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Cat People Don't Believe In Cat Allergies · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much. We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.
• 0:10
  We try not to waste too much, 'cause it drives me nuts, and it's expensive, and also for obvious climate reasons, which is why the Mill Food Recycler changed our lives a couple years ago.
• 0:23
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• 0:37
  Way less waste, less smell, way less garbage, which by the way saves you money. No leaky bags.
• 0:44
  Look, you got peels, bones, stalks, whatever leftovers, dump them in the Mill, and Mill dries and grinds them while you sleep. Again, it doesn't smell, which I don't understand. It's sleek. It's actually sexy.
• 1:00
  Here's a question people ask, "How often do you empty it?" Good question. It's every three weeks. I don't know, maybe, and there's a bunch of us.
• 1:07
  Plus, there's a little app where you can control it if you want and set a schedule, and it shows you how much food your family keeps out of landfills. A delight.
• 1:15
  Look, you can get $75 off right now when you go to our special partner site. I'm gonna read you the link, but you should know it's also in the show notes, and you can just click it.
• 1:26
  It is mill.com/lp/important-not-important. That is [laughs] mill.com/lp/important-not-important. I couldn't remember that, so we put it in the show notes.
• 1:44
  It's right there for you. Check it out. Huge thanks to Mill for sponsoring our work and doing the right thing, and thanks to all of you listeners for supporting our partners.
• 1:53
  [upbeat music] My context for allergies growing up was when Macaulay Culkin got stung by the bee in the movie and died. I was like- Yeah... so that's allergies I guess.
• 2:05
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this. We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like... Lost Chromebook chargers and lost democracy.
• 2:23
  Crying over spilled milk, and also are we drinking dairy anymore? It's not an advice show. It's a you're not alone, and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kinda show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.
• 2:36
  And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important. You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website notrightnow.show..show.
• 2:46
  And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet and then drop us a nice little five-star review.
• 2:54
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questionsatnotrightnow.show. [upbeat music] Hey, it's Quinn.
• 3:10
  Just a heads-up, at the first bit of this and then k- kinda throughout there's some very well-intentioned light-hearted joking about assisted suicide based on some thing that was in the news.
• 3:23
  And I don't know, man, we tried to have some fun with it, but if this is at all triggering to you, skip it.
• 3:29
  We also talk about allergies, and cats, and, you know, children who don't believe in real things, so pretty standard stuff. That's it. Just wanted to put that out there.
• 3:39
  But anyways, if you got questions or hate mail or recipes, as always, questionsatnotrightnow.show. Thanks. [upbeat music] I can't find my garbage can.
• 3:51
  My son and his friend were up here maybe doing their science project, and Steve made Paul promise to leave my office pristine, which I guess means there's some things clear and sticky on my desk.
• 4:06
  They definitely opened up my laser hair remover, which I had up here 'cause I was doing it up here in privacy.
• 4:12
  And he had his friend using my foot massager that I keep under my desk, and this kid has the largest feet in the world.
• 4:20
  Anyway, so I actually recommend, despite everything that we've said over the last year, that people should get their kid a smartphone or watch because then you can look forward to punishing them with it by saying, "You can't use it until you fix everything that you did."
• 4:36
  So. Have you taken the watch away yet? W- he lost it last week- Okay... because he was on academic probation for, for school. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Which I gotta say, love academic probation.
• 4:48
  Shameful at first, but also, wow, what a nice break, to be honest. So he lost it for a week. He was gonna get it back today, little does he know. I actually sent him an email. I was gonna write, tell him off. How formal.
• 5:00
  What are you, Chuck Schumer? Well, I didn't yell at him over email, which I wanted to 'cause he's at school, but I did send him an email, no subject line, which I hope he knows means- Strong... you're in deep shit. Yeah.
• 5:10
  Yeah, not great... saying, "Where's my garbage can?" So anyway, that is top of mind right now. When you and I were, you know, in high school and college, it, th- they didn't...
• 5:21
  There wasn't email, but I'm trying to think of, like, written at the top of, like, homework or a test or something, professor, like you were looking- "See me"... for your grade, and you... Yeah. Yeah. "See me," right?
• 5:29
  Mm-hmm. Fuck. So- It's never like- Yeah... Claire, you blew everybody out of the water. Mm-hmm. This is incredible, and I'm not surprised- Right... 'cause I should expect this of you, but wow. That's how- Right.
• 5:41
  Well, it wasn't that for me. Yeah. See me to talk about your bright future. Here's the stapler that the kids can never find. It's on my desk now. Uh-huh. Anyway. Was it on your desk before?
• 5:51
  No, um, they have been asking me, like, bitchily for the last month where the stapler is, and I don't know 'cause it's out of my hands, like, they've absorbed it into their ecosystem, so it's purely by coincidence that the stapler ended up on a desk.
• 6:05
  Do you feel like he learned a lesson fromEither and academic probation from basketball and losing his watch. What was the lesson, and which one do you think was more effective, if at all? Okay.
• 6:21
  So the day of academic probation, I picked him up, and I was taking him to a dentist appointment, and he was getting a filling. And so I was keeping it kind of... I didn't, I don't think I came down on him too hard.
• 6:31
  I started the old, "How did you feel when you heard about that?" You know, "Did you know what was going on?" You know. Right. And not g-not good.
• 6:39
  And I let Steve do the, like, asshole tearing when we got home because, mostly because this was right after break, and they had, he had made him confirm. And this is...
• 6:48
  If parents are listening who have younger kids or who don't have kids, a weird thing about school right now is that you don't go to class, at least in my kids' school, and maybe for yours too, and turn in your work.
• 6:58
  It's a lot of online turning in. So a lot of it is like he'd get the work done but just fails to submit it online.
• 7:04
  And it's not necessarily understandable, but it's sort of different than when your teacher is coming around collecting papers, then you're like, "Oh shit, I have nothing to turn in." So- Right...
• 7:12
  a lot of it is like admin work, right?
• 7:14
  And then another lesson he learned was that we went to my parents' house on Friday, and my dad, who is famous for not being able to let anything go ever, kept asking him, "How did you let that happen?"
• 7:24
  And I finally had to snap on my dad and say, "We got this. We're the parents." And then he- Oh, boy. I've said that a lot lately. Yeah.
• 7:31
  And then my dad, even worse, probably started on some speech about how Paul should never do less than his best, and he knows, he believes in him, that he can do... You know.
• 7:41
  Anyway, so I was like, "I hope you learned your lesson, that you don't do that again, so you don't hear it from your grandpa." So I don't know. I don't even give a shit about the watch.
• 7:49
  The other thing is that he can actually still talk to all his friends and do all his shit because he has to use a laptop for school. So in a weird way, it's like the watch is just a, an accessory. You know? Mm-hmm.
• 8:00
  Anyway, so he'll feel it today. The other thing I was gonna say, [laughs] have you noticed that im- what is the word? Immature, emotionally immature parenting. That's sort of like a zeitgeist phrase lately. I...
• 8:10
  Less about that, I did... I think related, there's a book that's, like, children of emotionally stupid parents or something like that. Yeah.
• 8:19
  The premise which, of which I don't even wanna know because I'm like, "Am I possibly emotionally immature?" I don't wanna know. And is that a sign of being emotionally immature? I don't care.
• 8:29
  But I really wanted to go fuck up his room, basically- Mm... like, in response to him fucking up my office. And, uh, and I was like, is that a sign of an emotionally immature parent?
• 8:39
  The nice thing is that his room is, like, pretty fucked up, so I don't even have to do it for him. Right. That's the thing. I think you had something in here. You texted me something about revenge.
• 8:46
  And, you know, there's the videos online, and it's, you know, guy now with kid, his own kids, and grandpa shows up, and he
• 8:55
  gleefully leaves the fucking cereal everywhere, and the doors open and uses 42 glasses and all that. And, like, I get it. I get it. Mm. I don't know how effective it is.
• 9:06
  I do believe in spite and pettiness- Yeah, mm-hmm... for sure. I don't know if you need to, like, beat the dead horse. But for one, like, that's for you. You know? Mm-hmm.
• 9:16
  Like, fucking up his room, even if he doesn't get the message, oh, God, it's gonna feel great. 'Cause here's the thing, you're still his parent. You get to be like, "Clean it up." Yeah.
• 9:24
  Well, and I fucked up his room yesterday by helping him... God, how did this start? Oh, first of all, how are you, by the way? Let me pause. How...
• 9:33
  Tell me about some bullshit in your family before I just keep going off 'cause I could, and, like, the world is burning.
• 9:38
  And so let me pause and listen to your- We're, the world is burning, and we're preparing for snow, but sounds like even more ice mageddon that will either be one inch or 42 inches, and so you're just like, "I don't fucking know."
• 9:50
  Oh. "I don't fucking know." I've got backup plans on backup plans. Might not do them, might do them. I don't know. It's, uh, like everything else, it just feels so incredibly out of your control.
• 9:59
  Um- Has school been parentally canceled for you guys yet? Not yet. They have off Monday f-f-for some, like, teacher work day. God, I love teachers so much. I don't understand how two weeks after
• 10:12
  holiday break and one week after Martin Luther King Day long weekend, we can have another one. I don't know. But I guess there's almost, like, less stress because we already knew Monday they weren't gonna go to school.
• 10:23
  But I don't fucking know. I don't know. That's kind of ever pre- Everyone was ignoring it. Now we're just like, "Fuck, it's actually happening, I guess." I don't know. I would love for it to not to, or...
• 10:32
  It's, I don't know. I don't know. It's a beautiful day. I need to go for a walk. Got a lot to do. We're honing in on our 2026 planning here for everything. And yeah. Well, it's, one of my kids started new piano lessons.
• 10:43
  They're really excited about that, and then last night asked for both a electric guitar and a drum set, which, as we have stated, I'm like, one, no, save your money. Two, not a screen, go get 'em. Don't care. That's fun.
• 10:56
  The other two, I don't know. Everyone's annoyed at me at any given moment. Somebody stomped out a, I don't even remember which shout it was, stomped out of the house this morning,
• 11:04
  20 minutes before the bus was coming, just to not be around me. Great. Yep. And which I feel was the right reaction because I do that all the time. Yeah. I just go to my bedroom and close the door. Yeah.
• 11:15
  All my children got out of bed consecutively over and over again last night for completely ridiculous reasons. Tell me, what was one of them? Did they say- I'm on my wife's heating pad. Like, leave me, leave me alone.
• 11:24
  Oh, man. Well, the, there's the standard, "When is Mom gonna come in?" And I'm like, "Well, if you'd left her alone earlier, she wouldn't have to be working now." She comes home five minutes after you fall asleep.
• 11:35
  That's the answer. Yep, that's the answer. That's, "Well, when is it gonna be? When are you gonna fall asleep?" Mm-hmm. "That's when she'll be home, after you're asleep." I know. "Maybe I'll still be awake."
• 11:41
  "You're missing the point." They're fine. You know, they're getting exasperated with, like, activities they're currently signed up for and committed to, and I don't care. To do. Yeah.
• 11:51
  And, you know, uh, like, they're doing fine in school, so I'm like, I could not care more and be checked out less, whatever the overlap, the Venn diagram of that is. Mm-hmm.
• 12:01
  They're like, I'm like, "What are you actually doing in math?" And they're like, "I don't know." I'm like, "Great. Conversation's over." I'm not even- Don't even wanna know. What are you gonna- I don't, like, I'm so
• 12:09
  fucking far past it at this point. You gonna do some math, like, with them? Yeah. Well, what are you gonna do with that information?Truth That question...
• 12:16
  you know, they were, and then they tried to pronounce, like, what math thing they were doing, and they pronounced it wrong, and I was like, "Doesn't matter. You're not... What are you gonna go, college? Clearly not.
• 12:24
  Fucking idiot" Yeah. Tell me how you would approach this.
• 12:26
  Last night I put James to bed, and it was right after I was, like, babysitting my mom for an hour 'cause, or no, sorry, for c- several hours 'cause my dad went out with his buddies to have some pizza and beer, which I support.
• 12:37
  He n- I'm happy he went out Totes. Sure. It wasn't that bad. James is a good guy. Like, he was nice. He did try to take one of my pillows from me. [laughs] He said, "You don't ever use this pillow."
• 12:45
  I'm, "Don't tell me what I do and do not use." [laughs] But I went down, and who, I was doing dishes or something like that, and he called, and he said, "Mom?" And I was like, "What?"
• 12:55
  You know, and he said, "I was gonna ask you to close my closet door, and then I realized I could do it myself."
• 13:04
  And so on the one [laughs] hand I'm like, "Shut up," but also I'm like, you know, it was like, "Thank you very much." You know, that was- Yeah, you win a Pulitzer. Congratulations... Yeah.
• 13:12
  I mean, and you do get the credit. Uh, you didn't need to tell me about it, but I'm proud as hell of that thought process, so keep it up. Truly, like, that sentence could've ended a thousand different ways.
• 13:23
  He also told Steve, I picked up some books for them at the library, and one of the books, he told Steve, "This is not Mom's fault at all, but the book that she got me, we already have a copy of."
• 13:35
  [laughs] Honestly, that's growth. It- That's fucking growth... It was. Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:40
  Imagine it being my fault, if it was my fault, like, that I had, the idiot I was, I had gone to get the book that we already- Fucking asshole. Yeah. Give me a lot of grace. So a couple things.
• 13:53
  Was talking to a friend who was saying, boy, this is a real A to B to C to D thing.
• 13:59
  Someone who was like, oh, their kids are, like, our kids' ages, and she was like, "Oh, I recently, we finished watching The Good Place with our kids again for the second time." And I was like, "That's fucking awesome.
• 14:09
  It's so great." And then I told them how our youngest, I got him the audiobook of How to Be Perfect, which is the sort of intro philosophy funny book by Mike Schur, who created The Good Place. It's great.
• 14:21
  He just took, like, everything he learned for that show and he put it in a book, and it's great. And I was like, "Oh, I bet he would love The Good Place. Like, I love that show. It's really great."
• 14:29
  And I thought about, you know, because it's, oh, it turns out we're in the bad place, this and that, and obviously everyone has their different beliefs, th- and we've talked about it a little bit, the death doula stuff, is there an afterlife?
• 14:40
  Uh, you know, if it is, what is it? What are your options, or even is it baked in from the fucking start? And then you shared with me what looked to me like
• 14:50
  the capsule from Alien that everybody sleeps in, except it was, I think, purple, and it was for two people, and it was for the long sleep. And I will admit I didn't read the article, but my first thought was,
• 15:04
  "Who is the worst person to go into this suicide capsule with?" If, let's say they're, the, you don't know what the afterlife is or what the rules are.
• 15:14
  And I was thinking also, there's some movie out where one of the ladies gotta pick between her longtime husband and, like, her- Oh, yeah... starter husband who died in the war, and she's gotta pick one apparently.
• 15:24
  If you have to spend at least a significant part of the afterlife essentially connected to one person, who would be the worst person in your life that's not, you know, Hitler? Right now. [upbeat music] Hey, it's Quinn.
• 15:41
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• 15:54
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• 16:51
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• 16:59
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• 17:08
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• 17:25
  We depend on it every minute of every day. So thanks for supporting our partners. [upbeat music] It can change. I mean, right now, and I love him, he's a really good man, but my dad, I would have to say, because- Mm...
• 17:37
  he does this thing where you'll make a decision, like, on a restaurant or what you're gonna eat, and then he always gives you, he alerts you to the other options and, like, kinda stirs things up again.
• 17:49
  And like I said, he can't let anything drop, so if you made a mistake or- Mm-hmm... you know, five pounds overweight, he'll let you know or ask you- Mm... how that happened.
• 17:58
  I've gotten better about understanding that's not his fault. He's also got this interesting balance now of, like, authoritative boomer lawyer, but also he clearly has ADHD, and he's older, so he forgets things.
• 18:12
  So it's, like, this combination of, like, authoritative and helpless at the same time.
• 18:17
  Like, he was laughing about how he doesn't know where the plants in the house are, 'cause I was watering them while my mom was in the hospital. Right.
• 18:22
  So again, I love my dad, but I would want to be in the afterlife or go out with someone who is a good balance of go with the flow, has a plan, not imposing it on you.Doesn't necessarily think they know everything, but what they do know, they know well.
• 18:39
  You know? Like, some combination of... It'd be like a travel companion, like anyone I'd wanna go on a girls' trip with. Correct. Like, basically is what I would prefer.
• 18:46
  I mean, I feel like the, there's gotta be, like, a list of non-negotiables, right? So for me, I have that, whatever the fake gene is, where, like, people eating sends me into, like, rage. Pure eyes glazed over rage.
• 18:58
  So it's like can't be a loud eater. You gotta eat with your mouth closed. Like, I can't do it forever, which eliminates everyone in my family. I like how you said
• 19:07
  the worst person would be someone who micromanages and/or people who are entirely passive. I don't know what's worse. I think passive might be worse. Yeah.
• 19:14
  I mean, again, if you ever go on a trip with a buddy or friend, the perfect combination is that each person kinda owns one thing and then sits back and lets the other person do the other thing, and doesn't bitch about their choices.
• 19:27
  Or you- Mm-hmm... you know, like- Mm-hmm... you just have a good trade-off of I own this, you own that.
• 19:31
  I'm grateful for the parts where I'm not owning things, and I'm not gonna complain about the choices that I chose not to make.
• 19:38
  I think you definitely don't wanna go into the pod with someone who's [laughs] who's historically pretty indecisive, because- Yes. We can do it now, or we can wait till Saturday. Like, you know. Yeah.
• 19:47
  You wanna be, like, someone who is, you know, makes executive decisions. Right. But also, like, pretty jittery. What was that noise? It's like, it doesn't matter an- you know. It- Yeah. Not someone fidgety, obviously.
• 19:58
  No. And, you know, not someone who can't enjoy their own company. You know, I always feel bad for those people who don't enjoy their alone time.
• 20:06
  Like, even though we would be together, you know, if someone who, like, has to always be talking, you know, things like that. Mm. Like, no. I, I need a minute. Yeah.
• 20:14
  Famous person, dead or alive, that you would, would go in with? I feel like Paul McCartney 'cause you just have a lot of things to ask him about, you know? Mm. God, fuck, that's good. And... Yeah.
• 20:23
  Well, he makes me laugh 'cause I love him, you can't deny him, but also I have things to say about Taylor Swift, her opinions, you know.
• 20:31
  And, and everyone hates on her for always releasing, you know, new versions of her songs and always making a book, but I was like, Paul McCartney invented and perfected that.
• 20:40
  He just released a book about Wings, which my dad gave me for Christmas, and now he has another book or project, I forgot, something about his, like, post-Beatles, pre-Wings, his, like, going solo years.
• 20:51
  And, like, he really does not miss a chance, and I, I guess I respect it. People want to hear it. Sure. But he- No, the hustle's all right. Also, you're Paul McCartney, what's somebody gonna say? Yeah.
• 20:59
  And, but he also seems like a happy person, you know what I mean?
• 21:02
  Like, I don't need to be in there with someone angsty, so he'd have really good stories, he's kind of funny, and, you know, a good outlook, I feel like, so how about you?
• 21:10
  What song do you think, which Beatles or Paul McCartney or Wings song do you think he's humming as the gas kicks in? 'Cause it's the last song you're gonna hear.
• 21:21
  What do you think he's humming, and what would you prefer him to be humming? That's a real- I mean, I would be happy with anything. I think he would do something sort of nostalgic probably. Mm-hmm. "Penny Lane" maybe.
• 21:31
  Hmm. And that's kinda fun. Yeah, yeah. You don't want, like, "Yesterday." Right. Well, his music is very, likes to look back on old-timey stuff, you know?
• 21:39
  And I mean, he's been like that since he was young, so yeah, I think something like that. Yeah. Who knows? Paul, if you're listening, please write in. Let me know if I'm wrong. Never know. Never know.
• 21:49
  He's a parent, grand all the things. Yeah, no, those are good ones. Those are good ones. Or who you would hate to be stuck in there with. I, I'm more, like, conditions, I guess.
• 21:58
  I would definitely, like you said, conversationalist, people you can ask questions of. Maybe... Like, I can talk baseball trivia and stats all day, and- Mm-hmm... someone who
• 22:08
  is just an encyclopedia about that and kn- knows stats I don't know but is also, like, willing to- That'd be a nice way to go out. Right?
• 22:17
  James, just as a pause, like, we, he found a sweet spot for me where he was quizzing me on all the football teams because I was saying there's certain teams I don't care about and I can't name a player from each team.
• 22:31
  And I was playing Scrabble with Paul and Steve, and he kept naming teams and be like, "You don't know Emmitt Smith?" And I'd be like, "Oh, I do know Emmitt Smith.
• 22:38
  I mean, I know him more as, like, a dancer, but I do know who he is." So we were going down these teams.
• 22:42
  So anyway, James is too young and you wouldn't wanna be stuck in there with him, but I do see, having been gone to sleep, like, for wisdom teeth, I feel like going out on sports chitchat would be a pleasant way to, you know, unspool.
• 22:54
  A, a friend and I, childhood friend and I, we went on a vacat- He came with my family, went on a vacation, and we spent the entire week playing a game where you would say, if you said Ken Griffey, okay, Junior or Senior, two different entries.
• 23:11
  I would have to say a player whose name starts with G. Mm. 'Cause his last name ended with G. Mm-hmm. So I would say, I mean, there's a thousand different options, right?
• 23:20
  And then if I, next one ended with P, Kirby Puckett, right? Yeah. You would have to start one with P. Paul Konerko. Right. Correct. Oh, yeah, first names or last names? Could we do this for the whole episode?
• 23:30
  I would try to do this. 100%. Does it have to be all the same, same sport, or any athlete, any sport? O- o- only baseball. Okay. But you got the whole 150 years to work with.
• 23:37
  And I tell you, we did not do a duplicate or stop for the entire week, and I'd just do that. Do we agree on everything? I'm glad that- He and I? N- no. Not even remotely. But, like, I get...
• 23:48
  If there's one thing, like, sure. My dad, I told my, I told James this. Sorry, I know we're going so off-topic, but he- Who cares?
• 23:54
  I was telling him my, his brain reminds me of my dad's brain, even though I was just talking shit about my dad. He, he's like James, where sometimes you're like...
• 24:02
  I, I texted you today about, like, how can I exchange James for this five-year-old who was shipped off by ice 'cause I was so sick of him. Yeah.
• 24:08
  But he also has a very precious brain, and something that reminds me of my kid is that my dad would tell me that when he swims laps for exercise, every number lap, he would just think about a person whose number, whose number that was.
• 24:20
  So when he was on lap 23, he would just think about Michael Jordan the whole time. Lap 15, he would think about me, 'cause my birthday's on the 15th. Lap 35, he'd think about Frank Thomas.
• 24:29
  And I was like, that's a very similar, you know, same brain. Sure. Like- Yeah, no, 100%. I can appreciate that stuff. Appreciate- Anyway, the, back to the coffin, to the, you know, the portal to the other world.
• 24:39
  Portal to the other side. What- Yeah, I feel like I got a, a... Or just someone who's, like, down to... Again, O- Oliver's new music piano teacher. I, I briefly last night mentioned I...
• 24:48
  This is the first time I'd met her. I talked to her on the phone. Totally love her vibe. She's, I don't know, mid-60s, early 70s.Just teaches in her apartment. I mentioned one. What'd I mention?
• 24:57
  Herbie Hancock, and we're instantly down a road of music history for 10 minutes and this and that, and I was like, "Oh, I could do this all day." Mm. That's... So I'm n- I'm not gonna get tired of that, you know?
• 25:06
  Someone who's fine to let me just handle the admin of it so we can just get it done and get it done right the first time would be great. Mm-hmm. I think that's probably helpful. And then, yeah, not a loud juror.
• 25:16
  Well, love aside, love and re- relationship and history aside, be brutally honest. Would Dana be a good person to do that with? Well, I think s- she's asleep the whole time no matter what, no matter where we are. Okay.
• 25:28
  W- whatever's left. So- So she's neutral? Yeah. Obviously, first choice, this and that. Yeah, I think she'd be great. She doesn't take up much room. Uh-huh.
• 25:36
  You know, so I'm gonna get a disproportionate amount of the pod. Again, she's very quick to fall asleep. Yeah. Either way. And I think she's gonna be able to roll with the flow a little bit, you know? Yeah.
• 25:47
  No matter how it goes down. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Definitely- Yeah... many worse choices. What about you? Are you choosing your husband?
• 25:55
  I would choose him if he had not had anything to drink, because he snores when he's drinking. Oh, sure.
• 26:01
  And then also sometimes when he's had a drink, he starts sort of like sp- spooling off into these sort of conversations that I've heard before, and they're sort of like pronouncements kind of things, and that's fine.
• 26:12
  Th- there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing, like, violent. But, you know, I've heard these sort of stories before, these sort of trains of thought, so I don't wanna go out hearing him talking about- I know...
• 26:20
  you know, why he left Phoenix or something like that. So, mm. Jesus. Yeah. Br- I, I mean, I mean, truly.
• 26:26
  My wife said the other day that my dad told a story that instantly annoyed me, and she actually said, "But I haven't heard that one before, so it was not as bad." And I was like, "Okay." My dad told me a crazy story.
• 26:39
  So my mom is not supposed to drink post-hospital, and of course, she... My dad says he's only fixing her small cocktails, and whatever, I have to let go and let God.
• 26:50
  And but this first family dinner after she got released from rehab, my dad was making this pronouncement, overly loud, that they're not gonna drink anymore.
• 26:58
  And my brother, who was doing Dry January, said, "Well, you should try THC," which I don't agree with. My parents don't need to get into fucking that shit.
• 27:05
  But my brother was like, "Gummies help me," and my dad said, "You do that?" And we're just, like, in this new phase where I'm... We're clearly adults now. We're not children. Mm-hmm. We're not the... Like...
• 27:14
  And I said, "I do too," or, "I have too."
• 27:18
  And, and then my dad went into this story, and he has never, ever told us a story about either of them doing drugs, and he told this story about how in college, he had known my mom, like, earlier in middle school, but he was in college at Northwestern, and he was hitchhiking somewhere, and my mom picked him up.
• 27:32
  She happened to be driving, and she picked him up, and she said, "I know where I can get some weed." And they got high together. And [laughs] I mean, it was just wild. Never heard that one before? Never, ever.
• 27:45
  I don't know where that shook loose from. Like, maybe there's a new, you know, paradigm, I guess- Uh-huh, uh-huh... where we're just, like, gonna let it all hang out.
• 27:52
  And then he started telling some other story about, like, their first date when they started making out, and then my brother and I were like- Yep, that's it... "Stop." Yep. We don't... You know. Nope. Yeah.
• 28:00
  That was just wild. Again, just it'd be like if your dad was like, "Did I ever tell you about the three years I was a cross-dresser?" And you're like, "What?" Mm-hmm. Like, just, you know- Just...
• 28:08
  hearing something completely different, you know? Gonna finally let that one out. The sandwich generation thing, it... What a time to [laughs] what a fucking time to be alive.
• 28:16
  The Virginia legislature was sworn in last week, and then the new governor and lieutenant governor and attorney general, by the skin of his fucking teeth, were sworn in this weekend. We went. We were very thankful.
• 28:26
  We went to Ghazala Hashmi's, uh, inaugural ball, and we're very proud of her. And then we went to the actual ceremony. That was great.
• 28:32
  And then d- [laughs] Stina said she forgot to read the program and that we were in Virginia, and so after they did, they swore in attorney general and then lieutenant governor and then the governor, and then right before her speech,
• 28:44
  like, they did a 21-cannon salute. And things are tense. Yep. You know? Mm. Where I am down here, and there, we probably have 10 podcasts where a cannon has gone off, and you might not be able to hear it, but it happens.
• 28:57
  But these, she was like, "I didn't know that was happening-" Mm-hmm... "and was sure this was it." 'Cause they were, like, right behind. It was, like, three cannons just- Yeah... just going.
• 29:09
  That is, that would scare the shit out of me. I remember when I was a kid, I was very afraid of fireworks, and I went to a Bulls game after the Bulls had won the, a champ- maybe they'd, after they three-peated.
• 29:19
  I don't remember. They unveiled some new feature where they th- they had some, like, indoor fireworks, like, during the, you know, the Bulls had this big introduction. And I ran for the exits.
• 29:28
  And now, of course, the, like, that Swiss fire that happened over New Year's. I'm like, "Why are we..." Anyway, I was thinking about your Virginia, the new governor, who I like to think I helped elect as well- Mm-hmm...
• 29:38
  with some fundraising. You did. You did.
• 29:40
  But I, this is my, I, like, I'm angry at the, myself for letting this get in my head, but Meghan McCain posted some picture of her, the governor, because she was, like, wearing a gas mask, I guess, like, during January 6th.
• 29:53
  And Meghan McCain was like, "We're cooked." And I was like, "What the..." I, it was just, I'm mad at myself for wasting precious time thinking about something Meghan McCain said. Like, why...
• 30:02
  I'm more mad at myself than Meghan McCain. Just leave me alone. I mean, you asked me, like, how to unsubscribe to the political things.
• 30:08
  And by the way, the, again, like, the legit ones, if you say stop, it should actually stop. But there's so many that are not legit or a nightmare, and someone's like, "Hey, Quinn. Sorry, it's Sunday morning.
• 30:16
  It's Liz Cheney." And I'm like, "Liz!" [laughs] Don't have it. Yeah. Don't have it right now. Everybody's mad at the brand of pancake mix I bought even though it's the same brand of pancake.
• 30:27
  "Well, Mom makes them different." Okay. Go get her up. See how that goes. Sorry, Liz. I don't fucking have it. No, I don't have... I'm not giving anything to anybody, and I don't, like... No.
• 30:38
  Let's just get us through this, like, m- to whatever. It's been interesting how... I feel like death has entered the conversation in an interesting way more lately.
• 30:48
  Like, where last night my dad came home from his night with his buddies, and he was saying how they all started the conversation by comparing notes about whether anyone had fallen down lately.
• 30:57
  And then he said they were all talking about how, like, whether they're gonna be cremated or buried.And I said, "Well, my friends and I are all talking about how we're all gonna kill ourselves when we're 65 so we don't have to put our kids through what you guys are."
• 31:09
  And he kind of was like you know, he kinda was like, "Whoa." Yeah. Like, a little bit... I think it's the Catholic in him maybe. He doesn't wanna... It's fine if you talk about death.
• 31:18
  But also, like, much respect to your dad, it's kinda like how I told you I got that book, Nobody Wants Your Shit. Mm-hmm. And I just leave it around the various houses of our family.
• 31:27
  And it's get rid of your shit before you die, 'cause no- nobody wants it. We don't wanna... I don't wanna fucking deal with it. And you had in our notes here how we're gonna aggressively sweep ourselves up ahead of time.
• 31:36
  I have already begun. Like, I am already in the cut it down phase, and just more of it. But again, like, respect to your dad, but should he be surprised that we're all like, "We're not gonna do this to our- the kids.
• 31:48
  You guys fucked us up in a real way." Yeah. It's, and in a lot of way- lot of ways. Yeah. I, yeah, I don't even blame her 'cause she's just not whatever. Like, her brain is just different than it used to be.
• 32:01
  But at this dinner on Friday, my dad was telling my mom, like, with his whole chest, like, how much I helped while they, she was in the hospital, and was like, "You have no idea everything that Claire did," and she was...
• 32:11
  He'd had a few drinks, so he was really going off. But she was sometimes a pain in the ass, but sort of a good way, and the kids of course lo- loved that.
• 32:18
  And my mom, how do you think she responded to this little speech about how much I did? Based on the context I have,
• 32:27
  which, you know, the last lucid thing I remember you telling me about her before we had to take our little break was her telling you that you were gonna fuck up Christmas.
• 32:37
  Or sorry, was it that you always fuck up Christmas? Something similar. Oh, it was like, why make a plan before you ruin Christmas- Sure... for other people. Right. Yeah, something like that, yeah.
• 32:45
  So that's what I'm going on. Optimistically, I'm gonna say she was like, "That's great." Not thank you, but, "That's great." No, like this. Like, sorta like that. Like, this again, or like, "All right."
• 32:59
  You know, basically something like that. So- Claire needs her accolades again. I mean... Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, she... No one asked for this, which is fine, 'cause I would almost rather... That's how I feel.
• 33:09
  'Cause I'm like, I didn't do this for, like... There's no good side of it. So anyway, I don't need any kind of appreciation for, you know, anything like that. So, where were we going again? Oh yeah, death. Let's go.
• 33:22
  I'm, like, looking forward to it. Yeah. Si- sign, sign me up. Oop, gotta cough, gotta go. I, going back, though, to academic probation. That didn't happen, though.
• 33:33
  I don't know if in Catholic school they send this to you, these kind of things to you guys, but...
• 33:37
  So we've discussed our children are on computers the entire day as it is, and we get these emails once a week or something like that that's like, "Here's the stuff your children used their computer for." Yeah.
• 33:48
  And there's a brief synopsis in the email, and then you can click through to more. I don't really care. But they'll send an image of one thing they searched for in the search box. I mean, first of all, again,
• 34:00
  just insane surveillance, and I completely- Sure... fucking hate and disagree with all of it. It's insane. On the other,
• 34:09
  one of them it showed up, and it said, "They searched for," and then it shows the little entry box, "Nazi salute." And I said, "Hey, bud. You know I get these emails, right?" And he's like, "Yeah." I said,
• 34:23
  "Just asking because of in general- Mm-hmm... but also now, why did you search for Nazi- Yeah... salute?" And he said, "Oh, it's not... Well,
• 34:35
  you know, the, we all know that you guys get those emails, and so sometimes we're trying to just put funny stuff in so that you guys will get to see it.
• 34:42
  But also, like, one of my friends didn't really know what it was, and so I said I'd look it up." I was like, "That's great. This is the answer I was expecting." Mm-hmm. Don't do that. I said- Right...
• 34:50
  "Do you think that's not a, like, a trigger thing?" I was like, "One, I guess it's not, 'cause I didn't get a fucking phone call that you were looking up Nazi salute." Yeah. I was like, "Two, but just
• 34:59
  the street smarts are just not there, just not there. They're just not there." Yeah. Yeah. That's kinda funny. There's some football player on the Rams, I wanna say.
• 35:06
  I forgot his name, but he was in trouble for doing some kind of antisemitic gesture that's not a Nazi salute.
• 35:12
  I don't remember what it was, but we were telling James that this guy, this player's a dumbass for that, and he was like, "What is the dance?" Or whatever it is. And we're like, "We don't know.
• 35:20
  We're not gonna look it up, and we're not gonna show you." But just, you know.
• 35:24
  Yeah, my friend- But I just feel like if you have to say please don't, if you and your friends are aware this is all being tracked and sent to your parents, I understand the inclination to say let's booby-trap it.
• 35:35
  But I hope you have the street smarts to say- I don't believe-... maybe I'll put something else in the box.
• 35:39
  Do they send you just any random sample, or do they send you things that are most, like, inflammatory or, you know, like- No, could be anything, you know? Okay.
• 35:46
  That's, I don't believe that he did it just to troll you, 'cause otherwise, like, he could've been caught looking up...
• 35:52
  A- and to be fair, like, as a parent, I would n- not like to hear that, but also, you know, maybe he's studying history, you know, or he heard, like- Easy. Sure. Right.
• 36:03
  I have a friend- By the way, he could've used that as an excuse. He did not. [upbeat music] I'm gonna tell you a little story here.
• 36:09
  When the iPhone first came out 2007, one of the first apps I tried to convince a coworker to help me develop was what I was calling, and people were calling, a read it later app.
• 36:20
  And that's 'cause we worked all day at ESPN, and we used to print up all the old ESPN Page 2 columns we loved, and then we would go and hide and read them on the company toilet.
• 36:31
  Wouldn't it have been great, though, is what I said, if we could just do that on our new touchscreen phones instead of printing them up? Anyways, 150 years later, I have tried every read it later app. All of them.
• 36:44
  Migrating my archives over and over. But a couple years ago, I found Reader from the creators of Readwise and never looked back. It's so good. It's so fast. It's so smart.
• 36:56
  It works in my browser to save articles and read them and highlight them. It works on my phone and my iPad. I put it on my phone on my home screen instead of social media stuff. It's great.Reader can save it all.
• 37:08
  And because they also built Readwise, all the highlighting and syncing is flawless. Text to speech? Sure. Ghost Reader GPT so you can ask questions of your stuff? Sure.
• 37:19
  Here's how you can try it for free and Readwise too. Right now, they're offering you guys, my listeners, two free months of Readwise and Reader when you sign up instead of just one month.
• 37:29
  So when you sign up, you get them both. The link to sign up and get that extra month is in the show notes, of course, and it's right here. It's readwise.io/quinn, Q-U-I-N-N. That's readwise.io/quinn.
• 37:44
  Again, it's right there in your show notes. It really is the future of reading. I can't recommend it enough. Probably the most essential thing I use every day. Check out Reader today.
• 37:54
  [upbeat music] I have a friend whose son got suspended or he got in big trouble because he was... He and his friends were googling butts, I think, in fifth grade or so, and, you know, the...
• 38:05
  Well, fuck him, but also fuck the school for, like, letting a bunch of fifth graders have unfettered access to devices. Well, that's the whole thing.
• 38:12
  One, I'm entirely against the surveillance stuff anyways, but also two, just don't... Like, if this, then what else? What else are you gonna do that's dumb? You know what's funny?
• 38:19
  Paul asked to put on Find My Location on his watch. Like, I, I think I, I don't have the evidence for this, but, you know, our...
• 38:28
  we're always talking about how in our generation, our year, you know, like, we all rode the bus on our own and we all went to...
• 38:34
  studied abroad, and our parents didn't know where we are and, you know, like, all that stuff, and what a shame it is that kids have to be surveilled or parents surveil.
• 38:41
  I think some kids like to be surveilled or wanna be surveilled, or they think it's... I don't know. I don't have any evidence for this, but I was just surprised. Well, it's the whole thing.
• 38:48
  I mean, y- I think it, it's, like, an exception to the rule if they're not at this point. Like, it's- Yeah... like, they all totally share each other's location about everything.
• 38:56
  The Snap Maps and all that stuff, it's crazy. It's- Yeah... I mean, it's crazy to us, but it's also, I don't know, man. Yeah, he was talking about that happily, and I just was like, well, I can't say anything about it.
• 39:06
  I carry my phone around, you know, and I often... If I go for a long walk, I put on, like, m- Map My Run so I know how long I'm walking, so I'm sure that sends everything up to the satellite.
• 39:15
  And my car has GPS and my credit card, so it's not like I'm off the grid, you know?
• 39:19
  So- It reminds me one of my favorite reductress posts that was like, quotes, "'Sorry, just got this,' says woman who hasn't pooped without her phone in 10 years." Yes. I have to say- Oh, that's so good...
• 39:30
  I, like, one of my favorite features of update, the update of... And maybe this has been around for a while, but d- sending texts later, hitting a send later th- like, message is great for, like, when you...
• 39:40
  I like that feeling of, like, inbox zero, so if I have a text from someone and I don't wanna talk to them right away, but I wanna feel like I've answered them, and I'll write a text, and I'll have it send, you know, for later on.
• 39:50
  Or I had one sent for a cousin of mine who likes to pop by while my family was out of town, and I wrote a message to him to send the day my family was getting home saying, "Oh, just got this.
• 39:59
  They're coming home today," 'cause I didn't want him to think I was- Well done... yeah, free all the time. I do this to Willow all the time on Slack because we have a pretty firm, like, we just don't
• 40:10
  not, don't work at night, but we're not gonna involve each other. You got something to do. She's three hours behind, different hours, whatever.
• 40:15
  And we do on the weekends, but I will abuse that occasionally, but not wanna involve her in it. And so I will send these insane Slack messages, but the default is, like, Monday at 9:00 AM or something like that. Mm-hmm.
• 40:27
  And they will have very little context, of course. Yeah.
• 40:29
  And so she'll just wake up, and the first thing she gets is instead of good morning or hi, Monday, it'll just be like, "And another thing on this spreadsheet is..." Yeah.
• 40:39
  And so that f- feels insane in a different way, so. That's so funny. She just- That's like my boss. I had this, like, crazy boss, the former dietician. She used to...
• 40:47
  She didn't, she wasn't so good at email, and she would, like, if she got an email string, instead of reading to the end and then, like, reading back, she would reply to each one in real time in all capital letters.
• 40:57
  So she'd be like, "What is this?" And then she'd be like, "Disregard," you know, like, to each one. So that's you or that person. So- I'm that person.
• 41:06
  We were talk- about different w- r- not right now, things this week, like my kids got, he was on academic probation, and we had eighth grade four portraits yesterday, which made him announce that he has no clothes, which led me to passive-aggressively do my laundry.
• 41:20
  But you had to do an allergy appointment and like- Okay... let's talk about who has a- what allergies and the state of allergies in our families. Okay. My context for allergies growing up was
• 41:33
  when Macaulay Culkin got stung by the bee in the movie and died. I was like- Yeah... "So that's allergies, I guess. Fuck that shit." Mm-hmm. And then
• 41:42
  someone told someone to not give kids peanut butter for a while, and everybody got peanut allergies, and then they finally reversed course and like, "Oh, of course, we should expose them to it, and then they will not have s..."
• 41:53
  The whole thing. And of course, as we know, with all the health stuff, uh, the further we've come along, cancer, all this stuff, blood tests, we're finding f- so many more things out than we used to. And earlier...
• 42:08
  And we don't... Now we wrestle with, is it so early that we even need to do anything about it? Right? For a lot of these things. We've gone th- through that with the BRCA stuff.
• 42:16
  Prostate cancer is one for sure, which is, like, a killer, but also, at some point, it's, it's pretty late. Uh, there's a thousand of these things. I feel like there's so many more allergies.
• 42:26
  And I also wonder how much my children u- Like, I have a terrible dust one, right? Mm-hmm.
• 42:31
  And I had sinus infections every week for my whole life until I just got rid of carpets and air purifiers, and God, vacuuming those fucking things every week. But it does work.
• 42:39
  But I feel like the children will both y- say, "Well, it must be one of my allergies." And I'm like, "Well, you're not a doctor, and you've never been tested, so you have no idea."
• 42:46
  But then they feel sick every time they eat fucking dairy. We go to the doctor, the allergy doctor, which I don't know if you've ever used that as a threat. Like, "Oh, okay, then we'll just go to the doctor."
• 42:55
  And they go, "Never-" No. "... never mind." Yep. That's a good one. Didn't back down this time. We went. They told half-truths half the time. You did.
• 43:03
  [laughs] And then the rest of it, again, you know, s- essentially spoke out of turn on behalf of the rest of the family about how they were being treated. And we get home-And this morning
• 43:17
  our deal is you gotta make your lunch every day except one day of the week you can get school lunch, right? I used to make their lunches all the time.
• 43:23
  I loved doing it, wrote them a little note, and then they were dicks and they were like, "I didn't like it," this and that. Great, you make it. I'm- Mm-hmm. That phase of my life is over. This morning goes,
• 43:33
  "Oh, I'm, today's my get lunch day. I'm just gonna get it." And Dana's like, "Oh, that's great. Is there something you're excited about? What's on the menu?" And he goes, "Pizza." And she goes, "Well,
• 43:43
  remember the doctor did say, 'Hey, listen, we don't really need to... If you're worried about dairy and/or lactose, we don't need to do the pricky 40 times test. You can just do elimination.'" Mm-hmm.
• 43:55
  "If it, if it seems pretty one-to-one, we can do elimination. Let's try that for a week and see." And this fucker, she says, "Well, remember the doctor said we sh- just lay off the pizza and the dairy for a week."
• 44:07
  And he goes, "That's not what elimination is." And she goes- Oh. I'll eliminate you. Yeah. [laughs] That literally my first thought was like laser beams. Just seeing where it was going. I was like, no,
• 44:20
  that, that is maybe not a word you'd encountered. It is pretty like binary. It's elimination, and then you work it back in and you see how it goes.
• 44:28
  He's like, "That's not what it means and that's not what he told me to do." I was like, "It is."
• 44:32
  And my instinct now with them, 'cause I think they're at least getting to be big enough at this point, definitely with a 13-year-old, where I just go, "Oh, then you just don't... Fine, great.
• 44:42
  You just don't get to complain about it. That's it." Mm-hmm. "Shit your pants? Best wishes." Like I'm just- Yeah... you've lost the right. If you're consciously making this decision, not my problem anymore. Mm-hmm.
• 44:53
  Um, and so I'm like, lean on your allergies all you fucking want, but or whatever it is. You know, you got a limp today? I don't know.
• 45:00
  This is the same kid who once, I think I told you, came up from our basement with his best friend and just face all fucked up. And we're like, "What? What? What did you do?" Not crying or anything.
• 45:11
  He's like, "Oh, this is crazy. You're never gonna believe this." So I was like, "Good way to start."
• 45:15
  "I was standing on the skateboard in the basement," we don't have a skateboard, "and it slipped and my eye hit the corner of the wall and I fell all the way down the wall and it got my whole face." And we're like...
• 45:27
  Yeah. "Okay." And then some other kid comes up 20 minutes later and is like, "Oh, they were throwing hammers at each other." So, you know, I- Mm-hmm. Great. Eat your pizza. Yeah.
• 45:38
  Well- But the point is, I think we all have got a little dairy. We've definitely got some dust. I fucking hate dust. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Other stuff, and I'm, I believe in allergy shots. I know they work.
• 45:47
  It takes a long time, this and that. Mm-hmm. But I'm just like, they're everywhere. Yeah. The children both use them as a crutch, but also want zero responsibility for them. Mm-hmm. Oh, man. Wow. That's my rant. I...
• 45:58
  We are extremely privileged in that my kids don't exhibit any kind of allergies currently. Like we, I mean, we don't expose them to anything particular.
• 46:06
  Paul says that he is sniffy when he's around his friend's dog who sheds, you know, so that might be possible.
• 46:13
  I, for a long time, I think I lived in denial that I was allergic to dogs 'cause I love dogs so much that I refused to believe I was allergic to them until we went several years without having a dog and we...
• 46:26
  I met a greyhound, like out in the wild, and that our last dog was a greyhound, and I was loving on him and petting him, and then all this fur came up and I was a wreck for the rest of the day, and I was like, "I think I'm allergic to dog hair," which is why
• 46:38
  we have this wheat interior who doesn't shed. But, uh- Say his name. Ollie. He's a, he's a person. You can say his name. He is- Thank you... the person, Ollie. Yeah. And cats, I hate cats.
• 46:50
  Partially 'cause they make me desperately ill because they make people insane. You know, people with cat...
• 46:56
  People, I, I know do- I'm sure dogs are like this, but I'm like, there's something about cats that force people to, to hoard them and then tr- act as if not hoarding them is a Nazi salute. You know what I mean?
• 47:09
  Anyway, I lived with Steve's cat- But you have the problem. Right. I lived with Steve's cats for a couple years, getting allergy shots for him, taking the medicine.
• 47:17
  I don't think it really helped at all 'cause the cat had like scaly dry skin. She liked to piss outside the box, like- Ugh... you know.
• 47:24
  And then, you know, all the cat people would be like, "Well, there's something wrong with the cat. Steve is a bad cat owner." Probably, not my problem, but they... Anyway, that's fine. We don't have cats.
• 47:34
  That makes life easy. Of course, cats always know that I don't like them. You know, I'm hands-off, and then they like rub all over me.
• 47:40
  But I got stung by a bee once for the first time when I was like 16 and I was rollerblading and, uh- Sure you were... sunbathing. I know.
• 47:49
  [laughs] And I came back from rollerblading and I s- was taking a shower, and I had a rash all over my body, and I could feel my eyelids and lips swelling.
• 47:56
  And my dad's allergic to bees, so even though it was very dramatic, it was not a surprise. Yeah, I have a friend whose kids had terrible food allergies. By the way, she breastfed and I didn't, just saying.
• 48:06
  But what a, just what a liberation. It's like having kids who don't have bad anxiety, you know, when you're like, it just...
• 48:12
  You don't realize like what a freedom it is to just be able to feed them whatever the fuck, you know, without looking at the label. Yeah. You know? And we can mostly do that. Like dairy, fine. I don't give a fuck.
• 48:20
  It's 2026. There's a thousand different options, you know? We, we definitely have friends who like their kids have 42 food allergies. They were born that way. They're like severe. They have to hand-make every...
• 48:30
  What a fucking pain in the ass and like parents going above and beyond. Terrible. But it's more like the little non-dangerous ones where I'm like, all right. You know? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Everybody's got something, bud.
• 48:42
  I don't know what to tell you. Right. It's not like you're gluten-free and you can't... Like, I felt so bad.
• 48:45
  We had to co-host this bowling party for the eighth grade a couple weeks ago, and we got pizza for the kids, and then this one kid is gluten-free, and we'd completely forgotten about him, so he just couldn't have anything.
• 48:57
  He had pop. And I, you know, on the one hand, I felt terrible, but also I was like, like someone should've reminded us. We could've like- Yeah... brought him something.
• 49:06
  But also- I guess, and so I don't know if it's just the moment or my just exasperation, and I'm definitely like-Something's really wrong, we should go to the doctor. Old person, young person, whatever it is.
• 49:16
  I'm the dad in the middle. I'm not like, "Rub some fucking grease on it," you know? Mm-hmm. But I'm like, "You're probably fine." My mom always tells the story of her dad used to work for...
• 49:24
  Was a salesman for Procter & Gamble after the war, and so this was like the early days of Listerine, which if it tastes like fire now, it was un- unregulated fire then. Yeah.
• 49:35
  But it's also just like alcohol, and he was like, "Put it on a wound." Sure. "Do... Put some Listerine." [laughs] Yeah. Which by the way, probably fucking works. Probably.
• 49:43
  Oh, that's my th- Like, you have in here Claire's impatience with her kids being scared of bees.
• 49:47
  [laughs] If they're not Macaulay Culkin, if it's, "Oh, yeah, she gets a big red bump," guys, I got so much other shit going on. God, I was so... Like, 'cause I had to carry ar- ar- around an EpiPen, you know?
• 49:59
  And because my dad's also allergic, I get... This is real privilege. This is like being on your parents' family pl- phone plan, like even when you're adults. Mm-hmm.
• 50:06
  I get EpiPens from my dad because he has better insurance than me, so that's always like a nice treat to get like a, an extra one instead of a cloudy brown one from three years ago.
• 50:15
  But yeah, I took the kids once to some far-flung park a couple years ago on the far South Side, and I was real excited about this jaunt, and there were bees about. And James was just...
• 50:25
  At that age, kids just ha- There is like a stage of kids' lives where they are panicky and flaily about bees. Mm-hmm.
• 50:31
  And I know that, but also part of me is like, "Well, if I get stung, I could die, so I'm not here for your like..." Mm-hmm. And we're on this long hike, and James kept pe- freaking out about the bees.
• 50:40
  And I said, "Then go stand by the car and wait for us if you're so scared of the bees." Not go into the car. Mm-hmm. To stand by the car.
• 50:47
  And, and some like older folks walked by, 'cause he was maybe eight at the time, seven, and they're like, "Are you okay?" [laughs] 'Cause he was there standing alone.
• 50:56
  He's, "My mom made me stand here 'cause I was afraid of the bees." So I don't have a lot of patience for it. 'Cause again- Yeah... here's the thing. This is where my empathy is for parents and the kids.
• 51:06
  Like again, one of our friends, she has to make her son every... Has to. Like, it is not a good situation if the smallest one of 40 different things gets in there. Yeah. If you've got the bee thing or whatever.
• 51:20
  But again, for us, when it's like dust or something like that, I'm like, "Ah, guys." You know, we got a friend, and this one is not as lethal, but she's... Her kid's allergic to every- all of the grass. Mm-hmm.
• 51:32
  All of the grass. Yeah. She's like, "He can't do any activities." I'm like, "He can-" Right... "but it's very annoying." Yeah. And that is... What a... God. This is where I'm like, you gotta start the shots.
• 51:39
  It takes a long time, but you gotta- Yeah... you, you gotta try to do the thing. No, and they're really nice.
• 51:44
  Like, I feel like those allergy shot people are so nice 'cause they know they're ch- like everyone fears them, and they tend to be so kind- Yeah... and make it nice and easy.
• 51:51
  But yeah, there was a moment where Steve worried that maybe he had a lactose allergy, but he had gotten...
• 51:57
  We'd gone to Cold Stone Creamery for some reason, and he'd gotten like a gigantic bowl, a cone bowl of ice cream and eaten all of it. As you do. Yeah, and I was so attracted to him. And, and he didn't feel well.
• 52:10
  [laughs] I think it was like, "Maybe I'm allergic to dairy." I was like, "Maybe you just ate like a shit ton of ice cream." Correct. "And that's the allergy." Right. Right, right, right. So. But also there's...
• 52:21
  W- what was the research? It's, you know, m- basically like most... What is it? Like, most n- global north white people just do not have the gene to, to process dairy anyways essentially. Yeah.
• 52:30
  Like, we've effectively evolved out of it. Yeah. It's like that's the fucking baseline is cheese is delicious. It's gonna give you farts. You just gotta be glad it's not worse than that. But also- Yeah...
• 52:39
  if you eat a tub of fucking Cold Stone. Yeah. This is again, Henry this morning being like, "Yeah, I'm gonna get pizza. I'm gonna get multiple pizza." And I was like- I love that he- "Go fuck yourself. Don't come home."
• 52:50
  I love that he was doubling down and mansplaining elimination not o- over, not over like good pizza, not bucket pizza. Oh, no. School pizza. Yeah. No. I love your note, cat people do not believe in cat allergies. It...
• 53:03
  Ah, it's so true, isn't it? Yeah. Like- Yeah. No, and it's absolute- I was on Reddit i- and there was someone w- who had a... They were... It was like,
• 53:12
  it's a fact that if you don't like cats, like you're just a bad person simply. [laughs] And then like all these cat people in the comments were like, "Yo, that is like a crazy take."
• 53:20
  There are a lot of like a- cats who are simply assholes out there. But I remember sleeping over at a friend's house once when I was in my 20s and she had cats, and my eyes were like bulging out of my head, you know?
• 53:31
  Yeah. And she w- she said, "You know, I really didn't think cat allergies were real, but I'm starting to think that maybe they were."
• 53:36
  And of course she was one of those people who like didn't have real medicine, not Benadryl, but like some kind of tincture. Wow, mm-hmm. And, uh- Mm. It's lemons... cut to... Yeah, seriously.
• 53:45
  And then, oh man, she ended up accidentally hoarding cats, which was the trigger for me. She said, I think she had cats at the time, and she was like, "I didn't mean to have this many cats."
• 53:54
  And I felt like it was like a stab. It was like a cold icy needle in my heart. That's not a good track to be on when you are like- Nope... like taking in more cats. 23. Yeah. Yeah. Taking in more... Yeah.
• 54:06
  Closing that chapter, like the whole death, allergy, animal chapter. C's parents have 16 to 17 cats in their house right now, and they live in Arizona and we live here, and I don't...
• 54:18
  We were just real not thinking about that part, like but we'll come whenever the time comes. His dad's in his 90s almost, but I don't know. We'll see.
• 54:26
  He talks about just blowing up the house with the, with all the cats in it, which, um- I think that's a reasonable option. Yeah. I mean, those cats don't give... Those... Here, here's the thing.
• 54:37
  Those cats would blow you up in the house, no questions asked. Oh, yeah. No questions asked. Oh, yeah. They would ask to do it. Like, no, they wouldn't even ask. You're right, no questions asked. No.
• 54:45
  But again- They might actually respect you for it. Yeah. But not my problem, not my cats, not my circus, not my monkey.
• 54:52
  But I just love, and again, you do you, but people are like, "No, what's great about cats, like you gotta earn their love." I'm like, I... The fact that my wife hasn't left me yet, I'm, I've earned enough.
• 55:02
  I've, I'm spent. Yeah. There's no spent. I need a dog. What's the comedian? Nick whatever. He's like, "They're not dogs anymore. They're just doodles. They're like people." And- Yeah... I'm good. I'm good. Yes.Yeah.
• 55:14
  We were so tickled yesterday, 'cause I was rehydrating some shiitake mushrooms, and I took them out of the water and Ollie came over and wagging his tail and looked at it, and he like sat for it.
• 55:26
  So I offered it to him, and he just tooted right when I put the mushroom up to his nose. Adorable. That was like the happiest moment of the year for me so far. [laughs] Yeah. That's it. The bar's so fucking low. Yeah.
• 55:36
  Why would I want a... Someone who... I don't need to... Yeah, no. No. I'm good. I... There are a couple cats out there that are fine.
• 55:43
  I'm not gonna name them by name, but if you're listening and you're a cat person, I'm sure your cat is a good cat and would never- I'm sure it's fine...
• 55:49
  blow, blow you up if you- By the way, my, my brother like inadvertently gave my mom a cat, who's super allergic to them, once for 10 years. But he was more like a dog. We named him Bruce Springsteen. He had a- Oh...
• 55:58
  spike collar. I think an eagle took him. That's what- Oh... what the current consensus is, 'cause he just disappeared one day. He was quite small. Yeah. And we have fucking bald eagles everywhere. And
• 56:08
  again, to circle back, I don't know man, if you're gonna go, like an eagle taking you, that's pretty- Yeah... fucking rad.
• 56:14
  I was reading an article in The New Yorker about like national parks in North Carolina, and someone talked about a ki- an eagle dropped a cat through their windshield. And, and they said the cat didn't make it.
• 56:24
  [laughs] Rad. Like an, an exciting way to go. But I'll take- I think... Look, I think, look, a- as we get older, like I'm still terrified, terrified of dying.
• 56:32
  I, I should be the one on the LSD, like this and this, don't wanna lose my time or this or that, all that stuff. But the more you think about it, you realize there are awesome ways to go, right? Mm-hmm.
• 56:42
  Maybe not the love capsule, or maybe that's your thing and it could change, but I don't know. I feel like someone's like, "He got ripped apart by that fucking shark, and it lasted a long time.
• 56:53
  But I did see him get a couple punches in," sure. Yeah. I mean- Yeah. It... I would go in the pod with another mom who is also a sandwich... Who has been a sandwich generation mom- Oh, yeah...
• 57:04
  and we would be like, we'd be like- Mm-hmm... this is it. This is the ultimate spa day. You know, we're gonna have like- It is the ultimate spa day, isn't it? Right? Yeah. This is your cult, by the way, you're going to.
• 57:13
  It just leads to that pod. Yeah. Your, your spa cult. Oh my God. Yeah, by the way, like I went to the sauna club yesterday 'cause I just needed something. Mm-hmm.
• 57:21
  And, um, people were fucking walking right into the lake, and it is icy as shit. And I didn't do it 'cause I just was like, I don't... It is... I, I have my sanity. Like, I only poured water over my...
• 57:32
  But it is very, it is cult-like, just seeing these people like walk [laughs] into this icy lake and sitting there. And so, you know, whatever it takes, I guess. It... There...
• 57:42
  I think I've sent you the meme that's, "Your email has found me filling my pockets with rocks and walking to the ocean." No, yeah. I know you really wanna talk about this fucking David Beckham stuff.
• 57:51
  Can you just- Oh, yeah... spend 30 seconds? 'Cause here's the thing, one of the greatest soccer players of all time, style icon, owns... It's all sport and like fashion and hair-related to me. I don't know.
• 58:04
  I actually watched the document, it was a couple years ago. It's great. Yeah. I actually thought it was really great. I watched... Yeah. Wanna go ahead and h- I feel like we should call Willow on for this.
• 58:12
  I feel like she would appreciate that. Well, if you're like me, one nice thing about this time of the...
• 58:18
  Like, the current events are extremely fucked, but we are being blessed by a lot of gossip right now that is, I think, sort of where it's like everyone, everyone involved is fucked. Like, everyone is insane.
• 58:29
  Like Queer Eye right now, for instance, is another one, where all the Queer Eye guys were on a talk show yesterday holding hands, while I think it was Gayle read a, an announcement from Karamo saying he wouldn't be on 'cause he was being bullied.
• 58:39
  And it's just so much drama where you're like, I think everyone involved is problematic, and that's how this Beckham situation is, where Brooklyn Beckham is the oldest of their kids, right?
• 58:50
  And anyone who follows the Beckhams and gossip knows that Brooklyn has tried a lot of different careers over his life that have n- met with varying levels of success, a photographer. He has been a chef. He's tried to...
• 59:04
  He's launched a hot sauce brand.
• 59:06
  And his parents have always been very supportive of him, full-throated, couldn't be more supportive, even though it's a little bit, "Bless his heart" every time he launches one of these things. Nice try.
• 59:16
  And so he got married to this woman, Nicola Peltz, and I forgot exactly where their money came from, but she comes from like a billionaire, like billionaire's money. Mm-hmm.
• 59:23
  And when they were getting married, there was all this drama about the Peltz's hate the Beckhams and all this stuff, like new money versus newer money.
• 59:31
  And there's been a rift for the last couple years brewing between Brooklyn and his family, where he was like not talk- He was not seeing them, then he blocked them on social media.
• 59:42
  And then this week he put out this story saying, "Here's the reasons I'm not talking to my family. They have been trying to destroy my marriage from the get-go. They evict... His...
• 59:53
  My mom like hijacked my first dance with my wife and danced inappropriately with me." So I mean, honestly, big picture, it's really sad. I'm always really sad when you hear about...
• 1:00:05
  Some people obviously go no contact with their families for good reason, and I think we're in a funny place in history right now where people cheer the idea of going no contact. They don't even need to hear the context.
• 1:00:15
  They're just like- Yeah... "Yes. Do it." Yeah, yeah. Um, but the broader, like, grand ecosystem of it is that, like, the Beckhams are ridiculous people.
• 1:00:24
  Like, and the Peltz's are not known for being, like, good people either. So you're sort... So it's just sort of like a Team Nobody situation where- Mm...
• 1:00:34
  you know, poor Brooklyn seems like he's always been sort of pulled into someone's orbit. And I... What do I know? Maybe he's his own man who stands on his own two feet and makes his own decisions.
• 1:00:43
  But anyway, it's just feeding a lot of good gossip right now that is very cleansing in terms of the broader situation.
• 1:00:49
  So I was encouraging you, Quinn, to get up to speed on this, because you might be at some swim meet or some
• 1:00:57
  whatever school thing, and you'll hear someone talking about it, and you'll be like, "Well, obviously I'm above all this," as we all know. You don't like... You only like sports and you only like the, you know.
• 1:01:07
  But- This is where you're... Z- z- There's a fundamental misunderstanding here. I, I don't engage with people. This is it. You- This is it.You're gonna hear- That... I w- I want you to use this. Like, this is platform.
• 1:01:22
  Like- I don't want to.
• 1:01:23
  I don't, like- You can say, and also now that I sent you the text of David got a Brooklyn text, like, uh, text, he got a s- tramp stamp over his booty when Brooklyn was born, and I sent you a picture of it.
• 1:01:34
  So I want you to use this. Like, I'm giving you something, like, some currency, some conversational pop culture currency. But then I gotta keep going, and then they're gonna wanna talk about other stuff. I don't...
• 1:01:45
  I just wanna read my books. Could... Yeah. You can just say, "I don't like, I don't talk about this kind of stuff, but I can't help but overhearing you.
• 1:01:51
  My podcast co-host made me talk about this, and so I can't believe this is going on. What a shame," and say that. Claire, when people are like, "Birds aren't real," I don't involve myself. Like, I- Yeah.
• 1:02:02
  So maybe this is lower s- so maybe this actually would be the thing. I don't... Who was your favorite Spice Girl? She was up there, for sure. God, it's so great. I was just...
• 1:02:12
  When my children are like, "I like this song," I ruin it. Not the song, but I immediately go, "Oh, here's all the artists that clearly inspired them, and let's listen to those first." Uh-huh.
• 1:02:21
  And they just wanted- Yeah... to listen to their one song. And I lean on the Spice Girls for quite a bit, 'cause I'm like, look, man, all this Cat's Eye and all that stuff, it is difficult
• 1:02:30
  to describe how big the Spice Girl world- Yeah... Spice Girl wars w- were at that peak, which I actually think that documentary does a good job of. He was, like, the most famous person alive besides Michael Jordan,
• 1:02:41
  but she was as well. Mm-hmm. And it was crazy. But, yeah, I don't know. Did you have a favorite? Well, I always like the least popular one in a group usually, so I like Sporty the most. Mm, mm-hmm.
• 1:02:50
  And, uh- No, Sporty's great. Sporty's great... she was a real singer too, and she seems like she's doing well. Like, she's, you know, doesn't seem... She's doing her own thing. She looks great.
• 1:02:58
  Spice World, it is a shame that it's not available on streaming. It is a legitimately fun movie, and I wish I could watch it with my kids. Like, it is- Is it not on streaming? It is... No, it is, like, some...
• 1:03:08
  It has weird rights issues, and you can't get it unless you went on the, some, you know- Dark web? Like... Yeah, and I don't do that kind of stuff. You can purchase it digitally. That's too much.
• 1:03:19
  That's, like, going to the library. I wanna be able to download it, like, immediately, maybe for four- I want it now. Yeah. Yeah, that's- I wanna stream it for $4...
• 1:03:27
  not at all the problem with everything that's going on. Can you briefly tell me about the woman who referred to herself as an open-faced sandwich before we go? Oh, it was at Sauna Club yesterday, and we, I...
• 1:03:38
  God, how did I get into this? I was- What does that mean? I was kinda just talking about... The nice thing about Sauna Club is you just end up chit-chatting with whomever's there. Like, you just can't help it.
• 1:03:47
  You're all sweaty. Mm-hmm. You know, you're barely clothed. And I was saying I was there 'cause I was in a sandwich generation bullshit.
• 1:03:53
  Like, I just needed a half an hour to myself, and we all started commiserating about taking care of our elders, and this one woman- Everyone. Uh-huh. Yeah.
• 1:04:01
  And this one woman said, "I don't have kids, but I did do elder care, so I'm an open-faced sandwich." And so, yeah, I mean, respect.
• 1:04:08
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• 1:04:26
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• 1:04:58
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