This is Episode 10 of the Ask Dad Labs podcast recorded on May 6 2021. It's simple you ask questions and dad's answer. When we need actual answers. We do find the experts. Today from Louisville, Kentucky, we have Nick. And he has two kids who are ages six and 13. And from Austin, Texas, we have clay. And he has three kids once in high school ones in college, and one is in the Coast Guard. And I'm Ben, I'm in the Detroit River just south of Detroit, Michigan. My boys are 11 and 13. And joining us today is an expert. We have Paige Hank law from the play think festival. Now let's get to the show.
that was the cream of the crop there.
Yeah, it really you really skim the best off the top Didn't you didn't think it was too cheesy mix a coward to talk about this.
Just I I don't have any good or equally bad comeback. And I would say that, you know, we've done 10 episodes now. And I was kind of hoping the jokes might get better as we went along. But I I'm not really feeling that trend.
Well, okay, so let me steer this another way. Alright. So we got, we got a letter from a listener. So let me let me just read it. This is the first the first part of it. He actually wrote twice. And he seems to have some urgent things here. So let's get into this. So he says, Dear Dad Labs, I have questions about two topics. My name is Brent, and I live on an island in the close to Canada. And the first question is about sleep deprivation. See my family got a puppy last week. Sometimes. You know, that's interesting, because I got a puppy last week. Yeah, that's Oh, no, he says not last week, some time ago is what he says. I see. And he says he was chosen as tribute to stay up with her. My dogs girl too. But But and and he's suffering. He has two kids, but they're a tween and a teen. Yeah, this is this is really any. And I don't remember how I survived those sleepless nights. I'm assuming I did. Can you help? Yeah. Well, I know the parallels. The parallels are really there. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's obviously not me. It's Brent. Yeah. No, I don't know how you went about choosing this. Out of the many, many letters that we get every week. I think usually it's it's the staff. Right, the staff goes through the mail. That's right. And we do now that staff and they choose one letter a week for us to really address out of the many that we get in? That's right. I think if any of them are fitting, if any of them are up to our standards. That's right. That's right. And it just it is just kind of I think the reason the staff chose this one is because of the remarkable parallels to the funny thing about it is I have no advice for Brent. Yeah, well, none. Yeah,
well, well, Ben, what you need to do I mean, Brent, I'm sorry, is I don't know maybe I attack it like what they tell you to do with a baby.
Sleep attack a baby.
I'm not attacking whatever. Sleep when it sleeps. Ah, and puppies are gonna nap a lot nap when it naps. That way when it's awake. You can
be awake. So did that work with you with your kids?
Not not as an infant. When they were two to three. Yeah, absolutely. I love afternoon naps. I still take afternoon. I'm 13 years and I'm taking afternoon nap still.
I used to my kids when they were sleeping because because, you know, don't get interested in they. They had these times when they would be like they would look like they were wrestling in slow motion when they fell asleep because they'd have like arms and legs twisted together and they'd be just sawing logs on the middle of a rug and They'd be, you know, Pampers up in the air and you know, slobber everywhere. And it was so cute. And I always took a picture and posted it on Facebook. So
I remember seeing some of those pictures like, what did they do? Did they just knock each other out? Hold back and I'm not getting?
It sure seems like clay. Can you even remember when your kids were that young?
Well, I can. But I mean, we also have gone through this puppy. So that's right. You did just recently for the Listen up, listen up. Right? I feel your pain. Here's the thing. I am a committed non dog owner. I love dogs. They're fantastic. And you know, I'm, I'm, I'm going to be celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary soon. I'm a veteran. I've got three grown kids. I know better than having a dog I just know better. It's just that one extra degree of chaos. That's gonna break. That's, that's it. That's the thing that's going to send us over the edge. I've been dedicated and sincere in my opposition to ever owning a dog. I love dogs. Bad idea when you're at like 90% capacity. Because then you're like 110, and then you're screwed. So I've always opposed having a dog, although I love dogs. And the kids, of course, all through their childhood, begged and begged and begged to have a dog. And you know, we always had one excuse or another we travel and we can't there's no room and you know, it's a small house. Anyway, we effectively my wife and I had a combined wall against dog ownership that lasted for 24 years. Until one day, I am away for business before the pandemic shut that down maybe I think there's like the last business trip before the pandemic shutdown all travel. I'm away. And our son who is a unenthusiastic student got into conversation again with my wife, who is by the way, his principal and knows his level of academic achievement quite well. gets in a discussion with her again about the dog and and fight and he says, hey, look, if I make on a roll, I want a Corgi named Dave. My. My wife chortled knowingly, and was like, sure abide. If you make on a roll, you're gonna have a Corgi named Dave. And he wrote out a contract, which she meet with me out of town unilaterally signs. He takes the contract. And it's very clear if if, you know, Cooper makes on a roll for the fall term of my junior year I am entitled to a Corgi named Dave. And he pins that over his desk. And guess what we have now? I was hoping Dave will pop up on your couch right behind you. Right. Yeah. I think he's out for a walk. Walk, which is usually and of course what happened. So the part of the Corgi named Dave contract, I had to you know, I wasn't part of that negotiation. I came back, I was incredibly upset to see that there's a signed contract and I wasn't party to and you know, then when it happens, we'll then ship I mean, you know, too bad. We got to get a coordinated. So we have the coordinating day. But before he came home, we had some clear rules about who was taking care of dog. And that had to be my son. So we got to crate we put the crate in his bedroom. And, you know, it just happened to coincide with, you know, we got the dog in February in March, everything shut down. And it actually ended up being one of the things that got us through the early months of the pandemic was having a puppy at home that everybody could laugh at and in shades and and, you know, fallen over and we had a lot of hands on deck. It but it was Cooper's job and his credit. He was the one who was up in the middle of the night, keeping it you know, with his hand in the crate. He slept on the floor for like the first three weeks that the dog was home, Cooper's slept on the floor with his like face up against the dog crate was there. And so I didn't have to do with the middle of the night stuff. And so, you know, teenagers are good at sleep deprivation. It's like their top activity. So I would say you know, I'm sorry to hear this is going on for you Brent, but you evidently have got two teenagers at home. And I think their sleep is less valuable than yours. Because they're young, so let them do the nighttime stuff. And, and then let them sleep in class because that stuff's not that important.
Actually, I just got an update from Brent.
Oh, he just came in over over the wire. He got a quick dm. As a matter of fact, Brent said that that he actually made a deal with his son, because he's doing some sort of teleconference thing tonight. Yeah. And, and Brent got his son who just came back from a one day of fifth grade camp, to let him if he would stay up and take care of the dog. Tonight, during that teleconference, he wouldn't have to go to school in the morning. So it sounds like he took your advice ahead of time. I mean, my my advice is so good. That it works like preemptively. That's right.
Like, that advice is so powerful. It went through the internet. Amazing. A week before the episode was released.
That's right.
listening right now,
the power chat lab. That's what a devoted fan Brent. is.
He behind your curtain?
No, no, you don't want to see what's behind my curtain. We've got a well, Brent. Well, so yeah, well, we'll get to that. So down the road.
So what's his next question?
Well, we're gonna get to that after we do a segment with your friend Paige. Oh, yeah. Yep.
Well, Mick, you've brought a friend today, pages here with us from plaything
page Hank, Lola is the founder of placing and play think as I know, it is a I see it as a flow fest Festival, where lots of Flow Arts, but I know that there is so much more to it than that. But that's what I participate in. Mostly, I will let Paige tell her story about it and how it came about, and how much more expensive it is than just Flow Arts. So take it away, Paige,
thank you, thank you for that beautiful introduction, I want to do a little dive into Flow Arts and exactly what that means to me. So there is this Russian guy named miles I will butcher his last name, I can't even begin. He talks about what flow is. And really flow is the meeting of challenge and ease and it's a moving meditation. It's where your mind gets into this spot where you can go through the challenging fun aspect and maybe not remember all of it. You know, I think I go back to being in high school PE and and you know, you train and you train and train you learn your instrument, learn, you know, to learn your steps. And then you go at the middle of a football game or whatever, and you do your marching band thing. And at the end of it, you were like, oh, did we just do that? I don't remember the last 10 minutes. Right. And that would be the example of flow. And when I started play, think I definitely had Flow Arts in mind. But only because I was a hula hoop artist. I've been hula hooping for about see that was 2012 started in Oh, three, so almost 10 years by then. And I had I was done. I couldn't find anybody else to teach me to further my skill. I was traveling within the region within the nation who has been opening for different arts events, other musicians, and I needed to know more. So I was like, Oh, I I ran into some friends who owned a farm. And they were like, I really want to do events here. And I was like, Alright, I'm gonna start a festival. I'm gonna bring in some instructors, and I'm gonna learn how to who better and we're gonna have a festival at her farm it'll bring them a little bit of money when when when well what nobody tells you, you know, when you go to start an event is that you don't actually get to take the classes have
to learn anything, right? But I did, I learned a whole host of other things. And I learned how to organize which is my new flow art. And it's a lot of fun. And that's really how play think came to be. You know, it was a slow and steady thing and extra gentle. This is a child running behind me
that we get it minor walking up above me right now. Yeah, and I'm so glad you it came about the way it did and that it finally came about. I found it via my brother who is a burner. And he had what's what's a burner burner? burner is someone who goes to Burning Man on the regular Okay, it's almost a religion. It's a retreat for them that it's just and from what I had known of Burning Man before. It was one of those things that I really wanted to go do. But I didn't have kids at the time when I wanted to go do it. All I wanted to do was go out, toke up and go windsurfing on a skateboard type thing on the playa in the desert. That's all I wanted to do like, dude, you don't want me to go because you're never gonna see me. That's all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna smoke, and I'm gonna go sailing.
See, I just want to build an art car.
Right? All those things. But there's so much more to experience there that I eventually said no, I'm not going to Burning Man simply because of the stories he would tell. But you know, the experiences were great, but the whole environment is not nice to humans. It all says Don't come here go away. You're not welcome here. Now I know Paige has been to Burning Man and loves Burning Man. Anyway, that's how I found it. They they were looking for regional burns, which is basically people who go to Burning Man, but they want more or more often. And so they get together in regions and kind of organize their burning trip and, and theme camps and things. And somehow I'm not sure exactly how he he found play think as a festival might have been just Flow Arts or whatever. And he's, hey, we found this festival. You got to come with us. And I had a six year old five year old six year old at the time. How old's yours because you were pregnant? Okay, so six years ago, so I had a six year old. It was just amazing. I mean, I, I'll tell my story here in a little bit, but I'll let her get into more of the. And that's what and that's what brought me to the they were like, hey, there's Flow Arts and they were getting into acrobats and acrobatics and things. So they wanted to go to this and learn some of those Flow Arts. But I will let her get a little more into how much it has grown into yoga and spirituality and art, and still all kinds of Flow Arts and slacklining and Ninja stuff and craziness.
So I grew up in a family, we went to rendezvoused which were these living history events where 1000s of 1000s people went and they lived in you know, 1700 style tents for the week. And it was very much a community based thing. Not a flow festival, obviously. But it was still a very community based thing. And then I would go home as a 10 1215 year old and I'm telling people about these things. And they're they don't understand they don't really accept their judgment. And as you get older, you realize like just how different everybody is and that we really all just want to be accepted. And we really want to be in a space that's that there's not judgment, and even small children and my son came home today. He's like, you know, Mom, big kids, they pick on little kids. And that's just like the story that is told over and over again forever and ever. And I wanted a place before I even had children and wanted a place that adults that humans of all ages could go to and be fully accepted and seeing no judgment and it could pass a complete stranger and smile and say hi. And to me because I've been to Burning Man and pheasant in 10. The first playthings 2012 it really inspired that environment. rendezvoused inspired it from when I was a child and then Burning Man and my dad took me to rainbow gatherings when I was like a preteen all of these things. I wanted more environments that people could really like, tap into who they really were, express it fully and be rewarded for it. And when we can have that starting as a child. Yeah, I mean, that's massive. So many people can't don't ever get any of that until they're an adult, we can start that as a six year old, an eight year old, a 10 year old, whatever, it's amazing.
And along that line, my six year old at the time, was very clingy. He would absolutely not go upstairs to go to the bathroom by himself. He had to be with you at all times in the same room didn't have to be sitting right next to you. But he had to be in the same room at the very least. So when I did go there, I looked at all the different things I'm like, Oh yeah, I might try to learn that or whatever. But I I went with absolutely no anticipation of attending any of the workshops. I was just going for a camping trip to go take my son with his uncles, and go have a family trip. My wife did not care to go camping and it was a week off, you know, a four days off from me and the kid for her so it was nice for her you know, because you know it was our first kid and you know, been right there for six years.
And
so I totally expected that I would take him around to various things for the kids and I would just be with him and it would be an experience for him and try to get him into the outdoors and get into camping. That's not at all what happened. When we got there. It's it was a pretty big farm. And we walked along we took about an hour and we walked along all the perimeter Robins Okay, you can't go past here. This is where first aid is. This is where they if you get lost or Scared something, this is where you go. And this is where our camp is from here and looked at where camp is from every side and every corner and just walk that around because I knew being out and able to run like that was going to be new to him and scary to him. Or so I thought that was the most time I spent with him that week. I mean, it was so bizarre. And I didn't realize how attached to him I had gotten and how used to him being there. I had gotten, I would be having a conversation like this, sitting at our campsite, leaning back in the chairs, whenever, and I would suddenly get this weird, panic attack. Where's the boy. And I would stop and I'd be like, excuse me, I got to find the boy. And I didn't have to go be with him. But I had to lay eyes on it. I had to see him to know that he was safe. Because I'd never experienced that before. In six years, I hadn't experienced that. He was always right there, you know, whatever. Sure. So I would get up and I would run the different points where I can see the entire thing until I spotted him and like, okay, there he is, I know where he is. And I go back and sit back down again, going back into the conversation. It was such a light switch for him to go from that clingy little kid to this kid that like, Oh, I can run over here and look at what's over here. And I can run over here and play on these things. And I can run over here to the swings and do this and and at any time what I get from that it's a it's a safe nurturing environment, then, yes, yes, it
will say for those kids, let's just worry about it too.
And, and all of the parents are kind of like, you know, there were a couple of times where he fell, and he got hurt. And someone walked him back to camp said hey, he kind of got hurt, and he was kind of mad and and I talked to him and he was like, I didn't want to come back to camp.
But she made me
kiss. He was crying and everything. So she you know, she's a parent. So she brought him back to camp. But one of those times he was like that I don't need you. I'm okay. I just fell down and it hurt. And it still hurts, but I'm okay. I mean, which was just so crazy to me. And then he went and he was looking at all the vendors and he wanted to buy something for his mom, because he's always very empathetic and very thinking about other people. I was like, okay, so I gave him money. And he was I was like, do you want me go with you to help pay? He's like,
no, I got it.
So I kind of spied on him when he did that. And I watched him as he went down. And he went into each little tent and looked it looked and looked around. And then he went in and he bought something and he never bought anything. So he comes back with this gorgeous little fan thing for his mom and his money wadded up in his other hand, and he just comes chucking back and he was just so excited. And it was from that point on, he was no longer that clingy little kid, he did not have to be with us. 24 seven, it's all because of the play think environment. He didn't really do any of the crafting, he did a couple of the craft things. But he didn't do he knew the Flow Arts. He didn't do the yoga, he didn't do anything really what I go to play think for, but it just opened up this world just to be out there to be able to experience these things. So talk about some of the other the spiritual things, the awakenings for other people's and an adult. But for for a child, it is absolutely mind altering. I wish I could have experienced something like this as a kid, I really do.
I feel like our society is set up in such a way that we have predetermined path for ourselves predetermined path for our children, kind of like you're talking about your child running around. We don't, we're not set up like that, right? We have five, six weeks, most of our children are in daycare, they stay in this one little daycare scenario, then they go to elementary school, they might have recess, but they're in this one particular pre determined area. And very rarely do kids unless they already live on a farm get to go and run, run them up and have freedom and they've never had that freedom. It's scary. And adults are the same way. Because if we've never had that freedom, we go from, you know, daycare, to elementary school, to middle school, to high school, to college, to grad school, to our jobs, whatever path we took. And we also didn't get that freedom. And so the spiritual aspect of play think in my mind is exactly the same for an adult as it as a kid. It's the first time it's like a pick your own adventure theme camp, where I want to figure out what else in my life is a path that I can take. I want to take the steering wheel and choose make the choices in my daily life what actually brings me joy. And that's a spiritual awakening. When you realize that you actually are like, in charge. You can take the wheel and like your own life lead your own person to actually choose what you're going to do day in and day out for the rest of your life. Man
Yes, I'm an adult, I can do this. No one. I
mean, no one's gonna tell me no, this is the silliest example. But I'm like I still do this last week. I really like sausage links. But I've only ever bought sausage patties, because that's what my family did. And that's what my boyfriend did. And that's what whoever did. In the last week, I'm at the grocery store. And I'm like, I prefer sausage links. Why have I not been buying sausage links? And so I did, and it was delicious. And I will probably always buy them from here. But it just took this moment of like, Oh, yeah, I do get to choose so. And I think that that moment is this spiritual awakening, we can call it we can do it different ways you can do the meditation and the healing. And we can go into the different paths of how you come into this awakening. But in my mind, the end game is choice.
Yes, freedom. And there's so many different things there that you can wear what you want, you can dance how you want, which is really good for non dancer, white man overbite, me, you listen to the music that you want, you can just sit and watch. And and people are doing crazy acrobatics, prop manipulations of all kinds. And at night, the places of absolute amazing, just amazing sight to see with all of the fire that goes on the fire props. And, and it looks crazy. And it looks as a parent, like, you know, kind of scary. But having done it, I know all of the steps that they go through to make it a safe place. They have a program that is geared towards kids, teaching kids how to do fire prop manipulation safely, you can learn fire eating, you know, the props that I do, the ultimate goal is to light them on fire at some point. And I've done that a couple of times with the flower sticks. I don't know that I'll ever light a context staff on fire simply because I've hit myself in the face with the context staff several times
that comments on that?
Yeah, I mean, that is, it is crazy, because it's heavier. And if that end had been on fire, that would be you know, right in the face. I've never hit myself in the in the face, at least not hard with flower sticks. So I feel like I can bounce that flame off until we do.
But anyway. Well, so there were comparisons with with Burning Man, which as I understand is is organized, you know, in the streets and zones, but it's not intentionally in advance in like thematic zones, that sort of comes later, right? Um, but is the setup more like a fair where, where there might be different zones for different different things?
No, not really, mainly because of size. We do all of the camping on one portion, and then all of the festival shenanigans on another portion. So you do you have to like walk through from your campsite to the main festival grounds to where there are workshops. And we have different workshop locations, about nine of them if I remember correctly, okay. And then there's the vendor area that's very predominantly set up in one place. But as far as you know, Burning Man is like it's very much set up on a clock base where you The roads are, you know, 1234 o'clock. And then in ABCD until you get to the center. We're not that organized. But we're also you know, 2000 people versus 70,000.
Right? Yeah, it's, it's,
it's tiny compared to, are there stages for music and presentations or things like that. So we have two stages. And I'm assuming the website has schedules for that. So if somebody wants to take a look at the schedule, before they commit, they can can take a look at or look at past few years. Maybe
they can look at past years for sure this this year schedule is done. And it is off to the graphic designer to be pretty FIDE and will be public soon.
And the website is
play think festival.com.
So we got we got Clay straightened out. I wanted him to see it a little bit before. He gave us some questions. And one of his questions is, what would you say to people who call this a rated g Burning Man?
I don't know. I mean, I think it's only rated g if you're not looking for it First of all, which I you know, I yell at anybody that I see anything going on. Right, right. But also like I'm kind of honored. All right. Exactly.
That's what I was gonna hope you said is like, thanks. It is very family oriented just as as a parent, I've been there. I have not seen anything crazy go on is also you said it's a it's considered a sober Festival, where you're not gonna get kicked out. If you're drinking a beer. If you're falling down drunk at the stage, you might get escorted at the very least back to your camp. And if you're really belligerent, you're gonna be out. But that's what they need. Well,
there's a lot of times that I call it a sober festival, but in reality, it's a belligerents free festival. Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly. That's just how much I have been. I have been drunk at play think. I I will drink at play think I will not be drunk at play think ever again. Because that was a very long night for me. Alone up on the hill. It was gorgeous. Because you could see gorgeous. But yeah, that was it was rough.
Yeah. There's no need to get wasted. There's so much other input there that you You do not need? Well, it sounds multisensory. So, so yeah, you don't need distractions of that sort of thing.
Exactly. I want the full effect. But it was still it was still great to sit and watch, you know, everything. But I'll drink at my campsite. I'm not drinking and going out. I mean, it's just it's not worth it.
Let's talk about the practical parts of that then if I think a lot of families are afraid of camping, Nick, you said that this year, you might get a hotel room or or something like that. I know we've gone in the first big event that I threw we camped in a tent. And the next thing we did that next Monday afterwards, we bought a camper with air conditioning. And so because she said there's no way we're doing this again, when you commit to camping, let's say what food options are their food vendors so that so you don't have to truck in all your all your meats and potatoes and cook spend all your day cooking.
So you can definitely bring your own you can bring your own cooler, bring anything that you want to have at the events. But we do have food vendors, we have five food vendors there is the roosters whistle which has coffee, we have Oh, let's see the holy crepe, which is all things crape, savory and sweet. We have so not going to remember everything right now. But we do have a variety of food vendors we have something called the festy bowl, which are like rice and beans and we have a fistful of tacos which are all kinds of different tacos really interesting mix of food that you really you can eat at from from morning to night for your entire your entire day.
And I will say as an attendee that the the food selection is great, just about everybody except a really picky kids gonna find something.
Alright, so that's that's the basics. That's that's the human parts. So the other part is admission so so you pay your your registration fee. Does that get you? Is that all inclusive of all the programs? Or do you need to add on extra workshops and things?
One ticket all inclusive?
Excellent.
Your food is still buy from the vendors. But you're correct. The event itself, all of the workshops, you can go to every workshop that you want to.
That's great, all the music, all the art galleries, all the workshops, all of the activities are included but there is a vendor market and a food market of course but other side
otherwise, we talked about a website you've got I'm gonna assume social media things do you want to plug those a little bit Do you have YouTube channel and that's where to start.
We don't have a YouTube but we do have a Facebook and an Instagram and both of them are our cat plaything fest.
And I'm sure there's lots of lots of participants post videos that relate to it so so everyone to pay attention to that can can take a look. Now let's let's go beyond that. So getting there. Let's say somebody from Saskatchewan or or you know, even further out Austin, Texas. What if, what if they want to go to this is there is there a nearby airport they would go to is there an Amtrak station? Is there a pony express sort of thing? I mean, it's it's, it's near Lexington so they've got to be horses.
We are two local airports Lexington and Louisville and by local i mean you know like an hour away. And from there we have a play think rideshare Facebook group that lots oh man and they figure out rideshares I've not seen anybody come in on a horse but I have seen people come in on go karts and golf carts and four wheelers. So I'm sure where there's a will there's a way
horses this year. Somebody's got to do it. And let's see and other other things in the area. What what are they attractions are there to see if a lot of people want to make like a bigger I'm assuming this is like a weekend and extended weekend. So what are the things are in the area that a family might vacation to?
I would hit up Lexington so I lived in Lexington for 1213 years and I'm Harrisburg is new to me in reality so play think was in Harrisburg for the first time in 2019. Which would be your off in 2020. For obvious reasons. And here's Vegas still there's not a whole lot there. It's a sleepy town but Lexington and Louisville only an hour away or bigger city. There's kids museums, there's restaurants there's all the murals in Lexington really get me I like to just walk around the city and do murals. I'm a very low key minimalist like parent I want to hit hiking spots. I want to hit Raven run near Berea. I want to hear I want to hit up McConnell springs and Lexington I want to hit up the very outdoor things. Not everybody's like me right.
Louisville has you know Churchill Downs we have a couple of us three or four pretty nice museums. We
talked about that a couple episodes ago
Kentucky Kingdom so there's there's lots to do here. We have baseball, we have soccer. So there are a lot of things to do in Louisville. I don't think I would want to commute to play think on a daily basis while staying in Louisville or Lexington. I'd want to stay a little closer. But you could fly in you know if you if you were taking a week vacation you can take monday, tuesday wednesday, stay in the city and then go closer to or go directly to in Killeen. I'm
sure Lexington and Louisville both have camper rentals. So
Oh yeah, I'm sure ways. And there are RV spots where you can plug up to water and electric. Those are limited. We only have eight
for 2000 people
they sell out within the first day.
Yeah for hookups. But you can still drive your camper there to a normal camping spot and dry camping spot if you will. And
bring a generator.
Yeah, bringing generate but all right. I don't know if your camp neighbors would appreciate a generator but they might because they can plug in and charge everything
you got. Everybody. All right. Well, Paige it was it was great getting to hear about this. So I want to give you one more chance to tell us the website. And what are the dates we haven't actually talked about the dates for it this year.
The website is play think play you know, have some fun, think with your mind festival calm. The dates are June 17 to the 21st. It's kind of different. We open up on a Wednesday night. So you're bright, bright eyed and bushy tailed on Father's
Day weekend, if I remember right,
it is always on Father's Day weekend.
Oh, there you go.
Yep. Always on Father's Day weekend. And I'm on a different note. Right now we're having a Mother's Day Sale.
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. And oh, I'm sure we'll talk to you about some other stuff here in the future. So
it was such a pleasure.
Thank You page.
Alright guys, it's a Brent has a second question he sent us. This is from that first thing. So we may get an update on this one too. But But I suspect we won't. He says, Hey, Dad Labs, it's Brent again. Remember, he's the guy near Canada. Another thing our dishwasher broke it like flooded the kitchen sort of thing. We're probably going to be with that one for a while. My kids, those tween and teen boys are really at each other when they need to work together on washing dishes by hand. My wife has suggested that we step in and do them ourselves. So you know things are desperate. That is after all, why we have kids? Thanks guys, longtime listener. Brent.
Ah, well,
there's only there's only a few of you in your family. Ben. I mean, I mean, Brent. So I, we do a lot. We make a lot of dishes. Could you not just let one of them do them and trade off so that they're not working together that they're new. It's your turn to do the dishes. It's your turn to do the dishes. And maybe you and Deborah, I mean, sorry, Brent and his wife? Well, I
think the issue Brent has is that you know, when you do dishes by yourself, you end up needing a lot more space on the countertop and stuff right? It takes forever. It really takes a lot longer. When you have a dishwasher you just load them into the dishwasher. And I know with my kids I don't know about Brent, but my kids when they load the dishwasher, one loads it when when and then or one puts away and then the other one loads and then And that loads then the next day he puts away. So they're putting away what they loaded. Right now I'll tell you that there's there's a problem with that strategy. And that is that they will not fill the dishwasher to optimum storage level and leave stuff for their brother to put in the next day. So that they have less to put away the next day. So they, they do less work filling the dishwasher, they do less work, emptying the dishwasher, they figure that part out, and they get somebody else to do the other part. And so they're they're really going for and I assume Brent's kids are the same way. I mean, you know, why wouldn't they
more than likely, I mean, everything else is
so parallel. That's right. That's right. I feel like he's my brother from my mother. And, well, they don't seem to understand it, my kids don't understand that if they work together, they can make this happen quickly. Right, you can do, you can dry a dish, put it away, write it, put it away, instead of having it you know, wash a bunch of dishes, put them in the rent, sink, and then dry each of those dishes independently, and then start the process over again. Right, because you just repeat, you know, the whole process in repeat. I'm a Henry Ford fan, we'd like assembly lines here in Detroit. So we want we want people doing their job and passing it on to the person that does the next job.
Well, your Brent's kids are old enough to you can talk to them and explain things they have a longer attention span than a goldfish a little bit, but, and it just I would just explain that to them. Look, if you work together, you're going to get this done in half an hour. If you guys constantly fight and don't work together, and we're going to have to go to today is your day to wash the dishes. Tomorrow is your day to wash the dishes. And you were it's gonna be potluck, you know, roll of the dice, whether who has lasagna day versus sandwich day dishes to do. And it's going to take you an hour each to do them each time. So it's up to you guys, you can fight. And we go to one person doing them. And you're going to take to take a lot longer to each of your days each time it's your turn. Or you can work together and it take you half as long. It's not a big deal. And everybody gets the same amount of you know, crappy day dishes versus you know, lasagna day versus sandwich day or whatever, so that they're old enough to understand that and make and let put it on them. Don't even like look girls decision. You guys can't get along long enough to do the dishes, then you're gonna spend a lot more time doing dishes
here. Here's the thing, Brent, this is very simple. You've got a broken dishwasher to call maintenance. What I mean, why don't you just call maintenance and they come and they fix the dishwasher? I don't know what Come on bread
homeowner, right? He's a homeowner. Yep. You don't
just call maintenance when you've got something is broken. And they just come and fix it.
Well, we call them repair guys. They're not necessarily maintenance. We don't always call the same people.
Oh, but the repair guys come in. They do it for free. Right. They just come and they fix it.
No, he usually $75 for gym just to walk in the door.
Oh, oh, okay. That changes my
perspective. I'm so useless on any motor stuff. Because I just never I love it Do any of it. It's like, just have your kids had chores that they had to do cooperatively though? No, no. My, I will tell you this. It's probably a great sailing in my parenting life is that I felt like my kids job was to do good in school and go to practice and like, do your if you're doing your work, and if you're, you know, taking care of your sports commitments, like that's your job. And my job is a little bit like pit crew. Now, I don't think that's smart. I wish that we had asked more than because my, my all my kids. They're just such slobs, and the military took care of my oldest one. My daughter kind of figured it out for herself. My youngest one is just a hopeless slob. Oh my god, his room is just shocking. But he's not in high school yet. So maybe that'll change. Yeah, maybe it'll fix itself once they get. But really, my feeling was your job is this. You know, it's school, it's sports, it's doing, you know, managing all of that. My job is to, you know, make sure that the dishes are in the dishwasher. And so we just weren't good about that. It was in probably means, you know, my All the sun leaves stuff around. It just leaves, you know, stuff out. And it's like, why wouldn't me because I always come along and pick it up.
I want you know, Clay, I'm gonna adopt that particular philosophy simply because it applies well, because we haven't done done well with ours either. And not because of that philosophy. We've just been bad at it. Now
he helps. You've got a philosophy that just happens to coexist with it works that works
best to do these things. You just got to get better in school, you got to do your and maybe that that'll help. But the boy does not always take initiative on chores, and particularly dog chores. But with the dog he never refuses. You know, he if I say to take the dog out, can't you hear him whining take the dog out. He gets up and he takes the dog out right away. He Oh, he always does do that. And here lately, if we ask him to do something, bring us your laundry. Bring us your dishes. Empty the dishwasher. We usually don't let him load the dishwasher just because we do all the pre washing and all that crap. He genuinely does do them. His room is also very shocking. I thought you were gonna say something else in his room his shit it is it makes me crazy. I have already told him Dude, I'm never come into your first place. Because it will just be
I'll tell you the dog. Getting the threat of getting a dog for us got their rooms clean, lickety split. Because you know, you say you know, dogs gonna choke on that?
Right? Yeah, that's one of the reasons you know, our dog is a COVID. Baby. We got him last summer, because we weren't going to be traveling. So we're like, yeah, okay, now we're all gonna be homeless, get the dog. And we got the dog and the dog lives in the back room for the most part. He does both things outside, he gets to run around in the house for about half an hour to an hour depending on who's home and who's doing stuff and who's eating or not eating or whatever. But for the most part right now, he still lives there. Because he think he's figuring it out. He's got to be outside to go to the bathroom. But for the longest time, if we let him out or whatever, he just get off the couch and go pee in the middle of the living room. Like, I can't handle that. That's one thing with a dog. I totally feel you clay. I'm not letting the dog run around the house and then finding
poop and no, no, no, not having new. Not cool.
So he lives in a very he lives a very sheltered life he doesn't live in is just in his cage, but it's still his safe space. He still goes back there when he gets in trouble or whatever. So or even I mean, he does
do an awesome. Okay, so we've we've invoked the dogs so that's the rule. So clay you've got Dave accordi
Nate already named Dave. Love it.
Nick with what's your dog.
He is a wild haired terrier. His name is Tico his full name is Tito Hector Juan semi well Torres, after Bon Jovi's drummer.
And we have punch key, which saw you I saw a punch key is a black Labradoodle with a with a white star on her chest. She is she looks like the the opposite on a color wheel of falcor from the neverending story, and in fact, today when I walked her down the street she likes to jump up on the curb. She's She's at right about nine pounds right now.
She's tiny. Well,
she was five pounds when we got her. So just few days ago, so so she'll jump up on the curb and then fly off the curb and those big floppy ears whistling there and her fur on her face goes flying back and she's got hair like, like the Golden Girls on top of her head. So she's got that bouffant going. She's got she's a great dog. But uh, yeah, we're getting through there. I mean, yeah, Brent, we, we sympathize. So. Right? Absolutely.
The dog was a long time battle for us to use like, no, we're not getting a dog. No, we're not getting a dog.
Well see, we have a cat, my cousins. I've got I've got a group of cousins that grew up in Arizona that had a rule that they publicized for our families. And that was that that every cat that you have means I think it's five years without that you can't have kids. And a dog was seven years without kids. So you had to the dog had to be seven years before you could have a kid and the cat had to be five years before you could have a kid. It was part of their rule to either not have not have pets not have girlfriends that wanted pets or not have not have kids to her a lot of kids. I think it was started as a joke, but but I sort of adopted that. I didn't want to have too many pets all at once. While we had kids so I work at But that's alright.
But I think having a pet, particularly cat and dog are rites of passage of children. I don't I don't like the idea of having you know, having a dog that's, that's really old when your child is very young, and having them experience that loss when they are really young. I think that really sucks. As a kid. I experienced that several times. But having an animal in the house, it's standard procedure for me. I'm a cat person. I love dogs.
Nick, I have enormous respect for you. But I completely disagree. Don't need an animal. It's like we're all barely getting by. You we can barely handle the shit that we've got. And you want to bring an animal in the house. It's kind of shit everywhere and keep everybody up on it. I won this argument easily for 24 years. And we and we're almost there. We're almost I I'm like 16 months away from having no kids. And now we have a dog. But it's
a Corgi named Dave.
He's adorable. Love them. But I was gonna be completely freaking clear. I'm telling you. I'm trying to arrange the family, our annual family trip to New England. Now you have arrived. Don't wait, like right now to try and get a dog. Like the airlines are not doing this right now. You can send a dog but you've got to ship it as freight there. You can't bring it on as a emotional support that's gone. You can't check it that's gone. You know, it's either got to be the thing that fits under the seat, which he's just a little bit too big for or you've got to ship it like a sack of potatoes. And let me tell you what they're charging you for that. It is bonkers. And I won't even there's not even time it's it's this would go on this rant could go on for literally hours. Now. the craziness of trying to transport a pet.
You're said you're 18 months away from not having kids in the house. It's your youngest. It's his dog. Right. So when he moves out, can't he not take the dog with him?
You can't have a dog. You can't have a dog with you. If you're like a freshman in college. It's like, you know, it doesn't really work that way there.
You live on if you live on campus. Yes, that's true.
But maybe my campus you
have a dog. My daughter will have graduated college should she'll graduate in 2023. And my graduation gift? Maybe day.
Excellent.
Awesome. Put a little bow on him.
Congratulations, a housewarming present.
Well, that's it. I should machine. That awesome.
Big thanks to page janklow for sharing the play think festival with us. And as always Big thanks to the Nichols and the Dawson families. We can't do this without your dads. So thanks. Asked Dad Labs is produced and edited by me Ben Folds and the food media productions LLC. Like follow subscribe and share across the social media landscape, wherever you find DadLabs Talk to you next time.
