0:00

Hi, this is

0:03

Rachel McElroy.

0:19

Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful.

0:21

Thanks for listening to Wonderful, the show where we

0:23

talk about things we like that's good that we're

0:25

into. And right now I'm going to say for

0:27

the past decade, I've been very into Rachel

0:30

McElroy. That's right. Actually,

0:32

one might say even more than that, because

0:34

we did not get married immediately. We didn't

0:37

get married immediately. I suggested it.

0:39

You balked at the idea. Yeah, you were

0:41

like, lifetime has this show. It's going to be a

0:43

big hit. Yes. It's

0:45

called Married at First Sight. This is not usually how

0:47

the matchmaking process works. You

0:50

meet someone in public and then you just marry them right

0:52

then and there. But

0:54

it is our 10 year wedding anniversary, December

0:57

7th, a day that shall live in infamy.

1:00

But I feel like, I don't know, being

1:02

married 10 years to you, I

1:05

feel like we have overtaken Pearl Harbor Day

1:07

in terms of sort of importance to

1:09

the landscape of the nation. I

1:12

would like to think that if you look

1:14

at December 7th on Wikipedia, our wedding is

1:16

listed above Pearl Harbor. Even

1:19

though chronologically it would probably not be listed

1:21

first. No. But in order

1:23

of importance. You know what I mean? Griffin,

1:27

I think our listeners are probably wondering, you've

1:29

been married 10 years. What is your advice

1:31

for a successful marriage? And what would you

1:33

say to them? Marry the

1:35

perfect person for

1:37

you to get married to. It's

1:40

pretty, I'll say this, if you can

1:42

swing that, it's pretty fucking easy, man. True.

1:45

True. I will say, and this is advice I

1:47

like to give everybody, compliments. Oh

1:49

yeah. Continue to compliment constantly.

1:53

And not just one thing. It's got to be across the

1:55

board. I do have to remind Griffin that he has to move across

1:57

multiple areas. Yes. body.

2:00

Yes, yes. I've gotten

2:02

so much better at that, like talking. I

2:04

know, how soft my hair is. Your hair

2:06

is so soft and it smells so good

2:09

every day. Do you have any

2:11

small wonders? I'm gonna say,

2:13

and this relates to our 10-year wedding anniversary,

2:15

I'm going to say the

2:17

destination which is adults only.

2:19

Yes. We went to a

2:21

resort in celebration of our 10-year anniversary and

2:24

children were not allowed there. Yeah. Which

2:26

we picked specifically because we knew this would be

2:28

the first time we had ever left our children

2:30

for more than one night as a couple. For

2:33

literally seven years. For seven years. And

2:37

so we didn't want to see a child to remind

2:39

us of our own regular

2:42

life. Yes. Outside of the

2:44

resort. Yeah, it was huge. Big ups to Pete's and

2:47

Cece for coming through and fudge,

2:49

watching the boys so we could get away for

2:51

a couple nights. It was very, we were

2:53

stressed about it until we got there and

2:55

then it was totally chill. It was,

2:58

yeah. It was like once we knew that our

3:00

children would in fact go to bed without us

3:02

present, it was like, okay, the rest of this

3:04

is gonna be fine. Yeah. I'm going to

3:06

say there's a company

3:08

called Teenage Engineering that makes a bunch

3:10

of sort of boutique scents and sequencers

3:13

and little digi music devices. They make

3:15

the pocket operator series which I have

3:17

a few of those little sort of

3:19

calculator ones. They've just come out with

3:21

the EP 133, the KO2, which

3:23

is sitting on my desk right there. It's

3:25

that giant sort of tablet sized. Looks

3:28

like a computer. It looks like a calculator. But it's so

3:30

fun. Their track record is kind of hit or miss.

3:37

They make a lot of stuff that's like way

3:39

too expensive, like $2,000 portable

3:42

like synth, keyboard, workstations

3:46

and some of them aren't great. This one's like

3:48

300 bucks and it's super powerful and super super

3:50

fun to mess around with and play around with.

3:52

I think this is gonna become sort of my

3:54

off-court buddy that I travel around

3:56

with. And how great that you're supporting

3:58

engineers that are teaching. Yes, these 13

4:00

to 19 year old teenagers. They're

4:04

credible. No, I'm pretty sure

4:06

the grownups did make these. But

4:09

I just like this company. They make a lot

4:11

of stuff. They have sort of a bad reputation in

4:14

the space for people who are

4:16

like, you know, you can get a

4:18

more authentic experience for cheaper. But I

4:20

feel like this is the best thing

4:22

they've ever made. And it's at a

4:24

price point that it makes a lot

4:26

of sense. So that's the KO2 and

4:28

it's super, super duper fun. I

4:30

go first this week. Okay. My

4:33

topic this week is, you will probably

4:35

be surprised to hear, is Bop It.

4:39

We did get on the topic of Bop

4:41

It the other night for a kind

4:43

of a gross reason. Do you want to talk about it? No,

4:46

particularly. I don't even remember how

4:49

it came up. I remember what

4:51

conversation transpired. The

4:53

conversation became ranking

4:56

the verbs featured on a Bop It

4:58

in order of which it

5:00

would be sort of least disastrous to a

5:03

human being. And

5:05

for those wondering, the order we settled on was

5:07

best or worst, pull it, flick it, Bop It,

5:09

twist it, and then spin it. We sort of

5:11

disregarded because we couldn't figure out the physics of

5:13

how one would spin. You are saying we.

5:16

I think it is important to note.

5:18

I spearheaded a lot of this conversation.

5:20

Pretty one-sided. It became kind of a

5:23

monologue, I would say, on your part.

5:25

Yeah, a sort of penis monologue. You

5:28

provided me with a ranking and then repeated the

5:30

ranking just to make sure that I learned what

5:33

I was supposed to do. You were busting up,

5:35

though. You are trying to make it sound like

5:37

this was just some lunacy sort of rant

5:41

that I went on. I

5:43

like how in your mind, like, if

5:45

I am laughing, then this is a

5:47

worthwhile conversation. You are conflicting. Absolutely.

5:50

I don't want to make light of the important

5:52

place that Bop It has in my history, though,

5:54

because I used to play Bop It

5:57

all the time in many iterations. I

6:00

never owned a boppet. I don't know that I've actually

6:02

played boppet. I have seen it for sale in

6:04

stores. I know what it looks like. I remember

6:06

the commercials. I don't think I've ever had my

6:08

hands on one. I considered buying a boppet for

6:10

this segment, but did not have

6:13

time to procure one before. Henry would

6:15

probably like it. Maybe we should put that on

6:17

the old holiday list. That's a great idea. So

6:19

boppet was a sort of toy game. It

6:21

came out first in 1996 from Hasbro. It

6:25

was designed by a toy engineer

6:27

named Dan Klitzner, who

6:30

made a few hits, but

6:32

nothing quite on the scale of boppet.

6:35

And the original version of boppet was a

6:37

sort of stick-shaped device about the size of

6:39

your forearm. With three

6:42

interactive elements on it, there was a

6:44

yellow knob for twisting, a

6:46

blue handle on one end of the stick for

6:48

pulling, and then right at the center of

6:50

the boppet was a big button

6:52

that you could bop. It was for bopping.

6:54

It was the boppet and boppet. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

6:57

And the way it'll work is that the

6:59

game would sort of bark orders at

7:01

you in time to music to

7:03

either pull it, twist it, or boppet,

7:06

and the music would ever increase in tempo.

7:09

And so you would have to do the commands

7:11

faster and faster and faster. There was a multiplayer

7:13

mode where it would add a fourth command, which

7:15

was pass it. So after doing a few of

7:17

the other commands, it would say pass it, and

7:19

then you'd have a few seconds to pass it

7:21

to the other player. And the first one to

7:23

mess up one of the inputs loses. That is

7:26

literally it. Once it starts sort

7:29

of trucking, once the tempo is going real

7:31

fast and you are having to be very,

7:34

very precise in your movements, it

7:36

becomes kind of panicky to discern

7:38

the difference between a pulllet and

7:40

a boppet, for example. Yeah, it's

7:42

kind of like the head, shoulders, knees, and

7:44

toes principle. Yes. Where at first

7:46

it's like, well, of course, I'm always gonna remember where my

7:49

head is. And then the faster you go, the more it's

7:51

like, wait, now I'm just confused. Do you have trouble with

7:53

head, shoulders, knees, and toes? I

7:55

personally don't, but if you watch a bunch of

7:57

children perform it, the faster it gets, the more.

8:00

Or they're like, now I can't do anything

8:02

right. Yeah, I would say the difference here is that that

8:04

song is, commands in

8:06

a provided unchanging

8:08

order. Whereas bop it, sometimes

8:10

bop it'll give you twist it like six times in

8:12

a row. And you'd be like, certainly. Yeah, that's true.

8:15

Certainly it's not gonna give me another twist it. And

8:17

then it gets you with another twist. You start to

8:19

get in your own fucking head about it. For

8:21

those who found bop it's three

8:23

commands to pedestrian. Two

8:26

years later Hasbro would release the

8:28

bop it extreme, which was sort

8:30

of a steering wheel shaped device

8:33

that added two more inputs, a little green

8:36

noodle for flicking and

8:38

then a little red wheel for spinning. I

8:40

never owned a bop it extreme. My friend

8:42

Clint did. I had some

8:44

trouble playing it because I built up so much

8:46

muscle memory around the original bop it. That

8:50

anytime a flick it or spin it would

8:52

come up. My central nervous system would just

8:54

like misfire. And

8:56

I would just free them up. Bop

8:59

it filled a really interesting sort of

9:02

space in the toy slash game arena,

9:05

which was pretty like busy in the 90s

9:08

and the early aughts. Yeah,

9:10

right? You had a lot of

9:12

sort of experimental, oftentimes pretty crummy

9:14

stuff coming out from Tiger Electronics

9:16

and Hasbro. And

9:19

that tried to sort of blend the

9:21

world of computer gaming and toys. Some

9:24

were great. Like there was a little game

9:26

called Lights Out. That was just a little

9:28

grid of like five by five buttons

9:30

that lit up and as you press

9:32

one, it activated or deactivated the adjacent

9:34

ones. And so, you know, it

9:36

gave you like puzzles that you had to try

9:39

and solve and turn off all the lights. That

9:41

one was great. There were many others that were

9:43

not as good. But for me, like bop it

9:45

is the most successful of

9:47

those experiments. And the reason I think

9:49

that is because it was so easy

9:51

to just start playing it. Yeah.

9:54

Sometimes I have a lot of memories

9:56

of having friends over or being over

9:58

at a friend's house. like Clint's

10:00

house with the Bobbit extreme where we just be goofing

10:03

around and someone would just pick up the bop it

10:05

and then we'd be Playing bop it for like a

10:07

half hour Yeah And you know what

10:09

cuz I was thinking in my head like oh

10:11

this kind of reminds me of Simon But then

10:13

I was like Simon really requires memorization where this

10:16

one it's random so everybody's got kind of the

10:18

same shot That's exactly it Bop it

10:20

is what I would consider to be a zero friction

10:22

game and that you can pick it up and be

10:24

playing it Within seconds and even

10:27

if you've never played bop it before I

10:29

mean, you know the rules in

10:32

an instant. Yeah, they tell you what to tell you

10:34

what to do It's on the thing. It's written on

10:36

the thing what you do And so

10:39

you pick up the rules instantly and I cannot think

10:41

of like another Another

10:43

game that I would consider

10:45

to have such a low barrier of

10:47

entry then then bop it Now

10:51

I will say that Hasbro's gone

10:53

like absolutely batshit wild with power

10:56

And they've released like a dozen variations on

10:58

bop it at this point There's

11:01

bop it bounce Which apparently

11:03

I've never these I've never even

11:05

seen before I did like research all of these

11:07

I'm kind of a bop it purist bop it

11:09

bounce had a ball and a trampoline And

11:12

so the trampoline would like tell you instructions on like

11:14

how to bounce the ball in the trampoline. Oh There

11:18

was bop it smash Where you

11:20

had to time inputs in sync with like this

11:22

little line of lights kind of like that arcade

11:24

game where the light goes Around yeah circle and

11:26

you have to press the button right when it

11:28

hits like your target light There

11:31

was bop it Tetris which

11:33

had sort of two cylinders with

11:36

different kind of Grids of

11:38

lights and one would appear that would be kind

11:40

of like the tetromino That you

11:42

had to drop into the other side. So you'd have to

11:44

twist it to make it line Oh While

11:48

the Tetris music played that one actually looks pretty fun. I

11:50

would I would get into bop it Tetris There

11:52

was like a bop it yo yo There

11:55

were like motion activated boppets where you

11:57

could kind of customize like what command

12:00

that would say to you, like, brush it. And then you'd

12:02

have to like, mind brushing your teeth with it. Some

12:06

of them look fun, but for my money, nothing

12:08

beats the original Bop It, or perhaps Bop It

12:10

Extreme, a game

12:12

that in my childhood, I just accidentally picked up

12:14

and played more times than I can count. I

12:17

would go years without playing Bop It. And then

12:19

would be like, cleaning my room and be like,

12:21

oh shit, Bop It. Well, I mean,

12:23

it's like, play Bop It for a little while. I think

12:25

that's really special, and I can't think of too many other

12:27

things, before or after

12:30

that, that have come. And

12:32

there's so few games that you

12:34

don't need several people to play.

12:36

You know, I remember that as a

12:38

kid, as

12:40

an only child, so it was usually just me and

12:42

my dad playing a board game. And

12:45

a lot of times, games aren't really designed even

12:47

for two. Usually you need like, at least more

12:49

than two. And so it's nice that this was

12:51

out there for all of us lonely

12:53

souls. Yeah, Hasbro and Tiger Electronics, I would say

12:56

like, most of the stuff they make kind of fit

12:58

this category of like, hey, hey lonely

13:00

guy. Hey lonely little guy,

13:02

pick this up. You want some fun. That's

13:05

Bop It. We should get a Bop It. We should, yeah,

13:07

I know you sold me on it. Okay, we'll get a

13:09

Bop It. I'll give you $500. Okay.

13:13

That's a lot of money for a Bop It. You understand that,

13:15

right? I know, but I'm so excited about it now.

13:19

Okay, $500 could buy a lot of Bop It. Like

13:21

we could each have several of our own discreet Bop

13:23

It. Uh-huh. Okay, okay. Can

13:25

I steal your way? Yes. Thanks.

13:28

I'm a gamer,

13:31

and that means sometimes I have to pay recurring

13:38

fees to play all the online games with

13:40

my internet friends that I know and love.

13:42

And then sometimes I stop playing those games

13:45

for like 12 years, and I forget that

13:47

I am still subscribed to them. And

13:49

fortunately, Rocket Money is here to make me

13:52

realize the error of my ways and also

13:54

be like, dog, you've spent like $2,000 on

13:58

subscription fees for this thing haven't

14:00

touched in over a decade. Yeah,

14:03

I did this literally just today. I wanted

14:05

to read an article on a newspaper website

14:07

and they made me subscribe and they were

14:09

like, okay, cancel in six months, it's only

14:12

a dollar. And I thought, great. Rocket

14:14

Money will get you. I'm gonna forget about this. Yeah. Whether

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14:54

Hi Griffin. Hi. Can I

14:56

tell you about a bicycle that I use? I

14:58

love hearing about bicycles. The

15:00

electric e-bike. Oh sure.

15:03

My bicycle. It has

15:05

like the cargo rack on the back. So

15:08

I can put a kid up there if I want. One

15:11

of our kids ideally. Hopefully. I've

15:14

got the model with the two batteries. So

15:17

man, you can ride that thing forever

15:19

and ever and ever before you have

15:21

to charge it, which is awesome. It came out of

15:23

the box and it was like ready to go. I

15:26

like turned some things around and tapped them and

15:28

I was like, okay, now I can ride it. It

15:31

was pretty amazing. Electric has e-bikes for

15:33

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15:35

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15:37

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15:40

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15:42

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15:44

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15:46

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15:49

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15:51

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15:55

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16:01

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16:03

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16:05

C T R I C ebikes.com

16:12

Hello sleepyheads Sleeping

16:14

with celebrities is your podcast

16:16

pillow pal. We talked

16:19

remarkable people about unremarkable topics

16:21

All to help you slow

16:24

down your brain and drift

16:26

off to sleep. For instance,

16:28

we have the remarkable Neil

16:30

Gaiman I'd always had a

16:32

vague interest in life culture

16:34

food preparation Sleeping with

16:36

celebrities hosted by me John

16:38

Moe on maximum fun

16:41

org or wherever you get

16:43

your podcasts night night Somewhere

16:50

in an alternate universe where

16:52

Hollywood is smarter And

16:55

the Emmy nominees for outstanding

16:58

comedy series are jet

17:00

pacula airport

17:02

Marriott ruffle here

17:05

America, we've seen you naked and

17:09

Allah in the family You

17:11

know You

17:14

can't see any of these shows, but

17:16

you can listen to them on dead

17:18

pilot society The podcast

17:20

that brings you hilarious comedy pilots

17:22

that the networks and streamers bought

17:25

but never made Journey

17:27

to the alternate television universe

17:29

of dead pilot society on

17:31

maximum fun org Griffin

17:37

you want to hear about my thing desperately. My

17:40

thing is is Just

17:43

all over the place this time of year

17:45

and it is the free gift with purchase

17:48

Oh, I love a free gift with purchase

17:50

a foot group That's

17:53

as the insiders call it. Yeah This

17:56

is something that I have noticed as we

17:58

are kind of checking checking off our

18:00

gift list. One

18:03

thing I like to do when it

18:05

comes to your siblings and their spouses

18:07

is to find a gift that would

18:09

work for all of them. It's

18:12

like a nice gift. Not like a toaster, but

18:14

like a thing that would be useful to all

18:16

of them. And

18:18

I did this recently and it came with

18:21

a little gifto. And

18:23

I thought like this is a great thing about

18:25

this time of year where it's like, hey, are

18:28

you gonna buy five? Maybe I'll get one for

18:30

you. We got some stuff

18:32

at the Lego store this past

18:34

weekend. Yeah. And it came with

18:36

free Lego Christmas ornament. Yeah. Which

18:38

you built all of by

18:41

yourself. I did, sorry about that. Well,

18:43

you do all the big sets all the time.

18:46

I do 10% of the

18:48

big sets and then our children, I'll

18:51

enter their field of vision and they'll be like,

18:53

stop that. Play with me with

18:55

just a little mini-fade. Yeah, which by the

18:57

way, Lego, and you probably know this already,

18:59

but like most of the time the boys

19:02

just want the little mini guys. They

19:04

don't actually really want the set. No. So

19:07

we're paying a lot more for the set when really we

19:09

just want the little guys. Why do they just sell the

19:11

little guys? I mean, they do not

19:13

the life of the little guys. Yeah,

19:16

I want like all the little guys. Anyway.

19:19

But they probably don't do that because it would be.

19:22

They would not get as much money. Anyway,

19:27

the big thing I noticed with this free

19:29

gift with purchasing this time of year is

19:32

that it is largely in the cosmetic space.

19:34

Oh, interesting. So a lot of it

19:36

is like spend $50 and

19:38

you get this little makeup bag with all of our

19:40

little trial size makeup things in it. Okay, cool. Clinique

19:43

is a big one with this. Clinique is

19:45

kind of was my go-to company when I

19:47

was a teen because

19:50

they had a lot of like earth tone colors

19:52

and they promised like it wouldn't make you break

19:54

out. As a teen was my number

19:56

one concern and they

19:58

constantly have this. going on of like

20:00

buy a full size thing and get seven tiny

20:03

ones. Um, and it still

20:05

works for me. I'm still like, well, I

20:07

was going to buy the full size thing anyway. So now

20:09

I get seven tiny ones. Uh, and

20:11

apparently this is something that has been going on for a very,

20:14

very long time. Um, the

20:18

phenomenon, uh,

20:22

yeah. So it

20:24

started though, not with like trial

20:26

sizes, but like with weird like

20:29

things like lithographs. I

20:31

don't know what that is. Is it drugs? It's

20:35

like a poster, but it's got kind of like

20:38

a, well, now see, now I have to look

20:40

it up because I don't want to tell you

20:42

the wrong thing. And everybody with Google at their

20:44

fingertips is like, you didn't know what a lithograph

20:46

was. Uh, is

20:49

it like a lie detector test? It

20:53

is a method of printing originally based on

20:55

the immiscibility of oil and water. The

20:58

printing is from a stone or metal plate with

21:00

a smooth surface. So

21:03

it gives you kind of like a shiny,

21:05

okay. A shiny quality, shiny poster. Um,

21:07

yeah, let me, I, now I want

21:09

to show it to you. See,

21:12

this has really gone off on

21:14

a tangent here. Um, now

21:18

here's, here's what I'm thinking of. This is probably

21:20

actually what it looked like. Oh, gorgeous.

21:23

You know, gorgeous poster. So,

21:27

so that was the thing back, back in the day, 1851, uh, BT

21:30

Babbitt launched his best soap, which

21:32

was actually the name of the

21:34

product. The other soaps I've made up

21:36

to this point. Hi everyone. See, BC Babbitt, I'll admit, you

21:38

know, you

21:41

knew good soap and adequate soap. You

21:43

thought, how is BT gonna take it

21:45

one level up again? Well,

21:47

I'm here with my best soap. So

21:50

best soap, if you purchased it,

21:52

you received a full color, high quality lithograph

21:54

poster, uh, of various seeds, landscapes, romantic. tableau's

22:00

patriotic and religious imagery. Hell yeah.

22:03

So of course you wanna. I got this picture of Jesus

22:05

with my soap. It's awesome.

22:08

Now I'm clean and devout. Yeah.

22:11

So of course you'd wanna collect all of them

22:13

too. Which was ideal. Like

22:16

depression glass is something you've probably heard

22:18

of too. Nope. This idea,

22:20

okay. You're

22:23

making me Google all these things that I

22:25

thought I had. Depression glass? I would just

22:27

be able to say, it's very collectible now.

22:30

Like that? You've probably seen it in antique stores. Oh yeah,

22:32

sure. And not really knowing what you were looking

22:34

at. So I thought that this was sad glass

22:38

that you got or made

22:41

while you were quite sad. It

22:45

was distributed free or at

22:47

low cost. So if you bought, for

22:49

example, Quaker Oats, you could get depression

22:53

glass. Okay, cool. And now everybody tries

22:55

to buy the whole set. Because

22:58

it was so rare that anybody got the whole

23:00

thing. And yet when I get into Pokemon

23:02

cards, people are like, grow up.

23:04

But you're over there buying sad glass. I don't

23:07

understand it. It's a sad glass. So

23:11

this happened everywhere. And

23:15

then of course also the prize in the

23:17

cereal box is another kind of example. Although

23:19

I don't think that's totally the same thing.

23:23

And then there were companies like Pons,

23:25

which if you heard of their like

23:28

cold cream, this idea you're removing makeup

23:30

with this moisturizing cream. No,

23:32

that sounds nice. Man, I feel

23:34

like I'm just throwing

23:37

up a lot of air balls. Talk

23:39

about like Japanese role-playing games too.

23:41

Yeah, or would I talk about

23:43

poetry, I guess. Yeah. They gave away

23:45

like a free tube of their vanishing

23:48

cream. And what they said

23:50

was quote, at our expense for over a

23:52

decade. Wow, yeah. So they were very clear

23:54

on like, no, it's not like we priced

23:56

up the cost of this so

23:58

that we could say we were giving away. This

24:01

is actually, we are really suffering. They're saying please

24:03

don't buy our stuff. We are, please,

24:05

you are breaking the bank. So

24:07

I read this article from RACT that came out

24:09

in 2017 that

24:12

was called, quote, why makeup companies still give

24:14

gifts with purchase. Because

24:17

a lot of this stopped partially

24:20

because of the whole coupon

24:22

crazy phenomenon of like, you

24:24

would either create fake coupons or you

24:26

would give a bunch of different fake

24:28

addresses, email addresses, set up post office

24:30

boxes just so you could claim way

24:33

too many of these. Yeah. But as

24:35

I mentioned, cosmetic companies still do this.

24:38

And I thought it was interesting. There

24:40

was an interview in RACT

24:42

with this professor of marketing at Columbia

24:44

College in Chicago who said

24:46

premiums are attractive because they change the

24:48

value equation without changing the price of

24:51

the product. Sure. Kind

24:53

of suggesting that this is a, this

24:56

is like a luxury item. This is like

24:58

an indulgence. And so, but you're

25:01

saving money. You're getting something free with it.

25:03

So you don't have to feel like, you

25:05

know, you're making a poor financial decision.

25:07

I'm a huge sucker for this in

25:09

a major, I feel like clothes companies,

25:11

like independent clothes companies do this a

25:14

lot. And sometimes I

25:16

will be shopping for lots of,

25:18

let's say for example, shorts, lots

25:20

of pairs of shorts at say,

25:22

for example, Chubby's. And then Chubby's

25:24

is like, hey, if you buy one more pair of shorts on top

25:26

of this, I'm gonna give you

25:29

a travel mug and a hat. And

25:31

it's like, yeah, man, fuck yeah. And

25:33

you forget that you never needed five pairs

25:36

of shorts. No, I really only need

25:38

the two. Yeah. But then

25:40

you're like, well, if I just, if I do a little bit

25:42

more, this happens to me a

25:44

lot with Clinique. They will like put the

25:46

price point at above like one

25:48

product basically. Like it'll be like spend

25:50

$50 and everything on their site

25:52

is like $30 or less. So

25:55

you inevitably buy more than you were planning to. Yeah.

26:00

We're basically just outing ourselves as the world's

26:02

biggest suckers. I know, but I

26:04

don't think we're alone. No. And

26:06

what does this show us not about building community? Yeah, if

26:08

we're going to get caught up in

26:11

a grift, at least this grift

26:13

gets us travel mugs and chubby

26:15

hats. So yeah, so largely I'm

26:17

doing this online. Stores will

26:20

still sometimes do things in person. Like a

26:22

lot of department stores, you'll go from counter

26:24

to counter and they'll be offering things like

26:26

this. Actually

26:30

when Estee Lauder bought Mac

26:32

in 1998, they

26:35

had a promotion on lipstick day

26:38

where they offered a free lipstick

26:40

to in-store customers and the lines

26:43

like wrapped around the block

26:45

just to get like a free item. Which

26:47

again is something as we've gotten older that

26:49

we've learned a lot about of like how

26:51

much is your time worth and

26:53

how you're not actually saving money by investing

26:55

hours and doing something like this. But it's

26:58

just that like free thing. And I've talked

27:00

before on the show about how I love

27:02

to hear something is discounted, really like activates

27:04

like a pleasure center in my brain. This

27:07

is very similar. And

27:09

to the point where it's like, I am

27:11

not someone who really uses makeup, but I have

27:13

a lot of makeup bags that were given to

27:15

me with purchase of like, you know, a face

27:17

soap. You can put anything in there. True,

27:19

right? Some granola bars. This

27:21

is what I think. Yeah.

27:24

So that's, so that's a fwg,

27:26

bw, fwg, wwp.

27:30

And I love it. And this time of year is like

27:32

kind of the best time of year to do it. You

27:36

too could have so many tote

27:38

bags and makeup bags that

27:41

you don't really need but are free.

27:43

Yeah. If you spend. You

27:48

want to know what our friends at

27:50

home are talking about? Yes. Because

27:53

feeling nervous before a date, in this case, it's

27:55

a first date. So extra nerves. I'm out of

27:57

practice and coping with a lot of other genuine

27:59

anxiety. But the simple exciting nervousness

28:01

feels so sweet and wholesome It's like being

28:03

15 again, except we get to go to

28:05

a bar and drink fancy drinks. Yeah

28:09

Do you what do you consider our first date?

28:13

I took you to Shae Zee

28:15

one. Oh, well, we haven't been together for

28:17

a while Yeah, but that was like our first going out because

28:19

you made a big deal out of the fact that I never Just

28:23

wild I just never been taken

28:25

out in a like I'm going

28:27

to treat you to an exciting evening that you

28:30

know nothing about Shae Zee was not

28:32

a fan No, no, not at all. And awesome, but

28:34

it's not the fanciest I remember I had to stop

28:37

for gas on the way there Jean

28:39

uh-huh. I smelled a lot like

28:42

gasoline Yeah, so like all that

28:44

now whenever I smell gasoline it

28:46

takes me right back Sarah

28:48

says my small wonder is a microwavable heat pack

28:50

that I put under the covers on chilly nights

28:53

Keeps my feet toasty and I get to feel

28:55

like a colonial woman with a hot brick Plus

28:57

I can sleep sound knowing I won't light my bed on

28:59

fire That's really nice I

29:01

keep getting like this is a Popular gift did

29:04

those like little bags of rice that you like

29:06

put in the microwave and I never really know

29:08

what to do with Them. Yeah, but that sounds

29:10

like a nice idea we had one growing up

29:12

that was filled with like buckwheat or something like that

29:14

and I could and you would microwave it for a

29:16

Bit and I would put it on my neck I

29:19

felt so good and the smell of

29:22

that thing is like yeah Yeah,

29:25

we should get a stinky rice bag.

29:27

I think we have one awesome. Yeah Thank

29:31

you to bow in and Augustus who use for a theme

29:33

song money won't pay and finally to that in the episode

29:35

description and Thank you

29:37

to maximum fun for having us on the network at a

29:40

maximum fund org Check out all the great stuff that they

29:42

have there You're gonna like all

29:44

the shows that you find their max among fun

29:46

org is the push that I don't know Max

29:50

M fun max M fun candle night

29:52

is coming up. Yeah December

29:54

16th 9 p.m Join

29:57

us go to bit dot ly slash candle nights

29:59

to And you can watch along. It's

30:04

our virtual spectacular. It's got

30:06

guest stars. It's got big skits.

30:08

These things, like if you

30:11

are somebody who does not listen

30:13

to multiple McElroy products, you will

30:15

not be lost during this episode.

30:17

It is very charming and fun

30:19

and bite-sized and really gets

30:21

me in the spirit. We have a lot of

30:23

new stuff this year, sort of

30:26

representing the branching pathways

30:28

in which our video efforts have gone

30:30

for 23, which is fun. So

30:33

again, bit.ly slash candlelight2023. All

30:36

proceeds go to Benefit Harmony House, which

30:38

is a great organization in our hometown

30:40

of Huntington, West Virginia. So

30:43

check it out. Come join us. It'll be a lot of fun.

30:45

Let's stop, because I don't want to talk anymore.

30:48

Yeah. What a sad condition for you to

30:50

have as somebody who talks. A professional

30:52

talker. All the time. I know. But

30:57

I'm going to communicate. And when I say condition,

30:59

I mean you just have a cold. Yeah.

31:02

This hopefully will not last for much longer. So

31:04

I'm going to whistle my sign off like a dolphin might. Whistling.

31:09

Nope. That's not what I'm saying. Maximum

31:42

Fun. A work-around network of

31:45

artist-owned shows. Supported

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