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The JTrain Podcast
I'm meeting my boyfriend's parents! What should I bring? - MONDAY MAILBAG - The JTrain Podcast w Jared Freid
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Jared Freed
It's a mailbag. Munder, you got problems there. I'm gonna help you from the comfort of my chair. It's a mailbag Monday. Hello, and welcome to the J Train Podcast. This is J Train Jared Freed coming to you live from Huntsville, Alabama. That's right, every Monday. It's a mailbag Monday here, where you, the listener, email me, the comedian with your problems, your situations. I want you to keep sending those emails. J train podcastmail.com. that's jtrain podcastmail.com. you can also send in your questions. Life advice, dating questions, family stuff. Whatever you're going through, send it in here and let me unpack your issue. Today we have two great questions. Two, like, fun questions. It can be fun. It doesn't have to be like, mom won't talk to me. No, no, no, no. It can be fun. It can be light. I love these questions. One is about meeting your boyfriend's family, and the other is about ice cream taste tests. So that's what we call a teaser in the biz. I'm going to get to the emails. Keep sending them, though, because the first one is from an Instagram dm so you can DM the J Train Podcast Instagram account at J Train Podcast. Follow. It helps us go like the videos we're posting there. We're putting up clips. We're putting up the funny parts from the episode or what I think are the funny parts and what V thinks are the funny part. Go follow. And a great way to help the show as well as to join Patreon. Patreon keeps going up, and people are really. The one thing I know about Patreon is that once I get someone, they seem to stick around. Coffee with J Train is every Friday, and it's a. A diary. It's me talking about the week that just happened. It's me making a diary entry. You're getting. It's as personal as I. If you're listening now, it's two weeks from when I'm posting this. This will come out. I'm in Huntsville, so the coffee with J Train that's out from last week is about. I was posted again in a Facebook Are we dating the same guy? Facebook group. This one was really, really not dangerous. But I hate to use words that don't match the reality. It made me mad. It was. It was definitely weaponized. Weaponized posting. That makes it sounds way serious. They made me sound like a real jerk that everyone should want to hate in a place that everyone would hate the person that they described. So they knew what they were doing. It was thought out. It was. I'm trying to get someone to hate Jared Freed, which feels bad. I feel bad that someone feels that negatively about me. That most of all, that's really the weirdest part. I'm like, oh, I hate that I would make someone. You know, this makes. I don't know if this makes me sound like I'm lying to you. I'm not. I hate that someone is so angered that they're like, let me write fan fiction. Or I guess it's not fan fiction. It would be called hate fiction. Is that the word? I don't know. Email in with what you think it's called. But you can sign up for Patreon. You can hear my feelings. I mean, they really don't go beyond that. I kind of just ruined patreon.com Jared Freed the coffee J Train this. Oh, last week's episode Coffee. Jason will deal with me going to Huntsville. I had a tough run of shows last night. I hope tonight is better, me being in Del Rey. I have some stories from there traveling from West Palm to Huntsville. I'll also talk about going to New York and heading into a weekend that I'm doing in Manchester, Connecticut. When this comes out, I'll have already gone to Manchester. Today. I'm heading to foggy London town. If you are in the uk, come on out to the show. I'm going to do one show in London and then I'm coming home and I'm doing Stanford, Connecticut. So London, Stanford, many cities. Chicago just got added. Spokane, Washington, all over this, this great country of ours. So go to jared free.com for tickets. I have two emails in front of me. Enough with the bantar. I. I have an ad. I got one ad. So we'll do email ad, email. That's really all of our announcements. Otherwise, Sign up for YouTube. YouTube, that's free. Patreon. Five bucks a month. YouTube free. Every Saturday. We're doing Saturday night J Train as I take a sip for my coffee. Great coffee here at HC Roasters. That's honest coffee. That's where I went in Huntsville. Loved it. I also went to a sandwich place. I. I'm definitely gonna be talking about that on coffee with J Train. I haven't taped it yet. I got a recommendation for a restaurant that I immediately was like annoyed at the recommendation and then I went. It's called Domain. Domain. If you're in Huntsville, go to Domain that that restaurant is special. And I'll. And if you go sign up for Patreon you'll see. I'll have way more of an in depth conversation about my, my, my lunch at Domain. I'm not a luncher. Generally not a luncher. Me. I'm a breakfast snack dinner guy. That's me. Little BSD breakfast snack dinner. So two emails. Send it in. J train podcast gmail.com. we always need your advice. Emails also sign up for you to sign up. I keep saying sign up. Subscribe the YouTube channel and and little comment, little judge. Help us out. Okay. Jared Feather feather. Thank you. Listen, when you guys and I, they bring up feather feather. I'm just gonna bring it up right now. When you post about this show, it is as if you've taken a small feather and you've brushed the seam of my nuts. That's how good it feels. That's, I mean it's not like I do a lot of feathering my nuts, but I imagine that feels good to have a feather grazing like you're a little fairy, little, little mini fairy and you're flying up. You know, you fly up and you have a little feather in your hand and you're just going back and forth on the sea right where the great Lord sewed me up, right across that seam. That's the feather nation feeling. Jared Feather. Feather. I have a question and thought you'd have some great advice. I'm going to try. I'm going to visit my boyfriend's family and stay at their house for four days. It'll be my first time meeting his parents. I, I definitely don't want to show up empty handed, but I'm not sure what to bring. His mom seems a little hard to impress. Been there. So I want to make sure I get it right. I'd love to bring something thoughtful as a thank you. Maybe something funny that shows my personality or just something she genuinely enjoy. What do you think makes a great first impression? And has a girl ever brought something to meet your family that totally missed the mark? Thanks. I have no memory of someone missing the mark with whatever they gave my family. I will say this. Zoning in on the words you wrote to me. Maybe something funny that shows my personality. I am going to tell you. Let's, let's not go down that road. I, I, I'm not telling you to have no personality. I'm telling you to. And I wrote this down because I'm like, you want, you don't want you. There's a very big difference between having to show someone your personality or try. There's a big difference between trying to show someone your personality and letting them see your personality. And I think when you come in with a gag gift of, look how hilarious this gift was. You're trying to thread a needle that may not even be possible to thread. You said that the mom seems a little hard to impress. You want to, you know, people are like finger traps. If you pull too hard, they pull out too hard on the other side and you get stuck. I think with a mom that's hard to impress, if you go hard trying to impress them, they, they, they, they get a little bit more fists up. It doesn't help. They don't like that. You've tried hard to impress and it seems counterintuitive. I have this happen at comedy shows. You have the boyfriend that's sitting in the front arms cross. What's this kid got? My girlfriend thinks he's funny. I'm the funny one. And then I have to kind of go at them with kids gloves because they're insecure. The mom in this scenario where she's tough to impress, ah, let's see who's. Who's got the goods for my son. That's an insecure mom. That's a mom that's. You're gonna have to, I think you gotta let them, you gotta, you gotta go, you know, bend at the knee, kiss the ring and, and the, the personality will come. You will, you will get your shot to be the funny person and wonderful person that you are. But let that happen. Don't force that to happen because mama bear is gonna. If she's tough to impress. Oh, someone's trying to impress me. You can't impress me. Tough to impress. People want to be tough to impress. And it's, I think you got to go in as if you're meeting the lord of the land. I think flowers do it. Flowers. And if you're like, well, flowers die. It's the worst thing. It's the, it's a waste of money. I don't care what your opinion on flowers are. Flowers are effortless. Flowers are, you know, love in a certain way. Flowers. You had to go get them. You had to think about the color and, and do it up with the flowers. Bring flowers for the mom. Now you said just something she genuinely enjoy. You have to know she loves something. If she has an interest, if she has some sort of chachka that she always puts around the house. I'm not telling you to go buy a hundred thousand dollar tchotchka. I'm saying if she's like this weird woman who Loves daffodils. And you get a daffodil themed gift. That is thoughtful. I know. I've heard about. You know, you're Daisy Daffodil. You're. You're. You're Debbie Daffodil. Everyone knows that. I had to bring you. I saw this. And make it as if I was walking by a store. Your son always tells me how much you love daffodils. And it don't even. You have to make it seem like I just. You came to mind because that's how thoughtful I am. Yeah. You're putting on a big show for the king. The king and queen. You have to treat them as if it's that it's not. We're even. It's not you because you're not. You want them to like you. You are now dating their son. And I'm not saying. Listen, there's so many opinions that can go against this. Why does she have to be, you know, not herself? I'm not asking her to not be herself. I'm asking her to come in with humility, with respect. Own who you are. When you get your chance to make your joke and be yourself, you take those chances. But let's see the environment first. Let's not walk in. You know, do, do, do, do, do, do. You know, big clown try. And then they'll go, what is this? We're a quiet home. We didn't ask for a clown. Let the personality show. Don't try to make a personality happen. Wow. Because parents don't care if you're funny. Like, if someone gave my mom, like, a funny gift, my mom would go, what? She wouldn't even get it. This mom, it is 99% sure. Because their mind is on something else. When you. When you make someone laugh and you show them how funny you are, it's a surprise. It's. Whoa. Didn't see that coming. Whoa. That line. Didn't even think anyone would think to say that. When you're coming into the home and meeting them, there's no surprise. They're waiting for you. They're waiting to meet you. They're waiting to shake your hand, give you a hug. So this is the place where jokes really can't happen. You gotta come in. You are meeting the king and queen. You know, this is their. Their. Their kingdom. Brought you flowers, I think flowers. I think the other thing, because their mind is on is this person nice and respectful and do I like this person for my son? And. And I think all that other stuff will come in time. You want to nail the first meeting. So, flowers in hand. Here's the other thing. Clean up the bedroom that you're staying in. I would be more zoned in on keeping that living space for four days kept up rather than writing my one liners for the mom that she won't get. What is slaps mean? Who? What Slaps? We're slapping someone. No, it's slaps, mom. That's what people say nowadays. Who says that? I don't say that, my friends don't say it. You referencing a TikTok they've never seen? Oh yeah. Do you ever see the TikTok? What, What's a talk tick? They're not going to get anything. Let's, let's start. I think whenever you meet parents start at they get nothing. They know nothing. All they know is flowers are good, she keeps the space that she's living in clean, she's not a slob, and she's really nice and fun with my son. Then we'll get to wow, she's got like a fun personality. They'll get there. Let's not try and force it. I other gifts. I'm not even sure, like I would say bottle of wine. What are you gonna get that's gonna like make them go, oh, we love and. Okay, here's what it is with parent gifts. It starts at flowers and then the first thing you think of when you think of them. If you think of them and you think of nothing, that's fine. Nothing. No additional gifts. If you think of them and you think again to go back to Tchotchka of the week. They're, they're big labubu people, which, you know, if you brought them a labubu, they would have to know what that is. This is the big Gen Z doll, you know, mutant dolls that they're giving out that you can't find. If you got like. My grandmother used to love these monster dolls. She used to have like hundreds of them. She had dementia and I think like at some point she just became obsessed with buying these monster dolls. And it's so funny to see these labubus now. They're like, they're, they, they're basically the exact thing my grandmother used to buy. Jtrain podcast gmail.com Jtrain podcast gmail.com we're sponsored people. If the sponsor can help you go use the promo code because I'm actually using this currently. Guys, if you always look like you're only, you're only slept two hours last night. Boy, the, the ads people really screwed me on this one. Listen, it's called Caldera Lab and it's skin care for men. I am using it. If you go look at my videos. Yes, I have seen a difference. The bags under my eyes are, are going away. I, I, I really do enjoy using this and it's a three step process. I use their face cream, I use the oil and then I also use the under eye stuff. One, two, three and you're done. And I think like for a lot of men who are not used to a skincare program in the morning and at night I do it twice a day. Done. And it's easy and it takes two seconds and it's really, you know, nice stuff. I'm, I'm really enjoying. Caldera Labs has high performance products designed specifically for men. No unnecessary steps, just the basics. That's what I like about it. That are going to take your skin to the next level. Caldera Labs the base layer is the perfect moisturizer. I use it, it's thick, it comes in like a nice container. It absorbs quickly and leaves you with a non greasy finish. Top it off with the good, the serum that's packed with botanicals and antioxidants. I put that on. It makes my face look glossy almost. I wear it now every day. It's great. After that, take care of those eye bags with the eye serum. I've already ran out of the eye serum. I was using it so much. It's really great to be honest. Like go look at videos from now to two months ago. You can see the difference in my face. You can go see it right now on our Instagram. I'm telling you I see a huge difference. And I think for men, me being a man who doesn't really care about these things, you know, has bragged and joked before about using the shampoo to wash my face. This has been wonderful. No animal testing and formulas that won't clog your pores. Get ready for skin. You can feel great about skincare. Doesn't have to be complicated but it should be good. Upgrade your routine with Caldera Lab and see the difference for yourself. Go to calderalab.com drug j train use code jtrain at checkout for 20 off your first order. That's calderalab.com jtrain for code j train for 20 off your first order. Let me read that again. Caldera lab.com j train code j train for 20 off your 1st order. I actually just asked my ads people, the people I work with, Fanny and crew to order me More. That's how much I'm using it. So that is as good a referral as I can give. All right, let's do another question. Jared Feather. Feather, thanks for the awesome show in San Jose last weekend. Thank you. I had a fun time in San Jose. Third time I've seen you. And you continue to leave me with sore. With my. With sore abs from laughing so hard. What a compliment. Especially after coming off of last night's show in Huntsville. That was tough. Tough sledding for all of us. The second show had 27 people. I'm always going to be honest with you. Listen, like, some places. Some places tickets sell and some places they don't. That's okay. I'm here. You know, when I go on the road, it's. It's twofold. One, to give a great show. Two, to work on material so that I can tape the material and make it into a special that can find more people to love my standup. That's really the goal. And last night was a mix of, you know, 27 people and me being new with new material, the same same material I did for the people in San Jose. I mean, this person was sore abs. Someone last night might have been like, what the is he talk about? I thought it was. I'll get more into this on coffee J Train. It. It. You know, I've been just getting my ass kicked lately in all ways, and I don't know, I'm like, I feel like an NFL team. I felt there was this thing with the Patriots where they. They went to. They. They, like, got killed one year. They got killed. And Bell Belichick was like, we're on to Cincinnati. And I keep saying, we're on to the next show. We're on the next show, so it'll get better. Cutting to my question, what are your thoughts on the ideal size for a sample of a Froyo flavor before creating your own cup? Okay, I visit my local self serve. Okay, I listen. I visit my local self serve froyo shop a couple times per week, and they are big on constantly adding new, unique flavors to their usuals. Oatmeal, peanut butter, muffin. I always want, like, oatmeal. I get oatmeal peanut butter. I get. I understand how those two. Where does muffin come in? Muffin, to me, is the marketing. They want to, like, tell you it's an oatmeal muffin with peanut butter on it. They're trying to paint a picture. To me, the flavors are oatmeal and peanut Butter roasted blueberry. So I guess that's like a, a blueberry that would be in a pie. Lemon cream cheese frosting are some recent examples. Lemon cream cheese frosting, I would try that. It's gotta have like a tartness to it. In my opinion, a unique fro yo flavor that deviates from the standard vanilla chocolate kinda requires pre sampling before going all in. I'm with you. If there's a froyo rotation and it shows, you know, most froyo places they'll do like eight, six to eight flavors. Let's call it eight. They got the chocolate, the vanilla. So now you're down to six, probably. Strawberry, coffee, peanut butter. So now we're at five with three interchangeable ones. You get to try the three. You got to try them. Hey, let me try the three. And then we're going to make moves from here. So I've started to notice that when I asked to sample one to two of the unique flavors before serving myself, the staff consistently over serves me. This might seem like I'm. This might seem like I'm complaining about an actual perk, but honestly, we are talking huge samples. Like if I have two samples, I've eaten the equivalent of a standard child's cup of froyo. Wow. That kind of shows you what their costs are. Like ice cream must cost like froyo must cost $0 to make because those big machines in the back, you probably just pour in like a concentrate flavoring that goes into a vanilla. So to me it's telling me like froyo costs nothing and I've kind of lost so equivalent of standard. That's a lot for a, for a try. And I've kind of lost my desire to have another adult sized cup on top of it. It would be different if it were something like a sample of wine before ordering a full glass. But overdoing it on froyo is kind of more guilt inducing than overdoing it on a little bit of wine. If you ask me the wine thing, I disagree. I think if they get. If I was trying wine, I want a try so that I can have the full glass so that I know where I am in my wine drinking. To me the wine, I want to enjoy the wine. So like giving me a full cup of it to try, I'd be like, can I? Do I have to drink the rest of this? If I like it, do I just take this one? It also always leaves me with disgustingly sticky fingers because the froyo actually drips and spills out of the mini sample cups. I know exactly what you're talking about. So they're like the little tiny paper cups, and then they become mushy under the weight of too much too much. Try too much too much sample. I posed this question to my friends and they acted like I was insane and should be grateful for an oversized sample. So I wanted to hear your opinion on the matter. Would you welcome an extra large sample of any dessert, or do you prefer to adhere to a guilt free portion size? Look. Or do you prefer to adhere to a guilt free portion size? Looking forward to your thoughts. Best sample stuffed. Now. I think now we're talking about fro, yo. If I wanted a sample of a cookie, I think this all goes in a different direction. I haven't thought that out. I thought this out specifically for froyo. I don't mind an extra large sample as long as it's easy to throw away. My biggest issue is that the sample garbage is usually these, like, little tiny mini desk garbage cans. And if they're gonna give you a huge sample of a flavor, the little mini garbage can kind of shames you out of throwing away the rest of the sample, Especially if there's no liner in the mini garbage can. To me, if they're gonna give me a sample, I need to have a garbage that is the size of the sample. So you give me a little sample where I'm going to put my whole mouth around the spoon. I want it to be able to. Okay, that goes in the mini garbage. If you give me a huge froyo sample, I want to be able to have a large garbage to throw that in. Because froyo is not a shareable sample. I can't get a froyo and lick on top of it and go, here, give it to my, you know, my brother, my dad, my mom, my date, and go, what do you think? Because now I've just slobbered. It's like sharing soup with the same spoon. It's a little weird and gross. It's a little too entangled. So I. My thing is, I don't care how large the sample is, but give me a garbage that encourages me to throw away a half a sample that I didn't finish yet. Also, I'm in favor of the extra large sample because now, you know, this is not a surprise. So when you go in there, to me, it would be more bothersome if they went back and forth if it was server dependent. If it was, hey, when you get this person, the sample sizes are huge. When you get that person, they're mini. I like that there's a consistency here, which you've never brought up. You're just saying this place has huge samples. Well, if I were you, that's how I plan my order. That becomes part of my order. Growing up, my family used to go to a place called Legal Seafoods. It's a local New England place that grew into a national chain. I think they've since contracted. At its height, Legal Seafood was very tough to get into a good restaurant. That kind of mirrors where restaurants have gone. This. You know, they're. They're. They were ahead of their game. Love Legal Seafood. Big fan. We. My family realized that if. And I've talked about this here before, my family realized that Legal Seafood would give you two sides when you got an entree. And if the side came on your plate, if you said to the waiter, hey, I actually didn't get this side. I got another side, they would go, keep it. I'll bring it out to you. So now you're getting three sides instead of two. So when we realized this, we would order, knowing this was the case. Ordering. We were ordering now as if we were going to get three sides because all of us would get two sides that came on the plate, inform the waiter that the side was wrong, then get our third side that was coming. So we would eat based on this amount of food. So now instead of getting three appetizers, we were like, hey, we better take it easy on appetizers because we're all getting three sides instead of two. I would say the same goes for your froyo here. To me, if they gave extra large froyo samples, I'm gonna plan my froyo order in. Like, I'm gonna plan my froyo order with the idea that I'm getting two appetizer froyos. So what am I gonna get? Oh, I'm gonna get two tries that equal one kid's cup. And then I'm gonna get my order of a kid's cup of the froyo of my choice. So what I would do is especially considering most froyo places have eight handles. So I would. And the. It goes chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, coffee, peanut butter on five. So now you have three that are interchangeable. I would go, okay, I'm going to try two of the three, and then get the third as a kid's cup. And you said for my adult size cup, you know, it ruins that. No, no, no. Now I'm going in. And again, if. If you don't want Three flavors of euphro. You go somewhere else. That's when you find a new froyo place. Again, legal seafood wasn't every night for us. But if we were going, if I. If, you know, you don't go with the plan has to be for the specific situation. This is a call for context. This is a call for nuance. How many appetizers should I get? Well, where are you going? How many people are going? How many froyo flavors should I try? Where are you going? How big are the are this? How big are the samples? How many, how many, how many? You know, how many creative flavors are they doing on a weekly basis? These are all things that have to work in. Now you know the course. This is like knowing the hike. So now you know where to maneuver for your froyo night. Okay, so this is a call for game planning. This is a call on you to not just act like you have short term memory loss. You're going in knowing this is a big fro yo, sample place this. So I'm going to get two samples and one kitty cup. And that's the order you. You got to play the game that's been given to you. It's raining out. Bring your umbrella, bitch. Don't just walk outside and be like, oh, well, what do I do with these? These are so big. We'll change it up. This froyo question is an example of how we need to live our lives. You can't just keep walking into a brick wall. At some point, you got to figure out, bring a ladder, go around, find a new direction. This froyo place is hitting you with big sample sizes. Okay, time to make a change with your order. Don't blame the froyo place for being the froyo place. Blame yourself for not acknowledging this is who they are. And then you need to make a change in your life to make sure you get to where you need to go. And where you need to go is the right amount of froyo for your after dinner treat. So this is my message to you. Learn a lesson here. Time to step up your froyo order game and stop blaming the froyos in your life for giving you too much in a sample. J train podcast. Gmail.com. i hope that got you ready for your Monday. I that that should have pumped you up for the week. Stop blaming the sample sizes and start changing for the sample sizes you're being given. This is a lesson to me. This is Jer bear. This is me talking in the mirror. Stop blaming Huntsville for the shows that suck. Start changing up. Start writing, get better. Order a kid's cup. Stop ordering the large size just because that's what you get. J train podcast gmail.com back next week. Boom.