DOD269: RIP Mr. Kitty 2012-2026

Transcript

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

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad, that's my thing I know now what I can offer you that no one else can Complete and under-dependent I'm a man, I'm sensitive I need to feel loved, I need part of being a father that I enjoy

0:00:28 Thomas: All right, Tom.

0:00:30 Eli: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's, oh fuck, the beginning of our show. Oh, I forgot once again. The beginning of our show! Oh, no! It's because I'm here once a fortnight. I've forgotten this thing. I could say whatever. I created this intro. I didn't have to do this. Whenever anyone in podcasting has a fill in the blank intro, I'm like, you stupid piece of shit.

0:00:54 Thomas: All right. No one else talk, as in Lydia don't talk. We'll get lydia's laughter from the zen caster and then I'm gonna go make your shirt well you're not normally in this I hit record and then it took me a second to realize you're not in the slate of recording and now we're recording lydia

0:01:02 Eli: And that's all we

0:01:18 Lydia: Ha, ha, ha ha ha, yeah,

0:01:14 Eli: Need now we're welcome to the podcast low res laughs

0:01:18 Thomas: Yeah do you do your makeup laughs eli actually insists you get a clean laugh at his joke for the

0:01:26 Eli: That's important yeah no actually we spent the first 20 minutes of every record laughing in 32 bit at my bits at my

0:01:27 Lydia: Yeah. I think that's fair. I think that. Hi,

0:01:34 Eli: Jokes and then everything else is proxy media Proximedia. It's one -eighth size Proximemia. I'm Eli Bosnick, joined as always by Thomas Smith and sometimes by Lydia Smith. Thomas, Lydia, welcome to the show.

0:01:43 Thomas: Thank

0:01:52 Lydia: You know, I am sometimes like I'm here every now and then.

0:01:56 Thomas: You yeah we've upgraded you to the sometimes

0:01:56 Lydia: You know, it's not a once in a blue moon. Thank you. Yeah.

0:01:59 Eli: Yeah, you're full Heath Enright when it comes to our...

0:02:04 Thomas: Category well we come here with an announcement for one tom's lazy ass he just didn't want to fucking work so he's gone today yeah

0:02:12 Lydia: Funny that he showed up, you know the last

0:02:12 Thomas: Actually tom and eli are in a fight but then we thought oh shit we haven't gotten to talk about this we've been meaning to it's kind of a weird thing um like I don't know if I should like announce it or something but um we've been wanting to talk about our cat mr kitty died and I know there's gonna be at least some people who've been listening to me from the very beginning because back in the thomas and the bible days when we first got mr kitty he was sick and like the listeners the four listeners I had like chipped in some money to like pay the vet bill you know it's just like yeah and I know

0:02:14 Eli: Yeah, we're in a fight. Yeah we're giving each other the silent treatment and we're hoping the audience doesn't notice.

0:02:17 Lydia: Recording yeah yeah we had nothing back then we didn't even have sick time from our jobs to take off for that like we had to talk to our bosses and they were so kind way back when but but yeah.

0:03:02 Thomas: And so it feels like it's this big thing of like this cat that we had in our lives for so long it's been our entire relationship I was thinking our relationship might just end because the cat died

0:03:09 Lydia: Probably.

0:03:13 Eli: It turns out Lydia was in it for Mr. Kitty.

0:03:15 Thomas: Yeah. Or if the cat is just like the horcrux of our marriage, you know, it's just like, ah,

0:03:19 Lydia: And only one horcrux. We should have done more.

0:03:20 Thomas: The spell is broken. Yeah. Yeah, I know. They always say, they always say do seven horcructs. And I'm just like seven. Uh, and I was just like, you know, seven,

0:03:26 Eli: That's why you had so many kids, is every time... Yeah. Every time Thomas showed up late for date night, Lydia was like, I'm going to need another kid slash horcrux. This is... I ate the appetizers by myself.

0:03:44 Thomas: Sure. Seven's a spooky number. I get it. That's do, do that number of horcruxes. Cause yeah, but like one spooky, that's pretty spooky too. And it takes less work. So, Ooh.

0:03:52 Eli: Well, I think you're using podcast horcructs, in which case I think you have more than

0:03:56 Lydia: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

0:03:56 Thomas: Oh, I have a zillion. Yeah. Why didn't Voldemort just make like a hundred of those things.

0:03:56 Eli: Enough. Yeah. Oh, my God. God, just Voldemort on air apologizing for the quality of his audio and the hiatus. Hey, everybody, it's Voldy. You know, there's been, I don't want to get into the drama here, but my co -host, Bellatrix, she's not going to be on the show anymore. And, ah, God, I know what people have to hear this stuff.

0:04:23 Lydia: My God. That'd be so funny. Voldemort with a podcast.

0:04:27 Eli: Voldemort with a podcast.

0:04:27 Lydia: Of course. Of course he would. All white boys.

0:04:29 Eli: I think that's just now. Yeah.

0:04:30 Thomas: I was going to say, well, he's racist enough. I was gonna, yeah, it's like he'd fit right. It is Voldemort. We do have that. Wait, hold on. We do.

0:04:33 Eli: Yeah, I think we need to be very clear that Voldemort is significantly less racist and much more reasonable than modern American racists.

0:04:48 Thomas: Voldemort's like, well sure. I hate the muggles, but Trump, Trump, he's so dumb. You can't wait a

0:04:52 Eli: That's crazy. Again, Voldemort's thing is not like, let's just beat up muggles. Although later she tried to retcon that. Voldemords thing is, hey, the muggels keep doing genocides. Maybe we should be in charge. Our society has food for everybody. And Dumbledore is like, you piece of shit fist fight me.

0:05:10 Thomas: Minute what I don't remember that in the books did you retcon that in or just

0:05:15 Eli: No, Grindelwald vapes the gates of Auschwitz. This is the thing. Okay, that was the last piece of Harry Potter media.

0:05:18 Thomas: What what is happening

0:05:22 Lydia: It's not from the seven books, but it's canon

0:05:23 Thomas: Oh okay wait it

0:05:23 Eli: No, but it's canon that Grindelwand gets everyone together in the 1920s. He vapes The Gates of Auschwitz and is like, what do you think, guys, huh?

0:05:34 Thomas: Is vapes the gates and

0:05:34 Eli: Maybe we put a stop to this? He vapES it. He vapEs it out of a skull.

0:05:37 Lydia: Like vaporizes

0:05:38 Thomas: How do you vape the

0:05:38 Eli: And he's like, do you guys want to stop this? And a bunch of... No, he vapES IT. Like, he hits it out of a vape. He blows sweet sweet cotton look the diehards know he takes a skull he takes a big hit off that skull's eyeball then he blows a

0:05:42 Lydia: It oh huh

0:05:45 Thomas: What are you talking about

0:05:45 Lydia: Hot

0:05:54 Eli: Big sweet ass vape cloud everyone looks into the vape cloud there are the gates of Auschwitz in said vape clouds in the 1920s and Grindelwald's like what do we think huh maybe we put a stop to this yeah and Dumbledore's like no fucking dice that seems super cool yeah Yeah, I'm Jude Law right now, so I don't sound like this yet, but I'm OK with it.

0:06:06 Lydia: Magneto rolls up yeah

0:06:11 Thomas: Really that seems super cool

0:06:13 Lydia: Yeah yeah I'm way too hot

0:06:20 Thomas: 50 points for Gryffindor.

0:06:22 Eli: But, you know, the only thing worse than the fact that Dumbledore was canonically aware of the Holocaust and did nothing to stop it. Why? It's the auto ads. Yes, the auto ads, the horcruxes of keeping our podcast going. They're unpleasant, unfortunate. Fortunate and if you kill them if you kill the auto ads you also kill us but you can make those auto ads go away over at patreon.com/dear-old-dads we'll get a commercial free version of every single episode plus little parenting story at the end plus monthly bonus episodes that are cool

0:06:36 Thomas: Yeah. We're never going to fucking die. Ever.

0:06:57 Eli: And get those over at patreon daca usually yeah no I usually don't talk shit Lydia I gotta admit I usually talk a ton of shit about the timing of about you but it's the vibes are not amazing while you're

0:06:58 Thomas: Yeah, you realize how they're so on time now you can't talk shit.

0:07:06 Lydia: Yeah about me, yeah, I know, I know, yeah that's fair

0:07:11 Eli: Here it's a behind the back situation right like I'm not gonna do Hayley's faking it jokes if she ever comes on the pod just behind the back patreon.com/dear-old-dads in the words of thomas edison rip into it that's

0:07:17 Lydia: Right right Avada Kedavra come

0:07:36 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:07:37 Thomas: In the words of Dumbledore, I'm cool with the Holocaust.

0:07:41 Eli: Right I'm okay with the

0:07:43 Thomas: I don't know anything about this. Why did she do that? Why would you make the backstory be that Voldemort is the right one? Every single comic book with the X -Men and everything, they're like accidentally make the bad guy right about everything. And then I guess she was like, well, I guess since I'm the bad guy now, I might as well put in a good word for bad guys.

0:07:58 Eli: Holocaust yeah exactly yeah I mean here's the the thing if you examine any singular piece of harry potter lore or world building it's awful you can't be like and sorry what's the girl's name her name is cho chang right like there's no thing no singular item from harry Potter you can examine that you're like this was good you just need to understand that millennials cared about it very much and everyone who wants us to stop caring about it is lacking in empathy and is no longer in touch with the human experience Yeah.

0:08:37 Thomas: Yeah. Well, speaking of being in touch with the human experience. So here's the thing I wanted to talk about the mr kitty thing and the fact that our kids I wrote this down that day our cat dies and our kids could not be more our kids about it it was it was so funny yeah so it wasn't funny that mr kitty died that sucked I'm actually still affected by it it was not fun I guess as far as cats go short of the kids not finding him he went about as good as you could go you know he had a nice long cat life he was something like 14 yeah

0:08:53 Lydia: On yeah everybody was perfectly themselves yeah yeah yeah he was just about 14 yeah he died just about a week and a half before his birthday so almost 14 yeah

0:09:18 Thomas: Yeah it's birthday and he just out he just just all of a sudden yeah no I think he because he was fine he was like absolutely fine the day before no sign of any health anything and then he just up and he did it up and died I think you did technical look it up look at the definition definition but I think

0:09:37 Lydia: As far as we know we weren't downstairs when it happened so yeah

0:09:40 Thomas: He did it up and died

0:09:40 Eli: And that's the goal. That's what you want.

0:09:42 Thomas: Yeah he up and dead it is how we should all want to go to be honest with you he got the best cat life full of lizards that he killed for no reason just for murder reasons really didn't never ate him or anything just liked murder and uh you know he had a nice long life he was the king of the house he pretty much did whatever he wanted yeah

0:09:46 Eli: Yeah. Happy, healthy dead.

0:10:01 Lydia: Yep boster on everybody including our dog who is much larger than him didn't matter he was in charge

0:10:07 Thomas: Now the boy's not here the house is like not even you know it's like the general is gone or something thing because like before it was like when people came to visit boy would have to inspect them you know

0:10:10 Lydia: It's different yeah he would greet them at the door right they would come in he would be like show me show me your clean

0:10:20 Thomas: There's a sense of order there's show me your papers he was kind of a nazi if I'm being honest yeah yeah yeah he's a mega cat yeah yeah but it the trains ran on time he

0:10:24 Eli: Big ice supporter, Mr. Kitty. A lot of back the blue stickers on his cage. Pretty upsetting. Yeah. He died of COVID because he wasn't vaccinated. This is what Thomas and Lydia are hiding from you.

0:10:44 Lydia: Hands

0:10:38 Thomas: Went he was just just yeah he was always in charge always so first off I almost think I need some parenting like somebody needs to parent me because I was pretty messed up but like I've just never seen something like that like all of a sudden this being that we're intimately connected with you know like sleeps around us does like we've had forever his stupid cat face has been our cat forever and then he just stops moving and it was like it was unsettling I was unsettled for a week over that I didn't I was like I don't think I've ever experienced anything like that

0:11:18 Lydia: I mean I think a lot of times too like you have a lead up to putting your pet down right because like you catch that they're they're sick or something especially as they're getting older. But I've never experienced this either. The closest I could think of is we had one cat that had like a major heart attack.

0:11:39 Thomas: Not us but you're yeah

0:11:39 Lydia: And yeah, yeah, my sister and I, but I wasn't there to witness it. My poor sister did. And that was really, really bad. And we like took her to the vet and everything. So that's probably the closest, but I've never entered a space and seen an animal just gone. So that was, yeah, just very strange. Very strange. Yeah.

0:11:55 Thomas: Yeah he was just yeah

0:11:56 Eli: Let alone an animal that you, like, really, really care about. I mean, death generally, right? Right. That that sort of like the non eventness of death is incredibly disturbing to the extent that we never do it in fiction. Right. We never depict actual death. That's why everyone turns into gold dust and blows away because you can't when you've been around death, you're just like, oh, it's there's not that much change from reality except for the awful, awful stillness. I'm going to go ahead and cartoonize this in my brain. Thank you very much.

0:12:27 Thomas: Yeah you know as I'm thinking about it the thing thing that's the most disturbing so we do show like the very first part of it in every movie where they just like and then they just stop and they're totally still but what we don't show which is more disturbing is like well then you gotta like move them or something and then they're just dead like that's extra disturbing and we don'T show

0:12:28 Lydia: That's a great point. Yeah

0:12:50 Eli: Yeah, if we had to watch Luke drag Yoda's limp body out to the swamp, I feel like it would have been a lot less poetic. We really wouldn't have been thinking about how many Skywalkers there were if there were just little legs pointing out of a blanket. And he's trying to fucking fit into a hole.

0:13:10 Thomas: That so that was disturbing and he just he was just it was like he was sleeping he was on his side but his eyes were open and it was just like oh man

0:13:17 Lydia: So Phoebe ran up to tell me she was like, I think boy died. And I was trying to get some work done and stuff. And she's like, I think boy, died. I think you need to come downstairs stairs and see and I thought she was like playing a trick on me that's phoebe

0:13:26 Thomas: Hmm yeah if you if you've heard of the boy who cried wolf this would be like the phoebe who's never said anything true in her life so I feel

0:13:35 Lydia: Yeah so she was like no it's creepy I don't know like I think he might be dead you need to come down I was like all right fine I'll come down I did not believe her at

0:13:46 Eli: Of course. Yeah, no, kids never say a true thing. Like, the notion that you would have to believe a child in this moment is someone who's never been on the planet Earth. Because 300 times a day your kid is like fire there's a fire and you're like no there's not

0:13:47 Lydia: All yeah yeah

0:14:01 Thomas: Like lydia probably shouldn't have like hit her and said go to your room and don't ever speak again and yeah like shut your horror mouth yeah but by the time she got down the stairs she had changed her

0:14:04 Lydia: Yeah liar yeah

0:14:08 Eli: It was weird that you countered with good I'm glad but you know what hindsight's 2020

0:14:17 Lydia: I came down the stairs and I hadn't even made it all the way down the the stairs. And I was like, yeah, that's weird. He's like not really moving. Maybe he's just tired. I get a little closer. I'm like staring at, I did not get too close. Cause I, I don't know why. I just, I think, I was freaking. I think also it's like protective of, I didn't want that to be true.

0:14:29 Thomas: It's freaky

0:14:36 Lydia: So I was staring at his stomach from a little bit of a distance and I didn's see it moving. And that's when I started yelling for you. And you're like, what? And I have to say say now boys I think boys dead like really loud to get you to come down and yeah yeah exactly so then obviously like yeah I know so it gets the attention of everybody obviously and so um Thomas comes down to go investigate the situation and and yeah he was just gone

0:14:35 Eli: Come here so I can

0:14:36 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah well it's not like the kids were gonna not find out at this point yeah he was he was dead and then so Phoebe's freaking out because Phoebe is Phoebe she's losing it she's freaking OUT she keeps saying like no well maybe maybe we can save him and I go down and like he's he's dead he had pretty much just died though dude was still like warm still like it that was the freakiest part and we were like okay back when I lived in my shithole country house we'd do a snake send -off we'd send him in a pit of snakes and in a in a boat in a river of snakes yeah yeah it was an unspoken agreement we had with the snakes yeah it wasn't yeah yeah but no we would bury the pets and digging a hole I've joked about for the longest time is the hardest thing in the world

0:15:29 Eli: Whisper yeah they would carry the snakes would carry him out to the hole in the cave yeah Yeah. Only to be seen at Halloween. Yeah.

0:15:34 Lydia: Into the caves yeah Yeah. Yeah. That's why they left you alone. Yeah, yeah.

0:15:48 Eli: No, it is actually impossible.

0:15:48 Thomas: It's nobody the movies are so fake it can't be done and so you dig like a one foot hole and be like I can't do any well I'm at the core of the

0:15:52 Lydia: It's the best I can do.

0:15:57 Thomas: Earth I mean it's it's rock solid rock yeah you get half the cat in yeah it's just

0:15:57 Eli: Yeah, yeah. And then the next time it rains, the next time it drains, everyone sees Mr. Kitty again. Yeah mm -hmm

0:16:07 Thomas: Like well it's fine if like his tail is out right it'll be okay and so that's how we used to do it and so I I was like I don't know what we're supposed to do in this situation hmm

0:16:16 Lydia: It was a Sunday, kind of in the evening and stuff. So there's no there's no vet offices open. Our vet is not open. So I was like, well, I guess we have to go to an emergency vet, even though it's not an emergency. Like, we

0:16:27 Thomas: It's you're definitionally not an emergency

0:16:29 Eli: Kids.

0:16:29 Lydia: Know he's gone, but they're the only ones open. And I don't really want to hold on to a dead cat until the next morning to go to our vet, that seems really odd and weird and uncomfortable.

0:16:40 Eli: We got to eat a bunch of ice cream and I don't want to say why

0:16:41 Thomas: Yeah yeah and cats you know say what you want about cats they sure are graceful when they die you know like I was worried like okay is he gonna fucking like shit everywhere or something like is there no he's just fine he's a cat he was like a vita or something it was just you know we could have put him in a glass thing and kept him you know whatever yeah

0:16:45 Lydia: Everybody ready? Yeah. Hmm.

0:16:57 Eli: Mm -mm made

0:16:59 Lydia: Yeah.

0:17:05 Eli: Him the patron saint of something. That's a good idea.

0:17:07 Thomas: Yeah but then it was like, well, that means I have to get this cat in something. And so we have a cat carrier. Yeah. And here's the thing about Mr. Kitty. He's a fucking, oh God, the cat was so big. Yeah. I couldn't even, he wasn't just fat. He was also like just long.

0:17:13 Lydia: A limp body. Yeah, it was our fat cat. Yeah Yeah.

0:17:26 Thomas: Like he was just like Shaquille O 'Neal the cat. So I was like Jesus, it is a lot harder to lift a dead thing than a life, you know, cause like a living thing. Yeah. I was trying, I was

0:17:33 Eli: You're doing bits about how big he is to your screaming children

0:17:40 Thomas: Really trying to not talk too much shit on him around Phoebe. Uh, but I was like, boy, this is a, this was a big cat. So I had to like, yeah. And I'll be honest, I Was kind of still freaked out. I Was like, not really want, it just felt weird to touch him. I WAS just like, I don't know what to do.

0:17:44 Lydia: This is not easy. Yeah.

0:17:54 Thomas: So, I WAS like, well, I, I have to do it though. I'M not, not doing it. Like, this IS a job for me.

0:17:54 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. I did not want to do it. Yeah thank you for that.

0:18:01 Thomas: So. I, yeah, yeah. And I get the carrier. I'm like, this is so awkward. I've tried to like shove him in there. Like, it's just like, he's so heavy. And then you get a minute, it furthers like sadness. Cause like, oh, he is not sitting in there, you know? It's just fucking gone. It's too bad. But we do that. Then we take him to the vet all the while, you known Phoebe's like, can we save him? And I'm like, I just put him in a bag and he's not essentially he's nice. Gone. He's gone. Yeah.

0:18:26 Eli: Course

0:18:27 Lydia: We all load up into the car. You guys know Remy. You know Ramy. He's a hungry guy. So we bring some snacks.

0:18:34 Thomas: So you had a snack yeah so we're driving in the car and this is when all three of our kids are just so good so we'RE driving Lydia and I are pretty sad like Phoebe's been obviously just a total nightmare like yeah yeah yeah but totally we're sensitive to it but she's also Phoebe so she starts saying insane things like

0:18:38 Lydia: Ex she's been a mess yeah I mean understandably I mean I I get it she's a sensitive kid she's the one that found him yeah

0:18:58 Thomas: Just absolutely batshit insane things and then there's a particular moment in the car where Phoebe is crying. She's like, oh, I can't, I'm never, I've never going to be the same. Never going to me the same! And then I look in the rear view and I see Arlo just spacing out, looking out the window. Yeah. I'm not sure he knows what happened. He kind of does to be fair to Arlo. Like he kind of knows, but you just can't really tell, you know? And then, you we're having this dramatic conversation with Phoebe's asking all this stuff. And then we have this like kind of moment of, you just like silence. We're just Just kind of all just like, ah. And then we hear, ow, ow. Remy has a bag of chips.

0:19:08 Lydia: Yeah this is changing my life the world is different neutral quiet just eating uh

0:19:43 Thomas: As we're all in this somber silence. Like we've all just had, something just happened. And it was this, you know, deep thing. And then, we hear just crunch, crunch, as loud as possible. Blissfully unaware of Remy crunching his chips as loudly as you could possibly crunch them. Then, yeah, we, then we were just trying so hard to know. Because it was so fucked. Couldn't have been better comedy timing just like the most pensive silence and just remy with his chips oh god so each of our kids was doing what they do phoebe was like I'm the most sad here

0:19:54 Lydia: Then thomas and I just start cracking up we're like we're dying dying yep

0:20:17 Thomas: No one the other they're not sad remy and arlo and I'm more sad than them yeah she's measuring her sadness against the other kids for some reason and to be fair she is the only one who cares so then at one point I was like everybody share a memory with mr kitty do you have any any memories of Mr. Kitty.

0:20:20 Eli: I have invented sadness yeah

0:20:34 Thomas: And so Phoebe, uh, I don't remember what Phoebe said. Yeah. But

0:20:38 Lydia: I don't remember

0:20:39 Eli: She read all quiet on the western front the entirety of it

0:20:41 Lydia: Either yeah

0:20:43 Thomas: And then Arlo is like, I have a memory, but it's not a good one. I was like, oh, okay. It's like, yeah, Mr. Kiddy like attacked me. And then he also was like. Well, I actually thought it was nice that like you could tell his little kid brain. I love that about kids. You can kind of see how they're working. And he was like, oh, well, I have one, but it's not a good one. So he like, he was telling me that because he was like, it's I think he was thinking like, well I don't want to share a bad one, you know, but that was the only one he had. And so it was, it was nice. It was like he's so smart. The kid's such a genius, you know, he's doing a million calculations a minute, but then he was also like, well, I don' I don know. Cause I, I never knew if it was Mr. Kitty or if it it was the other cat that looks like Mr. Kitty. And so he was, we realized we've gone his whole life. He hasn't known the difference between the two cats, apparently, which is like, that's more Arlo. And then the biggest Arlo thing was that I asked him sometime later, I was like, Hey buddy, do you miss Mr. kitty? Do you think you're like, maybe you're, do you think you might miss him later? Are you going to miss him? He goes, I don't know. I can't read the future of me he was like

0:20:54 Eli: Read the room hey arlo read the rune bud we're doing kind of an in memoriam

0:21:58 Thomas: Mad at me for asking him so that was each of our kids being exactly who they are let's see what were phoebe's things that she said she did say when we got home she said I wish there was an afterlife so I could kill myself and be with boy with

0:22:03 Eli: Exactly themselves. Cool.

0:22:13 Lydia: This is very intense girl yeah no yeah

0:22:13 Thomas: The boy boy is the cat mr kitty yep she said that and we're like hey don't maybe don't well there's not an afterlife life.

0:22:23 Eli: Come on.

0:22:23 Thomas: And she's like, I know that's why I said, I wish there was like kill myself. Yeah. She was like, my life's never going to be the same.

0:22:25 Eli: You guys are just like, hey, no.

0:22:33 Thomas: And then she did one that was funny where she's like, oh,

0:22:37 Lydia: She was like she's like well this is a good thing I guess I'm not gonna be afraid to go up the stairs anymore because he would always like like sit on the stairs, and then she'd be afraid that he was going to paw at her and scratch her and attack her, which he wasn't. But she was always afraid that it was going too. Yeah, maybe.

0:22:50 Thomas: He might bat at her, but I, okay, my memory of that was that she was sharing it like it was, she was in the mode of like, My life's Never Going to Be the Same and I'm So Sad. And my memory was that, she kind of was still in that mode and then she shared it like, Like, I'm not going to be afraid to go up the stairs anymore, which was pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:05 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Could be. Could Be. I might be rewriting it in my mind.

0:23:08 Eli: I'm going to miss that feeling of terror as I climbed the stairs. I wonder if you guys experienced this, because I feel like we are similar amounts of overworked. Do you have the thing where whenever anything bad happens, you're like, oh, no, not this too. Like, you realize how unprepared you are for literally anything when someone drops a glass and you're like, actually, I have no bandwidth for water being spilled on the carpet, let alone this.

0:23:35 Lydia: Exactly. Oh, my God. Eli, yes. That's why I'm really, really trying to not. But like, if the kids spill anything and I react to, you know, water being spilled, it's not a big deal. But it feels like such a huge deal in the moment, I think, because we're spread so thin that I have to be so I not for me for me it just feels like another thing that I have to deal with and it yeah I know mm

0:23:49 Thomas: Yeah. Well, water's fine. Water occurs naturally in the environment. The other stuff they spill.

0:23:59 Eli: In those moments I often feel like there must be people out there who have a normal amount of stress and work in their life who when something happens like this they go like oh all right well this is going to be a tough 24 hours but you know this is why I stop working at five and start working at nine right like

0:24:20 Thomas: Better call into the office tomorrow.

0:24:20 Eli: This is like they're they're yes exactly there must There must be someone out there with a healthy work -life balance for whom anything can happen. And, like, the other thing about being parents, and this is what I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on. Like, when you're a parent, whatever experience the family is going through, you're not going through it at all, right?

0:24:40 Eli: You are just managing the emotions of your kid and your partner. Like, whatever has happened, who fucking knows? If someone were to come by and try and take attendance, you'd be like, oh, no, I'm not playing. I'm actually not participating right now you should go over and check in with the people who matter I actually sacrificed my emotions long ago of

0:24:40 Lydia: -mm yeah yep yeah as it was all happening and we were going to the vet and everything I definitely was more in like mom mode and then the next day I like could not stop because the kids were back at school and so then I was just crying on and off all day day long

0:25:15 Thomas: Yeah my memory is you were you were crying quite a bit that day I think we only had one kid that we had to parent like the

0:25:19 Lydia: I was but it was different yeah

0:25:23 Thomas: Other two Remy had his chips and Arlo did not care I'm not totally no no anding you like at first but then I think you were pretty sad once it was like you didn't really have to parent that much because it was just Phoebe so we kind of like traded it off on managing that

0:25:38 Lydia: I do think I was mindful of like not kind of contributing to Phoebe's intense emotions and stuff and like just trying to be there for her but any moment I guess that I like felt like I had a break there and I got to kind of think and sit with it then I guess it would kind of come to me but I don't think I really really kind of sat with it myself until until the next day.

0:26:00 Thomas: But it really was to Eli's point it was like my first thought was like well we have two episodes we're trying to get out tonight um I don't think I have just tell him tell boy no tell him don't yeah this is not

0:26:00 Eli: Course can he come back to life until wait 2036

0:26:18 Thomas: Convenient yeah

0:26:19 Lydia: We came back from the vet and Thomas was like, well, we were ahead and then and now we're behind.

0:26:23 Thomas: Yeah yeah and but then we were were like we should all watch a movie or something and then Phoebe was like I don't nothing with a cat I don'T want to watch anything I was like

0:26:28 Lydia: Yeah yeah, we can't just like say the kids are on their own.

0:26:34 Thomas: Oh okay I was kind of wanted to watch something with a cat but I guess not yeah

0:26:36 Eli: I was going to do 101 Dalmatians but you know what

0:26:39 Lydia: Homeward bound. Yeah?

0:26:46 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:26:47 Eli: So here's another thing and I don't think we've talked about this but the phenomenon of having having a pet who is a member of your family, very often your favorite member of the family, right? Because, like, Mr. Kitty very rarely punches you in the face for buying the wrong version of Animal Crackers, right. And you tell people in your life, you're like, hey, my pet died. And they're like oh, I'm sorry to hear that. So I was telling Stefan and you're, like oh hey, I am so sorry. I need you to replace whatever you care about in your head with pet. I mean, my dad died. Is that good? Is that okay?

0:27:20 Thomas: Yeah there's a oh I I was for sure more sad about Mr. Kitty than my dad yeah no it wasn't my dad was like a more obviously it's gonna be a thing that sits with of me a longer time, but I think pets can range so much. That's a problem because someone could tell you their cat died. And it's like, I need more information because you could have had them for not very long. They could have been, you adopted a sick cat and then wasn't, you know, like there's a lot of, or, or it was like, you Know, my pet died and it's a bird and it'S like, okay, I'm, you can't mourn a bird. I'm sorry. It's illegal.

0:27:24 Eli: I died. That's fair, yeah. Oh, don't you... Oh, the bird weirdos are going to come for you so hard. All they do is live alone in their house surrounded by birds.

0:27:52 Thomas: Nobody, I'M going to alienate most of our audience. You should not be allowed to mourn A bird. Yeah. When

0:28:01 Eli: Thomas, they have nothing but time to be mad at you.

0:28:02 Thomas: A bird dies, it's just less noise. That's the only thing that happens.

0:28:06 Eli: The expressions made by Thomas Smith do not represent dear old dad's LLC, where we think you think your bird loves you and it's sentient.

0:28:12 Thomas: Yeah, birds are smart. I can see it. A pet lizard. No, there's nothing you could pick because everybody, we will get the email. We will get

0:28:18 Eli: Stop going for the snake weirdos.

0:28:21 Lydia: Don't touch the reptiles. Yeah.

0:28:21 Thomas: The email with the person who's like, here are the pictures of my pet cockroach that I had.

0:28:27 Lydia: Gross.

0:28:28 Thomas: It lived three days. It is my best friend. Yeah and so I need more information because here's the other thing that I had to deal with and lydia less so but maybe a little bit but but me most of all the cats have been the biggest pain in our fucking asses

0:28:26 Eli: Scooch right yeah yeah titsy flies I think we can go with titsies flies I don't think there are any titsie fly perverts out

0:28:46 Thomas: For the past five years

0:28:48 Lydia: We've been complaining a lot about them lately.

0:28:48 Thomas: Because once we got the dog and once we just I don't know it was too much animal and I think yeah once we picked up that third kid from the the, from the vet and then from the pound. And then, uh, also boy, boy, I think at one point must've gotten in a fight and that's Mr. Kitty's other name. Sorry. Every good pet owner should have 40 names for their cat.

0:28:53 Lydia: The third kid, too. I think it was just too much. It was just too much happening in the house.

0:29:09 Thomas: That's just how it should be. And I think he got in maybe a fight and then that caused a, like a spraying problem. And dann ever since then, that was what I thought of when he talked about the spilling thing and not having time for it. The thing we never have time for that happens every single fucking day. It feels like is we're about to leave and then a cat will barf somewhere every day and they have ruined our house with piss pretty much the past several years the experience the kids might have heard with the cat is me being these fucking cats I wish you would actively all die now right now I hope you stop moving yeah Yeah. Yeah. But here's the thing that I, I, like, I wasn't sure, you know, to tell the kids, but I was like, man, that wouldn't have been my first choice. Mr. Kitty would not have been on the kill list that I had. Now, admittedly, here's another funny thing. Since Mr. kitty died, died I know since mr kitty died I think objectively everything's better like besides us you know we love mr kitty but it's so funny because it's been a bit that I have where it's like well he terrorized everybody he did a lizard holocaust every day the other cats were scared of him so now the other rats are living their best lives like they're out and about when previously they would just hide all the time they're all two of them you know one of them was fine but it. So they're living their best lives. Look, by volume, Mr. Kitty was at least half the piss of the cats. Like he was just such a fucking oaf that I think he peed half of them. Like we have four cats. He peed at least Half of that. And so it's like, well, you know, I, I'm really sad, but I guess there's upsides to whatever, but I, well he wouldn't have been my first choice, but you know you just think about it when, whenever you have something like that, That's been a part of your life for so long. Like, we have all this feeling of, like, everywhere I go, every door I open, I'm like, Mr. Kitty should be brushing on my leg right now, you know?

0:29:27 Eli: There dear god if you're there kill this cat kill it and I will become your most devout of worship or you're swapping through religious symbiology on your your knees number one remy and especially

0:31:09 Thomas: Like, should just be passing by. Should be bolting out the door annoyingly. Yes. Yeah.

0:31:12 Eli: When something is pre kids where you made a decision because you had wants and needs and now the shell that is you a parent loses that thing you have to be like oh I remember young eli he chose to get a dog and then he loved that dog And now I feel so bad because young Eli would be mourning because he had thoughts and feelings and and mattered. Right. And now I'm just like, oh, missing creature number four must continue to produce protein juices into the vat. Like it's so it's also this part of like because sometimes I don't know this happened when my dad died. And I know Mr. Kitty's not your dad. He seems much nicer and he seems like

0:31:16 Lydia: When life had meaning.

0:32:01 Thomas: Yeah. He was a better person. Yeah.

0:32:01 Eli: He pissed a lot less. Yeah, and he spent a lot less time around the house. Like there are lots of advantages to Mr. Yeah, Mr. Kitty. He also watched Fox News and back the blue stuff. But, you know, yeah,

0:32:06 Thomas: I actually talked to Mr. Kitty. I got more good life lessons from Mr. Kitty.

0:32:16 Eli: Exactly. There's a lot of positives. And, you Know, can I say your mom also never apologized for Mr. Kitty? She was ready.

0:32:21 Lydia: Mr.

0:32:19 Thomas: Mr. Kitty and my dad said they love me the same number of times.

0:32:26 Eli: Which is crazy because the number is four.

0:32:29 Lydia: Kitty was actually more involved with our wedding than your dad was by far.

0:32:30 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, was he?

0:32:33 Lydia: I mean, he was alive. Yeah.

0:32:33 Thomas: Oh, yeah, he was alive then. Here's the funny thing about I had to be like, like, was my dad alive when we got married? He died probably seven years after we got married. So he was not only alive, but pretty much fine back then for the most part. And because he is such a non -entity part of our lives, my mom came.

0:32:47 Lydia: Alive and well, mostly. Yeah, mm hmm.

0:32:53 Thomas: They're still married. They live in the same house.

0:32:56 Lydia: Yep. She drove up by herself.

0:32:56 Thomas: They did. And for a second, I was like, wait, was my dad live when we get married? That's just to give you an idea.

0:33:05 Eli: Imagine Phoebe getting married and you're not there. How you could, I would be the, the happening levels of suicidal, right? You would have to, you couldn't put sharp stuff in the hospital room. You're keeping me in. Yeah.

0:33:08 Thomas: Oh, my God. I might start crying just like thinking about that yeah I can't even jesus like

0:33:21 Lydia: Well, our dads were literally the opposite ends of the spectrum. Your dad didn't show up. I don't even think he said congratulations or anything like that. Like it just wasn't part of the conversation. My dad was our officiant. My dad was the one that married us. It's just crazy.

0:33:33 Thomas: Yeah what

0:33:33 Eli: So nuts. But here's the other crazy thing that comes up in that pet moment. And like I said, this happened with my dad is that occasionally someone will get it.

0:33:45 Eli: And that's almost more painful because when you're a parent, everything all the time is squished down into a tuna can that is sealed tight. And someone will be like, hey, if you want to have normal emotions, I fully recognize the authenticity of this moment. And you're fucking Matt Damon -ing with the lady at the grocery store. You're like, don't do this to me, man. Not you. And she's fucking, it's not your fault because she saw you walking your dog once.

0:33:45 Thomas: An asshole yeah yeah yeah it really is I don't know I'm trying to think my first thought was guilt because my first thought is because I'm so busy and burnt out. Yeah.

0:34:27 Eli: I shouldn't have killed that cat this afternoon.

0:34:30 Thomas: As I put the vial of poison back into my cloak. Yeah, totally relate to that being so busy. And also for me, though, there's a less, well, I don't know. I won't put a judgment on it, but there's a different thing with me where the kids have taken over my heart. So anything dying is like, like, Oh, it wasn't the kids. Okay.

0:34:50 Thomas: So like, it's already like a, it is. It's already a step down. No comment on that. It is already like, okay. Cause your brain as a parent is just so engaged with can't have my kid die. Can't have my kid die can't like, just that's everything is that. So like my first feeling was guilt. Cause I was like, instantly I was oh, I felt really weird and messed up about it, but I wasn't crying initially. And I was Oh, I feel bad. Is it because I hated these cats? Is it because they were so annoying? And then as time went on, I actually was crying quite a bit about Mr. Kitty because he was like, as you say, we got him before we had kids. He's such a long part of our life. We really, I really miss that cat. Like it was, so I cried quite a bit. It's interesting having multiple kids. I'm curious, like kind of your experiences, Max gets bigger, but I was always the sensitive kid in

0:34:51 Eli: Lydia included. Mm hmm. A hundred percent. Yeah.

0:35:44 Thomas: A family of monsters. Well, they weren't monsters really not not all of them but in a family where in a household where you essentially had to be a psychopath because that was the tone of the day I was a sensitive kid I think I've told the story but like my grandma died and I just was like his literally hysterical like I was like so sad because I couldn't understand like it was just so sad to me like I missed her so much I barely even I could probably count the times I saw her like she lived you know two hours away or whatever ever. But I was so sad. I really loved her. And other people just weren't like that.

0:36:19 Thomas: And I was like, why isn't everybody as sad as I don't understand? You know, as a kid, I was just like, I don' t get it. And it wasn' t in the Phoebe way. I wasn' T competing. I was just like is there something wrong with me? Like I don'' t get why I' m the only one who' s like can' t stop crying. So that' s also Phoebe. Phoebe was doing competitive grief. But she also I think is genuinely pretty upset yeah and so it's interesting to have it's almost a proud moment where I'm like wow that so Phoebe's always been really sensitive and that feels like more like me you know and there's this identification of like oh okay well I think I get this kid a little bit

0:36:38 Lydia: I think she just deeply feels stuff, too. Yeah, mm -hmm,

0:36:54 Thomas: You know like I think we and then there's the feeling of like wait does that mean I don't identify with my other two assholes you know? Like these these these kids who just are crunching so yeah do you have anything like that Eli where you're like oh if Max is genuinely different in a certain way do you Have a feeling of like oh I feel like less connected or like

0:37:02 Lydia: Mr. Chomper. And yeah.

0:37:14 Eli: Oh no, I'm so fucking glad. I'm such a fan of you. I'm just so fucking,

0:37:16 Thomas: No but in it maybe in it maybe okay sure but maybe in a way that you think is good like what if there's something this has come up like at least thought wise you never know because they're kids so they're still developing it but like do you ever have the thought like oh man I feel like I feel like I cared more about this I don't know I feel weird

0:37:36 Eli: Well, that's, that's also the tism too, right? Is that there's always a part of you that's like, how much of this is five -year -old? How much of this is neurodivergent five - year-old. How much of this is neurodivergent person right and also it's like I mean I don't know I know that you guys sort of dance across the neuro spicy sphere but it is so tricky to I'm so glad I found the books I found pre -internet because I caught the last moment a human being could be like what is the experience of an autistic person without someone on the internet being like well as the a clam lizard

0:37:39 Thomas: About it yeah yep

0:38:13 Eli: Right it's just fucking like the amount of so your brain is just constantly filled with liars right which again like I'm an adult and I'm also a skeptic right that's just me lying to myself right my brain is filled with liars and they're all me when

0:38:20 Thomas: Yeah oh that that's just called your conscious like that's that's your autobiography my brain is filled with lies yeah Yeah.

0:38:38 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:38:40 Eli: You are sort of exposed to these zeitgeist of everyone being like neurodivergence is this neurod divergence is this this neurodivergence is this, that every time you check in and go, well, what should he be feeling and thinking right now, right? There's a liar in your head, like problematizing your own thoughts at you, right. Being like, I can't believe you would expect him to be sad that Mr.

0:39:02 Eli: Kitty is dead. As a neurodivergent person, you need to know that sadness is a weakness that only normies have. And you're like, oh, okay, sorry. I need to learn to be better about not understanding that sadness is a weakness that leaves the body. Let me read the litany or whatever the fuck you're supposed to do. So yeah, I mean, I have those check-ins all the time. It's also like, and again, I don't know if you guys experienced this ever, but a lot of the time I'm like, well, I Don't want to make a decision about how I feel about the thing he's saying or doing.

0:39:31 Eli: Cause I don't know if that's a little kid thing or the person he'll become. Like I Don'T like that. And I don't want him to think and feel those things or say those things, or do those things or demonstrate those behaviors. But if they become permanent, then I feel like I need to check in with mental health professionals to see if I'm allowed to feel it.

0:39:48 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah. So this is totally with Arlo that's so Lydia and I had a little bit of a kind of a like talk about this because I think your first impulse was like well Arlo's probably going through in his own way and I was like I don't know that could be but I also felt like Lydia was maybe I felt a little yeah projecting a little wishful a little because like I think Arlo just didn't care and it's a weird thing because and I don't know that I'm right like but I think I'm based on what happened after which is he's not once cared and doesn't care but yeah

0:40:10 Lydia: Projecting. Well, I don't know. I don' know. Because like now, ever since, I feel like he's been connecting more with the cats. So to me that that makes me feel like he does a little bit okay

0:40:33 Thomas: I asked him about that I asked him so I was like oh so I've noticed you've been like you know petting Hank more or petting the cats first I said petting the cats more he's like no I was Like oh well well, okay, I guess Hank, like you gotta be, yeah. Okay. Mr. Tism. We got, uh, Hank. Yeah.

0:40:48 Thomas: And he was like, oh, just a little bit. Cause we were playing a game. And so they were playing a game and so I, you know, he could be denying it. I, I, yeah, I agree with you, but I think he doesn't. So it's exactly this tricky moment where exactly what Eli's describing, where I was like, well, I don't want to project onto him that he cares in some silent way that he doesn'T express because he might be on the spectrum. But I also, I don't want to discount that. Like I'm open to that, but you also got to allow for like, maybe he's just a six-year-old boy that doesn't really care. And he didn't particularly, he,

0:40:42 Lydia: Just hank okay we get it yeah no it's every day yeah yeah right or it didn't really have a connection with Mr. Kitty specifically and

0:41:21 Thomas: Yeah, he doesn't really interact with pets. The first time we've ever seen him interact with pets meaningfully was the game they were playing. And now he's, now he was playing with Hank after a boy died, which could be connected, but I don't know. It was interesting. It was what Eli was saying where you're like, yeah. Good.

0:41:36 Eli: Because here's the two things that are true. The world is filled with empathy-less ghouls, right? And that a tremendous amount of the empathy-less ghouls are dealing with some kind of mental health crisis. Sometimes that mental health crisis is neurodivergence, right, like neurodivergent men especially are really Elon Musk. He's a neurodivergent man who was especially vulnerable to bad ideas and lack of empathy. Right. And part of the consideration in raising Elon Musk should have been, hey, my kid is neurodiverse. I'm going to have to help him develop his empathy. I'm gonna have to have him do that. At the same time, there is your kid who is struggling with their own neurodivergence.

0:41:52 Thomas: Elon Musk. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

0:42:18 Eli: And you're like, at what point am I we need to talk about Kevin And at what point am I giving my kids space to grow empathy in his own way? Right. Like, you know, we talked about the fact that like Max went through a hitting phase with us. Max went Through a hitting phase at school. Right. And like, it's very easy when a neurodiverse seeming person does something monstrous to go like, how did those parents let that happen? But that's because there's never a moment for you as a parent where you go, oh, my kid's a dud.

0:42:49 Eli: Oh, man. Now I figured it out. That was when he didn't mourn Mr. Kitty. That's when I realized I needed to, you know, he was next for the poison vial in my. I didn't get me my poisoning cloak. I got to do Arlo. Right. And so there's this thing often where when your kid is not necessarily having a neuro normative experience of something, thing. You want to create a space for healthiness and you also want to let them experience it in their own way because a tremendous amount of maladaptive behavior that we associate with neurodiversity is actually a reaction to bad experiences because of neurodiverse.

0:43:31 Eli: Right. So like if you are teased for how you react. So like flapping is a really good example. There is nothing wrong with flapping right when a lot of neurodiverse kids flap it's just how they show excitement and there's no evidence that flapping does anything bad to your life but right

0:43:47 Thomas: Other than people having a problem with it, right? Yeah.

0:43:50 Eli: But there was an idea among like codified psychology for a really long time that you had to stop them from doing it because of the negative results that would come in those social situations around it and so that's often what happens here is like do we let our kids process emotions in their own way? Do we let them go through those phases and figure it out? Maybe they're processing in a more intellectual way, right? Maybe they're processing emotionally, but they don't necessarily show emotions in the same way we do.

0:44:18 Eli: Not only is there no guidebook for it, but again, when you go to the world for answers, it is filled with empathy-less loons who have created entire fictional existences around themselves. And all they want to do is lie to you about your child's medical condition.

0:44:39 Thomas: And it really is all of that a huge yes and to all that because it's like the thing I worry most about with specifically Arlo is I worry that he might have a lack of empathy but he's also six you know so it's like you know I'm just keeping an eye on it but it is something that there's ways that I think sometimes people with maybe that type of neurodivergence it's a little harder for them to easily understand you know like the pain of other people in a way sometimes or by the way sometimes they're just the most empathetic people, the most heroically virtuous people are neurodiverse people. I have a new theory after having our kids and also learning more about it that every exceptional person in history was probably neurodivergent.

0:45:29 Thomas: That's my new theory. Everybody who was like, I am so dedicated to this cause that I'm going to literally sacrifice my life for it.

0:45:36 Lydia: Greta Thunberg. Yeah. Yeah.

0:45:36 Thomas: It's like, oh, that's like when I try to get Arlo to do a single thing he doesn't want to do. You're like, maybe, yeah, you're like, well, who knows?

0:45:42 Eli: They just happened to land on the good thing. Yeah, no. Well, and,

0:45:49 Thomas: So some of the most incredible, you know, empathetic people. Um, but also I think there can be a risk where it's like, sometimes it doesn't come as naturally. And I want to know as a dad where I'm like, gosh, do, can I, can I try to instill this? Cause that's my biggest nightmare is one of my kids being an evil piece of shit online or something, you know, like turning into those people.

0:46:07 Eli: And yeah, and we talk about this all the time in our house. I am very aware of this and I am actively talking about it. So we talk about focusing our mind on kindness and we talked about, Anna doesn't like the terminology, but we talked about innate Buddha nature, which comes from, uh, Roshi Kaplow's seven pillars of Buddhism, which is the idea idea that the inherent you is perfect, right? And that things get in the way of that, but it is not the inherent.

0:46:34 Eli: You is flawed and we need to fix those flaws. It's that the inherent you is perfect. We get things out of the way. Of our perfection. It says it's like a big mind shift change from what most Western because most Western thought is based on Judeo-Christian ideas of natural sin, right.

0:46:49 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sinners. Yeah.

0:46:49 Eli: Or inherent sin. Right. And so we need the morning, this morning, me and Max, almost every morning when he leaves, we go through, what do you need to focus your mind on?

0:47:00 Thomas: Hmm.

0:47:00 Eli: And he says, kindness, right? We focus our mind on kindness. We talk about it all the time. And when we are praising him and talking to him about him, we make sure that we always talk about how kind he is, how generous he is. Even when he has not demonstrated that behavior, the things that people say about you is how you self-identify, right? So I don't just say like, hey, I love you. I say, hey Max, do you know I love you? And yeah. And do you know why I love it? It's because you're so sweet. It's cause you're so funny and curious and gentle and kind. And he might not have been any of those things

0:47:01 Thomas: Oh, so sweet.

0:47:33 Eli: That day, but I know that if his whole life, I tell him he is those things, he will be eventually. Essentially but to zoom out right the truth of the matter is right and look we don't like to admit this on the left the core of every good thing is empathy there's no bedrock scientific explanation for why we shouldn't let the poor starve right and the more you try to do that the more you're going to lose right because if you play in the realm of facts don't care about your feelings, you will always fail. Someone will always introduce a new hypothesis for eating the poor that you have to address

0:47:41 Thomas: That's so true.

0:47:41 Lydia: Mm-mm.

0:47:52 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:48:00 Lydia: Yeah, mm

0:48:14 Eli: Like it's an emotion -free thing. The core of everything that's broken is empathy, right? Because the real answer, right, the one that we can't give and the one that we tried to give from, yes,

0:48:19 Lydia: -hmm, yeah,

0:48:20 Thomas: Well, you know how you know? Sorry for a second. You know, how many fucking MAGA and Republicans keep writing the book called Fuck Empathy? It's the worst.

0:48:30 Eli: It's truly empathy. Yeah, it is.

0:48:31 Thomas: Literally, there's like five of them that we know. Yeah.

0:48:34 Eli: It's the free space on the MAGA philosopher bingo card. Have you gotten the Facebook ad for the quote-unquote fictional book that's about the world where everyone's too empathetic and then the one man is brave enough? God, it fucking rules so hard. To be a piece of shit, it fuckin'

0:48:47 Thomas: Oh, God. Jesus. One man is brave enough to be an asshole. Oh my God.

0:48:54 Eli: Rocks. It rocks so hard, right?

0:48:54 Thomas: That is so fucking awesome. I need to know what this is.

0:48:58 Lydia: .

0:48:58 Thomas: So, okay. Pin in that.

0:48:59 Eli: But the core of it, right, the core of all of this is, well, why should I, right - It's because it makes other people sad. It's because it makes other people sad and you shouldn't do it well what if it makes me sad no that's not real it doesn't actually make you sad we could though no you're just pretending you're using the what if I had emotions too thing but you don't the thing you're sad about is the thing that I'm sad about you just blame trans people instead of the financial system which made you poor like it's just you're wrong about what you should be sad about and so instilling that in our kids unapologetically especially when our kids are neurodiverse is really tricky because you also want to let them be themselves right and process emotions in their own way and thomas I can only speak for us, Lydia maybe you're a sad girl in the way that thomas and I

0:49:01 Lydia: .

0:49:12 Thomas: Yeah, you're just pretending that. Yep. Yep, yep,

0:49:14 Lydia: . Yeah.

0:49:25 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly, yep.

0:49:45 Eli: Are sad boys but like as someone who feels things so deeply I take a pill every morning to kill that part of myself right because that's all it is right keep in mind keats just died of sadness right keats was just like and he fucking died and like brother I get it but And then at 11, they were like, hey, man, you're not going to make it if we don't fucking, we need to turn the, yeah, we need to return the volume down on you by a pretty significant margin,

0:50:08 Thomas: You need more time to be Keats. No, Lydia's heartless. She doesn't care about anything. Just kidding. Jesus Christ.

0:50:19 Eli: Lydia. Lydia loves it when she's actually the poisoner. Yeah, that's what I always say, Lydia Smith is just like Elon Musk.

0:50:20 Lydia: I'm Elon Musk, yeah . . No. No.

0:50:34 Eli: All right, Smiths, before we go, oh,

0:50:28 Clip: DEAR OLD DADS

0:50:37 Thomas: I totally forgot to do this bit at the end of the last episode Eli completely forgot didn't uh yeah yeah yeah yeah I

0:50:41 Eli: How dare you?

0:50:40 Lydia: Yes, you did. You also didn't rip into it. Yep, you did not do it. These are all things I noticed.

0:50:47 Thomas: Guess we do need you on the

0:50:50 Eli: That's right. I was flirting with the most gorgeous woman at the bar last night. At one point, I told her, believe it or not, I have the most famous name in all of Ireland. She smiled and replied, oh, really? And I said, how did you know?

0:51:07 Thomas: Show when someone knocks at the door and we don't answer within a second I need them to actively die yeah they'll stay there and the dog will bark for 40 minutes it's like we don't want to talk to you whatever it is yeah

0:51:59 Lydia: Leave? Yeah. Go away. Yeah,

0:52:01 Eli: Also, why are you knocking on my door? The only reason to knock on my door. Hey, I was passing by and I noticed your house is on fire and you didn't.

0:52:12 Thomas: It's on fire yeah

0:52:13 Lydia: Exactly. Which I literally did for our neighbor the other day. I was like, there's an unmanned barbecue going crazy in the backyard. Just want to make sure you guys are home. And like, that's—they were mad at me. Yeah. It was weird. And they're like, yeah, things are they're fine. And I was like, okay.

0:52:22 Thomas: Yeah and they were mad at you for that

0:52:26 Eli: Yeah. Oh, my kid's a dud.