DEEP DIVE: What Kind of Mom-ster?

0:28We always recommend Shopify. You can't just drink anybody's water these days. What fresh hell. Laughing in the face of motherhood. Who wants to make chicken parm on a Tuesday? With Margaret Aples and Amy Wilson. The wolf hair was growing out of my face. A podcast that solves today's parenting dilemmas. So you don't have to. We have to at least pretend we are normal, sane people.

1:01Hey, everybody. Welcome to What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Amy. And this is Margaret. And just in time for Halloween, we're bringing you a very frightening episode, a scary, spooky episode called What Kind of Momster? This was suggested by a listener, huge shout out from our Facebook group, facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash What Fresh Hellcast. And we asked, what kind of momster are you? We asked people to ask their friends, ask their parenting partners, ask their kids. When have you been the momster in your house? We like to call out our spouses and our children who are often the monsters.

1:43But today we're turning our focus. We're looking at the man in the mirror and we're turning our focus inward. You know what this reminds me of? The absolute, not only the best children's book in existence, But I would argue like one of the top five best books ever written is The Monster at the End of This Book. I was going to jump in and be like, I know you're going to say The Monster at the end of this book. If you don't have it for your kids, get it. You know, it's so Grover goes through this. He's so afraid. It hits on your kids things of like, I said, don't turn the page. And then you turn the page and your kid will like fall about holding his sides.

2:13He puts like ropes and bricks up to try to stop you from turning. Yes, you're right. Oh, you won't be strong enough to turn this page. And then you get to the end of the book and the monster at the end of the book is Grover. It was Grover all along. It was Grover. We are the Grover in this story. We have come to the end of the book and uh-oh. Yes, we've come to the end of the story and we are the momster. It's us. As you know, and as many people pointed out in the comments, whenever we talk about monsters, I freely admit that I am the monster in my household. Like I am the worst member of my own household.

2:45This has never been hard for you to be like, oh, this is me actually. I do this. No, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is me. My husband is the victim of my monstrosity permanently. But I was glad to see I had some fellow partners in crime out there, some people who were doing it wrong as well. Okay, let's hear it. Let's start with the crime that I am probably the most guilty of. I asked my husband, what is my greatest momster crime? And this is exactly what he came up with. And I was glad to see that many of my sisters in the What Fresh Hell group were guilty of the same crime. and it is leaving half-filled cups all over the house.

3:21Becca says, what kind of momster leaves water cups filled with various amounts of water scattered throughout most rooms of the house? Alexandra says, I currently have four on my nightstand. My husband calls this phenomenon wife water. Mine, I will say, I like to mix it up. I have a little bit of Diet Coke, a little bit of tea, some water glass. Like, I don't just fill water glasses and leave them everywhere. You have all kinds of beverages, you mean? There's all sorts of... Sure, you're not picky. All kinds of beverages. There's a litany of beverages. And yeah, I mean, water, it's the question of why I always need a new cup.

4:00I don't know. But then my husband does in the morning walk around the house and just silently, without reproach, I will give it to him, just collects all of the glasses and puts them in the dishwasher. I have been the collector and I never really minded because I would just drink it. Like, I don't know whose water this is, but here's some water for me to drink. But now with the last couple of years, like I feel like there have been like three days in the last two and a half years that we weren't like somebody just was exposed to COVID or might have COVID or just had COVID. So you can't just drink anybody's water these days, even if they're people you gave birth to.

4:33But that's usually what that's my solution is just drink it all. But not right now. Yeah. Chelsea says this is her empty, half-empty water bottles, so it's extra bad for the environment. Oh, that is a momster. She's killing the earth and she's leaving them everywhere. I have tried to get rid of the single-use water bottles, you know, like the Poland Spring, everywhere I go. I've tried not to be that momster, but sometimes I am. I have gotten rid of them, but now it's just glasses everywhere. But it's not, at least, it's not earth murder on top of momstering. I like a glass bottle, which you turned me on to, like a refillable glass water bottle.

5:09And I even got a nice one with the rubber outside. And I'm carrying this around instead of single use. And then it like I fell out of my bag and made a huge mess on the sidewalk, like glass everywhere. And so back I went to the pool in spring. I momstered, but I can raise you one. I did it at the town pool. So I left glass like all over the town pool. I was a huge momster that day. That is a pool momster. Becca says at their house, they choose to blame the glass fairy, which I like. And Bree says in her defense, much like in my defense, one is a coffee cup, one is a coffee mug, one is for water, one is for LaCroix, one is for tea.

5:41Wah-ha-ha. She makes an evil mobster noise. Yeah. So this was something that a lot of people felt and agreed with. Amy, you may recognize this mobster. Tell me if you are this mobster. Okay. I'll listen. Careful. Jessica says, what kind of monster wants to talk to her new college freshman once a week from several states away, but would settle for proof of life text responses to pics of the family pet? Now, so she's the momster because she wants her college freshman. She's bribing them with adorable pictures of the family pet. It would really just need like a thumbs up or a ha ha. It wouldn't need to be.

6:22I've been there, Jessica. I recently wrote to my kid away at college and I said to him, oldest pup, please bark. And that got him to, he typed back bark bark because I hadn't heard from him in a while. I find even with my tweens, I can keep the lines of communication open by just sending pictures of the pet back and forth. You know, I'm not a pet person, but it's been a huge connector with my children. I'm not asking you to love me. I'm just asking you to show me that you're breathing. I don't think that's so monstery, but I guess our students that are away from home might beg to differ. My kids use the phrase, and now I'm going to get it wrong, and they're going to tell me I'm super cringe.

6:59I don't know if it's left me on read or left me on read. Do you know this expression? Left me on read, I think. I mean, maybe we're both wrong. Yeah. Left me on read, I guess. And it means that, like, your phone says it's been read, but no response. So Jessica is being left on read. I just did this to somebody. shoot, I just realized this. I just like somebody texted me a couple days ago, like, hey, I haven't talked to you in a while. How are you doing? You left her on red. And I tend to, I don't drop everything to immediately respond to somebody I haven't talked to in three years. Like life goes on, but it isn't that I don't intend to, but this is a person who's much younger than me.

7:33And I left this person on red. You left her on red. I'm a momster. I'm the momster friend that gets, I got a lovely text from someone that said something I had done something from was, that was so nice and it really touched me and thank you so much. And then my momster instinct is always to say, I will write back when I have time to respectfully write back as this text deserves. And then what do I do? Forever silence. Forever silence. So that you write me a nice text. Let me just say on the record, let me just ignore it forever. If you have sent me a lovely text or email or even written me a card.

8:11I do at three o 'clock in the morning, wake up in a cold sweat thinking I never responded, but I never respond because I'm waiting to formulate a worthy response rather than just saying like, thank you, which would be better. The more you liked it, the less likely you are to answer at all. I am that person. Let me ask you this. Do you respond to your Facebook happy birthday wishes individually or as a group or at all? Like, do you go through and Not at all. You just don't respond at all. Okay. You like them. Well, there's three types of people. There's the person who writes a thoughtful response to every happy birthday wish.

8:44Yes. I started this and then I got like 50 in and then I just didn't finish the other 800. Yeah. You were like, I got to get out of this. My like guy I dated in third grade, like I got nothing to say in response to happy birthday. And it is kind of random who comes. I mean, people love the Facebook birthday, but I do find it random. Who chooses to wish you happy birthday on Facebook? Like people who I'm like, let me Google and see who that is. Like I don't even know. People who are into Facebook. Yeah. Who are you? Let me Google this person that I'm apparently friends with. Yeah. And then, no.

9:15So I think I originally, yeah, I wrote back to everyone and then I liked everyone and now I'm out. I'm out entirely. I don't even send the message the next day, which most people do. Thank you for all of the kind birth. No. Thanks, everyone. Right. I just like to say to everybody, no. I just feel that it is a universally acknowledged thing that you wish me happy birthday on Facebook. I receive them. I gently smile and then I move on with my life. I want to take this one because this is me and I'm a little bit embarrassed. I'm so glad Heather said it first. Heather says, what kind of curly, thick haired shedding momster conditions her hair in the shower resulting in some hair coming out and then places it on the shower walls, you know, so it doesn't go down the drain with the objective of throwing it out when her shower is finished.

9:55And sometimes that last step is forgotten. Yeah. This is me. Like if it were like psycho that the blood on the ocean walls of the shower, except it's like my hair. It's my shedding, shedding hair. I was making a note that she needs your hair magnet from what kind of, why isn't this a thing? The plug-in electric hair magnet. Hair magnet, yes. In the shower. Yeah, that would just collect, people wanted a magnet that would collect every loose hair in the entire house. And I had to point out at the time that hair is not actually magnetic. And you were insisting that like, why hasn't there been a hair magnet invented?

10:32And I wanted to inform you that it wouldn't work because hair has no magnetic. This is a hair magnet, but you don't understand this is a hair magnet. We're just dreaming of a magnet that would only attract hair. Shower hair. Lee says that, yes, she says, did I write this? I did this once while sharing a hotel room with a friend and was horrified with myself. I must have done it to you. And this means I've been this monster. I have definitely seen, we have shared a hotel room and in our day, I have seen some Amy hair. It goes everywhere. I have very, very light hair. So, A, I don't understand the step of pasting it to the shower walls.

11:09That doesn't ring true with me at all. It comes off in your hands and you put it on the shower walls. Yeah. Like you're pulling on the ends of your hair and some comes off and you don't want it to go down the drain and you don't have a pocket. You're in the shower. So, you don't have a pocket. Where am I supposed to put it? On the walls. On the hair magnet? No, I put it. Yeah. So, you just wipe it on the wall. Like, I'll get that after. And then I agree came in hot she was the monster in so many different ways she was double checking her kids hand washing not believing them and this one I loved I am the momster when I set garbage down to do something else but forget to go back and pick up said garbage my kid calls me out and the only excuse I have is because I'm the mom that's why I don't put my garbage away is this like coffee grounds like what sort of garbage is it's like a crumpled up piece of paper That's a thing.

11:57No, it's just like, you know how it drives you crazy when your kids like eat a granola bar and like, why? What kind of monster would leave the wrapper there? But then when you do it, you're like, well, listen, I forgot. Yes, I have definitely been this monster. Like, but you do the same thing. It's like, but I know that I'm going to pick it up eventually. And you also know that I'm going to pick up your garbage eventually. Like all the garbage is for mom to pick up. So I can leave stuff around because I know I'm going to pick it up. But when you leave stuff around, you also know I'm going to pick it up.

12:22I'm not sure I'm right about that, but that's the hill I die on in those situations. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a lot of like momster hypocrisy in terms of like, my demands are this, except for for me. I mean, this is where I am always the monster in my house that I'm like, can we please have some order around here while I just like fling clothes in every single direction. This was a popular momster. Kelly says, I always throw giant empty boxes down by the garage until they are backed up and we can't walk out the door. my husband every so often will break them down for recycling. Yes. This is my husband's second call out for me on being the momster.

13:02He just has one simple request. We have a cardboard recycling bin in the kitchen and he wants and needs and requests that any boxes that go into the cardboard recycling should be flat. Should be broken down. Right. So you can fit them in there and fit more in there. Yes. But many times I just throw them in whole. And I think he'll do it later. He will have to take them back out of the recycling bin and flatten them and then put them back in. See how this manifests? It's not much to ask, but I don't do it. This manifests in our house. We have to, because I live in an apartment building, we have to take our boxes to a separate floor, you know, where they are recycled for the whole building.

13:40There's 65 apartments in our building. And I leave these in the front hall by the door for them to have to go to this other floor, but they also have to be broken down. And so I don't break them down and take them down. My husband will sometimes take them down without breaking them down. And I'm like, that's an outrage. You can't make the people who work for this building break them down for us. Plus, they say our apartment number right on them in big marker. They'll know it was us. You have to break them down. But then they just you've been implicated. But then they just live in the front hall for two weeks otherwise, because I can't take the 15 seconds to like find the scissors and, you know, break the tape and break it down.

14:10Let me tell you, when the Dateline special, Who Didn't Break Down These Boxes, comes out, the trail of clues is going to lead right to your door, literally. You can tell who the monster is if it's written on the box. Lindsay is singing my song. I am also this monster. Chuck large cardboard boxes into the garage, thus blocking the walkway, then curse myself at tripping over those same large boxes. Once, every once in a while, break down the boxes. Promise to change my ways. Don't change. Rinse. Repeat. Yes. I do this except for my husband always breaks down the boxes. And I will tell you, sometimes it's because of my monstrous kids.

14:45Because what happens is I go to open the freezer. We have a drawer freezer, which I could do a whole show on why did someone think that was better than the side-by-side freezers? Because you can't get a side-by-side freezer anymore. But the drawer is always blocked in my house. Like you can't open it? You can't open it because it's too full. It's too full of boxes of popsicles where there's only one popsicle left and you don't even have to have the box anymore. Yes, yes. I'm familiar. Or in our case, let's be honest, empty boxes. So then I angrily pull out the empty box and just fling it into the recycling in a rage.

15:18And that's why it's not broken down. Oh, that should be allowed. It should. Well, could you call my husband for me and let him know that that should be allowed? Because he doesn't seem to understand. We will be back with even more frightening momsters. Hey there, I'm Kendra Adachi. and my show, The Lazy Genius Podcast, helps you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. And you get to decide what matters. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to give you a new way to see. Episodes of The Lazy Genius Podcast are full of compassionate time management tips and permission slips to do what makes sense for you.

15:52New episodes drop every Monday. Follow and listen to The Lazy Genius Podcast on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Amy, there's a lot of toilet paper based monsters. Okay. All right. Brooke says, what kind of momster realizes all the upstairs toilet paper is out and thus uses tissues until her husband is forced to wrangle the Costco pack in the basement for more toilet paper? Wow. I feel like this is just like some things husbands have to do. Go get toilet paper? Not my house. No, I'm big on like, that's your job. garbage and like interacting with anything from Costco is my, I buy it.

16:30But then once it's in the house, my husband has to bring it up from the basement. You know, we talked about this. I remember during the pandemic, because when we were talking about like running out of toilet paper, like I got serious there for a while, right? Like we were all like considering it was getting very real, very, very real. And that it was much more real to me than to my husband and sons because I need toilet paper every time I go to the bathroom and they need toilet paper sort of once in a while. And so, they were willing to, my friend's husband traded some toilet paper like for some sourdough starter and she was like, what are you doing?

17:04What kind of monster would die with toilet paper? Right. But he didn't get it. And so, similarly, I feel like the monsters in my house who are male, you know, the toilet paper runs out and they're like, that's neither here nor there for them. They don't realize like what a desperate situation that is. They don't care. They don't care. They don't care. Amy, we're supposed to be keeping the focus on ourselves here. We're supposed to be looking at the man in the mirror. Let me give you Tiffany's because this is, they talk about an escalation. My daughter has a phrase, roses are red, cacti are prickly.

17:35Oh my goodness, that escalated quickly. Okay. Listen to what's happening at Tiffany's house. What kind of monster leaves the roll of TP empty on the holder and doesn't replace it, forcing her loving husband to have to text her to rescue him with more toilet paper, there may or may not have been a threat of him using my favorite fuzzy socks. That seems like just retribution to me. Good thing she was home. Yeah, it was really, really good. I assume she was home. Maybe she had her return from a nice night out to bring him toilet paper. But you got what you deserved. Julia is speaking my language with this because we talk, I've talked many times about meal planning.

18:10Don't come at me with meal planning. What kind of momster cannot follow her own own meal plan she spent hours making and shopping for every single week. This is where I fall down on the meal planning. She can't follow her own meal plan, is she saying? Yes. Like I do this all the time. I make a meal plan and then I buy all of the ingredients. So it's like Tuesday, it's chicken parm. And then Tuesday, about four o 'clock, I finish working for the day. I've picked up the kids and I'm like, let's just get Chinese food. I just, who wants to make chicken parm on a Tuesday? Not me. I see. My Sunday self thinks I will want to make chicken parm on Tuesday and therefore shops for all the ingredients and puts them in the fridge.

18:48But then my Tuesday self is just like, let's get taken. I've been the momster who's like, yes, chicken parm on Tuesday, like neglecting to notice that this one's not home and that one's not home. And actually, I'm not home either. And so, right. And so then you have a refrigerator full of ingredients for meals that didn't need to be made at all. That's wasting food. I want to be the person who meal plans and executes. I am very occasionally the person who meal plans and I am very rarely the person who executes on my meal plan. This is a funny one. Panic tipping. Chelsea says, anybody else a panic tipper?

19:20The option to tip pops up on the screen and I just panic and tip the biggest one or I hand over the biggest bill I have in my wallet. I don't even want to know how much money I've wasted doing this. Why am I like this? I want to say I was away this weekend, girls weekend, and we were both struck. We were in a very, very touristy area. And we were both struck by the fact that like once you start to use your iPhone for everything, which I now do, like I just want to pay for everything with my iPhone. I don't carry cash. Every time you use one of those things, it doesn't matter where it is. The screen suddenly turns and it's like, do you want to tip 25 or 20 percent?

19:59And I'm like, whoa, I don't want to tip anything. I want to run away. Right. I bought a bottle of water. Right. Right. Yeah. And they're standing there pretending they're not. Like, I hate the whole, like, they turn the screen around. It's like, I'm not looking. It's like, you're looking. Like, we both know that I'm deciding if I'm giving you extra money or not or how much right now. And so then, yeah, then you just tip 25 % on a bottle of water. Yeah. And a lot of people came in and was like, that's just good karma. It's fine. And I do try to look at it that way of like, okay, you're directly helping people.

20:30Nobody's living off of your generous tips. But it has gotten a little bit to the point that like, I just, I mean, on my getaway, I was tipping people like 25 times a day. And then, yeah, it seemed like the default was 25%, which is a lot on a dinner bill, you know, it's a quarter of your bill. I have two thoughts on this. The first one is that I'm never so sure that the person behind the counter is really going to get the, you know, dollar and seven cents that I've tipped for the bagel with cream cheese, right? Because it's on a credit card. Like, are they really going to see that? I am not sure.

21:06Right. That's my first hesitation on this. Then I always tip something anyway, I will say. But the other thing was that I feel like there has been this sort of pandemic hangover thing of like, thank you for showing up to work at this bagel store. Like, you don't have to be here. Thank you for. Yes, yes. Giving me this bagel and cream cheese when you could just quit and stay home and then this bagel shop wouldn't be open. But when is the expiration date on that? Like, when do we have to stop like thanking people extra for literally being anywhere? I mean, I believe it's never. I basically come down on the vibe of like, OK, all right.

21:39But I get it. It does cut into your budget. Like, I hate to be I waited tables for years and years. I'm not an anti-tipping person, but I do find that the phone and the phone just already has the momster problem of like, I'm not really spending money. I'm just clicking on the side of my phone. You write this magic. Yes, yes. And then the tipping just kind of flies into that. And it's just basically a way of siphoning money out of your life in a million different directions. Maybe the answer is to just stay home. Amy Charmaine is the kind of momster who scheduled family pictures right after dinner.

22:13So everyone had to scramble around the house, yanking on clothes, combing hair, while she yells, hurry up for the love of God, and then tells everyone to smile big for the camera because we have to at least pretend we are normal, sane people. I mean, is it the after dinner part or is it just the family pictures part? Like it's never a pleasant preparation. I was going to say, this is, it's not a timing problem. It's just, there's no, here, we're going to save you so much angst right now with the following phrase. There's no good time to take a family picture. It's always a nightmare. I guess if you really wanted to try to make it work.

22:45Do it very first thing in the morning, like after you feed them something. But there's no way you're taking a family picture without screaming, yanking clothes on, furiously brushing hair while people cry, and then screaming look like a happy family. And then they're teenagers. And like, we just were on family vacation this summer. And every time I said, let's take a family picture, one or more of them will be like, what? No, you didn't tell me I was gonna take a family picture. Like they weren't like camera ready. So yeah, finally, I had to be Like we're taking one tonight, family picture. So get ready.

23:18Do get ready however you want, which I know probably sounds like heaven, Charmaine. My kids are old enough that they get their own hair ready. But it's another problem. You have to divest yourself from caring what the hair and clothes look like in the picture. If you feel ready, then you're ready, even if your collar is half in and half out. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And you can't like put them in cute sweater vests anymore because they're like 16. No. Yeah, I have a child who regularly announces, I will take one picture and that's it. And I'm like, no, that's not how this is going to roll for you. You're going to stand there and smile or you're not getting to go on like the pumpkin hayride or whatever.