Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. You are live from the path. And you're listening to Live From The Past. This is from the Pathway Studios. Here at Johnston Proper. I was in the middle of telling a raccoon story.

You guys missed it. What was the end of the story? Did you shoot the raccoon or what? Yeah. Sure. Was he was he being nefarious? No. I felt no. He wasn't. He was just living his life. He I he totally creeped up on me. Makes you angry. We had we I thought my wife thought thought she saw a fox, and we got, like, sixty sixty birds. We got, like, 20 chickens, 20 ducks, and 20 guineas at the house right now. Yep. And so, like, once a fox usually, once a fox gets on the property, it takes, like, three or four chickens for for us to notice that the fox is slowly dwindling out the chicken population. Then once we figure it out, we gotta sit in there for, like, a week and a half to try to catch it. And normally, it likes to travel in and steal a chicken at, like, 04:30 in the morning, which is before dawn. And so you almost gotta shoot the thing in the dark and it's it's just terrible. I hate I hate doing this and so but we thought we saw one like last week and so I go out sitting at night just hanging out waiting for this thing and and I post up behind a tree and I'm there for about twenty minutes and here comes this raccoon come right out of the corn and he's like six feet away from me staring me right in the face. I'm like, no, man. Turn around. Go away right now. I don't wanna have to shoot you because we because a raccoon do the same thing. It'll eat a bunch of chickens and I won't be able to tell until we're we've lost so many that it's now it's a real problem. I'm like, go on, man. Get out of here. And he didn't. He just stared at me and then kept coming closer as if he thought I was part of the tree. I'm like, I don't wanna shoot you at this distance. This just feels wrong. So but eventually, I I I had to and then that was he was a big dude. He was a big fella. I've had to shoot a fox before,

pretty close-up because he he had the mange, I guess. And so there's something wrong with him. And so it turns out I was sitting outside waiting for this fox for, like, three hours. I'm about ready to give up, so I go look in the chicken coop to put sure the chickens are put away. And he's sleeping in there, like, diseased and dying. I'm like, oh, man. You know what? I'm like, well, we don't wanna we don't wanna shoot it with a, you know, with a big heavy gun, you know, at, like, no distance or whatever. So I had to go borrow something from the neighbor. But he was dying anyway, I'm like, we're just doing him a favor. But, I mean, you could open the door and point at him and he wouldn't move at all. I'm like, boy, this guy's on his way out. This feels terrible.

Keep the pelt? We kept the tail. Yeah. The girls have, like, these Moses looking staffs with fox tails on the end. You gotta cut off the tail and or you deglove the tail. The tail, like, slides off, and then you fill it full of salt to whatever.

Get all the moisture out and then and then preserve it. And and then you got a cool Daniel Boone style foxtail. What do they what do they do with it? With the foxtail? You know, do they shake it at stuff? No. We didn't put, like, rice or whatever. Like Rafiki from the from the Lion King. No. The monkey. The baboon. No. We don't no. We don't do that. We just put it on a staff just for walking around. I'm disappointed. Yeah. It's just too bad. Alright. I think you could do more. Yeah. You're you're missing out on opportunities was the whole point. I'll keep that in mind next time. Oh, man. You can turn him into a wallet. Well, we're not we're not, like, leathering him like fox leather? Yeah. Raccoon leather. I never even thought of that. Me neither. I thought about it because of the bunnies. I thought, what am I gonna do with all these pelts? Yeah.

I'll turn him into a wallet. I'll take a wallet. A a bunny wallet. Yeah. It's it's actually a lot of work to to, like, leatherize these. Yeah. I was watching some YouTube videos. It seems like it's gonna be a real pain. So we okay. So I did this with a deer skin last year. We we took it and then and then, like, we you have to scrape all the skin off and then you gotta tan it and we can lift the fur on one side figuring we'd use it like, I don't know what we'd use it for. We don't have like a log cabin feel going but like like a piddle case. I was tired of wasting it, right? Like I'm just chucking it. So we figured we'll try to do, you know, we'll try to use all the resources we have And, boy, this stuff was is a lot of work. And and apparently, I didn't tan it quite right because it ended up in the bed of my truck or on the seat of my truck as like a I don't know, some kind of Hunter's Anthem. I don't know why it's in there. I tried to get it to sit over the over the bench seat, and it just keeps springing up straight and then and then loosing hair all over the place. And it looks like an old man because there's white deer hair just all over the truck. I'm like, I gotta get rid of this thing. Oh, yeah. I'm so tired of this being in here, but it doesn't stink or nothing, so we must have done something right. Well then, you're listening to live from the past. If you wanna share your stories about how you've

murdered and otherwise then utilized a carcass of an animal I would say stay away from my place and we're liable to skin you. That's all I'm saying. That's that's what could happen. Alright. Hey. Hey. So here's what we got going on the show today. The question on the table

is is whether you have just totally failed at something. Like, attempt like, I and this could be anything. You could have tried to do something and it failed, or you were supposed to handle a situation a certain way. And, like, it it wasn't just a, oh, I could have said that better or I could have done that differently. Like, you had high expectations of something going well, and, like, you just completely biffed it.

Mhmm. The question is, has that ever happened to you? And if so, in what way? Okay. I have an answer. Nathaniel, do you have an answer? Yeah. I have an answer. Dan. I I honestly this sounds like really conceded. I can't think of it. Yeah. Dan has done no wrong in his I blocked it from my memory so I don't have to dwell on the past negative experiences. I I think only of, you know, rainbows and sunshine.

Yeah. Unicorns. Okay. So Maybe something will come to mind though. I okay. I'll you a quick story. This happened at work probably a couple months ago. We were down in Texas, and it's one of those long shutdown things. And

we had found a problem just as we were about to be done for the day. Started like four in the morning, and it was about eight eight or 09:00 at night. And we were just getting ready to turn everything on. We turned all the stuff on. We haven't been walking by something and it went I'm like, oh, no. So the guy found it and we had shut it back down. We opened thing back up. Turned out like we had two electrical cables that were shorting together Mhmm. Inside this piece of equipment. And it was medium voltage,

which like normal house voltage is like a 120 volts, 240 volts for your dryer, that kind of stuff. This is like 15,000 volts and that comes into a big switch. That's the medium. That's That's a heck of a jump, man. Yeah. I think high is everything over sixty sixty thousand. Okay. Okay. So anyway, so it turns out these things, need, new ins put on them. And I'm an electrician or I'm a licensed electrician, but I haven't put putting on, like, medium voltage ends is kind of a big deal. There's, like, three or four different layers to them. If you cut it too too much, then you cut into the insulating properties and it tracks and blows up, and it's a big hairy deal. And they're like, alright. Well, we gotta have this running. So let's get the ends coming, and the electricians

can put them on. And meeting me and one other guy. And I'm like, oh, man. I haven't done this in like fifteen years. This is I said, yeah, I can do this. No problem. I've got this handled. So then they put me next to this guy and who's done one recently and is pretty good at them. And I ain't kidding you. Usually, if if you're really doing pretty well, you could get one done in like half hour, forty five minutes. And it's it's it's really involved. You gotta you gotta cut. There's like four layers of insulation. You gotta cut them and they're like millimeters thick. You gotta cut off just one, but if you cut too far into into the one below it, you gotta sand it out with this sandpaper. Otherwise, the electricity will just fall right in line with it. I'm like, okay. It's not gonna be a big deal. So me and this other dude start working on it. And he's got his about wrapped up at, like, about an hour. And I'm five minutes into it, and I have nicked the crap out of it with the knife, and it is almost unsavable. I've gone through, like, not only my portion of sandpaper in case of accidental nickage, but I also borrowed his. And then I also opened up the extra package we had bought in case something had gone bad and took the sandpaper out of that one, trying to get this big gout

is going so bad. And I thought, that's alright. I'll I'll I'll I'll get this wrapped up in the end. So circle around 02:30 in the morning. Mike's is not still still not done, and I cannot get this dick out. And, like, I'm just I'm I'm embarrassed and failing. I've been at this for, like, four hours. There's probably 10 people dead tired, but they've been up for twenty four hours by this point watching me fail at this. And the guy the guy next to me, I'm apologizing profusely. I'm like, I'm so sorry, man. I'm not doing this very well. It's really embarrassing. He goes, no. No. Don't worry about it. But maybe you should just let me have it and see if we can get this straightened out. And I'm like, yeah. If you think that's best. And then I walked off with my tail between my legs after having failed in four hours. And it was horrible. It was just horrible. Total total failure. It was I mean, here I mean, once again, I mean, these are these are like professionals. You know, like in a group of dudes, I am the sorriest excuse for an electrician on the site, and I have a license, and no one else got no license. It's just me, you know, and everyone else is doing this way better than me, and it was it was totally embarrassing. And I I I didn't redeem myself. I straight up failed. And that was the end of the story. But that's that's rough. That is rough. Don't you feel I mean, like,

I mean, you're dying on 40 years old, Mike. What's it feel like? Like, it's hard to take in being as old as you are and feeling like, boy, I just I failed totally. Yeah. I did this so bad, and there's nothing you here's the thing. It's like failing by yourself is one thing because you can kinda keep trying at it and and work on it and and take another route and buy a new one if you have to and whatever and we're fine. But like, that wasn't this situation and I had to fail loudly in public and it was a disaster. And then they had to test it when I was done. And I just sat there going, oh, man. I hope they test mine last And I'm I'm gone. It it passed though. That other guy really straightened it up and and and redeemed it. Nice. Okay. I've I've got one now. Okay. Dan, thought about it. Thought about this. You're up. It's a food one. A food one. I'm in my early twenties, renew pretty newly married. I'm at work and, a guy tells me he has this recipe that he tried the other day with a chili that has hot dogs in it. And, he said this is the best hot chili he'd ever had in his life. I thought, well, I'll try that. It'd be great. And, so I get the recipe from him and I go home and we invite the mother-in-law

and father-in-law over. And, I'm telling Cheryl we have this new recipe. It's gonna the greatest thing ever. It's chili and it's got hot dogs in it and, it's just gonna be amazing. And she's like, my my mom can't eat hot dogs. She hates them. Oh. She like hates them. I said, but we gotta I got the recipe. We're gonna do this. Yeah. I said, I I can hide the hot dogs. They they won't even know there's hot dogs in it. That's that's how good this is gonna be. So I so I ground them up. I put them in a food processor

and I and I put this slop of ball of the hot dog. And it's a lot of them. Maybe, I mean, a half a package or a whole. I mean, it was a lot of them. Mixed in with the beef and everything, and I cooked it and and and and it was terrible. I mean, they took one bite and both both her the the the wife, the mom, and mother-in-law, and father-in-law, and they were both just like, I'm gonna throw up, think. And and I'm sitting there like

yeah. That was embarrassing. I ground him up so far. I think you'd notice. It's like, what an idiot. Yeah. Yeah. That was terrible. Oh, man. Okay. Yeah. That's super rough. Yeah. Okay. Alright. That's a major fail. Nathaniel? I have lots, but the one that I shared earlier with Ben, which

made him think of this tangent, is I in college, they would have like open mic nights at the at the student center or whatever. So I would I would think of funny jokes to say, and I would do some stand up comedy. And

it usually went okay. Not great, but not terrible. Mhmm. And then, just out of the blue, I'd been graduated for like two years. And one of the guys who was still was like a freshman when I was doing it, He was like, hey, we're we're revamping the the open mic night. Do you wanna come because I was still living in town. Do you wanna come back and and do some comedy? We're gonna have like five guys doing some comedy. And I did not want to at all because I had not thought of a joke in years. But I agreed to it.

So I'm sitting at work, you know, wrenching on stuff, trying to think of jokes all night long because I worked the night shift and not coming up with anything at all. But I cobbled together what I thought to be ten minutes of solid material. Three in the morning. Yeah. Three in the morning. Like it was This will be great. I was trying to figure out how a machine works and thinking jokes at the same time. And

most of my jokes were either very obscure or related to mechanics.

Mhmm. Or because I was working on machines all that. I thought this will be funny. I thought I'll get a real kick out of that of this torque wrench joke. But one of them, it was right around the time that Eminem had released a kamikaze album where he was where he was

he came out with all these all these beefs with all these other rappers. And so I thought it it would be real funny to talk about the Christian rapper KJ five two who came out with a, like, a 2003 song called Dear M and why there wasn't a a KG five two response on this album. And I spent, like, at least three minutes explaining the joke because

no one got it. They're all looking at you. Yeah. But I I stood up there and just bombed hard for like a full ten minutes and just sat in it and it went bad. Boy. And I haven't been back since.

Okay. I thought of one more. Okay. So I I was I was asked if I would play piano at Pants' brother's wedding.

And it's not it's not really I'm not great at that type of piano. I'm more like a bar flashy blues type piano, you know. But they wanted to do like the wedding march and all this other stuff and I'm like, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. So I I mean, I I really practiced my tail off and I struggled. These are not this is really hard for me. And and so I worked at it, worked at it, worked at it, and I thought I thought I finally had it nailed. And here comes the Bing wedding ceremony. And in walks, my old music teacher,

and she hated me for, for great reasons. Right? Like I was not a well behaved teenager. I was very disrespectful to to to her and school in general. And so she had full rights just to not think very much of me, you know. But I was always pretty good musically. And so, like, most people would just put up with it. And here she comes in and I'm like, that's alright. That's alright. I played this piano just fine, you know. And then you can hate me, whatever, for personal reasons, but my piano playing is gonna be solid. And boy, did I screw it up so bad. Like, I mean, I couldn't even get through the wedding march. I was hitting wrong notes. And, like, I could just feel her gaze glaring at me. I'm like, I'm such a failure. I

I I wanted to leave, but pretty sure that we were like DJing the wedding or something. And like it was just a total disaster. I was so embarrassed. I'm like, man, I just wish I wouldn't been such a turd when I was at school because like this is horrible. Oh, okay. I got another one. Ben I I got another one too.

And I Good one. Ben and I figured, you know, we played in a band back in the day. We figured we had all this equipment. We should be DJing weddings. And so so this one, it started off innocent enough. Someone recommended somebody to us and we're like, yeah. Let's let's meet you at a coffee shop or whatever. We'll discuss the wedding plans. So Ben and I show up, and we're supposed to be there at eight. We get there like tent tail, and we sit in these chairs. And then, it's about twenty after eight or whatever, and no one has shown up. We're like, man, maybe we got stood up. It turns out that they were sitting right across from us the whole time and never said anything, didn't whatever. And so they were livid. They were livid mad that we had allowed this to go on for twenty minutes without saying anything. So we're like, oh, I'm so sorry. Whatever. Just a mix up. So they give us the they give us the the list of tunes they want us to play and we're like, yeah, no problem. So we the wedding comes up like a couple weeks later. We bring our rig, the computer dies. And so we got zero tunes. We finally get, like, these almost every tune they wanted patched together, and we got the speakers kinda working, and it was going really bad so far. And the the dad was super mad at us already, and the mom hated us because of the coffee shop ordeal. And finally, the daddy daughter dance song comes up. And we play the exact song they asked for, and the the bride and the the the dad

stop dancing directly, look at us, yell like, that is not the song we discussed. And I'm so tired of I mean, just super angry, you know. And like, it was definitely the song they had discussed. They had changed their minds like since they told us and and hadn't actually let us know. And like, boy, I don't know if we could have felt any lower. It was a complete failure. Right? We got out of the DJ business right after that wedding. That was the last one we ever did. Yeah. I don't know how Boo Boo does it. This is people are high strung anyway at weddings. And and I like, we didn't even get free food. And like, we tried to grab a soda and the dad caught us. He's like, are you I don't pay you to drink soda. I'm like, boy, we gotta get out of here. This is the absolute worst. Wow. Yeah. That was rough. What what was your nutator? You thought of another one? Yeah. I was working on this machine one night at work. And I there

was a problem with these two sensors where something that was supposed to be going down was actually going up. And I was goofing off with it and I couldn't figure it out. And I tore it all apart.

And then I got busy with something else and I walked away from it. And I called the guy who was running that machine and I said, hey, I'm working on this. Don't goof off with it, which he took to mean, let me just purge it out for you, and I'll goof off with it. And so he he he crashed

the whole machine. Oh. And it was a it was a big mess. And so then I had to take the the whole thing apart. And part of that was putting a pipe wrench on the gearbox of this machine.

It's a basically a big turntable, and there are different stations that do different things to the product. And so I was turning the gearbox over so that I could move it manually, and I thought I had it in the right spot to hit the go button. So I walk over to the little

computer screen to hit go on this piece of equipment, and I had forgotten that I had left the pipe wrench on the gearbox. No, no. Yeah. And so I hit hit go, and wham, it just slams right into the the frame of the machine.

And I thought to myself, this has broken a tooth or something. Is a I mean, it's probably like a, you know, a $2,000 gearbox. Right. And the people are gonna be mad at me.

And so I go over there, and it did not pop a tooth. It popped the clutch. But then I couldn't figure out how to get the clutch to pop back in. And so I spent, like, all night long goofing off with this thing and, like, rearranging these little cams that run the the the the sensors that show it when it's high and when it's low. And so I'm just adjusting them and trying to turn it and pop it back in. And in the morning, I had to tell my boss, hey, I ruined this machine. Yeah. So you know, that one's Nathanielized.

And he said, so how'd that happen? How'd we get off on this? I was like, well, it started off with a sensor. Yeah. Do you describe you do you always describe you working on something as goofing off? Because I mean, maybe that has given him the wrong impression of your efforts. Yeah. I mean, maybe I should change the way that I talk about how I work on things. I'm just goofing off on this machine here. Goofing off with it. Just fiddling around with it. Okay. I got I got one more. That's it. I was I was working on a generator. It's at the top of a very tall building downtown. It's like 30 stories up, 15 stories up. I don't know. It's it's high. And so the stairway will only get you up so far and then you have to take like this ladder

to get up to the roof. Takes like 80 gallons of oil. K? So so I don't it's already rough rough gig. The oil comes in five gallon peril barrels or buckets, and you got hauled up with a with a rope, and it's it it stinks. Right? So it's already crappy job. So and and you can't start till midnight. So about 02:00 in the morning, I finally got everything done. I got all the oil in and I'm about ready to start carrying my empty buckets down before I start running it. And I look at the bucket and it's not actually fifteen forty diesel oil like it's supposed to be. It's 30 weight hydraulic oil. I'm like, oh, no. Oh, no. What have I done? I got 80 gallons of the wrong oil in this in this generator.

So I'm like, well, I thought this is a disaster. What am I gonna do? You know? So I I get all the empty buckets back up, and I start filling them back up with the oil I'd put in there, but I don't have any new oil to put in it. So I had to break into my own workplace, like on the sly hop a fence, whatever, grab two I had to I grabbed two rounds of the ride oil because I gotta put it in there, run it for, five, ten minutes, get it all flushed out, get all that stuff back out, and then put wait. So I need a 160 gallon? Yeah. 160 now in five gallon five gallon buckets, 14 flights of stairs, and then a roof hatch access. I'm I'm like, oh, man. And so, I mean, I got out of there at, like, six in the morning, and and and I I kinda I got to work on on Monday after I'd done it over the weekend, you know, my boss goes, how did it go? And I'm like, everything went great. He goes, I see that you bought a 160 gallons of oil. And I said, I don't know if I did or did not, but I think you should probably charge it to the job and just call this one a loss and don't ask me no more about how what happened. He goes, I think that's fair. Is everything good? I said, everything's good. We don't wanna talk about it no more. He goes, okay. Sounds good. That was the last we spoke of.

Okay. So had a 100 and a 160 gallons of oil just laying around? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. We Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a dealership. We got we got diesel engines everywhere. So, yeah, there was plenty of oil to go around, but me having to and I it was three in the morning. Who was I gonna call to help me? Was by myself. I carried I mean, if they're in five gallon pails, it takes 80 gallons. Do some math. You know what saying? There's a lot of pails of oil I carry up there. I was worn out. Oh, boy. That seems terrible. It it was terrible. Now I'll tell the story afterwards, but I wait about six months before I tell everybody what how bad it actually was. Okay. I'll do mine. So I I have a number of them. But the the first one that came into mind was when I was in college,

I was I was going for an English. I was an English major. And so outside of your classes, you also had to write like a like a major paper in your senior year. And so

you're to you're supposed to do a number of strategic steps on this thing. Like, you meet with your adviser, you tell them what you're thinking about writing on, they give you a bunch of feedback, you do drafts, they look at it and stuff. And then you ultimately, this paper gets turned in and then you have to defend it in front of the entire English department at at the college.

And so I did none of that. I did not talk to anybody about what I was going to write about. And I wrote I wrote it with like, I don't know, three days to spare. And it's like a 20 page dissertation type of thing. And

I made a couple of of tactical errors. The first one was not using any of the, having people help me. And because of the because if advisor had got that far, then they would have at least some investment in defending it with their colleagues. But I didn't I didn't do that. And the second thing was the paper, was about, the details aren't super important, but it's about literary criticism. And basically, called out,

English, like, folks who do English stuff, mainly professor types, that they put their opinion too much, in describing books. Like, literary criticism is a lot about people going, here's what I think the author meant. I'm like, you're supposed to suspend disbelief and just accept the world that good has given to you. I don't care what you think. If you thought if I cared what you thought, I would read a book by you.

And like that was the essence of the And so you have to give this report in front of a panel of academia. Yes. And you were pretty pretty much criticizing academia. Yeah. It went really really bad. Really bad. And like, I am a

I am a straight I'm a like an a a plus student in English stuff. I'm a solid c minus in foreign languages just for balance. Yeah. But, like, I mean, they hated it. The whole thing. They I even had, like, a cover that had a quote on it in the very front. And one guy spent twenty minutes on how much he hated the quote. He says, you took it out of context. I'm like, it's a quote. It means what I said it means. Like, the words are true just because it wasn't what from the story it was. Because here's the deal, it's not scripture. I'm not trying to teach a contextual thing. I heard this guy contextual thing. I heard this guy say this thing. I said, yeah, that makes a lot of sense for what I care for it to mean, and I put it on the front cover. Anyway,

like, I they they rejected it. They flat out rejected and said, we this is garbage. We we flat out we we don't want anything to do with this paper. Wow. And Don't they just get to say, we disagree with it heavily, but they write graded on its own merit? No. Nope. Wow. Okay. But I mean, they could have done that. But I think because I had not done I was going to school,

part time. I was working part time, and we had just like a young kid. And so, like, I just was not handling my time well. And so I tried to cheat. I tried to I didn't cheat, but, like, I tried to get away with not putting as much time in this as most people put into. And so it was it it just I remember leaving the campus that day and driving home. And of course, I lived like forty minutes away from the campus and like it was I felt so dejected in my life. Like, I I just wasn't used to failing so hard. Yeah. And having and having people who I don't know if I say I were respected, but, like, they were respectable people who knew what they were doing. It's that attitude right there that got you in trouble. Yes.

It was. Yes. It was. And and frankly, it led to one of the one of my biggest regrets, to be honest, in life is like, I I was I got mad. I was just so mad that they rejected this, is that I turned around and I refused to meet with someone again. Because like you get to follow-up and this time you don't defend it. You just turn in whatever the follow-up is and then they'll then they'll grade it. I chucked the whole thing because I they hated the premise of it. And I wrote like a short story that was 20 again, 20 some pages long.

And they were super excited about it. They thought it was really good. But between you and me and the eight people that listened to the program, it was foul. It was a bad story. I was I was mad and like what what freely flows out of my tongue is is sharp,

crude, but kind of funny writing. Like, I'm I'm way funnier on the page than I am out in the open. And like, if I read this back, it's an admittedly funny story. But like, it's got all kinds of like inappropriate stuff in it. Like, it was bad. I should not have written it. I read I'm I'm embarrassed of it. If like, I've read it back recently,

and I'm ashamed of what I of that that I had published something like that. But the thing is is like it's a big it's a their mindset, the way that they look at the world, they loved it. They ate it up. They thought it was fantastic. They they gave me a b plus because I still didn't meet with anybody. I just freelanced it and wrote on my own. Like, I didn't revise it. I just wrote it. I wrote it all in one night and handed it in. So like, that that particular instance was both my greatest well, like, of my greatest failures of the feeling of utter failure, and I'm super ashamed of my reaction to it.

Even though they very much approved of the output. But, yeah, like, I just felt it felt like, hey, you put so much you put a lot of effort into schooling up to this point or whatever and to have it just so when it's really comes up to it to sit in front of, like, five people who run this English department, they were like, this is just terrible.

We we reject this whole premise. It's just all bad. I said, boy. That's because it's not very often that someone says, reject the entirety. That's not only the thought, the execution, everything that you've done. Everything that you've done or put into this or thought about, and the fact that you thought it was good, we find even more insulting. Yeah. And like, I just hate it. I hate this. And you, frankly, I hate you as a person. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. This is what what the hard part of that was is like, I I it was well written. Like, know it was well done. It was it was well researched. Was well quoted. It was well written, and the argument was good. It was just offensive.

It was offensive to them. And, like, I'd run into things like that before. Like, I'd written something for another class and the guy gave me, like, a d plus and had written a bunch of comments and stuff. And I I created like, it was a 10 page paper and I ended up reading writing a 15 page rebuttal to his d plus. And he came back and he said, yeah. Well argued. B plus. I'm like, safe. I'll take it. Like, that guy was I felt like he was reasonable.

Because he because he agreed with you. I can't even believe he read it, the 15 pages. But anyway, like, it just felt it just it felt awful. It felt awful to have failed so badly. Yeah. Especially because, like, I knew I probably could have done better. Like, had I followed Yeah. I could have set myself up for better. And so, like, I it was not only a fail, but, like, I knew that I contributed to that failure. Mhmm. Okay. I got a super super short one. Okay. Alright.

A an attorney passed away. Super highly respected attorney in the this area. Yeah. And the family asked me to do the funeral, met with family, did all the stuff. Yep. I'll be there, made all the appointments and times and

funeral starts like at 02:00, think in Perry. I can't remember where. Somewhere how far away is Perry from here? About forty five minutes. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Forty five minutes. In my head, I'm thinking to myself, that's about fifteen minutes. And and so I'm sitting at the office thinking, I don't wanna leave too early Right. Because, you know I look like a rube. I'll just be roaming around Perry. Yeah. And so I wait.

And then I jump in the car and I put on the GPS. I'm like, holy crap. Oh, no. I'm forty five minutes away and it starts in fifteen minutes. Oh. I'm like, it's a funeral. I mean, it's not like, oh, I'll meet you for coffee. And like, oh, they were not happy. Come on. And I was like, how can you know, I'm sorry sorry this this wonderful,

you know, patriarch of the family passed away. I don't respect and his big thing was being punctual. Oh, no. So I kinda made a little joke about he'd really be angry at me. Yeah. They're all just gave me daddy. He slapped that one. It's like, oh, it's a funeral. The last thing I did was disrespect him. Oh, no. And then you were just sitting in your office. You wouldn't even I know. Could've been there. And I was just thinking, wants to be early. That is and it's a family that's like it was friends of one of my girls, and they're they're kinda in the Upper Crest and then we're kinda like, you know, we're

in the the The pie at the Walmart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just was not impressive. Oh, man. And so it also made it difficult on my daughter, you know, who's like, you know, best friends with family and

her Dang. Her friend is now like an attorney in Washington DC. I mean, it's like this one of those families, you know. Yep. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah. I think hard enough. I can think of all kinds of awful failures. Yeah. That's unfortunate. That's that's a tough half hour or so to sit there in front of people mourning thinking, yeah, just made it worse for you. Oh. Here's thing is like that is the toughest part, like, especially when you're supposed to be speaking, entertaining, whatever. A crowd of people that you know do not like you. They're all just sitting there. Yeah. Waiting. They're just waiting for you to be done. Nobody wants to be there. Yeah. You're like, boy, we gotta get out of here. Yeah. It's it's having it's failing and then having to represent yourself as if you were confident Yeah. In front of those groups. Now have you ever had this experience as a pastor? Where like you're given a sermon, you're like, boy, this thing is a stinker and everybody hates it.

I've had a few of those. Have you? Yeah. Where I was preaching at the at the small country church Yeah. And it would just was not going well. I can't remember what I was talking about. I wish I I wish I could. But I know there was one in particular where I left that week and I was like, that did that did not go well. Yeah. I think everybody's had had you have to have a few of those. You have to. It's

I had one where I read Ben's sermon because he was sick. I remember that. Yeah. Like Ben had Ben Ben was supposed to be preaching that day and then he got real sick or whatever. And he's like, I I need you to read this sermon. I'm like, yeah. I can read. This would be no problem at all. Of course, I roll in there with full hubris here. I got this covered. And like, I'm stumbling all over my words. I'm I'm pronouncing the Greek wrong. Like, I'm attributing things that don't belong to somebody. I try to expound on a point like I'm like, wrote the thing myself. Yeah. It was it was meandering and had no point to it at all. I'm like, I don't know. It's a disaster. Remember I remember specifically you said Pax Romana, whatever that means. Thanks, Ben.

Yeah. I was super upset because Ben always writes these lofty, you know, whatever, harder to understand to to dummies like me type sermons, you know. And, like, the points are always good and it always makes sense. It's always well written, you know, but, I'm trying to read it off the page and I'm like, Pax Romana. Is that supposed to be one word or two word? I don't understand what's going on here. It sounds like a side dish that they all have gotten to. Yeah. Why is there so many Harrods? I don't know who cares about this. I so mine wasn't, like, topical or anything like that. Like, the the contents of this like, I've certainly had

a number of things that I thought were very cute and that no one reacted to. That happens a lot or used to. I cut all the cuteness out. People don't tolerate it. But like, I did almost poop my own drawers during a sermon once because I just got, like, I get nervous. I get a nervous stomach, and it was such a weird place to be nervous because like, we had started we did at the church, Dan does two services.

And we we decided we were gonna tack on a third service early early early morning for the oldies. I don't know if that's offensive for the oldies or not. It doesn't it didn't last. But so we did, like, a super early oldie service. And so I get there, and there's not like but I know nine people in there. What's that? Super friendly. Yeah. Like, I love all these people. And something about the whole situation just made me nervous. And like, I probably I I made it through this whatever singing or something was going on. And then I probably got five or six minutes into the service sermon and I'm like, you're gonna have to excuse me. And then I had to and when I I don't know how to go too far into it, I get the nervous poops. It takes a while to go, like, have it finish its course. Like, you can't just go and come back. Yeah. And so I think I was gone for, like, twenty minutes, and then I come back. I'm like, well, what

do we got left here? And, like, that felt it's there's always something in the back of my mind that no matter how nervous I am, my body will have the self constraint, the restraint to not do something like, hey, you're gonna have to walk out in the middle of this in the sermon. Or like Mike said to bail me out a couple times, like, it was what was it? It was during a we were I think that same DJ gig,

like, wedding was at the same place or maybe it was a different one. But, like, just as everything was coming up, we just had to have the songs lined up and played and, like, it just I was super nervous. And I end up being in the bathroom during the whole the whole wedding. Mike had to, like, take over and do the wedding stuff. Which is helpful because I'm pretty callous to people getting all fired up. I'm like, well, stuff's broken. I'll sing at acapella. Yeah. Here we go. I just I don't wanna disappoint people. Like, oddly, like, don't particularly care about their that they what they think. Like, if their feedback was, hey, I don't like the contents in your sermon, but like, just the notion of like, I don't know. It just feels like I might disappoint them, and it made me so super and that's happened multiple times where I'm like, no. Your body will never betray you in this way, and it has multiple times.

Oh. Okay. Hey. You're listening to Live From The Path. I you know, I I didn't have a particular, like, theology reason or anything to talk through that. I just Nathaniel was telling that, him bombing at that, comedy story on the on the way here. And I thought that, like, it's just a, maybe it's just a helpful thing to one, it's there. I hope the the stories are interesting. But, like, I guess just a reminder that, I mean, it's okay to it happens. Like, sometimes you just stink and, like, I wouldn't paint my whole life by the fact that, like, five liberal English professors really hated my paper. It doesn't come up very often.

And there's all kinds of, like, some of some of them in fact, everybody's had a failure that was related to their work in work that they still do. Like some relevant thing that is still applicable to their lives. Like, no one got kicked out or whatever. And so maybe if you're sitting on in some kind of failure and it feels super heavy now, just I mean, give it a little bit of time. Maybe share it as a laugh with someone who enjoy it and maybe move on. Yeah. Share with the complaint line. Yeah. Or call the complaint line. (515) 517-0085. And here's the thing. You can send us an email at [email protected].

Although, I'm not even sure I get those anymore, to be honest. Maybe I do. Just just somebody give it a shot. Shoot me an email, [email protected], and I'll reply to it if I get it, in case it's a real long story. But if you got a short failure that you wanna just find some relief from,

by sharing it with us, go ahead and do that. That's (515) 517-0085. You can call or text. That's the life from the Path Complaint Line. Nice. My my preaching professor used to say, if you lay an egg, take a step back, observe it, enjoy it, take a moment, and then just go on. Yeah. Don't sit there and go, oh, I can't believe oh. You know, that just makes it worse. Yeah. That yeah. That's true. Yeah. Just embrace it. Yeah. Appreciate it. That's true in in most Yeah. Either public speaking or like if you play in a band or like, you know, like, most people will not notice that you actually screwed up. You will consider it to be a large failure.

Well, unless you're Nathaniel. But, obviously, like most especially especially in a band, like, if you didn't do what you intended to do or whatever, usually my advice is to live there. Act like you've done it on purpose and then do it again and act like it was part of the deal, you know. And then or say, boy, I really bombed that. We're just gonna we're gonna sidestep and move this direction. But like, you keep referring to it, then you brought people into the failure. Yeah. And then they'll live there with you and they won't hear anything you have to say from here on out. Yeah. That's what I did at the comedy tonight. Is that I was like, man, I'm bombing hard. But then I because I wanted to live in it and and soak in all the all the bombing juices because I felt so bad. I just came up with more things to say. So like I was up there for even longer because I couldn't stop myself. Okay. Yeah. Don't do that. That's a weird mistake.

Okay. I did sing I did sing Paradise by the Dashboard Lights with my mother-in-law one time. And I don't know if you've ever heard that song by Meat Loaf. Like over Sunday night dinner or what? No. We were we were at I we were at somewhere eating dinner and they had karaoke. And like someone had it up there and they're like, we should do this. And I'm like, yeah. Okay. No problem. Well, it gets a little saucy at the end of paradise by the dead point of And so and so, like, at the end of the like, towards the end of the tour, I'm like, I gotta get out of here.

This is super awkward. They had me sing at a wedding once. Some of these people, I'm like, I'm I'm a preacher, like, have me preach. But they're gonna do the singing at our wedding. And it was the Robin Hood, everything I do, I do for you. Oh, yeah. So it like really high. Yeah. And I'm like, okay. So they had this really formal beautiful wedding and here's the guy getting up there, everything I do.

Look into my eyes. Oh, yeah. You're a bold man. Was like, yeah, I'll do that. I was like, I guess. I said, you understand that's too high for me. Oh, we don't care. No. This will be great. Well, that was yeah. That was a You should have the voice of an angel. I should have taken my pants to get out of it. Well, that's still on video somewhere, I'm sure.

Well, I gotta be honest with you. I hate weddings for all that reasons. Yeah. I just I can't I can't stand all the the pump and and and whatever. And, like, I just every time I look at the DJ, I'm like, oh, you're salt of the earth, bro. I just I couldn't do this gig. It's it's so horrible. The peep the whole party's depending on you. Like, this is the most important night of my life, and it all depends on your speakers and your laptop. And you're like, woah. Woah. I don't like this. Yeah. I'll never do that again. No. No. That seems bad. Alright. You're listening to Life From The Path. We appreciate you hanging out with us tonight. I I don't, I look for a couple articles. I didn't see anything entertaining. So Mike, let's do some advice and we'll we'll call it a day. Okay. Sounds like a plan. Hold on. Ready?

Oh. What does it mean to be ready? That's I usually say that when I'm waiting for the Internet to do do what it wants. Okay. Well, then I'm ready. Dear, life from the path. I've been with my boyfriend, quotes John, for a year and a half. Mhmm. He had been divorced for two years after a twenty year marriage when we got together. He told me that he and his ex, quotes Jessica, were still pretty good friends. I thought it was okay since they were co parenting their kid. I have a children of my own, and I understand.

I gave up everything and moved two hours away to move in with John. Then I realized he was constantly talking and texting with her. Then I noticed all the food containers in the fridge were from her. It made me realize how much he depends on Jessica. John told me they were divorced because they grew apart. When we discussed it further, John admitted he still depends on Jessica for everything from dinners to paying his bills and daily conversations. They are both in relationships and continue to act like this. Their, quote, kid is now 18 and has graduated from high school. Am I wrong for not wanting to move forward in this relationship? John doesn't seem to want or need me. Confused. So, you know, these are great questions to ask before you move two hours away in. Would John? Oh, yeah. Maybe you should have sussed that out. I feel like you you really put yourself in a predicament.

Yeah. Like, are you are you that not close to this man that you wouldn't know that most of the Tupperware belongs to his ex wife and that they chat daily? I gotta be I gotta be honest with you. I mean, if you'd go over to a single man's house and he got a bunch of Tupperware in there, he didn't do that. Somebody's bringing this stuff to him. Good point. Good point. You should be looking for Jimmy John's rappers and Quickie's. And you're like, hey, man. This makes sense. But like a dude that got all the stuff all Tupperware up, there's a woman involved in here somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what what was sorry. I just so I react to the right

what what was the premise of the the question again? Am I wrong? Am I wrong for not wanting to move forward in this relationship? No. You're not wrong. No. Yeah. I would put the brakes, the skids on that directly. Yeah. I mean, don't know what I mean, you want a like, when you're part of a a mixed family, right, that it has some co parenting going on, like, want amicable relationship between the parent. Although, I mean, is it really a threat to you that I mean, paying his bills? I don't know. Come on. This this should be more of an indication of the level of man you're involved with opposed to his relationship with his ex. Right? Somebody that does not pay their own bills,

keep up with their own food, or I mean, the conversation I think is fine. I I don't I don't know. I've not been part of, tried to tried to have a relationship with somebody that has been married for twenty years. Like that relationship isn't just gonna break completely apart unless it ended very badly. And it sounds like it just they kind of just drifted away from each other. So I mean, you don't want them to to be fighting or Like have every day though, would you assume they have something to talk about every day? 18 year old kid. And they're seeing each other face to face too if he's getting Tupperware. I mean, it's not just texting. Yeah. That that's that's I think that's all I feel like it's the bill paying that I find super weird. Or maybe or maybe his ex wife Jessica is just overly generous. Like, just thinks about him

and says, well, I mean, made enough meatloaf and my current husband Tom don't care. So we'll just pack some we'll drop some off to John. Yeah. So I think it would be that that, like, if to the extent that John, like it's okay for her to be kind. It's okay for him to go, you know what? That's okay. I live my I live my own life. I'm involved with this woman who moved in with me. Maybe you should you don't need to bring my meatloaf over. Take your meatloafs out elsewhere. I mean, nobody wants to walk into a a relationship and believe that they are second fiddle for the rest of their days. Right? Will she always be playing the second fiddle to to ex wife Jessica? Especially with their kid 18, graduating from high school, getting ready to move out, you know. I mean, I suppose you can wait and see how that flushes out. But like, I I still think you should have discussed all this before you've been with the man. Well, I mean, I guess here's the thing. Food is intimate.

Like, it's a close sharing food is a close thing. Even if you're not, like, eating in the same room, it's like like like you're making a meatloaf or something. Like, people who bring leftovers to your place, like, if you're gonna bring food to someone, don't generally bring leftovers from your fridge unless you're close to them. You generally you get them a gift certificate somewhere or you make them something that like, this is this we made separately for your family. It's the whole lasagna, not whatever my family didn't eat. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, it's a weird it's well, it's not a weird thing, but it is for that relationship to be that way.

It it it it it it implies, like, to allow someone to care for you, again, also encourages a certain level of intimacy. That's not wrong between partners, But you certainly, for clarity and for recognizing what it like, the history that you have, you shouldn't continue to allow

with your with your ex spouse. And I think the constant and the the talking all the time, like, I'm glad they're a friend. But like, I mean, I don't talk to even my close friends every day. That's a lot. That's a lot of talking. Yeah. I I think it's what we expect out of out of a marriage type relationship. Right? Like we expect that relationship to be different than all other relationships. We it it needs to be of the utmost intimacy and and there's certain things that like don't get shared with other people. Yeah. You know, and so like, if you're taking all of the

it seems so silly, you know, that like the his ex wife drops off food to him, why would you be mad about that? Because as a couple, you guys decide what you're going to eat. Your menu isn't set by his ex wife. And like, I I realize it seems trivial, but like, it's a it's a it's a control and a pattern and a and a and a decision making tree within your marriage that like, if you let too many of those things go,

you're actually not even driving the boat of your own marriage. Right? Like like she's playing an important managerial role in the way your household runs. And your household should run as a married couple, how the two of you are are in constant control of it. Right? Like you you don't let outside forces control those things. Right? That's how you keep a protected marriage. That's how you keep a home raising kids in the way that you want to and that you designed to. And so,

I think it all sounds pretty innocuous and like we might be overreacting. But like once again, I think she has just a little bit too much input. It's the bill paying. I don't understand that. I the bill paying, I just do not get. Let's say she's super generous, drops off food, John don't cook for snot, and she's like, his food's terrible. I wanna make sure that whatever he's at least eating. I that's one thing. But, like, she's still paying his bills and talking to him every day. Don't know what you have to talk about with your ex wife, you know, constantly through Yeah. Maybe he's not marriage material anyway. Yeah. Maybe not. Right. Maybe not. Nathaniel.

Hey, sex. Get away from him. Okay. That's it. He's got he's got too much grace coming from this room already. We're done with this guy. Yeah. K. Secular says, to say that John is overly dependent on Jessica would be an understatement. And Jessica seems to like it that way. You don't know that. You're not wrong for preferring not to move forward on this relationship. You're intelligent. For you to move forward, Jessica would have to step aside and it appears that neither she nor John is open to doing that.

Yeah. I wouldn't load so much on Jessica. I mean, maybe the guy actually behaves in such a way where like she feels like she has to care for him. And it's actually a burden on her. Maybe she doesn't love it. Yeah. But be but she still cares about him because they they had a kid together and yeah. So I mean, I wouldn't overload on that. But I'd I would definitely wouldn't move forward. This doesn't seem like a healthy situation to put yourself in. What else we got? Okay. Let's do

your life from the path. I'm a 31 year old woman who has been in many relationships since high school. We're we're gauging since high school. That's our time period. You 31. No engagements, however. Although four of the men mentioned they wanted to marry me. I lived with three of them. I'm a former model. I've almost completed my second master's degree and hold a steady government job. I don't understand why I feel so depressed just because no one has ever wanted to marry me. I've wanted kids my entire life and I thought I would have have three before I was 30. Now I cry every day thinking how I may never be in a relationship with anyone who will love me enough to marry me or have kids with me because marriage never happened. I have a college fund set up for my future children and I've done everything in my life to prepare to be a mom. I paid off my student loans early, got a car that was perfect for car seats, and a dog that's good breed for kids. I just don't know where to turn next. Well, if you weren't

given out what the guy has wanted without the commitment, maybe they'd get make a commitment. I don't know. Even by the way that she's described this situation, any dude that can take in a whole conversation would feel like, I feel like you're just using me to get a baby.

You're not like, I got an apartment that my husband might enjoy. Or I asked him what kind of dog we would get. Or she's like, I planned for kids. Got I the car for kids. I got the dog for kids. I got a college fund set up for kids. And the dude's over there like, I could go for a wife though that cares about me in any any regard. I mean, not to say the dude's a big sap monster and he needs a bunch of patting on the head, but like, the way you tell it, it sounds like you are pretty open and honest that you are just basically looking for a sperm donor. So you can get the kid. The guy is completely inconsequential to the conversation. And any dude worth his salt does not want to be in a marriage like that. Does that seem unfair? Is that am I overly criticizing this woman?

No. Bought a car, good for kids. I don't have no kids. No. Right. Like I yeah. Yeah. A lot of what she has focused on is not finding them a good marriage partner. It's it's preparing for children. True. And it's also centered upon what she wants and her and her only. I want to be a mother. I want to have kids. I want not I want a family, you know, I want to have a husband that supports me and I support him and and whatever. It it just it feels a little bit too self

self centered to me. Yeah. And I and then to I think in combination of both of those, like to Dan's point and to yours, I think to the extent that you've moved in and lived with three of these dudes, you have like, one, it might feel aggressive to them. And and two, like, you might be a little bit too excited to latch on to to the wrong fella and then give them what is ultimately a marriage experience without having to make a commitment for said experience.

And so they don't have any motive, like, the wrong guy has no motivation in that scenario. The right guy wouldn't agree to it to begin with. Mhmm. So her question was, I don't know where to turn. Like, what do I what do I do next? What's what's the move here? Well, I mean, here's the thing. This is gonna sound like a fairly pat answer. But without no based upon your description,

it doesn't imply a full faithful loving and following of Jesus with your with your actions. Right. And so here's the thing. If you are a if you are a faithful follower of Jesus Christ and all the boxes are ticked that you just listed off, you will have no trouble at all finding a decent man, who also loves and follows Jesus.

John, there's no trouble. No. That's true. That's true. The way you've described it, you're you're a catch. You're you're you'd be you'd be excellent. I mean, once again, your attitude seems to be weird, but like, past that, and and in general, like, as as a single person that's that's, you know, approaching 30, you're kinda laser focused on your life being good or not good based on this one thing. Right? And you have plenty of opportunity to love and serve and and fulfill,

you know, the the things that God has put in you, without this marriage component right ticking right now. And so I know that's hard to hear. I know you feel like everybody's getting married around you and they should have blah blah blah. But like our divorce rate is high for a reason because people are getting in and out of marriage that they probably shouldn't have been in. Right? And so like it's it's it Ben's right. A faithful following of Jesus Christ. And if you're looking for a man that it also does that and you both agree to that,

you'll have one heck of a marriage. Yeah. If if you're looking for for men at at a club or a bar, they're not looking for marriage. I would say, hey, find yourself a good church. You can get a little dose of the baby stuff. Work in the nursery. I know that's not your children, but you're working with babies. And and guess what? Guys looking for marriage tend to be in churches. Yeah. So I mean, maybe you're looking in the wrong spot. Yeah. She say she cries daily? Yeah.

She feels like life is passing her by, Nathaniel. The the clock's a ticking. I know. But that seems like a lot. She seems she's very Daily. She's very successful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, does anybody else get like a little bit of a vibe that she's got some sort of something about her personality?

What if you're crying daily? Yeah. She may lack humility somewhere where she's not saying, hey, you know what? I also am like this and chase people away. Yeah. I mean, I this is gonna sound bad, but like, I would I would scare me that I would not measure up to whatever this woman's expectations are. Right? I am not a former model. I wouldn't even I I mean, my kids are like older,

and they ain't got no college fund. You know I'm saying? I haven't thought about that. We we stuffed them into a car that was not good for children for, like, the first three, four years they were alive. You know what saying? Like, all these things were not anything that concerned me at all. I had a wife and I was happy, and we had a family and I was happy. And, like, all this stuff just, you know, you let life kinda deal with it as you come. And, like, you you know, to have all these things all set up, some dude's like, boy, I just feel like I don't fit in this picture at all. Nothing that I say actually has a has an impact. Right? Like if you're this way about cars and, dog breeds that are good for kids, I mean, how are we gonna do about mayonnaise? Or what we're gonna have for dinner? Like, am I lose everything? Do am I like just a a paper mache,

you know, dude in this in this entire scenario? Whatever I think, whatever I feel, whatever I add to you or you add to me is inconsequential because you have this plan. And it's just hard for it makes the guy sound super sensitive and, here, but like, everybody wants to feel needed and important, especially in your marriage, you know. And so like, if you've got all these plans and the guy has a question mark and it doesn't matter who it is, then a guy's not gonna feel like he he belongs in that relationship. You're not adding to him and he's not adding to you. He's just a way to get what you want. Yeah. I suppose a relationship of which in which what the guy thinks is of little con consequence will always lead you to the wrong types of guys. Like, you don't want a guy who's who is okay with his what he thinks being of little consequence. Like, where his opinion doesn't particularly matter because you've got it all figured out. Like, that's not a that's not a good that's not a partner for you. Yeah. And that's not what a life for him. Like, who goes, well, you know, just whatever he wants to be just fine. I'll, you know, go ahead and pay my bills and bring me some meatloaf over even after we separate. Like, I just think it's the

yeah. You might be looking for the wrong types of guys on an end. I mean, I think you should be oh, it sounds like you've got yourself well together. And it's a it is often a blessing for people who can think ahead and plan ahead well and set up a good scenario. Yeah. These are not bad parts of your personality. Yeah. As I'm saying, your ability to look forward to the future is not it's very helpful. And I'm sure there's plenty of dudes who just absolutely love that because they they're more of a whim type fellas, you know? Yeah. As long as it just doesn't as long as it doesn't create a life of which, one,

like you're not you're not trying to find the right person. You're just kind of, you know, bull and China shopping your way through fellas and and and probably disrespecting yourself and how you're doing it at times. And so you ultimately don't find the right guy. Like you you kind of it's hard to say, hey, you should be thankful, but like you should always be thankful that you didn't end up with the wrong guy. And it sounds like you've had a run of the wrong guys and you might be kind of trying to get them in the wrong ways. K. Secular says, you seem to be a nice accomplished woman with traditional values. How do you know she's nice? Traditional values?

Also, yeah, the traditional values doesn't fly. You seem to be an accomplished woman. Yes. Good. Could it be possible that you are so focused on getting married that you have chased away your suitors? From what you have written, you may have put the cart before the horse. Allow a relationship to play out naturally before focusing on a rush to the altar. Although you yearn for marriage before maternity, it's important you don't forget there may be other options. Marriage isn't the in the cards for everyone. Some single women focus on their careers and or adopt children who need loving homes. You could be one of them if you expand your horizons. Yeah.

She that means she also picked up on the vibe that she really just wants keys. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I mean, get find a church and find find if you got a little bit of time, volunteer with things that you care about. And you know what? You're likely to run into somebody somewhere

who cares about those things. I actually I was thinking was it earlier today? I I was thinking whenever my family's gone, it always occurs to me, what if they don't come back? Like, what if for some reason or other my family does not return? I don't even know what I would do with myself. And like, I thought, well, like, would I ever would I ever get remarried? I thought, boy, I just don't know. I don't think so. But I like, I wouldn't even have the first clue as to where to find a lady.

Just no idea. Mm-mm. This sounds terrible. Because I would say join a church like, I'm in a church, but I'm in a small church. Like, I pastor a small house church and I know all these people. I will not be marrying any of them. They're already married. Yeah. And so, like, what are we gonna run into someone at the Costco? My wife if my wife is not around, I'm probably not driving out to the Costco anymore. Don't know. I mean, what and what happens then? The woman's like, hey, are you single? Well, you care. Yeah. Are you writing a book? You know, leave me alone.

I'm here to buy bread. Yeah. Don't be so bold. Yeah. I wouldn't have any idea. Okay. We got more and more, really. Okay. Yeah. Dear life from the path. A few years ago, I asked a friend to accompany me to a concert for which I offered her a free ticket. I paid a $150 for each one.

The original plan was to travel from New York State to Ohio, which would have been a three day weekend. She responded with a grateful yes then instantly changed the location to head in the opposite direction, planned out the entire trip including the driving and turned it into a five day trip. Well, it happened again. She's a great travel companion. So, I asked if she'd like to go to Nashville with me for a couple of days. It instantly changed to a week and she invited other people to join us without discussing it with me. Within ninety minutes of bringing up the trip to her, it no longer includes Nashville. It's like she waited for me to invite her to do something just so she could change it to something she wanted to do. It really hurts that she oversteps my invitations. If I continue to plan the trip, including everything she wants to do, we'll be gone for weeks. What can I say or do to make her see I really wanted to go to Nashville?

Yeah. I mean, this seems real easy. Hi. I invited you to Nashville. It sounds like you're going on a different trip. Yeah. So you're not going to Nashville. I'll go with someone else. Yeah. If I understand, this the original plan was to travel from New York State to Ohio, which had been a three day weekend. We're gonna go to a concert in Ohio. Yeah. She responded with a grateful yes, instantly changed the location Like to Maine or something. To head in the opposite direction, planned out the entire trip, including the driving, and turned it into a five day trip. So we didn't go to the concert at all? Or like they went to a different leg of the concert?

One in Maine? I don't I don't know. It doesn't Or Kentucky? And then, hey, we wanna go to Nashville? Sure. And then she calls back like an hour and a half later, I got us tickets to to Saint Louis, and it's gonna be great. We got all these places like, woah, woah. I wanted to go to Nashville. Well, I ain't going to Saint Louis. That's really weird. And it seems actually weird. Like, she only continues to do this because you put up with it the first time. Yeah. Like, I mean, it takes a lot of it's pretty bold to be like, hey, I got tickets to go see Booty and the Blowfish in Ohio. Great. That sounds awesome. And then she calls back an hour later and says, hey, man. I can't wait to go see Nitty Gritty Dirt Band down in North Carolina. What? We ain't going to North Carolina. It's ridiculous. Yeah. This sounds like a really actually a relatively simple problem.

Because like, it's so off base that you can easily speak to it. Yeah. Hey, I invited you to Nashville. I see you're going on another trip somewhere else. Okay. You're not going like, I just it seems super easy. Yeah. Hey. Hey. Do you okay. I plan out a five day trip. No. I'm doing three days in Nashville. If you don't wanna go, that's fine. Right. I mean, how how close a friend could this possibly be? I can't imagine anybody that I currently know or talk to that I call my friend where this scenario came up and they came back with those answers and I said, what the heck are you even talking about? Yeah. We're going to Hootie and the Blowfish

in Ohio. Yeah. Do you wanna go or what? Like like my my inviting you somewhere isn't an open invitation to, hey, I wanna give I wanna spend three days or five whatever you want, and you can do whatever you want with my time. Like, that's not how That's not how the thought. Invitations work. Mm-mm. She's either she's either actually legit crazy or, you have a pattern of being an extreme doormat. I mean, I I wouldn't even put up with this if I said, hey, man, you wanna go I'm heading to McDonald's. Want me to come pick you up? Sounds good. And then you get in the car and go, let's go to Wendy's. Yeah. I made reservations for us at the Wendy's. We're going to Wendy's. I said, we're going to McDonald's. You're just on my way. I was just trying to be nice. I wanna go to the Wendy's. Will you go back home? Yeah. Taking it to Wendy's.

But going to the Donald's, like I said, you know? It just seems ridiculous. I can't imagine this scenario. Okay. I mean, the advice is done. Just say no. Yeah. Hey, we're not going to Nashville now. Well, you go I'm going to Nashville. I don't know what you're doing, but I'm going to Nashville. Apparently, I need new friends. And Jenny and whatever friend you you decided to invite, you guys would go to St. Louis. Have a good time. Yeah. You're not taking anything away from her. No. She wants She can go on that trip if she wants to. She doesn't care whether you go or not. I don't even know why I don't even know why she's she said yes to your original invitation. Yeah. That don't make any sense. Secular Seth, here's what to say to this presumptuous person. Quote, the itinerary you have planned isn't what I had in mind at all, so carry on by yourself. I'm going to Nashville, and then follow through, bon voyage. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't say it like that for sure. I wouldn't say the itinerary. The itinerary you picked out is itinerary. Yeah. That's not exactly what I had in mind. I mean, I would legit what are you talking about? Yeah. What do I what do mean? We go to Hootie and Blowfish, and that's the end of it.

I'll Uber. I just I mean, don't even you like, you'll take your own car because you were gonna do it anyway. Why you keep biting this crazy friend to places? Yeah. Especially if you spend a $150 on ticks. Yeah. You're $300 in the hole already, and then you gotta invite this wang dang doodle that decides they're gonna fly to coop wherever they wanna go. Any sense at all.

I just don't I don't understand. This is the most ridiculous scenario I've ever heard. I can't even believe it actually happens in the real world. I know. They made it up. Do you think is there any way that this person is leaving out, like, a key detail that would set something right? I have tickets to go see Bon Jovi.

Do you wanna go? Yes. Okay. I'm excited about Bon Jovi, except we're not gonna be able to make it because we're gonna go down south a couple of Yeah. We're gonna tent camp outside an alligator farm. What? Five days. What about Bon Jovi? What about Bon Jovi? We're not going. We're going. I bought tickets for Bon Jovi. Oh, tickets are a $150.

John Bon Jovi? Think so? He's a $150 a ticket. Gotta be. He's running out of time to make money, Nathaniel. A $150 gotta be cannot pay a $150 to go see anything. Yeah. It's gotta be front row. Not a thing. You wouldn't see anything for a $150? No. What if somebody was performing live action Zechariah, the whole book? No. No. You can get that on YouTube. And you got bottle rockets. And you gotta shoot it at him at the end to really bring the effect home. Yeah. Here's the deal. Bon Jovi can't literally live on a prayer. He needs cold hard De Niro, and so he's gotta charge a buck 50, Gideon. Usually, are pretty excited about going to a concert. It's not so regular that you go to concerts. They're like, I've been looking forward to this a month. So I got tickets to the concert. We're gonna go. It's gonna be great. And for someone to just go, I see that you spent $300, but we're gonna do completely this other thing.

Maybe maybe money flows like liquid wine back in the New York City. Yeah. I suppose. Yeah. Stuff's expensive in New York. I gotta be honest. This this scenario is so over the top ridiculous. Yeah. I can't even speak to it. I I can't even say how I would react if the same thing occurred because it would never happen to me. No. No. Yeah. You won't you're friends with a cartoon character. Yeah. Okay. Hey. You you would listen live from the past. If this wanna tell you this. If this is you, if you're the person who people call

and you completely change the plans, I need you to call the complaint line. And I need you just to address yourself and say, hey, Ben. It's me. I'm the complaint So that I know who you are. And I want you to give your full name and address so we know who we're dealing with. And then I if you have if you go to a local parish or church, I need you to give me the name of whoever runs the place. Yeah. We need some Driscoll style accountability. They're not communicating effectively. You're acting like a boob. I don't just don't understand this. It may not be sinful, but it's hard to understand good news in light of what you're doing. I mean, has to be. Like, you could not literally be thinking about any anybody else in your whole life to derail somebody's already invested plans. Yeah. You're not walking humble with your God. You're trying to negotiate whether the Sabbath can actually take three days and and constitute some sort of bakery tour in the Northern Florida. People are gonna take time off work. That's your $300 in concert tickets plus the the drive to Ohio plus three days. That means one of those days is out of work somewhere. And now we're just gonna go completely somewhere else, add two more days out of work, and probably you're gonna pay the gas. I don't understand. Yeah. Yeah. You're out. Alright. Thanks for listening live from The Path. We really do appreciate it. Give us some feedback if you want to on that complaint line. (515) 517-0085. That's call or text. Either one would be fine. We'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, be faithful in the means. God will handle the ends. You've been listening to Live From The Path.