Some of us go to the dealership down the road for a new car; not Suzanne! She heads to the manufacturer’s home country! And takes Julia along for the ride. We’re in for a “trip” as the duo heads to Japan. And we finally get a Mary Jo/Anthony madcap adventure in the form of some overpriced phone calls (AKA an 80s reference we need to talk about!) Somewhere along the way, we’ll also “Salina’s Sidebar” about snow days. Ah, memories.
And come back later this week for “Extra Sugar,” where Salina is going to honor the cool-looking hotel the ladies find in Japan by taking us on an audio tour through some unique stays around the world.
Some reads:
Come on, let’s get into it!
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Transcript
Hey, Nikki.
Hey, Salina.
And hello everyone and welcome to Sweet Tea and TV.
Hey, y'all.
Uh, so I was looking ahead to see when this episode would officially come out and it's gonna come out on March 20.
Do you know what March 20th is?
I did it first day of spring.
Uh I think it's March 21st but, but maybe, I don't know.
I'll let you Google that.
Uh, March 20th is the International Day of Happiness, also known as the first day of spring.
Well, you make a good point.
It does start on March 20.
Oh, it does so many things.
Ok.
Well, we're going to talk about this year this year.
It is sometimes it's the 21st.
I think that's right.
Which would explain why I told Carolina the other day that the 21st was the first day of spring.
And then she asked Alexa and Alexa disagreed with me.
Oh, really?
I'm gonna have to spend a little time now.
She didn't survive that.
She got a little mouth.
I'm just kidding.
International Day of Happiness.
International Day of Happiness.
Look at you, get us a contract.
Could have gone anywhere so I was like, oh, yeah.
But I found ac, and I feel way more happy about that than you too.
It's just like there's a day for every day.
It's like, oh, if there's going to be one, there should be one for that.
That would be nice.
Right.
Um, but I found ac in an article about the world's happiest countries for 20, 22, the 2023.
It's too early to shoot too early.
Um, but I wanted to know, do you have any guesses?
Which country ranked the happiest in the world?
Is it?
Norway?
I thought you were gonna say United States.
No, we're like, I don't, I don't even know how many countries there are in the world but like we're at the bottom of the list.
You think so?
I do.
Um, so you said Norway?
Yeah, it is in the top 10, the Netherlands.
Uh, it is also in the top 10 Japan.
No, that's the only countries I know.
Just come out.
I'm just kidding.
Finland.
Oh, what did I say?
I said Norway.
Hm.
What I was gonna say is like the Dutchy countries, they seem very happy.
Is Finland, the one where they leave the babies outside in their strollers to sleep.
That country is happy.
I don't, I don't know that story.
Um, and I didn't know which way that story was going either.
I was like, is this happy?
But they leave the babies outside by the walls, they will, they will literally go into a restaurant and, and I've seen this validated on tiktok like 17 times.
So I feel good about the information.
Um, it's tradition that they'll have them in the stroller and leave the babies outside while they go in and have dinner and then they come back out and get them.
And it's something about like building their immune systems and people are like, why doesn't anybody steal the babies?
And they're like, because we're not monsters, we don't steal babies in our country.
How would you steal a baby?
I've got like, lots of reasons.
I mean, first of all, it's really wrong and that's a terrible thing to do.
But, like, also you're stealing a responsibility.
How does that make any sense?
Scandinavians is really what it is.
Maybe Norway.
That's Nikki.
Moving on.
All those, all those countries, sort of.
Um, how's this now?
Um, I think, I think of them in a similar bucket.
It's a similar bucket.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
No, no, no, I get it.
I get it.
I don't want to be given a test.
Ok.
I got the answers in front of me.
So, Finland, this is the fifth year in a row that they rank number one.
So, what I'm saying is, it's ok.
We had opposite thoughts.
You said?
Good for them.
I said it's time to move.
I, yeah.
Well, I mean, it could be the same, good for them once you move to the happiest country in the world and you were the one on the spot.
It dropped down like once you moved there, that feels like it might happen to me anyways.
So, do you want to hear the top 10?
Yes, please.
Ok.
So number two is Denmark.
Number three is Iceland.
Number four is Switzerland.
Number five is, they're all in that same place.
Yeah, I know.
That's what I said.
That's crazy.
Um, number five, you're very smart.
Number five is Netherlands.
Number six is Luxembourg seven, Sweden eight, Norway nine, Israel 10, New Zealand, Israel, New Zealand doesn't surprise me.
It's real.
Yeah.
So cool.
You thought the US fell to the very bottom of the list?
I think I've at least told you that's not the case, but you say we're number 11.
I swear, I'm going to come across this table.
Ok.
Well, that would seem kind of unfair to me since you invented this list.
Where are we, where are we on the list?
You know, I guess, I mean, how many countries are there?
I know.
I don't know.
I forget, I think it's out of 50, maybe 100 anyways.
32. OK.
That's not bad.
16 of 32.
Anything to make yourself.
Right.
Right.
Ok.
16.
Yeah.
The American Dream, I think we're above.
I don't have the list open right now, but I think we're above.
Um, Britain, which I didn't expect in France, I think Yeah, I was telling you what, I just tell you what the report says.
And so some of the measures because I didn't want to just drop that and people be like, but why, what's the secret?
Oh So like what's the secret?
Tell me more?
Is it leaving your baby outside?
So this is some of the measures that the report uses to explain these findings.
Um healthy life expectancy.
GDP per capita, social support, certain times of trouble, low corruption and high social trust, generosity in a community where people look after each other and freedom to make key life decisions.
Wow, that's lovely.
That is so nice, isn't it?
Assuming all those are good indicators?
If you're at the bottom, that's not great.
It's not the best.
So that's it.
Uh So for all of our listeners, Happy Day of Happiness.
Oh, you know what?
I was going to use that International Flair to parlay us into this week's episode.
But she went back to International Happy Day, which is how it started.
I thought you picked this segment because you're talking about other countries.
And Julian was saying, go to other countries, speaking of other countries, that's a great transition.
I was so glad you picked that to open the episode.
Also, Happy International, Happy Day.
Uh This week is designing women's season four episode nine, Julia and Suzanne's Big Adventure I M DB.
This week says Julia and Susan.
I think Salina just messes with me picking out these descriptions for the, for the 5:00 AM when I'm doing it.
The fact is not just three scribbles on a screen.
It's amazing.
Julia and Suzanne experienced a series of mishaps on a trip to Japan to visit their mother and to pick up Suzanne's new car.
Meanwhile, Anthony and Mary Jo cast votes in a call in poll unaware that each call costs money.
This one aired November 27th, 1989.
And we're calling this one Me, this was written by Pam Norris and directed by Dwayne Hickman.
Can I stop you real quick?
I guess I could bring this up in references, but I'm honestly not sure.
Good Lord.
Well, that name Big Adventure.
Are they, is that a Peewee Herman reference?
Oh, you might be right.
We's big adventure.
When did that movie come out?
We'll see.
Let's see.
Let's do a quick.
Are we gonna find out Pam Norris worked on that?
Oh, sorry.
85.
Oh, ok.
But beforehand, so there are other kinds of big adventures too if anybody happens to question anything about how this might be a reference.
Anyways, it just struck me.
Um, when you said it in the last episode, when you were introducing that this is gonna cover this week, I was like, wait a second.
I wonder if this is a play.
Yeah.
Well, other than that, what general reactions did you have?
Oh, look at that.
Um So it was a good idea to give these to their own episode.
And honestly, I'm a little surprised, wait, which two Julia and Suzanne?
So I wanna say yes, but I was specifically thinking about Julia and Susan because it's more their episode.
Um And um I'm surprised it took this long, honestly.
Yeah, that's a good point.
You trying to think back to whether or not they'd had a pair up before like this.
Uh I don't know.
I was just trying to fill the silence.
I don't know.
I just was thinking, ok, perfect time.
You want us to give you a minute.
Leave me alone.
I was just thinking and thanks for coming to our last podcast episode.
I'm just reflective.
It's all.
Uh I thought this episode was just a delight.
It's Hi Jinks.
We've had three episodes in a row of High Jinks, which is my personal brand of enjoyment and humor.
Uh, it isn't always mine, but I've really enjoyed it in this run.
Um, it's been a good run.
It's been a good run to see how it goes.
Um, I wanted to say that I had about a million thoughts about Suzanne in this one, but here are a few main things I wanted to just wonder, especially as our resident Suzanne defender.
Um, is it just me or did they really ratchet up everything with her in this episode at the beginning?
Especially on the plane?
I found her to be louder ruder and more obnoxious than she's ever been in that very beginning scene.
And then her character, this, I didn't think really matched up very well for me.
So her character is supposed to be well traveled.
Yes.
But she's acting like she's never left home before or been on a plane before and like, she doesn't know anything about the world she called Japan, a developing nation.
Um, I will counter my own argument though with the fact that everything we hear about is pretty Eurocentric or like the Caribbean.
So um by Show Cannon, but like still it doesn't track for me and I enjoyed her later on as soon as we get off the plane.
She's I delightful.
But on the plane, I was like, this is too much.
So I think that I had, I won't say for forgiven it because it, I mean, she was, she was really inappropriate in a lot of ways, but I think I had rationalized it maybe as she, she even says, like she's in coach and I feel like she's used to first class.
And that is a total.
I've been in first class one time in my life on my honeymoon and it is a very different experience and those people are very different and I imagine if you travel a lot and you usually travel first class, you are going to have really bad manners in front of all the rest of the cattle, which I think is how she identifies people.
Ok.
But you're right.
She was, she wasn't, she was a lot.
I mean, it made me L V T is obviously trying to tell us something.
Right.
And I think she is trying to tell us a little bit about, um, I think it was like a what not to do like this, you gonna travel the world.
So, um, but I thought I loved her afterwards just great.
Um Even though she was still mean, it was like a, a Suzanne mean that I can handle um and not borderline border line.
I mean some of it was just flat out racist.
So um stray observations.
Were you ready for those or you got more generals?
I am ready.
Uh Well, it, it, it's worth noting, which was one of my general reactions.
This is just, and they referenced this in the show another notch in our belt of terrible trips for this group of people.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You lost me at the, the sorry, I should have picked a different 1, 20 minute trip to the DMV.
Is that a thing?
That's what Charlene said.
It was gonna be, well, I'm glad you said that because I think that there were some timing snafus in this one all around.
So, um I think that's probably uh not true and then, but it is Charlene.
Yeah, and she's optimistic.
That's true.
So, um four days for an international trip, I'm just going to say, don't do that.
I can't imagine that means they'll basically have a day and a half, maybe not traveling.
I checked it, it takes 14 hours to get to Tokyo from Atlanta.
And that's on a direct flight which I would imagine they take, I can't, I can't imagine they would go and coach and like over and over.
Right.
Um, and, uh, so I just, so that was weird for me.
And then also I think even maybe the premise of what they did was going to get the car.
So that is a real thing that people do.
Ok.
I mean, I don't know how the pandemic has hit that.
I would imagine.
Not.
Well, but it's, um, I know from, from Casey and his work that like, you know, people would go to Germany and they would go pick up their car over there, go see it in the factory.
They made like a whole thing out of it.
It was for really special elite clientele.
These people are not doing this for a deal, they're doing it because it's like this elaborate bucket list kind of thing and then they chip it back over.
And so that part was real.
So I just thought that was a little surprising.
I mean, I think they kind of made it work with some glue and tape there, but it was a little bit of a stretch.
I was so confused about how it could possibly be cheaper to fly to Japan.
Stay in Japan, although they said they're staying with their mother or mother's friend or whatever.
Um Stay in Japan, buy a car, ship the car back to the US and fly back to the.
How is that cheaper than just buying a car?
Speaking of money, things nice, Anthony and Mary Jo spent $350 on prank calls today.
That will be 826.
I just want to say that 350 would be bad.
I would be really upset about that 826.
I probably have to go to at least one therapy session when Kyle and I were in college and dating, we were on two different cell phone plans and it was back when you got charge, charged for every text message and I got charged for minutes if I didn't call him after eight PM.
And I'm unlikely to call him being after eight PM, even at 21 years old.
And, um, so I got my first cell phone bill that was probably almost $300 after we started dating and I had to change cell phone providers because I couldn't afford that.
It must be love.
He owes me that money.
Um, speaking of prank calls and Anthony and Mary Jo's time together.
Well, actually, let me ask, do you have any other straight?
I don't wanna cut you off at the knees.
Go ahead.
Some of mine might come up with yours.
Well, don't be so sure because someone might be trying to transition right now, actually carry on.
Uh, so speaking of prank calls Mary Jo and this is about something near and dear to my heart.
Snow days.
Could we so subtly Selina side about that?
Sure.
It's a side bar, Celina Sidebar.
She got a keyboard looking for a reward but in deep in the obscure, taking us on a deep tour.
What you got Salina in Salina?
Sidebar?
Really?
Waiting that went out to the last one.
It was just a, a lot of back meat.
I was like backbeat.
I thought you said back meat.
Oh, maybe.
I don't know.
I just got off a cruise.
It's really at the trough there.
You know what I'm saying?
Uh So, uh, that was a terrible transition and I apologize for that.
Anyways, I, I thought like it would be fun to revisit first Mary Joe's Snow Day and then, um, we could talk a little bit about like our snow days.
Uh, so here's what Mary Jo says about hers.
Uh, this is directly from the episode, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.
I'm having such a good time.
It reminds me of snow days.
You remember snow days.
You know, you wake up in the morning, there'd be a couple of inches of snow on the ground and while mama was fixing breakfast, we'd sit around listening to the radios to see which schools were closed and which schools were going to be open and we'd sit there and we'd just pray and pray.
Oh, please, oh, please please say Franklin Elementary.
And then the radio would say, and Franklin Elementary and then we would just all roll around on the floor in our pajamas going.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And then what would you do?
Well, then we'd spend about 45 minutes getting into our snow clothes and then we'd go outside for about 10 minutes and it'd be too cold.
So we'd come back in, have some hot chocolate, watch TV, and make prank phone calls.
So, Nikki hearing that, does that sound on par with any of your snow day experiences?
Yes.
In the sense that we would sit and watch the news and beg for our school to be listed and it would never be Gyne County schools.
And then, and then you go to school when you go to school.
But on the rare occasion that it was our school, that was out, that part about playing in the snow for about 15, 20 minutes as a Southerner, it doesn't get more true than that.
So, speaking of being a southerner, like, I think that's what, why this hits differently.
Um, is because like, you know, the south versus like Chicago or something or really anywhere where it snows a lot.
Not because other parts of the country don't have to stay home if it's like, really inclement weather.
Obviously they do.
But just for us in general, snow is so rare that it's like a unicorn occasion for us.
Like, unless you live in the mountains or something.
So, I got curious, I, I, like, I maybe could have just dialed a friend, um, about this but it was five o'clock in the morning.
No one's answering the phone.
Um, and I got curious whether snow days are even a thing anymore, especially now I do digital learning days.
Yeah, all this stuff.
So, according to Ed Week, research center survey from November 2020, 39 of principals and district leaders said their district had converted snow days to remote learning days and another 32% said their districts were considering the change.
And then there are some, they've just done away with them all together, you know, New York City, Green Bay.
I hear it snows there.
Um, Salem Massachusetts and then other districts like DC.
Well, they haven't, uh, because of concerns about access to technology, which makes a lot of sense.
I kind of wish somebody to play you something about that.
It's ok.
Um Still others like Northfield Minneso are offering more of a hybrid approach.
So they'll do one traditional snow day and then after that, they go ahead if the weather is still bad and they switch to e-learning.
Oh, I like that idea.
I think that's a really childhood, right.
Because personally, I think snow days are really special.
Um And should be preserved.
It's like a rite of passage.
Like Senior Skip Day.
Like seeing your Skip Day, like Senior Skip Day skipping in her head one day, I'm gonna make you, I'm gonna make you skip.
Don't know what's happening.
I know you didn't do Senior Skip Day.
What's happening?
Meanwhile, I skipped every Thursday.
Oh my gosh.
Need that tradition.
We're gonna send you back to high school.
That sounds terrible.
Um So tell me Nikki, do you have any standout snow day memories that you'd want to talk about school age, snow day.
The one that popped to mind for me and I had to double check this because I was not in Atlanta for the great blizzard of 1994 or whatever.
I was in North Carolina and I was too, I'm kind of too young to remember it.
Um I don't have a lot of memories before.
I was like 14 years old.
I can't explain it.
Um But I do remember sledding and stuff, but I just don't really remember that being a big blizzard or anything.
Although I know it was uh but in 2000 we had another mass weather event in my home.
It set out our power for like five days.
So in my mind when it gets cold and snow is in the forecast, I get worried about losing power because for me, a lot of my snow day or like bad memory weather, bad weather, memories are tied to having no power.
So the snow of 2000, my brother and, um, stepdad had driven up to North Georgia to go snowboarding.
They got stranded because the roads were so icy.
So me, my mom and my sister were at home with no power for like three days until they could, like, muscle their way home.
Um, we didn't have school and because we didn't have power, we didn't and we didn't have a computer really to do remote learning or whatever and infrastructure.
Um We didn't do that.
We literally sat in my mom's room and just like tried to generate heat from our bodies for one another.
We had like a propane stove and every now and then help you revisit this memory.
There was no TV.
When I, I wanted to take a bath because I had to get away from my family because I was 15, 15, 15.
Yeah.
And I had to get away from my family.
So we had to heat up water in a pan.
I think we had a gas stove.
So to heat it up on the gas stove and then take it and pour it in the bathtub and do that like 20 times to get a lukewarm bath to be away from everybody.
So that's my strongest snow day memory.
Tell me about your wonderful childhood.
Oh man, that sounds, that sounds delightful.
Um So this actually wound up being a tough exercise for me too because, well, I'm old.
So these memories, especially as a little kid are much hazier.
I was around for the blizzard of 93 all the way back in the last century.
Um, in fact, this is kind of crazy but the day this airs will be March 13.
Oh, no, the day this airs will be March 20, the last episode when this airs that a week ago.
Yeah, this will be exactly 30 years ago.
This year.
From the year old.
I mean, we're the same age.
Oh, man.
So I was too young to remember the specifics but uh, like the specifics of the storm.
I do have memories from the blizzard but I, I wasn't like following the weather channel.
Uh, so let's see, we wouldn't have been quite eight yet, but I looked it up and wind chills reached negative 30 good Lord and winds sustained at 40 plus MPH.
Hundreds of thousands of people lost power for days everywhere.
From Atlanta to Athens and south of Atlanta.
That's where I was.
And then there were 3 to 9 inches of snow recorded.
I think they're talking about in the main areas, not the main areas, but like the middle part of the state.
Um, but places in North Georgia were reporting 35 inches in the northern suburbs.
Got about a foot of snow.
We'll link to an AJ C article from last year reflecting on the storm.
Um, because it's like a, I don't know, like, it's just, it's a interesting revisit to what happened at the time and how that was another time where snow really crippled the state.
So, I have pretty fond memories of this.
I probably do too pre, like mid-2 1000.
Um, but in 93.
So, yeah, I mean, we were actually living with my grandparents at the time and, um, well, my grandmother wasn't working anymore, but my grandfather, um my peep and my mom, they both had to be home from work and I couldn't go to school.
So we were all there together.
And fortunately, this is one of the times it was ok.
Um So we were really lucky to have power and I do remember being uh I do remember all the power outages from that time being a huge issue.
So we actually had a few neighbors and their kids staying with us.
That's fun.
And so we were like, unless you hated them.
No, it was, it was great.
Actually, we played games and I just felt terrible telling this now after your story.
So you should have gone first.
I'm so sorry.
Um We played games and I seem to remember my grandma making her delicious beef, vegetable soup.
It's really good.
And um I don't know, it's just an interesting type of camaraderie.
I, I can't help but wonder if it like flicks something in our brains.
That's a little bit more primal, like a survival something but like also like around the campfire kind of whatever.
Um So yeah, don't get me wrong.
Like um so we had some bad weather as an adult.
So like snow Apocalypse 2014, which I think maybe you were just referencing crippling Atlanta like we had a driveway, kind of like yours.
It's on an incline and there was this much and I, I'm making like maybe an inch, an inch and a half of ice on it.
And I know that because I tried to go out and chip the ice off so we could go to the grocery store to get some groceries because we were young and didn't properly plan for the weather.
So we needed to go to the grocery store and I was trying to chip the ice off the driveway, which sounds terrible.
But the rest of the experience was really fun for us because in that house we never lost power.
So knowing we didn't really, um, I think we did have to work.
We worked remotely.
That was one of the first times I've ever professionally worked remotely, but it didn't feel like work because Kyle and I were in the same, like office space together and just sort of having fun and being kids.
And then we went outside with Jackson and played in the snow.
And then since I've had my kids, we've had at least one snow day and a couple of, like, bad rainy weather days where the power went out and we, we find ways to make it fun.
So, yeah, I mean, the idea of being stuck at home is glorious to me.
Yeah, we did have to drive the hurricane.
We had a couple of years ago we had to go to my parents' house because we were, I was nine months pregnant and we were on day two of no power and I couldn't do it anymore.
Yeah, I couldn't do it.
Yeah, that's tough.
That was hard.
It was hot.
It was September for that.
But it does get when the heat goes out for winter because if, if it's cold and enough for us to have snow down here, it's cold and our houses are not built for that.
So if you lose power, you get cold in Georgia, it's barely made for like, forties, fifties.
You know, because it feels like at that temperature I can walk outside sometimes and be like, dear heaven and stars.
Is it warmer out here than it in the house?
Um, so we might just need some insulation.
It's ok.
So in, in high school I remember being stuck at two different friends houses.
Uh, like just, it's hard for me to remember the years now.
I guess one is the 2000 time frame I can't really remember, but it was like the same neighborhood but two different times I do specifically remember these, these friends, their parents had money.
So I want to be clear.
This was not my neighborhood.
Um But one time we went sledding on the golf course that was in their neighborhood and that was like a ton of fun because obviously it's really hilly, so it's perfect for that.
And then the details on the second time were a little fuzzy.
That's probably because it was the earlier iteration.
Um You guys might have gotten hit.
I wonder if this is 2000.
I think y'all might have gotten hit worse than we did because you know of Atlanta geography, geography is fun.
Um But it feels like maybe Henry County overshot and they close us down because they didn't need to.
Yes.
So it was snowy.
So we still got to enjoy the snows, but the roads were actually ok.
All of our friends just wound up getting together instead and I remember being in the hot tub a lot and then also daring one of our friends to do a naked snow angel, which she did.
I feel like this is the story.
You should feel bad telling me I was 15, stuck in a small room with my mom and sister boiling water so I could take a bath.
I could come get you.
I would have, I don't like we didn't know each other, but I would have invited you to the hot tub.
I would have been like leave your sister and your mom.
They'll survive.
They're fun.
Come to this.
You're right.
This is the one but I don't actually know.
It's 2000.
I told you I can't really remember the year.
I can't remember the years.
But all I'm saying all your fun blurs together.
All my fun.
Hey, trust me, there was trauma, there was trauma in between the fun.
Um, the kids need this.
That's my, I sure the naked snow angels, but they do need this bonding time.
They need this kind of fun because let me tell you something, you already know, but in case you don't know when you're listening, these moments, they get few and far between the bill paying and the 9 to 5 and all of that.
So I say school systems districts hear me now.
I have some fun.
You give those kids a break because they won't have it forever and you need it.
It's like it's a type of skills building.
You know, I was reading an article about that recently.
Um This idea that for all the learning you do in school, if you're not like emotionally intelligent and you're not like socially intelligent, you're not going to survive because we're a social and emotional society.
That's right.
That's how you connect with people.
Absolutely.
So it is, it is a part.
She's right of Wynette County schools.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You were really difficult on people.
I need you to ask Casey.
Um, if he remembers the same way I do.
Yeah, I remember you talking about this before.
I'll have to ask them.
They were awful.
We would literally, it would be like, every school system and then you get to and you're like, well, what's coming?
Like, probably just like skipping school.
He's like, I don't know.
Oh, ok.
Yeah, we were bad kids.
Nikki.
We were bad kids.
Um, so, besides snow days and reminiscing, what did you like about this episode?
Hi, Jinx.
And the script writing again was really good in this one.
Uh Charlene at the DMV was one of my favorites when she said most of the people down here are real cranky.
They don't know how the department works.
They don't know which way, which line goes where and they just want to get out of here.
She's like, well, why don't you just ask for an employee?
And she's like, those are the employees?
I thought that was so good.
That was so good.
I also thought it was, I liked after a string and you mentioned this a minute ago of like outright racist things that Suzanne was saying and um like the subtle in insinuations and Julia is just like, judging her so hard.
And then Julia of all people, Julia, the ally had some accidental racism on the plane when she was like, just speak to him in Japanese.
Here's what you say.
I thought that was really funny.
Yeah.
Um I, I, do you have to give it to the writers of the show.
Now, L BT and Pim Norris and I never be able to keep up with who but like the fact that they like, they, they do equally, at, at least, at least try to equally share it around where people get to learn the lessons.
Um I liked when they're trying to find their seats on the plane.
And Julia says, if history teaches anything, mom will be next to a baby who smokes.
I knew you would love that one.
That really red line.
Would that also?
I had to look it up.
Uh, but smoking stopped on airplanes In 1997.
Later 2000, it wasn't fully banned until 2000.
Isn't that crazy?
Could you imagine it started to happen in 88?
Which is one of the reasons I'm wondering if it gets referenced.
I do remember having lunch with my mom while I was in college at a restaurant near her work where people still smoked in the restaurant.
They had the smoking section.
And that's, I know I've been in smoking restaurants before.
That's the clearest, most recent memory I have.
So that would have been like the early 2000s.
They didn't.
Well, I can tell you because I worked in restaurants and they didn't, I don't know if it was city of Atlanta or of all of Georgia.
That part I don't remember, but it was either January 10405.
Smoking and non smoking sections was just about the dumbest, so stupid because you just walk in and I thought you smell it.
I mean, it was, yeah, it was really dumb.
Um, and ours was, uh, at the steakhouse.
I worked at, it was only smoking at the bar but the bar is like, in the middle of the restaurant and you're like, ok.
Ok.
Um, but there was like a cigarette machine in there and the whole nine.
So I don't know.
Um So I like Sam a lot.
Yeah, and the twists in this one um that you're already starting to all you already alluded to.
But you know, um they assume he's Japanese and he doesn't speak English, but he's a self proclaimed Bubba from Conyers and then they get their luggage stolen at the airport by three American hippies.
I was glad that they, they built it that way.
And that seemed so many, I mean, so much of the script, there was so much of the script.
There was funny like Julia her broken high heel and again, Dixie Carter's physical humor with that limping Suzanne making the comment about um the tickets being in Julia's pocket and you can thank me for that because you said I was incompetent and I would lose them.
Um And then at some point, Julia said when a woman walks on a man's back, she means it, there's just like a lot of very funny comments in there.
Yeah.
Um, I like the exchange between Sam.
Julia and Suzanne in their cubicle room.
So the lights go out and you Suzanne?
Would you please take your hand off my breast?
Sam?
Hey, I'm sorry, not you Julia.
Then Julia goes Suzanne.
I'm tired.
I've had it.
I need some place to rest my hand and if you've got something to rest it on, I'm gonna use it.
What did Sam think?
What did Sam actually have his hand on?
Yeah, I guess that's a fair or was it on her breast?
And she was like, I'm ok with yours.
Not hers.
She's getting it.
I got really stuck on that one.
No, that's fair.
That's fair.
Or maybe he just assumed like, I don't know because I'm sure he was like really uncomfortable.
So Julia's list of people to be punished and also based on my most recent trip, I'm going to start incorporating that moving forward.
I'm coming for you, Fort Lauderdale.
The toward the end she was with the car sales guy.
She or the car guy.
She was super um relaxed about it and she's like, I'm sorry, I'm gonna need your name.
Like in the beginning she was really aggressive and then she's like, I'm gonna need to write that down or when the lady gets in the shower with her and she says, don't worry, I got her name, I'll write it on the list and I just, it was just, it was great.
So funny.
Uh, other things or things you didn't like.
The only thing I didn't like in this episode doesn't even feel fair is that there was an obvious gap with Charlene Missing for most of the episode.
Oh, yeah, because she's pregnant.
But then you made me feel kind of bad that I didn't catch how awful Suzanne was being.
She just felt like Suzanne to me, like a ramped up.
I'm traveling and anxious about international travel.
Sort of Suzanne.
It's such a sweet, so anxiety.
I am a very unpleasant traveler.
So I understand.
Sounds great.
The airport part and the like driving part, I'm very unpleasant about getting there being there, being on vacation.
I love it.
I love traveling, but I'm a very anxious in the airport.
Like I just want to be at the place.
Yeah.
Well, mine's more like there's just so much to keep up with and then international travel especially.
Well, the thing is, is like, you've got T S A agents, you yelling at you at you, you've got airline staff and so they're all doing the same thing moment by moment every day, right?
So they don't understand why you, if you're not like a business traveler don't understand automatically.
And that's really not fair.
I understand why they have that mindset.
It's very easy.
I think we all do it in our jobs.
How do you not get this idiot?
But like it's all ramped up by everything else and obviously post 9 11, I just feel like all airport stuff is so over the top.
Well, and not to go down a rabbit hole on that.
But what irritates me about T S A is the rules also change from airport to airport.
So the rules are simple and clear.
Exactly.
And then they act like you're the crazy one because you don't realize today you don't have to take your laptop out of the backpack.
So you're taking it out of the backpack, leave it in, ma'am, leave it in, ma'am.
Should I change this to things?
We didn't like a, like you said, bothers me if anyone ever started this sentence and let me tell you what I love about T S A, I mean, I am grateful to them and I appreciate their service but like just don't be an A hole because your rules are different day to day and not a daily traveler.
Get off my back and obviously there are nice T S A agents.
There certainly are, it may feel fewer and far between depending on your situation.
Well, that's the other part that gets me is this pay to play.
So if you go through clear or which is what I did recently.
And so now it's a super easy experience.
I have precheck now because I got tired of dealing with it.
But what I'm saying is it is definitely the haves and the have nots and we're doing that in travel and we're doing it under the guise of keeping people safe.
It's why we're number 16 on the happiness list.
And that's really messed up.
Let me tell you something.
People in international airports aren't very nice either.
In fact, that's some of the rougher ones I've had.
Uh, personally.
Uh, so my only dislike is I've already talked about and that's, I didn't think that Suzanne's play up, but on the plane, on the first plane there made a lot of sense.
Um I didn't think it's squared with her personality we've encountered to this part.
The selfish part.
Yes.
The loud and graceless part.
Not so much.
Um So, uh because we all know that Suzanne is perfect.
That's just the facts.
It's wonderful.
We know it.
Uh Do you want to rate the sucker?
I do.
All right.
My rating scale is reincarnation insurance policies.
Ok.
I'm gonna give it five out of five because it was pure silliness and I would willingly watch this one again and again and I did, in fact, uh I love it.
Mine is four out of five sexless men.
I think we really just in our two rating skills there, describe exactly who we are.
It's just another solid episode.
I love the pairing of Suzanne and Julia.
I love the pairing of Anthony and Mary Jo.
I do Miss Charlene, but we know what's going on there.
Good pacing.
The a and the B plots were the right balance.
We left Sugar Bakers.
It was a good time.
It was a good time.
Eight things, Jim and Tammy Fay Baker strike again somewhere in the script, I didn't write down the exact line but there was a reference.
I also referenced the movie Airport which I looked up and meant to put something down about it and I did in the 70s.
But yeah, the date you can't change the rules on me.
Salina.
You said this could be 70s.
I mean, you said this could be dated.
Um, Sam was also a slack salesman.
You don't know any good slacks feels dated.
That's a good point even for then.
Yeah.
And then they kept using the word stewardess.
Yeah, which I think we just generally don't use flight attendant.
Not a lot, not a lot.
Sometimes I do and I didn't even fly back when stewardess would have been appropriate.
I've just heard it so many times in the lexicon that like sometimes I'm like the steward is a flight attendant.
Yeah, I just get it wrong.
I don't know.
I, I don't know, I've ever accidentally used stewardess before but you're a better person than I am.
We know that's not true.
My things were reading a physical paper pamphlet or whatever.
Charlene is reading at the beginning about a guy in Florida selling reincarnation insurance.
So, um, going to the DMV in person feels dated these days.
You do still have to do it, but they have made a lot of it online process, which is, that's what I want to hear and, uh, dial a porn, it feels dated, play, paying the phone bill in person.
You wouldn't even know where, where would you even go?
Maybe Kyle and I talked about this recently.
My grandmother would literally on the first of every month make her drives around and drop off her checks to all of her different utilities.
So crazy to me.
I mean, the time we must save, you know, to watch Netflix, I was gonna say to fill with garbage.
That's right.
Southern things.
I have 21 is just another gone with the wind reference and the other is Con Georgia.
Uh I think that's where Sam says he's from uh the subtitle script website that we read subs like scripts dot com.
Um said he said Commerce Georgia, but I'm pretty sure he said Conyers both are real places in Georgia.
But Henry Cho who played Sam is actually from Knoxville, Tennessee.
Yeah, it sure is.
I thought he looked really familiar like I was going to look at his filmography and see him in a bunch of stuff I knew, but I didn't, didn't, he seems like he should be someone we know he seems charming and delightful.
I'd watch him in things.
I know I really liked him a lot.
Uh Suzanne says she won't be walking around in her stocking feet.
That doesn't just sound southern.
It sounds colonial like I thought that was really interesting.
Uh Sam referring to himself as a bubba, you know, that sounds pretty southern and I think you got the rest of mine.
What about references we need to talk about?
I'm starting to feel self-conscious.
I never have anything in this category.
It's OK.
I got, I got you.
I got you.
I thought it was weird that Suzanne said something like I'm just gonna have to get me some of those little wheels after she comes through the door with all of her luggage, sands, wheels.
And I was like, why don't you have wheels?
So I looked it up.
It turns out the bags that we're used to that are like roller boards is what those are called, weren't invented until 1987 by a Northwest pilot.
Uh I use this term loosely.
Fun fact, Northwest is who my grandfather worked for before they got bought out by Delta.
Someone else had um I come from an airline family so like anytime airline stuff comes up, it is both like, oh, I've heard this 400 times before at a family dinner and like also, oh God, you have to hear this again.
But someone else had put wheels on bags previously to this Northwest pilot and like sometime back in the sixties or something.
But this is crazy.
So, and they got a patent for it, but it didn't really take off in quite the same way.
They were four wheel models.
So they towed them around flat, like a wheel on the.
Doesn't that seem cumbersome and unhelpful?
It's like they didn't take off.
I mean, not to, like, I mean, that guy had to do that, I think for someone else to go to two wheel, like, 20 years later.
Yes.
No one was like, there's some promise in this.
Let's further refine as I'm not inventor.
What do I care?
I mean, what do I matter?
Well, I read this whole thing too.
Um I hope I remember this correctly but like people were also resistant to it because um I think it was seen as like kind of being weak, like you couldn't carry around your own bags.
That was part of it.
And then like the other part is most places used to have porters and that was such a big deal.
Nobody ever had to carry their own bags.
And so I think a lot of that becoming necessary came as like flight prices went down and more normal people like us were able to fly and then you had people who had to carry their own bags and suddenly there was more of a need for wheels.
I don't know.
I thought it was interesting.
It was just, it's just me guys.
I find it interesting.
I wish sometimes y'all could see Nikki's face.
Mary Jo Notes.
Only 45% voted in the last presidential election.
I cut that one from my strays earlier.
What did you find?
So, according to the US Census Bureau, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't look at to see if that was true or not.
Oh, I just looked to see how many came out in the last election.
I remember it being really high.
Um, but the US Census Bureau unsurprisingly found that 2020 was the highest voter turnout in the 21st century with 66.8% of citizens 18 or older voting in the election.
Yeah, I didn't, I didn't fact check.
Wikipedia had some 1988 election data that showed the number was 53% vs the 45 she mentioned.
Come on Mary Joe.
I know Pam Norris, dude.
I also wonder if they adjust those numbers over time, like if they continue to refine, I don't know, it feels like the election numbers change for quite some time after the election.
Oh, yeah, I don't know.
Huh?
Well, here's my last reference.
Okey dokey.
Um I think that's a good reason though.
That's good reasoning.
Uh My very last one is like Julia says something on the plane.
She's like wanting to know the age of the plane, right?
And I was like, why is she asking this?
So I just phoned a dad, my dad.
Um and he said, I can't say for sure when that requirement was made probably in the mid eighties.
Following aircraft accidents, incidents do, um, due to the first generation jets getting old enough to start having problems, which makes sense by the eighties they are getting, they would have been getting old.
Um, Aloha Airlines where the top of the airplane blew off and flight, for example, kind of led to people being, I don't know what regulation you're talking about.
Uh, like the age of planes not being able to share it or having to disclose it, right?
That you don't, that's what the flight attendant said.
She said Julia said something along the lines of like, how old is this plane?
And she says, I'm sorry, our policy isn't to disclose that.
So this is me asking my dad, was that ever a thing?
I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear.
Um So he thinks it was happening around the mid eighties.
Um when, when that, when they were required to disclose.
Ok, got it.
Same page now.
Really?
I was, well, I was very confused because I was like, so they have all these accidents and then the law changes.
So they don't have to disclose the age of the aircraft anymore.
And that makes no, I see.
So he said in the time before that change, the big airlines got new airplanes every 10 years or so.
Only second tier airlines flew older airplanes.
Most passengers don't have any idea of how old an aircraft is.
That would have certainly been the case at early airlines, 19 thirties to 19 eighties.
Then he told me the thing to remember is that most airlines have airplanes that are 15-25 years old and it isn't unheard to have aircraft that are older.
It is, it's really all about the maintenance.
Essentially, the aircraft is overhauled every few years and then rebuilt like a cruise ship.
There you go.
And then he said the date of the manufacturer in case you're interested, the next time you want to look is normally in the door jam similar to like that plate on your car.
I will stop real quick, stop everybody behind me and double check.
I would, yeah, I don't know.
I had to read the whole thing because I asked him and I felt really bad like I didn't know I was going to get such a detailed answer.
And then like you read that and you're like, oh, yes, parent, got it.
Parent, meet child, child, meet parent, you are, it was spread over like three text messages.
It wasn't, it was all in one really long text message.
Um So thanks dad.
That was really nice to give such a thorough explanation for that.
Thank you.
So that's all ok.
Next episode did, did that not go?
I get it?
I wish I could remember.
So next episode season four, episode 10, let's just keep it going in the background.
Jelly.
We'd love everyone to follow along with us and engage.
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What you got this time, Salina?
This time we have something that wasn't right at my fingertips.
Hold, please.
We're gonna talk about fascinating hotels around the world here in the South as well.
Some travel tips and we tips.
T-I-P-S and we may even toss in a story or two and you know what that means, Nikki, what does that mean?
Salina?
It means one.
I forgot my cue and number two, we'll see you around the bend.
Bye.