Episode 6: Sixteen Tons and What Do You Get?

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you're sore and held together by ibuprofen and denial, this is the podcast for you, the Drain Battery Society, hosted by the man once thrown out of Lowe's for giving unsolicited advice in the roofing shingle aisle, Peter Conway.

Cold Open: The Self-Checkout Delusion

SPEAKER_01 0:20

We've somehow invented a system where I'm doing the work and someone else is supervising me while I do it incorrectly. Think about that. We used to walk into a store, put our stuff on a conveyor belt, and a trained professional checked us out. Now, apparently I've been promoted to cashier and they've been demoted to observer. Nobody asked me if I wanted the job. Nobody interviewed me. Nobody's paying me. I didn't even get one of those awkward training videos where everyone's smiling and far more helpful than anyone who actually works retail. I just walked into Lowe's for a box of screws and suddenly I'm the new guy who forgot his vest on the first day. Self-checkout was supposed to be about convenience. Instead, we've become unpaid interns. It's estimated that companies across the country save a combined $300 million just in labor costs by using self-checkouts, and we get nothing in return. And Lowe's has gone all in. At MyLowe's, they've eliminated cash registers altogether. It's almost entirely self-checkout now, which means they have one poor employee standing in the middle of eight self-checkout stations running from one flashing red light to another like an air traffic controller directing landings during a thunderstorm. Wouldn't it just be easier if they stood behind a register? The self-checkout machine itself, I refuse to call it a register, is incredibly optimistic. It assumes I know what I'm doing. I don't. I'm standing there waving a box under the scanner like I'm trying to set up communication with the International Space Station. I hold it up. Nothing. Rotate it. Nothing. Flip it over. Nothing. Tilt it toward the light. Nothing. Then suddenly, beep. Like I accidentally solved a puzzle. And the machine only talks to you when you've disappointed it. Unexpected item in the bagging area. Please wait for assistance. Remove item from bagging area. It's never encouraging. It never says something like, nice scan, or excellent barcode technique, or you're really getting the hang of this. Oh no. Every interaction feels like I'm getting a performance review administered by HR. And then the employee hustles over. They scan one thing, push one button, smile politely, walk away. Which raises an uncomfortable question. If your entire shift consists of helping people use self-checkout, aren't you basically a cashier with extra steps? Homer over an aisle 17 would never let this happen. I've noticed there are three kinds of people at self-checkout. First, you've got the professionals. These people know item numbers like their kids' names. And then you've got the gamblers. They refuse help. No matter how many warning messages appear, they're determined to beat the machine. The screen could literally say system failure, they're still tapping skip. And finally, there's me. Standing there trying to buy two small pieces of metal in a bar clamp while the register loudly announces to the entire store that I misjudged the length of a carriage bolt. It would appear that I'm expected to identify the length of a carriage bolt by sight alone. Like I'm a human tape mesher. I'm good, but I'm not that good. Anyway, I honestly don't remember applying for a cashier position. It seems like all it takes these days is walking into Lowe's, and training starts immediately. Welcome to the Drain Battery Society. Barely charged, fully opinionated.

Welcome & Battery Check

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I have a universal truth or two to share, a few stories from the weekend you might enjoy, a few sponsors, dying for your dollars, a new nobody needed this, a recharge recommendation, and listener email, believe it or not. I try my best to keep this thing at 30 minutes because nobody wants to commute longer than that, and quite frankly, I only want to hang out with you in your car. So let's let's talk about I'm kidding. Let's talk about what's draining my battery this week. And we're only two days in. I say that like I wasn't drained all weekend either. Are you ready? Here's what's draining it information overload. I'm a self-professed news junkie. When I was a kid in school, I would get the paper in the morning and read the obituaries while I ate my Captain Crunch. Then I just read the paper cover to cover every single day. And then I went to journalism school, and now it's the news that I watch, right? Local news at 5 30 a.m., 5 30 p.m., local news from 6 to 7 a.m. National news from Good Morning America at 7 a.m. while reading the AP network news, which I tend to do four times a day, evening news again at six o'clock. Then you pick up what little news is out there on Facebook and Instagram. I'm spent. Never mind what's going on in the world and the country. I mean, I want to be informed. I don't want to be ignorant, but I can't seem to find the sweet spot for just enough. So in between bouts with the news, it's tech overload. I mean, I'm bad enough with software and hardware. I've made no secret of that on this podcast. I can edit audio quite well, and that's easy enough, but ask me to set up a Facebook page for this podcast. I head for a cave and refuse to come out. And then, you know, there are all the passwords, new, complex, found in a data leak, and then updates. The bike ride this past weekend was delayed by a full hour because there was an update to the app, a firmware update, and little old me trying to facilitate all of it. I ended up just finally pedaling and not taking credit for the 21 miles because I realized it was just stupid, trying to fiddle with software while the temps continue to climb, and I think y'all know how hot it's been across the entire country. There's more, really, but that's enough, right? You get the picture. I feel almost daily like a spaceship trying to navigate an asteroid field and a dense one at that. Just pummeled by little things again and again. It's like, you know, I mean, we're just talking asteroids, but holy cow, like death by a thousand mosquito bites, right? So you add all of that pain, annoyances that just never seem to find their end, relationship navigation, identity shifts, trying to find purpose at this age. It's a lot. I don't wish it on you, but you know, if you're getting knocked, well, not down, but if you're getting knocked backward again and again, I hear you and I see you. We keep going because that's how we're built, but man, I sure would like a day off from this shit. So I know you thought you were gonna laugh, right? So that's that's what has me at 19% right now. I do aspire to 38%, but some days it just feels like a pipe dream, and and you know, some days you're an optimist and some days you're not. I'm trying real hard. What's draining your battery? Let me know. Shoot me an email at battery drain at drain batteriesociety.com and fill me in. I'd love to talk about it, work it out here, and hopefully help others who suffer in silence. I'm just one who chose to buy a microphone. Before we dive into the pool of sunshine and happiness, let's thank today's sponsor, Unfinished Projects Unlimited. Unfinished Projects Unlimited was founded on the belief that every home deserves at least three projects that are almost done. Need that closet upstairs turned into a half bath? We can have a pile of drywall on the rug and no place to hang your coats by lunch. Need a replacement window? We'll remove the old one before the weather changes and call it central air when the weather does change. Dreaming of built-in bookshelves, we'll have sixteen boards neatly stacked in your living room until Thanksgiving, just waiting on a back ordered bracket. Our crews specialize in getting your project to that exciting ninety-two percent complete stage, where it remains until someone else finishes it. Most of our projects can be completed in a single weekend, just not the same weekend, and certainly not by us. You can count on us for a strong start. We are Unfinished Projects Unlimited. I worry about running out of material for the show sometimes. I mean, how many times can I bitch about my back? To you, I mean. I bitch about it daily to myself, and then I calm down and remind myself to just pay attention to what's going on around me. There's enough. I could probably squeeze 30 minutes out of something. Um, I'm kidding. Back in the early 90s when I got out of the service for the first time, I was still collecting a paycheck, but home on what they call terminal leave, so I had all kinds of time, didn't have to work. A buddy of mine from high school and I, who did have to work but didn't have a job, we would get together to play eight hours of tennis. Don't lie. That's all we did all day. And then we would go to a local pizza place, drink a pitcher of beer, and argue about song lyrics. I thought recently that I would get back into playing tennis. Not for eight hours. There's no way that could ever happen, but you know, just pick up a regular game somewhere, and then I figured out my imagination was writing checks my body couldn't cash. Ankles, knees, wrists, back, neck, hips, in no particular order, all of them raised objections all at once. I will add, it was around the time that I hopped over to Amazon to get a tennis racket and saw that they were almost $250 now. So you better believe at this age, if I've learned to do anything well, it's pivot mentally. I can't do it physically. So I thought to myself, all right, can't do tennis, $250 for a racket, that's just stupid. How about pickleball? In my late fifties, I'm far younger than what's considered young old. That's around 65. So pickleball is today's shuffleboard, I think, in terms of the respect it gets. I'm just looking for ways to keep moving because I've heard every little bit helps until it doesn't. Anyway, mentally, I'm reviewing the pros and the cons. I know where there are courts. I know I could post something on Facebook to get a game going. I'd have to get a paddle, but if tennis rackets for grossly amateur players are two hundred and fifty dollars, the paddles can't be that expensive, right? They're little more than glorified ping pong paddles. Wrong. I hit up ChatGPT, which, by the way, wants to be called Atlas. In turn, I demanded to be called Night Eagle. That's true. So Atlas tells me the paddles are two hundred and fifty dollars. High tech, space age material, different core thicknesses, vibration dampening. I started to wonder what I got myself into. Apparently Pickleball isn't replacing shuffleboard, it's replacing my retirement accounts. So there are no trips to dicks in my immediate future. I'm still mulling it over. Like, what if someone saw me? That is unacceptable. So over the weekend, I had to lie down for a nap and decided to try a movie out that had received poor reviews from my two friends, Siskel and Kubert. I'm talking about I'm talking about you know who you are. Talking about the Apple movie uh The Dink. It's about pickleball and the lack of respect it gets from tennis pure. Has a bit of um Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison kind of feel to it, but ended up being a cute movie. Good way to lull me into a nap. Ever since I woke up, I'm not sure if my microphone was on or what the situation was, but I have been pounded with pickleball ads on Facebook and Instagram. Pounded. Like every third post is for a different paddle, each claiming to be the best. Pickleball shoes, all claiming to reduce ankle injuries, pickleball outfits, all claiming to look good. They look in reality like golf clothes my grandparents would wear. I'm getting ads for pickleballs. I mean they're DPW yellow wiffle balls. How do you differentiate yourself as a pickleball company? What makes you stand out from your competitor? Why do I even care? Thing is, now I want to play, but I can't go to Dick's because I might see someone I know. Which, as it would happen, is a bit in the movie. The main character sees his nemesis, played by Andy Roddick, who's a professional tennis player for in real life. Uh Andy Roddick is in the same store that the main character is trying to buy a paddle in. I don't want that to happen to me. It's a small town, and I would like everyone to think that I still have standards. So I have to go to Amazon and wade through 94 Chinese companies offerings, sponsored ads. I don't know what I'm looking for, but Amazon thinks they do. So I have to settle in for the afternoon and the evening. I realize I might be getting a little bit out of control. My save for later cart is overflowing with things I don't have a purpose for, and I can't remember why they're in there. But if I hear someone talking about something, I think to myself, that sounds good, and put it in my cart. I step in gum and suddenly I need new sneakers. Water pressure's low and disappointing, so I start looking for a new shower head, which means I need new vice scripts and plumber's tape to put it on. Do I need anything for the bathroom while I'm in there? Twelve packs of deodorant. Add to cart. Maybe a new sleep mask. It feels like I'm going to be needing one in the next year or so. Add to cart. Nice pens. Added. A bigger pillbox because old. Added. Can't sleep well. Three new pillows. Added to the cart, and on and on it goes. I drove for UPS for a while when QVC was a thing. And we used to call the people who would order frequently QVC Queens. There was one who must have gotten 10 boxes every single day on my route. In my head, I would make fun of her. Now it's starting to look like I am her. Every night around 1030, I tell myself, that's it. I'm not ordering anything else. And then I see Amazon's customers also bought section, and suddenly I'm whispering in the general direction of my phone, I wish I knew how to quit you. I quit smoking 20 years ago with the patch. Why isn't there a patch to help you quit ordering from Amazon? So I've decided I'm going to limit my purchases to the materials needed to build a DIY recording booth for the Drain Battery Society podcasts. Sounds fancy, right? I used to be in a band a hundred years ago and we recorded an album in an Honest to God recruiting uh recruiting. It's a recruiting studio, an honest to God recording studio, and it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. There were like foot-thick walls, special foundations, sand, acoustic tiles all over the place. Gives me the tingles, just thinking about it now. Guitars hanging off the walls, pianos in every room. It was nuts and it was awesome. But this project, this uh recording booth project isn't that. It's a long way from that, actually. But I am looking forward to how it's going to go, even though I'm not looking forward to what it will bring me, which is more than likely 20 trips to the hardware store. And that brings us to the Drain Battery Society Universal Truth number 104. Every project begins with one trip to Lowe's or Home Depot, maybe Aubashan Hardware, but it ends with four. When I was 23, my weekends revolved around concerts and bars. You may remember your own twenties rather fondly. This weekend, when I'm no longer in my twenties, I needed a handful of stainless steel carriage bolts, a couple of moving blankets, special bungee cords, and a guy named Ron to tell me why the PVC pipes I bought were all wrong for the job. We've already talked about the self-checkout, but let me ask you, have you ever tried to scan ten foot sections of one and a quarter inch PVC piping with people waiting? I lost seven pounds of water and only two pounds was from sweating. I'm a nervous peer. Anyway, I'm not. I was home by noon and considered it one hell of a Saturday. But now I need to assemble. I'm hopeful it goes smoothly and I won't have to include the project in the battery drain next week, but you know how that goes. I'm gonna record uh next week's episode from the Drain Battery Society Studio A. To be clear, there is no studio B. I'm not implying anything, I'm just trying to make it sound cool. And and you know, DBS Studio A sounds a hell of a lot better than Sparky's Bar and Grill. It's not a man cave, it's a closet with moving blankets in it. I don't know. You want to name it something different? Send it on over. If I can change it, I'll be happy to do that. Running out of ideas quickly, and it's, you know, just as simple as hanging a sign on a piece of PVC piping.

Commercials

SPEAKER_01 18:15

I'm guessing the enthusiasm I'm sensing isn't because we'll be right back, is it?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Our handcrafted plastic clamshell contains three ounces of grass we clipped from a manicured lawn. We call them microgreens because it sounds like science. Sprinkle them on your toast so you can take a picture, post it online, and pretend that you have your life completely figured out. We know the truth, and we won't tell anyone. Verdant.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

What makes Gordon's vending machine fish sticks an instant favorite? It's that unmistakable vending machine freshness and the confidence that every bite is working just as hard as you are. Our dependability is no secret. Every Gordon's fish stick is carefully seasoned with bits of kodo. The same trusted ingredient found in America's favorite laxatic. Because of Gordon's, we believe the lunch should keep moving long after you've stopped eating it. Sure, your co-workers may quietly avoid the restroom for the rest of the afternoon, but that's simply the kind of reliability people have come to expect from Gordon's.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Don't you mean Gordon? Fish sticks?

SPEAKER_01 19:33

No, Karen, I certainly do not. I need Gordon's. From fish sticks to clam patties to our all-new microwave seafood medley, every Gordon's Vending Machine product is proudly selected from the backs of America's finest streetside pickup trucks. Gordon's Vending Machine Steafood, trusted by people who should have packed a sandwich. I bet you're still trying to get off the couch. Well, now you can make a noise while you're sitting down because we're back for the second half of the show.

Nobody Needed This

SPEAKER_01 20:06

This is the part of the show in which we salute the people who look at society through the lens of, how can I help? And while the answer should be I can't, they somehow find something to make us all a little closer to idiocracy. It's time for nobody needed this. I like to travel. Never used to, but as I've gotten older, I definitely see the value in it. The need even. Thing is, I have crappy luggage. Well, maybe not crappy, but certainly mismatched and old, and my little bag is missing a wheel. It came off while I was pulling it down the sidewalk, started to turn a little funny, and then all of a sudden the dragging noise just right down. Oh my goodness. I had to pick it up and carry it like an actual suitcase. Can you imagine? Anyway, when I have a moment here or there, I look for good bags for travel, and that's how I came across electric riding luggage. I wish I could say there was only one company that manufactured these buttes, but there are several, too many to mention, actually. I will note that while the price for these wheeled explosions are in the $600 range, TMU has one for $50 that doesn't even need to have the battery installed to catch fire. They all have a little handlebar, um, what looks like standard wheels, and while some just have a saddle-like indentation to sit on, others have a full-fledged bicycle seat. I hope you're trying to visualize these things. I am reminded of the inchworm toy we had as kids, about knee height, bounced up and down while you propelled it forward. Remember? Thing is, when I had an inchworm, I was six. Now I'm trying to imagine a grown ass adult trying to ride this thing through the airport, maybe with cap guns strapped to their plastic holsters and a small little cowboy hat with an elastic chin strap. I bet the other travelers think it's It's like being in a room with a bunch of cats and trying hard not to step on their tails. You ever been in a hurry to get to a connecting flight when you've traveled? Can you imagine being in a hurry and riding this thing no matter what? Just to justify the price tag? Nothing says hurry to me like driving a six mile per hour suitcase through the airport while everyone silently roots against you. I thought I resented the people who rode on golf carts, but without even seeing this thing, and you know I'm going to go straight to YouTube after this, the cart riders have been replaced. And I have to think the suitcase posse lords it over them. Someone should explain to the suitcase posse what winning looks like. I guarantee you it does not involve a rideable suitcase. This thing's being marketed to perfectly healthy adults whose biggest hardship is gate C thirty seven being all the way down there. You know who has to walk to C thirty seven? Every other person. Gate agent, flight crew, the guy with two screaming toddlers and a backpack that looks like a mini fridge with straps. They're all walking. I have a cane, and I'd be walking. But not Chad the suitcase rider. He spent seven hundred dollars for the privilege of balancing precariously on a Roomba with clothes on it. Which brings us to airport etiquette. We already fight over the overhead bin space. Now imagine somebody plugging their luggage into an outlet at the gate. Your phone has a battery, your earbuds have a battery, your watch has a battery, and now your suitcase has a battery. At this point, you are traveling with enough lithium to qualify as a small power station. And then there's TSA. How do you sell this vehicle to TSA as carry-on luggage? And you just know these things evoke different driving styles in their owners. There's the cautious rider who doesn't care how many people are behind her, she's not going to fall off again. There's the Formula One rider who weaves in and out of pedestrian traffic at the full six miles an hour, throwing caution to the wind. I bet they even wear a scarf and have a British flag paint scheme on their suitcase. And then there's the guy who manages to back his suitcase into the Hudson News display, knocks it over, and ruins Forbes magazine for everyone. Then once you get on the plane, you're gonna have to carry it anyway, so what's the point? Now you have to carry this monstrosity through a small aisle while apologizing to the fourteen strangers you just kneecapped. All that innovation, all that money, just to end up doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing, except louder, slower, and with a better chance of spontaneous chemical fire. So congratulations to the first maker of electric riding luggage and to those who thought it was a great enough idea to jump into this exciting new market. You've taken the one thing designed to make travel easier and somehow manage to make the entire airport worse. You are the winners of this week's Drain Battery Society's Solution Seeking a Problem Award. We collectively hope your battery dies halfway to gate C thirty seven, right behind a family of six walking arm in arm like they're off to see the wizard. And one more wish from me personally, may every outlet at your gate already be occupied by someone charging an actual medical device.

Recharge Recommendation

SPEAKER_01 25:41

You might have noticed I complain a lot. Some of it's theater, and some of it is birthright, but every week I think it's only fair that I recommend something that actually puts a little charge back into your personal battery. This week's Drain Battery Society recharge recommendation doesn't cost much and you don't need a reservation. It might seem a little like homework is involved, and maybe it is, but I promise it'll be worth it. I want you to pick a town you've never really explored, maybe one outside a 25 mile radius from your home. Find a local diner, not a chain, an actual diner, and go have lunch by yourself. And here's the important part leave your phone in your pocket. I'm totally serious. No doom scrolling while you wait for your sandwich, no checking email, no pretending you're just catching up on things or that Brenda said she'd text and you don't want to miss it. Just sit there. Kind of like we talked about when I sent you to watch a sunrise somewhere. Order the special. Listen to the conversations around you. Every diner has that one table where the same four guys have been solving the world's problems every Saturday since 1985. You'll hear a waitress call three people by name and everyone else hun all before they even sit down. Someone's going to order liver and onions, and you'll realize that people still do that. Watch the rhythm of the place, the cook yelling order up, the bell over the door, the couple that's been married forty years and somehow have an entire conversation without saying more than six words. This is peace, no matter how noisy it gets. There's something magical about being in a town where nobody knows you and nobody expects anything from you. For 45 minutes, you're not someone's employee, someone's spouse, someone's parent, or neighbor, or customer. You're just a person sitting in a booth or at the counter enjoying a sandwich and a cup of coffee that somehow tastes better than what you could have made at home yourself. We spend so much of our lives trying to be efficient that we forget how enjoyable it is to simply exist somewhere else for a little while. So stay a little while longer and get dessert. You've earned the pie. And that is this week's Drain Battery Society recharge recommendation. Go somewhere new, eat somewhere local, leave your phone in your pocket, and let the rest of the world wait until you've finished your pie. You can thank me later.

Listener Email

SPEAKER_01 28:17

The geographical reach of this podcast fascinates me. I grew up on radio, which is limited to a relatively small area. Only a tiny group of people can listen to WBLM out of Portland or WBCN out of Boston. This is the age of the internet, I guess, and so people anywhere can listen and email in, for which I thank you. You know, we've got the two guys in Ohio, someone from Haverill, Haverill, someone from Boston, Boston. We're creeping north, right? Today's listener email comes from Rutland, Vermont, of all places. I've actually been to Rutland. A buddy of mine from the 80s grew up there, and we'd take a road trip up to see his mom from time to time. Great little town. It's very much like the one I grew up in. So, you know, it's just uh if yeah, I've been there a couple of times since then, and and it's felt like home every time, probably for that reason. So here's this week's listener email. Hi, Peter. I've been listening while I drive to work every morning and wanted to share something that's draining my battery lately. I'm 56 and live in Rutland, Vermont. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I've started avoiding stores on Saturdays. Not because they're too busy, I expect that. It's because every errand somehow turns into three extra stops I never planned on making. I go out for dog food and come home with mulch, bird seed, a birthday card, and suddenly I've spent $80 without buying anything fun. Then I get home and I realize I left the dog food in the parking lot. I used to be able to run into a store for one thing. Now I need a written list, and even then I still manage to forget a few things. Please tell me this isn't just me. Love the show. It feels like listening to a friend who's willing to admit the things the rest of us are thinking. Take care, Michelle in Rutland, Vermont. Thank you for the email and the kind words, Michelle. I've said it before and I will say it as long as it's true. We are in this thing together. None of us are alone. We all forget things. Our brains all have twenty five tabs open and we need a reboot. I don't think it's because we're old. I think it's because we have baggage. So we have today's stuff, right? The honeydews, the commitments and the promises we've made. We remember to do something kind for someone, and then we start remembering all those little things we've let build up during the week. The shouldas is what I call them. I should have gone to my sisters to see how the nieces move to California is going and how empty nesting is affecting them. I should have bought batteries for the flashlight, so my spouse has a working flashlight to turn the breaker back on after I blow dry my hair. This is how you know it's not me, by the way. These are just made up things because you know, no hair, no blow dryer. Anyway, things like that. I had a friend that observed to me once when I was in my twenties, you should all over yourself. Stop it. And of course he said it intentionally fast, so I thought he said that I shit all over myself. And once I figured it out, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. I was wearing myself down like a pencil that I refused to sharpen, beating myself up for the things I should have done and didn't. The correct answer was to reframe and say that I either did it or I didn't, and own it. I will or I won't do it, and own it. It simplifies things really and gives you more control day to day over your life. The little decisions we're faced with every day, they add up and they can get to the point where they overwhelm us. And we talked a week or so ago about how every weekend starts with one trip to the hardware store, ends with four more, right? Or actually, see, here we go. That wasn't even this weekend, that was earlier this podcast. Sweet Jesus. The same principle applies to what Michelle is experiencing, probably what we're all experiencing. Use your list, double check it before you leave the store. Make sure you have everything before you leave the store, and then again before you put the cart back and leave the parking lot. Make sure you've emptied the car when you're unloading. It would not be good to leave a pound of haddock in the way back for a week at the height of summer. Learn that lesson the hard way. Here's another way of looking at it. I bet you can remember your phone number when you were a kid. Do you know your husband's phone number now? I bet you don't, and if you do, you're one of the very few who do. So what changed? I'll tell you what changed. It's the amount of shit we've got coming at us daily. There's so much we were forced to rely on devices of convenience, like our phones, and then we trained our brains to offload information to those phones. We went from steel traps to steel sieves, right? Like our brains are just sort of a pass-through. It's the uh, I don't know, brain version of in one ear and out the other. Here's an amazingly simple yet perfect drain battery society universal truth. It's number 105. Forgetfulness isn't our problem. Too much information is. We stopped being filing cabinets and turned into junk drawers. I hope this helps, Michelle. And listener, I hope you got something from it too. I know it was a good reminder for me. If you want to let me know what's on your mind, whether it's a drained battery moment or a bad reaction to asper cream, hit me up at mailbag at drain batteriesociety.com. The lucky stiff who gets their email read on the air gets some highly coveted hard-to-comey society merch when I get it. I mean, who wouldn't be proud to wear a gently used Drain Battery Society branded retainer? Yum.

Closer

SPEAKER_01 33:52

I'm going to go ahead and power down for this week, friends. Please accept my sincerest thanks for listening. Until I get some sponsors, this is a labor of love, so maybe you could do me a solid and help me build the audience. Everybody knows somebody old. Come on. I invite you to send in your not-so-forgotten embarrassments and secret shames for our Things Nobody Admits show. The submissions are coming in slowly, and I think this is going to be a pretty good episode. I'll try for once a month. And if you don't send me anything by way of confessions, I'll tell everyone about that time you ran face first into the door at the grocery store and then processed your concussion by pretending to read the cell flyer. The people who didn't see you certainly heard you. Don't kid yourself. If you do send me your confessions, I'll keep your name out of it, I promise. It's all about the story anyway. I'm also looking for volunteers to become recurring contributors on the show, whether it's for voice work, for promos or spots, or even coming in and doing a segment or two. I think it'd be fun and probably a little different. Remember, the email address is mailbag at drained batteriesociety.com. The Spot di questa settimana were quasi-professionally voiced by the human version of a bad penny, Kimberly Q. Delaney. She's from the government and she's here to help. Our theme music this week is brought to you by the Human Utilization Group or HUG. Making friends as an adult is hard. Maintaining a roster of required acquaintances, that's where we come in. Whether you've accepted a position on the PTO, volunteered for the church auction, joined your HOA board, or agreed to spend an entire weekend with another couple just because someone insisted, you guys have so much in common, you need a hug. Our licensed social compliance specialists are here to help you maintain eye contact, ask follow-up questions about pickleball, and convincingly say things like, We should definitely do this again sometime, while quietly praying everyone understands that no one intends to schedule anything. So if you've ever pretended to check your phone so you wouldn't have to join another conversation about free-range chickenry, RV ownership, or someone's grandson's travel baseball schedule, you definitely need a hug. The Human Utilization Group. Let's see if over the next seven days you can manage three simple things. Ready? 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.