Ep54: Evelyn was determined to combat low staff morale; Nick was determined to do the break-up in person.

In this episode of the RJP, Evelyn shares a well-intentioned attempt to improve staff morale that turned into a year-long exercise in optimism and emotional endurance. 

Nick counters with a story about trying to “do the right thing” during a breakup and somehow making everything dramatically worse with the help of Drew Barrymore.

Can Canada and the United States find common ground in movie-night-related trauma? Peace remains theoretical at this point.

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Want to get in touch with Nick & Evelyn? 

Email them at reversejackass@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's revolutionary.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome back, everyone. Let me make sure I'm recording. We are. Few. Welcome back. Oh gosh. I only had like exactly 59 minutes to make sure I was recording. And I am.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

That's referencing how late I was for this, by the way. Do you have everybody at home knows? Do you want to? If this one goes sideways, it's because I wasted a half hour of Evelyn's time before she reminded me and I logged on.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yep, it's okay. I will keep that in.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Yeah, I deserve it.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Well, no, I'm not to be punitive, but to just make sure people know that you're an honest person.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

You can even make punishment sound nice.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

I can. I can. It's my Canadian-ness. It is. Okay. Easy to get on a tangent. Stay focused. Stay focused, Canadian Blade. Here we go. Welcome back to the Reverse Jackass podcast, everyone. Welcome. I'm here with Nick tonight. We are still giving it our very best to make peace between Canada and the United States. We're working towards peace. So uh it's an Evelyn episode this week, and I have been editing a lot of our podcasts over the last couple of days. And let me tell you, I am in full blown peace mode right now. And I thought, what better way to talk about peace to get us moving closer to peace between Nick and Evelyn, the United States and Canada. Like we have to do this one episode at a time, then to talk about Nick's favorite things. Uh-oh. And that is movies. I want to talk to you about movies tonight. Okay. I'm going to tell you a story first. So one year when I was teaching, I'm going to say this is probably 15 years ago. Staff morale at the school at which I was teaching was terrible. Really, really bad. And I didn't yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Has anyone in every school ever said, wow, staff morale at the school is great? I feel like educators are always under budget or always over budget and always in bad spirits. Am I wrong about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

We got a lot of money this year. We feel great. You know what? When I say staff morale, I guess I think like not so much the money, but like the support that they are feeling like they are getting from the higher-ups. Got it. Okay. In the building. Also, got it. I know no one can see this episode right now, but I need to tell you all how Nick said pause. He literally put his palm towards the screen like he was hitting a giant pause button.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Which is what I was doing. Do you know what I mean? It was like I was communicating non-verbally and verbally. See if you can figure out this one. That'll be our secret.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Oh, yeah, great. Just like Queen, and I'm gonna believe that.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Queat. America's super green.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

So one year and I was teaching, staff morale was real bad. And I, being the go-getter that I am, decided I was going to do something about it. Because I was young enough in my teaching career that I was like, you know what? This is solvable. One young person can solve this. That's charming. Right? Yeah, charming and dumb. So I I committed, I decided I was gonna host something at my house once a month. A Friday night movie night once a month at my house.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Or people okay, are you gonna barf? Nick just no, that just sounds awful. Like, why we're gonna host, I don't know. That's like I don't ever host ever. The idea of like, oh, I'm gonna have like a dozen of my colleagues over to my house once a month means like cleaning, picking something, pleasing everybody. That sounds like, oh, I'm gonna get a second full-time job.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Well, it sounds awful now. Like, I'll admit, like 44-year-old Evelyn thinks it also sounds awful. But like 29-year-old Evelyn was like, I can do this. This is yeah, honestly, I was raring ago. This was fine. One Friday movie night a month. That's all I committed to. Okay. At my house once a month for the 10 months of the school year. I carefully planned the movies. I made a schedule. I matched the movie to the month, like The Shining for October, you know, that kind of thing. Right. There was a broken projector screen at the school that I brought home. We figured out, like we kind of rigged it together a little bit, got it to work. Um, I set it up in my living room. I just like shifted the couches and the chairs a little bit. Um, I had snacks, I made popcorn drinks. I posted the schedule in the staff email conference and I'd send out email reminders at the beginning of the week to be like, this is happening on Friday. Here's the movie. I would post some kind of cheeky little recap of the movie. And like, here's the thing: I was well liked on staff, right? So this was not me being like a total weirdo. I know.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Well, it's thanks for coming forth with a powerful confession.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

You know, I I have to admit that you know, it's hard to say.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

The secrets out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

The secrets out. People liked me. And I told people no pressure, no RSVP required, just show up, watch a movie, go home. Like there was no further commitment. It was just a time to zone out your brain, but just be together. People were like, this is a great idea. This is awesome. Like I made a big deal about it. And here's the thing, Nick, and I can tell by the grin on your face that you already know where this is going, is that you know I have no idea where this is going, but you keep you keep giving me wins, which means you're working towards a big loss.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

So by the time you hit play on Caligula, the rest of the staff was there.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

That was September's movie. I had to start it off strong. I had to really set a tone. So nobody came, not once, the entire year. Nobody, no, no, people would come up to me at school all the time and ask me what movie was playing this month. And they thought it was a really great idea. And they're like, this is so cool that you're doing this. This is so thoughtful. Like, no one on staff has ever done anything like this before. I love that you're doing this, Evelyn. I really love maybe I'll come to this one. Maybe I'll come to this one. Nobody came and I stuck to it all year. I did not cancel a single one because I commit. When I commit, I commit. And I was determined to bring this staff together if it's the last thing I do. Oh, Evelyn, that's self-abuse. So, my question for you, Nick. What is the worst movie-related experience you have ever been through?

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Oh man, okay. The worst. The worst movie experience I have ever been through. I'm gonna answer your question, but why did you do that? If people didn't come for two months, why did you keep doing it? Why didn't you just say, like, hey, I need a confirmed RSVP list before, like, hey Jennifer, are you coming to this one? Like, I, you know, I want to make sure I'm not sitting there. Do Canadians say with my dick in my hand? Is that a thing that you all say?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Like, or is there Canadian like with my Timbits in my hand?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

With an empty bag of timbits.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

They don't come in a bag, they come in a little box that's very adorably folded at the top, okay? That doesn't sound adorable.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

And then I just signed out today, you can eat there, which I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

You can eat at Tim Hortons. Nick had no idea. He thought it was all coffee. And you just go in, he thought it was in a gas station. I know if you thought it was a gas station thing. If if you feel the need to correct Nick, you can email us at reversejackass at gmail.com. In fact, I strongly encourage you to tell Nick what you how you know what? Email us and explain Tim Hortons to Nick.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

I I welcome it. Okay, so let's talk about my question why you're not.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Oh, why did I do it? You know, it's funny because now I wouldn't have done it. And I think because, you know, through years of therapy, have realized that I obviously am an overachiever, a people pleaser. And I never wanted to like I didn't know if there was one person on that staff who was working up, working up the gumption to come. And then they were gonna come to like February's and I had canceled it, and they weren't gonna come, and it would have been it, it would, I would have been a I would have been missing out and crushing that person's soul. It's a very stay around for the the one and leave the 99 kind of mentality. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

I admire that. Did anyone at any point go, like, maybe a family member? Like, hey, why you why are you still doing this?

SPEAKER_00 7:53

No, no, not at all. Nope. Does this explain, like, does this explain some things now that I'm explaining?

SPEAKER_02 7:59

No, honestly, no, what it says what it says to me is that like, and it's their loss is my gain, but like what it says to me is that if if anybody had been willing to meet your level of enthusiasm, you would probably be working at a school right now in like a nice positive environment with good people that wanted to like, not that they were bad people, but like that like if anybody had met that level of commitment, you might have really seen a sea change and people might have felt better and it might have been a good place to work. So I guess I'm glad it didn't work out. Yeah. But I'm bummed because I think it very much speaks to the Evelyn that I know that you that you really planned something, committed to it. It was very selfless, and you put it together and then you committed to it all year. And then even today, yeah, um, I don't know if this is the reason for the prompt. You showed up to our meeting and I didn't. And then I had a generous amount of time.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, I think that's just I think that's just what I do. And it's never with the intent to make other people feel bad if they don't show up like that. That's just that's I don't know. I just think I think things move real fast these days, and sometimes people just need a bit of room, a bit of a bit of room to move, or a a gentle prodding text 18 minutes into a proposed Zoom call saying we already responded to another 18 minutes later. Are you are you okay? Do we still have a call tonight? So, anyway, to bring it back around, not to have you wallow in too much guilt, just a healthy amount. What is the worst movie experience? Movie watching, movie related experience you have.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

I feel like I'm gonna dig around in the sandbox a little bit. I feel like there's probably a bit there's something in my brain tells me there's an enormous movie experience that I'm forgetting here. So I'll give you a couple highlights from my life. There was a time when I was a senior in high school and I went on a first or second date with a woman and I guess a girl at the time because she was we were in high school and um we went to go see a Event Horizon. Have you ever seen Event Horizon? Yes. Okay. Here's the thing about me that nobody knows. I don't watch movie previews ever, and I'm kind of actually not interested in movies very much. Like I enjoy them, but they don't mean anything to me, and I don't remember them. So movies I've seen before I can watch again, and like I won't realize I've seen them before. And so it is this level of non-curiosity that took me into Event Horizon on a date, and it was so fucking scary that my date had an asthma attack, and we had to leave the theater because she actually couldn't breathe. Like, oh shoot. I remembered how scary that was, but I never came close to not breathing. She was having a like, I can't like here's another thing y'all can't see because it's a podcast, like an I can't breathe, I can't breathe, kind of like forcing her inhaler into her mouth, kind of like situation. So that was a not a not great one. In terms of like bad things happening, that was a pretty big one. Uh, another one that occurs to me is in terms of quality, have you ever seen a movie called The Judas Project? No. Well, of course you haven't. Uh so it was a movie that was made in the 90s and it was very vaguely promoted.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

At the time, is my recollection. And I remember my sister who is several years older than me, and I went to see it thinking it was a science fiction movie because the the advertising for it was very vague, is what I remember. Okay. It is a Christian movie, and it is a terrible Christian movie. And it is a movie that is a modern-day retelling of the adult life of Christ, but it's it's done as poorly as you can imagine in every possible aspect. The acting, the filmmaking, the script, everything about it is so amateur-ish, it's astonishing it got the run that it did. And so my sister and I, and like eight polite, long-suffering Central Virginia Christians, went to go see this movie. Yeah. And it's like they when they crucify Jesus, they pay Judas to betray him. A big corporation does. That's the that's like the Romans in the in the is a big corporation. And they literally pay him in silver. Like they give him a briefcase with 30 pieces of silver in it, because we can adjust the Romans to be a corporation, but we can't do modern currency. So presumably Judas like found a metal exchange. He like figured out the price per ounce of silver, he waited till a good time to sell. There's at one point the guy that plays Peter is kind of a big dude and he's kind of overweight. And the Lowe's and Fisher scene, they have a thing where they go, like, Jesse is Jesus, by the way. Because of course, you can't use Jesus' real name in the movie for some reason. Judas is Jude, even though the movie is called the Judas Project. Judas is Jesse. They have a terrible song, Jesse theme song written for it. And at one point they go, What are we gonna feed these people? There ain't even enough for Big Pete over here. And the Apostle Peter like looks down all ashamed of his fatness. And it's just like the movie is there was a song?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

But like No, that's the oh yeah, and then there was a song. The song is serious, it's trickily like saccharin garbage.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Oh, but it was a music movie.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

No, no, no, no, no, no. But there was like a song, like a you know, like the Rocky movies, how Rocky and Chariots of Fire. Yeah. So imagine that. But but do you remember how important the Rocky theme song was and how you can still hear it in your head? Yeah, yeah. And you remember Chariots of Fire, how beautiful and inspiring it is that those you know, weedy British guys are like running. Yeah, so now imagine the opposite of that. And you have the theme from the Judas Project. And it's it's so bad. My sister and I were laughing out loud in the movie theater, like it was Ace Ventura, which was the only movie I saw that year that was funnier than the Judas Project. And we laughed so fucking hard, and I felt bad because I thought I turned her and said, We're the only ones in here that think this is funny. Like everyone else here, and I don't think anybody else is like loving it. I didn't get the impression that this was a moving spiritual experience for the rest of the audience, but it was so bad that it couldn't be denied. So that was another one that was pretty heinous. I have looked for the movie now, but like it's one of those things where if you're not gonna watch it to laugh at it, then you shouldn't watch it.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Then you shouldn't watch it at all.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

What year are we talking here? Like mid 90s? I'm gonna say 93, 94, maybe. Ooh.

unknown 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

I could look it up, but why would I? It's not like I'm in front of a computer right now or anything. You know what I mean? Later when we pause our cassette recorders, I'll go check it out.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

But yeah, we can if we can let someone email us at reversejackass at gmail.com letting us know what year the Judas Project came out.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Yes, if there's any, I'd love to hear from anyone who either had the same experience that I had where you went thinking it was a science fiction movie and then figured out how played you'd been. Or I'd love to hear from anybody who legitimately, and I won't make fun of you, who legitimately has a nice thing to say about this movie. Because other than All About Steve, which should have been a better movie because it was a major motion picture with Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper in it. Yep. Judas Project is the second worst movie that I've ever seen in my life. All about Steve was one of the worst movie experiences I've ever had in terms of content. Are there any other big as I'm thinking, are there any other enormous catastrophic movie experiences that you've had in your life? Other than the ten separate experiences you had on behalf of these stuff?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

The ten, other than when I decided to trauma stack my whole my whole year.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Blockbuster people saw you coming and they were like They were like, oh, she's back.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Hey Ev, good to see ya. How'd your last movie night go? Oh, this is gonna be the one. I can just feel it.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

They're like, February, love actually, huh? I think you're gonna like it. Hope everybody shows up.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

I hope this is the one, Ev. This is gonna be the one. It never came. I don't I don't really have any like bad. I mean, I like you, I didn't watch trailers or previews up until I went in to see the Blair Witch project blind. Like I didn't know what it was about. Yeah, yeah, there's something about it. But I went in, my best friend and I, he and I went in at the time, and it scared me so hard. I was so terrified at this movie. First of all, I didn't know, spoiler ruler, I didn't know it wasn't real. I didn't know it was a mockumentary. Like I went in and and I I see, you know, they show on the screen. They're like, teens were recording this, and this footage was found, and they were never found. And I was like, oh my gosh, like what am what am I in for? And then it's you know, it's recorded, like it's handheld, and I'm watching this. And it should have been a total sign to me that the seat beside me in the movie theater was covered in like a garbage bag with like caution tape around it, because clearly someone had beat themselves. Like I was like, hey, that that's weird. It was terrifying. And the thing is, I'm assuming you've obviously seen this movie.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yes, and I had a different experience with it.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Okay, I'll tell you in a moment. Okay, and you know how it ends, right? The the dude facing the corner, right? Okay. The big, big part of the movie takes place in the basement at the end, right? This was the exact summer that my bedroom at my parents' farmhouse was being repainted, and I was sleeping on a mattress in the corner of the basement the whole summer because it was cooler down there. Uh so I had to walk from my friend's car. He walked me to the door because we're walking in the late night dark farmlands to the door, and then I had to walk down the stairs and sleep in the corner of the basement after watching the Blair Witch project.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

I was so glad that movie worked for you. Tell me how it didn't work for you, Nick. So I had a friend who was an enthusiastic cinema guy in college show it to me, and he was all excited, and he showed it to me. And do you remember where that movie is set?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Uh Maine?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Maryland. Maryland. Maryland, which is just north of Virginia where I'm from. Okay. And so he starts showing me this thing, and immediately I'm fucking skeptical because I just thought there's no world in which like they have this and there's not like more information. Do you know what I mean? Like the idea that these kids just disappeared, and this is the first we're hearing about it, and they're publishing all of it. Like, no, I don't think so. Secondly, don't believe in witches. So that also, thirdly, I've been to Maryland many times, and my whole thought, the whole movie, was no, they fucking did not. And I get it that there are parts of Maryland that are wooded, but like, I don't know, man. There's that just, I was like, no, this is just not a thing that really happened. There was a little jump scare at the end with the guy in the corner, but then that was what I was left with was like, was all that leading to a guy in the corner? And did somebody just act like this was a masterpiece? And it clearly worked for people, but my thought on it was, no, I don't think so. And it was a similar thing, and then I have actually thought of the story that I want to tell you. Oh, a similar thing when I saw the ring in theaters, which I saw with a friend of mine from college the night before I left for Los Angeles. She really wanted to see it, and I'm kind of not a horror movie guy. And we watched it at the end of it, she was like, Oh my god, that was so fucking scary. And I was like, what part about that was scary? And she's trying to explain it. And I was like, You just don't put the fucking VHS cassette in the VCR. Like, what is the what is the point of that? Like, yeah, yeah. It's not hard. If if it's in the thing, it's not very hard to just not play it. Like, that's the easiest monster attack to prevent in the history of the world. Well, we're all safe as long as nobody plays this marked VHS cassette. Like, what are we gonna do? Maybe I'm not, I don't believe enough in supernatural stuff to be like swayed by this kind of thing, but it was just like, really? This is the thing I'm supposed to be afraid of.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

This is interesting to me because you watch more movies than I do now. Like, I don't, that's not something I tend to like I watched three over the Christmas break. That's that's probably as many as I'll watch in the first half of this year. It's just oh me too.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

It's I think when I also maybe we're just not movie people.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Oh, okay, yeah. But I really also think I can suspend reality when I when I watch a movie. Like my imagination starts going wild. Like a movie like The Ring. Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Um, okay, so I finally thought of the nagging movie experience that my brain wanted me to think of. And it is this. So there's no world in which she'll ever hear this, I think. Uh-huh. And it's not her fault. This is a story about me being a dysfunctional 19-year-old. So I went to college and I had a girlfriend who was still in high school. She was a senior and I was a freshman in college. And I didn't want to continue in the relationship.

unknown 19:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

In part because I was not feeling it, and in part because and that part was true. And in part because I had some fantasy that I was going to go off to college and have that orgiastic experience that all 19-year-old men think that they're gonna have in college, which was absolutely fucking not true. But that that I don't need to be right about that to be right about breaking up. I didn't want to be in the relationship, but she persuaded me and she wheedled me. And so I said yes, and I agreed to try it. Okay. And I didn't like it. I didn't enjoy it. Uh she was mad at me for not calling her more. I was an hour away at school. She was annoyed with me for not making her a bigger focus in my life. Uh her being in my life was not something I wanted. And again, I won't name names. If you're out there, I still fondly remember you. You are a wonderful person. You gave me Liz Fair's white chocolate space egg. That's the only reason there's Liz Fair in my life right now. I will always, always be grateful to you. She gave me Vruca Salt's eight arms to hold you. Like musically, I may never have had a better partner in my life, but we are not meant to be. Great musical taste. So I finally decide that I have to break up with her. I have to break up with her. And I think to myself, and again, this is 1998, I think. So I'm like, well, I don't want to break up with her over the phone because that's rude. And I'm not going to ghost her. We didn't have text messages. You know, I certainly didn't want to do it in email. I thought, you know, I should do what an adult man would do. I should go down there and tell her. So I make plans to go down to Richmond to see her. This is so horrifying. And so I went to her home in the pleasant little suburb that it was in, and I knocked on the door and she was there waiting for me, and she was excited. And she said, Hey, how are you doing? And I said, Well, I need to talk to you about something. And she said, What is it? And I broke up with her on the front doorstep of her house because I didn't want to lead her on. I didn't want to be like, let's go have four fun hours and then I'll break up. Right. I didn't want to like hook up with her and then be like, Thanks for that. Bye. I wanted to like be very straight up about this thing. So I got there. Again, like on paper, you can see with a 19-year-old's reasoning why this is a good plan.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yes. And it's not terrible, like, I think you're in you no, you were in an unwinnable situation here, though. Like you wanted to break up with her, you wanted to do it in person, noble, but then by doing it in person, your choices are limited and like there's no good there's no winnable situation here.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

No winnable situation. But I did find a way to make it even less winnable than it automatically was at its inception, which is It then we break up, she's obviously very upset, and then she goes, So what do we do now? And I said, Well, I'm here. Do you want to hang out? No, which was dumb. What I should have said was, I need to go see my parents, or you know, I'll just leave you here, or something like that. But I didn't know. I was an hour, I was an hour drive back to Fredericksburg. Like I was like, You wanna hang out? She goes, Okay, sure, what do you want to do? And I said, I don't know, do you want to go see a movie? And she was like, Okay. Yeah. So no mixed messaging here, Nick. No mixed messaging. What a fucking asshole. What an asshole. Well, it gets the messaging gets just a little muddier in a moment because then I'm like, well, what do we watch? And again, I didn't think this through. And of course, what's the what's the only movie that's in theaters that we can sort of agree on? Because I don't know what it is, and it's Ever After.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Yeah. Oh, Melanie Linsky. I still remember you to this day. You were the only redeeming part of that day. So do you remember Ever After?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

With what's her face? Drew Barrymore? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Yeah, it's a retelling of Cinderella. Cinderella?

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah, like it's just a just a victory story about a rejected woman finding her charming.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Like there was no Stallone in any theater to be found. No Denzel.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Oh, I don't know if she would have seen that with me. I I honestly I don't know how we got there, other than I think I was trying to be agreeable. Because I certainly wasn't like, fuck, man, ever after. Let me get I can't wait. Got my tickets already. Let's go do this. You know, I'm going whether with you or without you. I'm gonna see Drew Barrymore. So, like with you or without you. It's like yeah, exactly. Look, this train is leaving the station right now. Yeah, right. You're either on or you're not sweet cheeks. Come to a decision. Yeah, sweet cheeks. So, and this is why, by the way, this is why people do shitty things when they break up. Because sometimes it's way harder to break up when there's no conflict, no real conflict and no real sin than it is to break up when it's just not working out. And so people will act out and do shitty things like, you know, get over your sweet cheeks. And it's a real message is like, I would like you to leave me. So we go to the Ever After at Genitou Forest Theaters in Richmond. I don't even know if that's still there. And she proceeds to weep through the whole movie. And I mean the whole time, and I'm just sitting there, and because I'm this way and I was really this way when I was 19, I'm like just trying to pay attention to the movie. And I can't remember whether we held hands. I certainly didn't try to do anything relationship like I was really committed to not being in that relationship, but she cried the whole time. And every time the movie got nice or romantic or anything like that, she cried harder. And thank God I don't remember there being a lot of other people in the movie. And then we got done with it, and I dropped her off at her place, and I drove back to Fredericksburg, feeling at the same time both light as a feather and heavier than lead all at the same time for that long, hour-long, exactly the speed limit drive up 95 to my college campus. And so that is my horror story is watching Ever After, which is like a 90-minute movie with a person who I have just hurt terribly sobbing next to me in her seat.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

There was one song in Ever After. Maybe you recognize it that I absolutely love. I hadn't thought about it till now. It goes a little something like on the watchtower.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

It goes. By the way, I just want you to remind you, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to be this guy, but I think we open ourselves up to legal action if we sing on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Oh no, this song, I I I guarantee, I guarantee this. We don't have to worry about it. It goes a little something like this.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

She was singing along. It was like Rocky Horror Picture Show for her. Like I didn't realize it. I was just lost in my own thoughts and hearing this movie about rejected women crying and just throwing throwing toast at the screen. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Oh god, why?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Like this is that that is awful. As someone who has been a like, she would have been what 17, 18?

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Uh yeah, they're about right.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

As someone who has been that age as a woman, that is that I guaranteed it took her a long time to shake that off. Like it, you know, and that movie, she can't watch that movie to this day.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yeah, you know. I mean, thank God it wasn't a classic, right? Like, imagine if I cost her a real movie, but yeah, I still feel terrible about that. And I want to emphasize that she was and probably still is a really nice and wonderful person. She's pretty. Like, there is there is nothing about this other than I was not interested in sustaining a long distance relationship and I wasn't really feeling it. And so my hope is if you're out there, that all of your movie experiences have been stronger and more positive than that, and that you have made peace with Drew Barrymore and with your memory of me.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

And if you need a shoulder to cry on, I'm having a movie night at my place this Friday.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Go to the Flanagan household.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah. I will not show any Drew Barrymore movies.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Wouldn't that be the troll of the century if I was just like, look, I have to make amends for this. I need you, I need you in London, Ontario. At my place. Come on over. Friday of your choice, yeah. Friday of your choice, coming over. Busted repaired school screen.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yep. Ding dong. Open the door and play. Boom. Ever after. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

That's so that's my nightly trauma dump. So thank you for bringing me back to that proud moment in my life.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, I'm very careful that we don't that we don't turn these episodes into that. But I also recognize that a lot of good stories just come from really awful experiences like this.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Oh, I'm happy about it. The only thing that ever gives me pause with this is the possibility that my clients are listening into it. And I don't even necessarily give a shit if they know this, because obviously I'm willing to tell the whole world. I just wouldn't want them to feel in my sessions like my ex-girlfriend and Drew Barrymore walk into the session with them. Do you know what I mean? I want them to feel like I had they have my whole attention. And I feel like the more that we know about our therapists, the more like we don't necessarily feel alone in the room with them in a positive way. So if my client and you're listening to this, you know, like think about whether you really want to know this much about me and also know that I am a far kinder and more worldly um partner now than I was in the 90s.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yes, I have seen I have seen Nick with his wife. And trust me, I think if that situation, if the ever after situation, if Nick went to his wife and delivered some bad news in that movie theater, I can assure you that she would absolutely drop kick him off the curb and make him regret the day he was born long before she would snivel through a movie. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

That's accurate. Evelyn, what a great prompt. Why don't you take us home and then I'll tell you a really horrifying story about that relationship.

unknown 28:36

Oh!

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Okay, well, in that case, uh, thanks for blah blah blah listening. Great. Okay, anyway, Nick and Evelyn. I'll see you next week. Bye. Some neighbors are besties.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Others quarrel bitterly. Stuck together through geography. One of us has nukes, and the other has tokes.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

It's American Canadian diplomacy.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

It's reversed.