#4720 Grape-Nuts Bat Last

Summary

TBTL Episode #4720: Grape-Nuts Bat Last

Date: May 5, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Overview

In this Tuesday episode, Luke and Andrew meander through memories of chain restaurants, parental awkwardness, coming of age, and the continuing saga of Red Lobster's endless shrimp deal. They share personal stories about adolescent anxiety and evolving adulthood, reminisce about their love-hate relationship with budget dining, and dissect the cultural and business implications of endless shrimp. The second half is filled with dazzling donor thanks, listener rants, and a hungry, comic deep dive into cereal and breakfast culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nostalgic Chain Restaurant Talk

Timestamps: 02:31 – 14:18

• Red Lobster Memories:
  • Luke remembers a teenage Red Lobster dinner where his father presented him with a "purity" watch, intended to remind him not to have sex before marriage.
    • Quote: “Wore the watch for however long, a year, lost the watch and my virginity in the same week.” (05:03, Luke)
  • Andrew recalls chain restaurant staples from his youth: Applebee’s visits with his dad after church, and general familiarity with places like TGI Friday’s and Chili’s.
  • Discussion of awkwardness and anxiety in “fancy” environments as young adults, not knowing how payment or etiquette worked (08:09–10:07).
  • Both reflect on car troubles and the privilege of reliable transportation as adults.

2. Adulthood: Relief and Perspective

Timestamps: 10:07 – 15:19

• School Age Anxiety:

  • Andrew contemplates seeing poised high schoolers but feeling immense relief not to be in their shoes anymore:
    • Quote: “I’m just so happy to be an adult … I think life just keeps getting better, which I don’t know if a lot of people can say that.” (13:39, Andrew)
  • Both hosts appreciate pacing out of “figuring out life” vs. the confused anxiety of youth.

• Air Travel and Privilege Creep:

  • Luke shares his travel anxieties: upcoming cross-country flight to Boston (for a TV story on Lizzie Borden & true crime), booked late and stuck in a dreaded middle seat—unless his first-class upgrade comes through.
  • They joke about Instagram accounts chronicling flight upgrades (notably ex-Sonic Detlef Schrempf’s) and the universal pain of middle seats.

3. Donor Shoutouts and Listener Connections

Timestamps: 25:06 – 33:08

• Dazzling Donors:
  • Brian in Sequim: Retiring, listens with his now-adult kids, tends to a farm with “31 cattle and counting.” Luke wants to visit and pet a cow.
  • Dave in Stanwood: Updates on daughter Gwenny, who grew up with TBTL and now heads to Western’s Honors College; family involvement in high school theater—emphasizes supporting local drama programs.
  • Luke: “That has all happened during the existence of TBTL.” (30:37)
  • Both hosts marvel at TBTL’s multi-generational reach.

4. Red Lobster’s Endless Shrimp: The 'Is It Worth It?' Deep Dive

Timestamps: 33:08 – 44:46

• The Business Side:

  • Luke outlines Red Lobster’s odd, low-key relaunch of “endless shrimp”—possibly a calculated attempt to garner buzz without attracting too many loss-leading shrimp lovers.
  • Article they discuss finds the break-even point is eating at least 22 shrimp for the deal to pay off: “If you eat 22 shrimp, you’re breaking even. Every shrimp after that is free, so you can’t afford not to.” (43:32, Luke)
  • Includes bemusement around their commercial with Ryan Reynolds and the CEO, poking fun at ‘endless’ semantics.

• Personal Reflections:

  • Both admit the cheddar bay biscuits are dangerously tempting—the real “financial drag” on endless shrimp.
  • Luke discusses the local Red Lobster as a town centerpiece and considers trying the deal himself.

5. Food, Nostalgia, and Marketing:

Timestamps: 44:46 – 56:43

• Sushi, Sprouts, and All-You-Can-Eat:
  • Andrew tries grocery store prepared shrimp; both hosts are dubious of “all you can eat” sushi places and discounted fish.
  • They remember Simpsons episodes satirizing bargain seafood.
• The Evolution of Cereal and Cookies for Breakfast:
  • Extended, hungry riff on cookie consumption, milk, and Oreos (actual and as cereal), and bemusement at product naming: “Oreo O’s.”
    • Quote: “Eat whatever you want, but can you run it by me before you name your products, please?” (59:57, Andrew)

6. Listener Feedback Corner

Timestamps: 49:03 – 54:33

• Rant Voicemail: School Fundraisers:
  • Anonymous listener vents about the unfairness of Boy Scouts selling popcorn while Girl Scouts sell cookies—crushed by office-based, hierarchical “vertical integration” (i.e., rich parents just putting up sign-up sheets).
    • Quote: “That’s when I realized the world was not fair and that vertical integration was going to crush out the middle class.” (51:32, Caller)
  • Hosts agree: “Popcorn is yummy … it’s not as good as a cookie for most people.” (53:12, Luke)
• Cookie vs. Popcorn:
  • Debate over which they’d give up forever; Andrew (somewhat controversially) chooses to keep popcorn over cookies.

7. The Grape-Nuts Finale

Timestamps: 60:01 – End

• Grape-Nuts, Overpouring, and Fullness:
  • Andrew relays his tendency to overestimate his hunger while pouring cereal, leading to regret and a stomach full of “cement.”
  • Luke: “Grape-Nuts bat last.” (62:35), declaring the cereal’s ultimate staying power.
  • They joke about the truth-in-advertising health credentials of a cereal that “doesn’t taste good enough to be bad for you.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On adolescence:
  • Andrew: “I was just a bag of nerves … Now I’m so glad I’m not wearing that backpack.” (12:10)
• On the “purity watch” at Red Lobster:
  • Luke: “It was supposed to be a reminder ... it’s not time to have sex yet.” (04:58)
• On Shrimp Math:
  • Luke: “We had one goal. Shrimp maxing.” (41:45, reading from the article)
• On adulthood luxuries:
  • Luke: “My ground-based transportation has been mostly worked out. Now my problems, Andrew, are more in the skies.” (14:18)
• On food deals:
  • Andrew: “You never know better than the Grape-Nuts.” (62:21)

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Important Timestamps

• [03:31] – Favorite chain restaurant rankings, Applebee’s nostalgia
• [05:03] – Red Lobster “purity watch” anecdote, sex & adolescence
• [14:03] – Gratitude for adulthood’s stability vs. student anxiety
• [15:19] – Flight status anxiety: “Fabergé egg of accommodation”
• [25:06] – Dazzling donor acknowledgements
• [33:08] – Red Lobster endless shrimp deep dive and Washington Post article
• [43:00] – How the endless shrimp offer works & shrimp eating “strategy”
• [49:03] – Listener voicemail rant on fundraiser inequality
• [60:01] – Grape-Nuts, cereal overeating, “Grape-Nuts bat last”

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, self-deprecating, reflective, tangential, anecdotal, and gently absurd.
• Both hosts comfortably riff, telling stories that interleave humor and more thoughtful moments about social status, family, and growing up.

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For Listeners Who Missed It

This episode is a perfect slice of TBTL’s signature style: rambling, deeply personal, and slyly subversive. Luke and Andrew balance laughs (purity watches, middle seat dread, cookie math) with moments of nostalgia and gratitude for adulthood’s hard-won comforts. The digressive, hungry, and oddly philosophical chat about Red Lobster is both a sharp take on American consumer culture and, in its weird way, a deeply relatable look at craving (for food, comfort, and a sense of home). From the high drama of fundraising cookie vs. popcorn economics to the slow realization that adulthood is just being a little less anxious about who’s paying the bill, this episode threads the familiar and the absurd into a “collector’s edition” of TBTL banter.

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Power out.

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

So, Brandon, tell me about yourself.

[Luke Burbank]

What do you like to do? I'm just a regular guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

I like NASCAR and fishing, you know, quoting Borat, setting up Universal, Remo, and of course, Vegas, baby. Tbtm. My show's on the Internet where Beyonce and the President live.

[Luke Burbank]

He's really having trouble keeping his balance.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's still funny, but not haha funny.

[Luke Burbank]

If you ever need somebody to talk

[Andrew Walsh]

to and you don't want to talk

[Luke Burbank]

to your dad, you can always come talk to me. Think of me as your secret dad

[Andrew Walsh]

you keep hiding from in the world, and eventually the world comes to your front door.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's very nice. I heard an episode of Touched by an Angel.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the voice of the youth of America. Just keep your head up and don't

[Andrew Walsh]

let anybody tell you they're better than you. Cause they're not. All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is political correctness run amok.

[Luke Burbank]

My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host, Wipes the potty. Wipe your body. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia. Just another absolutely gorgeous day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, ma Pa.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just beautiful. Just looking out on all of the things that are blooming right now. It's just phenomenal. We've got like beautiful purple balls, all of the different trees. The cherry trees are kind of down now, but there's a bunch of other stuff that's just in full bloom.

[Andrew Walsh]

I.

[Luke Burbank]

My star Jasmine is starting to. I don't know if it's quite in leap mode. Sleep creep and then leap. I think this is the year that it leaps, maybe. Anyway, an awesome Tuesday. Glad to have you here for episode 4720 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. We didn't get to this yesterday, but hopefully today we'll have time to talk about the Red Lobster. Welcome to food news Today. Bringing back the endless shrimp, which seemed like kind of a bad business decision for them back in the day, but they're bringing it back. But they're also not promoting it, which is a very strange approach to this. But I do live, by the way, near one of what I think of as the last surviving Red Lobsters. By the way, seems pretty busy, which maybe it's because the endless shrimp are back, but we'll talk about that and we'll say hello to this guy. The longest running cobra of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall Ships.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's got Riz. Like, he just does.

[Luke Burbank]

He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. This is not getting into the Red Lobster topic, but when you mentioned that we'll be talking about that later on in the show, it occurred to me that, like, I think I've been to a Red Lobster maybe once in my life. I think it was with my friend Tony and his dad. And then I. But I've been to a lot of chain restaurants. Not as much now in adulthood, but certainly growing up, we. We were. We went to Applebee's a lot. When I was in high school, me and my dad, like, after church, we'd go to Applebee's. It was kind of a regular thing. TGI Fridays, I was familiar with. Yes, that's right. Grill and Bar. They did a twist there. And I was going to ask you. I don't know if this is a good place to start or not, but I was going to ask you what is of restaurants of that caliber? Like, basically chain restaurants, right? Just like, straight down the middle. Chain restaurants. Not fast food, not fast casual. Your chilies would be in this. What would be your favorite? Now, is this a stupid question? Because you don't really darken the doors of these kinds of places at all, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, not. I mean, sometimes you and I have been to them, and I've quite enjoyed them. Applebee's.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, Red Robin must be high on your list. Would Red Robin be.

[Luke Burbank]

Count that. But the thing about that is I still think of it as sort of regional. Now, I know it's a pretty big region, but, like, I think of Applebee's and TGI Fridays and those as having many more locations than, say, a Red Robin. I think of Red Robin as being kind of somehow boutique in my mind, so. So I wouldn't count that. But I would say again, you know, I really did not mind when we got. What is that Appetizer sampler at the Applebee's.

[Andrew Walsh]

Was it.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that we did the Applebee's in Eureka or something? Yeah, I remember. I remember liking that. Now, I know that I've told this story on the show many, many times, so I'll try to keep it brief. But I don't know if I've. I don't remember going to a Red Lobster. And I may have forgotten. I may have been there. I may have talked about on the show. You know, the last time that I can remember going to a Red Lobster was with my dad. It was with Walt Burbank. And it was when I was in high school and he took me to Red Lobster, which was a very fancy meal for us at the time because it was a very serious conversation where he presented me with a watch. And the watch was my sign of. Of. Of keeping my purity, as it were, as. Which is to say not having sex before marriage. And the watch was supposed to be a reminder every time I looked at it to, I don't know, it's not time to have sex yet. Maybe that's what the idea was of.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what it said when you look down and you're like, what time is it?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. It's not have sex yet.

[Andrew Walsh]

Early 30s here. No. How old are you? I was.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I was probably 16 or so. But what I can tell you is wore the watch for however long a year, lost the watch and my virginity in the same week. So the watch may have been doing something. Whoa.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I thought the irony was just going to be like, oh. And then I ended up, not only did you lose your virginity, but you lost your lack of father as a non parent. Trying to figure out how I could turn that, like, double negative into it. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

You, of course, also. And that also happened, you know, have. Having a child as a teenager. And so it is. I thought it was just gonna be like, how ironic the watch didn't work. But actually the story is maybe the watch did work and then you lost it.

[Luke Burbank]

We can't rule that out because I was wearing the watch and having no sex and then literally lost the watch. Like, could not find it.

[Andrew Walsh]

What if it was just like a hideous watch? Nobody would have sex with you because it was such a dorky watch. It was like a Donald Duck watch. It was a Donald Duck watch, but he's wearing a mask and. And he looked like. Who's the guy who was in Dark Wing?

[Luke Burbank]

Duck.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was a Darkwing Duck.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, the mask.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. I'm just trying to think of, like, some sort of Jim Carrey Donald Duck thing. Just. You can ignore that. We'll cut it all off.

[Luke Burbank]

I just remember being at this Red Lobster and thinking, this is probably the fanciest restaurant I've ever been in. In fact, what I think about those kinds, I just. I just. Most of my, you know, teenage years and even into my 20s when I was somewhere fancy, I was deeply uncomfortable. I wasn't uncomfortable in the. In the Red Lobster so much. I mean, I was a little uncomfortable having the conversation with my dad about My virginity, but I remember a different time. Going to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Your love is like this cheddar bay biscuit.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, God. That comes up in the article, by the way. They're saying, if you're going to do the endless shrimp, you have to be disciplined about not ODing on the cheddar.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. All right.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's a very, very good advice, I have to say. But I. I was. My high school girlfriend when I was a senior, and. And this is how much game I had. All of a sudden, again, I lost that watch. And I was just, you know, God, a Casanova. I. I had a high school girlfriend who was not the person I was having a baby with.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

The baby was gestating, and I was just dating.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. You know, I'm taking. I'm wearing a watch. I'm taking this watch off right now,

[Luke Burbank]

hoping to tell you, you know, you've

[Andrew Walsh]

convinced me to get.

[Luke Burbank]

Throwing this away. I did tell this high school girlfriend of mine before we went on a date or before, when I was expressing my feelings to her. I said, there is something that you do need to know, which is that I will be having a baby. I'll be becoming a father in about three weeks. And if that's a problem for you, I get it.

[Andrew Walsh]

And also, I lost my chastity watch, so watch out. Yeah. Watch out, world. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So to speak. But I remember going to, I think, like, the prom with her. She went to Ingram High School. I remember going to the Ingram prom with her or something, some dance. And her stepdad was part of something called. I forget the name of it, but it was one of those kind of clubs where it's in a fancy building, was on the east side, and it's like a, you know, like a. The Rainier Club or the Whatever club where you. You go and they have a really nice restaurant. It was the first place I'd ever been where they, like, wheeled a cart over and I think, made a Caesar salad tableside, which was. My mind was absolutely blown. But all I could think the entire meal was, how am I paying for this? I don't know how much anything costs. There's no prices on the menu. I don't have any money. Like, I have some money in my checking account, but not enough for this. And, like, at the end of the night, realizing, or at the end of the dinner before we went to the dance. Oh, no, no. It just goes back on Larry's account. Larry's gifting us this as a nice move.

[Andrew Walsh]

It would have been nice to know that, though, that was it.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I was always too embarrassed to. I was, I was always too embarrassed to ask questions like that. But then I was always so panicked.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

The whole time. Because I never knew how does this get sorted at the end? And I don't have the money for this. But again, I don't want to tell. I don't want to like seem poor. I don't want to ask questions that indicate that I don't know what I'm doing. So I was always in this state of like, is this who's. I mean, the other story I famously told a million times was the first time that they sent me on a work trip, it was KVI radio and it was a trip to New Orleans. And I didn't understand that they paid for the travel. And I just spent the three weeks before the trip just, just gutted. I mean, I was excited to go on this trip, but I did not know how I was going to pay for it until they were like, did you go talk to Sandy about your ticket? And I was like, what? And I was like, so, yeah, that was a lot of my life when in my younger days was just being in an environment where I didn't know what the shot was, but being very nervous that it was going to involve me paying for something.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah, I know that feeling. I can't think of specific examples, but I also just remember like, just like that feeling of like kind of. You were in high school for this particular dinner that you're talking about, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Okay. So I'm thinking maybe more college where you're like, you have one foot in the real world. At least this was it for me. Like, you know, people who are young adults have all different kinds of stories about where they were. But like, I was still very much under my parents care in a lot of ways, but I was also paying for a lot of things myself. And I had jobs and to make ends meet. And it was one of those things where every time your car broke down, which mine did a lot, you're just kind of like, well, it had become kind of like it wasn't as shocking. You know, you get to a point where your car breaks down so much, you just sort of have a routine. And like I remember telling my parents one time, like, well, this was a good breakdown. Like it was right by the exit. Like, if I was going to break down, it was like everything really worked out well. I didn't have to like call a tow truck in between exits or whatever, you know, but you're just like, you're figuring out the world. You feel like an adult. You're proud, you want to be treated like an adult, but there's still so much you don't know. And also, you have very limited funds. You're just like, you're broke. And like, I remember, like, you know, every time my van breaking down at a minivan, 1986 Dodge Caravan would break down. I'd be like, well, I don't know. I don't know what this means for the future. And eventually, what it meant was I took a semester off of college. I was like, I need to just work for a semester and earn some more money so I can go back to school. I kept my little. What do you. I always think of this word came up in the news recently because it's Mamdani's proposed tax in New York City. Pierre Detect. Is that.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, Pierre Detay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Pierre de Terr.

[Luke Burbank]

No, no, no, no. Piederre.

[Andrew Walsh]

Pied Terre. Okay. You. I had never heard that word until you dropped it one time 20 years ago. I remember. Didn't you want to name a boat Pied a Terre or something like that?

[Luke Burbank]

I felt like I was using it as one. My little place to sleep in the city, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, so I did have a little. Like, I had a really crummy little studio apartment that I kept in, you know, next. You know, I lived right off and I kept that. But I just didn't go to class, and I just worked for a semester, I think a couple of different jobs, and kind of had to earn my money so I could kind of live life again. And I don't know. I'm a little nostalgic for those days, but I'll be honest with you. I was driving Genevieve to work this morning just because I had the time to do it. I thought it'd be nice, take Lucy for a little ride. And we took the long way, which I shouldn't have done because turns out, a lot less traffic on a Sunday when I do that route versus on a Tuesday morning. All that is to say, I had to stop for a while outside of Roosevelt High School, which seems like a very cool high school, both to look at as well as everything I hear about it, of course. And I'm at the crosswalk and all these students are walking into class, and I'm impressed with sort of how kind of poised and young adulty they are. You know what I mean? Like, I felt like I was just a bag of nerves or I also just look like a hippie. Like, you know what I mean, these just, like, I was watching these kids talk and gesticulate like adults, and I was just kind of like, they look like they're having more adult conversations or just mature conversations than I was at their age. I was like, that's pretty cool. But I also had this really strong feeling of, I'm so glad I'm not wearing that backpack right now. Like, I'm just so glad. I'm like, if that were me walking into class, I would. I know the feeling in my stomach, it would be a complete knot because I wouldn't have done some kind of homework assignment or I had a test that I don't feel prepared for, or I just know that this is. This is Tuesday and I've got a report due on Friday that I'm behind on. Like, I just remember I had a lot of good times socially in the back half of my high school career, but school itself was always just a source of anxiety for me. And I had this. I said it to Genevieve. I'm like, I'm just so happy to be an adult. And even though there are things that come along with aging that aren't great, I think life just keeps getting better, which I don't know if a lot of people can say that.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm just happy that I have a car that runs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

You want to talk about a sort of privilege in my life that I don't think about at all. But that used to be a constant kind of question mark for me was like, is the car gonna start?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

Is the car gonna get me from point A to point B? I've, you know, told the story so many times of my different, you know, hoopties and cars that I had to park on a downhill so I could pop the clutch, and cars that I had to blast the heat so that they wouldn't overheat actively. I just. It was just the fact that generally speaking. And of course, I've probably jinxed it now when I walk to my car, it just starts and then I just go where I need to go. Like, that alone is such a massive upgrade in my life from my teenage years and my twenties. Now my problems, Andrew, are more in the skies, okay? My ground based transportation has been mostly worked out. And by in the skies, I mean, I am playing a dangerous game. Dano. With my flight to Boston tomorrow, which is. I'm actually flying to Boston. Then I'm going to Fall River, Massachusetts, where the Lizzie Borden house is, okay? I'm doing a TV story about basically the kind of true crime obsession that seems to be going on in media and all these popular podcasts and things. And so I don't know if this

[Andrew Walsh]

is helpful or not, but Genevieve dressed up as Lizzie Borden for Halloween one year when we lived in New England. Like, she could probably be available for an interview or a quick quote if you needed just.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Or just some still photos of the outfit to get those assets. But it's kind of a last minute trip and it's also insane. I'm flying there for like one afternoon filming and then pretty much hightailing it back here. But.

[Andrew Walsh]

But they'll definitely use it in the story, right?

[Luke Burbank]

What's that? Yes, 100%. But because of that I had to get this ticket booked at the last minute and there were no window or aisle seats. And this is a flight to Boston. So this is like 6 hours and 20 minutes from PDX. And as of right now, all I'm in a middle seat. I'm in like 13B or something now. There are a couple seats in first class that are not taken. But as I have talked about a lot, I'm just, you know, I'm just sort of hoping and hoping and wishing and praying to get moved up there. I haven't paid for a first class ticket, so I'm going to basically get to the airport and I'm either going to get bumped up to first class, which will be great and then it'll be like absolutely fine, or I'm going to be middle seat for six and a half hours and I will not know until probably five minutes before the flight. Because they do this thing now that I've talked about a lot and that our friend broadcast Barry now he always sends me the updates. He's like, I'm at the, I'm waiting. I'm on the list. I'm not upgraded. It's five minutes out. What are they doing? But they don't, they don't tell you until right before you get on the plane. So I will either have a really, totally relaxed and an easy trip across the country or I will be in a living hell and I will not know until it's basically happening.

[Andrew Walsh]

But the thing that's troublesome about that is you've been talking about how more and more. Yes, there's maybe I should say less and less. They're handing those out to people that have like the miles or whatever class it is that you have versus people who are sort of standing by. I don't exactly know how it works, but you. Your chances of getting those seats are much thinner than they were two years ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Which is part of why I'm very, very, very scared.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

What's happened to me is I was thinking about this, actually, because I remember. I remember this one particular, not even incident. I remember I was sent to Corpus Christi, Texas, because Dick Cheney had shot someone in the face. And me and the producer were hanging out in Corpus Christi all week. The guy never spoke to the media. And then it was time to go home. And we were trying to get out of there. We both wanted to get back to la, so we went to Houston. Somehow there was a flight that could be located in Houston, and we had to race to Houston with the rental car. And it was a whole thing. And then we had too much gear. We could barely get through security. We're like, changing things. The sat phone and all this stuff and running to the flight. And I remember just, like, getting to the flight all sweaty and being so happy that we were going to get on this flight. And I had a middle seat. It didn't even occur to me. I just wanted to go home from Houston. I didn't care what my seat was at all. I just wanted to be on the airplane so I could go to the place I wanted to go. And that used to be my mentality. And then somehow in all of this work travel that I've done in the intervening years and all of these, you know, statuses that I've tried to achieve with the airline and such, I've basically, like, I've turned myself into some sort of Faberge egg of accommodation that. That I can't just fly in a middle seat across the country like people do all the time and are fine.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, let me say this, though. I am not a Faberge egg. I do not have the experience of first class that you do or have. But middle seat is rough, man. Like, that's rough on anybody. And that's why when I see. When I see anybody involved, whenever I see somebody who has, like, legs that are even longer than mine, or like, we always specify, like, femurs that are longer than mine and they're just like, ye. Yes. Like, I've sat next to fellas who are in the middle seat between me and Genevieve, because when Genevieve and I fly together, we book window and aisle and then hope nobody takes the inside seat, but if they do, so be it. We spend a lot of time together. We can be on one flight not, you know, shoulder to shoulder, but sometimes that person will be like, a very tall, athletic man, you know, like, very tall taller than me. And if they are experiencing a, any of the discomfort that I usually am in that situation and just general, just general irritation and everything, they don't really, they don't show it as much as I feel like I wear mine on my coat sleeve. And so I always try to think of those folks who are just like, basically cooler than me and can just suck it up. Because I will tell you, like, the idea of being on a five hour flight. And again, I'm not trying, I'm seriously, I'm not trying to add to your anxiety about this, but, like, I think that's worth complaining about. Like, the way they treat us in steerage is pretty rough these days. The way they just jam those seats closer and closer together.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I mean, it's like they, I guess sometimes people are flying with family and maybe they need all three seats, but it's like, yeah, the middle seat should kind of not exist amongst strangers. I mean, that's never going to happen. In fact, they'll probably add a new middle seat. They'll probably do two middle seats.

[Andrew Walsh]

The one underneath the middle seat, you're

[Luke Burbank]

upside down, slides out from under the middle seat and somebody else sits there. But yeah, I, I will see what happens. I've told you that my favorite Instagram account is former Seattle supersonic Detlef Shrimp.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Who's just all he does. Literally his only thing is taking a picture of if he got upgraded or not. And he is a tall individual, you know, probably six, seven or something. And like, again, I love that he is. He actually has a better reason to be obsessed with than I do because he's, he's really, he's really tall. But I just, I have a lot riding on if Detlef Shrimp gets upgraded. I think I have a dream that someday he and I will be on the same flight.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, wow.

[Luke Burbank]

And we will both get upgraded and I will show him that I am following his. His Instagram Instagram feed.

[Andrew Walsh]

What will you do if you get upgraded and he doesn't and you spot him?

[Luke Burbank]

I'll say, you know what? You've had a pretty charmed life, bro. I'm taking this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but will you. But will you like, kind of like give him a knowing look? Like. Oh, that would be like flashes. What does he post these on Instagram? You said you flash his Instagram account at him or something?

[Luke Burbank]

That would actually be, wow, that would be such a flex. If I got upgraded in. Detlef Shrimp did not get upgraded. And then I just like DM'd him on Instagram, a picture of me because I follow him. He doesn't follow me. I feel like I'm not as famous as that Left Shrimp, but I want to say I might have. He has. I think he has more Instagram followers than me, but anyway, yeah, just to send him a DM of me in first class would be an amazing flex.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. But I mean, in a good natured way, I would say, like, no. Oh, no. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

No. And it's come full domination. Like, he's only the strong survivor. Have I've.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that anyone like the famously, like an incredibly sweet man?

[Luke Burbank]

He is. I think he's a good dude, actually. Carrie worked at this, I think, like a financial company, and it was. I think it's the same one that he works at that. That Left Shrimp works at. And she said he's just like the best dude. So and so he just works.

[Andrew Walsh]

He doesn't just get to be debt left Shrimp.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's the thing. I have a sense he could be. I mean, he's flying coach. He's working in asset management or something, or was. And yeah, my guess is. I mean, he had a long and profitable NBA career, was a Dallas Maverick. He was a Seattle Supersonic. My assumption is that he was pretty smart with his money.

[Andrew Walsh]

He had endorsement deals, Parks and Rec, wasn't he? He makes appearances on TV shows every now. Was he on Parks and Rec an episode or something? I think he was, like, supposed to be the special guest at something, and I think he's late or something.

[Luke Burbank]

So my. My sense of it is that he probably. Again, I don't know his. I don't know his finances, but, yeah, come to think of it, he's probably working because he finds it interesting to work and because he's, you know, again, who. Who couldn't use some more income, I guess. But, yeah, like, I'm. My guess is that he was probably pretty set up from his NBA career. And there he is. There he is in coach, hoping for an upgrade like the rest of us. Just a. You know, just a dreamer.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's been in three episodes of park and Rec.

[Luke Burbank]

That's got to be an obsession of Ken Tremendous's, right? Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that must be a mic. Sure thing. Yeah. Because he loves and did Trempf play for. Did he. Did he ever play for Boston? He was a.

[Luke Burbank]

Not that I remember, but it could have happened. I think he came. He went to the University of Washington, then he. I think he went to the Dallas Mavericks and then came to the Sonics. If I Remember? Right. But who knows? Maybe at the end he bopped over to Boston. I could see it also just being that Mike sure thinks his name is funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Left Shrimp for that.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's just. Yeah. Or that. Yeah, that He's a good guy. I'm trying to. Okay, I found a cameo here. Should I try playing it from Instagram?

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's going to be rough stuff. Instagram stuff is tough. Let's see if this works.

[Luke Burbank]

I need you to make that out to Wendy. Tom is an amazing guy. You never should have left him. You made a huge mistake in your life, and you're probably gonna die alone. Love, Deadlift.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what? I think we should be heading to that telephone. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

We will definitely go to Telton soon after this show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so remember I mentioned that I think. I can't keep playing that. It doesn't make sense to the listeners out of context. Remember I said I think one of the plots is that he's late for an event. He's clearly supposed to be at some Pawnee sanctioned event. But Aziz's character, who's blanking on right now.

[Luke Burbank]

Tom.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, Tom Heatherford or something like that. He's supposed to pick him up, I think, and bring him to the vent, but he instead takes him to this club and all these other things. So I think Shrimp does end up being late because of Tom's Tom foolery, if you will.

[Luke Burbank]

And. And we will.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle. On your mark. On your mark.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get set, get set now.

[Luke Burbank]

Ready? Ready? Go, everybody. Razzle dazzle, everybody. All right. Let's thank some dazzling donors. We don't have debt left. Shrimp Money. We have to do this. At least I do for my job. I don't know Andrew's finances, but mine are. Are very, very reliant on doing. TBT is my job.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you have your screen open? We have a special guest for the dazzling donor segment. If we need money, I got my bingo cat here. And I could. I mean, listen, if it weren't for these dazzling donors, I might have to consider selling bingo for some extra scratch just to keep this going, you know, And I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Or making bingo sell foot pics.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you been selling foot picks? Okay, sorry to interrupt.

[Luke Burbank]

Only cats.

[Andrew Walsh]

Only kitties.

[Luke Burbank]

Because we do this for our job. Because of. We're able to do that because of donations from our donors. And our dazzling donors like Brian Smolenski out there in Sequim, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, Brian. Thank you as always.

[Luke Burbank]

Loving the banana belt they call Squim because it gets a little bit less rain than other parts of the state. My thanks to the beautiful biz boys for another year of companionship. I've listened to the show since the radio days with my kids in the car. And now they're all adults and they have become donors themselves. And you're welcome. This year brings for me retirement coming soon from my 9 to 5, but not from TBTL. So I will have to start listening while I'm puttering around our farm. We have cattle 31 and counting. The cows are calving. Oh, my gosh.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

I would love Brian if I'm in Squim for some reason. Can I come see the cattle? Can I come see your cows?

[Andrew Walsh]

Be careful. You're gonna. They're gonna do what they did in not Blazing Saddles. We're gonna have to give birth to one of these. I'm gonna have to not. You're. You're not gonna give birth. We're gonna assist. Yeah. What am I thinking of the Billy Crystal cowboy movie. Damn it.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, city slickers.

[Andrew Walsh]

City slickers. Don't they have to, like, help a cowboy probably give birth.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm more of a legend of Curly's gold. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, understood. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Kind of a city slicker two man myself.

[Andrew Walsh]

But one thing, one thing, that's my Jack balance.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not bad. It's not. I don't know. It's been a while. I. I liked my impression of him is doing a one armed push up at the Oscars. Remember famously when he did that?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think I remember you referencing it. I don't know if I saw it.

[Luke Burbank]

He was of a pretty advanced age to be doing that. But he was proving how fit he was. I became introduced to him through, I think, Ripley's Believe it or not. Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I only knew him as the Ripley's guy. I couldn't believe it when I saw him in a movie and he would

[Luke Burbank]

say, like, Ripley's Believe it or Not. Like, he had this weird Jack Palancey way of saying Ripley's Believe it or Not.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then I want to Batman. I want to say Batman as well. That I say that to Genevieve all the time. And Jack, you're my number one A guy. Sorry, Go ahead. I had to get amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

The actors. There are certain actors that just had a career by saying stuff weird.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I mean? Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, is he a good actor or not? We don't know. But he just had his own cadence at some Point was just kind of like, all right, that's interesting. That's a choice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Brian says they also have two horses, 31 cows and counting. Two horses. This sounds like a dream. Come in, Squim. In the lavender capital of maybe the world, Certainly Washington. That's another. Another footnote about Sequim. They have beautiful lavender farms over there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Aren't those, John?

[Luke Burbank]

They are. John Wayne used to have a boat up in Sequim. I'm a font of squim knowledge, Andrew, for some reason.

[Andrew Walsh]

Clearly.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, enough about me. Brian says, ironically, Brian, I've just been talking about myself. We've. We've barely heard enough about you. Brian says, continue with the questionable content. I thoroughly enjoy it. Please up the Mariners sports talk this season. Thanks again from your imaginary friend, Brian. Well, Brian, you are a very real friend to us.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

And that farm sounds absolutely lovely. If I'm out that way, I. I really seriously might drop you a line, because I would love to come pet that cow. Can I pet that cow?

[Andrew Walsh]

Pet that cow.

[Luke Burbank]

Maestro.

[Andrew Walsh]

On your mark.

[Luke Burbank]

On your mark.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get set. Get set now.

[Luke Burbank]

Ready? Ready.

[Andrew Walsh]

Go.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody rattle dazzle. It is one of our oldest and de friends. It's Dave James in Stanwood, Washington, part of the Stanwood, Washington 10s. There are three of us. Dave says that would be, I believe, the family out there. We may have had another. I think there was a couple of other Stanwood tens for a while, but maybe some people have relocated. Dave says, howdy. It's been a little bit since the Stanwood tens checked in, but here we are. Life updates. Way back when, we found out we were going to have Gwenny about two weeks before TBTL went on the air. So she listened to Cairo in her crib, grew up going to TBTL events, and now she's headed to the honors college at Western in a couple of months.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, Andrew, that is. That's a lot for me to take in, because I remember Gwenny from the earliest days. I mean, that's. That is absolutely incredible. The idea that Gweny has grown up and is now going to Western. That has all happened during the existence of tbtl.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And a school that you have a lot of connections.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure love that school. Love Bellingham. I mean, the whole thing. That's incredible. TBTL is old enough to be a college student. Well, a very smart one like Gwenny, anyway. And now, let's see here. Carrie has taken over the drama program at the high school, which is great because her degree is in drama. It's possible she And Luke lived in the same dorm at one point. I don't think I knew that. Did you live. Carrie, did you live in McMahon Hall? If you did, in, let's see, 1995. No, wait, 94. I guess going into 95. Then we were in the same dorm.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me know if you lived in Koontz hall in 1996.

[Luke Burbank]

Dave lived there for a bit.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And now she finally gets to teach drama. She and Dave met backstage. Who's writing this? Gwenny. She and Dave met backstage at a production of Much Ado about nothing over 30 years ago. And last fall, we got to direct Gwenny as Beatrice in that very show. At the moment, we're in the middle of directing Mamma Mia. Which is a blast. So that's what's going on. I guess our final thought is, everyone, please go support your local high school teacher. I should say theater, but also the theater teacher. Go support your local high school theater. High school theater is awesome. It is, Andrew. It sure is. My particularly, my wonderful niece Maddie was very active in her high school, as was my other niece, Mary. But Maddie was really, really all about that high school theater scene. So we used to go to a lot of her shows. They were amazing. Now she's at the Edinburgh. She's studying in Edinburgh. And guess what? She wrote a play, and they're staging it as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Fest. My niece. No way. Maddie.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whoa. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Very proud of her. So go high school theater programs. They're. They're amazing and character building and fun and give people confidence and. Yeah. Lead to. We're back at this topic. Andrew helped lead to me having my daughter because I courted her mother during a high school play that we were both in but did not have very many lines in. So we just did a lot of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Too much time on your hands, I would say.

[Luke Burbank]

Too much time on our hands sitting around backstage waiting for our few lines. And that opened the door for lust. Anyway, thanks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry, Gwenny.

[Luke Burbank]

Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Carrie. And Gwenny, congratulations. That's amazing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought it was kind of interesting. This article in the Washington Post that I saw. Is Red Lobster's revamped endless shrimp deal worth it? Our food critic tried it. This was a very smart approach. I thought, it's not just an article about, like, what are they doing with bringing back the endless shrimp, but is it good? And also critically, how many of the shrimp do you need to eat for this to be a good deal? This was Emily Heil writing, but then she brought the Washington Post food critic with her Elazar Sontag to both eat a lot of shrimp and also kind of write a review of it. This is what's kind of weird to me about this, bringing this back. Now, granted, and as we talked about on the show, there was this. This sort of narrative that went out that Red Lobster was having all this trouble because of Americans eating too much shrimp. Americans coming to the endless Shrimp shrimp and eating an endless amount of shrimp. And we are just such, you know, gluttons as Americans that we. You should never trust us with an endless shrimp promotion. That's really not the story. This is a story, like so many other things, of private equity and the horrible way that capitalism works in that you had series of companies that bought Red Lobster and then just stripped it of whatever assets and value it had, sold off all the real estate that the restaurants were sitting on and then rented the real estate back to the individual restaurants at the end. These crazy inflated rates. But the endless shrimp was a pretty big problem for the employees, if I remember right. Like, it was a, you know, it was tough if you're a server and some people are posting up for a bunch of hours at your best table and there's no turnover. And it was just, it was, it was. It did not seem like it was really helping the company, let's say that. But now they're bringing it back. The Washington Post was trying to figure out why they would do that. And I feel like the CEO, who's a guy named Demola at a Molecune, he said when he was taking over the gig at Red Lobster, he once said that he would not revive the special because he knew, quote, how to do math. But now here he is bringing it back. They asked him, why would you bring this back? And he said, well, we're excited to bring it back for a limited time in a way that works for our business today and honors what made it special from the beginning. Well, he said that in a news release. When pressed for more detail about how the shrimp special was being handled differently, a representative said in an email that there were, quote, guardrails in place. When asked to clarify that, the representative described back of the house changes that made things easier on staff. That includes a focused menu lineup, balancing kitchen execution across stations, and updating kitchen display system layouts to support a smoother flow for both restaurant teams and guests. That sounds, Andrew, like absolute bullshit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And sounds like absolute malarkey. Yep. So this is the. The new deal is being offered for a limited time. The company Will not say how limited that time is. The price point is a little bit higher than last time. So it used to be 20 bucks, then it was raised to 25. It's now going to be either $25 or $30, depending on your particular location. I don't know what the one down the hill from me is charging, but It'll be between 25 and $30. And there's the other thing they point out in the article. Red Lobster does not seem to be aggressively promoting the deal in its restaurants, unlike in previous years. On a recent visit, a small placard on the table was the only announcement heralding it, which.

[Andrew Walsh]

There are commercials, though, because I've seen.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. Are you seeing commercials?

[Andrew Walsh]

I was here because.

[Luke Burbank]

Here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here's what I wanted to tell you.

[Luke Burbank]

That.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I have such an frustratingly uninteresting place to take this, but I got to. Pew, pew, pew, pew. I first heard about this not in one of these actual commercials for Red Lobster, but for Ryan. You know how Ryan Reynolds is involved in all kinds of marketing stuff, and he has a marketing company. There's some, like, marketing and TV commercial placement company that he's a part of called Mountain. M N, T N. I. I know, dude. I hear myself. And there is a commercial that is some sort of a tie.

[Luke Burbank]

How much time you'll save over a lifetime. Not getting bogged down with the O and the U in Mountain.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's why you said wow. I thought you were saying wow. Just about how boring my story was, which I totally accept. I'm wowing.

[Luke Burbank]

Taking those letters out of Mountain.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm sorry. It's a company called. I'm assuming. I don't know. I assume it's pronounced Mountain, but anyway, I saw a commercial, and I'm going to play it for you. That wasn't specifically for Red Lobster, but it's for Mountain or whatever this firm is. And of course, Ryan Reynolds is in it because that's. I got to say, it's smart. He realizes I'm the best tool to use my own marketing. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

For the product.

[Andrew Walsh]

I believe in this. And I only saw this once, and it was in passing. I've been meaning to look it up, and I think I found it here. It's Ryan Reynolds. And I believe this fella, who is either the CEO or whoever he is with Red Lobster, who you just mentioned, and they're sitting down and they're talking about how if you have a special. I'm going off a memory. We'll find out if I'm Right here. If you have some sort of a special like this endless shrimp thing, again, a platform like Mountain would be the proper platform to advertise it with or on or whatever you want to say. And the thing is, I thought that there was a joke that it was somewhat limited. I thought the joke in this is the guy from a lobster is like, well, we don't want to go too far with this. Let's take a listen.

[Luke Burbank]

Marketing can feel endless, endless data, endless platform, endless decisions. But with Mountain Performance tv, any brand of any size can easily get their ad on tv. Isn't that right, CEO of Red Lobster, dimola Adam Lakin. That's right, Ryan.

[Andrew Walsh]

At Red Lobster, we need TV advertising

[Luke Burbank]

that can scale from local promotions to national campaigns like our ultimate spend less shrimp. With Mountain, we can do both. Mountain lets you get your ad on that's not endless.

[Andrew Walsh]

Quicker than it takes to get your cheesy cheddar bay biscuits.

[Luke Burbank]

That's enough shrimp though. Okay. All you do.

[Andrew Walsh]

People keep bringing out plates of shrimp to these two as they're doing this, but they're getting nervous about the amount of shrimp. It's transparent and we get it.

[Luke Burbank]

Endless shrimp. Thank you. It's not endless, but you will spend less. Correct. But that is enough shrimp.

[Andrew Walsh]

More shrimp, please. See, that's interesting. I saw this on TV somewhat recently, but it must have been before they actually did bite off more endless because they were calling it spendless spend less shrimp for a while there. This was written up in March of 2026. So just a couple of months ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, they must have caved. I mean, basically the CEO said somewhere in this article, I don't have right in front of me. Oh, here's what he said. He said, this is about putting our guests first and bringing back something they truly love. Endless shrimp has been a part of Red Lobster's legacy for 20 years and our guests have never stopped asking for it. But the funny part is, again, they're not promoting it very widely. So it's like they're putting it back, they're re instituting it for some amount of time, but they're also trying to. They're starting to low key. It's like it seems like they're kind of hoping no one takes them up on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because it's weird, people just. So in April 20th, they posted this commercial. So that's just two weeks ago that says endless shrimp. Run it back. And it is an actual TV commercial. I don't think I play it for you. It's just a thing so they've started advertising it now. But I honestly think this article you're reading might even precede 20 April, to be honest with you. So I wonder if they're sort of just going slowly and adjusting their marketing process as they're going forward.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I feel like what they want, I mean, for them, the perfect world would be that everybody knows that endless shrimp is happening again, but they don't

[Andrew Walsh]

take advantage of it.

[Luke Burbank]

They don't take advantage of it. Like, it gets them some attention. It gets some people thinking about Red Lobster. It gets some people into the restaurant. But those people then don't actually buy this because this was. This was again, the writer for the Washington Post. Let's see, Emily Heil was writing about the kind of math of it, the deal of it, and she said, let's see here. Some pre meal math told us how many shrimp we would have to eat to make this a bargain. And that is 23 shrimp. A regular scampy entre was $19, and that contained 14 shrimp, giving each crustacean a price tag of about A$36. The endless special was $30, so 22 shrimp would be our break even number. Remember, resisting filling up on the famous cheddar bay biscuits that start every meal was our first test. And we similarly paid little mind to our sides. Now that's. We had one goal, she said we were there with a single goal, shrimp maxing, which I'll accept it. I have to say that, like, man, the. I guess it's more of an Olive Garden thing, but those like the endless breadsticks and soup and salad, I think pretty smart. Pretty smart promotion. And the cheddar bay biscuits, too. Oh, my gosh. I don't. I was saying earlier, I don't know when I've last been to a Red Lobster, but I have made cheddar bay biscuits at my house out of the box. Like just, you know, pre made the powder or whatever. And they're very, very delicious. There are five styles of shrimp available under the deal. A classic breaded version called Walt's favorite.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Who's Walt? We don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is making me hungry for shrimp and I'm not a huge shrimp person, but man, this is making me Parrot

[Luke Burbank]

Isle jumbo shrimp rolled in coconut, fried and accompanied by a sweet pina colada sauce sauce, classic scampi in herb and garlic butter, a shrimp topped fettuccine Alfredo, and a new preparation called Marry Me shrimp.

[Andrew Walsh]

What's going on?

[Luke Burbank]

Bathe in a creamy tomato sauce. We determined that the scampi and the coconut styles were our favorite of the bunch. The Marry me preparation, which is based on a viral recipe for chicken, was particularly unappealing with a lumpy, flavorless sauce.

[Andrew Walsh]

So do you have to choose one of these? Or if it's endless, can you like just kind of try a whole bunch of different kinds?

[Luke Burbank]

I'll tell you exactly how, because she gets to that. Next, here's how the deal works. Each diner starts with a selection of any three styles.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

After that, they can order an additional two styles at once for as long as they like. I tapped tapped out after two rounds, while Elazar went for a third and finished some of mine to boot. In the end, I managed to eat only 19 shrimp. I could have pushed through and had some more, but I wanted to enjoy my meal and not feel like I was a contestant contestant at the Coney island hot dog eating contest. Elazar downed an impressive 43 shrimp.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. So I guess the takeaway from that is you've got to eat. What was it, more than 20 shrimp? 22 shrimp. If you eat 22 shrimp, you're breaking even. If you eat every shrimp after that is free, so you can't afford not to. And endless shrimp is back at Red Lobster. But they have mixed feelings about if you know about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

To be honest with you, after I read this whole article, it did not sound like the worst idea to me to go down the hill to the Red Lobster, the endless shrimp, because a shrimp is a thing I eat, you know, without too much reservation. I probably somebody's gonna email me, Wes is gonna get at me with something about shrimp. But you know, I, I eat shrimp, I guess on the occasion. And I don't know, it sounds as I was reading the article. It also helps that I'm always reading this at about, I don't know, 11

[Andrew Walsh]

in the morning at some point in

[Luke Burbank]

which I haven't eaten recently. Yes, but some. And again, this is not a claim to fame. We have no, like Michelin starred restaurants where I live. We have nothing. But that's not true. There's not nothing good. But it's, you know, we're not. It ain't Portland and we don't have like lots and lots of like amazing, artisanal, kind of like farm to table options. But God dang it, if we don't have a thriving Red Lobster.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I'm thinking about right now? And this is just, I'm just hungry. But, but I think I told you off air, I'VE been availing myself a bit of the sprouts. The grocery store like kind of their pre made like in, you know, near the deli, they have pre made foods and they have. And again I told you like I, I'm not a huge like kind of fish eating person but you know, I like, I like shrimp. You talk about like you know, even that coconut battered shrimp sounds really good to me. Or if I was in New England and you'd go someplace and you get like a, just a, a basket of fried various fish like things and shrimp in a little plastic red basket or whatever. I can definitely sit down with that. Yeah. Oh you should. But sprouts has this like herb shrimp that is really good and you get like a little thing of it. It's like, it's not too much. I think that's the thing about any kind of fish or you know, kind of seafood for me is like. Yeah, it's got a real, the good thing about it is it's got a real built in governor on it for me. Like I can't overeat sushi. I can sit down super, super hungry and just love sushi, but the second I'm a little bit full, I'm not going to keep eating the way if you have a basket of tots in front of you, you might eat, I don't know, five more tots than you wanted to, you know. But with sushi I'm kind of like, nope, I'm done eating raw fish now. Like my body's, my body just says you had a really good meal but don't overdo it on the raw fish.

[Luke Burbank]

See that's funny because I have the opposite. I can always pop one more little, you know, smoked eel roll into my mouth because they seem like there's like a little medallion of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And honestly, here's the thing about me and sushi. The other restaurant by the way that seems to be thriving down in town is a all you can eat sushi place. And they put it in, in what used to be a Perkins, you know, or like, or Sherry's or one of those places that went out of business and, and now they hermit crabbed in there and it's, it's like all you get. And I kept seeing it and it was sushi and then it was like a Y, C E and I was like, why do I keep seeing these Ace sushi places? What is ace? Why, what a weird name. It's all you can eat a Y, C E but they just write BO cuff. Ace is the place they. And so I, I, I went there once just like, oh, I'm gonna get some sushi. And then when I went in, I realized it was all you can eat.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was like, yeah, no, thank you for saying that.

[Luke Burbank]

I, I something I want to eat

[Andrew Walsh]

in mass, as I like to say. You don't want to overpay for sushi, right? Like, oh, no. Like, there's a place in the U District that says always 50% off. Which, first of all, I don't know what that means. I don't know how fish can always be 50% off. And it's been there for years. But also, nothing makes me want to eat there less than seeing that sign.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you don't want bargain, but you don't want to be Homer Simpson in that episode where he gets the, the like, not so frozen shrimp at the Kwik E Mart and he eats it and he goes to the hospital. Then he goes back to, oh, no, sorry. He's eating, he was eating some lunch meat.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are you talking about the long sandwich that he ends up sleeping with?

[Luke Burbank]

No, that he can't be mad at. That's a different episode. This is where he buys some, like, marked down lunch meat at the Kwik E Mart, and it gives him food poisoning. And cut to. He's in the ambulance going to the hospital. So he comes back to the Kwik E Mart, and he says to Apu, hey, you, you know, you sold me this expired meat and it made me sick. And Apu said, says, please accept our apologies, and also 5 pounds of frozen shrimp. And Homer goes, hey, that. It's like flies are buzzing around. He goes, he goes, that shrimp isn't even frozen anymore. And Apu goes, how about ten pounds? And then just cuts to the ambulance going back to. But anyway, you don't want that is what I'm saying.

[Andrew Walsh]

No. Could you just tell me more about the mummy's bathroom sink? Because that I'm trying to figure out what is worse. Thinking about the.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that'll stave off the hunger for a while.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's certainly worse.

[Luke Burbank]

You can think about that in kinds of scenarios where you need to either not be hungry or maybe perform in certain departments. Like, it's, it's a real showstopper. Here. I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female. All right, any emails or V mails that are of interest today?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I have a voicemail that I'm gonna play for you here, and I Want to say I don't usually. First of all, we don't usually get voicemails that are just like full on rants. And I'm a little hesitant to hit play on this. I listened to this a couple of weeks ago when I grabbed it off the voicemail line. And I think, I think this listener who did not leave their name gets pretty hot and bothered in this rant. But it has to do with, we're talking about like school fundraisers. And you've talked about this for years feeling like as a kid, like you had to go out and, and knock on doors or whatever to sell. What were you selling as a kid as a fundraiser and you were jealous.

[Luke Burbank]

Pepperoni sticks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Yeah. And other kids.

[Luke Burbank]

And I was eating the pepperoni sticks for nourishment. So I was like eating into the profits.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. But also like you kind of had a bit of a chip on your shoulder for the people whose like, parents would go into like big office places or places where there's a lot of other colleagues who just like buy up all their kids candy or pepperoni sticks or whatever it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Screw that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And that is exactly where this person is coming from.

[Caller]

Luke, your take on the Girl Scout cookies could not be more right. As someone who tried to sell Boy Scout popcorn. Popcorn, which, first of all, you're at such a disadvantage now by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm playing this voicemail, but I would like to tell listeners this is not the kind of voicemail to leave. I didn't, I don't think I realized how bad of a Bluetooth audio situation this is. People when they're driving. And I understand you're leaving a voicemail, you don't know how bad it sounds. Sounds. Yeah. But this is, this is rough stuff. I usually wouldn't play this, this quality. So, you know, and I don't want anybody to drive dangerously, but just make sure you're in a safe space.

[Luke Burbank]

As I've often said, I don't. I will never have the confidence to talk into the built in speaker on my car.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Yeah. Because you, you know what it sounds like, so. And again, I feel comfortable saying that because this person didn't leave their name. So it's just, it's just gentle shame on an anonymous caller.

[Caller]

Delicate popcorn when the Girl Scouts are selling cookies. That disadvantage number one and then the unfairness when I was selling popcorn for the Boy Scouts, that's when I realized the world was not fair and that vertical integration was going to crush out the middle class. Because every year my dad Would say, oh, are you going to sell the most? And I'd say, no, I'm not going to sell the most. Because first, Zach, Zack's father, is freaking the CEO of the biggest corporation in town. And what he did is had his dad put his order sheet on his door. That's all he did. He just put the order sheet on the door. And then all of his lackeys just lined up and they said, well, obviously we're gonna order as much popcorn as we freaking can, because reviews are coming up and we need a raise. It was ridiculous. And every single time, Zach weighted all the prizes and I got nothing. And my dad refused. Refused to use his title. Even though he was an executive. He was an executive. He refused to use his title. My brother and I had to go around our neighborhood and we got doors slammed in our face. Anyway. Could not agree more.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm on the road.

[Caller]

I'm just venting. Love this job. Power out.

[Andrew Walsh]

I like that.

[Luke Burbank]

The more worked up he got, the better the cell phone.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's why I think that's the. Because I think if you are going

[Luke Burbank]

to call us on Bluetooth, you. To really bring the energy. It obviously responds to that frequency.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. I. I think I reviewed that not having headphones on, so I don't think I quite realized the sound quality there. But anyway, I do wonder, though, do you think Zach. What do you think Zach is up to today? Do you think Zach is a successful

[Luke Burbank]

member, professional popcorn salesman?

[Andrew Walsh]

That would be something.

[Luke Burbank]

That's his origin story, by the way. That is. That's. You want to talk about unfair on. On multiple levels, obviously, like, little Boy scouts are cute and. And lovable, and we're happy for them to be in the world. But a girl Scout selling a cookie versus a boy Scout selling popcorn. Popcorn is yummy. Some people that I know really, really love popcorn. It's a big part of their. Their weekly experience. They look forward to it. It's not as good as a cookie for most people, if you're trying to.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

Like, the fact that you're sending the boys out with the popcorn and they're supposed to be competing in a way, with the girl Scouts who have the cookies. Unfair.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, you know, that is interesting. If you were to tell me, and I don't know why you would. It's pretty effed up if you did. But if you were to tell me that I had to live the rest of my life without cookies or without popcorn, I would get rid of cookies and continue to eat popcorn throughout the day.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow, I'm shocked by that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Having said that, I mean, I just eat more. I eat more popcorn than I eat cookies. And it's such. I just can't imagine going to the movie theater and eating Thin Mints if I'm in the movie theater. I don't even eat candy in the movie theater. I only eat popcorn. And so that. I love that I. I like making the occasional bag of microwave popcorn or what. I really do like popcorn a great deal, and I don't have as much of a sweet tooth. I'm not saying I want to give up cookies. I'm just saying that I really, really don't want to give up popcorn. Point is, I'm still not buying popcorn. You like the experience of buying Girl Scout cookies is just like. That's a special thing you do. I love popcorn, but I don't need to buy. In fact, I'm almost leery of buying some sort of fundraiser popcorn because I don't think fundraiser popcorn is going to be where it's at, to be honest with you. No offense to the Boy Scouts.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, no, that was a bad. That was a bum deal for them. I'll tell you. I am probably. I would say I have to be maybe the top cookie consumer from the McDonald's. That is between where I do livewire in Portland and my house. It is my Thursday night ritual now. It starts with, I get in the car as Philosophy Talk is just starting.

[Andrew Walsh]

Perfect.

[Luke Burbank]

What is it? What do they say? What's their catchphrase? The show that. It's like something like the show that. Oh, yeah. The show that questions everything except your intelligence.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I love that Philosophy Talk.

[Luke Burbank]

God, I love that show. It's so bad, and I love it so much. Much. But I listen to Philosophy Talk and I. I stop at the McDonald's in Woodland and every single time I order cookies, they make me go wait in the parking lot because it's to bake

[Andrew Walsh]

the cookies just to make the damn thing.

[Luke Burbank]

No one is ever. No one is buying these cookies except me. Because every time I get them, they're like, can you just pull around to the to go thing and we'll bring you your cookies because we're make. We're making them fresh for you. And they're so good, Andrew. And there is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are you not getting anything else, though? Are you going through that?

[Luke Burbank]

I get French fries.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. I was gonna say, you must get something to eat before the cookies. Like, I usually eat a nugget I've

[Luke Burbank]

eaten at the show or something. I'LL get a thing of fries. Maybe I'll do a, like a. Occasionally I'll do a fish sandwich. It's not too early to get a fish sandwich at 10 o' clock at night. But mostly I'm just on, man. I'm on a mission to get those cookies. And there is some kind of God knows what preservative in these cookies because they never go bad. I'll have them for like a week. They'll just be sitting. I'll put them in a Ziploc bag, I'll put them on the counter and I'll just, I'll treat myself. Sometimes I'll have a cookie in the morning with my coffee. Coffee. When David and Alicia were over, Alicia made some really delicious cookies. Even better than McDonald's, if you can believe that. And I was eating them with coffee in the morning. I think cookies do not. We don't talk about cookies as a breakfast food enough. You can tell this is a whole thing with me, like a cookie, a chocolate chip cookie and a perfectly made cup of coffee. That's, that's nirvana in my mind. Like, we eat a lot of other baked goods and sweet treats in the morning. You know, there's all kinds of approved sweet treats, treats. What I think is funny is that cookies never made it on the list again.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, I'm not, not trying to erase your personal experience, but my taste, I'm just like, even the more societally approved sweet treats for breakfast, I don't go in for them. In fact, I'd mentioned that I was driving Genevieve to work. And usually if I find myself out and about in the morning before the show, I do sort of thing like, ooh, I'm in the car, I could get some sort of breakfast food. The first thing that I always turn to. And I hate to say that there's just not a good convenience place in Seattle for this, but like if I were in like New England or the east coast or something, it would be a bagel sandwich. I would love a bagel sandwich. And I know that there are special places in Seattle, but it's like a whole thing, you know what I mean? Like, it's kind of like, oh, somebody, some beard award winning chef has set up their bagel place that you can, you know, wait in line for or something. I just mean like your, your casual, decent, east coast style bagel sandwich with maybe egg. And I would probably get some sausage on it if possible if they were or if there was sling in it, something like that. I crave that something Maybe a little bit greasy or just a bowl of Cheerios or something that just sort of absorbs the night, the sleepy times. But never do I want something sweet in the morning. I think I worry about the sugar rush or something. It just doesn't appeal to me.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't eat a lot of sweet stuff in the morning either, generally. But here's the thing. My consumption of cookies is just an entry point point to my consumption of milk. What I actually like about eating a cookie, a chocolate chip cookie or an Oreo or whatever, is eating the cookie and then taking a big slug of cold milk. That there's something about that contrast. It's like the cookie makes me thirsty. The sip of milk tastes so good, but it's like, so if I don't have milk, I don't. I have no interest in the cookies. That's.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're.

[Luke Burbank]

They're a tandem deal, except a cup of coffee. I love chewing a, you know, eating a cookie and then chasing it with a cup of. I also, you know, I put half and half of my coffee. It's almost milk. It's half and half. It's got some Splenda. It's a whole thing. But that combination is really good for. I really enjoy that in the morning, on special mornings. It's not how I start every day. Most days I just eat Cookie Crisp, which is how they got that one passed.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

The Search Engine General or whatever. Like, yeah, let's just pour milk on these chocolate chip cookies, please.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I remember ending it. I don't. I don't like to food shame other people. I have my own food shame that I don't mind talking about, like we discussed last week. But I'm not going to tell people what they should or should not buy. Yes. As treats or breakfast or whatever. But I was pretty shocked. This goes back years. And I know I brought it up on the show to see that they just make Oreos cereal, which is. I mean, I don't know why that's any different than, you know, Cookie Crisp, but there was just something about it. It's like Oreos. Oreos are obviously a dessert. And now it's just kind of like, oh, look, they're little and they're in milk and like. Okay. But the thing that is offensive about Oreo cereal is I believe I want

[Luke Burbank]

Oreos, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

I believe. I know. I believe they're called Oreo O's.

[Luke Burbank]

Oreo Puffs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, no.

[Luke Burbank]

There's Oreo O's and Oreo Puffs. I'm looking this up.

[Andrew Walsh]

And why would they be called Oreo Os? They should just Oreos called Oreo Dash O's. That's the most offensive thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Eat whatever you want, but can you run it by me before you name your products, please?

[Luke Burbank]

No, that's really. I mean, that's just. That's really silly. Post. Nice job. Now, here's the thing. And I don't want to like, no, but. Or be the, you know, detail police here, but it looks like the cereal is a sort of quasi traditional breakfast or whatever that means. That's Oreo flavored as opposed to not little mini cookies. That would be a smart idea though, I think.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, of course. How would the cream in the inside affect the milk? Right. Yeah, I guess you don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Then they've got puffs too, which actually.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I could really do some damage on these.

[Andrew Walsh]

You and I are just. I see. So hungry right now.

[Luke Burbank]

I know. Dude, seriously.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm seriously thinking about just driving.

[Luke Burbank]

Go make yourself too many Grape Nuts. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

How's that? How's that? Blue sky. Blue sky.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. Yeah. What did I tweet it? I. I was having Grape Nuts for cereal. I was having Grape Nuts for breakfast the other day, and I was so unbelievably hungry because I had drinking too much coffee. And I don't know if this is a unique thing to me, but, like, coffee, I think it is. I think it is opposite of a lot of people's experiences because I think you and I have talked about it before.

[Luke Burbank]

Drinking suppressor for me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. But then I get to a point where it's been sitting in me for all, and I get this, like, weird, empty, very, very empty stomach feeling after too much coffee. And I need to fill it, and it needs to be filled with something that is a little bit like, you know, like a Cheerio or even a piece of toast or something carby or something.

[Luke Burbank]

Chocolate chip cookie.

[Andrew Walsh]

Chocolate chip cookie. And so I was so hungry and I poured those Grape nuts into my bowl. And I know how Grape Nuts work. This isn't my first Grape Nuts rodeo, but I'm just like, no, I'm hungry. And I poured more in there. And then you're just like. I'm sitting in front of my computer doing work, and I'm just like, looking down at all of the Grape Nuts that are now intermingled with.

[Luke Burbank]

They're expanding, like.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I'm just like. I was full, like four spoonfuls ago, and I'm looking down and there's still so many Grape Nuts left in there. Now, my friend Jessica's, I don't know, grandfather or something had an expression that, like, if you eat food once you're full, you're eating garbage, which is something that I try to keep in my mind because otherwise you should be throwing it away, right? You're done. And now you're just eating it because it's in front of you. So I try not to just clean my plate for the sake of cleaning my plate, but it is something that I have trouble breaking the habit of. And I'm just spooning these Grape Nuts, this cement into my. And you know, that stuff sits heavy in you. You know, it's not. It's not the most unhealthy thing in the world, certainly Grape Nuts, but, like, you know, it's. It's gonna fill you up. It's gonna do the trick. And, like, you don't need to be shoveling more of that. But I was just like, I made the mistake when I was pouring these. I was super hungry, and I thought that I knew better than the Grape Nuts. You never know better than the Grape Nuts.

[Luke Burbank]

Grape Nuts bat last.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what they always say.

[Luke Burbank]

What the bumper stickers say.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, now I'm kind of hungry for Grape Nuts. And I also feel like you could do a lot worse. Like, you know, as far as your cereal choices, like Grape Nuts seem.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, they're gotta be healthier.

[Luke Burbank]

They gotta be there because they're pretty. I mean, they're basically cardboard unless you start putting honey on them. Yeah, they don't taste good enough to be bad for you.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I also love them if they're bad for you. That is the ultimate con. That is the ultimate con.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right. Are you kidding? Guess what? We're gonna make this. And again, I love grapeness, don't get me wrong. But it's like. It is a weird thing. Thing. Like, we're gonna make this taste like cardboard. But here's the twist. They're gonna be worse. It's gonna be worse for them than Oreos.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just go and eat Oreo's. Yes, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, that is going to do it for today's episode. But we'll be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. I will be in Boston and I will have found out if I had the worst six and a half hours of my life are the best. So we'll get a full update on that, plus I'm sure lots of other fun, interesting things. If you have the time, please join us for that in the meantime, everybody have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all.

[Luke Burbank]

We get somebody else to do this. And the fumes in that place.

[Andrew Walsh]

Jack,

[Luke Burbank]

it's an important job. I need someone I can trust. You are my number one guy. Now,

[Andrew Walsh]

don't forget your lucky deck. Power out.