00:00:05 Speaker 1: When I invited you here I thought I made myself perfectly clear When you're a guest in my home You gotta come to me empty-handed. I said no gifts, your presence is presence enough. And I already had too much stuff. So how do you dare disobey me? 00:00:48 Speaker 2: Welcome to I Said No Gifts. I'm Bridger Weiniger. I'm fresh back from Ross Dress for Less. I dipped in there after dinner my evening in Burbank. They're selling boxes of liquid death at Ross Dress for Less. If that's something you're interested in buying canned water, I think it's called mango murder. I think that may be the flavor. Something along those lines. That's in the Burbank Ross dress for less. They're not all going to have canned water, obviously. That's how Ross works. So I did that. I learned this at work today. I'm 17 days late on the violence in the workplace training module. So, I mean, anything could happen with me. But that's a different workplace. This workplace doesn't require any training modules. So I'm The violence could happen at any moment. What else is happening? I went to the pharmacy to pick up my Welbutrin, and the pharmacist said, how long have you been doing it? Which I made it feel very illicit, and I kind of like that. I do Welbutrin. And I think that's... Oh, I went to San Diego. I saw Jim and his play. I assume this is... It's too late for you to see the play. 00:02:15 Speaker 1: Sorry. Sorry. 00:02:17 Speaker 2: Um, that was over at the end of August, and this episode is coming out at another time, probably in September. Happy fall, everyone. Back to school. 00:02:28 Speaker 3: Hmm. 00:02:29 Speaker 2: Patreon.com slash I said no gifts. Come on over. Bonus episodes. What's a bonus episode that we're talking about? We've got producer Ellis on an episode. We recently had Mitra Johari. We've got everybody. We're having such a good time. I'm recapping Real Housewives of Salt Lake City season two now, which will then be paused for season seven. And then I'll do that. And then at some point, my body is going to break. But let's just get into the podcast. I'm so delighted our guest is back. It's Lennon Parham. Lennon, welcome back to I Said No Gifts. 00:03:04 Speaker 3: Thank you so much. 00:03:05 Speaker 2: I'm so happy to see you. 00:03:06 Speaker 1: Ditto. 00:03:07 Speaker 2: I just, I feel like a lot has... Happening. 00:03:11 Speaker 3: Transpired. 00:03:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot has transpired. I've been to Ross. 00:03:16 Speaker 3: It's open really late. Did you know that? 00:03:18 Speaker 2: This is one of the weirdest things about Ross. 00:03:20 Speaker 3: Until like 11 o'clock. Because there's a new one in my neighborhood. And one time I went, it was knock-it-out-of-the-park deals. 00:03:29 Speaker 2: Of course. 00:03:31 Speaker 3: Then I took my daughter again when she was home recovering from an illness. 00:03:37 Speaker 2: Oh. 00:03:37 Speaker 3: You know, after she was contagious. It wasn't insane. We were just bored. And it was the saddest place on earth. And it was the same Ross that I had been to. 00:03:48 Speaker 2: It's like the leaves falling off of trees. You never know what Ross you're going to get. 00:03:54 Speaker 3: And then you drive by, and it's 1045, and there's still people milling about in there. 00:03:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, they're open until 11 o'clock, I think. 00:04:01 Speaker 3: Is that right? It could be later. We don't know. Should we go after this? 00:04:06 Speaker 1: We should. 00:04:06 Speaker 2: Let's hit up Ross. And we'll wait. We'll wait a couple hours. 00:04:09 Speaker 3: God, I need some mango murder. 00:04:12 Speaker 2: I saw that. 00:04:13 Speaker 3: That's so aggressive. 00:04:14 Speaker 2: Well, it's the liquid death brand. Sure, sure. 00:04:17 Speaker 3: They have to toe the line. 00:04:19 Speaker 2: Bring an edge to water. 00:04:22 Speaker 3: Nothing needs it more. 00:04:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, I rarely buy things at Ross, but I saw several things there today, including... Is this an ad for Ross? I don't know. 00:04:35 Speaker 3: Let's do it. 00:04:36 Speaker 2: Let's get you to a sponsor. Let's get me the Ross sponsorship. They had beautiful flower pots or like indoor plant pots, which. 00:04:47 Speaker 3: I was shocked. Like artificial ones? No, you could. 00:04:51 Speaker 2: Actually put plants in them. Okay. 00:04:52 Speaker 3: Big. 00:04:53 Speaker 2: I was tempted, but I didn't. 00:04:54 Speaker 1: How much? 00:04:56 Speaker 2: Guess for one that's quite large. 00:04:59 Speaker 3: Yeah, for like a fig tree? 00:05:00 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:05:01 Speaker 2: How much would you pay for something like that? 00:05:03 Speaker 3: Like in a West Elm, $ 3. 20. 00:05:07 Speaker 2: Well, what if I told you you could get the pot there for 10% of that cost, $ 30? 00:05:12 Speaker 3: Oh, I wouldn't believe you. 00:05:14 Speaker 2: $ 30 for a pot is very reasonable. That's too low. 00:05:18 Speaker 3: You are going to injure yourself on that pot when it shatters. 00:05:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, you do wonder what's happening with this particular pot, what corners were cut in order to get this thing made. Mm-hmm. 00:05:29 Speaker 3: It wasn't fired at the right temperature or something, you know? 00:05:33 Speaker 2: It's a little soft. You pick it up and you can see your fingerprints on it. Yeah. The other thing I was going to talk about is this. Have you seen this Monsters of God documentary? Nope. This is about snakes and reptiles. 00:05:49 Speaker 3: Not related to mango murder monster. 00:05:52 Speaker 2: Oh, interesting. That could be a collab between Monster Energy Drink and Liquid Death. 00:05:56 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:05:57 Speaker 2: The Monsters of God water. 00:05:58 Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. 00:06:00 Speaker 2: But this thing. 00:06:01 Speaker 3: It's a documentary? 00:06:02 Speaker 2: It's a documentary about the reptile trade. Did you see Chimp Crazy? 00:06:07 Speaker 3: Nope. 00:06:08 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:06:09 Speaker 3: Chimp Crazy. Oh, I thought you said Jim Crazy. 00:06:11 Speaker 2: Jim Crazy. I'm going Jim Crazy. 00:06:15 Speaker 3: Like a Jim Belushi documentary. Okay. 00:06:19 Speaker 2: Chimp Crazy. 00:06:20 Speaker 3: I didn't see it. 00:06:21 Speaker 2: But you're familiar? 00:06:22 Speaker 3: I'm familiar with. 00:06:26 Speaker 4: How that goes badly right in general yes this guy keeps I think documenting different people with exotic animals okay but this one's all about snakes and last night unfortunately snakes and like alligators or whatever exposed to a large bucket of dead rats on my TV oh yeah it's just. 00:06:46 Speaker 3: Like shot camera right down in into. 00:06:49 Speaker 2: It just didn't feel like something I needed to see on TV they could have just told me it was full of rats yeah It's like. 00:06:56 Speaker 3: Fear factor or something. 00:06:57 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:06:57 Speaker 2: Trigger warning. I have my cookie and I'm trying to eat and just frozen dead rats being thrown into alligator. Frozen. 00:07:04 Speaker 3: At least they were frozen. Like that would help, I think, in the moment. 00:07:08 Speaker 2: That's true. What's your feeling on reptiles and snakes? 00:07:12 Speaker 3: My neighbor surprised me. They have an aggressive golden retriever. And I recently got a puppy and I was walking by and the boyfriend walked out with a Something on, it's just like a, what's it called? 00:07:27 Speaker 2: A horned... Iguana? 00:07:30 Speaker 3: I don't know. It was a... Oh, God, what's the name of it? It's like one of the more famous lizard species. Okay, anyway. It was just on his shoulder. Just like all of a sudden, this is you? 00:07:44 Speaker 2: That's a huge side of your personality. 00:07:48 Speaker 3: And he drives like a very loud kind of sports car. He's got a very... handsome wife or girlfriend who has the dog okay she works she helps out on voting days. 00:08:02 Speaker 2: Well what a completely different pair of people he sounds like a coke dealer and she's. 00:08:07 Speaker 3: Doing grounded so that's why i was like talking about my dog they were interacting and then i looked up and i was i literally was taken aback by the lizard on his shoulder. 00:08:19 Speaker 2: That's a big thing to keep from people Yeah. Once you learn someone owns a large reptile, I mean, like there's a whole new world opened about their personality. You just got a puppy? 00:08:30 Speaker 3: Yes, we did. 00:08:31 Speaker 2: Tell me about this. 00:08:32 Speaker 3: In April. This dog, this sweet, sweet dog is named Mochi and has doubled, over doubled in size, is a mix of seven very disparate dogs. 00:08:48 Speaker 2: Which dogs? 00:08:48 Speaker 3: Half poodle, about 35 to 40 percent, two kinds of shepherd. Okay. And then like Japanese street dog, like Kenyan street dog, a lot of street dogs happening. And she's so cute and such a mess and she's getting spayed tomorrow. 00:09:09 Speaker 2: How old is she? 00:09:11 Speaker 3: She's like a little over seven months now. 00:09:12 Speaker 2: Do you have a picture? 00:09:14 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:09:14 Speaker 2: I want to see a picture of her. 00:09:15 Speaker 3: Can I show it to you later? 00:09:16 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, of course. 00:09:17 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:09:18 Speaker 2: Listener, I'm going to be as tense waiting for this picture as you are. I just got a puppy last June. 00:09:27 Speaker 3: You did? 00:09:27 Speaker 2: So I've been through the whole puppy process. 00:09:29 Speaker 3: What size is your puppy? 00:09:31 Speaker 2: She's a Rottweiler, so she's about 75 pounds right now. 00:09:33 Speaker 3: That's a big dog. 00:09:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, and she's still growing. 00:09:37 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:09:37 Speaker 2: But now sideways. She'll, like, bulk out into kind of a tank creature. 00:09:42 Speaker 3: Thicken up. 00:09:42 Speaker 2: But she still looks like– she looks like kind of a gangly puppy sort of. She's wonderful. 00:09:47 Speaker 3: She's not a year old yet? 00:09:49 Speaker 2: No, she's now a year and a half about. Because we got her spayed in March, I think, which was– Yeah. Did you– Did you have to wait for the first heat? 00:10:03 Speaker 1: No. 00:10:04 Speaker 3: I think bigger dogs, it happens a little later. 00:10:06 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:10:06 Speaker 1: Right? 00:10:07 Speaker 3: This is what I'm reading on American Kennel Society. 00:10:10 Speaker 2: Right. 00:10:11 Speaker 3: But any time after five or six months, they'll do it. But they don't they didn't tell us we. 00:10:16 Speaker 2: Had to wait. 00:10:17 Speaker 3: So we're not gonna. 00:10:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think you have to. 00:10:18 Speaker 3: We ended up waiting too long for our cat, who's now 16. And that was unpleasant. 00:10:25 Speaker 2: Was there were cats coming around the house trying to. 00:10:29 Speaker 3: She she's an indoor cat. I didn't notice additional cats, but there might have been coyotes, all sorts. We lived in this. insane side of a hill in Echo Park at the time. But it was just like, she was just like, she was like, okay, like, it's beginning. Let's get this show. Like she was, it was on. And then any piece of furniture, she was like, you looking at me? Like it was just, then she's grinding on the floor. And I was like, no, no, no, no, not in my house. 00:11:02 Speaker 2: How long did that go on for? 00:11:03 Speaker 3: Until we got her spayed. So probably just the one time. I mean, the one whatever session. Right. 00:11:09 Speaker 2: The heat session. 00:11:10 Speaker 3: The heat session. 00:11:10 Speaker 2: The heat zone. 00:11:11 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:11:13 Speaker 3: Wow. 00:11:13 Speaker 2: Yeah. We waded through one heat with our dog, and it went way longer than we could have possibly ever imagined. 00:11:20 Speaker 3: Like a month or something? 00:11:21 Speaker 2: Like six weeks, I think. 00:11:23 Speaker 3: That's too long. 00:11:24 Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we were like, we can do this for two weeks. And then just six weeks later, it was finally over. 00:11:30 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:11:32 Speaker 2: I don't know. But now I think we've taken care of all of her surgeries for now. Good. And we can just enjoy the meat. Well, she did swallow a finger puppet over the weekend. 00:11:42 Speaker 1: Oh, no. 00:11:43 Speaker 2: Which is tough. So I'm like monitoring that situation. Does your dog eat everything? 00:11:48 Speaker 3: Yeah, everything. Everything. 00:11:50 Speaker 2: You can't stop them. 00:11:52 Speaker 3: What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Get in there? I mean, it's gone before you even see her eat it. 00:11:58 Speaker 2: Almost instantly. 00:11:58 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:11:59 Speaker 2: The amount of times my hand has been in a Rottweiler's mouth at this point. 00:12:02 Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. I'm always reaching in there. She loves. I mean, this is obviously a classic dog thing. She loves socks. 00:12:09 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. 00:12:09 Speaker 3: Especially dirty socks. And she will find socks everywhere. And then she'll just run back to her bed like we didn't even see it. And we're just like, no. 00:12:18 Speaker 2: Oh. It's unfortunate. 00:12:21 Speaker 3: But she is joy. She is joy incarnate. 00:12:24 Speaker 2: They're such joy. 00:12:25 Speaker 3: She's so happy to see me when I get home. 00:12:27 Speaker 2: Oh, isn't that the best? 00:12:28 Speaker 3: And so angry at everyone else. 00:12:33 Speaker 2: Do you feel like you're the alpha in the house? 00:12:36 Speaker 3: I think we all play different roles. She thinks my son is another dog, I think. 00:12:41 Speaker 2: Right. 00:12:42 Speaker 3: She likes my daughter a lot. She's always excited. My husband plays with her the most. So she like, And he takes her on her, like, first walk. But then if she gets injured or scared, she runs to me. Oh, that's kind of. 00:12:55 Speaker 2: The ultimate thing. Are you training her? 00:12:59 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:13:00 Speaker 2: That's a whole other thing. 00:13:01 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:13:01 Speaker 3: She went to puppy preschool. 00:13:03 Speaker 2: Oh, we took ours to puppy preschool, and it was very sweet. I loved doing it so much. 00:13:08 Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty cute. 00:13:10 Speaker 2: I mean, even though it meant, like, waking up at 7 a.m. and driving to who knows where. Yeah. But it's very sweet to send them off and have them come back learning things. 00:13:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, and meeting other little puppies. 00:13:23 Speaker 2: Have you been doing anything fun during the summer? Have your kids off of school? 00:13:30 Speaker 3: We went to Applebee's. I do love a trip to Applebee's. I was saying to my husband, it feels like My teenage years. 00:13:41 Speaker 2: Right. 00:13:41 Speaker 3: Because it was like where you went to feel grown up and like have. 00:13:45 Speaker 2: Like a real restaurant. 00:13:46 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And maybe the drama club, like after a show or something. 00:13:50 Speaker 2: Oh, totally. 00:13:51 Speaker 3: Yeah, you would just go over there and just get, I don't know what we would even order. Some kind of like chimichanga or something. Anyway, so now my, right after the fires, okay, this is a positive story. Right after the fires, we rented a house in Joshua Tree just to get out of the red flag zone. 00:14:12 Speaker 2: Sure. 00:14:13 Speaker 3: And we ate dinner at Applebee's. And it was the first time my son had ever eaten at Applebee's. And he was like, what is this magic? They had Shirley Temples with Pop Rocks in them. Oh, my God. Like mozzarella sticks out the wazoo. Like everything that was on the kids' menu, he was like, that one. I'll take that one. It was such a hit. And then it became such a positive thing in our house. It's maybe not the most healthy place to go eat. But every once in a while, dive in to an Applebee's. It'll surprise you. 00:14:49 Speaker 2: That's a great slogan. Dive into an Applebee's. It'll surprise you. What are you ordering at Applebee's? 00:14:57 Speaker 3: I always get the same thing. The bourbon chicken and shrimp. 00:15:02 Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. 00:15:03 Speaker 3: With sauteed mushrooms and onions and mashed potato. It is so salty. It is so salty. Do you know, this is, I digress, but my friend Tony and Jen were craving a Cracker Barrel breakfast. And we drove to Fontana. 00:15:22 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:15:23 Speaker 3: Which is a good drive. 00:15:23 Speaker 2: It's not a short drive. 00:15:25 Speaker 3: Yeah. Got in that HOV, though. We lucked out. And we ate the food. And literally we were afterwards, I think because of the MSG, vibrating. Like, I was talking like this. Can you believe those fried eggs were so delicious? And then we like went in the gift store, which I think maybe is like on purpose they put that insane gift store out there, the general store. 00:15:49 Speaker 2: Right, right. 00:15:50 Speaker 3: Because they were just like. Like Christmas Snoopies, just like over and over again. Like, I don't know. 00:15:59 Speaker 2: Sounds like a hallucination. 00:16:01 Speaker 3: It felt that way, and I had just eaten breakfast. 00:16:05 Speaker 2: It's like 8.30 a.m. Yeah, I haven't been to a Cracker Barrel in quite a while, but they don't just sell Cracker Barrel merch, right? No. It's like kind of a general store with things from outside of Cracker Barrel. Yeah. Fascinating business concept. 00:16:21 Speaker 3: Yeah, and it works. And rocking chairs, famously. 00:16:24 Speaker 2: Wait, you can buy rocking chairs? 00:16:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, they're for sale out front. 00:16:28 Speaker 2: Whoa! 00:16:28 Speaker 3: Right next to those giant checkers boards. 00:16:31 Speaker 2: How much are they selling a rocking chair for? $ 150. 00:16:34 Speaker 3: $ 150? Okay. 00:16:36 Speaker 2: Does it say Cracker Barrel on it? Uh-uh. Okay. Yeah, I guess I wouldn't even know where to buy a rocking chair. 00:16:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, there's one in Hollywood, actually, a rocking chair store. 00:16:47 Speaker 2: Oh, have you been there? 00:16:48 Speaker 3: That's where I got my husband a rocking chair for one of his birthday presents. And the guy said, oh, my God, Bridget Jones had just been in and bought 12 rocking chairs for her patio all around her pool. And I was like, that's a name drop. She didn't say Bridget Jones. 00:17:07 Speaker 2: He actually said, yeah, Renee's. 00:17:10 Speaker 3: Zellweger. 00:17:11 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:17:12 Speaker 2: I like the idea of buying 12 rocking chairs and not artfully tastefully putting them around in a row. Just straight. 00:17:19 Speaker 3: Just straight right along the pool. Wow. 00:17:22 Speaker 2: Yeah. Where do you have your rocking chair? 00:17:24 Speaker 3: On the back deck. 00:17:25 Speaker 2: Okay. That sounds nice. 00:17:26 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:17:27 Speaker 2: I like a rocking chair. I wonder if I could so I get nauseous so easily now. 00:17:31 Speaker 3: Interesting. 00:17:32 Speaker 2: You didn't used to? No. Up until I was probably 20, I didn't get nauseous in any situation. I could go on Like rides. 00:17:40 Speaker 3: Motion sickness. 00:17:42 Speaker 2: Zero motion sickness. And now devastating motion sickness. 00:17:46 Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. 00:17:47 Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder if there's something about like your inner ear canal falling apart or something. 00:17:53 Speaker 1: I don't know. 00:17:54 Speaker 3: At 20? That doesn't sound right. Do you know about the feature on your phone that you can turn on in the car? 00:18:00 Speaker 2: No. Okay. 00:18:01 Speaker 3: I'll show you later. 00:18:02 Speaker 2: What is it? 00:18:03 Speaker 3: There's like a feature that like it puts little dots on your screen and then as the car's turning... The dots turn with it. So your brain and your eyes feel the physical, like it's all together. You know how when you look, like I can't read, I couldn't like do anything on my phone in the car if my husband was driving. 00:18:22 Speaker 2: Right. 00:18:22 Speaker 3: I get immediately motion sick. 00:18:24 Speaker 1: Right. 00:18:24 Speaker 3: But if I put that on, it gives me maybe two minutes before I start feeling like I'm going to throw up. Yeah. 00:18:30 Speaker 2: I mean, you even just kind of describing that was starting to make me feel like, am I going to get dizzy now? 00:18:35 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:18:35 Speaker 2: It's not a great feeling. Speaking of inner ear, I've been listening to Lena Dunham's book, and she tells a story about sticking a Q-tip in her ear and essentially just destroying her eardrum. 00:18:47 Speaker 3: How far did she go? 00:18:48 Speaker 1: I don't know. 00:18:49 Speaker 3: Or maybe it's closer to the edge. 00:18:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's closer than you would think. And now I think I might finally be scared straight with Q-tips. Never. 00:19:00 Speaker 3: Never. You're going in. Wait, do you know about a thing called a tonsil stone? 00:19:05 Speaker 2: No. 00:19:06 Speaker 1: Holy. 00:19:07 Speaker 2: I don't even. I'm already so devastated. 00:19:13 Speaker 3: Okay. Do you want to know? 00:19:14 Speaker 2: Yes. I think, I mean, I should educate myself. Okay. 00:19:18 Speaker 3: So I'm not going to say who had this in my household, but they were complaining of, like, it felt like something was stuck in the back of their throat. And I looked in the back of their throat and there was like a white thing. What looked like almost like strep dots, you know? 00:19:38 Speaker 2: Right, right. 00:19:39 Speaker 3: So I tried to– I took a picture of it. Nothing– like, I mean, I took a picture of it. It was fine. But it just didn't seem like– it looked like a heart. piece of white. Okay. Got my finger in there hard as a rock. 00:19:56 Speaker 2: Oh, no. 00:19:57 Speaker 3: Lodged in the back wall. 00:19:59 Speaker 2: How big would you say it was? Size of a skittle? 00:20:01 Speaker 3: Half of a skittle. 00:20:02 Speaker 2: Half a skittle, okay. 00:20:03 Speaker 3: Like a skinny skittle. And then at that point, this person began to panic. 00:20:10 Speaker 2: Of course. 00:20:11 Speaker 3: Okay. What is it? Get it out. Why is it there? 00:20:14 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:20:16 Speaker 3: So I searched, what's this hard white thing in the back of the throat? Knot strap. Tonsil stone. Some people have tonsils with little nooks and crannies and calcium and germs and food particles build up into these little nasty stones. There's like a Reddit thread that About how bad they smell when you get it knocked out if you hold it in your fingers and crush it. We didn't ever get to that point. But I did order a tonsil stone kit. 00:20:47 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:20:48 Speaker 3: For removal. 00:20:49 Speaker 2: So you can do it at home. 00:20:50 Speaker 3: Yes. We were planning a trip to the dentist because we didn't really know what to do. 00:20:54 Speaker 1: Right. 00:20:54 Speaker 3: But we shot some water back there like with the like water pick thing. Right. And then in the morning it was gone. He just swallowed it. We loosened it, I guess. Is that the most disgusting thing you've ever heard? 00:21:07 Speaker 1: Oh, my God. 00:21:08 Speaker 3: I just wanted to educate people because I feel like I know a lot about things. This was a new one. Like, no one ever told me. 00:21:18 Speaker 2: How long does it take for it to build up? It must be months, right? And you just don't know? 00:21:22 Speaker 3: You would think so, but, like, it's happened several times since. And it just, like, all of a sudden it bothers them. 00:21:30 Speaker 1: Right. 00:21:30 Speaker 3: And they're... Complaining about it, and then we shoot water back there, or we use a little tool. Oh, this is horrible. Anyway, it's horrible. You're not going to get them. You've never had them. I've never had them. Certain throats. 00:21:45 Speaker 2: Certain throats. I mean, I wish I could get my tonsils removed. I get strep throat probably every other year. You do. I mean, my entire life I've gotten strep throat, and it's awful. 00:21:58 Speaker 3: It's not a good one. 00:21:58 Speaker 2: It's so terrible. 00:21:59 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:21:59 Speaker 2: But apparently getting your tonsils removed is... Like people die. 00:22:02 Speaker 1: What? 00:22:03 Speaker 3: Because of the hemorrhaging? 00:22:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the hemorrhaging. 00:22:06 Speaker 3: They did have a pit. There was a girl in the pit with that. 00:22:10 Speaker 2: Had her tonsils removed. 00:22:12 Speaker 3: She was hemorrhaging post tonsils and like her sibling brought her in or something. Her parents were out of town. 00:22:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think unless you get them removed as a kid, it's a real, I mean, like danger. So I guess it's not in my future. Although you think they'd be pushing the science on that. Find a new way to remove them. Burn them out. 00:22:31 Speaker 3: Oh, okay. That's your go-to. 00:22:34 Speaker 2: Support me. I'm trying to help the medical community here. I'm pitching ideas. Burn tonsils. 00:22:46 Speaker 3: Just brand them. 00:22:47 Speaker 2: Yes. Well, as much as I'd like to continue down this road, I'm not feeling a lot of support. 00:22:56 Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. 00:22:57 Speaker 2: So I guess we should move on to something else I felt like I had to talk to you about anyway. You were on the podcast a couple of years ago. I was. 00:23:04 Speaker 3: Thank you. 00:23:05 Speaker 2: Total disaster. 00:23:06 Speaker 3: Well. 00:23:06 Speaker 2: I would say it was a mess, but we moved on. 00:23:10 Speaker 3: We had to. 00:23:11 Speaker 2: At that point, we kind of had no choice. What choice did we have? We had gotten so far down, rock bottom. So I thought, why not? Let's see if Lennon can come back and we'll have a better time. 00:23:25 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:23:26 Speaker 2: Podcast is called i said no gifts so um that was kind of one of the central problems last episode i was a little surprised to see you brought another gift today did you see it i saw the bag i certainly saw the bag. 00:23:39 Speaker 3: Yeah because it makes the statement. 00:23:42 Speaker 2: It makes a huge statement can i show it to you yeah of course. 00:23:48 Speaker 3: Let's party. 00:23:51 Speaker 2: It's a dog with star-shaped glasses and i. 00:23:53 Speaker 3: Mean it's right on Like, on subject, right? 00:23:56 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:23:57 Speaker 3: It's in the zeitgeist. 00:23:58 Speaker 2: It's in the zeitgeist. I will say they missed an opportunity with a pun here. Let's pa... No, no. Let's party. Let's party? 00:24:06 Speaker 3: Yeah. Let's party. 00:24:08 Speaker 2: That's good. Bag company, reach out. All right. Let me reach in here. Ooh. I feel like we're having a tissue renaissance on the podcast. Guests are bringing tissue again. Oh. Okay. Reaching in. 00:24:37 Speaker 3: What is this? I'm so sorry. What? 00:24:43 Speaker 2: Oh, my God. It's a towel. I'll say a filthy towel. 00:24:53 Speaker 3: Just from the years of yellowing. It's very old. It has never been used, but it was in my costume bins. Bins, plural. And I reached, I didn't realize it was so yellow, but I didn't have time to give it a wash. And probably all of the words would fall off. 00:25:11 Speaker 2: It says, I love Kathleen. Is this Kathleen Turner? 00:25:14 Speaker 3: That's me. That's you. Kathleen is my, was my middle name. 00:25:21 Speaker 2: Oh, my God. 00:25:21 Speaker 3: Who made this? It was made by Raymond Wong in Greenville, Mississippi. He owned the local Chinese restaurant and also he began a printing business. We had been in Delta Center Stage Community Theater Productions and had gotten friendly. Not to mention I was there every Friday and Saturday night singing karaoke. And he asked me to be the face of his campaign to launch... The new printing side of his business. 00:25:56 Speaker 2: This was the perfect launch. 00:25:58 Speaker 3: There are hats. There were shirts. There was a commercial. What? And I didn't feel comfortable with him using my real name. 00:26:06 Speaker 2: Right. 00:26:07 Speaker 3: So I said, can you use my middle name? And then he gave me all this merch. But in the commercial, I'm just like standing in a field in Mississippi going, hey, I love– and then just says, I love Kathleen. And then, yeah, but that's my face. Because I'm naturally a blonde. Not that color yellow. 00:26:31 Speaker 2: Wait, so was the brand called I Love Kathleen? 00:26:34 Speaker 3: No, it was just like Wong Printing or something. 00:26:37 Speaker 2: This feels like some confusing branding issues to launch in such a strong way. To have you as the spokesperson. 00:26:45 Speaker 3: I think the plan was like. 00:26:49 Speaker 3: Like my boyfriend loved me so much that he got me all this merch that said my name on it. I love Kathleen. 00:26:55 Speaker 2: Custom merch. Who drew the picture of you? 00:26:59 Speaker 3: Unclear. I don't know. I don't know the artist. 00:27:02 Speaker 2: Is this some sort of copyright at the bottom? 00:27:03 Speaker 3: Maybe so. 00:27:04 Speaker 2: That's been washed off. 00:27:06 Speaker 3: Not really. 00:27:06 Speaker 2: So do you still have the hats and the T-shirt? 00:27:09 Speaker 1: Uh-huh. 00:27:10 Speaker 2: That's incredible. Do you have the commercial? 00:27:13 Speaker 3: I don't think so. 00:27:14 Speaker 2: Oh, you've got to find that at some point. 00:27:15 Speaker 3: It's on a VHS, I think, somewhere. 00:27:17 Speaker 2: Oh, my God. When was this? 00:27:19 Speaker 3: Just before Y2K. Wow, this is amazing. 00:27:24 Speaker 2: That's really incredible. Was that your first, like, on TV acting gig? 00:27:28 Speaker 3: It might have been. 00:27:29 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:27:30 Speaker 3: I didn't really do anything before. I mean, I was all theater before then. 00:27:33 Speaker 1: Right. 00:27:33 Speaker 2: And then suddenly you're the star of an ad campaign. 00:27:36 Speaker 3: Of an ad campaign in Greenville. I don't think I got paid. Like, it was just like a solid I was doing. Raymond, he was great, though. 00:27:44 Speaker 2: Did the business take off? 00:27:46 Speaker 3: I don't, I mean, Raymond's, Just killing it and was killing it in Greenville. 00:27:51 Speaker 1: Incredible. 00:27:51 Speaker 3: I know that. He had a very successful Chinese restaurant with an adjoining lounge. 00:27:57 Speaker 2: Right. And I'm sure people always need custom printed things. 00:28:01 Speaker 3: Always, especially in a town where there's sports events. Right, of course. Graduations. 00:28:08 Speaker 2: Probably at least one other Kathleen. 00:28:09 Speaker 3: Bride to Bees. Yeah, yeah. 00:28:12 Speaker 2: What sort of plays were you doing in this theater? 00:28:16 Speaker 3: We did... Jesus Christ Superstar. Wonderful. We did Narnia because there were a lot of kids that wanted to be in it. Oh, sure. We did The Apple Tree. 00:28:28 Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not familiar. 00:28:30 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:28:32 Speaker 3: That was good. I think Bernadette Peters was in that. 00:28:37 Speaker 2: Oh, wow. 00:28:37 Speaker 3: Originally, it was on Broadway, but it just never crossed over. 00:28:40 Speaker 2: The Apple Tree. 00:28:42 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:28:42 Speaker 2: I've never heard of this. 00:28:43 Speaker 3: It was three separate. Like parables. One was like about Adam and Eve. One was about a cleaning lady who wished to be a princess. That was me. That was like a Carol Burnett moment for me. We also did a one-act play that was just me and this other woman named Sonia Bixler and Tim Bixler, her husband, directed it. And we went all the way to SCTCs. southeastern theater conference and performed it there in competition did you place i can't remember i don't think so did that feel like it but we like made it out we we like placed in state which enabled us to go to. 00:29:29 Speaker 2: That must have been pretty cutthroat yeah. 00:29:32 Speaker 3: I don't i'm unaware it was. 00:29:35 Speaker 2: Fun yeah that's incredible it must have been good it must have been pretty good yeah so did you have like friends and family buying the i love kathleen merch. 00:29:43 Speaker 3: No it was only for the commercial there was no no they didn't make a whole line of this no this was just missed opportunity you think these would have flown off the show off the shelf just tickle me elmo this is furby I mean, we could put it in Ross and see how it does. 00:30:04 Speaker 2: Just throw that on a shelf with dirty towels. It probably wouldn't be the dirtiest thing in a Ross. Wow, if I saw that on a shelf somewhere, I think, especially now, this would be something people would pick up. I love Kathleen. A t-shirt that says that? Incredible. 00:30:22 Speaker 3: Thank you for thinking it was Kathleen Turner. I appreciate that. I really love her. 00:30:28 Speaker 2: She's great. 00:30:29 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:30:29 Speaker 2: And, I mean. 00:30:31 Speaker 3: Or Kathleen Chalfant. 00:30:32 Speaker 2: Who's that? 00:30:33 Speaker 3: Broadway, Broadway actress. 00:30:35 Speaker 2: I love that last name, Chalfant. Yeah. Wow, is she still working? She's still alive? 00:30:40 Speaker 3: Probably. 00:30:41 Speaker 2: Okay, good for her. 00:30:42 Speaker 3: I hope so. 00:30:43 Speaker 2: Good for her. Okay, well, this is very exciting to have. 00:30:47 Speaker 3: Sorry, I know you said. I just, I had to go into my basement and. 00:30:53 Speaker 2: Root around a little bit. This is really wonderful. Have you ever made any custom type of stuff like this for yourself? 00:31:00 Speaker 3: For myself? 00:31:01 Speaker 2: Custom t-shirts for people. I've never considered a custom towel. It's never really clicked. 00:31:07 Speaker 3: They made, you know, for Playing House, they made a lot of merch to give out to people. 00:31:13 Speaker 2: Right. 00:31:14 Speaker 3: And they, like, people would win, like, fan awards. 00:31:18 Speaker 2: Right. 00:31:19 Speaker 3: And they would, like, send them baskets of cool things. 00:31:22 Speaker 2: Right. 00:31:22 Speaker 3: And I got a couple of those things. But then... Those things are almost always so much better than the at the end of the production. We like give out like a mug or something to our crew to say thank you for being the best for the last three months. But it came out of our pockets. And so it was just like a. A tumbler that literally is hand wash only with something on the outside. You know, it says Playing House Season 3 on the outside and then it melts immediately in the dishwasher. Anyway, yeah, I guess we had to come up with like crew gifts a couple of times. 00:32:02 Speaker 1: Right. 00:32:02 Speaker 2: That's stressful. 00:32:03 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:32:04 Speaker 2: Figuring out how much you can spend and then not wanting to. 00:32:08 Speaker 3: Who wants to go in on it. Yeah. 00:32:10 Speaker 1: Right. 00:32:10 Speaker 2: Not wanting it to look like total garbage. Right. Oh, yeah, that's a tough road to go down. I do like making a custom T-shirt or that kind of thing. I need to get online and make something for myself. I wonder what it'll be. Let's see. Well, this might as well be an ad. We have merch for this podcast, and there's a T-shirt that I really like, but I can't wear it. 00:32:33 Speaker 3: Because it's your own podcast? 00:32:35 Speaker 2: So tacky. 00:32:35 Speaker 3: Does it have your face on it? 00:32:37 Speaker 2: No, but it has the podcast's name. I guess I could scratch it off. 00:32:41 Speaker 3: How many people, as you walk past, would be like, Like, how many people? 00:32:46 Speaker 2: I don't want to find out. 00:32:47 Speaker 3: But you like it. You like it because. 00:32:51 Speaker 2: I think the design's really cool. But there's, I feel like. 00:32:54 Speaker 3: You could sleep in it. Yeah. Wear it inside out. 00:32:58 Speaker 2: Well, see, now we're just losing. You could wear it only at your own parties. I almost feel like if it had my face on it, it would be more appropriate to wear because it would be more obviously a choice. You know, I've decided to wear my face on my body. 00:33:14 Speaker 3: You want me to make you one? 00:33:15 Speaker 2: You'll be able to call Raymond Wong. 00:33:17 Speaker 3: And say, what are you doing today? There was a T-shirt shop at the Eagle Rock Mall. 00:33:27 Speaker 2: Okay. I love the Eagle Rock Mall. 00:33:28 Speaker 3: That our assistant, Claire, who's gone on to be an amazing creative on her own account, used to go and just make insane things, printed, custom printed T-shirts and stuff. 00:33:42 Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. 00:33:45 Speaker 3: I don't have any. 00:33:46 Speaker 2: At the Eagle Rock Mall. 00:33:47 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:33:47 Speaker 2: Interesting. I feel like a lot of stores have shuttered in the Eagle Rock Mall. 00:33:51 Speaker 3: It's a ghost town. 00:33:52 Speaker 2: It's a real ghost town. 00:33:54 Speaker 3: But that makes it better for like riding those little scooters around. 00:33:58 Speaker 2: If you're a kid. You don't have to worry about anything happening. Yeah. And I like wandering around. They have the grocery store and then essentially a church and a karate. 00:34:08 Speaker 3: There's a church now? Like where the Macy's was? 00:34:11 Speaker 2: No, the church is near the Target. It's a pretty small. 00:34:14 Speaker 3: It is. Oh, it's a little one. Yeah. Like an evangelical. 00:34:17 Speaker 2: Right. Probably formerly the Gap. 00:34:19 Speaker 3: Do you think that mall had a gap in it? 00:34:23 Speaker 2: I'm not ruling it out. Okay. It had its own Macy's. 00:34:27 Speaker 3: Back in the day? 00:34:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, in the day it probably had a gorgeous Gap. I don't know. 00:34:33 Speaker 3: Gorgeous Gap. 00:34:34 Speaker 2: Gorgeous Gap. Well, I'm so thrilled to have this. This is going to be a nice part of the studio, actually. 00:34:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, you could wash it. 00:34:44 Speaker 1: No. 00:34:44 Speaker 3: Just be careful. 00:34:46 Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. This feels like it should be dirty forever. It's really a gorgeous towel. You know, there were. 00:34:53 Speaker 3: These two twins, Nicole and Danielle Giammo, who made merch for Playing House that was totally illegal. 00:35:03 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:35:04 Speaker 3: I don't know if it was, like, illegal. We encouraged it because nobody else was making merch. And we were like, go for it. And I don't know if they turned a profit. I don't know who was buying it. But, like, every catchphrase we said on the show, a new T-shirt would pop up. And you could get it in, like, a baby onesie. Like, it would say Team Bruce with a hot dog, like, from an episode that didn't even ever air. Like, it was just all of this amazing merch. And I have because they... They sent me some of those T-shirts. 00:35:34 Speaker 2: Oh, this is sweet. 00:35:35 Speaker 3: And so it's just like, open yourself up to love in some games. That was like a line I said in one of the episodes. And now I have a T-shirt that sometimes my son wears to sleep in. 00:35:46 Speaker 2: Oh, that's really sweet. Good for them. 00:35:48 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:35:49 Speaker 2: Did they return a profit on this illegal merch? 00:35:51 Speaker 3: I hope that they did. I hope that they're both doing great, though. 00:35:54 Speaker 2: Oh, good for them. 00:35:54 Speaker 3: I follow along. One just got engaged in the most beautiful way. And I was like crying watching the engagement video. I've met them in person once at the Today Show. I've invested in their lives. 00:36:12 Speaker 2: They're like, why won't this lady leave us alone? 00:36:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, probably. They're like, why is she commenting on this video that's very personal? 00:36:25 Speaker 2: I think we should play a game. Maybe two games. I need a number between 1 and 10 from you. Six. Okay. I have to do some light calculating to get our game pieces. So right now you can promote, recommend, do whatever you want. 00:36:38 Speaker 3: Okay. Follow me, bitches. At Lennon Parham. P-A-R-H-A-M. And Instagram. That's pretty much it. 00:36:51 Speaker 2: Beautifully. Beautifully done. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. 00:36:55 Speaker 3: Go watch The Dink. 00:36:56 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. 00:36:57 Speaker 1: Right. The Dink. The. 00:36:59 Speaker 3: But dang, it's about pickleball and tennis. And I was in scenes with Ed fucking Harris. 00:37:09 Speaker 2: Unbelievable. 00:37:10 Speaker 3: Dream come true. And my sidekicks, Wayne Wilderson and Don Lake, Dream of Dreams. Jake Johnson. I mean, there's just so many incredible people. 00:37:21 Speaker 2: And it's D-I-N-K. Yeah. 00:37:24 Speaker 3: Not the dank basement. 00:37:26 Speaker 2: The dink. Oh, that's an interesting movie about a basement. 00:37:29 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:37:30 Speaker 2: The dank. 00:37:31 Speaker 3: The dank. 00:37:31 Speaker 2: Heading into the dank. 00:37:32 Speaker 3: I just sound like a movie that you would literally see right now. These seven, like 17-year-old girls go into the dank. 00:37:41 Speaker 1: Right? 00:37:41 Speaker 2: Totally. 00:37:41 Speaker 3: And then they're just like, there's a monster down there eating those dank ankles. 00:37:45 Speaker 2: This is a back rooms type thing. 00:37:46 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:37:47 Speaker 2: The dank. Somebody, we've given you an idea. 00:37:50 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:37:50 Speaker 3: You could make it for under $ 200, 000. It'll air on Prime. 00:37:55 Speaker 2: It'll be lost into the pile of Prime. All right, we're going to play Gift or a Curse first. I'm going to name three things. You'll tell me if they're a gift or a curse and why. Then I'll tell you if you're right or wrong because there are correct answers. 00:38:08 Speaker 1: Great. 00:38:09 Speaker 2: All right, this first one is from a listener named Carlos. Gift or a curse, water parks. Curse. Why? 00:38:15 Speaker 3: My friend Kelly cut her foot, sliced her foot wide open. at French whatever that place is in Iowa. 00:38:24 Speaker 2: I don't know. 00:38:25 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:38:26 Speaker 3: French something. Oh, my God. I can't with this brain. 00:38:30 Speaker 2: French water park. 00:38:31 Speaker 3: Okay. Literally was going down the slide, flipped upside down, gushes of blood, like jaws in the end pool. No, thank you. I already didn't like it. I already was like, I don't know, like, It seems just so disgusting. Also, you're just in your swimsuit all day, like, just damp and running around. Like, there's just so many levels of yuck. I don't know. I get that you can go and have fun with the whole family. Not I, said the cat. Is that correct? 00:39:06 Speaker 2: Incorrect. 00:39:07 Speaker 3: Bullshit. You know she went back, though? 00:39:11 Speaker 2: She went back because? 00:39:13 Speaker 3: French lick. 00:39:14 Speaker 2: French Lake is the name of a water park? 00:39:16 Speaker 3: That's the name of a town that has a bunch of water parks. But it was so far from the hospital. Kelly, please. Kelly is also a professor of television studies in Chicago and she's very smart and very talented. But her opinion of water. parks is wrong. 00:39:32 Speaker 2: But she's alive and well. Her career is thriving, and she's getting to have the time of her life. 00:39:37 Speaker 3: Had nothing to do with a water park, though. 00:39:39 Speaker 2: Well, she wouldn't be where she is today without all the fun she had at water parks. This is a recent turn for me. I haven't even been to a water park in probably 20 years. 00:39:49 Speaker 3: Tell me more. 00:39:50 Speaker 2: It just occurred to me about a month ago, water parks are a good time. I'm sorry. Going down a slide is very fun. 00:39:59 Speaker 3: A slide is fun, yeah. 00:40:01 Speaker 2: Getting a watery, slidey tube. You're having the time of your life. I know. I feel like we've gone too far saying they're disgusting. They're not that disgusting. 00:40:12 Speaker 3: There was also a case on The Pit about this. The water slide collapsed and the sun was literally killed, like cut in half. And the dad was like, where's my son? So I'm like, there's just too many. 00:40:29 Speaker 1: No. 00:40:30 Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you something about that son, though. When he died, he was having fun. There are very few places where you can die having fun. 00:40:39 Speaker 3: Bungee jumping. I don't know. Shark dive, scuba diving. 00:40:45 Speaker 2: But see, those are things where it's just like like bungee jumping. It's fun once. Water slide. You're having fun all day. Then the big horrible thing happens. And what a way to go out. Cut up the collapsing water slide. We've got to change the conversation. 00:41:01 Speaker 3: Have you ever gone down a water slide in like basically a bikini bottom? 00:41:07 Speaker 2: Well, I'm putting it on my list. 00:41:09 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:41:10 Speaker 3: So the minute. that you get going fast enough, that is ripping your anus in a new one, okay? Literally, like, the biggest wedgie you've ever had. It doesn't happen on men's shorts, okay? Bathing shorts. It only happens on women's one-pieces or bikinis, which if you're wearing a bikini at a water park, God bless, because all those te-te's are coming out, okay? And then you hit the pool, and then before you come up out of the water, you have to be like, like, fixing your All your business to make sure none of it came out. 00:41:44 Speaker 2: Then your heart is racing twice, down the slide and then in the panic of people seeing you. 00:41:49 Speaker 3: Oh, my God. 00:41:50 Speaker 2: And that's also not the water park's fault that somebody dressed in a poor way. 00:41:55 Speaker 3: What am I supposed to wear? 00:41:56 Speaker 2: A huge pair of board shorts. Okay. Jams. 00:42:00 Speaker 3: Do you want me to put jams on? 00:42:02 Speaker 2: Jams. 00:42:05 Speaker 4: Jams. 00:42:06 Speaker 2: And a button-up shirt. Get into it. Water park's. We're changing a conversation. It's time. It's a renaissance. Okay, this next one is from a listener named Corinne. Gift or a curse? Wearing a baseball cap with a ponytail and not putting your hair through the adjustable space at the back. 00:42:25 Speaker 3: Gift or a curse? I think it's dealer's choice. You could do whatever the fuck you want, Corinne. Listen, I've done both. I think it's there for a reason. So for me, use it. 00:42:39 Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. 00:42:40 Speaker 3: But, like, there's a bunch of women rocking baseball caps that don't have a pony. 00:42:45 Speaker 2: And they're just kind of stuffing their hair in there? 00:42:47 Speaker 3: No, like short hair. You just put it over top. 00:42:50 Speaker 2: Well, it seems like Corinne is saying you do have to, like, is it a gift or a curse if you do have a ponytail and you're, I don't even understand the physics of this really, but piling it on your head and pulling a hat over it? 00:43:02 Speaker 3: No, it would just be. 00:43:04 Speaker 2: Oh, no, but it's a ponytail. 00:43:06 Speaker 3: But you just wear it down below the hat. 00:43:09 Speaker 2: Oh, below the hat. Oh, interesting look. Okay. Well, what do you think, gift or a curse? 00:43:14 Speaker 3: I think it's supposed to be tacky to do that, but I think it's great. Because also a windstorm comes through, it's hanging on. You're not going to lose your hat. 00:43:23 Speaker 2: Right. Correct. I think that's a gift. Now that I've pictured what that actually looks like, kind of just forcing the ponytail down your back. I think that's a good look. Okay, next. This is from a listener named Corey. Gift or a curse, hotel lamps with USB outlets built in. Curse. 00:43:41 Speaker 1: Why? 00:43:42 Speaker 3: Because the USB outlet has already changed. It's not a USB-C, is it? No charger is going to work with that anymore. And unless you're traveling with five different kinds of chargers, you're not going to be able to charge anything. 00:43:57 Speaker 2: Correct. I was going to mouth. The answer is it is a curse. No, this is something that I think is an obvious mistake. Because even if I had USB-C, in five years, there's going to be some other slithering port that we've got to use. It's really a huge, it's a thing that's like trying to say, oh, look how luxurious. Look, we're so with it. Two years from now, you've got to switch that out or it's going to look so dated and tacky. 00:44:28 Speaker 3: That's right. And guess what's always in fashion? Light. So just let the people bring their own plugs. 00:44:37 Speaker 2: Yes, all we need is a plug. We've got to just also just settle down on plugs or the USB shapes. 00:44:44 Speaker 3: So many plugs. 00:44:45 Speaker 2: Enough is enough. Let's just pick one and do it for like 20 years. 00:44:49 Speaker 3: Can we? 00:44:49 Speaker 1: At least. 00:44:50 Speaker 3: I mean, how much faster do we need to charge things? 00:44:54 Speaker 2: We held on to USB for quite a while. And then it was like the dam broke and it was like a new different port. It's a lightning port. 00:45:02 Speaker 3: It's a thunder wire. I don't know. 00:45:04 Speaker 2: It's not fair. Well, you got two out of three. Pretty good. 00:45:08 Speaker 3: Thanks so much. 00:45:09 Speaker 2: We're going to play a game now called Invite List. I'm going to start naming a list of celebrities. You say invited or not invited. You can tell me why if you want to. Once we get to ten, that's the invite list. That's who's coming to the party. Okay. Elizabeth Holmes. Okay. 00:45:27 Speaker 3: Is that the girl? 00:45:29 Speaker 2: Famously, with the blood company. No, that's Elizabeth Smart. This is another true crime. Elizabeth Holmes started the company with the blood drop, which was scamming everyone. 00:45:40 Speaker 3: Right, right, right. 00:45:41 Speaker 2: Then went to jail. 00:45:42 Speaker 3: The great Liz Merriweather series, The Dropout. 00:45:44 Speaker 2: That's right, yes. 00:45:48 Speaker 3: Nah. 00:45:48 Speaker 2: Okay. Judith Light. 00:45:51 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:45:52 Speaker 2: Vanessa Hudgens. 00:45:54 Speaker 1: No. 00:45:54 Speaker 2: Janelle Monae. 00:45:55 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:45:56 Speaker 2: Mickey Rourke. Robin Wright. 00:46:01 Speaker 1: Yep. 00:46:02 Speaker 2: Emeril Lagasse. 00:46:06 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:46:08 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:46:09 Speaker 2: Ryan Gosling. Uh-huh. Jack White. 00:46:14 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:46:16 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:46:18 Speaker 3: I'm thinking my friend Michelle would be mad if I didn't. 00:46:21 Speaker 2: Oh, sure. That sometimes plays into a party list. 00:46:24 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:46:24 Speaker 2: Derek Hough. Oh. 00:46:29 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:46:31 Speaker 3: RuPaul. Yes. 00:46:33 Speaker 2: Rooney Mara. 00:46:36 Speaker 3: Girl with the Dragon. Yeah. 00:46:38 Speaker 2: Nick Lachey. 00:46:38 Speaker 3: Uh-uh. 00:46:41 Speaker 2: Pink. 00:46:42 Speaker 3: Yeah. That's 10. 00:46:43 Speaker 2: Pink's a great one. 00:46:44 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:46:45 Speaker 2: Pink, like water slides, has had a huge renaissance because of the flying. 00:46:50 Speaker 3: You think because of the flying, Pink is having a renaissance? She's been flying for a minute. 00:46:55 Speaker 2: I think the flying, though, was really what brought her back into... the conversation. Everyone is on board with the flying. Whether you're a fan of Pink's music or not, you love that she flies. 00:47:06 Speaker 3: You do love, I mean, I guess. Do you love that she flies? 00:47:10 Speaker 2: Absolutely. I'm not a Pink fan, but I'm a fan of her flying. 00:47:13 Speaker 3: I like that she flies too. 00:47:15 Speaker 2: I would go to a Pink concert to see somebody flying through the air. 00:47:19 Speaker 3: She has a daughter that is a musical theater fan, and we connect in that way because my daughter also loves musical theater. And so she's done a lot to support that community, including just now hosting the Tonys. 00:47:31 Speaker 2: Oh, right. She was so great at the Tonys. 00:47:32 Speaker 3: Legendary. Incredible. Like very much wanted to be there, was like so excited to see everybody. And it just made it feel like good. 00:47:43 Speaker 2: Right. 00:47:43 Speaker 3: Like not old, you know. 00:47:45 Speaker 2: Pink has really solidified herself as a cultural thing via flying. I think people are like fun party music. Also, who else flies? 00:47:56 Speaker 3: I mean, everybody at Cirque du Soleil, right? We're not like, hey, la mine de son. You're having a renaissance because you can like— But are. 00:48:07 Speaker 2: They singing I'm Coming Up? 00:48:10 Speaker 3: No, they're not. 00:48:11 Speaker 2: See, there we go. And everybody loves— Just a. 00:48:13 Speaker 3: Little bit, a little bit. You know that pink— okay, the very first time— okay, this is— I— I had money to spend on a nice vacation. And I decided to go to a resort that my friend had just been to with a very famous person. And it was like, to me, the most expensive place I've ever thought about going. And it was in Tulum. And so I booked like five nights there for me and my husband. Almost like, I did it. We're doing it. 00:48:50 Speaker 2: Right. 00:48:51 Speaker 3: And we were also bi-coastal. Like I was here for, I was in LA for three weeks and then back in Brooklyn for a week. And he was a public school teacher. So it was like a whole thing. 00:49:01 Speaker 2: Right, right. 00:49:02 Speaker 3: And we got there and Pink was there. Oh my God. With her husband. And I mean, this would have been in like 2009 or something. And there was like a peyote hut or something. that we witnessed them go into and then stay for hours and then come out. Like I witnessed Pink exit the tiny hut. 00:49:34 Speaker 2: She might have gotten the idea for flying in that hut. 00:49:36 Speaker 3: It might have been given to her by the gods. Right. 00:49:39 Speaker 2: That feels like the right timeline. I don't remember her flying pre-2009, you said? 00:49:45 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:49:46 Speaker 2: I think that's, you probably witnessed history. 00:49:50 Speaker 3: And here I am just standing waiting for the tortilla to be made and just so uncomfortable that someone is serving me. 00:50:00 Speaker 2: They're making the tortilla right in front of you. 00:50:02 Speaker 3: Right in front of you. 00:50:03 Speaker 2: I love a nice tortilla. 00:50:05 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:50:05 Speaker 2: But it's like a table-side tortilla? 00:50:09 Speaker 3: No, there was a woman in the center of the hotel making tortillas all day. 00:50:14 Speaker 2: Desperate for attention. 00:50:16 Speaker 3: She had her tits out. It was terrible. 00:50:18 Speaker 2: It wasn't even an employee. The hotel is begging this lady. 00:50:25 Speaker 3: Maybe that's where Pink got that idea. This place was... You know, life-changing for all of us. 00:50:35 Speaker 2: Oh, well, that sounds like a dream vacation. 00:50:38 Speaker 3: It was okay. 00:50:41 Speaker 2: It was okay. I feel like once I've spent over a certain amount of money, it stops being as enjoyable as it could be. I think that's true. Now the pressure starts to mount that it needs to be as enjoyable as possible. 00:50:51 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:50:51 Speaker 2: And then you ruin it for yourself. Yeah. 00:50:54 Speaker 3: It was the first time that I'd ever spent. I mean, and it wasn't even that, like now I know it wasn't even that much money, but it felt so lavish. And like, I knew I deserved it because I've been working so hard for so long, waiting tables and like just. 00:51:11 Speaker 1: Right. 00:51:12 Speaker 3: Now I have it and I can take myself on a proper vacation. It was just really hard to enjoy it because I did enjoy the night swimming. 00:51:20 Speaker 2: Oh, the best. The best. You know where you can do that? Water park. 00:51:26 Speaker 3: No, they close at 7. 00:51:28 Speaker 2: Well, this is part of the problems. This is part of the changing the conversation. They need to be open later. 00:51:32 Speaker 3: How much more dangerous would a water park be once the lights go out? 00:51:36 Speaker 2: A water park should be open at least as long as a Ross dress for less. 00:51:40 Speaker 3: I want to know the number of people that get injured on the daily at Raging Waters. 00:51:49 Speaker 2: They should have a sign-up, just letting people know. 00:51:52 Speaker 3: It's been 17 days since someone died and 20 minutes since someone got their leg cut open. 00:52:02 Speaker 2: Okay. We need to answer a listener question. People are writing in to isaidnogifts at gmail.com. Will you help me answer a question? 00:52:09 Speaker 3: I would love it. 00:52:10 Speaker 2: All right, this is Dear Bridger and Delightful Guest. I have recently gotten married for the first time. Not bragging, it's just true. Well, you can do both. Like any couple with some class, we, of course, said no gifts. We already have an established home, premaritally. I know this person's pushing, they're really walking a line here. And have very discerning tastes. It doesn't have to be expensive or high quality, but does have to have a certain essence. 00:52:37 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:52:39 Speaker 2: We already have. We said no gifts. Okay, I don't know what's happening. Anyway, guests came with gifts, but one in particular left me absolutely aghast. A longtime friend of mine gifted us what can only be described as the corny, distant cousin of a good gift. If you had a decent idea, but then found its closest counterpart at a Spencer's gifts and presented it in earnest. Does that make sense? 00:53:06 Speaker 3: Say that one again. 00:53:08 Speaker 2: She's comparing it to like if you had a decent idea for a gift, but then you went to Spencer's gifts and got its closest counterpart. That's what this gift was. 00:53:15 Speaker 3: She's not going to tell us what the gift is? 00:53:17 Speaker 2: I guess not. What the hell? I know, this is unfair. It was an egregious display of just how deeply she does not understand me. This could be forgivable if this wasn't the most recent incident of her being a thoughtless and self-centered friend in a run that has lasted several years now, like demanding we invite her new boyfriend the week of the wedding and leaving the reception early when we Okay. I'm just going to say I'm on the friend's side right now. My question for you today is this. Do I cause a scene and destroy the friendship in a fiery blaze that may teach her to think about people other than herself? Or do I quietly disappear from her life and simply not respond the next time she calls upon me to dissect her situationship over brunch? Sincerely yours, disgruntled and disheartened. They didn't even leave their name. They're that ashamed of their behavior. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I, okay, I've already said I'm on the friend side. 00:54:13 Speaker 3: Those are the only two options. 00:54:15 Speaker 2: Cut them out or have a dramatic breakup. 00:54:18 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:54:21 Speaker 2: I hate to break it to you, but I think that this person's probably already doing that because of this kind of vague email. The behavior displayed here, not telling us what the gift was. Disgusting. talking about someone who came to your wedding, and this problem with leaving early when we didn't, if that was a problem, then I would be banned from every party that ever happened. 00:54:47 Speaker 3: Well, a wedding is different, isn't it? 00:54:49 Speaker 2: The reception? 00:54:51 Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. I think you kind of have to stay for a little while, right? You have to stay through the main things. 00:55:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, but you can kind of come and go. Unless it's like six people. 00:55:05 Speaker 3: Come and go. What does that mean? 00:55:08 Speaker 2: Show up days later. 00:55:09 Speaker 3: You're in a full wedding regalia and you just are like, I'll be right back. Got to run to the store. Then you're just gone for a little bit. It's a whole thing. 00:55:18 Speaker 2: I've got to get to the gym. Okay, maybe you do want to stay to the end of a wedding. But I also, if somebody left early, I'd be like. 00:55:27 Speaker 3: Forcing us to invite your new boyfriend. 00:55:31 Speaker 2: That, again, I think is... Well, we're simply not answering her question. 00:55:37 Speaker 3: I think on a real tip, you feel hurt by this person repeatedly because they don't see you. You feel like they don't know who you are. They only are telling you who they think you are, and it's not at all who you are. And you've spent a lot of time on this relationship and all for naught, and it doesn't feel good. And they seem to be fine with it. 00:56:01 Speaker 2: They seem to be fine with it. And meanwhile, this person refuses to have any sort of honest conversation with them. She's he or she or they is too busy writing into podcasts to approach them directly. So, I mean, everything about this says I'm on the friend's side here. Go talk to the friend. 00:56:24 Speaker 3: See what happens. 00:56:24 Speaker 2: See what happens. If it's an explosion, that's a story. 00:56:27 Speaker 3: I don't know what you would say, though. I didn't like your gift. 00:56:30 Speaker 2: I hated your gift. Why did you leave early? 00:56:34 Speaker 3: I think she just doesn't like this person. 00:56:37 Speaker 2: I think she's afraid the person's going to say they don't like her. 00:56:41 Speaker 3: Either way, cut and run, bitch. 00:56:44 Speaker 2: Cut and run, bitch. Put that on a towel. 00:56:51 Speaker 3: Full of surprises. What did we say? No, forget it. 00:56:56 Speaker 2: Forget it. Well, I'm thrilled to have my new towel. I love Kathleen March. 00:57:01 Speaker 3: Even though... You told me not to bring anything. I'm sorry. It's a Southern thing. You have to bring a gift. 00:57:06 Speaker 1: Right. 00:57:07 Speaker 2: And this one felt appropriate. Oh, good. 00:57:09 Speaker 3: A dirty, dirty towel. You know what? When you go to a water park and you cut your leg open, inevitably, you can use it to wrap until they airlift you to the pit. 00:57:22 Speaker 2: I will only go to the pit, by the way. I don't care where I am. That's the nearest hospital. I trust the pit only. 00:57:29 Speaker 3: And if Noah Wiley isn't doing it. 00:57:31 Speaker 2: Forget it. Just let me die. Throw me in the wave pool. 00:57:35 Speaker 3: Bleed out on the table. 00:57:38 Speaker 2: I'm so happy you could be here. 00:57:39 Speaker 3: Thank you for asking me. 00:57:40 Speaker 2: Thank you. 00:57:41 Speaker 3: It's a treat and a treasure. 00:57:42 Speaker 2: A treat and a treasure. 00:57:43 Speaker 3: And every time I come, I'm happier than when I arrived. 00:57:47 Speaker 1: Oh. 00:57:50 Speaker 2: Listener, the podcast is over. I have my towel. If you want one of your own, that's something you'll have to kind of figure out how to make. I have to move on with my life. I don't care how you spend the rest of your day as long as it's fine. I love you. 00:58:07 Speaker 1: Goodbye. 00:58:11 Speaker 2: I said no gifts is an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Ellis Nelson, and our episodes are beautifully mixed by Ben Tolliday. The theme song is by miracle worker Amy Mann, and we couldn't do it without our booker Patrick Kottner. You must follow the show on Instagram at I Said No Gifts. That's where you're going to see pictures of all these wonderful gifts I'm getting. And don't you want to see the gifts? 00:58:37 Speaker 3: Well, I invited you here. 00:58:41 Speaker 1: I thought I made myself perfectly clear When you're a guest in my home You gotta come to me empty-handed I said no gifts, your presence is presence enough And I already had too much stuff So how did you dare disobey me? guitar solo