The 50th Episode: A Monument to Mediocrity and Sibling Chaos I don’t know if you’re aware, like, actually aware, but we just hit episode 50. Which, for the record, took us two full years to accomplish. I’ve seen people on the podcasting subreddit hit 50 episodes in, like, three weeks. First of all, calm down, no one is that interesting. But also, wait, are we just… extremely slow? Is this an us problem? Spoiler alert: it’s definitely a us problem. But here we are. Fifty episodes of… whatever this is. Jacqueline calls it “secondhand therapy,” which I love, because it implies that one of us is actually going to therapy and then just, debriefing the rest of us so we can all benefit without doing any of the emotional labor ourselves. Which, honestly, is just the cost effective way of doing therapy. Why work on yourself when you can just absorb the insights one of your siblings got from their therapist and call it a day? The Notes App Incident, or: Why Jacqueline Can Never Be Trusted with Context So Jacqueline tried to do what I do: keep notes throughout the week of funny things to talk about on the podcast. And I swear to you, this is true, she pulled up her notes before we recorded and nothing made sense. Not a single bullet point. Here’s what she wrote: * “Tell Ryan on the podcast that Justin committed to the bit and pretended to go into a port-a-potty.” * “Pod, pod, Lawrence Fishburne and Justin’s tooth spray tan.” * “Tell the joke about being traumatized by Bonnie Porter.” * “Subway Nachos.” * “I’m like, what was I talking about?” I’m sorry, what? Jacqueline, in a moment of clarity, was like, “Yeah, I don’t know what any of this means either.” And I’m sitting there trying to reverse-engineer the story like I’m some kind of podcast archaeologist. So Justin went into a port-a-potty as a bit, came out going “ooh, tinky” with toilet paper on his shoe, and somehow this connects to Lawrence Fishburne and a spray-tanned tooth? And also… Subway Nachos? For the record, I spent way too much time imagining Justin emerging from a porta-potty like he’d just exited the Matrix, pants down, one tooth weirdly tan, quoting Morpheus. Annnnnd that’s the quality content you subscribe to. The Canadian Heritage Moment That Made Me Cry at Swimming Class Okay, so speaking of crying, and I do a lot of that, just not on the podcast, which is more than I can say for the other host, I was at my daughter’s swimming class the other day, and I’m scrolling Instagram like a normal person, and I see that Canada is doing new Heritage Moments. If you don’t know what those are, first of all, I’m sorry for you. They’re these short historical reenactments that aired on Canadian TV in the ‘90s and early 2000s, and they were wildly emotional for no reason. Like, you’d be watching YTV, and suddenly you’re sobbing over a dude making a basketball net from a peach basket and casually inventing the sport of basketball. So this new one is about Gander, Newfoundland, and 9/11. For people who aren’t familiar, and honestly, if you’re Canadian, you should be, Gander is this tiny town in Newfoundland, with a population of like 12,000 people, that took in 6,000 passengers when all the planes in the air on 9/11 were rerouted. The population of Gander basically grew by half overnight, and the people there just… opened their homes. Fed people. Let them sleep on their couches. Made potato-based soups and probably a lot of fish. Very Newfoundland. Very Canadian. And I’m watching this at Noa’s swimming class, and I’m like, okay, Ryan, do not cry right now. You’re in public. You’re surrounded by other parents. But it was a triple punch: * It’s an incredible moment in history. * The format is pure nostalgia. * I’m not a homesick person, but it tugged at that one little thread. Like, remember where you came from? Remember the kind of people you grew up around? And then I thought about how relations between Canada and the U.S. are… not great right now. And seeing Canadians be so kind to Americans in their moment of need just what the world, and I, needed. I was sitting there with my phone sideways, trying not to tame my chin quiver while Noa practiced her backstroke. Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, here you go, watch it. Just… maybe not in public. The Red Paint Egg Incident, or: How I Became a Criminal Mastermind at Age 10 So we were talking about the dumbest things we’ve convinced our siblings to do, and I had to bring up the time I convinced Jacqueline to pull her pants down and moon a car. Which, for the record, I did not also do. I spun around, pointed at her, and yelled, “I can’t believe you did it!” and then ran inside to tell our mom. Peak older brother energy. But that’s not even the worst thing I did. The worst thing I did that I can share on this podcast, and I’m not proud of this, but I’m also kind of proud of it, is the red paint egg incident. OWhen I was, like, 10 or 11, I was hanging out with my older brother and the “bad kids” in South Ajax. Not, like, actually bad, but bad enough that we thought egging cars was the height of rebellion. And I had this idea, genius idea, truly, where we’d blow the yolk out of the eggs, fill them with red paint, and throw those* at cars instead. Because, you know, yolk is easy to clean off. Red paint? Not so much. So we did it. We threw a red paint egg at one car, and the guy lost his mind. He pulled over, got out, saw the red splatter on his car, and chased us like we’d just forged his signature on some bearer bonds. We ran through catwalks, hid in garbage cans, the whole thing. My mouth went completely dry, you know, that thing where you realize you’ve done something genuinely bad and all the moisture just vanishes from your body. We were fugitives. We were on the run. And to this day, I think about that guy. I hope he’s okay. I hope he got the paint off. I hope he’s not still traumatized. Dallin and the Adoption Bit, or: Emotional Warfare at Its Finest Jacqueline’s contribution to this category was dark. Genuinely. She used to convince Dallin that he was adopted. Regularly. She’d walk into his room, super casual, and be like, “Hey, so Mom wanted me to tell you, your real parents are coming to pick you up.” And Dallin would lose it. He’d go crying to Mom, and our Mom would be like, “Jacqueline, stop telling Dallin he’s adopted.” And Jacqueline would double down. She’d be like, “Mom, we agreed we’d tell him when he was ten. We’re doing it now. His parents are going to be here any minute.” Dallin, if you’re listening: you’re not adopted. Probably. I mean, statistically speaking, you’re probably not. --- The Most Brother Thing a Brother Can Do Okay, so Jacqueline asked me what the most “brother” thing a brother can do is, and honestly, there are so many examples. But I have to go with Jonathan driving across the border to Buffalo to pick up Seiko when her travel paperwork got messed up. Like, I was sobbing on the phone to him, full hyperventilating, and he just… handled it. Got in a rental car, drove to Buffalo, smuggled my wife across the border (legally, but still), and brought her home for Christmas. That’s peak brother energy. That’s the kind of thing where you’re like, okay, I owe you forever now. I will never be able to repay this debt. And then Jacqueline told the story about Daniel making some kid get on his knees and apologize to her in front of everyone at Coffee Time because the kid took her seat in math class. Which is… insane, actually. That kid was 14, Daniel was 18, and he made him kneel. But also? Kind of the most brother thing ever. Because even though Daniel and Jacqueline didn’t get along at all in high school, he still wasn’t going to let someone disrespect her. That was his job. What We Have in Common, or: Anxiety and Rage (The Porter Family Motto) We ended on a surprisingly wholesome note by talking about what we all have in common. And honestly, the through line for all five Porter siblings is pretty simple: anxiety and rage. Like, we’re all deeply anxious people who also have incredibly short fuses. It’s a fun combination. It keeps things spicy. But beyond that, I think we all share a sense of humor that’s rooted in finding the absurdity in genuinely bad situations. Like, when something goes wrong, we don’t just accept it, we lean into it. It becomes another bit. And I think that’s the thing I’m most grateful for. Because life is… a lot. And having siblings who can laugh at the same ridiculous stuff you’re laughing at? That’s everything. Call to Action (Because Apparently We Have to Do This) If you’ve made it this far, first of all, thank you. Really. Whether you’ve listened to one episode or all 50, whether you’ve listened at 1.75x speed (Jacqueline, I’m looking at you), or whether you just skim the Substack posts, we appreciate you. If you haven’t already, go subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a five-star rating. Tell your siblings to listen. Start your own sibling podcast and try to compete with us (you won’t, but go ahead and try). And if you have a sibling story, something ridiculous, something sweet, something that made you realize your family is just as unhinged as ours, leave a comment. I want to hear it. Because at the end of the day, that’s what this whole thing is about: siblings, and the chaos they bring, and the fact that we wouldn’t have it any other way. Stay crispy. --- Question for you: What’s the most “sibling” thing your sibling has ever done for you? Or to you? Because honestly, both are valid. --- This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dreyerdrive.substack.com