ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley: Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley's Lil Bitta Pod - 27th August 2023

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Fleshwater and Haley's Little Bit of Pod.

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Welcome to A Little Bit of Pod.

Guys, the nicest thing happened.

I'd heard a while back that Aaron's parents were writing a book,

and I was like, how bizarre.

What? A book?

And I was like, how did that come to be?

But it turns out Aaron's brother and sister-in-law had...

It's like a gift, and you gift it to them,

and they get little prompts, and they write a page.

You've seen this?

And kind of like how people do those photo books,

where, you know, those are a good gift for a friend as well.

Yeah, totally.

This was like, you can...

It's like questions, anything from like,

have you ever been caught in a storm to like,

what is your definition of a happy and meaningful life?

So you fill out all of the answers to their questions,

and then it puts it into a book.

Yeah, so you've got a maximum amount of pages,

but you ask however many questions,

and this took them two years.

Wow.

You take ages to answer all these questions with good detail.

Well, it's basically you do one a week,

and then when you feel like you've done,

or you're happy with all the questions that have been done,

and someone kind of looks after it,

so Aaron's brother was like, okay, I think that's enough.

Yep.

And then you print them, and they were like,

hey, we're getting them printed now.

We're finished, and they're one for each of the siblings,

and their partners, and da-da-da-da.

And we got it, and it's so cute.

It's like our life and stories.

There's a picture of Aaron's mum and dad,

and then we got it, and then Aaron just started reading it,

and I was like, cute, he's getting straight into it.

Then I fell asleep, and then I woke up, and the next day,

I was like, oh, are you enjoying reading your parents' book?

And he was like, I've read it front, like cover to cover.

He was like, it was one of the most outstanding,

and amazing, and mind-blowing things he's ever read.

Because he was like, you just learn all these things

about your parents, and it was like teaching him things

about himself that he wanted to look at.

It was so unbelievable.

And then I started reading some,

or he was reading them to me, aren't we romantic?

Yeah.

I was sitting there by the fire,

and Aaron was reading me chapters from his parents' life.

Oh my gosh.

And some of them were so funny,

and some of them were so beautiful.

Like, what does the meaning of life,

and what does it mean to have a meaningful life,

and for them, you know, they're Catholic,

and a lot of it was about service to community,

and I was like, fuck, I'm a terrible person.

Oh, yeah, but let's look up the creek,

the Catholic Church, and say there's a bit of pollution up there.

Absolutely.

But it was just so amazing.

So I've bought it for my parents,

which I'm so excited about, and you get to go in.

So we don't want, like, a free plug,

because I think lots of...

Shear-worthy, I think it's called.

My parents would be terrible at this.

No, but the thing is...

What's the meaning of life?

Oh, well, I don't know.

Ask it further.

And then he'd be like, I don't have time for this.

Next chapter.

Yeah, chapter one, the meaning of life.

I don't know.

Ask it further.

Chapter two.

It's like, it doesn't have to...

Story worth is what it's called.

Story worth, okay.

It doesn't have to be, like, some of them can be absolute laughs.

Like, I know that my parents maybe might not go as sweet

and humble as Aaron's parents, but that's also all right.

And I don't know if we've ever talked about this on a show,

but my dad's got Alzheimer's, and I was like,

man, let's, like, let's do this now before it really, like, takes its toll.

That's a good idea.

That's a great idea.

That's, like, what I always...

My friend did this with his grandfather.

Yeah.

He just sat him down one day and asked them a ton of questions on camera,

and I was like, oh, my God, like, that's going to be priceless.

And then, like, a few years later, his granddad passed away.

Yeah, yeah.

And then part of the thing was the family sat down and watched,

because they hadn't all seen the final edited version.

Yeah.

And then look, this guy's still not telling stories about World War II

and all these amazing stories, and they're just like, oh, my God.

And everyone's just like, thank you so much for, like, getting that down.

Thinking of doing it.

I know.

Yeah, great idea.

I know, because you think, like, you don't want to think about your parents' mortality at all,

whether there's an illness present or not.

You're just like, no, because even my mum was like, well, just do it with dad.

You know?

And I was like, no, I want to hear yours.

Like, Aaron's mum, for example, whose were lighter and a bit more playful,

whereas Aaron's father, who's a bit more philosophical, was really like, oh.

Yeah.

See, I wouldn't say my parents are philosophical people.

But it doesn't need to be.

No need.

Some of them, because you dictate, if you were the one to organize it for them,

you dictate the questions that they answer.

Right.

So some of them can just be like, tell us about your first childhood teacher.

Right.

Or like, tell us about your first soft toy, your first holiday you took.

So who asks the questions?

Is there a template?

So they've got whole prompts.

They've got hundreds and hundreds of prompts.

And you can kind of go in and say you choose 100 questions or something, or 50 questions.

Oh, so you can choose what you want to find out as well.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's so easy.

You just go on and go, OK, I want that question for mum and that question for dad.

And then you'll like one for them or a real deep one there.

And you kind of organize it.

And then you just get an email every week being like, here's your question for the week.

And then you just email it back.

Right.

And it just goes to the website at the end.

It all gets collated.

So good.

I know, I can't wait.

I can't wait.

That email, I get lost in a collection of easy buyer specials.

I know.

My mum has got so many emails.

I feel like this is going to be one of those things.

I'll be like, guys, can you just fucking do it?

Yeah, I hate to nag.

Yeah, hey, daddy.

All right, can you just do this?

Thank you.

And then we'll take the person.

It'll all be gaggy.

I'm trying to get something meaningful out of you, dude.

Looking for the laughs.

He's like, that was a bit deep.

Control, select or delete.

Try to make this on a bit lighter.

Tell a few gags.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.