Podcast Summary: Laugh Lines with Kim & Penn Holderness

Episode: Living Parallel Lives with Dustin & Melissa Nickerson

Release Date: October 21, 2025
Guests: Dustin & Melissa Nickerson
Theme: Navigating Aging, Parenting, ADHD, and Life’s Parallel Tracks—With Lots of Laughter

Overview

In this lively and heartfelt episode, Kim and Penn Holderness welcome comedian Dustin Nickerson and his wife, Melissa, for a conversation about the wild ride of midlife, sending kids to college, raising neurodiverse families, and finding humor in chaos. “Living Parallel Lives” spotlights the uncanny similarities between the Holdernesses and Nickersons—from lost luggage and ADHD quirks to travel youth sports, perimenopause, and department store nostalgia—anchored by candid reflection and big laughs.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dropping Off the Oldest at College: The Parallel Parent Experience

• Kim and Melissa connect deeply over the emotional journey of sending a child off to college. Both admit to recent crying spells and share how pride for their thriving kids brings comfort.

  • Memorable Quote:

    "There was something about the three week mark for me that like kind of the heaviness of just missing him so much eased a bit. Like, I guess acceptance... But also he's doing so well."
    – Melissa Nickerson (17:32)

• Dustin and Penn bond over sports as the main conduit of connection with their sons, layering in emotion as sporting milestones intertwine with milestones of independence.

  • Memorable Quote:

    "That is an intermixed emotion with me and my son because I called him and he was tracking the game and we had watched it, and so... I don't know what your guys's TikTok feeds are, but mine right now is showing a lot of baseball fans, particularly Seattle Mariners fans of like a father and their young kid."
    – Dustin Nickerson (18:09)

2. ADHD: The Comedy, The Chaos, and The Coping

• Losing Things Is Part of “The Club”

  • Both families detail their knack for leaving essentials behind: suitcases left in airports, Kindles forgotten in seat pockets, Dustin’s now-ritual of checking bags to avoid losing them overhead.
    • Penn’s Story: Once left bag in the boarding area, bought cheap Marvel shirts at Target, and lucked out meeting an AstraZeneca rep for an inhaler replacement.
    • Dustin’s Story: Packed all his return-to-America documents in one bag, lost them all, and was let back in by a border agent:

      "To be that stupid, you must be American."
      (27:43)

• Pain & Gift of ADHD

  • The group recognizes the hardships (losing things, interrupting, impulsivity), the guilt and relationship strain, but also the creativity, humor, and resourcefulness that come from neurodivergence.
    • Memorable Quote:

      "They’re kind of one and the same. And the stuff that makes me want to write jokes... create... is the same one that crashes at the same time every day."
      – Dustin Nickerson (28:10)

    • Melissa adds:

      "It's not a character flaw of yours... but it's gotta be annoying being married to people that lose as much... and want to interrupt you..." (29:33)
      "We just have to use our creativity to find solutions." (31:49)

• Celebrating Strengths

  • Both families urge parents to celebrate neurodivergent strengths when school and social systems tend to focus on deficits.

3. Marriage & Midlife: Hormones, Humor & Getting Through It Together

• Parallel Changes: Perimenopause Meets Midlife Crisis

  • The women commiserate about perimenopause while Dustin cracks about andropause, highlighting the “biological benefit of the doubt” spouses must give each other.

    • Memorable Bit:

      "My wife is losing every chemical that her body gave her to be able to stand. So I’m going through a midlife crisis, and she’s going through perimenopause, and the only thing we have in common is we're both thinking about me dying."
      – Dustin Nickerson (34:11)

  • Coping Tactics: Heat flares, sugar cravings, sleep cycles, and giving each other grace.

    • Melissa:

      "The other day, he touched my shoulder and he’s like, ‘Why are you a thousand degrees?’" (36:19)

• Balance of Challenges: Both couples openly acknowledge their trade-offs—forgetting everything, hormonal mood shifts, depression bouts—and how laughter and partnership pull them through.

4. Travel Youth Sports: Survival and Sanity

• Teamwork in Parenting
  • Melissa explains how single-parenting youth sports travel due to Dustin’s touring comedy gig is only feasible by leaning on “networks” and choosing teams wisely.
  • The group discusses coping methods for overstimulating sports environments (loops for ears, managing schedules, supporting kids through the ups and downs).

5. Nostalgia Game: Bring It Back or Pass

(45:32+)
The foursome riffs on trends and gadgets from their youth, affectionately poking fun at generational divides:

• MTV music videos:
  • Split opinion—YouTube has taken over, but the nostalgia of “world premieres” is missed.
• Double denim:
  • Overwhelming support—“Live your truth.”
• Airline Skymall:
  • Fondness for in-flight magazines and backup barf bags. (“Barf bags, bring them back, guys!” 57:29)
• Frosted tips, The Clapper, cassette tapes, mixtapes, department stores:
  • Warm memories, laughs, and a mutual frustration at too much modern choice (“We’re not meant to have this many choices.” – Kim, 52:27)
• The madness of Costco:
  • Melissa:

    "I don't know where anyone is going to go in that store... gridlock... it's torture." (52:46)
    Dustin:
    "It's exposure therapy for people with anxiety." (53:12)

6. Listener Call-in: ADHD Travel Hack

• A listener, Phoebe (from Germany), shares the flight attendant hack of putting a shoe in the hotel safe with valuables as a failsafe reminder.

7. Continued Parallelism and Closing Reflection (“Penn’s Three-Piece Nuggets”)

• They wrap with nuggets learned:
  1. Everyone struggles to take pictures of their second child (“We are not alone.” 57:14)
  2. Bring back barf bags.
  3. If you accidentally stop Zoom, you can start recording again without disaster—find the humor in technical fumbles.

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Parenting and Goodbye:

  "I'm sad. But he's, he's doing fantastic, so I'm proud of him."
  – Melissa Nickerson (17:32)

• On Sports and Connection:

  "That is an intermixed emotion with me and my son because I called him and he was tracking the game and we had watched it."
  – Dustin Nickerson (18:09)

• On ADHD’s Double-Edged Sword:

  "They're kind of one and the same... the stuff that makes me want to write jokes... create... [is] the same one that crashes..."
  – Dustin Nickerson (28:10)

• On ADHD Relationships:

  "It's not a character flaw... it's gotta be annoying being married to people that lose as much stuff as we do..."
  – Dustin Nickerson (29:33)

• On Midlife and Perimenopause:

  "The only thing we have in common is we’re both thinking about me dying."
  – Dustin Nickerson (34:11)

• On Youth Sports:

  "My biggest hack was getting my other daughter to join because then they were both playing."
  – Melissa Nickerson (41:09)

• On Department Store Nostalgia:

  "There are too many choices. We’re not meant to have this many choices."
  – Kim Holderness (52:27)

• On Costco Chaos:

  "It's exposure therapy for people with anxiety."
  – Dustin Nickerson (53:12)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• ADHD Listener Hack Call-in: (09:15-10:42)
• College Drop-Off Conversation: (17:06-20:12)
• ADHD Fails and Coping: (22:32-27:45)
• Strengths & Humor of ADHD in Family: (28:10-33:04)
• Perimenopause, Hormones, & Midlife Marriage: (33:40-39:14)
• Travel Youth Sports Challenges: (40:05-42:19)
• Nostalgia Game (“Bring It Back or Pass”): (45:32-53:14)
• Closing Reflections & “Penn’s Three-Piece Nuggets:” (56:32-57:39)

Overall Tone

Joyful, candid, and self-effacing—unflinching honesty mixed with warmth and plenty of comic relief. Both couples model how laughter, teamwork, and compassion get families through midlife’s messiest, most meaningful transitions.

Where to Find the Guests

• Dustin Nickerson: dustinickerson.com
• Podcast: Don’t Make Me Come Back There

For listeners navigating similar ages, stages, and challenges, the Holdernesses and Nickersons deliver both validation and comic catharsis. Laughter, it turns out, really is the best parallel path.