DOD130: Grieving Exes Hold Hands. The Dads Debate.

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast where you'd still choose these three bears over any one man. I'm Tom Curry. I've joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick.

0:00:36 Thomas: Let's talk about it. Here we go.

0:00:39 Eli: No, no, it's too cut. The people aren't ready. Guys, we're gonna talk about something much easier. Palestine, Israel. Let's really get into it. This is gonna be a nice, fun, light episode.

0:00:49 Tom: Something light for the kids, you know, just for your commute.

0:00:52 Eli: We're... Look, we would never take on something as controversial as the bare man debate.

0:00:59 Thomas: Well, Lydia and I did on, uh, bonus of Serious Inquiries Only, so, you know, if you want to hear, listen to that, yeah.

0:01:03 Eli: Goddamnit. Man, you guys just, you head off to your own shows with your wives and you give all the goods to the people at home. I see how it is.

0:01:06 Thomas: I don't know why everyone doesn't have a podcast with their wife. I love it. It's the best.

0:01:12 Eli: I'm starting a podcast with my wife called Please Stop Putting Frogs on the D&D Minis Map. No one can see them.

0:01:13 Tom: It's great. Yeah.

0:01:19 Eli: It's just a 90 minute episode of me begging her to do it. All right. You got some news for us.

0:01:17 Thomas: Yeah. But Tidbit of news, everyone. Just a little smidge. Just a tiny little sliver of news. My entire life has changed and is better and is in every way. And there's a spring in my step. Kid, baby. No, just kidding.

0:01:39 Eli: I am not acknowledging it. I will steal your kid like Andrew stole away. I'll just be like, nope, I have two, I have two kids now. Yeah.

0:01:42 Thomas: Yeah.

0:01:42 Tom: But he did absolutely come when he got the news. Okay.

0:01:49 Eli: That's true. Oh.

0:01:49 Thomas: The, uh, bullshit is over. The lawsuit, the OA lawsuit, it's all over. I win, he loses, Andrew's gone. It is a settlement, so I technically, it is the settlements, I didn't win the case or anything, because, you know, I would have to have 11 billion trillion million trillion dollars to do a single trial that had, like, one witness. That's how our legal system works.

0:02:10 Tom: I know in a settlement there's technically not anyone declared the winner, but I can, I ask you a couple of questions

0:02:13 Thomas: Now, you can declare me the winner.

0:02:16 Eli: My God do they lift anyone's hand in the air at the end of it

0:02:20 Thomas: Yeah, I have a big belt.

0:02:20 Tom: You on the microphone in front of a show called OA and

0:02:25 Thomas: OA is mine. I own OA.

0:02:27 Tom: And where is Andrew? Is he also on the microphone in front of a show called OA?

0:02:30 Thomas: To the fucking slime pit that he came from.

0:02:33 Tom: And Thomas, real quick, are you in control now of the entire back end as well as front end and all of the finance?

0:02:38 Thomas: Yes. Whole company, everything.

0:02:40 Tom: Yeah, yeah. Right.

0:02:40 Thomas: Yeah. It's the best.

0:02:41 Tom: OK. And Andrew's got what? Just for my clarity.

0:02:44 Thomas: Don't know. Some fucking shitty podcast, yeah.

0:02:46 Tom: Nothing. No part of OA at all. Is that right?

0:02:46 Thomas: No. Part.

0:02:48 Tom: So we can't declare a winner in a settlement.

0:02:48 Thomas: Zero. Parts. No. No. Winner.

0:02:50 Tom: Right?

0:02:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:50 Eli: No.

0:02:50 Tom: We don't want to declare a winter, but we can. We can definitely declare a win. And we can declare a loser. We Can Definitely Declare a Loser.

0:02:55 Thomas: Well, Probably.

0:02:50 Eli: Way. To say. It, no. Way. And Thomas. And Thompson, just, I want to check real quick, because this is what my life has been like since January of last year: is there a chance I could make a joke or say words, public or private, that would, would starve your children to death at this point?

0:03:10 Thomas: Still. Yes, actually.

0:03:11 Eli: Yeah, well, you know what? That's fair. That's unfair. I take it back.

0:03:11 Thomas: Now. That, but Assuming not all of our listeners over, I'll app on our shows then, no. So Just correct. Yeah, yeah, no, there's no joke. There have been, true story, there have been so many jokes, listeners. There have been so many jokes that we've wanted to make, or even jokes we've made a couple times, I've been like, "Oh no, can't put that out there." Not because of, um, well, it's not because of what you might think. Like, we just would love to make really good jokes about things, but you're just not allowed to not allow to talk about anything.

0:03:18 Eli: Yes, exactly.

0:03:36 Eli: You're not allowed to, because there's an ongoing lawsuit. You get held in contempt and shit. There have been so many conversations, so many fucking conversations. Hey, honestly, listeners, and we'll move on to our podcast, I promise you, but podcast listener, can I give you the number one thing that I learned from this whole fucking awful incident? The worst, probably the worst thing that's ever happened to me aside from my father's death, which really, like, left me alone in the world and completely changed, like the results of my life. Right. But other than that, this has been the worst things that's happened to ever happen to me. And you know what I learned? If you do a crime and another person needs to get a lawyer together and do a lawsuit to stop you from doing that crime, you should fucking do

0:03:41 Thomas: Well, yeah, yeah.

0:03:56 Tom: Uh -oh.

0:04:18 Thomas: Yep.

0:04:18 Eli: It. You should absolutely do it! It's so expensive and painful and horrifying and evil and soul-destroying to get the right thing done in the most clear cut of cases. You should do all the crime. If you're part of a company, you should fucking steal it tomorrow. Tomorrow you should steal it. You should steal everything around. Steal random objects. Say, I cannot do it. I spent so much of my career being like, oh, is that libel? Is that slander? Oh, I better be careful about this joke on Godawful Movies. I will say whatever I want for the rest of my fucking life.

0:04:32 Thomas: Yep, I hope, I think Eli's taking the wrong message from this. No, they're down. That's,

0:04:53 Tom: I don't, yeah, this is not.

0:04:56 Eli: Hey, podcast listener, kill RFK Jr. Kill him. I'm telling you to kill him.

0:04:56 Thomas: That's actually the opposite on that. I want to let people know. Okay. I would

0:05:01 Eli: I'm instructing you to murder RFK Sr.

0:05:01 Thomas: Like to modify. There is a kernel of a good point in there, but Eli has misunderstood several parts of it in very important terms.

0:05:05 Eli: Murder RFK Stranger. Do it. I'll give you $10 to murder R

0:05:11 Thomas: And here's one thing, the opposite of what Eli said. Here's one things, and by the way, if you want to hear more about this, I did a patron thing on OA, Opening Arguments, the podcast that I own, that tells you more about it. But if you ever hear someone say like, well, truth is ultimate defense to libel or slander, just fucking shove them in a locker because that part leaves out that like it's a defense. So truth plus having a million dollars is the defense to label.

0:05:11 Eli: .F .K. Stranger Kirk Cameron's a rapist. I know the woman he raped.

0:05:41 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:05:42 Eli: Yeah.

0:05:42 Thomas: And if you don't have a million doors, well weird, the truth isn't an ultimate defense to liable anymore because you can get sued into oblivion. There was a journalist the other day that had to like publicly declare that what's her name, that Hogwarts lady wasn't a Holocaust denier because she threatened to sue her. And here's, here's the point, Eli, if you're on the receiving end, you're fucked. But if you want to use the law to make, you know, do bullshit because it's too expensive, then you're fine. Like if you'RE one of the moneyed people that, yeah, exactly.

0:06:11 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. Just do evil shit and have money. Everybody do

0:06:14 Thomas: That's all. Yeah.

0:06:14 Eli: Evil shit and Have money and

0:06:16 Tom: All the rich audience right now is like, yeah no shit, guys.

0:06:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:19 Eli: If you're out there and you've got the mill to throw around please stop respecting laws, please. They're

0:06:26 Thomas: Oh, that was the other part. Criminal law is not the same thing. You can't just do crimes.

0:06:30 Eli: The same. You can do whatever you want kill RFK Jr. You'll get away with it. Kill him for me because I'll pay, and on behalf of Daddy Issues LLC, I offer a $10 bounty to anyone who kills RFK Jr.

0:06:30 Thomas: No, it's a civil. Yeah. It's not true. Okay. $10 is fine.

0:06:48 Eli: But gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than our absolute joke of a legal system and the shambles it's left my mind and spirit in?

0:06:45 Tom: That's

0:06:56 Thomas: Yes.

0:06:57 Tom: Wow. Wow.

0:06:57 Eli: What it did to Thomas and the auto ads. Yes, the auto adds. Those little reminders that each time you listen to our podcast, we must desperately dollars and cents out of your veins and marrow to continue our very existence, for we do not have the multi-millions yet that will allow us to stop following all laws ever, but you could change that for as little as a dollar over at patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads. Not only will you get an extended commercial-free version of every single show, not only will you get a monthly bonus episode, not only we get a little parenting story at the end of every show, but you get us one dollar closer to the day and time where laws no longer apply to us and RFK Jr.

0:06:59 Tom: Wow.

0:07:44 Eli: Is ours for the killing. Patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads. Wow.

0:07:44 Tom: All right, guys. So from time to time on our little chat that we use to just, you know, kind of go back and forth about ideas for the show and just to chit chat with each other. Eli and Thomas like to post. Am I the assholes or other other things? And they do it intentionally to sort of like poke the bear, right, to chide me or, you know, see if they can give, you know, it's a bear -related episode, but we're not talking about the bears. We're not saying that. We're talking about what the bears

0:08:08 Thomas: Yeah, again with the bear. We can't talk about the bear, yeah.

0:08:08 Eli: Again the bear Tom please Please just keep it just keep to non-controversial topics like which politicians we think people should kill for money for our shows, okay? I gotta feed my kid, Tom.

0:08:13 Tom: Right, right. I'm sorry. I should have scale it back,

0:08:22 Eli: Gotta

0:08:22 Tom: Tom, scale it, back, time. So Eli they, posted this, am I the asshole? And we actually thought the conversation should move off the page and into the show because it actually was kind of interesting. Things. So here's the question. Am I the asshole for holding my ex -husband's hand at our son's funeral?

0:08:23 Eli: Feed my son, and if I can click bait Tom's answer, podcast listener, you won't believe what Tom Curry thinks.

0:08:42 Thomas: It's yes, Curry tells Morning Mother that she's not allowed.

0:08:48 Tom: Oh, yes.

0:08:51 Eli: Guys, we're already doing the money horribleness thing. Can we go full asshole podcast and lock the second half of the show behind the paint wall, just the the

0:08:58 Thomas: Oh God, no. I will steal the show from you then, and then you'll have to sue

0:09:03 Tom: We just small yet.

0:09:05 Eli: Have you know, Thomas, that if you steal a show from me a mere year and a half later, I will be victorious.

0:09:08 Thomas: Yeah, You will be financially ruined, and but maybe have a shell of a show. Think

0:09:13 Eli: I will have the show back. So lightly, okay, Thomas? Think real carefully.

0:09:18 Tom: All right.

0:09:22 Thomas: Short and light about what you might do, you well

0:09:26 Tom: So let me let me read this thing. Recently, my ex -husband, 35 male, and I, 33 female, experienced the devastating loss of our son. In the midst of our grief, we found comfort in each other's presence and shared memories. During the funeral service, I reached out and held my ex husband's hand for support, which seemed natural given the circumstances. However, his current wife, 34 female, said that it's inappropriate to show affection toward an ex spouse. While I understand her perspective, I felt this was a moment of shared grief. Am I the asshole for holding my ex -husband's hand after losing our son? So I know you guys are trying to paint me as the bad guy here. So let me give you my response first as the jumping off point. No, she is not an asshole. But I think it's genuinely bizarre behavior that I can't understand at all. So it's not asshole behavior. And I think I want to make sure that I don't get misconstrued there. It's not an household thing to do at all, but I don' and cannot possibly understand it even a little bit. One percent. Percent

0:10:23 Thomas: I I think that's a dodge, so I want to clear asking you a question, Tom, who's the bigger asshole, her or the other, the it, the ex, the husband the new wife of the ex-husband, okay?

0:10:27 Tom: The

0:10:32 Eli: The new wife.

0:10:35 Tom: Know that again, I don't know that anybody is an asshole but where, who's who's behaving bizarrely in my opinion is the lady reaching out to hold her ex-husband's hand I think that's insane.

0:10:36 Thomas: Who's more in the wrong, that's Yeah,

0:10:41 Eli: Yes. So insane. So fucking insane.

0:10:47 Tom: But here's the thing, you guys, with respect, you've never been divorced, so

0:10:47 Thomas: It's True.

0:10:53 Eli: That's true. Now, to be fair, if I had to hold Tom's ex -wife's hand when my son died, I feel like I'd have a whole new perspective on this.

0:10:53 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:57 Tom: So Yeah, you would, though you would, because up, leading up to this show, I was think about this. Like, the thing is about divorce is that it's not a breakup. So if you try to analogize it to a breakup, you won't understand divorce really at all. You'll understand like a tiny fragment of divorce. But here's my feeling or take on divorce, right?

So a divorce, it looking at a relationship and you're saying this relationship is so bad, it is so untenable, it is so unsustainable, and it is so unable to be fixed that I am willing to blow up not just my romantic life, but disrupt my life with my children, disrupt and probably devastate to a significant degree my financial life, uproot and change the nature of all of my friendships, change the the nature of my extended family, change, changed literally everything. Changed, it's not a breakup, it's so much bigger than that, right? It has, it has consequences that reverberate into all parts of your life.

So that's the choice you make to do to essentially disown somebody. It then is insane to me that that is a person you would look to for comfort in your life. I can't understand that. If that was somebody that you could emotionally connect with and look to for comfort in your life, then I can't understand why you would go through all of that other stuff to divorce them. Those two things seem mutually incompatible to me. I don't find anything about my ex comforting, and I don't have any animosity, I just don't find anything comforting there. I have have other sources of comfort in my life.

If she was still somebody that was emotionally close and that we could have comfort with, then there would be no reason to blow up this entire chain of events that realign your entire self. You so much bigger than a breakup. So that's the piece to me where I'm just like, how? I can't get there mentally or emotionally, but

0:13:07 Eli: While haven't been divorced, both Anna and I have parents who were very close to the person they divorced. And so I think I just grew up around folks for whom divorce did not mean such a monumental severing, right? Right. So my mom, obviously, here's a chance to brag once again, married to novelist John Gardner. Right. And they divorced. Right. Because they were not a good husband and wife, but they remained very close friends. They co -edited his literary magazine together.

0:13:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:36 Tom: They didn't have kids together, and that does change things, yeah.

0:13:38 Eli: They did not. No. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm not, um,

0:13:42 Tom: I

0:13:42 Eli: My wife's dad had a kid from a previous marriage. Uh, ex wife was still a big part of their life. They did have a kid together and they were very good friends after the divorce. They just realized they weren't quite, um. They weren't a good match as a couple, but but, remained friends. I have friends who are divorced, um are still in each other's lives because they share kids, but in a friendly way and are still there for each other in a very real way, they just realized that marriage was not the relationship they were supposed to be in.

0:14:15 Thomas: That I love about this, Tom, is it's true we haven't been divorced, I haven't been divorced. And well, I guess my dad, now that I think about it, my dad was divorced. Actually. Oh my God. Did I ever tell you? I think my, we found out my mom was divorced like recently.

0:14:28 Eli: What?

0:14:29 Tom: Do you mean you found out recently?

0:14:30 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, somewhat recently. Ah, maybe as in like 10 years ago. Not, not when we were kids, I suppose. I guess is the point. Like, well, maybe like five years ago, we found out. She was married to somebody like, young and like none of us knew. And then like, I think somebody one, asked her about it and she's like, there's nothing to tell. It's just like, there's nobody, oh

0:14:47 Tom: No,

0:14:47 Eli: That's so... Your family, I just need to know what is filling the silences with the amount of things you guys don't talk about.

0:14:56 Thomas: It's, there's no side, yeah, it's just sarcastic, really good jokes, really good jokes. I'll tell you bits

0:15:00 Tom: I know that my dad was married to someone before my mom, and I don't know. Well, here's the thing, I only know her name because he did a family tree once, and he put her as a side thing on a family tree that he put together, like a, like you know, and I suspect, now here's the funny thing, I suspect, but I don't know for sure, no that it's the same person that he has now been dating for 44 years, yeah.

0:15:06 Thomas: Found the sex tape. Uh, that's a weird thing to do when they have a kid, oh what?

0:15:22 Eli: They're cousins. What?

0:15:30 Tom: So the woman he was married to first was a woman named Linda, different last name than the woman named Lilda that he is been with for 44 years. What I suspect but don't know for sure and have no I way to verify, and I'll never ask them. It's way inappropriate

0:15:36 Thomas: This is fucking Yeah.

0:15:43 Eli: You actually do. He's right there. You can pick up the phone and call him.

0:15:44 Thomas: He's in the room right now, yeah. Yeah,

0:15:44 Tom: No, for if somebody doesn't share that for 45 years, they're not, they're not interested in sharing it, but

0:15:49 Thomas: Yeah, that's fair. I'm with Tom on this one.

0:15:52 Eli: Not fair it's insane, Thomas, that's

0:15:56 Tom: Think those two Lindas are the same Linda. I think that only because my mom said that they were, but had a custody hearing, my mom met Lynn, my dad's longtime girlfriend, and and she told us that is his first wife. I don't know, my mom lies about a lot of shit though, like my mom literally just makes shit up

0:15:58 Thomas: What? Okay, that sounds like they are.

0:16:15 Eli: The thing as I see your mom yeah being

0:16:17 Tom: Yeah

0:16:17 Thomas: Yeah, if anything, your mom saying that probably made you more skeptical. Like, you would have thought that, but then she said it, and you're like, nah.

0:16:25 Tom: Thing is, I probably never would have given it a second thought and been like, oh, same Linda's. I'd have been like, oh, that's funny, like he's just with two people named Linda, whatever yeah whatever, like I got a guy I work with, his ex-wife and his current, you, fiance say it same name. I'm like, all right, that's weird, but probably never would have thought about it, but then my mom, like I said, and during a custody hearing thing, she made mention of it to us, yeah.

0:16:27 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:31 Eli: Likes Linda's, it

0:16:35 Thomas: Tammy. Yeah. Your mom made it to a custody hearing?

0:16:46 Tom: She tried to regain custody of us when I was in fourth grade, um She got her life, like, back together in the sense that she had a trailer down in Tampa, and she tried to send for us to come live back with her. My dad was like, that's just 100 not gonna happen.

0:16:48 Thomas: Wow. Crazy.

0:17:00 Eli: Was the mistake for me to trade you guys for a big bag of cans of bottles? In my opinion, I think it was weird that she brought that with her to

0:17:06 Tom: Well, imagine how bad things have to be if, in 1986, they're awarding custody fairly swiftly to a single dad, yeah. Chicago, yeah.

0:17:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:15 Eli: A dad this when Kramer versus Kramer was a movie, right?

0:17:21 Tom: Right, yeah. It, my dad was literally the only single dad I knew growing up. I never met another one the whole of my growing up. Oh

0:17:29 Thomas: Finish that, I just remembered what the thing I was saying was and I don't want to lose it. No, it's OK. I'm not I'm not blaming you. That was genuinely like, oh, if I don'T say it now, I'll forget it forever.

0:17:32 Tom: Yeah, yeah sorry yeah Yeah.

0:17:32 Eli: Thomas We were a hundred percent, what was going on, we understood insanity.

0:17:41 Thomas: The reason I bring that up is I think that this what I love about this, Tom, and I mean, I genuinely mean this. I love that it shows a lot of your views and kind of background assumptions in ways that like I think maybe I might put forward that you're not always aware of. And that's true of all of us, because I think that you describe divorce in the way that's very informed by your divorce, of course. And then like Eli brings up a couple examples. And we've had people in the past during the exes conversation, people on our Facebook bring up examples of like, oh, I'm totally cool with my ex. Yeah, we divorce. We still see each other. We're friends. We see each other all the time. Like there's a lot of people who are like that. Now, I don't know what's, I think, Tom, you're probably closer to the average, you know, like I think there's

0:17:46 Tom: Yeah. Sure. Right.

0:17:50 Eli: So

0:18:22 Thomas: Way more people who were like bitter and whatever. But when we talk about this hypothetical, I mean, in my mind, I can just imagine because I've seen both examples, like, well, maybe it's, they must just be one of those examples. It's like, not, you don't like hate each other and they don't. And also whatever.

0:18:36 Tom: But can I can I get away from the hate thing? Because like I don't like you.

0:18:39 Thomas: Sorry. Yeah. Okay. They, they are very cold toward each other or whatever.

0:18:43 Tom: They're just not close.

0:18:44 Thomas: Yeah. That kind of thing. Um, also I think it, it in now, now is this, what I'm reading from it and let me know if I'm wrong by all means, but I think built into this is also a little bit your, um, focus on commitment, like, like how seriously you take a lot of this stuff. Like it's very important to you.

So the idea that the only way you would divorce somebody is if you had this level of, or not feeling toward them, and whether or not that sometimes that is hate, or I'm not saying that's in your case, but like when it's somebody that you're, that catastrophically, like, something has gone terribly wrong, I way he phrased did of, like, would only make that decision if you know all these other catastrophic things that happened to, which, I, yeah, my mind goes like, well, I don't know, man, man, like, I would divorce someone if our schedules didn't line up.

Like if we didn't, no, I'm just, I'm kidding. But like, there are, there Are ways that are like, okay, hey, I recognize that like, we still have all kinds of positive feelings toward each other. But there's something, there has to be at least something that's not working. And something not working is not always catastrophic. Except I think because of your value system, you you'd be very hesitant to ever go back on like a major commitment you made, unless it was something very catastrophic. Does that seem fair?

0:19:29 Tom: Yeah I know. Yeah yeah I think I didn't have anything catastrophic occur in my prior marriage but thing is that like the divorce will cause catastrophe, right. Right. A divorce when you are married for a long time with children and property and all that kind of stuff. It has all these enormously, you huge ramifications and ripples. All parts of your life are pretty much immediately impacted. Right. Like it's financially devastating to get divorced. I mean, for almost everybody.

0:20:04 Thomas: Yeah. Sure. And can I do a quick clarification, Tom? I'm I not at all mean to say the thing you're saying is wrong. I just think there's a spectrum of that experience. And I think you're you're bit over on the like, this is a more of a catastrophic thing spectrum. And I've seen people say like, yeah, you know, it was just more, you don't worry. That's all I'm not saying you're totally wrong or anything. Things

0:20:24 Tom: Yeah. No, no, no. I get that. Yeah, right.

0:20:42 Tom: Right. But so Like all of these things, I guess, like where I have a hard time, maybe, like, moving out of my own perspective, and I'll acknowledge that, is like, you've, the easiest thing to do is always to stay doing what you're doing, right? That feels to me like human nature. It's always easier to do the things that you're going to to wake up in the house that you own with the kids that are your kids, to not have, you know, realign all of your other relationships, like you got to do all this stuff.

So I have a hard time understanding how you could be like, yeah, things just aren't 100, so I'm just going to realign literally every part of my life with, I still really like this person, good, I really enjoy their company, like this is somebody I could still lean on emotionally for support and feel comforted and validated by them, but I, I don't understand that could still be the case and you'd still be like, I'd rather pay all these other consequences, because there's a lot of other consequences that you pay when you get divorced. It's just, it's a huge thing. So like, I'm struggling to understand, like, why would you get divorce then if this was somebody who still felt like you could emotionally trust, right?

0:20:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:53 Thomas: Feeling

0:21:44 Eli: It's possible, um, there are like no-fault divorces and stuff that are less extreme, um, it is also possible, I think, that, like, that's a huge thing for people at the time that you're describing, and then over time, as they share a kid and navigate co-parenting, that extreme change molds back into a healthier relationship, like, I imagine the day after a divorce pretty much everyone feels the same, right? But I think over time, depending on the positive relationship you have with your ex, like, I think what you're responding to, and I think it's valid, is that it, nobody's like, um, you know what, I'm just a little ick So, uh, let's both get lawyers, right?

0:22:23 Thomas: Divorcee Today, yeah.

0:22:25 Tom: Yeah. That's That's what I mean, like, the stakes are so high that, like, I'm like struggling to figure out how I

0:22:27 Thomas: Totally. Yeah. Yes.

0:22:29 Eli: So I Over time, people learn to get along and then come back together to a healthier

0:22:37 Thomas: That And That's another thing, Tom, you have a very permanence of feel like, like you make a decision and it's your ex is invisible, you can't see forever, you know, like you're Yeah.

0:22:37 Eli: Yeah.

0:22:46 Tom: Know. Yeah.

0:22:46 Thomas: Like you're very firm on your decisions and it's just like, this is a thing, I've decided it's over, and I honestly, I'm kind of that way, not exactly the the same as you, but I tend to be that way with things, but a lot of people like, aren't that way, you know, it's kind of interesting. And also I me pause at another form of relationship. That happens. There And are people who, and I've certainly met these people, are like, yeah, I this, love this. Usually man, I loved this man. He was the best. He was, I thought whatever, but he cheated and I just couldn't get over it.

And then it's like, like, sometimes people have the feeling of like, they still love the person actually a lot and they still, they didn't lose like a lot of the feelings that they had, but they just couldn't get over a thing. And it might not always be cheap. It could be some other thing, like they couldn't get over this thing. And I think based on what you've expressed, Tom, I think you have the ability to kind of take the thing and the decision you're making and have it kind of trump everything else. And I think there are a lot of people that I don't think are like that, that kind of retained those feelings but are like, I just couldn't go on in the marriage, kind of thing.

0:22:47 Tom: Sure. Yeah.

0:23:13 Eli: Right.

0:23:46 Tom: But so I guess what I, what I would suggest or worry about in a scenario like that is that, like, you've divorced, like once you said we're not family anymore, right, and I want to go to court and stand up in front of everybody and say, I don't want to be your family anymore.

0:24:01 Thomas: Damn, do they make you do that? No, I'm just kidding. Have

0:24:03 Eli: They do Yeah. It's a whole talak, talak. I

0:24:04 Tom: I mean, that's what it is, like you have to stand in front of a judge, like you do, even have to acknowledge the settlement agreement. It, and then they do say like, I know I'm gonna, my ass is divorced now, and they're like, okay, you understand? Yeah, I get it. So, yeah. Kind of, it's

0:24:15 Eli: Still think it's weird that they phrase it that way. My ass is divorced now.

0:24:19 Tom: It's a little casual. I thought it was a little casual. Um, speaking of casual, I was the only one there in a suit. I thought it was bizarre not to go to court in a suit. That was weird to me. Um,

0:24:27 Eli: Oh, I love it. I love it. Every, have you been to zoom court yet? Not to take us too far or wide, but have you Been to zoom Court since zoom court? Well, sorry, Thomas. So this is for once we're going to have a court conversation that isn't about to, Oh boy.

0:24:33 Thomas: I been to Zoom court

0:24:41 Eli: Have you gotten a ticket or anything and been in these fucking 97 Zoom rooms and people are doing it like while they're at the dentist and and while they do an OBGYN, it's the best. It's perfect. Idiocracy would have cut it from the script for being too wide. People are like, one second, I'm eating a big sloppy sandwich. I didn't kill them, people. Nom, nom, nom. It's the worst.

0:24:37 Tom: It's In-person court is, it was every bit is just bonkers to me, like, I don't know, it's just weird, but so what I would worry about is that people, like, then have not moved on and they've not drawn good boundaries if they are then looking to reconcile. There's no reason to reconcile, like, can co-parent along what I would think of as parallel paths, but you're not part of their family and they're not part of your family. That's why you went to court and said, I don't want to be family anymore. Right. And that's not got anything to do with animosity. It's just a separating and it's a separating that I, and I do recognize that my completeness here may be like weird to some people. I get that.

0:25:43 Tom: But like, I feel like those are good boundaries.

0:25:43 Eli: It's not the best, no.

0:25:45 Thomas: Did?

0:25:46 Tom: I feel like those aren't healthy. I think, especially with kids who oftentimes will look at parents through a divorce and very much want them to get back together, that modeling healthy, strict boundaries that are amicable but that are still strict and inviolable helps to reduce or eliminate that confusion. This scenario that we've got here, where somebody's like holding, reaching out and holding on to somebody else for support, what I also think is super fucking weird there is, like, the guy has his wife there, who is the stepmother of the dead child, and she is not being comforted in that moment, where she, like, as a step-parent, if I, something happened to one of my kids, I would, would be in terrible grief. What

0:26:32 Thomas: It say something about that relationship? Was it that level of, does

0:26:36 Eli: It is a new wife, so this

0:26:37 Thomas: Yeah, but I don't know, like, the timing of everything, or that, you know, like

0:26:40 Tom: No. Way to know the timing, but Like, I will say, like, fairly swiftly, you pretty enamored Of Those Kids?

0:26:40 Thomas: Yeah. Well, Does It Say who Had

0:26:47 Tom: Like No.

0:26:48 Thomas: Custody? Of, okay.

0:26:49 Tom: It doesn't say so.

0:26:50 Thomas: Yeah, well, who knows, Tom?

0:26:51 Tom: I think there's also a fair assumption that, like, the grief situation is like, "Yeah, me and my wife are going through something, something not me and my ex-wife. We don't do things together, we don't go through things together anymore, we don't do together, we do parallel paths, we don't do together paths. Me and my wife now are going through something, and that something is now, like, I'm now, I'm turning to someone different for support, and that feels weird to me, that feels like a strange, I can't even understand why that impulse would exist." Like, my first impulse would be to turn to somebody that I am close to, that I turn to every day, my confidant, especially in a moment of extremists, right? In a moment of, like, real extreme grief, the people that I would want to comfort me would never be secondary or tertiary people in my life. They would be, like, only one or two of my closest people.

0:27:41 Thomas: They're Holding hands. Can you relax? This is not, yeah.

0:27:44 Tom: I Think that's a big deal. No, no, I think that's a big deal.

0:27:46 Eli: Can I tell you the most insane thing about Tom's insane takes? And I just, I want to say it. I want to say, I need to speak my truth, which is that I love your letters to the paper about where you buried the bodies, but the thing, the thing I find most disturbing is that you're like, "But I'm not mad." That's what's so crazy, right? You're late, you are dead to me. I stood up in court and I declared that you are no longer extranos and I burned your face off of all the photos, but I've not mad, I'm nothing, I'm not, that there's no anger there, that's just a normal, I have a normal, no, no emotions, normal chill. Kill normal.

0:27:53 Tom: Yeah.

0:28:10 Thomas: Nazis.

0:28:22 Tom: I'll give you, like, like, Hayley and her ex have a perfectly genial relationship, relationship. They're, he comes over every two weeks, like, staying, stands around for 10 or 15 minutes to talk about the kids, we maybe all we'll laugh or joke about something the kids do, but like, I can't imagine a world where if something bad happens to one of the kids, she's not looking to me for support, because for the last seven years, everything she's ever needed support has come from me. Wouldn't that be bizarre, that seems bizarre?

0:28:47 Eli: Wait, Wait, wait, I need to dig down on this, right? Donovan's meth dealing finally catches up to him. He should have taken the SATs. He didn't. Meth, meth. He becomes a cartel leader. He gets involved with Walter White. Walter White sells him out to the Nazis. The Nazis kill him finally. It's a different ending. It is an alternate ending.

0:28:51 Tom: Right. Right. Totally. See, it very reasonable. Yeah.

0:29:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:08 Eli: Yeah. Uh, a Breaking Bad. That. God, Thomas, read Breaking Bad. Kill Donovan there at the funeral. They're at the funeral mourning their child. She puts her hand into his. Your thought is inappropriate.

0:29:09 Tom: No.

0:29:20 Thomas: It's over, yeah. Yeah, it's

0:29:23 Tom: My thought is that, no, no, no, my thoughts is that's fucking bizarre. It's Absolutely no, it is bizarre.

0:29:27 Eli: It's so not bizarre. You're

0:29:29 Thomas: Not bizarre.

0:29:32 Eli: Bizarre.

0:29:33 Thomas: No, I think you could construct possibilities that would make it more and less bizarre. Certainly. I

0:29:37 Tom: It So In that moment, I'm in terrible grief, right? Whole life has just changed. Hayley's life has changed. Every day, Monday through Friday, she and I and Donovan and Aislinn wake up together in the same house. I am heartbroken. She is heartbroken. Our life together has just fundamentally changed. She's ever needed for seven plus years, if this happened tomorrow, she comes to me for that support, that emotional support, as her husband, been a partner, and the same vice versa. It be super weird to turn to somebody that she's not talked to emotionally for a decade and be like, "Now in this moment I want you for support." That seems like a strange, I'm, wouldn't be like jealous, there's nothing to do with jealousy. What I'm saying is it's bizarre. I can't understand the impulse.

0:30:10 Thomas: One thing not mad and he's not jealous. Everyone knows because it's

0:30:27 Tom: No. I can understand, understand the impulse, it'd be like turning to, like, a stranger for it, but

0:30:33 Thomas: Their kid. Well, and then I told you in in there, I told you in the chat, I said, like, well, here's the other thing. If if a stranger, if someone I met that day was heartbroken about their child dying and they like reach for my hand, I'd hold their hand. Like, what is the so there's like two components to it. There's the marriage component and what the divorce means. And there's also the like how much weight you put on a gesture like that, to me it doesn't there doesn't need to be a sense of like, well, if Lydia held someone's hand or if I held someone his hand, that means there's an amount of thing that they're not getting from me. That's not how I would think of it at all, you know?

0:30:34 Eli: Definitely not a stranger.

0:30:36 Tom: It's not their kid that's the part you guys don't understand Yeah Guess, but no, I guess I disagree with that. Yeah, no, I know Yeah I disagree mit that you

0:31:13 Thomas: No, fair enough, yeah.

0:31:13 Eli: You said words, but they were wrong once.

0:31:18 Tom: Think I understand, like like that there's like an intuitive sense to that, but I I would just fundamentally disagree with it. Like, no, yeah, I don't think so. I, that doesn't make sense to me, like in any of the rest of my life. I don't hold hands with anyone but my kids and my wife, right? Like, I don't hold hands with Cecil. Like, that's not something I do, right? Like, I'm not walking around as a guy, it's like cultural norms. I don't walk around holding hands with people. That is a fairly intimate gesture that is reserved often by men for family, right? I think that's true.

0:31:18 Thomas: No, I know, yeah, that's

0:31:46 Tom: YEAH

0:31:46 Eli: Okay,

0:31:47 Thomas: A good way to bring up the other thing I told you, or I asked you, Tom, which is where we paused and I wanted to get more of your answer. Then I asked you, maybe this is not a good line of inquiry, maybe it is. I thought, okay, you've talked about how much you don't care about Bob, and you're like, don't give a shit about Bob. Maybe he's your brother, Bob, you guys aren't close, you don't really. And I was like, well, okay, what if your dad dies? You give him Bob a hug at the funeral? Well then Hayley's like, I thought I was the one who you hug when you're sad. I

0:31:52 Tom: SURE IN A HEARTBEAT YEAH NO BUT So there are there are key differences that I think are important. I know.

0:32:17 Eli: Feel like Tom has a chart and he's not willing to show it to us, Thomas.

0:32:19 Thomas: Thought

0:32:20 Tom: Like, look, look. Of all, like, would I give my brother a hug? Of course I give My brother a Hug. He's still my brother. I don't particularly like him, but I don't dislike him. I didn't go through any efforts to disown him, right? Didn't take my brother to court and have myself legally separated from him.

0:32:35 Thomas: You didn't dislike your ex either, but but

0:32:38 Tom: But I went to court to separate from this person because I could not be their family anymore. Like, you understand that there's this is a big deal difference, right? Like, one thing for me to be like, yeah, I don't enjoy hanging out with Bob, but like, Bob and I never had a life together where we committed to be partners in life together. I I'll give you another example. Cecil has a brother that he has disowned in everything but legally, and like, and his mom died. He didn't tell his brother. He didn't even tell him and I get that

0:33:06 Thomas: The things we learned. Okay. But that, so you can't use Cecil as an example. No, I'm just kidding.

0:33:14 Tom: No, no, I I get that, right? Like, because there are some relationships where you can be like, yeah, Bob and I don't get along, but we don't hate each other. I just don't, like, we're just kind of indifferent to one another.

0:33:20 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. But the reason I bring up Bob and sorry, Eli, let me know if you want to get in there.

0:33:26 Tom: Yeah

0:33:27 Eli: I smelled beard oil and I was just really worried me.

0:33:30 Thomas: But the reason Because reason it's, I think that's an interesting comparison is, but the person who you would have shared grief in that moment is Bob. And if you, like, Bob is the person Who would be like, oh, remember that time when dad, whatever. And you, Like, that's the person you have those experiences with. The of this child, now, a lot depends on the age, but these are pretty young people. So, like the kid must have been very young, I would think. I mean, could have been in the teens, but also could have Been very young. And the person you have those core memories of their tiny, you know, like if, if for some reason Lydia and I divorced and I was with someone else and then like one of our kids died for one, I kill myself. So none of this matters.

0:33:43 Tom: And then, yeah right

0:34:09 Eli: Tom

0:34:09 Thomas: But also those would be the one that all those memories are with. And it would be like a shared, it's not like we're getting remarried. It's just like a of mourning together because you're the ones who have the shared experience in that moment that you are both mourning. Your new partner, yeah, they're there for you, of course, but they the parent of the child. You know, like there's a bond there.

0:34:31 Tom: And I guess I guess there there's are parts of this that we don't know, like we don's know how long, like, like you said, like, the kids could be teenagers the divorce could have been 10 years ago. I think about, like, I guess, like, in my mind, like I immediately go to my family, right? Like, yeah, lived with me longer than she's lived with her dad Donovan

0:34:32 Thomas: Yeah, good. Mm -hmm. Mm wow. I didn't even think about that. That's crazy.

0:34:50 Tom: Has lived with me for functionally all of the formative years of his life. Like, like, a lot depends on the circumstances that we don't know, but I guess, like, when I think about it, and maybe I'm coming at it too much from my own perspective, so I'll acknowledge that, but no, my wife and I would be going through an experience together, like like that, like phrase like, oh, it's the mother of my child is a father my child, like that's not really anything once you're divorced. You have a new relationship. It's just not, it doesn't work that way anymore.

0:35:08 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Jeez.

0:35:18 Eli: Explain, Thomas, when you divorce someone, have you seen His Dark Materials, you know how everyone one is connected to their avatar by a magical thread, but it can be severed by a special knife made out of the black ice at the north pole. That is what Tom did to his ex-wife. Uh, not his avatar anymore, she's just a cat running around living her life, and he tortured that angel to get where God is out of him.

0:35:22 Thomas: No. No.

0:35:32 Thomas: Sure.

0:35:42 Thomas: Jeez, I don't understand any of this, it's very funny.

0:35:43 Tom: So No, like I don't I that that's all madness. Like, look, like

0:35:45 Eli: To his Dark Materials fans really loved that joke. I insist you keep it he tortured the angel. It's a great bit.

0:35:51 Tom: Like, His Dark Materials, but that was just too much

0:35:55 Eli: How

0:35:52 Thomas: Oh you know what the fuck he's talking about, and you're not like, okay

0:35:57 Eli: Dare you Tom they

0:35:58 Thomas: Wow

0:35:57 Tom: I've read His Dark Materials of course, yeah, look

0:35:58 Thomas: Who's dark Materials I don' t understand what who do you keep

0:35:59 Eli: Kill God at the end of that book. It's gods, it's God's, they killed God at it rules anyways. It's fine. Sorry, Tom, you were saying, people

0:36:06 Thomas: They're

0:36:03 Tom: I The other perspective that I would offer, and maybe it's because it's been so many years, it's not a fresh thing, is that with when somebody and a relationship with them, that phrase like mother of my child, father of my my child, it has meaning, but fairly swiftly if you have good separation and boundaries in you're divorced, like that's not really a meaningful phrase anymore. Like, what means something is your relationship with your kids, and that doesn't intersect or interact with your ex's relationship with your kid. So you're building two entirely separate families with different rules and and different values, and different boundaries, and different day-to-day routines.

So like, somebody may have given birth to your child, but they're no longer part of your life. They don't wake up with you. They don't make decisions with you about your kids, except for like these big, broad decisions if you co -parent. You know, where do the kids live? What medicine should they be on? Those kinds of things. Like, you're parallel parenting. You're not really like cooperatively parenting in most circumstances.

I'm not saying this is a rule for everybody, but I'm saying this is very, very often and most of the time the case. So doesn't have like a reverent place in your life anymore because they gave birth to a child

0:37:21 Tom: That is also your child. I know they're just holding hands, but like, I'm I'm asking is like, why do you turn to for comfort when you're upset, like me, let me start. Who do you turn to for comfort when you're upset? People you're close to or people you're not close to?

0:37:21 Thomas: Just holding hands they're just all they're doing then

0:37:35 Eli: You're close to, yeah.

0:37:36 Tom: Okay. The answer for me. Weird to me to

0:37:39 Thomas: I don't want to see you hugging Bob I do not want to say you hugging. If you hug Bob, that means you don't love Haley if, when your dad dies. I'm just saying it's

0:37:41 Eli: Here's

0:37:40 Tom: Divorce somebody and still be close. I genuinely don't think that's a good analogy. I love Bob.

0:37:51 Thomas: But that's not the amount, the analogy is, there, I think you're maybe looking at the for a different point that I make. The point and that I'm making is there's not a all -or -nothing nothing, comfort calculation. I hold someone's hand for a minute, that doesn't mean I haven't looked to Lydia for comfort. That's one interaction. If you hug Bob, it doesn't mean that, well, I needed to hug Bob because I couldn't get a hug from Haley. It's not or nothing like that to me.

0:38:19 Tom: I guess it feels different to me. I mean, like I do. I like Bob and I don't get along as people, but I love him. If Bob needs something, I'll be there for him. Bob is my brother and I love him. And that's what that's What makes it different?

0:38:27 Thomas: Okay. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Okay maybe I was misunderstanding understanding your Bob relationship

0:38:31 Tom: Yeah, I love Bob.

0:38:32 Thomas: A little bit. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah,

0:38:33 Tom: Like I don' I have a hard time spending time with him because as a person we don't share the same values. But I love Bob. I just don't want to spend time with Him.

0:38:33 Thomas: Sure. What interesting. I wonder if these people would say they still have a love for their ex in a way, you know?

0:38:47 Tom: Probably. Right? Probably.

0:38:48 Thomas: Good. Good. We haven't let Eli say much.

0:38:49 Tom: And that, Thomas, is the place where

0:38:50 Thomas: We got to let him.

0:38:51 Tom: I struggle.

0:38:47 Eli: Thank You I, I've often said that I don't talk enough up for the show.

0:38:55 Thomas: You definitely don't.

0:38:57 Eli: Here's my hot take. Okay. And here's my angle.

0:39:00 Thomas: Nevermind. We shouldn't let Elight talk. Actually, Tom, can you?

0:39:02 Eli: If

0:39:03 Tom: It's all right. So if anybody read the book from

0:39:04 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:04 Eli: Anyone read, thank you. Those nerds are going to love that reference so hard. So hard. Anyways, here's my hot take. You're right? At a funeral of fucking strangers and someone's child has just died. Because here's what had to have happened and this is what blows my mind. It's actually not about the dynamic and what would be part of my inside thoughts, because I gotta admit, if my wife held an ex's hand in a moment of grief, I would be a little like, "I got a free hand." Oh, you probably saw that my program was in my hand, but I moved it. If you, uh, I did have it, but it's, uh, wide open now, and his hands look sweaty from all the crying he's been doing.

0:39:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:45 Eli: So if you just want to, oh, look at that strong. Strong, strong from all that playing card handling. I get, I really do get that impulse.

0:39:44 Thomas: Just like opening and closing. Ooh, ah. Got my hand. Take off your fake thumb.

0:39:55 Eli: Here's what I could not possibly understand. Mentioning it to that person, right? At the very beginning, we were like, who is the asshole? The person who was like, hey, grieving mother, I know your kid died and the sun is out of the sky and you're just gonna, you're literally, youre as close to hell as Dante could envision, right, because it's just Olivia walking against the sun. Anyways, I thought it was a little weird when you held my husband's hand.

0:39:59 Thomas: Yeah, that's, yeah. I know. Yeah. The other person's the asshole. Yeah, exactly.

0:40:20 Thomas: Yeah. That's why I tried to ask in the beginning, who's more of the in the wrong? And it's definitely not the grieving mother.

0:40:26 Eli: Not just wrong. It's Not Just Asshole. It's evil. It's an thing to do. It's such an impossibly evil thing to do that I don't believe this Am I the Asshole is real. Because I think all human beings would have a moment where the fucking monkey part of us was like, Ha ha ha! Let it go! That

0:40:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:50 Tom: Yeah, yeah, and I, I want to be clear, like I said at the beginning, intentionally, like, I don't think anyone is the asshole. I don't think that's the right term. I think it's bizarre, but bizarre does, does not make something an asshole behavior, right? Like, I just don't understand the impulse. I don't stand the impulse to reach for an X in a moment of, of crisis. That's a strange impulse to me. Is insane? It's insane.

0:40:56 Eli: Lady's the asshole, but

0:40:58 Thomas: She is.

0:41:12 Eli: We can agree that the impulse to correct that behavior is evil.

0:41:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:41:19 Tom: It's INSANE. Hundred percent. So I want to be clear, like, a hundred percent. Yes, like

0:41:20 Thomas: Yeah. Reminds me of one of my favorite tweets of all time from Megan Amram when she said, man, I'm at a funeral and she's being a real corpsezilla.

0:41:31 Tom: Something's So terrible as your child dies and, like, like somebody's behavior is fucking off during their grief process. Like, yeah, you just say, well, I guess they're fucking grieving the loss of a child and their behavior is off. I don't think that that's something one should impugn or like bring up or like interrogate somebody over or, you but I do like, like the take that I have is like, I can't get there. I can understand the reach.

0:41:33 Eli: I

0:41:47 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:42:00 Eli: Get that. That, I get, but the lady who corrected is the asshole. Also, can I say, and this is, this is where we're going to three bears it, right? Not to get into controversial topics, because I think we can all agree that whether we're bears or not, you know, I don't want to get it. I don't want to get into it. Here's, here's where I think I go crazy. Okay, which is that I think if you are grieving your child, just being from my own experience, there's no behavior where I'd be like, that's inappropriate.

0:42:02 Tom: Yeah.

0:42:12 Thomas: No.

0:42:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:42:26 Eli: Could go full. What's that thing where the guy fucks the grave. If you want to fuck your kid's grave, like I wouldn't get, I'm in Tom's camp of like, I don'T get it, but you know what?

0:42:31 Tom: No. Now, you're way off. What? What is it? Okay.

0:42:33 Thomas: I didn't need to need to go

0:42:34 Eli: You got to do what you got to thank.

0:42:34 Thomas: To that example.

0:42:34 Tom: Yeah. No, you took it as always too far. Yeah.

0:42:36 Thomas: No, okay, here's what I thought you were going to say, Eli. If your kid has died and you aren't actively changing the balance of the Supreme Court, then I don't know what you're doing. You know, what are you doing holding hands when you could be changing the bounce Supreme Court? If I were at the funeral, if I were dressed, it would be because someone else dressed me, you know. It'd be like, I don't move or do things anymore if my kid died. So if somebody, like, Weekend at Bernie's me and I was at there, that's the, you know, like, I wouldn't be to say I was even doing anything.

0:42:46 Eli: Well, there we go.

0:42:46 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:09 Eli: Yeah, they can do whatever they want to my body.

0:43:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:10 Tom: I I've I've been to the funerals of two children, and they were the saddest

0:43:12 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:15 Eli: They were his. Tom doesn't like to mention it because he gave the eulogy and that's standing up and saying they're not his family anymore.

0:43:19 Thomas: Yeah. Actually, like, did I ever tell you Cecil had a kid? And it's like, Jesus Christ.

0:43:25 Eli: You got a kid. Yeah, that's

0:43:24 Tom: Oh, God, they they were so monstrously sad. Oh.

0:43:27 Thomas: Yeah. I don't think I could go to a kid's funeral. I don't know. Don' think there's no way. Like if it was someone I knew, cause I know that what I would do was die. And then it would be like, why is that grown man crying? That's not related to the kid. And there'd be like I don''t want, I couldn''t go. There's no way.

0:43:44 Eli: True. I I used to, I think I've talked about this before, when we worked at FAO Schwartz, we used to do the Make-A-Wish tours. And a couple of times parents would come after the kid had passed away and I would would have to hide from them, and they were just thanking us, right? They were just being like, "Hey, we kid had a wonderful time, thank you so much for doing," we'd show up early and put on a magic show for him or have him dance on the piano or whatever, but like, I had to hide from Paul McCartney because I knew I would start sobbing and thank him for all the music. They would be like, "Eli, there's a Make-A-Wish family," and I'd be like, "Alive kid or dead kid?" They'd be like, "Dead kid," and I'm like, "Oh god, go run into the break room and

0:44:19 Tom: God.

0:43:57 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Yeah man. We are so similar in that, Eli. That is really funny. Like everything, even the Paul McCartney thing too.

0:44:25 Eli: Let me be clear, not because I I didn't want to be there for those families. I absolutely wanted to, but I know that those people would leave being like the magician really made it about him, huh? Yeah, no, really made It About Him Susan. Thank you for saying it. Went in there for like five minutes. We spent 40 of it comforting the magician.

0:44:25 Thomas: Yeah of course yeah, yeah exactly exactly oh

0:44:44 Eli: Um...

0:44:45 Thomas: I even said, "I'm sorry for your loss." Why did I say that? It's my kid. Yeah.

0:44:46 Eli: It feels weird. It feels weird. I feel like that's not how it should have gone.

0:44:50 Thomas: I

0:44:51 Tom: Yeah

0:44:59 Eli: Alright, gentlemen, before we go, man loses three fingers in an accident. At the hospital, he asks the doctor, will I be able to drive on this hand? And the doctor says, I think so, but don't count on it.

0:45:13 Thomas: Love it. Oh, it, oh.

0:45:19 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.

0:45:58 Tom: It is bizarre. It

0:45:59 Eli: You're bizarre. Cecil gonna murder us for you saying that on the show. You have to tell us

0:46:03 Thomas: Yeah, actually, do I need to edit that out? Tell

0:46:04 Tom: He's brought this up on the show, like he's so he's told this on Unconscious, so it's public information.

0:46:04 Thomas: Me. Okay, but

0:46:05 Eli: Okay. Okay. Okay. It's been on the other show because, ha ha ha! Let it go! That

0:46:08 Tom: Yeah.

0:46:11 Thomas: Yeah, literally won't let me log in. So Andrew stole my notes. No, I don't know. This is fucking... I don't understand what this is. Okay, so no. Sorry. Go ahead.

0:46:15 Tom: Yes.

0:46:18 Eli: So,