Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Does Anybody Have a Wish?

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Daniel was falsely imprisoned by a refrigerator repairman, so Soren and him discuss the legalities of refusing to leave, making landlords work, and how to talk to strangers. What's your wish? Do you believe in aliens? Tell us about it in the comments or on Patreon, where you can also get a couple of extra episodes a month! www.patreon.com/quickquestion Thanks RocketMoney.com/qq. it could save you hundreds a year.

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? I wanna hear your thoughts, I 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? When do I be remembered? What's it up with? Where did all the good weeks go? Oh, forget it

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 for last week tonight with john oliver author of how to fight presidents and damp boy daniel o'brien joined as always by my co-host mr soren buoy soren say hello hey everybody i'm soren buoy i'm a writer for this this show american dad it's on my shirt if you are just listening to this and you heard that weird pause uh and i am i'm i would say like almost dry to a fault um okay yeah i i get this like hand stuff where like my hands start

to crack and everything and in general when i'm working out i tend to overheat because my body just doesn't sweat a ton yeah is this we are that's what you're talking about it's that time of year where you get just sort of moist in general just just yeah just damp all the time thanks to rocket money for supporting our podcast rocket money will quickly and easily identify your Just, yeah, just damp all the time. We're in the middle of, or like right at the start of a heat wave out here. And shortly before recording, I took a shower and then put headphones on. And there's just nothing. Headphones just lock in.

Apparently, heat escapes through my ears and the headphones really trap it all in. Do you take off your headphones at the end of these and they're just ringed with wetness? Yeah, I mean, i take them off i toss them in the garbage and then i wait for my next shipment of of single use headphones to come back but then you got to go pour out the garbage in the garden because it's just full of soup daniel absolutely um no i so we this used to be a problem when we would be on set all the time where daniel would they would put some spirit gum on Daniel to attach a wig, a mustache, like anything that prosthetics and Daniel would be like,

listen, before you begin, you're, you gotta know this thing is going to come off. And they're like, no, it doesn't. This is a spirit gum,

sir. This is very sticky stuff. And Daniel would be like, okay, I gave you the, I gave you the warning. This is what NASA uses to keep, keep the challenger together. And I'm like, i gave you the warning this is what nasa uses to keep the challenger together i'm like all right well this is gonna have a similar fate

and it would i mean throughout the shoot throughout shooting whatever you were wearing would just sort of peel off of you eventually uh we had a hair and makeup person who is like easily the the top three of sweetest people i've ever met in my entire life and my sweat broke her she got mad it was like several hours of her reapplying a fake mustache uh for a sketch and being like no worries no worries and then at a certain point things changed and i had to be like you have to this isn't my fault you're directing all of your anger at me. I don't like this either. I'm not doing this on purpose. We shot a series in space,

not real space, but it was pretend. And we had to wear spacey outfits and we all wore what were essentially neoprene wetsuits on set. And, uh, that was Cody, you,

me, Katie, uh, and you guys, Bren, and you guys. Brennan. And Brennan. Oh, what was Brennan's last name? I don't remember.

Who could say? Paul Brennan. Not little Brennan. And everybody got just soaking wet. You could see it through the neoprene, which is tough. It's tough to sweat so much that you start getting wet from the inside of a neoprene suit. and it makes it all the way to the outside me dries bone dries bone in that thing but also probably at a temperature of 102 in there just slowly dying inside of it

speaking of wetness soren i've got a tale for you to lead into a quick question. Are you ready to start the show? This sounds horny. Is that going to be a problem? No, I don't think it's going to be a problem. It's not. Dear Penthouse, here I was, home alone. My refrigerator... Speaking of wetness. My refrigerator was not like completely broken.

It's just like pools of water would appear over time in like the bottom crisper drawers, essentially. And sometimes enough of it would like seep into like the actual bottom of the fridge. It never was enough to leak down into the floor, onto the floor or anything like that. We would just notice, we would open like our crisper drawer and there's

a centimeter or so of water that had accumulated. We would dump it out for a while. I looked into what this probably was and my best friend YouTube had guided me to what likely the cause is. Oh, well maybe you should be doing this podcast with YouTube,

Daniel. What are you, what am I doing here if it's your fucking best friend? That's a really good point. I think the only thing is if I actually did the podcast with YouTube as an entity, that would be, like, I think an AI thing. And I'm not allowed to. In a couple years when we are allowed to like AI or when we're forced to like AI, then you're out. Then it's me and YouTube. allowed to in a couple years when we are allowed to like ai or when we're forced to like ai then

then you're out then it's me and youtube and uh and sayonara soren old soren still got some shelf life left yeah you're the last carriage i derailed you completely go on no it's okay uh the probable cause there's like a panel on the inside back of your fridge and if you take that out there's a bunch of like cooling tubes and stuff and there's a uh tray thing that is supposed to drain all fluids out the back to stop this from happening if your fridge is cold enough that could get frozen over and the solution could be as involved as like getting a replacement part there or it could be as simple as like taking that panel off chipping away at the ice and then melting the ice out to free open that tube again to stop water from pooling and collecting and spilling

it is a simple enough repair that i thought i probably could have done it on my own but one of the things that stopped me was i was i was like following along a youtube tutorial and like clear out your fridge take all this stuff uh you're gonna this might take a while so you might want to put uh your your fruits and vegetables and your cold stuff in your second fridge and i was like oh well fuck me first of all my second fridge what am i a duke yeah and then they're like once you take off this panel um then you're gonna see here's the part that you need to uh melt all the ice away so then you're gonna go and you're gonna get your uh industrial steamer and i was like all right well that's two things i just casually don't have so i think this is a repair beyond me i could do it

with a hair dryer and a lot of time but i didn't want to do that and also we are renting this place and i'm trying to get myself out of the habit of doing home repairs on a home i don't own because i i am running out of time where home repairs will be free for me uh so we called i told my landlord and we had the repairman come into the home he looked at the fridge and he diagnosed the problem was the same thing my landlord and we had the repairman come into the home. He looked at the fridge and he diagnosed the problem was the same thing that I and YouTube had agreed was the problem. And, uh, then he, he told, told me to call the landlord. So we got the landlord on speaker and he told him how much it was going to cost. And the landlord was like, Oh, that is, that is

very expensive. I didn't think it was going to be that expensive um all right let me let me shop around let me let me talk to some other repair people and see if they can get a better deal on this and the guy was like okay just so you know the way our process works the way it it works is you called us so i can't leave here unless you say yes or no you want to do the repairs with me because if you say no and then change your mind the process starts over again the company will send out another person to diagnose the problem charge you for a day and then ultimately lead to the same conclusion so you can say no but it's going to start the whole process again if you change your mind or you could say yes i'm not allowed to leave this unit unless you say that my landlord is like i've never dealt with anyone who has had

this kind of system before it's a little frustrating but fine i'm gonna say yes and the guy's like great i'll send you over the processing order right now they get off the phone he sends it i meanwhile texting my landlord like i'm really sorry about this um i've also never dealt with anyone that's that's an insane procedure and the guy is now still in my unit even though we said yes to the repairs and uh i'm just chatting with him idly for a little while waiting for him to leave because it's like the middle of a work day for me and uh he i'm just like where you're from was this a far drive for you blah blah do you like the area great and then we sit in silence for a while and he goes so i sent the processing order and your landlord still hasn't paid it and i was like yeah

that's life sometimes it's like yeah i can't leave this unit until he pays me what is this the mafia what is going on this is insane to me and he was like i i emailed your guy i texted him and he hasn't gotten back to me and i was like okay so i text him and i was like hey this guy needs you to to like do a thing real quick and no response no response we're sitting there for a bit longer and uh i call the landlord and i was like hey it's me this this man is still in my home and he won't leave until you uh you approve this and he's like yeah i did approve it i was like no but you need to you need to pay him the money or or he is just here now and i'm like smiling because the guy is in in the kitchen with me and i'm like i i'm he's sharing my space with me yeah and and won't leave until you click you click pay um whatever link he sent you

and then my landlord's like ah i'm like 30 miles out on my boat right now i'm like that's cool one guy is allowed to hold me hostage and another guy is out on his boat i'm the only one losing out in this scenario and i really got asked suddenly a centimeter of water isn't looking so bad right and then my landlord is like okay um let me see if i can like click a button on my phone to process this payment and hopefully that'll work and he hangs up and i'm thinking yeah you could definitely press a button on your phone that's how all phones work now your phone has email you can click a button but we're still there's no like guarantee dollar bills into a printer or something like that there's no guarantee that i'll have

service for that on the boat so now i'm just standing there with this guy still it's so long doing nothing in my kitchen with this man and uh at one point he was like another option we can we we have is i can cancel the payment with your landlord and i could have i could charge you and then you can pay and your landlord can reimburse you i'm like no no yeah no we won't be doing that i won't also lose money today even though i've lost time and patience so we're just like gonna stand there and wait and i i didn't know what is what to say with this strange man and we had time to kill i already asked him where he lived so i couldn't go back to that well and i just started thinking of like what is a conversation starter that i could have with this complete stranger what's a good conversation yeah what are like things people talk about and so i said i like

went real wide with it and i was like hey do you do you believe there are aliens? Just took a real wild shot. And he goes, not really. Oh. So that killed that one. Oh, that would have been a, that's a really good swing. Because if that lands, that's like, it's fun all of a sudden.

I just had to be like, yeah, me too, I guess. I mean, I think it would be cool, but yeah, I guess my answer is probably not really and then i i was still like reeling off like i was gonna ask him if he broke bones or like was very close to to like so you ever been like moved by a piece of art you can say no and then eventually my landlord did get back and process the payment and so the guy could leave uh just finally uh leave me in peace and quiet with my broken refrigerator but it got me thinking about the show what are your comp like very broad general conversation

starters because you are really good at that kind of thing yeah and like there are some that i've stopped going to like that like the where you're from is pretty helpful uh if you have common ground on that place i've stopped talking about um like sports used to be a pretty good um bonding topic especially in in like i'm making a lot of generalizations that very often come true but like in this situation where i'm in new jersey where i live dealing with a repairman it's typically a safe grounds to be like new york football giants you want to talk about the giants like that's that used to be a very reliable well to go to but the last time i had a technician in my old place to deal with cable stuff i brought up the giants and he was like hell yeah i love the giants and then he immediately pivoted into talking about how a black player on the giants was being

ungrateful and i was like oh this isn't now we're enemies this isn't this this is no longer a good conversation like it's not a safe conversation to have with anyone because suddenly it's going to turn into a fight that uh the whole point of small talk is to avoid conflict right it's supposed to be innocuous yeah um okay so now that i've talked for a full uninterrupted 13 minutes it's i'm really excited about the story uh because i because the bad guy kept changing in the story and I love those. I love it when I'm like, okay, all right,

I'm locked in. It's the, it's the, it's your landlord. Got it. And then all of a sudden it wasn't the landlord anymore. And then, and then it was the landlord again.

As soon as I knew he had a boat. Um, well, because I was, I like briefly considered texting him to be like, this is a lot of money for this repair. I'm almost positive. I could do it myself

because I saw it on YouTube. But then when he spins back with, I'm 30 miles out on my boat, I'm just like, well, you know, boats are fast. Turn it around, buddy. Yeah.

This guy is much closer to me than 30 miles and I don't want him to be here anymore. Yeah. And all that passive income must be great. Why don't you deal with some of your how do you pay for your boat steve why don't you handle some of your passive fucking income at the moment so you can keep going out on your boat um and also i was immediately trying to diagnose your problem as soon as you're like i get these like i get like a little bit of water at the bottom of the crispers i was like ah baby carrots that'll do it every time that's what that's the

problem the baby carrots sweat and you get these you just get these pools of water at the bottom of your crispers that's totally common um and then also i was like hearing that the back of your fridge like the pipes froze uh well the back on the inside of the fridge open the doors the back panel yeah on the inside of the fridge i never had to go behind the fridge okay and do you know how to get it to once this is fixed do you know how to get it to run cooler so that this never happens again i assume there are buttons that will do that for me but i like my fridge at the temperature that it is yeah i uh sorry i before i even answer your question yeah i'm so amazed that there is a price that the manager found exorbitant but was also still cheaper than just getting another fridge that's like not a big window that's a very small

window and even smaller knowing that this guy is uh he's a boat owner this guy's got money here's a here's a here's another question for you soren because i here's my uh entire refrigerator experience when i first moved to los angeles i had a unit that didn't have a fridge and the landlord of that building sold me an old one that was already in the building for $50, which felt like the steal of a lifetime. And then when I moved from that place, I moved to a place that had a fridge already, like many places. And so I left the old fridge behind. And since then, everywhere I've moved has had a fridge. So I've never, this isn't like a-

You haven't priced fridges. Right. I'm not, this isn't a question about being out of touch or anything like that. I've never had a reason to buy a fridge, except the one time when no matter what they cost, I didn't have that amount of money. $50 for a fridge was like, yeah, it's either this or I go to Home Depot and buy a really big cooler and I don't invite friends for until my life gets sorted out yeah the tiers of fridges that you guys like a double door fridge or like a stainless steel

fridge where the freezer's on the bottom you know or like that is exactly the fridge that i have okay those are like uh uh seventeen hundred dollars okay so they're like over a grand but i would also anytime that i have to get a repair done, I'm fully expecting that repair to be almost $1,000. Like, that's what I've now come to accept is like, oh, anything that gets done ever is going to be like $800. There's nothing cheaper than that. So, if this guy is like forcing you into the situation, if you're the property manager, I would just be like, no. I would rather i would rather not pay you anything and have to eat a little bit of extra money to just get a new fridge

than to give you anything with this weird little reverse kidnapping situation you've created yeah um and man i it feels like there's got to be a different policy than that because what let's let's just for the sake of it pretend that you are a woman daniel and now there's a man in your house you're alone and he's refusing to leave a large man with tools a large man you don't know a large stranger is refusing to leave and he says that it's company policy that i have to stay in your house like that's that can't be true because that's that's like a lawsuit waiting to happen that's like you can't because if you at any point are like i insist that you leave you have to leave and they're like i won't that's like then now we're like getting into some weird legal territory right um because i don't have a button to press i don't have any other recourse i know

even if i had decided to be confrontational and said something like listen i understand policy is policy that is your deal is with my landlord so you can stay on the premises you can go outside and not go back to your truck until this is over, but you cannot stay in my home, which is also where I work. But I didn't say that. I said, do you think aliens are real? Yeah, that's a cool question. By the way.

Because it's like the safer choice. I mean, that's a good one. Because if you just said ghosts, there's a certain amount of judgment that comes with that. But aliens, there's a good chance there's aliens, man. There's a really good chance that there are aliens out there and i and i would say like yes opens up some conversations no opens up some conversations not really is maybe the funniest answer a person could give to you do you believe

in aliens because it's like it's just dismissive enough that you can't continue the conversation where it's like i don't know what I think because I haven't thought about it. And I'm not going to start now. Probably not. But like, don't engage any further. It's just. It's a shame. It would have been really nice had he said, I don't believe in aliens.

And then like at some time had passed, he had been like, but I could be convinced. Yeah. Because then we've got a thing going. What do you have for me go ahead and share it i bet if you were to go through all the subscriptions that you currently have you would be shocked by some of the ones you're still subscribed to i found out i subscribed to a news outlet that i don't think even exists anymore but it's still collecting money from me something i probably used in my old crack days when I was trying to do research for an article and I was like, I'll do a free trial. And then I just stayed there and they might've gone bankrupt, but they're still

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has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions so stop wasting your money on things you don't use cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash qq that's rocketmoney.com slash qq rocketmoney.com slash qq um i have a family friend um they're like my second parents essentially like i would go to their house every day after school as a kid because they lived in town and I did not. And so getting just like the logistics of like trying to get a kid anywhere in a relationship, when the child lives in a log cabin in the woods is very tough with school and everything. So like I would go to their house after school. Sometimes they would be there, sometimes they wouldn't.

But I grew up with these people. And I was just home recently in colorado and i was talking to my second mom and uh she started she brought up aliens and like ufos specifically and like the declassification of ufo stuff and she was like that's that would be a great thing for you to talk about on your podcast and i was like oh that's funny yeah that is kind of funny she's like i'll send you more information And it slowly becomes clear to me as she's sending me more things. I had this anagnoresis where she's like, it's clear that she believes in it and she wants me to believe in it. And she wants to spread awareness about it through the podcast.

Right. And I was like which is like oh which is a very uh specific uh belief system to have i don't want to pass any judgments on that i will pass judgments on what she thinks the function of this podcast is yeah it has we we could reach anyone It has barely spread the word on Soren and Daniel. We can barely expand our own audience. Also still not getting a lot of a big blip on the radar when we play these episodes. She's a wonderful person, by the way. And like, and very interested in like care.

In like caring for other humans, caring for the planet and everything. But every once in a while there's these left turns where i'm like where does this even like where did this where was this born from like this belief in the in ufos alien not just aliens which i can i could i think yeah good chance they're aliens but that there are aliens that are here checking on us and like we need to let everybody know i was like i don't know where this one goes i don't know how this fits in with everything else that i know about you anyway it's on the podcast now we did it so now i'm going to answer your question uh you asked me how do i what are some good conversations how do i start conversations

well with strangers and you've seen me in the past you've seen me hunting you've seen me like be in a room with somebody where like neither one of us knows what to say and i will just start talking and then like ask them questions and just find something that i can get my just sink my teeth into and then we're off to the races right um i don't really do where you from anymore because yeah i've stopped traveling i don't even know anything about where i grew up people will be like hey where should i go in aspen and i'm like i don't know uh i haven't been there in two decades i don't even know the restaurants that are left it was certainly an easier question when i was in los angeles and everyone was from somewhere else.

And I had done enough traveling that I might have things to say. Now, when I'm in New Jersey, everyone I talk to is also from New Jersey, roughly the same county. And there's not much to say beyond, yeah, me too. Yeah. So I've got, there's a new one that I do. But you have to like you really have to feel it out first to make sure this is the right kind of person but it like when it works it just works so well and it's something that's happened accidentally i was at a neighbor's party

and she was like hosting and she was getting everything out for us like there's a security board and stuff like that and at one point she stood up and interrupted two people who are having a conversation and just said does anyone have a wish and i was like what what she meant was she was going inside and she was getting stuff and she was like does anybody have a like a need or like something like that but the way that she had phrased it she just chose the wrong thesaurus word and she was like does anyone have a wish and i was like yes to have that as my conversation starter from this day forward thank you very much for granting it and so now when like when a conversation does anyone have any have a wish no not anymore i got it i got mine now when

the conversation has a lull i will and it's like's like, I can, if I've felt it out right, I will say, so do you have a wish? And the reactions that I've gotten have been like across the board. Great. They've been wonderful. People being like, that's a crazy question. Yes, I do. And I, because there was one before that that i tried out a couple times and it failed spectacularly and it's probably because i stole it from nathan fielder

um he's in a car with a guy doing a stakeout and at one point he asked the man do you have any secrets which is also a very fun question uh that you don't expect a real answer to but um do you have a wish is like people are more than willing to share that and it's yeah it's oh my god it's just like the answers you get are amazing they run the gamut the the secret one is something that i stumbled onto as a strange um like very devious power that i've just decided I can wield every once in a while. Um, it was, we were on a shuttle coming home, coming back to the hotel from, uh, our dear friend, Michael Swaim's wedding. And there were enough like tipsy people around, uh, and people

on other things that I could, I, I felt pretty safe getting some honest answers of this question so I was like you know it'd be fun if um if we just like went around and like what is the secret that you've never told anyone from youth that you will tell me now and then people just did it because like a there's drinking involved and b there was like it just like I came at it with so much confidence that it was just like okay yeah I guess, I guess I will tell a little secret. And they just went in and like, I have a lot of secrets now from friends of ours, from people we know. And I'm just like, okay, now the game is over. And the winner is me, Keeper of Secrets.

Good night, everyone. Thanks for playing. thanks for playing there's something so exhilarating to like bending to the will of somebody else just by choice when it says the consequences could be catastrophic just be like yeah our friend uh our friend katie stole who are the recent co-host of this podcast she uh didn't have any secrets on the shuttle and then next day, she had left a voice memo on my phone. And she was like, I thought of a secret that I never told anyone. She recorded a secret. This is so dangerous.

She recorded it. That's wild. Wow, Daniel. Congratulations on having all those. Yeah, of course. How do you think I got her to host this show with me? No one was taking it. That's a real currency.

My goodness. Yeah, so anyway, I will ask people if they have a wish. It has failed. It has failed in the past where people are like, what? And I'm like, do you have a wish? And they're like, I don't know. I'm not going to engage in this. Do people say like flat out, no? not, I haven't really thought about it.

Let me think about it. But like, no, as in, no, I don't have any wishes. No. I like what I have or like I refuse to engage in that kind of fanciful thinking. I think anyone who is even if you're not superstitious or you don't believe in something higher than yourself or anything, nobody's going to test the universe that way. No one's going to be like, no, I don't have a wish. I'm good.

Because I, and if there's somebody that you don't really know asking you that question, we've all read enough fairy tales that we're like, oh, I have to. There's a chance. there's a chance that they can make my wish come true let's just get it out certainly certainly always consider the source and make sure it's not a monkey paw situation if someone like if soren in all of his and was a stranger to me and all of his handsome glory was like do you have any wishes i'm like i'm not gonna say i wish to fly because then you're gonna to fucking throw me off a building. I know how this works. Clips are getting out of here. Yeah.

And so, yeah, but everyone will go. They'll entertain it. They'll entertain it. Either they have one and they're like, yep, this. And which is also very funny. Or they'll be like, oh, well, I don't know. Let me let me think for a minute. You know, I guess.

And like and then they'll come up with something and then yeah there's like this weird moment where like just getting it out there is enough like i don't think that was their initial intention but like but the initial intention might be maybe i say it and it just happens but just like saying it is enough like oh i feel like lighter like i feel good i feel knowing what i want now uh i want to quit my job and leave my wife huh i highly recommend it it's such a crazy question too but like a crazy charming question that people do not get upset generally i'll say generally it has gone wrong at least once now i know that you know

that when you ask that question people are going to turn around either before or after they answer and ask you if you have a wish yeah and i imagine you have something ready for that question no i don't um i because it's so much more fun if they are going to not come up with something organically like if you want if so yes if it was like on the podcast i would just be like here's a really funny um blow to this scene like here's like a really uh a bear with an uzi or something like that like whatever you like you want that like this is going to be like a really funny thing that i have thought about but it would kill a conversation so if you genuinely want this conversation to keep going they ask you back and you go oh and then you genuinely think like in that moment like what would i want

and and it helps it keep keep going incredible um well i think i've got a good answer to a quick question for the first time in the history of this podcast, maybe. Daniel, do you have a wish? I was really hoping we could move on and you could not ask me that. Because I have like a bunch of correct answers in my head about climate change and food sustainability and i know they're the right answers but i also know they're the wrong answers and i also have a bunch of true answers and they're the wrong answers too

i've given answers before to this question that we've come up with on the podcast by the way we're like you're like what if you could be 10 better at something like i'll just answer with one of those types of things like i did say to somebody i wish i could sing and they're like tell me more about that and i was like yeah here we go yeah singing dancing one of those would be good fluent spanish always good um talking to your dog yeah sort of like instant meditation or like uh like having a a calm button inside of me for stressful situations uh that'd be pretty good world peace final answer fuck I don't even actually want that

it would be wonderful to actually come up with just a bunch of these to have so that when somebody asks and just choose an emotion to go along with it at random I would say have a list of things a list of how you feel about it so that when you answer

you can be super angry and be like I wish there was a way to go down on women where i didn't look like a kid coloring on the floor jesus christ with my legs flipped up in the air behind me just waving around she can see what my lower back is doing but i can't that's not fair like i'm what's it look like back there like i'm reading a book on the beach i don't like it there's got to be a better way um yeah but i uh i i've not done that sorry to put you on the spot with that question daniel did you hate it

no it's all right i had i had plenty of time to anticipate it yeah i was just basking in how good a question it was. Save it. Save it and use it, man. It's great. Maybe I'll use it at your wedding. Oh, what do you mean? I'm going to be meeting a lot of people. Oh, okay. I'm going to be sitting next to them at tables where the food isn't out yet,

or we're waiting to go to the line, and I'm somebody brand new and we're just sitting there yeah be very fun to turn to somebody like that like a gin and be like do you have a wish i'm gonna be dressed like a genie by the way i don't know if i told you that just gold shackles on my hands nothing else you're going to you're going to meet a lot of people from uh heart of america new jersey and heart of america illinois who are going to be like oh this is one of the la friends the guy who keeps asking people about wishes that's one of his los angeles creative friends right uh for anyone who does who just listens to this podcast you're gonna get that just looking at me that i am one of the la friends it's gonna be pretty clear immediately that i am one of the la friends all right well um daniel i have something that i want to talk to you about

All right. Well, Daniel, I have something that I want to talk to you about. Okay, great. It's a little heavier, but it's something that I think is very interesting and funny about my children. We've talked previously, I think I had asked you about when you discovered the real idea of death when you were young. And my son, I told a story about my son. There was a possum under my house that was dead, just to remind people. He was very young. He wanted to see it, because we could smell it.

He wanted to see it, so I took him down to the crawl space. I don't know why, because I don't want to hide anything from him. And I showed him, and he was interested in it. And then from that point on, I would try to have conversations with him, where I'd be you think where do you think uh things when things die where do you think they go and he'd be like very seriously he'd say to our basement i was like oh that's no that's dark i hope not that's dark i understand why you got that idea but also if anyone else in the world asks you that question do not answer that yeah you can't say that you just gotta say i don't know um and so uh he him like he wanted to hear about the possum a lot he wanted

to remind me about it he just like wanted to talk about it because he's just like working through it so now i have another child who is in the age where she's sort of discovering the idea of death and i'm like i'm a little jealous of her understanding of death because first of all she's 100 on reincarnation i don't even know where that came from because i don't think we presented that as like one of the possibilities yeah but she's like a lot of times when a conversation lulls she will be like dad next kind next time can i lulls, she will be like, dad, next kind of next time. Can I be a bird? And I'll be like, I don't have the authority,

but I hope so. Sure. I bet that if you, if you want that enough, you could. And I was trying to see if this is like maybe a lion King thing, because I know you guys watch that a whole lot. And I,

but even the circle of life is just things that die become grass and then the antelope eats the weed the antelope antelope dies becomes grass antelope eats the grass we die you become stars you become a constellation yeah but they they never explicitly say like and then maybe one day you simba will be an antelope so yeah i don't know still definitely into to lion king by the way um yeah but yeah i don't i don't know. Still definitely into Lion King, by the way. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know where it's coming from. But she was like, and bird is always it. She's like, next time, can I be a bird?

And I'm like, I bet. And she wants to be, she's like, next time, can I be a boy bird? And I'm like, why? Like, what is it about? And so then I'm like, now there are new things that I'm like trying to get out of her like okay well what is it about being a boy like is this something that you generally want in your life like i'm open to that and and when i finally get down to it the reason she wants to be a boy is because she wants to be able to pee standing up and that's kind of it sure and i'm like okay well maybe we'll figure out some other solution to this problem yeah

but uh that's right now the only advantage she can see to either sex is that one gets to be standing up and she's like then that's the one like why would it's not unreasonable yeah and i'm like i'm sorry yeah you're right it's pretty cool um they do i'm but i'm sure you know because you've spent as much time in in and around camping equipment as i have but you know they have a thing for that they have like a device for that women can strap on that that fits snugly with a tube that comes out so if you wanted to pee while standing you had a funnel and tube situation that would allow really i know that there are menstrual cups but i didn't know know that there was also a peeing device.

I mean, we're derailed somewhat, but I'm interested in this. Because as my understanding is that so when I pee, it is like a direct stream. Like there's like pressure behind it. It's a direct stream. But I've seen, not to brag, I've seen girls pee. It is like a leaky gutter. Like it's just coming out all over. Like it's coming out of their, like it's like dripping down to their butt. And it it's just just like coming out all over like it's coming out of their like it's like dripping down to their butt and it's like it's coming out all over the

place right this sort of centralizes and focuses it and i i don't believe this is this is a uh device that is like a hot seller because it's got great word of mouth recommendations as like a workable solution i think it's a lot of curiosity and a lot of this is good utility when camping but i i don't think it's like a perfect system okay i i have tried other things that did not work great which was like a squatty pot which is like a little potty that kids learn to pee in i was like just stand over that not realizing that uh it was just gonna like go right down her legs like like an a-frame house just like draining it all on the other side uh and and like almost none in the toilet um but uh i i will find something i'm gonna help her

we'll help her figure it out somehow but anyway um the thing that i'm most jealous about with her understanding of death is that she will frequently say like we'll talk about things that happened before she was born like we'll talk about stuff that ronan used to do and she's very interested in hearing the the history of the family and like knowing what ronan was like as a baby what was mom like as a baby and i don't know yeah i wasn't there for that uh she she wants to know about um when we got married she wants to know about when we got married. She wants to know if we put our hands on each other's shoulders. A question I don't understand and I'm still trying to get to the bottom of.

Then she will say, frequently, if we tell a story and she doesn't know where she is in the story or we're not explicitly mentioning her, she will say, was this when I was still dead? And I'm like jesus oh that like that's a great i love that feeling like that way that wherever you were before you were alive you're just gonna go back there yeah and so i don't know where that was but it was somewhere and like right now you're here it wasn't painful it wasn't painful and you didn't mind it and it didn't it didn't hurt and you weren't sad and you weren't wanting you weren't like yeah i wish i could be alive or at least you didn't carry any of that with you into life and then and then you'll go back there and so she will frequently ask was i still dead and i'll be like yeah you were still dead then um and i'm like oh okay i think i i

gotta try to like figure out how to marry that with my own understanding of death and knowing that just go back to wherever i was that's fine it's not so scary but she doesn't that's the thing other thing she just does not seem scared by it at all, which is a real fun thing, a real fun color on kids. When, as they're trying to understand death, they don't have a real crystal clear picture of why that's terrifying. They're just like, oh, it's just another thing. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's just another thing. Why would death be scary? I have no control over my life.

Yeah, I've been here for four years. This place means nothing to me. I'm shuffled around by a series of giants all the time. Dad, I want you to think about a single problem in your life and decide, have you been dealing with that for over four years? Yeah? That's my whole life. You've chosen been dealing with that for over four years yeah that's my whole life like you've chosen to live like that um but yeah anyway that i was very interested to hear that uh it's it's fun it's fun so maybe if you have children that you like have to run into and you're also in

a situation where you are just sort of quietly waiting for something see if you can eat that out of them figure out what their their philosophy is on death right because they're just gonna make it up themselves generally and it's real fun i feel like my approach to my children will be very similar to my approach to the repairman where there will be we don't have common ground yet so i'm just gonna sit my kid down and be like so what do you what do you think happens when we die yeah what do you think fish think about do octopuses dream discuss yeah it is really fun a lot of times my son now will just be like i don't know i don't know he just doesn't want to engage in it but he's he used to you just got to catch him in the right window.

Yeah. I want to quickly go back to the fact that she, when she talks about marriage, she talks about putting hands on each other's shoulders. Yeah. What could that be? I think this might be from The Little Mermaid, which is a movie we saw recently. And they, when they're getting married, I think they embrace. And maybe in the cartoon, because they're so close, we're so, it's a, it's a two shot. Right?

Like, you're only getting their, their faces and like some of their lower bodies. And maybe in the embrace, it looks like they're holding one another shoulders when they first get married. And then they kiss. And she was very interested in that. She saw them kiss and she saw them turn their heads and kiss. And she was like, um,

can we do that? And I was like, no, that's not how we, it's not how we do it. But it was just a thing that she saw that looked nice. And she was like, oh,

I'd like to try that. And like like was just memorizing things about that moment and one of the things was i think that she thinks that when you get married you put your arms on the other person's shoulders i was like that's what's adorable yeah i mean kind of maybe by accident a little bit yeah that's not the main thing that we're going for but it happens shoulder might catch some stray affection yeah it's entirely possible um i was also i was gonna ask if go ahead if you you if your family had um gotten into the habit of catching like the junior versions of musicals because that's like a whole uh swath of things that exist there are musicals that get written for broadway or other

big theaters your standard two plus hour musical with an intermission um and then they it's a very lucrative business where some of them can get turned into like the junior version of that which is like less than an hour one act usually without some of with some of the language taken out and some of the harder songs taken out and just like more basic fairy tale version of these these musicals and they a lot of them if you there's a sweet spot of like a show with a big cast with a bunch of songs and and uh like very simple to understand moral lesson uh there's a few of those that can be like successfully juniorified without removing enough themes that it becomes incomprehensible. But a lot of those just by nature of like a standard fairy tale-esque story still involve like true love's kiss in some way,

which is a thing when you're making a musical where your cast is going to be like 11 and 10 year olds, you are not going to make them kiss. You still need to like recreate the idea of that in some way. So like sometimes they'll like have two characters stand in front of each other and someone i've seen like versions of shrek jr where they hold up a sign blocking them and the sign just says true love's kiss and then the sign comes down uh i've seen a junior version of legally blonde that hinges on in like the the movie and musical uh an authority figure a professor um inappropriately touches l was the protagonist in a way that like needs to scan for the audience

it's like it has to be like a lunch for a kiss or a grope in some way something that an adult audience would easily grok but something that like, you can't ask kids to do, and B, you can't do something that's going to scan as inappropriate for the audience sake. And so the professor, the lecherous professor character just put a hand on the shoulder

of the Elle Woods character and she was like, ah, I don't want that. It's still like, it fulfills the requirement of being uh definitely unwanted touching but for like the reality of the adult version of the musical would be like just what you're not who would be mad about a hand on a shoulder the kids version you are as mad as they've

done the most inappropriate thing in the world and uh this was my long way of saying when she had asked do you put your hands on shoulders at the wedding? Thinking, ah, someone has seen Legally Blonde, the musical junior. And she knows what adults love to do. We have not clocked that yet. It may also be her seeing, I just don't know where she would be getting it from, but like dancing too. Maybe she's not.

Because the idea of dancing to her is like you listen to Girl on Fire and you just like go nuts. But she doesn't know necessarily that there's like slow dancing and how that works. So she's seeing two people staring at one another who are clearly like one another and they're choosing to be there. And it more or less looks like they have their hands on one another's shoulders. And that's just like, yeah. And now we're together.

And so she was like, she was trying to get the timeline of calling a night down. And we just had our, uh, college reunion. And so we were trying to like explain why we were going to this college and like what happened there. And she does not get it.

She's like, you can, mom got married there. We're like, no, stop. No, we met there. explain why we were going to this college and like what happened there and she does not get it she's like you and mom got married there we're like no stop no we met there and she's like the idea that we did not know each other our entire lives is just not registering for her yeah so her trying to like explain it to me it was very funny her being like and then mom lived with grandma and grandpa and you lived with nini and you got older and then you both left and you went somewhere else and i'm like yes and she's like because you wanted to meet each other and then when you got there you got married and we're like no okay no back up no we missed some steps there just like it's like it's not, like it just does not register for her. Like we had to meet first,

choose each other, and then get married. Like that's, it's too foreign. It occurs to me, having this conversation, that what a strange, but like simple idea I had as a child

about my parents meeting because they met at work when they both worked at shop right and so which is a grocery store I don't know how how widespread it is but so when you know eight-year-old Daniel was like where did you and mom and where did mommy and daddy meet and they're like why shop right I'd be like yeah that makes it yeah grocery store that's one of the places of course I've been there I've seen it oh yeah could happen right this place is full of love i get it yeah swept up experience of shop right i figured it was either grocery store the park school or a house it had to be one of those places

i as soon as you said that i was like i actually don't think I know of any other places people meet. I met in one of those. I don't, if someone came to me now and they were like, how do I meet somebody? I'd be like, did you try going to college? I think you have to go there and then, and then you find somebody. I don't know. The grocery. Yeah, man.

All right. Well, you know what? Let's end the podcast absolutely hell yeah that about wraps up our show the show is called quick question but you knew that already we are recorded edited and produced by our president of podcast operations gabe harder our theme song is by the incredible me ricks their digital digital album is available at me rex.bandcamp.com and speaking of theme songs we have another theme song for our patreon only show that's the show we do for our patrons the people who pay to subscribe to our channel there's a brand new theme song on that and it slaps so check it out there on our Patreon

which you can find at patreon.com Soren and I are not on Twitter but you can find the show there at qq underscore Soren and Dan you can find Soren and I both at Blue Sky you can email the show at qq with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com

you can find us on YouTube if you've only been listening to this show and you want to see our faces, you can find us on YouTube. We release every episode as a video episode. And once again, for those Patreon subscribers, you get this whole show plus a special

bonus, shorter, funner, wackier episode every other week. That is all of the information i have in front of me almost sandwich time thanks thanks for bringing us home daniel oh are you really having a sandwich today you got it yeah it's it's it's crazy because you were like doing something that was either a bit or real life over the weekend where you were texting me about musicals and acapella groups if it's if it's a bit I don't understand it and so I'm not engaging with it because

I know it'll frustrate you if I don't engage with it but then I was like frustrated I was realizing in a parallel way that it might not be a bit because I took a look at my own life this weekend and like we have a home garden that is thriving and is all i think and talk about is this garden we have and yesterday we went to a sandwich place and i had the best fucking sandwich of my life and now i think i only want this sandwich so i'm like a sandwich and gardening guy and you're a musical the future acapella guy we switch in places this is our freaky friday yeah yeah we do a body swap we just realized it seems like a lot of work to swap back so i'll just i'll just stay here we'll keep doing the podcast and like i'll me soren i'll just import gardening

and sandwich into this life otherwise i'm fine with the way things are yeah i've been i've been texting daniel highly specific questions about broadway that suggest my knowledge of the subject it stressed me out for reasons that i'll talk about off pod all right i'll talk to you later. All right. Bye. Bye. I've got a quick, quick question for you.

All right. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to know what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you. All right. The answer's not important. I'm just glad that we could talk tonight.

So what's your favorite? Who did you doubt? What will I be? Remember? What's it out favourite? Who did you get? When will I be remembered? What did I do? Where did I go? Did I do it all? 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 I think you'll have a great time here