Muse

all right Luke all right so what's going through your mind right now I just don't want to be hollered at Luke that's the thing the last time I tried to rent a U-Haul which admittedly was

20 years ago is that is that your origin story of of of why you haven't rented U-Haul for 20 years is because of the hollering of 20 years ago you know I don't like to be hollered at I don't

know if i've told you this story or not before but it doesn't ring a bell so about 20 years ago

i was living in new hampshire it was 20 years ago on a friday just like this

large marge will make an appearance in this story um i i think i was just moving probably across town move or something not something super complicated and uh there was an actual u-haul facility near the bus station uh so in other words this wasn't the era where like you go to rent a u-haul and it's just like the the back of a gas station somewhere with like one

truck or something right by the way we are passing handy andy rental which was the sponsor of my

little league team at north central you've said that before and i passed this all the time and i never made the connection oh it's this handy andy uh i believe so but anyway sorry back back to your trauma no hold on is it kind of well maybe i shouldn't pursue that did they let handy andy near the kids no that was posy hazy and he was banned from ross field okay good to know so i uh i rent a u-haul truck i believe one of those kind of panel truck things or whatever you call it uh to move my belongings from one apartment to another pretty straightforward and like i say It's a dedicated U-Haul place. I show up on a Saturday. Now, a Saturday in the summer is probably a pretty busy time for a U-Haul place, right? And I show up, and there's a really long line in front of me. And I think the place had just opened. And there's some cantankerous man, some very New Hampshire cantankerous man, who's running the thing there. And he seems overwhelmed, overworked. He's an older guy. I'm about, I don't know if I mentioned this, I'm about 20 years younger than I am now, so put me in my 20s. I'm not as worldly as I am now, right? Right. And I can tell that the people in front of me are getting frustrated. Trucks aren't there. Vans aren't there. Promises have been made. Promises have been broken.

And I have to say that I've been in this experience before with a truck rental thing, maybe two or three months ago, where I delved into deep, you could either call it a Seinfeld or a Genevieve has Yelp review of a lifetime situation, where we had a very clear contract that I would be receiving a certain kind of trailer that I could tow an electric lawnmower on and then they just didn't have it because someone didn't bring it back. And it's a special kind of fury when you have a contract and they're not fulfilling their part of it.

Yeah, so you asked me why I'm anxious because these are the stories that impact our lives. So back here in the early 2000s, I'm in this line, it's a hot day outside, the guy seems overwhelmed and I hear him telling somebody in line in front of me that he doesn't have any more trucks now obviously i've made my reservation i may have already put money down and i kind of say out loud wait there are no more trucks and he looks up and in this as i remembered a somewhat crowded you know line he locks eyes with me and he yells settle down it's hot out there which still confuses me to this day because we were not talking about the weather

Wow. So it wasn't that you didn't get your truck. You got your truck. Believe it or not, I think everything turned out fine. You know what I did? I settled down. Because it was hot out there. It was hot. But so he, it was, but it was, I can imagine also is that this was in a public space. So you were getting hollered at in front of other people, which is extra bad.

And also it was that feeling of like, wait, no, I've done everything right. I've given you money. I've made the reservations. For knowing me, it was probably on the books for a month or something like that. And I'm kind of quick to maybe, especially then, maybe when I'm feeling insecure, I'm also feeling easily aggrieved. I don't know if that's part of it or not. But I just remember being like, what? Because I don't remember getting many words out. And they probably squeaked out of me a little bit, too. Like, what? You don't have anything? And he just was like, I can't handle a rebellion right now. That's the way I look at it. He's like, if I let this person get away with this, soon people are going to be saying, I am Spartacus or whatever. And I'm going to lose control of the situation. I am Rentacus.

I am rent-a-kiss. But also, I bet you you being in your kind of early 20s is a big part of this because there's a period of time in your 20s where you don't really feel like an adult at all yet, and older people still hold a ton of sway. What's happening as I get older is it turns out most of the people that work play

are my age or younger yes but there's that moment where you're kind of in your early mid-20s and an older guy hollering at you at that place puts you immediately in the position of feeling kind of like a child and it really gets to you yeah and a frustrated child too because i'm still angry you know yeah so i i know that you have i don't want to i don't want to be rude or mean to my good friend andrew but it sounds like you've sort of developed a new thing to be a bit worried about with this place which is the apparent lack of parking of any parking ever like there's what are they saying on the website that makes you think we may just have to like do a controlled roll out of this golf and let it just continue down aurora yeah i'm not anxious about that i

just want to let you know they just have they they put a bunch of notices on their website and it's clear that this is an issue for people because there are in the reviews of this place we're going this u-haul center there's people are complaining that there's no parking every place they list their address they put no parking in all caps so it must be some sort of like uh choke point as as chris sullivan might say i don't think it's going to affect us we are getting a ride right

now from genevieve that's not uh winchell's anymore oh that aurora ice cream and donuts my friend linda shea her dad sam shea owned that when it was uh winchell's and we used to get free

donuts well i always think it's really interesting that it's an ice cream shop and a donut shop i

don't see those going well together I think that they just want to have um in the words of Alex Trebek broad-based appeal like are you in the mood for ice cream are you in the mood for donuts would you like both of them done at a kind of lower quality rate yeah right we're your spot yeah I mean I'm sure we've done a version of this Andrew at some point but it's all I can do as we roll down aurora avenue to not just bore everyone with just stories related to each and every one of these little locations for instance that was a taco time now it's what alberto's it's not a world of men it's not a world of men are you i've never you know i've never seen a taco time go out of business or or or what's the word like relinquish a location like that's just not how we do it around here. That's incredible to me that that was a taco time. In fact, that was what we just drove by the physical building was really the taco time where my love for that food product was born because my dad used to do their signs and he would get all these like coupon books, but they weren't just coupon books. They were free. Each one was a thing you could literally exchange for an entire Mexi meal. They, I don't think we call it that anymore, but, um, like, and I remember having my little 1980 Honda Civic and driving around with like my whole glove box full of these

of these little coupon books those were very fungible tokens they were oh you know what

this is why Andrew now they have a new fancy taco time okay new taco time two blocks away if that new taco time who dis okay that's makes a lot more sense I just that really scared me that really that really that really put a fear into me that that taco time was falling on some kind of hard times where they were they were they were losing their locations they just were moving to a to probably a more primo spot but anyway that one back there that had changed um you know businesses I remember specifically getting done with basketball practice at Jesus Creek and then getting in my little 1980 Honda Civic and then driving up there and getting like a bunch of taco time food and just one of those kind of moments you have usually young young in life where you just feel like the world is your oyster i got wheels i got taco time it's like it's gonna be okay and then you blink and you're hosting a podcast and driving to retrieve a bunch of lunch

boxes from your parents house speaking of we're almost here to the u-haul so i say we uh we pull over here we get in we find out you know what is what's better to be hollered at and get the van or to not be hollered at and not get the van. You know what? I'm willing to take a holler in. You wouldn't have to, my friend.

You and I are showmates. I would never let anyone holler at you. They holler at you. They're hollering at me, Andrew. Okay, so let's see what happens. TBTL! All right, how do you feel that went?

Well, it went relatively smoothly, but it was not without its many warning signs going in there. Did you pick up on any of these?

I'm going to get into those in a moment. First, I want to tell everyone, welcome to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host right over there, the longest-running Cobro of the show, and now successful two-time U-Haul truck renter, Andrew Walsh.

I didn't get hollered at, but I'll tell you what. Oh, I've got to pay attention to what I'm doing here. I'm driving a big van. This is the biggest vehicle I've driven in quite some time.

It doesn't have a backup camera for you.

No, and I need to not sideswipe the van behind me.

Yeah, definitely don't. I remember you had a little bit of a run in with the Yaris in, in, uh, in Arizona. And this is, uh, this is about, I'd say this goes about eight to nine Yaris is wide.

So this is a hundred Yaris power van. Yeah. Right now.

Okay. I have to say when you said cargo van, you accurately described this, but my mind kept going to sprinter van. And what I'm wondering now is, do sprinter vans and cargo vans have the same capacity? They're just shaped differently. The sprinter van might be a little taller and a little more narrow. I'm wondering about capacity as I look back. I think this is going to be enough room for all of the lunchboxes and everything else. But we may have to get a little bit creative. Or we may have to leave a few lunchboxes behind. I'm not sure. How are you feeling trying to get out of this parking lot? Am I stressing you out by trying to do the interview now?

No, I'm being overly cautious here, but I just don't want to, like, I figure if I'm going to crash this thing, let's not do it in the U-Haul parking lot. By the way, we're going to need gas. We're only going to get three-eighths of a tank to begin with.

No backup camera, three-eighths of a tank of gas. I mean, what is even going on at this place? Oh, you actually need to give me directions.

all right you're gonna go to aurora avenue and take a right okay sounds good um okay so let's talk about this i'm gonna get on the highway and we can get gas later but um so i go in there and we're the we're the only people in the u-haul place and it's like a u-haul storage kind of situation uh where they also rent a few vehicles and here i'll give you the microphone back when you're ready and i'm good and we walk in there and there's nobody at the counter at all it's totally empty and it's first it's just you and me in there and then somebody comes in the door and i think oh this is going to be our person but it's no it's another customer who's in gets in line behind us and then a third person comes in gonna just boot this in the ass as my dad likes to say when pulling into traffic. Ooh, Jeep Andrew's back, and I love it. And then a third person comes in, and I'm like, oh, this must be the person that works here, but nope, that's another customer. So now all three of us are in there for, I'm going to say a good solid minute, but it feels like three, or I don't know, we were in there for a couple of minutes, and then somebody emerges from what I assume was the bathroom, but potentially maybe some back room, and he is the person who works at U-Haul, And I know this because it says U-Haul on his, wait for it, hat, top hat. I did not have my U-Haul commissioner wearing a top hat when I walked in there. Directly out of the Tom Petty video for whatever that song is. It was a top hat that had a black top hat that said U-Haul on it. And I cannot tell if the U-Haul label was an aftermarket label, or I think it was. It was a mod. It was a modification, because I was studying it closely. Yeah, and then you had sunglasses perched up on top of the hat, right?

Yeah, kind of, sort of powerful steampunk vibrations is what we were, you know, that

kind of like, I don't think, I think that might have been goggles. No, they were sunglasses. They really, because I can picture them, they had almost like wooden frame look, but it was an interesting look. And yet he did not have, I mean, I don't know much about the steampunk community, but I always assumed them to be very affable, gregarious folks. I don't know why I just assumed it. He was neither affable nor gregarious.

And also this, I'm noticing that this truck is powered by steam. Something right out of Wild Wild West starring Will Smith. That's right. Yeah, so did you notice how kind of curt he was? Well, I was outside trying to turn my Too Beautiful to Biz card on because you had made this reservation with your card, but you said you didn't have it, and I was a little worried they were going to need a physical card. And so, and I haven't, you'll be surprised to know, with the amount of grief you and TBTL employee numero uno, John Sklarov, have given me over malfeasance and misappropriation, I haven't even turned on any of the cards. So I was like in the parking lot trying to like log into the. thing through my phone unsuccessfully so i missed a lot of this but i did notice the hat that is something that john calls a fail safe i'm unsure what that word means but he said we're not going to give luke a pin and i said okay that sounds fine to me or a real card it's one of those it's one of those plastic sample cards i used to love those they'd come in the mail for my parents so that they would try to you know like advertisers like here sign up for this new card and my parents would give them to me as toys. And that's how I learned about capitalism. But anyway, so steampunk Top Hat Man is kind of brusque with me. But, you know, like it's the middle of a Friday afternoon. He's working at a U-Haul place at Aurora. Like, I'm trying not to be too judgmental. He's probably just having a day. Whatever. But then, Luke, this is the other thing that I wanted to say. And I don't know if you picked up on this, But our reservation was for 2 p.m. We were there about 2.45. I figured, well, the clock starts counting down at 2 p.m., but I can roll in whenever I want. Well, the other customer is being helped by another employee, and I can tell there's some issue because my top hat guy says, I'll help her, and he swaps places with the other employee, and I know. Climbs onto a penny-farthing bicycle, which is weird because he was only going about 8 inches. But it's about style. Yeah, it is. And so they swap places and this guy keeps on this top hat guy keeps on talking to people around me and me at the same time. It's one of those really irritating things. It kind of feels like a power move. It was kind of pissing me off. I'm like, are you talking to me here? Are you talking to the person over my shoulder? Are you talking to your colleague? But they switch places. And then the guy top hat guy starts saying to this other customer, yeah, I don't think we have your truck. She's like, well, I made the reservation for two. And he says, yeah, but when you're one minute late, the system starts thinking of this as an available truck for somebody else. And so I'm like, are you trucking kidding me? Right. Okay. Now we have a robot telling us what to do.

How am I doing? Just go straight. Well, yeah, let's ignore this. I don't know why it wants us to. Sorry. I think it actually thinks. Oh, it wants us to take the ferry, Andrew. We're not taking the ferry, Luke. But it knows what the fastest thing is.

I don't want to take this on a ferry. Let's just drive down around the Sound. I'm not dealing with a ferry.

I'm not dealing with a ferry. Well, you're overriding. You're overriding ways then. So we're just going to go straight on this, and when we get to 105th, hang a left, and then we'll start going south on I-5. I think that the reason it's trying to do that is because it's 3 o'clock on a Friday, and to drive through Tacoma and around to where the lunchboxes lay. By the way, great Marie Sendback book, Where the Lunchboxes Lay. Hold on. Hold on, lady. I think that it could be a three-hour in-traffic excursion. But the good news is we've got this microphone. We've got tons of digital tape. So we're going to turn in. Am I actually rolling? Okay, I am. We're going to turn in one hell of a show.

Yeah, I mean, well, to speak up now, I guess, I mean, do you really feel strongly that we need to try to ferry this?

I don't feel strongly about it. uh one way or the other i just uh it's the problem is i can't get a real read on what the i5 south situation is going to be because it won't let me see if i can um i'll tell you this it's

going to be a nightmare at our place like i don't even get on the highway up north anymore because it is a nightmare at first but i've just sort of figured like this whole time we decided we're

driving all the way you know well i did too until the robot tried to tell me different but let me just see if i can i actually don't know how to do this i'm such a i i'm so easily trained by these algorithms that i actually don't know if i know how to yeah you know what i think okay here we go i was able to uh i'm i'm i'm i'm rerouting andrew i'm rerouting and it's now okay okay so don't just stay on aurora it thinks aurora is the best way to get through seattle going south and i think

it knows what it's talking about yeah no that sounds good so i'm gonna avoid i5 here just take aurora well that's more interesting too because you have a story for every like half a block on this stretch i'd say every eighth of a block hey real question um i haven't really been thinking about my driving too much because i'm really trying to create content here no i appreciate

you focusing on the important things which is the show even though you're doing something andrew that i think is hard and challenging which you're driving this big big rig with no ability to see what's behind us, and you're being very chill. Well, I'm more worried about what's in front of

us, and does it seem to you that, I'm going to ask you a very basic question about my driving.

Am I between the lines? You know, you're doing well. Can I point out this thing that's now, it looks like it's called Prevail Life Opportunities for People with Disabilities. When I was a kid, this building, have you ever seen, by the way, a building that looks more kind of boring and just kind of, I don't know, like a county?

building or something it's pretty it's pretty drab what do you think this building was when i was a kid a brothel yes no they do that outdoors here in this stretch of aurora it was called red dot and it was a water slide park what with exactly one water slide coming out of it on aurora red dot was the slide called the pink eye express it probably like andrew we didn't have red dot money when i was growing i never went to it that's what the red dot was your eyes when you left i uh we drove by it though on our way to church uh because sometimes we take aurora and i would see this building which again what i think is amazing is how incredibly not like a water park

building it looks now yeah no and just the idea of a water park on aurora here is interesting

it looks like a place where a county keeps its most boring records like not even the cool records Not even the ones that people want, but the ones that even for the county's archive are like, well, you don't want those. Put those in the red dot.

It looks like the small version of or like a short version of that building in L.A. that just hides an oil derrick that's right in the middle of the city. Do you know about that? No. Yeah, this is a thing that's in L.A. And I know it's been around for a while because it was mentioned in a novel I was reading about L.A. that takes place in the 1960s. But it's still there. I looked it up on a map. But there is, as you know, a lot of people, I think a lot of people outside of L.A. don't know this, but there's a lot of oil rigs just in L.A. Yeah, Baldwin Hills has a lot of them. Yeah, and they're just sort of like, that's what, L.A.'s a very interesting place. I don't know if anybody's ever written a book or anything about it. But, yeah, and one of them was apparently an eyesore, so they just built a building around it. And it looks just like a really boring government building or an office or something. But if you go inside, it's just hiding an oil rig.

That is amazing. I'd like to visit that building sometime. By the way, Andrew, I want to tell you something important, and this is real. It is only adding, and I'm not setting you up for anything. It is only adding about 30 minutes to drive and skip the ferry, which I think is a very reasonable thing because the deal with the ferries is if you miss them or if it goes sideways, it's catastrophic. So we're trading. I'm telling you this so that you don't feel like you're, like, making a decision for us that's, like, catastrophic. It's not. It's not quite a coin toss, but it's definitely, like, it's within the realm of reasonable. So just, I want to let you know that.

Yeah, I'm a big, that's the thing. Like, I've taken the ferries before. Ferries are, you know, a beautiful way to travel around here, certainly. But I, especially if there's any kind of a time deadline, and of course we are on an actual mission here. From God. I like to have control of my driving. I don't like to feel like I'm at the mercy of someone or something else, you know. So even if we get stuck in traffic, which will suck, at least I sort of feel like at any point we can bail, we can take an exit, we can figure things out. But if you're just in one of those long-ass lines for a ferry where it just says it's going to take, you know, hours for the ferry to arrive and you never know for sure, I just don't want to be in that position.

We are currently in the position, Andrew, of there not being any way to charge my phone in this vehicle. And I'm on 36% power. So I don't know how we're going to remedy that. We don't really need the map. Once it gets us onto I-5, then I know how to get there. But we'll see what happens with all of that. Also, we should probably talk to folks about, boy, as we glide past the Mandarine Gate on the left. Different era, huh? Yeah. I mean, it does seem like that place, I mean, it's still technically an establishment, right? But it's just kind of, instead of going out with a bang, instead of just existing one day and not existing, it sounds like it's kind of dying a slow death, right?

Well, you know, you always knew it and introduced me to it as a karaoke, late night karaoke spot, right? So I don't get the impression it was ever like a super, like, you know, fancy place. You know, it's just like it fit those needs for our demographic at that time. They obviously stopped doing karaoke during the pandemic, but apparently they just decided it wasn't worth bringing it back. And I think that's just a decision they made. And so I don't have an excuse to go in there very often. But one day, about three months ago, it was a random Friday. I think I was walking to pick something up and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go have a little cocktail like it's a five o'clock on a Friday. Seems like a happy hour time to me. it was not a happy hour it was a very sad hour i went in there i ordered like a gin and tonic at the bar the the chalkboard that at one point like advertised all kinds of fun goings on basically had all the fun stuff crossed off of it so you could still see what used to be available

at this place but no more karaoke any references to karaoke or musical notes were crossed out i'm sitting at a bar that has seen such better days that it's actually like the bar itself is fraying it's one of those like soft cushiony places where you can put your arms only it's all duct tape now it was pretty sad it was the saddest happy hour i've ever had we've also just

passed back there on the right a a motel because of course what we're on aurora avenue aka 99 in seattle this was before i-5 the one way to get through seattle so it was the place where people would stop to overnight there was all kinds of of motels along the way and it was and restaurants it was a thriving place then they put i-5 in and people stopped using this road to find places to stay which meant a lot of the a lot of the the hotels and motels i don't know if there was ever a hotel along here but a lot of the motels uh kind of fell in disrepair there was a place back there that was called the geisha inn which um based on the the overall kind of let's say branding and the name geisha inn not again something we'd probably do now but when i was a kid and we would be driving north on aurora to go to church again ironically the sign for my whole childhood the like little reader board said it was like air conditioning and then it said playboy channel all rooms and i could not flip and wait to be 18 and stay there where they had the playboy channel in literally every room right because by the time you knew this area it was already sort of

grotty like it is today which is you know a lot of just like really broke-ass looking businesses and these hotels that i think are you know more hourly than anything at this point yeah and it's

interesting too because seattle is a city that is in some ways so awash in money with the all of the tech that's here and all of the just i mean it's a city where a lot of uh very hard-working um a very sort of like ambitious people can't afford rent certainly can't afford to buy a house i mean it's like the economy of seattle is is wild to me and yet you still have aurora is effectively

ungentrifiable yeah i know well i guess we're trying i don't know how i mean it's funny that word like that that word what does it mean i mean like i don't like the idea of gentrification but what happens when people like genevieve and i buy a house in this neighborhood and then other people like us continue to buy a house in this neighborhood isn't that exactly what we're doing

i mean maybe it's just taken my whole lifetime for it to happen and now it is happening that's I guess it's very possible. It's just this strip of... You can save 37 minutes via toll road. Okay.

The estimated toll price is underscore, underscore, toll, underscore, price, underscore, underscore.

That's helpful.

What happens if I go in a toll area in this rental? They'll just build me later.

Continue straight for 20 minutes to State Route 99 South.

All right. Well, we're just going to keep following this, but we're going to turn those alerts off because that's kind of annoying. um it's i guess that i i we've probably done a version of this exact episode where we've driven around aurora avenue and i've kind of uh waxed sort of nostalgic about about it and about how i grew up around here but it is interesting to me that it is so similar to the version of aurora that i grew up with i guess that's what i mean so it's not worse it's not worse at all it's always been like this i just almost started channeling tim robinson it's not worse i didn't do shit i'll kill you no it's definitely not like uh these i mean it's not worse at all it's it's exactly like it was like this place the way west motel which now looks like it's closed i remember there was a lot of kids that i went to school with who lived in the way west um because uh i went to you know grade school just down here at daniel bagley and there were a lot of kids who were in you know very their their parents uh had been you know kind of were in transition people would come out here because they were word that there were fishing jobs that were leaving out of seattle and um also this over here i forget what it was called this this motel is now totally shuttered but like this is pretty much the aurora avenue that i grew up with and it's it's with with everything in seattle just being so superheated and so many neighborhoods that used to be affordable for normal working people becoming unaffordable it's interesting that aurora is just still so much like the this part of aurora that i grew up with i guess that's that's my big interesting observation look there must be a dragon in that car somebody's pulling

cotton there's a vapor we spotted a vapor we're just sitting behind a an outback what a subaru

outback legacy it's a legacy y'all oh oh sorry yeah yeah no no it's an outback but i'm saying The trim level is legacy only because I had the the Subaru that I bought on eBay that blew up like two days after it was delivered to my house was. also a Subaru legacy that's why that's why I remember that what a terrible legacy I'll tell you what all right we're not just here for me to recycle the same four observations about Aurora Avenue we are on our way to pick up a whole bunch of stuff at my parents house uh it's all of the swag that we didn't give away over the course of a few TBTLathons which as we talked about during the thon week was sitting in a warehouse somewhere do you even know was the warehouse in minnesota do we even know where was this stuff physically lived i picture it in minnesota but i don't know for sure so all of this stuff i think the the majority the biggest sort of items are these lunch boxes uh that there are what what's what's the estimate on how many lunch boxes we have i think like 440 or something uh it's about 436 because my mom gave a couple of them to my nieces well that's coming out of their paycheck i only know because i saw on hawk squad pictures of my nieces maddie and mary holding a couple coolers and a couple of lunch boxes so that's how forward to their donations uh they will be at the 4000th episode by the way um in fact uh maddie will be coming in hot off of serving as the i actually have it here i asked my sister hannah maddie is going to be in the torchlight parade and because she was crowned mason county forest festival princess of the douglas fir i was up for that well i'm gonna be honest with you you didn't have a chance and you embarrassed yourself by even entering i know i they made that very clear when they asked me to leave maddie will be in the torchlight parade as part of seafare um and then coming to the 4,000th episode. Anyway.

Wait, is it officially Seafair weekend right now? It will be. Yeah. Why have we not heard the sky rip open with the sound of Blue Angels practicing? Are we too far north? Actually, you know what?

I think that might be next week. I think there's, there are, you know, Seafair goes on for a period of time. There's like, there's the Greenwood Seafair Parade. There's the Torchlight. There are the Hydros. I think maybe it's next weekend is the big, you know, when the Blue Angels come out and the hydros happen so we are on a mission to go get all of this stuff and load it in this van if there's enough room which i think i think there will be right i mean what do you think

does this is there enough room in the back of this thing i just realized that life is so much easier when i adjust the mirrors to my eyesight wow this is a huge difference i can i can merge in traffic now so you the mirrors were not helping you previously you know i it's like a split mirror with like kind of a close up in a far way and it didn't occur to me oh this one is not helping me at all i was craning my neck around to see if i could because i do need to get into a gas station uh at some point here and so i was not in a good position to do it anyway boring content what did

you ask me if you think this van has enough room to fit all of the stuff that we are retrieving from uh my parents yard by the way speaking of my parents i've pointed out to you the specific spot that was sign works right i'm sure we've talked about that before i think you have before but i don't know where it is now with the red door there on the left that says chocolatey oh no shit yeah that was burbank sign works and then this thing that's now mosaic community church to the left that was cregan's pharmacy where i worked oh nice and on the right you'll find the place where andrew buys sus computers right are we in the sus computer district so this purple

building here is where i was trying to go that's a good one people recommend it but i went to this computer recycling service right here and a guy tried to sell me a laptop out of the door he would not let me come into the store he tried to sell it to me on the sidewalk oh my goodness um so good

price yeah it was um and you ended up not taking him up on that though no but i still do need a computer so i will be visiting the other place i believe i have two questions for you what are the chances that we have enough room for all the stuff in this van and what are the chances that your computer will potentially turn off during the four thousandth episode um the computers had a

i i was um wondering if you remember that issue with my computer shutting off i sort of fixed it for the thon it never shut off after that monday but um it did shut off a couple of times last week it's been good now i don't know what's going on with it but um i think we're in pretty good shape with that um and also my computer once we get through the intro of the show it's not that Boy, I'm really, I'm just talking to you now And this is not good content But I'm okay on the computer I don't have a high anxiety level there I also don't have a high anxiety level about this merch I just sort of think that like I mean, I don't want to saddle your parents with anything But like, we're going to fit as much in as we possibly can I think we're going to want to do some de-boxing I think that if we Some unboxing, I'm going to film it all And put it on YouTube That's right, because we have boxes within boxes, and what's inside those boxes but lunch boxes. So I think if we kind of, maybe if we need to get some more flexibility, I'm going to wave this guy in. Wow, okay, power move. Yeah, no, no, gregarious move. Power move would be like not letting him in, right?

I mean, it's a power move in terms of us getting to my parents' house. Sure, yeah, well, I'll let one car in. It starts with one car.

Oh, look, another U-Haul truck.

Do we have a special, do we wave or anything? But wait, in this case, it's very clear that we're only renting it. Whereas with the Jeep, with the Willa, what was it, a Willis? Willis. Now, this to our right, Andrew, was formerly the location of Twin Teepees. Now it's kind of fancy condos. But in my day, it was a, again, culturally very questionable restaurant that was two giant teepees. And my dad and the other men from the church would meet there sometimes for prayer breakfasts and such. And I thought it was pretty cool. I actually think from just a kitsch standpoint, it's still pretty cool. But again, I don't feel great about a bunch of white people collecting in something called Twin Teepees.

I honestly thought at first you were going to describe like a breastaurant, as they call them.

No, no, no. They didn't have those that I know of in the 70s. Like, it wasn't like a Twin Peaks or a Hooters or something. It was, although you're right, twin teepees definitely could, that's only about one click off from one of those places. So, let's see. We are now in the car, we're in the truck, the van, whatever we're calling it. The mirrors are adjusted. We are settling in for what Waze is telling me is a one hour and 47, a one hour and 47 a minute drive. And how are we going to pass the time, Andrew?

Well, we could record a podcast. That's one thing. I'm trying to turn on my headlights here so I can see my dashboard. We could podcast a little bit, although I don't want this to get too long in the tooth either. We can pick up recording again once we're at your parents' place maybe, but I'm happy to play I Spy with you if that's what you're interested in. We could do a sing-along. What's that song about the bottles of beer that are on the wall?

I don't know. I didn't go to camp as a kid, so I have a lot of cultural blank spots. I've got, again, Andrew, I've got stories on stories on stories. Once, my grandma and my dad and I were coming back from probably picking her up maybe at the YMCA in downtown where she worked as a bookkeeper. And we were driving in my dad's Ford Econoline van. We were going this way, and we ran out of gas right about right as the hill starts, the downhill. and my dad shifted the van into neutral and we were rolling and we were going to roll all the way to this gas station as long as this one light that's on Aurora that's almost never red because why would you block up all the traffic on Aurora it's like a crosswalk light it's it's only red for Aurora like once a day and wouldn't you know it it was red and my dad had to basically hit the brakes park the van on Aurora me and my grandma walked around Green Lake and walked home together But other than the time she and I went to the Wedgwood Broiler, it was probably the most time she and I ever spent together solo. And my dad had to go get gasoline. Speaking of gas, we have how much in this? We need gas. We're down to about a quarter of a tank now. Oh, okay. Well, we need gas, but we're not running out of gas as we speak. Because I'm doing right now a calculation in my head as to where the next gas station is. And I do believe it's going to be south of Seattle.

Yeah. So when he said three-eighths, that's where he headed. estimated by right so obviously yeah i'm bad at math but we're we're about a quarter now i would

say a little bit more than a quarter of a tank no um i no no because yeah maybe i don't know i'm also um this is uh a person who's bad at math talking to another person who's bad at math i'm looking at the thing we are we're going to be able to make it south of seattle and then get some gas i didn't know if we were on like a sliver oh no no but you know me i don't like my phone going down

below 50 percent charge and i don't like my uh gas to get too low i don't like to even entertain

the question of can i make it no no i'm i don't enjoy for the record i don't enjoy that experience

i just don't do enough to avoid it well i mean with the gas thing like have you run out of gas before i have not heard those stories from you and like there are people who like sort of take it as a challenge i think kevin and bean made that a whole big thing like people would call into their show when they were like down to like what looked like the needle was past the red mark you know um because some people like it's the only way they can feel alive definitely when i was

you know first driving and was you know just a kid so i was broke i ran out of gas a few times and that was just out of you know not well what would it be is i would be putting two dollars of gas at a time in my car which puts you sort of perpetually on the edge of running out and so in Thank you. those days that that used to happen to me semi-frequently but these days i try to stay i try to stay far ahead of that that's not a position i particularly want to be in and for all of my kind of lack of planning and disorganization generally speaking running out of gas is not one of them although i will say this and you know how i hate it when companies lie to us i do know that that e is a lie the empty it's not really empty it's not really empty because they don't i mean and again it's it's like setting your watch five minutes ahead right it's like they know that they would like you to not be stuck on the side of the road whether it's your regular car whether it's one of these things so there's a little bit of somebody at the company saying we're gonna make it look

like e but we're going to what was that about sorry i don't know my leg so we're in very stop and go traffic right now in fact there's a little um speed limit warning thing up here and we're

going about six miles an hour if we were walking we can actually easily run faster than the vehicle

is currently going so yeah i don't know if listeners could kind of tell from the pace of this conversation but we have been in like stop and go traffic on aurora um going about like what one block a minute or something like that for the past like since we've been recording and so my leg just kind of got tired for a second and i tried to keep in mind that i'm usually driving a manual transmission which is more you think more difficult but for some reason right now i just got this notion that my leg was sort of cramping up and i tried to brake with my left foot and just so i could relax my right foot for a second and it didn't work out as well as i had hoped oh got

you because yeah we kind of had a little bit of a like a brake check but so i thought maybe we were getting close to the car in front okay that makes sense um so this i want to talk to you about this

is my problem actually you know what i'm identifying it here this seat doesn't go far back enough for my for my long luscious legs you're a tall drink of water because they're trying to preserve enough room for cargo this is indeed a cargo van and i think the reason i'm like why would my leg if i were driving a manual transmission right now that would be such a pain in the butt i think it's because i can't stretch out my leg very much i see okay gotcha

so so yeah you are you're pushed back i think about as far back as you can go now i want to address something with you but i want to start by by pointing out that i'm not trying to be passive aggressive okay will you please will you will you promise try to to hear this in in the

most open and accepting way you've been starting more and more sentences like that recently you've been being more and more annoying well at least it wasn't passive what's up i i would really at

some point like to rehabilitate your relationship with the washington state ferries nothing to do with this drive because I again it's a coin toss really but you had told me a story about you and I think we were going to we were performing at thing fest and that was out in in port townsend and that's you know you take a ferry to get out there and he just by the way he just let another car in I want to let everyone know this is the second car that has been let in and I don't think the last we may never make it to these lunchboxes that one actually snuck in a little bit on me while i was trying to adjust my leg and it's a honda fit it's like i mean it's like it's a half of a car really so one and a half cars have now been let in but i know that you said you and veves had like one of those nightmare experiences which if you're from the northwest and you've you know been trying to take a ferry on a really you know busy kind of weekend day where you show up and the line it's not even in the parking lot of the ferry terminal it's down the road and that is a truly

disturbing experience is that basically what happened to y'all yeah we couldn't we and again there we were on deadline for that too i think were we going down the day of or the morning of

you want me to not let this car in look at this wow now he's flexing now i don't know if you're doing that to scare me or them but it's working on both of us well you were giving me shit this

person just decided to cut in line they were driving in the bus lane they wanted to cut in front of me and so i wanted to show you what it's like if i want to get into it with a car but i I don't, though. I don't want to get into it.

But I'm going to just tell everyone that was Jeep Andrew, because he was not relenting. I mean, that RAV4 and our trusty steed came very close to swapping paint there. I felt like I was riding with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

I don't like to talk about road rage stories on the show. It's something that I struggle with and I thought I was better at, but you would not believe what a Tesla did to me the other day. Let's just say that it ended with us both taking videos of each other through our windows, yes. But it was basically that, like, so I'm driving on this little road where for, like, for two seconds it becomes two lanes, but the lane on the left is a turn-only lane. It's a left-turn-only lane. And I just had a feeling, like, often Tesla drivers are whatever. Sometimes I feel like they just feel like, well, I can afford a Tesla, therefore I own the road. and I just have to feel it.

Can I add to the excuse me? I get emotional thinking about Elon Musk selling one fewer Tesla. Now, I agree. When the Tesla came out, I thought it was a very cool car. And this is no judgment on anyone who drives one. But there would have been a period of time where would my finances have allowed for it? I would have been interested in getting a Tesla. It's now become a certain kind of way of presenting in the world for some people, not for everyone, not for our beloved listeners who drive Teslas. But I'm with you, Andrew, that I have a difficult time not writing a story about a person who's driving a Tesla sometimes, particularly if they're being what I perceive to be rude.

So picture this. You might even know this. This is right on 75th, I think, by the Safeway there in the Roosevelt neighborhood. And this is just like last weekend or something. Yeah, last weekend. I'm driving like basically the speed limit. Maybe it's 25 and I'm driving 30 or whatever. You know, I'm driving a reasonable speed. And there's a Tesla behind me. And I'm not really paying it much mind. We get to the part of the road where very briefly it widens out to be two lanes. But again, the left lane is turn only. And I see as soon as we get there, this Tesla swings into that left-hand turn lane. And I know what they're going to do. They're going to try to pass me on the left and then just jam in front of me. And there's a car in front of me. So I do what I usually do, which is I was like, well, I'm not giving them space to cut me off. I sped up a little bit and I got close to the car in front of me. But they didn't care. Like once they decided they were going to do it, they were just going to drive me off the road. This Tesla just came in in front of me. I didn't give it the room. I was and this is where it becomes a disease. I was like almost willing to wreck my car into their fucking Tesla. And eventually but they just drove me basically off the road until I had to leave them in. And so I just laid on my horn for like a long, long time. And when did the cell phones come out? Well, I stayed with them for a while. I felt like we were developing a relationship and I wanted to be closer to them. So I was behind them for some time and I had, I wasn't just like taking a joy ride. So I did have somewhere to be, but I was furious and I just, I like to stay close to my enemies. And so I stayed close to them for a while until we got to a part of a different road where it was two lanes for a second and in a big, in a red light. And so I, so you were like side by side now. What I did was I pulled up next to them and even though I could have pulled up much further, I just stopped next to them for a while and kind of mean mugged them and kind of, I don't know, did whatever until I, and then I pulled out my phone to take a photo of them. The guy kind of gives me this, hey, like, hey, yeah. And so I took out my phone to take a photo of them, not because I want a photo of them, but just because I thought it might make them uncomfortable and like maybe get in their head. Like, what did I do? I'll never cut off a Volkswagen again. And then and so I just kind of took it out, took a quick photo, mostly just to get in their heads. Later on, I looked at the photo and I saw that, oh, the passenger was videotaping me the whole time, too. So we both we've we're good friends. We've documented each other. I thought you were going to say you had your camera on reverse and it was just a picture of you. When I pull up next to them, though, just so you know, my move, which doesn't really make any sense, but I don't look angry. I just try to look like kind of laughy and crazy.

Ha, that's really interesting. I wonder what is more, like, if you're a person who's pulled a rude traffic move, which that person had.

I mean, I got to say, more than rude. Like, completely obnoxious, dangerous, and just, I mean, just beyond the pale what they did.

Yeah.

And pointless, too, because you said there was a car in front of you. Like, what are you gaining? Exactly. There was no reason for it, but I just saw them do it. I'm like, they're going to seriously do this? Just, like, turn a leapfrog in front of me?

yeah no that's that's uh again you we've talked about this a lot on the show i'm sure that any vehicle doing that to you would make you really frustrated but especially probably a giant lifted truck would be the only thing that would maybe maybe get your hackles up

even more than a tesla i will say this i don't know how they did it but that tesla was rolling

coal somehow hey you know what we've got a little time in the car and uh i've kind of put together a little road playlist that i wanted to see if i don't know maybe this will help the mood i want to use the last like 20 of my battery to just lay some sweet tunes

I've got every version of it on my phone, so buckle up.

So

where are we we're on a ferry how's it feel I think you have the wrong impression about me I like ferries I have no issue with ferries I just also like the feeling of control so once I decided to let you make the choice for me and knowing that you would navigate the ferry

system I'm happy where we are right and I'm not this is not me trying to prove a point because honestly i was very okay with us driving around but what happened was ways kept double crossing me and when i thought we were going to drive through tacoma it was secretly make and by secretly i mean if i would have looked at the screen i would have known well you got a lot going on yeah i'm busy playing passenger princess and um thinking my big thoughts but uh turns out the ways was still routing us through west seattle and then on to a little ferry run that i've only taken a couple times in my life, which takes us from the Fauntleroy dock to Vachon and then to something called Southworth. But it just became the case that it was probably the less annoying thing to try to do as opposed to get back over to I-5, go all the way around. So here we are on a ferry. And I have to say, I'm glad this is how it turned out. It could not be a more beautiful day

for a ferry ride. And as somebody whose leg was cramping up a little bit on the gas pedal slash brake pedal over and over and over again feels way better to be here right now are we taking

the ferry home too uh yeah actually right back to your house oh good they're gonna drop us off at the dancing bear theater um now oh something happened when we were in the line though well let me back up a little bit i was when we got to the the lineup for the the ferry terminal it was sort of what i had described that had happened to you in genevieve at a different time which was the line to get on the ferry started on basically a regular street like we weren't even in the waiting area and I was really worried that we were going to find ourselves in another situation like you had been in before but the other thing that happened was we thought or I thought somebody

was trying to cut into the line yeah can I jump in and just sort of say so the line of cars again on the ferry basically is you're taking up an entire parking area on along the side of a road So traffic that is going through is just passing us on the left. And we're in this long line of cars on some kind of residential streets, maybe a mile back, maybe a half a mile back from the actual ferry terminal. And along the streets, there are still entryways to parking lots for various parks or whatever. So, you know, us in the line, we have to make way for cars that are coming and going into these parking lots.

Right. And so after a while, as we were letting various cars come and go and everybody was obeying the rules, by the way, I think we learned is one hundred and thirty nine dollar fine for cutting in the ferry line. We were letting cars in and out because, again, they were they had business. They were parking. They were leaving parks. It was all fine. And then just when my because, you know, I do really badly in those situations, whether it's like I took a number at the deli and I think someone else is going to cut. I tend to, my anxiety really ratchets up, but my anxiety was just going down because everyone had been obeying the rules. And then a car comes out of a parking area for one of these parks, and we're letting them in, thinking they're just going to get out on the regular street and go home. They pull right into the ferry line, and this is very close to where the terminal is. This is a person who has saved themselves probably, I don't know, 45 minutes or something of sitting in this kind of annoying line. And I think you actually handled it very well. I didn't. I took a picture of their license plate. I don't know what I was going to do with that, but I just wanted to know that I could track them down if I needed to. And did you want them to see you taking a picture of their license plate? No, but I did wag my finger. Did you see me wag my finger? Yeah, it was a pretty good wag. I wanted them to see me. I was like Dikembe Mutombo when he and the Denver Nuggets defeated the much better Seattle Supersonics in the 90s. And he was lying on the ground, wagging his finger. That was what I was, that was the energy I was trying to send to those people in front of us. That they would see in their rear view mirror and they would know that we were not cool with what they just did. And then what happened?

And I'm worried about the wind here a little bit. I'm hoping that this will show up on the tape okay. So they're in front of us. I'm relatively chill about it. And I'm like, it is what it is. If they were actually, because I said to you, well, do you think that they were actually, like, trying to pull something? Like, they knew, we're local. If we pretend that we go into this parking lot, then just do a loop-de-loop, come back out, we can cut in line. Or were these just people who actually were parked in a parking lot, and this is the only logical move for them? It wouldn't make sense. sense for them to take a left out of the parking lot and go all the way back to the end of the of the line so anyway i was relatively fine with it um and then they are in front of us you're way

you're you're uh matumboing them with your finger i smelled a rat even though one of them was wearing a t-shirt that said don't hassle me i'm a local i was like these this is not an accident this is a planned this is a planned staged false flag event where they're sneaking into the line and i was i I was trying to figure out how we were going to exact retribution, justice, maybe Western-style, West Seattle justice on them. You thought that the line cutting was an inside job? Absolutely. I thought it went all the way to the top. And then they did something very surprising, which was after about 5, 10 minutes, they just pulled into a house. they just lived there and it was just easier for them to be in the line than to try to break back through this locked up line of traffic and so i deleted the picture of their license plate so they really were local but yet you hassled them all right as you could all hear uh the audio is getting a little bit dicey out there top side as we maritime types like to say so we're back down here van side which is to say inside the rental van again um it was lovely up there though i mean it wasn't great for recording but for for looking my goodness yeah it's really beautiful and um i

don't know how much of our story up there actually will make it in because it looked like the wind situation was pretty rough but i did tell you that one of the benefits of um taking the ferry here is i was famished i had i woke up this morning before you got to my house around 10 o'clock I had one little square of leftover frozen pizza from last night. And so I did eat that. So I can't say I didn't have breakfast. I had one square of frozen pizza cold over the sink while listening to bad sports radio. And then the day went on. Now it's already like it's almost six o'clock, right? It's after six, maybe. And and so I realized, whoa, I'm really hungry. And I'm sitting here in the ferry line with you. And I'm thinking about all the mistakes I've made. I'm thinking about how I didn't bring my backpack with me, which would have a phone charger for you that would work in this van because your phone is now essentially dead. And I was thinking about the snacks that I bought yesterday at a convenience store and didn't eat. And one of those snacks is a half bag of Gardettos, but not the Gardettos mix that I would usually get. Here we go, by the way, driving off the ferry here.

I think you do have to turn it on, though.

Am I not on?

Are you on? And the check engine light's on. We've got problems. so that's how it works good catch okay you never regret the snacks that you did eat i believe is what they say now uh i think uh i think they're gonna let us we're oh i want to mention to the listeners that andrew has been an absolute champ operating this vehicle not only on a ferry but on basically the most precarious part of the ferry we could be on which is up a ramp in very tight quarters like if there was a place that you wouldn't want to have to drive a slightly larger than normal vehicle it would be the very lane we're in on this ferry so i salute you sir you

did an excellent job thanks i was just shooting up that pretty steep little ramp was the one while there's somebody was sort of waving me on it was the only part where i was trying to get to get a feel for the engine on this thing but anyway for most of the conversation that you and i had off air waiting in line for this ferry i was just thinking about one thing and it was the half eaten bag of gardetto's uh what do you call the brown chips they don't call them brown chips rye chips maybe pumper nickel i want to say yeah now is this person in front of me getting ready to move

or what here well i'll tell you this she's also recording a podcast and um she's got her but she also is a poodle enthusiast as her bumper sticker which says got poodles would indicate all right

now we're moving yeah it did seem like there was maybe a hold up the the official here had to tell the poodle lover to uh get her get her mind off of poodles for a moment i'm gonna let you i'm gonna

let you focus, Andrew, because we are going down a shoot here. It's like a cattle shoot designed by Temple Grandin in that it funnels us right down off of the ferry, but in an extremely narrow way, which I would be stressed if I were operating this van right now, so I don't want to ask you to both create content and get us out of here safely. Andrew, I realize another slight hitch in our plan is that my phone is dead, and we don't exactly know how to get out of here to my parents house i would just say follow the crowd um and if we see a sign

that says highway three let's take it all right sounds good i also think i might have a route to your parents house going on my map right now on my phone i just need to unlock it at some point when i'm safe enough to uh do so all right so

So we're approaching something that indicates we can get to either Tacoma or Bremerton. We're going to want to do Bremerton. My guess is the next thing we're going to come to is Highway 3, and we're going to go ahead. I'll take a left here, and then I think we're going to ideally see a sign that will say we're going north, which is what we want to do, or a sign that says you can go south, and we want to avoid that one.

All right. Sounds good, boy. There's a lot of charm out here, huh? Once you take a ferry somewhere, it feels like a different world to me.

You never take a ferry to a place that isn't charming. I think because that really goes hand in hand, huh? I guess it's just that they didn't build a bridge there for some reason. You know what I mean? The fact that it's kind of a hassle to get to, I think probably what's, okay, you're doing well. Just stay straight and follow the bend to the right, I believe is what that's saying to me. That is, I've never thought of it that way, but you're right, Andrew. Why is it that you only end up in charming places when you take a ferry? You never end up in somewhere that's not charming.

Yeah, and I mean, I guess you could say, well, we're taking the ferry also back to the city. I don't know if you find the city to be charming, but yeah, I mean, the destinations like this, like right now, we're in some sort of paradise.

We are. It's called Southworth. And again, not that we were having, we were not having a debate about this, And I understand that, Andrew. But I do think that the way things shook out with that little ferry ride, with the popcorn eating, with me getting to have a Bud Light, I just I feel like that all came together actually pretty well. Like none of this would have gone exactly the same if we were just still fighting traffic on I-5. So all's well that ends well.

Yeah. And definitely my tootsies. Thank you, because I was getting like, again, this is not the most comfortable van for me to drive having somewhat long legs. So I am really glad that I was able to stretch my legs out, eat myself some popcorn. I was able to stop thinking about those Gardettos for five minutes.

We did have a very brusque lady at the snack bar on the ferry. In fact, when you were downstairs getting the recording equipment, I went in looking for a napkin. Now, you be me and I'll be her, okay? So you ask, hey, by any chance, do you have any napkins?

Hello, governor. Do you have any wipey faces?

They're right on the wall. It says wipey faces on them.

Wow, yeah. She was definitely brusque with me. I showed up in line with a bag of popcorn, a bag of pretzels, and a soda fountain drink. It doesn't matter what was in there, but I'll tell you, the listener, it was Dr. Pepper. Anyway, I show up in line, and I say, okay, I just have this bag of pretzels, this popcorn. She says, I can see it. I got it. I got it. I got it. And I was like, all righty then.

I do give her credit in that when we got in line, it was a very long line, and she got through it very quickly, and it's a short ferry ride, so she does, I mean, there is a certain need for her to not stand on niceties, but boy, when I went back in to get the napkin, there was no one in there. It was no longer the case that she needed to hustle folks through. I think she just took a certain joy in telling me, yeah, they're right there. It says napkins.

So let me ask you this. If we're heading back to Seattle and we know that we're ferry people now, do we will it be easier on the way back? Because we'll actually I remember when we were out here last week or two weeks ago, whenever it was, I was looking down at my map and I couldn't believe that we were exactly due west of where I live. but we had to drive so far south to go around the water. I was like, if I were a crow or somebody who isn't afraid of ferries, we could just go directly across the sound. Now, if we've given ourselves up to the ferry system, does that mean on the way home it's going to be even faster? We're just going to cut right across the water?

I mean, if we choose to do that, the answer is yes. Because in this case, we drove further south than we needed to technically because we were trying to drive around. So if we were to take the most direct route from my folks' house to your house, it would involve taking a ferry either from Bremerton or maybe even Bainbridge. And it could potentially be pretty quick. It also could be a nightmare if there were some weird line. And the traffic will have died down. So if you would like us to just drive around, I think it's going to be pretty close on time. And we've got that Mariners game now that we're both looking forward to.

Oh, that's right. We can put the Mariners game on in the car. Well, okay, well, I guess we can just update people tomorrow as to what we did.

If we're there for the 4,000th episode, it means we made it home safely. So thank you, everyone, for listening to this. By the way, special, I know it's a Monday edition of the show, but just realize if we sound a little punchy, I'm going to just speak for myself here, it's because this is actually just an extra show that we've recorded this week.

just to throw in the mix so we could get to 4,000. So hope it was mildly entertaining. Thanks for being part of it. We will see some of you at the 4,000th episode, and we'll see all of you tomorrow on the pod for that very broadcast. In the meantime, be safe, take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

And good luck to all. Power out.