Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Building a Better Birthday Party | Ep. 290

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Daniel asks Soren what his dream children’s birthday party would look like—and is horrified by the answer. They discuss the grim realities of modern parenting etiquette: napkins that disintegrate on contact, unguarded bathroom doors, and the impossibility of feeding both adults and children. Plus: Spider-Man party flirting, a Chuck E. Cheese beatdown, and why kids no longer open presents in front of each other.Bonus episodes + Dead Presidents miniseries available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts: www.patreon.com/quickquestionFollow Soren & Daniel on Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.social/https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.social/Thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/qq

I've got a quick quick question for you alright I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick quick question for you alright The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who did you get? What do I be? Do you remember? Words without words word at all You've got your wings on The soaring movie Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here Hello again, it's the podcast quick question with Soren and Daniel.

We're here. I'm the Daniel part of that. Soren is the Soren part of that. Soren, how you been? How are you? I'm doing great. I was just thinking, I generally before this podcast starts, I will go do a little check in the mirror and I'll be like,

should I wear this shirt? Let's find a shirt that like I haven't no one seen in a while. Let's find a shirt that would like be like something new, something that they that I can throw at them. And then I see your shirt and I'm like, fuck, I should have worn that shirt because I think we have a shirt. And then I see your shirt and I'm like, fuck, I should have worn that shirt. Because I think we have identical shirts. Yeah.

Thanks to Shopify for supporting Quick Question. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. Sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at Shopify.com slash QQ. I do like that one a lot. The problem with mine is that it's pretty tight. There are a few circumstances where it's not appropriate at all.

And other ones where it's like, that would be, and they're very few and far between. That would be the only appropriate shirt. Yeah. I'm glad you didn't, I'm glad we're not trust alike. This is a problem. I can't imagine you and Colleen have this problem. But Shay and I dress alike a lot completely unintentionally. There have been like a few times like we're on like vacation together and we have similar outfits that

are like this is a nice little like batchy badgy going out thing isn't that cute but That's the only time we do it on purpose on those very specific circumstances But it just accidentally happens because one of us. Yeah Maybe get ready a little bit faster than the other one of us. Yep, and He or she whichever one is faster is already like other one of us. Yep. And he or she, whichever one is faster, is already like dressed quickly and downstairs and is like puttering around and ready to go and has been in their outfit for a while and then then the other one of us will come downstairs. Descends the stairs. Just like well well we're not gonna change

now but everyone's gonna think it's on purpose and it's not and we don't know how to communicate that but we'll just be sometimes we don't even know until we get to our destination and someone's like oh that's cute you guys are just doing like like a linen green button thing up top and then khakis on the bottom and we look down we're both just like fuck how did this happen again we were in the car for 45 minutes. How did we not know? Not only does it happen to me, Daniel,

and my family. It does? Yeah, all the time. I don't think it says, okay, on a conscious level, yes, it's completely innocent, and that makes total sense. On a subconscious level, not at all, my friend. Like, I think that you get, you get clocked. She sees your outfit, she clocks or sorry, whoever gets ready first, their outfit is clocked.

And, and then the other person will be like, we're like, as they're looking through their stuff, that's already planted in their brain, like that green linen, that all of colored linen is already planted in their brain. And they green linen, that olive colored linen is already planted in their brain. And they're like, oh, that's what I want to wear. That's what I want. And so it's just like those guys that come to NFL camps. They're like technically magicians, but they're good. They're there just to surprise everybody because they're essentially mind readers

and they've been planting something in somebody's mind all day and then they get to reveal it at the at the event like there is right that's what you're doing. Right, one of those magicians that goes to NFL camps. What the fuck are you talking about? You don't watch Hard Knocks do you? No. Okay, so in Hard Knocks every single year, every single year when they're having their camps, the coaching staff will try and do something for the players. That's

fun. They'll get them all in the room together. A lot of times it's like the rookies, like the rookies have to do essentially a talent show. And let me. Yeah. Spoiler alert. The rookies talent football. Yeah, I bet they didn't focus on anything else. So it's pretty it's pretty rough. But the other thing they also make the this is a side note.

They make the rookies say how much their contract is for. Like the rookies get up there and they're like, Hey, my name is Hutch and my contract, my rookie contract is for 14 million. And everyone's like, ah, or like other guys will get up there and they're like offensive lineman you've never heard of that were not drafted, but like picked up after the draft and they're like, my my contracts for $75,000 Yeah, this is my second job And so

Then they have to perform the other thing that they will do is they'll have somebody come sometimes It's a comedian who just comes in like and just fucking rips on every single person on the team and they go nuts for that But most regularly it's I don't want to call them a mind reader. I don't know what this type of person is called. They essentially are doing what is magic tricks, but they're doing it with suggestion. So they're making sure that whatever answer you give is the answer that they want. And then at the end they can kind of reveal how they got to that, like how they planted that in somebody's brain throughout the previous week or whatever. how they planted that in somebody's brain throughout the previous week or whatever. So that's, this is a long walk to say, that's you, that's you. That's what I'm doing.

You're the guy just, just wearing it. You've already planted it in your wife's brain and she's like, this is the outfit that I like, I think. And she'll put it on. She'll be like, Oh, I see why I did it. Or she'll never say that because she won't ever have the realization. But I have, I've also presented, I flowed this idea to my wife since we so regularly look similarly when we go out and she did not care for it. She didn't think that was a nice thing to say. Okay. I will, I will take this time then to disagree with you,

Sorin. Yeah, that's smart. That's smart to get that on the record. That's my move. Sorin, I got a quick question for you. I want to get right into the show because we've got a lot to do today. Oh, we do? OK. Yeah, I mean, I shoot. I do. I kind of want to let our listeners know

on some behind the scenes stuff that we are always talking about banking a bunch of episodes when we have like holidays or summer vacation, that kind of thing. And we usually will commit to a day that is like a safe amount of buffer time. And it's so safe that when we get to that day,

we decide to kick the bankable episode down the road a little bit. We always, we never to do a double episode. And now we've we've we've reached a crisis point where all of the little episodes we kick down the road have all piled up together on the same, I guess, hold a sec. Where we've reached the coldest now where we can't punt these records to any other day.

So Soren, audience, we got a lot to do. Okay, let's get into it. Yeah. So I was watching Mike Brabiglia's newest special. It's very good. It's about his father having a stroke and also things that he is learning about fatherhood by teaching his daughter about things. And he mentions in the special that because he's got a young daughter,

he's gone to something like 200 child's birthday parties that year, which got me thinking about that. Because I feel like when I grew up and I went to, and I was a kid who went to birthday parties, we were just sort of planted somewhere. thinking about that because I feel like when I grew up and I went to and I was a kid who went to birthday parties we were just Sort of planted somewhere whether that was in someone's backyard or at a Chuck E. Cheese style place Which ours was called Rasmutas

Or like a roller skating rink whatever we were just like dropped off and and picked up But now it seems like parents stay at parties which adds a whole New layer to it in my mind. And it made me come up with some podcast premise and say, Soren, you were about to walk in to Ronan or Gilly's friend's birthday. You're going to be there all day. Yeah. What is your dream setup for you? What does the party have? What's the spread?

Just for like the kids. For an adult. Do not care. For an adult, what is your ideal birthday party to walk into? Okay, let me just back up a little bit and say. You mentioned in the past, I do want to say that we have talked around this. You have mentioned in the past going to children's birthday parties and stealing pizza. So just in this hypothetical, you don't have to do any stealing.

It's just it's just what you want. I go to a lot of these and it is I maybe we were just too young to remember. There certainly is an age where there's a handoff where like you just bring your kid and you drop them off and then you don't see them again for two and a half hours and then you go get them or whatever. Or like I, as you probably had, and I did sleep over birthdays. Like I would have a ton of those as a kid. And so would my friends. I think it's possible. My kids just aren't old enough for that yet. Maybe I think that's right. Um, but yeah, I think,

and also if I was to hand off, like let's say my daughter went to a birthday And it was all five-year-olds. That's such a big ask the parent who's hosting that birthday now is essentially a teacher Oh, but outnumbered more than a teacher because they don't have the the aids and stuff So and you also don't have like the the context of school. No, there's no rules There's where you're feeding them a bunch of sugar. There's, they get to, their whole point is to be crazy and reckless with your friends. And then you're like setting that set, that situation up.

Okay, so I do go to a lot of birthdays. I, they're rough. They are really rough. They're always rough. And the not only nice thing is that when your kids are young, it's not an all day event. It's like three hours tops. And sometimes if it goes over three hours. You can see the parents start to like What are we doing here? What is the what why why did you do it this way?

Get the cake out here, and let's just get this over with Okay So the things that are most important to me at a birthday obviously shade My god important to me at a birthday. Obviously shade. My God, the bar. Shade is crucial. I don't care what time of year it is either. Like you can be in the middle

of winter and but you have these outdoor parties in South LA. But you have these outdoor parties and you if there's not shade, you're fucked out there like you're You're just sweating through whatever kind of generally nice polo you tried to wear you're trying to talk to other parents But everybody's squinting at each other. It's really really rough If you don't have shade and in addition to shade I will also say a place to sit down

Because this is you'll be shocked how many birthdays you go to that don't have that. This is your dream, though. This is my dream. It's going to be shade and a place to sit down like a place that's designed to be sat on. You're not like leaning against a sort of brick terrace or something like that. You are yourself on a cooler that you need to open every five seconds for someone to get their juice or whatever. Oh my god.

And there are so many birthdays where this doesn't exist. Where there is no place for a parent to sit and they're just in the sun. So say, like, the general things that I would want from a prison I want from one of these. I want shade and I want a place to sit. In this book on writing, Stephen King talks about writing and writing a novel as being in a bathtub floating across the ocean. That's how lonely he perceives it to be. And I was like, oh, man, that hits hard.

I don't not sure I want to be a writer after that. Well, I would say the same thing is true of small business. Daniel and I have this podcast and it is its own business, believe it or not. And man, it is a lonely endeavor because there's so many things that you don't know along the way and you don't have anybody to explain to you. And you're just sort of taking stabs in the dark. It's really, really hard. So you're on your own to find the right tools that are going to help you out and simplify everything. But nobody's telling you what those are.

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Every birthday has themed napkins. You have a Star Wars birthday? On all the napkins, it's Star Wars stuff. You've got BB-8 on has themed napkins. It's like you have a Star Wars birthday, the on all the napkins, it's Star Wars stuff. You've got BB-8 on all the napkins. Sure. I understood that part. But those particular type of napkins are aesthetic exclusively.

Those are not absorbent napkins. And if you try to use them as their intended purpose, they just either disintegrate in your hands or they pill all over the place. Or worst case scenario, the ink starts coming off of them on whatever you wipe them on. So and at a kid's birthday spills all the time, all over their faces. And I'll even I mean, I need a napkin too. And if I'm using it and it just like deteriorates in my hand, I've got no options anymore. I start to panic because I'm still a mess

and I can't do anything about it. Sure. So I would say non-themed napkins, like actually absorbent napkins are. I mean, you can have those theme ones, but just have like a toilet paper roll, not toilet paper paper towel roll right next to it. OK, now this one is, I think, super crucial and a thing that comes up all the time at birthday parties for kids.

A bathroom door that locks. Yeah. That's the worst. Yeah. And you're not obviously not shitting at other people's house, but you are peeing there. Yeah, you don't know how long this party is. You know, I'm building my ideal birthday party if I want to take a shit just for me. Generally, these kids have if the kids aren't young themselves, they have younger siblings.

And so the bathroom has this anti locking thing on it so that the kids don't lock themselves in the bathroom. So you've just got this plastic ball over the doorknob. And as soon as you see that, you're like, OK, so what I have to do is essentially keep one foot all the way back against the door and then the other one's gonna have to get close enough to the toilet that I can make that shot and It's right go ahead. Have we talked about this is gonna be a tangent man We're gonna eat up so much episode time. This is gonna be awesome About how insane I am with bathrooms and always have been for as long as I can remember. I know that your

biggest fear is a toilet exploding. Yeah that's not even we're not even touching on that today. I am always concerned that about a toilet door that doesn't lock. It's such a concern that you would assume it's linked to some traumatic childhood event. It is not. There's no birth for this, but I will, I love a bathroom with a visible lock where it's like the kind that you can turn

and you can see on the inside, this is locked or like a strong bolt. I love that. The handle with the button on the handle, I hate that, that's my nightmare. Or like worse than that, the little button on the handle, but not the knob. I really hate that.

I don't think those things have ever worked for anyone. But I will go to a bathroom and I will test to make sure the door locks. This is where some of my light OCD comes in. I will test the lock multiple times. And if it's a door with a push button where you can't test it that locks, but from the outside. I'll still open the door, push it,

and test the handle from the outside a few times before securely believing that I locked it. So testing locks is one of the weird things that I do. And another weird thing that I do is, even though I am so certain that I locked the door, I will either right before I'm about to get into the shower or right before I'm gonna like start pooping, I will go and check the lock again. Like there's no world in which I would forget to lock it

because it's all I think about all the time. But I still like, there's no harm in double checking. And I just spent the last week in a house with my in-laws in the Jersey Shore, it was really great. And I would go into the bathroom and either go to the toilet or go to shower. And then right before I went to shower, I would say, let me go back and confirm that I locked it and I'll walk back. And my way of testing this lock is to pull down on the door handle and confirm like, ah, yeah, that's not working.

It always works out for me. That's always locked. But I do realize that like, if I was wrong. You're just opening the door. I'm just opening the door while I'm fully nude. And if anyone's walking by, it would seem like that's what my plan was. A push button lock, that's what you're doing anyway. If you tried to test a push button lock from the inside,

that's all you're doing is you're just like popping the door open. Yeah. And very quickly, another tangent within this tangent. When I was younger, we would get a vacation house with my family, also at the Jersey Shore, and I would go around, there were, this is like a very familiar story to my family also at the Jersey Shore. And I would go around, this is like a very familiar story to my family, is that the first day we were at this house,

we got a house for like, the whole extended family is coming. So we got two floors and there was maybe three or four bathrooms in the entire place. And I am 10 or 11 years old. And I was like, I wanna see if the locks work. And I went into one of the bathrooms and it was a push button lock.

And I didn't have the system at the time where I could keep the door open, lock it on one side and test the handle on the other side. So I thought the only way I could know for sure if this locks is if I push the button in and then close the door and I'm on the outside and I test it and I was like, okay, yes, this one locks, it works, That's good. I did that

With four bathrooms soren I locked from the outside every bathroom in this house And then sat on a Gameboy or something and just like sat there while every adult Probably checked anyone who needed to go to the bathroom would check me like oh I guess someone's in there until it dawned on them like they're all I've had to go to the bathroom for a while and they've all been occupied and we're all here so what's going on and then I look up from from paperboy to say oh yeah I wanted to check the locks to make sure that they were working and yeah they'll work all right bye and just going on with my life. And having, like, my dad have to, like, push my oldest brother through the window so he

can go and unlock it from the inside. Like, trying to pick the locks with screwdrivers as I'm still just sitting there in my, in a chaos that I created for no clear reason. Because I am so- Not remorseful at all. No. I'm just like, if you guys can think of a better way to test bathroom locks, I'd like created for no clear reason. And not because I am not remorseful at all. No, I'm just like, if you guys can think of a better way to test bathroom locks, I'd like to hear it. And then they all listed several and I'm like, well, okay, I'm on vacation. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you.

This is what I wanted to do when I did it. The only nice thing about those push button ones is that they unlocking them from the outside is pretty easy to do. Yeah. I don't know if this is information you want to hear because I think I'll think you'd like knowing that you're not completely secure in there. No, I'm weirdly, I'm I'm unconcerned with the idea that someone could break into a bathroom by pushing it with their hand. I'm more just like,

I want the record to show that I, that I locked it and I did everything that I could to get it locked. I, yes. I, and in general, like in my house, we don't lock doors. We don't like when I'm using the bathroom, no, the doors are locked. In fact, Colleen's in my bathroom door does not lock. It has like a barn door situation. It's just like slides on a track. Sure. But, um, but I, I know when I'm at a birthday party, I want to know that that door locks because the kids, if an adult sees a shut bathroom door, there's like a protocol you go through.

They're going to respect that. Yeah. You first knock, then you listen, then you kind of try the handle a little and you see if there's like a screech from inside. And then, you know, like because sometimes you're not going to hear it. But you say if you knock and somebody's like occupied or whatever, there's kids running around. So you're like, oh, fuck, I don't know why I did that. So you just try the hand a little. And if it starts to open, you might hear somebody inside be like, no, no, no, no, no. And then you go, oh, OK, cool.

And also a crime of anonymity. If that happens, you just disappear to the crowd again. You're just like anybody else. It could have been anybody who did that. But the kids don't do any of that. The kids just know where the bathroom is. They know all of a sudden they have to pee really, really bad. And so they just barge into a bathroom.

And I've right. And sometimes if they try the handle and it's locked, they don't understand that someone's in there. They just think like, oh, I'd better try harder and like really, really tug on this thing. And so I've definitely been at parties before where I thought the bathroom was locked too. Like it was one of those like pop ones, but whatever their system is, like they've got something on the door

that doesn't allow locks. And so a kid will just come in and then like that. So, and once you're in, in medius rest, like once you're peeing, there's no stopping that. You don't just get to like quit and then be like, well, I'll come back later for more of it. It's like it's all coming out. It's no matter what. It's like a kid comes in and suddenly I'm committing a crime in there because now there's a child that I don't really know in this bathroom with me and I'm fully

exposed. And I'm like, I you have to leave or I will be in jail tomorrow. You won't be able to see my kids anymore. So that's like that's a huge one. That one. I the amount of angst that I feel is angst. Right. Where? Yeah. How anxious I get around a kids party where the bathroom door doesn't lock is like is huge. I won't even I probably won't even use that bathroom.

Or sometimes I'll bring my own kid in with me and be like, you've got to guard the door. Yeah. And then the last thing that I absolutely want. And we have talked about this on the podcast before, but I need the the very clear green light for parents to eat. Yeah. And that also rarely comes where like there's the very clear green light for parents to eat. Yeah. And that also rarely comes where like there's, they try and build these parties around a particular meal. Generally it's lunch.

That's also gonna be my first meal of the day. And sometimes they will have pizza, they'll have kid food. Bless their hearts. If a parent gets pizza, sometimes they will get another pizza that is what they call a parent pizza that has like some peppers and onions on it, stuff the kids won't touch. So you know for sure that's not for the kids. And then it's like, oh, there's the green light.

Parents are supposed to be eating at this thing because there are also times where you go to a party and they've got pizza, they've got food, but they did not account for the fact that there'd be 27 parents there. They've only accounted for the fact that they're going to be kids So if you were to eat a pizza some child is not gonna get a slice So you have to be very careful. I know that if there's a veggie tray there Kids aren't gonna touch that and I will just post up I will post up around that veggie tray and I'll eat all that raw hard broccoli I will eat everything in that tray

because I just need something, I need sustenance. And occasionally I will, even when they do say like, oh no, parents can have some, parents can have some, the idea then is that parents will maybe take a slice. Some of them won't, some of them will. Nobody eats like I eat, so I can't go have the amount of pizza that I need. I'm allowed to go just wet my palate. I basically I can get a what is the equivalent of me just

smelling pizza? Yeah, like I can get just a little bit I can take touch my tongue to a piece of pizza and that's it for me. Like that's all I get. And so it is like a real game of me if there is clear that if there's an abundance of food, oh, that's my dream. Just like there's a bunch of food there. I don't care what it is either. I don't care if it's nice food. I just need a bunch.

And I'll have to play this game where I'm like, well, I got to get one for me and one for my son as like, right. I'm putting the pizza onto my plate and then I will go eat it and eat it all. And then I'll come back into the case Grow a boy and put six more on my plate and disappear and eat them. This is so This is so demoralizing it's so upsetting You you've been you've been tortured for too long that you don't even know to ask For You've been tortured for too long that you don't even know to ask for beer.

You don't even know that there's something other than water that exists. You were just like, I would love it if I could have two pieces of pizza and a walk on the bathroom and somewhere in the shade to sit. And it's like, this is you were the only restrictions are the bounds of your imagination, sir. Right. You can, you can get presents if you want. It can also be your birthday and you're just you're so beaten down by life. Yeah, it is. It is absolutely demoralizing to go to a kid's birthday.

And you're doing one pretty much once, sometimes twice a weekend the rest of your life. They're rough. They're really rough. And I'll say to the credit of the other parents, I've fucked up on these things, too. I didn't know about the napkin thing till it was too late. I didn't know.

We had a party at the park where it was like a limited amount of shade. And you see all the parents standing under this one tiny tree just trying to do their best. And you're like, I fucked that up. All the kids are playing bubble soccer, but the parents are like, it is 90 degrees out here. Why are they all congregating next to that one car?

Taking turns getting in for the air conditioning. Yeah, I it's rough. And I mean, I said at the beginning The other thing is that two hours tops like that's all I want for a birthday That's as much time as you need the kids play for an hour The next hour is occupied by them still playing but like getting them some food in them and then getting them some cake and then getting The fuck out of the house or wherever you are the bowling alley, whatever it is I Looked back on my birthdays as a kid,

we had multiple locations. We would go to Pizza Hut. Then we would go miniature golfing. We had to like transport all of these kids. Oh no, I think we were a one location, kind of fair. I think the only difference, one of my older birthday parties, like seventh or eighth grade, I think the only difference, one of my older birthday parties, like seventh or eighth grade, I think was

like, meet at my house, and then my parents will drive us to the movie theater. That was that was the extent of it really. And I was thinking back looking back now, which is like, what were we doing at the house? Why did we? We can't pregame anything. We would just be at the house like playing charades with Cheetos until it was time to watch the X-Men movie. No, that's... that is exactly what you're doing. You're like... you're pregaming as a kid would.

You're... you're plying up on bugles or whatever, and you are... you're like showing them your shit. You're like... Yeah. Look at this toy I got. Look at this other toy I got. You want to touch it? Check out this poster.

It's Stone Cold Steve Austin. You like him, right? Me too. That's why I got a poster. I put it on the ceiling so I can look at it while I'm sleeping. My parents have asked me to move it. I don't know why.

Yeah. They don't understand why I have an angry, bald, shirtless man staring at me all the time. Staring at me while I go to sleep. I talk to it sometimes. Y'all want to hear my stone-cold Steve Austin voice? Yeah, so, it's uh, they're brutal. But like, as a kid, I think it must have been just as bad.

And now I'm thinking, how do we get to those different locations because there were probably like ten kids There's no way we all fit in one car and then I'm realizing. Oh, yeah We probably just like crammed in the hatchback sat on laps There was no such thing as like giving a shit about seat belts or anything And so we all just crammed into a car and drove through Glenwood Springs. Yeah, you're sitting on the floor in between the middle seat and the front seat. You're on the floor like face to face

with another kid who's on the floor and your knees are touching. And you're just like, this is so awesome. That's so cool. This is so fun. Yeah. My parents never let me roll around down here. Yeah, I remember being like my friend, Nix Volvo, when we were little kids and like she

had this seat in the back that folded down but looked backwards. It was like in the hatchback, but you could put it up and we would sit in it and occasionally when we were going somewhere, she'd like, I'll just put down the suicide seats. And we'd be like in there, we'd be like, why are these called the suicide seats? Well, it was a different time. I think maybe birthdays were just different. But now I definitely have to attend. And I got to say, it is when a birthday is over,

you haven't emotionally planned for the rest of a weekend because all you've been doing is getting ready for this gearing up for this one Two hour event because you got to get the present got to get your kid ready You got to find out the other kid is invited It's all it that's always sort of cryptic too as to whether you can bring a sibling or not And that and you just know it's gonna be shit. You're gonna get there and you don't know how your kid's gonna be. Your kid might be on you the whole time

and be like, I don't, I'm just not feeling it today. I would like to hold onto your leg the whole time. And so you won't be able to talk to a single other adult. Like, okay, great. And sometimes they wanna go play and then they go play and then you're talking to another adult and then you realize Oh, this is a floor ride person. This is a person who's terrified of floor ride and I don't know how to get on this conversation So you're stuck with them too. And so it's gonna be bad

But then once the party ends and you're driving home, it's like being it's like going home sick from school Like you're not supposed to have this free time. You know, I'm not prepared for this You're just like oh my god. I could do I could do anything So in that way it's euphoric your kids not Emotionally crushed after leaving a party. They're not like the thing. I was looking forward to is over and now I'm sad no Never never once they man. Yeah, they're just goldfish. They just move on.

It's like the party never happened. They don't, oh, they don't respectfully go like, all right, dad, that was a lot of fun for me. Now what do you wanna do? Now let's go and do one of the boring things you love that I hate. Let's just, because you deserve a time too. One for me, one for you.

Yeah, no, that does not happen. They don't ever do that. So what are the things you'd hope for at a kids party, Dan? What do you think? I don't know. I haven't been to a child's birthday party in a million years. And I thought if you're building a dream scenario,

then there would be designated helpers to watch the kids. And you had an air-conditioned lounge somewhere with Beer on tap or something. It's your dream. I Mean that all sounds really nice. That's never gonna fuck. Why would I even put that in my own brain? possibility because that it will never happen like it I Feel like they, it's shocking to me that there are some birthday parties you go to where the parents are like, oh yeah, I guess you could have some pizza.

Like, it seems like if we're living in a world where parents go to every birthday party now, then surely they've been to some and everyone individually has thought, when it's my turn, it's going to be better than this. I'm shocked there's not a sense of fatherly competition against the other neighborhood dads of like, that was really cool. He had like a secret cooler full of beers.

Wait till it's my turn and the kids are going to get pizza and I'm going to grill steaks for the parents and then I'm going to be the biggest fucking stunt on the block. I'm surprised that that isn't like the natural fallout from a world where parents go to every birthday party. The only thing I can imagine is that it's just not, it's not about the parents anymore at all. It It's like you don't even think about the other parents It's only about if you see something in another birthday party

It's gonna be kid related and you're like, oh that fucking rules. I want to do bubble soccer I want it like oh they did pony rides up and down the street. Is that sanctioned? Like how is that legal and then like those will be the things that you look you latch on to man the only parental one that I think Fits within that Venn diagram is that having a helper there. You're absolutely right though, like if there is somebody there who's got a game, got games for the kids and there it's structured and that person is in charge of being the pied piper of the party, that's so helpful. We figured that out. We went to a party where there's like, it was like a

sports party and there was somebody just setting up cones, constantly setting up games. And then the kids would all play the games and that ruled. And it was a nerf war where like they all had nerf guns and there's somebody in charge and then you just get to sit there. And that is really nice. Gilly had an Elsa birthday at our house where Elsa came. And there was really still some guy just setting up cones. He just goes to every party now Elsa fucking held court the whole time and Gilly was on I've as far as Gilly's concerned

I'm pretty sure she thought that was the real Elsa She had stories for the kids She would get up and like dance in the middle of the stories and sing. And then she at the end presented Gilly with a tiara and was like, it's this it's this crowns like yeah, tin crown. And she was like, you have to uphold the rules of the Kingdom of Arendelle. And Gilly was like, I swear, I swear I will do that. My niece is an Elsa. I mean, she's I hope this doesn't shatter your illusions. She is

all of them. She is whatever one. Yeah. Yeah. She is needed to be. And she's very good at being all the Disney princesses, whatever that's called enough that there was a Memorial Day barbecue that they close off the street in front of my house to as part of their parade route. This is our first year living here we didn't we don't we didn't know any of this we were out working in the backyard our neighbor said hey there's a parade it's a big deal come to the parade. We're sitting in the front yard watching here goes some firemen, here goes marching bands, here's police cars and then we see a bunch of Disney characters and we see my niece and we scream her name as soon as we see her.

And she didn't... she doesn't know our street well enough to expect us to be out there. Like everyone was surprised. But we, the adults, are screaming her name. She is, I'm sure, surprised like, oh yeah, I guess that's Uncle Daniel's house. That's right. I forgot I was on this route. But she still doesn't break character. And we're like sweaty and running up to her and she's dressed as Belle. So she's just like, hello, it's so nice to see you. And does like the Belle wave. And we're like, ah, get the fuck in here.

You want some snacks? She's like, have a good day, goodbye. This quaint provincial town. Yeah. You're all so boring. Yeah. This also, same way, she was like, she was on the whole, from the moment we open the door, because she got there early too.

It's like from the moment you open the door, she's just on. And when I'm paying her, she's on. Like she's like, at the end, I wish the children are all inside. We're out in the front and I'm paying her and she's like, she's still acting like Elsa, just in case there's somebody looking through the window I assume she's not doing it for me But my brother used to do this kind of thing my brother Shout out to Eric he when he was living in Los Angeles He was a birthday clown and he would occasionally go a spider-man or he'd go his different stuff

so he had to learn some basic rudimentary magic He had to learn how to do balloon animals and stuff and He would go to these kids birthdays and for the most part I think it was pretty good like the parents are you know, every parents responsible for their own kids So if their kid is acting up with like kicking a clown or whatever, they're gonna be like, hey fucking cut it out but Occasionally he said that the worst part were the parents themselves. Like there was a mom, he was Spider-Man once, that's a, that was a skin tight outfit.

For sure. And the mom came up to him, while he's like talking to kids and stuff. And she's like, you know what, I named my children. And he goes, no, what? And she goes, Peter and Parker, what does that sound like to you? And he was like, an obsession? She's like, you like to you? And he was like, an obsession.

She's like, you could say that. And he was like, what is going on? What is happening? And so I don't, I think that in general, you want that person. What does that sound like to you? I don't know. It sounds like you don't, it sounds like their father doesn't get a lot of say. want that person. That sounds like the hell job.

I don't know, it sounds like you don't, it sounds like their father doesn't get a lot of say. Sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like maybe different fathers. Sounds like maybe they're not in the picture. Is that right?

But yeah, they are, I think that that job sounds like absolute hell to me because all the things that I just mentioned, that like I want on a birthday, you have to suffer through all of the birthday stuff and also beyond the whole time, but you don't get any of the other things. You don't get shade. You don't get to sit down. You don't get all, none of that. You don't even get to use a bathroom. You can't, you don't get any of that.

So it's, it's, and that's your job every single weekend. That sounds like hell. Especially when you were saying like most of the time parents will be good if their kid is is is kicking or stomping. I went to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese and the person comes out in the Chuck E Cheese costume and kids run up and step on its foot and and kick them and beat the shit out of them and And we were such well behaved kids in my house, but I turned to my mom, I was like, mommy, can I please go step on and kick Chuck E. Cheese? And she was like, yes, of course.

And I did that too, because it really seemed like if that wasn't their explicit function, then it was certainly the implicit one, because the Chuck E. Cheese just comes out, takes abuse in their giant Padded football player suit and then it's like all right Chuck E. Cheese needs to go now Fucking minutes smoke a cigarette in the back of the house, and then he'll be back for another round and we're all just like

Yeah, but our heads with towels like yeah, we need to loosen up to we're gonna. We got it We'll be good to go in five. That was nice. We really fucked him up. That was great. I also this is like, I forgot to mention this one, but it's a it's a big one for me. And also it's going to make you completely demoralized as well, Dejo. I want explicit on the invitation. Uh, no gifts.

Why? I understa- why? It's a- bring gifts as a birthday for a kid. No. What are you talking about? No, no gifts. Yes! No gifts.

No gifts. What has happened to birthdays? I want no gifts at the fucking birthday because I live with children now. You're buying them stuff constantly. You yourself are going to get them five different birthday presents. Your their grandparents are going to get them presents. Their sibling is going to get them something.

They're going to get something probably from their teacher. They're going to get a lot of gifts anyway. Then if you have a birthday where like all the kids are invited and they have to bring gifts, you're introducing so much schlock to your house that the kid is not going to play with because most of the time that's the case. Most of the time, like the of the presents that they get, they're going to play with 30 percent of those. And the other ones are just going to sit there. The presents that they get, they're gonna play with 30% of those, and the other ones are just gonna sit there.

But the- you- you don't- the kid just wants the act of opening presents in front of the friends, and the friends like to give presents. The friends are like, I got you this- this- this robot mixed with a frog. Please open it and take it out, and let's play with it together right this second. I should have been specific. We don't do that anymore. Parents don't do that. There is no opening presents at a birthday party. This is stupid. It doesn't happen.

This sucks. Why? If you bring presents, you put them all, it's like a wedding. You put them all on a table. They're sequestered away. And then after the party is over, then the child opens the gifts. And occasionally then the parent will get a thank you note or like a little video of the new kid, the new kid, the birthday boy playing with the gifts and be like, hey, he

really loves this thing. You got him. You're like, okay, thank you. I picked that up 20 minutes before the party at Target. There is no opening presents at a birthday. The world has gotten so soft. It's because of this fucking floor ride. You know why they don't do it at parties, right? Is it because a kid can say,

I didn't like this present and then it hurts the other kid's feelings? Yeah. Yeah, because they don't know how to control that. So when they're young, they're just I mean, maybe this changes when they get to be 10 or 11. But as I know it, there isn't they don't open presents at parties because, yeah, the kids going to open a present, be like, I have this.

Or they're going to be like, oh, and you get those noises from the kid. And that's going to be devastating to whoever brought it. No, just train your kid to pretend to be happy about every present that they open. Like I did when I was a kid. You get more full when you say, oh my God, I've wanted this. This is great. Thank you. Yes, we have learned that game at Christmas.

I don't think all the kids have learned that, though. So we, yeah, presents don't get open at parties. And I want you don't need, like the things that you're going to get, you're going to get a lot of those responses from your kid. No matter what, when you open those presents, some of them, they're going to be like, you, those will never leave the bubble wrap or never leave the, yeah, is that what it's called? Bubble wrapping? Yeah. Blister wrapping. Like they won't even open that shit because they don't want it. Or like it wasn't the right kind or they have it already. And then you're stuck with this gift.

And so I'm saying it makes it easier on everybody. If you're like, hey, we're throwing a party. Don't bring gifts. Just don't bring them. We will get the kid the thing that they want. I don't like it. I don't think I like it, Sorin. A media family, extended family, gifts can come.

That's totally unexpected. But man, the having your friends and your friends don't know this. Everybody is so self-interested. All the kids are at that age. They don't they can't conceive of what another person might want. So when you ask your friend, what are they into? Or just like childlike, what is what Brooks into? My daughter will be like, probably Elsa. I'm like, I don't think that's true. Every gift that I picked out for a friend was a thing I wanted. They were all getting stuff that

I would have loved. Yeah, yeah. So it's, we just don't. Some people allow presents at the parties. That's fine. Sure. We'll go get the present. We'll go get something that I am 30 percent sure they will like and pretty confident that the kid will never enjoy this at all. And then we'll bring it. We'll just stuff it somewhere and we'll never hear of it again.

Like a lot of times you just don't ever even get a thank-you note or anything like that you for all You know that present was stolen or it burned down with the restaurant or whatever like it's not you're never getting that This has been so eye-opening Maybe this is just an LA thing. I don't know. Maybe it does. I guess it does I Don't know. I can't tell it anymore. Does it stink of affluence to say no presence? Does it, is it like, oh, you know what? We're gonna be fine. Don't bring your silly little presence.

We're getting our child in Mercedes. Like, I don't know. I don't know if it's reeks of affluence or if it's just another one of those things that is a sign of progress, but because it is different from what I knew when I was younger, it seems at first blush bad or wrong. And I haven't given it the amount of thought required to make me realize,

oh, it's me who's wrong. It's me who's clinging to a pass where we rolled around in the trunks of cars to get dropped off at the Theater where multiple people got caught masturbating and there was no punishment for it By the way, this wasn't a birthday party where this happened but yeah, here's the thing.

With presents at parties, I know that if I'm going to a party and we need presents for it, we live in Culver City. It is basically like a little town. And so we're all going to, an hour before that party, you're going to see four other families at Target scrambling to be like, what's a good gift? Like, what would be a good gift? That's not a, that's gift out of necessity.

That is not like, oh, I have this thing that I want to give you. And when that becomes the expectation- That's how parties work. When that becomes the expectation, then why are we even doing this in the first place? I'm already committing so much to your party. I'm gonna come, I'm gonna be,

I'm gonna make good small talk. I'm gonna come. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna make good small talk. I'm gonna be fun in the sun. We're gonna be getting burned there. Oh yeah, some sunscreen at the birthday if it's outdoors would be nice too. That's always nice. Bring your own sunscreen. Now you're being unreasonable.

I didn't ask for beer. I didn't ask for anything. But in my dream scenario, I'm not allowed to have that because it's unreasonable. Just some sunscreen because I forgot to check the weather before I left. Yeah Yeah, yeah, or just like if I could just keep my kid in the jumping castle the whole time I know that there's a covered top on it. I know you're hot in there But you're not getting torched and this is a long-term investment. You're not gonna get melanoma Heat stroke maybe hey we could deal with going to get melanoma. And heat stroke, maybe.

Hey, we could deal with that. Sure. Nobody dies of heat stroke. We didn't have heat stroke when we were kids. We just got tired. Let me like I'll just paint a picture for you, Dan. If you have an outdoor party and you set it up, you're going to spend probably an hour after that party, if you're a good person, tracking down all the little plastic covers for the straws on the juice

boxes around a park forever. Just like making sure that you're not leaving a bunch of trash in that park. And it's always the same trash. It's those little fucking things. And the kids just pop the straw out and then that plastic thing stops existing to them. They just throw it. And also the shreds of those napkins

that don't stay together. If you have a pinata, forget about it. Pinata, that pinata shed that paper like crazy. Wrapping paper, ugh, just all of it. None of it's recyclable. It's all bad stuff. I am so sorry I asked. I really thought I would ask this question and you'd be like, thank you, what a generous question. I've been thinking about this for a long time and I've designed the perfect birthday party for adults. and I've designed the perfect birthday party for adults.

It's so bad that with my children, we now say you get one birthday party, one birthday party, and then alternating, we go somewhere for your birthday. So we do something special. We go to Legoland or something like that one year, and then the next year they're allowed to have a party. And then we go somewhere and then they have a party. Because going somewhere

That's the dream you can maybe if you they want to bring like one friend. That's great But you're just dealing organizing a party for kids is way harder than like Organizing a party for adults. It's it sucks It's bad and it's really expensive and hard the whole way and then you have the party and then there's the cleanup and Like dealing with your kids coming down off of sugar crashes, like it's all bad. But if you can go away and you just get one of those every other year, oh, that's the way to do it. I think movie theater is a good move.

When I used to walk into movie theater, my brother and I would host the parties and you go into a private room first where you sing a song and you give each kid their own like personal box with popcorn and the soda in it and you have some coloring or whatever the kids want to do running around in a private room. Then they have the theater with their section blocked off. The whole theater isn't theirs, just like two rows or however many are in the party. I or my brother will tell the rest

of the theater, good news, it's Connor'sors birthday let's all sing to Connor yay and then it's a movie and then it's a movie for two hours where we we don't even watch the kids we use that time to go back and clean up the private room and I guess there's probably a parent in there but otherwise it's just you know you're watching a movie and you're in air conditioning and then it's all done that That's that's the fucking move. That is really nice. I hope movie theaters continue to exist. I'll say I'm going to a birthday party soon. My son's got a birthday party he's going to for a neighbor that's at Skyzone and I do love those birthdays. Yeah. I love them because there is a place to sit. It's indoors. It's shaded.

There's a like the kids really do just fuck off. Like they go off and they play by themselves for a very long time. And occasionally you could jump on a trampoline, which is a thing I've always enjoyed. And so I will go and participate for a little bit with my son. Like I'll go in there, I'll do some flips, bounce off some walls and stuff like that. And then as the kids continue to play, I just go sit down and I just hang out It's I love Sky Zone birthdays

Wow Wait wait didn't you have a Sky Zone birthday? No, you said yeah, what I was birthday. Yeah, when I was like 29. I think it was Dan Campana. Oh yeah, 29, that was you. We were doing like a Skyzone birthday. When me and Dan Campana and Justin Vier used to do joint birthday parties

because our birthdays were each one day apart in sequential order, we would just get our mixed group of friends together at some thing. And one of them was Sky Zone, which was a real blast until the next day when all of my mostly unused jumping muscles were very sore. Yeah, we had we played dodgeball on trampolines at your birthday. That was great. It was awesome. Love trampoline birthdays. All right.

All right. That's probably enough. Sorry if I'm complaining the entire podcast. You like the theme song. That's by Merex. You can find their music anywhere you stream music or go to Merex.Bandcamp.com for full albums. The glue of this podcast. The Inconquerable, Gabe Harder.

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Bye. Bye! How did you get here? Where do I be? Words without words, words and all that Oh forget it I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here