Episode 7: Those People Got No Reason

SPEAKER_00 0:02

The Drain Battery Society has recently been nominated for several prestigious awards, none of which exist, and all of which were created by the host's mother. But validation is validation. Join the tens of listeners who agree this is technically a podcast that exists in the year 2026. The Drain Battery Society. Award-winning, at least in host Peter Conway's mind. Available to download for now.

Cold Open: The Great Coffee Migration

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Every morning, millions of Americans perform the exact same ritual. We walk past the clock in our kitchens that used to function as a coffee maker. We grab the keys and head out at an ungodly hour to stand sleepily in a line to pay for someone else to hand us their coffee. I'm convinced coffee has nothing to do with caffeine anymore. We don't do this because the coffee is better. We do it because it's fancier and somehow more official if someone hands it to us, like we can't be bothered to make our own. I've noticed distinct personalities at every coffee shop I've ever been in. Some people know exactly what they want. Large black coffee. Done. Those people probably balance their checkbooks and put their tools back where they belong. And then there are the rest of us. The people who step up to the counter and suddenly forget every decision we've ever made. They ask if they can help us, and we freeze. Mouth open, not breathing, trying to make a decision in the middle of our panic attack. So we delay and ask, what's the difference between the house roast and the breakfast blend? The poor kid behind the counter has answered this question 6,000 times. He's 19. His biggest fear is you asking where the beans were grown. And then comes the size debate. Get your mind out of the gutter. Small, medium, large, still, get your mind out of the gutter. Except no coffee shop is willing to call them that anymore. Now they're tall, grande, venti, which is Italian for 20. Anyway, you know, we're starting to use an ancient dialect we all silently agreed to learn in exchange for liquid energy. I cringe when I see a first-time customer because they are me. They walk incompetent and leave sounding like they unintentionally enrolled in a coffee as a second language class. I'll be honest, I steadfastly avoid coffee shops like that. I refuse to order anything that sounds like I'm summoning a wizard. And then comes the waiting. Not because the coffee takes that long, but because every drink now requires the engineering precision it takes to launch a satellite. There are pumps, foams, steamed things, cold things, extra hot things, half sweet, quarter sweet, sugar-free vanilla with oat milk, cinnamon foam, two shots, one pump, light ice, no whip. At some point, we're no longer ordering coffee. We've crossed over and we're retroactively dictating a last will and testament. Then your name gets called, or at least something close to your name. I've heard enough names announced at coffee shops to believe there must be an employee training course called Creative Spelling Under Pressure. Mark with a C becomes Mars? Nope. Mike? Closer. Eventually some guy picks up a cop and says I can be Patricia if it gets me out of here faster. And honestly, I get it. I've been Patricia twice this week already. Welcome to the Drain Battery Society. Barely charged, fully opinionated.

Welcome & Battery Check

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Ciao, bonjour, and hello. My my international language stinks, but I speak the international language of love. Welcome to the international episode of the Drain Battery Society. I am your host, Peter Conway, and I am totally going to watch Better Off Dead here shortly. Anyway, I'm totally kidding about the international part, uh, unless we've migrated to Europe instead of further outside Ohio. Canada would be okay. We love our neighbors to the north. How are you doing this week? Staying away from the serious diseases and K pop? Good, me too. The battery this week is fluctuating as it does sometimes. I went down to oh let's let's say 10% with a trip to the emergency room I didn't want to take. I woke up out of a dead sleep with the worst headache I'd ever had in my life. I'm not usually prone to migraines, but it sure did seem like one. Light and noise sensitivity, nausea inducing pain levels. If you've had one, you know. But there was a phone call in which an old listeria infection? Is that the word? I don't know if it's a listeria infection, a listeria breakout. Anyway, somebody the collar knew ate old ham, which I actually had done recently. Um so the listeria was was disgust. I was already a little alarmed by the headache, but you know, listeria was the tipping point. So six hours in the ER, on a bed in a hallway, right under a nasty fluorescent light outside the doctor's desks, and just up from the nurse's station, facing the door in which the paramedics come in with uh new patients. In other words, bright and loud. Just what a guy with a migraine probably needs, right? So by about two in the afternoon, I was I was ready to rumble. I'm tied to a machine, nobody's checking in. To be fair, it was busy and I wasn't dying. However, send someone over and let me go. I ripped off the pulse ox finger thing, and I don't know what it's called, and and I ripped off the blood pressure cuff and and I was a hot second away from ripping out the IV port, honestly. Just in the nick of time, though, I ended up passing out from a pain med they gave me, which was, you know, they had given me uh uh a push of liquid Tylenol plus three Tylenol uh tablets, uh, and it it didn't do anything. So uh, you know, later on they gave me some of this uh I don't know, juice, and boy, put me right out. So after I got home, I had an unexpected four hour nap, went to bed early after I got up and and made the coffee and kind of puttered around and brushed my teeth, but then I slept a full eight and a half hours on top of that, which I never do. So now, despite the fact that I have to work, my battery's sitting at about fifty-four percent, which is not bad at all. What's draining your battery this week? I hope you're up there as well. I'd love to hear about it. Because misery loves company, you know. Email me at drain battery at drain batteriesociety.com and let me check under the hood. If your logic is sound and compelling, I'll absolutely talk about you. Anonymously, of course, unless you say your first name is okay. Let me know either way. Oh, and for the record, my discharge diagnosis after blood tests, an echocardiogram, and a CT scan w was a headache. Definitely worth the wait. Before we get to diagnose society's dislike of our superior wisdom and cynicism born from hose water, backteen, and neglect, let's take a moment to thank today's sponsor, Strategic Napping Partners. We don't ask if you need a nap. We ask where. Strategic Napping Partners, certified nap placement consultants, analyze traffic patterns, sunlight, snack proximity, and television remote accessibility to position you for maximum post-nap efficiency. Need to fold laundry? We'll recommend a recliner within visual range of the basket. Expecting a package, we'll position you just close enough to hear the light tap on the door seconds after your dog does. For clients seeking enterprise level fatigue solutions, our executive rest package strategically places you within one slow stretch of everything you'll need when you wake up after that meeting that could have been an email, not during it. Make your power downs tactical and practical with Strategic Napping Partners LLP.

This Week's Main Topic

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, I could personally vouch for strategic napping. I was never a nap guy, and then I had a couple of birthdays. I think you know what I'm talking about. What a week. No details. Just a week. I've reached the age, as I suspect you have, where I spend half my time watching other people, and the other half realizing I've become one of them. We were out for dinner, a last minute fancy meal at a restaurant that uh usually requires a reservation six months in advance. In other words, you don't say no when there are seats open. So on this night the seats happen to be at the bar, and I like watching how drinks are made, so I was a happy camper. Anyway, uh there was a couple next to us that was drinking a fairly shocking amount of alcohol. A different drink every time, so much so that it was obviously noticeable. Toward the end of our own meal at around 7 40 in the evening, they ordered their last drinks. Bucket-sized espresso martinis. Like I'm just staring at the sheer size of these things. And you know, my significant other raised her eyebrows, leans over to me, and sincerely not trying to be judgy, says, All that sugar, those are two o'clock drinks. I almost fell off the stool laughing. I mean, it just hit me funny, but it seems like a universal truth, right? All that sugar, those are two o'clock drinks. Right. That wasn't the only time I caught myself looking around and thinking, uh-oh, I'm one of them now. Uh I was at the store trying to find a cream for a skin situation I've been having. Pretty soon the aisle was full of well, let's call them older people, all apparently looking for the same thing I was. I can't relate the specific conversations, quite frankly, because there were too many, and I only type so quickly. I can only say that I was ready to start playing host and and start welcoming them to the new game show called Where Did This Rash Come From. I'm also considering what am I allergic to now? I I was smiling the whole time, try not to laugh as I furiously took notes on my phone. I was afraid I would attract attention, but you know, I laughed all the way back to the truck, mostly because I realized I wasn't observing old people anymore. I was actually attending their meeting. The emergency room only confirmed my suspicions because it's a target-rich environment. I didn't really feel safe driving myself, but I had an older relative say that they weren't doing anything, so uh, you know, this is an older relative, and I I wasn't expecting comedy, but got it anyway. She started complaining uh about the three different sections of road construction in the mile, mile and a half trip. Not very far. All different kinds of uh construction and work electrical, water, curbing, road repair. To be fair, road work is pretty ubiquitous in New England in the summer. We just can't do it in the winter. It's too dark, it's too cold, but I'll tell you, it is no fun in the summertime as a driver, trust and believe. So at a stop not dictated by a flagger, we saw a woman wearing a Department of Public Works reflective vest pushing all her belongings around in a grocery cart. My thought was that the vest was faded, and I think I've got a brand new one that that I could give her. My driver, on the other hand, knew her entire life history, including the city's efforts to help her. Honestly, the only thing my driver didn't have was her blood type and social security number. I don't know how one comes by that level of information about a person who is likely not on the grid, but I don't know, I suppose with a little nosiness and a lot of time, anything's possible, right? That's another thing nobody warns you about. At some point, people stop driving through town and start narrating it. That guy used to own three houses until he stopped paying his taxes. That used to be a mom and pop service station. That woman's son married Kelly. You remember Kelly. Pretty girl, but only had six teeth. Why are parents never fixed that? It was quite a scandal back then. I hope their kids have all their teeth. So into the ER we go. I get checked in and and see more people than I expected, but it seemed manageable since, like me, people tend to come to the emergency room with another person, if at all possible, just to keep them company for the ride, so on and so forth. So my ride comes in to wait with me, sits down next to me, and I say, This isn't so bad. It's better than what I thought. And uh Mrs. Kravitz over there leans over and says, I've seen it much worse, and then proceeds to outline each time it's been worse than it is now for her. I've been won up by experts before, but this time I was wishing I'd brought a trophy with me. I'd love to say that it ended, but quite frankly, it it moved on to complaining about an aging parent, like I was being read a story from the bestseller how and when I turned old. I was brought back for triage and then sent back out to the waiting room, brought back for blood work, then sent back to the waiting room. Each time the waiting room was getting busier, and I was getting uncomfortable, honestly. I mean, it wasn't the seats, it was all the people. All these people are sick, limping, coughing, a couple of folks throwing up. All I had was a stinking headache. Please let me go back home. Like I didn't just voluntarily bring myself there, right? I suppose I could have walked out if I wanted to. Anyway, the people running the intake started calling two people at a time. That's how busy it was. And I found myself, even when it was a woman's name, questioning myself, like, Am I Letitia? I was also trying to memorize names to be helpful so when the actual Letitia or Grady is called but they didn't hear it, or they're in the bathroom when their moment comes, I could let them know. Helpful, like I said. I was just trying to keep things in the ER moving because the staff was not doing a great job. If you have it coming to your mind, um I believe me when I tell you, at about that point, it came to mind. It was like the homeowners trying not to become their parents' commercials. I was that guy. Holy cow. The realization fully hit me with what I'm calling the timeline. This was not in the emergency room, but it's a little different. Uh, it's more of a realization than an actual event. I was having a face conversation, uh sorry, FaceTime. See, I can't even say it. A face match conversation. I was having a FaceTime conversation with the fabulous Beth P, who sometimes voices commercials for the Drain Battery Society. And uh toward the end of the call, she made a noise when she got up out of the recliner. You know, I I picked right up on it immediately and pointed it out. And she said, Well, things hurt. Why do things hurt? And then she asked me if that's what old is. Thank you. Thank you for the opening, Beth. Allow me. So last week I talked about when old happens. You might recall I brought up the term young old. It's kind of stuck with me, actually. Um, you know, young old and and all the other terms, a lot like defining the generations as it would happen, and it's relevant to us because this should bring you joy. Here you go. Young old is defined as 65 to 74 years. Middle old, not middle age, which is 38, and I'll wait while you laugh at that. I did. Middle old is 75 to 84 years, and old old or oldest old is 85 plus. Can you imagine somebody saying, How old are you? You go, I'm old, old, not realizing the whole time it's been a term. My point to the fabulous Beth P was that we are nowhere even close to any of those ages, which is great news until we are close to it. The way I put it to her was that you know, regardless of us not being considered old to geriatric researchers, we're in the hallway, in between too old to be young and too young to be old. So to the younger people, we are old. And to the actual old people, we're still called kids. Nobody told us there was a waiting room between the two. Frankly, it's confusing. Despite the level of relief we should all be feeling at not being old yet, right? The hallway situation should have come with a warning. I I should have led with it because once you hear it and fully take it on board, you can't unhear it. We are caught like a pinball between two bumpers. Such is life in the drain battery society. At least you can enjoy the commercials.

Commercials

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Let's see if I can find my way back from this break without GPS. You've had a nice conversation with the person in the car. Maybe the windows are down and you're enjoying the nice temperature moved about by the wind. Your mind drifts a little as you soak in the landscapes moving backward in the rear view.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Is that a place to park? Look at all these pedestrians. Ten points for the guy in the green shirt. Can my car fit into that spot? Why won't Ellison start running her mouth about David so I can concentrate? Wait, did I leave the stove on?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

A bead of sweat appears on your brow. Your eyes narrow, and you know what has to be done. With a quick but firm shush, you move your thumb ever so slightly and turn down the volume so you can see better. Stop it. It's not helping anyone. The volume button. That's not why they put it there. Sleep is an asset. Maximize your REM yield with the crypto mattress. Every time you toss and turn, our proprietary built-in kinetic coils mine an incredibly unstable, completely worthless digital currency. Lose sleep over your financial future while sleeping on your financial future. Crypto Mattress, another quality product from Cayman Mattress Capital LLC, makers of the Seawater liquidity note for properties that are not figuratively but actually 12 feet underwater due to rising sea levels. We also produce pillow-stuffed futures, in which actual cash is stuffed into actual mattresses and shipped to undisclosed warehouses. And coming soon, subprime reef swaps. Eco-friendly marine investments that help avoid regulatory scrutiny. If it's smelling ease like a felony, it's because there's something new cooking at Cayman Mattress Capital LLC. I think I just invented the Irish hello. No warning, just we're back.

Nobody Needed This

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Nobody needed this as the part of the show where we recognize the inventors around the globe who took a look at society's issues and said, this ought to fix it. It usually doesn't, but at least it allows us to needlessly bestow dubious awards. This particular product today is actually something I've thought about quite a bit. Allow me to introduce you to the Baby Mop. The product description reads this way The original since 1998 from ninety nine more unuseless Japanese inventions. That's the name of the company. Works for any surface for your babies or as a gift for newborns. Babies were never meant to be a trouble. Enjoy watching them clean your house. Witness the moment when a person becomes useful for the first time in its life. Couple of things. I have a problem with works for any surface. It does not work on concrete. I have to imagine the company would not recommend it for that. Don't try it. The good news is that there are options. The baby mop comes in two sizes, three to six months for thirty bucks and nine to twelve months for forty bucks. I also have a problem with the phrase babies were never meant to be a trouble. Have you ever met one? Their resume consists of crying, sleeping, eating, and pooping. They're adorable, but low maintenance is not making an appearance in the brochure. A baby at nine months has only added one thing to its repertoire, and it's what makes this product work. It's crawling. Apparently that's the part that quote unquote makes them useful for the first time in its life. This is a onesie with strategically placed dust mitts. It falls under toy home cleaning products, and it's not even number one. It's number 506. I'll tell you, it's number one on my list of ridiculously stupid things. But back to the baby mop. You should really go to Amazon to read the full product description, but I'll read you a little with some notes. Here we go. Make your children work for the Their keep. Nope, this is too much already. After the birth of a child, there's always the temptation to say, yes, it's cute, but what can it do? Until recently the answer was simply lie there and cry, but now babies can be put on the payroll, so to speak, almost as soon as they're born. Word to the wise. It's going to be a bit before this becomes a useful product, unless you're dragging the baby across the floor by the arms, which is not recommended by this show, by Dr. Benjamin Spock, or by law enforcement. There's no child exploitation involved. If you have to say it, there probably is. The kid is doing what he does best anyway, crawling, but with baby mops he's also learning responsibility and a healthy work ethic. He's nine months old. He still thinks his own foot is a surprise. But then the description goes on to say, the perfect gift for your best friends when they're on the verge of progressing from spending time with friends to being absorbed by their family life. Do you really think they will still care much about you when their offspring is consuming their spare time? You won't believe how much there is to do with and around babies. It seems like now they're telling you how much time is wasted on babies. But if the consumer would just stop being stupid and buy the baby mop, the friend can fully neglect their baby and have fun with you. And doesn't that justify the $40 price tag? That's like three cosmos anywhere except your friend's house. Because that's where the baby is. God knows nobody's going to be there. 61%. This is not me reading. 61% of customers have given it five stars. The other 39% gave it one star. I suspect those are the real reviews. The funny part is there's no in between. And the reviews are definitely worth the read. I'm wondering what the baby's thinking. Like, are they gonna have to join a union to put an end to the forced labor? Did the product studies include HR performance reviews that said things like, Little Timmy, your dust numbers are way down this month? You may be asking yourself, Peter, would you put your grandsons in this thing? I mean, not the older ones. Good conscience. I can't put the newborn in one either, but it's crossed my mind now that I know about this product, and knowing is half the battle. Congratulations to the poorly named 99 More Unuseless Japanese Inventions. And their product, The Baby Mop, the winner of this week's Drain Battery Society Solution Seeking a Problem Award. They've actually made me consider renaming this to the sweatshop seeking a child labor lawsuit award. This is the only mop that's going to eventually ask you to borrow the car. Keep that in mind. Even I am dumbfounded by this one. And I was dumb to begin with.

Recharge Recommendation

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Every week I take a break from being incredulous about the things that happen to us as we age, and give you something to sink your teeth into that will actually make you feel good. It's community service as prescribed by my parole officer. So I'll talk slowly to stretch my time because I'm busy this weekend and don't want to pick up cans. I'm kidding. This is not a TV show and it's not a product. It's genuine, it's awe inspiring, and it's one of those things you don't want to do, but when you do it, you're glad you did. I'm talking, of course, about buying a nice framed eight by ten picture of me. I'm kidding. Here it is in reality. Go watch a sunrise. Not because it delivers something spiritual, but because nobody else is awake. I follow a few photographers, and every now and then they drop a sunrise picture from a spectacular location with the story behind it. I never fail to be amazed by the picture and by the fact that they got up and drove three hours before sunrise just to get that shot so I could ooh and ah this thing at 720 before I jump in the shower to go to work. The most beautiful part about it is that there aren't seven teenaged girls crowding each other, making duck lips and arguing over who is most fit to hold the selfie stick. Friends, we've spent our entire adult lives hurrying. We've rushed through weekday mornings, getting kids to daycare, and then to the bus or school, and and then we get ourselves to work. We rush through our relaxation on the weekends because we're trying to cram too much recreation into two and a half days. We've rushed through it all because we think someone is demanding it of us or we're demanding it of ourselves. This is the opportunity to stop. For once, intentionally get up early. Make your coffee the night before, and take a full yeti with you when you leave. Find a lake or a harbor or the beach and just sit there. I'd recommend a harbor where the lobster boats are moored. A working waterfront, there's just nothing like it in the morning. But you don't have to meditate, you don't have to find yourself. Just sip your coffee and watch the world wake up. There's something restorative about being awake before the rest of the world starts making demands of you. For 30 minutes, the world can belong to the people who got there first. And that is this week's Drain Battery Society recharge recommendation.

Listener Email

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Okay, the uh the trek north for a listener from Southern Manor, New Hampshire is starting to show signs of life. Chris T from Haverill, Massachusetts, Haverill wrote to us about a battery drain he and his wife have. Looks vaguely like my life, and maybe it looks like yours too. I'm gonna spare you from reading it in a Massachusetts accent, even though when I initially read it, I was totally reading it in a Massachusetts accent. Hi, Peter. Love the show sofa. Gee, thanks, Chris. Next week's really gonna suck. Sorry. I have a battery drain for you. I don't know when this happened, but my wife and I at some point became the people who leave the house forty-five minutes to an hour early for everything. To make sure we get good parking, to beat the traffic. Totally understood. To avoid the start of road construction in the morning. Doctor's appointment, early because we might have trouble checking in. Dinner reservation, early, because they might have our table ready. Airport, we may as well spend the night there. The funny part is that we still end up sitting in the car for twenty minutes because neither of us wants to be the weird people who walk in too early. We just sit there, sometimes with the radio on and sometimes in complete silence. Not once have either of us ever dared to say that we left the house too early. In June, we got to an outdoor wedding so early the florist was still unloading, and the bride hadn't even shown up yet. The reception didn't matter because seats are assigned, but at the wedding, we wanted to be in that first row behind the family so we could get a few pictures. I'm starting to think on time now means unnecessarily prepared. Does anybody else do this? Thanks for making me laugh, Chris. Well, thanks for the email and the kind words, Chris. I have to imagine if it had been an actual letter you sent, you'd probably have been at the post office waiting at the door for the postmaster to show up in the morning, am I right? To be fair, sitting in the parking lot, we we need a buffer between driving and interacting with people. Otherwise, we might find ourselves leaving our destination early. For jail. Chris, I know exactly how you got here. I spent 10 years in the Navy, so punctuality is a centerpiece of my life. But there's 15 minutes and then there's 45 minutes and a bunch of waiting. The best way I can say it is by passing along Drain Battery Society Universal Truth number 13. Lucky number 13. If we're 15 minutes early, we're on time. If we're on time, we're late. Chris, it's a doctor's appointment. They are professionally incapable of seeing you on time anyway. You're just showing up early for your shift in the waiting room, and there's no such thing as getting the good magazine. And as far as the airport, I can say for myself that if the flight leaves Tuesday morning, I'm emotionally ready to leave Sunday after lunch to beat the traffic.

Closer

SPEAKER_00 31:03

And that's all she wrote for another week. Thanks so much for listening, if that's what you want to call it. I'd sure appreciate it if you could help me spread the word on social media. That would be awesome. And let's keep working on getting listener email from a New Hampshire email address. I mean, you know, I'd I'd also like to spread out we're from Ohio too, but this is home and we need to represent. So in the most uncomfortable way possible, ask a friend or family member to email me at mailbag at drainbattery society.com. Society merch will be sent to the unlucky winner, chosen to have their email read on the show when I get some. Still working to get your secret shames for the things nobody admits show? Uh it really ought to be fascinating. I have a couple of emails and they're good, but they're just not going to fill a half an hour, so I need more. Speaking of secret shames, this week's spots were bravely voiced with the help of Tylenol, throat coat, and Chinese food by well, me, with the help of the hilarious but incredibly clingy Kimberly Q Delaney. Seriously, you guys, I need a hand or a vocal cord, whatever you have to offer to voice these spots. That would be super helpful. Theme music today was brought to you by OptiSloth Technologies. At OptiSloth, we believe productivity is about managing expectations. That's why our patented workflow deferral system helps businesses identify which tasks can realistically wait until tomorrow or next Tuesday. Whether you're strategically postponing inbox zero, delaying unnecessary meetings, or perfecting the phrase, I'm waiting to hear back from another department, OptiSloth helps you achieve sustainable underachievement. OptaSloth Technologies. Why rush excellence if you don't have to? Sing with me the closing number, won't you? Get off my lawn. Keep your battery between 20 and 80 percent, and keep your expectations low. Thanks for listening to the Drain Battery Society. Barely charged, fully opinionated.