[LAUREN] As soon as I turn on the Oscars, O'Brien is on the stage with a leaf blower.
[LAUREN] I reject this and I'm very angry.
[LAUREN] Old people are funny. And I say that acknowledging that I myself feel like a very old person.
[ALISON] I feel like I'm either all in or completely checked out.
[LAUREN] What does it mean to be all in? What does it mean to be all out?
[LAUREN] My husband loves his vacuum cleaner. He loves it.
[LAUREN] We have an upstairs vacuum cleaner, a downstairs vacuum cleaner, and two handheld vacuum cleaners.
[LAUREN] It's like a thing. He needs to have a vacuum cleaner within arm's length at all times.
[LAUREN] And he will stop everything and start vacuuming things without notice.
[LAUREN] I hate the sound of the vacuum. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
[LAUREN] I have these new fancy AirPod Pros that actually do a really good job of noise cancellation.
[LAUREN] I thought the old ones did. They did not. These do an amazing job of noise cancellation.
[LAUREN] People will literally be standing next to me — primarily my children, occasionally my husband —
[LAUREN] and have to poke me so I know there's a person there.
[LAUREN] So it has not been as much of an issue since I got them, maybe December.
[LAUREN] If he does it, I just put my AirPods in, close my door, and it's fine.
[LAUREN] And when I say he will do it randomly — nothing's happening, silence, no one doing anything, and all of a sudden —
[LAUREN] I have extra holes in my eardrums because I have very weird ears, and I've perforated my eardrums many times.
[LAUREN] Certain noises reverberate in my head in ways that are like a nightmare. So anyway.
[LAUREN] All this to say that Sunday I was in my office late and turned on the Oscars, which I don't usually do.
[LAUREN] I was like, whatever, this is silly and pointless and I'll watch this. And my husband was out there vacuuming.
[LAUREN] I put in my headphones, turn on the Oscars, and as soon as I turn on the Oscars — O'Brien is on the stage with a leaf blower.
[LAUREN] Making the exact same sound directly into my ears. And I was like, the universe conspired to make this happen.
[LAUREN] This could not have happened any other way. I take this personally. This is a violation of my civil rights.
[LAUREN] I reject this and I'm very angry. So anyway — that was my sensory nightmare of the day.
[LAUREN] I have a question for the millennials and the Gen Xers of the listener base. Where did your parents keep the used twist ties?
[LAUREN] Because they were somewhere. They might still be there. For some reason, that is the quintessential explanation of Millennial/Gen X childhood to me.
[LAUREN] There was always like a torn-up plastic bag that had all the used ties from bread in it. Did they get reused? Who reused them?
[LAUREN] I'm just like anti-twist-tie. I hate them. I don't know why. It has nothing to do with the actual object —
[LAUREN] it's just the act of using them that really, really bothers me. So if I open a new bread, I twist it and fold it under itself.
[LAUREN] I can undo a twist tie begrudgingly, but I'm not putting it back on. But anyway —
[LAUREN] I just was wondering if you could get back at me and tell me where your parents kept theirs.
[LAUREN] Because every set of parents had the twist tie bucket, bag, whatever. Tell me about your receptacle.
[LAUREN] But this — I got thinking about this because old people are funny. And I say that acknowledging that I myself feel like a very old person.
[LAUREN] Like I'm 39 biologically. I think I'm approximately 105 internally. And that's because I'm feeling kind of spry today.
[LAUREN] I do include myself in the old people. But I'm actually talking about the boomers and their predecessors as well.
[LAUREN] I had an experience last week. My mom was in the hospital for a while. It was like a whole thing.
[LAUREN] I knew she was sick. I don't think I realized how sick she was until we actually got her to the hospital and I saw her vitals.
[LAUREN] They brought me her labs and I was like, oh, this is really serious. They ended up transferring her from the ER to the ICU, which was the right thing to do.
[LAUREN] My mom had a kidney transplant about five years ago. And so anytime she's hospitalized, she has to be on a critical care unit or on the transplant unit.
[LAUREN] Even though she's currently not getting another transplant, they have to have her there for that reason. So it's a whole thing.
[LAUREN] I took her to the emergency room. They had her all worked up — doing all the things, the poking, the blood studies, and whatever.
[LAUREN] One of the fun things about my mom is that her veins are terrible. Her blood is really, really interested in staying inside her body.
[LAUREN] It has very little interest in leaving. So most of the ER stay was them trying to get a stick that would actually draw blood.
[LAUREN] None of that's the point. This is like a very millennial and Gen X experience — taking our parents to the hospital.
[LAUREN] When you have the kind of relationship with your smother that I have with mine, it's a whole thing. And like — I'm great in the crisis.
[LAUREN] During the crisis, I'm great. I'll get all the things done. I will make sure everybody goes where they need to go.
[LAUREN] I will keep everybody organized, get all the paperwork, get all the numbers, call all the shots, do all the things.
[LAUREN] And then once things are stabilized, I'm like — somebody else steps in now. I did my part.
[LAUREN] I went to see her. They had transported her from the ER to the big hospital downtown that has the transplant unit.
[LAUREN] Basically anytime she is hospitalized, she has to go to this one specific hospital. One of the fortunate things about being in Orlando is we have a very large medical community.
[LAUREN] It's kind of shocking for the size of city we are. But she has to go to this one, and it's about 25 to 30 minutes from the house.
[LAUREN] They were transporting her via ambulance from the ER to the ICU there. I didn't want her to go with all of her belongings.
[LAUREN] So I said — Mom, I'm gonna send you with your phone. You have 60% battery on your phone. I'll bring you a charger tomorrow.
[LAUREN] I'm gonna take all of your stuff back with me. She wasn't with it enough to know where her purse was and her belongings and stuff.
[LAUREN] The transport guys were like, that's a good idea — she's gonna be moved a lot. I was like, great. So I let them take her.
[LAUREN] I went home with all of her stuff. The next day, I woke up, got some work done, grabbed her stuff, went back to the hospital.
[LAUREN] This is the question that we ask our parents now when they're hospitalized. I woke up and I said good morning to her.
[LAUREN] And I said: "How charged is your phone?" Not — what were your labs? Not — have you seen a doctor yet? Not — how are you feeling?
[LAUREN] The first thing I said was: "How charged is your phone?" Because that told me how much time I had before I needed to get her a phone charger.
[LAUREN] I had taught her the night before via text how to put her phone on low battery mode. So she actually had enough that I had a couple of hours.
[LAUREN] Grabbed the charger, grabbed her bag, went back to the hospital, sat with her for a bit. Had to get back for a meeting.
[LAUREN] As I went to leave, she goes: "I don't want you to leave me here with everything in my purse." Which was a good idea.
[LAUREN] She said, there's just my wallet and stuff that I don't need while I'm here. Can you take that with you? I was like, no problem.
[LAUREN] So I pick up her bag. And again — old people are funny and predictable in very weird ways.
[LAUREN] The first thing I pull out of her bag is a bag of hard candies. And I was like — are you someone's grandpa trying to give some kid a Werthers?
[LAUREN] She's like: just leave my candies alone. I'm like: okay, that's fine. Moving on. So she says: grab my wallet.
[LAUREN] I took her wallet, put it in my purse. Then she said: "And then there's a little pouch that has some money in it."
[LAUREN] I was like — you mean, like, cash money? She said: yeah. So I picked up a little pouch. I said, this one? She goes: yeah, that one. Cool.
[LAUREN] Put the pouch away. Then she goes: "Wait. And then there's also an envelope that has money in it."
[LAUREN] I said — like a bank envelope? She goes: yeah, like a bank envelope. I was like — oh. Why do you... okay, whatever.
[LAUREN] So I take that one out and put it in my bag. And I said: anything else? She goes: "I think there's one more envelope with money."
[LAUREN] And I'm like — why do you have piles of money stuffed into different corners? Why? So it's another envelope. Okay.
[LAUREN] I had just taken several hundred dollars away from her and put it in my own purse with no guarantees I was bringing it back.
[LAUREN] To this day I don't know if I'm gonna return it. That might be a finder's fee for keeping her alive.
[LAUREN] So I reach into her bag again and I'm like — wait, what about this one? And I swear to God, this woman who was barely ambulatory —
[LAUREN] — could barely move — jumps up and goes: "No. Not that one." I was like — step back.
[LAUREN] I'm like — oh, what? Okay. And she goes: "That's my Equal."
[LAUREN] That's your... As in — you have a satchel of artificial sweetener in your purse. I just took hundreds of dollars from you, and you're worried about your aspartame.
[LAUREN] She was like: "They don't give it to me with my iced tea here." So I was like — okay. So I can keep digging through your bag for money?
[LAUREN] Yes. I can't take your Equal? No. Okay. Cool. Cool cool cool.
[LAUREN] By the way — I did find more money. I did take it. It did go in my purse. I returned most of it.
[LAUREN] The only parts I kept: one was to pay the valet out front because I don't have cash. So she can pay for her own valet.
[LAUREN] And two — when I was driving to the hospital, I realized I was going to have to valet. I forgot that you have to tip the valet. I didn't have any money.
[LAUREN] So I asked everyone in my house — who all happened to be standing in the same place — if anybody had any actual paper money. To which my 9-year-old said: I do.
[LAUREN] So I proceeded to rob my child's piggy bank of $2 so that I could tip the valet. She reminded me of this multiple times, including before I left the house.
[LAUREN] She came downstairs and said: "Why did you take money from me?" I was like — I explained this to you. But also: because I wanted to. Is that sufficient?
[LAUREN] Anyway — her grandmother paid her back. I went into the sack of money, took $2 out, gave it to my child. I stayed out of that transaction.
[LAUREN] But anyway, moral of the story is — when you're in dire straits, certain things are worth more than money. And apparently the answer is artificial sweetener.
[LAUREN] And now we'll go to Alison who has this week's Small Talk.
[ALISON] We have a Small Talk question from Josh and Casey Mo. "I feel like I'm either all in or completely checked out. There's no middle gear."
[ALISON] "It's affecting my relationships because people don't know which version of me they're gonna get. Is that something you can moderate, or do you build your life around it?"
[LAUREN] You go talk to a clinician. I have lots of thoughts on that, but none that I'm qualified to give.
[LAUREN] As somebody who's been around this for a long time — people who are struggling in variable ways — you're going to have day-to-day variations on what you're interested in. That's totally normal.
[LAUREN] But if it's enough that people around you are noticing, or it's making you uncomfortable — that's bigger than just meditation and mindfulness.
[LAUREN] It might be time to go talk to somebody. Your general practitioner — to see if maybe there's something hormonal or physical going on.
[LAUREN] It might be time to talk to a therapist or a psychiatrist to find out if there's a mental health thing going on. There are a thousand questions I could ask about what it means to change that quickly.
[LAUREN] But it's not for me to ask. There's somebody to start with — whether it's your general practitioner or a mental health practitioner — to have them ask those questions.
[LAUREN] Because it shouldn't be disruptive enough that the people around you who care about you notice. If it's that disruptive, it's time to go talk to somebody.
[LAUREN] What — these are the messages I get during the time period I tell people I'm recording and they should not message me.
[LAUREN] All caps: LAUREN — have I mentioned I hate saying my name out loud? That's probably another thing we need to record.
[LAUREN] And then in all caps: "DID YOU KNOW THE YELLOW CAP COKE HAS REAL SUGAR?"
[LAUREN] Okay. That's the episode. Bye.