June 11, 2023 • 57 mins
Melisser is busy busy busy with her upcoming bat mitzvah service and guess who’s coming? Amander! Melissa is verklempt, actual and genuinely honored. The Hebrew word for friendship is chaverut and wow, what a beautiful and long way these two have come. Elsewhere in this episode, Amanda explains All Duggar Everything to Melissa. Basically, the girls are saying do religion this way. Not that way. Yeah, it’s not lost on them how the theme of this episode ended up. We’re living in a simulation anyway though! Enjoy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Well, do we want to talkabout most important or least important? First?
Oh, let's start with least importantand work our way up. How
are we living in a parallel universewhere we are so busy that our households
have run out of toilet paper?Have you ever run out of toilet paper?
(00:26):
Honestly? Never? Never? Doyou know what I had to do.
I had to crack into the stashof flushable wipes that we purchased in
twenty twenty when nobody had toilet paper, and I was buying the Kirkland plus
sized packs of them just in casewe couldn't get toilet paper. I had
to crack into those. But then, because my house is old, I'm
(00:49):
afraid to flush them. I wasgiving the children Target Target bags and the
flushable wipes for a good day,and I asked, Chris, can you
please bring home some toilet paper?And it sounds like exactly at your house,
the same conversation happened. And whatdid these men bring home? Um?
(01:32):
Sandpaper that I've never seen before?Scott brand excuse transparent? Uh see
through, not even one ply halfapply, crunchy as hell, um so
bad, so bad it truck stoptoilet paper I think school toilet paper,
I said, truck stop toilet papershow. I'm called a school toilet paper
(01:53):
two. So definitely we're living ina simulation. Well that they was he
could have gotten the Kirkland toilet paper, right, uh huh yeah, but
he's like, I got scared becauseyou're such a weird loyal toilet paper person.
I thought you were gonna go whywould you get the Costco brand?
(02:13):
But I was like, oh mygod, do you not know me?
I love Costco brand everything Kirkland Foxwith Kirkland. Kirkland is my ship.
They understand me. I'll wear Kirklandclothes. I don't give a damn.
So he misfired there. He boughtthe scott which come individually wrapped, you
know, like individually wrapped exactly likethey should be in a truck driver's cab
(02:40):
exactly. So like that, youhave a cost Co size package of the
shitty toilet paper. And that's whatI'm really upset about. When are we
ever going to get through all that? See? I only got the four
pack that you can pick up atKroger, so luckily mine is already gone.
(03:04):
No, no, I have twohundred and sixteen rolls of shitty,
and so then I was like,we have to stop everything. I had
a whole long day. I wasexhausted, but I was like, I
can't even go one bathroom visit withthat toilet paper, and I won't.
So we had to go to myAsian supermarket get my Hello Kitty toilet paper.
(03:28):
And the kids were like, ohyeah, I want some too,
And I was like, the thingis, though, girls, y'all gonna
get through this toilet paper. Thistruck stop toilet paper is for you.
I get used to it. It'sone false smooth and you've slipped a finger
through that toilet paper into a holebecause it's so thin. And now you
got to take a whole new shower, which you should be doing anyway.
(03:50):
But um, it's it's you know, what brought us to this place?
What brought us to this place.I have never run a household where I've
run out of toilet paper. Thathas never happened. It didn't happen during
the pandemic. I was prepared.I had a wall of toilet paper in
(04:12):
my garage, Like I could havepadded every wall in my house with toilet
paper. This could have been asafe house. Like a motherfucker. Back
then, I was prepared, nobodywas gonna run out of toilet paper in
this house. And then I don'teven know. He's just like rout a
toilet paper. You know what elsewe ran out of? Please say,
paper, towels, toothpaste? No, not toothpaste, girl. So I'm
(04:38):
digging through my toilet trees bags,you know how sometimes he just leaves some
shit in there. I'm digging throughhis tour bag that hasn't seen the light
of date. When was the lasttime Glassgow went on tour eighteen forty seven?
I'm looking for tiny little things oftoothpaste. I have these little thing
called whispers swhispers. I don't knowwhat they're called, but they're tiny,
little temporary They look like a flosser, but when you put it in your
(05:03):
mouth and your saliva activates it,you can brush your teeth with it.
I had to dip into those likeI was like, dude, oh no,
very gross. What do you do? I always save all of our
little toothpastes that we get from thedentist in a little bin, you know,
obviously for travel, But then likeI always use those in a pinch,
(05:24):
where's your supply of those. I'man asshole, and I will save
those. You don't. I thinkJustin takes him, but I don't know
where they are. I don't knowbecause ours comes in a big giant cup,
and then there's a toothbrush, andthen there's this, and then there's
that, and it's also crest,and I'm not a Crest person. I'm
a coalgate person, very specifically,a coalgate person, original coal gate.
(05:45):
It has to be spicy minty.So anyway, we ran out of a
lot of things. But back towhat I was saying, the reason why
we run out of a lot ofthings is because I don't care what anybody
says. You can't do it all. You can't do it all. Something's
got to give, and in thiscase, it was the household supplies.
(06:08):
Yeah, even though Justin is hereand supposed to be, you know,
fifty percent, sixty five percent,seventy five percent the primary parent, you
know, as I'm still working atmerch Direct in the transition, sir,
his brain didn't do the thing thatturns on and like can see all of
(06:31):
the invisible labor, Like we shouldhave never run out of toilet paper.
We would have never run out oftoilet paper if it was me. Yeah,
because you're constantly keeping those open tabsof what needs to be replaced at
all times, so that when yougo to place the target order or you
go to Costco, you know exactlywhat you need to get. It's wild.
I have been I have become aperson that stops by the CBS or
(07:00):
the Weird seven eleven to get somemilk like that? What that is?
I think that's like real nineteen eighties, you know, boss babe movie mom.
Dude. You know, she's runningin and her like white sneakers and
her power suit and she's grabbing thingsand she's feeling guilty because she's spent another
(07:24):
late night at work and her kidsmiss her and looks like that. Yeah,
and then she walks into her homeand the coffee tables covered and whatever
the fuck a bunch of shit Andthey also happened to step on a rubber
ducky on her way in. How'dthat get down there? And she's so
exhausted and she like blows, youknow, blows her out in her bangs.
Her giant bangs pop up and shejust kind of like crashes into the
(07:46):
lazy boy. But then there's likea doll, and the doll makes a
noise when she falls onto it.That's what I said, she stepped on
the rubber duck. Yeah, thenoise you need, the noise of russe.
You can't indicate how tired she is. Um, that's what's happening here.
And when I say my house isfucked up, like, I've said
(08:07):
that before and it's not true.I've said that before and my house is
still oper ready ish. No,No, it's true. Now, it's
very true. My house is fulkedup. It is. I can't.
I don't know where the paperwork isfor the camp. I don't know where
the permission slips are for the finalweeks of school field trip. I don't.
(08:33):
I don't have toilet paper. Ain'tno food in this motherfucker. Ain't
no food, And you can't.You can't make it. Girl who runs
out of Mayonnai's. But we don'thave things, We don't have things,
and I can't do it. Yeah, I can't do it. My parents
are coming in for what should havejust been a long weekend to celebrate us
(08:58):
becoming about mits. But but youknow, he's like, I don't want
to stay loundering so they're coming andstaying a really fucking long time, and
like, my dad is very judgmental, so I'm going to have to figure
out a way to get my housetogether before they get here. While I'm
doing all this other stuff. I'vegot dance recitals, I've got graduations,
(09:22):
I've got friends coming in from outof town, including you. By the
way, can we actually let's let'sjust pivot to the important stuff. I
have to know. I feel genuinelyso guilty even having celebration for Shalom and
my bat Mitzvah, because I feellike people have to stop what they're doing
(09:46):
in the middle of a very hectictime before summer starts to you know,
celebrate me. So originally, whenShalom and I were doing our studies and
she had gone to a bunch ofand bought Mitzvah's and was like, I
don't want that kind of attention onme. I don't think I can handle
that, and I don't want youand Daddy to have to like put all
(10:07):
this money into it, and I'mnot into it. She was like,
I rather just you know, havea little private thing because she was going
through some shit. She said shedidn't want to do it, and I
was like, you know what,I don't want to make you do anything
you don't want to do. Iwas devastated because I really wanted something,
because we really worked hard, andI really wanted her, you know,
to be celebrated, and I alsoreally wanted a little party. Well,
(10:31):
but it's good that she she knowsherself and recognizes that that's not what she
wants to do. My gosh,I wish that I was that smart at
her age, right before we spentyou know, all of the money and
then she didn't even want to bethere. So yeah, recently, you
know, we got our We hadgotten our date because it kept getting pushed
(10:54):
back because life happening. We nevergave up, you know, they were
there were weird hiatuses because of COVID. There were weird pauses in the steady
way back when because I had togo and randomly out of nowhere film a
TV show out of town. Likeweird shit happened to where it was very
(11:16):
hard for us to coordinate getting thiswork done. But we stayed with it
and we got the work done.It and I was like, should we
revisit having a thing, And shewas like you know, maybe, but
like, I don't want it tobe too much. Like she tried to
invite no friends. I was like, ma'am, if we're gonna have a
thing, you got to have friendsover. So we can't. We found
(11:37):
a happy medium, and it's goingto be you know, we're gonna become
bot mitzvah and do the whole religiousshebang in the privacy of our home with
just close family and friends, andthen we're gonna have a celebration brunch.
So it's like weddings, you dothe vows at the place, and then
you do the celebration whatever. Noteverybody comes to the vows part, you
know what I mean. Well,yeah, but you know what I'm saying.
(12:01):
So when I originally planned all thisand I had every intention of inviting
everybody, I just knew people weregonna say no because they've got a lot
of shit going on. Girl.People are saying yes. I'm like,
hold on you wow, and Ifeel so bad. So when you said
yes, I was like, Amanda, I couldn't tell. It's like,
(12:24):
is it going to be offensive ifI'm like, you don't have to come
to this, Like you don't youdo not have to stop your life in
Ohio to come back to New Yorkand celebrate me for two hours out of
brunch. You literally don't have todo that. And you were like,
bitch, Well it was so funnybecause when you texted me the other day
(12:45):
with the information for the program,it was like, here's like what I
need. By the way, it'sthis day at this time. And I
was like, did she just inviteme? Like why did she give me
this information? If that? Andthen I was like, I think I'm
invited. Well, the thing wasI just wanted to you know. The
(13:07):
text was like a like a likea a save the day, even though
it's come and write the fuck up. Um. Yeah. But I also
just like didn't have any expectation thatpeople were going to come in. So
I was having this conversation with Marenand she was like, Melissa, are
you dumb? I was like wow. She goes, people are going to
(13:30):
want to celebrate you. She's like, you have to get it through your
head that it's not a burden thatpeople want to celebrate you. Yeah,
these things have to happen. She'syou know, because I've canceled birthdays.
I just don't. I can't I'mlike overwhelmed with the Every time I get
a confirmed yess, I'm like,really, you're gonna come? You like
(13:52):
me? Yeah? Um, that'sso silly though, Why wouldn't I want
to come? I mean because it'sa lot, like it's an important thing
and also selfishly, I have neverbeen to about MITZ but before, so
I really want to like witness whatit's like. This is not going to
(14:16):
be anything like but I have noframe of reference Melissa oh and this and
this will not be one It'll justbe like that thing that I went to
for Melissa. Um, but itis a very important event and yeah,
it deserves a day of celebration.So yeah, thank you so much for
(14:39):
confirming yes to come to my thing, Like you really don't have to do
that. I'm like, oh mygod, that's really so fucking generous and
kind of you to do. Andlike I would not have been I would
not have been tripping if you said, girl, I can't come to that.
I would be like, I totallyunderstand U. So like, no,
(15:01):
I'm excited, and it's the firsttime that I've traveled like really truly
by myself in I'm embarrassed. Howlong So there's a piece of me too
that's like very excited to you know, like I don't I don't do this
and I'm not spontaneous like this,And I think that's the other thing is
(15:22):
it feels very spontaneous and I'm veryuncomfortable. Oh you're living on the edge,
yes, And so I'm like,this is good for you, this
is good, this will be goodgrowth and good life experience. It's so
silly. I'm fucking traveling a directflight right right to Long Island. And
then you know, it's it's notlike I'm traveling to Europe by myself for
like fourteen days with a backpack,but it is a big deal because moms
(15:48):
never get time to themselves. Thisis like a mini nope baby sabbatical,
even though you have to do abunch of stuff. But still I thank
you because it's it's it's crazy.And I started getting messages from other people
that I invited that are like you'reinviting me, And I was like,
Danny's like, dude, I'm likeso honored to invitement, Like Danny,
(16:11):
are you okay? Of course Iwould like what do you talk about?
He's like, I don't know.So like other people have the thing that
I'm experiencing where Danny's in that theyare like, I got an invitation.
I'm like, dude, I literallyjust brought all of my children to Vermont
earlier this year, I spend timewith you. Of course you would be
(16:33):
invited to my about Mitzvah. Areyou for real right now? So I
think that it's you know, soakit all in. It's going to be
very fun. It's going to Idon't know, I think it'll be great.
I'm so proud of you becoming awoman. Is that what it means
to be about mitzveh? You knowwhat's so funny? You ask me that,
(16:55):
girl, I've been doing this foryears now, and I'm like,
I don't know. I mean,I thought it's a right, it's a
really understanding. Well, yeah,you're like, you like go from like
being a boy or a girl tobeing a man or a woman. Yeah.
Yes, but back in the daythey did, like Burnett has never
become bat Mitzva because they used tonot do that for girls. This is
(17:17):
kind of a new feeling. Yes, wow, a patriarchical society were men
get all of the good things.But the other part that's really interesting is
I converted to Judaism in twenty eleven. So the fact that twelve years later
(17:37):
I'm becoming bat Mitzvah with my daughter, it's like I'm having the right of
passage in the right amount of time. Yeah, twelve thirteen years. So
it's just really a full circle likemoment. And like, yeah, for
a little bit there, remember Shalomand I were going through a thing and
(18:00):
she's like, like I was annoyingher really bad. Like we're back on
track and she's and she's like happywe're doing this together. It's really special.
But I also can't wait for allof this to be over because I'm
just I don't know how people doit. I don't know. It's like
planning a wedding. There's so muchwork involved and I'm just doing it.
(18:26):
You know, Slap pappy. It'sgonna be cute. But like I ordered
place mats with our little face onit. Yeah, very cute, so
that you can color them because thetheme is glassjaw get it coloring book.
Yeah, pink roses. Everybody getsone. My daughter, Sheer is going
(18:48):
to be there. She's part ofthe decoration. I don't know. I
haven't had time to really sit andbe like, Wow, this is happening.
I'm really doing this. Yeah,until today when Justin came to our
(19:08):
lesson so he can map it outin his mind, like what it's going
to require? Oh, Like whatdo you mean? Like what does he
have to do? Well? Likewe've asked him to, you know,
put some flare on some of themusical oh, our friend, and he's
he's acting like he can't, Ican't do it. I'm like, dude,
(19:33):
you're a whole lass musician. I'msure you can improve pieces of you
know, percussion or acoustic guitar.And he's like acting like that's going to
be the hardest thing in the world. He's the biggest, not bad,
Like Shiro's gonna have a tambourine,She's gonna throw her little flare on it.
You can't do it, musician.Maybe he's feeling like the pressure of
(19:56):
wanting it to be so perfect.Well, the way that we're doing it,
it's literally not going to be perfect. It's going to be the way
that it's supposed to be, whichis a very Beck family production. Uh,
you know, intimate and sweet andcentered around food. That's I love
(20:22):
it. We like so, um, thank you. So what else do
you need to do besides like,uh like learn all your lines? Well,
I'm fucking listening to that shit inmy headphones all day because I am
(20:42):
just I can't. It's so hardto retain yeah, um information as an
adult. But and I want itto go smoothly, you know, So
the part that I have to knowgoes. I'm gonna try it right now,
(21:03):
Okay, shalak laka a nasheem viaturu et eret's kinda on, I
share a n no taine leave nigyes ral ish ahad is ahad la martevotav
(21:26):
tilahu cole nashem vahem bitch good job. Wow. Okay, but I gotta
sing it. See that's the problem. But would you just say, um,
girl, what I say? Exactly? All I heard was Israel?
(21:48):
Yeah, Um, well our ourtora portion is about um it's Joshua thirteen
two. Um. It actually isabout a prostitute, which there's a greater
message. So some spies came intoJericho, right, how much longer do
(22:40):
your girls have until school's out?Girl? You know mine take forever shell
him shall him graduates the twenty second? Oh may I know? I feel
like you've been on summer vacation thiswhole time for like a year. Now.
Yeah, we've been on a week, which kind of feels like a
year at this point. I hadlike my ben affleck in the blue sweater
(23:03):
and the alley holding the duncan cupand the cigarette before we came down here
this afternoon, because they just areso annoying sometimes, dude, this is
the part child free people blowsers.You don't understand. End of school year
is like the worst time for amom. Oh, it's bonkers. We're
(23:29):
just in that place where they Ican't even explain it, but they like
turn into wild animals, like unexerciseddogs that just start to rough house and
wrestle and like tease and it escalatesand I just can't. I thought I
(23:51):
was exempt from that because I havegirls. I'm not. I was laid
up with an allergy fucking storm whateverfrom the pollen storm. Supposedly this is
the worst allergy season ever in thehistory of the world. Like people are
dying straight up, Kim, Butlike I couldn't do anything with my kids,
(24:15):
and I just laid in the bedstuffed up, listening to them run
and scream. And fight and therewas nothing I could do about it.
And rough house, Yes, there'snothing I can talk about it because I
didn't feel good. But I wasjust like, dude, how the fuck
do we accept this level of noise? Talk about it? It's incredible.
(24:38):
Yes, I know exactly what you'retalking about. I had headphones in.
I was painting Bennett's room this afternoonand I heard the shrieking coming from the
other side of the house. AndI stood there and I you call them
each by name, and I separatethem into a separate room. They cannot
Once they get to that point,they cannot be together anymore. They need
to go elsewhere. I was aboutto kick them outside and lock the doors,
(25:00):
but thankfully Chris came home and tookthem to go swimming, Like they
really do need to be exercised likeanimals, yes, yeah, like golden
retrievers. Yes. And I'm like, what happened to the beautiful little girls
that I had that just wanted todo crafts quietly? You guys don't want
(25:23):
to do that anymore. What happened? It's the octagon all day. I'm
exhausted already and I haven't even startedsummer yet. Yeah, um, getty
up because it's about to be somuch fun. Well, like, my
in laws are here and they havea cabana at the beach this year.
(25:45):
So I'm I'm trying to figure outhow I'm going to finesse. You know,
why don't you just take the girlsthat shit? But like I think
they're onto that ship. Now.It's a lot of work. Okay,
here's what you do. You havethe children reach out to the grandparents.
Shira. You send Shira. Shebecomes the weapon. She is the one
(26:07):
that makes the text message or thephone call, and she says, Grandma,
when can we come with a swimmingwith you at your cabana? And
then Grandma feels guilty. So Grandmathen invites the children because she says,
oh my gosh, that's so sweet. My granddaughter just called me up to
want to come over. I wanther to do it for like the week
though, like you gotta go,you gotta go. I'm I can't do
(26:33):
it. I can't do it.And speaking of can't do it, I'm
sorry you can't. You can't doit. It should be that everybody is
off for the summer. Yeah right, Yeah, it's like really depressing to
spend all day and then the sunis shining. Yeah, and like yeah,
(26:56):
listen. In some ways it isgreat because I'm zoned out, you
know, doing my little work.But in other ways, I'm like,
dang, what was that? Doyou get this weird effect where like,
because where I work, I haveno windows to the outside. For the
(27:18):
entire time that I'm there, it'salways jarring to go outside and like,
see that it's still sunlight out likeyour vampire when that sun hits you.
Yea, yes, yes. Quinncame with me to volunteer one day and
we walked outside and she was like, oh my god, I can't believe
it's dark. I just I didn'teven like notice time passing. Oh wait,
(27:41):
you work light to dark. No, not in the dark, but
like when you're in a big windowlessbos in you're not twelve hours okay no,
and you're you're like busy. Butwe had been there like late afternoon
into evening. So when we gotthere it was sunny. This was back
in this spring. When we left, it was dark because we had been
there for it, you know,four hours or so. Dude, shout
(28:08):
out to all the working moms becauseI'll say it again. I know I've
set a thousand times. I don'tknow how y'all do it. It's so
hard. Everything is hard, deadass hmm. Some's got to fall through
the cracks. Girl, Misha probablyneeds more speech therapy. I haven't had
time to book that ship and payout a pocket. Oh, I'm mad,
(28:30):
Um can't um? Can't she doit? Well? First of all,
I know that they have a windowfor how long, like certain sounds
need to develop. But don't theyhave don't they have stuff at school that?
Yeah, they graduated from that theygraduated. Oh, and I'm saying
I think the home school and theand the no uh speech lessons in person
(28:56):
because she had them on zoom,which I don't think we're effective. I
think she's had a regression and Ireally need her to button it up because
we're going into fifth grade. Wecan't. We need the R together and
we need the THH to come together. We got to do it, babe.
Well, you know, Bennett hasa friend who still doesn't have the
(29:17):
R fully together and he's eleven.So I don't know. Is that something
that you just can never like unlessyou have actual therapy, Like it never
comes. I was thinking it's probablynever going to come because she's a long
Island accent. Yeah, that's true, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
well, they have ours when they'renot supposed to have ours. They
Yeah, they always end up atthe end of the word, the ends
(29:37):
of the ayah. My friend's mommused to call me Amanda. Yeah yeah,
so like I don't know, Ithink. But also she's really why
am I whispering? She's really sickabout it. So like when I called
her midsentense, she will just stoptalking. So just pick up her things.
(30:00):
Believe I did say it, AndI'm like, you didn't though,
bro, So well maybe when youknow what, maybe you say something here
in this last week and ask themif they would retest her. Because Bennett's
handwriting has been really, really sloppy, and he's still doing things like randomly
(30:23):
making a letter backwards or randomly capitalizingnot capitalizing. Yes, he used to
be. When he would write hisname, it would be B capital B
little E, capital N, capitalN little E, little T little T.
Why did he capitalize both ends?I had no idea, but his
fives would be backwards sometimes is ss would be backwards, and I brought
(30:47):
something up to his teacher at conferences. I was like, is this handwriting
really rough for his age? Andhe was like, well, yeah,
you know, I just you know, he might just be rushing, and
I was like, no, itliterally has always been like this, And
he does this random capitalization of thingsthat doesn't belong. His punctuation is off,
like some things are backwards, andI was like, why isn't anybody
(31:10):
fixing this? So they started givinghim like handwriting exercises. But I had
to be the one to bring itup, even though he was like,
yeah, you're right, I guessit is a little crazy. I mean
I should bring it up, Okay, say something at school and just say
hey, I'm concerned, you know, and the same things that you just
said. I think with COVID andyou know, graduating out of the program,
(31:32):
I think she's kind of backslid,Like, can you make a recommendation,
maybe there's something you can do,you know, quick and dirty for
summer and then have school pickup whenit starts in the fall. Because when
I looked into paying for speech therapyout of pocket, yeah I did it'
I know, I know. Iwant to find out why I didn't become
a speech therapist, because yeah,y'all are rich. I think we were
(31:56):
paying four hundred bucks a month forX, which it was worth it because
here it's like one seventy five forforty five minutes something crazy. Well,
we were only going two times amonth, Okay, so then that's right,
two d session. Yeah, yeah, I mean it was. The
(32:20):
progress he made was phenomenal. ButI just I choked every time I had
to pay that bill. So thenagain, you child free people, you've
really now you got a lot moremoney than we do. I think that's
the lot more free time. Ohmy god, there's no free time.
(32:44):
Um. I don't know. There'sanother weird thing about I'm starting to just
notice a lot of shit going onwith my kids, And I don't know
if that's a that's a byproduct ofme feeling guilty that I've kind of tried
transitioned out of stay at home momlife. Yeah, but Shira has really
(33:08):
bad anxiety walking into a birthday party. For the past three birthday parties,
she has melted down, been excitedto go, talked about it all week
that she's going, excited to pickout the gift. We get there,
and all of a sudden, she'sburied in my chest. I'm too shy.
I can't go in there. Ohmy god, to tears, to
(33:29):
tears. At one point we hadto have her write a letter to the
girl, sorry I couldn't go inyour party, and she wrote herself.
She wrote the letter herself and waslike, I just didn't feel like myself.
So there's some kind of weird anxietyshe has. And I was like,
is it clowns? Was it aclown in the motherfucker? What happened?
(33:50):
She just can't walk into a birthdayparty? And so then I'm like,
well, that's good to know,because I'll ours VP no if I'm
now on, because I'm not doingthis. I'm serious. I don't want
to be fighting in the art inthe parking lot. They she can't do
it. She has such She neverhad this before, though, So what
is that? You know? Ithink sometimes they just go through weird stuff.
(34:14):
Lennox has recently, i'd say probablywithin the last nine months, started
exhibiting like separation anxiety for me,and not so much as like when he's
going to school, but like inthe evenings, if I was just going
to run bended up the street,to go to karate. He could stay
home with Quinn just fine, butnow he wants to come with me everywhere
(34:35):
I go. Or if he isup here and I'm down in the basement
doing laundry, he recognizes that I'mnot there and he will start to frantically
run around calling my name. Didhe get left anywhere? No? Did
he get lost? No? HaveI ever left him? No? So
why is he so worried? Noidea? Okay, so maybe she's just
going through some shit. Yeah,I think it's normal. I think sometimes
(34:59):
it just ha weird, you know, just like we do. You know
how many times I didn't want togo to a party with you? Oh
my god? Justin back tagged meand a thing about introverts and it was
so inappropriate. It said me tellingmy wife we have plans, and then
cut to gall I'm going on herlike it's ruining her life, and it's
(35:27):
true. I am not trying togo to things. I still have that.
Chris was saying something the other dayabout you know, COVID, and
he I think he was saying somethingalong the lines of like I kind of
miss the days where we had nowhereto be and we were just kind of
like all here snuggled up in thehouse, and I was like, to
(35:49):
be honest, I kind of reallystill wish that that was. I really
liked that time. I wouldn't besad being, you know, forced in
my house all the time with allmy family. That's like a curly headed
girl wanting straight hair we can't have. I know, I want what we
can't have, because remember when everybodywas locked up tight, everybody's like,
(36:10):
I can't do this, this iscrazy. I gotta get out there.
And now everything's open back up.I never had real sadness. I just
had sadness around like there was noreally answers and nobody really knew what was
going on. And that felt frustratingbecause I was like, I just I
don't know what's happening. But like, I was so happy to be having
(36:32):
no like, no plans ever.Loved that love that you can't come in
my house and I can't come inyours ever of it. Love. It
didn't. We saved so much money. There was no eating out, none
of that. I mean, itwas really in here. I was in
(36:53):
here too, motherfuckers. Here's likea crazy person. Yeah, and then
do you remember, do you rememberfeeling like there was like a thing going
around. It was like like amiss like in Sylvia Brown psychic prediction that
one day COVID would just go away. Yeah, and I was like,
(37:15):
that's not gonna be true. Butit obviously it's not true true, but
it's kind of true. Yeah.I mean, I think that was really
around what the election cycle, andthey were like, you, it's just
gonna disappear with the election comes around, which I didn't. But yeah,
I was just thinking the other dayabout how weird it is to not think
(37:38):
about having a mask anymore, orwhen to put the mask on, or
it's not at the forefront of mymind. Every time I enter a space
with other people inside, I don'tinstantly think about COVID. Girl, I'm
a new person. It's like someonejust waved a man in black wand in
my face. It's I I was, so I get there. It's really
(38:06):
over. It's over. It's overlike it yeah, it's over like it
was for for everybody else for menow yeah, yeah, and it's fucking
weird. I do miss that.It's really strange. And then so what
in the next hundred years it'll happenagain. I don't know, and you
(38:30):
know, the thing is is likelike it's not really gone gone. And
I was just thinking about this theother day, like is there a situation
where I would wear a mask?And then I'm like, well, yeah,
I already do that. Like whenI had to go to the hospital
recently with my dad, I hada mask on. If I had to
get on a plane, mask on, probably public transportation mask on. I
mean I think kind of like youknow, the Chinese and Japanese and all
(38:53):
those smart Asians over there who havebeen wearing masks for decades and decades,
I think that might be like mynew approach. Yeah, I mean I
have so many masks. R yep, me too, so many. In
(39:14):
fact, I saw somebody at dinnerthe other night at the dinner table with
the mask on, and I thoughtthat's silly, and I was like,
no, it's not. That wasyou, bitch, Yeah that was me.
In December, my family was like, really, mom, yeah I
was. I don't regret it,though, but whatever, I don't either,
(39:35):
and knock on wood worse, westill haven't gotten it. So I
still can't believe that is I'm tellingyou it's the old blood. My friend
Claire has never gotten it either,and I just I don't. She has
old blood and she and she andshe just started coming outside. It took
her like she just started coming outside. It took her way longer. She
held out longer than even me.Yeah, Like I'm sure she I'm sure
(40:00):
she had a little side eyed whenI was like, well, I joined
a gym, you know what I'mlike, you know what I mean,
Like she really yea was not tryingto play with you. She was not
out there. She's out there now, but like it is very even then,
she was one of the biggest,you know, proponents of staying inside
(40:22):
and minding her motherfucking business. Yeah, that she's outside means it's over.
Like if she's outside, it's over. Yeah, it's weird. Do you
know anybody that still cares? Orno? Um, do I know anybody
(40:43):
that still cares? Wow? Um, Well, like I would say,
like not in the typical population.Like I know a family who's child has
down syndrome, and so obviously they'restill masked everywhere they go because he's you
know, at higher risk for complicationsif he were to get sick. And
(41:06):
I ran into a lady yesterday atgreat clips who was still masked on in
the lobby, and she was sayingthat she had lung problems. So I
was like, oh, well that'swhy she's wearing a mask. But you
know, other than that, justlike you know, young, otherwise healthy
people like us. No, Idon't. I don't think I know anybody's
still masking, do you. No? No, no, And I was
(41:30):
remember my kids only took the maskoff in late February, and even that
was like late yeah. Now Bennettwas still wearing it. I think I
was convincing him about the same timethat like it's okay, You're okay,
and he would just take it justin case he got anxious, and he
(41:51):
only recently took it off at karatebecause I was like, what's different going
to karate than going to school,Like you're still you know, you're in
actually a group of smaller people atkarate than you are around at school.
So if you're going to do itat school, you might as well do
it at practice. I might meanI'm I'm blown away. Actually I was
walking around in Target today like I'mblown away how normal everything is. And
(42:16):
yeah, it's like I wasn't crazy, I was crazy, but I couldn't
tell that I was. I wasn'tcrazy. I was right right, you
were right, you were right,you were allowed and right. And then
it just didn't matter anymore. Ican't even I mean, it still matters
(42:37):
just to a lot of people,but it doesn't matter to a lot of
people, right anyway? You stillwhatever happened to shut in outfits? Is
it still around or did you shutoff? I can't even log in.
I got kicked out and I havenot been able to get back in that
bitch. I have not been ableto get care of it for you.
Yeah, I have not been able. Same way they took my Twitter away.
(43:00):
It's better for me that I don'thave it, because I'd be wanting
to go on long ass tweet threads. I just save it for the discord.
Yeah, I can tell when thathappens. I know, y'all open
the discord and be like, ohGod, what's Melissa complaining about? Now?
(43:20):
Oh yeah, I saw that oneyesterday. Well the lady was wrong
wrong. I didn't disagree. Iknow. I know when I'm in there
um posting a lot and it's likea storm of post and then you get
your little thing and it's like onehundred and one new messages and just ranting
about something and then everybody's quiet forthree days. I'm like, damn,
(43:45):
sorry, sorry, sorry, ijust can't even killed the vibes. Yeah,
oh my god, I am avibe killer. In the discord sometimes
I'd be like and then I wantto say one last thing. I'm sorry.
I do feel bad, and I'dbe like, should I delete all
this shit? No? But speakinga vibe killer. Have you seen the
(44:07):
Dugger documentary on Amazon? Is itcalled Jury Duty? No? No,
I've seen that though, and that'svery funny. This is called Shiny Happy
People. No, but I needit's about it's about quiverfuls or just the
Duggers specifically. Yeah, well specificallyIBLP, which is the the you know,
(44:30):
the quiverful movement. But they talkabout Bill Gothard, who was the
head of the IBLP, and thenthe Duggers obviously play into it because they're
one of the more prominent families,and so it goes into like there's like
an interview segment with like their daughterJill, and then cousin Amy and her
(44:51):
husband are interviewed, and then everybodyelse is like basically a victim of the
IBLP and they each have kind oflike different stories experiences with the church.
But it's crazy. I've just bingewatched over the last two days. Wait
how many episodes? I think there'sonly four. I wish there were more.
(45:12):
I could. This kind of stuffis so fascinating to me. And
when you say like victim, likewhat they're like raping everybody had your kids,
had your wife had hug because theyrape and anybody out here? Yeah,
I mean, well, essentially,you know, this right wing Christianity
(45:34):
is very much about women being submissiveto their husbands and um, you know,
corporal punishment being a way that youcan you know, yeah, like
discipline and like keep your children inline. But this also applies to your
wife. So there's very much thislike women are always temptation traps and so
women are always responsible if you know, men are attracted to them, but
(45:59):
they must remain virgins, and theymust remain pure, and they must remain
you know, very very much likeuh, you know, like fundamentalist Mormons,
which I think that a lot offundy religions tend to have. Is
that strong center male figure and thenyou know, his submissive partner and then
all of their obedient children. Howso like, yeah, people were raped,
(46:22):
people were you know, uh,tortured, Like like what I want
to say, like mental torture isthat the right thing? And I'm like
their word is like right there,but you know, psychological like terror and
things like that. But how Iwant to know, how did the Duggers
(46:46):
have a whole reality show and nobodysaid, hey, why are you giving
this cult platform for like years?They're showing on for years. Yeah,
so that came up. I thinkso his niece was like or somebody said,
how bold of him to think thathe was going to get away with
the things that were happening in hishome with a whole camera crew. And
(47:07):
you know, I think in someways TLC Discovery was complicit and what had
happened. And you know, somebody, one of the ex IBLP members was
saying, like she saw the showstart and she's like, oh my god,
somebody's making a reality show about mylife. And she was like,
now Americans are going to see howfucking crazy this isn't she goes, And
(47:28):
that didn't happen because they put thisyou know, loving, you know,
quirky, you know, crazy familyunit on TV and made it seem like
it was you know, utopia.It was always picnics and roses, and
the disconnect between what was actually happeningand what they were portraying. Like those
(47:52):
producers had to see they see everything. They're there all the time. I
mean they didn't because I had readabout it after the fact. I didn't
really watch the show. I knewof this show. I never like sat
down and watched it all the timebecause it was creepy as hell. But
I loved it. You've seen everyepisode of the Oh God, I used
(48:15):
to watch it. Yes, watchedit. It was fascinating to me because
I was like, look at thesechildren, they are like happy to help
and they are you know, AndI was watching it obviously, you know,
without the lens of being a parent, and I'm and I'm looking at
these people, going, oh mygod, I can't believe that there are
(48:37):
people like this that are so wholesomeand pure and just loving the Lord.
It just was such a weird conceptfor me, and so it was fascinating.
But this was when they started tohave the spinoffs and the sons and
the daughters getting married. They startedto have their own shit. Like TLSE
(48:59):
didn't see them locking up, theone a pedophile and all that shit.
Yeah they did. So what hadhappened was is that the spinoffs didn't happen
until Joshua got in trouble, whichI didn't realize, and so TLC was
like, we can't continue with theshow as it is, and so that's
when they came up with this ideaof Counting On, which was going to
(49:21):
follow the adult kids. And theone daughter was saying that I guess like
the day of her wedding, shewas like, everybody was getting ready and
it was just really rushed, andshe was like, and as we're on
our way out, my dad hasthese papers and they're asking us to sign.
She didn't read it, but itbasically locked them into a five year
contract her and her sister as theheads of this show called Counting On Jill
(49:44):
and Jessa or whatever, and soshe didn't realize that they had signed a
contract until a couple of years laterwhen they were working as missionaries in Haiti
or somewhere far off, and TLCcalled them back to do the show and
she was like, we're year forten months, like we're living here working,
we can't come back and they're like, you have to you're contracted to
(50:07):
come back. Do you wonder howmuch money those girls made? How much
money? Zero dollars? What?Yes? Never she So when they went
back and they were like asking tofilm the birth of her first child,
She's like, we don't want youthere. We'll take footage and we'll supply
(50:30):
it to you, but you're notallowed to be there when I give birth.
And so afterwards they went back toTLC and they were like, we'd
like to be paid at least coverthe costs of like prenatal care and our
hospital stay. And they were like, we already paid your dad. Take
it up with him. Yeah,zero dollars she's gotten for their whole life
(50:57):
being filmed. Whole life. Shewas like, seven and a half years
of my life that I was workingand we got nothing. And then I
guess when they were refusing to comeback and do the show, Jim Bob
was like, what was it goingto take to get you back? And
her husband was like, you canpay us, and he was like,
well, you know, what's itworth to you? And he was like
what's it worth to you? Like, you have no show unless we come
(51:20):
back here and do this and heoffered to pay them ten dollars an hour.
What time? Yes, yes,okay, you gotta watch it.
It's crazy. Did they go intowhat that greed scarcity mindset is, Like
(51:42):
why that scam and ass rude,ass inappropriate money dynamic is and why is
it so in Trent Like sir sohe just took the millions of dollars that
he made and didn't distribute it amonghis family members who made the show.
(52:04):
Yep, yeah, so how arethese people? What job did she have
to live her life regular when shewasn't filming, she was on food stamps?
She um she was talking about umso I think I think her husband
(52:25):
now has like an actual job,and I think that now they probably monetize
as influencers for different things. Butshe was saying how fucking poor they were
while they're filing the show, andthat sounds familiar. Yeah, well,
(52:49):
at least you weren't getting diddled byyour older brother. Really, it was
really sad. I read I reada whole big expose about that where they
moved him to a different floor ofthe house, they put certain locks on
her door. Yeah yeah, andthis was all normalized on TV. Yep.
(53:13):
For years and years and years andyears. I think it said at
one point he made eighty five milliondollars in a year. Jim Bob did
yes, and the children got nothing, nothing second wind clothes. I always
remember them going to secondhand stores andtalking about how expensive it was, you
know, to have such a largefamily. And hold on a second,
(53:36):
I'm googling right now, where's JimBob? Now? Is he in jail?
No, he's not in jail.I don't I wonder if he's well.
At the end of it. Theydid say that he and Michelle so
Bill Gothard had been pushed out ofthe IBLP and so they were saying that
Jim Bob and Michelle were the onesthat basically had taken over in his stead.
(53:57):
So I don't know if they're gettingpaid through the church funds. I'm
sure that they're monetizing through their booksand you know whatever other you know bullshit
that they're selling. And obviously,if there's anything still running on TLC,
wouldn't they get like residuals or isthat not a lot of money? I
think with reality shows there's not aresidual thing. That's not a thing.
(54:22):
But if they go and I'm wonderingif the eighty five million was just like
what the show brought in through adsand all of that, and what his
actual portion of that was, youknow what I'm saying. Yeah, but
that sounds crazy. And so whatabout the lady she's too, Yeah,
(54:44):
Michelle, Yeah, I mean she'sshe's I think, just as brainwashed as
as the rest of them. Wow, and Perfect Stranger friends, high thanks
for listening to this episode of ImperfectStrangers podcast, and thank you for tuning
in every week. Thank you forjoining us on Monday Night Lives and interacting
(55:07):
with us on social media. Welove getting to meet all of our new
Imperfect Stranger friends as we go alongthrough this podcast. And if you're new
here, welcome, thanks for beinghere. And if you've been here since
May twenty second, twenty holy shit, thank you. That's a long ass
time. You can find us onInstagram at Imperfect Strangers Underscore podcast, on
(55:30):
Twitter at imperf Strangers, and onTikTok at Imperfect Strangers podcast. If you've
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(55:52):
doubt, find us on Instagram becausethat is what we feel most comfortable with
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huge thank you to our Patreon supportersfor those of you who are patrons
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keep the lights on over here atImperfect Strangers podcast. You help us to
(56:15):
pay the bills that we have inorder to keep this thing up and running,
and for that we thank you amillion times. If you haven't yet
checked out Patreon and that sounds likesomething that you would be interested in,
you can find us over on patreondot com forward slash Imperfect Strangers. We
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(56:35):
receive from us, either weekly ormonthly, just depends on what you sign
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and check it out, and ifnot, no big deal. We appreciate
you listening and sharing this podcast withyour friends. So with that, thank
you to everyone near and far,and let's send a hearty hug, good
(56:58):
vibes as Melissa and Shalom become daughtersof the Mitzvah this week. All right,
thanks, we'll see you soon.Bye.
Well, do we want to talkabout most important or least important? First?
Oh, let's start with least importantand work our way up. How
are we living in a parallel universewhere we are so busy that our households
have run out of toilet paper?Have you ever run out of toilet paper?
(00:26):
Honestly? Never? Never? Doyou know what I had to do.
I had to crack into the stashof flushable wipes that we purchased in
twenty twenty when nobody had toilet paper, and I was buying the Kirkland plus
sized packs of them just in casewe couldn't get toilet paper. I had
to crack into those. But then, because my house is old, I'm
(00:49):
afraid to flush them. I wasgiving the children Target Target bags and the
flushable wipes for a good day,and I asked, Chris, can you
please bring home some toilet paper?And it sounds like exactly at your house,
the same conversation happened. And whatdid these men bring home? Um?
(01:32):
Sandpaper that I've never seen before?Scott brand excuse transparent? Uh see
through, not even one ply halfapply, crunchy as hell, um so
bad, so bad it truck stoptoilet paper I think school toilet paper,
I said, truck stop toilet papershow. I'm called a school toilet paper
(01:53):
two. So definitely we're living ina simulation. Well that they was he
could have gotten the Kirkland toilet paper, right, uh huh yeah, but
he's like, I got scared becauseyou're such a weird loyal toilet paper person.
I thought you were gonna go whywould you get the Costco brand?
(02:13):
But I was like, oh mygod, do you not know me?
I love Costco brand everything Kirkland Foxwith Kirkland. Kirkland is my ship.
They understand me. I'll wear Kirklandclothes. I don't give a damn.
So he misfired there. He boughtthe scott which come individually wrapped, you
know, like individually wrapped exactly likethey should be in a truck driver's cab
(02:40):
exactly. So like that, youhave a cost Co size package of the
shitty toilet paper. And that's whatI'm really upset about. When are we
ever going to get through all that? See? I only got the four
pack that you can pick up atKroger, so luckily mine is already gone.
(03:04):
No, no, I have twohundred and sixteen rolls of shitty,
and so then I was like,we have to stop everything. I had
a whole long day. I wasexhausted, but I was like, I
can't even go one bathroom visit withthat toilet paper, and I won't.
So we had to go to myAsian supermarket get my Hello Kitty toilet paper.
(03:28):
And the kids were like, ohyeah, I want some too,
And I was like, the thingis, though, girls, y'all gonna
get through this toilet paper. Thistruck stop toilet paper is for you.
I get used to it. It'sone false smooth and you've slipped a finger
through that toilet paper into a holebecause it's so thin. And now you
got to take a whole new shower, which you should be doing anyway.
(03:50):
But um, it's it's you know, what brought us to this place?
What brought us to this place.I have never run a household where I've
run out of toilet paper. Thathas never happened. It didn't happen during
the pandemic. I was prepared.I had a wall of toilet paper in
(04:12):
my garage, Like I could havepadded every wall in my house with toilet
paper. This could have been asafe house. Like a motherfucker. Back
then, I was prepared, nobodywas gonna run out of toilet paper in
this house. And then I don'teven know. He's just like rout a
toilet paper. You know what elsewe ran out of? Please say,
paper, towels, toothpaste? No, not toothpaste, girl. So I'm
(04:38):
digging through my toilet trees bags,you know how sometimes he just leaves some
shit in there. I'm digging throughhis tour bag that hasn't seen the light
of date. When was the lasttime Glassgow went on tour eighteen forty seven?
I'm looking for tiny little things oftoothpaste. I have these little thing
called whispers swhispers. I don't knowwhat they're called, but they're tiny,
little temporary They look like a flosser, but when you put it in your
(05:03):
mouth and your saliva activates it,you can brush your teeth with it.
I had to dip into those likeI was like, dude, oh no,
very gross. What do you do? I always save all of our
little toothpastes that we get from thedentist in a little bin, you know,
obviously for travel, But then likeI always use those in a pinch,
(05:24):
where's your supply of those. I'man asshole, and I will save
those. You don't. I thinkJustin takes him, but I don't know
where they are. I don't knowbecause ours comes in a big giant cup,
and then there's a toothbrush, andthen there's this, and then there's
that, and it's also crest,and I'm not a Crest person. I'm
a coalgate person, very specifically,a coalgate person, original coal gate.
(05:45):
It has to be spicy minty.So anyway, we ran out of a
lot of things. But back towhat I was saying, the reason why
we run out of a lot ofthings is because I don't care what anybody
says. You can't do it all. You can't do it all. Something's
got to give, and in thiscase, it was the household supplies.
(06:08):
Yeah, even though Justin is hereand supposed to be, you know,
fifty percent, sixty five percent,seventy five percent the primary parent, you
know, as I'm still working atmerch Direct in the transition, sir,
his brain didn't do the thing thatturns on and like can see all of
(06:31):
the invisible labor, Like we shouldhave never run out of toilet paper.
We would have never run out oftoilet paper if it was me. Yeah,
because you're constantly keeping those open tabsof what needs to be replaced at
all times, so that when yougo to place the target order or you
go to Costco, you know exactlywhat you need to get. It's wild.
I have been I have become aperson that stops by the CBS or
(07:00):
the Weird seven eleven to get somemilk like that? What that is?
I think that's like real nineteen eighties, you know, boss babe movie mom.
Dude. You know, she's runningin and her like white sneakers and
her power suit and she's grabbing thingsand she's feeling guilty because she's spent another
(07:24):
late night at work and her kidsmiss her and looks like that. Yeah,
and then she walks into her homeand the coffee tables covered and whatever
the fuck a bunch of shit Andthey also happened to step on a rubber
ducky on her way in. How'dthat get down there? And she's so
exhausted and she like blows, youknow, blows her out in her bangs.
Her giant bangs pop up and shejust kind of like crashes into the
(07:46):
lazy boy. But then there's likea doll, and the doll makes a
noise when she falls onto it.That's what I said, she stepped on
the rubber duck. Yeah, thenoise you need, the noise of russe.
You can't indicate how tired she is. Um, that's what's happening here.
And when I say my house isfucked up, like, I've said
(08:07):
that before and it's not true.I've said that before and my house is
still oper ready ish. No,No, it's true. Now, it's
very true. My house is fulkedup. It is. I can't.
I don't know where the paperwork isfor the camp. I don't know where
the permission slips are for the finalweeks of school field trip. I don't.
(08:33):
I don't have toilet paper. Ain'tno food in this motherfucker. Ain't
no food, And you can't.You can't make it. Girl who runs
out of Mayonnai's. But we don'thave things, We don't have things,
and I can't do it. Yeah, I can't do it. My parents
are coming in for what should havejust been a long weekend to celebrate us
(08:58):
becoming about mits. But but youknow, he's like, I don't want
to stay loundering so they're coming andstaying a really fucking long time, and
like, my dad is very judgmental, so I'm going to have to figure
out a way to get my housetogether before they get here. While I'm
doing all this other stuff. I'vegot dance recitals, I've got graduations,
(09:22):
I've got friends coming in from outof town, including you. By the
way, can we actually let's let'sjust pivot to the important stuff. I
have to know. I feel genuinelyso guilty even having celebration for Shalom and
my bat Mitzvah, because I feellike people have to stop what they're doing
(09:46):
in the middle of a very hectictime before summer starts to you know,
celebrate me. So originally, whenShalom and I were doing our studies and
she had gone to a bunch ofand bought Mitzvah's and was like, I
don't want that kind of attention onme. I don't think I can handle
that, and I don't want youand Daddy to have to like put all
(10:07):
this money into it, and I'mnot into it. She was like,
I rather just you know, havea little private thing because she was going
through some shit. She said shedidn't want to do it, and I
was like, you know what,I don't want to make you do anything
you don't want to do. Iwas devastated because I really wanted something,
because we really worked hard, andI really wanted her, you know,
to be celebrated, and I alsoreally wanted a little party. Well,
(10:31):
but it's good that she she knowsherself and recognizes that that's not what she
wants to do. My gosh,I wish that I was that smart at
her age, right before we spentyou know, all of the money and
then she didn't even want to bethere. So yeah, recently, you
know, we got our We hadgotten our date because it kept getting pushed
(10:54):
back because life happening. We nevergave up, you know, they were
there were weird hiatuses because of COVID. There were weird pauses in the steady
way back when because I had togo and randomly out of nowhere film a
TV show out of town. Likeweird shit happened to where it was very
(11:16):
hard for us to coordinate getting thiswork done. But we stayed with it
and we got the work done.It and I was like, should we
revisit having a thing, And shewas like you know, maybe, but
like, I don't want it tobe too much. Like she tried to
invite no friends. I was like, ma'am, if we're gonna have a
thing, you got to have friendsover. So we can't. We found
(11:37):
a happy medium, and it's goingto be you know, we're gonna become
bot mitzvah and do the whole religiousshebang in the privacy of our home with
just close family and friends, andthen we're gonna have a celebration brunch.
So it's like weddings, you dothe vows at the place, and then
you do the celebration whatever. Noteverybody comes to the vows part, you
know what I mean. Well,yeah, but you know what I'm saying.
(12:01):
So when I originally planned all thisand I had every intention of inviting
everybody, I just knew people weregonna say no because they've got a lot
of shit going on. Girl.People are saying yes. I'm like,
hold on you wow, and Ifeel so bad. So when you said
yes, I was like, Amanda, I couldn't tell. It's like,
(12:24):
is it going to be offensive ifI'm like, you don't have to come
to this, Like you don't youdo not have to stop your life in
Ohio to come back to New Yorkand celebrate me for two hours out of
brunch. You literally don't have todo that. And you were like,
bitch, Well it was so funnybecause when you texted me the other day
(12:45):
with the information for the program,it was like, here's like what I
need. By the way, it'sthis day at this time. And I
was like, did she just inviteme? Like why did she give me
this information? If that? Andthen I was like, I think I'm
invited. Well, the thing wasI just wanted to you know. The
(13:07):
text was like a like a likea a save the day, even though
it's come and write the fuck up. Um. Yeah. But I also
just like didn't have any expectation thatpeople were going to come in. So
I was having this conversation with Marenand she was like, Melissa, are
you dumb? I was like wow. She goes, people are going to
(13:30):
want to celebrate you. She's like, you have to get it through your
head that it's not a burden thatpeople want to celebrate you. Yeah,
these things have to happen. She'syou know, because I've canceled birthdays.
I just don't. I can't I'mlike overwhelmed with the Every time I get
a confirmed yess, I'm like,really, you're gonna come? You like
(13:52):
me? Yeah? Um, that'sso silly though, Why wouldn't I want
to come? I mean because it'sa lot, like it's an important thing
and also selfishly, I have neverbeen to about MITZ but before, so
I really want to like witness whatit's like. This is not going to
(14:16):
be anything like but I have noframe of reference Melissa oh and this and
this will not be one It'll justbe like that thing that I went to
for Melissa. Um, but itis a very important event and yeah,
it deserves a day of celebration.So yeah, thank you so much for
(14:39):
confirming yes to come to my thing, Like you really don't have to do
that. I'm like, oh mygod, that's really so fucking generous and
kind of you to do. Andlike I would not have been I would
not have been tripping if you said, girl, I can't come to that.
I would be like, I totallyunderstand U. So like, no,
(15:01):
I'm excited, and it's the firsttime that I've traveled like really truly
by myself in I'm embarrassed. Howlong So there's a piece of me too
that's like very excited to you know, like I don't I don't do this
and I'm not spontaneous like this,And I think that's the other thing is
(15:22):
it feels very spontaneous and I'm veryuncomfortable. Oh you're living on the edge,
yes, And so I'm like,this is good for you, this
is good, this will be goodgrowth and good life experience. It's so
silly. I'm fucking traveling a directflight right right to Long Island. And
then you know, it's it's notlike I'm traveling to Europe by myself for
like fourteen days with a backpack,but it is a big deal because moms
(15:48):
never get time to themselves. Thisis like a mini nope baby sabbatical,
even though you have to do abunch of stuff. But still I thank
you because it's it's it's crazy.And I started getting messages from other people
that I invited that are like you'reinviting me, And I was like,
Danny's like, dude, I'm likeso honored to invitement, Like Danny,
(16:11):
are you okay? Of course Iwould like what do you talk about?
He's like, I don't know.So like other people have the thing that
I'm experiencing where Danny's in that theyare like, I got an invitation.
I'm like, dude, I literallyjust brought all of my children to Vermont
earlier this year, I spend timewith you. Of course you would be
(16:33):
invited to my about Mitzvah. Areyou for real right now? So I
think that it's you know, soakit all in. It's going to be
very fun. It's going to Idon't know, I think it'll be great.
I'm so proud of you becoming awoman. Is that what it means
to be about mitzveh? You knowwhat's so funny? You ask me that,
(16:55):
girl, I've been doing this foryears now, and I'm like,
I don't know. I mean,I thought it's a right, it's a
really understanding. Well, yeah,you're like, you like go from like
being a boy or a girl tobeing a man or a woman. Yeah.
Yes, but back in the daythey did, like Burnett has never
become bat Mitzva because they used tonot do that for girls. This is
(17:17):
kind of a new feeling. Yes, wow, a patriarchical society were men
get all of the good things.But the other part that's really interesting is
I converted to Judaism in twenty eleven. So the fact that twelve years later
(17:37):
I'm becoming bat Mitzvah with my daughter, it's like I'm having the right of
passage in the right amount of time. Yeah, twelve thirteen years. So
it's just really a full circle likemoment. And like, yeah, for
a little bit there, remember Shalomand I were going through a thing and
(18:00):
she's like, like I was annoyingher really bad. Like we're back on
track and she's and she's like happywe're doing this together. It's really special.
But I also can't wait for allof this to be over because I'm
just I don't know how people doit. I don't know. It's like
planning a wedding. There's so muchwork involved and I'm just doing it.
(18:26):
You know, Slap pappy. It'sgonna be cute. But like I ordered
place mats with our little face onit. Yeah, very cute, so
that you can color them because thetheme is glassjaw get it coloring book.
Yeah, pink roses. Everybody getsone. My daughter, Sheer is going
(18:48):
to be there. She's part ofthe decoration. I don't know. I
haven't had time to really sit andbe like, Wow, this is happening.
I'm really doing this. Yeah,until today when Justin came to our
(19:08):
lesson so he can map it outin his mind, like what it's going
to require? Oh, Like whatdo you mean? Like what does he
have to do? Well? Likewe've asked him to, you know,
put some flare on some of themusical oh, our friend, and he's
he's acting like he can't, Ican't do it. I'm like, dude,
(19:33):
you're a whole lass musician. I'msure you can improve pieces of you
know, percussion or acoustic guitar.And he's like acting like that's going to
be the hardest thing in the world. He's the biggest, not bad,
Like Shiro's gonna have a tambourine,She's gonna throw her little flare on it.
You can't do it, musician.Maybe he's feeling like the pressure of
(19:56):
wanting it to be so perfect.Well, the way that we're doing it,
it's literally not going to be perfect. It's going to be the way
that it's supposed to be, whichis a very Beck family production. Uh,
you know, intimate and sweet andcentered around food. That's I love
(20:22):
it. We like so, um, thank you. So what else do
you need to do besides like,uh like learn all your lines? Well,
I'm fucking listening to that shit inmy headphones all day because I am
(20:42):
just I can't. It's so hardto retain yeah, um information as an
adult. But and I want itto go smoothly, you know, So
the part that I have to knowgoes. I'm gonna try it right now,
(21:03):
Okay, shalak laka a nasheem viaturu et eret's kinda on, I
share a n no taine leave nigyes ral ish ahad is ahad la martevotav
(21:26):
tilahu cole nashem vahem bitch good job. Wow. Okay, but I gotta
sing it. See that's the problem. But would you just say, um,
girl, what I say? Exactly? All I heard was Israel?
(21:48):
Yeah, Um, well our ourtora portion is about um it's Joshua thirteen
two. Um. It actually isabout a prostitute, which there's a greater
message. So some spies came intoJericho, right, how much longer do
(22:40):
your girls have until school's out?Girl? You know mine take forever shell
him shall him graduates the twenty second? Oh may I know? I feel
like you've been on summer vacation thiswhole time for like a year. Now.
Yeah, we've been on a week, which kind of feels like a
year at this point. I hadlike my ben affleck in the blue sweater
(23:03):
and the alley holding the duncan cupand the cigarette before we came down here
this afternoon, because they just areso annoying sometimes, dude, this is
the part child free people blowsers.You don't understand. End of school year
is like the worst time for amom. Oh, it's bonkers. We're
(23:29):
just in that place where they Ican't even explain it, but they like
turn into wild animals, like unexerciseddogs that just start to rough house and
wrestle and like tease and it escalatesand I just can't. I thought I
(23:51):
was exempt from that because I havegirls. I'm not. I was laid
up with an allergy fucking storm whateverfrom the pollen storm. Supposedly this is
the worst allergy season ever in thehistory of the world. Like people are
dying straight up, Kim, Butlike I couldn't do anything with my kids,
(24:15):
and I just laid in the bedstuffed up, listening to them run
and scream. And fight and therewas nothing I could do about it.
And rough house, Yes, there'snothing I can talk about it because I
didn't feel good. But I wasjust like, dude, how the fuck
do we accept this level of noise? Talk about it? It's incredible.
(24:38):
Yes, I know exactly what you'retalking about. I had headphones in.
I was painting Bennett's room this afternoonand I heard the shrieking coming from the
other side of the house. AndI stood there and I you call them
each by name, and I separatethem into a separate room. They cannot
Once they get to that point,they cannot be together anymore. They need
to go elsewhere. I was aboutto kick them outside and lock the doors,
(25:00):
but thankfully Chris came home and tookthem to go swimming, Like they
really do need to be exercised likeanimals, yes, yeah, like golden
retrievers. Yes. And I'm like, what happened to the beautiful little girls
that I had that just wanted todo crafts quietly? You guys don't want
(25:23):
to do that anymore. What happened? It's the octagon all day. I'm
exhausted already and I haven't even startedsummer yet. Yeah, um, getty
up because it's about to be somuch fun. Well, like, my
in laws are here and they havea cabana at the beach this year.
(25:45):
So I'm I'm trying to figure outhow I'm going to finesse. You know,
why don't you just take the girlsthat shit? But like I think
they're onto that ship. Now.It's a lot of work. Okay,
here's what you do. You havethe children reach out to the grandparents.
Shira. You send Shira. Shebecomes the weapon. She is the one
(26:07):
that makes the text message or thephone call, and she says, Grandma,
when can we come with a swimmingwith you at your cabana? And
then Grandma feels guilty. So Grandmathen invites the children because she says,
oh my gosh, that's so sweet. My granddaughter just called me up to
want to come over. I wanther to do it for like the week
though, like you gotta go,you gotta go. I'm I can't do
(26:33):
it. I can't do it.And speaking of can't do it, I'm
sorry you can't. You can't doit. It should be that everybody is
off for the summer. Yeah right, Yeah, it's like really depressing to
spend all day and then the sunis shining. Yeah, and like yeah,
(26:56):
listen. In some ways it isgreat because I'm zoned out, you
know, doing my little work.But in other ways, I'm like,
dang, what was that? Doyou get this weird effect where like,
because where I work, I haveno windows to the outside. For the
(27:18):
entire time that I'm there, it'salways jarring to go outside and like,
see that it's still sunlight out likeyour vampire when that sun hits you.
Yea, yes, yes. Quinncame with me to volunteer one day and
we walked outside and she was like, oh my god, I can't believe
it's dark. I just I didn'teven like notice time passing. Oh wait,
(27:41):
you work light to dark. No, not in the dark, but
like when you're in a big windowlessbos in you're not twelve hours okay no,
and you're you're like busy. Butwe had been there like late afternoon
into evening. So when we gotthere it was sunny. This was back
in this spring. When we left, it was dark because we had been
there for it, you know,four hours or so. Dude, shout
(28:08):
out to all the working moms becauseI'll say it again. I know I've
set a thousand times. I don'tknow how y'all do it. It's so
hard. Everything is hard, deadass hmm. Some's got to fall through
the cracks. Girl, Misha probablyneeds more speech therapy. I haven't had
time to book that ship and payout a pocket. Oh, I'm mad,
(28:30):
Um can't um? Can't she doit? Well? First of all,
I know that they have a windowfor how long, like certain sounds
need to develop. But don't theyhave don't they have stuff at school that?
Yeah, they graduated from that theygraduated. Oh, and I'm saying
I think the home school and theand the no uh speech lessons in person
(28:56):
because she had them on zoom,which I don't think we're effective. I
think she's had a regression and Ireally need her to button it up because
we're going into fifth grade. Wecan't. We need the R together and
we need the THH to come together. We got to do it, babe.
Well, you know, Bennett hasa friend who still doesn't have the
(29:17):
R fully together and he's eleven.So I don't know. Is that something
that you just can never like unlessyou have actual therapy, Like it never
comes. I was thinking it's probablynever going to come because she's a long
Island accent. Yeah, that's true, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
well, they have ours when they'renot supposed to have ours. They
Yeah, they always end up atthe end of the word, the ends
(29:37):
of the ayah. My friend's mommused to call me Amanda. Yeah yeah,
so like I don't know, Ithink. But also she's really why
am I whispering? She's really sickabout it. So like when I called
her midsentense, she will just stoptalking. So just pick up her things.
(30:00):
Believe I did say it, AndI'm like, you didn't though,
bro, So well maybe when youknow what, maybe you say something here
in this last week and ask themif they would retest her. Because Bennett's
handwriting has been really, really sloppy, and he's still doing things like randomly
(30:23):
making a letter backwards or randomly capitalizingnot capitalizing. Yes, he used to
be. When he would write hisname, it would be B capital B
little E, capital N, capitalN little E, little T little T.
Why did he capitalize both ends?I had no idea, but his
fives would be backwards sometimes is ss would be backwards, and I brought
(30:47):
something up to his teacher at conferences. I was like, is this handwriting
really rough for his age? Andhe was like, well, yeah,
you know, I just you know, he might just be rushing, and
I was like, no, itliterally has always been like this, And
he does this random capitalization of thingsthat doesn't belong. His punctuation is off,
like some things are backwards, andI was like, why isn't anybody
(31:10):
fixing this? So they started givinghim like handwriting exercises. But I had
to be the one to bring itup, even though he was like,
yeah, you're right, I guessit is a little crazy. I mean
I should bring it up, Okay, say something at school and just say
hey, I'm concerned, you know, and the same things that you just
said. I think with COVID andyou know, graduating out of the program,
(31:32):
I think she's kind of backslid,Like, can you make a recommendation,
maybe there's something you can do,you know, quick and dirty for
summer and then have school pickup whenit starts in the fall. Because when
I looked into paying for speech therapyout of pocket, yeah I did it'
I know, I know. Iwant to find out why I didn't become
a speech therapist, because yeah,y'all are rich. I think we were
(31:56):
paying four hundred bucks a month forX, which it was worth it because
here it's like one seventy five forforty five minutes something crazy. Well,
we were only going two times amonth, Okay, so then that's right,
two d session. Yeah, yeah, I mean it was. The
(32:20):
progress he made was phenomenal. ButI just I choked every time I had
to pay that bill. So thenagain, you child free people, you've
really now you got a lot moremoney than we do. I think that's
the lot more free time. Ohmy god, there's no free time.
(32:44):
Um. I don't know. There'sanother weird thing about I'm starting to just
notice a lot of shit going onwith my kids, And I don't know
if that's a that's a byproduct ofme feeling guilty that I've kind of tried
transitioned out of stay at home momlife. Yeah, but Shira has really
(33:08):
bad anxiety walking into a birthday party. For the past three birthday parties,
she has melted down, been excitedto go, talked about it all week
that she's going, excited to pickout the gift. We get there,
and all of a sudden, she'sburied in my chest. I'm too shy.
I can't go in there. Ohmy god, to tears, to
(33:29):
tears. At one point we hadto have her write a letter to the
girl, sorry I couldn't go inyour party, and she wrote herself.
She wrote the letter herself and waslike, I just didn't feel like myself.
So there's some kind of weird anxietyshe has. And I was like,
is it clowns? Was it aclown in the motherfucker? What happened?
(33:50):
She just can't walk into a birthdayparty? And so then I'm like,
well, that's good to know,because I'll ours VP no if I'm
now on, because I'm not doingthis. I'm serious. I don't want
to be fighting in the art inthe parking lot. They she can't do
it. She has such She neverhad this before, though, So what
is that? You know? Ithink sometimes they just go through weird stuff.
(34:14):
Lennox has recently, i'd say probablywithin the last nine months, started
exhibiting like separation anxiety for me,and not so much as like when he's
going to school, but like inthe evenings, if I was just going
to run bended up the street,to go to karate. He could stay
home with Quinn just fine, butnow he wants to come with me everywhere
(34:35):
I go. Or if he isup here and I'm down in the basement
doing laundry, he recognizes that I'mnot there and he will start to frantically
run around calling my name. Didhe get left anywhere? No? Did
he get lost? No? HaveI ever left him? No? So
why is he so worried? Noidea? Okay, so maybe she's just
going through some shit. Yeah,I think it's normal. I think sometimes
(34:59):
it just ha weird, you know, just like we do. You know
how many times I didn't want togo to a party with you? Oh
my god? Justin back tagged meand a thing about introverts and it was
so inappropriate. It said me tellingmy wife we have plans, and then
cut to gall I'm going on herlike it's ruining her life, and it's
(35:27):
true. I am not trying togo to things. I still have that.
Chris was saying something the other dayabout you know, COVID, and
he I think he was saying somethingalong the lines of like I kind of
miss the days where we had nowhereto be and we were just kind of
like all here snuggled up in thehouse, and I was like, to
(35:49):
be honest, I kind of reallystill wish that that was. I really
liked that time. I wouldn't besad being, you know, forced in
my house all the time with allmy family. That's like a curly headed
girl wanting straight hair we can't have. I know, I want what we
can't have, because remember when everybodywas locked up tight, everybody's like,
(36:10):
I can't do this, this iscrazy. I gotta get out there.
And now everything's open back up.I never had real sadness. I just
had sadness around like there was noreally answers and nobody really knew what was
going on. And that felt frustratingbecause I was like, I just I
don't know what's happening. But like, I was so happy to be having
(36:32):
no like, no plans ever.Loved that love that you can't come in
my house and I can't come inyours ever of it. Love. It
didn't. We saved so much money. There was no eating out, none
of that. I mean, itwas really in here. I was in
(36:53):
here too, motherfuckers. Here's likea crazy person. Yeah, and then
do you remember, do you rememberfeeling like there was like a thing going
around. It was like like amiss like in Sylvia Brown psychic prediction that
one day COVID would just go away. Yeah, and I was like,
(37:15):
that's not gonna be true. Butit obviously it's not true true, but
it's kind of true. Yeah.I mean, I think that was really
around what the election cycle, andthey were like, you, it's just
gonna disappear with the election comes around, which I didn't. But yeah,
I was just thinking the other dayabout how weird it is to not think
(37:38):
about having a mask anymore, orwhen to put the mask on, or
it's not at the forefront of mymind. Every time I enter a space
with other people inside, I don'tinstantly think about COVID. Girl, I'm
a new person. It's like someonejust waved a man in black wand in
my face. It's I I was, so I get there. It's really
(38:06):
over. It's over. It's overlike it yeah, it's over like it
was for for everybody else for menow yeah, yeah, and it's fucking
weird. I do miss that.It's really strange. And then so what
in the next hundred years it'll happenagain. I don't know, and you
(38:30):
know, the thing is is likelike it's not really gone gone. And
I was just thinking about this theother day, like is there a situation
where I would wear a mask?And then I'm like, well, yeah,
I already do that. Like whenI had to go to the hospital
recently with my dad, I hada mask on. If I had to
get on a plane, mask on, probably public transportation mask on. I
mean I think kind of like youknow, the Chinese and Japanese and all
(38:53):
those smart Asians over there who havebeen wearing masks for decades and decades,
I think that might be like mynew approach. Yeah, I mean I
have so many masks. R yep, me too, so many. In
(39:14):
fact, I saw somebody at dinnerthe other night at the dinner table with
the mask on, and I thoughtthat's silly, and I was like,
no, it's not. That wasyou, bitch, Yeah that was me.
In December, my family was like, really, mom, yeah I
was. I don't regret it,though, but whatever, I don't either,
(39:35):
and knock on wood worse, westill haven't gotten it. So I
still can't believe that is I'm tellingyou it's the old blood. My friend
Claire has never gotten it either,and I just I don't. She has
old blood and she and she andshe just started coming outside. It took
her like she just started coming outside. It took her way longer. She
held out longer than even me.Yeah, Like I'm sure she I'm sure
(40:00):
she had a little side eyed whenI was like, well, I joined
a gym, you know what I'mlike, you know what I mean,
Like she really yea was not tryingto play with you. She was not
out there. She's out there now, but like it is very even then,
she was one of the biggest,you know, proponents of staying inside
(40:22):
and minding her motherfucking business. Yeah, that she's outside means it's over.
Like if she's outside, it's over. Yeah, it's weird. Do you
know anybody that still cares? Orno? Um, do I know anybody
(40:43):
that still cares? Wow? Um, Well, like I would say,
like not in the typical population.Like I know a family who's child has
down syndrome, and so obviously they'restill masked everywhere they go because he's you
know, at higher risk for complicationsif he were to get sick. And
(41:06):
I ran into a lady yesterday atgreat clips who was still masked on in
the lobby, and she was sayingthat she had lung problems. So I
was like, oh, well that'swhy she's wearing a mask. But you
know, other than that, justlike you know, young, otherwise healthy
people like us. No, Idon't. I don't think I know anybody's
still masking, do you. No? No, no, And I was
(41:30):
remember my kids only took the maskoff in late February, and even that
was like late yeah. Now Bennettwas still wearing it. I think I
was convincing him about the same timethat like it's okay, You're okay,
and he would just take it justin case he got anxious, and he
(41:51):
only recently took it off at karatebecause I was like, what's different going
to karate than going to school,Like you're still you know, you're in
actually a group of smaller people atkarate than you are around at school.
So if you're going to do itat school, you might as well do
it at practice. I might meanI'm I'm blown away. Actually I was
walking around in Target today like I'mblown away how normal everything is. And
(42:16):
yeah, it's like I wasn't crazy, I was crazy, but I couldn't
tell that I was. I wasn'tcrazy. I was right right, you
were right, you were right,you were allowed and right. And then
it just didn't matter anymore. Ican't even I mean, it still matters
(42:37):
just to a lot of people,but it doesn't matter to a lot of
people, right anyway? You stillwhatever happened to shut in outfits? Is
it still around or did you shutoff? I can't even log in.
I got kicked out and I havenot been able to get back in that
bitch. I have not been ableto get care of it for you.
Yeah, I have not been able. Same way they took my Twitter away.
(43:00):
It's better for me that I don'thave it, because I'd be wanting
to go on long ass tweet threads. I just save it for the discord.
Yeah, I can tell when thathappens. I know, y'all open
the discord and be like, ohGod, what's Melissa complaining about? Now?
(43:20):
Oh yeah, I saw that oneyesterday. Well the lady was wrong
wrong. I didn't disagree. Iknow. I know when I'm in there
um posting a lot and it's likea storm of post and then you get
your little thing and it's like onehundred and one new messages and just ranting
about something and then everybody's quiet forthree days. I'm like, damn,
(43:45):
sorry, sorry, sorry, ijust can't even killed the vibes. Yeah,
oh my god, I am avibe killer. In the discord sometimes
I'd be like and then I wantto say one last thing. I'm sorry.
I do feel bad, and I'dbe like, should I delete all
this shit? No? But speakinga vibe killer. Have you seen the
(44:07):
Dugger documentary on Amazon? Is itcalled Jury Duty? No? No,
I've seen that though, and that'svery funny. This is called Shiny Happy
People. No, but I needit's about it's about quiverfuls or just the
Duggers specifically. Yeah, well specificallyIBLP, which is the the you know,
(44:30):
the quiverful movement. But they talkabout Bill Gothard, who was the
head of the IBLP, and thenthe Duggers obviously play into it because they're
one of the more prominent families,and so it goes into like there's like
an interview segment with like their daughterJill, and then cousin Amy and her
(44:51):
husband are interviewed, and then everybodyelse is like basically a victim of the
IBLP and they each have kind oflike different stories experiences with the church.
But it's crazy. I've just bingewatched over the last two days. Wait
how many episodes? I think there'sonly four. I wish there were more.
(45:12):
I could. This kind of stuffis so fascinating to me. And
when you say like victim, likewhat they're like raping everybody had your kids,
had your wife had hug because theyrape and anybody out here? Yeah,
I mean, well, essentially,you know, this right wing Christianity
(45:34):
is very much about women being submissiveto their husbands and um, you know,
corporal punishment being a way that youcan you know, yeah, like
discipline and like keep your children inline. But this also applies to your
wife. So there's very much thislike women are always temptation traps and so
women are always responsible if you know, men are attracted to them, but
(45:59):
they must remain virgins, and theymust remain pure, and they must remain
you know, very very much likeuh, you know, like fundamentalist Mormons,
which I think that a lot offundy religions tend to have. Is
that strong center male figure and thenyou know, his submissive partner and then
all of their obedient children. Howso like, yeah, people were raped,
(46:22):
people were you know, uh,tortured, Like like what I want
to say, like mental torture isthat the right thing? And I'm like
their word is like right there,but you know, psychological like terror and
things like that. But how Iwant to know, how did the Duggers
(46:46):
have a whole reality show and nobodysaid, hey, why are you giving
this cult platform for like years?They're showing on for years. Yeah,
so that came up. I thinkso his niece was like or somebody said,
how bold of him to think thathe was going to get away with
the things that were happening in hishome with a whole camera crew. And
(47:07):
you know, I think in someways TLC Discovery was complicit and what had
happened. And you know, somebody, one of the ex IBLP members was
saying, like she saw the showstart and she's like, oh my god,
somebody's making a reality show about mylife. And she was like,
now Americans are going to see howfucking crazy this isn't she goes, And
(47:28):
that didn't happen because they put thisyou know, loving, you know,
quirky, you know, crazy familyunit on TV and made it seem like
it was you know, utopia.It was always picnics and roses, and
the disconnect between what was actually happeningand what they were portraying. Like those
(47:52):
producers had to see they see everything. They're there all the time. I
mean they didn't because I had readabout it after the fact. I didn't
really watch the show. I knewof this show. I never like sat
down and watched it all the timebecause it was creepy as hell. But
I loved it. You've seen everyepisode of the Oh God, I used
(48:15):
to watch it. Yes, watchedit. It was fascinating to me because
I was like, look at thesechildren, they are like happy to help
and they are you know, AndI was watching it obviously, you know,
without the lens of being a parent, and I'm and I'm looking at
these people, going, oh mygod, I can't believe that there are
(48:37):
people like this that are so wholesomeand pure and just loving the Lord.
It just was such a weird conceptfor me, and so it was fascinating.
But this was when they started tohave the spinoffs and the sons and
the daughters getting married. They startedto have their own shit. Like TLSE
(48:59):
didn't see them locking up, theone a pedophile and all that shit.
Yeah they did. So what hadhappened was is that the spinoffs didn't happen
until Joshua got in trouble, whichI didn't realize, and so TLC was
like, we can't continue with theshow as it is, and so that's
when they came up with this ideaof Counting On, which was going to
(49:21):
follow the adult kids. And theone daughter was saying that I guess like
the day of her wedding, shewas like, everybody was getting ready and
it was just really rushed, andshe was like, and as we're on
our way out, my dad hasthese papers and they're asking us to sign.
She didn't read it, but itbasically locked them into a five year
contract her and her sister as theheads of this show called Counting On Jill
(49:44):
and Jessa or whatever, and soshe didn't realize that they had signed a
contract until a couple of years laterwhen they were working as missionaries in Haiti
or somewhere far off, and TLCcalled them back to do the show and
she was like, we're year forten months, like we're living here working,
we can't come back and they're like, you have to you're contracted to
(50:07):
come back. Do you wonder howmuch money those girls made? How much
money? Zero dollars? What?Yes? Never she So when they went
back and they were like asking tofilm the birth of her first child,
She's like, we don't want youthere. We'll take footage and we'll supply
(50:30):
it to you, but you're notallowed to be there when I give birth.
And so afterwards they went back toTLC and they were like, we'd
like to be paid at least coverthe costs of like prenatal care and our
hospital stay. And they were like, we already paid your dad. Take
it up with him. Yeah,zero dollars she's gotten for their whole life
(50:57):
being filmed. Whole life. Shewas like, seven and a half years
of my life that I was workingand we got nothing. And then I
guess when they were refusing to comeback and do the show, Jim Bob
was like, what was it goingto take to get you back? And
her husband was like, you canpay us, and he was like,
well, you know, what's itworth to you? And he was like
what's it worth to you? Like, you have no show unless we come
(51:20):
back here and do this and heoffered to pay them ten dollars an hour.
What time? Yes, yes,okay, you gotta watch it.
It's crazy. Did they go intowhat that greed scarcity mindset is, Like
(51:42):
why that scam and ass rude,ass inappropriate money dynamic is and why is
it so in Trent Like sir sohe just took the millions of dollars that
he made and didn't distribute it amonghis family members who made the show.
(52:04):
Yep, yeah, so how arethese people? What job did she have
to live her life regular when shewasn't filming, she was on food stamps?
She um she was talking about umso I think I think her husband
(52:25):
now has like an actual job,and I think that now they probably monetize
as influencers for different things. Butshe was saying how fucking poor they were
while they're filing the show, andthat sounds familiar. Yeah, well,
(52:49):
at least you weren't getting diddled byyour older brother. Really, it was
really sad. I read I reada whole big expose about that where they
moved him to a different floor ofthe house, they put certain locks on
her door. Yeah yeah, andthis was all normalized on TV. Yep.
(53:13):
For years and years and years andyears. I think it said at
one point he made eighty five milliondollars in a year. Jim Bob did
yes, and the children got nothing, nothing second wind clothes. I always
remember them going to secondhand stores andtalking about how expensive it was, you
know, to have such a largefamily. And hold on a second,
(53:36):
I'm googling right now, where's JimBob? Now? Is he in jail?
No, he's not in jail.I don't I wonder if he's well.
At the end of it. Theydid say that he and Michelle so
Bill Gothard had been pushed out ofthe IBLP and so they were saying that
Jim Bob and Michelle were the onesthat basically had taken over in his stead.
(53:57):
So I don't know if they're gettingpaid through the church funds. I'm
sure that they're monetizing through their booksand you know whatever other you know bullshit
that they're selling. And obviously,if there's anything still running on TLC,
wouldn't they get like residuals or isthat not a lot of money? I
think with reality shows there's not aresidual thing. That's not a thing.
(54:22):
But if they go and I'm wonderingif the eighty five million was just like
what the show brought in through adsand all of that, and what his
actual portion of that was, youknow what I'm saying. Yeah, but
that sounds crazy. And so whatabout the lady she's too, Yeah,
(54:44):
Michelle, Yeah, I mean she'sshe's I think, just as brainwashed as
as the rest of them. Wow, and Perfect Stranger friends, high thanks
for listening to this episode of ImperfectStrangers podcast, and thank you for tuning
in every week. Thank you forjoining us on Monday Night Lives and interacting
(55:07):
with us on social media. Welove getting to meet all of our new
Imperfect Stranger friends as we go alongthrough this podcast. And if you're new
here, welcome, thanks for beinghere. And if you've been here since
May twenty second, twenty holy shit, thank you. That's a long ass
time. You can find us onInstagram at Imperfect Strangers Underscore podcast, on
(55:30):
Twitter at imperf Strangers, and onTikTok at Imperfect Strangers podcast. If you've
sent us a DM recently on TikTok, I am the one that is running
that and I still don't understand howthat shit works. So if I haven't
gotten back to. Please bear withme as I am trying to figure out
how these messages and things work.It's a little overwhelming. So when in
(55:52):
doubt, find us on Instagram becausethat is what we feel most comfortable with
because we are seventy five years old. And a huge, huge, huge,
huge thank you to our Patreon supportersfor those of you who are patrons
currently or who have been patrons inthe past, really truly, you guys
keep the lights on over here atImperfect Strangers podcast. You help us to
(56:15):
pay the bills that we have inorder to keep this thing up and running,
and for that we thank you amillion times. If you haven't yet
checked out Patreon and that sounds likesomething that you would be interested in,
you can find us over on patreondot com forward slash Imperfect Strangers. We
have four different tiers and each tieroffers a different level of content that you
(56:35):
receive from us, either weekly ormonthly, just depends on what you sign
up for. So if that soundslike something fun to you, go in
and check it out, and ifnot, no big deal. We appreciate
you listening and sharing this podcast withyour friends. So with that, thank
you to everyone near and far,and let's send a hearty hug, good
(56:58):
vibes as Melissa and Shalom become daughtersof the Mitzvah this week. All right,
thanks, we'll see you soon.Bye.
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