Episode 47 - Emotional Jerks

Do you feel good about what you've done this week?  Have you even considered how we feel?  If you really loved us, you'd listen to how we feel about the following issues:

- Being the Jerk
- Emotional Blackmail
- Basic Chick Food
- Smoking

One of the trickiest skills to build in life is the ability to be self aware.  Everyone recognizes that it's a good trait to have, and everyone tries to be, but in the end, all of us slip up and let ourselves run wild, and afterwards, when you realize what you've done, you feel like a fool.  In that instance, you were the jerk.  It takes years of analyzing one's own motives to truly be self aware, but even the most introspective person in the world is going to blunder at some point and put themselves before others.  And speaking of putting yourself before others . . .

It happens in relationships and jobs, in all walks of life.  What you're doing isn't meeting up to someone else's expectations, and instead of just coming out and either discussing it like adults, or just accepting the situation, they'll throw you a curveball.  They'll play on your sympathies, tug at your heart strings, or any other shameless tactic to twist the knife until you comply.  Tab talks about being emotionally blackmailed on the job, but Buck brings a much darker story about a chick from his past.  And speaking of chicks . . .

Buck continues his series on Basic Chicks with Basic Chick Food.  Food, like clothing and music, follows trends.  Don't believe me?  Just look at every fad diet out there and then report back to me.  But Buck seems to zero in on Italian food, which, in his experience, is the ultimate basic chick culinary genre.  In his mind, Italy seems to be the place that chicks associate with romance (even more than France).  Throw some form of dry chicken on a plate, slap some pasta noodles on it and drench it with either tomato goop or some sort of dairy slime and basic chicks will flock to it like bees to honey.  To be fair, there is basic bro food, too, and Buck is a sucker for most of it.  Wanna lure in Buck?  Just throw together some form of potatoes and cheese, and some form of meat that's fresh from the grill and smoking.  And speaking of smoking . . .

If U.S. History books are to be believed, the west first encountered the practice of smoking tobacco when they encountered the natives in the new world.  How those natives came up with the idea of drying leaves, putting it into a hollow wooden tube and inhaling the smoke is beyond me, but it caught on and has become a worldwide trend.  However, in the past couple of decades, many first world countries (and particularly the U.S.) have put the squeeze on smokers.  Not only is tobacco smoke harmful to the user, but it's also expensive.  While it seems to have had an effect, there are still new smokers recruited every year, and Tab wants to know why.  Buck suspects that tax revenue from tobacco sales has something to do with it, but reality is never that cut and dry . . .

Monon'c Pat calls in to pepper the show with some Canadian flair, and Stove calls in sober.  What is Tab's hot take on Star Trek Discovery?  You'll have to listen to this week's episode to find out!

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