Time Travel at the Waffle House. What Gen X Is Really Thinking | Friday Happy Hour 12.12.25

A Waffle House menu shouldn’t feel like time travel, but here we are. What starts as light Friday chaos quickly turns into a very Gen X conversation about rising prices, parenting, and how reality seems to shift without warning.

Keith Malinak is joined by Brad Staggs and Rebecca Mistereggen as the conversation moves from sleep-deprived parenting and Christmas traditions to cultural differences, inflation shock, and the moment a Waffle House menu suddenly feels like time travel.

From rising prices and national debt to Gen X humor, near-death stories, and the strange calm that comes from having lived through enough to notice when reality shifts, this episode covers a lot of ground without trying to solve everything.

It’s a loose, funny, honest conversation about family, money, life, and what happens when the week finally lets go.

Chapters:

• 00:00 Something Is Already Going Wrong
• 01:52 Life Updates and No Sleep
• 07:45 Christmas Traditions That Don’t Make Sense Anymore
• 13:10 Cultural Differences That Catch You Off Guard
• 20:05 When Food and Advertising Get Weird
• 24:30 The Waffle House Menu That Broke Reality
• 30:50 Inflation, Debt, and “Explain This to Me”
• 42:15 Parenting Advice Nobody Agrees On
• 49:50 Nature Is Brutal and Doesn’t Care
• 56:00 The Most Gen X Thing You’ll Hear Today
• 01:01:45 Michael Jackson, Marvel, and a Wild What-If
• 01:12:10 Near-Death Stories That Escalated Fast
• 01:28:20 How This Conversation Ends Up Here

Subscribe if your reaction to rising prices is sarcasm instead of panic. Friday Happy Hour might be your kind of show.

What’s something that used to be cheap that still shocks you now?

#WaffleHouse #GenX #InflationShock #ParentingLife #FridayHappyHour #Podcast #ComedyPodcast #LifeTalk #CostOfLiving #RealConversations

Brad Staggs

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Rebecca Mistereggen

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🎙️ At The Mic with Keith Malinak

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Special thanks to Gabby

https://twitter.com/jeffapologist

🛠️ Produced by 2nd Floor Studios

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