Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agenda Fluid podcast.
I'm Ben.
I'm Donovan.
We are recording on September 10, 2025.
After taking about four weeks off.
Yeah, I guess it has been.
Because we just didn't fucking feel like it.
I hope nobody's been on the edge of their seat.
Yeah, we've just, we've received a slew of emails wanting to know where the show was.
Oh, we're going to read some fan letters?
Yeah, except I just lied.
We didn't get any.
We should get our assistants to generate a few.
Probably.
I mean, it worked for Reddit.
I mean, yeah.
I mean, pretend you're a Starbucks drinking women's history professor and you've just listened to this episode.
Write a letter in response.
That could be fun.
Yeah, it could be.
Could be.
So what's going on?
What have you been up to that I haven't been privy to?
I think you're pretty much privy to most of my life now.
That sounds ominous.
Nothing really other than, you know, work.
Just trying to do this whole Windows 11 crap.
Upgrades.
PC replacements.
Beyond that.
Outside of work.
I actually surprised my wife this past Saturday.
And we went out to eat something we don't normally do.
Yeah, it's rare in our house, too.
We went to Pit Stop because she likes their, it's essentially a blooming onion, but they call it the Georgia pine cone.
Yeah, okay.
So she likes that.
Oriana went with us.
Because a Friday morning, whenever we were getting groceries, I asked her, I said, look, I'm thinking about, because I don't have to do the yards.
I don't really have anything on tap to do Saturday morning.
Thinking about, let's all go out and eat somewhere.
And so I gave her two options.
I said, Pit Stop or El Caz.
Oriana's not a big Mexican eater.
I love Mexican food.
But she was like, well, if it's El Caz, then you and Mom go.
But if it's Pit Stop, she said, they have like pulled pork and stuff like that.
I said, yeah, they do a chipped pork plate and things like that.
She's like, yeah, I'll give that a shot.
Which she wound up liking.
She got the chipped pork plate with, she likes their fries, which they're pretty good.
And they're mac and cheese.
I got the burgers up, which I'd had years ago.
My memory is either failing or they're not quite as good as they used to be.
Nothing is.
Yeah.
I've been there once or twice, but I quit going when I went in there and I ordered a burger.
And I said, can I add bacon?
And she said, we don't have bacon.
What?
And I was like, what the fuck is a Pit Stop barbecue joint not have bacon?
You have every other part of the pig, but not bacon.
But you don't have bacon.
Fuck this place.
Wow.
At least it's not Cracker Barrel.
I understand they've changed their logo back.
Not only that, they changed their logo back.
And I saw yesterday that they have decided that they are no longer going to remodel their stores.
Their restaurants.
Okay.
So.
Are they all corporate stores or a franchise?
I think they're corporate.
So, yeah, they were planning on doing a remodel.
They'd already remodeled one store somewhere.
And the pictures that have been on social media about, especially when the whole logo thing
blew up, the pictures that people were like, oh, look, this is also the new, very sterile
and woke, the way it's going to look.
It's going to look so corporate.
Well, that was AI generated, number one.
But there is a good video by a guy called Pearl Mania.
I think it's Pearl Mania 500.
You can look him up on Instagram.
And he's got a very good video on why over the last couple of decades, you started seeing a lot of these restaurants looking almost identical.
And it was eye-opening.
I did not realize it.
But it has to do with the fact that he points out McDonald's is the largest corporate landowner of all the businesses.
Yeah.
And what happens is if the reason why they started making the buildings almost look identical is because, let's say, a McDonald's franchise goes in there and then it fails.
Well, they can just strip all the signage off, minor cosmetic changes, and it's a generic building, and they can put in another, you know, an Arby's or a KFC or whatever.
Yeah.
And I was like, okay, that's interesting.
So, he was trying to point out that even if Cracker Barrel was redesigning their buildings to look more like that, that was probably why.
But now, it looks like they're not going to.
Kowtowed to the pressure.
The pressure of, what, like 1,300 people who were disgusted with it.
And the president.
I mean, I wasn't going to Cracker Barrel whether they remodeled or not.
And the president.
And, of course, the other thing is, apparently, there was some stuff that came out on social media a day or two ago that the staff had been told to basically,
use, like, whatever was left over, say, like, for the meatloaf, whatever was left over yesterday, reheat it and serve it today.
I mean, I do that at home.
I do that here, too.
But I don't expect a restaurant that I'm supposed to be paying for fresh food to do that.
Nothing about that place says it's fresh.
It's nowhere in any tagline anywhere.
I've eaten there a couple of times, and I keep trying to tell my wife, it's nothing special.
And she's like, but I've never been there.
I'm like, do you like fried chicken?
Yeah.
Okay.
They got fried chicken.
They've got, I mean, it's a country restaurant.
They've got country-style food.
It's a country-style restaurant.
It's a corporate restaurant.
Well, correct.
Yeah.
I don't think I've ever eaten, like, a lunch or supper there.
I've only ever, only been there for breakfast.
I can't say I've been there for breakfast.
I mean, it's just big pancakes, you know, country, traditional breakfast.
And they usually don't fuck it up.
Yeah.
The only times I've been there was two times I was there because it was, like, a vendor meeting.
This was back when I was working for CityNet.
Mm-hmm.
And we'd have lunch there.
And then I think I had lunch there one time with a couple of our coworkers at the time.
But that's been it.
It didn't impress me.
I know my mom used to go there.
She used to love to do their dressing and what have you around Thanksgiving.
And I'm like, okay, that's cool.
I prefer making dressing at home.
Actually, my wife makes it.
But I'm one of those guys.
I'm like, you know what?
I can eat dressing in February.
I can eat it in June.
It does not have to wait until November.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
You can have it year-round.
There's no law.
Exactly.
Yet.
That's true.
It might be coming.
Now that I've put it out there on the internet.
I mean, who knows?
It could be the next executive order that goes out that says,
Thou shalt not eat dressing.
I'm going to start drafting executive orders and say the executive shall not waste time.
Creating executive orders.
Stifling over fucking logos.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
I honestly, I think that's the real reason why they backed away is because he weighed in.
And he weighs in on everything that he shouldn't.
I wonder what he says about me.
He doesn't know you.
He doesn't know Cracker Barrel.
No, he doesn't.
He doesn't, he doesn't understand poor people.
He's not, he's president name only.
He's not running the country.
I am 100% convinced of that.
He's not smart enough.
He doesn't understand how any of this shit works.
I wouldn't call him worldly.
No, not at all.
I mean, he did do a little stint at McDonald's that one time.
Oh, and he's also ridden in a garbage truck.
Oh, I think he drove it, didn't he?
Yeah, I think he actually did.
Or no, I think he might have been on the passenger side.
Yeah.
He was in the orange vest and everything.
Yeah.
That's probably enough about the president.
Who?
Let's talk about kombucha.
I gotta say, that's a fucked up name.
Kombucha.
It sounds sexual or either excremental.
Not excremental, excremental.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's a master brew.
Yeah, this is by a company called Kavita.
I don't know.
I just chose the first one that showed up in the grocery list whenever I looked up kombucha
in a Walmart.
Bold and smooth.
Master Brew.
Hey, he's got live probiotics.
I'm helping my gut help.
So does yogurt.
My daughter eats yogurt every day.
I had to keep her supplied with yogurt.
It's the, oh God, what's the one?
Activia?
It's the one that starts with a name.
Activia, yeah.
I have to buy her usually for about three weeks in a row and then I can skip a week because
she eats one a day and I think it comes in a 12 pack.
So anyway, we had to get a particular flavor because we had a run where there was a, it
was the strawberry, strawberry banana, strawberry peach or something.
And two or three times, it's not like they stayed in the refrigerator, we'd get them and then
like three days later, she'd be like, man, these are all ruined.
And they would, they'd be, I mean, how do you ruin yogurt?
But it's culture.
But, but yeah, you know, yogurt, you're not supposed to take the top off the yogurt, turn
it upside down and it pours out like water.
Right.
So we, we noticed that when we got that particular flavor combo that we were having that issue.
So now I think we get black cherry and something else anyway.
And we haven't had, knock on wood, we haven't had any issues with those so far.
I've been doing that for about two years, probably.
Well, I'm glad to hear you got your yogurt under control.
We need yogurt.
It's important.
Well, the audience is also happy to, to hear that.
Well, they, they should be, this is important stuff.
I mean, you know, you might be going through life going, you know what?
I wonder what kind of yogurt I should be eating.
Is our life, is our life better with yogurt?
Is it worse without?
I don't know.
Like how, how, how can we tell when we have a good life?
When, when will we finally feel like we're, we're just here, that we're, we're done, we're, we're accomplished and everything's grand?
Or will there always be something wrong?
Somewhere between when I'm 62 and 65, I think I will feel complete.
Complete?
Maybe.
Like there's, like there might be somebody waiting on you, but it's okay.
Yeah.
Right now, right now there's just an anxiety and I'm not sure where it comes from.
Some days are worse than others.
I'll agree.
I'm having, I'm having more bad days than good recently.
Um, a couple of weeks ago, well, I bought this lawnmower like four years ago, but probably once a year, it gives like a major problem.
Um, and you know, we got to cut grass like every four days here.
So yeah, I can't have the mower down.
I can't have it acting a fool.
Yeah.
But you know, I've put several batteries on it, rebuilt the deck.
Um, the belts pop off.
If you get a little stick under there or something, one of the tires keeps going flat and I can't find the leak.
You know, so it's just, uh, a couple of weeks ago, I went to, uh, I finally went and put new blades on it because I've, I'm just a cheap ass.
I'll sharpen them until there's nothing left.
Me too.
But I, uh, I finally put new blades on and I've had a problem with the battery.
So I just have been jumpstarting the, the mower, but I finally get new blades on.
I took time that I shouldn't have spent to do it.
And I want to go try them out because Braden, Braden's been cutting the grass.
That's how he earns my gas money.
I, uh, I get it started to head out and engage the blades and they won't turn on.
Hmm.
So I thought, well, it was just something else that's fucking broken on this thing.
So I take it out back and I just leave it.
I'm, I'm done.
So I go in and I shower, clean up and I go in to start dinner.
And I, I'm going to read this cause I, I had an episode.
Um, let's see where, so I gave up and went inside.
I got cleaned up and went to start on making dinner.
My typical, my typical process includes cleaning while I cook or if it's bad enough, I clean
before I begin.
I don't remember which was this time, but I was putting things in the dishwasher.
This dishwasher was installed before we bought the house and was not installed by anyone
concerned with quality.
If the door was open, it would simply fall all the way open.
The entire appliance would move.
Sometimes the door was difficult to close.
At least one dish or utensil was not clean every fucking cycle and other tiny issues.
I'd loaded whatever things I'd loaded and closed the door of the dishwasher.
The door threatened to fall open.
I pushed it close with a bit more gusto, as one does.
The door once again sided with gravity.
Increased door shutting gusto.
The door opened, and that's when Dr. Jekyll stepped out of the way.
I slammed the door repeatedly, with the few final efforts receiving my body's full force
as if I was sumo-wrestling this dysfunctional, uncooperative little shit.
The game time analysis concluded that the door was not going to stay closed, and for all the
suffering and aggravation that it caused, this was its end.
Mr. Hyde's reasoning was, if the door won't stay closed, it's certainly not going to be
allowed to just lay open and be in the fucking way.
So we switched from forcing the door closed, to violently opening the door, an attempt to
yank the goddamn thing to the other side of the kitchen.
The noises emanating from the kitchen were swear words, all the dishes in both racks caught
in the middle of this domestic disagreement, and a large appliance under severe duress.
I remember I'd cook something.
Chicken cordon bleu.
Packaged from the freezer.
I don't do that shit.
Yet.
I'd plated it on two plates and placed a knife on each plate.
During the vulgar display of violence, when the little things went flying too, I believe
one of those knives landed tip down on the big toe of my right foot.
I knew something had hit my toe, but it must have been a few minutes between gravity's tort
and my attempt to breathe and calm my visceral rage.
I found myself standing in a pool of blood.
I saw that and still could not care.
I was simply too occupied with using a full body clench to contain this, let's call it hatred,
for what was probably my perception of my current life status.
Fucked.
I'm not talking about the wrecked kitchen or the stabbed toe or any other carnage I'd just caused.
My hatred was for the situation I'd just boiled up from.
This expensive house and its flaky dishwasher.
The tractor and its fucking hypochondria.
The dog who's a harmless menace.
The neighbor and that stupid fucking gate.
The fact that while everyone seems to think I'm smart, I'm mentally crippled and feel as if I put on a good show while producing nothing worthwhile.
I guess I'm bitching that life is not perfect.
I know from experience and TV that no one has a perfect life.
But I do know people who are happy despite their life's imperfections.
I think it's worth digging into why, with so many positives I have in my situation, I'm hung up on what isn't perfect.
Why must it be?
Did I watch too much TV as a child and now compare my real life to those characters on TV and movie sets?
I mean, come on.
When has a character ever had a repetitive tick with a dishwasher?
Wow.
I mean, it doesn't end there, but that's how I got a new dishwasher.
And this new one is properly installed.
Did you have somebody do it or did you do it?
No, I did it.
You did it?
It's not fucking difficult.
No, I've never done it, but I mean, I didn't remove the original one.
In a proper manner, but the new one went in quite nicely.
Well, that's good.
That's good.
I think I've told you that we, the dishwasher that came with this house is basically a...
It's a dish rack?
It's a container cabinet, essentially.
That's how it's used.
Because we tried to use it a couple of times after we got here and it leaks all over the floor.
And, well, we had three able-bodied children and they started washing dishes.
Now, the boys did eventually, they started out, they were the two, and then eventually Oriana got to where she was tall enough that she could do it.
And so, they would rotate.
Monday night might be Devin's, Tuesday night would be Tyler, Wednesday would be Oriana, and then they would just keep rotating.
And then if their day landed on, say, their birthday, then either me or their mom would wash the dishes for them.
And we still don't have a working dishwasher.
And Oriana does all of the, she washes all the dishes.
It was odd, she started that, because Tyler went to work, and of course, he was like, it was kind of understood that now that he was working an eight to ten hour a day job, that he would not be washing dishes when you come in.
And so, it wound up being, for the most part, it wound up being Oriana and myself.
After mom passed away, I think it was the day of the funeral, I was going to wash the dishes, and Oriana stepped in and did it.
And then for about a week later, she just kept doing it.
And I was like, I can take care.
She goes, no, I'll keep doing it.
You know, I'm basically getting free room and board, so I'll do the dishes.
So, that's kind of the unwritten agreement we have with her, is she washes the dishes, and she sweeps the floors twice a week.
And depending on when they need it, we'll do the, we don't really mop, we have one of those Swiffer wet jets.
Yeah.
She'll do that about once every two to three weeks in the kitchen, utility room, and all of that, because the girl has no job and doesn't plan on, she's not motivated to find one, let's put it that way.
Well, she's not motivated to drive, so, I mean, it's got to start somewhere.
She's not motivated to drive, even though she does, she does have her driver's license.
But, that's true.
I feel like I have failed sometimes because of the fact that she's not, let's see, how old is she?
She'll be 28 next year, I think.
Yeah.
She was born in 97.
So, anyway, there are days where that does kind of weigh on me.
Like, what did I do wrong?
But I also have to keep in mind, on both my side of the family and my wife's side of the family, we have late bloomers that honestly did not get into the workforce until they were in their mid-30s.
And then wound up, I think one on lease, I wound up getting into the workforce in early 30s, wound up becoming a teacher at one of the Votek schools, and then retired from there.
So, I was like, all right, you know, we'll see what happens.
So, I mean, my wife doesn't work.
She quit in 2019 due to cataracts and all, and now all that's been fixed.
I've wondered if she would be interested in going back.
And, of course, she can't go back to where she was working because that company no longer exists.
Well, it's going to be a furniture store soon.
Yeah, I think it's already open.
Oh, last I looked that way, they hadn't had to sign on the building yet.
Yeah, I think she showed me a picture of it last week, that John, who is, he was the manager of Joanne's, he's also going to be the manager of Ashley's there.
So, I think he shared a picture of it.
Cool, same commute.
Yeah.
Yeah, basically.
So, yeah, you got pissed off at a dishwasher, ripped it out, and got a new one.
You know, I don't think it was the dishwasher.
It was everything else, it just kind of, that was the final straw.
Yeah.
I guess I just, I picked the thing I hate the most.
I, but why?
Why was I that, why did I reach a breaking point?
I mean, I do it a lot, but not, not that violently.
I mean, I'll crash things in the garage, because something didn't work out.
I will abandon a project with vigor sometimes, and it ends up in a bonfire, but.
I guess better than it just sitting somewhere and collecting dust and being in the way.
Yeah, and rotting, and reminding me that I didn't finish that shit.
Yeah.
But, you know, I used to have these episodes where I'd, shit, I'd end up in holes and doors, and nobody's around.
I don't do it in front of, I've never been a threat to any living thing.
Yeah.
Just to myself.
But, when it's over, I look back, and I'm sort of, I'm taken aback at what I've done, you know, I'm sort of ashamed.
But this time, I wasn't, I still wasn't sorry.
Still not sorry.
Fuck that thing.
And, and, you know, my display of, of my displeasure with life, I guess, I'm, I'm not ashamed of that either.
I'm just, I'm, I'm not comfortable.
And I can't, I don't, I don't know why.
But what, what, so what does a good day look like?
Maybe I should ask myself that.
Yeah.
And maybe try to achieve that.
But, I don't know, I keep telling myself I'm tired all the time, and I'm kind of tired of saying I'm tired.
Yeah, I've, I've got to say that, I mean, I didn't have an episode like that.
And, again, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I'm not judging you by any stretch of the imagination, because I've had, I've had those times in my life.
I think the last one, I was still drinking, and I was here in this office.
So, this probably would have been easily five years ago, in the last five years, but not in the last two.
And I had gotten this chair from a friend of mine, somebody that you would remember, used to be our marketing guy.
And he'd given it to me.
And so, I was in here one, one afternoon, one evening, and I don't know what it was.
It's something about the chair.
It didn't, it didn't want to raise up, it didn't want to lower, and it just, it just lit my damn fuse.
And so, I picked that son of a bitch up, and I threw it across this office, toward the front door.
And then, I went over, all huffed and puffed, and slung the door open, and just slung it all the way out into the driveway.
What I did not realize, until the next day, I walk in here, I sit down, and you've seen that I've got a television that's mounted up on the wall.
All above my workbench over here.
That's not the original television that was there.
The original television that was there was a little bit bigger.
It was a Roku TV.
And apparently, when I threw the chair, I caught the corner of the TV, because when I sat down, and I turned to look at the TV, it was busted and spiderwebbed all the way across it.
And I was like, you stupid son of a bitch.
What the fuck did you do?
Because when I chunked the chair, I do not remember it going in that direction.
But apparently, in my alcohol-fueled-blind rage.
Tunnel vision.
I did not see that it hit that and careened off of that and landed at the front door.
So I destroyed a couple hundred-dollar television and had to replace it because the chair just set me off.
I had my dishwasher moment, if you will, at that time.
But, yeah, I mean, this week, ironically, this week, about midway of last week, I guess, the previous two weeks, I was walking around like there was just a dark cloud just constantly over me.
And I have to wonder if it was also affecting my health because I started losing.
It's not like I just dropped like 10 or 15 pounds, but instead of being consistent of about a pound to two pounds up or down, I lost like five pounds in just three days.
And I was like, I wasn't sure if that had anything to do with it or not.
And I think it was kind of like you.
It was like just not happy with life right now, you know?
And I hate to say that because I always look at – I could be in a worse situation, you know?
Yeah.
It's not like I'm not thankful and grateful for what I have, what I'm able to do, and what I'm able to accomplish, in air quotes.
I'm not entirely sure what the fuck it is I'm accomplishing.
But I do wrestle with this, life is shit, I'm sick and tired of this, I'm sick and tired of that, I hate everything, I wish things could be better.
And then I have to stop and think and go, yeah, but, you know, at least you can pay your bills right now and you got food on the table and all this other kind of stuff.
There are a lot of people out there that can't say that, and I'm like, well, fuck, now I'm ashamed.
Why am I bitching?
Yeah.
And the thing is, you know, do we need someone to tell us it's okay to feel this way?
Is it okay to feel this way?
I don't know.
Well, we certainly don't go around telling everybody we feel like shit.
No.
And we hate life.
Except here.
But that's internal.
And that's kind of what I was here to talk about.
You know, things could always be improved, but I don't know why I'm, I just, I see things of low quality, like poor craftsmanship or poor handwriting or whatever.
It's just, that's not right.
And I guess it's just in the back of my head and it's just the whole world's not right.
But, um, this week I did, uh, seek a referral to a psychiatrist.
So I will be going to see a psychiatrist in a couple of weeks.
Oh, okay.
I thought about it.
I don't think my, well, I don't think my primary care professional, um, gives enough of a shit about my, the effectiveness of my Adderall.
And I don't want to keep asking for an increase.
So I just want to go see, uh, the real drugs guy and, uh, talk about what can be done.
I know if I keep increasing it, I'll eventually just be snorting cocaine every morning.
Yeah.
Cause I mean, that's essentially all that stuff is, is this amphetamines.
Yeah.
It's a, it's what it says on the prescription bottle.
It doesn't say Adderall.
It doesn't say some other.
It says amphetamine.
Amphetamine.
Yeah.
I have never, I've never had any of that.
I've never taken any of those Ritalin, Adderall, none of them.
I just do mega doses of caffeine.
And I mean, that's what we did with Devin.
We, um, the school talked to Lee and said, you need to put him on something.
And Lee absolutely refused, which was one of the reasons why we pulled them all out and homeschooled them.
Uh, I do believe that once he got out on his own, he sought out some professional medical help and wound up on some type of, uh, I don't know if it was Adderall or whatever, but I think he did get on that.
I'm guessing it did him some good.
I'm not sure.
It does seem that both our sides of the family, mine and Lee's have a tendency to suffer from some form of ADHD or ADD.
Yeah.
Which I think is the reason why for me, I would embrace alcohol so much because it would literally, I would hit that point where I could think, you know, I could concentrate.
Yeah.
But there was this window, this window.
And the more I drank, that window kept getting shorter and shorter and shorter to where I couldn't concentrate on anything.
Yeah.
I think that's why I like cannabis so much because, you know, I, I'm able to just overlook what's wrong.
Yeah.
I can say those, um, the greens were okay.
The browns were the best of those candies.
Yeah.
The green ones had less THC and more CBD, but.
Yeah.
Um, and I started out doing, you know, quarters and halvesies and shit, but the last three of those browns, I just popped them whole.
And I was like, that was some good sleep.
Let me tell you that.
Yeah.
But I'm back to super sevens now and I'm still doing quarters on those.
I try to time my, my, uh, my quarters on those between seven and eight o'clock.
And, uh, I'll still have the rare occasion where I'll wake up around two or three fight to get back to sleep.
But once I get back to sleep, then, you know, I might wake up a few minutes before five o'clock and then I'm laying there going, God damn it.
Hurry up.
I need the alarm to go off.
Cause I don't want to have to turn it off and then remember to turn it back on cause I use my iPhone as I've got one of those, uh, I've got one of those mag, mag safe stands that will, you know, you take the phone and put it sideways.
So it gives you the clock and then it also will charge my watch.
I've got one of those and it'll do my AirPods.
So I don't want to reach over there and go, Oh, I got to turn it off and then remember to turn it on the next day.
So, but yeah, I think it's, I think it's a good thing that you're, you're doing that.
Um, like I said, I've, I've thought about it.
I've thought about going through some of these online things like better health and all of that, but because I don't, I don't see, I haven't seen my primary care physician since 2008.
I just don't go to the doctor.
It's probably time.
I mean, why?
Just do blood work.
Make sure it's not wrong.
I don't know.
I'm the, I'm the kind of guy that, you know, if, if I went and found out that I had some form of cancer, do I want to know that?
Or do I want to just be blissfully ignorant?
And then I just don't wake up one day, you know, I don't know.
Well, that's probably not bad either, but it seems like.
But you're, you're probably right.
I probably do need to get some blood work done, but.
Just to make sure.
I mean, that, that's like our insurance company.
I think I told you they sent us, they sent me and Lee both those damn, uh, color guard kits.
Yeah.
We didn't ask for them.
They're still sitting in there.
I'm not doing it.
I just, I don't care, you know, and that's probably not the right attitude, but it's my attitude.
I don't, I don't care.
Because I don't, I don't trust the system because here's what I'm afraid will happen.
A, those things are known to give a lot of false positives.
Okay.
So you do it, you send it in and it comes back and it says, Hey, we, we, we may have a false
positive.
So we think you, you really need to do, go ahead and, and, and have a colonoscopy.
Okay.
Well, with, with my insurance, I'm going to come out of pocket for everything.
So no, not doing it.
I don't trust them.
You can call that a conspiracy theory or what, but I just don't trust them.
It's your body that I've got, there's nothing wrong with that in my opinion.
So.
Yeah.
I kept wondering if I was going to get a notice from, from the insurance company going, Hey,
we sent you these things.
If you don't do it, we're going to cancel your policy.
And I'll be like, okay.
No, well, I'll just send them back.
You can have somebody else shit in the box.
Yeah.
I mean,
I'm probably going to wind up having to cancel the policy anyway, because for all practical
information out there, because of the big, beautiful bastard of a bill, what, what the
government's going to kick in for the marketplace is going to be reduced.
So my premium is probably going to go up, you know, twice what it is now.
And that's just not tenable for me at this point.
Yeah.
Because, you know, I basically have a major medical policy anyway.
So unless I have a heart attack or some other major surgical requirement, my insurance ain't
worth a shit.
And then if I don't have it and that happens, they can fucking sue me.
I'll just file bankruptcy and move on.
I mean, they're not going to get it from me.
Yeah.
It's the system we live in.
Yeah.
Last time I looked at private insurance, it's about $1,800 a month.
Yeah.
I mean, I think ours is, so I have two separate policies.
I have one for me and Lee, and then I have one that covers Oriana.
I pay out of pocket $130 something dollars a month for ours.
Hers is like $30 something dollars, I think.
A year ago, ours was $75 and hers was $18.
These, I know our policy has a $16,000 deductible.
So if, and the total premium, I want to say is around $1,200.
So if that premium goes up and what the government subsidy goes down and they wind up coming back
and going, okay, you're going to start paying like $300 and some dollars a month, I'm going
to say no.
I went several years without health insurance.
I can do it again.
Well.
I just, that money's got to go to other things.
And I don't know, maybe it's, maybe it's a weird way of thinking about things, Ben, but
if I go, I go, you know?
Yeah.
And I joked about the fact that if I, if I, if I go, I hope I go before I'm 60 because
because at least then my term life policy will pay out to Lee and it's enough to pay
the house off.
And, you know, she may have to go find a part-time job after that.
But, you know, after 60, I've got to figure out something to do for life insurance because
it was a 20 year policy that I got when I was 40.
So it's the only way I could afford it.
Term's cheaper because, well, it has a definitive date.
Whole life, good God.
Yeah, that's, it's crazy.
But, well, I am, I am curious how, how that'll turn out for you.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Maybe you get some good drugs.
No, I'm kidding.
No, I don't know.
It's, um, I'm, I'm going to have to unpack a bunch of shit before I go because I'm going
to, you know, I'm not, I'm not good on my feet.
So I'm going to, uh, at, at thinking of what I think my problem is, or at least what, what
my gripes are.
Mm-hmm.
But, yeah.
As long as it doesn't come back to having issues with your dad or your mom or some shit like
that.
I always hate that.
Of course, that's very, that'll be entertaining.
Yeah, it's always kind of cliche.
That's what you see in the movies anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
I just think it's my brain and how it works.
I'm interested in nearly fucking everything.
And I want to know how just about everything works.
Like, there's only a couple of things that I'll never do.
Politics and cosmetology.
Those are complete, they're not even in the same sport.
No, no, no.
I can, I can honestly say I'm not interested in cosmetology.
Politics, I'm dangerously interested in.
Lee keeps telling me I need to run for office and I'm like, I don't think you want me to
run for office.
Oh, you'd never get elected.
No, I don't think I would.
Honestly, I don't think I would.
You'd get votes.
Not down here anyway.
But not enough.
No, not, not anywhere.
Because you're just, you're too fucking honest.
Yeah, that's probably true.
And you're after the core of the problem.
So, yeah, those guys don't get elected.
Yeah, because I feel like I could legitimately have a pretty good shot at solving a lot of
these problems, but people wouldn't like the way I solved them because they would actually
get solved and not kicked on down the road or grease this palm or et cetera, et cetera.
So, yeah, you're probably right.
I'm too fucking honest when it comes to that.
Yep.
My esteemed colleague across the aisle, you, sir, are an asshole.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I was trying to, trying to figure out why I'm not happy.
I should be, you know?
Yeah, you would think, but I mean, I know you well enough to call you a close friend, but
I don't, I don't know you, I don't know the ins and outs of your life 100%, but I mean,
I can understand, you know, I think somebody would probably look at me and go, he's probably
happy.
Yeah.
It's funny.
You look at people like that and it's like, you'd never, especially, and I'm not condoning
this, the people that suddenly commit suicide and you're like, wow, I didn't see that coming.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, they, you know, as the song, there's a song that I really like and one of the lines
from it is, uh, I'm paraphrasing, I would try to drown my demons, but they, they've learned
how to swim.
Oh, where's that from?
I can't remember.
I've heard it before.
Yeah.
It's, uh, ah, shit.
Let me pull it up on my phone.
It's a, it's a song.
It's actually in my playlist that always gets, uh, okay, Phil, I don't, I don't need to get
filled in right now, um, bring me the horizon.
Can you feel my heart?
So yeah, it's a, uh, it's an interesting song.
The video is, is kind of weird, but, but I, I really liked the song, but yeah, there's that
line in there.
It says, I would drown my demons, but they've learned how to swim.
Hacker barrel.
I like it.
Came across that on, uh, on the, on the zitter.
Yep.
Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
Maybe we have some psychologists and psychiatrists and therapists out there listening to us and
go, you gentlemen are just fucked.
Y'all motherfuckers need drugs.
Yeah.
Y'all motherfuckers need drugs.
Y'all need the good shit.
It's funny.
I went and talked to a, a counselor, uh, you know, mental health counselor sometime
last year.
I was going through like my, my midlife crisis and, uh, basically it was down to nobody needs
me anymore.
The kids are grown, you know, sort of feel useless.
Yeah.
Um, but at the end of it, she's like, yeah, you might want to consider drugs.
Wow.
I was like, but you can't prescribe drugs.
You're not a psychiatrist.
You're a therapist.
That's something.
So this time I'm not going to talk to her, going to talk to the, the drug person.
Yeah, exactly.
You walk in, sit down 15 minutes later, there's like three prescriptions coming off the pad.
It's like, here, here, get this in your system.
Come back in six weeks.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't know what it's going to be like, but I, it's not something I thought I would ever
do would go, Hey, I'm going to go talk to a psychiatrist.
But now that, you know, I had another episode and I'm sort of realizing I'm watching my brain
work or at least when I try to focus, um, when I sit down at my desk to do something, I'll
realize that I've lost focus when I find myself standing in front of the refrigerator, having
forgotten why I went in there and having not started the task that I sat at my desk to
begin.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, there's something wrong there.
Is that the reason why?
I try to force myself to focus.
Yeah.
I'm still all over the place.
Is that the reason why you think having a different place to work out of would be helpful?
Yeah.
I think I was more productive when I had that office down by the post office that in
my office is on the way to the bedroom from the living room and it's between the bedroom
and the kitchen.
I have to walk by it.
Even when I'm not at work, I have to walk by the office and fucking look in there and go,
look at all that shit.
I didn't do to do today.
Yeah.
Look at all those things I haven't done yet.
You can't, you can't disconnect.
Yeah.
I get it.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the reason why I said I was my, once we vacated the office in town, I wound
up in the middle bedroom upstairs.
And that didn't last long.
I was like, that's when I had a conversation with Lee and I was like, look, this place I'm
and now the space, it was her sewing room.
And I said, you know, not, not to be that guy, but what I'm doing is, is actually bringing
in the money.
Yeah.
And I would like to swap with you.
And she understood.
She didn't necessarily like it, but she understood.
She, she realized it was the right thing to do.
And that's the reason why I don't think it bothers me as much as it bothers you because
I can separate these two.
Yeah.
But I still, I mean, I have a laptop in, in the house that, you know, if I get dinged at
six 30 and there's something I need to look at, I don't walk out here and do it most of
the time.
If I can, I'll just pop up in that Mac book and remote in and look at whatever.
So there's still not a hundred percent disconnection for me either, but mine's a little bit better
than I think yours is.
So I do, I do understand that.
I think if you, if, if you had an office in town, you'd still have that laptop at home.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
So that, that part just wouldn't go away.
No, no.
And I still can't, I still can't get behind.
My friend Dave told me when I first started this business in 2015, he told me, he said,
you don't need an office.
And I didn't listen to him.
I spent the money.
We did the office for six months and the way I work me specifically.
And the fact that I have this secondary building that is an office, it makes the most sense
still to me to probably continue to operate out of this.
I'm not against a, a, a space in town because there's probably, there probably are some
advantages, especially if, like I pointed out, if, if the Tifton talks podcast was something
that I really got behind and pushed and I wanted to bring people in the city and the county
in and sit down and, and do interviews, that would probably be, they'd probably be more apt
to go, yeah, we'll go there.
Then I'm saying, well, drive 10 miles out of town to my house.
I mean, I'm not Mark Maron.
I can't get the president to come to my garage.
Yeah.
You know, he did.
He got Obama to come to his garage, but you know, that might be the one advantage, but beyond
that, I just don't, I don't think, I don't know.
It's a, it'd be a hard choice.
And again, I'm not saying I'm not interested in it.
I'm just not sure how much of an advantage for me it would be.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
If you and I were in a completely, you know, as we talked about combined new company, I mean,
I don't know.
But even then, if, if you had an external building that you could do, we could still operate as
one entity, but in two different locations.
I mean, yeah, we have the technology, but, but if we grow and we hire somebody, uh, I'm
not having a tech come work at my house, but that's fucking stupid.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
I agree with you on that.
But I have to wonder how many of our competitors in this area, as few as they are, actually have
additional staff.
I don't know.
I don't know either.
Nobody's big enough to, to have staff.
Yeah.
I mean, that's like that one guy, virtual guru.
I don't, I only know of him.
I don't know if he's got anybody else who works with him.
Yeah.
I don't know.
So, but I have a feeling that once you go see this, uh, psychiatrist, psychologist, is
it a psychiatrist or a psychologist?
Psychiatrist.
Okay.
Cause one of those two can do the prescriptions and one can't.
The psychiatrist can prescribe.
Yeah.
I think once you see them, maybe, I don't know, your outlook may change.
Hopefully.
I mean, I'm not saying, I'm not saying, you know, the goal is to continue to grow, but
I have, I have a time limit on me, self-imposed or not.
Maximum 10 years.
From now?
From now.
Okay.
My goal is seven, but there's still some things that I've got to get in order to be able to
accomplish doing it in seven.
Paying the house off is one of them.
Yeah.
That's the biggest hindrance I have.
If I did not have this house payment and no universe, I'm not saying I want to lose
the house.
I'm just saying that if I had a way, if I came into a, you know, I played the lottery.
I was, I didn't even want the billion.
I just wanted to, you know, a million or two.
Yeah.
But if I could come up with a way to pay this house off before I'm 62, I'm taking early
retirement from social security, if it's still there, and my city pension, which I think I
can, I think they told me I can get it at 62, but I could maybe hold off until 65.
So that's the reason why I'm saying 10 years max.
Yeah.
So my mindset, I have a tendency to go, okay, here's my long-term plan.
I don't need to make, I don't need to make major changes knowing that my goal is I'm done
in seven to 10 years anyway.
Yeah.
So.
And weren't you saying earlier today that you just kind of over the tech stuff, you just
kind of don't, don't enjoy it much anymore?
Yeah.
I was going to tell you, I feel the same way.
I'm, I could, I could walk away from this to, to, I don't know, something different and
I wouldn't miss it.
If it could pay the bills, I think I would be, depending on what it is, I think I would
be happier.
But I'm good at this.
Good enough.
Yeah.
Let's put it that way.
Of all the things that I can do, I'm the best at this.
Yeah.
That's, you know, this is what I'm best at.
Yeah.
Cause you know, you, there's, there's two camps out there.
It's like, especially the people that start, they start off with hobbies and they're like,
Oh, I'm going to turn this into a business.
Yeah.
And, uh, fucking worst mistake.
Yeah.
And then you've got other people that are like, you don't do, you don't do what you enjoy.
You do what you're good at.
Yeah.
And I'm like, that, that just fucking sucks to think of it that way, but it's not wrong.
It's not wrong.
And it's, it's a little late to give me that advice.
But it's funny.
I was just telling my, my son, he, he can't find anything he's interested in.
So I told him, find something you're good at.
And then that allows you to, to do what you want to do.
And we've told my daughter the same thing.
Yeah.
It makes sense.
I mean, it kind of helps if you enjoy it.
It's easier to enjoy it if you're good at it, but you don't have to be passionate about it.
You just have to get shit done.
True.
That is true.
Will, have we beat this horse to death?
Let's go around.
Yeah.
I mean, this podcast is not all about how to make your life better.
It's just, if you're having rage issues or, or just general discomfort, being a human, you're not alone.
Yeah.
You're definitely not alone.
So, yeah, I guess that's probably going to wrap it up.
We're right at an hour now.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I would say that anybody that's listening to this, if they want to contribute, we've got two different ways to do it.
You can go to AgendaFluid.com slash voicemail, if you want to leave a voicemail, or you can email that email account or address as podcast and AgendaFluid.com, which goes to both of us.
Because we did that four weeks ago when we talked about it.
Yeah.
No, no emails yet.
No, none so far.
Just summaries of the activity, which was nothing.
You got a new dishwasher?
No, I mean, from the email.
Oh.
It's your weekly summary.
Yeah, that's true.
I guess it does go there, doesn't it?
Your weekly WP Mail SMTP summary for AgendaFluid.com.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's the plugin I use in the WordPress to send out emails for whatever.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I reckon that's it.
At some point, we got to come back together with Sam and, I guess, try to have part two of the...
The religion discussion?
The religion discussion, yeah.
He actually shared...
I think he shared it in our group chat, a video of Andrew Heaton, I think, did something that he thought we might find interesting that we probably need to go back and actually watch before we all get together and have part two of that discussion.
All right.
So.
All right.
I guess we're going to end it here, then.
All right.
I mean...
It looks like it says it's uploading.
It's constantly uploading.
Oh, I just...
Maybe I didn't notice it the whole show.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's constantly uploading.
All right, everybody.
I guess we'll be back here in about two weeks unless, you know...
Unless we quit giving a shit.
But maybe we will.
That's the way...
That's the...
Okay.
Maybe that's the title of it.
If we still give a shit in two weeks.
Yeah, if we give a shit in two weeks.