Ep. 574: "Big Strong Man"
Merlin: Hello?
Merlin: Hi, John.
John: Hello?
John: Hi, John.
John: I'm Merlin.
John: You were making sounds.
John: I knew you were there.
John: Why do you make it like this?
Merlin: You were squirreling around.
Merlin: You were like, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
Merlin: I don't understand what it is.
Merlin: So, okay.
Merlin: This is just the thing I live with now.
Merlin: I don't understand what anybody actually wants in life.
Merlin: You want noise or you don't want noise?
Merlin: You want to hear me?
Merlin: You don't want to hear me?
Merlin: I need a clean opening.
Merlin: You understand?
John: Oh, you need a clean opening.
John: Okay, do you want to do it?
John: Let's do it again.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: It's a little late for a clean opening at this point.
Merlin: Oh, dang.
Merlin: Just because, here's the thing, yes and, you know what they say.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: In medicine and improv.
John: My life is full of situations where it's a little late for a clean open.
Merlin: Oh, oh, John.
Merlin: Heavy, right?
Merlin: I'm going to write that down.
Merlin: I was worth it just for that.
Merlin: Yeah, well, you know, I also think I might have a little bit of line noise, but I'm not going to worry about it.
Merlin: That might be me.
John: No, I think that's my line noise.
John: Oh, your line noise.
John: You know, I keep all my stuff in the drawer here.
John: What's that mean?
John: Well, you know, at some point, I had finally gotten into a situation where I had cleaned my house enough that I could have a cleaning person come in.
Merlin: I wish I didn't know what you mean by that.
John: And it had taken me four years to get my house clean enough to invite a cleaning person.
Merlin: Otherwise, there's no point in having that person to your house.
Merlin: They're going to clean the six-foot spot in the middle?
Merlin: We used to have cleaning stuff, then the COVID thing happened, and we never picked it back up.
Merlin: But we used to have a person come in once a week and just do the stuff that we weren't doing during the week.
Merlin: But there was always a lot of effort to get it to where what we wanted them to do.
Merlin: If you mean one of your main things, let's take an easy one.
Merlin: Like, you know, you've done like Roomba, you've done sweeping, you've done like vacuuming, you know, if you care about that sort of thing.
Merlin: But if you want somebody to do like a really good job and like clean your floors sometimes, guess what?
Merlin: You can't have stuff on the floor.
Merlin: What are they going to do, clean around it?
Merlin: It's a crime scene.
John: So I don't have them come in once a week.
John: It's once a month.
John: They come.
John: Oh, no.
Merlin: That's worse.
John: They do the thing.
Merlin: That's just extra weeks of accumulation for you to tidy.
John: It is worse because there are times when they'll come in and I'll say, all right, this week there are three rooms that you just don't bother going in.
John: I mean, you can go in, but I wouldn't bother.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: So this room, you could almost say it as like, this will not count against your final score.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: There's police tape here.
Merlin: If you go in there, that's fine.
Merlin: That's on you.
Merlin: But just so you know, I'm not expecting you to do a lot with this closet.
John: But the first time they came, you know, here on the couch and the dining or the, I'm sorry, the coffee table.
John: There was like a computer, and there was this Focusrite, and there were mic cables, and there was this microphone and headphones, and it was all just kind of strewn around.
John: And after a while, I don't even see it, you know?
John: Of course not.
John: I came in, and they had cleaned up the place.
John: They'd tidied it, and I was like, wait a minute.
John: Where'd all my stuff go?
John: Like, you know, I got to record Roderick on the line at some point one of these days.
John: Yeah.
John: And I looked around, and then I opened a drawer.
John: in the little end table.
John: The end table has a drawer.
John: and they had put all of it in the drawer.
John: And I said, all of that fits in a drawer?
John: But of course it does.
John: It's not that much stuff.
John: And so now I keep it in a drawer in the end table, and that's basically my whole career.
John: Okay.
John: It all fits in a drawer.
Merlin: I'm going to say something here, because on another program I refer to this as the chicken problem, where you're afraid to say anything because everybody's going to think you're a fancy duchess.
Merlin: Chicken jockey?
Merlin: Well, you know, you feel like a big chicken because you don't want to say anything because then you sound like you're fancy or something.
John: Go ahead, Duchess.
Merlin: Mostly nice.
Merlin: Okay, the Duchess speaks.
Merlin: Can I get formal absolution from you and by proxy, I guess, from our listeners for the fact that we have hired people to come to our house and clean in the past?
Merlin: Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: That's not something to... I'm not saying this is a safe place because it's absolutely not.
Merlin: Anyone who tells you this is a safe place doesn't understand safety or places.
John: I know.
John: In this economy, I mean, you know, with this big tariff war.
John: You kidding me?
John: Everybody was talking about, oh, this and that.
John: And, you know, my bank sent me a thing that was like, hey.
John: And I was like, I don't want to open it.
John: Oh, no, you got a hey letter from your bank?
John: They were like, hey.
John: Hey.
John: So, you know, the thing about investments is...
John: Is it's really... There's always risk, John.
Merlin: I think they probably told you that.
Merlin: They told you there was risk involved.
Merlin: A lot of risk.
Merlin: What about do past... I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but I don't know a lot about money, as you know.
Merlin: But is past performance any... Does that have anything to do with future profitability performance?
Merlin: None whatsoever.
John: And normally banks don't have any... They don't apologize.
John: They don't even... They're just like, screw you.
John: But in this case, it's...
John: Did they say my back?
John: They were just like, God, we just feel like we should reach out and just tell you that market volatility.
John: And it's like, shut up, close.
John: But then as soon as you want to say like...
John: Wow, rough day yesterday, am I right?
John: You know, you're... Yeah, you sound like Rockefeller.
John: Yeah, you're like, oh yeah, geez, sure, nice to have money to lose.
John: And I think all of our listeners... So you understand what you're describing is the chicken problem.
John: That's the chicken problem right there.
John: I think all of our listeners recognize that you and I are skin of the teeth in it right to the edge of the grave.
Merlin: Well, I know that, and that's the important part.
Merlin: I can't make anybody else—I cannot cause anybody else to understand my history of poor decision-making.
Merlin: But, oh, I have so much to—as long as we're in the cone of forgiveness.
John: Yeah.
John: Okay, go ahead.
John: Were you counting your gold doubloons?
John: Were you sitting in your money room?
Merlin: I was digging a treasure bath because I'm a wealthy duck.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: It's not worth getting into.
Merlin: But it is—
Merlin: It's funny how that... It's not that dissimilar from going to the doctor, where you're like, oh, I haven't taken care of those other things they told me to take care of, so I know first I'm going to have to get through all of that before we ever get to the fact that I'm dying in front of them.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But...
Merlin: No, it's – see, I still have the chicken problem.
Merlin: I can't talk about it, but it used to drive me crazy.
Merlin: No, go ahead.
Merlin: Go ahead.
Merlin: It's funny because you get these things you introduce into your life to make it theoretically easier on yourself.
Merlin: And honestly, like there were times – there's also – you know what we really can't talk about is the curve of having house people because the first time to clean your house will be like pretty great.
Merlin: And then the next three or four times would be okay.
Merlin: And then eventually you're like, I don't know, man.
Merlin: Did you even run a cloth over that?
Merlin: So now I'm thinking like that, which I don't particularly like.
Merlin: But no, the getting ready.
Merlin: It's hard to find good help these days.
Merlin: But now that we're bringing it all back to America.
Merlin: I blame MSG.
Merlin: But, you know, for a lot of... I was just listening to a podcast about MSG.
Merlin: The... Sorry, let's start over.
Merlin: Yeah, you know, the thing is, it's true, because what's the point?
Merlin: You know, what's the point of having...
Merlin: these people come over and do their job if you have not prepared the kind of work that needs to be done.
Merlin: Maybe a slightly less fraught way to put it would be like, I don't know, like if you were, let's say you'd hired people to cater your party and you hadn't bought any food.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: For them to serve.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You got to bring the food.
Merlin: They'd be like, which, what food here do you want me to serve?
Merlin: And you're like, well, I think there's some stew in the back.
Merlin: You could warm up.
Merlin: We don't have any petite floors, you know?
Merlin: Yesterday.
Merlin: Oh, can I say one more thing?
Merlin: Just one more thing.
Merlin: Yes, of course.
Merlin: And then I literally want to talk about literally, literally anything else.
Merlin: You just described one thing.
Merlin: Here's what I wrote down.
Merlin: I wrote down editorial judgments because we've had different cleaning folks over time in the past, and they have different ways they like to do things.
Merlin: I remember, you know what it was?
Merlin: That Barbara Ehrenreich book...
Merlin: nickel and dime, I think it was called, where she did all these different jobs, including being a house cleaner.
Merlin: And she talked about how they, I think this is similar to how they train people to clean hotel rooms.
Merlin: There's like, I won't get into it.
Merlin: You can look it up if you want, but there's like a pseudo scientific, like nearly scientific way to clean a room, you know, top to bottom areas, circles.
Merlin: Like you do, there's this way you do things that is like super efficient to do those things.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And I think there are standards for what's the kind of stuff we just don't touch and what's the kind of stuff.
Merlin: If you see a bunch of silverware that's clean, you know, you can put it in a drawer.
Merlin: If you see a child's project made out of popsicle sticks and tears, you probably don't disassemble it.
Merlin: You like leave it alone.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But what the funny part to me is the emerging pattern of editorial judgments about how I live.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: where it's so... Oh, by the cleaning people where they put your things?
Merlin: The thing is, anybody who walked into a house who had some sense of like, okay, this person wants their house to be cleaner than it was.
Merlin: Now, see, now me, I'm a nut.
Merlin: I walk in, I go, oh, it looks like that's the place where they put those particular dishes.
Merlin: If there's four of that, three of that dish there, and then there's a clean one, maybe that's where that fourth one will go.
Merlin: Not always.
Merlin: Because sometimes they have an editorial point of view about that, and they might think your stuff belongs in that drawer.
Merlin: And you may even eventually, I sound like a talking head song at this point, but at some point you may find yourself thinking that's where they do belong.
Merlin: That makes more sense.
Merlin: But at other times you will fight them by proxy.
Merlin: Oh my God, John, I have four more things to say about this and I can't say any of them.
Merlin: Here's another one.
John: You sound like you're talking about my daughter emptying the dishwasher because she's just like, oh, this has gone here for five years.
John: Yeah, but now it goes over here.
John: I have an entire baking sheet.
Merlin: My family was out of town looking at colleges last week, and they came back, and there's a baking sheet that looks like a mess.
Merlin: But it's a baking sheet that's just housing every single thing where I have no fucking idea who uses this or where it goes.
Merlin: All I know is it ends up by the sink, I have to clean it, and then I have to put it away somewhere.
Merlin: So you put it on a baking sheet?
Merlin: I consolidated it.
Merlin: That's my editorial opinion.
Merlin: You figure out what the fuck to do with these 45 different water bottles.
Merlin: Who needs this many water bottles?
Merlin: Who needs this many things to put three ounces of food in?
Merlin: What are we doing with all of this stuff?
Merlin: So that was my editorial version of that.
Merlin: But also, you...
Merlin: I feel like, and I know this from being somebody who's worked in an empty office at night.
Merlin: I know this.
Merlin: You know how it is to be somewhere when there's nobody else around.
Merlin: You're always in your house when the housekeepers aren't there.
Merlin: The housekeepers, in my case anyway, were only ever in my house when we weren't there.
Merlin: So all it was, it's their house for a few hours.
Merlin: It's just got our stuff in it.
Merlin: And I think they get a little chummy with the house.
Wow.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: I'm not mad, but sometimes there will be a lot of stuff kind of switched around to be the way that they want.
Merlin: I'm not criticizing.
Merlin: What I am saying is, can one clean without implicit judgment?
Merlin: Is that possible?
Merlin: Look at Susan.
Merlin: Look what Susan did to your basement.
John: Well, there was a lot of judgment in that.
John: But, you know, you're not doing a Karen where you're like, they were in the refrigerator.
John: You're doing something more metaphysical where you're like, they didn't like.
Merlin: I mean, they've set up an ad hoc charging station and they're heating up lunch.
Merlin: And if you come in early, sometimes it feels a little bit like a party.
John: But there's a part of you that feels like they don't approve of me.
John: No, absolutely.
Merlin: They'll take the money, but they don't like me for sure.
John: Yeah, they don't like my house.
John: They don't like the way I'm living.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: And maybe a judgment-free cleaner is what we need.
Merlin: The company I'm going to start is called Big Strong Man.
Merlin: I'm starting to start a company called Big Strong Man.
Merlin: And that's where you just hire a big strong man to hang out with you as your friend and help you move things out of the house.
Merlin: Not a mover, not a housekeeper, kind of a task rabbit, a pincushion or whatever those things are called, thumbnails.
Merlin: Like you hire somebody to come and you get big strong men, maybe two big strong men, but they're genial.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And if you're like, you know what?
Merlin: I have stopped even noticing this giant thing I need to get out of the house.
Merlin: Could you just please go take that downstairs?
Merlin: And Big Strong Man takes care of that for you.
John: I had this amazing thing the other day.
John: My daughter and I were going for a walk and there was a it was on Sunday.
John: So there was a big hole in the road.
John: that had a lot of pipes sticking out of it.
John: And there were a couple of backhoes and some trucks and some signs that said, watch out for this hole in the road.
John: Yeah.
John: But it was Sunday, so everybody had gone home.
John: And so she and I stopped at the hole, not because she wanted to.
John: Really?
John: No.
John: And we stood and looked into the hole.
Merlin: One of us was going... I can't say anything to these kids.
Merlin: She'll get hole curious one day.
Merlin: But maybe not today.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And I said, let's look at the pipes coming out of this hole.
John: How would you not stop and look at a hole?
John: And she said, geez, God, you're so insufferable.
John: And I was like, just look at the pipes.
John: Let's figure out what these pipes are.
John: What are they doing?
John: Are these electrical?
John: Are these plumbing pipes?
John: Why is this hole full of water?
Merlin: Look at that.
Merlin: Do you see that purple?
Merlin: That purple means non-potable.
Merlin: That's water they're trying.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: And you explain the different colors of pipes.
Merlin: And you're like, you know, when I was a kid, we had one kind of pipe.
Merlin: It was called pipe.
Merlin: Now today, we're saving the planet with the way that we spray the lawn.
Oh.
John: Well, so this was a situation where they were doing plumbing and electrical in the same fell swoop.
Merlin: She's going to be so grateful someday.
Merlin: She'll be so grateful.
John: Because it's like, look at these pipes.
John: They're different from those pipes.
John: What are these pipes?
John: What are those pipes?
John: And there's actually a big generator they've got that they left on because they're pumping water out of the hole.
John: Oh, hell yes.
John: While they're home.
John: Oh, my gosh.
John: And so there's a generator going too, and it's very exciting.
John: That's an afternoon for me.
John: Bring some trail mix.
John: That's an afternoon for me.
John: Let's look in the hole.
Merlin: Especially if there's somebody there I could talk to about it.
John: Oh, my God.
John: We have to go.
John: And I'm like, we don't have to go.
John: It's Sunday.
John: Everybody's, you know, we're just at our leisure.
John: So we're looking in the hole.
John: And as you say...
John: if there was somebody to talk about it with.
John: And here comes a big truck, and it's pulling a trailer, and on the back of the trailer is one of these little skid steer, you know, like, not homeowner-sized backhoes, but like, you know, project backhoes.
Merlin: Like those little bobcats that are cute?
Merlin: Little bobcat, that's what it is.
Merlin: Those are adorable.
Merlin: They look like they tip over, they look like a smart car or something.
John: So here he comes, he's driving down the street kind of slow, and he's trying to, whoa, he's a big truck, burp.
John: And he's trying to get around this hole.
John: But also, like, I'm standing there and she's standing there.
John: So as he comes by, he rolls his window down.
John: And, of course, I say.
John: Checking out the hole?
John: I say, hey, what do you think of this hole?
John: And he stops.
John: And he goes, well, it seems to me like it's this kind of hole.
John: And I said, oh, you're not involved in this hole.
John: Your bobcat is part of a separate hole digging project.
John: And he said, yeah, this bobcat belongs to my brother who lives right up the street, but the trailer belongs to me and I'm taking the bobcat to my dad's.
John: And I was like, this is the greatest.
John: Tell me more about why your brother owns a bobcat, even though he lives in this suburban neighborhood, what you normally do with this trailer, and what you're doing at your dad's with your brother's bobcat.
John: She's getting a glimpse into a whole other world right here.
John: And she's just like, oh, we were talking about a hole a second ago.
John: And so the guy's like, well, you know, my brother just... I'm like, is he a contractor?
John: No, he just has a bobcat.
John: I was like, this is like this.
John: Whoa, that's a dream.
John: I know.
John: It's like this suburban wonderland.
John: I bet he's got a shed for it, too.
John: He's got his own bobcat for no reason.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: I mean, it's kind of like owning a firearm or a bottle of liquor.
Merlin: You find a reason to use it, you know?
John: You find a reason.
John: Exactly.
Merlin: That's why it drives me crazy when my family doesn't use the nice tools that we have.
Merlin: Don't use your teeth.
Merlin: I got a tool for that.
Merlin: We got an opener.
Merlin: We got 70 openers.
John: If I go to the office, I got 40 more.
John: So he kind of skates over why he has a giant trailer, but he's like, yeah, my dad's got a big piece of property.
Merlin: This is Sherlock Holmes.
Merlin: We would call this the evasive excavator.
John: What the hell is the trailer for?
John: That's quite a trailer to be.
John: And so he's like, my dad's got a couple of acres.
John: And he's got all these blackberries.
John: And I was like, whoa, you're preaching to the choir about taking blackberries out.
John: And he's a very friendly guy.
John: We talk about the hole a little bit.
John: He doesn't really have any more insight than we had.
John: But then he says, hey, do you ever want to use this bobcat?
John: John.
John: And I said, I do have a lot of desire to use that bobcat.
John: And he writes his brother's name down on a scrap of paper that he ripped off of his Thomas guide.
John: And he says, here's my brother's number.
John: Here's my number.
John: Give us a call.
John: And I was like, so you guys don't do this for work?
John: And he's like, nah, you can just, you know, if you want to borrow the Bobcat, just sitting around.
John: And so now in my wallet, I've got this like white hot burning piece of paper.
Merlin: Talk about burning a hole.
John: That's like, oh, just call and we'll just bring our Bobcat over and move rocks around for you or whatever.
John: So I looked at my daughter and I was like, now do you want to stop and look at the hole?
John: And she was like, even less.
Merlin: You would just, I would just, I would just look at her with this face like, and like, just, just wait for the apology.
John: Do you understand we've just been offered a bobcat?
John: A bobcat that's just down the street from us that's just sitting.
Merlin: Well, can you imagine what you could do?
Merlin: You could change the ravine.
John: Oh, for sure I could.
Merlin: I mean, I don't know.
Merlin: I'm not that familiar.
John: I'm not familiar with the property.
John: I would get sued by seven federal agencies, although these days...
John: Maybe all those agencies are gone.
John: Maybe the Environmental Protection Agency.
Merlin: You know what I love?
Merlin: I love lateral thinking.
Merlin: I love that you're doing this.
Merlin: And I'm just thinking that bush that they used to throw the bottles of pee and cigarettes in, like maybe you just go and do a little bit of non, instead of evasive excavator, now you are the invasive excavator.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You get some help back there, and then you go dig up some bush.
John: Getting the bobcat into the ravine would be its own engineering project.
John: I would have to use the bobcat to build a road.
John: Backup bobcat.
John: Get a second bobcat.
Merlin: Well, your big truck.
Merlin: Don't you have a winch on it?
Merlin: I assume you have a winch.
Merlin: But you can't get down there.
Merlin: It's steep.
Merlin: I watched a video about holes over the weekend.
Merlin: Oh, the best.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, there's a really, there's this guy, Grady, that has a channel on YouTube called Practical Engineering.
Merlin: I love his videos.
Merlin: You would love his material on groundwater.
Merlin: But he talks about why it is that, you know, like a couple, more people die.
Merlin: Okay, I'm quoting an engineer here.
Merlin: More people die in holes than any other hippopotamuses?
Merlin: More people die in sand holes on the beach than from shark attacks.
John: What, sand holes on the beach?
Merlin: If you dig on the beach deeper than knee depth, right, what do you call the top of a hole?
Merlin: This sounds like the end of Yellow Submarine.
Merlin: What do you call—I know, where does a hole go?
Merlin: The lip.
Merlin: The lip of a hole.
Merlin: Remember when John pulls the hole out of his pocket?
Merlin: I've got a hole in my pocket.
Merlin: I've got a hole in my pocket.
Merlin: That was my favorite quote from that movie.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: I was like, where do I get a big rubbery hole I can carry around?
Merlin: And it was so cool to see what they looked like in 1968.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: It was so exciting.
Merlin: I love the end of that movie.
Merlin: Bad movie.
Merlin: You know, good record, especially because of Hey Bulldog, which I think is the number one.
Merlin: Hey Bulldog.
Merlin: That is the most underrated Beatles song.
Merlin: The second most underrated Beatles song is not a Beatles song.
Merlin: It's a song by Jackie Lomax that George Harrison wrote.
Merlin: But we'll get to that another day when we talk about the Beatles.
Merlin: Got any more?
Merlin: But the point of... Oh, and Grady says... No, you've got to just watch the video.
Merlin: I'm always sending you videos, aren't I?
Merlin: But Grady says you've got to be careful because there's stuff that's really surprising stuff.
Merlin: Okay, how about this?
Merlin: Let's say you try to make a sandcastle.
Merlin: What do you do?
Merlin: Grab some dry sand, try to make a castle.
Merlin: Won't make a good castle.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Sand that's too wet.
Merlin: We've all done this.
Merlin: You fill up your bath stick or your bucket like too much water.
Merlin: Guess what?
Merlin: You're not going to get you're not going to get a balustrade or whatever.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: It's got to be the right amount of wet so you can flip over your bucket and makes a little castle part.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Boy, those are words to live by.
Merlin: But think about that.
Merlin: Not enough water, no castle.
Merlin: Too much water, no castle.
Merlin: Now think about standing in that sand at a certain amount of, I think liquefaction's a word, but not for this.
Merlin: But something's going to happen.
Merlin: You could get sucked right into that hole.
Merlin: Go straight down.
Merlin: We're not even talking about quicksand.
Merlin: You know, quicksand, they run over each other because they're round, I always heard.
Merlin: I always heard the sand is round and they don't, there's no liquefaction.
Merlin: So you end up going straight down.
Merlin: Sand is round.
Merlin: Here's what I'm saying.
Merlin: He's saying, and he shows the angles and uses science and graphs to show how, like, here's the thing.
Merlin: Imagine digging a hole, you're digging, digging, digging, and you've got a certain kind of angle to the hole, right?
Merlin: Now imagine making too steep of a hole.
Merlin: You've got something like your ravine now.
Merlin: You're not going to get your bobcat out of there.
John: People die on beaches of holes they build themselves more often than they die of shark attacks.
Merlin: I'm not an engineer, but that's what I've heard.
Merlin: I'll send you the video.
Merlin: I'm saying you're smart to think, get in front of this.
Merlin: Actually, as I was about to go into a jokey bit about how you could take a bobcat into your ravine, I immediately thought, well, what is it?
Merlin: What does Kant say?
Merlin: What is it that makes something a ravine?
Merlin: You know, it's kind of there in the name.
Merlin: Like I could see that thing just flipping S over tea kettle down into there.
Merlin: Now, now you took a potential future friend and made it into somebody where you're going to have to have some kind of settlement.
John: Yeah, that's the thing.
John: If I put the Bobcat down the ravine, there would be a lot of oversight that I do not welcome.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: I love that government angle, though.
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: But the thing is, local government, it's still there.
Merlin: They're not going anywhere.
Merlin: Everybody's pretty scared, John.
John: People are scared to do anything at this point.
John: But what I'm not scared to do is move these giant rocks that are not in the ravine.
John: How big are we talking about?
Merlin: That are around here.
Merlin: Is it rocks you can mostly pick up?
Merlin: Here's what I know.
Merlin: John, here's what I know.
Merlin: I used to have a cat, a horrible, horrible cat.
Merlin: Not like Lewis.
Merlin: I had a very bad cat who died.
Merlin: The cat weighed five or six pounds.
Merlin: But the cat's bag of litter and the cat would pee constantly.
Merlin: constantly everywhere and not use the litter really but we kept buying it like suckers a bag of doctor whatever it's called kitty litter is exactly 40 pounds and i know what it takes to carry a 40 pound bag up three flights of stairs yes so that's how i know 40 pounds what what size rocks in terms of volume
Merlin: What are we talking about here?
Merlin: They're rocks, some of which you could pick up, others of which would give you, tear your back up?
John: These are rocks that none of them I can pick up.
John: So the way that they measure rocks is actually, they have two man rocks.
John: They have three man rocks.
John: No.
John: They have four man rocks.
Merlin: I watched a show where they had to take out a dead body last night.
Merlin: I'm watching a very good show from England called Ludwig, where they had to lift up a body.
Merlin: And I wonder, are there some cases where they send out three people instead of two people?
Merlin: Because that's a three-person body.
Merlin: And you're talking about two-man rock, three-man rock.
John: Yeah, so a two-man rock is already... I think we're kind of a two-man rock.
John: Yeah, thank you.
John: I think so, too.
John: Only we together can lift this rock.
John: It's already too big for one man to lift.
John: It's too... Like, so...
John: The range of what makes a two-man rock and a three-man rock is, it feels like there's some overlap there because there's a lot of standing around going, hmm, is that a two-man rock or a three-man rock?
John: A three-man rock can be pretty darn big, but here's the thing.
John: I can 100% move a two-man rock.
John: By using a lever and rolling it.
Merlin: Simple tools.
Merlin: Five simple tools, John.
Merlin: Five simple tools.
Merlin: Yes.
John: And the lever, I use a lot of levers around here.
Merlin: Oh, you're so smart.
John: You get a pulley on that shit, you got a grant, my friend.
John: And the thing is, I've got big poles.
John: Really?
John: Are they rigid, John?
John: Are the poles rigid?
John: I've got a six-foot-tall iron pipe that I can use to move a three-man rod.
Merlin: I'm not a physicist.
Merlin: Whoa, come on.
Merlin: Let's not get crazy.
Merlin: As I've already stipulated, I am not an engineer.
Merlin: I got a C in chemistry.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: You get a long rod.
Merlin: It's like those torpedo bats.
Merlin: You get a long rod, and you're going to get more leverage, but you also run the risk of that thing ripping in half if it's the wrong kind of construction.
Merlin: There's very rarely one problem.
John: Huh?
John: Yeah.
John: Well, we've already been talking about pipes on this show, and these are pipes that I've dug up out of the ground that are old school pipes.
John: They're not going anywhere.
John: They're seasoned.
John: But the thing about a three-man rock and a lever is you can move it downhill a lot more easily than you can move it uphill.
John: Uh-huh.
Merlin: And what's the reason for that giant physics?
John: Well, you know, I'm not a physicist either.
John: No, no.
John: But I'm going to say that the force of gravity is against me here.
John: And I do move three-man rocks with giant levers uphill.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: the time but it is a lot of labor and it's like move it brace it move it brace it ever roll back down it does you just keep doing it over and over you do you do I wish there was this is not a myth one must imagine John Roderick happy
John: I also like have cinder blocks and bricks.
John: And so I've got the rock up and then I'm kicking a cinder block under it.
John: None of it is OSHA approved, although OSHA is probably going away.
John: Am I right?
John: Oh, especially the civil rights division.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, well, that's already gone.
John: But I'm talking about like any.
John: What kind of safety do we need as workers?
John: None.
Merlin: A lot of it's very anti-business.
Merlin: A lot of the quote unquote safety.
Merlin: I always put air quotes around it so people know that I'm an edge lawyer.
John: But so I've got all these rocks, big piles of rocks, some of them rocks that were moved there.
Merlin: So you're using cinder blocks as like chalk or like as, not chocks, but what do you call it?
Merlin: Chocks.
Merlin: Chocks.
Merlin: Like the things you put behind the wheels of a truck on a hill?
Merlin: That's right.
John: Wow.
John: And the thing is that I do all of this unsupervised because if anybody was watching me do it, they would say, stop doing that.
John: And especially anyone in my family.
John: If it wasn't so amusing, they'd say, just go hire a big, strong man.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: But I don't want to do that.
John: I like to be down in my area with my pole and my cinder block and my giant rocks and I'm moving them around and that's what I do for fun and leave me alone.
John: I don't have a train set.
Merlin: Sounds like George Washington's farewell speech under your own vine and fig tree with your own giant pipe.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: No, but I've got too many of these rocks up here, not in the ravine, but up here around the house.
John: And I need this cat to, uh, to go pick up this rock, a rock I could not probably, I could move it with a lever, but it's not a rock I want to move like a hundred yards.
John: And I just want to move these rocks around.
John: Not in any, I mean, I got a plan for them.
John: Anybody watching from above would go, what is he doing now?
Merlin: I would imagine you're going to make a barbecue with it.
John: Well, see, you're prescient there.
Merlin: Or like Chairman Mao suggested, you could try making steel in your backyard in an oven.
Merlin: There's all kinds of things you could use with a pile of rocks.
Merlin: That's a world of possibility.
Yeah.
John: I'm kind of doing more of the one rock every three feet for a hundred feet kind of thing where it's like here's a rock.
John: Suggesting a path?
John: And here's a rock.
John: Well, suggesting a wall.
John: Like rock, rock, rock, another rock, another rock.
John: And then I can come along with smaller rocks.
Right.
John: You can go rock, rock, rock, and then backfill.
John: Backfill with dirt.
John: It's, you know, it's a nascent plan.
John: I haven't, like, autocadded it or anything.
John: I mean, when does rock become wall?
John: Like, whenever John says it's wall.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: When does rock become wall?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: When do rocks become wall?
Merlin: I don't want to get weird about it, John, but it's kind of like a hole.
Merlin: I mean, just you scoop a little bit out and it's already kind of a hole.
Merlin: Where did the hole come from?
Merlin: Where does it go?
Merlin: Where does it go?
Merlin: A wall.
Merlin: Cotton-eyed Joe.
Merlin: I've been married a long time ago.
John: Yeah, it's immediately a hole.
John: I dig holes all the time.
John: I'm digging holes.
John: I'm creating because I'm a creator.
John: I'm a content creator, and the content I create is the lack of content of a hole.
Merlin: whoa because sometimes you got to take something away it's like it's like sean nelson says sometimes the rest are as important as the notes huh too many notes for the ear to hear yeah too many too many notes um yeah mozart pissed that guy off um
Merlin: So that's my game.
John: That's what I'm up to out here.
John: And now I've got a buddy down the street, a very nice guy, a guy who likes to stop and talk about holes, who also happens to have a whole family.
Merlin: You feel pretty confident that the brother has authority to give you the number?
Merlin: I mean, that's probably cool, right?
Merlin: Because really, it's the brother you need to talk to, not the brother.
John: The thing is, in a situation like that,
John: The question is, is this nice brother that I'm meeting the nice one and his brother is a dick.
John: And so the nice one's like, yeah, call my brother anytime.
John: He's like somebody that's got, there's no present, there's no past.
John: He's just like living in a happy place.
John: And the other brother's like, God damn it.
John: You know, no, you can't use my backhoe.
John: Or is it a whole family of positive people who just look at life as like, I've got this thing.
Merlin: Do you need to borrow it?
Merlin: I mean, when you get to a certain, I have to imagine that once you turn a certain corner in life and you start to understand that holes in the absence of holes are just as important as the absence of walls or walls and also the rocks of which they are comprised or, as you say, constituted, right?
Merlin: And maybe that's just how this goes.
Merlin: Now, here's another angle for you because I do watch a lot of mysteries.
Merlin: What if it turns out that the guy driving,
Merlin: Well, first of all, you could be in a Norman Bates situation and there's no brother at all.
Merlin: But what I'm really suggesting is that this, maybe that guy, maybe he's the one who paid for it and he calls it his brothers.
John: Oh, see.
Merlin: What if he's the benefactor and he's trying to do something to keep his ne'er-do-well brother busy?
Merlin: So he got him a bobcat.
John: Well, his brother, if he... He lives in your neighborhood, is that right?
John: Yeah, if it's to be believed, he lives in my neighborhood, which is not a neighborhood full of... I'm still the most ne'er-do-well person in the whole... Probably in this zip code.
John: So, I mean, it's not like we live in Alameda County or anything.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: But I doubt he's living up the street from where we were.
John: where they're doing electrical and plumbing work at the same time in the same hole.
John: I doubt he's like the brother that's like, oh, what a black sheep.
Merlin: I have a suggestion here.
Merlin: I'm not saying this is how I would do it.
Merlin: I'm not saying this is how you should do it.
Merlin: I'm just putting this out there as trying on a sports coat.
Merlin: What if you were to contact the brother of the brother?
Merlin: And say, hey, my name's John.
Merlin: And a funny thing happened.
Merlin: My brother gave me your number because he said you have a bobcat.
Merlin: I just want to touch base and say hi, neighbor.
Merlin: And here's the kind of stuff I have, since your brother was kind enough to say that.
Merlin: At this point, you're already reading how the brother feels about this.
Merlin: He might not even know his number is being given out.
Merlin: But you make an offer.
Merlin: You tender an offer to him and say, hey, neighbor, here's the kind of stuff I've got.
Merlin: Like if you ever need a solo on something for 16 bars or like a teenager to work at your party, like, you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Common cause.
Merlin: You go in and now you're offering them things.
Merlin: I think this is how adults do deals.
John: Yeah.
John: Do you need a cigar box full of boarding passes?
John: Right.
John: Because I've got a few of those.
John: I mean, I can't spare any of them.
Merlin: Everybody needs those, but you have a lot of them in one place, and you could probably find them within a day or four if you needed to.
Merlin: Yeah, but I don't want to.
John: I mean, it's not like they're not needed.
John: Well, he's not giving you the Bobcat, John.
John: Exactly.
John: That's right.
Merlin: It's a Lenny's program.
John: It's just like World War II.
John: The thing is, I have both their numbers.
John: I could start a text thread.
John: Hmm.
John: You know, in today's political climate, I think the assumption of anybody on our coast that somebody who's driving a Dodge Ram 3500 pulling a giant trailer with a bobcat on it is going to already a priori not be somebody that is like, hey, hippie, what can I do to help you?
John: But in this case, I would have been wrong to assume anything about this person.
John: And of course, as you know, I'm not somebody that assumes things about people just because they have trailers.
Merlin: Yeah, you know all too well what happens when we assume.
Merlin: Did you get a sense of the jib of Good Brother?
Merlin: Did he talk about what he does?
John: No, that's the thing.
John: I was like, are you guys contractors?
John: Is this a thing you do?
Merlin: And he's like, nah, not at all.
Merlin: See, this is San Francisco.
Merlin: You already know how much their school cost and what their mortgage was.
Merlin: People are always talking about that shit here.
John: But you know, yesterday I was at the Goodwill.
John: So yesterday, the little one says, I want to take six of my friends...
John: thrift shopping for fancy clothes for the big spring dance.
John: And I said, go on.
John: And she said, and you're the only one of all of the parents that would even consider driving or would be capable of driving.
John: And I said, in this case, I will do it.
John: And so she said, okay, I have planned it, and here's the route we have to take to pick everyone up.
John: But Micah's not available until 2, and Kenny can't get picked up after 1, and then we can do this in the meantime.
John: And so I was like, oh, she's got this figured out.
John: I'm just going to pilot.
John: I'm not going to intervene.
John: I'm not going to dad it.
John: I'm not going to say, well, that seems unreasonable.
John: Maybe we should go over it.
John: I'm just going to chauffeur.
Merlin: You're normally the general of all the things, but in this case, it's mostly implementation.
Merlin: The strategy has been worked out already.
John: Because, you know, this is kind of new for her to have a text thread with eight kids on it, to be plotting and like getting people's addresses and figuring this all out.
John: That order of pickup might be really important.
John: It was very important.
John: It had us driving crisscross applesauce all over town.
John: But I was not judging.
John: I was just like, the only time I did it was I said, no, wait a minute.
John: That's just right over there.
John: Why don't we go do that first?
Merlin: Nope, nope, nope.
Merlin: That person's lower in status.
John: Well, yeah, but there were, at that point, five kids in the car, and they kind of had a little convo, and they were like, yes, okay, let's go there.
John: All right.
John: You're collaborating, kind of.
John: We're collaborating.
John: So what happens is, my truck, the third row, suddenly wouldn't go back.
John: And crazy enough, you won't even believe this.
John: But the Ford truck that has a third row, if the button goes out... See, this is the internet of shit right here.
John: Yeah.
John: If the button goes out, there's no manual release for the third row.
Merlin: Sorry, you can't use a chair anymore.
Merlin: The button broke.
Merlin: The button broke.
John: And so you can't... And it's just like, all it needs is a latch.
John: And they're like, we don't have a latch yet.
John: Now you have a broken button and it's got to go to the dealer.
John: But I have a friend that has the same.
Merlin: You know what that button's going to cost now?
Oh, my God.
Merlin: I don't even want to think about it.
John: I'm so mad at that.
Merlin: Take whatever it costs and then add like 50% to it.
John: That's a Chinese button.
John: So I got a. Oh, that's right.
John: That's right.
John: It's the new button.
John: I hope they have some old buttons.
John: If you got a chance to order a button today, I would do it.
John: I got to get it now.
John: But I got a friend with the same truck.
John: So I called him and I was like, halfway through today, I'm going to go over the line.
John: I'm gonna go from four kids to six kids, and I'm gonna need to bring four kids in a truck over to your house.
John: You're gonna loan me your truck where the third row button isn't broken.
John: We're going to put all the kids in that truck.
John: We're going to drive in that truck until we're back down to four kids.
John: And then I'm going to bring it back here and trade you back.
John: Whoa.
John: And he agreed to that.
John: Whoa.
John: Okay.
John: So that's the only thing that I like threw in.
John: I have to, I have to stop with you kids at one location and we're going to switch trucks.
John: And they just accepted that 100% with no, to a kid that just sounds completely reasonable.
John: So we go around to the thrift stores and they're all, you know, like of the six kids, half of them are non-binary.
John: So there's a lot of interest in going to the different sections of different stores that you normally would see half the kids split off.
John: But in this case, they stayed together as six or seven kids at different times, all just like trying stuff on and holding stuff up.
John: What do you think of this?
John: And so I'm like, well, I don't have to be anywhere around them.
John: In fact, I would rather just fuck off on my own mission.
John: And so I'm in the back of the big thrift store and I find a mirror.
John: And Merlin, this mirror is from a different planet.
John: It's like five feet tall by four feet across.
John: And it's really old.
John: It weighs as much as a two-man rock.
John: Solid glass.
John: Perfect.
John: There's no distortion in the glass.
Merlin: No blemishes.
Merlin: This mirror's worth $10,000.
John: Well, so I wondered about that.
John: I looked into it deeply.
John: I asked it a couple of questions.
John: Nothing.
Merlin: I mean, were you able to discern anything that it was doing to distort your appearance in a way you weren't used to, for better or for worse?
John: No, because I said, is this a slimming mirror?
John: Right.
John: And I looked at myself and I said, you are exactly as you appear.
John: I'm not like, oh, I got to buy this mirror because I look amazing.
John: You're not a vain man.
John: What am I, scuttling across the bottom of the ocean?
John: No.
John: Is John a vain man?
No.
John: What I needed was this mirror because I wasn't buying the mirror because what it showed me of myself.
John: I was buying the mirror for the mirror.
Merlin: Would this have to go into the borrowed Ford truck?
John: This is the problem.
Merlin: Did you say five feet high, four feet wide?
Merlin: That's a big... Massive.
Merlin: And you say it's glass.
John: Solid glass.
John: And another thing, it's mid-mod.
John: It's not out of place in my house that I'm always confused about how to decorate it.
John: It goes with the house.
John: Yeah, it would be like, where doesn't it go?
John: I don't want to make your house look bigger according to realtors.
John: So I do the two-man rock thing where I leverage it up onto the top of a shopping cart.
Merlin: Oh, you just did this.
Merlin: You didn't even run this by the crew.
John: I'm like, this is happening.
Merlin: Oh, jeez, I bet she hated this.
John: But the problem with the shopping cart is the shopping cart is not a thing made to carry this here.
John: You need a Kirkland cart.
John: Well, no.
John: You know what I need?
John: A big, strong man.
Merlin: You need a big, strong man.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: He should have been there with me already.
Merlin: Were any of the non-binary kids ripped?
Merlin: Was there anybody who could help?
John: The tallest one was skinny, and no.
John: So they wouldn't even work as a leverage pole.
John: They're 14-year-olds, so they're right in between.
John: Some of them, you're like, boy, I hope you keep growing.
John: They have low tensile strength.
John: Because they don't even make clothes that small.
John: And then some of them are like, boing, over here.
John: And, you know, it's 14-year-olds.
John: The whole age is a mess.
Merlin: They should be cutting trail is what they're saying.
Merlin: I wasn't going to say it.
Merlin: I think the passenger side door should have opened.
Merlin: Everybody should have filed out.
Merlin: Everybody gets a juice box.
Merlin: I'll see you when you're 15.
John: That's right.
John: Like, here are some rocks.
John: I don't care how you do it.
John: Don't crush yourselves.
John: Get these rocks from here to there.
Merlin: You can't have kids cutting trail in your own yard.
Merlin: Not in today's world.
Merlin: Not in this world.
Merlin: Oh, good.
Merlin: Can you imagine the trouble you'd get in for that one?
Merlin: What kind of dad would that be?
Merlin: You'd be ravine dad.
John: I wouldn't even put it on the internet.
John: But so I get this thing up on a shopping cart, and now I'm this guy.
John: I'm 200 miles.
Merlin: Wait a minute.
Merlin: Is it like a Winn-Dixie public-style shopping cart?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And you've got something that's five by four, and it's glass.
Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: How did you... Okay.
John: Well, so I'm... Oh, man.
Merlin: That's the last thing a 14-year-old wants to see is their dad wheeling around a shopping cart with a giant piece of glass.
John: I know.
John: I know.
John: And I'm driving the shopping cart backwards because that's the way that I can control the wheels that move.
John: Absolutely.
John: So here I come.
Merlin: Same way as a dolly.
Merlin: You know, you got to do it backwards.
John: And it's Sunday, so there's 2,000 people in this thrift store.
John: And I'm just like, excuse me, excuse me, coming through.
John: And at a certain point, I passed this Filipina lady with her daughter, and she's like, boy, you look like you're, you got a lot going on.
John: And I was like, I do.
John: And she said, let me help you.
John: And so then she and her daughter was very bemused because her mom is clearly somebody that's like, let's stop and look in this hole.
Merlin: I was going to say that that's a mom that that's there's some kind of Bokanon adjacent group that I think you both are in, which is talk to a stranger, help move, move something.
Merlin: I'm a two person mirror.
John: So she's like, instead of going through, you know, instead of thrifting with my daughter, I'm now invested in how you're going to get this mirror from here.
John: You need this lady on your team.
John: And so I get into the line.
John: Well, the line is one of these twisty lines that's through ropes and by candy counters and stuff.
John: And everybody in the line is like, you should probably just put the mirror over on the side.
John: And I'm like, no, I'm going through the line with this mirror.
John: I'm committed to this bit.
John: And the lady and her daughter are like, we're with you all the way.
John: So we go all the way around every time we have to make a turn in the line.
John: It's like a whole group operation We have to swing it around and I'm like look this is the this is the real America This is the America.
John: This is the America that we all dream about yes And you know and we're not even have to ask in this America people just come and help you dig a hole or move a two-person mirror Exactly, and we're not gonna know what we need John we need the candy, you know the candy boxes or whatever and we're candy at Goodwill
John: They're just making money however they can.
John: Is it charity candy?
John: Yeah, I think it might be candy that fell off the back of a truck.
Merlin: I understand.
Merlin: It happens.
Merlin: You know, they're selling it.
John: So I get all the way to the end of the cash register, and then my helper says, good work, you know, we did it, and you are a champ.
John: And then she and her daughter, poof.
John: And so then I'm at the front door of the Goodwill and there's a kid with like a security guard vibe.
John: I can't get the thing out the door because it doesn't, there's only one way you can even get it out a door.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Oh wait, so maybe they brought it in the back through like a truck entrance?
Merlin: Yeah, a loading dock.
Merlin: Oh, man.
John: You have a locker room mystery here.
John: So I say to the security guard kid, hey, you got to help me get this mirror out the door.
John: And he's definitely like, well, that's not what they said.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'm like, look, I know that right now you're doing something else, but there's only one, you know, what you don't want is me here in blocking the door with this.
John: And he's like...
John: You can see him do the math.
Merlin: And all the people waiting to get out would have to look at themselves in the mirror as you struggle to get it out without any help.
Merlin: Can you imagine how embarrassing that would be for them?
John: That's right.
John: They're like, is it me?
John: Am I the person?
Merlin: How does that feel to look at yourself not helping?
John: And the mirror is just like, I just tell the truth.
John: I'm not a skinny mirror.
John: I'm not a fat mirror.
John: All you see is what you see.
John: Am I a great mirror?
John: So this kid gets down off of his perch.
John: He helps me get the mirror through the door.
John: And then we both kind of, with it on our knees or whatever, we get it back on top of a shopping cart.
Merlin: I'm sorry, real quick.
Merlin: Where is the...
Merlin: Where's the group that's shopping for clothes at this point?
John: Oh, they're still back trying on Floofy.
John: They don't even know what dad is doing.
John: And I'm not telling them because I know that there's a long way to go before the wagon train is back on the road.
John: But you're committed and you don't need permission, damn it.
John: That's right.
John: And I'm not going to even explain.
John: But somehow I've got to get this giant mirror into this truck and also put seven kids back in it.
John: Someone else's vehicle.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: But it's also pouring down rain.
John: Oh, okay.
John: And the security guard kid is like, okay, job here is done.
John: I got to go back and sit on my chair.
John: He's gone.
Merlin: Make sure nobody steals this copy of Frogger or something.
John: Right.
John: And I'm standing in the rain now with my giant mirror.
Merlin: And I'm like, oh, God, what do I... John's standing with a mirror in the rain.
John: Oh, no.
John: How do I get... And the mirror is pointed up, so it's reflecting the rain back to itself, but the rain has no shame.
John: The rain has no shame.
Merlin: It sees itself and falls anyway.
Merlin: It does.
Merlin: It does.
Merlin: It falls on the just and the unjust and the borrowed car.
Merlin: Exactly.
John: And so now I'm like... Not even the rain had such small hands.
John: The shopping cart's like digga digga digga across the parking lot.
Merlin: Oh, you don't get that crazy wheel that goes around?
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: I hate getting that cart.
John: Here comes another woman with her dog.
John: With an identical mirror.
John: And it was like, it's you.
John: No, it's you.
John: And she says, it looks like you need some help.
John: She's a woman about my age.
John: Okay.
John: And I said, listen, it's raining.
John: I don't want to inconvenience you.
John: And she said, we just need to get this to where you're going.
John: And I said, it's the big white truck that's over there.
John: And she pointed to a big white truck that was between us.
John: And I was like, not that one.
John: It's actually the one that's further down.
John: It's the one you can't see because it's raining so hard.
John: And so she and her daughter, who's also very bemused at her mother.
Merlin: This is a different set of this is a different brace of mother and daughter.
Merlin: Completely different.
Merlin: Holy shit.
John: I need to shop at this Goodwill.
John: Well, that's what I'm saying.
John: This is the real America.
Merlin: This is the real America.
Merlin: There's one place in America that's still America.
John: Yeah.
John: So she shabba-da-dabba-da-doos me all the way to my borrowed truck.
John: Zibba-zabba.
John: I open it.
John: She helps me lift it off and get it into the loading area of the truck.
John: And I'm like, you have done the Lord's work today.
John: You know, I release you.
John: Go do your own thrifting.
Merlin: You should give them your number in case they ever need a bobcat or a rock.
John: Right.
John: Like, I should be able to repay this.
Merlin: I'm trying to think this needs to be a network.
Merlin: This needs to be some kind of like maybe slightly above ground railroad where people are just always talking to each other and helping out.
Merlin: Good people helping good people.
John: We looked at each other and it was clear that the message was, lady, I'm going to pay this forward.
John: We're all in this together.
John: This is our America.
John: And she was like, I trust you to do the right thing.
John: And then they went in, now pretty damp, into the thrift store to shake it off and get on with it.
John: And so then I have 20 minutes where I'm trying to figure out how to get this thing in the truck and then get all the seats back where they were.
Merlin: The truck which has got a...
Merlin: Passenger in a driver's seat.
Merlin: You have a second row that holds three or maybe four small children.
Merlin: And then you have that third row with his button that works.
Merlin: See, this is the poverty of my imagination.
Merlin: I can't see any... Now, if you were by yourself, especially if you had some bungee cords and a friend, you could just put that across all the seats and have somebody hold it.
Merlin: But it seems to me that if it's over those seats, there's nowhere for the children.
Merlin: Am I close?
John: Will they crouch under it?
John: There's no third set of doors, right?
John: It's not an airport limo.
John: It's not like an old checker cab that's got doors.
John: It's not a hearse.
John: So I get in the front.
John: It's precariously balanced in the back.
John: I get in.
John: I lower.
John: I use the button to lower that third row.
John: I pull the mirror in.
John: I have to kind of turn it sideways and then get it through and then put it down and over here.
John: And I'm like, okay, in a perfect world where I didn't have three extra kids, we would ride here.
John: But I do have these kids.
John: And so then from inside the truck.
Merlin: And you've kind of got the fox, the chicken, and the grain crossing the river type situation.
Merlin: Because one of my third thought is you either by you tell them or you don't tell them.
Merlin: But I'm thinking you bounce, head back to the house, unload it, bring the car back.
Merlin: But now you've left the chicken with the grain, if you know what I mean.
Merlin: You can't just leave kids loose even in America.
John: No, and also because of my daughter's convoluted plan, we are miles from where I would want this mirror to go.
John: Okay.
John: And I mean, I could ferry it, like take it 10 miles, then, you know, go back for the kids.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Fox the grain and so forth.
John: No, I've got to figure this out because I have done this.
John: I have bought this mirror.
John: I have committed to this action.
John: I've had two whole families.
Merlin: At this point, your daughter and her friends have no idea that you have just bought a huge mirror.
John: None.
John: They're still trying on Madonna style mesh fingerless gloves and so forth and having a wonderful time putting together their prom outfits.
John: Eighth grade prom.
John: And so together I and my sense of spatial orientation
John: Worked it out so that at one point I was holding the mirror up and the mirror is heavy.
John: And my fear is, of course, that there's going to be some weird.
John: Did you ever see the omen?
Merlin: Do you remember what happens in the omen?
Merlin: Remember what happens in the omen when they're back in the old country?
Merlin: And I want to say Max von Sydow maybe has like thrown away.
Merlin: The special Damien killing knives.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And then David Warner goes to get the killing.
Merlin: I might be remembering this wrong.
Merlin: This is 40, 50 years ago.
Merlin: But then David Warner, the wonderful David Warner, runs over and he's going to go pick up the kill Damien knives.
Merlin: But remember what happens?
Merlin: Oopsie doopsie.
John: Yeah.
John: Oopsie doopsie.
Merlin: I'll never, ever forget this.
Merlin: Something goes wrong with, I want to say, a crane.
Merlin: And a large pane of glass swings toward him.
Merlin: It beheads him, and his head rolls down the glass and onto the ground, and it looks up, if memory serves.
Merlin: And you don't want that, because that could be you.
Merlin: The thing is, one shift in that thing, you know what I'm saying?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You're going to have explaining to do.
John: Who knows?
John: Then maybe the djinn that lives inside the mirror then is released, and maybe it gives me three wishes.
Merlin: You think you might help settle its—that would settle its business, maybe.
Merlin: I don't know, maybe.
Merlin: If it killed the right—well, killed, beheaded the right kid.
John: But the problem is that person beheaded could be me, or I could be returning this truck with an acre of broken glass.
Merlin: It's so hard to know.
Merlin: Especially in this America?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: God damn it.
John: You're holding it with one hand.
John: I'm holding it with one hand.
John: I push the button, the button that doesn't work in my truck.
John: The seat comes up.
John: I'm holding it, and then it just perfectly, because now I've wedged it in there sideways, it perfectly stops.
John: The seat stops, and the mirror stops.
John: And nothing breaks.
John: Have you achieved wedgedness?
John: Is it fixed in one place now?
John: It is absolutely fixed, but not in a way where there's weird pressure on some corner where it's going to shatter if I hit a bump.
John: And I'm like, how did I do this?
John: How did I pull this off?
John: I don't think the space that's back here is as big as the dimensions of the mirror.
John: I don't even know where the extra three inches are coming from.
Merlin: I think you might have borrowed a Ford of holding.
John: But that may be exactly right.
John: There may be a thing where maybe the mirror was like, you know what?
Merlin: And you won't know until you get the children back in and they say, what's this?
Merlin: And you say, don't worry, just sit down.
Merlin: There's plenty of room for everybody.
John: And it honestly might be that the mirror has chosen me, and the mirror's like, we're going home together.
John: And so here's a little extra space.
Merlin: That's what they say, though.
Merlin: The mirror chooses the wizard.
Merlin: That's what they say.
John: The mirror chooses the wizard.
John: So then the kids... Can't wait to find out what was in that fucking mirror.
John: The kids all pile into the car.
John: Did anybody have any remarks?
John: And the one kid in the furthest back said, something's different with my headrest.
John: It's pushing into my head.
John: None of them even noticed that there was a huge mirror in the back.
Merlin: I might need a diagram or a photo.
Merlin: This is very hard.
Merlin: I don't understand how the kids get into that.
Merlin: It seems to me they'd have to, like, squat in the seat well area.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
John: Because they're being sideways?
John: One kid did have to, all the kids now had to carry their thrift store bags, all their finds in their laps.
John: There was no room in the back for them.
John: And one kid actually had to carry a bag of tools.
John: It's not United Airlines.
John: Relax.
Merlin: Like, you know, you get your carry on and you deal with it.
John: That's right.
John: And that's what's happening here.
John: But I did, so then I get out and I'm like, oh, this is going to be, it's either the smallest kid in the truck drives the, but he's also kind of the quiet one, or they're also the quiet one.
Merlin: Is he one you could afford to lose, do you feel like?
John: This is the thing.
John: No, because he's, I'm sorry, they are the smart, quiet one that knows everything about everything.
Merlin: Yeah, their parents would probably file reports.
John: And also, well, the dad drives a 911, and he has said many times, like, hey, I'll let you drive my 911 if I can see your guitars.
John: Yeah.
John: And I was like, is this a you show me yours and I'll show you mine?
John: What is happening in this community?
John: I never talk to anyone anywhere about anything.
John: He's like, I really want to see your guitars.
John: And I'm like, yeah, you can come over anytime.
John: And his child...
John: Is this one that's like, oh, well, actually, Emperor Nero, he had size 10 feet.
John: And you're like, I'm not going to argue with you.
John: So I don't want this kid.
John: But this kid also has like anxiety.
John: I don't want them to be riding around with the wrong headrest.
John: And so I get out.
John: I go.
John: I open the back at great risk.
John: And the genie says, here's two more inches.
John: And I move it.
John: I move the thing and the headrest goes up and all of the kids are, all is right with the world.
John: And I'm like, thank you, genie.
Merlin: I hope.
Merlin: I don't mean to break the bit here.
Merlin: Does it feel like this will be, given what you have and given what you need to do, does it feel like this will be more or less safe?
John: Yes.
John: Okay.
John: I had a feeling you'd say that.
John: I hoped you would say that.
John: If the mirror broke in this situation, it would not behead any kid.
Merlin: Every single person in that van would have seven years of bad luck, and the genie would be fucking pissed.
John: Well, yeah, the genie would be at least free in the truck.
John: Now we'd be over capacity.
John: You need a second mirror.
John: But maybe the genie would say you get three wishes and I would, I have them already prepared as most.
John: I think this is like, keep a small bag pack.
John: If you don't know what the three wishes are.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: If you haven't worked out those three wishes so that you, the genie cannot fool you.
Merlin: The genie.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And the genie is not going to give you an endless number of opportunities to go like, you know, phone a friend or whatever.
Merlin: You need to, you need to be ready.
Merlin: You need to know the shtick, but you also need to know the traps because genies love traps.
John: That's right.
John: And you don't want to say like, I want to live to be 900 years old.
John: And he's like, okay, in the body of a 900 year old.
John: And you're like, no, I wanted to be 30 for 900 years.
Merlin: You've got like, you know, testicles for a nose now or something.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: And you don't want that.
John: And so I've, but I've got those three, you know, I'm, it's not, nobody's like, no genie's going to fool me.
Merlin: You can't prepare for everything, but you prepare for what you can.
Merlin: That's why you pack a small bag.
Merlin: You've been preparing for this mirror in some ways your whole life.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: No, no, no.
John: This is the mirror.
John: This is the one.
John: Well, so I get, we, then we go to the pretty parlor and then they're like, we're hungry.
John: And I said, you know, your teens, this, the rare occasion where dad is going to even say a word, cause I let him swear too.
John: They were like, my daughter from the back.
Merlin: You don't make a noise or an expression when somebody says the S word or something?
John: No, because she asked.
John: She was like, after all the kids.
Merlin: Oh, can we have swears?
Merlin: Can we have Saturday swears?
Merlin: Somebody said a swear.
John: And she said, Dad, can we swear?
John: And I was like, I'm just your driver.
John: You're a good dad.
John: You guys live your lives.
John: And so then they were like trying out all their swears.
John: And they were, you know, giving each other some real like, no, your mom.
John: Don't be an ass bitch.
John: Yeah.
John: And one of them was just like, I hope you die in a Holocaust over and over.
John: And that's the most, that's the absolute gayest one of them all.
John: The super queer one.
John: Which Holocaust?
John: I don't even care.
John: And just like so racist and just like over the top.
John: And I'm like, Generation Z is like bringing it all the way back.
Merlin: Yeah, no, they care about different things, and they care about a lot of things a lot less.
Merlin: And they don't let on, though.
Merlin: I think they would like to just be confused with the Millenniums, probably mostly.
Merlin: But the truth is a lot of those folks are letting their freak flag fly.
John: Yeah, they really, really are.
John: They sounded like a bunch of extra, frankly.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And so I was like, you guys just, you know, swear your little dumb hearts out.
John: And I'm just, there was one time when some kid said, I had said something.
John: Oh, what it was, was this is the truck.
John: The borrowed truck is a nicer truck than mine.
John: And it has a little thing that tells you when the seatbelts are off.
John: And I saw the alert that was left, but it tells you which seat.
John: Narc.
John: There's a diagram of the whole place.
John: Cars and narc.
John: Yeah, seat number 3B is the seatbelt's off.
John: So you hit the ejector and they went flying through the mirror.
John: And I said, I said, Calvin, fasten your seatbelt.
John: I can't have you driving around, because Calvin kept taking the seatbelt off, or their seatbelt.
John: And so I said, Calvin, put your seatbelt on.
John: And at that point, Calvin said, go screw yourself.
Merlin: Oh, because he's still at this point, they are still operating under the assumption that all swears are good swears, even if they're directed to daddy driver?
John: No, because I said, did you just say that to me?
John: And the room went quiet.
John: And Calvin said, no, no, I was saying it to Marlo.
John: And Marlo said, they were saying it to me.
John: And there was like 10 to 12 more seconds of silence.
John: And I said, okay.
John: And then, you know, gradually the sound came back up and life went on.
John: So there was established, I think in that moment, like there are limits.
John: And whatever those are, it might even raise my voice that much.
John: It was just, I got, I went to it.
Merlin: No, it's the sound of a kid who's gone too far and just realized it.
John: Zoop.
John: And I think Calvin was saying it to Marlo.
John: She was touching them, and I had said, like, fasten your seatbelt.
Merlin: I think Calvin's having fun and experimenting a little bit.
John: Playing around, playing around.
Merlin: Yes.
John: But so we get to the end and we went to the pretty parlor, we tried on prom dresses and all this stuff and of course they all had $72.84 that they'd saved up from their chores since they were six years old.
John: They all had some different amount of money and none of it could really afford any sort of Seattle vintage shop prices.
John: So they all, you know, like, oh, look at this sequin blazer.
John: They were all so thrilled.
John: And then it was like.
Merlin: See, back in our day, you get that for $2.
Merlin: $2.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Everything.
Merlin: And nothing costs more.
Merlin: It was so simple.
Merlin: It was like pants, pants, shirts a dollar, pants $2.
Merlin: You know, it was so simple.
Merlin: And as we've talked about at length for the life of this show, then they got a little over their skis, the whole industry.
John: Oh God, it's just like picking stuff off a rack and I'm like, $40?
Merlin: That place in West Portal, I bring it up once a year.
Merlin: That time we had to go to West Portal to find you pants to fit.
Merlin: Oh, I was wearing those the other day.
John: And I was like, oh yeah, we got these pants in West Portal because we were going to a steak restaurant.
Merlin: Yeah, and then we had to stop at a gas station.
Merlin: I think you had to meet Ben Gilbert or something, and I don't remember.
Merlin: But everything, it's not that nice, but it's a new thing now where we have boutiques instead of just thrift stores.
Merlin: But I sound like an old man now.
John: But they all did find stuff.
John: They all found, Calvin found a sweater with little hearts on it.
Merlin: That sounds like a fun environment for that particular group to have an unconstrained access to just running around.
Merlin: And it's not like you go to Macy's and there's some lady that offers you a mimosa.
Merlin: Like, you can just go...
Merlin: You know, it's like they say, a kid can be a kid.
Merlin: A kid can be a kid.
John: And so I said, listen, I'm going to intervene at one point here.
John: We're not going to go to Dick's.
John: We're not going to go get tacos.
John: You guys are a group of teenagers.
John: And so I'm going to take you to Denny's and you're going to get a booth in the back.
John: And none of them, except for my daughter, had ever been to a Denny's.
John: Jesus Christ.
John: Where did they smoke at night?
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: And I said, listen, you can't smoke clove cigarettes.
John: Okay.
John: And none of them knew what a clove cigarette was.
John: Did anybody ever move over my hammy?
John: I was just doing this for my own fun.
John: No, so wait, I get them to a Denny's.
John: They're all like, what is this magical place?
John: Hmm.
John: Why does it look like the set of the Mike Douglas show?
John: I talked to the server.
John: We get the orange booth in the back.
John: They're looking at the menu.
John: None of them can make any sense out of the menu.
John: They're like, what is the moon's over?
John: It's the best thing that's ever been on a menu, and I want to eat it every morning forever.
John: And two of them, this was the great thing.
John: Two of the 14-year-olds looked at me kind of plaintively, and they were like, would it be okay for us to get a kid's menu?
John: Oh, hell yeah.
Merlin: They used to be, you can make it into a mask back in the day.
John: And so the kids' menus came out, they ordered their chicken strips or whatever, and then it had all the games and crayons, and they all were just thrilled to play tic-tac-toe with each other.
Merlin: They're living in two or three different worlds at that point.
Merlin: They're having fun with it, right?
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Oh, John, I'm so glad you did this.
John: Really, like, unselfconsciously doing the kids' games in crayon, but also, like, swearing and, like, you know, being cool...
John: And I'm just sitting, I'm not even sitting in the, I'm sitting over here.
John: I'm reading the New York times, you know, I'm looking over the top of my glasses with a cigarette and the New York times drinking bottomless coffee.
John: And so we get all the way home and I'm dropping the kids off in this crazy order because this kid's like, I have my, I have to go to my grandma's birthday party and I have to be there at X. And I'm like, okay, you're not first to get dropped off, but I will.
John: take you over and drop you off a second.
John: And then I have to take this kid because they're having an anxiety attack.
Merlin: But there's some zigging and zagging is not what you would have picked, right?
Merlin: Right.
John: And then I'm close enough to my house.
John: There's four kids left in the car.
John: And I say to the tall one, we're going to my house for a second.
John: And we get to the house and I'm like, I need your help for a second.
John: And the tall one's like this, you know, this kid that's like, I'm, I'm a man.
John: And I'm like, you are a man.
John: And today you're going to do a man.
John: You're going to be a big, strong man.
John: You're going to help me get this two man rock of a mirror.
John: Two man mirror.
John: And you're my second man.
John: You're my second man.
John: And this mirror might have might or might not have a genie in it.
John: And once we get it inside, I'm even already doing the math.
John: Once we get this mirror inside my house, there is nowhere this mirror will fit.
Merlin: That's just occurring to you then?
John: My hallways aren't four feet wide.
John: There are no walls in this house that could hold this mirror.
John: I don't even know what the hell I'm doing.
John: I just bought the biggest mirror in the world, and I already know there's nowhere it can go.
Merlin: It might remind some people a little bit of when you got all those beds.
John: I got already.
John: I got too many beds.
John: That's one reason why the cleaning people can't go into that one room.
John: That's all the way down.
John: The room's got too many beds in it for you to even bother cleaning it.
John: Mr. Mr. And since the pandemic, since me, nobody's even stayed in my house.
John: I told you it was a bedroom.
John: Nobody's even stayed at my house.
John: The whole idea of this house was I was going to have seven different comedians stay here every three weeks.
Merlin: So you got help.
Merlin: You got a second man.
John: He gets in there.
John: We lift up the mirror.
John: We put it in.
John: And you can see he's got that teenage, like, I'm just learning spatial orientation.
John: So I'm doing the thing where I'm like, now your right corner...
John: will move in a, you know, in a, like a... You probably need all three dimensions for this.
John: I'm like, here, we're going to protract this around.
John: Like, now I'm going to move it here and you're going to put your end down.
John: And he's just following the instructions, but with wide eyes, because maybe the genie's looking at him.
John: We get the mirror in there.
John: We drop him off.
John: And then with three kids in the car, we go trade the truck back.
John: And now we've got all this stuff, you know, all these bags of roofie dresses and whatnot.
John: And we're like, now we're switching out trucks again.
John: The kids accept it with, you know, with no issues.
John: The guy that loaned me the truck never even knew about the mirror.
John: Even if like you should tell him about the mirror?
John: No, no, no, no.
John: It's all, everything is everything.
Merlin: Did you fill the tank?
John: His third seat still.
John: No, because when I borrowed the truck, he was like, I'm going to use your truck while you're gone.
John: Do you think he got a mirror?
John: And I was like,
John: We'll never know.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And we don't talk about everything, you know.
Merlin: But in America, it's okay to have a mirror.
Merlin: And it's okay to borrow a truck.
Merlin: And it's okay to get a Chinese button.
John: And it's okay to help somebody and it's okay to then help somebody.
Merlin: And that young lad that helped you out, I mean, he did you a kindness, but you also, you let him get to feel helpful, which is nice.
John: He felt helpful.
John: There's somebody out there right now who's probably saying to his brother, hey, some guy's going to call you to borrow the cat one of these days.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And he's a nice guy.
John: I met him looking in a hole.
John: Yeah.
John: And it's like, I had in the course of one day, the help of...
John: Between six and nine strangers.
John: It takes a village to carry a mirror.
John: It takes a village.
John: I got nowhere for this mirror to go.
John: It's sitting in the hallway right now.
John: And every time I walk past it, I'm like, you're my favorite thing.
Merlin: You say you don't have somewhere.
Merlin: I mean, you must have cubic inches where it would fit.
Merlin: It's just where it would have not a good effect.
John: Yeah.
John: I want to put it at the end of the hall.
John: So when you walk down the hall, you're like, I'm going to infinity.
Yeah.
John: But there's another me coming from infinity.
John: But the hall is only three feet wide.
John: So I can't put it at the end of the hall.
Merlin: Having it at an angle, well, you could do a Pepper's Ghost effect like they do in the Haunted Mansion where you make it look like somebody's dancing with a doll.
Merlin: Archimedes taught us to polish our shields and then point it at our opponents.
Merlin: He basically invented laser beams with mirrors.
Merlin: You could point that at one of your neighbors.
John: There's only 300 Spartans, am I right?
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: They throw away the weak babies.
John: You know, your big strong man business, you could call it 300 Spartans.
Merlin: Oh, I don't know, man.
Merlin: It's like naming it at the Fight Club or something.
John: Yeah, no, don't do that.
John: Don't do that.
John: That's not what you want.
John: Oh, yeah, and just drive around in like 10 Tesla trucks.
Merlin: And what was the post-mortem like with your young person?
John: Oh, so we get it all done.
John: And I'm like, how'd it go?
John: But I'd been there the whole time.
John: So I knew how it went.
John: And she's just like, all of a sudden, really cool.
John: She was like, it was good.
John: Oh, wow.
John: Good.
John: And I'm like, anything unexpected?
John: She was like, no, everybody was great.
John: Everybody was real cool.
John: And I'm like, what's the most unexpected thing that happened?
John: And she said, it turns out I really like Avery.
John: And I was like, well, yeah, that is a little unexpected because Avery went out with the boy that Mike's.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: But only for a little while.
Merlin: Did that like have gravitas or is that like, oh, I made a new friend today?
Merlin: Was it like, like?
John: They were the last two in the truck.
Merlin: Oh, interest by your daughter's plan.
John: Well, somewhat.
John: So we had a long drive across town where it was just the two of them sitting in the back going like, titter, titter, titter.
John: Oh, my.
John: Which, you know, Avery's been up and down because she was going out with Silas, and Silas, you know, is the...
John: He's the one.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And then she dumped Silas.
John: So by the transitive property.
Merlin: I see, I see, I see, I see, I see.
John: By the transitive property being, you know, now friends with Avery, you know, it's like, oh, so now.
John: I bet Silas is not loving that.
John: No, but Silas is the one.
John: He's everybody, all the kids.
Merlin: Is that Satorak?
John: Marlo said, you know, the worst part about this is that all my friends think you're cool.
John: I was like, you know what, babe?
John: That's just the riz.
John: I just got the riz.
Merlin: Is that the dad part?
Merlin: Or is that an opportunity for you to realize something you should have realized all along, which is your dad's pretty cool.
John: Your dad's cool, bro.
John: Well, and she's just like, but everyone also agrees.
John: Silas is just a young you.
John: And I'm like, oh, I love Silas.
John: Which part?
John: Is he a searcher?
John: Is he a CIA agent?
John: He's a little too loud.
John: He's a little too funny.
John: Oh, he's BMOC.
Merlin: Silas BMOC.
John: Yeah, he's got Sigma.
John: He's Sigma.
John: Does he have drip?
John: He's got some drip.
Merlin: He's giving Riz?
John: He's too goober, I think, maybe, to really cut it with the Stanley girls.
John: He wants to date a Stanley girl.
Merlin: How does he deal with the VSCO girls?
Merlin: Skuh, skuh, skuh.
John: He's making it.
Merlin: He's going to be fine.
Merlin: I'm doing all of this phonetically, and I hope you are, too.
John: Silas is going to be fine.
John: It's just I'm looking at Silas because every time he passes me in the hall, because I'm at the school all the time because I'm that dad.
Merlin: It seems to me if you make an alliance with Silas, you're going to really cause some interesting things to happen in the mix.
Merlin: Is Silas a big, strong man, or is he just a smart actor?
John: Yeah, he's taller.
John: And the thing is, one time I was standing out front of the school, and Amelia looked over at me, and I rizzed her up.
John: Oh, you did?
John: And all the girls... I thought you did that for Baby Gronk.
John: What did you have Baby Gronk you did that for?
John: I don't know.
John: I'm rizzing people up all the time now since I know what it is.
John: Well, you got a big enough mirror somebody can find out for themselves.
John: All the girls saw me rizz her up and she turned bright red and like ran away and they all fell on the ground laughing.
John: But so Silas, he's the one that like, every time he sees me, he looks at me out of the corner of his eye and he's trying to think of something to say.
John: He's like, he really wants to say something to me.
John: Yeah, I know that.
John: I've been that.
John: He always comes up with something to say.
John: He always has a, he always got a line and I never shoot him down.
John: I'm always like, you know, nice one or whatever, like low sweet burn.
John: Yep.
John: Yep.
John: Yep.
John: But so, you know, and watching her love Silas and, and realize that.
John: Like she's going to not probably ever acquire Silas.
John: You're right.
John: This is the first.
John: It's the first time that we've ever been through this.
Merlin: Avery seems like a pretty good consolation prize, though.
John: Avery's pretty good.
John: Okay.
John: She's pretty good.
John: I mean, she's a little basic.
John: Oh, really?
John: But in a very good way.
John: Well, what it is is she seems basic, but it turns out she's a lot smarter.
John: No one in this group is mid.
John: A lot of them are zesty.
Merlin: Oh, really?
John: Yeah.
John: There's a lot of zest.
John: So anyway, I'm picking it up as I go.
John: I'm not allowed to use any of these terms with them because I'll just get scorned to death, literal death.
John: But at least when they talk to each other, I'm like... It's a big country, John.
Merlin: America's a big country.
Merlin: There's a place for everybody, but that doesn't mean we should all be doing the same thing.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Like, we've all got a role to play.
Merlin: Our first role is to help other people, but then we have another role, you know, which is to sometimes make people, you know, regret things they said and things like that.
Merlin: Because that's helpful for teens, too.
John: I mean, when I say to the genie, I want to live 900 years, there are like 11 clauses that go with that.
John: And it's all going to be one sentence.
John: I'm never going to pause.
John: I'm never going to put a period in there.
John: I'm going to say, I want to live to be 900 years.
Merlin: You're not going to do a clause pause.
Merlin: You're just going to assume that all of that is understood.
Merlin: It's all part of it.
Merlin: And will the genie know that?
John: But I will not allow any of the viruses that are currently in my body to take me over.
John: Also, I would like to go back 15 years to before my hair was falling out.
John: Also, I would like... Also, all my dental and joint problems, I would like to be erased.
John: I would like... I'm going to... You know, we're going to go back to an earlier... You want to be teleported.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: And then... Yeah, you want the thing... You want the Star Trek machine that fixes all your cells.
John: Is that what the Star Trek machine does every time?
Merlin: Well, I've heard some people say that the only thing that explains—what's it called?
Merlin: What's it called?
Merlin: The teleporter.
Merlin: You beam them.
Merlin: You beam them places.
John: You beam them.
John: And their cells get reordered every time?
Merlin: I heard it kills you and recreates you.
Merlin: I heard that's the only plausible explanation, is you're actually dead and recreated as a new person.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Come on.
John: Come on, science fiction people.
John: Put this stuff together.
John: I'm so bored of waiting.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I know.
John: I don't want to go on a manned mission to Mars.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: There's plenty we can fix right here.
Merlin: That's what we can do with the mirror.
Merlin: You're just going to wait and see where it feels like.
Merlin: Well, I guess part of it is just listening for the genie.
Merlin: Or ghosty or whatever is in it, like whatever the spirit inhabiting the mirror is.
Merlin: There's no way a four by five mirror in that condition would be a goodwill unless there was some kind of a reason.
John: Here's the other thing.
John: It was $20.
Merlin: You are so fucked right now.
John: There's no way.
John: Everything else in that good world was $50 for a pair of socks, and this was $20.
John: And everybody that helped me looked down at the price tag and went, $20?
Merlin: And I was like, $20?
Merlin: You may have to pawn this off on the Bobcat guy at some point.
Merlin: It's not a monkey's paw, you don't think?
John: There are so many things in this house that are in a kind of purgatory where they were brought into the house, but they haven't found their place yet.
John: And they're just being moved from place.
John: Every tabletop, they go from one to the next when it's like, oh, I need to clear this space.
John: And the housekeeper's coming over.
John: That's right.
John: And then they go in a drawer and then they get taken out of the drawer.
John: And they're just in this state of like, I haven't settled down yet, but one day I will find my place.
John: And I'm just afraid that this mirror, which cannot be moved by anyone else but me, is going to go from like— Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Merlin: Why?
Merlin: Because it's like a sword in the stone type situation?
Merlin: No, because it weighs 80 pounds.
Merlin: Because you're a big, strong man.
John: Yeah.
John: My daughter, my mother, my daughter's mother slash partner, none of them could move this mirror on their own.
John: So now it's the cleaning people I wouldn't even ask.
John: Oh, and I moved a picture, like maybe the mirror goes here, and behind, because the picture had also been leaning against the wall, behind it I saw that the cleaning people had not been cleaning behind the picture.
Merlin: Now whose fault do you consider that to be?
Merlin: Is that because you had prepped inadequately or because they were phoning it in?
John: This is one of the things, right?
John: If you were doing a very diligent job, you would have recognized that there were cobwebs behind that fairly large picture.
John: Yeah.
John: But they weren't doing a thorough enough job to have discovered that.
John: And now I've got like, oh, okay, well, I'm definitely not caring about it.
Merlin: You get a lot of spiders up there, John.
Merlin: A lot of spiders.
John: There are a lot of spiders, right?
John: So now I have to get the dust buster out, but I can't find it.
John: It's around here somewhere.
Merlin: Look behind the mirror.
Merlin: It was a journey.
Merlin: It was a good journey.