← The Commercial Break
The Commercial Break
A Meaty P-Trap
01:10:58
Bryan & Krissy discuss Fishtank Live, Galaxy Gas, freon theft, the crawlspace, a meaty p-trap, Chuck E. Cheese, and crispy peps.
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- [00:00]
Brian Green
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
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Brian Green
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- [00:30]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
VGW Group void war prohibited by law.
- [00:33]
Brian Green
18/ terms and conditions do apply.
- [00:35]
Astrid
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- [01:06]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Is falling apart around us, John, and I'm dying inside. On this episode of the commercial break. The pipe is only so big and if it gets a lot of stuff stuck in there, it's gonna back up. So I thought, well yeah, it's probably the meat, babe. Probably the meat. So now we're on our way to Chucky fucking Cheese for one of my kids birthdays and now I got a full blown emergency under my s. I got a bunch of meat stuck in my P trap. If you don't know what a P trap is, look it up. I'm not gonna explain it here. The next episode of the commercial break starts now. You're probably smoking crack cocaine. Ah, yeah, guys, it gets. Welcome back to the commercial break again. I'm Brian Green. This is my dear friend and the co host of this show, Kristen Joy Hoadley. Best to you, Chris.
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Astrid
Beth. To you Brian.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Best you out there in the podcast universe. You don't know it, but that's the seventh time I've said that to you in the last couple minutes.
- [02:01]
Astrid
Best to you Br you, Brian.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Best you. Best you. No, no, no, no, no. Best to you. How we doing? We okay, everyone recording. All right, good. Christina and everybody else learning the ropes here in the brand new studio.
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Astrid
We're still learning.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, we're still learning. We went without a studio TV for like four days and then Brian decided this morning at 6:00 in the morning that we probably needed to see someone we're going to talk to later on today.
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Astrid
Yeah.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
So I rushed to Best Buy, asked for a very specific television. That guy was like, you know what you want? Then tried to sell me on another television. Dude, I've been through it. Just, can you please get me the tv? I don't have. I don't have long. People are dialing in from the UK Anyway, check out. Speaking of the uk, check out Russell Howard, our guest this week. Very lovely, talented, popular comedian in the uk, making his way to the United States for another round of tour dates on the West Coast. All the information is in the show notes from Tuesday's episodes. We sure do hope you go watch it. I am currently watching my new favorite obsession, the Fish Tank Viewer. It's called the Fish Tank this Tank Viewer. It's a house somewhere in the United States of America where they give people free room and board. And the catch is they are being videotaped 24 hours a day, I think, except for the bathrooms, I don't know, because I didn't actually pay to watch the site, but I keep on watching their Instagram. There's very few people that are onto this right now, but it is literally a fish tank. And you are viewing crazy people living together in a crazy situation.
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Astrid
Isn't that Big Brother?
- [03:31]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
It is Big Brother. Only this is real crazy people. Like, the Big Brother is now, I think, all celebrity crazy people. And who fucking cares? They know they're being watched. The difference is they know they're being filmed because there's cameras in the house. They don't know it's live. They know they're being filmed. They don't know it's live. So I don't know how they don't know it's live, but they don't know it's live. So at least that's the catch that they say. So if you want a very interesting Instagram account to follow, you seen. I've seen people getting in fights. I've seen women throwing food at men. I've seen women doing weird things to themselves. Not sexual things, but weird things to themselves while apparently nobody else is. What I mean, just like strange human behavior that we probably all do in some form or fashion. I mean, honestly, you know, I said this a couple of weeks ago and then I saw it on Russell's special, too. And I think this is probably coming into the collective consciousness now. Our phones are constantly recording devices and they're taking notes and they're reading our text messages and we're putting everything we do, all of our. No, everything that we do on these phones or on social media. All of us are going to be arrestable at some point. All of us are going to have arrestable offenses at some point on our phones. But if you could watch. Yeah, there's another thing going wrong there. Let's just fix that now, too. What a disaster this episode is. This will be the funniest episode of commercial break history, guaranteed. Because that's the way it always works out. But, you know, if someone could record me 24 hours a day, I don't think anybody would like me. I just don't. I do weird shit all the time. I'm constantly walking around doing weird shit. If you got the version of me that Astrid gets, you wouldn't like me either. That's all I gotta say. Astrid feels obligated to stay with me because she knows I'll fall apart if she leaves me. I'll just be a drunken, disorderly mess. Yes, I'll be one big reason to call the cops. That's what it'll be. And the children certainly aren't going with me. No judge in their right mind is going to look at the commercial break and go, yet they should be with him. He eats cream and cereal for breakfast. The God knows how much. How many drugs the guy has done.
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Astrid
Yeah, exactly.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
And he doesn't have a straight thought to save his life. Plus, I'm pretty sure that studio is a fire hazard of epic proportions, because it is, for sure. Anyway, new studio in the TV looks nice. I like that. I think we look better on this TV than we did on the other TV. This one's an actual 4K. I think the other one was just pretend 4K. Remember for a while there they kept saying, you know, yeah, coming soon, 4K capabilities. But then when 4K came, my TV didn't change. I just. It just got weirder. Like, the TV looked weirder. It looked like we were, you know, like an old video camera or something. Do you know that when it was on that weird setting. Yeah. And I couldn't get my. They couldn't get that TV off it. So anyway, so here we are with our new TV in the studio, and finally we're recording. So you're hearing actually what we're doing. There you go. That's. So. Speaking of drugs and a hot mess, I read the most interesting article the other day and it hit very close to home. Because it's very close to home. Let me explain. The New York magazine wrote a very Lengthy article on the new drug craze sweeping the nation. What they called the Next Drug Epidemic, and the title was something along the lines of the Next Drug Epidemic comes in blueberry flavor.
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Astrid
Really?
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yes. And the new drug epidemic they were talking about is something called Galaxy Gas. Galaxy Gas is just nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide, the laughing gas that you get at dentist office that keeps you from going literally crazy as they drilling a hole in your head.
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Astrid
Or outside of a Grateful Dead.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Or outside of a Grateful Dead show or any fish show or goose show.
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Astrid
Yeah.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
You know how it goes. If you've been there, that's the noise you hear. Balloon, $5.
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Astrid
Yeah.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Balloon, $5. Trip, trip, trip balloons. Trip, trip balloons, $15. Buy one, get one.
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Astrid
Five for 10, five for 10.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Five to 10, five for 10. Refills free. You know how it goes. Buy the balloon, refills free, $20 balloons. And then there's some huge line by otherwise seemingly regular adults looking to get their fix, like they were a child hooked up to the nitrous tank. Because, listen, we all go to the dentist at some point. Even my son got it. My son, he got it to have a cavity filled. Very young kid. And the doctor said, should I apply nitrous? And I said, yes, you should, because that's the only way you're gonna get that kid to sit still while you have a drill in his mouth. I know my child, and I also know nitrous oxide. And while I don't want to get my kid used to the idea of being high, I also don't want the kid to suffer. Yeah. Like, let him doze off. And, man, did he. He was saying some whacky shit. Yeah. Like Little Mermaid was on that TV up there or something. And he was like, you know, before they actually came in to do the procedure, he was like, daddy, do you think fish can fly? Daddy, why do I sound so talking in, like, riddles?
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Astrid
Yeah.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
And I thought, wow, my kid is much more fun on Galaxy Gas. Here's the thing, though, that no. 2 is also used in a specific product called Whip it or Whip cream. Okay. Whip it is owned by a company that will also sell you that gas in a container, small little metal container called an no. 2 cartridge. Or what some people on the street, like me, would refer to back in the day as a whippet.
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Astrid
Yeah. They've been around forever.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yes. And you could go to your local head shop and you could get a. Can you get a pack of those whippets? They were just one hit, right? And you could buy like, like $5 apiece. So you'd spend $180 to get 20 of these things. Then you have to buy the accoutrements to crack them open and put them into a balloon. Because if you try to do it straight in your mouth, then your mouth would freeze and your teeth would fall out. So you don't want that. You just want your brain to freeze. You don't want your teeth to freeze. You want your brain to freeze. And that's what it does. It is essentially starving your brain of oxygen, which then gives you a certain kind of wah, wah, wah feeling, like you're high, you're floaty, you're leaving your body. You've been to the dentist. You know what I'm talking about. Imagine that times 10. And that's what a whippet does in a very small dose.
- [09:43]
Astrid
And now they've made it blueberry flavor.
- [09:46]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
So here's the story. There is a place not too far from where I live. There are many of these, so don't try and Google it to figure out where I live. But there is a place not too far from where I live and very popular here in Georgia and now throughout the country, called Cloud 9. Cloud 9 is a head shop. A head shop that sells smoking devices for your tobacco. Like a 15 foot bong. Why you would want to smoke your tobacco out of a 15? You know how you walk into one of these head shops and they start telling you not to say anything that would make it seem like you were doing anything illegal. It's like the rules of the head shop. You don't say, we have any weed smoking devices. You say, do you have a tobacco smoking device that's 15ft long that I can, you know, get shit faced with crack pipes, lighters that light, cracked, lighters that have flames that are way too big, you know, patchouli.
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Astrid
Tapestries.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yes, tapestries. That's right. Tie, dye, T shirts, Grateful Dead, skulls. All kind of incenses. Probably Kratom, the opioid receptor stuff that you chew or smoke or drink in the tea or whatever. The dick pills. Well, I brought in 3,000.
- [10:55]
Astrid
Oh, yeah, that's. You're in that store.
- [10:57]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Oh, I am definitely in that store. All kind of shit that a regular adult grocery store refuses to sell. Not because they can't make money, but because grannies and grandpas won't like the fact that their bong is sitting next to Pert Plus. Do you understand what I'm saying? Okay, now you got me. They're on every corner in Every town, everywhere, it's a head shop. The head shop, Cloud 9, is owned by a couple of young enterprising guys, brothers who went to Kennesaw State University. They found that during the pandemic, people were coming in in droves looking for whippets, and they could not keep them in stock. So they did some homework to find out exactly who owned this market and how the gas got here and who was making the containers and how all of that stuff worked and the legality of selling no. 2 directly to a consumer. And what they discovered was the largest producers of whippets were the whipped cream company Whippets. So the same company that sells you the stuff that makes your apple pie delicious on Thanksgiving is the same company that's selling your teenagers the shit that's getting high after a Grateful Dead show. Now, it's long been known that there is something called the hippie crack mafia. If you're into this kind of thing, then you will know that at fish shows, Grateful Dead shows, widespread shows.
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Astrid
Damn. Land production shows. Damn.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Land production shows. That's right. Minus that one fashion show we did where I said no whippets allowed this time. No whippets. That people would be somehow getting huge containers, like medical grade no. 2, the stuff you would see at a dentist office. They would be getting these huge bottles that were, like, you know, 4ft tall, and they were balloon after balloon, filling up balloons and selling them for $5. It was always curious to me, how did they get ahold of that container of no. 2? Do they have a dad that's a dentist?
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Astrid
Yeah. I always thought it was a dentist connection.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Apparently, you used to have to have some kind of medical license or at least convince somebody that you had a medical license in order to get those. And the hippie crack mafia, there was a big expose on them a number of years back, was just faking that they had a medical connection, and they were getting, like, hundreds of these bottles at a time and spanning out across the United States. Although they claimed it was never a racket, it probably was a racket. There was probably a guy who was selling these to other people, would then go out and sell them individually. Just like drugs, any other drug. Well, the guys at Cloud 9 figured out that they could call China and they could have this gas delivered directly to the United States without any kind of permit, really. And it was legal as long as they delivered the gas safely. It was more about how they got the gas contained right? Then it was whether or not they could sell it to people and they Figured out how to get people to cheaply make containers that were much bigger than the single dose Whippets. And they could flavor that gas and then they could sell it in their stores. And man, did they.
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Astrid
Wow.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Millions and millions of dollars. Millions and millions of dollars worth of Galaxy Gas. They branded it Galaxy Gas. So they were buying it from China, they were filling it up in containers. They were delivering them across the United States and they were expanding huge. Now these stores are everywhere, these Cloud 9 stores, and people were coming in and buying a. Something that would give you maybe 200 doses, 300 doses of this galaxy, guys.
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Astrid
Like a two or three.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, it's, it's like two or three feet, the biggest ones, right. And they're $120. So rather than pay $5 for one whippet, now you were paying like $120 for 300 whippets. So they were making it cheaper, they were making it more flavorful and they were making the delivery devices more accessible to everybody. And what they found, what the managers of the stores found, is that people sometimes weren't even leaving the parking lot before they were running out of one bottle and going to buy another. They were, they were maxing out their credit cards. Of course, driving on Galaxy Gas, I couldn't even imagine driving. No within 20 minutes. That's why the dentist immediately, yeah, makes you sit there for 15 minutes with pure oxygen afterwards to get your head clear. And that is a relatively low dose of no. 2. They are mixing like 10% gas with 90% oxygen. Maybe 20% of your dentist likes you, you know what I'm saying? Chrissy? This was crazy to me. The stories that some of these managers were telling inside of this article about how addicted normal human beings, teenagers, 20somethings, where we come, they're ruining their life trying to get a hold of Galaxy Gas. It was so popular that they couldn't keep it in stock. And the manager, the owners of these stores kept pressing and pressing, sell the Galaxy Gas. Sell it, sell it, sell it. But they were getting nervous at the same time because of the things that they were seeing. People now the stores were getting robbed for Galaxy Gas. Now the people were coming in and they were, you know, grabbing the Galaxy Gas in the middle of the store, putting it on the counters, pretending they were about to pay and running out with the Galaxy Gas. And they refute. And the owners told the managers, don't get the police involved. Whatever you do, don't get the police involved. Even one time when there was an armed robbery, they said, don't get the police involved. This is an, this is an internal thing. Yeah, because they knew, yeah, they knew.
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Astrid
If the authorities got a hold, if.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
The authorities got wind of what a problem this was becoming, then certainly they were going to cause unwanted attention on this Cloud 9 and the Galaxy Gas. Well, it happened, someone died, a problem came, people got sick, families started complaining. You know, DA's started looking into this. And so the guys at Cloud 9 decided to sell their Galaxy Gas business and take it out of the stores altogether. That's just happened at the middle of last year. But the amazing thing is, is that a simple Amazon search will show you that it's very easy to get this gas delivered right to your fucking front door in relatively similar containers with relatively similar amounts. This was a novelty when we were kids. Yeah, you'd see it at the Dead show, the Fish show, whatever. You'd occasionally have a friend who'd bring a packet of whippets over and, you know, maybe you'd get. I tell you the story the time, the one time where we cleaned a store out of whipped cream cans and we had to explain that we were having an ice cream party.
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Astrid
Yes, yes, yes.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
And the girl at Kroger was like, with 100 cans of whipped cream. And we were like, it's a freaky whipped cream party. And I got the headache of all head. I mean, we sat up in a weird loft one time, just whipped cream all over the place. It was a disgusting scene. I'm disgusted with myself. Disgusted with myself that all these. I woke up with all these empty whipped cream cans.
- [17:53]
Astrid
I remember you did tell this story and it was because you had gone to your dad's and you had opened the refrigerator and seen a can of whipped cream and you did not.
- [18:03]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I did not do the whipping. The whipping, that's right. Because if you don't shake the can and you hold it up straight, you can get the no. 2 goes to the top and you get the no 2 out of it. When I worked at Chili's, they had to lock the whipped cream away because everybody, they would buy it in boxes and everybody would find themselves in the walk in cooler doing whip as when the manager wasn't looking. It was just a thing. It was a thing, but it was a novelty. It was relatively like, you know, once a year somebody would have a no 2 cartridge and you would, you know, get high. I remember one time at a festival, like a small festival here, somebody brought one of the medical grade bot, like had, you know, the hippie crack mafia type thing had Those things. And it was a parking event where park, camp, like, parking, camping. Like, you would park your car and you would camp next to it. I. The guy parked next to us, and my friend could not get to the. He had to leave the festival, like, four times. No. To get to the atm to get more money, to buy more hippie crack. It was insane. He got addicted over the weekend. In a weekend, he got addicted. And I can't think of how many balloons were empty sitting around the car by the time we were done. Oh, he was insane. Because, you know, the guy who was selling the hippie crack decided that he cared about people's germs, and you couldn't use the balloon twice, whatever it was. This is crazy. And I guess you could see this train coming down the tracks. But here's what I have to say more than don't get addicted to hippie crack, because don't get addicted to hippie crack. It's a terrible way to go, and it's dangerous and don't drive and all that other stuff. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm saying you should do it smartly, like every other drug. Unlike Brian's Rules of Drugs, which is do it until you cause so many problems in your life that you have to stop to do it. I am saying that. Don't ruin it for everybody by being a fucking moron. Do your drugs by yourself at home, late at night with the curtains drawn like everybody else in their right mind does. Please don't ruin it for everybody. Because when you're outside the parking lot of a Cloud 9 and you have to buy three or four tanks just to get your fill in a day, you've got a fucking problem. You need to stop for a few weeks. Pretend like you're sobering up by smoking weed or drinking alcohol like the rest of us do, and then go back and buy one at a time. One a day, one a day. Isn't that enough? Can't you say that's enough? Here's what I'm trying to share with you. It's idiots like you that ruin it for everybody else. And if you're gonna do your Galaxy Gas, do it like a regular drug addict. Like my uncle said, don't fuck up while you're fucking up. And that is my PSA for today, Chrissy.
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Astrid
Sounds good.
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Kristen Joy Hoadley
Thank you. Giving advice to the children.
- [20:58]
Astrid
Galaxy Gas.
- [20:59]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I can't wait till my kid comes to me and he says, hey. Episode 7326 of the Commercial break says, If I'm gonna do Galaxy Gas, do it in the privacy of the own home. So don't mind the tank of no. 2 I've got stuffed in the closet. I'll be wa wa wa right back.
- [21:18]
Russell Howard
It's a new year and a new me, which means I'm bringing you the exact same information I always do. So follow us on Instagram at the commercial break and on TikTok @TCB podcast. Do something new this year. Text us or call us and leave us a voicemail at 212-4333, TCB. And go. Please, please go watch our YouTube videos@YouTube.com TheCommercialBreak. I mean, we put all of this effort into our studio, so just go take a gander. You're gonna love it. And finally go to our website, tcbpodcast.com if you can't be bothered with anything else, because everything we have is right there on that site.
- [21:58]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Bye.
- [22:02]
Dax Shepard
Start Fresh in the New Year as you set resolutions for 2024, consider how learning a new language can enrich your life, whether through travel, career advancement, or cultural appreciation. Keeping in mind everything you've learned over the last year, it's time to build on that. And learning a new language can help you connect with others and explore new cultures. With that in mind, there's no better tool than Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program available on desktop and mobile. Rosetta Stone immerses you in the language so you truly learn to think, speak and understand it naturally. With Rosetta Stone's intuitive approach, there are no English translations, you're fully immersed, and the built in truaxent feature acts like a personal accent coach, giving you real time feedback to make sure you sound just right. Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. Start the new year off with a resolution you can reach today. Listeners can take advantage of this Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership. For 50% off, visit RosettaStone.com RS10. That's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your Life. Redeem your 50% rosettastone.com Rs10 today one.
- [23:15]
Brian Green
Of the best television shows of this decade is Severance on Apple tv. And I have been patiently waiting like everyone else, for season two. Well, the wait is over. Our cup fill is over because on January 17th, severance season two will be released. This genre defying television show will blow your mind. It's hard to describe even one minute of it in the short amount of time that I have.
- [23:39]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
So I'll tell you this.
- [23:40]
Brian Green
If you're a fan of dark comedy, sci fi, romance, drama, dramedy, well acted, well written television shows and or having your mind blown, this is the television show for you, my friend. And now the Severance Podcast with Adam Scott and Ben Stiller is available free on the Odyssey app or wherever you.
- [23:57]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Listen to your podcasts.
- [23:59]
Brian Green
And they are rewatching with us season number one every weekday until season two is released where they will then rewatch season two with us and they are going to give us an in depth episode analysis with behind the scenes stories, fan questions and guests from the show like creator Dan Erickson as well as John Tritoro and Britt Lauer, plus celebrity superfans like Jon Stewart, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are going to stop by. This podcast is going to be another excuse to spend more time thinking about Severance. If you're not watching this television show, run to Apple tv. Watch season one, listen to the companion.
- [24:32]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Podcast and then you too can have.
- [24:34]
Brian Green
Clammy hands waiting for season number two to release. It's available now free on the Odyssey app or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
- [24:44]
Astrid
What is Dax, are you tracking all.
- [24:46]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Our cars on Carvana Value Tracker on all our devices?
- [24:49]
Astrid
Yes, Kristen, yes I am.
- [24:51]
Jon Voight
Well, I've been looking for my phone.
- [24:52]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
For In Dax's domain we see all so we always know what our cars are worth.
- [24:57]
Russell Howard
All of them?
- [24:58]
Astrid
All of them.
- [24:59]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Value surge trucks up 3.9%.
- [25:02]
Jon Voight
That's a great offer.
- [25:04]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I know.
- [25:05]
Astrid
Sell sell.
- [25:07]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Track your car's value with Carvana Value Tracker today. Did I tell you about the time that so like no. 2 Freon has a similar effect to your brain. Freon the thing being the car Freon. The car Freon, the air conditioning Freon. So one time a friend of mine had this wise idea that he or he saw or he heard. This is long before you could go on the Internet and figure these things out. He figured out from somebody that he could get Freon from an air conditioning unit by taking a screwdriver and pressing a little nipple and it would spray the Freon backwards. So he went out, he took a garbage bag and he got Freon out of an apartment complex. Like all the air conditioning units were lined up. So it's the middle of the day and he's got a garbage bag hanging. Chrissy. He would pull the, he wrapped the garbage bag, he got the Freon and then he pulled the bag up and it sounded like there was a rock in there. Thump, thump, that's how heavy the gas was.
- [26:15]
Astrid
What?
- [26:16]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
He came back into the apartment of this girl that I lived with who I did not know. I just moved in with her, like, I don't know, four weeks earlier. She was like a friend of a friend of a friend.
- [26:24]
Astrid
And you invited that guy over?
- [26:26]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Dude, this guy went everywhere with me for a while. He was trouble with a capital T. And I made life no easier on him. We were troubled together with two capital T's.
- [26:35]
Astrid
Double trouble.
- [26:36]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, we were the tits of trouble. And so the right one and the left one. So true boobs. That's what we were with true boobs. Men at their base nature just doing stupid shit for the sake of doing. Shoot stupid shit. Impulsive was our middle name and sometimes our first name. This guy walks in the apartment, he's like, you know what? Takes a huff of the freon. And he's like. Like spinning around. His head's like. He's bobbing and weaving. And he almost kind of falls over. And I'm like. So after he comes to, I'm like, oh, dude, you almost fell over. You got to be careful with that. So then he's like, you know, I got the garbage bag. I take a little bit and I go totally black. Yes. Like, my eyes go like. And I'm like. And I wake up and I'm like, that wasn't fun. That felt like way too much. No. 2. Like, I was out, you know? And so now he's got the bag and he's like, he's gotta do it right away. Takes a big one. He's standing up in front of one of those old televisions that's sitting on a stand, you know.
- [27:38]
Astrid
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [27:39]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
And he goes shoulder and head first into the television. The television falls and breaks. And then I'm picking him up off the. Now the television is cracked and broken. And I'm picking him up and I'm like, dude, are you okay, dude? Oh, man, that was intense. And the bag, by the way, fell out of his hand. So he was like, what happened to the bag? And I'm like, dude, I'm fucking. What about the tv? So we've. It's cracked.
- [28:03]
Astrid
It's all spider head.
- [28:05]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Chrissy. I wasn't worried about this guy's head. The things I'd seen him into. Yes. And so we put the TV back on the stand, fixed all the stuff, like, put the books back. And then we left and went to the bar.
- [28:17]
Astrid
Oh, my God.
- [28:18]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I got home that night and she was like, what happened to the tv. And I was like, unbelievable. What happened to that tv? I eventually fessed up to it. Yeah. I had to spend. The TVs back then were like $7,000 for some shitty TV. So I had to. But, yeah, like, don't, you know, be careful with the yeno now. It's something that you can get addicted to. Let me now be a serious adult for a second. Be careful with the no. 2. You can get addicted to it. It's called hippie crack for a reason. It probably makes you feel like crack. Not that I've ever smoked it, but if I did and it was like no. 2, I would tell you that it's similar to crack. So don't smoke crack and don't do hippie crack. Okay?
- [28:57]
Astrid
Okay.
- [28:57]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
All right. Now, speaking of adult stuff, the other day we were leaving the studio and my wife is yelling at me that there's water pouring out of our cabinet.
- [29:06]
Astrid
And this is just after it had snowed. So I'm thinking, oh, yeah, me too.
- [29:12]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Exactly. That's exactly.
- [29:13]
Astrid
Let your pipes drip.
- [29:14]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I do. Let my pipes.
- [29:15]
Astrid
You did good. Okay.
- [29:16]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I do. I'm pretty keen on that. Like, I understand.
- [29:19]
Astrid
Good thing to do.
- [29:20]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
But, you know, I have this. Like, when we redid the house and we renovated it, we made the pipes, most of them, all pvx, which is a plastic. Like, you know, the. It's like pvc, but it's a different type that's supposed to.
- [29:32]
Astrid
Nodding along. Christina knows everything about pipes.
- [29:36]
Russell Howard
Everything about pipes, about water dam. Don't get me started.
- [29:42]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
It's terrible. And it happens all the time. And for a couple extra bucks a month worth of dripping water, you save yourself tens of thousands, maybe in fixes. Because if it gets under your floorboards, it gets into your walls, everything's gotta be replaced. Because then you have mold and all that other shit. And even if it dries, sometimes the structure of the house, the integrity of the home can be ruined. So the first thing I'm thinking is burst pipe. Holy shit. That's terrible. So now I'm freaking out. Girls are leaving the studio. I'm freaking out because not only because I think that there's a burst pipe in my home, but because I know what looking at the pipes entails. It entails going under the house.
- [30:20]
Astrid
I know. I saw you going over to the side of the house.
- [30:23]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Chrissy.
- [30:23]
Astrid
This is the scary flashlight and stuff in hand. And I saw you go in. I wished you well.
- [30:29]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Thank. I heard you. You said screeched out. Yeah. And I'm like, fuck you.
- [30:33]
Astrid
I did out the window. Good.
- [30:39]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I was cursing your name. Like, fuck you. Yeah, you got to sit in Atlanta traffic. But I have to go under the scary, scary house. That's a scary, scary crawl space. It's a crawl space, not a basement. And it's a crawl space from a house that was built in, like, the 40s. So it's really scary down there. It is decades and decades and decades of old pipes, wires. I don't eat dead children. I'm not even sure what's down there, but I don't want to know. Most of the time, I know how to change the filters on my two H VAC units, and that's about get.
- [31:10]
Astrid
In and get out.
- [31:11]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
That's right. You get in, you get out. I don't even look in opposite directions. I don't even look because I don't want to know. There's probably a possum down there. And he's probably mad at me because he can hear under the floorboards what I'm talking about. I've actually had. I actually had a fucking. Not an Xfinity guy, A charter cable guy. Fuck you. Charter cable. Because the fucking charter cable guy, he went under the house to go, you know, make sure that the wires were installed properly so he didn't have to, like, run them through the side of my house. And he comes back out, and he's like, listen, dude, they're done rat poop down there. And rat poop carries Legionnaires disease, and I ain't about to get Legionnaires disease, so you can call my boss. I don't give a. I ain't installing the cable down there. Do you remember that?
- [31:57]
Astrid
Yes.
- [31:57]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
And I said, you charter upward and onward to AT&T. Now, listen, besides Charter just being a terrible cable system altogether, I'm sorry, but it is. I was kind of happy about this because now I could explain to Astrid that we didn't need the cheaper Charter. We needed the more expensive AT&T, the faster Internet. That's right. Yeah. Charter goes at about 5Mbps. It's like. It was just not good. Anyway, so luckily we got found someone who was willing to go into the house and do this. But. But he was right about it. I mean, we've talked about this on the show. We had a friend, Willie, the mouse, that was in our house for a long time.
- [32:35]
Astrid
That's right.
- [32:36]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
He was scaring Astrid in the mornings because there was food misplaced.
- [32:40]
Astrid
Boo. Not Boo. Boo.
- [32:43]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Nico.
- [32:44]
Astrid
Nico, yeah, the ghost dog.
- [32:48]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
That's right. We had a camera that we set up to see exactly what was moving the food around our counters at night. It was Astrid who first caught onto this. She was like, there are pears on the floor. And I was like, well, maybe they just fell off. And she's like, brian, I don't think fruit just jumps off the counter. And I was like, well, I don't know. Maybe. And so we set up a camera. And at the time, because Nico and Blue. Nico had had some surgery, and Blue kept on attacking Nico. So we put Nico in the kitchen to go to sleep with a little gate so that Blue couldn't get at Nico. Blue, you bitch. And so after a couple of nights of this happening, I thought, well, Niko's not barking. There can't be anything live in there. Nico would certainly be attuned to that.
- [33:33]
Astrid
Meanwhile, Nico was, like, 50.
- [33:35]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah. Nico was 107 and smelled like he was 107. I do miss Nico, though.
- [33:40]
Astrid
I know. He was so sweet.
- [33:41]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I put a webcam up, and I was recording it. A motion camera. And what I saw was the most amazing thing ever. There was a mouse. A cute little mouse. Not a rat, a mouse. A cute little mouse who was literally going into the kitchen at night. Coming up from where? I don't know. But from the crawl space, he was coming up. He had found his way in. He was coming up, and he was eating food from Nico's bowl where Niko was sleeping right next to it. And Nico lifted its head up, looked at the mouse, and the mouse looked at Nico, and they made a gentleman's agreement. I won't tell if you don't. And Niko went back to sleep. Niko stared that mouse in the face and thought, yeah, that should be here. It's not even. Wasn't even a dog. And to be fair, Niko really wasn't a dog. It was more like just a small child that was in dog form. He cried about nothing. He was. It was a weird dog. But anyway, lovely dog. The sweetest dog you could have ever had. Very sweet. And poor, poor Niko. Blue just tortured that dog. Terrorized, tortured that dog. Anyway, so we know that there have been rodents, like most people. There are rodents.
- [34:54]
Astrid
It happens.
- [34:55]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, it happens. The rodents are looking for warmth and food and water and all that stuff, and a house provides all that things for them. But it's been a long time since we've had the house sealed up for approval. But I went down and I have to go to the very end of the house, the way that my house is.
- [35:08]
Chuck E. Cheese
Oh, right.
- [35:09]
Astrid
Oh, My God, I didn't even think about that.
- [35:11]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
The way that the house is, is there's a crawl space entrance under the new part of the house that we just built a number of years ago. And you can probably at least bend over to get in that part. But the further you go to the older part of the house, the smaller it gets until there is only a two and a half foot, two and a half foot space between the mud, the floor, the actual earth, and the rafters of the floorboards. It is very tight back there. And then you take into account the piping from 1920, the wires that the charter guy left down there. Fuck you, charter guy. The old telephone cables. I'm not even kidding. Telephone cables, gas lines.
- [35:53]
Astrid
I know our house is 100 years old, so I've. Yeah, I've peaked into.
- [35:58]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, you don't want to.
- [35:59]
Astrid
Yeah, you don't want to go there and turned around.
- [36:01]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
So as soon as you girls leave, I get a flashlight, lantern, like one of those flashlights that I saw. Yeah, it's this huge thing, but it puts off a lot of light because I said if I'm going down there, I need reinforcement. I'm going to bring this big lantern. I'm going to bring an actual flashlight. I've got my phone light on. I'm recording. I'm ready for anything. Anything's possible. And I'm ready. And I start crawling. And I'm over the H Vac, you know, whatever they call that the. The ductwork. I'm over the ductwork, and then I got to go under the ductwork and I got to pass the first H Vac. Then I got to get behind. Yeah. Oh, at the end, I am shimmying, but there's a gas line that sits right there. And I know I cannot. You don't want to fuck with the gas. I don't need two problems now in order to get to really see where that leak is. I can see that there's water on one of the pipes, but to see if it's actually spraying or something, I've got to go under or over that gas line. And it's right in the middle of that two and a half feet. So I went under, I put my face on the ground and I scraped it along this side. Rat shit and all. I just scraped my face under. And now I am full. In full panic, claustrophobic mode.
- [37:11]
Astrid
Yes.
- [37:12]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
And I am sitting under a house where the rafter is right at my nose. And I can see the pipe in between the rafter. And luckily it's not spraying. So I know that it's not a problem with the going. The water coming in the house. It's a problem with the waste going out of the house. So it takes me about another half hour to get back to civilization.
- [37:31]
Astrid
You have to backtrack, shimmy, shimmy back.
- [37:34]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
And shimmying back is the harder part. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, you get there. Yeah. But then you know what you have to do to get back. And so I'm scared and nervous, and I'm like a little boy.
- [37:43]
Astrid
Very brave.
- [37:44]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yes. I'm checking my phone to make sure I have bars. Astor, by the way, has gone.
- [37:48]
Astrid
She does.
- [37:48]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
She left somewhere away from my house. She's decided I want nothing to do with this. I'll see you later, Brian. So she's gone, and I'm now under the house all alone. So if there's a ghost or a monster or an alligator or, you know, I don't know, swimmy, Swimmy. Wolf. Wolf, then I'm not. No one's here to help me. I have to call 91 1, and I'm ready. I'm prepared to call 911 and tell them exactly where I am. I get out of there and I go, okay, it's with the drainage, so let's go. Start fiddling, fucking around with that. I don't know the first thing about anything, guys. I'm really not a very intelligent human being. I read a lot on the Internet, and I watch a lot of Instagram, and I pick little bits and pieces up that make me occasionally sound intelligent. But I'm soft in the middle. If you press me, ooze comes out. Do you know what I'm saying?
- [38:37]
Astrid
Poof.
- [38:38]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Poof. Yeah, boy. Exactly. I'm as intelligent as Flavor Flav. So I go upstairs, and I open the kitchen, you know, the cabinet doors, and I see that there's water down there, and I could see where it's coming from. I start doing a series of tests. Turn on the dishwasher, turn on the faucet, and I can see where it's coming from. It's coming from the hose that goes from your dishwasher into your disposal, which I have. Which a lot of people have here in the United States, at least. And that disposal, there's a drain from the disposal that goes out of the house down onto the house and then out of the house. And then there's a little hose where the dishwasher water drains out into the disposal that then goes into that drain. If that Drain is clogged and the dishwasher comes on. There's nowhere for that water to go. So it's just going to start spilling out, backing up and spilling out of wherever it's spilling out of that hose. That's what's going on. And then it's making its way down into the rafters of the house. It's going through the holes where the. Where the hoses come up. Right. So I'm like, okay, I got this licked. I know at least know where the problem is. So I'm like, astrid, you know, when did this start? I don't know. A couple days ago. I don't know. A couple days ago. I said, oh, wow, that's really weird. Maybe the disposal is clogged. I turn it off, I stick my hand down there. I can't feel anything. And she's like, well, I mean, you don't think it was the meat I put down there the other day? And I go, meat? You put meat in the disposal? And she goes, yeah, but it was stew meat. And I go, what is stew meat? Meat that's been stewed. And I go, you can't put meat down a disposal.
- [40:08]
Astrid
And this is news to me because I have been doing this.
- [40:10]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yes. A disposal is like a second cord on a parachute. You only use it in case you need to. That's it.
- [40:21]
Astrid
Everything down there.
- [40:22]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, I know. That's probably why Jeff is gonna be under whole onions. Whole onions.
- [40:26]
Astrid
Well, you know when you cut off the tips and it's not a food.
- [40:30]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Processor, it's a disposal. Chrissy. No, no.
- [40:35]
Astrid
Okay, okay. I won't do it anymore.
- [40:37]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Listen, I realize there are two schools.
- [40:39]
Astrid
Of fun have to go under the crawl space.
- [40:41]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Do you know my dad, Ned didn't even put a disposal in his brand new house. You don't want to know why? Because he says it's just a reason for things to leak because everybody decides that anything could go down there. There's two schools of thought on disposal, and I get it. And Astrid comes from a place where there are no disposals, so I also get it. It's not really her fault. She did what she thought the disposal was supposed to do, which is chop everything up and make it nice and tidy to go out the house. But that's not how it works. The pipe is only so big and if it gets a lot of stuff stuck in there, it's gonna back up. So I thought, well, yeah, it's probably the meat, babe. Probably the meat. So now we're on our way to Chucky fucking Cheese for one of my kids birthdays. And now I got a full blown emergency under my sink. I got a bunch of meat stuck in my P trap. If you know what a P trap is, look it up. I'm not gonna explain it here. I'm not Tim the Tool Man Taylor. So now that I've, you know, now that I got a half a cattle stuck in my fucking P trap, I'm like, well, okay, I know what I need to do. I need to go get one of those thingies to stick in there. No, the. I don't know.
- [41:42]
Russell Howard
The auger.
- [41:43]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
The auger.
- [41:43]
Astrid
The snake.
- [41:44]
Russell Howard
I know. Do I augur my pipes?
- [41:48]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yes. Thank you. Finally, someone with common sense. An augur. A snake. I need to go get one of those snakes. And the things that you can stick in there and twist around and then it pulls everything out or pushes it down or whatever loosens.
- [42:00]
Russell Howard
Basically an electric version of that.
- [42:01]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, you can do an electric version, but I think I thought I. I have. If I get a 15 foot one, then I'd be fine. I could stick it down there and twist it around. You know, they make manual ones too. So we go to Chuck E. Cheese. Story to be told. We go to Chuck E. Cheese. And then afterwards I said, okay, I'm going to the Lowe's and I'm gonna go get the shit that we need. So I go. And then I go. I'm really. I'm gonna probably stick with first. Breaking it up with some Drano is what I'm gonna do.
- [42:27]
Astrid
That's a good place to start.
- [42:27]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
So I got a little.
- [42:28]
Astrid
In my opinion.
- [42:29]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, I agree.
- [42:29]
Astrid
Christina's shaking her head no.
- [42:31]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Well, listen, there's. Drano's really bad for the pint. I know. Well, listen, it is, but if you don't put it down there all the time, if you put it down there once in a while, you'll live to tell another day. You'll live to tell another day.
- [42:43]
Astrid
For emergency.
- [42:43]
Russell Howard
Oh, no, I don't.
- [42:44]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I don't use it. Well, I know you've had a lot of drama around your pipes.
- [42:48]
Russell Howard
This is trauma informed.
- [42:49]
Astrid
Yeah.
- [42:50]
Russell Howard
Informed reasoning over here.
- [42:51]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
So I go and I'm looking at all the different selections of Drano. They have drained this grease that do this, do that. Supercharged. Yes, guaranteed. Works in five minutes. Guaranteed. So.
- [43:03]
Astrid
And who wants the one that's just like, not.
- [43:06]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
No, you don't want the regular drainer. Yeah, you don't want Drano. You want.
- [43:12]
Astrid
Maybe you want it. Maybe you can clean it with this or you're definitely getting through.
- [43:16]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
You want train Dragon 3000. That's what you want. You know, trusted by professionals, guaranteed to work in five minutes. So I get the one. There is one, literally, that has a plastic bag wrapped around it, and it said, please put this back in the bag when done using for safety purposes. And I don't even read it. I go, that's the one. That is the one. I need that. I need that. So I get it. I get the snake. I check out, I go home, I tell all the kids to get the fuck out of the kitchen so I don't hurt you. I put the dog outside 20 degrees, but whatever. She deserves it. And then I take this thing out of its plastic bag and I start pouring it into the kitchen sink, into the disposal. And then I read the back label.
- [44:05]
Astrid
Only then did you read it.
- [44:07]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
To which it says, never use in a disposal ever. And then it also says, please put a porcelain bowl or tin pan on top of the drain after use.
- [44:22]
Astrid
Oh, my God.
- [44:23]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
In case of explosion.
- [44:24]
Astrid
Jesus.
- [44:25]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
And I'm like, what is this devil that I just poured down my sink? It is liquid lye. Yeah. The same stuff Mafia uses to dissolve your fucking body is the shit that can dissolve your grease. Oh, my God.
- [44:40]
Russell Howard
I mean, you were trying to dissolve meat.
- [44:42]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I was trying to dissolve flesh. But you cannot put it in plastic pipes and you cannot put it inside of a disposal, which you just did. Which I just did. Done deal. So now I quickly turn on the water to flush it all out, and I decide, okay, just go with the auger. And I think, okay, it's only been in there for 30 seconds. Whatever. 30 seconds. So I take the water, I turn it on. Then I hear the water pouring out of something, and I look, and it's pouring out of the disposal. And I thought, oh, it's the pipe. It's backed up again. No problem. I take the P trap off. I see that there is absolutely nothing but residue left in the P trap. I stick the auger in as far as it'll go. Nothing. I don't feel anything. And I'm like, okay, either I just fixed it or I pushed it out or whatever happened. I put everything back together. I tightened the connection, clean as a daisy. Everything's now flowing well, only there's water pouring out of the bottom of the disposal.
- [45:41]
Astrid
Wasn't that strong that it had even.
- [45:43]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Burned through the rubber casing, because lye, as soon as it touches any organic material, heats up to, like, a thousand degrees, sets itself on fire. Basically, I have caused a chemical reaction inside of my disposal and I have completely ruined it. It is draining out of the bottom of the disposal right next to the power wire where I'm sure water is not supposed to be. Brian, fix the problem that Astrid started and caused his own fucking problem.
- [46:09]
Russell Howard
I'm having so much ptsd.
- [46:12]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I know.
- [46:13]
Russell Howard
I'm so upset for you.
- [46:14]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
This is like, this is the worst. And so of course, I just continue to blame Astrid throughout the night. But the truth is, I fixed one problem. I caused another. That's right. So now I've got to change my disposal out this weekend, which should be, you know, a whole dick load of fun. But I called my brother who actually knows how to do stuff, and I said, listen, I don't need you to do it. I'm just going to buy you a six pack. Can you sit there and watch me and make sure I don't set myself on fire, cause an electricity problem or chop my hand up? Listen, I'm not the guy you call when there's a problem like a mechanical problem or an electrical problem or a human problem or relationship problem problem with your brain. I am the guy you call when you occasionally want to giggle at how stupid humans can be. I'll keep you posted on the brand new disposal. We'll talk about Chuck E. Cheese after this.
- [47:13]
Russell Howard
Have you got a hankering down deep in your soul to tell us what's up? Well, I am encouraging you to do just that. Text us at 212-4333, TC and tell us what's going on. Give us the haps. Tell us the dirty secrets of your life. That's all we've ever wanted to hear. You can also leave us a voicemail at the same number. That's 212-433-3822. And also follow us on Instagram at the commercial break and on TikTok @TCB podcast. And if you want to see any video episodes, you can go to YouTube.com the commercial break and they are all right there. And if your hankering is not to tell us what's up, but it's for a new sticker, I'm sure there's probably one on the website. Go to tcbpodcast.com click contact us and find I want my free sticker. I know you can do it and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on anything and everything. Love you. Bye.
- [48:10]
H
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- [49:07]
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- [50:12]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Trump's naming Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight and somebody else as special envoy to Hollywood. Hollywood is not a country, it's a fucking zip code. What are we doing? What are we doing? I notice he also invites all the titans of industry over to his inauguration. And you know Musk Zuckerberg about him.
- [50:36]
Astrid
Having a big inauguration party.
- [50:39]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
The government is bought and paid for. It is official. It is official. Expect your life to get a lot more miserable. And not just miserable, but it'll be publicly miserable. We'll know it's coming this time. It's not like everybody else who keeps it a secret. We'll know it's coming this time anyway. Went to Chuck E. Cheese for one of my daughter's birthdays.
- [50:57]
Astrid
Okay. I love. I used to love Chuck E. Cheese when I was younger.
- [51:00]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Man. The cheese is on top. And I would tell you what a whole section of the Internet that just in love with the Chuck E. Cheese pizza. I agree.
- [51:08]
Astrid
Really?
- [51:09]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Everybody else agrees. It is fucking deliciosos.
- [51:13]
Astrid
Well, that makes it more bearable.
- [51:16]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I gotta agree. I mean, listen. So we were gonna do a party for my very young daughter at an age where we've learned that they will not remember and it's unlikely they even understand what's going on. But a smile on a child's face is worth. Worth a thousand bucks. So you do what you do. We've always done big blowout parties on birthdays. Unlike my own existence, my own upbringing where birthdays were barely even recognized. And that's okay. It was a different time back in the 60s and parties you did.
- [51:45]
Astrid
60S.
- [51:49]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
It was just. We just grew up in a different type of family.
- [51:52]
Astrid
Yeah, we had big parties.
- [51:54]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
We really didn't have like big celebrations. It wasn't like a birthday week. It was more like a birthday minute where you woke up and it was like, happy birthday. Yeah, we'll have cake later.
- [52:05]
Astrid
That's why I have a birthday month.
- [52:06]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, I know. I feel jealous for to. I feel jealous of the people who really enjoy celebrating their birthday because I don't. And Astrid hates it every year. I know. I'm a miserable, sad sack of shit. And I've talked about it so many times on this show. How m. My happy birthday is being miserable for my birthday. That's how I get all hyped up for it.
- [52:27]
Astrid
Okay, Scrooge.
- [52:28]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, I know. But I love making a big deal out of other people's birthdays. I love my kid's birthday. I love my wife's birthday. I do my best under this, given the circumstances, given all my ptsd, I do the best I can. So we're gonna have like a little family get together this time for this young girl's birthday because, you know, we don't want to spend $10,000 doing a big blowout. And we've learned some things over the years and that is they don't remember them. They likely don't even understand what's going on. And they still want to go to bed at 6:30 in the evening, so. But the snowstorm hampered that party. So we quickly. Astrid. Not. We gassrid. I don't want to get. Yeah. Pivoted. She Thought quickly on her feet and she decided why don't we do for like a couple of bucks some discounted weekday price. We can do a Chuck E. Cheese party, invite just a couple of young kids that she likes to play with and some of the other kids young friends and then we can wear em out for two hours, go from four to six, have some pizza, bring a cake, decorate the table nicely and everyone will love it. And at least then we know she's gonna have a good time. And I thought, this is a brilliant idea, let's do this. So we do it. So we reserve the spot, put down 50 bucks, unlimited gameplay, do whatever you want. You got the wolf package, we got the cheese. We got the E. Cheese. Yeah, we got the sleazy E Cheese. The Easy E. Cheese package, baby. One of those cards that doesn't stop, you just go, go, go. Just press it and it just goes. And we've been to other birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese that are like this and it's a lot of fun because the kids just go do whatever the fuck they want. They don't have to worry about tokens or I don't have to worry about spending $10 every five minutes, Daddy. I don't have any more points. What were you doing? The claw. You can't do the claw. You don't know the claw as adults. Adults do the claw. See that 49 year old over there trying to make a living selling claw related shit on ebay? Yeah, he is a L O S E R, but that's okay. He's got the easy sleaze package, Easy cheese package. So we go and we pull up 15, 20 minutes early to this party. There is one car in the parking lot and by the looks of the car, it's the manager of the Chuck E. Cheese. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes, like I know. I already know. I know where it's parked, I know what kind of car it is. I'm like, that's a man. We have the run of the mill. It's after a snow day, it's a school night, it's 4 o'clock, no one's going to be there. No one was there. Not another living soul. Except for the manager of the Chuck E. Cheese who, God bless his extraordinarily nice heart, took a long time to check us in and you know, he was a very chatty fellow. He had to. He let me know that he'd been with the company for 29 WoW years. Since he was 16 years old, he'd Been with the company.
- [55:17]
Astrid
He loves the cheese.
- [55:18]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
He loves the cheese. Cheese. I don't want to knock a working man because a working woman or man is a working woman or man. There's lots of different jobs out there, and as long as you're working, that's it. Who fucking cares what you do at the end of the day? But, man, 29 years listening to the Chuck E. Cheese theme song over and over again. Dealing with small children, eh? You know, kind of a special kind of person. So the second that we get checked in, he's already trying to upsell me on shit, right? He's like, you want to go in the bouncy house? The bouncy house, by the way, is one small trampoline connected to another small trampoline that has a big gate, like a cage around it. And you can only go in there if you have a certain wristband. So I said, well, how much is it? And he goes, well, with your. With your special package, you can have it for a discount at $5. And I go, okay, get the kids socks. They have to wear special socks in there.
- [56:06]
Astrid
Yep.
- [56:07]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Then he says, okay, you're. You guys ordered, pre ordered two large pizzas. Is that what you want? What time do you want it out? And I said, two large pizzas. There's like 10 adults coming and seven children. We better up that to three large pizza. Make it four large pizzas. And he goes, I'll extra large it for an extra $7 a piece. And I said, yes. So now our extraordinarily inexpensive Chuck E. Cheese venture is already costing me hundreds and hundreds of dollars. But I don't want people to go hungry.
- [56:35]
Astrid
No, you can't be cheap at the cheese.
- [56:37]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yes. So, yeah, I mean, if you're cheap at the cheese, people are gonna know.
- [56:42]
Astrid
Exactly.
- [56:43]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
If you're splitting a personal pan pizza between 10 adults, they're gonna know. They're gonna go, hey, B, you want me to chip in? You need. And if. If you ask people to chip in at the cheese, things aren't going so well for you. I thought that podcast was doing okay. Aren't you guys on the charts or something? Yeah, that doesn't equal money, I'll tell you that much right now. So. So I say, no, no, no, no, no big spenders here, let me break out that. That chime credit card that gives you $300 before payday. Yeah, Diners Club. That's right. Diners Club. I have not Capital One, Capital Two, because that's where the important people bank at Capital Two. So I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go extra large. Let's do, you know, a couple peps and a couple cheeses. And I mean peps. I mean pepperonis. We people who are into the pizza world know that if, you know, you know, yeah, give me a couple peps plus and then give me the cheese. And don't give me any of that uncooked pepperoni. I want those nice, you know, crispy. Crispy peps. That's what I need. Crispy peps right on my cheese. Get the chef out here is what I want. And by the way, at one point during the check in process, the chef came out. There was a chef, Middle Eastern guy, very old, probably in his early 80s. And he was so nice. Even though he did not speak a lick of English. He was so nice, I mean, speak a little bit of English. And he was like, he was like, you know, came up and he shook my hand and he goes, you need anything like that? He points to himself. He was so cute. I wanted to give the guy a hug. He's wearing gloves and a hair net. I loved him. He was the best. I thought, okay, if you're microwaving my pizza, I'm good with you. Right? Whatever's going on back there, however you guys create those pizzas. So I get everybody the wristbands, the socks, the things, and everyone's going wild. The kids are going crazy. It's just a lovely time. You know, it's hard to have so many kids at a Chuck E. Cheese because they all want to play something with you. They need help. You know, One of my daughters is on the motorcycles for adults that go back and forth, but she's stuck on it and it just keeps swinging back and forth and she's screaming bloody murder. But there's so many other kids that I have to pay attention to that I don't notice for like four minutes that she's like just stuck on this motorcycle. That's right. And the birthday girl likes the carousel. That's only three horses. Three tiny little horses, yes. She keeps on asking for more and more and more. She spent the entire afternoon on thing. So then, you know, whatever it is. 450. I said, I winked to my guy back in the kitchen, I got dink time for pizza. And man, he came out, he was so proud of those pizzas and they were fucking delicious. I mean, so good. He got cups and plates and glasses. Oh, let me tell you something too. Not only did I have to pay extra for the socks, but then the guy I go, what about the drinks? And the guy goes, oh, well, you could get drinks. Like, we have the soda fountain, $2.99 for the cups, and then you get all you want. And I say, yeah, yeah, ye. Let me get like 13, 14 of those things. So I paid an extra $70 for drinks. And what he failed to tell me was that the drinks came with the birthday package. What? By the time I'd already used the. We're already done. I'd already sucked up a bunch of soda by then. And I was like, fuck. Anyhoo, pizza's coming out, everybody's having a great time. My little girl is having. She's just like in shit heaven. She just loves it. She's having so much fun. So many smiles on her face. I loved it. It. And then it was time. The big moment arrived, and they told me this was going to happen. 5, 15, Chuck comes out. Oh, Chuck is going to make an appearance. He's going to come say happy birthday, do a little dance party. The myth, the mouse, Chuck E. Cheese comes out, which I'm pretty sure was just the manager in a mouse. Actually, I know it was because he had the same shoes on, but anyway, okay, all right, whatever. So he comes out, and my daughter was frozen in fear.
- [60:44]
Astrid
Oh, I'm sure frozen in fear.
- [60:47]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
All my other kids were doing the dance party with him, and my daughter just. She was on the corner of the dance floor, and she kept taking one step back without moving. She kept taking one step back, one step back. And so I noticed that and I went up and, you know, to make sure that she remembers this in therapy sessions later on in life.
- [61:05]
Astrid
Yeah, well, you've already now scarter with the wolf.
- [61:08]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Oh, the wolf she didn't like.
- [61:09]
Astrid
And now the. The cheese man.
- [61:11]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I think it's that they don't move their mouths. I think that's probably the scariest part, is that they're talking but there's no mouth moving, you know, because there's a loudspeaker. He's, you know, he's doing this dance. Hey, you know, hey, geez, heads, let's. Oh, and by the way, one of the characters. They don't do the characters anymore. The dancing characters, the animatronics, it's just all on a video screen. But there was a whole five minutes dedicated to a character called Munch the Mouse, which, you know, and he kept on saying, who wants to be a part of the Munch pack? Munch, munch, Munch. Who wants to munch with me? And I thought I know, I'm a little bit older than these kids, but the Munch Pack, I don't know, I had a hard time. I had a hard time with that one. I thought, this seems overtly sexual to me. Who wants to be a part of the Munch Pack? I do. But I'm 48 and I don't know what it means to you, Munch mouth, whatever your name is. So my daughter's backing up. So to make sure that she knows that I care about her, I walked up, I kneeled down, and I said, hey, listen, it's just pretend. If you want to say hello, you can say hello. And so I picked her up and she put her head in my shoulders. Then she turned around, she looked at them, and I thought, this is it. She's ready. She's ready for this. And I started walking up to the mouse. And the closer. Here's what happened. It was like a siren. I walked up, I walked back. It's like she had like a little, like, I don't, like a little magnetic device in her brain. And the closer I got, the closer, the more the magnet electrified. It was really, really strange. But all's well that ends well because Chucky tried to keep coming to her to give her a handshake. And finally I had to tell. I said, hey, Chuck. Hey, leave her alone. Back off. I said, I think it's enough with Chucky. That's what I said, I think it's enough with Chucky. And he goes like this in his big thumb, his big mouse hand. He gave me the thumbs up. So, you know, we had cake, we had fun, and then we. The most miserable part about any Chuck E. Cheese experience. Dave and Buster's. What? At Andretti's. What? You know, the place. Great Wolf Lodge. The most miserable part about any of these arcade based point systems where you get tickets or tokens or tickets, whatever the fuck it is, is that you have to then try and tell your children how that big stuffed animal costs 7,800 tokens and you have 4. 4. We paid $700 for that card and you only have 4 tokens. You cannot get the 7,000. Oh, see that 49 year old over there at the claw? It's going to take him a year to get that stuffed animal. He's going to try and sell it for $100 on eBay because that's what he does for a living. Daddy talks on a microphone. You make the call. Whatever you want to do. Or Manager Chuck E. Cheese. Whatever you want to do, kid. But you do not have enough tokens for that. And they all throw big fucking hissy fits. And I'm like, you. I'm turning you all into little spoiled shitheads. How do you think? Why do you think you deserve that? And you didn't do anything. All those skeeball tickets were mine, by the way. I did play a lot of skeeball. I was, I was, I was rigging the skeet.
- [64:25]
Astrid
I love skeeball.
- [64:26]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Skeeball's so much fun. And I'm so good at. I can get in the middle almost every time if I get into a.
- [64:30]
Astrid
Real bank shot at the top.
- [64:32]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Me too. Yeah, it's exactly what you do. That's the only way to do it right? And it's like the real skeeball thing. And by the way, I took one of my kids cards for like a long time and they kept on tugging on me like, did I cut my card back? And I was like, no, I'm getting you tokens.
- [64:45]
Astrid
Daddy's in the middle of something.
- [64:47]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Daddy's in the middle of something. Yeah. By the way, I love how I'm. And then I watched. My twin brother was there with his fiance, Carrie Ann, and I loved it. They were playing with the kids and having fun, but at some point they checked out and then they were running around doing video games together. And I was like, first of all, where'd you guys get the card? I know you took it from one of the kids. And second of all, hey, what the fuck? This is for the kids, not for you. But I couldn't yell at him too much because you know what? But I do love the games too.
- [65:14]
Astrid
The games are fun.
- [65:15]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
So anyone? Anyway, everybody had enough for a rubber bouncy ball that I quickly threw away as soon as we got home. And that's my day at Chuck E. Cheese. Fuck you.
- [65:25]
Astrid
Oh, it's always an adventure.
- [65:26]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Oh, this chef came out, he was like going home for the day or something. And he's like, everything good for everyone. Good birthday. And I like, I just wanted to give him a hug.
- [65:35]
Astrid
I know.
- [65:36]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
I was like, you're so good. Everybody at Chuck E. Cheese was lovely, but by the way, lovely.
- [65:40]
Astrid
It's making me want to go.
- [65:42]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Go, honestly. Do you know, the manager told me when I got there there were two other. He said, you got the place to yourself at least till 5:30. He goes, but then there's another birthday over there. He pointed and then he goes, and that birthday right there is for a 46 year old man. And I said, well, we want to be out of here by then. What time does that guy call? And then they always put stamps on your hand like with the same. The same party gets the same stamp. So you have to check. But they never check.
- [66:09]
Astrid
No.
- [66:10]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Now you got to keep a close eye on your kids. No one's gonna watch your kids like you do. That's all I gotta say. All right, check out Russell Howard's brand new special available on his website. We'll ask Christina to put the link in the show notes. You're the best. He's also on tour, got lots of stuff on YouTube, his social media. He's a really, really nice guy and extraordinarily funny. Yeah, he's a really good satirest. Satirist. Is that what you call him? Satirist. Satirist.
- [66:38]
Astrid
Satirist.
- [66:39]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Satirist. Tomato, tomato. If you want more information, go read the New York.
- [66:45]
Astrid
I'm gonna read that article.
- [66:46]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Yeah, I'll send it to you. It's really fascinating, actually. It's really fascinating. Two enterprising young men found a way to get Everybody hooked on no. 2. Isn't that how it always happens though?
- [66:58]
Astrid
Yeah.
- [67:00]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
And also if you would please go to our website, tcbpodcast.com all the information about Chrissy and more facts and information that you could ever want about Chrissy and I. All the audio, all the video, plus you can get your free TCB swag. Go to the contact us spot and drop down menu says I want my free sticker. Get. Give us your address and away it will go. Please do follow us on social media. There's more of you now than there ever was before. But I'm not sure what that means. I don't, I don't know that you listen to the show at the commercial break on Instagram, TCB podcast on TikTok. And now all episodes available YouTube.com the commercial break and as Astrid points out, you want to see the new studio, please do that. 212-433-3822. Questions, comments, concerns, contents, ideas? We would appreciate it. Okay Chrissy, that's all I can do for today.
- [67:53]
Astrid
I think so I'll tell you that I love you and I love you.
- [67:55]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
Best to you and best you out there in the podcast universe. Until next time. Chrissy and I do say, we will say and we must say goodbye.
- [68:04]
Chuck E. Cheese
So it's a new year, 2025 and you're thinking how am I going to make this year different? How am I going to build something for myself? But where do I start? Shopify is how you're gonna make it happen. And here's how Shopify makes it simple to create your brand, open for business and get your first sale. The best time to start your new business is right now. Get your store up and running easily with thousands of customizable templates. No coding or design skills required. All you need to do is drag and drop. Their powerful social media tools let you connect all your channels and create shoppable posts and help you sell everywhere people scroll. What happens if you don't act now? Will you regret it? What if someone beats you to the idea? Don't kick yourself when you hear this again in a year because you didn't do anything. Now with Shopify, your first sale is closer than you think. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com Odysseypodcast all lowercase go to shopify.com Odyseepodcast to start selling with Shopify today. Shopify.com OdyseePodcast Where'd you get those shoes?
- [69:08]
Russell Howard
Easy.
- [69:08]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
They're from DSW. Because DSW has the exact right shoes for what you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the boots that turn grocery aisles into runways, and all the styles that show off the many sides of you from daydreamer to multitasker and everything in between. Because you do it all in really great shoes. Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or dsw.comsailing to see this. Whoa, everybody. These are violent criminals, so they're not going to go down easy. ABC Tuesdays. Let's get this done. The rookie is back. We have two new rookies starting today. Howdy. Being a cop is stressful 24 7.
- [70:32]
Jon Voight
Every year on the job is different.
- [70:33]
Kristen Joy Hoadley
And training day we have a serial killer at large. Never ends. We need an ambulance. The Rookie all new Tuesdays on ABC and stream on Hulu.