“If you could change anything about yourself, would you ever stop?”

Kolby, Jeremy, and Jessica discuss the ethics in the children’s short story, “As You Wish” available for download on Amazon by Tyler W. Kurt.

Transcript (By: Transcriptions Fast)

As You Wish

Kolby: Hi and welcome back. You are here for After Dinner Conversation. After Dinner Conversation is a series of short stories and podcasts. Short stories for long discussions. I’m going to get that right someday. And we’re here again. I’m your co-host Kolby with co-hosts Jeremy and Jessica. And we’re once again in La Gattara, a place that adopts cats out because they’re awesome. We were playing with the cats beforehand.

Jessica: Kolby made me stop.

Kolby: Yea, we had to stop to actually work.

(laughter)

Kolby: And they are amazing. So, you should definitely come by. They’re in Tempe Arizona if you’re in this area. Come and check them out. Also, if you enjoy this please “like” or “subscribe” to whatever your thing is…

(laughter)

Jessica: Your thing?

Kolby: Well, no.

Jeremy: Wherever you’re consuming this.

Kolby: It could be on I-tunes, it could be on Stitcher…

Jessica: I use Overcast.

Kolby: Overcast. It could be undercast. It could be…

Jeremy: Google Play.

Kolby: Google Play.

Jessica: I bet you it’s on YouTube.

It is on YouTube. I know because I spend all the time editing the videos. Okay. And so, our story today is “As You Wish” by Tyler Kurt. And Jessica, you are our person. Now, Jeremy set the bar pretty high last week.

Jessicia: Yeah, he did. Now I’m stressed out about it.

Kolby: You should be.

Jessica: And I didn’t type it up.

Kolby: You didn’t rewrite the entire story and call it a summary?

(laughter)

Jessica: I didn’t.

Kolby: Sorry Jeremy. I got to let that go man. I’m self-conscious that I do such a bad job and you do such a good job.

Jessica: He did a really good job.

Kolby: He did.

Jessica: Alright. So, this is “As You Wish”, which is a children’s story. I believe this is your first children’s story to discuss on the podcast?

Kolby: It is actually.

Jessica: So, this is an all-ages story and it’s about Sad Bear and his friends. Sad Bear is a stuffed animal and his friends were stuffed animals that live in a trunk and they have no idea how long they’ve been in the trunk. Then one day the trunk is opened by an elderly lady and she can hear the toys and they can hear here and they converse. She has promised to fix them so that they can be adopted out to other children and the toy’s start requesting fixes. So, some of the fixes are like, “fix my arm that’s fallen off”, or “fix my buttons”, sort of cosmetic. And some that are asking for much larger changes to be completely different animals. Like, “I want to be a giraffe.”

Kolby: The giraffe wants a shorter neck, right?

Jessica: Yea, something like that. Wants a shorter neck. And we are introduced to Sad Bear and she asks Sad Bear if Sad Bear would like for his face to become a happy face. And he says “no” and I believe the other friends don’t understand, or perhaps it’s just that she doesn’t understand, the elderly lady who finds them. But he is very polite about it, but says he wants to remain to be a sad bear.

Kolby: And you read this to your daughter, didn’t you?

Jessica: I did read this to my daughter.

Kolby: And what was her opinion?

Jessica: She was unimpressed.

Kolby: Fair.

(laughter)

Kolby: But I thought the reason she was unimpressed was interesting.

Jessica: Well, I mean, if it’s…

Kolby: She’s like, “I found the writing derivative”.

(laughter)

Kolby: It’s like Toy Story.

Jessica: It’s like Toy Story. No, I think, I definitely spend a lot of time with my daughter in kind of an awareness and emotional intelligence standpoint and so we really try to accept people as they are. And sometimes you want to change who you are, and that’s totally okay. And sometimes, you want to be who you are, and we don’t need to change you to make you our friend. We will accept you no matter what. So, we really try to come from a place of always saying “yes” to people who want to be friend whether that’s, you know…

Kolby: That sounds like really good parenting. I’m going to cry.

Jessica: Well, it actually came, I think a “This American Life Story” about…

Kolby: Of course, it did, of course it did…

Jessica: … a teacher who, she met with high school students and asked high school students “why don’t you play with other groups of high school students? Why don’t you guys hang out? What if you guys just said “yes” whenever someone said they wanted to enter your friends’ group?” And they were like, “oh, maybe if you started with us earlier. Maybe if that was something socially acceptable earlier. Like, try middle school.” So, she tried middle school and middle schoolers were like, “try elementary school.” And elementary students were like, “maybe try kindergartners.” And kindergartners were like “maybe try preschool.” And so, she started teaching it in a kindergarten and it’s something that I’ve taught my daughter, just because there’s so much, especially with little girls, there’s so much bullying. So, anyway, I’m derailing us.

Kolby: No, so, the reason I bring that up is because I had a follow-up questions I was waiting for.

Jessica: So, you talked to me so you could...

Kolby: I prepped

Jessica: … ambush me.

(laughter)

Jessica: It’s a podcast ambush. So, my question is, first off, that sounds very progressive and very good parenting.

Jessica: I hope so.

Kolby: Accept people as they are. Like, everyone’s different, some people choose to be different than whatever, and if you want to whatever.

Jessica: Right.

Kolby: But, aren’t there things, like, if somebody comes in with ginormous fake breasts, don’t you I roll? I know you must.

Jessica: Ummm.

(laughter)

Kolby: You’re not like, well in your heart…

Jeremy: We know you Jessica.

(laughter)

Jessica: I’m Judgy Mc Judgerson.

Kolby: So, I know you’re not like, “well….” So, this is, I think the sort of weird thing about that thing, that what you’re saying is if somebody is saying “I’m transitioning”, you’d be like, “be who you are in the inside”. But, if somebody says, “I’m a D”, you’re like, “No, you’re a B. You need to be a B-cup and need to accept yourself for who you are.” And it’s like, “No, I’m a D-cup on the inside.”

Jessica: Right. Well, so I don’t think, and Kolby and Jeremy have known me a long time so they know I’m very judgy so it’s true to call me out on that; what I would say is that the one does not negate the other. Somebody who comes in with, I was hoping to keep this PG so talking about giant breasts is a little weird…

Jeremy: For a kid’s story.

Kolby: For a kid’s story. I didn’t even think about that.

Jessica: Right.

Kolby: I should’ve come up with a better example.

Jessica: Like giant fake nose.

Kolby: There you go. A Pinocchio nose.

(Laughter)

Jessica: That does not negate that they’re a human and that does not negate that can be friends with them. We can still…

Kolby: You can judge them and befriend them.

Jeremy: You can still judge them until you find out this was a nose reduction. You know. And they had a big Double-H nose before.

(laughter)

Jessica: Right. Right. Totally!

Kolby: So, what you’re saying, is I can be friends with people that I judge?

Jessica: I mean, that’s why we’re still friends.

Kolby: Must be.

(laughter)

Jessica: I’m judging you all the time.

Kolby: I know.

Jessica: And I still love you.

Kolby: I just wish you wouldn’t write it on the bathroom mirror.

(laughter)

Jessica: I’m sorry.

Kolby: Okay. So, to go back to the story, Jeremy, I assume you did not…

Jeremy: Are you done with your summary?

(laughter)

Jessica: Yes, was it too short for you?

(laughter)

Kolby: It’s a children’s story.

Jeremy: No, he interrupted.

Jessica: Oh.

(laughter)

Jessica: I was done with the summary, yes. Sad bear at the end decides to stay Sad Bear.

Kolby: So, one thing that I do want to point out though, is he is not just sad, he’s genetically sad, right? His face…

Jeremy: He’s drawn sad, he has a permanent frown.

Kolby: Right, because it’s sown on. And so, it’s like a clinical depression or whatever that’s he’s got, like a genetic depression that could be fixed. So, Jeremy what do you think? You’ve got a daughter, your daughter comes to you and says, “look, I’m sad all the time” and you go, “well…”

Jessica: You’re like, “Welcome to being a teenager.”

(laughter)

Kolby: It’s true. You’re like, “so what you’re saying is that you’re 17.” Do you think one way or the other about somebody who chooses to fix something that might just be hard coded into them?

Jeremy: It’s a really loaded question. It depends on what it is, because I feel like societally, we have different responses to different conditions. Where depression is absolutely a different condition than physical appearance, and where it’s much more acceptable to change your physical appearance than to take medication.

Kolby: To me, they’re the same. It’s like, “a broken arm is a broken arm”, you go fix it. But I understand. Socially…

Jeremy: There’s a lot involved in what. And how much do you try to not fix the problem in, like, make them change, but how do you solve the problem by being supportive and getting them the help that they need to understand if this is really a condition…

Kolby: Hard coded.

Jeremy: Right. Or something that they need to exercise more and this is just a chemical imbalance they have because they don’t exercise enough.

Kolby: Eat better, more sleep, exercise more.

Jeremy: Right, how much of it is a result of chemical imbalance as opposed, a condition as opposed to a…

Kolby: … so, in the case of sad bear….

Jeremy: Ok.

Kolby: Sad Bear it’s not the more exercise. It is literally sewn on his mouth.

Jeremy: Yes. It’s up to him at that point if he wants to change, then we should be supportive of his desire to change. We should be supportive of the giraffe’s desire to change his appearance.

Kolby: And if he doesn’t want to change…

Jeremy: Absolutely.

Kolby: … be supportive of the not desire to change.

Jessica: And I do want to point out, because I always feel like this is something that we don’t talk enough about, that especially when we’re talking about medication or depression…

Kolby: I would point out this is from the person who wears glasses.

Jessica: Correct.

Kolby: To fix her eyes.

Jessica: To fix my eyes. How dare I? Or, like, I have ADD. There is a definite societal bias to this neural normalcy. This idea that everybody needs to be the same and we all need to think the same and we all need to act the same, and anything outside of that….

Jeremy: … and look the same…

Jessica: Right.

Jeremy: … it sounds like you’re talking about the eugenics program again?

(laughter)

Kolby: We’re back to eugenics.

Jessica: This is a call back to “Pretty Pragmatism” which was last week’s episode. Please tune in and you can listen all about that.

Kolby: Way to keep it kid friendly. Good call.

(laughter)

Jessica: It’s only Nazi’s kids. Don’t worry.

(laughter)

Jessica: But I think that a lot of times we get caught up in this idea of what your thinking, feeling, acting, is not what everybody else is and therefor you need to fix it. And that is very ablest, that is very much part of this society of everything has to be homogenous and that’s not okay. There’s a lot…

Kolby: And I also think dangerous too.

Jessica: Super dangerous.

Kolby: If you look at homogenous groups, whether that’s Native American groups for example, because that’s a very small gene pool that all Native American’s derive from, that it creates risks as opposed to have a very diverse gene pool, whether that’s the different sort of things that are going on in people’s heads, whether that’s physical genetics, whether that’s whatever. It creates a resiliency.

Jessica: And I would say, especially with the way some of our greatest thinkers of our time were people that didn’t fit into the school setting well. Einstein was terrible at school.

Jeremy: Diversity is important for a lot of reasons.

Jessica: And that’s not to say that you must be a genius in order to be allowed to be abnormal; you must be super smart and then we’ll let you be in the abnormal group. But, that’s a thing. And I think that that’s what, when I read this story, a lot of the hackles that were raised and that’s not the fault of the author it’s just the fault of the topic, is that I’m immediately, “are we judging the group that wants to change and are we judging the…”

Kolby: I was.

Jessica: Really?

Kolby: I totally was. Yeah. I’ll tell you why. So, some of them I understood. You’re missing an arm because a dog ripped your arm off, okay, replace the arm. Your dress is bad, you want a new dress, okay that’s a little bit odd but whatever, take the new dress. The one that I legitimately got misty eyed on, we were talking about this right before we started, was the unicorn.

Jessica: I made fun of you.

Jeremy: For not wanting to be a unicorn.

Kolby: Because, it specifically says, “you’re unique and special.” And the unicorn says, “I don’t want to be unique and special.” And I don’t… that’s so… and of course, it’s like a gay pride thing too, but like, I can hear somebody saying, “I don’t want to stand out. I want to go to high school or junior high or be an adult and I want to be utterly unnoticeable.”

Jeremy: “why do I have to be different when I just want to fit in.”

Kolby: Right! And it’s just like, you don’t understand! You’re a miracle and you want to un-miracle yourself. So yes. So, I consequently, I judge that unicorn, I was like, “unicorn, you got to….” I was so sad; it’s making me teary eyed right now.

Jeremy: It was a good thing in the story though, from a story perspective, to almost go from this- it’s a broken leg, to a new dress, to progress to all of these deep psychological changes, or deep physical changes that would change your psychology. So, it was an interesting approach of the story to go from that minimum level to that maximum, “I want to completely change.”

Kolby: To a universally acceptable fix to a breast augmentation.

Jeremy: Nose augmentation.

Jessica: Nose augmentation.

Kolby: Nose augmentation. I want a bigger nose. What about the, I think it was a rabbit, that wanted better eyesight than he was born with, because he was born with cheap plastic eyes, and was like, “as long as you’re putting in new eyes, can put you in better eyes?”

Jessica: Look, if I could have better eyes, if I could not…

Kolby: Like, Geordi eyes from Star Trek.

Jessica: If I could not just correct my vision…

Jeremy: I was thinking Ghost in the Shell with the bionic eyes.

Jessica: If I could have, instead of 20/20, is it 40/20?

Kolby: 20/15. Like better than 20/20.

Jessica: I would absolutely. If the doctor was like, “hey, it’s the same price, which one do you want?” I’m going for the 20/15. I would absolutely try to have better eyes.

Kolby: Doesn’t that go a little against the idea of being accepting of…

Jessica: Well, am I making that choice, or am I making a choice for someone else?

Kolby: You’re making the choice for you.

Jessica: Then I get to decide that. I decide not to be medicated for ADD. I decide that too.

Kolby: So, you don’t judge the unicorn then is what you’re saying?

Jessica: I definitely don’t judge the unicorn. I don’t understand it.

Jeremy: But you have to not judge that decision.

Jessica: I don’t know. They don’t have cool parents like I am.

(laughter)

Kolby: Yea, like where did this unicorn parents… where are did all these doll’s parents go? Abandon them to some kid in a toy chest.

Jessica: Right. So, I don’t know how that person was raised. I don’t know what their day-to-day fight is. Just because I don’t medicate for ADD doesn’t mean that I judge people that do medicate for ADD. It’s their personal decision that clearly, they’re struggling with whatever they’re struggling with, and I have a different struggle.

Kolby: Jeremy, what would you think, if your daughter came to you and said, “I want fill-in-the-blank, breast augmentation…”

Jessica: “bigger better nose”

Kolby: “I want eyes that can see in the infrared as well.”

Jeremy: I struggle with the whole idea of them getting tattoos.

Kolby: That’s a great example.

Jessica: Whoa! They did get tattoos?

Kolby: One of them has one.

Jeremy: The older one. The other one just turned 18 is like, “as soon as I have money, tattoo time.”

Kolby: What is their tattoo? What does it say like, “live free or die” or something?

(laughter)

Kolby: Please tell me it’s, “live free or die” but in binary? That would be.

Jeremy: “Do Not Resuscitate”

(laughter)

Kolby: That would be like, that exactly is everything I know about your family if it’s binary or written in barcode.

Jessica: I was going to say in Elvish.

Kolby: If you can read this, go away?

(laughter)

Jeremy: No, I would have to be supportive, but try to play the devil’s advocate of like…

Kolby: It’s forever.

Jeremy: … “it’s forever. Do you really want to do this? Think about it, get good art at least, and find a good…”

Kolby: “Get good art at least. Get a good doctor.

Jeremy: “…get a good artist, the offer from the guy down the street on the corner, yea- don’t get his tattoos.”

Kolby: So, let me get this straight, let’s say your daughter’s 17, and she’s like, “look I need you to sign this slip, they won’t let me do it until they’re 18. Do you sign the slip?”

Jeremy: It really depends on what it is.

Kolby: So, now you’re curator of content.

Jeremy: Absolutely.

Kolby: Wow!

Jeremy: From that perspective.

Jessica: I think that’s okay, because at this point, you have such a responsibility as a parent.

Jeremy: Yes, that if you’re under 18, we really need to discuss the consequences of this and the more drastic the change… like, a tattoo at 17, yeah, you can get a tattoo. But if you want a gender transition, I mean, that’s why they really make you wait 2 years for a gender transition.

Jessica: Although, to bring it to newer science, a lot of newer science especially for gender transitioning, that because kids identify so early …

Kolby: It’s an easier transition.

Jessica: … it’s an easier transition to start when they’re children.

Jeremy: Okay.

Jessica: So, that again, is one of those things you have to judge as a parent, and as a parent, and decide. But I think if my daughter, who is amazing and awesome and has decent judgment…

Kolby: Your daughter is going to use this video, by the way, to get a tattoo now.

Jeremy: Oh, absolutely.

Jessica: Yeah, I know.

Jeremy: She’s already getting a tattoo. She’s 18.

Jessica: If at 16, she came to me and said she wanted a tattoo, I would say, “absolutely not. Nope.” And she would be like, “but mom, it’s 2 years, no biggie, just sign it.” I would say, “no.”

Kolby: What if she showed you the tattoo first?

Jessica: No, absolutely not.

Kolby: What if she wanted laser eye surgery? Like corrective eye surgery.

Jessica: I’d have to talk to a doctor, because there’s a lot of science about them growing and…

Kolby: I’m just saying in the hypothetical.

Jeremy: If a doctor was like, “yeah”, I’d be like “yeah, that’s cool.”

Kolby: But it’s forever. What if she wants to be… this one reminds me of the parents that have the deaf parents that have a deaf kid, that find if you get a cochlear implant right when you’re a baby, your brain rewires better and it’s more effective, and so you are choosing to help your child be in a hearing world as opposed to a deaf world, therefore sort of implicitly saying that…

Jessica: The hearing world is better.

Kolby: The hearing world is better.

Jessica: I don’t believe that. I was just saying…

Kolby: But that’s the implication.

Jessica: Or the reverse, that you are so, you know, the judgement is always that you are so involved in your culture, the deaf culture, that you are now hindering your child’s success because you won’t let them get a cochlear implant and go into the hearing world. It’s hard.

Kolby: But this goes back to your medication thing, about ADD.

Jessica: Different because medication can be stopped.

Kolby: That’s true. I suppose you can take out the thing off maybe. I don’t know, I don’t know how cochlear implants work.

Jessica: Well, so the problem that…. I’m not deaf and I don’t come from the this world… but I think probably the problem is that if you have a cochlear implant and you are in a hearing world, you are exposed to deaf culture, but not so big a part of it in the way you would if you did not have a cochlear implant.

Kolby: I don’t know. I struggle with…. This is one of the things I do like about this story is there’s so many shade of grey you can spin it off too from cochlear implant, to breast implants, to corrective vision, to nose things, I mean… all the way to whether it’s liposuction or whether it’s to whatever, and it’s just like, and at the core of it everyone sort of universally, or most people would say, you need to learn to accept yourself. You’re never going to find that last thing to make you happy.

Jessica: Right, but….

Jeremy: There’s lots of grey.

Jessica: There’s lots of grey.

Jeremy: The other side of it is, when you’re with somebody in a familiar relationship, you need to be supportive of their decisions and help them make those decisions if they’re really difficult. There’s a lot of extenuating situations around it. It depends on what it is.

Kolby: Okay, so Jeremy, just to tie it back to the story…

Jeremy: It depends.

Kolby: It depends. It should be the slogan for the show. None of the stuffed animal changes or refusal of changes you had an issue with?

Jeremy: No, I think…

Kolby: You’re cool with the giraffe getting a shorter neck?

Jeremy: Yeah.

Kolby: But isn’t he essentially changing his giraffe-ness?

Jeremy: Yes, but it’s a stuffed animal anyways.

Kolby: Way to not suspend disbelief man. Alright, and the unicorn you’re okay with?

Jeremy: Yes, disappointing but accepting.

Kolby: That’s how you should phrase it to your daughter when she wants to get a tattoo.

Jessica: Disappointed but accepting.

(laughter)

Kolby: I support you, I’m disappointed but I’m accepting.

Jessica: Well, and I want to point out, that’s also a very American thing.

Kolby: Disappointed by accepting?

(laughter)

Jessica: That’s also a very American thing. No, but I was going to say this idea of specialness, like this idea that you’re so unique and you’re special. There’s lots of cultures that special and uniqueness are something you do want to change. You want to be more… and I don’t want to say homogenous because that’s not fair, that is very judgy… but more part of the general society.

Kolby: And you’re speaking on averages of course. So, there are individual outliers in every culture.

Jessica: Absolutely.

Kolby: So, actually, I’ve had a million roommates over the years, and one of the roommates area of research was cultural, not anthropology, but cultural Darwinism… like how the same studies, when you take the same sort of various studies that have been done in the United States, all the ones that have been well known, and you have the exact same study done in another country. So, like, the prison experiment…

Jessica: Oh, so like a social science study.

Kolby: Yeah. You take the exact same prison experiment but you do it in China, or Japan, or India, or in Africa…

Jeremy: And see how cultural differences effect the study.

Kolby: Or you take…

Jessica: Degree’s I wish I would’ve gotten.

Kolby: The one that this person had talked to me about extensively was the one where they had the person push the button when the person gets the thing wrong, and it shocks them and they’re getting progressively higher shocks until they think that they’ve shocked them enough to where they could kill them. You do that in other places, and you don’t get the same results because the cultural sort-of norms… I’d be interested to know how this discussion took place in different cultures. Because I think you would find…

Jeremy: Different answers. Absolutely.

Jessica: And I think to come from a place of empathy, we have no idea where that unicorn was raised. We don’t know what forms his or hers every single day, and if that unicorn needs…

Kolby: If it’s just miserable every single day, they need to take care of that.

Jessica: And if they need to be a horse, let them be a horse, who cares? Yes, I am also disappointed, I definitely want them to love their uniqueness, but that’s also an American mom talking, and not somebody from a different culture.

Kolby: Or somebody who is struggling.

Jessica: Or somebody that’s struggling.

Kolby: Yeah, that’s a good point. Alright. I think we actually covered all of our questions. I feel like our questions are very heavy pickaxe when we really need like a scalpel but that’s okay.

(laughter)

Kolby: Yea, I think we got all of them… sad bear…. Yeah…. Ah… cool.

Jessica: Wait, if there was one thing you could magically fix about you or improve things to make you better, what would you change? What would you change Kolby?

Kolby: If I could magically wave a wand and fix something about myself…

Jessica: I mean, I have a list for you.

(laughter)

Kolby: I’m sure you do. You know, I’m going to go deep rather than shallow.

Jessica: Ooooo….

Kolby: If I could somehow magically be more empathetic and less engineer-y, I definitely feel like, and this is totally a self-diagnostic, I feel like I’m a little bit on a spectrum and that I see things in a very sort of analytic, like the number of people’s names I don’t know. It’s comical, I just don’t know so many people’s names and it’s because your name is not relevant to who you are. I can tell you your job, I can tell you your thing, I can tell whether you’re judgy, I can tell you 50 things that are relevant to my interactions with you, your name is not one of them. And so, I just don’t know anyone name. I wish I could be less engineer-y, spectrum-y like that and I think that empathy would make me a better person. But I would like to be able to turn that off and on. Because growing up the way I’ve grown up, I understand that this is difficult for you, I feel that I should understand that, but in this case- let me flip the switch- I don’t care.

(laughter)

Kolby: I would like to be able to do that. That would be my “if I could pick something.”

Jessica: Wow.

Kolby: Like, sometimes the bricks just need to get laid and I don’t care if you’ve got an existential crisis about being a brick layer.

Jessica: Just so you know, we empathetic people don’t go around not laying bricks, just FYI.

(laughter)

Kolby: I wouldn’t even know. I have no idea! Jeremy, do you have a…

Jeremy: At the moment, I don’t have anything I would want to change.

Kolby: Flawless.

Jeremy: No, not flawless. I grew up with flaws.

Kolby: What about the grey?

Jeremy: Oh yea, I’d like a full beard.

Jessica: A full beard? Really?

Jeremy: Yeah, it’s very patchy.

Jessica: I cannot imagine you with a full beard.

Jeremy: Think Leonidas from 300.

(laughter)

Kolby: Oh my god, that’d be…. wait a minute!

(laughter)

Kolby: Wait a minute, you want the beard but not the abs?

(laughter)

Kolby: That’s how I know you work in the tech field.

Jeremy: Yes.

Kolby: Jessica, do you have a magic wand?

Jeremy: She wants a beard like Leonidas too.

Jessica: I want a Leonidas beard.

(laughter)

Jessica: I think I have definitely a whole list.

Kolby: You have a list?

Jessica: I definitely. Because I’m a woman.

Kolby: I don’t even have a list for you. I don’t even have one thing for you.

Jessica: But I grew up a little…

Kolby: Maybe if you gave me a little bit of a break every once in a while, that would be my list for you.

(laughter)

Jessica: I think because I’m a woman, I definitely have a lot of things that society has told me that I have to change.

Kolby: Just scatter those Cosmo’s around the house for your daughter to read?

Jessica: yes, right. Yeah. I mean, there’s lots of things that would have made my life easier in society being a woman if things could change. If I was thinner, I mean, if I had any bigger boobs I’d fall over. A lot of things that are very superficial. I probably would like to be, and this is just me being greedy, I would love to be smarter. I’m pretty darn smart, but gosh, if I could be even smarter, I’d be… ah, maybe I’d be evil. Maybe I don’t want that.

(laughter)

Jessica: I’m so close to evil…

Jeremy: You got to ramp up the empathy too, and then you won’t be evil.

Jessica: Right, maybe that would be it.

Kolby: There’s like a cat discussion going on.

Jeremy: There’s a cat in the box.

Kolby: There’s a cat in the box?

Jeremy: In the overturned box over there.

Kolby: Is that what it is?

Jeremy: I think so.

Kolby: Really? You have been listening to After Dinner Conversation, short stories for long discussions. You can find these stories on Amazon to download, they’re all e-books as well as on our website Afterdinnerconversation.com. You can listen to podcasts and YouTube videos and all of those things. Please like and subscribe if you have an enjoyed this. It’ll make our lives happier. It’ll keep Jessica from medicating herself apparently.

Jessica: Sure.

Kolby: Fixing whatever, I don’t know.

Jessica: I won’t fix anything.

Kolby: Promises. Once again, we are at La Gattara. All of the cats you hear screeching behind us having cat discussions, are up for adoption.

Jessica: There’s this one named Hemingway you should totally come adopt him.

Kolby: He has a bowtie.

Jessica: He has a bowtie.

Kolby: Yeah. In Tempe, Arizona. So please stop by. At the very least, even if you don’t want one, for $10 or $5, whatever it is, you can come and just hang out with all the cats and that way you can find out if you’re allergic before you get one.

Jessica: Or which one you like.

Kolby: Or which one you like or which one likes you because it’s about consent.

Jessica: No, make Hemmingway cat like me.

Kolby: I’m so woke. Alright. Thank you for watching and we will see you next week when we are discussing, Jeremy you’re doing another marathon…

Jeremy: “Are You Him”

Kolby: “Are You Him” a man on his way to work finds a young woman in need of a friend. And you probably have like, some paragraph’s’ going on there.

(laughter)

Kolby: There’s lots of cat talking going on. Alright thank you for joining us. Have a great day.