Ep56: Evelyn explains southwestern Ontario; Nick explains Central Virginia.

Evelyn and Nick attempt a wholesome cross-border “regional childhood inventory” comparing growing up in rural southwestern Ontario versus Virginia in the 1990s. 

Instead, they accidentally uncover what appears to be two entirely different genres of danger.

(And make sure to listen riiiiiiiiight to the end on this one. You won't regret it.)

(...Should we make Reverse Jackass branded poking sticks?)

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Want to get in touch with Nick & Evelyn? 

Email them at reversejackass@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

It is reverse.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

So I'm gonna lead us in then.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Is that cool with you?

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Actually, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Folks, welcome back. Yeah. You know what? Really? You said yeah, and then you interrupted me to say yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I just I felt like I just felt like the power balance was getting a little off kilter and I needed to correct. Restore order. Restore order.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Do you like to edit? Do you like to spend you're gonna because folks out there, Evelyn is the only person that edits this podcast. I have no hand in it. The reason it's edited well is because Evelyn does it. But apparently Evelyn would love to sit in the editing bank all day editing us talking over one another. Yeah, that's the only meaning I can make out of her interrupting me cruelly.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I don't even edit that out anymore. Like just if you and I are talking at the same time, I just leave that in there because people, I'll show them what's behind the curtain. These people get to see how the sausages are made. Why not?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

What a and what a tragic sausage it is. Ladies and gentlemen, folks, friends, welcome to our tragic sausage, the reverse jackass podcast. I'm Nick. With me as always is Evelyn, the Canadian Blade. Evelyn, say hi to the people.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

What if tragic sausage becomes your nickname?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Oh, oh, I guess I wouldn't like that. But what I've learned about being bullied is that the moment you say you wouldn't like something, that's when you get it all the time. So I guess what I'd say is, yeah, bring it on. Tragic sausage. Let's just let that run its course.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

It doesn't, you know what, it doesn't fit. I don't I don't like it. It sounds like a great nickname for someone.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

For someone. Okay, so we're gonna hold that back in our um arsenal for later. But in the meantime, today is an Evelyn episode. So Evelyn, why don't you take us to the next level?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Well, I think you did you already did by coming up with Tragic Sausage. I'll go to the next next level. Also, if anyone out there knows someone who is befitting for the nickname Tragic Sausage, you can email us directly at reversejackass at gmail.com. And we will send you, we will send you a certificate of authenticity declaring the official nickname Tragic Sausage with this person's name on it. I will personally create a certificate. Nick and I will both sign it somehow. Wow. And uh we'll get that to you.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

The real sacrifice of that is not the creation of the thing, it's the it's the postage that would be implied between having the thing signed in two different countries and then sent to you. So just know that this thing that Evelyn has signed us up for is both a time and a monetary sacrifice for us.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

So make it good, make your nominations good.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah, make it good. Don't don't move too quickly. And I'm especially speaking to Jason Jameson out there, who I know is listening to this and who will definitely be emailing me or texting me with a candidate, with a potential candidate. So that's uh Jason, I'm looking forward to it. Uh really looking forward to that. Okay. A very timely topic between our two countries lately, between other countries in the world, is the word trade. Oh boy. The word trade. And Nick, I want to do a very specific kind of trade today. Um I was trading insults. It's trading insults. No, it's not. We don't need a formal episode to that. We can just start launching, right? Yeah. Do those informally, yeah. A brisk trade it is. A brisk trade. So here's what I got thinking. You know, in many episodes, we don't even address the fact that we're from different countries at all. And I think it's really important, you know, if someone jumps in at this episode as their first episode, I think we really have to make sure we know who the Canadian is and who the American is. Okay. In this episode. Yeah. Oh, sorry. See? You could have you could have figured it out in that four second sound bite right there.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Absolutely, yeah. Guess of who. You mean the one, they mean the one where you apologized with a Canadian accent and where I didn't apologize for anything ever. Is that how people will know? Yep. Is that how people will know the difference between the Canadian and the American? Got it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

It'll be like, oh, she apologized, and he remained silent. Um, so I got thinking, you know, we've talked a lot about our countries as a whole, but I think it is time on this podcast, on the Reverse Jackass podcast, for us to get really granular with our upbringings and to see where the Venn diagram overlaps. And here's what I here's what I know. When I think of the geography you've covered in the United States, I think Virginia, Chicago, and California. That's okay. Like whenever I hear any one of those three states, I think, oh, Nick's been there, and then I move on to whatever else I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Right. And I've only ever lived in Ontario. I've never lived anywhere else. But I got thinking, other than you telling the story of other children throwing rocks at you and and Confederate statues coming down, I don't know much about Virginia. Other than they seem to have a real humdinger of a governor in there right now. We finally, yeah. Oh my gosh, we're very excited about what you're gonna do. You did a real great interview on Colbert. I loved it. I'm inspired. But going back to the trade, let's not lose sight of what we're here for. So I grew up in an area called Lambton County here in southwestern Ontario. And growing up in Lambton County in the 90s was a very niche thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Um is it niche like the tragically hip wrote a song about it, or is it is it niche like you and the three kids you walked along the railroad tracks to see a dead body will remember it and nobody else will?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

You know what? You basically said the same thing twice right there. That's it. The amount of times the tragically hip wrote a song about someone seeing a dead body in the ditch. It tells me you haven't listened to their stuff recently. So I'm going to rapid fire, not really rapid fire, but I'm gonna launch a couple of I grew up in Lambton County in the 90s experiences, and I need you to hit me back with the Virginia only version of this shit. Okay, this isn't gonna be so much the like, so my question for you, Nick, is right, this is gonna be more of a dialogue. So departure. Okay. Right. Yeah, a little bit of a departure, a little something to cleanse the palate. So this will be equal parts, wholesome and feral is kind of what I'm hoping for, because that basically describes my upbringing. And we're basically gonna do a cross-border regional childhood inventory. I love it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

As a therapist, this is the shit I live for. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Oh, great. Okay, so I have a little list.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Childhood inventories are my whole fucking career. You know this, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

That's true. That is true. You're basically, you're totally right. Okay, so I'm gonna list a bunch of things that are very Lambton County 90s kid coded. And I want you to tell me, did you have a Virginia version of this? And it sounded like I said virgin, but I said virgin, and I will. Do you see that I didn't call you on that? I know, but I saw I saw the slightest smirk on your face show up. And I thought, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call this before he does. I just gotta do this. And then I want to, if we haven't, if we haven't made any kind of connections with stuff, I want you to tell me the most aggressively Virginia thing you experienced as a child that that other people in Virginia may have also experienced. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

So it's gotta be relatable, relatable from the Virginia people.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

It's gotta be relatable because I know you've sent a couple of our postcards to Virginia, and these people are counting on you to do some kind of regional shout-out. Or we'll see, they brought my balls pretty hard.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

I got texts from them over this weekend. They were they were uncharitable. Uh to say the least. They got the postcards? I got them the postcards and they got to listen to it. And one of them said, I mean, and granted, breaking balls is what we do, but I admit I was like, oh man, this is a little more the little vulnerability air horn. One of them said, I've often wondered what makes Nick such a successful therapist. I'm really stumped. And then another one said, One of my goals in life is never to listen to a podcast. And I said, This is less of a podcast and more of a middle-aged cry for help. And then one of them said, You could call the song a whimper.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

A whimper? What song is a whimper?

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Our theme song.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

A whimper?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

So so thanks to all of our wonderful Canadian fans. Uh just so you know, it's like the the the stereotype runs very well past the content of this episode because the feedback we get from Canadians is nice and supportive and positive. The feedback I get from Americans is you fucking moron. I can't believe you're putting this on the internet. So uh okay, so let's we'll get back on track. Okay. Ontario versus Virginia teenage experiences. And it's also worth noting, I don't know if this will come up, but I think I'm three or four years older than you. Yeah, two, actually, I think. Two, okay. So then they should be pretty closely.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not that much. But I do know when we talk about pop culture things, I feel like that's where the gap lies in us a little bit, because I was probably a lot more sheltered, I imagine, than you were.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Well, and not to be this guy, but you know, a lot of the pop culture that you and I were experiencing was probably created in the United States and then it's true to spread out. So we were getting it probably a year after it was created in Los Angeles or New York, and then you know, it filters out.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

And then it took it took forever. Well, it had to go to St. John's Newfoundland and then bounce back to Ontario first, right? We know how long how long it takes to get there. Well, trust me, we're not gonna need any kind of pop culture references because that's I have my list here and it's none of that. There is no pop culture. No pop culture. Okay. Okay, number one Lambton County kid hit number one. Being told if there's a tornado and you're outside, you immediately nestle yourself into a ditch. Like you don't get out of there until that tornado's gone by.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Whoa. Yeah. Okay. Central Virginia version as and I'll just say out loud that my dad grew up in the Midwest, and every time there was a storm with any kind of lightning, we all had to go into the downstairs room and turn all the lights off and stay away from the windows because he was terrified of that. So that was uh one thing. Even though we don't have those kind of storms in Virginia, his trauma over Midwestern storms remained, and it was a his whole thing. The Virginia thing to that was that we lived on a river, and so there could be terrible, terrible floods. Um, and I will say that right before I think Hurricane Hugo, they did an incredible extensive work building up the levees, which were in disrepair so that the river couldn't overflow, and then Hurricane Hugo was so bad that the it still overflowed the levees, but the levees were so good that then they didn't let water out of the levees and the entirety of downtown Richmond remained flooded because the levees were so strong that the water couldn't get back into the river. Wow.

unknown 10:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Wow, that was that was pretty good. Okay, well, speaking of water, I'll scroll down to my water one. Okay, this is a bit of a cornucopia of things together, but there was a weirdly high tolerance for practical danger warnings, like and delivered very calmly. Like the general consensus was just don't go near it. And I'm doing hand quotes right now. Like, if there was a ditch full of mysterious items like scrap metal, bottles, animals, objects that had some kind of previous life, just don't go near it. A ditch full of animals. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

There must be two, three hundred animals in that their ditch. Well, don't go near it. I guess it's not the accent.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

So yeah, I was like, that's a Virginia thing. There's no accent at this time. If you find a dead animal, don't poke it. Like that was really that was kind of what we were told. But I mean the urge was so strong.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

So to poke a dead animal?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Sure. There were sticks everywhere. Like, of course. Like, no, I would never have the how else would I poke a dead animal? How else was I supposed to learn about nature?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Oh wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

It's so dark. That says a lot about the school says easy dumber. We had a lot of septic tank and pond warnings, similar to your levees. That it made every body of water feel suspicious. Like there was a lot of talk about currents near the river. There was the St. Clair River, which is between us and Port Huron, Michigan, like Sarnia and Port Huron, Michigan. So that body of water, you don't mess around around the edge, even though it's like built up and there's railings and like walking paths and stuff. But like there's always some story about someone's cousin's friend's uncle that got pulled out, right? And no one actually even really knows who it is. We were scared of water, right? So that kind of talks about your story too. But also, like on that note, power line warnings, electric fences, downed power lines. My goodness, if I had a leaf of Canadian brown for every time we talked about downed power lines in elementary school and what to do around them, oh, I'd be like, I wouldn't be doing this podcast. I'd be so rich.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

You'd be swimming in Canadian brown in a deep in a deep pool. Deep currency. Not the septic tank pool, but a brown pool, nonetheless, of Canadian currency. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Yes, and just as dirty. There were so many, so many warnings about power lines. And I'm talking about warnings in school. Like we'd watch some kind of little PSA video, or they were all on TV. And like someone was always dying on them.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Wow. In the school specials, or like in real life, you knew somebody who died.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Well, it was kind of like urban legend kind of stuff in the in the PSAs in the school specials, being like you stay away from power lines, and then it would inevitably show a child, you know, climbing up it and then shooting off of it from like a hundred feet in the air and then laying in a bed of grass.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Wow, the Canadians really were struggling with their own mortality in a collective way. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Not Canadians, just Southwestern Ontarioans. Okay, got it. Okay, just let just Landman County. We were really, really fighting it. Do you have anything like that? Like any weird PSAs?

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Anything we were we were told. Well, I you know, I don't know if this is a thing for you all, but like I grew up in prime dare era. Did you all have dare dare to keep kids off drugs? Yes. Did you all have that? That was, and maybe that was just big for me because I believed all of it. Like I bought it hook, line, and sinker, and it scared the bejesus out of me. Um, and my family's kind of prudish anyway, so like they hadn't seen drugs or understood it. So it was like the the dare thing, it was like, oh, somebody's gonna offer you something, yes, and you're gonna get hooked the first time and you're gonna die from it. And it's funny because now I work with addiction and sorry, you're gonna get hooked from it and you're gonna die from it. And you're gonna die, but that's what we believed. Like, I remember my sixth-grade gym teacher telling us the Len Bias story over and over again, and I don't even remember it. I want to say he was like maybe a college basketball player who smoked crack and had a heart attack, and that's awful. But like the gulf between a sixth grader and a crack smoking college athlete could not have been more vast. The only thing more vast in the difference between me and Len Bias than our predilection for crack cocaine was our basketball skills. Like, I couldn't be worse at basketball, and no amount of crack cocaine could turn me into somebody who could sink a shot from any distance. But that was a thing that I believed all that, and I really believed that they were coming for us, and that it was you know, that it was this big thing. And while I don't doubt that drugs existed, like it just wasn't the thing that people made it out to be. And it took me years to shake that. So that was kind of the the big thing. The power lines were pretty safe. Um well, not here. No, it sounds like it was a they were out to get you a constant threat. Predatory, frankly.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, the crackheads were coming to get you, and the power lines on concession 14 were coming for me. They're gonna find me.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I'm so glad we survived the hard streets of Ontario and we on air.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

We really, we really did it. We really did it. So speaking of concessions, concession road directions, normal language. And then that's probably like very similar for any any country living, right? You're gonna take the second line, you're gonna turn at the Johnsons, you're gonna take a left after the silo, and if you hit that bridge, missing the post, you've gone too far.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

So the question is, how did we how did we impart directions to each other? I don't want to be I don't want a big time Yeblin, but we had roads and street signs. And so they would say, you know, take you that road up to Robius Road, take a ride on Robius, and then take a ride. Like we're very, very clear about what all of our streets are named.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

You know what? I'll be honest. I I don't actually know. Okay, let me back up. So I remember when we got our four or five, six digit house numbers. I was still living at home when that existed. So I'm just picking my brain, like what happened before that? Like how silos. Silo silos, but what up what what's with all the silos? Like how like what is the deal with that? What is the deal with the silos? Like, what am I supposed to do? What did we how did I know was how did I know what that road it was if it wasn't named Rokebee Line? Sure, yeah, and how would my horse know?

SPEAKER_01 16:53

This is like some medieval shit. You're like, yeah, how did Canadians find one another prior to the thing? Somehow they managed.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

I'm having some kind of like like existential crisis on I don't know what's happening. Oh my gosh, my life is meaningless. The other thing, what? No, you go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

So imagine this. You're on what we used to call 80 highway, your lantern burns out, your horses are spooked. Yeah, you know, how do you even know? There's no GPS. What am I gonna do? You have to get out of your tent and you just have to wait for daylight. And that's just that's you make it sound medieval.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

You make yourself a nice bed with all the dead animals in the ditch.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

You look for a ditch and you treat it like a condo, and you just get deep down in there, you bring your horses down in there, you set up a residence, and then comes spring, you're ready to take another shot at navigating your neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, yeah. I think you just summed it up right there.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Um I love that. I love that I come from the country where there where where like guns are a persistent threat everywhere, including in schools, and yet you have somehow managed to outclass me in terms of like horror, terror, like living in a ditch, have getting electrical shocks, like like for a place where like measurably the threats of being around in your neighborhood and going to school were so much higher. You certainly lived in what sounds like a more fearful way than oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

I think the genre they call it in in literature these days is agri-terror.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Like aggro-terror. Holy shit. Did you just invent that? I just made that that's beautiful. We should see if we can get this listed as an agro-terror podcast.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Oh, I'll once we start putting this in.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

So it's agriculture, not aggro, agri-terror.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Agri-terror. Yeah, yeah, get it right. This is my this is my ancestry. This is my story we're talking about here. Oh, speaking of terror, there was a chemical plant nearby where I grew up. And it was in Sarnia, and the sky would do weird things.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Oh God.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

I'm just hearing myself talk. The sky would do things in the distance, and everyone just acted like it was normal. Like, oh, that's just the that's just the refinery, right? Or you go into Sarnia and it would smell, and you're like, hey, it's just the chemical plant. Okay, don't mind. Don't have the right to ask for more. No, you don't. Do you have anything like that in Virginia?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Uh, well, Virginia is again, I speak, I'm really speaking about Central Virginia because that's where I'm from, but we're the home of big tobacco or one of the homes between Richmond and Raleigh. A lot of big tobacco. So we killed a ton of people with our products and with the lies that were told about those products. So, you know, the good news is I don't remember hearing stories about the Philip Morris plant putting up weird smokes or smells, but I think that the the stack of bodies left behind by the tobacco industry is well defined. And I'll also say another thing we were known for was Richmond. I don't think it is this now, but the city of Richmond had a super, super high murder rate when I was a kid. And it was like one of the highest in the nation. It was usually top five, which was weird because it's not a big city. But what it was was it was the northernmost place where it was easy to get guns. And so it was a gun hub for the northern states where it was harder to get them. And so that was what we were told was a lot of the reason that there was so much uh murder in Richmond, Virginia. So uh, if I'm right about it, Richmond, you've managed to climb yourself out of that hole. Congratulations. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Wow, you know, way to go. Yeah. Way to go, Richmond. Like you maybe did it. Yeah. Take that, New Orleans. Take that, you guys. You can still have the bayous, but right, exactly. You can still have five for one Marguerite night. Yeah, you can still have that. We also, like right around where I am right now, and kind of near, because I'm only an hour away from where I grew up. When I was teaching, kids would still in the county schools. So I'm in the city, but the the school board extends to well outside the city. And in the county schools, kids would miss many weeks of school because they would be doing tobacco. They would be like harvesting tobacco. Harvesting it.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Oh, I didn't realize that tobacco grew that far north. Yeah. Wow. What I remember as a kid is that you could get to smokes for nothing. And I didn't smoke until I was of age. So I say as a kid, but I mean like really I smoked for a few years, starting when I was 23 or 24. And like in Virginia, you could get them for like a buck fifty a pack. It was astonishing how cheap they were. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

I didn't know anything about anything cigarette related because my dad told me if I ever even tried smoking, that he would buy a carton and take me out behind the barn and make me smoke every single cigarette in that entire carton.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Don't threaten me with a good time, Harl. Let me tell you. Will he do that for me? Because I'll be to go conference him right now.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I was gonna say, like, it's amazing. It just goes to show you that, even telling that story, I get like chills. And meanwhile, you're like, I'm sorry, this is the most enticed I've ever been to come to Canada.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Well, let me tell you, I mean, it's one of those things where you really have it's not anybody's first cigarette. You don't want your second cigarette to be 85 cigarettes all at once, but oh man, when I smoked, I loved smoking. And I was just I was just talking about this in my practice today that like. The big turn I had to make on that was realizing that I am not a person that can have one cigarette ever for the rest of my life. Like if I have one, I'm gonna have 20 and that's the end of it. So it was really a tough, really tough roller coaster to get off of.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yeah. Um yeah. Meanwhile, I'm just afraid and I just stick my head in the sand. And then it's it's fine because I also think I have an addictive personality when it comes to that kind of stuff too. Like if I like something, I am not known for my ability to close a bag of chips once it's been opened. Let's just put it that way. So I can talk myself out of anything.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

I take issue with the notion that any bag of chips is not a single serving bag. I think that all chip bags of all sizes are single servings, and that like the rest of it is arbitrary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

If you're if you're willing to commit, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

It's about discipline, really, but not the way people think.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

You know what? That's one of the things I really like most about you is that you are willing to turn the narrative right on its head.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Where it suits me.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

I'm an American.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

That's right. And I'm the Canadian, just in case anyone's wondering. The other thing, farm life. And you and I've talked about farm life a little bit on here. And I mean we've talked about the animals and the damage they can do to our ditches and each other, quite frankly. But what we don't talk about are the the silent killers on the farm, the hay bales. The hay bales, the farm equipment, augers, silos, grain bins.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Oh, I know this from the office. It digs posts, it digs holes, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, like the auger, you know when you see um, do you know what a combine is? Yes. Okay, with the big thing on the front on the front, right? And then all the stuff that it's chewing up is going up that that pole is the auger. And I'm very careful what angle I'm putting my hand here because we we want to make sure it looks like an auger and not a salute of some kind, right? Oh yeah. I know this is audio only, but those kind of things you can hear.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Just as a side here, Evelyn, like I I gotta say, I walk to work and I see two different guys on the way to work. And in both instances, I've taken on this finger wave that I do to them where I lift my hand and then I raise all my fingers because I'm so terrified that if I do like an open-handed wave, it's gonna look like I'm doing some kind of shitty white supremacy thing. So now I wave like too loo, like hello. Um, you know, like I'm trying to touch fingertips with them. Yes. But it makes me feel better because I want to be understood.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

So let's just for those of you who, which is everyone who can't see what Nick was just doing right there, he was holding his arm out parallel to the ground from his shoulder and twinkling his fingers.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yes. Yeah, like um almost not like jazz hands, but like, yeah, like uh I almost said jazz hands. Like I'm practicing guitar scales, but on the other thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

I don't think it was that noble, if I'm being honest. I don't think it was that you're like, yeah, it was like guitar practicing.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

No, it's like I'm sh like I'm shredding, like I'm gonna shredding it.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

It's like I'm like Ingve Malmstein, basically, call the way just to just shredding. And uh no, you were like literally hand out twinkling those fingies. You know what? Try that's I think it's very safe. I think it's very safe of you to do that.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

That's what I'm hoping for, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Did they do it in return?

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Um no. One of them kind of gives me a little like like a little like one nod salute. And then the other one does like a full full wave, like elbow perpendicular to the shoulder and then arm back and forth. But I'm not here to tell them how to do their work.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

No, but this is the best interaction I've ever heard. Yeah. This is and seems very uncharacteristic of what I know of you. Like to me, you're just this like chill, like I don't like this was very fucking wrong. You don't know me at all. No, I no, I mean like chill, not in these conversations, like you're not, certainly. I mean like more like out in public, engaging with someone. Do you know this person?

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah, I mean, I walk past them every day on the way to work, so it's like But you don't know them. I mean, one of them I talked, one of both of them I've talked to briefly. Hey, how are you doing? Almost getting off work, has you know, one there, one of them is a parking attendant, one of them is a security guard. And so, like, on some level, they probably have to wave to a hundred people a day, and I try not to engage them with shit that's gonna waste their time that they probably have to answer. But also, they're human beings and I walk past them, and so I don't want to be a thing where it's like I ignore them because that has different context whatsoever. But then I also don't want to do a full like still hand wave because that obviously has been ruined forever. So now I'm stuck like panomiming playing a piano for them.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Um with one thing. So that they know that I both acknowledge their humanity and that I'm racially harmless.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, that you're not a Nazi.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

It's delicate, yeah. It's really, it's really delicate.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Yeah, I think you've really um you've really found the balance.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Really thread of the needle there.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, well done. Um, you mentioned dare. A big thing around us as well was mad, mothers against drunk driving. Did you have that?

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Okay. We did have it, but it wasn't a big thing. Okay because people in Virginia like to drink.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Well, people around in Lambton County like to as well. And the problem is though, is that they get behind a wheel and kill a shit ton of people.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yikes, okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Yeah, it's really it's not good. Like the amount of people who died every year I was in high school, I shouldn't say they were all drunk drivers. Like there were a lot of farm-related deaths. Hayves. Uh no, like tractor.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Oh yeah, yeah, that's not good.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Or like suicides. That's this is not turning into a great podcast topic. But like a lot of drunk drivers, we had assemblies all the time, right? We're doing fundraising for all this stuff. Like, you weren't safe anywhere in Lambton County, Nick. You weren't safe on the roads, you weren't safe in the ditch, you weren't safe in the warmth of the hay bales. Those power lines were coming to get you. The septic tanks, the St. Clair River. It's a miracle. I am here.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Yeah. It really makes me want to take a moment to remember your fallen classmates. Oh, did they do one of those things in grade one where they were like, look to the left, look to the right. One of these people will not finish grade 13 with you.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Grade 13. You just love sneaking in there.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Like I'm gonna keep sneaking it in until it's abolished. Well, it doesn't exist anymore. So you've done your job. Oh, it doesn't exist anymore. Okay, that's great. Okay, well then, mission accomplished. You're welcome. You're welcome. Anyone who went on straight on to college or university after grade 12, you're welcome. It's because I'm here in the trenches doing the hard work.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Gosh, just we don't we don't thank you enough for that. The the hard work that you're doing all the way down there in Southern California for us up here in Ontario.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

You know, this would be so funny if we didn't have a vice president who actually said, Did you even say thank you? Like if we like I just wanted to part for a minute, and I know we're gonna talk about this soon, but like did you even say thank you?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

I didn't, but I I will now.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

No, but bring your face closer to my elbow. I have something I want to show you.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Oh, that's really funny. That's good. That's really good. Yeah. Well, Nick, I feel like we didn't learn much more about Virginia, if I'm being honest. Maybe the tobacco thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Maybe I'll maybe I should put on a like the people from Virginia are gonna be unhappy about this, but maybe I should do like a maybe I should do an episode educating you on Virginia. What I will say in closing is that Virginia does have the greatest state flag of all the state flags, um, which is very relevant to our time here. Have we talked about this on this podcast before? No, you and I have talked about it. You are talking about it. Okay. So for those of you out there listening, the Virginia flag is a uh is an Amazon standing with her foot on the chest of a fallen um king with his crown laying on the ground beside him. He is obviously dead, and she's standing there with a spear. And it says in Latin, six semper tyrannis, which means thus always to tyrants. The mission statement of the Virginia flag being, we don't tolerate tyrants here. We're a state that was established in part in response to tyranny, and we refuse to take it. And so again, I'm really try just trying to bring the funny because this is the the reason for this podcast is for Evelyn and me to laugh at each other and ourselves. But I also want to say, you know, this is a country founded on pushing back against tyranny and on democracy. And even though we have often failed in our attempts on rights for everybody, and we will not tolerate kings, I'm rooting for us to to fucking push back. Now, Evelyn, say something funny to make up for the for me getting on my soapbox here.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Well, once my grandpa brought home a dead possum in the dead of winter and left it in the barnyard, and I just kept poking at it, and then one time it kind of half defrosted, and then I could like stick the stick right in its mouth.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Hey, so thanks for listening to this whole episode, everyone. And hyperventilating. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry it got sorry it got a little weird here and there. Sorry, doesn't cut it. Oh my god. You don't you don't say that to Canadians because sorry cuts everything.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Everything. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We love you. We're so glad you're listening. Tell everybody you know, um, especially if you hate us, then tell everybody you know to listen to it because it'll be great revenge. And we will see you next time on the reverse jackass podcast. We could put the stick in its mouth. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Yeah, I was doing this like like I had a stick where's I just need a pen, like with its pointy little snoot and its BD. And I would do this with the stick. I would just like crank up the the lips and the gums, and then once eventually I just got the stick right in there. And my grandpa brought it on the like the back of his truck, and he's like, Here, I found this on the side of the road, and then just like oh he didn't put it in the passenger seat and let it and seat belted in.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Here you go. Nice and fuck up, little man! Nice and snug. Yeah, exactly. We're gonna go for a ride.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Some neighbors are besties, others quarrel bitterly.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

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

SPEAKER_00 31:35

It's American Canadian diplomacy. It's river.