We’ve all been there: a car dealership in the middle of the night haggling over a new van after your old one broke down on the side of a busy interstate, with a grumpy client sitting next to you grousing about all the free work she’s about to get when you don’t deliver by midnight. Oh, you haven’t been there? Okay…but you’ve been to the car dealership, right?
In this week’s “Designing Women” the ladies (+ Anthony) take us on a wild ride through a pretty universal experience: the art of navigating the car salesman. Along the way, we’ll learn some people are better at the art than…others.
Come back on Thursday for an “Extra Sugar” all about the world’s fanciest bathrooms thanks to the “luxurious” one in the dealership.
Here are some of our references, in case you want 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 Tea and TV, where Salina just realized I just talked about myself in the third person, that I didn't say, hello, everyone in our last episode.
Nikki: Oh, no, that's rude.
Salina: That is so rude.
Salina: I didn't mean to.
Salina: Hey, y'all.
Nikki: Hey, y'all.
Nikki: Twice since Salina dropped the ball.
Salina: I got one word on my mind right now.
Nikki: Food.
Salina: Yeah, actually, sort of.
Salina: I was going to say picnic.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: But it is food.
Salina: It is what I'm thinking about.
Salina: I mean, a picnic by itself isn't food, but anyways, for those of you who aren't here in person, that is our theme that I've set up for us downstairs today as a picnic.
Salina: Theme.
Nikki: She insists on a theme.
Salina: I like a theme.
Salina: I like a theme because picnic day is what's today?
Salina: The 22nd.
Salina: April 23.
Salina: Tomorrow.
Nikki: Well, that's a good tip.
Nikki: I didn't know that.
Nikki: Yeah, I need to do a picnic tomorrow.
Salina: Well, and they're fun, right?
Nikki: I love a picnic.
Salina: We're in the place where picnics make a lot of sense because the weather we have just nine months of picnic weather.
Nikki: As long as you can handle the heat.
Nikki: But right now, we've sort of been in a pretty good weather time because there's been a lot of rain.
Nikki: Not good for picnics, but good for keeping the heat at bay.
Salina: That's true.
Nikki: Which we need.
Nikki: But I was going to say before we get into the episode, and because I'm hungry, and when I'm hungry, I want to talk about food.
Nikki: Do you have a favorite picnic item or something that you love about picnics?
Nikki: We'll see if I got any of the food right.
Nikki: That'll be one thing.
Salina: Oh, interesting.
Salina: When you say the word picnic, what I remember, what it triggers in my brain, is when I was a kid, we would go to middle school, high school.
Salina: We would go to Stone Mountain for the laser show.
Salina: Not infrequently.
Salina: Like we would go at least once a summer, sometimes two or three times a summer.
Salina: It was just a really fun way to spend the afternoon.
Salina: And we would always do a picnic, and it was usually like KFC fried chicken and all the stuff that comes with that mashed potatoes, the biscuits and everything.
Salina: And I am not a big fried chicken person, or haven't been.
Salina: Historically, I go through waves.
Salina: Did we talk about this recently, where I go through waves for fried chicken?
Salina: And so when you say picnic, the first thing I think of is I remember sitting there with my family on the blanket with fried chicken in front of us, and I think picnic fried chicken is very good.
Salina: Fried chicken, like it's been sitting for a little while, which sounds not healthy.
Salina: It just sounds really bad for you.
Salina: But it's cool we didn't die.
Salina: And so it's like a little bit cold, but not cold because it's Georgia in the summer and it just tastes really good.
Salina: And I love KFC biscuits.
Nikki: They're good.
Nikki: Well, and there is something maybe about being in the fresh air, too, that just makes the food a little better.
Nikki: It is a little annoying when the bugs come about.
Salina: See, I love to eat outside.
Nikki: I love the bugs on my food.
Salina: They're gross.
Salina: I could eat every meal outside.
Salina: I love it so much.
Salina: Kyle hates to eat outside.
Salina: He hates the bugs.
Salina: He hates the heat.
Salina: He just does not enjoy it.
Salina: But I've brought Landon along with me, and Landon and I will just sit outside in the summer and just eat watermelon on the front porch like we've got nothing else in life to do.
Nikki: So southern sounding of you.
Salina: It's so lovely.
Salina: We just really love to do that.
Salina: So I love to eat outside, and I think you're right.
Salina: I think there's something that makes the food taste better.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: It's hard to kind of separate because as I was trying to think, like, what do I really want in a picnic situation?
Nikki: My mind tends to go towards the.
Salina: Barbecue, kind of, for sure.
Salina: I was thinking macaroni and cheese, too.
Salina: I love mac and cheese outside.
Nikki: Well, you'd have to get out of my house if you did.
Salina: And fresh fruits.
Salina: Like watermelon.
Nikki: Yeah, well and you do.
Nikki: I'm like you want it to be light and cheese.
Salina: If we sit here and talk long enough, I'm sure I'll land on whatever's in your refrigerator.
Salina: Any food is good by me.
Nikki: Well, so I was thinking, for me, it's like all the salads.
Nikki: Chicken salad, egg salad, potato salad, fruit salad.
Nikki: But, like, I'll eat some brisket, deviled eggs.
Salina: Deviled eggs.
Nikki: Really hand to make a lot of salad.
Salina: Not super messy.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Even though, like but a bunch of the stuff I'm naming could also get really messy.
Nikki: But, like, anything that's, like, on a cracker or some cheeses.
Salina: Oh, crackers and cheeses are really good picnic food.
Nikki: Pimento cheese.
Nikki: Just I'm hungry.
Salina: It's funny that you say that.
Salina: I was just thinking, I love a picnic again.
Salina: I just love to eat outside.
Salina: And I'm remembering crackers and cheese.
Salina: I totally forgot about that.
Salina: I used to do that before Kyle and I had kids.
Salina: On the 4 July, we would try to go, like, see the fireworks somewhere, and I would bring picnic food.
Salina: The 4 July is a really big picnic day for me because we also used to go see fireworks when I was a kid, and we would take a picnic with us.
Nikki: It's kind of like classic Americana, too.
Nikki: Although shout out to Ashley and Peter, who picnic literally once a week, I bet.
Salina: Oh, good for them.
Salina: They are huge picnickers in Ireland.
Nikki: Well, in here, too.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Even here, too, I think there was.
Nikki: Like, a little park down the street from them, and they would go all the time.
Nikki: But it is very frequent for me to get a polo from her, like, Marco Polo, and she is outside having a picnic with him, and they're letting their dog run around and sky.
Nikki: So we are just calling.
Salina: I always think I can trick Kyle into it.
Salina: So I'll be like, you know, it's just such a beautiful day.
Salina: We're at Swanye Town Center, and I'm like, oh, they have those tables, and look, they're covered.
Salina: What if we just went across the street and grabbed a pizza and brought it back?
Salina: And he's like, or we could just go sit in the restaurant.
Salina: And I'm like, oh, yeah, we could do that too.
Nikki: I think that might be because I don't think of that.
Nikki: Felt weird talking about I'm like, here's my thoughts on Peter.
Nikki: But when I think about Southern men, they are often and Southerners.
Nikki: Okay?
Nikki: We have high heat and we have AC.
Nikki: And in Europe, there is no AC.
Nikki: And I just feel like maybe they're not the culture isn't to just run inside to the air conditioning.
Nikki: I feel like there's more comfort with being outside.
Nikki: It's like, more built into their growing up experience.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: Whereas here it's hot and you're like, screw this, and you go inside.
Salina: That's true.
Salina: That's true.
Salina: It still is kind of crazy to me to realize that my sister lived in Massachusetts for a while, and the places she lived didn't have air conditioning.
Salina: I didn't even know that was a possibility.
Salina: Like, I just thought we all had air conditioning.
Salina: It's crazy to me.
Salina: I had no idea.
Nikki: Yeah, it's unimaginable here.
Nikki: It is unimaginable.
Nikki: There would be deaths.
Salina: Yeah, there have been.
Salina: When there's, like, a hurricane and the air conditioning, the electricity goes out there.
Salina: People will die.
Nikki: All right, well, my other favorite thing about picnics, just real quickly to say is the aesthetics of it all.
Nikki: It sort of evokes this imagery of spring and gingham.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: It's just nice.
Salina: I love a wicker picnic basket.
Nikki: Good.
Nikki: That's probably what's downstairs or something.
Nikki: In that vein.
Salina: I think you're right.
Nikki: I think it is wicker pieces.
Nikki: Oh, and I just also want to say a big, huge thanks to my aunt, I've wanted a picnic basket for a long time.
Nikki: That's actually new.
Nikki: That was a Christmas present.
Nikki: Oh, you're breaking it in with me.
Nikki: I haven't used it yet.
Nikki: I didn't even think about that.
Salina: All right.
Nikki: What's funny is, as I was setting this up today, so many times when you're coming over, I feel like I'm unintentionally romancing you.
Nikki: Like that time we did the Julia Robert and you had made, like, chocolate covered strawberries and champagne.
Salina: I know what's happening.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: We're not getting dated by our husbands enough, I think, is the problem.
Salina: Is that what's happening here?
Nikki: I don't even know it's.
Nikki: That maybe but I was just laughing.
Nikki: I was, like, lighting a candle.
Nikki: Kidding.
Nikki: Here this morning.
Nikki: I was like, there's, like, fresh cut flowers.
Nikki: Those are from Kate.
Nikki: Thank you, Casey.
Nikki: Those are from Casey.
Nikki: Brought those home last night, but like, or two nights ago, but just putting all that together and I was like, am I creating a date for us again?
Nikki: Speaking of dates, we have a date with the sugar bakers.
Salina: Oh, there you go.
Nikki: I thought you were saying, who have a date with the salespeople?
Salina: There you go.
Salina: That's where I thought you were going.
Nikki: Who have a date with a new car van?
Nikki: I tried.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: You want to talk about this episode?
Salina: You tried.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: So this episode is Designing Women's, season four, episode 17 called oh, what a feeling.
Salina: So we've got a hulu.
Salina: Salina, description mashup this week.
Nikki: When the.
Salina: Sugar baker ladies are forced to purchase a new delivery van to deal with a difficult client, negotiating for a great deal turns into more than they bargained for.
Salina: Air date january 20, 1990 we're calling this one a Whiff of Desperation is written by Paul Clay.
Salina: This is the first of four episodes he'll write.
Salina: IMDb says he wrote on two other LBT shows, evening Shade and Hearts of Fire.
Salina: And he wrote for the Arsenio Hall show.
Salina: And this episode was directed by David Trainer.
Salina: So we have some trivia, possibly some tea.
Salina: Paul Clay was married to Pam Norris from June 25, 1989 to March 12, 2010.
Salina: They have two children.
Salina: We've also hit a trivia point we first talked about all the way back in season one.
Salina: The actor who plays car salesperson, Stan, also played Charlene's manager Galen King in episode 17 Nashville Bound.
Salina: So, general reaction, stray observations.
Salina: What you got, Salina?
Nikki: It's just another one where we've talked a lot about how Mary Joe has grown over the course of the series.
Nikki: And I think this is one where it was a really interesting way to put that on display, like her like a show of strength, if you will.
Nikki: What did he call her?
Nikki: The big gun or the big gun.
Nikki: Yeah, I love that.
Nikki: What about you?
Salina: I thought this was kind of a genius storyline.
Salina: I identified personally with both the car salesman plotline and also the Mexican bargaining experience.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: So I really appreciated that thing we've talked about before with comics, how they can tap into the mundane and make you realize the absurdity of it all.
Salina: That's how I felt in this one.
Nikki: You're telling me you've bought a $600 orange?
Salina: No, the opposite.
Salina: So I, one, have had the experience of walking out of a car dealership and thinking they're going to follow after us and they don't, where they're just sort of like, okay, you don't want to spend that much money, fine.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: I've also had the experience of swooping in and saving a deal.
Salina: We had a car salesman literally tell Kyle, if she weren't here right now, I'd be selling this car to you for more money.
Salina: But she's giving me this look like tactics.
Salina: She's going to let you leave.
Salina: And I don't want you to leave.
Salina: I want you to buy this car.
Salina: So can we make her happy?
Nikki: I loved that.
Salina: And then in Mexico, I had heard you're supposed to bargain, so I was trying to buy Kyle a sombrero, and they told me it was $20.
Salina: And I was like, I only have five.
Salina: And he was like, Five it is.
Salina: And I handed him a $20 bill.
Salina: And it didn't occur to me how ironic that whole situation was.
Salina: My stepdad goes, you can't tell someone you only have $5 and then hand them a 20.
Salina: And I said, to be fair, I told him I had $5 to spend on that.
Salina: I had $20 total, but only five of it was going to go toward a sombrero to be fair of your.
Nikki: Story of how you make yourself right?
Salina: To be fair, yes.
Salina: Correct.
Nikki: To be fair to myself.
Salina: So I just appreciated my general reaction.
Salina: And it's the only one I have to this entire episode, is that I tapped into that whole experience.
Salina: All of it made sense to me.
Nikki: When you said the whole experience, I thought maybe you also felt like the salesperson, like, at some point you had sold a car and I just didn't know it.
Salina: I used to be a car salesperson.
Salina: Did you not know that?
Salina: No.
Salina: Being a salesperson is not that will not ever.
Salina: No.
Salina: I feel bad with the tactics you have to employ to sell things to people.
Nikki: It would terrify me.
Nikki: But, you know, like, well, Casey sold cars for a while before he was in finance, and one of my best friends, patron of the show, Alyssa, also sells cars, and she wouldn't do it for years because she thought it would be just as scary.
Nikki: But I do think certain personalities are really good for it, and it does need to be, like, I think, for to be a little bit more successful, down to earth, charming, because there is sort of this stereotype of this guy, this guy, this guy right here.
Salina: I've worked with Realtors before and car salespeople before.
Salina: I appreciate if they're just really honest with me.
Salina: I have Julia's approach to buying a car, which is like, I have a certain amount of money I want to spend.
Salina: I have a certain expectation of the car I can get for that money, and I am very reasonable.
Salina: My husband is not a reasonable car buying person.
Salina: He has expectations, like, out of control.
Salina: I'm like, you cannot spend that amount of money and expect to get that level of car that's not even in the same universe.
Salina: And he's like, no, I can.
Salina: We're negotiating.
Salina: And I'm like, you're not going to negotiate $15,000 off of it.
Nikki: I'm getting a $5 Porsche.
Salina: Exactly.
Salina: It's just outrageous.
Salina: So I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, where I'm willing to pay probably more than I need to pay just to not deal with the experience, and I just don't want to deal with it and I just leave me alone.
Nikki: Yeah, I really felt Mary Joe on this one.
Nikki: I mean, just because this idea that well, I have been in that situation before.
Nikki: I was with my aunt.
Nikki: I didn't know she was going to do the whole she was like, helping me buy my first car.
Nikki: Had no idea she was going to pull the walk away thing.
Nikki: And we walked away.
Nikki: I almost started to cry because I was like, no, I really want you.
Nikki: Really?
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: And we were out in the parking lot.
Nikki: She was like, shut up, idiot.
Nikki: Exactly what she said.
Nikki: It was probably pretty close, though.
Nikki: And then they came and I was like, this is like dating.
Nikki: And I did it.
Nikki: This is why I didn't do it.
Nikki: I don't want to play games.
Salina: I don't like the game.
Nikki: No, just like not and I'm not.
Salina: Playing a game when I walk out, like, I really just want to walk out.
Salina: If you've made it that complicated to the point where I don't want to do business with you, I'm happy to just walk out.
Salina: I'm not trying to play a game.
Salina: It's not a tactic for me.
Salina: It is a self preservation method.
Salina: At that point, I am trying to save my sanity.
Salina: And I've been on kyle thinks it is a tactic to get a car.
Salina: So we've been in the experience where we tried to walk out and the guy was just like, have a good night.
Salina: And he was like halfway down the road.
Salina: He's like, I really thought he was coming after us.
Salina: Really thought that man was going to come back for us.
Salina: It's a real hit to your self esteem, too.
Salina: You want to be wanted.
Nikki: They don't want you.
Nikki: That is rough.
Nikki: That is rough, my friend.
Nikki: While they really have one more general reaction, which is like, this really was like, I like this episode, but it was very bottlenecky in so many senses of the word, especially that they're trapped in this dealership for a large part of the episode.
Nikki: But I did think it was really smart because I think this is a scenario for the very things that you and I are talking about right here.
Nikki: It's something that people can identify with.
Nikki: It's something they can relate to.
Nikki: And so for that reason, I think it's a crowd pleaser, if you will.
Nikki: So that was one of the things that I was thinking.
Nikki: And then I was also thinking about this guy's sales techniques.
Nikki: Speaking of those, if I had been in there the second he started talking about all this other stuff, like trying to make people comfortable, let me show you my kids, or he wanted to be my friend, that would have automatically, like, that's a red flag on the play for me.
Nikki: I also wanted to say, too, that I don't often talk about the cut lines.
Nikki: But for me, in this episode, I thought that this was really significant.
Nikki: When Anthony gets to the dealership and they're conferencing in the ladies room about what to do.
Nikki: Julia underscores what we've been seeing and that's that Stan isn't really nice.
Nikki: So I thought that was, like, a bad cut to make, honestly, because we learned through those cut lines that he is more patronizing even than it lets on and because they're women in there formulating the plan.
Nikki: I guess you didn't really need to know the plan part.
Nikki: But I thought painting that picture of just the kind of person he is, I needed a little bit more because he could have really just been a nice guy.
Nikki: And I thought it was a little less clear without those lines in there.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Through most of what they were showing, I didn't take away patronizing.
Salina: What I took away was just, like, slimy, like trying to tap into trying to be your friend.
Salina: And for me, that, like you said, is an immediate turn off.
Salina: But not trying to be my friend because I'm a woman.
Salina: Like, he's just trying to be my friend.
Salina: He's trying to make a sale.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So what about stray observations?
Salina: So this one could have fit in Southern references, but I think it's more important to say it here.
Salina: So we like to give the show credit.
Salina: In this case, I guess it would be Paul Clay.
Salina: We're giving credit for knowing Atlanta.
Salina: Like they've lived here.
Salina: They typically pull some deep cuts.
Salina: We're like Dang.
Salina: So in this one.
Salina: He talked about 285 in Charlene's comments at the top of the episode.
Salina: But he called it the 285.
Salina: We don't call it the so it was a little bit of a miss fire for me.
Salina: Of course, then I found it on IMDb as a piece of trivia after I watched the episode.
Salina: But I want credit for the fact that I got it in the first.
Nikki: Place about the 285.
Salina: The 285.
Salina: Immediately I heard it and I was like, nobody calls it the 285.
Salina: You just call it 285.
Nikki: No, I think but don't they call it the 405 or whatever?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So I wonder if some of that was, like, happening.
Salina: I think that was in the IMDb trivia.
Salina: They said in California they tend to call the highways b.
Salina: We just don't call it that.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Round these parts, we just call it 285.
Nikki: That's right.
Nikki: I don't think we'd ever heard that ted and Mary Joe lived in Mexico when he went to medical school.
Nikki: Was that new information?
Nikki: That felt like new information.
Salina: But maybe I thought we had heard it in the first seat.
Salina: It didn't surprise me.
Salina: I thought we had heard it in the first season.
Nikki: I knew they had, like not like I remember, like, her talking a lot about just how hard it was and everything, but I didn't remember a location.
Salina: Now I'll have to look that back up.
Nikki: Oh, good.
Nikki: Let me know what you find out.
Salina: It won't be now because you'll hear all my clicking.
Nikki: I guess I could have put this in Southern references, but I didn't.
Nikki: Miss Frickie sounds like a very specific type of real southern woman, especially backseat driving with Anthony placing a coffee order when he walks a mile and a half to the Waffle House for help after the van breaks down.
Nikki: Just like very like, oh, sugar, can you just go get me a coffee?
Nikki: And I'd like some too sweet loaves in it.
Nikki: And I don't know, I could just see some people I grew up around and I was like, yes, I know them.
Salina: Oh, that's funny.
Salina: She just sound like a mean woman to me, but that's funny.
Nikki: I don't even think it comes from a mean place for these individuals that I've known.
Nikki: I think it's more of like just a lack of social.
Nikki: Of course they'll want to do something for me.
Nikki: Of course they will.
Salina: He's walking through the pouring rain.
Salina: Why not tack on an errand?
Nikki: It's also the sweet lobe that just made it very I was like, Julia telling Suzanne to stop popping her cleavage on Stan's desk to further negotiations.
Nikki: It only confuses him.
Nikki: And he keeps retelling a story about summer on the dairy farm.
Nikki: I just love that.
Nikki: I'm sorry I skipped down to my likes.
Nikki: Anyways, it was so great.
Nikki: No matter what.
Salina: It's true.
Salina: We got major rain fashion in this episode with the women each wearing a rain jacket to shop for cars.
Salina: And their jackets matched their outfits.
Salina: So, like, charlene's was a very specific color palette and so was Julia's.
Salina: Mary Joe's was obnoxiously floral, which did not match her outfit, but played into the humor of Anthony having to wear it.
Salina: So I gave it a pass.
Nikki: I see.
Nikki: Yes, it is.
Salina: There was another cut line in Mary Joe and the car dealers exchange.
Salina: So just more that like what you were talking about, her being a little more like, to the point with him right after she told him, you're going to have to pluck that chicken yourself.
Salina: This was also said, dealer prep, no options, corrosion package.
Salina: Give me a break.
Salina: And the guy says, I think I hear your cab honking out there.
Salina: And she says, hey, you know, when you get rid of all these extras, it's not a bad price.
Salina: And the guy says, I haven't seen shown you pictures of my kids yet.
Salina: Have I've got three kids?
Salina: Do you have kids?
Salina: Yes, I do.
Salina: A daughter, 16 and a son who is nine.
Salina: Not even he would fall for this gasoline charge.
Salina: So I think I hated that we didn't get to see more of Mary Joe, like, really going to town with this guy over these extra charges.
Salina: And also as a person who hates an extra charge, I was like, get him, Mary Joe, get him.
Nikki: Make it right.
Salina: That was my last stray.
Nikki: I had two more now that I'm back in the right section.
Nikki: Only that one about the dairy farm was in my likes.
Nikki: So Anthony's exasperation after being on the road stranded, and he just comes in, and he's like and then this, and then this.
Nikki: It's literally me at the end of every work week.
Nikki: And also that part where he's like, sure, absolutely.
Nikki: Anytime, but never again.
Nikki: On God's green earth is my life motto.
Nikki: And then I do it again, so it doesn't really matter.
Nikki: There you go.
Nikki: And my very last one is warming up under the hand dryer.
Nikki: Hit me in a certain way.
Nikki: It's just like a favorite pastime for me.
Nikki: If I'm really cold, I would go into the restroom and stand under the hand dryer to get warm again.
Nikki: Oh, it's just me.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: At least in this room.
Nikki: Yeah, in this room, never.
Salina: Really I try to spend as little time as possible in the bathroom at a restaurant.
Nikki: Well, it's not just a restaurant, just anywhere where there's a hand dryer and I'm cold.
Nikki: So let's get back to officially what we liked.
Nikki: Oopsie, poopsie there.
Nikki: I just want to say I really enjoyed the writing in this one, so I just thought there was a lot of really good interactions.
Nikki: A lot of it felt nice and genuine.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: It was just good.
Nikki: Mary Joe talking about salespeople, like just being down there, like, I smell four women coming in.
Nikki: I can't wait to go to Hawaii.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: It's just really nice and crisp.
Nikki: Suzanne's rant on how hard it is to be a salesperson.
Salina: Oh, yeah, that was funny.
Nikki: You think I just stand out there and say, yeah, here's some lamps.
Nikki: Don't you just want to come on in?
Nikki: I don't remember exactly what she said, but the whole thing was good, including ending in sales.
Nikki: It's not pretty.
Nikki: I am, but it's not.
Nikki: Again.
Nikki: That dry pan.
Nikki: Suzanne.
Nikki: We get that in this episode, and I really enjoyed it.
Nikki: And then this is my last one.
Nikki: Charlene losing it and telling the salesperson, like, she just breaks down, that they're desperate for a man.
Nikki: I just really understood that negotiating style so well.
Salina: Yeah, the script writing was the biggest thing for me I liked.
Salina: At the beginning of the episode, Julia said, thank you so much.
Salina: You've been no help at all.
Salina: I just love that.
Salina: I just feel like she didn't say it in a mean way.
Salina: She just said it in a matter of fact way.
Salina: And sometimes I feel like we just deserve to tell people who are helping us, especially there are just certain people, you know, don't really want to help you, and then they proceed to not be helpful.
Salina: And you just deserve to tell them that you don't deserve to be mean, but you deserve to tell them that.
Nikki: It'S with a high amount of frequency.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: As someone who will follow you to the ends of the earth, get my money back.
Salina: I liked when somebody said, just let her start her life anew on the side of that highway.
Salina: Like you said, everything felt really natural.
Salina: I thought that was such a funny, like, just let her be there.
Salina: She'll be okay.
Salina: And then my last one that I really liked was when Mary Joe said, even in Guadalajara, they don't have the nerve to charge a processing fee.
Salina: Again, as a person who hates a processing fee, I love that so much.
Nikki: Yeah, good for her.
Nikki: Yeah, she had some fingers.
Nikki: What about things that we didn't like?
Salina: I didn't have anything.
Salina: Again, it's not because it was such an amazing oscar worthy or Emmy worthy episode.
Salina: Just I didn't have anything I didn't like.
Nikki: It was just an entertaining 1990 sitcom.
Nikki: And sometimes that's an okay place to be.
Nikki: This is one I mentioned in our last episode that in this run of episodes, there were some times where it just had a little bit more of that play feel to me where like, oh, now we're going to try.
Nikki: All the women go down there.
Nikki: Then Anthony goes down there, then they all try again.
Nikki: Then Mary Joe comes in, like, where it just kind of felt like but this is very NIT picky.
Nikki: I enjoyed it.
Nikki: It was a good time.
Nikki: With that in mind, do you want to rate this sucker?
Salina: Yes.
Salina: My scale is back end workers.
Salina: That was in Suzanne's.
Salina: I'm a front end person.
Salina: You are back end people.
Nikki: That was really funny.
Salina: I gave this episode a 4.5.
Salina: I thought it was a really good episode.
Salina: I thought it was relatable.
Salina: I thought it was funny.
Salina: I really thought it was redeeming at the end, which I appreciate.
Salina: I love letting Mary Joe kind of swoop in and save the day.
Salina: So it's not quite a five because, again, it's not like emmy worthy.
Salina: But when it came time to rewatch this one, I actually was excited to rewatch it because I thought it was just it's just funny.
Salina: It's just silly funniness.
Nikki: I feel like I'm going to have to do a little on talking about it.
Nikki: This is one of those situations, too, where I've also realized how much more I enjoyed it.
Salina: Just oh, are you changing your score?
Nikki: I am.
Nikki: I'm bumping it up to a four out of five.
Salina: What did you bump it up from?
Nikki: 3.43.4.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: And my rating scale is summers on the dairy farm.
Nikki: That part just really made me laugh.
Nikki: And again, I think I'm right there with you.
Nikki: I just really like seeing Mary Joe win.
Nikki: And while I really enjoyed it, again, it's really hard to come off of some of the higher points that we've had this season where this just doesn't feel like just a run of the mill, good, enjoyable episode.
Nikki: 90s things.
Salina: The most on the nose reference was Mary Joe.
Salina: Pointing out to the salesman that although he was trying to pitch that brand new 1989 van pretty hard, it was in fact, 1990.
Salina: At that point, that was the only thing I had.
Nikki: There were just some ideas in the beginning, like the whole set up for this episode.
Nikki: I just can't even imagine it happening in Atlanta today.
Nikki: Not that it wouldn't happen anywhere if you're in a rural area, absolutely this would be the case.
Nikki: But this idea that in the entire metro city of Atlanta, they couldn't find a van rental is almost, like, unbelievable to me.
Nikki: Unless we were really having some kind of a crisis, which does actually sound maybe it's exactly pretty believable.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Take the pandemic supply chain issue, right.
Nikki: Or this idea that they couldn't get a cab for hours because of the rain, like the cab aspect of it.
Nikki: But it's so easy to get Uber or Lyft, wherever you are.
Nikki: It's just hard to believe.
Nikki: I could call here and there's at least a few running around in Gwinnett.
Nikki: And then a checkbook was another one that was up there for me.
Nikki: I also had Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal here, but I'm quickly looking because I'm not sure that it actually published in the published in the 80s.
Nikki: So that's my bad.
Nikki: That's an 80s thing.
Nikki: So nothing.
Nikki: And then Southern things.
Nikki: What did you have?
Salina: Well, we had a pretty significant Waffle House reference.
Salina: The car dealer was from Dallas and went to Georgia Tech.
Salina: You just mentioned this.
Salina: I put Sweet and Low in Southern things, not because I necessarily know that it was Southern.
Salina: I probably should have Googled that and I didn't, but my grandma used to have that.
Salina: We used to just dump it on our cereal, our rice checks, before church on Sunday morning.
Salina: It just feels Southern.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: Sweet and Low is the preferred sweetener of Grandma's.
Salina: Yeah, I think so.
Salina: When Splendid came along, they were like, no thanks.
Salina: I'll keep on with my with the pink stuff.
Nikki: That's right.
Salina: And then the car dealer offered Mary Joe a Coke when she sat down.
Nikki: Okay, well, you talked a little bit about 285.
Nikki: I'm just going to say that also in the show notes, my contribution is a lot of things have happened on 285.
Nikki: It's a fascinating place.
Nikki: And my favorite 285 story, which I may have talked about here before and I just can't remember, but this time you can go look at the story if you want.
Nikki: Is the baseball player who missed a start in 1982 because he was circling 285 looking for the stadium, ran out of gas.
Nikki: Pascal Perez.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Kyle told me this story, actually, last.
Nikki: Baseball season, and they started calling him Perimeter Pascal and Wrong Way Perez.
Nikki: Bless his heart, though, he just got his driver's license, so I feel kind of bad for him.
Nikki: But also, like, 285, it sucks.
Salina: I was just telling you this last week that 285 confuses me because if you're in certain parts of town, it's 285 north and 285 south.
Salina: If you're in other parts of town, it's 285 east and 285 west because it is just a big circle.
Salina: But that requires you to know where you are in proximity to the city.
Salina: And if you don't know where you are, that doesn't really help you.
Salina: And then you don't know if west is actually it's just very confusing.
Nikki: Then you're dealing with the personality of drivers, right?
Nikki: So you have some people that they get over 8 miles in advance and they will just sit there in that lane just waiting to get there.
Nikki: And I'm putting myself in that category, just to be clear.
Nikki: And then you have the people who at the very last minute, like zoom over and because 285 is confusing, those two personalities together are terrible.
Nikki: And then just a normal driver that's just trying to get over in a reasonable amount of time is kind of screwed.
Salina: And there is a stereotype, which I believe is actually true, that some people, like the majority of people who drive on 285 believe that it's named that because that is the speed limit and they drive 285 miles an hour.
Salina: And to your point, then they're whipping and weaving all across.
Salina: I hate driving on 285.
Salina: Anytime we have somewhere to go.
Salina: And if you want to go see the Braves play now you have to go on 285.
Salina: And it really cheeses me off because that is a terrible highway.
Salina: It is a terrible stretch of road.
Nikki: I don't imagine any time in this lifetime that I'll be driving to that.
Salina: Stadium when I passenger got my driver's license.
Salina: I think we've talked about this, I think before on here.
Salina: I failed in Gwinnett County.
Salina: So someone told me if you drive up to like somewhere north of Marietta, maybe like Kennesaw or something, if you drive up there that people there are really nice go up there.
Salina: My stepdad made me drive on the way there and we had to take 285.
Salina: And for an unlicensed driver, 285 is a death sentence.
Salina: You should not do it.
Nikki: It's scary.
Salina: It's terrifying.
Salina: It is really, really scary.
Salina: That was a terrible experience.
Salina: I'll never do it again.
Nikki: I am not going to let you blow past Waffle House.
Nikki: How dare you?
Salina: I think I'm scarred now.
Salina: I'm afraid I won't say all the.
Nikki: Right things, but you can't blow past it because it's a Georgia thing.
Nikki: In fact, I'm really surprised it's taken them this long to reference it because it's such a Georgia thing.
Nikki: And knowing that, I know we've gotten like Denny's references without Waffle House.
Nikki: But anyways, the first one for those people who do not know the glory that is Waffle House.
Nikki: The first one opened up here in Georgia, avondella states, 1955.
Nikki: We'll link to Fun Nuggets in our show notes.
Nikki: We're not going to talk about the history and all that.
Nikki: I just wanted to ask, do you have a go to order there at Waffle House?
Salina: Yes, I think I usually get the well, now I can't remember what the combo is called.
Nikki: Is it an all star?
Salina: Yes.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: The All Star.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Thank you.
Nikki: I'll help you.
Nikki: So I you know what menu last.
Salina: Night, for some reason, Chickfila is in my mind right now, and then I am simultaneously processing something I did several seasons ago about fast food.
Salina: So it's all going through my head at the same time.
Salina: But yes, at Waffle House, and I for a very long time didn't order my hash browns any sort of way.
Salina: Like, the scattered, smothered covered felt somehow too like insiders baseball to me.
Salina: But Kyle introduced me to it, so I just want everything on the hash browns.
Nikki: I'm having ten thoughts.
Salina: Right?
Nikki: I know.
Nikki: So the first one is that was your first Nikki's Nibbles.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And that was season one, episode two.
Nikki: That's been a long, long time ago.
Nikki: I recently looked it up because I was trying to make sure when I did my fast food segment that I wasn't stepping on yours, because that would not be great.
Nikki: But like you said, it's been a long time, so I have a pretty good memory.
Nikki: And even that is getting into the territory of so I was a patty melt person.
Nikki: That was always my go to order, like, as a kid.
Salina: An interesting choice.
Nikki: Have you ever had a patty melt.
Salina: At a waffle place?
Nikki: Have you ever had a patty melt there?
Salina: It's just an interesting choice at a waffle place.
Nikki: I didn't have a waffle there until I was, like, 25.
Salina: That is wild.
Nikki: Yeah, I never went there for waffles.
Nikki: In fact, most people I know don't really get the hash browns I feel like are the more classic choice at Waffle House.
Nikki: I will say today, let me be very clear.
Nikki: My mom would always get a pecan waffle.
Nikki: So I would, like, take a bite.
Nikki: And I was like, it's fine, it's fine.
Nikki: But now I love them.
Salina: They're waffles.
Salina: The plain waffles are very good.
Nikki: It's like cake.
Nikki: So if you like cake, you're going to like these waffles.
Nikki: But as I kind of got older, I went strictly breakfast.
Salina: I think that's where I struggle.
Salina: It's really challenging for me to order anything other than breakfast at a traditionally breakfast place.
Salina: Like, Cracker Barrel to me, is a very traditionally breakfast place to me in my context.
Nikki: Sure.
Salina: So when I see the person next to me ordering, like, I don't know, what are they a meatloaf.
Salina: I'm like, really?
Nikki: Meatloaf here?
Salina: Really?
Salina: They have pancakes.
Salina: Why are you getting meatloaf?
Salina: It's just weird to me.
Salina: So it's hard for me to process that.
Nikki: Cracker Barrel has a lot of different kind of food.
Nikki: That's good.
Nikki: But also I struggle to only because not that I think it's weird.
Nikki: It's just that I'm always going to veer back to breakfast because I just can't let it go.
Nikki: I can't let go of biscuits.
Nikki: That's what it boils down to.
Salina: We actually went to IHOP last weekend.
Salina: Very unexpectedly, we ended up there eating dinner, and everyone at our table ordered breakfast.
Salina: Yeah, but they have tons of actual food on the menu.
Salina: But going to IHOP, the International House of Pancakes would never occur to me to order steak.
Salina: Steak and eggs.
Salina: Like steak and eggs is not a breakfast food to me.
Salina: To me, I don't know.
Salina: I just got pancakes.
Salina: Yeah, I just like pancakes.
Nikki: I definitely consider steak and eggs a breakfast thing, but it's not a breakfast.
Salina: Steak at breakfast.
Salina: Yeah, I can't do it.
Nikki: You're a real hard liner.
Nikki: I am.
Salina: A huge breakfast.
Salina: Traditionalist.
Nikki: So the other thing I was going to say, it's funny that you went ahead and went to the scattered, smothered covered thing.
Nikki: You can get eight different toppings on the hash browns.
Nikki: Let me be clear.
Nikki: I haven't been to Waffle House in three years.
Nikki: It's like not a place I go frequently.
Nikki: I honestly don't.
Nikki: I wish their b**** were a little.
Salina: More comfortable, and I wish it weren't so freaking cold in there.
Nikki: They make them cold.
Salina: It's intentional.
Salina: They want you to eat more and you eat more when you're cold.
Nikki: Smart.
Salina: But yeah, it's miserable.
Salina: Like my son said recently, my son is five and said recently, I want to go there, but isn't that place cold?
Salina: And I was like, It's the coldest, man.
Salina: It doesn't get colder in the Waffle House.
Nikki: It's always cold.
Salina: It does not matter what time of year you go, it is always cold.
Nikki: You got to feel a certain way for the short order cooks, though, too, because they're standing over like, basically a grease pit.
Nikki: I bet you that gets hot.
Nikki: But yeah, well, that's a tactic.
Nikki: So anyway, scattered, smothered and covered is like, traditionally what I would do, too.
Nikki: So I thought it's funny that you said that.
Nikki: I think that is probably the most classic things, smothered with onions, covered with cheese out of like a mini brain fart there.
Nikki: And then one day I got it all the way.
Salina: Have you ever gotten your hash all the way?
Salina: I don't know what the other toppings are that you can get.
Nikki: I was sick.
Nikki: I mean, it's mushrooms, peppers, chunks is ham.
Nikki: This is new chunks.
Nikki: When I was little, like, I don't remember there being gravy or biscuits.
Nikki: Biscuits and gravy got added later to the menu, I think.
Nikki: And so now, on top of all of this other stuff you can get because you can also get chili on them, I think you can also get gravy on them.
Nikki: And I'm curious because when I did the last time, get all the way, gravy wasn't an option.
Nikki: I would take a bite.
Nikki: Although I'm just going to tell you, brace yourself.
Nikki: You will not feel very well afterwards, but it was delicious.
Salina: So do you get cheese and gravy?
Salina: That would be all the way if.
Nikki: It'S all the way.
Salina: I don't know if I like that.
Nikki: Cheese and gravy is the one that gets you not the gravy and the chili.
Salina: Oh, for sure.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Sorry.
Salina: Cheese is ingrained in my head.
Salina: So chili hadn't quite made it there yet.
Salina: Yeah, something to think about.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: And the cheese they do for anybody who hasn't been there, it is literally a slice of, like, craft cheese just laid on top.
Salina: They don't even try to melt it, like, try to mix it in in any sort of way or disguise it.
Salina: They literally just put the slice of cheese on top.
Nikki: I think there's a method to the madness with the American cheese because it's not cheese, and it just melts so easily because it's like it's something I guess craft won't be calling us anytime soon.
Nikki: That's okay.
Salina: I mean, I didn't say I didn't like it.
Nikki: Oh, no, I like it.
Nikki: I don't know what it's doing to your insides, but I like it.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: So, yeah, I just had to cover it.
Nikki: I had to talk about it.
Nikki: Nicky, you had to talk a little bit about Waffle House.
Salina: It's good.
Nikki: It belongs to us.
Nikki: It's ours.
Nikki: But we share it with a lot of the south.
Salina: It's like Chickfila all over again.
Salina: There's one in Times Square now, so we're sharing it with everybody as we.
Nikki: Should export the good things.
Nikki: Export the good things.
Nikki: So references that we need to talk.
Salina: About, do you have any?
Nikki: The only thing I had is the whole thing that sets this off is the reason they're desperate for real for the van, aside from getting Anthony back.
Nikki: But really it was because the client was going to get there everything they had done for free, like all of the furniture because of this deal that Suzanne had made, like this idea of a free job if the delivery wasn't there by midnight that night.
Nikki: And they mentioned that she got an idea from a pizza ad, and I'm pretty sure she's referring to Domino's, which was get your delivery in X amount of minutes or get it free.
Nikki: That was their huge push back in the day.
Nikki: I don't think they do that anymore.
Nikki: That's it.
Salina: All right, well, next Episode season Four Episode 18 anthony and Vanessa, we'd love everyone to follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at sweettv.
Salina: Our TikTok is at sweettvpod, and our email address is sweettvpod@gmail.com.
Salina: Our website is www.sweettv.com, and you can find ways to support the show there, including through our Support US page.
Salina: And you can tell your family and friends about us or rate and review the podcast wherever you listen.
Salina: And come back Thursday for extra sugar.
Salina: Where inspired by that really nice bathroom at the car dealership, we're going to.
Nikki: Talk about the world's fanciest bathrooms.
Nikki: And how about some applause for Nikki, who has to rip off the hardest words to say back to back to back to back to back at the end of every episode.
Nikki: It's just a lie.
Salina: It should just be ingrained in my brain.
Salina: Like, I should just be able to say it.
Nikki: I don't know what happened.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: Thanks anyways.
Nikki: Good job, Nikki.
Salina: Thank you.
Nikki: And on that note, you know what that means?
Salina: What does it mean?
Nikki: Salina, we'll see you in the bathroom.
Nikki: All right.
Nikki: Bye.