Mom's Car: Kristen Bell

Hello and welcome to Mom's Car.

Not my mom's car, but my children's mom's car.

Today we have very fittingly, as she was the first guest ever on Armchair Expert, my beloved wife, the queen of all queens, Kristen Bell.

I mean, I don't really need to say it, but Frozen and Nobody Wants This and Die Hard and Legends of the Fall and Jaws.

Please enjoy Kristen Bell.

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I want people to know how much you love this car.

You could drive any kind of car you wanted.

And obviously, as a car lover, I would always want to buy you a very nice car, but tell me about your car a little bit.

Anyone who sees you in this little hot rod knows

that everybody likes it.

Well, I'll tell you why I like it.

She's small enough for me to park anywhere I want on your lawn if I so desire.

I feel good about zipping around town.

I don't feel tight or invasive.

If I drive an SUV, I'm always a little scared.

I'm going to kiss the curbs, mainly because I'll kiss the curbs.

Sure, sure.

She wasn't born a beauty queen, okay?

The bolt?

No.

Okay.

I don't mind scratching her up.

Look at the ceiling.

Lincoln once tried to clean it and then never wiped the cleaner off the ceiling.

It almost looks like white splatter paint.

It looks like she used wax to try to clean it.

Yeah.

As two previous car detailers, that looks like someone definitely.

There's a huge scratch back here, which I don't know if one of our daughters owns some sort of a blade.

She's bringing a blade to school.

You would never know how compact the car actually is by sitting in it.

It's spacious.

It's the roomiest, and then you look at it outside, and it's so little.

It might be part of the Sim.

Cute baby.

Have you seen?

This is a really good sim gif.

Gif?

Jeff.

Jeff.

Jeff.

A city bus is the same width as a car.

They're in the same lane.

Maybe it's six inches wider.

Why is there two seats, a hallway

and two seats on the left when we're touching shoulders?

Oh my gosh.

I don't think it's the same.

I see your point, but I don't think it's the same width.

But it's only...

Yeah, you'd agree we're taking up 80% of the width of this lane.

And then a bus is maybe taking up.

No, because look at the car in front of us that car is taking up 65 60

okay

well i do know the width of a bus offhand because we have one yeah i think it's 102 inches we should measure this car and see the difference we could chat it so this is the same size as your bus well it's like a foot yeah And that's fine.

I'll give it a foot, honey.

But where's the extra three feet inside?

If we run a bus, there'd be two other people right there.

In between a bus is like this much barely for your hips, no?

It's not three feet.

Well, hon, there's two seats.

There's a hallway.

Then there's two seats across the hallway.

Yeah.

And look at Aaron and I.

Imagine there's a hallway next to him, and then Aaron and I are over there.

Yeah, I just don't think bus seats are that roomy.

They're not as roomy as this, but just imagine getting two more people in a hallway within an extra foot of this.

I understand the concept.

But you do reject it wholeheartedly.

I don't think it's proof of the sim.

No.

It's not the least bit confusing to you.

I'm googling the width of a Chevy bolt.

I have a bolt, not a volt.

Do you have chat on your phone?

Yeah, 69.5

inches.

Okay.

69.5.

70 inches.

Hold on.

If we're going to be accurate, you can't start saying 70.

I said 69.5.

Okay.

What is the width of a city bus 70 inches

62

eight feet four inches

so 96.

what is eight feet point four inches 96

inches 100

100 oops oh that was embarrassing i was caught on camera doing the math room what i don't know i was driving 100 minus 69.5

hold on though it was eight feet yeah yeah eight feet

eight foot four or eight foot four

eight foot four okay 96 plus four i saw it so 100 so it's 30 30 100 minus 69.5 30.5 inches yeah which is less than three feet It's two and a half feet, exactly.

Look at the car in front of us.

There is easily two and a half feet if you combine both sides.

Well, hold on one second, though, my love.

Okay.

30 inches is two and a half feet.

so if you added two and a half feet in here yeah that would get you maybe the hallway

i see you're asking me to picture the inside of the bus yes you know what our problem is and why larry mantle would poke a swiss cheese size hole in this story yeah when's the last time you were on a city bus hour and a half ago no

and you need to be you need to be on a city bus to really see if it's as spacious as we think well all i do know for certain, and I know you would agree, it's two seats, a hallway, two seats.

We were on those buses in Norway.

We drove all the way on those mountain roads.

And we're in two captain's chairs, then there's a hallway and then two captain's chairs.

So I'm just curious how you put two more captain's chairs and a hallway in two and a half feet.

Understood.

The airport shuttle from LAX to the Uberlaut is like people on both sides, luggage everywhere in a really wide hallway.

A hallway you can bring your roll-on bag on.

But are you thinking of a school bus?

Because oftentimes, or sometimes I believe the buses, the seats face horizontally, not vertically.

They face each other.

You've been on a bus where they're facing each other?

Yeah, on the airport shuttle.

You're right.

Oh, airport shuttle.

Yes.

Yes.

I've been in both, and I think they often have both things.

Do you take the airport shuttle a lot?

Yeah.

To work.

Every morning.

DTW.

Have you been on a city bus recently?

No, I haven't.

Right, like a Metro line.

Okay, back to how much you love this car, though, because I think one of the cutest things you've ever done, honey, is that we were on a hike and you had heard terrible news that they were discontinuing the bolt.

You were panicked.

And what did you ask me on the hike?

I said, should we get another one?

Oh, wait.

How many?

I remember it as, should we get a couple backups?

Should we get, maybe I said one or or two backups, but I just got nervous that if they don't make it anymore, I don't want a new fancy, I don't want to drive the Starship Enterprise.

I have no interest in that.

I want a car that's tactile, that has buttons that I can push and that does what I want it to do with muscle memory.

And I said, should we grab a backup

or two

before?

We have three bolts in the driveway.

Do you remember when I said you?

No.

You said no.

I said, you're stupid.

Why did I marry you?

Stop talking on this hike.

Well, I had pointed out, and here we are now, a year and a half after that conversation.

And this car, I'm looking at the odometer, has 21,500 miles on it.

And at the time of the conversation, the car had about 15,000 miles on it, and it was three years old.

And I said, well, love, I think you're going to be driving that same bolt for another 15 to 20 years at the rate of mileage you're putting on it.

It's definitely going to go 150,000 miles.

And that made me feel a lot safer.

But I just thought, I don't know, what if somebody steals it?

Yeah, you were thinking of it like as a great pair of shoes or any kind of fashion item.

You find the perfect pair of jeans, you get them in another color.

Get some backups.

Have you ever done that, Eric?

Duplicate?

I have.

Do you remember with what?

pair of kangaroos and i used paper out money they said they were going out of business they were like eight bucks oh my god at some store in Milford.

So yeah, when I was a kid, I did.

But I hear about this all the time.

I know Ruthie will do that.

I don't think I love anything enough to get two of right now.

I'm going to tell you what I love enough.

I love my cute wife so much.

Oh, you ought to.

Because I'm going to be transparent.

I said, hey, today when we're doing our interview, would you ask Aaron a lot of questions?

Because I feel like he has sometimes left out.

And it just hit me how absolutely sweet and cute it is that you're doing it, honey.

Look at me.

I love you.

I love you.

Did you ever do that, Erin?

That was so sweet.

Here she goes.

Look, I'm no Larry Mantle.

Give it a shot.

There's nowhere Larry Mantle's collecting Chevy Bolts.

Even a stepstool to kiss your ass.

Before you met Aaron and you had only heard stories that I told you early in our relationship, what had you pictured versus I thought they definitely have hooked up

for sure.

It's not uncommon.

Actually, I'd be worried about you if you didn't think that, because you know my mom certainly thought, she even said at one point, I think I told you, right?

Yeah, that she was okay with it.

Well, like, so she had come in and we were snuggling in my room, as we would do.

And she was like, yeah, I guess my assumption was, sure, he was trying that.

We were up there, but I don't know why I thought that was so crazy.

She thought that we were snuggling.

I think my assumption...

Actually, there were assumptions.

What I digested from the stories you told me about Aaron.

And again, I didn't know Aaron yet, so I couldn't come to many conclusions about him.

But what it read to me was that you are a fiercely loyal person and actually have way more of an open heart than you advertise.

Because you had found another person who, the way you talked about you guys and all the mistakes you've made and the raucous you've produced around town that you just loved this other person as a soulmate there's something really really beautiful about loving someone that deep and not being flippant in your friendship connections aaron's my ride or die whether i talk to him every day or once a year i thought it was really sweet i could imagine where you might have had a much different picture of who he was because of course i'm telling you the craziest stories about us every time i'm talking like i'm wondering if when you met him do you go, like, oh, wow, he's so much sweeter than I was expecting.

I think that's a kind of common reaction to Aaron.

If I've told a bunch of stories,

yeah.

He was always so well-rounded in how he spoke about you because he always was like, Oh, Aaron was the cutest,

the cutest.

All the girls liked him.

He was the nicest boy in the world.

You know what gets left out a lot is the size of this guy's heart and the love he showed.

I know he talks about me so much, but I can put it in perspective.

This is how I felt in seventh grade.

the first time he came to my house and i think you were giving me something to take to camp a duffel bag a duffel bag i felt like one of those dogs that were like

like why is someone about to be nice to me and i'm like like shaky

and i was like oh he is nice he's being nice he's nice he's not judging me or doing anything but being nice well i asked aaron we had a class together.

We had Mr.

Nelson's class.

That's where we really fell in love, drawing pictures back and forth.

And then I asked him, are you going to go to the seventh grade camp trip?

Thinking, of course, he's going to go.

And this is going to be a great time for us to really develop our friendship.

And then he said he wasn't going.

I think this was so vulnerable of you and probably the start of the whole vulnerability thing.

I don't know how you found the confidence to tell me you didn't want to go because you only had trash bags.

Do you remember that was the reason you didn't want to go?

That's embarrassing.

See, that's how beautiful the relationship was.

I was that comfortable with you.

You also told me all the heartfelt stories about Aaron and his upbringing and the kittens.

Oh my God.

Should we talk about the kittens?

It's too dark, I think.

It's too dark.

To witness that and not be completely scarred by any adult you ever run into for the rest of your life is beyond me.

I think I can maybe do a really safe version to just say there were a bunch of cats born, kittens, who all had leukemia and a very, very, very, very drunk

caretaker, male, decided to handle the situation with his bare hands in one fell swoop in front of us.

Sure.

I'm so glad you guys can laugh about that.

I one time stepped on a slug when I was 16 on accident.

I cried for about 30 minutes and I buried it in a matchbox in my backyard.

So if I had seen kittens

taken out in front of me,

I couldn't go back to school again.

It'd be so much grief that I wasn't ready to handle.

But Aaron, what did you think of Dax when you first met him?

What was your read on him?

Because he talks about himself in middle school, which is where you guys met, yeah?

Yeah.

Sixth grade.

As his peak.

That he was really hitting it hard.

Middle school felt like it was 20 years long was he a stud was he as much of a stud as he says he was

yeah oh absolutely yeah he was so cool and exerted a lot of confidence on the outside

but i felt that maybe the confidence wasn't as confident as he made it out to be

and i just wanted to embrace him

our very first conversation was in the bathroom in the sixth grade hallway.

The bathroom was in the hallway?

There's a sixth grade hallway and then it has its own bathroom.

People perverted eighth grader boys out there.

Dax came in and said, and of course when I say it, I may wear 11, but he's like, are you Aaron Weekly?

No, he's like, are you Erin Weekly?

And I was like, fuck.

All I can remember is being in a moment like, I just

need to be left alone.

I was a new kid.

He looked cool, cool haircut.

And I just thought, why?

What's going on?

Leave me the fuck alone.

But we had a friend, Kevin Gwynn, and Kevin said to look me up.

Yeah, Kevin was my best friend in sixth grade at the old sixth grade at Highland Junior High.

And he said, oh, when you get to Muir, you got to meet my friend Aaron.

He's the coolest dude.

He was explaining how cool he was.

And Kevin was super cool.

He had a crazy haircut and skateboarded.

So I'm kind of like keep my eyes out for like the coolest dude in the school.

Then I asked around and then I figured out who it was and then I somehow found him and Aaron was a little bit nervous, I think.

Did you shake hands or anything or were you just like, I'm Dax?

I'm Dax.

You know, I'm not someone who ruled this.

No, I was just like, Kevin told me to say hi to you.

And then maybe Aaron just thought mission accomplished.

Like I said hi on Kevin's behalf and that was going to be the end of it.

And then as luck would have it, then the first class I had of seventh grade was this Mr.

Nelson's history, was it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we were seated right next to each other.

Not sure how the ball sack cowboy pictures started, but they started right away.

Real fast.

That's an interesting thing for us to do right out of the gate.

Oh, you created that together.

Yes.

And we started passing notes.

Yeah.

Written or just drawings?

They were drawings with situations, I guess, like

with the little bubble of someone was saying something on it, but not notes like, I love you.

Hi.

i'm in love with you

i love that you're my friend

so i brought that duffel bag over that was the first time i went over to aaron's house then he came to seventh grade camp and you could be in two different bunk houses

And I was like, okay, Aaron's going to be in mine with Jack, who ultimately, the three of us were all best friends, who was crazy and wild.

And Aaron stayed in our bunk, but Aaron went to sleep every night pretty early before we went out and got

But, mom, I have to tell you, to be away from my house for a few days, it was nice to get rest.

Yeah.

Without having any worries of falling asleep.

Yeah.

Sad as that sounds.

Yeah.

You really find the fun in it ultimately, though, right?

This one time in particular is one of my favorite memories we have: Butch was the man's name.

He was annihilated at like 4 p.m on a thursday and we were in aaron's trailer and he always claimed to have been an incredible pitcher when he was a kid and he struck out kirk gibson who's a detroit hero and you know he's a legend in his own mind and he wanted to play catch with aaron and i with a wet washcloth this is an attempt at a father-son catcher yeah that's how i felt like

this is going to be like father-son bonding well his intentions were much different than ours.

He was tossing it to us and we were throwing it as hard as we could at his face.

And he was so hammered, it was hitting him in the face every single time we threw it.

His face was all wilted.

We played this game of catch for like 40 minutes, and we were just chucking it as hard as we could at his face.

With the wet washcloths,

you keep wetting it down.

We were like throwing our shoulders out.

We were throwing it so hard.

And laughing and staring.

He was having a great time.

It was the most fun I ever had with him.

And you were a really good ball player.

Well, yeah, that's why he always wanted to bond.

Not always wanted to bond, but intermittently.

That's where the bond was going to come from if it was going to happen over baseball with a wet washcloth.

But yeah.

You didn't have a ball?

Oh, no.

No, I wish we would have had a ball.

We would have killed him.

They'd throw it a baseball at its face over and over and over again.

Maybe he kind of knew that.

Do you read at Playita?

No.

There are some cute restaurants and shops here.

We're going to New York in a couple weeks, Aaron, and we're so excited.

Are you so excited?

Yeah.

I'm so excited.

I know mom loves New York.

We don't get many trips, and this is going to be a full four or five days.

Wednesday to Saturday?

We fly in Wednesday, which means we lose the day.

It's a working trip.

It's working trips.

Do you know mom is one of Time's 100 most influential people?

No.

Do you feel my influence?

Crazy?

I've felt it since day one.

I have been heavily influenced.

Oh, that's a fun question.

This is self-indulgent, but here we go.

Can you feel Kristen's effects on me over the years?

Yes.

And I'm not kidding.

I have felt her effects.

Yeah, right.

She's turned me into a better person.

You're a really great example, hon.

Thanks, guys.

Yeah, truly.

I was looking at my Instagram, right?

And the last two posts, one is of me looking cool on a motorcycle

and one is of me crying.

And one has 4 million views and one has 400,000.

And I think

I would have never had the confidence to embrace that side of myself publicly if you didn't enter the picture.

Because I cry all the time and I make it seem so normal.

Wow, this is a fun time to say that you and I have done a complete reversal, which is when we met, you cried every 45 minutes.

Yeah.

Oh, except.

Oh, finally.

Look at that.

Where are we at?

700 feet away from the summer.

Okay.

I wonder if it's the same rice and barbecue that we went to yesterday.

When I saw your post the other day, I told him I cried while I was scrolling.

I didn't even have the volume.

I don't even know what he was crying about about a motorcycle I want.

When I started crying immediately when I saw him welted up.

I did too.

And that means you have mirror neurons.

I think they're separated issues, right?

Like one thing is, do things make you cry or do you have a bunch of guards up that allow you to not be emotionally invested?

And then the second thing is your system of mirror neurons, which is when you see someone else cry, your mirror neurons, I don't want to say should, because I don't know if they should, but if they're strong, they turn on.

I've watched that video of you two or three times now and I well up every single time.

And I wonder if because you guys didn't have the adults that maybe you wanted to emulate that were safe around you, you almost like dulled your mirror neurons because you're like, I can't mirror these people.

Well, look, I have a story and the story is I had this older brother and I just did not want to be a baby.

I want to be older.

You see it with Delta.

Now imagine it's a five-year gap and just crying was a baby's activity.

And I just decided at nine, we're not doing that because that's very babyish in front of David.

But Aaron was a good crier.

Always.

I cried up until a year and a half ago.

Yeah, I've always cried.

We would get sent to Bart Montani's office, the vice principal.

And we would sit in there and he would yell at us and I would be stone-faced staring at him.

And then Aaron would start crying.

And then I'd get really protective over Aaron and be defending Aaron.

And it was a whole scene.

I can only imagine what he thought when he came home from work.

He never let us know, but he had to have thought that was cute.

Two little bad boys in his office, and one's crying, and one's trying to protect them.

Yeah, trying to stop me from crying.

I'm going to go get this food.

Get this food, get this money.

Hi.

I love you.

Thanks for doing that.

Yeah.

You're so good.

You're asking some questions.

He's quite shy.

Blowing up my spot.

Hello.

Oh, my God.

god, what if this?

Oh, I hope so.

I hope there's

another one.

Now, wait, are you have to go directly to this person?

Are you allowed to pick up another?

If something rang, we could, but you see how...

Yeah, that's far in between.

That's happened to us once.

Oh, this is the directions to the person who ordered barbecue and rice.

That's right.

It's only three minutes away.

Yep.

It has alleviated a lot of my guilt.

The most obnoxious and indulgent thing I do is order five guys when we're at the Hanson's.

Oh, yeah.

It's across the street.

I've almost have felt like when I get the food from the guy, he's got to be pissed at me.

Like, come on, you lazy motherfucker.

You walked almost as far to pick the food up at the end of the driveway.

But this is very common.

Like most of our deliveries are within a few hundred feet.

Yes.

At work

or working from home.

See, that's exactly the kind of attitude you have that's infectious.

Do you hear what she said?

Working from home and never.

I know it's a lazy bum.

It's a fucking bum whose parents are giving them money and they're sitting on their ass at home ordering 100 feet away.

Yeah.

And you go there working from home.

That's the exact influence I need in my life.

Me too.

What do you think of this person?

I'm so embarrassed.

It never occurred to me.

Someone's working from home.

Do you think they're just waiting at home?

I think they're terrible.

I assume everyone we deliver food to is a terrible person, just like me.

When we order food, though, it's because we've both just gotten off work.

We need to feed the kids.

We haven't had time to do anything.

Why wouldn't everyone else be in the same position we're in?

This is the benefit of being a good person.

So you're a good person, and then you assume everyone else is a good person.

But Aaron and I identify a little bit with being lazy pieces of shit.

And despite a lot of evidence otherwise, that's still kind of just my route.

Like, again, if I see someone cut me off, I'm like, yeah, they're entitled and they want to get there faster than I'm going to get there because I drive like that.

That's the penalty if you're a piece of shit is you assume everyone else is a piece of shit.

Yes.

But I do think as I've liked myself more, I do give a lot more benefit of the doubt and think better thoughts about people.

But like when you see someone cut you off, you would never fly around someone on the right and try to make up a minute.

You wouldn't do that.

No, because they could have a pregnant woman in the car.

And if they're driving too slow they could have a cake in the back for kids oh my god they don't want to smash birthday cake for a senior or someone's birthday

no final birthday oh my god they have this precarious three-tiered cake in the back seat they're trying to

pussy footing around the city

god i hope i think of something like that next time i'm in that position someone's going 15 miles an hour in a 35 and i know oh you know i feel

like birthday cake or not motherfuckers put your photo

just tell them I got up on the ride because the traffic was a beatdown

oh man

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The fact that you've been able to share a life with me and I'm moving around like that, God bless you.

But honey, I give you the benefit of the doubt.

And oftentimes, I'm right.

You have the story about yourself that you have all these bad intentions all the time.

You're a big boy.

And

it's just

yeah, I knew.

Oh, is this the food he's coming out to you?

Oh, shit.

This never happened.

Are you Andrew?

But wonderful.

I don't feel like he's working.

Of course.

Of course he's not.

Oh, general.

But you know what?

Maybe he's knee-deep in work.

That's why he's

home.

I did see it said Dax.

Sure.

Let's do a selfie.

We're making a podcast where we deliver food.

Okay.

Hi.

You're Andrew?

I am.

Dax, nice to meet you.

You want to take a picture?

Hold on.

I can get out.

Yeah, let's get out and get a photo.

Okay, hold on.

My mom, I gotta put my mic in my pocket.

Now I have to leave a good tip.

No, you don't.

You'd leave zero tip.

My wife is very wealthy.

Take care, brother.

Have a good one.

You too.

And finally,

of course, because you're here.

You're a fucking dick.

Did I tell you this funny thing, Aaron, about the hotel reservation?

70.

No.

Oh!

Oh, sorry.

I accepted so fast.

That's a long time.

No, no, no.

That's another.

It's on now.

Oh, oh.

It's like this sometimes.

When it rains, it pours.

Yeah.

What happened?

Oh, you have to do that.

Do you miss it?

No, no, no, you still have to put

your

hotel because I'm taking the girls to Hawaii on Saturday.

Oh, yeah, you told me the story.

Just the three of us.

I think that girl got fired.

So I got an email from the hotel saying, we're delighted to offer you a complimentary upgrade to a suite.

And also, if you're traveling with Miss Bell, let us know if we can arrange any services for her.

And so I wrote back, like, oh, I'd love an upgrade if I could get a rollaway so that there's enough beds.

And they were like, no problem.

And they said, and any services for Miss Bell?

And I said, no, she won't be joining us on this trip.

And they wrote, we're so sad that she won't be joining.

They fully regret giving me this upgrade because they thought they were giving you an upgrade.

That is not true.

No, more likely, because no one in their right mind can believe that a dad would watch his kids by himself without a mom there.

That's much more likely.

And they might be right.

Let's see how it goes.

What's this?

Big order.

Oh,

vegan breakfast, burito.

This is a big one, guys.

This is 23 minutes.

Let's do a question.

Okay, mom.

Are you ready, mom?

Yep.

I'm a single mom to an incredible 17-year-old daughter, Riley.

I got sober a few years ago, and it's the best thing I've ever done for myself and for her.

But now I'm facing something I never really prepared for.

Riley leaving home in two years.

As proud as I am of her, the thought of an empty house after 18 years of being mom every single day is terrifying.

I know I have to keep putting my sobriety first, but I'm scared of the loneliness, of not having her as my anchor, and of what my identity looks like when she's out in the world chasing her dreams.

I've built a life that I love, but sometimes I feel the pull of old coping mechanisms when I think about the quiet that's coming.

I have lost a lot of time with her because of my addiction.

How do I prepare for the transition in a healthy way?

What helped you both when facing major life shifts?

And how do I keep showing up for myself so I don't fall into a place where I risk everything I've worked for?

Well, Erin, you're the first of us in this exact situation because Wade is going away to college

in six months, right?

Yeah, first of all, I relate with the getting sober and feeling...

like you lost a lot of years with your kids and you have all this making up to do.

And it sounds like she has done that successfully and hopefully has realized that it's okay.

And you just have to accept it.

You have to forgive yourself, I'd imagine.

And it seems very impossible.

And I can't remember how long it took me before I did accept it.

In other arenas, I've witnessed you now at five years, have the three years of feeling very guilty and then saying, you know what?

I feel bad, but here we are and I really can't live feeling bad now for the rest of my life.

It's not what I've been working so hard to feel like, right?

Yeah, it takes such a toll on you.

And then Wade has gone away, but have two girls still that are not yet.

But I am so excited for him to live his life.

I'm so excited for him to get to do anything at all that resembles.

I just think of you and I at that age.

We didn't go away to college.

Right.

We didn't go on spring break with our mom.

We sure.

Things have changed.

Do you know that everyone goes on spring break with their mom now?

Yeah, I do.

You know that.

Everyone goes.

Well, my sister went on spring break with Lucy and Ben.

What are your thoughts on that?

The moms are sick of freaking staying at home and doing nothing.

They want to be involved too.

It's not like the moms are going to parties with them, at least with my sister.

She separates from them, but she'd like a beach vacation and she's paying for it.

So I think, why not?

Well, I love mom taking a beach vacation.

I just don't know why it's got to be with the 18-year-old on spring break.

Seems stressful.

I just don't know how the kid has the fun they're supposed to have.

It's supposed to be like a rum spring.

For you.

Well, it was for me too, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

Don't sell yourself short.

It was.

Where did you go?

South Padre Island, of course.

Tijuana.

TJ.

South Padre Island.

Did you hook up?

Yeah.

You did.

You went single.

You managed that.

Yeah.

And by the way.

Yeah, and I went with that.

Literally, we could have been there at the same time.

Right.

I went with like a group of smart girls from my school, and we got blasted.

And then like my rolls of disposable cameras that I put in my photo album book and hid at the bottom of my closet, my proof of my room springer, my mom brought into the mom's club at the high school the year I left for college and showed everybody.

As a warning of what happens on the show, as a warning, maybe she thought it was funny, maybe she just was going through my, I don't know, I just mean,

but you were single on that trip.

Yeah, well, well, I don't know if I was.

Oh,

I mean, I don't think I was.

Nice.

It's regretful, but I don't think it was.

Here's the way my brain works.

I'm such an optimist.

I wanted to answer yes.

Yeah.

Because that's the right answer.

Yes.

But if I really think about it, I don't think I was.

This is what I like about you.

Everyone's got a little duality.

And yours is particularly interesting because you're on the surface, such a goody-goody.

We're really opposites.

I'm presenting one way, but I'm bawling.

You're perfect, but my

body.

And you know, I can't handle alcohol.

So, like, I had a little bit of alcohol and nothing else mattered.

Sure.

Everybody overcomes when you have a little alcohol in you.

I have a lot of thoughts on Mallory's situation.

Yeah, tell me.

I thought you would.

Well, I think about this a lot.

And first of all, I can fully acknowledge that I don't suffer from certainly not the same demons as worrying about the loneliness.

But I find it...

helpful for the way my mind works to picture the visual.

Like, how many bags do I want to carry around in life?

Like, I feel like the invisible bags of baggage of things I'm going to carry, things worrying, you know?

And when my kids go to college, I don't want to carry around the bags full of this empty feeling.

So I'm like, okay, well, how do I set them down?

And I think preparing yourself by way of looking at life as a cycle has really helped me.

Like a flower.

A flower starts as a sprout and then it grows into a beautiful flower and then it kind of withers and then it fertilizes the other plants.

Like I think about that a lot when I look at the girls and I'm like, oh yeah, bikini season's over for me.

And that's okay.

Well, hold on.

I had a lot of bikini season.

You're in a lot of bikini season.

I know, but you don't understand what I'm saying.

Like, for me, being the ingenue, that's done.

I'm a mom.

They think I'm gross.

They call my boobs sloppy Joes.

You know what I mean?

Like,

that's the phase I'm in, where I'm getting rizzed by my,

maybe Riz is flirting.

I'm getting

seized shit off by my kids.

And that's also a phase that can be beautiful, but it's so hard for humans to be okay with going into a different phase.

Yeah.

And that's the hump.

It's not, what am I going to do?

Just be accepting of the next phase of your life is happening.

And now you're going to have to still be her rock at home when she calls home, but you are going to have to find other things to nurture if you are particularly filled up by nurturing.

So volunteer somewhere, get a dog, get a cat, get a goldfish, create a hobby, get a male chimp.

Get a tonka.

That space is filled is kind of all you can do.

Fill the space with things you've always wanted to do.

Beyond that, really work to understand that everything has a cycle.

Even this Chevy Bolt.

She'll die one day and I'll be so sad.

That might not be a

comparison.

But do you know what I mean?

Like everything has to have a cycle.

Without it, the Earth couldn't function.

And it's just really hard for humans to step out of one phase into another phase.

But I think when you zoom out and look at it as a macro view like that, it becomes easier.

The biggest chunk of my identity is now the father of Lincoln and Delta.

It's 80% of what I think I am.

So yeah, it's going to be really wild to not have a daily responsibility or commitment to them.

And I do think there's going to be an enormous hole there.

And I think I'm going to be very sad that I don't hear them in the house.

I think it's going to be rough.

Oh, Oh, for sure.

But I'm a romantic.

So I also have a fantasy of your and I's life.

Completely free to go to New York for a week if we want and to go to Europe with the Richardsons and just do what we want to do.

I have a very healthy fantasy of our life without kids too, which is a luxury of being married.

But I do wonder if this is where you and I are a little different.

Like you're not prone to that same fantasy I have.

I am to a degree.

I think I'm more realistic about habits and practices become yearnings if you've been doing them for long enough.

We will have been nurturing for 18 years.

That's like quitting drinking.

That's what Mallory's feeling.

She's gonna have to quit drinking again because that is you're fulfilling something for someone else.

You're practicing this.

Your primary purpose.

Your primary purpose.

Exactly.

And if that just evaporates instantly, of course there are going to be aftershocks.

So you have to fill it with something else that allows you to scratch that itch.

Well, yeah, when I read this, the only thing I thought of as my suggestion, and she's further along than us, so I don't feel like I'm really in a position to make a suggestion.

Other than I think she has to develop some hobbies or, as you're saying, some volunteering, something.

She has to develop some things to fill that big hole.

But my main suggestion is to not wait until your daughter's left.

You're feeling sad and terrible.

and now I'm asking you to go have an interest in something right be ahead of it yes I think as a commitment to help is like really commit to signing up for some things before she leaves yeah so you're just already in the habit of doing it that's what my first thought was reading it too she did such a good job already and I just want to hug her and say please don't worry you have done the hardest part

and you did get a few of those good years back that a lot of people don't get.

I think the self-esteem can be built when you thread the line of, so you've manufactured this, you've earned this gift that you gave to your daughter.

That means the gift is yours to give again.

You know, you don't have to.

I'm not saying adopt a toddler and be up all night, but I'm saying like a dog.

Yeah, and one other thing I'd add to mom that she should feel good about is: I don't think you can underestimate the power of modeling a comeback.

I was very lucky in that I didn't have the kind of shame maybe most people do with addiction because my dad was already an addict and had already gotten sober.

Like I never felt terribly judged by my family for having this thing.

That's a huge blessing.

And he had shown me the roadmap for when I finally needed to address it.

I was quite familiar with it all.

I don't know if it's just me, but the tough love steps in and talks very harshly to me.

And this is what I did when I was pregnant, when I was like worried about being pregnant about all the things.

I was was like, hey, you know what, Kristen?

You're not the first person on the planet to ever have a baby.

You're just not.

Lots of people have done this before you.

A couple of billionaire.

And yes, it's going to be hard, but someone else has gone through it before you, which means it's possible.

And that gives me hope.

Wow, look at these cool old houses.

Ooh.

Victoria.

Oh, man.

Are these like sword or damage?

This is our first billionaire we're delivering to.

Or maybe, yeah, maybe there's some learning houses.

Oh, what if we're delivering to a party and we get invited in?

Well,

probably not.

And we're not in that phase.

I don't think they want us there.

They'd want you.

They're probably watching.

Nobody wants you.

I'm an old woman.

I don't think they want me.

All right.

You're the hottest sex symbol on Netflix.

Yeah.

I think it's the next block.

Yep.

I hope it's not a nude co-ed.

It's in here.

It's in here.

It's in here.

She's right there.

She's right there.

Okay.

I hope I don't get put in that situation.

I'm going to say I would love to, but my wife is in the car.

There wasn't any coet, but it's a man laying out right there.

Jacking.

No, he's chatting with a girl hanging out her window.

Oh.

What a time to be alive.

Yeah, Wade.

I miss it.

Look at him.

Now he's calling your name.

How are you doing?

Good.

How are you?

Really good.

Well, out of context, delivering food.

It's very confusing, right?

And Kristen Bell's in the back seat.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Bye.

Get that sun.

I'm starting to feel that old thing where I'm like, fuck.

Wait, what version?

They want to be in.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That it's over.

It's all over.

It's not over.

You're just in a different part of your life.

I love the part of my life.

Yeah.

But I also would love love to take week-long vacations as 27.

Yeah.

Would you or not at all?

There was too much pressure to party and have fun.

I'm too much percentage introvert to really crave or enjoy that.

I wish that I was going on spring break with you guys.

I really do because I would love to be with you.

But I am also beyond excited to come home to a quiet house and talk to nobody for the whole week after work.

Yeah, we were watching White Lotus, and there's that scene where they all go out in that town and they're doing ecstasy and getting drunk and then they're on the boat.

That must have been a 15-minute sequence.

And the entire time I'm going, no, I'm going to do that again before I die.

This is literally all I'm thinking about.

I was like, I am not leaving planet Earth without another trip like that to Thailand or whatever.

And as I'm in the middle of thinking, all this, Kristen goes, oh, this looks torturous.

I want to be reading reading a book back at the

clear headed.

Yeah.

Proud of every decision I make.

It was so indicative of us.

I was just off to the races of how bad I want to be walking down that street all confused and laughing and out loud.

You know, it was too much stimulus for me.

I was feeling that same way watching it.

Were you?

Oh my God, yeah.

I kept telling Rose Day I wanted.

I need a weekly silence.

I'm like, oh, fuck.

I love this I know I think I even mentioned like he's like my age

I'll believe anything like it's really happening the movies I know it's a movie you know he's acting but I'm like oh he's doing it it's my age okay you ready for a moral dumbfounding love yeah the secret affair this is um jonathan hype a jonathan hype moral dilemma yeah his moral dumbfounding question

like a brother and sister who have sex

the secret affair a happily married person has a one-night stand while on a trip.

They use protection, never tell their spouse, and the affair never affects their relationship in any way.

The marriage remains strong and loving.

Is this morally wrong?

What is this whole thing with a trap?

Trying to get you to commit on camera to say there's no problem.

I want to hear you first.

Why?

Why don't you be brave?

No, I want to hear you first because I already know what I think.

Yeah, I'm fine with it.

I don't care if I don't ever know and it has no impact.

I've said it a million times.

My issue with an affair would not be that you had sex with somebody.

My potential issue with an affair would be you'd be distracted.

You'd be overcome with guilt.

It would impact how you treated me.

You would not be.

Doing all the things as my partner that I've come to love that you do.

That would be my fear, not the thought that you had sex with somebody.

The guilt would take over hard on me.

Well, that's reality, though, versus the question.

No, I agree.

It didn't impact, but I agree.

I understand, but you're knowing what you did.

Yeah.

I love the idea of doing it

and not affecting anything.

Yeah.

Except.

It would.

Listen, I don't get stumped by many of these.

I would eat a person.

I would do all these things.

See the dog.

Yeah.

That's like a new sister of it, Dayton.

Yeah, you know yourself and you know this is impossible.

You'd be carrying the guilt and then when you feel guilty and shame, then you act a certain way and it would just ripple out.

There's no way it could be done.

That I accept.

I feel I should preface this with I didn't always feel this way.

Right.

Because when I met you, I was a very jealous person and I

was

bending to

the subconscious rules society had given me of television shows of like, my boyfriend cheated on me.

Girl, get him out of the house.

No fucking way.

You asked me the question of kind of a would you rather, if I slept with someone versus if I drove our kids drunk.

And that put everything in perspective.

I was like, if you had an affair, I feel like we could get through that.

If you drove my kids drunk,

you're packing up.

There's no circumstance in which I would allow you around the kids until I knew you were completely sober and clear-headed.

What was really interesting is we were in a big group of people and we asked a bunch of couples that question.

Would you prefer your partner cheat on you or drive the kids drunk?

And we were both kind of shocked that most of the people would prefer that they

their partner drove the kids drunk.

I don't know.

There's something wrong there.

I have the exact same answer as you do.

The sort of splitting that would be involved.

Although, wait, what did that one say?

It's a one-night stand.

It never happened again.

Protection, never happened again, has no impact on the relationship.

I mean, kind of, who cares, to be honest, because I have the same thoughts you do.

I also know we're monkeys.

We're both attracted to other people.

We're married.

We're not dead.

I'm mostly dead, but yeah, there's just about 15% still.

But I don't know that everyone has the privilege of this much confidence in their relationship.

I agree.

Even go beyond that.

We got to own the fact that for the most part, I've not been left in my life

by partners.

Either it was amicable or I broke up with somebody.

And I think that's really relevant.

If you're someone that's been like cheated on and then dumped and cheated on and dumped, how on earth could you have this laissez-faire opinion?

But I've been cheated on, but not dumped.

Well, A, I had open relationships.

So I had two.

And after the first one, I was like, yeah, she loves me as much as she's ever loved me.

And she's had sex with other dudes.

Like just the notion that somehow that would make her not love me or something, I just got to experience.

It had had no impact.

It didn't have any impact on either relationship.

Now, I'm against an open relationship for different reasons, which are, well, A, I'm an addict, so I can't manage that.

I can't fuck once.

Whereas your guilt would eat you up.

There'd be more right away.

It would be like, if I had a drink tomorrow, I'm going to have a thousand drinks over the next few weeks.

That's just how I'm built.

But I think if...

You have an open relationship, unless you guys are so committed to working on your own sexual relationship if you have other options it's already hard to maintain your own sexual relationship and if you have options you just won't do it that was definitely the core outcome of my open relationships is our own intimacy suffered greatly from it interesting but did you think i was gonna dis what oh no did you think i was gonna disagree no no you were like that one's gonna be hard Well, no, I just mean this is unique to ask a married couple this question in front of each other.

Like you might be in a podcast somewhere else and get asked this and you would just, whatever.

But you're being asked to answer this in front of your husband.

In front of my husband, yeah.

Yeah.

Does that surprise you that I said that?

No, I've come to think that's how you think about it.

How would you feel, Aaron, if Ruthie cheated?

Give him higher circumstances than that.

Give him more specific circumstances than that.

It was a one-night stand.

She's in a gangbang with me.

Well, that's cool.

It was a one-night stand.

I want to watch.

She's at a work thing and there's been alcohol consumed the flirtation didn't start before the alcohol alcohol loosened everybody up she sleeps with someone she wakes up and is like i can't believe i did that because i do love aaron she comes home how do you want her to handle it oh first of all this is the only relationship in my life that i don't play that scenario out ever i am and we're doing tea that's cool oh no that's great i am so comfortable in my relationship it doesn't ever cross my mind.

Same.

I remember that not being the case for every other one.

Yeah.

I remember the feelings of jealousy.

I mean, honestly, how do I want her to play that?

I would, of course, keep quiet about it.

And I don't want to ever know about it.

Right.

But I think she could tell me and I would understand too.

Do you think that

has to do with who Ruthie is?

Or do you think that has to do with who you've become?

I think it's who I've become.

And, well, hold on.

I think it could be a combo.

I guess a combo.

Yeah, is the easy answer.

Because Because I just believe, as I've said in the past, I'm not liable to be jealous of a hot dude.

I'm more liable to be jealous of Mike Scher because he has morals and ethics that I know are in lockstep with yours, and I can't compete with that.

But with that said, I so thoroughly believe and have witnessed that you love me for life.

I believe that in my heart.

I don't see any scenario where at any point in your life, you don't love me, and vice versa.

I don't think anything could prevent that.

You're right.

So I think if you feel that, everything else is a little less threatening.

Well, honey, you're the most delightful guest we've had.

Yeah, I love you so much.

I love you too.

Thank you.

Love you, Aaron.

I love you, baby.

I'm giving it to you.

A little smoochie, smooch.

Yeah.

Smoochies.