My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)Obviously, I wasn’t always an advocate of settling. In fact, it took not settling to make me realize that settling is the better option, and even though settling is a rampant phenomenon, talking about it in a positive light makes people profoundly uncomfortable. Whenever I make the case for settling, people look at me with creased brows of disapproval or frowns of disappointment, the way a child might look at an older sibling who just informed her that Jerry’s Kids aren’t going to walk, even if you send them money. It’s not only politically incorrect to get behind settling, it’s downright un-American. Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize (while our mothers, who know better, tell us not to be so picky), and the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is—look at the divorce rate) permeates our collective mentality.Even situation comedies, starting in the 1970s with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and going all the way to Friends, feature endearing single women in the dating trenches, and there’s supposed to be something romantic and even heroic about their search for true love. Of course, the crucial difference is that, whereas the earlier series begins after Mary has been jilted by her fiancé, the more modern-day Friends opens as Rachel Green leaves her nice-guy orthodontist fiancé at the altar simply because she isn’t feeling it. But either way, in episode after episode, as both women continue to be unlucky in love, settling starts to look pretty darn appealing. Mary is supposed to be contentedly independent and fulfilled by her newsroom family, but in fact her life seems lonely. Are we to assume that at the end of the series, Mary, by then in her late 30s, found her soul mate after the lights in the newsroom went out and her work family was disbanded? If her experience was anything like mine or that of my single friends, it’s unlikely.And while Rachel and her supposed soul mate, Ross, finally get together (for the umpteenth time) in the finale of Friends, do we feel confident that she’ll be happier with Ross than she would have been had she settled down with Barry, the orthodontist, 10 years earlier? She and Ross have passion but have never had long-term stability, and the fireworks she experiences with him but not with Barry might actually turn out to be a liability, given how many times their relationship has already gone up in flames. It’s equally questionable whether Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, who cheated on her kindhearted and generous boyfriend, Aidan, only to end up with the more exciting but self-absorbed Mr. Big, will be better off in the framework of marriage and family. (Some time after the breakup, when Carrie ran into Aidan on the street, he was carrying his infant in a Baby Björn. Can anyone imagine Mr. Big walking around with a Björn?)
– Welcome home guys. You’re on the Carl and Jinger Family channel, and last night me and Luke built this awesome box fort right here so that we can get back at our parents for locking us in 24-hour escape room box forts. – Yeah we even have this awesome door right here, and a window, and we’re gonna trap them in here, slide some puzzles in there, and we can see if they can escape. – This is gonna be awesome! Whoa! Hey, look, it’s Buzz! – Hi Buzz! – He’s here to remind us that this video is sponsored by Honey Nut Cheerios. You know what’s awesome, is the Good Rewards program offers a way for kids to do good just by teaming up with their celebrities. – Oh yeah yeah yeah, there’s Team MBJ, there’s also Team Lucy, and oh man there’s Team Gronk.
I really want to pick Team Gronk. – Yeah let’s totally do that. And the best way to do is to go to beegoodrewards.com. On the back of every Honey Nut Cheerios box there is an official Buzzcoin. – What! – Which you can scan and whichever team has the most Buzzcoins, wins $100,000. – What, really? Alright I gotta scan this. I’m gonna pick Team Gronk right here. – That is awesome, now we’re part of Team Gronk. – Grab your box of specialty marked Honey Nut Cheerios, and press scan now. Awesome. Now let’s scan our Buzzcoin right here. (lighthearted music) There we go! – And there’s a ton of other really cool prizes, like tech, and there’s Pop Sockets, and a bunch of really cool swag.
– I’m gonna donate all of my Buzzcoins to Team Gronk, and you guys should too ’cause everyday’s a new day. – Let’s make it an awesome one! – If we can solve them, it doesn’t mean you guys can. – That’s true! – That’s actually true. – Woo! – Woo! – Carl, which one of these are we gonna do first? – None of them. – Come on. What? – We’re bustin’ out of this joint. (laughs) (orchestra music) – Okay guys, here’s the plan. Me and Luke are going to trick our parents into thinking that this entire awesome box fort is going to be for our cops and robbers video for Kyle’s channel. – And then once they go in there to make sure it’s all ready to go, we’re going to zip tie it right here, and lock them in there for 24 hours.
Let’s go grab Kyle and do this. – Alright let’s go! Kyle! – What? – Do you want to help us prank mom and dad? – Yeah! – It’s gonna be awesome because we’re gonna trap them in a box fort like they do to us all the time. – Oh yeah, let’s go do it. – Let’s go right now. – Let’s go get ’em! (knocks) – Hey we got the box fort all done. Wanna come check it out? – Cops and robbers one? – Yeah. – Yeah I’ll grab mom and be down in a second. – Okay. Come on guys. – You got it ready? – Yeah. – Oh, I like the tape colors. – Yeah and we have the window right here. So you can see cops and the robbers. And when they go in there, we can lock it up like this.
– Right. It actually needs an actual lock. (indistinct talking) – Maybe we should do, maybe this window’s too big. Right here. – I’m just not sure about the furniture– (laughs) – Locking you! – We got you! – We got you! – We got you. – We got you, we locked you in there. – We locked you guys in there! (laughing) – We pranked you back. – We fell for our own joke. It’s not even a lock, it’s a zip tie. – Yeah, that’s not even more secure. It’s even more secure. – Oh, great. – What’s the plan? Do we have to solve puzzles or something? – Yeah. (laughs) – You have 24 hours to do it.
– Yeah. If we can solve them, it doesn’t mean you guys can. – That’s actually true. – That’s true. (laughs) – We got you back! – I have no idea, did you read any of the instructions? – No! (laughs) – Like I said, there’s only one way out of this. What’s the first puzzle? – Okay, Kyle you go grab it. Go grab it. – Hello. (laughs) – First you guys needs your camera, so you can show solving your puzzles. – So we gotta film us trying to solve the riddle? – And here’s your first puzzle. – Oh, that’s the (mumbles) one. – Your time starts now! – Okay! Here we go! (claps) – We totally got them. – Dibs on the VR set. – Oh no, all right I get next, I wanna play VR, too. – Okay, we have our first puzzle. – Okay, I only wished that I would have paid attention. – I wish I would have paid attention! It’s just like a bunch of letters on here and it’s in a cylinder. Like a mystery. – Okay we got some, we got some arrows here. – They left the chairs in here! We at least get to be in comfort, right? – Yeah because when we walked them in here, we took everything out. – Took everything out so it wasn’t comfortable at all.
– Let me just scoot closer. – Let me just scoot closer, okay here we go, we’re gonna try and solve this. – What could it say? – Here’s the thing that I remember from when we gave them the riddle, I thought it was really funny ’cause it had something to do like romantic, or like– – Like Valentines or something? – Something like a Valentines, I thought it was really hilarious. Uh, let’s try like lover or something like that. – Lover? That’s a love word. – Lovers, try just make it, I don’t know! – So, lovers. – Does it pull apart or what? (sighs) Well. We only have 24 hours to solve this one. (groans) We definitely have an advantage here, because like we bought these, first of all. (laughs) Right? – Right, but we didn’t figure out how to solve ’em. – I know, but I remember that it was a theme that had to do with like love or something.
– Okay, at least it’s narrowed down to that, so it’s not “Lovers.” What’s another six-letter word – It’s gotta be more like… – or like phrase or something? – Family friendly of some kind. It’s probably pretty– – F-A-M-I-L-Y? Maybe it is family. – It’s kind of had to line up, huh? – Yeah, nothing. It’s definitely not it. – Try like a cliche one, just like “I love you” or something like that, I know it’s not like Y-O-U. My memory’s – What would it be – telling me that that might be a– – Spell out “You”, or spell “Love” though. – It’s probably L-O-V-E and then the letter U or something like that, if that’s what it is. I don’t even hear the kids. What in the world are they doing? – We should probably be concerned. – Whoa, look out! – Whoa! (laughs) – That was close. – I… – Wait, something clicked. (gasps) Yeah! – This is what the kids would do. (exclaims loudly) What do they do, this like dance thing and like this thing, right? (gasps) – Carl, look.
– Aww. (gasps) There’s two rings. – Marry me again? – Yes, I will totally marry you, oh this is one for the guy, these are cool. – I wonder if these actually fit. – I don’t even hear the kids and so even though we solved the puzzle, how are we gonna get the next one or get out of here? – Hey! – Hello! – Hey! Anyone there? We solved the first puzzle! – Hello! – Way before you expected I bet. – Hello! Guys? – Okay you guys, that wasn’t very long so it sounds like they figured out the first one quick, so let’s go give them the next puzzle. – Here they are. They heard us. Guys. – Oh! – Cool! – Ooh, you solved it. – First one only took us like three tries and we got the rings out already, yeah.
– We did have an advantage. – We did have a little bit of an advantage. Oh, my gosh. – No! – It won’t fit through there, it’s gotta go through the puzzle window. – Oh wait. – Here we go, you get the next one. What is this, oh gosh, this is the big one. – You guys take that one back. – See? – What are we gonna do? – Did you read the instructions on this? (laughter) – I think I might remember– – We got you now! – Oh, I know. Oh gosh, look at this. – Beat it! – There’s like animals and, oh we better set this on the table and look it over.
(boy exclaims) (water splashes) Okay, now here’s the thing. I know for a fact that at some point I have gotten this one open before because, (object rattles) the kids have put puzzles inside here, and that’s the same thing that I did to them. (laughs) As long as we get this open, there’s probably three more puzzles inside. – Oh, great. – I have another plan that is kind of cheating a little bit. They didn’t check us, and I actually have my fingernail clippers in my pocket, (gasps) so we can make the great escape. – Wait, wait, wait, can we go get snacks or something? – Let’s go get some snacks. Let’s go get Honey Nut Cheerios! (laughs) Here’s what I think we should do. If we trim it right here, then we can open it and put it back, and– – Oh yeah, and they won’t know. – Outside, it will look like nothing happened. (snap) – Watch your clippers breaking. – I got it. – Oh, that was so easy. (gasps) – That was so easy.
– Carl. – Hopefully they don’t notice. – Maybe we need to talk normal. Man, I don’t know how to open this puzzle. – I know. – This puzzle’s difficult. – Do you line the animals up or whatever? – Let’s check out all these animals. – I can’t get the lid off. Man this thing is really locked! (water splashes) (techno-pop music) – Hi! – All right, stay there.
– Okay go, go, go. – Shh. – No. Oh, my gosh. (inquisitive music) Hurry Carl, Carl, yeah, yeah, yeah! – They left this on the table. – We need bowls, bowls! Hurry, Carl. Huh, I wonder how to get this open. These animals are all so different. We need spoons! Where are our spoons? Get milk, get the milk. – Let’s go. Shh. Look out Blue, look out. I got it. Right here, here, here, here. – Look, no, no, no. – No, you can’t come in, Blue! We gotta make it look real, just gotta put that back. – Okay, wait. – It’s supposed to go through. – Oh, through the loop? – It’s gotta go through, oh that’s a lot. We did that but that’s not good. – We did it backwards. Shh. – We don’t want them to hear us. I’m so excited that we get a snack. – Good going Carl– Oh, and hey Buzz! – Oh, hey Buzz. You guys, he’s reminding us that we gotta scan our Buzzcoin to collect Buzzcoins for charity. This is so awesome.
– Which team did we pick, we picked Team Gronk, right? – Yeah, so you guys need to join our team and scan Buzzcoin for Team Gronk because we have the chance to win $100,000 for charity and we need your help. – Oh, yeah. – Let’s do it you guys. – Collect Buzzcoins and do good! – We gotta scan it right now, let’s do it. ‘Cause you guys, you can scan it up to three times a day. – Are you serious? That’s so cool, yeah. Here we go, oh yeah! – There we go. – That is so cool. I love this. – That’s way cool and it all goes to charity and supports your team. So we have 181 Buzzcoins, we’re gonna give to Team Gronk. (flourish) – Whoo! – I like the little coin sound. – Oh yeah. – That’s awesome. – Now it’s snack time. – Don’t forget to check out the website in the description box below. – beegoodrewards.com. – Yeah, keep an eye on the rankings.
Go, Team Gronk! (cereal clatters) Shh! You’re gonna get us caught! Guess what, Jinger? Watch this, I remembered. – Wait, what? – Watch. (gasps) (laughs) – Wait, how does it come out? – I don’t know, I forgot that part, but I remember how to get this part off. (laughs) – Well at least we have that going for us, okay now we have to pull this out. – And the cereal! – How’s it going there, Carl? – I don’t know. How’s the cereal going? (laughs) – It’s my favorite cereal, actually. – It is actually one of my favorites, too. So I think that this has like a magnet in it, and we have – Does it really? – to slide it around the outside, something like that and it triggers a release that opens the top. Yeah, see– – Wait, how does the top even release? – I don’t know, why don’t you figure it out for a minute while I take a little bit of a turn with the Honey Nut Cheerios? – ‘Cause you always so good.
– Mmm. (water splashes) (sighs) – Okay we’ve been out here for about like an hour now. – Yeah. – I think we should go check in on mom and dad to make sure that they’ve solved the puzzle. – All right. – Let’s go. – Let’s go! (water splashes) – It definitely has something to do with sliding the magnet like around the side, and then it releases a– – There’s like a sun over here, maybe. – A latch, or something like that. – Okay. We’re not good at – It’s right here. – the puzzles. What? – It’s right here, look. (gasps) There’s a latch. (laughs) – Oh, my gosh, Carl. – They totally put my– – Oh, no! – Let’s check in on mom and dad to see if their puzzle’s done. – I can hear them coming. We gotta hide the cereal, hide it. Hide it! Not there, we gotta hide it behind the chairs. – Carl, they’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming. – How’s the puzzles, guys? – Shh, shh, shh. – How’s it going guys? – Oh, hey guys. – We got it. – Oh yeah. – You got it? Oh, nice! – Look, we figured this out.
This had the magnet in it. – Yeah, that’s like one of the more difficult puzzles out of the bunch. – It really is, and what are we supposed to do with all these, you guys? – They’re all puzzles that you have to solve next! – Oh, no! – Yeah! (laughs) – So wait, you guys put three more puzzles inside the one big one? – Yeah! – That’s crazy.
– And you have like about, how long is it? – I don’t know, 24 hours to do it. It’s been like 10 maybe. We haven’t been in here 10 hours. – I think you have enough left. – Hopefully we can figure this out. Here we go. – Three puzzles. – Three, two, one, go! – All right. The next puzzle’s go. – Carl, which one of these are we gonna do first? Come on. – None of them.
– What? – None of them. We’re bustin’ out of this joint. (laughs) I say we bust out of this mystery escape box fort and we sneak around the house and go spy on them, what do you say? – Yeah, let’s do it. Carl, get that open. – It’s already opened. They didn’t even notice, they didn’t even look. Total amateurs. – Okay, here we go. – Like a spy movie. – We’re such good spies. Okay, you gotta be quiet. What if they’re– – They’re not, they’re not out here. – They’re not? They must have already went inside. I thought I heard them in the pool for a minute.
– They’re in the basement. Let’s go. – Okay, okay, okay. (laughs) Go through the dog door, Carl. – Blue. – Blue. – Shh. You’re gonna blow our cover. – Shh. Go find your ball. – I’ll send the dog in first. – That’s a good idea. (dog whines) Shh. – They’re right here. (suspenseful music) – Wait. (laughs) – What happened? (exclaims) – Run! Run Blue, run! – How long ago did you guys get out? – Busted! We’re busted! – No! – Ha, ha, we totally tricked you guys. (Jinger fake laughs) We escaped a long time ago, you guys! – What! – What? – Yeah, we got Honey Nut Cheerios and everything. – Are you serious? – We’ve been lounging in here. – Have you just been chilling this entire time? – The entire time, bro. – What? – I mean we hacked our way through this mystery. – This is ours! – You guys, that was a really awesome escape box fort. We totally tricked you guys though, and snuck our way out.
– Yeah, we did a pretty good job doing those puzzles, if you ask me. – We totally did, oh, my God! Hey, there’s Buzz! – Oh, hey Buzz! – Hey, Buzz! That reminds me, we need to collect the last of our Buzzcoins, so we better pull up the website and claim the rewards, you ready? – Oh yeah, ’cause we get to do it everyday. We get to do it three times a day. – You get three times a day you can collect the coins. All right, we got it all pulled up, it’s time to get the Buzzcoins, are you ready? – Oh, yeah. – Yeah. – We already have like a whole bunch of them today and this is our third and final one. There you scan. (gasps) There it goes, how many have we got for Team Gronk? – I think we have over 300. – Oh my gosh, we just did another 139, and we were just over 300 so that’s perfect. You guys need to go join Team Gronk, and get your Buzzcoins. Donate it over to Team Gronk, we really want him to win so you gotta check the link out in the description below and make sure if you haven’t already to subscribe and click these other videos that you see on the screen.
If you like this one, you’re gonna love these other ones that we’ve handpicked for you. Until then, we’ll see you guys next time. – Bye! – Oh my gosh, who wants to eat some more Honey Nut Cheerios? – Yay! – Let’s do it! I’ll go get the bowls. .
Finding a message in a bottle is always an interesting plot point in movies. What’s inside? Will the glass vessel contain a treasure map? Will there be a cry for help from a stranded castaway possibly? Could it be a message meant for a lover lost at sea?
Anymore, these kinds of things are rare in our world. Now, all of the blank pages on the map are all filled in. Sending messages is as easy as punching in what you want to say and hitting send. These friends found an ACTUAL message in a bottle in 2014 and what it said? It was beautiful.
This bottle washed on the beach while some friends were soaking in the sun.
Now, Mel’s bottle is back on its journey across the ocean. I wonder where the bottle will appear next? If you’re curious to know too, help out and let your friends know by giving this a share on Facebook. Who knows, maybe they too will hold Mel’s letter in their hands.
