Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - This is Boys’ Night | Ep. 352

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Daniel enjoys his first boys’ night in fifteen months, only to relearn a lesson he already knows: three beers is the right amount. Soren recalls wandering into a stranger’s party and waking up locked in a bathroom. The guys compare the indignities of getting older, from stubborn injuries to the impossibility of recovering from a hangover while parenting. Plus, why Daniel is perpetually sick and how daycare turns children into tiny disease delivery systems.We want to thank Mint Mobile for supporting this episode. Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/QQThanks to ASPCA for sponsoring this episode. To explore coverage, visit http://ASPCApetinsurance.com/QUESTION.  The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance.Follow the guys on Bluesky!https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.socialBonus episodes 2x/month at patreon.com/quickquestion OR Apple Podcasts

I'm sorry. Sorry. It's the podcast. It's the podcast. How you're doing? What's going on? What's going on? What's the weather like in Los Angeles right? Right now. I hate this guy. Sorry. It's the podcast. How you doing? What's going on? What's the weather like in Los Angeles right now? I hate this guy. I mean, I like you, so I'm going to say the weather's hot, bad, and I'm answering your questions, honestly. But I don't think I want to be here. I don't want to be in L.A. Every single year I get to this point where I'm like, what am I doing? Is this career really worth it to me? Can I just go somewhere else?

It's, yeah, it's not really worth it. I mean, by the time. It's bad city. like all the the big stupid merger that everyone was mad about came through and it's happened and a lot of people a very small amount of people are going to get super rich from it

and then it's going to make everything in this industry worse for us it's it sucks that I lucked into a comedy writing job in 2007 when I was 21 years old and have managed to hold on to a comedy writing job for almost 20 years because I don't know how to do anything else

if I could pivot to anything I would do it my last job before comedy writing was bartending I don't think I could hack it in that world right now they came up with too many new drinks and I just don't and I was so clumsy yeah I was thinking about like what I'm going to do because I talking to other writers

other writers in L.A. I know who are excellent writers and just like really struggling to find work. And I'm like, that's going to be me. As soon as this show ends, I don't know how I get another job. I don't even have a representation. Like I'm not getting another. So what am I going to do? What am I going to pivot to? And I'm like, could I go live in a fire lookout for a little while and just be a guy who looks for fires? I think my pivoting is reliant. on my, on me doing something terrible also.

Like the job ends and the work ends and also my wife leaves me and takes my son. It's tragic and terrible, but it's the only way I, because then I'll just like, I'll be like a deck hand on a boat or something and I won't need much money.

I won't need a house anymore. And like that's, it's, it's, I wouldn't call it a solid five-year plan because my wife loves me so much. But that's sort of in my imagination when it's like, what's the next thing? It's like, well, the next thing is death or I've ruined my marriage in my whole life so I can do something small and unimportant. I'll say every single time that I think about what else I could possibly be doing,

in that scenario, I don't have a wife or children. I'm like, yeah, I go live in a fire, lookout and I and all of my furniture has glass on the bottom because it gets struck by lightning every 16 minutes totally surely there's something I could do like that I could go be at forest service ranger and spend my life in the woods away from everybody but I again my family has to have left me at that point there was a great college humor writer named Kevin Corrigan yeah actually went to the same college my freshman year Rowan University before I transferred out to a different school. And he was writing for Rowan's comedy magazine then. And I, I remember as a

freshman in college, reading, like seeing his byline in the magazine, I think it was called the venue. Not the, not the Rutgers Rampoon. No. It was, well, we'll get into that in a second. Reading Kevin Corrigan's stuff and being like, this guy is, is fucking funny. And then years later, seeing that he was writing for college humor. And I was like, good. This is, this is really good. stuff and we connected a few times because of the Rowan connection and the comedy writing internet connection and he was part of one of the big great big internet comedy layoffs that we were all part of and he oh he's a Rowan boy I get it okay moved to Colorado and just did like I think he still does some writing for like hiking magazines

and stuff, but he's mostly just like an out, it seems like based on Instagram, he's just a thriving outdoors guy. And then he like taught himself guitar and now he's got a band that he plays guitar. And it was like, man, that's, if only I, if only I had lost all my work in my 20s, then I could also be living somewhere affordable and have hobbies. I mean, that's got to be like what Jake is doing from Jake and Amir, right? He's just living his rock climbing life somewhere. I think he, he is one of the co-founders of headgum. I don't know if he's fully divested himself from headgum or if he still got a beak and a toe in that.

I think, and per Instagram he makes like Jake and Amir-esque sketches. for mayor mom donnie. Really? I feel like such a dummy reporting the news to you based on a couple of things I have paid attention to on Instagram. But I'm the more informed one of the two of us. Yeah, you are. It's not completely the blind leading the blind. We're dependent on you.

Yeah. And it looked like it was headed in the wrong direction. Colleen and I were like, we should move to Colorado. It would be great to move to it. That's a better place to live. It's good for her jobs because she works in environmentalism. She works in public policy. And like, there's lots of room for that there.

Anywhere in Colorado, you just like throw a dart at a map and you can get a job there. And I was like, I don't need, maybe I'm like, if I'm going to keep working on the internet, I probably don't need to be in L.A. for that. Yeah. And then I got my job at America Dad, and it was like, no, we have to stay here. Yeah. We have to stay. And it's a bad city.

It's a bad city to live in. When I got laid off at Cracked and I was still living in Los Angeles and freelancing for the nine months between jobs, there was a lot of like, all of my friends were there, certainly. Or a lot of my friends, the people that I knew for the entirety of my 20s were there. but I was still every day kind of like, what the fuck am I doing here? I didn't. I know I'm in the entertainment industry and a lot of people in the entertainment industry

dream of moving to California. I didn't really. It wasn't, I moved there for the work. It wasn't like ever the plan. Like, oh, I just fell in love with Los Angeles. I was in that period of freelance unemployment. I was like, maybe I'll move to Hawaii, which is not cheaper.

than Los Angeles by any stretch and it's further away from my family but I was like if I'm if I'm just freelancing if I'm just like

figuring out the next step why the fuck am I doing it in this smelly expensive city that's too hot most of the time the real

indicator for how bad of a city Los Angeles is is that when the Dodgers games end they have to have a Los Angeles theme song to play And there are lots of Los Angeles-themed songs. And all of them are nightmares.

All of them are about what a terrible place we live in. And the closest one you can get is Randy Newman. I love L.A. And that's also a song about how awful Los Angeles is. But only if you listen closely. If you don't listen closely, then you can just, everyone gets to shout, we love it together and be real excited about Los Angeles. Nobody makes good songs about L.A.

So everyone hates this place. When I ran the LA Marathon and you're getting ready to go, they play that song on a loop like 900 times in a row at 6th of the morning. And you get a little bit pumped because you're in Los Angeles. You start at Dodger Stadium and everyone there is getting into it. That's only song they have in the stadium, by the way. It's just stuck in the scene player there. And it's like, oh, I guess I thought this was Elvis Costello and he looked. loves L.A., but no, this is, like, noted biting satirist Randy Newman.

Of course. Of course, this isn't super complimentary. Look at that hobo over there. It's like, look at all this fun stuff in L.A. Look at all the stuff I'm looking at. The Decembrus have a really scathing song about the city. I think Hotel California is about Los Angeles. I'm trying to think if there's anything here. The doors, which is a band that I find unlistenable, they have. No bassist. That's the problem. They have L.A. woman, which is also a terrible song.

I mean, I can't be objective on this. I hate the band, so I, it might be good. People might like it. But I think that is like abhorrent. For like branding wise, Dan, that's a great band for you to hate. I know. It fits in so nicely. It's so, I mean, I love it when when I, something I genuinely hate, but I can't articulate,

but also fits with my signature. Like perfect. Yeah. And I don't need a crazy. You guys know me. You know I love my dog Jackson. I have had him for 14 years, thick and thin, through late nights where he wasn't going to the bathroom and he was uncomfortable and not sleeping through the night.

To early mornings where he was going to the bathroom. Too much. Those stories are the same story, by the way. And they all exist to illustrate just how. how much I love this guy. He is my rock and my world. I have known him longer than my wife and certainly longer than my son. So he is definitely in the top two most important people in my family.

Going by length of time known. I love Jackson. And if you're anything like me, you love your dogs too, or your cats, or your hamsters, or your whatever. They're the best.

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asked you this before. You know what? That's the curse of this show from this point forward. Every time I do this. And it's also thematically appropriate for the question because the quick question is Soren, you're an adult. What lessons do you keep learning? the same lesson over and over again. I don't know if this is one that we talked about before. It came up because I am in my soft 40s, a young 40s, and I recently had my first boys' night in about 15 months, night out with the fellas since before the baby was born.

We, Shea and I put the baby down to sleep in the house And then I went out To a bar with some friends And then a second bar And then you're not going to believe this A third bar And then my friend's house

To watch wrestling It was an electrifying night Soren We were having so much fun We've known each other for like 30 years And we were just Just a night that like It's so

we're in infectiously joyful hanging out at these bars enough that like and this has happened before other people try to join in on the phone and because of the stakes of this night

I asserted myself in a way that I don't normally we were at this bar and a guy came up because you heard just talking about wrestling and joined in and took up a lot of attention and oxygen and then he walked away for a little a little while and then we got back just the group of us and then the stranger came back and a very

uncharacteristic move I said no this is boys night we are having a night it's just us we haven't seen each other in a long time we have known each other since elementary school we are talking about wrestling and basketball and people we went to high school with who died you are not part of this get out here and he was like all right and he walked away And I felt so good because there have been times in my life where I've been with a group of people and we've been having a lot of fun and other folks were like, I want to join the fun group. And I've just had to bite my tongue and now we have to like entertain a stranger a little bit. We have to get to know somebody and I don't want to do those things. I just want to hang out with my boys and talk about who died or who had a weird job where they ended up.

or who's in jail, all the things that you talk about with your hometown buddies. But even that is not the main thrust of boys night. Oh. The thrust or how it pertains to quick question. The lesson that I keep teaching myself as a soft 40-something is three beers is the right amount of beers. And I did more than three beers. I did the wrong amount of beers. And the next morning, and I was feeling great on the...

night and then the next morning I felt like ass and then the following day I felt like ass and I thought the lesson gets deeper the older in your this isn't this isn't this isn't news this is this is this is you know a lesson I learned at last year's rap party for the show and a lesson I learned at the emmys those are the these are the nights that I go out and have drinks with the intention of like having a bunch of drinks and I and I some distant part of me knows the right number is three and and and I don't I don't know when I will really remember that and let that lesson actually take hold. It wasn't at Boys Night if I'm being honest it's not going to be at next Boys Night whenever that is but I will learn the lesson again that's are there lessons that you

keep learning Sorin yes but I I really want to focus on yours for a second. Because I'm not done. I think that you're right, that that we'll never learn that lesson. No one will ever learn that lesson. It's really hard when you wake up the next morning and you feel like shit and you're like,

you try to do the math and you're like, how many did I drink? And you drank so many that you don't know how many you drink. Yeah. You're like the next morning, you're like, I think I only had like five. And then you're like, hold on.

There's a whole other location that I forgot about. And I definitely drank there too. I come home stinky and I shower and I get to bed and she's like, how did it go? And I'm like, I have five beers. She's like, oh, boy. And then sometime in the middle of the next day, which is like, I work on Saturdays. So sometimes in the middle of the workday, I'm just like, oh, fuck me. It was seven.

Honey, I'm sorry. It's so many more than I thought. I didn't mean to lie to you, but I forgot. Well, because it gets much more confusing too. So I've definitely gone out before and been responsible and been like, you know what, two, two tonight. That's all it's going to be. And then come home and the next day it felt like shit. I'm like, what happened?

How did this? Surely this is against the law. I did the right thing and now I also feel like shit. And then other times where I've gone out and drank a lot. This generally is the pattern is I go out the first night after not drinking in a while and feel like shit no matter what I drink. the next night, drink a ton, feel a lot better the next day. And it's just like, my body's like, well, I guess this is just the world now. We just take in toxins every single night.

I remember years ago, we traveled down to San Diego and we're doing stand-up there, a bunch of us cracked folks. And we got hotel rooms because we weren't going to go back. And we similarly, like, bounced around at different locations. And I remember, Swedish Angel in the world. Alex Schmidt, whom I've never seen drunk in my entire life, including this night. But after maybe two drinks, he was just like, ah, yeah, I'm close. I'm close to getting drunk, so I'm going to call it. And we're like, what are you talking about? You look really normal and fine. He's like,

oh, no, I know. And then he just left and went for the night. And like, that hadn't occurred to me. I don't even think he was drunk. I think he was like, truly just like, like, two is the number. I'm with, I'm with work people and I'm in a new place. Two is the number. And that means it's time for for me to go away. And I was like, man, that's, that's, that's pretty great for you. I'm going to wander into the night in this strange town and see what kind of trouble we can get up to. You also, that you haven't done it in a while, that you've had a child for a while, you don't get to do boys night. Once you have a kid, the first time you go for it again, it's really dangerous.

You really go for it. You can't help yourself. I went to, my friend of the show, Sam Bergen, I went to his bachelor party. when after I had my son and it was an overnight bachelor party. They had rented a mansion in the hills. And I went so hard that I left the party and wandered to another party in the hills of Los Angeles. And then after that, locked myself in a bathroom and slept there. Oh my God.

So that no one would mess with me. Did you? Whose party was the other party? I don't know. couldn't tell you. You just saw a party? I heard it and wandered away. Well, I was out in the street.

I might have been throwing up. I might have left the house to go throw up. I like to do a cat. I like to do it surreptitiously. I like to throw up on my own somewhere and then rejoin the party. And I think I had gone outside and thrown up. And then you get that second wind from throwing up where you feel better than you ever have in your whole life. And I was like, I could do anything.

I could go to another party. I could go to this one that I hear down here. You like to leave a little mystery for the neighbor. Just for some jogger the next morning to slip. Yeah, I'd be like, what the fuck? No, it's never going to be that rude. I won't do it in the road or on the sidewalk. My puk you will never find because then I also take my little paws and I bury it with my little paws.

Kick it behind me. But yeah, I'd gone out that night and left, just left the party. And then when I locked myself in a bathroom, I then, woke up to someone saying, is he dead? I was like, I have to at least give them proof of life. And like, no, unfortunately, he is not. Yet, yeah, I'm weird.

And then that next day, I didn't, I couldn't go home and face my family because my soul was unclean. And so I went to my office and had thrown up so much that when I was drinking tea at my office, trying to recuperate and watch British Baker show my throat was like so sore that I couldn't swallow things oh man and and you I mean you can feel sick you can feel sick from a lot of different things and when you get sick it's its own thing

it doesn't feel good but you can tolerate it because it's something that happened to you but when you did it to yourself there's a whole other layer to your sickness of like you feel like such a piece of shit and you deserve this and also it's just going to out be how it'll be forever you can't even remember what it felt like to feel like a normal person. When I am a little bit sick, I'm kind of a baby about it. And I've been pretty sick nonstop since we put Cooper in daycare. I'm just at all times a little bit sick. And there were a couple of nights where I had a very bad cough. And I was like, I should probably sleep on the couch downstairs because the cough will up Cooper and also I don't want to get my wife sick so I better just go sleep on the

couch and downstairs where it's cold and where the big TV is and then I had a couple of days in that same stretch where I had a pretty alarmingly high fever that I should have gone to with Dr. Abba didn't but during this time I was still just like oh I guess I can't take Cooper to daycare today. I guess I can't really do any of the chores that I do. I should probably stay on this couch where the big TV is and where my snacks are and could wife, could you get me some

snacks? When I'm sick because of a hangover that I did to myself, I'm up at 5 in the morning and I'm like, I will take the boy. I will take my penance. I will do squats with him. I'll take him outside where it's bright and the cars are allowed.

I deserve to feel even worse than I already do. And I just like eat the sins like it's my job. And having a child when you're hung over is maybe the roughest. It's like rougher than roofworking. Like we're like re-shingling a roof when you're hung over. Because there's so much bending over, standing back up, crouching. And then you're just got to be on.

You've got to be on for so much of that time. It's absolutely brutal. And also you've got this pure thing there. I've got this perfect thing and I can't convince it that wouldn't it be fun if we just laid down on my back if I was just on my back and like can we what if we

Cooper listen to me focus what if we put your hands in really cold water for a little bit and then put your hands on daddy's head wouldn't could we could we call this a game could this be something that we do sometimes when I would play with my kids and I was a little hungover

I would, and we play pretend, I would die so fast in those games. Hell yeah. And then be dead for as long as I could. I would just lay on the floor dead. And they'll come up and they'll poke at you and stuff like that. But I'm willing to tolerate that as long as I get to be lying down and maybe like, I'll sneak in a wink. Maybe I might even accidentally fall asleep for a second. Man, it's going to be a game changer when he's old enough to like play surgery, play doctor.

And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. We're going to put a bunch of toys. on me and then you're going to like pretend to cut me open and take the toys out and they'll squeak. This is going to be a great game. As soon as you're old enough to do that, I'm going to call it the fellas and we're going to have a fucking night and then we're going to play doctor all day the next day and it's going to be great. They don't do it. It's never going to happen by the way. I mean, I know you're looking forward to that day, but it doesn't happen that way. There's like, you play the surgery game and there's going to be something about it that they don't

like and they're like they want to keep setting up and they want to keep resetting up and then you're going to have to get up over and over again from lying down. And you're going to be like, we could just be doing this already. Like, let's just live with it. Live with it. And let's just play the game. My kids, we, this is maybe, this is pretty personal, but we will paint them at night. We get paintbrush and they like, we say, where do you want to be painted?

And they say they're back or they say their face or their legs or whatever. And then our job is to paint them. And if you were to just scratch them with a paintbrush, that doesn't fucking fly. here Dan, not in this house. They're like, what are you painting? And you have to be like, I'm doing a garden and it's got strawberries in it. Or I'm doing the leaning tower of Pisa. Or you have to be doing something.

And they can feel the difference. They know when you're actually like working at something because I've tried to fake it. And then occasionally my son who's very, like, he's the best of us. He's so kind. He'll be like, do you want me to scratch you tonight? And I'm like, yes, please. Because when you get to bedtime, you've just dragged them across the finish line. and so I'll sit there and

he can't begin he can't start it's like a movie he's just like he will he'll do like a little bit and he'll be like I don't want to do that anyone anymore and I'm like that's fine do a different do a different drawing and he's like

you feel just a dab on your back he's like I got to get my colors and he's got to get all his imaginary color like it will never start it will never be what you want it to be and you and that's just playing pretend with your children the rest of your life

life. So I guess that's the lesson I've never learned because I keep doing it thinking maybe they're old enough. Maybe they're old enough that this will happen. One day, they'll be old enough and you'll be sad because that is also a lesson that that I am learning, too, right this very moment with the baby. And we're going to get, you know, it's all very sappy and emotional now. The listeners, I'm sorry, the party portion of this podcast is over.

We're in the fatherhood part again. where I was just idly dwelling the other day on all of the things that we thought were forever about our son that are just over now. All these things that let us, it's certainly for new parents, when you're discovering everything for the first time, it's, I think, an easy trap to fall into, to be like,

this is the kind of baby we have. Like in the beginning, you, you couldn't put him down. He, he was a Velcro baby, as they say on, on Instagram. And that was our struggle in the beginning was, it was, it was so, he's so great. He's so, so cute and perfect and little. Uh, it would just be, you know, we, he wakes up when you put him in the bassinet and we're trying to get him to nap during the day and we can get him to sleep. But he always needs to be in one of our sets of arms at all times. And I was just like, this is the baby we have. We have the Velcro baby that can't be put down. And that's over. And it's been over. And it's little things like that where it's like, this is, you know, he, these are his sleep patterns. These are the things that make him happy. These are

the things that that make him unhappy. And I've, uh, I, I, I've, I've closed the file on Cooper because I understand him now. And that all changes. He's sleeping to the night now. Like, like, everything that was just like that felt like this is going to be the rest of my life is already different and like generally good but still like like surprising ways yeah yeah that's having children that are older now i can go back and look at videos of them that i took when they were really young and that's a different person that's not the kid that i have that and they know it like they love they're fascinated to go see who they used to be and the most, the darkest part of me would say at every single stage, you, that child dies and then you get a new one and you would never have that one again.

But I think a more generous interpretation would be that one leaves. That one leaves without saying goodbye and then you have a new one. And the thing is like you do, there are some hallmarks that stay the same. So you do know that's the same kid. But and you're, as you're going, each stage is even is fun and new and has something that is really. really, really fun that you didn't have before. And they lock new achievements and everything and they can do new things with you. But yeah, I look back on these videos and I'm like, I'll never see that kid again.

Yeah. I'll never see that little baby. With him mostly sleeping through the night now, that's the latest we got a brand new baby feeling. Where it's like we had struggled before sleep training where he would just cry and we would do the thing that you're not supposed to do, which is, which is co-kewarm. sleep even though our our pediatrician was like i'm not supposed to say this co-sleep everybody every single person does it we were doing that and like really had it in our heads that this is we are we are going to have a baby that co-sleeps forever he's going to sleep with us until he's three years old and he's going to be weird at school because of it and and and it was like

the thing i talked about to a lot of the other parents in my life and all these parents who were just like they get over that sleep training like and like some of them seem to not even remember what they did for sleep training and it's like how can that be possible all i do is read about it and all these different methods and all and because we're not sleeping when he's sleeping in the bed with us and we're not sleeping through the night it's all i think about it's it's affecting everything else in my life this lack of sleep how is this not like a core memory for you and then in like three days it was over. Three days of sleep training. And now he's mostly sleeping through the night. And it was like, I had, I had told the world that I had an amazing baby that doesn't need to

sleep and is awake all the time. And now I don't. And I, like, I have a different baby now. And it's fucking crazy. And like, I'll go into their rooms. I'll say, still sleep in the same bedroom. This is like, we're almost at the end of this where this will be allowed for them because they're sick of each other. And I'll go in the... there and I'll see them both asleep. And first of all, there's nothing better than your child asleep because they need things when they're awake. And they're like, it's very hard to step back and look at the whole picture of like where they sit in your own historical context and everything and be like, ah, I can appreciate all of this now when they're awake. But when they're asleep,

you can really get a good eyeful of like how they fit in with everything. And so you spend a lot of time being nostalgic for them and everything and trying to grasp that moment where you see your child where you can hold their foot in your hand. And I'll just go in there and look at them and really try. Really try to get down in there again. And I can't do it. It's just like everything has become, I'm sowing the weeds on like where what this will mean, what I will remember and what I'll be interested in remembering later on about

them. You never know what it's going to be. So I just sit there and look at them for a little while and I'm like, what am I doing? Just go to bed. I almost violated a cardinal law this morning because I got up a little before six

because believe it or not, so I'm not feeling well. I think I've got this sickness that I've had for three months. And I was up early. My wife was still asleep and the baby was still asleep. And even with sleep training,

he would sometimes get up around 545 and we'd be like, all right, let's bring him in and let's like, because morning time is so fun. The three of us in bed. It's just precious and great. At six, he was still asleep. Everyone was asleep but me. And I was like, looking around now at 620, now at 6.30. And I'm like, I'm going to wake him up. I want to wake him up and play with him. I'm not getting any attention. I'm so bored. Don't like my phone anymore. I want to go get him. Did you do it?

I didn't get them. Okay. I did not. That's good. Because also they're, I just like loudly cough in the room until it wakes him up. Would children wake up but not of their own volition? They're not the children you want them to be. There you get a really new child every single time. But the fact that you're sick all the time right now, I know, I remember that feeling.

I remember thinking when, especially when Gilly had gone to daycare because now we had two kids out in the world that were collecting things and bringing them home and giving them to us. I thought of it as like if I just had a wet towel. that I would go drag through the subway and like down the stairs of the subway on the platform inside the car just dragging it over the seats and then I would bring it home each day and just put my face in it like that's what having a child a child in daycare is it's crazy the the regularity of it and and the consistency and like the reliability of it it was a few weeks ago that I was holding him up and playing with him. And he drooled directly into my mouth. And the incident happened, I said, I'm sick. Yeah. And two hours later, like, like bad writing, my throat

started to hurt. And I was like, this is from the spit from earlier. This is like, no sickness has ever spread this quickly. But it was like, uh, there's patient zero spitting into my mouth. Yep, this is it. Okay. I'm sick now. Honey, I'm sick. Sleeping on the couch. I'll be down with the TV. When they get the norovirus or any sort of vomit sickness and you're taking care of them, there's a lot of cleaning up vomit along the way. Also, like a lot of just cuddling them and making sure that they feel okay because they don't,

man, they do not understand throwing up. And it's horrifying to them. And it's not something you can explain first. You can't be like, I'm going to sit you down and just talk to you about the fact that this is going to happen someday. You're going to start choking to death on stuff from your insides. And it's going to feel awful. So do you remember last Friday when your father left with what they ironically, but it stuck, call themselves the pussy boys? And then he came home and was screaming at the toilet for a while.

It's like that. You get over it. They don't under, yeah, they don't know what vomiting is. And it feels like something you should have to tell your kids because they're so startled when it happens. And you can see it's just, they're horrified. And when they're doing it, you're just thinking, oh, I'm about to get this. This thing that I'm like, I'm cleaning all this up. I have to be so close to them.

I have to be touching them. As much as you can like try and wash your hands in the meantime in between, they've got it in their hair. They've got it everywhere. And you just know this is coming down the pike for me as well. I'm going to try and get you better as soon as possible so that I don't have to take care of you while I'm also in the same boat. it's such a it's we haven't had any throw up yet i think we're we're we're pretty far away from that but the the amount of mess just from introducing solids yeah is is is is getting real and we're feeding them breakfast in the morning and then i take him to daycare and then i go to the gym and i

leave i leave the house thing like he is clean i am clean the house is clean i get to the gym i'm covered in yogurt i get home the floor that i cleaned is covered in yogurt and it was like this is what do we do when it's not yogurt what's what's gonna happen there was a point when Colleen had to go away on a trip and I was with the kids alone and they both of them were just like had a cold but it was a manageable cold and I was like we're gonna fucking beat this I guess it's gonna work and then all of a sudden my cat just started producing like this clear liquid from her her bat from her ass that like

it was everywhere she sat down and I was like I'm not enough person to deal with all of this like I'm just like shutting doors because I'm like we can't live in that room anymore because I don't have time to clean that and I it's going to get into the carpet and everything and then we just can't use that ever again and then

during this time she's shit in the middle of my son's bed just like I don't know if she was she'd probably been sleeping there for comfort and then had gotten up and couldn't make it anywhere and just shit this diary of shit in the middle of my son's And I was like, I'm out of options. I don't know what to do with this because I don't have the time that's going to take me to clean that is going to be about 45 minutes. And I don't have that right now.

I'm following her around trying to clean up this visceral liquid. And then also take care of my children who are both complaining that their throats hurt. Yeah. I have certainly thought about that with Jackson, who is good right now. but he's 14 years old, and I take him to the vet, and we're at the stage now where the vet is not even recommending, like, normal things. I'm like, his Bortatella vaccine is due, and she's like, you know, if he's not going to the kennel, he's not going to be around other dogs,

I wouldn't recommend giving him this because it's a risk. And I'm like, okay, also his breath stinks. could do anything about that. She's like, no. The dignity of aging, man. Yeah, he's just at that age, really, where we're not taking any risk with him. He's still good right now,

but I am thinking, like, if he gets, the house works at the moment because he's not a problem. Yeah. And if that changes, and I can't, like, give him to someone else to. watch for a while. You know, it's not like, hey, we need, if he was healthy, sure. It's like, mom, dad, we need, we need like a week because the baby is sick. So will you take Jackson? But it might be like, hey, will you take this shitting, bleeding dog that requires forceful

medication a few times a day? You're going to have to express his anal gland twice a day. If you could just do that while you have him, that would be great. Well, Dan, during all this time, I thought about your answer, an answer to your question of what I was. Good. I. the lesson I have to keep learning. And it's injuries, trying to come back from injuries too early. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. We are 40s.

Because you worked so hard. You worked so hard to maintain what you think is who you are, the person you are physically. And when you run into an injury, like tendonitis or sprain or something like that, you're like, but then I won't be me anymore. Your doctor will be like, you just got to take a month off. And you're like, a month?

Are you fucking kidding me? I'm not going to be me for a month. And then I got to start over because if I take a month off, I'm going to lose it all. And I don't just mean like aesthetically. I mean, you take a month off from running and you go back to running. It's the worst day of your life. It's the worst week of your life trying to start up running again. And so you've built the pattern.

And now you're not allowed to do the pattern anymore. So you're going to have to reset it. it. And so I always cheat. I'm always like, well, surely three days is enough. And then three days is not enough. I'm like, well, a week. I will give it a week. And then you get done with a week. And you're like, there's never been so much time that someone has sat out from an injury. And then you try to do something and immediately you feel it again. You're like, how? How is this possible? Especially at our age where like a week of not running is very noticeable. Yeah.

It's like I can see the physical toll that it takes on me. And it's like, I can't. We can't. I know the doctor said a month, but like I surely because I rested so hard, a week of resting my way is like a month for a normal person. I get tendinitis in my elbows from lifting. And I get it like once a year. And I always do the same fucking thing where I start to feel it because tendonitis is an overuse problem. And so as soon as I start to feel it, I'm like, oh,

okay, I'm going to be smart about it this time. I'm going to just take some time off and heal it now because if I don't, if I keep doing it, I'm going to deal with this for six months. And I'm like, all right, I'm just going to take the time. I'm going to go real light on it. Yeah.

And I never do. I like, I'll go late and I'm like, I'm not getting anything out of this. I wonder if I could just cheat it up a little bit. I wonder if I could go a little heavier. And then do. And I'm like, well, it hurts a little, but it doesn't hurt that bad. And that's tendonitis. Like, that's what fucking tenonitis is.

And so I started to, take a break recently. It's out on script. And during that time, I was like, these two weeks, I'm not going to lift. And I'm going to try and nip this fucking thing in the bud that I've got in my left arm. I did, then came back, and it wasn't fixed, and I was angry, and then lifted,

but not hard. And now I've got it in both arms. I'm like, I never learned. I never learned. We had a home gym growing up and my dad had like post-it notes inspirational things that he would write for himself and us when we were up there doing stuff even though I wasn't really serious about working out and one that

stuck with me was uh if I miss one day I will know it if I miss a week my opponent will know it if I miss a month the crowd will know it and that's just like a cool thing yeah but now it's great in my 40s I'm just like no it's all one day if you miss a day. There's no subtlety anymore. This is a machine that requires constant maintenance. Constant. We've a coworker who my youngest co-worker who I think just turned 30 or 31 the other day in Slack was like, hey, I have a 30s question. My neck hurts. What do I, what do you do for a hurt neck? it's not getting better. And everyone had like,

including me, we all had our like, yeah, Bengay is going to feel good, but it's not curative. It's not going to make you better. Like the icy hot kind of thing. Chiropractors are quacks.

Stretches you could do. See an occupational therapist. See a physical therapist. Rest. Heat and ice. Heat will feel better, but ice actually is better. These,

here are a couple of stretches you could do. And once everyone had like thrown out their advice, I also added And by the way If you went to a doctor And explain this They would just say Yeah that's life now

This is like The most 30s answer You're gonna get is yes Just you You hurt now You hurt now Doing things you shouldn't be doing You hurt now doing things

You should be doing You just hurt now The stuff that you used to do hurts And it hurts for a long time And it's that way forever I've when I brush my teeth, I,

when I brush the tongue, I gag, because I, my, my, my tongue is like, don't do that. But if I,

if I'm gagged, well, I'm like hunched over the sink, that's like a full body motion. Yeah. And I've just about thrown my back out, just brushing my teeth. Oh my God.

If I sneeze on the toilet, I'm fucking wrecked. You're done for it. That's a hernia. So I, and the thing is, if, if I didn't,

have injuries and there was no threat of injury as hard as I would in work lifting or working out or running I would be going harder I would just be like you once you get in the mentality you're like I could do more I could do more and so you would do more but you especially at a certain age doing more is there's a net there's like a negative effect afterwards and so you have to really find that balance and that sucks because then you're also not as strong as you want to you have to kind of take it easy a little bit. And so you're just, your ceiling is lower all of a sudden.

And you're like, well, surely that's not true. And then you start again, you're like, well, I have been working out a lot lately. I think all my joints are very strong. I'm going to push it. I'm going to go a little further. And as soon as you do it, you're like, yeah, I shouldn't have fucking done that. No. I fucked up.

And still, again, you're going to get hurt even if you're not pushing that hard. The last time I hurt my neck and I was telling my brother about it because he's an occupational therapist. and he was like running or lifting and I was like fucking changing lanes I looking too over my shoulder too hard yeah I know that feeling

I did that on my bike even when I worked at cracked I was like I tried to look too quickly over my shoulder the rest of the day was done yeah well that's gotta wrap up this episode that'll be it

it's certainly gotta we got some stuff in the beginning. We don't know how long we've been recording folks. We had a whole episode plan and we had to scrap it and we made this up on the fly. Can you tell? I think the amount of work that I put into it is the same amount that I usually do. Will that be reflected in the time? Who could say?

But if you keep making me talk at this point. It's diminishing returns. Thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode and watching this episode if you did that instead on YouTube. Because you can. If you like the theme song, that's by Me Rex. If you like this podcast in general, and you're really excited about it. That's all McKenzie Mazzel. She puts it together.

She's got a podcast of her own called Don't Make It Worse. And if you want more of us, you can find it on Patreon. We have a little extra, little extra bonus we do every other week where we talk some more to each other. And you can pay for that. Goodbye. Bye. I've got a quick, quick question for you. 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 can talk tonight. So what's your favorite? How do you get? When do I be? Remember? What's it out of?

Where do you be, Daniel O'Brien? Dear best friends and comedy, right? If there's an answer, they're going to find it. I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time