Natty is completely overwhelmed – and is trying to figure out how to become more whelmed – while avoiding being underwhelmed. It’s a lot to take in – but, he’ll try his hardest!
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About This Episode
Natty Bumpercar returns to the Bumperpodcast after a hiatus to discuss feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world. In this introspective episode, Natty explores the etymology of 'overwhelmed,' 'underwhelmed,' and 'whelmed,' wondering why we can't just be normally whelmed. He shares candid stories about quarantine life, homeschooling his kids, dealing with a toy-destroying dog, and the challenges of performing comedy over Zoom. Natty reflects on the strange nature of time during quarantine, unfinished projects piling up, and finding silver linings in spending more family time together, even when grocery bills seem impossibly high.
Memorable Quotes
“I looked at myself in the mirror and I said today is not the day that I'm gonna break… and as I left the room I heard the mirror whisper 'or is it' and I was like whoa hey mirror I thought you had my back”
— Natty Bumpercar
“I'm hoping that this podcast is leaving you considerably whelmed. Not overwhelmed, not underwhelmed. I want to whelm you.”
— Natty Bumpercar
Topics: #quarantinelife #overwhelmed #parenting #homeschooling #comedy #zoom #time #family
Featuring: Natty Bumpercar
Full Transcript
Natty Bumpercar: oh bumper podcast what's been what are you doing who what are you where you been at where you been hiding from me or i've been missing you uh i know you're thinking over there whoa whoa don't don't point fingers at us we're the listeners we're the bumper podcast geteers where have you been natty natty bumper car who's supposed to be recording this on a weekly basis and hasn't for a while i don't know i try i even i here's the thing i have been overwhelmed uh can just considerably overwhelmed with uh the state of the world and uh i just i i haven't been able to get to it and then i started to think what does overwhelmed even mean like and then i started researching it and it was pretty cool because i feel like i'm constantly overwhelmed uh and then i was just like have i ever just been whelmed i would like to just at some point in my life instead of being overwhelmed just be whelmed just be uh just a baseline whelmed uh there's there's also you know sometimes i'm underwhelmed but uh currently overwhelmed so i'd like to find a nice a nice middle ground um and so what i started to do is i started to think about what does overwhelmed a thing well overwhelmed um it it just means to to bury or drown beneath a huge mass it's like a whoa that sounds intense you were overwhelmed right and uh so which is how i feel like it's it's cool because i think it used to be more of a uh almost like a nautical term where like a ship would be overwhelmed by the waves right and uh they it eventually kind of started to mean that uh you know you're it's you're just anything that can is taking you down is beating you down you you could become overwhelmed so in this scenario i'm the ship i'm the ship out on a sea on a very stormy sea and the waves are crashing over me they're overwhelming me they're threatening to take me the ship out of my ship down but no no no my friends they will not take they will not take me down no sir i um i did i woke up the other morning and i looked in the mirror and i was trying to give myself a pep talk and uh i i looked at the mirror and i looked at myself in the mirror and i said today is not the day that i'm gonna break and uh and i felt good about myself a little know you gotta build yourself up sometimes and as i as i left the room with a mirror in it i heard the mirror whisper you know or is it and i was like whoa hey mirror i thought you had my back and it's just like i have your reflection not your back and i was like ah good point good point um anyway so uh underwhelmed is another thing right are you overwhelmed are you underwhelmed underwhelmed isn't even a phrase it doesn't make any sense because uh if overwhelmed is talking about the waves crashing over the the the bow of the ship threatening to to pull it under you know one's ever going to be like ah the ocean is very calm today the boat is calm very underwhelmed now of course you might know what it's like ah we went to see that new movie i was super excited about it i didn't live up to my standards i was pretty underwhelmed so wait you're saying that the waves just were uh very calm at your at your ship i don't know and then and then whelmed i really feel like we should bring it back or i don't even know if it was ever there i'm hoping that this podcast is leaving you considerably whelmed not i don't want to be overwhelmed i don't want to be too much for you because there's too much else going on and i certainly don't want to you know uh be aiming too low i don't want to underwhelm you no i want to overwhelm you i want if you ever if somebody's like oh you listen to the bumper podcast yeah i do are you a bumper podcast couture i suppose i am how do you feel about that in one word can you describe to me uh the bumper podcast one word and you can just look at them straight in the eye and you can say whelmed it's gonna that's probably gonna go on our business card we're we're gonna hire a skywriter to you uh you know just write uh to an advertisement in the sky so people can know to tune in and they'll say it'll just say whelmed and we'll forget to uh actually put the bumper podcast or anything that ties it to us but eventually enough people are gonna know that when they hear the word whelmed boom they're talking about they should be thinking about the bumper podcast in my opinion the dog just joined me i have to tell you she's been completely underwhelmed today by the amount of attention and love that she's received and um what she's done to make up for that lack of love and attention is to destroy toys not my toys because i keep them in the high ground all right and she will not overwhelm my defenses to get to these toys the children however leave their toys scattered around the house everywhere that the dog can reach them and i uh a lot of times i'll wake up to shrieking ah yee ah oh which is a completely overwhelming way to start your day and i burst down the stairs and i say what's going on down here the dog ate our toy ah did she overwhelm your defenses no the toy was on the ground i'm like you can't leave the toy you can't leave the toys on the ground your toys look like her dog toys so she's going to eat them but they don't listen because why would they i don't know nothing i'm just their dad dad's that's a fun thing with kids is they're like ah dad you don't know nothing you don't know my my worries you don't know nothing about me my life i'm like buddy i helped make you like what are you talking about i know i've been here every day i know i know a little bit about you but i don't know anything about you about you uh but no no no no no dad you don't you come you're completely underwhelming me as a parent i'm like all right that's we don't have to keep using the over under and the whelmed during the episode um i was trying to figure out when the last time that i sent out an episode was and then i realized i don't even know what today is i've completely given up on time we did an episode of a while ago uh about time being linear and time folding in on itself and how strange time can be and then we got into nostalgia and stuff and the thing is is i don't it's i wake up every day and i don't i'm just like like we had to do the kids homework this morning and they were like what's today what assignment do i do and i was just like oof i had to look at my calendar i was just like it's uh well obviously it's tuesday and then i'm like how is it tuesday that's weird i mean yesterday was monday huh all right sure but i don't really believe i mean it's just like there's nothing uh solid concrete about the days that that are keeping me and my brain kind of in line with what day it is um which is a struggle when all this quarantine started i was i was very i was cleaning all the time and i was making lists of stuff to do and then i think just the more and more stuff that i was doing i have all these projects and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna have to do this project and i would start a project and then i would realize i don't have all the pieces to finish the project and i can't go to the store and so that's on the list and the more unfinished projects that i would get the more overwhelmed i would get right and and so then i would my list would just keep growing longer and then you know you wake up every day and you're just like okay we got to get the kids food we got to get their school stuff ready we got to talk to the teachers we got to talk to the school we got to talk to we got it we got to talk to the teachers we got to work we got to do the bumper podcast we got to do the uh hanging out with pig and pal show every day which is still happening gotta take the dog for a walk oh man we got to start the car every so often this is we it's just very strange but i have to say and i was talking to someone yesterday a medical professional if you will and what we were talking about was uh and i think i mentioned this before silver lining uh it's great to be able to hang out with my family i love it love it to pieces i make jokes about it about not wanting to hang out with a family but i i actually love it to pieces and um you know it's it's it's nice to be able to be the kid's teacher and to realize that i was completely correct and not going into uh being a teacher like for a job i should not have ever done that i'm glad i did not ever do that it's completely over the top i'm glad i did not ever do that i'm glad i did not see everything's overwhelming you go to the grocery store you're overwhelmed you walk into the cleaning supplies aisle you're underwhelmed you go to the front to pay and you're like how much food are we eating how can how is it possibly this much money every single time what are we what are we doing are we i mean all we're doing is eating is what's happening that's the only way that we've been able to get our brain levels our serotonin levels to uh to be at a nice even keel uh so that we're not overwhelmed and we're not underwhelmed is we just keep eating we might want to make sure that our stomach is completely whelmed i love it um anyway how are you doing are you hanging in there you you doing okay yeah i've been doing zoom comedy shows zoom comedy shows and um actually i have a a meeting with zoom uh at some point they haven't sent me the invitation yet but they said they are because we're gonna want to try to figure out the platform to see how i can make make zoom comedy shows even better because right now it's just uh you know you're just one random person just on video talking to nobody and then uh you know somebody will type in the chat lol and you're like ah that doesn't have the same effect on me and i'm like oh my god i'm on a comedian who's telling jokes uh as actually hearing someone laugh seeing someone type lol no it doesn't it doesn't do it for you you're like oh i guess that one that was a big one i got i got one lol oh wait look i got a uh a sideways laughing partially crying emoji ah i'm tearing it up tonight this is living the dream so i'm trying to see if there's a way to make that better um we do a weekly uh open mic and my friend's coffee joint it's a cedar beans coffee joint in cedar grove new jersey we got that figured out it's a blast it's really fun we're really uh trying to take charge of all this and and and and and fit into the new world right
Unknown: okay see you guys later so you you you you you you
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