00:00:08 Speaker 1: And I invited you here, thought I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest in my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no, guests, your own presences presents enough. I already had too much stuff, so how do you dare. 00:00:36 Speaker 2: To surbey me? Welcome to? I said, no gift, signed Bridger Wineinger. We're in the backyard. What's going on? It's out of what happened this morning? Well, I ordered a twenty six piece glass food container. Sent that's my morning now that I'm saying twenty six pieces allowed, That sounds like a lot of pieces, but it was that or four pieces the bigger thing. I eventually I thought, I need a variety of pieces. So those are coming to me, and I'll be able to store as much food as I want. So look forward to future discussions about my food storage. Let's get into the podcast. I adore today's guest. He's so funny. It's Chris Parnell. 00:01:33 Speaker 3: Chris. 00:01:34 Speaker 2: Welcome to. 00:01:34 Speaker 3: I said, no gift, Thanks Bridger, thanks for having me. 00:01:37 Speaker 2: Of course. How are you doing. 00:01:38 Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty well. And if you want to talk about your food storage containers, I'm perfectly open with that. 00:01:43 Speaker 2: I mean, how much food storage in the fridge freezer are you doing. 00:01:48 Speaker 3: We do a decent amount, not tons, but usually there'll be some leftover stuff, you know, especially pasto. If there's leftover, that will go towards my older son's lunch the next day. 00:01:58 Speaker 2: Oh interesting, he's taking like a pasta lunch to school. 00:02:02 Speaker 3: Sometimes, especially when we've had it the night before. 00:02:05 Speaker 2: Right, right, We're not. 00:02:06 Speaker 3: Gonna make a special pot of pasta just for him to take to lunch. 00:02:09 Speaker 2: We don't rule it out, well, special little treat. What sort of pasta are you making? 00:02:16 Speaker 3: It varies, but it's usually it's either pesto. My wife makes her own pesto, which is delicious. It'll be either pesto or like garlic and butter, okay, And then the shape varies. 00:02:28 Speaker 2: The shape is always you're mixing it up. I like a traditional spaghetti. I've been I've been on the spaghetti boat for a few minutes here, and I go to a restaurant and there'll be a different shape of things, and I feel like, let's just leave it at spaghetti for. 00:02:43 Speaker 3: Her, you know what. I I don't mind spaghetti, but I would go if I were going with that shape, I'd either go with a thinner like an angel shore or the thicker. 00:02:52 Speaker 2: What is that called thick bucatini? 00:02:54 Speaker 3: Is yea bucatini? 00:02:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, I do like a hearty bucatini with an angel hair. I feel feel like I'm just getting the nature of it doesn't work for me. I feel like I'm getting big globs of pasta yeah, by the fork fole, rather than these thin strings. I feel like I'm stuffing hay in my mouth. But I do like a spaghetti. I like a boogatini because you can get the fork and just get as one noodle, you can get four noodles, do whatever you want. 00:03:20 Speaker 3: Well, I guess if I had a go to it would be penne. Oh. 00:03:23 Speaker 2: Interesting, very manageable for me. Maybe too manageable. 00:03:28 Speaker 3: Oh do you like a little craziness? Yeah? 00:03:31 Speaker 2: I like a random You know, we're not quite sure what we're ever going to get. It's a pasta lottery, and I don't even care if I win, because I have a very good attitude. Are you a sore loser? You know? 00:03:47 Speaker 3: I can be. I hope that I'm mature enough to be able to temper that. But I've realized I'm quite competitive, which I think also comes from insecurity. Sure, I remember playing scrabble about fifteen years ago at a friend's place, and I thought, I'm going to do pretty well at this. I know words, and I didn't because I did, I didn't know the strategy of scrabble that much, and my friends were just trouncing me, and and I was really having to control my temper. I was really having I didn't I didn't speak a lot, I couldn't I couldn't be fully present, and I realized, oh God, you gotta not play board games with people you know, or get better about this. 00:04:26 Speaker 2: I feel like scrabble in particular really does that to people. There are a lot of hurt feelings in scrabble, a lot of I feel like people feel less intelligent while playing it, despite there is like strategy that's nothing to do with vocabulary and you I'm similar where I'm like, i'll start the game, I'm like, oh, I'm doing great, I'm having a good time with everyone, and then suddenly the sting of losing doesn't feel great. You become competitive and then you lose anyway and you feel terrible. Exactly, But yeah, I don't think that there's really any I mean, that's competition. Sure, you've got to have a little bit of that to drive you through the scrabble game. 00:05:04 Speaker 3: You do, you do, But it's why I like to run. But I don't ever do races, okay, because I know I'll never win. I'm not nearly fast enough. I don't have the endurance to win, so it's like I'm going to lose. Why do I want to compete against people? 00:05:16 Speaker 2: So no marathons, nothing. 00:05:18 Speaker 3: No marathons, no five ks. I could never make a marathon. I could maybe do a five care, a ten k, but it would be very slow. 00:05:23 Speaker 2: What's the max you're running personally. 00:05:27 Speaker 3: These days, I've been doing about four miles. 00:05:29 Speaker 2: That's impressive. 00:05:31 Speaker 3: It's all right, if you know. My goal is to get back up to I'd love to get back up to like ten k, which okay, I don't know that I've ever quite gotten there. But I can do five k pretty No, I do five k. That's past five k, so yeah. 00:05:44 Speaker 2: Really, my one experience with long distance running, and it's not long, is one mile in elementary school, which at the time felt like a thousand miles, and so I still have that memory in my head of like, how does someone run more than a mile. But at this point I probably would be fine doing it. It would probably. I mean I don't do any level of cardios, so maybe it would be a nightmare. I see fit, Well, I don't. I'm not running. I'm not walk well, I am walking. 00:06:08 Speaker 3: Oh walking, I love a walk. 00:06:12 Speaker 2: But running is a different story. It is exciting. Maybe I should give it a shot, return to it. So you're storing pasta in the fridge, You're storing foods. That's very exciting. What else is happening in your life? 00:06:24 Speaker 3: Oh? What else is happening? I just came back from New York. I got to do a day on this new Amazon series. I did a couple of episodes. We're supposed to get done before Christmas, but one of the directors got COVID and so they had to push it back. So I just went and did that in Brooklyn and that was fun. 00:06:41 Speaker 2: Oh that's exciting. 00:06:42 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:06:43 Speaker 2: That flight for you, the five what is it? Five hours from La un How does that affect your body? 00:06:49 Speaker 3: For me? 00:06:51 Speaker 2: Devastating? Oh really, I don't know. I'm not built for I think I need it, either like a twenty hour flight or forty five minutes. The five hours doesn't quite work for me. 00:07:01 Speaker 3: What does it do to you? 00:07:02 Speaker 2: I just feel horrible. I feel horrible the entire flight. I get off the flight, and then it's probably two days of feeling horrible. 00:07:09 Speaker 3: Oh crap. 00:07:10 Speaker 2: I think it's just that sweet spot of enough time on the plane but not enough to really relax. Okay, okay, or sleep or anything. 00:07:18 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:07:19 Speaker 2: Do you sleep on a plane? 00:07:20 Speaker 3: Occasionally? Not usually, but normally I stay awake. I might watch a movie. I did a lot of reading on the flight back this time. 00:07:28 Speaker 2: Okay, what do you read? 00:07:29 Speaker 3: I am reading Project Hail Mary. 00:07:32 Speaker 2: What's this about? 00:07:32 Speaker 3: It's a science fiction? 00:07:34 Speaker 2: Oh? 00:07:34 Speaker 3: Exciting? Bye? I believe his name is Greg Weir. He wrote The Martian. 00:07:38 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, of course, yeah, which then became the movie with Matt Damon exactly exactly. Are you enjoying it? 00:07:44 Speaker 3: I love it? Yeah, it's very good. I really like the way he writes. He's clearly a very knowledgeable gentleman about science and all those things, so when he writes it's very you know, I can't necessarily follow every bit of it, but you know, it makes you feel smarter reading it. Right? 00:08:00 Speaker 2: Science fiction in general, I love to read it, but there's I just prepare myself for a part of the book where I'll just have to let it wash over make and I won't quite understand or conceptualize in my head what's going on. But I just trust the author and hope that the characters start talking about their personal lives soon, something that I can actually follow. I was just reading a book called The Dark Forest. It's a sci fi book, and there was probably fifty pages of the book that I slowly read and came away with nothing. Absolutely, I couldn't tell you what was going on other than spacecraft was zipping about. But it was a long detailed description of that happening. And it's my limited science brain. I think. Were you a science person in high school? 00:08:44 Speaker 3: Somewhat? Yeah? I mean I was science and math with interests, you know, computer programming, that kind of stuff. 00:08:50 Speaker 2: Computer programming. Are you still have any interest in that? You know? 00:08:55 Speaker 3: I don't. I mean I wish I knew more about it now, But I mean I'm talking about, you know, the early days of PC. Sure, we had an Apple two plus I learned basic, you know, and I could write little programs on that, but it's all left me way behind. 00:09:07 Speaker 2: What kind of programs were you writing. 00:09:09 Speaker 3: One program I wrote was it was useless, but it was a movie scheduling program. So basically I'd take the movie schedule from the newspaper and put it into the program so that I could look up movies on the computer, even though I could also just look at them in the newspaper. 00:09:26 Speaker 2: I mean, but that's kind of a prototype of a lot of websites. Now, that's really interesting. So you were ahead of the curve despite it being completely useless in your own life. 00:09:36 Speaker 3: Not far enough ahead, but you were one of. 00:09:39 Speaker 2: The early people trying to get rid of the print industry. I guess I was stroy publishing. 00:09:44 Speaker 3: I guess that was my goal. I didn't realize it. 00:09:47 Speaker 2: Do your kids learn about coding in school? 00:09:50 Speaker 3: My younger son definitely doesn't. He's five, and I don't know if my eight almost nine year old is learning anything about it. He had we been. We did a program for a while called code Spark that sort of teaches you some coding stuff with graphical symbols and things, and he did that for a while, but I think he kind. 00:10:08 Speaker 2: Of got tired of it, right, just wasn't for him. Yeah, that feels like a course that should be taking place in schools at this point. I took so few practical skills away from my public education that coding seems like it would have been a valuable thing at this point, fully different career. Are you much into computers now at all? 00:10:27 Speaker 3: You know? I try to keep up with it, Like I was looking at what came out at the Consumer Electronics Show, just sort of noting that. But I'm not somebody who needs to go out and buy the new thing. I'd rather let it sort of be tested by the public. And I still got an iPhone? What is my iPhone? Is there? Twelve thirteen? I'm like two generations behind. 00:10:49 Speaker 2: There's that moment of upgrading when you open the box, you're very excited, and then there's thirty seconds later it's just part of your normal life and you're so bored of it. I know they need to do something to some sort of spark that really changes things for each one, whether it works or not. 00:11:03 Speaker 3: Just like a little fanfare that plays. 00:11:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, I would like something that I have to adapt to. Yeah, I don't like that. It's just MyPhone again. I want to be I want things to just be torn down and have to start a new one. 00:11:16 Speaker 3: I mean, the main reason I buy a new phone is for the camera. Oh and upgrade in the camera, because I've got some nice cameras. They're all broken. Unfortunately, I need to send them off. 00:11:25 Speaker 2: I was just reading an article about and you know, when you read an article about teens or gen z you always have to take it with a grain of salt that it feels like a journalist will find one teen that does this and blow it up into all teens or doing this. But apparently the new thing is using digital cameras from like five to nine. 00:11:44 Speaker 3: I saw that. 00:11:47 Speaker 2: To me, I mean, it's a very strange thing. Of course, I immediately got mine out and took some pictures. They look terrible. Yeah, but it's an interesting thing. It's almost the new polaroid. 00:11:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess, you know, it's like getting back in touch with actually using a camera a post phone, which they all probably grew up just using a phone. Maybe, I don't know. 00:12:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a nice little novelty to have to frame it up and push a button and yeah, I don't know, there's a little there's something satisfying about it. I will say that I miss from my phone, but do you know what I've been wondering about recently. Is hypnotism? 00:12:20 Speaker 3: Yeah? 00:12:21 Speaker 2: Have you ever been hypnotized? 00:12:22 Speaker 3: I have not. Maybe at some point along the way I saw a show where somebody was supposed to be hypnotized, but even that was probably on TV. 00:12:30 Speaker 2: What I've been thinking about is does it ever actually click? Does it ever work on someone's brain? Or is it all for show? 00:12:39 Speaker 3: Well, I think in terms of somebody thinking there a chicken or something like that, I'm not sure, but I think there may be something to sort of helping program your brain in a healthier way. I don't know. 00:12:51 Speaker 2: Well, that's why I asked you here to shit. I was looking for a concrete answer on hypnotism. 00:12:56 Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. 00:12:57 Speaker 2: Do might as well just send you home now? 00:12:59 Speaker 3: You let me know been glad to research it. 00:13:01 Speaker 2: It was in the email. There were several emails about hypnotism. 00:13:05 Speaker 3: I'm sorry. 00:13:06 Speaker 2: Oh what a shame. No, I'm very skeptical. I guess I need to give it a shot. I'd like to just see what happens to me. 00:13:12 Speaker 3: Is there something you're trying to change about yourself? 00:13:15 Speaker 2: Hundreds of things, and the list goes on and on and on. Maybe that's my problem. But there's no one particular problem. It's not like, oh I've got to stop smoking or oh I've got a whatever. Right, So maybe if I narrow down the list and then I guess you call up a hypnotist. 00:13:33 Speaker 3: Well, or go see one in person. Yeah, I would try to go with a recommendation from somebody that you trust. 00:13:40 Speaker 2: Right, But as we've both just demonstrated, we know almost no one who's been hypnotized on aalise. Have you ever been hypnotized on aalise? Hasn't been hypnotized? It's just a fraud industry. I feel like you type that into YELP or whatever you're gonna get, like a party hypnotist. Do you go to ZocDoc for a hypnotist? Do you ask your from a like your actual doctor referral? I don't know. 00:14:05 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I just have a therapist, you know. That's where right, That's where I do my work, or try. 00:14:10 Speaker 2: To And maybe your therapist has this in their back pocket just in case. 00:14:14 Speaker 3: Maybe I doubt it. I doubt it. 00:14:17 Speaker 2: Well, you're I feel like you're underestimating your therapists. Yeah, you ask them in your next meeting. 00:14:23 Speaker 3: I think i'd be embarrassed to ask her if she knew of a good hypnotist. Wow, I've never even heard of ZocDoc. 00:14:33 Speaker 2: ZocDoc is and I haven't used it in probably a decade at this point. But it's like kind of a scheduling thing for doctors, various things like that. Okay, and on Lisa's saying you can schedule a hypnotist on ZocDoc. 00:14:47 Speaker 3: Look at that. 00:14:47 Speaker 2: So I wonder if you have to be licensed to be a hypnotist. 00:14:51 Speaker 3: Oh, that's a good question. I would tend to doubt it. But there's probably some organization that gives out certifications, but I don't know that it really means anything right, kind. 00:15:00 Speaker 2: Of like massage therapy or something. There's got to be something in that realm where some sort of expert looks at your skill level. Yeah, And what separates a party hypnotist from a medical hypnotist is the big question? Can you do both? 00:15:14 Speaker 3: I would think if you could do the party hypnotism, you could do the other. I don't know, if you are a medical hypnotist, if you could then also convince somebody they were a chicken. 00:15:23 Speaker 2: Right, And you may not have the personality or the stage presence that are required or but yeah, the other way makes more sense. Yeah, I think that that's all we have to say about hypnotism. It's gonna I'm gonna have to do some looking into it. Maybe I'll bring a hypnotist on the show. I don't know. 00:15:39 Speaker 3: I can defend themselves and hypnotist I. 00:15:42 Speaker 2: Will absolutely just rail on that. 00:15:45 Speaker 3: You will tear them apart. 00:15:47 Speaker 2: Watch out, hypnotists. If you get an invitation to this show, it may lead to something else. But Chris, the other day, well, look I've been looking forward to you bang on this Podcas. Yes, of course I have. I think I think you're so funny. I thought we'll have a nice time. Yeah, we'll discuss hypnotism, what have you. And so I was a little surprised the podcast is called I said, no gifts. And the other day I opened the door. There's a box waiting for me. It's been shipped to me. And you know, I go over everything I've done on the internet recently. I hadn't ordered my twenty six piece glassware set. There was no I hadn't ordered anything, so it was a little surprising to see. 00:16:31 Speaker 3: A box there. 00:16:33 Speaker 2: But I picked it up. I opened it and there was a card inside that said it was from you, and yeah, I started piecing it together. I thought, oh, Chris is coming, maybe this has something to do with it. Of course, then I start getting angrier and angrier. Blood is boiling, thinking, oh, this is a gift for me. Sorry, but I've had some time. It was a few days ago. I've had some time to cool down, collect myself. You collected, thank you, and so I'm just going to ask you straight up, is this a gift for me? 00:17:05 Speaker 3: Ah? Yeah, it's a gift. I'm so sorry. I really apologized. I just I didn't think you meant it when you said no gifts. So I thought, you know, like people say no gifts at a birthday party, but you bring a gift, you know, And I thought it was that kind of thing. But I clearly it's enraged you. Yeah. 00:17:24 Speaker 2: I mean I've cooled down, of course, as I've said, But who knows what'll happen if I open it? Should I open it here on the podcast? 00:17:31 Speaker 3: I mean I think you probably should, But you know, should I move away from you? 00:17:36 Speaker 2: I mean you're about it two feet away from me. 00:17:38 Speaker 3: Now. 00:17:38 Speaker 2: My arms are not that long, right, I'm not that strong. I'm not that active of a person. Anyway, I think you're cool right there. Okay, so I'm gonna grab the bag. 00:18:02 Speaker 3: Here. 00:18:02 Speaker 2: It's this cute little gray bag, and there is a card here that I'll open and read. Let's see it says, sorry Bridger, but I just couldn't follow the overly restrictive directive in the name of your show. I hope you find these useful from Chris Parnell interesting. Okay, so let's dipe in that. Apparently these tells me there's more than one thing in here. Oh, Honor Lisa is going to hold the mic for me, bless your heart. Let's see these bags continue to mystify me. How do you open? 00:18:35 Speaker 3: You're almost there. There we go. 00:18:36 Speaker 2: It's got like a spring mechanism. There's some tissue, some more. Okay, we're pulling it out. We're pulling it out. Multi Wait, what what I'm holding? As far as I can tell right now, it's a block of wood and my guess would be chopsticks. But I don't think that's what this is. What is this? 00:19:02 Speaker 3: They are? They are shims. 00:19:04 Speaker 2: What is a shim? 00:19:05 Speaker 3: Well, it's it's something you use in construction carpentry. I think, especially like if you're I've never used one, but I know of them, and I thought, I'm going to get a practical gift. Like if you're trying to frame a window or a door and it's not quite level or plum, this helps. It's a little thin, it's a piece of what it's like a doorstop. 00:19:29 Speaker 2: Or okay, yeah, So for me, immediately, I'm thinking of myself framing a window or a door, something that's so far out of the realm of my skill level. But I am. I think about getting to that moment when it's not even I'm stuffing a magazine in there. Oh, I'm finding something in the house. I'm not using the official means of doing it, and then it'll fall apart a few months later. But now I'm prepared absolutely exactly. Do you do much home repair? 00:19:59 Speaker 3: I you know, I I am not completely unhandy. I can install some things, I can put some things together, but in terms of a like a real repair, I would never attempt that on my own. 00:20:09 Speaker 2: What was the last home project you had? 00:20:13 Speaker 3: Oh, you know, it was putting together a bookshelf for my younger son. You know, I installed some child's safety gates back when our first son was born. You know, so it's limited, but I can do a few things. 00:20:24 Speaker 2: It sounds like you used the screwdriver. 00:20:26 Speaker 3: Used a screwdriver. I've even got I've got a drill. Okay, I've got a hammer drill. 00:20:32 Speaker 2: What is a hammer drill? 00:20:33 Speaker 3: A hammer drill is for going into very hard material like concrete or masonry. Okay. And we had a basement at our first house, and so I wanted to put some shelves up down there, and I needed a hammer drill. 00:20:44 Speaker 1: Oh. 00:20:45 Speaker 2: Interesting, And you're saying this basement in your house. Were you in California? 00:20:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, I was in La. Yeah, we're in Silver Alair. 00:20:50 Speaker 2: That's such a rarity. 00:20:52 Speaker 3: I know, it was real. 00:20:53 Speaker 2: No one has a basement in Los Angeles. 00:20:55 Speaker 3: We yeah, it is a very rare thing. It was a one story house, so it was nice to have that little place for storage and our laundry. 00:21:04 Speaker 2: Do you have any idea why there are basements in Is it California in general? I think it is. 00:21:09 Speaker 3: I have no idea. Do you mean some people have them, because I've heard people say, yeah, we had a basement, but. 00:21:15 Speaker 2: It's so rare. 00:21:16 Speaker 3: It is definitely rare. 00:21:17 Speaker 2: Like I growing up in Utah, everyone had a basement. Oh really, you're from Tennessee. Yeah, for their basements in Tennessee. 00:21:25 Speaker 3: I didn't have any friends that had them. We never had one. 00:21:28 Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, So maybe I grew up in a basement rich area compared to the rest of the country. Perhaps, but it's it does seem like a commonplace thing for a house. My guess with California is something to do with earthquakes. Yeah, yeah, you don't want a big hole under the house when it starts shaking. Maybe has something to do with it. 00:21:48 Speaker 3: That's a good guess. 00:21:49 Speaker 2: But you've since moved on from a basement type home, yes, And you are installing child. 00:21:56 Speaker 3: Gates a long time ago. 00:21:58 Speaker 2: A long time ago, you turned this into your little business, kind of a side hustle, putting in child gates and people's homes. So it seems like you do the occasional project when one pops up. You're capable. I'm capable for me, simply not. And you came over and I told you earlier that the listener's probably furious to hear about this because I have been talking about it NonStop. I've had a flooding situation, and I, as a person, have nothing to do to stop it except for just let the water come in. But it has driven me now to a point of it's almost compulsive for me. I go back there every day and look for something to try to fix it. While we're waiting for the professionals to come, I'm drilling holes in walls. I'm cutting out pieces up the drywall to no real end. 00:22:50 Speaker 3: It's but you're doing it. That's handy. 00:22:52 Speaker 2: I mean, that's not handy. I feel like I'm just creating more projects. 00:22:55 Speaker 3: Well, it sounds like the drywall is going to have to come out either way, right, so you're just moving the I say this so long with four. 00:23:02 Speaker 2: By four inch holes, I mean I am dreading mold. 00:23:06 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's a legitimate concer. 00:23:07 Speaker 2: A mold situation could be really frightening. 00:23:09 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:23:10 Speaker 2: I don't know how serious mold affects you. I don't know. 00:23:14 Speaker 3: I think it depends on how bad it is, you know, Right, But it sounds like you've been proactive in terms of sort of sort of releasing or opening up spaces that might promote the growth of mold, right, right. 00:23:27 Speaker 2: Have you ever had any type of water damage situation? 00:23:30 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we had we had a little bit of a leak at our last house. Not terrible, but yeah, we had to call a roofer out and fix that up. Okay, that's something that was not something I was gonna try on my own. 00:23:43 Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, that's certainly like the well, I guess there's probably a YouTube tutorial, but yeah, that's something you really can't do unless you know exactly where the spot is. And blah blah blah. But these shims, how did they cross your mind? 00:23:57 Speaker 3: You know? I was just looking online and I wanted I was looking for something practical and not too expensive, and you know, in the industrial tool section of this particular website, I came across these and thought that's perfect. 00:24:13 Speaker 2: And when you saw shims on the website, did you think, oh, I know what that is or what is that? 00:24:19 Speaker 3: I knew what it was. I did look up specifically what they tended to be used for, and I was right. I thought I knew, but I wanted to be able to speak about it somewhat articulately, because I knew you'd want me to tell you what they're. 00:24:32 Speaker 2: Going for, right, right? So I wonder, do I just leave these in my garage for a potential project? Do I look around the house for a window that could use some help. 00:24:42 Speaker 3: You know. I think you have to be realistic with yourself. I didn't know if you were a handy kind of guy around the house and would take on that kind of a project. Sounds like you're not. And in that case, you might want to give them away to someone or take it out of the closet or something. 00:25:00 Speaker 2: It'll be an interesting thing to drop off at a thrift store. I don't quite uh, I don't know what thrift stores turn away. I feel like they must turn away some items. 00:25:08 Speaker 3: Oh they do, they do. It's it's it's they're very much more restrictive now. 00:25:12 Speaker 2: I think, like, have you tried turning something in and they've said no? 00:25:15 Speaker 3: Yeah? You know. I think the at least the one that I go to in Outwater Village won't take electronics. 00:25:22 Speaker 2: What Yeah, what's their their reasoning? 00:25:25 Speaker 3: I think because there's a chance that it's just not going to work and they don't want to deal with testing it, you know, and then having somebody buy it and then say this doesn't work. 00:25:32 Speaker 2: Well, that feels like a gold mine. 00:25:34 Speaker 3: I know, I know, but I guess most of the electronics people are going to take in there are probably maybe it's a TV or an old printer, and you know who's who's gonna want? 00:25:45 Speaker 2: Yeah that makes sense. Yeah I don't. I usually don't get rid of electronics unless they're completely malfunctioning. Right, But what about the hobbyists that go to the thrift stores to fix the TVs? The and where are we supposed to take them to the dump? 00:25:58 Speaker 3: You know, I think you have to take to figure out who's going to recycle them. You know, you have to go to an electronics recycling I think best Buy will take some of that stuff. 00:26:06 Speaker 2: Oh is that true? I think so have a big bin. You can just toss it in. 00:26:09 Speaker 3: At least they used to. I don't think you can take a plasma in or something like that. But it's just too big. 00:26:14 Speaker 2: Well, I would encourage the listener to try load your load the big TV in your car and drive however long it takes to get to best Buy, drag it through the parking lot and see what they say. You know, you never know what's going to happen. And at the very least it's a little experience at best Buy. 00:26:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but it's they're quite heavy. I realize. 00:26:35 Speaker 2: Well, I didn't say it would be easy. No, definitely would be an experience, and life is built on these types of experiences, taking broken electronics to big box retailers, this kind of thing. I worked at a best Buy in two thousand and three. Yeah, fascinating experience. 00:26:55 Speaker 3: No. No, it was. 00:26:58 Speaker 2: Standing behind a cash register trying to get people to try entertainment weekly for six weeks. Trials of that sort of thing. Trying to get people to buy a warranty on a nine dollars CD. 00:27:09 Speaker 3: Player add ons. You're trying to right, You're. 00:27:11 Speaker 2: Just trying to get as much money out of their wallets as you possibly can. And I didn't. I just, you know, kind of backed away from the sales pressure most of. 00:27:20 Speaker 3: The time would have been the same way. 00:27:21 Speaker 2: What am I getting out of it? Did you have any memorable part time jobs? 00:27:26 Speaker 3: Yeah? I did. I had a few. I'm reminded of a sales job that I had at a place called Mid South Savings. I don't think it's probably around anymore. But the point, the idea of it was that if you bought a membership to this place, you could then shop directly from these catalogs like getting and get wholesale prices. Okay, so we had all these catalogs in there in this one room that you could go into, if you'll remember. So we'd basically take people around and sort of say this is what you'd pay retail, this is what you'd pay with us for this pool table, you know, and it was like a thousand dollars membership, but if you did my COUD you could pay in installments, but if you bought it all at once, it was like two hundred dollars off. And I think they got people in they had I had a call center in back, which I had originally applied to be in the call center, but when the sales manager met me, so I know, I think can use you on the floor here. So I was like, okay, sure, But I think people would get called and say, do you you've won either a VCR a free cruise, which of course was a timeshare, right, But I remember one couple like sort of like we thought, you know, we thought we wanted VCR here, we thought we won a real thing, and I just had to apologize, like I'm so sorry, I'm sorry. 00:28:42 Speaker 2: Well, I feel like you would run to the occasional blow up from somebody that feels like their time has been wasted. 00:28:49 Speaker 3: Like I never got a blow okay, thankfully. 00:28:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, just the you've inconvenienced me, how dare you? 00:28:54 Speaker 3: Yeah? Mostly mostly people are just like okay, I mean, but you know, I got some people to sign up. I definitely got okay, some sign signer uppers. 00:29:01 Speaker 2: And I'm trying to visualize this place. It's basically a catalog library. 00:29:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like it was like a large office with little separate offices on the side for each salesperson okay, and there were sort of things on display that you could show them and you know the difference between retail versus wholesale pricing. And then yes, there was another room with a bunch of catalogs in them. 00:29:24 Speaker 2: This is such a fascinating business that can't possibly still exist. 00:29:28 Speaker 3: I don't think so. 00:29:29 Speaker 2: It's kind of a costco of catalogs. Essentially, you're paying for the membership, although you don't pay a thousand dollars to go to Costco. No, I feel like that's fifty dollars or something. 00:29:38 Speaker 3: Well, and it was also before the internet was as robotic ight, right. 00:29:44 Speaker 2: Interesting. I've been to one of those timeshare presentations before, which led to nothing free, big waste of time some years and years ago, but it again kind of in the realm of dragging your TV into Best Buy. It was an experience getting to watch the videos about the time shares and then the deep pressure the salespeople put on you. I was going to say, how hard was the cell oh inescapable? It's really one of those things where they are not They will not let you go until you basically are begging them to leave. Wow. And at the time, I was probably eighteen or nineteen, I can't imagine the salesperson like they're wasting their own time. This is a child. How much money do you think this person's willing to be able to offer you for the. 00:30:27 Speaker 3: Maybe they think you came for money. 00:30:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe this little rich boy has shown up to buy his time. 00:30:34 Speaker 3: You get mom and dad to say, Mommy, I want to time. 00:30:38 Speaker 2: I wonder what the youngest timeshare owner is. I feel like you've got to be hit your fifties before you consider buying a time share. 00:30:48 Speaker 3: Maybe I don't know. I don't know. You know, I knew a friend of a friend who I could call a friend. I don't I'm not in touch with him now, but he had a thing I guess it was a timeshare esque but it was belonging to this organization where you would get hotel rooms. You would get a stay at this hotel and it can kind of move around you. You had some ability to pick where it was okay. So I got to go luckily on a few of these trips. One was to Aruba. Oh, another one was to I've forgotten the name of French island. But they were lovely. It was fun. 00:31:23 Speaker 2: You know, we scuba dot or well we snorkeled snorkel right. Yeah, I think that's the secret with timeshares. You've just got to find someone else in your life that has been tricked and then you don't don't have like the lifelong obligation. They have to use it, so they're like, well I have to do it, you might as well come right. But that is the other thing that I remember from that timeshare presentation. It was truly like decades of your life had to be the money had to be spent on. It's like buying a home was really fascinating. How do you do it in a sales situation when the salesperson's after you? 00:31:57 Speaker 3: How do I deal with that? Yeah? I try to not get in those situations. 00:32:01 Speaker 2: But you never know where they're going to come from. 00:32:03 Speaker 3: You know. If I so rarely shop in person anymore, oh, right, And if I do and I sense that a salesperson has headed my way, I try to be nice but also just not look at them, not give them any indication that I want to interact with them. But sometimes it can't be avoided, and I'll usually say I'm okay, you know, thank you. 00:32:24 Speaker 2: Oh, so you're able to set up a boundary. 00:32:26 Speaker 3: I try to. 00:32:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to avoid the situation because I can't say no to anyone. Yeah, and then until the very last minute, so they feel like they've got me on the hook. They spend a lot of time with me, and then I finally have to bail, and they're furious that they wasted all this time on me. 00:32:43 Speaker 3: Right. That's why I don't do it, because I would. Yeah, I fear the same sort of reaction. 00:32:46 Speaker 2: Right, But I guess that's their fault. They need a salesperson's intuition to pick me out from a crowd. Well, I think it's probably time to play a game. Okay, I think we'll play a game called Gift or a Curse. I need a number between Queen one and ten from you seven. Okay, I have to do some light calculating to get our game pieces. So right now you can recommend something, promote something, talk to the listener in whatever way you want. 00:33:11 Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I do a podcast call. This job is history also for Wondery, where we interview people from the past, played by comic improv actors, usually about a job they had that no longer exists, like a telephone operator, for instance. Or one of the particularly surprising ones was a funeral clown, which was a thing in ancient Greece or Rome where they would someone would impersonate the person who had died and it was a way of sort of paying homage to them. But a very strange combination of things funeral and clown. But yeah, it's a fun show to do. And I and my producer Linda, we interview these people and. 00:33:56 Speaker 2: That sounds incredible. Yeah, And who's doing Who's finding the jobs? 00:34:01 Speaker 3: You know? It is the fantastic writing staff. 00:34:04 Speaker 2: Wondering, Uh, you said a funeral clown. 00:34:07 Speaker 3: Funeral clown? 00:34:08 Speaker 2: Is that your favorite you've done so far. 00:34:11 Speaker 3: In terms of just yeah, sort of the jarring juxtaposition of those two ideas. Yes, I think so. 00:34:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, if you weren't didn't have the career you currently do. Uh was there any like a childhood dream job other than comedy, Well. 00:34:28 Speaker 3: You know, I went. I like, at one point I thought architecture was really cool. I mean, I still do, but I thought about pursuing that and entomology and those kind of things. When I was in high school, I did take computer programming and I did seriously think of that as a Okay, so it was kind of that or acting because I was doing the plays and stuff in my school, and I chose correctly, I think, because I don't know that I have the feelings. It's worked out so far, it's worked out all right. Well, enough about you and your jobs. We've got a play a gift to a curse. This is how we play. I'm going to name three things. 00:35:03 Speaker 2: You're going to tell me if there're a gift or a curse and why, and then I'll tell you if you're correct or not. There are correct answers. You can lose the game, you can win the game. Okay, you can have a middling performance at the game. It's up really up to you. 00:35:16 Speaker 3: And is this something that is that I perceive as a gift or a curse, or that I think you would. 00:35:21 Speaker 2: Well that I'm not going to reveal that. I just want you to a gut reaction. However you feel like playing the game, tell me if it's a gift or a cursor why? I mean, probably your opinion, let's be honest. Okay, This first one is a listener suggestion from someone named Roy. Roy suggested gift or a curse? Commercials for a TV show while you are watching that very show. 00:35:44 Speaker 3: That's a curse. That's definitely a curse. Why Because it's pointless if I'm taken the time to watch the show, I don't need to see a commercial about the thing I'm watching. Bridger, come on, good. 00:35:57 Speaker 2: Lord, Chris wrong. I love it. If I'm going to be advertised to why not have a little extra boost of this show in between? Or maybe we go to commercial break and I forget the show I was watching. It's a nice little reminder. 00:36:11 Speaker 3: Do you have memory issues? 00:36:13 Speaker 2: Not yet, but should the time come, these commercials will be there waiting for me. 00:36:19 Speaker 3: Fair enough. 00:36:20 Speaker 2: It's also kind of a, you know, a fun little surprise to say, oh, the app isn't working, the company is falling apart, and they're advertising to me and they already have me on the hook. 00:36:31 Speaker 3: Oh gives you a position to judge from. 00:36:33 Speaker 2: Yes, I get to kind of be the critic for a and I think that that's terrific. It's certainly a gift. I'm sorry to hear how wrong you were. Yeah, well, okay, next one I don't. Next up is from my listener named Brad, and Brad suggested gift to a curse in visi line. 00:36:57 Speaker 3: In visi line, I think I think that's probably a gift. Yeah. Why, well, if you need your teeth aligned, probably less obtrusive and less noticeable to do it that way as opposed to conventional braces. Right, what do you think? I'm guessing I'm wrong. 00:37:18 Speaker 2: Unfortunately, you're wrong. Okay, and I'm not doing this on purposely. You're wrong invisil ligne. I see its benefits. I'm glad it's helping people out. I wish it had been available when I had braces. I don't think you should be able to get in visile line until you're out of high school. I think everyone else should have to be dragged through traditional braces. Of course, with adults, let's get the invisile line. Going an adult in braces we all know is a different thing. Yeah, so the invisile line is there to save the day. But unfortunately it's a curse because it wasn't available to me, I say, and that's a huge problem for everyone. 00:37:56 Speaker 3: Right, you just can't see it as a benefit for others. You can't. 00:38:00 Speaker 2: It's all about you, basically. I mean, that's really what it boils down. 00:38:05 Speaker 3: To know yourself. That's that's something. 00:38:07 Speaker 2: Uh, in visiline reach out. I'd like to have a conversation with you. Okay, and now finally, Okay, so zero so far, not a great performance, Okay, but you're trying, and that's all we can ask for. 00:38:19 Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm doing the best thing. 00:38:20 Speaker 2: Uh. Finally, Lizzy. A listener named Lizzie has written in and suggested gift to a curse preventative botox. 00:38:29 Speaker 3: Preventative botox as opposed to non preventative. But I believe. 00:38:35 Speaker 2: Basically what Lizzie's suggesting is you're getting it probably starting in your twenties, and so your face is always botox. 00:38:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a curse. I'm going to count that as a curse. Why, well, it seems unnecessary when you're when you're young and relatively fresh faced, Why are you going to prevent wrinkles that aren't even there yet? And why do you want to go ahead and deaden your face, you know, limit your ability to express yourself facially, right, you know, I would say curse. 00:39:06 Speaker 2: You get the point. I think it's a curse, and it kind of goes along with this braces thing I'm talking about. I don't think you need it as a young person. I think you you should wait till you're sixty and then get way too much and make it very It should be very obvious. I don't think it should be a slow boil. It should be Yeah, everybody knows, and it's not working for you. Doing it ahead of time as an absolute curse. Nobody should be allowed to do that. You should have to get a license at sixty, take a course, take your license down to whatever. Where do you get botox? The Bowtox Center dermatologists dermatologists. Yeah, that's probably the most professional thing, probably place you can get it. 00:39:46 Speaker 3: I got a facial not long ago. Oh I not a facial chemical peel. That's what I got. 00:39:51 Speaker 2: Was this your first time? 00:39:52 Speaker 3: It was my first chemical pill. 00:39:53 Speaker 2: Yes, well, I'm curious about that experience. What is it and how did it feel and what were the results. 00:39:59 Speaker 3: The results I think are good. It definitely made my skin look better. But you know, you lie there and they put acid on your face in patches. They started with my forehead and then you give a pain scale. Is like when when you get up to like eight out of ten, then they they dab it off with cold water and then they move on to a different part of your face. At least this is how my dermatologist did it. 00:40:21 Speaker 2: And the pain scale is a little scary. Is there a chance of going to far? Pain is very subjective? 00:40:28 Speaker 3: Well, it's your scale. It's like what what you know what pain is to you? And basically, you know, they don't want it to go beyond what you feel comfortable facing. 00:40:35 Speaker 2: Okay. Was there a great deal of pain? 00:40:38 Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, but very but manageable and because it was you know, a limited period of time. Okay, Yeah, I'd had another procedure done that I don't want to name because I don't want to you know, put it down, but it was it was more of an electronic sort of thing across your face. Oh okay, it was very painful. Really, Yes, I thought I was gonna die. I didn't think I was going to die. 00:40:59 Speaker 2: But how long did the procedure last? 00:41:01 Speaker 3: It wasn't that long, but it was, uh, it was just it was I guess a lot of heat. I don't know if it's just like electricity or lasers or I think it's laser based maybe, Okay, on your face. 00:41:11 Speaker 2: And afterwards, is your face do you look wild? Do you look like somebody who's been through something? 00:41:19 Speaker 3: A little bit after that, right after the chemical peel, my skin was a little redder, but my wife said she couldn't really notice. And then and then basically a layer of your skin flakes off, right, like your face is molting. And then and then you know, underneath you've got fresher, newer. 00:41:34 Speaker 2: When does the molting take place? Does it come as a surprise, No. 00:41:38 Speaker 3: You know, they should warn you about it. It's going to probably started like three days, maybe three or four days, and then progress. 00:41:45 Speaker 2: And how long does it last? 00:41:46 Speaker 3: For all of that had was done in probably in a week, you know, maybe eight days. 00:41:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's kind of like a severe sunburn. Yeah, exactly, okay, exactly, very interesting. I've been very curious about it. I've always wondered how painful it is, and well, you've got great skin. Well I'm going to get it burned off. I'm as soon as we hit stop on the recording, I'm going to head to my dermatologists and demand throw some acid on my face. No, I think that you know these all these procedures are interesting, and some of them are clearly snake oil, and then there are others which they are proven results. Your face looks great, excellent skin, and you you had again an experience I did. All that truly matters. 00:42:32 Speaker 3: I've got and I've got to you know, I've got to mind my appearance. 00:42:35 Speaker 2: We've all got a mind of our appearance. Well, look, you got one out of three in the game. 00:42:41 Speaker 3: I'm glad we agreed on something. 00:42:42 Speaker 2: We agreed on something. It would have been it would have been a sour feeling had you lost the entire thing. That's happened with guests before and they've cut off ties. 00:42:52 Speaker 3: I understand it. I mean, I thought I was going to end up in that spot, and I was already planning to never speak to you again. 00:42:59 Speaker 2: We've I've got to answer a listener question. Okay, this is called I said no emails people write into I said no gifts at gmail dot com. Now, look, my listeners are their lives are ragged, their lives are very bad, and so they count on me to try to repair some of these problems, usually social situations, gift giving, this kind of thing. They write into the email. The listener and I try to guide them towards some level of keep them from drowning in life. Essentially, would you help me? 00:43:33 Speaker 3: Sure, I'll do my best. Okay, let's probably fail, but. 00:43:35 Speaker 2: I'll let's see here. Okay, this is deer bridge or in tactless guest. Oh, just an immediate insult. You don't like to hear that. My husband and I got married in May of twenty twenty two, grants, I am already thinking about gifts for our first anniversary. The traditional first anniversary gift is paper, and I have a decent idea for that. Oh, so it sounds like someone's written into brag so far. My husband likes to collect cardboard coasters from local breweries and brands. I was thinking I could enlist friends and family to send me any cool ones they encounter over the next several months and create some sort of collage or something for him. Okay, so now they're running out of ideas. It sounds like they've got a spark of an idea, right. My conundrum is that if I commit to a traditional paper gift for year one, will I regret that in seven years for the wool slash copper anniversary? Will I be emailing you in thirty five years for a really great coral gift. Well, I hope not. I don't want to hear from you ever again. I would love your thoughts. 00:44:40 Speaker 3: Nora, huh. Well, my first response to that is it's sweet the idea of enlisting the aid of friends to collect these coasters. But I would say, don't do it. Don't bother people. Nobody wants to. Nobody wants to go get coasters and send them to you to make a gift for your husband. It's a sweet thought, but maybe you got friends who are more generous than I am by nature. But I wouldn't want to deal with that personally. 00:45:06 Speaker 2: That does to me. It sounds almost worse than telling them to go to the store and buy an item. Because this is the thing that you have to like start thinking about who gives away coasters that are interesting to. 00:45:17 Speaker 3: Source it and then do you just steal it? Do you ask for it? 00:45:20 Speaker 2: Right? They're running all over town, and who knows. For your anniversaries, this topic comes up a lot of like the paper anniversary whatever. Have you ever done anything like that? 00:45:33 Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean we do very simple. I mean like one year it was wood and so I got her just a little wooden like butterspoon meaningless. I don't think she ever used it, but we try. We make a half assed effort to sort of give a nod to that. 00:45:47 Speaker 2: And are you also giving another gift or is it just the wooden spoon? 00:45:52 Speaker 3: No, No, it'll usually be a more. 00:45:54 Speaker 2: There will be some other item that they actually can use. 00:45:57 Speaker 3: Right. 00:45:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that I believe in this at all. I don't know who started it. But and this, like writing, doing it for your entire life feels like a prison to Oh yeah, absolutely, But getting back to this person, I really feel like, no, just don't don't. Don't trap yourself in this. Certainly don't drag a family member or a friend. 00:46:18 Speaker 3: Into it, or multiple friends. It sounds like. 00:46:21 Speaker 2: There's nothing worse than getting an email where you're BC Seed or C Seed that says hey everybody, yeah, and then asks for some horrible favor, right that will just haunt me for weeks. Yeah, eventually I just do the worst job possible and then there's you know, some some level of anger between me and the asker. So, Nora, I think that's your answer right there, just you know, buy him a new phone or something. 00:46:48 Speaker 3: We like that more, ye appreciate it more. Unless you've got a really great idea for another paper gift, that's that's easy and you have fun with it, but don't feel like it's going to trap you into that for the rest of your life either. 00:47:00 Speaker 2: Well, unless the husband really has this expectation. Uh well, yeah, you know, and then it could it could threaten the marriage. 00:47:07 Speaker 3: Should not do it would be it might be a deal breaking, right. 00:47:11 Speaker 2: Maybe that's all this marriage is built on, is this husband's obsession with tradition. That's not a good sub You don't want to find that out one you're in. No, but we wish Nora the best of luck and congratulations on the wedding. Nora. I don't know what to tell. 00:47:26 Speaker 3: You happy anniversary in advance. 00:47:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, maybe she just prints out this email and says, I tried. Yeah, that's a paper gift. Well, we answered the question perfectly. 00:47:37 Speaker 3: We did. 00:47:38 Speaker 2: No one can say otherwise. And I now have these shifts. Oh, I was going to say shives. These shims. Actually this is basically the what could be carved into a shive, small wooden objects. I have my shims, which now provides some level of comfort in my life. Should you know, I won't have to worry about should the time come when I'm reframing a window that I'll have to run to home depot. No, they'll just be there waiting for me. 00:48:07 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:48:08 Speaker 2: I've had such a wonderful time with you here today. 00:48:10 Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Thank you. 00:48:11 Speaker 2: For coming and listener, the podcast is wrapping up. We're done. The audio will end at some point, and then, of course you've got to make your big decisions for the day or I don't know, you know, I don't know. I just don't have any idea what you need to do today, So you've got to make that decision. Thank you for being here. I love you, goodbye, I said. No Gifts is an exactly right production. It's produced by our dear friend Annalise Nilson and it's beautifully mixed by Leona SQUILATCHI and we couldn't do it without our guest booker Patrick Kottner. The theme song, of course, could only come from miracle worker Amy Man. You must follow the show on Instagram. At I said, no gifts. I don't want to hear any excuses. That's where you get to see pictures of all these gorgeous gifts I'm getting. And don't you want to see pictures of the gifts? 00:49:10 Speaker 1: And I invited you hear thought. I made myself perfectly clear. When you're a guest to my home, you gotta come to me empty. And I said, no gifts, your own presences, presence in And I already had too much stuff, So how do you dare to surbey me?