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Transcript

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

0:00:29 Tom: Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's getting a little soft, but if you wait 20 minutes, I promise it'll all be just fine. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:40 Thomas: Weird of you to just put your personal stuff in the intro of the show, but yeah, okay.

0:00:44 Eli: Thank you, Thomas, because for the record, Thomas was like, oh, just, you know, make it about coddling. And Tom was like un -erect penises. Got it. Here we go.

0:00:53 Tom: Getting soft. We're getting soft on the kids. Why did you... You're misinterpreting what I wrote for something else.

0:00:57 Eli: Hey, if you're getting that kind of

0:00:59 Eli: Soft on your kids, our show's about to take a weird turn. Hi, new, new listener, welcome to the parenting podcast. I always like when we say horrible things like that, because I know just statistically someone was like, all right, Diane, you say it's such a good show about fatherhood, I'll give it a listen, you know when you're fucking your kids, but you're done, Dear Old Dads, it's

0:01:05 Tom: This is a parenting show

0:01:22 Thomas: So wholesome.

0:01:26 Tom: Right

0:01:29 Thomas: Yeah, you have to imagine just them being like, oh man, I just, I connected with the last episode. You have to listen to this. It just was so therapeutic. It was moving. I was crying actually.

0:01:36 Eli: So moving, right, but then we put something out

0:01:41 Thomas: So do your kids suck at floor, floor play, or what? Like what, they just don't even Oh, yeah,

0:01:45 Eli: Yeah.

0:01:46 Tom: We've already established arlo's a selfish lover that's canon now that's That's canon now.

0:01:49 Eli: We have We have, that's that's Dear Old Dads canon. I

0:01:51 Thomas: A selfless lover, he's the, he's the ultimate lover, I thought was canon, right? I mean, he's that, it am I misremembering?

0:01:56 Tom: I thought he couldn't eat ass. I don't know. I don't t remember exactly what it was.

0:01:58 Eli: I remember yeah

0:01:56 Thomas: No, I I thought his thing was he's what, um, did I miss, okay, we'll have to go back in the archives.

0:01:59 Eli: No that

0:02:02 Tom: Well, we'll back.

0:02:02 Eli: Was, you Thomas, it was, it was you, we were trying to talk about sexual development, and you were like, I was born knowing where the clitoris was, you can see how you'd forget that.

0:02:05 Thomas: Okay, so I just need to make sure I know that, just the lore going forward. So Arlo is, is a very selfish lover, is that we're saying, that fits actually you know what that fits better, so, to his personality, oh boy. Well, speaking of all of that, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, if you would like to have less of this interrupted by, you know, ads, what could they do? Yeah.

0:02:15 Eli: Yes. The

0:02:18 Tom: I thought our... Yeah, yeah. Well, hey, maybe we should talk about ads. Yeah.

0:02:29 Eli: Only thing worse than tuning, tuning into a parenting podcast and hearing about children's sex, is the auto-ad that just invaded your ears like Arlo's clumsy temps at analingus. Why not get rid of them today by signing up at patreon.com/dearolddads? You'll get access to bonus episodes and a special story about our kids for every single episode, but most importantly, you won't hear that horrible abortion of sound that just so assaulted your ear balls. Hide,

0:02:39 Thomas: Oh, okay, back to the kid fucking, you know, oh,

0:03:17 Tom: Oh,

0:03:17 Eli: So, water, something about water, obviously.

0:03:17 Tom: God. All right.

0:03:19 Thomas: Yeah, Well, I want to tell y'all a story, I, I had something really funny happen on Friday, so we have signed up Arlo for soccer, and he already had a little, mind you, this kid's three, he's not, he's turning four very soon, but he already had a little soccer through his daycare, and they would do, you know, like once a week, like I don't know how long, but you know, some coach would come in there, and they've kicked the ball around, do nothing, and Arlo is the weirdest kid, because, I want to do it, I hate it, and then after school he'll be like, yeah, it was good, I liked it, it was fine, and then, but we also couldn't get him to wear the jersey, you

0:03:55 Tom: That's because some other kid was wearing the same jersey. That's the problem. He'll never wear it. Everybody else has the same damn jersey, Dad.

0:03:57 Eli: Yeah, shirt

0:03:57 Thomas: My god, that actually might holy fuck, Tom, you just blew that, might be it, I actually never even occurred to me. Well, because we haven't had that battle since before that thing where he said someone else was wearing it, so I didn't, I didn't like, make, yeah, we haven't talked about the jersey or he hasn't had to wear it since then. So I didn't make that connection, but now that you say it, yeah. 'Cause so someone sent me a thing that was like, oh yeah, you know, sensory process, it's not sensory actually, I, okay, it's not the feel of the clothes, it's, he always has some reason about why he doesn't like, intellectually, like what's on the shirt, it's weird, it's not, it's, I don't know how to describe it, but I don't think he likes the jersey, like how it looks, but maybe you're right, maybe it is that, everyone else, look at all these other fuckers, they're wearing the same shirt,

0:04:04 Tom: Wait, for real?

0:04:11 Eli: Gate,

0:04:41 Tom: Dad,

0:04:41 Thomas: God, damn, it so

0:04:41 Tom: Everybody's got the same shirt. Yeah. I'm not doing a who wore it best with all these fucking kids, dad, I'm not doing it, yeah.

0:04:47 Thomas: We, um, signed, here's another thing, as a parent, and I know what Eli's answer is probably going to be, but when it comes to sports, do you have any fucking idea what you're supposed to do? I'm a sports dad, and even I'm like, oh wait, Phoebe's five, should, should I have already, do they do? And then, yeah,

0:05:01 Eli: Too late, too late, six years too late, oh,

0:05:09 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:08 Tom: It's too late, you have to yeah, they have to start doing push-ups like in womb in order for them to get conditioned properly for their preschool, they're never gonna get into a good preschool varsity league if they're not conditioned,

0:05:21 Eli: Preschool

0:05:20 Thomas: Yeah. They're never gonna get drafted,

0:05:22 Eli: Soccer program, yeah, you gotta

0:05:22 Tom: Yeah, no, they're never gonna hit those scholarships, yeah,

0:05:24 Eli: Go with yeah,

0:05:24 Thomas: Scouted into preschool if you haven't already.

0:05:26 Eli: No, say, yeah, no, juggling juggling punching trees with her bare fists, it's already happening, it's too late, yeah, like the thing about sports is, if you want your kid to be good at sports, you have to care, but here's the great thing, if you don't, none of it matters, do whatever you want, go whatever, quit that, start that, do this, that place is fine, it's all fine. Fine, because there's 1% of 1% of

0:05:27 Thomas: Yeah, no.

0:05:27 Tom: No, it's they're just, they're garbage monkeys if they're five, yeah, the ship sailed, there's already some fucking, fucking Russian kid out there who's got her place in every, no, it's done, that's

0:05:51 Thomas: We Yeah exactly. Yeah by

0:05:55 Tom: Yeah, yep,

0:06:01 Eli: Not-our-kids are the ones who have to take this seriously and be put in the right programs. All you gotta make sure is that it isn't Coach Touchems and that they're having fun. That's it. Two jobs.

0:06:11 Thomas: The way, coach, coach touch him's top patron and do our podcast. So, uh, I have to figure that out.

0:06:15 Eli: Oh, you hate to see it.

0:06:14 Tom: That Was weird. I thought that was, I'm still taking the money, but I thought that was weird.

0:06:20 Thomas: I, well, I mean, you, you heard the intro to the show. I feel like maybe we cracked why, why he's so into the show?

0:06:24 Eli: Give me one second. Now that we're associated with Coach Touchams, I need to tweet out all of me and Tom's text messages for some reason. I don't know why.

0:06:30 Tom: Oh, that sucks.

0:06:32 Eli: This is just how it works.

0:06:32 Thomas: So I'm not like trying to have my kid be an elite sportist. I don't, I like, I don'T care about that. And I also, I DON'T even care that much about them getting into sports at this level, because as I've already said, all the sports they can play as, as toddlers essentially are the worst sports. It's baseball ball and soccer and those sports suck, I just don't care about them, but I, you know, I go to pick up Phoebe from her thing and one day there's like nobody there and I was like, where the fuck is everybody? And the teacher's like, oh yeah, everybody has like, you know, 900 different activities. You know, it was that kind of like parenting shame thing where it's like, what?

0:06:34 Eli: Oh, No.

0:07:08 Thomas: Yeah, they're like, oh yeah, like so this kid went to swimming, this kid goes to ballet, this kid does this, you know, fucking, and I don't know, high a lie.

0:07:11 Tom: This One went, we, we, we, all the way home. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, Yeah, no, yeah.

0:07:17 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. This one's in the UFC. Uh, they're, they'RE fighting tonight.

0:07:21 Tom: Mine just like roast beef. I get it. Yeah.

0:07:23 Thomas: Yeah. Pretty much. And I, yeah, I just had this moment of like, Oh fuck. Is that already? Now part of the problem is this is not her kindergarten. This is the after kindergarten care. And that's like, there's also kind of big, big kids in there.

0:07:36 Eli: You're You're already in the band parent zone, yeah. Just

0:07:38 Thomas: Yeah there's, there's big kids there too. So it might not be like her age that needs to be doing this, But it got me thinking like, oh, fuck, am I already not doing more? Because like, yeah, there's I go to pick up Phoebe and it's her in those broken toys from that island. And like, that's all she's like, my new friend. And yeah, it was more just like, Oh, am I am I having her miss out on something, you know? And especially when her friends are doing it, I feel like ,oh, crap, is she feeling like she's not going to do something? Thing. So I, you know, she does the gymnastic, uh, sorry. She, Arlo does gymnastics. She does the dance on Saturdays. So that's something, you Know, um, and I had bought like the baseball stuff for her. Did I tell you guys about that?

0:07:47 Eli: A herd of unwanted children fenced in ages 2 to 22. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

0:07:57 Tom: No, you bought baseball stuff for her?

0:08:25 Thomas: No, yeah, I bought, she, I can't remember why. I think it was one of those, like the touch of springtime last year. And the, you know, I had mowed the lawn that I still had, even though I got rid of that. Um, and it just felt really like sporty and she, maybe somebody mentioned something about sport. I don't remember what, but I was like, all right, let's, uh, let'S get some sports stuff just to try. And at that time, you know, Phoebe's writing with her left hand and I go to the sports place and I proceed to buy her, you Know, $8 ,000 worth of left -handed sports equipment. And, uh long story short, I don't think she's left -hand.

0:09:00 Thomas: I fortunately it didn't matter with the bat or whatever, but like I bought her a glove. I bought, you, know, some other stuff that goes on her hand and she couldn't, she writes left. She's always written left -handed. It's like, I've been never more sure of anything. I was like, okay, well you're left -hand. When she goes to grab it with her right hand, grab the pencil. She does the, you know, the pot, like, like she's a gorilla grabbing it. You know, she does that grip, you Know?

0:08:59 Eli: Oh, you hate to see it, yeah.

0:09:01 Tom: Oh, no.

0:09:22 Thomas: And so I was, like oh, she's, she left - handed. But then I have her try to swing the bat at the tee ball and she isn't doing it right, left - hand. I was this, this doesn't, can you try your right side? And then all of a sudden it's like oh fucking A! God damn it! You're right -handed. So I had to, you know, all that stuff was worthless.

0:09:22 Eli: Oh, you hate to say it yeah.

0:09:37 Tom: Well, does she still write with her left, though? She writes with her life, but she bats and catches. She would prefer to catch and throw.

0:09:39 Thomas: Yep. Still writes with her left and throws and throwing is the key metric. And, and, and she's, I haven't really worked on throwing with her. So it was hard to tell, you knows, like she was two left hands. So, but now it's become clear.

0:09:47 Tom: Right.

0:09:53 Eli: Fun. Maybe. Fact, there's actually some really interesting science right now that I don't understand. It could totally be bullshit that handedness is a construct, that, like, handedness isn't nearly as important as we make it out to be. It's just because the handwriting system is based on whether you're left or right handed, so it's been super important throughout history. But like, maybe we use our left and right hands more interchangeably now, that that doesn't matter. It's pretty cool.

0:10:18 Thomas: Boy, I, I'm, I don't think that's true, but but well,

0:10:22 Eli: I Oh, hey, hey, Thomas, very possible. I don't fucking know.

0:10:24 Tom: Was this on a science-based yik -yak that you read this. Where did this come from? I know

0:10:30 Eli: The last yik-yak going

0:10:27 Thomas: Maybe specifically, maybe specifically for handwriting or something like maybe, but like I'm, I'm pretty sure handed. This is pretty innate. I thought I remember from science class. I don't know. We'll find out. We 'LL ask, we 'LL ASK SIO. Yeah.

0:10:31 Eli: Wow. Hand cyst your hand cyst, yep.

0:10:44 Thomas: So anyway, all that is to say she did a little t -ball in last spring. God, I guess it's already been a fucking year and you know, she had fun. She's pretty pretty good at it, but she's typical kid, typical Phoebe. She makes some, you know, imaginary game out of it. And then she's in her whole land and she can't really focus, but you know she, it was enough to where I was like, oh, I should try to have her do a t -ball league. Just, you now to see she can hang maybe with a friend or something. She can go up and hit the worthless fucking baseball nowhere and do whatever. It'll be fun. And so you go to Google that shit. And I don't know if it's just where I live, but what I was with presented was 9 million options for shit. And I had no fucking clue what to do.

0:11:24 Eli: Yep.

0:11:25 Thomas: You know, it should be like here. Oh, you want to get your kid into sports. Here's when you should do it. And here's the sport. And here'S the one league that you should DO. Nope. It's the fuck.

0:11:25 Eli: Yep. Yep.

0:11:33 Tom: But Yeah, that that can't be how it works, because that would deny parents that are into this the ability to escape into a labyrinth of various rules and associations and bylaws and fucking clubs. And this is all designed so that weird Disney adults have something to do when, when they're not at the theme park, it's some other bizarre labyrinth nonsense of fucking type a planners to fucking get lost in when they're out at work.

0:11:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:55 Thomas: It'S all the not Disney adults, Tom.

0:11:55 Eli: Exactly. Labyrinthine thing, and and T-Dog, here's the solution. Thomas just gave it to you, you just find a better parent than you. One of those Disney adults, mine is Liz. Hi, Liz. Um, and I'm like, hey, what do I send my kid to, and she's like, oh, it's this one, because this one over here did this, and there was a scandal over at this one, and oh, you do not want to do that one because they, they charge you a firefly fee, and the firefly flea goes into effect twice a year instead of just once a year, and you just let them finish talking, and eventually they'll send you a link, and boom, the better parent does the thing for you. It's the best.

0:12:17 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm hmm. Don't do this one. Your top patron's is a coach over there, don't fucking do that one, yeah, and I, I have to imagine a lot of it too is a million split off leagues and teams. When someone's kid wasn't getting playing time, probably like it was like the coach isn't putting Mike I'm starting, and who's with me starting a new league and there'd be like four people, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so that sucked because, maybe it's because, because I grew up in a tiny fucking town, but there was just like, oh, you want to do the noun baseball? That's this whole thing. Like the, the,

0:12:39 Eli: Oh! Sorry, Yeah. It's like, it's like Protestantism. It's just fucking, mm

0:12:59 Tom: Right.

0:13:14 Eli: -hmm.

0:13:14 Thomas: All of baseball is this.

0:13:15 Tom: You just plugged into a system. Like you just plug in. You're like, I want to be a part of this. I'm like, great. You're part of the fucking, you know, Plainsville iguanas or whatever. You're not great. Love it. Absolutely. Awesome.

0:13:17 Thomas: Yeah. Right. The league. Yeah, there's one league. Cause there's, you know, 10 fucking people, but there's like just enough people and kids back where I was from for, you know, one good sports league of each kind. And so that's why I thought it was.

0:13:33 Tom: There was just one team. Thomas's team had to play both sides. It just like, okay, We're just one of you guys gets to hit the ball and that's okay. You're the offense and that is. That's it.

0:13:36 Eli: Yep. Yep. No time on the bench.

0:13:43 Thomas: Uh, uh, Yeah, we played back in the, uh, in the vacant lot where Tom threw all his trash, and we get hit, just pelted with stuff all the time. It'd be, we had to come up with a stadium, like a league rule, like if you get, if you get pelted in the head with one of Tom's toys, that's a free single, like you get to go to first, yeah.

0:13:43 Eli: Calaville Dirt Bites.

0:13:53 Tom: Okay.

0:13:53 Eli: Mm -hmm. Yeah. And

0:14:03 Tom: The dead possum that's third base. If you get to the dead possom, that's that's third base and it's

0:14:06 Thomas: Uh,

0:14:07 Eli: If your ball goes into the curry yard, don't go after it. Their son's not right. He's got a big swollen head and he'll throw a hatchet at you.

0:14:14 Tom: No.

0:14:14 Thomas: All, that is to say I don't know what to do I like, I saw the first thing I looked up for t -ball was like, oh she already the the fucking shit of course it's all wrong too like that's the other thing they have websites but one parent put that together probably once and knew nothing about the league because it's all word of mouth what You really probably have to do is not be me, like literally be any human being except me, because what you would have done is talk to a bunch of parents that you hate and don't want to talk to, and they would have told you about exactly what Eli just said about the sports teams and everything, and that's how you'd know.

So I go to this website, I'm like, here's the aging system, it's all a weird thing, Phoebe was four, four, and the stupid age chart was saying like, yeah, she's going to be with a six and up. And I was like, that's not, I know that's not fucking right. There's no, they're like, yes, she already missed T-ball. She was four, that's what it was. She was four years old. And they said, yeah, OK, so T-ball's already out. That's, that's going to be

0:14:38 Eli: Yeah.

0:15:15 Tom: Yeah.

0:15:15 Thomas: The four -year -olds.

0:15:15 Tom: Yeah, at four, we're going to throw the ball right at them. That's at four.

0:15:17 Thomas: Yeah, I know. Nolan Ryan is

0:15:17 Eli: Yeah.

0:15:19 Tom: We're goingto hurl the ball. We got this cannon system we've developed.

0:15:19 Thomas: Just going to fucking, yeah.

0:15:22 Tom: It's great. They'll love it.

0:15:20 Eli: Yeah. It's just six pitching machines that have gained sentience.

0:15:23 Thomas: Yeah. And

0:15:26 Tom: You can't hit a change -up? Your kid can't get a fucking change - up? I'm sorry. They're still in diapers?

0:15:30 Thomas: Wow.

0:15:30 Eli: No.

0:15:31 Tom: I know what a change up is now.

0:15:31 Thomas: Yeah. It's good. So you're incorporating that one bit of sports, that unit of sports knowledge.

0:15:33 Tom: I learned something. I learned some from dear old dads.

0:15:37 Thomas: Yeah, I love that. And I loved it too, because again, Phoebe was four, she was like four, so t-ball is done for the four-year-olds, um, that, you know, if you're four she could play t-balls, this is all the websites talking in my voice, and uh, but like, because she's in the fucking six and up for some stupid reason, she's of her birthday cut off or some crap, uh, she's already taken fastballs from from MLB pitchers, like she's not, and so I just didn't do it because I was like, that's fucking nonsense. Anyway, all this is to say, uh, sports, and so Arlo, though, we- Everything that's through the city is fine. Like the city that we live in is a little, you know, whatever. It's not a big city. It's a suburb outside of Sacramento. And that, they do the Parks and Rec. They got their own Leslie Knope out there doing the Parks and Rec sports. No, it's great. What's the no?

0:16:14 Eli: No, no, mistake, terrible mistake. No, no, this is poor, you're sending your kid to poor kid sports. This is why there are leagues, Thomas, because you go to poor kids courts and there's a kid who's got a wiffle bat. One kid doesn't have a glove, his mom crocheted it for him last night after her 12 hour nursing shift. One kid's 34, But he's there on fucking work release from the prison across the street. You can't send your kids to public shit, yeah.

0:16:33 Thomas: I don't know if I can keep

0:16:48 Tom: A minute. We do our kids go to the park district stuff. Stuff we sent our kids to I did park district stuff. Look how I turned out. No, I, I Did

0:16:55 Eli: Exactly. That's what, that's the the Curry boy goes to the park

0:16:57 Thomas: Fuck, Eli. I was going to argue with you, Eli, and now I don'T know. No, no, I was the poor kid sports too, but we didn't have the good thing about where I was is we also didn't Have like a town or city that did anything. So yeah, so it's

0:16:59 Eli: Right.

0:17:08 Eli: There's no rich people to do another thing, so it's just like everybody go down to the old diamond shaped graveyard and try not to kick up Mrs. McGillicuddy after we buried her last week. All

0:17:16 Tom: Right. This is this is the problem, Thomas. When this is a problem with Eli. When, when you grow up, or you're living in New Jersey versus Cal, like out here where I'm at, like the fucking park districts are super nice, like they have like the park district building out here has an indoor pool with two water slides in it, like the park district is fucking baller out here.

0:17:22 Thomas: True. Yeah, ours is too. Yeah. Whoa, that's fucking great.

0:17:40 Tom: The park district programs are outstanding. So

0:17:41 Eli: Right. The

0:17:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Who hurt you, Eli, what park hurt you, because this is

0:17:44 Eli: Whatever the fucking one near me, you were talking about the one near me, I took my son to the one near me because they were like, hey, free, they sent us a little mail, they're like, hey, pre preschool for your kid, and I was like, free preschool, that's a moment, I went to the fucking cement prison filled with children, age 8 to 85, just running each other into walls and praying to bleed enough to be sent home, it was a nightmare, the- the Parks and Recs building, building, I went in and it was completely unlocked, I'm walking around the office and I'm like, I'm, there's no one in there, I'm just walking around these desks going, hello, hello, finally a guy wanders in and he goes, what are you doing here? And I was like, hi, I'm, I'm here for public service I pay for with my taxes, and he was like, there hasn't been any public service here

0:17:45 Tom: Yeah

0:18:01 Thomas: Oh no yeah and no I'm leaving I'm leaving yeah

0:18:32 Eli: For a hundred, 100 years. That's what you're sending Arlo to.

0:18:39 Thomas: Yeah

0:18:37 Tom: No that, that's, that's what, that's why it's, because you can't, in New Jersey the difference between daycare and an oil refinery is very little more than the placard on the front door or the entrance that you use to get in, that's the only, in a real city or suburb the park districts are just fine. Well

0:18:54 Thomas: It's this is really nice, but I really seems like it to me, but I signed our love for that, he's also, he's four, you know, like I'm not gonna, he's not not getting in a league, I just, and the thing about Arlo.

0:19:05 Tom: You better get him in fucking T-ball, god damn it. Now's his time

0:19:07 Thomas: Yeah, I know. God, I already missed that. Arlo is a tough person to get, to do anything. So I'm just like trying to get him to experience stuff. So he's done soccer in school. And then we're like trying to get them in a soccer league just to see. But of course we missed every deadline and didn't know all this. God, it's fucking, it's a nightmare, man.

It's, I know, just, what, I'm a little busy right now, I don't know if anybody knows, but I'm, I'm a little preoccupied, but uh, Lydia was nice enough, I was like, hey, can you check, I meant to, you know, I'm sports dad, I meant to get the kids into sports, can you just fucking, I haven't been able to, can you look at that for me right now, so she does, and she, poor her, she has to see what I just described, which is a labyrinth and impossible, you-esque system of leagues and shit, and the best we could do, she was like, well, we missed everything, of course every, and it, whatever the, the date is, you've missed everything, you know, it's like there's a, there's 10 leagues, you've missed them all, but I guess maybe if we remember we'll make the next thing, and then she's like, oh, the, the Parks and Rec, yeah, you know, where all the poor people go.

0:20:06 Eli: Yes, exactly. Exactly. They have the latest start date because they have parents who are like, hey, my son just got out of the hospital. I tried to chop him up using our blend -o slash. Can I toss him here from 2 p .m. to 7 .30 p .n. every day until he commits his first felony? I can. Thank y'all so much.

0:20:29 Eli: I'm off to go do meth out of a Monster Energy can.

0:20:07 Thomas: Yeah yeah no, exactly, and so we're like, oh, we'll do that and it'll be soccer, but it's not a league, it'll be another lesson, I was like, that's funny, four doesn't need a league, a team when you're four is nothing, that's absolutely, there will be one kid who's the son of David Beckham or something who's like just runs around everybody else. And every other kid will just have their hand down their pants doing fucking in the dirt, you know. They're four. So I was like, yeah, any soccer is fine. But Arlo calls this real soccer. He's like, oh, I'm going to do real soccer? And we're like, uh, yeah. Sure, buddy. You're going to be real soccer and first, first little funny Arlo thing. Tells me, oh so do I get to use a real soccer ball? I was, like, mmm, yeah man, pretty sure you were already using real soccer balls. I was trying to figure out, yeah, exactly.

0:20:53 Tom: Yeah whatever what I'll just say what is he practicing with like an inflated goat skull, like what the fuck is going on isn't

0:21:15 Thomas: I was try to figure what he meant. I was like, well, does he mean he can't mean us a bigger one? Like, yes, he uses a small kids one, but I'm not sure. You know what I mean? I just felt my intuition was I don't think that's what he's talking about because he wouldn't have made that connection. You know, he's four. He wouldn't been like, oh, I bet there's a bigger one I could play with. So I'm trying to figured out a real soccer ball. So I was, all right, yeah, buddy, yeah, definitely. So the day comes, we get to the park and we pretty excited. I'm happy. He's gonna do it, we fit in with all the poor kids. We have not purchased a single ounce of soccer gear. And this is, this is tough, because this was, I almost felt bad now, I, as a kid, yeah,

0:21:49 Tom: That the thing with soccer, though, is that you don't need gear, you just, you just wear the same shirt as everybody else, one person has a ball and that's it, what the f**k else do you need for gear I'm

0:21:56 Eli: Cleats yeah

0:21:56 Thomas: Yeah, you cleats and shin guards are pretty key Cleats and shit girls He's for they're not going into battle with each other They're, they're just, okay.

0:21:59 Eli: Shin guards, why didn't you buy your kid cleats or shin guards, buy him no but everyone

0:22:01 Tom: Already bored

0:22:08 Eli: Knows he's poor, absolutely.

0:22:09 Tom: F**king, if Max is, Max would be playing soccer in a f***** full plate of armor, just a full plate

0:22:14 Eli: In his own mech, of course.

0:22:17 Tom: He's just covered in pool noodles and

0:22:20 Thomas: If you would like to know, why my son didn't wear shin guards is a combination. Why we didn't by shin guards. It's a combination of several factors. First off, as I said, I am the sports dad. Lydia is, well, I was almost going to insult her by saying she knows about much as about as Tom does about sports, but that's, that's an insult. She knows more than that. I don't, yeah, that is insane. I

0:22:35 Eli: Yeah that's not fair

0:22:36 Tom: Does she know what a change-up is because I know what a change up is Thomas

0:22:40 Eli: Sure

0:22:38 Thomas: Think so I think she would know it, so but she knows roughly somewhere between Tom and Eli of sports, and I, because I, again, I don't know if you know this, but I'm pretty busy lately, I'm all consumed in a never-ending eternal struggle that takes every second of my day, so I had left it to her, and, and I don't even want to blame her because I'm not a soccer person, so honestly I probably would have forgot to, like, I don't even want to blame her, so no I think it's my fault, I, I just just didn't, I didn't have, yeah, I didn't think of it.

So, and also it's, he didn't have shin guards or cleats at the school when we already did, because, you know, they're four. They're going to just kick a ball. Like they'll set a ball in front of them and they'll be like, use, use your leg and kick it, that's all. But this one, I guess they're running around a little bit more, and the kids, a lot of kids were decked out. And I feel bad because this is the kind of thing that I have decided as a parent I am not going to do to my kids, because I was the poor kid who either

0:22:47 Eli: Oh it's her fault, it's canon and yeah

0:23:05 Tom: Canon now, it's can it's her fault

0:23:32 Thomas: Had nothing, or I had two different shin guards, one was like a foot and a half, all hand -me -downs. Literally, that's not a joke. 100% hand -MeDowns was my entire everything.

0:23:32 Eli: Right hand -me -downs yeah of course yeah

0:23:45 Thomas: And it wasn't just, I've already said this, I think, but just because we've already been doing this show almost a year. It wasn't juste hand -MEDowns for my siblings, which is bad enough. I got like the fucking, I don't know, town hand -ме -down. I don't even know what happened, but my, my, well, it was the, it was our friends. It was, my brother had a friend and in a small town, it's just another family that like every sibling you're kind of matched up friends with, you don't know what I mean? It's like, okay, that's my brother's friend.

0:23:59 Eli: Of course the public hand-be-down, yeah.

0:24:12 Tom: All the hand-me -downs are stuffed full of government cheese inside of them, them, it's just like, yeah, all right, that makes sense.

0:24:15 Eli: Good news, the Schmenderson boy died of leukemia, you get a whole, how'd you like to play hockey, I

0:24:19 Tom: Yeah

0:24:20 Thomas: Yeah. But this was a good, this was a family that like kind of had money for some reason. I, well okay. Again, angels camp money. So they, yeah,

0:24:32 Eli: Was, I was gonna say, they're also being the fucking, we're toting snake-fighting Smiths, so

0:24:37 Tom: Yeah they they had a mine in their backyard, or a cave in their backyard, but they'd blocked it off, they had, they had board up money, that's what they had

0:24:46 Eli: No they oh

0:24:40 Thomas: Yep, look, it's hard to put a number to the snake wealth that we had, but, you know, it is not worth nothing, come on, give us some credit, yeah.

0:24:50 Tom: Oh diamondback rattlesnakes

0:24:54 Eli: We have anti-venom, right?

0:24:55 Tom: Ooh la la

0:25:02 Thomas: In their cave had gold teeth and stuff, ours was like silver as bullshit, it was total fucking nonsense,

0:25:05 Eli: Yeah so so you carried forward the tradition of learned poverty to your son

0:25:07 Tom: Is

0:25:09 Thomas: Yes, exactly, by just forgetting about it, and he had had nothing and I felt embarrassed and he was wearing and it's it's winter so he's wearing like totally inappropriate clothes because it's cold but the other kids again their parents probably are like soccer players their whole lives I fucking hate soccer I don't know what it is I don't care so I'm almost a Lydia when it comes to soccer and so I put you know Arlo's in pants and he's just wearing totally inappropriate clothing for the for the sport but whatever

0:25:11 Eli: No

0:25:34 Tom: He not supposed to wear pants when it's cold to play soccer?

0:25:36 Thomas: Well.

0:25:36 Tom: They freeze. Their, fucking little legs, off. I'm

0:25:37 Eli: You, wear shorts,

0:25:37 Thomas: You, wear shorts and when you run around it's warm. Like, you, Tom, I don't know if you know this, this, but when you, man, what do we have to tell Tom about just the activity in general? So when you, when you

0:25:48 Tom: Not going outside when it's cold to run around, I'll stay inside, thank you, because when it's cold no.

0:25:52 Thomas: Run around, have you ever sweated Tom? Do you see now?

0:25:54 Tom: I sweat plenty, thank you very much. But

0:25:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:56 Eli: Some us don't need sports to sweat through our shirts. Thomas, yeah.

0:25:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:59 Tom: Just I'm sweating right now as As a matter of fact, I'll show you.

0:26:04 Eli: I put deodorant on before this record, black.

0:26:08 Thomas: All this is a long winded way of saying here I am at the sports place at the soccer place. Oh, I need to tell the real soccer ball thing. So this was week one. Been there two weeks. And the second week is the, is the story I want to tell. Week one though, the real soccer ball mystery was solved because we're walking up and he sees all the soccer balls on the, on the ground.

And again, he's, he said this real soccerball thing a lot of times. It wasn't just like one thing. I'm still like, I don't fucking know what you mean. Like, does he have a whiffle soccer ball or something? And we get there, we see soccer balls on the the ground. And he's like, I thought I was going to get to play with real soccer balls. And I was like, yeah, what, what are you talking? Those are real soccer balls. So what do you mean?

He's like no, they're not. They don't, they don't have the, they won't have black things. I was like, what? He's like, they don't have the black thing. And eventually did my dad detective work. He thinks the only real soccer balls are the stereotypical. Like if you see a picture,

0:27:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:00 Eli: And white ones Yeah.

0:27:01 Thomas: The black and white checkered kind of soccer ball, that's like the official old, that's from like the seventies though. They don't look like that anymore, but because probably in all his books or something, that's like what a soccer ball looks like. So he thought that was a soccer roll. And to make matters worse, there was one that was patterned like that. And it was the shittiest fucking flat, like fake ball.

0:27:08 Eli: Nope.

0:27:21 Thomas: It was an actual fake ball, like it wasn't even. And he's like, oh, there's a real one. I was like, buddy, that that's the shit. That's the worst one here. Like, you know, you don't want that one like that, all the other ones. They don't look like that anymore. So I thought that mystery was really funny. I don't know if all kids do that or just mine, but like they find that quintessential thing ideal of things. You know, they're like, that's a soccer ball because I've seen that in the movies. It's got the black and white checkered pattern.

0:27:21 Eli: Oh, so

0:27:47 Tom: Did it, did he actually play? I have, now I'm curious. Cause I'm, I wonder if your experience was similar to mine. When I, when I put Finn in soccer for two days was when he played soccer. I fucking hated being us. I tried to do, I tried, I'm like, I don't know. I try to take Finn to soccer and like, I took him twice, two weekends in a row. I took them to soccer. And I like, it's, it I'm right there with you. It's the most boring goddamn thing I've ever tried to. I didn't even try to watch it after a while.

I was like, oh, I should, I'm going to be the dad and like sit on the sideline and watch my kid play soccer. And I thought I'll even learn all this stuff about soccer. And if he's into it, I'll, I'd be a soccer guy. It was my thought. I was Like, I can do this. Like I can get into something because he loves it. And like, he went out there, first of all, he fucking hated it. Same thing. He was just like in whatever pants he wore that day. And I was I don't know, he was fucking running around outside and running

0:27:58 Thomas: All

0:28:32 Eli: Tragic.

0:28:33 Tom: Around outside wearing whatever.

0:28:33 Eli: So, tragic.

0:28:34 Tom: He looked like a total chump. He didn't know how to play. He didn't care to play at all, and I could not keep my attention on the fucking game at all. What's that?

0:28:34 Eli: Finn play this for your therapist. I said Finn play this weird therapist, yeah.

0:28:48 Tom: I couldn't give a shit at all. He's running around and I was like, I'm just gonna play on my phone like I don't care, like, whatever, yeah.

0:28:55 Thomas: The thing, Tom. I don't want to say I'm better than you, but I have all those same feelings about soccer. But I would be like, oh, my kid's into it. Fuck yeah, baby. Woo! Soccer! Go soccer!

0:28:58 Tom: But you are, but you aren't yeah. But thing is Finn wasn't into it at all, like he he would just like like he'd

0:29:07 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair, but you decided to make the effort. I have not. Okay, maybe it's the only difference between us is you preemptively decided you were going to make that effort and then instantly failed, whereas I was like I'm not going to do that unless he turns out to be Mr. Soccer Balls, like unless he tells me like this is my favorite thing, then I will get into it. Okay so that's the Only Difference.

0:29:10 Tom: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:29:28 Tom: We we bailed on it after two weeks. The third week, I was like, all right, let's get ready to go to soccer. And he was like... Or we could just not go to soccer. I was, like, if you're not having fun, we don't have to do this. And he's, like... Oh, thank God. And I was... Yep, thank, God. Let's watch YouTube.

0:29:34 Thomas: Yeah, that That's That's going to be tough to gauge with my kids because they do that for everything. Literally everything. It could be like, hey, let's all get fucking ice cream. I'm like, okay, great. They just don't like transitions.

0:29:48 Eli: That's what kids are, yeah. No, that's kids don't want to do, do anything. My dad used to be enraged by this. He hated it because I loved hanging out with my dad. I loved whatever we did, stuff. But for some reason, whatever couch I was sitting on, I'd be like, no, I must stay here. And he'd be late again. "We're going to get ice cream and then we're goingto go watch Godzilla fight King Kong." And I'dbe like, "I want to eat this carrot stick." I've never done that. What you got to do is you force your children into an infinite series of activities until you find the one that they're good at, and then you pretend that's the only one they've ever cared about, and then they

0:29:57 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly. There you go. Yeah.

0:30:31 Eli: Grow up to do that.

0:30:32 Thomas: Well, I figured out my kids. The pattern is I just have to, they just are addicted to TV. That is actually really all it is. So anytime they were like, let us do something, it means stopping the fucking fucking bullshit show they're watching or movie, and so I've learned to just ignore, which is probably bad, but I've learn to just realize that, okay, this first you minute period of protest is nothing. Like I just ignore, okay, yeah, we're going anyway, and then when they get there they're fine, they like it.

Arlo is really interesting because Phoebe's pattern, I'm pretty sure, is intense anxiety, like I've felt it viscerally in her body, like her, her shaking and stuff, 'cause she's anxious about new things. She warms up for a little bit and then she's great. She just needs to warm up. She needs to see someone she knows or something like that. And that was the exact same fucking way. Like I get it. Arlo is, again, he's the Big Lebowski. He's the dude. It's the weirdest thing.

He could be playing soccer and enjoying it and running around and then something will happen. He'll be like, "Eh, I don't really like this." And I'm like, "Buddy, but yeah, we're here. Like, just go do it." And then we'll go back and it'll, he'll be like, "Oh yeah, okay, I do like this. Yeah, that's fine." Like he's just the weird, the, you don't know what, I know what's going on in his brain. It's amazing.

But anyway, oh my God, I'm sorry, I have to, a slight another tangent. You know how I've said, or have I said that, um, of Lydia's dad being colorblind, all my boys have the 50, 50 chance. Have I told you that?

0:30:34 Tom: Yeah.

0:31:54 Tom: No, uh -uh.

0:31:54 Eli: No.

0:31:54 Thomas: Oh, okay. So our boys, because, because of Lydia's dad, the way, what, how are those genetics work? Um, boy we have would have a 50, 50 chance of being colorblind. So from the very beginning with Arlo, I'm trying, like, all the time as a baby, as everything, try to like see if he knows colors.

And the trick, the hard part of it is you really can't know for certain, like you can't, like as a baby, you can try, you think your kid's identifying colors, but they're not consistent enough. So I, I felt like I knew he didn't have it as a Babie. And then he got to an age where I thought he did have it because he kept saying everything wrong, but then it's like, oh, they just go through a phase where they say stuff wrong for no reason.

And eventually I determined with virtual certainty, I was like, he doesn't have it, even though he will, I think he's only just now old enough to where they'll actually test him at the fucking doctor or something, so that, because they think they can get reliable results. So I'm, he identifies the colors perfect, I'm totally confident.

We go to soccer practice, they have the games they're doing is, take this ball that you, you have on the real soccer ball, fake soccer ball, and dribble it to the orange cone, and he goes straight to the green cone, and I was like, oh fuck, have I, like, the, like the typical red green color blind like those colors are like particularly tricky for colorblind people, it's like, you know, it's red, green, it's oranges, it's

0:33:09 Thomas: All it's those and so that's happening in my mind and I'm, I'm worried about that. So side note, for that it would be amazing if he somehow fucking faked his way the test. Like, you cheated my constant color exams, and then turns out he is colorblind, that'll be interesting. And, by the way, Remy, same deal, we'll see if, keep an eye on that, see if he's colorblind. So, at long last, we get to my story, which is, you know how I told the story last time of how Lydia had took something off my plate, and it was nice because I really need, well, I was like, time to fucking pay back.

I already don't, I don't like being in debt on this at all because I feel like a lazy sack shit dad. So Lydia was like, yeah, what do you think about taking the kids to soccer. I was like, fucking done, I'll do it, totally. Kept Remy. I took the two kids, and this is just Arlo's soccer practice. And thus begins my 30 or so minutes in the main story that I want to talk about. So the first thing that happened was, I was about a minute late because for some fucking reason this soccer thing is Friday at at 525, which is a weird, isn't that weird? Like rush hour. It's the end

0:33:09 Tom: Right, yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:33:09 Eli: Yeah yeah

0:34:14 Thomas: Of the week.

0:34:14 Tom: It's a terrible time that's a terrible time

0:34:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:15 Eli: That's what you get for signing them up. For poor people, you know, but it's perfect 'cause you get off work at five and you just drive over to the old abandoned lot with Thomas' kid who's there in fucking snow pants and a crop top, thong, sandal on one foot, Ugg boot on the other, get out of the car, tuck and roll. I got my, my next job to get to. That's

0:34:16 Tom: Yeah

0:34:31 Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

0:34:42 Thomas: Yeah. So I, know, you guys know my struggles. I've talked about an SIO. I think it's ADHD related. I struggle with lateness. I'm actually really trying and Eli is an inspiration for why I'm trying harder. So if I fail, I can also blame you, Eli, but you are so punctual. I don't know if you would know Eli, But like our interactions on me being on time for recording or whatever my timing on recording, you're getting like the Royal treatment from me. Like that is, yeah, this is like the equivalent. I'm, I'm either on the daughter, like a minute late, which is fucking, that is me rolling out the red carpet and giving you a blow job.

That's like a, I might as well just be fucking blowing you right now. That is how, so I'm trying to do do that more in my life. And especially with my kids, because that's the way to my heart and to realizing how much I suck is thinking, oh shit, I don't want my kids to be late for anything. And so I've been trying to be really good, but this 525 time, it really fucking got me because you know, I ran into a little rush hour, bullshit traffic. And also I have to pick up the kids from school to take them.

And I don't know if you've ever tried to get a kid to go anywhere promptly in your whole life, but it, and it could be, it could be an hour. It could be one minute or an hour if they see a bug, then you're it's like, ah, come on. How just a debacle.

Like I'm sure, uh, Eli, you'll see when, when Max is a little bigger, once they're, when they're totable, when, when, when your kid fits conveniently into like your purse, you know, it's easy. You're just like, all right, time to go. Gonna take the kid. But when they get to be four or five, you Know, I have to balance. Right. How mad can I be? How much force can I, how much can I yell?

How, how, how do I, I'm just doing massive calculations like that woman with a meme with the geometry. Like I'm doing all that of how much, can I kind of be like Arlo? We got to go. We got a go buddy. We got it. I don't want to be an asshole. I don't want to come across like an asshole I also don't wanna be mean to him. I like being nice to my kid, but we gotta get to fucking soccer and it's five, whatever. So I, all of that aside, it was rough, but I was one minute late. I was like, you know what? Close enough. One minute. That's fucking fine.

0:34:54 Eli: Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's you're, you're pretty fucking timely, I'll say, yeah.

0:35:19 Eli: Yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

0:36:45 Thomas: Here's the thing though. We pull into the poor person park, as Eli said, and Phoebe fast asleep in the car. So Arlo ready to go to soccer. It was actually a perfect temperature for such a thing. It was not too cold, not too hot. So I says to me, I says, I'm just going to run Eli, Eli. Wow, that was a weird, that's a weird fucking Freudian slip. I'm going to run Arlo. Arlo, I'm going to run Arlo over to soccer and Phoebe is fast asleep in the car. It's, it wasn't, it's probably 200 yards, like 300 yards. You know, it is a distance. So it's a little, it was far enough away that I was a little uncomfortable with doing it. Like just leaving my sleeping child in the car. But also I was like, eh, this is just going to be easier. It's not that far away.

I can run them over, come back. So I, I get Arlo out, run them over. Things seem to be going well. He's slightly late, which he struggles with. With. If he's missed anything, he could melt down. Like he just has this, he needs things to be a certain way. And if he's missing the first drill, but I think we're just barely in time. We're good to go. I get him going. He cried a little bit because he thought he missed something, but I did my best.

I convinced him. I was like, buddy, no, it's okay. You didn't miss anything. They just, you know, go get the ball, go do it. And he's doing it. I go to walk back. I get to the car. I'm thinking I pulled it off. I fucking pulled it. Like an FBI fucking fucking witness, negotiator with Arlo. Like I had to get him set. I was like, I

0:36:45 Eli: Nice.

0:36:47 Tom: I mean he's

0:38:07 Eli: Helicopter.

0:38:07 Thomas: Got to get them set in soccer, buddy, please. Just what can I do? Yes. A helicopter on Mark bills, whatever, whatever You need, buddy. Just go get in there, get in there. And so I go back to the car. I get Phoebe. I wake Phoebe up. She's super cute. She was like, oh, we're here. You know, super cute, as I pulled it off. I step out with Phoebe, like, just close the door. Arlo comes, I'm just running over in full tantrum mode. And I was like, fuck, but it was one minute. Like it was nothing.

You know, I thought I had, I felt like I was going to die. I thought It pulled it off. I go over and I'm like, buddy, what's, what? No, come on, go play. What are you doing? He's full tantum. They said, go get a drink of water. I was like, oh, fuck, man.

Yeah, I forgot, in 2023 you must be mandated by God to bring four water bottles for every kid everywhere you go, and I didn't bring any fucking water bottles for my kids because they don't fucking need it for this thing, they're, what, it's soccer, they do nothing, he'll drink water after, it's not fucking, what, okay, I still go through with it, I bring the water because again, I don't want to be an asshole, I you

0:38:12 Eli: Pizza exactly, yeah, not

0:39:15 Thomas: Know I want my kid to have water, but what I didn't realize is, again, can't do that kind of thing with Arlo because he's so, he's a fuck, he's literal, he's a biblical literalist. He, he was like, he said, Go get water and I don't have a water bottle. And I'm like, it's fine. He's just saying you could get water if you want it. Like you don't have to. No, he said go get water. Okay. And so and by the way, this was one minute into they did one drill one drill and he's like go get water. Come on man.

0:39:15 Eli: This time you didn't Yeah.

0:39:42 Tom: Fucking parched, he's fucking parced, man.

0:39:45 Eli: He's Parched, he's thirsty, your child is thirsting, Thomas.

0:39:46 Tom: Yeah, no,

0:39:47 Thomas: It It, no, he's not. Let me tell you, this is just the coach just telling them after two minutes of exercise to go get water and totally fucked my plans. I just, it was, he is not, he actually is not thirsty. Like literally, I'm sure other parents can relate to this. Someone told him to get water, so he thinks he has to go and get water.

0:40:00 Eli: You're not thirsty, just,

0:40:03 Tom: Yeah. So He thinks he has to get water now. Yeah. I get that, yeah, I

0:40:13 Thomas: Just got out of the car 34 seconds ago, Eli. He is not thirsting. Like it, it was just, the coach was like, go get water. And so there, fortunately there's a drinking fountain. I was like okay buddy, fine, go. I was trying to reason with him, but he was not having it. And then I saw the drinking fountain, I was, oh go over there, there's drinking fountain so he does it, fine. Great. He, because of this, he's now missing the start of the next thing. And so he has to have the meltdown over the next next fucking fucking drill he's missed. And so I'd have to talk him into that, go, it's okay buddy. You can do it. And all the while, yeah,

0:40:41 Tom: Would have already disenrolled him from soccer, we'd have been in a car, we had just, I just wanted, just what, we would be in the car on the the way home already, be like, well, we don't ever play soccer anymore, that's it, this is No, we are not I, the amount of stress that I am feeling listening to your story, be like, I am not going to stress over fun.

0:40:50 Thomas: Well, it gets worse.

0:40:58 Tom: I will never stress over having fun. Fuck that. I

0:40:58 Thomas: It gets worse because, Again, it was, you know, what do they call it? I can't remember if they have a name. What's the thing where the short-term incentive is always like a little easier than the long-term thing? Like where you could put in, you know, three units of effort to fix something forever and make it better, but each time it comes up it's like one unit of effort, so you just never do, and then 10 years go by and you've spent, you know, what is that, you know, I mean, like it's it's I

0:41:28 Tom: I know what you're talking about, I didn't know there's a name for it.

0:41:29 Thomas: Yeah, I'm trying to think, but it's that kind of dynamic where it's like, well, I could fix this, but, like, you know, or I could just do the quick thing, which is fine, but over time you're like, God, I wish I had just fixed it the first time. So it's that with this fucking water thing, because actually somewhere in the car there's a water bottle. Like somewhere in the fucking filth of the kids, just nonsense.

0:41:50 Thomas: There is a water bottles. Should I go get it? Well, I'd have to walk back to the car. Phoebe's already wanting to like play on the jungle gym thing over. I was like, Oh, how much, whatever. Yeah. They already got water. They got their water. Like it's fine. It'll be fine.

0:41:50 Eli: What Does a kid need water twice in one day?

0:42:06 Tom: The Drinking fountain, I presume will continue to work.

0:42:06 Thomas: It's a 30 dude. It's A 30 minute thing. Yeah, but then that's a whole production. I got to walk him over to the drinking fountain and he misses soccer. And then again, if he misses the Beginning of the drill, he has a meltdown. I have to be like, buddy, it's fine. You didn't miss anything. Every time, so I'm managing all this shit. And I think, okay, well, I got to manage Phoebe, whatever. I'm sure I have at least time to go get the water bottle before the next water. Nope. Another five fucking seconds goes by. Okay. Go get water. Arlo. He said, go get, oh, fucking dude.

You don't, he's just saying that you don't have to, you don't have to get water. I swear. Like I promise you, he's just saying you can, you can if you want. Well, I want to. Okay. So we walk all the way over to the, we walk all the way over the drinking fountain. Once again, this is the second time in five and a half minutes of a 30 minute class or whatever it is. I'm doing the math.

I'm like, wow, I'm going to get my fucking steps in today. This is going to be, I'm going to need, I need water. I'm going to need water. Somebody get me water.

Uh, so then this is where disaster struck even further because we go, we do the drinking fountain for the second time, Phoebe's hanging around too, great, I, Arlo runs back, I'm walking, I have Phoebe and she's, because she, I haven't had time to really like interact with her and I also have to manage that dynamic because she doesn't have Arlo to lean on, so she's trying to figure out, do I go play on the thing or is it too scary, and I'm like, yeah, okay.

And I haven't gotten to deal with that yet. I look at my phone to see because Lydia is telling me something. I reply to the message and then I look up and you know what fucking happened is the first time this happened to me. And I don't think it's going to be the last. The goddamn movie trope. Do you know a movie trove I'm already talking about?

0:42:09 Tom: Oh, My god.

0:43:46 Eli: Gone.

0:43:46 Thomas: She's gone. She's fucking gone. I am walking toward the soccer. I look down.

0:43:50 Tom: No, that's it, that's it. Get in your car and just drive away, just get in your car and just drive away. How many miles can you get out of that thing just go

0:43:55 Thomas: I look out my phone for one second. I lookup. She is nowhere. Nowhere. Like I'm, I'm like, like, and all right, this is funny. I already am thinking that it's this movie trope, but this isn't a movie. So I know she's somewhere. It's not some mystery guy. And I need to not freak out because that's not going to make things better. It, I'm telling you, it was as tropey as tropee gets. I looked down on my phone for two seconds. She's right by me. She is fucking gone. And then I'm looking 360 degrees.

0:44:23 Thomas: I'm like, what the fuck is happening? And so I'm walking around. I'm starting, you know, that thing you're doing. I'm sure every parent's had this where you're really trying to balance. Okay. When do I freak out? Am I supposed to, do I freaked out now or like,

0:44:35 Eli: Right away. Right away, 10 seconds ago. The minute you can't see her.

0:44:40 Tom: Oh.

0:44:42 Thomas: Yeah, like do I, okay. I think I, I think, I, I think spend at least a minute or two just looking around the park, make, you knows, figuring it's because obviously 99.999% chance. She ran off to go play with something. I just have to find what that is. That's all it is. But there's still like, do I freak out yet? Like, God, okay. No, I think I can just look.

0:45:02 Eli: Right away. Uh, you're the fact that you're not freaking out right away? I am having, now I'm terrified because I would have been screaming so long ago. Thomas, so long ago screaming.

0:45:14 Thomas: It's a park full of playing kids. It's perfectly, you know, and so I, um, that part was so funny. Have you ever had that happen, Tom? Did you do the, Oh, you did last week with the, with the hay thing.

0:45:17 Eli: Screaming. Now, now is the time for screaming.

0:45:27 Tom: Yeah, at the hay. At the hay thing, yeah. I lost Finn in the hay thing, and like, if I, if I had not found him, I would have just, there's only two options. You find your kid or you just see how much gas you've got that's it. You just, you just, just go just go, like, nope, I lost the kid, that's it, it's gone. Life is over, I'm done.

0:45:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:37 Thomas: Burn down the place. Yeah, Yeah.

0:45:40 Eli: Start a new life, yep. Yep.

0:45:45 Thomas: Well, or I would just live at the place until he came back. I'm either finding him or I am now the poltergeist of this place like Eli was, because I will never leave. But you that moment though, where you're like, do I freak out? Like, cause you could just be Eli and be like, my child. And then she's five feet to your right that you didn't see. And then you look like a fucking maniac because she's right there.

0:46:02 Eli: Yeah, it's happened to me a bunch of time, it's happened to me a bunch of times, it's never mattered. I couldn't care

0:46:12 Thomas: Somehow there's mascara coming down your face. You don't even wear mascara, but you just, yep.

0:46:13 Eli: Yeah, I I put on mascara while I'm screaming so that people get the dramatic effect. This literally happened in the mall the other day, is Max cut right instead of left, the second I did not see him, I was like, I am looking for a little blonde boy, he is wearing, and he, of course, turned the corner, it was two seconds. And And this lady looked at me like, oh, you're a crazy person. And I was like, child molesters, fuck you.

0:46:40 Thomas: Yep.

0:46:40 Eli: Tom, back me up here.

0:46:41 Thomas: So, uh, so, we've heard Eli's position, Tom. Um, you, you agree, right? You've got, you've got a minute or two. Yeah.

0:46:48 Eli: I was fine.

0:46:49 Thomas: You, you at least look for a second without, yeah, two

0:46:51 Tom: Yeah. You've got, you've gotta look around. I like when I lost Finn in the hay thing, I looked around for a while before I started freaking out. I was like, I

0:46:59 Thomas: Hours. So Tom

0:47:00 Eli: Hour and a half to it. Well, I took a dinner break because I got hungry. So I did leave. And I got a sub.

0:47:02 Thomas: Will be, this is perfect we, we really are the fucking three bears. What the fuck is the story? My kids, yeah.

0:47:10 Tom: Was, he'll

0:47:11 Eli: Yeah, exactly. Cody likes the three bears.

0:47:13 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, it's like Eli too fucking insane, Tom also too fucking insane, but in the other way. So Thomas is gonna try to find the middle option.

0:47:14 Tom: Fucking turn up, you know. I I looked at Finn for probably 10 minutes before I was. Like, but, you Know, I also, like he was also in a place. Yeah.

0:47:24 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. That's

0:47:32 Eli: Of Everybody Loves Raymond. You did not see your child. And you were like, no need to make a fuss yet.

0:47:41 Tom: Well, the the context was important. It wasn't like just, I mean, he was like, it's easy, it could just in a tunnel or something, you know, like, yeah.

0:47:45 Thomas: What I'm trying to say, I'm with you, See, I'm, I'm with you. Top of the context. The details matter. Okay, Eli? And do

0:47:48 Tom: But You know, in a great big field, I don't know, like with Coach Touch him's around, I think maybe I'd get a little more nervous, you know. But you, you go ahead. You go head.

0:48:01 Thomas: Minute this happens, I realize all my deficits as a human instantly come into play. I do not notice what people wear. I just don't care. You know, like my brain just doesn't care about that information. So I'm instantly like, all right, what was she wearing? Fuck. Oh, God. God, she was either wearing a clown suit or A frozen dress or a suit of armor. I fucking I don't know. Like, but but fortunately, I did remember. I was like, OK, think, what she was. I remembered she had a particular sweatshirt on. I was like, OK. I think it's like pinkish. And it helps when you're looking in a sea of children. Obviously, you're like, cue my brain for that color, you know, that I'm looking for.

And the reason it was so hard to fucking find her is instantly what happened was she noticed not only another, a friend, which is one thing, she noticed a big kid friend. So one of her big kid friends from her daycare thing, and Phoebe being the way she is, look, she doesn't like new things. If she sees someone she knows, she might warm up a little bit, but if she sees a big kit friend, she's like, oh, okay. They're, you can trust them.

So she just runs off. Like, she went from Phoebe anxiety, anxiety clinging to me, to oh, there's a big kid, I can do whatever the fuck they say, ran off. It's crazy.

0:48:18 Tom: Clothes. I'm sure it was clothes.

0:49:10 Tom: Yeah.

0:49:11 Thomas: It's something I'm gonna have to keep an eye on, but

0:49:12 Tom: There's a white van with a guy who's got puppies. I'm out of here. Like, I got... That's safe.

0:49:15 Eli: Yeah. But it's an older guy who's got puppies.

0:49:17 Thomas: Yeah. No, she has to know. Who it is, she has to know the person, fortunately. So as long as none of her friends become yeah men and vans who take babies, oh, no, oh, no, God damn well, that's that's very darkly funny and disturbing, but also good to keep in mind, like I do need to remember remember that. Anyway, um, I spot her little jacket, I was like, I saw a little bit of that sweatshirt I mentioned, and she had fucking instantly gone with her friend underneath the goddamn play, you know, there's always some bullshit fucking underneath thing for

0:49:19 Eli: Yeah. Coach Touchems. As long as the people who assault our children aren't people we know, statistically, we're fine.

0:49:52 Eli: Sure.

0:49:52 Thomas: These things, you know, she dug they dug, like, like Shawshank Redemption, they've dug under, you know, with spoons, under the fucking slide, and I see her little foot and her little, I was, I was like, okay, I'm, I could only see her foot, but I was like, that's her shoe, I know she's there, good, I'm safe, I was getting toward the panic, like Eli panic, but I saw that. And so I walk over, I mean, I don't know if you've seen, I'm going to make sure obviously, but like I stopped myself from panicking. And so, I verify that she's there and I'm like, great, you've got a big kid friend, you're doing that, that's fine. I'm gonna go over, check on Arlo, who's having his third meltdown because in minute fucking 12 of the thing, the guy's like, go get some water. And it's just like, I just want to kill myself at this point. Do we, how much do they have to get water?

0:49:54 Eli: Sure.

0:50:32 Thomas: Do they really?

0:50:33 Tom: Is this guy getting paid by Big Water? What the fuck is going on with this?

0:50:35 Thomas: Yes. That's what I'm saying. I'm thank you.

0:50:37 Tom: Well...

0:50:35 Eli: They're doing wind sprints to the water fountain at this point

0:50:39 Thomas: Yeah. And, it was so funny because once again, it was another bout of, well, I could go find that water bottle, but you know, how many more times did it? It's like five more fucking times, you know? But I eventually, because Phoebe was taken care of, I resigned myself to being the taxi to the water fountain. So I was just like, all right, I'm never making this mistake again. I'll bring you some fucking water next time, but oh, it's water break.

0:50:50 Eli: Yeah

0:51:01 Tom: You couldn't you just fill his pockets with some water and just like, here, carry this around. What does Philip just just get some pocket water, kid, you'll be fine.

0:51:05 Eli: Cup your hands

0:51:08 Thomas: Yeah. Again, he doesn't actually need water. He's just a literalist. If someone tells him go get water, he thinks that's a thing humans have to do in that moment. So anyway, now we can start the episode. What do you think? We hydrating these kids too much or what?

0:51:14 Tom: I I actually actually do think we're fucking weirdly obsessed with fucking making sure people have water all the time, gotta have a water bottle, gotta carry a water bar. Where's my water bottle? I never carry. I lived somehow managed to live 45 fucking years of my life, and I never have carried a water bottle anywhere ever. I've have done crazy, crazy workouts, crazy workouts, never do I bring water to the gym.

0:51:46 Thomas: We are. All All right. Well, once again,

0:51:48 Tom: I I would do, no,

0:51:48 Thomas: Tom,

0:51:49 Eli: There it is

0:51:50 Thomas: You have me and you lost me. I've gone through a desert and peed literal salt and I didn't drink water. And you're like, all right, Tom. I kind of agreed with you that maybe we're hydrating our kids too much.

0:51:50 Tom: No. We're crazy about it. You can hydrate after. You can, can. I, I did CrossFit, I'll give you an example. When I did CrossFit, we would go and we would do a workout a couple of times a year where you'd go run a mile, you'd come back in, you do 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, go run-a-mile. You did that as fast as you could, your score was your time. So it would be like 45 minutes. It's 45 if you have a good time. I'd try for 45 minutes, and like a 45-minute time was a good time. You'd be absolutely sweating buckets, you're working your ass off. Never once, nobody brought water. Everybody, you just, you just do your work and then you hydrate afterwards. It's fine, it's completely fine to work very

0:52:01 Thomas: All right,

0:52:37 Tom: Hard for 45 minutes, that's

0:52:37 Thomas: We've heard the Tom position. Eli, an

0:52:38 Eli: Right, okay, and then of course I constantly my son has so many water bottles at all times. Yeah, my son is constantly on an Ivy. I am, I have a timer in my phone for him, and because I need to hydrate the people I love, I have timers in my throne.

0:52:40 Tom: Crazy why

0:52:43 Thomas: IV. Yeah.

0:52:55 Eli: If I don't remind them to drink water, they won't drink water. Well, first of all, water deprivation is one of the first things about, out, dementia in older people. So I set six timers six

0:52:52 Tom: Or what and then what would happen though? Older people your son is a, it's five, four, three, how old is Max?

0:53:09 Eli: Six. Timbers on Anna's phone, and Max could become dehydrated because he's not good at talking, so I don't know when he's thirsty, so I just do it every like 38 seconds, I just shove a water bottle in his face. I

0:53:20 Tom: Do you do you happen to coach soccer? I'm just curious. Maybe, maybe, we figured maybe we cracked this code. All right.

0:53:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:53:24 Eli: Was listening to Thomas's schedule, and I was like, yeah, every five minutes, that sounds perfect. Yeah. We did it, we did a drill, now everyone goes and drinks an entire water bottle so that there's no possible chance you don't have enough of water. See

0:53:29 Thomas: God.

0:53:34 Tom: It is 1 20 today, and I have not had anything to drink since I had a cup of coffee this morning, and

0:53:39 Thomas: Boy, again, tom. Tom. I would love to, I'd love to go with you. You see, I've start like, yeah, Tom. Oh no. Okay. You're insane. Sorry.

0:53:42 Tom: I'm fine. It's fine.

0:53:46 Thomas: I forgot. You're just insane in a different way. Yeah.

0:53:46 Tom: No,

0:53:44 Eli: And I know exactly how much water I've had, I have had exactly this.

0:53:49 Tom: That's fine. I'll have something to drink with dinner at some point, you know, like, it's fun, like, you don't need that much, like, we're crazy obsessed. I gotta drink 18 glasses of water, no. You don't you don't.

0:53:57 Eli: Is why you pee toothpaste. Tom, this is

0:54:00 Tom: We're fucking insane about this shit. Did nonsense well, yeah, I'll get some later. You know what I mean.

0:54:00 Eli: Why you've

0:54:05 Thomas: Well, there was a, You're Wrong About episode about like the, a lot of hydration stuff is bullshit, but then, yeah. But, but also, I mean, you do need water to live, Tom. So I suggest the baby you get get it looked

0:54:18 Tom: Like yeah,

0:54:19 Eli: Been awake for six hours, Tom. You've been awake for six hours, you put no water in your system, you dry, rickety old train engine. Yeah.

0:54:22 Tom: It's just like yeah,

0:54:25 Thomas: At you you maybe you guys don't know this because you're not sports people, but you know that they have the powder to make Gatorade out of, like, yeah, like, yeah, Tom has that, but for pee, it's just like oh, okay, the powder came out, and then I'll mix that, and that'll be my urine.

0:54:34 Eli: Yeah, exactly. It's just he just tips his penis down, and the Gatorade powder just dribbles out, and he falls, as he just has a nice fall asleep standing up while he waits for the powder to finish. Ah, a nice 40 second powder damp. Yeah.

0:54:52 Tom: What, what, I, when I, I will, I will say I know that I'm, I know that, I know I'm wrong about this too. I know that I recognize when I started, and I'm goofing around like

0:55:02 Thomas: I'm just gonna save that sound by Tom, and we'll get a button with it, then we'll just tell

0:55:04 Tom: Like when I started doing, I, last year I got into my head that I was going to do these like long bike race things, you know, like 50, a hundred mile races and stuff like this, these long rides. And so I was like training for this stuff last year. And I would go out for these like long rides, and I'd be like, God, after about like three, three and a half hours, I'm fucking wiped. Like I am like hitting a wall, and I'm Googling like zero I'm googling. And it's like, Like, you got to drink, like, a bottle of water every hour. And I was like, oh, I brought one bottle for the whole ride and didn't drink it. And I will say that once I started hydrating in those longer workouts, I did feel much better and was able to go much further. So I recognize, like I'm not right about this, but not

0:55:24 Thomas: Him how many kidney stones have you had? Oh, yeah, Tom's willing to concede that human beings do need water to live. Willing.

0:55:50 Tom: Every

0:55:47 Eli: I found that I was passing out off of my bicycle, and as I speared myself through a tree branch for the fourth time, I thought to myself, one second, let me check out Manziel's hierarchy of needs, see if I'm missing any of them. Oh, yes, look at this one right here, 45.

0:55:52 Tom: Five minutes. And we've gotten crazy.

0:56:01 Thomas: You know, what's funny is I'm actually just in the water consumption arena. I'm the Eli of this one because I think it's because of my stomach. Like Like I've always had heartburn problems. And so I always have this like desire to drink water to like just as a reaction to that. So I actually drink a fuck ton of water. Like I just drink water all the time. But if I forget my water bottle somewhere, I'm like, oh, I's fine. Yeah, because it's just a habit. Like I don't actually need to drink all the water. I drink water water all of the time, so

0:56:32 Tom: You're fine, yeah, because we we live in air-conditioned, we live, we live mostly climate-controlled lives, like almost all of our fucking lives are perfectly climate, we're not living in fucking extreme conditions doing extreme work, you know, you're not most of us aren't in the fucking like an oil rig somewhere like, or like busting ass in the middle of the fucking debt. Like we're not, we're in fucking office jobs and we're regular guys. We don't need to consume. We'd have to, oh, I got my fucking water bottle everywhere I go. I've, I had people I used to work with that would walk around the office. They would walk round a climate controlled office where they spent their entire day sedentary, and they'd be, I gotta have my water. They wouldn't get up to go to the fucking bathroom without bringing their water bottle to the the bathroom. That's, we've gotten insane about it, absolutely insane, it makes no sense, you're fine, you're not that fucking delicate one.

0:57:26 Thomas: All right, let's put it to a vote. We got a 45-minute soccer class. How many water breaks should the coach do? Let's put it, let's put numbers on it. I and I'm I'm thinking three yeah, what three is three is nah, you're right, that is insane. Let's say two.

0:57:35 Tom: One in the middle, you can give them one in the middle. Three that's insane, but

0:57:36 Eli: Tom, you learned to drink water from your body. Fit, you were like, my body has failed me, and the internet was like, are you drinking water? And you were, were like, if you insist, planet earth at least

0:57:58 Tom: That was for like a three or a four hour workout, Eli, this is a 45 minute kid workout, this is a like, have you ever watched kids work out? Please, yeah.

0:58:04 Eli: Six water breaks.

0:58:08 Thomas: Well, that's what the coach, the coach agreed with Eli, I would say like one or two, I would say like, yeah, two, I'll go, I'll go two because I can't be Tom, so I'll say two.

0:58:16 Tom: Okay, fair, yeah, that seems right, that seems right.

0:58:26 Eli: Before we go, speaking of water, I went to my urologist the other day, and he told me I have to stop masturbating. When I asked him why, he said it's because I'm trying to examine you.

0:58:34 Thomas: How's

0:58:36 Tom: I got

0:58:43 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.