The County Line
The county line is a place traditionally known for being vague, ambiguous, and frequently visited by people who are intrigued by the prospect of viewing life from an unconventional perspective. Episodes include conversations led by host, Lee Carl, and a wide ranging cast of characters. Come join us for genuine hospitality and entertainment on the outskirts of life!
The County Line
#119 - Midwife Crisis
Lauren Buntin and Ashley McKay-Wolff, of the Midwife Crisis Podcast. https://www.midwifecrisispodcast.com/
Ever dreamed of starting your own podcast? We share our humble journeys of remote podcasting, from battling with sound quality to the joy of finding the right tools.
We also explore the changing dynamics of the workforce - discussing the role of technology, the significance of freedom and loyalty, and the challenges facing two-income families struggling with the cost of childcare.
Then, turning our attention to personal experiences, we reflect on the trials and triumphs of parenting, unmask the intriguing dynamics of modern dating, and scrutinize the impact of food regulations.
So, tune in for our lively, candid, and sometimes hilarious chat - it's a ride to The County Line you don't want to miss!
MIDWIFE CRISIS PODCAST WEBSITE: https://www.midwifecrisispodcast.com/
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Where's The County Line:
Website: https://www.countylinepodcast.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/countylinepodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/countylinepodcastms
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thecountylinepodcast/about
Submit content, questions, and topics you would like to hear on The County Line to: countylinepodcast@gmail.com
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(0:06) Starting a Podcast and Overcoming Challenges
(11:36) Degrees, Certifications, and Workforce Development
(21:44) Remote Work and Employee Incentives
(28:39) Challenges of Affordable Childcare and Dating
(40:55) School Shootings, News Media, Government Corruption
(54:35) Podcast Plans and Importance of Friends
(1:08:04) Education and Institutionalization
(1:23:43) Trump's Idolization and Media Control
(1:30:29) Regulating Social Platforms and AI Development
(1:34:18) Technology's Impact on Societal Issues
(1:47:53) Parental Concerns and Social Media Exploitation
(1:53:59) Bab
The Ryan Samuels ShowModern-day politics discussion and analysis. Conservative Political Commentator Ryan...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
And we are rolling midwife crisis podcast. We've got Ashley McKay Wolf and Lauren Bunton. Is that how you pronounce it?
Speaker 2:Yep Button.
Speaker 1:Button.
Speaker 2:B-U-N-T-I-M.
Speaker 1:With a country accent that one can get a little muddy pretty quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I usually get Laura Button and I'm like close enough, just might as well.
Speaker 1:Do you have the same last name as Benjamin Bunton?
Speaker 2:He's Benjamin Button.
Speaker 1:Button, like a button on my shirt and I'm Bunton. Ok.
Speaker 2:Spelled just the way it sounds.
Speaker 1:So great introduction there.
Speaker 2:Welcome.
Speaker 1:Midwife crisis. So, first and foremost, thank you all for coming over it's on a Sunday afternoon to visit the county line and entertain the county line congregation. I have been keeping up with y'all's podcast since y'all launched it.
Speaker 2:Oh, OK Was that in June.
Speaker 1:Is that right July?
Speaker 2:It was like the very beginning of July, where we've recorded 10 episodes and we've released nine.
Speaker 1:Very cool, yeah. And y'all social media, and you telling me I didn't realize that you were in graphic design and marketing.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so that.
Speaker 2:That's all me.
Speaker 1:That really really looks good.
Speaker 2:Oh, thanks, and y'all are using.
Speaker 1:What are y'all using to record?
Speaker 2:We use Riverside. Riverside To record and so, because we don't live in the same place, it's easier to do like a zoom style. But with Riverside they are set up specifically for podcasting in a remote way. So I mean I feel like every week that I'm on there they've got new features and like they'll ask for feedback and as soon as I give feedback, like somebody is messaging me back saying, hey, we're working on this, hey, we're doing that. So I've been really pleased with the software so far.
Speaker 1:I've used it a couple of times for remote and solo episodes and I've been very pleased.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been very pleased with it. It's easy to use. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It is very user friendly and the support to your to your point is phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the support's been great.
Speaker 1:Also with we use Buzzsprout.
Speaker 2:So do we yeah.
Speaker 1:And they're. They're a very good company too. Yeah, their their support staff is very prompt, and it's actually a person.
Speaker 2:Right. I haven't had to like talk to anybody on their staff yet because I haven't had any problems. But I don't hopefully I don't want I go home and watch our whole like website be crashed. But so far we haven't had any problems, so it's been good.
Speaker 1:What's been the biggest learning curve for you actually going through this process?
Speaker 3:Probably using using the Riverside software and trying to get it, I guess, like where I record is in a like a little nook in my house and it echoes, and then like there's no wall or door to close behind it, and so I put up these, just like the sound, the echo, little things on the walls, and that's helped a lot. And then I have a curtain now that closes me off the curtain helped a lot. Yeah, so that was just to get the echo out of the house.
Speaker 1:I totally understand what you're saying and I never once in my life thought that I would be trying to figure out the acoustics of my house before beginning to record things in my house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you've got an older house that's like a lot of wood, a lot of hard floor, so I'm sure that sound bounces off it definitely does.
Speaker 1:And it's not to where the sound quality from a reverb or echo standpoint is not where I want it to be, but I think it's almost as good as it's going to be, given the conditions Right.
Speaker 2:I haven't noticed anything, so like when I've listened to your episodes.
Speaker 1:So I'd try to, you know, make it as enjoyable as possible, Like if somebody's sitting next to the people having the conversation they can feel like, because the better the sound quality is video as well. It's that much more intriguing, it's that much more entertaining. But I mean like if I go back and listen to some of the earlier episodes from the county line, I mean it is atrocious.
Speaker 2:That was another thing that I liked with Buzzsprout is that you could pay for the master mixing.
Speaker 2:And so I know how to do a fair amount of things, but until I get like really proficient at it, I can pay for that master mixing, which is, I think currently we're only spending like a hundred dollars total a month in investment on what we do, because I have access to certain things just through what I do, but then I can change. I'm getting more proficient at editing the sound myself, but then when I run it through their software and it does the master mixing and then the cohost AI like it will break down the whole episode for me. Give me transcripts, give me like a description that I barely have to edit.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, it's great Like it's so worth it.
Speaker 1:So you're using the cohost AI.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's so worth it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do it Because there's no, I've been thinking about doing it.
Speaker 2:There's no way to remember, like, if you're anything like me, I'm so ADD, I don't remit, and she comes up with the outlines. I don't remember what all we talked about. Like it's gone once I'm done.
Speaker 1:No doubt.
Speaker 2:And so when you're trying to give like a long description about what the episode's on, I'm like oh crap, we talked about this, we probably talked about murder, I don't know. This gives you like a whole, like a whole like three or four paragraphs and it'll give you like social media prompts and it's awesome. So is it pulling words from what we said? Like it? Yeah, it analyzes like our whole transcript and comes up kind of like a chat GPT thing comes up with like.
Speaker 3:Like a description Trigger words, yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes it'll be kind of corny and you're like I'm not doing that and you'll change a few things, but by and large it's so worth it.
Speaker 1:That saves a lot of time. Yes, because if you really if you want to get a really good description and episode notes for me, I just have to sit back down and listen to it.
Speaker 2:after you know, skip through it, find the high points, which is so cringy for me because I hate listening to myself Like I'm, like that was garbage.
Speaker 1:You hadn't gotten over that yet.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:I don't listen to them at all.
Speaker 2:It's so just the worst. We both hate it, we do. We both hate it. So I do as minimal editing as possible, like I'll have to remember. Like if I'm like oh crap, we're going to cut this, I'll have to remember where that is. But thankfully with Riverside you can look at the conversation and go through just reading it and click on where it is and it'll pop right there and I can say like delete this part and it'll just click that whole section.
Speaker 1:Why did y'all start the podcast?
Speaker 3:I'm not Lauren answer that, because this is her idea. She brought me on.
Speaker 2:So I mean, people have always just said like you're funny, you're this, you're that, you should do something with it.
Speaker 2:And so I figured I had been listening to the man up podcast I hate to give Jake any kind of shout out, because, but so I'd been listening to them and that's how I kind of got to know Alan and Wesley and Tyler and I was like these are people just like regular people that I know. I had not known anybody that did a podcast just on their own. So I got to see kind of how that worked. And my daughter goes to Jake's gym and so I saw the setup, I saw how everything ran and I was like, well, that seems like something I could do. I have a skill set that works with part of it. And so I just kind of like floated the idea to Ashley, not really thinking that she would jump on it, and she was like, yeah, let's do that. And I was like, okay, and then she was like on me about it, like ready to go, and I was like, oh crap, if you asked me to do something.
Speaker 2:I'm like I expect to start doing it, like then, like not putting it off, I just never expected her to be cool with it, and so I kind of had to play catch up to my own idea, because she was on board with the quickness and I was like whoa, I don't even know how to do this, but I guess I'm gonna figure it out before you lose interest, because I feel like I don't know. I just she was just so ready to go that it gave me inspiration and Alan stayed on me about it, and so between the two of them I'm usually my own worst enemy, like I'll have an idea and then talk myself out of it by being like, oh, it's gonna be crap, it's gonna suck, but having her and I knew that you would- do that, yeah, but having her as, somebody I didn't want to disappoint.
Speaker 2:it holds me accountable, because if I'd just done it for myself, I probably would have not done it or quit already.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is a very good point and actually thank you for staying on there about it, because I think, I really do think, that y'all have something unique in that there's not a lot of women, just regular people, for lack of a better word particularly women in Mississippi, doing what y'all are doing. Now there are people other people out there who have podcasts, I think, but it just so happens that y'all, to my knowledge, are the first one. I haven't seen anyone else.
Speaker 3:Have you seen? Not.
Speaker 2:Not a lot of people. In the space of what we do as far as not salacious, not selling sex, not selling the idea of I don't know being raunchy, I don't think there's a lot of people just conversationaly doing what we do. Most are about murder or about cold cases. There's not a lot that I've seen that are just conversational. Besides call me daddy and stuff like that. Those again are selling sex or selling salaciousness.
Speaker 3:And ours is only about being a woman, our age, working, having kids, a husband having to juggle like friends having friends, anything that comes up during this age.
Speaker 2:We usually start with whatever tragic thing that I did the week before that got me into some situation.
Speaker 3:Or something our child did.
Speaker 2:Then we go into some sort of current event or usually someone's downward spiral in a fight or a murder, and then we just talk about whatever topic Ashley's come up with. We've done divorce, pregnancy, most types of real life situations.
Speaker 3:Especially things that women go through. Yeah, just like Lauren's surgery.
Speaker 1:We've all had a pretty good response from people in your community that know that the podcast exists because, let's not kid ourselves, it takes a while for it to get in the system. So to speak on the internet and travel throughout all the channels to reach a lot of people, but people that are aware of it and have been tuning into it. Have you all gotten a good response from them?
Speaker 2:I think so. I think from our especially core friend group at home, they've been super supportive. I don't push it on people in Columbus. I don't really push it out on my social media at all. I kind of want the growth on my end at least to be organic, because I think that's more sustainable.
Speaker 3:But our friendship group and we have a group of 14 of our close friends that we graduated with from high school, that we're still close with, and they are probably one of our main ones that listen to it and they're always like, right before she puts it out, on Thursday, we have them asking hey, are you going to put it out? They're waiting for it.
Speaker 2:And ironically my brother is a huge listener, which, if you knew him at all, is just wild. But he messaged or he called me Thursday. I was like did y'all do something different on the editing? And I was like actually I did. And he was like I don't like it. So I went back and took out what I did because I had deleted the silences and it made it run together like her and I were on crack.
Speaker 2:And so he was like it's really hard to listen to, but maybe I'm just OCD, which he probably is. But I went back and reloaded the audio and it did make it better. So it was funny that he noticed immediately that. I did something different, so I really appreciate that type of support too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the biggest thing that I had to, and still have to recognize is that if I don't put something out, I can't get that constructive criticism. I can't get that feedback that. I'm blind to recognizing. Because if you sit there and look at something or listen to something over and over and over again and you don't have an outside opinion, well it's going to be hard to make it better, because we do get blind to the things that we are maybe deficient in or and that applies to anything, not just in podcast editing.
Speaker 3:That's in my work too for editing documents, and then I always have to get someone else to look at it, because I'll get someone to look at it and they'll catch something that I'm like I know I read over that at least 15 times and I didn't catch it.
Speaker 2:Oh, and I'm bad to copy and paste too. If you send me something and you've got the copy for it, I'm, nine times out of 10, just going to copy and paste it. So if you didn't send me the correct stuff from the get go, I'm not going to catch it because I don't even know what it is that I'm making something for. Like I'm doing an invitation and I assume that your information is correct.
Speaker 3:Like spelling and everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like down to like the spelling of like Mississippi. I'm just assume what you put is correct. So I'm like, surely you checked it Blind faith. Yeah, that it's correct.
Speaker 1:Proofreading is brutal Like for you said. You edit documents, so you have to do proofreading.
Speaker 3:And it's mainly regulations for the state. And, yes, these documents are at least like over a hundred pages and you have to go through.
Speaker 1:Do you enjoy doing that?
Speaker 3:I do not Say a hard, pass hard pass and that is why I do not do that anymore.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Because I was like, first off, you sit at a computer for hours on end reading and editing and formatting and I'm like my body hurts, my eyes hurt. I was like I want to do something else. I was like and plus, this is not what I wanted to do with my degree or anything anyways. So I did get promoted to another department. This is a totally new department and I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 1:What did you get your degree?
Speaker 3:in Public health.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:She's a lot smarter than I am.
Speaker 3:I went to the university. I went to the W in Columbus and I started out there and I got my bachelor's in public health and then I got my master's.
Speaker 1:And so you got graphic design and marketing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a fine arts degree in graphic design, with an emphasis in graphic design.
Speaker 1:I see yeah, so the W as well.
Speaker 2:No state. Which yes, hail state. But, like you were saying in your previous episode, I don't know why I had to go to school to get that. Why did I have?
Speaker 1:to go.
Speaker 2:Why did I have to get a piece of paper that says I know how to do that. I know how to do that.
Speaker 1:I think it's because the public universities and the federal government are in bed together and the federal government gives out loans so that the universities can just jack their price up, and they're just trying to make as much money as they possibly can.
Speaker 2:But also, like you said about that kid that you know that just got his degree in graphic design. I ended up in such a niche market because there aren't jobs readily available that I'm thankful for what I have and it's better than anything I could hope to have with this degree. But at the same time I just kind of fell into it. I lucked out because the guy whose position I was taking had a relationship with a previous graphic design professor who passed it down. Otherwise I didn't even know what economic development was, let alone be able to do and talk about the things that I do now, especially with like electricity and all of that. So it's one of those things where I feel like experience outweighs certification, like we were talking about.
Speaker 3:And I do agree that you need a degree, but I don't think that you should have to have a certification following after a degree. Like if you go to school to be a physical therapist, you still have to go take the to get the license, and then nurses, they start to take a test to get a license and you have to keep doing that. You have to get yeah.
Speaker 2:Continuing education unit yeah.
Speaker 1:And all that, and that's money too. Yeah, and that's what it's based around.
Speaker 3:I mean, I understand, something new comes up Like um, but that's mainly A new process.
Speaker 2:For like safety and like in my opinion, you should have to do it for like safety.
Speaker 3:For safety or just new federal guidelines that come out. Yes, I do think you should have to renew it for that, but not every year just from the same stuff that's still going on, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there are certain jobs that educators I mean teachers would fall into that category as well.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And I think that we do have to go get licenses for that. I thought on most recent episode with Douglas Carswell. He brought up barbers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:You know why does a barber have to go for however long to school? Well, it's because there are barber schools, and barber schools probably lobby the state of Mississippi, or name the state, and they're like hey look, we need to add a damn exam and course so we can make more money, make people pay for it and it really doesn't further qualify anybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think outside of like health and safety procedures like sanitation and all that Like. I think outside of that you will know pretty quickly whether or not you like the way somebody does your hair, If they suck at it, don't go back Like.
Speaker 2:But as far as like the health other than a health and safety aspect, I think that barbers specifically, it's different than maybe cosmetology because they have to learn kind of like a science based procedural like coloring and highlighting and all that so they don't literally burn your head off with chemicals. But if to your point about specifically barbers it's different, like I would think that just the health and safety part would be all that was needed for that.
Speaker 3:Right, and I mean, and it doesn't justify whether you're a good barber or hairstylist or not. They all have certificates. But I can tell you plenty of people that I would not go get my hair done.
Speaker 1:Oh fact, I can tell you plenty of people that I would and do go get my hair cut from that haven't been to barber school and, you know, don't have that certification. They just cut hair in their kitchen.
Speaker 2:Right On. Speaking on that, columbus, I think I think it was Lowndes County schools have added like a workforce development in their high school. That is like a salon. So instead of learning how to weld or learning how to use a piece of equipment, they're actually learning a skill that, especially in the black community, is so highly valued. You know, women doing hair men you have a skill that is marketable Even if you God forbid, you know went to prison or went to jail. That is currency. Like being able to do that is currency and it's such a part of, I think, african American culture is going to the barber shop and all that. So I was impressed with them doing that because that's something I would have wanted to do in school, like that's a workforce program.
Speaker 2:I would have definitely got it in school as opposed to like learning how to use a robotic arm so I can make a car. I'm never going to work at Toyota. I'm never going to work at Nissan. That is just not something.
Speaker 3:I'm going to do Well. Also, I feel like guys had more to offer than we did in school 100%. They had a buffet, like you know and did all that.
Speaker 2:We didn't have any. They had woodshop, they have it. Yeah, we didn't have anything. We had foods and nutrition.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that was even just a one semester I took it twice, but yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean a home egg. You took it twice, you took one and two.
Speaker 2:No she they changed the curriculum. They changed the curriculum, and so the teacher knew how much I liked it and she was like we changed the curriculum, which technically means you can take it again, and I was like, oh yeah, and then it went from foods and nutrition to nutrition and wellness, and so I got to take it twice.
Speaker 3:I remember that Because I love that class. I actually think. I did take it twice too, they're different teachers.
Speaker 1:Is that like a home egg? Is that what that was?
Speaker 2:It was like home egg light, like it was basically just the cooking side of it.
Speaker 1:Diet home egg.
Speaker 2:But I would have looked. Honestly, I'm not going to lie. I would have loved a home egg class where you like learned how to sew and stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, I think that's. I think they should still have that. Like I don't know why they got rid of that shit.
Speaker 2:I'm such a hands on like apprentice style learner that sitting Ashley knows this and so do our friends from home. If there was an opportunity to leave school or skip school, I did every day Like I would base my schedule around where I could park my car, that I could leave, that no one would see me leave, and I literally left whole portions of every single day. If it wasn't for no child left behind, I would have failed Because I was never at school. I maintained great grades but I physically hated being there. I'm never somebody that's going to look at high school and be like it was the best time in my life and we were like popular and had friends and everything. But I am not built for institutional style learning or working. I work remotely and I don't think I could ever go back to nine to five where I sit behind a desk and get paid for just my butt to be in a seat, just to be there.
Speaker 2:That drives me up the wall, you either trust me or you don't, and like my old boss used to say, I'll give you an offrope to hang yourself. You can decide whether or not you tie it in a bow or.
Speaker 3:That's how we are now, like the state. Finally, after we came back from being working COVID because we had to work at home. Well, we came back and now we are allowed to work from home two days a week, but we stopped to go to the office. But if there's nothing to be done and we're done with our work, we'll leave early for the day, or I'll try and manage us or at least some of them don't. I have a very good boss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting that that's still a way people like to manage people on a mass scale, especially like from a corporate standpoint. But like nowadays, if a company, if a small business even, is not giving their employees the ability or the freedom to live their lives based on the work hours that they want, if that's at least not a consideration, then that company is behind the times.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it all boils down to actually generations and technology, because it's the older generations, who have an embraced technology, that don't know how to work outside of the office and so therefore they don't want to run their department outside of an office.
Speaker 2:But if you have a boss or a board that supports technology and new ways of doing things and they feel comfortable with it, I think it trickles down into your workforce and for me it created a sense of trust in my employer and a sense of loyalty. And I think loyalty is sometimes bigger than a dollar amount, because if I know that I can pick up my kids every day from school and it creates that work-life balance I'm going to work on my vacation, like I've done every time I'm going to work on a holiday, I'm going to work past five o'clock, I'll work on call, essentially 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because I know I'm picking up my kids, I am doing my laundry when I need to, I'm going to the doctor when I need to, so you have a loyal employee, which to me is way more valuable than a cog on a wheel who is easily replaced by a body.
Speaker 1:And those people like what you're describing. Those people are expensive People that work the way you do and can work that way, because those are very highly functioning people who are dependable, who are going to get their shit done no matter where they are. They're more task driven as opposed to working when they're inside the same four walls every day and they have. So I think a lot of companies are reluctant to pay for a Lauren Benjamin Button.
Speaker 1:I wish I aged like that and they would rather just micromanage from inside the office, because those people are cheaper, because those people no fault of theirs, just their nature they're going to be at the desk and they like that structure.
Speaker 2:And you know what those people are doing Searching social media, watching Netflix.
Speaker 3:Watching Netflix. Watching Netflix yeah, that's what they're doing, talking to everybody in their family, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's one thing that I've noticed about management in different situations, whether it be in education or in business, is that there is an outdated, there is a large swath of management that have outdated perspectives on, basically, employees and the treatment of management styles. Incentives are lack thereof, like what's important to employees. They're just totally out of touch. But they hold these positions and you know I'm not casting a wide net here, there are some good managers out there, but just highlighting some of the things that I've seen and noticed and it comes with a reluctance to change and adoption of technology too, like you were saying.
Speaker 2:Well, and we're in the South where a lot of management is still pale, male and stale or appointed through nepotism, so to run into that being an issue. But I've been blessed, thankfully, with men who have seen the value in women employees and have fought for us to have what I needed when I went on maternity leave and have understood my work style. So I've been very lucky. But I've also seen in other colleagues and in other people that we work with where they're not valued as much because they're a woman or they have certain ideations put on them because they're a woman and it's unfortunate to see because I feel like that is one area we're behind in. But if you look at certain operations like Toyota I work with a lot of manufacturing so, like in Toyota, they have more women employees at this point than they do male employees because of how automated the system is and they promote a lot more women than they do men. So I think it just depends on who's in charge and what their, I guess, values. That is.
Speaker 1:I was reading something the other day about I guess it was Google, amazon just the different management styles, that they're like the cutting edge of employee incentives and they said that exact thing. They're like we're giving, we're targeting people who are dependable, who we don't have to have our thumb on all the time. They can have that freedom and they they had a long laundry list of other ideas that they have to entice employees good people to come work for them, productive people, cause they say, those people at Amazon are just working 16 hour days.
Speaker 1:Childcare is honestly a huge yeah and wanting to.
Speaker 2:They're wanting to employ people, especially in the state of Mississippi, somewhere that's lower income. Providing childcare is a huge incentive to get women employees Because if you've got somewhere on site that their kids can be, if you've got medical care on site, that is a huge driver for women. They will take a more competitive pay rate. If they can know that their children are cared for, they're right there. So that we've seen that as an incentive for bringing in businesses is the fact that people want and need dependable childcare.
Speaker 3:I'll just write that down to tell my boss.
Speaker 2:That's funny.
Speaker 3:For at the state cause, wherever our new department is workforce development. So and I'm over recruitment and I'm over there trying to find ways to how are we going to appeal to the younger generation, or even millennials like us? Now we have kids. There's always a wait list for all daycares and how much it costs is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:It is absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 3:So you won't say these, you're going to stay at home. I mean, you're not going to go to a job. That is just paying for the daycare.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:So, and what better way to know that your kid is safe if they're on site with you?
Speaker 2:in a daycare.
Speaker 3:Yes absolutely. And I can be more focused and proactive.
Speaker 1:Yes, so children. I've talked to a lot of mothers, young mothers, who have these grievances with the lack of affordable childcare in Mississippi and different parts, and I think it's a huge issue that we can't provide quality childcare for a reasonable price. Now, I mean, the people are charging what they can charge, because people are paying it.
Speaker 2:And they will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And it's not a livable wage for many of the people that are actually working for these establishments, and so you end up getting lower quality people and that's how you found out your child was hit or abused because they're being paid usually minimum wage or lower. So it's hard to find a balance between paying for quality childcare at an affordable rate when it's not subsidized by anything or incentivized through a company who could pay for it. So you're responsible for it and the way everything is nowadays, especially with inflation, it is nearly impossible, I think, to be a one-income family. It's hard to be a two-income family. So when you have two incomes and you are still barely scraping by like you look at your $100 amount that me and my husband bring home and you're like we make so much more than so many people and we are check to check every single month because we're paying this, we're paying that pay for private school, pay for death that we've accrued.
Speaker 3:I couldn't make it if I had another child. I have one child.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And if I had another one I would seriously, I would be like I need to go find another job. We have and I get paid fine.
Speaker 2:Like I yeah. We have two kids and, honestly, financial reasons were at least 50% of why we're not having another one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it has to be considered.
Speaker 2:And that's sad, like it's sad that that has to be factored in where if you want more children and you could take care of them otherwise, that you can't have them because you're like I don't know how we would pay the bills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've always said that I would like to have four or five kids. When and if I ever do have kids, excuse me, and I reassess that now. I'm like I better be making some damn good cheddar if I'm gonna have four or five kids and take care of them the way they need to be taken care of.
Speaker 3:Right, because you don't want them to go without. No, that's.
Speaker 1:And then, compared to other kids, you want them to not be scraping the bottom of the barrel to get something to eat, but you also, you know, you want to spoil them a little bit.
Speaker 2:Right that's yeah, and then you know, your lady friend who has them hopefully doesn't have pregnancies like we did because she might not want four or five. She's like I'm good.
Speaker 1:One at a time. I've heard that quite a bit too.
Speaker 2:Because it's not fun. It costs me a lot to be pregnant, both financially, mentally, physically. I had a lot of problems with it, and then Ashley just had a very bad pregnancy as far as Well, and you try Okay.
Speaker 3:So just the way I'm thinking, okay, so I'm going to get everything in order or right in life, like, hey, I'm going to go to college, I'm going to finish that first, I'm going to then get married and then I'm going to have a kid. Well, by the time you get there, you're already in your thirties. Yes, so then you're like I should have just got pregnant when I was 20. The pregnancy would have been better.
Speaker 2:Oh, God yeah.
Speaker 3:But you're like, oh well, who would I have gotten pregnant by? Because I wasn't married, you know. But because our bodies, it would have been Our peak function of our bodies, especially women, reproductively.
Speaker 2:It's, honestly our teens to early twenties that our body responds best to it. Well, that is completely undoable, unless you turn. I'm going to use the quote that I use every episode. I feel like, unless you're turning your own butter on the front porch, that is not the time when most people are going to get pregnant and have kids.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Not now, because everybody's like oh, look at that teen mom, blah, blah, blah, right, but also you're not going to. Let's face it, I'm having a baby at like 17,. Even though that's great for your body, the man you're having it with Good God, let's face it he is not anywhere near where he needs to be.
Speaker 3:That's another thing.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't think that I could even entertain a man under 40 at this point.
Speaker 3:Right, it's like now. Like I actually have a man don't mature, you know. So no fans.
Speaker 1:No I.
Speaker 3:I'm not in my 20s, early 30s, maybe even 40s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm still working on it, god, and at this point, the competition that you have between, not with the way people date nowadays. I have to worry about men, women, thems days. I have to worry about everybody wearing a cat tail. I don't know how I would even navigate a dating world today, because I put my links in and it asked me about how I identify yourself.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was like what your pronouns are.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you have to like for us now we have to worry about. Is this person a kitty toucher, like if we started, if we've, you know, got divorced and started dating again you have to think about. Do I trust this person around my kids?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. So it's like I just don't.
Speaker 2:I probably like end up living with you and a bunch of cats like living in your attic. It would just be terrible.
Speaker 1:I have dated some women that have had children. I don't recommend it. It's not Don't do it, it's not healthy.
Speaker 2:It's not as a woman who has kids, like don't do it, but I found that being such a weird experience being around their children. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like just, it was just weird. It was just weird to put a vibe out there Like I don't this didn't feel right.
Speaker 2:You have to protect yourself too, because you never know what that kid is going to do or say, or you never know what that woman is going to do or say Like. I feel like things are so crazy nowadays that just the insinuation that somebody did something will forever ruin their life, even if they didn't. So I think you have to protect yourself with women, too, who have kids, because they could be crazy.
Speaker 1:And the kid and the like. For example, a man dating a woman who already has children. The man runs the risk of getting attached to the child and staying around for that reason only that yet as opposed to the connection with the woman.
Speaker 2:Women will do that too.
Speaker 1:Yes, they will.
Speaker 2:My husband was dating dating. My husband had a child when we met and it is a whole different scenario when you're going into a ready made family and you are bonding with that child because you look at a situation and where you might would have or could have left through certain red flags when it was just you and him. It's different when it's you, him and now this child. So I've told my stepdaughter many times that she's probably the reason that we're still together through a lot of growth and change, because there were situations that him and I went through that had we not had a glue sticking us together, that I don't know if we would have made it and that I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, we're fine, you know it works for us now.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's what it is, yeah.
Speaker 2:We have a child together where you know we get along great. But I mean, are there times when, if she hadn't existed that we would have made it Probably not.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I do get what you're saying on that, because I've lived it. So yeah. And then the kids bond to you as well, and sometimes you're the only stability that that child has.
Speaker 3:So there's, a certain level of like guilt especially if, like just say, if you're a date and a woman and she has a child, especially if the father is not in the picture and they start looking to you as a father figure.
Speaker 2:You feel a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 1:And then yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I ain't about that life right now I'm telling you one thing If I was to ever say Bo dies in a fire today, I'm not finding a man with kids. I'll tell you that I am not, and I got very lucky in the baby mama department. My stepdaughter's mom and that side of the family is great, but the things I see and hear every day, no, no.
Speaker 1:It gets messy, yeah, messy, so messy.
Speaker 2:Like, unless dude's a widow, but then I'm fighting with a ghost, I'm not dealing with it. No, I'm just not doing it. I'm not doing it. Cause, then you know mothers, a martyr, her pictures on the fire. You're constantly being compared.
Speaker 3:Yeah, constantly making you compared.
Speaker 2:I'm not your mama, I'm not for that. That wasn't a movie.
Speaker 3:I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:Step mom. Yeah, so yeah. No, I sound so hypocritical to say that I would not date somebody with a kid because I would be somebody with a kid. No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1:And there's more than one way to skin a cat Like. We all find ourselves in situations where we just can't. We just couldn't help it. We ended up in that situation and we're going to make the best of it, and people do, and all kinds of different arrangements with step families and mixed families and what have you, I'm not looking for it.
Speaker 2:I always say you have to weigh the pros and cons.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely Every situation is different. You know one. One way of doing things is not for everybody.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, and different people can make different situations work.
Speaker 2:I was a mean waitress in college. I was looking for you look like a mean waitress I was definitely not looking for. I was coming off the heels of a just dramatic breakup that had been off and on for like five or six years. The last thing I was looking for was a dude with a kid and I mean I was planning on high tailing it out of Saraphal, the second I graduated and now I've never left you never left, never left. So life is just weird.
Speaker 1:I like the golden triangle area. It's a I haven't like. I went to state obviously. I haven't spent much time in Columbus. I think Columbus is a beautiful town.
Speaker 3:The campus is definitely it's gorgeous, columbus is.
Speaker 1:I've never been.
Speaker 2:Good and bad. It gives like it gives small town vibes, but like big town crime.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of Meridian in that sense.
Speaker 2:See, and I don't know a lot about Meridian, I know my husband hates Meridian. He's like got a violent passion for it, but I don't know why it's so weird.
Speaker 3:but I don't know. I like how it's old, like all the old buildings and the huge, like Annabella houses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But outside of that area where the campus is Everything's like hood adjacent, so like we live in a nice house that would cost three or four times the price in Startville, but we also play a game called gunshots or fireworks, where you'll hear a tat-tat-tat and you're like it's not near a holiday and then you'll find out that there was a shooting the next day and you're like we don't even get fazed by it at this point. I know we were filming one time and siren started happening and I was like, uh, welcome to Columbus. Well, it was a shooting at the hospital and I was like, okay, Isn't that so crazy, how desensitized we are to the violence, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Like we are, we have the highest. Well, jackson has the highest murder rate per capita.
Speaker 3:Mississippi has the highest gun violence rate.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's like just normal.
Speaker 2:What makes you say it's about it Like Pearl High School was the first school shooting. It's not as like widely known as like the Columbine shooting, but it happened before Columbine. That is a town over from where we grew up and that started when we were what like an elementary middle school. So we've lived through the birth of school shootings. We've lived through 9-11, a pandemic now, so we've seen it. To me it came from the birth of 24 hour news. You have everything just kind of was a trickle down effect from there. You had to have something to talk about, so things became more divisive. We've just seen such a, like you said, desensitization, desensitization of these nice.
Speaker 1:That's a tough word.
Speaker 2:It is of these topics that you know used to like. Say, when JFK was shot, you saw people standing outside store windows looking at the TVs, crying. I don't know that if it happened today, that any of us would do anything other than be like, oh man. Not surprised, yeah, like that would be our response, like if somebody shot Trump or Biden today we would be like I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.
Speaker 3:Some people would be happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah, that's the other thing. Some people would be happy. I mean they used to have framed pictures of the president, like in their living rooms and kitchens.
Speaker 1:But isn't it crazy how we've just like I feel totally separate from what's going on in Washington DC?
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Like it's like to me, it's another freaking world.
Speaker 3:When people start talking about it, I'm just like. When it starts getting down here and start affecting me in a personal way or my day to day life, then I might care, but right now, we just don't have any control over it.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of to me a moot point, because nothing I say or do at this point in Mississippi matters. It's going to matter, and I hate that I feel that way, but I do feel that way.
Speaker 1:Do y'all think that it's blatantly obvious that our government is severely corrupt?
Speaker 2:I mean if you, if you talk to outsiders like people from other countries, they laugh at us like what's going on with Biden and Ukraine and Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 1:Oh, that is some pure money grabs. Yes, that is terrifying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and I think you start to see like with I don't even know, I don't know if I can say the word, the virus, I don't know how that affects your ratings? The coronavirus yes. Can we say that?
Speaker 1:You can say whatever you want to.
Speaker 2:I think that when you start letting your civil liberties be taken, they start to see what can I take? Oh, they let us do this, they let us do that. Okay, now we can push this, we can push that. I think that if they try and do that again and it's already kind of starting you know we're getting close to election season, but it's time to start a new strain of the virus I think that people may actually end up revolting in a civil war if or, like some, for some new age form of a civil war, if they try and shut us down again.
Speaker 2:But there are people who are not going to do it, especially small business owners and I think you. But I do think that on an odd front, that it's kind of unifying between races because they unilaterally feel that way.
Speaker 1:I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I think that's more of a party split than it is a racial split.
Speaker 1:And at this point it's the people who are continuing to wear the masks are just simply uninformed. Those people are just uneducated or they are just so on board with the left, the radical left's way of thinking, that they're just going to dig their heels in and not budge on it. But, like to your point, black, white, for the most part people have recognized like we're not, we can't let them take our rights away again.
Speaker 3:Like and I think now it's up to the or your governor, the state governor.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I believe that's true.
Speaker 3:They put all the power in their hands.
Speaker 1:Well, he's got the whole Mississippi. Let's see how that works out.
Speaker 3:I think he's, I think he's very much against mask and showing everything.
Speaker 1:Oh he definitely Tate Reeves is. Whatever the Republican establishment is against.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he, he ain't bought that mask. It's not gonna happen again in Mississippi.
Speaker 2:Well, I trust you because you're a doctor. Thanks, I'm not. She said I'm qualified to be a doctor at other countries. I was like I am.
Speaker 1:You know what can be dangerous for people? Just the internet in general, but WebMD.
Speaker 2:Oh, I am the poster child for. Webmd being dangerous.
Speaker 3:Don't get on WebMD and start looking stuff up.
Speaker 1:I had to quit.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, I've. I've. At most times when I look something up on WebMD, I'm already dead.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:They're like well, you're already dead.
Speaker 1:So and you've got every symptom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you should play in your funeral now, because you've got minutes to live or you're pregnant.
Speaker 1:I made a massive. I made a massive mistake one time after I'd been smoking marijuana and taking Adderall on a daily basis for like two years or something that tracks and I just quit it all one day. So I started having these withdrawals and blackmares and everything and I was like panicked internally. I got on Reddit as I was trying to, as I was trying to find out what the fuck was going on.
Speaker 3:That's the worst thing you can get on.
Speaker 1:And then I just started going on these rabbit holes and like you said that's like a list of conspiracy theorists who read WebMD. Yes, yes and I. And so by the time I got off a Reddit and the subreddit, I was like I'm schizophrenic.
Speaker 2:Not only are you schizophrenic, but you may have been taken over by an alien Like you, like they are using your body as a host. You don't even, or this isn't even a real reality that we're in. This is somebody else's reality that we are a part of, like that's.
Speaker 1:Oh, it'll mess with your head. It'll mess with your head big time. Not to mention, yeah, your withdrawals Correct In the midst of all this.
Speaker 2:What led to that To me?
Speaker 1:going cold turkey yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's wild, because you were in a lifestyle buddy Like you were. You were hitting it hard, you were going up and you were going down.
Speaker 1:I had a panic attack and I went to the hospital very, in my opinion, traumatizing experience.
Speaker 1:The doctor told me a little country doctor in Union Mississippi and I was having a. I was having a panic attack. I didn't know what the hell it was. I had had them before but I was just. They were just normal to me, I guess, like they always passed them through and never got to the point of like, oh my God, I'm having a heart attack, I need to go to the hospital. But with all that was going on and I had a panic attack and it set this basically period of my life in motion where I began to seriously assess what I had been doing that led to that panic attack and what was making those panic attacks more frequent. And it was like a midlife crisis?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, or wife, if you were a wife.
Speaker 1:Exactly like that at 22 years old.
Speaker 2:Bless your heart At 22? God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I go to this doctor and I'm like dude, I'm fucked up, like I'm about to have a heart attack. Well, I'm going there my shirt off. I was sweating, bless your heart. I was like you know, and she's like the nurse is like she's trying to be all formal and slow. It's just like a Sunday afternoon. I'm like look. I'm like look, bitch, this is, it's going down.
Speaker 2:I'm about to die. I need to see a doctor. Nah, there's a white crack cat in here.
Speaker 3:I need help. Why are you doing this? Who cares how much I weigh?
Speaker 1:She said I think you have an a panic attack, baby. You just need to sit down over there and take you some deep breaths. I was like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 2:I think I'm going to breathe myself to death, lady.
Speaker 1:And so then I get back to see the country Bible thumping doctor and he tells me You're possessed. Yes, by because I smoked something that I didn't smoke he's. He diagnosed me with side effects of smoking spice. I've never smoked spice.
Speaker 1:But in that moment I convinced he. He convinced me that I was like you know what I must have. That's what it was, that's what it was. And so then, then, the, the mind games really, really start. He's like he assesses the situation and gives me the diagnosis. He's like boy, now we're going to need to keep you in here overnight and we need to monitor your heart rate. So then he puts me in an ambulance and sends me to meridian and I stay in meridian hospital for a night.
Speaker 2:I'm sure that car was great for your anxiety.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was. You know exactly what the doctor ordered.
Speaker 2:Like you need to sedate me immediately. All they. All they need to do is prescribe you a X and they could have ended that real quick and just been like give him a but they don't jacked up that bill. Just calm down.
Speaker 1:They exacerbated the situation.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100.
Speaker 1:There was already a fire there. It was a full blown wildfire by the time they got done with me. Bless your heart.
Speaker 3:And I bet that's when spice was popular.
Speaker 2:Like when people were ripping off their clothes and like turning into zombies and stuff and like biting cops faces off 2016. Yeah, how old are you?
Speaker 1:29. Well, 30 yesterday, oh happy birthday.
Speaker 2:He is a child, but bless his heart. That's all. Oh God, happy birthday. Do you have a good day?
Speaker 1:I had a wonderful day. We went to Mexican for lunch and we got medellos and a whole lot of chips and cheese dip and salsa and guacamole and all that. It really is tough to beat and we have seven whole heartedly disagree but Mexican restaurants.
Speaker 3:Wait, every I feel like every city has at least five.
Speaker 1:But you know, what that tells me is that there's a reluctance on Americans to start small business restaurants but you don't want to go into the back kitchen of at least six of them. No, absolutely no.
Speaker 2:you don't want to see how the sauce is made at all.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's probably the better ones that have like cockroaches, with some burrows running across the table in the back what's not they do.
Speaker 1:Fiesta. Yeah, they're playing like. I imagine them looking like plankton.
Speaker 2:Yes, like trying to figure out, like, yeah, and they're just do do, do, do do do. Yes, she hates roaches. She's got a whole thing with it.
Speaker 1:I don't love them. I don't love them, but it's bad for me.
Speaker 2:It's bats for me.
Speaker 1:I will say, if some of y'all out there listening or paying for a pest control man, you can stop doing that. I found something that works. That's about 1299, maybe not even that much, and it's. I forget what it's called up now that I'm bringing it up, but I just spray it every three months around my baseboards and I don't have any trouble with bugs.
Speaker 2:I thought you're about to bust out of sponsorship and I was like bud. How are you going to forget your sponsor If you can't even think of the name of it?
Speaker 1:but we're working on sponsors. We're working on getting sponsors.
Speaker 2:We don't have any sponsors.
Speaker 3:It'll be a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it might be a while. I think the first one would probably be like 471 nutrition.
Speaker 3:Has anybody even subscribed?
Speaker 2:We got a few. We got a few Subscribe.
Speaker 1:What do you mean on the podcast? And there are you can't tell though, can you?
Speaker 2:You can't really tell. Like you can see through Buzzsprout, Like you know, like I can see, I can see that you listen because I don't know anybody else in Philadelphia who's listening. So I've seen that there are X number of downloads in Philadelphia. You can break it down by where they're coming from and so I know that I've got certain listeners in certain places and I know that, since we've only got nine episodes, if there's nine downloads it's one person that's listened to every episode.
Speaker 2:So, I've kind of broken it down that way, but no, I don't know how many people, I just kind of get like a per episode. So I kind of base it around. If 50 downloads happen per episode, that I'm guessing around 40 to 50 people subscribe because it automatically downloads. I see what you're saying.
Speaker 3:But they're not paying.
Speaker 2:No, nobody's paying us yet. Yeah, I thought we had some option where we could just we got that like donate to us if you want to, like pay like $3 a month Y'all go donate to the midwife crisis we need money Please.
Speaker 1:Rate review, subscribe right now.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's right now. Stop what you're doing. Rate review, subscribe. Midwife crisis. We'll take it, buy us a coffee, do anything.
Speaker 3:And we'll take topic Topic suggestions yes, Please, we'll talk about anything.
Speaker 1:I do not do a good enough job communicating with my fan base. I try to do. I try to do it to a certain extent. What I mean by that is like I don't get enough feedback from them. I request feedback from them. Enough, I guess, or in ways that resonates with them. It's not that they're reluctant to give me topics and suggestions. I just don't think that I'm going about requesting them and soliciting them in the right way.
Speaker 2:Heck, we just had our top fan on on the show as a guest. But that's just because she's one of our best friends and because it applied to what we talk about. She's a mom of three, two of which are twins. She's in public education and administration. She came from a special education background, had a brother with special needs, so very much fit with our kind of genre. So, while she is probably our greatest fan, she was also our first guest and this is our first appearance on anybody else's podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm so grateful that y'all decided to come check out the County Line in person.
Speaker 3:In person? Yeah, it is. I think it's a lot more fun in person. Oh, for sure it was more fun with Katie. I was in person with her and then Lauren was on the computer, so it was more fun like being, I guess, in there with her. Yeah definitely.
Speaker 2:I think it evolved easier when it's in person, but we're just not set up for it, especially with us living as far apart as we do. It would take a lot more commitment on both of our parts to have somewhere that, like if she came up every week or I went down every week, and I think with just where we are in life right now, with little kids, I don't know that it's feasible which you come down more often than I'm.
Speaker 3:of course, I ever do go to Columbus, Right, and we could schedule them around there. But yeah but yeah, it'll be me being in person with our guest.
Speaker 2:Unless I have somebody up in North Mississippi. Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1:So where do y'all see it going long term? Y'all going to do it in a seasonal format or y'all just going to continue to release on a weekly basis? Have y'all thought that far ahead, or y'all just trying to get the next one out?
Speaker 2:Right now we're doing good to get like a week ahead. I know I'm having hysterectomy on Tuesday and I've got the episode ready for next week to release, but as far as past that we don't have anything really past that.
Speaker 3:So I guess we're just going to keep going.
Speaker 2:We're yeah, so far, we're just going to keep going, because I feel like if we try and do X amount of episodes per like season or whatever, that who's to say we wouldn't blow, blow up towards the end of that season and then you'd fall off with people if you weren't staying relevant. So I guess for us unless it's like the holiday season and we take a couple of weeks off, it just makes sense to keep going weekly and it also helps us stay close with one another, because we've been like that, even if we don't see or talk to each other for months at a time. We've been best friends since we were like 12 and have done this like just pick up where we left off since we were kids, like I mean, we immediately hit it off and it just has kind of organically happened like that since then.
Speaker 3:And we just talk. We talk more now that we do the podcast. Right before I guess we were talking like every, maybe like only like twice a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it gives us a reason to stay very relevant in each other's lives. So if anything for me, even if nobody listens like it gives me it's just us catching up talking like we normally would. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very interesting who ends up being in your life as you as you go down that road when you get older. There are people that I'm close to, that I've always been close to, but then, on the flip side of that coin, there are people that I knew them growing up but we've become closer as we've gone through into adulthood, as opposed to, you know, not being so close and we were children. But I was talking to someone the other day about the importance of, and rarity of, lifelong friends. You know we're talking people that you've been friends with since five, 10, 12 years old, whatever, because you go through so much trial and tribulation, if you will, through development, like those bonds that are built in adolescents that continue to be nurtured into adult milestones?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And we, ironically, were just talking about this because our brand and girls friend group it's odd how many of us there are that still are very in touch on like a daily basis and then some of us, like we, were saying, um, they just gave me a very generous DoorDash gift card for my surgery and I was just blown away by it because I just it just to me is crazy that people would put that much care and thought into something like that to do that.
Speaker 2:And one of the girls was saying you know, well, you checked on me every day when I lost my twins and that meant so much to me. Well, her and I were not close in high school, but now we are, because our school was so big we didn't all run in the same circles even though we were friends. But now some of us are very close through different trials and loss and things that we had in common that we wouldn't have had in common back in the day. And it's just, it's different because I have a new set of friends and I say new, they're within the last five to ten years that I have in Columbus, who also do amazing things for me. They've got a meal train going for me. And then I've got this set of friends who and they both know different versions of me they know the version that is done, just all the things.
Speaker 3:That still comes out too.
Speaker 1:It still comes out, she still comes out.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like Marilyn Monroe said I don't always want to be Marilyn, I don't always want to be Lauren.
Speaker 2:but I'm different things for different people and I feel like some days I have to turn that on and off more than others. But I have that friend group that knows me like through and through to the core. And then I've got this friend group here who knows, I guess the more adult, established crew, mature, yeah, more mature, I guess because y'all don't see the family side of me as much, because when I come down and see y'all we're usually going out to eat, like just women and stuff, whereas the friendship crew I have here all of our kids play together, we all go to the same church. It's just very different. I think adult friendships are hard anyway, but having people that are so intertwined, in your DNA.
Speaker 3:Well for us, I've known you for so long. We watched you grow up, we know your family, we know everything about everybody because we're from a small town. We all went to the same high school, so you know. Whenever something happens, you feel like you're family, right, so you're going to reach out and tell people Like I know her mom's name.
Speaker 2:I know her grandparents, I know her cousins, I know everybody in her family, and vice versa. It's just different, I think.
Speaker 3:I feel like we're just really all family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all our friends are just family, agreed, agreed.
Speaker 1:So living in a small town is odd in many different ways. But like when I tell people from a big city that I'm from a town of 7,500 people, they're like oh well, you just know everybody. And I'm thinking to myself, kind of. But at the same time I see people every day that I have no idea who they are. Yes, it's that way to a certain extent, but it's like social circles and church and school and all that forms who are around the most.
Speaker 3:And, of course, you have new people that move into town that you don't know who they are. I just feel like it may be like whenever we started, like when we were younger and our families like growing up together. Of course, there's more people coming in, newer families, younger kids. I don't know any of them.
Speaker 2:But there was also only one public school for you to go to in Brandon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there was a private school in Brandon Now there's like five, yeah, so we have Five private schools. No five Like we have, like an elementary school and then a middle school and a high school.
Speaker 2:And there was a lot of us, but we were all in the same building, like for elementary, same building for middle, same building for high school. So we might have had 375 in our class. And I'm the world's worst at remembering people. They're always like how do you not remember this person? I'm like I don't know because I was never there. But now there's like two or three elementary schools, two or three middle schools, so you really may not see somebody that is in your grade, even though they're part of the same school system. And, like with my kids, there's Columbus City Schools, there's New Hope, there's Caledonia and there's like four or five private schools that you have the choice to go to. So, yes, they all live in Columbus or the county of Lowndes County, but there's umpteen different schools, whereas we had one school to go to, you went to Brandon, or you went to Jackson, to a private school, because you got kicked out of Brandon, and now there's Hartfield, where, yeah, so it's just the Hartfield's on the come of it, ain't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are.
Speaker 2:It's just the scope of like where you can go has just widened to the point where, like you're saying, you can live in a small town but people aren't in your proximity. There's kids who go to my kid's school who come from Alabama, so I mean, it's just very different. There's a lot of people are church who come from Alabama, so it's just very different.
Speaker 3:That's crazy, yeah.
Speaker 2:We live like right on the line which is wild to me, that you can live in Columbus, mississippi, 20 minutes from Mississippi State, and be the wildest, most aggressive Alabama fan, to the point where I would gladly kiss the feet of somebody in Oxford before I even tolerated somebody from Alabama. It is huge.
Speaker 3:They're insane, they're insane.
Speaker 1:So much, they got a little. Uh took it on a chin last night.
Speaker 2:I'm glad Good Congrats.
Speaker 3:Yep, very happy about that. I can't say, I'm telling you.
Speaker 2:Living in Columbus has made me, so it was terrible working.
Speaker 3:I worked at mugshots in Sarville while I was again is going Columbus and um.
Speaker 2:the weekend I dreaded was when the Alabama You've got people who've never set foot across the state line into Alabama with like full elephants on their vehicles.
Speaker 1:It is a national treasure, the Alabama.
Speaker 2:The bandwagon.
Speaker 1:It is bandwagon, but the characters that make up that bandwagon fan base are pure gold as far as like entertainment goes. Oh yeah, it's hilarious.
Speaker 2:It's growing up, though isn't it funny that, like every white trash person, we knew that were like the biggest Ole Miss fans and like Ole Miss is probably like the snootyest. Think about the Ole Miss fans that you know in your head from Brandon. They didn't go there. They had never set foot in Oxford.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a similar.
Speaker 2:They did not go to college at all. Right, they didn't set foot even at Heinz community college but the hardcore Ole Miss fans and Hard core will tear you down. Half of them didn't finish high school, right, and they're like oh, miss, blah, blah, blah, you trash state fans and I'm like put your teeth back in and didn't play a sport.
Speaker 3:No, they didn't play a sport?
Speaker 2:No, it's wild.
Speaker 1:Well, everybody's got to have something to root for. They do and we don't have any professional teams.
Speaker 3:Just think if they put that all that energy into something that was actually Good for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in the water, it's in people's blood. College football is especially here, obviously.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's what I like about state the most is like we just kind of anticipate losing, so we're fine either way. And so when we do good, we're like well, this is well, this is nice, we like this we're proud of ourselves.
Speaker 1:State fan base is much more mild mannered during success than Ole Miss oh yeah, I would say that.
Speaker 3:Ole Miss can be obnoxious, drowning and yeah, and I heard like if they don't win a football game, like parties over. Like we're going home, we're going to sulk but state it's like alright, win or lose, we're going out. We're going out.
Speaker 1:So you think state wins the party, not Ole Miss.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Oh boy.
Speaker 2:I think state wins the consistency award, whereas Oxford probably wins a winning season party award. I've been up there a few times. I love Oxford, though I've been a few times.
Speaker 3:I didn't have fun.
Speaker 2:I love food and they have the best food.
Speaker 3:I will. I would love to go out there and eat. The square is legit.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to hate. I love going there. I love going to this one place on the corner I can't think of the name of it right now, but it is choice and it's my favorite.
Speaker 1:On the corner of the square. Yes, the Boiret.
Speaker 2:Yes, that yes. They have awesome bartenders. They have awesome wait staff. The food's delicious. I never have a bad time there. We've had several work events there and it's just been great. What kind of food is it Just all kinds.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's like New.
Speaker 2:Orleans.
Speaker 1:Southern type food.
Speaker 2:Okay, like good quality food.
Speaker 1:I think there may be a French flair in the techniques of the chef.
Speaker 2:Agreed Like crab cakes.
Speaker 1:Or the menu, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Boiret's good, proud Larry's is good.
Speaker 2:I've never had bad food there ever.
Speaker 1:No, it's hard to find bad food in Oxford. No.
Speaker 3:I don't go for the food, I just want to go for the party.
Speaker 1:I was up there for two years and would take in the food on the square.
Speaker 2:What's your undergrad in?
Speaker 1:General studies.
Speaker 2:And you got it from Ole Miss Got it from Ole Miss.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's the equivalent of interdisciplinary studies at Mississippi State. It's just three. I just got three minors Business education and history.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Because I was like I don't know what the hell I want to do with my life.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what a finance degree consisted of. I didn't know what an economics degree consisted of, so I just like I don't know what business and education and history are.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm interested in those topics, so I'm just going to study what I'm interested in.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm just going to learn more about what I like yeah, yeah, but again it's one of those things where you felt like you had to have a degree. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was the societal timeline and pressures that definitely contributed to me going to college and I was like I was like I was going to go to the state I started at Mississippi State straight out of high school. I was not prepared and I got to a point after I was taking trigonometry as my first semester and I was like I just cannot get this shit, I just can't get it.
Speaker 3:I've never taken that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to you don't want to.
Speaker 2:I mean, I got an art degree. I don't need that, like I don't know why. Back to our point of things being required. Why, for a graphic design degree, do I have to further anything in math and science? Yeah, but I'll pay for your classes. Just let me pay for classes that are relevant, so I don't need statistics. Can I tell you one thing I learned in statistics? No, none, if it hadn't been for my best friend Hamed, whose dad ran the math department.
Speaker 2:Shout out Hamed yeah shout out, tutoring me literally every night and being like, and he was like that dad, that's like shouting the answer, and he's like I don't know how you don't get it. And I'm like I don't know how to tell you any other way that I'm not going to. I would not have passed. Seized it, get degrees.
Speaker 3:I mean prereq. They required prereqs. Why do you have to take prereqs to get into before you can get into the classes that actually go towards your degree?
Speaker 1:I think it probably has a lot to do with keeping people there for four years so that they will spend more money. Yeah it's wild. That's what I think it is. I mean most college degrees void of prereqs Now there are there's a lot of padding in the degrees.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, just like there's a lot of padding in the K through 12.
Speaker 1:You can get it in two years, yeah that's why homeschool kids.
Speaker 2:While I have my own views about that, there's a reason that they can get done by lunch and our kids are coming home with mountains of homework after being there from eight to 30. I think that if you're there from eight to three, you shouldn't come home with any homework, but that's just I mean, there's a lot of padding in the day, there's a lot of padding in the grades. It's very much just institutionalizing children.
Speaker 1:Very much so, very much so.
Speaker 2:You're creating manageable employees. You're creating manageable inmates. You're creating people who can be controlled.
Speaker 1:Do you think that's intentional?
Speaker 2:Yes, 100%. I think it started as a need for factory workers.
Speaker 1:The institutionalization of education.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that I think it might have started with good intentions, but then when we had to have factory workers, especially during the war, like World War I, world War II, or you had to have people that would listen, take criticism, they had to do a certain thing. Because this had to get done, I think, is when things start getting more regimented, more controlled. That's just my opinion.
Speaker 3:Are there looking at that as an example of creating-?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you're also creating little drones, like little people who could be controlled.
Speaker 1:Or look at that model and create another model and take yeah, and a lot of people come out of public I mean so many people live their entire lives and they're largely dependent on the government. And it starts with that training starts in public schools.
Speaker 2:But you also can't get out of it without stopping taking advantage of it, because without taking advantage of it you can't get it's a very cyclical system that keeps you dependent on the system.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it also is a tactic for getting votes.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:The Democrats have done a phenomenal job of infiltrating our public institutions and like forcing their ideology on the American people through the enforcement of these institutions and bureaucracies.
Speaker 2:And I don't know that we see it much. Yet Ashley's child is too young to be in the school system and mine isn't a private school system where we're very much aware of what is being pushed out, so are both of mine are in a private school setting, so I don't have as much experience with it and all of my teacher friends- Remember when they brought in what was that? Curriculum, or it was like oh yes, the math one the Common Core.
Speaker 2:That was another yeah, just why? Just why? Why change? I can't even teach my kid how to do what they're wanting me to do, because even if you give the right answer, you have to show how you got the answer by doing it the way they wanted. Well, math is math is math. Why can't the answer that's correct be correct no matter how I do it? Why does it have to be done that?
Speaker 3:way. That makes no sense and you have to show your work and a lot of things. I feel like you could just do the answer in your head on a lot of problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you had to show your work and you had to show that you did it their way. And then when they changed reading from phonics to basically sight word memorization, that also changed how children learned how to read.
Speaker 3:There's so many things that are different from when we were in school as to now, with their learning, I would not even be able to help my kid do their homework.
Speaker 2:Which is why another reason I'm paying for my child's education because she's getting phonics and she's getting regular math.
Speaker 3:And that's why I don't think they should have homework, exactly.
Speaker 1:There's such a disconnect between what's implemented throughout the federal government in Washington DC and what happens in small towns throughout America. Our country is so different because of the state system that you have these 50 unique systems. So if you've got different geography, you've got different topography, you've got different demographics, you've got different cultures in different parts of the country. So a one size fits all education model or curriculum, if you will, is not going to be applicable to everybody. It should be localized.
Speaker 2:But then you've got the muddy waters between well, this is a state decided thing. Well, now, this is a federal like there's. You've got this state. This is local, this is federal like there's so many. Okay, well, you could do this up into a certain point and then it becomes a federal issue. Well, why?
Speaker 1:Yeah, why.
Speaker 2:Why are you involved?
Speaker 3:At my job or whatever. Whenever we have surveys on the healthcare facilities, we have to find out what's going on. We have to follow federal and state regs, and it's just so it makes it's cumbersome.
Speaker 2:If you have to have both, then one of them is redundant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and not needed. You're cutting the tape twice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So because our state? Regs are more focused on Mississippi and our community, you know. But then there's also just fed regs that are we have to go by, that are for all the states.
Speaker 1:Like the, the transgender agenda that our federal government pushes for and in support of. Like that's, that's going to be where people draw the line and, in my opinion, like it's, it's all ready to a point for me that I'm like this this does not, this is not good, this does not make sense. To allow men to go in women's restrooms with young girls and young boys, I mean, there's so many situations in which things can be can obviously go awry and that somebody with ill intent could easily manipulate themselves and manipulate certain situations in sports too.
Speaker 1:And so, like it's. It's an example of how things should be more localized, like, just because some bureaucrat in Washington DC thinks that men should allow should be allowed to say that they're women and compete against women and women's sports, doesn't mean that I should have to pledge allegiance to that in Mississippi because they feel that way somewhere else.
Speaker 2:And what's wild to me is like I don't really care what you choose to do, because you don't pay bills in my house and I don't pay bills in yours. Like whatever you want to do with your person as a legal consenting adult is your business, as long as it's not being pushed on me and mine. I'm very libertarian in that sort of way. But also, why does my popcorn have to support gay? Like you go to Walmart, everything's got a rainbow flag on it. I don't need sexually specific popcorn, just like I don't need sexually specific grapes, like I don't want to see. I'm not a PDA person. I don't want to see y'all make out, any more than I want to see anybody else make out. Like I don't know when and why everything got so sexualized because in my opinion, nine times out of ten, sex shouldn't be a part of any of it, whether it's hetero, homo, blah blah, blah all the letters?
Speaker 3:Definitely not when I walk in Target and it just blasts my face. I don't know why it exists period.
Speaker 2:Because why do we have to talk about who's kissing who on any spectrum and why is anyone kissing in cartoons or kids movies? Let's just not do it.
Speaker 1:I think what you're talking about stems from the end of the civil rights movement, particularly the black people's right to vote. That was a huge accomplishment for the United States of America and it was like the pinnacle of liberating people. Like America still has a lot of things that it needs to work on, but after that point it was like a lot of these left wing people Marginalized groups, yeah, they didn't have anything to protest about, because America was a and is a great fucking place.
Speaker 1:It had gotten to a point after minorities racial minorities gained the right to vote, women gained the right to vote, all of which should obviously have the right to vote.
Speaker 2:It was like we covered everybody, but now let's come up with some other marginalized group that we can push on people.
Speaker 1:You know. Race has already been taken care of. We freed everybody racially who's being marginalized in other check boxes.
Speaker 1:And so I think it just morphed into what we have today, and that's what they, those like-minded people, push for is advocating for the LGBTQ community and all this. That in the third but like. It's also evidence that the left wing ideology is in our, is in corporate America and has been perpetuated by the academic institutions in this country, and it shows how the corporations and the government are basically brother-in-law they're in it, they're in, they're in it together, I think.
Speaker 2:I feel like both sides of the spectrum though at this point the hard-leaning left and the hard-leaning right are both so enmeshed in their own worldview that there's not any room for anything else. So I think that at this point, no matter who gets put in charge politically, it's gonna be more party controlled than it is, per like, individually controlled. So I think that at this point, a lot of people who are quote in control are just figureheads. They're talking puppets for the agenda of either side, and I am probably way more Republican or libertarian than I am anything, but I don't necessarily think that the hardest-leaning right is correct either.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:And I think there I think it's too extreme on both sides, and you talked about it in that previous episode. How, at this point, it's political lines that are dividing us.
Speaker 1:For sure, For sure. There are so many people that can't see past the R, the D the red, the blue. Well, because it's difficult to do that. It's difficult, it's not easy to inform oneself Like you gotta it's easy to just say, oh well, some bitches are Republican. I agree with everything Republicans say.
Speaker 2:Let me just put his ass on the tip. It's like a full-time job now.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you and it takes effort and work to inform yourselves and ourselves and our opinions, and so a lot of people don't want to do that, so it's just easier in their mind to just always vote Democrat regardless.
Speaker 3:There have been Republicans and Democrats that I liked both of their views, and then there are things that I was like mm-mm don't agree with that, so it always-. I mean, it comes down to like what do I believe in, what are my morals and values.
Speaker 2:Well, you also have to rank your morals and values, because it's like do I agree with the way this person does this? Yes, but is this one issue more important than these other issues? Yeah, like how I view XYZ. Yeah, I'm fine with all this, but this one I'm so hardcore, like I will never back Donald Trump because I think he is a garbage person. He is a horrible human being. I don't care how good economically he was and I'm not for Biden, but I feel like I can't sit here and vote for anyone at this point because I will never vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3:That's what I'll vote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I will never vote for Donald Trump. You can never convince me to, because I have my own experiences that make sexual assault, harassment and all that such a priority for me that I don't care about my financial situation if I feel like me and my daughters are at risk of sexual assault or someone who views that as not an issue. So it you have to start picking and choosing that gets down into morals instead of policies because of the people that they're putting in front of us. You're picking like the lesser of two evils instead of the best candidate for the job.
Speaker 1:It sure looks like they've got what people are calling a witch hunt on for Trump, though I mean it's kind of hard to not recognize that, and I agree that it's a slippery slope, like y'all were talking about, when you start going after political opponents to keep them from running.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying he shouldn't have the right to run, I just can't vote for him.
Speaker 1:I totally understand that.
Speaker 2:And I don't understand how about that mugshot, though To me half of those people looked like so guilty and the other half looked like they were posing for like their class picture. It was a very mixed bag. I didn't see all of them, it was funny, but like I don't even know what I was saying.
Speaker 1:That mugshot, he nailed it.
Speaker 2:Oh see, I thought he looked weak. My dad thought he was, you know, giving the stare too. I thought he looked like a whooped dog. He had his head kind of down that comb over gone. I thought he looked like a whooped, like a little.
Speaker 1:I think it's hilarious. I think he's like just screwing around.
Speaker 3:I don't feel like he would ever. He still feels like he has superior to everybody. I don't think that he has ever gone, that's where I was going with that.
Speaker 2:I've never seen people just get so up in arms and like idolize somebody that the way that they did him or demonize him the way that he did. Like at the end of the day it is just a man. But it was a very polarizing like. You've got women and men who are like he's sent from God, he's got anointed, that's who God has chosen and they truly believe that. And then you've got people over here that are like he's the anti-Christ, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just here in the middle like I just think he's a really terrible person, like I just think he's like a crappy guy.
Speaker 3:But you still Great businessman really crappy person. You should still never follow somebody like they're Jesus Christ, but that is what you were seeing during that election.
Speaker 2:And you're still seeing it today.
Speaker 3:You're still seeing both virgins People like that physical person and think they want to believe that he's sent from Jesus. Now you still have to focus back on Jesus. I just can't-.
Speaker 1:That's some cue in the question.
Speaker 2:Worse than somebody else's. He was very much an idolization process and he wants to be an idolized.
Speaker 1:Why do y'all think that is? Why is he idolized like that by some people?
Speaker 2:I think that, like any good villain, he has learned how I mean, people want a villain, but people also want a martyr. He was a Democrat up until he has always said I will switch to Republican when it is advantageous for me to become president. That is what he did. He knows how to manipulate people. He knows how to be on reality TV. He knows how to say what you want to hear. He's also a businessman, so he knows that even if you're talking bad about him, you're talking about him, which gets his name up, which gets him talked about, which gets people who are huge supporters of him mad at the people who don't want to talk about Like it Bad attention is still attention.
Speaker 2:Bad attention is still attention. So I think he's one of those people who, children, who oh, I'm going to get attention, doesn't matter if I'm being bad, doesn't matter if I'm being good, I just want attention, attention, attention. That's him. He's learned how to use it very well.
Speaker 1:He's also not had to do that as much himself, because CNN does it for him. Yes and they blast Again.
Speaker 2:Too much demonization as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they're back to your point about it being polarizing and then you know, having the two opinions being the most popular ones and we seemingly thinking to ourselves that we only have two options when it comes to the way we think about the world, which is blasphemy and amazing that we even have to consider that that's going on.
Speaker 1:But there is room for people to come up from the grassroots level in the middle and elevate the conversation of all different types of perspectives.
Speaker 1:I think the legacy media has just given us these two party ideologies Right and polarized us for ratings, and so we've been conditioned for our entire life to by Fox News or CNN that you got to either think this way or you got to either think this way.
Speaker 1:And now, with all this shit, regular people can afford these mics and these cameras and have a small-time voice will, over time, puncture through those two ideologies and I think the truth becomes closer to being found. You know, if you look at people who are independent media personalities who have made such an impact through their efforts independent efforts like Joe Rogan, for example, or people being able to livestream from their homes all different types of evidence can be looked at for the evolution of technology and I think it points to a bright future for dialogue and discussion of important topics and opinions, because I think more regular people for lack of a better word now have the ability for their voice to be heard, and it's just gonna be a matter of time for more and more people continue to do what we're doing, and I think it'll help the situation.
Speaker 2:Unless, on the flip side, they start regulating what we say and who can say what is said, because like you said, we are becoming a voice that isn't regulated and we can say whatever we wanna say, but you do see shadow banning and certain like if they hear certain words, your content won't get monetized or this or that. I feel like if it gets to the point where the voice is too powerful, it'll be silenced.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think it depends on who controls these tech companies.
Speaker 2:We're in an early stage.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, these technologies, like who controls the production and programming of artificial intelligence, for example. That is massively important.
Speaker 2:It's mind blowing to me that essentially, a nerd who couldn't get a date created a platform that controls all of our lives now through Facebook and Instagram look at your phone, look at your screen time. Those are the apps that you are on the most and it was essentially created by some dweeb who wanted to stick it to two popular guys and that's what controls our life now. That's wild to me and I'm not above it because I'll be sitting here checking likes and all that, but it's crazy to me that that has, what it is all boiled down to, is just this unlikeable. Really like AI type little dude created something that controls our whole lives and like he has the power to influence through ads, through taking away things what we see, the content that we ingest, articles for, what he believes in and what he wants to push, but not what necessarily is true or factual. If you say anything negative about COVID, it's removed. If you say anything not pushing a certain agenda, it's removed, or you're blocked or you're sent to Facebook timeout.
Speaker 3:Well, he's probably getting sponsored or paid by a certain company that won't have bought.
Speaker 2:But it's wild that that exists. That is not a if it's a true social platform, the only things that should be regulated are self-harm and violence. Essentially, Porn.
Speaker 2:Porn. Yeah, like things that ultimately harm someone, that are not consented by. You know hate like slur, racial slurs, that kind of stuff. But if I'm giving my opinion on whether or not I want to get a vaccine, whether or not I want to wear a mask, whether or not I want to vote for Colonel Sanders, it should not, it shouldn't be something that gets me put in Facebook timeout.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it shouldn't be allowed.
Speaker 2:Literally yesterday, one of my friends' moms she posted what's a saying that you used to hear your parents say all the time and I said in quotes I'm gonna saw your legs off and beat you to death with them, because my mom used to say that all the time. It got hidden as a sensitive topic that you had to like click on because it may be offensive or violent or blah, blah blah, and I was like that's. Another problem with AI, though, is because it doesn't have a sense of humor or conscience.
Speaker 2:It only has what it is programmed to look for. It cannot pick up on subtleties. It cannot pick up on humor, it only picks up on it has this word. It's bad.
Speaker 1:Do y'all ever communicate with chat GPT?
Speaker 2:I mean, I have a little bit just to play it like, just see what it was.
Speaker 1:No shit, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:It's all based on whoever programmed it, no doubt.
Speaker 1:You can tell. Obviously it's just a compilation of all the information on the internet.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Because it can just spit out or have a conversation with you or answer any question you wanna know. Have you?
Speaker 2:done it with the. Do you have a Snapchat?
Speaker 1:Yes, I've done it. I've done it with your.
Speaker 2:Snapchat AI. I've asked it questions before. I'm like why doesn't he love me? Just messing with it and it'll give you all this stuff about consent and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like you I named mine Skimbleshanks and I made him like.
Speaker 3:It's also very caring Like I hope you feel better.
Speaker 2:Yes he's like very. I keep saying he, knowing it's an, it it's not real, but you can create these characters for it. I think it comes into an interesting perspective, like if you watch movies like Inner Stellar, where they've programmed these robots with human voices. You assign human emotion to them and so you start to care about these inanimate objects. And at one point, tars is like that's the acronym for the robot in Inner Stellar. He's like I'm a robot, I'm gonna do whatever you tell me to do. Because he's speaking to Tars Like it's a person that are like thank you, tars, blah, blah. He's like this is my job, like I'm a robot. It just sounds like a human, so we give it human emotions. I think that could become dangerous, because I do think it's. I mean Please don't even think about that. People are developing AI, girlfriends, ai, boyfriends, ai. I mean like people are already coming up. I think when you get into the perversion of a lot of things, you can get into some weird spaces with AI.
Speaker 3:They can't love you back.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter to some people. They just want a submissive or dominant. They want whatever they want and if they can program somebody to do that and exactly the way they want. Black Mirror has done some episodes on it and it's wild, it is crazy Like it's uncomfortably close to, like, our time period. It's like anything that we're right on the cusp of they'll make an episode about and you're like, ooh, that steps a lot of toes a little, but it always ends bad, horribly Cause.
Speaker 2:I think technology is both our greatest achievement and will be our biggest downfall.
Speaker 1:I had an iPhone 12 or something right, probably 11, whatever, and I just got a 14 recently, like two or three months ago. Prior to getting that 14, I was not on my phone a whole lot. I have now caught myself like not being able to put them thing down because they know how to make it, but so enjoyable for you to just sit there and look at.
Speaker 2:And isn't it crazy to think?
Speaker 1:Speakers, the visual effects, the camera like all the shit your whole life's on there.
Speaker 2:The first computer that existed took up roughly the size of this house and couldn't even do with that little square and your little rectangle in your hand can do. That's wild to me. And it was literally just for computing numbers. Basically it's just data, just running numbers was essentially Like those power computers that that's what Steve Jobs and or who's Microsoft?
Speaker 1:Who started Microsoft?
Speaker 2:Classes. What is his name?
Speaker 1:Crack that dude from Washington, I think.
Speaker 2:He's in vaccines and stuff now.
Speaker 1:Bill Gates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it. That's it, god. I was like got me right before I got it.
Speaker 1:Bill Gates. He lived in Washington growing up and he had access to these supercomputer places because of some reason. The reason that I know a little bit about this is because I read a book called Outliers by Malcolm Glowell and it talks about how Bill Gates and the children that he grew up with were outliers, in the sense that they were just lucky enough to have the resources and the access to. I think it's Washington University in Seattle that had these supercomputers and just shows that proximity, like what you're exposed to.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There are other Bill Gates type capable people out there, but for him to have such that that the access to those resources allowed him to elevate.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean there's a reason that there's a disproportionate amount of, like, artistically talented and musically talented people, I feel like in the South, because they're brought up in a certain amount of culture, like and it may not be the culture that everybody wants us to have, but they are. It's kind of like a melting pot of different things, and so you see a ton of musicians, you see a ton of artists, you see a ton of actresses and actors that come from this part of the world, just like in California and some of those other places. You see a lot more techie people Like I think there are clusters based around where you live, speaking to that fact, and, like you said, there are outliers that exist within those pockets, but they have to be given the opportunity or the resources to be able to feed that inner.
Speaker 3:Just think of Mississippi. We're a very uneducated state. Just think of all the people here right now.
Speaker 2:They had access to other resources or what they could possibly do. And that's why, to y'all's point and I keep bringing up the last episode, but it's what I listened to on the way here to y'all's point, that's why there's so much quote brain drain and people leaving the state because the opportunities aren't there and they do exist other places for competitive pay for access to the things that people at our age are wanting.
Speaker 2:So not everybody wants to stay in a rural small community that doesn't have sports teams or bars, restaurants all the things that maybe they saw in college or just have decided are important to them. So I mean, it is hard to retain talent even when we have it, and keep them here Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think we are doing better. I think at least, at the very least, there's a recognition, obviously with the popularity of the term brain drain there are people that are aware of changes that need to be made in order to keep our young people here and make our population younger and ultimately grow our population, because that, at the end of the day, I mean, is where we gotta get to.
Speaker 1:I think, just from a peer number standpoint, if we wanna have more options, we have to have more people. That will bring more diverse markets, more demand.
Speaker 2:To make more people, you gotta pay us more money.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, that's right.
Speaker 3:To make this place look appealing.
Speaker 2:Cause unless we can afford to make more people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like you said, you want four or five kids. Well, I hope the county line just really takes off, because otherwise y'all gonna be asking for them same government handouts that we've been talking about. You're gonna be like honey, go get the EBT card because we gotta feed these five kids.
Speaker 1:Hopefully I have enough foresight to not put myself in the EBT card situation.
Speaker 2:Man, I think it happens so fast, though, for some people.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure. I mean, they got three before they even know what hit them.
Speaker 3:Or.
Speaker 1:Cause it's cultural. Yeah, babies raise some babies.
Speaker 3:And the divorce rate is high. So you remarry. You already have two kids with your previous husband. Then you remarry. Of course you wanna have kids with them too, and plus they already have kids of their own. So then there's that.
Speaker 1:Bringing in a lot of different elements and it's like having children early is a symptom of culture, but also low education, uneducation, unbeing, uninformed, being ignorant to a whole host of different things that often contribute to people having babies early.
Speaker 2:Multiple babies with multiple partners?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they don't know, they don't know, no different.
Speaker 2:Right, and at that point, unless you just luck out, you really can't get out of the system, because there's no way to afford to.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, I know Like.
Speaker 2:You're given enough to get by. But if you don't take that, if you do get ahead just a little bit, you don't qualify for that anymore. But that's the step up. You need to get out of it. So you just, essentially, it is more advantageous to stay in it than to try to work your way out of it, because all the help that you had doesn't exist anymore and there needs to be a bridge that exists to get out of it, to get you to right here. That doesn't cut you off when you get right here, gives you just a little bit of leeway so that once you're here, you can start climbing the path. But there's not. Essentially there's only you are right here or you're right here. There's no bridge that helps you get out and stay out.
Speaker 1:It should be public education, but it's a part of that cycle and problem.
Speaker 2:That's a symptom of low income and low education as well, especially the more that the schools get split by, like you said, imaginary lines and I can't send my kid to this school or I have to send my kid to that school. That's basically new age white flight and new age segregation.
Speaker 2:No doubt, no doubt but at the same time, I don't wanna send my kid to a low income, low education school because that's not what's best for him and I'm not gonna fight the good fight alone. So, even though I believe in public education, it's not really an option where I live and I feel like the school that my kids go to. It is a nice mixture I think it's about half and half, which, in a private school, especially where I live, is pretty good because-.
Speaker 1:That is, that's rare.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because some of the private schools it's 90% white and I don't want that either. Like to me, that is not a real world portrayal. That is not what I wanna teach my kids. So I really like the education that my children have because I do feel like it's roughly half and half and they still learn about the Bible, they learn about God. My daughter will ask me some questions sometimes that I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 1:Ask me to do it. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm like we gotta ask Pastor. Tommy, I don't know, I don't know and I'll call in text and be like what do I tell her?
Speaker 1:about God brother Tommy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's like why do I tell her? What do I tell her about, why we don't hate Satan or why we don't? She'll just ask me weird questions and I'm like I don't know. I don't know. I went to a. Really I was very publicly raised. I don't know I can't read your.
Speaker 3:Bible she can't read like that Very publicly raised.
Speaker 2:So it's just, it's crazy. Kids today and the stuff that they're exposed to, that we weren't exposed to, like I would never let my daughter go out on the front, like in the front yard, and play, or really even the backyard and play by herself, ever. It's just not an option. And yet we roamed my neighborhood like feral cats, like we would walk to the neighborhood pool, we would walk to other people's houses. We didn't have cell phones, we didn't have anything, and we just knew that, like, at a certain time you need to be somewhere to call and tell at least where you're at, and then you can just-.
Speaker 1:Check in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, essentially just show up in and out whenever you want to Like. When cell phones first came out, we were borrowing our mom's phones to like. They would drop a whole group of us off at the movies with one mom's cell phone and we'd call when we were done. My kid has like a tablet and she's watching other kids play.
Speaker 1:What's the fascination with that?
Speaker 2:I do not know, and it creates to me a false expectation of families as well, when she sees these other kids that are doing challenges and their families are all ninjas or whatever.
Speaker 1:It's cringe-worthy.
Speaker 2:She thinks, though, that that's how other families actually live, or she thinks they're not real at all. She said are these people real, or why do they play all the time? And we don't ever play like that. So it's like we're this crappy, boring family, while the other ones are bouncing off the walls and building obstacle courses in their backyard and like baby, they're getting paid.
Speaker 3:They get paid for that.
Speaker 2:That's their whole job is exploited and you can't really explain that to her that the parents are making money off exploiting their children, like that's what these videos are for. It's not because they love and have fun with their kids, it's because they're getting rich from it.
Speaker 1:Did y'all see that lady that had the YouTube channel and she got arrested for child abuse? I think so I forget what the lady's name is, but she has had a YouTube channel basically touting and preaching a certain practice of parenting and she got arrested on like eight counts of child abuse. They found either her child or like a niece or something.
Speaker 2:Like chained to the bed or something Like taped up scratches and look like they've been abused. Yeah, oh my God, like it's insane. And she's got like this business partner is weird there was another family who, like documented their whole adoption journey and you know they got all this support and money and XYZ for the adoption and it ended up literally turning that kid back in like it was a pound puppy after like a year or two.
Speaker 3:Thirsty they kept, but they got to keep all that stuff that they got and that's the problem with media and Social social media and everything.
Speaker 2:It's not real on it, they just you believe, but it's not necessarily the truth.
Speaker 3:Just like it's not safe for our kids to go outside anymore is because we have pedophiles.
Speaker 2:I have access to your Facebook that can find out where you are, and then you like a tasting menu when you see the picture of these kids there, in this exact location. Oh man, such and such are at the park and you with their mom's and you tag your location at the park. Well, kitty Lookers are gonna see. Oh, I've got XYZ kids at the park today. I can go look at them those names and everything.
Speaker 3:I would just call out a name and they'll come to you kids school, like all those back-to-school boards and everything my kids whole information Like especially at a public school.
Speaker 2:I feel like that would be just easy pick.
Speaker 3:You know your tea? Yeah, it has like their teacher's name, their school and then their kids name. We just go up there and be like, hey, I wanna, I want XYZ kid, so is that a phenomenon that's taking place?
Speaker 1:I mean, if they like, have there been cases that have shown that pedophiles have found Kids through that?
Speaker 3:I would assume I haven't looked anything up, but I'm pretty sure I've seen something on Facebook where they are looking for that.
Speaker 2:I don't put it past because I know that schools are definitely having to be a lot more secure than they used to. I mean, I feel like you could have came up to school when I was there and be like I want to check out, lauren, and they'd be like, all right, cool, yeah.
Speaker 1:But Now they need to see they need.
Speaker 2:They've got cameras. They've got access control doors. They've got Shooter protocols that you have to give your driver's license, like when you pick up my kid. You have to have a sign in your car if they're a car rider, like it's. It's a lot like you have to do so much now because there's just so much Danger.
Speaker 2:You have to sign social media releases if you do or don't want your kids in pictures, like there's a lot because, like some families may not want their kid in pictures, because there is family members who I know in. In one particular case at our school, the two children are adopted and the Biological mother will always hunt down pictures of the kids and post them on her Facebook as as though she still has them and like take advantage of that when she and technically hasn't seen her kids in years. So it just becomes a thing too of like Exploiting the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah even if you're not doing it for sexual purposes.
Speaker 3:You're like exploiting them in a different way, like if they're not supposed to have any contact with that mother Right, she's got pictures of them recently.
Speaker 2:It looks like she has a relationship and everything. Yeah, and then she can. I Know it was used at one point to try and show the court. Oh, I do this with my kids. They weren't even her pictures. She was stealing the pictures from the mom who had adopted them. She's slick. Yeah, I mean, people are crazy like you can find out it Ashley. Okay, super sleuth over here is nodding. She can find out probably your mama's address, birth certificate and like where, how many kids she's had and where she lives in about 30 minutes.
Speaker 3:But it's on there, it's out there. Yeah, the information's out there.
Speaker 1:It's public free game.
Speaker 2:But Ashley can find it real and it might not be like.
Speaker 3:Just say, your mom has Facebook. It might not be on her page, but I look and see her relatives and I'm gonna go to the relatives page. I guess what?
Speaker 2:they took a picture the other day, yep, and it's right in front of your mama's house and there are people on tiktok that literally have whole accounts that are like If you think I can't find you, test me, put put you're just just your name in the comments, or just your username in the comments and I'll break down where like, I'll break down all this information and so people test them all the time. They're like okay, because of this picture, I found this license plate which shows you live this place and Like will break down all the way to like your address where you work and everything Based on essentially no information one of the most disgusting things I've seen people do on social media is complain about their kids Behavior and it's obvious that, like the parent is Painting the child in a bad light, try to make themselves look better or they're looking for attention, or or they're asking for advice.
Speaker 3:But they're really looking for attention? Yeah, it's because I do. I know somebody. She'll post every little thing about her son what he's going through if he's sick, what he needs, what she needs to do, any advice from any other mothers every day, and this is stuff that you can just Google. That's her biggest puppy or it's a common sense thing. Like sirs, I don't buy diapers.
Speaker 2:Where do you think you buy diapers?
Speaker 1:I hate when people ask me questions. They can obviously Google.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, so I might, why just Google it?
Speaker 1:It tells me a that they haven't thought about what they're saying, and be they're lazy.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think most of the stuff I talk about is something funny that Rivers said if I do anything Now, I'm started worrying. I'm like have I complained about my kid? I'm not that person.
Speaker 3:I've complained about Oliver whenever he won't get asleep. Now he turned to you and he will not get to sleep like his regular bed routine. Yeah, and he'll go in there and he starts screaming bloody murdering her out when she comes to get him. I'm like he's not gonna get asleep. I need to get to sleep. I have to have sleep.
Speaker 2:That's why River sleeps with me like I don't, I don't play that game, like I'm not getting up in the middle of the night, going back and forth like no, you're gonna be little for just a little while. If I wake up, I'm not going back to sleep. So now I just sleep better when she's with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah and my husband works nights and swing shift anyway, so when it's time for her and I go bed, we just go to bed. Yeah, that's, that's my jam. She slept by herself until COVID, and then COVID she flipped out. I don't know whether it was the anxiety of everything changing her, having to come home and stay home with me or what that. Like Oliver, you would put her in her room and you'd have basically have to throw her in there like a grenade and then she would beat down the door, kick it, hit it, scream, holler, and I just didn't have it in me, especially after trying as hard as I did to have kids. I know that me and Brittany have talked about this. When you don't think you're gonna be able to have kids, and then you do, I feel like you let them slide with more than Maybe you should. So other parents will probably see me parenting and judge me when rivers is like Running around and I'm just like I don't care.
Speaker 2:Whatever yeah like live your best life, kid. As long as you're not hurting somebody or being disrespectful, I don't care if you run around, because I'm not gonna make you sit like a dog and stay here just to make me look good.
Speaker 1:So Do you have to just basically commit for the first two years that you're not gonna get any sleep after having a child?
Speaker 2:I pretty much. I slept probably less when I was during pregnancy Mm-hmm, you don't sleep like, especially towards.
Speaker 2:I don't sleep at all and then when they're newborns, up until probably like a year old, because you're like, are you dead? Are you dead? Are you breathing? Are you dead? That was I mean. I, my anxiety switched, I feel like, from I can't have a child, all that to it's gonna die. She's gonna die. Like the whole time you're pregnant you're like, oh, it's gonna die, I'm gonna lose the baby. And then the whole time it's here for the first year, you're like she's gonna die. And now it's like somebody's gonna take her. Like it. Never your fears just shift, or he's gonna run outside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gonna get hit by a car like Just that's just your protection making this yeah it sucks. I wish I I don't know cared maybe a little less, because I'm feel like a total psycho most of the time.
Speaker 1:I remember babysitting my niece for the first time when she was like I don't know, within the first six months.
Speaker 2:Bless.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I was like terrified. Oh yeah, this thing is living and fucking breathing. And like this and I'm responsible for this thing. They left this thing with me, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you were probably holding it like they did.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure I was trying to help. It's like I feel like I was gonna break it spray her off with the.
Speaker 2:The hose on the sink.
Speaker 1:I didn't have to change a diaper, though Not that I've never done it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was pretty lucky.
Speaker 1:But for that visit I didn't have to. I haven't done it very much since she's been alive. Blessing but it's not something that, like A lot of men, will say I ain't, I ain't changing.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'm like yes, you are. Yeah, yes, sir.
Speaker 3:How do we say my dad not change one diaper?
Speaker 2:I doubt my dad knows how, but John does, I know, and bow did too. But like I, I don't think my dad like made the conscious decision not to. I think he's just like, that's just not a skill that he like Partook in. Like you know him, he's like.
Speaker 2:It's just not something to be figured out like he would like he did it so badly that my mom was like Just don't worry about it Like my brother probably changed more diapers than my dad. Yeah just because that's the type of Person he is. But no, I'm bow, definitely changed diapers, but I'm such a control freak too, that it's like, yes, you're doing it, but you're not doing it the way that I want you to do it, so I'm just gonna do it and it's harder with girls.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like a technique with girls. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad I don't remember being a baby and have a just a terrible ass All the time. It just seems like babies within the first two years, like they're all just got raw asses.
Speaker 2:It depends on what. You feed them a lot too, or how long their day care leads them, and we got his button, that's.
Speaker 3:It's in every, every time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but with white then there's some kids like any apple juice they had any certain for like rivers was pretty. She doesn't have that sensitive like. I feel like eczema is so much more prevalent these days too. But, like, based on like what we eat, how many antibiotics we take, uh, the diaper rash, like all that.
Speaker 3:I feel like all those sensitivities Are from what we're putting in our bodies and we're putting on our bodies and um, like the pediatricians now, they used to tell you only introduced one food, like a week, whenever the child starts eating table food. Um, now they're like eat whatever whenever you get on the kitchen.
Speaker 2:Think about like peanut allergies and stuff that didn't exist Right in our parent's day. That's so strange, it's like how we became so mother birdie about everything actually created more problems than it helped, because and also the shit they put on our crops.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like, uh, I just heard this interesting thing about McDonald's potatoes. So McDonald's only uses a certain type of potatoes and they don't want it with any eyes or any Imperfections on the potato. Well, to do that, you have to use a certain type of pesticides. The farmers who do it, after they've sprayed it in full hazmat suits, don't even go back out to the crops for at least a week because of how Hazardous it is. And think about the fact we're just pumping that into our kids constantly. Really, yeah, absolutely. When I stepped on my toes real bad when I heard that, because I was like, oh, I love McDonald's and it's extremely costly.
Speaker 1:I saw what you're talking about. It's pretty interesting. They it's like they could make the french fry if they just used, if they were less selective about which potato they wanted and didn't have to have that perfection. Process that you're talking about. They could make it for immensely less.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and and just all the harm that it's causing, all the chemicals that were susceptible to and USA actually has On this kind of like the flip side of regulation In european countries. There's so many toxins that are banned here. There's like eight or nine, there's not that many. And all these products, cosmetics, those will scent, things that you have poison is all poison. It's all stuff that's been banned in european countries. Like they say, if you get formula for your kids, it's actually best to get it from like sweden, because it's way more regulated. Like we, especially Allowing all this stuff from like she in teamu, all these discount websites there is no regulation for that, what so ever what is that?
Speaker 2:those discount like shopping sites like sheen and teamu where you can get like a whole wardrobe for like 100 bucks.
Speaker 1:You're gonna have to learn me, I don't know that one.
Speaker 2:Well, it's basically a heavily discounted site where everything comes from china.
Speaker 1:Like material goods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, earrings, clothes, home improvement, like anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it could be awesome and it could be really, really crappy. You just don't know where it's gonna. It's like a dupes for things. So say that you are a nike guy and you want to get a pair of like this specific nikey, but it's a dup and you can get it for $13, but it looks exactly like it. Well, it ends up being a child or like yeah, like a kid made it with like lead paint.
Speaker 3:And like or like a child size, like it's not yours.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's no regulation on that, so you don't know what you're putting on your kids, what you're putting on your body, what's coming into your house and off gassing. And the european union just doesn't have that problem because they are so much more regulatory on certain things, and so I get in a real catch 22, 22 when I don't like government involved in xyz. But they could save us In other areas.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean that's a capitalism thing at the end of the day, because it's cheaper, it produces more, it makes you reliant on the medical system, on big pharma, when you have all these things that you are either addicted to or exposed to, that are giving you diseases, medical problems.
Speaker 3:Well, we are all so higher and Just giving out prescription drugs period, then you're on big than other countries, then you're reliant on big pharma, which is in bed with big government.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so.
Speaker 2:There's just really no way to do things except for. Charning butter on your front porch.
Speaker 1:What is that reference to?
Speaker 2:I say it about everything. I equally think that it's behind the times but at the same time probably the best time, so I use it for any reference as far as, like you know, we have like a lot of like menonite culture and stuff up here that doesn't exist. So If anybody is like behind the times, I'll say well, you know, they're on their front porch turning their own butter, but that's just.
Speaker 1:I'm reading a book currently that's called empire of pain and it's about the Sackler family with Purdue pharma and the start that that family got in the Around World War one when they started getting into the advertising and in the pharmaceutical industry. Long story short, it is Fascinating to read about that. Yeah, the guy that started it. He was like Really into advertising, obviously advertising, but he's the one that began the relationship of the pharmaceutical industry and advertising. He married those industries.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And he benefited off. You know lobbying for either industry to be as conjoined as possible, because he would make the most money that way and you think about it.
Speaker 2:Like why am I seeing a drug commercial? Like that's weird. Why, why would I need to see a commercial for that? Why wouldn't I just be prescribed what's best for me? Instead I'm gonna ask for x, y, z drug that I saw commercial and like that's weird.
Speaker 1:And you can definitely tell when the networks have put content out for a bunch of old people, because you can watch the advertising and you know it's gonna reflect with the target.
Speaker 2:Yeah, target market is and I feel like we're not the target market anymore, because I mean, think about how many people you know who don't have cable. Like I feel like that's an older person for sure. Like, we mainly stream and I stream without ads.
Speaker 3:Oh, I still have ads like um, um, like Hulu.
Speaker 2:I strain, I pay. I don't pay for everything to have no ads. So if an ad happens now I'm like oh my god, this is like peasants, this is terrible, like I feel like. So I feel 85 years old.
Speaker 3:I was actually like what did we do? Like there was a commercial, you go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:I was like what you go get a snack. You'd be running back, because that was. The four shows were syndicated and we couldn't record it, oh god. No, you'd be like oh my god, oh my god, uh, such and such just got shut and you'd go.
Speaker 3:I gotta go to the bathroom. It rolls in.
Speaker 2:I kind of know what happens Because you wouldn't be able to watch it again until it like came out on vhs or you'd have to hear about it school the next day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have no idea. You feel like such a loser. I missed it.
Speaker 2:I fell asleep before Baywatch came on. We don't know what happened.
Speaker 1:What is MTV doing now?
Speaker 2:I think reality shows there, so they're just music television, that that's their name.
Speaker 1:But they do reality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like hip-hop wives and like uh, I think it's like.
Speaker 1:Music adjacent.
Speaker 3:It'll be like they still show those game shows like when they're bringing that like the reality TV people, like real house.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I'd be like real love and hip-hop and all those kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, real world they bring in them.
Speaker 1:They do like those game shows or they'll do like a love game show and I remember the like flavor Flav, oh yeah, flavor love, flavor of love, yeah, and the Brett Michaels one Rock of Love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and now think about how disgusting that is.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, I think it was before the bachelor.
Speaker 2:Go back and watch some of those flavor Flav episodes Disgusting and we all watched it, but like, think about the fact that we're sitting here, we're on a date with Lee, you're about to make out with him, and then I'm like, well, I'm gonna show her up. Not gross, gross, and there's 20 of them, it's the same way.
Speaker 3:And they're all strippers or like.
Speaker 2:Just it's not a very sanitary environment, I feel like, because you're not getting like the cream of the crop gals. To me it's legalized prostitution. Even the bachelor and all that is just modern day legal prostitution, because they're getting paid to be on that show. They're getting paid to make out with this guy that they might not even have any interest in and essentially try and sell themself to him to continue their you know and a lot of people just do it just to try to be famous, yeah, to try and stay relevant.
Speaker 2:And then you like that guy who was just what's that show that we watched on Netflix, where they meet blind.
Speaker 3:Oh, love is blind love is blind.
Speaker 2:Okay, so one of them just got divorced and he said that being on that show ruined his life, like he had a good career, everything, and now he is about to be bankrupt, can't get a job because nobody takes him seriously. Because he was on a reality show, he didn't get paid near what he thought he was gonna get he was.
Speaker 3:He was one of the nicest guys all night. He was so nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like there was nothing really controversial about him at all. I mean, the girl he married was kind of crazy, but yeah like there was nothing like he didn't abuser. He didn't do anything that should hurt his Like value to a company other than, I guess, being on a reality show where nobody would take him seriously.
Speaker 1:I hate it for that dude.
Speaker 3:I think he only went on it too, because he's not the kind of like. He's not an introvert, he's not an extrovert, so he's more of an introvert, so he doesn't meet a lot of people. He wasn't like a dating website kind of guy, so he went on the show, which is like good intentions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you meet the person essentially, like you're sitting on, have you? Do? You know the concept for love is blonde, yes, okay, so for anybody that doesn't, you're getting to know each other where you can't see each other. And so I think his intentions were pure and he ended up with a girl and he married the girl and of course, it didn't work out because you met in six weeks and got married, but yeah, I just it ruined his life.
Speaker 1:I matched with a lady on tinder one time and she asked me if I wanted to be on a dating reality TV show because she said, she said that she was a TV producer.
Speaker 2:And that's essentially why she was on tender.
Speaker 1:That's why she was on tender to try to find really smart actually, yeah, where you ever come tender.
Speaker 2:So Ashley is divorced and remarried, so you've been in the dating world. I got on bumble. Okay, I've never been on a dating website ever. I know I'm a tender. It didn't exist for me.
Speaker 1:I got two matches on bumble yesterday.
Speaker 2:Bless it.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know what these things are about. I don't even begin to know what these things are about.
Speaker 3:It's entertaining at the very least and bumble like it'll even Tag you if, like, somebody's just traveling through your state, like in your area, like it tries to give you local people, I think, or that's what I chose. But if, like, they're local, if they're in your state, even if they're just traveling, so it'll pop up and you're like, oh, who's this person? And then, like, you'll ride and be like, hey, I'm traveling. There's one guy who's like I'm on my way to um, colorado, to do a Hunt, or he was going somewhere to do. Is like this big safari hunt or something like that.
Speaker 2:I'm like so it's bumble Dater than tender and tenders hooky up here.
Speaker 1:So here's how. Here's how it played out. So the lady who started tender left tender and started bumble. And so she Obviously knows how the shit works, but basically she has branded up Bumble as opposed to tender. So basically this correct me if I'm wrong but tender is more of the has more of the skanky reputation hookup uh-huh and your bumble, which that still happens, but she's done a good job of branding it to where it's more like the woman has to Be yes, the woman has to talk first, for example.
Speaker 3:Yes, and it shows um. I would, of course, if you like, I would never talk to anybody you have to like, hit them first. I would not do well on bumble and then you show up in there and then they have. Then they have the opportunity to contact with my Love of a toxic masculinity.
Speaker 2:I would not do well on bumble, but the the more you pay, the more Exposure you get. Oh, that's dirty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's got it figured out.
Speaker 2:That is so smart though.
Speaker 3:And there are some.
Speaker 2:Um, it's like paying for ads on facebook.
Speaker 3:Yes, the more you paid you would get, the better quality quality too.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you get the bottom of the barrel if you're on that free membership.
Speaker 1:Yes, one time I downloaded hinge.
Speaker 2:Oh, I heard that that one's.
Speaker 1:I didn't pay unhinged, but they gave me the most terrible looking women.
Speaker 3:Less it but you pay, more you get.
Speaker 1:But if you pay more, you start, the quality gets better.
Speaker 2:Have y'all heard of raya? It's like a celebrity in like high quality Dating app and like you have to basically Either be celebrity or celebrity adjacent or like approved by somebody that's like High to even get on the website.
Speaker 1:Really, yeah, it's like how do you pay to get on that website?
Speaker 2:I have no idea. So I had already heard about it and then I saw it on an episode of a show I was watching. He was like I need he. He was like I need you to hack into their system and get me approved to be on raya. And finally one of the girls was like oh, I'll approve you to be on it. We need him to do his job, not hack into raya to get you approved. But it's essentially like how, if you were like a social media influencer or something and say you wanted to hook up with Drake or somebody like that, that's where it would happen.
Speaker 1:Okay do y'all know who bobby eiltough is?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:What do y'all think about this bitch?
Speaker 2:I don't know who that is you, you do. She's that really. She like talks like this. She's like super dry and she's got her kids and one of them's names for richard and one of them's names concrete, and one of her boobs is bigger than the other one. Every time she's breastfeeding, I don't know. And what's she on? She's on tick tock and that's how she became famous. But then all of a sudden she went from doing the weird mom monotone videos like this she was like april on parks and rec to now she's sitting here in the bed with like drake and doing an interview and then that was super weird and then they removed it.
Speaker 1:But I don't understand and she also did one with little yachty. She's done it with taiga.
Speaker 2:But how did that happen? How? Did it go for me and you are my husband and we're talking about our kids and we're being super monotone. To now I'm sitting here with drake. How did?
Speaker 1:When was that shit very suspicious?
Speaker 3:so weird very suspicious like an industry plant or something I don't, maybe she got like so many followers and then she was considered famous. Like that would be like yeah, I mean she's cute, she is and she's funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's funny, but I have seen where she Either she went on somebody's podcast or it was on hers and she got into it with this dude. I wish I could remember who it was, but, like um, she was bitchy, which I didn't see.
Speaker 2:the whole thing I just saw and that's not what she's selling usually.
Speaker 1:No, she was like uh, she's very Argumentative. The the humor was not there. Yeah and they're portraying her like where I see my all of my bobby Outoff. Content is on snapchat.
Speaker 2:See, I see it all on tiktok.
Speaker 1:I don't watch anything on snapchat and so Well, it's not very good, but that's where I and so they're portraying. The people that are putting this stuff out about her on snapchat are portraying her is like being this. She's like the fame has gone to her head the money's gone to her head. Now she's too good for this or too good for that. It's just very strange Her coverage in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know how like people get there, like Ingest their media from like different sites. Like some people only watch reels, some people only watch tiktok, some people watch, like all the entertainment on snapchat. I feel like the stuff on snapchat is like the magazines you see in the grocery. I'll like when you're about to check out, like the national inquire.
Speaker 1:You don't know if it's real or not Like yeah, I feel like bootleg.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like tiktok is like the people magazine, like you pretty much trust what's coming out of it. And then instagram reels. It's like us weekly, it's about the same. You know you can pretty much trust it. And then when you get to snapchat, it's like Did drake have a baby with? An alien and you're like yes, for sure, yeah or like kanya west has another baby mama and it looks just like like it's all this random Salacious stuff like rej and kim k back together talk about their sex day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's weird, it's so much old stuff too. I'm like weird.
Speaker 2:the evolution and like all these songs that uh, or trends that tiktok can like Reignite, that, the people like kate bush, who that running up that hill song, like all these artists who like essentially their albums or their careers, were dead, are now getting huge royalties For being rediscovered through platforms like tiktok. It's wild, no, they're like keep it coming.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely they're getting like. When they shine, yeah, their royalties are out the wazoo now.
Speaker 2:Because royalties basically don't exist anymore on music because of the way certain Like platforms are set up. So if you have, if you're set up just through like spotify, xyz, you're not getting the same type of royalties. But back then on those types of contracts she would get paid x amount every time it was played or used and so they're really reaping the benefits of it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely more power to them ladies, I really appreciate y'all coming on and Obviously this won't be the last time. Is there anything y'all want to Fill the county line congregation in on before we wrap this thing up?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry we talk so much.
Speaker 1:That's what. That's what we're here for. Yeah, that's what we're here for.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't have anything, just yeah, follow us on social media. We are midwife crisis on facebook, midwife crisis podcast on instagram. We also have midwife crisis calm. We release every thursday and, yeah, we're very conversational. We also have men that listen in the shadows. That don't it? Yeah? So lee Decidedly decided to tell people that, uh, he is a fan of ours. I have a few male guests, or a few male listeners, who don't want to be. Out of the closet but yeah we're, we're fun for everybody.
Speaker 1:Well, I think what y'all are doing is very cool, very unique. Obviously, for obvious reasons, we we think similarly, but, um, being where you are, in Mississippi, and, to my knowledge, the one and only, or the first and only Women's podcast in Mississippi, that's why I have no idea.
Speaker 2:I that'd be wild if that's true.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not sure if it is.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna go look at it. I'm in the in the lane to char in yeah yeah in the space that y'all are in.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there's somebody out there talking about bird houses or something.
Speaker 2:I'll take that until it's proven otherwise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think we are. I'm pretty sure John looked it up and he said yeah, y'all are the only ones. That's wild and that's even on a. I think he looked at either Spotify or Apple podcast and we're the only ones that we don't really talk about mid wiffery.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's also been a thing. So, yeah, this guy messaged me on instagram several times asking if it was okay that his wife was still pregnant. Dude, this is. You either don't understand what you're listening to or you're trying to set me up for something because, yeah, no, we're fella.
Speaker 1:He was going through it. He thought he done found the solution in the midwife crisis.
Speaker 3:I'm like we can't do anything. We can tell you something but we can't do anything Anyway my legal purposes.
Speaker 1:Don't ask us anything, yeah midwife crisis Ashley McKay, wolf Lauren, benjamin Muntin. Thank you very much, until next time, peace.