RuPaul Fracks

Claire: [00:00:00] What if I went on strike and I was like, nobody would notice. Nobody would care. They'd all be glad I wasn't there with my like bullshit, like mad face storming around.

Quinn: Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.

Claire: We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like,

Quinn: Mom, what's a coup? During morning carpool.

Claire: Air quality alerts. And yes, you do have to wear deodorant.

Quinn:It's not an advice show.

Claire: It's a you're not alone and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kind of show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.

Quinn:And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important, Not Important.

Claire: You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website, not right now dot show.

Quinn:And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet. And then drop us a nice little five star review.

Claire: And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions at not [00:01:00] right now dot show.

Quinn: Here's what happened. This thing, this polar vortex affected, they said a hundred million people. Crazy, right? Like 10% of total power lines though in the US above ground ones, which is fine. It seemed okay. Some places lost power, not as many as predicted. When everywhere is hit all at once, resources are spread thin.

And what was unusual here in what we like to call the Mid-Atlantic is that first of all, we get snow like every three, four years, and it's getting warmer. What's unusual is usually if we get it, if it snows at 7:00 PM by nine o'clock the next morning, it's 50 degrees, right? We have very mild winters.

That has not happened. What is weird is not just the precipitation that came, it's that every day [00:02:00] since then has been colder than the last, and none of them have been above 25 degrees, so you know, when you're doing the, you are like, okay, we're gonna salt the roads, we're gonna do this, we're gonna prepare with the resources we have to clear it, but know like nobody's coming to save us 'cause they're trying to save themselves. The second starts coming down, you're in a race, gotta do the main interstates, gotta do the main thorough affairs, all that stuff. And usually 99% of the time you can rely on the rest of it'll fucking melt.

It'll be a mess, but nobody cares. Whatever they didn't get to in the first like 24, 36 hours is a sheet of fucking ice this thick. My friend was ice skating in the parking lot of his neighborhood yesterday. Yesterday, six days later. So all the parking lots at all the schools, everything, are they're not snow. I mean, it's crazy. So, and there's no fucking melting salt. And tomorrow we're supposed to get more.

Claire: What is the pipe situation at the grandma's [00:03:00] house and at your guys' house? Any frozen pipes?

Quinn: No, I mean, look I don't fuck around. I'm pretty prepared here for all this stuff. You know, you keep 'em dripping where you can, you cover up what you need to, et cetera, et cetera. We're fine so far. You know, we've got generators ready if we lose power, which we haven't yet, which is really great.

Our neighborhood, the lines are underground, but the road coming to our neighborhood is a, is like a comedy of errors of power lines going through old growth trees. So I don't fucking know Claire, my kids don't go to school anymore. This morning, I was like, all right, listen, it's been like a week of this shit.

It's only gonna keep going. I need you to get out your morning school, get ready for school lists. We're gonna do 'em. They're watching Simpsons, not listening to any of those. We're gonna do it. We're gonna treat it like a school day. My workday should have started a half an hour ago. Don't fucking bother mom. This and this. Not a response. They didn't even flinch. They were just like, we're not fucking doing that.

Claire: Who are you?

Quinn: What the fuck are you talking about?

Claire: Compare [00:04:00] this to COVID, I mean, I know obviously but just what's the mentality? How much are they expected to do anything right now?

Quinn: I like the way their school's handling it. Which is they're doing async, teachers hold pre-scheduled office hours, which you are not required to come to, but teachers aren't required to be there all fucking day. 'cause they're home with their kids too, by the way. And you know, they're like, this is the shit you gotta get done.

And for the younger kids they're like, there's a couple online things, but you've also got your little folders and you can do that stuff. For the older kids, you know, I appreciate there's some sense of accountability. They're like, you have to turn these projects in by three o'clock if you wanna be basically accounted as present for attendance that day.

Obviously there's some folks that don't have internet at home or power or whatever. And obviously they're excused. But I appreciate that. And I just basically told my kids, get your shit done. It's fully, you can read, you know how to get online, fucking figure it out, get your shit done, and then [00:05:00] I don't fucking care, Claire.

Claire: Are they enjoying it at all? Is there any outdoor, you know, fun to be had?

Quinn: They've had some fun with friends here and there. I mean, once the school stuff kicked in, like they all gotta get their shit done and everyone's different about it, but parents are fucking working and all that. I'm like, go outside. I don't care. But I mean, as usual, things are more fun without me there. So the answer is not while I'm there.

Claire: Steve took Paul to go sledding, but he did not sled with him. He just kept staying in the parking lot. And I, my job was to say, be careful because sledding fear, sledding danger is real. I know one kid who, my one friend's kid got a concussion a couple years ago, sledding into a fence. One of Paul's besties just got pins taken out of his leg 'cause he broke his leg a couple years ago, sledding into a tree. So, you know, that is real. But I'm so grateful to live where we live. I don't know why we can handle this so well. But we had one day, it was just funny 'cause Friday that they had no school, I don't think it was even that much colder than Monday, but everyone was just like, we're not taking [00:06:00] another day off for school. Fuck it. Like we're just doing it.

Quinn: You know, this is a part of the country and state and everything, but there's a lot of, people are using the buses, which is great. And you know, there's a funny meme I'll put in the show notes and send you online, which is like, in the eighties, our buses didn't give a shit about snow and ice, like just plowing through fucking drifts.

And I remember that. I get it. But yeah, it's just a, it's a freak thing. Like it all came down as ice and then it's been 10 degrees every day since there's not a whole lot you can do there.

Claire: You probably don't drive far enough to deal with this, but have you had have you ever had range anxiety with your EV? Has that ever happened to you?

Quinn: No, I don't go anywhere. I don't wanna do that.

Claire: I have had that happen where I was driving somewhere cold and I did not charge enough and I was down and my car was like warning me. It was forcibly slowing me down as I like frantically drove to a charger and it's a, it is a scary feeling, especially if you're a lady, you know, and you're in the middle of nowhere.

Quinn: Isn't that a good sign though? Just do less, like why were you trying to go that far?

Claire: This is my annual trip that's coming up actually, where a friend of mine who [00:07:00] used to live in Chicago, she lives in St. Louis now. We meet up halfway between us so our boys can like, have this playtime together.

Quinn: Oh, wait, it, wait. Is that already happening again? Motherfucker.

Claire: I know it happens on Presidents Day weekend. And they call each other best friends, which is just funny because like you only see each other when you are having fun and eating treats and like staying up all night. So I'm like, yeah, well of course you're best friends.

Like, 'cause you think, you know, every time you see each other. But my friend's daughter, oh man, I wanted to, like my friend is in the same place that a lot of us are, where her parents are fucking falling apart. Like just going from zero to 60. 60 being decrepit and, you know, fragile.

And so my friend was flying to Florida for the third time in three weeks, texting her daughter about Catholic Schools Week. And did you ever deal with Catholic Schools Week? You never went to a Catholic school, did you? Okay.

Quinn: Have we met?

Claire: I don't remember.

Quinn: Can you imagine how fast I would get kicked out of a fucking Catholic school?

Claire: Well, it's not up to you. That's up to your mom and your parents, like how much they will [00:08:00] show up to the principal's office. Anyway, Catholic Schools Week, I think is just a recruiting, like a big recruiting event where like they have open houses and whatever rah, rah. But there's a lot of themes.

It's like a week of theme days. And my friend was texting her daughter from the plane. Don't forget this and that for Catholic Schools Week, and her daughter texted her back, stop texting me and I was like, do you want me to drive to St. Louis and spank your kid for you? 'cause I will if you need me to.

Quinn: We have been having similar conversations of I know you don't think you are making the visceral reaction you're making to the things I'm saying. And when we say, don't make that face, you say, I'm not, and then it gets worse, but you are, it's unpleasant for everyone. It's unacceptable in public. And it's disrespectful, and then they make the face again and we're like, this is not gonna end well for you. Stop texting me. It's like, did you think that was going to help?

Claire: Right. [00:09:00] Yeah. I was pretty mad between last night and this morning. I made dinner last night. I texted you, I was like, this is a topic about, are you a trad wife? If you do all the things trad wives do, but you just hate it and you complain about it. Or are you still a trad wife? 'cause you are still, you know, doing all the traditional things.

So the boys were at Paul's basketball game. They came home, I had dinner on the table waiting for them with the table set. I gave them a choice of two meals. I made the one they made and, you know, not a thank you or yay or yum or anything like that. Just in fact, yeah, I had to make one of them come sit down.

'cause he said he was tired. And then, went upstairs to work for a tiny bit, put James to bed, came downstairs. I realized I had forgotten to put my dish away, you know, how I'd forgot to put my dish away. 'cause it was sitting there, like the entire, like table had been cleared except for my plate, even though I had made dinner, cleaned up most of the dishes.

And Steve was like wrapped up in this too. He's not, but I was like, you know, would've been great if someone had just been like, let me [00:10:00] just on the way taking mom's plate to the sink.

Quinn: Oh, look, there's another, I'm already on my way there, even if it wasn't yours and you hadn't made it and you didn't birth them, you think they still would've been like, I'll clean that up.

Claire: Yeah, just on the way and yeah, this morning I'm emptying the dishwasher, I'm making lunch, I'm making breakfast. I call up to James, like to come down for breakfast. He's like, I'm getting dressed. And I said, thanks for talking to me that way. I really deserved it. And there's just, you know, I'm curious to know how, if and how you are approaching this general strike that is maybe happening tomorrow. And I honestly can't tell if it's like a thing that's really well organized or is actually sort of like an internet thing. And I'm sorry if this is like a real thing and I'm not taking it seriously enough. But I was like, what if I went on strike and I was like, nobody would notice. Nobody would care. They'd all be glad I wasn't there with my like bullshit, like mad face storming around, making them like Paul this morning, he offered to make his own lunch great, [00:11:00] right?

Until his lunch was two Z bars and an Uncrustable in a bag and also some pineapple that I had cut up for him.

Quinn: I mean, I gotta be honest, Claire, that's not fucking bad.

Claire: Really, because that is like two and a half candy bars for lunch.

Quinn: A hundred percent. But lemme talk. So, here's the deal. They can't get their own groceries yet, I mean, I guess technically. So what else could they have chosen more poorly? That's actually in the house.

Claire: Well, like a vegetable would've been nice.

Quinn: No. What could they have done poorly? I'm trying to say why this wasn't a bad choice. But if those are like the worst things in your house, then sure. But are there other what are the fucking Takis or whatever. They could add a bag of Takis and that's it.

Claire: Yeah. I did offer sarcastically do you want your Halloween candy while you're at it? And then I also was like mad at him for not saying goodbye to me when I dropped him off at school. So, you know, we're, I guess I'm just saying, there's no takeaway here. I'm just saying if your kids did go to school this week, you probably would also be mad at them for something else.

Quinn: No, I know I [00:12:00] would. but it's also like the pick your fights thing, which they think I pick every fight and I've given up on most of them. Like I used to love making their lunch. Did I get customized notepads from Etsy for each of them? And this is like Henry's lunch, and I would write little notes, all this.

But here's the thing, they got mad every time I made their lunch or they didn't fucking eat it and then they didn't clean out their lunchbox, all that stuff. So I finally said, you gotta do it. Here's the deal. One day a week you can get lunch at school and we're gonna decide ahead of time. 'cause I'm not having this conversation every fucking day.

And I don't care if you want it on different days, we're all doing the same one. And then you gotta make your lunch. And when I really feel like a dick after dinner, I go, you gotta make it for tomorrow. And I'll do the whole like tomorrow. Henry will be thankful to tonight Henry. And they're just like, this fucking guy has got to have a heart attack soon.

But. I've stopped being mad about, 'cause I'm just like, at least I'm not having that fight every day.

Claire: Yeah. yeah. You're right. I guess. I guess, I don't know.

Quinn: No, it's not. I just gave up.

Claire: Yeah, I should just give up. Well. I don't even know why it made me mad. I just, I guess 'cause I try so hard [00:13:00] to make them eat well, you know, so I'm like, you should know by now at least like how to fake it. Like at least do it just to like, please me, take the carrots. Just go and throw them away for all I care. But at least take them.

Quinn: You would think they would do like the second order effect thinking that would at least relieve them of me being a presence in their life. Like this morning I said, okay, you're all ready, again it was like, yeah, sure. I said everything off your floor, clothes in the laundry basket. And one of 'em, I don't even remember who, 'cause I don't care.

It was like, no, 'cause I don't have a laundry basket. She does, there's seven of them. They're just floating around the house. And I said, go get one. Go get it. And again, like they could have done the math and avoided that interaction and they still haven't fucking learned. So I'm still here. Still here.

Claire: Steve said he thinks that this time of our lives is just waiting. And I'm not sure if that's the right word for it, but like our lives are so saturated with the kids' schools and facilitating and I dunno if you've seen the Marcello Hernandez special on [00:14:00] Netflix. That's a good one about parenting where his mom does a rap. He does an impersonation of his mom doing a rap of everything that she does for the kids. And a lot of it is like two minutes being like, pick you up and drop you off and pick you up and drop you off and pick you up and drop you off. And then I wait and then I pick you up and drop you off. So like I was buying the kids like raffle tickets yesterday for a school fundraiser and they get days outta school for this.

And then I'm helping to facilitate an adult dodge ball party, which is like fun. But also this is a school fundraiser thing and I made an appointment to get my hair done for this other school fundraiser that's next week. And like, they don't deserve my time and attention, but maybe it'll just be nice to look a little bit different from one day.

You know? And just things like that where, you know, basketball is every day and I hate basketball, but also it's worse to not have basketball. And anyway, I don't know if that counts as waiting. 'cause waiting sounds more passive than that. But I don't know where I'm going with that.

Quinn: No, it is, it's like I tell them every morning I can't get going with my day until you have [00:15:00] done all this shit and they're like you can, like you don't need us for this. I'm like, but how many questions have you asked me in the past 20 fucking minutes? So why would you think that one, first of all, most of the questions I ignore, they don't matter.

But you would still be asking me while I was trying to get ready. So I might as well not be mad about that. I might as well just be sitting here with my second coffee and answering the same shit. Where's my lunchbox? I don't know, motherfucker. You either left it at school or it's in your backpack 'cause you didn't unpack it.

Claire: Why would he even ask you? I'm surprised he even, you know, asked you that instead of just putting his lunch like Paul did in a Ziploc bag. I did not criticize him for taking lunch to school in a Ziploc bag. I really wanted to, but I like did hold back. That's one thing I could have said like, not making more trash for the world.

Quinn: That's right on our topic, by the way.

Claire: Yeah, I was gonna say.

Quinn: That's right.

Claire: I don't know when people listen to these episodes, but we are like speaking, you know, we are not yet a week after the assassination of Alex Pretti by ICE. And this alleged, I don't know why I'm saying alleged, but you know, [00:16:00] possible strike coming up that may or may not happen.

My friend of mine was, we're commiserating over how we don't know whether we are taking part of this or not. And I was kind of being sarcastic, like dark sarcastic well good news is there'll be another chance to fight fascism like pretty soon. Like, this won't be it. This isn't the only thing.

So we're all stressed out, and then you yell at your kids because everything they like is stupid but they don't appreciate that for some reason. And I'm curious how things are going with you, making sure your kids are woke angels and how much they're appreciating it right now?

Quinn: It's a loaded question. Here's my barometer for what I don't want to do. When I was like 13, my dad found my Foxy Brown CD, the rapper, Foxy Brown. I believe the album was called Il Nana and he found it and he broke it in half in front of me.

Claire: Oh.

Quinn: And I was like, one, I mean, is it not necessarily appropriate for me? Sure. But it was great. Also not nearly the worst [00:17:00] thing I was listening to. Worst. Best. She's great. I'm aiming to not do that. However, in the course of doing that, I will do more moderate versions of maybe this isn't appropriate for you yet, and we can listen to a different album or song. And I try to play it cool.

Of course, I don't always do that. You know, I have trained them so much now that I think they have probably reached the other side, or at least the older one, he'll say any public figure of any kind, athlete. Doesn't matter who it is, been around forever. New person, doesn't matter. He'll be like, so I read about, you know, Gandhi today, and I'm like, great.

He is like Ugh, is he a bad person too? And I'm like, no. 'cause I've said over and over again, I'm like, look man, some people are just assholes. But then there's like bad people. And I'll give 'em a litany of examples and I'll say you're so lucky the founding fathers weren't on fucking Twitter, you know, to go off and all this shit.

Didn't have the, there, what's the quote? There's always a tweet, right? [00:18:00] Jesus Christ. The number of people in history that would go down. But now he's resigned to the fact that each person he brings up to me, the second he says their name, he's like fuck, they're probably a Nazi too.

And I'm like, actually, no. And I get so delighted to tell them that, as far as I know, they have not given a Hitler salute.

Claire: Yeah.

Quinn: But I do also again clearly try to call out the bad guys, like right now. And it's complicated obviously, getting into all this with kids, I don't know how they can fucking miss it though 'cause they're on everything is, and we try to in the work too, which is we are very vocal about good guys and very vocal about bad guys 'cause they're fucking real, you know?

Is there shit in between? Sure. But yeah, these people are fucking monsters and we'll call it out and you know, if they were to ask about this strike, which I think it's somewhere between, like you said, is it a real thing and being organized online, I think, do we need one of these? Yeah.

Obviously. I think anything helps at this point, obviously. You know, Minneapolis did their own version last [00:19:00] Friday, something like that, which was awesome to see. It was like negative fucking 10 out there. These people, there's a great article in the Atlantic this week from Adam Sewer talking about how they've shown up, anyways. I don't try to ruin everything, and I definitely take it too far. Like I would, you know, it's very hard not to be like don't eat that shit all the time. All the time. And they're like, do. You have to ruin this thing. Can we not have a special treat? I'm like, it's not a treat if you have it all the time.

And I'll say that about, the same thing about, you know, watching YouTube videos of, you know, Barbie's pregnant for the fourth time, the sequel. And I'm like, that's, we're not watching that.

Claire: Yeah, it was funny 'cause Steve was saying how Paul, our 13-year-old was like being really moody and he snapped on Steve and I just like around the tape a little bit because what Paul said, why do you hate everything? And so what had happened was that I think they were talking about some kind of maybe football, national football champion, some college football thing or sports thing. And Steve said who won the championship [00:20:00] last year? And Paul said, Florida and Steve went, Ugh, Florida. And so when he says ugh Florida, he's talking about Ron DeSantis and like Florida MAGA, but the kids don't know the state of Florida.

And to be fair, like college students who attend the University of Florida don't necessarily deserve to be like lumped in with Ron DeSantis.

Quinn: Some of them for sure, but not all of them.

Claire: And then prior to that we were driving Paul home from a basketball game and we were driving by Whole Foods where many years ago, when Steve would go, like kids were little and Steve would go on a business trip, Whole Foods would be kind of a good place for me to take the kids for dinner while Steve was out of town, because like we'd have pizza or you'd go to the bar, the food bar. I was drinking wine then so I could have a drink of wine. They had board games so the boys would play board games. We'd get some like gelato, you know, like place to go for dinner. That was like easier than a restaurant.

But this time I said, no, we're not going to Whole Foods anymore. And then they’re like, why? We're like, 'cause Jeff Bezo is a fucking asshole. [00:21:00] You know? So to be fair, in a span of a couple hours, we had said anything that you're interested in is garbage.

Quinn: I do it every day. Every day. Because here's the thing, I think I told you a long time ago, Dana, once years ago, definitely does remember this, basically told me like I have the ability to be a bummer about anything. And it's all connected now because everything's owned by the same fucking five guys and companies and yeah, I'll ruin it all Whole Foods, Amazon, come at me.

Claire: I mean, I love RuPaul's Drag Race and RuPaul fracks, and that's not even a joke. That is a hundred percent true.

Quinn: Right. But that is so, Drag Race is fucking incredible. Like I've been watching it for so long. But RuPaul fracks is a really great example of a lot of things can be true. I think the line in the sand has to be, are there like young incel men that are being disinformationed and it's affecting them and their crew, but maybe not society yet. Like they're not taking part of that. And then there's probably middle ground of ones that are ruining everything. It's another thing [00:22:00] to fucking sign up for ICE as a snowflake, incel, and kill somebody, right? So if you go that far. Then you're a bad guy. And I think when Jeff Bezos is like, yeah, I'll pay for that fucking ballroom and fuck all these people, and I don't care if people die in my warehouses and this and this. I'm like, ah, I'm out. Like I don't know what to tell you, man.

Claire: No it's a fine line because like we, for instance, you don't talk about people's looks. We don't talk about people's bodies, but Steve makes an exception for is Lauren Sanchez. He like, hates her ass and will talk about how ugly she is, and she's like a freak and like a, and that is, if you talk that way about someone I know, that would be like really fucked up.

And it's not just I mean, it's the Mar-a-Lago face, right? And what everything it encounters, but also, you know, who looks like that secretly? Dolly Parton. Charro. Like we, you know, so it is kind of, I don’t know.

Quinn: But it's almost equivalent of right now you have to have a healthy hall pass, which, [00:23:00] and the hall pass isn't like someone you're allowed to fuck. It's someone you're allowed to like publicly ruin. Even if, sure, some of those superficial things might apply to other people, but guess what?

Dolly Parton's given away 3 billion books. She can do whatever the fuck she wants. I don't care. She can also go to space. She can do whatever the fuck she wants. The difference is if you're just going to space, but you're also, you know, directly cashing up for fascism. That's over the line. And yeah. So I'll ruin it doesn't matter. Pepperoni, every time they get pepperoni pizza, they're like, oh fuck. He's so mad at me.

Claire: That's so funny. I don't really, every once in a while. This is not related to anything. I've been thinking about this for a while. I have a long time coming. I have a wish to have a salami sandwich on some white bread with some mayonnaise on it. Like nothing else. I don’t want a piece of lettuce, that would ruin it. So good. Ooh. Like that bread would be so squishy. And the salami would have a good bite.

Quinn: But this is, but you're asking like how much do we make it toxic? And I'm like, clearly I do it a lot. They will be out at a pizza place and they'll look at me and go, can [00:24:00] I have pepperoni on it? Or they'll see it, or the waitress or waiter will say, would you like pepperoni on that?

And you see the sad look on their face and they go, no, thank you. And I'm like, yeah, 'cause I fucking ruined it for you. You're welcome, so the answer is it's everywhere. I've ruined it everywhere.

Claire: No cured meats. I had the oven guy over. This may not surprise you, but my oven broke and also like, the fan over the range is cuckoo. And so I was like having him fix it and I was like, am I killing myself if I cook with this not working? And he is like, no. Are you someone who's like big oven, like in big stove? Are you doing electric ranges and all that or are you just like still doing gas and you know?

Quinn: Where we are right now. Grandma’s is gas, you know, who doesn't give a fuck about any of that stuff? Grandparents. They're like, plastic's fucking incredible. It won the war. You're welcome. They're like, you know what wasn't in plastic? Milk when we didn't have it in the Depression. So they're holding onto that for sure.

We're doing induction in our house, which I'm really excited about. Here's the thing though. The greatest thing for families if you can get it, is the [00:25:00] countertop microwave oven thing? It toasts and airfries.

Claire: No, we don't do that. We just have an old fashioned microwave.

Quinn: No. This fucking thing. We never use our big oven. Everything I need to feed the kids goes in there. I mean, we use it for when we have a lot of people, but yeah. This thing's amazing. I'll put the link, the one we have in there.

Claire: I bought my parents, all of a sudden, since, you know, since December, I have become like a new level of care taking from my parents. Like where I am, like, all right, I'm, you are done. You're not in charge of this anymore. So I bought them a microwave because they were still using the first one they ever bought, which operated with a dial turn, like a knob.

And they kept it in the basement 'cause they didn't like the way it looked. And I was like, nope, we're doing one with all buttons now and we're not going downstairs to use the microwave. And I don't care what mom thinks, like we're doing that. so that was one new, exciting. Well it was, and it was kind of cute because my dad was like, would not let me pay for it. And I think he thought a microwave must cost $600. And I was like, no, that's my [00:26:00] treat. And then he's like, no, I insist, send me the receipt. And it was like 125 bucks and he was like, oh, it's not that bad. Okay, two questions not related. Do your kids glaze as they would say, anyone who they like to make you mad on purpose? Is there anyone that they like pretend to be fans of?

Quinn: Glaze? Is like that somebody they sweat?

Claire: Yeah. Or Jock.

Quinn: Oh. Oh, okay. Now I'm catching up. I'm catching up. This is gonna take me to my thread. I want to talk about how to tell the kids grandma's dying. It's amazing, in their language, that they do on purpose to bother me. No. I mean, I think honestly the tables have turned, I do everything to bother them on purpose.

I think they know that because I am someone who grew up with a lot of insecurities and I'm so excited about being past all of them. 'cause I don't care anymore that I'll ruin anything in front of anyone about anything, but especially friends and other parents and things like that. So no. I mean, you know, [00:27:00] Charlotte's into the kids from Zombies for whatever the fuck.

And you know, the kids are into whatever, but I'll be like, yeah, you know, I'll ruin anything. It doesn't matter. No they don't have anything like that up on me yet.

Claire: Okay, because Paul does that with Michael Jackson. Paul, I think, tries to troll us by talking about how much he loves Michael Jackson. Steve falls for the bait, which is just disappointing to me 'cause I'm like, he's doing it like Paul doesn't know anything about Michael Jackson at all. Like to the point where I think he still hasn't figured out that he was in the Jackson Five and that the Jackson Five was like the whole, you know, trajectory.

Quinn: Oh, yeah.

Claire: You know, so I don't even bother. And also it's one of those things where it's like Michael Jackson, part of it too is like the accusations against him, which whatever is like part of a spectrum of him growing up in an abusive childhood.

You know, and anyway. So whatever Paul's saying, I don't think he has any context for it. So, but then Steve, he just gets Steve [00:28:00] going and I just, both of them deserve each other basically. And I kind of, I don't engage and I'm like, you don't even know. I bet Paul couldn't name more than three Michael Jackson songs if I put him to the test. But I'm not gonna, it's not worth my time to like get in it with him. I just would rather ignore him than anything else. But yeah. So I don't know.

Quinn: There's that. I walk away from most things.

Claire: Then your kids don't try to like, come with you without trying to like something or test you by saying they like something that they know that you would be mad about.

Quinn: No, I mean there's definitely been times over the past month where I've said we're never saying six seven again in this house ever again. And it's not that pushes my button and I don't think they do it on particular, they just do it 'cause they come on from school and they keep doing it. And I go, I never wanna hear that again. Start a new joke. Let's start a new one. So it's less that. Yeah, no, again, like I try to stay a step ahead of them as much as humanly possible.

Claire: So Paul said, and I don't know if this is true across the country or just in his school, but I kind of like [00:29:00] this. First, he was complaining because they have this all school basketball tournament coming up that I hate. 'cause like you have to be at the school the entire weekend. And I'm not exaggerating at all and I don't care for it, but some parents do. The ones who drink do. But he said he was complaining because you used to be able to shout airball when kids air balled and you can't anymore. And I was like, so they're forcing you to be good sports. Like I can't believe that. But he was saying that apparently now in, in school, if a kid tries to be funny or says something and nobody engages with it after it beats someone goes airball. So see that, see if any of your kids do that and see if they respond and see what happens when you, 'cause we definitely did that to Paul five minutes after he told us that.

Quinn: Well, see, I think it's fine for parents to do to their kids. Right? It's another thing when like you're trying to teach 'em to be a good sport. I always tell the kids, I'm like, you strike out 60 times. I don't care. But you gotta be a good sport. I don't care. But if they make a joke and it doesn't land, like I'm gonna hammer 'em and I'm gonna hammer 'em, and I'm gonna hammer 'em as they're falling asleep, I'll [00:30:00] remember and I will tell them that I still haven't left at their joke. Hold on. Let me read you some of these real quick 'cause I think they're important and they're really topical to the things we have been talking about.

Hold on, grandma sick name and I'll post the thread to this. It's pretty incredible. It's by a handle on Threads. It has 1.3 million views, which I don't know what that means, Dave 5 1 5 0 Scotsman. It says break bad news to teens by talking on their level. Me spinning into Sharon, daughter's room. Yo. Turns out Grandma's heart is weak af. And then here's some of the great responses. She's got maybe six, seven weeks left or not Granny about to be an ancestor or nana's new pronouns are was slash were, she's cooked bro.

Claire: That’s what I was gonna say. Granny is cooked.

Quinn: Let's just say she's about to be muted in the chat, my guy. High key though, she ain't making it twin. Fam just got smaller fam. POV grandma's funeral.[00:31:00]

Claire: Yeah. Sounds about right.

Quinn: I just, I was just like, oh it's so good. It's so good. And that's what, I'll take those and I'll use those at dinner before they can get to me. That's my goal is to get them before they get to me. I tried to tell them that someone had invented, what did I say? I said this was eight, so if this is six, seven, this was eight.

And I really tried to sell it and say it's a thing and you should use it at school. And two weeks later they came back. They're like, it's not hitting at our school. Well, your school's a problem then.

Claire: They actually tried that. They actually took like a suggestion of yours and applied it to, wow, your kids are nerds. I didn't know that, that they would listen to you and then take it.

Quinn: At some point they're gonna figure out I'm full of shit. And I think they do. Obviously they know for those things, but I'm like, yo, I like, I've got rizz. I tell 'em all the time. I'm like I am the aura farm.

Claire: I told James he should start a dimple club at school, and he has not taken me up on that, but I was like, would be [00:32:00] really cute. The pictures of you guys would all be really cute. Not related to kids, but if you were invited, let's say someone like who was really rich, you know, and not Jeff Bezos, but let's say like Richard Branson or I don't know, Melinda Gates, I don't know, said Quinn, we're going to space and we have a seat. Would you go, would you hop on?

Quinn: I would go and I would be protesting the genocide, I would use it as like an opportunity for everything. Basically.

Claire: You'd be like Katie Perry, like promoting her album?

Quinn: No, but not album, but it would be like a long list of like genocide in Gaza. Climate, water is too expensive, but also too cheap. All like the whole thing to the point probably where they would be like, well, you're not allowed to come now. This is incredibly annoying.

Claire: But you would still like the space part, like you still would be going.

Quinn: I've always wanted to go to space, but I have also been told I'm not allowed to go to space, so.

Claire: I was too scared to watch the movie Space [00:33:00] Camp, and I heard about William Shatner. Did you hear what he said after he went to space and he was like, experiencing the most like existential dread of his life, basically being like, I saw the planet and I saw how fragile it is and it just filled me with sick deep sadness. I don't want that. Why would I wanna feel that?

Quinn: By the way, if you watch the video, then Jeff Bezos walks away and cracks champagne just like, doesn't even respond to him.

Claire: Sure.

Quinn: Fucking psychopath. Here's a question for you. Ready? I want real answers from you about you and your husband and your children. How would you and or your kids handle the situation of Apollo 13?

Claire: Oh, like watching it on tv?

Quinn: In it, who would handle it best? Who would handle it worst? Why? What might they be good at? So there's a leak, there's an air leak, right? Whose anxieties, who, like any, all the things.

Claire: I actually think I'm pretty [00:34:00] good in an emergency. Not like I've been in a lot of emergencies, but I think I like crack down and I have tunnel vision and I get it done. So I wouldn't want to be, like, I feel I'd be the reluctant hero, Steve would probably freak the fuck out. Like he was like that during COVID where he was panicky to a, like to an unhelpful degree, I hope. Sorry, Steve. I just think that's true. The kids would be really nervous, like the kids would be scared. But I think that they would maybe listen to me, possibly like they are very soft children. Like they haven't been in a lot of emergencies, but like I have seen them be brave at different times.

But nobody in our family wants to be a hero, that's for sure. None of us want to like remotely step up and be known for being brave in any kind of way.

Quinn: But I mean, like you have, you're in this capsule, it's the size of this desk, the four of you together. Who would have, would be best suited to specific jobs? Anyone? You’re team leader, it sounds like, are you [00:35:00] neutralizing Steve immediately so that it's addition by subtraction?

Claire: Yeah, probably, I'd probably kill him. I'd probably, because he'd take up too much oxygen. Let's just be real. Like he would be panicking. James. He's good at stats and numbers. So was there, was that a job?

Quinn: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, sure.

Claire: And I don't know what Paul would be good at. He would be, you know, he'd probably maybe just be a good delegate. Like he would do what I told him to do. He likes, he could be helpful at times.

Quinn: Does he follow directions all the way, or are there often critical steps that are left undone even with the best intentions?

Claire: No offense, he's like a man. So sometimes you gotta really spell it all out. But if you give him the right steps, you know, like I have written, if you go down to our basement, I wrote down step by step how to run the washing machine for my family. Like, they, and that's just fair. You know, you forget like what inherent knowledge you have, you know? So but I wouldn't even be there in the like I would be so mad that I was there in the first place that I, there would be part of me that's [00:36:00] let's just kill ourselves. Let's just get out. I resent this question to begin with, this thought experiment. So how about you guys? All five of you guys?

Quinn: Dana's pretty good. Well, first of all, there's five of us, so somebody's definitely gotta go. They're going right out with that air leak because it is not surviving. I mean, they only had four guys on there and one of 'em ended up getting the fucking flu or whatever, so it was not great. Or no, throwing up, one of them got sick and threw up.

That's right. What's his face was supposed to get Chicken pox, I think, and didn't end up getting it, anyways. Lieutenant Dan? Yeah. Lieutenant Dan didn't end up getting chicken pox. So, but I get it. You gotta be safe. So you roll with what you got. We got five of us. Dana's pretty good in emergencies. She's pretty good. She's the second though. Any there's any sort of come down though. She's out, she's asleep. It's a nightmare. So you're not waking her up from that. Like you get her for one shot essentially. This is like a seven day trip. We gotta hopefully go around the moon and come back.

So that's a tough one. It gets pretty cold in there. You remember they had to shut off the heat. That's not gonna, I'm gonna get a lot of complaining about that. And a lot of like, this isn't dad's [00:37:00] opinion. This is what Houston told us we have to do is shut off the heat to save power or we don't get home.

It was a little like, I think I told you how when we were going to the airport to come back from Paris and Charlotte said, I just want to go home. And I was like, you have to cross the ocean. Like I'd need you to, I need you to have a little more resilience. So I'm not sure how well that would go if we're like sitting in the corner with I'm cold. I know you are, however.

Claire: I am the heat provider, so I would be, I would have at least one person clinging to me 'cause I generate heat. Yeah.

Quinn: Oliver's pretty good. I mean, if he has his medicine, I think we're okay. If he doesn't, we're dead. Henry's gonna be, I think he'll do the stuff. He's very numbers oriented and so I think he'll figure some of that stuff out. He's gonna yell at us while he's doing it. It's up to me to be able to get past him yelling at me and not just be like, then fuck it.

Do it wrong. I'm willing to die for you yelling at me. But I think he'll do pretty good with that. Charlotte's good at finding stuff, but you know, we're in a pretty small capsule. What if we're like, listen, I need you to figure out where this leak is. I think [00:38:00] she could do it. Real probabilities your family makes at home?

Claire: Oh God.

Quinn: All things considered.

Claire: Zero. We wouldn't even pass the first test of being an astronaut. Like I, this like question is making me ill just in general because like why was everyone talking about the Challenger yesterday? Was that the anniversary?

I feel like Challenger was in the news a lot and then I was reading about the guy, there's one guy who was like, Hey, this O-ring is fucked up and it's gonna get cold. And like no one listened to him.

Quinn: Oh, yeah.

Claire: So I was reading about that guy on Reddit yesterday and I was like, Jesus Christ. Like that was just too much for me. So that is just, there's no way space could be worth all of that to me. And I don't mean to be a, I mean a bummer about it. It's just I also don't like to go underground either.

Quinn: Well, I was gonna say space or bottom of the ocean? You gotta pick one.

Claire: I mean, I would've said bottom in the ocean, but two years ago prior to, you know, the, you know.

Quinn: Yeah. But let's assume you would get in a well-made submarine.

Claire: I'd rather be in the ocean. [00:39:00] 'cause like people have been there less or I think there's still more mysteries in the ocean and in space. What are you gonna do? You're gonna see the planets and then yeah, you have to worry about coming back. And you'd feel bad, and also there's garbage out there. I'd just be scared about it.

Quinn: There's a lot of garbage up there. It's a fucking nightmare. Speaking of Elono Musk. Yeah.

Claire: Yeah, I would rather see the ocean. I haven't seen a lot of ocean stuff, you know, I haven't, like, I saw a sea turtle once while I was snorkeling.

That was cool. But I would if I could safely see a lot of cool stuff that would be and not feel like I was going to explode, you know, that would be rad. We are a very fearful family at large. I would say, like Paul and I were saying that, why were we talking about U-boats? God, the things we talk about at the dinner table, but like we're talking about submarines and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has a U-boat they captured.

And it, you can tour it, but it gets, it's very ominous. I think they'll run like an alarm or something like that. And if you are a fearful sound person, which most [00:40:00] of us are like the U-boat is one.

Quinn: They’re small as shit too.

Claire: Just touring a land based U-boat in the Midwest is scary, is too scary for us.

Quinn: Yeah. Those things are no joke, man. My grandfather was on the US equivalent of one of those, and they're so small.

Claire: I would be kind of tempted just even though it would probably be scary. But those planes, those parabola planes, the vomit comet where you can experience zero gravity without going to space, that kind of seems cool to me.

Quinn: Zero gravity would be cool once, but can't you do that in those like wind tunnels you can do now?

Claire: I guess I don't wanna, you have to go to Rosemont to do that, I don’t wanna go there.

Quinn: Trade wives don’t go to Rosemont.

Claire: No trade wives. A trade wife is like a wife who can fix the stove, which I'm not, or who can fix the toilet, which I don't do. Yeah, I can't even sew, which I'm not a good trad wife. I just cook and I'm mad about it, so.

Quinn: Right. I thought that the, and again, this is all the algorithm from like the how to talk to your kids on their level about grandma being sick to your meme, the grandparents making [00:41:00] drama when there's meme

Claire: Yeah. God, that made me laugh so hard.

Quinn: That’s such a perfect not right now, but them intentionally doing it. No question.

Claire: Yeah, well, yeah. The meme that we were joking about, maybe Quinn can put it in the notes, is that a guy, it just says, first of all, a short meme, a short video that's cut quickly is just, yeah. And if you send me something that's over a minute long, I already am like mad at you for just thinking that I wanna watch that. But it just says grandparents when things are going well in the family and it gets to the, to, I think, I believe I can fly maybe, and it's a guy throwing his glasses down the stairs and jumping down the stairs. And that is, I think a lot of us, it's like, just wild.

Like I said, again, like how many people's parents are, and I don't wanna put a curse on you 'cause you guys have healthy grandparents in your family, but it's like all of a sudden at once, you know, it makes you very unspecial in a way that's fine. You know, 'cause like you're, on the one hand, everyone's like asking you how's your mom, but you're also, how's like, how's your dad? How's your dad's wife? You know, how's everything?

Quinn: All the things. [00:42:00]

Claire: Yeah. And it is and the kids don't care, which is great. As we mentioned with Deanna, like they're shitting at the funeral. But, my friend whose daughter was a bitch to her, you know, as she was trying to help her get ready from afar.

Quinn: Please stop texting,

Claire: Yeah, her son, her angel son was like, can I come with you to help grandma? I'm really sad about grandma. I'd like to help. I already packed my suitcase and I was like, my kids did not do that. I had to yell at them to write a card, one card for my mom. But you know, on the one hand, what would you rather have an empath child who was deeply anxious and sad about his grandparent? Would you rather be them be self-centered and like just go about their lives, you know, studying for the Constitution test?

Quinn: Can it be situational? Can they just do what I want them to do? So you guys are scared of the U-boat on land in the Midwest, but you're not scared of the Evanston tornado siren that is apparently used.

Claire: Well, if you live in Illinois, the tornado siren goes off at 10, 10:00 AM or 10:30 AM every Tuesday just to make sure it works. So you like, [00:43:00]

Quinn: That’s frequent. Continue.

Claire: Yeah. And then it goes off in the morning after snow to let you know that there's snow parking in effect. So, you know, if it's an odd day of the week and you live out on an odd side of the street, you gotta get your car across the street.

Quinn: I've got a lot of questions about who decided that was okay to be repurposed.

Claire: I mean, I don't know. It's working, it works for us. But this is how, you know, I think when you get to a certain age of bravery, like when you're not, when you don't give a shit about your life as much, I don't know. We've had some tornado warnings like once or twice a summer for the last couple years. And that means a tornado has been sighted like within a certain amount of time. So it means you've gotta get in the like, time to get in the basement. To me, when I hear the tornado siren now, it means walk the dog and then get in the basement because our dog is not good. And so if you let, like he has to go to the bathroom, like you have to make sure, 'cause you don't know how long he'll be down there.

Have had the experience of having him, me trying to panicky, get him in the backyard when the tornado siren was running and he thought it was a game and he was running [00:44:00] around, you know, and you're like, fuck you. So now to me I have a video of me walking the dog while the tornado sirens go off, but you're like, it's time to go. And you're like, I don't know. It's like, you can tell by the sky if it's like happening now or if it's like on the way and just, so yeah.

Quinn: It reminds me of the there's a real good combo meme out there, and again, I'm late to everything, but it's the, it's like millennials today and they're driving, and in front of them is the Final Destination truck full of the logs, you know? 'cause in the Final Destination movie, the log comes and kills a person and they're inside screaming do it now I'm ready.

And then it, it comes, and then there's the John Hamm, like dancing in the club, like soothing thing. And I'm like, yeah, that, that's it. Are you just like tornado? Come on this way.

Claire: Yeah. Well, I gotta say I hate, well, first of all, we're very lucky. We live in a brick house that's like over a hundred years old and we like, I feel like tornadoes sometimes scooch around us, you know, [00:45:00] or will touch down in a weird part of town, but it's not like you know, knock on wood, now I'm bringing it on us, but it's, for whatever reason, it hasn't like really kicked our asses.

But like we have a comfy setup. We have a basement that's nice and you watch, you put on the tv and it's like kind of fun to watch the local news and the meteorologist do their thing, do the thing that they've been trained their whole lives to do, which is you know, vamp and talk constantly and warn you.

And then there's like the footage and then the kids get nervous and I remind them that we have our bug out bags, so we could live down there for a little while if we wanted to. And when I was a kid, when you go down to the basement, we had a ping pong table down there. So there's this like weird combo of the world might be ending, which might be like kind of cool, you know, but also we'll probably be fine. So, you know, like it's I dunno how to explain this. It's like our party time, when was the last time you heard an air raid siren? How often do you?

Quinn: Well, we've got, first of all, again, like most of our conversations a cannon goes off here, which this, you know, right now is a little scary, but it is what it is. We've got the [00:46:00] Surrey, we've got a nuclear power plant I don't know what it is, 30, 40 miles away, something like that. And I can't remember the, they don't do it every fucking Tuesday, which again very strange. But when it goes off you assume that it's a test, but at the same time, if it's going off for real, you're like, what? What am I gonna do? It’s like Chernobyl but worse. What am I gonna do?

Claire: Do you guys have air shows where you live?

Quinn: No.

Claire: We have the air and water show in Chicago every year, and I used to work across the street from Navy Pier, which is kind of cool because you would on your lunch hour, you could just sit outside and see them all practicing and, but there is a discourse and as I've gotten older, just like, hey, like maybe it's like traumatizing to hear, have these like war planes, like buzz us for four days straight and like the sound of these planes.

And even one day I was driving down Lakeshore Drive and I looked over my shoulder and there was a stealth bomber, you know, and they're [00:47:00] quiet. So you like, don't, you know, there's no, and you're like, and it looks like Star Wars. Like, I mean, you know, it just looks like a weird shape. It doesn't look like a plane, you know?

So I see both sides of it. They are kind of cool, but also you're like, well, you know, like I'm reading a book about World War II right now, and you're like, well, I can imagine when it's,you know, one of those like old German planes or whatever that comes by. You're like, I may be missed in 30 seconds or so. I see both sides of it, but.

Quinn: You know, what's worse for you? Taking your lunch to school in a Ziploc bag? What World War II book are you reading?

Claire: It's called Agent ZO and it's about this woman Polish resistance fighter in World War II. And I'm not quite on the, actually, it's kind of interesting. This woman is inherently un. She has no riz, like she is very serious about Polish, like being a woman soldier and nothing else. And so on the one hand it's not like a super juicy story, but if you are [00:48:00] Polish or just like interested in history, it is a good, I feel like I'm learning an aspect about World War II, about how fucked Poland was by Britain, by America, you know, by obviously Germany and Russia and how Warsaw, which I forgot about, which I've been to, like, my tattoo is a Warsaw Mermaid. I dunno if you can, see it.

Quinn: No, now I can, yeah.

Claire: But Warsaw, if you go to, if you go to Warsaw, and you go to Krakow, you would probably think like Warsaw is very cold and communist and Krakow is very charming and it's 'cause Warsaw. It was not just bombed, it was like bombed to make a point to be like, fuck you.

We are punishing you on purpose and destroying everything about your city because we're mad at you for having the temerity to think you might survive. And so anyway, it's a good history about the Polish reality of World War II. So, yeah. Anyway, it's nice to read about bravery right now. I will say that.

Quinn: Dana, we joke, has gotten like a dissertation done, like a dissertation on real life lady spies in World War II. She's read so many of those, so I [00:49:00] will have her make a little list of all those. She loves 'em. She's just blown through 'em. It's amazing. Other book recommendation is it's called Motherland and the woman's name is, my friend Franklin Leonard recommended it. This is by a friend of his, Julia. Oh boy. I-O-F-F-E, Feminist History of Modern Russia From Revolution to Autocracy. It is fucking fantastic. And it does a really great job of completely expanding on so many things.

But one of my, I hesitate to call like one of my favorite facts, but like the most sort of ignored facts, which is of all the different ways, all the different countries lost volumes of people in World War II. Or I guess during the years of World War II, 'cause obviously the Chinese Civil War was going on and Japan was doing all this other fucked up stuff in Southeast Asia.

Besides, you know, the Western Front. Russia lost 22 million [00:50:00] people, most of which were men. The US lost, I don't know what it was, like 800,000 or something like that. Awful. Most of 'em were men. At one point after the war, for every hundred women in Russia, there were 19 men, like things that have affected history that we don't talk about enough. It's crazy. But anyways, the book is fantastic. I think you'd really like it.

Claire: I read last year, the Fall of Berlin by Anthony Beaver, and it made me learn more about a part of history that, on the one hand is not talked about a lot with the war, but also it makes sense that it's not talked about, which is mass rape and like it is chilling to be a mother of sons. And you have to confront, if you read that book, you have to confront the fact that like every man is capable of doing that.

Which really hurts your head to think about, but you're like, how could this be? But it was, and then you're like, why does no one talk about this? And you're like, for obvious reasons they don't wanna fucking talk about this.

Quinn: But we have to, and Julia does a great job of [00:51:00] that in her book too. She's just here's what went down.

Claire: Well, it's interesting 'cause like you see sometimes pictures, I feel like there'll be a history every once in a while. If you're like on Reddit especially, there'll be a history picture of a woman in France maybe, or Germany. Seeing someone paraded around with her head shaved because she's being shamed for collaborating with the enemy, but there's also a good chance that she just got fucking raped and then they're blaming her for collaborating with the enemy, you know?

And anyway, it's a weirdly, I don't know how to explain it. Like it's good to read about this stuff that did happen and like, things are not great now, but you're also like, all right, let's just let's just like fact check a little, not fact check. Let's just touch base with like things that have happened, you know, while people we live with are still alive.

Quinn: Correct. And that's a scary thing to me is how many people that generation are, I mean, most of them are gone now, who can tell those stories and why they did those things, but also talk about it fully, which like, for example, the fact that the US was incredibly nationalist and like absolutely refused to take part in a war in any [00:52:00] way until we absolutely had to or Madison Square Garden holding Nazi rallies.

There's a really great quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates besides his other great one recently, which is tell your children who the cowards were. It's basically maybe we shouldn't say history is the best we can be. Essentially let's not use that as a roadmap, but at the same time, we should learn about it. 'cause we've done some horrible things.

Claire: Well, yeah, and it makes you, I don't know where the thread is with this, but you know, you think about the mass strike, you know, that may, whatever, and then you're like, how does that suck up to being a woman who crosses the Pyrenees by herself with a pair of high heels on, you know, because she's walking from Poland to Spain to get a message across, you know, with something sewn into her coat, you know? Is that the same thing as. I mean, I don't think people are trying to make those connections, but just, you know, just things that have actually happened.

Quinn: I have been thinking about in a [00:53:00] fraternity, like what would the most sort of superficial cliche days that there could be for Catholic Schools Week from the outside, you know, like Born Into Sin Day and things like that. What are the costumes for those? I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking, do your kids know because they are of winter, that they shovel, do they shovel?

Claire: Yeah they like being helpful. They like, there's something kind of soothing about shoveling. There's something, it's says get the job done. You, it's right there in front of you. You know, it's, the job is done when it's done. And so, they also did buy, my dad, so my mom was in the hospital during Christmas and my dad just did my dad just bought them everything they asked for Christmas, which hurt my head. And James asked for a snowball maker for Christmas, which is a crank lever. I don't even know how to explain it. It's almost like a weird pair of scissors. It's almost like a meatball maker. I don't know how you explain it, but it's like a machine that, a simple [00:54:00] machine that goes like this. And my dad bought him five of them so, yeah, exactly.

Quinn: Isn't that fucking perfect? That is the least surprising thing you've said today.

Claire: Because I threw the old one away. We had one that was in the backyard rotting, and I was sick of looking at it and I threw it away and James said, where is it? And then two weeks later, five more took its place.

Quinn: Five more. God that is fucking so on point.

Claire: And it only works from the snow with a certain kind of consistency I've learned. So, um, yeah. But yeah, they shovel. I was mad at Steve a couple weeks ago 'cause we had a big snow in December and he was sick and he couldn't shovel.

And of course the electric snowblower wasn't charged up and I asked where the other shovel was, and he said, in sort of a bitchy way, we only have one shovel because only one person shovels. And I was like, fuck you. So I went to the local hardware store and I bought three more shovels. So now we all have a shovel so we can all shovel. But yeah.

Quinn: That's where it makes sense to go above [00:55:00] board, right? Is to be like, there's only four of us. I bought six shovels. So in case one of you motherfuckers loses or breaks one, you have no excuse. There's so many shovels.

Claire: Right, we're all shoveling. Get your friends over. We're all shoveling. What are the odds that your kids were back in school on Monday? What do you, what's the vibe?

Quinn: Apparently we're getting, I don't know, it's supposed to stay fucking cold. I don't know. I don't know. Here's the thing, it's very easy to be like, oh, they're never gonna let him go back to school. It's like there's a limit and then they gotta start doing the administrative tasks of finding more days or tacking 'em on at the end.

They don't wanna do that shit. I get it. But I don't fucking know, man. We are very close to Lord of the Flies slash Swiss Family Robinson. They're just like, we're not going back there. We're not gonna do that.

Claire: What do you guys have? So in our house for instance, we actually put couch cushions in the windows of the basement just because to keep the basement from getting super cold. And Steve has some trick where he runs a string through the toilet that helps keep the the pipes from freezing. I don't really know what it is. We have a space heater [00:56:00] in the bathroom.

Quinn: Yeah. Space heaters on the pipes, keep 'em dripping. That shit actually does work. Cover it up from outside, you know, that kind of stuff. It seems dumb, but it actually does work.

Claire: It's not dumb. You know what's dumber is like paying a plumber to come, like an emergency plumber to come when you're pipe froze.

Quinn: Yeah. Here's the thing, if you have ever had a fucking pipe explode or water damage of any kind, you will not have a problem with dripping pipes or putting a hardware store space heater in the bathroom. And if it burns everything down and that's how you go, well.

Claire: I'm ready for a four digit energy bill. And I can't be mad about it.

Quinn: No. Bring it on. Bring it on. Happy to. Yeah, it's outta control. I was also just gonna say World War II wise and again, I'll get Dana to put together her list. There's a Rick Atkinson series trilogy, I think really good. Covers everything. He's a really great storyteller. Nonfiction and then makes nonfiction feel like fiction is Eric Larson's The Splendid in the Vile, about the first year of the Blitz, A little more positive, which is difficult to be. Churchill, obviously, complicated dude, failed on both [00:57:00] sides of the war. But somehow made that work.

Claire: People love Churchill and I get mad at men who like just love Churchill 'cause he smoked a cigar and lived through World War II and I'm like, he also spent, he was also always in debt constantly for one thing.

Quinn: Oh, he is a fucking nightmare. But he was also like, again, like totally failed in Gallipoli, totally failed in his second time as prime minister got kicked the fuck out. Not the world's greatest dad, drank so much, all this. But again, like many things can be true at the same time. It's, you know, God knows what he would've said on fucking Twitter.

Claire: One of my favorite facts, I was just telling someone the other day 'cause we were talking about aging well and not hurting ourselves. This is actually in response to the falling, the grandma falling down the stairs meme is that Churchill's mom died 'cause she was wearing high heels and she fell down the stairs and she got gangrene and died. So be careful, wear your HOKA’s, you know, when you get to be a certain age or else, you know?

Quinn: A hundred percent. A hundred percent.