DOD105: DADVID-19

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Tom: Dear Old Dads, the Twinkie Bus of Podcasts. I'm Tom Curry and I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen. Wait

0:00:38 Eli: What is the Twinkie bus, Tom?

0:00:39 Thomas: Don't Oh Are you making a short bus joke? We

0:00:42 Tom: Guys didn't have the twinkie bus when you were... I took the twinky bus when I was a kid.

0:00:45 Eli: I think short bus. Short

0:00:47 Tom: The short bus, yeah.

0:00:47 Eli: Bus is the term I'm aware of.

0:00:49 Tom: We called it the Twinky Bus.

0:00:47 Thomas: Had Yeah, We had a lot of short butt jokes. So does Twinkie. Okay, we gotta think about this, Eli. Business meeting, does that make it more or less cancelable than short than short bus

0:00:54 Eli: Yep. Because the only other thing that, I mean, short bus, definitely cancelable, right? We can all agree that if he had introduced us as the short bus of podcasts, we just stop the record. We start again. Nobody ever needs to hear this, but I think we keep Keep it because I want to know how Twinkie Bus made it better.

0:00:59 Thomas: Yeah Yeah.

0:01:14 Tom: It was the Twinki Bus. I don't know. I remember remember because I was a Twinkie bus kid so like I when I was in you did not get Twinkies I think it was because it was a smaller bus

0:01:19 Eli: Did you get Twinkies?

0:01:23 Thomas: It that because of the look of it. Yeah.

0:01:25 Tom: Yeah think it was just I think It was just because It was a smaller bus when I Was in when I lived in Florida with my mom I had a lot of like proprioception and coordination problems and It was like the early 80s and I lived In Florida and everything was garbage and so they thought I had like severe cognitive delays and so like Like, I went to school with my stepbrother, who did have severe cognitive delays, because he was actually, like, my half-stepbrother Michael was actually an adopted baby, and he was a heroin baby, and he had a lot of, like – problems, like developmental problems.

0:01:57 Thomas: Have we heard about this before? Is this something?

0:01:59 Eli: I've literally never heard of this man before in my... This is Tom's mom is still alive all over again for me. How many... How many steps slash half siblings does... And let's just do it. How many step slash half-siblings does everyone on the podcast have?

0:02:00 Thomas: Yeah, I don't know. Oh, man. Yeah, let's all put it on the table.

0:02:14 Eli: Does anyone have any other...

0:02:14 Thomas: How about let's just say I have one half brother. I might have mentioned before. That's it. That's all. I got four.

0:02:17 Eli: Okay.

0:02:16 Tom: Okay. All right. I have four. Step slash – well, yeah, so here's the deal. When I lived with, I

0:02:29 Eli: Not about whatever the show was going to be about earlier, everybody. Buddy, audio ads are bad, aren't they? Well, Suck, it be a patron. Dear Old Dads, oh,

0:02:34 Tom: Thought

0:02:35 Thomas: Here's a snapping turtle bites a kid, it becomes two kids. So he had, you know, like, yeah, you have to raise both halves as a separate kid.

0:02:43 Tom: Then Right. Right, right.

0:02:40 Eli: They bite him clean in half, and then you, you've amoebaed, okay, four, Wow. T- want Tom, want... Tom, I want to let you talk, but Thomas, what were you going... I was going with just The one, definitely not Quattro. Quattro was not within my purview.

0:02:47 Tom: Yeah. I

0:02:52 Thomas: I thought, yeah.

0:02:58 Eli: Knew

0:02:58 Tom: Yeah

0:02:58 Thomas: I do remember him saying saying something weird about one time where I was like, wait, is that something? And yeah, four wouldn't have been... That would have been literally my fourth guess, I guess. Would have been four.

0:03:08 Tom: Well it's, it's because I, I haven't seen him in so long. Yeah, they, they haven't like, so I have a biological brother. My full brother, biological brother is my brother Bob,

0:03:16 Thomas: What?!

0:03:16 Eli: He existed.

0:03:17 Thomas: No, I'm just kidding.

0:03:17 Eli: Yes. No.

0:03:17 Tom: Right?

0:03:18 Thomas: That I remember.

0:03:20 Tom: And then my stepdad had three of his own kids, none of them with my mom. I don't know if they were with the same person and then an adopted kid. Also, they did not adopt with my mommy, like came with an adopted kin. At least one of them was adopted. I'm not a hundred percent clear because it's been like 40 years since I've seen any of these folks. So, but when when I was little, you prior to like first grade, I I lived with my dad and it was my stepfather, Eugene, but we called him Gino. And then my half stepbrother, I think it is Michael. Um, I know it's complicated.

0:03:51 Thomas: Jesus, I can't... Sorry, my... I'm not gonna remember any of this if next time you bring it up, it will be the first time you brought it up.

0:03:54 Tom: Yep. And then, uh, lack of a better term. I had I had a brother, Brian, and then a sister, Anne, and then a Sister, because I don't know if she's half or full step. I don't know that because, again, it's been so long, and I have not seen any of these folks.

0:04:03 Thomas: For lack of a better term, what... Oh, okay.

0:04:12 Eli: Tom's family arranges itself via the Iowa caucus, um, you can't tell because they're doing the election at the front of the gym, but at the back of the gem, uh, Tom's family is all picking how they're related to each other is how that happened

0:04:21 Thomas: Yeah, they do family based on, like like, noise. You have to make the shirt. I, everyone say I if you're, and then, yeah, it's all confusing. Who's the one that you, you know, almost dueled or whatever? Was that the first stepdad? How many stepdads have you maybe had is the question.

0:04:24 Eli: Yeah, Oh, now we're half brothers, look at that and

0:04:40 Tom: I've had two stepdads, so my mom burned through three husbands total, my dad, and And then my stepdad that I did live with, Eugene or Gino, which, which I lived with him for a while, but he got, you know, he had, he got in a drinking problem and got a little, little So, um, mom had a drinking program and also wasn't, wasn't the best either. And then he

0:04:43 Thomas: Is it? Okay. You killed one.

0:04:54 Thomas: Okay.

0:05:00 Eli: Eugene was not a monkey, right? He was not a monkey, just to be clear.

0:05:02 Tom: Was not a monkey.

0:05:03 Eli: Okay.

0:05:03 Tom: No.

0:05:03 Eli: Step

0:05:03 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, shit, I didn't even think about that. How does Gilligan factor in? How many, okay, how many half -monkey, step -and -half -monkie siblings?

0:05:04 Tom: And Half monkey. Right.

0:05:13 Eli: How many step monkey father step halves? All right, no one's listening to the podcast. We did it, guys, we're all alone on the air. Yeah.

0:05:19 Thomas: No, we

0:05:20 Tom: Yeah. There It is, it's just trying to put together, it's a weird family tree. It's a very Yeah.

0:05:23 Thomas: Just wanted some private time.

0:05:25 Tom: Yeah. So Anyway, I had, I had a brother, Michael, that I lived with. My brother Michael was adopted. He, his mom did heroin when he was little, so he was a baby, had a lot of cognitive defects or deficits, I should say, not defects, and they thought I did too. So, so I, I, when I went to school, you, you'd, well, you, you go to the bus stop and then, like, all the kids would go on the big bus, except for me and my brother, Michael. And then, like, a little while later, like what we called the Twinkie bus would come trundling along, and we would hop on that bus. And it was the fucking best. Like, it was absolutely the best. Like, I'd go to school, and, like, they didn't try to teach me to read. They didn't trying to teach mini math. Like, all we did was play with toys and play games. It was the, I mean, like, it was awesome.

Like, out of 10, I mean, I, I couldn't read or write or spell my name or, you know, add one plus one, but, like, I had a great time for pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade. So, but I don't know why, we just, that's what everybody called it. We all called it the Twinkie bus, we pile on the Twinkie bus. Yeah, that

0:05:27 Thomas: Thank God they're all gone. Okay.

0:05:27 Eli: It's a labyrinth. Yeah.

0:05:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:29 Eli: Very

0:06:30 Tom: Was great.

0:06:30 Eli: Not You know, I gotta say, I started with a real negative perception of that title, but I realize now that this was probably, like, the, the people in your life who, trying, knew the term "short bus," like, had a meeting during the Iowa caucus when they were figuring out who was related to whomst, and they were like, "Hey, guys, can we come up with, like, a not problematic," and they came up with Twinkie bus, which is really, it's it's

0:06:34 Thomas: No, that's pretty negative, I think.

0:06:50 Tom: Yeah, I like to think that, too. I wasn't I don't remember it being like it didn't feel like a pejorative when I was a kid, but maybe it was. I do remember like being super confused because like the other kids at the bus stop. This is so dumb. The other kids of the bus top would be like, what school do you go to? And I'd be like elementary. And they'd be Like, no, what's school do You go to like elementary school?

0:06:52 Eli: Nice.

0:07:11 Eli: Listen to me, I'll headbutt you, and you'll die. Eye, yeah.

0:07:12 Thomas: All So we can't be like too critical of the people who thought that Tom had some deficits, I guess, is what we're saying. Tom went into, like, name, rank, and serial number when someone asked him a question. That's all he would give him. Yeah.

0:07:18 Tom: Yeah. Would many argue I've not grown out of them

0:07:23 Eli: No, he's like Just waterboarding himself when the Twinkie bus pulls up. "Hey, I gotta start coming early." I don't know what's happening here.

0:07:36 Tom: I just want to get used to it early, guess, if, like, Twinkie Bus is a pejorative and it's, it's offensive, then I didn't know. And I'm sorry. So, and

0:07:43 Thomas: All I Then we'll cut the first

0:07:43 Eli: But No, I don't think it, I don't, no, I don't know. I don't think it was. I think it's just a nice little thing. I think we came in with the pejorative, so don't worry.

0:07:44 Thomas: 10 minutes of this show.

0:07:53 Eli: In case there was an off chance that someone wouldn't be hurt, we made sure that that,

0:07:52 Thomas: I don't think that's true. I would like to put my own voice on the record that that's definitely an offensive thing that for sure was meant to hurt Tom's feelings even more, but that's okay. That's just, yeah.

0:08:02 Tom: I just was like, man, whatever.

0:08:06 Eli: Yeah. It's weird that your dad was the one who fed it to you, but not impossible. Question, before we move on from Michael, because this is very interesting, Michael you had different moms, right, but the the same step dad. You and Michael have a moment where it was like, I mean, I think my mom's worse. Like, did you have a, my mom is worse than your mom?

0:08:19 Tom: Right.

0:08:27 Eli: You know, the, my dad can beat up your dad fight.

0:08:27 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:08:29 Tom: Okay. Okay. So, oh God, so we've got to have an episode but like my Michael definitely had it worse I

0:08:34 Eli: This is the episode, Tom. I don't know how to tell you that this is the, we're doing this.

0:08:38 Tom: So this is gonna sound like I'm making this up, so my step my stepfather's brother got in touch with me maybe 12, 13, 14 years ago, something like that, on Facebook. And he was like, "Hey, you know, like, are you Tom? From, you know, your mom was Pam." I was like, "Oh yeah, that's me." And he's like, "Hey, I'm Ron, and you know, you might remember me as Uncle Ron." I'm like, "No, I don't really remember you, I was little." And you know, he said, "Hey, you know, if you want an update on like kind of how everybody is or whatever, you know, I'd be happy to connect. It's not all good news, but like, you know, I really loved you and your brother and all this stuff.

And I was like, yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, like, because what happened was when I moved away from my mom, when my mom put us on the airplane to go live with dad, I like got on the airplane and then I never saw any of my stepbrothers and sisters again, because that's how step siblings work, unfortunately, right? Like, like, if that relationship between the parents goes south, then oftentimes if the kids are young enough, they don't have the means or the resources to maintain those relationships. Literally, like, woke up one day with like brothers and sisters that I had, and then by the end of that day, I didn't have brothers and sister

0:08:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:09 Thomas: No way.

0:09:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:43 Thomas: Easy

0:09:43 Tom: Anymore. I just had my brother Bob.

0:09:43 Thomas: Come, easy go.

0:09:45 Eli: Yeah. And such a weird dynamic that we put kids into, right? Because when the step siblings are in your house, they're like, "Hey, you're siblings now," you know, this incredibly, incredibly important and lasting relationship, lifelong. And then you're like, "Sorry kids, it turns out she's not into outfit stuff, that part of your family that I instructed you to have you don't have anymore. I'm a grown-up. I wish I thought more about the things I did to my kids.

0:09:45 Tom: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Funny. Cause as a stepdad, I am like really aware that like, I don't actually have any legal rights to my stepkids at all. So even though they, they live with me and I'm, you provide all of their, you financial resources and support. And I provide a tremendous amount of their daily, like emotional and like other their supports and love and all that stuff. And I'm very close with Donovan and Aislinn. Like if Haley got hit by a bus tomorrow, I've got no rights to see those kids ever again.

0:10:18 Eli: Yeah.

0:10:38 Eli: They go back to Monster Energy hat you

0:10:40 Tom: I maybe he would be cool about letting me continue that relationship. I hope he would, but like also maybe he Would just leave and go somewhere else. And I would have no rights or recourse. And that's just like a weird truth.

0:10:51 Eli: Know What, what you'd have to do, Tom, you'd have to seduce him and make him your new spouse. Where's that Kevin James, Adam Sandler comedy, huh? Why is big Hollywood afraid to make that movie, huh?

0:10:52 Tom: Yeah. That? What's

0:10:56 Thomas: Oh,

0:11:07 Eli: Could

0:11:06 Tom: So do you want the weird update on my, my, it's pretty tragic actually it's pretty so fucking tragic

0:11:11 Eli: Please yeah no absolutely, Tom

0:11:13 Thomas: I assume the story was going be, no, I'm good. And then you never heard the update. Date. That's what I thought.

0:11:17 Eli: Are you the sixth member of the Iron Claw family? You have to tell us, it's like being a cop to

0:11:21 Tom: So I, I think about this update sometimes when I think back, you know, it's like those, like, fulcrum moments in your life when, like, my mom at one point did try to get us back, and my, my dad fought for custody and he won, and like I think sometimes, like, man, what would life have been like if I had, as a kid, you know, gone back and lived with my mom? And so, like, if my stepbrothers and sisters are any indication, I, I turned out a lot better.

0:11:46 Tom: So my stepbrother Michael's in and out of prison most of his life. His mom, uh, ended up getting murdered in Chicago back in like the late eighties, early nineties. And actually thought Michael has done it. Um, like he was in jail at the time. So that was actually why he wasn't a suspect.

0:11:46 Thomas: Thanks, shit. That's a pretty good, that is a pretty good alibi.

0:12:03 Eli: Alibi. The best alibi jail. That's what they say, yeah.

0:12:04 Tom: Right. He just, he struggled his whole life, in, you and out prison. I think, I don't know if he's in prison now or not in prison now, but he's just kind of bounces in and out, um, know didn't get an education to speak of or anything like that, what you learn in prison. My uh brother Brian uh unalived himself. My step sister Michelle, um, the murdered mom and like had a had a breakdown as as a result of that. And she's not been like good since then.

0:12:33 Thomas: Is this supposed to be in the post -credits of our show, like after the

0:12:35 Tom: Yeah. This is crazy. Like, I know it's like some soap opera stuff.

0:12:36 Eli: It's Breakfast Club, yeah.

0:12:39 Thomas: Finale of Daryl Deads? This is where they all ended up.

0:12:40 Eli: Yeah. Nice.

0:12:41 Tom: And And then like my step sister and I guess turn out fine. Like she's fine. She's like living.

0:12:48 Eli: You love the one and hey, can I say I.P to everyone who's ever met Anne at a party, right? Because you're like, oh my gosh, I cannot get over your mug collection. So did you come from a big family? And she does like a big, I mean, I'm doing a podcast with you, Tom, so I kind of get it. This is The version of that conversation we've We've just put it on the air for however many hundred episodes, but, uh, yeah,

0:13:02 Tom: Yeah.

0:13:01 Thomas: It's yeah, I was gonna okay, I can't emphasize enough, I know we're, we're coming on going, know, close to two years of this show, right? I can't emphasize enough how much I envisioned, like, oh yeah, we'll do the show, I get to be kind of the sad sack who didn't have anything of the show, it's great, and then everything I would, would mention, Tom would be like, oh well, my mom actually murdered me and every night in my sleep, you know, it's like that Monty Python sketch where they're like

0:13:30 Eli: You guys, you guys never got bear pitted bear pit. No, no. I don't know what they call it. And the East coast, no, there's a bear. There's a beer in the pit. And then they throw you in the, I'm not the only one who's done this. I tell this story all the time. People love this one.

0:13:37 Thomas: No I never had to fight people to the death in a car wash, what the fuck I have delightful stories of having to eat McDonald's hamburgers for a week of dinners, and that's not, that's nothing apparently that's not what am I, what am I doing here, I thought

0:13:55 Eli: Yeah, we really did. We really, yeah. Yeah. Think when the next generation takes over to talk shit about us, that's when we'll really get the juicy stuff, right? That's when everyone will be like, oh, no, every night at midnight, Thomas stands on the roof with a pot and pan, just banging them together, you know, screaming his enemy's names in alphabetical order. That's When we'll, you Know, keep, keep this going.

0:14:15 Tom: Yeah

0:14:16 Thomas: That was like a COVID reference, I couldn't, I didn't know where you're going with that, remember, they'd honor the people for like five minutes a night, never mind, I thought you were saying I was still doing that

0:14:21 Eli: Okay oh remember that hey remember COVID and then instantly they were like, nobody talk about it, nobody think about it, we're not doing any healing as a nation, we're not acknowledging it, like we are in full lockdown, masks on our face, if you go outside you'll die, Monday you are back in the office, it's Susan's birthday and we're doing one of those sheet cakes from the grocery store, like at the very least, right? People in the past have gotten to go through crazy shit, like the president comes out and he's wearing an armband and everyone's like, World War II, that sure fucking sucked, our young boys and arms are the man, and they were literally like, there's none, I don't, first of all, I think the president was Donald Trump, but I'm not sure, and so he just came out and he was like, by the way, everyone who said I took a shit onto this dish of casserole is a fucking liar, anyways, 9/11 or whatever we're here to commemorate, and we all just had to be like, okay, back to work, I guess, talk about

0:14:25 Tom: I do remember that, yeah

0:14:25 Thomas: Yeah

0:14:46 Tom: And everybody spit on it when you blow out the candles, like here we go

0:15:28 Thomas: Well, that's funny because I read something early on that was like the reason everyone forgets about the 19 whatever, uh they're like the same thing happened then, though, they're like, yeah no one talked about it yeah it's it's funny, like, people forgot, I think it was because of the nature of the trauma, it wasn't like one event where we can all be like, I was there that day when those towers fell, you know, or then when the ship, when the Pearl Harbor, it's like a long thing we all slog through, and then the three of us, like, we all assume each other knows about it, you, so, know, we're not like, hey, COVID, except for when we stop our show to do that, to get out of Tom's depressing story, you know, like try to lighten the mood on dear yeah, dear old

0:15:34 Tom: 1918, yeah yeah I was literally gonna say the same thing yeah yeah

0:16:03 Eli: Something lighter than Tom's life, the COVID

0:16:04 Tom: Yeah

0:16:05 Thomas: Dads, that's less of a body count than Tom's fucking step, apparently, COVID-19

0:16:05 Tom: The COVID 19 pandemic

0:16:05 Eli: -19 pandemic for sure, are you kidding, if you're counting, no monkeys got COVID, so yeah, there's definitely, how did you guys cope with COVID? Because now that I'm, I was talking about this with Anna this, this morning, um, did you guys feel like you coped with COVID? Because I was bad, I was so fucking bad, and it was just fucking absolute clown shoes up in here trying to maintain my mental health, like, way I can compare it, and I don't want to compare this to people who have very serious illnesses that are truly like life endangering, in the way that my mental health at this point in my life is not, but was like I was a diabetic and they hid my insulin somewhere in my house once a day for about a year, and some days it was, like, 11:59 and I was crawling across the carpet towards the teddy bear that had my insulin in it. That's what it felt. It just felt like a pop quiz for my entire life of mental health care.

0:17:09 Thomas: Wow I we were still doing it, are we done with it? I thought we're, are we at the point where we can talk about COVID yeah

0:17:14 Tom: Yeah

0:17:11 Eli: Oh, it's 100 % over. Yeah. Have you not noticed how fucking over it is? I got a call from my going to a new school. We're not talking about that this episode. My son's going to anew school. It's fine. We'll talk about it later. My sons going to new school and they were like, Hey, he needs the fucking flu shot. And I was like, Oh, okay, cool. He's got his COVID booster too. And they were Like, yeah, man, whatever. And I was Like, God, wow. We, we super don't give a fuck now. Huh? And they were Like yeah, no, nobody cares.

0:17:17 Thomas: Yeah yeah what

0:17:21 Tom: Nobody cares yeah

0:17:32 Thomas: They cared about the flu shot but not COVID, oh my

0:17:38 Eli: Yeah.

0:17:39 Tom: You here in Illinois they don't even do, remember the COVID vaccination card that every time you got a booster they like, they just I had two of of them because I've gotten every shot possible, I just one's actually keeping any records, so I got extra shots and stuff like a fucking crazy person

0:17:39 Thomas: God, oh yeah oh oh yeah oh yeah you said you got like extra ones, yeah, yeah, oh yeah

0:17:53 Tom: Oh

0:17:55 Eli: Tom went full bananas in pajamas. And And I really want to talk about it because here's the thing. Everyone was coping with COVID in their own way. Some people were being bad about COVID and you couldn't talk about it, but some of your friends went crazy in the best way. Tom was my second favorite version of crazy, which is that Tom got, and Tom, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe you got five total shots for the COVID -19 virus,

0:17:55 Tom: Yeah, oh yeah yeah no I Got more than that, I got, I got a lot more than that, yeah. So I got the Johnson and Johnson shot, and then I which

0:18:24 Eli: Which wasn't real. They're bad. We get it.

0:18:25 Thomas: That one was so you were supposed to take more after that right? I think you were exposed to get extra, but no no yeah, initially. Initially, it was hard to get anything.

0:18:29 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:29 Tom: I initially you weren't supposed, so like I like I, I drove five hours to get that shot, like I literally drove, on my birthday and March 17th I drove 5 hours with Hayley to go get that shot, we got the Johnson and Johnson shot, um, at some like weird state building in Quincy, Illinois, it was the only place we could find that would have the shot, and like I got it early, like back when they were like still gatekeeping the shots because I was was like well, because I was like well, I'm, I'm obese, like, I, my BMI is high enough that I qualify as being obese, so I was like, rock on, yeah I'm obese

0:18:54 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, man.

0:18:55 Eli: Yeah. I got it Fat guy.

0:19:02 Thomas: Plus, I rode the Twinkie bus. Isn't there anything? Check your list again. I should be.

0:19:05 Eli: No I I got it, I got fat guy shot too, they made me take it though, they were like, hey fatty, get down here, and I was like, well, I really want our front, and they were like, the frontline workers got it six weeks ago, get your fat ass down here

0:19:16 Tom: Yeah

0:19:16 Thomas: Yeah. Well, and the way politics went, it was eventually like, well, a lot of the frontline workers were like, eh, who cares? Right? It was like, because then they reclassed. First, it wasn't like, you know, it was just like nurses and shit. And I think they got it quite a bit. But then it was like...

0:19:27 Eli: All got it, he's talking about cops, the

0:19:30 Thomas: Here's the... Oh, was it? Because they were like... Here's that... Okay. The next tier...

0:19:24 Tom: Yeah

0:19:30 Eli: Cops didn't get it yes yeah

0:19:32 Tom: Well I'll tell you what a lot of fucking nurses didn't get it too

0:19:35 Thomas: Yeah that's true, the next tier was you, I can't remember, the essential workers, they defined it out a little more broadly, and it was like, all right, we're not going to be able to get it, and then because of fucking Trump and politics so many of them didn't get it, I feel like this is my memory which could be completely wrong, but then it was like easier to get at that point, and then Tom was like, I'll take, I'll do seven of them, yeah

0:19:35 Eli: Yeah I, I want you to finish your journey, but then I do want to talk about when all the cops didn't getting the shot and they were just like, does anyone want to truck a fucking Moderna vaccines scenes. So you got Johnson and Johnson, which doesn't work. Sick burn.

0:20:02 Tom: I got the shot and I realized like nobody's keeping track of any of this, they just hand you like a, a little piece of paper and they don't enter it into a fucking database anywhere, and like 20 minutes later when I realized the Johnson and Johnson shot was kind of balls, I was like, well, I'm gonna get, and I looked up, because like, like nobody was telling anybody anything, I'm like, can you mix and match shots? Nobody's, there's no advice, but I was able, fucking, I'm going to mix and match the shots, and I went and got the Pfizer, both of the Pzizer vaccines, and then when the, the first booster came out, I got the Moderna booster, cause I was like, well, I haven't had that one yet, I gotta get the Modena booster.

0:20:25 Thomas: Visor

0:20:38 Eli: Yeah. I got to catch them all.

0:20:39 Thomas: Jeez

0:20:39 Tom: Right. And then there was the Omicron booster. And so I made sure I got the Omicron booster, but then I got it again, like six months later, but I got the other brand Omicron booster. And then I recently got the Novavax booster. So I've had every shot approved.

0:20:50 Thomas: Sorry what's the last one

0:20:55 Tom: Novavax booster, that

0:20:42 Eli: Yep. Yep, that's the good one. That's the, this is so sad.

0:20:57 Tom: One's baller.

0:20:57 Thomas: Novavax. Is Is that a strand or a brand of

0:21:01 Tom: Novavax is the, is the brand, so Novavax is the manufacturer and

0:21:03 Eli: This It's a brand.

0:21:01 Thomas: Oh, What the Fuck, I don't even think I know about this, huh.

0:21:05 Tom: It's it's not an mRNA vaccine either, and there's no side effects to it, by the way, like our family got it, you get the fucking Novavox vaccine, you don't even get like a sore arm, you don't get the like COVID shittiness for like 12 hours, like you got with every other one of them, and the data on it is rock solid.

0:21:11 Eli: So real trap. Yeah, yeah.

0:21:20 Thomas: Oh,

0:21:24 Eli: Yeah, well, it's from what, what I understand, and again, give your baby a whole bottle of Tylenol, all, I don't know anything about science, please don't ever take any of my opinions as real science advice, um, from what I understand is like that vaccine, Novavax, was developed at like the speed vaccines are developed, they were like, you know, fucking tortoise in the hair, and they were like, all right, here we go, oh, better put some chemicals in this vial, and then, here we are, year of our lord 2023, they're like, all right, everybody who's ready, on, none of you give a fuck anymore, and the the problem is, and I was reading an article about this, it broke my fucking heart, because they, they like, a big like, we at Novavax are proud to announce, and nobody fucking cared so

0:21:39 Thomas: I see, oh, my god.

0:21:58 Tom: That's exactly right, yep.

0:22:09 Thomas: Oh, my God.

0:22:10 Eli: All the quotes from the article are like, I understand that it's not quite the national emergency it once was, but we're seeing 70 times the efficiency, none of, no one cares, why are you walking, don't interview the squirrel that's eating half a Reese's by the side of the road, I rented this fucking, what did he do it in front of, a dildo store and an infirmary or whatever, that he's just next to Rudy Giuliani who's got hair dye running down his face, I get it man, it happens, don't worry about it, the key is to lose a lawsuit in Georgia, that's how you get your head back in the game, no

0:22:10 Tom: Yeah yeah I

0:22:44 Thomas: Recently got our boosters. Would they have given me this automatically or no? Oh, fuck.

0:22:48 Tom: You gotta like, no

0:22:48 Eli: You gotta ask and find it and shit, yeah

0:22:49 Tom: Yeah yeah I had to go to Costco for it even though I didn't have a Costco membership, because like most places didn't have the Novavax booster, but I got my whole family the Novavax booster

0:22:57 Thomas: Tom, can I get just some of your blood? I think you've been so...

0:23:00 Eli: If you inject yourself, Tom, is the beginning of the super virus, right? You know how like when you're too stoned now with strangers, one of them will ruin everyone's evening by being like, you know, if there's ever another COVID and it's bad, man, I was gonna kill most of the planet, and you're like, oh yeah, that was a really traumatic thing I went through, I would love for you, a stone guy I just met six minutes ago, to like really try and work this into my wife's subconscious, thanks so much, really not enough anxiety and depression going around in the Bosnick household, thanks for bringing this up, Chris, was it, thanks, Chris, I really appreciate this, you fucking pontificating on the next big virus like, like an underground music fan, yeah, no, I went real fucking crazy from, I didn't realize how stir crazy I would go, um, because I was like, my job is online, I still do my job, but like my social network, I realized was wildly important to me, and we like played Jackbox games, and I remember very firmly the moment where it was like, oh, I'm gonna be tortured, because I don't know if you guys remember the first month, three months, honestly everyone was just like playing Jackbox Games and hanging out out on Zoom.

0:24:10 Eli: And like, it was what I think it's a really good example. Parenting. I think it's really good. It's a parenting podcast. Now I did it. I said it, I think it was a really good example of what human beings are capable of and not capable of, right, because what happened was everybody kind of sort of lost their jobs, they got furloughed or whatever, a lot of people I knew, I'm in the New York area, so almost I knew went on unemployment, which was wildly generous, right, New York was already good, and then there was a national, um, on top of that, and so most of the people I knew were like, not afraid for their rent, not worried for their livelihood, they had enough money to survive, they had enough money to stay home, and like that moment was really, I don't know if you guys remember this or maybe it was just an East coast thing, but like, it was really beautiful, right, people were doing wonderful things for each other, and not just like clapping for frontline workers, but people were like sewing masks at home and sending them to local

0:24:09 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah

0:24:16 Tom: Yeah I remember

0:25:05 Eli: Hospitals. And everybody was doing like hangouts on the Jackbox Games and all that kind of stuff, and then I remember sort at of end of month three, and someone smarter than me who like actually kept track will tell exactly when that happened, but here's, here's my memory of it, we were towards the end of months three, and the, the had gone way down, and I remember Fauci and the medical people who all of a sudden were important, those poor fucking nerds, those poor nerds who were just like, hi, my name is Bismock Walker Hamer, and for some reason there's a camera pointed at me for the first time in my life, I'm talking now, I love you, please get my magic shot, right, so like, they, they were saying like, hey, it's just gonna be a little while longer, like we're fucking doing this thing, and then Florida opened, do you guys remember

0:25:05 Tom: That, yeah, yeah,

0:25:54 Eli: That, that moment, right, where it was just like, well, Florida's opening up, like, like someone fucking like rolled coal and shot a gun into the air, and that was the moment where like the consciousness started to crackle, and you realized like, oh shit, I'm now dividing into the people who are gonna do the right thing and not do the right thing, and the not do the right thing people are like having a better time, because it's such a low percentage of the people that die of it, but they, they are really fucking dying of it, so, like, maybe it's not a low enough percentage, it feels like a punishment for us, but it's not enough of a punishment für them, and that severing of the consciousness, that moment really broke me, like, I want to be clear, it, because it's funny, Republicans talk about those first three months as like, the totalitarian, and Iron Man was just like Auschwitz when I had to stay home and play Jackbox

0:25:56 Tom: I do

0:26:42 Thomas: I

0:26:42 Eli: With my kids. It was exactly the same as Auschwitz when I had to stay home and take free free money and not go to Applebee's. I remember that. But the moment for me was like, and it's interesting. I have a connected thought to this. I do want to shut up and let you guys talk about your experience. But like the moment for me was that isolating experience of like, oh fuck, like this other folk are not just folk, right?

0:26:45 Tom: Yeah

0:27:07 Eli: A lot, a lot of people are are like bad and selfish and cruel and mean -spirited and willing to let others die for like their most minor political opinion or hot take or podcast, right, like they're, there's just this huge percentage of the world, right, not my town, not, you know, the deep south, not this one church or this one corner, just like people in general will do this awful thing, and it really, really, I think my brain ever really recovered from the wound of that, I feel divided as a person.

0:27:07 Thomas: Have

0:27:13 Tom: Okay

0:27:43 Thomas: The perfect Phoebe story for this, like the from the mouths of babes kind of thing, and yesterday, actually, this, this happened yesterday, don't know why, but at some point there was something the kids were doing where they were accumulating these plastic water bottles, like single use water bottles, I don't remember what it was, but it was one of those like, you know how when you have a bunch of kids, Eli, you never have a bunch kids, no, whenever they do something and someone wants to give them something at the end of it, you know, whether it's the lollipop or whether it's the, oh, it's a gymnastics, I like gymnastics because they give a coloring page, you know, they just have like, hey, we printed out a bunch of paper that has a thing that they can color, I love that, that's great, so getting one of those, but there was something they were doing, I don't even remember what it was, that was giving out little water bottles, and I was like, fucking, I don't like this, I don't want a bunch of plastic

0:27:46 Eli: Please, yeah, get in there.

0:28:28 Tom: Right

0:28:28 Thomas: Water bottles! And so, yesterday, I found one of these things, and I was, like, God, we still didn't get rid of all of them. Because then they sit in the house. The kids don't actually use them. You know? They just want a trinket.

0:28:29 Eli: Yeah, just growing a fungal colony, yeah.

0:28:40 Thomas: Yeah. And some of them didn't even open. And it's like, well, if they're not open, I'm not going I throw, what am I going to do with it? I don't use them. You you know, it's so, it, so they're just sitting there. And so I found one the other day when I was cleaning and I was just kind of, you know, monologue, it caught me monologuing again. And I was was just like oh yeah I just don't really like these single-use water bottles. You then Phoebe, Phoeba, ever the inquisitive child, is like, why? And I was like, oh, they're bad for the planet, kind of, I wasn't trying to get into it or anything, but I was just like, yeah, you know, their, their bad for, for the plan. And she said, wait, that can't be right. I was like, what? She's like, yeah, if they were bad for the planet, then we wouldn't have them. I was was like oh yeah oh god oh my heart, uh, yeah, wait

0:29:13 Eli: Oh, oh, you sweet thing. Oh. Hey, hon, get into the helicopter. Daddy's going to show you the mid-Atlantic garbage patch. You see that island down there? Mm-hmm, you see that? That, yeah. That

0:29:26 Thomas: Do they have one of those too? Because we have the Great Pacific garbage patch, let's get them together, they've got to meet, yeah and I, tell, how do you, what's the next words from you guys, because I was like, yeah, so, and she's six, you know, and she's smarter than I am already, so I'm like, you know, you can just under, I'll just start telling you everything. I was like, yeah, there's just unfortunately the bad part about humans is like not everybody wants to make the planet better, like there's a bunch of people who just don't care, or they believe something different, or they whatever. And I was trying to tell her that, and I did, and she was, she seemed to get it, but just that moment of like, yeah, we wouldn't have those, idiot, if they were bad for the planet, yeah.

0:29:29 Eli: Oh yeah unexplainable Unexplained. To be fair, you did as good a job as one can do, because you're like, yeah, some people don't care about the planet, and then some people, this is tough, some people are pretending that they don't care about the planet because racists have gotten around the issue that not that caring about the the planet is too black, and so they pretend they don't care, but okay, but then there are people who pretend to care but they don't because they it

0:30:20 Tom: Oh my god yeah

0:30:18 Thomas: Yeah look it's coded as black, it's not really black, but you know it's racially coded you know yeah I can't

0:30:32 Eli: S not actually it s it s got no race it's a thing we should all care about, even though it will affect people of color more. Okay, So here's the thing about in the 1970s, the KKK, here, let's go listen to Uncle Eli's episode about out bronies on Citation Needed, because it actually explains a lot of culture, if we just listen, if you just listen, I think it's, it's all in there, if you're not careful it might all be in there. But what about you guys? Did you go, uh, Tom got eight billion shots, but like, what was your, Tom, I know that you were very, and I feel free to, with tell me, you were a very like a doomsayer, I remember at one point you were like, I don't know that we're ever going to take these masks off, has that stayed with you at all? Is

0:30:34 Thomas: Okay Flint, Michigan, fuck. Oh god

0:30:53 Tom: Yeah.

0:31:15 Eli: That something that you Boo.

0:31:16 Tom: I I actually sent my kids to school to mask today like uh, COVID numbers are through the roof right, as an infection rate right now is higher than 95, at 95% of the whole pandemic, so it hasn't gone down. Um, we are still trying very hard not to get sick over here, like, think I'm a doomsayer. Like, I would take a different, maybe on that. Yeah,

0:31:18 Thomas: Wow. Yeah we don't do that yeah

0:31:19 Eli: Nerd. Yeah no, that's why I said, feel free to disagree yeah, it was

0:31:36 Tom: Yeah, of course. But, like, yeah. I think all of the evidence around COVID says, like. Even though it doesn't kill a lot of people. It has a lot. A lot of potential for long effects.

0:31:46 Thomas: Oh yeah, I think, think you guys were really concerned with long-term COVID, because it's like, we don't know what the fuck. You know we don't know enough about it, yeah, geez.

0:31:51 Tom: Right. And, yeah! And, you know, like more and more data comes out, that shows that like things like Alzheimer's, MS, you, these are oftentimes what are called post-viral syndromes, uh, many of them link to the Epstein-Barr virus, which is mono, um, like there's every reason to believe that

0:32:08 Thomas: COVID was on that list, huh? COVID was on that plane, sorry

0:32:11 Tom: There's ever a reason to think about it, to believe it, like COVID is something we should just try not to get it.

0:32:15 Thomas: Everybody

0:32:14 Eli: A great joke, Thomas just for the record, that was a fucking fantastic joke, is

0:32:18 Tom: I didn't catch it. I'm sorry.

0:32:19 Thomas: Was on That Flight Manifest yeah do

0:32:20 Eli: It, Epstein list because the Epstein lists just came out with all the people, yeah

0:32:22 Tom: Oh, Epstein. Oh. I missed it. So yeah, we're still trying not to get it. So my kid, I would just tell him to wear the mask on the bus when they're in like ridiculously close proximity and the, you are all rolled up.

0:32:34 Thomas: You give them a seat belt to wear too, because they don't fucking wear seat belts on those buses COVID

0:32:36 Eli: Yeah stupid so stupid yeah yeah

0:32:39 Tom: Yeah. We're still, we still trying real hard not to get it, we didn't get COVID until last February. We all, all got it for the first time, and Aislinn's never gotten it, my boys have never gotten it, my dad still hasn't gotten it, so yeah, I'm still very much of the mindset that like, you know, not getting sick is better than getting sick.

0:32:56 Thomas: Might have just kind, kind of avoided your dad on purpose though, it's like, oof, that's a that's gonna be a bummer that that guy's gonna have me tiling the the fucking hallways when

0:32:59 Eli: No, exactly buzzed across his face and was like I don't want to hang out with this guy, yeah he's in inside

0:33:01 Tom: Yeah. Right, He's Gonna Give me chores, But

0:33:06 Eli: Of his arteries or whatever, yeah, what

0:33:08 Tom: My experience during like the height of the pandemic was was kind of atypical because I was an essential worker. So my industry was carved out as essential workers. So the manager of the facility, I had to close down my office. I had a 12,000 square foot office with about 100 employees. I just send them all home very, very quickly, figure out how to get them all to work from home, figure how to adjust all of our work because we're real estate.

So, we do the closing, which is where you literally get all all the parties to the transaction in a room at a certain time to buy or sell a house.

We had to figure out how to do all of that work dispersed, which we had never even thought of before, because for hundreds of years, it's just how you did real estate, for 200 years, this is how you do real estate, everybody gathers together at two o'clock on a Tuesday and you sell your house, that's how it's done in Illinois, I know it's not how it was done in California, but like we had to finger all this stuff out, so I was crazy busy.

I I worked so many hours during COVID that I didn't get really a chance to sort of like look up and breathe and realize that I was like living in my basement like a fucking goblin,

0:33:09 Thomas: Oh

0:34:12 Tom: You know, just like glued to my phone, glued to my computer for, you know, 10, 12 hours a day, every day. So everybody everybody was like, oh, my God, I'm so bored. I'm baking bread. And I was, like, I am fucking exhausted. I am working my ass off every minute of the day, you, then real estate exploded. I don't know if you guys were aware of it, but in 2020, real estate fucking exploded because there was a mass migration event, which, by the way, I absolutely did 100% predict and try to get everybody to listen to. And instead, we were required to lay off 20% of our staff. So it was fucking bonkers in my side. So I was just running around like a fucking nut while everybody was like, I'm bored and baking bread. So I had a very different experience of it and try to keep everybody safe, you know?

0:34:12 Eli: Of course Yeah.

0:34:55 Eli: It's funny, one of the narratives that I think hasn't gotten told a lot, and God, I'm about to be such a literature nerd, so I love the Best American Short Stories, and Best American Short Stories 2023, um, it wasn't in their main stories, but in their other recommended stories, they, one of the short stories they had this year, I'm not remembering, bring it off the top of my head, but it is the story of a woman who is a grocery store worker who is there during the initial shutdown, and her experience while everyone else is sort of doing the Jackbox games thing, and so I love that you, in a way, had that experience of what it's like to continue work during that time and to experience it so wildly differently.

0:35:31 Tom: About you, Thomas?

0:35:32 Thomas: You guys, uh, you guys know me, I'm realistic. Very, you could say pessimistic, but I actually don't even know that that's true. You know, it's funny. The world is so shitty. I actually don't know if I'm pessimistic or just like accurate, you know, like I don't, or trying to be accurate, not like I'm like get everything right. But like, I'm trying to predict the real shitty world we live in.

And I remember early on my, my first memory of early on is that I did all the math like right away of okay well they're saying it takes x time to develop a vaccine and it's that's spreading at this rate and you have to do these measures and whatever and I remember just like early on one of the first zooms we had where Lydia was like, oh, I'm sure you know maybe it'll be like a month or something.

I was like, no, it's gonna be like, it'll b at least a year, we'll be doing this for a year. So I was already pre-dealing with that on like day one, you know, like we're gonna be doing this for a fucking year. But then it

0:36:27 Thomas: Because my, um, you know, my normal, at first I was like, well, this will be fine because I don't like going out or talking to people anyway, so I'm good. And then I realized, oh shit, I need the rest of the world to be doing that. I didn't know that, like, I, I need you Know.

0:36:27 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:36:39 Eli: Differently.

0:36:39 Thomas: It's like I need to be able to look out my window and just be like, oh, yes, others are enjoying life, that's good enough for me. Once sports stopped. And And it wasn't even sports I cared about. Like basketball, don't even watch. You know, that was one of the one that I was most visible because football wasn't in season and basketball, they just stopped. They were like, all right, well, we're going to have now done, like we're stopping it.

And that was the most like, oh, shit, that was a bummer. Because, like, it just, for me, it wasn't like because sports are so important. It was like that was a signal of how much, all right, the We're world stopping. Like if, if you, if COVID could stop NBA basketball and just, it's, know, how few times in the history of the, in all these sports leagues, was there ever a time where they're like, we're just stopping? Like never, almost never, maybe a couple of like World War II seasons or something, but so that was just really a hit and, uh, and then from there, it just all blended into one, you Cause it just, my memory is already so bad that it just went to one thing.

0:37:24 Eli: Yeah. Almost. Never.

0:37:26 Tom: Yeah, is one thing that COVID did for me during like the big, you you know, the height of the pandemic that was super bizarre is I am a, I'm a guy with a very, very strong natural sense of time. Like generally speaking, you can ask me, Hey, what time is it? And I can tell you within five or 10 minutes, never more than 10 minutes off. I can tell you day or night what time it is.

0:37:54 Thomas: Well, when you're, when your daily planner is within two minute increments, I think it makes a difference.

0:37:58 Eli: Right.

0:37:58 Tom: Yeah. And, and during COVID, you of a sudden, all of the routines that kind of like give me signals that I subconsciously just understand, all of those were gone. And I was just in my basement on my phone, just in my basement or pacing around the neighborhood, you on my phone, trying to like solve problems and do work. And I would realize like, oh, okay, well, I should probably have some lunch or whatever. And I would, I would look down and it would be four thirty. And I would think it was like 1115. You know, I would be off by hours and hours, or I would schedule meetings, you know, and be like, I've okay, got a crazy week. We can't have this meeting until Wednesday, they'd be like, dude, it's fucking Thursday. I was just all of a sudden, all of those markers for time, even though like had still retained like working, I woke up every day, I took a shower, I got dressed, I went, you know, I went to work in my basement.

0:38:37 Eli: Right.

0:38:48 Thomas: Raggy.

0:38:48 Tom: Like day because I was like, I don't want to get like get weird, I want to like make sure I have routine that helps me feel stable. And it didn't help, like, a part of it I think was just because like, I was in a fucking windowless basement. So you just don't have those like senses of time, but you

0:39:00 Eli: Time mark is like being in a casino, yeah.

0:39:02 Thomas: Jesus. Yeah. I was going to say you casino yourself.

0:39:03 Eli: Yeah.

0:39:04 Tom: I also didn't have like coworkers, you know, to chat with and like, Oh, like I know Carl comes in at 10 and you know around noon, someone's going to want to like, you Know, see if I want to join in on lunch or like go out and, you KNOW, so like there were all these markers of like office life that like served as these sort of like, like, you know, just reminders of normalcy for me and how my life ran that just overnight went away. And I found myself completely unable to figure out what fucking day it was or what time it was. And it was, that was real weird. That was really hard for me. I had a hard time like realizing like, okay, I should put work down at seven o'clock. You today is done. I don't know. Like I don't have a commute to like have a barrier between like the front end of my back end of my day.

0:39:45 Eli: No, chill out. Or podcast time, yes. Big

0:39:49 Tom: Yeah. That was weird.

0:39:49 Eli: Thing we're also think to speak to that, I think that the disruption of the musts in our life were really monumental, right? Because like, like we all have these like, look, nobody likes going into the office, but it's what you gotta do. And society was like, ah, sorry guys, we got to fucking drop this bit. You don't actually have to do that. Um, you can, we've had Skype for like 27 years.

0:40:11 Thomas: Yeah, turns out it's not important. If you, yeah.

0:40:14 Eli: You can just jump on Skype and talk to, we'd like you to forget. Cause we all bought a bunch of real estate and Tom's companies had us there at the signing, but even they're not there now.

0:40:12 Tom: Yeah,

0:40:14 Thomas: If we could all agree to forget about this and about, you know, like yeah yeah yeah

0:40:24 Eli: And they can just like, the perfect example to me is like notaries, right? Right? Like notaries have been this societal bane for decades, for decades. A hundred years of society. Go on down to the post office and have old Missy McGullicuddy look over your paperwork and then she's going to stamp it. And COVID, during they were just like, some asshole can just jump on FaceTime and be like, yep, I also read a paper. Electronic stamp is as real as the real one.

0:40:23 Tom: What

0:40:38 Thomas: I love it, Tom.

0:40:48 Tom: That So that's so funny that you bring that. I'm literally doing a continuing legal education seminar on digital notary on Thursday morning. So, Illinois, we didn't have that in Illinois. We didn't, we just didn't have that. So we'd like most other states had already passed that law. So in Illinois we, we didn't have that. They had to pass an emergency measure that was like crazy. And I won't bore you with it, but like I had to send notaries out to people's houses and they would like leave the papers at the door and ring the bell and go to their car. And then like, they would show them an ID through a window.

0:41:00 Thomas: It's already Friday. No.

0:41:24 Thomas: Binoculars. And like look at looking

0:41:26 Eli: Yeah.

0:41:26 Tom: Yeah. I'm not even kidding. They would, they would show them an ID through a window because you had to present an ID. And the notary would watch them sign through like a window or through a door. And they would leave the documents outside in the beginning of the pandemic too, we quarantined the documents because we didn't know and

0:41:40 Thomas: It's

0:41:41 Eli: Yeah, of course. You didn't know if it was on surfaces. I washed the shit out of my groceries. Oh, wash the fuck out of those groceries.

0:41:44 Tom: They didn't yeah yeah so had to create all these like crazy procedures to like, you was fucking bonkers, it was absolutely bonkers.

0:41:52 Eli: Do you think there was a pervert notary who the day they announced that he was like, oh my fucking God, right? Like he's a peeping Tom and he's been hiding in bushes and trees his whole life. And they were like, hey Rick, we hate to tell you this, but we're going to need you to stare through binoculars at people's windows while they sign papers for maybe the next year, and he's just like, oh okay, if you say so

0:42:16 Thomas: Like yeah I, I knew that, that's why I brought all this stuff in my trunk. I predicted that and

0:42:19 Tom: That's why I have the video camera it's for, yeah

0:42:16 Eli: Okay I might I might have binoculars. I'm a big bird that's

0:42:24 Thomas: And I have to jack off in the, no, that's not part of it yet. Okay, never, nevermind. I'm not doing that.

0:42:28 Eli: Not part of it yet okay, I'll chalk off just in case yeah can't stop me legally I'm notary you have to let a notary jerk off, that of, people don't know that, but the lady told me down at the post office. She was very clear.

0:42:30 Thomas: Yeah. If I clean the cum, it's fine.

0:42:29 Tom: But it's okay if I do right it's not oh man and just realized you guys didn't have kids at home, like trying to do homeschool school

0:42:43 Thomas: Oh, oh yeah.

0:42:44 Eli: Well, I was having a baby.

0:42:45 Thomas: Uh, I guess not. Yeah, my kids were in daycare, so the school part didn't really matter. It was the best. That's

0:42:50 Eli: Our hospital let dads into the waiting room the day Anna had Max. So the was I was going to be out in the car on an iPad on FaceTime. Time, um, then, uh, called us the night before, and they said, "Hey, yes,

0:42:55 Thomas: Right. Jesus Christ. Here's the problem, Eli. That was yesterday, and I know that your son is older than one day old, so I don't know how this adds up.

0:43:09 Eli: I know."

0:43:10 Tom: I know.

0:43:10 Thomas: That's impossible. Jeez. Man, I remember that just happening. Certain things you haven't thought of since the time. You're like, ah, that just happened.

0:43:11 Tom: Yeah.

0:43:16 Eli: Yeah,

0:43:20 Tom: Like the whole time that I, like, was trying to work, like, we were also splitting the house into like zones so the kids could do their online school, so, you, the very beginning of the pandemic, like, and the school was like a fucking, it was a joke, like, from that March when they shut everything down until the end of May there was essentially no education at all, but, and when I say like essentially, I mean zero actual education. But what the kids had to do was like log in and then like pretend to do some work that didn't count and didn't get graded. And if they did it, it didn't matter. If they didn't do it, it didn't matter.

0:43:55 Thomas: Wow.

0:43:56 Tom: And the teachers hadn'T figured out how to do.

0:43:56 Thomas: That's recipe for success, scholastically. Let

0:44:00 Tom: Well, and look at the results. The results have been disastrous, like disastrous for like literacy and backsliding and all that, but like was a fucking mess. My littlest guy, uh, he just transitioning into kindergarten, when he, that was his kindergarten year, so like he missed the back half of kindergarten and then he had to do all of first grade entirely online. How the the fuck do you, do how do you do first grade online in front of a laptop for an entire year and try to do like occupational therapy and physical therapy and speech therapy, all of which he needed, all through a fucking laptop. It was a goddamn disaster. A

0:44:23 Thomas: First grade.

0:44:39 Eli: And that's another example of like code break that we all experienced, right, which is like there was all like a "what do you learn in school anyways" thing, and we were like, oh fuck, we really need kids in the fucking classroom. Like you just gotta put kids in. And teachers are so valuable, and the destruction of teacher value was really interesting, right? Because the first, I remember like the first teachers back, everyone was like, and I just want to say, look, I don't know who's going to object to this, but I'm ready to say it, that teachers are heroes too. And we were like, fuck yeah, teachers are superheroes too. And then half the country was like, you get on in the classroom, you lazy motherfuckers.

And like, I know so many teachers, lifelong, incredible teachers. These are like people who found their calling. A shiny red apple fell from a tree at the beginning of their movie and they stuck a pencil in it and nodded into the sunset. Who, COVID started, and they were like, fuck your kids. You know what? Fuck your kids, fuck everything. I, you know what, I'm going to make $18,000 a year from retirement. I'm 39 years old.

I'll spend the rest of my life writing a fuck you email to every parent in the country. I'm fucking done, I'm completely, I lose, I quit, I have given up on the children.

0:44:48 Thomas: Quite a lot. Yeah.

0:44:50 Tom: Lot yep When COVID hit, I still was going to CrossFit at the time. So, the CrossFit gym that I would go to, I would go to like, after I got sent home for work, I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go to the nine 30 in the morning class because it was fucking empty. And the CrossFit gym was huge. It was like 8,000 square feet with these huge ceilings. And they would just open these doors and turn the fans on.

And I felt pretty safe being in that room because there was like six people in this giant building. And so like I'm in this building and I'm doing like, you know, my work and like working out and everything, and I come to realize that there's seriously six or seven of us and two of them are teachers that are supposed to be teaching right now, but they were just like at fucking CrossFit, and they're just like, oh yeah, the kids will log on and they'll just mark their attendance. And I was just like blown away that this is what we were doing and pretending that like there was a, which, don't do the pretending part.

0:46:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:46 Eli: Yeah.

0:46:46 Tom: Part. Just don't do the part where we're like, right.

0:46:48 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:47 Eli: Yeah. No. To Be Clear, we're Not ragging on Teachers here. Teachers were doing their best. When what I'm talking about with teacher despair is not teachers not doing their obligations, it's just us being like, and now phase through a solid wall, teachers. And half of America was just, just like, oh, it hurts, the hundredth time.

0:47:07 Thomas: Dear old dad. The AristoDad Center. What?

0:47:08 Eli: Yeah.

0:47:09 Tom: Yeah.

0:47:19 Eli: Gentlemen, before I let you go, I have a question for you. My New Year's resolution is to give up sexual innuendos. But I got to tell you, it's going to be really, really hard.

0:47:23 Tom: All right.

0:47:34 Thomas: I don't get it. Oh, what?

0:47:38 Tom: Hey, guys, before we sign off today, I want to make a quick announcement that Haley and I are actually starting our own podcast. When you hear this, that podcast will be out. So we launched on Tuesday, January the 9th. The name of that podcast is Talking Ship. You should be able, if I can figure out how to post it. Thank you. It's Haley's. She

0:47:56 Thomas: A fantastic Name If I figure Out right now it's just on Tom's desktop computer, but if you can find a Way, log

0:48:04 Eli: But if you can find a way to get into Tom's desktop, you can listen to it.

0:48:06 Thomas: Into That It's

0:48:07 Tom: I I have spent time being tutored by the magnificent Ian. So I will be posting our first episodes, you can find them on Patreon, you'll be able to find them all the various podcast players. Again, the name of the show is Talking Ship. It's a Haley is driving this project very much. She's the boss. I'm in the backseat just enjoying the view so um but it's a lot of fun uh head over and take a listen and let us know what you think.

0:48:31 Eli: Ooh, all right.

0:48:32 Thomas: Awesome.

0:48:33 Eli: Maybe bonus review. We, the dads, review the first episode of Talking Chef. Huh?

0:48:38 Tom: I Like It. Oh.

0:48:41 Eli: Yeah. That'll be the one.

0:48:44 Thomas: Congrats, Tom, everyone, check that out. That, that name is awesome, the art is even better. I love the podcast art, as a, as a connoisseur of podcast art, that you really nailed it on that one. So well, well done.

0:48:45 Tom: Thank you and the name of the company that we had to form in order to do this was just the Tips LLC, so I thought that was pretty great, yeah, so no.

0:48:57 Thomas: Oh yeah.

0:49:01 Eli: Hey. Introduced. Tom brought. Look, if there's one thing that Tom has brought to our collective business, it is that you can have a funny LLC name. And so Tom,

0:49:04 Thomas: Yep. And it's that you can try to start a PayPal account for your company and it's like, no.

0:49:15 Eli: Nope, absolutely not.

0:49:15 Tom: No.

0:49:16 Thomas: And they don't give you an appeal. They don't say like, oh yeah, is this, could this be a mistake? They just say no .And then you're like, well, I guess I'll go fuck myself. Self. Thanks, Tom.

0:49:22 Tom: No. Well, if it means that I have a funny credit card in my wallet I never use, it's worth it.

0:49:32 Eli: Exactly.

0:49:38 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:50:17 Eli: All right here we go oh better put some chemicals in this vial and then