Tog and Parker Spoon discover a box filled with Tog's past. Tog learns why the potato incident and leaving Apocalypse.Cloud directly led to their rock bottom.

Featuring:

• Adam: Parker Spoon.
• Don Faucet: additional voices.
• Jen deHaan: Tog Chesterfield, and additional voices.

Stick around to the end for a special trailer for Season 2 of Escape from Morina! Where you get your podcasts. More info below!

Mentioned in this episode:

Toque and Trowel! Coming soon from StereoForest.

Ready to dig in? To find nourishment and strength right in your own kitchen and garden? Stereoforest.com presents Toque and Trowel, hosted by Jen deHaan in Canada. This is your weekly podcast for practical gardening tips for easy to grow food that works. Learn how to whip up affordable, low-effort plant-based meals that are healthy and taste amazing. And discover ways to tend to your mental well-being in today's world. Find resilience in the connection between Kitchen, Garden, Mind. Join Jen deHaan for Toque and Trowel. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts, or visit StereoForest.com to learn more.

Escape from Morina Season 2 Trailer

After the events of Round One, Miyo is now alone, or at least he feels like it. Tsunami has been in a coma for two weeks now and without her Miyo's chances of getting past the next round have almost hit zero. And with his new "Masters" of Graywulf and Brawla those chances are certainly zero. However, after a young boy asks Miyo for help defending his village, Miyo decides to break away from his captures and try and fend for his own in this world.

WEBVTT

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This week on the show,

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Tog and Parker Spoon discover a box filled with Tog's past.

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Tog learns why the potato incident and leaving

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Apocalypse.Cloud directly led to their rock bottom.

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You're with Tog Chesterfield here on 101.7 FM The Grack.

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I'm trying to pick up the pieces and fix up

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my life after I hit rock bottom.

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And I'm taking you along as I try new things

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to try to figure out my life.

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I fuck your life with Tog Chesterfield.

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Welcome to the show.

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Right now it's 5 p.m. and 30 seconds.

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I'll be with you here for your commute

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or while you prepare your dinner or while you figure out

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how to assemble your new dining room chair set.

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I'm your uninvited guest for the evening.

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I guess invited if you chose to listen to the show

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and it didn't find you randomly.

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Tonight you'll join me as I go through a box

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that turns out to be a bit of a memory lane.

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And I'm not talking about the clothes shop

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selling jaunty midlife frocks

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on Speckle Street in East Grack.

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So last episode you heard all about

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the feedback I received from the first hard copy edition

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of the Grackleton Gazette.

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I took it so personally until I learned

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how to categorize the feedback into what was useful

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and what I could toss out and disregard.

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I learned how to not take things personally

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and how to not identify myself as the Gazette.

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And I could tell that some of you heard that show

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because many of you started making suggestions

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in your feedback about how I could file it.

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Helpful or attack or irrelevant take or subjective taste.

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Please, spicy gherkins on page three

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of your Grackleton Gazette.

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The spicy foods, they really give me the indigestion.

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It's awful.

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I think you can add this to your,

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your feedbacks are all of a take category, I think.

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Anyways, see you, talk.

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And listener, I had to do that about my own life too.

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I should explain.

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My newest roommate, Parker Spoon,

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helped me clean out my hallway closet

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because he's going to use it for his cat's supplies.

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Parker's cat's name is Scott.

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I really like that name.

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And I like Scott because Scott reminds me of Kevin.

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Scott's a really nice cat.

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We found a box in the hallway closet

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that I had forgotten all about.

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I moved it from my last place in Outer Grack

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and stuck it in the hallway closet right away, I guess.

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I had a bunch of essays from university

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and some art projects from high school,

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some cassette tapes from middle school,

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and luckily I had my old tape deck in there too.

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Welcome back to the Grack Middle Radio Hour.

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It's time for our newest segment, One Punch or Two.

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Our best guess at whether a side dish in the cafeteria

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will cost one or two punches on our punch card.

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Okay, let's start with a side of pepper gravy.

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Brenda Voss, what do you think?

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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That one never got on the air,

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so I guess I don't know what counts.

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Oh, and Brenda Blouse is writing a regular column

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for the Grackleton Gazette now

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on her independent crime sleuthing.

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I think you'll really like it, listener.

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Anyway, I found my university application essay too,

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where I wrote about my idea for a new space in Grackleton.

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Okay, let's see.

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I really want to open up a new space in Grackleton West.

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For the community.

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Where people can share their own stories

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of themselves and this town.

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Not like a standup comedy club,

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and not an art gallery,

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but something in between those two things.

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And there would be a mashed potato bar

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with at least seven different types of pepper gravy.

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Brenda, Brenda Blouse, what do you think?

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Food brings people together.

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I found some letters I wrote

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as part of a creative writing project

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in a club I was in during high school too.

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They were letters to myself.

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I'll read you one.

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This one right here.

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Dear Todd, hi.

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Remember that in order to like yourself,

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you need to like your life

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and the things that you do.

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And if you like your life

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because you value the way you spend your time,

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other people can't take that away from you.

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From Todd Chesterfield, grade 10.

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So why did I start filing helpful or a tat,

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irrelevant take or subjective taste for my own life?

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And does it involve potatoes?

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We'll be right back after a quick break,

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and I'll tell you then.

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This is Unfuck Your Life with Todd Chesterfield.

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Unfuck your life with Todd Chesterfield.

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Back to the show.

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So when I was at apocalypse.cloud,

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I was so excited to take on the social media efforts

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because I thought, well, it's social.

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I'll be able to connect

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with the apocalypse.cloud community

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and maybe help some people in some way,

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even if it's just about the work

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that they have to do.

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So I plan to make new friends

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with all the very smart people who work there,

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who all seemed kind of like me.

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And then we ate together,

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and some of us went to the fitness center classes together,

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and we shared ideas and stories over coffee on breaks.

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And I thought I did make friends.

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At least it felt that way.

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It really did.

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We were doing all these things outside of work.

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And they talk about work friends and real friends,

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but I really thought they were both because of that.

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I did stuff with some of their families.

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I went to their Thanksgiving dinners.

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But when I called after the potato incident and my layoff,

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most people, they didn't even call or text back.

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And the ones who did were too busy

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for lunch or dinner or class or anything.

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I even, I ran into one of my old teammates

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at the farmer's market with my vegan jerky.

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Yeah, so I just started selling this vegan jerky.

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Oh, cool.

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So what do you like do now?

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Well, this.

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No, like what do you really do though?

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Like for work?

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This.

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Oh.

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And all of this, listener, it's okay.

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I mean, this is life.

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Maybe some of you are even listening to this

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who used to work with me and I'm okay with it.

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Transactional friendships are, they're pretty common

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and many people are okay with them.

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Many people don't even realize that they're in them,

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even when they're over.

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But it simply wasn't really how I wanted to spend my life.

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My life.

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And that's okay too.

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I didn't want to need to be useful to people anymore

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or be able to do something for them

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to have them stick around.

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I kind of wanted them to be there

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because they want to tog the person in their life

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and not see how useful I am

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or have to guess if I'm not useful to them anymore.

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I just wanted both of us to feel the same way,

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to want the person,

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no matter what we really give each other

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other than friendship.

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And I noticed that after I had to end some of my businesses,

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like the vegan jerky one,

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those new friends were calling back.

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Dan from Bulk Bins and I do live action role play together

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on Saturday mornings at Thick Raven Beak Park.

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But the box Parker and I found in the closet,

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the young tog box,

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that reminded me that I had priorities like this

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when I was young.

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Definitions of success.

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Before I got to apocalypse.cloud,

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this box was reminding me of them,

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it was teaching me about myself.

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And it taught me that while I was working

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at apocalypse.cloud,

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all of my definitions had changed.

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I want to make sure that even if the work I end up doing

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is hard or stressful,

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or maybe I don't like it all the time,

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or it barely pays the bills,

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I want to make sure that that work matters to me.

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I think that a big part of what makes us happy as humans

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is that.

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And that kind of happy can't be taken away.

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No matter what anyone does,

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no matter what anyone says,

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no matter what happens,

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even if they don't like the mashed potato bar,

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the flavors of gravy that day.

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So when the potato incident happened at apocalypse.cloud,

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that incident destroyed me.

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In ways that I didn't expect.

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But it was because I let my priorities change.

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I turned the work into me.

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So that incident was me.

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I was the potato incident.

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I was the problem.

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And shortly after when everything disappeared,

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my work and even the people I thought were friends,

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and I wasn't deemed useful by any place or anyone,

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and I sat alone on that couch with Kevin's pee stains.

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Well, listener, I think that's why I hit rock bottom.

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I wasn't Tog anymore.

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I didn't have my own values anymore.

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And I definitely listened to the irrelevant takes

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and personal attacks on the potatoes as hot takes on Tog.

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But everything I tried on my way off of rock bottom,

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the things that I told you about in all these shows

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from the Sourdough Starter Company

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to the Grackleton Gazette,

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all of that was me coming back

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to what was important to Tog.

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It brought me back to what I was looking for

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when I was young.

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The things in that box.

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I guess the things that were still in me after all.

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Oh, shoot, it's time for the weather.

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♪ I'm drivin' ♪

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Tonight's weather for your drive at five

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with Un-Fuck Your Life is brought to you

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by Doreen's Olive Hollow,

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where we stuff that olive's hollow

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with everything and anything,

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as long as it isn't a pimiento.

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Okay.

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♪ Get ready for the weather ♪

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Tonight, Grackleton is expecting a sunset at 8.04 p.m.

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That's not the weather though.

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Oh, oh, it will be overcast at 8.04 p.m.

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♪ You just learned all about the weather ♪

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And that's it for the weather on your drive at five

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from Doreen's Olive Hollow.

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Pimiento enthusiasts are not welcome here.

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If you like pimientos,

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you'll be sent to Shane's Olive Shack instead,

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where they prefer and condone

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the vile and off-putting pimiento.

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Is this an attack ad?

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♪ Un-fuck your life with Tog Chesterfield ♪

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♪ Un-fuck your life with Tog Chesterfield ♪

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So listener, I understood what I valued when I was young,

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and I forgot it when I was working in my career.

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And for a while there, I let the hardship win.

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I let sitting on the couch win.

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And when it seemed like the whole world was telling me

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I didn't have any value left, I believed it.

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But eventually, I faced that thing

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I thought the world was telling me,

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and I realized it was kind of a lie.

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Just like when my brain was telling me lies

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about all that feedback I was getting

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about the Grackleton Gazette

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that I told you about last show.

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Oh, this feedback is all you.

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You, Tog, it's you.

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I mean, what are the emails?

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So, listener, one of the messages

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I got about the Gazette, it said,

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Oh, Tog, Dennis, Dennis here.

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You know, you know, Tog, that might be true.

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Actually, I would do something a lot better than this.

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It sounded kind of mean, but I realized something.

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If I had a year left,

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the Grackleton Gazette is what I would do.

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And I wouldn't be at apocalypse.cloud

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if I didn't have time left.

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I don't want to get to old age or even next year

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and look back and realize that I didn't really like my job,

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I didn't like my life, and no one cared about Tog.

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Just what I could do for them

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when I happened to be around, I guess.

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Being productive is choosing to move on.

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It's wanting to do the thing

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and then to spend your time doing that thing.

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You might not get to make this choice for everything,

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I know that, but you sure can make it

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for a lot of the things in your life.

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And if that's true, that part at least,

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you own your life instead of the other way around.

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Actually, I should probably tell all of you

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about the potato incident now.

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Oh, oh, line one is ringing again.

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Okay, I'm just gonna answer it here.

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Hello, caller, you're on the air with Fuck Your Life

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with Tog Chesterfield.

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Hey, Tog, it's Parker.

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Oh, Parker, Parker, are you here at home?

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I'm next door, I didn't know if I should come in

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or if I, I didn't want to bother you, you know.

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That's right, you're the only conscientious roommate

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that I've had, no offense to my prior roommates.

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Nice to hear you, welcome to the show.

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Oh, we're, oh, good, oh, hi, everybody.

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I feel like I'm famous now.

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Well, famous in Grackleton.

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Yeah, I had fun, I just wanted to stop by

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because I had just come home and I would tell you,

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I had fun cleaning out the closet, that was amazing.

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My goodness, thank you so much for your help, Parker.

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I mean, that was a big job and a lot of clearing out.

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I didn't realize I'd kept so many things.

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I don't know, the old bottle of Goldschlager that we found.

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That was crazy.

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That was, that was pretty wild.

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I know, I know, I mean, it was mostly dehydrated,

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but, you know, it's been a lot of years.

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It has little pieces of gold.

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I was thinking about turning it

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into like a golden henna tattoo, a little side, I know.

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That is such a good idea, you should do it, yeah.

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I kind of did.

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You did?

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Yeah, I'm gonna need your help when I get out.

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When you get out, I used the super glue you had

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and I poured the Goldschlager on top of it.

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There was still a little bit of liquid

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and I think that the alcohol and the gold

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must have had some kind of a reaction

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because there's a symbol now glowing on my hand.

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Oh my goodness, well, what does the symbol look like?

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It looks like a rune,

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but it could just be the way that the super glue hit my hand.

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Yeah, well that, I mean, I'm hoping

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that the super glue wasn't all that toxic.

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It's okay, I mean, it only hurts a little.

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Seven out of 10.

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Yeah, seven out of 10.

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Parker, you seem very used to a lot of pain.

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Yeah, no, I'm good.

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I'm constantly, you know, when your dad owned a pencil factory,

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you're used to getting a little bit of lead in your fingers.

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A little bit of lead in your fingers, oh wow.

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Listen, I just wanted to tell you that Scott loves it here.

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Yeah, I love Scott being here.

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He told me the other day that it was perfect.

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I just, I got that because he's a cat and it's like a pun.

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I like a good pun.

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He didn't really say that.

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Oh, really?

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He can't speak, he's a cat.

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Right, yes, of course.

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I just wanted to tell you.

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So, but I was trying to tell you that I think it's perfect.

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Oh, I see.

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Yeah, thank you for clarifying.

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I take things pretty literally a lot of the time.

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No, no, no, that is okay.

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And I don't know how to say this.

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I hope it's not overstepping bounds, but I...

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Okay, Parker, just say it.

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I'd like to sign a one-year lease.

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Wow.

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You don't have to.

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No, no, I would.

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I mean, I've just never had a roommate that's stayed more than two weeks in a row.

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And I mean, I was already so excited that you're still here.

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And I just, a whole year, a whole year here with me.

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I mean, yeah, I'm not leaving Crackleton anytime soon.

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Crackleton's great.

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Yeah, I would, Parker, I would love that.

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I will absolutely draw up the papers for a one-year lease.

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I'm so excited.

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And you and Scott living here, that's going to be great.

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That's amazing.

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Okay, I'm going to run.

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I'm going to get my VCR out of storage.

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Oh, okay.

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Yeah, I thought we could watch...

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There was a film from the late 80s called Mixed Nuts with Michael Keaton.

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I've heard a great thing.

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I've heard of it, but I've never watched it.

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It's amazing.

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Parker, would you mind if I maybe, I made some mashed potatoes with pepper gravy for

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eating while watching Mixed Nuts?

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You are speaking my language, Tuhake.

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When I was young, when I went over to my grandmother's house, we used to have solstice

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parties, and she would put on Columbo and make mashed potatoes with pepper gravy.

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And I used to sneak some of my grandfather's pipe tobacco, mix it into the mashed potatoes.

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I don't do it anymore.

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Yeah, that would be a little bit sacrilegious.

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Yeah, but I would, it sounds perfect.

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Oh, that's wonderful.

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And if you'd like, you can help me with the potatoes.

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You could touch the potatoes and help me prepare the potatoes if you'd like.

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But you said I couldn't touch the potatoes.

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Yeah, but you know what, Parker?

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I would be fine with you helping me with the potatoes and touching them.

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I'm going to go get my VCR.

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Okay.

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I don't even know what to do.

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Okay.

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I'll see you in like half an hour.

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Okay, in a half an hour.

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Bye, Parker.

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I'll meet you in the kitchen.

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Bye.

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Okay.

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Bye.

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So that's all the time we have for this week's episode of the show here on 101.7 FM The Grack.

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I'll have to tell you about the potato incident next show.

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But first, stay tuned for the Gumboots and, oh no, Gumboots plus Shorts show.

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Marion Dunk and Richard Dunkton share fashion advice appropriate for

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when you're not too sure what season it is.

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Oh, well, I'd wear that any time of year.

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You have been listening to Unfuck Your Life with Todd Chesterfield, a Stereo Forest production.

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This episode was written, directed, edited, and produced by Janda Han.

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This episode features the voices of Adam, Don Fawcett, and Janda Han.

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You can find all of our shows, show notes, transcripts,

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and sign up to get notified about new episodes at StereoForest.com.