7: #7 | Grocery Stores

Summary

Public Figures – Episode 7: “Grocery Stores”

Podcast: Public Figures
Hosts: Brian Bates, Aaron Weber, Dusty Slay
Date: March 18, 2026
Episode Focus: The ins and outs of grocery stores—their psychology, operations, quirks, and cultural impressions, as well as personal stories and crowd interaction.
(Note: Intro/outro chatter and ads have been omitted from the summary.)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the world of grocery stores. The trio of comedians explores everything from the subtle marketing tricks stores use on shoppers, the mechanics of carts and parking lots, chain culture and regional quirks, to personal memories from visits across the country. They mix in jokes, banter, and genuine curiosity, offering a playful yet insightful look at an American staple.

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Key Discussions and Insights

1. Comedian Catch-Up: Tours & Travels (00:50–10:00)

• Recent Shows & Family Connections: Dusty recently performed in Edmonton at the West Edmonton Mall; Brian toured Montana and performed at Air Force/Space Force bases; Aaron’s shows and upcoming comedy special prep.
• Green Room Experiences (07:00): Aaron jokes about not being important enough in the past to use the green room at clubs.
• Banter on Getting Together While Touring: Jokes about comedians never actually meeting up ("it sounds good but... never happens").

Memorable Quote (03:32, Aaron Weber):
“Yeah, that was actually a year ago this week. I was in Boston the same time Bestie was. I’m like, let’s get together. And he was like, yeah, let’s do it. And then I text. He’s like, nah, this don’t.”

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2. Airline Woes, Health, and Tom Hanks Digression (10:13–18:01)

• Flight Delays and Mishaps: Stories of flight delays, cancellations, and Henry Cho’s emergency landing (14:23).
• Humor About Airline Announcements: The hosts riff on how pilots break bad news to passengers.
• Tom Hanks’ Filmography Over-Saturation: A comic riff on how Hanks always plays “the hero,” and a joking debate about what role he hasn’t played yet.

Quote (15:06, Brian Bates): “Yeah, I’d almost rather you tell me there’s, like, a serial killer on board. Then the engines have.”

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3. Comedy Special Prep & Nateland News (21:29–25:28)

• Shoutouts for Friends’ Comedy Specials: Brad Upton, Derek Stroop, etc.
• Streaming Era Reflections: Dusty’s meta-habit of scanning to the end of friends’ specials to see if he’s in the “thanks.”
• On Reading & Writing: Discussion about reading habits, the writing process for Dusty’s upcoming memoir, and the relative value of books vs. movies.

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4. Fan Comments & Listener Engagement (32:17–54:07)

• Discussion of Fan Comments: Hosts riff on listener feedback, Montana facts (drive-what-is-wise speed limits), and their own family trivia.
• Musical Interludes & Country Duets: Brief country song singalongs (Charlie Daniels, Merle Haggard), and a playful analysis of the saddest song (“Diary” by Bread).
• Grocery Store Memories & Mishaps: The hosts relate comments to personal stories, from aggressive geese at comedy clubs to challenges with public bathrooms.

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5. Celebrity Shopping Habits and Tech Choices (54:10–54:59)

• LeBron James and Wired Headphones: Dusty and Brian joke about LeBron always photographed reading the first page of a book and the surprising preference for wired headphones among celebrities.
• Grocery Store Technology Worries: Brian’s concerns about cell phone radiation, 5G towers, and a preference for wired over Bluetooth.

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6. Grocery Store Deep Dive (63:55–112:10)

The Psychology & Operations of Grocery Stores

• Habits and Strategies

  • Frequency: Average American shops every 4.7 days (66:57).
  • The List: 75% enter with a list, almost everyone buys more than planned (67:59).

• Impulse and Layout

  • Store Design: Everything, from parking lots to shelf layout, is crafted to maximize time, flow, and spending.
  • Parking Lot Psychology (71:17): Trader Joe’s small, always-full parking lots vs. Walmart’s huge, always-visible lots.

• Shopping Cart Evolution

  • Cart Sizes Have Doubled: Modern carts are up to 3x larger than those in 1975, causing a 40% rise in spending (75:04).
  • Wobbly Wheels Conspiracy: Are stores intentionally neglecting repairs to slow you down? Brian is skeptical, chalking it up to benign neglect (77:08).

Quote (75:07, Dusty Slay): “Now what that’s done is it’s caused a 40% increase in spending on average. Because the way your mind works is that you want to fill that shopping cart up. The larger the cart is, the more permission you give yourself to buy more stuff.”

• Store Entry and Section Placement

  • Produce & Bakery at the Front: Designed to visually and aromatically entice, making you feel healthy and set the mood for more indulgent shopping (84:54).

• Shopping Cart Ergonomics (81:03): Even the way handles are designed influences what and how much you buy.

• Impulse Purchases and Loss Leaders

  • Rotisserie Chickens at Cost: Costco loses ~$40 million/yr on rotisserie chickens to draw people into the store for other, bigger-margin items (92:32).
  • Pre-cut Produce Markups: Pre-cut or mixed fruit and veggies are major profit centers, often using fruit approaching expiration (95:16).

• Merchandising & Marketing Tactics

  • Mirrors in Produce: Create the illusion of abundance and draw attention (87:16).
  • Misters Do Nothing for Produce: Water sprays simply make things look fresh, but actually accelerate spoilage (87:18).
  • Shrinkflation: Packages shrink, price stays—consumers lose out (99:40).
  • Price Anchoring & Loyalty Cards: Common tactics to present sales and gather data for targeted marketing (101:41).

• Chain Identity and Culture

  • Publix, Trader Joe’s, Aldi, Piggly Wiggly, etc: Group discusses their personalities, quirks, and regional following.
  • Best-Rated Stores: Trader Joe’s (#1 for friendliness and service), Publix #2, Whole Foods #7 (110:25).

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7. Interactive Segment: "What Does this Receipt Say About Me?" (102:58–110:18)

• Hosts analyze hypothetical grocery receipts and try to deduce the customer’s life situation.
  • Examples: A receipt with a rotisserie chicken, family salad, mac & cheese = parent shopping for family; one with OJ, Advil, chicken strips = someone displaced, possible hotel living; purchase of distilled water = likely has a CPAP machine.
• Takeaway: These data points paint a profile for marketers; your receipt tells a story.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Overly Honest Motivations (13:19, Brian Bates):
  “Well, listen, everybody knows that. ... It would be less genuine if I were like, I’m just doing it because I love people. Yeah. We’re all doing it for the money.”

• On Store Layout Schemes (86:01, Brian Bates):
  "This is a theory that I’ve heard: when you’re in the grocery store, you should only buy the things off the ends; everything in the middle, poison. On the ends is where you’re going to get the healthy stuff."

• On Shopping Cart Handles & Ergonomics (81:03, Dusty Slay):
  “They had a study...where parallel handle shopping carts significantly and substantially increase sales...It causes you to use different muscles in your arms, working that chest.”

• On Loss Leaders (93:32, Dusty Slay):
  “Costco loses $40 million a year on rotisserie chickens...They smell good. I don’t even want a rotisserie chicken. But the smell—I think I’m gonna buy a lot of stuff.”

• On Loyalty Cards and Data (102:11, Dusty Slay):
  “95% of Kroger transactions use a loyalty card. ... They collect a ton of data about you, and then that allows them to market products directly to you.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:50–10:00 – Intro Banter, Catching Up, Tour Stories
• 10:13–18:01 – Airline Fiascos, Tom Hanks Digression
• 21:29–30:26 – Special Prep, Nateland News, Comedy Business
• 32:17–54:07 – Listener Comments, Music Tangents, Store Mishaps
• 63:55–76:53 – Grocery Psychology I: Parking, Carts, Entry, Lists, Cart Tricks
• 76:53–86:24 – Grocery Psychology II: Section Placement, Impulse Buys, Misters, Shrinkflation
• 92:32–96:17 – Rotisserie Chickens, High-Margin Items, Pre-Packaged Foods
• 102:58–110:18 – Receipt Game: Decoding Grocery Lists
• 110:25–112:10 – Best Grocery Stores, Loyalty, Store Culture
• 112:10+ – Wrap-up and Upcoming Shows

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Tone and Language

Tone shifts seamlessly between analytical, playful, and irreverent. There’s a comic’s curiosity and skepticism—a mix of relatable consumer gripes and comic exaggeration. Comedic self-deprecation and regional references abound, along with dry, matter-of-fact observations (“Nobody ever leaves a store over a wobbly wheel”), and banter that belies genuine interest in the quirky world of grocery shopping.

Transcript

[Brian Bates]

Are you really buying a car online

[Aaron Weber]

on Autotrader right now?

[Brian Bates]

Really? I can get super specific with dealer

[Dusty Slay]

listings and see cars based on my budget.

[Brian Bates]

You can really have it delivered or pick it up. I think kid is walking up the slide. Really? Autotrader, buy your car online. Really?

[Aaron Weber]

Hello, common folks. And hey bores. This is public Figures podcast. We're Public Figures. You guys are just the public. Welcome as always. I'm here with my co host, Aaron Weber.

[Dusty Slay]

All right.

[Aaron Weber]

And he needs no introduction. Dusty the Knife man slay.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Dusty's wheel, yielding, wielding, holding a knife at the table. Oh man, look at that.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. If you're listening, Dusty has a. A knife on him. What's that all about?

[Brian Bates]

Well, I always have a knife.

[Dusty Slay]

But you don't take it out and flaunt it around the table though.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, but I'm kind of. Kind of tired of some stuff going on around.

[Aaron Weber]

It's a. It's a Montana knife, looks like.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, it's what I got fish with.

[Dusty Slay]

You ever play the game where you. You put your hand out on the table and then you take the tip of the knife and you go between the finish?

[Brian Bates]

I have played that. Yeah. When I was younger we used to be reckless like that.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Did you ever slip up your hand been cut?

[Brian Bates]

Many times, yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, welcome everyone. And that introduction was a little tongue in cheek there, guys. I don't want you think that I think I'm better than you. I mean I probably am, but just a little joking around.

[Dusty Slay]

Belittle Bates.

[Brian Bates]

I enjoyed it. I thought that was our best intro yet.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, thank you, Dusty.

[Brian Bates]

Except for the one that I did, but yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, welcome.

[Dusty Slay]

Good to see you, man. It's been a couple weeks since we pre taped the last episode.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

So I haven't seen you guys in forever. What's been going on?

[Brian Bates]

I'm always happy to see you guys.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, you can see me in a couple weeks in Minneapolis, Minnesota at Sisyphus Brewing Company at the end of March.

[Brian Bates]

All right.

[Dusty Slay]

Do you want to see me in person?

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

You can see me this weekend. Three locations in Florida and one in Alabama.

[Brian Bates]

All right. Four shows.

[Aaron Weber]

Four shows in four days. Destin, Tallahassee, Pompano beach and Gadsden, Alabama.

[Brian Bates]

Gadson. I have some family in Gadsden. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably still do.

[Aaron Weber]

You do too, right?

[Dusty Slay]

You think you know them well enough to hit him up and tell them to go to Brian show?

[Brian Bates]

No, no. That's why I don't even know if they still live there. The people that I knew have died and. But they, you know, that was my family. They've died, but I still have some family. I just don't know them as well.

[Aaron Weber]

You have family and guests, right?

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, none I know well enough to hit up, though.

[Aaron Weber]

I won't even get in there. I was just someone. Because you guys have mentioned that previously implied that maybe you guys are related and don't know it.

[Dusty Slay]

That would surprise me.

[Brian Bates]

Me, too.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Well, look, me too.

[Aaron Weber]

Me too. But you never know. Well, cool. And where. Where are you going to be?

[Brian Bates]

Oh, I'll be in Florida. I'll be in Clearwater, Florida on Friday and Orlando on Saturday.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, we should get together.

[Brian Bates]

We should get together.

[Aaron Weber]

I like to take my shirt off in Florida and just.

[Brian Bates]

Me too. That's what I plan on doing the whole time.

[Dusty Slay]

You don't know. But you just signed up to drive Brian an hour across town somewhere. We should get together. She picked me up from the airport.

[Brian Bates]

Well, Brian knows I don't get together.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[Brian Bates]

That was on the show with me.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. That was such an empty gesture. Yeah, we'll meet up.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

No, and you know you're not going to see him.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, that was actually a year ago this week. I was in Boston the same time Bestie was. I'm like, let's get together. And he was like, yeah, let's do it. And then I text. He's like, nah, this don't.

[Brian Bates]

Well. And you know, it's just. It all always sounds good to get together. Yeah, but it usually is. You know, you're in the same city, but you're not close to each other.

[Aaron Weber]

That is true.

[Dusty Slay]

But by get together, you mean you want him to just come to where you are?

[Aaron Weber]

I was going to do that. I. Because I flew in after you already arrived. I was going to drive and meet you somewhere and you're like, nah, I

[Brian Bates]

don't think that's true.

[Aaron Weber]

It was. I was like this meet for coffee and then we'll post how. Oh, look, the top coffee shops. And you're like, ah, I'm gonna take a nap.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, yeah, well, that could be true, too.

[Aaron Weber]

Now, in fairness to Dusty, he said after his show he was gonna go smoke cigars and he invited me to come meet him for cigars.

[Dusty Slay]

And you bailed on that.

[Aaron Weber]

I did. Because we were like 45 minutes away from each other.

[Brian Bates]

Right. That was a good time, though. You know, my friend who was opening for me, Derek Humphrey, he. We went and had some sushi in Boston and he got sick. But you didn't no, but I don't eat shellfish, so I bet he had some. I bet he had some kind of shellfish type and it got him sick.

[Dusty Slay]

Had a shrimp. Shrimp sushi or something.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, probably so. Can't eat that stuff.

[Aaron Weber]

Guys, where were you guys this weekend?

[Dusty Slay]

We haven't seen each other in a couple weeks. I've been across the border. I was in Edmonton, Alberta, up in Canada for a few days. Spent four days at the West Edmonton mall, one of the largest malls in North America. There's a seal in there. There's a pirate ship. There was a jiu jitsu tournament going on. There's.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

I mean, it was just chaos.

[Brian Bates]

And you went to meet.

[Dusty Slay]

I did go to meet, yeah. I brought Jay Flake to meet.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And I. I couldn't tell him what it was called before I took him. Yeah, I go, I got a restaurant. I'm not going to tell you what it is because you're not going to want to go.

[Aaron Weber]

But we went and I've never been. So it's just all meat.

[Brian Bates]

It's a barbecue place.

[Aaron Weber]

But why wouldn't Jay want to go?

[Dusty Slay]

Because it's weird to ask you. It's so. It's an odd name.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, I like the name because I, you know, I like meat and so I'm into it.

[Dusty Slay]

This is crazy.

[Brian Bates]

They have a brisket there. That's very good.

[Dusty Slay]

It is good.

[Brian Bates]

And, you know, Edmonton is. That's cattle country up there. So they do. They do beef. Well, you know, at the same time you were there, I was in Montana. We weren't that far away.

[Dusty Slay]

That's still like nine way.

[Brian Bates]

I don't know.

[Dusty Slay]

I met somebody came to my show and they said we had to choose between driving down to Montana to see Dusty or come to see you.

[Brian Bates]

And it was the drive that made the difference, 100%.

[Dusty Slay]

They made it sound like they were choosing me. And I was like, how far do you live from here? Like, oh, about 10 minutes. Yeah. Well, that's an easy choice for sure. But then I was. I just got back the other day from Lexington, Kentucky. It was a comedy, Off Broadway all weekend.

[Brian Bates]

Just one of my favorite clubs.

[Dusty Slay]

Just a great club. Everybody there is awesome.

[Brian Bates]

One of my favorites.

[Dusty Slay]

It was. It was a lot of fun. Thank you to everybody who came out to those shows.

[Aaron Weber]

You know, when I first few times I went there, I. I would tell people, yeah, but they don't have a green room. And the truth is I was just selling so few tickets, they didn't feel the need to take Me to the green room.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

They go, you can just take the whole back corner of the room.

[Aaron Weber]

Exactly. So for years I'm like, yeah, it's a good club. They just don't have a green room.

[Dusty Slay]

They got a nice green room. They got their own bathroom up there.

[Brian Bates]

That's hilarious.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

But when you don't sell a lot of tickets, you can hang out in the back and nobody really bothers you. But not now. Now I'm a, you know, big deal, so.

[Dusty Slay]

That's right.

[Aaron Weber]

I have to hang out. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Where were you? Where have you been?

[Aaron Weber]

Well, I've been here.

[Dusty Slay]

I knew the answer. I'm a big deal now. Haven't worked the last two weeks now

[Aaron Weber]

I've been doing shows here at Zany's, All Star shows, Nateland, live shows. Get ready for my big special.

[Dusty Slay]

That's right. It's coming up.

[Aaron Weber]

Yep. Yep. So I've been doing that. This weekend we had a birthday party

[Dusty Slay]

for Eleanor that's less important. Oh, whatever.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Hannah wasn't invited because you guys didn't invite me to her birthday party.

[Brian Bates]

So that's interesting. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

So we're like, no, we're not doing it. I'm still upset about that.

[Dusty Slay]

What are you going to wear on the special? Do you know? Did you. Have you thought about all that?

[Aaron Weber]

I do have some thoughts on it. I've got one option that. That's my. My leading candidate. But I have some other options and we're going to meet and kind of talk about set design and.

[Brian Bates]

Did you get Christy Johnson involved?

[Aaron Weber]

Christy Johnson's very involved.

[Dusty Slay]

Shout Out Purpose Boutique in the Tacoma, Washington area.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. So Christy hooked me up when I was there a few months ago.

[Brian Bates]

You see Christy's husband on the cruise, he's jacked. Flip, flip, flip.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, is he a Navy SEAL or something?

[Brian Bates]

Maybe, but I had no idea.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. So anyway, my special.

[Brian Bates]

I'm just saying I met him several times and. And I, you know, I was just. I didn't see it coming.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, he's very jacked.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

So you were at Meat. Anyway.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, well, I was two weeks ago. I was in Montana. I was in Billings and Butte. And the billing show was first. My opener. Will o' Donnell got a seven hour flight delay in. In Denver and missed the show.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow.

[Brian Bates]

I found a local opener, very funny. And I was hoping. I was. Part of me was thinking, is this the time where I do the whole show myself?

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, man.

[Aaron Weber]

Finally.

[Dusty Slay]

This might be the worst thing that ever happened to Will o'.

[Brian Bates]

Donnell. I didn't do It.

[Dusty Slay]

But you wanted.

[Brian Bates]

I really thought about it. I go, is this. Is this going to be when I go out and do it myself? But. But you know what? That was one of the best shows I've had in a long time.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow.

[Brian Bates]

The billing show was really great. And then I went down to Butte. Also a great show.

[Dusty Slay]

Was it at that. That theater in Billings?

[Brian Bates]

It was at a theater.

[Dusty Slay]

So they used to do. The Big Sky Comedy Festival was a competition, and they would do. The finalists would perform in that theater and everybody else would go watch the show there. And that theater was awesome.

[Brian Bates]

It was so great. Yeah, I loved it. I mean, I just. The audience was great. I mean, they were just fired up. Yeah. I did 90 minutes. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

How much did the opener do?

[Brian Bates]

He did about 20.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, okay.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay. He ran the light by 15.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah,

[Aaron Weber]

well, yeah, I. You guys have both graciously agreed to open for me on my special.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, I didn't know we were actually gonna do that. Yeah, I guess.

[Brian Bates]

But then I want to say, I got. I got one more thing, though. I want to get back to this, but this weekend, I did three Air Force bases in Colorado.

[Dusty Slay]

All right.

[Brian Bates]

And you. You'll like this. Two of them. Space force bases.

[Dusty Slay]

Whoa.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. So I didn't tell them. I don't think space is real. Yeah. It is weird to hang out at night and smoke cigars on an Air Force base because it gets pretty empty at night. And then around 10 o' clock, they play a song. They play Taps. It plays over the loudspeakers. And I don't.

[Dusty Slay]

How does Taps go?

[Brian Bates]

I don't know. Somebody told me that's what the song is.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

And then I was sitting out there one day, that song started playing, and then a guy basically ran back to his room. And I thought, should I be out here? Is this okay? Yeah. And it was okay. Nobody ever said anything to me, but I had a great time.

[Aaron Weber]

All right. So they. They go to bed.

[Brian Bates]

I don't know.

[Aaron Weber]

But then at 10pm they play.

[Brian Bates]

They play that. And then this guy came running and I go, how you doing? He goes. He. He weirdly say it, said hey to me. And then went on in.

[Dusty Slay]

You know, I had my grandfather's funeral. He was in the Air Force. They played Taps at his funeral. And a guy held up a bugle. Well, I was looking it. It was a fake bugle that just had a little button on it. So he was just holding it up and he pushed a button and.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

And it played it because I think it's probably hard to find enough guys that play the bugle.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, probably is.

[Dusty Slay]

There's probably one left in the whole country that can play a bugle.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And that are also in the Air Force.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

You know, so it might not have been a real bugle is what I'm saying.

[Brian Bates]

And then I had an opener, Walter Campbell. He's a 20 year retired Air Force veteran. It was great. We had such a great time. It's a lot of fun.

[Aaron Weber]

Cool. And he's a comic.

[Brian Bates]

He is a comic out of Baltimore, but is, you know, kind of the Air Force guy.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

A couple of Air Force guys, they drive you to all the gigs and get you on to the base.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

They have musicians and stuff too sometimes. Or is it just.

[Brian Bates]

I think so, yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

That's awesome. It's like a USO tour. You don't have to leave the country.

[Brian Bates]

It's nice because. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's guaranteed money. You don't have to worry. I mean, if, you know, like people. One of the shows excited the two Space Force venues. And then I did the Academy. The Air Force Academy.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

So I saw the Air Force football stadium.

[Dusty Slay]

That's cool.

[Brian Bates]

And you know, and they would. That one was a 4:30 show and it was our lightliest attended show. And people were apologizing about the light attendance. And I was just thinking, it doesn't make any difference.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, exactly. Y' all could leave now if you want. I don't care.

[Brian Bates]

And. But this. Great. No, I like them. And you know, also people appreciate it. You know, they're on military base, they're working, they're serving the country.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And then you get to, you know, come in and entertain them.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. That's great. That's awesome.

[Aaron Weber]

It's a little late for that. After. You just kept emphasizing it's just all about the money.

[Brian Bates]

Well, listen, everybody knows that. We're all. Nobody thinks it would be less genuine if I were like, I'm just doing it because I love people. Yeah. We're all doing it for the money.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. I mean, for the smiles on people's faces.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. It's a bonus that people do need laughter and we get to provide that for them. It is a bonus. But you know, let's be honest. If people were like, hey, will you come out to Colorado and do three free shows for us? Yeah, it's gonna be tough.

[Dusty Slay]

I still get those emails. Yeah. Fort Collins, Colorado 75. No hotel. Can you be here tomorrow? Nah, nah.

[Brian Bates]

But I had a couple of delays too.

[Aaron Weber]

Did you Forward that to me.

[Brian Bates]

He's doing it. He's driving that.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, I'm gonna be out there this.

[Brian Bates]

But the. You know, I got a couple of delays on the way out there, and I. I thought I was going to miss the show. I showed up 30 minutes before the show started.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow. Wow. It's been crazy.

[Brian Bates]

American Airlines is falling apart.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, that's what everybody. That's what everybody's saying. Southwest, I'm. Southwest rises to the top.

[Brian Bates]

Southwest all the way now.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, Henry Cho had to cancel a show this weekend in Tucson because his flight from Nashville to Dallas got diverted to Little Rock on an emergency land mercy landing. Engine failure.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

And he said he was doing a lot of praying, I bet, until that plane landed, but. But, yeah, that's pretty scary.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow. That is crazy.

[Brian Bates]

Did he.

[Dusty Slay]

Did you talk to him at all? You called him and talked to him?

[Aaron Weber]

We texted.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay. Did he see, like, one of the engines go out or something?

[Aaron Weber]

No, he said the pilot just came on and announced that.

[Dusty Slay]

And he almost don't even need to

[Aaron Weber]

tell the I know.

[Dusty Slay]

Passengers. You go, well, we got to land in Little Rock. We'll tell you why when we're on the ground, you know?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, I'd almost rather you tell me there's, like, a serial killer on board. Then the engines have.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, I would go, we got a medical emergency. We have to land. Yeah, I would do, but maybe you're not allowed to lie like that.

[Aaron Weber]

Maybe not.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, maybe if the pilot goes, there's a medical emergency. I'm having a heart attack. Dude.

[Dusty Slay]

If you imagine making that announcement, you know, you have to get, like, your tone of voice right before you make it, because if you come on there and go, hey, guys.

[Aaron Weber]

Hey.

[Dusty Slay]

Everything's fine. We're gonna, like. You gotta, like, okay, hey, everybody, we're gonna make it.

[Brian Bates]

You know, he's really cool. And then you see him parachute out of the plane. You see him in the window flipping you off.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, that's terrifying, man.

[Aaron Weber]

We have a medical emergency. Our engine's out, so we're all gonna die.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Anyway, Henry Hanks is making the movie for it later.

[Dusty Slay]

It's the worst part of all.

[Brian Bates]

Anyway, how did Tom Hanks go from one of the greatest actors of our time to the guy who does everything like that?

[Aaron Weber]

I can answer that.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

When he snubbed you at the Ryman, that's when your attitude toward him changed.

[Brian Bates]

I don't think he snubbed me.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, according to you, he didn't come up and talk to you afterwards? I did A joke about. Yeah, but if he had come up and said, great set, you'd be like, tom Hanks still got it. He still.

[Dusty Slay]

That is all it would take for me, too.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Well, he didn't.

[Dusty Slay]

For me, it was saving Mr. Banks. You remember that movie where he plays, like, Disney or something? I go, it's too much. Now what are we doing?

[Brian Bates]

Knees. Mr. Rogers, he's the. You know, I'm the captain.

[Dusty Slay]

He's an astronaut. Sully, he's everybody.

[Aaron Weber]

He's got range.

[Dusty Slay]

Has he been the president of anything?

[Aaron Weber]

Has he been garbage man number two?

[Dusty Slay]

No, no, no, no. Or number one.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't think he has been the president anything.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, that'll happen soon, I'm sure.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

I think he's too likable to play a president.

[Dusty Slay]

He was the everyman. That was this whole thing, right?

[Aaron Weber]

Still is.

[Brian Bates]

Wow. I don't think so. His image has been tarnished a bit over the years.

[Aaron Weber]

Tom Hanks says.

[Brian Bates]

I think so. Because he keeps playing these.

[Aaron Weber]

What, just Mr. Rogers.

[Dusty Slay]

You're the hero.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, exactly. We get.

[Dusty Slay]

He's playing Gandhi next year.

[Aaron Weber]

I saw that.

[Brian Bates]

I'd see that. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

I would go see him in Gandhi just to see what the makeup looks like.

[Aaron Weber]

Huh. Ben Kingsley played Gandhi.

[Dusty Slay]

He did, And I think it hasn't aged particularly well. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Anyway, I was gonna say, I saw that Louis CK Joke over the weekend about goodwill hunting.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, it's such a great joke.

[Aaron Weber]

It is such a great joke.

[Dusty Slay]

You ever see that? He talked about, you know, goodwill hunting, the movie. He's like, a genius. He's like, matt Damon wrote the movie, and he's like, first of all, I'm a genius,

[Brian Bates]

and.

[Dusty Slay]

But I'm also tough. Like, I fight people all the time. It' a great bit.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

This episode is sponsored by Better Help March. March is International Women's Day, guys. Well, I think it's International Women's Month, right? I think it's just the day. I think it's for the whole month. It's a time to celebrate the strength, care, and resilience women bring to every part of our life.

[Dusty Slay]

Right?

[Aaron Weber]

At work, in relationships, in families, and in the many roles they carry every day. When I think about a woman who's had a lasting impact on me, I think about Abigail Barke. Wait, what? She's someone who shows up for others in ways that really matter. All right, I need to start reading this copy before the show. Okay, sure. Abigail. But also, my wife and my mom cannot do anything without any of those women. But many women carry so much that their own emotional well being can get overlooked. Taking time for yourself matters too. Therapy can help you reflect, set healthy boundaries, and find more balance in your life. BetterHelp connects you with licensed therapists and matches you with someone based on a short questionnaire about your needs and preferences. And if the matches are right, you can switch therapists anytime. Your emotional well being matters, Dusty. So find support and feel lighter in therapy.

[Brian Bates]

No one's ever said that to me and I appreciate that.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, you're welcome. Sign up and get 10 [e-mail] Nate that's better. H E L P.com Nate Can I share some Nateland news with you?

[Dusty Slay]

I would love it. Let's get into it.

[Aaron Weber]

Dusty, can I share some with you?

[Brian Bates]

Yes, please do.

[Dusty Slay]

This will be news to Dusty.

[Aaron Weber]

Brad Upton is recording a special.

[Dusty Slay]

Put the knife away. You can't hold a knife.

[Aaron Weber]

March 29 at the Franklin theater. It says here in Nashville, but we guys know it's actually in Franklin.

[Dusty Slay]

It's in Franklin, yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Yep, Tickets are still available. He was on season two of the showcase. We say it all the time, but Brad is so funny.

[Dusty Slay]

Very, very funny.

[Aaron Weber]

So go check that out.

[Brian Bates]

One of the top dry bar guys. Maybe the top

[Aaron Weber]

Nateland presents the showcase, season four. We hosted these and they were all great. The first set is from Vince Caron.

[Dusty Slay]

Vince Caron. I hosted that show. Vince Groan. Very funny. Had a great set.

[Brian Bates]

Very funny.

[Dusty Slay]

Excited to see it on film because I was in the room and it was hot.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. That debuts this Thursday at 7:00 clock central. The Nateland YouTube channel. We're gonna have a new comic every week. Vince came down from Chicago to film it. We had people from all over the country come in. Peter Wong, like, drove. He was stuck in New York City and just got his. Shoveled his car out.

[Dusty Slay]

And we had a few from outside the states too. I mean, it's becoming a thing. People are coming in to. To do it. So make sure you check those out. They're all great comics and they're on there for a reason. So if you like us, if you like the world that we're in, you're gonna like those guys too. Yeah, go check it out.

[Brian Bates]

And even if you don't like us, you may still like that, even if you hate us.

[Dusty Slay]

And you're like, I want to try something different. They are, you know, they're different enough that you can enjoy them too.

[Aaron Weber]

N produced Derek Stroop's Netflix special Nostalgic, and it's out now.

[Dusty Slay]

It's out on Netflix.

[Aaron Weber]

I would check it periodically to see how it's doing. The top ten. It was always in there. Got up to number six. All right, so Derek's killing it.

[Dusty Slay]

You know how I watch Netflix specials of my friends now? I have enough people that I know that have specials on the thing. I watched the first couple minutes, see how it looks, and then I scroll to the end to see if I'm a special thanks. And I'm not on Derek's, but I understand.

[Brian Bates]

How many have you gotten?

[Dusty Slay]

Greg Warren thanked us by name at the end of his.

[Brian Bates]

The.

[Dusty Slay]

The first Nateland special.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Called us out. I opened for John. John Crist on Chris. Credited me. And I think you shout. You put Nate Land or something as a special thanks on yours. All right. But. But I know I'm a part of that.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

So I'll take the.

[Brian Bates]

And we are running out of text.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brian Bates]

You know what I mean?

[Aaron Weber]

Anyway, go check out Nostalgic. Nostalgic. Nostalgic on Netflix. Nate's greatest average American game show airs tonight, Wednesday on abc. Check your local listings for that. Now, I was watching last week and the competition. Nate does like these little competitions. Not competition. Challenges.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Where they have to guess how well.

[Dusty Slay]

Predict how well he'll do at it. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

And then somebody guesses the over under. So far, Nate has went under on every.

[Dusty Slay]

He's underperformed. Underperformed every challenge.

[Aaron Weber]

The challenge last week was answer a question from kindergarten all the way through senior year of high school.

[Dusty Slay]

So when was he done? Second grade.

[Aaron Weber]

First.

[Brian Bates]

Wow. Greatest below average American.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. He got stumped on blue. And yellow makes white color. And he said red.

[Dusty Slay]

No, he didn't do.

[Aaron Weber]

Is that right? Yeah, he's color boy. Yeah, but what is it?

[Dusty Slay]

Wait.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Oh, but what does that have to do with just knowing the answer? I can't see green by just looking at blue and yellow.

[Brian Bates]

I don't know. Maybe it's some sort of Helen Keller type thing where if you can't, you know, you can't see it. Is it real to you?

[Aaron Weber]

Maybe. Maybe you're right.

[Dusty Slay]

Food. Yellow makes what? Gray? That's what it is to me. Wow.

[Brian Bates]

Is that how it is when you're colorblind?

[Dusty Slay]

There's all different kinds. Some just specific colors will look weird. I don't know if there's a straight up just black and white color.

[Brian Bates]

How do we know if any of the colors look same. The same to us?

[Dusty Slay]

We asked this question a while ago. I can't remember. But they can. They can.

[Brian Bates]

Red is Red to you. But what if your red's different in my red?

[Dusty Slay]

I almost don't want to know if yours is different, because I like the way mine is right now.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

You're cooler red than me. Maybe. What if my red's not as cool?

[Dusty Slay]

Do you think red's a cool color?

[Brian Bates]

I like it.

[Dusty Slay]

You see a red Corvette, does that

[Brian Bates]

make you feel Good in the 90s?

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

You know.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, Like a red convertible. You ever watch the movie October Sky?

[Brian Bates]

I don't think so.

[Dusty Slay]

You would probably hate it, now that I think about it. You know, October Sky, Tom Cruise. It's a good guess.

[Brian Bates]

Vanilla Sky.

[Aaron Weber]

Vanilla Sky.

[Dusty Slay]

I have seen that October sky with Jake Gyllenhaal. And he plays Homer Hickam, who grows up in a coal mining town in West Virginia, and he ends up working at NASA building rockets. Yes, but there's. But there's a.

[Brian Bates]

From a job that does something for people to fictional science fiction.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, he never. He only worked in the coal mine for about a month, and then he left. He left to build rockets and entered the science fair, and he won the National Science Fair with his rocket display.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, it's a real guy.

[Brian Bates]

Sounds real. Homer Hick.

[Dusty Slay]

It is a real guy.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Double H.

[Dusty Slay]

But there's a scene where they get a little defeated, and they're like, why should we even enter the science fair? We got about a 1 in 5 million chance of winning. And they're in the woods, you know, just a bunch of hillbillies.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And then this dude pulls up with a beautiful woman in a red Corvette, and he asks them for directions, and they drive away. And it was like, just seeing that, they were like. Oh. They got inspired to kind of become more. But the. The color red was such a part anyway. The redness.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Like in the Matrix, the woman isn't the woman in the red dress and the red pill. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

If you watch an M. Night Shyamalan movie, anybody wearing red is evil. It's like an evil color.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Everyone, every move.

[Dusty Slay]

If you watch, like, the Sixth Sense, especially anytime there's the bright red. Do you remember the woman in the Sixth Sense? Tangent here? Sorry. If anybody hasn't seen the movie, the mom that's slowly killing her daughter in the Sixth Sense, remember, she's poisoning Misha Barton's. Her daughter.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

She. At their funeral, she's wearing a bright red dress.

[Aaron Weber]

Huh?

[Dusty Slay]

At their funeral, everybody.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I would think wearing black. Bright red at a funeral makes you evil. That's for sure.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[Aaron Weber]

There was one movie where I forgot what it's called, where they had to hide the color red because the monsters, like, came out.

[Dusty Slay]

That was another M. Night Shyama movie. The Village.

[Aaron Weber]

The Village, yes.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Where they said the color red would attract the. The beast that lives in the forest.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Do you know that movie?

[Brian Bates]

I don't think so.

[Aaron Weber]

I think you would agree with what they were actually trying to go for there.

[Brian Bates]

Okay. The Village. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

You would like the village, actually.

[Brian Bates]

All right, yeah, I'll check that out.

[Dusty Slay]

You would want to live there.

[Brian Bates]

Okay, I think I'll check it out.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I do want to live in a village.

[Dusty Slay]

But you want to be king of the village, right? Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, for sure you are going to be the village people.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. You say I look like I could be. Yeah, I gave you that.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

And I've got. Oh, I got one more Nateland news here.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Dusty's memoir. We're having a good time.

[Dusty Slay]

They're gonna bring there. How about that?

[Brian Bates]

Is that what they call that? Memoir. Memoir.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't know why.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, here it is. We call it a.

[Aaron Weber]

Just call it a book.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, just call it a book.

[Dusty Slay]

Is it a collection of essays or is it. What is it?

[Brian Bates]

Well, this is not really it, but I'll read you a little piss piece from it. Okay, let's see. Growing Pains. How about this? The Good Times Continued to roll for golf, the PGA Tour, IMG and me. This is not the book. This is just a cover. But book will be out in November. Go ahead and get yourself. Go ahead and order it. Pres.

[Aaron Weber]

Sale.

[Brian Bates]

And that's what it'll look like.

[Dusty Slay]

But that's not what it'll.

[Brian Bates]

That's not the book.

[Dusty Slay]

It'll read.

[Aaron Weber]

Like, when I hear memoir, I think there's going to be a whole chapter on some.

[Dusty Slay]

A tell all.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, some. Some transgressions in your life if you

[Dusty Slay]

confess some things in there that you've never talked about publicly.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Kind of an open book.

[Brian Bates]

I did actually, though. I. I've saved. I've saved a good part of my life that I don't talk about too much for the book and.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

That's gonna be fine. All right.

[Aaron Weber]

I can't wait.

[Brian Bates]

You guys probably know about it, but. All right, I did, but I've never shared it, though, on a podcast. Anything publicly about it. Yeah, some. There's some fun stuff.

[Dusty Slay]

All right.

[Brian Bates]

It's a good book.

[Dusty Slay]

I'm looking forward to it.

[Brian Bates]

It's a good book.

[Aaron Weber]

Should we get these comments?

[Dusty Slay]

Let's do It.

[Brian Bates]

I wouldn't write a bad book.

[Dusty Slay]

No, I don't think you would.

[Brian Bates]

I wouldn't put it out.

[Dusty Slay]

I don't think you would either.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, let us decide if it's good or not.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

You guys ready? You guys readers?

[Dusty Slay]

Occasionally, I'll read a book.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

My wife's always reading a book. She's always in the middle of a book. Soon as that book's over, another one started, she finishes all the time, she'll read 300 a year.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

Maybe not that many, but a lot.

[Brian Bates]

My wife reads a lot too, and. Yeah. And I'm not as into it, really. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, that's a shocker.

[Dusty Slay]

I just like writing them.

[Brian Bates]

I like a video. Like a video.

[Dusty Slay]

Or is there going to be a video counterpart part to this?

[Brian Bates]

I. Yeah, I hope to get that. Somebody sends me an article, I go, can you send it in a video? Can you get this down to a three minute tick tock for me? Because that's how I'm gonna take it in.

[Aaron Weber]

I've always felt that about a book, that there's already been a movie about it. Like, why would I just watch the movie?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

But you read the Harry Potters, right?

[Brian Bates]

Doesn't the book usually come first?

[Aaron Weber]

It does, but sometimes they'll say, go read so and so and they've already made a movie about it.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. I'll just watch the movie for now.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And if I like that, I'll read the book.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Or just be satisfied with the movie.

[Dusty Slay]

It just put subtitles on.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

It's basically reading.

[Brian Bates]

I'm doing it at the same time. You read the book. Well, I did have the subtitles on. Have you ever checked your bank statement and realized you were paying for something you completely forgot about all the time? I know I have. I had one of those moments recently where I noticed a couple of subscriptions still charging me every month, stuff I hadn't used in forever.

[Aaron Weber]

What were they?

[Brian Bates]

Well, let's not get into it, but that's when I started using Rocket Money. It showed me exactly where my money was going all in one place. And it immediately flagged subscriptions I wasn't using anymore. That's what I'm talking about. Being able to cancel unwanted subscriptions right inside the app with just a few taps saved me time. Time and stop those charges from quietly draining my account. Oh, man. You know, I. I just want to show the Rocket Money app and just. What's going on with that?

[Dusty Slay]

I mean, great ui.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, exactly.

[Aaron Weber]

What ui?

[Dusty Slay]

User interface.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. And that's it right there. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. A lot of people don't have a savings, so you need to grow it. You got to grow that thing. One of the things I like is how the out. The app consolidates checking, savings, loans, and investments into a single dashboard to give users a clear view of their financial picture. Let Rocket Money help you finance goals faster. Join RocketMoney.com Nate that's RocketMoney.com Nate RocketMoney.com

[Aaron Weber]

Nate who wants to read comments?

[Dusty Slay]

One of y', all, too.

[Brian Bates]

All right, I'll read them. Oh, I got new headphones. I just pulled it out. There it is. Okay. We do have new headphones, me and Aaron, if you guys haven't noticed.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, I didn't notice.

[Brian Bates]

And I'm really enjoying it. The. The headphone over the hat was. Was killing me, and I've been doing it for, you know, several years.

[Dusty Slay]

I just liked it for other reasons. Just my head is big and it hurts after a while.

[Brian Bates]

Okay. It just gets clamped on there, and your headphones broke. And that's why we had to get. Because they.

[Dusty Slay]

They didn't.

[Brian Bates]

You thought your head was hurting, that the. The band on the headphone was just max capacity.

[Aaron Weber]

Do they feel good?

[Dusty Slay]

They feel great, yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, good. They look bad on you, but I'm glad.

[Dusty Slay]

No, I think it's a sharp.

[Brian Bates]

Does it look bad on me? I think you can't even tell I'm wearing it.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, your hair covers yours up.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, I think it's a sharp look. What are you talking about?

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

It's about time this podcast saw my ears.

[Brian Bates]

Okay, Montana, comments. This first. All the comments come from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Apple podcast reviews, and [e-mail] or

[Dusty Slay]

if you buy merch from any of us on Square, you can leave it in a comment on the Square app, and that'll expedite it to the top of the line. Can we get that going?

[Aaron Weber]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Brian Bates]

I prefer Venmo Payments.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay. Yeah, Venmo at Real. Aaron Weber, with your comment. The higher the money, it's going to be at the very top of the comment.

[Brian Bates]

Absolutely. Just like this first one. This comes from Aaron Cornwell.

[Dusty Slay]

Please don't do that, by the way.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I'm not gonna say no, but Aaron Cornwell. Only five episodes in, and this is already my favorite podcast of all time. Keep up the great work, guys.

[Dusty Slay]

That's Great favorite. Appreciate that.

[Aaron Weber]

Any podcast or favorite of the five?

[Dusty Slay]

I don't know. Does she mean the episode? It's her favorite episode, or is the favorite her favorite podcast?

[Brian Bates]

I'm gonna just lean on the positives and say podcast of all time.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, but yeah, I see what you're saying. Like, she's not talking about the episode, she's talking about this is my favorite

[Dusty Slay]

podcast with only five episodes. And I'll say, Aaron, just prepare. There's going to be dips.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, right.

[Brian Bates]

It's only up from here.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I'm speaking to this Aaron and this Aaron.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Okay. Angie Sickler.

[Dusty Slay]

Great name.

[Brian Bates]

Sickler.

[Dusty Slay]

You know Ryan Sickler? You ever do his podcast? Yeah, yeah. He's the man.

[Brian Bates]

I have done his podcast. Yeah. Fun fact about Montana, up until 1999, the speed limit signs along the highways simply read, drive what is wise and prudent.

[Dusty Slay]

That's incredible.

[Brian Bates]

Meaning you couldn't get a speeding ticket on highways until 1999. It was crazy. But fun.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow.

[Brian Bates]

I love that. It's still 75 on the highway from Butte to or from billings to Butte. 75.

[Dusty Slay]

But it used to be. Just feel it out.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love it.

[Aaron Weber]

I go 55.

[Dusty Slay]

I was driving on the interstate this weekend. I'm going 80. Going 80. I'm getting passed by people.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And so everybody's speeding up.

[Brian Bates]

I know. I love it. Whenever I see police pulling people over for speeding these days, I go, this town must have no crime.

[Dusty Slay]

You're wasting resources on somebody getting to work faster, trying to stimulate the economy.

[Brian Bates]

Manda Arnold. Oh, Manda.

[Dusty Slay]

Just Manda.

[Brian Bates]

I guess it's probably Amanda. I was thinking, but they just go by Manda.

[Dusty Slay]

Manda, Mandam and Mand. Amanda. Show Amanda. Show Amanda Bynes.

[Aaron Weber]

Let's think about Amanda.

[Dusty Slay]

Bring in the dancing lobsters. Sorry, I don't know what I'm talking about. No, this is gold, dude. Keep going.

[Brian Bates]

After a very long week and an even longer day spent mostly at the ER with my 91 year old grandfather, watching Aaron get teased about reading a book about General Custer, thinking it would be about pie. And then Dusty buying Brian's lie about his venue being haunted made me literally laugh out loud.

[Dusty Slay]

That's great.

[Brian Bates]

It's good to know some things never change. Thanks so much for giving all of us a place to go and decompress at the end of a rough day. It means more than you know, and that's why we do it. And the money.

[Dusty Slay]

Thank you.

[Brian Bates]

Now that is nice. And I hope your Grandfather's okay? Yeah, he's 91, in the ER. That sounds serious. I feel like you really just glazed over that or glossed over that.

[Aaron Weber]

Glossed, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Glazed would be like highlighting it.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, she mentioned a lot about him, but I cut that part out. Okay, let's try to get to the stuff about us. Why would I put in a comment of details about her grandfather?

[Brian Bates]

That's true, though it already was too long.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Amanda. Amanda should wrap it up like she did her name. You know what I mean? Simplify it.

[Dusty Slay]

Trim the edges.

[Aaron Weber]

Like, I don't care about your grandfather. Just get to the stuff about us.

[Brian Bates]

Okay. Smith family. This is coming from the whole family here. How can Aaron be a true Braves fan and not know who Bob Horner is?

[Dusty Slay]

I was born in the 21st century, the end of it. And I know. I know Bob Horner. Sometimes it's fun to act like you don't know stuff. And I wasn't thinking. I wasn't. My mind wasn't in Braves mode at the. The time. Also, I don't really remember this happening.

[Brian Bates]

I don't know who Bob Horner is, and I'm. I'm guessing we talked about it on the podcast, but I don't know who that.

[Aaron Weber]

I'll refresh your. And you wore your retro Braves.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, okay. And you said I look like Bob Horner. Yeah, and then I said he looked like Chick Korea.

[Aaron Weber]

Yes.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

All right, good. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I didn't know who either of those guys were.

[Dusty Slay]

Shout out to the Smith family. They're. They're a great family. If that's the family I'm thinking of.

[Brian Bates]

I think they make sausage.

[Dusty Slay]

Not. Not the guys I'm talking.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Maybe these guys do.

[Brian Bates]

Okay. All right, here we go. Jessica Parker. I believe Jessica Parker is a friend of mine. I also went to high school with a Jessica Parker.

[Dusty Slay]

Also, I'm a fan of Sarah Jessica Park.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, yeah. Brian and Dusty duet Should be a new part of each episode. The Legend of Woolly Swamp was great.

[Dusty Slay]

And I'm gonna veto that right off the top.

[Brian Bates]

It was good, though. I'll be honest with you. I got a lot of messages about that video.

[Dusty Slay]

Did you really?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, because I got a lot of country music fan friends, and gosh, I was just chatting with the guy about that lot. It stimulated a whole. A whole conversation about how great Charlie Daniels was.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, that's nice. Let's try to do that once every few months.

[Brian Bates]

And me and my friend were sending each other voice memo tags. Just think of the different Charlie Daniel Songs.

[Dusty Slay]

That's fun.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Stroke Erase. You know that one? Stroke Race was born to race. He had a mean streak 10ft wide. You don't know that one.

[Aaron Weber]

My bank is.

[Brian Bates]

Come on, man.

[Aaron Weber]

No, I know it. Yeah, I know it. There was a movie. Stroker's Ace.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Burt Reynolds. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Why listen to the song when you watch the movie?

[Aaron Weber]

No, I list my. My bank is truest. And every time I go online, I say call up truest on the telephone.

[Brian Bates]

Send them a letter in the mail. Still I'm hung up and it's tough

[Dusty Slay]

to do it Regions.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, thank you, Jessica Parker.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Matt Smith. You all forgot to mention Big City by Merle Haggard. Also appreciate the Charlie Daniels references. He called them talking blues. Another song where he did that was Every Time I see Him. Every time I see him, he just barely getting by. Something like that. I don't know that one as well, but Big City by Merle Haggard is great.

[Aaron Weber]

It is great.

[Brian Bates]

Turn me loose and set me free Somewhere in the middle of Montana Give me all I've got coming for me. Yeah, those are great, Aaron. And keep your retirement and your so called Social Security. Okay? I believe in that too. All right, so thank you for those that's Montana comments. Feel like we lost a little steam on these singing, but Big city turned

[Aaron Weber]

me loose and set me free.

[Brian Bates]

All right, here we go. Bryce Dorn, this is Air travel. Comments. The episode with Fiona Cauley. So many laughs this episode and what a perfect first guest. I would like to emphasize Aaron's natural ability for impressions. Oh, he always amazes me. And his turkey was spot on. I would like to request the crew to give their best animal impression.

[Dusty Slay]

That's so funny. Yeah, I do impressions. Who do you do, Trump Obama? No, no, no, just a turkey.

[Brian Bates]

Did you do a turkey?

[Dusty Slay]

I don't remember doing.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't even remember that either.

[Brian Bates]

Can you do a turkey now for us? You'd be like, that turkey's sick. Don't shoot that turkey. You get the whole family sick on that thing. Skipping Thanksgiving this year. Garibies, joking, rabid hit by a car. Wait on it to die on its own.

[Dusty Slay]

Something like that.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, it's good. All right.

[Dusty Slay]

I gotta tell you, I was in Lexington. The hotel is right next to Comedy Off Broadway.

[Brian Bates]

Love that.

[Dusty Slay]

It's about a hundred yards from the club, right?

[Brian Bates]

Love that hotel.

[Dusty Slay]

In between the hotel and the club is a pond populated by aggressive geese. And they got two white swans that are kind of the alpha males and they kind of control things.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And they're aggressive and they wait by the door. And there are signs in the hotel warning, geese are aggressive. We had to deal with them all weekend.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

They'll run right up to you, be like, what you got? We found the strategy we ended up doing was we got goldfish from the bar. Goldfish. The snack now.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah. Not the real.

[Dusty Slay]

We didn't reach into their fish tank in the lobby. We got goldfish and just kind of had to, like, throw it at them just to get to the club.

[Brian Bates]

I love that.

[Dusty Slay]

I like an awesome course. Terrified of geese. Yeah, they are.

[Brian Bates]

I've been chased by a goose before.

[Dusty Slay]

Exactly. I mean, they're scared. Birds scare me.

[Aaron Weber]

I was Uber to the club.

[Brian Bates]

Do you Uber there from the hotel?

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. You can see that so close to.

[Aaron Weber]

You can see it out your window.

[Dusty Slay]

I think it's like the same complex.

[Aaron Weber]

It is, but.

[Brian Bates]

But you do have to go down and you kind of have to cut through that outdoor restaurant kind of.

[Aaron Weber]

It's not a straight line.

[Brian Bates]

If it's in the summer, there will be tables out there eating.

[Dusty Slay]

It's not a straight line. But it's all downhill.

[Aaron Weber]

Not on the back.

[Dusty Slay]

On the way back.

[Aaron Weber]

That's when I take an Uber.

[Dusty Slay]

Uber back to the.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Because it's night time, too. Yeah, Exactly.

[Aaron Weber]

Scary.

[Dusty Slay]

Those geese out there.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Where you headed? Right there.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Okay. Clue. Etta. I like that name.

[Dusty Slay]

Clue is a great name.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Clue. Clue in. Dusty playing airplane with sound effects. Totally awesome. I guarantee he's an awesome father. My dad would play with us kids and have sound effects and do different voices with puppets, and I loved it. It. God bless you, Dusty. You are such a joy to watch. Wow. Wow. That. This comment would have almost been better had one of you read it to me.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you read it in that insincere voice.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

So when. It's a nice compliment about you, I appreciate it.

[Brian Bates]

I do play with my kids, but my kids love to go. They go talk. They'll bring up a, you know, like a ninja Turtle and they'll go talk for this guy.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, that's fun.

[Brian Bates]

And I go, get out of here. No, I do talk.

[Dusty Slay]

I go, get out of here. I'm working.

[Brian Bates]

But I'm just on Instagram.

[Dusty Slay]

Go get your mom to do it.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I do say that Hannah is actually better at playing with toys with the kids.

[Dusty Slay]

Really?

[Brian Bates]

She used to do improv. Like, kid improv.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh. It's all just a big scene.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, I'm better. I'm pretty good at it. But other Night we're playing and she's like, here, you take, take. I'll have mommy duck or whatever. You take daddy and have him talk. And I said something. She said, no, daddy's would have a deeper voice. I was just talking to my normal voice, so that hurt a little bit.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, you go, you know, I'm your dad.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

J Mill.

[Dusty Slay]

J. Mill.

[Brian Bates]

I think if Helen Keller would have had Fiona's mom, her scam wouldn't have lasted that long. Long. I think that's. That is spot on. J Mill. That's spot on. Jeff goodle. I am 64 and near £300. I mean, take it easy, Jeff. Most public stalls are not meant for us. I am sure Aaron can relate.

[Aaron Weber]

Jeez.

[Dusty Slay]

I don't think he's talking about his height here.

[Brian Bates]

So I routinely use the larger handicap stall for no other reason than comfort. In my 57 years, I have never exited a stall to find a handicap user waiting for me. Even if I did, I feel being handicapped does not eliminate you from having to wait for a stall.

[Dusty Slay]

I agree with that. But I think the scenario she was talking about was it was an empty bathroom and the only one that was occupied was somebody was in the handicaps.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Also, Jeff, what handicap. What person is waiting outside for a 6, 4, 300 pound, 57 year old man? You say you let that guy take it. You go, I'll pee my pants.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, you don't know how big the guy is through.

[Brian Bates]

You can see it through that crowd. You can hear in the toilet struggling.

[Aaron Weber]

He looks 57.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. He's singing old timey songs. He remembers when Horse with no Name came out.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. What's he singing? Bread. That guy's in his 50s.

[Brian Bates]

Bread's good. You like I love Bread. I do too.

[Dusty Slay]

It's my mom's favorite band.

[Brian Bates]

I love Bread.

[Dusty Slay]

We had the album the Best of Bread.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. So good. I have that album.

[Aaron Weber]

This like General Custer?

[Dusty Slay]

No. I knew it was a band.

[Brian Bates]

Guitar Man.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Oh, Guitar Man. Diary.

[Aaron Weber]

Dusty. I made a funny joke and you kind of shut it down there.

[Brian Bates]

People tell me I do that all the time.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. All right.

[Brian Bates]

Diary. And Aubrey. That's a good one.

[Dusty Slay]

He's a great song. Diary might be the saddest song of all time. You know the song Diary by Bread?

[Brian Bates]

Well, it's this guy. It's his own fault, though.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, hold on. It's the guy. Let me explain the plot of it.

[Brian Bates]

It.

[Dusty Slay]

This guy's in love with this girl. He walks up and he finds a diary from the Girl that he's in love with.

[Aaron Weber]

And he starts reading it, but this goes well.

[Dusty Slay]

And he's like, oh, my God, she's in love with me, too. So he's flipping through it, and he starts imagining this life that they're gonna have together. He's. I can't believe this woman's also in love with me. I'm in love with her. And then it gets to the end, and he realizes it's about somebody else. And then. So then his conclusion at the end is, well, this whole life that I've imagined for the two of us. I hope you now get to have that with that guy.

[Brian Bates]

And that's the kind of. That's the. That's the kind of weak man that would be reading a woman's diary in the first place.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

It is an invasion of her privacy, too.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. You're so weak. You're reading her diary, and then at the end, you're like, well, I hope you have a good life. It's like, why don't you step up your game?

[Aaron Weber]

I would read her diary, but I would never think. I would never assume it's about me. I'm like, I want to see who. Who she's into so I can get that guy out of the picture.

[Brian Bates]

You never read the diary. Okay, Come on, guys. Oh.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh.

[Brian Bates]

Our old pal Nancy Johnson.

[Dusty Slay]

Nancy Johnson.

[Brian Bates]

I went on the Nate Land cruise, and I fell down the steps at the Stardust Theater and ended up having to come home with a boot on. When I got to the airport, they made it very difficult for me to get through security. I had to take my boot off and stand up in the scanner.

[Dusty Slay]

That seems crazy.

[Brian Bates]

They scanned me with a bar and patted me down. They never would tell me why. Finally, they just said, go on through. Well, this started off funny, and not to laugh at you falling down the steps, but that is funny. And then we also.

[Dusty Slay]

We all saw you on the cruise. We know. We knew about it, and you're our best friend.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

But knowing how much I dislike the tsa, this enrages me. And I'm sorry you had to go through that, Nancy, because when I think about someone causing trouble on a plane, I always think of Nancy Johnson.

[Aaron Weber]

Yep.

[Brian Bates]

I always think if Nancy gets on this plane, there's a risk it's going to get hijacked.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And I. I'm. You know, I'm glad they did it.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Take that boot off and then not give it back.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Good work, boys.

[Aaron Weber]

I hope you're doing better, Nance.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Me Too.

[Brian Bates]

Elliot Carrey. Dusty is once again onto something with the wired headphones. Look at LeBron James and other athletes who can afford all the new tech but are choosing wired headphones. They know something we don't. And that is true, because this is why this. Let me tell you.

[Dusty Slay]

You look to LeBron James for stuff

[Brian Bates]

like that every time. Because LeBron James has read the first book. Book. First page of every book. And there's video evidence of that. And that's my. That's my kind of reading.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't know what you're talking about there.

[Brian Bates]

Well, LeBron's been filmed several times reading a book while giving an interview. And every time, he's on, like, page one.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, really? I've never seen.

[Dusty Slay]

Dude. The best clip is he has Malcolm X's biography.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And they go. Once you tell us a little bit about the book, he goes, he was an amazing man.

[Aaron Weber]

He.

[Dusty Slay]

A lot of the stuff he talked about, you know, still relevant today. So he was just an amazing man.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And you're like, all right, well, give

[Brian Bates]

us one thing, and if you can get all. If you can get all that from page one. That's a smart guy.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, that is good. Yeah, He's. I think I get it. I think I get the gist.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

But this is.

[Dusty Slay]

Listen, remember when he said his favorite movie was the Godfather? And they go, what's your favorite scene? He goes, there's just too many, man. There's too many good. It's a lot of good scenes. And they go, why don't you just name one? Ah, man, it's not really up to me. They're all good.

[Brian Bates]

I gotta agree with him again. I mean, it's a good movie, and it's long, you know, to narrow it down. It's like asking what your favorite song is. I mean, who can do it?

[Dusty Slay]

Well, you do it all the time.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I got so many.

[Dusty Slay]

LeBron make a top five list.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Okay. Well, that. I. I think if they give him some prep time.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And let him come back, I think he could do a top five.

[Aaron Weber]

There was an episode of Seinfeld where George joined a book club, and they were supposed to read Breakfast at Tiffany's. And he didn't read it, but then he found out there's a movie. So, like, I'm just gonna go rent the movie before our meeting. But the movie's checked out at the video store. So when the cashier turns around, he flips around to see the address of who checked out the movie and goes to their house. And asks if he can watch the movie with them. It's just like a father in law.

[Dusty Slay]

I remember that episode. That's so funny because it's just a plot that makes. Makes zero sense now, you know? Yeah, of course.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, going to the video store in a movie you want to see already been checked out was a major issue.

[Brian Bates]

It was. And then you would get something else that you didn't even want to see, and then it would end up being good.

[Aaron Weber]

But if you heard some thumps in the Dropbox, I mean, people would linger

[Dusty Slay]

around the Dropbox waiting for somebody to drop off. Yeah, yeah. 12 angry men or whatever you want.

[Aaron Weber]

Shawshank Redemption. Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Some thumps in the Dropbox.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

All right, guys, I'm saying, let me tell you about the wired headphones, though.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I want to hear about it because when you. When you talk on your phone, I'd read. Well, you guys, you know, you wouldn't let me do it.

[Aaron Weber]

Go ahead.

[Brian Bates]

But when you talk on your phone, signals are coming into this phone from somewhere. Right. And then you hold that to your head. Now it's hitting your head.

[Dusty Slay]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

So if you're using wired headphones now, your phone's down here, and it's just transmitting through here.

[Dusty Slay]

It's just hitting your knees.

[Brian Bates]

Yes, exactly. But if you're using Bluetooth, all the signal going to the phone going right to your ear.

[Dusty Slay]

So you don't use Bluetooth ever?

[Brian Bates]

Never. Not anymore.

[Dusty Slay]

Not even in your car or anything?

[Brian Bates]

Well, hey, I do use it in the car, but.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I'm not saying you can escape it.

[Dusty Slay]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

But don't add, too.

[Dusty Slay]

There's a 5G tower right outside this club.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. And I won't live around them. I'll move. You build a 5G tower in my house. I'll move.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, they put one up by that. That Dollar General right there. And Dollar General closed pretty quickly.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Now it's a guitar shop right there.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

So the strings are going to start.

[Brian Bates]

Dollar General gets it.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

I think it went out of business.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, now we know why.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Aaron Weber]

Let's see here.

[Brian Bates]

For real, though, when I was looking for houses, I would go to a neighborhood, and if they had those up, I'd go. I know. Don't want to live around here.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, I get it.

[Aaron Weber]

A cell tower.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

5G to.

[Brian Bates]

I don't know.

[Aaron Weber]

How do you know it's 5G?

[Brian Bates]

I don't know that it's doing anything.

[Dusty Slay]

Feel it.

[Brian Bates]

But it seems it Just doesn't feel right.

[Dusty Slay]

You could feel it radiating body a little bit.

[Brian Bates]

I'm not.

[Dusty Slay]

Who knows?

[Brian Bates]

There is some amount of radiation in the phones.

[Dusty Slay]

Sure.

[Brian Bates]

And what's a. What's a good amount for you? How much radiation do you like to take in?

[Dusty Slay]

I think the second I feel it.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

That's when I'm out. We got some packages here. Brian, you want to set up? What. What's going on? What's happening?

[Aaron Weber]

It's Adrian's birthday. Happy birthday, Adrian.

[Dusty Slay]

Is it really?

[Brian Bates]

Oh, happy birthday.

[Dusty Slay]

Happy birthday.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

So we got him a cake. Was there a cake?

[Aaron Weber]

No, these are presents for him, but we're gonna open them.

[Brian Bates]

All right. Give me one. Some tape.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. I might need your. Your weapon here in a second. We got some package. Well, what are these are. The producers got us these.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, yeah, the producers got us these. These are not Adrian's birthday gifts, but happy birthday, Adrian. By the way, jealous of your perfect

[Brian Bates]

hair and Adrian's jacked.

[Aaron Weber]

I know he is. I was about to say that, but I didn't want to sound. All right, let me go first.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

Because I have no idea now what are.

[Dusty Slay]

But these are designed to kind of get the ball rolling.

[Aaron Weber]

This week's episode is about grocery stores.

[Dusty Slay]

Grocery stores.

[Aaron Weber]

And I've got. Well, what have I got here? Tristan, thank you. Thanks for your order. Safewick. And then.

[Brian Bates]

So that's a.

[Aaron Weber]

That is a pin that Safeway used to give out. I can't open it. There were milestones of 5 years, 10 years, 15 years employment. Safeway is one of the first grocery stores. So they would give this to. They would give this to employees.

[Dusty Slay]

Need a knife, Brian?

[Aaron Weber]

Appreciation for hard work. Nah, I think I'm good. Thank you. I've lost interest. Okay,

[Dusty Slay]

we're off to the race. It's a. It's a little plastic container.

[Brian Bates]

You need to work it while you're talking.

[Dusty Slay]

These are employees of Safeway would get these for one year of service. Three, like, three years. Five years of service.

[Aaron Weber]

I like that. I like to see, like, my. My server. I like to see how long.

[Dusty Slay]

I like to know if who I'm talking to.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Has any power or can do whatever you need them to do. That's pretty cool right there. That's a five year Safeway pin right there. Five years of service to a Safeway, one of the first grocery stores in America.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, one of the.

[Dusty Slay]

It was one of the first.

[Brian Bates]

You know, whenever I've worked for a company for five years and they give me something like that, I really feel Appreciated.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow. A pin. And I still got to pay for my uniform. Yeah. All right, cool. I hope it's part of a package of stuff.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

You know, they give you a little slice of sheet cake or something like that, or maybe some of the cinnamon buns that went bad in the bakery. They go now.

[Brian Bates]

That's

[Dusty Slay]

five years.

[Aaron Weber]

That's pretty cool.

[Dusty Slay]

That is cool.

[Aaron Weber]

What do you have?

[Dusty Slay]

I have Tristan. Maybe you can tell me a little bit about it. This is an old.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, it's a stamp saver.

[Dusty Slay]

This is a stamp saver. Brian, you grew up on these. What do these do?

[Aaron Weber]

Well, I don't know.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I think you get. I don't know know either.

[Dusty Slay]

But it says you can fill any page in this book with 50. I don't even know what the. What are these? Stamps.

[Aaron Weber]

So you could. There's. There's stamps you can collect from grocery stores, gas stations, and drugstores. And you'd save them up to redeem merchandise at those places.

[Dusty Slay]

Whoa.

[Aaron Weber]

Kind of like if you got a card punched ever a certain amount, then you would get something. So this is just like collecting stamps, I guess.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay. And then you redeem them for something. Free groceries or something like that.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, different. Different types of merchandise. This was done in the 50s through 70s. Through the 70s.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow. So this is with top value stamps. You choose from a bigger selection of gifts every year. Top value works harder to bring you more gifts and more desirable gifts than any other stamp plan. So all these places would have a stamp plan like this. And this was like right before everything was digitized. This was their kind of reward program

[Brian Bates]

back in the good old days.

[Dusty Slay]

Back in the good old days. Doesn't have the year on this. 1966.

[Brian Bates]

That's.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow.

[Brian Bates]

That's when my granddad died.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Brian Bates]

Just telling you. He died, though. It's probably his book. Just got it.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, that's cool. All right.

[Brian Bates]

And then I got that. You know, we had these grocery stores a lot in South Carolina. Is Piggly Wiggly.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Brian Bates]

I'm big on the pig. And look at that.

[Dusty Slay]

Is that what they would say?

[Brian Bates]

Little meat there.

[Dusty Slay]

I'm big on the pig.

[Brian Bates]

Big on the pig.

[Aaron Weber]

If you didn't know, Piggly Wiggly was

[Brian Bates]

the first self service grocery store. Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

That you had to ask a clerk to handle your items and he would shop for you. Believe it started in Memphis. Yeah, Memphis, 1916.

[Dusty Slay]

So before that, a grocery store is. You'd walk up and there's a guy behind a counter and he would grab what you pig.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Exactly.

[Brian Bates]

Humanoid, like pig.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. If you're listening, Dusty's holding a sign says pickly Wiggly have it all. Dusty's promoting pork?

[Brian Bates]

No, no, that's beef there.

[Dusty Slay]

No, you would never kill and eat that guy.

[Brian Bates]

No, the pig is serving you beef because even the pig knows. Yeah, yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

He's saying, eat more beef like the Chick Fil A.

[Brian Bates]

You ever see barbecue restaurants where they have a pig with a knife and fork out there?

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

That's disgusting. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Rick Roberts has a joke about that.

[Brian Bates]

Does he?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Well, mine's not a joke.

[Aaron Weber]

His joke is you never drive by a Chinese restaurant and see a kitten on the sign.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, come on, Rick. You're gonna get Rick canceled.

[Aaron Weber]

That's really cool. I'd like. Yeah, just keep that one. The whole.

[Dusty Slay]

That is cool. We gotta hang that up. Put that over. I was gonna say put it over a frame picture of Brian, but we don't have one yet in this. But we will when the special comes out. Have you thought of. Hold on. Come on. I lost you there. I was just. Brian, come back. Come back and play with.

[Brian Bates]

There is a frame picture of Brian right here, though.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, yeah, Put it over that. Have you thought.

[Brian Bates]

I don't know why you're looking at me. I mean, I.

[Aaron Weber]

Maybe some support.

[Brian Bates]

I just said there's a framed picture of Brian right here.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

One where they call me by different b names.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I mean, there was more care and detail that went into that picture than any picture on this wall.

[Dusty Slay]

I totally agree.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Now, Brian, have you thought of a name for the special yet? Is that something that you'll. You know, none of these things are the priority. Obviously, we talked about what you're wearing, all that kind of stuff, but.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Dusty Slay]

But you always think about it a little in the back.

[Aaron Weber]

A little bit. I mean, I feel like you asked me that last week and I said we're having a good time, but

[Dusty Slay]

I

[Aaron Weber]

don't think that's what it'll be called.

[Brian Bates]

I think you should.

[Dusty Slay]

I think we're having a bad time

[Brian Bates]

having a breakfast time.

[Dusty Slay]

That doesn't even make sense as a sentence.

[Brian Bates]

Well, you know, everybody's gotta have some breakfast time at the same time.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, you do.

[Dusty Slay]

Embassy Sweets, by the way, great Breakfast omelets. Yeah, they got an omelet station. They got all kinds of stuff.

[Brian Bates]

You know what I like about that? Embassy Suites.

[Aaron Weber]

It.

[Brian Bates]

It almost feels like a motel in a way, because the door. Like, the. The way the. The doors are on the inside, so it's obviously not a motel. It's a very nice place. But inside, the doors are like. It's so open. The doors are, like, on the outside.

[Dusty Slay]

It's the way there's a lot of those NBC suites are where it's like the lobby goes all the way up to the top of the.

[Brian Bates]

I'm a big fan because you can sit in your room and look out the window at people passing by.

[Dusty Slay]

Every time I've been there, and this weekend was no exception, I didn't do any of that. But every time I've been there, there's been some kind of youth sports.

[Aaron Weber]

Yes.

[Dusty Slay]

Travel ball team there. And the. These dads, they're always just, like, chilling out in the. Outside your room, on one of the lobbies, on the floor, being like, man, Cooper didn't have it today. Man, Cooper did not have it today, man. He's got to get that fastball under control. His kids are, like, nine, you know?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

It's pretty crazy. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Every time you go down the elevator, it's like 20 kids piling on, going to some event.

[Dusty Slay]

We were talking about it. Jay Flake was with me, who's been on the. He was on Nateland, a show that's not related to this one at all, but he was an umpire. He was telling me he had a really funny. Some guy kept yelling at him that he was making bad calls. And he said, he turned around, he goes, hey, man, we need people like you.

[Brian Bates]

You.

[Dusty Slay]

He goes, no, I'm. I'm serious. If you go to tssa.org you can sign up. We need people like you. He kept saying to the guy, because the guy was yelling the whole game, bad call. Bad call. He goes, hey, man, we need people. That was a good call you made.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh. He Just. As if to say, you could sign up to be a referee or an umpire.

[Dusty Slay]

It was just. He just kept saying, like, dude, great. You're so good at this. You should be an umper. You should be an umpire. I thought it was such a funny way to handle it. Yeah, we need people like you, man.

[Brian Bates]

What if that guy got hired and then Jay Flake got fired?

[Dusty Slay]

Well, that would have backfired pretty hard.

[Brian Bates]

And then Jay could go and sit in the bleachers and go, bad call.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, because that's happened to me. I've told somebody in the audience, like, hey, dude, talking. You want to try to say something funny? And then he'll say something much funnier.

[Dusty Slay]

Huge laugh from the other.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, shut up. Sorry.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. That's why I don't like crowd work.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, Today.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Let me just say that before you get started, I want to set this up next week. Dusty's going to lead the topic discussion about something near and dear to his heart.

[Dusty Slay]

We're giving Brian a break. Yeah, right.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Did you know this was happening?

[Brian Bates]

I did know, but I hearing it now.

[Dusty Slay]

It's real.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. A little pit in my stomach.

[Aaron Weber]

And this week we're. You're leading the topic about something near and dear to your heart.

[Dusty Slay]

Grocery stores.

[Aaron Weber]

Take it away, Aaron.

[Dusty Slay]

We're talking about grocery stores, which was covered on Nateland, but I think we can attack it from a different angle.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Dusty Slay]

I think we all like grocery stores.

[Brian Bates]

I love them.

[Dusty Slay]

We love them. I like thinking about them. I like talking about it. I love the machinery of a grocery store, just the way it operates.

[Brian Bates]

Not like the forklift.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, I like. I like all that too.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

I've never operated a forklift, but I feel like I'd be good at it.

[Brian Bates]

I think so too.

[Dusty Slay]

You see those guys that are. That. You got a real forklift body. You can get picked up by one or operate. Yeah, but you see those guys that can like unscrew a bottle cap with the corner of a forklift? There are guys that are that precise with it. I feel like I could maybe get

[Aaron Weber]

to that level, be like remote control.

[Dusty Slay]

But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how grocery stores operate. I saw this picture at a marketing class in college. And if you're listening, I'll describe it. It's an overhead shot of a grocery store looking down onto the shelves. Just an overwhelming amount of products on here. All different companies, Skus colors, thousands of things competing for your attention.

[Brian Bates]

I'm gonna admit something here. When you showed that picture, I thought this was like a magazine stand with a lot of small things like gum.

[Aaron Weber]

I did too.

[Brian Bates]

And stuff like that for sale.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh. Because you. Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

But once you describe it.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah. And it comes to life.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. I think we got the pasta aisle right there.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

In the front. I think this is like dog food here in the front of the picture. But it's just.

[Aaron Weber]

Where'd you take this at?

[Dusty Slay]

I didn't take this picture. It's out my bedroom window right here. I see a picture like this and you think all of these different products, they want you to buy their thing.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Dusty Slay]

But how do you stand out in something this crowded? There's so much going on. You're so over overly stimulated. The grocery store is a battlefield for your attention and your eyeballs and Your money. Right. So I always think when you're in a grocery store, you're being poked and prodded and manipulated in all these different ways to try to get you to do what they want you to do. So if you think about it like that, they're very interesting. So what I want to do today is, you know, go ahead.

[Brian Bates]

I sold pesticides for a long time.

[Dusty Slay]

So you spent a lot of time

[Brian Bates]

in stores like this, doing, like, this stuff? Yeah. Getting up.

[Aaron Weber]

I was going to say, I learned some terms from Dusty and Greg Warren. Barn. Like end caps.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Right.

[Aaron Weber]

I didn't even know what that was.

[Brian Bates]

Clip strips.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, I want to get. I want to lean on your expertise and your stuff as we walk through this.

[Brian Bates]

All right.

[Dusty Slay]

What I want to do is just walk through, metaphorically, a trip to the grocery store.

[Brian Bates]

All right.

[Dusty Slay]

Talk about every step along the way.

[Brian Bates]

She had some popcorn.

[Aaron Weber]

Get it at the grocery store.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

How often do you guys go to a grocery store? How often do you think you go?

[Aaron Weber]

I go about once a week.

[Dusty Slay]

Once a week?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Average American. Once every 4.7 days.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

So a little over once a Once a week.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. You know, I'm married, so my wife goes, you know, probably more than I do now. But also on the road, I might hit the grocery store on the road. I mean, I love walking in a grocery store.

[Dusty Slay]

Are you efficient when you go in there? Are you in and out? Or do you think that you like to meander?

[Brian Bates]

I depends. But I can tell what's going on at home. I can be a bit of a meanderer. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, yeah. What about you, Brian?

[Aaron Weber]

I go. My wife writes a list down. She's really good about making lists as we go, like for stuff that we need, where I always just say, oh, I need to remember to get so and so. And then I get to the store and I'm like, what was it I needed? Yeah, she's really good at list. I get to the store. I'm the main grocery shopping family.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

And I get to the store, and then I look at the list to see how long it is to help me determine if I'm going to do a buggy, a card.

[Brian Bates]

Right.

[Dusty Slay]

Or we're going to get to that. You're jumping way ahead.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

In the process.

[Brian Bates]

All right.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Dusty Slay]

By the way, 75 of people walk in the store with a list. Wow. Three out of four people walk in with a plan, but almost everybody ends up grabbing more things than was on their list. So that means whatever system they're using it's working.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Impulse purchases are almost unavoidable. You're always going to grab something.

[Aaron Weber]

Aren't you supposed to not go in on empty stomach?

[Dusty Slay]

That's what they say. You're always going to spend more if you go home and you're hungry, whether you realize it or not. So you should go in with a. If you. If you want to avoid spending more than you planned on, go in completely

[Brian Bates]

full and get a buffet before sometimes you go in, you know, you maybe grab a little box of chicken on the way. You know, you get a little box of chicken.

[Dusty Slay]

Have something to eat while you're walking

[Brian Bates]

through the grocery store. Hawaiian rolls.

[Dusty Slay]

Yep.

[Brian Bates]

Just take the bag up there and go. I ate these while I was shopping.

[Dusty Slay]

I've scanned an empty bag before. I totally did. I scanned an empty bag and an empty. Like Diet Coke.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Now go. I had it while I was walking.

[Brian Bates]

That's all you had average to do it

[Dusty Slay]

walking to the register.

[Aaron Weber]

He went in there to cool off.

[Dusty Slay]

The average American. The average length of a grocery store trip for Americans, 40 minutes.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

Which feels long to me.

[Brian Bates]

Much faster.

[Dusty Slay]

But I think a lot of people are spending time in there. Can you guess the peak time, the most busy time of the week and the day for. For grocery stores across America?

[Aaron Weber]

I would say Saturday morning.

[Dusty Slay]

Saturday is right. Saturday at 1 o' clock is typically the busiest time.

[Brian Bates]

I didn't even get to guess, but I would have said Friday at 5.

[Dusty Slay]

And then the family of four in America spends on average a thousand dollars a month on groceries. So the point being, billions and billions of dollars are at stake here. So almost nothing happens by accident in a grocery store. Everything is by design, starting at the very beginning. So you guys just. I'm based on. I know where we live. You guys all drive to the grocery store. Is that correct?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

88% of Americans drive to the grocery stores. Average distance, four miles. So we're all driving there. Which means your first step is going to be finding a parking spot.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Now where do you guys get your groceries from? Usually I'm a Kroger guy.

[Aaron Weber]

I used to be Kroger. My Kroger just got torn down, so.

[Brian Bates]

That was a good Kroger too. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Now it wasn't a murder Kroger Bell me.

[Brian Bates]

Kroger.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, the bell me's not a murder Kroger.

[Aaron Weber]

No, I used to live near the murder Kroger.

[Dusty Slay]

Really?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. You know what, a lot of cities have a murder Kroger.

[Dusty Slay]

Atlanta. I know Atlanta does.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. So whatever the bad Kroger is in your town. It gets labeled the murder.

[Brian Bates]

Kroger.

[Dusty Slay]

It doesn't even. It's not even that good of a turn of phrase too. It doesn't even really rhyme.

[Brian Bates]

I do think people are getting killed there, though.

[Dusty Slay]

I mean, I think. Look, I think they earned the name.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

I just wish it was a little clever. More clever, you know.

[Aaron Weber]

But now I go to Publix.

[Dusty Slay]

Publix is a good spot. Or do you.

[Brian Bates]

I go to Publix too. Publix is where I go in. In Hermitage and Mount Juliet. I'll hit them both. I like to switch it up. But you know what I like? I'm a. I like Trader Joe's.

[Dusty Slay]

A lot goes into the parking lots. Trader Joe's is famous. It's famous for having notoriously small parking lot.

[Brian Bates]

That one in. In the west side or where? Wherever. By. By.

[Dusty Slay]

It's on the west.

[Brian Bates]

That's such a bad parking lot.

[Dusty Slay]

It is a bad parking lot. But a lot of that is intentional. The way that they've set up. Typically, Trader Joe's are in densely populated urban areas. They're like in the city. So they don't really have the space or it's super expensive to have large park, large parking lots. But also the Trader Joe's, you know, the stores themselves are super small. So if they have a small parking lot, that will kind of create customers going in at the right level of efficiency.

[Brian Bates]

And it looks. And if it looks busy, always looks busy. You don't want an empty parking lot going. There's nobody. That's like a line in a restaurant. You want.

[Dusty Slay]

You drive by Trader Joe's. It look, you're like. It's popping.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

What is happening?

[Brian Bates]

Especially Columbus, Ohio, during COVID they made people wait outside. There was a line.

[Dusty Slay]

They were controlling how many people were in the store at once. Dusty and I are walking to the club. Dusty walks. There you go. Just see them lined up outside there

[Brian Bates]

with their mask on.

[Dusty Slay]

Now what's the opposite of that? You have a Walmart parking lot. Enormous.

[Brian Bates]

Yes.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Now, Walmart has designed all their parking lots very intentionally. Where you can always see the store from where you're parked. Now what they've done is determined that people will not complain about how far away they had to park from the store as long as they could see it the whole time.

[Brian Bates]

Time.

[Dusty Slay]

It creates the illusion of. I'm very close to it. Right. So Walmart. So they're all designed. If you look at the layout of them, they're all kind of set up where the store is always visible.

[Aaron Weber]

I'm trying to think of a grocery store, though, that I couldn't see it.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, even places, like, if something's in a city and you have to park, like, around the corner, it might be a shorter distance than if you were at the back of a Walmart parking lot, but it feels like, wow, what an inconvenience. I'm, like, around the corner from it.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I don't want to go out back. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Why would you?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Costco. We all love Costco.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Costco's not really. It's not my daily or, like, go to, but I'll go every once in a while. Love Costco to get stuff. You know, the Costco parking lots, they have the extra wide spaces in the parking lots. Have you noticed that?

[Aaron Weber]

I have not.

[Dusty Slay]

Yep. They got a little, like, the. The line in between spots is, like, two or three feet wide.

[Brian Bates]

Oh.

[Dusty Slay]

And what that does is that encourages you to, oh, dude, let's stock up. Let's load this car full of stuff. I'm gonna very easily open all the doors and just start cramming stuff in the car.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. And plus, larger people can go comfortably.

[Dusty Slay]

Look, I appreciate it, you know, if you bang your door into somebody else's car in the Costco parking lot, you meant to do it.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't want to get ahead of you. When you guys go, what's your parking strategy? Are you going to look for the closest space to the door, or are you going to look for some little room on each side?

[Dusty Slay]

I don't mind a little bit of a. I'll park in the back. I like empty space on either side, especially if I have the. The baby with me in the car seat. That complicates everything. But I want to park straight in front of the door. I want to walk in. So whatever that row is, I'll go in the back of that. I don't know why. I don't even think that even makes.

[Brian Bates]

I like to try to park near the buggy corral.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay. Right next to it.

[Brian Bates]

Because I. If there's a buggy in there and get my kid out.

[Dusty Slay]

You call it a buggy, huh?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Interesting.

[Brian Bates]

I get my kid out, put them right in the buggy, put them both in there, and then go in, and Costco gets that. Side by side. Yeah. Kid seating.

[Dusty Slay]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

And then I can, when I get done, take the kids out, load them in, push the buggy in.

[Aaron Weber]

Love it.

[Brian Bates]

Be done. You don't call it buggy.

[Dusty Slay]

I call a shopping cart.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, you do, But I know what

[Dusty Slay]

you mean when you say buggy.

[Aaron Weber]

It's just kind of thinking because I know them both. I think I say buggy feels amish to me.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah, I know.

[Dusty Slay]

They call. They're called buggies.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Well, I don't have a horse pulling it, but.

[Dusty Slay]

So you walk in, you grab a shopping cart. It's the first thing you do, right?

[Brian Bates]

Yes.

[Dusty Slay]

Would it surprise you, Dusty, that over the last 20 years, shopping carts have doubled in size?

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

They've doubled in the last 20 years.

[Brian Bates]

Wow. That is surprising.

[Dusty Slay]

Now what that's done is it's caused a 40% increase in spending on average. Because the way your mind works is that you want to fill that shopping cart up. The larger the cart is, the more permission you give yourself to buy more stuff. And it kind of looks stupid with a huge shopping cart with like one thing in it.

[Aaron Weber]

Right?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. You look lazy.

[Dusty Slay]

And your, your 1975. They've tripled in size since then. Since 1975. Am I crazy?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Well, yeah, I wasn't shopping when 1975, but my mom was. But seemed like with that logic they wouldn't even give you the little baskets to get stuff in.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And then though, that maybe that's for the people that are not going to get a cart, but they want to breeze through. It's like, let's give them a little something. That way they can still take a few things.

[Aaron Weber]

Kroger used to have. I don't go to Kroger anymore. But they have the small, little in between. Yeah, but there's so few of them. They're. They disappear. I think people take them home with them. You know what I'm talking about?

[Brian Bates]

The, the little. Yeah, yeah. It's got one on the top, one on the bottom. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

But even if you look at like this old picture of this woman at an old, old timey grocery store, like that's. That was a big shopping cart back then. And that looks like, like a little mini one.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Thin that lady is. That was before they were putting high fructose corn syrup in the coach.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, she wasn't allowed to leave the house except for the grocery store, so she's excited to be out.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Back then. Now here's something crazy I want to. I like having you here. You guys, I wonder if you even believe. Believe something. I'm talking about y'.

[Brian Bates]

All.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Be weird if we weren't here.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, I just want to bounce this stuff off.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay, now a wobbly wheel on a Shopping cart. You always have one.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

I immediately return and get a new car.

[Dusty Slay]

Now, a lot of people think now there's not. There's not a lot of data to support this. We're getting into more of this is just like conspiracy theory.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. A lot of people think the store basically has no incentive to fix that wobbly wheel because all that wobbly wheel causes you to do is move slower through the grocery store.

[Brian Bates]

Oh.

[Dusty Slay]

So if they have no reason to fix it, how bad would the wheel have to be for you to go, you know what? I'm done with this whole groat and just leave. Leave the whole store.

[Brian Bates]

I don't think I would ever abandon a grocery store for one bad wheel.

[Dusty Slay]

But if two or three in a row.

[Brian Bates]

But if I'm switching them out, I go, listen, what's going on around here? How can I trust you with my meat if you're. If you're letting the wheels get like this?

[Dusty Slay]

Right. But if those. If those. I'm not. A lot of people say they're not necessarily making the wheels wobbly, but they're like, there's not much of an incentive to fix them. It.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Why would I want to make you be able to move faster through a store? It doesn't do anything for us. Now, an even crazier one, this one. I don't believe you ever feel like a cart is drift. It drifts in one direction.

[Brian Bates]

Yes. Huh.

[Aaron Weber]

I was going to say, I don't get the wobbly will so much as the wheel that gets stuck and won't turn.

[Dusty Slay]

That's what I mean to.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

Anything that comes, like, what's going on that makes this thing stop turning.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. I think they just get beat to death by people. I think they're just not treated very well. But like, some people, some of the crazier people, people go, oh, this is all kind of knowingly left alone by the store. This one. Some people would say, you know, the cart will kind of drift.

[Aaron Weber]

Yes.

[Dusty Slay]

That. That's intentional. Because what that does is if you're walking through an aisle, it's just going to eventually just put you right in front of stuff on the shelves. What do you think about that?

[Aaron Weber]

It's going to take you away from the other side.

[Dusty Slay]

I want to come back down.

[Brian Bates]

As much as I. I love a conspiracy, I think that this is just neglect.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

I think that they're like, it's expensive to fix this.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. This is interesting because you said point blank on this podcast, you rarely attribute incompetence to what you can attribute malice to it. Right?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

But in this situation, you're like, this is probably just the store not keeping up with the shop.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Because I don't think it's incompetence even here. I think it's just like we got a lot going on here and once the buggies get bad enough, will order some more. But for now, you know, we got a couple with a wobbly wheel in it because it annoys everybody when you're. Even when you, if you work there, when somebody's going through and it's a loud one, it's like everybody's annoyed by that. I want to go, hey, why don't you switch that out real quick? Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

My brother in law is a assistant manager at Aldi and they have the thing.

[Brian Bates]

I've.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't think I've ever been. But what do you put a quarter in?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

And then you get your quarter back when you return it.

[Brian Bates]

It's my least favorite grocery store of all time. Really. And people go crazy for it.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, I like it.

[Brian Bates]

I hate it.

[Dusty Slay]

I don't mind the. I don't mind putting the quarter in. Yeah, usually you can. A lot of times I've walked up and the guy was like, oh, you just take this. I don't care about the quarter, but it just prevents theft of shopping carts, is like a huge issue for.

[Brian Bates]

Well, I have a joke and I say, they say that you return the cartoon, that if you return the car, you get the quarterback and that's to keep people from leaving the cart out in the parking lot, you know. And I go, well, I don't know if a quarter is doing that for me. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I'll give you a quarter. Come get this out of the parking lot.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, they might need to up there.

[Dusty Slay]

What would it have to take? A 10.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, I mean it, you know, it'd be tough people not giving up a 10 there. But yeah, if it did take five bucks, I'd say I'll go, all right, all right. Yeah, because it's like, even in the mall you have to pay like 8 bucks to get one of those like little kid carts. And then they give you a dollar or two back when you return it. Yeah. And even that is like, well, you know, I'll do it.

[Dusty Slay]

But here's something interesting. The, the way the shopping carts are designed, the ergonomics of the shopping cart handle, how you push it around physically activates different muscles in your arms, which changes your purchasing behavior in the store. So Little things like that will. Actually, they have. They've done studies about this will change how you buy things in the store. Some. Some. It's mostly overseas now, but a lot of grocery stores are using parallel handle shopping carts. Like, almost like a wheelbarrow where you grab it like that.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

They had a study published by the Journal of marketing in 2022 where parallel handle shopping carts significantly and substantially increase sales across a broad range of categories, including vice and virtue products. And not just like, you know, I might buy more junk food. It's like you're buying more of everything.

[Aaron Weber]

And why is that?

[Brian Bates]

Feels like it makes you look strong, feel strong.

[Dusty Slay]

It's something about it. It causes you to use different muscles in your arms, working that chest.

[Brian Bates]

And you're like, yeah, we stock up on stage.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, Ex.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

It's just so little things like that. I find that fascinating.

[Brian Bates]

I like that, too.

[Dusty Slay]

The child seat on the shopping cart. Do you guys use that?

[Aaron Weber]

When you mention Publix has a little thing now? I mean, I guess they've always had it. I've just started using it where it's like they drive a car.

[Brian Bates]

Those are great.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

So my kids love those.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. So it's. It's great for. If you got a child, you got to take the grocery store.

[Brian Bates]

But I also use the child seat, the regular one, too.

[Dusty Slay]

Olive is just old enough now where I can sit her in the front of it and she can sit up. Sit up on it. But most people aren't at the grocery store with a baby, but they still have that. That little child seat out. Right. So what does that little compartment in the shopping cart become if you don't have a baby?

[Brian Bates]

For eggs and bread, it can be for that.

[Dusty Slay]

But what else would you put in there?

[Brian Bates]

Maybe your cigarettes.

[Dusty Slay]

Studies have shown that when that little compartment, it becomes a little spot for, like, little treats for you. It's separated enough. Think about. Just think about how you would do it. You've got all your actual groceries in the. In the bin, and then there's a separate area where you go, I'll get a little whatever. For me, it's kind of separate.

[Brian Bates]

Get a little endorphin rush. No dopamine. Hit knowing you're about to eat that Chips Ahoy when you get in the

[Dusty Slay]

car, or whatever's in there, right. And you go, oh, this is a little treat for old me right here. It's separated. It's not. It's not like that's part of the groceries. It's separate enough so it has A benefit even if babies aren't there. People will buy more interesting stuff like that and put it in their little. Their little thing. We already talked about what about the

[Aaron Weber]

cleanliness of the handles. Do you. Do you ever wipe down the handles?

[Dusty Slay]

I never have now. Yeah, I think some stores will have little like Purell wipes that you. He wants them to be dirty.

[Brian Bates]

You do it. You wipe it down.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't. But it's so funny how you're like scoffing.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Even the idea of it.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

He desanitizes.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I sneeze on it when I go in.

[Dusty Slay]

You're welcome, everybody. Let's talk about. You walk into the store, the layout of the store. So much goes in to what is where in the grocery store. We all know it's. It's. It's well known the milk and the eggs are going to be in the back of the store.

[Aaron Weber]

Right.

[Dusty Slay]

That forces you to walk through everything. Everything else. But I want you to picture in your mind, you're walking into a grocery store. You got your shopping cart. You push it in. What's the first thing you see when you walk in?

[Brian Bates]

Bread. No, vegetables. The. The. Oh, the bakery.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. I usually start to the right and it's a bakery.

[Brian Bates]

And then you hit the vegetables.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, actually, I see like the grocery store I go to has like a little floral arrangement.

[Dusty Slay]

Exactly.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Usually it's flat. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

No, no. I just felt like we said a lot of things and then finally get to. They go. Exactly.

[Dusty Slay]

You're all right, you're all right. I'm saying it's usually the produce and the flowers are going to be right up front of the store. It looks appealing. It smells nice, feels fresh. It creates the illusion of happiness. This is hap. This is. Yeah. It's healthy in here. Right. And what also they want you to put the healthy stuff in your cart first. You get all the healthy stuff first. That way when you're walking around the rest of the store, you've kind of given yourself permission to get on.

[Brian Bates]

I've already got the vegetables. Let me go ahead and get some donuts.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, but if you put donuts in your cart first, you look and you look like you came to the store for that.

[Brian Bates]

This is a theory that I've heard that you should. That when you're in the grocery store, you should only buy the things off the ends. Everything in the middle, poison on the ends is where you're going to get the healthy stuff. The, like the far right side, that's where the produces is and then the other side, the far left side is where, you know, milk and cheeses, but

[Dusty Slay]

all the pre packaged stuff is in the middle.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. All the processed stuff.

[Aaron Weber]

So just stay around the edge, you're saying. Yeah, because the back is the meat.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah. Stay around the edge. And there also is a health food section in the grocery store, which often begs the question, well, what is the rest of it?

[Dusty Slay]

It's a good point. Yeah, it's a good point.

[Aaron Weber]

I was watching the SEC basketball tournament this weekend. Go Vandy. And on the floor at Richland arena, they had, you know, the difference, the signs that illuminate different businesses.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Said Sprouts, the official grocer of the sec.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

And I'm like, good for them. Nobody in the south is. Is going to Sprouts.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

I mean, I know some, dude.

[Brian Bates]

I do go to Sprouts. But it is not the official grocery store of the sec.

[Aaron Weber]

Piggly Wiggly, maybe.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Murder Kroger. Yeah, yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

That's the one of this. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We're gonna get to that a little bit because I want to talk about the identity that all these different grocery stores have. But we're in the produce section. You got your shopping cart. You ever notice the produce section will have mirrors? Think about like a stack of vegetables or fruit. A lot of times they'll have mirrors all around, too.

[Brian Bates]

And then a little water coming down.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. So that water, those misters do absolutely nothing for the produce. They don't benefit it in any way. They actually can cause the stuff to spoil faster because it's got all mold from the. The water. Literally all that does is make it look more appetizing.

[Brian Bates]

Make it look fresh.

[Dusty Slay]

Make it look fresh. Right. And some people. Now tell me if you believe this. Some people think that because you pay for those vegetables by the weight, they're getting a little bit more money from me. If they make the wet. The weight of the water.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, of course.

[Dusty Slay]

The water droplets. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

That's why you got to shake them off right there.

[Dusty Slay]

Like an umbrella. Yeah, Dry. You dry them off. Those mirrors in the produce section, those are often there. It makes the piles just look so much bigger.

[Brian Bates]

And if you catch a glimpse of yourself, you go, I need some vegetables.

[Dusty Slay]

Be funny. They're funhouse mirrors, too.

[Aaron Weber]

Now, do you have a strategy for produce? Like, do you.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, I think it depends on the. I just got into avocados.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

And there's a whole. I'm pretty late to the game.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

But Avocados, Avocados are new. They're relatively new. I think there was an embargo on them.

[Brian Bates]

I never ate them as a kid. I'll tell you.

[Dusty Slay]

No, I never even heard of them as a kid. Now all of a sudden, they're in everywhere.

[Brian Bates]

I remember seeing guacamole in a Mexican restaurant when I was younger and being like, that looks disgusting.

[Dusty Slay]

It does look disgusting if you don't

[Aaron Weber]

know what it tastes like, do you? Is there any fruits or vegetables that you don't put in the bag?

[Dusty Slay]

A bundle of bananas I'll put right in the cart.

[Brian Bates]

I don't put those bananas. Cantaloupe, honeydew, melon. Watermelon.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

You lost a watermelon once in your.

[Brian Bates]

And in my trunk. Yeah, I lose them.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Yeah. Who doesn't these days, right?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. There was a. A long standing ban on importing Mexican avocados into the US until 1997.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

And that got lifted. And then avocado took few years later, they were blowing up. They're everywhere now, right?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I got an avocado tree.

[Aaron Weber]

I was about to say, don't you grow your own?

[Brian Bates]

Well, I've never produced any avocado, but I did grow. I have a tree, you know, three feet or so from a seed.

[Dusty Slay]

What would it take? Does it just. You gotta wait a lot longer?

[Brian Bates]

I don't know. I don't think it'll actually work in this climate. But I'm just growing it inside and then I take it outside in the summer and then the pot keeps getting bigger and, you know, I'm hoping one

[Dusty Slay]

day you'll get an avocado.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

You got to have two, I think.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, there's a whole thing with.

[Brian Bates]

To pollinate each other.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, okay. That makes sense.

[Brian Bates]

I gotta get started on that other one.

[Dusty Slay]

Don't you, like, feel them for the consistency of it? You can tell how. How soft it is.

[Aaron Weber]

Fruit.

[Dusty Slay]

It's the.

[Brian Bates]

Well, avocado.

[Dusty Slay]

Avocado specifically.

[Brian Bates]

Well, there's a joke how to tell

[Dusty Slay]

a fruit is ready to go.

[Brian Bates]

There's a joke where it's like, not yet. Not yet, not yet spoiled.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Who has that joke?

[Brian Bates]

I don't know. I think it's a meme.

[Aaron Weber]

I don't know. You think it's a man.

[Brian Bates]

A meme.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, so you're like, it's pretty funny. I don't know. I think it's amazing.

[Brian Bates]

I think Rick Roberts has the joke. Yeah. Where he says, you wouldn't see a cat doing this in China, would you? Okay, okay. Rick Is great.

[Aaron Weber]

So I went to lunch with Rick today. He started growing garden.

[Brian Bates]

Did he?

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. He wants some advice from you.

[Brian Bates]

All right. Yeah. Tell him to come over.

[Dusty Slay]

Let's make it happen.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, everything's true. Except that last part. He didn't mention you. But he does have a garden, he said.

[Dusty Slay]

So let's talk about. We're still on the edge of the store. What's another thing that. You'll see. It's usually on a little. Like a little kiosk to itself, but it's a big item that you would buy at a grocery store kind of near the front of the store.

[Brian Bates]

A key.

[Aaron Weber]

A key.

[Brian Bates]

I'd get a key duplicated.

[Dusty Slay]

You can't. Well, I'm thinking of Kroger. Not like a Home Depot. They usually have those at the very front. The of. Of the store. I'm talking about. I'll just say it.

[Aaron Weber]

Gift cards.

[Brian Bates]

No, no, no. Ask it again.

[Dusty Slay]

I'm bad at leading.

[Brian Bates]

Ask it again. Ask it again.

[Aaron Weber]

All right, man. It's a guess. Gift cards.

[Dusty Slay]

Close. Actually, not close at all. I. I said it's a bad question.

[Brian Bates]

I ask it one more time.

[Dusty Slay]

I gotta. It's my first episode. I'm leading. I'm learning.

[Brian Bates]

No, this has been very good.

[Dusty Slay]

I'm learning how to do this.

[Brian Bates]

I'm starting to wonder who's been doing it this whole time. What are you leading the episodes?

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, Brian.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

We say the question again, though.

[Aaron Weber]

Wait a minute. What does that mean?

[Brian Bates]

I'm just trying to build him up confidence.

[Dusty Slay]

He's like, aaron needs that. They're not even recording.

[Aaron Weber]

Aaron didn't even do your research. He just knows all this while he's there.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, dude.

[Brian Bates]

Actually, we just sprung it on him right before we came. We came in and we go, brian, I'm ready, baby. Brian didn't do any research.

[Aaron Weber]

He's like, grocery stores.

[Dusty Slay]

I got you. It's an item. It. Towards the front of the store. It's usually like right behind the checkout lanes. And they're right there ready to grab.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, gum, candy.

[Dusty Slay]

No, no, no. Behind that. Not. Not in the checkout.

[Brian Bates]

Cigarettes.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, magazines.

[Dusty Slay]

Not. Nothing to do with the checkout. Like, past that.

[Brian Bates]

Oh. Coin star.

[Dusty Slay]

Rotisserie chickens.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

You ever get a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store? Yeah, Costco. I know. You know Costco. Yeah, they are. Famously have sold rotisserie chickens for 4.99 for a long time. Like a $5 rotisserie chicken from Costco. How many do you think? How many rotisserie chickens do you think Costco sells every year?

[Brian Bates]

Oh, 150 million.

[Dusty Slay]

You have a guess.

[Aaron Weber]

151 million.

[Dusty Slay]

147 million. Dusty. Dusty wins 147 million rotisserie chickens. So at $5, 147 million, that's $733 million of revenue that Costco pulls in.

[Brian Bates]

Wow.

[Dusty Slay]

How much money do you think they make on that? $733 million.

[Brian Bates]

633 million.

[Aaron Weber]

Think about the overhead. You got a chicken. I don't know.

[Dusty Slay]

Costco.

[Aaron Weber]

Be. No math on this.

[Dusty Slay]

Costco loses $40 million a year on rotisserie chickens.

[Brian Bates]

Okay. I was thinking it would be a

[Dusty Slay]

lot of money, like most grocery stores, for Costco, rotisserie chickens is what's called a loss leader, meaning they sell them below cost. So on the chickens themselves, they lose a ton of money, but they have all kinds of other benefits in the store. What would some of those benefits be?

[Brian Bates]

You might buy. You know, I know. Speaking from personal experience, I would go back in the day and get a rotisserie chicken and a bag of Hawaiian rolls and then go sit in the car and eat that whole chicken. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

You're gonna buy other stuff if you buy just a rotisserie chicken. You're a psycho.

[Aaron Weber]

So they're just trying to get you in the store to buy the chicken.

[Dusty Slay]

Not necessarily get you in the store, but you go, well, I'm gonna get a rotisserie chicken, and then I'll get. I'll get sides with it. I'm gonna get drinks with it.

[Brian Bates]

Plastic forks.

[Dusty Slay]

Exactly. High margin items that you're gonna buy if you just buy the chicken. That's kind of insane.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

You know what I mean?

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

So you're always gonna buy other stuff with it. And also, dude, they smell good.

[Brian Bates]

They do smell good.

[Dusty Slay]

They make the store smell good. You know, I don't even want a rotisserie chicken. But, dude, the smell. I think I'm gonna buy a lot of stuff.

[Brian Bates]

I think they are bad for you.

[Dusty Slay]

Rotisserie chickens.

[Brian Bates]

Think so?

[Dusty Slay]

Well, dude, out of all the things to. I mean, that's one of the healthier things you can get.

[Aaron Weber]

This is.

[Dusty Slay]

This is chicken.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

You know, I love chicken, though. I'm not saying I don't eat them, but I.

[Dusty Slay]

Some high margin items that you could buy, where they really make the money? At the store. Spices. Spices. They sometimes have, like, a 1500% markup.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Because you can grow oregano for, like, nothing, and it just grows wild. You don't even have to do anything with it. You try to buy a bottle of oregano at the store, it's outrageous.

[Dusty Slay]

But most people are doing that.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. You know, herbs are so. Most of them are very easy to grow.

[Dusty Slay]

Here's one that's kind of embarrassing that I'll admit. I buy it a lot. The pre cut fruit or pre cut produce.

[Aaron Weber]

I do that.

[Dusty Slay]

You know, I go, yeah, I'll just grab. Especially the one with like a mix of stuff. I go, I'll just grab that. That. They make a ton of money on that.

[Brian Bates]

I've also heard that they're like, that's the fruit that's going bad. So cut it up and I'm gonna

[Dusty Slay]

eat it right away.

[Brian Bates]

I mean, I eat it a lot.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, I totally do that. I get the pre cut watermelon and. Because I don't want to fool.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, it's like 80 bucks. And you can get a whole watermelon for 75 cents.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

It's worth it.

[Aaron Weber]

Grapes, same thing. I don't have to pull them off.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I love now I never buy grapes like that. You buy grapes in the tub.

[Aaron Weber]

I just started. It's great.

[Dusty Slay]

You ever have the cotton candy grapes? You ever had those?

[Aaron Weber]

I don't think I have.

[Brian Bates]

I have, but I can't trust it, dude.

[Dusty Slay]

They're so good.

[Brian Bates]

I don't trust you.

[Dusty Slay]

Just can't think about it though. You gotta let yourself. You gotta close your eyes every now and then.

[Aaron Weber]

I'm mostly a green grape guy.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

But I did a show with Dusty a few months ago and his post show snack was a big thing of red grapes.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, the red grapes.

[Aaron Weber]

They were really good. So now I've been mixing it up a little bit.

[Brian Bates]

You can even get. If you. Sometimes you find the organic. Real dark. Dark grapes. Yeah. Dark purple. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Yes. But also the ones artificially shot up with sugar are really good too.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

The ones that are like candy.

[Aaron Weber]

You'll see the grapes.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Freeze grapes. You freeze them. It's a nice little trick. It's a nice little snack. Frozen grape.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I want all seeded fruit.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

No seedless for me. It's hard to find, but that's what I want.

[Dusty Slay]

Do you think that the.

[Brian Bates]

The rumor.

[Dusty Slay]

I don't know if rumor is the right word, but I was told growing up, you swallow a watermelon seed, it's. It's dangerous.

[Brian Bates]

It'll kill you because it'll grow a watermelon out of your ear.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, exactly. Do you think that that was made up to sell seedless watermelons?

[Brian Bates]

Maybe because I eat watermelon Seeds. I. When I buy seeded watermelon, I eat it all. I eat the seeds.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh, not by themselves.

[Brian Bates]

No, not.

[Dusty Slay]

Not like sunflower seeds or pistachios.

[Brian Bates]

No, they're not as tasty, but, yeah, they. They have a lot of benefits for a lot of zinc, they say.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay. Other high margin items at the grocery store, deli meat. That's why sometimes bread is sold at a loss, too. Bread's another loss leader. Sometimes bottled water. Markup on bottled water is huge.

[Brian Bates]

I drink so much bottled water. What a scam.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

What a scam.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Baby food's another one.

[Aaron Weber]

How did bottled water ever take off?

[Dusty Slay]

I remember Gaffigan had an old bit.

[Brian Bates]

Flint, Michigan about.

[Dusty Slay]

It was just some.

[Aaron Weber]

No, it was before, way before that,

[Dusty Slay]

that he had a bit about. It was just some French guy going, the Americans. I bet we could sell those idiots water. And now it's like he bought a. Waters everywhere. But I remember when it started to come out, he's gonna buy water.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

You just get it from the water fountain.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Well, the sink.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, they make a lot of money on it.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Here's another one. I think you mentioned it. What's something at the store that you think the. The grocery stores will make a ton of money? High, high margin items. Something you'll just grab at the store.

[Aaron Weber]

I've already mentioned it.

[Dusty Slay]

I think you did.

[Aaron Weber]

Gift card.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, greeting cards. Greeting cards. Gift cards, too. I think they. But the greeting cards, it's just a piece of paper, and they sell them for like, it's the seven or eight.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I mean, I do it here and there. But it is a scam, too, because it's like. You ever. I mean, this is a Gaffigan joke, too, I think, but it's like you stand in there and you're like. And I'm reading them and I go, I wouldn't say this. I'm not buying this thing. That I would never say. And like, like, people. You buy it for someone and they read it out loud. I go, listen, I just bought this. This is not something. I mean. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

It's not from my heart.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Why would. Why would you ever buy a greeting card?

[Brian Bates]

Well, like a. You know, like a birthday card for my. My wife. Just birthdays, you know, something like that.

[Dusty Slay]

Not a Valentine's Day card?

[Brian Bates]

No, no, of course not.

[Dusty Slay]

What about a just because card? A graduation, something like that? Maybe graduation.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I don't think so.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

I'm. You know, again, my wife may buy.

[Dusty Slay]

You tell me when.

[Aaron Weber]

If.

[Dusty Slay]

When Brian skid Graduates high school, you're not going to get a graduation card for.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, it'll all be digital then. And I'll probably send a thing through my eye and I'll be dead. Yeah, yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Don't put that out into the world.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

You talk about a scam. There are a bunch of legal ways that these grocery stores can just flat out lie to you. Shrinkflation is a big one. We talked about shrinkflation.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And that instead of increasing the price, they just decrease the amount of stuff you're buying.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Same size bag, less stuff inside the bag.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

That's kind of a way of give an example. Like a lot of the products, the. The prepackaged stuff, like a bag of chips and stuff like that price stays the same. There's just less food in the bag.

[Aaron Weber]

So they're in cahoots with whoever the manufacturer is.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, these are. I'm talking about ways that the store is lying to us and the manufacturers are. Right. So.

[Brian Bates]

But for sure, they're in cahoots. There is no.

[Dusty Slay]

And the.

[Brian Bates]

The products themselves, it's all illusion of choice.

[Aaron Weber]

But if the manufacturer makes a smaller bag of chips, do you think they charge less the grocery store. And then the grocery store still charges you the same to make more money?

[Dusty Slay]

I think they're all making more money at the end of the day, or

[Aaron Weber]

at least making the same amount of money with. Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Bates]

My uncle used to work at the grocery store way back in the day, like when it was probably more of a mom and pop type situation. And he would say they would know when the mill would get a raise, when the people at the mill would get a raise. And so they would raise all their prices at the grocery store because, you know, people. And then they would be able to buy the same with the same amount of money, but they felt like, you know, they had more money.

[Dusty Slay]

Wow.

[Aaron Weber]

I can remember when. Now you don't even think about the sliding doors, But I can remember when that became a thing. Like, used to be it would be a swing door, glass swing door, but you would literally have to push it open.

[Dusty Slay]

A little bell would go off probably.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, I think there's a little bell and there was an in and out. So you didn't, you know, run into somebody. But then all of a sudden they started becoming automated where it wasn't the sliding open, but the door would just come.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, I remember those doors.

[Aaron Weber]

And it was like voodoo magic.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Like what in the world people were scared to go in.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

This is grocery store from the future.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Price anchoring. That's another way where they can increase the price and then bring it back down and say it's on sale back to the original price.

[Brian Bates]

And also the, the cards, the loyalty cards. Okay. I was in a Kroger the other day, and this in McMinnville. And the cashier goes, you have your Kroger card? And I had forgotten my wallet, and I just had some cash on me. And I go, no, I, I, I, you know, I forgot. And she goes, do you know your number? And I go, no, I never signed up for it. And she goes, okay. And then she just scans and gives me that.

[Dusty Slay]

Sure.

[Brian Bates]

Didn't, did not scan her own card. She just. And then she goes, told me the total. I go, well, how much would I have saved if I had a Kroger car? Because most of the time they'll go, well, I'll just use mine. I'll just use the store card. She didn't do it. I go, how much have I saved? She goes, I don't know. You just saved some. And I was trying to hint to her, yeah, help a brother out here. Come on.

[Dusty Slay]

95 of Kroger transactions use a loyalty card. Yeah, 95. Almost everybody's swiping them and they do that. They collect a ton of data about you, and then that allows them to make. They can use the what you're buying to make inferences about you, and then they can market products directly to you. You, you. I have a little game I want to play.

[Aaron Weber]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Basically, I've created some fake grocery store receipts, and I want you two to look at it and make judgments about the person. See what you can tell about the person based on what they bought at the grocery store. Okay, I'm gonna pull it up here. We've got, I've got it. Visually, if you're watching, if you're listening, I'll read it. This is a grocery store receipt from Quick Cart Groceries, a grocery store I made up. They used Apple Pay. They bought a rotisserie chicken Caesar salad kit, family size Mac and cheese, garlic bread, ready to bake. 2 liter Dr. Pepper chocolate chip cookies and 50 count paper plates.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, this is clearly you, Aaron. Come on.

[Dusty Slay]

Come on, man. Come on. Dude, I worked hard on this game. What? Tell me everything you think you know about this person based on this purchase.

[Brian Bates]

You want me to do it?

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah, I mean, I'd love for the two of you just.

[Brian Bates]

I'll say that this person does not cook and they have a family. Small family.

[Dusty Slay]

Small family.

[Brian Bates]

Probably I Would say husband, wife, two kids.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay. And who's buying this? Is this the father or the.

[Brian Bates]

This is the. I'd say this is the mom because there is a Caesar salad in there.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, I was about to say the same thing.

[Dusty Slay]

The dad wouldn't grab the. The Caesar salad.

[Brian Bates]

No, Probably a toss salad with little ranch dress.

[Aaron Weber]

Guessing I'm gonna say they have teenage kids.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Aaron Weber]

Based on the Dr. Pepper.

[Dusty Slay]

The Dr. Pepper. And I mean, some of these families are given sodas to, like one year olds. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

[Brian Bates]

Do you think the Mac and cheese is already refrigerated? So they're not even heating that up. This is. This is. They're not even cooking that. They're about to go out. This is probably some type of outdoor event. Maybe they're even. Oh, yeah, maybe it's a.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

Is that the 50 count plate? I don't think they need all those plates, but that's the smallest amount they had.

[Dusty Slay]

Right.

[Brian Bates]

Store.

[Dusty Slay]

Do you think this was not a planned meal? This. This feels very last minute.

[Brian Bates]

It feels planned to me.

[Aaron Weber]

Well.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, the garlic bread's ready to bake, though. You're gonna need something.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, but the. The chocolate chip cookies from a bakery makes me feel like they're going to

[Dusty Slay]

an event just grabbing a pack of it.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Like you just get some chips away,

[Brian Bates]

but ready to bake garlic bread. You're gonna need an oven. Oven.

[Dusty Slay]

You are gonna need an oven. So I got a few more of these. So we'll do it. This is like. This is a middle class father grabbing dinner for his family on the way home from work. Now, could be all these other things. These are just the inferences that I. That I drew from it. Right. Multiple children at home, like you said, not. They just grab something. That's why you're just grabbing.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Dusty Slay]

Y' all like this? We got a few more now.

[Brian Bates]

This is good. I love this.

[Dusty Slay]

All right, this is another one. You got another receipt here. This was made at 11:42pm I already

[Brian Bates]

know what this guy's doing.

[Dusty Slay]

Using a prepaid Visa gift gift card. They got Ben and Jerry's. A pint of Ben and Jerry's, Tyson grilled and ready chicken strips, Minute made oj, small bottle of it, Advil, gum, an LED nightlight, and a single pack of white Hanes T shirts.

[Aaron Weber]

This could be Dusty.

[Dusty Slay]

No, no, Dusty's not buying ice cream.

[Brian Bates]

This is. This guy's gonna be doing some drinking and. But he also has to go to work in the morning.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

So what makes you Say that.

[Brian Bates]

Well, Advil. Well, he's got the. He's got the oj, so he's gonna mix that with some sort of liquor. And he's got the chicken strips because he's like. Well, I wanna. You know, I don't want to drink on an empty stomach.

[Aaron Weber]

He's married.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

He's got the gum to.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Hide.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, okay. Well, that was what I was saying from going to work. And then the Advil, obviously, because it'll be hungover white T shirt. Because he's about to get wild. He'll need to replace that shirt.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

And then.

[Dusty Slay]

Interesting. This is completely different route than the one that I. That I took on this.

[Brian Bates]

But maybe Brian has a different.

[Aaron Weber]

An LED night light.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

You get that at a grocery store.

[Brian Bates]

You can.

[Dusty Slay]

Sure.

[Brian Bates]

You can grab.

[Dusty Slay]

You got a little, like a little home. Good aisle.

[Brian Bates]

That one throws me off the most.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Trying to decide what that's about. Who did you create this?

[Dusty Slay]

I made all these.

[Aaron Weber]

So you're just coming up with the answers too? Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

All right.

[Brian Bates]

He's not tracking people down.

[Aaron Weber]

Well, I thought maybe.

[Brian Bates]

Let me see your receipt.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay, so this is. This is a shopper staying somewhere temporarily, like a hotel or a new apartment. The prepaid Visa card. Like there's banking issues or like it's a transitional time.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, I'm missing payment method.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. The prepaid Visa gift card.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And they don't have access to a full kitchen. They got the grilled and ready chicken strips.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

And they got a little mini fridge. I. I think it's somebody temporarily displaced at a hotel or something. That's why they bought the white T shirts. And they got a LED nightlight or a bad apartment or something.

[Brian Bates]

I. I'm gonna say that this could also be correct. And what I'm saying.

[Dusty Slay]

Totally agree with you.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

You'd have a lot more data. You'd have a bunch of different purchases

[Brian Bates]

because depending on where you live, you're not going to be able to get the mixer for the OG at the. You know. Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Right. You want to do one more.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

One more of these. This is quick cart grocery, 3:14pm with a Visa debit card, a 24 pack of frozen waffles. Ready Whip. Whipped cream, Febreze fabric spray, two boxes of lunchables, a gallon of distilled water, sticky notes and butterfly bandages.

[Aaron Weber]

All right, so this guy wears a cpap. His sleep apnea.

[Dusty Slay]

That's what the distilled waters for.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

Huh.

[Dusty Slay]

I put that in there for you.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

I knew you'd know that one.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Yeah. Sticky notes. Bright pink.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Trying to think what that would be about.

[Brian Bates]

I think this is a. A mom, and they have a young daughter, and they're getting her some stuff for school tomorrow.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

And. And then breakfast. She's gonna do waffles, put a little whipped cream on, and then.

[Dusty Slay]

So what does that tell you about the family? If they're having whipped cream waffles in

[Brian Bates]

the morning, they're overweight.

[Dusty Slay]

Not particularly health conscious, but I think you're getting to the point.

[Aaron Weber]

That's why he wears a cpap. Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And the Febreze is for the multiple cats they own now.

[Dusty Slay]

Now, obviously, at the end of the day, this could just be a fat guy buying frozen waffles for himself and eating lunch. It could be.

[Brian Bates]

But the sticky notes. I mean, maybe.

[Dusty Slay]

But you gotta think it's just hundreds and hundreds of these things over time, you can start to paint a picture about.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

What's going on.

[Brian Bates]

And maybe the bright pink wasn't a choice by him. It was the.

[Dusty Slay]

It's just whatever. Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

Butterfly bandage makes me think. Yeah, it's chill.

[Dusty Slay]

Yep. So this is a parent of a child. They're not. They're not health conscious. This is a. I. I think it's a spontaneous trip to the store after something happened. Right. So they've got, like, the butterfly bandages. Maybe they spilled something. That's why you get the fabric. Spray all this stuff. And then somebody in the house has a. Has a CPAP machine. So I always thought this was interesting of just like, looking at a receipt and go, what's going on in this first person's life here? That's what these stores are doing with all of your data.

[Brian Bates]

I like this.

[Dusty Slay]

So then they know. Well, we got one more. I feel like we're running out of time.

[Aaron Weber]

Time.

[Dusty Slay]

But we can. We can. We can move on. Let's kind of wrap it up here.

[Aaron Weber]

Trying to think if there's any.

[Dusty Slay]

Trader Joe's was ranked the number one supermarket in America by customers. Number one overall.

[Brian Bates]

No, I do find them to be very friendly. In Trader Joe's, the customers are less friendly than the staff.

[Dusty Slay]

100.

[Brian Bates]

And the trader Joe's that I was talking about with a horrible parking lot, they're very familiar with my comedy.

[Dusty Slay]

Oh.

[Brian Bates]

I go in there and they say nice things to me.

[Aaron Weber]

Get to the root of it.

[Dusty Slay]

Guess what's number two? Grocery store.

[Brian Bates]

I'm gonna say Whole Foods.

[Dusty Slay]

Publix.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, Publix.

[Dusty Slay]

Whole Foods is number seven.

[Brian Bates]

Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I love but as for a. A regular grocery store, Publix is tip top.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

I mean, it is. Anytime I'm driving.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

On the road and I see a Publix, I'm like, give it up. You know what I mean? I love a Publix.

[Dusty Slay]

Well, do you know the number one most important factor in loyalty to a grocery store is time and time again for people. The number one most important thing, the number one driver of loyalty is that

[Brian Bates]

you keep coming back.

[Dusty Slay]

Well,

[Aaron Weber]

he defines it. No, I don't.

[Dusty Slay]

Cleanliness of the store.

[Brian Bates]

Oh, yeah. Publix is clean.

[Dusty Slay]

Even more. Even more than price.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

It's the cleanliness.

[Brian Bates]

Well, that, you know, I'm not trying to trash all this, but that's what people always say.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

And I go in Aldi, and I go, this is very unorganized. And Publix, they have it put together.

[Dusty Slay]

Shopping is a pleasure.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

That's their motto.

[Brian Bates]

And it always is.

[Dusty Slay]

I like a Publix too.

[Aaron Weber]

I'd say in the south, the biggest grocery store is Kroger. And I'd say the majority of people call it Kroger's.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what else I like, though? I'm gonna give a shout out. Harris Teeter.

[Dusty Slay]

Okay.

[Brian Bates]

I love a Harris Teeter. Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

North Carolina. There's a lot of.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Charleston. We had some. I love a Hares Teeter.

[Dusty Slay]

All right, Grocery stores. Thank you for listening. Thank you for letting me take the reins today. Brian.

[Aaron Weber]

That was fun.

[Brian Bates]

It was fun.

[Dusty Slay]

Was it fun to sit back and.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a lot of fun. I can't wait to Dusty next week.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I mean, I can't wait to follow

[Aaron Weber]

that up, do some PowerPoint.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. I mean, that's. You really put that together well. And I feel like next week is going to be good, you know?

[Dusty Slay]

Where are you guys going to be this weekend?

[Aaron Weber]

Florida. I'm with Johnny W. And Ed Wiley. It's called the Live and Laughter Tour.

[Dusty Slay]

I thought it was Living Laughter.

[Aaron Weber]

Oh, it's called the Living Laughter Tour. So come on out to that interchangeable.

[Brian Bates]

Because it is live.

[Dusty Slay]

It is live.

[Brian Bates]

It should be the Live and Laughter Live tour.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah, yeah. Living three Ls, I guess. I mean, what would that mean, you

[Brian Bates]

living and you're laughing, man.

[Dusty Slay]

You gotta live. You gotta have laughter, man.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm gonna be live. There may or may not be some laughter. But then, March 29, Brian Bates and friends here at the Lab at Zany's.

[Dusty Slay]

The Live or Laughter Tour. It's Me, one or the other. I can't promise both. Yeah. What is zany?

[Aaron Weber]

March 29, Brian Bates and friends. Yes, sir. This is the night before my special, so this is very important so I can, you know, do a dress rehearsal. So come on out to that. Some would argue that's this show's more important than the special itself. So come to that. And then March 30, of course, is my special. These guys are on it. There's a decent chance that Dusty will do more time than I will, but it's the price you pay to have him on the show.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. So, yeah, I appreciate it. Appreciate you giving me the 45.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. And then you're gonna let me close it out.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Aaron Weber]

And then he'll come out and do some more time.

[Dusty Slay]

Yeah. Host, line it.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Aaron Weber here. I'm gonna be in Minneapolis at the end of the month at Sisyphus Brewing Company. I've never been there, but I've heard really good things about that venue. So I'm excited to be there in Minneapolis. And then I got a couple shows here at Zany's in Nashville during the Nashville Comedy Festival in April. So coming up, Minneapolis and Nashville, coming out and see me on the road. We're doing it. What about you, Dusty?

[Brian Bates]

All right. I got. Got two more weekends, and then I'm going to take April off, all except for April 14, where I also be at Zany's.

[Dusty Slay]

Nice.

[Brian Bates]

During the festival this weekend. Clearwater, Florida. Orlando, Florida, Friday and Saturday. That's March 20th and 21st. And then March 27th and 28th. Paducah, Kentucky, and St. Louis, Missouri.

[Dusty Slay]

Nice.

[Brian Bates]

And these shows are all selling very well, so get some tickets now while you can. Yeah, do it now, because after I have a third baby, I may quit comedy. So see it while you can see it.

[Dusty Slay]

I'll take those gigs.

[Brian Bates]

Okay.

[Dusty Slay]

Me and Brian will merge together and become you and just take all your work. I feel like the two of us together, that could be. That's you.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah.

[Dusty Slay]

Same amount of time would be the same.

[Brian Bates]

Maybe your two headlining sets could.

[Aaron Weber]

45 or 45.

[Dusty Slay]

If I don't like the crowd, I'm doing 45 and I'm getting out of there.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah.

[Brian Bates]

See, I. Sometimes if the crowd's not good, I feel like you. You stay longer, you make them. You make them pay.

[Aaron Weber]

I've seen you do that firsthand.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah, you make them pay.

[Aaron Weber]

Huntsville Hotel.

[Brian Bates]

Yeah. Yeah. You make them pay.

[Aaron Weber]

Yeah. All right. Well, that is it. Great job, Aaron.

[Dusty Slay]

Grocery store.

[Aaron Weber]

So much fun.

[Brian Bates]

This was great.

[Aaron Weber]

Everybody we'll be back next week with whatever Dusty comes up with. Here we go. We're having a good time.

[Dusty Slay]

God bless.

[Brian Bates]

All right.

[Dusty Slay]

Good afternoon. Good evening. My perfect day has sand, salt water and friends, but my moderate to severe plaques are out.

[Aaron Weber]

Can take me out of the moment

[Dusty Slay]

Now I'm all in with clearer skin

[Aaron Weber]

thanks to skyrizi risen Kizumab RZA a prescription only 150mg injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy. With Skyrizi. Most people saw 90% clearer skin and many were even 100% plaque free at four months. Skyrizi is just four doses a year after two starter doses.

[Brian Bates]

Don't use if allergic to Skyrizi. Serious allergic rank reactions, increased infections or lower ability to fight them may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines.

[Aaron Weber]

Thanks to Skyrizi, there's nothing on my skin and that means everything is everything.

[Dusty Slay]

Ask your doctor about Skyrizi, the number

[Aaron Weber]

one dermatologist prescribed biologic in psoriasis. Visit skyrizi.com or call 1-866-Skyrizi to learn more.

[Dusty Slay]

It's tax season, and by now we're

[Brian Bates]

all a bit tired of numbers. But here's an important one you need to $16 billion. That's how much money in refunds the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud. But it's not all grim news. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, Gary. Guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com iheart Terms apply.

[Dusty Slay]

Here's the truth. You could literally be adored by everyone and then come home and still get completely ignored by your own cat. It's classic cat behavior, but new Sheba Premium Puree is a lickable treat that changes all that. They're protein rich, made with bone broth, and have the smooth, creamy texture cats go crazy for, especially when it's hand fed. Yeah, it's more than a treat. It's a fast pass to favorite human status. So feed your cat Sheba and go from totally ignored to truly adored in just 12 days. Guaranteed or your money back. Learn [e-mail].