Episode 4: Hair Today, Gone...To the Hardware Store

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It's time for Peter's annual performance review. Attendance? Acceptable. Productivity. Questionable. Ability to turn a five-minute story into 27 minutes. Exceeds expectations. Overall rating needs improvement. Yet somehow he still has this podcast. The Drain Battery Society. The only show out there with lower standards than its host. I've reached the point in my life where I spent a surprising amount of time at my doctor's office. Not because anything's seriously wrong, it's just maintenance. When you're a kid, doctors fix things. When you're our age, they keep an eye on things. Every appointment begins the same way. Any changes since your last visit? Well, I've made peace with cargo shorts and new balance sneakers. My knees now forecast weather. And I make noises every time I stand up. Other than that, things are pretty much the same. Then they ask you to step on the scale. I'd really prefer they just ask me, take my word for it. Nobody over 50 wants to know their weight at 2.30 in the afternoon. I look away from it like I used to when they drew blood. My weight is my body's credit score, and I'm probably better off not knowing. I've been carrying around breakfast, coffee, lunch, about 32 ounces of water, and whatever emotional baggage I brought with me. And then comes the blood pressure, which somehow spikes because they're taking my blood pressure, and they tell me you seem a little anxious. Really? You wrap my arm in a tourniquet so tight I can feel my pulse in my fillings, and you're staring at that gauge like you can't wait to see what happens next. Of course I'm anxious. When they leave, they always leave. Why can't they just stay and keep me company? Instead, they rip that blood pressure cuff off and run out of the room like they were on fire, yelling over their shoulder, the doctor will be right in. I'm sitting there on that paper covered table wearing what amounts to be a blue cocktail napkin with sleeves, and nobody tells you how long right in is. Five minutes? 30? I don't know. I can hear him laughing out in the hallway. I'm glad somebody's having a nice afternoon. Meanwhile, I've been here long enough to have read all 12 posters explaining shingles and have identified the exact disc that's been giving me trouble on the spine model over by the sink. At some point you hear footsteps coming closer to the door and you hear your file being snatched from the holder. You sit up, ready, almost breathless with anticipation, which is doing nothing for your blood pressure. Then the footsteps start moving away from the door. Apparently, that wasn't my doctor. That was just someone stopping to deliver me more disappointment. Eventually, the doctor comes in, looks at the computer longer than he looks at me, and says, Everything looks pretty good. Perfect. Can you pass me that spine model on the counter? I want to show you something. Welcome to the Drain Battery Society. Barely charged, fully opinionated. I'm your host, Peter Conway, and it has been a busy week. Work has been more fun because I actually got to recruit people this week instead of doing everything except recruiting. I'm ridiculously excited about getting the website and the social media pages up and running, both of which are severely testing the limits of my technological competence. I posted a Drain Battery Society trailer, albeit with a little help from my friend Atlas. On the flip side, I went out last Friday, forgot my sneakers, and wore my flip-flops. Naturally, early dinner turned into a late night at the casino. Did I win? Yeah, a little. Did my back win? Absolutely not, which meant the bike ride the next day was off. So I waited a day and with sneakers this time, helped Beth with a top of the driveway project that included eight bags of damp mulch because dry mulch is for quitters. Despite all that, I have to say the house is clean, the laundry and the grocery shopping are done, and my mind is crystal clear about what I want, and surprisingly enough, I have no expectations about how it all has to happen. Strange days indeed. Most peculiar, mama. I try to be captain of my own ship. The thing is, my body keeps wanting me to head to the yards for an overhaul, but my brain tells me I'm sailing under nuclear power and I only have to stop for food. Self-determination is a great thing. I've not always been this way. As I've gotten older, patience has become my friend. My father was notoriously impatient. I always thought he just mellowed as he got older. Now I see he just got tired, and honestly, I get it. If he was still with us, I'd tell him so. We have to make conscious big picture choices about where our energy goes. If I'm going out for an early dinner at the Drain Battery Society approved time of four or four thirty in the afternoon, I'm probably not going to cut morning coffee time short and pretend I'm twenty-five by clearing brush then hauling mulch. I'm always up for a trip to Lowe's, but not to carry anything out with me. Lois for me has become the hardware store version of a museum. I don't touch anything anymore. I just admire the exhibits. As Stephen Covey wrote, begin with the end in mind. Hit me with what is draining your battery. Email battery drain at drain battery society.com and we'll see about getting your complaints the forum they deserve. I usually decide in the middle of the week what I want to focus on for the next episode of the Drain Battery Society. I think about what's going on in the world, I think about the indignities, the proverbial slings and arrows we face as members of Generation X. I do that mental review of my body parts to see what hurts and whether I can squeeze 15 minutes out of that. I don't have to ask if it's relatable. That much goes without saying. I think about work and whether anything happened recently that I can or should talk about. I think most of us are still working, so we could still relate. I review what I do at home to mine for materials, and I pay closer attention to what I see and hear out in the world. I'll be honest with you, I have to be careful because I think eventually people are going to realize that anything they say or do around me is probably going to wind up on this podcast. I should probably be a little more subtle. And if anybody's listening that hangs out with me, just forget I even said any of that. Anyway, at the end of the day, as I'm thinking about the show, it's always something dumb that strikes me, and my brain says, Yeah, perfect. Use that. So you see what I'm saying. Today I'm going to talk about our older bodies. It's depressing, right? I mean, if you're that person who goes to the gym six days a week and gets shredded like the AI people in my Facebook feed, good for you. I live in the real world, but good for you. At this point, dad bod for me is a pipe dream. And listen, I I see the FaceTime picture, you know, when I back up, uh it's just it's not pretty. Anyway, I I have laid off the sugar, I don't drink alcohol anymore, no drugs, I try to keep a regular sleep schedule, those types of things. I am absolutely not trying to live forever, but I'm not necessarily in a hurry to escape this dumpster fire either. I don't want to spend the next 20 years at the doctor's office needing rides and eventually get into the point where I need to bring a second person to take notes and ask all the right questions. I don't listen, I don't want to talk about nutrition, exercise, or any of that stuff. I want to talk about the real world, the daily concerns that we have. You're smart, you see where this is going. I'm talking about body hair. Sounds so dumb. And it is. But I want to talk about my body hair specifically. I mean, I'd be happy to talk about yours if you want. I don't know how we're gonna do that, but fine, email me. Anyway, I keep a very short haircut. I have ever since I joined the Navy. When my hair started thinning out, uh more than I was comfortable with, I buzzed it down to stubble, and that's how it has remained. I was told recently it it's been at least for like the last 10 years that I've had it this way. Like I've looked like the same guy for the last 10 years. It's I don't know, is that good or bad? You decide. Anyway, that hair in my head, it grows slowly, almost imperceptibly so. I use a beard trimmer to get it down close after about 10 days, and then I go over it with a skull shaver. Nothing more embarrassing than missing an entire strip in the back, but it happens, and it has happened often. So if you're wondering why we all need someone in our lives, I will allow you to use the uh to check me after I've barbered myself excuse. Also, I'd be interested in hearing how that goes for you. As slow as the hair on top grows, my beard seems to have picked up the former momentum my head had. I could use a trim every four days or so, and it drives me nuts looking at it when it gets long, but I am so anal about being efficient that I have to wait to cut my hair and my beard at the same time. So I drag the super sharp scissors out of my toiletry kit and perform surgery on the corners of my mouth and tops of my ears to keep the good times rolling a little bit longer. I have to do this almost daily, and sometimes, man, I I cut the hell out of my mouth. I'm surprised I don't look like the Joker by now. Anyway, I've got favorable light in the bathroom, and I inevitably see a half inch long hair growing out of one of my ears, despite having gone over it with a fine tooth pair of tweezers, not more than a day or two before. It's crazy. I have to keep my head tilted just so so as to not lose sight of the offending hair and then fumble around with my left hand for the tweezers like I'm being chased in a horror movie and I'm trying to get my keys in the ignition. I'm telling you, it's nuts because then it's like four or five attempts to actually pull it out, and I usually pinch my ear so hard it starts bleeding. Not on purpose, just in a concerted, urgent effort to be smooth in as many places as I can be. These hairs they appear on hard-to-get places inside my ears, definitely off the top, so I look like I have antennas if the hair decides to come in dark. I get them in my earlobes. Like, why can't it just grow on the top of my head so I can go pay 30 or 40 bucks for a sharp fade and get that full barbershop experience again? I miss it. Frustrating but true. Here's the Drain Battery Society Universal Truth number 38. As you age, you spend more time removing hairs from your ears than you do your face. To add insult to injury, my nose hair is turning gray along with my chest hair. My chest hair will occasionally surprise me the way my ears do and prompt a six-inch gray hair to just arrive. It's a little curly, but not entirely, so I'm clued in eventually to a rope growing off my chest. I know this is disgusting, but seriously, I have to think it's happening to everybody. Anyway, I just yank those chest hairs out with my fingers because I want them to know I am not tolerating this stealthiness for another minute. In the armpits, doing the same exact thing, just growing like the population of South Carolina, and probably for the same reasons. Let's take a look at those reasons, actually. Uh, according to the last census, South Carolina is growing at about 1.5% a year due to domestic migration, warm climate, and relative housing affordability. My underarm hair has partially migrated from my back and somewhat from my chest. Both coasts, if you will. The warm climate speaks for itself. I'm not a person who sweats under the arms a whole lot, but I sweat enough. Point is, my underarms are basically myrtle beach for displaced back hair. The last part is the housing. Apartments and homes in South Carolina are affordable compared to New England, California, and other places in the country. The hair living under my arms lives rent-free. Suck it, South Carolina. I used to have the hairiest legs of all my friends when I was a kid. It came in early. It has not, however, stayed late. In fact, I have no hair in my quads anymore, on either leg. It's the craziest thing. I didn't even know leg alopecia was a thing. I mean, quite frankly, I don't know if I have it or not. I just self-diagnose. But if it is a thing, I'm gonna start claiming I have it on the top of my head as well, just to, you know, explain the sunroof. Those are the types of outrageous claims no one questions when you're old. They just figure you have some exotic disease because you're old, and they're just happy they don't have it. Here's one of my favorite getting older stories, and I wasn't even remotely old. Years ago, I went to the optometrist's office because I was having headaches and migraines. My technician came in looking all of 18 years old. She goes over everything, and after I got done seeing the optometrist who told me I needed bifocals, uh, the technician came back in. So I asked, Do I have to wear these bifocals full time or is it just for reading? And she said, full time. And while I was protesting, she had the balls to say to me, Well, you are getting to be that age. I was 38. That was the first time I'd been talked to about my age that way. And I'll tell you, I didn't like it. I mean, obviously, here I sit almost 58, you know, still talking about it, but I'm aging, I'll tell you. What I am thankful for, in all seriousness, is the PSA test that guys can get now to check for prostate issues. At some point I hit the age when I had to start getting prostate checks, and my doctor, as a joke, would ask me if I wanted him to take off his watch or risk it before each test. It was a good thing I was in the Navy. I found that hilarious. The test, not so much. I shared that doctor with my mother and my grandmother. That guy never had to ask me about my family history, fortunately, because they had already lived it for him. So easy for me. And it's great anyway, because there's no way I would remember. And my family's weird in that they don't talk about the family history. They just sort of expect it to pop up in you. And then maybe ask a question, maybe you don't, but you know, 20 years later you'd be like, oh my God, I had this. And they're like, Yeah, I should have told you about that 15 years ago. It's frustrating, I'll be honest with you. But anyway, so the doctor moved uh recently to a different practice, uh, and my grandmother now insists on driving three towns away at 95, mind you, to stay with him. I just switched to the VA and I get a new surprise doctor every couple years. I get a call asking to reschedule every appointment I have for the next 365 days because my old doctor has moved on and the new one has to level set. So I'm just shaking my head saying, I've got to break another one in. And here's the last part, and it kind of ties in. The other day I got an email from my dentist's office announcing that my hygienist was leaving. There was a nice picture of her standing in a field wearing no dental garb at all. I had no idea who she was, since when I see her, she looks like she's going into the Ebola lab at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It got me to thinking though, is it not the worst thing when you have to break in a new hygienist or doctor when yours moves, retires, or quits? Have you had that thought? Here's the Drain Battery Society Universal Truth number 113. There is no dignity in growing old. Big surprise, right? I'm just gonna let that sit there with you and not expound. Liver spots, head scabs for no reason, red moles, bruises you just wake up with, hair missing from your legs turning up on your ears. Your body is a neighborhood where every morning you wake up to find out new people have moved in with you, and nothing is where it used to be. As they say in the Navy, stand by for heavy swells. Seas are about to get rough.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Hey, I smell what you've got going on there. You need to change your diaper before it changes you. We'll take a break while you get yourself together.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

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SPEAKER_03 17:34

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SPEAKER_00 18:12

There are only two things we take seriously, and one of them is coming back from a break.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Honestly, I forget what the other one is.

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We turn now to the weekly feature I call Nobody Needed This, the segment in which we honor the brilliant minds who looked around at the state of the world and said, You know what this country really needs? And then they turned that into a meme. So there's an old joke that goes something like, My wife woke me up the other night asking me if I found my rocks, and I asked her what she meant. She said, I don't know, I'm just trying to make conversation, and then went right back to sleep. I heard that before I was thinking about what to get a family member for their birthday, which makes this particular product even more special. Say hello to the Selk Bag Pro Sleeping Bag Suit. This is one of those your peanut butter's in my chocolate, no, your chocolate's in my peanut butter moments. You know, two worlds collide. But this one makes far less sense. It's a sleeping bag with legs and sleeves. The only reason I can think of to justify this product is that you're sleepwalking in Finland and it's imperative you stay warm. I am quite sure this thing has legitimate camping uses. I mean, but I live in the Northeast where it occasionally gets into the low 50s during the day in July. The thing is, I don't camp. I glamp. And not very often. But you know, when you're glamping, there are heaters and comfortable beds. The inconvenience is that I have to walk to get hot coffee. Now, before anyone emails me, and I know some of you will, and and thank you for that, by the way, uh, I do understand there are people who camp. I know quite a few of them. But I understand that there are mountaineers and ice climbers and people who willingly sleep on the side of a mountain because apparently hotels are too comfortable. This product was designed for them. The rest of us? We have absolutely no business owning one. Picture a sleeping bag that somebody added a mobility feature to without ever asking why they were doing it. Either sleep or walk. I don't do both. And if I did, I I deserve to get cold if that's what has to happen. Sleeping bags have had one job since the beginning of sleeping bags. Stay still. That's literally the arrangement. You crawl in, zip it up, lie down, and don't go anywhere until morning. Some engineer decided that was limiting and thought being up and around was the better call. Here's a question. Where the hell are you walking in this thing? It's bedtime. If you're walking around in your sleeping bag, something has gone horribly wrong. Maybe there's a bear. Maybe your tent caught fire. Maybe you forgot to use the campground bathroom before bed. Those are emergencies. We don't redesign an entire product that has worked for years and years and years around emergencies. Friends, this thing has sleeves, legs, hands. You look less like you're camping and more like you're auditioning to be the Michelin man stunt double. Or a giant baked potato who's late for work. I don't know. But you know, it brings up a point, right? Again, it keeps coming back. We are one step closer to a Bluetooth potato, and you're it with this thing. My sister and I had a version of this when we were kids called the Snug Sack, and if she's listening, she's probably she knows where this is going. Um, I I do recall the snug sack having arms, but it was open at the bottom. I think it buttoned up. Uh in the front, but open at the bottom, like I was in the end scene in White Christmas. And I have to imagine at some point I would have aged out of that thing pretty quickly, but instead I was homesick from school with a stomach bug. I trusted a fart, and that was that. I can assure you the brown streak in the snug sack was not limited to the inside of the snug sack. Good times. So look, maybe this walking sleeping bag, maybe it's not right for you. Can you imagine your neighbor wearing one and seeing them doing it? You'd imagine one of two things immediately. Either he's the most dedicated camper you've ever met, or he's completely insane. You don't put one of these on because you're headed into the wilderness. You put one on because somewhere in your life the statement, I'll just wear my sleeping bag, made perfect sense to you. And here's the part that fascinates me. Once again, there had to be a product meeting. There always is. Someone stood in front of a room full of adults with engineering degrees, marketing degrees, finance degrees, jurisdoctorates. And just based on the nature of this thing, I have to imagine HR was there as an impartial observer. And they found some Huckleberry from the mailroom to walk in wearing this thing to show that one person's dream finally became a reality. I wonder if anyone asked if they could just wear a coat. People wear coats. Instead, somebody said they liked where this was headed, approved a budget, built a factory, and probably made commercials. If it helps, the Drain Battery Society podcast will not be promoting this product after the award ceremony at the end of this segment. Somebody had to photograph models happily walking around in front of a gray background looking like comforters with 38 teeth. But you know what really concerns me with this? Somewhere out there in America, or maybe Great Britain, where I think this thing comes from, there's a guy wearing one of these while grilling hot dogs, thinking worth every penny. God bless him. But if I ever get to the point where I'm making coffee while wearing my sleeping bag, call my shrink stat. Congratulations to the Silk Bag Pro Sleeping Bag Suit recipient of this week's Drain Battery Society Solution Seeking a Problem Award. If it's a suit and they follow up with a tie for this thing, I am moving to Mars. I mean, I tool on Lowe's, but it's a good store, and Amazon still ships shirts that don't fit and exotic Chinese toothpaste. I'm not quite ready to stage a boycott, but you know, there is a better place, friends. This week's Drain Battery Society recharge recommendation is not a specific one, but instead, it's to get you out of the house and into your community. You've heard me say it here before. I support small businesses, especially local small businesses. This week, I am recommending your neighborhood's small, locally owned hardware store. I consider myself extremely lucky to live within walking distance of two of them. We have an Ace hardware and an Aubashan hardware in my neighborhood. And I'll tell you, there's nothing better than a Saturday stroll to one of them, even if I don't need anything, right? It's like what people used to do with Target when Target first came to town. Just look around. Now it's just sort of Walmart with higher prices. Anyway, uh so you know, these stores, they seem to genuinely care about your experience there. They have engaged cashiers actually working a register rather than standing around waiting for a red light to blink on. They wear jeans and hardware aprons that were kind of cool. I'd like to have one. Um they have those one or two guys going in and out of the back room carrying stuff you don't see on the sales floor, which adds a bit of intrigue to my weekend. And here's the thing, just everybody seems genuinely happy to see you. And I am genuinely happier when I leave, and not in the way I'm happy when I leave Lowe's or Home Depot. I like Ace when I need something quick. I can run in and run out and feel good about supporting a local business owner employing local people. I also support the struggle they must be in trying to stay alive when the big boys are selling tools super cheap. Ace has hard-to-find stuff, curbside pickup if that's still your thing, and they offer assembly and repairs of the stuff that they sell. Abishon is like a local superstore. I can remember going to a small one in Wells, Maine when I was a kid. Uh, and that store, believe it or not, is still there. Propane, paint mixing, glass cutting, screen repair, all the fun stuff, right? Um the Abishon in my neighborhood is my let's waste a couple hours walking around touching stuff store. It's raining and there's nothing to do. Abishon. Happy people, awesome products, paint is always being mixed, they have tools, building supplies, a great gardening department, pet and bird supplies. It's the stuff you don't think about until you see it on a shelf. I consider it safe because no way is birdseed making its way onto my impulse buy bingo card. I can't quite find the words, all evidence to the contrary, but you know, it's just a store that's fun to be in, and when I get home, I'm glad I went, even if I didn't buy anything. I know I eventually will. They know I eventually will, and that's the kind of pressure-free environment I like to spend time in. I might ask a question or two, and a kind employee might give me an explanation about something I didn't ask, and I'm good with it. Look, I can't force you to visit one of these stores. I can only say this. What do you remember about your last trip to a big box store? Only that you went and it was expensive, right? I am fondly talking to you today about an experience I had more than 50 years ago, and I can't tell you how glad I am that they're still in business and how happy it makes me that I can walk to one right now if I want to. And I do want to. I think I just talked myself into walking over there after we're done. Which tells me it must have been a pretty good Drain Battery Society recharge recommendation. Amazingly enough, we actually got a couple listener emails based only on the trailer. Very exciting for me because, you know, I've joked about having two listeners for a month. Turns out I do, and they're both in Ohio. That's the funny part. The show originates from New England, so the rational thing to believe is that the audience is stretched between Bangor and Portsmouth. And then these emails come in from Cleveland. Anywho, David in Cleveland emailed with what looks like an attempt to write a bit for the show. Uh, sorry to put you on the spot here, Dave. He says, Hi, Peter, and the Drain Battery Society. I'll wait for you to say hi back. I have been realizing that my trips to the grocery store are starting to get more strategic than they need to be. Like I'm planning the D-Day invasion, but instead of Normandy, I'm storming the giant eagle. Way too much thinking involved. I went in for tomatoes. One thing. I was on my way home from work and figured I'd help the dinner effort and pick them up so my wife didn't have to go out. What should have been a 10-minute stop turned into a 45-minute side quest. Most of that time was spent comparing something like 16 different olive oils and three different balsamic vinegars, like I was going to get voted off a cooking show if I chose wrong. I thought some basil, maybe mozzarella, the balsamic, a nice appetizer at home. Fancier than we usually have. To be honest, I had to ask a woman also choosing vinegar what I should get, avoiding what would have been another 45 minutes earlier in the aisle. I got up to the register, very anxious to get home, but uh I was dreading having to explain why my quick stop took so long, and I realized I forgot the tomatoes. Tell me I am not the only one who walks out with four things and forgets what they actually came in for. It seems like it would be a very drained battery society thing to do. Love what you're doing and look forward to some episodes. Dave. Dave, thanks for your email. Uh, you must be really bored in Cleveland to be listening to a podcast home ported in northern New England. May I also say I've always found people from Ohio to be almost Canadian nice. I don't know what to do with it. We're not like that up here. But you know, to the entire audience, I will say he's right. Forgetting is a very drained battery society thing to do. We're overloaded at work, trying to squeeze in the important stuff between getting out of work at 5 and going to bed at 6.30. We're thinking about retirement, wondering why our kids don't visit more, wondering why our out of town friends don't unexpectedly visit less. We're thinking about that new mole we found on liver spot examination night. It's crazy. But good for Dave for wanting to do something nice for his wife. I get it though. The grocery store is awesome. Bright lights going from the insufferable heat of the chicken roasting area to the freezing cold of the refrigerated foods aisle, which kind of reminds me of New England Falls. But, you know, feeling dangerous when I'm not shopping along the outside walls of the store, right? Like I'm risking it all to go in through the chip aisle. Maybe I am. Anyway, shopping is fun for me. I go up and down every aisle, even the pet food aisle, and I don't own a pet. I just like seeing what dogs are into this season. Dave, thanks for the email and thanks for listening to the Drain Battery Society. I hope we are almost meeting your expectations. All right. The next email was my favorite of the two, and again, also from Ohio. Listen, I don't know how distribution with internet things works. I think we've established that, but I am hoping to reach Sheboygan by mid-November. Seriously, can anyone tell me why the two emails we got from Ohio and not like Vermont? I digress, as usual, which reminds me, my my biggest fear is that this segment accidentally turns into Casey Kasem's long distance dedication. Kevin writes in to say, I don't know. I found the trailer yesterday and laughed because I honestly thought I was the only person who spent half my day muttering, nobody needs this. I'm 58. Nothing's actually wrong with my life. Good job, great wife, healthy kids. I'm just tired. Not sleepy, just tired of everything needing an account, an update, or a smartphone to work. And then I go to work and I'm not allowed to use my smartphone. I expected more from life when I was a young man, thinking about getting old. My wife says, I've been getting particular. I think I'm trying to get more efficient. I won't ask you to solve that difference. Looking forward to hearing the show, Kevin in Ohio. Kevin, thanks for your kind words about getting more efficient. If I may, I think what your wife is trying to tell you is that you are now a grumpy old man and she's not sure she likes it. I might suggest a my house, my rules conversation. I'm kidding. Only she's allowed to start those types of talks. You just have to listen. So yeah. Nobody needs this is a whole segment dedicated to people and products that have no purpose. It is so prevalent, these products, we can make it a part of the show every single week and never repeat a one. We're living the movie idiocracy. I know it, you know it. So people our age look around and get pissed off because things aren't like what they used to be. I shouldn't say pissed off. I should say let me reframe the thought. How about this? We have simply shortened the list of things to be happy about. How's that? Thanks for emailing, Kevin. I appreciate it. Listener, if you want your private thoughts to be part of a podcast that stretches at least to Ohio, email me at mailbag at drainbatteriesociety.com. Let me know if it's okay to use your first name on the show, and I will include it in an upcoming podcast. And that puts a bow on another week of the Drain Battery Society Podcast. Keep the emails coming to mailbag at drainbatteriesociety.com. Still looking for more confessions for things nobody admits, which will be fun, and I'm always happy to entertain new voices for spots and promos, the help I get will be rewarded with society merch. Hey, Pyrrhic victories are still victories. Look it up. Thanks to the lovely Beth P for making me think the Solitude app is real. If you got the impression the voice behind the Lumen skincare spot was orange and leathery, you're right. She stopped smoking six years from now. Thank you, Kimberly Q Delaney, for squeezing that spot out before your coughing fit. By the way, the Q now stands for quit. Theme music was brought to you this week by Grunt Sons Moving Company. At Grunt ⁇ Sons, we believe experience matters, and so does ibuprofen. Our movers have over 40 years of combined experience making noises no human should make while lifting a love seat. As for proper lifting technique, we've heard of it. Grunt Sons Moving Company. The noises when we bend and the incorrect lifting techniques are just the way we roll. Your piano down the stairs. Before I forget, make sure you visit the Drain Battery Society website, Drain Battery Society.com if you hadn't figured that one out. Bring some friends, but call first, okay? I can't take much more of these unscheduled visits. Also, this is a podcast. Do you know how hard it is to make it look like no one's home? Alright. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reach nope, that's not it. Get off my lawn, keep your battery between 20 and 80%, and keep your expectations low. Thanks for listening to the Drain Battery Society. Barely charged, fully opinionated. Yeah, that's better. Okay. Off to Abishon Hardware for a couple hours to celebrate.