Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Y Tu Mama Tiranosaurio

Episode Date: June 25, 2022

The guys talk about their deep love of professional dishwashing, and we get about one and a half additional quick questions on top of that! And as always big thanks to our sponsors. Thanks Truebill.com/qq.  it could save you thousands a year. Go to PlayBackbone.com/ QQ NOW to order your Backbone, until June 30th, and get FREE access to over 350 console games and perks. Thanks to Jiminy's sustainable dog food made with cricket protein. Save 25% on your first purchase, go to jiminys.com/QQ25 and use code QQ25 at checkout. 20% off an at-home lab test at everlywell.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? What do I be? What was it I did? What did all the boys do? Oh, forget it. Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien.

Two best friends and comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're gonna find it. I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So hello again, welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I'm one half of that podcast, senior writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents, and corn snack enthusiast Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello. Hey, everybody. I'm Soren Bui. I'm a big fan of corn chips as well. Does that qualify?

I don't know. What are corn chips? Is that Fritos? Shit, man. You don't know what corn chips are? No. You don't know what corn chips are? No. Yeah, that's like, yeah, Fritos. I think that there's like some Doritos that qualifies corn chips. Yeah.

I think I'm talking about- Just generally dipping chips? Like very specifically, like corn-based snacks. You can search for these on your computer so you know just how how corn forward it is but i used to be really into this stuff called glad corn the amazing corn treat i think and they spelled amazing like like maze like corn maze that's good um and i loved it and it was like some mutant like partially popped popcorn kernel yeah that had a bunch of seasoning on it and i would eat those and they were great uh and now i've recently discovered uh this snack called love corn which is another like somehow treated and flavored uh popcorn kernel pre-popped and i'm just nuts

about them um so i've had this kind of thing before like this glad corn type stuff that's like uh it's like a it's like a smashed kernel of popcorn essentially but it hasn't totally popped uh and it's very airy it's kind of like it's got like a an insulation texture to it i i don't know if my description of it has tipped you off, but I dislike these tremendously. No. Gladcorn, a lot of people don't like them. It was something that I discovered at a small grocery store in one of New Jersey's city cities. And it felt very cosmopolitan to me.

It was like, oh, you can't get this at Pathmark. You can't get this at 7-Eleven. This is like, I'm going to bring this back to the people and tell them, you know, whenever I'm in the city, Red Bank, I'm going to get more of this Gladcorn, and everyone's going to love it. And it was divisive. People did not like this stuff. And even more than, like, traditional popcorn,

it, like, gets the fuck in your teeth. It really gets in there. Yeah. Yes, it does. And there's no anticipating which kernels are going to have real structural integrity to them. Like some of them you bite into and you're like, yeah, piece of cake. And then other ones you're like, holy fuck.

Yeah. That was a hard one. Yeah. You need to be on your toes the whole time. There's no sleeping on this treat. Thanks to Everly Well for supporting Quick Question. Everly Well is digital healthcare designed for you, all at an affordable and transparent price. With over 30 at-home lab tests, you'll be able to choose the test that

makes the most sense for you to get the answers you need, like the women's health test or food sensitivity test. Everly Well is offering a special discount of 20% off an at-home lab test at everlywell.com slash QQ. This episode is brought to you by Jiminy's, maker of sustainable dog food made with cricket protein. Cricket protein is a superfood, dude. That is delicious, nutritious, and easy to digest for dogs. Save 20% off your first purchase.

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But like you can if you go to some Korean barbecue places, you can get the option on your bowl to get cheese corn. Do you know what that is? OK, it's corn kernels, just like you would get from a can. I assume we're like straight off of a cob. And then I mean, I don't know how they're grown. And then there's in with it is some cheese. There's some very melty cheese in with it. It's like when you put it on a bowl when it's hot, you just get this melty, creamy mess.

And it's goddamn delicious. It looks pretty gross. It looks kind of like creamed corn, but it's amazing. It's incredible. I didn't know cheese and corn could go that well together. That, I mean, of course, I'm never eating cheese anywhere, but I'm trying to think if in my reckless youth, if there was a lot of cheese corn combinations. And I guess you're right. I guess it's not really a huge thing. No, I don't think. Cheesy popcorn. Yeah, I mean, white cheesy pop yeah i mean white cheddar white cheddar i mean now it barely qualifies yeah wait that's not cheese that's like uh somebody yelled cheese from another room that popcorn was in yeah definitely uh hey soren i got a question oh wow this is fast on. Let me get my bearings. We're already in the show. Okay, let's see.

I am, my body is ready. Go. Quick question, Soren. What are some of your favorites? All right. Great question. Here's why I bring this up. I had a dude's day with my 10 year old nephew the other day uh

great time spent time on the beach got some italian ices went to a nice restaurant did some shopping just just a total blast of a day and i don't know if this is specific to him or i suspect 10 year olds in general he is very curious about my favorites in almost everything and uh it had me confront a lot of things that i never think about because like we're eating tostito chips and this was the second time he had seen me eat them in as many weeks he was like you always have tostitos are they your favorite snack like oh no absolutely not what is your favorite snack oh well i don't think i have a favorite anything anymore i think something that happens in adulthood is everything's my favorite nothing's my favorite uh it's just like not a thing that i dwell on and it's very

fascinating to talk to a 10 year old because i imagine this is like the topic of the day for everyone that age where it's like, you have to have a favorite color. What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite snack? What's your favorite place that you've ever visited? And just like getting those questions nonstop all day was very philosophically fascinating. I guess that's true. I get it from my son as well.

And it's like, he constantly wants to rank things, including people. And I don't, I don't, I'm trying to dissuade him from doing that. But, uh, it's,

I think that maybe that's like what they get in terms of what they think a personality is because so early on, that's like, you're asking kids these superlatives. Like you're like, when you're getting to know a child, you're like, what's your favorite color?

Or, uh, at dinner, what would we do best and worst at the dinner table? Did you ever do that? Not growing up, no. But when I've had dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and their kids, they do Rosebud Thorne. Oh, that's cool.

Very poetic. Which is relative to the day. Rose, what's the best thing today? Thorne, what was the worst thing that happened today? Bud, what are you most excited about for tomorrow? Oh, Jesus. That's very poetic. Yeah.

I think I'd be pissed off if I heard that happening at a table. I think I'd be like, just come on, normal things. But yeah, we do. And we do it in French too, in fluent French whenever we do so like and we do it in in in french too in fluent french whenever we do it does that make it better little sailor outfits yeah correct i so yeah we do we do rosebud thorn we do rosebud sway uh and yeah that so that best and worst like my son really sits there and like, it takes him a while. Whereas we, you were like, well, mom, what was your best and worst? And she'd be like, well, here's my best. Here's my worst. And those probably aren't true. I mean, they're

probably, she's not flat out lying, but they're not going to be the very best part of her day or the very worst. She's just like, uh, grabbing, grabbing there's thoughts all over her head. She's just like, oh, this one was pretty good. I'll use that head she's just like oh this one's pretty good i'll use that one i'm like this one's pretty bad i'll use that one and you just learn to like pick and choose because the answer doesn't really matter it's just about talking and like knowing what they like what they dislike what was good what wasn't and but those superlatives are still like that's ever present when you're talking to a kid it's like i want to know like the best thing i want to know like the most fun that you have like what's the most fun you have and my son is also very into firsts he really wants to always have firsts where like we will be driving along and he'll see a truck that we've never seen before

and he's like that's my first time ever seeing one of those well yeah okay sure man uh and like really wants to establish his firsts yeah that's it certainly made me uh hyper cognizant of how guarded i am with my answers because i you know it would be simple to talk to a 10 year old and just like pick any movie if he says, what's your favorite movie? But I stripped of that context. If someone in my life asked me what my favorite movie was, I like my brain is automatically going like, well, like Jurassic Park probably had the biggest impact on me, but that feels kind of lame to say that. And like, if I said fight club, that's a red flag. I got it like well I should say something that was directed by a woman so I looked like a good person but there there aren't that many

I hurt locker I don't know we don't I don't think we like Jeremy Renner anymore and it's like spinning wheels of anxiety of like trying to find the right answer for what my favorite movie is because i don't have the confidence of a 10 year old who was just like right now it's cars or whatever his his favorite movie is well you're also qualifying based on your audience i think and they don't do that they don't have that yet because they're the same person for everyone uh whereas like yeah like depending on the group that i'm in, I'm like, oh, how do I present here? I'm a, yeah, I'm the, oh, I'm the esoteric one. Okay.

I got it. I better pick something weird. Like, yeah, because you're, you're, you have like different, you, you fall to different categories in different groups and you're like, oh, well, it's fun to reinforce that. And the answer doesn't truly matter is the thing. Like it never really, that's why with best and worst like my wife would just be like I fell down it sucked got a little scratch on my knee and I didn't like it and like that probably wasn't the very worst thing but it's like oh that's the first one that comes to mind it's I think it's the same with this is like for other adults I will just pick whatever's going to be, I think, the most either like most in line with who I am to them in a weird way.

Or I will pick one that I think, oh, this will be a conversation starter. Yeah. Right. Certainly. And I can't. Is that crazy? I'm walking with him, walking with him down the boardwalk and he's asking my favorite movie and I'm like, uh, et tu, Mami Tambien?

And then we get off the boardwalk and I'm like, hey, I was just saying that because like there were other adults walking by. It's Jurassic Park. Don't tell anyone. I like the big dinosaurs. I like when the bad guys die. You want to do more? Then you need to know more. What if you could use science and learn

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also really loves the peanut butter and blueberry recipe dog treats. And that makes two of us. To learn more and save 25% on your first purchase, go to jiminy's.com slash QQ25 and use code QQ25 at checkout. That's J-I-M-I-N-Y-S dot com slash QQ25 with the code QQ25. He does definitely, my son is curious about like what things I like. He doesn't ever phrase it as favorite anymore. He used to do that a lot, especially with completely trivial things. Like we would be eating a bunch of different jelly beans and he'd be like, which one's your favorite? And I'd be like, that one.

He's like, why? And I'm like, I don't know, that one. Like whatever, it doesn't matter. It's just like whatever, until you say, ah, yes, that is the one, then I will be like, okay, then we did it, we got there. But he does it with his friends in a way where I'm like, oh, maybe cut that out

I think it's a natural inclination you see people like fandoms doing it all the time where they're like now that Obi-Wan is out now here's the new ranking of Star Wars properties and it's just like this natural instinct

where people want to find their favorite person on SNL or whatever it is and so he will be like I don't want to use the kid's actual name because i think it's i don't ever want there to be an issue but like he'll be like um i think i think he's like i think cassandra is is not my favorite anymore cassandra's number three and i'm'm like, well, don't, don't do that. First of all, don't try to figure out who's your top. Don't pick out your top five. You're too young for that. You just, just be friends with everyone. And sometimes people are going to piss you off and that's fine. What are they doing? What's the, what's the issue? And he's like, they just want

to play with me all the time. And I'm like, Ron god damn it you're you're like this is not you're not being a good person right now they want to play with you because they think you're fun and you and you you know how that feels when somebody doesn't want to play with you i've seen some of the older kids on the street just burn you because they're like yeah this fuck this kid which is also a very natural inclination um and it doesn't feel good and so i'm like trying to like instill all this in him but at the same time i'm like i've been there i've been in in jobs and stuff where i'm like we've worked at this place where i was like uh let's see dan let's go to lunch in front of everybody like no you other fuckers can't come

and and if they do come then you you're like, oh, fuck. Like that's just, it changed the whole lunch dynamic. And so like, I get it, but I also. Right, and then we have to get a second lunch later to do our real lunch. And so I can't, I can't be, I can't completely be like, Ronan, that's your bad person. Like, don't do that.

Bad people do that. I'm just like, ah, it's tough, man. You're going to be dealing with this for a long time. Don't outwardly say who are your best friends and who aren't and like, don't rank them. But, uh, yeah, right. It's gotta be especially tough for you because as you're giving him this, this lecture about being a good person, you could just see your spot plummeting down the family ranking. Yeah, it's true. I think that he probably has quietly decided.

As you're talking to him, he takes out a little notebook and flips it open and just like crosses a name out. Here's how I know his ranking within the family is that every once in a while, apropos of nothing, he'll go, daddy, I love you. And when I say apropos of nothing, there's no obvious thing, but I know what's going on. Like if I've spent a bunch of time with him that day and we've done some things that he likes, maybe like got a kinder egg or something like that, then he'll do it. And that in his mind, that's him being like, hey, dad, today you're number one. Just thought you should know. or when uh like it's clear that when i'm mad at him or something like that and his mother is not then he'll he will be like mama i love you it's like i know what you're doing

hey guys read nothing into this uh daddy calm down read nothing it was just something that popped into my head i love you like you're not good at this yet i know exactly what you're doing it's fine we all do it but you got to get better at this because you're hurting my feelings dad totally please don't i'm i'm just talking to mom read nothing into this well while while we're on the subject though gilly number two second favorite family member just wanted to kill you i made you this card for nothing it's a card read nothing into this. While we're on the subject, though, Gilly, number two, second favorite family member, just wanted to put that out. Gilly, I made you this card for nothing. It's a card of our family. Oh, weird. Dad is not on it. I guess I forgot him. Anyway, it's us standing in front of the house on a sunny day. It's perfect. It's a perfect day. It's a perfect family.

Dad, you don't want me to redo this card, i mean it's good you're probably you know where you know where you are in this card you're blowing off steam somewhere else you're you you took a walk you took a very needed walk dude this actually leads into my quick question for you okay good what do you do for your parents on father's day and mother's day day um cards i send cards um sometimes with five dollars uh this year i sent my mom six dollars because i'm making a little bit more money this year uh and uh i think i've sent my dad scratch off lottery tickets before um but yeah that's that's that's generally it. This was a particularly fun... It's going to sound sadder than it is, but for Father's Day this year,

I went fishing by myself, took a fishing boat out. And when I got home and I was talking to my neighbor about the fishing trip, he was like, because it seems like a very Father's Day thing to do.

And my neighbor was like, you go out with your dad? I was like, oh no, dad's at a father-son golf tournament with my brother. The good one. Yeah. Yeah.

So Mother's Day. Wearing, it has to be said, I hate to put my family on blast, but it has to be said, they were wearing matching shirts that said O'Brien and son. Singular. That's rough, dude.

Well, rough, not just for you. That's shots fired in both directions. I know. Did it sting at all or were you just like, I get it. It's fine. It was all very funny. I mean, certainly, did they have the option to get shirts that said o'brien's or o'brien and sons and then they could just like explain to people oh no the other two

are in there somewhere else they're they're they're fishing or whatever uh sure they could have done that but o'brien and son is cleaner and uh this is daniel and tommy erasure and that's fine we're gonna start we're going to go start our own dad. Where am I going with this? We'll get our own dad and do a Father Said Golf Tournament with him. I'm so rusty at revenge. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing here. So I don't do much for my parents on Mother's Day and Father's Day.

I call them. Yeah. And I talk to them on the phone. And that's about it. And that's always's Day. I call them. Yeah. And I talk to them on the phone and that's about it. And that's always been like what I've done. And it seems to be enough. But then I was thinking about what my children do for me. And this year, I thought, that's not enough.

What they do. So first of all, with Mother's Day, it's a little easier because they're in school and school is going to prime you. So school is going to be like Mother's Day coming up. We're going to make something like in school. This is part of your grade is that you do something nice for your mom. But with Father's Day, it's just like these are uncharted waters because they're off on summer break and nobody is telling them to get ready. So my son made me a card last year in his, it was like a preschool camp type thing.

They made cards for the dad. So he fished that card out. I don't even remember where he found it from. Fished that out and then cut out, there's a tie on the front of it because Father's Day, I guess, is synonymous with ties. That makes sense. I get that.

Sure. And you wear ties so much in your life that you're always screaming about how you need more ties. When my son thinks of me, he thinks of ties. So there's a tie on the front and then you open it up and it says, happy father's. Well, it said, happy father day. I love you. Uh, and that's all good. No complaints, but that was last year's. And then he found it, fished it out and recycled it. And then inside

to like, uh, spruce it up a little, to like, uh, blow the dust off of it, he added another tie. He cut out from another piece of paper another tie and taped it in there. That is so funny. I was looking at it and I was looking at him and I was hoping that he thought

this would be a really funny joke. But he was just like, no, I had to do this. I think Mom made me that he thought this would be a really funny joke but he was just like no i had to do this this is like my thing like i think mom made me or whatever it was i don't know what the circumstances were uh but he he was just like are you happy now kind of thing and i was like no no this is a very you could have done this as a bit and i would have been happy that would have made me happy but yeah he still can do it as a bit i think if he does he listen to the show ronan this would be a great bit if you just keep doing this yeah he listens to it on his runs um and so yeah it was i was like you you do better than this

next year i think i'll try a little harder oh but but did I tell you that I prime him early on for when Father's Day is coming up where I sit him down and very carefully pointedly point out that I need something. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it's expensive and hurts him financially. I think, yeah. But he did at some point that day, it broke my heart a little, where he said, I'm sorry I didn't get you something that cost a lot. And I was like, no, no, no, no. That's, I'm trying to give you the gift of a sense of humor. That's a big, long joke that dad is doing.

Yeah, listen, now that your brain is developing, you should know, don't ever listen to me. Yeah, I'm never saying anything real. listen now that your brain is developing you should know don't ever listen to me yeah i'm it's i'm never saying anything real uh we he's very into calvin and hobbes now he understands maybe about 15 of it but we read it all the time and he loves the i think it's like there's there's certain things i didn't even consider like that you're getting a fluency in a four panel comic like how that's supposed to go, which yeah, it just seems so second nature to you now in your life,

but it's something you really have to learn. And he's kind of like figured out, like you, you present the situation in the first panel. There's a extrapolation on it in the second, there's a turn in the third where like something unexpected happened. And then the punchline obviously is in the fourth. And so like,

he's really into figuring out where that all lies. But that's beside the point. The dad in that, the dad in that lies to Calvin constantly. When Calvin asked him a big philosophical question or something or something he doesn't know the answer to, he just lies. And just in reading it, I was like,

I'm gonna start lying to him more often. And I have, I lie to him all'm going to start lying to him more often. And I have. I lie to him all the time. When he has big questions, I tell him these big, very clear lies. And Colleen hears me doing it. And she's like, don't, don't do that. And I'm like, Roni, do you think that's true? He's like, no, you're joking.

And I'm like, see, no, this is good. This is a good thing. Yeah. He's not learning the thing he wants this is good. This is a good thing. Yeah. He's not learning the thing he wants to know, but he is learning a thing. No, he's learning something very useful. Hey, if you're like me, there are games that come out

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Truebill.com slash QQ. It could save you thousands a year. Truebill.com slash QQ. Hey, I don't even know. This isn't really a question. I don't know how to get it into a question. But hey, Zoran, quick. I want to talk for a while.

Oh, yeah, shoot. So I'm traveling soon to come see you. Yes, you are. We're going to see each other. We're going to do a live version of this podcast that is not recorded or in front of anyone else. Right. And we'll not be saved in any way for posterity yeah it's just two people hanging out that's right yes um and because i live at the beach it's a it's i

have a nice nice little beach house here and i'm letting people stay in it while i'm gone i'm letting my brother and sister-in-law and their kids stay here very nice of you and it's uh thank you it's i don't know if you've ever had people stay in one of your homes that's a terrible way of anywhere you've ever lived in your life if you've had people stay in it while you were not there have you ever done that yes it's uh for me anyway a terrible uh experiment in really analyzing how little self-respect I have because I'm making a list of things in the house that don't work.

And they're all things that I never had to think about because in my imagination, in my self-esteem, I deserve to be treated this way. It's okay for me to live in a house full of broken things because it's just me. And now I have to be like putting this list together that like it just starts with, here's the Wi-Fi. It doesn't work all the time.

The screen door is broken. The toilet sometimes runs and you have to jiggle it. Dishwasher is broken completely. The locks, blah, blah, blah. The kitchen sink, this thing leaks. Sometimes the house beeps somewhere. This other thing is broken. Just so many things in the house that are broken

that I have just lived with. And even stuff that's not broken, but like I'm writing out the garbage can. You're going to see something that looks like a garbage can in the kitchen next to the washing machine ignore it don't do anything with it that was here when i came here it used to be the garbage can but i didn't like it i wanted a garbage can under the sink and that one didn't fit so i bought a new garbage can that goes under the sink but i can't throw out this garbage can because it's not mine.

So I moved it to a part of the house that I don't look at often. So I never see it. But so that's why it's there. Please don't use it. Please don't use that garbage can. It's not for garbage. Yeah. So I was moving from my old house to this house.

We sold the old house. And I thought, first of all, the owners to this house we sold the old house and i thought first of all the the owners of this house i did not care for and they didn't they were not very helpful in any of the process but i thought i had the opportunity to be what i was wanting from from the seller because i'm selling my other house and so i created a list of like here is the gardener that we've been using uh you could probably get him to stay on. Here's his number. This tree in the back, it's an avocado tree and avocado trees in LA get these things called persiamites regularly. There's a natural arbor service that will come and spray this tree once a year. And I've been calling them in May. Here's their number. And they started doing this thing thinking I was going to be very helpful. And then I thought, oh, I should like,

I'll clue them into the things that aren't really working or aren't, aren't particularly great too. And then that list started getting long. And then it got to the point where like, I stopped in the middle of writing and like about the garage flooding. And I was like, well, I should just write, why the fuck did you buy this house? there's all kinds of stuff I hate about this place that I never have to deal with again. And now this is going to be your problem forever. And so I was like, I don't think I can put all these in here. I think I have to kind of be judicious and pick and choose because otherwise it looks bad that I, not only that I've been living this way, but that I'm like, here, take this. All of these are your problems now. Congratulations. Here's the key to your new money pit. And there's, I mean, obviously I don't like when I'm living in a new house and I discover something that wasn't disclosed to me and that is annoying or doesn't work or is on the verge of breaking. And then I'm just like, well, fuck. the verge of breaking and then i'm just like well but of course it's not anybody's job to be like hey the washing machine every once in a while the spin cycle is gonna sound like a jet taking

off and like the whole thing might fly off like down the stairs but that's only every once every like six cycles like nobody it's nobody's job to do that it's like my it's just something i had to figure out yeah but i've gotten much better in my as a homeowner and like of taking care of that shit like cataloging it and taking care of it and figuring it out and doing it which i never used to do as a renter right and it's what i think that makes sense for renters and like for my situation certainly i'm renting a furnished house. So it would be weird for me to have everything exactly the way I like it. So there's some like it's it's understandable why I'm surrounded by broken things. It's just it's so humiliating to write it down for someone else and to be like, yeah, I've that the the leak in the kitchen sink is uh

I I decided I'm okay with it and the broken the the leak in the bathroom I decided I'm okay with that too and uh all these other things that are that are broken I decided that uh that that's how I should be treated this is my penance, you understand I enjoy good food. And so it can't be that. It can't be, I can't get my penance from that. So I have to hurt myself somehow. Right. And it's going to be this.

You will probably be unhappy living here. And that's right. That's good. Don't feel bad about that. This is for people like me. That's how I know you're a good person and I love you for it you should hate this uh well that's sad dan that's okay i'm still very happy here it's just

writing a list of broken things yeah i have because i don't want them to discover it by themselves mostly because i don't want to get a million texts when i'm hanging out with you right it's like hey does something in your house beep i'm just be like yes look at the list i made you a list look at the thing that says beep sometimes something in the house beeps i don't know where it is i think it's close to the weird smell read the list it's all there i've definitely stayed in airbnbs before where they're like that where they're like they're not saying this explicitly what they can see is look we don't live here these are the things we've heard of that are wrong these are some things you might encounter including

beeps or like lights that turn on by themselves and stuff like that um now you have a i am curious now and i know i shouldn't be because you're just using as example, but you have a beep in your house. Sometimes. And you can't figure out where it's coming from. Correct. It's not from my carbon monoxide alarm. And it's not from your... Wait, is it a loud one, or is it just like a... Split the difference, I guess. Okay.

Can you... Is it one... It doesn't sound like an alarm And it doesn't happen every day, but every couple weeks or so they'll just be like Fairly consistent beep spaced out across Three or four minutes and it will last for an hour Is it a chirp? I probably could figure out where the beep is coming from,

but I just haven't, because I've decided that I'm a piece of shit, and the beep, I should be grateful for it. It's not the smoke alarm. It's not your refrigerator door open. It's not the washing machine. It's not... God damn open it's not the washing machine it's not god damn that's frustrating yeah not for me it's just desserts uh i gotta uh this made me think of another quick

question for you um you you set up all those those the nice notes and the messages for the people who are buying your first house off you do you have any contact with them yes are you friends no i don't we've stayed an arm's distance away from them they seem like very nice people but i don't want to for obvious reasons i don't want to be friends with them i don't want to i don't want them calling me if they're like hey what's's this? And it's not like there's anything wrong with the house. The house is great, but it was built in 1929. So like, there's just shit that I know that as soon as like every day, there'd be something new where I discover, I'd be like, Oh, okay,

well this is something different. And there's just stuff that I haven't discovered yet. But I, the reason that we stayed in touch is that early on, we were still getting some mail and stuff there. And obviously, I change over my address. I do as much as I can on all my accounts and stuff through the mail service, change over my address. But then there are people like Bacon who will advertise on the show, and he'll give them my old address. And so whatever, my Raycon earbuds will go there, but I gotta be like, Hey, uh, can I come pick those up?

Or they will contact me and they're like, we've got a package for you. But that is pretty much the limit of our interaction with each other. I didn't know if, if you would stay friends or if there would be any kind of like, you know, that's the first house you bought. I'm sure there are a lot of emotions and memory to it. And I don't know, like what that process is like for a person. If you're, I guess it's not as big a deal as like a childhood home or anything like that, but it still seems like you want, you want your nice home that you were very proud of to be in good hands and to be making fun memories for a new family.

Yeah. I just assume that it is. Also, I don't want to know, like, if I don't want to go by the house and see, like, if there's something that I put a lot of love and care into and they're like, and we got rid of this and that's their prerogative, but it's not something I necessarily want to see. Kind of like an ex. They're dating somebody new. You're like, you could try to be friends with them and you could try to maintain some sort of relationship because you have this sunk cost with each other. But ultimately, there's just this new way for the world to hurt you at every turn. You're like, well, the cabinets were awesome.

What are you doing yeah i do feel like i like i drove past my childhood home sometime in the in the last year and i was prepping myself for like if they've if they've made this how let this house go to shit i'm gonna be so mad if the lawn is bad i'll be furious my dad worked so hard on that lawn if they let if it like looks in disrepair i'm like i'm working myself to be mad at these people before i even get there and i get there and they've like built an extension on the front porch that's so nice yeah it's such an improvement and that also makes me mad right it makes you mad in the other direction i totally get it when they're like oh you made it way better yeah

it was perfect before i mean this is better but i should have been grateful for a perfect house so sad thinking that my house might be happier with them oh she looks good she looks real good that's tough yeah before i and i I definitely don't think that the people who lived here give a shit anymore. But I think it's like a part of their life that they want to forget about. They were in the middle of divorce. I don't know if I've ever said that on the podcast. When they sold this house, they were in the middle of divorce. And so there was a lot of, it was tough communication all the entire process.

And now we get their mail every once in a while still. And I'm like, we'll try and contact them and give it to them. But we have no relationship with them and we don't necessarily want one. And when I say that these people that moved into my last house, that they are at arm's length, there's a real politics to friendships as you get older and how much of a friend you're allowed to be with somebody because of other things that are going on. I noticed that on my street too. I have neighbors who I love. My neighbors are great. And I could see myself becoming really good friends with a lot of my neighbors, but you have to be so careful. Like there's like a real, you have to give each other space, you know, like you can't,

because you're in such close proximity to one another, you can't be the one that every single week you're like, Hey, let's get the kids together. like hey let's uh like oh you guys want to come over for beers like what are you doing any of that stuff that gets to be overbearing immediately yeah even with somebody that you like and so it's really you there's it's such a dance to try and make sure that you both keep uh a comfortable distance from each other while being friends. And you can feel it when we have these block parties, especially in the summer. What we do is we close off our street and just let the kids rove like a street gang. And all the adults are out in the street and we talk to each other.

And you'll have these conversations with somebody where you'll hit on something where you're like, oh shit, like that was really funny. Or I really like this person. And like both of you are sitting there like thinking it, but you're like, nah. You can't change the neighborhood chemistry. It's a very delicate thing. Yeah. And there's the chance, not only that, like eventually, like, oh, so we have a neighbor we got a cat we got our cat and our cat kind of roams the street and i had to very explicitly be like to our my neighbors

hey if it's a problem because i noticed that my cat was like people were giving me pictures of stuff like my cat in their yard and i'm like hey if my cat is a problem for anyone in the neighborhood please please let me know because i can't be that I can't be the person who suddenly everyone has a problem with and they can't say it. And a similar situation where it happened where my other neighbor was there, got their kids a drum set in their garage and she sent out a message and she's like, I want you to know my children have drums now. And if that's a problem for anyone, please tell me and everyone was like no it's fine like we can only hear it outside it's perfect they're not playing in the middle of the night or anything it's all great but right because i guess what could happen if you're like yeah i hate drums i

have a problem with it yeah then it becomes like an issue and it's so you're you're i i mean you could get along with your neighbors but you're always on the verge of something like that where like yeah somebody's gonna overstep the bounds in your mind. And then you can't. And then like, how do you continue to function with each other? Like, do you just say something about it? Do you just let it go? And so like, there's, there's so much in the way of becoming like true friends, I think. Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's healthy. You can't get too close. Like, like you, it's not exactly the same as like a professional relationship but it's it's sort of similar like you don't want to get too close to the chef

at a restaurant or there or your your waiter or waitress at a restaurant or the or the bank teller like any of these people that you rely on for a very specific thing you can't get too close to them because there might come a time where you need to yell at them or admonish them or like litigate a problem with them. And you can't have friendship get in the way of that. Right. And also our kids too. Like there's a whole nother social dynamic that it's much, when I say lower than ours, I mean like physically lower than ours. And there's like this other element where the kids aren't always going to get along on the street right now they do

because they're all young and they're exclusively themselves but as like they get older and they try to become somebody else there's going to be like weird social dynamics where they could fight or they don't get along and then you've got two kids on the street who hate each other like what do the parents do then it's just it could get so messy so fast and you're just trying to maintain this thing where everyone is good and everyone is happy and you're like yes let's stay here don't change a thing and somebody be like you know i didn't grow up with a mom and you're like don't tell me more information about yourself that's now i know you better better but yeah for the most part I don't remember how we got on this topic

but I was just asking if you were if you were staying in touch with your the people who own your house I think I have highly developed maybe over-the- top sense of nostalgia for, for places and things. Uh, it's, it's never gotten me in trouble or anything like that, but I just know that like, I don't think my brothers ever drive past our childhood home. I know my dad does whenever he's in town, but that's the thing that, that I will certainly do. And, uh, I, I worked at a restaurant in college famously, uh, my last job before 16 straight years of professional comedy writing was a bartender at a Ruby Tuesday in Somerset, New Jersey.

And it was, uh, I was the first employee hired for this restaurant, uh, cause it was brand new. And my manager, Julie hired me. And then like, after my interview, she was like, she was gushing because she was brand new. And my manager, Julie, hired me. And then after my interview, she was gushing because she was like, you are the first employee I have ever hired as a manager. And they say you will always remember the first one you hired and the first person you fire. And I was like, this is such a good match.

I'm so excited and honored to be the first employee that you hired for this fucking buttery chain restaurant built into a holiday in in new jersey and this giant vat of ranch yeah the salad bar with the the sneeze guard that is at best a suggestion uh but i i went back there um i think like three or four years ago with my friend Nancy, who also worked at this Ruby Tuesday. And we were both there like, Hey, we were, uh,

we actually worked here. Like, like sat at the bar and talked to the bartender and they're like, do you guys want menus? He was like, Oh, we, um,

we know what we want. Cause actually we worked here and I was, I was the first employee hired for this place. And the bartender is like cool i'm 20. what the do you want yeah do i owe you something now everyone you know who worked here is dead order one of our disgusting burgers yeah can i introduce you in a fried beer um yeah i did that at my so i worked at a restaurant called white house pizza in carbondale

which is like becomes since i was there that was like this one restaurant that constantly changed over into a bunch of different things no one could make it stick and then this place coming came in called white house pizza which does famous famous Colorado type pies where the crust is about 14 feet high. And it's got a little bit of honey baked into it. Like it's just very sweet and kind of bubbly. And when I was working there, I was just a kid. But now as an adult, I have like this crazy nostalgia for that place where every time that I go home, that's the first thing we do is we go to eat White House pizza. And if we go to the restaurant, my dad and my mom will be like, to the waiter and waitress, be like,

you know, he used to have this job. He used to have your job. And it's the first time in my life where like, that's not embarrassing to me. I'm like, yeah, it's true. It's true. So I was pretty good at it. Yeah, I used to wash dishes too.

That's actually where i started and then i got bumped up pretty quick prep cook and uh host and then of course waiter i just want to like shoot the shit with them and be like so what's it like like uh that bottom stair you trip on that a lot yeah me too notice that the upstairs soda machine only has mr pibb the downstairs one doesn't have it and of course at that point they're like what no everything is different here none of that shit's the same buddy you order pizza on your phone now what the fuck is the matter with you uh i i don't think i knew that you you wash dishes there i also i had a different path than you but i also wash dishes at Ruby's. Okay.

They had like a dishwashing station in the kitchen, obviously, like most restaurants. And when it became like shift change for back of house, there was just not anyone washing dishes for a while. Because the expectation was like shift changes, there's not a lot of people in the restaurant, so there won't be a lot of dishes to clean. So when the next shift starts, that person will start their day cleaning, whatever has piled up. Of course. And then you just sort of like move throughout the rest of the night. And I just fell into a habit of getting behind the thing and cleaning these dishes in these, these in-between shifts. And I found it so therapeutic, so relaxing and so soothing because there's like, I'm, my face is obscured to whomever is dropping off plates, whatever the waiters are dropping off plates. Most of them didn't know I was back there because there's just like machinery

that is blocking your face. Right. And no one is talking to me. They're just wordlessly dropping off stacks of dirty things and I clean them and then put them on the conveyor belt machine and they get washed even better after that. And then I put them away and it's so mindless and repetitive and meditative. And I was doing it at first, like help out in these in-between shift moments because I had time to kill. And then I asked Julie, my manager, famously Julie, my manager, if I could just like start picking up shifts. And she was like, yeah, I don't know why you would want to do that, but sure you can, you can do dishwashing shifts. And then it's like built it into my rotation,

bartending, and then washing dishes once a week for this, like, this like Zen thing that I did that I probably didn't acknowledge at the time as Zen or meditative, but which is like, this is fun. I like that no one talks to me. I was the same way. I genuinely liked that job. And I have a lot of nostalgia, a lot of fondness when I look back on being a dishwasher. Part of it is that it was the first job I ever had where I was uniquely qualified because that doesn't exist when you're a kid. But the high school that I'd gone to put you on these work crews.

And one of the work crews you could be on was kitchen. And that just meant that you worked the Hobart and that's the name of the machine that you would put all the dishes into. So at lunch I would cram all my grilled cheese in my mouth or whatever. And then I'd go and I'd work in the kitchen and it just meant washing dishes. And so when I got to this business, they had the same machine. And so when I knew how to use it immediately, people were impressed by me and I was like, maybe this is my track., this is what I do. This is, I, I've been really

good at this. And once you get over the idea of the filth of like other people's spit and snot and stuff like that on a plate, when you're over all of that and you just sort of accept that that's the way things are, it's a great job. It's really fun. It's like you don't have to deal with anybody. Every once in a while, someone from the kitchen will be like, Hey, we're making a house pie. Like, or they, they mess up an order and like, it comes back and like, Hey, do you want any of this? It's like, you're eating great. I was drinking soda for free when I was young. And I was just like, is there a better job than this in the world? I don't know what there is. And every once in a while I get to go up and get some fresh air because I go collect the buckets from wherever waitresses or busboys and clean them up.

And I fucking loved it. I was necessary. I was a cog in the machine and I couldn't have been more happy. It was awesome. The only weird thing that would happen every once in a while is because every single other person at this restaurant who washed dishes except me was Mexican. And people just fell into that habit of assuming that that was always the case and so every once in a while a waiter would drop off dishware not knowing who was behind the thing and just start talking like oh yeah gracias i'm like oh uh thanks albert no problem you're welcome yeah that about wraps her up for this episode that'll do it this is the show

called quick question but you knew that already we are recorded edited and produced by the irreplaceable gabe harder replaced this week by jacob again our theme song is by the incredible me rex their digital album is available at me rex.bandcamp.com or orcd.co slash plesiosaur for their new EP. You can find us as a show on Twitter, qq underscore sorenanddan. You can find Soren at soren underscore ltd

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And we do like it's the way you know, this podcast. Quick question. Main feed is is very buttoned up. Very, very fucking different way of saying buttoned up we really got it all planned out uh but the exclusive episodes are like that's that's just that's just dudes being guys you know oh and boy is there a lot of locker room talking there uh-huh we talk about lockers constantly bye bye Talk about lockers constantly.

Bye. Bye. Not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who did you get? When will I be remembered? What's it out there? Where did all the bad weeks end? Oh, forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer, they're gonna find it

I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here.