Ep. 504: "Mt. Florida"
Merlin: Hello?
Merlin: Hello?
Merlin: Hello?
Merlin: I didn't hear you pick up.
Merlin: Hello?
Merlin: Hello?
Merlin: Did I pick up?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Did I pick up?
Merlin: It feels like we're here.
Merlin: Were you calling me?
Merlin: I was calling you.
Merlin: Oh my God.
Merlin: What are the chances?
Merlin: You hang up first.
Merlin: You hang up first.
Merlin: You hang up first.
Merlin: Hello, how are you?
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: It's good.
Merlin: Good coincidence?
Merlin: It's good.
Merlin: It's a little early.
Merlin: Yeah, it is.
Merlin: It's early.
Merlin: It feels early.
Merlin: It feels early.
Merlin: I haven't talked to you in forever.
Merlin: How are you doing?
Merlin: Oh, you know.
Merlin: You know.
Merlin: I'm good.
Merlin: I'm good.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I do know.
Merlin: I didn't have to ask.
Merlin: It was mainly for the purposes of the listening public.
Merlin: Yeah, sure.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: That's what people want to know.
Merlin: I'm great.
Merlin: I mean, as ever, I think the answer is always, ugh.
Merlin: No, I'm doing great.
Merlin: Five by five, you know?
Merlin: Yeah, sure, sure.
Merlin: Kicking it.
Merlin: Old school.
Merlin: New school because I'm an old fool.
John: You're an old fool in a new school?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I was looking in the fridge and I found some cheese.
John: I found a block, a Tillamook block of cheese.
Merlin: Like a sharp cheddar?
John: Yeah, we all have it up here.
John: Tillamook, of course, Oregon brand of dairy products.
John: And they make what they call the baby loaf.
John: Which is about the size of... I've made a baby loaf.
John: I know.
John: It's about the size of a brick.
John: Well... Like a brick you would build a house with.
John: Maybe a little bigger.
John: Okay.
John: Made of cheddar.
John: Baby brick?
John: What's it called?
John: Baby loaf.
John: Baby loaf.
John: Oh.
John: So everybody in the Northwest, as far as I know, has a baby loaf in their fridge at all times.
John: It's actually quite a bit of cheese.
John: It sounds like a regional name for a food.
John: A baby loaf, yeah.
Merlin: Like an apple baby?
Merlin: Isn't that kind of like a pie?
John: Yeah, an apple and a collet.
John: Oh.
John: You remember squirrely bread.
John: You came up here one time and you were so fascinated that we had something called squirrely bread.
Merlin: I'm totally blanking out except to say if it had the word squirrely in it, I know I was super into it because I love that word.
John: Yeah, it's called squirrely bread.
John: Because it didn't use any wheat.
John: It was all just other kinds of seeds.
John: And you like picked up the loaf.
John: I've said loaf a lot already this morning.
John: That's okay.
John: You picked up the loaf of squirrely bread and you pranced around the house like squirrely.
Merlin: Squirrely bread!
Merlin: Did I?
Merlin: That kind of sounds like me.
Merlin: You know, for some reason, squirrely bread, it sounds like a thin shit to me, which reminds me of funnel cakes.
Merlin: That's another kind of regional food, I think.
Merlin: Yeah, it is.
Merlin: I don't know if that's purely Appalachian, but it was big where I'm from, which is Appalachian adjacent.
John: Baby loaf isn't... I mean, if you sat down and tried to eat a baby loaf to your head, you would be in bad shape.
John: You would have a hard time getting around for a few days.
Merlin: I'm not going to look it up on the internet, but... Tell them about baby loaf.
Merlin: When I'm...
Merlin: I love that.
Merlin: When I get squirrely loaf from, when we get, first of all, I tend to over order cheese.
Merlin: I have cheese ambition that exceeds my grasp.
Merlin: And so usually like back in the day, let's say you're going to make chili and you need some cheese for it.
Merlin: And so you get like a Tillamook.
Merlin: And I think of that as being like the size of a small ingot.
Merlin: When I get a Tillamook, it's probably a pound, maybe?
John: Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Merlin: Are you talking about it's like a 4x4?
Merlin: Not the car.
John: Yeah, no, it's almost exactly the dimensions of a 4x4, and it's, what is it, 9 inches long, 10 inches long, and then 4 inches by 4.
John: Unless it's been swimming.
John: Okay.
John: And so it...
John: It's just a staple food.
John: Everybody's got a baby loaf.
John: It's not a fancy cheese.
John: You don't pull out a baby loaf unless you're doing what you just said, making chili.
John: But it's always there.
John: It's our hometown, even though it's from Oregon.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: It's our Northwestern cheese.
John: Anyway, the problem with a baby loaf is it's a lot of cheese.
John: Yeah, that's a commitment.
John: Yeah, and the way things get moved around in the fridge, sometimes you can lose half a loaf.
John: Yeah.
John: You forget it's there.
Merlin: If your house is anything like mine, and I deeply hope that it's not, there is a process of jamming things into the refrigerator that ends up creating piles.
Merlin: And you could lose a little loaf if you're not being cognizant.
John: So I was going through the fridge and I moved something aside and, oh, there's a half a loaf back there.
John: And usually what happens is you run out of baby loaf and you let a beat go by.
John: Maybe you don't get baby loaf next time because if you've already eaten a four by four of cheese in the last,
John: grocery run, maybe you need to slow down, pump the brakes a little bit.
John: Wait a week or two.
Merlin: That's going to slow your intestinal transit fairly significantly.
John: Yeah, and you're not going to be making chili every week either.
Merlin: The loaf suggests... I would love to have chili every week, but it's a lot of work.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Okay, so you found a partial loaf.
John: I found a half a loaf, but guess what?
John: What?
John: You know what.
John: Expired.
John: Well, covered with green mold.
John: That's fine.
John: You can deal with that.
Merlin: You got the tools for that.
John: I got all the tools.
John: So because I'm a bachelor, I don't have to check with anybody.
Merlin: I don't have to say like, is this a... Because I, my family... John, say what you mean.
Merlin: You don't have to ask another person for permission to eat wet cheese.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: This is my cheese.
Merlin: I'll eat it if I feel like it.
Merlin: I don't have to ask anybody.
John: The thing is, my mom is one of those people.
John: You know, we have, as we've established, we have food scientists who are regular listeners to the program.
John: That's absolutely right.
Merlin: Who love to talk about... Doctors Ben and Don.
Merlin: That's right.
John: They love to...
John: They love to tell me as they have many times that eating anything is a risk.
Merlin: Yes, but also, but see, this is the problem with those fuckers and I love them, but they will then also at the same time say, but it's also fine.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Don't rinse your chicken.
Merlin: I can't tell you why, but never rinse a chicken.
Merlin: Not while it's alive.
John: And every time you put something in your mouth, you take a risk.
John: You just have to ask yourself, is it worth the risk?
John: Yeah.
John: And in most cases, it is.
Merlin: A lot of Americans misunderstand risk, including me.
Merlin: My mom, of course, would... Can I guess?
Merlin: Can I guess?
Merlin: Yeah, go ahead.
Merlin: Um, like your mom's not a careless person at all, but like she, it does seem to me that like a big part of her against CF, you know, Ohio upbringing, she's not going to throw out part of a loaf if she knows that she can rescue some wet cheese out of it.
John: The thing about her is she grew up in a canning culture.
John: You know, they would, they would harvest everything in the, in the fall and then they would sit an assembly line can and
John: everything all the fruits all the vegetables all the meats they had this they had a a cellar that was as big as the house yeah and apparently my my grandmother they say we're gonna we're gonna put up we're gonna put up some peaches and we're gonna put put up some cheese oh not my grandmother my great-grandmother was like a legendary canner her stuff won blue ribbons at the ohio state fair for her canned peaches
John: Because as she was canning stuff, she would hold it up before they had sealed it.
John: And if the peaches weren't put in so that they perfectly broadcast their freshness, she would get in.
John: She'd say, no, we have to redo this.
John: That's just a good user interface.
John: Exactly.
John: So my mom has a canner culture.
John: And she has these country adages like, well, that has too much sugar in it to spoil.
Right.
John: And I go, what does that mean?
Merlin: She's like, oh, that won't spoil it.
Merlin: Is that a thing you guys have talked much about as much as you've said it?
Merlin: Oh, this comes up a lot.
Merlin: Because sugar doesn't, and sugar part of like it generates like, you know, air and stuff.
Merlin: And that's what makes it burp.
Merlin: I mean, isn't that what makes cans explode as sugar?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Well, but she's not talking about canning at this point.
John: I'm holding something up that's been sitting on the counter for half a decade.
Merlin: Oh, this is a broader codex.
John: And she says, oh, that's got too much sugar to spoil.
John: It's like a donut.
John: And things also have too much salt to spoil.
John: She's got a lot of different things about stuff that's been sitting around where she's like, oh, you can eat that because that's got something, something, something.
John: God, I respect that so much.
John: And then there are other things where she's like, no, you know, not that.
John: Some things you can scrape mold off of.
John: Some things you can't.
John: And she knows all this farmer stuff.
John: So I follow her lead.
John: Now, of course, I have members of my family.
John: Oh, dear.
John: Who will take a thing of yogurt out of the fridge, look at it, and it, quote, unquote, expired a day ago.
Merlin: Oh, oh, oh, John.
Merlin: Is there any chance there's somebody in your house who picks something up that you know is not bad?
Merlin: Let's say you got some dried chives that expired yesterday.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: And they go, oh, well, these are expired.
Merlin: And it's like it's not medicine.
Merlin: And even if it was medicine, it would still be fine.
Merlin: It's still fine.
John: You can eat expired medicine.
John: You can drink expired half and half.
Merlin: Oh, I've eaten so much expired medicine.
John: Oh, I know.
John: I know.
John: I put expired medicine on myself all the time.
John: I've served expired medicine at weddings.
Merlin: It's called an open bar.
John: But I have the ones around here where they put some half and half in something, and then they look at it, and it's been expired one day, and then they feign gagging.
John: And I'm like, that half and half is going to be good for another two weeks.
Oh.
Merlin: I mean, cream.
Merlin: People just – it used to be there's enough cream in something that it's like, I can't go bad.
Merlin: You just leave that out.
Merlin: It's fine.
Merlin: It's enough cream.
Merlin: You can't go bad.
Merlin: You can't go bad.
John: That's right.
John: Eggs don't go bad unless you let them.
Merlin: Leave them out.
Merlin: You rinse them.
Merlin: You wouldn't rinse a chicken.
Merlin: Rinse the eggs.
Merlin: It says right there.
Merlin: So anyway, so I cut all the – I rinse my chicken.
John: I cut all the mold off the cheese.
John: All right.
John: It was an involved process because it's a four by four of cheese and it was moldy on all sides.
John: That's a lot of surface area, John.
John: Yeah, it was a big hairy four by four.
John: And so then I had all this cheese.
John: I had this moldy cheese.
John: And you know me.
John: I come from farming people, as I just said.
John: Yes.
John: I don't want to throw away a handful of moldy cheese if there's something else I can do with it.
Merlin: Yeah, this is a good point.
Merlin: Think about your squirrely bread, where in the absence of wheat, you figure out how to make bread out of, I don't know, acorns or peach pits or whatever it is you people make your squirrely bread out of.
Merlin: But just because this isn't food doesn't mean it can't be a soap.
Merlin: Could it be a soap?
Merlin: You could maybe turn that into an artisanal soap.
John: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: It could be bait for fishing.
Merlin: John Lurie loves to use cheese as bait.
Merlin: I like your frame of mind, which is like, unfortunately, it does sort of dovetail nicely with my hoarder tendency where I'm like, that box is too good to throw out.
Merlin: I could make that a supporting box for another box or something like that.
Merlin: So where did you find yourself with your little pile of cheese?
John: Well, so I wasn't sure what to do with the cheese.
John: So I put it in a bowl.
John: And I put it next to the sink because I wanted to think about it for a day.
John: Leave it out for the table.
John: And so, you know, I walked by this bowl of moldy cheese slices and
John: you know, all day and I'd look at it and I'd go, you know, it's a little bit of that.
John: You're waiting for it to speak to you, if I could say.
John: Exactly.
John: And I, and, and, and I'm thinking, you know, around the world, there are people that would, there were people that would kill their mother for this bowl of moldy cheese.
John: Um, and who am I to just throw this in the garbage?
John: Well, I'm sitting on my couch.
John: I, because I, I,
John: I didn't tell you this story, but, you know, I was sitting on the green chair.
Merlin: Oh, right.
Merlin: Last time we talked, you were looking at a new possible arrangement for your seating.
John: Yeah.
John: So I was sitting on the green chair after we talked about it, getting comfortable over there, saying like, okay, this is my new spot.
John: But do you remember one of the things that I needed over there?
Merlin: Um, we'll see.
Merlin: So there's going to be your, your, your podcast stuff.
Merlin: You got a view of the house.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: No, remind me.
John: I needed an end table.
John: Oh, right.
Merlin: And I, and I, and I was going to get an end table, but then, you know, I. It's going to feel like it can only be a pilot project and experiment until you start fitting it with the stuff that you need for your cockpit.
John: And I think I might've even gotten up.
John: And went to get an end table or find an end table and then I I got a DD into You know carrying a bowl of cheese around or whatever it was.
John: I forgot to get an end table and So I was sitting on the green chair and I was put and I put my coffee cup between my knees Because I couldn't get a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich without the tomato right and
John: And then I forgot it was there and I stood up.
John: Oh, geez.
John: And then the coffee went everywhere on the carpet and I had to get up and clean the, I had to clean it all up.
John: And now I look over at the green chair and I'm like, oh God, do I dare go over there now and sit on it?
John: That was like 10 days ago.
Merlin: You know yourself better than I ever will, but that could just be a, you know, growing pains.
Yeah.
Merlin: Okay, I hope, I hope, I hope you're right.
Merlin: Because you're saying this is all pre-table, you stipulated earlier, you forgot to get an end table, and then that's what caused the crotch coffee situation.
John: Yeah, I'm hoping that that's just a, but anyway, that explains why.
Merlin: And then you got a little ding, you got a little ding in the quarter panel of your experience, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: So I'm back on the couch.
John: Anyway, it's like 2.30 in the morning, and I hear a scritching.
John: And I'm like, I know all the scritches you hear around here.
John: I hope it's Stuart Little.
John: I know all the scritches.
John: And I hear a new scritch.
John: Ain't no possum.
John: That's the thing.
John: It's not a possum.
John: Yeah.
John: But it is a scritch.
John: And so I get up and I do the tiptoe that you do when you hear a scritch.
John: Because you don't want to surprise.
Merlin: Whatever that thing is, if it's near the cheese, it probably can hear people trying to be quiet.
John: Exactly.
John: It's two o'clock in the morning for a reason.
John: This thing is scritching in the middle of the day.
John: And so I scritch over and I'm thinking the bowl of cheese.
John: Has, in that short amount of time, attracted a scritcher.
John: Yep.
Merlin: So I tiptoe into... Without saying, did you have an idea in your mind what kind of scritcher that was going to be?
John: Well, I was listening to the scritch.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And the thing about...
John: That is, you know, from past experience, I've listened to some scritches and been wrong.
John: Wow.
John: I thought one was a possum.
John: Speaking of ingots.
John: Right?
John: Yeah.
John: Other scritches, you know, you hear a scritch, you think, whoa, that thing's big.
John: And then you look at it and you're like, oh, that's a, you know, the scritch is bigger than the thing sometimes.
John: Other times you think, oh, that's a tiny little scritch.
John: It turns out it's a big critter.
John: So I'm listening to the scritch and what I'm hoping is, I hope that's not a rat.
John: Yeah.
John: Because God made the rat.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And rats, you know, we experience them sometimes as a lone wolf.
Merlin: But I think they tend to be kind of packy.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, and if you hear a rat, it's already too late.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's what you see in Florida.
Merlin: Everywhere you see, there's 100 in the walls.
Exactly.
John: Oh, God.
John: It's so awful.
John: So I tiptoe over to the sink.
John: And at one point, the floor creaks and the scritching stops.
John: And I'm like, oh.
John: Then I get really, really quiet.
John: We stand there.
John: I'm only feet away from the kitchen cabinet.
John: Lights on?
John: Lights off?
John: Lights are on.
John: Okay.
John: Oh, wait.
John: Wait, wait, wait.
John: No.
John: Lights in the kitchen are off, but I have my phone in my hand with my thumb hovering over the flashlight.
John: Yeah.
John: You're ready.
John: Ready to blow them up.
John: So then I freeze, and I wait, and they wait.
John: And then little by little, the screeching starts.
John: And so I get over to the underside of the sink.
John: And I throw open the door and I shine the light in there.
John: And sure enough, there's a little Stuart Little.
John: Like a little guy.
John: Not a fallen rat.
John: No, a little tiny guy.
John: Little gray mouse.
John: And he doesn't know what's happening.
John: There's a, you know, suddenly spotlights are on.
John: And so kind of disoriented, he wanders around back behind the bottles of goof off and stovetop cleaner.
John: Yeah.
John: Climbs up a hose and goes through a little hole in the plywood at the back of the thing.
John: Okay.
John: And I realize it's got nothing to do with the cheese.
John: The mouse is in the garbage.
John: The mouse has found the garbage.
John: Yeah.
John: That's under the sink.
John: It's just a coinkydink?
John: Nothing to do with the cheese.
John: Wow.
John: Ain't the human mind a funny thing?
John: You know, here I am thinking it's the cheese the whole time.
John: Yeah, the cheese stands alone.
John: Then I see there's mouse poops.
John: Like, this isn't this mouse's first rodeo.
John: This guy's having a real night out.
John: He's been in this garbage before.
John: There's mouse poops on the ground.
Oh.
John: And so I say, well, this is an end to this party.
John: And I grab the tinfoil, the aluminum foil, and I take a bunch of it and I jam it in all the holes.
Merlin: I think steel wool is good for that too.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: I do steel or copper wool and then put duct tape over it.
John: I should have done the duct tape.
John: I put the tinfoil in there and I knew this was an issue.
Merlin: No, you're doing like the thing is if you have to treat your buddy in the field, he's face down in the mud.
Merlin: You're not going to wait for Hawkeye Pierce to show up.
Merlin: You're just going to start jamming stuff in the wound, right?
John: Well, and this is, you know, 2.30 in the morning.
John: Oh, and I twisted my knee this week.
Merlin: This little playboy thinks he's a cutie.
John: He's going to come in here and he's going to shit in your wastebasket.
John: So I'm under the sink cramming tinfoil in the hole.
John: Yeah.
John: And I hear scritching.
John: Oh, my God.
John: From the garbage can.
John: What?
John: Next to me, right in my ear.
John: He's got a wingman.
John: And so I go, oh, wow, this is, you know, time to move.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: And I gather up the garbage bag.
John: I pull it out of the thing.
John: Well...
John: They've like Eaten little holes in this I was gonna say other holes in the garbage bag So now it is now this is a situation.
John: Oh, what you got now that you know, she got you got a project I got I got something that's got to happen stat as I would say on mash Hawkeye Pierce.
John: Yeah, and you know, and this isn't a Colonel Blake era.
Merlin: No, this is a you know Colonel Potter Colonel Henry, right?
Merlin: Oh, you're saying you're saying this goes back to Lieutenant Colonel Blake
Merlin: Well, we lost him over the sea of Japan.
Merlin: There were no survivors.
John: One of the things we don't know is how, I mean, there's mouse, but now I'm seeing mouse poops and I'm seeing them in my dream.
John: So I gather up the bag and right out the door, and I'm in my underpants, but, you know, I've got a lot of privacy around here.
John: I put my loafers on and I run the bag.
John: They're scaring everybody away except the raccoons who are mesmerized.
John: But I run them down.
Merlin: They're sitting there with little leathery black hands held together as if they're praying.
John: So I run it down.
John: I put it in the garbage can outside, the outdoor garbage can.
John: And I go, look, little mouse or mice that are in that bag.
John: I don't mean to say that your fate is sealed.
John: You may ride this out.
John: I mean, at QED, we've seen that they can chew through bag.
John: Right?
John: They can chew through bag.
John: Let's assume they're going to get out of the bag, but now they're in the can.
John: That's true.
John: The thing is, the can is full of food.
Merlin: Regular Harry Houdini situation going on here.
John: That's right.
Merlin: It's inside the milk crate, upside down, hanging from the Brooklyn Bridge.
John: You know, as they say, out of the bag into the can.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But the thing is, all they have to do is survive until tomorrow.
John: Then they get thrown into the garbage truck.
John: Oh, don't throw me in the briar patch.
John: I bet you a garbage truck has got 50 mice in it.
John: Are you kidding me?
John: That's fucking Studio 54 to Mises.
John: Exactly.
John: It's a key party.
John: So I'm like, this may seem like a death sentence to you, little guy.
John: And I definitely have separated you from your pal.
Merlin: God, I wish somebody had been there to film this.
Merlin: I wish I could hear your monologue to the mice or Mises.
Yeah.
Merlin: I'm like, hold the line.
Merlin: Don't despair.
Merlin: We're not so different, you and I. Just keep eating.
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Merlin: The reason I asked for extra time this morning is my kid and I wanted to finish this X-Men movie we both like a lot.
Merlin: Which one?
Merlin: Huh?
Merlin: Which one?
Merlin: Do you care?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: X-Men First Class.
Merlin: Oh, I like that movie.
Merlin: I don't understand why Michael Fassbender develops an Irish accent in the third act, but I'll set it aside for now.
Merlin: Because I love Michael Fassbender so much.
Merlin: Because he is literally German.
Merlin: As we know from Inglourious Bastards, you know you hit with the counting.
Merlin: Yes, of course.
Merlin: So, but this does sound a little bit like a speech that somebody would give in the third act of a movie.
Merlin: You say like, don't think, it's sort of like the way, you know, you talk to Azrael or Kevin Bacon and you say like, oh, you know, I did this for you.
Merlin: I'm trying to help you.
Merlin: That classic thing in X-Men of like, or like thinking about the Joker going like, you need me, Batman.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: We're a band of brothers.
Merlin: Yes, we happy few.
Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Now it's 2.35 at this point.
John: You've just finished your speech.
John: We're edging on 3 o'clock in the morning, and now I'm breaking up families here.
John: And the thing is, I don't know how many mice are in that bag.
Merlin: There could be six mice in there.
Merlin: Well, there's a screeching you hear and a screeching you don't hear.
Merlin: And there can be a stillness to a mouse.
Merlin: I don't think there are six mice.
Merlin: I'm surprised there were two, John.
Merlin: I always figure, if you haven't seen a butt, I mean, and I'm not even going to fucking get into it, but our garage has had to...
Merlin: Our garage has been the locus of a fair amount of rodents.
Merlin: Not fair amount, but on like four occasions in the last 23 years.
Merlin: We've had to really get serious about it.
Merlin: Little ones or big ones?
Merlin: Well, if I'm being honest, almost always little ones, but for a while we had big ones.
Merlin: I didn't want to let the whole public know this, but that time when I put five cameras in the garage and created a panopticon, it's because we did have a very, very smart, very cute rat.
Merlin: Oh, and did the five cameras help?
Merlin: Kind of.
Merlin: Was it like a five-star pepper?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: See, if I say anything, I'm going to get yelled at.
Merlin: Because, oh, why don't you just fill a garbage can with water and put a board on it like you're fucking Rube Goldberg.
Merlin: What, and drowned it?
Merlin: Well, no.
Merlin: There's all these people who are like, never use a glue trap.
Merlin: And I'm like, glue traps are all the work.
Merlin: They suck and they're mean, but they do.
Merlin: Are you out there baiting a fucking like Tom and Jerry style mousetrap with a piece of Swiss cheese?
Merlin: Has that ever worked for anyone?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Mises and Ratses hates them to pieces.
Merlin: Bilbo Baggins hates them.
Merlin: He hates them.
Merlin: They hates them.
Merlin: I don't even know my token anymore.
Merlin: I don't know what I'm talking about.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But like you figure, I always thought that it's like you've got maybe like, I want to say like a ranger.
Merlin: You've got explorers.
Merlin: You've got the ones who go out and like identify, is there water here?
Merlin: Is there food there?
Merlin: I think it's true for ants.
Merlin: I'm positive.
Merlin: Pretty positive it's true for ants.
Merlin: They've got a whole system.
Merlin: Ask EO Wilson.
Merlin: I read a book about it.
John: I've got a whole system dealing with the scouts.
John: That's what I'm saying.
Merlin: They're always scouting my shit out.
Merlin: It is a little unusual.
Merlin: What I'm trying to get at is there are times where, of course, we save fucking everything.
Merlin: These baby clothes will be good for somebody.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, these baby clothes now have rat shit all over them.
Merlin: But you move something, like you move a box of Lego on a high shelf, and you get a different kind of scritch title.
Merlin: You get that, and you're, oh, no, here they come.
Merlin: And there's all that poop.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: But here's what I'm saying.
Merlin: It's like if you haven't found a lot of poop in one area already, I don't think it's been as colonized.
Merlin: It hasn't even – I'm not an expert at this.
Merlin: My sense is that first one guy goes and figures it out, like there's a stuff here, and then they maybe bring some others.
Merlin: And then if you discover the bag with holes in it, the telltale sign, but like that doesn't mean there's like a nest in it.
Merlin: With that said, I think two rangers, one kitchen, that's –
Merlin: There must be something going on where they've got to find new environments.
John: Well, and the wall that they're coming in where he went back out through the hole, that's an outside wall, right?
John: So it's conceivable – this is a mid-mod house.
John: It's not like my old – my old house was built – But there's still a wall in between.
John: There's wall, yeah.
John: But, you know, the farm –
John: basically had a style of architecture that derived from the Underground Railroad.
John: There were places you could hide a whole family in that house, like five or six different places you could hide a family in the walls.
John: Lousy with muck holes.
John: And this house is this mid-mod style where it's like, well, it is what you see.
John: Like, the wall is exactly as thick as a two-by-four and two pieces of plywood, one on either side, right?
John: There's no mystery cabinet.
Merlin: Isn't it like a house where you get, like, there's an exterior wall, and there's this, and there's the fashion, this office, and then, like, there's the insulation, and there's the beams and all that stuff.
Merlin: You don't have, like, bioavailable layers so much in your walls.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, the thing about mid-century architecture, I guess, is they were like, we've got this all figured out.
John: We don't need insulation anymore.
John: We just put one tiny piece of compressed foam.
John: They're not – I mean, it's not genius.
Merlin: In some ways, it's not so different from – it is different.
Merlin: But living in Florida, being stuck in a place –
Merlin: especially inexpensive housing like apartments or dorms, where, like, you can crack the windows.
Merlin: Maybe, like, you could crack the window in some hotel rooms, like, very, very barely.
Merlin: But, like, if that air conditioning went out, you'd be fucked because it was never designed to not have air conditioning, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I wonder if a similar thing happened at a certain point in which calling mid-century modern, where you're like, oh, we have the best furnaces available in North America.
Merlin: And like, we can keep this place toasty warm all the time.
Merlin: Ha, we don't need to waste all that money on insulation.
Merlin: Insulation didn't become a big thing until like the 70s.
John: I remember I was living in a house in Spokane when they drilled big holes in the side and filled the walls with insulation.
John: Yep.
John: Prior to that, we had the heater on in a particularly cold winter and a pitcher on the kitchen table with an apple in it froze solid.
John: Are you kidding me?
John: The pitcher full of water.
John: Somebody put an apple in it.
John: I don't know why.
John: It froze solid.
John: It was that cold in the house.
Merlin: It's probably not your mom.
John: Your mom would have eaten it.
John: No, no, no.
Merlin: I bet it was your dad.
John: No, this was college.
John: My dad and mom, they're fully functioning.
Merlin: You never liked your dad's scrambled eggs.
John: Later, later I understood what he was getting at.
John: You know, I understood what he was trying.
John: That's all of our fate, John.
John: You know?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: It was only when I was a father.
John: We all want to feed our mouse family one way or another.
John: When I grew up and I was a father, I understood his eggs.
John: Excuse me.
John: So I go away.
John: This whole mouse thing happened two days ago.
John: I go away.
John: I do my adventures.
John: I go home.
John: No, first of all, I go to sleep, right?
John: Then I have a day.
John: I do adventures.
John: I go around.
John: And then late at night, I come back.
John: And I've got something to throw in the garbage.
John: And I go out to the garbage can that's out in the street.
John: I open the lid.
John: And there, sitting on top of the bag, is a mouse.
John: Just sitting on the top of a sealed bag.
John: She's climbed up to the top and is now sitting patiently...
John: on top of the bag, and I open the lid, and she's there, j'accuse!
John: Yeah.
John: And so I threw whatever my piece of garbage was in there.
John: I'm the captain now.
John: And I closed the lid.
John: faster than she could you know make a leap for it and so what i thought was maybe there was a hole in the bottom of the garbage can that she could get out but apparently not she must have tried that she must have thought this is like a big municipal hinged plastic can yeah oh yeah it's one of those okay it's not like a super big one it's but it's not like a new york city 1970s oscar the garage can
John: No, no, it's a plastic one on wheels.
Merlin: That's going to be tough to get out of.
John: But I was thinking maybe there was a hole that let liquid out or something, but no, then again.
Merlin: Again, in Florida, the lore of Florida, it's about roaches.
Merlin: I've also heard this about other critters.
Merlin: If their head can get through it, the rest of them can get through it.
Merlin: And I think that's true for a mouse, too.
Merlin: I think it's understood that a rat, being a full-sized rat, I think they can get through a hole the size of a dime, I've heard.
John: Isn't that crazy?
Merlin: Because, yeah, something happens, and again, I'm not a herpetologist, but I'm sorry.
Merlin: I've had COVID.
John: That was a great Bacon Ray song.
Merlin: That was such a good Bacon Ray song.
Merlin: I'm not a herpetologist.
Merlin: The, uh, yeah, but I think something happens like with snakes or something where they're like, their skeleton is very like kind of collapsible.
Merlin: Have you ever heard that about, about, uh, about the rodents?
John: Yeah.
John: Oh no, I've seen it happen.
John: I've seen it in real life.
Merlin: You ever seen a squid go through a hole in a boat?
John: seen it on tv oh fuck up your life man yeah i've never been i've never like seen it firsthand i i live oh no i would literally walk into the sea if i saw that there's no way all these all these videos you see now of orcas trying to sink ships yes i'm like what an honor what an honor sir to have you try and sink a sailboat that i'm on like i would be so pleased i totally agree i can't imagine what a what a what a dignified way to die like you really you've earned it what are you doing what you're the one that needs a fucking boat to be here
John: The whole world is waiting for the first people to die of Orca boat sinking.
John: I hope it's a crypto conference kind of.
Merlin: Wouldn't that be awesome?
Merlin: I mean, I don't want anybody to like have misery and loss in their life, but if it is going to be somebody, I would like an Orca to do it.
Merlin: I'd like it to be to people who think Ethereum is coming back.
John: Some crypto bro scene where they are on a sailboat of their own design.
John: I've got this headache.
Merlin: I suddenly feel the sound of many Zoom calls beginning and suddenly being silenced.
Merlin: So she's in the can.
Merlin: You haven't identified a hole.
Merlin: You have not said, but you cannot... There's probably a reason you have not said, oh yeah, that was definitely the one that was in my cheese or my trash.
Merlin: But it could be.
Merlin: They think it probably is the one.
John: It has to be.
John: I've never seen a mouse sitting proud atop a bag of garbage in that garbage can before.
John: It has to be.
Merlin: Don, if I could say that mouse is making a point.
John: That mouse was up there waiting for me to come.
John: And this is, I have to remind you, the middle of the night.
John: So the mouse is like awake.
Merlin: Would you be that alert sitting on trash after, what, five or six hours?
Merlin: No.
John: She must have heard my boots on the gravel and said, you know, this is my moment.
John: If not to escape, then at least to fix him with my mousy gaze.
John: I'm Spartacus.
John: Exactly right.
John: Exactly right.
John: So I come back in.
John: Well, this is the part of the story that, you know, I guess this is the reveal.
John: This is the prestige.
Okay.
John: The pledge.
John: I come into the house thinking about this mouse in the garbage can.
John: Is she still out at this point?
John: And I look and there's the bowl of cheese, the bowl of moldy cheese sitting on the counter.
John: And I realize, now you're in a kind of like some kind of war of respect with these mice and you're going to leave a bowl of moldy cheese on the counter?
John: Like what madness are you trying to invite into your home?
Merlin: But at this point, because the way this, again, if your brain's anything like mine, you'd paused on, okay, let me put it the way I put it.
Merlin: So, as with you, I would think to myself, what am I going to do with this cheese?
Merlin: I mean, chances are, yeah, I'd probably just throw it out.
Merlin: But there's a part of me that would go, I don't want to throw out, is there anything I can do with this, right?
Merlin: So far, so good, right?
Merlin: But then at a certain point, this is kind of like that guy we talked about, that voice that goes, eh, I got this.
Merlin: right which he doesn't got but like there's some part of you that's like kind of paused that project for a minute because you know you need to like chew on it a little more yeah i forgot about the cheese for a day even though i was now able to make the world's most obvious like warner brothers cartoon level of connection that it probably should have exactly right you think the cheese attracted the mises well no i don't i think the cheese the the mis were already there before the mis cheese stuff is a bit of a mythology
Merlin: No, because I'm just saying that I think they do like peanut butter.
Merlin: They hate glue traps.
Merlin: But because we've seen so many cartoons, we think cheese equals mouse.
Merlin: Yeah, and they want peanut butter.
John: That's what all the magazines say.
John: Put peanut butter on the trap.
John: But what had happened...
John: Was that I had attention deficit disordered my way into not seeing the bowl of moldy cheese on the counter.
Merlin: Right.
John: So I put it there.
John: And for a day, I walked past it and thought about it every time I looked at it.
John: And then it became part of the landscape.
Merlin: Even as the thing that got your attention, it's a form of personal misdirection.
Merlin: The thing that had popped nearer to the top of your cognition stack is the Mises issue.
Merlin: Right, which now I see has at least a narrative or a lyrical connection.
Merlin: Columbo would want to track it down.
Merlin: I think he would want to say, did this have anything to do with that?
John: Or, you know, did I manifest the mice?
John: Are the mice in my part of my imagination because I'm thinking about the cheese all day?
John: That's the secret.
John: Who moved my cheese?
John: Yes.
John: And now by this point, of course, the cheese is sweaty.
John: So I've got moldy and sweaty cheese.
Merlin: Your cheese is so fucking wet.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: It's wet cheese at this point.
John: So I see it again because I just had this experience with the mouse and I go, I've got to deal with this cheese.
John: But now...
John: Now more than ever, I don't want to throw the cheese in the garbage because the garbage now is the mouse zone.
Merlin: Can you just go back and throw it over the fence where the Sprite and the cigarettes were?
John: So this is what I do.
John: Oh, John.
John: This is better than wind shines.
John: So I take the bowl of cheese.
Merlin: I cannot fucking believe you did this.
John: You got some blue, wet blue cheese.
John: No, no, no.
John: Because I know better than to throw anything over a fence.
John: Because, you know, this is like that teacher I had in high school.
John: I was emceeing.
John: I just thought, you know, this is how I succeeded in high school, right?
John: I was such a loser in ninth and 10th grade.
John: In 11th grade, I said, I wrote on a little notepad.
John: BMOC?
Merlin: Yeah, I'm going to be BMOC.
Merlin: I'm sorry, I cut off your story.
Merlin: Reminder our listeners what you did.
Merlin: You had a desk blotter of memory, sir.
John: I did.
John: A desk plotter.
John: And I wrote, you know, I'm going to be a student leader.
John: A big man on campus.
John: Big man on campus.
John: I didn't even know what that meant.
John: But, you know, the year before, I was this kid whose mom still cut his hair, who had dandruff all over his, you know, his like granimals.
Yeah.
John: And all the other kids in the school were making out with each other and wearing Ralph Lauren clothes.
John: And you were judging them.
John: You know, I was.
John: I was.
John: But then I realized, you know, which one are you going to be, my friend?
John: Are you going to be a pimple?
John: What event are you going to host?
John: And so anyway, so I started being Mr. Guy, right?
John: And it was 11th grade.
John: Listen, to all of our 10th grade listeners who feel like they're losers, next year, it's another opportunity to step up.
Merlin: My kid's going to be a 10th grader in August.
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: 10th grade was hard on me.
Merlin: Oh, wow.
John: But, you know, but I joined newspaper and then I and, you know, pretty soon I had an in.
John: Teachers knew me, of course, because I was a because I was a nerd.
John: And I was like, what if I emcee the pep assemblies?
John: And they were like, somebody's got to do it.
John: And and one of them, I was emceeing the air band contest, which if yes, if you recall in the mid 80s.
John: You could fill an entire auditorium.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: At 8 o'clock at night, people come back to the school for the air guitar contest.
Merlin: It was a sold-out show.
Merlin: My, I believe, junior year, we had a band called Freedom Jam come to our school.
Merlin: And it turns out, because they do their things.
Merlin: I think it's exactly what you're describing.
Merlin: They come during the school day and say, you don't need drugs.
Merlin: We're going to tear our phone book in half, that kind of stuff.
Merlin: And then, like, if you really dig this, man, you've got to come back tonight.
Merlin: Totally a Christian rock band.
Merlin: And they were like the Temptations.
Merlin: There were several different Freedoms Jam.
Merlin: But I went to see the Freedom Jam, and they had an air guitar contest, and I won.
Merlin: You won!
Merlin: And what was your tune?
Merlin: They gave it to the cute girl instead, but I mean, I think the audience agreed that I did a much better job.
Merlin: And what was your tune?
Merlin: Oh, no, it was just the dingling Christian rock guy, but he was doing a fake eruption.
Merlin: And I knew how to play fake eruption.
Merlin: I have a tennis racket.
Merlin: So I did spoodly doodlies, and I rocked and I jumped on the whole night.
Merlin: It was absolutely a thing.
Merlin: Karaoke, like sushi, was invented much later.
Merlin: This is what we did for entertainment.
Merlin: You'd go to see a Christian rock band at 6.30 p.m., and then you could play an air instrument.
Merlin: And they'd tell you just a little bit about, you know, hey, you know one really cool guy on campus?
Merlin: And then they'll turn their chairs around.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
John: Hand out extreme teen Bibles, yeah.
Merlin: And so you would be, so you're the MC.
Merlin: You're up there, you're cracking wise, and you're introducing people.
Merlin: Are you reading off of three by five cards?
John: Well, no, because I've always been an improviser.
John: But in Anchorage at the time, this was a thing that groups of kids, groups of kids in the school, would put together a band, drummer, bass player, guitar player, singer, maybe keyboard player, out of their friend group.
John: They would sign up for the air band contest.
John: And then Mr. Hedberg, the choir teacher, I think even would audition them.
John: And then they put together a show, like an hour-long show, a lineup of bands that would come out and do— Like a battle of the bands talent show type thing.
John: Exactly.
John: Like, okay, now— Now, whoop, check, check, one.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Wrong mic.
Merlin: Your input changed.
Merlin: Check.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Hey there.
Merlin: I'm back online.
Merlin: You are now.
Merlin: You are now.
Merlin: Oh, there we go.
Merlin: Um, so, so Mr. Mr. Hedberg would, uh, he's treating this very seriously.
John: This is a school event.
John: Like you say, there was no karaoke at this time.
John: This was a big thing.
John: And the cheerleaders did, we got the beat.
John: And then, you know, the, the, the really cool 10th graders all turned their collars up and did old time rock and roll.
John: You know, it's like a whole thing.
John: Oh,
John: And I was the MC because that was the job I had appointed for myself in all things.
John: I was going to be a successful high school student by being the comedian that got up with a rubber chicken in between songs and said, hey, that was the cheerleaders doing.
Merlin: Yeah, you're the guy in like a tuxedo t-shirt.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: Exactly.
John: I'm the disc jockey.
John: And I know I've told you this story, but I had a bag of props.
John: And I'm going through the bag of props.
John: If you did, please tell me again.
John: Any story about you performing as Mr. Guy with props, I will hear any number of times.
John: I did not have a rubber chicken.
John: But one thing that happened was... Rubber chickens are not that funny.
John: There was like a...
John: uh, a guy, Oh, was it Toby Ferrari?
John: No, Toby Ferrari got his truck stuck in the mud.
John: No, it was, uh, I don't think it was Peter hunt.
John: It was one of the guys in our, uh, in our class had been driving through my neighborhood one night, really, uh, drunk and right in front of me and a couple of other people crashed his car into a pole, uh, spun it around, you know, like a huge disaster.
Um,
John: And fire trucks, dogs and cats sleeping together, everybody's there.
John: And, uh, and I went over to the wreckage and the rear view, it was a kind of fancy car, sports car.
John: And the rear view mirror had gotten bashed off.
John: And so I, of course I collected it.
John: And so then I'm emceeing the, the, the, uh, the event.
John: And I pull the rearview mirror out of my bag.
John: And I go, oh, look here.
John: It's, you know, it's whatever.
John: Peter Bland's rearview mirror.
John: And this was a big enough event at our school that everybody really understood the reference.
Merlin: Oh, so I see what you're doing.
Merlin: So you come out and you're like, I wonder what's in this bag, right?
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: Like, I'm not even sure what's in it.
John: Oh, look, it's Peter's mirror.
John: Yeah, oh, look, it's Peter's mirror.
John: And everybody, you know, big, oh, shit, no way.
John: And of course, it could have just been any garbage mirror, but it actually was his mirror.
John: That was the best part.
John: But at one point, I pull out of the bag some wax lips.
John: And our younger listeners are not going to remember the amuse bouche that was a pair of wax lips.
John: Yeah.
John: But a pair of wax lips are just what it sounds like.
John: It's a pair of big lips made of wax.
Merlin: And they're presented as a form of candy.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: But they're not candy.
John: It's not candy at all.
Merlin: I mean, that's like thinking a candle is food.
John: It's like a candle, but it's lips.
John: It's a mouth candle.
John: And you put it in your mouth, so you bite on it.
John: Yeah.
John: But then it looks like you have big Mick Jagger lips made out of wax.
John: Yeah.
John: And so I put the Mick Jagger lips out on made of wax, but you can't talk with them.
John: No.
John: So I just kind of do the like, Hey, I've got my wax lips.
John: Look at my mouth.
John: It's not normal.
John: I'm funny.
John: And you know, and I was doing the, I was definitely doing a waka waka, right?
John: I was doing a fozzy.
John: I was doing an unknown comic from the gong show.
John: I was an intentionally bad comic.
John: But so I get done with the wax lips and I, and I do the, uh, I do the huck.
John: I huck them into the crowd.
John: Like, Hey, you know, here's, here's one for the ladies.
John: You know, I huck the wax lips in the look.
John: And I go back into the bag to my next routine.
John: And there's a one, two, three count.
John: And then those wax lips come back at me out of the audience, obviously thrown by a baseball player.
John: And I barely avoid serious injury.
John: The point of the story was backstage while the seniors are doing Walk Like an Egyptian or whatever the heck.
John: Mr. Hedberg comes up.
John: He's got the headset microphone.
John: He's like stage managing the show.
John: He's got a clipboard.
John: He's wearing a vest.
John: He did wear a vest.
John: Yeah, because he's basically Gene from Apollo 13.
John: He comes over and he says, listen, listen, kid.
John: Listen, son.
John: Don't make me call Frank Kufo.
John: He said, never throw anything into an audience.
John: that you're not prepared to have thrown right back at you.
John: Oh my God, John.
John: There's no way he knew what a brilliant thing that was to say.
John: Well, I've thought about it every... This is like, if you see the... Look at me in the drinking fountain.
Merlin: Yeah, that's Eric's water fountain.
John: Do not throw anything into an audience that you're not prepared to have thrown back at you.
John: Has saved my life many times because all the times I've thought, hey, I'm going to throw this thing into the audience.
John: What's talking about life, John?
John: Mr. Hedberg.
John: Mr. Hedberg has already informed me how this is.
Merlin: Because it really ultimately becomes a form of the golden rule.
Merlin: That's right.
John: It is that.
John: It is that.
John: Well, so, what's been happening around here in addition to all of this recently, and this is, I say all that by way of saying, I'm not going to throw anything over a fence that I don't want to have thrown back over the fence at me.
John: If I throw moldy cheese over one of these fences here,
John: It's anybody's guess what they're then going to take that as license to do, right?
John: Especially if they know it's you.
John: Yeah, I don't.
John: Well, who else, right?
John: If it's one piece of moldy cheese, could have come from anywhere.
John: But if it's like six pieces of moldy cheese, I can only carelessness.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Okay.
John: Ah, geez, this is tough.
John: So what I've got going on around here, though, is that there are a lot of fledgling crows that
John: And by fledgling, I mean.
John: Literally.
Merlin: The way that word means, right?
Merlin: Like literally learn how to fly and do their thing.
John: That's right.
John: And one of the things about crows is they get big.
John: They're like humans.
John: They look full grown a long time before they are emotionally full grown.
John: And what baby crows do is they hang out and they bitch and moan all day.
John: They cry and bitch and squawk and they want their parents to keep feeding them.
John: A long time past the point that they should go out and get a job.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: Like they should go get a job at, at, at Wienerschnitzel or, you know, hot dog on a stick.
John: And then they should stop doing this thing, like my neighbor's son, where they just sit and play video games.
Merlin: He's still sad about his dog, I think.
John: Yeah.
John: So the crows are doing this, and I'm hearing them every day.
John: Those are not adult crows.
John: Adult crows have other things to think about.
John: You know, adult crows, when they caught you, they're mad at you for something.
John: These crows are just out there making noise.
John: And I think, wait a minute.
John: This moldy cheese is an opportunity.
John: And so I get my old suet holding bird feeder cage and I hang it up.
Merlin: Is it like a little, my grandmother used to put it in like netting.
Merlin: What do you, what do you put it in?
John: It's like that, but it's metal.
John: It's like metal.
John: Okay.
John: Okay.
John: And, uh, and I fill it full of moldy cheese and I hang it on the, on the, uh,
John: Oh, my God.
John: That's some like Martha Stewart level shit, John.
John: And then, of course, you know, the thing about a crow, of course, is they're not going to come just eat something just because you say so, right?
John: They're going to have to scope it out.
Merlin: Oh, nice.
John: So I go out into the yard because I've been talking to these crows for weeks.
John: You know, like, get off the chimney.
John: There's nothing there for you.
John: And they look at me and, you know, and they're like, leave us alone, man.
John: And I'm like, seriously, not on the chimney.
John: Do anything else.
John: But whatever you're doing up there is only going to come to ruin, right?
John: Don't make the chimney the thing between us.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: But so I go out.
John: When I see him, I go, caw, caw.
John: I'm trying to communicate with the people around here because I want to be a better neighbor.
John: Yeah.
John: So I go out in the driveway and I go, caw, caw.
John: I've got cheese here.
John: It's not a trick.
John: I think you're going to like it.
John: I was thinking –
John: Around the world, there are people that kill for this cheese, and I'm betting it's you.
John: It's not a trick.
John: I'm going to leave now.
John: I'm not going to sit here and spy on you.
John: Do what you wilt.
John: That's the extent of Crow law.
John: That's right.
John: Exactly.
John: I go back into the house, but there's a place.
John: It's very Hobbesian.
John: They are Hobbesian.
John: They are chaotic neutral.
John: Purely chaotic neutral.
John: But I can sit on the couch and if I sit a certain way, I can look through the doorway, through the kitchen window and out and see the suet feeder full of cheese.
John: More points for the couch.
John: And sitting there, then I watch the crows figure it out.
John: They come down, they land, they look at it.
John: They kind of fly up and grab on.
John: And, you know, a big crow is too big to hold on to a suet feeder.
John: They try, but they look ridiculous and they can't.
John: It's too hard.
John: But one of these crows that looks like a full-grown crow, but it's a baby crow, they're still light.
John: And so little by little, the baby crows find the cheese.
John: And then I get to watch the moldy cheese get eaten by the crows.
John: And hopefully, you know, I know the crows aren't going to control the mice, but I do feel like.
Merlin: The parents, the guardians, parents are guardians or guardian ad litem crows.
Merlin: They will in time understand, hey, it looks like they aren't trying to poison us.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: The big guy who makes call noises.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Perhaps we can work together.
John: I don't need them to bring me any emerald bracelets.
No.
Merlin: I just want peace in the valley.
Merlin: People think crows are so transactional and they're not.
Merlin: It's like sometimes it's just nice to have a friend.
John: It's just nice to have a friend.
John: Look, I hear you guys complaining all the time.
John: Your parents are probably trying to get you to move on.
John: This is my wiener schnitzel.
John: This is my hot dog on a stick.
John: I'm going to give you a teenage job right now.
John: I'm going to give you a $4 an hour job.
John: Come get the cheese.
John: Come get the moldy cheese out of the cage.
Merlin: And this will be your parents and it's a chance for the parents to admire them too.
Merlin: It's their version of a talent show.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Look at that.
Merlin: Look at that.
Merlin: They got some moldy cheese.
Merlin: Look at that little guy.
Merlin: That's pretty cool.
Merlin: That's right.
John: They figured it out.
John: The guy, the, the, the guy that's always yelling at him about the fireplace.
John: Now he's giving them cheese on there and they put two and two together.
John: We didn't even have to do anything.
John: It's like a, it's nature is healing.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I agree.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You can't, it's, is it, is it, is it harder to make that same deal with the mice?
Merlin: I've learned so much from you.
Merlin: I think it was probably after we stopped recording last time that I sent you that video of the crow, like, stuck in our screen.
Merlin: But, like, so you and I have talked for a long time about trying to, you know, get with the animals in our life in different ways, not to, like, tame them, you know, not to, like, you know, become drinking buddies with them, but to, like, establish boundaries that let us live successfully together.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: I mean, is that too generic?
Merlin: I mean, I'm not out there acting like fucking Snow White, like trying to make friends with the birds.
Merlin: It's more like I want us all to be able to do the things we do.
Merlin: But unlike other snorks out there, I'm going to try and create boundaries that we can both honor that will end up helping both of us.
John: That's right.
John: And I feel like there are animals that you can redirect.
John: Like a crow, you can redirect away from the chimney where there is nothing to moldy cheese in a basket and then by that method –
John: Now the crows understand, oh, we're working together to accommodate.
John: You know what you got, John?
John: You got credibility.
John: You got a little credibility.
John: Exactly.
John: If I had pigs around here, I feel like the pigs and I would understand each other.
John: Here's where I go.
John: Here's where you go.
Merlin: Pigs are smart.
Merlin: And they're going to know pretty quickly whether you're trying to gas.
Merlin: A pig is very sensitive to gaslighting.
John: There it is, right?
John: And with the raccoon, I was like, here's three eggs.
John: And the raccoon said, I'm not interested.
John: And I went and then I learned, oh, okay.
John: You don't try and win the affection of a mother raccoon by putting chicken eggs in the ground.
John: Like that's another thing I learned, right?
John: Noted, right?
John: They're training me.
John: But in the case of a mouse, I don't know how to redirect a mouse to a positive outcome.
John: Like, hey, mouse, here's what I want.
John: This benefits us both.
John: It's like an ant.
John: How do you redirect an ant
John: I know what you want to do is swarm the jam on my kitchen counter.
Merlin: They're jam swimmers, and they don't have as much of a sense of self.
Merlin: I don't mean that disparagingly, but I think part of, again, E.O.
Merlin: Wilson would tell us that a lot of the success of those creatures comes from the fact that they're not out there trying to get on Star Search.
Merlin: They're doing ant work.
Merlin: How do you motivate an ant?
John: If I was dreaming of an ant colony doing work at my bidding, what would I want those ants to do?
John: I can't think of it.
John: I can't think of what I... I mean, maybe they could go find the mole while he's sleeping and swarm him and choke him to death.
Merlin: But this is the problem with a lot of fantasy ant control is you're asking them to do something that is not part of their makeup.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And like just letting the ants do their thing.
Merlin: No, but I get you though.
Merlin: Like I take absolutely no joy in killing any of these animals.
Merlin: There's some animals in my life that I've been so mad at.
Merlin: I'm very happy to kill them.
Merlin: But honestly, it's not, it's not a Buddhist thing.
Merlin: It's, it's not even like an interesting thing.
Merlin: It's just like, it's not fun to kill an animal.
Merlin: But like the thing is that I want these plants in my house and the plants attract flies and I need to do something.
Merlin: I have done something to get rid of the flies.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: What would you do to get rid of the flies?
Merlin: Oh, are you curious?
Merlin: I did a couple.
Merlin: Did you swallow the fly?
Merlin: No, no, that was my old woman.
Merlin: That's what I call her.
John: What did you do?
John: No, I want to know about the flies.
Merlin: I don't really have flies, but I'm always interested.
Merlin: I try to do sort of an integrated, integrative approach, which is like, hey, the flies are here for a reason.
Merlin: The flies are here because something's working.
Merlin: There must be something they like about the soil.
Merlin: You don't see flies just hanging out in dumb mud.
Merlin: It's probably some of the plant food I use is probably, I know, is slightly putrescent, and I think that that attracts them.
Merlin: But anyway, they also just like making babies in dirt, like all of us.
Merlin: What I've ended up with is something... I've had to do a little bit of movie magic, but I know my family hates stuff like...
Merlin: flypaper.
Merlin: They don't like looking at fly tape.
Merlin: They hate it.
Merlin: I think it feels very... I don't know.
Merlin: It doesn't feel like the house you'd want to live in to see flypaper hanging.
Merlin: Sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: So I hung it on a boom... It's got a bad rep.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I hung it on a boom...
Merlin: But at an angle where you only, if you look over there, you're going to see a boom, a tabletop boom.
Merlin: And you're going to see just two little slim things where, again, movie magic, like Indiana Jones, not realizing there's a bridge that he can cross in Last Crusade.
Merlin: It's like forced perspective, you turn.
Merlin: But preceding that, that kind of works.
Merlin: The most basic one is every once in a while, I give the plants a day outside.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And then I shake the shit out of the plants.
Merlin: That disrupts the flies.
Merlin: Not the ones who are dug in real deep, but that gets some of the flies out in the most organic, natural, in the most least barbaric way.
Merlin: Another thing is I have- You shake the plants and you see the flies fly away into nature.
Merlin: You get them back in the house when there's less flied.
Merlin: The other one is, and this doesn't work great.
Merlin: I don't love this, but you can make a solution with aspirable alcohol and water.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And for some things, that actually disrupts their exoskeleton.
Merlin: But I think it just annoys the shit out of them a lot of times.
Merlin: But that's how I deal with that.
Merlin: But you know how it is here with the ants in particular.
Merlin: Sugar ants, they call them.
Merlin: They're adorable.
Merlin: They're tiny.
Merlin: They're harmless.
Merlin: But especially in what used to be... God, everything's so confused here, John.
Merlin: The weather's so different than it used to be.
Merlin: It used to be every summer, it was just...
Merlin: You know, very, very foggy every day.
Merlin: It's still mostly foggy.
Merlin: You get the rain later in the year, November, December, January.
Merlin: January, February used to be like torrential in San Francisco, less so now.
Merlin: But what's that do?
Merlin: Well, that washes out the domiciles of many animals like slugs and ants.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: And think about what's an ant.
Merlin: An ant is just a thing that lives in a tube that's not full of water at the moment.
Merlin: When it rains, it washes out them ants, and they go up, up, up, up, up, looking for, ironically enough, water and food and shelter.
Merlin: And boy, do they ever go crazy.
John: Well, and what I learned is ants can drown.
Merlin: That's a shame.
John: Yeah, you want to think that ants can just float along.
John: But in fact, they can drown.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, at the point when they can't drown anymore, we might be facing something, you know, a little more... But, you know, I don't enjoy any of that.
Merlin: I've loved killing some roaches in my life.
John: Sure.
Merlin: You're from Florida.
Merlin: Well, and see, also, I fucking hate mosquitoes.
Merlin: We're watching a season of Survivor that involves lots of people getting an old season of Survivor where everybody's getting bitten by mosquitoes.
Merlin: And, like, it just reminds me how much...
Merlin: I don't know how I lived in Florida as long as I did.
Merlin: I'm not trying to be mean like used to live in Florida guy.
Merlin: But honestly, stuff like we just don't have mosquitoes here.
Merlin: Like we didn't have screens in our windows for like 18 years here.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: We could just open our windows.
Merlin: And, you know, we do open our windows.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But like in Florida?
Merlin: I mean, or even like when we would go to – one time before our kid was born, we visited my wife's family in Providence and went to the Y. And like, oh, we'll take this little – I think I might have told you this.
Merlin: We'll take this little nice walk.
Merlin: We go to the Y at 6 or 7 in the morning and we're going to take a walk through this little grove that was actually kind of closer to a swamp.
Merlin: I've never been so set upon by fucking mosquitoes in my entire life.
Merlin: It was harrowing.
Merlin: Like as in like you start jogging to get away level of mosquitoes.
Merlin: I hate mosquitoes.
Merlin: And I've heard it said, I haven't looked this up.
Merlin: I'm not going to look it up.
Merlin: I've heard it said, we don't really, we're not so sure.
Merlin: What are mosquitoes for even?
Merlin: What are they for even?
Merlin: What are they?
Merlin: I mean, what are they?
Merlin: And don't, don't, don't write to me.
Merlin: But like, do they bite deer and that kills them?
Merlin: Or like, what is, what's their role?
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: Well, how are they functioning as part of an ecosystem?
Merlin: They were here before us.
Merlin: You know, malaria is back in Florida now.
John: Have you heard that?
John: Malaria's back and Tony's got them.
John: Huh.
John: You know, Florida is like booming, right?
John: Yeah.
John: It's like people moving there in droves.
John: And you make it sound like a terrible place to live.
Merlin: What are those people thinking?
Merlin: Well, you know, it's less costly.
Merlin: It's the same story it's been since at least the 70s.
Merlin: It's less costly to live there, all that kind of stuff.
Merlin: I think at the time when I moved there in the early 80s, where we lived was still mostly farmland.
Merlin: There was cows in Pasco County, lots of cows.
Merlin: But I think a lot of people inherited stuff from their old parents who had built stuff there.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: I did have a thought that I shared with my wife last week where, like, you know, there's just so many things about Florida.
Merlin: Ha ha, Florida, man.
Merlin: Ron DeSantis, the gutting of my college.
Merlin: Like, all these things that are just story after story about what's going on in Florida.
Merlin: Well, okay, why are there so many stories about Florida?
Merlin: It's a big fucking state.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, it's big.
Merlin: It's real big, and it continues to grow.
Merlin: It's as big as Italy.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's big, big, big.
Merlin: But like I had this thought where like, I said to Madeline, like I have this idea, this sort of, I don't know, inchoate idea that like, you know, like in, I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos.
Merlin: I actually want to talk to you about some YouTube videos at some point.
Merlin: But like, you know, like when the Titanic goes down, it like breaks in half and starts going down.
Merlin: But like, because it's attached, it pulls down the rest of the ship or think about the scene in master and commander where you got to like that good boy, you got to cut him loose because if that thing goes down, it's going to bring the whole ship down.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That's an analogy.
Merlin: I think there's, there's some part of my brain that thinks that's going to be Florida's role.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Some shit is going to go down in Florida that's going to try to drag the entire country down.
Merlin: I think it could be a fiscal thing.
Merlin: I think there could be a like, I could see a crisis.
Merlin: And it's not very interesting and funny and woke or liberal even to say like, but like, think about if some major systems go completely tits up in Florida.
Merlin: And all the people that are vulnerable through some combination of, you know, climate change, disease rising, or just like, I don't know, they just thought, you know what, we're not going to, we think it's woke to accept money for Medicare and we're not going to do that.
Merlin: I could just see some really fucking crazy thing happening.
Merlin: Here's what I see.
Merlin: I see a future where we have to bail out Florida or lose the whole country.
Wow.
Merlin: I can see like, do you know what I'm saying though?
Merlin: I can see several different ways that Florida becomes like basically a super fun project that just happens to be shaped like a dick.
Merlin: And it's like, we've got to do something to like deal with Florida or it's going to pull the rest of the craft into the water.
Yeah.
John: You know, my sister was really, really into that mega tsunami story that the – what is it?
John: The Canary Islands?
John: Where was that mega tsunami going to start?
John: There was going to be a mega tsunami that started with an earthquake volcano on an island off of the coast of Africa that was going to then –
John: Send this up this big wave to wipe out the East Coast it was yeah I Think it's Canary Islands anyway, and there would be this thing that just slamming into the East Coast of Florida There was there was there was gonna be this thing where it was like terrible.
John: Okay.
John: We know this has happened and now there's six hours before a 40-foot high wave
Merlin: hits florida where so we need we need to do a fukushima level evacuation of like four million people in six hours in six that's what i mean like the six hour part and and of course there's other people who are just sitting there like watching some kind of dingling right-wing thing and saying it's a conspiracy so that the jews can steal your house or something yeah there's not really a tsunami coming
John: And I mean, what's the tallest point in Florida?
John: It's like 42 feet, right?
John: So there's nowhere you can go.
John: You can go up to the top of Mount Florida and stand there with however many other people.
John: Beautiful Osceola County.
Merlin: Welcome to Mount Florida.
John: And so my sister was just like, oh, this Canary Islands mega tsunami is going to solve Florida for us.
John: And also, of course, it's going to hit – That's dark.
John: I know, right?
John: It's got a little bit of a want-to-see conference feel to it.
John: It's also going to – because at the time that she was really thinking about this, which is in the 2000s –
John: We're thinking of all the Tidewater states, and this was, I think, before the big storm hit New York, and we saw what that really looked like.
John: Oh, that was so crazy.
Merlin: The one where the subways flooded and all that?
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: That was so crazy.
John: We're from the Northwest, so we're like, the disaster's coming, right?
John: It's going to be an earthquake.
John: It's going to be a volcano.
John: It's going to be something bad.
John: We're always thinking about it out here.
John: And so she got into this, oh, wait, we always think of the East Coast as being like,
John: No volcanoes, no earthquakes, but they don't see.
Merlin: I mean, like I watched, God, I've been watching so many videos.
Merlin: Like the one way they were able to build, so many things are crazy about the Empire State Building and the fact that they built it in such a short amount of time.
Merlin: But one of the things is they could have, they have these amazing columns, over 200 columns to make that building.
Merlin: But it's like, it's on, what's it called?
Merlin: Like not bedrock, but you know, like this incredibly like hard, contiguous, consistent stone.
Merlin: That's how you can make it.
I believe bedrock.
Merlin: Probably better off.
Merlin: But I'm saying there's so many places where like, but with Florida, part of it is literally already below sea level.
John: Yeah.
John: That's what I'm here to say.
John: Oh, my God.
John: I think what ended up happening was that all of the mega tsunami hyperventilation, somebody was like, no, that's actually not how it's going to go.
John: Or no, never mind.
Merlin: See, this is exactly what concerns me.
Merlin: You know, the dissenting opinions.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Well, because, you know, every because this was the thing for a while, everybody was like, this mega tsunami is definitely happening and it could be any day.
John: And then somebody comes along and goes, no, you read the papers all wrong.
John: And now it's not there's no chance of it happening at all.
John: And then there were the people that were like, that's what they want you to think because they're coming for your house.
John: And now who knows what the real story is with the mega tsunami?
John: I don't know.
John: I think there's a lot of problems we can expect.
John: Yeah.
John: You can always, you can always just hope that it's that at one point it just breaks off and floats out to sea and becomes its own nation, an island nation.
John: Was that a weight joke?
Yeah.