Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Rhett Gets Stopped by Portugal Police | Ear Biscuits Ep. 432

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

The guys are back with full length episodes! In this show, Rhett talks about his trip to Portugal that resulted in a few choice encounters, a new understanding of roads, and an alarming spill. Plus, a trip back to North Carolina that was very buzzy in the worst way possible. Find millions of new and used cars on AutoTrader.com! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. This episode is sponsored by Auto Trader. See a car in a movie you just watched? Well, you can find it on Auto Trader. Shop millions of new and used cars on Auto Trader. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I'm Link. And I'm Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we're back.

We're back to normal. Normal length episodes. Normal length episodes. We're back to just being normal. That's a new... Nope. The new normal is we're now normal. Sorry. Not gonna happen. We took a break, and now we're normal. If you thought we were weird, well that's over,

because now we're normal. Weird is a buzzword for different people now, I guess. Yeah, right, right, right. Okay, no, but I retain my right to be weird in my own way. Yeah, yeah. You know? I've been doing that way too long to stop for any other reasons.

Did you have a weird summer break? I had a wonderful summer break. It's good to see you. Rhett and I just reunited. We just saw each other the first time. Maybe, as Christy pointed out to me, the longest we've ever been apart, I think it ties the longest we've ever been apart. I think it ties the longest we've ever been

apart. I think we were apart for like six weeks for summer projects in college. There's no way that happened. Yeah, so we weren't at. Okay. I was trying to build it up, make it into something, but we're back. And also we were on a few, let's be honest, we were on a few video calls. Yep, yep, yep. We didn't step away from work.

Nope. Completely. Nope, but enough to be rejuvenated and tanner. Do you notice I'm a bit tanner? Yeah, I was a little bit worried about how tan you might get. Just knowing some of the things that we have to shoot in the coming week that need to look like they were shot months ago.

A little bit of WonderHole stuff. But I think that. It's fine. I think it'll, I think. It'll even out. You'll lighten up. I think you'll lighten up, but that's like a week from now, right? Jenna, did you miss us?

You're back from your summer break too. I did miss you all, yes, I did. Okay, that looks sincere. I am back from my summer break. It is sincere. We missed you. I sent you all a voice message at one point. Yeah am back from my summer break. That looks sincere. It is sincere. We miss you. I sent you all a voice message at one point. Yeah, you did. You did. That was lovely.

I don't think... I don't think you were... You seem to be under the influence of something. Yeah. Yes, yeah. I didn't save it, so I'm honestly not sure. I think I tried to. That'll be another thing. I was like, okay, don't have to worry about Jenna.

She's having a good break. I remember being like, this is going on, tell Jessie and Christy. Just to clarify, because I said under the influence, I will not disclose any, like, you were coming out of a medical procedure and you had some, you had been given some drugs. Some sort of type of anesthesia.

Some authorized drugs. I was given some good meds coming out of that surgery and then I was like, I should let Rhett and Link know how I feel. I felt very, just like, connected to you at that moment when you decided to send that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was good to hear. So I did a Hawaii trip. Oh.

You know, I went to Oahu. Hmm. I'm prepared to talk about it, but not today, because I'm giving the day to you. Okay. And Jenna, you went to... I went to six different countries. List them.

I went to the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, and Czech, yeah, I think it's the Czech, I don't know if it's called Czech Republic anymore. I don't know if that's what they call it. Anyway, I was in Prague. You were the one who went. I was in Prague. With like 40 other women on a boat.

Yeah, there's a lot of women on a boat. Yeah. Okay, all right. We have older women on a boat and we had a blast, yeah. So what, you know what, I'll give you this one if you'll give me the next one. Oh, I'm happy to do that. Okay. So I spent some time in Portugal.

Uh. Is that, why did you just do that? Portugal. Is that how they say it in Portugal? Let me just be honest with you. They say a lot of things in a lot of ways that did not compute or really land on my brain. Portugal?

Portugal is the country that I'm speaking of. I actually don't even know if that's how they say it. I'm just sort of saying it. I'm just sort of saying it. I'm just sort of saying it. First of all, I wanna say thank you to the people of Portugal for speaking English. Like there's an incredible education system there where they take like nine or 10 years of English.

So they make it very easy for English speakers to vacation. And so there wasn't any, you know, I had this idea that I was gonna learn a little bit before I got there, and then you know how life is, it just happens, and then you just, you're like, ah, they're gonna be, they're gonna speak English. Yeah, it revolves around you and vacation.

And then they do, they do speak English. But the thing that I'd always been told is that, oh, it's basically like Spanish. And maybe if you look at it on paper, you would be like, yeah, this seems like Spanish. But when you hear Portuguese people talking, they do not sound like they're speaking Spanish. In fact, to the untrained ear,

and I definitely have an untrained ear, there's something almost Russian about it. There's a lot of, there's a lots of shh sounds and there's a, there's some hocking of loogie sounds that happen. Okay, I thought that was French. And I think, well, it happens everywhere, I guess, at certain places.

But I just thought to myself, boy, if I ever... We would have a guy, like one of the tour guides was teaching us how to pronounce some things. And it's one of those things where he would say something and then I would just try to repeat it back and I could not get it right. Like just some of the way the sounds are made and I was like, I'm glad I don't have to actually learn

how to do this. I'm not moving to Portugal. I just vacated there. Okay. Beautiful country. We had an incredible time. That's why you chose it. It was just me and Jessie for two weeks.

And we had a really incredible time together. I'm not gonna tell you the whole trip. I'm gonna tell you some of the highlights and some of the more compelling moments. Okay. But we kind of did the thing where you visit the places that everybody says that you should visit, starting in Porto, which is like a ocean,

front town, very beautiful, like what you imagine in like the European streets and cobblestone streets and old buildings and old cathedrals and all that stuff. We spent some time in a little town called Melidish, which because there was a hotel there that Jessie really, she picked all of the places that we stayed because she cares about design and aesthetics. And it was very much like,

I wanna stay at these places that will make great pictures and I respect the designer of this hotel or whatever. So what were you in charge of? or I respect the designer of this hotel or whatever. So what were you in charge of? Because she was in charge of your stays, your location. Was she in charge of your movements? Transpo? No, we collectively decided the things that we were going to, like what the agenda would be.

Okay. And I will say, there's always this, when you're traveling and you're going to a country that's like the size of a United State, not states, but state, you know what I mean? That you can get around in a few hours. You're like, oh, we kinda have to see the things

that everyone says that you have to see. Sure. Even though you might be thinking, oh, I kind of just want to decompress and have this relaxing vacation. In my experience, seeing the things ends up winning out when they're there to be seen. Like if we just went to one city.

You may never go back. If we went to one city and we're just like, we're just gonna lounge and not go out and not see things, then you'd be like, man, we should be seeing things. So we hit the ground running and we were like seeing three or four things in a day on like the first two or three days. And I was like, this is.

Do you have a fanny pack? Well, a fanny pack is a talking point. Oh, okay. Don't get ahead of yourself. I'm just glad to know that it's coming because I need that fanny pack talking point. Yeah, yeah, it's more of a talking point. I mean, it's more than a talking point.

It might be a revelation. Now I'm interested. But we did end up having a, so we were in Porto, Milidish, and Lisbon, which is like their big city, it's kind of where we ended the trip, but we flew down to this island. This is probably the highlight of the trip for me,

this island of Madeira. If you ever had the wonderful dish Madeira chicken from Cheesecake Factory, you've tasted a slice of Madeira Island. Oh yeah. Because it's a wine, it's a wine that comes from this island, which is a volcanic island that looks,

I sent you pictures, it looks just like Kauai, or it looks like Hawaii, because those are volcanic islands as well. Just like super lush green steep jagged mountain, green mountains going directly into the ocean. And I love islands. Flowing with Madera wine. And it's got grapes for wine all over the island and also bananas, like bananas,

they are bananas about bananas in Madera and not just regular bananas. They've got pineapple bananas. They've got apple bananas. What? I was absolutely perplexed by this and intrigued. We went on a Jeep tour, because it was like, you know,

you're going to some places that you can't get in a regular car. First of all, did you get there on a little plane? No, it's not close to Portugal. It's almost even with Morocco, like in latitude. So it's kind of like an African. Now you're getting pretty close to Morocco when you're in Portugal and Spain on that part of Europe,

but it was like an hour flight. Okay. And a regular plane, full regular plane. But Portugal owns or whatever the term is, they have islands that are part of their country and Madeira is one of the Azores. These are like these beautiful islands in the Atlantic that we knew we wanted to stay, we wanted to go to Madeira.

So you were on the Jeep. And we're in the Jeep and the guy is like, who's driving is like telling us all this stuff about what we're about to see or like, oh, these are bananas and I'm gonna tell you the history of this. And then he's like, we have, we don't just have regular bananas,

we have pineapple bananas and apple bananas. He's like, we're gonna stop at a market and you should get one. And I was so excited. And before I tasted the pineapple banana, I was like pineapple bananas, like this just feels like something that everyone throughout the world would be excited to try.

Like it's basically like, it's the fruit of a pina colada in one fruit. Well, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like this pineapple banana, like this. I don't love bananas, but. But lots of people do. And I would be, I'm more interested in these type of bananas.

And so I was just like, how come we don't know about this? And then I found out the reason that we don't know about it is sorry, they're not that great. The way that I would describe it is an inconvenient banana because it looks like, we'll be showing a picture right now, Link, you won't have the benefit of looking at it because I have too many pictures

and I have no organized them. Okay. But basically it looks like a pine cone and a banana head sex. And then you can pull the pieces of the banana off in like little sections. Sounds painful for the banana. Sections like a pineapple comes off in pieces, but it tastes just like a banana.

So it's like harder to eat banana. If it tasted like a pineapple and a banana mix, then I feel like they were onto something. But what about the apple banana? It wasn't even as good as the pineapple banana. It just turns out that the reason that the world knows about regular bananas is that it's the best banana. Like they got bananas right.

They engineered them, yeah. Bananas have been perfected. No reason, no reason to update them. But that was really my only disappointment in the whole trip. I mean, it was just, there's just something about Europe, first of all, when you live in America. And we live in a land of parking lots and signs

and strip malls and a landscape that has been designed for cars, right? Cars are the priority in America. And so every building, every community, every town and city has been primarily designed to accommodate a motor vehicle, not a person with feet. Of course, all these European cities. They're older.

They're older than cars. And then they made a very strategic decision, somebody did at some point along the way, that they were going to put, they had cars, they needed cars because cars are a thing and they do drive. But they're not going to create just places for cars to exist.

They're not going to create parking lots. They're going to create parking decks that are underground garages that like you'll just be in a city and all of a sudden, there's just like a little ramp that goes in, oh, a little cave. Oh no, it's a parking garage. A car cave.

And that's where they hide all the cars. They don't want you to think about the cars. They want the cars to be hidden. And the cars are little. The cars are so small, my friend. So they can go down into little holes. And I'm a big man. And let me tell you,

shout out to the mythical beasts that I ran into along my journey, which was not, you know, we're not talking the level of concentration that happens here in the United States, which I appreciated to one sense, right? But there were quite a few mythical beasts spread in and around Portugal, both people who were just visiting and also people who were,

the guy who checked us into the hotel, born and raised on the island of Madeira, mythical beast. Is that right? Yeah. And so anyway, the cars. So we rented a car and we are putting our, it was the car that they gave us was like We rented a car and we are putting our, it was the car that they gave us was like a sedan,

like a BMW five series, like sedan. So like the small BMW sedan. Okay. Smallish. And- Sounds cute and fancy. Jessie, as we're putting our bags in, she's like, is this gonna be big enough for us? And I was like, baby, look around. We have been given the biggest car that they have.

This is the, they saw the big man and they gave him the big car. The best they could do. And it was the biggest car and everything else was like a little Peugeot, you know, the little, the pepper shakers that we played with and they had to make the car and that's all a lot of those.

But yeah. They do make the pepper shaker. It was- And the car. I'll call it a pepper grinder, but go ahead. Yeah, grinder. Mill. Pepper mill. There we go. But the number of times which I went into a car cave

and then it took me approximately 20 minutes to get situated into a parking spot. Like the parking spot, everything is so small. The path to get in and out of the, it was like you could have just made it six inches wider on each side, a foot wider across, and I would be less stressed out right now, I guess they just get used to this. You're like in the car just like puckering up.

It's everything is so close, and when you get down there into the parking deck. It does nothing, but you still do it, right? You duck down in the car, because you're like, I see there's a clearance thing. It wasn't so much that. Maybe this will bring the hood of the car thing. It wasn't so much that... Maybe this will bring the hood of the car down.

It wasn't so much that, it was this. Because I was in a sedan, so the height was never an issue. I wasn't in an SUV. It was, how would I do this in an American car? I couldn't. Did you let Jesse get out of the car and then you would park? Most of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And speaking of the car and then you would park? Most of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And speaking of the car. Matter of fact, you might need to get out and then park.

Remotely. I got in trouble with the policia. Okay. Got in trouble with the policia. What happened? We drove from Porto to Braga. I know you're on the other side of the car, right? No, no.

Europe is the same as us. The UK is different. Yeah, cause you're on the- Yeah, but mainland Europe is right side. Then what's the problem? You're on the normal side of the road? The signs are different. Okay.

And there's this thing that happens in these old cities where you begin to ask yourself a question, am I on a road or a sidewalk? You know what I'm saying? Like, and how did I get here? How did? Because there'll be cobblestone roads. Yeah.

And then it looks like a walk. And you won't remember exactly how, where the transition took place, right? Because I guess there was signs. Now that's not exactly what happened. What happened was, is that I was on a road and I was looking for a place to park and I was looking for a garage.

You know, I was looking for the car cave and I wasn't seeing one. And I'm going down this road that sort of kept getting narrower and then there was a sign at some point that was like a circle. I had Jessie Googling signs. I was like, what does that mean? What does this sign mean?

What is the triangular sign with two cars side by side, one red, one black. What is that? I still don't know, but just to give you an example. But this sign was like the Ghostbusters sign, the red circle with a line through it, but then it was blue through it, I think. Okay. That was the sign.

And this was like day two of driving. So I hadn't- Don't blue here. I hadn't Googled enough. What is, how do you blue in a car? You just go, you do not- Is that going? It's still going the wrong way. Don't go? It's do not enter.

Oh, okay. Because you are now on a one-way street that's the size of a sidewalk and the cars are coming against you. Oh! So I like go. It should have been green with the red thing. And then Jessie says,

I think you're going the wrong way. I'm like, well, I think I am going the wrong way. But I think I can just keep going and I'll find a way out. And so I kept going. Were you that calm? At the time I was, yeah. Good. And then I turn a corner and I see. I think I'm going the wrong way. I'm just gonna keep going. Well you that calm? At the time I was, yeah. Good. And then I turn a corner and I see-

I think I'm going the wrong way. I'm just gonna keep going. Well, I was like, I'm gonna go until there's a way to turn out of this thing. Okay. I kept going and it T-boned into another street. And at that point there were, no, actually it just took a hard left, no T,

just a hard left. And at that point there were cards coming towards me. And now I was in a position where I had to do- Just looking at the cards. A 17 point turn. Oh no. Oh gosh. And were the cards just,

they just stopped there and watched you do it? And they could see, they, dumb American, you know, they could see, they could tell what I was. No blue here. And so- Why are you blueing so I did my 17 point turn, and then I start going the other way, and as I begin going the other way,

I just see a policia man, just standing there with his arms crossed. Just looking at me, and then he's like, like, pull over. I mean, I got pulled over by a walking cop. Just with a hand gesture. Yeah, he's just like, over. I mean, I got pulled over by a walking cop. Just with a hand gesture. Yeah, just like, nope. So I pull over and then he was giving me a little,

like he came in pretty hot, right? Cause I came in with, I'm sorry. Yeah, I know that was one way, you know, I'm apologetic. I'm like, just figuring this out, whatever. Yeah, but look at you. And he said- Big, with all your hair, you're taking up too much space. He was like, I need some documentation.

Too much American space being accommodated here. Documentation. And I was like, I didn't, so I just, the only thing I had that I knew of was just like the rental car receipt, you know, that like says some stuff on it. I was like, I gave it to him and he's like, I need something else or whatever.

And so Jesse opens up the dash and goes to the glove compartment. And there was, there's apparently in a rental car, there is like insurance information and stuff that you can give to a police. Okay. And he was like, this is expired, first of all. But by that point, he knew he had kind of like

made his- He punished you. Statement or whatever. Cause he was like, he said the car is fine, but they need to give, they need to update their paperwork or whatever. But I was like, yes said, the car is fine, but they need to give, they need to update their paperwork or whatever. But I was like, yes, the rental car company, whatever. Hertz, shout out to Hertz. And for not having up to date documentation in Portugal.

But he was like, just be more careful. Yeah. And I was like, I'm sorry, I will. And so I got out of that. Okay. And Jesse was like, just be more careful. Yeah. And I was like, I'm sorry, I will. And so I got out of that. Okay. And Jessie was like, it was funny because I'm not a calm traveler. Like in transition, like as we are like doing layovers

in Paris and these things and you're in a foreign country, like I'm not, I'm doing better, but I'm anxious and not calm in those situations. But I didn't, the cop thing wasn't, cause I was like, I went the wrong way on this thing, he's gonna scare me a little bit and tell me to be more careful, but I wasn't, at no point was I nervous

or did my heart rate go up or I didn't think I was gonna be like locked up abroad or anything. And she was like, why are you so calm? I was like, oh, you think I'm calm in this situation? She was like, of all the things you've been worried about, now you aren't worried when you got pulled over. But I had heard that Portugal was like super safe. We talked to one guy who was like,

he was talking about how the police, he was like, the police don't, they're just like community guides or whatever is the way that he kind of. So I don't know. Community guides. You know, it was like, it didn't feel like, it didn't feel like it does in the US.

Drive this way on the street, not that way. It doesn't feel like you got this like militarized police force that you're dealing with, like it doesn't, it felt different. Okay. So. What was he carrying like? I didn't even see he had a weapon, honestly.

Not even like a last- He had on a polo shirt. Oh, okay. Like a light blue polo. It just looked like, he looked like some guy who was like helping me with my tea time. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're next up, sir.

All right, that works. But it's funny when you talk about like the way how he might've responded when he saw me. And there is this thing like, do I look, where do I look like I'm from? Right, because they say it's really easy to spot people from the United States, right? And when they're in Europe or whatever,

maybe they've got on like a baseball hat or something like that. There's just things that Americans do that stand out. And I don't know. I don't know what I look like. I wore my hair up most of the time because it's much, when you're traveling, it's like you don't want your hair everywhere.

So I just like tie it up. And I did have on, at least at some moments, I did have on what you might call a fanny pack, which I'll come back to. Which I don't, I think that makes you seem like you're traveling. I don't think it makes you seem European. But whatever it is about my appearance,

it has caused the people of Portugal or at least a certain type of person in Portugal to offer me hashish or coke. Oh, really? Usually hashish and coke at the same time. I have been offered so much hashish and coke. Why do they call it hashish? I don't know.

So people come up to you and they say hashish or coke? Yeah, so basically any time we were walking in a city. And I know for a fact that every time this happened, I was singled out every single time because we were walking and there's like 10 people in front of me and 10 people behind me. And there would be like a guy kind of standing there like just sort of like standing outside of a shop

or on a corner or something like that. And he would see me and he would take a few steps towards me and he's like, hey man, you like hashish? You like? Coke or a Coke? So what was it like, that hashish you got? So I was always like.

How expensive was it? So the first few times I was like, nah man, thanks. But then, by the end of the trip, I was literally asking, what is it about me? Oh really, oh good, good, good. Jessie asked one of the guys. Beard, it's the beard in the hair. She was like, does he look like he wants it?

Does he look like he wants it? Because everyone keeps asking him. It's like, oh, they're sitting there all day waiting for people to pass and they just are like, I know my market. And they're like, there he is. I see you, cocaine? Is it legal there?

No. Okay. I think it's, I don't know the legality of it, but I don't think cocaine is legal in here. That's a good point. Hashish, I think it's technically illegal, but it's probably like not that big of a deal or whatever, but probably standing on the corner selling it is a big freaking deal. That's why they kind of like you know, some hashish.

I think hashish is a good thing to call it when you're like whispering about it. It's a very whisperable word. It's like hashish might be the most whisperable word there is. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely better. I can say it so quiet. You can carry up to five grams of it without facing criminal punishment. It's not legal, but it's super decriminalized. Okay. Okay.

Hush hush. Yeah. Now, coke, now that's a percussive word. That's hard to whisper. Yeah, yeah. Because it's got a, on both ends of it. Yeah, but I didn't partake, and... Oh! But I will say I felt...

It's hard to whisper. I took it as a compliment. Hush-ish. Easy to whisper. I will say that I was... I took it as a compliment. I must be doing something right if I'm the guy that's getting offered the Hush-ish and coke.

I did bring you a gift. I don't know. Oh, good. Speaking of... Did you get me something from your trip? Uh, well, I'ma talk to you. I'll share it tomorrow. I have 24 hours, Jenna. Uh...

A brown bag full of hashish and coke! Let me see! ... ... Green toilet paper. I'm holding in my hand Oscar the Grouch colored TP. Yep. What do you say about this, Link? I will say it's not used, you know?

Oh no. It's an un-started... It's all for you....pack. It's all for you. It's all for you. I know you use a bidet, but you do have to dry. Link, this toilet paper is from the city of Lisboa, Lisbon. It is from the sexiest bathroom in the world. Oh, this is... Sounds like something Mr. Hashish and Coke

would be visiting. We were in this like... Sexiest bathroom in the world. We were down on the waterfront and we needed to urinate and there was this big red like storefront and it said the sexiest bathroom in the world. And it was a bathroom sponsored by the company that makes that toilet paper.

And now I will say this is the most I've ever paid to piss. It's four euros. Okay. You know, most of the, you have to pay to piss there a lot of times, but usually it's just 50 cents or whatever that is. Okay. You know, most of the, you have to pay to piss there a lot of times, but usually it's just 50 cents or whatever that is. Okay.

It was four euros, but I was like, photo op, Jessie and I got some pictures in there. Yeah, what can it be? What can make it so sexy in there? It wasn't really, I thought there was gonna be. Lazy? I thought there was gonna be maybe some like, graphic images.

Is it toilet seat? That's what I was hoping for. Latex? And there weren't really any graphic images because it's like a brand. It was just different colors of toilet paper in different colors of rooms that were all the same color as the toilet papers. So I think I urinated in the purple room

but I got you the green TP. So did you buy it from a vending machine? No, no. It was included in the trip. For four euros, you get to piss or shit if you want. And you get- And they give you a complete roll. And you get a whole lot.

Jessie got one too. Actually, she didn't get one because we didn't have enough room. I was like, just put it in this paper bag. I'll give it to Link. You said that at the time? Yeah. I was like, I need to get a gift for Link.

I was like, this is perfect. Toilet paper. Well, thank you, Rhett. I will pat dry with this green... I'm wondering if it'll leave the color on me. I'm hoping it will. It's pretty dyed. It does smell like Europe. Huh. It smells...

That toilet paper's seen a lot. Doesn't smell great. I mean, not that Europe doesn't smell great, but... Well, that's what I've just said. I don't know. I don't know what I mean. I'm really happy to have it. And I'm gonna use it sparingly. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully it'll last until next year. I'm gonna set it beside my American toilet paper, and I'm just gonna use it sparingly. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully it'll last until next week. I'm gonna set it beside my American toilet paper, and I'm just gonna use a couple of squares each time.

Yeah. A supplement. Just to string it out. I'm gonna get strung out on it. I had a... One of the highlights of the trip was something, was unfortunately an accident that my wife was in, that I'm now going to talk about. Okay, can I say before you get into that story that we're selling this t-shirt? Oh, yes.

It's a 90s themed cartoon style mythicalized shirt. Get it at mythical.com, it's pretty cool. Yeah, very. I mean, it's very cool. And if you like it, all of these characters, which are us, these are mythical characters, including us. There's a scrunchie with all of them on it too. Oh yes. Get yourself a scrunchie.

I've worn the scrunchie. Mythical.com. You'd be surprised at what's over there. Eardiscous is brought to you by BetterHelp. I don't have many self-care non-negotiables, Ear Biscuits is brought to you by BetterHelp. I don't have many self-care non-negotiables, but one that I do have is I never miss my stretching in the morning. I cannot be myself if I do not stretch.

If I don't stretch, I think that I'm gonna get injured and then you're gonna say, you should have stretched. Yeah, well, whatever it takes, man. Yeah, and I think another non-negotiable for me is therapy, of course, which leads right into what we're talking about here. When your schedule is packed with kids' activities, big work projects, and more,

it's easy to let your priorities slip. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's easy to let your priorities slip. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's hard to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever. Mm-hmm, we are huge advocates for therapy. We think it should be as accessible as possible. So if you're thinking about starting,

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to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash ear. Ear Biscuits is supported by Chime. Summertime, the time of vacations, but vacations, that requires a lot of planning, but also a lot of saving. You gotta really plan the savings to be able to splurge on yourself a little bit.

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and overdrive limit supply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits, terms and conditions supply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. So we... Jesse got injured? Yeah, so...

And you call this a highlight of your trip. Well, as it was happening, I realized it was definitely gonna be one of the highlights of the podcast I was going to do about it. We stayed in a hotel on the island of Madera called Reed's Palace. Palace. And it was just a big hotel, beautiful hotel

built in the 1890s. History of the island is kind of fascinating. Like it was, when they found it originally, there were no indigenous people there, not many animals at all, just all these trees. No bananas, just all these trees. And in typical sort of colonial fashion back in the day, they just, they set a forest fire

to burn down the entire island and left and said, we're gonna come back in two years and plant what we want here. There was just a time in human history where that's the way things were done. No, it's still kind of done, but- Just burnt the island. Burned the whole thing down.

Damn. Now, thankfully there was one area that did not get touched by the flames. And it was maybe the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my life. And it was maybe the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my life. And it was at the top of the mountain, there is this cloud forest with these like thousand year old trees.

I will show, I have to show you these pictures. So like the environment up there, it was damp enough that it didn't burn. Yeah. Because in the clouds. But it's this- Whoa. It's absolutely, I think it's the most amazing, and you know, my pictures don't necessarily capture it,

but it's just. It just kind of looks like grass and mist. It's grass, mist, and these giant old trees, but it's this, it's the most sort of surrealistic. Yeah, they're windblown. Environment that I've ever been in. And I was like, my photos are not going to capture this,

but my heart is. Okay. You know? That's not where my wife had her accident, by the way. So we're staying in this hotel, which incidentally, Jacob had stayed at literally the week before I got there. And incredible-

Jacob is a mythical executive here. Our chief operating officer. Yeah, that is what he is, chief operating officer. Not good with titles. Yeah, I've noticed. And he was talking about this place and he sent me a very good summary of this is what I recommend, this is what I don't recommend.

And he said it was awesome. But I mean, this place had like, it was on a cliff like so many places, like a hundred foot cliff or so with like steps built into it. And then like places to sit where they had like pool chairs, sort of like beach chairs that were on this cliff and then diving boards into the ocean.

What? Yeah, and it was in- Diving boards. It's been there for like 130 years. So there's all these pictures of everyone who's like been there. And I was like Winston Churchill in the lobby and stuff. Like this is incredible history of this place.

But because it's, you know, kind of an old hotel and the rooms kind of seem the way that they did back in the day, there's not like a normal place for a television. So I don't know if you've been in one of these hotels where they have like the TV cart that's like at the foot of the bed and it's like low during the day,

but when they come in to do your like turn down service to like, I guess, put a pair of slippers next to your bed or something, they pop up this TV cabinet and there's a TV like right at the foot of the bed. We never turned it on, but it was there. It's key to understand that it was there at this. So you're just thinking about like a piece of furniture that's about five and a half feet tall

that's at the foot of the bed, okay? Okay. Just keep that in mind. So I go to sleep, because it was nighttime. And I am awakened. Now let me just say, let me just say, let me back up just a moment. And I'll say- Seems to me there's a wall at the foot of your bed.

Made out of a television. My wife sleeps with her mouth taped shut. Pfft. Pfft. Okay. Because that's what I insist upon. I don't want that- You wait for her to go to sleep to do it?

I don't want that woman saying a word while I'm asleep. Oh, God. It says, like, medical tape. She sleeps with medical tape. Does she go to sleep first and then you put it on, or? I don't actually put it on. There are some people who believe, and my wife is one of them, that you will not snore if your mouth is taped shut.

And I think it has some truth to it, and I think that it causes you to breathe through your nose. It seems to work relatively well for her, right? And I will also just add another detail as a prelude to this. But no eyes. She doesn't tape her eyes. We had, you know, we had engaged in a lot of my favorite physical activity

throughout the vacation. And so she was naked. As was I, as we drifted off to sleep. Okay? I was thinking about this. But did she, okay, is the tape gone after the? After sex, usually. Sometimes during, but in this case it was after. So I'm asleep. Too tired to put on clothes, but not to put on the tape.

Three o'clock in the morning, I am awakened by an initial bang. awakened by an initial bang. And you know, when you are suddenly awakened at 3 a.m. by a bang, you're not immediately- Cogent. Cogent, yeah. But the initial bang happens, and that is followed by another bang of sorts, which is followed by, now I've had time to hear,

I've heard two bangs and I sort of echo located where this is coming in the room because my eyes are adjusting to the darkness. And at that point I can tell, oh, something is happening in that corner of the room because there was a bang in the foot of the bed, then there was a bang in the quarter of the room, then there was a bang in the corner of the room, and then it sounded like,

what sounded like a lamp falling over, and then a lamp falling off of something, and then onto the ground and then busting. Damn. And then the sound of a human body hitting the floor. But nobody talking. And at this point. Did you hear like.

Oh, I'll tell you what I heard. My eyes begin to adjust. And I look and I see a naked woman with her mouth tape shut. Just laying up against a piece of furniture. And at first I was like, who is that woman? That's always my wife. And, and I think I don't know exactly what I said.

I was so startled, I was like, what the hell is happening? Like something like that. I may have said the F word, I don't know. And it didn't necessarily seem like that. I may have said the F word. I don't know. And it didn't necessarily seem like concern. It seemed more like, what the hell just woke me up? I think it's probably the tone that inadvertently came from my un-taped mouth. And she sits up with her mouth tape shut, and she's just like, mm, mm, mm, mm.

She's telling me to go back to bed. Pfft. What she was saying was, I'm okay, go back to bed. I don't wanna wake you up because I told her at the beginning of the night that I felt like I was getting sick and I really needed to get sleep. And so I'm a little bit disoriented. And so I just go, okay.

And I should have just laid back down and go to sleep. What? She came and got back in the bed and went to sleep as well. When I woke up in the morning, I see a very large lamp in several pieces in the corner of the room. And my wife with her mouth still taped, sleeping peacefully beside me.

What had happened, as you can imagine, as we debriefed on this situation, is that she got up to go to the bathroom, she forgot that there was a TV stand at the foot of the bed, which was exactly her height. Really a part that jutted out was like exactly the height of her mouth, which incidentally, another important detail,

she also wears a mouth guard as she sleeps for grinding her teeth. So she had on a mouth guard and then it was taped shut. So when her mouth hit the wood, she was kind of protected. But it did- Doubly protected. She moved back and hit the table that the lamp was on

and then the lamp falls and breaks and then she kind of sits on the floor. And then at that point I was like, I feel bad that I didn't, that I just went back to sleep, but you told me. Well, you motioned to me to go back to sleep in the moment and I was kind of disoriented. And she ended up being okay. She did end up having a little so to sleep in the moment. And I was kind of disoriented. And she ended up being okay.

She did end up having a little soreness in the mouth region, but like no teeth got knocked off because she had on her mouth guard. Wow, she knows where to put the effort. Yeah, and we were worried that we were gonna, we've never really trashed a hotel room before, you know? I don't really live that rockstar life. And so I didn't know what we were gonna do about this.

I didn't know how expensive this lamp was, what they were gonna say or whatever. But when we were checking out, Jessie was like, I ran into that TV stand at the foot of the bed. She started with this thing that's just like, why'd you put that TV stand in there? And then I knocked over a lamp or whatever

and they were like, the guy behind the desk was like, well, that's going to be one million euros. He didn't care. He was just joking. Okay. And so. Sounds like a policeman.. And so, yeah. Sounds like a policeman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love the people of Portugal. You do? I do, they have a great sense of humor. Wow. But I, there's, well, let me talk quickly about the fanny pack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me that talking point,

and then I'm gonna talk about something. Because I've been waiting on that. So, I mean, I haven't disclosed this, but I've had a fanny pack for about seven years. I bought one before a vacation. I bought one of those like packable ones. It's like a matador brand. It was like this big.

I have a backpack and a fanny pack that both fold down to something you can hold in your fist. And I just have them in my travel pack all the time. It's a fun idea. I mostly use the backpack if I'm like, oh, we're going camping, we're going hiking for the day. Yeah. And this is a little day pack.

But you know, you have to pay for a lot of things in euros there, like if you want, like if you wanna use the bathroom, you've gotta have like a coin, the 50 cent coin and stuff and like stuff I just don't carry when I'm here. And then I'm like, well, I'm gonna be out all day, I need sunscreen to reapply, you know? Well, you know I have one all the time,

I have a purse, so it's like, I'm a believer, man. Yeah, no, I'm not trying to sell you on it. So I ended up, anytime we went out. Grab it, it'd be a purse. Not if we went out. Grab it, for every person. Not if we went out on like a date. I'll be honest with you, I don't understand that. But it's fine, I'm saying for me personally,

I don't want the bag, I want the bag when I am going out for the day. I'm like, we're leaving the hotel at 9 a.m., we're not gonna be back until six, I might need my sunglasses, I might need my sunglasses, I might need my sunscreen, maybe we have to show our passport at this particular thing that we're doing.

Like that kind of thing. It was perfect for that. And I definitely like found myself thinking like, oh yeah, like this is the perfect travel scenario. Then I started thinking about all the things that, mine was pretty small, all the things that you have in yours and I found myself thinking, I can't let myself become dependent on having things

that I think I need in this because then I'll want to carry it to another thing and then I have a bag and whatever advantage I get from the stuff in the bag is outweighed by the having of a bag. But I will say- And then I'm right. Traveling, I also don't like,

I'm really not a fan of having a strap that goes over your clothes. Yeah. Like I was wearing like t-shirts as I was going out during the day, I was like, I was wearing like t-shirts as I was like going out during the day. I was like, this works. But then like one day I had a collared shirt and that was like, the strap was coming up

and it was like going under the collar a little bit on one side and then like- Well, you gotta wear it like a fanny pack at that point. Oh, then you have on a big belt with a big bulge on it. Yeah. I'm just saying, I feel like this trip, because I haven't done like a trip this long with this many days out,

this was when the utility of the fanny pack really- It's beautiful. Came home to me, but also a feeling of- Mm-hmm, it's a slippery slope. This is a- You could turn into me. This is for a time. Nope. This is for a time. Also, I don't have another pair of glasses.

I don't use chapstick. I don't stay hydrated, which is another thing that I learned. I am European. They don't freaking drink water like crazy. Look at Jamie. She's got, everybody's got their water bottles. No European people have water bottles.

They think we are crazy. Yeah. European people will do what we did in the 80s and 90s back, and you know, which turned out okay. They'll go out, they don't have anything, and they won't drink all day, and then the first thing they drink is a glass of wine

like at like 8 p.m. And that was one thing I noticed is that, and it made me feel good, because I was like, I would get to the end of a long day walking around, and I would be like, what if I had to drink today? I'd be like, oh, you've had one coffee. And I'd be like, and I feel fine.

I was like, everyone around me is doing the same thing. So it made me feel very at home, staying severely dehydrated. Because I don't feel any effect on it. Like it doesn't translate into anything. I don't, so I don't feel it, so I don't have a compulsion to do it. But. Your insides are so unlooped.

Yeah, but for so many years, and in every other culture besides America, this is just what they continue to do and they're fine. They're fine, they don't carry giant water bottles like we do. So I think they're proving that it's unnecessary. Yeah, well, I'm addicted to water, man. But, there was a revelation.

I experienced something and there's gonna be a visual aid for this and also I've prepared a statement. So I don't know if you know, I think I told you a little bit about this. Before our tour, we had our tour for two weeks, we had a little bit of break and then we had this time, this little summer break. And I knew I was gonna be doing a lot of walking

in both places. So I was trying to find an all purpose shoe. And I tried a couple of shoes that were okay. Like I was like, I wanted a shoe. What you're saying right now, I just wanna point out you're erasing everything you said about not needing water. It's like, I'm trying to find an all purpose shoe. I'm not saying I don't have some self preservation instincts.

I'm just saying I try to keep them in check. That's all. I don't follow self preservationpreservation to its logical end, which is just to be inside a padded cocoon. You wanted a fashionable shoe that could go the distance. Yeah. Again and again. And it would be comfortable on cobblestone streets, et cetera.

And right before tour, I ended up buying the shoes that I'm wearing right now, which I will hand you one. Ah. Okay, it's not exactly... I mean, it's pretty clean. It's just a white tennis shoe, dude. Oh, trust you. With a ditch. Just a white tennis shoe.

He's got a ditch in the middle of it underneath. Just a white tennis shoe. Speed board. This is that brand that everybody has, but there's, I don't even know what this brand is called, but the bottom of the shoe of everyone else's looks like individuated pieces of foam. On is the brand, and the on Cloud is the shoe that everybody likes. And I do not like the way those look.

Yeah, I don't like them. I wanted a shoe that looked like a sneaker. Well, you look like a European tennis person. Okay, so as you can see, on this one, which is a little bit different, it's got an R. I did not get this embroidered for myself. That's the right shoe. The Roger, okay? Cloud tech, Swiss engineering.

This is not a sponsor, by the way, and I'm... There's a Swiss flag on this one. This is a shoe that is a collaboration between On and Roger Federer. See, a tennis famed person. This is not shoe that is a collaboration between On and Roger Federer. See, a tennis famed person. This is not the tennis, there is a tennis version, like the version you're supposed to wear by playing tennis.

This is a slightly more casual. I don't want it to hold this issue anymore. I have written a letter to Roger Federer that I would like to, an open letter that I would like to read at this point, because these shoes really did something for me. I'm just gonna place this one up here as I speak. Okay. Just maybe I should, I really don't wanna do this, but I kinda feel like I need to put it on a pedestal. Putting the shoe on your cup.

Yeah, but I put my coaster in between. Dear Mr. Federer, or can I call you Roger? Please let me know when your letter back to me arrives. And yes, you can call me Rhett. In preparation for my recent trip to Portugal, I was on the hunt for a pair of shoes that rose to several occasions. On a date with the lady, and the lady being my wife,

she tapes her mouth shut when she sleeps. To compliment a pair of slacks for a casual chic look, check. Matched with shorts for a reverent tour of a sprawling 15th century cathedral featuring a statue of a weeping mother Mary full of grace. He's Catholic. Watching my every move. Check.

A trip to the hotel gym during which I have to repeatedly convert kilos to pounds to know what the hell I'm lifting. Dumb Americans, am I right? Check. And most importantly, a day full of traipsing along the uneven cobblestone streets of Porto, Funcho, Melides or Lisboa

in search of a tasty Francesinha or pastel de nata. Check. When the people at On reached out to you to collaborate, I doubt they knew that they were on the verge of creating what might possibly be the perfect shoe. And I know a thing or two about designing your own shoe. I did that very thing with my friend, Link. Maybe you'll meet him after you and I become fast friends.

It was called the mythical shoe, but it was real. It had a window where you could insert a custom piece of paper and also it came with a guitar pick. We threw a lot at it, it was 2010, but I digress. Just saying that you and I have a lot in common. Just saying that you and I have a lot in common. Based on some rough math, I took approximately 199,088 steps, give or take a few steps,

in the On Men's Roger Advantage sneaker during my time in Portugal. And good sir, my feet fell more in love with the Roger with each and every step. In the Roger, you have achieved a marriage of form and function reminiscent of the famed Eames Lounge Chair. The icon of mid-century modern design that combines luxurious comfort

with a timeless elegant silhouette. It might be the Eames. It might be the Eames. It might be the Ames. People say it different ways. Or Frank Lloyd Wright's falling water, a marvel of architecture that seems to share the soul of the rocks in which its canyonevers find their anchors. That's what the Roger is like, Roger.

Haters may be tempted to accuse you of simply offering an unnecessary modification to that sneaker staple from another icon of your sport, Stan Smith. I've owned my share of Stan Smiths and love each pair, but I say Stan Smith walked so you could run so I could walk in the Roger advantage. You were also much better at tennis than Stan Smith.

But I digress again. Roger, when you made the Roger, you changed the life of my feet, which means you changed the feats of my life. I'm not sure that made sense, but you get it, Roger. Thank you, Roger, for the Roger. Sincerely, your soon to be best friend, Rhett. The only thing left to do is Roger it.

Which you've basically done verbally. Look at that. What a great shoe, what a great shoe. Still really holding up. Not a sponsor. We make a living off sponsorships. It is my recommendation. We really need to not go so hard on things like that.

Unless we're getting paid a little bit. I mean, good gosh. Sometimes you feel so strongly about something that you just have to write a letter to somebody. Hi, I'm PJ Voatt, here to tell you about my new podcast, Search Engine. Search Engine was one of the very best new podcasts of 2023, according to Vulture, Vogue,

Time Magazine, and The Economist, we answer fascinating questions about business, tech, and history. Questions like, why are drug dealers putting fentanyl in everything? Who should be in charge of artificial intelligence? How did ADHD medication get so popular so fast? Listen and follow Search Engine with PJ Voet and Odyssey Podcast, available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder, that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you,

that thing is. Anabase. Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee-Ally Murray. And I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I'm Lee-Ally Murray. And I'm Leah Prescott. And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents the Anime Effect. It's a weekly news show. With the best celebrity guests.

And hot takes galore. So join us every Friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Last thing I'll say about Portugal and then I'll talk a little bit about North Carolina. Oh, okay. Boy, okay. So many Jesuses.

Catholics, a lot of Catholicism. Can I just tell you that as a- Like crucifixes or Jesus? Person who, both, any and all of the above. As a person who grew up in the Protestant world, who spent a lot of time talking about Jesus, talking to Jesus, we were not allowed to see Jesus.

You know what I'm saying? Like no images. We took that particular commandment in a certain way that led us to think that you couldn't have any Jesuses. Like there were no pictures of Jesus in our churches. We had a cross, but he was gone. He's not on it anymore. Right.

You know what I'm saying? But these Catholic cathedrals from the days of old, they got so many Jesuses. And it doesn't just, it's not just one. So you go into these places and I absolutely love these places and I went into so many. I could do a podcast just about the religious buildings

that I went into. And I wanted to go into the old churches and I wanted to go into the monasteries and so we did all that. And you know, the architecture is absolutely ridiculous and the level of detail around every little aspect of these buildings is remarkable. And the fact that you would have like a dude

who was working on one part of one part of this church and it would be his life's work would just be to return to this one spot and work on this thing and then when he died his son would just like step in and keep going on this thing that his dad was doing and it took 200 years sometimes or more to build one of these buildings and every single thing was done by hand and like you look and there would be like these little medallion things in the middle of these fixtures and you get closer and you realize every single one is different because it was just somebody's on a whim.

And like, well, I'm gonna do this one. You know? And you can also say why were they putting all of these resources and time and money into these religious places when who knows what the hell was going on around them with people who might have actually needed help. That's not really the point that I'm making right now.

I'm just talking about there was a time in which some idea, some ideology mattered so much to people that they would basically just go and devote all of their resources and all of their time to this one thing, day in, day out. And then you get to like experience this thing that has stood for all this time. And it's just fascinating to me.

But the thing that was the most fascinating, yes, there's the other religious figures in the saints and the apostles and all these people featured in some of these, almost like dioramas. Like you go into these churches and of course, there's the front with all the stuff and there's usually like some giant piece, there's a couple that there were these stairways to heaven and there would be like Jesus

either at the top or somewhere. But then all along the sides sides there are these little like enclaves with scenes and I Likened it to like Jesus baseball cards like every version of Jesus in fact I was I was like scenes from I was in a thrift shop in North Carolina a couple weeks ago and they had Elvis cards for sale.

And it was a stack of like baseball cards with all the different versions of Elvis on them from every movie he had done, all his different looks. It's like 75 different ones. I was like, this is what they got with Jesus in Europe. They got, you know, of course you've got all of the things that happened to Jesus with the, like the stations of the cross,

but then you got like baby Jesus, you got baby Jesus with a crown, baby Jesus with a crown, being held by Mary with a crown. I think that's my favorite, that's my favorite baseball card, Jesus. It's just this little, there was one where there's a little baby Jesus

who has like his finger in the air and had the little crown. And I was like, it's like that TikTok baby that said they wanted to go to Disneyland and like held their hand up and said, me. It was very much had that vibe, so much that I like bought a little tile with that version of Jesus on it.

We went to this place called Bom Jejus, Zejus. That's how they say Jesus in Portuguese, just to give you an example. Zejus? Zejus. Zejus. Jejus. Ashish.

Jejus. Zejus. Bom Jejus, which is this cathedral monastery type thing outside of Braga. And there are these steps that go up and then there would be like this little sort of walled off, like almost gazebo like thing that on each step, each stage of this thing,

there was like 600 steps, there would be like, you look in there and there's like statues doing it, like this is Jesus when he was doing this, and it would be like this scene. It was like, it just, that's all they did is they just did all this art. And you could walk up those steps. Yeah.

Oh, wow. It's like a, it's a world heritage site now. It's crazy. So anyway, I'm no longer a Christian, but what I was thinking at the time was, oh man, it would have been cool to have a little more, all those versions of Jesus. That's kind of cool.

And then I started thinking, cause I bought that little tile, I was like, am I now in my apostasy going to start collecting Jesus things? That's weird. Maybe. Am I now in my apostasy going to start collecting Jesus things? That's weird. Maybe. Maybe I should. I don't, I'm gonna say I don't think you should, but- It could be cool though.

I could have a whole Jesus room. You could, I mean, it is possible. You could possibly do that, but- Maybe just a Jesus box. A box that I could show people. Yeah, yeah. You wanna see my Jesus box? Who really wanna see it?

Only people who- My Jesus box. Like Roger. You can show that to Roger. I'll show it to Roger. He's Catholic, I'll tell you that. I said that in the letter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Roger, if you wanna see my Jesus box

during our first, you know, hang, it will have one thing in it unless it happens, you know, months from now, because I'm gonna grow that collection. Okay, after- I think you'll have plenty time to build your collection before he responds. After-

Maybe forever. I mean, Jehovah's Witnesses, they don't even have windows. Talk about other end of the spectrum. Talk about the other end of the spectrum. Well, the other end of the spectrum could be Jehovah's Witnesses, but really it's the put up a metal warehouse in the middle of the country somewhere in the south and call it a church.

Yeah. That's the opposite end. That's sort of what we come from, which is... Well, that's budget constraints more than belief constraints. Well, no, the belief constraint sends you in that direction because there is also a, this is just a place, the church is the people, it's not the building, and so the attention to any sort of beauty in the space is not, that's actually changing a little bit.

I heard an architect talking about that churches are actually trying to be beautiful again without being budget breakers. But anyway, after Portugal- I want a Jesus with a laser gun. Well- Laser gun Jesus. That creates a bit of a problem because- Timeline, problem.

Because that technology didn't exist. Yeah, that's why I want it. You could probably do Jesus with a laser finger gun. There you go. Yep, yep, yep. I'm assuming he could make lasers. So after Portugal, which was beautiful, don't know if I'm gonna go back. Jesus riding a moose would like that.

I would like that. Well, I mean, if you're of the Church of Latter-day Saints, then you believe that he came to North America and he probably did ride a moose at that point. Jesus on monkey bars. Just chilling. You don't have to make up new Jesuses when you're familiar with all the old Jesuses, just so you know. I appreciate this creative exercise, but like... Jesus feeding the 5,000.

That was there? I saw that. But it's... With lasers? Gorton's fish sticks. But it's... With lasers? Gorton's Fish Sticks. So it's sponsored. Yeah. That would be our version when we build our church. Every section is sponsored.

Yeah. Okay. After Portugal, like I said, I don't know if I'm gonna go back, because I'm torn. I loved it, had a great time. But my instinct is to go somewhere else new, because there's just so many places that I haven't been. Been there, done that. So. Got the Jesus card. But after Portugal stopped into North Carolina.

Right next door. As you know, we have been working on this cabin. My wife has been working on the cabin. I haven't been doing much to the cabin. And I have stayed there a couple of times now, including this most recent time. And it's essentially, I mean, it's essentially done in terms of like, it's habitable.

And it's just, there's a couple of like pieces of furniture and stuff that she's finishing putting in a couple of cosmetic things. But I have become, I have familiarized myself, not really, you know, I've kind of done it unwillingly, with the way a log cabin interacts with nature.

Mm-hmm. Okay. I just didn't really understand. What I did know is that the first time we ever went there. It's a stacked forest. In the forest. In the shape of a home. In the South, where the level of wildlife,

you just forget how many bugs there are. You just forget how much nature there is. You come to LA and it kinda, there's a little bit of this feeling that like, We pushed it out. It kinda feels like a movie set sometimes. Like, yes, there is nature there, but there's not a bug flying in my face right now.

And I'm not thinking, it's just a little bit different, right? And not the case in North Carolina. And so the first thing we dealt with was the carpenter bees, which I don't know if I talked about that on the podcast, but basically this cabin is apparently a hotspot for carpenter bees. And carpenter bees are big in the South in general. Basically, this cabin is apparently a hotspot for carpenter bees, and carpenter bees are big in the South in general, they're everywhere. If you've got like a deck or whatever,

they're these, you know, they're giant bees that look like an extra large bumblebee, and they create these holes in wood that's exactly the same size as their body. And they just chew out these perfect circles and then they go in there, they take a left or a right and then they create these chambers where they lay their eggs.

And then those come out, continue the life cycle, come back, drill new holes, whatever, go further or whatever. They can do a lot of damage if it just goes unchecked. We've been dealing with that. And that was something that like, we basically like had somebody come and spray stuff into all the holes to kill the bees and the eggs and stuff.

And then like, they like caulk the holes and stuff. And so it's a little bit nerve wracking. You've got this place that you don't, you're not at very often and you don't really know what's happening. Of course we have family in the area that goes to the house and stuff, but like just a little bit disconcerting.

But we show up, our flight got delayed coming from Portugal to North Carolina. Like got delayed like five or six hours. So we ended up getting into the house at like 2 a.m. Very tired after a long day of travel. We go into our bedroom and there's two windows, one on each side of the bed.

And there are approximately 25 yellow jackets inside the bedroom, flying around the windows and up against the windows. Oh, that was a sting ya. And I'm like, well, this isn't exactly what I wanted. This isn't exactly what I envisioned walking into our bedroom here. So what I did is I grabbed a vacuum. What?

And I started vacuuming them up. Does that work? Yeah. I got all of them, all 50 of them. Wow. And they were strangely lethargic, I guess, because it was the middle of the night. Yellow jackets can be really aggressive.

Well, yeah. But they were staying on the window for the most part. And then sometimes they would fly around and then they would land somewhere and I would get it. Wow. And the vacuum was not that powerful. It was like powerful enough to get them, but like you really had to be right on them.

So then we went and slept in a different room. We like sealed that room off kind of with like put up some boxes at the door. And then I was like, I don't know where they're getting in. I'm gonna go to sleep now. Go to sleep, get up, go in there, they're back. Not as many, but probably like 20 more. Well, they all crawled out of the vacuum cleaner.

No, they didn't. They didn't crawl out of the vacuum cleaner. Cause they, I ended up, I sprayed, like after I vacuumed them, I took some Wasp killer and I sprayed it into the vacuum running to like fill all this inside there. But also I don't think they're smart enough to get out of the, to like find their way

out of the bag inside there and like come up through all the components and stuff. But, but I killed them anyway. So I was like, we gotta get an exterminator out here, right? Obviously. And they were like, exterminator can't be here until Thursday and this was Tuesday. We got there on Monday night.

So I'm like, damn it, we can't sleep in this bedroom. What am I gonna do? So I go to the hardware store. First thing I did is I educated myself on yellow jackets. Like I'd already educated myself on the life cycle of the carpenter bee. Now I'm an expert on yellow jackets. And I know how they build nests,

what they build nests out of, and what they're doing inside the logs. Cause basically it's like when you got a log house, it looks like, oh, they're just all perfectly on top of each other, but it's like uneven logs. It's logs that are not like perfect. And so like there's these little cracks and crevices all inside of these things.

And all they need is a little hole the size of their body to get in there and they start building like elaborate nests inside of this whole thing. Oh. Because I would go into the room and I would listen and I would hear a crinkling like a paper crinkling sound in all these different spots and that's the nest, the making noise inside of the nest

and I'm like, shit, this whole wall is full of these things. And then I find these two holes on each side where you can see some like detritus. Like an entrance and an exit? Yeah, like, oh, this is where they're coming out. You can see like dirt and paper stuff, the stuff that they've made like the nest out of that's sort of like coming out.

It's where they leave their jackets when they go into. Exactly. And. Coat check. But they weren't like swarming around that. It's like I would go outside and I would see they were swarming around these two spots where basically almost the exact same level

from the inside, right? And so I was like, okay, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to the hardware store, I'm gonna get a shop vac so that I can really up the power of sucking these suckers up. And the second thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna- It's like a cartoon.

There's a whole like yellow jacket section in like a Lowe's in North Carolina because they know we're all dealing with this stuff. And apparently it's a really bad year for yellow jackets. So it's literally a whole section of pest control, but then there's like a section within a section that's yellow jacket traps and yellow jacket killer, which is very specific because it's this insecticide,

but it has like the WD-40 tube on it so that you can stick it into the nest, because they usually are in the ground. If they're not in the ground, they're in some sort of structure and there's like a hole and you like find the hole and like, and it foams up and fills the inside of it. So I went and I got a couple of bottles of that.

I stuck the little tube in there and I emptied the cans in there. And then they kind of started falling out dead, but on the outside they were still just going bonkers. It was just crazy. I have sucked so many Yellow Jackets into a ShopVac, probably like, probably 250. Damn, you probably turned that into something. I haven't looked inside the vacuum,

but I've got so many... Like a Yellow Jacket patty? And that ended up being my system. It was like, suck a bunch up and then like spray some insecticide in it. This is how you spent your days? Well, until the exterminator showed up. Okay. And the exterminator shows up and he's like looking...

He shows up and one of them lands on his belt. And he looks at it and he's like, that's not a carpenter bee. I'm like, well, hell yeah, it's not a carpenter bee. You're here for the yellow jackets, man. I think that because we had talked about carpenter bees before. But then I was like, it seems like I know more

about yellow jackets than this exterminator does. Like he was a young guy, but I was just like, hmm. Like I spent 17 minutes on the internet and feel like I know everything there is to know about Yellow Jackets, which is not a lot. They're not really, they're pretty simple. That's pretty simple what they're about, right? But he ended up spraying inside and outside

and we didn't see any for a couple of days. But then right before we left, I'm like, I still hear this crinkling. Like I'm going to sleep and I'm hearing, it's just, it's so unsettling, right? And so then the day before we came back, I'm like looking around and I go out on this little deck area outside the bedroom and I go and I look around the other side

because I thought I had seen one flying. And in the top, right under the roof where these two logs meet, that's where the big daddy nest is. They like come out. They've got like a six or eight inch bulging entry to the nest and that's where they're all at. And these two little things that I was treating, I was just treating like the back doors.

You need a bigger shop vac. And so I had to leave, but the exterminator is coming back and I have a video that is like, here's where the nest is, please remove this and treat this. But. Feels like a losing battle, doesn't it? Well, it's when you're not there. Your house is gonna get eaten like a cartoon. Once you get on top of it and you start doing

the treatments and you like pre-treat it and stuff like that, you don't have to worry about it as much, but when you're not there for a few, it doesn't take long. I mean, Jessie was there like six weeks ago. And then all of a sudden in that time, they've like come in and decided to make the whole wall their nest. But I've murdered so many insects with no remorse.

It doesn't sound like it. Maybe there's something wrong with me, I've murdered so many insects with no remorse. Doesn't sound like it. I don't have, maybe there's something wrong with me, but like, I enjoy it a little bit. Cause I just, they annoy me so much. And I'm just like, you mother, and I'm great. You're defending your territory. Yeah, I'm just like, pick another spot, pick a hole in the ground.

You know, there's so many other places. You don't need to be here. I'm surprised you never got stung. Yeah, there's something about once they get inside, they're not as aggressive. They don't, they're like, I don't think I'm supposed to be here. I gotta get out.

I'm gonna go to this window. They don't know what a window is. It's very evident. Yeah, neither do Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah. So yeah, North Carolina was great, except for that. Okay. I mean, the insects, boy, the insects. I know some, ask me about a wasp. I'll tell you about them.

What about wasps? Well, you got paper wasps, which are the common wasp, which come in a couple of different varieties, but usually are pretty like dark brown with maybe a little bit of yellow on them. Okay, thanks for sharing. Ask me about mud daubers. Oh, is that like a dirt dauber?

So we called them dirt daubers growing up, but mud daubers is the correct name. And we also thought that paper wasps were dirt daubers and we were wrong. The mud dauber is a long black and blue. It's actually kind of beautiful solitary species that builds those like dirt tubes that you see all over the South.

And they lay the eggs in these dirt tubes and they live in those holes and they're like, they don't mix and mingle and they're not aggressive and they don't really sting. I think unless like really, really backed into a corner. But the paper wasps, they will sting and they form those little little dangly nests, like you go up under a deck or you look in the corner

of an awning and you see those things. He's got that one little tree trunk holding it and then it's the whole thing. Yes, and then all the little clusters. I went around with a long-range wasp spray, 27 feet. I was an assassin. 27 feet? Yes, I was killing so many insects.

Like, if the insects ever take over, and they keep a record of wrongs, I'm gonna be right there with the exterminators in terms of the number of murders that I've committed. Ha ha ha. Gleefully. The vacuum man. Gleefully committing these murders. Shut up, Vac Man.

Get him. So that was my trip, Link. Okay. I'm glad you're back. I'm glad you survived. My recommendation is the Roger. Yeah, I got that idea. The Roger Advantage. There's several models I recommend the Advantage. It really gave me a distinct advantage. I'll meet him. We'll hear... Oh, if he shows up? It really gave me a distinct advantage....

I'll meet him. We'll hear... Oh, if he shows up? Yeah, I'll meet him. Okay. I'll meet him. We'll hear about your trip. Introduce him to Lando. Next week.

Yep, yep. Lando's playing tennis, so... Okay. Well, you should get him the Roger. They have the tennis version. Okay, Rhett. No, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. Maybe I'llett. No, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. Maybe I'll get that for Landon's birthday.

There you go. It's the end of February, so... If he makes the team, maybe that could be a gift from you in the fall. Ah! Yeah. Oh, I gotta make the team, huh? That's interesting. You can kind of give him that incentive.

Get your pair of Rogers. Write him a letter. Write Lando a letter and tell him... I only communicate with Lando via letter. I don't talk directly to him. No, you only communicate about the Roger via letter, I think. Alright, we'll speak at you next week. I went to Hawaii and I came back a tanner man, lots to share. I'm not the man I used to be, I'll say that.

Okay. Hey, Rhett and Link, my name is Cam and I'm currently out on the Appalachian Trail, hiking from Georgia to Maine. And I've been constantly snacking on some Ear Biscuits while I hike. I've been on an absolute terror recently, listening to all your episodes, old and new, and I really appreciate it. It keeps me motivated, keeps me entertained while I'm hiking. And keep doing what you're doing. I'm loving it. Thank you.