Ted strikes again. He’s behind on child support, so Mary Jo finds herself slinging burgers and fries. And before the episode is over - all of Sugarbakers is doing the same. Except for Charlene – who is having a baby IRL. Suzanne is absent. (shrug emoji)
Salina takes on Nibbles to talk about the art of fast food. Come back later in this week for a very special Extra Sugar where Nikki deep dives on the fabulous, Ms. Annie Potts.
More reads:
Dutch Elm Disease got a real moment in the sun with this episode, so check this webpage out, if you want to learn more
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
Or listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music.
Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Salina: And hello everyone, and welcome to Sweet TNTV.
Salina: Hey, y'all.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Look at that.
Salina: We're getting back into the saddle now that we're about to not be recording anymore.
Nikki: Just for a couple of weeks, then we'll be back.
Salina: Back to back.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: This is just everyone's reminder that when we meet and do recordings, we do three.
Salina: And this is the one where we tend to go into full blown mania.
Nikki: Oh, right.
Salina: We'll see how it goes this time, though.
Salina: So I was looking ahead and I happened to notice that when this episode, episode twelve, when it premieres, it's going to be April 10.
Salina: And that means something.
Salina: Means you're just going to have returned from the old Masters Golf tournament.
Nikki: It does.
Nikki: God willing.
Nikki: God willing.
Nikki: And the creek don't rise.
Salina: Are you going multiple days?
Nikki: Just one day.
Nikki: We're going the Friday of the tournament.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: So they're famous for their pimento cheese sandwiches and I just wanted to ask you a question.
Nikki: Ask me.
Salina: Ask away.
Salina: Because you love those pimento cheese sandwiches.
Nikki: I look forward to those pimento cheese sandwiches all year.
Salina: We talked about that here probably last year when you went.
Salina: I guess so.
Salina: I just wanted to ask, is it like are they really that good or is it what I like to refer to as the girl Scout cookie effect?
Nikki: Yeah, I think it's twofold.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I definitely think the girl Scout cookie effect is at play, which is I assume you mean like they make cookies that are better than Girl scout cookies, but because you can only get them once a year, that's what makes them special.
Salina: People go crazy.
Nikki: I think there's definitely some of that at play.
Nikki: I will also tell you though, i, one, don't eat a lot of pimento cheese.
Nikki: Otherwise it was something I ate as a kid, probably a little bit more than I do as an adult.
Nikki: It's just a lot of mayonnaise, a lot of cheese, a lot of stuff.
Nikki: So it's not a go to for me.
Nikki: Soft white sandwich bread is another not a go to for me.
Nikki: I don't eat a lot of white bread, so when I get that good old fashioned, like, super soft white sandwich bread like you used to eat as a kid, it does something to me.
Nikki: And that is what they do with the pimento cheese.
Nikki: Their pimento cheese is also not overly mayonnaisey, but it's also not overly thick.
Nikki: Some pimento cheeses, especially if I make it myself, trying to make it with like slightly lighter ingredients just to make it a little more nutritious, it gets a little bit thick and kind of chewy.
Nikki: Theirs isn't like that at all.
Nikki: So I think it's a little bit of both.
Salina: This is a good texture.
Nikki: It's a good texture.
Nikki: The soft with the chill.
Nikki: I'm so excited.
Nikki: I'm so excited.
Salina: I'm excited for you.
Salina: So I wound up going and pulling up a menu just to see out of curiosity since I cannot walk down those hallowed, not halls.
Salina: And there is a Georgia peach ice cream sandwich.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: You never mentioned this.
Nikki: There's probably a lot I haven't mentioned.
Salina: Have you had it?
Nikki: Well, it's good.
Nikki: It's good.
Nikki: Not great for me.
Nikki: It is not look forward to all year long.
Nikki: Amazing.
Nikki: But it looks good.
Nikki: It is good.
Nikki: They have cookies there that are really good.
Nikki: I feel like they've changed the last couple of years.
Nikki: And Kyle would better keep me honest because I just have such a flighty brain sometimes.
Nikki: But there was like a Georgia Pecan white chocolate chip cookie that I feel like they didn't have last year.
Nikki: There was something somewhere, either last year or the year before.
Nikki: Something within the pandemic.
Nikki: Some of the things that they had had before, they didn't have these years because they had some supply chain issues, which is like my least favorite phrase.
Nikki: But I think they had some issues.
Nikki: So some of the things that I really love, they haven't had.
Nikki: But the peached ice cream thing is good.
Nikki: It's fine.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I was wondering if because I thought I knew I'd seen Georgia Pecan something, but they also have a Georgia Pecan caramel popcorn.
Nikki: I've not had that.
Nikki: I usually don't.
Salina: That's exciting.
Salina: I feel like I love caramel popcorn.
Nikki: Popcorn gives me a really bad stomachache.
Nikki: So if I'm going to be out for the whole day, I'm probably not going to eat popcorn.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: So that's probably not a go to for me.
Nikki: They also used to have mini Moon Pies, which I can get a Moon Pie in a lot of places.
Nikki: Not a thing.
Salina: Not that many because I've tried to find them for you before and it was not without challenge.
Nikki: Really.
Nikki: Just run down to the Piggly Wiggly.
Salina: What Piggly Wiggly?
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: But yeah.
Nikki: So the moon pies.
Nikki: And that is something I think I am reasonably certain they did not have that last year.
Nikki: I also look forward to that because again, I don't eat Moon Pies that frequently.
Nikki: So when I go to the Master, it's pretty bad.
Salina: You know what they say, a Moon pie a day.
Nikki: I am surrounded by food bags at the Masters.
Nikki: They're like tucked in pockets in the chairs here and there.
Nikki: I put them in my jacket.
Nikki: I have them everywhere.
Nikki: I just eat a snack every 20 minutes or so there.
Salina: Oh, I thought you were calling someone a name.
Salina: I'm just surrounded by food bags.
Nikki: That's my nickname for Kyle.
Nikki: Hey, food bags.
Nikki: She goes and gets everything for me.
Nikki: One thing I will say is it's my dream to make it down there for breakfast.
Nikki: They have like chicken sandwich biscuits.
Salina: Yes, I've seen this.
Salina: I'm telling you, I really went in.
Nikki: I think we made it one year down there for breakfast and I think I had a sausage biscuit.
Nikki: It was fine.
Nikki: Hardees is better.
Nikki: The lunch is really where it's at.
Nikki: Pimento cheese sandwich.
Salina: So their biscuit isn't like it wasn't.
Nikki: Worth rushing down to Augusta for first thing in the morning.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: All right.
Salina: I see.
Salina: I also learned something else while I was poking around at these different events and menus, because you know how I am.
Salina: I don't care about sports.
Salina: And this is sports.
Nikki: It's sports adjacent.
Salina: Yeah, well, hey, be careful now.
Salina: What?
Nikki: I mean, it's like watching the Super Bowl, but really you're there for the halftime show for some people, the Masters, you're really there for the people watching the beautiful weather and the food.
Salina: Well, this is what I'm you can talk me into any sports event with the food.
Nikki: This is what I'm saying.
Salina: And they're all, like, a little different.
Salina: They all bring something special.
Nikki: I need you to rebrand the Masters in your head as sports adjacent, because if the opportunity ever does present itself for you to come, I don't want you to be like, I don't care about sports.
Salina: Well, it's got an ear full again the other day because Casey has submitted his name into the lottery for six years now, and nothing's come of it.
Salina: And I was like, well, the Masters have been around a really long time, so I don't think six years is a long time.
Nikki: Kyle's dad, I think he could keep me honest.
Nikki: Started in the early eighty s and got his passes in 2010, 2011.
Salina: Hear that, Casey?
Salina: Any day now.
Salina: Plus 25 years.
Nikki: His number could be coming, though.
Nikki: It's totally random.
Salina: Totally random, I'm sure.
Nikki: And I think if some of the old pass holders die not to be morbid, but it opens up space.
Salina: Well, fingers crossed.
Nikki: Per the dating segment, he may want to start stalking the obituaries.
Nikki: Each obituary control f masters.
Salina: Oh, my God.
Salina: The last thing I'll mention, because this really caught my attention to, again, food related Masters.
Salina: On Tuesdays of Masters Week, the Champions Dinner is hosted by the previous year's winner.
Salina: This is a thing I did not know.
Salina: The hosting champion golfer then selects a menu.
Salina: So I read through a bunch of different menus, like Tiger Woods had, like, fajitas on his, and some people would be more like cultural.
Salina: So there was one that was filled with all kinds of really delicious, like, Japanese food.
Salina: I just thought that was really interesting.
Salina: And it got me thinking, like, what would we put on our menus?
Salina: And so if you were going to curate a menu now that you have so much time to prepare for this question sorry, what do you think?
Salina: It doesn't have to be perfect.
Salina: What do you think you would put on yours?
Nikki: I think you just touched on it going cultural.
Nikki: I think I might go with, like, southern traditional food of some kind.
Nikki: So you mentioned earlier today, maybe off mic, I think a low country boil.
Nikki: It's good party eats because you just kind of spread it out on a table.
Nikki: It would be really fun.
Nikki: And it's different.
Nikki: It's just a different sort of especially for maybe some of the international players there.
Nikki: That might be different for them or maybe not.
Nikki: Maybe it reminds some of them of home.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: But that would be fun and really cultural.
Salina: Like a tie in for you with your South Carolinian roots.
Salina: Right.
Salina: Because I assume the low country is that low country?
Nikki: I'm not from the low country in South Carolina.
Nikki: But yes, that is where it would close by.
Nikki: It's in the same state.
Salina: I'll claim a Vidalia Onion.
Nikki: That's true.
Nikki: I also for sure would have creme brulee, I think would have to be on the dessert menu and also pecan pie.
Salina: I think we know that creme brulee follows every low country boil.
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: It would be fun to I'm really big into party favors.
Nikki: I don't know if that's a thing at the champions, whatever champions your dinner.
Nikki: But what if you just gave them moon pies to take?
Nikki: What if you just gave them, like, that buckies cookies to take?
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: So it's like an adult party favor.
Nikki: Exactly.
Nikki: Yeah, I think that's probably the direction I would go.
Nikki: Okay, that or Taco Bell.
Nikki: Just kidding.
Salina: Whatever works.
Nikki: But breakfast for dinner also would be really fun to do, like buttermilk biscuits and grits.
Nikki: You could do shrimp and grits.
Nikki: I don't eat that for breakfast, but some people would be okay with that.
Nikki: That might be good too.
Nikki: What did you think of well, the.
Salina: First thing I thought was I was like a buffet.
Salina: I just want people to have tell me more people to have the most options.
Salina: And it would be fun to have the lazy Susan type thing at the table, just like, really dive in.
Salina: But I thought about prime rib because I just feel like it's actually really hard to find now at restaurants.
Nikki: When did I have prime rib?
Nikki: Recently.
Nikki: Do you remember this?
Nikki: You told me all about it, and I'd never had it before, and I got it somewhere.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: You sure did talk on it, what I ate.
Salina: You would thought it was, like, fine.
Nikki: It's fine.
Nikki: It's like a really rare steak.
Salina: Would you still come to my prime rib dinner?
Nikki: Yes, 100%.
Nikki: Because it's probably going to be really good at Augustine National.
Salina: Yeah, if you don't mess around.
Salina: Be like a carving station, I think.
Salina: But definitely a starter is French onion soup.
Salina: And then I would also do a wedge salad.
Nikki: I love a wedge salad.
Salina: I would do pimento cheese grits.
Salina: It doesn't really fit necessarily, but I think it does.
Salina: Okay, I appreciate that.
Nikki: I think this fits.
Salina: I do asparagus with hollandaise.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: And I would finish off with a peach cobbler, though.
Salina: I thought about doing just, like a very locked in menu and then a dessert buffet.
Salina: So you have, like, of all the Southern desserts.
Nikki: When I said mine, I didn't frame it that way, that it would be a buffet.
Nikki: I would 100% want to have multiple options that people could choose.
Nikki: I love the idea of a dessert buffet.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And I really like the nod.
Nikki: Doing like a peach cobbler.
Nikki: Doing a nod to Georgia peaches.
Nikki: I think it's a nice touch for any champion to do sort of like a Georgia.
Salina: And I would give you all my peaches so I could just eat the lure since I'm so so on the cob.
Nikki: The lure is my favorite part also as well of any sort of fruit pie.
Nikki: I usually tend to eat around the fruit.
Salina: I'm like thank you for this fruit.
Salina: Well, I like to think of it.
Nikki: Thank you for these micronutrients I'll never eat.
Salina: I like to think of it as similar to the way in like a La Croix, like a strawberry dusting it's like a strawberry was sat in the next room.
Nikki: Just enough to flavor your crust.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: Just enough to flavor your crust.
Salina: Voice memo need T shirt.
Salina: Just enough to flavor your crust.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: You're welcome.
Salina: Speaking of having to have friends, to have really great ideas like that.
Nikki: This is all good.
Nikki: I thought it was a really fun icebreaker.
Nikki: Thank you for that.
Salina: You're welcome.
Salina: Especially after the last episode, which I'm like, I need like a three day break from.
Nikki: That's true.
Nikki: And I have also just it's been a time and I'm really keep looking forward to the things that are coming in spring and summer.
Nikki: Not wishing my life away.
Nikki: Don't hear me say that.
Nikki: But I have things I'm looking forward to and The Masters is one of those every year.
Nikki: So that was fun.
Nikki: But yeah.
Nikki: Sorry, Salina's transition.
Nikki: You got friends or having friends and whatnot?
Salina: Here you go.
Salina: Idiot.
Nikki: Talking to myself.
Nikki: I just corrected myself.
Nikki: Season Four episode Twelve sorry, guys.
Nikki: You got to have friends.
Nikki: The Hulu designingwomenline.com mashup description mary Joe is forced to take a job at a fast food restaurant after her ex husband falls behind in his child support payments, where Julia, Anthony and Bernice reluctantly wind up filling in after a crisis.
Nikki: Air Date december 18, 1989 and we're calling this one would you like fries with that?
Nikki: Child support.
Nikki: This one is written by Pam Norris.
Nikki: Pam.
Nikki: Pam.
Nikki: Directed by David Trainer.
Nikki: And we have trivia IMDb points out that Delta Burke does not appear in this episode.
Nikki: This is the first of several episodes in season four and five in which she doesn't appear or in which her role is reduced to a minimal part.
Nikki: This has much to do with the onset tensions that existed between Burke and series producers Harry and Linda Thomason.
Salina: There's so many errors in that.
Salina: I misspelled Thomason.
Salina: I know.
Nikki: I fixed it online.
Salina: I don't even know how that happened.
Nikki: I fixed it on mine because I couldn't kept touching my eye.
Salina: We've met.
Nikki: I have a problem.
Salina: Well, that's pretty egregious.
Nikki: It's bad.
Nikki: Like, when I see a typo, one typo, I can't read past it, and it's not snottiness.
Nikki: It's not like anything other than a tick of mine that I just can't live past.
Nikki: So general reactions and straight observations.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Started with okay, like, I'm getting taken to the principal's office.
Salina: The first third of the episode was very random for me, almost.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: It felt like they were filling for time or something.
Salina: I can't help but wonder if Suzanne's absence meant they had to do a really last minute rewrite.
Nikki: Yeah, maybe so.
Salina: Like, if some of these pieces were coming together like this trivia, just especially in the rewatch, I'm like, man, it feels like we're all over the place.
Salina: So first we get Charlie, and she pops in for what feels like her welfare check for the week.
Salina: Okay, good, she's alive.
Salina: Then we get a really bizarre explanation about Suzanne.
Salina: I'll stop there because it feels like that's a reference we'll want to cover later.
Salina: No spoiling for references I think you looked up.
Salina: We also get a weird snippet about Anthony's booming dating life.
Salina: And then Julia's making French macaroni and cheese.
Salina: Bernice is going on a two day adventure.
Salina: All this happens by the seven minute mark.
Salina: And we've hinted, but not confirmed that Mary Joe is having money problems.
Salina: Seven minutes.
Salina: There's only 22 minutes in an episode.
Salina: So that was my first reaction.
Salina: How about you?
Nikki: So I actually did not look into Dutch Elm disease, which is what they say Suzanne has.
Nikki: I did not look into it much further than okay.
Nikki: It's a thing.
Nikki: It affects trees because it's boring.
Salina: Oh, my God.
Nikki: What?
Salina: Did you not put that reference in our blog posts?
Salina: Did I do that?
Salina: And I don't remember it and came back and look, nikki looked up Dutch Elm disease, but it was me.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: I don't know, but it's relevant to my first general reaction.
Nikki: So we're going to leave it there.
Nikki: We're going to leave it there in case people want to look it up.
Nikki: Maybe I put it there.
Salina: It's possible.
Nikki: Anything's possible with me.
Salina: Or me.
Nikki: I'm wacky I keep you on your toes.
Salina: And then we don't remember.
Nikki: So my first general reaction is unknowable but related to what you're bringing up, which is the Suzanne gap.
Nikki: So they explain Suzanne not appearing to be, like, straight on the nose.
Nikki: They explain her not being in the show because she's at home quarantined with Dutch Elm disease.
Nikki: And as far as anyone can tell, she's the first human to ever have it because it is a disease that afflicts human being.
Nikki: I mean, trees.
Nikki: It's an interesting editorial choice.
Nikki: And I'm curious if you have a thought, did they choose this condition because it's a little frivolous and kind of.
Salina: Silly, like a wink wink?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And so does that allude to how frivolous?
Nikki: Maybe they're thinking this whole situation with Delta Burke is or is it truly just something random they picked out of thin air for like, shock value or whatever.
Nikki: Or to be like, of course that would happen to Suzanne.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: But I was just curious if you had a thought or if it struck you in one way or the other because it is so random.
Salina: The only other thing I can imagine is that but what a weird way to work backwards from a funny joke because Bernice does get a funny line about it, which is in my likes.
Salina: But yeah, I don't know, it was, like, dropped.
Nikki: And then they move on from it to your point, they come back with Bernice, but otherwise you're just sort of.
Salina: Like, touch elm and maybe we just feel weirder about it in this time where I don't know, we just came out of a pandemic not that long ago.
Salina: I'm like anything's possible.
Nikki: They said quarantine and my eye started twitching.
Salina: Yeah, I'm like, I'm joking now.
Salina: I mean, I've been watching The Last of US and that's about zombies and with fungi and so I'm like, what is I don't know.
Salina: So just for all of those reasons, those contextual reasons of today, I think that was another reason why similar to what I was talking about, it just felt like they were like was there.
Nikki: Anything in the headlines in 1989 about Dutch Elm disease?
Salina: Salina, let me tell you something.
Salina: I went to go read the stuff about Dutch Elm and I fell asleep in the second paragraph.
Salina: And I was like, I can't even.
Nikki: They are showing pictures.
Nikki: So it might I think it must have been me that dropped that link into the blog post.
Nikki: But not because I looked into it for a long time or anything.
Nikki: Because I made it as far as this is a picture of a tree with Dutch Elm disease and it just looks like a tree.
Nikki: There's no holes in the leaves or limbs falling off the tree.
Nikki: It's just a picture of a tree.
Nikki: Yeah, maybe it wasn't the best image to select.
Nikki: Interesting, my second general reaction, which is our point, I think, is also it's my second and last general reaction has no right or wrong answer either.
Nikki: But I wanted to discuss Julia's approach to Mary Joe's situation.
Nikki: So she was defending Mary Joe really firmly against Ted, which obviously I appreciated.
Nikki: That's what a friend would do, right?
Nikki: But she was completely bent against her serving fast food.
Nikki: Some of her remarks about fast food, some of the things she said.
Nikki: I mean, there are people in the world who rely on this for quick, inexpensive nutrition.
Nikki: I'm not saying it's the most nutritious, but there are some people it's better than not having food.
Nikki: You know what I mean?
Nikki: And she was like, so snotty about the whole thing.
Nikki: So her snottiness did make the payoff in the end where she had to work in the restaurant all the more sweeter.
Nikki: But it also was just annoying.
Nikki: It was just really annoying.
Nikki: And I didn't know what you thought about that.
Salina: Oh, I thought the same thing.
Salina: It's actually in my strays.
Salina: Just so you know, I said, Julia is such a snob.
Salina: That's my first sentence.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And they allude to that not allude.
Salina: I mean, they straight up say it in the episode.
Salina: Like, they're like, you're being snotty.
Salina: So she is called out for it.
Salina: But yeah, I just don't love it.
Salina: I mean, I get not doing it all the time for health reasons, but it just is to your point, it's like a lack of awareness or judging it without even having tried.
Nikki: Exactly.
Nikki: She also controls Mary Joe's paycheck as her boss.
Salina: I don't know where I put this in my notes, but it's somewhere in there that I was like, it's part of the problem that she needs to pay Mary Joe more.
Salina: And then I went down this rabbit hole of looking up how much interior designers made on average in Atlanta, and it's not clear, but it's not as much as I thought it would be, but probably not enough to support two children and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Nikki: And we know that Sugar Bakers allegedly does not do well financially, but we haven't talked about that in, like, a.
Salina: Season and a half successful business.
Salina: That much we're told over and over again, except for the two rich women.
Nikki: That own it and don't pay their staff enough.
Nikki: I don't know, man.
Salina: Yeah, it's like setting it up not to really look that great.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: My other general reaction is actually harkening back to something we did a couple of episodes ago.
Salina: This one, to me, felt really realistic.
Salina: Something in life puts the financial squeeze on you and you got to get a second job.
Salina: This is, like, unfortunately, an enduring plotline, but I think it would look somewhat different today with the gig economy as it is.
Salina: So I thought, like, we did two episodes ago, it might be fun to update a reference, if you will.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: So in this one, here's my idea.
Salina: Let me know what you think for our reboot.
Salina: So I could see Mary Joe doing, like, DoorDash Uber, Instacart, maybe even postmates, because with postmates, they can really ask for anything under the sun.
Salina: And that feels like really opening the door to some funny situations where she comes in on some weird activities or funny activities happening somewhere so we could see a funny interaction with kind of like an interesting customer.
Salina: And maybe then the app malfunctions and she has to ask for help to fulfill a bunch of orders.
Salina: Sugar Bakers to the rescue again.
Salina: But in this case, we get to see each of them react to different people in the wild.
Salina: Like, maybe Julia's over running a grocery order to someone and Anthony's out delivering.
Nikki: An elephant in the delivery van?
Salina: Absolutely.
Salina: Why not?
Salina: But you get the idea.
Salina: What do you think?
Nikki: I like that.
Nikki: That makes sense.
Nikki: I don't think I knew that postmates let you deliver anything and now my brain is going wild with possibilities or really do anything.
Salina: I thought so.
Salina: I think you may be able to run errands for them and stuff.
Salina: I think it's pretty general.
Salina: I haven't used it because I have.
Nikki: Something I need returned at Lowe's.
Nikki: You're saying they could do that for me?
Salina: I'm saying there's an app for that.
Nikki: Oh, wow.
Salina: Now somebody's going to tell me I'm not right.
Salina: But this is my understanding.
Nikki: Returns are really my Achilles heel.
Nikki: So if I could tell someone else.
Salina: And it's annoying because you wouldn't do that, they're going to like and you will be like, I'm very cheap.
Nikki: It's true.
Salina: It's very expensive to eat through.
Salina: This is going to ruin us ever being able to promote DoorDash.
Salina: But it's very expensive.
Salina: They tack on a lot of money to get that food to you.
Nikki: So we order crumble cookies a not insignificant amount of times, like special treats if the kids have had a great week at school or like this week, every night this week.
Nikki: I said I wanted a cookie.
Nikki: I just wanted a cookie.
Nikki: Sometimes a cookie is all I need.
Nikki: And so yesterday, two days ago, I mentioned to Kyle, I just want a cookie.
Nikki: And he was like, do you want me to just go ahead and order some crumble cookies and have them at the house when we get there?
Nikki: And I was like, no, because we learned if you go to the store and get four cookies, it's like $11.
Nikki: You have it shipped to your house or like delivered to your house.
Nikki: It's almost $30 for four cookies.
Nikki: And so now and always I just won't have a cookie.
Nikki: I will bake my own before I will pay $30 for someone to bring it to my house.
Salina: For sure.
Salina: I refuse.
Nikki: Yeah, I refuse.
Nikki: I'm too cheap.
Salina: Yeah, it's a lot.
Salina: So I have two more strays.
Nikki: Oh, we're on strays now.
Salina: Oh, I thought we went there.
Nikki: I thought we were on general reactions.
Salina: So the only reason I went to Astray is because what connected to your general reaction was my stray.
Nikki: Got it.
Salina: About Julia being a snob.
Nikki: Same page.
Salina: So we've never really been there.
Nikki: Go for strays.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Salina: I just have one question.
Salina: Who are you?
Nikki: Where are we?
Salina: What's happening?
Salina: Somebody say cookies?
Salina: Who's bill, do we need to start tracking Suzanne's absences?
Salina: Because they said it's going to happen a lot.
Nikki: I'm probably not going to remember to do that, but we probably should.
Salina: Well, if anybody wants to remind us down the line, let us know.
Salina: Should we do that?
Salina: And then I have some thoughts about Bernice and my straight is that I really want to go on this road trip with her.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: I mean, it sounds pretty amazing.
Salina: So this is her two days of adventure.
Salina: She just gets in the car and drives.
Salina: She stops at all the roadside attractions, especially the country western museums and the reptile farms.
Salina: I'm not really interested in that.
Salina: But I do like roadside attractions because they're kitschy and fun.
Salina: And then when she can't drive anymore, she just checks into a hotel where there's some action in the lounge.
Salina: Basically, she's just kind of a rambling girl, rambling gal.
Salina: And you know what?
Nikki: I love it.
Nikki: Oh, God, I can't imagine stopping at random hotels and going into the lounge.
Nikki: That sounds super creepy to me.
Salina: It does.
Salina: But gosh, I just go to watch her.
Nikki: Yeah, for sure.
Salina: And just spend time with her.
Salina: And I bet you she's really good at making friends places.
Salina: And then I realize I'm talking about not real people.
Salina: So then Julia's, on the other hand, is like, going to go to the.
Nikki: High Museum.
Salina: Because Bernice captures it and she says, no.
Salina: Julia, let me get this straight.
Salina: Your idea of two days of adventure is delivering chairs, listening to a guy talking about teacups and visiting a woman who might be a treat.
Nikki: It's about the long and the short of it.
Nikki: So I have three strays.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: There was something off about Charlene's bit in this episode.
Nikki: You called it like her welfare check.
Nikki: So one thing that I noticed, because this happened in episode ten, which is two episodes ago, where she just kind of pops in, does her thing, and then pops out.
Nikki: So something similar happens in this episode.
Nikki: Except did you notice that the audience didn't really laugh at her punchlines?
Nikki: Like, they weren't super funny, but they should have garnered a laugh or two?
Nikki: There was no laugh.
Nikki: I don't have a reason for sure, but I did notice that the blocking on the set had it in such a way that she was never actually in a scene with the women.
Nikki: They never appeared in the same shot.
Nikki: So what I wondered is if they filmed her separately and just had Julia and Mary Joe react.
Nikki: But like I said in episode ten where they did this, it was the house hunting scene.
Nikki: It didn't feel as noticeable as it did this episode, so it felt very glued together.
Salina: I think that's right.
Salina: I think they probably had her there was a little unevenness in the sound that makes me think that they did that.
Salina: What's the thing where you come back and you record again, like all of.
Nikki: Your dubbing it or voiceovers or whatever.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So I think they probably did something like that with this one.
Salina: And since they added it in, there wouldn't be a laugh track.
Salina: Now, what I don't understand is why they wouldn't just lay over a random laugh on that.
Nikki: That's what I wondered.
Nikki: I wondered the same thing, but I just can't imagine that nobody laughed.
Salina: Yeah, it was just.
Nikki: Super interesting how she just seemed separate from everybody else, and I just wondered if that's pregnancy related season filming related.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: The second thing I wanted to mention is, equally astray this is a stray category, mary Joe's hair looked super pretty in this episode.
Nikki: Like, the color was wonderful.
Nikki: The shine was out of control.
Nikki: It was super shiny.
Nikki: No flyaways or anything.
Nikki: It just looked really pretty out of.
Salina: Control in a good way.
Nikki: Out of control.
Nikki: In a good way.
Nikki: Yeah, it was wonderful in the very best way.
Nikki: We gave her kind of a hard time at the beginning of the season.
Nikki: It looked good this time.
Nikki: And then Julia had one more line about the drive through window that was cut, but it was pretty funny.
Nikki: So after she says something about impersonal service, she goes on to say, you just stay in your car, and they stick a greasy paper bag through the window.
Nikki: Why even slow down?
Nikki: Why not just drive through it 60 miles an hour and have them shoot the food at you with a cannon?
Nikki: I thought that was really funny.
Salina: Okay, you're bringing up something that is segwaying very nicely into a Salina sidebar.
Salina: Salina.
Salina: Come on, y'all, let's talk fiddles.
Salina: Salina's nibbles.
Nikki: Come on, y'all, let's eat.
Nikki: Not a Salina sidebar.
Nikki: I made special music for you.
Salina: You sure did.
Salina: My microphone to tell you out of excitement.
Salina: I'm so used to doing sidebars, I forgot that I'm nibbling.
Nikki: I made you music, Salina.
Salina: It's so nice.
Nikki: I had to tap back into my singing voice.
Salina: You did great.
Salina: Beautiful.
Nikki: I started by making it feel very copied and pasted together, and the first version I had had me going, Salina's nibbles.
Nikki: And then it just felt really aggressive, and I just really wanted you to have something beautiful.
Nikki: That's so sweet.
Salina: Well, I want to say that in my notes, I have Salina's nibbles.
Salina: And then I called it a sidebar.
Salina: So there you have it.
Salina: Well, here's the thing.
Salina: This is what I'm calling the art of fast food for Salina's nibbles.
Salina: And that's N-I-B as in boy.
Salina: B as in boy L-E-S.
Salina: Just to make sure we're clear.
Salina: So Anthony is the one who calls fast food art.
Salina: I actually might call it science or innovation, but no matter how you look at it, fast food is really impressive.
Salina: First, I looked up some quick stats so that we could see, like, how's the old fast food sector doing.
Salina: According to toast, they are pretty good.
Salina: They're hanging in there pretty well.
Salina: So fast food restaurants in the US.
Salina: Earned $278.6 billion in revenue in 2021.
Salina: In 2019, there were approximately 194,395 quick service restaurants in the country.
Salina: Let's call that 200,000.
Nikki: Let's do that, because I got lost.
Salina: Right?
Salina: About 200,000.
Salina: There's a lot of them.
Nikki: 200 million?
Salina: Thousand.
Nikki: Just 200,000 quick service restaurants in this country.
Nikki: That doesn't seem like very much to me.
Salina: Okay, we're doing good.
Nikki: I'm not impressed.
Nikki: I'm unimpressed fast food.
Nikki: Step it up.
Salina: Fair enough.
Salina: So speaking did I throw you?
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: Now I'm going to have to do math.
Nikki: How many is that per state?
Salina: I feel like that's a lot.
Salina: Please do the math live.
Nikki: It's about 4000 per state.
Salina: Do you think that's enough?
Nikki: Gwinnett county alone is enormous, but you.
Salina: Have to remember some places, like, you live in that rural, you live in that tone.
Salina: You live in that town with the Taco Bell.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I assume it's like we probably have like 8000 somewhere.
Salina: Has a Taco Bell.
Salina: Well, take it up with toast.
Salina: Maybe they didn't get the numbers right.
Salina: When we look at somewhere like McDonald's, for instance, they are in 119 markets worldwide with more than 39,000 locations.
Salina: And Mash.com reported that McDonald's sells about 75 hamburgers every second.
Nikki: So crazy.
Salina: I don't even think it's impressive.
Salina: Boring.
Salina: According to data from CDC, about a third of American adults eat fast food on any given day.
Salina: So that's about 84 million people.
Salina: That's a lot.
Salina: I'm not going to look, guys, this isn't about health.
Salina: If you all want to go look up health of fast food, that's a different Nibbles we're talking about.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: N-I-V-V-L-E-S.
Salina: That's a different segment.
Salina: So I'm not in any way saying that anybody should be eating fast food every single day.
Salina: We're talking about innovation.
Salina: So fast food restaurants have always been innovators.
Salina: I mean, fast food itself, if you think about it, is an innovation.
Salina: McDonald's, they're the OG of speed.
Salina: With their process mimicking the car assembly line.
Salina: They came up with what was known as the speedy service system.
Salina: And restaurants came from all over to learn and then adopt or rip off their methods, however you want to look at it.
Salina: To be clear, White Castle is actually the first fast food chain.
Salina: I didn't know that.
Salina: This was new for me.
Salina: And quick service restaurant established in 1921.
Salina: They may also call the assembly line system, like called dibs on that.
Salina: But we'll let McDonald's and them duke it out.
Salina: We'll just go get White Castle and McDonald's and eat it, I guess.
Nikki: But we don't have White Castle.
Nikki: That's right.
Salina: We can't have any White Castle.
Salina: We'll have to travel.
Salina: Any guesses who invented the drive through?
Nikki: KFC?
Salina: No.
Salina: Do you want multiple guesses or do you want to just call it?
Salina: It's up to you.
Salina: How stubborn are you feeling?
Nikki: Your mom?
Salina: Like a slam.
Salina: So many claim it, but the honor seemingly is held by a little burger joint known as in and out.
Salina: The worst.
Salina: Okay, so actually this kind of blew my mind.
Salina: McDonald's didn't get their first drive through until the mid 70s.
Salina: Nicky, maybe.
Salina: Is this Nikki's Nibbles?
Salina: Or is it Salina's Nibbles?
Salina: That's N-I-B-B-L-E-S as in B, as in boys.
Nikki: She usually tells me to participate at.
Salina: The same time so the double drive through doesn't arrive until the do you know who you can think for?
Salina: The cup holder in your car?
Salina: Fast food.
Nikki: Fast food.
Salina: You're really good at this.
Nikki: I'm really good at this.
Salina: Stop doing that.
Salina: People are going to think I'd be tied up to a chair.
Salina: Don't you?
Salina: Like I said, guys, third episode.
Salina: All right, so let's talk about some newer innovations.
Salina: How about we'll start with Domino's?
Salina: This pizza behemoth reportedly is worth $9 billion.
Salina: Long gone are the days of calling in, like, some caveman or cave person.
Salina: If you've set up an easy order account today, you can tweet a pizza emoji to at Domino's and they'll deliver.
Salina: Or how about what they call their zero click app, which takes one click, but you simply open up the app, find my easy order, wait 10 seconds.
Salina: If you do nothing, your favorite pizza will be headed your way.
Nikki: That seems more complicated than just pushing a button.
Salina: I think the reason they do that, though did you just open it?
Salina: If you open it and it automatically delivered, like, what if you just accidentally opened your app and you got a pizza?
Salina: What's the problem?
Salina: Sounds great.
Salina: Well, I'll let you call Domino's and let them know it's stupid.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: All right.
Salina: Another big innovation robots.
Salina: According to Business Insider, or as I spelled it here in Bircider, they're taking orders, they're prepping food, and they're delivering it.
Salina: So Chipotle has Chippy, a kitchen assistant helping make tortilla chips in one California location.
Salina: Now, this is interesting.
Salina: So they've programmed it to be inconsistent, to appear more like human made chips.
Nikki: Oh, no.
Salina: White Castle has Flippy, the robot cook, and it sounds like they can take on a number of tasks, including managing the fry station.
Salina: A flippy wings has been tested by Buffalo wild wings.
Salina: There's a coffee robot that was being tested when this article was published in the fall of last year, I think, at Panera Bread.
Salina: And then restaurants are also experimenting with ones that make pizza smoothies.
Salina: You name it, they're trying it.
Salina: Chipotle, Domino's, and Chickfila are all testing robot deliveries as well.
Salina: This gives Nikki the Heebie GB's, as you could see from her eyes, for when we get taken over.
Nikki: It's coming.
Nikki: We're going to get taken over.
Nikki: And also, what an interesting reaction to people asking for a living wage to develop robots.
Salina: Oh, God.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: You know what?
Nikki: Time to speed up innovation so we don't have to pay anybody.
Salina: Oh, my God.
Salina: Well, it's not just honestly, though, I was reading something, and it's not just driven by the industry.
Salina: That's also being driven by customers, because the clientele are telling them that they want to interact less with people and more with apps.
Nikki: Amen to that, though.
Nikki: Amen to that.
Nikki: I can't do a fast food order through a window because I get overwhelmed.
Nikki: I need to know what my customization options are.
Nikki: The closest to fast food we get to eating usually, actually is culverts, which I was telling you we recently ate.
Nikki: And I have to pre program my order in my head, Culver's menu is really big, and it complicated, especially if.
Salina: You get a concrete.
Nikki: There's, like five steps.
Nikki: Yeah, I miss what I'm saying, so it's a lot.
Nikki: Carry on.
Salina: Yeah, I hear you.
Salina: All right, well, now I'm feeling this is, like, my most fun segment.
Salina: Now I'm like, we're ripping jobs away.
Salina: So I think you'll like this one, though, because I want to talk a little bit about Chickfila, and I think Chickfila is doing an interesting mashup of using technology, but not leaving people out of the equation.
Salina: In fact, I think they do the best job of using people to their advantage.
Salina: Hopefully, that doesn't sound bad.
Salina: They're just using the crap out of it.
Nikki: I mean, they're a business.
Salina: That's what we're here for, guys.
Salina: It's called consumerism.
Nikki: There you go.
Salina: I'm like, help me.
Salina: I was going to say business and help my brain.
Salina: So I don't think there is a more well oiled machine in the fast food universe, if not, like, just the entire universe at large, than Chickfila.
Nikki: A well peanut oiled machine.
Salina: What?
Salina: Okay, so according to their website, most restaurants are serving over 100 cars per hour in the drive through.
Salina: During peak hours, I mean, a lot.
Nikki: It's too many.
Nikki: During COVID they rolled out where you could pick it up curbside, and that was, like, the most amazing dream for me because I would pre order it and then just pull in the parking space, and two out of three times, they'd bring it right out.
Nikki: One time I got stuck there for 45 minutes.
Salina: Oh, no.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: First you're stepping on my segment, and then you're just blowing it up so much to what Nikki mentioned.
Salina: They're also bringing, like, all of these innovations to the drive through to make the drive through faster.
Salina: Except for that time that Nikki waited 40.
Nikki: It was an incident.
Salina: So this is all brought by their drive through innovations team, and they've actually built and they also use a full scale drive through mockup that's here at headquarters in Atlanta, where they have actual cars and customers to test out different processes before they roll it out nationally.
Salina: It's just like, they really love their job.
Salina: I think that's what that sounds like.
Salina: Their pleasure.
Salina: Yeah, it is their pleasure.
Salina: But also, I want to say the meanest employee that I've ever met at Chickfila is what I would call the nicest employee somewhere else, because they didn't tell me it's their pleasure.
Salina: They walked off, and Casey and I were like, she was kind of rude, right?
Salina: But, like, miserable.
Salina: But not really.
Salina: But not at all.
Salina: She was like, just normal human.
Nikki: Don't say it too loud.
Nikki: You might get her fired.
Salina: I know.
Salina: I've already identified that she's a female.
Salina: So things have really picked up since 2020 when they closed their dining rooms due to the pandemic and they've added extra drive through lanes.
Salina: Like things like you were alluding to where you can go ahead and get an app and then you just go to the lanes that are specifically for you to just pick up the order.
Salina: They've also expanded their order taking with the tablets and then delivery options, curbside pickup, all of these things.
Salina: They're especially known for what they call face to face ordering, like in the drive through line.
Salina: So instead of one car going to the Salinand then to the window, they have like a swarm of they.
Nikki: Got people coming at you with tablets.
Salina: What do you want?
Salina: Take your order and then get everybody through.
Salina: And they have way faster they have.
Nikki: Paper menus that they can hand to you, or they did pre COVID, at least I should say.
Nikki: I don't actually know since COVID but if you're a menu person like me and you get a little panicked, instead of them just standing there looking at you, they can give you a menu.
Salina: So you can tell them it's like this.
Salina: Nikki, do you want the grilled chicken sandwich or do you want the fried chicken sandwich?
Salina: Yeah, I just need to know what.
Nikki: The combo options are.
Salina: So I thought what was interesting about this too, is they really are innovative in listening to the people who operate the stores and the different franchises.
Salina: So that idea actually originated with store operators and team members and then was adopted by Chickfila at large.
Salina: That's cool.
Salina: And actually it was like team members running out.
Salina: I feel like I've adopted their language because I'm pretty sure that's what they call people, team members.
Nikki: That's why Chickfila is a cult.
Nikki: They're sucked you in.
Salina: I'm like staff my pleasures.
Salina: They had people when the lines would get really long, they would run in.
Salina: They'd have their phones with them and call people's orders back into the kitchen before they even had the tablets.
Salina: And so that's what got adopted.
Salina: And then they kind of filtered out the technology to go along with it.
Salina: Even the uniforms are innovative.
Salina: This is a chickfila commercial.
Salina: They partnered with clothing brands that design military spec, cooling vests and moisture wicking uniforms to keep these kids slinging chicken all year long.
Nikki: Sounds like the Facebooks and the Twitter campuses and Google where they have like these amazing cafeterias.
Nikki: So you never go we have sleep pods.
Nikki: You can get 20 minutes right here in this pod.
Salina: But it's okay because you could also play ping pong.
Nikki: But aren't you happy?
Nikki: You're happy, right?
Salina: Oh, everything's terrible.
Salina: So finally, for funsies, as you would say, Nikki, we'll add a video posted on TikTok to our show notes and website that shows how some chickfila's use a conveyor belt and slide to shoot the food from the kitchen to the employee at the drive through.
Salina: So when you said that you weren't far off.
Salina: I'm not honestly sure it's the most efficient method, but I'm absolutely sure it's the most fun.
Salina: You got it.
Salina: So finally, speaking of things we like, like sandwiches hurtling through space towards us.
Salina: Just like with my mouth.
Salina: What is it that you liked about this episode?
Nikki: And it would be french fries.
Nikki: I would want each french fries slowly delivered to my mouth by this slide or quickly delivered to my mouth by this slide.
Nikki: Things I liked.
Nikki: Okay, sorry.
Nikki: Back on tech.
Nikki: Oh, God.
Nikki: Now I'm thinking about chicken.
Nikki: Dixie Carter has the best delivery, comedic delivery.
Nikki: So she retold the $5,000 story that married the $5,000 wallpaper story.
Nikki: And she was like, $5,000 for wallpaper.
Nikki: Why don't we just cover the wall with $20 bills?
Nikki: The way that she took a deep breath in telling that story was just something about the delivery was so funny.
Nikki: Then she also retold the message for Anthony coming from one of his many lady friends.
Nikki: Hi, baby, do you miss me?
Nikki: I am still on fire.
Nikki: And it was love doing so well done.
Nikki: She sets herself up for it.
Nikki: And on that note, I also really am loving heartthrob Anthony.
Nikki: When they were like, you don't know who that is.
Nikki: You couldn't tell from my heart is on fire or whatever she said.
Salina: I just really appreciate her loins were on fire.
Nikki: It might have been that.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I just really liked that.
Salina: Yeah, it was funny.
Salina: So my top like is Bernice, of course.
Salina: I think one of my favorite parts of the episode was her recounting her evening prior.
Salina: They asked what they did last night.
Salina: She said, well, Julia and I went miniature golfing and bowling, which, like what I wouldn't get for that episode.
Nikki: Julia bowling.
Salina: Wonderful.
Nikki: In a pencil skirt.
Salina: Oh, we're going to see Julia bowling in a few episodes, actually.
Salina: Oh, good.
Salina: And then I went to some bars to meet men and then I knocked on a vodka Collins.
Salina: I got home, threw up in the driveway.
Salina: Just so good.
Nikki: It's funny you say that because one of my strays or one of my things that I liked is that Bernice?
Nikki: Basically.
Nikki: I feel like I want a shirt that says what would Bernice say?
Salina: Oh, that's good.
Nikki: We should make that.
Salina: We should sell it.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: Because just like everything she says is really funny, at one point she gets to say, what are you people trying to do, eat enough burgers so you can watch them change the sign?
Nikki: When she finds out that the group has already been back to the fast food restaurant, just how much she laughs at herself.
Nikki: She laughs at herself about that.
Nikki: It's so funny.
Salina: And I thought that I really think that's sharp writing because it's really inside the character.
Salina: Right?
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Because I don't even know.
Salina: I laughed at the line.
Salina: Wasn't funny at all.
Salina: Hilarious.
Nikki: She is so funny.
Salina: I wanted to add to your julia as you're doting on her, is that I thought it was funny, her killing it with the short order lingo.
Nikki: Oh, God.
Nikki: That was hilarious.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So first of all, that is so fake.
Salina: No guy or girl or anyone goes up and orders that quickly.
Salina: I just don't believe it unless they've got something written or on their phone in front of them.
Salina: So she recounts this really challenging order and it's like this whole runner.
Salina: She doesn't like fast foods, and now she's working there and now the guy's like, you could really make it here.
Salina: She's very obviously frustrated by this comment.
Salina: But then Mary Joe tells her she's doing a great job, and she's like, I don't know.
Salina: I'm fine.
Salina: I guess I'm hanging in there.
Salina: And then she goes, we got two bigs, one chick, hold the mayo, two large fry fry, one ring pie, pie cook, two orange and a java and one steak, burn it.
Nikki: And someone in the back had to understand that I think that was Anthony.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: She deserves some credit, too.
Salina: That's right.
Nikki: She also had a line where she says, I've never understood why people are too proud to take money from friends.
Nikki: They'll accept the things that are hardest to give.
Nikki: Friends will take your time, your tears, your patience, your love.
Nikki: So why is it hard to take a few dollars?
Nikki: That was really beautifully written.
Salina: It is.
Nikki: And then received by Anthony, who in turn asked for money.
Salina: I didn't like that line, and it didn't really seem very Anthony to me, honestly.
Nikki: Oh, I appreciated it.
Nikki: I loved it.
Nikki: Loved it because he had the thing at the beginning of the fasting plotline where he tells her all these wonderful things about herself and he's like and the other thing I really love is that you don't need something showing that you're supporting something.
Nikki: She goes, you ran out of pins?
Nikki: And he's like, yes, don't have any more.
Nikki: They're supposed to come next week.
Nikki: He's just real quick on it like that, and he can take a really sweet moment and turn it.
Salina: So what you're saying is that moment that we didn't think was earned at the beginning of that episode finally paid off in this one.
Nikki: Just that one part.
Nikki: Just that one part.
Salina: I also just wanted to say that I was very excited that we actually wrapped this one up.
Salina: Like, Ted came through with the child support and a reason why it was so late.
Salina: And then because I was afraid we just leave this one hanging on for a few episodes or never resolve it at all.
Nikki: Poor Mary Joe is just working two jobs forever.
Salina: Right.
Salina: And then we do something.
Salina: There'd be a plot hole, and you and I would be yeah.
Salina: What about dislikes?
Nikki: The only thing I have is just that I really didn't like the gap of Suzanne not appearing, but not just because she wasn't there, but just because of what it's kind of signals is going on behind the scenes.
Nikki: It's just sad.
Salina: I see.
Salina: Yeah, that's fair.
Nikki: It's just sad.
Salina: The pacing for me was a little bit of a nitpick because I'm confused on how we spent our time.
Salina: I wish we could have hung out a little bit more and gotten more from them in the restaurant.
Salina: That scene was only, like, four minutes.
Salina: Yeah, I don't know.
Salina: I would have liked, done a bottleneck episode or something where we were there the whole time, but just, like, two more minutes.
Nikki: It felt very satisfying to me.
Salina: You felt like it was a full meal.
Nikki: I felt like my tummy was full when I walked away from that.
Salina: Okay, so how about a rating?
Nikki: So my rating scale is Roving bands of rastafarians.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: And I'm going to give it a 4.5.
Nikki: I'm adjusting my scores on the fly now because as I'm talking about I'm getting excited about it.
Nikki: Excited about it again.
Nikki: I really liked it.
Nikki: I thought this one was really, really funny.
Salina: Are you sure it wasn't the Salina's nibbles?
Nikki: I think that might have been it.
Nikki: That's what put me over the over the top.
Salina: I knew it was.
Salina: I gave it a four out of five.
Salina: It's funny because I adjusted mine this morning.
Salina: I had it a little lower and adjusted it up.
Salina: I was like I think I was too harsh on this one.
Salina: So four out of five freshly compressed 89 cent fish sandwiches.
Nikki: But is it fresh?
Nikki: Yeah, sure.
Salina: So fresh.
Salina: And I do feel like that's probably, like, what people are, like, in line, too.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I can't imagine what you have to hear.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: This is why there's not good customer service anymore.
Salina: Everyone's just angry on both sides.
Nikki: We're just tired.
Salina: We're tired of grocery shopping.
Salina: We're tired of shaving, tired of washing my hair.
Salina: We're just tired of everything.
Nikki: Can't unload that stupid dishwasher one more time.
Salina: Can't do it.
Salina: Aren't the kids getting big enough to unload that thing now?
Nikki: I'm trying to train them just to load it so we'll work on unloading next.
Salina: That's a lifelong journey for some people, because it is not for my children.
Salina: It is not a skill that some people are very good with.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: 80s things or other dated references.
Nikki: I have a Chavet hatchback and Anthony's Julia Child impression.
Nikki: I just feel like if you were to do that today, maybe some people would get it, but I don't know.
Salina: That everybody would get it our age and older.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: It's so funny because, what, you're trying to play footsie with me with a knee?
Nikki: Whip my foot down.
Salina: Just whip it on down there.
Salina: So it's so funny because I caught that one finally this morning, and I hadn't caught it before.
Salina: And I had a similar thought.
Salina: Like, it's funny just because of the way he says it, because that was so iconic, the way that she said that line.
Salina: I will say that HBO Max just released a series last year about Julia Childs.
Salina: I'm not sure if it's coming back or not, but I really enjoyed it, and I think I love all Julia Child's content.
Salina: Like Julie and Julia is probably one of my favorite movies ever.
Salina: And it makes me cry every time I watch the end of it.
Salina: Really good.
Salina: Do you remember this movie?
Nikki: I haven't seen it.
Nikki: I know.
Salina: I really think you would like it.
Nikki: I know.
Salina: Well, but sometimes I really feel like sometimes people don't tailor their movie recommendations, and I legitimately think you would think this was a good one.
Nikki: Special episode.
Salina: Somebody write down Julia and Julia.
Salina: Somebody do it.
Salina: Okay, so my 80s things were clipping coupons.
Salina: Not that that doesn't happen, but it was just like, in an envelope, like not a digital coupon.
Salina: And then the child support in the mail, like it just got lost in the mail.
Salina: That feels very of that era.
Salina: All of it.
Salina: Southern things.
Nikki: I don't have anything.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I had country western museums and reptile farms as part of Bernice's two day adventure.
Salina: But for me, it was more like this idea of these kitschy roadside attractions that you can see all over the US.
Salina: For sure.
Salina: But there's something like we just really do it well in the south.
Nikki: We're good with random.
Salina: I think about Pigeon Forge being the ultimate example.
Salina: Now that is a destination.
Salina: That's not just a roadside attraction somewhere.
Nikki: Like a huge destination.
Salina: Absolutely.
Salina: But the things there, they make no sense.
Nikki: So random.
Salina: I love it.
Salina: I want to be very clear when I say that Pigeon Forge, you wouldn't even have to pay me.
Salina: I would just talk about how much I love your little Babbling Brooks and how beautiful it is there in the fall and all your little pancake houses and the Titanic museum that you're like, why is one of the largest Titanic collectors here?
Salina: Don't know, don't care.
Salina: Got dragged into that museum.
Salina: And you know what?
Salina: I loved it.
Nikki: You know what my theory is?
Nikki: Dolly Parton, the great unifier.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Salina: I thought that was your Titanic theory.
Salina: What?
Nikki: She was on the Titanic and survived?
Salina: No, that's true.
Salina: Maybe her energy just reverbiates out through the people.
Salina: Although I've never been to Dollywood, so that's an oversight on my part.
Salina: You've been to Dollywood as a child.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: A long time ago.
Salina: As a child.
Nikki: As a young child.
Salina: Many, many moons ago.
Salina: Not that many, Nikki.
Nikki: No, just yesterday.
Salina: We've only just begun.
Salina: You know, High Museum of Art is also another Southern reference.
Nikki: You know, it's so funny you say that, because I thought about that right as I said it earlier in the episode.
Nikki: I was like, I never put that on my list.
Salina: Good job in Atlanta.
Salina: So it's right here, right here in our backyard.
Salina: And then Bernice describing herself as a rambling girl.
Salina: I don't know it felt like a country song or something.
Nikki: Like Rambling, man.
Salina: Like Rambling man, but a Rambling girl.
Salina: References we need to talk about what you got.
Nikki: I got nothing.
Salina: We already talked about Dutch Elm disease, so let's knock that off the list.
Salina: Did we, though?
Salina: My note says Nikki's got this.
Salina: I fell asleep trying to look at the web page you found.
Nikki: It just looks like a tree.
Salina: And then again, all I can think about is The Last of US.
Salina: Good show, guys.
Nikki: Good show.
Salina: Not for you.
Salina: I've only have one to talk about, which is julia said she'd read about 5 million men in the US.
Salina: Refused to pay child support.
Salina: And then I got curious, like, what does that number look like today?
Salina: I noticed in my rewatch this morning that Mary Joe also rattles off a few stats.
Salina: So I'm sorry I didn't address those, but I think I accidentally will in my update.
Salina: But it's hard to say exactly what an apples to apples comparison is here because this was so long ago.
Salina: And even the way she sets it up, it's just as if men are only paying women.
Salina: But that's not really the way of it.
Nikki: Child support is very triggering for me.
Nikki: So this feels like just yesterday we've.
Salina: Only just become childhood trauma.
Salina: I hear you, I definitely do.
Salina: So that's part of it.
Salina: But also, I think what makes it hard to look up, like an exact comparison today is that there are stricter child support laws and enforcement now than in 1989.
Salina: But really importantly, it is illegal to willfully fail to pay child support in certain circumstances.
Nikki: I mean, willful is really hard to.
Salina: Prove this whole thing.
Salina: Okay, so how long has it been is a factor.
Salina: Where is the parent located?
Salina: Is a factor.
Salina: How much are you behind?
Salina: That's another factor.
Salina: And depending on the situation, they have to meet these different criteria and then they can face anywhere from six months to two years in prison, plus fines.
Salina: But the thing is, I'm sure there are people who slip through these circumstances all the time and parents who don't go after the other parent for a million reasons, including the one Mary Joe mentions.
Salina: She's just worried it's going to be further trauma for her children.
Salina: But I will share that in 2018, US Census Bureau reported only 44% of Custodial parents received the full amount of child support.
Salina: And this was looking back at 2015 data.
Salina: I couldn't find anything newer, but I think that's very on par with what Mary Joe shared later in the episode.
Salina: Anyway, not the happiest of notes, but.
Nikki: Why do you know that one?
Salina: Man, I'm not my last one.
Salina: You stole from me.
Salina: It was bon appetite.
Nikki: Thanks for that retelling.
Salina: Mun appetite.
Salina: All in there.
Salina: One more time.
Nikki: One more time for good measure.
Nikki: So next episode, season four, episode 13.
Nikki: The first day of the last decade of the entire.
Nikki: 20th century.
Nikki: Part one and part two big ones coming.
Salina: That sounded weird.
Nikki: We do have some big ones coming.
Nikki: This next one's going to be a twofer.
Nikki: We're going to cover both parts of the Designing Women episode in one episode.
Nikki: And then we'll have a special something in episode 14.
Nikki: I've been laying Easter eggs if no one was paying attention.
Nikki: But you got to tune in to listen out.
Nikki: Got to tune in to listen.
Nikki: Got to tune in.
Salina: Tune out to tune in.
Salina: You know what I'm saying?
Salina: It's got to be here to stories all this time.
Salina: Tune out to your real life.
Salina: Tune into the podcast.
Nikki: Follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at sweet.
Nikki: Tea and TV on TikTok at Sweettvpod.
Nikki: Email sweettvpod@gmail.com and www.sweettv.com, where we put our show notes and various ways you can support the show.
Nikki: You can also rate and review us wherever you listen to the podcast.
Nikki: So come back Thursday for extra sugar.
Nikki: We're going to talk about the Miss.
Salina: Annie Potts and you know what that means.
Salina: What does it mean, Salina?
Salina: Means I'm trying to stay right up on my mic so you can hear me.
Salina: And we'll see you around the bin.
Salina: Bye.