The Serious Pod Network

Thomas and Lydia
Dear Old Dads

DOD145: I Am Become Announcement Dad

First, Eli gives us a bit of a lesson on the CrowdStrike situation for some reason. Then, Thomas's family has turned him into something he never thought he'd be. He shares the story of his shame in having to hire help.

Warning: this one gets yelly.

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Transcript

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

0:00:29 Tom: Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's just cleaning up. I'm Tom Curry. I am joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:37 Thomas: Was so ready for Tom to just the podcast that what is CrowdStrike just like the podcast Tom is old

0:00:37 Eli: Hello!

0:00:42 Tom: What is CrowdStrike?

0:00:46 Eli: Podcast listener, me and Thomas were just enjoying, just gloating as two Mac -tivists. Just gloating on how much our computers work this morning. Just started right up without a hitch.

0:00:50 Thomas: Oh is that is it really a difference in Mac PC with that you

0:00:58 Eli: Yeah, it's, of course it's a PC thing. Of course it is a PC.

0:01:01 Tom: But of my PCs are running fine. I literally am sitting in front of two PCs right now that are both running just fine.

0:01:06 Thomas: You think

0:01:05 Eli: Yeah. Go to the airport. Go Go to the airport. You see that guy with a machete to the woman behind the United Counters neck? Yeah, her PC is the one that's broken, Tom.

0:01:07 Thomas: You are no we're

0:01:15 Tom: Okay. All right. I was going to say, what the fuck is CyberStrike.

0:01:17 Eli: So for those of you who don't know, because this will be fixed.

0:01:21 Thomas: We're recording, or a little early, so this is CrowdStrike day when We're recording

0:01:24 Eli: Yeah. We're recording because I started one too many podcasts. And so my brain literally refuses to make a calendar for this one. And I like to think I'm a pretty responsible person. Side note here. Pretty responsible when it comes to, like, calendars and scheduling and time and stuff like that. I am not kidding you, four or five times in the relatively small amount of time we've been doing this podcast, I have had to come to Tom and Thomas and be like, guys, I won't exist next week. Could you do the podcast now?

0:01:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:01:56 Thomas: It feels like It all, it, in the last, like, month, what have you started? Not what, did something happen?

0:02:02 Eli: Now So the problem is I schedule everything for my other shows 97 years in advance, right? So Puzzle on a Thunderstorm, I like put a thing on the calendar six months in advance. And I'm like, Dear Noah and Heath, I have a simple but basic slideshow presentation of the 11 vacations I would like to take over the next 46 years. Slide one. And Right. Then citation needed because, oh, what can I say on air? Okay. Okay. Um, the, okay.

0:02:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:34 Eli: So the way, okay, so here's a thing. The way we discuss business at Citation Needed LLC is cautiously.

0:02:29 Thomas: War

0:02:33 Tom: I am Yeah. Dance around This one, buddy. Hey, you got your tap shoes on, big guy? Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:52 Thomas: What?

0:02:52 Tom: That is so gentle. That is so gentle and not inaccurate. I

0:02:55 Thomas: A

0:02:58 Eli: I have calendar stuff for Citation Needed. The key is, like, can I work it into another sentence, right? So we'll be like, the 4th, and we'll do this on the 16th, and I'll be like, "And yeah, by the way, I'm just on vacation that week. I hope that's okay with everybody." And I do it at, like, a subsonic level. Like, I record it, and then I raise the yaw until it's not hearable by anybody but dogs yeah, no, it's chill and awesome and and that's how I get that in. But that means that all the brain is gone, so when I get to this show, I literally yes

0:03:17 Thomas: Healthy Work work environment which We do at the same time in the same day every week, everybody usually I'm not sure what the fuck this is about but

0:03:30 Eli: Same time same time every week right there's no reason, not, there is absolutely, absolutely no reason why this is harder, right? To make it worse, this month, Thomas actually took the time, made a spreadsheet with our schedule, and was like, hey guys, just so you know, while I was juggling Remy on one foot and kicking Phoebe away with the other, yeah,

0:03:37 Thomas: Yeah. No, it's not because it's me. It's both of you were like, hey, I need this day off. Tom took a fucking vacation because he's a lazy ass that never works. He?

0:03:56 Tom: Did I did. I took my one day off of this show. I took my one day off.

0:03:57 Thomas: Took his one week of vacation in two decades. Like A

0:04:01 Tom: I'll take this year. Yeah. I know

0:03:57 Eli: Exactly. Like a sack of shit

0:04:01 Thomas: Lazy fucking living off the the government

0:04:05 Tom: I know, I didn't earn that rest. I that problem is, this is the whole thing, I didn't earn that arrest. And

0:04:07 Thomas: Oh,

0:04:10 Eli: He is. I'm just saying, I hope you've doubled up your watch shock this week, because it's showing it's

0:04:11 Thomas: Wait, Does the shock watch work on CrowdStrike? Is that, is CrowdStrike take out

0:04:18 Eli: It's just shocking. Non -stop now Yeah, so

0:04:19 Thomas: Oh.

0:04:19 Tom: Worked this morning it did It did work this morning, so thankfully

0:04:21 Thomas: Okay.

0:04:23 Eli: Yeah, Thomas made a schedule, and then of course, is this how late it was, two days ago I looked at my schedule for the coming week and I was like, Dad Cast, oh, I am not in the part of the country that has my microphones. So I messaged the guys, I was like, please fix, fix this oversight on my behalf. But then I did that thing, and this is such a people-pleaser problem, right, where, like, you put off admitting that you fucked up, but then if you're already there, it's like, oh, and by the way on September 9th I've obviously, and then on June 47th of 2029 I plan on dying, so if you guys could put some and

0:04:53 Thomas: Oh, And also tomorrow I can't make it. You're pairing it

0:05:04 Eli: Also tomorrow I can't make. Yes, exactly. It's tomorrow, I can't make it. Solve. Solve this immediately, and also, I have a problem for you to solve that's three months down the line. So, they have very sweetly moved the recording, which means that we are on CyberStrike Day. Now,

0:05:07 Thomas: With the Yeah. Crowd

0:05:17 Tom: Is It Cyber strike or crowd strike Crowd strike, I just looked it up, it's crowd strike. Like

0:05:18 Thomas: CrowdStrike, Crowdstrike, I

0:05:19 Eli: CrowdStrike, your CrowdStrike is, I'm going to say, top three most popular virus protection softwares for very, very high-security PC systems, right? Airports, banks, uh, FedEx, all that kind of stuff. And they violated the cardinal rule coding, say it with me at home: we don't push code on Fridays. Why? Because code onto Friday. And of course what happens when you push, push code on Friday, you push code Friday, everybody goes fucking home.

0:05:35 Thomas: Oh my god, that's what it was, really? Everybody leaves, and then it,

0:05:59 Eli: I want a three -day weekend. I'm actually going on vacation this weekend. I don't work on Fridays. We still work from home, whatever the fucking case may be. But this problem has caused something called a system shutdown, right? So if you make antivirus software, and I'll try and keep this short because I don' t want to bore in the hell out of you who don't care about computers. But here's the thing. If you make antiviruses software, you can't do it like VLC player or iTunes, right. It can't be something you, you can just uninstall from the computer because then hackers would do that. It needs to be something that's a part of the computer on startup automatically, right? And that's really smart idea unless the mistake you make in the new version of the product means that you cannot start the computer enough to get the update that would fix the computer.

0:06:00 Thomas: Yeah. Uh, oh

0:06:49 Eli: Every computer that has this old update that is now non-functional needs a manual restart in safety mode and a manual reboot of uh, strike a so glad you asked, Thomas, because I so

0:06:49 Thomas: Shit, no way. How do you know all this already? You are the one who fucked it up. No, I'm just kidding.

0:07:10 Eli: Pushed the code I'm the it was me all along, Batman. And, yes,

0:07:10 Tom: Mean

0:07:11 Thomas: Yeah, this is you, this just like you had to tell us you couldn't make it to the recording. This is your long way of telling us that you did it I'm

0:07:17 Eli: That's why I couldn't make it to the recording, guys. I'm actually, I'm fleeing. It's not so much as fleeing.

0:07:21 Thomas: In deposition right now, yeah, I want

0:07:25 Eli: No, you know, I collect, like, coding and computer certifications for fun, right? Because, like I said, it's a thing that excites me. And a listener who I've hung out with at a couple of conventions really got me to go down the cybersecurity track this past summer. So I took a bunch of, it was super fun. On, and they're all, I, me, advertise all this shit is free, it's all 100 free you get to the end of the free class. Have you tried doing no work on your shows?

0:07:39 Thomas: To do this man I just don't have time god damn it oh

0:07:50 Eli: I hear it's awesome. Yeah, you just show up and are funny, and then smart people do the work

0:07:51 Thomas: And then make people reschedule for it yeah you

0:07:55 Eli: Yeah, yeah.

0:07:56 Tom: I have that same thing, and I don't learn to code, so I just, yeah.

0:07:57 Eli: Yeah. Exactly. Well, but you, you lift the heavy things and then you put them back down again and you ride your little bicycle like a lad bing bing, here I come, giant lollipop in hand. You do little

0:08:03 Tom: Like a lad went out yesterday that

0:08:09 Thomas: Got little lad certification notification

0:08:10 Eli: Little land serving.

0:08:11 Tom: Giant front wheel is a bitch to maneuver though, I will say

0:08:14 Eli: Yeah. So I have CrowdStrike certification, which is, is just a general cybersecurity thing, but then you can like hang out for a week and you also get it for this particular software. And I got it because it's really, it's going to be hard to deploy this now. It's a really great program. It's really awesome. I promise. So I was like, oh fuck, I want to learn this one. And they have some really cool shit built in and it really helped me understand systems and stuff. I found out about this because I woke up to not one, not two, but seven emails to everybody with my certification who lives within, I'm going to say 9,000 miles of the airport that I live super close to being like, come in and work for the company.

You work here. Please work here right now for a minute. It, so those of you who don't know, there's, there's a couple of computer boards and what they usually do, like computer jobs and tech jobs, short-term tech jobs, what they will usually do is they will put the rate in the subject of the email, right? And that's the idea, like, get you in. It's a hundred an hour, 150 an hour. This one said "rate discussed on site," which basically meant I was going to show up and they were going to be like, there's big barrel

0:08:28 Thomas: Oh wow yeah

0:09:22 Eli: Of money over there, please just put as much of it as you would like into your pockets and then fix these computers, because again, it's not super technical

0:09:25 Tom: Hey

0:09:26 Thomas: Bring truck to Holloway old-timey treasure chests, people to do it, yeah well now this is uh, uh, don't know the dads discuss, fucking, it so it's not as though everybody got like some sort of virus because of this, it's that the update literally just broke their computers, oh my

0:09:31 Eli: Right exactly it's nicht super technical, but you just need people doing it you need physical bodies doing it no the update crashed the computer, so

0:09:51 Tom: Guys this is only a computer thing. Can you imagine if anything else worked where it's like, hey, in an effort to make things better, uh, your car doesn't work anymore. It just Just, you know, it's Wednesday, you got to go to work, and now it doesn't drive.

0:09:52 Thomas: God oh it's it's starting it's starting, do you get updates on your cars, because I do dude

0:10:05 Eli: I gonna say, Tom I've got some terrible news for you about medicine and/or food

0:10:06 Tom: No, I do not. I'm not doing this anymore. Like, I'm opting out of all of this. How do I say no?

0:10:16 Thomas: Guys I want to tell the world here's, I deserve a medal, Eli. If there's more to the story, get back to it in a sec. I deserve a medal because of the amount of complaining I didn't do about something. They never see the complaining you don't do. You can't see it's invisible, it's know visible, how women talk about invisible work at home. I invisible not complaining labor because we drive a Tesla, and three years ago or something, some amount of years ago, that's more than, I don't, you know, that's vaguely how my mind works, it's more than one, it's less than five, it's something like that, they updated

0:10:19 Tom: No.

0:10:23 Eli: There's not, you're good you're good, invisible complaining labor yes right, somewhere in the dark ages

0:10:50 Thomas: Yeah, they updated Tesla. Imagine you have a car, for anyone who isn't so unfortunate as to have had this happen, imagine Imagine you have a car and you've got, you know, like the buttons and dials and things and where they are. Like you got the AC, you got, I'm not even going to talk about the fucking glove box. Forget that. That's still, that just stayed the same.

0:11:09 Thomas: But you got these other things and you don't realize, or maybe you do, if you're driving, you tend to want to like be able to look at the driving part and then kind of not look at like other stuff, you You just kind of, without thinking about it, you're, oh, I am just adjusting.

0:11:08 Eli: Thank you a lot of people called me out because it's just one button now

0:11:24 Tom: Yeah, you want everything at a glance.

0:11:25 Thomas: Yeah. Or Or if not at a glance, you just know where it is, like, you can feel, like. Oh, the AC.

0:11:25 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Muscle memory.

0:11:26 Eli: Yeah.

0:11:30 Thomas: Thing. Here, yeah. Imagine if one day your car, you, you go to drive it and it says, "Oh, we've updated. We have now hidden every button you ever would want to use while driving your fucking car," and was so mad, I cannot explain. Every single time I was like, "Oh, I need to change the AC." They decided to put, put that behind a button. So it was like, you need to first push a button that was like "reveal AC controls," and that's on a touch screen so that you can't feel where it is, because there's

0:11:30 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Well,

0:11:43 Eli: Yeah. It's

0:12:03 Tom: No.

0:12:03 Thomas: No tactile like, oh, you had to push a buttom to reveal this. Then you have to see where the fucking controls were in this newly revealed, super convenient, menu you behind another menu and your fucking touch screen of your vehicle that you're driving, your killing machine that you'RE having to operate. And single time I thought I was going to cause an accident, and I genuinely wanted a law passed. More important than one of the ones named after a kid that got killed or something. This is Thomas' law.

0:12:03 Tom: No. No. No.

0:12:29 Thomas: Megan, yeah, move over, Megan, because you can't just change all of that for someone overnight. You can't do that. I'm sorry. There should be a law that the car you bought stays the fucking car you brought unless you want to change it. You know? Oh,

0:12:28 Eli: More important than Megan's law. Yeah.

0:12:44 Eli: Podcast listener, make to this slightly relatable for those of you out there who don't have Teslas, you know how sometimes your iPhone gets a new iOS and you have to spend that sort of morning where you're like, "Like, oh, where's this?" And it's got that stupid, like, really condescending menu that's like, "From now on, when you want to take pictures, you're going to use the Gloop. The new gesture that's so easy to do, we've had to stop your phone still in its tracks to teach you it.

0:12:51 Thomas: God, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:10 Thomas: So true.

0:13:10 Eli: So that is what happened to Thomas's car one morning mid -drive.

0:13:15 Tom: Yeah. There no reason to decide that everything has to be software now. Though can have things that aren't software. We just, we can, the world was fine. We were all still had clean water to drink and like we were comfortable at night. They're like, we're not solving big problems right now with all of this

0:13:17 Thomas: Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah. No. Yeah, some of us had a lot of lead in our pipes,

0:13:29 Eli: Oh, not all of us, Tom. Check you're not living in a city really close to Your state. State privilege their time, but guys, guys, you know, the only thing worse than the constant onslaught of, uh, technology overtaking our lives, making it infinitely more complicated, why, it's the auto ads, a literal software technology that has been built into our lives and makes it more complicated, but you, you can have the Ford F-150. Is that a car? Did I say a car? Nice!

0:13:33 Thomas: But yeah, in Flint, Michigan. Yeah.

0:14:00 Tom: Huh?

0:14:00 Thomas: That's a truck. Yeah, that's a truck.

0:14:02 Eli: You can have the Ford F-150 of podcasting experiences by heading over to patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads where you'll get an extended commercial free version of every single show. Sometimes Tom even shows up for a little bonus parenting story at the end when he's not on vacation or just skipping it because, his words not mine, "I don't like performing for those losers." So

0:14:09 Thomas: I mean, it probably has a touchscreen.

0:14:17 Tom: Okay, all right night. That's actually in The Atlantic. You can read that when I said that in the Atlantic

0:14:30 Eli: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if you if you want to, that's where they publish all bad takes now, including, they've moved from anti-trans hate to just general hate. It's very, it's a proud thing for them. So yeah, uh, it out commercial free version, little is a dollar, patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads. Rip into it.

0:14:32 Tom: Yeah. But

0:14:51 Thomas: Oh, no. CrowdStrike was actually how we had rip into it. So rip into, it doesn't work anymore. It's just CrowdStrike.

0:14:55 Eli: I don't know, there's a lot of buzz out there, a lot, lot of buzz out there. People really love and rip into it. Thomas, you have a great shame. You have a great fame to expose today

0:15:03 Thomas: I to talk about something today. My fine gents, I've I've a, I do I'd have, uh I've already exposed my yard shame, I, along those lines. Hey, you know how I'm just too overworked and can't get anything done anymore because I have too many things, um trying, I'm really fucking trying to, to change that really hard, and I did the yard thing, I'm very proud of that. Um, we have, uh, managed to book landscapers that are just, I forget if I've said it and on made it through to the end recording or not, but their job is to come in an unpredictable time, which is so good when your job is recording podcasts.

0:15:11 Eli: Yes. Yeah.

0:15:38 Eli: They're there to record with a guest that's what they're, they wait, the less the person you've booked on your podcast knows about technology, the more they will be there in that moment. Knock

0:15:40 Tom: If

0:15:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:50 Thomas: It's amazing. All of a sudden it'll just be like, and they're coming in your backyard. It's kind of intrusive, you know, like you're just all of a suddenly guys in your yard and you're like, I don't think you should just do that. I don't know. I feel like you should tell me what if we

0:16:03 Eli: On the door Hello.

0:16:03 Thomas: Yeah. Nope.

0:16:05 Eli: Mr. Smith, you

0:16:07 Tom: They knocked on the door, that would be way more annoying. Like, I have a, I have yard service too and I agree with you. They just show, they don't even show up on the same day every day for me, because the rule that we put in place over here was like, hey, you can't show up at 7 a.m. I know that legally that is the earliest by like that you could show up or whatever but 7 a.m. is an unreasonable time for you to be fucking weed whacking outside the goddamn window. I do not need this in my life. I'm awake but the rest of my house is asleep, and then they are not asleep, and then THEY ARE NOT HAPPY. So

0:16:14 Thomas: Oh, Yeah, yeah. Like By Code Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:37 Thomas: Then they'll murder Tom, they'll put Tom's head on a pike. Yeah.

0:16:41 Tom: Exactly, right? Like it somehow will be my fault.

0:16:41 Eli: Shouldn't have given them access to the shock watch, Tom, I think that's weird that they all have a button to push

0:16:43 Thomas: Well, Yeah.

0:16:43 Tom: Yeah. So I've told them like, you, you are not allowed to come here before 11 a.m., and which means that they show up at random intervals

0:16:47 Eli: Yeah.

0:16:54 Thomas: Because they're Like, you're, well, the only asshole, you know, because they'll go to everybody else. Well,

0:16:54 Tom: Yeah. But how can they all show up all the time to everybody's house at seven? Like, how does this I

0:17:01 Thomas: I don't know. They find a way. They have a time crystal. I don't know. Somehow.

0:17:05 Tom: It's gotta be, man.

0:17:07 Eli: Don't like to reveal this stuff, but they actually work for Zencaster. Um, so that says they're, they're in a partnership with Zencaster, Zencaster Lawn Care, and they, uh, see that you're booted up there and then they head right out to your house. It's

0:17:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And imagine if you lived in a place where the giant life-giving orb in the sky will kill you at about 11 at 11 AM. Is that everywhere?

0:17:26 Eli: Everywhere. It's everywhere. Thomas Yep.

0:17:30 Thomas: No, it's us and Azerbaijan or or whatever.

0:17:31 Eli: It's it's in fucking Jersey now, baby. Yeah. Nope.

0:17:34 Thomas: It, it is crazy. I mean, it is over a hundred degrees at like 9 a.m. I can't even like some of these days the other day, not related, sorry, but the other day it school, we were like, we can't have the kids go outside. It's like they have to stay inside because the health hazard the other way around. The other day after school, I go out and I'm like, Oh, this feels really, this Feels really nice. Maybe they should, they should go outside. This is wow. This is like like, nice. And I go and tell Lydia, I was like, Hey, is it, It finally is cooled down. It's nice. She's like, yeah, well, it's a hundred. It was like a hundred I'm not, this isn't a bit like I thought like, Oh, it was like 80 or like, I just thought like it cooled down a hundred degrees now feels cool.

0:18:06 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:14 Thomas: Like that's like Oh awesome. You can be outside and you don't instantly grow three tumors out of your neck and like 10 cancers and you know, eight different fucking heat strokes. It is crazy how hot it is. So they they have to get it done even earlier here, and I did that, that's been going well, except for the unpredictability, and the noise, and all that, but I am realizing, like, how much of my psyche just cannot stand the fucking mess around this place, I just can't take it, like talked about this before, I am the one with the lower threshold for mess, or whatever you want to phrase it, however you want to phrase the lower tolerance,

0:18:14 Eli: You're The asshole, the

0:18:51 Thomas: Yeah, yeah I'm the asshole, I'm the one with the lower tolerance for mess and my family is the messiest fucking messes to ever mess. And Lydia, God bless Lydia to forever, forever. She does not. Lydia does forever.

0:18:51 Eli: Asshole is usually what was that good

0:19:08 Thomas: I, this just the guy she, yeah, just give me a flag with Lydia on it to hug. God bless, Lydia. Here's is the truth about Lydia. It is not true that she doesn't clean at all. That is not true. And she will get, she will gets mad if I say that it's not that she, it's not that.

0:19:06 Eli: Save, Thomas. God bless Lydia Like Trump trying to pretend to be patriotic at the RNC

0:19:24 Tom: This is going well, already.

0:19:24 Eli: Hey, Hey, Lydia, if you need

0:19:26 Thomas: She doesn't.

0:19:26 Eli: A place to stay while the divorce sort of goes through.

0:19:28 Thomas: No, no. Hey, she, she will have no grounds for divorce. Cause what I'm about to say is a hundred percent fucking true. She. Doesn't clean. Oh, sorry. It's not that she. Doesn' clean. Nope. That was a mistake. It was not that she doesn' clean, is that her thing that triggers her to clean is not mess, it's me. She cleans because I can see that I'm too upset by a mess, so think about what that means. If there's any place that I don't see, that's never getting cleaned ever, until one day I open it and there's a dead body and some worms and fucking, you know, an old pirate, that pirate from Goonies and his treasure. It'll just that all over, I'll be like, what the fuck, and then Then she'll be, like, quickly cleaning it. Like, oh, yeah, I just forgot about that. Like, so she, Lydia is very people-based. And, nah, well, I've turned into it. I've turn into it lately.

0:20:13 Eli: You're An announcement, Dad, aren't you those you are those dads

0:20:20 Thomas: Fuck.

0:20:20 Eli: Who walk in and see a mess and go like, well, what the hell is this? And then everyone's like, sorry, my dad's got to do, like, a weird announcement, and he's like, oh, here's the thing. Okay, here's a thing. Okay, unacceptable. And we've all just got it, and I remember growing up and a dad would just come in and do it, yeah, a guest is there and you all just have to sort of wait for that dad to finish his thing and you're like, oh cool, he's really mad about the TV tray, I guess. Uh-huh. All right, we're gonna go back to playing Nintendo now. What's great is, and Thomas, this may be different for you when I was growing up, the dad who would come in and announce would then not clean, right? He wouldn't, like, then fix it after his announcement. He would yell, we would be like, man, that stranger just yelled at his kid whose house I'm at, and then we just go back to playing Nintendo like there was no change. He would just come in and be like, I am angry, and we'd be like, sure.

0:20:35 Thomas: There's a guest at the house. Yeah, yeah. You have to sit through it. Like, I don't think I'm part of this, but, yeah okay.

0:20:52 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:11 Thomas: I am, my kids, my family is turning me into that a little bit. But I have found myself being

0:21:15 Eli: Lydia

0:21:17 Tom: 100 % is what you're saying.

0:21:19 Eli: Lydia? Drop in the audio. Drop in the audio, we know you've got it. Oh,

0:21:20 Thomas: Like, okay, new rule. It's just like, OK, OK kids.

0:21:27 Tom: You're a new rule guy.

0:21:28 Thomas: OK, why don't you listen to what this new rule is and then you tell me who's in the wrong. You tell me you're in the right. You're in wrong. Hey, new rules kids. If you bring food into the car, you have to take it out. You can't just leave it there forever. Till it rots and the car is disgusting. Is that my fault? I didn't think I had to tell anybody that you can't just leave raw food. Yogurt, ham, fucking whatever, turkey dinner. I just, you can just leave it and it's not in a place that makes any sense. It's in the fucking pockets, of the side pockets of doors. There's like a loose thing of gravy in there and I'll just reach in my hand and it was just fucking gravy. Gravy. And I, and the only thing that changes this is me doing

0:21:28 Eli: New Rule?

0:22:13 Tom: He

0:22:14 Thomas: It, me cleaning it, which I often don't drive that car for a bit. Cause it fair, fair is fair. Lydia is the one handling the kids. However, when I do take them, every time I take them out of the car, I get all the fucking food out of it when they get out. Cause its food. Oh my God. Sorry.

0:22:27 Eli: Thomas is like, you know, when you fly, they come up like 97 times and do that, like, "Please put all your trash," and that's what Thomas is doing and drives now. He's just like, "Everyone yogurt cups in the bag." I'm holding with the and gloves stuff. Yeah.

0:22:37 Thomas: Yep. I literally, yes. But, like But, but I said, Lydia does clean when she sees that I'm having an aneurysm and she's like, yeah, cleaning should happen.

0:22:46 Eli: She cleans when you yell at her like the bad dad you are.

0:22:49 Tom: Just yells

0:22:49 Thomas: I, I don't yell at Lydia. I literally just look like she can just tell.

0:22:53 Tom: Generally in the room space that she's in and

0:22:54 Eli: Yells. Yeah. You anger like Tom, you two masters of disguise.

0:23:01 Thomas: I I'm not saying I hide my anger. Here's

0:23:02 Eli: Just Thomas staring at a puddle of gravy, sweating, and Tom waiting outside the door of a Ben and Jerry's.

0:23:07 Thomas: I literally only yell on podcasts because it's, my it's podcasts are my way to vent. I only yell on podcasts. To be honest, I don't yell at home at all. I, she can just, I don't hide my anger. She can see that my eye is twitching and then she's like, oh, I need me to clean this.

0:23:22 Eli: Having a wife who cared when you were angry, Tom. Can you imagine it? Can you fucking fathom, can you fucking fethom, walking into a room angry and Haley and/or Anna notices and is like, "Oh, how can I change the environment?"

0:23:36 Tom: Oh, walked into a room angry, Haney would notice and then she would just be angry back like how that would work.

0:23:40 Eli: The fucks your problem is the only response I could do. "You want to fight, bitch?" Is what I would be met with. I'm angrier than you. She

0:23:43 Tom: Yeah.

0:23:54 Thomas: Yeah, that's,

0:23:51 Tom: Haley's response to anger is like, I bet I could be angrier and faster. And it's like, oh, oh shit. Okay. All right. We got to do something different. I can't.

0:23:55 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, that's way healthier.

0:23:58 Tom: Okay.

0:23:58 Eli: Does that, what's that windmill kick that, that guy could do in Street Fighter, yeah, while

0:24:04 Thomas: If made service in the past. It was the first time ever. It was like during the shit, I think, you know, where the first time we ever hired someone to help clean and that was hard enough, but here's the problem with those things. All their thing is, Hey, we'll scrub your floors or whatever. Mop your floors, scrub your oven. We'll clean your toilets or whatever the fuck. And I'm like, yeah, but you, you can't do that. Cause there's shit everywhere. Like The place is not dirty. Cause I actually don't mind doing that. I don't mind vacuuming. I Don't mind mopping. I kind of like it. I like cleaning in that way, but what I don't like is a billion trillion.

0:24:28 Tom: Got a tidy yep

0:24:39 Eli: You make the announcements. New

0:24:42 Thomas: No, I don t. Well, no,

0:24:43 Eli: Rule: shoes on the fucking from now on. Here's the thing. All right, we got three rules. It's a four-step process. Listen up. As

0:24:53 Tom: I sent you all a spreadsheet

0:24:56 Eli: As Lydia just scurries behind you in yellow rubber gloves. Yes, dear. Yes, whatever you say, dear. Oh, oh, I can see he's displeased once again. I have to be very clear because sometimes our audience are like humorless ghouls. Um, is not at all the dynamic. They have a very healthy dynamic. This are talking about exaggerations. This is teasing.

0:25:11 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:14 Tom: We're just teasing it's all just teasing stop

0:25:17 Eli: Yes.

0:25:17 Thomas: Gonna tell you a funlier thing. Even funnier version of what you're talking about, Eli, is I start cleaning and I find, you know, like a raw fish in someone's shoe or something. And I'm like, that shouldn't exist. Hey, new rule, everybody. Can we not put a dead carcass in? And then I realized three words in that I'm talking to a bunch of cats. It's like, like too young. They don't get it. You know, like I'll, I'll start explaining, Hey, maybe could you guys just possibly, and then I realized their brains don't fathom it.

0:25:29 Eli: Roll Right.

0:25:49 Thomas: And I'm talking to myself.

0:25:50 Tom: Yeah,

0:25:48 Eli: They're just turning up the volume on their Nintendo Switch in your face, like they're holding it pressed against your cheek and it's like Zelda slashing his sword just over. Sorry, Dad, I can't hear you over the thing.

0:25:50 Tom: No

0:25:51 Thomas: Yeah. And yep. And Then what I do every time is I think back for a split second to my childhood and I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ. I have like a Vietnam flashback where I'm like, God damn, this wouldn't fly as a kid. And then as a child, I have that quick flashback of what would have happened. There'd be yelling. We'd be in our rooms forever. All our electronics would be, in fairness, not destroyed, but some of it would be hidden probably, and we would never be able to do anything again until the problem that was my, whatever, my dad was cared about was solved. And then even then there'd still be residual madness for quite a while. And then And only then, maybe sometime later after we'd all forgotten about this in a week, then maybe things would be back to normal. And then I quickly have that Venon flashback, and I realized, well, that's hell. I'm not gonna do that. So how about I just, I'll just shut the fuck up and just just clean it myself.

0:26:00 Eli: Right. Right.

0:26:43 Eli: But But Let's be honest, while you're having that flashback, you're want to do that, so fucking bad. I'm gonna do. That's so fucking.

0:26:49 Thomas: Yeah, it would be cleaner around here. It'd be fucking cleaner.

0:26:53 Eli: Oh, my dad must have had it so nice because he would just yell and I'll be and like, then there's this weird, I don't know if you do this, Thomas, but you weigh your own mental illness, which is the consequences of that, against what you want to happen right now. Like, you're looking at the dead fish in the shoe and you're like, okay, well, I don't have healthy anger because the man who demonstrated anger in front of me always did it in a way that was toxic, but maybe I could do that to Arlo a little bit, and then I wouldn't, there wouldn't be a fish in the show. Is you're like, is there sweet spot of yelling that I could achieve to get this? But you were saying, you were saying you've hired maids in the past.

0:27:23 Thomas: Oh man. No, no, that's you're all right on. You're all a hundred percent pretty much right on there. I, except I will say this. We had a conversation last night, because, um, yeah, I was crying. Oh, there's so many things I want to say right now. For one, one, I have realized the the good thing is I can't, I just physically cannot do that to the kids. It's awesome. It'S like, I HAVE SOME, YOU KNOW, WEST WORLD FUCKING COMPUTER CHIP IN MY BRAIN THAT'S LIKE, YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT. AND YOU ITS GOOD BECAUSE I 'LL GET A LITTLE ANGRY AROUND THEM BECAUSETHINK, YOU NOW, THERE'S A DEAD FUCKING ROTTEN FISH SOMEWHERE, AND THAT UPSETS ME, BECAUES IT STINKS, AND I 'VE GOT A LOT OF FISH, AND IT'S HORRIBLE. BUT BUT LIKE, IF THEY'RE THERE, I CAN'T, BE LIKE, MAD AT THEM. THE BEST I I can do is like, guys, please, please. Can we please for the love of God, the best I could do is like begging as though I'm dying. Like, please

0:27:35 Eli: Were crying?

0:28:10 Eli: Yeah.

0:28:10 Thomas: Can we please, for the love of god, please?

0:28:12 Eli: That you're that Baghdad who's just in the background of all the photos being like, oh, guys, come on, on oh fellas, fellas. I'm

0:28:18 Thomas: But I have felt, it is so maddening that I have felt, and Lydia has been great with this, I do need to vent a tiny bit of anger at the the earth. And I have appreciated that Lydia lets me do that and understands that. Yes, it's reasonable to be mad that there's four days worth of old food in the car when I open the door for some reason. That's a reasonable thing to be angry about. Um, like, I can't, I can do it at the kids.

0:28:42 Eli: Picturing you lying face down in the driveway screaming and Lydia being like, this is the healthiest option. This is what daddy needs. Oh.

0:28:47 Tom: This is fine

0:28:46 Thomas: Yeah, it really is. Yeah. Honestly though, I I can not imagine the part where you make your kids scared. That That's what I can't imagine.

0:28:56 Eli: No.

0:28:56 Thomas: Like in seriousness, I upset as I sometimes get around the things and the mess, not, you know, the things, if I ever did anything, if ever do anything that even slightly, and Phoebe is the most sensitive soul in the earth, so it's it's like, I, know that, you now, like I'm not going to get away with it. Like she, if do anything, that's even slightly accusatory toward Phoebe, she's, she crying and I can handle that. Like, it makes me so sad that I'll never do that. Anyway, I've all this time I've been like, I need help cleaning, but not with dirt and grime. I just need someone. It's kid bullshit. It's so much kid bullshit that they've just

0:28:51 Tom: Right

0:28:56 Eli: Fucking shot. Right.

0:29:29 Thomas: Accumulated And Organizing. And here's the thing, we have wanted to donate and and or throw away stuff, but mostly donate because I really want to donate a bunch. They have too much shit, too many birthday parties, fake plastic crap is too easy to make nowadays.

0:29:29 Eli: It's organizing that. You need Yeah. Oh.

0:29:41 Eli: Yeah.

0:29:41 Thomas: They have infinity toys, and in in fairness, 100

0:29:42 Eli: Yeah.

0:29:44 Tom: It's a garbage patch You in an ocean garbage patch at this age Like when your kids are this age Yeah, yes,

0:29:46 Eli: Sure. Do Yeah.

0:29:48 Thomas: % Tom, Curry, that the living room literally looked like the great fucking Pacific garbage patch with but with stuff that's like more identifiable as toys, you know, it hasn't rotted quite that much. Oh,

0:29:50 Tom: Yep. Yep.

0:29:54 Eli: It is. Right. It is the Paw Patrol garbage patch, but it is the garbage patch.

0:30:00 Thomas: God, you're so right. And here's the other conundrum, we almost tackled this. It's like the thing where you have to, like, fully kill Sauron, otherwise he'll, like, you know, himself again because of the fucking ring of power. We almost did, we almost did. We went through all the shit, we're organizing it, we have different bags, we have different bins, these are the puzzles, these are whatever's. I I don't want to donate something that's like half a game, you know. I was like, well, we have to first track down all the pieces or we have to track down the whatever, because what am I going to do, donate half of like Clue or or whatever, sorry, or whatever.

0:30:01 Eli: Yeah.

0:30:11 Eli: Relatable. Right.

0:30:33 Thomas: That's nothing.

0:30:33 Tom: Yeah.

0:30:33 Eli: An incomplete puzzle. Some poor kid opens it up on Christmas. Yeah,

0:30:34 Thomas: Yeah. Cool. Yeah,

0:30:34 Tom: Thomas, no. Sorry, all right, I gotta, I gotta pause you real quick. As somebody who's, who's, I feel you. I want you, like, I, I understand you're thinking about this way, like none of this is donatable. Like the idea. I want to just save you your whole life because, like, I literally have been through this. The idea that all of these things need to be gathered together and reconstructed back to their original, like the pieces. I have now I have all 100 pieces of this puzzle, I have all the pieces of Clue, I have a functional thing that I'm gonna then put in a box and drive to Goodwill and drop it off at Goodwill, like that's the best wonderful ideal. And you just have to, like, all things parenting is to say, yeah, that's impossible and nobody's ever done it, and then abandon it, abandon

0:30:49 Thomas: Just

0:31:19 Eli: You just got to go full

0:31:21 Tom: The idea, recognize that you are a trash, trash monkey who has accumulated dumpsters full of garbage that literally nobody else wants because you'll bring it to Goodwill. And here's the thing. No one's buying it at Goodwill, no one wants a 50 -cent version of Clue because they know it doesn't have all the pieces. It's all garbage. All you're doing is bringing your garbage to a different location.

0:31:21 Eli: Hoarders. You ever see the show Hoarders?

0:31:34 Eli: Just say no. A, a 16-year-old Christian homophobe is just going to tell you he doesn't want your Clue, Thomas. You're just, you're just spending gasoline for a 16-year-old Christian homophobe to be like, we actually don't accept board games, and for you to be like, I'll suck your dick if you take this board game.

0:31:57 Tom: Like, Dude, what you're doing is you're taking one chore, and me, because I've been exactly in your shoes, you're taking one chore, and the chore is deciding what stays and what goes, and you're turning it into three chores. You're creating what stays in what goes, and then what goes has to be packaged up and then driven somewhere to drop off. Don't make one chore three chores, make one shore, one chore. Recognize that you're an accumulator of garbage.

0:32:20 Thomas: Throw my entire house away. Yeah?

0:32:22 Eli: Yes.

0:32:22 Tom: And throw that shit in the trash.

0:32:23 Eli: That's like Hoarders. Watch an episode of Horrors. They have shovels. There's a really important moment in one of the episodes of Hoarders where they're shoveling things, like with actual shovels, like those fucking snow shovels, and they're shovelling into garbage cans, and the woman whose house it is goes, you're not gonna go through it, and the guy in the fucking hazmat suit just goes, nope, and fucking keeps shovel just fucking shovel.

0:32:24 Tom: Yeah. Man. Yeah. Yeah.

0:32:46 Thomas: Well, I want to first acknowledge that everything you guys said is probably correct, 100%, and I'm not doing that.

0:32:52 Eli: I'm not doing that. Right, I refuse.

0:32:53 Tom: I know, I know. You will though.

0:32:53 Eli: Oh.

0:32:53 Thomas: No, it's a hundred percent.

0:32:54 Tom: No.

0:32:55 Thomas: This is, it's not out of you being wrong. I fully probably think haven't accepted the truth yet.

0:32:58 Tom: You just haven't accepted the truth yet. This is every Yeah.

0:33:00 Eli: It's not your fault, Thomas. Every piece of media is dedicated to making us feel bad for throwing that shit out, right? It's just every commercial and every Tumblr post is like, hey, friends, stop wasting and filling the ocean with your, and I'm like, I'm not filling the Ocean. The Chinese government is filling the Ocean.

0:33:01 Thomas: That's true, yeah. It's true. My

0:33:18 Eli: Stop

0:33:16 Thomas: Kids are, yeah. It's my fucking kids. Arrest them.

0:33:21 Eli: Transferring personal responsibility from corporations to me. My fucking canvas doesn't matter, and you know it doesn't matter. Stop wasting my tax dollars, you assholes. I vote for you in every election. Every fucking woman will vote for an 81-year-old man with COVID. Stop telling me to bring canvas back. Give me a plastic bag. I didn't prepare for this grocery trip, you pieces of shit. I

0:33:29 Tom: Eli, is a thousand percent right, Thomas. You believe that you will get there and

0:33:55 Thomas: Hundred percent No Yeah I I hundred percent. Here's you

0:33:58 Eli: My recording studio, so I could yell that loud.

0:34:00 Thomas: Know, and I should. I gotta learn to do that more because my yelling's too loud. Sorry, everybody, I gotta do that better. It's a better way to play it. Um, also mixed in there is, like, uh, stuff. I also think back to my childhood and I genuinely don't like how much of our stuff doesn't exist anymore. Some amount of it I would like to keep, but also I would like, I just, there's too much. I think you're entirely right there. Believe me, there's stuff we let go of, like the minute I look at any of the toys and it's like, well, this puzzle piece is half eaten by the dog or the cat or the whatever, I throw it away. The whole thing's gone, and I do do that. But if I had to throw everything away that was, was a mess, it, we wouldn't have objects in the house, and you need some objects though.

0:34:40 Tom: That's that. But look, that's the goal. No.

0:34:43 Eli: No.

0:34:43 Tom: Objects?

0:34:43 Thomas: Like Yeah.

0:34:43 Eli: No.

0:34:44 Tom: Nothing. The, because here's the thing, Thomas, and you started your house, if you bought your house completely empty right now on a Monday, on a Monday, if you threw away every stick of furniture, every toy, every by Thursday, it would be three quarters of the way full.

0:34:44 Eli: Which he did, like, two years ago. Tom.

0:34:50 Thomas: Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. No, 100.

0:35:02 Tom: Even if you bought nothing, it doesn't matter.

0:35:02 Thomas: Yeah. They'd find it Oh.

0:35:06 Tom: There could buy a house the size of fucking Bermuda. It doesn't matter the size, the square footage of the house means nothing. And I will share one More secret with you. And that is that, like, Like, nobody, if you throw away all that stuff and you don't tell anyone and give anyone an opportunity to go through it, you just chuck it, literally nobody will ever walk in. Here's what's never happened in my house.

0:35:11 Eli: Is speaking from experience. Oh.

0:35:22 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I know this. Yeah.

0:35:26 Eli: Check. You're not having a kid with autism privilege. Tom. It's

0:35:30 Thomas: Oh.

0:35:30 Tom: Okay, now that, acknowledging, but nobody will ever, because I mean, you know what things they actually use, right? So you're not going to be an asshole and just throw away all of their things, but you're throwing away stuff, right, but

0:35:39 Thomas: I thought I was having having no objects, Tom.

0:35:41 Tom: You, you throw away, there's, if you throw away all the just random undifferentiated unplayed with nobody will ever do this. Hey, where did that fill in the blank go? It's never. It never happens.

0:35:46 Thomas: Yeah, that's nothing. Yeah. Fucking, yeah. Where did that generic piece of fucking plastic go?

0:35:53 Tom: Right. Which means they don't care about it. They

0:35:57 Thomas: If I ever find a rock or a stick in the house, which I do frequently and I throw that away, they're like immediately, they'll be like, where's my stick?

0:36:00 Tom: Oh, Aislinn used to bring home a backpack full of rocks.

0:36:05 Thomas: Where's my yeah, oh my god, a hundred percent, no,

0:36:05 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:05 Eli: My magic wand. That's this And you're like, hey, how about I go get another stick? No. And you'll be like, I'll kill myself. How about daddy fucking shoots himself in the brain now? Hey, sidebar, sidebar. Hey, parents of autistic kids, come on, huddle in, hudle in. Thomas, come here. You're not ready yet, but just take a knee anyways.

0:36:17 Tom: Yeah.

0:36:27 Eli: Okay, I was going to say, I didn't know if you knew about our life. This isn't about our kids, okay? I threw away a Paw Patrol magic coloring book that was full. All the colors were colored in two years ago. And my son, to this day, I'll be like, what do you want to do? And he's like, Paw Patrol coloring book. And I'm like, it's gone. It's been gone. It has returned to the earth.

0:36:26 Thomas: Arlo's probably there, yeah, it's, no yeah, it's close,

0:36:50 Tom: Grandma's dead.

0:36:52 Eli: It is soil. It is nutrients. It's the ocean, it's not the wave, it's the ocean, my boy. So yeah, Tom is not speaking to you and me, but Tom, you have solved the point of all of this is that you've solved the problem. It's

0:36:53 Thomas: Yes, well, sort of, I Know, and, and we don't even have time to talk about it, I but we, hired somebody, and I had to put in like a specific ad that's like, hey, I don't need the typical deep clean, because they all say deep clean mop in the deep clean Yeah, Yeah, so if you're looking for a job and here's, I have so much guilt around this, and now I think it's the constellation, if that's the right word, of several guilts. One is I cannot underpay people. I cannot even pay people. I have to overpay people. I cannot not do that. No

0:37:14 Eli: This episode this episode is the ad, like I can't pay people. I was like, hey, hey

0:37:34 Thomas: I can't any anything any job

0:37:35 Tom: That's not a good take.

0:37:38 Eli: Hey Barstool Smith over here. Shut the fuck up, man. Don't tell people

0:37:38 Thomas: No any job that I am like, well, I need need help with this, then in my mind, I'm like, why I have to pay someone like what I would take for it, which I, that's impossible. Cause it'd be a million dollars, but, but like, I feel bad. And so that's a big barrier. And so I put out this ad with like a way over asking hourly wage.

Cause I like, I can't handle ever feeling like someone's going through my or my kids' bullshit and thinking like, fucking not enough money. I can'T like, like I will die. Like if I ever, a human being was ever sorting through one of the tons of plastic crap and probably a dead fish that I didn't get to that the kids left there. And they think to themselves, there's not enough money here. I'm not being paid by this stingy asshole. I will die.

So I have to like double pay people. And I still feel so much shame about it the whole time. So we found someone, we found an amazing person who was like, yes, I would love to help you organize all this crap and get everything together and then do the, like a lot of the cleaning. And it's been, it's one day and she spent hours in one room and got nowhere because it's impossible. Like it's just the amount of

0:38:45 Thomas: Shit that we have yeah, so then we had to rescue her but like I noticed the shame I felt, like it was one of those things where I often feel like other people are like, hey, you don't have to say all this you know, I'm often like, Lydia will be the one over explaining something and to a stranger who's going to do work and I'll be like like, you don't need to tell her all that, and here I was, being like, oh, you understand, you understand. I tried to keep up with it so bad. I, I, but,

0:38:44 Eli: They lost her she just disappeared into the bio here's the thing so so the article comes out and he changes the passwords but

0:39:20 Thomas: Like, for real, I did tell her that, but like, I was like, okay, so we've had it really bad here, and I was just trying so hard, and I don't understand it. I have so much shame over this, andI thought I had a little shame. I waslike, all right, I got to let go, but I was surprised how much shame I had, like Like, because this is dealing with kids' objects and clothes and dishes and things that I think of, like, that's things I have to do. And it's not, like... Dirt and grime is like, okay, that sounds like somebody to help with some dirt and grimy mopping. But, like. This feels more intimate. It feels like more of a personal failure. And I'm really, really having a hard time. But, I got through one day. And she's coming back tonight. This evening to, like do it.

0:39:59 Tom: To clarify, did you have a hard time with the fact that your house Was this in need of help or did you have a hard time asking for the help?

0:40:07 Thomas: Tom. The several silent strokes I have every day. Yes, I have a hard time, but imagine being, it's like if I was Sisyphus and the rock was just like, there's like 80 rocks and I'm like, well, I half to do, yeah, I'm knew I had 80 rocks. And I was only doing like five of them because fucking Sisypheus, he can only do fucking one loser. I was doing like 10.

0:40:19 Eli: It's made of Paw Patrol figurines. I

0:40:31 Tom: But sympathize. Like I feel like my house I feel about like my space not dissimilar to like how I feel about like hygiene, which is like that has to be good or it's shameful. Meaningful.

0:40:39 Thomas: Yes.

0:40:41 Eli: Also feel that way. Tom, hey, T-dog, hey. T-dog. Thanks for never commenting that I also feels that way.

0:40:50 Thomas: Tom, oh, 100, yes.

0:40:45 Tom: But I it's part of being presentable, right?

0:40:51 Thomas: Yes. 100.

0:40:53 Tom: It's part of like, I want to go out in the world with hygiene and feeling well put together because I know that people are going to see and have reactions to me based on that. And I feel like my house is a similar reflection, right? My mind, I can't even draw a meaningful distinction between like looking nice and having good hygiene personally and like keeping a space that also reflects that same thing. I also struggle mightily in a space. Like I can't work in a place that's not clean.

0:41:13 Thomas: Yes I'm having that problem too, Tom. 100. Wait.

0:41:21 Tom: Yeah. I Like clutter feels unsettling and like disorder. Like, I feel more mentally disorganized if I'm in a space that's disorganised and I feel very satisfied and able like to work in in a space that's clean. So

0:41:34 Thomas: I told you, did I do this on the show? Did I'm so sorry, I can't remember, I'm too overwhelmed. If I did, if I already said this, apologies, audience, but when we went to the puzzle thing and we, we were in the Airbnb and Lydia yeah, the Matrion and

0:41:46 Eli: The puzzle, oh the matriarch, yeah, okay. I thought you went to a puzzle, puzzle recreation facility.

0:41:51 Thomas: No. Yeah. But the, the matrion, and Lydia, and I are staying in this tiny little room of the Airbnb. And you know, after trying to sleep off a little bit of a jet lag or the overnight flight, wake up and I'm like, well, I got to edit. And I go to, to, edit on my laptop. And it was like, I don't mind this. It was the weirdest thing. I'm sitting in this bed, I'm like, why am I feeling like good, right? It took me five minutes to be like, this is weird, I feel like good, like I like, and I realized, oh, I'm not at my fucking house.

0:42:20 Thomas: I'm not just surrounded by dog shit that I'm trying, just like it stresses me out so much. It's just a, a con, working at home. And then I realized in that moment I was like, I need to find a way to get out of the fucking house. Like, I should just go work someplace else. I really should. But you know, rent an office or something? I can't be around people. I can't go to a fucking coffee shop. Anyway, so the point is I couldn't believe, I had no idea how much mentally this was just like, hate it so much.

0:42:20 Eli: Yeah

0:42:23 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, I because I can understand that in a big way, because if I have if I invite someone into my space, if I invited someone into my home and it's messy, it'd be like it'dbe if I was like, I haven't showered for three days, you know, be like, well, I fuck I like I I'd belike I'm unpresentable, you

0:42:58 Eli: Crazy. It's the three days. It's insane. Whoa.

0:42:57 Thomas: Yeah. Eli, you should just hop off the call for this one.

0:43:02 Eli: Yeah. I was like at

0:43:05 Tom: No, no, no. I don'T judge other people that way. It's just it's like a standard for myself that like I struggle with. Like, I t I would feel embarrassed. Right. And like, I DON'T think that that's reasonable and I DON' t think that's rational, but it's still true. Like ,I would be embarrassed.

0:43:06 Eli: Least I love all my kids. I

0:43:18 Tom: So I think asking someone to come into your space and

0:43:18 Thomas: Nah, Tom, we're right. Eli's wrong. If if you ever have have to take a ride in Eli's car, you'll be like, nevermind. Tom and I are the, yeah,

0:43:25 Eli: Think Tom would literally refuse. I think if Tom saw my car, he would be like, nope, no no.

0:43:27 Thomas: I almost did. That's

0:43:30 Tom: Yeah. Eli, Eli, Eli, how long have we known each other, buddy? Do you think I would get in a car with you again? Do you think there's any world where I'm gonna be like, this is a good idea?

0:43:30 Thomas: What I almost said.

0:43:31 Eli: Absolutely. Nope. Yeah. While that's true. Yeah. You were there for the the you were there for I closed my eyes when I'm being criticized. So

0:43:46 Thomas: Oh,

0:43:47 Tom: I I I mean, I was there with Cecil. Parked the car for you because he got mad at you because you.

0:43:48 Thomas: That was the best.

0:43:52 Eli: Yeah. It's it's Actually better, he didn't just park the car for me, he had to pull up to the toll booth for me because I pulled up too far away and couldn't reach, and he was like, get out of the car, a

0:44:04 Tom: Yeah. No, I would not. There's a lot of reasons, buddy. We're not. Yeah.

0:44:05 Thomas: Yep. And

0:44:07 Eli: Lot of reason. Not.

0:44:08 Thomas: The other thing is we're nobody else has kids. Have you noticed this? Maybe it's just our friend group. Nobody in our friend group has kids.

0:44:09 Tom: Rent in a car.

0:44:15 Thomas: So every single person's

0:44:14 Eli: A single human I

0:44:15 Tom: Yeah. Most of my friends, a lot OF my friends don't have kids.

0:44:17 Thomas: House that we ever go to or see or all our friends, pristine fucking Martha Stewart lives there. It's just, it's, I,

0:44:21 Eli: Spotless. Yeah. This is our new Swarovski crystal kitchen table. We just got it. It's really nice. It reflects the sun every morning into a different rainbow depending on the hour of the day.

0:44:32 Thomas: Oh, God.

0:44:36 Tom: Just had a week where the kids were with their respective other parents. So like, it was just Haley and I for a week. And so there were no kids and like, it was was trivially easy to keep the house spotlessly the clean, like was like it was trivually easy to keep the house clean. It was literally no, I felt like the work was doing itself backwards.

0:44:47 Thomas: Yep.

0:44:54 Eli: Yeah.

0:44:55 Tom: It was so easy by comparison to what it is on a day-to-day basis. Like, we didn't even, I actually, I'm not kidding, I don't even think we produced a meaningful amount of garbage in an entire week. I didn't take the garbage out. I take the garbage out every day in this house. Every day.

0:44:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:05 Thomas: Yeah. You don't have to somehow. Yeah, every day.

0:45:12 Tom: We produce at whole thing of garbage and recycling. I don't know how. The kids could, I think the kids could not even be home that day and still just the fact that they're going to arrive later.

0:45:07 Eli: I've I'm They mail the garbage home.

0:45:22 Tom: Yeah. It's, yeah. It's un -fucking -believable, the

0:45:23 Eli: Yeah, they get

0:45:27 Thomas: It's just unbelievable.

0:45:27 Eli: That Uber delivery service where you have a little box.

0:45:27 Tom: Difference.

0:45:29 Eli: They just have an Uber driver drop it off. Yeah, I am saving it for the Patron extra of this episode, but I have also been alone this week and had a similar experience and speaking of getting to that patriot only goodness, gentlemen, before we go, what do you call a group of people around the world who want to take a friday off? A crowd strike all

0:45:29 Thomas: All right,

0:45:57 Tom: Oh. Oh,

0:46:03 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.

0:46:42 Thomas: You bring food into the car, you have to take it out.

0:46:48 Eli: Assholes, I vote for you in every election.