Expectations, Faith, And Christmas Chaos

What if the season that promises wonder is actually training us to want more and feel less? We dive into the quiet tug-of-war between expectation and faith, starting with the relatable mess: kids firing off Amazon lists like invoices, adults exchanging gift cards out of obligation, and algorithms turning whispers into must-buys. It’s funny until it isn’t—because that same cycle can hijack prayer, family rhythms, and our sense of what truly matters.

Together we map a different way. We talk about praying for God’s will instead of predictable outcomes, and why that shift doesn’t kill hope—it strengthens it. We wrestle with sin beyond culture-war headlines, naming anything that edges God out as a barrier to real life. From Job’s endurance to Advent’s active waiting, we make the case that faith sustains what expectation keeps breaking. You’ll hear candid stories about lost recordings and found perspective, kids and screens, collecting for the thrill of completing sets, and the strange economics of holiday giving.

We don’t stop with big ideas. We share practical, human steps: swap some stuff for experiences, protect one meaningful tradition, limit the algorithm’s reach, bring surprise back into gifts, and reframe prayer as alignment rather than leverage. Along the way we explore why kindness needs an anchor, how moral claims require roots, and why Scripture still offers that steady ground, even with translation challenges. If your December feels transactional, you’re not alone. Let’s release the brittle grip of “more” and recover a hope that can carry real life.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review to help more people find these conversations.

Chapters

• 0:00 Warm-Up Banter And Road-Trip Tales
• 3:07 Food, Markets, And Childhood TV Nostalgia
• 11:12 Games, Collecting, And The Lure Of Sets
• 17:32 Holiday Pressure And The Season Of Expectation
• 23:47 Wish Lists, Amazon Culture, And Lost Magic
• 29:22 Expectation Versus Faith In Prayer
• 35:17 Sin, Acceptance, And Changing Standards
• 41:57 Parenting, Screens, And Algorithmic Desire
• 48:47 Consumer Mania: Toys, Collectibles, And Beanie Babies
• 55:37 Jury Duty, Security Rules, And Everyday Absurdities
• 1:03:17 Violence, Rights, And Social Breakdown
• 1:10:52 Readiness, Advent, And Christian Hope
• 1:16:57 Morality, Atheism, And The Source Of Kindness
• 1:23:42 Floods, Translation, And Trusting Scripture
• 1:30:37 Closing Reflections And Prayer

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 1:14

Is it ticking?

SPEAKER_00: 1:16

Ticking time bomb. There we go. It's moving. Ticking time bomb. TikTok. Tick. It's ticking.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23

Nick's in the tree seat.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26

I still feel like loud or maybe it's my ears.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

Yeah, your ears might be loud.

SPEAKER_04: 1:31

What color am I? Orange.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33

Orange. Orange. So turn her orange headphones. That's good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:35

That's good.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37

Alrighty. Alright. Now I'm all distracted. Lots of colors, lots of colors in like Spongebob. I just want to press the red button.

SPEAKER_04: 1:49

Don't touch it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:50

Goodness gracious. Why is a red button is always something bad happens.

SPEAKER_01: 2:00

Well, because red means stop. And the president has the red phone. Yeah. Yep.

unknown: 2:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:07

Red is bad. Yeah. Your hat's bad. You got a bad hat. My Bucky's hat. Can I tell you it was three stops? I've never been to a Bucky's hat. It was three stops to get this hat. I stopped at three Buckys to get this hat. And they had them at every one, but he couldn't decide what he wanted. No, that's I wish that were true. So we stopped at one on the way down. Never even thought about a hat. The kids all got something tiny. Like we told them five dollars or under, you can grab something. On the way home, I was like, I want a Bucky's hat. Like I decided I had to get one. So we stopped at the one in Daytona Beach. Don't ever do that at lunchtime. It was so busy you couldn't move. Oh and so the only hats they had were Bucky's Christmas hats. So I grabbed one reluctantly, but I was like, I'll get it. We got in the car and we started driving home. We were coming home. And I saw a sign as soon as we got on the interstate: 163 miles to Bucky's. Well, guess where we stop? Bucky's at that Bucky's. So I went in, found the hat. That's all we got. Back out we went. But their brisket on mac and cheese, delicious. That's kind of a thing of mine. With mac and cheese or on mac and cheese? On mac and cheese. So you get the mac and cheese and then they put a big old lump of brisket on top of it.

SPEAKER_04: 3:19

They someone had that at the market a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01: 3:22

You know who it was? Fun story. Is that TCB barbecue? It's an Elvis reference. Oh I went up to them and I was like, Am I catching an Elvis reference? And the lady's like, Yes, you're only the second person who've ever gotten it. I fist bumped her. We talked for a while about Elvis and then on my way I went. But we're trying to book her for Railroad Festival now because why not? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 3:46

Where were they from?

SPEAKER_01: 3:47

They're local, but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04: 3:49

Because I've never I had never seen them until then.

SPEAKER_01: 3:51

Yeah, me either.

SPEAKER_04: 3:53

Huh.

SPEAKER_00: 3:55

Maybe they're just coming out of the box.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

Out of the box. Out of the box. Anybody remember that from our childhood? I do. I don't. Well, you're that's not your childhood. It would have been our childhood.

SPEAKER_00: 4:12

How about Mr. Green Jeans? Have you ever seen Mr. Green Jeans? Nope. Oh. Yeah. He was on uh Captain Kangaroo.

SPEAKER_01: 4:23

Oh, jeez. Now I know who Captain Kangaroo is, but only from a country song.

SPEAKER_03: 4:29

There was more than one Captain Kangaroo, though. No, there wasn't. I thought there was one when we were kids, but then there was also one black and white from way back when. Or maybe it was the same guy and he just carried he carried Claire over into the.

SPEAKER_00: 4:41

No, no, I think uh I think there was only one original Captain Kangaroo. Just like Howdy Duty. It's Howdy Duty time.

SPEAKER_02: 4:52

What was his clown's name? Oh, I have no idea. I've never seen Clarabelle.

SPEAKER_00: 4:57

Jeez.

SPEAKER_02: 4:57

Well, you don't know nothing. Yeah, I don't.

SPEAKER_04: 5:00

Yeah, that that out-of-the-box tune like lives in my head rent-free.

SPEAKER_01: 5:05

Mine is not the Mine is not the theme song. Mine's the goodbye song. So long to you, my friend. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Guy playing the bongos. Yeah, that was my jam, man.

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

What the bongos?

SPEAKER_01: 5:21

Well, that song. It was just one of those. It was like you could put that on repeat. It's very calming. It's very calming. Oh, you need to listen to Roy Rogers. How about Big Comfy Couch? Did you watch a little bit?

SPEAKER_04: 5:32

Did you watch Bear in the Big Blue House?

SPEAKER_01: 5:34

Okay. Funny story about Bear in the Big Blue House. Not entirely appropriate for a podcast, but it's a funny story, so I'm gonna share it anyway. I that was pre-me or post me. That was Brooke, my cousin Brooke's age. So we were at my grandma's house. I had spent the night, I'm eating a bowl of cereal, sitting on the floor in the living room, Bear in the Big Blue House is on. And if you know Bear in the Big Blue House, every time he would come onto the like at the at the beginning of the episode, he would and do the sniffing thing. Something smells really good. It must be you.

SPEAKER_04: 6:01

And like puts his nose up to the camera.

SPEAKER_01: 6:03

Like up to the screen. So he's like, you see the bear's nose. I had never seen the show before. Okay. Now I was a flatulent child. Might still be as an adult. I don't know. That would be up for debate. Anyhow, I had just passed gas and Bear starts sniffing at the screen. I'm dying thinking there is no way this is real life right now. Turned out it was just part of the show. But I didn't know that. Thought that was the funniest thing ever. For my I I still think it's funny. I still laugh. Anyhow, I know Margie's laughing right now. When she hears this, she's gonna laugh. So I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03: 6:37

I don't know if this is podcast appropriate, but just say it anyway. And you know, the Christmas Eve party.

SPEAKER_04: 6:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 6:49

Oh, yes, where they put all the keys in there. Yes, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_04: 6:53

Wait, wait, hold on. Let me think.

SPEAKER_01: 6:54

It is not child appropriate. It's not kid appropriate. I've always thought that.

SPEAKER_03: 6:57

But I didn't notice this for years. Oh, I did. Wait, what? And then Margie said something about it. I'm like, okay. I said, no, they're just putting their keys in the bowl because they're all going to drink. And so they don't want anybody to drive home drunk. And she's like, no, you are totally missing.

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

I think that's what that's like.

SPEAKER_04: 7:16

Wow. I never caught on to that. I don't think Chase has either because we watched that point. How did they get that passed?

SPEAKER_03: 7:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 7:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 7:24

You know. Producers.

SPEAKER_01: 7:26

Well, I think it was probably intentional.

SPEAKER_04: 7:28

It was one of those like adult humor things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:31

Do you remember Rocco's Modern Life? Yeah. Or even Hey Arnold. There were a lot of adult references in those shows, but when we were kids, we didn't know that. Yeah. I guess so. If my parents would have seen that, they probably would have freaked out that I was watching it. But of course, I wasn't well supervised as a child either.

SPEAKER_00: 7:47

So that's what happened to him. No. No, that was getting hit by the late summer evenings watching Beavis and Butthead.

SPEAKER_03: 7:57

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 7:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:59

Yeah, we don't even need to get into Beavis and Butthead. There's a video game for the Super Nintendo of Beavis and Butthead. My brother and I played that game nonstop for hours. The whole purpose was to get from your house to the Guar concert. Well, I don't know that we ever beat that game. We could get to the last level, but we could never beat it. It was, yeah. So I actually rebought it because I wanted to play it again.

SPEAKER_03: 8:19

Yeah, that was one of those games where it was more fun just to screw around than was to actually beat it. Yeah. Yeah. To accomplish the goals. Yeah. Those guys are worthless. Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. And did you ever see the two guys that actually look like that? Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 8:36

Hilarious. Hey, Pastor Roger. Yes. I'm gonna ask you one more time. What was that receipt for at Lowe's for$200?

SPEAKER_04: 8:47

You just threw it away, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01: 8:48

Oh, we'd eat a string. Good job. I've only told you three times. Yeah, I and I always forget.

SPEAKER_00: 8:54

And I thought maybe he would, you know, write it down or he was doing what he was supposed to be doing then. Nope. Nope. No.

SPEAKER_01: 9:01

Nope. Well, here's the problem. I ask him, and three hours later, he texts me back. I'm already done with what I was working on.

SPEAKER_04: 9:06

So But to his defense, you should have known that's how that was gonna go.

SPEAKER_01: 9:10

Yeah. Well, yeah. Thanks. Actually, what's funny, I had text both he and Pastor Holly about receipts because I'm multitasking right now. I'm coding all of the credit card purchases. I text both of them at the exact same time about receipts that I needed information on. Both of them text me back at the same time hours later. It was hilarious. I was like, well, they must have been together or something. Both of you are like, what do we do? Get this guy off our back. I do tend to be a nag when it comes to receipts because like my wife has 18 to code. She does all the checking account stuff. I strictly do the credit card stuff. And I don't like outstanding stuff because it's at the end of the month, it's tedious to try to get caught up. So anyway. Roger and Holly are going through their couch cushions.

SPEAKER_03: 9:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_05: 9:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:01

Well, usually you can't read his. They've ridden in his wallet for the entire month. And all they're all worn out.

SPEAKER_00: 10:05

The ink's wore off of the road. Okay. I'm not real sure where this is from. Here it is. Or how much it is. All completely worn out. Yeah, I can't help it. Well, at least I had the receipt. You know, it may not be legible, but I do have the receipt.

unknown: 10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 10:24

Well, guys, last appropriate episode of the year. Well, how'd that happen?

SPEAKER_01: 10:29

I don't know. So we were gonna release one more yet.

SPEAKER_03: 10:32

Yeah. This might be the actual last recording. Last recording, last topic for the year. Really timely, I will say. Because we had this idea for a while and we kind of left it on the list and skipped it and you know, then decide to do it, and then I couldn't be here in the one week. So that we postponed it again. Yeah. But wouldn't you know sometimes that all works out just the way it's supposed to. Because of course it's the holiday season, and I think for many people it is the season of expectation. Yes. Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, that's yeah, that's how we've all conditioned ourselves to be. Is that you know, we don't take this should be the time when we all slow down and take account of our blessings and take account of, you know, our loved ones and uh spend a little more time with that. And and what do we do? We try to go even faster.

SPEAKER_00: 11:28

You know, chop everybody's in a hurry.

SPEAKER_03: 11:30

I know at my work right now, it is absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_01: 11:34

Well, you want to get everything done before the end of the year, so you can just big push.

SPEAKER_03: 11:38

Like, yeah, everybody wants nobody wants to make the same amount amount of money last year as last year. You know, you want to make more money. Yep. So everybody's just push, push, push, and it's just just a just a relay, just every day of just how much more can we get out the door. And you know, we're closing in like next week will be the last full week that we'll have of the year, and then it'll be Christmas week and then New Year's week. And so, you know, we're just driving ourselves insane, trying to get all this stuff accomplished. And that makes it even harder. It does, because then you come home new stress, yeah, and you come home, and guess what? You're pretty exhausted. You know, you might want to do some holiday things with your family and make time for this or make time for that. But a lot of people are well, you're working overtime at work, and then you're you're thinking more about that, and then you know what you should be thinking about this time of year. So yeah, so you know, and Michael, your message was was just really good.

SPEAKER_01: 12:35

Yeah, I wish it would have been recorded. Yeah, don't get me started. That's too bad. No, and here's the thing it this is just it's how it happens. I went into the pulpit frustrated, like I my I was my spirit was not in a good place. I walk into the pulpit, and all of that energy was channeled into that message, and I don't get to listen to it. I remember about 40% of what I said. So the other 60% is just gone forever. So yeah. Was it very frustrated? It wasn't anybody's fault. The system did the recording started, but when we pulled it out, there was no file there. So apparently it wasn't meant to live on, it was meant for that moment.

SPEAKER_04: 13:10

That's what I was about to say.

SPEAKER_01: 13:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 13:12

So, you know, I I think it carries over into you know how sometimes we look at our faith is you know, I can compare this right now to, you know, the I think the present state of you know, guilty as charged, like with us with with Maggie. Like, you know, it used to be fun to go Christmas shopping. Oh, it's now it's not fun anymore because now these kids like they have it's not a wish list. It's a one list, it's a one slash expectation. Yes, yeah, it's like screenshot. And again, she doesn't write it out anymore like she's writing it to Santa. Now she sends you her wish list on Amazon with the full expectation that we're gonna get every single item, yeah, and then she sends one to her dad, and then she sends one to the grandparents, and she sends one to the brothers. And it's just like Does she send the same one or just different? No, she like builds these separate lists for everybody. Yeah, everybody gets their list. And you know, and it's just like this is not funny.

SPEAKER_00: 14:12

At least she knows she's not gonna get the same thing twice.

SPEAKER_03: 14:15

Well, exactly. That's the you know, but it just it leaves nothing to the imagination and and it leaves nothing to you know. I think I think sometimes the magic of let's say believing in Santa Claus is just you have to believe in it. You have to have this sense of belief that you he might bring you something. Right. So that you know, but anymore it's just like it's this expectation, like I'm gonna get it. What is he bringing me? You know, and yeah. Or just you know, and of course, they just they just have, I think with now kids have access to something like Amazon. Where before, you know, yeah, we looked through the Sears Wish Book. Or Montgomery Boards. Yeah. And that was kind of fun. But even that was kind of limited. Like we didn't have we didn't have all these outside sources that you could go to and you know, and so like I said, they're building these lists and they get it built up in their mind that you know they can send one to each you know, loved one that they have, and they have that expectation, and it just leaves nothing, no room left for the magic. The magic or, you know, as I compare it to the faith of you know, believing. And sometimes I think, you know, we can look at that with our faith as well, is you know, when we pray, what do we you know, are we praying because we have faith? Are we believing because we have faith, or are our prayers our expectations of what we want and what we desire, not necessarily the faith that we have in God to do his will and his choosing. You know, and so I think a lot of times we can get we can get that mixed up.

SPEAKER_01: 15:58

Well, I posed this question last week during my message, and while it's not necessarily about expectation, I think it's what creates the expectation. So the question is, and it's a big question, what is sin? What exactly is sin? Right? So you can go through the textbook answer, but basically sin is anything that will that you do that knowingly separates you from God. Yeah. I think that's a fair way to explain it. Yeah, I agree. So what I mean by that is if you are a smoker and you put smoking before anything else, if you are a world traveler and that world travel comes before God, any of those things, all of those ultimately become sinful in nature. It doesn't mean that that is sinful, but for you, it creates a roadblock, it creates a hurdle, right? Okay, so the problem is is we don't look at sin that way. We look at sin as homosexuality, illicit drug use. Basically what the Bible, like black and white well, not even But even then, technically, marriage or divorce is a sin according to the Bible. So what the world or what the law will will deem acceptable, the church will deem acceptable, right? Yeah, yeah. So when divorce becomes accessible, acceptable by law, then it becomes acceptable by the church. And it takes time, right? It takes time. So we go through divorce, then we start to talk about there you there's a laundry list of things that we can get into. And then you start looking at the episcopal churches that are allowing transgenders to be pastors in the churches. Listen, do you do you, but if the Bible says it's a sin, it's a sin, right? Like that's all the things.

SPEAKER_03: 17:35

Well, it's like I I said it might have been even been the last podcast. When we went to Salem up in Massachusetts, I mean, very different dynamic up there. Certainly. Uh, and most of the churches that I saw, you know, had the LGBTQ flag on the church, not even on a pole, but on the wall of the outside of the church.

SPEAKER_04: 17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 17:56

And you just, yeah, you you you have to wonder. And I'm sure maybe in a lot of cases they're trying to say, you're welcome here.

SPEAKER_01: 18:04

Yes, this is a place that you can come. But but the but God has called us to repent of our sins and to be made new. You know, my wife shared this thing with me, and I never like to throw my wife under the bus because you know, my wife is incredibly open-minded to you know, all different types of people and whatnot. But it said, I was born this way, and then it said, yes, then be born again. Right? Like we can't use that. I was born a complete and total jerk. You know what I mean? Like my life was not the same as it is now. Right. I chose to lay those things down. Do I have those tendencies? Absolutely, I do. But I laid those things down and fought, I picked up my own cross and followed Jesus, right? And that's what changed. So the problem is, in my opinion, that the acceptance of sin leads to the expectation that God will change for us versus us having to change for God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 19:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:01

Our salvation is reliant upon a God who will change Himself rather than a God who will change us. That's that's the mindset.

SPEAKER_03: 19:09

Yeah. You know, there's a lot of people in the world that are not set up well by their parents. Right. No, they they start off on a bad foot right from the get-go. And but that doesn't mean like, well, that that's an excuse to say, well, you know, my parents just totally just you know, totally ignored me or you know, didn't didn't give me the love I needed, and you know, so I guess this is who I am and it's who I'm gonna be, and that's the end of it. You can't change me. You know, that happens all the time. So, you know, that that's that's never an excuse to say, well, because of my situation or the environment that I grew up in, or you know, either even things like lack of education, none of those things in the end are an excuse just to remain, you know, yeah who you are. Because it's everybody's goal to see who you are through Christ. Right. You know, it should be. Yeah, that's the only that's the only way that you're gonna be able to make that change.

SPEAKER_04: 20:12

Yeah. Whenever a few weeks ago, a few months ago, whenever we were talking about doing, you know, expectation and faith, and I just was like, okay, well, we need to know what the difference is between the two. And the one leads to disappointment, which is clearly expectations, and the one is persevering during difficult times. So I mean because I think a lot of the we you know, like people were trying to use Jesus as or God as their genie and like, oh yes. No, that's not especially during this time, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 20:51

When you talked about prayer specifically, like are we going are we going to prayer for for his will or are we going for and uh is it what we want, that's what we're asking for. And I'll tell you that it's oftentimes far more often than not, and and I I will give a lot of grace to those who aren't saved or maybe don't necessarily have a great relationship with Christ. Prayer is prayer at that point, right? Like having an open dialogue is sure is a step in the right direction. But last Sunday after church, I had somebody come up and ask if I could pray. They were gonna stand in for somebody who was ill and they wanted me to pray that they would get better. And I'm like, well, I'm happy to pray with you and I'm happy to let you stand in, but I'm gonna pray that God's perfect will be done in this situation because I am not a divine authority. I don't know all of the things. And all I want in your life, in my life, in my children's life, is that God's will will be done. Yeah. Good, bad, or indifferent. We're not gonna understand it, right? Yeah. But yeah. It's so silly. I think of things like a few months ago, I'm not a pet person. Okay. I don't I'm I've got two dogs, a hamster, fish. I like the fish. They don't need anything from me, right? They're fine. The hamster, she's cute. She's super adorable. She you can hold her, you can pet her, you can play with her. She doesn't bite. Most hamsters bite. This one doesn't. I mean, they hold her all the time. She's constantly running around on us. The problem is, is sometimes my daughter, twice, three times now, will leave the cage door open and the hamster escapes. Oh, I know. Hamster on the loose. Hamster on the loose. Okay. Everybody in the house is devastated because everybody loves the hamster. Me, on the other hand, I'm like, I don't care about the hamster. However, Milo will eat it. I'm not even worried about that. Milo eats her. Milo eats her. Nope, not even that. It's not even that. To me, it pains me to be a poor pet owner.

SPEAKER_04: 22:45

Oh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:46

To leave that hamster loose in my house means it's not eating, it's not drinking because it can't reach anything, right?

SPEAKER_04: 22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:52

So how fair is it to that hamster that I not hunt for it until I find it and put it back in the cage? Right? So one night I spent a whole day looking for this stupid hamster. I did. A whole day. Whole day. So finally I decided, you know what? I think I know where she's at. She's gotta still be in the bedroom because she's chewed up a hole in the carpet. Wonderful. In my brand new home. Chewed a hole in the carpet. And I knew she had, I couldn't find the hole, but I could tell because I found the carpet fiber. She had started to nest it up. So I thought, I'll put her box, she has a little sleeping box, over top of that nest that she has made, and eventually I'll catch her in there. So I turn out all the lights. My kids are at my parents' house. I turn out all the lights and I go into the flashlight because they're nocturnal. I'll see her little eyes glow. Right after it got dark, dark, I open that door and I turn on the flashlight, and there she sits in the middle of the floor. So we go to catch her. She jumps up into the bottom of my daughter's dresser. This is where she's been living, is in the bottom of this dresser for a full day. All right. Now, when I pull the drawer, I'm like, I can't pull the drawer out because I'm afraid I'll smash her.

SPEAKER_05: 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:54

So I pulled the drawer out above it and stuck my head in there. Sure enough, there she sits staring up at me. And it pains me that she went like a full day. I mean, trust me, she found plenty to eat, obviously. She pooped everywhere. But it pained me to see that. I look at the world the same way. It pains me to be a Christian and not raise up other healthy Christians, good, strong, solid Christians. Because I know what my expectation of God is, and that is his perfect will. Not my will, his will.

SPEAKER_05: 24:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:24

And I'm okay with like, I don't always win. I don't always get what I want. I don't always I don't always see the victory that I desire to see.

SPEAKER_05: 24:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:33

But I have never once been ever left going, why did he do that for too very long? Maybe for a few minutes, maybe for a day. And then I go, that taught me something important.

SPEAKER_05: 24:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 24:44

Something important either about myself or about the other person or about the situation.

SPEAKER_00: 24:49

Yeah. Yeah. There's always a lesson there. Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 24:52

Yeah, we've been doing a family Bible study on Monday nights, and my uh wife's nephew comes over and stepsons, they join in, and one of the girlfriends. And so it's a fair, you know, we have a fairly good time. And it's we do it, it's maybe like an hour, if that. And we've just been we started in the New Testament with Matthew. So we've been doing that like once a week. And we got into this discussion, and you know, I said to Timmy, I said, you know, everybody just thinks that again, God, Jesus is this genie. That when when they become a Christian, they think, oh, well, you know, does this mean all my problems are gonna go away? I'm gonna start, you know, seeing things happen in my life, and you know, what I pray for is gonna come to pass. And you know, you start building up all these expectations. And we were trying to, and Margie's son, Charlie, it's it's it's really great because he's he's the type that he's trying, he's trying to figure out like, well, how is all this possible? Yeah, how could God be real? He's asking all those questions, like, how is this how is this actually realistic? And you know, so we're kind of having that talk with him, and I said, you know, and they're like, well, if God is real, then why does he do this? Why doesn't he do that? And it's like one of the main things you have to understand is God is not trying to create expectation for you. He could give you everything that you desire. But what are you gonna do with that?

SPEAKER_05: 26:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 26:19

Eventually, you're gonna take it for granted, and all you're gonna have in its place is this constant empty hole in this expectation. So, like people chasing money, people chasing whether it's cars or you know, going to Vegas, gambling, whatever you're chasing on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_05: 26:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:35

You the chase will never end. Yeah, you know, and you can never fill that hole up. You know, and it's like God is not trying to create expectation, he's trying to create faith in you.

SPEAKER_05: 26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 26:45

That's the main thing. He's trying to uh give your heart faith to believe in him, to do God's will. So that's why he's not going to answer every single prayer that you have. Right. Because if he did, you you wouldn't be, you wouldn't be a worthy human being. You would just be this thing just chasing, chasing, chasing, which let's face it, we all we all do that to a certain extent. Oh, yeah. We would be gluttonous. Yes, and as you said, I mean, the non-Christians, it's even worse because you know that's that's what you're living your life for, is to chase that next new car, chase that new house, chase that new boat. You know, he uh Timmy was talking about this kid, he just wanted a brand new Corvette, had to have it. It's what he always wanted. We got it. And of course, you know, it's winter time and it started, and you know, now the salt's on the road and he's been driving it, and you know, so it's getting scratched. Yep. And of course, he's getting stuck. He can't even get to work because you know, in a Corvette, real-wheel drive, it ain't go anywhere. So he already hates this car. So, you know, he went from had to have it, it was a dream his whole life, to now realizing that oh, yeah, it looks pretty, but what is it really doing for me? Yeah. Now I have this huge payment.

SPEAKER_04: 27:56

With beauty comes paying.

SPEAKER_03: 27:58

Sometimes I can't even get to work because it won't get me to work. And it's already getting all these scratches all over it.

SPEAKER_04: 28:04

You probably have to put like sandbags in the back of it and weigh it down.

SPEAKER_03: 28:08

Like, so that's a perfect example of all that of just, you know, God is trying to create faith. He's not trying to, you know, he's he doesn't want to just he like I said, he could. He could give you everything you want. But you know, he's not even going to do that for the most loyal Christian. He's he's not gonna give you all you want all the time.

SPEAKER_04: 28:27

He's trying to make create that faith so you have a relationship with him.

SPEAKER_01: 28:31

Yeah, you know, like he wants you to rely on him. Yeah, yeah. I think oftentimes that exact story when we think think about Job for just a moment. I mean, he found favor with God. Yeah, in God's eyes, he was blameless. He was, you know what I mean, like he was darn near perfect. And God still didn't give him everything he wanted. So I don't think any of us have reached the the point of Job at this at this stage of our lives. And I think the story of Job becomes mischaracterized as this moment when God allows the enemy to really mess with mankind. And and that's part of the story, but I don't think you get the full story by just simply focusing on that. I think you have to look at all of the other stuff because you know Job lost everything.

SPEAKER_03: 29:20

Oh, yeah. He lost the most important things in life.

SPEAKER_01: 29:22

I mean, uh all of his wealth, all of his family, I mean, literally all of the things that he could that he had had and amassed and had developed, and he lost all of it. I mean there was misery in his life, and and to God be the glory. I we can't imagine that. We get one inconvenience and we're you know upset. Well, you know, I think about how quick we drop the GD, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04: 29:50

Like Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 29:51

Yeah. It it's wild that we think about how quick we're we're willing to to forget about the blessings and only focus on the bad things that happen. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 30:02

Yeah, it'd be like, what if you like use your mother's name like that every single day? Yeah. Oh yeah. How would that like resonate with you? Sometimes that's the way you gotta think about it. It's like if you you if you use your mother's name in that tone every day, I mean you you have to be like, what am I doing? I guess it's not knocked out.

SPEAKER_05: 30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 30:24

Yeah, I was thinking something dawned on me the other day, like kind of piggybacking off of the the faith, like he won he's building this to have faith that way you can have faith in him so he can have that relationship. And something just hit me like you know, he doesn't want us to sin, not because he's some crucial god that hates us, you know. He he's putting those expectations on us that way we have a relationship with him. Like it's not just a a book that tells us, yes, you can do this, no, you can't do that. Like there's a purpose.

SPEAKER_03: 31:00

But it's not because I said so.

SPEAKER_04: 31:01

Right. Yeah, it's like, yes, sure, he said these things, but there's a reason why he said this thing. Like it's because he wants you to have a relationship with him throughout the whole life. And like if you have that sin, like you can't have that relationship with him, like it's impossible.

SPEAKER_01: 31:17

And if you do, that relationship will struggle. That's what I was gonna say. Exactly. You find a way to form relationship, that relationship isn't true, and right, and I liken it to any good marriage, right? I drive my wife absolutely crazy. It's what I do, it's like my specialty. It's it's probably one of the things that I'm the best at. And I know for a fact that if I were to do something that my wife didn't like, it wouldn't change how she felt about me. But it would change what she thought about that situation. And i it it's wild to think that she could care about me that very much. That's nothing compared to what God thinks about us. Yeah, literally nothing. Yeah, yeah, nothing. It's a drop in the bucket of what God thinks about us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 32:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:10

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 32:12

I mean, even you know, the whole advent calendar thing. Like I is does anyone know the definition of Advent?

SPEAKER_03: 32:21

I feel like I should.

SPEAKER_04: 32:22

It it has something to do with expectation. It's like basically the season of expectation because it's leading to like the the coming of of Christ and everything. And so I've been doing this advent calendar with Cooper, and it's just like a it's started on December 1st, because some people do like 12th, I think. Yeah, but we did the first through the 25th, and it's just a box, and each day has another like a box inside of this huge box. So you pull it out, and the first day he's like, All right, this is cool. Second day, he's like, Oh, okay, because I'll put something different like every third day or something. Like, and then I think after the fourth day, he's like, hmm, like wanting more, and I'm like, no, no, no, you only get one a day. And then he's like flipping out because he's expecting that he gets this other. I'm like, no, that's not how this works, you know. But I thought that was kind of neat whenever we decided to do this topic. I'm like, wow, yeah, I mean, even for as young as he is, you know, like a year and a half, and he's like, Oh, nope, I get another one. I'm like, no, you don't.

SPEAKER_03: 33:21

No, and and that's important to mention is it is human nature. Yeah, it is part of our sinful nature to want to to want our our flesh wants everything. You know, it wants what it wants, when it wants it, and you know, and most people on a daily basis can just they don't think any further than that. They just give in to whatever their flesh wants. Yeah. You know, and they take no account of it whatsoever. And they can't even see like how caught up you you can be in something that's totally diverting you from heck, it can totally totally distract you from spending time with your family. And of course, social media is just that oh yeah, that thing that we we all desire and want on a daily basis now. And and you just don't realize like how much time it is. And it's funny because I was talking to a guy that we do business with today. I just called him to, you know, we just follow up on the orders that we have, what's going on, and sudden all of a sudden we're in this conversation about AI and about social media and talking about our kids and yeah, and just how dangerous everything has become. And, you know, so that alone is just something that all human beings now, it's like you can't you can't live without your flesh just wants that on a daily basis. Right. Yeah. And it's we've went to this, we're on autopilot now. You know, every, especially the younger generation, their brains, I believe, truly believe, are not developing the way they should. I think these k children's brains are on autopilot.

SPEAKER_01: 34:48

Well, I also think that it creates stress and anxiety. I think it creates expectation. Well, right. Yes, and you're exactly right. An expectation of being entertained 24-7. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I think that it creates, and and I think there are studies out there that prove this, but I'm not a scientist or a doctor. But it's like being addicted to drugs. Yeah. You need that next, like you're looking for that next eye, which is why you continue to scroll. And whatever your weakness is. Correct. And that's the algorithm. Like it's the thing that you watch from. Listen, my wife was talking about a skylight calendar. You know what that is? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 35:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:22

So it's a basically it's a big old digital calendar.

SPEAKER_04: 35:24

I thought you got her one.

SPEAKER_01: 35:25

No.

SPEAKER_04: 35:25

Oh. I thought you were going to get her one last year.

SPEAKER_01: 35:28

Well, we ended up getting a digital picture for the colour. Oh, wait.

SPEAKER_04: 35:30

She the big skylight. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 35:33

So it's a great big digital calendar. You can hang on the wall, you can sync your Google calendar with it, yada, yada. Everybody gets their own color, their own whatever. And my wife is incredibly organized. Our calendar is always like very detailed. So she her and I were talking about it. We had a friend that was selling one, used because she got a bigger one, and we're like, okay, like we'll let's talk about it. It's all I see. It is all I see on my social media because we talked about it. So that algorithm has kicked in, and it's like, you really want one of these. You gotta have it, gotta have it. It's five hundred dollars. Yeah. I can use my phone for the same price that I use my phone for every month, right? Yeah. I mean, it's mind-boggling to think though, that like it in it, it just keeps attacking and attacking. So do that now to a child who thinks that at Christmas they should get everything that they want. My kids get those little Christmas books. Remember when we used to get those and we would circle one or two things? My kids circle whole pages.

SPEAKER_03: 36:30

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 36:31

Now, we'll tell Easton, we're not buying that because you won't play with it. You don't actually like matchbox cards. You're only circling it because it's in that magazine and you don't have anything else on the page to circle.

SPEAKER_04: 36:42

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 36:42

There's nothing else to circle.

SPEAKER_04: 36:43

Yeah, you're like, well, I'm gonna circle this one.

SPEAKER_01: 36:45

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 36:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 36:46

And so we go through that with him. We don't even buy toys for our kids anymore. Yeah. They don't use them, they don't play with them. Right? We've got a house full of toys that nobody plays with, but it's because they were so addicted to social media and and not that my kids have social media, but YouTube kids, even. My daughter listens to we have Yodos, so they have these little cards and they read you book. Yeah. Yodos are fantastic. Cooper's getting one for Christmas. Are you getting him which one?

SPEAKER_04: 37:10

I told my dad and stepmom to get one, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 37:13

Yeah, there is a mini one. The mini one, they make a small one. We have a small one.

SPEAKER_04: 37:17

I think it's the bigger one.

SPEAKER_01: 37:18

Yeah, we like that. But it reads books and then it does a Yodo daily podcast, and it's kid appropriate content that basically it's this guy that gets on there and talks about all of the things that are important, like maybe a celebrity who has a birthday that day, or like this day in history, yeah. Yes, exactly. So it's it's got all those things. My daughter has learned so many useless facts from that Yodo, but it only allows you to absorb so much content because it that podcast is only so long, right? So you can't just doom scroll. So we have actually eliminated almost entirely all of their screen time. So Emmett, it doesn't have any any screens at all right now. Easton has his smartwatch, that's it. And that smartwatch only allows him to call me, Alyssa, my mom and dad, and I think that's it. That's it. So the four of us and Adeline only has her tablet, and again, very limited amount of time that she's allowed to watch it because they will watch people open toys and play with us. That's what we were discussing today. And now they want that toy. They want that toy. We my daughter, and I don't even remember what it was, but we're in this phase right now for Christmas. She wants this American girl doll. It's the brand new girl of the year, whatever this is. They do have some really cool American girls right now.

SPEAKER_03: 38:36

We were open the other day, and I was like, wow.

SPEAKER_01: 38:38

I think we're up to eight.

SPEAKER_03: 38:39

I would think uh the girl toys right now are kicking toys. Oh yeah. Yeah, they are. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:45

I think we have eight American girl dolls in our house right now. She doesn't play with them. She only wants that doll because it's girl of the year and she doesn't have it. Yeah. So add it to the list.

SPEAKER_03: 38:55

Yeah, I saw the Harry Potter series, Wizard of Oz series.

SPEAKER_01: 38:59

The Disney princesses were adorable. Oh my gosh. I didn't see those ones. Yeah, Willie Wonka. I would have bought her every Disney princess doll without even questioning it because they were all adorable. They are cool. I mean, they're yeah, they they did it right. I mean, we they're when we went to Chicago, we walked five and a half miles, no joke, because we parked in a parking garage and we're like, because what do they call it? Miracle Mile, I think is what they call it. And we walked the whole street, and American Girl is literally the farther end to get to the American Girl store. We walked in there and bought nothing. There was a dress my wife was looking for that matched Summer McKinney, the doll she got last year for Christmas, the romper that Summer McKinney wears, they sell them for little girls too. We got over there and we walked that whole store, they didn't have minor size. So then we had to walk all the way back. Couldn't you Uber back? Well, we could have, but we didn't. Yeah, that trip was expensive enough.

SPEAKER_03: 39:54

Could have read Scooter. That's what I was about to say. Can you imagine asking your parents for furniture for Christmas?

SPEAKER_04: 40:03

No.

SPEAKER_03: 40:04

Well, Maggie last year had to have the she wanted, she has this big, comfortable bed, right? It's got the brass head, head and brass, you know, foot footboard, everything. And had to have this day bed. And we're like, we're telling you, you're not even done growing. Right. It's gonna get bigger. Yeah. The last thing you want to do is get this day bed. Yeah. You're you're gonna regret it. I got it, you know, it's what I want. And and of course, she and we're like, okay, well, let's get you a good one. If we're gonna do this, let's go to say Value City, let's go somewhere and actually get you a good, good, solid bed. Had to have this one on Amazon. Had to have it. It was the only one that she wanted. And of course, if you know, if you order any furniture from Amazon, it's a jigsaw puzzle. Yes. You are talking hundreds of little pieces that you have to put together even before you can really start putting the bed together. You got to put all the drawers together one at a time. Yep. All this stuff. I mean, so day after Christmas, everybody's invested in putting this bed together. Well, she sits back and watches, of course.

SPEAKER_00: 41:10

Yeah, that's her gift.

SPEAKER_03: 41:13

And when You know it. Now, a year later, she's too big. Don't want today bed.

SPEAKER_04: 41:18

She's something on it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 41:19

Just they ain't vibing it now. Yeah. Yeah. They're out of style. Wishes we had the other bed. And I said, Remember I told you all this a year ago and you didn't listen to me? Yeah, I know. Like I was like, Well, next time you get a new bed, you'll have a job and you'll be paying for it. And most likely you'll be putting it together. So we're like, you know. It's just like, so sometimes that's the level of expectation, as I said. I couldn't imagine asking my parents, even as a 14-year-old, yeah, for a piece of furniture for Christmas. Well, even like But it's but again, there's now they you know before kids couldn't do that. Like they couldn't look at furniture, I guess. You know, you couldn't get and now, like I said, they just they have everything. Yeah, even and they don't see there's no level of like you know, I'm a child, you know, you it there's just no level of Yeah, I see what you're saying. They're I don't know what the right word for it is, but they think they're already like they're living like they're adults. That's what it's adult decisions, like the Or trying to, you know, at that age, and it's just like your your brain is not even prepared to reason through this decision.

SPEAKER_04: 42:31

Well, and like you said, like they don't even realize like what Pastor Michael was saying, like you know, Easton doesn't even realize how much it will cost to have this toy, let alone how much work it takes to m gate that money to get that toy to appreciate. Yeah, like they don't understand that, which yeah, I mean nothing on them. That's what I'm saying. Like, they're not gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03: 42:51

But I wanted like uh I wanted like a five dollar action figure.

SPEAKER_04: 42:55

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 42:55

When I was yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 42:57

Now they're fifty dollars.

SPEAKER_04: 42:58

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 42:59

But you know, it it's kind of our wants and wishes kind of fit our age at least.

SPEAKER_04: 43:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 43:06

Yeah, we might have wanted, you know, sure the girls probably wanted a Barbie playhouse and they were a little more expensive, or I want a Castle Gray Skull and they were a little more expensive.

SPEAKER_01: 43:14

But I think what you're the point that you're trying to make, and I want to I want to try to clarify it, is that at our age, we were getting things that were age appropriate. Now kids are getting things that you buy as an adult, right? As a kid, when my parents bought me a new mattress, it was because I needed a new mattress. Right. Not because I asked for one. They didn't buy me new bedroom for it.

SPEAKER_03: 43:35

Not because it was the right aesthetic for it.

SPEAKER_01: 43:36

Correct.

SPEAKER_04: 43:37

And you knew better, you knew better to even ask for one. Well, because you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01: 43:41

Right. It and and I was more worried about being a kid. Maggie, I'm not picking on you. No, no, no. I'm just saying. So, like, we didn't every six months decide that we wanted to redo our room and we got to paint it whatever color we wanted. Oh, no. I remember my bedroom for the majority of my childhood was unfinished drywall.

SPEAKER_03: 43:57

Okay, I I will say I had the furniture when I moved out of my parents' house to my first apartment. The furniture that I took with me was the furniture that the my brother and I had probably when we were four or five years old. Like we had the same dresser drawers. Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 44:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:14

All through childhood.

SPEAKER_00: 44:15

You knew where everything was at.

SPEAKER_03: 44:17

True.

SPEAKER_04: 44:17

I will say growing up somehow, like, I don't know why we switched rooms so many times. We had five bedrooms in like an old Victorian home, and there were five kids plus mom and dad. We so I think I I think I switched bedrooms four different times, and each time, wouldn't you know it, it was getting painted. And I'm like, now Cindy hates painting, but you wonder why. You know, so I'm like, well, to Maggie's defense, I will say that. Yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_03: 44:46

I mean, I you know, I grew up.

SPEAKER_04: 44:47

Yeah. I wanted the circle back to like the expectation thing. Like even I guess I guess my sisters and I, we kind of do like we kind of know, okay, ballpark range from last year, this person spent this much, you know, for me. Maybe I'll just hey, yeah, it'd be nice to have this. And like typically I don't even do that. Typically, I just let them get me whatever, you know. But sh I think Shy might have asked me, like, hey, if you need a gift idea, I'm like, actually I do. So she sent me something, and then she actually asked me, like, I'm having a hard time shopping for you. Like, you know, can you give me some ideas? So I sent her like one of those bird feeders, like the the camera one, yes, and they're they've been on sale like$30 like this past like week and a half. So I'm like, hey, right there, because they're normally like nine.

SPEAKER_01: 45:34

So it's a bird feeder slash security. No, no, no, no, no. It's a bird, it's a bird feeder, but then when the birds come in, it identifies the bird and sends it to you. So like you can like bird watch basically.

SPEAKER_04: 45:44

And like my I mean that was something I like to do with my grandma, like yeah, you know, it was one of the last few things I remembered doing with her in the nursing home, plus like at her house and stuff, but all to say, like I kind of know how much to spend now with my sister, but even Chase's brothers, like they'll each spend like I think it's like a hundred dollars on each brother. And but they're just sending each other, like, and this has been going on for years, like sending each other's you know, screenshots or this and that. I'm like, at the end of the day, if you all know that you're spending a hundred dollars, why don't you just keep your hundred dollars? Everybody's done. Buy your buy yourself what you want. That way you don't have to swap it out.

SPEAKER_01: 46:22

You don't have to wrap it, you know what I mean? Yeah, and that's what I was gonna say. For me, the holidays, and I told my wife this, I told my kids this, and it's I I'm gonna stand by it. It will not become an exchange. Yeah, it's not gonna be transactional. Yeah, I like to shop for good quality gifts. Now, do I struggle? Absolutely, because I don't buy the same things that my kids would buy, right? Yeah, like my 16-year-old, 15-year-old, soon to be a 16-year-old, he likes clothes that I would never pick for him. He likes those, like almost like Jinko jeans. They're not Jinko jeans, but they're the wide flare.

SPEAKER_04: 46:53

I've seen him walk around town. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 46:55

Okay. And then there's a parent He also lives a block away from me.

SPEAKER_04: 46:58

There's there's a new, like almost faded camo that's incredibly popular. That almost, like a little yes.

SPEAKER_01: 47:06

So he likes that. Now he this kid doesn't hunt. He has no reason to wear camo ever in his life, but it's the thing.

SPEAKER_04: 47:12

It's the thing right now.

SPEAKER_01: 47:13

And so I'm like, I would never buy him these. Never ever. So I have to ask him, like, from a style standpoint, yeah, what do you want? But if we get to the point where I'm like, hey, I'm just gonna get you a$100 gift card, go buy whatever you want. Nope. No, yeah, we're done. Yeah. And and it's not because I don't want to get you something, but why? I'm gonna buy you$100 worth of something, and you're gonna get me$100 worth of something. Why don't we just buy ourselves a hundred dollars or something?

SPEAKER_04: 47:36

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 47:38

Well, you know, and now that you mention it, like this is a I this is probably the first year since Margie and I have been married that I haven't asked for anything specific.

SPEAKER_04: 47:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 47:47

But she's like, oh, she goes, You're probably gonna be hate everything that I got you, and you know, she's buying stuff for me. I have no clue what it is. And you know what? I like it better that way. I like it better than that. You know what? Hey, this kind of it's kind of like a kid again. I used to be like, exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 48:01

I used to hate surprises, and I would hunt the house high and low to find whatever Alyssa bought me. And I mean, I'm talking like when the box would come, I would shake it before I But then would you feel bad? No.

unknown: 48:14

No, never.

SPEAKER_01: 48:15

I was happy to know what it was. Well, because it also gave me an advantage because I knew how much I knew what I needed to go and shop for in order to beat whatever she bought me. Because I proclaim to be the world's best gift giver. Like I am, I like to and I'll tell you, last year she spent half, probably less than half of the money on me that I spent on her, and she did far better for me than I did her. I bought her caraway pots and pans. Have you ever heard of those? Non-toxic, yeah, I mean incredibly expensive. I bought her a whole set of caraway pots and pans. I just bought her all the things, right? So she's like, How much money did you spend? I'm like, it doesn't matter. Do you like them? That's what matters. And it's stuff that like she just wouldn't buy for herself, so I didn't mind spending the money on it because it's for the house anyway.

SPEAKER_04: 48:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 48:58

But she bought me stuff that like I mentioned in passing.

SPEAKER_04: 49:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 49:02

She would remember it. And yeah, so yeah, there was a yeah, there was such a difference last year. And it is funny because my expectation has always been fairly low of what she buys me, but she has done much better. But I enjoy the surprise now.

SPEAKER_05: 49:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 49:18

Like I like to know like that she's been shopping, like it's that like, ooh, I wonder if I'll see the package before she does it. But I don't care to know. I don't, I don't care to know.

SPEAKER_04: 49:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 49:31

That's hard because a lot of times, like our Amazon accounts are linked. Yes, I shop on my mom's kind of link. So it's like, yeah, oh, don't don't try not to look at your Amazon account this month. And I'm like, well, you know, what if I want to get something for you? Yeah. And so that kind of gets difficult to keep a surprise. Yep. But you know.

SPEAKER_04: 49:50

I'm in this thing where Chase is like telling everyone he wants cards. And I think it's been happening in the past five years. But I'm like, can you tell me something you want other than cards? No, I just want cards. I'm like, oh no.

SPEAKER_03: 50:01

I love that. We went. Have you been to the Dover flea market lately?

SPEAKER_04: 50:04

No, but we've been wanting to.

SPEAKER_03: 50:06

No, don't. No, yeah, no, don't.

SPEAKER_04: 50:08

Seriously?

SPEAKER_03: 50:08

Gosh, they have don't it used to be just junk. Like for a long time, it was I really thought it was going to close down. And we just went, we just went last weekend. And wow, it has really changed. They've got a lot of cool stuff in there. In fact, we walked out with a bunch of more Christmas light up blow bowls. Oh, yeah. Like we just couldn't help ourselves because they were they were well below market value. And we loaded them up. But I'm telling you, yeah, they have got old toys, old cards, cards still in the packs. Yes, you know, like the 80s and 90s. They have. I mean, I'm like, I told her, I said, put a couple, get a couple packs of cards for me from the 80s and 90s, put them in my stocking. I thought that'd be cool.

SPEAKER_01: 50:47

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's really changed. They have there's one guy there that has Pokemon cards that I wouldn't believe. And a lot of it's like semi-new, it's sort of new. It's new er, I guess.

SPEAKER_04: 50:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 50:59

I don't know that he has anything that's like wildly hard to find, but a lot of it's still in packs. And you know, my kids always like just the boxes, the empty boxes. Yeah. So they have those, so they snatch up stuff they've never seen before or whatever.

SPEAKER_04: 51:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 51:13

That's I was really impressed. Yeah, because I used when we were kids, my mom had a relative who had a booth there. And I believe every Saturday or Sunday, I had to go to the Dover Flea Market. Yeah, Saturday we went to the Dover Flea Market. And then every Sunday we went up to Garbers and Strasbourg. Oh, yes. Every weekend. And then, of course, that's when like baseball cars and stuff were like really hot.

SPEAKER_05: 51:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 51:38

So I had a good time there because I'd always get cards and stuff. But that's where I spent a lot of my weekends. And wouldn't you know when I went in there? I'm like, some of those same vendors that I saw as a kid, they're still sitting there. Yeah, booze.

unknown: 51:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_05: 51:51

That's good.

SPEAKER_03: 51:52

And they were old then. Yeah. And they were old then. Like this is a den of vampires. It is wild. So yeah. But again, I thought it was, I thought it was on the verge of closing down. And now they're open Fridays.

SPEAKER_05: 52:05

Oh.

SPEAKER_03: 52:05

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, they're open to like nine to six on Fridays. And a lot of cool stuff. So check it out, don't check it out. It's on you now. Sorry if I so yeah, so you might be able to find some stuff there that he wouldn't know. I guess maybe he wouldn't know about. And it's all cash though. You have to have cash. Yes. Yeah. I figured. You know, there's there would be no trace of you're not getting receipt, you know. So you could get it. Very true.

SPEAKER_04: 52:31

You could get some paper trail.

SPEAKER_03: 52:33

Yeah, you could really keep a secret, I think, if yeah, you found something there.

SPEAKER_04: 52:36

He went to a card show at the mall the other day. Sunday. Do we still do those? So they did one a few months ago and he was so sad he like didn't know about it. And then people were talking about it saying it was good. And it was at Newtown Mall. So then he went, I think it was Sunday after church. Or maybe no, no, no, it was Saturday. Yeah, but he said it was like pretty decent. So yeah. Talk about expectation, buying all those cards, and then you think I got it, I gotta be hitting something, and then you don't.

SPEAKER_01: 53:06

I don't even want to talk about the black hole. Yeah, I got into that for too long. That was dangerous. I have four, I think, at this point, complete Pokemon sets, but it was I would kill somebody to complete the set. Like it was wild. It was a wild, it was a wild time. I was glad I finally got a hold of myself. But I mean, I'm talking, I seriously, it was bad. It was really bad. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 53:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 53:32

Money was no object in that moment. It didn't matter. Because they were hard to find. And so if you found them, you just bought everything you could get your hands on.

SPEAKER_04: 53:39

Well, and that's Chase, like Hill's still I don't know. I think he has it figured out that they stalk on Thursdays or Fridays in Walmart, maybe and he's seen these same two people.

SPEAKER_01: 53:51

Yeah, they just hover away.

SPEAKER_04: 53:53

Well, no, no, no. These same two people have been hovering, but then they've gotten into a fight twice. Yeah. He's like, and it's but it was like male and a female.

SPEAKER_02: 54:01

Like so stupid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 54:03

Yeah. Most of the time, if you go if you go to Walmart in that section, there's like nothing. Nothing. No, picked over. Completely picked over.

SPEAKER_05: 54:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 54:09

Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, kudos, I guess, to Pokemon, but damn.

unknown: 54:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 54:14

Is the Pokemon Go still a thing? Uh-huh. Is it?

SPEAKER_04: 54:17

It is. That that church right across the street from me. That's a spot.

SPEAKER_01: 54:21

It used to be one out here. I don't know if we're in that. Yeah, we used to be a Pokestop. I don't know if we still are.

SPEAKER_04: 54:26

My aunt does it every now and then just to like do it with her grandkids, like just to get outside.

SPEAKER_03: 54:31

I mean, for a while it was like zombies. I mean, it was just I didn't really notice people doing that.

SPEAKER_04: 54:37

I never got into it.

SPEAKER_03: 54:38

I couldn't really I mean we went I remember we went to the Smoky Mountains. And no matter where we went, no matter what site we were going to, tens upon you know, people just wandering around like zombies trying to find these Pokemons up on, you know, up on uh Well, so are you looking at the phone the whole time, like trying to find it as you're walking?

SPEAKER_04: 54:59

Do you know?

SPEAKER_03: 54:59

Yes, yes, you can. Because like they're looking in the bush, they're looking, you know, they're looking at the case.

SPEAKER_01: 55:04

Well, I mean, yeah, it's just like if you open it on your phone, they they pop up on your phone whatever they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_03: 55:09

And so you walk towards yeah, whatever landmark. Correct. Yeah, and then you can spin it and collect the Pokeballs. But my question always was is there only certain Pokemons you can find, say at the Smoky Mountain? Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 55:21

Or they're everywhere so okay, like Monopoly. When Pokemon Go first came out, Kangas Khan, who is Kangaroo, was only available in Australia. Oh you couldn't get him anywhere else. There was one that was origami, I forget what his name is, but he's like folded origami. He was only available in China. Charizard was more prevalent in China than he was in Japan, than he was anywhere else. Far-fetched, you could only get in Asia. So they had a like certain ones that you could only get in certain places, but that was when it was Gen 1. Now they've opened it up to pretty much anything, and it's it's a disaster. Like I lost, I lost interest. I wanted the full 151, the original set, and I didn't complete it. There was only one that I didn't get, and it was Aerodactyl. It was the only Pokemon I didn't find. And I used to spoof, so I would set my phone to basically walk north all night long. And so my guy would just like it was you had to hack your phone to do it. It was again, I have this thing with completing sets, so it was it's it was almost like a disease. Just like a lemming, just ready to just walk right off the cliff. So listen, I would spoof in Australia. I would so basically I would set my phone's GPS to say that I was in Australia. I was in, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 56:41

Are you kidding?

SPEAKER_01: 56:42

No.

SPEAKER_03: 56:43

No, Michael!

SPEAKER_01: 56:44

Yeah. So that I could catch all of them. And one night while I was walking, I woke up in the morning and Aerodactyl had had been like had been spotted on my phone, but I was asleep, so I didn't catch it.

SPEAKER_04: 56:56

Oh is it supposed to alert you?

SPEAKER_01: 56:59

It doesn't know. Back then it was still very rudimentary. Like your phone would buzz when you got close to a Pokemon, but basically I would do that to hatch eggs. I would let it walk all night to hatch eggs so you could get different Pokemon out of the eggs. But he was the only one I never caught. And after I gave up on it, my son transferred all the Pokemon to himself. So he got all my good stuff.

SPEAKER_04: 57:22

At least you can transfer the stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 57:23

Yeah, that's cool. Well, and we had these, oh my gosh. It's it's seriously, it was a disease. That's I I just can't. It was bad. It was really bad. Trying about an addiction. Oh yeah. Listen, and I again I've told you guys this. I don't deny it. I have an addictive personality. I can't help it. And if I have one, I have to have them all. Like you've got to complete the set. It's just how it is.

SPEAKER_00: 57:45

What if there's only one in the set?

SPEAKER_01: 57:46

Well, then I'm happy to get the one.

SPEAKER_03: 57:48

It's probably like that's not for me. Yeah. What fun is trying? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 57:51

What is that? That's not even a challenge. And the more, the merrier. Like the more items that are in the set. And I really do you guys remember when cars first came out? The movie cars, they made those little die-cast cars. Collected every single one of those, including all of the misprints. Worked at Walmart at the time. Every morning when I got to work, I'd go over and I'd thumb through the cars of anything that was put out the night before.

SPEAKER_03: 58:14

Yeah. If you're a big antique shopper, the one thing you notice is the beanie babies. Oh my gosh. They're worth nothing. They're worth nothing, but you'll see a lot of them in the glass cube. Yeah. In the cube and like$799.

SPEAKER_01: 58:27

Nobody's paying that.

SPEAKER_03: 58:28

Nobody. I mean, they're just antique shops are just full of them.

SPEAKER_04: 58:31

What about the cabbage patch kids?

SPEAKER_03: 58:33

Surprisingly, you will see quite a few of them. Now, most of the time they're you could tell they're well played with. Yeah. Yeah. So they're s still somewhat sought after. I mean, I know there's some of them that go for hundreds of dollars. Yeah. But you'll you'll see. I mean, you do see them quite frequently though. And a lot of times they're missing their clothing or part of their clothing where you can just tell they're really soiled and well played with. Yeah. As they should be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:57

All that all that old stuff's worth a buck, ain't it? I'm just saying that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03: 59:00

Well, that's the thing is if if they made anything that wasn't meant to be collectible, it's worth something. Yes. If they made it to be collectible, it's worth nothing. It's worth nothing. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 59:09

You know, even baseball cards were not truly meant to be collectible at the whole time. I was listening to a podcast about beanie babies, and the gist of a beanie baby was it was basically this guy was trying to sell stuffed animals. He was a toy salesman and he sucked miserably at selling all of these other toys. So he had found this particular animal that was fairly firm and it had beans in it, and they were selling really well. So he decided to design his own and make them floppy. And then when he would he was selling a ton of them, and then he got the wise idea to start retiring them and changing their names and changing their colors, and now it's got spiked hair rather than flat hair, and he would do all of these things, and people would eat up the variations. Yep. To the point to where, I mean, in the 90s, when these things were popular, when people would marriages would end, people would get divorced, they would fight over their beanie babies. Yeah, they would go into court and they would fight over how that was in the prenups. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:12

The reason I was asking about the cabbage patch kids is we were listening or watching something right before I got here about like Christmases leading up to like starting from the 1930s. Yeah. Or maybe the 20s, like the top toys and stuff. And like I think the 30s was like the savings bonds. Like that's when the savings bonds first came out. But the cabbage patch kids were like someone was trying to get to one at a mall, and like she ended up getting it, but like it was torn to pieces, but she's like she didn't care, she still got it. I'm like, oh my gosh. Same thing with the these little troll looking things. Yeah, those things the trolls. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:48

That's no, that's not a that's my wife loves those.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:50

You know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:51

Okay, yeah, she'll pick them up at antique shops. Yeah, she loves them. She has a bunch of them.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:54

So that that was invented by like some dad that just wanted to make a doll for their like for their her his daughter, and now they're like some huge thing or was some huge thing, is some huge thing, but okay. Oh yeah, oh yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:10

So I still have my two. So do you really? So my grandpa has one still in the Box and and he and I had talked about selling it, and they're not they're fifty bucks is the average going price. Yeah, I had that one, the white one. Yeah, so I think that was the one that I had, but I think mine had white ears on the inside still. I don't think it had pink. I think that one was shice. I was gonna say one of my siblings had that one, and it seems like the speckled ones sell for more. Like that one's like Ladybug, this one's like Cowprint, those ones sell for a little bit more. But anyhow, my grandpa has one and I thought about selling it. So do you guys remember a few years ago when they brought out the hatchimals?

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:52

Yep, yeah, oh yeah. So we bought two hatchimals because my kids were like, oh, we gotta have them. And to me, it was nostalgic. It was like having a Furby. It's nothing like having a Furby. Those things were stupid. Once it hatched out of the egg, it was a useless tool.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:05

Well, and the Furby is they could like talk to each other.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:07

Yeah, it was creepy.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:08

I was like, pretty sure they were trying to take over the work.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:12

Well, of course, then they moved that moved on with like the L O Ls. You didn't know which one you were getting. Yes. Yeah, so it created even more mania.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:19

Well, and that's so we did Lego minifigures for years. Okay. So they would come in these little plastic packs. We my wife and I got to the point where we could feel them and tell you what was in the pack.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:29

Lego minifigures.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:30

Lego minifigures. Okay. Okay. So we could feel them and tell you what was because they come in pieces and you have to build them.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:35

Is it like 15 pieces, like 10 to 15 pieces?

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:37

No, these are it's just a minifigure. So it's you've got you've got the head, the hair, the accessory, the top of the body, the bottom of the body. Okay. So like if it had short legs, you knew that it was whichever one on the package that was a short one. If it had a sword and you could feel the sword, you knew it was that one. So we would go into stores and we would sit on the floor and feel these things so that we could get the entire collection. I'm not joking about this, okay? They got to the point where they started putting them in boxes so you couldn't feel them anymore. And then because I mean my wife and I, we they were like four dollars a piece. It wasn't like they were a lot of money, but still when you buy 16 of them in every set, and the sets are literally overlapping each other, you can't keep up. Yeah. Yeah. It was a wild ride. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:20

I just two two thoughts before it escapes me. 1984, Christmas, I believe that there were store managers that would stand at the door before they opened with ball bats. Jeez. Because that's how bad the crowds were trying to get those cabbage patches. Oh, wow. It got so violent that store managers were standing at the door with a ball bat, basically telling them, like, we're not having this. Like, if there's vacuumers in trouble, yeah. You're going down. And you can watch clips of you know, women just tearing each other apart. People I mean, I think people were getting trampled. Yeah. Oh, yeah. People were getting trampled over them. And so that's you know, when store managers started getting Black Friday Massacres.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:04

So that's kind of when the whole mystique of the Black Friday, I think, began, and Cabbage Patch Dolls is just kind of one of those infamous moments. Yeah. Um But also going back to the Beanie Baby, I think the home shopping network had to be an advent social media. Yeah. That keep kept people glued to their TV 24-7 when they were selling them things. Like if we were a kid, no matter whose house we went in, some they're watching the home shopping network. People just addicted to it. Couldn't get away from it. And they knew it. So they they would just keep bringing these beanie babies and keeping people glued to the set, just ordering, you know, all day, all night long.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:48

Speaking of expectation, you know how you know you're expected to go to jury duty if you have jury duty.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:55

Otherwise, you go to jail.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My sister sent Shy sent this into our family group chat. Just Mallory things. She calls me and tells me she got called in for jury duty, but she says she can't go because she already has plans.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:10

Well, who I guess, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:12

Your plans are changing now.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:14

Yeah, and they're gonna pay you four dollars for being there, by the way. Yes, yes. You're welcome. Yeah, that's fine. I can see Maggie saying something like that. I already had plans. Yeah, well, well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:23

Not anymore, you don't.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:25

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:26

Have you ever been on jury duty? No, not quite done. Listen, I was on grand duty. I kind of was on grand jury.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:32

Yeah. I got called one time. And I wish I would have known that the earlier you're there, earlier you are there, the the closer your number is. Like if you're the first person in line to sign up that day, you're the first person they interview. So so long as you pass, you're on the jury, right? Because mine was just about getting out of work. I didn't care about like it was like, you can pay me the four bucks, I'll donate it back. I don't care. But I really desperately wanted to like experience a jury trial. And I was two people away from getting seated. So I didn't Dang.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:07

My friend just did the one about the guy who like tried to murder the Oh yeah. Yeah, and like they she said they took her like out to the scene. Not this, like, not the kind of like the road and kind of just to envision what happened type deal.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:24

That's wild.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:24

But yeah, I never knew they took her to uh scene of the cry and the van, like the 15-passenger van took.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:30

They did that on the OJ trial. Now, obviously, the OJ trial was a little bit bigger, but they did that. They took everybody to OJ's house. I'd have been taking selfies.

unknown: 1:06:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:38

I guess they didn't have cell phones. Not with cameras, at least. No.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:43

Yeah, I think she was on it all week and she sent us a picture of her check and it was like$98 or something.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:49

But you gotta wonder, you know, if if cell phones would have been more prevalent at that time, would the OJ murders have even happened? No.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:56

No. No, they're so like ring cameras, like they really do stop a lot of crime. Yeah, they do.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:01

As silly as it sounds, but even like lead to arrests. Arrests ends.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:06

Yeah. Or you know, OJ doesn't have to go to the house. You can just call it her and call on her or you know, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you could just imagine that being a lot different. I don't know. Yeah. It would have s prevented that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:17

I'll tell you what, though.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:18

Yeah, what was your grand jury experience?

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:20

Was it something to Well you uh you heard more than one one case. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:27

Oh yeah. Your responsibility was to decide whether or not they were gonna be indicted. Yeah. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:32

You you heard at least two a day. Sometimes three if they were short. It was it was an experience.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:40

Wait, so grand jury duty, I'm grand jury are they bringing the convicted in?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:46

No. No. No.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:47

Does each county still have a grand jury duty? Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:50

So you're basically hearing the case to decide whether or not it goes to trial. Grand jury, like so. If somebody gets murdered, that comes to the grand jury and you guys decide that that they decide whether or not there's enough evidence. Yeah, enough evidence to have them. They don't get to decide the case, they just decide whether or not it goes to trial.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:06

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Dang.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:11

But that was that was an experience.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:14

I bet.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:18

You wonder about a lot of that stuff.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:20

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:21

Wonder how how people can be that morbid and do the things that they do a month.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:30

How long ago was it?

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:32

Yeah. It was back in the year eight. This is back when back when Jesus was still in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:38

Year eight?

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:39

2008?

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:41

No. No, it was back uh back in my day.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:47

Walking around on his dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:52

Uphill. Uphill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:54

Both ways. Pair of bags on his feet. Yeah. It was it was it was probably in the 70s. Okay. Late 70s.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:00

Well, and honestly, I feel like a lot more crime happened in the 70s to 80s because there wasn't a ton of video footage. And do you do you agree, Michael? Like the crime. You don't think? No.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:12

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:13

Compared to now? I think.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:15

I think people got away with more stuff back then, but I don't think more crime happened back then. I think it was a much different time. It's the fluoride in the water, is what it is. I'm kidding. But there's definitely like something has happened in our society. Like, listen, okay, we're just gonna parents turn this off if your kids are around.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:32

Last Monday, so that was two days ago. I was sitting at work and I was talking to one of the guys at work. I was like, I was working in his office with him. He was showing me some stuff. And I get an alert on my phone, and there's a news article that in Canton. Canton.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:47

The guy tried to stab his parents?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:49

Nope. Oh. Nope. This one's worse. This one's worse. It's 9 30 in the morning. It's 9 30 in the morning when I'm reading this article. That the police are investigating a shooting in a strip club in Canton. Question. Why are you in a strip club before 9 30 in the morning? Right? Yeah. Okay. Why are you in a strip club at all?

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:08

But like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:09

All right. We know why you're there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:10

Are they still there from the night before? Or like are they opening out early?

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:14

I don't know. They have they have a night crew. Yeah. But it's 9 30 in the morning, okay? And now we're shooting somebody.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:19

So maybe it was mad there wasn't a continental breakfast. I don't.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:22

You don't know. No. Why were you eating breakfast there? There's a lot of you know, they say don't get steak from a seafood restaurant. I would just don't eat if you go there. Like that's not good. Anyway, it's not funny, but it's disgusting. Anyway, so Tuesday, yesterday, I was sitting at his desk all day. I got home and I get another notification that there was a shooting in the strip club. Now, I don't know if it's the same one, Tuesday evening.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:47

No.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:47

What is going on in this world? Now you know those places are full of cameras, so these people are getting caught. Like there's no doubt that they're getting caught.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:54

But what has happened in our society that we think again being there, being there at nine o'clock in the morning is acceptable. And then we're just shooting each other. No, I'm all for owning guns. Everybody can own all the guns they want. I don't really care. You're never going to stop stupid people from owning guns or crim committing crimes, right? You're never going to outlaw either of those things. Yeah. So I would rather you have a gun and be protected than not. But my point is, is crime today is far more rampant than it has ever been because we don't know how to communicate to just say, like, hey, I don't like the way you're talking.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:26

Right. Yeah. So I'm just going to jump to conclusions to jump to my rather than tell you that, I'm just going to shoot you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:31

Right. And that's much easier.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:33

It's wild. It is wild to me. And it's not just that. I mean, I'm talking in Philly, that guy hit the other guy with his car because he didn't like him.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:41

Well, you know, with uh, you know, with concealed carry and all this, people I think feel they have a more right than ever to shoot another human being. Yeah. Yeah. Whether they have, you know, the license or not. Right. It's just the way that we think of society now.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:55

Well, you're not even you don't even know. You have more right to do it than like Ohio, you don't even have to have a license now, which is well, to open carry, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:04

You have to have a license to conceal carry. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:06

You can open carry.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:07

You can open carry. You can open carry in Ohio, but you can't conceal carry.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:11

So what's the difference between open and conceal carry?

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:13

Open carry is if my gun is on my side and you can see it. Conceal carry is under your coat, under your vest, in your purse.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:21

So you're either John Wayne or Listen, when I worked in North. When I worked in North Canton, I worked for Walmart in North Canton. We had a guy come in with, I don't know, and it had to be a big old Magnum 757 or whatever they call those things. Dirty Harry? Seriously. Seriously, this thing like was on his side and it looked like it almost touched his knee. It's a big hog leg. It was stupid. And like there's people freaking out in the store. He's not doing anything wrong. Technically, it's legal. Yeah. There's no sign on the door that says you can't have a gun, you know? And I said to him, I said, listen, I don't care if you carry the gun or not. However, it's causing a lot of problems. Can you just put it away? Like, take it back to the car. Yeah. Can we just be considerate? And again, why a gun that big? Yeah. Yeah. If you unless you're trying to create chaos, which is exactly what he was doing. But I'll sue you. I said, I'm not, I'm not telling you you have to take it off. I'm asking you if you will. Will you be considerate of the other people in the store and just put it away? Yeah. Wow. The answer was no, by the way. A hard, non-negotiable. I kind of figured that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:30

Non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:32

Wow. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:35

Yeah, there's only a few places you can't take it. Yeah. Hospitals and government buildings.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:41

And if they have a sign that says that you're not going to be able to do it. And if they're sign. Yeah. Schools.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:46

Schools. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:49

That's a big one. I mean, I had I even had to give up my razor knife when I went to the hospital.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:56

You know, we went on our cruise and we were very careful on what we packed because we knew like you can't take steamers, you can't take anything that's like high energy consumption. They don't even have refrigerators in your room on the cruise. You get a cooler. Seriously. It looks like a refrigerator, but it just like if you put it in cold, it stays cold, like cool-ish, but it doesn't, it doesn't cool.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:15

And I had packed my razor blade. Like I hit I had had it in one of my pants pockets. I tossed it on the top of my bag. I didn't realize till we got home that they had confiscated it. Because they go through your bag. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:14:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:29

They will just take whatever's in there that they don't want you to have. Now when you get off the boat, there's a table that's for confiscated items, and you can go over and collect your item.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:37

You didn't know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:37

But I didn't know it was confiscated, so I had to go buy another one. It was only like 15 bucks, but that's not the point.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:42

Huh.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:44

Wow. It's like you know, when I when when I flew to Germany though, I had a little pocket knife and I had that thing with me all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:51

Well, that was bad I was back in on a plane though, it's the size of the blade. Now you back then it probably didn't matter. You could also probably still smoke on the airplane. Oh no.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:02

My dad tried to take one in the U.S. Capitol. Yeah, it didn't happen, did it? And the way my dad was, he couldn't understand why he couldn't have it. I mean, it was like this, you know, this big. And he just couldn't get it through his head, like, you know, I'm Jeep. Like, I'm not gonna hurt anybody. Why do you have to confident? And they're like, listen, I'm like, dad We don't know yet. Like, you cannot come in this building unless you leave it outside. He goes, Well, I want to leave it outside, you know. Somebody's gonna steal it. Yeah, but he just couldn't fathom like why somebody would think that he would do something with his pocket knife. And so I think I think he tried to hide it or do something outside, maybe by a trash can or something, but I don't think he got it back. Because when you leave, you exit like the other end. It was not worth going back for. Yeah. But it was I'll never forget that. Like the lady just kind of kept trying to explain it to him, and he's just like, I don't looking at her, like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:56

They won't let you fly with toothpaste. I mean they can't imagine the Capitol with a pocket key. Yeah, it was funny.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:03

Well, you mean they won't let you fly with toothpicks? Toothpaste. Oh, toothpaste. If you get if it's in a little tube.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:09

You can you can put it underneath, but you can't take it in your carry on either. Who needs to brush their teeth on an airplane? Yeah, anyway. Right. You know. Buy it when we get there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:20

Hey, you can buy it once you go through security too. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:23

At those little convenience, but they know that it's been checked. So although, let's be honest, how much are they really checking that stuff? It comes from a secured supplier. That's the only reason they say that it's checked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:39

I'll say I think it was back in 2015. I went to a Browns game and it was like January 2nd, like freezing. I think it was like that the week of Christmas, like that weird time, and I had car hearts on. You're going through all these metal detectors, and I'm sitting at the game, and it's like the third quarter. I put my hands in the car hearts and I pull out these bullets. I'm like, oh well that didn't bullet. Yeah. It was from when we were like going hunting and stuff, and like they were just still in there, unused and everything, but it didn't let them off or anything. Metal detectors did not do a thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:16

Aiden was like, wow. Aiden took a screwdriver through. We when we flew to Florida.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:23

Through the airport?

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:24

Yes. Yes. He got stopped. But we go through the airport, we go through security, and the lady says, Who has the red cinch sack? And I said, He does. And I said to him, I said, What do you have in your bag? And he goes, My pencils. Because he likes to draw, so he had like really sharp pencils. Yeah. And I was like, okay, it's whatever, no big deal. So we go over there. She pulls a screwdriver, red and black screwdriver, out of his bag. And she goes, What's this for? And he goes, Oh.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:55

Sharpen my pencils.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:56

He says, I took the heel, I took the skates out of my Heelys because he wore Heely shoes. And he's like, I just threw it in the bag. I didn't even think about it. I said to the lady, just throw it away. She goes, No, it's fine. It's short enough. You can keep it. Puts it back in the bag. And on the plane we go. Apparently, it wasn't long enough to hit any vital organs. I don't know. Oh my gosh. She just gave it back.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:18

We got stopped for Cooper's powder, like his formula. Yeah. And I'm like, I mean, come on. I have a pack and play.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:24

I have a zipper bag.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:26

Like, they're looking at me, and my dad's like, Sydney, I'm like, what you want me to just travel without the formula? Yeah. Like, I was going to buy some down in Florida anyway, but I need some like from now and 12 hours from now.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:37

He doesn't need to eat. It's fine. No, he's fine.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:39

We'll we'll start from Yeah, it's fine. You can deal with a crying baby on the plane while his ears are popping, Dad. Go for it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:44

Yeah, no kidding. What else was I've seen people, I I've heard horror stories of people getting stopped for the dumbest. Oh, when we went to DC, we went, Alyssa was nursing at the time. We didn't take the kids. So she was pumping. And then so while we walked around DC, we were carrying a cooler.

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:03

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:03

Okay, because she would pump, we would put it in a bag, put it in the cooler.

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:07

We get to the Holocaust Museum, they won't let us take it in. And Alyssa's like, I think it's like we go. She said, I'm not dumping this. She said, I'm absolutely under no uncertain circumstance am I dumping this. And the guy's like, Well, then you can't come in. And she goes, Oh, but we can. Because technically she's a breastfeeding mother, so they can't stop her. Right. Like that would be Yeah. And eventually, I think they eventually did let us go in. Yeah. But it was it was an ordeal. Yeah. There wasn't any ice in the cooler or anything like that, but they said you can't take liquids in. So they did eventually let us in.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:41

Oh my. Quite fun.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:44

Never expected that. Boy. That was a loose pullback. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:53

Well, any about that time. It is. Any final notes there, Sid, or any response, or let me see.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:03

I'm not allowed to think. Not paid for that. I'm too old to think.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:11

Oh, yes. I can end it on this. We need to always be expecting Jesus' return. You know, we can't be like with the we can't have like the deathbed salvation mount, you know, mentality.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:23

Yeah, people say that all the time. Well I'll just get saved when I when I before I die. Well, it does it's not quite that easy.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:29

And like it's so easy to go through life like, okay, yeah, Jesus is gonna come back someday. Like, yeah, whatever. But like, no, you need to expect that he's going to come back. Like you need to be ready. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:41

Yeah. Well, because we weren't again, we weren't called to just get to heaven. We were called to bring heaven here. Yeah. Called to to preach the gospel and to encourage people to be saved.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:54

So there's some is some good in expectation. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:01

Properly managed.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:03

It's hard to do. Yep. And the enemy constantly wasn't. Make it harder.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:09

I wanted to circle back at the way beginning when it was either Michael or Nick was talking about. Oh, I think it was Michael. With the basically like having you having God bend his roles for us. Like, I saw something today saying, you know, that's not Christianity. That that's like spirituality. That's like manifestation. That's a whole different realm. Like Christianity in having a relationship with Jesus, that means you're sacrificing, like you're putting your stuff down every single day. That way you can have this relationship and have eternal life. Like manifestation and everything else, that is self, you know, that's just not. I mean, yeah, it is selfish. You know what I mean? Like it's self-wanted things where and I think people are trying to skew the Bible and skew Christianity to make it like that. So we are like people pleasing and we're just, you know, like trying to make everyone happy, and you can't do that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:08

Yeah. As I've said many times, I mean, we we've come to this idea that kindness is something just innate within all of us that we should just follow. Like everybody should be kind. I mean, it sounds good, it's a great idea. Yes, we should all be kind. But logically, but what is the source of kindness?

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:25

Well, because if you don't understand the love of Christ, you have no moral compass. You don't understand morality technically. Because what is moral? We don't murder people, right? We don't commit adultery. We when we talk about morality, we look back to the Ten Commandments or the teaching of Jesus. That's what we've based morality on.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:47

So if you want to be a good person, whether you believe in God or not, you want to be a good person, you have to have somewhere to base what is good and what is bad. Right. Because if if it is baseless, if there is no list of what is right and what is wrong, then that means that murder is okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:07

If there's no like I mean, it's kind of like it's kind of like Pinocchio, it's kind of like Pinocchio.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:12

You know, when he gets roped in, you know, he gets conned into going into the what do they call that? What did they call that on Pinocchio? You know, it's the where all the boys go to pretty much do as they please. Yeah. Like, you know, the I think they called it pleasure island. Yeah. And so the guy makes it seem like, you know, you don't need the all these rules. You don't need to be a good boy. You don't need to follow up everything that you've been taught. Over here is this place where you can just do what you want and everything's accepted and everybody's happy. And then of course he gets over there and it's, you know, that's not the case. You know, there's a lot of problems over there. You know, and once you're over there, good luck getting out. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So I think sometimes it's as simple as that. It's just like, yeah, it always it we can make anything look good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:55

Yeah. And the world's going to try to make it look good. Shiny.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:59

Kindness is, yeah. I mean, it's a great notion, and we should all be kind to each other, but we have to know where that source comes from. It's not just something that kindness isn't just something that we're born. I don't think we're born with, you know. It it has it has its source.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:16

Yeah, I have a friend who she is, she's not a close friend, but she's a friend. Like I graduated with her. She's one of the most kind-hearted people, but she's an atheist, you know. So it's like it goes both ways.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:26

Like, yeah. And it's interesting because this is the part that with atheism that I can't understand. That means you believe in nothing.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:36

Yeah. That's a hard one.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:38

But but she'll say that she believes that Jesus was a person at some point. Like, all right, that's a start.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:43

Well, but if you believe in nothing, what do you think happens? Yes. And I don't mean like in the afterlife, but like again, that moral compass. How do you how do you gauge moral compass? How do you navigate what is right and what is wrong? Because if you don't believe in the Bible and you don't believe that Jesus lived and you don't believe in God, Ten Commandments don't exist to you. What is right and wrong? Right. And don't try to tell me it's the law, because the law is ambiguous.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:11

I was gonna say some people believe that, well, humans created right and wrong to keep control of society, so everything that runs somewhat, you know, in order. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:21

I think not something from God. I think we have to understand that that evil people have existed from the very beginning. Because if we go back to Cain and Abel, we'll remember that at that point you had what? What would be the well it doesn't matter. You had a 25% chance of being killed at that point because when Cain killed Abel, there were only four people on the earth. Yeah, right? Four people. Yeah. Four people. And one of them got murdered.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:55

Your your chances weren't real high.

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:58

Right? Like it's you gotta think about it that way. It has always existed and it will always exist so long as we live in a world that allows it, and so long as God hasn't come back to to wipe us out.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:10

Well, and you know, Cain being the first murderer, I I heard because I listened to it's called The Great Courses, and right now I'm one on the Old Testament. And it's pretty good. Now, I will say, like, she's dean at some college or something, so she's looking at more of a you know, educational type of study, but it's still interesting. And she's trying, she's looking at more like the Bible is like a bunch of folk tales that maybe do have some biblical meaning, but maybe these people didn't really exist. Yeah. Okay. So, but one thing that she mentioned was okay, so Cain is the first murderer. And the fact that Cain is moving away from God before this process. So when he murders Abel, he doesn't really fully understand what he's actually done until it's happened. Right. Like he doesn't know, like, okay, if I hit him over the head, if I stab him, if what how whatever method I'm going to use. I don't realize that killing him is he's not coming back. Like, you know, they don't understand murder, but he doesn't understand it because he's already removed himself so far from God. So that so murder to him isn't, I'm gonna say isn't that big a deal, but you just you're so far removed from things that you don't understand what you know the consequences of what you're doing. And so I think about that with a lot of people that you know are not Christians, that don't believe are atheists, they look at things like that. Like they don't they don't see what the true consequences are of doing some of the things that they do because because they don't they're not in that relationship.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:50

What's interesting is they'll still recognize that murder is wrong. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:54

Or they'll still recognize that adultery is wrong, or they'll recognize that, you know, whatever. How are you? What's yeah, yeah, why's that based on?

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:05

Why are you recognizing those things?

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:06

What is that based on? Because if you don't believe in God, then you aren't your morals can't be aligned with God, right? Like that doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_04: 1:28:14

No, like travel basic human rights.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:16

Okay, well, all right, that sounds fine. Now I want to remind us of something else. There was a time in the Bible when God was so sick of humans that he was gonna kill us all. Yep. Yeah, right? He was gonna wipe us all out. And what does it say? That Noah found favor with God, yeah, and so he spared the the family, Noah's family, yeah, and allowed them to repopulate the world, right? Yeah, okay. So we were are now again essentially sinless, right? So we gotta, we gotta do over right, we gotta do over. And all of a sudden, here we are again in this place. And I mean, you even go back to all the other stuff that we you know, it it wasn't like they came off the boat and everything was good. Yeah, no. It was it it has been chaos then. It will be it's chaos now, it will be chaos in the future until Jesus returns. But the point is, is we we know these things, and we I I read those stories as fact, right? I don't read them as conjecture, it's this is a fact, this happened. If somebody once said to me, Well, the whole world didn't flood, just the world that they knew. The Bible says that the world flooded. Yeah, and so if they wrote in the Bible that the world flooded, I have to assume that the world flooded. The earth that God formed flooded, flooded. Yes, I I don't know, I wasn't there. Yeah, I wasn't there when you know whatever. We can't, as Christians, only believe part of it. Yeah, yeah, we have to believe the whole thing. We have to be able to look at it and say, you know what, that probably really did happen. And because it's in the word of God, there's gotta be some truth to it, whether we understand it fully or not. I read an article about AI creating the mark of the beast, and I mean, I think this guy was out there, but I wasn't there, and but one of the things that he said was in Revelation, they talk about the statue that stood, and then the statue could speak, and the statue could make people do things, and they're saying that was a robot, but back then the word robot wasn't really a word, so what he's trying to explain to us and and and give us in a vision is something that he couldn't truly explain. Right, right now, is that true? I don't know, but I won't know until Jesus comes back. Yeah, right, yep, yep. So I don't I don't worry myself with those things. Yeah, I do worry myself with how the world looks at the gospel and treats it as though it's not accurate or that it's whatever. I do think we've come a long way in translation and that we understand some of the words a little bit better, and I think that we should give some merit to the things that we've learned. And we should be able to look at the King James Version, or we should be able to go back go back and look at the Greek and Hebrew writings and say, oh, this is what we thought it meant. Yeah. But the actual translation was closer to this. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:16

And that's what some of that great courses uh series is also trying to explain is they're trying to explain to you the actual translation. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And and it's hard to do that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:31:26

That's always been fascinating to me. Just like translation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:29

You know, I have lots of Amish friends, and they'll tell you there isn't a word in English for the word that we use in Dutch.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:35

Like for us, it's called this, but how would I explain that to you in English?

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:39

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:40

And you gotta have a you have to assume these ancient languages would be the same word.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:46

Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:47

They're not all gonna translate word for word into what it is that we would understand. So you know what we mean.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:52

Well, and I so I think sometimes in even in the ancient Egyptian, like sometimes they're using the same symbol, but that doesn't necessarily mean it means the same thing every time. Correct. So it's just like they could have the same symbol for multiple words or meanings. Yeah. And so that's why it's so hard to translate it, is because yeah, you think it means this because you've thought you've routed part of the code in a million different places. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:17

Yep. So very interesting. Good stuff. All right. Roger, you want to praise out?

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:28

I can't. Okay. Heavenly Father, we do thank you, Lord, for this day. Lord, we just ask that you would take and be with us, you know, as as we go out into the out into the world, Lord. Allow us to to to bring Jesus to those that don't know him. Lord, we just we thank you for this season, Lord. We just know, Lord, that that uh we we celebrate this this this birth of Jesus. And we just thank you for this opportunity. Lord, we just ask take and be with each person that that listens to this podcast or listens to any of our podcasts, Lord. Just just have them have an open heart to hear the words that that that we say, Lord. It's we have a good time, we talk about some of the some of the most bizarre stuff, Lord. But we're we're bringing it to your people. And we just thank you for this opportunity. Lord, we just just be with each person here, Lord. Be with those that are listening. Allow them to feel your presence. We just just just thank you and praise you, and we give you all the glory, Lord. We just ask us all in Jesus' most precious name. Amen.

SPEAKER_04: 1:33:42

Amen.