Wonderful! - Wonderful! 210: Look at All These Wizards

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Griffin and Rachel bring a joint topic to talk about: their favorite emporiums in the suspended-in-time-and-space shopping experience.Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaSupport AAPI communities and those affected by anti-Asian violence: https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/stop-aapi-hateSupport the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund: https://aapifund.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

🎵 Hello. Hi there, Henry. Hi there, Poop Hi there, poop. Well, let's try to avoid that in the future, okay? This is a serious show me and mommy do. All right. Hi, this is Henry.

Yeah, so you don't have to push your nose into the mic cover as hard as you're doing now? Yeah. Oh, and this is Griffin McElroy, and this is wonderful. Hey, what kind of stuff are you looking forward to for the holiday season this year? I really want a big Spidey robot mech. Well, that's what you've asked Mr. Claus for. But what's your favorite part about Christmas? It's because we get whatever

what we always wished for and we can make snowmans. That's fair, yeah. Is, what about like spending time with family? Um, I like the part where I spend time with Peeps.

Yeah. I wish we could see Peeps this year. Ha-ba-ba-ba-ba. Yeah. Ha-ba-ba-ba-ba. Yeah. Ha-ba-ba-ba-ba. Do you have any good jokes? Why? I don't know.

How did Red Nose Reindeer get a red nose? It's because he sees so much lights on in houses that his nose gets bright. Why is he looking in people's houses? It's because he's giving people presents. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Okay. Any other things you want to do for this sort of impromptu kids will say the darndest things? I like those gingerbreads.

That's a cool... What were you just doing there? I was doing a rap about gingerbreads. Okay. That was pretty good. What do you like about gingerbreads? Because they look exactly like Peeps. You think gingerbreads look like... By the way, Peeps is our dad, Clint. My dad, I guess.

Your grandpa. Don't eat the microphone. What's your favorite Christmas song? Jingle bells, Batman smiles. I like tickling mommy. Yeah, you do. Oh, that's part of the song. Oh, I'm sorry you do. Oh, that's part of the song. Oh, I'm sorry.

I got confused. That's part of the song. Batmobile. Smells. Smells a little. All right. The Joker. Gets a poop.

All right. Hey. Stop it. Hey, it is a capybara. Hey, what do you... Do you like being a big brother on Christmas? Yeah, this is Gus's first Christmas. Do you think he's going to like it?

No. Why don't you think he's going to like it? Because he can't eat gingerbread. Because gingerbread are the hardest thing you know. Okay, okay. It's okay if I take the rest. No, we got to leave the squishy part on the microphone. Why? It protects us from thing you know. Okay, okay. It's okay if I take the rest. No, we gotta leave the squishy part on the microphone. Why?

It protects us from plosives. Why plosives? You just did one. Puh. Puh. Poo. Poo. Poo.

Poo. Poo. Yeah, that's great. That's excellent. That's part of the soundcheck process. Okay. Is there anything else you want to say to our enormous audience? Bye, everybody.

D. Bye. Okay. Have a merry Christmas. He does not know what he just said, folks, and that's the best part of it. Okay, goodbye. Bye. How do we step into it now?

Because was that the intro that our darling son did? Yeah, we can just say like, hi, this is Rachel McElroy and I'm back, baby. Yeah. We got DJ Henry on the ones and twos over in the corner on the beanbag chair. You'll probably hear a few outbursts from him. He appears to be watching some sort of puppet-based programming,

so that's fine. Are we going to be able to pull this one out? Of course, of course. Okay. This is the last episode of the year. We were thinking we were not going to do one this week, but then we figured we're not doing one next week, so we've got to give people something

to, you know, snack on over the holiday weekend. So here it is. Plus, this is the longest conversation we will have with each other all week. Which is exciting, yes. We've had big son home all week. Little son is kicking it at his place until Christmas Eve.

His studio apartment. His studio apartment that he has down in the city. He's very metropolitan. He's a very metropolitan baby and people are always telling us that about him. But yeah, happy holiday. Whatever holiday you celebrate. Well, I guess if you celebrate Hanukkah,

that's been over and done with for a couple weeks now. Yeah, see, that's what's always kind of confusing. I think people want to be inclusive, but they also say happy holidays. And sometimes your holiday has been over for a long time. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of holidays. So so like blanket statement you're usually catching more holidays than you're missing we hope that you have some warmth and some hands to hold yeah i hope it is peaceful i hope it is graceful for you because maybe you're not having a happy holidays that's okay too i hope

it's i hope it's uh i hope it is a a restful holiday. Yeah. Because it won't fucking be for us. Do you have a small wonder? Oh, boy. Our bathroom's done. Y'all, I don't know. True fans, the real ones will remember. 10 months, y'all.

Will remember when 10 months ago. Everything broke. Everything broke and both our bathrooms and our bedroom and closet all got destroyed in the great winter freeze. I'm using great as an adjective that means like huge and not like what a kick a winter freeze that was. I really don't cuss around Henry. I don't think people know that who listen because I cuss a lot on the shows. Yeah, that would surprise

everyone to know. I think we are the holdout McElroys when it comes to the curse words around our children. But anyway, we can finally use

the bathroom again. Yeah, we got sinks in there. We got a toilet. We got a shower. We got a tub. Yep. Just all the real bathroom stuff.

Not to brag, but those are the things that we have in there. It's amazing to not have to go all the way upstairs every time I want to clean my body, bring clothes up from like a pile in our shoe closet that we had going for a while. There was a process if you wanted to use our shared bathtub for a while where you had to scoop all of the action figures out of the tub so you could take a shower. And that was my fault. I should really be better about cleaning up after myself. I'm going to say my big water bottle. A listener sent this big water bottle,

I think because I talked a while ago about how I was never getting enough water because I need to be able to see it. What did you say it was? It's like 112 ounces or something? I think it's 116. Let me see. 116?

Yeah, 116 ounces. And it covers you for the whole day. It's got little motivational sayings and little time stamps on the side. I'm just shy of three o'clock. Oh, man, I'm like 20 minutes behind, if you'll just excuse me. You go ahead and... Yeah, that's what's helpful about it. I think, you know, Griffin likes things to be gamified and since

this tells you what time you should be at when you reach that level of water it really like sets it it's so much water so much water and it makes me realize how bad i was doing because i've been i've been peeing about 28 times a day yeah and before that was not the case before it was like four no i was still going a bit more than that people don't need to know the specific okay number of it but actually i'm feeling feeling feeling powerful feeling wet so we picked a topic for this week kind of a shared topic yeah um when we have little time to prep we like to come up with a thing that we think we both can talk about with a certain level of expertise. And so in the spirit of the season and a location that I think many of you might be familiar with, we are going to talk about the most wonderful stores at a

shopping mall. We've talked about shopping mall as a segment before, but I don't think we've ever gotten granular with the shops. Yeah, we've never provided free advertising to multiple locations with a mall. You said this is going to be a topic familiar to lots of our listeners. I don't know that that's true. I don't know that the mall is a hotspot necessarily for teens and 20-somethings.

Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, because I guess a lot of people get their stuff online. Yeah. But, I mean, where do the teens go if not to the shopping plaza? I mean, we're in late-stage capitalism, baby. They make stuff.

They make stuff. They make shirts. Yeah, that's fair. Out of other shirts. They go on the Etsy. They go on Etsy. They let somebody else make it for them that's right uh we we went to a mall today which was um boy howdy they really weren't wearing a

lot of masks there yeah we so when we went to seattle we got to experiment with a place that requires that you are vaccinated and that you wear a mask in any public location you enter. Everywhere. In Texas. Even in Austin. This is like the big shopping mall in Austin and it was... We masked up and then walked in

and we were like way in the minority of masked folks. Yeah. In a very busy time minority of masked folks. Yeah. In a very busy time of year. Right. Yeah. We don't have to drill down on this because this is,

I don't want our final episode of 2021 to be like super righteous, but hey, oh wait, we do have lots of people who listen to us. Please wear masks and get vaccinated and boosted. And me and Rachel got boosted this past Monday. And we're strong as hell right now. It's true.

Anyway, we went to the mall. And guess what? We went to the mall. The mall is basically a lot. Like the mall was when I was a youngster, except with more kiosks. Yeah, so many kiosks. There's so many kiosks.

And the people that work at the kiosks, I don't really understand how kiosks work, I guess. I think they're all like money laundering. I think it just, to me, it seems like you could just roll a kiosk out at the end of the day and never come back. Yeah, sure. Or you could roll one in and nobody would like ask any questions. There's something so mobile about a kiosk that it just seems like a different set of kiosks could show up every day and i would never be the wiser so so not the best not the best mall visit our mall has the following stores every department store it's got a build a bear workshop which henry is a big fan of let me suggest let me suggest a format all right all right all right because i'm sure everyone's very

interested in what our mall has yeah i'm sure everybody isn't hearing the sound of our voices and saying like, they sound so tired. What are they doing? I wanted to kind of break it up into like, for example, best food court establishment. Oh, boy. I mean, that's a lot. That's a big one. So I have some particular favorites in mind of like, if I am at a mall and i'm going to get a food item what are my top food court locations okay um and it doesn't necessarily have to be entree

um oh it doesn't have to be well i think we shouldn't make it there for a meal or there for a snack because it's hard to be it is hard to beat a pretzel a pretzel from my my aunt griffin's aunt my aunt and the incredible pretzel she made like that's undeniable those are good i know god they're so good um if i'm sitting down for okay i will say this when i was a wee lad and i would go to the mall there was one dining establishment that would have people stand outside with a little tray with little munchums little samples of their wares and that was the chick-fil-a restaurant obviously in 1994 i didn't know what kind of sinister stuff they were up to what were they sampling though how do you sample a little chicken nuggets oh yeah man so so anytime you would walk by it was right next to the arcade

it was dope i would go play at the arcade walk walk away, get a little nugget, walk back, get a nugget on the way back. You know what I mean? Yeah. It was a dope little setup. Can I talk about something that if we don't talk about soon, it's going to be hard for me? Yeah.

And that is the Sbarro. Sbarro. Sbarro. This was a trip to New York City city hey for a small midwestern girl just with big city dreams yeah going to the sabaro just felt like look at this slice of pizza yeah this is how they do it in the big city i used to roll the r's because i didn't know sort of what the the the you didn't know the nationality well yeah i didn't know sort of what the... You didn't know the nationality?

Well, yeah, I didn't know the... What is the entomology? Anyway, I didn't know the source of sparrow. It sounds good though, right? Yeah, it's nice. I would eat sparrow also. I just like, if I'm going to a mall, I want a slice of pizza. I hear you at Spotted Hole also. I just like, if I'm going to a mall, I want a slice of pizza.

I hear you. I hear you. I tended toward, once I reached a certain age, there was a store, there was a restaurant called Big Loafer at the Huntington Mall that did just like huge like pepperoni pizza sandwiches and like just outrageous unhealthy foods. What is with West Virginia and the pepperoni? It's good meat. Just put it in everything all the time.

We don't put it in everything, but the stuff we put it in, we put it in a lot and we love it. I saw you make a pepperoni sandwich the other day and I was like, this would have never occurred to me before I met you. A pepperoni sandwich? Yeah.

Okay. Are you saving it specifically for the realm of pizzas? For the pizza, yeah. I didn't really know you could put it other places. You can put it wherever you want to. Um, but I hit a point where all I wanted was like, like Chinese food.

And I feel like every food court has that to some, some degree. Yeah. And it's never great, but there is a lot of it. And so like, if I'm at the mall, I just want to eat some like greasy,

it's just some greasy food. That's wild. Yeah. I like it. I still like if I'm at the mall, I just want to eat some like greasy, it's just some greasy food. That's wild. Yeah. I like it. I still like it. I was tempted by the, there was a, what was it?

There's a Panda Express at our mall, which like I'm not, you know, a fan of, but I'm at a mall, you know, do as the Romans do. Okay.

Now I want to talk about uh the immersive store oh my there are certain stores in the mall that are like little disney rides and that you walk in and they are really creating transport you away an experience for you sure it's not like you know what store you're in while you're in it yes is a way to say it yeah i mean the biggest was hollister i feel like yeah and abercrombie abercrombie i think even less than hollister because hollister had like this black facade you had to walk around yeah you would be in this dark yes stinky like polo shirt breeding ground and i was always so out of place while I was there. It was more aspirational when I was 17 years old. And then by the register, they had a big TV set up

that always had a live cam feed of Huntington Beach. And I was like, this is what it's all about. That was the Huntington Mall experience. I don't think I ever bought anything. I think I only shopped on clearance there and at the American Eagle Outfitters, which was where I got a lot of clothes, but it was less sort of, that was less of a journey. No, the clearance at American Eagle was choice. They always had something right.

Another immersive store. I mean, the Disney store, right? Yeah, we didn't have one of those in high school. You didn't have one? No. Oh, man, it's always a treat i kind of like grown-up stuff um all right now do we want to talk about the spencers and the hot topic yeah that's those are sort of their own thing i would argue that hot topic was pretty

immersive yeah for sure and i would say spencers was too because it's like you're going from a pretty wholesome mall into a place where they sell shirts and greeting cards that say ass on them. Yeah. And Henry wanted to go inside of Spencer's today. And I stepped inside and there was a card game called like for weed smokers only. And then like a bunch of towels that had the F word on it. I was like, I got to get my little child out of here. Were there any like three-dimensional items with the human form on them? Like erotic?

Yeah. Not that, maybe they keep that stuff at the back of the store. I did not let us get crazy. I just feel like it was not unusual to find like a mug or a hat that had a busty silhouette. Oh, that's all right.

No, I mean, today when I walked in, there were like a dozen people looking at the same like three pieces of Demon Slayer merchandise. Yeah. And I was like, I don't want to go any further in here. Didn't check out the Hot Topic, but Hot Topic was, I'm surprised that like the religious leaders

of Huntington, West Virginia did not lead some sort of boycott or protest when the hot topic got it was confusing right because you'd walk in and you thought like oh the store is so metal and then you'd be like oh but there's a care bearers hoodie yeah like there was just enough of a mix that you were like wait what is this store yeah that was the first store i think i ever saw that capitalized on nostalgia. So there was NES Zelda shirts and stuff like that. And then there was also Invader Zim jeans

and stuff like that. And I remember thinking, this is so cool. This is the first shop at the mall that has shirts with things I care about on them. But that phase didn't last terribly long i feel like um what were your other kind of like go-to's like if you're gonna hit a mall yeah like what i mean i always be lined for uh babbages for a while our mall had babbages on one end and electronics boutique a little bit further down, both of which got absorbed into GameStop eventually. Yeah.

Which that was a sad day. But I had two video game stores playing off one another, trying to get the best deals. I would check the trade-in value for my Super Nintendo games at Babbage's, and I'd be like, okay, hold up right here, because I'm going to go price match over at the Electronics Boutique. That was a sweet little racket I had going there. When I was coming up was when Forever 21 hit the scene. My God. This was just like just starting. And this was where you could go get like five pairs of thong underwear for $20.

Is that a good price? Yes. Okay. $4 a good price? Yes. Okay. $4 a pair. I mean, that's not... It's not much material. That's true. That's true.

But when I was coming up, thong underwear was like a new thing. I like that you call it thong underwear. Am I just supposed to say thongs? I guess, yeah. I think people are going to assume... I wanted people to know I wasn't talking about the sandals. I think you talk about when you use the term thongs and forever 21 in the same one they don't think yeah I'm not gonna say the p word p word panties honey you're a grown woman you're a grown woman you should be able to to express that. It sounds so infantile, though, to say that word.

Yeah, I guess it does. It's like, oh, I'm going to put on my slippies and my panties. You really can't get through that one. I can't. I hate it. That is also not a word that we want our co-star today to start running around the house shouting. Yeah, the Forever 21.

Now, one thing we didn't talk about when we hit the food court was that was the dessert options okay we passed today at the mall the uh the cookie the great american the great american cookie oh man a cookie cake yeah i would still take that for a birthday i don't even know american cookie cake yeah i don't know if the kids know that about the cookie cakes. I never felt not miserable after eating a Great American cookie cake. Oh, too much, like with the icing in the cookie? Because you eat a slice of it and you're like, that was normal. Without realizing that cookies typically are not three inches deep. That's fair.

It's not usually a deep dish cookie. I mean, again, I have to go back to my aunt's place to get like them cinnamon crusted oh yeah cinnamon sugar crusted i'm just gonna ask you what your stance is on dip and dots i hate it terrible it's like do you like ice cream without the smoothness and good flavor of ice cream and also your tongue gets burned by ice cream? Are you sure, Dippin' Dots? Yeah. Also, it's way more expensive. All right. It's the ice cream of the future.

It's the ice cream of the future. Because the future, and guess what? They were right. The future got worse. And so it makes sense that the ice cream would get worse. Did you have in your mall a candy store? Yes. That was just bin upon bin of like yeah you you gotta understand there was a period for me where i could go to the mall i could hit up babbage's hit up eb maybe walk

around borders for a while check out the clearance rack at american eagle go grab you know some some chinese food for lunch from the food court go to to the candy store to buy a chute ton of sour tape and jelly bellies and all that jazz. Go see a movie and sneak that candy in. Eat that. Eat at dinner at the food court and then dip back home. Spend like seven hours at the mall. Yeah. And then dip back, dip back home.

Spend like seven hours at the mall. Yeah. Gosh, that reminds me of the mall that used to be near our house had a little Mexican restaurant called Chevy's. That's dope. That's a good name. Make sure it wasn't Chevy's. I mean, that's how it was spelled. Okay. But I think we all thought we were being true to some kind of pronunciation by calling it Chevy's.

And you would get a sombrero on your birthday. That's. It was just an exciting. How authentic. It's just an exciting place to be. We also, I don't know. Did your, did your mom have a lot of restaurant, like go sit down restaurant options? It had like two.

Yeah. I think one was a outback steakhouse maybe or something in that they had onions fried onions so it was somewhere in that in that range um because i definitely had like a homecoming dinner there once yeah it wasn't it wasn't hot cuisine i would say and for those st louis listeners uh i want you to know that i'm not talking about the galleria which was the fancy mall okay i'm talking about crestwood mall all right which was very close to where i lived sure and um i guess you you all didn't have the luxury of like the fancy mall and just the okay mall. Yeah, we just had the okay mall. Just the one. And then like a satellite Toys R Us in the region.

Hey, speaking of commerce, can I steal you away real quick? Yeah. We have some very special holiday jumbotrons. That's right. Straight over the plate jumbotrons. Okay. It's a Christmas miracle. This one is for Ian.

It's from Jamie who asks. No, they don't ask. They say conclusively to Ian, my's from Jamie, who asks. No, they don't ask. They say. Conclusively. To Ian, my angel from the moon, the lum in my limes, thank you for 11 years as my wonderful thing, and thanks in advance for all the years to follow. I can't wait to marry the heck out of you. You can marry the heck out of me at the same time,

and it will be like a mutual love fest. P.S. Shoshi says hi and would like to play with a mouse on string. That's wonderful and good. You think that's a cat or do you think that's like... Shoshi? Yeah. Do you think that's like their roommate who likes mouse on string? I mean, here's the thing.

In the studio today, we have a little gentleman who I bet I could shake a mouse around on a string and he would get hours of That's fair You want me to read this next one, please? It is for Danielle it is from Jackson Hello, my dearest Danielle. I love you more than the moon and the stars Thank you for being a wonderful wife and a magnificent mother. You have been the greatest gift life has ever given me

Thanks for listening to silly podcast Podcast made by Silly Brothers with me. Can't wait to listen to many more with you. You are my love and my light. Love, Jackson. I think they're talking about you or they're talking about like... I mean, there's lots of Silly Brothers out there, aren't there? The Duplass Brothers. The Duplasses.

The Greens. The Wilsons. The Jiggle Pantses. Those are a bunch of silly clowns. They're related. Yeah. I like that. Yeah.

They're a lot, actually. A little bit of the Jiggle Pantses goes a long way. This week on Ts and fights austin creed better known as wwe superstar xavier woods unbalancing his many passions this dude actually wants these ridiculous things he wants to wear a crown he wants to be at g4 he wants to have a yacht rock band like he wants to d DJ at a festival one day. WWE and G4's Austin Creed on Tights and Fights. Find it on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Let me hit you with this. Ever have a mall date?

Oh, God. Yes. Yes. ever have a mall date oh god yes yes yes i had like a mall double date kind of i had a friend who and everybody has this friend who dated a lot and always found somebody's like found a friend to set me up with and so this was a friend that I talked to on the phone. And then we were going to meet at the mall for the first time. I feel like I'm hearing an audio book of Pen15. Yeah, I know. Exactly. Exactly.

And so this was like my first time meeting this friend. And it was never clear to me because I was always kind of naive. Like, am I supposed to like date this person now like it felt like i never knew how to play it right so i was always very aloof and that never worked in my favor yeah so he's like so i just remember this circumstance where it was like we were all milling around the big clock. And he sat down in the clock area. And I was like, I could tell that maybe I was supposed to sit next to him. But I was very unclear of whether or not that was welcome. And so I didn't.

And then that felt like a very pivotal moment. Yeah, sure. I just never knew, where is this supposed to go? Did you have more hand-holding? So that's the thing i remember i went one time and it was it was like a group situation but there was one uh very lucky lady who i had my eye on i cannot remember who who that was um there was a minsker on that day i can't remember who's just you can't remember which one it was? And we just walked around the mall for a while. We hit up

Hot Topic. I remember very clearly I bought a ring that had like a flame emblem on the front of it. And I bought that and was wearing it. And then we went to see Crazy Beautiful in theaters. And the whole time I was

doing that like inching the hand closer and closer and closer the one with the flame ring yeah it would have been yeah uh trying to trying to get some some handhold situation i think i did i think i got there but also i remember we walked out of that movie because it was we weren't on the right level to meet crazy beautiful with the energy it was sort of trying to give us yeah although i will say you remember the name of the movie but none of the people that were there uh oh i thought you're gonna say who's in the i think it's a kirsten kirsten that's what i'm saying that movie must have made some kind of impression because you don't remember whose

hand you were trying to hold no i mean there were so many hands baby you gotta understand yeah and then i just i went with friends a lot. I mean, it was the kind of thing where somehow we would find a way to spend hours there. I mean, I don't know. I cannot imagine living that way at the mall that we have here in Austin because it feels like the demographics

have changed pretty dramatically of who wants to spend money on what stuff. But the Huntington Mall, man, in Austin because it feels like the demographics have like changed pretty dramatically of like who wants to spend money on what stuff but the Huntington Mall man like I didn't even get to the arcade tilt we would go to tilt and just like play Dance Dance Revolution and we had Xilorama that's what I was too I know so it's like what kind of stuff was I into at the time video games candy toys movies like I just go and kick it there for now I want to speak Like, what kind of stuff was I into at the time? Video games, candy, toys, movies. Like, I just go and kick it there for the whole day. I want to speak about Claire's, but I imagine you don't have a lot of Claire's experience.

I know. Here's what I know. It's where you go to get your ears pierced. And as such, it is a sort of like necessary, like you have to, it's a pilgrimage situation where you have to go to Claire's at some point. I never got my ears pierced there or ever actually for that matter. But you get the cheap yin-yang necklace. Oh, I mean, I have plenty of places to get a cheap yin-yang necklace. And I will also say there was a period of time where I would purchase temporary tattoos. From Claire's?

From Claire's. That's pretty cool. And like temporary nail tattoos. It was a strange time because I can't imagine spending money on that now. On temporary? Sorry. You can't imagine spending money on that now on temporary you sorry you can't imagine spending money on temporary nail tattoos as well i just can't imagine anyone doing it i guess i guess flash tattoos are a thing now

yeah i think that's what they're called there's so much in this episode so far that is like our parents telling us dumb stuff that they did when they were, you know, when they were little guys. And we hear that saying like, that's so dumb. Like, why did you do that? Why did anyone care about that? Yeah. And we have definitely hit the point where we have, I mean, most of our stuff from before the year, let's say 2012, is that. Can I say just a few of my other faves shops yeah yeah sure uh so there

was the nature company did you have like a naturey store in your mall absolutely not when i say nature i mean like this is where you would go to get your wind chimes and your rain No. And maybe your kaleidoscopes? Who was your chosen kaleidoscope retailer? Our nature company was right next to the Wicks and Sticks, which was a candle store. Yeah. So they're really kind of like they cornered the market right there. Right. You could get in and get out real easy if there was a particular audience you had in mind. We had a dope corner that was like uh sears and then a shop that i'll name later and then like a fancy

jewelry store and the shop that was in between them was called excalibur and all they sold was pewter fantasy statues and swords it was so sick i went in there every time I went to the mall. Never bought anything ever. But I was like, look at all these wizards. This is one of those moments where I think I'm like, if I had known the Griffin of yesteryear. You would have gone wild for it. Borders too.

I mean, Borders was like, you gotta keep it Borders. Yeah, see, we didn't have, we had like a Borders, too. I mean, Borders was like, you got to keep it Borders. Yeah, see, we didn't have, we had like a B. Dalton, I think. I thought you worked at a cafe, a Borders cafe. I worked at a Barnes & Noble, but it wasn't attached to a mall. Oh, okay. And the other place I was going to talk about, you and I discussed recently, which was the Gloria Jean's Coffee Beans. Did we talk about this recently? Well, we were talking about chocolate-covered espresso beans.

Oh, right. And how that was a big thing. For some reason. And Gloria Jeans, before Starbucks, I feel like, really blew up, was the place where you could go get, like, an icy mocha drink with whipped cream on top. Yikes. And some chocolate-covered espresso beans.

Stop it. And just bounce around the mall for a while. Yeah. It was great. It makes me sad i mean i will never have a place like that again i suppose uh outside of like i don't know disney world where i just go and i'm like everything's here that i need uh but i it also i don't know that that fills the same void for like younger younger people in us i don't know that that fills the same void for younger people than us. I don't know.

I mean, I see lots of younger people at the mall, but do y'all live here today? Because that's how it should be. Here's the thing. Here's what I think makes the mall kind of a wonderful date. Okay. I mean, there's lots of walking around. Sure. It's nice to have a place to walk around yeah

um you know and you can kind of you do a little flirting like oh i'd like to see you in that sweater or like that was good oh babe that got me real hot under the collar or like oh let's let's go get a pretzel we can share. I'd like to gad your zooks. Let's sit on this bench by a fountain. Yeah. You know, it's like a trip to Europe. Right. I don't know.

I don't know. You learn a lot about a person in a mall, I guess. You do. Like, if I had gone on a date with you and you'd wanted to go in the wizard store, I would have been like, okay, now I know something about Griffin. No, you would have fucking... He's got the headphones on. You would have in the wizard store. I would have been like, okay, now I know something about Griffin. No, you would have fucking, he's got the headphones on. You would have loved the wizard store.

It was so wild. I really hope it's still there. I never saw anyone else in there. So it's probably not still there, honey, but it was there for, you know, 10 years or whatever. When I was at my prime mall going age.

Yeah. Everyone was wild for that wizard store. Yeah. Anyway, anything else we want? Let's, how should we close this out? I will say that I loved,

I very, for a long time, deeply associated Christmas with the mall. Yeah. I mean, that was part of the reason I wanted to go today. Honestly, we are like looking for ways to siphon off Christmas cheer right now.

We were going to go to Huntington and spend Christmas with the family, but due to the Omega virus, we canceled those plans last week, which was very, very, very sad for us. And so we hadn't really set up a plan for like getting in the spirit in our local area. And then we were just like okay what is what

is available to us still now that we are a few days out right that's why i was like oh a shopping mall yeah and i was like you know they had santa kids claws will be there we'll have some trees yeah some music playing over the speaker uh-huh great american cookie company probably has some things that look like christmas trees um i guess um and you talked a little bit about this i guess kind of like if you were to plan out like if you could go to any mall store through time in like a little visit just like a trip like let's say i'm 14 i'm going to the mall yeah what's like my best mall day ever? I've described it, I feel like.

I described it earlier. Two different video game stores, candy, movie, two different meals of mall Chinese food. Uh-huh. Yeah. I think for me, a lot of clearance racks, right? Like hitting up the limited two hitting up express you know i'm so glad to hear you talk about this because i never bought anything that wasn't on a clearance rack yeah yeah i think it was like i recognized that these were the clothes that people

would wear that were like popular and attractive but i couldn't like really buy into it or invest into the look but if if i could find a skirt that was half price yeah i could justify it and yeah gloria jeans and then you know a slice of pizza i will used to like to go into the department stores and kind of kind of reek a little around Goof around, yeah. Reek a little havoc, you know. I'm sure the employees who are making $7 an hour really appreciate that. I felt really bad about it in retrospect. But you know those tables where they would spread the ties out in like a perfect pattern all the way around in a circle? I'd like to go.

Oh, cool, Rachel. Ruffle those up. Cool, teen Rachel. I know. It's terrible. Yeah. I would go over to like a display case with all these different perfumes on it and just kick it to feel something. I never did anything like that, but that's only because Justin worked at pretty much every store at the mall.

Yeah. And so I sympathized with literally everyone who had to do that. That was sweet, though, when like my man worked at Toys R Us. Yeah. Got the friends and family discount that was always a great a great spot another place we had sorry i'm just really i'm traveling right now no let's go oh god was it called splashers splashers it was like it was when i was in middle school and you were looking for a place where you could get jeans with a patch on them and it was called splashers i want to say it was called splashers was it dan flashes this these jeans have the most complicated designs on it but it was like

there were swimsuits and there were jean shorts that had little smiley face patches on them. Oh, God, yes. And you could get like the John Lennon sunglasses and like a bucket hat. It was like everything. I think Splashers was the name of the tanning place in my college town. I think it was called Splash. I think it was just Splash, singular, not one who splashes. Okay. I think it was called Splash. I think it was just Splash, singular, not one who splashes. Okay.

I think it was just Splash. Anyway, it felt like a trip down to like a hip college neighborhood. Yeah, sure. For somebody who had no idea what a hip college neighborhood looked and sounded like. Anyway, so that's my mall trip right there. I'm glad we discussed this. I like thinking about the mall, I guess, in particular. What it represents.

Which is to say, a simpler time. Where you could buy things. Or mess up a tie display. And not feel anything. Any guilt or anything. Man, Henry is really kicking those blinds now, isn't he? Yeah. I think we're losing him. So blinds now, isn't he? Yeah. I think we're losing him.

So maybe we should lose the audience too. Yeah. Hey everyone, thank you for listening. I know it's a weird one and I know we sound like two people on their last legs, but that's only because we've been sick all month. Well, and another reason that I wanted to record

is I wanted to remind folks if you haven't bought tickets yet for the January 7th wonderful virtual live performance, please do that. Yeah, you go to bit.ly slash wonderfulabc2021. Yeah, tickets are $5 or more if you're able to give more. And we will have something remarkable planned, no doubt. Yeah, and all those ticket sales go to benefit the Austin Bat Cave. Yeah, which is a creative writing program for youth here in Austin. And they do really good stuff. They do.

Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And we got merch over at macroymerch.com. And that's it, y'all. Have a happy rest of your year. We'll be off next week. We got merch over at McElroyMerch.com. And that's it, y'all. Have a happy rest of your year. We'll be off next week. We'll talk to you in 2022.

And we really appreciate all y'all. And even during a year like the year we've had, love doing this show. Yeah, it means a lot to us to be able to do the show and have so many people that like it. Yeah. So don't stop liking it. And the end. Ho, ho, ho. There he goes.

We got to go to bed because he's here. That would be dope. It's 3.49 p.m. I would love to. Sorry, son. We all got to go to bed because he's here is that that would be dope it's 3 49 p.m i would love to sorry son we all gotta go to bed right now santa claus is on the roof and he's waiting if santa claus tried to climb on our roof he would die yes dangerous oh before we go maybe do you want to open this present i got you oh sure what do you think, babe? Tell everybody what it is. Ooh, it's vitamins.

Actually, those are my antidepressants, but I promise you, you take those, you're going to have a sky high Christmas, man. Hey! Working on it! Hey! Money won't pay! Hey! Working on it! Hey! Money won't pay!

Hey! Working on it! Hey! Money won't pay! Hey! Working on it! Hey! Money won't pay!

Hey! Working on it! Hey! Money won't pay! Hey! Working on it! Hey! Money won't pay!

Hey! Hey! Hey! Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported. Hey there, I'm Ellen Weatherford. And I'm Christian Weatherford. And we've got big feelings about animals that we just gotta share. Artist-owned, audience-supported. ingenuity and aesthetics. Guest experts give you their takes informed by actual real life experiences studying and working with very cool animals like sharks, cheetahs and sea turtles. It's a field trip to the zoo for your ears. So if you or your kids have ever wondered if a pigeon can count, why sloths move so slow or how a spider sees the world, find out with us every Wednesday on Just the Zoo of Us, which can now be found in its natural habitat on MaximumFun.org. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.