Travel back in time, dear listener, as Buddies In Space hypnotize you and unpack your childhood recollections.
Well, really they just unpack more of their own childhood recollections. And instead of hypnosis, they use alcohol. So that entire lead-in sentence was a lie.
The horrors of S’mike’s childhood are brought to light, from the “lunches” his mother packed for him that caused him to fail classes in school to his secret shame, the __________wear store his family owned in the South Bend, IN mall.
Then gain more useless knowledge as Mike explains the intricate inner working of a VHS tape while he relays how to repair one. Just think, if you ever DID travel back in time… BIS will ensure that you can get a job at a video store to pay for your rotary telephone calls and sabretooth tiger hunts!
The Buddies then share (read: compete with one another by telling) their absolute favoritest stories from college, involving “my roomate is gone” parties and headbanging competitions with the police.
Also: Bat molestation! Penis sheathes made of celery! The best donuts in Rochester, NY!
This is a transcript from a This American Life podcast, but I think poor confused Chip may have changed his name:
This story comes from Ryan Rozar in Los Angeles.
It happened when I was in college. I ran into some of the seniors on campus, and they were laughing about something.
And so one of them tells me this story that had happened to them that day, supposedly, where he gets in the shower, and about 5, 10 minutes into his shower, he hears a “ting.” And he looks down, and sitting on the floor of the shower between his feet is a nickel, and has no idea where this nickel came from or why it’s there.
Obviously, everyone was making jokes that he had change falling out of his butt. And people were like, were you eating dollar bills? But anyway, we have our laughs. And I go home and I don’t think much about it.
The next day I get in the shower. And like 5, 10 minutes into my shower, I hear “ting.” And I looked down, and right between my feet is a quarter.
So my first thought was, how did they do it? I totally assumed that this must not have really happened to him. That was a set-up, and somehow they set this up to happen to me. But I could not figure out how. It had to be a prank, basically.
I mean, that’s what I assumed. But then I go and I talk to him, and I tell him what happened to me. And I’m kind of watching his face for the laugh or the glint in his eye of mischief, or whatever. And he just looks sincerely mystified by the fact that this happened to me right after it happened to him.
Then, like, a week later, I get in the shower. And 5, 10 minutes in, I hear “ting,” “ting.” And I look down, and there’s about $0.35 between my feet. So there’s that moment of “no way” before I look down and there’s more change.
So at this point, obviously, my mind’s going to some weird places, because you don’t want to be the butt change fairy guy. There’s no way this story gets good for me.
And then no explanation comes, but it doesn’t happen for a while– for, like, I want to say probably a month. Until one day I’m about to get in the shower, and I reach behind me to scratch my back and I feel something cold and metal on my back. And I turn around to turn my back to the mirror, and there is a whole pocketful of change stuck to my back.
Sarah Koenig: What do you mean stuck to it? In what way?
Ryan Rozar: Well, this is what I figured out. There was no adhesive or anything. It was just impressed into my back. So I figured out what was going on, is that I had a bad habit of falling asleep with my pants on, because it was college– I’d nap a lot. And so I would also asleep with my shirt off, because my apartment was really hot.
So what was happening was change was falling out of my pockets onto my bed, and I was laying on it. And all that sweat and pressure was just sticking the coins to my back. Like, they’re just literally impressed into my back. And it was taking about five minutes of water running on it to dislodge them, at which point they’re dropping at my feet.
Sarah Koenig: Clearly, I love this story.
RIT had a similar thing. however “computer science floor” sounds far better than “China house”