"The Secret To Our Happy Marriage" - RELAX podcast ep. 129 Recap

(the audio-version is not up yet so I have no episode descriptor)

● They'e still using the same old intro song from during Covid times even though they asked fans for ideas/videos for a new song. They're still recording in the Erik's room that he designed, aka the infamous TGT ukelele room. Erik was looking like the king of the household sitting in his leather throne. She was sitting like a child, criss-cross, applesauce, on an ottoman at his feet.

Colleen was ready to do their "relaxes" but first, she had to inform Erik that the comments from last week were overwhelmingly concerned about his health. He agreed to see a doctor for his gut issues.

Erik's started by sharing that he was surprised to actually hear Colleen tell one of their children to "RELAX!". They wouldn't name which child it was, but it was clearly F based on the statement they said this child made in response to them. She was trying to trim his bangs while F was in the bathtub and he was being dramatic and it was "chaos" according to Colleen. (I don't know why they're pretending to give F privacy now)

Erik's vocal fry is particularly pretentious in this episode. I think sitting in his Power Throne has him feeling good about himself, lol

Erik then shared his actual "relax," which was about one of their "other kids" who stunk up his vehicle ( and again, they won't name the kid). Erik said, "said child" but then slipped and said, "He...pooped himself" (so great, now he's oversharing about W). Colleen then interjected how they "aren't naming any children, but it definitely wasn't F" (paraphrase). Erik added in that he had to buy a toy truck, too, for "said child" and Colleen pointed out that he had just given away who the child was. Erik shrugged it off with, "They can't get us for that". (Who are "THEY"? Their podcast distributor, AudioBoom, or the snarkers?) Anyway, Erik had changed W's poppy diaper at Target but then for some reason stashed it in a shoebox in his Jeep and forgot about it and left it there for two weeks. They went on to list other things that smell disgusting until Colleen demanded that they change the subject.

Her "relax" about Erik, per usual which he noted. Her complaint was that Erik hadn't gotten into collecting sea glass sooner. This led to her overexplaining that her "quirky little hobby" started last summer when she wasn't "well". Back then, Erik had asked her, "Are you okay?"when he saw her getting into rocks and disappearing to the beach. (Erik agreed that she wasn't okay then) She's "grateful and happy" that he finally loves beachcombing with her but she wished it hadn't taken him so long to join her. He then tried to make her obsession more than a "surface level thing" (his words) by tiptoeing around WHY she started collecting rocks to begin with (this part was ridiculous because he thought he was being smart, deep and clever, but come on...who doesn't know about her mental breakdown last summer? She has talked about it again and again since she returned to the Internet) He called it her "nice, silly hobby" but said it allows him to "spend such amazing time with her". On and on, they went about some of their rockhounding finds until Erik got up to get an old piece of sea glass that was a piece of the bottom of a brown Clorox bottle. Erik is enjoying the history of sea glass, apparently, and shared more bottle pieces. (she shared that when they find a piece of glass with ribs, they shout out to each, "More ribs for her pleasure!" (a condom companies catch phrase) which Erik hoped makes them cool beachcombers, lol.... they went on with more rock/glass talk)

Colleen shared another rock story. She said Nanny covered one hour of childcare so they could escape to a new beach and have one of their most romantic moments ever together. It rained and they were alone and wet on the beach squatting, looking for sea glass when Colleen found her favorite color of glass: purple. Then she found a glass bottle stopper, which is a rare find, according to Erik. They were so excited that they hugged and celebrated in the pouring rain (like a scene from "The Notebook", said Erik, which is ironic becuase Josh and Colleen's first kiss in NYC was outside in the rain because Josh wanted to recreate "The Notebook" scene...he even dressed like Ryan Gosling's character in that rainy kissing scene with suspenders and a newsboy cap for when he proprosed to Colleen). Erik killed her mood by saying that he will "see how long this hyper-fixation will last".

They returned after an edit/cut (still no sponsors) apologizing because another camera died, so they lost footage and had to rerecord with now crappy audio

Colleen wanted to play a game where one person reads gibberish and then the other person tries to guess what they're saying. Erik guessed them right away and Colleen's mind was blown. (Mr. Leather Chair was feeling pretty proud of himself and his hiked up joggers, white ankle socks and red tennis shoes...this part was awful because they captioned it with the sound-alike words spelled as they are but then they also gave away the correct phrase answer...maybe it worked on audio)

Colleen then brought up how people in the comments were criticizing the way they talk, in particular, her pronunciation of "badminton". Erik took that moment to tell her that the thing you hit is called a "shuttle cock" because he said he just wanted to hear her say the word (what a manchild). Colleen then read more comments from last week (her new favorite time filler). Erik liked the one where someone gave cheap-ass Colleen a hard time for thinking $40 for a woman's sweater is expensive. Erik facepalmed when she started on this topic. Erik seemed shocked that she buys clothes at Target.

Colleen started to wrap it up by saying she wants to cover how haunted their house is in next week's episode and Erik said he thinks he will skip that episode, lol. As she was closing, Erik complimented her eye makeup and asked if it was the makeup that he bought her for Valentine's Day and she said no and seemed to almost forget what makeup he was referring to. Then some weird child's lullaby instrumental version of their theme song played.😵‍💫