IDS #217 - Sorry Folks, The Rock Museum Is Closed!

🎢🌊 This week, Mike's family adventure takes them to Virginia Beach and Busch Gardens! From rock sightings to hotel drama (cops involved!) and a surprise F bomb on a rollercoaster – you won't believe which family member let it slip!

Plus, we're diving into the ultimate debate: the best way to dry off in a gym locker room. 😆

One of our wildest, funniest episodes yet, and we can't wait for you to join the fun. Thanks for being part of our journey!

#VirginiaBeach #BuschGardens #FamilyVacation #PodcastFun #LockerRoomDebates

Transcript

>> Darin: One of my kids has started doing that's what she said jokes, like, all the time. And I don't know where he got this. Okay, I'm going to look into this because I have no idea where he's learned this. and while we were on vacation, the boys were supposed to put on their sunscreen. And once they put on their sunscreen, we were gonna go, and they were just yammering and yammering and yammering, and they couldn't get their act together. And Libby looks at him and says, guys, keep rubbing while you talk. That's what she said.

>> Mike: Oh, no. Oh, no.

>> Darin: And of course that's what they said. Yeah, that's unfortunate. And she looks at me like it's my fault.

>> Mike: Yeah, it is your fault.

>> Darin: It wasn't my fault.

>> Mike: I would have looked at you too.

>> Darin: I didn't tell them your fault.

>> Mike: remember the commercials in the eighties? They learned it from watching you got some big cow house way out that way, like 2 miles, but I don't see nobody. Cow house. Yeah. where they live. The cows.

>> Dave: Welcome to irritable dad syndrome, home of the 1982 world's Fair. Please welcome your hosts, Mike and Darren.

>> Darin: Hi, I'm Darren.

>> Mike: I'm Mike.

>> Darin: Welcome to irritable dad syndrome. This is episode 217.

>> Mike: Wow, we're having fun.

>> Darin: I sound like a robot. Introducing this podcast, Stump Woodley, a.

>> Mike: Longtime listener since day one. He's with us almost since day two.

>> Darin: I'm sure he's here with us 90 some percent of the time.

>> Mike: He is our most talky person on the chats. And he's being a little bit of a bitch tonight.

>> Darin: Yeah, he is.

>> Mike: He's complaining. So we have a patron, a paying member of our audience that mentioned that when I point this way and patrons can see this and anyone watching this live, that it wasn't pointing towards Darren. And when Darren pointed the other, he.

>> Darin: Asked if we could flip our cameras.

>> Mike: He asked us to flip our cameras. And we said, yeah. And then stumph, just threw a little fit.

>> Darin: How come you never do anything that I want you to do?

>> Mike: Yeah, shut up. because he pays us.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Right. And I don't care. There's no loyalty here. I don't care that you've been here since the beginning.

>> Darin: Money talks.

>> Mike: Money talks.

>> Darin: Yeah, walks.

>> Mike: How you doing?

>> Darin: I'm good.

>> Mike: Good.

>> Darin: Speaking of patrons, I wanted to mention that if you go to irritable dad syndrome.com, you can join our Patreon club. And it's a Patreon club? Yeah. There's like, it's a club.

>> Mike: We got some people.

>> Darin: Yeah, there's some people in there. Yeah, it's more than ten. It's plural. It's two digits. So if you join that, you get special privileges. Okay.

>> Mike: And, like, we'll move cameras for you.

>> Darin: We will.

>> Mike: But you do get access to all the episodes, all the uncut videos. If you add up the time of episodes and then the time of video, there's a whole lot more video content. we cut things out.

>> Darin: There's hours and hours of bonus content, available to our Patreon members. Anyway, what I was gonna say is, Patreon members. Our announcer, Dave Lay, when you become a patron, what he does is he records a voicemail message for you, and you can put that on your phone. So we have two new members. Our first one is Chad Bennett. He's just thrilled to be a member. And so Dave recorded a voicemail message for him, and this is what it said.

>> Dave: Hi, you've reached the voicemail of chad bennett. Chad can't come to the phone right now, and I have no idea why. You see, chad is a patron of a podcast called irritable dad syndrome, and his subscription fee entitles him to a voicemail message from me, Dave lay. Anywho, please leave a message after the beep.

>> Darin: Our other new patron is a lady named Amy octoon. She said that you two actually, misspelled that word. I.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Yeah. Anyway, she gets a voiceover to put on her phone, and this was her message.

>> Dave: Hi, you've reached Amy's phone. She's not available to talk right now. Where is she? Well, it's really none of your business. Who am, I I'm Dave lay, but that's not important. What is important is that you leave a message after the beep. This voicemail recording has been brought to you by irritable dead syndrome, Amy's favorite new podcast. Thank you.

>> Darin: So if you would like to have Dave lay record an outgoing message to put on your phone, become a patron. Okay. And then Dave will record that for you.

>> Dave: You're listening to irritable dad syndrome, Cincinnati's comedy podcast.

>> Darin: I wanted to mention a couple weeks ago, we released our best of, volume four. That is on irritabledazyndrome.com. if you haven't listened to it, check that out. Last week, I mentioned that I went to California with my family. We tried to travel on July 19, the day of the global it outage, and all kinds of crap happened to us. So that was last week. If you want to check that out? You can do that@irritabledadsyndro.com. this week, Mike is going to talk about the adventures that he had when he took his family on vacation to, Virginia beach.

>> Mike: Here's the deal. we have someone in the family that lives in between us and the Virginia beach. All right? So the plan was to visit this person, Bess's aunt, and stay there a night and then drive on to Virginia beach. Okay, we did that. We stayed with her. She's hilarious, by the way.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And actually, served fruit in the morning.

>> Darin: Wait, served?

>> Mike: Served?

>> Darin: Oh, I thought you said she surfed.

>> Mike: No, she didn't surf fruit. and normally, I'm not a big fan of fruit being m served in the morning.

>> Darin: Oh, I love fruit for breakfast. But she had, like, this with, like, with something else.

>> Mike: She had this, like, whippy cream stuff that went with it, and it wasn't, like, what I would do, which is, like, throw a whipped cream can in the middle of the thing and say, here, go crazy.

>> Darin: Right?

>> Mike: It was like cream cheese mixed with whipped cream and something else.

>> Darin: Oh, that sounds delicious.

>> Mike: It was really. It had cool whip in there, too.

>> Darin: Cool whip?

>> Mike: It was cool whip? Yeah, it was really cool. You put cool whip on, pie. Pie tastes better with cool whip. Then we left there, and we drove to the, Virginia Beach. M we've been to Virginia beach multiple times.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: We noticed something a bit off about Virginia beach this time.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: So the last time we had gone was maybe 20, 1515 years ago.

>> Darin: Okay. That's a long time.

>> Mike: Yeah. It was different back then. It's changed a bit, wasn't it?

>> Darin: Pretty much like, just where, you know, drunks go and college kids and, like.

>> Mike: That'S what it is now.

>> Darin: Like a really, really, really cheap Daytona beach.

>> Mike: That's what it is now.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: Back then, it was a nice beach.

>> Darin: Oh, so it was nice, but it's gone. Kind of.

>> Mike: It's gone. Myrtle Beachy. And no offense to people that like Myrtle Beach. I was about to say, the.

>> Darin: Last time I was at Myrtle beach, it was really, really, really clean and family friendly. And they had made it almost like Gatlinburg, but with an ocean.

>> Mike: I.

>> Darin: But before that, like, five, 6810 years before that, it, Myrtle beach was not clean and nice and family friendly.

>> Mike: So that's the way that Virginia beach is going on. It was kind of sad because me and Bess like that, but but we went. We we were excited to go there with the family. We get to the hotel, uh-huh, All right. Check in.

>> Mike: I've already paid the initial deposit.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And typically what happens when you pay the initial deposit, you only owe the remaining amount. So. Darren.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Work with me on this. If you buy something from me that costs $10.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: And you give me $2 in advance.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: Later. You owe me. How much?

>> Darin: $19. Wait.

>> Mike: I need you to use your brain.

>> Darin: Okay, so I've already paid you two.

>> Mike: You've already paid me $2. The full price of the item is ten.

>> Darin: Does the $2 accrue interest? No, I know this. $8.

>> Mike: Yes, yes. Owe me $8 now.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: If I demand $10, alarm bells should go off.

>> Darin: Right. Because I've already paid $2.

>> Mike: Right. So they wanted a.

>> Darin: That way, that would make the total $12.

>> Mike: Yes. So the price of this hotel. I'm gonna be nice was probably about double of what it should have cost.

>> Darin: Right, right.

>> Mike: I'm just.

>> Darin: That's okay.

>> Mike: When we went to destin last year, right. We stayed at a. It was basically a condo. it was nice. Yeah, we enjoyed it. We, cook meals and all that fun stuff we did. This time we were stuck in a hotel, because all of the nice condos. Unless you're gonna spend $25,000 a night for a ten family condo.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: Most of them were a block back from the beach. If you wanted to be on the beach, you have to be in one of these hotels.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: We picked the one that was the least horrifying, the nicest, and it had really good reviews on the websites.

>> Mike: I went ahead and paid the fee up front. The $2.01 night, the $2, as it were. I want my $2. We get in there and they give me a. They say, what kind of, What credit card are you going to use? Which is a typical question.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And I say, I use the one that I used for the original deal.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: Original deposit.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Can you use that on. And they say, well, we don't have that on file.

>> Darin: Oh, okay.

>> Mike: So it's already been charged. It was charged months ago.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: So then I was like, okay, I'll use the same credit card. They give me the invoice right there for the room.

>> Darin: Mm

>> Mike: And it's the entire price with that first night on what you usually pay.

>> Darin: As you when you check out.

>> Mike: Right. They want it up front, and they wanted the full price up front. And I said.

>> Darin: This is.

>> Mike: Yeah, this is 20% more than what it should be, which was a sizable amount. I want to get into how much this place costs.

>> Mike: But it was a bit, it was a bit up there.

>> Darin: A little bit.

>> Mike: Little bit up there. And I said, I've already paid part of this, so should I be paying the remainder now? And they said, we don't charge the, the first, the first night. I'm like, I've already. It, paid it. It's, it's charged, you know, it's, it's like I showed him on a thing.

>> Mike: Huh? It's right there, like, oh, we didn't, we didn't take that money out here. You'd pay, you'd have to pay this now to get the room. And I'm like, that doesn't sound right, but it's on a credit card, and you can always, you know, you can always, you can dispute the thing. So I paid it, but now the vacation is starting off with a little bit of a rough. It's a rough start.

>> Mike: Not like yours.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: Yeah, yeah. This is a bit like, you have to roll it down the hill and pop the clutch to get the car going. Yours was, the car's not there anymore. The car's on fire. So I'm a bit off.

>> Darin: So was the plane.

>> Mike: So bess can tell I'm a bit off. And I just, I look in the, in our. Cause I. Everyone has apps in their phone. I have all of our banking information right there, right? And I pull it up as we decide to go get dinner, because we're all a little cranky and hungry. We get in the room, we notice that the walls of the room are about as thick as two sheets of loose, leaf paper because we can hear quiet conversations of the people next to us.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: Like, normal voice talking.

>> Darin: And you know what? Sometimes that can be fun.

>> Mike: That factors into our trip later. It was a bit fun. At one point, we go to the closest, and I'm going to restaurant in quotes, the people on the Patreon, we go in there. And I was elated because there were only, like, two or three other couples in there. And they had, you know, it was open seating. You're right by the beach. It's like, okay, we'll get a nice meal. While I'm going through the records. Before they even got our drink order, I showed Bess they've charged us the full amount, plus another room. So I got on the phone with my bank. I told them what happened, even though the guy told me they weren't going to charge it.

>> Darin: This is. I love doing this.

>> Mike: This is, I love Chase bank.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: we use chase often. They will alert me. Hey, you've made a really stupid purchase.

>> Darin: You've been screwed.

>> Mike: You may have. Did you really order this or did you really buy this? And most of the time it's yes, because I make stupid purchases. I just.

>> Darin: Yes, I bought twelve YouTube funko pops.

>> Mike: just this week, just two days ago, I bought seven packages of spicy dill pickle goldfish. Number seven from target.

>> Darin: Seriously?

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Spicy dill pickle goldfish.

>> Mike: They're amazing. I'm gonna give you a bag when they come in, okay? You can't find them any. I found a bag of them in the kroger. Never would have thought that. About two or three weeks ago.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: I found a bag of them.

>> Darin: Uh-huh

>> Mike: Dude, I stood in that kitchen up there. Uh-huh I'm not kidding. And I ate half the bag.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I wasn't in this world anymore. I was staring off into space. My mind went places.

>> Darin: Mike, don't you think you've had enough? I'll tell you when I've had enough.

>> Mike: Were the most, I don't like goldfish.

>> Darin: I don't either.

>> Mike: These were the most boring.

>> Darin: They taste like cardboard.

>> Mike: These were the most amazing snack.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I've ever eaten in my life.

>> Darin: Spicy dill pickle.

>> Mike: Spicy dill pickle goldfish.

>> Darin: All right.

>> Mike: I went to. Since I had them, I got one bag. I was like, I'll try these out. Looks interesting.

>> Mike: I've gone back to Kroger. I've gone to target. I've looked at Walmart online, everywhere. Amazon, Amazon. Selling them for $10 a bag.

>> Darin: Okay? That's.

>> Mike: I found. I found a target.

>> Mike: There's a target out there.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: Has them for 287. A bag. Ordered seven of them. Then you may say, so target, that's.

>> Darin: More than $10 worth.

>> Mike: Target would not send it to me unless I bought at least dollar 35 for the stuff. And you may say, mike, why didn't you just buy $35 worth of goldfish?

>> Mike: And I just. I think at that point, it's. It's a bit overboard.

>> Darin: You know what? It's neither here or there. Yeah, there's this. We're all. We're drawing straws here.

>> Mike: Anyway. What was I talking about?

>> Mike: Oh. No, no. So we're at this restaurant drawing straws. Chase, Chase, Chase.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Hey.

>> Dave: What happened?

>> Mike: I, told him what happened.

>> Darin: Back to Mike's vacation.

>> Mike: We're sorry that happened. We'll block that charge immediately. I see here that you paid the full amount. We may need. We'll do an investigation. We may need to get a picture of the invoice they sent you, but don't worry about that now. It. Hold on. Enjoy your vacation. When do you think you'll be back? We'll be back after next Sunday. Okay? Don't worry about it until then.

>> Darin: Is that going to impact you, getting your room?

>> Mike: We already got the room.

>> Darin: I know, but, I mean, are they, like, when you get there, are they gonna say, oh, Mister Odal, sir, we have.

>> Mike: Yeah, I don't know. Okay, so I didn't care at that point. I was about winning the battle.

>> Darin: I hear you. I.

>> Mike: You may think. Mike, what did you do? Did you spend this whole dinner dealing with chase and these financial issues? that was all before the drinks were even ordered because this place had two or three couples in it. They had, and I counted seven hosts, like, people that seat you and go around the thing. They had three in the bar area, one behind the bar. They had another three, in this area that was right inside. And they had one walking around all over the place, taking orders and stuff. you may ask, what were these seven doing?

>> Darin: What were these seven people doing?

>> Mike: They were on their phones. I'm assuming that they were cooking and preparing meals on their phone and. Or putting orders in. But anyway, I ordered a salad, because I just wasn't that hungry. Bess and the kids ordered normal food. Wow. On. Nobody liked their meal.

>> Darin: Right?

>> Mike: it was terrible. It was, like, way over $100. And we're looking at, like, how did this happen? This is all disgusting.

>> Darin: Because you're at the beach, and they can charge you whatever the hell they want at a restaurant at the beach.

>> Mike: The end of the first day was. And then when we get back to the hotel, now we're hearing the yelling of the people next to us.

>> Darin: Oh.

>> Mike: So Bess wanted the room that was right next to where you can see the ocean, but that's also the room with the door that connects to the other place that we can hear.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: And the dude is yelling about something on the tv. The mom is yelling about something about the kids.

>> Darin: Right?

>> Mike: So we swap with the kids, and we get the other room that's kind of back a little bit, and you can't hear very much.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: All right. But all through the course.

>> Darin: So put the kids in the. In the louder room.

>> Mike: Yeah, put the kids in the loud room. Cause they don't care. They're loud anyway.

>> Darin: Well, they're not paying for it, right?

>> Mike: So, plus, it was also a little bit psychological warfare. It's like, you guys think you're gonna be loud. Let me. Let me put. Charlie and Andrew, go get him. Yeah. So, anyway, we begin to enjoy our vacation.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: we did, we went to the beach. The water was slightly warmer than the arctic.

>> Darin: That's Lake Tahoe.

>> Mike: Yeah. The first couple days, or I'm say the first day of the beach, it was. You would go numb. Like, when we go in the water, feet would be numb. Of course, Charlie and Andrew point out that you just get in the water and you get used to it. I tried that, and all that happened was I was numb from my neck down.

>> Darin: Right. Well, what I found is, yes, you get used to the water, but after you get used to the water and you get out and the breeze hits you, it was colder getting out of the water than it was initially getting in. So when I was at Lake Tahoe, I went in the water one time.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And I did not go the next. Sorry. Two days. I did not go in on the third.

>> Mike: So we ate at a few places. I have to point out there was a, buffet. Like, a really fancy buffet that we ate at that was recommended.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And we actually went there twice, which is funny, because I was complaining about how expensive it was and that we can't eat like this every night or we'll have to, you know, remortgage the house.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: And, then I was like, the huge seafood bar. Yes. Multiple ones. And then, like, they had a dessert bar.

>> Mike: It was great.

>> Darin: Was it one of them, like, $30 a plate?

>> Mike: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

>> Darin: But Jacob wanted to go to one.

>> Mike: So bad, I complained about it. I complained so much about the price. And then, like, two or three days later, I, told Bess we should go back. Like, really? After all that? After all the complaint about the price, we can. We can afford to go there again now. I was like, yeah, yeah. I had really good banana pudding.

>> Darin: Anyway, I love. Oh, God, I love banana food.

>> Dave: This portion of our show is brought to you by the extra salt shaker. Hi, I'm Dave lay, and my wife and I love having company over for dinner, but there's always that one guest who's always asking for the salt, and that's why there's the new extra salt shaker. When you have the extra salt shaker, you can eat your meal and have fun conversation without worrying if the other guests have enough flavor on their food. Also, people will think you're loaded on, the way home. They'll say, did you notice that they had an extra salt shaker? The extra salt shaker available where salt shakers are sold. Now back to the show.

>> Mike: We progressively, as the week went, it became more and more crazy next door.

>> Mike: Until one day we heard some very disturbing sounds. So we had gone to Busch gardens, and I'll get into Busch gardens here later. And we'd spent a couple days at the beach. Bess was done. She wanted to be inside for a bit, while I was taking the boys out to the beach.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: And little, nappy nap. Yeah. I'm trying to think the best way to do this. This is what I heard. This is what we heard. I want to go to the beach. It's a beach vacation. That means you go to the beach. You don't sit on your ass in a hotel room on a beach vacation. I can see the beach, but I'm not on the beach. I'm paying $3,000 to be at the beach. And I'm sitting in here. Look at you. Look at them. And not on the beach. I want to go to the beach. I'm going to the beach. And that was going on for about an hour, and then an hour. And then in response, huh? The man yelled out, can I get a cup of coffee? Can I have a frickin cup of coffee? Is that okay? I was very close to the Walter white, so right now what I need is for you to climb down out of my ass. Will you do that for me, honey? Will you please, just once, get off my ass? I'd appreciate it. I really would.

>> Darin: So the woman wants to go to the beach, and the man wants a cup of coffee.

>> Mike: He just wants a cup of coffee.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: It escalated back and forth. One of the last things I heard, and me and Charlie, we saw each other. When this was yelled, I, was back in the quieter room, and Charlie was in the loud room. And I wish I could recreate the smile that it gave when this came through the wall, but I just heard a, You just pulled out all my ass hair. The grin that hit Charlie and Andrew with that. And then, at best, almost choked, because she was. She was. We were eating snacks. She was just like. It was like popcorn. Listen to this. And I just said, I'm taking the kid. We're gonna go down to the beach. Are you sure you want to stay here? She's like, yeah, I'm gonna. She's like, she actually said, I'm thinking about calling the police because there was a kid in there, right? A child, right. And we heard sounds that maybe it wasn't good.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: Well, I guess I should be more specific. it sounded like somebody was being slapped. And we weren't sure if the dad was being slapped or I. If the wife was being slapped or the kid. And so best decided when I took the kids down to the beach, I get a text. I called the police. They're on their way. I was like, oh, anyway, the police came. They must have passed the family, because apparently he had recovered from his ass hair wound and had his coffee.

>> Darin: Had his coffee.

>> Mike: And they were going down to the beach while, ah, Officer Murphy was coming up. And they passed each other in the hallway. Best gave a description, you know, and said, this is what happened. I'm, you know, obligated to report it. They have kids in there. We're not sure what's going on. So I don't know what happened from there on. I know that they didn't get kicked out. We thought that they might get kicked out, right. But no, they were there the rest of. But they were stone quiet the rest of the trip. Like, yeah, yeah, crap from over there. Like, we actually thought that they'd gone left during that day. Yeah, but no, but it's like, don't.

>> Darin: People realize that other people are nearby?

>> Mike: See, we had a lot of time to think about this because we were there for a week, you know, and this is not all we did, but I told bess, I was like, we were the next to last room on that floor. They were the last room on the floor. We were the only neighbors that they had. So the only people they would have heard would have been us. And we're not that loud, so they may not have known that they're carrying, you know, all their. I literally could have taken this equipment there, and it would have been a, podcast episode. It was about that. It was about that loud.

>> Darin: God.

>> Mike: But, yeah, they calmed down eventually. Yes. Science. we went to Busch Gardens. Now, I haven't been to Busch gardens, Bess, and I cannot remember if we went or nothing. I went as a kid. I am a planner. I love to plan the different parts of the vacation. Yeah, we're going to Busch Gardens for one day. The kids I know wanted to ride every ride. Spoiler. We did ride every ride. But I was like, if I'm gonna get a fast pass, I'm gonna get. I'm gonna put down the money.

>> Darin: Oh, yeah.

>> Mike: For the fast pass.

>> Darin: Worth its weight in gold.

>> Mike: Yeah. Didn't need it. When we were there, we could have walked on everywhere. I think we used it, like, twice. And I will tell you that the fastpass is a. Is a. Might m more expensive than the Kings island fast passed. Oh.

>> Darin: And I haven't bought the Kings island fastpass, but we did get it at universal.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And the first day we were at universal, we didn't have it. We only had it for this. The second and third day, we rode single line riders, huh? And we got on everything.

>> Mike: Yeah. The fast pass. The fastpass was separate. The cost of us to all have fastpasses was more than the price to get in, the gas to get there. All the food we bought and the t shirts all wrapped up, it was still more expensive than that. But, hey, peace of mind, right? Because the way my luck works is that if we hadn't bought it, we would have never gone on anything.

>> Darin: That's true.

>> Mike: But we started out with the Loch Ness monster.

>> Darin: I said, I ain't giving you no tree fitting Loch Ness monster. Get your own money.

>> Mike: That's the one ride that I do remember riding with my dad, okay? Now, back in the day, when I wrote it with my dad, he was laughing and I was screaming and crying. At the end, we was so scared, lord. I mean, m. I jumped up in the boat, and I said, thomas, what.

>> Darin: On earth is that creature?

>> Mike: And he said, do you want to go again? And I screamed, no, and hit, him. And he thought that was funny. Everybody on the ride thought it was funny.

>> Darin: Right?

>> Mike: fast forward. We rode that first with the kids. Now we're with Charlie. We took Charlie to Kings Island a few weeks before we went to Busch Gardens, and we were still convincing him to ride roller coasters. He was at that teeter point of, I want to ride. I don't want to ride. Right, right. Busch Gardens has some of the most intense roller coasters I've ever been on in my life. They have the pantheon, which apparently is the world's fastest multi launch roller coaster. It has, like, all these, records. I think it was designed to train astronauts. Exceptionally intense. So let me describe the main draw of it.

>> Darin: Okay?

>> Mike: You come out of, and I will say this. All of the roller coasters at Busch Gardens, I'm convinced of this. I haven't spent any time to research it. I just like pretending that I'm right and going on with life.

>> Darin: That sounds fair to me.

>> Mike: They all did. Like, this little, like, the pantheon sends you through this little helix thing. Right at the start, the griffon has you go down this little dip that actually pushes you pretty hard up against the restraints at the beginning. They all do something at the very beginning. And I told Bess after the third or fourth ride that did that, I think they're doing that to test the restraints before the main ride hits. I'm convinced of it, because there's no other reason for them all to do like this little, All right, and then go. So the way pantheon, and people can watch the pantheon point of view, but it take, it's, it's all launches. There's, there's only one big hill, but everything else is launches. It lodges you through this court through, then it launches you up this hill almost to the top, and then you fall back down the hill and then launches you twice backwards up another hill, and then launches you twice more, just enough to get you over the hill. And then you're twirling and going through all this stuff.

>> Darin: Nope.

>> Mike: We rode the Griffin, which basically hangs you over this drop, 205 foot drop hangs. You there for about 10 seconds for you to scream against this rear and then just drops you and you go through the rest of the thing.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: There was one called the Alpengeist, which is. I recommend doing a point of view of that one. I don't understand that one. I wrote it and it's like the alpengeist. I think that's what it's called, alpen something. It's like Banshee. Okay, imagine banshee about three or four times longer than what Banshee is, okay? and then there's sections where you're twisting and you can't see where the track is, so you don't know which direction you're pulling. But everyone's favorite, except for Bess, was verbolten. Okay, so Busch Gardens is split up into different countries. There's Germany, there's England, there's France, there's Norway and all this stuff. And they all have their little. Scotland has the Loch ness monster.

>> Darin: Okay?

>> Mike: Verbolten is this German? You know, you're the gist, the gist of it is that you're in this car and you're on a racetrack and then you go through this haunted forest. Okay, we thought, and I watched a video of the ride. We, me and the kids thought, oh, this looks like a pretty tame ride. there's like, you go into like this haunted forest. There's like these little ghosty things. and then it looks like you just go to a drop. After that, I was like, we'll get mom to ride this. Mom was not, she was not interested in writing anything intense. Okay. Verbolten is probably one of the most intense rides at Busch gardens. We didn't know it until we were on it. In my defense. In my defense, I thought it was family. I thought it was family friendly. It has a couple of launches. You go on it. She's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I hear in the back, it's me and Andrew. And then Bess and Charlie are behind us.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: We get to the point where you're in the haunted forest and it stops you. It's hard to tell on the videos on the Internet, but what actually happens is the track drops and you free fall about ten or 15ft.

>> Darin: okay.

>> Mike: And then you come out into the open air and there's a drop right there. We all screamed various words when we free fell because no one expected it. And then when you come out into the open air and you see this huge drop, I heard very distinctly from Bess directly behind me. Oh. And then we were rolling towards the drop and I had enough time to turn around and say, did you just drop an f bomb? To which Charlie said, she did. She did. She said that. And then, and then Andrew turned to me and said, yeah, mom just dropped the f bomb. And then we went down through the. Down through the ride.

>> Darin: Nice.

>> Mike: And at the end of it, Bess, I just. In her dead serious deadpan voice, never again. Never again. Get me off of this thing. I want off. I'm done. I'm done. We're done. This is it. You can ride whatever you want to ride. I'm sitting down. And she was sitting down.

>> Darin: Done.

>> Mike: She was done.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: But, yeah, in her defense, that was a terrifying ride. Well, Hagrid don't know what's coming.

>> Darin: The Hagrid ride does that.

>> Mike: It does that. Yeah, yeah. Drops.

>> Darin: I had no idea. And then it started going backwards and scared me because usually when rides go backwards, those make daddy throw up.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: If they go backwards. If they. I can do a loop.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: But I can't do a corkscrew.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: If I. Corkscrew. Yeah, daddy throws up.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: I can do a loop. It does. And Libby keeps wanting me to explain this to her. Why? I'm like, I don't.

>> Mike: Everybody has their own thing.

>> Darin: I don't know. my body doesn't like the corkscrew.

>> Mike: I hated launchers until Busch gardens, and you can't hate them because nearly every ride there has launchers.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And after a while, I'm like, okay, I get launchers now. I still don't like flight of fear.

>> Darin: Kings island has flight of fear. That has that majority.

>> Mike: I hate indoor. There was one called the dark coaster.

>> Darin: Now, like, I keep thinking my head's gonna clack the ceiling.

>> Mike: Like I said, we rode every ride there. So, dark coaster is, it's basically flight of fear. It's in the dark, but you're on like, a motorcycle thing.

>> Mike: So you're grinding the handlebars.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I don't see how they don't have lawsuits against them left and right because you can't see where the tracks going, and it jerks you.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Left and right. So I. I mean, my back actually, I had a little bit of pain after that thing. I'm like, hell yeah.

>> Darin: Well, I told you, the last time I rode the beast at King's island was the last time ever. Thing beat the crap out of me. Absolute crap out of me. But I cannot ride that anymore.

>> Mike: But, yeah, we, we had an absolute blast. We got there right when they opened, and we stayed until, I think it was like 20 minutes before close. Burned off tons. Yeah. Space Mountain. Yeah. Retired paw paw on the space mountain. Same thing is, I like space Mountain to ride it once. And then when I really think about it, especially if you see the. If you've seen the videos online of the space mountain with the lights on.

>> Darin: No.

>> Mike: Yeah. You'll never ride it again. It's like, holy crap. You can see where they've, like, put foam on some of the girders. And I'm like, I don't think foam is what protects you from a steel girder when you're going 70 miles an hour. No, I don't think that. I don't think that helps.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: But anyway, yeah, we had a blast at Busch Gardens. We ate at a couple of more places there. on the beach. Beach. Let me see. Best learned how to use a cappuccino machine. I learned how to. There had an automated pancake machine.

>> Darin: I love those at the hotel.

>> Mike: Yeah, I thought it was. I thought they were nasty. I liked watching them.

>> Darin: Oh, wait, not the waffle machine, but a pancake machine.

>> Mike: Pancake machine. It had a little conveyor.

>> Darin: That's weird.

>> Mike: And you would push a button and it would just make a. Put a dollop of batter, and then it would just go through this conveyor. And as it went through that, it would pan bake them. It would pan bake fry whatever it is.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Make them into pancakes. And they came out the other end doesn't flip. No. What? Well, it's heated on both. It's heated on both. I don't know. Then whatever it is, Walter White did not design this thing. It's not good quality.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Good to try. Once I, developed a love for special K. I enjoy special K. Now.

>> Darin: You and Dave lay?

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Pretty good.

>> Darin: Yeah. Just the regular special K or the special K? Strawberry shortcut.

>> Mike: I don't like any of that fancy stuff. Okay. The regular K? Yeah, I like the regular special K. Yeah. Yeah, I'm down with that.

>> Darin: So what's so special about special K? Did you put sugar on it?

>> Mike: It's basically. You know what it is? It's Rice Krispies in flake form. That's literally all it is. It's Rice Krispies.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: Yeah. That's why I liked it, because I can pretend to be healthy.

>> Darin: But does it have any flavor?

>> Mike: Did you rice crispy flavor? Literally? No, I didn't do anything with it.

>> Darin: You don't need it straight. if a cereal, it doesn't have any frosting on it. I put, like, two teaspoons of sugar on it.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Did you do that?

>> Mike: No.

>> Darin: A fruit in it? A banana.

>> Mike: I put milk in it, and I ate it.

>> Darin: Okay. Yeah. You don't like milk because it comes from a cow teat.

>> Mike: I don't think about that. I've been. I've been eating.

>> Darin: Well, you do now.

>> Mike: Side note, I've been eating a lot of lucky charms. I've been really on the lucky charms kick, and I've actually started drinking a little bit of the milk at the end.

>> Darin: You know, people say they're magically delicious. There's no magic to it. There's two, you know, two pounds of sugar on that.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: and if that's magic, I mean, it's like, poof. Magic is sugar on your cereal.

>> Dave: This portion of irritable dad syndrome is brought to you by diff liquid concentrated wallpaper stripper. With its unique enzyme action, dif dissolves old paste and cuts wallpaper removal time in half. Hi, I'm Dave Lay, and I can't prove this, but I heard that Taylor Swift was seen at her local hardware store buying 218 ounce containers of. Until we find video or photos that this actually happened, we're just going to assume that it's true. So what are you waiting for? Go out there and buy some diff, the only wallpaper stripper endorsed by music sensation Taylor Swift. Now back to you guys in the studio.

>> Mike: Another fun fact of the trip is we. I needed to go to, a funeral on the way there, so I went to Tennessee while they were going to Virginia, and then I went up and joined them. In Virginia?

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I drove Andrew's car.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: I can validate. Andrew's car can go 90 on the highway for hours at a time.

>> Darin: He doesn't need to know that.

>> Mike: he knows it now, and it has, like, a hell of a sound system.

>> Darin: Was he with you?

>> Mike: No.

>> Darin: Okay. Okay.

>> Mike: He was on the way back. So on the way back, we picked up his car, and then me and Andrew were racing Bess and Charlie. Now, me and Andrew are in. Were in a car. A sedan.

>> Darin: An automobile.

>> Mike: An automobile. Bess and Charlie are in an suv.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: A mom suv.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: Okay. I told Andrew I drove your car, almost 90, all the way to your aunt's house. We're gonna beat mom and Charlie back home. They were ahead of us a majority of the trip.

>> Mike: I'd be like, there's no way they're going to get ahead of us. And then I would call Bess and say, there's a rest stop coming up here. She's like, yeah, we're there. You want to meet us there? It was like they were either ahead of us or just behind us the whole time. And I was like, how irresponsibly are you driving right now?

>> Darin: And she would say, you have a child in the car, woman.

>> Mike: You were ahead of me, like, for an hour.

>> Darin: I have a child.

>> Mike: And she's like, I don't know. I just passed, you know, whatever. And then Charlie, of course, every time we got. Is like, we're ahead. We got you. We beat you here, you know? But Andrew drove for a good 45 minutes of the trip. Some good highway driving. and it's hard. I will say this. It's hard to teach your teenage son don't drive 90 right when he's been watching dad drive 90 for the past 2 hours.

>> Darin: But, you know, you are so much more lax, and that may not be the word to use with your kids than I am, okay. Because you've let Andrew watch r rated movies that we still haven't let Jacob watch, and Jacob's, like, five years older than Andrews. And I'm like, okay, maybe we need.

>> Mike: To, you know, don't use me as an example. My dad took me to see robocop in the theater when it came out, and I should not have. I was Charlie's age.

>> Darin: Yeah. But, I mean, also, there was just a lot of. He never really asked to watch.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Any of those. But as far as driving on the highway.

>> Darin: Neither Libby or. And neither Libby nor I let Jacob drive on the trip.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Because I think it's like, when we're not driving, we just want to relax.

>> Mike: Yes.

>> Darin: If I'm not driving, then I'm gonna be constantly watching Jacob.

>> Mike: Oh, I was constantly watching.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: We switched drives when, we were at one point, we were on the West Virginia turnpike.

>> Darin: Mmm. M how much did you pay in tolls driving through West Virginia's total? Which West Virginia?

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: I'm gonna have to play the day.

>> Mike: I remember there. There is a rest stop there.

>> Darin: Mm

>> Mike: that has a gas station. Like, it's, it's. I thought all rest stops were like this when I was a kid. They're not. It was like a log cabin y looking place. M when I was a kid, it was a Howard Johnson.

>> Darin: Oh, I loved Howard Johnson.

>> Mike: Like, back when they made pancakes the size of the plate.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: And if you got blueberry pancakes, which you always did, if a place had blueberry pancakes, that's what you got.

>> Darin: Yeah. And they put blueberries on top of the pancakes, too.

>> Mike: Yeah, it was all over the place.

>> Darin: Yeah. It's like a blueberry explosion.

>> Mike: Part of the reason why I cut the grid as an adult is because as a kid, I did that. I thought of this while I was there. If you don't give it a grid for the syrup to go down in, it's gonna go off your plate. Cause the pancakes are so huge.

>> Darin: Right?

>> Mike: And that's what I remembered. And I remember I told Andrew when we were pulling off, it was a restaurant. I was like, oh, this place is awesome. They have the best pancakes. There's like a little gift store with random, like, bear heads and stuff from the woods.

>> Darin: Yeah, that's like the big bear diner and everything.

>> Mike: And we pulled in and. No, it was. I think they had a taco bell in there. And a, KFC.

>> Darin: Corporate America has taken over the mom and pop.

>> Mike: The gift shop was gone. It was just a. A little museum with rocks.

>> Darin: Rocks?

>> Mike: Rocks. Who goes to West Virginia to look at rocks?

>> Darin: Yeah. You pick up rocks off the ground.

>> Mike: The only rock that matters in West Virginia is a coal. Is a piece of coal.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: everything else is just a rock. A rock. Yeah, rock.

>> Darin: Rock.

>> Mike: I like saying that.

>> Darin: Rock. I want a rock.

>> Mike: We saw rocks when we went out west because they have minerals. They have, like, jewels. And out there that people went out there to get. In West Virginia, you get coal. That's what you get. Arrowheads.

>> Darin: I brought back a bunch of rocks from Yosemite and Lake Tahoe. Gave some to mom, some to my neighbor Chris.

>> Mike: It's a great place for rocks.

>> Darin: Yeah, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock.

>> Mike: There's a lake. There's a lake out west past death valley that's famous for people going there to get rocks.

>> Darin: Yeah, rock.

>> Mike: Rocks. You got your rough rock. You've got your polished rock, soft rock, big rock, hard rock.

>> Darin: yacht rock, progressive rock.

>> Mike: Just rocks. Stones.

>> Mike: Rocks and stones. Oh, yeah, yeah. Limestone. Sandstone.

>> Darin: Pebbles.

>> Mike: Pebbles. No, bam, bam.

>> Darin: Gravel.

>> Mike: Gravel. Pea gravel. Driveway gravel.

>> Darin: Uh-huh okay, okay. Rock. Rock.

>> Mike: They had a rock thing.

>> Darin: Like a museum.

>> Mike: Yeah, like a little rock museum. Oh, it was close. It closed right when we walked in.

>> Darin: Damn it. I wanted to go to the rock.

>> Mike: Museum at, like, 04:00 p.m. i'm like, oh, wow, we get to go to a rock museum.

>> Darin: Tears in their eyes. The kids got back in the car because they didn't get to see the rocks.

>> Mike: We're near the same age. You remember what gift shops on the road, especially on turnpikes for, like, when we were kids. Oh, they had the mad libs. They had this little, that freaking triangle thing with the golf pegs that go in.

>> Darin: Yeah, you get that, like the nut log, the pecan.

>> Mike: Excuse me.

>> Darin: My mom, whenever we would stop at a Howard Johnson, she always wanted to buy a pecan log roll.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: And you could get those at the Howard Johnson or fudge. Or you get one of them giant all day suckers.

>> Mike: Yeah. You know, and they had those, like the peppermint sticks, but they were all different flavors.

>> Darin: Yes.

>> Mike: 350,000 different.

>> Darin: I would always. I remember one here, I got one. A root beer flavored one.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: My God, I was in heaven.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: My fingers were all sticky.

>> Mike: Root beer. They had grape. They had strawberries.

>> Darin: Oh, the grape ones.

>> Mike: Shoe leather, everything. Every possible flavor that you think of. Rock. Stone, bevel.

>> Darin: I want a rock.

>> Mike: This is the stupidest show.

>> Darin: It is.

>> Mike: This is the dumbest show.

>> Darin: Oh, you know, we just an aside.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: A few weeks ago, my mom had a rental car because she took hers in to get her. She took her van in to get some work on it. And the car that she rented had satellite radio.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: And they programmed it to this channel that played nothing but yacht rock and yacht rock. Yacht rock is like Michael McDonald and.

>> Mike: Come, sail away. Come sail away.

>> Darin: Christopher Cross.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Yeah. Jackson Brown, singers, songwriters. Songs that you would hear, like, in coffee bars and stuff.

>> Mike: Probably not the Celine Dion. My heart will go you don't want.

>> Darin: No, no, that's not what you like top 40. Okay. Yeah. So every time mom would come over, we would all get really excited because we love listening to yacht rock. And she had to. She doesn't have a stereo system in her van now. And so we're all like, you know, it's like, nana's coming, and we don't.

>> Mike: Get to listen to yacht rock.

>> Darin: Yeah. No Christopher crossed. No, sir. No Robbie Dupree.

>> Mike: One of the greatest inventions. And we. We are not a, We're not a rich family, right. But we do have a, Internet, enabled thermostat, which is. I'll tell you, it was when they installed our. They had to replace our h vac because the last one, it just quit working.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: They were doing the install, and the guy said, here's your. This is what your thermostat is going to be. And I said, do you guys have one of those fancy Internet.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Thermostats. And that's like. That's an extra $50. I'm like, it's only $50. And then I can just control it from. Because what I wanted to do, was be in bed and change the temperature without having to come downstairs and turn it. I can change it on my phone.

>> Darin: God, you're so spoiled.

>> Mike: But hold on, hold on, hold on. The other benefit of this is I basically turn it off. I turn the temperature up to, like, 80 or whatever while we're gone in the summer, if we're gone for a week.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: And then the morning that we're leaving, I turn it back on through the phone so that when we walk in, it's nice and cool. But it hasn't been that way for a whole week. Just shooting money out into the ether. Into the ether, as it were. Yeah. yeah.

>> Darin: We see, we keep ours on because we have the rabbit that lives at the house. We don't want them to cook.

>> Mike: Yeah. we got the dogs shipped down to the old doggy corral.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: which cost a pretty penny, by the way. Thought about saying the best. They really need to feed them every day.

>> Darin: Isn't it amazing? All the. It's like, okay, so you book a vacation. There's your flight or your car rental or the cost of gas. Then there's your hotel. and so it's like, you look at the hotel, he says, okay, I'll pay x amount of dollars for a.

>> Mike: Week where you're living.

>> Darin: Yes. Okay.

>> Mike: And then you always have that thing of, like, well, we're not gonna be in there.

>> Darin: We're only sleeping here. Right. But you know what? That's not true, because there's at least one, sometimes two nights a week where we're zonked. We're not doing anything, and we're gonna veg out.

>> Mike: Yeah. Yeah.

>> Darin: And just. Just do nothing but sit there and binge watch. We watched, Is this cake one year, five episodes of. Is this cake? Is it cake?

>> Mike: We watched jaws one year and then went out and got in the ocean.

>> Darin: Yeah, it was fun. So you want a nice hotel room. But anyway, so you figure, okay, this is what the hotel costs. Then you get there, and it turns out that your hotel has 30, $5 a day fee to park your car.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Okay. Then there's the convenience, fee. What's that? There's all these extra fees. So your hotel that you thought was x amount of dollars is now x plus about $278.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And what do you do? Well, I'm not gonna pay that. Well, you're not gonna stay here. So you pay the extra fee, and then it's like eating out. Eating out expensive. And then you have to tip. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just.

>> Mike: It's just.

>> Darin: Yeah, it's all these extra little things that pop up and.

>> Mike: Well, with the dogs, what happens is, we will board the dogs now, back in the day, right. You just told the neighbors, hey, we're gonna be gone for a week. Good luck. And you would have a neighbor come over and, like, put food in their bowl outside.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: You know, and that they would just be outside. That's what we did when I. We never boarded dogs. Boarding dogs is something new.

>> Darin: Well, when I grew up in Virginia and we had outd what's called outdoor dogs. Yeah, yeah.

>> Mike: You just. Whatever. If you come back and the dogs are still there, they really love you. That's it. Then when we had Molly, we would border, and they would put it. They had, like, a kennel. And I was like, I'd still. I, ruffled my feathers a little bit. I got to pay them, like, whatever amount of dollars a day.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: but she needs to be fed. I can't just let this german shepherd walk around free these days. Now, all these places are like, here's the price for where they're going to sleep. Here's the price. If you want to. If we want us to give them a snack each day in addition to their food, here's the price per pet. Per petting. If you want to pet them for 15 minutes. You pay a price for that.

>> Darin: Like, they really do that, honest to God. I wonder if we get an extra $40 so that Conrad can get petted.

>> Mike: And then you get, like, a little report card with, you know, boo. bot didn't. And her food today, you know, the gold star. You know, marbles didn't piss in our face when we took him out. You know, whatever it is, we finally.

>> Darin: found a friend. When I worked at Channel five, his name was another guy named Mike. Believe it or not, there's more than one mike. And when we would go on vacation, we would take Conrad to Mike's house. Mike and his wife, Melissa, would watch Conrad for us. They loved Conrad.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And then whenever they would go on vacation, they would bring, they called the dog ding dong. They bring ding dong. Dog's name was Jasper, but like your dog, boo Bob, they kept calling him ding dong. So we would watch ding dong for them, and that worked out great because we would dog sit for them. They would dog sit for us.

>> Mike: Yeah. What are you doing just sitting here watching ding dong?

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Dave: Beautiful landscapes, magnificent rivers and streams of exotic and awe inspiring skies that fill your heart with joy. It's these images that trick your eyes into believing that you're traveling inside an actual bob Ross painting. Hi, I'm Dave lay, and I'm talking about. That's right, West Virginia. The only thing more amazing than the scenery is the fine folks that call West Virginia their home.

>> Darin: That's, right.

>> Dave: So take those vacation plans you have scheduled and throw them out the damn window. Schedule your next trip right now to West Virginia. Bask in the glow of luxury and charming southern hospitality. Learn more@wvtourism.com.

>> Mike: I got one more story from the trip. Okay, best mentioned the Surrey. The suri. Suri. Surrey. Surrey.

>> Darin: Surrey.

>> Mike: Four person bike thing.

>> Darin: Oh, not Surrey with a fringe on top.

>> Mike: So we thought this was going to be a fun little family thing. It ended up being, seeds for all kinds of arguments. I don't think you're peddling. You're not pedaling. This is hard because you're not pedaling. Well, dad's not pedaling. I'm not pedaling because you're not pedaling. I'm not gonna peddle. I want you to see how hard it is when only I pedal.

>> Darin: It's a four person bike.

>> Mike: Mm It's like a little. It's like a. It's basically like a go kart with four pedals. Now I have long legs.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: So my knees were hitting the frame of this thing every time I pedaled. So I would take a break from pedaling, at which point Charlie would point out that I'm not pedaling. Then Andrew was telling us all to shut up and he's going to pedal. And then Bess would pedal. I got pissed off at one point and I got out back behind. I started pushing it.

>> Mike: And then I got a wild hair up my butt. I'm gonna go. I wanted to go off road a little bit.

>> Mike: I thought it would be funny. Little did I know the road that I was taking had stairs. And we were headed towards stairs. Andrew, stairs. Somebody, uh-huh grabbed the break in the middle of me saying, we can make it. We're good, we're gonna be all right. So whoever that was that grabbed the break, it might have been bess. I think she saved our lives. But then we got back on. we're going down the road. You have to yield for pedestrians.

>> Darin: Sure.

>> Mike: That I think is. I think that's dumb when you're on a siri because it's so hard to get it going again. They should stop walking to let us go by because getting the thing started again. Start to hurt your legs.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: It's not fun when you're doing that.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: We decide we've had enough. We've gone maybe 50ft down the street, maybe 100, 200, I don't know how far we're going.

>> Darin: You rid the bike, 100ft later, you're done.

>> Mike: No, we went at least a couple blocks, but then we're like, this is horrible. We're going to take this thing back. There's a path for people to walk and then there's a path for these bikes to be on. And what do I see coming the other way? Walking on the path that you are supposed to be only using your bike on that we're on a horse. A blind lady with the cane going. I was like, am I in a frickin Jerry Lewis movie at this point? Is this like, You know what I mean?

>> Darin: I actually was expecting you to say two guys carrying one giant plane of glass or a bunch of crates full of chickens.

>> Mike: No, but I just. I just come very calmly. The family. I was like, charlie, Andrew, don't hit the blind lady.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: And then I'm like, I'm, To best, I'm like, why don't. Because she was with other people that had sight. You think they would have moved her to the walking portion?

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I don't know why they had her on the bike portion. She seemed like a nice lady. I don't know if they were trying to get rid of her.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: If they were trying to cause a scene, I don't know what was happening. But her cane. We almost ran over her cane because we didn't have complete control of this thing.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: There's four of us, and we're fighting the whole way, you know, so we're swerving. You need to pedal. You need to pedal. Not in the pedal. Watch out for the blind lady. And then we swerve. There's a picture of us that best posted on the Facebook, and we're all smiling. That's before we started. Yeah. Yeah. Afterwards, we're in that pissed mode, and then we go to eat something.

>> Darin: Well, when we were in Tahoe, I told you, we rented the e bikes, the electric bike.

>> Mike: Ah.

>> Darin: I wasn't used to the bike, and I had it in the wrong gear. So I'm still pedaling harder than I need to. and the elevation is whack. Okay.

>> Mike: Oh, yeah.

>> Darin: Yeah. And so we get to this top of this hill, and I'm.

>> Mike: Dying.

>> Darin: And I said, I'm gonna sit here for a minute. And Libby says, yeah, I'm gonna ride the track one more time. I'm gonna go all the way. Another Bonnie come back, and Cameron stayed with me. And after Libby and Jacob were out of sight, looked at camera, I said, is mom trying to kill me? Has. Did she mention anything about, you know, like, murder? M. Yeah. Because, you know, kill me for my money.

>> Mike: Yeah. Cameron's like, yeah. Oh.

>> Darin: Last week, I mentioned that when we were in Lake Tahoe, we saw a completely naked person on the beach. And we did. Person was, one year year old.

>> Mike: Okay. Okay. All right.

>> Darin: These parents were letting this completely naked ass kid just literally. Literally.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Rolling all around with sand everywhere.

>> Mike: Yeah. Okay.

>> Darin: And I'm like, what? What is wrong with you?

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Some clothes on this kid.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: That's not. That's not necessary.

>> Darin: No, it's completely. It was unfair because, I mean, trying to wash all that, it's gonna.

>> Mike: Yeah, it's gonna. Smart.

>> Darin: Yeah. Because when. When Cameron was little and we took him to the beach, he would sit there and just all day long, just put sand in his pants down. Sand down his pants.

>> Mike: That's what I do now. But it's.

>> Darin: So we're trying to clean him off. Right. He's got sand in every crack, every place.

>> Mike: yeah.

>> Darin: He's a baby. Right. So we're holding him up to this water fountain. This this thing trying to wash sand all out of his junk.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: He's screaming at us.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: That was fun.

>> Mike: Yeah. So now, yeah, I'm already thinking, you know, where are we gonna go next year? I don't, I don't know. I gotta think about that, but, yeah, I don't think it's going to be the beach. This is the second time we've gone to the beach in a row.

>> Darin: Mm

>> Mike: So we gotta find something else.

>> Darin: Yeah, we. I think we're gonna go back to the beach.

>> Mike: Are you?

>> Darin: I think we're gonna hit Hilton head again.

>> Mike: All right.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Okay.

>> Darin: We. Yeah, we had a, we had a really big adventure vacation. We had a. What's a, a do things vacation.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: I think our next vacation is going to be a rest vacation.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Not an adventure one.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: We can't do two back to back adventure ones.

>> Mike: I get that. It's about time to wrap this thing up.

>> Darin: Yeah, we're going to wrap things up. We want you to go to irritable dad syndrome.com. like I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, if you want to buy a t shirt, you can do that at irritable dad syndrome.com. you want to become a patron? If you want to get a voicemail message for your phone, you can do that. Dave Lay will help, you out.

>> Dave: Hi, I'm Dave Lay.

>> Darin: And if you want to listen to every episode we have, go to irritabledadsyndrome.com. check it out.

>> Mike: We got merch too.

>> Darin: Oh, yeah. Do we have the new merch?

>> Mike: I haven't released it yet.

>> Darin: Okay, got it.

>> Mike: The graphics are screwed up. I'm gonna take care of that this weekend.

>> Darin: Something new is coming up and you're gonna like it.

>> Mike: Oh, it's good.

>> Darin: There you go. All right. We hope to see you next week on irritable dad syndrome.

>> Dave: Irritable dad syndrome is a Mike Odell Darren Cox productions.

>> Darin: You'd think if there was a problem with your hair being pulled out, it'd be at Busch Gardens. Sorry.

>> Mike: Oh, m cough.

>> Darin: Uh-huh.

>> Mike: Can you crawl down, would you please inside, do me a favor and climb out of my. Could you do that for me?

>> Darin: Thank you.

>> Mike: I'd appreciate. I really would. He was pretty close to that.

>> Dave: Hold on. The show's not over yet. Irritable dad syndrome is going into overtime starting right now.

>> Mike: I gotta go check on the meatballs. I went to the gym. I've been going to the y. How long have we lived here? 2011.

>> Darin: Mm

>> Mike: 13 years. We're going to the same place for 13 years. Okay?

>> Darin: The same y.

>> Mike: The same. Why? It's the first time I've ever seen this and I don't ever want to see it again. So this is a public service announcement. You see people that are, have gotten out of the shower or who are going to the shower. There's occasionally. Ah, there's nudity in a locker room.

>> Darin: Yes.

>> Mike: Right.

>> Darin: And we don't need that. Yeah, cover yourself up with the towel.

>> Mike: I mean, I'm okay with. I'm fine with it, but yes, cover yourself up with a towel. There are some people that are way, way too comfortable with their own nudity. They'll sit there, they'll get on their phone, they'll read a book or whatever.

>> Darin: It's the guy naked. It's the guy who's standing at the sink, buck ass naked, shaving.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: Like, wrap yourself up, Chester.

>> Mike: So I used to go to the gym in the morning. I don't do it anymore because I go to work so early. It's. I'm not that guy. Right. I go after work.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: But I would typically, if I took a shower there, I would dry myself off most of the way while I'm still in the shower stall. And then get out with the towel. And then I go and I put on my clothes like a normal person.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: There are people that dry in front of the locker right. After the way the lockers are set up, if you're in front of your locker, you're in full view of everyone. Now, this person had clearly decided to take the route of drying themselves in front of the locker. When I come in there to get dressed to go into the gym.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: I'm turning to go over to the bathroom and I notice that he is vigorously and in my estimation, overtly drying. Uh-huh The crack of his ass.

>> Darin: Okay. Hello.

>> Mike: In college, all right, right. I had some, instances where I had some really bad diarrhea. Right. You don't treat your body well in college.

>> Darin: No.

>> Mike: You eat a bunch of wings, you eat a bunch of chili stuff. Then you go out and you have a few drinks.

>> Darin: or a lot of drinks.

>> Mike: A lot of drinks. And then you have some diarrhea. I've had situations where I've used damn near a full roll of toilet paper to, After going to the restroom.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: Right.

>> Darin: Okay, sure.

>> Mike: This dude was attacking his crack with his towel, with his towel, with his.

>> Darin: Towel, with his towel.

>> Mike: At that level. As I'm going to the bathroom, I can't not miss it, people. Why are you looking over there? Because I see scrubbing. Like vigorous scrubbing with a white towel. It's flopping all over the place.

>> Darin: You have the towel, like.

>> Mike: No.

>> Darin: Okay.

>> Mike: In one hand like this. With one leg cocked.

>> Darin: One hand out behind.

>> Mike: One leg. Yeah, behind. With the leg cocked out.

>> Darin: With the leg cocked out.

>> Mike: Getting all up in there.

>> Darin: All up in there.

>> Mike: I go over to the urinal, which is in a different room. I pee. And I'm thinking to myself, I think I just saw a topic for tonight. I think I just saw a topic for tonight.

>> Darin: Uh-huh.

>> Mike: I finished peeing, I wash my hands, then I walk back around. He's still going at it.

>> Darin: He's gonna give himself a rash.

>> Mike: When I saw him still going at it, I thought, I definitely have a topic for tonight. This is a bonus topic. Yeah, it is. Clearly this guy doesn't know this. I'm gonna let all you guys know. Gym etiquette number three, leave your phone away. There's signs in there to say, don't be on your phone.

>> Darin: Right.

>> Mike: I agree with them. Every once in a while, there's people in there on their phone. It's weird.

>> Darin: I. Yeah.

>> Mike: Okay. Number two, no one looks at anyone. No one has any conversations. No. You're not supposed to have a conversation with another naked man.

>> Darin: No.

>> Mike: Or another naked anyone.

>> Darin: No.

>> Mike: In a locker room.

>> Darin: No.

>> Mike: Number one, you dry as quickly as you can and get into your clothes. You dry your legs, you dry your arms, you dry your chest. One to two swipes over your front nether regions. M you hit your cheeks.

>> Darin: Yep.

>> Mike: You do the old thing on your back. Yeah.

>> Darin: The towel in both hands.

>> Mike: Yeah. Yeah.

>> Darin: The saw.

>> Mike: Yeah. The crack is meant to air dry.

>> Darin: Yeah. I saw a guy, this was when I went to four h camp, and he got out of the shower. And you know how you, As I demonstrated, this is an audio podcast. You got your towel in both hands and it's behind your neck.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: And you're going right, left, right, left.

>> Mike: To get your shoulders. Yeah.

>> Darin: Okay. This guy had his towel between his legs, and then his right hand was in the front and his left hand is behind him, and he was zig zig zig zig zig zig. Drying underneath the sack and the, cheek region. And he was going.

>> Mike: Taint.

>> Darin: The taint.

>> Mike: Yeah.

>> Darin: He was going to town on that. Like there was a stain that he was trying to rub off.

>> Mike: Yeah. It's not necessary, especially with permanent cloth.

>> Darin: I remember, I'm thinking, I was like twelve years old and I'm like, what are you doing?

>> Mike: Yeah, you can.

>> Darin: You're gonna get either or blood or something on that towel if you keep. You're gonna saw yourself in there.

>> Mike: And it's a simple physics problem. You don't need that many swipes across the old Jimmy to get it dry.

>> Darin: How wet are you?

>> Mike: Yeah. Are you creating water down there?

>> Darin: Is this an OCD thing? Are you like.

>> Mike: I don't know what it is.

>> Darin: Yeah, the towel goes. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't take much.

>> Mike: I wanted to tell the guy, you need to throw that towel away. A b. Yeah, yeah. You never go in the crack. You never, never go in that air dries. If you're good, you can saw the butt and get some angular hits on a, partial crack.

>> Darin: Uh-huh.

>> Mike: But you never go full in like this guy did.

>> Darin: No.

>> Mike: And he was using some force in there, and I know that because the towel was swinging around wildly while he was doing this, and he had his leg jacked, up. He was getting in there, so don't do that. No, don't do that because you may be doing that in a room where there's a guy that has a podcast that's going to talk about it.

>> Darin: Yeah.

>> Mike: I hope he's okay. I don't think he's sitting anywhere. Wherever he is, I don't think he's sitting down.

>> Darin: Put some preparation h on that.

>> Mike: Preparation. What the hell? Preparation. What the hell are you doing?

>> Darin: all right, guys. Talk to you later.

>> Mike: Thanks, guys.

>> Darin: Bye bye. Have a great day, and stay cool.