#36 - Zippers and Nuts

In this episode, the dads are back with another candid, laugh-out-loud session—venting about Outlook’s grammar policing of their “haha’s”, overpriced airport peanuts, and the mysterious behavior of zippers in aging jeans. Along the way, they thread in observations about digital communication tone, AI grammar failings, and the unexpected evolution of sardines into charcuterie board superstars. You'll hear real-life takes from the trenches of office humor, work travel, and dad-life details. It's all part of staying relatable, real, and slightly ridiculous in the digital age.

Highlights & Topics Covered:

• Outlook Can’t Handle Laughter: Why does Microsoft insist on correcting “haha”? A mini-rant on AI grammar tools gone rogue.
• The $12 Peanut Crisis: Inflation hits hard at the airport snack aisle—one dad's bewildering encounter with a massive (and pricey) bag of peanuts.
• Photoshopping the Team to Mars: Taking control of the company team photo—with a side trip to the Red Planet.
• Profanity-Free Zones: A refreshing observation from the Idaho office—what happens when no one curses at work anymore?
• Amnesia, Quicksand & 70s TV Fears: A nostalgic dive into childhood anxieties that may or may not still linger.
• The Zipper Scare: A recurring fly-down mystery turns out to be a case of faulty denim—not early-onset forgetfulness.
• Shopping Cart Psychology: Why there are never enough small carts—and how that might be very intentional.
• Pickle Emergencies: A mid-day call from Dad... about pickles. Crisis averted.
• The Sardine Renaissance: From pantry staple to upscale party feature—why canned fish is suddenly hip.
• Astronaut Recovery Protocols: After space, what next? A quick look at what happens once the crew lands back on Earth.

Dad Quote of the Week:
"I wasn’t gonna get 2 crumb cakes and a dozen frosted donuts, but now that I’ve got a cart the size of a Toyota…"

 #CoolDadShirt #DadPodcast #DadLife #Peanuts #Amnesia #Quicksand #ShoppingCarts #AstronautRecovery 

Where to Find Us:

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in

Follow us on Instagram: [@cool_dad_shirt] 

Transcript

We lost the wise man joke and everything. There was a nice shout out to.

Mike, it was organic. Yeah, and this little preamble, Mike, we talked about threading it, how it was moved, messing around with cable, so.

Welcome to this episode of The Cool Dad Shirt Podcast. Yeah, it was like the scene in Christmas vacation when they plug in the lights, the whole city goes dark. The Lower Glen just experienced the brownout, it it would have been on camera if I hit the record button, you could actually see me plug stuff in. There's only so much we could do in post rich.

Very similar. We can't reinvent stuff to happen this. No, that's alright. Ohh just moments ago I had my window open because it was so nice. And the kids are outside. They're having lots of fun. And I hear this 10 year old go. What the hell? It's probably going. Andrew, Andrew. Andrew out the sounds of spring.

Umm. Kids, put your phone down and come outside and get some fresh air for. A couple of minutes. What?

The hell that might have been the yeah, kids just don't know what to do in the outdoors anymore. Yeah, we were making bike jumps and everything. Yeah. Yeah, I'm encouraged. My neighborhood. That kids are outside all the time doing stuff. It's it's pretty good. The scooters have gone electric. We we we've ranted about that before. But besides that, they're getting outside. They're getting softer, but they're at least outside.

I'm a little light on the show notes this week, so the balls and riches court and he will be carrying the show this week as.

Alright, we're gonna start right off with ripping on Microsoft. You know, with all this AI and this stuff. Coming in how awesome the world is getting for the love of God. I don't know why what I type haha. In an e-mail, outlook says you have duplicate words. I very intentionally have aha and ah it like they cannot filter a haha. They challenge me every time I laugh at something.

So you can only laugh once.

Apparently that's kind of that's interesting. That's kind of how it goes. And every time it underlines. It you have a duplicate. Word hell yeah, I.

Do so is that in all your Microsoft applications like Outlook and word?

I don't know. I primary I don't know that I recall in Word, but it certainly gets me an e-mail all the time. I should edit it. I think I tried to edit my dictionary and it didn't take it cause it was 2 words. Yeah, you would think that there would be a setting to default to haha or not. Spell or grammar check that it is 2025. Yes, they should really be on.

Top of yeah. No.

What cryptocurrency do you think they could let?

That one slide in all seriousness though, I have made an observation about you. Whenever you reply in a text message, you only write 1. You never write haha in a text message reply and you always write ha ha.

All right, so let's. OK, I think I know why I think I got it. Would you tell me something funny?

Ohh, it's not really that funny.

No, no, no. It's the opposite. So my.

Please.

What you're saying is my comedy is only. Worth half a laugh.

No, no, no, no. It's entirely the opposite. The When you make me laugh, it's a it's a legitimate. That's good, huh? When I'm saying something borderline awkward. Marginally inappropriate work. I have to tag the haha. Like don't don't call HR. That's haha is don't call HR.

OK. Right.

On me. OK, you have to overcompensate for safety.

I'm over. You get the double, huh? Yeah, I've even. I've even wrestling with the dictionary to make the point that please don't get me in trouble. Observation. I've been traveling a lot lately. Not to Idaho for work. And around, but I was in the. Airport what is the deal with peanuts? So sometimes you know. If I'm getting. If I'm getting out early in the morning, I'm not really quite ready for breakfast, but I can't sit at the airport, then fly and then just wait till mid afternoon to get some of these. Sometimes I try to get a healthy snack. I don't want like a a sugary muffin or something right out of the gate. Maybe, maybe just a bag of peanuts. You remember the little tubes of planters peanuts for 1/4 of a century they were $0.99 you.

Yeah, I.

Remember.

Yeah, I buy them regularly.

Right. Yeah, it seems like I don't know what's going on at the airports. They they went, which is I think, a 1.75 OZ bag. Tag. They're up to. I think I looked at it. They're up to like a. 6 or 7 oz. Bag now and. They're $12.00. Oh my gosh.

God.

I thought it was a mistake and I was in another airport and I'm like, I don't need a half pound of peanuts. I I really don't. That's way too much for travel and that is insane for a.

Snack. Is it like the narrow planters peanut?

No, it's more like no, it's. More like a like a sandwich bag. Now, ohh, it's a sizable it's ohh no it's.

I'll package of peanuts. Peanuts. OK.

A ton of. People, it's they they. Let's see. They went from 1.75 to 6. So that's more than triple the size. But yeah, yeah. For $0.99 to 1212 Bucks is.

Bulbs.

Not three times.

Yeah, that is a price increase. I buy the the little, I don't know, the little narrow package that they sell at like a 711 or a gas station. I buy that from time to time and that's probably only $1.99 or something like that, maybe even $0.99 once in a while. It's entirely reasonable, but I think they, they got the family pack going in in.

Quadruple the price.

Yeah.

The pack I buy are all the peanuts I need for my ride home. That's for.

All.

Right.

Get me through the commute.

You must have like the Weekender bag when you buy it at the.

Airport I just need a little snack between here and Tampa, that's.

It when we went to Saint Martin, do we go to Saint Martin where we go? No, we're in the Bahamas for a wedding. Some friends of ours were also there. It was for my niece's wedding. And my friends. They're related to my niece Deborah. And Mark were eating this giant. Bag of trail mix at the airport and they were eating so much of it. They're like, take this with you because we're gonna keep eating it and I wound up taking the bag, eating it for a couple of hours while we were at the airport waiting for our flight. And then when we got home, we ran into them and I still had the bag and I gave it. Back to them.

These are yours, and I said I didn't eat too much of these. You guys take them now. It was this big giant bag. It provided sustenance for two families over the entire day. It really did. And the entire flight the other day, we had to do or we had a decision to do a team photo with the with the gang. Work. And so we stepped out under the logo out in the front lobby and someone said, oh, you're the photographer. Let's use your phone. And I was like, it's. It's. The same. Phone you. But I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We're definitely using my phone because then the wheels start turning like, oh, I'm. Going to have fun with this one. So we we took some photos and this morning in staff meeting I presented the team photo and we were all standing on Mars. It was a beautiful red landscape behind. Although I think something I think there was something wrong. Everybody was double mute or something because I was not getting the laughs I had expected. It was actually the sound of crickets. So I think maybe it wasn't as funny as I thought. I picked Mars, right?

No, no.

Out too.

Yeah, I said it to. You. You saw it? Yeah, replied. Did you do 1 hot or two? I think.

I applied. I did. I did 1 ha and explanation point and then I said Mars yes.

Yeah, see, there you go. See. That would have been nice in the.

They got it. Staff meeting this morning or as most people here on here on Earth, refer to it as Iceland. Isn't that where they say they fake the Mars photos? They have a fake Mars Rover. Driving around in Iceland. Such a jaded society, we live in the advantage of taking it on your own phone is you essentially own the intellectual property.

So cynical. Ohh I do, it's calculated to me so.

Yeah, you could put your team all over the place.

So. Anybody else try something funny? I'll be. Like, whoa, whoa. Whoa. I'm the comedian on this team.

We'll save the jokes to me, joke. You just let. You guys design you guys just do the designing. I'll do that. I'll do the comedy on my end, right?

I'll take it from here. Guys, I'll handle the laughs. Speaking of profanity in teams. I was. I like where we're going. Work related profanity is always fun. I think everybody listening is familiar with it, but no, interestingly enough, I was out in Idaho a couple of weeks ago. One of our sites is out in the out in the Idaho Desert about 3 days of working with the people out there. It dawned on me. Nobody swears here that 0 profanity. Nothing, nobody. And like it was noticeable that people were finishing a sentence without the F word. It was kind of I gotta tell you, it was kind of nice.

Was that in social gatherings, outside of work, or just in the office?

In the office, we went out a couple of times, but I gotta tell you I I was a fan of. Look, I'm not a prude, I swear sometimes. But the the constant weaving it into every other sentence is a is just annoying. And it was refreshing to not have any of that.

Sure.

Yeah. I guess regionally that does vary a. Lot.

We are both New Yorkers. Yes, that might be the demographics that we hang.

Yes. Yeah.

Out with. So when you were younger, I overheard somebody else talking about this and it totally hit. Home. Do you remember? I don't know if it was a common plot line or just a couple stuck with me back in the 70s when I was a kid and watching TV shows and movie, there was two things that were popping up seemingly all the time. And as a kid, I was a little concerned about both of them. The first one was a. Amnesia. Do you remember? Like everybody was, like, hit on the head and they couldn't remember things. They always wrestling, amnesia and all the problems that would happen. That seemed like it was. Was that a common theme in the 70s? I think it was a good comedic go to back then. Maybe that's what it was, you know, somebody was injured, but it was only temporary. You could comfortably laugh at it without being hurtful. As an impressionable young person, I I remember thinking about, well, like, what would happen. Like, could I really not know who my parents were? It was. It was fascinating as a kid to explore.

For.

What that was?

Like despite as a young kid having multiple concussions, that was never a fear. For whatever reason, I never really. I never woke up at night fearing that I might have amnesia and not remember things or my family.

Yeah, it must have stuck in my head from some show that I watched, and along the same lines, quicksand. I remember being terrified of quicksand. I don't know why, and the whole idea that the harder you try to get out the the, the quicker you get pulled under and die. Yeah, the festies sink. As a kid I was a yeah, I was concerned about quicksand. You were terrified to cross your eyes. Sure they would stay that way.

Yeah.

Yeah. All these so I got some notes. Now, let me jot this one down. You got it. Crossing eyes, quicksand and the mother of all of them. Agnesia. I got that right here. Rich. That take note of that. Right away here.

Here these topics keep swerving back into my psyche. I keep wanting to blame you, but for some reason I keep volunteering this nonsense. You steered us into this one, right?

Away, rich.

I recently discovered that my fly was open a lot lately. It was getting a little concerned, kid or no, just recently in the last few weeks. That's an old person's thing, dude, that's like. This is. That's the. To months, it was alarming how often my and not funny, it was like concerning. Like do do I have do I have? Do I have a problem? And then just because of the way the laundry cycle went, I I don't know what happened? Turns out it's just this one pair of jeans I was wearing more often than not because I was wearing a different pair of jeans for the past few weeks as I was cycling through and I put the other pair on and sure enough, like 4 times that day my my flight kept going down. So crisis averted, I I still have all my mental faculties. These it was a faulty zipper on the the jeans.

Faulty zipper. But I mean, you got to stay on. Your toes now, right? Yes. What the?

Heck's going on with this old man? He's coming unglued. He's at the point in life where he just doesn't care. Like no more filter. His guard is down. Everybody's looking up to me, man. He's just he's finally arrived. He just doesn't care.

Anymore. He's reached that point. Park and Crooked his flies. Down you're tasting the grapes in the produce section of the grocery store before you buy them.

Big fruit isn't gonna get.

Me. Will you get the zipper replaced at the tail or is? That just.

The jeans are on in years. I I think I'm just, they're going to be painting jeans here. It's totally when I'm painting alone it it doesn't matter.

It doesn't.

Fly down so shopping carts. No, it's probably my own fault for going on the weekend. Occasionally, but have. Have you ever noticed they generally have two sizes of shopping carts? They have the. The little, the little one. And then they have the tractor trailer size for the the family of eight. It's statistically you go in there and there's never small ones there. There is 142 tractor trailer sized things available and all the small ones are taken. I don't I don't know why somebody doesn't realize it at some point that that. Ratio is way off. They need to swap that.

Yeah, dude, they want you to fill that. Big one up, that's why. Ohh you are brilliant. Yeah, I mean.

Oh.

You're like well. I wasn't gonna get all these paper towels today, but let me just show throw them in the cart. Maybe I'll get. Yeah, enter. Mince is on sale.

Look at all this empty space get filled with, yeah.

Really, now that I have a cart, I certainly will get three. I walked in with just one of those baskets. If I walked in with the basket, I would have never have considered 2 crumb cakes and 12 frosted doughnuts. However, now I got plenty of room for that.

I can't go home with just this. Yes. Yeah, I think that's all part of the plan. It didn't dawn on me, but brilliant observation.

Speaking of food, my dad calls today in the middle of the day, there's a couple typical times that I speak with him throughout the day. So when I get a random call by him, I always get a little nervous. So I pick it right up. I'm at work rings. Hey, dad. Everything OK? He doesn't say hello. He goes where? Just say you got those Pickles from.

Oh yeah, what do we got?

Go. Wait. What? Dad? The Pickles you were telling me about. Did you get them from King Colin or Costco's? I said no. Dad, those are from Costco. He's like, OK, I was going to have. He's going to have your sister pick some up at the store. And I said, well, I told you bring some over because I got a big a big canister of them. So I'll bring some over to you. That was the conversation. There was no emergency, no crisis. But you pick up. It's like, you know, when your kids call you real late at night. I mean, you think the worst? I was happy that it was. Just a pickle. Everybody's OK waiting a couple of days for the Pickles? I think so. I think we're good till tomorrow. I think we could hold on one more day. How are your?

Uncles receiving the. Are you getting thank you notes?

Or seasoned assist to them to I haven't spoke to them directly directly, but I think they were thrilled about their care packages, shipping sardines and pickled pigs feet all over the upper 50 as they say. Yeah, they all got their packages. You know what was kind of funny? We were watching one of the cooking shows.

Oh.

I know I've spoken about this a lot and I don't want to beat it. Death. You know, my dad loves sardines and he loves anchovies. And on one of the cooking shows the other day, they featured a whole variety of canned fishes on, like a charcuterie board. So they had all these different sardines, anchovies. And any of those fish that come in either, like a small jar or those cans. All displayed out on this really nice large cutting board with some some other cheeses and vegetables and stuff sorted around it, and I guess apparently. It's sort of becoming a thing and I thought, how funny is that? My dad literally is a trendsetter on the sardines here in 2025, who would have known?

No.

I think we all know. What he's getting for Christmas?

Ohh yes, more sardines. You saw the astronauts made it back tonight.

Just moments ago I was hitting the practice pretty hard, so it was a little out of the loop, but I had to go check to see it looks like. Looks like all.

Is good. I'd like to do a little research. I don't know how long their recovery is. You know, I mean, health wise, they're fine. But in terms of, you know, muscle atrophy and being strong enough and stable enough to start walking around again, I know they exercise and try to stay as healthy as possible in the space station. But I wonder what that process is.

I think, yeah, I can't remember what it was, but I it it's a bigger deal. Like you don't need to be there very long before the effects of 0 gravity for some reason. I thought that was months, but I think it's much shorter than that. When you're feeling the effects of no, you know, like you said, you can work out and have the. Goodness. But the the bone density and the the constant pull of gravity actually has a positive effect. Well, I mean, that's the way we evolve. So that's that's obviously natural, but.

Yes.

Yeah. When I was watching it, they were literally sliding them out on, like, a backboard. Yeah, they can't walk. Right. I think they can't even barely stand up. The Hatch is pretty small anyway, but they they lay down on this backboard and then they slide the backboard out and then from there they're assisted to their feet and then they set them down on this wheelchair type of apparatus. Then they they sort of rolled them away and they seemed, you know, super happy and smiling and healthy. And they were waving. But I I don't know if they could stand up if if they want.

Do well all the sci-fi movies, don't they? Don't they always have the rotating spaceship to to simulate the? I think this should work, right? So we're we're we're I think so, I know. That's coming, yes, I think.

So.

Solving life's big problems 1 poorly researched opinion at a time.

Did you get a new windscreen? No, we.

We talked about this on the yeah.

No, I know you a couple.

Of chicks. Gigantic.

Today, are you right in front of the camera?

I'm pretty close because as we've discussed, I am under serious construction at at Cool Dad Studio S Here and I'm trying to make a very tight frame shot and this is a pretty sizeable windscreen. Name on this microphone. It's not quite as big as my head, but because close, because my head is in the background and the mic is in the foreground. Of the shot. It definitely the scale makes it look much bigger than it is, but it it is pretty sizable.

Yes, that's funny. It's. Yeah, I can't stop looking at it.

It's huge, but it's much better than that giant round windscreen that I was using that basically covered my whole face.

Yeah, the the big Popper stopper windscreen. I think that's that's great for singing because you can actually set it off the microphone a little bit and it it it does the job well. But likewise, it's funny you and I made the the decision at the same time to go to the little foam windscreen, same same wavelength.

Yeah. The update on Mia is she does have her driver's license. Now I'm happy she got her license. However, when I went for the road test with her, by the time I got out of the car and she pulled out and came back, rich, if it was 7 minutes, it was a long time. It was the quickest Rd. test I've ever seen. She said. She pulled. But they made three quick Lefts, 3 quick rights she parallel parked, did a three-point turn, and then came back. I know she was very, very prepared and able to to demonstrate those skills very effectively and very satisfactory, but it just still as a parent amazes you that that there are these kids so young driving in such a dangerous. Situation. It's still gonna require many more hours driving with us to sort of continue to develop those skills to become a defensive driver. And and get some experience before you want to start letting your kid drive alone on on highways and back roads and stuff by themselves.

And totally agree. And it it hangs on for a long time. I'm just getting to the point now. My youngest, Kelsey, is she's driving quite a bit these days. So I I she's racking up tons of experience when we talk about things she she's handling things. You know, she's driven me to the airport. It I think she's finally got it. I'm just now at at age 22, I'm like, OK, I think we're gonna be OK, but yeah, it's it's scary for sure.

We went to a hockey game the. Night. So we went to see the Islanders and the Panthers play this Sunday night. Sweet. I felt very nostalgic thinking of our days living in Albany, going to see your Capital District Islanders at RPI such exciting games. It seemed like only 30 or 40 people in the field.

That's right.

House. Watching these? All out. Brutal, hard hitting, aggressive action-packed hockey games. You can't.

Beat NHL hockey. It's very reasonably priced, but it's pro level. It's awesome.

It is outstanding and I might be wrong. Correct me if I am but I seem to think that tickets were only like 6 or $7.00. I can't. I can't seem to imagine paying more than 10.

Dollars. I think you're right. Yeah, it it had to be. We went to a few of them so. I mean it. Was not. Yeah, it was not cost prohibitive.

For sure. And the hockey game, I haven't been to a professional hockey. Game in a little while. So it was nice to go. Yeah, that's.

I don't think I've been to one since I lived in Detroit, which was 20 something years ago, yeah.

Wow and I. Messed up. I should have just driven. I decided, based on everybody's feedback, the train drops you right off at the arena. It couldn't be easier. It was pouring rain and extremely windy, so I decided let's take the train. It'll pull us right to the arena. It'll be nice. We won't have to be running around in the rain running through the parking lot. Getting soaking wet. Let's do that. We left. We went to the train station and when I get there, I see a sign that there's no service. We're getting on a. Bus. To take a bus to a train station about 35 or 40 minutes W. From there we get on a train and take a train to the stadium. Then when we get to the stadium or the arena, we get off the train and I look, the arena is like a tiny little dot in the horizon. The train is nowhere near the stadium. It's like a 15 minute walk to get from the train to the arena and they have some buses there. But once again, we're now like, we're gonna pack ourselves like a New York City. Subway car onto this bus and ride up to the arena. It was 2 bus ride.

An adventure.

It's a train ride, a car ride and then when we came home it was the local bus making all the scheduled train stops. But in a bus which should have taken maybe an hour to get home, it took us. 3 hours to.

Three hours.

Get home. So the game we got out of the game at 10 and we didn't get home till 1:00 AM.

Hmm.

Yeah. So lesson learned by good old Mikey boy here he is going to drive next time to the next Islander game.

There you go. Live and learn.

It's not always jokes here on the show. There are lessons to be learned, and I took my lumps this weekend for sure. Yet your problems don't go away. Just hopefully you start getting better at handling them. I think of all that, you know what burned me the most? I bought the tickets as soon as I got on the train so I would have them because it was crowded and I didn't want to be messing around once the conductor got there and I wanted to make his life a little bit. This year, so I bought the three tickets for the ride home. The conductor never came by just so the Li Double R knows I am honest. Whether you are checking my tickets or not.

Hmm.

That's the moral of.

This. Yes, good job, I think. Yeah. More and more people are not quite that ethical.

Story. But good job. Well, I told you I was coming in late this week. Yeah, well, but you carried us like a true hero, rich.

Uh. Hero was probably too strong a word.

Like a true professional, and this week's food that I had that made me think of you, rich, I would like to feature fluff.

Take it.

Good old marshmallow fluff. I had a fantastic and and here is. Here's the biggest irony of this story. I had it on. What is it called 7 grain bread and on 7 grain bread I put peanut butter and marshmallow fluff and it was outstanding. It tasted.

Just didn't burst into flames.

Wonderful.

You are pretty much erasing any healthful benefits that you're you're getting from. Yeah, the fluff is great. I don't know how many ingredients are on the side. I think it's made in a lab, but it is tasty.

It's so good, rich. I had it with a cup of coffee too. It was so good music, it is Creamer now. OK, we're done. Hey, did I tell you about? Yeah, I got one more story about my dad. I kind of messed up on this one. He likes pre cleaned pre cooked shrimp from Costco. This is turning into a Costco advertisement, but he loves the pre cleaned and pre cooked shrimp from Costco and he likes the large. The larger sized ones. So when we go, I usually pick up a. Bag. The last time we went, I picked up a bag. It turns out that these were not cooked and cleaned. My sister comes home from work and my dad is sitting at the table eating raw.

Ohh no.

Unclean uncooked shrimp from Costco and she goes. Dad, what are you doing? Those aren't cleaned or cooked. And he said Ohh I don't have my glasses on. I knew they didn't taste right. So he had two of them for 24 hours. I was like, biting my nails, praying that he would not get sick or food poisoning, but.

Ohh yeah.

Yeah.

The guys got like iron stuff, like a steel gut man. Not even face. He was putting hot sauce on.

That that probably did the trick.

So like, I mean that might that might have been why any bacteria or anything was killed. But he's like just scooping him up, eating raw with with hot sauce on them.

Ohh man.

And then he's like, yeah, I mean, they make sushi. We're like dad, they don't make sushi with shrimp, not shellfish. I felt awful. Thank God he didn't get sick. I would have felt worse. That's the major bullet.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, not necessarily your fault you didn't know, but yes. Yeah. You're very worried for a while.

Lesson learned on that one. I gotta double check before I bring those things home. I think we got another.

Good one as usual. We'll catch you in the next episode.

See you soon.