(upbeat electronic music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I’m Link. – And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are exploring the question, is back-to-school a feeling? – Interesting. ‘Cause it’s that time of year. Actually today is that time of day for our families. This morning– – Our kids’ first day of school today. – This morning all of our kids went back to school. Boy, it brought up a lot of experiences I’ve had. ‘Cause every year for a lot of my life, I’d go back to school. – Mhm. Me too. I didn’t drop out. Kids, don’t drop out. Don’t drop out. – Was there a specific feeling associated with that? If there was, what was it? Or, what also now still is it? – Yes. – Does it still happen even though we’re no longer going to school? And I don’t just mean vicariously through our kids? I think we can take a journey through the kids but also through our own experiences. – Yeah, we’ll be talking about even, we’re gonna get into a little bit, just a little bit, not too much science as to why you may still feel that back-to-school feeling even after you no longer go to school, and we’re going to be recollecting. Can you use that term that way, recollecting? – Sh’yeah. – Reminiscing about some of our specific– – Recalling. – Back-to-school experiences that we had, which of course, many of those were shared because we went to school and back to school basically every year that we went to school, with the exception of like one. But yeah let’s talk about the children, because– – Well I think before we do, we have to issue an apology. – Oh yeah about that, the fact check. We have to do, what do you call it, an error correction? – We gotta do a correction moment here on Ear Biscuits. You know what, we never said that everything that I say is perfect. I think Rhett tends to imply by his tone of voice– – Yeah but you didn’t say that. – Very frequently. – I said it. – That– I was the one that was wrong. – That you only speak truth. – No, if you recall– – And in this instance– – I don’t wanna have to cut to a clip. Dyson is from Australia. – That’s why. – Dyson is Australian for vacuuming. Isn’t that– – Are you sure that Dyson’s from Australia? – Pretty sure, look that up. – Can you verify that? No– – But if you recall, I specifically said, “I think Dyson is from Australia.” But then, I was like, “At least I think it’s from Australia,” and then we said, “Jacob, check that,” because we had the wherewithal in the moment to know that, and I had the wherewithal– – And you know what, I respect you for that. You did do that. – To fact check and say, you know what, I don’t wanna say, if I really thought they were from Australia, and then he did the fact check and you know, he’s actually not in here to defend himself. I’m gesturing to where he normally would be. He’s not in here right now. He came back with– – You know why he’s not in here? ‘Cause he was wrong. – He should have been shamed. – He used his keyboard, he used his laptop. Jacob doesn’t like to speak audibly– – While in here, I mean he does as a practice. – He’s not mute. He does speak when he works. – But only when spoken to. (laughs) – He likes to just type so as not to interrupt the flow of our conversation. – And I appreciate that. – And he said something to the effect of, James Dyson is from Australia. But the fact is he’s not. And that’s why he’s not here. Jacob no longer works here. (Rhett laughs) – That’s what happens around here. When you make a mistake like that, when you make us look bad, you get fired. – (Link makes whooshing sound) You gone. – Actually he’s just on a phone call. He still works here. – He’s doing something more important than just sit here and– – We don’t do that. – And I will put this in quotes, “fact check” us. – ‘Cause it’s actually a British company, we are sorry to everyone in England. We know that you are actually responsible for Dyson, well at least your country is, you’re not. Maybe you are listening if you are actually at Dyson and we apologize but there are manufacturing– – But you colonized Australia, so– – And we learned while we were in Australia that– – Aus-tralia. – You like the way I did that? There is still a connection. Technically, they’re still under the authority of the United Kingdom. – They’re not independent. They’re something else, Jacob, can you, oh he’s not in here. Why is he not, okay, yeah. If Jacob were here right now, he would be typing out– – They are independent but it’s not quite– – I’m sorry guys. – Perfect independence. – He looked, very quickly, we put him on the spot. He was acting like he was listening but he was doing something more important, then we put him on the spot and he did some Google, but he did it in a faulty way apparently, because something came up that talked about all of these production facility things in Australia, but the headquarters is in the UK. – Yeah, yeah. I think there’s a better way to apologize. – So we are sorry. – We took awhile to do that. – For Jacob. – Usually just say, on last week’s podcast, we incorrectly stated that Dyson was from Australia. We are sorry. We now know that it is from England. And then you just move on. We could have just done that. – Punitive measures were taken (Rhett chuckles) but we’re not gonna go into details and we’re not gonna ridicule someone who’s not here. We wouldn’t do that. – Let’s talk about the fact that we just sent our children off to school and again, last year was their first time ever going to public school. They were all homeschooled. – The last year was huge. We were worried about so many things. – Big transition. – Lily was going into being a freshman in high school and how many students are at that high school? 3,000? – Almost 3,000, yeah. – 3,000 students at one high school. – Which is three times the number that we had at HCHS, Harnett Central High School. – Can you imagine just being– – Whoop whoop. – I mean, she wasn’t physically just schooled at home up through eighth grade. – They went to other schools. – There were classes taken and charter school– – Charter schools. – Type situations. There was social interaction. – Yeah yeah yeah, we didn’t keep them in a cage. – But it was not a public school setting and it was nowhere near 3,000 kids there. – No, so a big transition for them. – Of course, it was the first time Lando, being seven years old at the time. I mean all the kids. Your kids too, there was a lot of wigging out happening. Locke, it was a big deal for him and Lincoln. – Yeah they were trying to find their way in the world and they all adjusted incredibly well. They had a really good first year. – They found friends. – It wasn’t super easy– – Found hobbies. – But they got plugged in and it wasn’t about the unknown this year. It was a little bit for my oldest, Locke, because he was beginning his freshman year at high school, but he knows a lot of the people who are from the school because it’s mostly– – They’re all moving together. – The one school going to the next school, so it’s not like for us, which we’ll talk about in a little bit whereas all bunch of schools come together. – So last year a whole bunch of worries. This year the only worry that I could discern was, what are we gonna wear on the first day of school? Last night I got home from work. The whole place was abuzz, like, everyone was running around, getting all their stuff straight and Christy was packing the lunches. She was clandestinely writing a note to each of them. – She’s a noter, huh? – She wrote a note and then she– – My mom was a noter. – I walked through the kitchen and she was like, “Wouldn’t you like to write a little note to Lando?” – Oh, pressure notes. – Yeah, pressure me into writing a note, so I wrote him a little note. – What’d you say? – I said, “This signature’s probably “worth something on eBay.” (Rhett chuckles) And then I stuck it inside of his– – Well, okay. – eBay still happen? – Playing off of the narcissism joke that you just made, I will say that, as a fellow narcissist, I– (Link chuckles) I have found myself, actually I didn’t write a note. I wrote a note yesterday to Shepherd ’cause it was his birthday, so we usually get them a book… We take a page in the book and write in the book and that’s like their card and their thing and we talk about other things that happen that year. – Oh that’s cool. – But multiple times that I’ve been writing notes to my children, I get to the end, and I begin to sign it Rhett. (chuckles) You know? It’s like– – Yeah (laughs). – Because signing my name. – It’s force of habit. – Quite a bit, so– – Why do you do that? – ‘Cause I’m super popular and people just demand to have my signature. That’s where the narcissism comes in. No but then I start it, then I’m like, no no no, I’m not Rhett, I’m Dad. – An R is easily turned into like– – A D. – A D with legs. – Yeah, I’ve made it work many times. – You make that D walk. – Okay. But anyway– (Link laughs) Yeah, I’m moving right along. The same thing was happening at my house, there was a lot of hustle and bustle because on Sunday, they had gone out and they had done their back-to-school shopping. – Mhm. Oh you gotta shop. – The clothes that they wanted. – That’s the first thing about back-to-school is that it’s a commercial event. I mean it’s like freaking Black Friday. – Yeah, it’s kinda like when we get ready for– – I got a pencil or two but I gotta get 12 more today! – We get ready for a new season of Good Mythical Morning, we’re like, we gotta get some new clothes. – Yes! – We can’t be wearing some shirts too many times. You don’t wanna do that at school either. – Case in point, okay, the back-to-school feeling. I think that’s a good day to point right there, because we still live it. – Well because we have started our show at the same time that back-to-school happens. – Right. – It’s just the way that it’s worked out so I think that’s one of the reasons that we continue to ingrain that pattern in our brains for years. – But because the show is so structured around being a part of the daily routine of the viewers. – Right, we wanna be in sync with that. – We try to take a little break and then blam, bring it back around that same time, when people are adopting their scheduled rhythm, you know? – And I will say that I– (clicks tongue) Sounds like you were more involved last night than I was and this is where I got into a little trouble. – I mean I wrote the note. – You wrote notes. You wrote pressure notes but you wrote notes. – Oh you got in trouble? – Yeah this is what happened with me is that I got home and first of all, it was Shepherd’s birthday so we did a birthday dinner. I grilled the steaks. I mean I thought that was pretty noble. And then Jessie’s like, “All right you guys gotta get ready. “You gotta get your clothes out.” And it just kinda seemed like everything was under control. It just sorta seemed like everything was working like a well-oiled machine and so I was like, I’m going to get in the hot tub. (laughing) – Oh no, you didn’t. – Yeah. Yeah because I was like, my legs were sore. – Oh goodness. – My legs were sore, man. I did one-legged squats on Monday. Shout-out to the gym that I go to. (chuckles) No. First work out since being back from Australia and Fiji. – Okay so see, you’re adopting that school– – Getting back in the routine. – Routine. – So I was like, I wanted to soak my sore legs. I go out into the hot tub, I have just sort of some moments with myself. And then I come back in, less than an hour later, and she’s like, “Where have you been?” And I was thinking, well isn’t it obvious? I’m soaking wet and very relaxed. (both laughing) – You didn’t say that. – No I said, “I’ve been in the hot tub.” – But at that point you were like, what can I say? – No no, I said, “Shepherd told me to turn it on.” Because we’d been playing, the whole day was about Shepherd and his birthday, you do whatever Shepherd wants. – Shepherd told me to get in the hot tub. – Shepherd told me to turn the hot tub on. I thought he would come out. – And get in alone. – He didn’t. She wasn’t happy with me, I apologize. “Baby, I’m sorry I didn’t participate as much.” – You’re apologizing now? Not then? – No no I apologized multiple times last night, but, I was kinda met with an icy stare. Because she just continued to do things. – Now here I’m faced with a decision because I could decide to say at this point, I actually got in my hot tub last night. But then, what would happen is– – Hold on, did you? – I would be, yes. (Rhett laughs) I would be admitting– – You got in your hot tub. – Here’s the thing. I would be admitting that I own a hot tub. – Yeah, right. – Whenever you said, and you’ve already admitted to having a hot tub in another podcast I think. And I just kinda– – You have a bigger hot tub. – I got scared. – You have a hot tub. Hold on– – I’m really self-conscious about people knowing that we have hot tubs! – You have a hot tub that changes color while we all sit in it. Like it goes from like green to blue to orange. – It’s like an alien abduction. – Yeah you have a hot tub that’s bigger and cooler than mine. Of course I am getting my backyard redone, so mine will be bigger and cooler than yours in the not too distant future. We’re gonna have to keep going back and forth. – I made the narcissism joke a few minutes ago and then we start talking about our kids and then you’re talking about how, you’re telling the story. I’m just really self-conscious about– – It’s fine, listen. – Making a joke about being a narcissist but then like, being a narcissist while telling that joke. – If people are gonna like us because we have hot tubs and we are constantly trying to make them bigger and better than each other’s, they can just move on. There’s other people who do things on the internet. It’s fine. – Okay. – What I will say is, I remember the time that, (chuckles) our friend Michael growing up called our friend Eric growing up and Eric’s dad answered the phone. I remember Michael telling us this story and he called him and was like, “Hello Mr. So-and-so. “Can I speak to Eric?” And he was like, “Oh I’m sorry Michael. “Eric’s in in the hot tub.” And so I remember for years feeling that like, someone being in the hot tub and not being able to come to the phone was a huge douche move, so I completely understand your aversion to douchey vibes. – Yeah, a lot of douchey vibe. ‘Cause when you drop just like, “Oh, I was in my hot tub last night,” and blah blah blah. It’s like name-dropping. – It’s like a big bath tub. Really, it’s just like a big bath tub. – Outdoors with lights that change. – Mine stays the same, my light does not change. It’s pretty low-rent, actually. – Here’s how I’m gonna defend my hot tub. This is what’s gonna make me feel better about it, and this is true. It’s one of my favorite places to be. I’m like a king in there. (laughing) – So you had some special moments to yourself as well last night. – Actually no. The great thing about our hot tub is, we’re at dinner and I’m like, “You want me to heat up the hot tub?” And I have to get agreement from the majority of the family– – Tell them how easy it is for you to heat the hot tub up, Link. – It’s on my phone, I could do it right here. – (laughing) Oh man. – So that when I get home– – What a douche. – It’s hot. – What a douche, can just pick his phone up and change the temperature of his hot tub. – 95, 96 degrees. – I can’t even do that. I have valves that I have to maneuver. Now I will be able to control it with my mind come January. (laughing) – So if the majority says yes, we’ll get in the hot tub, then I’m like, okay, we’re all getting in the hot tub, and it becomes like– – It’s great family time. – It’s like gathering around the campfire. – We do it all the time. – Which of course I also have one of those. – You do, yeah, you have a frickin’ fire, you have two fire pits. You have a fire pit next to your hot tub– – Don’t tell them! – That’s just a bowl of fire that you light just for effect. You have pyrotechnics in your backyard. – (laughs) I’m getting embarrassed, man. Don’t embarrass me about my fire. – Listen, hold on. Just let go, man. Enjoy it! Just enjoy– – This is my show. – It’s the fruits of your labor, man. You’ve worked hard for over a decade. – If I want fire in my backyard– – You can have a frickin’ fire pit. – In this side and that side, can’t a man have his fire? – Yeah, I’m getting four fire pits. (chuckles) I’m gonna have gargoyles that breathe fire all around the entire perimeter of my property. – (laughs) Use them as towel dryers. – Oh man. – I’ve stood over that cauldron of fire next to my hot tub– – Naked, in fact. – Naked. – I wasn’t there, I just guessed. – I would have a towel and I’d be drying off. (Rhett laughing) I’d be drying off and then I would just open the towel– – And receive the flames. – [Link] Like a creepy watch salesman on like a street corner in New York City. – Yeah that’s where they do that. – And I would just like, I would corral the fire around my region. – Yeah yeah, nothing like that. – It just dried off that way, heat dry it. – Can’t wait to do that with a gargoyle. (laughing) – Get the right angle on that. – I’m gonna ride the gargoyle. Like I’m spitting fire. – So last night, they all agreed and we all got in the hot tub. ‘Cause it’s a great time, it’s kinda like the dinner table. You’re sitting there, no screens allowed, you’re not in front of the television or whatever. So all you can do is hold your breath or talk to each other. – Right, two options. – So it’s a great place for us to connect as a family and talk to each other. And not being narcissistic or a douche. – Right yeah. – So we did that last night, we talked about everyone’s expectations, what they were looking forward to. But again, it just came back to what they were gonna wear. Lincoln ordered these shoes off Amazon. Shoes are such a big deal. – You gotta have the right shoes. – Locke really got Lincoln into the shoes, he’s very aware. Locke is kinda like an older brother in that way that like, okay, tell me what’s what, what I should be into. He didn’t tell me that, I’m just kinda reading between the lines but anyway, there were shoes. And then he was like, “Dad, I don’t have socks “that are just the right amount of no show “to go with my shoes for the first day of school.” – That’s a problem, emergency trip to the store. – No I was like– – Scissors. – “I got you covered, son. “I got two different options in my sock drawer “that I wanna lend you.” – Did he go with low tops? – Really came through. Low tops, yeah. – Yeah Locke went with a low top. Low top Vans. – And he said, “I’m gonna wear my shorts,” which are, they’re white. They’re cool shorts with a white base is what he said. He thought about all this. – Yeah. – So then the next morning. (chuckles) This is what happens. So, everybody’s scrambling to get ready. And then everybody’s getting rushed out the door and Christy’s like, “Oh, nope. “We gotta take the picture. “We gotta take the picture.” – You gotta have the picture. – So they go out at the front door to take the picture outside because Jessie is coming with Locke and Shepherd to pick up Lily to take Lily to high school with Locke, for Locke’s first day, like Lily will be there to kinda show him a little bit of the ropes. She’s been there a year. So I go out the front door, I mess up the picture, ’cause the were already trying to take it. ‘Cause I wanted to watch. I watch them take the picture and I notice about the same time that Jessie pulls up and rolls down the window, the same thing that Locke noticed, which is, my son’s hair is huge. Like, he spends a lot of time on it. He poofed it up. I mean it’s like my hair kinda but twice as tall, and blonde. And Locke rolls down his window and he’s like, “Lincoln! “Your hair is insane!” (Rhett laughs) And then Christy starts taking the pictures, Lily gets in the car, they drive off, we wave goodbye. We go back in. We’re going back in the house and I hear Lincoln say, to himself, he’s like, “I gotta do something about my hair. “I gotta tame it down–” – He thought he had taken it too far. – Too insane. I think Locke meant it as a compliment, like, insane is good. He had a big grin on his face but like, you’re so self-conscious on that first day, everything’s gotta be peak and perfect. So I’m like, “I’ll help you out, son.” So he goes back in there for a second blow drying session. (Rhett laughs) And I’m trying to help him get it right and stuff. – You brought it down, you toned it down a little bit? – Took it to the side a little bit. – We’ll have to see how it worked out. – We worked it. I haven’t gotten home yet, I’ve done some texting with the family and I’ve got some updates on how they did. Maybe I’ll save that for the end. (chuckles) Before I get in the hot tub, which will be after I’m done with this. – Locke actually ended up getting a hair cut. His hair has been– – I cut Lincoln’s hair last night too. By the way, but just the side. – I don’t do that. I have a small sort of humble hot tub and I also don’t cut my childrens’ hair. (Link giggles) As if that would be a douche thing to do. – I cut Christy’s hair too. – (chuckling) No you don’t. – I use a bowl (clicks tongue), put it on top, and just shave the sides. – But Locke ended up cutting his hair ’cause he’s been kinda growing it out and he’s been kinda putting it, when it gets a little bit long ’cause he’s playing basketball and stuff, he kinda puts it back, almost, it’s not really a man bun but it’s the beginning of one. – Well it’s a pre-man bun. – But the basketball coach saw that and said, “Uh-uh! “Nope! “Don’t even think about it.” – They don’t allow it. – And while he could have protested, because you can’t, I don’t really know what the rules are. He was like, I got it cut ’cause I didn’t wanna, you know. They talked about it a little bit but ultimately he was like, I’m trying to establish myself, and so made it a little bit shorter. – So they both had to tone their hair down a little bit. – Yeah had to tone it down. Going into the next year, you gotta tone it down a little bit. – You wanna make a statement on that first day. Your clothes do matter. Because it’s that part of that confidence, ’cause you wanna be able to slide in there with a little strut in your walk. You gotta bring your best on day one. – Well, you don’t have to. – You could set expectations low and be like, day two like, “Who is that? “I don’t remember him from yesterday.” – You could reinvent yourself every day. That’s why the school uniforms, I mean, that’s why a lot of schools do the uniforms ’cause you just take that completely out. There is no opportunity to express yourself in that way. I don’t know, there’s advantages and disadvantages. That’s not what we’re gonna talk about, we’re talking about back-to-school and we’re gonna talk about us going back to school year after year in a moment, but first, we wanna pause and let you know that you can get the shirt that Link is wearing at mythical.store. Look at that. It says Ear Biscuits which is the name of this podcast. – Ever heard of that? – Yeah I’ve heard of it. Hosted by a couple of douches. – With hot tubs. – Yeah those douche hot tub guys. – How hot can your tub get? – Legal limit 104, except the other day, I saw it creeped up to 105. – Good God. – Almost called 911, but didn’t. – I’ve never gone over 96 or seven, man. I can’t take it. – Well my wife likes it hot. That’s why she married me. But she likes the hot tub to be 104, which is the legal limit, and it’s like getting into a witch’s brew. – Wow. – It is incredibly– – That’ll cook you. – So that’s how hot it will get, but I keep it at 98 when it is just me and my– – I don’t think you should let kids in there at that temperature, by the way. – My kids are tough, man. I’m toughening them up. – I’m talking about sperm. – Uh– – Sperm makers. – I’ve had all the kids I want. – I guess you don’t want your kids to make– – You’re talking about them. – You don’t wanna sterilize your children. – I don’t think that that is really a long-term risk. – We’re still in the merch promo, by the way. This is like a video exclusive. (Rhett chuckles) Look at that. Thank you for watching the video version. And the audio version. – We’re gonna sell some t-shirts and made a PSA. – So, maybe we’ll just make, we should make a hot tub shirt. I’m a douche. I own a hot tub. – Yeah yeah yeah. – Let’s not put the word douche on a t-shirt. – Really? – That’s not tasteful. – Okay, well, I don’t know, maybe we spell it D-O-O-S-H. – Get all types of stuff to support internetainment and show your– – Oh including these bracelets that we’re wearing. We’ve got all new Mythical bracelets in the new color scheme that we are rocking these days. I don’t know what, it’s not really quite pastels. I don’t know what you would call it, but, you know, it’s cool, kids love it. A couple of douches wear them all the time. – Mythical.store. Thank you. – So we were just talking a second ago, ’cause we have so many things that we remember together about the way that we remember back-to-school, but the cool thing is is that, one of my earliest back-to-school experiences ever that I remember vividly is our first day of first grade which is when we actually met. That was like the ultimate. Back-to-school is like the basis of our friendship. – Yeah ’cause I mean, here was the thing, at Buies Creek, of course I was there for kindergarten, which wasn’t great for me. – That’s good, I wasn’t there. – I’m sure that the first day of school was always laced with anxiety for me, because I mean, I know enough about myself, even though I can’t remember specifics. I do know that my mom would take the first day of school picture, at the end of the hallway there was the closet that had towels in it. – That’s white background. – Yeah, she would put me against that and she’d take my photo with my lunch box. I remember you had a Qbert lunch box. – Remember the Qbert lunch box. – That must have been first grade. I’m pretty sure I had a He-Man Masters of the Universe lunch box. – I remember your lunch box. – It was blue and I was holding it in my first day of school shot, and I think I can see the anxiety in my eyes in all of those pictures. – I remember, for me, I was coming from California. ‘Cause I lived in California for three years, down the road in Thousand Oaks before moving to North Carolina in first grade. And I don’t know, I wasn’t an anxious kid. I never dealt with a lot of anxiety and I actually remember, especially in subsequent years, always the only time I was excited about school was the first day of school. That when I was like, I’m gonna make my way, I’m gonna establish myself. All this excitement, not anxiety, but just anticipation and excitement and then day two I’d be like, “Ugh, school sucks,” and I was one of those school sucks kinda guys from then on. – Mhm. – But I do remember– – Love of newness, man. – I remember anxiety over that because I was this new kid in this small town, it was very different from where I’d come from. I do remember thinking that my Qbert lunch box said something about me though. These small town kids– – I never played Qbert. – They don’t know about Qbert. Yeah see– – I did not know about Qbert. – I’m gonna blow their minds with Qbert. This little guy with a snout and he goes up the pyramid. Oh they’re gonna be blown away by this. No one mentioned it. – Was that on Atari? ‘Cause I think that was just in arcades. – I feel like I had Qbert on a home system or something. – I don’t think you did. – It was on Atari, wasn’t it? – I don’t think it was. – See Feldman’s looking that up right now. We’re gonna see what kind of fact checker he is. – But the thing about Buies Creek School– – Nintendo? It definitely wasn’t– – The version on Nintendo I think was a new iteration, but the arcade version that was on his lunch box was like a– – Yeah brought in some arcade games for y’all. – Arcade. – It was just arcade. – Arcade, yeah, just arcade. So you didn’t play it at home, man. – Yeah I just had the lunch box at home, it made me think I had a console. – The thing about Buies Creek was, such a small town, such a small school. Every year you would specifically anticipate who’s gonna be the new kid? ‘Cause there’s usually only one or two, maybe three if things got crazy. – Right. – But I mean people were not pouring into this town. – And when they moved in– – Everybody knew it when you guys showed up. – Oh, this girl’s from Nebraska. What? That’s crazy! There’s somebody from another state. Like that was what it was like when people moved in. But the most significant year for me when you talk about new students was sixth grade. Miss Linear’s class, when both, both Leslie and Amber, who carry great significance in both of our lives. – Here we are talking about them again. – Leslie our first girlfriend, Amber our first kiss, different times. They both came to the school in the same year, and boy, first of all, from about first grade on, I thought about girls most of the time, most of my brain was being devoted towards women. Oh you can get it for $12. Is that a Qbert lunch box? Okay. – Oh for the Atari. Okay, I’m wrong. No that’s the Atari 2600. – I had the Atari 2600. – Oh you did? – I did. I had it before Nintendo. – So you cared about girls with 99.9% of your being and with that last– – Well it increased slowly, but sixth grade– – .1% it was Qbert. – My body was beginning to change. I changed a little bit earlier. So that made the reception of two new interesting ladies, it was doing things to me. (chuckling) It was different, it was more intense than it had been before. I was beside myself. And that’s the year that Miss Linear decided to put us into, I was like, this is weird, but she decided to seat us– – Clusters. – In clusters of four, facing each other, so you got four kids and they’re all facing each other and their desks are kinda touching at the top. – Group work. – I’ve told this story before, I’ll tell the abbreviated version, but that was when I just decided one day, she had shorts on, I had shorts on. I was like (chuckles), I’m going to connect my knee to her knee as a show of affection, which I do not recommend. It was sixth grade. I didn’t ask for consent, it was also like 1986. It was a different time, whatever, I don’t know what year it was. – That’s not an excuse. (Rhett laughs) I’m going on the record to say, I don’t know what you were going for there. – It was just knee-to-knee contact. I just feel like I have to– – You just brushed your kneecap against her kneecap. – Well. I brushed my knee against her kneecap but when she pulled back, I brushed it again. I got long legs, I got a lot to give. – Did she repulse and recoil, or did she just think that, oh, he did that by accident. – She did not repulse. She did not recoil. She just moved away gently. And then after the third or fourth time of contact, she was like, “Wow Rhett, you got some long legs.” – She said that? – And I kinda gave her a look like, “You bet I do.” – And then you kept your knee grazed– – At that point– – That’s no longer a graze, that’s a rest. – At that point I pulled back and then within a week, we were dating. – Oh, okay. – It worked. Again, I don’t recommend it. I’m just telling a story. – News of this trickled to the library where I was being very bookish one day. ‘Cause I was in Miss Campbell’s class. It was Miss Campbell’s class right, or Miss Rans? – You were in Miss Campbell’s class– – Sixth grade, yeah. Yeah, had to wait a whole year to date Leslie after that. – Yeah yeah. – It was like, okay. I know what I gotta do, it’s just a matter of time. – That’s all I was thinking about. – What started with Leslie is now about hot tub size. You know, I mean. (Rhett chuckles) But Leslie and Amber were both new kids. They were very close friends, I think that was the factor, but they assimilated. – Yeah. – But that’s the type of thing you were looking for every year was, who’s gonna be new? Where are they gonna come from? What’s their kneecap gonna feel like when my kneecap touches it? – It could be anything, really. – Freshness, new beginnings, the ability to start over I think was so great. I remember thinking with every new school year, I can be somebody else. I can reinvent myself. – But not really because you were the same kid that had been going to school with the same kids. – But you know who did it? One person was able in the tight-knit community of Buies Creek– – Who reinvented themself? – From one school year to the next, reinvented himself. Chip. – Oh, yeah, he was Chip and then he was Peter. – Yes. End of one school year he was Chip, beginning of the next school year, “Call me Peter.” – Yeah, and it took awhile to stick. I called him Chip for, he was my neighbor so, I held onto Chip for two years. – And this is the Peter Dinklage that if you came to our show, this was the Peter Dinklage that was Rhett’s neighbor. – Yeah and not that Peter Dinklage that you’re thinking about. My Peter Dinklage. – The one that was formerly known as Chip Dinklage. – Yeah, which, first of all, I understand that– – He reinvented himself. – Because I didn’t understand until later in life, maybe a couple years later that Chip is a nickname. It’s like chip off the– – Junior, it’s like junior. – Chip off the old block, and so, when a boy wants to become a man and establish himself, he wants to become Peter. The problem is is his dad was also named Peter (chuckles), I mean, but at least he was his first name. – Well his dad didn’t go to school with him. – He didn’t, right. – Stayed home and drunk Capri Sun. – But the biggest– – You remember what year that was? When Chip became Peter? Because you’re saying he became a man, but this was like– – No it was like fourth or fifth grade. Yeah yeah yeah. You know, right before he became a man. Depends on what culture you’re in, what your experience is. Eighth grade, I wanna talk about eighth grade– – He was your neighbor, so. – I have a spotty memory. – He didn’t live in the Outback. – Eighth grade. First of all, we went to Buies Creek School, it was K through eighth which is not very common anymore, in fact, we were the last, yeah, this is us, the last eighth grade class ever at Buies Creek Elementary School. After that, it turned into Harnett Central Middle School where all the schools that then go to Harnett Central High School come together. – Yeah so then Buies Creek Elementary then and now still does, only goes through fifth grade. – Fifth grade, yeah, so we had spent all this time, in fact, I remember in first grade going to the talent show in the Buies Creek auditorium and watching the eighth graders at the time perform Brass Monkey. – That was the peak, man. – And it was Brad Inman. Shout-out to Brad Inman, wherever you are, up there playing the trumpet during Brass Monkey. And it was unreal. I remember sitting there watching this happen and thinking, you cannot get any cooler than this group of eighth graders up there right now doing this song. ♪ Brass trumpet ♪ – They changed it to Brass Trumpet. ♪ That funky trumpet ♪ – And then he did a trumpet solo. ♪ Brass trumpet ♪ – It literal, it blew my mind! – Not literally. – That’s why I stopped myself from saying literally, ’cause I don’t wanna misuse the term literally. It figuratively blew my mind! – Yeah, the bookends to the year, the best moments of the year, the feelings that you just wanna bottle up and just binge drink, is that first day of school and then the day of the talent show, ’cause everything after that, there was only like maybe another week of school. Maybe some exams and stuff which sucked, but yeah. Your point is, the whole student body goes and watches the talent show to end the school year and you got these eighth graders, man. – Well think about the way that we perceived eighth graders and the way that impacted my first day of eighth grade. Do you remember, yearbook day, it was a big thing for the kids. – You wait in line to get in– – Chris Stewart, I remember Chris Stewart, who was in eighth grade I think when we were in– – He was four years older than us. No, he was a senior when we were freshmen in high school so he was three years older actually, he wasn’t– – Chris Stewart was older than my brother, man. – You’re right, I’m thinking of the other Chris. – You’re thinking Chris Johnson. – Chris Johnson. – Chris Stewart was an eighth grader when we were like in first grade. – Yeah, yep, yep. – So I remember going up to him and staying in line waiting for him to sign my yearbook and he just like, signed– – Like a celebrity. – Chris Stewart– – Even his younger sister Natalie. You had to stand in line to get her autograph. – Chris Stewart just signed my yearbook. It was like Tom Cruise had signed my yearbook. And so, when I walked into Buies Creek Elementary– – And side note, Tom Cruise does sign all of his own yearbooks. – He does. When I walked into those halls, those hallowed halls of Buies Creek Elementary as an eighth grader– – Yes. – I realized that all of these kids were seeing me the way that I saw Chris Stewart. – As a god. – And I was like, I can do– – [Together] Anything. – I own this place. We’re gonna do the talent show. We’re gonna do Digital Underground. It’s gonna be incredible. – Yeah. – I don’t know if this– – Rule the school, man. – If it lived up to those expectations that we set, but– – I remember signing kids’ yearbooks. – Yeah. – And I think, I can draw a direct from that to the hot tub I now own. It’s like, trying to recapture that feeling, man. – Constantly. – You know, just trying to get back in it. The biggest transition, back-to-school moment, was going into high school because, I mean, now you’re not ruling campus anymore. You’re not an eighth grader at a school that you spent basically your entire life going to, but you’re going off to this high school. It was nerve-wracking, ’cause it was huge. It was a melting pot of all of the elementary schools, ’cause there were no middle schools, in the county. So you had Buies Creek Elementary where we came from, and we had a reputation as being the smart kids. – And let me explain that a little bit. The Buies Creek mentality was that we were in the middle of this county, Harnett County, and we were where the university was, where Campbell University was, and a lot of us, like me and my dad taught at the law school, still does, and so– – So you weren’t from a farming vibe? – We had this sense that we were better than everybody just because we we knew we were in the middle of nowhere, but we were like, but at least we have a university. We are this bastion of education. And so we kinda looked down on all the other little towns that were just normal southern towns around us. – ‘Cause you had Lafayette School, which, I always thought of them as, they were kinda good ol’ boys, they were all really nice. More farmer oriented. – Lots of farmers. – But they had a really good band. I knew some of the band members. We did some cross-pollination band thing. – A good band, huh? I didn’t know that. I never noticed the Lafayette band quality. – Speaking of trumpet. Keith Sears. – Keith Sears. – I played trumpet, he played trumpet. Great guy. – Great guy. One of the best guys. – Once you got to know those Lafayette boys, they were great. – Joseph Revels. – Oh man. – Ha! – He has a mustache. – He had a mustache in like fourth grade. I didn’t even know him. Legs like tree trunks, man. – Yeah, I just walk up to him– – Calves. – And talked to his mustache. – He had huge calves. – I wouldn’t even talk to him. And he was so nice. – That was Lafayette, then you had Lillington. Lillington was like Buies Creek adjacent, right, so we’re like, okay, you guys, you’ve got your own town hall and you are the county seat. – Right. – So you have that. You’re the county seat, it’s where the courthouse is. You’ve got some bragging rights. You’re not Buies Creek, but you’re good. You’re good. – You’d always eat. We’d go to Lillington to eat, to go to the McDonald’s– – That’s where they had fast food. – Go to Hardee’s. That’s where food existed. – We had no place to eat except Little Dino’s. – (chuckles) Right. – And that was only open for awhile. – You’d pass by the Sexton Ford car lot. – Yeah. – And then lo and behold you’d start going to the high school and you realize, Chad Sexton goes to the high school. There’s a actual Sexton that I now go to school with. (Rhett chuckles) I don’t just drive past the used car lot anymore. – And you know there’s a connection. A Sexton connection. (chuckles) – Sexton is probably one of the best last names of anybody, any kid who would have to be in a middle school. – Well I don’t know, it’s a lot to live up to in high school. (both laugh) But then you had Angier. – Ooh watch it. – What can I say about Angier? – Tread lightly. Watch yourself with Angier because– – Scrappy, they were scrappy. – Scrappy. Yeah. They knew stuff. – They knew stuff that we didn’t. – And they had substances that we didn’t. – Yeah that’s right. Yeah Angier was a little rougher. A little rough around the edges. – Yeah, yeah, but Jason Keenan was a great friend of mine. – Yeah he was. – Great good guy to meet. – Taught us a lot. But Angier was Harnett Central High School was, so we had to basically go to Angier– – Gotta give them some respect. – West Angier, in order to go to school, so, all of a sudden we’re grouped together and there’s all these ideas. Again, for me– – It feels like gang warfare. You know how it is your first day in prison, and you’re figuring out the different gangs. – And I will say that for the majority of our entire high school career, we kinda stayed with that Buies Creek group. We let a few other people in– – We had a very tight-knit group. – I’m not proud of this. It wasn’t purposely cliquey, but it was as cliquey as most 90s schools were. I think it probably is still the same. But it was a pretty nightly, tightly-knit group. But again– – As opposed to a nightly tit group. (Rhett laughs) – The nightly tit group is, uh– – That only happened in Angier. – That’s just breastfeeding babies. – Oh (chuckles). – The nightly tit group is a totally different thing. – All right, redeem it, that’s good, that’s good. – So what I remember thinking again, I was in complete overdrive by this time thinking about girls, going into my freshman year. And I remember, we would get together, we would go to the river, we spent a lot of time in the Cape Fear River. – Swimming. – And we would have some of our deepest, most significant conversations while just swimming in the river. – They weren’t all about women. – A lot of them were. – Oh. – The ones that I’m thinking about when I’m thinking about like anticipating what high school was gonna be like. And of course, the way I talk and think about things, I have a way of sensationalizing things and trying to make things seem like they’re gonna be incredible. – Future things. – I was like, the thing you don’t understand, it’s like sure. We’ve been here with this group, but now there’s gonna be Angier girls. Let me tell you about Angier girls. There’s gonna be Lafayette girls. There’s gonna be Lillington girls. The girls that we have not been able to see because we can’t go to those public pools. You know what I’m saying? – Right. – We go to Keith Hills Pool. We can’t go to these other pools. And so, I was really building it up in my mind. That was the only thing that I was thinking about. – And I was thinking, what’s the structure of this? This is a big place, how do I know how to get around? I’m gonna print out my schedule and put it in multiple places because, I don’t wanna get lost. – Print it out? How would you have done that? – Well they mailed it to you. It was a mentality, okay? – I understand. I’m not trying to poke holes into your– – I don’t think I had a printer. – I’m trying not to poke holes into your dot matrix life. – I know that I still have my class schedule from every year ’cause I was very anxious about going to the wrong class at the wrong time. – You still have them? – I have like an envelope that has stuff from every year of my school. – That’s wild. Including your class schedule. – Because I would keep it, even though I would eventually master it. But there was like a commons area. There were places where you could buy drinks. – Yeah, vending machines outside. – Yeah, and you could go in the cafeteria and there were multiple lines. It’s like, this was crazy. – You wanna just get pizza? You just want a chicken sandwich or do you want the daily offering? – There was a pit outside. It was like, picture an amphitheater that only has three steps. That’s what I call a pit, ’cause they called it a pit, where you could smoke. – Yeah, we had a smoking pit. – Designated smoking area right beside, everyone who walked into the school walked right past it. And of course, any direction you looked, literally, was a tobacco field. – Yeah so we were just supporting the local industry. (Link chuckles) I did not partake. I did not smoke. – I didn’t either but– – In high school but there were quite a few that did. – Physically it was a very new world. You looked at it with so much promise in it and a chance to connect with, in a love what life kinda way. – Well I specifically remember not the first day of school but before the first day of school, there was some sort of sports banquet or raffle or something that my brother was going to, ’cause my brother was already on the basketball team, and of course I knew I was gonna play basketball and baseball and do all the sports, whatever. So I went with him to this banquet. Of course he could drive, he was already gonna be a senior. And I was like, this is my first exposure to the group of people that I will be going to the school with, at least the athletes, even more pressure here. And I remember what I wore. I had on this t-shirt tucked into khaki shorts, and the khaki shorts were very long and big I’m sure, went down to, but still preppy, it was a preppy look. – Pleated? – Pleated khaki shorts, they went to just above the knee. Maybe just below the knee, it was right around the knee. And then I had a braided belt that was purposely about 14 inches too long, such that it could be rolled around one time and then put down the left leg and struck me about mid-thigh. – Put down the leg? I know what you’re talking about. You would tie a little knot– – And then it comes down at a 90– – It’ll go south. – It comes down at a 90 degree angle, perpendicular to your waistline. – Those were great. You know a great thing about a braided belt. It’s unlimit-lidly adjustable. – Yeah, ’cause you can stick the (clicks tongue) through at any part. – Yeah, any place. – I can’t believe they’re not back in. Maybe they will be. – I do remember that, you wanted it to be long so you could take it from east and flip it over and turn it south. – Yes, and we also, I had the docksiders we called ’em, those leather shoes that you wore without socks, and I remember, I’m so tan right now. We had no regard for sunscreen or anything so at the end of the summer in the North Carolina summers, you were just so tanned. – You wanted to show that off all the way up to the ankle. – I remember just thinking about how tanned my legs were. – You do? – Yes. And listen, you know how skinny I was. I was so skinny. I was so scrawny. I was 6’4″ at the time, and I guarantee you, I did not weigh more than 145 pounds. (Link chuckles) – I mean there’s truth in the photos. – But I had completely no reason to have it, but all kinds of confidence. Unfounded confidence. – And I was the exact opposite. (Rhett laughs) I had every reason to be. (chuckles) I was not confident. Did you get feedback on the docksiders, the tan, or the belt or anything? – I don’t recall. I don’t recall specifically. I just remember feeling good about myself. – I mean, it didn’t change. If I work it out, because the girl that you were obsessed with, I do remember swimming in our secret spot in the Cape Fear River and just talking for hours, going into our junior year. So fast forwarding two years later. And you were still obsessing about the upcoming class of freshmen. – It sounds dirty to talk about it now. – I mean, it was just to date, to be in a relationship with a woman, with a girl but you– – Thinking about, I just, I don’t know. – You’d say, “Hey, there’s this girl, Melissa. “There’s this girl Stephanie. “One of them can be your girlfriend, “one of them can be my girlfriend.” Like it was that easy. It’s not like you can just touch a girl on the knee with your knee and then the week later you’re gonna be dating her. – Well that did work successfully one time. – But you would talk, we would talk, ’cause you would really get me fired up about it. We were swimming. I remember like it was yesterday. And we would… Your confidence was so contagious. I became convinced that this girl Melissa was going to be my girlfriend. I never heard of her. I’d certainly never seen her. – Yeah man. – And I never had met her. – Yeah I was like, double dates, man. I was like, “We can drive now. “Double dates, man.” And it didn’t happen. – Of course I’m on the soccer team, you’re in the soccer team before– – You practice before school starts. – You practice before school starts, and so there’s freshmen that are trying out for the soccer team, one of which turned out to be Melissa’s before, so that kinda– (Rhett laughs) That kinda informed how I moved forward which was to not move forward at all. I mean (mumbles), he was a freshman. – Yeah. – Which made me upset, but, I respected the boundaries, I wasn’t gonna– – You gotta push through that. My philosophy was, you gotta push through that. This is high school, these relationships are– – And how did that go for you? – These relationships are not going to last, okay? Not gonna last, don’t get too bent out of shape about this. – Stephanie was dating somebody too, man. She never dated you. – Listen. I told you my confidence was unfounded. I have seen the pictures of myself from that time. (Link chuckles) But the great thing is is that I had this incredible self-image, I had no reason to. – It’s so weird. We’re 40 years old. I mean it was, let’s see, I think it was last Christmas when I was at home, and I was in the Zaxby’s and Stephanie walked in. – Oh. – I saw Stephanie. – You did? – At the Zaxby’s. – How is she? – With her mom. And all of her kids. Her husband wasn’t there. – Hm. – But I went up and I was getting a refill on the drink, you can do that at Zaxby’s. I was there before she was, she sat down, didn’t see me, and I saw her when I was coming back with my drink, and I went over there, I was like, “Hey.” She recognized me immediately. We chatted it up for a few minutes, I met her kids. You didn’t come up once. – Good. – But it is funny. – It’s simpler that way. – It’s funny that I immediately went back to us swimming in the river and obsessing about like, oh she’s gonna be my girlfriend, and Melissa’s gonna be your girlfriend. – I tried, man. I tried a whole lot more than I was successful. I’ve told this story, and again, I don’t like talking about it now because it– – Well these are real people that still exist. – Well no. – And now we’re 40. – I don’t know how to say this in a way that will make sense. Times have changed significantly since that time, and to think that I was so focused on just getting a girlfriend, and again, I was doing other things. We both excelled at our academics, and to some degree our athletics. You had that game with the two goals with your left foot, it was amazing, I’ll never forget it. – Thank you. – We did other things, we had really good friends. We did a lot of cool things that we wrote about in the book and we spent a lot of time camping and all that. We did a lot of other cool stuff, but it was kinda always, I was always distracted by this thought that I needed to be in a relationship with somebody. And I just wish that I could go back and tell myself, don’t think about that so much. Well you’re gonna think about it because of who you are, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, don’t worry about this. Don’t wish that you’re in a relationship and forget about just enjoying this time. Because when I think about it, I think, it sort of clouded every single thing that I experienced at the time. – Well, are you talking to me right now or are you talking to the Ear Biscuiteers or are you talking to your kids? Because I do think, in a good way– – My kids are, I believe, significantly healthier in this regard. And I do think part of it is we have constantly reminded them about not, ’cause I know the way my kids think and I can already see the patterns with the way their brains work– – Yeah. – My wife can see that we see ourselves in them and we know kinds of the things like, oh, this is the kinda thing I wish I had told myself. So, who do I have to tell now? I’ve got my kid, yeah. – I think that’s a really cool thing about parenting in general is, when you can see the wheels turning in your kid’s brain. I’ve mentioned anxiety a lot in this episode, from my childhood and I can see when that pops up in my kids’ lives, and so it’s cool to be able to kinda speak the code, because, we know that it’s our fault, right? Whatever it is, it’s like, okay, there’s this obsessive quality about fill-in-the-blank, or an anxious interaction with something. – And we are responsible for it whether directly, genetically, or something that we screwed up as a parent. – But it’s cool to be able to kinda, we have talks, and it’s kinda like, there’s shortcuts. And you can see them light up, like, whoa, kinda reading my mail, so to speak. You know how my brain works. – Yeah. – So I think that’s pretty cool. And it’s also cool to re-live vicariously their newness of school. And I think that it is the type of thing that I do find myself getting charged up this time of year. I know the traffic’s gonna be worse again. I know my kids aren’t sleeping in, and I gotta help them get out of the house. There are some negatives, but then there’s this energy, it’s the energy that proceeds the next energy which is fall energy. Remembering how leaves would fall back east. But still– – Here it doesn’t happen. – The air gets a little crisper. And then you got like the holiday magic. So it’s like moving from one thing to the next and that newness, but– – I said that we would talk a little bit about the science of why we still feel this and why you, even if you don’t go to school anymore, you may feel this back-to-school feeling. So there’s this article on NBC News that talks about there’s a number of reasons for this. One of them is the fact that your brain has sort of ingrained this pattern that you may not even be conscious of, of like, okay, summers, the days are naturally longer, you feel those days more with more leisure time and they kind of shape themselves in a different way because just the amount of light in the day and then when the amount of light begins to decrease as summer’s coming to a close, it actually changes your circadian rhythms and actually changes your melatonin levels and stuff. You sleep differently and if you reinforce that every single year there’s this very transitional thing that is happening where you’re starting anew, fresh, and it’s in sync with the changing of the seasons, your brain has become accustomed to that and it’s just the way our culture is also in that rhythm and you see it in the back-to-school ads and that kinda thing and so you’ve got those thoughts and those feelings and all the stuff that we kinda hinted at that continues to come back and so it’s actually the plasticity of your brain. It’s ingrained in there and then if you continue to do things like we do, like whether it is, you’ve got a show that comes back and is on that same cycle, you’ve got children that start school at the same time, you’re gonna feel that feeling even before you’ve actually registered what’s going on. That’s kinda the very high level– – But that’s cool– – Explanation of it. – Because it goes beyond just feeling it vicariously through kids if you’ve got them, or just reminiscing or, it’s something that you’ve built. It’s also an argument for not doing those year round schools because they’re stripping kids these days of the back-to-school sensation. – Yeah well, I don’t know. – I don’t know either. – Even then, isn’t there a longer break during the summer, even for those kids? – I don’t know. I hate it so much, I haven’t looked into it. No I just never experienced it and neither have my kids but I know that a lot of people do. I think it’s a great thing to embrace, you know, if there’s any way to embrace newness, to assess and expect. I think any moment when you can do that is great. I feel like even professionally, we’re kind of in a moment where we’ve geared back up with Good Mythical Morning, we’re starting to get back into the rhythm of that, but we’re also buckling down on other things that we’re working on. It’s like okay, this is that sweet spot to get some stuff going. You’re out of that lackadaisical summer thing, so I was thinking something that if it’s in your brain, you can harness. This is the time, this is the time to make that change. It kinda feels like the New Years resolution vibe, but it doesn’t have all that weight of the anticipation of breaking the resolution. It’s looser than that and it’s more about the energy, man. – Well and you think about, especially that time between middle school, from middle school to the end of high school, you think about how much a person changes. You just look at pictures. I look at my kids. I look at Locke and how much he’s changed the past couple years and it’s mind-blowing, and think about how much we have changed in one sense but haven’t changed over the time. When you say, oh fall again, I’m like, I’m gonna turn 41. I was just having my awesome 40th birthday. You remember that one, the band, the one that everybody talked about. (chuckles) – Yeah. – And now, I’m gonna be 41. I’m not gonna have some awesome party for my 41st, no, ’cause I’m 41. Who cares? 41, what? No significance there. – So hold on– – And it happened so quickly. – Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, man. Whoa! – What? – Tap back into that, let’s try it right now, okay? – Tap into what? – Don’t tap into your 41-ness. – Yeah but you started talking about the years and I just, I’m gonna be 41, man. – No, no, no– – And there’s that Merle Haggard song. ♪ I’m 41 years old ♪ ♪ And I ain’t got no place to go ♪ ♪ When it’s over ♪ ♪ So I’ll hide my age and make the stage ♪ ♪ And try to kick the footlights out again ♪ Mm. – Again, it was his best album. – Hide my age, Link. It’s what I’m gonna keep doing. How did this podcast– – Just try to kick the footlights out again. – How did it turn into this? – Embrace the newness that is back-to-school, man. – I think I need to go back to school. I think I need to go to community college. (Link sighs) I think ultimately, that is what I’ve just decided. – What about real estate school? Much shorter. – I think I need to take a class. – You could drive a nice car. – At Pasadena Community College. All the ads say that it’s the best community college in the nation. – What would the ad say? We’re a pretty good community college when you consider the nation. We’re not the best, but– – PCC, man. Can’t you see me at PCC? – Just go to real es-cate school, it’s short. – Real escape school? Is that for escape rooms? – (chuckles) Yes! – It’s how to get out of escape, I need to go to that school. I get so frustrated in escape rooms. – Listen, buy the Groupon with me. You and me, we’re going to the real escape school– – Hey, if we can– – Just a couple of days, we can get out of any escape room. – We need to teach that class, because there are so many people whose nights are ruined because they get stuck at some part of an escape room. First of all, I need to take the class. We need to invent the class. – I just did. – We go to all the escape rooms and we get all the secrets, we have to pay for that but then we get our investment back when we charge people to come learn how to get out of these escape rooms. – I think it’s as simple as setting up a booth outside of escape rooms. – With a map? – With a map. Well just a little guide. – We could do it in an app. We don’t have to be there, we just sell it as an app. You click on the app, wanna get out of this escape room? – They don’t let you use your phones in escape rooms. It’s gonna have to be printed. – Okay. – Dot matrix. – Okay, it’s PDFs. It’s PDFs. – Right, we can laminate them. – We sell PDFs. I wanted people to download it. I want a paid download. – No because– – Does it take all the fun out of an escape room if you have a PDF? – They can pirate that. You need a folded yet laminated brochure level– – Here’s the cool thing though. We get better at selling the secrets to the escape rooms; they change. They adapt. They become better. It’s like co-evolution. – I get it, do you hear that? They started playing the music. – Oh. – I think it’s– – Okay. – They’ve been fading us out slowly, ’cause we’ve continued to talk about it, so let’s just do that. – I’ll take this idea back to the drawing board. – Share with a friend of yours this episode of Ear Biscuits if you want to. That’s a big help to us. Let’s continue this conversation using #EarBiscuits. Reminisce about your back-to-school feeling. Even if you’re still having it now and you’re not in school. Even better. Let us know. – Yeah and if you wanna see me, I’ll be on campus as Pasadena Community College teaching the real escape class. – So what were you saying? Let’s keep going just me and you. – Yeah. Good luck with that. To hear this Ear Biscuit in its entirety and make sure you don’t miss an episode, follow the links in the description to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are available. – [Link] To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. – [Rhett] To watch more of our daily show Good Mythical Morning click the playlist on the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] Thanks for being your Mythical best.