Ep. 403: "Car Bunny"
John: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: Hi, John.
John: It is audio and video settings.
John: Hang on.
John: Video and video settings.
Merlin: We want to go over there.
John: No.
John: We want the default device.
John: That's what we always want.
John: Yep, yep, yep.
Merlin: Hmm, what's going on over here?
Merlin: System settings.
John: What's going on over here?
John: What?
John: Nothing's happening here.
John: This is all very confusing now.
Merlin: Yeah, maybe you got hacked.
John: You think I got hacked?
Merlin: Maybe they're stealing your Bitcoin.
John: Hang on.
John: I'm going to hot plug.
John: Ready?
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: John's going to hot plug.
John: Hot plug.
John: Hot plug.
John: Okay.
John: Try it again.
John: Try this again.
John: Hot plug.
John: Lights are lighting.
Merlin: Yep.
Boop, boop, boop, boop.
John: What?
John: Go again.
John: Oh, hey, hey, there it is.
John: Hi, John.
John: You know, you know, you didn't used to be able to hot plug Merlin.
Merlin: Well, there's a lot of things you still can't hot plug.
Merlin: If you got any sense, you could be one of those cowboys that likes to pull out the USB before it's been unmounted.
Merlin: But I wouldn't advise it.
John: Oh, now explain that to me because that happens to me sometimes.
John: And what's going to happen?
John: Is the data going to get corrupted?
John: Data could get corrupted.
Merlin: There was a time, time was, if you had you what was called a SCSI hard drive.
John: I remember those.
Merlin: You remember that?
Merlin: You get your Terminators, you get your daisy chains, all that kind of sexy stuff.
John: And if you pulled that out, woof.
Merlin: I remember every one of those.
Merlin: Real good chance that was, yeah.
Yeah.
John: No, but what, what data exactly is corrupted?
John: Something, something like in your heart, something in your computer, something in the thing itself, something in the cable.
Merlin: I'm not a cardiologist, but my sense is that even on a modern device,
Merlin: I mean, there's all kinds of stuff you can hot plug.
Merlin: Hot swapping, they call it.
Merlin: You can unplug.
Merlin: But if it's a data device, you can ask John Syracuse about this.
Merlin: But my understanding is that you risk a disconnect between what is happening on the device.
Merlin: And then when you pull it out, it could be an incomplete write.
Merlin: And that could corrupt the entire affair.
Merlin: Like a heart attack.
John: So I have this disconnect in many aspects of my life where I unplug too soon or too late and it gets corrupted.
John: Oh, you're making it real.
John: Yeah.
John: You know what I mean?
Merlin: I absolutely do.
Merlin: It's like when you got a breakup with somebody, one person thinks it's just going to be a simple hot swap and the other person is still writing data.
John: Sure.
John: You need to drag it over to the trash, but sometimes you forget.
John: Sometimes that's hard to do.
John: Sometimes you drag it over to the trash and it says you can't put it in the trash right now because something's in operation.
Merlin: Yes, in operation.
Merlin: I'll tell you another thing that happens if you have what's called a hub.
Merlin: I got a hub.
Merlin: Because I got a bunch of stuff I want to plug in the hub.
Merlin: And then that goes to the computer.
Merlin: Problem is, if that thing gets jarred, if I move something and I accidentally cause any disruption in my Thunderbolt 2 that's attaching to the computer, I suddenly see five hard drives go down.
Merlin: This was improperly ejected.
Merlin: So basically, that's like breaking up its scale.
Merlin: And you don't want to do that.
Merlin: There is no scale to break up.
Merlin: You know, it's teaspoons, not shovels.
Merlin: Are you feeling me?
John: I am.
John: Now, I hate to derail this conversation because there's a lot here that I want to unpack, but... We can talk about technology all you want, John.
Merlin: I mean, if I don't know, I'll guess.
John: You can always be confident.
John: That's what we need to do because the green light next to the camera on my laptop just came on for the first time, unbidden by itself.
John: which I believe is a sign that I have been hacked by the Russians.
Merlin: Well, you've been hacked by somebody.
Merlin: It's going to be hard to know until we do some forensic analysis, but you've definitely been hacked.
John: Well, but so the problem is, you know, I was just over there in the audio video settings.
John: Did I accidentally...
John: Click the video, but you would know that, right?
John: You would know if I had clicked the video.
Merlin: Well, let's start.
Merlin: We may need to start over.
Merlin: Let me ask you this.
Merlin: How much of your bathing suit area is currently visible to the green camera?
John: I am wearing a...
John: What would you call it?
John: Not a chemise.
Merlin: I'm wearing a tunic.
John: Like a Scrooge night shirt?
John: No, no, no.
John: It's a tunic.
John: It's a, I think it was originally, it's one of those things.
John: It's like, they call it a shirt jack.
John: Cause it's like, is it a shirt?
John: Is it a jacket?
John: A lot of people get confused.
John: This is sort of a cottony.
John: I'm always trying to look like a CIA agent in Vietnam in 1965.
Merlin: You're going to want to go with a summer weight suit.
Merlin: So maybe not a seersucker unless you are from the South.
Merlin: Otherwise, you'd be stealing Southern valor.
Merlin: What you're describing here is like you're the guy in a deleted scene from Apocalypse Now, and you want to be a little bit cool while you're enjoying your, what's the name of that sandwich I like?
Merlin: Bon Mi?
John: Bon Mi.
Merlin: Bon Mi, yeah.
Merlin: Which does sound like French.
Merlin: It sounds like you're saying something in French, but I'm not sure you are.
Merlin: Bon me.
Merlin: It's a bon me.
Merlin: So you're wearing a summer weight.
Merlin: It's November 9th, year of our law, 2020.
Merlin: You're wearing a summer weight, a chemise.
John: Tunic.
John: Tunic.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
John: So anyway, if someone were to be, like, if somebody in a hacker farm was looking at me, they wouldn't be looking at my, you know, me and me all together.
John: As far as you know.
John: Yeah.
John: Now, if this camera could see below the desk...
John: Well, that's a different story.
John: Oh, really?
John: Are you wearing a towel?
John: Actually, I was, so here in the basement, uh, it had become a little bit of a, um, a little bit of a toy nightmare.
John: Too many toys.
John: Too many toys.
John: And so the other day, uh, I had a little free time and I decided I was going to take, take the whole basement apart, which is one of my favorite things to do.
John: Tear it all apart.
John: Little project.
Mm-hmm.
John: Move it all around, sort everything.
John: And as you know, I like sorting small things into little buckets and boxes.
Merlin: It's critically important because it does keep your hands busy.
Merlin: It keeps the demon dogs at bay, but it also gives you a chance to control a small area, which I think is very important for everyone.
John: Yes.
John: And so in this case, a child these days...
John: Um, every one of these little Lego and play school and, and Barbie and American girl, Fisher price, they all come with lots and lots of tiny little things.
John: Little plates and saucers.
John: Oh, God.
John: Flowers in a vase.
John: Barmy's got her phone.
Merlin: Those adorable little fuzzy rabbits.
Merlin: What's that called?
Merlin: The something trends.
Merlin: We have those.
Merlin: They have the best stuff.
Merlin: Alongside Playmobil.
Merlin: God, what's it called?
Merlin: What's the little fuzzy rabbit people?
Merlin: What is it called?
John: Critters.
John: Calico Critters.
John: Critters.
John: Calico Critters.
John: Thank you.
Merlin: Calico Critters has the best stuff.
John: Yeah, they do.
Merlin: The Lego girl sets are obviously for girls.
Merlin: The Lego girl sets where you can make an ice cream shop.
Merlin: They have the best Lego.
Merlin: And I think Calico Critters is one of the most high quality products.
Merlin: This is not an endorsement.
Merlin: They have not sponsored this episode.
Merlin: This episode is sponsored by Holos Bowles Winery.
Boom.
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you by Holus Bolas Winery.
Merlin: You can learn more about Holus Bolas right now by visiting thejoyfantastic.com.
Merlin: Holus Bolas makes independent wines for independent people.
Merlin: They don't have any investors or some gigantic factory operation.
Merlin: The Holus Bolas octopus that you see on their label is just the four arms and four legs of Amy and Peter.
Merlin: A husband and wife team who love wine, know wine, and want everyone's wine to be delicious and made by actual human beings, not the product of spreadsheets and corporate meetings.
Merlin: Boo!
Merlin: More wine, fewer spreadsheets.
Merlin: And when they say this is wine made by people, it really is just Peter and Amy farming five acres of their vineyard, which is called the Joy Fantastic.
Merlin: What a nice name.
Merlin: It really is from their farm to your table, or in my case, my glass.
Merlin: Everything Holos Bolas has done has been built over time with just the two of them.
Merlin: They've reinvested whatever profits they made over the years back into the winery until they could finally plant their own vineyard back in 2014.
Merlin: And you can be assured that they really know their stuff because Amy, as it turns out, is a master of wine.
Merlin: Of the 409 masters of wine on the entire planet, only 52 of them are in the United States.
Merlin: And of those, only 18 are women.
Merlin: High five, Amy.
Merlin: You know, good news.
Merlin: Amy is a master of wine.
Merlin: Bad news, we could use more women in wine.
Merlin: That's just my opinion.
Merlin: I'm editorializing.
Merlin: Holus Bolus uses high-quality grapes from Cool Climates, and they are certified organic by the CCOF.
Merlin: Every grape in every bottle is grown in Santa Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley, California.
Merlin: Whether you go with Pinot Noir or Chardonnay or Syrah, it's all great stuff.
Merlin: They have two labels.
Merlin: This is important to know.
Merlin: One is named after the vineyard, the Joy Fantastic, and the other is after the winery itself, Holus Bolus.
Merlin: Holus Bolus wines are naturally made using native yeast, so they are vegan.
Merlin: No animal products are used, period.
Merlin: All of their wines are bottled with low levels of sulfur, too.
Merlin: Now, the last time we checked in, I was at that time in receipt of several bottles of our sponsor's wine, but I had not had the opportunity to try any of them.
Merlin: Well, that has been remedied.
Merlin: with amazing results.
Merlin: Holy crap, you guys.
Merlin: Last week, my wife and I cracked open the Holus Bolus Syrah Franc du Pied.
Merlin: 2018, oh my God, it was so good.
Merlin: I'm not a wine guy by any stretch, but this stuff was right in my wheelhouse, bursting with flavor, peppery goodness.
Merlin: We will be ordering more of this with my own money.
Merlin: So please go head on over to thejoyfantastic.com to learn more and to order something for yourself or maybe a loved one.
Merlin: It could be for the holidays or because you could always use a better bottle on the table.
Merlin: If you're like me, you're going to get wine because it is time to celebrate.
Merlin: Good week.
Merlin: Try one wine.
Merlin: You can get one of the Joy Fantastic three packs, or you can join the wine club for either label.
Merlin: And, you know, if you like that cool octopus on the label, well, you can grab it on a T-shirt right there on the website.
Merlin: Wine Club members get 15% off every order, but Amy and Peter are giving our listeners that same generous discount through December 31st, 2020.
Merlin: All you have to do is visit thejoyfantastic.com and use our very special offer code, RODRICK15, one word, just like it sounds, RODRICK15, and use that at checkout.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: This is really good wine, you guys, and these are really cool people, and we're very grateful for their support.
Merlin: Our thanks to Holos Bullets for supporting Roderick on the Line and all the great shows.
Merlin: The thing that I want to say to you is it's great stuff, but here's the problem.
Merlin: Whether you're talking about a Han Solo blaster gun, whether you're talking about an adorable bunny fork, you follow me?
Merlin: That stuff, that is not stuff that you want out there in the wild, in my opinion.
Merlin: You don't want it in the carpet.
Merlin: Brown Lego can hurt a man bad.
Merlin: I'll say it can.
Merlin: So many curses in my house have come out of trying to get toys out of boxes and from brown Legos that nobody noticed but my foot.
John: Yeah, right on the ground.
John: In this case, you know, I was thinking about this the other day.
John: We have a set of science books here that as I – because she's outgrown them.
John: And as I moved them to a separate staging area –
John: as I started to strategize how they were going to get to a kid for whom they were appropriate, I looked at them and I thought, you know, when I was a kid in the 70s, this book of science books would have been super fascinating to me because they would have been the only book of its kind in my life.
John: And it's a, you know, it's a match set that's like, why does the space shuttle smell like farts or whatever?
John: Sure.
John: And I would have.
John: Are they thin volumes?
Merlin: Are they each dedicated to a certain science?
John: Yes.
John: Yes.
John: Okay.
John: And they're, you know, they're the, they're large format.
John: They're the size of like Richard scary books.
John: They're, you know, 18 inches by.
John: by 11 inches big big big big books and they're and they're artfully done there's a lot they're dense with information they're great in fact she could benefit from them now but there's there's just there's a little bit of a comic sans aspect to them that i think she's like i'm too old for that but looking at them i was like you know if these had been in the bookshelf at my house they would
John: The encyclopedia, which was my main focus, was so dry and so built for adults.
John: This was made for kids, and it was about stuff I would have been interested in.
John: Oh, I would have just spent so much time with these books.
John: But my daughter barely – I don't think – I mean, she may have looked at them –
John: There might have been a window where these were what she had at her nana's house or something that she looked through them, but she never poured them.
Merlin: You have access to less stuff, fewer things, and so you satisfy with what's available.
John: Is what would have happened back in our days, back when we had to walk five miles to school in the snow.
John: I remember that.
John: You're lucky to have a school.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: But she had so many.
John: I mean, every Christmas, somebody's like, you need calico critters or you need these pocket polys or you need, you know, poly pockets.
John: And each one of them came with a thousand little cups and forks.
John: And so there's a bin that's, there's a bin that's probably five inches deep.
John: of little plastic things, none of which is larger than a fingernail clipping.
John: Or a toenail clipping, let's say.
Merlin: The Calico critters, I'm looking at some of the stuff we've got in the past right now.
Merlin: It is actually, I mean, kidding aside, as toys go, they're very well made and they're very fun.
Merlin: You can be very creative, but you're right.
Merlin: They really trick it out in a way that verges on sort of an OCD obsession that maybe even a little kid wouldn't have.
Merlin: Like, do we need this many plates?
Merlin: Do we need these glasses?
Merlin: Like when we get into our Vanagon, our trailer to go travel around, do we really need all this furniture?
John: We have the same trailer that you're describing.
John: It's a great trailer.
John: It's a little caravan, you know, to go live at a Roma encampment in Ireland.
John: But you're absolutely right.
John: There are enough plates and saucers to have a dinner party for nine.
John: But they've also gotten mixed with all the other brands of these little scale creatures.
Merlin: Oh, no, other franchises, different scales.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I don't like when the scales mix.
Merlin: It upsets me.
John: Well, me too.
John: And some of these are a difference of scale of like 124th to 125th.
John: Pick a size, America.
John: Pick a size.
Merlin: Pick a size.
Merlin: tiny little difference.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: Real rail, I'm sorry, John, but I got to get this out.
Merlin: Real trains will not run on different kinds of tracks, different sizes.
Merlin: And the same goes, you get your BOs, your HOs, and all those different kinds of trains.
Merlin: This is a solved problem, John.
Merlin: Pick a scale.
John: Pick a scale.
John: You know, Omnibus recently did an episode on train gauges.
John: So I'm deeply, deeply vested in the question of scale and train gauge.
Merlin: I'm going to listen to that because I am also fascinated by that.
Merlin: That seems like unless – there's one thing to be a non trains in the basement person.
Merlin: It's another thing to be a little bit into that.
Merlin: And it seems like you would have to be like a –
Merlin: Order of magnitude or two orders of magnitude greater train nerd to have more than one gauge of track.
Merlin: So that, what I'm saying here, they talk about lock-in with these products.
Merlin: You get your iCloud that you can't get out of, all that kind of stuff.
Merlin: It seems to me you pick a gauge, you stick with it.
Merlin: Unless you're Professor Moneybags.
John: I'm talking about change of gauge in actual railroads.
John: Where they have a whole system at the border to take the car off of its undercarriage and put it on a different undercarriage because the tracks are different in that country.
Merlin: They have an adapter for the train.
Merlin: Is that what I'm hearing?
John: They do.
John: They do.
John: They have an adapter.
John: Well, yeah, they do it a lot of different ways.
John: They can change the trucks.
John: They can change the... There's a train for the train.
John: There's a train for the train.
John: There really is.
John: I've actually been on a train that was lifted up off of its trucks and put on different trucks.
John: And they let us stay on the train.
John: Of course they do.
Merlin: It happened that fast.
Merlin: Your dad's Dave Roderick.
Merlin: Of course you stay on the train.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: You throw flaming paper out of it.
Merlin: What are they going to say?
Merlin: Take it up from the counselor.
John: In the course of sorting all these tiny little plates and spoons, I also found – you know, my daughter is one of these –
John: people who does not differentiate like with like in bins so and the thing is you know i know that she's my daughter she looks just like me she does but she um she inherited a different gene which means that you can put play school stuff
Merlin: and american girl stuff and art supplies and musical instruments and cars and books all in the same bin you blame yourself you blame the gene because because that's not right that kid's not wired right having a shoebox full of baseball cards mixed up with your batman cards you know mixed up with your uh your garbage pail kids or whatever like what are you what are you doing
John: The one exception I can make is that things sometimes do get played with Legos that can end up swept into the Lego box by a mom.
John: And they can stay in there.
John: They can stay in there without me becoming agitated.
Merlin: I'm a fan of the big swipe.
Merlin: Like when I reach the end of my rope, as you may know, out comes the banker's box.
Merlin: You never want to see dad with a banker's box.
Merlin: You see me with a banker's box, you need to clear the decks because I'm about to do a lot of sweeping.
Yeah.
Merlin: The arm sweep.
Merlin: Right into the box.
Merlin: Oh, it's all going.
Merlin: Sometimes I end up with that verdict.
Merlin: I've done this probably three times ever and I feel terrible about it where I walk into the room and I say, if there's anything in this room, I say it in this voice, I say, if there's anything in this room that you ever want to see again, you need to take care of it right now.
Merlin: Because in 15 minutes, a lot of things are going to be gone.
Merlin: Dad's getting a box.
Merlin: Dad's getting a banker's box.
Merlin: Okay, so she doesn't have five inches.
Merlin: You have five inches of forks and Legos.
John: Yeah.
John: The problem in my childhood was that my mom is 150% of memories.
John: Yes, she did.
John: But she's also 150 to 1,500 times more obsessive compulsive than I am.
John: So when I would put things away in a careful order, I
John: That, that comported with my understanding of the world, she would come back behind me and resort in way, you know, in the way that she thought the world should be ordered.
John: And it created a, it created a psychic storm in me that in a way made me into a, a person who passively surrendered whilst never, ever, ever surrendering.
John: And so for the rest of my life, I think I have a relationship to order and to other people's systems that outwardly I'm passive, but I immediately set into a mindset where I'm undermining their system.
John: Oh, John.
Merlin: John, what?
Merlin: Where do you begin?
Merlin: I've said this before that I feel like there are numerous secrets to success in any relationship, but especially romantic relationships.
Merlin: I think maybe perhaps top amongst those is being parsimonious about the number of things only you are allowed to be right about and caring very little about the rest.
Merlin: But I think it's also important, the corollary is to then respect the other thing, the things that that other person must be right about.
Merlin: You're going to be at loggerheads so much of the time.
Merlin: And when you start interfering with each other's systems, it's not going to be today, it's not going to be tomorrow, but there's going to be a discussion.
John: So in this house, where I am, even though I've been living here for over a year, I am still very much a guest.
John: And I am reminded that I'm a guest when things like...
John: The way things are set up in the refrigerator or, um, like the one cupboard where all the storage containers.
John: And all of their lids.
John: Oh, God.
John: Yep.
John: No, no, no.
John: All of the storage containers and their lids are thrown onto a shelf with no attempt made to stack, arrange.
John: And these are storage containers of different brands.
Merlin: They're not even organized wrong.
Merlin: See, they're organized wrong.
Merlin: You need to come on another show that I do called Reconcilable Differences because this is a topic pretty much every week.
Merlin: Keep things out of this area.
Merlin: Keep things out of this working.
Merlin: This is called an active working area.
Merlin: Nothing goes there.
Merlin: But also, we need to have an accord on how things like lids are organized and...
Merlin: And don't make me think too much about, I'm hitting things.
Merlin: Don't make me think too much about grabbing a thing and a thing.
Merlin: You've got to do that ahead of time.
Merlin: You get organized.
Merlin: If you're a paramedic, you don't want to be tapping like you're looking for your wallet going, God, I wonder where the bandages are.
Merlin: You get the ringer's lactate and you always keep it where the ringer's lactate goes.
John: In my old house at the farm, the glassware got stacked, obviously, on a shelf that belonged to them.
John: But then the lids for that glassware were across the kitchen in a drawer of their own.
John: So that when you took things out of the dishwasher, you put the lids over here and stacked them in a lid stack.
John: And then you put the glassware over here and you stacked it in a glassware stack.
John: And then when you needed glassware, you picked one off of the shelf, you filled it with whatever you were putting in it, and then you opened the drawer and you found the lid for it and you put the lid on.
John: You did not take the glassware and the lids, but also...
John: plastic containers and their lids and also round containers and their lids.
John: And also the containers you have that you lost the lid for a long time ago, but you kept the container and the lids that you have where the container is missing and open the door and throw them all in.
John: None of them stacked, arranged by size or color or shape.
Merlin: You might as well just shovel garbage in there.
Merlin: You must, on a three to six month basis, take out everything.
Merlin: Ensure that there is a pair.
Merlin: If there's a pan, put the lid on it.
Merlin: If there's a lid, put it on the pan.
Merlin: You must do that for all of your things.
Merlin: And then everything that does not have an accommodating pair that you're not incredibly in love with, it goes that minute.
Merlin: Banker's box, boom, out.
Merlin: No way to live.
John: But the problem is that I am.
John: You're a guest.
John: This is not my house.
John: You're a guest.
John: That is not.
John: That's right.
John: And the refrigerator, for instance, the refrigerator, very full of things.
John: Very, very unhealthy.
John: Not disorganized.
Merlin: Like a tablespoon of leftover pasta sauce.
John: I ain't wasting food.
John: Like olives in the back that are from the last time we were in Italy.
John: You know, like these olives that are like, whoa, whoa.
John: When you're your family, but not much.
John: I'd be so confused.
John: But then right in the center of the refrigerator, bear with me, there's a Brita.
John: But it's the largest Brita you can buy.
John: It's the one that's the size of a box that a pair of Red Wings came in.
John: Okay.
John: And it's except twice as tall.
John: And it sits in the center of the refrigerator.
John: A lot of real estate for water, John.
John: And all is in it is one inch of water in the box.
John: And I will take it out.
John: I'll take it out and I'll put it.
John: I'll put it like in the basement or I'll put it on a shelf, you know, one of the cupboards that never gets used.
John: And I'll come back an hour later and it will have an inch of water in it and be back in the bottom of the refrigerator.
John: And so I say very politely.
Mm-hmm.
John: you know, the refrigerator, the real estate in here is very, uh, who tight and this thing and what it provides us, which is, I don't know what, I don't drink cold water.
John: I don't think you do.
John: And, and the answer is our daughter, our daughter likes cold water.
John: And, you know, and my reply to that is,
John: You know, that's kind of a tough titty moment.
John: You know what I mean?
John: I do.
John: You like cold water?
Merlin: No, I am very familiar with tough titty moments.
Merlin: Tough titty.
Merlin: And again, in a refrigerator, unless you're one of those people who lives in one of those giant posh houses with like matching cabinet refrigerator stuff and all of that, every cubic inch, and I say cubic, not square, every cubic inch of space in that refrigerator is precious and should reflect your values.
John: Things are tall.
John: They're tall, aren't they, Merlin?
John: They're tall.
John: Oh, my God, John.
Merlin: Things are tall.
Merlin: Refrigerators, they accommodate the oddest things.
Merlin: And if you're not careful in where you put things, you will abuse the refrigerator space.
Merlin: And if that's not serving the greater good, that's a tough titty moment.
John: Every time I take everything out of the refrigerator and resort it and clean the refrigerator, I also change where the shelves are.
John: Because every time I have a new system in mind where it's like, you know, if this shelf was over here and this shelf was here, then these things would be more accessible.
John: And these things like mustard that you never, ever, ever use except the one time every little once in a while that you use.
John: And you probably have six of them because you can't tell.
Merlin: There's so many of them.
John: That's right.
John: Then they can go over here because this shelf isn't going to try and have 10 inches of space above a bunch of jars that are four inches high.
Merlin: So you go in and you do the thing, you unhook a shelf, you like move it around and say like, okay, this better reflects how we live.
Merlin: Cause here's the thing.
Merlin: If you ever known anybody who lives on a boat, okay, we're all living on a boat.
Merlin: You just don't know.
John: Oh yes, sir.
Merlin: Yes, sir.
Merlin: You think you're living in an exclusive manse, but the truth is you will, there's science on this.
Merlin: You will increase the amount of crap you have to fill your house.
Merlin: Nobody has an empty closet.
Merlin: Nobody has an empty room.
Merlin: And so, like, let's act like we're living on a boat and like this is important.
Merlin: Yes.
John: Your whole life is a small bag.
John: Your life is a small bag.
Merlin: You live on a boat.
John: Yes.
John: So, but I'm not invited to make decisions of that kind.
John: And when I...
John: And for a long time, I took the Brita out of the refrigerator and arranged things by like and kind and actually did the crazy thing where I was like, ta-da, look.
Merlin: Here's the new system.
Merlin: And this is how – this refrigerator is a microcosm of our life.
Merlin: So let's treat it like it's important.
John: And I was greeted with stone face and then –
John: The Brita was immediately back in there and the crisper drawers were filled with in, uh, this crisper drawer, which is a big part of a refrigerator is just for corn tortillas.
John: And this crisper drawer has vegetables and meat in it.
Hmm.
John: The long and short of it is that I'm down here and I have spread her little plates and Hello Kitties and Knights Errant and Dragons and Calico Critters.
John: And I've got some books and then more books and then more books and then more books and then more books and then more books.
Yeah.
John: And I've got them all staged now.
John: And I'm looking at them and I'm contemplating them.
John: And I know that my own trauma as a child was my mom coming through and sorting my things after I sorted them.
John: And I don't want to impart that trauma on her.
John: And so I've never done it.
John: You know, I just leave her to leave her to be.
John: But I cannot help but conclude that she has, there's no sorting being applied here.
John: Like she's never, it's not arranged.
John: There's no perception of the need for arrangement.
John: And so, as you can imagine, there's absolutely no inventory.
John: She has no sense of like where the clothes for this doll are way over here.
John: And that maybe her life could be improved if all like things were with one another.
Merlin: It could improve a lot of lives, John.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: There are follow-on effects from that.
Merlin: I mean, like if you don't know where your socks go –
Merlin: That's not great.
Merlin: And like, you know, this boat on which we live has limited storage space.
Merlin: So rather than just figuring out how to arrange things in a pretty way, like let's start with what we actually need.
Merlin: Let's take everything out and then let's only put back the things that we really super need.
Merlin: And that's a start.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Rather than trying to say like, oh, could we put this rabbit's fork in our cutlery drawer?
Merlin: I'm not loving that because they are in some sense, yes, both forks, but that's not how we do it.
Merlin: That goes somewhere else.
Merlin: If it goes anywhere at all, it might just need to go in.
John: It might need to just go away just to leave the house.
John: You know what I'm saying?
John: Well, and this is exactly right.
John: And, and so for me, my feeling is if you don't know where your sock drawer is, what you end up doing, Merlin, is you end up wearing the same pair of socks over and over.
John: Cause it's the only pair of socks you can find.
John: Right.
John: And, and,
John: In this case, I feel like the same toys get played with over and over because they are her favorite toys, but also she has no idea what toys she owns.
Merlin: There's a very simple test for this, which is a greatly, how do I put this?
Merlin: A greatly diluted version of Dad Gets a Banker's Box, la la la, which is when you organize the child's toys or similar, guess what happens?
Merlin: Suddenly, it's Christmas Day again.
Merlin: All of this crap that's been sitting in piles and boxes in dad's active working area, all of those things suddenly take on – because now there's visual and existential organization.
Merlin: You go, hey, cool, rabbit forks or what have you.
Merlin: Now they're super interested because a child is a machine of entropy and wants to take all of the things that have been made unchaotic and without their realizing it, wants to make it re-chaotic.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and I'm ready.
John: I have always –
John: believe that she has too many things.
John: Because it's very hard to get anything to go out the door.
John: And she's an only child in a family with grandparents and aunties.
John: And so, you know, there were a couple of Christmases there that were an embarrassment.
John: And they prompted... Especially when they introduce a new franchise.
Merlin: We deliberately never introduced the Mattel Barbie franchise for a variety of reasons.
Merlin: American Girl we eventually warmed up to but we never invited Barbie into our life but somebody whom I love very much decided that that was a franchise that A that needed to be in our house and B that that would be the new thing is that that person would give a Barbie thing now that that had been introduced into the house.
Merlin: And this was right in the midst of one of my periods, what I call a no new franchises period, which is like, we've got enough of this thing.
Merlin: We have so much of these two, three, four kinds of things.
Merlin: We are not accepting any new franchises at this time.
Merlin: We'll keep your resume on, file Ms.
Merlin: Barbie, but like you are not welcome to bring your pink Corvette into the house and all that it brings with it.
John: I was, uh, I was given the same, I was given the same rundown, which was Barbie is because, because we both, her mother and I both agreed no Barbies.
John: And for a long time, there were no Barbies.
John: And then someone read us the riot act of like no Barbies, Barbies are an American blah, blah, blah, blah.
John: And I was like, yeah, well, Barbies, I just feel like Barbies.
John: And they said, you know, you're not a girl.
John: And so here come the Barbies.
John: And now there's a Barbie Winnebago.
John: There's a Barbie Corvette.
John: There's a Barbie house that's three stories tall.
John: And I...
John: I've also learned like, don't go against the aunties.
John: You know, you save your powder, right?
John: Like you like fight for something else.
John: Like the Barbies.
John: Anyway, I, uh, going through these bins and,
John: through past some Melissa and Doug things that, that look in every way, like, like the wood toys that you think you're going to raise your kid playing with, like the Amish toys.
John: But the Melissa and Doug stuff is actually, they're, they're big toys that,
John: that have colored blocks or something and the kids play with them a few times?
Merlin: Melissa and Doug, God bless them.
Merlin: I mean, they're trying, but there is something, not to drag different kinds of schools, but it's a little bit Waldorf.
Merlin: You're trying to do this kind of Waldorf thing.
Merlin: And I got to say, I do enjoy the thing where you get a pair and it's held together with Velcro and you cut it with a knife.
Merlin: I always did kind of like that, but we don't need any more of that.
Merlin: We're sufficient for pairs and for knives and Velcro at this point.
Merlin: And you definitely cross a point where you're like, there are toys that a kid will come back to.
Merlin: Like Lego is a pretty good example of like, you can ebb and flow with Lego starting with Duplo.
Merlin: And the beauty is Duplo and Lego do work together.
Merlin: There are a ton of regular Legos that you can put on Duplos.
Merlin: And a power user trick, if you're going to make a castle, start with Duplos because that gives you a lot of base, right?
Merlin: But they can come back to that.
Merlin: But there's other kinds of stuff like a Melissa and Doug.
Merlin: I don't think there's going to be a day.
Merlin: I'm guessing.
Merlin: I'll speak for myself.
Merlin: My kid never had a day where they wanted to get back that puzzle.
Merlin: We put the pieces in.
Merlin: It goes moo.
Merlin: I eventually had to move that.
Merlin: It had to go to a special place because the LED that would detect light caused it to moo.
John: Moo.
Merlin: So first I was in a closet under a thing.
Merlin: And then at some point it left the house.
Merlin: And that's all I'm going to say about that.
Okay.
John: In this most recent bin that I opened and I found the book Caps for Sale and I found one of her early preschool journals that she was asked to keep and I found some magic tricks that didn't have a key element and I found whatever.
John: I also found a couple of her baby blankets.
John: And one of the best things about having a baby was that people made her blankets.
John: You know, Christine Connor, Jonathan Colton's wife, sent a very unusual blanket that she knitted specifically for her.
John: The baby and her, her Grammys made some, and a lot of them were knitted, you know, like, like knitted out of the softest hands.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: The softest little mohair and stuff.
John: And they're all the size of a baby.
John: You know, they're, they're two foot by three foot.
John: They're not exactly repurposable.
Merlin: They're not tween sized.
John: Unless, and I was thinking about this this morning, unless you turned them all into pillowcases, in which case you could go through the rest of your life with these little soft pillows and people are like, what a nice pillow.
John: And you're like, it was my baby blanket.
John: And I'm thinking, I'm considering that.
Merlin: You could make an asymmetric quilt.
Merlin: You can certainly do that kind of thing where you make your rock shirts into pillows and stuff like that.
Merlin: I'm much more in the camp of let's pick our favorite or two favorites or whatever.
Merlin: But if it's something you know nobody will ever need again.
Merlin: You're donating an old Sophie the Giraffe.
Merlin: Let somebody have a new Sophie the Giraffe.
Merlin: You ever cut open a Sophie the Giraffe inside?
Merlin: It's all moldy.
Merlin: They're disgusting.
Merlin: You don't want that.
Merlin: Oh, really?
Merlin: Oh, you got to be real careful with a Sophie the Giraffe.
Merlin: Big fan.
Merlin: I'm just saying in the same way that a goodwill does not need your socks, your old socks.
Merlin: A homeless shelter needs your unused new socks.
Merlin: But even better, just give them money.
Merlin: You're not helping anybody with your odd emotional relationship with objects, starting with yourself.
Yeah.
John: Sophie the giraffe spends a lot of time in a child's mouth.
John: You never want to trade that.
John: Although I think I've told you the story about, uh, whenever, when I used to live in the, in the center of the city, uh,
John: Whenever a pair of socks would get a little threadbare, I would go put them on the fire hydrant out in front of my house.
John: And then they would immediately be gone.
John: You did say that, yes.
John: I don't know what those were doing.
Merlin: I just imagine it's everything that somebody gets, I assume, is for either selling or masturbating or possibly both.
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I see what you're saying.
John: Sure, sure, sure.
John: If your thing was to masturbate in someone else's old socks, you would be watching that fire hydrant all the time.
John: You'd park across the street, right?
Merlin: Oh, like the people who get you recycling, they'll hang out and wait.
Merlin: In my case, I'm a whale.
Merlin: I go through a lot of aluminum, so I'm considered a whale, I think, in the neighborhood, in the community.
Merlin: So there will be people sitting on the curb staring at me real creepy like waiting for me to bring out my recycling.
Merlin: Your 10,000 crushed half full cans of seltzer that you throw out every week.
Merlin: Let them fight it out, you know?
Merlin: But like the socks, yeah, that's nobody's bargain.
Merlin: So if I understand, just to kind of bring me up to speed here, you're in the basement where you're a guest.
Merlin: And you're currently at the stage where you've begun –
Merlin: Um, what you're doing a little Geraldo on all those boxes.
Merlin: You are exhuming the contents and now are you looking for patterns?
Merlin: Are you just going to sit with it?
Merlin: Is it clear to you what the next step is for things like a blanket?
John: What I have, uh, I have emptied all the bins and I have sorted the bins out.
John: the first sort, which is largely to see what is there.
John: And some paper bags got involved.
John: One of them was a garbage bag, of course.
John: One of them was a bag that everything associated with the franchise Frozen went into.
John: And you said, you said yourself let it go.
Merlin: Can't hold it back anymore, is what you said.
John: That's right.
John: And then eventually that bag evolved to include all...
John: all broken things involving Disney, uh, princesses, especially like a really good blog spot.
John: And that one's going into the garbage too, uh, because I never wanted it in here and it's all just on earth.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Um, and then, you know, there, there are several boxes full of books, uh, that are too young for her now that are in good condition.
John: And you can take books like that to the library and,
John: And the library will, because children's books get thrashed, the library likes to have children's books.
John: They go through them so fast.
John: And you just take good condition books to the library and they're like, and they immediately go.
Merlin: That's a great match because they want those books and they know what to do with them.
Merlin: Unlike a lot of places where like, you know, don't like, you know, when we first started the COVID times and Marie Kondo was very popular and like, and you know, the thing is that this is old business for us.
Merlin: We're very big on the donations and garbage kind of stuff, but people were bringing the craziest crap.
Merlin: And finally, Goodwill was like, no, look, we need to get pickier about what we'll accept.
Merlin: This is not a garbage bin where we pay rent.
Merlin: This is a charity that's helping people develop job skills.
Merlin: It's not a place for your socks.
John: No, and Goodwill has never...
John: accepted children's toys that could have been in a child's mouth.
John: That's a good strategy.
John: That's not going to help anybody get a job.
John: Yeah, your bear that has been barfed on 40 times and that you cleaned off with a damp rag does not meet our standards.
John: That's not where you're going to put it into a kid's hand.
John: Everybody needs standards, Sean.
John: But I also took all the art supplies and put them in one pile.
John: Now, the problem with art supplies is they always need to be organized internally, right?
John: There's no bin that's just art supplies.
John: It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
John: There are papers.
John: There are.
John: That's crazy.
John: That's like having a box in your kitchen called food.
John: Yeah, food.
John: Right.
John: But in the course of this, so I'm in the middle, right?
John: And an outsider could come look in here and go, you have destroyed this room.
John: It is chaos now.
John: And it's like, aha.
John: It is not chaos.
John: It is a thousand times less chaos than it was.
John: Nope.
John: It's just that you don't understand it at this point.
Merlin: You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, but you can't break an egg until you know where the eggs are.
John: You can't, you can't know where the eggs are until you get the eggs.
John: You can't break an egg that's not there.
Merlin: And also, you know, really frozen.
Merlin: Is that a thing we're still doing really?
John: It's not.
John: And she hasn't done a frozen thing in a long time.
John: And they just, they're in here and they were psychically vibrating.
John: I knew frozen stuff was down here.
John: And it's just like, it's very hard to play with that stuff.
John: There's a lot of stuff that kids get that when you really put it in to
Merlin: into action, it's impossible to play with.
Merlin: So much of the Marvel stuff in our world that, you know, she's in, she was into, but I was even more into, or like the Chewbacca mask that makes a growling sound, you know, the Iron Man, like there's all of that stuff.
Merlin: The what?
Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: If you bring in a Wilberforce, you get one snicked, you know?
Merlin: No, no, but like all those things are like it's just basically a branded novelty item.
Merlin: It's not really to be played with so much.
Merlin: Like you could play with your Adventure Time sword, but like, you know, it's not a real sword.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I would not go into battle with an Adventure Time sword, you know, like a wartime consigliere.
Merlin: It's difficult, though, because once the child is aware that these things are in play, not their play, but our play, like suddenly you get a renewed interest.
Merlin: So I say to my kid, hey, you know, is it okay if I read you that book from when you were little, like where the cat thinks the moon is a saucer of milk that we used to read?
Merlin: She's like, pfft.
Merlin: Give me a break.
Merlin: I'm watching TikTok, dummy.
Merlin: I'm following dank memes, you know, about who they're shipping on Supernatural.
Merlin: I'm like, I don't know what any of those words mean.
Merlin: She goes, the ship is now canon.
Merlin: And I say, are you talking about pirates?
Merlin: And she says, no, the ship is canon.
Merlin: I said, what are you talking about?
Merlin: And then she has to explain to me a TV show that none of us have ever seen called Supernatural and how the gay characters got together and then one of them died.
Merlin: Sorry for the spoilers.
Merlin: We're now watching Supernatural as a consequence of this.
Merlin: But that's the kind of thing a child says to you.
Merlin: They don't want to read the book about the kitty cat.
Merlin: Lucky kitten.
Merlin: Like, it was so sweet.
Merlin: So, yeah, you won't let me read you the book, but it's going to stay on your shelf.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: That's hoarding, honey.
Merlin: That's hoarding.
John: Yeah, it's hoarding.
John: Yeah.
John: There's a Star Wars problem around here.
John: A big time Star Wars problem.
John: But also, my daughter can tell me every planet in the Star Wars universe.
John: And if I wanted to ask how many moons...
John: She would have an answer.
John: And so I'm just like, ah, so there are a lot of Star Wars things that I look at and go, well, that's impossible to play with, but I won't, but I would not dare touch it.
John: You know, like her Star Wars stuff, I wouldn't organize because first of all, it has colonized the entire house.
John: So anytime you pick a book off a shelf, there's a chance that Ahsoka will fall off of it.
John: Because she was up there doing something.
John: I don't know what.
Merlin: She was up there training Padawans.
Merlin: The Twi'lek from Clone Wars?
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: Ahsoka.
Merlin: Yeah, and she's the one who gets, well, no spoilers, but something happens to her in the third movie.
Merlin: She was Anakin's Padawan.
Merlin: They made her a little sexier than I would have liked in the movie, for sure.
Merlin: And none of the appreciation of what she did in Clone Wars.
Merlin: She's so good in Clone Wars.
John: Yeah, she's a key element.
Merlin: Clone Wars?
Merlin: Is that what it's called?
Merlin: Is that the one?
Merlin: Clone Wars, yeah.
Merlin: Not the Twi'leks.
Merlin: What's the one where the Furmen, the Fremen, where they go and visit the people who roll around like balls?
Merlin: Like that?
John: Supreme Frames.
John: Huh?
John: And I think the Twi'leks might be something else that also has like octopussy hair.
Merlin: There's different kinds of Twi'leks.
Merlin: Remember there's the heavyset guy in the third movie.
Merlin: It's always in the background.
Merlin: Like when they first arrived back on, I want to say Coruscant, when they first arrive and the shuttle comes up and her and Annie are there.
Merlin: And there's all those people in the background.
Merlin: There's that one guy who has a meat beard and he's a Twi'lek.
Merlin: And I always say to my daughter, that's you.
Merlin: She says, no, that's you.
John: Oh, that's you.
John: I like a Twi'lek.
John: I'm not meat of stone.
John: Well, and I love a that's you.
John: And, you know, like –
John: that's you that's you around here around this house you do that too for sure oh my god that's so fun but it's transmogrified over at at our house to the new version of it which is if somebody says you know can you pass me um can you pass me the the orange um
Merlin: you know the the orange sauce or whatever yes uh you say under your breath you're an orange sauce oh my god john get out of my brain oh it's really great oh my god we do that we do that all the time oh my god is this is this is this one of those things like calculus like everybody figures it out like around the same time but in different continents this is insane john we do that all the time
John: It's a wonderful game.
John: Oh, my God.
John: And it can sometimes, even when someone's mad, even if someone is in the kitchen and they're mad and they're kind of banging plates, and they say, you know, there's a bag of hot sauce over there.
John: If you just say, you're a bag of hot sauce.
Merlin: You're a bag of hot sauce.
Merlin: Remember the commercial with the chunk of cheese guy, a hunk of, where the guy says, like, eat chicken leg or whatever?
Merlin: And remember he says, one of the children says, make me a sandwich.
Merlin: And I think he says something like, bang, you're a sandwich.
Merlin: I still say that.
John: Oh, that's good.
John: Make me a sandwich.
John: You're a sandwich.
John: You're a sandwich.
John: So good.
John: You've made my day.
John: You know, it's the quarantine, there's you, because there aren't any there's you's anymore.
John: You can't go, nobody, you don't see anybody.
John: So you can't be like, oh, oh, and of course the, the, uh, the corollary to there's you is there's your boyfriend.
John: Oh my God.
John: Yes.
John: It's a hot one.
John: There's your boyfriend.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, look, it's Carl Urban.
Merlin: You love him.
Merlin: You love Carl Urban.
Merlin: You love him.
Merlin: Oh, there's your boyfriend.
Merlin: Okay, so where are we with this?
Merlin: What's going on?
Merlin: What's happening?
Merlin: What's next?
Merlin: I mean, can you throw out, can you, sorry, donate a baby blanket?
Merlin: No.
John: Well, and the thing is, okay, so now what we haven't addressed here.
John: I'm in a great mood today, John.
John: I'm sorry.
John: It's okay.
John: What we haven't addressed here are the two tiers of sentimentality.
Merlin: Their sentimentality and your sentimentality?
John: Yes.
John: There are things that she's sentimental about that are garbage that I would never throw away because she has expressed sentimentality and I'm very sensitive to sentimentality.
John: So if she's like, but that was my first blank, I'm like, goes into a separate place then.
John: Your first, the thing that you first registered as a thing that mattered to you will always be
John: in a shoebox somewhere for you, maybe to, uh, at some point when you're 30 and you're Marie Kondo in your own life, you can say like, Oh, bunny needs to go into the, into the fireplace.
John: Like that's your call.
John: And, and the whole thing, carrying that thing for 25 years, just so you can have the experience of pulling it out of a shoebox and going, Oh, yeah.
Merlin: It's worth it.
Merlin: By and large, the things that children treasure are really the things that the parents are saving for them.
Merlin: I don't want to get too personal, but in a, not a purge, but in a cleanup, probably a couple years ago, we're like, listen, we're so happy that you have all these books and that you read them.
Merlin: That's great.
Merlin: But the answer may not just be to keep adding shelves.
Merlin: We had two copies of Goodnight Moon, which is a book that she hasn't read, of course, in years.
Merlin: But that book's special to me.
Merlin: But like, for example, so when dad did bring in the bankers boxes, not to throw things out, but I think I want to say three or four categories of mostly books were independently determined by my kid.
Merlin: One was absolutely donate this.
Merlin: This is fine.
Merlin: The one that I thought was kind of sweet was like, yeah, let's keep them.
Merlin: If that's cool, let's let's keep these.
Merlin: There's another one which was definitely keep.
Merlin: And then there was two or three boxes called precious things.
John: Oh, precious.
Merlin: And like, and that's just an old term, you know, like, you know, like when you're one friend who rough houses a lot comes over, you have to put away the precious things.
Merlin: And like, you know, like the Jonathan Colton, um, cruise model, like all those things that could easily break, you know?
Merlin: Um, but like the, the precious things differ a lot.
Merlin: Like for me, uh, this is so dumb, but like I, when my kid was born, um,
Merlin: it's a pretty funny picture of me seeing my daughter's weight, which was almost half again, what she had been expected to be.
Merlin: And I'm laughing really hard and I'm willing, I'm wearing a very, very old silkworm shirt, the red star SKWM shirt.
Merlin: And I love that shirt.
Merlin: I love that band.
Merlin: Um, and yeah,
Merlin: Finally, though, we got to where like, you know, I don't know, you probably don't have the acidic pits that I do, but you get the yellow.
Merlin: When it's just a yellow pit, it's one thing.
Merlin: But then when it starts to harden and feel a little wet all the time, even when it's not been worn in months, you turned a corner.
Merlin: It's time to let go.
Merlin: You have no idea how hard it was for me to throw away that dumb collection of cotton that had a red logo on it.
Merlin: It had so, it was, well, I mean, like that's a band that I've loved for years.
Merlin: Plus my kid was born.
Merlin: And then like, so that is the, we talk about like trains for trains, like that's a train on top of another train.
Merlin: That's very difficult, very difficult to part with as dumb as that is.
Merlin: Does she care?
Merlin: She doesn't care.
Merlin: She doesn't know.
Merlin: But for me, there are many things like that that are precious things.
Merlin: I find it very difficult to even successfully interrogate my own emotions about why I have this bizarre attachment to this object.
John: The shirt that I was wearing when she was born, when the doctor raised up the baby and, well, I mean, I was there sort of with the catcher's mitt.
John: And so the baby, you know, I cut the umbilical cord.
John: Like I did all these things that her mother had expressly forbidden me from doing because she's, her mother is, is, uh, is shy and, you know, chased and vain and all the things.
John: And she was like, do not whatever you do.
John: No, um, don't look at me.
John: Play any part in that.
John: Right.
Merlin: But her mother, whom she had.
Merlin: No singing, no dancing.
Merlin: We will not be shooting video from the ceiling.
Merlin: No, do not light a candle.
John: I do not want my woo-woo on video.
John: And the thing is she had expressly forbidden her mother from entering the delivery room.
John: She said, no, mom, you are not invited in here.
John: This is not some woo-woo thing.
John: You're, you know, out.
John: And so it was just the two of us.
John: And then right at the, right at the peak, I see out of the, and she was beating the shit out of me.
John: She was cursing my name up and down and all these things.
John: And, um, and out of the corner of my eye, I see her mother, her, her, her conniving little mother sneak in the door, sneak around the edge of the room and appear at her daughter's side.
John: At which point I said, good.
John: Well, it seems like you guys are covered.
John: I'm going down to where the action is.
John: And I was wearing this particular shirt, a shirt I would not wear now.
John: And this was the shirt unto which the baby was born.
John: And I, I would never get rid of it.
John: And I added it to the bin that I have.
John: that has my rugby shirt from college.
John: And there was a t-shirt that a girlfriend gave me that was in that, you remember that late eighties, uh, style of like kind of wood cut, uh,
John: but printed onto a t-shirt and it was a wood cut of a coffee cup and underneath it in some sort of, uh, you know, font, it said regular underneath it.
John: And I wore that shirt.
Merlin: There was a style and you saw it a lot in stock art at the time, but there would be a style of, as you say, like a wood cut where it'd be kind of deliberately sort of uneven and a little bit splotchy and kind of, you know, handmade kind of feeling.
Merlin: I know exactly what you mean.
Merlin: That's a good, that sounds like a good shirt.
John: It was a great shirt, almost in the font of the TV show Friends, except predating it by five years.
John: No, I understand.
John: I understand.
Merlin: I wore that shirt everywhere.
Merlin: This is kind of like post-Cranbrook sort of idea.
Merlin: Like, oh, you used to work.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: You worked in a magazine place.
Merlin: Do you remember Ray Gunn?
Merlin: Of course.
Merlin: Do you remember all those like the wackadoo design?
Merlin: I think of it as a Cranbrook art school kind of thing.
Merlin: But there was that look of like the fonts you could barely read that we would now call grungy.
Merlin: That kind of homemade, deliberately screwed up pavement look was really ascendant in the late 80s and especially then in the 90s.
John: I have an entire volume that I got at that time that's kind of the size of a – well, it's bound first of all.
John: First of all, and it's again, large, large format and it's just one after another of a complete typeset of those fonts.
John: Yeah.
John: Half of them, absolutely unreadable.
Merlin: That's insane.
Merlin: I had a giant oversized, not the size of the Richard Scarry book I accidentally bought for my daughter that was actually bigger than her, but a pretty big volume, I believe, like high-quality trade paperback, which was just tons of stuff from Raygun.
Merlin: I was obsessed with that look, and we tried to ape it.
Merlin: I never quite got it right.
Merlin: But, oh, my God, the grunge fonts.
Merlin: Do you remember?
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: I mean, I lived it.
Merlin: I lived it.
Merlin: And of course, by then, grunge was already kind of an over thing.
Merlin: There's the heroin chic layouts in Vogue and what have you.
Merlin: It's not like the bulimia went away, but we did suddenly have a lot of really bad typefaces that you could get.
John: But I saved a couple of those.
John: Oh, not a couple.
John: I mean, I have a bin.
John: And this shirt that she was born into is like the newest thing that went into this bin.
John: But that's like...
John: You know, I'm pretty sparing with the sentimentality, but like, for instance, there's a book about Peter Rabbit that she doesn't remember at all.
Merlin: Is it The Little One?
Merlin: The Little One.
John: I totally know The Little One.
John: Yes.
John: The Little One.
John: And it just talked about, you know, and it was kind of in a sort of a non-rhyming iambic pentameter.
John: He eats his good supper?
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: I love that book.
Merlin: Oh, geez.
John: And the thing is, I read that book to her every night, and there's no way I would ever get rid of that book.
John: And I've showed it to her, and she's like, meh.
John: And I'm like, yeah, I know.
John: I know, for you.
Merlin: Sorry, bro.
Merlin: I have a picture I could put my hand to in 30 seconds of the baby putting that very book into her mouth.
John: And this is a book, and it's, you know, yeah, it's completely shredded.
John: But, you know, these are the first words you ever heard.
John: And so, you know, this comes with me.
Merlin: That goes in the pile, just to bring our listeners up to date.
Merlin: So there's a pile of things that you, we have at least two piles existentially, if not physically.
Merlin: There's a pile of things that the parent is sentimental about.
Merlin: And there's the things, the notional set of things the child may be sentimental about.
Merlin: They don't always match up.
Merlin: That one for you, the little rabbit book you keep.
John: Yeah.
John: And also, you know, a child's sentimentality.
John: And I have not noticed in her a sentimental tendency.
John: When I was her age, I was maybe almost paralyzed by sentimentality.
John: Oh, God.
John: We talked about this feeling you're going to hurt your shirt's feelings if you don't pick it.
John: Oh, yeah, that's right.
John: And if you gave me a valentine or if you ever cried because of something I did or even cried adjacent to me, I carried that with me every minute, every hour.
John: You know, I kept that box of chocolates in my locker until the last day of school and then my dad ate them.
John: Oh, right, the chocolates.
John: Yeah, I was so hemmed in.
John: And so I've had to push against sentimentality.
John: She doesn't have it.
John: But I do think that she has, she's a hoarder.
John: I think that she has a kind of like, this belongs to me sentimentality.
John: And I have to kind of convince her like, this crown is broken.
John: No king would wear it.
John: No queen would bequeath this to a princess.
Merlin: She's like a right wing nut.
Merlin: It's not a matter of whether and how she needs the thing.
Merlin: It's the fact that it's hers and that's nine tenths of the law.
John: And I can talk her out of it in a lot of cases.
John: And she will surrender with only a little protest.
John: She's like, yeah, okay.
John: Like if I say these hello kitties are wonderful, but they are made out of plastic and they're only meant to be on a shelf.
John: They're not meant to be played with.
John: They're just, you know, you, you haven't played with them in, in five years.
John: Some, some toys are collectibles, but very few collectibles are toys.
John: Ah, sage words.
John: Now there are swords around here that still get played with and they get played with.
John: You can't use a sword against a lightsaber, but you can use a sword against a Neptune's, uh, fork.
John: You can use a sword against daddy when he's just walking through the house and not doing anything, minding his own business.
John: So swords, although they date too long ago, swords are still in, in play.
John: I wouldn't ever throw away a sword and somehow baby dolls are still in play, but these, and I think that's why these baby blankets were in the bin in the first place.
John: But,
John: I don't think that she has sentimentality about them because she doesn't remember how many times she was wrapped in them.
John: She doesn't remember the little stack of folded baby blankets that you would pick the one off the top.
Merlin: That's part of the mostly lost memories of that time.
John: Right.
Merlin: After five, there's not that much that you retain.
Right.
John: I'm not sure that like a very light yellow mohair knitted blanket, three foot by two foot is something that can be in my life.
John: Exactly.
John: Except in this instance, sitting here,
John: With the camera of my laptop still on.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And wearing a tunic.
Merlin: I'm so sorry I dropped the thread on that.
Merlin: We must come back to that.
John: No, it's all right.
John: We've been in the thread the entire time.
John: Sitting here in my tunic, I do not have any trousers on.
John: But what I do have is a baby blanket on my lap and a baby blanket over my feet.
John: So if the Russians are looking at me.
John: they well they couldn't be unless they have turned the camera on my laptop into a into a like a some kind of camera that can penetrate a tabletop that's why they call it being hacked and they're saying you'll go com comrade ivan has uh has a very has very a very small mohair on his dingus yeah so here you go here you go i'm i'm lifting it up here and you can see the underside of this blanket
John: You can't see my undercarriage.
John: You can just see the blankie.
John: I don't know.
John: Do you make them into pillows?
John: Do you put them in a stack somewhere?
Merlin: You don't want to ask me.
Merlin: John, here's one benefit.
Merlin: I realize you're very far...
Merlin: along on this journey, but I would consider taking it a step further.
Merlin: I think in order to really fully understand what you have, what you need, what you want, you have to put it all in one place.
Merlin: That's the thing.
Merlin: So it's not enough to just do one bin, five bins, one room.
Merlin: You must put all the things in one place.
Merlin: I just sent you a picture of my daughter eating the Peter Rabbit book.
Merlin: I have another picture.
Merlin: Right before Easter, when my child was still very young, my wife said, oh, we didn't get her a bunny this year.
Merlin: And I said, I think she's good for bunnies.
Merlin: And she said, I don't know, we always get her a bunny.
Merlin: I went into her room and in a period of about five seconds was able to produce an entire phalanx, somewhere between a squad and a platoon of rabbits.
Merlin: And I was like, I think she's probably good for rabbits.
Merlin: But you wouldn't know that unless you put them all in one place and you visually have to grok, as you like to say.
Merlin: You grok what you're looking at and you say to yourself, do we need all these rabbits?
John: Yes.
John: Well, I mean, we had a bed bunny and then we had a different bed bunny for mama's house and daddy's house when mama moved out of daddy's house after the baby was nine months old.
John: So we had a mama bed bunny and a, and the daddy bed bunny.
John: And then we had a car bunny and then we had a daddy's car bun.
John: And then we had a, so Nana, Nana refused to play the bunny game.
John: Nana had a bed bunny.
John: doll, which was like the ugliest doll I ever saw.
John: And then Nana had like a car leopard, but then leopard, a car leopard, but then bed bunny got lost.
John: So a bed bunny two arrived and then bed bunny one was found.
John: And so there was everywhere the child turned, there was a bunny specific to the space.
John: And if you took daddy's bed bunny and used it in mama's car, it was not acceptable.
John: Even though these bunnies were at least initially indistinguishable from one another.
John: I understand.
John: But they got, they, they're, they got worn in different ways and different beds required different bunnies.
Yeah.
John: Now we have all those bunnies, and I can still tell which one is Mama's bed bunny and which is Daddy's car bunny.
John: Whoa.
John: Because of the wear on them.
Merlin: And just to be clear, they all started as basically the same kind, the same bunny.
Merlin: Well, I don't say the same bunny, but they started out as the same store bunny and then became car bunny or what have you, right?
John: That's right.
John: Difference, like Mama's.
John: bed bunny was actually the second bed bunny because the original bed bunny stayed at daddy's house where, where it was born.
John: But mama's bed bunny is more worn out than daddy's bed bunny because baby spent more nights at mama's house than at daddy's house.
Merlin: More beloved in some ways probably.
John: And what she did with the bunny was she put the little tag, the little silky tag under her nose and held it there with her index finger while she sucked her thumb.
John: Yep.
John: And after she learned to talk –
John: I would say, you know, Oh, do you want to suck your thumb?
John: And she would say, no, I'm getting my sniff up.
John: And I would say, get your sniff up.
John: And she would say, yes, I need to get my sniff up.
Merlin: And that's where you put the label under your nose.
John: Yeah.
John: And she continued to say, get my sniff up all the way until the day on an, on a seven, seven, seven on the way to Maui.
John: I said, sweetie, let me take car bunny and put car bunny in my bag.
John: And she said, at this point now in my estimation, too old to be sucking your thumb, which is why I took bunny.
John: She said, but I need to get my sniff up.
John: And I said, I think that you don't.
John: And bed bunny went into my bag and she, in her way, believed that that bunny stayed on the plane.
John: And she never got her sniff up again after that plane flight.
John: Wow.
John: That night she went to bed in Maui and did not get her sniff up.
John: And when I gave the bunny to her not very long ago and said, remember this?
John: Remember this little guy?
John: You know, she clutched it and...
John: didn't, you know, and then I think later on that night I went into her room and she was, you know, in there not sucking her thumb, but with the bunny kind of in a, in a sniff up posture.
John: I still, you know, I still wonder about getting your sniff up.
John: I've never tried it myself, but what, what I need to know is what do I do about this camera being on?
Merlin: I think it might be super simple.
Yeah.
Merlin: And if it's not, you've definitely been hacked.
Merlin: So go to Skype.
Merlin: Is there any chance that the preferences window is open in Skype?
John: No.
John: In fact, the emoji window is open, and I'm going to send you...
John: This emoji, oh, it's a slow clap emoji.
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: Did you get that?
John: Did you get that?
Merlin: No, I'm checking.
John: So that thing.
John: And down here at the bottom of Skype, actually the camera icon has a line through it saying the camera is not on.
John: You got camera buster.
John: Camera buster.
Merlin: You know, the reason I ask is because a lot of times, like if you do this in Zoom, you do this in Skype, you do this wherever, you go say preferences, I want to check stuff out, and everything starts lighting up because it's making sure that all the different things work.
Merlin: And then if you close it, if you quit Skype.
John: Oh, nope, nope, it's still there.
Merlin: Okay, well, you quit Skype and that's still on.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: I've been hacked.
Merlin: Well, it could be a crazy Ivan.
Merlin: You never know.
John: Said one ping on you.