we were so fucking deprived that they just were like, hey, just give them all the old shit you guys are you've had so much fun with and you have, you know, two times newer stuff that, you know, you already don't care about. So we'll just give the Smith family your old shit and like clothes and stuff. And that was like a significant chunk of anything I ever had that was any good was like that one box that one time that this other family gave us. So that sucked. Did you ever just get boxes of stuff from other families?

0:27:00 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:18 Eli: Who's the best day of your childhood no, no, I didn't. You got hand-me-downs and also hand you down, Thomas.

0:28:19 Thomas: Or? Yeah. Yeah. Hand-me-downs and hand-a-crosses. Hand -hand -me. Yeah.

0:28:23 Eli: Yeah. Hand -be-downs are supposed to come from family, not strangers who like purse their lips as they back away from the box that they leave on your doorstep.

0:28:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. But the Toys, I remember seeing the toys in there and just being like, this is a foreign land that I've entered. We had no possibility of getting this quality of toy. We had a few things. Things I'm very thankful for the number of Legos we had because I fucking love Legos still. Do that Was fun. So, you know, but I'll say as a kid, though, as I've said many times, you kind of normalize anything. So even though I was aware, especially getting a little bit older, I was away that we had no fucking money and my parents were so, furthermore, I don't even know how poor we are versus just how cheap my parents work. I actually don't know. There was a point where my brother said, said that my dad was sitting on a fucking pile of snake gold or whatever. Um, he my brother was under.

0:28:33 Eli: Sure.

0:28:46 Tom: Lego's a bomb. Right.

0:29:13 Tom: He found it in the cave or whatever that was in the property pretty

0:29:15 Eli: Yeah.

0:29:14 Thomas: Yeah, my brother was under the impression that my Dad probably died with like a decent nest egg of stuff like, and I actually believe it. Like, he was so cheap that maybe it was just the cheapness and it wasn't that we were poor. Like, he would put this way. I wouldn't put it past my dad to be completely willing to deprive us of absolutely everything, not because we didn't have money, but because he was like, oh, I could save a little more money by not buying them anything ever of all time. So I actually think that's what happened. And time I felt it, the only Time where it actually was, was pretty rough was after I graduated high school. I didn't know. I think I've told the story where my parents wanted me to go to the fucking Catholic cult school and they just were pressuring me to do it. And I, I, but I have no idea why I had the the willpower to not go. Cause I almost was like, all right, fucking I'll go to the thing.

But I think my brother helped, cause he was like, you don't want to go to this goddamn cult religious school, you know, cause he was six years older. So I think he had the perspective on, like, hey, this is, you'd be a fucking Catholic dork over

0:29:16 Tom: Yeah yeah yep

0:29:41 Eli: Right. Mm hmm. Right,

0:30:18 Thomas: There. Like, come on.

0:30:19 Eli: You're gonna turn into a weirdo.

0:30:20 Thomas: Yeah. And that helped. Cause I, you Know, I looked up to my brother for everything. So, I think that helped a little bit, but I came up with a deal with my parents. I was like, alright, I'll apply to that. That was the rule. They're like, you have to apply to that school. But also, you know, you can apply to any private school because, as we said in the college episode, they just were under the impression that that was like what it had to be, like, it had to be a private school.

Otherwise it was a waste of time and I've sucked and shouldn't even go, which is the insane. I don't know if that was their way of trying to steer me toward the religious school or what. So I got into, where I eventually ended up going, was University of the Pacific, which has a private school in Stockton. It's a pretty decent school, but it was way too expensive. I had no concept of what any of this meant.

Like, picture Eli right now, that was like my mentality. I was just clueless as to what money was and how much of it because you're a kid, you know, I don't know what, you know, $36,000 a year means. By the way, now with inflation and over the years, I think that school is like $60,000 a year, but like, it was $36,000 a year when I started. And the time I really felt it was I got into that school. I wanted to go. And then they did the FAFSA thing. I don't know if it's at every state

0:30:22 Eli: Ha ha ha ha. Yeah,

0:31:34 Thomas: Or just California. Yeah, so FAFsa. Oh, yeah, because it's federal. That's right. It's one of the Fs. It's at least one of them. It's just one of these Fs and was like, well, here's what your parents can afford. It's like, you know, $10,000 a year. My dad was like, no, we either cannot afford or fuck that one or the other one way or the other. What my parents were going to give me was, I think, like $1,500 a year, $2,500 at most a year is nothing insignificant amount. And then for that whole summer picture, I've just graduated high school. I'm trying to figure out my future. And that whole summer, I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I can't. I was like what? I always was told I have to go to college. I'm supposed to go. I already visited University of the Pacific. Like I went there to visit. I liked it. I was ready to go and then my parents were like, you don't we can't afford this and I just was like, I don't know what's happening. Like we don't have apparently

0:31:34 Eli: No, we had FAFSA too, yep.

0:31:35 Tom: Yep it's bam, no

0:31:49 Eli: Ha ha. Yeah. Right,

0:31:49 Tom: Right

0:32:28 Thomas: Don't Have the money.

0:32:28 Eli: What do we do?

0:32:29 Thomas: Yeah, I've never been so clueless and I was only bailed out by the fact that like I think they sent me an update that I got another scholarship or grant or something because cause that's what these fucking, in retrospect, these institutions do. They charge a billion dollars. They grant just enough in quote unquote, you know, grants or whatever, so that you still pay whatever. And it was enough to where like, my mom was like, all right, I think we can make this work with student loans. Um, she, I remember her telling me like, I'll take out a credit card was what she told me. She was like, I'll see if I can take out a card. And as a kid, I was like, what does that mean? Take out a car credit card for me to to go to college in retrospect, she was like, maybe willing to do this, you know, credit to my mom, she really did, I fight my dad on this

0:32:47 Tom: Yeah.

0:33:02 Eli: Right, yeah.

0:33:09 Tom: As I say Like that sounds great. Actually, like all of that sounds like kind of, I don't know, because like

0:33:11 Eli: Yeah.

0:33:10 Thomas: Yeah. No, my mom really did want me to, she, she was really pulling for me in this moment and she said she was going to take our credit card, which would have been insane, putting $10,000 on a credit card with our income, like that would've killed them, I think, but fortunately we got it done and so it bailed me out of the one, one time in my life I had to be worried about my future. Like I've, I've been so privileged. Like I've never really worried that much except that one summer. I was just like, I don't know what I do with my life. Am I stuck here in meth lab, Angels Camp, California for my future? Like, is that where I'm staying?

Mind you, I also told you, sorry, I'll stop talking in a minute, but I think I already told you guys this. My dad would not have let me stay at the house. Like, it would have been, he, I was out at the end of the summer one way or the the other, either college or he would just kick me out, so like it was a, it was a real month of uncertainty, or whatever, summer is two months, yep.

0:33:14 Tom: Right Yeah.

0:34:00 Eli: That Yeah. Actually happened to my dad. But without the happy ending, he got into Duke or no, he Got into Notre Dame for football, which was like a huge deal. And he also got into ECU and ECU gave him the full ride. And Duke Notre Dame, whichever one it was, gave him like a 75% scholarship. And his dad was like, I have $0. I have zero dollars.

0:34:22 Tom: Right.

0:34:22 Eli: They didn't pay ride down to East Carolina, and to buy a one -way ticket, and they were like, earn some money or we'll never see you again. That's why he ended up going to East Caroline University, is that whatever that 75% did not cover it, and we had to Do it, it, and yeah, same thing for me too, also, when I, that's, I, exactly, my mom offered to take out a credit card and then we went to a leprechaun, um, he fought us for it, and that's uh, we all had the same going to college experience you

0:34:21 Thomas: Yeah

0:34:30 Tom: Yeah.

0:34:54 Tom: But well yeah

0:34:55 Thomas: But what the weird thing is, after all that, I'm the one person I'm not worried about it, like I'm not worried about, go ahead

0:35:03 Tom: But, but have you ever been personally broke? Like, I mean, like, broke, broke. Like, can't pay the rent, bouncing checks for groceries, that kind of thing. Like, because,

0:35:04 Thomas: Um me I so went right out of college, my first job, I, I had almost nothing and I moved into a very, very poor area to get by. Rent was, this is so insane to think about, rent was five hundred dollars a month in in California in 2009.

0:35:30 Tom: My God. My first apartment was over nine. Yeah.

0:35:34 Thomas: That that's how poor this area was.

0:35:34 Tom: Wow. Wow.

0:35:35 Eli: Did you move into a knife that was stabbing you of

0:35:39 Tom: Like, were the walls made entirely out of heroin needles?

0:35:43 Thomas: It Yes, They were made out of, of fucking... cockroaches, actually. That was, I, it's a stereotype, but for real, there's like roaches everywhere. It was so bad that I didn't even set up the apartment really, like I was just like, all right, this is where I have to go. Again, because my dad was just like, you're gone, or figure out whatever. And so I was like, well, I immediately have to rent the first place, cheapest place I can find, because I have no money, I haven't started the job yet, I don't have any, I don't have any money, you know. And so I, yeah, it's, it was the, it was very interesting. I I had to do that for about six months. And then I moved into a place that was like $1,200 a month. And it was a castle to me. I was like, I can't even believe it.

0:35:43 Eli: Crime rhyme.

0:35:58 Tom: Right.

0:36:19 Eli: Look at these floors! I'm sorry, this toilet flushes? Like, by itself?

0:36:25 Tom: Oh, it's only, it only rains outside when there's weather. That's not. Yeah. Growing up, like it was just my dad and my dad's income. And then my dad had a heart attack when I was in a, in a and not a small one. Like I think I mentioned before, like he had it in the hospital, had he not, he would have died. And so He, and he had his own business at the time. He had a sign company, a little franchise sign company called Fast Signs. And like his heart attack, he just, and this is the part that stuck with me. And I was a young man. I was only 18, give or take, 19, something like that, if was that old. And so when this happened, my dad had this big, giant heart attack. He nearly died. And then he wasn't disabled, but he couldn't do the work anymore.

The work was just too physically strenuous, and he would just get too tired, and you just couldn't go back to work. And so he lost the store, and he lost everything, and and he barely was making things, making it by to start with. And so like I watched him and I, I watched my dad go from being pretty solidly middle class until I was about 13. And then he, you know, he took a big gamble and he opened a sign company and it never really pay off for him. And then he had this great big heart attack and then he never financially recovered. And so my dad, then his whole life had to work, you odd jobs and multiple jobs and just do whatever he could, to just try to keep things afloat and thankfully his his or partner or whatever, um,

0:36:28 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

0:37:52 Tom: She does what's acquaint. She, she's always been good enough to to help keep us all afloat, like, financially. She does well, and so she has, in many times, been our, our sort of savior, financially, that's

0:37:52 Eli: Casual acquaintance, Tom, please.

0:38:03 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:38:01 Eli: Sugar Mama. Why they meet up once a week, that's what she's willing to pay for, but

0:38:06 Thomas: Yeah. If your dad actually loathes her? Like just doesn't even.

0:38:09 Tom: But I just oh, he does not he does not but

0:38:12 Eli: Once a week, once a weak, he goes to town, if you know what I'm saying, she pays for four hours she gets four hours, not a minute longer

0:38:20 Tom: I I've been, I've been flush, and I've been broke, and I have oscillated between them, like I've, I've worked in real estate since I was, I mean, for over 20 years, and like the the market has boomed and it has busted. And And I've had times in my life where I wasn't sure if I was going to get evicted from my place, and I was bouncing checks for groceries, and you're, you in to your fucking ex -mother -in -law's old house to try to, like, keep a roof over your head, to doing well. Like, I feel like with that, with my dad's experience, like I see how it can all just go away. Like

0:38:59 Thomas: Well, OK, so that's what I wanted to talk about is the things you guys talked about worrying about are things where for me, the money isn't an additional worry. So I am terrified that something's going to happen to Lydia or something's gonna happen to the kids. Like at all times, that's my biggest fear in the world is that something is going to have to them. And, you know, something could happen to me, et cetera, you knows, whatever. That could be a bankrupting thing, a serious medical thing. But for me, I don't know why. Like, for one, I actually is anxious as I am about certain things in certain ways, I'm actually pretty good at not worrying about that kind of thing. Like I'm not worried because my mentality is always like, yeah, man, if fucking I get struck by lightning, I get stuck by lightning, like that's going to fucking suck, you know, I'm able to kind of not worry about those catastrophes. And for the things I'm very worried about, the worst thing about it has nothing to do with money. Like I'm just devastated if anything's

0:39:50 Tom: Yeah, I think I know the answer, though.

0:39:52 Thomas: Happened to my family, so I guess for that reason, like money just isn't you think about, like, what if I, you know, accidentally just to trip and become a Turf, you know, Like, I just fall, I'm carrying a bunch of stuff, and I'm like, "Oh," and then I just become a TERF online. It's just, I think that's how it happens. It was just an accident. I'm pretty sure.

0:40:01 Eli: Based on our community, it appears to be how it happens once

0:40:11 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. No, no, wait, hold on. Let me rephrase. What if someone on the left is like kind of mean to me online and then I have to become a Nazi? Cause like one time.

0:40:22 Thomas: Yeah. One, Oh, what am I going to be on the side of someone who was kind of me to me on line? Like, so it gotta be a Nazi. So if I ever accidentally do those things, then my, you know, this career goes away or whatever, or or I have to rebrand and see if I can make it in the right wing world but no, we all know I wouldn't actually do that, as as uh lucrative as it would be, um, I always figure like, well, I know I was really good at the state, and I'm pretty sure I could still find some of those people who remember how good I was at my job there and get a job, you know, like it would suck, but I don't know, I don't, for some reason I'm trying to to figure out

0:40:19 Eli: Yeah right it's the only option, yeah let's be serious, yeah

0:40:21 Tom: But that's how it works, yeah yeah

0:40:39 Eli: Yeah

0:40:59 Thomas: Why it is that I just don't worry about these things.

0:41:00 Tom: But I but I think I haven't, I know, at least I can, I'll speak for myself, but maybe this will resonate with you too, Eli, I think, Tom, is part of it is that you're not the only financial motor in your boat. So in my household, if everything goes tits up for me, there's no secondary income. Walking up the stairs tomorrow and I fall and I hit my head and I'm out of commission for six months, my family suffers. There's no other income coming in. That's it. Everything overnight. I think maybe this may feel similar for you, Eli. I don't know. But 100% of the financial responsibility of the household is exclusively my responsibility and

0:41:41 Thomas: So, I both grant entirely that the legitimacy of that point, but I also am virtually a hundred percent certain that's not why I feel the way I do because I, in my mind, that's still true, even though it's not because you know me, like, and Tom, I think we're the same way with the self -reliance thing where like in my head, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. It's like, it's like a, it doesn't my mind. And it's probably unfair to Lydia, but even just now, as I was talking, I was envisioning that I am the responsible for everybody at all times.

0:42:05 Thomas: You know what I mean? Even though like I'm not.

0:42:06 Tom: Lydia's

0:42:05 Eli: Me meanwhile Lydia's in her new corner office for the she just got a raise in a promotion, and she's like, oh, look at, look at Thomas getting ready to work at the state again

0:42:10 Thomas: Absolutely.

0:42:07 Tom: Not listening to this episode like, god damn it I contribute, she's yeah she's like breaking out her W -2 and slapping you in the face with it tonight, she's gonna, she's gotta peg you with her tax returns

0:42:17 Eli: Yeah

0:42:22 Thomas: This is all completely legitimate, but also I hope you guys will take me at my word that that's my mentality because I'm insane. So that's not the reason I don't worry about it. I'm trying to figure out what it is, but how about for you, Eli? Is that, do you think that's why you worry about a lot?

0:42:23 Tom: No I, I hear you yeah

0:42:37 Eli: It's it is my mentality as well. The other thing is, and as Tom was talking, like, I had to admit because I was like, yeah, me too, Tom, and then I was like, well, I could always call mom, and so that that kind of took a damper off my tragedy because, like, the poorest I have ever been, right, just eventually tucked my tail between my legs and was like, hey, I'm real poor right now, and my my family was like, come on, man, jeez, ah, you suck, look at you, because I, I was literally doing, not that much, but it was way more than I would guess a lot of people's families could do with an exasperated sigh, certainly more than anyone on this podcast could do.

0:42:47 Thomas: On cutting a check for like $400,000. All right.

0:43:23 Tom: Yeah

0:43:23 Eli: And I was doing, I was in between, I've told this before that the poorest I ever was is I was in between a show that I was doing and the next semester of college, and over the summer, I had had no income, so I decided I was gonna street perform for like money for food, so yeah so I did, and like I was really really poor when I was doing that, but then the fall came in and the the job didn't come back, and I was like, well, I can't street perform all day from 10 a.m to 6 p.m and also attend classes, so I called my mom, and I said, hey, and they were like, what, we'll buy you a, Emil, how long have you been doing this? And I was like, three and a half months. And they were like, what? And then they were like, your bootstraps fucking suck, man. What is the matter

0:43:40 Tom: You did mention that

0:43:41 Thomas: Oh yeah.

0:44:09 Tom: Get back

0:44:15 Thomas: She was like, wait, but you've been tipping everybody really well in this time, right? That'd be the only thing that could have been worse.

0:44:15 Tom: In the hammock, Bosnick

0:44:21 Eli: With you? 20%, right? Yeah. But yeah, so that, yeah, I also fear that. I'll tell you, here's a great example of the fear. I go to a magic convention every year. I used to sell light up thumbs. That was the job that I did eventually get to support myself. And then they put me into management, and then accidentally promoted me too high, and then gave me a bunch of money when I became a podcast. And that story is fantastic because that's just me truly falling into success way, way harder than I ever should have. But the job that I was good at before they accidentally promoted me is I sold magic thumbs in FAO Schwartz. And to this day, when I go to a magic shop, if they are selling magic thumbs, I buy a pair because in my head, I'm like, well, you never know when podcasting is going to end.

0:45:02 Thomas: You got to keep up with the latest magic thumb tech. You're like, I got to get the new iThumb10.

0:45:03 Eli: So yes, I might have to go. Yes,

0:45:05 Tom: All Right, your your Backup plan is magic thumbs. This is your this It may as well be magic beans, Eli.

0:45:07 Eli: Literally my backup plan. I, I have six pairs of untouched magic thumbs because I think 35 year old Eli, who looks like, you descending down from the all you can eat buffet mountain Sinai is gonna be as good at selling magic thumbs as 19 year old Eli was so I

0:45:31 Thomas: I gotta ask you guys this because it's kind of related, do you think you have any like inheritance, okay, I don't know why I asked the same question to both of you for Tom, do you think you're going to be able to, do you have some sort of inheritance coming your way ever, for Eli, how many mansions do you thing you will be able to buy with your inheritance?

0:45:40 Eli: Was gonna say,

0:45:41 Tom: Yeah.

0:45:50 Eli: Let's just say this, the recording schedule might space out a bit if Lizzy R ever goes or maybe we podcast whenever the fuck I feel like it in a few years.

0:45:55 Thomas: Wow, wow,

0:46:00 Tom: Lee Bennett Hopkins Awards pay. That's all I know is they fucking pay. Have something. Yeah, for sure. Sure. And again, I credit where it's due, my family's financial stability and well -being is is just inextricably tied to my dad's partner. Like she has bailed us all out more than once. She's you know, she does.

0:46:02 Eli: That's right, get those stickers.

0:46:20 Thomas: I I don't know, I think my theory is correct on this one. Oh,

0:46:25 Tom: Yeah, she she's she's saved all of our asses at some point. She saved my ass. At one point, I found myself in 2008 in real estate at the bottom of the largest recession created by a real estate exploded bubble. My income, yeah, I had a house. I had a baby. I lost 60 % of my income in 45 days. And I had no idea how I was going to get by. Um, and so, you know, there, there were times in my life that I was like, I, I don't know. Like there were, there are times in MyLife. There were more than one time in Mylife where my car would break and I'd be like, I just, I can't fix it. It's I will leave it there and it's just there now. And that's just, and

0:46:38 Thomas: Yeah, hey, that's right when I graduated college. Oh, wow, yeah,

0:47:09 Eli: Gotta go by yourself a new one, yeah, I, I know I've been there too, Tom. And it was, it was hard because the Toyota lot was actually pretty far. Um, and I Ubered obviously, but it was an Uber pool and, um, God, I, I just remember sitting next to that other person and thinking like, no one, no, no one has it worse than me.

0:47:11 Tom: So yeah. Thanks. Thanks.

0:47:28 Thomas: Yeah. Trying to sell them a magic thumb. Um, yeah. Yeah.

0:47:24 Tom: But you know, but I will say like, I am not afraid of being broke personally. Like Tom, like if I'm broke, I'd be like, yeah, all right. But I am afraid of everybody else becoming broke because of me. Like, That is the thing. Like if I become broke, I'll just be like yeah, right. Well, I'll live in a shitty apartment and I'll eat fucking ramen. I've eaten ramen noodles before. I know what it's like to subsist on cup of noodles seven days a week. I have done it. I can do it. It doesn't make me happy, but it doesn't change who I am as a person. But I I look around at all the people who are blissfully unaware of like the financial engine that it takes to run a household of our size. And I'm just like, I don't ever, they never need to be exposed to this. Like,

0:47:40 Thomas: Yeah. You'll

0:47:46 Eli: Yeah. Yeah,

0:48:19 Tom: I DON'T ever want them to feel like that.

0:48:20 Eli: Yeah,

0:48:20 Thomas: Well, that's for sure. I I've never, those stories when I was a kid never made sense because my parents didn't give a shit about us in a, in that kind of way. But now as, as a you father, I am 100 of the mindset of like, oh, I would do anything, like if I lost my job and Lydia lost her, her job or whatever, it'd be like, okay, I'm ubering, uh, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm all right. I'm picking up the first job I can. I'm doing the fucking gig economy every other hour after that. And I have to do for the kids to not, you be worried or know anything about that. Like I would do anything. But,

0:48:38 Tom: It's sex work all day. It'S just sex work. Work.

0:48:50 Tom: Scares me about that is not my ability to make money. I know that, I know, that I have, I have the constitution as far as work is concerned, but if I do that, the toll it takes on relationships and on your health.

0:48:54 Thomas: Is it the time?

0:49:05 Eli: Yeah.

0:49:03 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, totally. As I was saying that, I was just realizing like, yeah, the hard part would be not being able to see your kids as much.

0:49:11 Tom: So I've done it. Like I know what it, I what it feels like to work 70, 80 80 hours a week and do that for two or three years. And I know the toll that that takes on your body. I know that all it takes on every relationship in your life. It's not small. Like it's like, it's fucking physically damaging to you.

0:49:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:29 Tom: So like, yeah, I can, I can keep food on the table and keep the lights burning. But like, am I still going to have like a loving family at the end of that? I don't know.

0:49:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:36 Eli: I right. And in, and in all seriousness, when dad's business went under, there was a period of actual hardship. Again, it's funnier for me to pretend there wasn't, but there was. And I remember because my dad was a middle school teacher after, so he was on a middle-school teacher's salary. And then to try to still have us have nice things, dad tried working overnight shifts running a laundry for a friend of his. So he was, he was working in the morning like a regular teacher's job, and then at night he would do overnight shift basically managing this industrial laundry that washed the clothing for camps, um, again, it, like, exhausted him and completely drained him. And eventually, we, we, me and my mom basically had an intervention where we were like, hey, we think this is killing you, we will cut, cut back on whatever we needed to cut back on so that you can have, you one job.

0:50:18 Tom: Yeah. Yep.

0:50:29 Thomas: I'll buy a hundred fewer magic thumbs a month. So, I, the funny thing about the inheritance thing is I have, this is the one part where I think me and my brother kind of diverge a little bit. I have never had any mindset that I was getting fucking anything from my parents ever. And I think you could probably see why I've never thought about it, but then, right.

0:50:31 Eli: Right, exactly. I'll buy less magic thumbs.

0:50:32 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, because they'd rather fucking bury it in a cave full of snakes than give it to you guys.

0:50:55 Thomas: Well, Well, I think that some amount of it. So the other day, though, my brother was saying he was like, yeah, our mom blew through the inheritance. And I was like what blew through what?

0:51:03 Tom: Oh, no, that's a bullshit way of thinking.

0:51:06 Thomas: Yeah. And he's like, yeah, I know blue blew through all the inheritance and like, you know, my sister's probably mad because she thought she was going to get some of that or something. And I was like, what is any, first off, I, this is a, it was like an alien telling me a four dimensional thought. I was, like, I don't know. This is, what, is any of this? Because I never would consider it. But she, I guess, probably spent, A, some of it to, the end of life care of my dad. I think that, did that take a toll. I mean, he had, yeah, I know.

0:51:30 Tom: Well, I can't believe they used their money to care for him

0:51:33 Thomas: I know, I do.

0:51:32 Eli: No, no.

0:51:33 Thomas: I know believe me, Tom, I'm with you.

0:51:33 Tom: In his waning years. What

0:51:33 Eli: Now, to be fair, I agree that was a waste of money.

0:51:39 Thomas: Yep. Exactly. Exactly. I'll be honest, my dad probably would have felt that way too, but uh

0:51:43 Eli: Yeah, I would have put your dad in a freezer bag. That's what I would've done and just been like, doesn't quite zip shut.

0:51:44 Thomas: Oh it actually, coward as my dad was, he had the mindset of like, oh, I'll just, he'll just go, you know, not be a burden, not whatever. And then when he got into that moment, he was like, no, do everything you can to fucking save me and anyway, she also, it's not just that, it's that, um, he died, she spent a lot, lot of money on herself and the house and stuff like that. And I'm just, I'm exactly like you, Tom. I'm like, yeah, spend all of that. I don't give a fuck.

0:52:02 Eli: Yep, they always do.

0:52:16 Thomas: Like it's your money.

0:52:16 Tom: It's your money.

0:52:18 Thomas: You, especially my mom, like my mom suffered through fucking a hundred years of my dad, spend everything you ever want. I literally don't care if I never get a penny from any of that and I'm not going to get a penny for me, pretty much.

0:52:29 Tom: Also, Isn't she the only one that earned it? Like your

0:52:33 Thomas: Well, so my dad, yeah.

0:52:33 Tom: Dad didn't really work Okay.

0:52:34 Thomas: But he, what, he was the one who was smart with the money and invested, a he deprived his fucking sheer awfulness was the force behind depriving us of everything so that he could save money, uh, know, like Ebenezer Scrooged The family and

0:52:47 Tom: So he was a penny saved a penny earned, and then a penny invested. Gotcha.

0:52:50 Thomas: My mom would have, my mom would have been more like, Eli, just blow at, whatever we have, you know, she was kind of, she, so he was the reason behind that, um, he had some money from when he did work that, I think he had probably invested well, so I think, I think he did probably have like a decent chunk of change. He might've had fucking hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't even know, I, I don't, I've never talked to him about it. Never talked to my mom about it, I have no fucking idea. I don't care. I hope she spends all the money on literally whatever she wants, cause she had to go through all of that. Fuck it. What a weird mindset. Like, I, imagine your mindset would change if you thought like, oh, well, you know, someday my parents will die and I'll just have a bunch of money from that. That. I don't know. I've never had that.

0:52:55 Tom: Right yeah

0:53:29 Eli: Yeah.

0:53:29 Tom: My if my dad were to pass tomorrow, there would be, something like, there wouldn't be a lot but he owns a little condo, and he, I think he owns, uh, he owns his car, I mean, we're not talking like life-changing amounts of money at all here between my brother, myself, and then, and my kids, I know I want things distributed, and my brother's kids. So we're not talking about like, but like if my dad needs literally anything and wants to spend his money on it, I think it's his money. If he wants to, like, take it out back at the in the waning hours, like of his last gasps and just burn it in his grill, I'd be like, neat, man.

0:53:34 Thomas: Mm -hmm. Mm. Yeah.

0:54:07 Thomas: That'd be a little rough.

0:54:08 Eli: We such such

0:54:08 Tom: That's your money. It's not my money. Like, I don't fucking care.

0:54:10 Eli: Different family mindsets. I will give you a a great example, which is that, so my mom and the whole family has always been like, what are you leaving, right? What are you giving to your children, how are you setting up your children. Like the, mind, you are both aliens to me right now so much so that, to the extent I had to raise my voice at my mother, mother, to force, I was like, I'm going to block you on PayPal, because she was non-consensually trying to pay for my son's preschool. She did not believe me that I could afford my son's preschool and so it was just PayPaling me anyway, and I PayPaled her back, I was like, hey, I really want you to have this and like enjoy it and like, remember, I said you could get that coffee subscription, and she was like, no, you must, and so I literally had to call her and raise my voice and be like, you have to stop trying

0:54:25 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, they

0:54:59 Eli: To give me money for my sons, you have to stop, you, I'm gonna block you on PayPal and you can't come visit for Halloween if you don't. But yeah, the sense is always, and, you know, this is actually a little bit tragic, but my dad, his whole life, always talked about like, I want to leave your mother a house by the water, I want your mom to have this, I want your mum to have that when I die. And love my dad, but none of it, none of of it, I, I remember going through his wallet, one of the things I inherited was his wallet, this beautiful leather wallet, and inside was a $700 unpaid power bill, and I was like, oi, my papa, my, but I just called him and I was like, he's dead, and they were like, will you pay it, and I, I was like, no, and they were like, okay, so yeah question we did it. Hey, one question, and one question we asked ourselves that's right, question and answer. So, you know what, maybe we don't need a new thread this month, I think we're all set, all

0:55:39 Thomas: Can't

0:55:49 Tom: One question we got one question we got one question

0:55:55 Thomas: That's why they call it Q and A.

0:56:07 Thomas: Hey, wanted to poke in, as I do from time to time, to tell you, if patreon.com/dearolddads, this is one of those times where you'll have two fresh episodes waiting for you. Only that, you'll also have October's Patreon bonus, which was our QED panel. That and Eli were on that. Unfortunately, no Tom, but there's some delightful other folks who are on it too. It was really good, that's up for patrons right now, so lots of good reasons to join on patreon.com/dearolddads. And if you can't, no worries, I want to ask you once again, please, please share this show. If you have an episode that you, you know, just you're laughing your ass off, or you really enjoy, or you think there's a really good point made, I just think of someone in your life you might want to share it with, and share it với them, we'd really appreciate it. Of mouth is really how podcasts grow these days, unless you have like a multi -million dollar advertising budget, which we don't. So please share it. And thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time.

0:57:09 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.

0:57:48 Eli: We raw dog your lawn till it's nice and wet and