Vault: Is Your Hobby a Hobby Or an Obsession?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Bert Show

Episode: Vault: Is Your Hobby a Hobby Or an Obsession?

Date: March 24, 2026

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Overview

In this engaging and humorous episode, The Bert Show cast dives into the blurred boundaries between harmless hobbies and full-blown obsessions. Through personal anecdotes, listener stories, and lighthearted debate, they explore when quirky interests go “too far,” sparking playful reflection on what it means when hobbies start spilling over into every corner of life and relationships.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. When Hobbies Interrupt Relationships

• Video Games at 3:00 a.m.
  • The show opens with a story about a woman whose boyfriend consistently wakes up at 3 a.m. to play video games before work. This routine begins to disrupt her sleep and their lives, prompting the question: when does a partner's hobby cross the line?
  • Host: “She cannot sleep through the night because her boyfriend has this consistent routine…to go play video games.” (00:47)

2. Hobbies Consuming Living Spaces

• Model Train Example
  • A basement originally reserved for a husband’s model train hobby gradually becomes overtaken until the entire space is dedicated to it.
  • Host: “It went from the corner of the basement to the fact that it took up the entire basement.” (01:56)
  • Co-host: “And you know, that was his goal from the beginning. ‘I'm gonna cover every square foot of this basement.’” (02:25)
• This sparks the key question: when do you need to stage an ‘intervention’ with your partner’s hobby?

3. Family Hobby Interventions

• Ceramics Takeover
  • Katie shares a story about her grandmother’s ceramics obsession, which led to annual holiday gifts nobody really wanted and eventually a ceremonial “intervention” by the family.
  • Katie: “I remember the intervention that took place with my aunts and uncles just having to explain to my grandmother that, like, hey, you're a little out of control with the ceramics.” (04:46)
• Unwanted Collections
  • The group jokes about themed kitchens—cows, pigs, roosters—and how single-themed decor can overrun a home.
  • Host: “If Katie was big into … our whole kitchen looked like a Chick-fil-A cow or, you know, the rooster thing going on.” (05:29)

4. Childhood Hobbies into Adulthood

• Dolls, Stuffed Animals, and Collectibles
  • Listeners and hosts relate stories about adults maintaining collections of dolls or stuffed animals, sometimes filling rooms and even cars.
  • Discussion about the point at which nostalgic collecting drifts into the territory of obsession.
  • Co-host: “Dolls are creepy. When you pass the age of what, 15?” (06:27)
  • Host: “All these things seem to be like you've taken things from childhood and you're applying them to adulthood…” (06:33)

5. Forcing Hobbies onto Others

• Winnie the Pooh Overload
  • Katie recalls how a friend staged an “intervention” for someone overly decorating their child’s room with Winnie the Pooh memorabilia.
  • Katie: “I remember Jessica doing an intervention on her childhood best friend who was over Winnie the Pooh-ing her kid.” (06:57)
  • The conversation extends to parents pushing their favorite Disney characters onto children and even adults sans kids obsessing over Disney.

6. Listener Call-ins: Real-Life Obsessions

• Darth Maul Shrine

  • Amy shares about her best friend’s years-long Darth Maul (Star Wars) shrine: “There was a blow up chair, pens cup…” (08:21)
  • The cast debates—innocent fan enthusiasm or a red flag?

• Entire Home is a Mickey Mouse Shrine

  • Kendra calls in to confess her house is “Mickey Mouse everything,” prompting questions about how far is too far.
  • Kendra: “My entire house is Mickey Mouse. I got Mickey Mouse flatware and a toaster. And the snow globes sit above my counters in the kitchen.” (10:10)
  • Asked how guests react, she admits: “Some people walk in and go, oh, no. And I always joke that my house looks like a five year old's bedroom threw up.” (10:45)

• The hosts probe her motivations and whether being unmarried or child-free changes how this is perceived.

7. Where to Draw the Line

• The cast acknowledges all-consuming fandoms outside “typical” hobbies, including sports.
  • Co-host: “It could be just as obnoxious with college football ... but that's acceptable.” (09:19)
  • They agree the principle is the same: when a single passion dominates home decor and family life, it may be time for a conversation.
  • Katie: “It’s anything in quantity is a ... becomes an obsession and it becomes odd.” (11:13)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the moment to intervene:
  Host: “When do you have to go to your partner and say, you know what? We need to talk?” (02:54)
• Lighthearted self-reflection:
  Katie: “Can’t get away with it in my 30s, but in my 60s, I’m so there to be a ceramic artist.” (03:32)
• On Disney fandom boundaries:
  Co-host: “Or the people who don’t have kids and are way into Disney, like, that’s a little bit over the top too.” (07:28)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:47–02:23 — Video game hobbies disrupting couples’ sleep and model train takeover of the basement
• 03:05–04:46 — Family interventions on overflowing hobbies (ceramics)
• 05:29–06:49 — Themed kitchens and unwanted collections
• 06:57–07:25 — Influencing (and over-influencing) kids with adult obsessions
• 08:21–09:19 — Darth Maul shrine and parallels with sports fandom
• 10:04–11:13 — Listener Kendra’s Mickey Mouse obsession, defining the line between hobby and obsession

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Conclusion

The Bert Show approaches the hobby-versus-obsession debate with warmth, humor, and relatable honesty. From model trains to Mickey Mouse decor, they remind listeners that while passionate interests can enrich our lives, it’s worth reflecting on when they begin to monopolize space, relationships, and identity. Ultimately, the episode offers a fun, self-deprecating take on our tendencies to go “all in”—and the gentle interventions that sometimes follow.

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Transcript

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[Katie]

The Bird Show.

[Host]

So Katie and I had a conversation recently about when do you draw the line and at your girlfriend or boyfriend's hobbies. And this could be husband and wife as well because we have a friend who now she cannot sleep through the night because her boyfriend has this consistent routine of getting up about 3 o' clock in the morning to go play video games like before work, like while he brew breakfast and then he will go to work. So she will go to bed with her boyfriend, everything's fine. And she said she used to be a deep sleeper, but she simply, when he gets up now, and I guess she wakes up and wonders where he is and found consistently he gets up and he goes and plays video games.

[Co-host]

Is it because he has insomnia and in video games it's just kind of what he does to sort of pass the time rather than lay there wide awake?

[Host]

I really have no idea. I just know it spawned a conversation about, well, this is kind of his hobby. It's his thing. And he's picking an odd time to do it. But then we also heard about another friend whose husband. They bought a home and the home had a basement. And one of the agreements was that he liked mod trains. That was his hobby. Right. So there was a corner of the basement in which he was able to. And like, you know, a lot of guys when you're a kid, you have their table and you, you know, at least with my brother when he was a kid, let me say that he would nail the tracks on this big wooden table and his big elaborate train set. You know, when he was a kid. Well, some adults still have those train sets. So this husband had put that train set in the basement and over time it went from the corner of the basement to the fact that it took up the entire basement.

[Katie]

It's like a village down there.

[Host]

Yeah, the whole thing.

[Co-host]

And you know, that was his goal from the beginning.

[Host]

Oh, of course.

[Co-host]

I'm Gonna cover every square foot of this basement.

[Host]

And he does. And now he has. And so she's now her basement and her house. If you go, you know, is the. Like, you walk into, I guess, West Virginia mountainside, where there's, you know, the painted hill with the grass, and he's got the little trains and the little people and everything. I mean, I can just. Im having his little conductor hat as he sits on his stool with his little remote control, but still. And then we thought, well, when do you go too far with a hobby? Because we thought, you know what, the entire basement. Like, when do you have to go to your partner and say, you know what? We need to talk?

[Katie]

I didn't. My aunt actually did this to my grandmother, and both of them are passed away. So they're negotiating this up in heaven now.

[Co-host]

Okay.

[Host]

And they probably really still are, because I'm sure those conversations, God's like, come on, seriously, guys.

[Katie]

My grandma got involved in ceramics in her old age and would paint, you know, where you make the stuff, and then she'd put it in the.

[Co-host]

Can't wait to get old to get into something like that.

[Host]

Can't get away with it in my 30s, but in my 60s, I'm so

[Co-host]

there be a ceramic artist.

[Katie]

And she did. And she did other things. Like, she did knitting and stuff like that. But, like, ceramics or what? That was the big one. So every year, for every holiday, every one of her kids, so my dad and all my aunt and uncle, aunts and uncles would get ceramic stuff. And most of them would have to do with the holiday, but then some of them would just be random, probably because all of the, like, the gingerbread houses were taken, so it would just be like a random ceramic goose, you know, but it would be one, because who wants one goose? Nobody really wants or not a goose. A swan. The swan's the white one. So it'd be like a white swan, but who wants really a white swan? So then you would get, like, three of them over the next three holidays. So you would have a complete set. And then you have the little ducklings. And when my aunt moved from New York, upstate New York, after my uncle retired, she moved to Arizona, and she gave, like, boxes of ceramics back to my grandmother, who was heartbroken, but she was moving into a smaller house. Like, this is a house.

[Co-host]

She didn't give it back.

[Katie]

They lived in for years, but she thought she was doing the right thing, like, where she was like, hey, I'm.

[Co-host]

She's not gonna give him to Goodwill or something.

[Katie]

We're moving from this four bedroom house that had our home office in it where we raised our family out to Arizona. We're moving into probably a one bedroom maybe. Maybe a bedroom in a guest room house. We just don't have space for it. My grandma was just heartbroken. And like, I remember I was only like 12 years old at the time, but I remember the intervention that took place with my aunts and uncles just having to explain to my grandmother that, like, hey, you're a little out of control with the ceramics.

[Host]

See, sweet. I mean, I guess you. Yeah, that's sweet that someone does ceramics. But now something that's not sweet is. I know. Like back when the whole cow pattern was big, the whole black and white,

[Katie]

like, oh, the dairy cow, the chick

[Host]

fil a cow pattern, or roosters also. This also applies to the rooster phase, is if you go into somebody's kitchen. That's another thing. If I was. If Katie was big into our whole kitchen looked like, like you said, a chick fil a cow or, you know, the rooster thing going on.

[Co-host]

I know people who have the pig theme.

[Host]

The pig theme. Like, I think that's where, you know. Oh, I started collecting pigs when I was 12. And now half the house is oink, oink. And then you'd have to say something.

[Co-host]

Yeah. I have a friend who, when she was a kid, collected some sort of doll, some sort of collectible doll. I don't even know what type it

[Katie]

is, but I'm sure that generation's American Girl.

[Co-host]

Yeah, it would be like that. But I don't even know what the name of them are. But if you are into that, you would know what this brand name is. I guess. Apparently each one's very expensive and elaborate and blah, blah, blah, whatever. But like, for a long time she would still have them out and I would be like, you can't.

[Host]

What's the stuffed animal theory? The stuffed animal thing?

[Co-host]

Yeah. I mean, I understand the collectible value of them or whatever, but dolls are creepy. When you pass the age of what?

[Host]

Well, 15, I think. We're taught. All these things seem to be like you've taken things from childhood and you're applying them to adulthood because the stuffed animal that takes up all your bed or the car. I really don't understand why you have stuffed animals in the back window of your car. I don't understand that either.

[Co-host]

Beanie Babies.

[Katie]

Yes. You know, there are people listening right now who have had to do interventions on their significant others.

[Co-host]

Yes.

[Katie]

I remember Jessica doing an intervention on her childhood best friend who was over Winnie the Pooh ing her kid.

[Co-host]

Oh, no,

[Host]

don't push Winnie the Pooh or push these things on your kid.

[Katie]

He had like an Eeyore onesie in his Christopher Robin room. You know what I mean?

[Co-host]

Yes.

[Katie]

What did you just say?

[Co-host]

I was just saying that there's sometimes that, that happens at Disney when like a parent really likes a certain character and is like pushing it on their kid.

[Katie]

Yeah. Then you end up overdosing on it.

[Co-host]

Right. Or the people who don't have kids and are way into Disney, like, that's a little bit over the top too. Like, we were talking about this with. I was talking to a girlfriend last night saying that those kids on Birds Big Adventure, like they know which princess is all theirs. And she said she had a friend in college who she cheered with who was so obsessed with Disney. Like, she would. They would go to college cheerleading competitions in Orlando and she would get up early in the morning and leave the rest of the cheerleaders and go to the character breakfast. Like by herself? Yes, by herself as a college student because she was so into Disney. And then she would go back to meet up with her cheerleaders and they'd do their ESPN competitions and all that stuff.

[Katie]

I get Disney. By yourself? Because then you can do what ride when you want. The character breakfast.

[Co-host]

Character breakfast by herself. And she was in her 20s. Yeah.

[Katie]

Hey, Amy, welcome to the bird show.

[Co-host]

Hanging on to the pets.

[Guest]

Yeah. My best friend, she's since grown out of it, but for a good eight years there, she had a Darth Maul shrine.

[Host]

Darth Maul, Star Wars.

[Guest]

Oh, yeah. There was a blow up chair, pens cup.

[Host]

Now wait a second. There's nothing wrong with that. Okay.

[Co-host]

You're like, no, no, no, no.

[Host]

Cheers.

[Guest]

I go to Dragon Kong with her. But I mean, it was a shrine.

[Co-host]

She's in her 30s and you're like, that's enough. You gotta stop decorating with your childhood cartoons. That is not the theme of your home.

[Host]

She's like, okay, you know what? Wait a second, I'm out of this conversation now. No, but then when Katie and I talked about these things, like, and I appreciate the call when Katie and I talk about these things, we also talk about, well, you know, is it, you know, would they be doing other things that you'd rather not them be doing if they weren't like into this hobby? You know what I mean? Like, how much do you fuss at somebody who is doing something like the train set or whatever?

[Co-host]

Right. When it's an innocent thing? Yeah, it's an innocent. Yeah. Like her Star wars stuff. But it could be just as obnoxious with college football. Like if that. But that's acceptable.

[Katie]

That's only acceptable because you're into it.

[Host]

No, no, I'm saying that sarcastically. I do think that college. The college football thing or the. Or the NFL or any of the sports thing is the same exact thing as everything we're talking about.

[Co-host]

Guys. I agree with you. And if you are over the top, any sports team. And that's the theme of the decor of your home.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host]

Not just your, you know, game room that you watch the game in, but it's like everywhere.

[Host]

Right.

[Co-host]

That's too much.

[Host]

That's the same thing.

[Katie]

And keep in mind you're talking to the girl who painted her basement orange.

[Host]

But that was the viewing sports was the small trim.

[Katie]

Kendra, I give you that. Speaking of decor in the house.

[Guest]

My entire house is.

[Host]

Is what?

[Guest]

Mickey Mouse. Really?

[Host]

Even the kitchen, the bathroom.

[Guest]

I got Mickey Mouse flatware and a toaster. And the snow globes sit above my counters in the kitchen.

[Co-host]

So explain the obsession slightly. Explain it to us though. Help us understand it.

[Guest]

I've just always loved Disney. I grew up in California and I moved to San Diego in college and I was 89 miles from Disneyland, so I got to go every other weekend. And I even have Mickey Mouse tattooed on my wrist.

[Katie]

Are you. Are you a married gal?

[Guest]

No, I'm not.

[Host]

What does a boyfriend say when they first see your house?

[Guest]

They don't really freak out too much because most of it's like collector stuff. It's not like I have like little stuffed animals all over the house. But some people walk in and go, oh, no. And I always joke that my house looks like a five year old's bedroom threw up.

[Host]

Do you have like Mickey Mouse wallpaper or anything?

[Guest]

No.

[Co-host]

Okay. Do you have kids?

[Guest]

No.

[Host]

And how about the theme? But I think that. Yeah, but there is over.

[Co-host]

Consolidated to one area.

[Host]

Overkill.

[Katie]

It's anything in quantity is a. Is becomes an obsession and it becomes odd.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Co-host]

It becomes your decor of your entire home. Then maybe it's a little bit.

[Host]

Yeah, we. We. Yeah, we. It is just. When is it. When do you have to do an intervention? So I guess maybe when it spills past a room into another room when

[Katie]

you're baking with your Mickey Mouse oven mitts.

[Co-host]

Time to say it's when.

[Katie]

To say when. The Birch show.

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