You're listening to the Living BDSM podcast episode
four thirty three. Kayla Lords here with the
one, the only, the your shirt makes you
look like you might be a little
sad, but it's really a funny pun. It's
a sad manatee. It is.
Like, I wanna cry for this manatee. I
wanna cry for all the manatees. I'm a
Florida girl. I know,
how they what happens with them. Yeah. And
it is it is heartbreaking. It is. John
Brownstone, by the way. There's
That one
Sideways? Yeah. Real quick. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Mhmm. I I got nothing.
I was thinking,
y'all will hear, in the Monday episode next
Monday's episode, how I couldn't find anything snarky
to say. And I'm realizing I'm not finding
a lot snarky to say one.
You know, I'm I'm very content
with us. And two, I just I don't
know. Like, creatively, the snark is just not
there right now. The sarcasm just isn't there.
I'm feeling way too, like, genuine or some
shit. I know. What? I know.
You I know it happens.
What the fuck? I know. That's not what
we're here to talk about, though.
This week, we're talking about 20 nope. What
are words? Twenty four seven power exchange and
total power exchange. What they are and whether
they're the same thing. Spoiler, not quite.
Welcome to the Loving BDSM podcast. If this
is your first time listening, glad to have
you. If you're back for another week, welcome
back.
Lola also welcomes you back. Loving BDSM is
produced every Monday and Friday for your kinky
pleasure in education. Show notes are found at
lovingbdsm.net.
Come back often and feel free to add
the podcast to your favorite podcast app. What
are words?
You can also follow the show on FetLife
at loving BDSM PC
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and threads at that handle. I will forever
fucking hate loving d s and the number
one, so it's at loving d s one
or on YouTube at youtube.com/lovingBDSM,
where you can watch us live stream the
podcast every Wednesday. All links are in the
show notes. Okay. Before Okay. It looks like
everything's working. I don't trust it. That's far.
Before we get into Okay.
There. Knock the wood. This week's episode who's
being chaotic now?
Who? Who's being chaotic now? Excuse me.
I would like to do some announcements. There
are a couple of them. One, I'm happy
to say after I kinda weirdly teased it
in ways that not everybody would have picked
up on anyway because I don't know how
to do that.
The twenty twenty five
dom sub virtual summit
is coming back March 31 through April 3.
Attendance is free. You can register for free.
A free ticket gives you access to each
day's,
sessions for twenty four hours. So you don't
have to be there live. You just gotta
go watch them within the twenty four hours.
There will be, for anybody who has a
budget for it, a paid option that gives
you other stuff.
But
if you you don't have it, but you
want some good BDSM education
Mhmm. You can attend for free.
We have a session that
is so right up our alley, and
after the summit will be the reason we
do a series on this,
how to make your dynamic
work in the real world, which is kind
of our fucking jam. It's kind
of like what we do here.
So,
but there are also plenty of other,
really good educators and sessions. Princess Rara, who
is watching live right now, has a session
on kink comparison, which, like, I just saw
the title. It's not a session I can
go see yet, and I immediately had thoughts
and ideas for some of our future content.
So thank you for for that. Rara.
Evie,
Evie has,
a session. Sonya Megatron has a session. Luna
Motatus has a a session. There are sessions
on bondage. There's there's at least one, maybe
two people who are kink therapists who have
some things. Like, it's
it's good y'all.
The link to go check it out, see
what's
what, register if you're interested, is in the
places. Let me just say again ticket is
free. For free for free. This is one
of those situations where what we were tasked
with by the organizers
was
this is not that webinar bullshit weird thing
you might have experienced where you sit through
an hour of somebody, like, giving you very
basic information and then they end it with,
but if you buy you no no
giving you very basic information and then they
end it with, but if you buy you
no. No. No. Like, these are actionable tips.
That was our job
was to create,
a session where anybody who watched it walked
away with, oh, I can try this. I
can think about that. This is a way
to do this. So it's actual legit
value,
and you don't have to pay for it
if you ain't got the budget for it.
Okay? Okay.
So that's, March 31 through April 3. If
you happen to be on our email list,
you'll hear about it again. Just sayin'. We'll
talk about it again next week cause I
want as many people who want to attend
to be able to attend.
Second announcement, less exciting but it's a thing.
This Friday, don't ask me what the date
is, I think it's Friday, March 21, but
I didn't look at a calendar and we
know how I am.
We are doing our Friday night, livestream.
It starts at 09:30PM
eastern, ends at 11PM
eastern.
It's chaotic. We hang out. It's
it's got a bonus section vibe, but more
chaos. And also in the middle of that,
we try to answer,
kinky questions for folks who are watching live
and wanna ask their questions. So
that is this Friday.
For podcast listeners, literally the day that this
episode goes live for you, 09:30PM
eastern
till eleven. We used to not really have
a an official cutoff time and then would
just like end around midnight. We're just too
old for that now. We're very tired. We
ended eleven now.
So, yeah, that's that's the that's the stuff.
That's
those are the announcements.
Okay.
Let me get
into
our notes.
We have notes? We have notes.
So the reason we're doing this episode is
because we had more than one question in
our last Ask Us
Anything, q and a,
long episode,
not to be confused with our Monday q
and a episodes where we answer a single
question. And it was about twenty four seven.
And,
Total Power Exchange,
aka TPE,
you will often see it. Every time I
see TPE, I have to go, wait. Wait.
That's right. Total Power Exchange. Total Power Exchange.
It's like when I see e n m.
I have to go, wait. What? And then
it goes, oh, I go, oh, yeah. Ethical
nonmonogamy.
I just don't walk around with a lot
of acronyms in my head, you know?
I think about them. Okay.
I tend to think in I tend to
think in full words. I don't usually think
in acronyms.
And I realized that if we've done this,
it's been a hot ass minute, and it
certainly was never to talk about total power
exchange because I think even I had
misconceptions
about what that specific term could be and
could mean. And in the middle of answering
that question from folks during that episode, I
was like, I
I'm I can't take the time I want
to even think through what I think about
this topic.
So here we are.
So the one thing I did
first and foremost to make sure that I
had some kind of work and knowledge and
I thought what I thought
was the thing was probably the thing is
I made sure to look up Total Power
Exchange. Because if you ask me what twenty
four seven is, I got that. We live
it. We live our version of it. Total
Power Exchange was like, am I misunderstanding?
I came across some sources that made me
roll my eyes. I did not include those.
I came across a couple of sites where
I was like, even if this is not
exactly specifically how I would define it, this
is good info. I have linked it in
the places for anybody who wants more perspectives
on specifically
Total Power Exchange.
So
the way
it is commonly I'm gonna air quote that
cause commonly is based on what I personally
have seen. That does not mean other people
don't talk about it other ways in other
places.
Commonly, total power exchange
tends to be defined as the power exchanges
where the dominants have all of the control.
And the way it is typically defined, all
of the control,
is
almost at a micromanagement
level, where a submissive does not
sit, stand, leave the room
without
the permission of the dominant. And I think
that's way too narrow of a definition.
And as with many terms and labels, that's
really the inherent problem
is the
air quote commonly understood definition,
even if that's not your specific definition of
it, is way too fucking narrow. And as
with everything, it's a spectrum of things. And
so I just kinda wanna talk about it.
I consider us, and we consider us, twenty
four seven.
I do not consider us total power exchange.
Do you?
Why why?
Here's why. I do have a reason for
that.
Okay. Because based on how I think of
total power exchange and only not that narrow
definition I just gave,
it's because we have one area of our
life where power exchange Doesn't mean that. Has
no say. And it's and for me Mhmm.
And that's parenting for anybody who's new here.
Yeah.
If we did not have that, I would
say we're total power exchange, but not in
the way most people think. And see, to
me,
kind of looking at it to me,
when talk about something like, total power exchange,
to me, now you're talking, like, things like
high protocol and,
you know Oh, there's lots of rules that
you have to follow and there's Yes. And
again, I think that's another
part of the spectrum of what it can
be to be total power exchange. Because
there are absolutely people out here in relationships
where they're in well, if we understood what
all their nuance is, that's total power exchange,
But they might not have And they have
a lot of rules because I think that
in some of those This is subjective, but
a air quote strict power exchange. If it's
gonna be total, there probably has to be
a lot of
rules. Here's why I would classify us
if we if everything came through our power
exchange as total power exchange because here's the
thing. It's the same reason I classify us
as twenty four seven.
You are always the decider.
Outside of parenting, there's not a decision that
gets made in this house that you have
not either had your hand in, pre approved
whatever I might do, or directly said
yes or no.
Let's be real. I don't usually go asking
questions where I think the answer might be
no. I know better.
But you know what I mean? Yeah. And
do I think that's a very loose
perspective of total power exchange? Yes. Do I
think that that is a definition
that a lot would not fit a lot
of people's
feelings about or understand or vibe? Abso fucking
lutely. But that goes back to what we've
said many times anytime we have to talk
about a label or a term, which is
words do have meanings. Yes. And we should
understand those general meanings. But within kink, you
can make the term, if it suits you,
fit you. You don't twist yourself in the
knots to fit the term.
So my understanding of total is that there's
no part other than parenting. There's no part
of our life that you don't have say
in. You don't have, if you want it,
total control.
Now twenty four seven,
I classify us as twenty four seven for
that way as well. Okay. But the way
I have seen it defined by others makes
sense. And, again, I think you can
use this term the way that suits you
best. But,
typically, the way I see twenty four seven
defined is that for people in twenty four
seven, which is this true for us as
well,
there's no point where we just, like, take
off our I don't take my sub hat
off and and I'm not submissive. Right?
It goes back to, I think, the whole
argument of they're not argument, but the
oh, I can't think of the word. But
basically that for some people, kink is an
activity.
And for some people, especially specifically power exchange,
it is their identity.
So we don't have to be doing a
kink thing. We don't have to be actively
in our power exchange.
We are still
in a power exchange relationship
Mhmm. All the time.
Right? Yes. So
that's how I think of twenty four seven.
And I think a lot of people think
of twenty four seven that way. But
when I was looking through talking about total
power exchange,
the ways of few people who I did
not link to because I just didn't like
that overall vibe. I was like, no.
They were like, oh, Total Power Exchange,
is when you're twenty four seven. So they
conflated
Total Power Exchange and twenty four seven as
being identical.
Do I think
that if you're in total power exchange, you
are twenty four seven? Yeah. Because how can
you not be? Mhmm. But I think you
can be
twenty four seven like we define it, and
I can't call us total power exchange because
we you don't have total control because of
the one thing where I you know, we're
equals. But I I absolutely
agree that there there is an overlap.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I still can't decide who's the
umbrella. Is twenty four seven the umbrella and
total power exchange comes under? Is total power
exchange the umbrella? And like, I still Everything
falls under that. Because
I you know, I think most people if
depending on how they feel about the terms
and how they define them for themselves, there
are plenty of people who thinking about it
that granularly. Right? Might go, oh yeah, well
we are total power exchange because there's no
part of our life our power exchange doesn't
touch, and there are gonna be other people
out there who can relate to there's no
part of our life the dominant partner does
not have some say over.
That to me
is total power exchange.
Yes,
you can
swing the whole other way on the
graph,
and it can be a dominant who makes
every decision
for their submissive.
And I think even with that, there's there's
fluidity because I can see it being that
a dominant make has made a lot of
decisions, and those are rules that submissive follows.
And then you get to the other end
of that, and it's that micromanagement where that
specific does not move unless their dom tells
them to. And that is something that we
have witnessed in two cases.
I think it is the exception not the
rule. I
I personally if somebody asked my opinion and
y'all didn't, but I give it for free.
It's not something I would recommend anybody strive
for unless, man, you just feel a fucking
calling for it. Like, it's gotta be like
beating a drum in your chest.
You gotta do it. The Jumanji drums are
like in your head, I've gotta do this.
Right.
Because I just
that level
sort of requires a person,
the submissive,
to
be willing to
give up everything on certain levels
with the trust and and knowledge that they'll
be taken care of, but it also
does not seem to acknowledge from the little
bit I've seen
the reality that what happens if the dom
is incapacitated?
What if the dom can't speak? What if
the dom's in in the hospital? What if
the dom's so sick they're, like, just puking
into a bucket next to their bed that
There's no giving, like what are the the
fail safes? Yeah.
The fail safes, I I think that is
something that needs to be
talked about
ahead of time. I mean, if if you
are going to to do
a a total power of change and it
is going to be
that narrow And highly managed. And highly managed,
you have to
you have to have that
in there just like we have a tough
love clause. Yes. Yes. Okay. Because you can't
be in control of everything if your control
harms us or you. Right. So, you know,
the the same thing goes for that. There
there has to be
a fail safe. Yeah. It's the only word
I can think of. Yeah. You know, to
to cover that if it happens. Mhmm.
You know, when I think about
you know, I because I've seen it. I've
seen the a little bit of derision.
Fuck fuck the person with that, who looks
at us and was like, you can't be
twenty four seven. There you don't seem to
have a lot of rules. I seem to
have a lot of leeway. Yeah. Well, it's
because and this is what I would recommend
for anybody who is interested in that kind
of dynamic, but thinks it it's
too much. It's too overwhelming. They don't wanna
go to that end of
the spectrum where it's micromanagement. Neither do we.
Right? But for folks who are interested in,
like, living their power change and it being
incorporated into their whole life Mhmm. You know,
it's a lot of it's ongoing negotiation, but
it's a lot of negotiation.
And there's a lot of when I say
upfront, this occurs all the time, but there
are moments in time Mhmm. Where the rules
are negotiated and understood so that for a
dom like JB who does not have the
time, inclination,
or willingness Yeah. Or mental capacity, because I
don't blame you. I couldn't either, to watch
me every moment of the fucking day,
nor do I don't want anybody breathing down
my neck like that. Thank you very much.
I would like to still love him at
the end of a fucking day. But if
he is the reason I'm overstimulated,
it's gonna be tough.
You know, we baked that in so that
the
I understood what my behavior needed to be.
I understood
what I was what was expected of me.
As
I personally am inclined to do, and I
know a lot of people dom or sub
who do this, I take on extra. I
do more than was negotiated
because
JB allows me to, but also because I
want to. I want to take care of
him in that way.
I want to serve in that way. But
the you gotta do this no matter what
stuff,
we are not talking about it every damn
day. Nobody's got time for that. Jimmy does
not have time to follow me all day
long going, did you do the thing? Did
you do the thing?
Fuck that
shit. We set the expectations early. We keep
the lines of communication open. That's the other
thing I think that
people get wrong about. It would be both
twenty four seven and total power exchange because
it would be unrealistic otherwise.
Needing to
interject with air quotes in real life, needing
to, like we did for a few years,
go on autopilot, which is what I like
to call it.
And I think even if you need to
take a beat to pause the power exchange
for any length of time,
You know, there are too many people who
would say that's not 20 fourseven. That's not
total power exchange. And I would go back
to,
in those moments, do you each individually still
feel and know yourself to be Dom and
Sub?
I think you can at least make the
argument that no matter what the activities are,
at that point, you are still twenty four
seven.
The
physical acts of your power exchange may have
to stop. But, I mean, think about it
this way. Mhmm. What happens if you are
in that more highly managed type
of total power exchange, and I go back
to Dom is puking guts up sick. Dom
is in hospital.
Dom's got a broken leg and can't follow
you. Dom's got, you know, depression and literally
cannot function. Right? Like,
do you just stop being a submissive in
that moment? Do they just stop being a
dominant and No.
No.
No. No. And,
you know,
I knew one
couple who did this years ago. Mhmm.
For lack of better terms,
I'm gonna call it they had a backup
dom. Oh, wow.
K. Well, this was a good friend of
theirs. It wasn't like somebody they randomly Yeah.
It wasn't a little bit random. It was
somebody that that they knew
that in case the big d got sick,
got incapacitated
Right. You know, God forbid died,
there was somebody there so the submissive just
wasn't left floundering. Right. And to help them
ease into what transition and whatever whatever.
And that's the kind of thing like, that
is that is the only thing that makes
sense to me two things make sense to
me. That is one of them. If you're
gonna go with that really highly managed, lots
of rules, lots of Mhmm. Direct engagement from
the dom. Right? You what's the fail safe?
Also, I think if that either is not
an option or that just doesn't work or
maybe even if it does, there have to
be real life conversations about,
you know,
subs, especially if you're in a situation where
your dom has financial control. Because see, financial
stuff can either be seen as a service
and you have total control.
Maybe not control, but, like, your fingers are
in the money.
Or the one that's more stereotypical, but I
don't know how common.
The Dom has financial control, if you even
play with financial stuff at all. Right?
Whoever is not the one with their fingers
and the money and the accounts needs to
know where to get to that information.
You know, early days in us doing the
podcast and people would talk about twenty four
seven and somebody would say that their ideal
situation is as a submissive. They never have
to think about it. They never have to
touch it. They never have and they're completely
taken care of. And I'm like, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. But
do you know how to log in? Do
you know what your bank is? Do you
know how to pay the bill? Like, you
can't you can,
to
me, the
best way to mitigate risk because this is
a situation where this is very risky. Like,
people can do it, and some people do
it because they're fucking predators and abusers to
begin with because this is a way to
take advantage of somebody. You get them under
your absolute and total control and then cut
them off from everything.
That's I mean,
it's
that is the thing you have to guard
against. Like, this is not a thing brand
new relationships
ought to be doing or considering.
You can think about yourself in kind of
a twenty four seven way if you want
to inhabit your identity
all the time.
But if your goal is to be highly
managed and to have lot, you know, the
domed have lots and lots of control,
that's not a new relationship thing. That's a
we've been to fucking gather for a long
time, and there's a lot of trust.
And we know how each other operates.
You know? We've been through shit together, and
we still like one another. You know what
I mean? Like,
because
there's gonna come a day where,
you know, the dom's not in control or
Mhmm. The thing that gets forgotten, because
not always, I'm sure, but in most cases
in these kinds of relationships, that sub provides
service. Maybe they don't consider themselves a service
sub but they are providing a lot of
effort and work and labor
in that relationship.
Well, doms, what happens
when your sub is incapacitated?
Do you know how to make a sandwich?
I hope to fuck you do.
Do you know how to
do the things your sub does for you
that you can't not do? Like, if what
if you did say, well, sub, you're gonna
pay the bills. You're gonna you're gonna come
talk to me. We're gonna I'm gonna decide
things, but you do the physical act of
getting the bills paid.
Do you know how to log in and
pay your electric bill? Because that sub is
out of commission for any time. You're gonna
be sitting in the dark. Okay?
These are the things
where I am the killjoy.
The fantasy
of total power exchange,
the idealized
version in somebody's head
is gonna run smack into reality at some
fucking point. And there's certain parts of reality
you can't prepare for. Like, you can kind
of imagine it, but maybe you don't wanna
imagine it or you know it's a possibility,
but you're like, no. That won't happen to
us.
I'm too fucking anxious for that shit. My
risk assessment level is is like, everything's risky
to me. Okay?
Everything's a potential problem to me.
So I got a lot of questions.
Other folks don't look at the world that
way.
I'm gonna say if you naturally
don't think of the risks, I'm gonna say
and that I am begging you to think
of the risks.
What happened just think in best case scenario.
What happens if it if, you know, it's
just the flu? What happens if it's just
a broken leg? That's not great, but that's
better than
in the ICU. Like, I'm I'm not trying
to, like, depress anybody, but
what do you do if you can't do
the thing that you were supposed to do
in a situation where there's this much control?
Which is why I love the version of
power exchange that we have figured out for
ourselves.
Because,
look, you're not allowed to to leave this,
earthly plane without me. We're going out like
Thelma and Louise.
Nope. Hey. My kids have already gone. Mom,
you're not gonna be right.
And they said, when? And I said, if,
you know, mister John goes first. I was
like, no. If not when, if we're going
together.
The oldest
looked at me like I was kinda crazy,
but also with understanding of, yeah, you're not
gonna survive already. Not mentally. I will not
be mentally well.
But,
like, I know mentally, emotionally, I will not
function well if you are not in my
life. But because of the life we've set
up for myself for ourselves,
I can
pay the bills. I can call somebody to
come fix something if it's broke. Right? Like,
you have the control.
Mhmm. You have the decision making power. Yeah.
But I still have enough autonomy that I
I can function in ways that work for
me. You have access to every account I
have. Well, I took over as a a
service the money Well, true. During during the
the dark times. Yeah.
Because I was desperate to, like, protect your
mental health as much as possible. What I'm
saying too is, you know,
any account that I have anywhere regardless of
what it is, you have access to it.
We know each other's,
every I think everybody does this except people
who are, like, way tech savvier and more
paranoid. You have kind of a standard password
you kinda use in most places. Maybe you
change the numbers or the special character.
We have, like, three that we rotate through,
two or three,
and we know them. But also,
you have created for things that only you
really access because only you need them. I
know where to go find the password. Right.
I I know how to get into your
email. I sure should know how to reset
a password and can probably guess what that
password is if you forgot to write it
down. But we're just you know, that to
me, that's how this kind of stuff works.
I don't wanna get into his account. I
don't need to. But if something happens, I
could. You can. Right? We're not gonna all
sit here
dark, either hot or cold depending on the
time of year, and hungry because one of
us is unable to do
our highly selective function in this house. And
that's the thing I caution with any level
of total power exchange, any level of twenty
four seven. You know, we've we did an
episode
ages ago about codependence, and I think that's
when we learned the term interdependence.
And
we are absolutely dependent upon one another, but
we are also
aware that
we wouldn't want to, but we could minimally
function on our own. That's this thing that
partners in these situations
have to be aware that they can do.
Mhmm. You know?
Which is why I would give a lot
of side eye to somebody very young
pulled into a total power exchange with lots
of micromanagement
and lots of decisions made by probably the
older, more experienced partner. That would freak me
the fuck out on behalf of a very
young person. Because my question if you were
my kid's age, 19, 20, I'm a be
like, how
do you know how to pay the bills?
Do you know how to do have you
ever had that experience of being independent enough
that you can kinda, like,
fumble through life like the rest of us.
Right?
That, you know, we talk what was that
same episode that q and a? Somebody asked
about age gaps, and I tend to be
kind of
hands off on age gaps because we're all
supposed to be adults. But you really wanna
get my attention and make me worried for
somebody? Tell me about a total power exchange
where that one person has no lived experience
as an adult. And they were roped into
that. That's fucking predatory.
You know? Because now, yeah, it's real easy
to be trapped in a situation like that.
And people God knows. I think we have
all heard stories. We likely all know somebody
and or we are somebody
who has found themselves in relationships where they
got trapped and they were old enough and
they had
they had autonomy and knew how to, like,
be a functional
adult on their own and they still got
trapped. So
total power exchange does it's not come without
its risks. And that is the like, people
romanticize it. Like, oh, yeah. I'm always on
my knees. I'm always on my collar. I'm
always doing this. And I'm like, okay. But
do you raise children?
Anybody got a job? Anybody got a job
with a boss they don't like? Anybody got
a job with an asshole boss that makes
you work? You know, like,
how is this working in the real life?
Are you having the conversations
to plan for real life instead of that
romanticized
airbrushed black and white erotic photography
version
of Total Power Exchange that many of us
are sold. Excuse me.
So yeah.
Kim says in live chat, while I'm dealing
with menopause brain, I'd love twenty four seven
TPE just because it would come with lists
and rules that I can write down. Guess
what? You could do something like that. You'd
have to take the time to
negotiate it ahead of time. Right. But you
you could see, that's the thing that I
think is more doable
personally.
You're free to disagree.
Is that you plan the relationship as as
highly managed as you want it to be.
Mhmm. But you plan it ahead of time
and and
understand the expectations because any power exchange of
any flavor, everybody should understand the expectations.
Fuck down and refer to them as needed.
It's I think that gets a little harder
when life is a little bit more there's
more up and downs in life.
Like, if if folks are somehow in in
this economy still working the same job for
thirty years and the same schedule and they
know what they're doing day in and day
out and you have that sameness to your
life, it could be very easy to plan
something that's more highly managed, which I think
is the term I'm I'm just going with
when we talk about total buyer exchange,
because there's predictability
in it. Right?
But
may maybe I'm projecting. I just don't know
how many people have that much predictability in
their life.
Certainly not in this economy. You know?
So
that's where sometimes for some people, I think
total power exchange falls apart because there's an
unpredictability
to life. Mhmm. So planning ahead can be
difficult. Or
if I came to you all day long,
hey, daddy. What do you think daddy. What
do you think of that? Hey, daddy. Can
I do this? Hey, daddy. Can I go
here?
You would be so fucking done with me.
Part of that's personality, though.
But if we tried to have the total
power exchange that I think would fit best
for us, which is what I'm suggesting for
Kim, which is
plan all those rules that you're willing to
live by and that you want and all
that control that your partner might want ahead
of time and just
make it routine, make it part of your
day so there's less back and forth, back
and forth.
But there will be times when it wouldn't
be able to it wouldn't work. Right? That
that chaos factor.
Jamie's gonna be done with me
after
the end of the day of that many
questions. Mhmm. Anybody who has raised small children,
you remember you remember that feeling
where every other word was why? Why? What?
How does this? Why is this? By the
end of the day, you're like, I my
brain's leaking out of my ear. I don't
know why the sky is blue, and I'm
not even gonna Google it right now.
To me,
that's what it could be
for people who are trying to
force a certain type of power exchange that
does not take into account the unpredictability and
chaos that that life can bring. I and
I'm not there's somebody out there going, but
I fucking love that. Come ask me 80
questions in a row. I'm happy for you
and maybe you can make that work. That
would work for you. And there are people
who are built for that Right. Who can
do that. I am not one of those
people. No. You're not. Okay. No. I No.
I And I
know it, and I admit it. And I
think that's where
these are the kinds of conversations to have,
and I think that's another Mhmm. Factor in
broadening
our understanding and our
our definition of total power exchange. It's just
like our our
a lot of people conflate total power exchange
in twenty fourseven. It's one and the same.
So when I say we're twenty fourseven,
people go, but but JB's not controlling every
movie yet. Because that's not how we define
the twenty four seven. Right. Twenty four seven
to us, using literal definitions of words, we're
not making shit up, is that we are
always,
every moment of the day,
daddy and baby girl.
Do we tamp it down when it's more
appropriate to try to, like, blend in with
the vanillas? Sure. You know? Or to be
we gotta be a parent? Absolutely.
But there's not a moment
the moment we can put put that mask
down and be ourselves,
we're back to it. Right.
I think that another tell me what you
think about this. Mhmm. I think another it's
not a misconception
because there is a place for it. But
I think another thing that too many people
believe
of Total Power Exchange and twenty four seven
is that there have to be
a lot of fucking rules.
Now,
highly managed
power exchange? Yeah. Yes. In some form or
fashion, however you decide that. But, I mean,
technically, I have one basic rule,
and that is I have I can say
I have to be polite. Mhmm. I mean,
does that rule get, like, bent when we're
in the middle of, like, the kind of
arguments where we're like, who are
when this happens?
Uh-huh. Yes.
My righteous anger is not polite.
Ew.
But you don't push me to righteous anger.
I No. Once every couple of years, mad.
The other things I do are tasks,
are routines,
our expectations.
You could classify those as rules, sure,
but
we are not a highly managed
power exchange. No. And and we
actually kinda tried that in the beginning.
We we've sucked at it so bad.
Yeah. And and the thing with that was,
you know, the
that was the type of dynamic I was
familiar with. That's what
I came into lifestyle learning and and, you
know, having had at some point myself
and
Yeah.
You know, so that's what what I was
trying and and that's something too, you know,
you you can try this, you can you
do your TBE twenty four seven
and and, you know, if it's not working
change it up. Right. Change it up, you
know, don't be afraid to do that.
You can. No one's gonna come out and
no one's gonna pop out from around the
corner and say you're doing it wrong. Right.
And anybody on the Internet who tells you
they're doing it wrong, please just delete, block,
mute Right. Make them go away. Mhmm.
This goes to a thing I said to
you today and I think it might be
its own episode at some point because I
am in love with the fact that I
came up with this. I don't I did
not invent these words.
Somebody else just probably said it. But we
were talking about I was like, kink,
all parts of kink, power exchange, all of
it. It is highly customizable.
Mhmm. It's completely customizable.
The only three requirements requirements, communication consent and
risk assessment. You have to know what the
risks are and then use your own threshold
to decide if you're willing to accept that
risk.
But even those things are customizable.
I literally just finished a fucking workbook on
communication and I made myself crazy because I
was like, there's all these caveats I can
put in here about how here's the broad
strokes of communication, but also,
like, you know, there's so many ways to
do it so that it is effective for
you. That is true of every facet of
kink. And the problem is
too many folks come across these one true
wearers, these real ways, these right ways.
And it stunts that ability to think creatively.
Now
I say that as somebody who gets overwhelmed
with too many options, and I know I'm
not the only person out there like that.
So sometimes what we need are examples
absolutely to see what is possible.
But the there are too many people who
get stuck
and think I have failed at kink. I
can't do twenty four seven. I can't do
total power exchange. I can't do this. I'm
not a real that. I'm because
you're trying to make this
thing that you this very limited definition,
you're trying to fit it instead of making
it fit you. That is true of every
fucking aspect of this, including what we're talking
about today, which is twenty four seven and
total power exchange. I do not worry about
the what the world thinks about our relationship,
even though I put it on the Internet
twice a week,
because it works for us and we are
very
comfortable and there was a word I wanted.
Content?
That and
can't think of the word.
In what we have, we Yeah. Like, there's
there are no doubts for us. There's no
doubts for the words that we use. There's
no doubts for the way we express ourselves
in our relationship. There's no doubts for that.
Now,
did we, like, meet one another online and
just poof? It was like the fuck no.
No. Our power exchange has been through multiple
iterations
years. Partly every time I think because I
had to. You know, we started,
sir and
you tried pet, that didn't work. Sir and
little one, and then it was sir and
baby girl, and then it was daddy and
baby girl. Mhmm. And And then we've been
daddy and baby girl the whole time, but
we went from long distance relationship where we
were hardly ever in the same room, to
trying to live together and we try to
highly manage all these rules, all this shit
power exchange.
That crashed and burned.
We reconfigured it
and relaxed things and just kind of went
instead of it for us, I think, worrying
about all the things we do, let's just
focus on who we are and how we
relate to one another in our power exchange.
That's, I think, a little bit more meaningful
to both of us Yeah. More than the
the actual activities. Mhmm.
And even that has adjusted over the years
because
when we
first moved in together in 2014,
had
a three, almost four year old,
and so then a
seven, almost eight year old. That's a different
life than
teenagers
who can be left alone at home. Or,
you know, when you become the chauffeur of
a of a child and are taking them
here, there, and yonder.
You know,
all of those
transformations in, like, all of our life
affected our power exchange. And then as we
have willingly put on the Internet for literal
fucking years, then parts of our life imploded.
That absolutely
changed Yeah. The powertrain. And now here we
are, our whole shtick this year is we're
trying to get it back and reconnect. And
and, you know, the whole thing with the
with the whole twenty four seven and and
the TPE,
you know, it's
it
it changes, it grows, it evolves,
and and that's something, you know, if if
you reach a point you say, oh my
gosh, this isn't working, this isn't, you know,
we failed. No, you haven't failed. You need
to change time to change it up. You
know,
we are not the same person
we were five years ago,
ten years ago, fifth, you know. Right. You
know what I'm saying? So it it only
goes,
you know, kind of hand in hand that
if we change,
what we're doing is gonna change. Right. As
our life circumstances have changed. Right. You know,
when we went from having little kids who
slept very deeply
to teenagers who are up a lot longer
than we are, certain things changed. Right? Right.
When we were
parenting younger kids who had lots of questions,
but they weren't, like, nosy about what we
were doing. Right? They just thought that was
normal. That's how their parents behave, so that's
how life is. To teenagers who get to
see more of the outside world and go,
why are you doing it though? Like, there
are there are and I'm using parenting as
the example, but every part of life does
this. Has your health changed over any time?
Guess what? You already know
it's impacted you. Right? It's impacted your relationships.
It's changed how you relate to another and
or what you're physically doing together and how
your relationship is structured. And I say as
a person who
only likes the change that I decided was
a good change and planned for and,
bought all the supplies for. Those are the
only changes I really like.
Chain having to change things in your power
change because your life circumstances have changed
Mhmm. Like you just said, it's not a
failure. No. It is
the natural progression.
And
the
the whole time for us
since we've lived together,
we're we've been twenty four seven. And this
the nature of our power exchange has shifted
in all kinds of ways.
I'll I'll say again, And I guess it'll
be true,
when the kids are, like, self sufficient. They're,
like, living their own lives and paying their
own fucking bills.
Maybe then we'll call ourselves total power exchange
because the only reason I don't consider us
that is because of that one fact. With
the kids. Yeah. And parenting is is
a not as a big a part of
our life as it once was, but it's
still a good chunk of it that there
are times I have to be fully autonomous
to just go, yeah, that's what we're doing,
and then catch him up later and hope
he's okay with it.
Which I mean, that you know, damn. You
know what's funny about that? On one hand,
I don't have a single fucking problem with
that because
they're they're our kids and we gotta take
care of them. On the other hand, is
this submissive who just considers you the decider
all the time? Whew. There's some anxiety there.
Like, what if he really doesn't like what
I decided or did?
For us, this won't be true for everybody.
I know. But for us, we tend to
be on the same page about things and
we are not overly precious about our own
fucking ideas.
If I can make the case for why
doing it this way when JB would never
have chosen that makes fucking sense, he's like,
okay. That makes sense.
If he can get through my issue with
anything changing that I'm unprepared for and and
my feelings about that and tell me, hey,
I did this but here's why, and this
is the outcome. And I can see it.
I don't I don't need to argue my
point. I trust him. That's that's a big
part of it. I fucking trust him. Just
make the decision. Make sure the kid makes
it out alive. Okay?
Yeah.
But it is a very weird feeling to
me, which is why I think that based
on how we look at these things and
define our relationship, I would be perfectly happy
with total power exchange
minus, you know, if parenting wasn't an issue.
Sure. Sure. You know, part of it is
I I think
my personal opinion, if anybody asked,
is if you are parents or raising children,
I don't care, guardianship, whatever,
that is to me,
minimum, the one aspect that should not be
power exchange because one partner does not always
know best in any situation but definitely that
situation. Right? In my case, I have been
taking care of these children from literally
they spat out of the womb. Okay? I
almost shot the one across the room. He
was so close. It was it was a
wild story.
I am not abdicating that responsibility. I'm not
handing that responsibility to anybody. I will share
that responsibility.
The rest of my fucking life?
Psssh. Please somebody take responsibility for it.
I don't think I can be trusted.
And and yet,
I we neither one of us at this
point in life want a highly managed
total fire exchange. We don't that does not
work for us. No. It it doesn't fit
our life right now. No. It doesn't fit
our personalities,
though. Mm-mm. You know what's funny? We love
to be together.
We get kinda lonely for one y'all, we
live together. We work together.
We
we work at our house. Like, we don't
go anywhere
practically without each other. We are 24 fucking
seven more together. And yet,
when our day kinda pulls us apart just
in different parts of the property,
we'll be like, oh, I missed you. Like,
we want to be together, but
there are parts of our personality and parts
of our life that it we're not gonna
get anything done
if we are constantly up each other's ass.
And so I say that to say for
the person out there who's like, well, I
thought I wanted twenty four seven. There's something
about that appeals to me, but this one
example I've seen, I can't do that and
I don't like that, so clearly I don't
like twenty four seven or I don't like
total power exchange.
Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. But maybe
it's just your definition's been too narrow and
you're not customizing it for the life you
have. You want or what works for you.
Yes. Not one of us has to justify
our fucking power exchange and our kink life
to another goddamn soul. Okay?
The The only person who has to be
in agreement with you is the person you're
in the relationship with. Right. You know, I
highly recommend if you do go to the
virtual summit, please, please, please, please watch, Rah
Rah's session on comparison.
I don't know what what words she's gonna
say, but I know she's gonna tell you
to stop fucking doing that because
comparison is the thief of fucking joy. And
that I don't I don't like, like, pithy
little sayings, but that one's true.
Too many people are looking at what other
people do and going, well, I can't do
it exactly word for word like that, so
clearly I'm doing it wrong. Or you're coming
across the
grotesque people online are like, this is the
one true way. And if you don't do
it this way, you're doing it wrong. Fuck
them. I hate them so much. Or or
you get, I want exactly what they have.
We used to get that a lot, and
I would always go, no. You do you
really don't.
We have an episode in our archives from
five or six years ago. I literally said,
please watch out for those hashtag relationship goals.
Like and I used us as the example
because it was happening a lot at the
time. I was like, no. No. No. No.
We're we're wrecks. Okay? We got our own
fucking issues. Please don't try to be exactly
like us.
Be whatever the best scenario is for you
and your relationship. That's what you need to
do. Yeah.
So
let's try a recap.
Okay. Twenty four seven
in the broadest sense of the word means
there's no real stop to who your you
are, your identity, your power exchange.
Even if the activities
die down, even if you need to pause
because somebody got hit by a car on
their motherfucking motorcycle and your life sort of
imploded all at once. Right?
But I'm not bitter.
You hold that close to the vest, don't
you? We're traumatized. Yeah.
Look, I would be
I'd be a wreck if I didn't let
it out, so we're just gonna have to
let it out, and I'll never get over
it.
So broadly speaking, twenty four seven just means
your power exchange is not something you turn
off and on and it's not maybe
maybe it's not bedroom only. You know? It
kind of comes out into other parts of
your life. It inhabits other parts of your
life in whatever way makes sense for your
life, and in a meaningful way to you
and your partner. So that in some way
you're like, yeah 20 fourseven
this is who we are to each other.
Are there a lot of rules? I don't
know.
Are there a lot of activities? I don't
know. Do you have to ask your dom
for permission on all things? I don't know.
That's for you to decide based on the
life you live. Total power exchange
is twenty four seven,
but
it means,
in my mind, there's not a facet of
your life that is not governed by your
power exchange on some level,
some level.
And truly, the only reason I don't consider
us that is because of
the parenting. I'll just say it 85,000,000 more
times to really drive the point home.
But you can define that for yourself. You
might have a similar setup to us where
we have the parenting thing. We're co equals
there. That there's no there's compromise. There's no,
you know, one overriding the other.
But everything else you do and you might
go, but that's total power exchange to us.
That's fine. I'm not gonna tell you how
to define it for yourself. But total power
exchange, my point is, it is much more
and has the capacity to be much more
than those highly managed,
shit ton of rules,
get permission for absolutely everything, every moment of
the day kind of things. You can have
that. You can work towards that if that
if that's what you want and you can
make it work with your life.
But it is
less than that as well.
In whatever way makes sense to y'all.
None of us need to be walking around
here justifying
how we've
you know, put together our power exchange for
the life we're leading right now because nobody
else is living our fucking lives. Nobody else
has our personality. Nobody has else has our
mental illnesses, our physical
disabilities,
our
you know, our jobs, our bills, our
so
yeah. That to me, that's 20 fourseven and
that's total power exchange. And I guess my
my conclusion, tell me if you agree, twenty
fourseven
is
the umbrella,
and total power exchange fits under the umbrella.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Look.
I think reasonable people can agree to disagree.
I think you can define that anyway. You
could go, no. No. Total power exchange is
the umbrella, and but that's just how my
brain is looking at it. Looking at it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because total power exchange,
in my mind, is always twenty four seven
in some way. Right? Because if it's a
total power exchange Mhmm. Then that the Dom
has some level of control
and power
totally all the time. But
twenty four seven does not have to be
total power exchange.
I think it's a little bit of a
mind fuck. And quite frankly, what I would
say is I don't think there's a right
or wrong answer. You're right.
The only
right or wrong
is see looking at one example and then
deciding because you can't do that one version
that you can't do it or you're doing
it wrong.
Or to look at somebody else's example
example and it doesn't match yours and to
think they're doing it
wrong. So
that's where we go wrong with it. I
think Mhmm. Again, because, man, there's always somebody
somewhere who gets real fucking snarky. Yes. Words
mean things.
Yes.
But, also, you can tailor that. There is
some wiggle room
in what these terms mean and what they
mean to you as an individual.
It also does mean that you
end up explaining yourself more. When you tell
somebody you're twenty four seven and you're in
a conversation with them, you might then need
to go, this is what this means to
us. Right?
But it's only if you want to, quite
frankly.
I,
silent in the live chat, says maybe they're
both umbrellas, but you've got two hands. I
kinda like that. I'll take any analogy because
I'm not good at those.
I do I think it's that's one of
those weird ones where I if you
same, okay. If you don't,
okay. Yeah. As long as it makes sense
for your
situation. That's that's what I would say.
There you go. I made myself hot well,
I mean, it's hot outside. Mhmm. But I
I raised my blood pressure, and I made
my my throat sore.
And they said it was gonna be a,
high pollen day.
Mhmm. And they are absolutely correct.
Yeah. My white car is yellow. Yeah. And
I saw somebody driving a dark colored car,
maybe it was black, and it was yellow.
Yes. Now I can tell my eyes not
won't don't aren't
my eyes keep watering. Mhmm. Mhmm.
So did we help? Did we annoy? Is
it clear as mud you I
don't know.
All I want is for somebody out there
to go, okay. Okay. I can do this
the way I want. I'm not wrong. I
didn't do
it wrong. You know, this is achievable, whatever.
And then I want somebody else who's like,
oh, wait. It shouldn't be like this hellscape
that I'm living in. It can be different.
Yes. It can.
But yeah.
Because it's all fucking customizable. We're gonna do
that episode. It'll be a ranty one, I'm
sure, that has no real general point other
than we'll play a drinking game over how
many times I say customizable.
Just like we should have played a drinking
game with this one how many times I
said highly managed, but then we probably somebody
gets sick. And I don't need that kind
of liability, so maybe we shouldn't do that.
I don't know.
Anyway
Anyhoo. Do you have anything else you would
like to add? No. You did a good
job, girl. Oh, thank you, daddy.
I
I feel like I've run out of words.
I ran out of steam on the topic.
Does that help?
If people ask more pointed questions in the
future, I could see coming back to it
because it's a nuanced topic. There's There it
there's more to it. There's a lot under
that umbrella. The this we're just talking about
the umbrella. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.
Not the person standing under it. Nope. Or
whichever hand they're using to hold whichever umbrella.
That's true.
I'm not allowed to hold the umbrellas.
I,
hit other people accidentally
on a busy London sidewalk.
No. I'm not I don't get to control
the umbrella. But I'm a Florida girl. I
don't like fucking using umbrellas anyway. Give it
five minutes. The rain will stop.
Anyway Anyhoo. Gonna do a bonus section.
This one this one a little more off
the rails than usual, didn't it? Are we,
are we good, girl? You shouldn't ask me
that. I'm not in charge of that.
Keep it kinky, y'all. And we'll see you
next week.
Can I talk to the crickets?
Yes. That was the fastest
move from Keep it kinky y'all to
hey, I almost forgot I needed to ask.
I'm usually waiting for you to write down
numbers. Yeah. Yeah. I I like these this
little trick I learned. I know. Only ten
years
later. What the fuck? Look. Look. Learn late
than never? It proves there's always something new
to learn. You can teach an old dog
new tricks. I wasn't gonna go there.
I'm not trying to get into that kind
of trouble today.
Thank you very much.
It's okay for me. Yeah. You'd you'd be
in trouble. Exactly. But if you said it
to me, I would just cry.
True. Because I yes. I'm getting older, but
I
I don't know about aging gracefully. Yeah. I
don't think I've got it. Yeah. No.
No. I I've I've you know,
we we've talked about what we've been going
through with Lola a little bit and I,
you know, I've, She heard you and opened
her eyes. Ditching.
And,
you know Hi, Lola. I I, you know,
when we were going through all that stuff
with the vets and trying to find the
right meds for her and everything, I was
like,
you and I, kid, we ain't we ain't
nothing about this is graceful for either of
us.
No. You're aging more gracefully than you realize.
Maybe. I don't know. I mean, do do
you have a top of your head that's
literally split between your dark your dark side
and your My dark your dark side.
I mean, the dark side, I don't know
if It could go either way. I could
Right. Well, that's always been true. And, actually,
it's not either way for you. It's always.
I could go always, and we know we
know. We know.
Part of your charm.
But but yeah.
Yeah. No. I I see it every time
I, you know, look at Look in the
yeah. Yeah. Podcast,
folks, even if you don't usually watch YouTube
video, you're a podcast listener. I'm just saying,
go find one
one of our more recent videos Yeah. And
just look at the top of JB's head.
That's all I'm saying. I think there's a
little,
spot happening here too. Do you want me
to tell you that it's been happening for
a few years? Yeah. I don't look back
there very often. So I look. I'm good
though. I figure the back of my head
is not my problem. It's somebody else's problem.
I don't have to look at it.
I mean, I don't want to be a
rat's nest back there. Yeah. No. I've,
it's where I like to rub the top
of your head, and I'll there's a little
bit of, oh, god. Did I did I
rub too much? Like, worry stone? Like,
did I just polish that brass statue? Like,
you're gonna whoop my belly. I'm gonna go
away and rub my ham. I wish it
worked that way.
Fucking hell.
Fucking hell. Wish it worked that way. Look.
I'll rub you wherever you'd like to be
rubbed, but, you know, what what made that
face? You made a face.
Yeah. I did. Did you leave the door
open? Yep. I've just been screaming about twenty
four seven, and we didn't even close the
office door.
Hopefully, the kid is smarter than we are
and just closed
their damn door.
He he he sits with his headphones most
of the time. That child don't hear shit.
No. I think it's because he mostly just
doesn't want to. Right. Right.
So but, yeah, what kinda I'm I'm I'm
sitting here, you know, we're talking,
and it's like I'm watching Ella
just walk up and and lay down in
front of the door. Yes. She's And it
and it did not dawn on me.
Where she came from? Yeah. Yeah. And then
went like,
how'd she get in here?
I know. She's cuddly enough. I kinda wanna
scoop her up and put her in front
of the camera, but that would be the
time she decides to be her bitch self
and I would just get scars. And I
don't really want that, so
I'm gonna respect her bodily autonomy and not
pick her up without consent.
I don't have to, like, give her medication
or make her do something that is good
for her health, so I'll just leave her
the fuck alone.
So what else we got going off in
the
the bonus section? I saw the I said
this to the in the butt rub, but
I saw the 19 year old yesterday. Mhmm.
That was the most one of the most
interesting
air quote. It was not a visit visit.
It was a mom, I need food and
I need to go to Walmart. Can can
you come?
And I, you know, I was like, yeah.
Sure. And I had all the time in
the world.
Normally, if I go see him in the
middle of the week, I'm on a tight
ass fucking schedule. I gotta get back. And
I was like, no, I got time. I
took the day off.
I'm working, like, under my own power. I
don't have to wait on anybody.
He was on top of his game. He
was actually awake and showered by the time
I got there. There have been a few
times
neither were true.
And so I'm like, I'm prepared for this
to be three, four hour outing. He gets
in the car. I let him drive
because I just was like, he does not
scare me in his driving the way he
used to.
He's he's learned caution riding a motorcycle, and
I appreciate that.
But I'm like, I'm fully prepared. He
he's a college kid with no fucking money.
I'm like,
do you want to be fed? I let
we can go get lunch. He goes, no.
I'm not actually hungry. He goes, unless you're
hungry. And I'm like, I'm actually not hungry.
We went to Walmart where look.
Spring break in a college town on Tuesday
at noon. That's time to go to Walmart.
That was the least stressful trip to Walmart
I've ever had. Hi, Lobla.
That was twenty minutes. We go to Aldi.
That was twenty minutes.
And then he talked to me for a
little bit. Like, he we've
ranted and raged at, you know, the current
state
of
our country.
And then he was like, okay. I wanna
play Destiny. You can go now.
I
was like,
I see you later. And what I thought
was gonna be a three or four hour
excursion was, like, two hours tops.
I was like, okay. And, actually, it was
an hour there and then the drive to
and from home. Like, it just it was
so short. And I was like, oh,
this is actually kinda peaceful. I have the
afternoon
kinda to just fuck around and do what
I wanna do.
Yep. I don't know what to do with
that kind of power.
We had a and we had a busy
beginning of the week.
Every day I've woken up this week, I've
been like, how is not Friday? It feels
like it should be Friday. Yeah. It's not
Friday. Yeah. We had a we we had
planned on this because, we had a tree
service. What? I'm just thinking about how that
all went down Monday.
Yeah. You know, it it was funny.
Had got some estimates to do some tree
work in the front front of the house.
Had three very, very
well, two very big trees,
one medium big tree
in the front yard,
and it's been reduced to one tree at
this point. Which now looks like a broccoli
stalk. It does. It's been, so You come
down the road, it looks like yeah. It's
just the very top cam canopy left right
now. Mhmm. Yeah.
But,
It looked like a mushroom before that canopy
was so full. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway,
yeah. It was kinda funny,
because the,
the fellow I talked to from the company,
you know, you told me they've been tied
up doing a big job somewhere else. And
once they're done, they're gonna, you know, set
their schedule and and, you know, let me
know when they'll be out.
So,
Monday morning, we get up, and we're just
doing our thing. And I'm I'm expecting I'm
gonna get a phone call, you know, tell
me or email me and let me know,
you know, when we're on the schedule. I'm
in the garage pouring resin, making you know,
finishing up paddles for folks. Yeah.
And here comes a line.
Three It was a convoy. It was a
convoy of massive trucks. And at first, I
was like, oh, I wonder
I wonder whose house they're working on. And
then I saw the name of the company.
It And I was like,
oh, shit. And the first
the first truck in the convoy only pulled
a little bit past our house. And I
was like, oh, shit.
And all these people and all these trucks
and the neighbors love to come out when
there's some activity.
And I'm like, I I'm literally stirring resin.
I cannot stop or I'm gonna waste this
batch of resin.
And I just, from the garage, call JB
who's out at the In the backyard in
the dining shop. And I go,
hi.
Tree service company seems to be here?
And all I hear
is, oh, fuck.
From a man who almost never says that
word.
He comes like, rush now. I mind my
damn business, y'all. I stand in the garage.
I watch them all, and I'm stirring resin.
And I don't say a fucking word because
I know my daddy's coming. They didn't say
nothing to me because we get to live
in this patriarchal society where I'm the little
woman. I wouldn't know anything anyway.
And I just and I don't wanna talk
to him. I don't stare. And here he
comes, like, JB came out like his ass
was on fire. Here's the backstory to this.
Because the backstory to me is a little
it's not nuts, but it's a little nuts.
We got quotes
weeks ago. Yeah. Okay?
They had done work on our house before.
They were our top choice. They ended up
being the best price.
But they had given we were only doing
part of the quote. So JB had to
call and go, okay. I don't want the
full quote you gave. I want the front
yard quote. Okay. We'll have to resend that.
You have to sign that. Well, that was
like two days before they resent it, and
JB electronically signed it, and it gets sent
in. Okay.
And
we had been told you had been told
at that time, okay. Once you get that
in, we'll have our girls call you and
put you on the schedule. Okay. Well, a
week goes by. Then another week goes by.
And I'm like, have you heard? He's like,
I haven't heard. Then he calls, doesn't get
an answer. Then he plays phone tag with
a guy for two days.
Then dude calls and is like, yeah, we're
the whole company's on this massive ass job
out of town. We're no we're near our
schedule. It's like, so you brought the girls
with you. Like, who's making the schedule? Yeah.
And then he says well, Jimmy said, I'll
call you. We'll get you on the schedule.
No. I mean, they probably clearly got us
on a schedule. They just forgot to tell
us. Yeah. That we were that we were
first on the schedule. Monday morning, bright fucking
early.
And thank God,
like, we are as we get to be
as flexible as we need to be. I
was more like, I well, I was I
would not be pouring
all of these paddles. Yes. That is a
paw you're looking at. Yep. Those are hearts.
Uh-huh. I'll just be stirring
my rest. Yeah.
And then that so everybody they were very,
efficient. They were very professional. They Yeah. They
were little worker bees, and I like that
shit. I think that's great. They had a
supervisor there
who's watching everything. Fine.
You did what I need you to do
in these situations and you just did all
the talking. Perfect. I had to stay in
the background. Y'all steady stirring fucking resin. I
had so much resin to do.
I'm I'm wearing my,
noise canceling headphones that that I got as
a business present so I can listen to
stuff
and, like, protect my fucking ears. And this
this is a time to need it if
ever there was one. So I'm I'm not
focused on anybody around me. I am stirring
resin and pouring red. This is what the
fuck I'm doing. And something makes me go,
what? And I turn, and old dude who
I don't know is in the middle of
our garage staring over my shoulder.
The
The the paddles,
doll, where I'm putting resin in them. And
I'm like,
so, you know, I'm smooth and suave and
got my shit together. All I do is
just turn
and just kinda go and look like, cock
my head to the side, tilted the side.
I was like, And,
yeah, never said a fucking word. I was
listening to my podcast
and went back to stirring my resin. I'm
pretty sure that guy thinks that's all I
do is just stir
resin. I had nothing to say. He was,
like, on my like, by my shoulder,
like, quiet. He did not announce himself. He
did not actually speak to me either. I'm
not mad about it. I'm not mad about
it, but it was still kinda weird. Like,
he was just in our in our garage,
in our in our garage.
The neighbors, they were in all at hissy.
The across the street neighbors were there in
a heartbeat making sure that we were not
cutting down the pretty tree. The big tree.
Yeah.
I was like, okay.
No. We we we decided,
with the front with,
with all these trees that we had there,
and these these storms that have been kicking
up, it it's time to reduce
the amount of trees around the house. Mhmm.
Mhmm. It our our front yard looks very
weird now. Yeah. It does. And to to,
like, keep the comedy of weird shit going,
it's not errors. Nothing went wrong. That was
just kinda all like, what?
We and I'm pretty sure this is why
the quote was, oh, as painful as it
was.
We are are gonna have we're supposed to
have that day down. The two trees that
came down,
the stumps grinded. Yeah. Stump grinding it, whatever
it's called. Yeah. Grinding. Okay. That machine stopped
working. Mhmm. They were gonna come back later
that day. They could not come back later
that day. They couldn't get it fixed. We're
now two days late. Have you heard from
them? Here's what I think is gonna happen.
On, like, a random Friday afternoon, they're just
gonna roll up and start grinding stumps, and
we'll be like So, yeah, there there is
there's one stump that's half ground.
Yeah.
It's all paid for. Fully fucking ass paid
for. So they need to get their asses
back here and grind my stumps. I'll I'll
give them till next week, and then I'll
remind them. I'm demanding that these people come
grind my stumps, and that just sounds like
an innuendo to me. I don't
do you need your stumps ground? Would you
like somebody to come grind your stumps too?
I could be interesting.
Could be interesting.
Yeah.
Anyhoo.
So yeah. It's Yeah. Got other stuff going
on too, but save some of it for
Friday
Yeah. For the hangout.
Yeah.
I I think I said everything that I
have Yeah. Well, and I I meant to
say this at the top of the bonus
section and then forgot because I didn't put
it in my notes, but I also by
the bonus section I'm never referring to my
notes anymore. I would have missed it. It
wouldn't have mattered.
For anybody who was
a Patreon member during our membership drive and
now no longer is for
all kinds of valid reasons, not just because
we're probably annoying as fuck.
All so proud of myself. All Patreon membership
drive perks have been dispersed
out. Things in mail, things in email inboxes.
I got it fucking I had to give
myself a pretend deadline that only I fucking
cared about
and then worked solid through the weekend to
get it done.
But it is done. Yeah. It is done.
And in a couple months,
that workbook that was a perk, it'll be
available, you know, for sale and stuff. But
I'm gonna I'm gonna let it, like, rest
and sit
for a hot ass minute.
But yeah. So I did that too. I
just wanted to say this, and I thought
this was pretty cool. And the reason it
stuck out to me was because years ago,
I ran a stump grinder.
Okay.
And and
those things are
a bear. Mhmm. K?
They'll they'll
they get you going. So we really do
want our stumps grinded, don't we? It's very
fun. Okay. I can do that. But, but
anyway, the,
apparently, the stump grinders
that they have Mhmm. It's remote controlled.
Everything's remote controlled. He did not have to
be on that machine, hold the machine, and
operate the machine. He did it all by
remote control. Can you can you just imagine
how many
injuries would have occurred from having to hold
that fucking thing over the years? Oh my
gosh.
Yep.
But, you know, as somebody who has many,
remote controlled
stump grinders oneself,
I do understand the appeal of remote control.
I do understand the appeal. Okay. I think
maybe we need to go.
And, I've got some more. Remote controlled stump
grinders that I did. Grinding to do. You
left you left them on the kitchen not
the kitchen. The bathroom sink together.
Y'all, I'm gone for three hours, and I
come back. And in our bathroom
is like
it's a different kind of Toy Story is
all I'm saying. Okay?
Some somebody's stump got round. That's
yep. With remotes. I solved them.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Look, I'll be riding the high of making
that innuendo work for a long time. I'm
a very proud of myself.
So anyway Anyhoo. Yeah. Alright.
We will Let, let these folks get on
with their day. Go go back to whatever
your normal is because I know this ain't
it. Yeah.
It's
fine.
It's
fine.
Okay.
Right throat.
Thank y'all for,
being here. Yep.
Especially to the bitter end. Thanks for,
tolerating whatever ranty bullshit comes out of my
mouth.
And we will hopefully see y'all on Friday.
Bye bye. Bye.