268: Beach Grit

I love these things called Instacrates. You get them from Costco. There might be other places, but we get them from Costco. This should be the show. You get these things. Now that you've made me very frustrated, I'm very frustrated with you. I was ready to have a good show. I'd organize the document in a way that almost made sense. And now you're faffing about. No. I said to my fam. Doing a faff.

Okay. No, because the thing is, there's a box. I love these Instacrates. You know what these are, right? They're collapsible. Like they collapsed. I don't know. It sounds like a combination of like a dot-com startup that failed and Instapaper and I don't know. It sounds like something I would say wrong.

Hang on. I got to put on my D&D. I apologize. Instacrate. Madeline has six minutes of deep sleep. Green made Instacrate. Collapsible storage bin. That's close. Yeah, that's close. Did you look on Instacart? All right. I see them. I see them on Instagram. John, my God, don't become like Mastodon. Listen, listen to the words and the tone and all of it. And listen to everything that the person has to say before you make an announcement. What website are you searching on?

I'm at Costco right now. Okay, cool. Is it red and black? I see a black one, yes. Okay, cool. I'll go with a red rim. Anyway, they're really neat because... You've seen lots of these kinds of things. Often you'll see them more in soft goods, like for your lounge or whatever. But you push in the sides, the short sides of these, and it collapses. The sides fold in half, and it drops down into something two or three inches thick.

Then when you open it up, you got a giant ass like big box, like a tote, you know? And see, now it's not funny. God, you're like a cordyceps. And so my wife walks in and she says, what's that box?

And I said, oh, I think you're going to like this. And she's already doing something else. Probably she's not looking at her phone yet. Otherwise, she wouldn't even be. I don't think I've seen the front of my family's shoulders in years. They just don't look at me when they talk to me. I'm like, when did we become like this? I'm literally giving you the cold shoulder.

I mean, I assume. I see the back shoulder. I said, well, I think you're going to like this. I said, you know, one of those Instacrates I like. And she goes, cool. Now. For other people, people who listen to other programs I do, you're going to know that's something I'm starting to call the comma problem, which is you stop listening or say you're done listening at the point where you've only gotten into the introductory part of what it is that you have to say.

And she hasn't picked this up in 25 years we've been together. And I say, okay, well, now imagine those Instacrates, except they also come with a lid. And when the lid is not on the box, it pops into the bottom. Bob's your uncle. You keep that in your car. Instant box. With lid. You do that. That's why you're a cordyceps. And these are neat because if you're a hoarder, that way you don't have to have like just, you know, built up bankers boxes everywhere.

You can collapse these and put them in the attic when your company comes over. These look pretty hefty, though. Even when they're collapsed, they collapse and they get flat, but it's still pretty thick. They have a... I mean, I would say a design flaw, but I'll just say something that bugs me, that is unavoidable, which is, you know, think about picking up a crate where you've got the long side, you know, one of the two long sides facing you and the short sides, right? I mean...

Like when you pick up a box, you grab the short ends and lift it up. And the thing is when you do that, if there's not a lot of stuff in it, it'll start collapsing it, which isn't a big deal except that now it's pinching you really hard. I don't like being pinched.

Never liked it. 40 bucks each. Oh, they're instant. They're crates. It's instant crate. Is it really that much? Is that what I've been spending on these? I mean, I don't know if that's what price you're getting them. That's what Costco wants for them. Yeah. They're based in Kirkland. But...

Anyways, do you want to start with follow-up? Sure. I'll take this one to start. You can jump in. Did you look at this? You're aware of this. I looked at it briefly, but you're going to have to drop this one. But you're aware of it. Okay. Hey, everybody. This is a segment that we call Stop Blaming the Dog. That may change in the future. But for now, listeners will know that this is an ongoing segment where there's a particular kind of thing that happens that John and I, I think...

it's fair to say, find a little frustrating, which is that something happens involving a fire in a kitchen with an oven, and it gets blamed on the dog. And it's not to say that the dog wasn't involved, but almost every one of these headlines... unsurprisingly, is, hey, dog turned on an oven, make fire. Bad dog. And then you read the article and there's always comical amounts of human stupidity inside of it. Almost always. Although...

There's a phrase I'm going to say right now, and it's not going to be the first time tonight I say this phrase, John. I think you've heard this phrase. You know, two things can be true at once. It can be true that an oven is kind of poorly designed. And it can be true...

that a dog is involved in it turning on. As you'll see in this piece we're about to read, this seems to be a theme that's kind of running through a lot of these dog starts fire stories, part three or two and a half, depending on how you count. Maybe don't keep things that can be set on fire on or in your oven. John, is this a theme we've discussed? Can you give me examples, for example? Are there examples of things where a dog started a fire? Oh, and by the way...

There was something on the oven. Paper bags, groceries, pizza boxes, spare cardboard boxes. The only place I have any kind of sympathy for this is people who have very small kitchens and use the inside of the oven for storage. But at least the inside of the oven...

If you do accidentally turn that on, it catches on fire. It's kind of self-contained. Exactly. You probably won't burn down. Not that it's ideal. You really shouldn't have things on fire inside your oven. But of all the places where you would want to set a fire in your house. Inside the oven is probably the safest place. But still, yeah, the putting of things on top of the stovetop is better. Yeah, I can make this. I think I can make this simple and I hope fair, which is, hey, look.

We appreciate you being here. You have many options for getting your news. Here's what I'm going to say to you. If you are interested most in the poor design and quality. of Samsung ovens, then that's maybe a podcast that you could do. Okay. But this is our podcast. And the thing that we talk about is whenever somebody goes, there's some kind of a blah, blah, blah, something happened and a dog caused it.

This is a piece from the CBC, which is a wonderful organization up in Canadian. This is written by Vera Lynn Kubinich. Dateline Winnipeg. Winnipeg Woman says, Dog started fire. By turning on stove under recall notice twice. Deck. Safety recall notice says front mounted knobs on Samsung range can be accidentally activated. I want to give the CBC some credit here. for not directly blaming the dog in the headline, but rather just reporting that Winnipeg woman is blaming the dog.

I agree with you. And I think of this genre of articles, this is one of the, it's still odious, but it's one of the least odious. But even at, and remember two or two and a half things can be true at once. This is not as bad as a lot of these articles get.

And yet there's a lot in here that's pretty instructive. And that, frankly, make me very sympathetic to the poor woman that this happened to and all the other people whose ovens are Samsung ovens are apparently just hot garbage. One big woman says she never imagined her dog could start a fire on her stove.

But now she's warning the public that's just what happened. And she says she didn't find out a safety recall had been issued for her appliance until after the fire. Okay, that's the lead. After which fire? The first or the second? Well, did you read about her knobs? Somebody stole her knobs.

Yeah. Did you read about her knobs? No. Well, you could write into Samsung Canada and they'd send you a free set of knob locks. Nice. We talked about this. I said Mrs. Knoblock was my first great teacher, I think. I think that's a teacher on Strangers with Candy. Yeah. Anyways, dog owner, name withheld, had new Samsung appliances, including a range installed in May 2024, et cetera.

One day. Okay, at this point, I'm beginning the third paragraph. And again, let me be very clear about this. I don't like the fact that it's the dog that got blamed for this. And I'm going to say so. Third paragraph. But one day in May 2025, she came home to find her house filled with smoke and a fire burning on the range. Can you believe Samsung?

would make an oven that would let this happen. Oh, sorry, let me get to the fourth paragraph, quoting, I ran into the kitchen to check on the dog, and that's when I noticed there was a book on fire on top of the stove. And of course, I shouldn't have left the book on the stove, she said in an interview. She put the fire out and made sure the buster was all right. Okay, what do you think so far?

I mean, unfortunately, the headline has sort of given away the ending here because, okay. But anyway, leaving a book on the stove, that would definitely be an example of a flammable item that should never be stored on a stovetop. I don't want to put anybody, beloved members of your family, beloved characters on blast. But is it fair to say that at some point in the last couple, three years, somebody has, for example, left like, as you would say, a tea towel, left like a dish towel?

on there. Don't forget potholders. Potholders are popular. See, the potholder makes sense because you're going to use it with the oven. You take the thing out of the oven. You put the thing that you took out of the oven on the stovetop, which does make sense. That's appropriate. But because you took it out with a potholder...

I just dropped the bottle right onto the burner next to it. Well, and like, we don't want time to get into it for this particular segment because this would be a different segment. Same podcast, different segment. Might be member special. I don't really have a paradigm for it. But there's also...

I think there's also just, there is something to be said for a deeper thing that I think John and I agree on. Well, let's just say it this way. Sort of, I'm basing this very much on your AirPods ethos. There's only two places in the world an AirPods should ever be. in the case or in your ear and that sounds silly and extreme except every single one of you goddamn people knows exactly what i'm talking about

You have dropped an AirPod, lost an AirPod, put an AirPod somewhere. We've all done it. And don't you act like, and that would never have happened if you followed John's edict about AirPods. I think there's a lot of things like that.

I think there's a big difference between, say, where something is easy to put and where something is easy to find. And so I don't want to get into that. We don't have time. Let me pause at this point. I'm going to try and keep this short because we've got a lot to talk about. At this point, I think this article has been mostly pretty fair. Honestly, I think the headline is frustrating. And I don't think this article, if there was not, quote, if there was not a dog angle to this story.

I don't think this very, this terrible story of these awful Samsung ovens, I don't think this would be an article about that unless there were a dog to blame. What do you think? Yeah. I think it's a dog. It's a dog. The dog makes a story. Yes. Yes.

Okay. She made sure Buster was all right. I'm not going to drag this out. Now we're back to this other thing, which is really ultimately what the article is about, which is... Over 200,000 ovens have been sold in Canada, and people are having these problems. She realized Buster must have jumped up and turned on one of the knobs for the stove, or as you say, the hob.

which are on the front of the appointments. Okay, and remember, that's the appointments. That's what they call it in Canada. It's got a U in it. All the way over here, this is other area where... I don't know what John thinks, but I think these stoves sound terrible. These sound very badly designed. I wish they'd do something about that. I'm not, there's no, I'm not trying to discredit concern about ovens.

I'm trying to disintermediate dog blaming. She told some friends what happened. You know what they told her? They told her that Samsung made covers for the knobs. Which sounds... Would you like that, John? Would you like to have covers on your knobs or locks? Remember the covers that would go on like doorknobs to like...

Make it so kids can't twist them because you have to squeeze the cover. Is that what that was? My grandma used to make little crochet doorknob holders and I thought it's because she was a fancy Dutchess. That's different. They make plastic ones. Oh, I know. The plastic ones that are like halved and you put them on and they lock and you don't get a grip unless. you push on the buttons on the side uh sometimes they have buttons i believe they have ones that are just like

Like from the springiness of the plastic to keep very small children out because they don't have the grip strength or coordination to grip all the sides. I think that's a great angle to bring in that would be perfect for the other notional podcast about oven safety. Over here on the dog one, where we're giving people knob locks for their Samsung, she says that Health Canada, they'd issued a safety recall for certain Samsung electric ranges due to a fire hazard, noting both people...

See, this is important. You never say person started fire by leaving book on oven. Maybe that's really the headline. Noting that both people and pets could, quote, accidentally activate the front mounted knobs. Let's see. Notice says owners could get a free set of knob locks or covers. And this is great because I don't know how often you use the manufacturer apps for any of your devices. That's an experience.

It says here that with Wi-Fi enabled ranges, thank God for that, we can turn on notifications on a Samsung app to get alerts when a cooktop burner is turned on. Now, I have an app that I thankfully don't really need to use, but I have an app for my ice maker and it is unbelievable. The GE profile app is.

Every one of these apps, they're just all, they're all dog. Anyway, after the fire, she removed the knobs from our Samsung range to keep the dog from accidentally turning the elements on. No, I think that. makes sense i wonder if there's anything else that she could do that would minimize the chances of her dumb goddamn canadian dog turning on the oven and the dog sounds like it's not very bright buster looks like a sweet precious angel who's definitely innocent

But you ask yourself, well, you know, lesson learned, maybe I don't put a book on my oven that my dog likes to turn on. Right? That's a lesson learned, fair. But then there's a really good, it's not quite an M, it's like a half Shyamalan. So just a little bit of a twist. It's more like a swerve. About a month later, she was at work and there was a second fire after she believes the dog somehow activated the oven switch.

New paragraph. She said she left some dry goods, chips or crackers, in the oven that caught fire. Okay, pause. I'm sympathetic to this. Like you, like I'm from a family where we didn't have a lot of room for stuff. And like we stored all of our baking pans and casserole stuff. Like we would basically have to lift eight pounds of. cookware out of our range uh oven right in order to use it but like everybody knew that it was part of the thing it's like

Some people store those in the broiler. Or in my case, when I was a kid, we didn't have our broiler was built in. And then we had like a drawer underneath. Anyway, I am sympathetic to that. I've lived in places like where like you want to keep stuff away from vermin.

Like you want to keep your, you might keep your sugar in the refrigerator because the roaches are so bad. I mean, it sucks. I get it. Here's the thing. She said she'd left some dry goods, chips or crackers, in the oven that caught fire. And then there's a new paragraph. And it says, quoting, it's easy for people to judge and say I shouldn't have done that. And I get it. I understand I shouldn't have done that in hindsight, she said. She said, but she put some items in the oven.

John, do you want to take the end of this one? Why did she put those items in the oven, John? To keep them away from her dog and cat. These are things that you know your dog wants. Put them in the thing that you don't want your dog to be accidentally activated. John, see F, see also. See also, didn't we earlier have one where the dog just wanted to see what they were cooking? Yeah. I mean.

Maybe, maybe. Okay. Look, and again, I'm not driving. I don't understand these dogs' obsession with my secret closet of mystery. I don't understand. So anyway, I'm going to let this go in a sec. But it is a fun kind of ironic twist. It's sweet, though. She's so busy. She's got this new oven. She's got to keep... the dry goods away from her pets. I didn't read this ending part here. Boy, she really has a heel turn. Why don't you take it from here? All right.

she says you see why i like this article she says i was completely shocked i never thought in a million years that a dog would be able to turn the oven on i'm not sure why you would think that considering a the dog has already done it once before yeah Maybe she's not a listener. It just requires something hitting into a...

And just so we're clear, I skipped over parts of this, but all throughout here and all throughout, if you look at other things about this, they're always saying humans and animals that basically, and not just toddlers, like you could bump into it with your hip. And turn it on. Or just a paw. Dog jumps up, a paw whacks the thing. That's it. That's all it needs. So now this is her heel turn. She was shocked, John.

This dog, you know, she's blaming herself. I shouldn't have put a book on there. I shouldn't have left the chips in there. No, no, but she's doing it. No, John, she's doing the guy thing. She's doing it like a guy.

And she's going, yeah. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that. Okay, all right. I admit I should not have put Tinder and Mashes. I know people will judge me that I shouldn't have done it. I get it. I understand. I shouldn't have done it. You know, she's at least admitting fault twice in a row, but still. Now, now she comes to the dog. Now she comes from Buster. She says, quote, I love Buster. He is a great dog, comma, but like he's not the smartest dog.

So in my head, he shouldn't be able to turn an oven on in that way just by jumping on it. Because he's dumb. Not because he's smart, but because he's dumb. She loves him, but he's not the smartest dog. She's not even comparing him to be like, he's not human level. If Buster were smart, why would he turn the oven on? Right. He's not the smartest. So in my head, which is again, still saying in my head, he shouldn't be able to turn the oven on.

If he can do that, then certainly a kid can. That's right. Certainly a kid can. And so can dogs. And the dog's intelligence is not really a factor here that much. I mean, unless you think dogs should understand how opens work. Here's the thing. I store my will. in our fireplace and my passport and all of my Bitcoin. I store all of that in our fireplace because we don't use our fireplace, you know?

But we do have like, you know, ceremonial like logs and lighters and matches next to it. And like if, you know, and we have a candle next to it. It's not my fault that a dog would set everything on fire. It's not a very smart dog. We won't belabor this. Then they get into the real meat of it, what this article is ultimately about, which is about how terrible these ovens are. But I also wanted to share that she's done her best with this. She says that she had requested a set of knob covers.

Knoblox. After she learned about the recall, a package was shipped and delivered, but when she got home, it was gone, she said, leading her to believe it was stolen. New paragraph. Samsung told her she could not order another set of the knob covers. They don't want people just ordering as many knob covers as they want for free. Be a knob cover millionaire.

And also, it's kind of like Apple with returns. They had to really crack down on that stuff because there were these whole gangs that were making money. And you have to imagine. I love the country, but as backward as Canada. They got ducks on their money, John. Of course they're trading knoblocks. They're probably trading it for pelts. What do they buy up there? Do they buy Sloan albums?

Molson Canadian, Kids in the Hall. What else do they buy up there? Tim Horton, Here's a Who. Tim Horton, Here's a Who. That's different from Cindy Lou Who. Remember her? So, all I really wanted to say in conclusion is that America is a land of contrast. Flag. And I...

I wish we would stop blaming the dog. I understand. I think for all the worst reasons, I feel like I understand why they blame the dog. Otherwise, I got no goddamn story. When's the last time you went and like you're plucking around on your TikTok or whatever and went and read? A 1,000 word article about oven recalls. Not a lot. I mean, unless you've just had a baby and you're still insane. God, do you remember that? You ever get like recall notices when your baby was new?

Probably. Oh, my God. Your car seat, your crib, phthalates in the bottle. Trader Joe's had an Anthony anchovy or whatever. I used to get so... Madeline would just get crazy. I think young parents get a little crazy about that stuff. I feel bad for this woman. I think Samsung dealt her dirt.

in several ways here and that's a bummer and then but then she just turned on her own dog so i lose a lot of sympathy and the fact that it happened to her twice also she mentions having a cat this this brings up a question and i'm gonna are you gonna try to blame the cat

No, no, I'm going to try and do this. This dog was framed. Listen, Moriarty, I'm going to try to present this to you. I got my deer stalker on and I'm going to try to present this. That one was just for you, Dan McCoy. I'm going to try and present this to you in a way where you will see what I'm trying to. So this is a story about a dog that made an oven turn on and caused a fire. This is a big problem.

In North America, in Canada, everywhere, these Samsung, it's a real problem. It's mentioned at one point that one of the fires was caused by dry goods that she put in the oven because she wanted to keep, like, say, chips. I mean, I fed dog French fries. I don't see dogs eating a lot of potato chips. My dogs have always loved French fries. Dog will eat a potato chip.

Have you seen, if you're comfortable saying, have you seen Daisy Eat It? Daisy does not get human food, at least not for me. But I'm very aware of some of my children's friends' dogs that eat potato chips regularly. And it shows.

You know, the biggest liar you have in your life is the person who thinks that they don't feed their dog from the table. Did you know that? I have somebody like that in my life. I love her very much. I'm not mad that she threw my glasses away. But what I will say is when Lomax comes up...

Or Bailey comes up. You know, Bailey, that sweet dog I always show you with the pit bull? And Bailey comes up, and she puts her entire eight-pound head on my dick and just sits there until I give Bailey some Thanksgiving food. And Max does the same thing. The dog won't do that if it's never been fed from the table. Interesting that you would say that, because then what happens? The liar in your family says aloud, and let's be honest, a very performative way, Max Bailey!

What are you doing? No, no. And then they say something insipid that basically is like a blah, blah, ginger, where they go like, no scraps, no scraps. Look, that's their thing they say to the dog. And the dog, I have eight pounds of dog on my dick. Beautiful. I'll put a picture. I'll send you a picture of Bailey in a minute. And then I've seen her put down the plates so the dogs can go yum yum on them.

And, I mean, candidly, in less formal situations, I mean, our job, I don't like to say too much about my family because I only have this, I have an investment in my family, but they aren't mine. With that said, our job. when we go to Auntie Susie's house. Our job is to bring charcuterie and wine.

And they, I think people enjoy it. My wife is really good at putting together, especially like a mix of cheeses. Meats and cheeses always pleases. That's what Bob Mortimer says. We always bring that. Okay. So, you know, I mean, it's a fancy way of, let me put a different. John, here's the word we grew up with. Ready? You ever have a plate of antipasto or antipasti? Yeah, you get meats and cheeses, right? Delicious. A little bit of listeria on the side. It's great.

That stuff is great if you just dip a little. Not a lot. Not a little bit. Okay. Now, John, is that something you serve with the regular meal at the big table? Is that something you serve at Susie's house?

That's served by putting it on the coffee table where everyone is sitting before. That's not the right place for it. Would you put it on the bar, on the kitchen divider? No, it should be on the big table. Everyone sits down to dinner and that's the first course. Well, we're doing this as a nappy.

if you're doing that, I'm just saying the way we do it. Okay. But yes, if you want to have it, if you want to not have it at the dining table and have it be like a free roaming, kind of like, like a cruded hay plate with ranch dressing, like you're in the Midwest. That's totally fair. Feel free to ask me up to three questions about whether any of this is my idea. Feel free to ask, freely ask me whether I have any responsibility for the dogs getting no scraps ever.

I do have a question about the whole, you bringing the sort of, uh, you know, I can wrap this up. I can wrap this up. The point is Maxie, unfortunately just passed away. Bailey died a couple of years ago. And, uh, Max, you ever seen those photos that people take of me holding a long-haired dachshund, like a Bond villain? I'll send you one of those, too. That's Maxie. And Maxie's, I mean, dachshunds, you talk about a not bright dachshund. Dachshunds, they're mean little animals.

but they can be precious angels. Anyways, the second anybody is not literally putting their hands over the entire slab, one of the dogs just walks up. And starts eating it like it's their bowl. No, no, no, no. Because you've been in houses where a dog is like a little sneaky, comes in to mix the Flintstone feet, like ticky, ticky, ticky, ticky, like comes up and goes, oh, I'll have this little bite of pepper. Little sideways head, little sideways shark head.

Even more low-key. It's half a slice of pep-pep that somebody dropped onto the table. And then they run away because they're so embarrassed. Bailey just walks up and goes... Just starts eating all of the food. That was, dude, that was like $23 worth of cowgirl creamery cheese. Jiminy Christmas, what are you doing? And you know, no scraps is what I'm saying. I, John.

I've, this changes everything. I find myself now thinking as much as I, you know, a kid and I do bits, you know, you know, I kid about you, even though I like you, I kid about Auntie Susie, even though I love her. Should I talk to her? Because it feels like both those animals are dead.

But I think she sometimes will have a cat or like a visiting dog. My niece, her daughter has a dog. That's the dog that wears diapers, wears special little underpants. I'll send you a photo of that too. His name's Charlie and he's super stupid. Do you think she's at risk for this? I've never seen her store books on there. Do you think she's at risk? I don't think it's a pet issue. It is a how do I handle my oven issue. That's what you got to look at. Yeah, but who's a good no scraps boy, right?

There's practices in place here that suggest this could be another Canadian cracker cooker. She doesn't seem like she's hiding things from the dog, though. She's a professional caterer. She teaches cooking classes. She's on top of that stuff. Also, their stuff's really nice. So, you know, a privilege, I guess.

Um, I guess that's all I had to say about that. I'm going to, I send you some photos, but, um, but maybe just the, there's some more general point in some ways is like, don't you, don't set your up, don't set yourself up for situations. where your assumptions and lack of knowledge and strange behaviors put your dog in a position to get blamed for mayhem.

What do you think? What's the takeaway from your POV? You could slightly further generalize this by saying you never want to be the subject of a news story that ends with an em dash and the word twice. Unless the word lottery is somewhere in the title. I swear to Christ. Yes. No. What? You got divorced, bankruptcy, testicle loss. You know, 81-year-old man struck by lightning, m-dash, twice. Twice.

Oh, man. Yeah, twice. Well, this leads to two things that are in the document. Well, one I've already mentioned is your tip about the AirPod, where I specifically credited you with the AirPod tip. The AirPod rules, TM. TM, TM, TM. Is that right, AirPod rules? Okay, thank you. $750,000. Did you hear this week's episode, by the way? Is it $750,000 or is it $700,000? It's my revenge for... PayPal me, PayPal me. Oh, you should get it wrong. I thought it was PayPal...

Is it PayPal me $700,000? Is that it? Something like that. What was I talking about? We're going to the next item. No. I love Auntie Susie. I'm going to send you some pictures of dogs. Oh, and the other ones. So there's the keep your AirPods either in your ears or in the case. Another one, this might be somewhat Seinfeld adjacent. Remember when his belt touches the urinal?

But never put anything you wouldn't want it to be for 24 hours. I know that's another one of those. Oh, Merlin, you're so silly. Five second rule. Five second rule, but like... Wasn't there a Seinfeld episode on the 10 second rule or whatever? I think they covered that.

It sounds like a late, that would be a late season episode. Maybe. Either that or I'm just confusing it with one of those food safety podcasts. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah. Never put your Frogger machine anywhere you wouldn't want it to be for 35 years. What was the sound in Franker? What was the sound? No, I only know the Paul and Storm song. Oh, but it was a, wasn't it a distinctive two syllable sound? Like maybe I'm thinking of a Pac-Man again.

Did you know I had Pac-Man fever? 1981, I had Pac-Man fever. You still have to get it because there was no vaccine. absolutely and my family my family felt very strongly about stuff like that they did not of course they did not want me to be around namco games at all because it's kind of messing with a bad rough rough trade as you say

But they also didn't believe in vaccinations. So, you know, what was the ending sound? What's the one that goes do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Now, what's that one? Is that Donkey Kong? I think you're a little off-key, so I can't tell. I think it's Pac-Man. That's the original Pac-Man, right? I think so. And when you've got Pac-Man fever...

You're sweating, you're watching reruns of Quincy, and that song's just going over and over and over in your head. And you're so hungry, but you keep dying. Because now you're a ghost. Ooh!

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And all of Relay FM. So that's what's happening on the dog front. In other matters, can I just say a nice thing, please? You do, your popular show that you do, we kid a lot, but I'm a big fan of ATP and as a supporter of ATP in that I give them money on some sort of regular basis, I get access to the member episodes that they do.

cool lots of cool different member things but they do like a member special once a month on John's other show this is a show that John does with our friends Casey and Marco and I really enjoy the show a lot as you guys age and get more okay talking about how you actually are The show keeps getting better and it has made the member episodes truly memorable and something that I really do look forward to. I used to look forward to them because it was like watching regional wrestling.

Whereas a bunch of people were just like pretending to slap each other, but you could tell they were still kind of mad. And now you guys have really graduated. The pizza topping episode we talked about recently was terrific. You guys had an episode that came out the other day. I'm not done listening to it, but I'm halfway through. You did. The three of you did an episode about vacations.

stole a rectif topic it happens we pull topics from all the podcasts i listen to all the podcasts you know that like a whole bunch of the first third especially at marco's part would surprise you to know that i was the whole time i was kind of like

If I were being really nice about it and like big hearted and in a public way, like I try to be, I would go, Oh Marco, it's cool that you're admitting that that's an unpopular opinion. Good for you, man. And I did think that, but you know what I really thought you. People, I have fought with you about this particular topic in a genial way for like 15 years or something, however long it's been. I said that on the show. We've been talking about it for years.

You didn't mention my name once and neither did. I mentioned the name of the show. Do you guys know how many times you use the word prioritize in a vacation? You're still using that word. I don't recall using it at all in that episode. I'm not surprised, John. That's part of the problem. Your recall is bad. This episode was so good. And y'all, I mean, this is what I'm up to.

The part I want to say is I really enjoy your show. I wish people would also support it because I like you guys being successful and being around and staying in the biz. But I just want to say from my heart that Marco and Casey. Especially Casey. Said some very vulnerable things in a very courageous way. Honestly, it's hard to talk about your real life.

And as is borne out by like, what, the second 10 minutes of that episode where you bent over backwards to talk about the privilege of vacation, this is a difficult topic to talk about. And that's partly why vacations can be so horrible. is you're really not allowed to complain about them. I can make sly jokes about that cruise I went on, but it would be very uncool for me to talk about how much I never want to be on a cruise ship ever again.

Yeah, and actually we weren't really, we weren't only complaining about vacations, but just talking about them at length and examining them and describing your experience with them. You have to talk about family. And to talk about family, you will almost inevitably talk about your parents. And if you're a 40-year-old person. talking about your parents can be very increasingly complicated.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. We have a big disclaimer, but I think it was needed. Why don't you say a nice thing about Casey? You're so mean to Casey. Why don't you say something nice about how vulnerable he is? I was just going to send you a picture of his partial packing job just to give you an idea that I was not exaggerating when I was describing the things that were on the back of his car.

can't find it i'll get it eventually anyways um and as it turns out that is a compliment i'm very happy to pay oh john i'm sorry do the thing uh where can people learn more where do people atp atp.fm slash members Slash join. Yeah. We'll put a link to this member special in the episode. I know, but this is an audio podcast, John. Tell people where it is. ATP.fm slash join if you want to become a member. And then the longer link, which is ATP.fm slash ATP hyphen insider hyphen vacations.

We'll put that link in the show notes. You can go right to the episode. If you can play the episode, fine. You're already a member. Hit play. If you can't play it, it'll have a link to tell you how to become a member. Right there in front of you. And I had written that down in a different section of the document where you, I think, first moved it, then deleted it, then moved it, then deleted it again.

I'm not sure. You're like a Welshman. You're so self-destructive. But your voice isn't as nice. And it turns out that that leads into what I think is our main topic this week.

We are a results-oriented podcast increasingly, and I think this is the original results topic, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. We're going to talk about John's vacation results. John, you want a vacation? Please, please tell us about your vacation results.

yeah the reason why this was the first results thing is because as you noted we've talked about vacations for so much and our various attitudes towards them and the things about them and stuff and vacation results that the concept was that after all this discussion it became clear that

After our vacation is concluded, one of the things that's of interest to us is how did it turn out? Which is not really... I mean, at the very least. Not really the way people talk about vacations. They must be like, did you have a good time on vacation? Or are you glad to be back? My sweet summer child. It would be so nice for life to be that simple. But I think a big part, at least when you talk to me about my vacation results, I think I appreciate.

also kind of dread is getting into the, like, okay, Mr. Big shot, you went into it with this big set of expectations about how it was going to be terrible. And was it terrible? And how did you handle it? And Allah, the wonderful member episode that you did. whoa whoa i'm gonna say this this just occurred to me and it might be wrong um how you feel about vacations and the different kinds of vacations can be an

I don't want to say it's a reflection of your character, but it's an interesting marker for your personality. The same way that people who were extremely extroverted had such a hard time during COVID. You know, it's like there's, there's something about, and again, I'm not saying you're like character, but you're like your personality, your emotional makeup, your social, you know, like.

And the thing is, as you guys got into it, which may come up here or in a future episode, like, well, why am I so resistant to going to this one particular kind of recreational? vacation destination and it's like oh sit down pack a lunch i've got so much trauma and pseudo trauma and nanotrauma from going to the beach that it is very difficult to me to see

for me to see looking forward to that as something that's even possible. And I think you guys got into that. So anyway, sorry, I didn't mean, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I did really enjoy the episode. So you... you keep going you're back yeah so i mean we that's why we started discussing vacation results just to basically see like how did it turn out especially if you have difficulty with vacations or don't expect them to like like

In some ways, it's like, how bad was it? Which is not really, again, not the thing you ask people after they come back from vacation, but it's how we describe it. It's a question that you would only ask comically in a sitcom, whereas I'm dead serious. How was the TV this time? How were the pairing knives? You know, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, have you returned from vacation more or less relaxed? More, you know, are you a better person or a worse person? Has the vacation changed you? You know, are you now a supervillain? Anyway. How does either on vacation or back from vacation, this particular vacation, and we're calling it a vacation, which I don't always do, but we're calling it in this case, vacation, whatever a vacation is for you. But like either on or back from vacation.

Do you find yourself closer to or further from the sort of person you think you'd like to be? Because sometimes you get to go in the idealized idea of vacation. Hey, I'm going to sandals. I'm going to get my hair braided. I'm going to sit around and pour my ties on my head and, you know, get.

get a, get a beach or whatever. And, you know, but the truth is for a lot of people, like I think Again, I, I loved what all you guys had to say, but in terms of, I loved, I loved Casey for the vulnerability, but I loved Marco for the, the not even empathy, the sympathy that I felt with him on like, you know, vacation for me.

I mean, he said my thing. which is fine, but he should have credited me. He said my thing, which is, and you really scoffed at this a few months ago, but to me, a vacation is an instance where I get to control my environment and my expectations. I don't think I scoffed at that, but I did hear him saying things.

that I've heard you say, some of which I didn't know. No, seriously, did that sound familiar? Well, because he said something. Yeah, because he didn't want to have responsibility. He went as far as to say that he doesn't count it as a vacation if he brings his kids. And you guys both kind of, you especially, I think, threw him a rope on that to be like, hey.

you sure you want to, don't want to read it? I mean, you know, it is what it is, right? Because it kind of sounds like you said you don't like your kids. Yeah, but it's different. The way Casey did it in his more like, kind of way where he's like, oh, the parents are there.

Cause he's not willing to say that like everybody's parents, when I was a kid, kids, they didn't call it. The thing is they didn't call it. They never called it a vacation. It's like, man, mom and dad are just going to go visit, you know, on Stell. You follow what I mean? But when we were kids, your parents could take you on vacation and then ignore you.

Which is not a thing today. That is also true. And that's why certain, I still feel like certain kinds of destinations, including, you know, theme park, high-end Disney style properties. exist because you would like to make, you really, you want your kids to have a great time, but you also want them to be in an environment that's.

You know, they're probably not going to die. That's why the cruises have a thing. Parents, drop your kids off here and then go do whatever you want. Just trust us that the kids not escape the boat. or like even like where you can drop your kids off at ikea i don't know if they do that anymore these are a place where you could just like drop off your kids but like there was a recent um

Disney video I was watching about Disneyland railroads. Because, you know, one of Walt's huge things was just he loved railroads. And he loved model railroads. And he liked the idea of model railroads. So originally, I think one of the early, early, early...

It doesn't matter. If you're a Disney adult, you can go look this up or correct me. But, you know, the early railroads, the very first railroad, I mean, almost all of those rides, they were safe by the, certainly by the standards of the time. Again, one of Walt's.

sort of almost ideological things was i i i loved going to amusement parks and fun fairs and carnivals as a kid but they were always sketchy what if we took all those ideas made them really big did it well and did it safely and so for the time but like all the kinds of like railings and stuff like around railroads that you have now and the way the queues work and the way that, you know, there's all these different kinds of things where it's like people from Europe.

who grew up around the time I did are like, you've got to be kidding me. Have you ever been on like one of those Alpen roller coaster things? Have you ever seen those like where you can go down a hill on a track? You know, it's like in other countries, you're like, oh, no, this is kind of a crazy thing I'm doing. And I know that. So I should be really careful versus in America. You're like, my dog set my book on fire.

Yeah, I don't know if you got to this point in the episode, but the, you know, and I've discussed my vacation results from my Long Island vacations on the show many times where I go there every year. The one thing that I think was different and novel this year about my vacation results that.

wasn't relevant to any of the past years is this is the first year that my Long Island vacation included a new element, which was, and we talked about this on the ATP special, like sometimes you're taking a vacation from something, a vacation from your jobs, from your responsibilities, a vacation from the place where you live.

I was this year for the first time taking a vacation from food restrictions because I had high cholesterol at the doctor recently and they said to change my diet so that my cholesterol would go down. Should I have done this? yeah we talked about in the past not a big deal okay but the point is like when you're at home you're in mass you're

You've got to watch what you eat. Less saturated fat, whatever. Lower my cholesterol. And one of the things that I did as part of that was completely cut out ice cream because I'm an ice cream fiend and would eat it every single day and was eating it way too much.

Did you see that beautiful sunset that I posted the other, like last night or the night before? I posted a photo of a beautiful sunset. And I thought the sunset photo is good alone. And I have a message that I want to share with people with this picture of the sunset. And so I left off.

a true thing that I was going to say what I was going to say. Well, I took a beautiful, just beautiful, beautiful. Like every night, sunset's beautiful, not just here, but everywhere. The sun's pretty everywhere. Go look at it, get off your damn phone and go look at the sun. But.

it looked beautiful. And I said, you know, and the crazy thing is that it does this every day. The thing I was going to say before that was, um, I, I just, I just took the lid off the ice cream and threw it in the trash. And now I'm watching this. Because I am a hero. I'm a committed, self-knowing hero when it comes to a pint of ice cream. It's going to go in. The whole thing, it's like when they're yelling, when they're playing the football.

Get in, get in. It's all going in my face. But isn't that a giant, to your point, isn't that a giant HDL precedent? Yeah, it's probably not good. But it causes a lot of the bad. It makes a lot of the bad. I'm not a nutritionist, but having a large amount of super-bearing ice cream every day is not probably going to do your cholesterol. I can eat one and a half pints of ice cream every day.

yeah it's i try not to i try it it keeps me up at night you know yeah so so i cut out ice cream cold turkey and you know try to reduce many other things uh because ice cream is the easiest to get rid of because it's like well just don't have just don't have that for dessert have something else anyway But on vacation this year, on my Long Island vacation, no dietary restrictions for one week. I see you being like Homer in hell with the donuts. I kept it under control.

No, I get what you mean though. But like, that means that for the first time, I'm going to give you the Merlin angle on this real quick. It means that for the first time in months, when you have a tiny little twinge that says, Oh, I kind of want a treat. And I know the treat I want. It's the first time in months that you.

get to say, it's okay, you can go out of that tree. That's such a nice feeling. That's a very vacation feeling. Yeah, well, I mean, I was going in knowing what I was going to do. So one of the things we do when we arrive on vacation is we immediately go grocery shopping for the week. And I've just bought a bunch of ice cream. It's like, look, I know this is going down.

Did you write John's ice cream on it? No, everybody has ice cream on our vacation. That's one reason to buy lots of it. That way you've given yourself a buffer. Even before my dietary restrictions. never buy

In our regular life, for example, like a Haagen-Dazs pop, like a chocolate, it's like an ice cream pop on a popsicle stick with chocolate around it. John, I ate six of those one night, two weeks ago. We would never buy those for the house because they're expensive. They're the wrong size. They just go down too fast. It's like a...

Some would say that they're too big because you can't eat half of one or whatever. But anyway, we never buy them for the house. Half of one? Yeah. I eat half of one 12 times. They make the mini ones too. But anyway, we never buy them for the house. But always for the past 20 years we've been going there, we'd get stuff like that.

for vacation because it's like a vacation food it's not like i wasn't eating ice cream at home i was eating plenty of ice cream right but we wouldn't get those particular pops and when we when i was on ice cream when i used to get it i would always look for it on sale right

I would never buy it at full price. And when it was on sale, I'd buy like 17 pints and put them in the freezer downstairs, you know? So I was trying to be frugal, right? You know, buy it when it's on sale. Don't buy the pops. They're too expensive. Actually, you know, you're being a thrifty dad when you do that. Yeah.

But always on vacation, it was like, all bets are off. Whatever you want, we're going to get it. The kids would pick out the pops they want. I would pick out the ones. But then this year was extra special because, yeah, we got all that same, all the same like Hagen-Dazs pops and stuff. But this is coming off like.

being off ice cream pretty much entirely the only other exceptions i make is on my birthday dinner or like someone else's birthday i'll have it on thanksgiving on christmas like those are my essentially my uh My dietary restriction vacations are people's birthdays if they have like a cake with ice cream. So I get that four times a year. And then Thanksgiving, Christmas, and I guess Easter maybe. Okay.

So it was good. The results were good. I enjoyed my vacation a little tiny bit extra this year. I wasn't expecting that for obvious reasons, I guess. I wasn't expecting that to be the thing that was different this time around. And you can maybe guess, like, is it weird to have your kids as old as they are now? Did they come?

No, because they still demand so much service from us that the fact that they're 18 and 21 doesn't really register. I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, it's a vacation if I've still got to try and keep my teen happy. You want to take a walk? You want to go somewhere? You want to go to the bookstore? Yeah, and if they forget something, it's our fault, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, oh, Jim. Still not still on time. I'll take it because it's a family vacation. The dynamic is John. We're still having problems with keys. We're still having the dynamic is they don't have any responsibility. They don't have to do anything. Yada, yada. I'm the sin eater, man. It always all falls to me.

You just sent me a photo of a dog. That's Bailey. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but that's Bailey. Yeah, the thing that I immediately noticed on this photo of Bailey is that, well... I mean, you tell me. As a photographer, what am I going to notice about this photo of Bailey? Oh, I did this with my 5D. I thought this was a pretty good photo. That's a really nice bouquet with a 50mm. What do you not like about it? Eyes should be in focus, not the nose. Oh.

Yeah, it's a difficulty with dogs. So that's why cameras have the like the animal mode. I wish they would just figure out that it's a dog. It's a really good point, but I think it's kind of a terrible, mean thing to say about the sweet, precious dead dog.

It's very cute. I'm criticizing the photograph. But look at the composition. Look how I got the thirds and everything. No, it's a good dog. Look at those big feet. It's a problem. You focus on the dog's nose. This is a picture of Bailey's nose. Well, but this... That also, in fairness, this is a retro explanation, but that's the part that was most in focus when this particular giant dog's giant head was on my dick at every meal.

Have you ever had that happen? Have you ever had a dog come up? I am aware of the phenomenon. It's really sweet, and it's not dick-based, but have you ever had a dog come up and, like, nestle? Very awful from the side. They put their... Oh, my God. Muzzle on my thigh from the side. John, it's all I can do not to...

move out my chair, get on the floor, and crawl under the table. It's all I want to do is commune with these dogs. You should see also the reason I sent you that, now I'm looking for one of Macs, but all I do the entire time, I used to be the guy that would find the guitar or the piano. And then just amuse myself with that or read a book. And I'm always the person who just super wants to engage.

with the animal even if the animal you know sometimes at parties people will put it doesn't want to engage with you and you're chasing it around the house no that doesn't happen because they can tell i like them but no they'll put the dog in a bathroom or put it oh that's mean

Well, more like a cat. You put a cat in the bathroom, which cats don't mind. But we put a dog in the bedroom. These two dogs, I'll send you Max in a minute, would be in the bedroom. I'm sorry I took you off your thing. That's Bailey. I'll send you Max. You've got to see Charlie in these funny underpants.

That's it for my vacation results. Oh, really? Another good year. Good. A little extra fun. Thumbs up. This episode of Reconcilable Differences. It's brought to you in part by Factor. You can learn more about Factor right now by visiting factormeals.com slash diffs50off. Hmm. You know...

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But it brings me to the next topic, which... That seems really short. Yeah, well, because this is tied together here. So I heard you talking about this on another podcast. And I know I didn't say it this time, but my annual Long Island vacation is we all, me and my parents and siblings all go to Long Island, which is where we all grew up.

Knowing you, this is where I found out that they have beaches in New York. I did not know there were beaches in New York. That's right. And we all go to the beach. This is a beach vacation brush. And I heard you say on some other podcast, probably Roderick on the line.

that in your childhood, you hated the beach. And you went into a little bit of depth about it. No, it's really appropriate for that. But no, I'd be more than happy to. And so the top, the logline here is Marlon used to, question mark, hate the beach.

My first question is, do you still hate the beach? Yes. For practical purposes. So then, so now I don't have the time boxes. I can just say Merlin. Well, I mean, okay. But like the problem is with, you will get this. I'm sorry. Our listener will have to do a lot more. debugging with this, but include once how I feel about locations or about vacations, right? Have you already done that as an include at the top? So there's everything I feel about vacations. And then there's the beach.

Being where we're going. So like, I don't even like it on the days like we're in a general clear water vacation and we're going to the beach. But like the idea of like the main. appeal of why everybody wants to go there is going to the beach oh that is no bueno in my entire life i was made to feel terrible about that all right well so setting aside how you

I think I answered that in a really responsible way. How people, quote unquote, made you feel about it. I'm happy to talk about the specifics for sure. What it is you hate about the beach. Yeah, mainly sunburns. uh sunburns i was uh so the big ones like right off the dome and i'd love to get into my trauma but let's just start with the easy ones i have very fair skin burn easily uh i don't like being hot

Like as a thing, I mean, I like being comfortable. I don't love being cold, but I do not like heat from which I cannot escape. I don't like being. in areas that are i mean even like a picnic area at a park that's like fully has a roof on it that's great but Most of the time it was, we were literally just on sand in the sun, or maybe we're in some kind of cabana thing. So number one, the sun, the heat. Number two, I think those count as one. Number two, that's not a big deal, but saltwater.

It just, it goes up your nose and it hurts and it's no fun and there's waves and the bottom is weird. I didn't like that, any of that. And then what three would be, uh, the Anakin Skywalker problem. It's just, it is everywhere, you know? And it's, I just don't like it. And like, and then these all kind of, I feel like in my trauma, it used to accumulate. So like, by the end of the day, I'm just like, even by.

you know because the thing is in florida i don't know if it's like that's where you are but in florida uh so we're talking about here in the most let's try and even just restrict this to the late 70s early 80s is that a good time fair so you put yourself into like where you were over that time or where you were at that age, which for me, let's call it 10 to 15. From the age of 10, 10 years of age to 15 years of age.

uh we go to the beaches late 70s early 80s okay visiting family eventually we moved to florida that was a whole thing uh but then i've been sunburned so many times and i've been Hot. Now I'm sunburned and I'm hot. Now I sound like Gene Wilder and the producers. I'm sunburned. I'm hot. Everybody thinks I'm being a baby. The food and drinks are weird.

I'm sunburned. Would it be fun to go in the water? John, the water's 82 degrees because it makes people so happy that the water is that hot. They love it. It could be 70, but honestly, it's really, it's closer to... what you would consider like a tepid bath. And it's so salty, and there's seaweed. And I'm sunburned, and I'm hot.

And then I get out of the water and now I try to go back to some area where now we're outside in the sun and I'm hot. I got stupid salt water. This drink is weird. And I'm sitting there now in the sun and I'm in the sand. And because I'm wet now, I got sand all over me. But the biggest one that I think you could take every single thing away right up to heat, it's the sun. The sun is my enemy.

And the sun makes the heat as well as giving me, I don't want to put my family on blast, but you know, I've had sunburns. I should have gone to the hospital for. In your adult life or when you were a kid? I'm going to tell you one. actually I have two sunburns that are upsettingly epic. And if any single one of you super nice people emails me about this, I'm going to be frustrated.

Yeah. There's a lot of things I should do with my health. Read a book. 19 diggity 80. So I think this is app. Yeah. So it's right around the time. Any of y'all from the area. It was around when Adventure Island opened. It was within a couple of years of Adventure Island opening. So Busch Gardens in Tampa, I think Casey probably has one in Virginia. Busch Gardens started as a brewery and then became a pretty cool upscale theme park.

Anyways, Busch Gardens made a really nice water park. Because really, honestly, water parks used to be kind of like theme parks where like, God, you could get hurt so bad. at a water park when I was a kid in the seventies, when you have to go down, did you ever get on water slides on a mat versus the sleep? We did. We had an episode where we talked about action park. Remember? So you've been to action park.

Yeah, we used to go all the time, remember? So was it as crazy as it seemed? Like the swinging and stuff? Yeah. Wow. Alpine slide, man. Alpine slide. Go see the episode about it. Alpine slide. John, I swear to Christ, I'm going to come over there right now. And I'm going to embrace you. I know you have trouble with your recall. Is that the one with the loop? It did have the loop, yeah. But the Alpine Slide was not the one with the loop. The Alpine Slide was... It's on a ski resort.

But it was every one of those. And Defunctland? Is that the one? What's the best one? There's the one that's the official movie, which is very good. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, but the canonical one is, I think, Defunctland. Is it right? Is that the one? We'll find it for now. I don't remember the franchise. He did the really good action park. You can see it when you see the thumbnail for it. It looks kind of like almost like a magnet letter. There's a lot of websites for it.

Especially with like, you know, good archival footage and old photographs. But no, this is, okay, I'm going to watch it tonight. The one that really got me, but before you anyway, this is a place, Action Park, they designed their own rides. and implemented their own rides. And apart from all these other things that were terrible, including kids very easily accessing alcohol at very young ages, swinging off of things, they built a slide that had a loop in it.

And I think the first time they put them like a dummy, a mannequin down and it was beheaded. Like this thing was so dangerous. Everybody would get somebody. They're giving employees 11 bucks to try it. Yeah, but didn't like two people get a broken nose when they went through the loop? It was, I mean, it sounds horrible. It sounds like not, it's certainly not a fun thing, but like.

If you're an amusement park enthusiast, and if like me, you're also a roller coaster enthusiast, there's a lot of interesting stuff out there about how you design roller coasters that are both really exciting, but like not painful. And like, if you want to make them painful, yeah, we can do that.

But, like, we're going to make this thing so that you get an incredible ride without getting injured. And Action Park, woof. So where were we at? Adventure Island. I was just grabbing the Alpine slide. I think it's the best example. Okay, so I really just, sorry. It's a water slide. I'll finish this. Adventure Island is a place they opened, Busch Gardens, 1980s.

mostly water slides they had one of those big wave pools remember we're like you know and all the stuff of a modern the drowning pool yeah and i was there and i had a pair of oh what were they they weren't lightning bolt they weren't op you I don't think we could afford lightning bolt trunks, but I was wearing my swimsuit, swim trunks, no shirt, and I was in the sun at Adventure Island all day.

from getting there at whatever 10 or 11 to leaving it three four five whatever and like you probably don't need to see my shoulders just trust me that i was really really badly sunburned anyway long story short next day we went to the beach and did the same thing And I was out there. And then by that night, I had this terrycloth shirt. I went to a, oh God, we went to a Greek restaurant, probably in Tarpon Springs. And I had this, I remember I had this terrycloth shirt on. And I...

I've never looked this up and I'm not going to, but I was delirious at dinner. I like, you know, like when you're like, oh, I'm really not right. And of course I'm a very dignified 13 year old young man. So I'm like, uh, can I just go to the car? And I just went and I laid on the back seat and I was in so much pain. I was just in the most, it's like, it was at least a second degree burn. And I should have gone to a hospital or I should have gotten more than like whatever unguent.

They had it Eckerd. If you just put mayonnaise on it, it's fine. You put butter on it. That's what you do. Yes, I remember that. It makes a pretty strong bird. Sorry, that was three jokes. No, that's the thing that we used to learn in health class, kids, because I think in the 70s... Because you remember us growing up, because when you're growing up, they always, honestly, in growing up, even my...

My family, which was, we weren't total hillbillies, but used to put, like, butter on a burn. And you're like, you weren't healthy. Well, what we learned, what I learned in my day and age was do not put butter on the burns. That's what I'm telling you. We had to have classes. I had an occasion to think, why are they telling us not to put butter on it? Are people doing that? And the answer is yes. Oh, absolutely they did.

So anyway, and then, of course, there's the other one that you've heard about, January 1986, where I was in an open boat from Pasco, basically from New Porchi to Sarasota. Uh, on the inland, uh, what's called the inland waterway or whatever. Um, yeah. So I was in an open boat when I was 18, 19, I was in an open boat for six or eight hours and that's. Were you shirtless again?

no i had a shirt and i tried to stay in the little uh kind of cockpit area you got a farmer sunburn i wish but like what i got was sun poisoning i think um It sounds like you had that the first time, too. Absolutely. No, absolutely. But this time, 1986. So here's the part I'm not saying. I'm being real vulnerable about talking about this thing that sounds really stupid.

uh why do i not like the beach well it's sun so let me explain to you why the sun um every single step of the way i mean certainly my wonderful mom like wants me to be comfortable you know or but It was really more an issue of wanting me to be comfortable rather than going, what are we doing?

you know it's i'm not mad at her but she was the nicest person in every group for any of these events she wasn't on the boat but like back at the in the 80s and all those other times that i came to hate the beach she was the nicest person in the world nice she could be but it was

still she was still like somebody like yeah we're going to the beach that's what we're doing today and every almost every other person to some degree or another was like i mean this is how you become the sort of person that doesn't get invited to things i they thought i was insufferable

Because I was like, you don't understand how much this sucks for me. And it has made me, I have to say, as dumb and obscure as that sounds, it's made me far more, forgive me, far more sympathetic to people with things like food allergies. or IBS, or any of those things where everybody thinks it's a made-up thing where you're just being a baby to get attention, or you're spoiled. And in retrospect, I am a little mad, not so much at my family exactly, mom or grandma, but...

I'm a little mad just at the culture and society for the extent to which I could be exposed to something that was so dangerous to me and then made it feel bad about how I wasn't enjoying it properly. And it's like, you know, you get older and you're like, I mean, it's kind of like going like, wow, the waitresses at Hooters do get tips. So of course I could like.

you know, skim their areolas. It's like, no, no, we need boundaries for these kinds of things. Like, you oughtn't put a child somewhere where they have told you it makes them extremely unhappy and then also make them feel bad about it.

If you don't understand that as a basis for trauma, I'm not sure how I could persuade you. My takeaway from the story is subtly different. It's kind of like when I hear Roderick complaining about his computer stuff and then you don't help him. My question is not so much like... It wouldn't be a good show if I helped him.

it was like uh you know it's like why you mentioned your your mother was like nice to you and everything but like the question is like why weren't they helping you like aren't they supposed to be helping like instead of just being like oh

bummer look that happened to you again and that will be nice to you after it happened like that's that's great and everything but how about avoiding you know what you know about we'll get you we'll get you aloe vera it's a thing i read about in a magazine right yeah and so we'll get that for you

Yeah, but that's like, just how about before? Is there something we can do to stop it from happening as opposed to being nice after it happens to take care of the injured person? And that's what one is left to think about. I'm not asking you guys to...

have my problems. And I'm not even strictly asking for you to understand my problems. What I would ask of anybody with a good heart and good intention is to try and just understand that each of us has different kinds of things that seem very irrational. to other people, perhaps, but have an outsized impact on us. There's a book I read a couple years ago that means a lot to me. And one of the things I read in that book is that, well, let me give you a couple just quick takeaways about...

trauma and how we get trauma and what happens. Most of us are raised to believe, are raised to learn that in nature, animals, including humans, have something called a fight or flight.

uh impulse is that what it's called but the basically it's response response yeah that is that is maybe it's not like strictly autonomic but it's heavily related to the autonomic system including the vagus nerve we're not going to get into that but like It's the example, like we've all heard that example before that like, you know.

It makes sense to be scared of a lion if there's a lion running at you. And it doesn't make as much sense to be scared about a lion running at you if you're somewhere that a lion has never been and never will be. And, like, there's different ways to think about that. I understand that. But, you know... one of the first big parts of trauma is that these things come along and uh there's actually a third option and i know a lot of you know this now um i can't speak for john

I'd always heard fight or flight. Of course I know it. Okay, but when you were growing up, was there a third one when you were growing up? I think so, yeah. Okay, well, I never heard, I always heard fight or flight, and then I finally, years later, learned about fight, flight, or freeze.

And once you know about freeze, a lot more stuff in nature makes sense. Oh, here's one. You know, I don't know if you notice this. Sometimes I photograph animals at night when I'm riding around. There's a shell tea that I have a relationship with in a window. I saw. Yeah, that's a smart-looking dog. I haven't posted these because nobody cares. Shelties have no brains. I think they and Dalmatians might be the dumbest dogs.

But we get raccoons. Billy took a great raccoon video from his window the other night. a bunch of raccoons going through our trash and we got a family in the park across the street and they're they're wonderful and uh i take photos and videos of them and here's the thing i'm just a guy on a scooter riding around and i see the outlines on the street classic outline

Over here by the cars, you see one big one, and then maybe a slightly smaller one. And then two, three, four little ones straggling across the street to keep together. And Mama sees me. And every single one of those raccoons. Well... What did they do? Did they fight me? They did not. Did they run away? Nope. What's the very first thing every animal does? It freezes.

Let me just tell you this. It sounds like you listen to Monday's Roderick. I'll send you this video if you want. If you're being attacked by army ants and you're a stick insect, like one of those, like a stick, and the ants can't really see you. Like the thing people say about dinosaurs, ants only can detect motion, right? So if you're an animal being attacked by a 10 meter wide phalanx of army ants, freeze and you'll be fine.

But if you move even in the slightest detectable way, you're so dead and they will tear you apart joint by joint. The raccoons freeze. They don't fight me. They don't run away. They freeze. Fight, flight, or freeze. Now, raccoon's not traumatized by that. But if somebody's had something physically, and this is, I'm really kind of changing the topic, but not. But if somebody's had, has been traumatized by something physical that happened to them.

And like you hear people say things like I disassociated or I went out of my body. If you watch that Jeffrey Epstein, Filthy Rich, you're going to hear this response more than once. Well, why didn't they fight? Well, they're poor people from West Palm. Like, they're going to lose. Okay, flight. Why didn't they run away? Oh, by the way, you know, what was her name? Maria Farmer? Like, she's on an island in a different country. There is no fight. There is no flight.

And so what did those women do? The only thing that was left, which is freeze. So anyway, everybody keeps the score. And then you know what makes that really bad? And this is, I'll throw to you after this. Those things happen. But then the part that makes it...

really marks it as traumatic in some cases, does that freezing happen because someone held you down and you couldn't get away? But maybe you froze for other reasons. Maybe you froze because you're scared of what you're... grandma's gonna think you freeze instead of fight or flight um but then the part that really marks it as a trauma is that in retrospect you realize all the people who were supposed to protect you

didn't protect you and they in fact made it worse and then bonus third one is and they never realized it or said anything about it so as dumb as it is sunburns that's stupid i got sunburns And then people made me feel bad about it. And I got sun poisoning. I lost a month of my life to sun poisoning.

in january of 1986 i was very very ill i went to the doctor they're like this looks like mono in every way but it's not so for three three and a half weeks i had my entire mouth was covered with cold sores i had sores on my throat and my skin was practically peeling off. Not for the whole month, but you get me, right? And then I'm like, hey, did you guys not remember I don't like being in the sun?

You should have been nicer about that. So that's a little bit of trauma. Now, the beach can be great. My angle on this is connected to what you just said. But slightly different. So you see if you can find the connection here. Because obviously you've got the trauma angle on your experience with the beach translating into your current hate of the beach. And I'm presuming your skin still doesn't like the sun.

This thing has not changed about you. You also, once again, remember to safely in your PHP, you safely include once everything I feel about vacations. Yeah. Although, I mean, you live near a beach, so like you could be on the beach and definitely not be on vacation. Not in Pasco County. No, I mean like right now. In San Francisco?

Yeah, does that not count as a beach? It's sand in the ocean, right? Sure. Yeah, okay, go ahead. They closed that highway down so everyone can walk along it. I know, everybody's mad about it. We're recalling Joel. No, it's fine. It's fine. Yeah, but anyway, that's why... When we moved here, when we moved here, my boss and my friend and me went to the beach and from then on all three of us only ever called it hypodermic beach. Go ahead. Some beaches are better than others.

Some beaches' mothers are better than the other beaches' mothers. You may have gotten up to this point in the ATP episode or not, but one of the things that's interesting to me about my Long Island vacations, which... the sole purpose of which is for all of us to go to the beach together and your hatred of the beach from your childhood experiences is how, I guess how like, how the same thing, like the same beach, like, you know.

water, sand, like setting aside the hypotermic needles. Presumably the beaches in Florida do not have the hypotermic needles and everything. Water, sand, and whatever. Like, it's the beach. Just real quick, Clearwater Beach in Florida, at least in the 70s, was... empirically rated the nicest beach in the world.

Yeah, and when I was growing up on Long Island, I was on the beach. Sugarfine sand. I'm talking like confectioner's sugarfine sand. It's really, really nice and beautiful and a perfect strip, perfect for our family. It was the best beach in America at the time. I'm trying to remember what the big story was in my childhood, but they're like hyperdrive needles on beaches in the New York metro area was a big story. It's why it's in We Didn't Start the Fire. Yeah, New Jersey got a...

Oh, okay. Epidermic on the beach. On the shore, I think. Rich and famous Robin Leach on the shore. Okay, got it. I don't know. Anyway, let's see. I mentioned in the ATP episode. That part of my desire to go to Long Island for summer vacation every year is not just because I like the beach and wanted to go to the beach, but also once I had kids that I wanted to give them. my childhood beach experience.

And, you know, why? Like, I don't know. It's a childhood experience that I had and I had fond memories of. And so you want to give your kids things you think they'll enjoy. And so here's, in my mind, a known quantity. I did this in my childhood and I enjoyed it.

So I want to give that experience to my kids rather than speculatively guessing. I'll tell you straight up. I felt that I'm just going to say, this is not a cool thing to say. I absolutely straight up felt that about Disney. It was one of the few things where I thought. I don't have that many generic feelings about a generic child. I don't have that many notional fantasies about babies that don't exist. But I could see myself being pretty excited taking a...

Now, in retrospect, I would say eight, nine, seven, eight, nine, nine, eight or nine year old kid. Depends on the age, depends on the kid. But I could, the most generic kid in the world, I would take to Disney World in a heartbeat.

And I bet that's you at the beach, right? If you really, you love this kid. Let's say you had a kid, one of those horrible things. Maybe it's like Christopherson from Fantastic Mr. Fox, you know, where his father's got double pneumonia and you got to take care of him. If you had to take care of...

for the summer, wouldn't you happily say, I can make this great for you by taking you to the beach? Yeah, and also just like selfishly, if I enjoy going to the beach and I want to take family vacations to the beach, if your kids don't like it, it's going to be miserable for everybody.

You know, so it behooves everyone. You know, Marco knows that. Right, yeah. You don't want to take your kid somewhere they want to enjoy, but if the place that you enjoy the most and want to go during the summer is the beach, it would be great if your kids enjoyed the beach too. And the way I...

tried to make that happen was to try to give my kids some semblance of the experience that I had. Well, it can't be the same thing because I grew up on Long Island and the beach was like right there all the time. We could go to.

on, you know, we'd go all the time to the beach. It was just, it was just a thing that we did versus now with my kids, we'd go once a year. So once a year versus once a week during the summer, that's not a comparison, but it's what I've got to work with. And the important part is like, You know, kind of like, I think I've mentioned this before about skiing. We talked about it with Roderick. Like, I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't know how to ski.

yes similarly to most people can't remember a time in their life when they couldn't walk because it's before you're sort of forming and keeping memories like hey do you remember when you couldn't walk and you had to crawl everywhere and how exciting it was to learn to walk no most people don't remember that uh

It definitely falls into that window. But no, there's those things that you associate. Like it's weird. Like I'm a dumb one from my childhood that you might've had is like, I would say bowling. And roller skating are too. Like we went to the roller skating rink fairly often. We bowled fairly often. And as with your skiing, if you came along for bowling, I'm rewatching The Crown.

season four whatever the one is with margaret thatcher and the first lady diana and there's that wonderful thing called the it's called the balmoral test where Margaret Thatcher has to go to the castle in Scotland and hang out with everybody. And she's such a, she's like such a square. And what a little, one able dibble to treat you with no dibble dibble. And, um.

And I don't know, sometimes you just feel like a little bit like a person out of place if you don't know how to roller skate or your bowling score is consistently in the double digits and you feel like kind of a jerk. Whereas everyone around you is just riding horses and playing able dibble. Yeah. And I said, roller skating is a similar one that I don't remember not knowing how to roller skate either. Are you pretty good?

go to the roller ranks. No, not really. Are you better at roller skating? I'm sorry. This is your life. Are you better at roller skating or ice skating? Oh, roller skating for sure. I currently don't know how to ice skate. Oh my God, John. We went skiing when the baby was like three. And we went to this place where they had this. That was the place where I said, I got mad at the person at the desk and said, Google me. Was this trip? And we went to this.

like roller rink on like top of a mountain with wind or sorry, you know, ice skating rink. And you should have seen us. Madeline did great. She's going around. She, she basically, if you've ever seen the episode of chips, the roller disco episode of chips, She can ice skate about as well as Vic Tabak from Alice can roller skate. And Billy and I, like, we got the walkers.

Like the guy from Up. Or like just hanging on the wall and just so bruised by the end of it. Now, I'm just going to pull this off the dome. Yeah, skiing. Skiing for sure, I guess, but ice skating, like I can see ice skating being almost as bad for somebody as sun was for me. Because think about how much you feel like such a dick and everything hurts. Unless you're in Canada, it's less omnipresent. You can't move without looking like an idiot.

It's a horrible way to spend six hours. And it hurts when you fall because it's really fun. It hurts so much. You could totally break your butt. Yeah, so for the beach experience, like... The reason I can't remember not knowing how to swim, for example, is they took me to the beach all the time, given the baby swim lessons and everything. But not just in a pool, like usually not a pool, but at the beach. One of my earliest, not real, but implanted in me by people telling me.

story memories is uh that we go to the beach with my mom and her friend and her friend was quote unquote teaching me how to swim and we've been the long island sound which if you're not familiar with the long island sound is a beach uh full of rocks Instead of sand, imagine very small rocks. Where do you put down a towel or whatever? On the rocks. So wait, no, really. So there's no like, I'm sorry. So walking to the water.

if you go to the water, is over rocks, and you're, wow. What's it called? It's like there's sand there too, but it's sand with a ton of rocks. What's it called? The Long Island Sound. It's the water that's between Long Island and Connecticut. Jesus Christ.

Sorry, I didn't know the Long Island sound. Sorry. All right. Anyway. But there's a lot of rock. So it's not a fancy beach. It's not. It's the opposite. Whatever you think the opposite of that. Oh, John. No, no. I would say this is this is beautiful and inhospitable. This is really horrible.

The powdered sugar sand, this is the opposite of that. For sure. It's rugged, very rugged. Also, imagine the rocks have barnacles and seaweed on them. Yeah. And at low tide, it smells real bad. Anyway, but we'd be in like the, you know, angle deep water.

And I was like, probably at the point where I was just barely walking. And the swimming lessons would be like, oh, you know, put your face in the water and learn how to kick and do this or whatever. And I'm there. I'm tolling around doing it. But the part of it was also what eventually when you get to this phase is. Teaching the kid how to open their eyes underwater by having them fetch rocks of different colors from the bottom of the sound. We used to do that with jumping for pennies.

Yeah, and again, this is like a foot and a half of water, to be clear. So it's not diving down. Yeah, but if it's any amount of water that can cover your face. Think of like a two or three-year-old and saying, go get me a white rock. And the sound, the water in the sound is not clear. Really? It's green and murky and filled with seaweed or whatever. So you think, how is this a game? Why do you need to go in the water? Why wouldn't you just reach down and pick up the white rock?

Even in a foot and a half or two feet of water in the sound, you can't see the white rocks. And even as a little kid, you're realizing you kind of went out of your way to do this, and it's really weird. Yeah. So this is the story. I would go under the water, and I would fetch the rocks that she asked me to.

learning how to swim underwater, hold your breath, learning how to open your eyes underwater so you can see what you're doing. But more importantly to this whole thing of like being being acclimated and learning how to swim is just repeatedly going to the beach. two aspects of this. One that I didn't think about before, but now I feel like I have to emphasize based on your stories is the people who were taking me to the beach ensured that everything was done.

so that I didn't have the experience that you had. And that involved... And also, it is even as hot and as humid as it can be, it is still a little different. being in florida with the quality but no no but taking your point but like so then to add to that disparity though i mean we're talking like the worst uv stuff ever crappy or like very very little or weak spf

Right. Yeah. And part of it was that part of it was them setting an example by by them doing the things that they were trying to teach me to do. And part of it was ensuring that. They were making sure that I was doing the things that I needed to do to stay safe, essentially, which means cover up, put on a sun hat, put on sunscreen, have a beach umbrella. In the 80s, they're doing this.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. That's so cool. No, that is, John, that is super progressive for that time. I mean, it's good for them, so they don't get... sunburn and stuff like that and it's good for me to see this is how you go to the beach and the other part of it is this is the part that i wanted to talk about before i heard your side of the things is by bringing a young person to the beach over and over and over and over again

You have the best possible chance, not a guarantee, but the best possible chance to get them used to everything about the beach that is terrible. Sand up your shorts. Sand in your ears. Salt water in your eyes. Salt water up your nose. But you're learning about it. Being bitten by horse flies. Having your skin pinched between two rocks that go together. Stepping on a barnacle. Having seaweed hit you. Having fish swim up.

against you smelling low tide like having the sun beat down on you being really hot and sweaty uh all of those things that everyone cites that they hate about the beach setting even aside like damaging your skin and having a terrible sunburn but like but just the things like say you have a successful day at the beach and no one has any sunburn and there are no injuries or whatever there are lots of things that are quote-unquote unpleasant about the beach but

If they are just part of your life and part of being at the beach, a magical thing happens. And you get things like this scene in one of the Anthony Bourdain specials that I recall. I recall thinking about it and just accepting it as the universal truth. But now I realize it probably isn't. At one point, he is eating some food with some one of his international friends or whatever. They're somewhere in the world. And it's like.

It's like boardwalk food. And they're, uh, they're, uh, at a table, essentially in the sand, you know, the table's in the sand, but there's like an umbrella over it and they're eating hot dogs or something. And his comment was something like, All food tastes better if you're eating it while there's sand between your toes. And I'm like, yeah, so true. Everyone knows that, right?

But no, not everybody does know that. Not everyone has that association at all. In fact, many people would say having sand between my toes can ruin any experience, even my favorite food. And so just by essentially sort of like. priming or initializing your children. That's a huge disconnect when you really think about it. It's a big disconnect. Yeah, like basically you have prepared your children with their like...

By giving them sort of pleasurable, fond memories and experiences and acclimating them to all the things that other people find unpleasant about the beach, not only are they tolerant. of all the things about the beach. Not only do they understand how to avoid all of the worst of the things about the beach. But they will even come to associate the things that people dislike with pleasurable things. Yeah, this is also true for families like mine, well, my new family, in Rhode Island with boats.

Like I, I'm, you know, there's, I, there's elements where I'm very, very interested in boats and always have been. And there's other parts where boats are trauma. Like that's, that's my dad was in a boat accident. That was very, very bad. And like, but boat people are like that.

And I love what you're saying, though, because they are my family, that family in Rhode Island, they're also that way about the beach. So you like, I don't know, you basically gave so many examples of something I think is huge, which is let kids fail in an environment. Let kids fail.

but let them fail in an environment where it's not going to be costly or fatal. And that's, I think that's what you're saying is that like, if you're in an environment where everybody's having a good time and you're not stressed out and you're not made to feel bad, you get used to walking in the sand. And you also realize, oh, I can walk in the sand further than I thought. Oh, and if I cut my foot, it sucks, but I got through it. But also what you learn is...

how do I avoid cutting my foot? Do you give just one very specific example that I see? I see like my young, like nephews and stuff having used to do this too. If you, if you are accustomed to swimming in the ocean, we haven't even gotten to the ocean yet. We're just talking about the sound, but if you're accustomed to swimming in the ocean and you do it all the time when you're a kid, one of the things you like.

is there's a part of the the surf where the waves break where closer to the shore where like younger kids might be because they're little they don't want to go out too far where the surf churns up the sand and you get sort of like this sand water mixture that's rapidly moving in, you know, towards the beach and away from the beach. And if you hang out in that area and swim in that area, you will get sand up your shorts. And in other regions where you don't want it.

It's not a riptide, but it's just kind of a bully tide. That part of the surf has lots of sand suspended in the water because it's the sort of tail end of the waves where they're kind of crumbling down or whatever, and it's going in and out. You will get sand under your... Well, it's so amazing. The set of circumstances that has to work out for that to happen. And then the humans that are involved in it. That's incredible. All right. But.

If you don't like that, if you don't like having sand in your bathing suit, like maybe you don't mind it when you're in the water, but when you get out, it kind of gets gritty and gross and people don't like it or whatever. If you decide like when you're young, this happens, this will happen to you because you don't know any better. you will learn or an older person will tell you, hey, if you don't want that to happen...

Go out past where that happens because it's not the entire range of the surf is not like that eventually. Which you would have picked up casually in your situation, right? You pick it up casually. You're going to the beach every week for your entire life starting from an infant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

right and so eventually you will learn what to do to avoid the things that you don't like and and the other things that a lot of people don't like because they might seem unpleasant might start to become pleasant like You know, if you don't like biting into your sandwich and biting into a piece of sand and having feeling that.

piece of gritty sand go between your teeth, you will learn how to eat at the beach without getting sand in your food. Or you'll learn to avoid food. If you don't care about that, then you won't. No, I like to get Merlin Mann about it. You'll learn to avoid food you just shouldn't bring to the beach.

Yeah, but like that hummus, like that tub of hummus might not work out. You can bring almost anything to the beach if you know how, but yes, you learn better foods or whatever. Stick to bananas. Right. And then the things that are unavoidable, like, hey, when you go in the water and come out, your bathing suit will be wet. There's no getting around that.

If you can't stand sitting in a wet bathing suit, it probably means you haven't been brought to the beach your entire life from an infancy, because if you had, you would have acclimated to get to sitting in a wet bathing suit because that's just what you do at the beach. And you would start to associate that with good feelings instead of bad.

Because if you're having a good time at the beach. Maybe that wouldn't be part of your trauma that you're not allowed to have. No, like if you're having a good time at the beach, you're having enough time in your life and you're wearing a wet bathing suit the whole time, you will start to associate wearing a wet bathing suit with having a good time.

like that's why the sand every fall food tastes better with sand between your toes is that's that's that association magic happening and when i'm on my beach vacations and seeing like my uh you know my own children and my uh nieces and nephews going through this experience and like what i said on the atp was i wanted to make my kids into beach kids kids who

Yeah. Not just are tolerant of all the things on the beach, but who knew how to successfully be at the beach, avoid all the bad things or plus whatever things. At the risk of a bad pun, they've got grit. They've got beach grit. Yeah.

If they care about this, I tell them how to avoid it. If they don't care about it, fine. They get like my daughter for many years of her childhood didn't care that she had sandal up in her bathing suit. So I'm like, if you don't care, I don't care. Right. Just I'm just telling you, if you want to avoid it, this is what you can do. But if you don't want to, right now, she.

It's not a problem. It doesn't need to be. Now she doesn't want sand in her bin, so she knows how to go out farther or whatever. And then, of course, obviously, like teaching them, you know, how to swim in the ocean without drowning. Stuff like that. How not to be afraid of the waves, how to sort of like know how to be safe. How to wait for that seventh wave when you're going to do your board. The whole nine yards. And then the beaches, when I think about it, especially.

hearing from people who don't like the beach. Like, I understand.

why people don't like the beach. Setting aside sunburn trauma and people not taking care of you. It's adjacent to you and boats, isn't it? Yeah. Well, I mean, so boats is a perfect example. If you're, every time you go on a boat, you puke your brains out. It's really hard to like being on a boat. Yeah, and in those experiences, John, did you ever find yourself being made to feel a little bit bad about being a weirdo? Yeah, I mean, I understand. Maybe that wouldn't bother you, but it bothered me.

You don't want someone puking. Go outside and puke, but it's cold outside and you wish you were in the warm cabin, but no one will let you in the warm cabin because who would let the puking kid into the warm cabin? You're like a menstruating woman.

they wouldn't let me i was like there's garbage cans in there i could puke in the garbage no they don't want the puking people stay outside it's like it's freezing cold outside it's like it's like 50 degrees and overcast and windy anyway yeah but so you know what do i learn from that

Don't get on boats. It's like, don't get on boats. I mean, that's kind of involuntary. We should probably wrap this up. Apart from me very candidly discussing... my situation with not wearing a shirt and then getting sunburned or talking a little bit about my body with, you know, the sun poisoning, we have not even begun to address a big issue.

which is how you feel about your body. Do you know what I mean? Like, do you accept that that is also something that could be, no matter how much you like the sun? and eating in sand yeah there's times there's times in our life where you just you're when you mentioned your your kid and sand in the bathing suit i went straight to thinking about girls i know you know my age who were

Just normal people in that, like, I can't wait a minute. So you, you want me to wear my underwear in the sun all day? And like, oh no, like I can't get enough layers. Like there is no bathing suit situation. No, no, no. I got three words from you from both of our childhoods that if I explained to my kids their minds would be boggled. Shirts versus skins. We did this in public school gym class. I was always a skin. We did it in public school gym class. Can you imagine a public school?

Gym class doing shirts versus skins. Where you say you take half the people in the, half of the boys in the class and say, take off your shirt. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now you're on this team. Not self-selected, by the way. New. The gym teacher would divide you. New. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we did shirts versus skins in our casual friend groups as well. And that's kind of like self-fleecing. Yeah, to be the last one called when choosing sides for basketball at 17. And self-selecting. But like gym class, you have no choice but to be there. You don't get to choose which side you're on. If you get a...

Besides skins, guess what? You're taking your shirt off and playing a gym class without your shirt on. No choice. I think I'm a kid's schedule. And so schedules have kind of been, you know, something we've just been talking about. And I was like, you know. I think the best known Merlin's high school schedule story was about how I dropped basic programming to be in stage band. That's kind of my, for better or worse, I realized that's a good story and it is true. But.

I might've been junior year. Yeah. John, I had PE first period. Perfect time for it. It's sweaty for the rest of the day. Where am I living? Where am I living? I'm in central Florida. It is, it's in school's air conditioned. It's not terrible. I mean, the, in the classrooms are, you know, it's an open, it's so crazy, but you know, that was, I would get up really, it was tough. I would get up at probably around six 30.

take a shower get dressed go to school um walk to school i live close walk to school and um first bell was 7 15 so you had to be there at 7 15 and 720 you got homeroom and then Before nine o'clock in the morning, I was putting on gym clothes and exercising. And I was not a guy who felt great about showering. I eventually found a way to get better at it, but think about all of my clothes stuffed into this little wire basket with some men in. And like, ugh.

That whole experience of all of these here suit young men. And I look like a vole. I mean, I was just, I was just, I was just a sad little, little lumpy bottom feeder. And you want me so, oh, I'm back from the big game. Well, I guess for the second period, I got to go to chemistry.

I guess I'll get dressed again at 9.30 a.m. Childhood memories of feelings like sand between your toes. I have the opposite feeling about the feeling of being in class after gym class where you're like sweating. Hair's wet. Oh, my God. Your shirt is stuck to your back. Your hair is wet. Like I smelled of, it was the, what was the one? Oh, lime. It was, remember lime Menon? Did you have that? I mean, maybe we did, but I personally didn't. What was yours?

I used, what do you call it, right guard deodorant, which did not work. Oh, I know. We used to use right guard in junior high, and we'd have right guard fights. I don't know how no one foresaw right guard fights, but the iconic brown can with the black man. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, but so, you know, I'm not making a George Costanza joke, but I think it was Men in Lime. Rich Castamore and I shared. We shared it to you. Oh, my God. This should be costing me $435 an hour.