DOD31: Strategic Incompetence

Transcript

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

0:00:27 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that doesn't know how any of this works and refuses to learn. I'm Tom Curry. Too real. Real, I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith, Eli Bosnick. Hello gentlemen.

0:00:34 Thomas: Too real, Tom, too real.

0:00:36 Eli: Hello, my microphone worked right away when we all logged on today.

0:00:44 Tom: Do you have any idea how your microphone works? Eli, between of all the three of us, I don't think you've got a lot of room here.

0:00:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:00:48 Eli: Yes, the goblins in the microphone do an anti-Semitic impersonation of me to the goblins in the Zoom.

0:00:56 Thomas: OK. Peel back the technological curtain because there's a lot of on your high horse from Eli over here. Eli could very easily, very easily have us hear the quality mic that he records into. But no, the way he has it set up. We hear him talking to a tin can plugged into a Commodore 64 plugged into a webcam mic from the nineties. That's what we hear. And then he records with a nicer mic that I get the audio file for. And that's what you all listening here. So just before you get all high and mighty, Eli, just let it be known that we have to suffer through your terrible audio in real time.

0:01:38 Eli: My defense, in my defense, every time someone has tried to show me how to do the thing where you guys would be able to hear the nice thing, it has been more than one step, and so I refuse.

0:01:49 Thomas: I was waiting for what the end of that sentence was going to be because I was like, Eli, it's just one simple step. You're like, no, No, I'm not. I'm Not Doing It.

0:01:55 Eli: Literally, this is plugged into this, if you just plug this into your computer, it's over, you'll never have to do anything again. And I looked sweet, sweet Morgan in the eyes, the windows to his soul, and I was like, no, I'm actually, uh, not gonna do that. I-

0:02:12 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:12 Tom: This is This is seriously the, like, the one of the few times where it's like one simple trick and it fixes it, and you're just like, no. Yeah. What?

0:02:17 Thomas: Yeah. But Eli's like, I'M SORRY. IT NEEDS TO BE FEWER THAN ONE SIMPLE TRICKS.

0:02:22 Eli: Need.

0:02:23 Thomas: IT CAN'T EVEN BE.

0:02:23 Eli: I need. Literally less than one step. Yeah, less than one step. I'm final.

0:02:27 Thomas: NO,

0:02:24 Tom: Do you have that's under one stop. Well, that, Thomas, there's a solution, that the solution is, uh, have to fly out and fix it, we got to fly out and we just got to do it ourselves. That's it.

0:02:31 Eli: Yeah.

0:02:34 Thomas: THAT WAS MY PLAN. AGAIN, THIS IS ALL BEHIND THE CURTAIN STUFF. MY PLANE WAS FLY OUT AND FIX IT. BUT BECAUSE HE RECORDS ON A LAPTOP OR USES A Laptop THAT HE TAKES IN AND OUT. SO I WAS LIKE, OH, EVERY TIME HE DISCONNECTS IT, HE WOULD HAVE TO RECONNECT WHAT I DID. SO THERE'S NO WAY TO, LIKE, I mean, short of me buying him a special yeah like, I might I'm tempted I Will

0:02:34 Tom: Oh. God. I'm buying him a laptop, I'm buy him a laptop, that's it. I'm gonna buy the motherfucker a laptop, done.

0:02:51 Eli: I'll Send you a page from Alienware, I know they have a couple of really good sound laptop, yeah.

0:02:55 Tom: Sold. You Don't need that.

0:03:01 Thomas: I know a lot of people who listen to us work in any sort of tech, and I worked in, you know, a little bit of programming tech side, and there is no end to the number of things in a day-to-day job like that, and in this job, where it's like, oh no, it's super easy if you just do this, it'll be great. It's, you're limited by the end user, you just are, like, and and what, what sucks is everybody will message me now after hearing this. No, you don't understand. You should just... No, sorry, I'm limited by the end user. I cannot do... I know all the things you're going to say. I know every single one of them. Believe you me. Doesn't matter.

0:03:20 Eli: Yeah. What? I, like, is among all of us, the ones who do the most video are Tom and Cecil, with their really beautiful studio, all covered in foam and shit, and so people often assume that I am recording in a similar environment, instead of a closet in my basement, which no longer, all the foam is on the ground now. It's all on the ground. There's a picture of James Taylor so

0:03:43 Thomas: Mm -hmm. Yeah. Because Eli probably didn't know you had to hang it with something. He's like, you just put it on the...

0:04:02 Tom: Because Yeah. What? Why? Is it on the phone? Why is that on the ground? Now, what'd you hang the foam with?

0:04:06 Eli: I

0:04:05 Thomas: Because that involves more than one step. He's, like, all I will do is place it on the wall, but I'm not doing the second step of securing it.

0:04:07 Eli: Yup I I

0:04:07 Tom: Yeah. He just I'll buy The foam, and that's it. I bought the foam. I'm not doing anything other than buying the foam.

0:04:14 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:18 Eli: 3M strips but they stopped being sticky so that's It's over now.

0:04:21 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I recently went... No, this is... Never mind, I was just going to go into podcast talk, nobody cares. Um, I am amazed, though, Eli, that you do this full-time for a living and you not only record in a closet, it's like you had a janitor's closet installed in your house somehow, like, just for fun to make sure it was was a shitty place as could be.

0:04:36 Eli: Yeah. Mm -hmm.

0:04:38 Thomas: Like a mop in there that, yeah.

0:04:38 Tom: It's like What's the opposite of ergonomic, like what is like the least comfortable? Is there like a science of making... Amazon, I think that's it, the science of making work as unpleasant as possible, and you've just taken that sort

0:04:41 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. The idea that this wasn't a murder hutch when we sell this house is going to be impossible to sell. Physically impossible to sale.

0:04:57 Thomas: Yeah. Well on that topic, sort of, kind of.

0:05:02 Tom: Of. I Talk about a subject that that kind of popped up at the end of our last recording, or was at least a corollary to our last recording, and that is the, that is the topic of weaponized incompetence, um, the idea that, um, and you see it a lot, you see this a lot in relationships, um, where Now, I don't weaponize my incompetence, I hire out my competence.

0:05:03 Thomas: Yeah,

0:05:20 Eli: Saw it at the beginning of this podcast. Oh,

0:05:21 Thomas: No, that's just plain. Yeah that's genuine incompetence. I don't know. There's no malice in there.

0:05:30 Tom: There's there's no weaponization.

0:05:30 Eli: I was talking about me, guys. I was telling You. I was saying about me. Mean, Tom tried really hard to get his mic to work for like 45 minutes. I would have just been like, I guess there's no podcast today, guys, bye-bye.

0:05:31 Thomas: Oh, okay. Forever. Eli would have just been like, I guess I'm doing in a new career. All right. Pull out the newspaper. Look at the want ads.

0:05:44 Tom: That's it, I sharpened up my resume, and my mic didn't work one day.

0:05:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:46 Eli: Just Yep. Throw Podcasting away like Tom's dad done with a book, absolutely.

0:05:54 Tom: So weaponized incompetence is a tactic that you see used a lot in all kinds of different relationships. You see it in work relationships, you see it in romantic relationships, You see it all the time where the party weaponizing their incompetence will take a task, a skill, something, and they'll rather than learn how to do it, they will foist that work onto someone else, usually with some like throwaway line like, well, you know, you're just better at this kind of thing or I can't figure that stuff out. Or they'll do it so poorly that the person who is competent throws up their hands and just says, all right, fine, you turn all the fucking laundry pink three times in a row.

I'm just doing the laundry now. And it's a way for people to get the fuck out of work. Like it's a way for people to intentionally not carry the burden of certain responsibilities. And it's this really pervasive, like awful fucking thing that so many people use to like create these imbalances and all kinds of different relational power structures. And you see it a lot from men. Like this is like around household duties and around like parenting responsibilities. Responsibilities, you see this so often in men, you see it so often it's actually a comedic trope, you see

0:06:02 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:07:12 Eli: Yeah.

0:07:12 Tom: Weaponized incompetence all the time, so often that's actually a comedic trope amongst dads, yeah.

0:07:17 Thomas: I... This is one of the the things when I first read it, put into words, I was like, oh my god, yeah, that is so, you see it everywhere. And I think it's particularly disgusting because another thing that I think doesn't get talked about, it that I've mentioned, is it's it's not just weaponizing competence, it's weaponizing the fact that your partner cares more than you do, because it's something involving the child care, involving, you know, that kind of emotional labor.

Men know, and again, not hashtag not all men, sometimes women do this as well, I know, but largely shitty men do this. Men know that if something's wrong with the kids, if something's not done for the kids, for the family, people aren't going to think the husband failed, people will think the wife failed.

So they know, so it's weaponizing that, like, unfair judgment that everybody puts on moms and wives, which is, well, if the kids don't have the right thing, they don't know the right clothes, they didn't permission slip, the blah blah, the dad doesn't get blamed, the mom gets blamed. And so therefore the the dude can weaponize the fact that, like, the buck stops with her, really. And

0:08:20 Thomas: So if he doesn't do it, it's it's not like it doesn't get done, it's like she will be the last person, say in the chain, oh shit, if this doesn't gets done, then that fucking badly on me, so I have to do it.

0:08:19 Tom: No

0:08:29 Eli: Think there's a couple of things that are worth bringing into the conversation here that a lot of men don't understand. The first is, um, is a difference between this and distribution of labor, because a lot of the time weaponized incompetence gets disguised as distribution of labour, right? Like, well, I work all day, so when I come home I need to rest. And it's like, yes, but if that other partner has been home doing child care all day, you have both been doing jobs all day, only one of you gets a break now, right? The other, other thing that think men don't realize is because, because we often put this into the sort of chuckle hut mentality, it, the fact that there are lots and lots of partners, mostly women, who are genuinely miserable because of this. Uh, so my wife listens to a podcast which I love, by the way, which I think was sort of like, is a a great mom's version of of our show, which is One Bad Mother. I don't know if you guys have ever heard it, but it's, yeah, it's these, uh, funny... Now one, but two funny moms,

0:08:39 Thomas: Right oh yeah yeah yeah no oh feel like this is the the crossover that

0:09:32 Eli: Yeah they swear and they they're very honest and they talk about, and they have all this incredible stuff, and uh, when Anna got pregnant she started listening to that show and it really helped her through her pregnancy. One of the things that really helped her was joining their Facebook group, they have an incredible, like, super duper supportive, One one Bad Mother Facebook group, that is, you know, supportive in all the ways that Anna needed. And one of the things that she would show me all the time, was just heartbreaking, is posts about weaponizing competence, right? My husband does this, I am in, I am exhausted from that, I'm dealing with this, and my husband is, you know, letting me do the dishes or leaving a sink full of dishes or not cooking anything for the kids so that I get home, they're screaming and crying,

0:09:28 Tom: Right

0:09:32 Thomas: Needs to happen.

0:10:02 Thomas: Yeah. Oh

0:10:17 Eli: Um, of the segments that they have on their show is a mom having a breakdown, they have like a hotline that you can call if you're in the middle of having a breakdown to just like call and vent, and a bunch of those breakdowns are people who have just been on the other side of really, really weaponized incompetence. And I say that not, not to be a bummer, but also because I I think it's easy as a guy, it's easy as dad to consider this to be part of that sort of all-in-the-family, well, gosh, men are different than women. Men

0:10:25 Thomas: My God.

0:10:52 Tom: Yeah

0:10:52 Eli: Are from Mars, women are from Venus thing. And not what it is, which is truly making your partner miserable and sometimes verging on the abusive, right?

0:11:01 Thomas: Oh, absolutely.

0:11:02 Tom: You know, I I do want to point out too that I, is a difference, it's an important distinction between weaponizing your incompetence and just not having done anything, not having having done something before. And there's like, there's... There's a there's a regrettable and insane and ridiculous. And I didn't really realize this until I became an adult and kind of looked around at some other adults. There's a huge number of men who make it all the way through to adulthood, having never cooked a meal for themselves, or make it all the away through to adulthood and have never done their own laundry, or make it all the way through to adulthood and have never properly cleaned their own home.

And so there is a fucking learning curve that is an acceptable amount of learning curve, but you gotta be honest with yourself, like the duties of taking care of a home, and to be frank, the duties, like the day-to-day, like physicality tasks of taking care of like a child, these are easy to learn. These people who like, oh, I I just really can't figure out this laundry shit, like, get the fuck out of here

0:11:13 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:11:29 Eli: Yeah.

0:12:04 Tom: With that nonsense, you can figure this out in the better part of an hour, this is not, there's nothing something complicated about doing the laundry or loading the dishwasher or scrubbing a toilet or changing a diaper or figuring out how to put a fucking bottle in a kid's mouth. Like the idea that this stuff is difficult to learn how to do, it's difficult to do because it's repetitive, and it's tedious, and it's thankless, it's not difficult to due because it is like skilled labor that takes like hours to learn, and oh, I didn't grow up doing this, I couldn't possibly figure it out, like, get the fuck out of here with that nonsense, jesus.

0:12:04 Thomas: Especially in this day and age.

0:12:27 Thomas: Yeah it's work and yeah.

0:12:41 Thomas: Know, in thinking about this, the first thing I thought is, oh, I bet I have a bunch of examples of my dad doing this. And then Then I realized that I don't, my dad didn't do weaponized incompetence. He just did, oh, I don't care about that. I'm not doing that. He never did like, oh honey, you're so much better. No, it would just be like certain categories of thing, he t even be said. It just wasn' t ever an option that he was going to do that thing. And so naturally, my poor mom had to just do all of that stuff in addition to being the one who was actually working. It's unbelievable. Like the unfairness in that relationship. Like, yeah, my dad, you know, again, we were in the fucking forest and he did some of that hard labor stuff. Stuff. But that just doesn't take nearly as much time in a given year. You know, like even though we fucking

0:12:56 Tom: Christ. No.

0:12:57 Eli: Uh,

0:13:31 Tom: Yeah.

0:13:31 Thomas: Did chop down trees for our heat, it's still the sum total of it is like, I don't know, a week's worth of work maybe in a year. It's really hard work, but yeah.

0:13:41 Tom: Distributing the labor, being like, well, I mow the lawn, it's all right, well, that's an hour every Saturday. Like, I

0:13:44 Thomas: Yeah. He did mow the lawn. Yeah, and he did do all the like the weed whacking and the season for the fires and stuff. Yeah, that's another, you know, a couple of days of work. Sure. It's like you add it all up. Stack that against my mom every day, slaving away at a hundred different things. And it's just like, I can't believe anyone could have felt comfortable in that unfair of a situation.

0:13:48 Eli: Yeah, but And add to that the nature of expectation. Right. Was no one sitting there tapping their foot on the lawn. If your dad didn't mow the lawn that day or rake the leaves or whatever. Right, that was a self -motivated task. Whereas, you know, I think about this, this wonderful story about my own grandfather sort this situation because my grandfather, he was a World War II vet. He was kind of like Tom's dad in that, like, he meant well, but also he was the little bit Hitler.

0:14:14 Thomas: God. Oh, That's such a good point.

0:14:35 Thomas: There's definitely Hitler. No, just kidding.

0:14:38 Tom: He's Not Hitler.

0:14:38 Eli: He was a little,

0:14:39 Thomas: Which side

0:14:39 Tom: Hitler. Didn't mean well.

0:14:39 Thomas: Was he in on the war?

0:14:40 Eli: He's a little bit. He was in the good. He was on the good side. But I, I, ha

0:14:45 Tom: I'm going to your house and throwing away all your books. I'm gonna fly to your house. I'm gonna throw away all your books.

0:14:47 Eli: Ha, you'll die of old age

0:14:51 Thomas: Oh,

0:14:52 Eli: Trying Tom. Start with the pile in front of my fireplace, my guy. You'll never make it out alive. But so I don't know how this pattern got established, but he was a longshoreman. He would go to work, he would come home and dinner would be on the table. Right, that was just the pattern for the first year or so of him and my grandmother's marriage. And I forget what happened, she went to see her mother, she went to see her sister. He came, but she came home once and he was just sitting at the table staring at the place where his food is supposed to be and

0:14:55 Tom: That is

0:15:27 Thomas: My god.

0:15:28 Eli: Like, look, this could be a, this could be a really horrible Eugene O'Neill play, play. But she was like, "George, what are you fucking doing?" And he was like, "You're supposed to make dinner." And she waslike "But I'm not here, what areyou doing?" Andhe was like, "I don't know how to make dinner." And so my grandma Betty, bless her, was like "Come here," and she, like, brought him into the kitchen and was like "You put the pot over here," and the recipe she taught him, I love this so much, the recipe she taught him was kasha vanishkas which is like a bowtie pasta with a little bit of grains, she taught him that recipe in the first year of their marriage. If my grandmother was 14 seconds late or busy for anything, my grandfather would sprint into the kitchen for the rest of his life, until

0:15:29 Tom: Ridiculous.

0:16:13 Thomas: Wow.

0:16:14 Eli: The day he died and start preparing kasha vanishkas because, because it meant he wasn't gonna get dinner if he didn't make himself kasha vanishkas. He would make two batches, like, he would make a batch, there would be leftovers in the fridge. My grandmother would be running five minutes late, and you would walk in and he would be there with a hot pot of new kasha vanishkas

0:16:33 Tom: Know, something occurs to me that is, that is also so true and problematic about certain types of, and I don't want to go too far down this, but certain types or distributions of labor. And what I mean by that is that if the distribution of labor for domestic responsibilities is sort of set in stone and it creates a kind of feedback loop of incompetence or through lack of exposure, that's the same way that people find themselves, themselves, widowed or whatever and unable to balance a checkbook or unable to, like, they don't know where the bills are, they don't know where the bank accounts are but

0:17:10 Thomas: Tom, can you tell the listeners what a checkbook is? I think we're gonna get a lot of could

0:17:13 Eli: Yeah. Sorry.

0:17:14 Tom: This is actually, this, I, I know it's a good, okay, where the passwords are for your checking account or your banking account right, there you go.

0:17:16 Thomas: You tell that Eli's listening, what a chick, there you go

0:17:14 Eli: I know. What a checkbook is, it's that thing, you tear the checks out of when you're paying a parking ticket cause you parked in front of a fire hydrant in front of a real fire while a fire was going on.

0:17:24 Tom: Yeah you For real, it, it's, is something to guard against to make sure that no matter how you distribute the labor, that's like, whatever you guys fucking negotiate, as long as everybody's happy and it feels fair to everybody, but no matter how it's distributed, I think there has to be a, okay, I know you don't do this, but do you know how, I know this isn't like what you're going to do, but do know how, in a lot of couples, you see this, this a lot with, with, with older folks, and my, my ex-mother-in-law ran into this problem and she worked full-time, my ex-father-in-law worked full time, they had their very sort of like strict differentiation of duties, and he died in a work accident, so all of a sudden he was just gone one day.

0:17:37 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:17:52 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:13 Thomas: Well,

0:18:13 Tom: And as a result, she had to do all this stuff, well, she had never done some of this stuff that, had in their entire life, had she done some of these things. And some of these were like financial things that were harder to learn and took some time. And so that distribution of work in a household, I'm not, I know it's a little separate corollary from, from weaponized incompetence, but I do think it's important to note, like, that stuff has to be like, hey, I know you don't do this, but here's how it goes, know this isn't your responsibility, but you should learn how to do all the tasks of domestic responsibility well.

0:18:45 Thomas: I know, this is old timey times probably you're talking about, but like, what does that say about the lives being led here if one partner never left the other for a trip, a girl's week or whatever, you know, or whatever, anything for the length of time that would have meant that the other partner had to learn those things? I mean, that, that in itself, it's, it's almost another reason, reason why getting that kind, time, you know, when you need it, like, that's another benefit I guess, because Lydia just went, on, it was only a weekend or whatever, but went on a trip, and it's like, yeah, I, I'd better know how to do all the things for the kids that I need to be able to do if she's gone.

0:19:25 Tom: Yeah, absolutely, and so many you, and this is, this is a good way back into it, so when I moved, so my experience with this is little bit different again, just coming from a single parent household, but you know, I moved in with my dad and I was in first grade, my brothers and second were still pretty small, it's six, seven years old, and so some of the ladies at the church, um, my dad, um, this is, I'm ingrained the idea of male domestic incompetence is.

Some of the ladies in the church asked my dad, "Well, who's going to cook and clean for these boys?" And my dad looked at this ladies and she was, he was like, "Well, I will, like, who do you think cooks and cleans for me now? You know, like what? That's insane. You're insane. The idea that like men can can't do this work is so ingrained and so socialized that it's, difficult for people When I was a kid growing up, and I think this is why my views on this are so heavily reinforced into my own personal identity, I can't stand the idea that there's something I'm not good at in my home, that I don't know how to do, that I would be the second choice or second fiddle in my own home amongst domestic responsibilities. That would be an embarrassment to me to look around my house and be like, yeah, I'm not as good at, I know, the laundry or cooking or keeping a home clean or any of those domestic responsibilities or any other responsibilities with the kids.

0:19:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:20:48 Tom: Things are anathema to me, I think because I grew up where there was no opportunity for anybody to divide labor.

0:20:56 Thomas: Just because I know, uh, only our audience, but I've, you know, I've been doing this a long time, I know it's going to happen, I think we should a take second to talk about division of labor, but also recognize that already, I'm sure we've, we've got a lot of people listening who are ready to type to us. Oh, but I do this and my wife does this because she's just better at that.

And like, yes, OK, we already acknowledge that like there can be a healthy division of labor. But if I, you have that impulse to write into the show or comment somewhere how your situation is actually defensible, even though it sounds like what we're talking about, I'm, I want you to sit with that listener, because even when we mentioned this last time, we got a ton of comments that were just trying to justify people's own situations to, I guess, us or the universe or the everybody else.

And I'm just, I just am curious where that comes from, where the, where the need, I know it's meta, but where the need to justify to us or to the listeners or to other people. And does that, that suggest maybe you're worried that it's not fair, or do I, I don't know, just sit with that, everybody, I'm just letting just you

0:21:58 Thomas: Know.

0:21:58 Tom: Think it 100% suggests that you're worried it's not fair. You know, I never, do you guys ever worry about, I've, I never worry about whether I'm pulling my weight.

0:22:01 Eli: Yeah. Oh,

0:22:05 Thomas: Well, Tom, you're just a, you yeah, because you, you

0:22:09 Tom: Never.

0:22:09 Thomas: Are you, pull an astronomical amount of weight in everything you do. I do, I worry about that every day. Eli, sorry, you haven't gotten talking a while, so geez.

0:22:10 Eli: I, yeah. No. I was gonna, it's the exact same thing, I I deeply deeply worry about that one because me and Anna, especially when Max was first born, fell into a bunch of these patterns and I sort of had to shake myself out of it because it's not something Anna would do, uh, know, great example is like when we switched Max to bottles, right?

So she was, was pumping, Anna does the cooking cuz Anna's the better cook in the house, so what she was doing is this was when he was on three naps, she would put the boy down for a nap, she would pump for as long as it took, then she would cook, and then Max would wake up, Max would often wake up like just as she finished cooking or just as he sat down to eat, right?

I was like, well, I'm over here podcasting, you know, ain't nobody gonna make fun of David Ar White's physical appearance without me, right? And And I to check in with myself and realize, and this is the question I would ask people who are like, "Oh, our pattern works," right? The question that I had to ask myself is, how much harder would it make my life to take on this task versus how much easier would it make my partner's life?

So I started to cook, right, and I have done the cooking in our family with very rare exception ever since then, I, right, took over the cooking and, and this is the really important part, I am still not a better cook than Anna. I am not better than her at cooking. What I am is I'm taking that task off her plate because it frees up time for herself.

It freesup time for her to get like real rest and real joy and real free time, right, though it means I get less free time or I have to work harder or I have to squeeze this in in amongst my day job.

0:22:59 Thomas: Absolutely.

0:23:53 Thomas: Either had a similar thing, um, after childbirth I started doing all the cooking and then I, I gave it back up because I stress, I have a weird mental thing where I stress, it stresses me out to no end when I, I think it's maybe ADHD, but just because it'll be funny to people whenever I have to quote unquote do the cooking or when I bake stuff because I actually do bake stuff for, uh, and stuff, I have to start by step one, clean every single item in the kitchen and And make sure everything is put away and set and ready. It has to be like, okay, I have to start from a perfectly clean slate.

0:24:21 Tom: Say, yes, yes. Just same thing. You,

0:24:21 Eli: Hmm.

0:24:29 Thomas: Tom, you have ADHD or something. You have something. I know you think you don't.

0:24:29 Tom: I, I same exact thing. You You

0:24:34 Thomas: You have Something. I don't know what it is.

0:24:32 Eli: I Uh, I Uh, No,

0:24:34 Tom: You've got to start with it. You've got to star with a clean slate. You can't walk into a kitchen with, that's a Mess.

0:24:40 Thomas: Oh, my God.

0:24:41 Tom: And start making a mess. No, that's a crazy person thing to do.

0:24:41 Thomas: But Lydia can. Lydia is just like, yeah, no, just start doing whatever. No, she's the sane person.

0:24:46 Tom: No, Well,

0:24:47 Eli: I Team Lydia. Team I mean, what, look, I'm sorry. I do. Not I

0:24:48 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:50 Tom: Of Course You are. You've never shut a refrigerator, Eli Bosnick.

0:24:53 Eli: Was gonna say I don't want to insult Lydia by

0:24:54 Thomas: Your house literally has never started from zero. You've always been, you moved in

0:24:57 Eli: No there's no such thing. The only way I'm starting for zero is a fire. Like, a really strong yeah, a really there are two ends of the spectrum. Thomas is on one of of them and I'm on the other, just like halfway through a meal being like, "Ah, shit, no butter in the house. I'll figure it out. You know what butter is? Almond milk. I'm gonna put almond milk on the pan and then I'll fry the steaks in the almond milk. That's butter milk."

0:25:03 Thomas: Nuclear explosion. Yeah. If

0:25:27 Eli: I'll shake it around or something, I don't know, isn't that what butter is, just shook it around milk which also means I. I don't know. I'm sure you haven't had this experience, Thomas. It means that I just absolutely destroy dinner on a not crazy, irregular basis.

0:25:26 Tom: The same thing. Like

0:25:32 Thomas: Yeah, give it extra shake.

0:25:45 Tom: Do you mean like you like you burn it or or just so

0:25:47 Eli: Yeah, I burn it or I just ruin it. So, like, you

0:25:49 Thomas: It's unfortunate we're not sponsored on this show, but I actually can only do the meal kits like that's the only thing I will do yeah, I will only do those. I've never cooked a thing like just freehand in this era. Now obviously I could if I needed to, but we don't like that.

0:25:54 Eli: Can only do the HelloFresh ones. Yeah.

0:26:06 Thomas: That's not what we do like we our family is, we love those fucking meal kits, they're the best, like, for real. So our family has a several meal kit a week family, and then the weeks we, the nights we don't have time or can't do that, we just order out, or you, you know, I eat my ninth Taco Bell of the day, something like that.

0:26:05 Eli: Raw dog. Please, Thomas?

0:26:22 Eli: Yeah. Raw dog in all of it. You know, those meal kits are great. But the other problem is, like. Sometimes those meal kit, man. I don't know about. I'm sure with the meat ones it's probably easier you get but there's a lot of grain bowls. There's a lot a grain bowls and I'm just I didn't I only I got it. We can make

0:26:23 Thomas: Wow.

0:26:32 Thomas: We're not doing meat ones. Uh, you're not on the right meal kit. You're not, you know what I'm saying? I'm not on the wrong meal kit on the show. We are not sponsored on this show. So I'm free to say blue apron, baby. That's the one I go with.

0:26:39 Tom: No, oh, I, I like the Martha and Marley Spoon. We did that for a long time. We We did HelloFresh and we did Martha and Marley Spoon. I liked the Martha and Marley spoon better. It had more options for dairy -free options for Haley. She can't do dairy. Haven't been able to do those in a while. But we did those for a long time. But I want to ask something because, Thomas, it occurs to me. So when you left your parents' home to go to college, you didn't have any cooking skills walking out that door?

0:26:51 Thomas: I've No, I college, I lived on campus. And so we had a meal, uh, right. We, uh

0:27:15 Tom: No, no, no. That's what I'm saying, though. It was like when you left home to go to college, you had not, you would not like your mom didn't teach you to cook at all.

0:27:16 Thomas: Yeah. Uh huh. Oh no, not at all. I know zero. And there was a weird, I really hate that about my upbringing. I think I've touched on it before. But something about the attitude of kids being, you in the ass and unimportant was like, I never was included in any of that. And it could have been a gender thing too. Cause I think my sisters, I think she taught my sister some baking and stuff. I knew nothing, no, any of that, like not a single, anything I knew, I knew how to heat up a hot dog. You know, I didn't like that was what I would do. And I was so lazy.

0:27:45 Tom: Yeah, that's.

0:27:52 Eli: Right.

0:27:52 Thomas: I actually microwaved them, even though it's terrible. It would get the big split down the middle and like shrivel up but I was like, hey, it's hot and it's a dog and I put mustard all over it and it tastes fine. No,

0:27:54 Eli: Yeah, exactly. You Yeah. You can taste the neutrons, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Marie Curie's elbow. But you're like, yeah, what am I gonna do, what are we gonna do, boil some water, what am I, Gordon Ramsay?

0:28:13 Tom: I will say my, my dad was not a good Cook by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a consistent, like every meal, every meal at the table at six o'clock, six 30. No, it was never later. And it always had a meat, a vegetable, and some kind of a starch every Time. And I mean A lot of times, like the meat was like a pork chop that was just cooked until it quit and would start to curl in this, you know, and just I mean and

0:28:15 Eli: Oh. Yeah. Oh,

0:28:30 Thomas: No, that's great, that's fantastic, that's incredible. Oh, god, that's the best that was ours but intentionally because my dad was fucking Trump with his meat preferences. Sorry, go ahead, I

0:28:43 Eli: Sure. Egg

0:28:42 Tom: But but I will say, I mean, it taught us that was something I, I, I've, I've thought very intentionally about is like, there's a, there'sa handful of skills, like the kids, and I think about this with the kids all the time, like yesterday, I'll give you great example. Yesterday I got a text message from Donovan, which is how he asked for anything, so he asked me if I could make him some scrambled eggs, uh, dinner, and it's like, yeah, I can teach you to make scrambled eggs. Yeah, but I mean, my answer is not like, yeah, I'll go make you some scrambled eggs, it's like, you're 16, I'll be happy to teach you how to make scramble eggs.

0:29:06 Thomas: Never You teach a man to egg. You give a man an egg.

0:29:15 Eli: He eggs for a year and

0:29:17 Thomas: He eggs for a night. You teach him an egg, he eggs probably just for that night because he's lazy and he's not going to do it again. But yeah, yeah, totally.

0:29:20 Tom: Eggs for you but but We do this with boys though, like we're so bad about teaching boys those chores of domestic responsibility, and as a result, like, they don't know how to do anything because we're not intentional about teaching them to do these things, we're non-intentional, and we are very intentional about assigning, typically, I'm just saying like broadly speaking, like we're very good and intentional about assigning chores that are super fucking gendered. So like the boy takes out the garbage and the girl puts the dishes away, that kind of shit, and we don't like, change, change that stuff up from time to time to, like, make sure that everybody walks out of the house and goes away to college and like knows how to eat if the meal plan falls through.

0:29:48 Thomas: Mm hmm. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. No, you couldn't be more right. And actually, that's something that, But, you I would probably accidentally do. You if just like in my household, I bet I bet all you know if I didn't pay attention to it, I'm sure we would fall into that. Just because like it's kind of the you know the stuff it's the atmosphere, the gendered atmosphere in general that your kids pick up. And

0:30:21 Tom: Right.

0:30:21 Eli: It's often the chores you're doing, right, it's like, hey, hey, take out the trash with me.

0:30:24 Thomas: Right. Right? Right. Is really funny though, when you have kids and they pick up on your specific arrangements and think that it's just the way things are like, like my kids think that the dad bakes. Yeah. Dad's bake all the cookies at whatever. And then moms make the dinner and like just all, whatever we have, it's like specifically what they think everybody does. So funny.

0:30:40 Eli: Right.

0:30:41 Tom: But they seize on those gendered relationships. They see that stuff. You know what I mean? It's like, and, And I'll raise my hand and say that we have not, I'm talking a big game here, but But we have not changed up Donovan and part of it is age related. So Donovan's 16 and his sister is 11. So a lot of the chores are just based on the big age difference that they have, you know. But I think I think in general, the chores that we give to boys are chores like take out the garbage. It takes less than if you if you do a stopwatch and this is actually worth doing some time, set a stop watch and see how long it takes to take out the garbage, it's less than a minute. It doesn't take 60 actual seconds to take out the garbage, take out the garbage, it's a minute long chore versus empty the dishwasher.

0:30:48 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Hmm. Oh. Yeah. Yep.

0:31:32 Tom: An enormous time difference, and that sort of time difference is exactly the kind of like distribution of household responsibility that becomes weaponized later down the road because like men look at that shit and I think tacitly and implicitly they understand, I want these minute chores, I want the, I want to mow the lawn, it takes an hour a week, I don't want to cook dinner seven nights a week, that's seven hours, like it's a one to seven ratio, why the fuck would I want that? So we're, I think, I think there's a lot of dudes that see that and they seize on it and they, they, that shit, right?

0:31:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:08 Thomas: As a workforce, really are like the bad guys in On the Waterfront or something, like we really have had a mobster, ask handle on, oh no, I got you, see, I gotta do this job, it's so hard, you wouldn't be able to do it, takes physical strength, and meanwhile, like you say, it's like a five-minute thing, but because it takes physical strength. We know, you know, maybe, maybe you're not able to do that one. So we can make it out to be as hard as we possibly want. I got to tell you something that I think you're going to want to hear. So I'm trying to remember the times that my mom left ever. And she only a couple of times, only a couple of time. Did she leave us home alone with, with my dad, and probably, probably only when we were probably, yeah, no. Yeah. With my dad. And he's just sitting there the

0:32:25 Tom: And two burglars broke in and it was like, it was a whole thing, there was bowling balls

0:32:57 Eli: Yeah,

0:32:57 Thomas: Whole time. Yeah.

0:32:58 Eli: Except everyone was teaming up against your dad. The wet bandits were like, he seems pretty shitty.

0:33:05 Eli: I'm going to turn these sinks off. Do you guys need help?

0:33:07 Thomas: Yeah. And it was, it was when we Were old enough. I don't think she ever would have done this when we Were a little younger. Cause I, I just don't Think he would have been able To do it or she wouldn't have trusted him to do It. But the times I can remember that, that we were were home alone with dad.

0:33:10 Tom: Oh

0:33:25 Thomas: My dad definitely did not cook. I wonder if anybody could take any guesses as to how we ate when we were home along with my dad.

0:33:32 Tom: My god oh

0:33:32 Eli: Ooh. Okay. It needs to be cheap because my first impulse was like, oh, you ordered pizza, but he's too cheap for that. He's too cheap for ordering pizza. He cereal.

0:33:35 Thomas: Yep. Yep, nope. You're 100%

0:33:41 Tom: I know what he did, oh. I know. What?

0:33:41 Thomas: Correct so far. What do you

0:33:42 Tom: I did what my stepdad did when I was growing up. When my mom was gone, he would be like, "Oh, smorgasbord," and then he would open the refrigerator. And then it was, you just pull out the random fucking, like, three -week -old leftovers and, like, burp the container. And if the gases didn't, like, knock him to the floor immediately, be like, up "A little bit of this, a little bit of that." Was that, oh, Oh, my

0:33:42 Thomas: Do?

0:34:03 Thomas: No, it was for

0:34:04 Eli: Cereal. I'm gonna guess cereal. Three meals.

0:34:05 Thomas: One, well, cereal would be for, I like cereal for breakfast anyway, so that was fine, but that was all me.

0:34:10 Eli: A day. Cereal, I'll go for dinner, cereal.

0:34:10 Thomas: No. So, if my mom, my mom would either cook cook everything out ahead of time and freeze it and leave it, you know, so that we could just grab it. Or the other thing is my dad would go to McDonald's and get a large bag of hamburgers.

0:34:12 Eli: Oh, yeah. Large

0:34:29 Tom: God. He trumped it. He hamburgered it,

0:34:32 Eli: Bag of tremor.

0:34:33 Thomas: And literally, especially back when McDonald's had that like 29 cent hamburger, 39 cent cheeseburger. Remember that?

0:34:37 Eli: Yeah, dollar menu. Sure, yeah.

0:34:39 Thomas: No, it was before this predates the dollar menu. It was literally a deal that was, it was on like, I don't know, fucking Tuesdays or something. There'll be some nineties kids or whatever. We'll remember this. There'd be like 29 cent hamburgers, 39 cent cheeseburgers. And in anything like that, my dad would, the first thing he would go in and ask is, okay, what's, what's the limit? How many, how many are you allowed to get?

0:34:40 Eli: We

0:35:01 Thomas: And the answer was, I believe 15 at the, at the McDonald's that we went to. And so he would get a bag of 15 hamburgers and we would eat those for the whole week.

0:35:11 Eli: Just dump them on the table in front, for the whole week.

0:35:13 Tom: And that's it? The

0:35:13 Thomas: He would put them in the fridge. Yeah. And

0:35:15 Tom: Week

0:35:15 Eli: Oh, No, cold.

0:35:16 Thomas: Yeah,

0:35:16 Tom: You're just eating, like, warmed over fucking McDonald's hamburgers?

0:35:17 Thomas: Yep, yep.

0:35:19 Eli: Six day old, 39 cent hamburgers.

0:35:21 Thomas: Yep. I Will tell you, one skill I do have is how to do, like, surgery on, you know, hamburger reassignment surgery, so that I can, like, heat the parts that you want to heat and not heat the parts that you don't want to eat. Or if I was feeling too lazy for that, you just heat the whole thing, and then you have, like, hot lettuce that's always fun.

0:35:31 Tom: Hamburger reassignment surgery.

0:35:39 Thomas: Yeah, this literally happened, a bag, a bag of hamburgers or cheeseburgers or whatever it was, was our, was our meals for a week.

0:35:39 Eli: Yeah, A hot lettuce bread, fucking, oh god, see, My mom, my mom left every year, starting when I was like two, uh, for a month. And so my dad and I would have a month together every year. Um, we would cook, we would usually do a project on the house that would be unpleasant for mom to live in, so, like, one time we did the kitchen floors, and one time we built a deck, by which I mean he did that while I ate candy. Like, let's just, to be clear, I'm sorry I used, The word we meaning I was also in the house legally speaking

0:35:51 Tom: Whoa.

0:36:17 Thomas: He realized yeah he realized you built the deck around like a bunch of his his possessions he needed.

0:36:24 Eli: Right over top of him while he was trying to dig out a post or something yeah exactly but yeah no he taught me how to cook and so all of my recipes here's the thing my grandmother bless her soul bless her self Betty uh a smart woman was allowed to use two-letter words and Boggle until the day she died You know what I'm saying, and so her recipes were, I'm gonna go ahead and say, uh, fast and sure, so, like, I can make all the recipes my dad, uh, taught me to make, which are all like meatloaf, and, you know, taco rice, and this thing, that thing, like, I have four or five staple, many of them Southern influence, recipes, recipes that are just, like, real hard to fuck this one up. You just put, it to pile everything in, and then when it stops boiling, that is when you eat it. That is, the boy, you must wait for it to stop boiling, yep.

0:36:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:40 Tom: Yes.

0:37:12 Thomas: Now, if there's any food remaining in the trap of your sink, you can also throw that in here just to pepper that in.

0:37:19 Tom: I will

0:37:20 Eli: Just toss that in the bottom there, sure.

0:37:23 Tom: Say I didn't, I didn'T actually just, just to give props where, where they're worth it or where they, where THEY belong. I didn't actually become a good cook until Cecil taught me to cook. So I could make all the, I can make all the meals dad, my dad knew how to make. So like, cause we, we just sometimes be like, all right, you're cooking tonight. And you'd be like okay, I'm cooking tonight, you know? And that's just kind of how it worked. I knew how how to make his repertoire, yes.

0:37:33 Thomas: Oh, nice. But there's so much charm there too. Like even if you're not naturally good at that and it's not going to be quite as good as mom or whatever, If you're in that typical like gendered thing, like there's if you're fucking doing it, you're putting in the effort To do what needs to be done for your children and your family. And that's the important part. I want to add there's something real quick. I want to add that, Tom, when you mentioned like mom and dad's division of labor, how like the yard work stuff isn't something that anyone's watching over and all that. That was such a good point.

And I just wanted to add to that. Naturally, after my mom, you know, is done working all day and doing everything, thing, if if a single thing was wrong with the dinner, it was fucking hell for her and it's Like It's Just it's unbelievable, yeah. If for example, if the meat wasn't fucking thoroughly you to a crisp like it should be, or if there was a single, like for some reason there was always a peppercorn thing, like if, If think one time she left a peppermint in the kitchen in something and it never lived it down. It was always like a problem of the food was gonna have a peppercorn, it was the, god, it's so horrible.

0:37:56 Tom: Oh.

0:38:22 Eli: Yeah.

0:38:22 Tom: My God, oh.

0:38:44 Eli: No.

0:38:45 Thomas: Sorry. To bum You Guys out

0:38:46 Tom: God. I Can't Yeah, I will Say Like when in

0:38:48 Eli: No. It's It's interesting, I actually, one of the things that I have to be careful of, and I always think about this when, when you talk about your dad, but the constant jokes is like, I'm a roasty person. You guys are both aware of this. And so like, I am constantly checking in with myself, was like, hey, is it a show? Is it a show? Is everyone enjoying themselves?

0:39:07 Eli: Is Everyone having a good time? Just at QED, I remember having a moment where I was joking around with this person and we're having a good time and we were laughing, and they're like, they're a little, the jokes are about whether or not this person is uncomfortable. And I had to stop a little bit in and be like, hey, you are enjoying this interaction. And they were like, yes. And then I was like, I thought so, okay, I just thought I'd check in. Cause it's about how unhappy you are. So if you were unhappy, happy, it would look exactly like this and still be

0:39:06 Thomas: What, what do

0:39:07 Tom: Your

0:39:38 Eli: The same amount of funny, so I'm glad we're just checking Oh

0:39:41 Thomas: No

0:39:42 Tom: You I've got a rule that I follow on that, because cooks for me, and I've talked to my boys about this too, is I care if it's good or bad or sideways I Am Never, and I believe about, I believe this for all work anyone does for me, and I Tell the boys all the time, like you never criticize somebody who did work for you. They did some, they did work für you, anyone who's done any work for you is not, that unless you've paid them, is Not A subject For your criticism. If you paid them, it's different, right, but And that goes for your wife, it goes for you, it goes to your family, it goes for a friend. If somebody helps you move and they drop your TV, no big deal. Looks like you need to get a new TV. That is not their fault. They did work for you. Somebody makes a meal and you don't like it. You give them that feedback three, four days later about, Hey, maybe next time we do this little different. You never criticize people who worked for you ever.

0:39:49 Thomas: Yeah Yeah Right

0:39:51 Eli: God Oh

0:40:05 Thomas: Yeah, that's Important Yeah, yeah Yeah That Is A Particular Bad quality that I, of course, after what I've just described, that is so, was so difficult for me to hammer home, to the point where I'm sure I still slip up. I, oh

0:40:45 Tom: Yep.

0:40:45 Eli: Now I warn you, I warn you, my father had a similar policy, and my mother, I, I love you, mom, I know you listen to the, the show, was the worst cook on the planet, and because of this policy I ate so much raw chicken as A child, the Fact I Can't The Amount Of raw food, the fact that I survived my childhood living like one of the garbage pile children of the Dumbengi Desert is fucking insane because I, I remember he would, I would Poke At it and Blood would seep out of the chicken and I would look At him and He would He would Look at me and he would do a little handshake, and I would look at him with pleading, pleading like Jean Valjean asking for my freedom. But no, no, I had to eat that chicken every

0:41:02 Tom: Jesus. Okay. That's Unsafe That is No

0:41:03 Thomas: Now We know why Now We, no Yeah Yeah That's Not safe No No

0:41:24 Tom: That's That's Different That's

0:41:38 Eli: Single time. It wasn't literally I was like 14 when my mom

0:41:39 Thomas: That's So That's toxic Uh That's

0:41:41 Tom: A little More than what, I mean, that's A little bit more than I mean Yeah Toxic Salmonella That's Uh What That's Botulism Are You, that's

0:41:43 Eli: Salmonella is what it was. It was toxic salmoneslla, toxic waste.

0:41:43 Thomas: Toxic something What Is It toxic, uh You know, fucking, no No Yeah It's If you're Poisoning Your Child For the sake, that's toxic chivalry, that's what it is That's why I'm like

0:41:55 Eli: Yeah

0:41:52 Tom: Yeah That's What, no, that, yeah, that is, that is not what I Means at all, I Mean like If, if The Food Isn't Cooked

0:41:58 Thomas: No I Well I Think Tom Nailed It With you Know, you give it a day or two, and then maybe next time, you, it comes up before the meal comes up, maybe, hey, uh, you no, maybe don't, don't kill our child is What

0:42:01 Tom: Yeah Yeah Just, I Don't Think those Swedish meatballs were for me actually, you know I didn't, and it's Not my favorite, like if the chicken's not cooked though That's Like Oh, looks Like it needs another minute in the oven, that's not a criticism, you know What I mean, like that's not like that's not like you're like you're saying like I, this, you did this wrong, you Did A bad Job

0:42:11 Thomas: Yeah Yeah No That's It Yeah Yeah That's Like being Afraid To Tell your wife she's about to back over a child But you're like, nope, can't Criticize, she's Driving for Us

0:42:30 Eli: Too

0:42:29 Tom: Right No That's Different That's not what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. That's not what I mean.

0:42:34 Eli: Because I was really hoping to be able to prank Tom by just showing up and being like, hey everybody, I cooked, it's called fire sauce, it's Just fire sauce, it's just a cobel fire sauce, but I'm calling it a soup, everyone eat it or you're Rude

0:42:41 Thomas: Oh I Thought you were gonna say like it's sushi but with chicken, it's great, check This out

0:42:51 Eli: You Guys are gonna love this All

0:42:54 Tom: Well, so now, Now I'm going to derail a little bit, because now, and I'm springing this on you guys, but I have a list, and I am curious where you guys might fall on this. So this is, I've got a list, I'll read it, it's very quick. It is 23 things that I think, when you leave home to go to college, university, get in your first department, that I think every person should be able to do, and So I Think about This So let's play, you guys want to play all

0:42:55 Thomas: Oh Okay Step

0:43:14 Eli: Right, fuck Yeah Let's Do It, I'm Ready, okay Someone

0:43:19 Thomas: One Find the clit, bam, done, done.

0:43:22 Eli: Was born that way, nope Born advantage We already discovered Thomas just knew that from the start, okay, yes

0:43:23 Tom: All Right We talked about this already, be able to cook at least five subsistence meals, nothing fancy, peanut, not peanut butter and jelly though, this is like pasta and sauce, couple basic proteins, and vegetables.

0:43:39 Thomas: All right, look, I can't do that, but I would just look it up. That's the thing is like, there's... there's no, maybe in the fucking fifties, there might've been some excuse for this. In this day and age, any of these tasks, you type it into YouTube for four seconds and the greatest person ever, who's going to show you the best technique of all recorded history will explain to you how to do any of these fucking things.

0:43:40 Eli: Yeah

0:44:02 Thomas: There's no excuse. There you go. Nice. There you Go.

0:43:43 Tom: Okay. Yeah. It's called season liberally. Uh, number

0:44:04 Eli: Uh, though, just have to say, to my fellow incompetents out there, you don't want YouTube, you want TikTok. Tiktak is for us, okay? Just so you know. So, you don't- what, Gordon Ramsey teaching you how to boil pasta? You want some woman in southern Kentucky being like, "All right, here's my four-minute noodles." All

0:44:14 Thomas: Interesting.

0:44:23 Tom: All right. Number two, be able to cook one nice meal. Nice doesn't mean expensive or complicated, but it's not jar sauce and pasta either. So, all right, three grocery shop on your own okay.

0:44:26 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:44:31 Eli: Yes. Two. Yes.

0:44:36 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Hold on. Let's talk. One sec. Let's Talk About That One. That Here's another thing that men need to be aware of. And again, it's mainly men. Hashtag not all men. This happens in other contexts. One context we haven't talked about it, which is a serious problem, is in the workplace place where even women who are, you know, higher ups will be like by default thought to do like, oh, someone take notes for this meeting. Oh, maybe it'll be, you Know, the president of the company because she's a fucking woman. You know, like that, it's that level of like gendered where that shit happens. We can talk about that too.

0:44:45 Tom: Right. Oh yeah. I just read something the other day about like women being asked like, like fucking like executive women being asked to like clean the fucking kitchen in the break room because they're women, it's atrocious. Okay.

0:45:07 Thomas: Yep. Yep, yeah, that's horrible. Absolutely horrible. One thing for us, even well -meaning again, people look out for partners to look out for is when you're taking on the thing, when you'RE doing the thing that, you know, like the grocery shopping, if it's not your normal thing, if you go do it and all you do is constantly bug your wife via text about where everything is and what to do, you're not actually doing anything. You're not actual saving time. You are making it harder. You're like, not only you're, you'RE, you'RE wasting the same amount of time, plus the stress of her having to tell you every single thing. Now maybe, yeah.

0:45:43 Tom: You're forcing her to continue to do the emotional labor while all you are is the fucking like arms and legs of it, right?

0:45:50 Thomas: And she's managing you like now she's even more emotional labor. Now I get like, if you don't know how to do a thing, you might have to be taught to do with it. I get it. That, that may, that May happen, but like you, you have to try to make sure if you're going to take on a task, you were actually taking it on and saving someone some work rather than just making it worse for them.

0:45:53 Tom: Yes.

0:46:08 Tom: 100 %. I

0:46:09 Eli: Yes. That's a huge thing. Huge thing. You a one grocery store family or a two grocery store family? Yeah.

0:46:15 Tom: Three.

0:46:15 Thomas: We're a two, maybe a three.

0:46:17 Tom: Yeah.

0:46:17 Eli: We're two. We're too, there's Shop Right for the mainstream highfalutin goods, and then there's Little for everything else, which is like Aldi but cheaper. It's literally, someone was like, "I could beat all these prices," it could just be rotten. So these things seriously, it's the fucking best in the world that like the prices are insane, you will never, you could do a supermarket sweep just running your arm along a aisle, you will never spend more than a hundred dollars at Little. It's the fucking bet, and if your child subsists entirely on fruit like mine does, fucking awesome. Yeah.

0:46:18 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:46:31 Tom: Yeah.

0:46:49 Eli: So we are a first Little, then Shop Right. It's like, okay fine, fine, fine, turns out that the toaster strudels that they have here at Little are technically radioactive, so I guess we're going to the fancy Shop Right for the fancy fancy toaster strudels that are in a box, not in industrial packaging with a warning on it.

0:47:03 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. There are a certain thing. There are, there's not many of them, but there's a couple products where I'm like, no, I, I just like this version of it and I hate the other versions of it. And so that for that reason, there's, and it's not just me. I think Lydia has a few of those too.

So there's I want to say now that I'm on thinking about it on the topic, one, one thing that think I maybe will help with some of these challenges, um, I think you need to accept if you're the partner who's taking on a new thing or whatever, doing, you know, or switching duties or your partner's gone. So you're doing the thing.

You can just take it on as though it's the first time you're doing it or the first Time your partner is doing, it's not, it doesn't have to be a hundred percent on exactly how your partner does it. And if you rely on that to say, no, you've got to walk me through everything. And then, you know, again, as I said, you're making them still do it instead, just take ownership of it and figure it the fuck out. Even if it's different and

0:47:48 Tom: Yep. Yep.

0:48:00 Thomas: Not quite right or whatever, it's still fucking fine. It'll be fine. You fold. I fold the clothes differently than Lydia. I've tried to figure out how she does it it's I kind of do it, but it's definitely not not as good, but who gives a fuck?

0:48:07 Tom: Yep.

0:48:11 Eli: I, yep.

0:48:12 Thomas: There's still whatever.

0:48:12 Eli: I also do the laundry wrong. Yep.

0:48:13 Tom: Dude, I, as my corollary to, "I'm not going to complain if someone does work for me," I also don't take notes if, if somebody, if I'm doing work for someone else, like that's not a time where I'm like, oh, yeah, I'd like your notes. Like, no, we're not doing that. Like, nope. Like if that's my chore.

0:48:22 Thomas: Good call.

0:48:28 Eli: Oh, for a level of competence where I could have that policy, Tom.

0:48:33 Thomas: Yeah. OSHA doesn't allow that in Eli's household.

0:48:34 Tom: Like, oh my

0:48:35 Eli: Yeah. So Drano doesn't make coffee. Okay. I guess I have to start this all over again. I was winning though. Keep with the list. I still

0:48:42 Thomas: Oh yeah. I'm losing by nothing.

0:48:44 Tom: God. All right. Manage, manage your own money, savings, bills and debts.

0:48:47 Eli: Can't

0:48:47 Thomas: Oh, okay. So now I'm totally winning over. I will

0:48:50 Tom: So you've got that. I knew where that one was going to go.

0:48:52 Thomas: Be able to go get all the fast food I want to substitute in for the first two that that Eli got me on, but you, you can't, you won't be able to live. If you can'T do number three, you'll just, you'll want to have a house. Um, I was going to say too, that this is one thing that Lydia will never know how to fuck it. I can't. I, just do all that. And I do all that. If I die, sorry, Lydia, you're going to have to just figure it out. I'm not, that's, it's too much.

0:48:57 Eli: Do that. Yeah.

0:49:11 Tom: Yeah, I do. I manage all of our money, but I think Haley could do it. She just doesn't.

0:49:13 Thomas: It's, and oh yeah. Any, anyone, I'm sure anyone could do it. It'S just, I'm such an insane person that I have the, the amount of shit I do is just way more than she would ever do. You know, so I'm not gonna like teach her what I do because it's insane like it's too much. You know what I mean?

0:49:16 Eli: Yeah.

0:49:18 Tom: Yeah. Right. Yeah, here's my fucking 17 spreadsheet system.

0:49:31 Thomas: Yeah, Okay. And you have to pull the query from this tab over here in order to get okay if the connections not working it for Now sometimes it comes in a CSV, but the first column is is messed up. So you guys yeah, I'm just not whatever you if she ever

0:49:35 Eli: Obviously, yeah.

0:49:46 Eli: You need

0:49:36 Tom: All right, so now we're going to import our data tables. I say, no, not that data table. You got to clean the data before you sort the data. How are you going to pay your.

0:49:51 Eli: QuickBooks

0:49:51 Thomas: How are you gonna know exactly how much Taco Bell you ate this month if you haven't gotten the full import you

0:49:53 Eli: Pro.

0:49:56 Tom: Lydia, I've reconciled our accounts. We are off 13 cents. We're going to have to talk. We're coming to my office. Come into my office,

0:50:03 Eli: Let's toss the couch.

0:50:04 Thomas: But literally we had this happen for this show because I realized I wasn't rounding the the dollars and so I had to do a whole rounding like transaction where I paid I think I paid you like a cent or or something to try to get because it has to balance perfectly

0:50:17 Tom: Jesus Christ.

0:50:17 Eli: Is this you and your Jew gold? Where you won't pay us until the special magical Thomas? I would love to blow you up on this. Thomas refuses to pay us until it's Thomas' special paying day.

0:50:22 Tom: Oh,

0:50:32 Eli: Like a like a Gringotts goblin

0:50:31 Thomas: Oh my god do you want to go there I

0:50:34 Tom: No, no. We're moving on. We're Moving On. We're Movin On.

0:50:35 Thomas: Have a hundred shows and Patreon has a schedule at which they think all the money is collected, so at that point they all come into all my accounts at once and I do all the fucking accounting at once. Eli's like, hey, I transferred the money over early to our account, and I'm like, like, yeah, but that's, that's not quite all the money and I already have the timeline. So just fucking wait, I'll do it. It'll be one day later, two days later. That's that argument that,

0:50:59 Eli: You you manage Money like a man who's never drawn green on paper so you can buy drugs. Let me just say that, uh,

0:51:08 Tom: All right, moving on, be able to do your own laundry. All right.

0:51:10 Thomas: Yep, yep. That's a good one.

0:51:12 Tom: Put together a business appropriate outfit. Shake hands. Oh, No.

0:51:16 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. That's, that doesn't apply. Yeah.

0:51:18 Tom: All right shake

0:51:11 Eli: Yes no still no also no no and no

0:51:19 Thomas: We'll say, we'll say Eli for your business is recording. So that's as long as you can put on something that's okay for recording, which I think is a pretty low bar, still

0:51:19 Eli: Yeah no and no, I, and Tom, you you're aware I do the princess handshake to this day I do the princess handshake

0:51:29 Thomas: Can't. Oh,

0:51:31 Tom: You you do but you just that's just because you fuck with people that way

0:51:33 Thomas: The handshake needs to die. The handshake needs to die. This is a separate episode topic. I don't, there's no more handshakes. We don't need that. This will be when where, Tom quits kicks, the show.

0:51:35 Eli: Pit in that no

0:51:45 Tom: A résumé and keep it updated I

0:51:46 Eli: No

0:51:47 Thomas: Oh God. Oof. That's the worst.

0:51:47 Eli: I can't do that no could not do that

0:51:50 Tom: Mean it's terrible I hate doing it but it's a necessary life skill I think these are these are the basic like the kids can't leave the house till they can do these things, life skills, keep

0:51:52 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I support that. Yeah. You know what I love though? With my favorite bit with the resumes, this is one of my favorite things. If you've ever been at a, in a, in college or if you've ever been in like a resume building workshop, the answer, they they can never really help you. All they can do is be like, instead of saying you've been unemployed for eight years and you have no marketable skills, you should say that, oh actually you went and got a doctorate in the exact thing that you are going to try to do. And like all their examples are like, just have been better. Like, it's not, it doesn't actually they They need to teach you like, OK, if you have no marketable skills, here's how you fucking lie about it. Instead, all their examples are always like, oh, no, here's a better resume. It involves way more of the direct experience you need at a better level. How is that helping anyone?

0:52:02 Tom: Yeah.

0:52:33 Tom: All

0:52:47 Eli: You see, the sample client Kathy here actually has 47 years in the three-year-old industry and it's like, yeah, no, obviously Mitch, I'm in a workshop next to, we're running late and the the AA meeting is tapping their foot at the door, man. If I had 47 years of experience, I probably wouldn't be here. Now, you let me buy some drugs for you with this paper or not.

0:52:55 Tom: Right.

0:52:57 Thomas: Yeah, that's option one.

0:53:13 Thomas: Yes. Yes.

0:53:13 Eli: All right, can't do that. Keep going, Tom.

0:53:15 Tom: Okay. Let's see. Keep a room slash house presentable dishes, dust, vacuum, tidy. Wow. Wow.

0:53:18 Eli: Still, no. No, no, no no no.

0:53:21 Thomas: But I do the lion's share of the cleaning because I'm the one who needs things to be more clean. And I think that's how most couples work. Whoever unfortunately has the lower threshold for when things need to be cleaned is the one who does the cleaning.

0:53:31 Tom: Yep. Who does the cleaning?

0:53:33 Eli: No, the DLC's hoarders has the lowest threshold between me and them. They're just a camera crew waiting outside my house at all times. They, like, tap their watch and I pick up some dishes.

0:53:33 Tom: Yep. Yep. All right. Be a gracious host. Be a gracious guest. Make a dinner reservation. I think you guys have that stuff covered.

0:53:52 Eli: Yes.

0:53:54 Thomas: Ooh, that's good.

0:53:55 Tom: Tie a tie. I don't like ties, but I think he should know how to tie one. A suit properly. It's a corollary of the tie issue, obviously.

0:53:56 Eli: Yes. Okay.

0:53:57 Thomas: I would add into that, get clothes that actually, especially your fancy clothes, your suit, your whatever, know how to get them that actually fucking fit you. Like go and get them. Cause I never had that skill. I thought you just buy whatever the fuck it is. And then it looks as shitty as it looks. I was like, no, you can just go to a place and get it tailored.

0:54:07 Tom: Yeah. Yep. And that's, yeah, just

0:54:18 Eli: That We Need To Do A whole Episode On the moment you walk into a store for the first time and they're like, oh, great, and what size are you? And you're like, large, and They're like, oh, Jesus fuck, why would you need to touch my shoulders? It's because they're different sizes on People I

0:54:18 Tom: Go to a place and have it tailored.

0:54:26 Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

0:54:35 Tom: Oh

0:54:34 Thomas: Yep. I had that. I learned that way too late, later than I care to admit.

0:54:35 Tom: My God. Uh,

0:54:38 Eli: Have large shoulders. Stop saying large. Stop It, you have to Stop Saying Larger. I

0:54:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:41 Tom: I Yeah, Yeah, We can do a whole episode on how I'm trying to buy fucking clothes that fit. I'd be happy to fucking do that, um.

0:54:48 Eli: Could do fat guy clothes still

0:54:49 Tom: I dude, I've, we should do that show. All right, uh, change a tire Don't know how to change a fire, yeah.

0:54:54 Eli: Can't do that, Tom.

0:54:56 Thomas: Here's the problem, are too advanced now. Actually had this with a flat tire that we got, and the problem is it's a Tesla. So I could change it, except there's no spare, because Tesla may actually love this business decision. This is specific to Tesla, they're like, hey, we've not putting spare tires in our vehicles, because studies show that no one fucking uses them. And because we're Tesla, we're trying to get every ounce of range out of the electric, your battery, so imagine that extra weight times every trip you ever take when you don't use it. So Tesla is like, here's what we'll do, um, no spare tire, but if you ever get a flat, you have free service from us, so just call us and we'll come and tow it for free. And so I felt dude if you rent a car that's even more like call the rental company. I can, I can change it, don't get me wrong, I actually know how to do all that but in this day well

0:55:38 Tom: But like what If you rented A car So You just don't You just Won't See the value in the skill, I got You right

0:55:48 Thomas: In this today and age I think it's disappearing. Things are so, there's a fucking computer Chips that you have to do, right? If you, if you actually want to change the tire yourself, I looked up, I was like, oh, maybe I can just do it myself and it's like no my

0:55:51 Tom: Right,

0:55:58 Eli: When You're Uh, totaling up The scores, I'd just like you to point out that, like, I didn't need to explain it when my answer was no, like, I just said no. Well,

0:56:03 Thomas: Answer is yeah, my, my answer's yes, I'm trying to help you, Eli. My Answer is yes, I know how to do all these things, but we shouldn't, that should be one that disappears, because unless you're driving a 1992 Taurus, it just doesn't really apply anymore. Car stuff is so, it's all fucking computers now, yeah.

0:56:05 Tom: His Answer Is yes, that's Fair, yeah, My car came with fix a flat I have a hybrid, and my car, for the same reason, they're trying to get all the range out of it, it's a hybrid, it just came with a thing of fix a flap so

0:56:26 Thomas: So I was trying to hope you, Eli, but fine, never mind. Yeah, yeah, definitely count this one as a one for me and a zero for Eli.

0:56:32 Eli: Think Fix-A-Flat is a food, so Tom, you were saying yes I fucking Rule with those, yeah.

0:56:34 Tom: Plan A weekend trip, anything

0:56:39 Thomas: Oh, interesting. What kind of weekend? So if you're talking about stuff, our kids should know.

0:56:42 Tom: I Mean It's This Is For Kids

0:56:44 Thomas: Yeah, like I

0:56:44 Tom: Yeah, This, so, but you're 18, 19, you should be able to plan how To Get Somewhere, how to make hotel, hotel reservations, I

0:56:47 Thomas: OK, but this hard one for me to fathom because I didn't go on a trip until way longer than I care to admit, because that wasn't something that I was ever exposed to. So you're saying an 18 year old should know how to do something fun. I don't understand, yeah.

0:57:02 Eli: Yeah,

0:57:03 Tom: I, I, when I was 18, I started camping, I started going on camping Trips, like, long weekends, and then I started taking, like, hiking trips, um, like that were like a week long, etc., and so, like, that was just a skill I didn't Have Initially And had to Figure Out

0:57:07 Thomas: No, that's great, this is something I am really looking forward to, because again, I and I know people probably have an indication of how I grew up, but the the general attitude of a all kids in the household were paying the ass and kids parents are more important, and all that, all that led to never being included in any of this stuff, and I would love, I can't wait to include my kids in like, hey, we're gonna do such and such thing, oh hey, here, look, here's how, how you do it, you know, like what, you know, I'm gonna go register for this, like having that inclusive process with your kids, the, you know what the key factor is?

Enjoying your fucking kids. That's what my, that's my and I don't blame my mom because she had to do fucking everything um had no more like capacity to enjoy that kind of thing with us you know because she just was maxed out but like one reason or the other what I love to do is I just enjoy interacting with my children so for any given thing you're doing you can just be like hey hey, take a look at this. It's cool. Is very pleasurable. This is probably a very basic thing to say, but for me and maybe some people listening, it would be hard to even imagine this up. I would not even be able to imagine these things you are describing.

0:57:43 Tom: Yeah, Yeah, So

0:57:51 Eli: No,

0:58:25 Tom: I don't, I'm trying to think back if I knew all these things at 18 or 19, I certainly knew him at 22 when I left home, so I stayed, I lived with my dad when I was in college, uh, tie down a load on a truck, I think that's No,

0:58:37 Eli: Still no Wait,

0:58:38 Thomas: Mean, that is a yes for me, but I do not know. I think there are...

0:58:40 Tom: Don't Think that's Important, you never help somebody move, you never go to the store and buy drywall or something, you got to tie that shit down, I Think that's I

0:58:44 Eli: Sorry, I want to clarify I Do Want To clarify, yeah, do, buy, tie down a load on a truck, do you mean jerk off while you're driving? Because I want to switch to yes If you do, oh,

0:58:53 Tom: Don't

0:58:56 Thomas: Yeah, we're both gonna get that point.

0:58:58 Tom: Know I Think that is important, I jeez Like You Got Got to be Able to

0:58:58 Thomas: No. Hold on. Hold on. Eli, hold on. Eli, for an extra point, can quote unquote "tie down a load with a stick shift," that's the real

0:59:01 Tom: Oh,

0:59:04 Eli: No, I Can't Drive a stick shift, so

0:59:07 Tom: Okay,

0:59:07 Thomas: Okay. Is that gonna be on your list? Top: drive a stick ship

0:59:11 Eli: Yeah,

0:59:09 Tom: No, I Don't Have Stick Shift, I, because I, I was, I was actually, I, I think you're right about the change of tire thing, but I would, I would say tie down load on truck is an essential skill every person should have, really.

0:59:12 Thomas: Nah, Think, even if you're gonna help someone just rent a van hand yeah

0:59:23 Eli: I'm, I'm Grateful that we, we've clarified this terminology before I ever go To IKEA, I'll just say that, IKEA

0:59:24 Tom: I Yeah, That's another one, I, you go to IKEA, you gotta, like, your stuff's hanging out, you gotta like tie it down, I

0:59:35 Eli: Is the best little Meatballs But

0:59:36 Thomas: That's Fair, but

0:59:36 Tom: Just it Just seems Like, like it comes In Handy To Know We'll

0:59:38 Thomas: Then, so that you got to own those time, but most people don't have trucks though, like no, I mean, I guess on the top of your car or whatever, yeah, that is fair, tie down a lot

0:59:43 Tom: Get tie Down A Load I Should I Tie Down a Load Maybe For It Sounds Different, it sounds A Little different I Think with truck, you know, adds little

0:59:48 Thomas: Yeah.

0:59:46 Eli: Do you Know Do You Guys Know IKEA Now has a R U Eli Bosnick service They'll be

0:59:53 Tom: Isn't It more expensive, though It's like IKEA Delivery Is So Expensive, yeah,

0:59:56 Eli: Oh, It's so expensive It's 8 Billion Dollars, they'll been like, hey, we'll Sell you this $32 bookcase, and for $199 we will never make you touch an Allen's wrench, and I'm like, sold, Baby, alright, Keep going I was, I feel like I'm still ahead

1:00:07 Thomas: I Really?

1:00:10 Tom: All Right, I Like this, hang a picture Level And Centered All

1:00:14 Thomas: Don't Think So Oh,

1:00:15 Eli: Nope, still can't Do It

1:00:16 Thomas: Yeah, I Think the last like 10, Eli, you have, you've been a zero and I've been in one. So pretty sure you're not ahead.

1:00:22 Eli: As, stop the count

1:00:25 Tom: Right, pay a proper compliment, you guys can both do That

1:00:29 Eli: Yes,

1:00:30 Thomas: That's very nice of you to say, Tom. You can as well because you just did. Fludged toilet. Yes, I can definitely do that.

1:00:32 Tom: Plunge A toilet

1:00:36 Eli: Yeah, Yes, I Know, know, I have IBS, I've Known that Since I Was A young boy

1:00:39 Thomas: I was going to say that's what we're. I'll even give Eli the edge on that, even though I definitely know how to do it. I'll go ahead and give Eli that extra experiential bonus point.

1:00:45 Tom: Order

1:00:42 Eli: No, Thomas, Has never Clogged A toilet the way I've clogged the toilet, okay, yes, I

1:00:51 Thomas: Pass on that one.

1:00:50 Tom: Flowers What if there's a funeral, what if somebody passes Away.

1:00:56 Thomas: Yeah. Good.

1:00:56 Eli: Tend To Bring Them A doll Of their child That's I That's Preferable, uh,

1:00:57 Tom: Oh.

1:00:57 Thomas: Point. Look. I Will Google Flowers. And then fucking Whatever And Then I'll There'll be some App.

1:01:01 Tom: My God. Alright. So You Yes. You would know how to order flowers. Yeah, alright.

1:01:05 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

1:01:07 Eli: Pro tip.

1:01:08 Tom: I

1:01:08 Eli: By the way, for anyone who was a no on that one, grocery store, Lydia.

1:01:12 Thomas: I just go, that was, that's what I was gonna say, I just bought Lydia flowers for her birthday, I just got the grocery store, and oh here's a good one, here's good pro tip that I'm sure everyone already knows, is not really a pro tip, if you have the, um, the bit, beat, Lydia, don't listen for a second here if you don't mind, hit uh, definitely drop, oh Lydia, you dropped your, your earbuds, um, if The Bit Is that the kids are going to pick out the flowers, then there's no, you have infinite excuse for them sucking, like There's not, you know what I mean? Doesn't matter if it's like, oh, you know, Lydia has told me a hundred times she doesn't like this, but don't care, kids picked them out, it's perfect, it's a perfect crime, what

1:01:29 Eli: Dropped Drop your Earbuds. Yeah.

1:01:45 Eli: Crime.

1:01:45 Tom: Order flowers at least once a month, alright, pay Respects Like

1:01:47 Eli: Out of here. Yes. Dead people.

1:01:49 Thomas: Does that mean I

1:01:51 Tom: Like at a, at a funeral or at a wake

1:01:54 Thomas: Just Don't Have

1:01:55 Eli: Not jerk off at a funeral or awake. Just a normal.

1:01:55 Thomas: Yeah Do You tie your load at the funeral or no, I don't Have this happen, we discussed I've Never been To A Funeral

1:02:00 Tom: We Talked About

1:02:02 Eli: You got to look like you're shaking with crying, by the way. Pro tip. Pro tip if you're jerking off at the funeral.

1:02:05 Thomas: Yeah

1:02:03 Tom: This, yeah Yeah I I, I mean, I, maybe, maybe I've just had a lot of people pass away, but I've been to more than two Dozen funerals or wakes in my life So It You Got Right There's an etiquette to it and So you should be able to arrive and, you know, know how, know, know Know what To Do I

1:02:13 Thomas: No.

1:02:15 Eli: Yeah, you got to learn. There's a funeral technique. Technique.

1:02:20 Thomas: I Don't Know I'm pretty Empathetic In general, so I'd probably be like, at the funeral I'll be like sobbing, no, it's just like some Co-worker, co -workers I don't even care about, oh

1:02:30 Tom: Want

1:02:31 Eli: Can tell you my dad's pro move? You guys are going to shit on it. No, you know what? You don't get to know my dad'S pro move for funerals because you guys are gonna shit on it. My dad would

1:02:39 Thomas: No. I want to Know your dad's Pro Move No. I

1:02:42 Tom: To know his pro move, man

1:02:43 Eli: Always go up to the widow or the widower and he would give them a letter. And in that letter, he would always tell a story, which was almost always not true, about a time that their person had been heroic. Like, oh, I was trapped by the side of the road and they pulled up and they helped me, or something like that. And he would do that every time someone died, and they would treasure that letter usually, because most people suck and they don't do nice things in their life. Yeah.

1:03:05 Thomas: Was Gonna Say There's got to be a rule though, if this, if somebody actually sucked though, cuz What if it's Like

1:03:10 Eli: We Didn't Go To the funeral of people who sucked

1:03:11 Thomas: Okay. Okay, I got, is that what I was wondering how you handle that? Like, serious question.

1:03:16 Eli: No.

1:03:17 Thomas: Somebody died and they suck. You just don't go. Okay.

1:03:20 Eli: Go.

1:03:20 Thomas: I have no funeral experience. I don't know. I guess I applied that to my dad though.

1:03:22 Tom: You You See, I guess like the other thing is, I go to, I've gone to a lot of funerals for work, for like, people work for a big company Or you have A Lot of people That you work with You Don't go, why

1:03:30 Thomas: Yeah, that's true.

1:03:30 Eli: Yeah. I Don't Know When I was in the corporate Toys R Us thing, there was a lot of that, they were like, we're all going to Marianne's memorial, and I was like, nope. It's too Weird To Watch Marianne Diane's husband weeped for his bride. I'm like, I used to get the paychecks from her on Thursdays.

1:03:41 Tom: What That Seems Like I Can't, I'm, what, wow

1:03:51 Eli: I'm not mourning her.

1:03:51 Thomas: Yeah. I I'm with you. I think funerals should be reserved for people who had a genuine relationship with the person. Like that's just how I am. I don't want, I wouldn't, if I, if I died, I don't want someone who like had to fucking associate with me briefly for no reason to have to come to my funeral. Roll. That's bullshit. Come on. With Eli on this one.

1:04:09 Tom: All right, so that's my list that I just I, that's, I put, so I just, just I feel

1:04:11 Thomas: Oh, nice. You entirely came up with that? That wasn't like a googly thing?

1:04:16 Eli: Yeah, it's a tom list.

1:04:17 Thomas: Nice. I love it.

1:04:18 Tom: No, that's that's the list I wrote for my kids about what what I think their basic life skills should be walking. I excluded one of them, which was pitch a tent, because I knew you guys were going to say, ah, you don't need to know how to do that.

1:04:27 Eli: Because you knew we were going to think that meant jerking off.

1:04:30 Thomas: Yeah. Do you pitch a tent before or after you tie it down and you load on the yeah.

1:04:30 Tom: But yeah, right.

1:04:35 Eli: Oh, you got to pitch a tent first. Yeah.

1:04:37 Thomas: Crazy.

1:04:38 Eli: Nobody likes that. Gentlemen, before we go, important news. My son's teacher recently informed me that they're only going to teach him the first 10 letters of the alphabet. That's what I get for sending him to pre-K.

1:04:36 Tom: But I oh all right

1:05:07 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 Law'd Awful 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.

1:05:46 Tom: The thing what the dishwasher is for the dishwasher is to pack every inch

1:05:50 Eli: I'll pace a single pork diagonally across the bottom row and hit that shit on I'm turning it on I'm