Ep. 555: "Electric Bed"
John: Hello?
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Oh, it's going good.
John: I'm sorry I'm late.
John: I know that lateness is a sign of a sick mind.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Or no, that's a clean desk.
John: Okay.
John: A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind, but lateness.
Merlin: What is it you're ultimately sorry for, do you think?
John: disappointing you yeah yeah i know that i know that on timeness on timeness means a lot to you okay and and i try to be on time you know i do yeah yeah but this morning i had all this other oh it's just one thing after another oh i'd love to hear about that i've had i've had a very productive morning i'd love to hear about yours oh good well you know i had a donut okay
John: and then um i was watching some things you know some some short videos that told me about various aspects of other people's lives um you know somebody works over here then there's a guy with a driving a car and then this person's got a special talent and then um
John: And then I realized that my daughter had bought me a pair of headphones for my birthday.
John: Happy birthday.
John: Thank you.
John: And so I realized that if she came in and I was using the old headphones, you know, it would be one of those like, why aren't you using my headphones?
John: So I had to unbox the headphones and, you know, it just gets away from you.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, this I know.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: They do.
Merlin: It does get away from you.
Merlin: What happened for you this morning?
Merlin: I mean, it's not that – I woke up early.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: But for me, kind of early, what did I do?
John: What does that mean?
John: What does early mean to you?
Merlin: Before I'd like.
Merlin: Sixth?
Merlin: I mean, it's a weird day because it's indigenous Columbus Day here.
Merlin: So Madeline has work at home.
Merlin: Boy, what a crazy world we live in.
John: We call it Columbus Day.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Because we want to be inclusive.
Merlin: We want to include Italians.
Merlin: I don't have a very strong opinion because I don't do a lot during holidays.
Merlin: To celebrate the day, you know?
John: You don't give maize.
John: Your people don't.
Merlin: What do you call corn?
John: Your people don't use the whole of the maize.
Merlin: We get together in a circle with our drums.
Merlin: Mazzola, corn goodness.
Merlin: Remember that?
Merlin: They would just sing like that on TV.
Merlin: I do remember.
Merlin: No, I woke up before the 7 o'clock hour.
Merlin: I took out all the trash.
Wow.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: That's a lot to carry.
Merlin: And while I was down there, I picked up some paper towels, brought up some paper towels.
Merlin: What else did I do?
Merlin: Let me check my list here.
Merlin: Oh, I made some environmentally friendly drain cleaner.
Merlin: And I started printing out what claims to be a very good replica of the iconic Swiss railway clock.
Merlin: So I've been printing that this morning, too.
Merlin: So all the parts, are you then going to assemble the clock?
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, it's really easy.
Merlin: It's got, you can buy a little clock kit, and I have clock kits, because I like making clocks.
Merlin: Clock kits.
Merlin: Clock kits.
Merlin: It's really inexpensive, and then you just print something out, and you turn it into a clock.
Merlin: You can turn anything into a clock.
Merlin: It just takes the will.
Merlin: You know, it looks like the Theodore Herzl says, you know, if you will it, it is no dream.
John: Yeah, well, you know, God is a clockmaker, and so are you.
John: Do you think so?
John: That's another thing you have in common.
Merlin: Also, Dr. Manhattan's father was a clockmaker.
Merlin: Oh, he's Mr. Blue Penis Man.
Merlin: Mr. Blue Penis Man.
Merlin: Do you like not seeing my blue man now?
Merlin: Do you like seeing just my face?
Merlin: You have such a handsome face.
Merlin: That's not really the question, but it's okay.
Merlin: I'm tired now.
Merlin: It's 11.39 a.m.
Merlin: Pacific time, and I think I'm ready for the first of my two naps today.
Merlin: You're petering out, huh?
Merlin: It's a complicated for me.
Merlin: I mean, I suspect for any variety of reasons we come at this from different angles.
Merlin: But perhaps one thing we do have in common is that mornings are complicated.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: It's a lot of trade-offs for me with mornings.
Merlin: And it's the next title.
Merlin: The nexus of trade-offs is an early morning for me.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, I've got a situation here.
John: Oh, no.
John: My daughter's mother slash partner.
John: Partner, yeah.
John: has gone to Singapore and from Singapore will be going then on to, as we say, traveling on to, uh, Indonesia.
John: Wow.
John: Where she'll be, uh, she's in Singapore to do something where, you know, I think all these internet tech security people, the ones that are making texts, they're going to these conferences.
John: and they're trying to sell their companies they're trying to sell their products or whatever their services as though we were living in a world of 10 years ago or 50 years ago where you would go everybody would show up to your carpet sales when you show up with your swatches and try and try and move some rug exactly and and and the idea being that
John: With a few exceptions, the people that come up to your table that want to use your product are who they represent themselves to be.
John: Hi, I work for a Belgian carpet company.
John: Oh, nice to meet you.
John: Would you like this tech security to keep bad kids from anonymous to hack into your system and give you a denial of service attack?
John: Talk about hardening your perimeter.
John: Right.
John: But now I think if you go to a tech conference in Singapore, this is just my, when I talk to people in the industry, they all kind of go, oh, yeah, yeah, well, they blow me off.
John: Yeah.
John: But my feeling is no one who comes up to your booth at a tech conference.
John: security conference anywhere in the world let alone singapore is going to be who they represent themselves to be interesting so you have to go into it believing it's like one of those games you play on a college campus like a werewolf or something where you got to assume somebody's a secret hacker yes yes you're selling stuff to defeat hackers and
John: And you're inviting people to come buy your stuff.
Merlin: I guess if somebody sidles up to you with an obviously fake mustache thing, which is like to buy my rug.
John: Yes.
John: They're like, I'm a rug dealer from Belgium.
John: Not at all.
John: A security asset for a rogue nation.
Ha ha.
John: Or, you know, like, not at all am I a proxy buyer for Mossad or for the Chinese, like, 30th level of the octagon.
Merlin: I hate to bring this up again, John, but you know who would be great in a situation like that is somebody who's a retired head of the CIA.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Somebody could go in and vet people and say you're obviously a carpet salesman.
Merlin: You're not even from Brussels.
Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Like who are you confident you can sell your stuff to that isn't going to literally turn it against you and all your customers.
John: Right.
John: Like the, the number of people out there turning stuff against one another, it's the whole economy.
John: There aren't even any regulars anymore.
John: It's all just bads.
John: Everybody's a bad.
Merlin: And it's also, it's different.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know a lot about this stuff.
Merlin: But like, I guess something that would seem analogous is something I'm making up, which is a convention for people who sell locks.
Merlin: Let's say you're in the lock racket.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And you're a Schlage or you're a master or you're a, I don't know.
John: We don't use that word anymore.
Merlin: We don't say primary.
Merlin: You say primary lock.
Merlin: Primary lock.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And I think that's right.
John: I think it's like those people that build secret rooms in expensive houses.
John: Oh, I've watched a lot of videos about that.
John: Well, I know, but the only way you can advertise a secret room is by making it not secret anymore.
John: It's still going to be on the plans.
John: Well, it's on the plans, and also it's definitely on your Instagram video.
John: Like, here's a secret room we built for this guy.
Merlin: All I have to say about locks, though, is if somebody successfully defeated your lock at the trade show, that doesn't then, by extension, unlock every lock you've ever made.
Merlin: Whereas, as I understand certain kinds of security things, you know...
Merlin: They're in your base or belong to them.
Merlin: They're inside killing your dudes at that point.
Merlin: One lock doth a company make.
John: Right.
John: And especially if your idea is like, we're going to keep them out.
John: Right.
Merlin: And these guys, these carpet salesmen show up and they're all, they love it.
Merlin: I always heard when you go to something like that, oof, it's like going to China.
Merlin: Like you want to just don't even have a phone.
Merlin: Like don't even have Wi-Fi.
Merlin: That's what I've always heard back in the day.
Merlin: Maybe that's what they call the black hat conferences.
Merlin: Maybe in a more boutique Singapore meeting.
John: Well, this is what I'm saying.
John: They're all black hat conferences now.
John: Who is not a black hat?
John: I can't even tell.
John: You meet these people that work in security and everybody's like, oh yeah, you know, he used to be a hacker.
John: It's like, okay, he used to be a hacker.
Merlin: This is known.
Merlin: You hire people.
Merlin: I mean, I don't think this is a one-off case.
Merlin: There have been cases where like some quote unquote kid broke in and they're like, yeah, hire him.
Merlin: Like they understand where we're soft.
John: but you know the the idea that's that that's that like well he works for us now but he but you would have faced all the time if he'd been head of the cia well yeah but the thing is he's already indicated that he's not operating from a from a state of like moral integrity
John: so he's working for you now because you're paying him now but you know who else can pay him anyone anybody merlin that money spends the same everywhere john it does it does anyway so i have lost my daughter's mother slash partner to uh asia that's a pretty long trip john and she's going to be gone for more than two weeks oh geez i hope you're getting some help
John: Well, you know, the little one's not so little anymore.
John: Thirteen and a half.
John: She feels like she can handle things.
Merlin: She's making her own lunch?
John: You know.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Sore spot.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But he wants that lady butcher and got that $72 worth of charcuterie to test out.
John: Yeah, but, you know, we had a thing yesterday where she was like, well, I don't like any of this.
John: I'm like, I know, I know, I know.
Merlin: Yeah, you're the first one.
Merlin: First one I've heard that from.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: But so everything is just... Two weeks, two weeks of... And it's not like, like you said, your kid's older.
Merlin: It's not like it's every single moment of the day.
Merlin: Our kid was at a sleepover, is still at a sleepover from last night.
Merlin: And Matt and I were watching Grown Up TV last night.
Merlin: And I was saying, you know, remember back when...
Merlin: in the early days of going to sleepovers and we'd just be fretting the whole time like why isn't why isn't the adult there texting us to say everything's okay like now it just like disappears and goes places and you know yeah it goes places exactly but but it's still that's that's still is there some part of you like right now even as you're doing your phony award-winning podcast where you you feel like your attention is a little divided
John: Well, no, that's the thing.
John: This is another marvelous, marvelous thing about watching very short videos that other people are posting about their own lives.
Merlin: You see things about people's lives and how they're different.
John: Yeah.
John: Some people are in college.
John: A lot of people.
John: See, I was a little bit ahead of this, you know, like posting things about parenting.
John: Uh, where the point of the post was that you didn't just, you know, like feed everything to them, but you let them like find stuff.
John: Now that's a very popular hole.
John: There's a whole universe of people online that are like, you know what?
John: You should never bathe your child.
John: Let the dirt, you know, soak in and make them strong.
Um,
John: But some of them, and usually the ones that I like are like, it's a child psychologist who's talking very eminently and saying, children should be bored.
John: Children should be allowed to be bored.
John: uh you know upset and bored and grouchy and yeah yeah and i'm like great well i'm way ahead of the curve here yeah so everybody's unhappy with me so win-win i know are you kidding me like a woman that's mad at me for something that i can't explain my god i'm like i'm the education
Merlin: Kid, I forget how it came up, but we were talking about you.
Merlin: I think I was, something of you came up and I showed Billy the cover of The Worst You Can Do Is Harm, which I had estimated as, I think you've already said it is at Disneyland.
Merlin: It's in the Alice in Wonderland teacup ride.
Merlin: And I pegged it to be about probably 82 to 84.
Merlin: You look like you're about 10 or so in that photo.
John: I'm afraid that you're a little off.
John: First of all, I was 10.
John: I was 10 in 1978.
Merlin: Oh,
Merlin: 10 and 78.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, that's right.
Merlin: I'm confusing you with Syracuse.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And that was probably 76.
John: Are you people younger than me?
Merlin: It's just a mess to keep track of.
Merlin: You see how he lives without glasses?
John: He looks like a scallop, and he's having fun.
John: Every man who's under six feet tall, I'm like, you're all about the same height, right?
John: Between five and six feet?
John: People don't like that.
John: People don't like to hear that.
Merlin: That was probably your mom, I'm guessing, taking a photo of you.
Merlin: Was it your dad?
John: No, my mom never took a single photo, as far as I recall.
John: Now I'm about to go through it all again.
John: It was my dad, as per usual, and I was in the teacup, and I was spinning, and I felt very barfy.
Merlin: What I said to my kid, though, was what I remember about this.
Merlin: The thing is, I played the CD a lot, but then, of course, for years I was listening to it in one form or another electronically.
Merlin: And the picture on the back, is that you and Susan?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, that's so sweet.
Merlin: But I said, now, if I remember right, this is before I met John Roderick and I was just a fan.
Merlin: Just a fan.
Merlin: Is anyone just a fan?
Merlin: But what I remember was a whole bunch of letters inside.
Merlin: from women in your life.
Merlin: And I think one of them begins, you're a world-class bullshit artist, John, is how one of them began.
Merlin: And that's the story I wanted to share with my kid.
Merlin: Back when people wrote letters.
Merlin: People wrote letters you look forward to.
Merlin: You go out to your mailbox, you get letters.
John: Every one of those letters also was a scented letter.
John: They were meant to invoke feelings in me.
John: Scented letter.
John: You're a world-class bullshitter, and this is on heavy bond light blue paper, and there's a little drop of my perfume in here just to really stick it to you.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, you know, we were looking at that record actually, uh, just a couple of days ago and your name came up in conversation because I see, I was on the internet on this site that has these little short videos that people post.
Merlin: This is where you can catch up on what's going on in somebody's life.
John: Yeah, and they have a lot of advice about things.
Merlin: A lot of funny jokes.
Merlin: Billy introduced me to a woman who purports to have 12 children.
John: Wow.
Merlin: And one of the things that she posts, we went into a thing.
Merlin: Billy is great at TikTok, like so many kids, and will share things that need to bubble up with me.
Merlin: I'll learn about something very, very funny, usually, from TikTok.
Merlin: Yeah, it's a woman.
Merlin: Her content is, like, here's me preparing meals for 12 children in a kitchen.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But then the twist is apparently now there's 11 kids and nobody's talking about it.
John: Oh, wow.
Merlin: One died or one got Darlene or, or might've gotten cousin Oliver.
Merlin: And I'm not sure.
John: Yeah.
John: What happens is the, the oldest one is like, I'm out.
John: It happened on my three sons.
Merlin: It happened on Brady bunch.
Merlin: It happened on family matters.
Merlin: And it happened in so many of the important foundational texts about family.
Merlin: We're just, you get, you get one little kid that starts looking, you know,
Merlin: They ain't so cute anymore.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Well, what happened to me the other day was I was looking at these little videos and, you know, my mid-century modern journey is now where I'm five years into this mid-century modern journey.
John: And I'm still, I realized earlier this year when I, or not very long ago, in fact, when I decided, oh, I can't actually move.
John: I can't sell my house.
John: It's financially impossible.
Merlin: This is something you've mentioned recently, which is owing to various different things in the world that involve money.
Merlin: It's not so simple anymore as just like, hey, I'll just, I'll grab this chunk of equity and go just get another house.
Merlin: It's not that easy anymore.
John: That's right.
John: Capitalism has put me in a closet.
John: Not the same closet that everybody's in.
John: We all get our own closet, but a closet.
John: And it made me go, oh, I actually have to just be where I am.
John: And in a way, that's very aloha.
John: It's kind of maybe what I was looking for.
John: Some outside's forced to say, be here now.
John: And so, you know, I'm leaning into, well, how do I live here?
John: How do I live here and not feel like a transient or like I'm, you know, waiting in a space station for my new life to arrive?
John: This is my life and I am living it.
John: And I'm looking at this.
John: I'm scrolling through, and I'm seeing a guy that's trimming cow hooves, and then there's a British mathematician who's explaining fluid dynamics.
Merlin: Oh, I thought of you last night, John.
Merlin: I finally got to farrier videos last night.
Merlin: I think I've blown through all of the videos of carpet cleaning, pressure cleaning, car detailing.
Merlin: I think I've gone through all of them, and now I'm getting hooves.
John: You're into ferrying.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Also, those ones where they have a sad dog that has dreadlocks.
Merlin: You ever seen those?
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: You're not going to believe what this dog looked like when we cut his dreadlocks off.
John: Nobody sheared this sheep for five years, and now we found him, and we're shearing him.
John: Anyway, this little shop in Portland, Oregon, that's called Sparkle Barn,
John: They have they post little little videos to this website that I'm talking about that I can access on my phone where people, you know, they sell things there.
John: They tell you about their lives.
John: And it was a picture of a bed and a bed that it two things.
John: It was a bed I'd been looking for for a long time.
John: It's in a certain style, mid-century modern, and also matches a chest of drawers that I already own.
John: And I saw this bed and I said, oh, that's not unobtainium, as we say in the business.
Merlin: If you're committed to this five-year mission so far with your mid-century modern, and it is the place where you're going to be staying for a while, one option, if I'm understanding, is to continue pursuing the authentic mid-century modernization of your old house.
John: That's right.
John: That's one of the options.
John: So right now, the beds that I have,
John: In my house, I have three beds.
John: The mattresses all came to us from a company that once supported our show.
John: Do you recall when we were supported by a mattress company?
Merlin: Very quickly, yes.
Merlin: A, we bought one of their mattresses two weeks ago with our own money.
Merlin: And B, we did the single greatest ad read of all time for that company.
John: That's right.
John: Well, that company, during that period, sent me three mattresses.
John: yeah and so souvenir sponges just like here have a bed you want another mattress here you go that way yeah i have these beds and one of them one of the mattresses the one in my daughter's room much to her uh consternation is just sitting on the floor like we're hippies
Merlin: like it's a college dorm one of them is on one of those uh bed frames that you buy on amazon for 89 that's made oh the metal kind like i had metal it's got the little like in between like not a leaf but it's got the little bar so you can turn it from a twin to a full or whatever that's it that's i know that's what i slept on until i was 14. no that's what i slept until i went to college who am i kidding
John: so i have one of those which is embarrassing to be you know it's not embarrassing but it's an 89 bed that i that i had delivered to the house by you know maybe mid-century modern technology but not an aesthetic not an aesthetic no and then the third one and i don't know if you remember this but the mattress company that used to support our show that has provided beds for us all briefly
John: And I don't know briefly, because they might still be doing it.
John: They made an actual electric bed that was like a hospital bed.
John: It would raise and lower.
Merlin: I saw those guys at Whiskey A Go-Go in 66.
John: Remember the electric bed?
John: Electric bed?
John: Yeah, they were.
John: Too heavy for me, actually.
John: But it was like... One of those uppy-downy, control-the-temperature type ones?
John: Yeah, you can lift up the feet, you can lift up the back, you can lift them both up, so it looks like you're in a chaise.
John: And at one point, they were advertising on a podcast that I was on, and they said, hey, you want another mattress?
John: And I was like, I got all the mattresses I can use, but what about the electric bed?
John: And they were like, oh, man, that's like a big thing.
John: That's like an expensive deal.
John: And I was like, I know, but you know...
John: Come on.
John: I once did the greatest ad read of all time.
John: And they were like, ah, okay.
John: And so they sent me the electric bed.
John: Well, the electric bed weighs 10,000 pounds.
John: And at some point I lost the remote control.
John: So I don't even know if I could, I haven't used the electric bed.
Merlin: I mean, is that what I imagine?
Merlin: Is that like your cassette player stopped ejecting and now you have this one, like this copy of In Excess Kick is what you will listen to in your car for the rest of your life?
Merlin: Is it in an unusual position or was it in like a supine position?
John: No, fortunately it had some kind of reset button where it went back to flat.
John: So it's just flat.
John: But so I see, I see I'm, I'm, I'm scrolling through this, this amazing website that has pictures and stories and little things.
John: And I see this bed and I'm like, ah,
John: look at that that's the that's the bed that's the bed that's gonna that's going to bring me into adulthood yeah because right now i have one mattress on the floor one mattress on the cheapest possible bed frame and one mattress on a on a broken electric bed i'm gonna get a bed a real authentic live bed made in 1972 and the only problem is it's on it's in portland and it's on a website and i and things aren't real
John: So I called the store.
John: I looked it up in the yellow page.
John: This is the Sparkle Barn.
John: The Sparkle Barn.
John: And I called, and the man that answered, Kevin, was like, hey, man, it's a really cool bed, but I really dissuade people from buying things based on something they saw online.
Wow.
John: because it's a lot better for you.
Merlin: I bet he gets fewer returns and hassle if somebody goes, well, I didn't see that nick on it, now I don't want it.
John: And he says, there are no returns.
John: If you buy it, you buy it.
John: That's the problem.
John: This is a vintage store.
John: We're not in the business of, like, you get it, you buy it, have it shipped to Seattle, and then there's a scratch in it.
John: Like, it's not...
John: It's Sparkle Barn, not a Sparkle Library.
John: That's right.
John: It's Sparkle Barn.
John: You know, it's not like a, yeah, like you said, Sparkle Library.
John: I'm not going to reframe it.
Merlin: No, no, no, I understand.
Merlin: But it's not like one of those places where, like, I've had friends who are chronic returners, love returning stuff.
Merlin: They'll buy five of something and return four.
Merlin: And, like, I think that's becoming frowned on across all kinds of industries.
Merlin: But for a fellow like that, I think it's kind of cool that he says up front, like, you know, it's probably better if you.
Merlin: Oh, it was great.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It was great of it.
John: and i said okay look at it or would you go there in person what do you think you'd do well so here's what i did i was like well i get what you're saying and he said the problem is this is a really cool bed it's a it's a it's it's and the thing is it was the price was very competitive compared to the other beds of this kind that i had seen it was much it was half the price of what i had thought i was going to be forced to pay
John: In order to live this life.
John: In order to live this life where the bed matches the house.
John: This is all you need.
John: This is the last piece.
John: This is it.
John: Once the bed matches the house, then you can take the $89 frame and you can give it to Goodwill.
John: The Goodwill up here has stopped taking furniture.
John: They're like, enough.
John: We don't need furniture.
John: Nobody needs furniture.
John: All you people.
John: Because everything is crap now, right?
John: So people don't give away good things.
John: They give away crap.
John: They just take stuff that they should take to the dump and they take it to Goodwill.
Merlin: People already buy clothes, whether that's from H&M or Uniqlo or Shine or whatever, what they call fast casual fashion, fast casual dining fashion.
Merlin: But they already get things that they wear three times and fall apart.
Merlin: You don't need a Boy Scouts shirt from the 80s.
John: No, and what you don't need is an $89 bed, because what are they going to sell it for?
John: $15?
John: But anyway, so here it is.
John: This is the bed.
John: And he says, the problem is, the phone's ringing off the hook about this bed.
John: And we posted it on the internet, and it's got all these comments, people saying, I want it, how much, DM me the price, all this stuff.
John: He said, now this is an issue for you, being in Seattle.
John: Kevin's walking me through this whole thing.
John: And I'm like, right, right, right.
John: And he said, but we close at six.
John: It's already five.
John: If you can get here tomorrow at 11 when we open the store, you can be first in line.
John: And I was like, well, what if I give you a deposit?
John: And he said, we don't take deposits.
John: And I was like, well, what if I...
John: Will you hold it?
John: And he was like, tomorrow morning at 11, I'll hold it.
John: But if I hold it, like I'm not going to hold it now, we're about to close.
John: And I was like, but what I'm saying, Kevin, is that somebody could, I could hang up right now, get in the car and drive down there, but somebody could call 10 minutes from now and buy it.
John: Right.
John: Like I should be bold enough to do.
John: And he was like, it's unlikely to happen, but I see what you're saying.
Merlin: And I respect, I mean, there's elements of this that sound a little weird, but it's nice that he's lavishing this time on you.
Merlin: And I think he's being straight up with you, which is like, it'll be a wasted trip if somebody else had more gumption.
Merlin: And you're like, well, if somebody gets more gumption, could they like buy it at the buy it price right now?
Merlin: You know?
John: well so so what i don't get is a feeling that kevin is because because it does sound a little bit like he's he's saying i don't think you should buy this but if you don't buy it you're gonna miss out so you should buy it i don't think he's reverse psychology-ing me i think i'm doing that to myself he's just trying to get the store closed and go home and live his life right and he's like at 11 o'clock in the morning you can be here
John: So I call my friend, Ben King, who's a friend of the podcast, my motorcycle friend, Ben, architect Ben, who lives in Portland.
John: And I said, well, you go to Sparkle Barn at 11 o'clock in the morning and look at this bed for me.
John: And Ben's like, well, I had something to do, but I was, but at that time, 11 o'clock in the morning, I would be on my way to do this thing that I have to do.
John: And so as part of being on my way, yes, I can go by this place.
Merlin: And this is to like, first of all, it's showing, I'm sorry, forgive me.
Merlin: Who's Dr. Sparkleborn?
Merlin: What's his name?
Merlin: Kevin?
Merlin: Sparkleborn Kevin.
Merlin: It's showing that you're serious about this.
Merlin: You send somebody out on a motorcycle to look at it.
Merlin: And your friend, Ben, would be going there to just kind of suss it out and say, yeah, it looks copacetic.
Merlin: And he could act on your behalf in that instance if needed.
John: Exactly.
John: Ben is somebody whose eye I trust, for instance, like if he looks at a thing.
Merlin: He's your conciliary in some ways.
John: In this case, you know, he's being recruited into this capacity of like, Ben, will you go be my eyes and ears on the ground at Sparkle Barn in Portland and tell me if this bed is, you know, grade A or if you're like, nah.
John: And so Ben's like, yeah, okay, I'll do that.
John: So I call Kevin back and I'm like, look, my friend Ben is coming at 11 o'clock in the morning.
John: And he's like, great, man.
John: Well, this is all going to work out.
John: And I hang up and I look at the clock and it's like 5.02.
John: And, you know, I run these scenarios on myself where I'm like, now, wait a minute.
John: If somebody does, it's on the internet now, Merlin.
John: People in Sri Lanka are looking at the bed.
John: It's out there where anybody could potentially see it.
John: People are looking at hooves getting trimmed and then this bed pops up.
John: People are listening to people give parenting advice about how you should drown your kids and then this bed pops up.
John: yeah they call it water resistance and they're on there and i can just i can just see them i can just picture them yeah yeah you know like commenting dm me the price you're back to square one at that point you're back to square one and wondering why you live where you live that's this is the last piece yeah i i i want want want that bed bed bed bed
John: And so I'm like, oh, no.
John: Now I've set this all up.
John: I've got Ben going over there at 11.
John: Kevin from Sparkle Barn is my pal.
John: But there's an hour left.
John: And I said, it's like when you're on an eBay auction.
John: And you're like, I'm the top bidder.
John: But somebody could come in in the last 15 seconds.
Merlin: And I'm just, I'm twisting in the wind here.
Merlin: Are you in your automobile in Portland right now?
John: No.
John: Okay.
John: But I said, what are the, what is, what scenario, in which scenarios would I not buy this bed?
John: Okay.
John: How damaged would it have to be for me to get there and look at it and go, oh, this piece of shit?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Merlin: Can I ask a question?
Merlin: So when you say a bed, I mean, we're using some of those terms somewhat synonymous.
Merlin: We're not talking about a mattress or a box spring.
Merlin: We're talking about the thing that you put a mattress or a box spring in.
Merlin: And does it have a headboard and stuff?
Merlin: It reads as wooden bed much more than the $89 Walmart thing.
John: So what this is, is it's a certain style.
John: And the thing is, because the company that we once advertised for that sent me all these mattresses and electric beds...
John: When they were like, what kind of beds do you want?
John: Up until that point, I'd been sleeping in a, on a queen size bed for my whole life.
John: The Paisley one.
John: It was a Paisley mattress.
John: That's right.
John: That, that you could, that, I mean, it probably is still exists somewhere, right?
John: Because it was a bulletproof.
John: It weighed 800 pounds.
John: You bought it in a shipping container.
John: Bought it in a shipping container.
John: Many years ago.
John: And I had a sleigh bed and I bought the sleigh bed at some garage sale and I thought it was really elegant.
John: I really liked it.
John: It made me feel like I was in a sleigh.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: The problem is as it got older, it like creaked, especially if you were engaged in any kind of activity.
John: Yeah.
John: And the creaking became kind of funny.
John: It was like a funny thing.
John: Lots of laughs were had because of the creaking.
John: Yeah.
John: But the sleigh bed was not going to cut it in the new house.
John: It was the wrong.
Merlin: Was it too old timey?
Merlin: Old timey for the.
John: Yeah, it was too old timey.
John: It's like a sleigh.
John: This bed.
John: is a headboard that has end tables attached so it sits on a wooden platform and underneath it the wood what appears to be the solid wood of the of the bed are actually drawers that slide out where you can put your i don't know what your comforters or something your stuff and
John: And then the headboard, which also opens to provide you more space for stuff, then it just goes seamlessly across into these night tables.
John: And the night tables have things that slide.
John: And each side has like a desk that slides out in front of you while you're laying in bed.
John: What?
John: And so you can have...
John: It doesn't look like it.
John: It just looks like an end table.
John: But then you flip a little thing and then all of a sudden the desk slides out on each side.
Merlin: As adult beds go, that's pretty close to having a house in your house.
Merlin: It's like a house.
Merlin: It's an environment, like sort of a wet bar.
Merlin: I mean, that's pretty cool.
Merlin: A lot going on.
Merlin: And when you look at it.
Merlin: If it all still works, that would be amazing.
John: it all still works right but when you look at if you walked in the room and you looked at you would go oh an adult lives here yeah yeah like oh wow this person probably has seen a james bond movie which is how i like to present myself yeah oh by the way if i sound a little lispy it's because i'm missing my tooth again oh and i had a terrible dental surgery and my mouth is full of stitches
Merlin: Oh, John, I couldn't even tell.
John: My goodness.
John: It's affecting me a little bit with some lisping and some stuff.
John: I don't think it's pronounced.
John: Oh, thank you.
John: So anyway, I call Kevin back.
John: Can you hang on just a second?
John: Of course.
John: Daughter, come and get me another coffee.
Merlin: Can I leave that in?
John: Absolutely.
John: Thank you.
John: Are you kidding me?
John: This is better than Instagram because this is how you raise a child.
John: Yes.
John: Female offspring.
John: One coffee.
John: Thank you.
John: Stand up straight.
John: Shoulders back.
John: Oh, boy.
Merlin: So, wait.
Merlin: Now, Kevin.
John: So, I call Kevin.
John: I call him again.
John: And I go, Kev.
Merlin: At this point, you're a pretty motivated buyer.
Merlin: You want to get this thing reserved for John Roderick.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Okay.
John: I said, Kev, look.
John: I think I want the bet.
Okay.
John: And I don't want to spend the next hour twisting.
John: I don't want to spend all night flip-flopping in my $89 bed trying to figure out if Ben's going to get there.
John: I know Ben's going to get there at 11.
John: He's an undignified way to stress out.
John: You know, I don't want to.
John: Flipping and flopping is not how I want to live.
John: You don't want to take a deposit, and I understand.
John: But what I'm telling you... I mean, is there anything... I'm sorry.
John: Is there anything that stopped you from running your card right that moment?
John: Well, this is what I'm saying to him.
John: Okay.
John: I'm like, I'm going to give you my card and I'm going to buy this bed.
John: But just between you and me, two guys who have been in a lot of barns, two guys who, in our ways, sparkle.
Mm-hmm.
John: Like break it down.
John: And he said, you know what I'm going to do?
John: Let's go over to the bed right now.
John: And so the two of us, me on the phone, we walk over to the bed and he starts looking at the bed and he's like, here's, here's the bed and here's what I'm seeing.
John: And here's what I, you know, what I noticed.
John: And here are the things he said, this is a very trusted seller.
John: And I'm like, Hey, listen, you don't have to sell it to me.
John: And he's like, no, no, no.
John: I love, I like the seller.
John: Here's what I'm going to do.
John: I'm going to call the seller.
John: I'm going to talk to her.
John: She just assembled yesterday.
John: Yeah.
John: Okay.
John: I'm going to, he, he said, she's very reputable seller.
John: I'm going to call her.
John: I'm going to ask her what there is to know.
John: And I'm like, okay then.
John: And he said, and I'm not going to, if somebody walks in right now with a bag full of money, I'm not going to sell it to them because you and I are engaged in this.
Okay.
John: So he calls me back.
John: He sends me some photos on his phone.
John: He says, here's what the seller told me, all these things.
John: And I said, Kevin, listen, I'm just going to buy the bed.
John: I'm going to buy it.
John: Okay.
John: And he was like, you know what?
John: I'm going to sell it to you.
Okay.
John: and so so far the definition of a store is working out yeah yeah so i so i bought it whoo i bought a leaf i gave him some money thank you yeah thank you you're well no i'm thanking my my daughter you're one of the three best daughters in this house there's nobody else here and then i call ben and i'm like i bought the bed so you can't just go buy on your motorcycle
John: And you have to go get it.
John: Wait a minute.
Merlin: Wait a minute.
Merlin: Wait a minute.
Merlin: Wait a minute.
Merlin: Wait.
Merlin: And says, I have to get it.
Merlin: How did his very kind offer to do a little bit of this for you turn into now he's picking up a bed for you?
Merlin: Is this what it means when you get onboarded to the Roderick group?
Merlin: Is this the kind of thing people can expect?
John: This is the Northwest.
John: This is the culture of the Northwest.
John: We really like to help each other out.
John: We like to do things.
John: You know, when you fly into New York.
John: I believe that you like to be helped out.
John: You know, acts of service are my love language.
John: Acts of service.
John: That's right.
John: You said that.
John: You and your mom share that.
John: And it's true for Ben, too.
John: Acts of service are his love language.
John: So we know each other in that way.
John: Like if Ben, if Ben called me from Portland right now and he's like, Hey, I need you to pick me up at the Portland airport.
John: I would go, Oh yeah.
John: All right.
John: Well, it's going to take me three hours.
John: I'll be there as soon as I can.
John: You know, it's just, this was the thing flying into New York.
John: You got a million friends in New York.
John: You're like, Hey, I'm landing at five.
John: And they're like, great.
John: Well get a car.
John: And I'm like, well, you have a car.
John: You could come get me.
John: And they would laugh and
Merlin: Come get you at the airport?
Merlin: There's a lot about that.
Merlin: It's true in all of America, but especially this culturally somewhat unique to New York, where that's a lot to ask of somebody.
John: Yeah, apparently, except I would drive to Portland right now.
John: Yeah.
John: If Ben was like, I can't get this can of beans open, I'd be like, well, I know somebody who can't.
John: So I say, listen, we're going to come down and get the bed, but somebody needs to get it from the bed store.
Merlin: Can't they just put a tag on it at that point that says bed is sold?
John: This is maybe what we should have done.
John: Oh.
John: It didn't occur to me at the time because I was thinking about a lot of things.
John: And so Ben goes and he gets the bed.
John: And then I get a text message from Kevin's wife.
John: Kevin's wife?
John: Kevin's wife who runs the front of house.
John: And she said, just FYI, when, uh, when Ben came to pick up the bed, a couple of things got dropped and some, uh, the drawers actually, because this is a Danish furniture, the drawers roll on these big wheels.
John: That kind of looked like bakelite plastic, hard plastic wheels.
John: Right.
John: She said the bed got dropped in some of the hard plastic wheels got broken.
Hmm.
John: I just wanted you to know that that was not how the bed came.
John: And I wrote her and I said, listen, in asking Ben to pick up the bed, I knew that that further complication was going to add an element of controlled chaos.
John: You are not responsible for it at all.
John: And I said to her in the text, I was like, I suspect that
John: That Ben intentionally breaks things in order to then fix them and make them better than they were.
John: He's that good of a friend.
John: I think that Ben has a machine shop and he wants to turn it on.
Merlin: I was going to offer the 3D printer for you, but it sounds like Ben's already on top of that.
Merlin: And he carried the whole thing on his motorcycle when he picked it up.
John: He has one of those Land Cruisers.
John: Well, so then I say to the little one here, I was like, guess what we're going to do today?
John: And she was like, what?
John: Go to the water park?
John: And I was like, no, we're going to drive to Portland and pick up a bed that daddy bought on the internet.
John: And she was like, I hate you so much.
John: I said, but it's going to be a great opportunity for us to spend six hours in a car and you can tell me all about school.
John: She was like, you really are the lamest, lamest, lamest.
Merlin: And she has the day off too, right?
Merlin: So her day off, part of her day off is going to be going to Portland to pick up a bed.
John: No, this was on Friday because she had that day off, too.
Merlin: Okay, I'm sorry.
Merlin: I see.
John: I know you thought it was happening in the moment, but I'm telling a story about a thing that has happened.
Merlin: You did some kind of fun out-of-sequence storytelling, or maybe I did fun out-of-sequence listening, maybe.
John: No, I can see dead people.
John: That's the funny thing.
John: yeah yeah yeah so we drive down there we get there and uh and the bed is much larger than i thought it takes up an entire uh large american vehicle but since we're there we get invited to spaghetti dinner by ben and his two charming sons and his lovely wife and ben comes out and says i broke these wheels
John: But I 3D printed you.
John: Oh my God.
John: Some nylon replacements that will last for an eternity.
John: Oh my God.
John: And he had rebuilt it using a 3D printer.
John: Yeah.
John: And he said, you know, Merlin, and then he starts talking about your 3D printing.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: And how it differs from his 3D printing.
John: His is useful.
John: And then his son comes out and his son has 3D printed some little figurines that look like a cross between Master Chief and Dungeons and Dragons.
John: Little Dungeons and Dragons, but Master Chief.
John: I printed a Ranger last week.
John: And he's like, these are the type of things that Merlin prints and I like to do that.
John: But dad's always doing things like breaking things and then printing replacements for them.
John: And so I took a picture of the replacement wheels and sent them to Kevin's wife at Sparkle Barn.
John: And I was like, literally, did I not say that?
John: And she was like, lol, we're all one big happy family at this point.
John: And free spaghetti.
John: And free spaghetti.
John: And we loaded the bed in.
John: And now, unfortunately, when we loaded the bed in, we had Ben and his two hardy teenage sons.
John: Right.
John: Now I'm here with my, you know, slouchy, resentful child who's like, ugh, I'm not going to help you move the bed, too.
John: And so...
Merlin: Arms like that is going to take forever.
Merlin: What happens to the electric bed?
Merlin: Can you repurpose it?
Merlin: Could you turn it?
Merlin: Could you turn that into a wet bar?
Merlin: Because I mean, that's going to be a lot to move.
Merlin: And like, is there anything you can do with it?
John: Right now, I have an electric bed that is too heavy for me to move by myself.
John: And I have an enormous bed in the truck that I really can't get out of the truck.
John: And so now I've put myself, you know, I've put baby in a corner a little bit because I've got more beds.
John: Oh, well, just to add to the bed problem.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: You know the guy I sold the farm to?
Merlin: The one who had you pick up your scooters out that barn?
John: Yeah.
John: He said when I was there, he was like, oh, by the way, I still have that purple velvet waterbed that you left here when you moved.
John: That has a built-in 8-track.
Merlin: He uses your pans, but he hasn't put the velvet waterbed to use.
John: No.
John: That was a really good pan from the early 90s.
John: It was.
John: And so he's like, do you want the bed, the purple waterbed?
John: And I was like, well, duh.
John: Because the purple waterbed also fits into the mid-century scheme somehow.
John: No, it won't fit that.
John: It's really a weird design.
John: It's not a queen.
Merlin: Is it torn down and deflated and unwatered?
John: Well, the water part is gone, but the velvet and chrome part is still there.
John: So I was like, absolutely.
John: So we loaded it into the truck last week and I brought it and I was able to get most of it out of the truck into this.
John: Is it possible you're just in a phase where you're hoarding beds?
John: It might be.
John: You know, this is the thing.
Merlin: I think one more and it's definitely a trend.
John: A lot of the time when you have a manic episode, you only realize it.
John: Your words, not mine.
John: Not mine.
John: You only realize it when other people point it out to you.
John: If I get six more beds, then I'll have nine.
John: Let's see.
John: Right now, it's noon.
John: You know what isn't normal?
John: What?
John: Having like three new beds.
John: Like bring three new beds into the house.
John: Two of which are like.
John: Whatever it takes to make your life feel together.
John: Exactly.
John: And two of these beds are kind of incomprehensible.
John: Like what?
John: So you have an electric bed?
John: Yeah.
John: But it doesn't work.
John: And the thing is then I opened a box just coinkydinkly.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I opened a box and I found the remote control to the electric bed.
Merlin: Ain't that ironical?
Merlin: See?
Merlin: Now, does that change your mind at all?
Merlin: You think you might want to go all electric now?
John: I have no idea what I'm doing.
John: And when I woke up this morning, I was like, okay, is today the day?
John: I mean, I have to get the bed out of the truck.
Merlin: Well, you're going to have to make some decisions one way or another, and you're going to have to get some.
Merlin: What about that kid next door who's sad about his dog?
Merlin: Could you have him come over and help you?
Merlin: No, I don't think so.
Merlin: Couldn't one of your litigants come in?
Merlin: What about the tech guy with the Stanley Steamer?
Merlin: What am I saying?
Merlin: Could he come over and give you a hand?
John: You know, I haven't seen them in a while, and I'm worried.
John: I don't think there's any difficulty.
John: I've never asked him to help me with a chore.
John: He's very fit.
John: The problem with this kind of chore is, right now at least, I still have a conceptual issue.
John: I don't know which beds are going to go where.
Merlin: You know, it's funny.
Merlin: I have complimentary hang-ups to this, whatever this constellation of hang-ups you have is.
Merlin: I have a complimentary one, which is like, that had occurred to me.
Merlin: That now you've got a lot of beds, and there's not currently one specific plan in place how...
Merlin: how beds make your life better.
Merlin: You've just got beds.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: The role of beds, and why beds?
Merlin: Well, beds have a place, I think, in this MCM vision that you've got, right?
Merlin: And MCM, mid-century modern, also means 1900.
Merlin: That's kind of interesting.
Merlin: Okay, sorry.
Merlin: You know, people love his Roman numeral jokes.
Merlin: But you've got, then the question becomes, now you have an integration question, which is like, well, if I have these materials that I felt that I needed to pull this whole situation together, well, then what are we going to do about this?
Merlin: And now if you're Merlin Mann, you know the first thing you have to do is make a hole.
Merlin: Like, first we've got to get rid of beds.
Merlin: But now you've acquired beds, but you've also got bed and car.
Merlin: So you can't really use car for car things if bed is in it, right?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And you've got an electric bed and a remote now, which is going to hugely improve the resale value of that.
Merlin: But you've got to get that.
Merlin: That's on a non-first floor, I'm guessing.
Merlin: Is electric bed on first floor?
John: You know, because of mid-century modern...
John: everything it's all designed around a flat uh it's a flat aspect so everything is on the same floor even the thing that's on the other floor it's on the same floor of course right there's only one is it a ranch style house you have a sunken you have a sunken living room right
John: It's a ranch-style house.
John: Okay.
John: The living room is not sunk, and that would be wonderful.
John: Not yet.
John: No, it's a house that looks like a train station from 1850.
John: It's just long.
John: Wow.
John: Like a young Frankenstein train station.
John: Like a young Frankenstein train station, except without all the fleur-de-lis.
John: Absolutely.
John: Pardon me, boy.
John: You stand at one end and you look down to where it bends into the undergrowth.
John: And then the end of the hallway is far enough away that it kind of disappears into the ether.
John: Right.
John: It's just one long building.
Merlin: A vanishing point effect.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: You see the back end of the house, but it's wavering in the desert heat.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: But something's got to change.
Merlin: Does it begin with commitment or does it begin with just moving stuff?
John: Because it seems like you've got to have some commitment and then some moving stuff.
John: There's going to be a little bit of both, right?
John: I'm going to take a mattress, I'm going to flip a mattress, and I don't know which one yet, but I'm going to flip a mattress up, and I'm going to lean it against a wall.
Merlin: Okay, that's using dimensions, which I think is smart.
John: Yeah, there are at least three mattresses in this house that I could flip up and lean against a wall.
Merlin: This is kind of an SAT problem, I think.
John: Oh, I haven't even explained the fourth...
John: The fourth dimension to this, which is that, as I said before, my daughter does not like her mattress being on the floor like a hippie.
John: Like a hippie, right.
John: And she said, look, listen, I want a real bed.
John: And she said this before any of this new bed.
John: Electric bed is real bed.
John: So I said, what about electric bed?
John: And she said, she gave a look like, and I said, when you were eight, you thought electric bed was the coolest.
John: It was like, you used to come into daddy's bed and be like, electric bed, and you would move it around.
John: And she was like, yeah, well, I'm not eight.
John: I don't want electric bed.
John: And I said, well, what do you want?
John: What do you want?
John: Loft bed?
John: And she was like, I want canopy bed.
Merlin: Canopy bed?
Merlin: Interesting.
Merlin: Billy had wanted a – well, still sleeps in a loft bed.
Merlin: You can get one of those, like, you know, crate and barrel or whatever.
Merlin: It's real easy.
Merlin: We had a task grab and put it together.
Merlin: But, like, that was like, oh, entering fifth grade, like, you know, we're changing schools soon, da-da-da, and this is growing up stuff.
Merlin: We're going to get you this, and there will be a little study area and everything.
Merlin: Canopy bed is very interesting to me.
John: Well, because, and I think what she envisions when she thinks canopy bed is that she can go into her little cubby.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: It's got the, the ceiling is going to be illuminated by Christmas lights and she can close the curtains and there in block out the world and it'll be her reading sanctuary and
John: And it'll just be like a ship to sail the seeds, to sail through the cosmos.
Merlin: If I could say it's like a berth with an E. Yeah.
Merlin: Like where you got the like, you know, this could be like in some like it hot or it could be like in master and commander.
Merlin: But in that case, you got to take down the walls if you got to shoot the cannons.
Merlin: But same idea.
Merlin: Like in this case, now she's got a sanctum sanctorum.
Merlin: She's got a special area inside.
Merlin: Well, you know, in Mecca, you know you can go inside the big rock.
Merlin: Have we talked about this?
John: Oh, yes.
Merlin: There's a door, and you can go inside, and it's fascinating.
John: You can go inside the rock.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: So it's similar to that.
John: I don't think I'm allowed in, but, you know, if you're making bucket lists, why not?
John: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
John: And I'm sure that's going to be true of whatever canopy bed sheet.
Merlin: How long have you been aware of her bed interests?
Merlin: Is this a new thing that just came up because now you're so lousy with beds?
John: No, because I think part of the problem is her room here is decorated in an eclectic style, which is to say that the furniture that daddy doesn't know what else to do with goes in there.
John: So it doesn't match and it doesn't have a ton of femininity.
John: it's like daddy buys things that look like they belong in a men's club.
John: And then he doesn't know what to do with them.
John: So there are stacks of Pendleton blankets.
Merlin: So it's less of a 13 year old girl's room and more like a, uh, a disused cigar club.
John: Yeah.
John: And I keep saying to her now, the thing is that the room that you want when you're 13, isn't necessarily the room you want when you're 16 or 17, you know, wherever you speak, you're going through this with your house right now.
John: Yeah.
John: And she says, pish posh.
John: You don't know anything.
John: Hmm.
John: And so, yeah, which is probably true.
John: So this is all happening along with this.
John: So I'm saying as I'm trying to deal with these other beds in circulation, I keep going by, I keep stopping by her room and I'm like, electric bed?
John: And she's like, no.
John: And I go, what about purple velour water?
John: And she's like, no.
John: And so I'm now also needing to consider introducing a canopy bed of some kind into this bed equation.
John: Okay, so... Meaning every mattress in the house might be leaning up against a wall within six hours.
Merlin: You've got more tiles than puzzle at this point.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You don't have enough spaces to move the tiles around in some ways.
Merlin: You are... You're bed rich, but you're, you know, square footage poor from a bed standpoint.
Correct.
Merlin: Where would you get that?
Merlin: If you take the bed out of the back of the car, does that go into the garage for now?
John: The problem is that as soon as something goes in the garage...
John: It's exponentially, it develops, there's a kind of gravity in the garage where a 400-pound thing goes in there and it turns into a 4,000-pound thing.
John: I don't want to do that.
John: Once beds start moving...
John: They've got to keep moving until they land in their spot.
Merlin: I'm going to call it, this is a phrase I just made up, a hot deploy.
Merlin: You want to deploy these beds with extreme prejudice.
Merlin: Get them onto the field.
Merlin: Give them a billet promotion.
Merlin: Now electric bed is, you could put a canopy on an electric bed, couldn't you?
Merlin: It's like that terrible Netflix show, Hack My House.
Merlin: There's all kinds of garbage you could do to an electric bed to make it feel like something a girl would like.
Merlin: You could put a pony on it.
Merlin: Well, now here's another complication because the electric bed.
Merlin: John, no more complications.
Merlin: You're killing me with this already.
John: The electric bed, as you know, as you already knew about the $89 bed, the way it came to me in boxes was it was actually two extra long twin beds.
John: that linked together and become one king-size electric bed.
Merlin: Yeah, like in the sleep number advertisements, it looks like you've got a bed split down the middle, right?
Merlin: And then one electric bed is technically two electric bed.
Merlin: And then you can have the temperature you like and the up and down that you like and all that.
Merlin: But if you think about it for a second, in the case of like, I don't mean to be, you know...
John: talking brand here but like it has to be two different beds otherwise it's really one bed which is not what you're getting with the two bed operation and yet and yet i took the two beds and i put one big ink size mattress i think that's fine and the the electric bed had a thing where each half came with its own remote
John: But you could link them with some kind of digital uplink, like in the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey, and then use one remote to control the whole operation.
John: So when I say I found the remote, I didn't find the remote.
John: I found the other remote.
John: The one that I never used.
Merlin: It's like finding two tires.
Merlin: You're on the way, but we're not really totally there yet.
John: But the thing is, I think I can get the bed.
John: This is the world we live in.
John: All I need to do is get the bed to recognize the remote.
John: You just need to get the bed.
Merlin: But once it recognizes the remote, whose bed will that be?
Merlin: Well, that's the thing.
Merlin: I think you have to hold down the power button.
Merlin: You have so many beds and so many people apart from you who don't want them.
John: So the other option is what if I take the king mattress off of the electric bed, split the electric bed into two beds, then all I would need to do is buy two twin mattresses.
Merlin: Will they work independently like that?
Merlin: I think so.
Merlin: Are they like pigeons or swans where they're like a bonded pair?
Okay.
Merlin: Well, I only have the one remote.
Merlin: That's what I'm saying, though.
Merlin: But like, even if you bought, can you use them separately?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: If I found the other remote.
Merlin: So they technically gave you two electric beds.
John: They gave me two electric beds.
Merlin: I'll be hornswogled.
John: See, now that, talk about a twist.
John: Now, if I put like an end table in between the two beds, I could have like a Rob and Laura Petri situation.
Merlin: That's exactly the name that was going through my own mind.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: You got a Rob and Laura Petri situation, which is kind of hot.
John: It is.
John: And conceivably, I could have guests.
John: I could have a married couple.
John: They made a Richie with two different beds.
John: You know, my guest room, which is right now like a dormant eBay store, it could be instead a Robin Laurie Petri set piece, which is very mid-century modern.
John: Absolutely.
John: But that would involve buying two more mattresses, and I don't think it solves any problem.
Merlin: It's such a good idea in theory.
Merlin: Maybe we just do a soft pause on that.
Merlin: What I'm trying to say is in a gentle way is maybe we pause on acquiring new beds until we work out more of a plan for where the existing beds go.
Merlin: Is that an old-fashioned, pre-mid-century modern way for me to be looking at it?
John: No, no, no.
Merlin: Is that a slay bed mentality?
Merlin: Not all beds slay.
John: See, there does need to be, I think, an outside voice right now, because the inside voices... I think it's in Singapore, probably.
John: That's maybe part of it.
John: The inside voices that I have going on... Sorry, does she know about any of this?
John: Vis-a-vis beds.
John: She doesn't know about any of this, right?
John: No, no, no.
Merlin: She doesn't normally have any... I know, she doesn't get a vote, but I'm just saying, you know, in her absence, there's a lot going on at your particular house.
John: Mid-century modern.
John: I think the first thing that kicked all this off was that when she went to Singapore, I went to my daughter and I said, you know what we should do?
John: While she's gone, we should clean up mama's house and build shelves.
John: in all the basement spaces, build shelves in the garage, build shelves in that weird room that doesn't have any windows.
Merlin: And then we can.
Merlin: Sounds a lot like other things I've heard before, John.
John: Then we can hang up all of Mama's stuff.
John: We just need to get in there.
Merlin: We can build all the shelves.
John: You know what else?
John: We can make a wall of mirrors.
John: I'm going to get all these mirrors.
John: And we'll make one whole wall of mirrors.
Merlin: Oh, you know what you can call it?
Merlin: You can call it Versailles, except it's spelled S-I-G-H.
Merlin: She's always Versailles-ing.
John: And my daughter looks up from her book and goes, oh, God, leave me out of it.
John: I hate you so much.
John: No, I need you.
Merlin: There's electric bats in her house.
Merlin: You know, it'll be a twist for her.
Merlin: She has a kind of like a nice house, right?
Merlin: Doesn't she have like a kind of an MCM-ish house?
John: She does.
John: And the thing is, her aesthetic is very important to her.
John: And so if I were to introduce any kind of electric beds or castaway purple beds.
Merlin: But maybe you just put it there for a while while you're working some other things out at your place.
John: Not into that at all.
John: Oh, come home.
John: I would be really in hot water.
John: But if she came home and there were industrial shelves along one wall of the garage that had all of the stuff that's now on the floor.
Merlin: In my experience, women love industrial shelves.
Merlin: Who is going to not like that?
Merlin: Oh, so good.
Merlin: No, I know.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But that's an additional bunch of furniture building and moving and doing.
Merlin: You've got to pick one part at a time, right?
Merlin: You've got to get a stake in the ground.
Merlin: And I'm not saying, for me, I would look at this from my point of view, not procrastination exactly, but maybe an arithmetic, order of operations.
Merlin: It's just that you're not really sure exactly what the plan is yet, right?
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: I'm not even really sure which room I want any of these things to go in.
John: Like I could just take everything out of it.
John: You should see some more beds.
John: What if I just put everything in the hall and then it would be impossible to get anywhere in the house?
Merlin: I mean, it's so arbitrary the way we name quote unquote rooms in our quote unquote house.
John: Good point.
Merlin: What is a hallway really, but a very narrow bedroom with doors?
John: The other day, I was standing at one end of the hall, and my daughter was coming down the hall, and she stopped, and she said, why are these bags here?
John: And she pointed to these bags that were in the middle of the hall.
John: Yeah.
John: And I said, well, and she said, there is no well.
John: There is no reason.
Merlin: She thinks it's a straightforward question.
Merlin: She's asking her father, why are these bags in the middle of the hall?
Merlin: It's just a question.
John: And I said, well, and she was like, the thing is, there is no answer.
John: You can take as many pauses as you want to devise an answer.
John: And she picked up the bags and she moved them so they were no longer in the hall.
John: And I had to admit that it made sense.
John: And then she walked freely down the hall and she said, see, this is what happens when you don't put things.
Merlin: That's because the bags weren't in the hall anymore.
Merlin: They'd been moved.
John: Yeah.
John: And the thing is, the hall, she was pointing out, the hall is the narrow part of the house.
John: So that's not where you put things.
John: But it's so long.
John: It's long.
John: Yeah.
John: But she said the longness of it is not the defining feature of it.
John: It's the narrowness of it.
John: So the length doesn't mean— From the mouths of babes, you know, they're so wise when they're young.
John: I know.
John: She's like, you can fill up the length of it, but it's not like a gymnasium because it's the side-to-side dimension.
Merlin: Well, maybe it is like a gymnasium in the sense that you could use height.
Merlin: Like, for example, here at my office, I feel like I've never really utilized—my ceilings are, gosh, I don't know, probably— They're tall.
Merlin: Yeah, they're tall.
Merlin: And like I've always and just again, this is just my own experience is that my wife does not like when I say things like we could really use the vertical space better because she knows that's going to be something that starts out as, oh, I saw a thing where you could have a bookcase all the way.
Merlin: Pretty soon that turns into a model train that goes around the top or pretty soon that's a place where the guinea pigs we buy someday run around on a track.
Merlin: She knows what this stuff turns into with me.
John: Could you digitally print like a little elevator that goes up and retrieves things from upper shelves?
John: Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of ways.
Merlin: The thing is, it's like your garage in some ways.
Merlin: We're like, you know, it's my belief that almost every area in a house left to its own devices will become storage.
Merlin: That if you don't curate an area assertively, like, you know, mindfully, everything tends to turn into storage.
Merlin: which is like you go in the garage, you put electric bed in there, and pretty soon now electric bed also has the water bed on it, and it's got a bunch of books, and it's got two bags from the hallway that didn't have anywhere else to go.
Merlin: And now you're living in a pile, mid-century modern pile.
John: So this is something I don't actually know.
John: Does Madeline...
John: Think of your office as a place where things go.
John: Not enough things, but yes.
John: Does she put things by the door and go, this should go to your office?
Merlin: The whole family is very frustrated when things creep from the office to the house, which includes something as anodyne as a funny 3D Yoda that I made or whatever, all the way up to like, I've decided this is an entire box of comics that my kids should probably read.
Merlin: Sometimes I'll go and my kids, something is easy.
Merlin: This is how sweaty I am.
Merlin: My kid's like, I need a new notebook for X. And I'm like, please, there's so little I can do for you in life.
Merlin: I have a notebook museum.
Merlin: I have a literal notebook museum at my office.
Merlin: I was like, let me curate a box of, like, six or eight different notebooks with different ideas for you that might appeal to you.
Merlin: And, like, nobody likes any of that.
Merlin: But in your case, it is your house mostly –
Merlin: What it needs is a vision.
John: It needs a vision.
John: Because things go to her house because that's where my daughter wants to be.
John: And that's where Ari wants to be.
John: Everybody wants to be over there.
Merlin: So consequently, when your daughter's nesting, she's doing it at your place to get along.
Merlin: But at her place, that's the primary location.
Merlin: You're the secondary location.
John: Always, always.
John: The dad's house is always the secondary location unless by court order somehow mom has lost the plot.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You should have who's your motorcycle friend?
Merlin: Ben.
Merlin: You could have Ben and Kevin look into that.
John: So I know that.
John: But what happens is things migrate over there.
John: And then what she does is put them in a pile by the door to go back.
John: Oh, these are the things that need to leave the house.
John: These are the things that she does not want in her house.
John: And a lot of the time it's beer steins that I use as coffee cups or it's, you know, some kind of.
John: But also I notice things that I don't want either.
John: like uh like yard stuff from the summer and and i'm like well that why does this live at my house i gotta know you mean like like lawn darts or shovels yeah like uh it's just just the things that don't see this is the thing though and this is why this i think is so thorny for some people i live in a world where there's just tons of things that don't even have a place that they should be
Merlin: And I think most people live in a world where there are things and that's where it should be.
Merlin: That's where it goes and stuff like that.
Merlin: But I think if we have that sort of vague idea of like, well, I just know this is something I don't want in the house, which is to say, I don't want this in my house, which is a way of saying, I kind of want this to go to your house or somewhere else.
John: And things like it's suburban problems, right?
John: It's like pool floaties.
John: Well, where do pool floaties live?
John: Nobody wants them.
John: But in the summer, everybody wants them.
John: But it's not summer now.
John: It's fall.
John: So now they're pooled.
Merlin: So if she had all those shelves you're going to build her in the basement, then Bob's your uncle.
Merlin: You could have dedicated bespoke shelves for floaties.
Merlin: Thank you, Merlin.
Merlin: We have a camping supplies shelf, you know, like that.
John: I could 3D print a little label that says floaties.
John: And the thing is, they would all go on there and they would be organized for exactly one hour.
John: But that one hour would be so wonderful.
Merlin: It's definitely complicated.
Merlin: So the new bed that has broken... Which new bed?
Merlin: The mid-century modern bed from the Sparkle Barn is what you will be sleeping on in your big boy room, yes?
John: No.
John: The problem with that is that the room... Are you sleeping in the canopy bed?
Merlin: I don't understand.
Merlin: Where's the electric bed go?
John: I'm sleeping in... Right now, electric bed...
John: is being used as a ebay space because i'm sleeping on 89 bed because 89 bed is in the room that i when i was fixing up the house said to everyone else's dismay yeah i said i want this room to have long orange shag carpet
John: And no one thought that was a good idea.
John: I couldn't find a living person that agreed with me that that was an investment that was going to pay off.
John: You know, for now, it's a standalone.
Merlin: You're talking about a real deep pile, like Halloween orange.
John: Yeah.
John: And I went to the carpet people and I said, this is the special carpet I want.
John: And the carpet installers came and they were like, are you serious?
John: And I was like, dead serious.
John: And so there's a room that has deep pile orange shag carpet.
John: So deep that the shag is like little fingers, little baby fingers.
John: Yeah.
John: But I mean, it's great.
Merlin: Yeah, sure.
Merlin: It's so shaggy.
John: And it's very orange.
Yeah.
John: And the problem with the mid-century modern bed is that if you put it on the shag carpet, then those miracle drawers underneath won't slide.
John: The ones that Ben fixed with his... It's also a little bit out of period.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Like even though that bed is technically from the 70s, it kind of wants to be from the 50s.
Merlin: And I think of a deep pile shag.
John: It's going to make the 70s look like the 50s.
Merlin: you gotta sleep somewhere jesus christ what's gonna happen it's a weird weird wonderful world it is it is it's tremendous the orange shag bedroom is gonna end up with the purple bed oh the wait the paisley bed
Merlin: You got rid of the Paisley bed, right?
Merlin: The velour bed.
Merlin: John, you got more beds than I can keep track of.
Merlin: I'm listening to you actively.
Merlin: I'm taking notes, and I still am not completely sure.
Merlin: This is, again, this is like one of those things, not an SAT question, but you say you got to cross the river, and you got a fox and a chicken and a bag of grain.
Merlin: You're kind of in that situation, except that's your mid-century modern house.
Merlin: And like, how do you, how do you get the, you know, you don't want the fox to eat the chicken and you don't want to sleep on electric bed.
Merlin: No, you don't want the chicken to sleep on the bed.
Merlin: You're going to need some help.
Merlin: No, I'm in a good way.
Merlin: Like you're going to need, you're going to need a pair of strong hands for this.
John: I really wish that somewhere right around here, there was a six foot tall guy that weighed 200 pounds and it was all muscle.
John: And he really liked me.
John: I think it might be the neighbor, but I got, I got mad at him about his leaf blower.
Merlin: Oh, but like he's the athletic tech guy.
John: Yeah, athletic tech guy.
Merlin: Well, Merlin, you've been very helpful.
Merlin: Oh, if I can do anything at all.
Merlin: I mean, I feel like I have a sense of what people don't like, and that's me.
Merlin: So anytime I can apply that to others.
Merlin: I'll ding us out there if that's all right.