Welcome to “Ear Biscuits,” the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, I’ll be catching you, the listener, and you, the link. Yep. Up on my Caribbean vacation. Spring break for Shepherd. Caribbean? Went down there to try to get close to our other son so that he could join us for a little bit. Had some adventures. I’m gonna say that most of the stories that I’m gonna tell apart from a few catastrophic things that happened at the very beginning of the trip. I love catastrophic. Is gonna read a little bit like a tourism ad for Grand Cayman, okay? Not a sponsor though. Not a sponsor, but highly recommended. But not a sponsor. Not a sponsor, highly recommended. That’s a shame, that’s a shame. Trigger warning, I mean, I’m a privileged man talking about a privileged guy’s vacation. Okay. If that’s triggering, listen away to something else. Are you gonna mention trigger fish? Well, and trigger warning, there is something… I’m not a huge fan of trigger warnings because the world doesn’t give you trigger warnings and we all have to live in the world, but you know what? This is a safe space, this is “Ear Biscuits.” Trigger warning, there’s something- I think what you really meant by that was, the first trigger warning was- A joke. If you’re gonna complain about me talking about my vacation, just don’t listen to this. That’s the first thing. And then the second one, the second one is an authentic trigger warning, which is something kind of shocking and disturbing. that involved something getting hurt. Really early in the vacation happened, and I’m gonna tell the story. And it’s a little bit funny, but mostly tragic. So, that’s not- It’s almost completely tragic. That’s not specific enough to- I know, but if I tell you exactly what it is that happened, I’m gonna give it away too much if I tell you exactly, if I give you why you should be triggered. Okay, I’m fine with that. So it’s just a general thing. I do have a question. Yeah. I just couldn’t help but notice that as you were talking to me, I could see your eyes go down to my like mouth or my chin. Is there something here that’s distracting you? Do I need to remove something from my face? Just tell me. Oh, oh, oh, it’s on your mic. It’s not your… There’s just something on your mic. I didn’t think it could be seen, so… I wasn’t looking at your face, I was looking at your mic. Okay, but I saw that. Like, that’s very disturbing when you- And it’s funny. And when you said that, I was like, I haven’t looked at his mouth in years. I was looking at your mic. It had a hair on it. I don’t believe it was one of yours. It’s probably somebody else. We shared these mics with lots of folks. Well, I think it might have been a dog hair, which could have been on my face. Hmm. But before I give you that update- By nuzzle before I leave. But before I give you that update, you were left stranded here in Los Angeles without me. I was thriving. Thank you. So, you got any updates? Actually, I do. I’ll spare you having to… I mean, you’re not gonna listen to my solo podcast. I didn’t listen to yours. It’s totally fine. Right, of course not. It’s totally fine. Yeah, we see each other enough. I… Well, I’ll put it to you this way. I didn’t plan it, but at the beginning, I kind of… I don’t know, things just kind of ramped up very quickly and I kind of went gang busters and it- You? Yeah. Me, can you believe? You went gangbusters? I went into this mode. Tangents that had tangents, that had tangents, and I just couldn’t… I couldn’t stick with it. And I think, you know, at one point I said, “You know what, I’m not…” Later, when I was talking about my anxiety, I was like, “You know what, I don’t…” I think that’s when I said it. I wasn’t nervous at all about doing the podcast on my own. I would typically be very apprehensive about it. But I think subconsciously I was like, “Oh, I better fill every second.” And there was something subconscious going… Like, the first 25 minutes of the podcast was talking about 18 things at once. And part of it was a bit of a performance experiment. What if I went to more of like impassioned yelly voice? Isn’t that what solo podcasters are supposed to do? I don’t know. Do you listen to any solo podcasters? No. And the other thing was that, I guess because I couldn’t interrupt you or be interrupted by you, it could happen- No comment. I just thought I would interrupt myself again and again and again. And I think that was kind of part of the- Sounds like a pleasure. I hate I missed it. It was kind of part of the bit in my mind I think was like, you know, nobody’s here for me to interrupt, what if I just kept interrupting myself? That could be funny. Yeah, that sounds cool. Matter of fact, I think I remember saying on the podcast at the 25-minute mark or so, I was like, “You know what, I’m not gonna use my entertainer voice anymore.” I was using some voice. Now I’m gonna go back to being my normal self. You use an entertainer voice? That’s what I called it at that time. Maybe I gotta listen to this. And- Maybe I gotta carve out something in my schedule. And I had fun. I’ve seen some feedback that people had fun. It was like, what’s going on here? But I’m here for it, is what some people said. But, yeah. Then I was like, “All right, let’s settle down. Let’s get into some realer…” I would go into more my actual real mode. Okay. Kinda like what I’m doing right now. This is real mode? This is real mode, homie. Okay, all right. One of the things that I did wanna clear up, I… There was one question about my, like how I deal with anxiety, and I ended up sharing about how I decided to go off my anxiety medication. And as… I felt… And I gave all the reasons. You know the reasons ’cause I’ve told you so you don’t have to listen to that. And I basically presented it as I’m seeing it, which is, is this is an information gathering exercise? I’m not trying to… I’m not saying anything negative about being on anxiety medication or positive about getting off of it. Like, it was just- An experiment. An experiment of, do I still need this as a part of my anxiety regimen along with the other things? Therapy, talking and sharing and getting feedback from trusted family and friends, and things of that nature. And I just wanna go ahead and give you an update. I’m back on the medication. Like, it’s a little weird because like, I think the way I presented it was, and this is going well. And I don’t know if that’s exactly… I think that’s how I came across, and that’s what I was thinking at the time of recording that podcast. Now, I’d been off of the medication since… When did we go on that couple’s retreat? ‘Cause I remember it was kind of around that time. Was that February? Early February? Yeah, early February. So I know I was going off of it about that same time, or I was about to. So it’s been a couple of months. And I just started observing that I’ve been really on edge, that I’ve been really having a difficult time not being reactive. And part of it is, “Okay, was it me just going off of the…” “Is this a transition period and this is some of the symptoms of that?” But because it had been a little bit longer and I just felt like there was this… It wasn’t like… The heart palpitations didn’t come back. Like, that was the thing I talked about as being a definitive thing that like, that would be an obvious reason for me to go back on the anxiety medication ’cause it definitely helped with that and that was easy to measure. But short of that, like being more attentive to how my brain is working and how I’m interacting with people and just having a short fuse, even throwing a few tantrums, getting mad and kicking stuff, punching a thing. Like, this is not… This is not something that I want to be a part of my life. Right, yeah. And I’m like, why… Okay, I’m gathering this information, but do I… Am I playing into this trope of like, “Well, I’m doing so much better, now I don’t need the medication, but it’s really the medication that’s making me better.” Right? Very, very common. Very common, I think. I had to find out for myself, and I have. And I was like, you know what, I don’t experience side effects of taking sertraline/Zoloft. So for me, what would be the reason to not be on it if I’ve been experiencing the benefits, and now I actually know that I’m missing those benefits. And I think honestly, there’s… There’s still this element of, I guess shame is the right word, of like, “Oh, you’re taking a medication every day to balance your mood or to help with your anxiety.” It just seems like… I don’t know, there’s something… There is a voice there that’s like, “Yeah, if you were this, if you were just better in this way, then you wouldn’t need this.” I mean, there’s cultural. That’s what… There’s a stigma associated with any mental health aid. Exactly. It’s just like, you know, if your knee wasn’t… If your knee was built a little bit differently and you weren’t having this issue with it, you wouldn’t need to wear this brace every day. It’s like, you know, no one in the right mind would say that to somebody, or should say that to themselves. Shout out to the knee issue people. Oh, I’m one of those. And the other part of going off of, the main part I thought was the curiosity of it, but I just had to be honest and say there’s still a bit of stigma that is still deep within there, that little voice. And you know what, I’m not gonna listen to it. So I’ve only been back on it for like five days now, and I am surprised at… I won’t say it’s a night and day difference, but I am surprised with how much I notice the difference, a positive impact, just my level of positivity and my ability to weather crinkles, life crinkles. Right. I would fixate on these things, I would sink my teeth into it. And then if there were like three crinkles in a row in my day, something happens in traffic, then you say something that I take sideways when I get into work, and then I feel like I didn’t do a good job when I was recording a podcast or doing something. Well, it’s like three strikes I’m out. And then I just felt like I couldn’t get over the hump anymore. Like, I couldn’t get in a place where I could engage with my life in a positive way. And I think that because it’s so subtle, it’s easy to write off and to minimize, but I just want to acknowledge it, you know because I do think it’s a common experience to go through and, yeah, if you’ve been on something for a while and you feel like it’s hard to measure, you’re like, “Well, is this working?” I actually feel very confirmed in being on the medication as a result of this experiment. Information finding excursion. And so, yeah, I thought it was important that I like tie a bow on that because, and it’s just so funny that it’s like, it happened so quickly in the podcast. It was like, it almost feels like, “Oh, I’m doing this, and then I changed my mind.” But the timeline was such that it had been a while. It was more time had passed than the podcast schedule indicates. Yeah, so… Well, welcome back. Anxiety med for the win. Welcome back Link. For this win. Yeah, I mean, you know, ’cause you talked to Jessie a little bit about this because she’s had experience both trying to experiment early on in her life. I mean, she’s been on SSRIs for 20 years, but earlier, she got off of them for both pregnancies, and then like six months after the pregnancy, so she was like a little double whammy of like postpartum depression and also being off of her meds. And she’s… It’s made a huge difference for her. So she be like, is she told you this? I was talking to her… I wanted to talk to her because I’m thinking about doing this, I’m actually planning on doing it, what’s your input? And like, she didn’t have to say anything. Like, she had this look on her face that was like, I’m gonna be supportive and I’m gonna be positive but my own experience dictates it. You have to find out for yourself. I mean, it’s not like something that… And again, you’re also not saying that if you’re on an SSRI that you should be or have to be on them forever as a blanket statement because everybody’s different. Everybody responds to them differently. So- Yeah. Okay, let’s talk- So there we go. Isn’t that good? Yeah, that was great. It was great, man. Wasn’t that good? You haven’t snapped at me at all today. Did you… I mean, had you noticed? I would say- Here I’m going again with some feedback. Let’s just keep the short this time. No, no. You talked about that one moment where you punched that thing. We were filming the Rhett and Link channel video that has a portable radio. I do remember showing up and seeing you sitting there because the… You’ll see. We’ll talk about the video, but the whole point of the video is that were apart and then we’re together. And when I like showed up, there was a look on your face that I was like, “He’s not in a great place right now.” Yeah. He’s not happy right now. And I can imagine that he might get mad at somebody or me if something goes sideways. But I had a smile on my face. And then you took it out on the boom box. Do you remember I had a boom smile on my face at that moment? I was really thinking, I’m gonna put a smile on my face. Well, you know what, that helps sometimes. I know, I was… Like, literally, that’s what I was doing, but you saw through that. And then if you’re a member of the Mythical Society, Nick shot a piece with just me before you got there that’s gonna be on the Mythical Society. And, yeah, I was not at my best. Did you say that out on Nick? A little bit. But I think I was just like, I mean, you can watch that video through the lens of me just being at wit’s end. It was a very demanding day. It was. I mean, I was frazzled when I showed up for reasons that you’ll understand when you see the video. And I guess I should go ahead and plug The Mythical Society since we’re here. Yeah. Moochelle was murdered on Good Mythical Morning right there in front of all of our eyes. She actually exploded into fabric bits. It was gross. And we are committed to finding the killer. You know what, the killer has been found. Yes. But you’ve got to be a first, second, or third degree member of the Mythical Society to see the complete documentary of the investigation featuring- True crime. Featuring lots of a special investigator named Vinny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who may or may not be played by Jordan. So if you’re a fan of Jordan, the real person behind Cotton Candy Randy,, he’s the star of this investigation. And he is not the killer. It’s a true crime documentary about a fictitious character that we, someone, killed. Mythicalsociety.com. That’s what you get with the Society. “Ear Biscuits” is brought to you by BetterHelp. Of course, I hope you know we’re huge fans of therapy. And, for me, therapy is me time. You know, it’s a time where I can say, “This is about me processing my life, gaining a deeper understanding of myself.” And if it wasn’t a scheduled part of my, in my case, every week, then I may not… I may severely neglect that exercise. So it’s an important part of my life, and it can be an important part of yours too. It can be hard to do things just for you, but therapy can help you find that balance in your life, and that’s why we like BetterHelp. because it makes therapy accessible through the internet. There’s so much flexibility to it. I mean, again, for me, I don’t… having a standing appointment is so beneficial because I just don’t know what’s gonna hit me in my life. And then I just know that, okay, I have this place where I can process it. Get things out, work through things. Get things out and just kind of- Instead of let them fester. Yeah. If you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/ear today to get 10% off your first month. That’s Better H-E-L-P.com/ear. “Ear Biscuits” is supported by Chime. Good money Habits start with your first paycheck. And if you’re someone who just got your first job, well, you can start a healthy financial journey. Congratulations, by the way. When you sign up for Chime and link a qualifying direct deposit, you get access to benefits like getting paid up to two days early and fee free overdraft up to $200. And with Chime, there are no monthly fees, no minimum balance, and no deposit required to become a member. So sign up for a chime checking account today to link your paycheck. It only takes two minutes and it does not affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ear. That’s chime.com/ear. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bankcorp Bank NA or Stride Bank NA members, members of FDIC. Early access to direct deposit funds depends on payer. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits supply. See chime.com/spotme. Okay, we planned on going to the Caribbean for two reasons. Number one, we had gotten scuba certified and I wanted to be able to go to a great location for that. Caribbean is known to be that, Grand Cayman is also known to be that in particular. And it was a short flight from Miami where Locke is currently residing. And while it was not coincidental to his spring break, he doesn’t have class on Friday, so he could fly down on Thursday and be with us Thursday through Sunday. So basically, the last four days or so. Gotcha. So that was the plan. And that plan was executed. Okay, there you go. But the first half of the week, or a little bit more than half of a week, was just me and Jessie and Shepherd. And you know how when you go to a location where there’s not a jet bridge when you get off the plane? It’s just steps? It’s just steps. It’s just steps into humidity. That’s a good sign, right? It’s a great sign, it’s a great feeling, especially- Hold on, that’s what happens at Burbank. Well, Burbank, I love that about Burbank. And it doesn’t- I do love a good Burbank. It doesn’t always happen to Burbank, does it? No, it always happens. I don’t fly enough… I haven’t flown Burbank for six or seven years probably. There’s not a tube, it’s just steps. It’s great. It’s a great feeling. You feel like a little bit cooler because when you see people like getting off of like private jets, which I’ve never been on before. Yeah, there’s steps. There’s no jet bridge. But also it’s- I’m going on on Friday, I’m just gonna tell you. Well, you’re not really going. I mean, it’s not… Okay, I’ll tell you later. Let’s not even go there. But it’s been so cold. I’ve been so looking forward… Now you might be like, “It hasn’t been cold, I’m from Minnesota.” Okay, well, I’m not. I live in California. I’ve lived in California for 12 years, I’ve completely adjusted, and it’s been rainy and unusually cold every morning we wake up, even this morning it was 45 degrees when I woke up. But every single morning it’s in the thirties or forties for months on end, and that’s just not why anybody lives out here, okay? Like there’s a lot of things we tolerate out here, like massive traffic, air pollution, so many people, et cetera, fires incredibly high prices for living here, but one of the reasons we tolerate all that- Entitled rich people. Is for the weather. For the weather. The weather sucked. And everybody’s leaving. Also, you’re only as good as your accomplishments. Well, yeah, that’s a vibe that we often get around here. But I looked at the weather in Grand Cayman and it was going to be a high of 82 and a low of 78 the entire time that we were there. That’s quite- A four degree window. That’s a tight window. A four degree window. And listen, that’s my temp. I like it a little toasty. You know, 72 and sunny, that’s LA when it’s perfect. And that is great, but for me, 80 degrees, man. 80 degrees is a great temperature, especially when the sun goes down. 79 and 80- I think I’m more of a 76 guy. I don’t know. I love just sweating just a little bit. Just sweating just a little bit. 74 and sunny? I like it when you feel like you gotta be naked to get to the right temperature. Okay. Okay. So we get off of the plane, and of course, this is how they do in Caribbean places at airports. There’s like a guy on a steel drum outside of the airport. On the tarmac? On the tarmac, under a tent, playing as you get there. Because again, it’s about the vibe. It’s getting to the spirit of vacation. You’re here to relax or you’re here to like shelter some money offshore to bank. You know, that’s not why I was there in Grand Cayman. Did you see people sheltering money? No, but it’s known as that. It’s a tax-free haven. A lot of people- You have to bring it in suitcases? I don’t think that’s how it works. It’s probably electronic transfers. I would hope. But people have headquarters there. But anyway, they get the Caribbean vibe going and I’m feeling so good that I… And Jessie was like, “Don’t, don’t.” And I begin, I’m dancing. I’m dancing off of the plane, and I didn’t even know I was doing it. I was so happy that it was warm. And that’s when you fell. No, I did not fall. That’s not when the tragedy happened. But one of the guys, one of the security guys pointed at me and nodded. And he was like, “You know, what’s up?” You know what I’m saying? He wasn’t embarrassed for me. He knew I knew what was up. Right. I mean- I’m getting into the mood, man. You know what you were there for. And then of course I have to like be in the customs line for almost an hour. Come on, what do you think I’m trying to do here? I’m just here to have a good time. Bring in seeds. Yeah, I’m not trying to plant foreign vegetables or bring like a little rabbit that’s gonna take over your whole island. I did think about that though. If I brought a couple of rabbits, like invasive rabbits. Uh-huh, you thought about that. Think about the damage that I could do, man. I’d probably go to jail for a long time, but- I would hope so. You could like make an island be known for a specific species of rabbit and be like, “You know, that’s the Rhett McLaughlin rabbit. He took a chance one time. He brought a couple onto the island. He’s in jail now, but all these rabbits are named after him.” I don’t know, it’s just something to think about. It’s a big problem. It’s not anything that I did though. And then there’s a whole tourist industry around like, come to the island to kill the rabbits. Just rabbit hunting, yeah, all you want. Rabbits stew all day long. Get some Elmer Fudd action. I’m in a great mood, I’m having a great time. It’s difficult, as I’ve established before on this particular podcast, it’s difficult for me to get into vacation mode because of the way my brain works. And a lot of times, I see vacation as an opportunity to just get all the other stuff done. Like the mental work related to our work, the creativity, write something, whatever, plan something. But I’m kind of in a good place with that right now and I feel we’re prioritizing our… We’re trying to prioritize our creative time and our creative energy and that kind of thing. So I felt less pressure to be like, “I gotta come back from this vacation with seven great ideas, which is typically how I do.” So, just so you know, I didn’t have any ideas on vacation. I’m glad. It was about me having a good time and connecting with my family. Good. And we’re feeling great as we get into the taxi to go to the resort. Now, Grand Cayman is a small island. There’s about 75… This is something that I do when I get on an island, is I immediately go to the Wiki entry and I start getting facts. Kind of like the old guy in front of me at the John Mayer concert. I wouldn’t do that at a concert. I freaking look down. I wouldn’t do that. I would never do that. I was got blasted in the face by like the brightest light ever during the first song of his show, and it’s a guy seated checking his email. He should be escorted out- And then I was like, I called him the F word to Christie with an er on the end. I was like, if this F worder doesn’t shape up- But you didn’t call it to his face. I’m gonna have to say something to him. And then in the next song, boo, I get blasted in the face again with a bright light. And I look down over his shoulder, second song of the freaking concert. He’s on John Mayer’s Wikipedia page reading, like, getting up to speed. Okay, I’ve checked my email, now I’m gonna figure out- Who is this guy? Who is this guy that I’m at his concert. Don’t drag me into this because that’s not what I was doing, okay? I wasn’t at a John Mayer concert. I’m in a taxi, I’m on the way to the resort, and I usually do this- Let me get some facts. Before I before I get there, because I’m fascinated by islands. Not just because you can overpopulate them with foreign rabbits, but because of the isolation and the history and just the fact that it is an island, weird stuff happens on islands. Weird evolutionary things happen, and then there’s also cultural evolution. But then there’s this specific history of every island. And I was like, “Okay, what’s the deal with Grand Cayman?” I said it just like that in my brain. And I looked it up and there’s like 75,000 people who live there. It does not have any… There are no native people that were ever there as far as they know. Meaning, the first people showed up- Is tourists. In like the, I don’t know, I can’t remember if it was the 1600s or the 1700s, but like pretty late. Settlers. Pretty late. Okay. And it was a bit of like a rag tag group of people. It was kind of a lawless society, and there was a bunch of different people that were there for all kinds of different reasons. And all their descendants or many of their descendants still live there, and that’s the people of Grand Cayman. It’s pretty interesting. But also, it’s part of the commonwealth. So the queen is on the money. And there’s a lot of British people there, there’s a lot of Indian people there as well because it was part of the commonwealth back in the day. Anyway, so I’m kind of like, I’m asking questions to the cab driver and I’m like, “Are you from here?” Like, “Did you grow up here?” Like, “What’s it like?” Oh, wow. And we are three minutes into the ride. Okay, this is where the trigger warning comes in. Yeah, and we’re 30 minutes into this podcast. We’re three minutes into the- I’ll make a note of that. But let me just say, you know what, just see if you can get through it. I just invite you to get through this story. I’m nervous. And we’re on the road and there is… There’s a bunch of taxis, and they’re are all these sort of big vans, right? The taxis are all just vans. It doesn’t matter how many people are in your party, you’re gonna get into a van. And there’s a van in front of us, which is another taxi, and we’re kind of just like looking around the island, and then we see a cat come out into the road- No, Rhett. In front of the van. Like, I’m in a great mood, I’m having a great time, we’re all laughing, and we see this cat get absolutely demolished by this van in front of us, okay? And we have like a few seconds of watching the last moments of this cat’s life, right? And it is just soul crushing. It takes all the air out of the van, it completely stops the conversation. You know what, you gave a trigger warning, be more specific. Everybody- What was he doing? What was the cat doing? Well, you remember that time? Yeah, don’t talk about it. That you had accidentally hit that animal, and then we sat there and watched it die? Yeah, yeah. It was like that, except we were able to drive past it as opposed to just sit there and watch it. We didn’t have to be told to leave. It was awful. And I’m not… You know, as you can imagine, I’m not particularly sensitive to this kind of thing on the spectrum of people, right? I’m not saying I… There’s nothing about it that I enjoy. I don’t like cats, but I do not like any animal to experience any discomfort. But for Jessie, this was like… It like, it risked coloring the vacation significantly because it was just shocking. And we just sat there in silence for like 10 minutes as we got to the hotel, and I was like, “Damn it.” That was it. I was like, what does that mean? What was Shepherd’s take? Shepherd was like, he was in shock, but he also like, he’s like me, and so that he was thinking about the fact that it’s like, it’s so tragic, it’s horrible, I can’t believe we saw that, but you kind of have to like, isn’t it crazy that that just happened? that we got off of the freaking… We’re all excited and this cat gets killed in front of us. Like, you have to kind of laugh just to kind of get through it. That’s kind of where his… His brain works like mine, right. It’s tragic, so like, ha ha. So, at that point I was like, “What does this mean?” Yeah, let’s redeem this with meaning. And I decided that it meant nothing. Oh. I decided that a cat got in front of a car and got killed. And it’s horrible, but it happens. And I don’t have anything to do with it and it’s not gonna impact my vacation. It wasn’t your car. And then when I showed up at the hotel and I heard some more steel drums, I forgot all about that damn cat. I forgot all about the cat. Well, it wasn’t your cat. It wasn’t my cat. Honestly, I don’t think it was anybody’s cat. I think it was the island’s cat, you know what I’m saying? And there’s many of them, including… And there’s also lots of chickens that roam free, kinda like Kauai. So anyway, I believe that was his ninth life, just based on the situation, with both of the wheels. It was his eighth and ninth life. Oh my god. And it was horrible, but it did not… It threatened to ruin the vibe, but it didn’t. I was able to get the vibe back once we got to the hotel. That could be your new cold shower image though. Oh, you mean when you’re trying not to ejaculate? Yeah. Oh. That’s redemptive right there. I just think about Richard Nixon. Use it for your own sexual performance. “I’m not a crook!” That’s what I think about when I’m trying not to ejaculate. He gets me soft so fast. So, anyway, I was- Now, if that starts to change, that’s the risk. That is the risk. Hey, listen- That’s a big risk. I’m open, I’m fluid, man. If all of a sudden I’m attracted to Richard Nixon, I’ll do something about it. What? Don’t answer that. So the thing that I was most excited about was the scuba diving, of course. And I- You’re welcome. And it’s funny how having something planned on a vacation. I mean, first of all, having something planned on a vacation is one of the ways that I feel secure because of things about my personality. Like, having reservations at good restaurants, important to me. Having the activities planned, important to me. I’m very much like Stevie in this regard. Stevie is even better at this than I am like, if Stevie’s going on a trip with us, she takes full charge of what everything that we’re gonna do. It’s great. This restaurant and this restaurant. But I’m that person in my family, I’m the planner ’cause I’m in a family of non-planners. And I’m not much of a planner in general, but I kind of enjoy it. I kind of enjoy it ’cause I’m like, “Oh, guys, on Thursday night, we’re going to the highest rated restaurant on the island.” And I attach- The rabbit is succulent. I anticipate those things. It just makes you feel like, “Okay, well, if all else fails, we’ve got these things that we’re gonna do and we will have had a good time.” It’s a little dadish, I realize that. But I was thinking about- You are a dad. Yeah, I’m a dad. I’m just fulfilling the role. I was thinking about these two scuba diving trips. So Tuesday and Thursday, Shepherd and I were gonna go on two dives. Nice. And as I told you in previous podcast, I was very excited about the shipwreck dive, right? Yeah. But we go up to the place which was literally attached to the hotel, the place where you like register. Okay. It was so convenient. The scuba diving place and like water sports place. Just checking in, we wanna get fitted for our shorties, sorry, short wetsuits or whatever, you know, the stuff that… Your fins, mask. And they’re like, “How old is that one?.” Shepherd. And I was like, “14.” He was like, “Well, unfortunately he cannot go on the shipwreck dive because it’s too deep.” As an open water certified scuba diver age 14, 60 feet is the maximum depth, and you got to… This is the 65-foot deep- 17 and you could go. 15, he can go. There’s a gradation. As you get older, you can go deeper. I don’t know exactly what that is. I need to look into that. But they’re like, “He’s 14, he can’t do this.” So I was immediately like, “Oh man, first, the cat, and now this complication.” But I was also like, “You know what, we’re gonna have a great time.” Like, all we dove in was California water, which was cold and wasn’t that clear. Like, we’re in warm water, 170 feet of visibility. 170 feet. Oh wow. It’s like being in air. So I was a little disappointed. Now, the guy checking us in eventually is like, “Why do you look so familiar?” And I was like, I don’t ever like to be presumptuous, but I was like, “Do you watch a lot of internet videos?” He was like, “Oh yeah, the guys at the desk. The guys at the desk. The guys who eat. And it turns out, a lot of Mythical Beasts… Full-time residents of Grand Cayman, a lot of Mythical Beasts. We have infiltrated the island, Link. Nice. And I’m not saying that’s why the next thing that happened happened. Oh. But he did call me later that day and say, “Hey, you know what, I think we can do the shipwreck dive. It’s just that Shepherd is not gonna be able to go into the bottom of the ship. He can go into the top of the ship.” Oh, okay. So we’ll have to like, make some adjustments or whatever. But that was the Thursday dive, right? That was the Thursday dive. So I’m gonna show you some video. This is gonna get very visual and interactive. For those of you just listening, this is why you might wanna- Skip over to YouTube. You might wanna go to YouTube and watch- Ear Biscuit’s channel. But I took this… You know, don’t get too excited. I mean this is my first time. This is one of my first. This is my first time like recreational diving past my training, and I’m also trying to be a diving cinematographer with a camera that I just bought. But the way this thing works is it’s a 360 camera inside of a dive case. So because it’s in the dive case, you’re gonna see there’s this thing on the screen where it is like the bottom of the camera. And then I had to put it through software where I select the 16:9 frame that I actually want to display on my computer so that it kind of, we’ll be making some choices- It’s cool you don’t have to point the camera at the time, you decide what you wanna, so to speak. pointed at- Yeah. In the first dive, I just left the camera on the whole time. I learned my lesson. That’s too much footage. It’s like 45 minutes of footage. So I did do the work. So I’ll just show you… I’m gonna start… The first dive was just a reef dive, right? Okay. So, you know, there’s nothing too special here. This is just a moment in which we encountered a turtle. As you can see- What is that thing? What is that I’ve got that thing? So this is… It’s on a thing. It’s just on a tether floating, right? Oh, so that’s the bottom of the case. And so I just want… I started the video like this to show you. Now, see, “Oh, I’m gonna grab this thing.” and here’s this turtle that you can see right there. Everybody’s like, “There’s a freaking turtle.” And of course this is like the whole crew that we’re diving with. And then in the software, you can actually track the turtle. So you can just make the turtle be the center of the screen. And then as long as the turtle is there, it’ll keep tracking. I don’t know exactly what that was where it zoomed in for a second ’cause I don’t quite quite understand the software yet. But this was pretty much the most exciting thing- That’s Shepherd in front of you? No, Shepherd is- All that hair. No, Shepherd is over to my right. You might see him in a second. So not much to see there. You can kind of see, oh it’s pretty clear, it’s beautiful, but this was just kind of like adjusting and getting into the groove, right? Then the guy was like, “We’re actually, for our second dive, we’re gonna go to a shipwreck already. We’re gonna go to a shipwreck.” And so this shipwreck that you’re about to see… I can’t remember… You know, honestly, I can’t remember the name of it right now. I wrote it down somewhere. It’s in my dive log on my dive computer. But this is a shipwreck that has completely disintegrated. And I’m gonna, basically… So it’s like pieces on the bottom. The whole thing is just disintegrated. This is the uncut video, so I’ll just kind of scrub through. There’s the engine right there. There’s Shepherd. Shepherd having a great time. Did they tell you not to touch this stuff or… Basically, the guy was just like, “Just watch yourself.” But then you can see the stern of the boat over here. Look, the stern of the boat, there’s Shepherd. The stern of the boat is over here by itself. And this is pretty cool. So one of the things that- What kind of boat was this, do you know? I think it was just like a fishing boat or whatever. So as you can see, like, we’re going up here to the little holes in the boat. See, I’m just kind of teasing you a little bit here. This is what it looks like to be on the outside of a shipwreck. Uh-huh, that’s cool. But you can see how the camera adjusts once we put it in through this hole, like how it adjusted the light and you can actually see… You’ll see in a second as it adjusts and like, “Oh, we’re inside of a boat there.” Now, you can’t go inside this, right. But over here outside of the boat, there are these bicycles. Bicycles on the floor of the ocean. And the guy said that the reason there’s bicycles on the floor of the ocean is that there was a time in which people who were divers or diving structures on the island would be leaving, and they would ride… They had their bikes that they had been using to get around and their diving equipment and stuff and they would like… They would throw their bikes and stuff off of a ship as they were leaving ’cause they didn’t need it anymore. Well that sucks. And so they’re just on the floor of the ocean. Okay, so that’s basically, day one was like seeing that reef and then seeing the ship. And we like, we get back and we’re like, I’m happy that… There was no like… There was no real complications, we had a great time. I’m looking at the footage in the hotel. I’m like, “Yeah, I got some good footage. I can show that on the podcast.” Feeling good. Feeling good. And I’ve gotten the call about we can actually go on the shipwreck- And then another cat- No, we know we show up on Thursday. And you know what, I’ll tell you another… There was something else that happened that was a little bit negative. Yeah, good. Okay? And that was actually the- Need you to complain a little bit more about your vacation. The Monday before the first dive. I forgot about this, but this was another sign that maybe things could go wrong. So Shepherd and I were just getting started and we knew we were looking forward to the scuba diving, but there’s all the water sports right there on the beach, right? And I’m like, “Yeah, if all the stuff is free, you can just like, you can paddleboard, you can snorkel right here next to the resort. And he’s like, “Dad, I wanna jet ski. Can I jet ski? Can we jet ski?” And I was like, “We’ll jet ski tomorrow.” ‘Cause I think this is actually Sunday, so I was like, you know, “We’ll jet ski tomorrow.” “Like, we’ll jet…” “Hey, calm down a little bit.” I was like, “Let’s go snorkel at this spot that these people have told us. It’s like a 10-minute walk. It was more of a reef. And so first of all, there’s a little bit of like teen upset coming from Shepherd about not getting to jet ski today, you know? And I was like, “Dude, come on. Don’t be an ass. You don’t have to jet ski right now. Let’s have a good time.” And so then we’re walking, and about, I don’t know, a minute into the walk, my knee really starts bothering me. Oh, your knee. You’re a knee person. So I’ve got bad knees in general, tall guy stuff, but the left knee… My right knee is the one that I hurt multiple times and also like screwed up while skiing and has tendonitis, but my left knee hasn’t been bad, but then when I was scuba diving training, and I tried to get out of the water on those steps in Catalina and realize, “Holy, this stuff is heavy.” I put all my weight on that one leg and was kind of in this squatty position and my knees started hurting. And it’s been a little bit… It’s not bad, it’s just been a little bit off. But you know how when you’re walking on the beach and it’s kind of sloped and you’re walking uneven and it’s like, it’s sand. It’s like hard, but soft and- Yeah, it’s a beach. I’ve been on it. And it just like, something about that exacerbated by my knee, and so then I’m starting to get a little upset. And I’m also a little upset ’cause the Shepherd’s a little upset with me for us having to walk to this thing instead of jet skiing right now. Okay. And I’m like, my knee’s hurting. We gotta get to this thing. And then I’m like, “I don’t even know where this thing is.” Poor McLaughlins. “They said it was the Governor’s Beach where the thing was.” I was like, “Where’s the Governor’s thing?” And he’s like, “I think it’s right up here.” I was like, “Listen, let’s just turn around and take a cab.” So now we walk back. My knee’s hurting, and we get into a cab and the cab drives us basically like 20 feet from where we ended up just turning around. And then we snorkel there, and it was cool. But then we start walking. I’m like, “We can walk back. My knee hurts, but it’ll be fine.” 20-feet cab ride. Yeah, we get back to the beach where Jessie’s hanging out. And at that point, I realized, because I had been carrying my flip-flops and my camera and my snorkel and my mask and a bag that somewhere along the way, I had dropped one of my flip-flops. Lost a flip-flop. And then I was like, “Am I gonna really go back with this bum knee and try to find this flip-flop? Do I need flip-flops, really? I’ve got some other… I’ve got some other like slip-on things I’ll just wear. Okay, all right. So I lost a flip-flop. So there was the dead cat and then a lost flip-flop, and I was like, “I don’t know man. This is really… It could be vibe. But the main thing that was a problem was the tension that it was causing between me and Shepherd early on, right? Which is not unusual to have tension with your teenage child, but to be in a place where you… It is a total privilege that we are able to afford to be at this place, to afford to be able to take this time off, to do these things, and I can recognize that as an adult, it’s difficult for a kid to recognize that, right? They can understand the concept, but that doesn’t mean that once you’re there, you really don’t want it, you just want a jet ski. So we ended up jet skiing that day. I was that dad that was like, “You know what,” I said, “hey, let’s start over.” “There’s no reason for us to be mad at each other.” “Let’s go jet skiing.” Of course he had to be on the back ’cause he’s 14. Being 14 sucks. Oh yeah. You know, ’cause it’s like, you’re almost able to do all the stuff that you wanna do and you’re capable of doing all the stuff that you wanna do, but you just can’t. So you have to like hold onto your dad’s back while he’s jet skiing and keep yelling at him to go faster. Like, the whole time he’s in my ear he’s like, “Dad, go full speed, then take a hard turn.” “Throw me off!” Like, he just constantly wants to be thrown off at the jet ski. And I’m like getting more aggressive and more aggressive, and- Those things will turn on a dime. They will, but the thing is, they turn so fast that it puts so many Gs on me and I’ve got this guy holding onto me that like, I’m just thinking about my own self-preservation and not hurting my back. Like, I’m like… Like I’m just thinking about, I’m preoccupied. Being a dad’s hard, being a middle-aged dad is hard. You have it tough. You got a teenager holding onto your back, you’re trying not to get hurt, you’re trying to almost throw him off so he’ll be satisfied, but not throw him off. And you got one flip-flop. One flip-flop. Well, I was barefoot at the time. Anyway, I think that was… Actually, the jet ski ride is when the things really turned. And I was like, “We are enjoying, this is about enjoying ourselves, let’s just do it,” and Shepherd and I got to a good place. Now, that was kind of undone once Locke showed up, which y’all get to in a second. The next thing that we did. So this is pretty fascinating. This is the… They call it the XUSS Kittiwake, because when it’s no longer being used, it’s technically X. So this is a military ship. Not like a giant… I think it’s like 200 feet long. It’s pretty big. You’ll see. But this thing was purposely sunk in 2011 because Grand Cayman was already a diving destination, but it didn’t have any big shipwrecks like some of the other places around the Caribbean. Okay. And- This is the one that you Shepherd got, like, he slid in. Yeah. So they ended up bringing this thing in back in the day and they cut holes in the hole, and then they removed things like wires and sharp things because they were like, “This is going to be a coral reef dive site and so we’re gonna make it enjoyable and easy to navigate and not dangerous. And we’re gonna sink it in about 40 feet of water, so that everyone can dive.” Well, then a hurricane came along a few years back, shifted the whole thing around, sent it further out, and so that’s why it’s on its side now and it’s deeper, and that’s why. But you can kind of see… I’ll show you… This is just what it looks like coming up to it. So this is a big boat. That’s the front of it, of course. Oh, it’s kind of on its side, but not- Yeah, we’re looking at the bow. Is that the bow? Is the bow at the front? The nose, the front. I think they call it the bow. The stern and the bow. I mean, that is pretty- There’s Shep right there. And you can see… See that hole? This is where, and Shepherd wasn’t allowed to go in there. Now, the other thing that happened on this dive is that when Shepherd got into the water, he realized that his BC, his buoyancy compensator. You know that. You’re also a dive guy. His inflatable vest. Was leaking. Oh. And they made him come… So he wasted probably like 500 psi dealing with this thing. Now, kids typically use their air very quickly because they breathe fast and they’re darting all around. So it ended up being the case that the guy, and then of course you’re doing your thing where you’re telling people how much air you’ve got, we were at the end where we were about to go into the thing and basically Shepherd was down to like 600. So we had to go, but I was like, “All right, we gotta go, but I’m going to… I can’t do this.” So I told Shepherd, I was like, “Hold on one second.” And I was like, “I gotta go into this thing.” “So I did this.” So you went through the hole? Yeah. In the hole. Yeah, so you’ll see once it adjusts here, the light. Oh man, that’s cool. So you can see they just cut… It’s just like, you could go down that, you can go through. Like, I wanna go back because there’s like four levels. I thought you… At certain point, you gotta get a special certification to do- Not in this. For some reason, not on this one. I don’t understand why. Oh man, and then look, there’s like- The top of the boat. The top of the boat. And there’s actually.. I was like, God, see there anymore. I’m go through here. I would love to do this ’cause this is reminiscent of all of our exploring in the woods, and you’d like find a house or an abandoned barn or silo or something, and then you’re kind of… You’re just kind of exploring. I love the idea, the practice of exploring abandoned things and to be able to like fly through it. It’s like flying. The great thing about it- I have not done any type of wreck, so… But I’ve been, you know- You know where some of the best wrecks are in North Carolina. The caves. But this is a great one because of how big it is. And it’s like, I definitely wanna go back where Shepherd can go from the bottom and we’re like more relaxed. So we then we come up, have our hour on the surface, and then, ’cause you know, you have to have your interval period so that you don’t get the bends. And then we went back to The Doc Poulson, another shipwreck. He was like, “It’s a two shipwreck day,” and this is the one that we were able to go inside. This is a smaller shipwreck. And, of course, so there’s coral and stuff growing all over this, so it becomes like a habitat. Yeah, so you can see, this is a for real shipwreck. Now, it’s smaller, but it’s actually like… It was not planned. This is just a ship that sunk and it’s still there. And it’s falling apart quite a bit and it’s got stuff hanging all over the place. Were there any toilets, stoves, or, I don’t know, the stuff that you have in a ship, like… I mean you can see what they’re- Sailor’s nudy posters. No, I mean, this thing’s been there forever, you know. And I wanna show you the coolest video is this last one here of, once we’re in there, and so Shepherd and I basically, I was like… Here’s Shepherd coming outta that thing. He’s having the time of his life. ’cause it’s just like, it’s so cool to access something… I don’t see any other divers at this point. Where are they? I killed ’em all. No, they’re outside. For some reason, me and Shepherd were always the last ones, like the first ones to go inside and the last ones to leave. I was like, I don’t understand what the deal is. It’s like, I’m having such a great time in here. People get bored. And it was all so new to us, you know? So Shepherd goes through here and you’ll see this is a cool shot of me going through and you kind of get the… I’ve shown this to a couple people who are claustrophobic, and they get a little bit freaked out. And I guess I’m not claustrophobic because it just, I feel like I’m in something that I shouldn’t be. I’m accessing something that I shouldn’t be able to. Oh wow, that is pretty tight. Oh, it’s like you’re in a crawl space. It’s getting shorter and shorter here. Oh wow. And the cool thing is, it’s almost like a buoyancy obstacle course because you control… It’s not just swimming up and down, but you don’t wanna swim to move up and down, you want to use your buoyancy control. And if you get good at that, you can- And it’s, actually, your breath is- You can save your breath or just use your breath as buoyancy control. Yeah, so once I get to a certain depth, I’m just using my breath to go up and down very slowly. So anyway, it was incredible. We have to go to shipwreck, man. I think there’s shipwrecks that we can go to in California. I totally wanna do it. If you plan it, I’ll be there. Yeah, we gotta start doing some… Like, there’s so many locations around the world that have these incredible sites, man. We gotta like… I mean, I don’t want it to be the kind of thing that- Well, like, Lincoln wants to… He’s thinking about majoring in psychology going off to college in the fall, and I’m like, “You should be a scuba dive guy around the world. That’s what you should be.” You should be a dive master or you should be a world traveler. I had this conversation with Shepherd. Dive guy so that then I call you up and I’m like, “Hey, where you at now? I’ll meet you.” It’s some exotic location because it’s your job and I’m just coming to visit my son. That’s not how parenthood works though. They won’t do what you asked him to do ’cause I said the same thing to shepherd, right? So Shepherd, you know- You know what you should do for a living? Scuba diving. No, no, no. I just asked Shepherd ’cause we got to know, the guy who was the captain of our ship boat days was an Irish boy from the homeland and he… I was just… First of all, he’s very into NBA basketball. Like, he knew everything about every team and every player. Like, I was just like- That’s strange. I don’t know how it came up. I just said something… He asked me, I guess, if I played basketball and I’m from America and I was like, “No, no.” But started talking about the Clippers and the playoffs, and then all of a sudden, he gave me so much more than I needed. Oh. But one of the things I did get besides all the sports information was the fact that he had lived in Thailand as a dive instructor for six years, and then he had been in Cayman for like five years. And this is what the dude does every day. I mean, of course everything gets boring and everything end up being- Right, you gotta up with these like- But he’s leading the dive. He’s doing the dives every day. And I just asked Shepherd, I was like, Like, “Would that be fun for you to like, at least for a little bit in your life to like, be like a dive instructor and it’s a location like this. And he was like, “I don’t think so.” I was like, “let’s go jet skiing.” Faster. You wanna be a jet ski guy? You wanna be a professional jet skier, No, you don’t wanna be a jet ski guy. So Thursday night Locke shows up from Miami. And, of course, we’re all happy to be together as a family. You cherish these moments of all four McLaughlin’s being in the same place. But it can be the case that the family dynamic that you unintentionally established is reestablished sometimes when they’re all together. And in particular, the dynamic between bros. So there was a couple of barbs that were thrown. I mean, first, it was great. We had a great time, we went out to dinner. Because the sunsets are so beautiful, a lot of the restaurants are like set up so that you can like eat and watch the sunset at the same time. I mean, it was incredible, right? We’re having a great time. Yeah. But then I was like, hey, night swimming. A cat runs by. We gotta do night swimming. Ever since we did night swimming in Miami all those years ago for the Nerd Versus Geek shoot, I’ve had this obsession with trying to recapture the perfect night swim that we had. Okay. And the perfect night swim can only happen in a place that is warm. Oh yeah. And the water is warm. Of course. And there’s very little rules in this hotel. Like, you could just go out to the beach and swim around, and there’s no lifeguards. ‘Cause it’s kind of like the way that the island is situated in the Caribbean, it’s blocked by all these other islands, and so it’s like a lake. I never saw a wave the whole week. Really? Never a wave. Oh, okay. And the tide only oscillates like a very, I don’t know how tide… I know the tide is caused by Poseidon in the sea, but I don’t know exactly how it works. And I don’t know why it’s more in other places. Like, why it can be seven feet some places? It’s like a foot here. I don’t know why. You didn’t read that far in the Wikipedia. No, no, no, lost interest. But I was like, there’s these platforms, these inflatable, and by definition, floatable platforms out in the ocean that people lounge on during the day. I was like, let’s swim out to one of those at night and hang out on the platform. Oh yeah. So we go out there and- Was Jessie with you? No, just me and the boys. And let the boys have their fun. And so we go out there and of course I’m trying to get ’em to be scared of sharks like a dad would do. Nighttime, sharks, they feed at nighttime. and so that’s freaking ’em out a little bit. We get on the platform, and then Shepherd just being a little brother has the idea, “Hey, my big bro is back in town, I’m gonna knock him off of the platform.” It’s just what brothers do. Well, Locke was not ready for this. Shepherd pushes him off the platform. Locke falls into the water, he’s tries to get back up, he’s trying to grab Shepherd in the process. Shepherd ends up hitting him in his face with his foot, and then he takes Shepherd, throws him in the water, and I’m like, “Hey, guys, break it up!” And so we all kind of sit there for a second in silence. Again, it was another moment of silence, like for the cats. And I was like, “Okay, guys, listen.” And I was like, “Lock, Shepherd was just… He’s happy that you’re here. He’s trying to connect with you. He’s doing what brothers do. He’s throwing you into the water. It’s a love lick, right?” He’s already been in the water. It’s not like you were in a ghetto. And he’s like, “But I think he may have given me a concussion when he kicked me. And I was like, I don’t think he gave you a concussion. I think everyone’s gonna be fine. But, hey, let’s just, hey, we all love each other, let’s just get along. So we sat there after my speech and I was like, “And sorry for yelling at you, but you were being assoles.” And did you make ’em hug? No, we just sat there for a little bit and then we started talking about something else and we got over it. So we kind of corrected course. There’s always… You’re adjusting to a new environment. That’s right. But we- You gotta be nimble. We had planned some group activities- With the life crinkles. The last two group activities that I will share, we had planned for when Locke was gonna be there. And the first thing was we were gonna go to the number one tourist attraction in all of Grand Cayman, and it’s Stingray City. Of course. No, it’s better than Putt-Putt. Stingray City, huh? So this is a place that, again, there’s a history, and it’s actually a relatively recent history. There’s a place out on a sandbar. The whole island is shaped like a giant C, like the letter C, but really more of a U, if you’re thinking about north being at the top. And if you go to kind of the top of the U, it’s where I guess thousands to millions of years ago, it was probably just a full island, but now it’s just a very shallow sandbar. The O became a U. And there’s these stingrays that traditionally came out there because the fishermen would be like cleaning their fish after a day. Oh. And the stingrays would come and eat. And so they got very friendly and familiar, and then it turned into essentially a tourist attraction because it’s very calm. It wasn’t that calm the day we were there. Very shallow. And you’re surrounded by stingrays the size of this table. What? Hundreds of them. Show me the footage. So I don’t… The footage of this was bad. It was like, I just think it’s, you know what I’ll do? I will Google Stingray City and find a more compelling picture for you. And then take credit for it. Than anything… So were you waiting in the water or were you snorkeling or did you have to take a boat out? It’s like this. It’s like standing in this water. But did you walk off the beach to this? No, you take a boat. They take a long boat ride. Okay. Not a long boat ride, but you know. So like on our day, there’s about this many people out there. I mean, we’re talking like a couple of hundred people just like standing in knee deep, thigh deep water. And then, like this guy, one of the guys who’s with you because they know how to hold them, will begin hugging one of them and you can come up and you can stroke it. Did you stroke it? Oh, I stroked it. Oh, he actually, then he basically… They’re so like friendly and they’re so used to people. And again I think it’s a transactional thing ’cause they’re like, we get fed. Yeah. So we gotta put up with these people, you know. It’s like, they give us the food and we let ’em play with us. He’ll give it to you. And so you’ll… I was holding one like that. Again, Jessie had the camera. She didn’t really know how to work it. There’s not good footage of this so it’s not even worth showing it to you. But you can imagine this picture me being that guy holding the stingray. Okay, yeah. It was pretty awesome. I mean, getting to inter… I felt a little bit like, is this like swimming with dolphins? Are we exploiting these animals? And then the guy was like, “Each one of these stingrays, based on the amount of money that this particular site brings in for tourism, it has been calculated that each one of these stingrays is worth a million dollars based on how many they are, of them there are and how expensive all the trips, because there’s hundreds of people paying, hundreds of dollars every single day constantly to go out there. I’m sure there’s people who don’t like the idea that didn’t help. But it is what it is. Now, the next night… basically the last night. So we did that like the next to last day. Then the last night, we did something called the Bioluminescent Bay. Oh, so we’re talking about night glowing what? I’ll show you the pictures in a second. Again, my camera is not sensitive enough to get these photos, so I’ve just got some… You know, you can google these photos as well. But basically this is some rich dude a long time ago in the ’80s dug out a lagoon on one part of the island. And so it’s like a man-made circular lagoon with all these really nice properties around it. Freshwater? No, it’s the ocean. It’s like inside of a bay. Okay. And then they created a bay inside of this bay. Gotcha. Sure it caused great environmental damage, but it was done 40 years ago, so now that people just live around it. And then the hurricane that came, another hurricane brought a bunch of sand into it and created the perfect conditions for it to be just shallow enough and also isolated as this lagoon kind of, it’s connected to the beach, but like, I don’t know it. This life, this bioluminescent, these little organisms, which the guy said what they were and I’m sure you can look it up. I can’t remember the name. There’s like a million of them in a cubic foot of water and they don’t even really understand how it works or… They understand how it works. They don’t understand why when you agitate them by moving your hand through the water, it lights up. What? Oh my gosh. So… And by the way, so Jessie, this is all four of us. It looks like light dust. Yeah, and see this right here, like where you… So you wear a mask and you go under the boat that the guy brings you out on ’cause it’s even darker under there. And you like put your hand under the water and you like, and you put your face under the water so you can see it, and you can like see individual little things. Like, I would just take my finger and just go like this, like really, really move it, and there’d be like 5, 6, 10 of these little light things and you go, . And then like they would explode into a light. It was so crazy. I was like. And I felt- And you were holding your breath. Like such a great dad. Oh you did? When the boys kept saying, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” Like, they were just… And that’s the last night. There you go. Coolest thing they’ve ever done, and highly recommend that. And then- A cat swam by- And then we took… No, no cats. And then we took… We took a taxi to get some jerk chicken at this like barbecue stand on the side of the road that was hard to find, but it was like, you know, everybody’s like, “You gotta get the jerk chicken from this place.” We wrapped up the evening. So you had the bioluminescent stuff on your body. Did you take a shower? That’s not how it works, man. You don’t know. I’m sure some of that stuff was just stuck to you. Yeah, but- Some of those beans. Just like any… But there’s all kinds of stuff in all kinds of water all the time. I know, but did you shower? I took very few showers. I took- So that’s a no. I think I took two showers in eight days because it’s the beach, bud. I’ve got beach bod, you know what I’m saying? That’s not what a beach bod is. Beach bod is not a non-showered person. As a matter of fact, because of my long hair and Shepherd’s long hair when his hair is even curlier than mine, like, I didn’t do any… I did very little hygiene ’cause I was like in the salt water, in the sun. It was wonderful. It’s good for your skin. I did little hygiene. And nobody complain. My wife didn’t complain. I mean, I wore deodorant and I showered like at two intervals throughout the thing. Are you saying that if you go on a beach vacation, you shower every single day? I mean, there’s a lot of people gonna be with me. You come in off the beach, man. yeah, you’re gonna shower off the sand and the salt water. No, I would… I would get under the shower next to the beach. to get the salt water off. Okay. But I wouldn’t like be, “I’m gonna go up to the room and put soap on my body right now.” I was like, I don’t see the point, you know what I’m saying? All right. Except like twice. When you went through customs, did you tell ’em about the bioluminescent beans that were all over your body because you had not- No, they’re prepared for that. Here’s the thing, is, I noticed my hair was getting really matted. Not matted, but like, you know, oh man, boy, when I get back home, I’m really gonna have to spend some time with my hair. It’s like sometimes you just don’t wanna take the time in the middle of the vacation to take the 45 minutes that it’ll take to brush out your hair in the shower, like, with a conditioner in it. And I was like, “I’m on vacation. I’ll just let the knots continue to form, and then I’ll just worry about it when I get home.” And it ended up not being that big of a deal. For Shepherd whose hair is curlier than mine and who apparently had adopted the same approach, he got home and started to investigate his hair and he basically was like, you know, dreading up in certain places. And he said that he flipped a coin. this is how 14 year olds make decisions, I guess. He said, “if heads, I just wash my hair and get the knots out. Tails, I cut my hair.” Okay. And it was tails. He cut his own hair? So Jessie got home, she sees a bunch of hair in the trash can and she’s like, I don’t know if that’s Rhett’s hair or Shepherd’s hair. They’re pretty similar. I guess time will tell. And then she came downstairs and she said, when he came downstairs, he looked like, the way she described it was a 50 year old woman. It was kind of like a bit just a big globe of hair. He had like cut, he had cut the back and the sides, but like left the top and it was like very globish. And she’s like, “Oh gosh, Shepherd.” So she ended up salvaging it. And it looks good now. I think you saw a picture of it. It it looks great. I think it’s an improvement. I can see his face most of the time. You know, I appreciate being able to see. And you don’t want a teen that just looks like a cartoon character that has their hair in their face the whole time, which is what he had become. And of course I didn’t say anything. He can do whatever he wants to with his hair, and he can have the biggest possible jeans that he wants, because that’s the thing that’s happening now. But… So, yeah, it was salvaged. He’s got a little mini mullet kind of thing happening. So all said, not a great start, but a great landing, a great finish. Locke was… Right before he got on his plane back to Miami when we were at the airport, he apologized to Shepherd and said, “I love you, I’m sorry for kicking you.” We had a big group hug. Okay. I think I gotta… You know what, I’ll close by showing you this picture. Oh, that’s a good ending. The four of us took together. You took a selfie while hugging? At the airport. Hey, could you take a picture of my family hugging? Yeah, you. We hugged, and then I- That’s nice, that’s nice. And then I got a little picture. The three of y’all boys look dirty. Y’all need a shower. That’s just what I’m observing. What did people do before showers? They got into the nearest body of water. Baths, dude, baths. I think a body of… I like the salt on my skin. I like what it does to me. It dries it out a little bit. When in doubt, the jet ski out. I’m glad you made it back. It’s wonderful to be together again on this podcast. Hmm. I got a wreck for you. Wreck baby rec baby one, two, three, four. You know what, I’m just gonna wreck the latest, the last TikTok I watched before we did this, I’m not follow this person. Okay. But this video comes up from the Daily Victorian. She said there are five things. First of all, the Daily Victorian, she’s doing yoga. I didn’t do that. While she’s doing yoga, she’s telling you five things to make you cool in conversation. But it was basically like tips to be more socially aware in group settings where conversations are happening. Like, conversational techniques. Oh, cool. The description says for my fellow mirror balls. I do not not know who mirror balls are. I don’t think I’m one of them, but maybe I am now. That’s a Taylor Swift thing, right? No, I think it’s a, maybe it’s a yoga person thing. I have no idea. Okay. Jenna also has no idea which makes you feel better. So the Daily Victorian told me that you can be the, you were saying person If you’re in a group setting and then there’s like somebody’s telling a story, and then there’s… It gets sidetracked and other people start talking. You can be the cool person who’s like, “Jasmine you were saying,” and then let them get… So you’re the person there like, if somebody’s telling a story and it gets sidetracked sometimes it never gets back. So being that person who’s sensitive, you were… And I’m always looking for ways to improve my social acuity. So for me, I’m gonna try to be the, you were sane person. I could also be the stay with me person, which if somebody’s telling a story and then people start dropping off, you can be the person who stays with them. I’m with you. Finish your story. Yep, that’s good. That’s good advice. There’s also the to be fair person. If a group of people are talking about somebody who’s not present and they’re saying something that’s, not necessarily gossip, but like maybe it’s the critique is founded, but it’s still nice to be the to be fair person where you’re… She said no one likes to be called out on being mean or a gossip, but like if you can turn something into like to be fair. I mean, to be fair, you got this all from a TikTok. It’s a little bit valid. Like, there are valid criticisms of this person’s behavior. But you see it turning into a little bit of a dog piling situation. To be the to be fair person, all you have to do is interject and say, to be fair, and then give just a little bit more of a balanced take on the situation. That’s it. That’s it? This is what I’m recommending. I haven’t even gotten through all five of ’em. Thank you, The Daily Victorian. Well, how’s that Victorian? How is yoga Victorian? Don’t worry about it. Well, I mean, you know, don’t wanna dictate what somebody’s doing. I don’t know anything about this, but I thought I’d be getting tips on like stockings and not taking baths, putting fruit up to my nose so I can walk into a room and not smell everybody. You know, Victorian stuff. To be fair, You do need those things. Turrets. You were saying. Spinley things. I love a Victorian home. I’m with you. I love a Victorian home. I’m with you. You know what, I would absolutely love if you would adopt those things from the Daily Victorian Uh-uh, uh-uh. No cheap shots. No, no, no. I’m saying if you were to say, to be fair, if you were to say I’m with you, you were saying that would be, that’d be pretty awesome. You were saying? #Earbiscuits, what will you be saying? Let us know what you think about this episode. Also, please leave us voicemails with your candid reactions. 1-888-EARPOD-1. Bye. Hey, Rhett and Link, this is Teagan. I’m 20 years old and I’ve been a longtime watcher and listener of the podcast ever since like 2014 or whatever, and it started, I just wanted to call in because I heard what Rhett was talking about, about how the podcast has been good at maintaining a friendship between you two. And recently, I’ve started a podcast with my brother and he goes to a different college and it’s been really nice to connect. And I totally relate to what Rhett was talking about, and it’s been really nice. So I just wanna thank you guys for inspiring me to do the podcast in general. Love what you do, bye. To watch more “Ear Biscuits,” click on the playlist on the right. to watch the previous episode of “Ear Biscuits,” click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.