Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Would You Rahther?

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Soren "Milton Bradley" Bowie guides friend, co-host, and America's Sweetest Baby Daniel O'Brien, through a round of a custom built game of Would you rather-- ahem, Would you rrahhthhherr- specifically designed with Daniel in mind.We know you will also take this seriously and have thoughtful answers. We'd love to hear them. You can write them in the comments below, on instagram at www.instagram.com/qqsorenanddaniel, or on Patreon, where we're putting out a new bonus episode every other Friday, at www.patreon.com/quickquestionThanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at www.shopify.com/qq.

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 movies go? 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. of that podcast senior writer for last week tonight with john oliver author of how to fight presidents and celebrating nope nothing to celebrate no third thing daniel o'brien joined us always by my co-host mr soren buoy soren say hello hey everybody i'm soren buoy i'm a writer for american dad i have not written any books except a part of a cracked one really not much of it and uh celebrator of my daughter's birthday so maybe that's what you're thinking of when was that yeah uh last week it's turn four congratulations to that i was gonna uh do a little celebration of the we just hit the episode 300 of

last week tonight a few days ago as of this recording. And as it was about to come out of my mouth, I realized that there's got to be triple that in American Dad episodes. How many... Do you know what you're at right now? A number of episodes. We are closing in on 400.

Oh, okay. In my head, that would be so much more no uh because we do 22 a season and then we've been on for like 19 seasons so uh i don't i don't know math but i know that it's always a big deal when we we we do over a hundred and then a hundred more than like every every centennial mark is like big deal yeah thanks to shopify for supporting quick question shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere giving entrepreneurs like myself the resources once reserved for big business sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at shopify.com slash qq all lowercase i think we got we got little fun branded coffee mugs.

I can show you. Yeah. For episode 250, I think it was. This is the void from our void episodes. And none of the writers, as far as as i know keep track of this kind of information but some of them were in the office on saturday for rehearsal and taping and there were a bunch of there was like some swag for that that we just sort of found out in a very off-handed like in slack someone saying like oh by the way congrats on 300 they gave us

hi joe flasks we're like oh okay good this is the right way that this information should have reached us that's that's i don't think that that's atypical for shows like for whatever reason communication is really poor on shows and so and i also i don't even expect uh like john to keep tabs of how many episodes there are, because that's just not a thing that warrants any space in the brain while you're making a show. I don't think we were ever truly aware, when we were making After Hours, how many episodes we had done, or how many... I mean, we did it for 10 years, so we can easily figure out that math,

but no one was ever, like, looking around and being like, Hey, it's episode 50, we can easily figure out that math but no one was ever like looking around being like hey it's episode 50 we should do something special yeah that's true we anniversaries in general have never really meant much to me my poor wife too yeah like it and the birthdays i'm into it like birthdays i get it i get that you get a day where you celebrate you but like shared days of celebration of like hey we all did this thing on this day it means as little to me as like hey uh jackie robinson hit this ball like this is a really important ball like i'm like oh okay that's just a just a baseball man yeah anniversaries i don't think this was around as much when we were kids but pop culture anniversaries seem like they get brought up more and more often uh in ways that i don't totally

understand what we're doing but it's it's uh just watching the today show was like it's been 20 years since the friends finale and it's like all right and what yeah i mean i know what are we doing with this information or like 25 years since that thing you do came out here's an interview with some of the guys who made it like yeah what it feels like the foothold happened when people were like oh we're almost to the day that showed up in that movie like yeah when a movie takes place in the future and we get there and you're like oh well this is kind of fun or when where the delorean set its clock to like where it was going to go that that kind of stuff is at least interesting because then you're like okay well what do we have like what were they right about let's let's all

let's take a look but you can do that kind of compare and contrast what they thought the future was like versus what we actually have but i think just the the blanket celebration of like uh 10 15 20 25 30 milestones for just like a thing having existed is is a little perplexing to me that was like it was 30 years ago today that this person said this thing on that tv show it's like i and and tomorrow will be 30 years from another thing i don't know what we're doing you will have you'll never run out of this maybe that's what it is maybe it's just it's the pop culture websites who are just like uh okay guess what this is gonna be it's it's josie and the pussycats week here at the av club because it's the 17th anniversary of josie and the pussycats week here at the av club because it's the 17th anniversary of josie and the pussycats or whatever but if you're not doing yeah i agree with you you're

not doing anything with that information it's it's pointless this is pointless having like hey it's donut day today you're like okay man there's like you know what it's also chicken day i found out that there's lots of days all at the same time and but there's a there's another podcast called uh not past it Have you heard of this? No. It's really good. Not Past It. I think my, it's a, but it's past is spelled P-A-S-T.

And the host takes a date from the past and says like on this day, like Barbie was invented. And then you do this huge deep dive into what Barbie was and how it was invented. Or like the Menendez brother trial started. And then like you find a lot of stuff. Oh, this podcast is all across the map. It's every, yeah. Like they're also never going to run out of ones that they can pick. But with the hard aspect of it is like trying to identify what that means for today. And like these other people are not beholden to that they're

just like friends existed remember right but like she's trying to do this thing where she's like okay so it existed and then it led on this long journey to where we are today and now you know why we have what we have today yeah it's entertainment weekly marking the anniversary that niles first kiss daphne is the same energy as the kid in middle school the day before new year's eve where they're like hey hey tomorrow is gonna be next year all right and everyone else just like go find a corner to hide in we're not interested in this and you're i'll see you next year think is clever math yeah that's my that's my children right now my son is at that age where he was so pumped on new year's to be like at night saying good night and in fact like talking it up that he was gonna do it like the rest of that

whole day he was like tonight when i'm going to bed and he's telling me this with like his two giant front teeth and no other teeth he's like tonight when i go to bed i'm gonna um um dad hey dad yeah i'm still listening i'm gonna say i'm gonna say um see you next month no wait no oh i know what we're doing just get to it i've gotten to the point i don't know if this is cruel or if this is good advice for him but like he'll be telling me a story and i'll stop him in the middle and be like hey think about what you want to say to me and and how you can most clearly get it across and then say it and i will and i'm happy to give you all my attention but until, this is unfair. It's unfair of you to ask me to just sit here and listen to you say my name over and over again while you think.

Ronan, that's some free writing advice from a guy who knows. From a guy who's been there. A guy who had his own column and was allowed to write way too much. a guy who had his own column and was allowed to write way too much and then learned how to how to be more streamlined because no one was reading can i tell you something else that came up uh in this conversation that we're having currently so you're talking about that podcast say the name one more time not past it not past it yeah and then you spelled it out for me and the listener um that is always a crapshoot for me if i if i like he walked past the store and continued walking to the tree

that is something that i never knew and never know and for a while i would if i was writing it in a way that someone would see it later i would google pass versus pass which one do i mean enough times that like google would auto-correct as soon as i put the letter p in because that's how frequently i made this mistake but now i'm out the other side of it where i'm gonna take my shot send it off close the laptop i don't care it could be wrong it could be right it's not it's frankly doesn't none of my business you know you know what i mean yeah that's uh i yeah i i feel that same way about lay and lie and this be like it's there's some genuine trauma on our show with lay and lie because we our showrunner is so like he knows it he knows it backwards and forwards and hates it when other people get it wrong and like i'm sympathetic to that further farther i'm with it

like i get really upset when people don't get further farther right because i'm like it's so easy it's so easy yeah like farther is distance further is conceptual like uh and when he when lay a lie comes up like he'll stop the whole room if it's wrong in a script like if we're doing a rewrite and he will punish you like he'll like yeah he'll make it really presentational he'll make the the the writer's assistant change it and like but it'll quiet everyone down first to make sure that everyone sees it happen and then yeah and then he just sits there in silence for a while while he just like stares at the screen and he goes yeah yeah no that's right that's right the energy that i i want to have so i had a co-worker years ago this was back when we were still in the physical room uh and we're writing jokes together in a shared document and he had

written something where the joke involved a venn diagram like saying out loud venn diagram and he had written it venn diagram v-i-n and i in like our shared messaging thing was like hey uh just heads up you wrote venn diagram and then he replied to me yes and and like this was this was all the public information and i i was still new that i just sat there i was just like okay uh you don't want to step on any toes so don't say another word and then two other writers privately messaged me and they were like you've stumbled on our favorite thing in the world he thinks it's Vin and he's never investigated it and we just let him do it and it's very every bit of this is funny to me it's

funny that the writers let him do this and they think it's funny. It's also funny that I thought I was having a conversation where I was trying to correct someone's spelling. He thought we were having a conversation where I said, hey, you said Venn diagram. And he responded, yes. He thought that's what the conversation should have been because I'm new and was just like, Hey, buddy, so you wrote a fun word. He's like, yes, I did. Welcome to the team.

I was like, is it, is this going to be a Vin Diesel joke? Like, is this like, is Dan just missed it? No. He just decided it was Vin. And that's the confidence that I want when I'm, because I don't have the time to look up words anymore. They're just like, yep i spelled it past the the way i spelled it it's so if you if you want to look me in the eye and tell me you don't know what i mean then you can get the fuck out of this writer's room it's so less endearing than when somebody gets something wrong because

they've only ever seen it written and they pronounce it wrong like going the opposite direction like people who only have ever heard a word trying to write it is like i've so i like it's like a moral failing but the other direction i'm like charmed by it i'm like oh yeah buddy you've read so many books but you've never talked to a human you're so thoughtful and lonely um okay dan should we do our show today yeah let's do it I have something that I want to do for you oh this is a I mean I'm sure this gets played

all over the place do you remember have you ever played would you rather yeah we pronounce it like not assholes but yeah we played would you rather you know what this is one of your words that that I don't know if you know Not assholes, but yeah, we played Would You Rather. Oh, man. You know what? Do you hear how you're...

This is one of your words that I don't know if you know how you sound. It's just occurring to me now. Like toilet and twilight, how those words are very close when you say them. Twilight. Yeah. You've worked on that for about 15 years thank you i just want acknowledgement that i worked on um okay but it rolled off my tongue just now it sounded really good would you so there are certain words that in the wrong context or i guess any a different context

i pronounce different i'm realizing like this came up with route and route the other day which was a real mind bender for me that like i that i'm clearly a moving target where like if it's if it's a if it's like we're on a we're driving we're on a route yeah but like i have a router at my house like it's gonna route the internet to different places like i pronounce it differently and this rather this feels like a this feels yeah rather is how we all pronounce it that's how i pronounce it except when i say would you rather yeah okay good so you do understand that it's different it sounds like when they first started it's like i'm doing like a billy joe from green day english accent yeah it's it's it's almost english it's kind of like when they first started doing talkies

and people were like, oh, how do we think fancy people are supposed to sound? You are rather beautiful, my darling. It's my mid-Atlantic accent. Fake mid-Atlantic, yeah. Yeah, let's play the game. Do you want to play Would You Rather? Would you thrill me more?

Okay, so I've created... Do you want to play Would You Rather? Would you thrill me more? Okay. So I've created... I don't know that anyone's done it this way. I've created a number of Would You Rathers for you that I think are... These are like custom made for you. For me? Yes.

America's Sweetest Baby? America's Sweetheart. And maybe you'll even understand why each one of these is for you but i i made these specifically so that you could answer them i don't think that they mean as much to anyone else i'm gonna start okay yeah i'm just i mean you have to start i can't there's number one let me explain how the game works you're gonna pick it up if you don't know okay daniel would you rather sweat an odorless but usable gasoline or once a day you can turn anything into a cow anything you like human i mean animal alive anything inanimate does it into a living cow return to non-cow form at the end of at midnight yes it does yes um but the the sweating never turns off. Or is it... Okay, question about sweating. Am I...

Would I... Do the normal rules of sweating apply? Meaning, I sweat when I'm running, I sweat when I'm at the gym, I sweat when I'm nervous or when I want to sweat on purpose. Those two categories. Like, can't control it because I'm sweating

because I'm nervous. Or I have put myself in a position to sweat. It's not a situation where it's me going through puberty and i sweat for no reason uncontrollably all the time you sweat exactly as much as you sweat like right now but you're sweating this it's odorless but it's a usable form of gasoline that like you could use just a few drops you could you could probably get a car like a mile on okay so it's pretty potent that's that's a that's a pretty easy unless you can uh unless you can resort to some beanstalk tactics and really sell me on this cow i think i gotta go with the endless supply of free gasoline do you have is

this one of those schemes where there is like a trick behind it because no where you'll reveal like the gasoline gives you a rash like in like you're not holding back any other information what would you think about the things that you might turn into a cow for a day like let's say you could it doesn't have to be like nearby you you can be anywhere so you could like be watching the news and you can watch and you see that during a trial trump is like shitting on the judge as as he's as he's want to do in the middle of the trial and you'd be like sure i think he should spend a day as a cow and you could just turn him into a cow for a day or anything in your life anybody who's annoying to you you can turn them into a cow for a day right i think um so my reasons for the

gasoline sweat thing is very similar to uh my my general thoughts about questions on what super power you would rather have, which we may or may not have covered in After Hours. And I think my, whether or not I gave it to someone as their argument in the show, my default argument is a power that is very useful to me and incredibly easy to conceal because we're living in the real world so suddenly someone catches me flying uh that's a problem or or if they catch me invisible i guess invisible would be a fine one but any of the like like super strength any of the things that someone could see and clock as magical is bad news to me because if we're playing in the real world the person who flies is now

either a threat or a science experiment to be dissected or both and uh i'm not trying to get any of that attention or smoke so if i even if there's no way to trace me turning former president trump into a cow in the middle of one of his many trials on hush money or campaign fraud, you know, picket poison. Even if someone couldn't trace that to me, it changes the rules for the whole world in a way that I would personally find very disruptive. find very disruptive. I want to have powers and like still continue about my day generally and live my life the way I want to. If I if I'm suddenly turning a stalled car into a cow just so I can moment just that day get to my destination faster and weave through traffic things are different they might close the

movie theaters until we figure out why cows are suddenly appearing and they might you know we might all lose our jobs because like listen all hands on deck we're clearly being attacked by someone who has magic technology that turns things into cows so uh to that effort you're all either drafted or you're all rounded up until someone has any information that can give us an answer on this and at that point uh my whole life and world is disrupted and i have to worry about like what if i turn president trump former president trump into a cow in the middle of this trial and then and everyone has a big laugh about it and it's such a weird thing and then two days later president biden comes on and he's like we've we've we found it this is my biden impression we found

it we found out the the cause of the cow thing it was vladimir putin and that's why we're going to bomb russia then i'd be like oh no then you turn vladimir putin into a cow right yeah that's i mean that's certainly it can't be the only lever i can pull really well here the the issue i'm going to bring up to you is that you have a lot of responsibility with the gasoline thing i do because now you've got a a sustainable source of gasoline. That is for me and for my fiance and no one else. I'm not even I'm not bringing in my family on this because I'm not

about to turn into a treadmill of endless power for people I care about. Right. Are you just going to be milked all day long? You sit on a treadmill getting milked all day long. And also is this a genetic thing so when you have children are they gonna have it as well and how do you prep them for something like that and how do you know that they're not gonna do the altruistic thing because that would ruin their life i don't think i would

raise them to do the altruistic thing i think i i am pretty i know what i want out of them all right all right then that one's settled i'm gonna give you a different one do you answer in these or is this some yeah sure i'll answer i'm taking the cow thing explain to me i don't think i could live with um knowing that i am like already i'm racked with guilt about global warming pretty Yeah. Pretty much every conceivable turn. And knowing that I had this other solution that would like help claw back some of it and I wasn't using it at all, I think would be really, it would be really tough for me to sleep. Do you not recognize the hypocrisy? Like, did you, is this like beautifully set up by you?

hypocrisy like did you is this like beautifully set up by you these the the two sides of this coin because cows produce so much methane gas that is bad for our environment you are making you're putting more cows out there even if it's just for a day you're increasing very quickly the number of cows anytime you feel like it uh by one by one for a day it's a it's a minuscule amount by one okay so it's a very minuscule amount i will say on the it is designed that way because the opposite side is you're producing a very minimal amount of this gasoline as well it's like whether you would use something completely selfishly which is like as this cow thing where no one's going to trace it back to you and it is too chaotic it's disruptive but it's like very very fun or this other thing that's like you could do the right thing with this or you could be very selfish with it but it's like if you are selfish with it i don't know that i could continue to live that way

i think that eventually i'd have to be like like every single time that i find out something like some catastrophic event because of our independence i would be like fuck fuck fuck fuck every time i see a picture of a polar bear floating on an ice cap i don't bring polar bears into this i'm just it's my shorthand it's like that's the shortcut to i i feel bad about global warming but i i would have a very hard time with not sharing that with the world and then doing what i could to give it to other people sure whereas the cow thing is only disruptive it's only like that's something i have to keep secret or i'm dead and yeah it and all and just like i love fantasizing about all the different ways i could even use it when you said that like there's a

stalled car or there's like something in the way while i'm trying to get to work you turn into a cow to get it over i'm like yeah like anytime i've had to like lift something like bring something into my house that's way too heavy or like i just it doesn't fit right or whatever i'm like oh fuck i should turn that into a cow and i'll bring it in like i'll wait till like the very end of the day and then i'll bring it in it'll turn right back into what i want it to be um there's all kinds of things that like little selfish reasons i would want to be able to turn anything in the world for one day into a cow i think i would i the the greatest use of Cal for me, I think, would be a day of incredibly high stress. We're in the middle of wedding planning, so there's no shortage of those.

But there have been plenty of other days where I was very stressed and it was a work thing or it was a COVID thing or riots on on on the the capital that i was gonna be late for and all those times where i'm just like incredibly stressed and the when it reaches a point in your brain where it's like i can't wait i wish it was sleep time now so i could be asleep and not have to think about any of those things that's a day that i would self cow as self-care and just like go somewhere like there was so much going on i'm just gonna be a and i would hear my i would hear my wonderful fiancee be like don't cow don't cow don't cow yeah and like i'm going to a field like i'm done i'm just i you i you talk to the florist i'm cow today and that's it that's all there is to it yeah it is a really nice way to escape to just be a cow for a day i mean also, if you're ever in a situation where you are stuck in the wilderness,

you're a hatchet situation, I mean, you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine if you can turn trees into cows. And, like, if I'm being chased by someone, not that I have a life where I get chased a lot, that's really handy. Just be like, oh, I really pissed off that cop. Moo. And then I'm just moo. Yeah. You have somebody that's, that's dangerous.

I mean, even if there's somebody like say pointing a gun at you, you don't turn them into a cow. You turn that gun into a cow. Yeah. Like imagine the fun chaos that ensues. Like there's just so much fun to be had. But, or if someone's got a gun pointed at me with my powers, I'm like, buddy, I'm so nervous with guns.

Hang out a second. I got your ticket home. Oh. Dripping out of my pores. That's something we didn't also talk about is that you have an odorless form of gasoline, but in all other ways, it's the same as gasoline, which means that you are incredibly flammable. This is what I'm fucking talking about when I say, are you hiding any secrets from me? Well, I just decided that. Just now.

Mephistophelian, Faustian aspects of this bargain. I didn't. But unless, as the devil makes those deals afterwards, he's going, oh, you know, it'd be fun as if I did this little detail. That's the only way that's the same. Let me give you a different one. You ready? Wait, no.

Speaking of the devil do you hey quick question do you think this would be a fun like uh like 2009 funny or die video if uh it's the devil went down to georgia that whole music video for that whole song and then we added a third verse that or like a final verse that was the devil just being like i'm just kidding i'm the devil you're coming to hell with me i don't actually follow any of these rules i think that would be great you think it'd be fun i think yeah it'd be like you win this fiddle uh but also i'm taking you to hell right all right i'll reach out to chris at funny or die and see

is there really even somebody how did i name chris now or did you just oh there was yeah oh now i have no idea i think i i think funny or die is just like most websites a commercial for hair products now perfect let's be honest when you have the idea for a business it usually starts as some new product or an idea that you think, oh, the world would like this. You're not thinking about all of the business logistics that go along with that. And why should you? That's not how your brain works. You're an idea man or lady.

You're an idea boy and girl. No, you want to get to the brass tacks of what you want to build, what you want to contribute to the brass tacks of what you want to build, what you want to contribute to the world before you shed this mortal coil. You don't want to have to think about how am I going to give health insurance to my employees? Think about your favorite comedy duos. Gut, Key and Peele, right? Maybe Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Abbott and Costello. I know we've got some old heads listening to this podcast. Maybe it's Soren and Daniel. I don't know. I don't want to judge. Maybe that's it. You know that all these people came down to starting their own business first, right? That they created

something. They created something that was marketable and then they built a business around it. Cha-ching! That's the sound of a Shopify new sale. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every single stage of your business. From the launch your own online shop stage to the first real-life store stage, all the way to the did-we-just-hit-a-million-orders, a dinner-a-bang stage, Shopify is there to help you grow. Whether you're selling scented soap or you're offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. From their all-in-one e-commerce platform to their in-person POS system, wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. Plus, Shopify's extensive help resources

are there to support you and your success every step of the way. You are not in this alone. It's not like you just buy this thing and then you have to figure it out. They are going to hold your hand through it because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash QQ, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash QQ now and grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash QQ. stage you're in shopify.com slash qq cha-ching okay daniel okay what's the next one would you rather speak spanish fluently or be able to talk to your dog for 24 hours only 24 hours yeah but he's gonna understand everything and you can understand everything he's got to say i i've assumed spanish fluently 100 i mean that is something that i have been actively losing money to at this point my pursuit of learning spanish has i just did duolingo before this so uh 642 days straight of duolingo and before that about a year and a half straight

of pimsleur that is so much time and money that i've spent trying to learn not to even mention the zoom class that I took and I'm not fluent yet and uh so I could get that money back and like I'm pursuing Spanish not as one of my pointless hobbies I want to know it and learn it because it would help me communicate in this world that we have better and uh would make me feel better and you can't put a price on on smugness so yeah easily learn spanish fluently and uh because as as much as there are so many things that i would like to say to my dog to explain my actions to and like let him know that everything i do is for his safety and also explain to him how time works which we've said before is like the the one lesson that i would love to to incept him with is the is an understanding of time um you do run the risk that he's as dumb as I suspect.

That's a problem. There's also the problem that because he's so small and dumb and confused, if we start communicating, he could just say things that make me too sad to have him in the world anymore there's a popular series of uh youtube videos where it's like we strapped a camera to my dog's head when i left for work and then the footage is just the dog like going to the window to look for their owner walking to the door to look for their owner going back to the window, looking for their owner everywhere, and just like sitting sadly, waiting for their person to come home.

And if I learned how to communicate with Jackson and he was immediately like, hey, just so you know, every time you go to sleep, I think you die. I mourn you every time I can't see you. And then you come back again. And even that joy gives me a minor heart attack.

I am always either so happy it hurts or so sad it hurts or so lonely without you that I really don't know how to be. And that's why sometimes I have accidents in the house. Like if it was a very sad thing, then I would just think this current relationship of man and dog was perhaps a mistake, and I should set him free or do some other drastic thing I'm not willing to consider. But yeah, the possibility that he is either a bad hang or a very depressing, it would be ethically unreasonable to continue this man-dog relationship.

I don't want that. He's a real wet blanket yeah jackson uh well i think that you would be able to rectify some of that in the talking with him like you would hear these things from him like saying that he thinks he died and you could be like ah common misconception among dogs let me tell you what's actually happening and he would be like oh okay and he would know that for the rest of his life i think i agree with you i think the spanish thing is what i would take rather than know if i could talk to my cat i don't think i i don't think i give a shit what my cat has to say i don't think any cat has ever had a good thought is that controversial i think i would like to i would there's certainly i have

questions for my cat like i'm like where are you where are you shitting because i don't know you're doing it somewhere out in the world and i don't know where but i could also be like hey you know those ritualistic sacrifices you've been doing under our house where you drag birds and lizards and uh other animals down there don't don't do that anymore we don't like it and we're feeding you so you don't have to do that anymore and it would be nice i might save some lives you know but yeah i still think i still think for very selfish reasons again i think spanish is like i the world would just be better if i could just speak some fucking Spanish really, really well. Like if I could just.

100%. If I'm not worried every time I travel to another country. If it doesn't take me a whole week to even think in the language. Yeah. I would feel so much better. I also watch those videos. I told you. I watch videos of celebrities speaking in their native tongue.

Yeah. Yeah. It's very cool. Every single time I'm like, oh, fuck. Yeah yeah i thought that person was born like scranton like there's no way this person is this person she's from brazil of course she's from brazil yeah she speaks portuguese so well um anyway i think spanish is the one i would take too i think so for sure i also i i would love to know your answer if you had a dog for 12 years as I have, because the cat thing is a real spoiler.

I think if someone could allow dogs to talk, we'd have a lot of fun conversations. And I think it would be one of those cases where you would stumble on like very simplistic sage Zen-like wisdom where you ask a dog how its day was and it's like i have food i have somewhere to sleep i have toys i have warmth yeah this is this is the world as far as i know what else could a being want and we'd be like so true let's let's change our minds about things and then you can give cats the ability to talk and they would say i think umbrellas should be the other way around and we're like we, we fucking thought about that, you stupid cat. That doesn't work. You're an idiot.

Every thought you had, someone had it first and they did it better. You're so far behind the rest of us. It would be amazing to have a meaningful conversation, though, with your pet. Especially, I know how important that was for you. Because it was torture for you when you couldn't convey time to Jackson. Like, it has been your whole life. He doesn't understand time. And it's real, real, like, it's awful for an when you couldn't convey time time to jackson like it has been your whole life yeah he doesn't understand time and it's real real like it's it's awful for an owner to know your dog doesn't to let him know that i'm i'm gonna come back and it's not gonna be the end

of the world and we're gonna have fun and also like the times where i've had to make him take medicine and because for reasons that we don't need to get it like i've thought about all the tricks that you're gonna write in with i've thought about them all none of them work for him i've had to open his mouth throw medicine down his throat and then close his mouth until i know he swallows it and i'm looking in the eyes while i'm doing this and even that i want to be able to say like this is uncomfortable it's not going to be uncomfortable forever you just need to to get through this and then things are like i promise you if you understand patience you'll get through this and then things are you're going to feel better and also you get your treat after this

and won't that be special right there's some built-in other magic to this question which is that you could explain something to them and they would immediately understand it because i have children that i could explain these things to and And I still can't make them understand these things. Right. Like, they're still... Oh, so it is part of the magic that he will retain all these lessons. Yeah, that's fine. That's...

Okay. Yeah. But like, I have to tell... Like, with medicine, I have a four-year-old daughter who like some real... I can tell that she's rationalizing things in her head already. She has an understanding of the world, though small, it exists. And medicine should be within that purview. But like trying to get her to take medicine in the middle of the night, even though medicine now tastes like bubble gum or grape or whatever you want it to.

She's like, no. And if I try to like, I'm i'm like well maybe i'll just force it maybe i'll put it in her mouth and see if she'll just swallow it that's a that's like immediately she is gonna spit that out in my face yeah and like and in her own hair and get it wherever she possibly can like they i cannot explain to them you are going to feel or like band-aids band-aids are such a big one because they will they will wear a band-aid cause they'll get hurt. Or like they want them. Like if they, even a scratch or something, they're like band-aid fixes that.

Give me a band-aid. Yeah. I'm like, if I'm not willing to have the fight of like, no, it doesn't actually do anything for you. Then I'll be like, all right, take a band-aid. They put it on. I know that that's going to be over the next two days. This band-aid is going to be a fight because then they're not going to want to take it off. Cause they're worried that it's going to hurt to take it off.

Despite the fact that I've taken off several band-aids and been like, say I do it fast. It does not hurt. Also. They're worried about taking a band-aid in the tub, like getting it wet. They don't know they're, they're worried it's going to change form or something or like something bad's going to happen.

So like, they're also deeply worried about getting into a bathtub with band-aids on and i have to explain over and over like we've done this like we've had this fight over and over we saw how it happened we sometimes we get in the band-aid and the band-aid comes off and it doesn't hurt sometimes we get in the tub and the band-aid stays on and nothing changes. It's fine. Everything's fine. Also, the undercurrent of all this is me wanting to say to my kid, you have no idea what a real cut is. Someday you're going to find out and you're going to have like a really dangerous situation. I need like stitches.

And you're going to realize, oh oh shit all those were just little scrapes like i i can't i have been really kind to you about this and been like shown a lot of attention to it a lot of support to you for what you're dealing with but save your fucking tears because it's gonna get way worse just my dad talking to me when i'm 14 years old and i'm stressed about being in the school play and a local theater play i'm like dad i'm just so stressed that he's just like he has to pretend that my stress is is like oh i can't imagine what that's like two plays wakes up at three in the morning to go to get on a train to work at amtrak and Penn Station all day. This 14 year old shit that he picked up from rehearsal. It's like, dad, I'm so stressed right now.

I don't even want to talk about homework. You don't know what it's like, dad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's that every single day. It's them.

Like they got the wrong colored party favor at a birthday party. And I'm like, you went to a birthday party. You had cake today you got to play at this cool indoor gym the whole time like i can't it every problem is a big problem because there's they catastrophize everything because they don't know any other way like they don't know how to regulate yeah and they've got no context obviously and i want to like i want to tell them you're gonna have context someday i don't even want to tell you what it is because it's too scary to think about but like you're gonna have reasons to be upset please let's just be cool about this okay let me remind you of another reason why i

would pick spanish though because you said band-aids and that reminded me that uh every once in a while jackson gets these little like, non-cancerous growths that just look gross. They look like giant warts or scabs that get bigger. And then over time, they fall off. And they will bleed a little bit, and then they'll be fine. When that happens, we have to keep him from scratching at and biting these yeah the bloody areas so we have like dog bandages that we put on him and uh it's always very confusing to him i bring this up because if i had 24 hours to talk to him right now uh like before this podcast

started i would have many great conversations with him and i think i would probably forget to bring up the band-aid thing and i know there would be other things that i would forget that like i talked to him for 24 hours and it's great we bond and he understands time and he eats his food and it's awesome and then a year will go by and i'll need to take him to the vet and we're like oh fuck i should have talked to him about the vet when i had that chance now he thinks because i made him think that we were bros and now he doesn't understand this other thing that i'm doing or he doesn't understand band-aids or whatever the thing is and i i had my one shot and i blew it and i'm not fluent in spanish and you don't get that either yeah i have to keep taking this duolingo there's also the chance that like he's going to ask some questions that are way too tough

like you're he's you're gonna explain time to him and he's gonna be like ah i got it so he'll always come back yeah and so and then you and i will always be here together and you have to be like right do i tell him that he's gonna die way before me is that something that he needs to know? Or like, if I give him the concept of death by accident, like now he's going to just like think about that all the time. There's also a chance that he, like anyone else in the world, won't know I'm, won't think that I'm an asshole until I start talking

and he finds out what I'm like. Like now that I'm just this like yeah this warm piece of sound that feeds him and carries his poop around in a bag he's all about my shit but there's a chance that like i'll give him the power to speak and he'll be like i'm so glad we can talk i've been meaning to ask you that little brown dog that we knew in westwood whatever happened to that dog and i'd be like now forget about that dog shut up about that dog I want to tell you about time then he'd be like no I will get to it but like this dog was my best friend and I would let you know like Jack Jack I need you to focus and then once he learns that that I'm like a very persnickety person who has things a certain way then

he wants them done if Jackson just just be like oh fuck this is maybe maybe i'm the bad hang in this situation yeah you find out because dogs are so so loving no matter what and if you had like one day with them and all of a sudden your dog is more like standoffish a little like i don't actually love you unconditionally anymore right i come home and i'm like hey do you want to go to the park and he's like staring at a clock he's like no i'm doing the thing you taught me about i'm looking at time isn't this what you wanted aren't you happy that i'm that i'm counting seconds dr time that so i i did this question with children in mind and i'm realizing that that's exactly what will happen once you get them to understand everything you want them to understand

and like they get also a taste of you they're like i think i'd rather be with somebody else for a little bit right you want to teach them you want to teach them scale and the impermanence of pain and they're gonna be like can anyone sail the whole ocean you're like shut up don't ask that question i'm like well this isn't fun for me anymore right then eventually they're gonna be like no dad sucks yeah they're gonna and they're gonna be right about it like they're gonna know me so well that the little things that i don't like about myself they're gonna be like yeah those are the things i don't like about you too and i'll be like ah it's it's also funny that you're gonna come to them with like this is how band-aids work and this is how injuries work and this is how patients work and they're like wow you know a whole lot what's the moon like i don't know

all right what's at the bottom of the ocean i don don't, I don't know. I, all of the questions that you've as a child have like had in your head. I don't actually have any of those answers. You used to think I knew everything. Now, you know, I don't. I try to be, I try to be so, because I am, I am very much of a know-it-all. And so even if I don't know the answer to something I can approximate and generally the problem throughout my life is that I've been right when I approximate. And so it's just taught me to keep doing that and so when they ask me questions i try to i try to curb that as much as i can like if i don't know the actual answer i'm like i think i know but i really shouldn't just say that and so like i'll try to be

i try generally with my children to say you know what i don't actually know maybe we should look it up and the looks i've gotten sometimes from them of like this motherfucker doesn't know like when they're like dad uh we were talking about like uh they won't talk about sex or something like that like is a is a girl born with a uterus and i'll be like yeah yeah yeah yes you know what i don't totally know man and you see their look on their face where they're like this motherfucker like he does not know also so deeply worried now that i would find out like my dog is like the dog equivalent of someone who wants to go to a club and like they he hears about nightclubs and it's like let's go and like no no why it's just they're loud it's just a bunch of people and and and like drinking and dancing and

people are doing drugs and jackson just like what yeah this is what I thought you did when you left what do you actually do go to the post office I go to the grocery store I go to the gym oh oh so you kind of you kind of suck then no Jackson just like it's like these are important things man when your dog over with your daily errands okay i'm gonna we're running out of time but i want to give you one more okay okay would you rather would you rather that was close have everyone in the world like you exactly as much as you like them or be able to eat spoiled food without consequence spoiled food without consequence yeah i thought so i thought so oh it's a dream right daniel it's it's the it's absolutely the dream and i think uh hey good for the environment food waste is is is a very important issue to me i'm not i'm not just like

saying that that's like sincerely a thing i think about it's food waste so if i could make sure that i'm eating the slimy greens that i get in my bulk box of greens i could eat them and there's and there's no problem that's great we're not wasting food we're not wasting money and i have a meal and uh i'm really happy talking about the spoiled food thing as much as you want, need people to like me and what i think about other people yeah and vis-a-vis if i deserve to be thought of that same way do you understand totally yeah yeah yeah yeah no i get it i get it totally uh i because once you start going to say what do you want everyone in the world to like you Yeah, no, I get it. I get it totally. Because once you start going, you say, do you want everyone in the world to like you?

Like the yes is on deck. The yes is right about to come out. And then you cap it off with as much as you like them. And like, well, hold on. No one deserves that. I mean, there are certainly benefits to it you know that like you know your significant other is never going to you know exactly how they feel like you're you you never have to do like a heat check um and you can and people that you don't like you never have to spend time with like you're never in a circumstance where like they're like on you and but yeah you're right

like as soon as you start pulling at threads with that one like it gets really dark really fast and and then you start so i think so like either this is born from where do you spend most of your time like worrying about things are you constantly worried like because i look at my fridge all the time and feel so badly every single day every single day and i thought this could also benefit you if I added this caveat, which was once the food is gone off, you could eat anything. So you could eat dairy. You could eat anything that you currently can't eat.

You could also eat. That's a fun perk that is not necessary, but I'll take it. Yeah. I was going to try and sweeten the deal, but didn't have to, it turned out. No, you wouldn't have to if the first one was everyone likes you as much as you like them. And the second one was, or a cheese sandwich one time. Like, yeah, a cheese sandwich sounds good. Or even a sandwich that I could have under ordinary circumstances.

The first one's so dangerous because i mean you're in a relationship too you now know that anyone in the world and not that you ever will be but like that you're just attracted to just biological imperative you know that they feel the same way about you like what a terrible thing to know oh my mind was not even going there my my mind was and this this is like the ugliness in me, that there are so many people that I deal with on a regular basis that I do not like and I don't respect. But it's so important to me that they like me. like me and i and that's that's you understand how that's tricky because of course yeah if i get them to like me which is what i want then i'd have to like them and even in this scenario where it's magic and i genuinely feel it i in the present know better i know that i shouldn't like that person

so if we go the other route and they the people that i don't like also don't like me that would drive me crazy because i'm a cool guy ignoring all the things i just said yeah like you're think about how you would live your everyday life knowing that there's somebody out there you don't like and that doesn't like you and how you would still try to make them like you even though you know the magic exists and you know like that can't happen i already feel like i do that i already feel like there there are people i've i have worked with in the past where i was like i really think this person is such a prick and they don't like me and i really don't like them but i want them to like me anyway like that's already a like a thing that i live with all the time that i wouldn't need to what is it what am i doing and then i can and and if i don't do that i can have spoiled milk man load me up

give me yeah give me the trash food please i mean i don't even know i think i'd have a completely different lifestyle if i well with both but like if i didn't if i could eat spoiled food i don't know that i'd i'd care about money anymore i think i would just like i'd live trash can to trash can every day. Absolutely. I would find out what pizza places are throwing out bread at the end of the day and be like, this is perfect for me.

I'll give you $5 for all your bread. I just walk past a trash that's got a half-eaten piece of cake in it. And I'm like, oh, perfect. Don't even dust it off don't like leave those ants on it i'll eat it got it eat the ants and then oh traveling like wait spanish was obviously a good one for traveling like how how that opens up traveling for you but eating spoiled food if you could do that traveling changes completely traveling like where you choose

to go what countries you choose to be in because like so much of people's fear around traveling is that built-in fear that they're going to get sick like they're going to eat something there that they're not going to like that their body isn't used to or they don't like and they're you look confused do you think the reason that people get sick when they travel abroad is because other countries are serving spoiled food yeah you're eating sometimes you're eating spoiled food yeah like a third world country yeah you go somewhere and you you will eat something that you can't your body can't handle and somebody else's can or like uh in most cases this that spoiledness is coming from like a a mold or a something that you could probably get from the water i don't know what do we get from the water giardia is that a mold yeah uh i thought that was probably able to drink you'd probably be able to drink okay uh whatever you

want to i didn't know that the thing that made people sick elsewhere was was specifically spoiled food i thought it's not necessarily maybe it was like ingredients you're not used to or or you at this point you drink water from a place where the water is unclean yeah i guess maybe it is truly the water and i don't know if those if those two things would translate to one another but yeah because oh because i did a lot of this is born out of your trauma of going to costa rica and getting violently ill while you're there A lot of this is born out of your trauma of going to Costa Rica and getting violently ill while you're there. I have never, in all of my travels, have never been to a place where I feel like local cuisine has gotten me very sick. And I ate such weird shit in Thailand.

Okay. I, yeah, I, I just sort of assumed that when I was creating this question that it was like the food, but you're absolutely right. It very much could just be that there's like the water's unclean because there's sewer runoff in the water and it's like fecal matter and fecal matter is not like spoiled. Not the same thing that would be happening to spoil food is not the same thing you're getting from fecal matter. I don't think. Is E. coli something that grows on spoiled food i i don't know enough now no i don't know i don't know shit about fuck but the spoiled like being able to eat spoiled food is enough for me just for the i i have a salad for lunch almost every single day and it's a there there's a lot of food that gets wasted because you get a big thing of

mixed greens and, and they just get bad so quickly. And I hate that. And I don't want to overeat to meet the deadline, but I also don't like throwing out food. And also the amount of times that I was like, I look in my fridge to see what I have and I make a meal based on that. And then I start pouring my dairy free cheese onto my meal and find out at the last second that

the cheese has gone bad that is devastating when you think you were having a thing and then you can't have that thing anymore that's very very disruptive so I would love it if I could just have the confidence that I can eat anything until it's gone everything in my home i will eat until it's gone and then i will go

shopping again would what a what a coup what a huge benefit it'd be great and i don't have to investigate my personality at all yeah how judgmental i am like i never have to deal with any of that and i i'm with you like i i'm taking that one the other one is a curse yeah that's all i have for you daniel this was a fun one good idea i'm glad i'm glad that you like the the the little world that i architected yeah i wonder i wonder if we had done a whole podcast of Would You Rathers. It seems like we would be bigger. It's such an easy concept. It's much easier than some French.

You just have to listen to it. They just talk to each other. Even when MeRex made our theme song, they were like, oh, fuck. What is the show? Even when Merex made our theme song, they were like, oh, fuck, what is this show? The show, to answer your question, is a quick question, but you knew that already.

We are recorded, edited, and produced by the irreplaceable Gabe Harder, our president of podcast operations. Our theme song is by the incredible Merex. Their digital album is available at merex.bandcamp.com. You can find the show on Twitter, QQ underscore Soren and Dan. You can email us at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com We are also on YouTube. Want to watch

this episode instead of listening to it? You can find it on YouTube. And we also have a Patreon. We do bonus episodes just for our paid subscribers. And that can be found at patreon slash quick question sign up and we are actually doing them it's not a fake

thing anymore well hold on it was not it started out we were really serious about it we were doing a lot of bonus episodes and then we kind of fell off for a little while yes but now we're like back on it and there's bonus video episodes there are not are there yeah cool that's great i think that the the reason the bonus episodes fell off is that i will not do this show unless someone tells me it's time to do the show which is a very frustrating quirk of

mine and soren is the same way and i think the other people who work on the show after a few years of pinging us once a month to say you need to do a bonus episode these people who have their own jobs thought surely any day now we will have to stop reminding them, and they will just do it on their own. It is, after all, our show. But no, that would never happen. But anyway, now we're doing the Patreon-exclusive video pods. All right, bye. All right, bye.

I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right? I want to hear your thoughts on what's on your mind. Alright, bye. Alright, bye. When will I be remembered? What's it up to? Where did all the died wings go? 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