Shampoo Timestamps, The Playdate Apocalypse, and that Glorious Jack in the Box Encounter

Nice Pull!

This week, Jeff and Chris spiral into a summer-scorched nostalgia trip that starts with a Texas Instruments calculator the size of a brick and ends with a Cub Scout uniform that looks like it was tailor-made for the Third Reich.

Somewhere in between: syrup audits, forensic shampoo tracking, and a wild rant about today’s coddled, playdate-addicted youth who wouldn’t survive five minutes in 1978 without a trauma counselor and a gluten-free snack.

Chris’s dad used to label every goddamn condiment in the house like he was building an evidence locker. Chris’s onlyjob was to shut up and observe the sacred math ritual known as "How Many Eggs Did We Eat This Month?"—performed by candlelight and calculator with cult-like reverence.

From there, it’s a hard pivot into the unhinged beauty of unsupervised summer vacations, back when kids were basically feral and the only rule was: “Don’t die before dinner.” They rail against playdates, helicopter parenting, and any summer schedule that doesn’t include whiffle ball, or starting small fires with stolen Bic lighters.

Also: sixth-grade camp as a proto-prisoner-of-war fantasy, the very real joy of impersonating a better version of yourself to a summer crush at Jack in the Box.

If you’re looking for life lessons, look elsewhere. If you want to hear two dads unravel like lawn chairs in the July sun while confessing their childhood crimes against structure and order—welcome aboard.