Ep. 377: "The Stravinsky of Toilet Paper"
Hello.
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
Oh, good.
A little sleepy times.
You having sleepy times?
A little bit sleepy times.
Were you up late last night, John?
Yeah, I was.
What were you working on?
Were you having some of your dangerous adventures?
Oh, no.
No dangerous adventures.
No.
No, I was watching a war film before the Friendly Fire podcast.
Oh, wow.
And sometimes I leave that till the last minute before watching.
And so, you know, then it's the middle of the night.
I do think sometimes where I say to myself, you know, really, it's time for going to bed.
Time for going to bed.
And sometimes I'll cheat a little bit.
I'll sneak in one more TV show.
And then sometimes I start a two or three hour movie.
Yeah, yeah.
Time to go to bed often means time to take a quick bath.
Or it might be time for a snack.
Treat yourself.
Time for a snack.
Oh, time for bed and time for a snack.
I remember I had some leftover chicken wings and I said, ha.
Maybe this is a good time to, you know, have some chicken wings and watch a one-hour interview with Stephen Sondheim.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Hey, it's time for bed.
Okay, time to make a roast beef sandwich.
Yeah, for the bath.
You take your desk in there, that'd be nice.
Well, and the thing is, it's all in my head.
It's all part of going to bed, but it's the opposite of going to bed.
It's a process.
But, you know, I do say it's bedtime.
And a voice in my head does recognize that and give an assent, right?
Like, oh, yeah, it is bedtime.
Yeah, I'll acknowledge that.
There's a version of this time that's bed.
Yeah, sure.
Good idea.
So a few weeks ago, I was trying to get my daughter to be able to have a Zoom Zoom.
With the kid across the street.
And so I gave said kid across the street.
I logged into a computer with my information.
And the kid across the street apparently does not need parental supervision for
to use computer devices.
Oh, like closer to a Colton than a Hodgman.
Yeah.
Isn't that kind of the spectrum on the one, at least in the old days?
It used to be over here.
You've got the devices are here.
Use them anytime you want.
Discover your desks, people.
And then over here, you've got the other John, other other John, who says not so fast.
Oh, hey, I'm sorry.
Siri is talking.
I'm sorry.
Hang on.
She's describing what an adjective is.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, somebody must have said the word computer.
I think it was me.
Modifies a noun, right?
Yeah.
Well, she's still going.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, mine's gotten way more talkative lately.
But somewhere in between, so this boy, boy, it's a boy.
Oh, no, it's a young lady.
It's a lady across the street, a young lady, and she has at liberty device access.
Is that correct?
Apparently so.
So what that meant was the next day after they had, I guess it was a FaceTime, some kind of time.
Yeah.
The next day, starting at 7 in the morning, the darling little girl across the street started to try to connect with her via FaceTime.
But it was on my device because she went through – because my darling little daughter doesn't have her own device.
And in the style of a nine-year-old, she just relentlessly tried to initiate a FaceTime call –
Uh, 30 times in a row, just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Now this morning I woke up and there are, uh, my phone said that there were 41 texts and I was like 41 texts.
Wow.
What's going on?
I, you know, I must be on some cool thread with a bunch of fun people making some funny jokes.
And it, uh, apparently, uh, the darling children across the street do not, uh,
have any limitations on their ability to make and send photographs.
Now, this was the thing I was the most worried about, is that the children would be sending photographs to one another, because as you know, that can be troubling.
Hmm.
And so anyway, if I understand what you're saying, that may not be the best habit to get into is casual sending of casual photos all the casual time.
That's right.
No casual photos.
It is a slippery slope.
Mm-hmm.
And so there are a lot of photographs.
Some of them have been put through filters.
There are a lot of GIFs.
Yeah, my daughter is very deep in the memes right now.
A lot of memes.
A lot of TikToks.
Oh, there's Pikachu.
I thought I would see him.
Pika Pika.
Oh, also, there's Stewie from Family Guy.
He's yelling at something on his crib.
Not loving that.
A panda bear rolling down a hill.
Any animal crossing?
I don't know what that is, but there's a cat.
It says, I dance, I'm a kitty cat, and I dance.
Did you guys get Carla Zeus from CNN 10?
Is he a lionized figure in your house?
No.
There's a cult amongst my daughter and her friends.
They're obsessed with Carly Zeus, the guy who hosts the CNN 10 news show for kids, and it's kind of started a cult around him.
There's a lot of informality that could lead to some very serious things here, for sure.
Oh, yeah.
I don't want any of that.
So 41 of these, now I've explained to the darling children across the street that Marlo doesn't have her own phone and that they are talking to me when they send this stuff, but it has not sunk in with them.
That's not a good, that's not a great, if we do, except for a moment, this could be a slope that's a tiny bit slippery.
That's not an outstanding precedent.
No, no.
And these are the same.
Her, the darling little girl across the street, her only slightly older brother is the one that used to come into the house and say, hey, Siri, play Old Town Road.
And he would do it.
And I would say, no, Siri, stop.
And darling little boy from across the street, do not play Old Town Road.
Do not do not take over the Siri when you walk in the door.
And he would put his hands in front of his, you know, and nod and look at the floor.
And then he would go to a different room with the other children.
He would say, hey, Siri, play Old Town Road because he I guess at their house, every Siri is unconnected to the other series.
Yeah.
And I would have to come downstairs and say, there's no room in the house that you can play Old Town Road.
And then, you know, then there'd be an appeal.
Why?
Yeah, take your horse somewhere else is what I'd say.
Yeah, there are places in the world that Old Town Road's playing right now, but this isn't one of them.
Yeah.
Anyway, yeah, I don't know how long this long national nightmare will last.
I don't know how long...
But, you know, these kids haven't been able to see each other.
That's the problem.
They're desperate to have contact with one another.
They're right across the street from each other.
And I think the darling children across the street...
I think that their lovely parents are a little bit more like, yeah, let it ride.
You know, the kids can play together.
What the?
Hey.
Yeah.
You know, I want to just say here, all children are darling.
Yeah.
And I do not have a particular breed of dog in this fight.
But with that said, I'm very fortunate with the darling child that I have because this child is not only, I don't know, just compared to other kids, just very easy to deal with.
Not just like a sucker or a simp.
She gives as good as she gets, but she's not wild.
Yeah.
And there are beloved, darling children who are some combination of very free range, as in like, you know, you really can just go, if you just want to look at that YouTube for kids for 14 hours, that's okay.
But they can also be, especially some of the boys, can be a little bit rambunctious.
oh yeah and i why am i saying this i'm saying this because well first of all i'm aware that like that combination can be very funny and will lead to me walking into my kid's room to plug in a device or something and hearing where her devices are just buzzing constantly with the rambunctiousness um but i guess what i'm saying again weird flex but i'm i'm glad i'm with a less rambunctious darling child
Yeah.
You don't want to sound like you're bagging on somebody's kid, but you know there is a three-year-old boy that is just about to make his parents lose their mind right this second.
Sure.
I don't need the data.
The curve is being flattened, and it's the curve of sanity.
It's being flattened somewhere by a three-year-old boy who's hitting something with a stick over and over and over.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I passed a couple.
I was out for a constitutional.
And here came a young family.
You know, I think mom and dad were probably in the late 30s, early 40s.
And they had a, I'm going to say a three-year-old and then a six-month-old.
And as I passed them on the street.
You know, these days now, out here at least, we see each other, we go, hey, you know, ha, ha, ha.
Oh, hey there.
Yeah.
You know, so 30 feet apart.
And it makes some comically broad, like vaudeville curving motion.
It's like say, got to go around.
What do you know?
Hey, neighbors, stay healthy.
God bless.
I always say, how's your quarantine going?
You know, how's it going?
I'm my father's son, right?
Yeah, sure.
You'll talk to a mechanic.
Sure I will.
And this guy, you know, gives me this, this just like death look.
And he just slowly.
That is not very Aloha for our quarantine.
He's just shaking his head side to side.
like no my my uh my quarantine is not going good oh i see and the mom had a cheery face and she was like haha okay he's the one who sends the christmas cards in that and he's just and he just kept shaking his head and he was not being funny oh no was he giving you a little bit of a sort of vote you let me die it was a truly a cry for help oh no he was saying no like
He like like like the prisoners of war flipping a bird kind of situation.
He was just looking out into the world, hoping that someone would get it.
And because I was with a child now, I never had a three year old and a six month old at the same time.
And I and I never was quarantined with them in a global pandemic.
Your idea to have two kids, honey.
And this was your idea.
This was, Oh, two kids.
It'll be great.
I'll take them to yoga.
Oh, I saw him.
I saw him with the drinking problem.
I saw their marriage ending.
I saw the whole future of this, this person's life, you know, but no, but I also saw like,
I saw that something in him was dead forever.
Maybe he sticks it out.
Maybe they live happily ever after.
He might have been right on the edge three weeks ago.
He was so broken.
He used to be able to travel and get a little break.
Well, the kids would go somewhere to a babysitter.
They would have play dates.
There was some other thing, something else.
He could go to work, right?
He could go to a sports ball game.
He could go meet his friends at night.
anything other than what he was doing which is this and i just felt like oh boy oh we weren't we weren't made for this this house was not made for this all of the arrangements i'm speaking here for this poor couple that i've never seen but i think in a lot of cases uh i think we might have talked about this here last time there's that i i do have that sense of like we're living in the house that we used to live in i mean it's always been the same house we've been in the same place for years and years decades
And, um, but at the same time, like it was never designed to be used like this any more than like, you know, okay.
So say you got the long winters coming through town and maybe, you know, uh, Chris is going to cut Michael's hair in the kitchen and it's going to go all over the floor, but then they leave in a couple of days and you've made some, you've made some friends.
Yeah.
You got your friends you made along the way.
Friends.
Yes.
Or my friends are going to go to Burning Man and they'll hang out for a while and they'll leave some of their dust.
It's not dust.
It's playa.
They'll leave some playa stuff here.
That's mine to clean up now, but they do leave.
This is very, John, I think what you're getting at partly is we know this is awkward and uncomfortable, but it's all so indeterminate.
There's no sense that this is going to go the other way soon.
No, no.
The darling kids across the street might send me now 41 texts every morning between 7 and 8 a.m.
This is good.
What if this is the time when things still seem normal?
I know.
I know.
Isn't that the thing?
I'm so tired of optimism.
I'm so, I mean, just really quick and passing the stuff that we're hearing coming from what is nominally the top.
The optimism is so dumb.
Please stop being optimistic about the drugs that don't work.
Please stop being optimistic about how soon everybody's going to be able to fly strongly.
Please stop all of that optimism.
Let's be crazy pessimistic for at least one more month.
That's the only way it's going to work.
I am covered in Jesus' blood, so I don't have the same problem.
I heard about that, John.
The lady's covered in Jesus' blood, and that's why she's okay to go to church, right?
She's fine to go to church and go out into the world.
Do you think she brought a towel or something to sit on?
No.
She's protected all around.
It's like a carry situation.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, well, so I looked out the window this morning.
Well, wait.
Let me back up.
the first thing i experienced this morning now this i'm talking as a guy that went to sleep at five in the morning and i knew i knew that we this show was coming it was on the horizon i knew it i knew it i made a roast beef sandwich at bedtime i knew everything we turned our keys last night you knew this was coming down the lane we did and i was and i was watching a movie and i was like as soon as this movie is over you were going right to sleep but that's not what happened just because bedtime doesn't mean you go to bed john no
I was even in bed.
Bedtime is a serving suggestion.
That's just a picture on the Stouffer's box.
I was doing the thing that they say don't do, which is using the bed for something other than sleep or sex.
I was using it for other things.
Like a tall ship or something?
No, I was looking at things on the internet.
I was looking at things.
Yeah, Gen X and their phones.
Oh, man.
Are you kidding me?
Kicking them off.
So the first thing I hear this morning is boots on the roof.
Okay.
Tevye is up there playing the violin.
And I search my mind, I search my memory for some comment that was made offhand sometime in the last two weeks to the effect that, oh, by the way, the guys are coming to clean the something, something, something.
The communication here in the quarantine house is pretty good.
But the homeowner here will hire people to come.
And those people often get scheduled at times where my reaction is, what?
What?
Why would you schedule...
Someone to come do that at, say, 7 o'clock on a Friday night.
I see.
That seems like a weird time.
Yes, yes, yes.
Now, I totally understand what you're saying.
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
There's some kinds of things where there's been, like, I feel like there's a way overabundance of communication about, like, what will our side dish be tonight?
We've had a lot of clarity on what that will be.
But you can still – it's not – two things can be true at the same time.
There can also be very, very large things that we're not really –
consulting each other on let alone you know discussing right and like an exercise bike i had to make anyway oh congratulations let's come back to that so anyway boots on the roof and i'm but you're trying to sleep john went to john john had bedtime officially at 5 a.m and now there's a fiddler up there every but no not everyone can accommodate the guy that doesn't know when bedtime is you know i know i know well enough not to be uh
You know, not to do what my sister would do, which is, you know, scream, I'm trying to sleep.
And then everybody's like, yeah, but you didn't go to sleep until five in the morning.
What are we supposed to do about that?
I know not to do that.
Because Merlin, I deserve, I deserve unenjoyment.
I deserve unenjoyment.
You deserve... It's the... How does that fit into your velton shong, if you'll forgive my saying?
Is it something where you're like, you're kind of always waiting for the punishment you know you deserve?
It's just like, anytime something happens that's... You tell me.
When it comes along, you say, oh, Tevye's up there.
Yaddle, daddle, daddle.
If he was a rich man...
Yes.
And you're down here.
You went at bedtime at 5 a.m.
and you say, you know what?
That's on me.
Is that what you say?
What do you think?
What do you think?
The way that I was raised, I think that it was imparted to me.
And, you know, when I wasn't raised in a household where people were like yelling at you or putting their cigarettes out on you or anything like that.
But, yeah, we've talked a lot on this show about the fact that there were some high expectations of me when I was young that I couldn't meet or didn't meet.
Eventually stopped trying to me.
But what that left with me from a young age was the sense that if there was something wrong, it was probably me.
I was the thing that was wrong in the equation, because if it weren't for the fact that I hadn't done my homework, everything would be fine.
I think a lot of children of divorce feel that, even if they never say it.
They feel like, it's not even specifically that they broke up because of me, but because that might just be the best evidence out there that I'm a bad seed, and whatever it is I'm doing or not doing is causing pain and rifts in all the people around me.
Yeah, that's it.
And...
And then when I got to be a young person and having relationships with people, let me tell you, my early girlfriends and mid-period girlfriends and later girlfriends all were very clear that the problem was me.
There was no mincing of words.
There really wasn't.
And not a ton of taking some sort of combined responsibility.
It was just like, if you didn't do that, then...
Everything would be fine or, you know, like it was I was the problem.
Right.
And I had and I had come up believing that I was the problem.
So I accepted that diagnosis for the most part.
Now, when my parents gave me that diagnosis and when I.
Later on, lady friends gave me that diagnosis.
It did not inspire me to change.
Let me be clear.
I just felt terrible.
And that seems like the worst possible outcome.
Well, you know, worse, worse.
We don't know worse.
And so for a long time, I labored without having analyzed this.
This was all happening.
uh, below the, you know, below the level of the surface.
And it was a, it was a long, long process of just in just recent years of kind of even just bringing this to the surface, like, Oh wait, I assume that I'm the problem in almost any situation.
So, so I get taken advantage of not because, you know, I don't get duped, but if, if, you know, if a contractor is,
says, well, we've been waiting on the SKU code from you.
And I go, I don't know what a SKU code is.
Did you say something about a SKU code?
They're like, yeah, well, you're supposed to give us the SKU code.
There's something already working in me that's like, fuck, you did it again.
You didn't get them the SKU code.
Well, there it is.
Good work.
You've got to adjust the Johnson ride.
And so I don't push back, not because of timidity or because – but I just –
I just go into every situation feeling like if somebody else is having a problem, if the contractor doesn't have the SKU code, if the gas station attendant is, you know, spilled coffee in his lap and turns to me in anger, I go, yeah, well, I'm sorry about, you know, like, uh, because I never quite knew what I had done wrong in the first place.
Right.
It's not that I assume that I'm, that I did it.
It's not just that I assume that it's my fault.
but that it's also very familiar for me to not know what anybody's talking about.
Skew code?
What?
Oh, there was a homework assignment due tomorrow?
I didn't know about it.
I don't remember.
I didn't even know I was in school anymore.
Did you say there was going to be somebody on the roof tomorrow?
Was this on the calendar?
I feel like this wasn't on the calendar.
Did it?
You know, me walking in here, you spilled the coffee, I guess.
I wasn't sure how else to open the door.
And so all of that, well, years ago, about 20 years ago,
It's probably been about 20 years.
Maybe, yeah, something like that.
I was going through a phase where I was toilet papering all my friends' houses.
Mm-hmm.
It was a fun time.
Yeah.
You know, nobody got hurt, really.
But I was doing it in the middle of the night.
I needed a little bit of danger.
I wasn't getting enough danger at the time.
Because, you know, I had a steady girlfriend.
I had my band.
Maybe it was early Long Winter's Day, so not quite 20 years ago.
But, you know, that's been about 20 years now.
Mm-hmm.
Anyway, I was toilet paper in Josh Rosenfeld's house, owner of Barsouk Records, as you know.
I was toilet papering Mike Squires' house.
I was toilet papering a bunch of – and I would go out late at night and I would toilet paper in the house.
Now, anybody that's listening that doesn't know what that means, it just means that you take – and nowadays it would be an insane waste of this precious commodity.
But back then we had all the toilet paper in the world.
And you go out in the middle of the night and you throw rolls of toilet paper way up high in the trees –
And then the roll of toilet paper bounces down through all the branches, if you throw it right, if you know what you're doing.
Get a little flip and a spin to it, and it gets some velocity.
Yeah, it bounces around and pachinkos down the tree.
That's right.
And now they get toilet paper in the tree.
Yeah, and you have to create a tail situation.
If you put that backspin on, it's unrolling as it flies.
So you get not only pachinko down through the tree and you get the pachinko,
toilet paper all in the tree, but then it leaves a long streamer that's kind of lightly blowing in the wind.
It's beautiful when you put it that way.
It's really beautiful.
Now if you throw between
five and 15 rolls of toilet paper in a person's yard and you do the bushes and you really, you know, you do a thorough job.
Oh, it's hilarious.
And hilarious sometimes for weeks because no way to get that toilet paper out of there.
And it's going to be up there until it rains and then it's like little globs.
Oh, it's truly, I haven't done it in years, but just talking about it.
Yeah.
Is it tickling your danger side just a little bit?
You know, I wrote a column in my high school newspaper, The Zephyr,
Um, about, uh, about toilet papering and, um, and it, it's, it kicked off a rash of, it kicked off a war of toilet papering at my school that spread citywide.
Oh my goodness.
And for, for about six months in 1985, um,
And anywhere you drove in Anchorage, there was toilet paper in the highest trees, wafting in the breezes, in the cold, in the winter, frozen toilet paper.
And it was –
in some ways, the proudest I've ever been.
I created a nightmare for every adult person in all of Anchorage, Alaska.
Using art.
It was beautiful.
You made art that caused disruption.
You're like Stravinsky of toilet paper.
And I was so gifted at it.
And of course, what that meant was other kids
unleashed their wrath upon me and my house to the extent that my mom had PTSD for about 15 years because there were kids toilet paper in your house, sometimes four times a night.
That's horrible.
All across the city.
You know, people that didn't even know me.
You made yourself, you made yourself and your family a target.
I did.
I did.
Uh, but it didn't because I was out toilet papering other, other kids' houses and
My mom, my mom's, my mom bought a flashlight that shot mace and she would sit in the bushes.
She's like a sniper all night long.
And she said one time some kids came and, you know, parked around the corner and got out and, you know, started running into her yard.
And then a car came and they were like car and they all ran under the bush she was under.
Oh boy.
And she's under there and she's like,
You know, all of a sudden I'm under this bush and there's like five teenage boys.
And one of them says, hey, you guys, there's somebody else under here.
Oh, boy.
And, you know, it's all completely dark.
And the kid goes, hey, man.
Hey, buddy.
And like reaches out to touch her.
And she turns on her...
10,000 candle power mace flashlight right in their faces.
Wait, she unloads it on them?
She didn't mace them.
She just turned on the, you know, it was some, it was an enormous.
That's going to hurt.
That's going to really hurt your eyes.
And they went screaming out of there and, you know, around the corner.
And she was like, I'm confident they never came back.
Wow.
But she couldn't, you know, there were kids on the roof.
Some kids covered my car in sardines.
I mean, there was a lot going on.
This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you by Squarespace.
You'll learn more about Squarespace right now by visiting squarespace.com slash super train.
Oh, there's so many things you can do with Squarespace.
But it really all comes down to making a website, a beautiful website of your own on the global internet.
And what can you do there?
Yeah, better question is what can't you do?
You make a beautiful website to turn your cool idea into your new home on the web.
You can showcase whatever your work is.
You can have a blog or publish other kinds of content.
You can have galleries.
You can even sell products and services of all kinds right from your very own Squarespace site.
You can promote your physical or online business.
You can even announce an upcoming event or a special project.
All this and so much more.
Beautiful, easy drag and drop interface.
And the sites look fantastic.
They do this by giving you beautiful templates that have been created by world-class designers.
Of course, they have that powerful e-commerce functionality to let you sell anything online.
You get the ability to customize the look and feel, the settings, the products, anything you want to change and customize about your site.
That's just a few clicks, really literally a few clicks.
Everything is optimized for mobile right out of the box, and they offer a new way to buy domains.
You can choose from over 200 domain name extensions.
They have analytics that help you grow in real time, built-in search engine optimization, and
free and secure hosting with nothing to patch or upgrade ever.
And of course, they have their 24 by 7 award-winning customer support.
They are encouraging folks to make it.
You make it with Squarespace, and I did.
I have made it with Squarespace, including right now, the Roderick on the Line podcast, which is hosted on Squarespace.
Also, my personal sites, my playlists, all kinds of bric-a-brac.
I put it all up on the Squarespace.
Why would I go anywhere else?
And you know what?
You should do that, too.
So right now, you head out to squarespace.com slash supertrain.
That's going to get you a free trial.
And when you're ready to launch, use the very special offer code supertrain.
That's one word, supertrain.
Save you 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Squarespace.com slash supertrain.
Our thanks to Squarespace.
For supporting Roderick on the Line and all the great shows.
There was a lot going on in 1985.
It was a bad time.
A lot of forking.
One time my mom came out and someone had gone, someone obviously with a very big truck or several trucks, had gone along one of those road construction situations along a highway and had picked up enough cars
flashing light, a sawhorse barricade.
Oh, yeah, like the round flashing, usually yellow light.
A round yellow light, but this is before they were on those orange barrels.
Okay.
Back when they were on sawhorses.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In Florida, you had Bob's barricades.
You'd always see Bob's barricades.
Bob's barricades.
And they had filled our yard from edge to edge.
with sawhorses that were placed as close to one another as they could be all flashing at random, everyone with a light all flashing at random times.
You know, and she's like,
I mean, what makes that hilarious is what are you supposed to do?
How are you going to clean that up?
You know, you can clean other things.
If somebody forks your lawn, you can clean it up.
Forking seems like the easiest.
I've never been forked.
You know, Sweet 16, never been forked.
But I imagine that's pretty easy.
The toilet paper is rough, though, especially if it rains.
That's real rough.
Yeah, the toilet paper is terrible.
Egging is awful.
Oh, yeah.
Forking is easy to clean up.
Forking has the least...
uh forking is is a lot of work to fork somebody's yard first of all and for those listening who don't know that just means buying a like 500 count plastic fork container and going and sticking those forks in the grass of someone's yard so when they look out in the morning the whole yard is covered
with forks sticking out like it's a wedding cake.
The thing is, that's too labor-intensive.
You know, you want to get in and get out.
And take a while.
I mean, it seems to me that to really fork, especially in a satisfying pattern in the dark, would be difficult and time-consuming compared to a bunch of people in the pickup trucks throwing toilet paper.
And I feel like forking is a thing you do when there's like 15 of you and there's girls and you guys are like, ha-ha, I know, let's go fork his lawn.
And it's fun and you're making a lot of noise.
The sardines actually were super fucked up because they're very oily and you cannot get that oil off.
They're hose resistant.
You can't get it off.
And especially in winter, you can't just go out there and wash your car.
That ended up being the best of all the pranks.
But anyway, this time, like 15, 20 years ago, I was toilet paper at my friend's house.
It had been decades since I'd done it.
It was just me at night having fun.
But what the problem was was they came out – there's just really nothing better if you are a terrible person like I am to see your friends.
You're in the process of toilet papering their houses and you see them come home.
From wherever they are.
And you get to watch them.
You're like out in a bush somewhere.
You're like a pyro.
You like to stay and watch.
And then you see them get out of the car and that look of like, what?
And then they have to come out and take it all down and they're just like cursing and so forth.
Pretty hilarious.
Pretty great.
One time I went to my friend Kevin's house.
I rang his doorbell.
I was like, hey, come with us.
You know, we're going toilet papering.
And he was like, ah, my mom made me stay home.
I was like, well, you know, we're running out.
Can we borrow something?
He was like, yeah, totally.
Just a second.
And he went in and he came out with some big jumbo size 20 rolls of toilet paper.
He was like, here you guys go.
You know, get them for me, will you?
And I was like, you got it, mister.
And he shut the door and we immediately started toilet papering his house.
We put all 20 rolls.
Oh, no.
All 20 rolls, just right in his own trees.
Oh, dear.
I mean, this is great stuff.
This is great pranking.
Anyway, I'm doing this to my friends.
It's 2002.
But I'm going back night after night.
Chasing that dragon.
So they take it down, and then I go back and I do it again.
But the thing about it is, at this point, you know, I'm 30.
334 years old.
So are my friends.
No one knows.
No one expects this and they have no context for it.
And so they don't think,
What everybody in Anchorage thought immediately was like Roderick.
Like for two years afterwards, I had stopped toilet papering and everyone in Anchorage thought I was still doing it and I got in trouble all the time.
Copycats.
Yeah, people grabbed me by the shirt and shake me, called into the office.
You know, my mom just hated me.
She hated me.
And I was like, I'm not doing it.
I'm not doing it.
I got a girlfriend now.
And they were like, I know it was you.
I know it was you, Fredo.
Likely story.
Yeah.
So what I did not realize was that in the case of Josh Rosenfeld, Josh had recently bought a house and he was what they – and then it sounded less bad.
like truly awful than it does now.
It still sounded awful, but he was a gentrifier.
He were, they were the first white family to move in to a neighborhood that had, you know, that was, that had been a black neighborhood since the fifties.
Okay.
And in the, and they had, you know, they bought kind of the nicest house on the block and it fixed it up like the classic gentrifier move.
And they, and they were, you know, they believe that they were on good terms with all their neighbors and they, you know, hello neighbor type of relationship with people.
And they were young, right?
They're in their late twenties.
They started getting toilet paper.
Well, apparently growing, growing up where they did in Bellingham, no one ever toilet papered.
They were too polite or they were too nice.
They were covered in Jesus's blood for whatever reason they weren't.
It was, this was not something in their experience.
And Josh thought that he was being targeted for,
By neighborhood toughs who were toilet papering him to communicate a get out sort of thing.
So...
for however long I did this to them.
And, you know, it's lasted.
We'll just be clear, though.
It was you doing it.
Oh, yes.
No question.
You never saw anybody else's work there.
It was your handiwork.
No.
Also, neighborhood toughs, if they are communicating get out, do not toilet paper.
I think I say that on pretty good authority.
Toilet papering someone's house is some dumb suburban kid.
It's more like a rock through the window kind of thing.
Or yeah, or just like stand there on the sidewalk and go get out when you walk by, you know, like their neighborhood toughs aren't shy, right?
They're not like tee hee about it.
Um, you know, and then this is Washington, right?
So they would just give you an icy stare when you said, hi neighbor, that would be, that's plenty.
uh of get out you know but josh didn't this is the uh seattle freeze the seattle freeze where you get some we talked about this last week this is where you get people it's not that people are unkind to you but you like may not make close friends quickly there's a friendliness that does not extend to like hey let's you know share a covered dish yeah exactly and if you are somebody who's like hey neighbor and the neighbor
In the Seattle freeze would be the neighbor would say, hey, and then you would never, ever like you're never going to walk through the fence into anybody's yard.
Right.
Hey, neighbor.
It's all like over the fence.
That's a good way to put it.
That's actually a really good way to put it.
Yeah.
If the neighbor doesn't want you there, you know, like Seattle Freeze would not allow you to just stand there and stare like aggressively.
Like that's the opposite of Seattle.
Like some kind of a Michael Myers just on the sidewalk across the street just staring at you.
Anyway, what I didn't realize was that
Uh, that Josh in his home was cowering.
Oh no.
Peering out through the, through the blinds, terrified that Emily being the strong one.
Is that the idea?
Yeah, I think so.
Jeez.
Uh, but they didn't have, they didn't realize that this is a dumb, uh, this is a, like a frat boy prank.
They, um, and actually Colin Malloy one time, uh, called me a frat boy.
Because I toilet papered his house.
That's after he called you gauche.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
A long time after he called me gauche.
Yeah.
He said, you're such a frat boy.
Because you had taken it from his well-stocked bathroom and then gone straight outside and taken care of business.
I did.
That's right.
And this was after, I think he called me a frat boy because I tried to write, tried to draw a penis on Chris Wallace's face after he passed out at a party.
Yeah.
And all of the indie girls.
That's not very Bellingham of you.
All of the indie girls in their cardigan sweaters were like around him going, no, don't you dare.
And I was like, what?
He passed out at a party.
Like, that's a dumb thing.
You can't get away with that.
You get a penis drawn on you.
Yeah.
That's a blah.
And there were people that people were just like horrified at it.
And I was like, you guys never clearly did not ever have drinking problems because this is what happens.
You know, this is how you learn.
Don't pass out at a party.
Oh, I see.
Colin said, you're such a frat boy.
And I was like, oh.
And then I went into his bathroom and took his toilet paper to his house to show him just exactly what a frat boy I am.
You want a frat boy?
I'll give you a frat boy.
Anyway, I was toilet papering Mike Squires' house during this same period.
Mike, of course, recognized it as a prank, but he was furious at it.
He had a lot of trees.
That's one thing.
Anyway, a long time later, we're at a party.
We're standing around.
And Squire's just apropos of, you know, just making conversation.
He's like, God, I was getting toilet paper every other night for like two weeks.
And Josh brightens up and is like, you too?
I was getting toilet paper all the time.
And they both sit there and compare their toilet paper nightmares.
And then they gradually...
You can just see the gears turning.
They live very far from one another in Seattle.
And they're like, what is the common denominator between us that we both would be getting toilet papered all the time during the same period?
Of the last two weeks.
And, you know, it's just the three of us standing there.
Yeah.
With drinks in our hands.
Ew.
And they gradually turn and look at me.
And, you know, I'm pretty good stone face.
Mm-hmm.
But I'm having absolutely a peak moment here.
These are the times of my life.
This is what you've been training for.
It really was.
Where you would just do like a hairy lime, sort of like a nod, maybe raise a glass.
That's right.
Just like, tink.
And hearing the fact that Josh, because he had, you know, he'd been telling Mike how traumatized he was.
And Mike had been like, you know, it had been really agitating him too.
And hearing that this was not fun for them, it took away some of the joy.
Mm-hmm.
I was like, oh, this is, I didn't mean that.
I didn't mean to create an environment of, you know, of terror in the home.
I was just having some fun.
Just toilet paper.
I mean, just toilet paper.
It's not killing anybody.
But then watching, just being able to stand there for the 20 odd seconds, it took the two of them to just both at the same time turn and put it all together.
The only common denominator between us is John and,
And John is capable of this.
Oh, my God.
Your adrenaline must have been through the roof.
Oh, and I was so excited.
And then when it dawned on them and they looked at me and I kind of did a little tip of the champagne glass.
And then the spell was broken.
Of course, I had to run.
And so I started running.
Mike's a Marine.
He is.
I ran out the door.
I ran and I had, you know, I had to jump off the porch, you know, five steps or whatever.
Mike right on my heels.
Josh right on his heels.
That John Roderick's got himself in a dilly of a pickle.
Throwing his heart at you.
We run around the house several times.
There are lots of people at this party.
And people are spilling their drinks, and I'm bobbing and weaving through the party.
And I'm like, it was just a joke.
And he's like, I'm going to murder you.
You know, and he's very strong, Mike.
Yes.
But, you know, he's like – and he's fast, but he's not – you know, I would keep ahead of him.
Okay.
And finally, you know, we're all out of breath, and everybody at the whole party now is, you know, all crowded around the windows looking out, wondering what it's going to look like when Squire's –
He like pummels me into the ground.
It'd be great if you could pull like a David Blaine and inside and outside is just covered in toilet paper.
Oh, the whole time.
Exactly.
Look in your pocket.
Ah, it's full of toilet paper.
Toilet paper.
Oh, shit.
I should have.
That would have been the best.
Pick up the phone.
Your mom just called.
Toilet paper.
Anyway, we're like, we're all standing there panting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I said, you know, look, if it makes any difference...
Like, I didn't enjoy it.
It was just, I felt a responsibility.
I didn't enjoy it.
It was, you know, I was trying to.
It's kind of an odd thing to say.
I don't know what story I was trying to tell.
You're not allowed to be mad at me because I didn't enjoy it, but I kept doing it.
I didn't enjoy it.
I felt it was a responsibility.
You consider it some kind of like noblesse oblige, some kind of grudging obligation.
It was just like throwing a dick on Chris Wallace's face.
It was something that needed to happen.
It was something that I felt obligated.
Yeah.
And Squires, in his inimitable way, said, You deserve unenjoyment!
And what was your response?
Well, and then that was the greatest thing I'd ever heard, right?
You deserve unenjoyment.
You deserve unenjoyment is a very good line.
And so I...
Because Squires, I think is – I think Sean Nelson is where we got what had happened was.
Is that a Sean?
It came out of a conversation with Sean.
You know, like this is before memes, right, when we had to make our own memes.
But Squires had the I should have knew.
I should have knew.
Like that was one –
that came out of conversation with Squires.
You know, he was a Marine.
He is a Marine.
Super, he is a Marine.
So a lot of good coinages.
It's against somebody's pronouns wrong, calling a Marine retired.
Sir.
But I deserve an enjoyment became a thing that I took away and made my private thing.
It was less a meme, because Squires will still tell me that I deserve an enjoyment,
But I think about it all the time in reference to this feeling that if there are boots on the roof at 7 in the morning and I went to bed at 5, who am I going to complain to?
Because I deserve unenjoyment.
Oh, John.
I deserve unenjoyment.
You deserve unenjoyment because you're the source of so much pain already.
That's right because I did toilet paper their houses.
I did try.
I tried unsuccessfully to draw a dick on Chris Wallace's face.
But all of the things that I do in the world, even the things that aren't directly related, create conditions in which I deserve unenjoyment, even if I didn't do anything this particular time.
Can I mention something here?
Because you've really provoked a response here in me.
This is not a nightmare scenario or, you know, this is not the nightmare scenario it used to be.
But when you describe that thing,
My favorite part of that story is that you get the three of you are in this little circle.
One of you talks about getting toilet papered.
The other one talks about getting toilet papered.
This 20 seconds of dawning, like that liminal space between the before times and the after times before you're about to get clocked.
And it's, like, it reminds me of, like, I'm not proud of this, but I'm reminded of that scene in Eight and a Half where Marcello Mastriani is having this, like, fantasy sequence where, like, every woman in his life appears.
And then they're all, like, kind of comparing notes on him.
Yeah.
And you got the, what's the name, the Yorona or whatever her name is, like, the Beach Lady and everybody.
It's such a good movie.
But then he's in his, like, towel and his hat and his glasses and he takes out a whip.
And he's like, all right, get back, get back.
Because like my nightmare scenario is what you're describing, but it's all the women I've disappointed in.
That's certainly gonna include the exes, but that moment for me, that Josh and Mike moment for me is them all going, oh, I wasn't the only one that's had to deal with this.
And be like, yeah.
And then that could be like a 90 minute sesh where I'm just gonna like learn a lot.
And like, I'm not gonna say I'm gonna get a whip because I'm pretty woke,
But the getting called out in the liminal 20 seconds problem is something where like that is a that is a world of dread for me.
A world of dread or a world that you secretly... Yeah, I crave the relief, probably.
The sweet release of death.
To just see the cumulative logarithmic disappointment of so many people where I could have been a better person.
I could have just been a slightly, slightly better person and not just a homemade asshole with so many people in my life.
Not you, but me.
That's me.
It's like, oh, guess what?
You think you're a nice guy?
I'll tell you what.
Let me bring up our first witness.
It's going to be Sherry Edwards, the girl you kissed at the fire drill in second grade.
You could have been a lot nicer to her.
Oh, Sherry.
Sherry Edwards.
She had a face like a pie.
She liked you.
I liked her, but I could have handled it better.
Yeah.
I have a very undistinguished record with other people, especially women.
Oh, no, no.
It's hard.
But for you, that was – let's say it's the same thing.
But do you see that it's sort of similar in that sense of like, oh, this is –
Yeah, but, you know, those guys, you know, I would, I would, I would, I would put, I would.
You're proud to disappoint them.
Oh, sure.
I would stick matches in their toes.
I would hot box them.
I would, you know, I'd fart in an elevator and be like, see you later.
No, those guys deserve unenjoyment as much as I do.
Okay, fair.
Yeah.
But no, no, no.
Like the disappointing the ladies in your life, particularly where it feels like, oh, that could have been a fork in the road where a better life was waiting.
Or even like I think about like the teachers who said things and, you know, of course, now I'm Sisyphus and this is my rock forever is that like Syracuse's kids don't want to learn the keyboard commands for Photoshop, even though they get a lot faster.
My kid wants zero advice from me.
You know, all those kinds of things where it's like all those people who tried to help me.
Right.
So like the teachers, the women, the men, the everybody, but everybody who tried to go, you know what?
Yeah, you got good things going on, but, you know, pump the brakes, man.
Like you don't need to be quite this way.
Like you think this is making you look this way, but it's actually making you seem this way.
And it's not a good look.
Just FYI, I'm telling you as a friend, this is not a power thing.
And like all along the way, I was all, you know, I could not be dissuaded from being how I was.
And it took a lot of, I don't know, I'm not saying I'm great at it now, but at least I'm aware that I suck at it.
And it makes me very ashamed of how I behaved in the past.
I mean, a classic example, and I'm not talking about like horrible things, I hope, but I am talking about like my, the classic move of,
of like being an asshole until they broke up with me and i'd be like whatever like i invented that that was me classic oh classic classic move and that's why i should get a cool hat and a bullwhip maybe go to a spa fly a kite that's actually me i i actually had a thing where uh two girlfriends
I was sitting at home.
I was living in this house only for a few months.
It was the house that I was living in right before I didn't have a house anymore, during the period when I lived for a while without any place, without any home.
Are you talking about recently?
No, no, no.
Oh, but this is back around living in a van?
Yeah, this is before I stopped drinking.
1994.
OK, cool.
All right.
But I was, you know, I had I had lady friends, but I had lost my job and was running out of money.
And I was living in a house with a girl I was seeing who had been the manager of the coffee shop where I had dated the manager.
You know, the manager would turn over.
There'd be a new manager.
She'd be the manager for a while.
And it seemed like I always managed to be the
be the, uh, boyfriend of the manager because I was at the coffee shop all the time.
It was very charming and you know, I'm very attracted to management.
You know, and this was during the period when I had there was like a box of total that was behind the counter because a prior manager who was my girlfriend decided that I didn't get enough nutrition.
And so she bought a box of total.
And every time I would come in and say like, hey, what's up?
She would say, you know, sit down right now and have a bowl of cereal.
And I would go, oh, man.
you know gotta be cramping my and she's like eat a bowl of cereal yeah people have cared for me you know over the years uh but anyway so why did they care for us but they did we survived well did they oh yeah they're fine i mean are you kidding me they're all running i read the letters in the cd for your first album yeah
They all went on to great success.
They all got briefcases and stuff now.
I still love Total to this day.
Is that right?
But I was living in this house with this gal, and it was clear that I was not thriving.
But I gave the appearance of thriving even as the world was burning down around me.
Do you feel like other people got that?
You seem like you were doing better than you were.
Oh, well, even now I seem like I'm doing better than I was.
But, yeah, my whole life people have felt like, hey, he's got the world by the tail.
And I was like, I'm living in a van.
But, you know, it's like a cool van.
It sounds fun or, you know, whatever.
So, anyway, I'm sitting in the house and I'm reading this magazine.
And the door opens.
And it's the gal that I'm living with.
And my most recent ex-girlfriend prior.
And they walk in.
That's an eight and a half type situation.
And my most recent girlfriend is very much an alpha.
My most recent ex-girlfriend, very alpha.
She's tall.
She's lean.
She's got eyes the color of White Walker.
Oh, boy.
But black, very short hair, dyed black.
Pics, please.
Very tall.
Mm-hmm.
It was during the era when girls wore very red lipstick.
Very red, very red lipstick.
You're killing me.
You're killing me.
But the girl I was dating at the time, who I was living with, was small.
Your most recent future ex-girlfriend.
Yeah.
She was small.
She was also wearing bright red lipstick.
But she had long red hair.
And not an alpha.
She was much more of, you know, sort of a passive character.
Anyway, they come in.
And they're like, we wanted to talk to you.
Oh, boy.
And I was like, oh, all right.
You know, got all this confidence, right?
But zero confidence.
And it turns out they're both drunk.
Oh.
They went out.
They're drunk.
This is not going to end with them making out, is it?
This is what they choose to do is to come see me.
Now they got a project.
Now what –
And so what we do, we sit there in this room, and because I assume that I deserve on enjoyment, I'm waiting for them to attack me.
And the girl that I'm seeing at the time starts to do tumbling exercises.
Drunk?
Drunk.
She's doing cartwheels.
In the house, and she's doing, you know, tumbling, for lack of a better term.
Like floor exercises.
Yeah.
While my immediate prior girlfriend stands there with a smirk on her face, basically saying, like, what are you going to do?
And what I did was nothing, because I believed that this was some kind of attack, right?
that they were here to attack me.
And if I did something, I was going to get attacked.
And eventually they were like, well, anyway, see ya.
And they left.
And it was, you know, it's haunted me for 30 years.
It sounds like you actually, all things considered, got off pretty lucky.
25.
I did.
That could have been way worse.
There could have been more of them, more red lipstick, more floor exercises and smirks.
And maybe even a double alpha to run the whole thing.
But who knows what they really had in store.
It's a little bit like a Manson thing, where the Manson family went to the wrong house.
They thought they were going to Terry Milcher's house.
And that situation, I mean, it's not quite that dire.
You probably didn't have a squeaky foam or Leslie Van Houten.
With that said, that could have gone a lot worse, dude.
Or could have gone a lot better.
Well, sure.
The thing is that the alpha girl said to me at a different time,
Because she did see through some of the confidence and she said, you know, this whole world that you have constructed, you could actually pull it off.
If you just had 10% more, if you were just 10% more on your game, like if you just had 10% more belief that in yourself, but you can't pull it off because you,
You don't because when the chips are down in the moment, you flinch.
And so this whole world that you think you live in and the whole thing that you've constructed where everybody is just like waiting for you to move.
Yeah.
It ends up being what it is, which is a complete fucking disaster all the time because of that 10%.
And I was like, why are you telling me this?
You're being confronted by two of your most recent, maybe current emotional creditors.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I'm not trying to be cute.
I mean, it's when people can come to you and say an honest thing, and in that case, find common cause in a way that you are, that's caused them difficulty and pain.
And then that gets presented to you as like, well, here's the thing.
It's almost a little bit like a, what's that term?
Yeah.
You know, we tell somebody they're drunk.
What's that called?
Oh, one of those.
Confrontation.
Opening.
Disruption.
Whatchamacallit?
It's a conformational.
What's it called?
It's a crampus.
It's when the confrontation and it's called... We're having an absolutionist.
No one's going to leave the room.
An aberration.
It's a con...
It's a frizz-frazz.
Fuck me gently.
What are they called?
Confrontation.
What?
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
It's not a confrontation.
It's taking you to task.
An opening.
It's an opening.
It's where they say it's a quickening.
Yeah, like a Highlander.
It's like the quickening.
There could be only one.
We're having a confrontation.
We're having a blame.
We're going to have a intervention.
Intervention.
Intervention.
Intervention.
Intervention.
It's like an intervention a little bit because your emotional creditors are there and they're like, you know, Judge Judy tapping the watch like chop chop.
What are we doing here?
Here's what you did to me.
Here's what you're doing to you, Johnny.
Most of the time during an intervention, one of the people is not doing tumbling exercises.
Now you're getting into Fellini territory.
And typically, at an intervention, the other people shouldn't be drunk.
It was very Fellini.
And reapplying lipstick.
And they brought some kind of a grotesque little person with them.
Oh, no.
It's even better because one of our roommates...
One of our roommates was a witch.
She was a Wiccan witch.
A Wiccan!
And she was incredibly good... Was she a cursing witch?
I don't know what that is, but she was... Like putting a curse on people.
Well, so here's the thing.
This is so long ago, but her boyfriend...
was somebody that had like big plates in his ears, you know, and they were like long, long, long, modern primitive.
They were modern primitives, but she was a witch and she was really good at knitting and she had knitted.
She had knitted a me and she had knitted a Akira.
She had knitted an Ellen.
She had knitted all of us.
And there were, and they were,
Probably 16 inches tall and they looked just like us and she had put little bits.
She had woven little bits of string that she'd found in like little pieces of thread from our clothes and whatnot.
She'd woven into the dolls.
and because and it wasn't evil she was trying to do these were like these were little beings you know she had made these out of love or whatever but they've been in spirited it's not that you're trying to do like some kind of i don't know if we say voodoo anymore but it's not like you're trying to make a doll you put pins in in a cartoon this is more of a spirit thing you're uh you're filling this with a certain almost like a totoro tree you're putting you're putting some kind of life into this and the strings and the hairs
The pubes and the poops and the dingleberries all get made into the Knitted John.
Or what's her name?
Beverly?
What was the other one?
Akira.
You know somebody named Akira?
Not Akira.
Akira.
Oh.
Just a straight Akira.
Oh, Akira, like somebody who played bass in Black Flag.
Okay.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
So anyway, we were being observed by dolls that had our spirits in them.
It was a long time ago.
It was the 90s.
People don't understand what it was like.
They have no idea.
They have no idea, John.
No idea.
They think they understand, but they get a lot of it so wrong.
It was like 70s 2.0.
It was a mess.
It made the 60s look like the 50s.
Ah, Jesus.
Singing sister.
I'm telling you.
So were they in a chest or something?
Or did they just sit there all the time?
No, they were sitting up on the, you know, it was an old house.
That's not okay, John.
A house that's since been torn down.
It was like an Addams Family house.
And it had a lot of built-ins that were full of, you know, like research books on body piercing or whatnot.
You know, it was a long time ago.
I would put books up there about trains.
And people would be like, what is this?
You know, why is this book about trains here in our book of photo, in the shelf where we have books of photographs of people that have been hit by trains?
Who moved my medical anomaly tome?
Yeah, there's like all these things of like, you know, giant testicles or whatnot.
These are my piercing needles, not my tattoo needles.
These are my scarification hooks.
Those aren't fish hooks.
So I, I, uh,
I believe I deserve an enjoyment, but two days ago I had an event here in quarantine that was very significant, a very significant event.
Five years ago, I bought a bicycle for my little girl.
And it was a bicycle that looked kind of like a contemporary Schwinn Stingray.
Mm-hmm.
Now, did you have a Stingray?
Mm-mm.
Did you have a Schwinn Stingray?
No, I think I really wanted that Huffy BMX bike, the Santa Fe.
But no, I had a really old, busted-ass, super-heavy bike.
So what is it called?
A Schwinn?
Is that the classic with the basket and it doesn't have the drop handlebars?
It's got the Judy Garland handlebars?
Google Schwinn Stingray.
Schwinn Stingray.
I sure know that name.
Stingray.
Okay.
Does it have the raised handlebars?
Oh, yeah, of course.
Right.
Banana seat.
Banana seat and the tall handlebars.
Yeah, classic.
The chopper handlebars.
Yeah, put a baseball card in there.
So my first bike was a powder blue Schwinn Stingray with a white banana seat.
Oh, man.
It did not have a shifter.
It was just a single speed.
But I absolutely put a card in the back tire.
Yep.
And my mom got it for me when I was five.
It was way too big for me, but it was the 70s, right?
And so she put me on it.
She pushed me down the street a few times.
Then she took off the training wheels and she was like, go.
And she took off the training wheels and every kid in the whole neighborhood was standing there.
While I while she like ran down the street pushing me and then let go.
And I was like, I'm flying, I'm flying.
And I pedaled all the way down to the end of the block and didn't know how to turn and crashed.
And every kid in the neighborhood had a great time with it.
But then I knew how to ride a bike.
Right.
Then I was five years old.
I had my own bike and I could go wherever I wanted.
So I had this vision for my little girl and I bought her this bike.
And, you know, again, it was a little big for her, but not too badly.
She could reach the pedals, you know.
She could bike.
And it had training wheels on it.
But we didn't at the time live in any kind of neighborhood where you could go practice your bike out in the street.
She lived in, you know, her mother lived on a busy street and I lived out at the farm.
So we would put the bikes in the car or in the truck and we would drive out to someplace where there was a bike trail and we would ride.
And she got on the bike and she was great at it.
She picked it up quickly?
Right out of the gate.
That's great.
Riding along.
Wow.
But somewhere in that first few months, something happened where she turned against it.
And before we got the training wheels off, she started to...
uh, she started to exhibit that she was scared of the bike.
And I would say, you know, we were just riding it yesterday and everything was great and we had a wonderful time.
And she was like, and, and I was trying to be a good dad.
And so I, you know, I was like, well, come on, sweetie.
Like, let's get on the bike.
Like when you, when you, when you fall off, you just got to get back on.
And, uh,
All I was doing was making it worse.
And it became a thing.
It became a thing between us.
A thing that I had hoped would never be a thing.
I know exactly the kind of thing you're talking about.
I mean, one thing to learn, I feel like for me, was that one success is not success.
When it comes to something like riding a bike or whatever it is, that fear is going to come back.
It could be riding a horse, whatever.
But that feeling is going to come back several many times.
And you're going to, you actually, you don't, it's like, you know, like Jerry Seinfeld says about trying to,
Breaking up with somebody is like knocking over a Coke machine where you have to rock it for a while.
Do you know what I mean?
It takes several successes.
A single success to us, the dad, is like, you just did it.
You can totally do this.
But for them, don't you think they kind of have to re-succeed for it to take?
And the fear can grow in the oregano.
I think what should have happened next, what would have happened next under normal circumstances was that
She and her friends would go out in the neighborhood in the cul-de-sac and they would ride around and then her friends would get their training wheels off and she would be ready.
But we were living in the city.
We were city people and there was no neighborhood.
There was no group of friends.
Times have changed.
So it wasn't possible that you just, you know, kick your kid out of the house in the morning and say like, go ride your bike.
So bike riding was associated with me.
I was the only one that wanted her to go bike riding.
Her friends didn't have bikes.
No one ever organized a thing with the kids riding bikes.
And so it began this five years, basically, four years, I guess, where the bike was a source of tremendous pain.
Yeah.
Like anytime I would wheel the bike out and say like, Hey, let's ride bikes.
It would turn into the crying.
And I would, you know, and sometimes I would say like, okay, we don't have to, but other times I would go like, come on, we've got to, you know, you've got to learn to ride a bike.
You're like seven years old.
Like,
Everybody needs to learn how to ride a bike, don't they?
I mean, isn't this my job as a dad?
Don't we have to do this?
It makes her look a little bad.
It makes you and me look really bad.
Right.
You're going to be 15 years old and tell your friends I never rode a bike.
It's tantamount.
Not tantamount.
It's not wholly dissimilar from, oh, I forgot to teach my kid to read.
Yeah.
Like riding a bike is such a kid thing and most figure it out, you know, with a little help.
And then like you say, they go run after the cul-de-sac and then they go skin their knees and that's the thing they do.
But like having it become this, um, this, this, this elephant in the room in your relationship sucks.
Really bad.
And, and maybe, I mean, maybe it's one of these things like, like,
old math or something where young people now don't ride bikes.
If you're a city kid, you never learned to ride a bike.
And that's, you know, Jason Finn didn't know how to drive a car until he was 38.
It's kind of like, you know, like in New York City, you get people who never learned to drive, like you're saying here.
Yeah, there's a lot less bike riding than there used to be.
You sure see a lot less bike riding.
But, you know, Ken Jennings's son is like a junior in high school or senior in high school, junior in high school, I guess.
And he turned 16 and Ken was like, all right, time to learn how to drive.
And his son was like, I don't know why.
Why bother?
Facebook and cars are for old people.
Yeah.
If you think about you and me at 15 years old, it's like the bit when I get my learner's permit.
Where is my car?
I'm going.
Drive, drive, drive, drive.
Every spare moment.
I mean, I just wanted somebody to go sit in that seat.
Can I just say one thing also because I can't stand this for another second.
I confused the name of the bike and it's going to drive me crazy.
The Huffy Santa Fe was a really cool brown 10-speed with drop handlebars.
I remember it.
And I mentally concatenated the name with the Huffy BMX bike.
So I regret the error.
That's all.
The Huffy Santa Fe was a very popular first 10-speed.
Now you're going to get email.
Your first hint.
That's philosophy.
It's something I've just created.
My name's Huffy.
Hi.
All right.
So, so bike.
So, so, and this occurred to me along the way, like maybe this generation doesn't know how to ride bikes and I'm being a total boomer here.
I'm like, you got to learn to ride a bike.
How else are you going to drive up?
You don't learn to repair a radio.
How will you ever get a job in electronics?
Yeah.
What are you going to do if you don't know how to make a slingshot?
You know, where?
Bang, bang.
You don't know how to dress a deer?
But I couldn't believe that she didn't.
And the thing was, it wasn't fear.
Because her friends rode scooters, those little push scooters.
And she figured out how to ride one of those and would...
tear ass down huge hills with where i'm looking at her like oh don't do that that's terrible like you know you're gonna crash and that's gonna hurt because there's nowhere to go ass over tea kettle is where you'll go that's right but she was like oh well you know i know how to do a scooter i don't need to know how to ride a bike all this stuff
And I think, I'm pretty sure last year, we never touched the bikes.
They sat in the garage all summer long.
And I said several times, like, we should go over and ride bikes.
And I just got stone face.
And I didn't push it.
I was like, I guess we don't ride bikes.
I don't know.
Anyway, the quarantine came over us like a shroud.
And we were sitting around on day 10 or whatever.
Like, well, basically we've settled into a posture here where all we do is think about dinner all day.
That's exactly the same.
We spend hours picking out what side dish we're going to have.
My hand to God.
And then you work on dinner.
We're so like Laura Ingalls Wilder at this point.
It's just like, oh, I've learned to make a stew.
I've learned to dress a turkey.
I've learned to, you know.
Exactly.
What did you do today?
Well, I cut up boxes and I moved the cans.
I moved the cans a little bit.
And then I got my good X-Acto knife, my good carpet knife.
And I went and I cut the boxes into careful strips.
And then I taped them all together.
And that was my day.
I have definitely chopped more chives.
in the last month than i have ever chopped i've spent a lot of time chopping my kid takes that job you know we have a dish here called potato night which is when we make uh big potatoes and and she's always the chive cutter but yeah there's all kinds of stuff usually just be like oh we'll get you know this seven dollar chinese dinner delivered or whatever but now it's like yeah it's like a whole production it's like we're in fucking big night or something making the timpali or whatever
Okay, so you're stuck in the house.
You're little housing on the prairie.
The bike has been fallow for something like a year, and it's an elephant in the garage.
And for the two years prior to that, every time we got on it, it was just this nightmare power struggle between us.
One time we went to a thing where they closed off the big road, and everybody in the town came to ride their bikes around the lake.
And she got on her bike and rode it as slowly as – she rode it like –
where you could have gone in front of her and laid down little inch-long tiles faster than she was riding.
Was she doing the wobbly, almost tipping over thing?
She was doing it, but she was doing it intentionally.
Oh, I see.
It's a grudge ride.
I have video of her the first week that we bought the bike when she was five, riding this thing just hauling ass down the street.
And now at seven, she's riding it with shaky crying and just barely moving.
And, you know, and all around us, everybody in the town is having the bike day of some, you know, summer fun day.
And she's just right in the center of it.
Just like.
engaged in the ultimate power struggle with daddy.
And I'm, I'm powerless.
Right.
Because I don't want to be, I can't, I can't not be emotional.
I don't know why it's happening.
I'm like, but I don't, I didn't, I've never yelled.
I've never like forced you to do anything.
It's just like, we're going bike riding.
We all have bikes.
Anyway, four days ago I said, let's just go over and ride bikes at this school.
No, I don't want to.
Can I take my scooter?
I was like, come on, let's just go ride bikes.
So we go over there on bikes.
We're riding around shaky and slow.
And I said, you know, like, and I used to do this tour all the time, like, but you can't catch me.
And ride a little ahead.
And she would say things like, it's not a competition.
And I'd be like, ugh, I didn't, I'm not.
It's like, it's like a relationship with a woman where you know it's over.
You're just like, I thought I was being funny.
And she's like, not funny.
But you know, it can't be over, right?
Anyway, at some point I said, she said, I don't like the sound of my training wheels.
They're loud and they embarrass me.
Oh, and I should say, there are kids all around us biking at social distance.
And a lot of them younger than her with no training wheels.
You know, so now there's a shame element that she's.
Sure.
Yeah.
Now she's like a bedwetter or something.
But she starts, but you know, she's also weirdly not susceptible to that stuff.
She's just like, yeah, she doesn't feel that pressure.
She feels it, but she's not going to show that she can sit with it.
Anyway, she rides along and I'm riding next to her and I'm like, just, you know, like use your body to try to get both training wheels off the ground at the same time.
And she does it.
And for a brief moment,
The wheels aren't making any noise.
Oh, because they're not doing that.
Like I used to be mad and say to my mom and dad, like, why can't you make this thing so that it really actually works like my trike?
Like, why is it unbalanced?
And like, well, that unbalance is so you can learn how to balance without falling over.
And it's real janky and noisy and sounds cheap and super janky, incompetent.
You sound incompetent.
But so all of a sudden she's off the she's off the ground.
And, you know, she just had her ninth birthday.
And she gets this look and she, you know, and she stops and she says, I felt like I was flying.
And I was like, yeah, that's the whole thing.
That's why, you know, and I'm not like, that's why I've been telling you to ride a bike, but I'm thinking it.
Yeah.
You know, but I'm like, yeah, you're getting it.
You're getting it why people like this.
And so she was like, well, I'm done for today.
I was like, oh, okay.
And we went home.
But then the next day I was like, let's go back out on bikes.
And today I'm going to raise up your training wheels a little bit, just a little, just raise them up like an inch on either side.
And she was like, why?
And I said, because that feeling you got where you were riding without them touching, it just makes that easier.
And lo and behold, she said, okay.
Whoa.
And so we got over to the playground and I raised her training wheels up and I, I sat with her and I was like, okay, just like find your center and
And then I'll run along beside you and just try and get off the training wheels and balance.
And so we run along and she she got and I pushed her off and she got off of the training wheels and she rode the whole distance of the parking lot without touching the training wheels down.
And now she was like, whoa.
And so we did it three or four times back and forth across the parking lot.
And then I said, okay, here's what you need to know.
From now on, when you stop the bike, put your foot down.
Like up until this point, she would just stop her bike and just sit and balance on the training wheel.
Yeah, yeah.
That modal shift of suddenly having to do, I mean, that's where you screw up, right?
Because you have to continue to steer.
You have to continue to balance.
Does she have handbrakes or coaster brakes?
That's the problem.
Coaster brakes.
Okay.
And now that isn't, if you have been in motion, and to state the obvious here, if it's been a while since somebody rode a bike, that is a very big modal change that will almost certainly lead to a crash the first few times.
And so this is what I was working to, this is what I was working on.
I was like, now we need, before we do anything else, we need to practice putting your foot down every time you come to a stop.
And so she was doing this thing where she was trying to put her foot down before she stopped.
And I was like, no, no, no, keep using your brakes, come all the way to a stop.
And then at that last moment, it's like teaching somebody to use a clutch, you know, at that last moment, put your foot down.
And so we went around the parking lot several times where she's in the, she's, she's balancing.
And then she comes to a stop and puts her foot down until she got it.
Wow.
And then I said,
Let's take these off.
Let's take these training wheels off.
What a day.
And she was like, this is all in one day.
This is all in one day.
And she said, okay, let's do it.
Wow.
And after five years of her just screaming, crying at the prospect of touching the bike, the look on her face when she was like, let's do it.
Let's take these training wheels off.
And so I got my, I got down on the ground.
I took them off and we wheeled the bike over.
stood there together and she was like, you know, very focused.
And I said, just find your center, you know, get on it, find your balance.
Remember to put your foot down at the end.
Here we go.
And I started running with her, pushing her and I let go and she just rode around the parking lot, stopped and put her foot down.
Nope.
No training wheels.
And I said, no training wheels.
And I said, okay, now ride back to me.
And she pushed off.
And rode back to me.
And by an hour later, she and I were riding in the street together.
Oh, my God.
Riding around the neighborhood.
And...
She was like, let's go up this street.
Let's go down this street.
Never crashed.
Never.
Really?
That's miraculous, John.
I know you know this, but that's miraculous.
I know.
It was like a kid that didn't, that never learned to talk until they were nine and then just started speaking in paragraphs.
Yeah.
And you're like, you would expect, I would expect she, not she, but any kid on their first day of no wheels would eat it like three times at least.
Nope.
Just like.
She just took to it like a bird.
And then burn on the bike.
So yesterday she was like, let's go ride bike.
Oh, shit, dog.
And she and I got on our bikes and we rode all around the town.
You both get a win.
You get a secret win.
She gets a public win.
You're not allowed to have a republic win, right?
Like this is her win.
Yeah.
And the whole time we're talking and laughing and she's like, OK, now now follow me.
And, you know, and we're doing slalom.
And she's like now up on the sidewalk, now down on the street.
And it's quarantined, so there's nobody on the street.
There are no cars.
There's nobody around.
And we're just riding in the middle of the street like it's 1975.
And it's like the triumph.
It's like a triumph of basically like six years all over.
Just comes to a conclusion where it's like, well, now she knows how to ride a bike.
And she's got agency.
She's got transportation.
She's got confidence.
That's fucking incredible.
So we're back at the house.
We're getting ready for dinner.
We're doing a jigsaw puzzle.
And she comes in.
This is two days.
She comes in and she's like, can I just go ride my bike on my own?
What?
And I was like, sure.
And so she gets on her bike.
You got a kid.
You officially have a kid.
She rides off and I'm looking at her out the window.
And she rides off.
She rides up to the corner.
She turns left and disappears.
And I wait for her to come back for a while.
Oh, boy.
And I was like, well, now wait a minute.
Is mom there when this is happening?
Well, yeah, but mom is just like working on the jigsaw puzzle because if there's a jigsaw puzzle, her mom can't think about anything else.
Okay.
And so I'm looking out the window and I'm like, okay, now come back.
Now turn around and come back.
And she doesn't come back.
And so I'm like.
She's riding the rails now.
So I put on my hat.
And I'm like, well, got to go.
Good luck with that puzzle.
I'm going nowhere in particular.
And we'll be back eventually.
And I run out and get on my bike and ride all the way down right around the corner.
And I find her.
Uh-huh.
All the way down, you know, somewhere else.
And I ride up, you know, casual.
Hey, what's up?
And she said, oh, you know what?
I was just thinking about riding back to come get you and see if you wanted to ride bikes.
Oh, John.
And I was like, here I am.
And we went off on another.
Talk about the friends you made along the way.
This is huge.
And she actually said on the day that she rode for the first time, she said, you know, this is a day that I'm going to remember.
Oh, come on.
What is happening?
I know.
And it's like, because she's going to say one, she's going to be in college one day and she's going to go, yeah, I learned to ride a bike during the quarantine.
And the streets were empty and my dad and I would just ride around.
So now she desperately needs a little friend.
Yes.
Then not somebody who's just sending daddy 41 texts.
That's right.
Her little friend across the street is her age and also never had her training wheels off.
So she's going to see – but she's a very competitive little girl.
She's like – she's somebody that sends 41 texts in an hour.
She's going for a record, yeah.
She's going to see –
that there's a new that there's a new game which is we ride bikes now and she's going to get off her training wheels instantly and then it's then it's the 70s merlin it's the 70s all over again the 70s the the 20s are yes and now you're also loaded for bear when this is all over with guess what now there's bike friends bike friends not a virtual bike real bike
The 20s are going to make the 70s look like the 50s.
Put it in your scrapbook, buddy.
My daughter let me put my arm around her during the sad part of Jojo Rabbit, which we watch every couple of days.
She doesn't like the sad part because it's a very good movie, but it's very sad.
And yeah, and so I remember that.
She allowed that.
She allowed it just for a minute.
Yeah.
And then I had to stop again.
She, she does this, she's, you know, she's at that age now where everything is, is gross and bad.
And so, you know, we don't, we don't just, we used to be very affectionate and now I'm not allowed to like her anymore.
So I take a moment like that and I really, that goes in the scrapbook.
You know, my little girl never let me put my arm around her.
She was always like, nope.
She comes in sometimes and, like, goes under my arm for a while and is like, here I am.
She's like a cat, though.
She needs to be the one who runs it.
She's 100% like a cat.
Oh, boy.
You're in a whole house full of cats, aren't you?
Really?
Well, she's like, she'll climb in my lap and I'll say.
Bite cat?
Puzzle cat?
I'm like, oh, you're being sweet.
Like, look at you climb in my lap.
And she's like, no, I just wanted to pick the dander out of your beard.
Money please.