Mother’s Day frames a reflective conversation that blends family stories with a few driving observations. The host tells a funny cooler mishap involving Diet Coke, then pivots to road-rage skepticism and a debate about “historic plates” on a Nissan Altima. The heart of the episode turns to the speaker’s mother—strict parenting, adoption and identity struggles, and caregiving responsibilities after moving to Arizona. The takeaway: “Mother's Day isn't for the spouse, it's for the children to do something for the mom.”
EP325: Dedicated to the Moms + 7 Years of Hard Parking
In this special Mother’s Day episode, Jhae dedicates the show to all the moms with warm personal reflections and funny real-life stories. He celebrates 7 full years of Hard Parking, shares laughs about a Diet Coke cooler explosion, over-the-top grade school graduations, road rage, Trader Joe’s flowers, and appreciation for the strong mothers and double-duty parents in his life.
Short, heartfelt, and classic Jhae — recorded from the Gilbert, Arizona home studio.
"I'm sitting there in traffic and I'm looking at the light and there's an old man and a Nissan Altima next to me or in front of me. He had a historic plate on his Nissan Altima. Now, for you non car people, you may be thinking, what's the big deal?"
The Nissan Altima is a very common everyday car. The host is basically saying it feels weird to put a special “historic” plate on a car like that, even if it technically qualifies.
The Nissan Altima is a mainstream midsize sedan that’s common on everyday roads, which is why it stands out when someone discusses a “historic plate” on one. In this segment, the host uses the Altima as an example of a car that’s old enough to qualify, but doesn’t feel like the kind of vehicle people usually associate with collectible or historic registration.
"Car people know what I'm talking about. Sure, the vehicle may be old enough, but what are we doing with a historic plate on a Nissan Altima? Just because a car is old doesn't mean it deserves a historic plate."
A historic plate is a special kind of license plate for older cars. The host’s point is that just because a car is old enough to qualify, it doesn’t automatically mean it should get that kind of “collector” status.
A “historic plate” is a special license plate category tied to a vehicle’s age and eligibility rules, often used to recognize older cars. In the segment, the host argues that meeting the age requirement alone doesn’t necessarily mean the car should be treated like a collectible or enthusiast “historic” vehicle.
"...what are we doing? I'm going to go buy me a 1980s Caprice classic and put a historic plate on the back. No,..."
The Holden Caprice is a large sedan made by Holden. A 1980s model is considered a classic today, and the podcast is talking about buying one and using a historic license plate. That usually means the car is kept for its age and collectible value.
The Holden Caprice is a full-size sedan produced by Holden, and the 1980s versions are especially sought after by enthusiasts. It’s discussed in the context of buying a classic and registering it with a historic plate, which points to its collectible and preservation appeal. The podcast mention suggests the car is being considered as a period-correct, character-filled classic.
"And finally, I was coming home from an event last weekend and I'm at the light, wait for the light to turn green, make a right hand turn in the NSX and I'm driving and I noticed this car in the back of my, kind of in the corner of my vision"
The Acura NSX is a high-end sports car. The host brings it up to set the scene while describing a weird or aggressive driving moment.
The Acura NSX is a mid-engine sports car known for its performance and for being a relatively rare sight compared with typical commuter cars. Here, the host mentions using an NSX as the context for noticing another car’s aggressive lane change behavior.
- Intro & Sponsors
- Ice + Diet Coke Cooler Chaos
- Grade School Graduations Rant
- Road Rage Story
- Mother’s Day Reflections Begin
- Family Moms Appreciation
- Mother’s Day Opinion
- Patreon Thanks & Outro
Select text to request an explanation
Congratulations, you're not slow.
This is Art Parking, brought to you by Wright-Honden, Wright-Toyota, out of Scottsdale, Arizona.
I am your host, Jay Finning, reporting from my home studio in Gilbert, Arizona.
As promised, I want to talk about Mother's Day. I also have a few observations from just
kind of being out and about. I've done so many Father's Day episodes, every year I do a Father's
Day episodes, and they are some of the best episodes that do not necessarily feature a guest,
although I guess many times they do. God, the years just, the years just kind of go by.
This is looking at it, what, it's May of 26th, so we are coming up on seven years of doing this
podcast. Isn't that crazy? Seven years of stories, seven years of guests when I have them, but I have
not dedicated, I don't think I've dedicated an episode to Mother's Day and moms out there, period.
So let's have a conversation about it. We're going to do that after this word from
Arcus Foundry, Sparkforge. Speaking of Arcus Foundry, Sparkforge, make sure you head over to
hardparking.com. You'll see the updated website, looks great, that is the work of Sparkforge.
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started. Hey, so before I get into this Mother's Day thing, I'm gonna kind of bring it full circle.
A lot of people online responded when I posted talking about adding water or the next drink on
top of the last drop of the prior drink. So my wife thinks it's gross, and some other people
think it's gross, but more people than not, to my surprise said, you know what, I do the same thing.
Good for you. Good for all of us for fighting back. There's no reason to dump out the ice and
rinse out the cup just to add water on top of it when you just got done drinking whatever it is
you were previously drinking, and I do it all the time, but consider this. So setting up for
Mother's Day, it was carryover from the prior week, we had a birthday party here. So we still had
drinks in the coolers, we just left them in the coolers, I drained the water, and I went to add
ice. And so I took out this big bag of ice from the garage freezer. And I dropped it once on the
ground to loosen it up, you know, that's the move, everybody does that. I noticed it had a small
hole inside the bag. And so I go, well, if I drop it again, this hole is going to rip open. So I'm
just going to hold it, take it over and just dump it in said cooler. So take it out back in this
beautiful igloo cooler that I have keeps shit cold for days. And I go to pour the bag in the
ice in and the first thing that comes out is this giant clunk of ice that didn't break.
Hits a Diet Coke can thing explodes it explodes like the old biscuit mirror the biscuit container
where you start on ram on the side and it goes poop, and it pops open, look like that. So I have
Diet Coke kind of up on me. I have Diet Coke, you know, all over the place. And it's just still,
you know, oozing out of that pick up this paint this this can and I'm holding it like, okay,
what am I going to do with this? And I decided to do nothing. I dumped the rest of the can out
again and split in half. And I'm, I'm looking at the water, the drinks and the ice. Do I really
want to like take all this shit out and rinse it off? No, I don't. Yeah, you know what happened.
I just left the ice in there with the Diet Coke that has splattered all over the place.
So when you reach in there and you grab your beer, soda, water,
the water itself and the cooler was brown. Now, after a while, I did open up the back of it and
let a lot of the water drain out. And then we put more ice in it. So at the end of the day,
it really wasn't that brown. But it was a giant diluted version of the story from last week that
went crazy on social media. So yeah, I'm I'm that guy. You're welcome. So we went to my nephew's
concert. He's part of the band. And we're all packed into this little,
this gymnasium, they got the fifth graders and the sixth graders and all that good yada yada.
But my wife had mentioned to me, oh, well, on May 20, I think it's May 20, it's, it's his graduation.
I go graduation. Oh yeah, he graduates. And I don't, I don't know if he's in fifth grade or sixth
grade, but I'm just going to go out here and I'm just going to say it. Kindergarten graduation,
fifth grade graduation, sixth grade graduation. If you're going off to like middle school or junior
high, stupid. What's the point? Like I could, I understand the graduation ceremony from going
from high school. I mean, a high school diploma is a big deal. Jobs look at that. Colleges look at
that. Sometimes you can't graduate. You either have to go back to school or you have to get a GED,
if that's even still a thing in 2026, probably not what the way we are with our system. No child
left behind. We got to slow down the class for the slow kid. But I am getting off topic here.
Other than cute pictures for your kid, like what are we doing? Congratulations, you're not slow.
I was going to say the R word, but I don't want to get canceled for that.
We're celebrating the fact that our kid can keep up with the other kids and go on to the next thing
that isn't any, like it's not like you're graduating high school and going on to college.
Congratulations, you're smart enough to go to the next level of normal ass school.
Now there are situations where you get held back, right? My brother got held back in second grade.
We had moved from another state and we joined halfway through the school year. Many of you out
there, you either know, this is either you or you know people that this has happened to. So you
transferred to a different school district. The curriculum could be different, especially from
state to state. And he was behind on the curriculum. You know, if you joined kindergarten halfway through
the school year, not a big deal. You joined another grade halfway through the school year,
probably a bigger deal. Again, another state, whatnot. And my whole life, he's just, he's always
had A's and B's. I'm the, the dumb kid in school. I had terrible grades,
but even in that, to me, that's okay. Plus we all develop at different times.
Some kids are dumb as hell when they're young and they're smartest hell when they're old. Some
kids seem like they're the smartest kid in class when they're young and they're dumb as rocks when
they're old. But what are we doing with these kindergarten, fifth grade, sixth grade graduations?
Just stop. Anyway, we'll probably be going to it. Gotta support the kids, right? The other day,
I was going to Trader Joe's to buy flowers for Mother's Day. Cause you know, I usually go
somewhere and I buy these flowers and they're always beautiful, but they cost too much. Like
if we go to AJ's and if you go to fries, they're like super cheap. And so my wife's always like,
go to Trader Joe's, they got better flowers, right? So I go to Trader Joe's, I'm buying these flowers
and I'm sitting there in traffic and I'm looking at the light and there's an old man and a Nissan
Altima next to me or in front of me. He had a historic plate on his Nissan Altima. Now,
for you non car people, you may be thinking, what's the big deal? Car people know what I'm talking
about. Sure, the vehicle may be old enough, but what are we doing with a historic plate on a Nissan
Altima? Just because a car is old doesn't mean it deserves a historic plate. Sure, it meets the
requirements of age and technically that's the only requirement, but what are we doing? I'm going
to go buy me a 1980s Caprice classic and put a historic plate on the back. No, no, that's for
nice cars, collector cars, a Nissan Altima. What are we doing? And finally, I was coming home from
an event last weekend and I'm at the light, wait for the light to turn green, make a right hand
turn in the NSX and I'm driving and I noticed this car in the back of my, kind of in the corner of
my vision, this car kind of get behind me and fly over to the other lane. I'm like, oh, that's weird
because Walmart's over there, right? So maybe the, you know, the people, they get over like really
fast and cut people off. I'm like, oh, that's, that's interesting. And then I kind of look
in the rear view and I noticed this person that shot over to the other side is throwing up the
middle fingers. I'm like, oh, who's this person flipping off? That's weird. I look at my side
mirror and I could, I could swear this woman was flipping me off with her shitty ass car and her
heavily oxidized hood. You know, like an old censor or something. And she's just like,
I'm like, oh, okay. I guess. Don't know what happened. Maybe I cut her off. Maybe I didn't
move up fast enough and she wanted to get over, not entirely sure. But it's one of those things
where I don't, I would never cut somebody off on purpose. I'm very defensive driving,
minded. I'm always looking around. And for someone like that, like I didn't know,
because she kind of got behind the car next to me, like two lanes over and I'm like, is this woman
going to get out and come over to my car and key it or start yelling at me through my window
or something. And I'm going through all these thoughts as I'm sitting at the next light,
like this crazy person. And I don't understand road rage. I think I've talked about road rage
before. I don't understand road rage. Help me understand road rage. People are crazy.
Like I said, like my dad was that guy, like if you cut him off, he would grab up behind you
and ride your bumper or he'd get in front of you and some of the brakes. I never understood that.
Like, dad, what are you doing? Like, what are we doing? And then you hear the stories,
you see the videos where people get out and you F around and find out, people get shot,
people get hurt. What's the point? Me, if you cut me off, I might laugh. Chances are maybe you
didn't even see me, but I'm just like, all right, whatever. Obviously you're in a bigger rush than
I am. What a dad thing to say, right? What a granddad thing to say. But I just don't understand
road rage and who I still don't know. Maybe I cut this person off unintentionally. Maybe I was driving
too slow and they just really wanted to get over, which by the way, there's always another turn.
There's always another exit. All right, let's talk about Mother's Day.
So Mother's Day around here is always complicated. I mean, you know, I, you know, my wife,
obviously, right? And my mother-in-law lives with me, you know, our daughter, she's a mother
of three wonderful kids, my son's girlfriend, you know, now he has a daughter. And so I got
four grandkids. That's another mother, my brother-in-law, his wife, Ashley, they're always over here.
And there's a lot of mothers in our lives, a lot of mothers in my life. There's my mothers in my
life too, up in Minnesota. And man, I think maybe it's, maybe it's we spend so much time as a society
talking about moms, Mother's Day, Mother's Birthday, mom, mom, mom. And some people don't have their
mother anymore, which really sucks. I get it. I still have mine. I know I'm very, very fortunate
and very grateful that she's still with me after losing my father almost six years ago now.
But we don't get forever in this world. But when I sit back and think about my mom,
she is, she's hardcore. I love her. But she was the strict one. You know, you always hear
moms always threaten if you're fortunate enough to have two parents, a male and a female in the house.
No controversy. That's just me. That's my take. That's my belief. No problem with
two women raising a kid. But it's always wait till your dad gets home or when your dad gets home.
And so my father was kind of the enforcer in a way with the tone. But my mother was the one
that would slap me if I got on a line and the one that I would typically get grounded with and the
one I would buck up to. As I got older, like woman, I'll, you know, obviously I never fought or hit
my mom. There was one time when my mom thought I was going to hit her and she sent my dad after me.
And he didn't, you know, my, my father and I never fought, you know, but there was, there was crazy
times. But you know, when I think about my mom, I think about the woman who, I don't just think
about the stern woman who raised me because there's times where she's always asked me,
what am I going to do when I get out of school? What am I going to do when I grow up? And
for years, I would say, well, I'm going to be an artist. And she would say stuff like, oh, yeah,
right. And it sounds terrible because it is, but she really wanted me to have a plan because I
was a mess. You know, I'm an adopted kid. I fought with my identity most of my life. You know, I'm
pretty comfortable with who I am now, but I wasn't comfortable with who I was for a long time. And so
I was probably more difficult, mouthy as hell, imagine that. And, you know, she's from a small town
of North, very small town in Minnesota, not a lot of culture, not a lot of
variety of, I wouldn't say necessarily people because there isn't, but just a variety of
different things, different experiences, different viewpoints. But I mean, they adopted me so that
it's not like, you know, Minnesota is, it's not, despite all the crazy shit that's happened there
recently, it's, I would rather have been adopted by people from Minnesota than people from, I don't
know, Alabama, right? Why don't black people adopt kids, by the way? Anyway, side note,
yeah, because my parents are both white. My brother is Korean. But, you know, aside from her being
that, it was just with her, oh yeah, right. I also remember her rocking me in the rocking chair
when I would fall down, I was crying, like she was the one, she was very nurturing. And I know that,
like in my family now, sometimes when we talk about my mom, everyone's like, well,
I know your mom wouldn't put up with this or, yeah, all this shit that I go through when
this house blows up with kids, loud as hell, yeah, I drive my mom crazy. It drives me crazy.
Not everybody is built for that. Not everybody likes accepts that.
But that doesn't make you a bad person. That doesn't make my mom a bad person if she doesn't
want to sit there and put up with mouthy kids all day. You know, she could,
she'll put up with it for a little while. Hell, look who she raised me. I was mouthy as hell.
My brother didn't say shit. So we were like ying and yang in that house, you know?
But that's what I think about when my mom and her birthday was also this
past week. And so it's, you have mother's day and birthday at the same time. And I try to call her
a lot more often and I've slowed down a little bit. And so I've told myself that anytime I think
about calling my mom, just, just call her because there's going to be days at some point where she's
not going to be there anymore. That's just, that's life. That is just life. And it's just like, you
know, I still keep my father's contact information on my phone, you know, his profile picture.
And it's going to be the same way with mom and she's not on death row or anything right now. You
know, she's, you know, and I don't mean that from a jail aspect, but she's perfectly healthy.
But still, you know, and then I think about my wife. My wife is a very strong mother. She is the
leader of the pack. She is one of four kids, but she is the one. She is the one that is the caretaker.
She's also the oldest shocker, right? And so this is why my mother and all those with us, because
my wife is the main caretaker. And I knew that when we moved here to Arizona, that was pretty
much a condition of the move. We have to bring mom with us. And I accept that. I know I sound crazy.
Most of you were thinking, hell, no, I couldn't do that. Well, you'd be surprised what you could
or couldn't do. But there's just certain places I'm not willing to drive a drawing line in the
sand for it. And that was one of them. I can make it work. We've made it work. Hell, we've been here
since 2014. And it hasn't always been perfect far from it. But my mother-in-law, she's a good woman.
She's old school. And that's always the excuse for all these old people while they're just being,
grandpa's being grandpa, grandma's being grandma. No, some shit's just never going to change. But
that doesn't take away from, because she's crazy. But that's not going to take away from the amount
of care and giving that she is as a matriarch, as the mother, the grandma,
the everything that she is. Especially even with the downs, I still appreciate the hell out of her.
And I know she appreciates the hell out of me. I know she sees me as kind of like a rock
for the family, the protector. And it's funny that I say this about, because some of you know
the dog we used to have, Izzy. In fact, when you listen to this podcast, when you watch this,
the dog barking at the very end was Izzy, that my dog that passed a few years ago.
And he's, as far as I'm in control of it, he's always going to be the last noise on the podcast,
is Izzy barking at me telling him to shut up and him barking again, because he was mouthy too.
But if it wasn't for my mother-in-law, she basically helped me raise Izzy too,
especially living here. And she's always the person who's going to clean the house,
take care of everything. Sometimes it drives you crazy. But at the same time, she's just a strong
woman. Now, my wife, one thing that attracted me to her, and it's easy to kind of turn this into
this is how we met, and this is how our relationship is, and this is how we've survived
the past 20-something years. We were married in 2004, so 22 years.
But her, with the kids, and when I met her, she was going to school full-time. She was
or going to school part-time, working a full-time job. When it was allowed for her to let me
mourn to her lives, into the lives of the kids and the family, that was a big deal,
because initially, no, it wasn't a deal. She wanted to test me out, vet me out,
as she should, as anybody should out there, whether you're a father dating and you want to
introduce your woman or your guy to your kids, you got to vet them out so that they're not
seeing this constant carousel of different faces and getting the wrong message. And so once I was
able to meet the entire family, it just made it better. It's like, wow, what a strong woman this
woman is. And at that point, her mother was already on disability, so being the oldest sibling,
all her other siblings were still in school and still in high school, two small children,
smallish, work full-time, mother on disability, going to college to further everything. It was
just so attractive to me. And the fact that she wasn't from the place where I was living made
it even better. So we had two different people coming from two different backgrounds, and it
was rough at first because my upbringing was so different than hers. And every year, just being
with her makes Mother's Day even that more special because you see all that stuff. Now,
I don't know if this is controversial or people are going to say, thank God, Jay,
I feel the same way. If you have kids and they're adults, my kids are adults, I think Mother's Day
should be about your kids doing something for your wife, your kids doing something for the mom,
not the husband. I get stuff, right? It's a gift, right? Everybody buys everybody other stuff,
but it's, to me, it's, hey, kids, now that you're both mature adults,
do something for your mother. Take her out to dinner, buy her a spa day at a massage, whatever,
or spa day at a massage, just kind of, you know what I mean, get her a spa day. And they've done
that before where it's like, hey, we bought mom a new Apple Watch or something kind of expensive.
Mother's Day isn't for the spouse, it's for the children to do something for the mom.
And you can debate me on that. Actually, there's nothing to debate. That's just my opinion.
And we all do stuff anyway. But what do we do here? We had everybody over. We had plenty of food.
I made some killer St. Louis style ribs. My wife wanted baby back. I said, no, babe,
I'm going to make St. Louis style ribs because there's more meat per rib. There are usually a
more consistent in their shape. You can trim it better. And baby backs, half of them are juicy.
Sometimes they dry out half of them. And I don't need you DM me and telling me how to cook.
But I think those of you who smoke meats are going to agree with me 100% that at the end of the day,
St. Louis style ribs are just better to cook and serve to a large group of people.
But anyway, we had that. We had plenty of food, plenty of drink, plenty of moms over here,
dads over here, plenty of kids over here. And to me, that's what Mother's Day is all about.
Flowers out the wazoo, flowers everywhere. It won't last forever, but it's going really good right
now. And I think I am very grateful to have so many mothers in my life, which obviously includes
my mom, my mother-in-law, my wife, my daughter, my relatives. There's just so many mothers in my
life right now. And I think that's what really makes Mother's Day special for me. So let me know.
Do you have a favorite Mother's Day memory? Do you have something you'd like to add to this
that's personal to you? Go ahead and drop it in the comments if you're watching this online.
Or shoot me a DM. So that being said, one of the right haunted and right Toyota,
Arcus Foundry Sparkforge, like I said, go ahead, head over to hardparking.com and check out the
new website. It's got a cool search feature in there. I want to thank AutoCannon, officially
licensed, haunted, Acura Gear, Patreon, business supporter, Corey Automotive out of Winter Garden,
Florida, Automotive Specialty Tool out of Owings Mills, Maryland, Beak House, Small Home Design
out of Ashford, Virginia, and Traverse City, Michigan, the Lucky Break Sportsbreakers out of
Caledonia, Michigan, and Shaping Success Treasure Valley out of Boise, Idaho. You're in a position
to help the podcast upgrade. Head over to patreon.com, hardparking podcast, and join up one of the
Mark Stoneman, Katherine Cox, Eddie Ramos, Richard Gray, Lauren Jones, Bo Zhang, Alice Kamina, Drew
Bunkley, and Dre Mullins. Email the show info at hardparking.com, follow me at hardparkingpod
on Instagram, and I will talk to you all next week. Shout out to all the mothers out there,
and the father's pulling double duty. Shut up!
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